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It's been awhile, about that RNG.

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Cute Kitsune
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It's been awhile, about that RNG.

So a few life times back I started a post called "RNG GODS ARE FICKLE, HOW TO APPEASE?" At the time the Devs said they were holding their cards close to their chest. Lots of good points were made and it felt like even the Dev agreed that TRUE RNG isn't actually healthy with respect to ultra rare drops. You know the 1 in 520,000 kind of ultra rare off a named boss.

So, My view has always been. Your odds of getting any drop from a boss should be 1 in X on the 1st kill and 1+times perviously killed boss in X until rare drop = true for the character. It means you only have to on the character track number of kills on NPC with said rare drop and a true false flag.

Do the Devs have an update on this subject? I figure 6+ years is a decent wait time on re-asking my question.

TDR of pervious post says a drop with 1/520000 drop on 1st kill would be 400/520000 on the 400th kill or 1 in 1300 odds. Which is still a lot of kills to go. By 800 kills you're looking at 1 in 650 odds. If you still don't have it by your 1,600th boss kill at least your odds are 1 in 325. It still sucks but at least it becomes attainable.

If you assume peak efficiency with 16 hour days 7 days a week with 27 minutes per attempt. You could try 249 times a week. 6-7 Weeks of that kind of grinding and you'd only be, mathematically 1 - 2 weeks away. Even if RNG hates you. (It hates me so consistently this is the math I run to see if I'm gonna quit trying for X)

There are issues with this system as the item becomes more common with those with good RNG and even Average RNG who don't need the drop. I love math but randomness hates me. So I can see why this is both a problem and the solution at the same time.

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I don’t think things are to

I don’t think things are to the point where this kind of tweak really needs to be thought about too much yet, and changing RNG behavior is fairly easy, though keeping long term history of boss kills could be more problematic, unless it’s being done for an achievement. It’s hard to store potentially huge amounts of data about game events on the character, so it needs to be pretty selective.

That said, I’ve had way too many cases of “RNG hates me” — I played EQ a lot and did a lot of crafting....

I haven’t been involved in the gameplay work much yet, but I think there may be a different solution to this issue in CoT: I believe we aren’t going to have a lot of dropped stuff, and from what I can recall, it’s mostly consumables and some crafting components. I don’t have any insight into the rarity or drop rates, but my understanding is that we’re not doing the “farm until it drops to collect the gear set” thing common in many other games.

Also, I think a lot of important things players earn through play are expected to be badge unlocks, for mission arc completion or other achievements. Personally, I much prefer this to random item drops. If 1000 players try get the 1-in-100 item drop, there are always going to be a few outliers who the RNG *really* hates. And it always feels like I’m one of them.

I’d rather focus on the whole rewards model and not just the RNG.

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Ah yes. Random chance based

Ah yes. Random chance based drops for bosses. Let me tell you about a certain scorpion field boss in Blade & Soul that I got a lot of the rare drops from, but never got the higher chance drops that I actually wanted. It was a cool cosmetic hood that complete my character's look. It started to feel like going to work, "gotta put in my scorpion hours for that sweet, sweet hood".

On the flip side, there are those moments where you say "Wow, I can't believe I got this 1st try! *hype noises*". But personally I hate RNG, even the commonly used mechanics in MMOs like crit and dodge chance urk me.

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There really isn’t any

There really isn’t any escaping “rng” to a large extent .

You mentioned things like Crit chance and dodge chance. They only ways to really remove those is to remove the need for hit checks, which is creating an action combat game so that the player’s skill with aiming, positioning, and reaction are the primary factors of performance.

We aren't making an action based game. We do have a mit-rolll mechanic determining results of attacks. This is where your choices in the character build come into play. As all the aspects of evading attacks, improving accuracy, snd even crit rate are all about power choice and the augments and refinements you place into powers.

We don’t have traditional gear. The improvements come from your augments and refinements which, themselves, are not drops. The better Augments that come with Refinement sockets, and the Refinements for them are all crafted. If you haven’t read on our improvements, I recommend checking out the update

I haven’t talked about the crafting system much. Only to say that there are drops related to crafting and those are based on probability. But the system as a whole is very...forgiving.

Also the base combat loop doesn’t consider delving deep into crafting for higher rarity Augments and Refinements. At base, you could probably get away with using the basic Augments. Although, I’d recommend at least getting uncommon Augments which come with a Refinement socket. And crafting itself isn’t required as there will be a player market.

There is also a way to obtain extra drops. I talk a bit more on drop chance and more in our update on Rewards


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

We don’t have traditional gear. The improvements come from your augments and refinements which, themselves, are not drops. The better Augments that come with Refinement sockets, and the Refinements for them are all crafted. If you haven’t read on our improvements, I recommend checking out the update

I haven’t talked about the crafting system much. Only to say that there are drops related to crafting and those are based on probability. But the system as a whole is very...forgiving.

The ‘Cause I steal, I don’t kill mechanic has me initially going ouchie! Then I realized I don't really ever solo and if I do it's basically non combat stuff anyway.

I basically play healers an almost make it a personal goal to see how much damage I can sacrifice for defense or healing. However I recognize this is a personal choice I make in my build. If it was possible to hit level cap viably without ever doing even 1 point of damage I'd be in MMO heaven.

I had missed that update thanks for the link.

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For me the more interesting

For me the more interesting question would be, what's the philosophy behind the RNG / rarity? Does the game really need a 1:520,000 item that only drops off a named boss that's only accessible once per week? Do the devs deem it necessary to keep people playing? Will it really be the 'ultimate item' or is it only the best thing since sliced bread until the goal post is moved in the next expansion? Is the intent to create a market for high rollers?

I like the plan that the best 'stuff' in the game can be crafted, although I've no problem with it also being available as drops. Especially if it can be deconstructed or used in place of other items (e.g., and not to be creepy at all, you can use 1 Nurgle in place of 15 pints of virgin blood).

Edit: I just ran across this article so I'll also leave a link as food for thought, as it were: https://massivelyop.com/2021/03/11/vague-patch-notes-the-sneering-elitism-of-the-mmo-term-welfare-epics/

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My thought was that it should

My thought was that it should be possible to take a desired number of kills/drop and then mathematically find a starting drop rate and a rate of increased probability (so that as number of kills without a drop approaches a maximum number of drops, the probability of the drop approaches 1, as described by the OP) that will, on average, result in the desired overall number of kills/drop. The math is left as an exercise for the calculus student or professional, and the problem of keeping track of the number of kills since the last drop for a given character is left as an exercise for the programmers.

Or just skip the whole rare drop treadmill and use the "very... forgiving." system Tannim mentioned above.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

I haven’t talked about the crafting system much. Only to say that there are drops related to crafting and those are based on probability. But the system as a whole is very...forgiving.

Yeah even if the "best gear" in the game (augments and refinements) aren't dropped directly it still sounds like the components we'll use to craft that "best gear" will itself be based on some kind of combination of RNG and market availability. I don't necessarily have a problem with that as long as there won't be any base crafting components that end up being ridiculously rare.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Reading that brings back

Reading that brings back memories of raiding in 300 man raids in EQ. The thing that ultimately killed EQ for me was the quick travel of PoP and the beast lords getting everything a Mage had been requesting for years. Literately watching the other pet class solo content that you needed a full group that you were only an inferior support for. I just went full time to cleric and I think that was the point in my MMO carrier that I gave the middle finger to "dealing damage".

Then it also reminds of being a W.o.W Classic Bear tank in Molten Core. I started tanking M.C. at 59, you know back when bear druids sucked at almost everything. I took so much more damage than the warriors and the paladins but the healers loved me. Why? Because I took reliable static damage. There was no RNG spikes, I didn't avoid almost any attacks but I took only 25% of the total damage sent out because of my high armor max fire resist gear that I crafted myself. I wanted even good at getting out of red carpets, and honestly eventually when tank had to get better at that I stopped being a tank and started being a healer. At least as a tree you can heal and move at the same time.

I was the 10th on my server to hit level cap during B.C. and i was a hard core raider w/ no life. Even in those days I felt raid locking the best gear was unfair.

The line between knowing and understanding is often blurred.
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It applies here too, I'm passionate not hostile.

Tannim222
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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

I haven’t talked about the crafting system much. Only to say that there are drops related to crafting and those are based on probability. But the system as a whole is very...forgiving.

Yeah even if the "best gear" in the game (augments and refinements) aren't dropped directly it still sounds like the components we'll use to craft that "best gear" will itself be based on some kind of combination of RNG and market availability. I don't necessarily have a problem with that as long as there won't be any base crafting components that end up being ridiculously rare.

I wish I could go into more detail. I really like the system that we came up with for crafting. There is a system for stuff that drops that does rely on probability, but as I said, taken as a whole the system being "forgiving" is the best way I can describe it right now. The main drops are things you earn in combat, can be obtained through the player market, or can be a reward roll you spend Glory you have saved. But there is more to the crafting system than the "stuff that drops".

While we don't have definitive plans for "raid content" (it's just not within our scope for launch, we do have concepts for the future to explore), I don't have plans to introduce "raid only loot" other than, say unique achievements related to the content as a reward but that isn't loot. If we were to introduce some type of raid drop, I would want to design a system that provides a method of availability to all players in some degree. In my opinion, stuff like large-scale "world" events, like an invasion or a particularly difficult monster class enemy may require a coordination between teams of players or the collective group of players on the map. Something that is more involved than stand in one spot and spam an attack. To me, the core of "raid" content is the coordination of multiple groups (or teams as we call them) of players. So, if we were to add some type of raid drop, then these types of events could easily lean into that and provide similar rewards.

This is all speculative though, so don't hold me to the idea. We're a long way off from there.


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When I played Destiny 2, back

When I played Destiny 2, back before it moved to Steam, or wherever it is now, I avoided Nightfall raids because I hadn't learned them and didn't have any RL friends playing D2 at the time, so I couldn't really find a group to do them with in the game itself. You couldn't just jump in a queue and do them, you had to have an organized team that knew what they were doing. You had to be on Discord and have a team full of people who knew their roles, etc, and you had to go on various social media platforms to find those people. I don't want to have to resort to third party social networks to provide me with a way to do a thing in a game. And I was a Task Force FIEND in CoX, but in that game you could advertise on a chat channel and form a PUG pretty easily to do the TFs and Trials, which you could learn by doing PUG TFs and Trials.

I also didn't particularly like PvP in Destiny 2, though I play Overwatch now and enjoy it. But gating stuff like daily/weekly reward drops behind specific types of content (PvP fights, Raids, etc) is a thing in games. In the case of D2, you can hop in a queue and do a Strike, it just randomly matches up teams of 3 people and you do the strike, usually without even talking to the other two people, even in text. You're generally too busy shooting to read anyway, and I certainly never had any time to actually TYPE. In Guild Wars 2, when I played that, there were a lot of events to do in the outdoors. There were dungeons, and so forth, but there were also big and small events that would start on a daily or hourly basis that you could just do. If you were near the event and used some spells or whatever in the event, you get the reward of being able to loot the treasure chest the dragon left behind. I don't know if they're planning on having outdoor public events. I like them, I think they're a good idea for making the game's outdoor areas look full and making the game feel reasonably well populated. I wouldn't be against having the end bosses in those events drop stuff people want, as long as everyone get's a random treasure allotment for participating. I don't like the idea of "Only end boss X drops item Y, and even then it's only like one time in ten that you get it from defeating him, so you gotta grind for it" but I do like the idea of "end bosses in general drop better loot than random mooks hanging around, and beyond that, loot drops are random from a pool of items that you might get." if that makes sense.

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One thing I would like to add

One thing I would like to add here is this: GW2 has "resource nodes" that randomly appear throughout the outdoor areas, the idea being you can wander around the outdoor areas and chop down trees or whatever for the wood you need, etc. Then you refine the wood to make boards, then you combine boards with other stuff to make make parts, then you combine parts to make a sword or whatever. I'm not against that crafting style, but I don't like foraging for materials as a thing an a superhero game. Badguys we fight should drop raw materials and in game currency in various ways, and/or we should get it as a reward for doing a mission, not from foraging for it in the wilderness. We're superheroes, not mushroom pickers.

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CO had resource-boxes that

CO had resource-boxes that spawned about, but I always considered them ridiculous. If you need nuclear hand-grenade parts, don't roam the Park, or skulk in alleys looking for some abandoned footlocker. Earn them by doing a socially relevant quest, or hunt some rogue robots/mercenary soldiers/mad scientists and loot the carcasses, like a Hero, not a 'mushroom farmer'.

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Personally, it doesn't make

Personally, it doesn't make much sense to me for CoT to depend on resource nodes; the only ones I can see as setting-plausible are dumpster-diving in alleys, and maybe stealing stuff from mission maps or vehicles on the street. The latter would tend to be problematic for the more law-abiding types, and dumpster-diving is kind of tacky, in my opinion.

In a modern city setting like ours, it makes more genre sense to get stuff from merchants; that's what normal people do in cities, anyway. And I expect there will be mission rewards and drops as well. But since CoT doesn't attach powers to gear, mission rewards and drops probably aren't going to look much like the fantasy MMORPGs.

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Dumpster-diving in the NERD

Dumpster-diving in the NERD sounds more like a 'green-goo' origin story than a viable source of resources. Kaiju-hunting on the beach, though...

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"Beachcombing" as a resource

"Beachcombing" as a resource gathering skill.... maybe not.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I don't like foraging for materials as a thing an a superhero game. Badguys we fight should drop raw materials and in game currency in various ways, and/or we should get it as a reward for doing a mission, not from foraging for it in the wilderness. We're superheroes, not mushroom pickers.

How about if the resource node appears only after defeating enough NPCs or exiting a Mission Complete Door nearby? That way the nodes aren't "always there" but instead will manifest in response to the actions of the PCs in the vicinity.

Note that such resource node mining doesn't have to be "actual stuff" (ore, gems, flowers, etc.) but can also be transitory captures of timely opportunity.
Think of a photographer.
You have to be in the right place at the right time (and looking in the right direction) to capture the right image with your camera.
Now think about how to represent that in an MMORPG context.

Right place = node location
Right time = while the node is spawned
Right direction = character avatar pointing in a specific direction
Capture the image = interact with the node

Could be something as easy as after having defeated a dogpile of NPCs (who are now all in a heap) ... you have a short time (until the NPCs despawn) to get to a specific location, point your character at the pile of defeated NPCs ... and snap a picture of them.
/em camera

You have successfully harvested that node which appeared because of your actions.

Similar things can be done with other "things to do" that involve being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing.
Photography as a reporter
Computer hacking as a ... hacker ...
Talk to Civilians on the street to gather Clues™ that lead you to the Mission Door in a neighborhood ...

Right Place.
Right Time.
Doing The Right Thing.

The opportunities are only limited by the imagination ...


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Iathor wrote:
Iathor wrote:

Personally, it doesn't make much sense to me for CoT to depend on resource nodes; the only ones I can see as setting-plausible are dumpster-diving in alleys, and maybe stealing stuff from mission maps or vehicles on the street. The latter would tend to be problematic for the more law-abiding types, and dumpster-diving is kind of tacky, in my opinion.

In a modern city setting like ours, it makes more genre sense to get stuff from merchants; that's what normal people do in cities, anyway. And I expect there will be mission rewards and drops as well. But since CoT doesn't attach powers to gear, mission rewards and drops probably aren't going to look much like the fantasy MMORPGs.

What about "mobile" nodes that need to be "harvested" in order to complete a Mission.
I'm talking about the Missing Cat missions, where you need to explore back alleys and check trees to find the missing cat.

Higher level versions of the same mission would be getting tasked to find a Missing Catgirl who is ... miffed ... with her "owner" ...


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Another idea is to allow

Another idea is to allow players choose to have some kind of organisation or entity (personal sponsor, NGO, corporation, UN, grateful fans, etc.) send gifts, care packages, bribes, or whatever people want to call them. These could be 'delivered' to some kind of inbox as an alternative to actively looting enemies, dumpsters, or what have you.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I don't like foraging for materials as a thing an a superhero game. Badguys we fight should drop raw materials and in game currency in various ways, and/or we should get it as a reward for doing a mission, not from foraging for it in the wilderness. We're superheroes, not mushroom pickers.

How about if the resource node appears only after defeating enough NPCs or exiting a Mission Complete Door nearby? That way the nodes aren't "always there" but instead will manifest in response to the actions of the PCs in the vicinity.

Note that such resource node mining doesn't have to be "actual stuff" (ore, gems, flowers, etc.) but can also be transitory captures of timely opportunity.
Think of a photographer.
You have to be in the right place at the right time (and looking in the right direction) to capture the right image with your camera.
Now think about how to represent that in an MMORPG context.

Right place = node location
Right time = while the node is spawned
Right direction = character avatar pointing in a specific direction
Capture the image = interact with the node

Could be something as easy as after having defeated a dogpile of NPCs (who are now all in a heap) ... you have a short time (until the NPCs despawn) to get to a specific location, point your character at the pile of defeated NPCs ... and snap a picture of them.
/em camera

You have successfully harvested that node which appeared because of your actions.

Similar things can be done with other "things to do" that involve being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing.
Photography as a reporter
Computer hacking as a ... hacker ...
Talk to Civilians on the street to gather Clues™ that lead you to the Mission Door in a neighborhood ...

Right Place.
Right Time.
Doing The Right Thing.

The opportunities are only limited by the imagination ...

Some of this is the basic concept for a system we want to add post launch. I’ve tentatively dubbed it Schemes and Investigations. You be at the right place time etc and get clues that get plugged into a mad-libs style “clue board” to unlock a mission.


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One of my favorite aspects of

One of my favorite aspects of CoH was that we did not have to Stop and Loot, but got our rewards automatically.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

Some of this is the basic concept for a system we want to add post launch. I’ve tentatively dubbed it Schemes and Investigations. You be at the right place time etc and get clues that get plugged into a mad-libs style “clue board” to unlock a mission.

My PLOT to take over the world is thickening ...
/em Doctor Tyche impression

Fireheart wrote:

One of my favorite aspects of CoH was that we did not have to Stop and Loot, but got our rewards automatically.

Agreed. Looting corpses (corpses!) is a fantasy RPG thing.
It's also REALLY ANNOYING for sniper types, who have to GO to the corpse and LOOT IT before it despawns. Kind of ruins the whole "reach out and touch you" (from afar) point of being a sniper.
Eliminating the corpse looting along with not having a Need Or Greed pop up for every valuable drop makes the game so much more relaxed (and relaxing!) to play.


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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

One of my favorite aspects of CoH was that we did not have to Stop and Loot, but got our rewards automatically.

+1

Spurn all ye kindle.

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I think generally heroes and

I think generally heroes and "looting" do not go together

I mean - sure you can have the Punisher looting drug money and guns - but you do not see Captain America doing likewise. I would generally expect rewards being sent to you for your effort - maybe that person you saved from a burning building sends you a thank you or something - but not finding the cosmic maguffin +5 in a dumpster or on a ganger you just beat up during a purse snatching.

On RNG I think one of the best RNG is the one that is low enough that you NEVER think about it without prompting. RNG should generate authentic experiences; a good example is World of Warcraft and legacy raid farming - your going to say get invincible - its a 1% drop; but people know EXACTLY how to trigger it so you end up with the "The RNG gods hate me" because your aware of EXACTLY what your doing - and you realize its inevitable as long as you persist (and irritates you when you realize you have yet to get it) you isolate your experience (ice crown raid) with only 1 goal - to provoke the RNG to give you the outcome. RNG doesn't really work that way - psychologically; people create a false parallel in their mind "If I run ice-crown I will get Invincible" rather then "When I am playing WoW I might get invincible" which leads to the much more impressive and exciting RNG element of the same game - World drops where the occurrence is truly random - it just happens and generates excitement; because your not doing a specific act to make that outcome occur on a cognitive level.

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Just tell me there won't be

Just tell me there won't be any boring repetitive GW2-style mining or tree chopping (in that game you have to buy axes to chop tress, and the AXES are a consumable resource, FFS). I like the "no actually clicking on corpses to loot them" idea too. Very un-super-heroic. I'm fine with making like HALF of the stuff you get that you need to craft with come from mission giver contacts, payable when you complete the mission, and the other half come directly from the mobs you fight in some way. Maybe the mission NPC gives out the materials and fighting the mobs gives the IGC, I don't know.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

Tannim222
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Joined: 01/16/2013 - 12:47
Definitely no corpse looting.

Definitely no corpse looting. I think when we get to non-combat development, many will like our take on crafting.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
Huckleberry
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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I'm fine with making like HALF of the stuff you get that you need to craft with come from mission giver contacts, payable when you complete the mission, and the other half come directly from the mobs you fight in some way.

I like this idea. But, as always, I'd like to take it a step further. I'd like it if the player gets to pick between several reward options. I'll explain further, but first I want to address your last idea:

Quote:

Maybe the mission NPC gives out the materials and fighting the mobs gives the IGC, I don't know.

In my mind I picture getting the materials from the mobs and getting the Credibility from the mission turn-in. I think getting a recipe from the mission turn-in would also make sense.

So maybe your Operator character just finished taking down a mystic with delusions of grandeur. You go back to the Dean of Students to report the completion of your mission and you get:

  • 1,000 credibility
  • 100 renown with The Regency
  • and a choice between
    1. 1,000 more credibility
    2. recipe for Willful Id which increases your resistance to control effects
    3. recipe for Overriding Ego which enhances the strength of control effects cast on others
    4. recipe for Educated Über-Ich which increases accuracy of ranged single-target attacks

During the mission, the character received three Oils of Ipecac from the Anorexic Coeds, a Shard of a Broken Heart from the Spurned Nerd mini-boss, and an ultra-rare Crystallized Ego dropped by the Cult Leader boss. You really wanted to score some 7 Nanometer Chips to complete a recipe you've got for decreasing your global cooldown; but since this was a magic-oriented mission for the regency, you knew going in there was a slim chance to get a technological drop like that.
You were hoping the Dean of Students NPC would offer the recipe for Sympathetic Listener which you can use to increase the accuracy of your character's control powers. That's an uncommon recipe and with the one you got on this mission, you now have all the Shard of a Broken Heart you need for that recipe, so you're really disappointed not to see it being offered.

But then you remember that the boss dropped that Crystallized Ego, and the NPC offered recipes are all super rare also and they all use that drop. So, while you were just about to take the cred, you realize you could get the recipe for Overriding Ego and boost your control powers with that and maybe you'll get the Sympathetic Listener Recipe next time.
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Note: I'm sure many of you have played MMORPGs in which you get rewards either tailored for your class, or the ability to choose a reward that best fits your class. For example, we're all familiar with Cloth, Leather, and Metal as different armors for the different classes of the Trinity. Some games let you pick whichever you want while others select the one for your class. Likewise with weapons and accessories and other potential rewards like mana versus health versus stamina potions, for instance. So my thinking was to offer recipes for different archetypes or playstyles as well. So your typical mission completion would offer a defensive recipe, an offensive recipe and a utility recipe, for example. And the recipes offered by the NPC all require at least one ingredient that is dropped by the mobs in that mission. Rare recipes have a chance of being offered, too, just like some rare drops have a chance of dropping.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.