Well I was thinking about those rikiti invasion an began thinking what if Cot's outside events had a more devastating effect. Ex 1:
Say space X Army invade zone with 500 NPC in total. Spread out how the devs see fit. Heroes of that zone come to a total of about 100. The task could be to defeat the 500 before the timer runs out. There will be a hero bar and a invader bar.if you fall once the hero bar will only be effected by your first defeat.if all hero fall once an the bar reaches 0. We lose the zone to the invaders. For losing. The zone is given objectives. No hospital/train/sg/store access. Local enemies are gone replaced with invader patrols, debuff towers/leader types guarding local things that make life easier for the player. Maybe some kind of alien war general needs too be defeated in order to reclaim the zone.
Ex 2: The alien super known as draco is on the loose. It wants too activate its eclipse machine to bring about its full power to control the zone. It's being assisted by the cultist of fate. ( think of those construction workers following that GM) If the GM makes its way threw the city an destroys the four defences ,an activates that machine His power will increase from kraken lvl at base lvl, to crystal Titan as long as the eclipse remains in the sky. It would be like an endurance test this time around.
Makes you really think about the consequences of skipping a zone alert. Having the fate of a zones in the players hands keeps heroes accountable for there way of life. You want too stand on the tallest build, chill by the noobie spawn point, test your max speed over the city skys, or streets have a descent spawning point? Yes!? Good! Just make sure you keep those perks you take for granted protected.
What say you!!!!??
We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.
This is rather akin to GW2's event system, right?
I never played gw2. Just threw that one out there in hopes of keeping busy. Limiting my standing around once I reached max lvl. I was thinking along the lines of logging in. Opening my map. Seeing zones high lighted in red or orange depending on how long the event has been active. Then simply responding. Getting there then forming a plan with others that show up to get the zone back to a normal state.Feeling like a hero should. That kinda deal! Ya know!!
We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.
sounds interesting as long as there are not "defeat this many of x mob" missions that the event could get in the way of.
While many people found zone alerts fun, I loved the zombie invasion one personally, some found them to be a hindrance.
But hey, this idea don't seem too far off from how it was done in COX, although, the clearing the zone of the mob was annoying. I kind of wished it was less "invasive" with those that wished to not partake either because they did it already enough times, not their cup of tea, or busy with other things. Kind of like how CO zone events when they have them are now. A person can go about the zone and play normally or they can go to the rock formations a defeat a bunch of zombies and the Super Villain. Choice. It was a pain in the butt to run some TFs simple do to zones having events especially during rikti invasion week where it seemed non-stop zone to zone.
In short, good stuff, but don't think the local enemy mob that may or may not be needed for mission and the access to stuff should be blocked off in order to funnel people to participate in zone event.
If the zone event is fun, those that it is fun too will come without all the gating stuff and be able to stand on it's own merits. When people must be funneled or nudged to participate usually it's a red flag that even the devs know it isn't too fun to put it in simply they need/want people to do it whether they like it or not because it's someone important's favorite idea.
For those that may not find it fun or enjoyable, allow them to pass unhindered unaffected by the zone events in the task they wish to do.
Or how about a specific invasion zone? Where different enemy groups are trying to invade at times.
Yes! You understand what I was getting at! You're quite right about not forcing players to participate. Got so caught up in the thought I didn't think about it from that perspective. Wouldn't want to screw over peeps in the middle of a TF! I could just see it now! The chat box flooded with all kinds of curses from said player hindered by the event! Great catch!
I welcome any event that adds to the fun factor! Thats my main goal at the end of the day. Fun, fun, fun!!!
We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.
Perhaps 'Phasing' techniques could allow players to Choose whether to be in/enter the 'zone event' or 'normal' version of the zone?
Be Well!
Fireheart
Fire! That heart of yours burns oh so bright!!! Phasing you say! I'll take it!
We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.
Indeed. Good idea.
It should be possible, if the provision is built in ahead of time, to set things up so that, when a zone event occurs, it automatically spawns a second instance of the zone where the event is not occurring (and has the event flagged in the zone instance description when moving from zone to zone), so that if you're in a mission and, say, a Rikti retaliation raid occurs in the zone the mission door was in, you can always choose to exit into the other instance of the zone where the raid isn't going on. More complicated would be code that would throw a pop-up to every player in the zone giving them the option to immediately shuttle to the non-event instance of the zone, but it is at least theoretically doable.
To push further. It would be cool if once we return the zone back too normal defeating the "invasion general". Dialog pops up saying we found the device that ported them to this location. Giving the opportunity to pursue these invaders. Be it a ship above the earth(hello space combat), or a small instant showing a small glimps of the home world of these invaders. Surprising the manifest of invaders as something others than the general returning to their location. Kick more butt of the lower grunts! Defeat the leader, then set bombs in key areas! Jump back threw the portal to be home in time for corn flakes! Hello badge, inf/xp, lore about baddies! The possibilities are there!
We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free.
Now see, THIS would have been a cool ending to a Rikti MS raid! You defeat the pylons, clear the top of the ship, plant the bombs, defeat U'Kon'Gray and then use their own teleport beam to go back to the other end and fight them THERE! That would be EPIC! The lore supports it too because that's what Hero 1 and the rest of the heroes did after the initial wave of the invasion!
Not sure how it would work but this could be WAY COOL!
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
One difference with Rikti Raids vs. Rampaging Monster is that with a single (relatively) stationary monster you can choose to go and fight it, or not. With Rikti and zombies, if you had a few players standing around anywhere in the zone, they'd spawn right next to you and attack.
I think you could combine them, too. Where the main Big Boss is stomping around a given small location, but an army of minions is wreaking havoc in a larger radius around them. Terrorizing civilians, vandalizing property, etc. You could choose to help the locals or take down the Boss. Different achievements for different actions, maybe?
If you're too busy to save the City, avoid the zone or, (if your instance is inside the zone) just zip to entrance.
I like the first one.
The second one, although it's clever, I wouldn't always appreciate it.
Say I spend ten minutes or so getting a group together for a task force. Then, instead of proceeding with the tf, half want to participate in the zone event, and the other want to start the tf. So, for me, I choose the first one. In fact, I really like the first one. Something to encourage the whole zone to work together is a good thing.
Those who have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing. - John Cleese
Given the existing content, I think it would be more easily built off of the Lady Grey Task Force, so that after you defeat the Honoree, you could either destroy the power generators to prevent the gate from being used, or use it yourself to go to the Rikti homeworld and carry out assaults against the Rikti there to cripple their ability to set up another gate, then retreat back through the gate and then destroy the power generators to depower this end of the gate.
I had toyed with the idea of using AE to build what would have had to be at least two mission series based around going to the Rikti homeworld, but it languished for the lack of indoor/outdoor industrial maps (like the 'future Atlas' map from the STF, but leading out into an industrial map like Ghost Falcon's unlock mission map) and the inability to specifically place decorative items to dress out a map. Perhaps I'll get to do something reminiscent of it in CoT.