So I was playing GTA 5 the other day and had a thought, what if we were able to swap characters while playing?
[img]https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSTv_JZEK_dI33Me9xzVfgbjDfxv76aT2kc7s4cNefyzGoEZ8Ir[/img]
So if you were in a server like Freedom, you would have a button shortcut that brought up a list of other characters on that server that you could switch to. It would then save your characters location and switch over to your other characters last "safe" spot. Or if your character died in a mission it would spawn you dead outside the mission door, or at the hospital. Or another option would be to always spawn at your base or another central location. I don't know how hard of a task this would be but I think it would be a nice QoL upgrade instead of having to go all the way out and come back in.
What are people's thoughts on this?
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
One of the reasons CoX made the login/log out/switch toons process take time was to prevent the exploit of people logging off a toon right before getting killed so as to avoid XP debt upon defeat.
I don't know what, if anything, the defeat penalties are going to be in CoT, but that would have to be a consideration.
Also, hnobody ctually mentioned this here, but for the record I'm personally completely against anything that allows you to switch from one toon to another on the spot. That is, you walk into a trap and go "oh, crap, I'm gunna die, better switch to my tank right now.... ahhhh, ok bring on the alpha strike.... okay, coast is clear, back to my other toon that I wanted to do this mission with in the first place."
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I'm not talking about switching a toon in place of the other, I'm talking about, I'm done with this toon today, I would like to play my other one now. Switching over... So if you switched to your other toon it would put it where that"exact character" was whenever you played it last, the only question that would raise your concern is if when you switched over would you be able to automatically stay on the same team. And as far as that is concerned I do not have a preference. Because that is exactly the type of stuff that happened in CoX but it just happened manually and it took a lot longer.
Also there would have to be some sort of time requirement, of "You have to be out of action for this long before you can switch" or even so far as "you cannot leave inside a mission". This is something that happened in CoX. All of the stuff I'm talking about isn't something that wasn't done in CoX, but as stated before it was all done manually and took a long time.
It would just be nice to have the ability, since you are in the same server, to just be able to quickly switch over if you so desired.
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
As long as they made it so that you couldn't log in a new character into the same exact spot or mission your current character was in and as long as they could make it so that you could only log out as long as you weren't "in combat" (which should cover both PvE and PvP) I see no real reason why they couldn't make the actual process involved with logging out and then logging back in take as little time as possible.
Basically the only reason games like this often impose things like arbitrary 30 second timers to logout is that doing so is a SIMPLE way to make sure people can't cheat. But if the game was smart enough to check the critical things I mentioned above then the game wouldn't need to rely on annoying arbitrary timeouts for this.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
That's what I'm thinking Lothic, there are a few things that would need to be in place to make sure that people can't take advantage of it.
I remember quite a few times in CoX where the team just couldn't beat a mission and someone would have to go a different character, and it took what seemed like a lifetime. In situations where you need a tank(or whatever) on the team, I don't see an issue where the person would say, I actually have a tank, let me go get it. And instead of people waiting forever to load out and back in, just switch within the server and save everyone a bit of time.
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
Basically all you want to do is skip the menu step of character switching. I don't see a huge issue with this (other than it might be harder to program...I dunno). I doubt it will actually save that much time for the situations you mention (the log out and in sync process would still need to be performed even if the player didn't have to click buttons to make it happen) but it would still be a nice QoL feature.
Even if it did still take say 10 or 15 seconds for the player to press a few buttons and for the client to do the actual reload/resync of a new character that would still be a good "QoL improvement" over sitting through an arbitrary 30+ second timeout (where the game is essentially doing nothing with that extra time other than waiting for a hardwired timer to expire) in order to prevent player exploits.
Doesn't seem like it would be all that hard to make the game "smart" enough to handle this without reliance on overly conservative "dumb" timers. If a team is waiting for someone to swap a character then saving everyone on that team an extra 10 or 15 seconds would be a good net savings for everyone.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I have to agree that 30 seconds was too long to swap. Should be less, half of that, 15 seconds is ok, me thinks. :D
I said it would be a good QoL feature....but the point I was making is it won't significantly affect the time to swap a character on teams where the majority of the teams wait time was the load screens (in some cases) and player traveling to the teams location (in most cases).
What this would help most with is player retention. Instead of a player spending time in menus they now see the load screen quicker.
As I said... I dunno how much effort it takes to make this possible over the log out timer...or exactly what that log out timer's purpose is. I doubt its as simple as just to avoid debt/defeat exploits. It seems to me the timer would protect against other issues such as log spamming for example.
Still, I think eliminating the log out to menu step is a good thing to have....
I do like the idea of getting rid of a timer completely though, It could just be a lineup of ifs and elses. (I'm not a pro coder, I'm still learning so I'm just making this stuff up, do not take it as anything near legit or correct, just doing this to try and show what I mean)
public partial class characterSwapEditor : EditorWindow
{
var _characterSwap;
var _characterInMission;
int _characterOutOfAction
const int _spriteButtonSize = 20
characterSwap {
if {
_characterOutOfAction < 15.0f ;
_characterInMission = no;
_characterSwap
}
else {
public static void Init() {
characterSwapEditor window = EditorWindow.GetWindow ();
window.minSize = new Vector2 (400, 300);
window.title = "Character Swap";
window.Show ();
}
GUILayout.label("You have to be out of action for 15 seconds before you can swap characters, please try again soon");
if (GUILayout.button ("Ok") ) {
return;
}
}
}
}
And whenever the statements have been satisfied it can just immediately swap. Rather then it telling you you must wait 30 seconds it could just know that you are allowed to swap and just do it
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
The lowest countdown timer might be 3 seconds, meaning.. personal PM's and the like could be sent, and some players want to see those at the last second or two. "Hey, bring a Kinetics Defender.. dude!"
So best not throw out the countdown timer all together, my feeling. ;D
The more we discuss it, the less reason there is for a very long timer it would seem.
But care has to be taken where the new ALT is spawned.
Ex:
- ALT Can't be Magically teleported into the Mission / TF / Raid zone / etc..!
- ALT .................
- ALT ................
Brain fart! :(
That's All i got ATM. :<
I agree Izzy, I had suggested maybe saving their last known "Safe" location(so you don't die immediately when you log in) and put them there, or perhaps the nearest central hub, or even your penthouse if you have one, which sort of gives you the illusion that they are doing stuff in game without you xD
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
- ask game to LogOff.
- wait 10 seconds
- takes you to Character Select screen.
- Choose Same Character, and Choose closest Central Hub to the Mission entrance.
YAY! Now I don't need no Stinking Travel Powers, or to look at the Zones at all! Lazy Wins! ;D
*a tiny bit of sarcasm, if no one can tell* :)
lol yea I guess you're right about that. Then the last safe location thing would be the better option
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
I dunno, I always expect to log into my characters where I left them. If I find them *miles away* from where I logged off (safely) then I would have to trek all the way BACK to where I was in the first place.
Most of the time, the timer is to ensure that you ARE in a safe place, out of combat. Or dead. I know in Wildstar that if I log off in the capital city, it is *instant*. Go just outside the city though, 30 second wait. In one of the "safe holes" outside of the city? Instant.
Please note: Logging off and changing characters use the time countdown timer rules, but at least just changing a character quickly takes you back to the character select screen.
Side note: One of the things I *hate* about the GTA "quick select" is that it isn't really "quick select". You still have the (depending if on console or PC spec) up to 90 seconds *changing* character, as it loads everything up to do with that character.
And yes, I have accidentally jumped to another character at the most inconvenient times before.
@Gangrel, Hmm, I play on PC and it is pretty much an instant transfer, that must be a console thing. But yeah, I wouldn't mind the instant if in a safe "zone" and a bit of time out of the zone
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
As long as this is just a shortcut for going through the menus (a.k.a "skipping" them), with the possible exception of not breaking groups, then it shouldn't present any additional abuse potential compared to just normal "log off". But as stated it would be a huge QoL improvement, even if it is limited to just a few of ones toons.
I do like this idea, but only with the following exceptions:
1) You can log out (via the timer) at any location on the map. If you are in an instanced mission when you log out, you will appear just outside the mission door when you log back in.
2) You can transfer to a different character ONLY if your current character is in a "Safe Zone". Safe zones in CoH would have included Portal Corp, Pocket D, Atlas Park Government Building, tram stations/zone entry points, and SG Bases.
-Wolf sends
Don't understand why you would want this limitation Wolf. All it seems to do is make people who want to switch quickly now take more time....defeating the purpose entirely.
Maybe what Wolf Shadow was trying to say was that if you logout in a so-called "Safe Zone" you could take advantage of the quicker timerless logout we're suggesting here. If you're not in a "Safe Zone" then you would have to suffer with the original timed logout just like in CoH. I could see that as a reasonable compromise if, for some reason, the CoT Devs think that having an arbitrary 30 second logout timer would still actually serve a legitimate purpose to prevent log spamming or combat exploits.
Personally I still think the Devs can figure out a way to avoid the need for arbitrary logout timers under any situation and will remain hopeful that's what will happen in CoT. The use of "logout timer" itself was just a simplistic way to solve a game mechanic problem that was always looking for a more elegant solution in the first place.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Maybe...that seems needlessly convoluted to me though. I hope Wolf actually explains his reasoning because it might be interesting.
I agree.... but without knowing the actual reasons for the timer or how much effort it would require to eliminate what amounts to less than a minute delay, I am tempering my opinion with a bit of caution.
As written this requirement would effectively negate the advantage of quick-switch mechanics since traveling to a safe zone would, I believe, take longer than a logout timer in most cases. Unless there are way more than what was in CoH.
If you mean that quick-switch would still be subject to logout timers (which I hope MWM finds something better to use) in regards to if the toon is or isn't in a safe zone then I believe that is quite a given "limitation" on it, especially if it's going to be just a shortcut through the menus.
Remember that the majority of missions will be instanced, so I expect that most of the city will effectively be a "safe zone". There are also the travel powers to consider. Is any sufficiently high roof top a "safe zone"? What about the side of a building? Is the entire sky above Y meters (and perhaps so long as you're X meters from a building) a "safe zone"? At most I think an additional "you are in a potentially unsafe area" confirmation to log out would be ample, and certainly less annoying than being forced to wait for 10 (or, heaven forfend, 30) seconds.
Besides, this isn't going to be your run of the mill MMO. For the vast majority of players and characters, being jumped by the equivalent of four or five Hellions will amount to nothing more than a welcome mat.
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Another conversation I've been having made me realize something: a group finder can be problematical in a game that is heavily focused on alting. If I'm playing on one character but want to do group content on another character, normally I would either have to switch characters and then use the LFG tool or the team would be inconvenienced while I switched characters after being grouped up. This would be neatly solved if it would be possible to switch characters on the fly.[color=red]*[/color]
Heck, just being able to switch characters without being removed from the group would be pretty cool.
[br]
[color=red]*[/color] Flight not required.
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@Darth Fez, Yea, I agree that I think it would be a nice feature/option to do a quick switch and be able to stay on the same team. I really can't see that many downfalls in that situation. I'm sure there are some like people will take advantage of it, but it is not anything that would break the game or "really" give someone any true advantage. People could possibly keep switching to try and be a certain type of character in a mission here and a different there, but that in it self is enough work where if they really want to do that, good for them...
But anyways, What do you think the best transition phase for a quick switch would be? I rather like how they do it in GTA where it zooms out over the land, and then locates your other characters location, then zooms in on them. What would be really fun is if you could customize how it happens. Picture like an old timey broadcaster announcing you in, sort of like Radio/Ring Announcers in Legend of Korra. Or possibly a news broadcast that is covering you and then transitions into a 3rd person view of your character
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
As others have stated, so long as it's a user-friendlier and potentially quicker version of 'log out, select character, log in', I don't think there is any advantage to be had. People wouldn't be doing anything they can't do, already, they're just doing it a bit faster.
Heck, I wouldn't mind a generic loading screen. That'd probably be my preference, actually. Otherwise it could perhaps show the selected character going through one or more emotes.
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I just realised: welcome to loading screens, even though it doesn't look like one ;)
In my experience, the times you want to switch characters quickly is overwhelmingly when you're doing management tasks, such as moving things between mules in the bank, and generally you're in a safe area when you do that, so everyone's happy.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
As I understand it, the 30 sec timer on exiting CoH was implemented for the specific reason of preventing a player from logging out to avoid the defeat XP penalty. I cannot recall if you were able to log into another character while that 30 second timer counted down. The idea I posted above was just what everyone thought. You could only negate the 30 second timer if your character was in a safe zone when logging out.
I think, part of the development issue is that as long as the character is in the zone (whether you're logged in or not), it's still tied / active to your account. I think what would probably need to be done on the development side would be for there to be something like a Global GM account that your character would be transferred to for the 30 seconds; allowing your account to activate another character. While a character is under Global GM control, no player character can interact with said character (Mobs on the other hand...). After 30 seconds, the Global GM controlled character is deactivated from the game and is available to the player once more.
Obviously, the Global GM account would need to be able to have multiple characters active while player accounts could only have one active character. This might actually prove useful in a private online RPG setting where the GM actively plays an NPC and/or Mobs. But that's another idea altogether.
-Wolf sends
While log out timers are not entirely abitrary, they are easy to implement and resuce possibility of circumvention over the reasons it exists. The more "rules" that are needed, the more they need to be studied and adjusted or added to over time to deminish the possibility of abuse. Often the best method is the one with the simplest, broadest application. I will however bring this up with the gameplay team when we come back around to spawning and despawning player characters since character switching is governed by those mechanics.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Wouldn't that specific abuse be completely avoided by just disabling active logoff mechanics while the character is in combat?
And force shutting the client or pulling the plug would just be treated as a disconnect, meaning the toon would be in the game world longer than the logoff timer before despawning.
GW2 handles a lot of these things well. When you join a team, it's at the account level, and if you log to Character Select and return, you new character is automatically/still in the same team. Log-In is somewhat slow, a full load-screen process, but Log-Out is nearly instantaneous. Unless you have Aggro, in which case you can't leave, or do a lot of other things, like swap weapons from inventory. A character logs in at whatever location they logged out from and there's no short-cuts to travel, except teleporting to a 'Way-Point', which costs IGC. Way-Point teleportation and zone crossings are full load-screen events, so, not anywhere near instant, but still quicker than walking, most times.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I'm okay with a log timer if that's the simplest, easiest way to accomplish a desired goal. In a game where there is a log timer, would like to be able to tell the software "log me off this toon and onto that toon" then just get up and get a refill of my sodapop or something while it auto-switches me without me having to be there. Then I get back to my keyboard and I'm already in my new toon ready to go.
I have to wonder, is rapid toon-swapping in any way bad or a stress on the game? Because if rapidly swapping toons for the sake of gear and inventory management is a problem in and of itself, that's somewhat helped by the log timer and might need to be addressed if there is no log timer. Lastly, if the log timer is a necessary thing at roll out then they decide to make it different after the game launches as a QOL upgrade, that's fine by me too.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
No small Join Inventory Bank Account all toons can use? ;)
I really rather like this idea. Because it wouldn't matter if you were in combat or not, because if you wanted to switch over while in combat, fine, but just know while your character is standing there motionless for 30 seconds they are most likely going to die. So then people wouldn't be able to take advantage of leaving before dying. This would then encourage people to get to a safe place before switching Also it allows the game to internally say "You have to be logging out for 30 seconds" but it is behind the scenes and the switch in the players perspective is instantaneous
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
I think that would be awesome! It could play off your travel powers, or regular powers in general. So if you had super speed it would show an empty sidewalk then all of a sudden in a gust you come running in. Or super jump and you come smashing down. Teleporting in, etc
The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One
Avatar by lilshironeko
That's rather what I was thinking, that if this happened at the account level then it should be possible to handle anything involving characters that much quicker. In the end, my primary interest lies in removing inconveniences such as needing re-invites to teams and being forced to wait 30 seconds to log out. Log out timers may not be arbitrary, but anything over a handful of seconds is pushing the envelope on ridiculous.
I was also wondering if, when one logs in to the AB, it would be possible to chat with people - at least those on the friends list or on channels the person has joined (which would include team/party chat) - since the account is logged in to the game. The selection of the character, at that point, would only impact zone/SG chat.
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I often wanted to chat with key friends, while working up a new character in the 'AB'. I think, in CoT, I would tend to use the Offline AB when working on a costume. In CoH, I usually did my chatting by Instant Message, even trading costume files and screenshots on the fly. It would be GREAT to be able to load, contrast and compare several costume concepts at once, before saving a final result for uploading to the online character creation engine.
Even cooler, would be to be able to click and copy segments of one costume file into another. I have a sense that the new Avatar Builder will be much more complex than CoH offered and it may take me a while to be able to analyze how a particular costume bit was crafted and emulate it by hand. Easier to select elements from an existing costume, without having to remember that it's called 'cool thing #34' on the menu.
Be Well!
Fireheart
If i recall, the log out timer in CoH was enacted to prevent greiffing more so than debt dodging, or at least that is the story I head from beta testers.
I have no issue with having a quick launch, or rather quick switch option for the game, providing you can't be in combat and you pop in wherever you logged out with the replacement. Having played GW2, staying in a team while switching characters is a great feature.
-----------------------------------------
I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
It certainly is a nice feature. Quite a few of us have played (enough to be comfortable with main systems mechanics at the least) so many games out there. And many have great features that we like. Therein lies the danger - getting caught up replicating design of other games too much and not designing your own game. This is when we have to see if the feature fits within the design scope and design goals. Ultimately, the decision falls on the shoulders if the project lead. Though our PL really listens to his team taking into consideration what we say.
For example, say we really push for the idea of a GW2 style character switch. But it doesn't jive with how we have already set up character data with the map / active fame state server. To enable this feature would require extensive reworking of those systems. Do the costs involved justify the investment? Costs here include time, and how that time spent can impact other work being done.
Note: I'm not saying this is a problem for this paricular feature. This was just an example.
Personally, I like GW2 way of handling things. However their definition of what constitutes "in combat" may not fall in line with our definition (mechanicaly speaking). We would have to use some different parameters. One thing to note here is how much a wide array of travel powers (and potential speed of them) has an effect on combat states. This can have adverse effects for both PvE and PvP scenarios with using combat states and quick switching.
We don't want the game to be about quick swithing alts to maximize effectivieness vs spawns. As in zip in, tag with power a, zip out, switch with alt set at appropriate location, tag with power b, etc... Until the "right mix" sets up a scenario for the player to maximize their advantage. This could lead people "gaming the game" to rely on such strategies (at least for open world, though teams could leverage ally / team summons for instances too). That's one way it could adversly affect the pve world. PvP would gave its own issues to resolve.
Many alsects of the type of game being made are different than other games that not everything is as easy to implement even if it is a cool feature. As I said, when we get back around to pc spawning I will see what parts of character switching we can apply for QoL. At the least We may be able to handle staying on the same team even if there is some form of timer or other resteictions.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Hmm.. so, allow HotSwap for ALT's in PvE, but cooldown timer for HotSwap goes up to 3 to 5 minutes. During the cooldown period of 3 to 5 mins, if you try to Logout it shows a countdown timer 10 or so seconds, just to prevent abuse, since we would want to avoid (not prevent) the player from ALTing Soooooo many times in a span of a Single mission. ;)
TF HotSwap'ing could be considered illegal. As they are viewed as Away Missions that are far from home. So, no outside help will be available. Like a small team of marines on foreign soil. Make due with who you already have.
Plus, without a mechanic to dissuade players from HotSwap'ing on the Fly constantly, what is the point of having an End Game AT Reward.. like a PB or Warshade (blueside), VEATs (redside) staying/being Worthy still.
I am not a fan of an increasing curve of logout timers based on how many swaps you do. Sometimes you miss click, sometimes you want to check inventories, sometimes you are just checking stats..... I would prefer a simple set timer over an increasing curve.
Same here. Hell, even just having safe zones where logging to the character select screen is instant would be better than having an increasing log out timer (due to how many times you might swap)
IMHO, that kind of quick-switch-in-combat stunt is antithetical to how stuff generally works in comic books, anyway. It sounds like it's just to allow super-soloing. It will almost certainly create an impression on players that such strategies will be required for effective progression. Screw that.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Any swapping is still going to be limited by load speed for the new character. With character details, character position, zone, instance, and ambient population, that's hardly going to be swift. One could only load into permanent zones and instances, plus shards balanced by population would be an issue. One annoying factor in GW2 is that people on the same team can be shunted to different shards - and it happens regularly. That's one thing that CoT can do better, let teams be 'sticky', so that all of the team-members are drawn to the same zone shard/instance.
Be Well!
Fireheart
If you're truly working with instances, then the whole team should be getting sent to the same instance because it was created just for them (and it's probably keyed to the team lead, though I imagine there are better ways now that don't make a mess of things if the team lead's comp crashes). Further, instances usually persist for a few minutes after everyone's left, unless the system knows they can't get back in. At least that's how things like bases were handled in CoX.
The big PITA is when you're not going to an instance, because then you don't have a reserved spot, and as they teach in networking, Asynchronous Things Can Happen. For example, you try to switch but the "correct" shard hit maximum player count in the interim, and there's nowhere to put you (a favorite during Hami raids, when the raid lead can't get back in).
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Holy cow, even GW2 does that? I thought Firefall was limping along behind the times since it does not automatically place people in the squad leader's shard (even after switching zones, which requires a loading screen), especially considering that instanced mission can only be started if everyone is in the same shard.
I think the whole combat thing should be a non-issue. Don't allow people to log out so long as they're in combat, whatever that may mean in CoT. So long as the game clearly recognizes when combat is finished[color=red]*[/color] there should be no problems.
[br]
[color=red]*[/color] I've had a few experiences - perhaps in CoH, perhaps in WoW or some other game - in which I couldn't log out because the game thought I was still in combat. Even a good minute or two after I'd finished the last fight I couldn't log out, so I resorted to the ol' ALT+F4.
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That can happen in any MMO where the mob is moving towards you (not attacking), but still takes it time to get to you, especially if you are in a hard place for it to get to you (Hi 3d movement and the difficulties that mobs can have to get to you)[1]
Side note: I actually had this happen to me in Wildstar. Turns out I was dragging a mob behind me but he was hidden amongst some scenery and got caught on a piece. He was still inside his leash area so it was perfectly valid.
Oh and slow moving curving bullets.
[1] I managed to tank Lord Recluse on my Fire/Emp controller using one heal a minute using a pathing glitch on him. If you placed yourself *just* right in a certain spot, you could force him to jump towards you, to try to hit you... but as you were in the air, there was nothing beneath you for him to stand on to attack you. So he would jump, miss... run back, jump... miss... run back. He might hit you once or twice, but nothing scary.
For what it's worth, if you have the 30 second log timer for logging in, changing toons, etc, I would not have a problem with putting advertisements in that 30 second block, especially if those ads were paying for stuff that I might otherwise have to pay for myself. Even the sort of ads you see on YouTube (i.e. little 15-30 second video clips) would be fine by me.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Whereas I would want such ads burned in fire.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
not so handy if you are with an ISP that has bandwidth caps. I believe that is more common in the US than in Europe though...
Side note: It is worth noting that tying into an ad network has its own security risks (malicious ad serving, even *perfectly legal* websites can be compromised by them) so there is that to think about.
No thanks, and they still have to solve the "problem" of loading a zone/toon while simultaneously showing a video of any kind. I don't think I've seen any game actually take any noticeable advantage of this possibility, a.k.a "hiding" the loading of new zones during cut-scenes hat are displayed between them.
The thing it that loading times are primarily dependent on the players own hardware, so the only time you can guaranty a minimum time is when you have an enforced timer, and the only time I've seen those is during the logout process before it starts unloading your toon. That is before all of this.
There isn't a huge problem with loading and videos as most games that do so find a way to enforce a min video time...L4D gives the option to have a pop up on level load in private servers...the same could be done for CoT but I wouldn't personally like it.
If...and its a big if.... the devs wanted to generate ad revenue with load screens the best way to do so would be with images instead of video (which could cause issues). Even better would be in game billboards as has been suggested many times before.
In regards to the original suggestion, logout times are not a horrible experience but the elimination or lowering of them is a good idea overall. At the very least a way to switch inside the game without needing to logout would be a welcome feature.
Agreed on the last part. Very handy to say the least, especially if you have something like 2 factor authentication enabled, you might be forced to re-enter that each time you login, which adds to your time spent logging in. So being able to drop to the character select screen instead of logging out/back in would be good.
Side note: I have no problem with 2FA myself, I use it on all the games that I play that support it and for me it adds 3 to 5 seconds to enter it. My password I cut and paste from my password manager, as that is a randomly generated string for each and every account I have. No passwords are the same across accounts). And for me, most of my 2FA is stored inside the same password manager (as well as on my phone/separate PC as a back up)
From what I can only assume is that the "problem" is not about having a minimum video length but rather one of delaying showing the newly loaded content until the video has finished running, or is skipped, so that you will never see anything resembling a loading screen if the load times are shorter than the length the video was running.
However, could you expand a bit on this popup in L4D since I have a feeling that it doesn't really touch upon this "problem".
I think people, when they think about log timers and ads, generally make a mental comparison of "Do I want to have to wait 30 seconds to switch toons, or would I rather NOT that, all other things being equal?" and in that comparison I think I can say with confidence that EVERYONE prefers not to have the ads, or the timer.
But that mental comparison is not apt, for a number of reasons:
1. We might have the log timer anyway, with or without the ads, because it serves a number of useful purposes involving griefing, exploits, etc and is about the simplest, most foolproof solution to the problems that it solves. I personally see no great benefit in spending time and energy trying to invent something "smarter" to over complicate the log in-out rules to prevent those exploits etc when we can just go with a timer and be done with it.
2. One tends to assume, I think, that the ads will either be there on not be there and that the rest of the game will be exactly the same, with or without ads. This is likely not true either. If the ad revenue is paying for something that we the players then DO NOT have to pay for, it's saving us all money. I'm not poor, but I personally would rather watch an ad during the mandatory 30 second timer than have to wait for those same 30 seconds staring at the walls AND have to pay money for whatever it was that the ads were supposed to pay for. Even if the ads are the only reason for the log timer, I'm still for it. In the "time is money" sense, the ad revenue could help pay for any number of QoL stuff or new cool features that the devs would need more time to do without it. New costume pieces, new content, fixes to bugs, etc. Ads COULD therefore affect an increase to the whole game development rate in some sense. How many months do we have to wait for the next new thing they're working on to roll out? There could be a "with ads" answer to that and a "without ads" answer, and I'm guessing the "with ads" timer is shorter. I'd rather have ads and get more new stuff faster than no ads and have to wait longer for new stuff.
3. I've heard it explained on these forums in other threads, in some cases by devs, that If the ads are on the login screen, you can count how many times they've been seen and have a solid metric to sell to advertisers in terms of face time and frequency of ad repetition. In-game billboards are less reliable and less quantifiable in that sense, and most advertisers don't want that, or so I've heard.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
My statement was worded poorly it should have said 'min time for video'. Essentially just what you are saying. I just don't consider this a 'problem' if the goal is for the devs to gain ad revenue from videos during load screens. The technology is there to make it happen and should not require a lot of extra effort from the devs to apply this. But I don't think that's a goal the devs are really looking at because of the subscription model they have said they will be using. Ad revenue is usually (not always) reserved for a more f2p model.
In L4D a player can set up a permanent server. Whenever a player joins that server and loads a level a pop up can ...well pop up. This pop up can have server information, rules ect....it can also display a video ad to help support the cost of running the server.
The fact that it happens AFTER the load screen and can be exited out (with any video still running in the background) means it simply bypasses the 'problem' of load times and video lengths. In L4D these ads tend to be longer and eat up bandwidth making them horribly intrusive but if properly regulated they could be used in a way that is not nearly as annoying, such as allowing a skip button (similar to many youtube ads) or setting a hard limit on the actual length of the ad.
This assumption of ad revenue going directly towards free content for players is not very likely simply due to the way economics work. More likely it will go towards other factors like increased wages, server stability, hardware upgrades ect. Overall ad revenue could help the game, but not in the way you say here...
That's 100% true, if the goal was to maximize ad revenue. If the goal is to just generate some ad revenue with minimal intrusion then in game product placement is the way to go. Billboards was the most obvious example but it could be anything. A limited time 'inspiration' item named after an energy drink, an achievement named after a product or even simply a costume with sponsor logos ala nascar drivers. This type of advertisement is unlikely to interest the big boys (so no pepsi challenge achievement) but smaller startups go for saturation and will spend money in odd places just to get their name out there. This type of ad revenue stream will not be lucrative but would offer an additional income source if they ever need to seek bank financing (god forbid).
All in all, ad revenue is not the devs goal so this is pretty much a academic discussion I think.
Trevor, you don't seem to fully grasp the problem I am trying to communicate here, or maybe I'm just that bad at explaining it.
Currently any video and loading combo (regardless of if advertisement or cut-scene) are sequential actions, even your L4D example. What I want them to be are [b]parallel[/b] actions so that once you have finished watching the video you are fully ready to "enter" the newly loaded content, assuming of course that it was long enough for the comp to load all it needed.
If MWM is going to have video ads (which I don't think they'll implement in any form) during loading then they better make sure it is in parallel to the loading.
Ultimately, the decision of using in-game advertising is up to the business team. But there are a coiple of important things to know about the subject prior to suggesting its inclusion.
Studies have found that in game ads are often viewed disdavorably by players if the game requires purchasing and / or subcribing. If we keep the plan for a buy-to-play baseline access, ads can end up hurting the company due to potential player perceptions.
Games that utilized ads were often found favorable by players if the ads marxhed the environment of the game. Since our game world is a modern setting, we have a lot of opportunity there.
In-game ads running videos can affect bad width of users. The video streams often use a particular IP address which can be blocked or redirected to another server. Some have actually used redirection to another server to replCe the ad with a video of the viewer's preference. This being the internet I bet you can guess what type of videos thise could be...
Yup, cat videos ;)
Seriously, let's leave the in-game ads topic out of the discussion.
What we are talking about here is a QoL issue of being able to switch characters quickly. Either to eliminate wait times so as to check character inventories, change a team dynamic, or personal preference of play.
With the acknowledgement that some of the unique gsmeplay mechanics necessitate some form of cool down to switching (most likely a timer), most have said. 30 seconds is too long. While this may be our baseline, testing will see how much we can cut this down.
The mention of keeping the player account connected to the team is definitely a nice QoL feature I'll mention.
The possibility of quick switching in a "safe zone" will be mentioned as well. Most likely these will be very limited. IF anything, I would harbor a guess as to player housing / bases and our activity hubs within certain districts.
One off mention of using a global bank for storage is on the table as well as another QoL feature. While not perfect as it doesn't account for individual character inventories, it is certainly helpful for moving stuff around.
Another off mentioned QoL feature mentioned was being able to chat while at the character select screen. This is something we are indeed looking at (as well as at char-gen), but no promises there. It is moee of a UI / screen realestate issue (and possible tech for any loading times of client into any specific locations / system chat server).
That's what I have so far. Happy Thanksgiving by the way.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Time to plug a different idea: For purposes of checking inventories, what's in storage, and perhaps even builds, I would prefer a feature (or addon, or whatever) that allows players to do this.
Would it be possible to move the timer to 'after' rather than 'before'? I log out of my character, select another character, and log in without facing any timers, but I can't log back in to the first character until that timer has expired. Or is it more of an issue that the game might think my account now has two characters logged in?
Shouldn't solving the real estate problem be as simple as allowing people to minimize the chat window(s)? Perhaps even give people the option at login whether to enable the chat client or not, with a warning that doing so may cause lag. For me the more important aspect is not to lose or miss out on what may be going on in the chat if I switch characters. 'course if someone absolutely, positively, must chat with people during character creation or the three seconds (it should) take them to select a different character, I wouldn't be above suggesting third party solutions.
Thanks, Tannim.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
UI Screen real estate?
For the Desktop:
So, when on the Avatar Builder (the Power-Set selections), dont show an other windows?
Then, when you're done with Powerset selections, player is asked which ICON Store, in one of the Districts, they want to be teleported to and continue work on the costume.
And now the Costume Designer is also a Resizable window, just like the Chat is and any others (for the Desktop).
For Mobile:
On the Mobile device, (after Power-Set selection is done), player is automatically teleported to an ICON in a Test Building, you cant leave, but can Chat and stuff.
Same if altering an existing characters look. Choose an ALT character from the List, and players character gets transported to an ICON. Where they can Chat and work on their characters look.
If its anything like CoX, I would be flicking back and forth between the powerset/costume selection repeatedly until I got something that I was happy with.
[url=http://gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidHoppe/20150109/233806/2015_The_Year_We_Get_Loading_Screen_MiniGames_Back.php]Relevant[/url].
Also, heh.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Definitely something you can take advantage of when you can pretty much guarantee how much time the player will spend in any given loading screen[1], not so much when you can have players ranging from just a few seconds to 30+ seconds on any given loading screen.
That isn't even getting into the realm of MMO/multiplayer games though, where you wait for the slowest people to catch up) or PC hardware, where just adding an SSD can slash the loading times by a very large percentage.
I am also ignoring any tech issues that have arisen in the past when stuff loads too fast (Fast Disc Speed for the PS2 was not perfect, so whilst it loaded games quicker for MOST original playstation games, there were some titles that had issues with Fast Disc Speed being enabled)
Any issues with variant player load times causing issues with load screen activities (videos, pop ups or mini games) can be solved by adding a confirmation button, allowing the player who load quickly to decide if they want to stay in the load screen or not and those who take longer to load than the activities take to complete are not and issue with the activity but the actual load times (meaning the activity should not affect the loading in a meaningful way).
This can also have a minimum time the game enforces that keeps the player in the load screen for as long as the GAME decides. Which is why concerns over if the player has enough time to watch a video, play a mini game or read a pop up are not something I consider a concern. This is not new technology, flash games have been using these methods of utilizing load times to their advantage for a almost as long as there has been flash games.
I honestly doubt CoT will use the antiquated restrictions of forcing all members of a team to load into an instance or change maps at the same time. They will most likely use a similar system as CoH had where each player loaded loaded individually. So unless you mean you are waiting for others to load after you have loaded an instance this seems to be a non-issue. If you do mean waiting while in game and not on load screens then all I can say is if the wait times are that big a concern for you then the options to start without other players loading or finding a new team are there for you to act upon. While the goal of any game to limit annoyances like this they will never be able to remove all of them so as a player we must decide if we can accept it, find a way to deal with it or move on.
*sigh* Every time the subject of monetization comes up in any way the same "problem" pops up of people being all too easily offended by the horrific thought of actually having to pay for something. I feel like the whole video game industry of today is essentially faced with the paradox that you have to somehow convince a bunch of entitled broke people that there is a legit reason they ought to pay money for things, and then even if you do, their reaction will predictably be "Okay, you're right, that should cost money. So therefore I'm gunna go do something else that's actually free."
In any event, I don't find 30 seconds to be too long of a timer. Getting a TF started in CoX took way longer than that.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
No one actually said there was anything wrong with monetization. Many do not like YOUR idea of how to monetize though and gave reasons why. As far as we have been told MwM has a plan in place for earning money for continued development with subscriptions and micro transaction.
I do agree with you that 30 seconds is not a long timer. That does not change the fact that if the timer can be removed (if only conditionally) its a good feature. Much like how good team functions will help get those TF's started quicker.
Ads aren't a thing I personally invented or came up with by myself. They've been mentioned on these forums before, by devs here and there, as well as others. For the record I'm in favor of the devs making as much money on this game as they can, whatever the monetization scheme is, as long as the game is fun and I get to pretend I'm a superhero for a few hours at a time and chat with other people doing same.
I just meant that in the ~2 years since the Kickstarter, any mention of any kind of specific monetization scheme, whatever it may be, typically get's met with users on these forums saying things like "Egads, no, we mustn't do that, people will leave the game in droves!"
Up-Front purchase of the game: will cut off too many potential players before they even try it, reduces your casual player base to almost nobody. Those freeloading casual players, if you listen to some experts, are one of the main reasons people who do pay to play the game pay at all. Everyone wants to be playing the hot, popular game that all the kids play, so you gotta make it free to install so as to have more casual players to draw in the high-rolling whales.
Monthly subscription: A thing if the past, nobody does this anymore, people hate the commitment.
Microtransactions: Can be done two ways, both of which are bad. It's either "pay to win" which unfairly slants play toward the rich kids, or "pay for cosmetics" which is the same as "there is absolutely no need to pay at all, the whole game is free" which means basically running on voluntary donations and doesn't make anyone any money in the long run.
Ads: TOTALLY intrusive, no matter how you do them, people are offended by their game trying to sell them something in the real world.
Note that the ads option costs the players NO MONEY in and of itself, and people STILL hate it for various reasons.
You're right, people have no problem with monetization.... IN THOERY. It's a good IDEA. People are for it, HYPOTHETICALLY. But, when it comes down to making actual specific decisions about what to do and how to set it up for this game, CoT, all anyone talks about is the drawbacks, and whatever type of monetization you chose, it's going to kill the game and people will leave in droves if you do THAT. People are FOR monetization in some nebulous sense, but as soon as you explain, in graphic detail, how the money goes from the player's pocket to the game company, everyone's got beef with that specific thing, whatever it is.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Not sure where you get the "too many potential players won't buy" if they have any upfront cost at all, think it depends more on the actual amount asked.
The more a game is designed so that you can just put it down for significant amount of time (month or more) without falling too far behind others then the more annoying it becomes to having to manage a subscricption, at least if you want the most value for your money.
Tell that to Riot Games with League of Legends. Their income is from cosmetics and merchandising today but it started out as cosmetics only, not sure if the merchandising is necessary though.
You also forgot a category that is somewhat in between those two, convenience items like XP boosts and such.
The major reason why so many are against "Pay 2 Win" implementations is that they are almost exclusively implemented in such a way that [i]The Best[/i] items can only be gained by paying RL money, which means that it's not your in-game effort that ultimately decides how good your toon is but rather the size of your wallet.
I must admit that today this is most likely driven more by "instinctive reaction" than rational thoughts (pretty sure I'm guilty of this to some degree) but the advertisers are actually the ones who carry most (almost all) of the blame for creating such reactions in us by trying to cram as many, and many times obnoxious, ads as they can in our faces.
I think you are clumping together the opinions of too many different people and seeing it as "one whole". There will almost always be two (or more) sides to any issue and lumping them both together and saying that "people in general" are therefore against it as a whole is just disingenuous imo. However, the next time you see someone being so overly negative about monetization then ask them "What would be acceptable to you?" ans see if they even answer. If they don't than I would say that their opinion is of very little worth.
You can't please everyone all the time, just some people some of the time. So the "trick" is to find the one or few monetization schemes that draws the least negativity.
For my personal taste, Extra Credits puts it very well.
For the record, and I apologize for derailing the thread, the various knocks I listed for each monetization scheme are not my personal opinions per se but rather an attempt on my part to echo the complaints I've heard leveled against them here and elsewhere. I myself am personally okay with up front purchase prices, subscriptions, microtransactions (for cosmetics, for pay to win, and for everything in between) and ads. I'll take any of it, or all of it, as long as I get the general impression that the game is fun, very playable, and get's regular maintenance and new content.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
You are right....even you have shown you are not above disagreeing with someone elses ideas on this subject. The biggest problem with this topic is there is a lot more to it than we can know as we don't have access to MwMs books or business plans so any discussion will inevitably be nothing more than speculation with little to back it up. That's why there are so many conflicting opinions, because there are so few facts.