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Team Size?

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Darth Fez
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This doesn't specifically

This doesn't specifically address team size but teaming in general. Firefall is the only game I've encountered which allows anyone on a team to "forward" an invitation, by doing a regular invite to the team, which the team leader then accepts or declines. I think it's a nice shortcut to the "have them whisper me" or "how do you spell their name?" situations.

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I like it.

I like it.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

This doesn't specifically address team size but teaming in general. Firefall is the only game I've encountered which allows anyone on a team to "forward" an invitation, by doing a regular invite to the team, which the team leader then accepts or declines. I think it's a nice shortcut to the "have them whisper me" or "how do you spell their name?" situations.

+1

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

This doesn't specifically address team size but teaming in general. Firefall is the only game I've encountered which allows anyone on a team to "forward" an invitation, by doing a regular invite to the team, which the team leader then accepts or declines. I think it's a nice shortcut to the "have them whisper me" or "how do you spell their name?" situations.

+2 ... ^_~


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+3. Sounds like a
Darth Fez wrote:

This doesn't specifically address team size but teaming in general. Firefall is the only game I've encountered which allows anyone on a team to "forward" an invitation, by doing a regular invite to the team, which the team leader then accepts or declines. I think it's a nice shortcut to the "have them whisper me" or "how do you spell their name?" situations.

+3. Sounds like a substantial improvement. I hope the devs read this. Easy teaming was a key to CoH, and this would make it even better.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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I like 8, seemed to work

I like 8, seemed to work really well in the past so why reinvent the wheel?...minimum, 6.

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I think 8 is to many, but 5-7

I think 8 is to many, but 5-7 seems better. Though I'd like for their to be content for bigger teams. Maybe even a way for people to team with MORE people, but can't enter missions. That's basically for RP though.

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Nah. At least 8, ideally 10.

Nah. At least 8, ideally 10. Lots of precedent for it in comics, and, more important, I've had less fun and been constantly frustrated with the piddly small team size limitations in other games. I know there are some mechanical issues with big teams, but they aren't prohibitive.

The chaos, synergy, power, and majesty of a full 8 rolling is something I've missed ever since they pulled the plug.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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I agree with Empyrean on the

I agree with Empyrean on the 8-person team, and would also like to see bigger sets of toons together (League, Megateam, whatever) for things like Trials, TFs, and events.

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Ah the glory of 8 man pain

Ah the glory of 8 man pain trains against +4 enemy groups... Never before have I seen such glorious, unorganized carnage. Definitely was one of the main aspects of the game I loved.

Puny Heroes.

Brand X
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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Nah. At least 8, ideally 10. Lots of precedent for it in comics, and, more important, I've had less fun and been constantly frustrated with the piddly small team size limitations in other games. I know there are some mechanical issues with big teams, but they aren't prohibitive.
The chaos, synergy, power, and majesty of a full 8 rolling is something I've missed ever since they pulled the plug.

There is. Though it's usually for big threats and not the typical bank robber scenario.

Empyrean
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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Empyrean wrote:
Nah. At least 8, ideally 10. Lots of precedent for it in comics, and, more important, I've had less fun and been constantly frustrated with the piddly small team size limitations in other games. I know there are some mechanical issues with big teams, but they aren't prohibitive.
The chaos, synergy, power, and majesty of a full 8 rolling is something I've missed ever since they pulled the plug.

There is. Though it's usually for big threats and not the typical bank robber scenario.

Good point. The Avengers didn't stop typical bank robberies.

But then in CoH a bank robbery could be a full contingent of high-level Arachnos troops or Carnival of Shadows.

But man, I miss the action-orgy that tons of heroes and villains fighting created.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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What bothered me is that some

What bothered me is that some people would become paralyzed, if they didn't have a full team. Worse, some had to have specific powers on their teams.

I play games to have fun and do stuff, not to stand around kibitzing, while the team leader begs the broadcast channel for a new soulmate.

I think that's why I usually had the most fun on Small teams, unless it was my SG rolling Leagues to run regular content. Imagine, three full or almost full teams running a TF in parallel and challenging each other to complete sooner, or more thoroughly.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Huh. Interesting. In the

Huh. Interesting. In the same game I had a very different experience.

Half the time I soloed, and the other half was split between duoing with family and PUGing. I'd hop on a team and roll. If it was a team looking for something specific and I wasn't it, they didn't pick me. If I got on and they kibitzed, I politely bailed and started a team saying everyone's welcome let's roll. If no team was available, I made one letting anyone join who wanted to.

Now, granted, I was always built to Scrank and I was pretty decent at tanking, so as leader I could manage to make just about any combination of levels, ATs, and game knowledge/experience work. I would occasionally bother to look for a healer if we didn't have one at all, but that was rare and never hard.

You should have jumped on my teams, Fire :)! Were you Virtue?

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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I vote for 8. My experiences

I vote for 8. My experiences with teams of 10 were less then adequate.

Formerly known as Bleddyn

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

You should have jumped on my teams, Fire :)! Were you Virtue?

Hah, um, I was Everywhere! I had a full roster on every server. http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/1892

Be Well!
Fireheart

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I really liked eight team

I really liked eight team members. I also really liked it when raidstyle groups of teams were implemented.

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Hah, um, I was Everywhere! I had a full roster on every server. http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/1892
Be Well!
Fireheart

Good lord! YOU'RE the reason I couldn't get any names :P!

Brighellac wrote:

I really liked eight team members. I also really liked it when raidstyle groups of teams were implemented.

Agreed, they were fun and offered another option. Options are good.

Bleddyn wrote:

I vote for 8. My experiences with teams of 10 were less then adequate.

Well, I've never actually played on a team of 10 in a game, so maybe 8 is the magic number. But the team dynamic in CoH was pretty different from most games, I wonder if it couldn't have handled 10 just fine?

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Something to remember is, the

Something to remember is, the bigger the team is able to be, the harder it will be to fill it.

Trying to get a team of 8 for a TF was not always easy. Having a full team of 8 for just missions wasn't always easy.

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I guess it would depend on

I guess it would depend on what server you were logged into and what time of day

There didn't seem to be any lack of people willing to team. People were actively recruiting for TFs all the time when I was logged in. 8 people? No problem

But waiting at the mission door for that last person to show up? Well, that's what emotes were for =)

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While I'm bleeding dry
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Is a team of 7 the SWEET Spot

Is a team of 7 the SWEET Spot? :P

Team of:

- 5 or less:
Not a fan. CO?
Plus, 3 foes to 1 player? You might not have Enough Foes to make you Feel SUPER. :)

- 6:
Might be the Norm.

- 7:
Wasnt Jason and the Argonauts a total of 7? Oh wait, the WIKI says its 85 of them. I must be thinking about the Hercules TV show. :/
Maybe it was Robbin Hood and his Merry men? No?! :{
Oh I got it, i must be thinking of the Prince Of Perisa movie, the Price and his Rag Tag group of 7. Errr maybe. ;)

- 8:
Sometimes it seems like its One too many! ;D
Especially when they Consistently Kill Steal the last Blow 70% of the time! >:(

- 9 and up:
Probably will feel like my attacks Dont Matter... and EVERYTHING gets flattened even before I can do anything. :<

Empyrean
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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Something to remember is, the bigger the team is able to be, the harder it will be to fill it.
Trying to get a team of 8 for a TF was not always easy. Having a full team of 8 for just missions wasn't always easy.

True, I was mainly thinking about random PUG's. But when putting a specific TF together, it sometimes made things more difficult.

Izzy wrote:

- 9 and up:
Probably will feel like my attacks Dont Matter... and EVERYTHING gets flattened even before I can do anything. :<

Sure, IF the difficulty level settings can't keep up.

But if we have the option to jack up the difficulty and it affects the toughness, damage, AND AI intelligence increase?

No problem, I'd think.

I don't know. More isn't necessarily better, it's true. And I mostly soloed. But I spent a significant amount of fondly-remembered time rolling 8 at +4 and enjoying the fog of war and the loosely controlled chaos.

Ok, I'll say no less than 7 and no more than 10. My one vote.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

Izzy wrote:
- 9 and up:
Probably will feel like my attacks Dont Matter... and EVERYTHING gets flattened even before I can do anything. :<

Sure, IF the difficulty can't keep up. But if we have the option to jack up the difficulty and it affects the toughness, damage, AND AI intelligence increase?
No problem, I'd think.

I just saw a commercial for one of those Korean Games, where theres like 50 foes, and ONE guy/gal swings and knocks them all away with ease. I DONT WANT That! Its gonna feel like im a regular Lawn Mower! :{

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

Empyrean wrote:
Izzy wrote:
- 9 and up:
Probably will feel like my attacks Dont Matter... and EVERYTHING gets flattened even before I can do anything. :<

Sure, IF the difficulty can't keep up. But if we have the option to jack up the difficulty and it affects the toughness, damage, AND AI intelligence increase?
No problem, I'd think.

I just saw a commercial for one of those Korean Games, where theres like 50 foes, and ONE guy/gal swings and knocks them all away with ease. I DONT WANT That! Its gonna feel like im a regular Lawn Mower! :{

Superheroes routinely do things like that. Wolverine is one of the most popular heroes and frequently depicted as a living lawnmower--much less Superman!

But MMORPG's aren't comics, and challenge level is important.

I want to draw a distinction here that I think we'll agree on, Izz.

I like a challenge. I always pushed the limit of what I could survive. But, in a Superhero genre, I'd rather be genuinely challenged by hoards of bad guys than by three minions.

I want a high challenge level to be possible, but I want to feel like it's because I'm fighting against the odds.

You know what? THIS is why the CoH difficulty slider was absolute GENIUS. You could tell your story.

If you were street level? Set it at +4x0 and struggle with minions. If you were a New God, Set it at -1x8 and be the God.

My preferance was to set it at +4x8 and hone my build and playstyle till I could handle it. Cause that made me feel POWERFUL.

But with a really well-made slider, it's up to the player.

Now, in a team where different people have different desires? It does become more complex. But a very good difficulty slider can go a long way here to letting the team choose the exact playstyle and challenge level that they want.

But, more isn't better. 10 may be too much. I do miss 8 and would be a bit sad with less than 7.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

I like a challenge. I always pushed the limit of what I could survive. But, in a Superhero genre, I'd rather be genuinely challenged by hoards of bad guys than by three minions.

I do Agree.

I'm just worried most players will find it FUN the 1st couple of times, then when repeating the same thing the Umpth'teenth time, they get Complacent. :{

Plus, you dont want the Atmosphere to Drastically change when switching from Fighting Hoards of Inferior Foes, to your Team being the Inferior ones fighting the Ubber Powerful AV. Some balance needs to exist i think.
I guess that's why they have Lieutenants and Bosses thrown in the mix to prevent that. ;)

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

I do Agree.
I'm just worried most players will find it FUN the 1st couple of times, then when repeating the same thing the Umpth'teenth time, they get Complacent. :{
Plus, you dont want the Atmosphere to Drastically change when switching from Fighting Hoards of Inferior Foes, to your Team being the Inferior ones fighting the Ubber Powerful AV. Some balance needs to exist i think.
I guess that's why they have Lieutenants and Bosses thrown in the mix to prevent that. ;)

Yeh. And even a good difficulty slider brings it's own problems.

I remember one time I was on another game's forums and few "gamers" were ragging on CoH for how easy it was. I asked them what setting they played on and they all said -1 or 0.

When I said why didn't you turn it up, they acted like I'd said "why didn't you stick a pencil in your eye". They just couldn't comprehend not using every advantage possible to "win" the game. Different mindset, I guess.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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8 is the max i can make

8 is the max i can make targeting keybinds for my Xbox Controller so no more than that please.

But please DO remember the "convert to raid" mechanic

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Definitely at least 8. Those

Definitely at least 8. Those who prefer smaller teams can just not add people beyond their maximum preferred number, while those of us who like larger teams can max out.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

This doesn't specifically address team size but teaming in general. Firefall is the only game I've encountered which allows anyone on a team to "forward" an invitation, by doing a regular invite to the team, which the team leader then accepts or declines. I think it's a nice shortcut to the "have them whisper me" or "how do you spell their name?" situations.

Also implemented in Wildstar.

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

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The beauty of Max Team 8 is

The beauty of Max Team 8 is that it lands in the "sweet spot" between individual contributions being overwhelmingly important and individual contributions fading into statistical noise. With Team 8 you can still FEEL like you're contributing to the flow of battle without being a critical lynchpin for it (such that if YOU faceplant then the whole team will wipe). Team 8 allows for ... redundancy ... in team composition, making teams more resilient than they would be with fewer members.

So Team 8 is kind of the "goldilocks" point of not being too big and not being too small and which can also emulate the old Timex jingle ... "takes a licking and keeps on ticking."


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I'd be happy with 8, or even

I'd be happy with 8, or even 10, provided that the content doesn't have a hard minimum. Or maybe a minimum of 2 for content that they're determined to be team content. I remember a great many TFs run that were 8 to start, but 3 or 4 of us could handle on our own, and liked to do so as a challenge....so finding peeps to start it but not stick around was sometimes a pain. Most people were pretty friendly about it, but it would have been nice if we'd been able to start it as the size we wanted, not the dev's predetermined minimum.

The nice thing about non-TF content was that you could take as few or as many people as you wanted. You -could- fill the team, but you didn't -have- to. That made it really easy to casually team. The fact that any and all content could be run as a team also contributed to that. An awful lot of MMOs lately enforce one or the other. Either it's strictly solo content, or strictly team. And that's frustrating, coming from CoH.

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If this works like CoX did,

If this works like CoX did, we're talking about the upper limit for what would be called a "team", I would assume that a larger group style will exist (like CoX's Leagues) and that you could do a lot solo, duo, trio, right on upto a full team, which won't usually be required for anything. I mean how many TFs required a full 8 in CoX? Beyond that, some stuff required multiple team-sized leagues and was designed for such. I would expect something similar from CoT. I see no reason to limit the team size to anything below 8 because if the team max is 8 you can still have less than that for a lot of stuff. I don't think you can design a game to be "teams of 8, or nothing" at all, so the team of 8 as a max does not imply that we're writing all the content for teams of 8 as the expected group soze doing it, just that they need to be able to scale up to 8 as a max. So team size, as a maximum, ought to be about 8 I feel and no less. Then maybe have the ability to go up from there in some way for Raids, Trials etc.

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I feel like all missions and

I feel like all missions and TF's should be able to be started by 1 person and adjust accordingly up to a maximum team size limit, which I agree should be 8. I also feel that there should be Mega-teams allowed for specific instances. Things like the Zombie Horde, Rikti Raids, Mothership, Incarnate Trials, perhaps even Giant Monsters, would be considered Mega-team capable. I have had some instances where trying to form up a big enough team for a TF was a work in frustration. We'd sit there for a long time needing only one person to be able to form the team, then we'd get that person only to have someone on the team say they had to go because it took to long to form up and now they won't be able to finish it. So back to waiting for ONE more person, yet again! It can be very frustrating.

I think it would be a good idea to have whomever gives out the TF mention that while you can start it and possibly finish the TF with one person it would definitely be A LOT easier if you had more people. Then go on to recommend how many people would be the optimal team size to do the TF. This way people know ahead of time what they might be getting into if they do decide to solo the TF. Even possibly making suggestions as to beneficial powers that might be handy to have in the TF to make it easier. Not that I think that there should be specific powers or builds needed to complete a TF, just things that will make it easier to complete in a faster time frame.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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I say 8 and Raid content can

I say 8 and Raid content can then be made for 15-16 people. Any more and people just won't enter it. That can be 3 teams of 5 or even 2 teams of 8..

And we can call them "Crossovers" in true comic book thematic tradition

40 man raids don't work and I'd be hard pressed to find any comic book event with more than 15 main characters.

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I partially agree, Static. I

I partially agree, Static. I'm fine with there being TFs (or the equivalent) which have a minimum difficultly setting (a team of 4 for example) where you can start them with a single person, but the difficulty will never scale below its minimum.

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So.. whats the recommended

So.. whats the recommended Minimum to start Any normal TF?
3 players?
4 maybe?

And what about the Reward at the end for finishing the TF?
Should it be the same as if a Full Team did it?

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I would say let the

I would say let the "Crossovers", "Mega-teams", or whatever you want to call them have a very large size limit. This way you can fill them up with however many people you need or can get. I'm not saying that you have certain instances that always require X amount of people. Just have some instances where you can form teams of greater than 8 people, but say no more than 50.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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Mendicant wrote:
Mendicant wrote:

I partially agree, Static. I'm fine with there being TFs (or the equivalent) which have a minimum difficultly setting (a team of 4 for example) where you can start them with a single person, but the difficulty will never scale below its minimum.

Oh yes, I quite agree. The TF's should be able to be started by one person if they so choose to do so, but difficulties will be set to certain recommended amounts of players. Which is why I said to make the person handing out the TF suggest a recommended team size.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

So.. whats the recommended Minimum to start Any normal TF?
3 players?
4 maybe?

To start? One.
The minimum difficulty level? Well, that would depend on the TF. Might be 3, might be 8.

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

I would say let the "Crossovers", "Mega-teams", or whatever you want to call them have a very large size limit. This way you can fill them up with however many people you need or can get. I'm not saying that you have certain instances that always require X amount of people. Just have some instances where you can form teams of greater than 8 people, but say no more than 50.

How do you balance content around that though? I love Wildstar and am so glad they learned that 20 is a much better sweet spot than 40. Between FORMING the team and dealing with lag its just not worth it IMO.

Not only that but even in 20 man missions an individual character can feel rather in-significant. This works better in large scale war-sim games like World of Warcraft but superheroes want to feel somewhat important to the mission as an individual as well as a team.

It's a harsh reality that many MMO players have grown out of the "I play everyday" habits of the past. 16 slots seems like a good raid for endgame.

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I'm not saying that you can

I'm not saying that you can form Mega-teams for content like regular missions. Just special events. Things like the Rikti Mothership raid, Rikti Raids, Zombie Hordes, Giant Monsters, things like that. It shouldn't be too difficult to flag certain events as "Mega-team" events that will allow people to form teams greater than 8 people. Those things usually scaled according to the person's level they were playing regardless of the teams make up. There were several 8 man teams that had levels ranging from 1 to 50 whenever a Zombie Horde appeared. If Cot Codes things like that the way CoH did then there shouldn't be an issue of also being able to flag those events to allow teams of greater than 8 to be able to be formed up.

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Agreed on never lowering the

Agreed on never lowering the level of CoT style TFs, but yes let us beable to start a TF with just one.

Yes, I like a challenge, but I also want to beable to IO up to become the lawnmower! What I loved about CoH :)

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Agreed on never lowering the level of CoT style TFs, but yes let us beable to start a TF with just one.
Yes, I like a challenge, but I also want to beable to IO up to become the lawnmower! What I loved about CoH :)

*thinks out loud*
I Had to say Lawn-mower, didn't I? :P

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Wouldn't it just be hilarious

Wouldn't it just be hilarious if I had a comment on this thread?
No?
OK I'll go away then.

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One way you could handle TFs

One way you could handle TFs would be to stipulate how many TEAMS (plural) are required to be lined up to begin the content. So if you've got a 2 Team TF, you can either go with 2 PCs or with 16 PCs. That way, TFs are designed to be either 1, 2 or 3 Team affairs. Max Team Size of 8. Do the math, enjoy the ride.

Now, you could put stipulations onto the Accept This Task Force? text window stating that a minimum number of PCs is recommended ... but that's all it would be, a recommendation, as opposed to being a requirement.


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I'm against the idea of

I'm against the idea of giving the content developers a mandated hard requirement that all Raids, Trials, and TFs etc be designed such that a single individual could possibly succeed in doing them. I like content that has some zazz to the mission requirements, like "defeat the two bosses at the same time, but in different locations" or "click the 4 glowies at the same time, they're in different rooms" etc. I think CoT may be capable of having more and better versions of that stuff than CoX had, technology being what it is. I don't want that kind of stuff to be ruled out from the start just because forming PUGs is not always a 100% pleasant and easy process, or because some players don't like talking to, playing with, or in any way having to tolerate the presence of other people in their online game experience.

Missions from contacts can and probably should be required to be soloable, I feel, but not the TFs Trials, and Raids per se. I personally like "team size gating" of some content and despite the unpleasantness and disappointment one gets when one can't actually get a team together (or keep it together long enough to finish...), I would still like to have it in the game, personally.

The question of whether or not to have "hard floor" minimum spawn sizes to scale for the expected minimum team size is a debate where I would vote for "yes, do that". On the other hand, I'm not entirely against allowing TF leaders to invite people after the TF has started either. Particulars of that would need to be discussed I guess.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I'm not entirely against allowing TF leaders to invite people after the TF has started either. Particulars of that would need to be discussed I guess.

+1

Let 'em join, but they might not get the same drop(s) at the End of the TF!? :)

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I'm against the idea of giving the content developers a mandated hard requirement that all Raids, Trials, and TFs etc be designed such that a single individual could possibly succeed in doing them.

Whoever said that TFs "must be soloable" was ever going to be a design objective and requirement?

We know that people will TRY to solo TFs and other content (just try and stop them!) ... but there's no mandate requiring that such efforts be rewarded by having soloable paths through that content be available.

Thus, multiple simultaneous objectives can still be a part of the design intention. All you have to do is "advertise" up front as part of the in-game TF text that accepting this TF will require a minimum number of participants to complete some of the objectives.

DONE.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Radiac wrote:
I'm against the idea of giving the content developers a mandated hard requirement that all Raids, Trials, and TFs etc be designed such that a single individual could possibly succeed in doing them.
Whoever said that TFs "must be soloable" was ever going to be a design objective and requirement?
We know that people will TRY to solo TFs and other content (just try and stop them!) ... but there's no mandate requiring that such efforts be rewarded by having soloable paths through that content be available.
Thus, multiple simultaneous objectives can still be a part of the design intention. All you have to do is "advertise" up front as part of the in-game TF text that accepting this TF will require a minimum number of participants to complete some of the objectives.
DONE.

I understand what you're saying here but I think if I were a designer or lead on a design team, if my boss told me "There will not be any official gating by team size, so if you're going to write in a thing that requires more than one person, make sure we warn them about it in the up-front text." You're already halfway down the slippery slope of "Ok, so how many people can I reasonably expect a soloist to be able to recruit for the "team required" part, is 3 too many, gee, maybe I should just make it 2 to be safe..."

Were I that designer, I would most likely try to design things such that they were scalable from 1 to say 8 players, assuming that's the max team size. I mean I think as a designer you might get some flack from your superiors or even from players in general about it if you didn't. Isn't it kinda awkward design, perhaps even bordering on "the devs are trolling us!" to TECHNICALLY allow solo TF teams then put in goals and stuff that require more than one person to do them?

All I'm saying is, team size gating of SOME content does not bother me, personally and I would not get rid of it as a thing because I think in the places where CoX had it, it did more good than harm, overall. I realize it may feel a little stifling to the dedicated "complete-ist soloists" out there who want to do EVERY thing in the game, and strongly prefer to do all things solo, but you can't 100% satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time in 100% of the content, and this is one of those places where I feel the gain outweighs the perceived loss.

I don't want the designers to have any shred of a thought like "I, as a designer of content, need to make sure everything I design is soloable so as to avoid annoying the complete-ist soloists, who are out there. They hate playing teamed up with anyone else and feel a compulsion to do all content there is, so I thus cannot make a new TF that has a cool twist or thingy in it that requires more than one person to do. That's off the table because every time we roll out something like this, those particular people complain and then the guy who designed it get's yelled at for not thinking of their needs in the design process."

As soon as you make a TF that allows a solo to try to do it but absolutely cannot be successfully completed by a solo, the same people who complained that team size gating is unfair to the solo play style will start to complain that this "Yeah, just you TRY to solo this, tuffguy!" TF stuff is equally frustrating and should be gotten rid of somehow or else "fixed" so that a solo CAN do it, and then we're at "ALL CONTENT MUST BE SOLOABLE!!!!" as a rule, which I want to avoid because it rules out some good storyline stuff as I mentioned.

For the record, I'm not, in theory, AGAINST the idea of letting soloists TRY to do TFs that are overtly designed for and do in fact require more than one toon to do. If that's their preferred type of frustration, fine, but you have to be willing to stick to that as a rule and not cave to demands to "fix" those TFs to allow solos to finish them successfully, and I personally believe that those designers WILL cave to those demands eventually. I would bet money that that eventually would happen.

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I see where you are coming

I see where you are coming from, Radiac, and I agree that I don't want the TF designers to feel that they have to design the TF to be conceivably soloable. I'm fine with their creating a TF that, like the Cavern of Transcendence Trial, has a mechanism that makes multiple people required in order to complete the mission. Just make sure that that minimum is noted up front.

Perhaps a Minimum Team Size and a Recommended Team Size. The MTS is how many are absolutely required due to mechanics in the TF somewhere, while the RTS is how many participants the spawn size, etc, will not drop below. So if you have a TF where two characters have to turns cranks at the same time to stop a device from blowing up the city and the spawns are set to a 4 character minimum, then the MTS would be 2 and the RTS would be 4.

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Totally off-the-wall, Segev

Totally off-the-wall, Segev-is-brainstorming time (i.e., this is in no way what we currently have planned and likely won't see the light of day).

What if, building off of the idea of using a craft-like system to combine "leads" into missions and heists, when you have other players join your team for such a thing, they put up a lead they have, and that lead gets built into the mission dynamically. That is, it adds monsters, obstacles, or rooms to the "dungeon" based on the kind of content it contributes when used to build a mission, and that additional material is what's used to ramp up the mission difficulty for additional players on the team?

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There's a way they could have

There's a way they could have done the longer content without being online forever and three days. Personally, I loved the long TFs but the legnth was a bummer at times. This is remedied by breaking the TFs up into episodes.

For example, the Quartermain TF could be broken up into four episodes each six missions. You can complete Episode 1 then come back later to complete Episode 2. You can't skip ahead until you've done them all in order. Similar to LotR and their major instances. But it doesn't force you to do all of the TF at once for four hours. Longer TFs with more episodes obviously have greater rewards. Those rewards can only be received once within a certain time frame. This way, you don't lose the epic nature that a TF is supposed to have but you still can complete sections of it and always reaching towards a certain goal.

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That would be really cool,

That would be really cool, Segev. I look forward to seeing its eventual final version in some future update. (Issue 10, Dynamic TFs!) :D

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

Totally off-the-wall, Segev-is-brainstorming time (i.e., this is in no way what we currently have planned and likely won't see the light of day).
What if, building off of the idea of using a craft-like system to combine "leads" into missions and heists, when you have other players join your team for such a thing, they put up a lead they have, and that lead gets built into the mission dynamically. That is, it adds monsters, obstacles, or rooms to the "dungeon" based on the kind of content it contributes when used to build a mission, and that additional material is what's used to ramp up the mission difficulty for additional players on the team?

Add it to the Mission Builder as well? :D

I know this is asking allot, by can we have a Screenshot (cropped) for User Created Missions.. kinda like Steam has for Games.. as well as a Feature Mission that MWM and/or the Community votes for that week/month/whatever? :)

And of course, charge players for any extra Screenshots. :D

'Cause I'm more likely to Try a User Created mission If I like the Screeny. ;)

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

Totally off-the-wall, Segev-is-brainstorming time (i.e., this is in no way what we currently have planned and likely won't see the light of day).
What if, building off of the idea of using a craft-like system to combine "leads" into missions and heists, when you have other players join your team for such a thing, they put up a lead they have, and that lead gets built into the mission dynamically. That is, it adds monsters, obstacles, or rooms to the "dungeon" based on the kind of content it contributes when used to build a mission, and that additional material is what's used to ramp up the mission difficulty for additional players on the team?

I'm not sure how this would work, I mean, starting from a CoX perspective, it wouldn't be hard to just have some ambushes spawn inside missions. Like if you have a tip about the Freaks hitting gas stations and then while you're in a mission against Tsoo, some Freaks break in and start to attack you. That's easy.

What's not as easy, as far as I can tell, is trying to tie a story together using a set of pre-fab plot lines or clues that weren't designed with a single story in mind but rather you just use them to make a "Franken-story" later. I'm not sure how that might be possible. I'm not saying it isn't possible, just that I wouldn't know how to go about producing it.

If you could make it work, mechanically, I think it would likely create missions where the going storyline ends up sounding very disjointed and a lot like that conspiracy theory from the Simpsons "Ok, so the GOVERNMENT, has cut a deal with the ALIENS, in conjunction with the REVERSE VAMPIRES, to take over the..."

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I want this game to have actual reverse vampires now. :)

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

If you could make it work, mechanically, I think it would likely create missions where the going storyline ends up sounding very disjointed and a lot like that conspiracy theory from the Simpsons "Ok, so the GOVERNMENT, has cut a deal with the ALIENS, in conjunction with the REVERSE VAMPIRES, to take over the..."
Also, on a completely unrelated note, I want this game to have actual reverse vampires now. :)

Mad Lib Missions!

"______ (person) just informed you that ________ (villain group) is trying to ________ (crime) and has stolen _______ (item) to help! Plus, ________ (second villain group) is trying to cut in and has an ambush set up in ______ (place). Hurry, before ________ (major villain) gets wind of it!"

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Honestly? Mad Lib Missions

Honestly? Mad Lib Missions would be an ideal way to make still more content out of the leads system, whenever the leads don't directly build into a pre-planned mission. But it's still a ways off, if ever, for that.

And yeah, Radiac, you're right about the difficulties. It's something I'd love to see solutions to, but there are a lot of kinks to work out of even the theoretical idea before it could begin to be designed.

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I honestly don't believe that

I honestly don't believe that anybody is trying to say that ALL content should be soloable, even TF's. I think that there are a lot of people that are trying to get out of the ritualistic, you MUST have X players in order to start this TF. I can't tell you how many of the TF's CoH had that I've finished without having all the people needed to start the TF. I've had people join the team JUST so we could start the TF, then immediately drop out. The only reason they joined was because we HAD to have them to start the stupid TF! I find that frustrating.

All we are asking for is the ability to start the TF regardless of how many people are on the team. Will the TF be able to be finished if we don't have the full recommended amount of people for the TF? Who knows!? Maybe. Maybe not. I just don't want to have a TF giver say, "You MUST have 6 people in order to start this TF.", and we only have 5. I don't want to have to sit around for 5 hours broadcasting that we need just ONE more person so we can start this TF. ANYBODY! Bueller. Bueller. Bueller.

By all means, make the TF difficult enough that you really should have more than one person to do the TF. By all means, add multiple clicky items that need to be done simultaneously in order to finish the TF. By all means, make it so that different people have to stand on different pressure plates in order to finish the TF. I'm not saying don't do that. I'm just saying don't make it so that X amount of people are needed just to start the darned thing.

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A Recommended number is good

A Recommended number is good for mission design. I'm ok with people going with less than the recommended number but sometimes you need to save instanced content for a minimum number of participants.

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ONE

ONE

there I said it.
I'll be quiet now.

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

A Recommended number is good for mission design. I'm ok with people going with less than the recommended number but sometimes you need to save instanced content for a minimum number of participants.

The way most games deal with this problem is rather simple. And these include those with an LFG interface.

I will put in some qualifications here first of all (just to make it all easier. It *Doesn't* have to be these figures)

1) Group size is 5
2) A raid is a group of people who are in the same team, and it has been set up as a "raid" group. This can be a party of 2 converting their group into a raid (for more players to join) or it can be 2 or more full groups joining up.

Now, how to other games do it?

If they have an LFG interface, they pretty much go "group size is 5, match players up according to role and put them into appropriate teams with others who are waiting".

This does NOT however mean that you can only do instanced "group" content with a group of 5 players though.

They all pretty much allow you to walk up to the entrance of the mission totally by yourself, and as long as you meet the level requirement to do it, you can walk in totally alone. You just cannot use the LFG interface to "teleport in solo". It is up to you to get there and knock on the door.

Raids? Typically for THIS content, you get into a raid group and walk in.

For the "server picked" Looking for Raid groups though, they will still do the matching up according to roles... so X healers/Support, X "tanks", X DPS. And fill it up to the maximum allowed.

However, the game[1] doesn't care if your raid group has 2 members in it or 20... As long as you are in a "raid" group you can enter it. Even if the other person is outside picking their nose/cooking dinner/sleeping.[2]

But in the cases of raids though, if you have to flick two switches relatively close to each other and there is only one of you? Well, the game isn't necessarily going to say "here have a freebie".

This is to say that the mechanics shouldn't necessarily require *lots" of players to interact with stuff, but that it should be still completable even if two or three (or more) people die.

So the Caverns of Transcendence with the 8 glowies? Bad design as it requires a full group. 4 glowies though? Not so bad. It means you don't have to have a full group, and even if 1/2 the team was dead, you could *STILL* complete it. I *personally* would try to limit the number of "interactables" needed to about 1/4 of the "maximum number of players in there" full stop.

And this is for "teams are needed" content; the stuff that is *designed* for groups to do.

Normal content, I wouldn't put this kind of stuff into it. Or if it was present, it would be matched up with "every player alive at that point in time" or just "only one player needed to complete it".

[1] Not quite true. Some games allow you to walk into the raid content totally solo, others you actually need to be in a "raid" group

[2] I will admit we have used this tactic a few times in Wildstar so we can skip trash mob kills and go right to the bosses to kill them quickly.

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

JayBezz wrote:
A Recommended number is good for mission design. I'm ok with people going with less than the recommended number but sometimes you need to save instanced content for a minimum number of participants.

(snip)

So the Caverns of Transcendence with the 8 glowies? Bad design as it requires a full group. 4 glowies though? Not so bad. It means you don't have to have a full group, and even if 1/2 the team was dead, you could *STILL* complete it. I *personally* would try to limit the number of "interactables" needed to about 1/4 of the "maximum number of players in there" full stop.

(snip)

And here we see the beginning of the gradual backslide into "Let's just make everything soloable and be done with it." that I was talking about.

It starts when one person suggests "We just wanna be able to START the thing with a smaller team/solo, make it as tuff a you want, really, we're fine with that." followed by the next person going "This sucks because you get to a point where you can't finish what you started because you didn't have enough people, or one person dropped out after we started, etc. So let's make it so that we can lose some people midway through and still finish. Because that can happen, and why should we have to fail the TF just because someone dropped? You could just make it easier instead, do that." and then the next logical step from there is "This system is unnecessarily cumbersome. Why don't we just scale all TFs to whatever size team is actually present in the missions on a mission-by-mission basis, that way no team is EVER inconvenienced by being the wrong size?" at which point you're then at "All things are soloable now." and you got there by making a series of smaller compromises, all of which, added up, amount to "Okay Devs, NO UNSOLOABLE CONTENT, because people b1tch too much about it." And now we never get the "Defeat all three Archdemon Princes in their respective lairs all at the same time." ending or anything like that.

It is not on the devs to make everything so easy that you can't possibly fail. The game would be a snoozefest if it were. Things will be failable, I hope. And maybe sometimes you fail because the team falls apart. The team falling apart is a bad thing, and probably should spell doom for whatever endeavor they were into at the time it fell apart. That seems like an appropriate result to me. I'm okay with there being consequences to this sort of thing that are somehow undesirable, like "you can't finish the thing if a person drops and you needed that person". You still got XP and various random drops during the TF fights that you actually did, so it wasn't a total waste.

Nowhere is it written that every TF should be 100% convenient to form if you have basically, like enough people, kinda sorta or that they have to be possible to complete after people drop out, or even possible to finish off the end boss without a full team and some time and thought spent in how to fight it. I like a TF that requires you to actually form a group of a given size and somehow hold it together long enough to do it in a couple hours before people start logging off (the lengths of some of the TFs is a separate issue altogether). It makes the badges harder to earn and the rewards that much sweeter at the end when you get to say "Yeah, we finished that one, oh, your team fell apart and dumped out huh? That's a shame, we had a blast though. You should try again sometime."

That's just how I feel. I know some people are like "Yeah, well, I wanna solo everything, so make everything solable." I've heard that sentiment on the forums before. My attitude is "I disagree, so F&*#K that idea, I really do actually want some team-size gated content." Not everyone is going to agree with everyone else on that, I realize, but my opinion is what it is. That said, I have zero real "pull" around here anyway, as far as I know, so others can speak their piece too. I'm sure the devs are taking all points for view into consideration before doing anything.

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Or... TF Contacts asks you if

Or... TF Contacts asks you if you want to run the Pro Version, where you Cant Invite anyone else after it starts.
Or... the Normal Version that allows you to invite players as you go.

Pro version of course gives Better drops, loot, when you finish the TF.
Normal version has a shoddy chance of getting anything great. when you finish the TF, even if on high difficulty.

Pro has a minimum of 3 to start.
Normal can be started with just one player.

etc, etc, etc.. ;)

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I can honestly say, that

I can honestly say, that while I think 8 may be to many and sounds like more of a number to go with because CoH fans liked it (I only really find the smaller 5 number to be bad when one has a huge SG and want to get as many in on something as possible, and even then, when one has a huge SG 8 was enough either :p) and less than 8 seems better to me, this is the one area I can honestly not care about!

Though I do hope for team content and then raid style content (similar to incarnate content in CoH). Heroes work solo until it requires the team! Then teams team up when it requires more than a team! That's how super hero comics tend to go!

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

What if, building off of the idea of using a craft-like system to combine "leads" into missions and heists, when you have other players join your team for such a thing, they put up a lead they have, and that lead gets built into the mission dynamically. That is, it adds monsters, obstacles, or rooms to the "dungeon" based on the kind of content it contributes when used to build a mission, and that additional material is what's used to ramp up the mission difficulty for additional players on the team?

No one has successfully pulled off such a design paradigm since the age of Windows began. It worked, barely, in a few DOS games, a few very early Playstation games, and one WiFi assisted Gameboy game (that I know of, there may be more). Two problems have made such designs nearly impossible to achieve:

1. A surprisingly large number of players will play a multiplayer game solo. I'm not sure how many, but it is a large enough body of players that it might even be a majority.

2. What happens when I contribute my lead/clue/gizmo to the overall task force then halfway through the task force I get booted off because the only thing the task force leader and his friends really wanted was the additional content I brought to the table and once that was incorporated, they didn't need me around and didn't want me along for the ride?

I'm not saying every task force must be able to be completed solo. I am saying it is dangerous to underestimate just how abusive some players can be when it comes to mission content and rewards. I've been playing multiplayer games since Pong came out. Just yesterday in Champions Online (which I just started playing a few days ago) I was standing around minding my own business reading some quest info and trying to decipher the map when someone came along and started throwing insults at my character.

Do not underestimate how many sadists, bullies, and thugs there are running around in online games. It never fails to shock me how often I come across them. Online gaming really does bring out the worst in people sometimes.

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Imperious Task Force

Imperious Task Force

Minimum Team Size: 6

Did Players Solo this content? Yes

Did Players BRAG ABOUT Soloing this content? YES. Repeatedly and loudly.

Was this content DESIGNED to be Soloed? Obviously Not.

Or to give an example from World of Warcraft ...
The Onyxia Raid was originally designed to be 40-man raid content and was generally agreed to be a major challenge to emerge victorious from. After a few years of expansions (and increasingly irresponsible power inflation by Blizzard), a "holy trinity" of a mere 3 Players went in and trounced Onyxia all by themselves ... and they BRAGGED ABOUT IT ... and everyone was amazed by their feat of accomplishment.

There's a major difference between what Players will *DO* with the content, once it has been handed to them, and the *INTENT* the content was designed to be. Hand wringing over "oh noes, someone's going to try and solo this!" is entirely wasted effort and energy. OF COURSE Players are going to try and solo content ... that's what Players DO. But there's a big difference between "allowing" Players to solo content and "encouraging" (or even "rewarding") Players to solo content.

As a content designer, the best thing to do is to recognize that Task Force Soloists are going to be EDGE CASES ... not the "norm" for how that content gets played. And although Design Intent can take Edge Cases into account (and often should consider them, if only to guard against Failure Modes of various sorts), that's a far cry from SUPPORTING and encouraging those Edge Cases to be viewed as acceptable or even mainstream alternatives.

Or to put it another way ... sounds like someone needs a piece of fairy cake in order to gain some sense of proportion.


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" because people b1tch too

" because people b1tch too much about it"

Hate to break it to ya, but people are going to b1tch about anything and everything. That's just the way it is. It's up to the Devs to decide how much of a b1tch is actually worth changing. If the Devs have designed something that is meant for 6 people to complete and 1 person b1tches because they can't solo it............suck it up chuck. I'm pretty sure the Devs have more than half a brain to be able to distinguish that difference.

I really don't think the request to be able to start a TF regardless of team size is that much of a panty buncher. I think it makes QoL easier for people who don't have the time or enough people to have to sit around and wait just to start a TF. If they start it without the recommended amount of people to finish it, that's on them. Perhaps they can beat it, maybe they can't. At least they have the option to try.

While I'm sure there are some people that are looking to make EVERYTHING soloable in CoT, I'm pretty sure most of us are not. I think most of us just want more options on how to do things. We are looking for ways to improve upon the old methods of CoH. This sounds like a really good improvement to me. As others have stated, we've seen people complete TF's with less than the amount of people required to start it. I don't think it's unreasonable for us to ask the Devs to give us the ability to start a TF with as many people as we want, just as long as we are willing to accept the challenges that go along with it.

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This is true. I remember

This is true. I remember when I soloed and yup bragged about soloing the ITF without Incarnate powers (wasn't part of the point of doing such a thing to brag a little :p) a friend went off on me for ruining the game and proving no one needs to team and how it ruins the holy trinity. Even when I pointed out it took hunting down all the right IOs and planning of a build that really, I found most players just didn't want to do. :p

I remember people asking me to make their builds in MIDS for them to do such things and when they saw what it required (may not have been all builds, but it was a good bet it was most builds built to solo such content) they were like "Okay. To much effort! Nevermind!" :p

I bet the WoW feats also took some effort on those players.

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To oOStaticOo: I'm okay with

To oOStaticOo: I'm okay with letting the soloist try to solo a thing that is patently unsoloable, if they want to, as long as that's where it stops. I believe the problem is that it won't actually stop there. You mentioned people tending to b1tch about anything and everything, and I agree that's true, but there are a LOT of people who like to solo to the exclusion of anything else most of the time and so if you're going to make the firm decision to write TFs that actually DO require more than one person, you're going to hear about it not just from the one or two doofuses who tried it and failed, but from a considerably large portion of your player base who are disappointed that "they made another carebear teamup b&llsh1t Task Force for teams instead of a soloable one again" from a LOT of those soloists, who will complain that they are being set up to fail by these team TFs and that their play style choice is not being respected.

To Redlynn: I agree with the substance of what you said. Power creep being a thing, I have no problem with letting people TRY to solo a TF, even if the TF is designed to take like 8 people. Maybe we'll eventually get there in terms of power creep, and it would be nice to have that a as metric to measure that by, actually. But I just don't want to see the devs put under pressure from the fanbase or the businesspeople in charge to try to appease the plurality of soloists when they harp about wanting more soloable stuff and less/no unsoloable stuff.

To the devs (and everyone else): Please don't refrain from making content that requires throwing three levers at the same time in different places or dropping three bosses in different rooms, or making bosses and sub bosses that are basically unbeatable by one solo person etc. That is all I'm asking. Use ALL of the design tools to make TFs and so forth at are fun, varied in their design parameters, engaging and challenging. Please DO make TFs that require more than one person teams to actually succeed, and do not back off of the policy of "Yes, there WILL be content that is intended to be unsoloable by design in various ways, no apologies, this is an MMO, get over it."

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To those who complain the TF

To those who complain the TF content can't be soloed by them, the best thing to do is just reply with a "So?" It's specific team content. Really the only thing that made it require a team was the AV boss, the rest of a TF was generally just normal missions.

I was never one to care for the depowering of an AV. AV's where specific NPCs and I never cared for the idea of depowering an NPC to cater to the soloist, but I was okay with say new NPCs with the new ranking of Elite Boss.

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Having an end boss so

Having an end boss so powerful that they cannot be defeated by one solo player, no matter the class or spec or build just makes the thing feel more epic and awesome when you DO finally bring the giant down as a team, I think. That's one thing I like about it.

Also, in any business, including the MMO business where there are a myriad of alternative games to play, listening to the complaints of the players is important, especially when a certain specific complaint is fairly common and a lot of people are complaining about it. Simply giving the players a terse, passive-agressive "So what?" in response their complaints will only offend and repel players, not create more paying customers. That said I think there needs to be a firm, public stand taken by the devs not to cave to any and all demands by the players, and to make it clear that certain types of team-oriented, unsoloable content are NOT going to be made easier or soloable just to satiate the desire among some to make it that way.

I mean, some people, when faced with a tough mission or TF will try harder to make their toon better to be able to actually succeed that mission, some will give up and say "My solution to this is to complain that it's too hard until they make it easier so I can do it in the state my toon is in now.". Let's NOT hand people the easy button in those cases, please.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

To those who complain the TF content can't be soloed by them, the best thing to do is just reply with a "So?" It's specific team content. Really the only thing that made it require a team was the AV boss, the rest of a TF was generally just normal missions.
I was never one to care for the depowering of an AV. AV's where specific NPCs and I never cared for the idea of depowering an NPC to cater to the soloist, but I was okay with say new NPCs with the new ranking of Elite Boss.

Yeah, a lot of the original CoX TFs were just a series of standard missions that you had to keep the team together to do, followed by a Babbage here and a Clockwork King at the end there. But that said, those types of TFs don't have to be the only ones we get in CoT. You COULD make them more like the iTrails where you really needed more than one or two people in some places to be able to do things, like defeating Seige and Nightstar at the same time or having to collect Power Cells from the Goliaths in order to shut down the Reactor using the computer terminals. Stuff like that was fun and required not only more people but a plan, orchestration, teamwork, etc. That is the stuff I don't want to lose out on because people demand that they be allowed (and actually able) to solo everything.

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Soloist Whiner: I can't solo

Soloist Whiner: I can't solo this obviously and intentionally designed for teams content! WAUGH!!!1!

Player Response: Did you even READ the tin?

Dev Response: Square peg, round hole. It's even labeled. Entirely your problem, if you can't figure it out.

---

Soloist Whiner: The Devs aren't supporting/hate my playstyle!

Dev Response: The game's bigger than just YOU.

---

I could keep going, but I figure I've made my point already.


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Obviously, I agree with you,

Obviously, I agree with you, Red, but from the point of view of the soloist, the argument works like this:

If all content is soloable, then you're including all play styles and everyone can have fun on their own terms. If you make some things require a team, you're excluding us soloists. Therefore all content should be soloable because that is the more inclusive thing to do such that your whole player base can have fun in the game. Once you make team-only content, you're dividing the player base unnecessarily by gating that TF behind a "team size wall".

Now, what hat argument tries to hide is the fact that soloing is a play style CHOICE, not a mandatory necessity, most of the time. My attitude on this is that you can either exclude the people who absolutely refuse to ever team up with anyone and make "team size X required" content that has various puzzles and games in it like levers and so forth, or you can exclude that type of "person X stands here and person Y does the other thing in the other room" stuff and make everything soloable.

In the case of making everything soloable, you lose certain types of missions which might be fun, but which require more than one set of hands to actually be able to do. I mean they never get made in the first place. In the case of allowing unsoloable content you're not excluding anyone, you're just forcing the people who would prefer to solo everything to actually form/join a team once in a while, which they COULD do but generally would prefer not to.

In the case of "all must be soloable" we lose some fun content games and so forth, in the case of "make them have to team up" you lose no types of content but force the soloist to have to team up. I personally would rather make the soloists have to team up once in a while (or else not do that TF in question) than have to suffer the loss of that great "defeat the two bosses at the same time in different places" stuff, which I feel is good and conducive to making better TFs.

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All I have to say on the

All I have to say on the subject is that if the only way that developers can design content for a team is to have such gimmicks as "push three different buttons at the same time", then they should not bother trying to design team content. If it's just to throw up a big middle finger that says, "Ha ha, you can't possibly solo this", that's even worse.

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Why I liked how CoH and in my

Why I liked how CoH and in my experience a lot of MMOs are doing it now.

Standard missions are generally soloable. Then they have their TF equivalents that generally require a team (or one to out level it if they're low level enough). Then they can just look at the soloist and say they're not being ignored, the TF is team centric content but they're free to try and solo it. If they can't solo it, it's on the player and not the devs who gave them the option to solo it but on the player for not being able to.

Standard missions can then have the choice of team or not. Hopefully with CoT we have sidekicking though, as I find most MMOs now suck for trying to team with guild members for low level stuff.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

All I have to say on the subject is that if the only way that developers can design content for a team is to have such gimmicks as "push three different buttons at the same time", then they should not bother trying to design team content. If it's just to throw up a big middle finger that says, "Ha ha, you can't possibly solo this", that's even worse.

I think we can agree that lame content is lame, and whether it's soloable or unsoloable isn't going to make it more or less lame given how lame it is.

By contrast, I dare say nobody could have ever soloed the BAF trial, because of the jailbreak part and because I don't think anyone was capable of soloing Nightstar and Siege at the same time (correct me if I'm wrong). That said, I thought that trial was fun to do and engaging for an appropriately sized team. So there are things you can do to make it require a team and which make it MORE fun in the process.

I just want to avoid removing the "many toons required" tools from the toolbox entirely. I would HOPE the devs spend their time and effort making good content and not lame content in all cases.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Why I liked how CoH and in my experience a lot of MMOs are doing it now.
Standard missions are generally soloable. Then they have their TF equivalents that generally require a team (or one to out level it if they're low level enough). Then they can just look at the soloist and say they're not being ignored, the TF is team centric content but they're free to try and solo it. If they can't solo it, it's on the player and not the devs who gave them the option to solo it but on the player for not being able to.
Standard missions can then have the choice of team or not. Hopefully with CoT we have sidekicking though, as I find most MMOs now suck for trying to team with guild members for low level stuff.

Yeah. I'm fine with having a LARGE percentage of the content be solo missions, arc from NPC contacts, one-offs from vendor NPCs, repeatable dailies like the CoX newspapers and radios, tip missions that drop at random, missions that get you a cape, or change your alignment when you want to do that, etc. That's all good and I EXPECT it to be there. I just like the small percentage of stuff that actually requires a team to do as well.

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"Ordinary" Contact Missions:

"Ordinary" Contact Missions: designed to be solo-able, team play friendly

Task Forces: designed to be team content, solo AT OWN RISK

DONE.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

"Ordinary" Contact Missions: designed to be solo-able, team play friendly
Task Forces: designed to be team content, solo AT OWN RISK
DONE.

Agreed.

Like Darth I think FORCING missions to be unsoloable is lame. Like BrandX I liked taking the research, thought, and time to make and build bleeding edge builds to try to do what I wasn't supposed to be able to.

But, if it's not built to be soloed, I know I'm tilting at a windmill, and if I it's just too hard for me to solo it, that's just working as intended.

But then, if I ever do actually pull of soloing it... BOOYAH!

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I just want to avoid removing the "many toons required" tools from the toolbox entirely. I would HOPE the devs spend their time and effort making good content and not lame content in all cases.

Sure. The point is that designing content with the intent to only be manageable for a group and designing content to be specifically un-soloable are two different things. As already stated, perhaps one day CoT will have the kind of power creep that allows sufficiently well-equipped and/or skilled players to solo content intended for groups. Perhaps sufficiently skilled players will find a means to solo group content even without power creep. So long as we're talking about some outliers, rather than everyone and their six year old niece, that's fine.

If most people do end up being able to solo a particular TF I have faith that MWM will fix that exploit or learn from whatever design mistake made it possible. It comes down to the same old saw: the amount of thought, testing, and preparation several dozen MWM volunteers can put into any particular content will never compare to what thousands of players can bring to the table.

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Imagine this scenario. A dev

Imagine this scenario. A dev writes a TF storyline that revolves around the idea of compasses, the Earth's magnetic field, magnetic poles, etc. The main villain, Mag-BEAT-o is trying to build a device that will cancel out the Earth's magnetic field so that he can hold the world ransom for money or else he'll allow the sun's particle emissions to destroy the Earth with deadly radiation damage.

The dev decides that since there are 4 cardinal compass directions, North, South, East and West, this will be a theme in the TF and so in like mission #3 you have to disable the prototype magnetic generators in the underground lab in a way that requires you to have one team member in the each of the North, South, East and West corners of the complex at the same time. Then at the end the boss has a massive attack that goes straight out away from him in the front, back, left and right but is significantly less powerful in the "northeast" , "northwest, "southeast", and "southwest" directions, relative to his front facing being defined as "north". etc.

So there's a part midway through the TF where you need 4 people (at least) and at the end you might not be able to take out the boss solo because he's too tough, and the obvious tactic is to put people around him in the weak spots (NE, NW, SE, and SW of him).

I can see people starting this TF solo, because they're allowed to, having ignored the disclaimers, then recruiting some hired help to get them past the generator complex mission where it needs 4 people, thinking "Okay, THAT was the 4-person part, so we're past that part now and I can drop the hired help" , but then they get to the end and are like "Whattaya mean I can't defeat Mag-BEAT-o by myself? Why would they let me start this stupid TF if I can't do that? This whole endeavor has been a 'total waste of time' on my part! Stupid Devs, I'm gunna give them a piece of my mind!"

So the complaint then becomes "Okay, I know you said it requires 4 people, but it should still be soloable in ALL of the parts that DON'T mechanically require 4 people." which is an argument I don't agree with, but one that can be made and then backed up by the fact that you are actually allowing solo people to start the thing.

At some point in the future, maybe power creep get's to the point where someone might be able to solo Mag-BEAT-o, and when that time comes, it might be nice to have that TF as a metric for such things, but in order to do that you MUST resist the demands to make things like this soloable at the end. All that request really boils down to is "Make the most powerful villains, Archvillains, giant monsters, etc, weak enough that one well-made toon can defeat them solo." and I don't want that. Galactus SHOULD require an entire team to defeat, not just Ant-Man. That's part of what makes it feel so good when you finally do get to the point where you maybe COULD solo him after much power creep. But by then there will be new and harder AVs to take on with teams.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

"Ordinary" Contact Missions: designed to be solo-able, team play friendly
Task Forces: designed to be team content, solo AT OWN RISK
DONE.

I'm fine with this, but it requires the devs to largely ignore complaints about unsoloable content that soloists can start but not finish. I don't know if those complaints are going to be on the level of what CoH's Defense Nerf and Enhancement Diversification combo did, but whatever the outrage level is, you'd need to stick to the plan, or else you're kissing those fun BAF and Lambda trials goodbye.

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Radiac, the simplest solution

Radiac, the simplest solution (or outcome, if you prefer) would be a Branching Paths development of the scenario you cite.

There's two ways to solve the Four Poles Problem:
Sequentially
In Parallel

The Parallel solution would obviously be the faster/quicker solution and would have its branching path outcome.
The Sequential solution could be soloed (unlike the Parallel solution) and would have an entirely different outcome.

The Sequential solution could even be set up in such a way as to make each (*cough*) Pole Position (*cough*) increasingly difficult to "win" such that successfully soloing all four becomes increasingly unlikely (not "impossible" per se, just unlikely to succeed). That way, IN THEORY it might be possible to solo the content ... but realistically you'd really want to bring a Team along to do it with you.

That's about as close as I can get to a compromise on the situation you're postulating. Note that this requires Branching Paths for the content and that City of Heroes hardly ever did anything that could be construed as a Branching Path for its content. There were some few notably rare exceptions (the Summer Movie Event contained some) but they weren't here, there and everywhere.


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

I don't know if those complaints are going to be on the level of what CoH's Defense Nerf and Enhancement Diversification combo did, but whatever the outrage level is, you'd need to stick to the plan, or else you're kissing those fun BAF and Lambda trials goodbye.

I was largely a soloist, and I loved jumping on a BAF or Lambda once in a while. But even if I hadn't, they made incarnate "loot" available otherwise, so no harm no foul.

Anyone who complains about content that is built that way when they can solo to get the same things should be ignored.

Or, rather, politely told that's just how it is.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Radiac, the simplest solution (or outcome, if you prefer) would be a Branching Paths development of the scenario you cite.
There's two ways to solve the Four Poles Problem:
Sequentially
In Parallel
The Parallel solution would obviously be the faster/quicker solution and would have its branching path outcome.
The Sequential solution could be soloed (unlike the Parallel solution) and would have an entirely different outcome.
The Sequential solution could even be set up in such a way as to make each (*cough*) Pole Position (*cough*) increasingly difficult to "win" such that successfully soloing all four becomes increasingly unlikely (not "impossible" per se, just unlikely to succeed). That way, IN THEORY it might be possible to solo the content ... but realistically you'd really want to bring a Team along to do it with you.
That's about as close as I can get to a compromise on the situation you're postulating. Note that this requires Branching Paths for the content and that City of Heroes hardly ever did anything that could be construed as a Branching Path for its content. There were some few notably rare exceptions (the Summer Movie Event contained some) but they weren't here, there and everywhere.

I'm okay with it if there are multiple paths as you suggest, but I dislike the idea of placing that on the devs as a requirement for all content. Some content, like the Rikti Mothership raid, the Hamidon, or even just the Babbage and Clockwork King parts of some TFs can just be "team required, period" as far as I care.

On a related note, I don't like trying to build in soloable "back door" solutions into team-based content (in general) because it undermines the pretext that the AV is really that tough and that you'd need a team to take them down. I mean what's stopping the ONE person on the tema of 8 from using some of those shortcuts during the team fight against Mag-BEAT-o then? If this "multi-path" thing isn't done carefully, you end up with a AV that anyone can solo just because they wanted to build that in as an option, so there it is now and it ends up being the quickest way to end the TF, so people just do that instead of fighting Mag-BEAT-o the long way, most of the time.

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There's something I once read

There's something I once read in a Shadowrun splat book, IIRC (it's been decades, so this probably isn't an exact quote): "If you don't want players to defeat it, don't give it stats."

The only way to make certain that Galactus will never be defeated by a single player - other than using transparently gimmicky "oh no you don't" mechanics - is to not put him in a TF. (There's that story of a boss in some MMO (I want to say some Final Fantasy game) which wasn't supposed to be able to be defeated, but the players found some way to defeat it. Allegedly the only way the devs could prevent the players from defeating the "un-defeatable" boss was by taking down the servers.)

I don't see anything wrong with putting mechanics in a TF that require a minimum of A players, if it makes sense for the TF. If there is a TF that requires the team to do something with the five classical elements (in parallel, as Redlynne put it) then that's that. The player(s) are obviously not going to finish the TF unless they've got five people to do what needs doing. No amount of complaining is going to change that. I'm quite certain that MWM is aware that there are people who will complain that the sky is blue just to have something about which to complain.

To toot my own horn, I've posted an idea some time ago that could address the "but solo players can't see that content" concern.

To summarize, allowing the fear that MWM will capitulate to every complaint to guide design policy is foolish.

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Brutum
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In my opinion task forces and

In my opinion task forces and such should be soloable for the most part but not as a priority. Short of something like "this part requires two people to stand in two different spots at once" the IO's will sort out most problems.... Assuming IO's will work the same haha. Perhaps limit things like that or don't have them at all but I don't personally mind them existing, even if I do try to push my builds to the maximum. I do however have to say that some mobs like good ol' hammy should HAVE to have a team. Makes it seem more "final bossy" even though there are no true "finals" in a MMO haha.

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Ok, trying to wrangle all of

Ok, trying to wrangle all of this discussion down into something cohesive. I'll start with the old game's Task Forces. Originally, the old game did not have any large raid content. Task Forces were meant to be the team centric equivalent for the game. The devs understood the (at the time) casual pace of the game and guessed that people would start a TF and not finish it in one play through, hence the TF mode which locked out the team so players can return and pick up where they left off in the TF.

You can see how back then they would've loved to have phased content - many of the Task Forces would have played much smoother throughout the game with this tech. But alass they didn't.

TF being team centric started with a different base difficulty than normal missions.

Now, normal missions or Task Forces requiring X number of players to resolve is problematic in a number of ways. First, it requires players at least read the "YOU NEED X NUMBER OF GROUP MEMBERS FOR THIS TASK" right up front. Second is that in the TF if people dropped for whatever reason and you couldn't add new members, you were forced to quit the TF.

The conundrum:
Solo players don't like being barred from content - particularly content with rewards. They will jump through hoops to get to do what they normally "can't or shouldn't do". Or they will go out of their way to avoid the large group scenarios because they want nothing to do with it.

An extension of this is people who are willing to team but either don't have time for longer-required play that TF or Raid content requires or have other problems with large crowd coordinated efforts and they want an option to play as well.

Players who enjoy group content, up to including Raids want to have content that is up to the standards of having a full group or multiple groups involved.

And the stance we have taken is that none of these types of players are wrong in what they want. Each desire is just as valid as the next. So what do we do?

Don't create lock outs for special content for group size. Somone drops and you want to keep a full group - invite someone else.

Procedurally generate objectives. One player in a group (single players are still a group under the hood - group of 1)? Only require one lever to be pulled. 6 players in a group - 6 levers need to be pulled. Or 4 of one thing and 2 of another.

Any TF / Raid type content requires a warning "THIS CONTENT HAS A HIGHER BASE DIFFICULTY SET FOR GROUP OF...PROCEDE AT OWN RISK".

The diffifuclty settings for standard missions don't directly apply to any TF / Raid type content, not "completely" anyway. I'll explain. Normal content difficulty will have the standard adjust team size and level difference (among other stuff). However, Raid / TF content starts at a higher base difficulty. Team size and level adjustments will still work for the general spawns, but not for every specific encounter. This includes the procedurally generated objectives, but also other things as well.

For example, the TF "AV" can apear for both the solo player and a group. However, a solo player with a team adjusted dificulty setting won't get the actual team adjusted AV. They'll get the solo version of the AV. Maybe it won't use certain powers (like a PBAOE attack unless there are pets), maybe it will have particular attack patterns for soloists and different ones for groups. Maybe it won't use its orbital laser quite as often. (And if we can ((or if we can and want to be twisted)), the AI will simply learn to use ajust its tactics automatically without us having to script it. But that's another story.) Maybe the soloist doesn't get to see certain side objectives based on team coordinated play. The main incentive for team sized content has been for a long time in many games for the rewards.

Soloists running a TF / Raid type content may be able to score certain rewards that is comensurate with running this type of content, but not necessarily receive the rewards at the rate of an actual large team would. This not just includes drop rate because the team is ripping through large spawns - but also in any special rewards given for particular achievements - end of mission bonuses and so on.

Taking the ball and running with it:

What if - and this is not a promise of something we are doing, this is me asking questions -
What if all the above were true and a "task force" could scale from a solo player, to a full group, to multiple groups. This includes procedurally generated objectives, side objectives, and even team coordinated encounters that would not show up in solo versions of a run (use these acid grenades on this area while using these freezing cannisters on this area at the same time, etc...). That the spawns all the way through the big encounters and the rewards for doing so scaled dynamically based on the number of players (up to a certain limit) but starting with a minimal of 1. How does that sound?


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Radiac
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To Tannim222:

To Tannim222:

It sounds to me like you're proposing to let people sign up to do the BAF trial solo and when they do, they don't get the "stop the prisoners from escaping" part because that would be impossible to solo and thus not appropriate for the solo run through, then at the end they get some nerfed version of Siege and and Nightstar and/or they don't have to defeat them in different places at the same time, etc.

Isn't that basically turning it into just another single player solo mission at that point? I mean it feels like I'm just going to enter, defeat some very small mobs consisting of a few minions, NO Goliaths, NO break out, NO special boss defeat rules,etc. After you take away all that, it's just a pretty straightforward "clear the map" mission isn't it? Why do that to a well-designed piece of content? I mean, in our quest to make the BAF available to the soloist, we've completely taken away all of the things that made the BAF what it was, in it's heart and soul. This stripped-down thing we have now isn't really THE BAF anymore, is it? It's not even remotely the same thing now, as far as I'm concerned, and the soloists WANTED to be allowed to do THE BAF and were annoyed that they weren't allowed to do it. Our solution is then to strip it of everything that makes it uniquely "The BAF" and turn it into just another mission? If that's the answer, I would say the soloists aren't getting what they asked for in the first place, and what's worse, the act of trying to make it available to them is ruining the very thing they claimed to want access to.

Why not just make a solo mission for the soloists to do and a REAL version of THE BAF designed for some minimum number of people? If your team size drops too low, you can invite more, and you probably need to, otherwise you most likely end up failing.

I really feel that part of team-oriented content is that you need to keep the team together long enough to actually do it, I mean that is part of the challenge. I would prefer that most TFs be only about 30-120 min long, by design (not like the Dr. Q. TF in CoX) for this reason.

If I'm getting it wrong (your idea), please tell me.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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