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Open-World Monster Event(s)

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Dark Cleric
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Open-World Monster Event(s)

So I had an idea that might be interesting in the City of Titans setting...interesting to me, at least. Not sure if they have any 'big monster' lore on the scale of the big tentacle monster in the Upside-Down on the show Stranger Things, but that could be a fun dynamic in this game. There is a parallel universe with either one or a few gigantic monsters with minions or just hordes of normal-large size monsters. There is a small 'tear' somewhere in the game world that is set to expand at a certain rate. Once the tear reaches 100% there is a world event that literally won't go away until defeated by PC's. The monsters spill out into the section of the world where the tear was and have enhanced AI to roam and move randomly so it feels more like a danger than the monsters staying within a block of the tear. The monsters would all be high-level so would be impossible for low-levels to fight. However, this is a great opportunity for low-levels to team up with high level PC's to do the level adjustment and then be able to fight.
PC's can keep the tear from ripping open and/or expanding through different means; killing the few monsters that are able to slip in (because they are small enough) and help open the tear from the other side. PC's can complete quests to find rare temporary containment fields that can help. Devs could also set enemies factions to potentially help open the tear if they want to cause havoc. The code could even take the current number of players online into account to determine how quickly those monsters spawn and/or how quickly the tear begins opening. There can be different lesser events that can influence the tear.

The tear could also have a 'lifetime'; it's not a set it and forget it event. Maybe it only appears for a week or month at a time, after which some other event, or no event, is chosen. This was just a random thought that just popped in my head so I figured I'd jot it down. Having something in the world, a massive dangerous event, that even low level heroes can help influence (through teaming with higher levels for the level adjustment) could be fun. It could also add in a feeling that the world is dynamic and not stale. Like at low levels you might find a path that just happens to skirt all enemies to get to x location and you rely on that path all the time. One day you head off down the path and whammy, you're blocked by some monsters/enemies of some sort that are on a random movement pattern.

I'm sure this idea could be refined to polish any glaring flaws in my logic and not make this event overbearing, I just like the thought of big events like this being able to affect the larger open-world. Not too much, but enough to where you might pay a little more attention to your surroundings in the game because there is a very real threat of wandering enemies or something of that nature.

This would also make for an interesting RP event and discussion as some PC's would spend a lot of their time trying to stop the tear and others would want to open it to 100% for the 'big event'. There might be anti-containment fields that 'villains' could find to tear it open even more, quickening the event.

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Just at first glance I like

Just at first glance I like this idea. I like how it could be a sort of "hero versus villain" activity that's not necessarily direct PvP. There could be badges and or alignment shift consequences for either trying to prevent the tears or encourage them.

Like you say a lot of the "details" could obviously be tinkered with but just as a high-level spitball idea this seems like it would be fun.

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

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I dunno, this sounds a lot

I dunno, this sounds a lot like Ozymandias’s plot in Watchmen, so I’m going to be naturally suspicious...

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:

I dunno, this sounds a lot like Ozymandias’s plot in Watchmen, so I’m going to be naturally suspicious...

Hmmm. Never heard of Ozymandias's or Watchmen...now I'm curious.

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Dark Cleric wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:
Atama wrote:

I dunno, this sounds a lot like Ozymandias’s plot in Watchmen, so I’m going to be naturally suspicious...

Hmmm. Never heard of Ozymandias's or Watchmen...now I'm curious.

You’ve never heard of Watchmen?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

One of the most popular and most critically-acclaimed comic book series ever written. It’s considered one of the best pieces of literature (comic book or otherwise) of the 20th century. You really need to read it sometime, you can get the whole series in one book.

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At first I was going to say

At first I was going to say "a week or a month" seemed excessive for something like this as I might not always want to participate for whatever reason (there were times in CoH that I found the Rikti invasions to be inconvenient), but the way the server will be organized into shards which can be freely jumped to and from there's no reason why there can't be one or more shards with the event going on for a very long time.

"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."

Dark Cleric
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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:
Atama wrote:

I dunno, this sounds a lot like Ozymandias’s plot in Watchmen, so I’m going to be naturally suspicious...

Hmmm. Never heard of Ozymandias's or Watchmen...now I'm curious.

You’ve never heard of Watchmen?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

One of the most popular and most critically-acclaimed comic book series ever written. It’s considered one of the best pieces of literature (comic book or otherwise) of the 20th century. You really need to read it sometime, you can get the whole series in one book.

Interesting. CoH was my first real interaction with the superhero genre, besides cartoons. The only stuff I read growing up was LOTR and R.A. Salvatore...basically a DND nerd. I've never even touched a comic book before...not by choice but because of circumstance (no one close in my life has had comics).

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I’ll say that both DCUO and

I’ll say that both DCUO and CO have the “big villain shows up and random players drop in to stop it” events happening on a regular basis. They seem to both work, but I think CO does a better job, because they literally use big Kaiju-size enemies for this. DCUO just has you fight a really strong villain like Solomon Grundy but having a mob of players against a regular-sized enemy just isn’t as viscerally satisfying.

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:
Atama wrote:

I dunno, this sounds a lot like Ozymandias’s plot in Watchmen, so I’m going to be naturally suspicious...

Hmmm. Never heard of Ozymandias's or Watchmen...now I'm curious.

You’ve never heard of Watchmen?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

One of the most popular and most critically-acclaimed comic book series ever written. It’s considered one of the best pieces of literature (comic book or otherwise) of the 20th century. You really need to read it sometime, you can get the whole series in one book.

I think I recently just mentioned (on another thread) how much a lot of people don't really know about specific comic book details. Q.E.D. ;)

P.S. To be honest even my knowledge of the Watchmen doesn't go much past the movie they made a few years ago even though I have actually known for decades that it's supposed to be one of the best comic book series ever written. For me it's simply another of about 50,000 various things I haven't gotten around to reading yet...

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Atama wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:
Atama wrote:

I dunno, this sounds a lot like Ozymandias’s plot in Watchmen, so I’m going to be naturally suspicious...

Hmmm. Never heard of Ozymandias's or Watchmen...now I'm curious.

You’ve never heard of Watchmen?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

One of the most popular and most critically-acclaimed comic book series ever written. It’s considered one of the best pieces of literature (comic book or otherwise) of the 20th century. You really need to read it sometime, you can get the whole series in one book.

I think I recently just mentioned (on another thread) how much a lot of people don't really know about specific comic book details. Q.E.D. ;)

P.S. To be honest even my knowledge of the Watchmen doesn't go much past the movie they made a few years ago even though I have actually known for decades that it's supposed to be one of the best comic book series ever written. For me it's simply another of about 50,000 various things I haven't gotten around to reading yet...

The comic is so much better than the movie.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Lothic wrote:
Atama wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:
Atama wrote:

I dunno, this sounds a lot like Ozymandias’s plot in Watchmen, so I’m going to be naturally suspicious...

Hmmm. Never heard of Ozymandias's or Watchmen...now I'm curious.

You’ve never heard of Watchmen?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen

One of the most popular and most critically-acclaimed comic book series ever written. It’s considered one of the best pieces of literature (comic book or otherwise) of the 20th century. You really need to read it sometime, you can get the whole series in one book.

I think I recently just mentioned (on another thread) how much a lot of people don't really know about specific comic book details. Q.E.D. ;)

P.S. To be honest even my knowledge of the Watchmen doesn't go much past the movie they made a few years ago even though I have actually known for decades that it's supposed to be one of the best comic book series ever written. For me it's simply another of about 50,000 various things I haven't gotten around to reading yet...

The comic is so much better than the movie.

Please... you might as well have said the sky is blue. Isn't the "book" ALWAYS better than the "movie"? ;)

P.S. For the record I wasn't even trying to suggest that one was better than the other. I was simply pointing out that I have yet to bother with the book which is no great surprise for me considering how may other things I haven't bothered to read yet.

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There have been a few movie

There have been a few movie adaptations that were as good or better than the book/play/previous movie they were based on.

It can be a bit debatable but movies like The Princess Bride and carpenter's version of The Thing are usually on that list, among others.

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TheInternetJanitor wrote:
TheInternetJanitor wrote:

There have been a few movie adaptations that were as good or better than the book/play/previous movie they were based on.

You guys are just trotting out the "greatest hits" today - the fact that there are just a "few" movies that are as good or better than the original sources basically provides the exception that proves the rule. ;)

Anyway there are obviously always going to be at least -some- examples where the movies are plainly better.

TheInternetJanitor wrote:

It can be a bit debatable but movies like The Princess Bride and carpenter's version of The Thing are usually on that list, among others.

Yes it's hard to beat those. Another one of my personal favorites is the American version of "Let Me In" which is collectively based on both the original Swedish novel/movie "Let the Right One In". The originals in this case are good but somehow the American remake managed to reformulate the story in such a way as to make the plot more well paced and dramatic. Almost everything about it (acting, writing, etc.) is fundamentally "better" than the original novel/movie.

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Now only if the Girl With A

Now only if the Girl With A Dragon Tatoo American version was better than the Swedish version, which was so so SO MUCH better.

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I'm pretty much game for any

I'm pretty much game for any big monster fight, no matter the flavor, from giant robots to Cthulu-inspired starspawn.

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With watchmen though it's

With watchmen though it's pretty much night and day.

The movie nailed the look but completely failed on the themes of the book.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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CoH had some big monsters

CoH had some big monsters that used to spawn in various places at various times. One of them, Sally, the Salamanca Lake Monster was hard to find sometimes, I'm told. I think she spawned after you did the Katie Hannon TF too? Anyway, GW2 also has events that spawn in the open world. In that game, they happen at regular, known, time intervals that you can set your watch to. Some fire off every 20 min, some every hour, some every day, etc. Their wiki has a schedule that ticks down the spawns in real time I believe (as in, the wiki gives you a timer that you can watch where it says "Next spawn in 00:12:34" or whatever. Tequatl the Sunless spawns twice a day (at least that's as often as anyone fights him, early show and late show). I liked having those spawn timers at my fingertips playing GW2 better than the total unpredictability of CoH. Also, the CoH events that spawned used to overwrite the other badguy mob spawns in the zone, so if you had a defeat 50 Family quote as part of a TF, you had to wait it out if the event spawned at a bad time. I think we need to really try hard to AVOID repeating that problem, at the very least.

Personally, I wouldn't make any in-game event happen unannounced or at random, because in order to enjoy it, the players have to know when to be there. I think its also good to have several of them at different times and on different days, to allow as many players as possible the opportunity to do the content. Partially for badge access, partially just because you want the players to be able to play the game.

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I imagine an in-game group of

I imagine an in-game group of NPC's all around the city at random times yelling out updates like "The Tear is 50% open!" or something to that effect that can give PC's updated information about the event. Ideally it would be in an area mainly traveled by high-level characters so as not to roadblock the low-level PC's. Even if there were mission entrances around the event, travel powers should help reach them without too much difficulty.

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If I remember right Sally

If I remember right Sally spawned once every three hours or something and then again after the task fore too like you said. I remember a badge for seeing her three times if memory serves.

It does seem like a nice idea to have some shards dedicated to special events/monsters and such while other shards don't participate for those that don’t care for it. A nice way to have multiple world events going simultaneously if needed/wanted by players.

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While I understand that some

While I understand that some folks would like to have giant monsters and other events happen on a predictable timer, my own preference would be to reproduce the semi-random occurrences of the old game. I liked that you never knew when most monsters would appear, because it made it all the more special when it did happen, with people on various channels announcing 'Lusca's up!' etc. In Praetoria the world mini-events were on a timer that appeared when you were nearby, and I found that to be kinda dull.

I do agree with Riptide that these events shouldn't go on for too long or they start to interfere with normal play. Anyone remember the Endless Night of the Halloween event? Putting long-term events on a separate shard might be a solution, but it would depend on how easy that is for MWM to manage and how announcements would be handled. I wouldn't want isolating such events to result in limited participation.

As for Sally, she appeared about once every 30-45 minutes. To get the badge, one had to defeat her twice, but it took only one hit to defeat her and she didn't fight back.

One question for the OP: you mentioned that low-level characters would have to team up in order to fight the monsters in your suggested event. Is this essential to your plan? I would prefer that any such event be like those in the old game, where a giant monster conned the same to every character regardless of level, so that if you showed up and there wasn't room on a team you could still participate.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

One question for the OP: you mentioned that low-level characters would have to team up in order to fight the monsters in your suggested event. Is this essential to your plan? I would prefer that any such event be like those in the old game, where a giant monster conned the same to every character regardless of level, so that if you showed up and there wasn't room on a team you could still participate.

Definitely not essential to my idea. Was just an idea as I was thinking of it. This big, open-world monster event idea would be completely random and not around all the time. Maybe 10% of the year? That's an arbitrary number, just implying not enough to where players feel like it interferes with their game play all the time but often enough to be big fun events.

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I really like this idea.

I really like this idea. Especially if there is more than just one big monster you can fight on this map like you mentioned. Maybe theres a mission on this same map where you have to enter a crack on the ground to find an underground base where they store fuel cells to replace the containment field devices. And you have to fight monsters that have snuck in through the tears. Or another mission where they make replacement parts for the devices and you have to protect the machines from the monsters that want to destroy them.

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Dark Cleric wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:

I imagine an in-game group of NPC's all around the city at random times yelling out updates like "The Tear is 50% open!" or something to that effect that can give PC's updated information about the event. Ideally it would be in an area mainly traveled by high-level characters so as not to roadblock the low-level PC's.

Why would some random NPC announce the percentage of the onset of the doom of the world? Are they complicit in some way? If they are, why announce it unless it was a form of disinformation? Have they seen something like this before and they remember the aperture being roughly twice as big when the big monster emerged?

There should be a lot more social engineering around determining what is going on and how far along things are progressing. Do some research in the library to see if something like this happened in the past (and what signs precipitated it). Interrogate The Regency to figure out what they have been up to (doing something out of the ordinary, going way out of their way to put their eggs in one basket, etc). Confront the signs directly (fight the heralds of doom and maybe they have a clue on them).

If there is just some jabroni on the sidewalk saying "The Cthuloid of doom will be here in 5 hours 37 minutes and 48 seconds", I'll just ignore it, go about my business for five hours then pay attention for the loot piñata groups. That is not the game I want to play.

Another thing to consider is that events like this must be communicated to the potential user so they know something like this can happen way up front (before they create their first character). More often than not (from my experience), when there is some world event in a MMO a vocal minority will get their panties in a bunch because they can't do X because of the stupid event (aka, NPC or quest requirements not available). They need to understand that this is a part of the game, not just some developer pet project that will come and go in a matter of days or weeks (never to be seen again, or reoccur annually on the dot).

"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit

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Yeah. I'd rather see a game

Yeah. I'd rather see a game UI telling us, not something a group of civvies would not be yelling. That's just lame.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Yeah. I'd rather see a game UI telling us, not something a group of civvies would not be yelling. That's just lame.

Not random people, obviously. People that would be most likely to know... like the police...I thought that much logic would be obvious...

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I feel like police would be

I feel like police would be yelling other things like, "We need all heroes to help close the rift!" or "All civilians stay clear of this zone!"

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Wolfgang8565 wrote:
Wolfgang8565 wrote:

I feel like police would be yelling other things like, "We need all heroes to help close the rift!" or "All civilians stay clear of this zone!"

Yeah, air raid sirens going off; public address systems blaring for everyone to evacuate or go to your nearest emergency shelter, police cars blockading the roads; news helicopters swarming. All this can be phased into the city without too much problem when a world event like this kicks off.


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

Maybe if it was an NPC hero calling it out as everyone fought.

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I actually preferred the

I actually preferred the endingthe movie used rather than the graphic novel's ending. It's a very comic book trope ending.

Other than that of course the graphic novel is much better, although I thought they did a good adaptation with the movie.

Another good g.n series to read is DCs Kingdom Come.

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Solid idea, Dark Cleric. The

Solid idea, Dark Cleric. The various mechanics suggested are all enticing. Endorsed!

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FFXIV actually has something

FFXIV actually has something like this, with three different ranks of open world monsters called “elite hunts”. There are B, A, and S ranks. B ranks can be tackled solo if you’re the same level as the monster. But it can be a kinda tough fight so you get rewards; only, however, if that target one that was specifically requested on wanted posters.

A ranks can be found in the world as well, but you need a party of 4 to 8 to have a good shot at taking it down.

Then there are the S Ranks. These are the uber tough mega monsters, with insane mechanics and HP. These ones spawn occasionally under very specific circumstances, and require large groups of multiple parties to group up and take them down.

A and S ranks give rewards, no matter whether they are requested or not, upon defeat.

People in FFXIV tend not to really like hunts, mostly because the reward structure is kind of wonky. But I LOVE them, not for the rewards, but for the extra engagement with the world and the community of the game. Also for the sake of just hunting them. There’s some neat lore and great game mechanics in the FFXIV hunts.

So consider me a proponent for putting open world monster spawns into CoT!

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While I enjoy the occasional

While I enjoy the occasional open world Giant Monster, I found them to appear way too often for my tastes in FFXIV. I don't know if this has changed since I played, but sometimes you'd finish with one and another would pop up nearby immediately afterwards. I hope in CoT they occur much more rarely than that.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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Cinnder wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

While I enjoy the occasional open world Giant Monster, I found them to appear way too often for my tastes in FFXIV. I don't know if this has changed since I played, but sometimes you'd finish with one and another would pop up nearby immediately afterwards. I hope in CoT they occur much more rarely than that.

I agree. They should be rare enough to be unique and exciting. Definitely not something that players should fee like is a permanent event in-game.

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Dark Cleric wrote:
Dark Cleric wrote:
Cinnder wrote:

While I enjoy the occasional open world Giant Monster, I found them to appear way too often for my tastes in FFXIV. I don't know if this has changed since I played, but sometimes you'd finish with one and another would pop up nearby immediately afterwards. I hope in CoT they occur much more rarely than that.

I agree. They should be rare enough to be unique and exciting. Definitely not something that players should fee like is a permanent event in-game.

This has not been my experience with monster hunts in FFXIV. The B ranks spawn five seconds later on a completely different corner yes. They’re not AS special. A ranks have spawn timers of 2 to 6 hours. S ranks have timers of 48 to 72 hours after which they will only spawn if specific conditions are met. I do think they have changed the mechanics to make them more special and rare since they were first implemented.

That said I’m not saying FFXIV’s hunts should be copied exactly. I was mostly providing an example of the kind of open world content that’s roughly similar to what is being suggested and voicing approval. I’m all for making the events and monsters “more rare”, as I agree it would feel extra special

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I forgot about the hunts in

I forgot about the hunts in FF14, not doing too many myself. I had thought people meant FATEs from FF14. Which would be another good system to draw inspiration from.

For those not in the know, they were smaller missions with some objectives usually killing x number of spawns or defeating a larger, more powerful creature.

Things like that could really work in a super hero MMO. Building fires, crashed armored cars, supervillain's minions followed by a boss fight. Could even make them dual sided, having those who want to be bad/earn rep with certain factions set a thing in motion then have those who wish to do good stop said thing.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Could even make them dual sided, having those who want to be bad/earn rep with certain factions set a thing in motion then have those who wish to do good stop said thing.

I totally thought of the Allstate Mayhem guy when you were talking about being able to "set things in motion":

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

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I think a lot of FFXIV should

I think a lot of FFXIV should be heavily copied, as I find it has a good system in place.

I also feel the giant monster attacks, which I would put in a city, shouldn't be all the time, but should be in game. Either with a time trigger or a completion trigger.

Finish this task force and such and such giant monster attacks.

Some could be totally random and by random, I wouldn't mind a once every week, two weeks or month type monster. Somethings can just take awhile to obtain. Nothing wrong with that.

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As a monster hunter on

As a monster hunter on Champion, I found it a complete and utter joy to come together and take down a big ol' baddie. And the fact that achievements/accolades/prizes were awarded for them was, for me, a bonus. Now, wait three hours for something to spawn? That seems excessive. Thirty minutes, maybe an hour, tops. Not everyone has the kind of time to commit to online gaming that they could in the past. People should just be able to log in, find a thing, knock it out. Or, as suggested above, make it also triggerable by a solo player. In fact, have the monster be scalable. If a single person is going through the effort of triggering a baddo, they should get a version that they can take down themselves. Or maybe not, as while I was typing this, I considered how that might be abusable. Either way, food for thought.

P.S.: the badge for Sally was Believer and it was for taking her down twice.

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CoH had a least on GM I

CoH had a least on GM I believe spawnable by doing a Taskforce.

That seems like a good way to make Giant Monsters spawn. However, I still feel some more giant monsters on longer timers is perfectly okay. Can't wait a long time, or upset that it wasn't there at the then and now, oh well.

Giant Monsters should be some sort of event. Not attacking every hour just so people can get a badge.

That said, I'd do 10/100/1000 kills of giant monster badge, just so people are always willing to kill them when they pop :p

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Yeah It would get pretty old

Yeah It would get pretty old fast if a GM appeared every hour in the same spot and did the same thing.

It needs to be a bit more rare than that.

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Wolfgang8565 wrote:
Wolfgang8565 wrote:

Yeah It would get pretty old fast if a GM appeared every hour in the same spot and did the same thing.

It needs to be a bit more rare than that.

As someone that misses a lot of events in MMOs thanks to a weird schedule, I think more often is better.
Randomized locations, settings, and options on a consistent timer seems like a better compromise.

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I do enjoy open world events

I do enjoy open world events but I do feel the more "casual friendly" they are made the better, so that it brings people together, rather than something gated by difficulty or organization/game knowledge.

I think ESO and GW2 had great open world implementation, though obviously something more tailors to the game being made would be preferable.

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I think there should always

I think there should always be room for content that people can look at and say, "someday I want to participate in that" And I prefer to think that this divide comes from a need for organization, not power levels.

With horizontal progression, expanding the offerings of endgame content can not be just stacking hit points and attack power on mobs ad infinitum like other games. It has to include other options that provide challenge to end-game players. This is especially true for this game because it is going to try so hard to make sure that any combination of archetypes can potentially compete, meaning that mechanics centered around "trinity" roles are not even in contention. So, really, the only option remaining would be team organization and coordination.

From a personal point of view, I have the most fun in MMO when I attempt content for the first time, or with inexperienced players, and together we fail but grow and learn together and eventually succeed by the sweat off our brows. Nothing can compare to that feeling of pride and accomplishment in the MMO realm.


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

Going off the idea of an incursion from an alternate dimension, the event could look something like this.

There is an "Announcement" period where where we are being warned of an "Odd Event" or series of events happening in X zone.
- Warning of event are periodically announced in chat. (possibly an NPC making the announcement that is on site)
- This is purely a build up to announce the event (player cannot effect said event yet).
- The announcement phase could run up to weeks in advance of the actual event.

The event is reaching critical mass.
- Players are able to start effecting said event.
- Players are able to chose whether to advance event or try to block it. (NPC on site to declare which "side" you are choosing with option to stop participating at any time)
- "Fetch Quests" or some type of repeatable missions to increase which faction is winning influencing the event.
- PvP options to influence the event. (Ratios of influence between PvE and PvP will need balancing. Maybe a 2 to1 ration in favor of PvP?)
- Optional > Possible to end event early without the incursion happening? (Heroes winning the buildup phase)

Incursion Phase
- Free roaming monsters in zone with a Boss near rift
- Similar ways to influence Incursion phase as previous phase. (NPC to declare sides with both PvP and PvE content)
- Boss always repelled at end of event.
- Possibly leave free roaming monster in zone til next incursion event if pro-incursion faction wins? (rift would remain, but be unable to influence again)

Rewards would be badges for various event phases/faction outcomes and an event currency to purchase from a list of rewards?

It's kind of a rough draft and would need tweaking, but I can see something along these lines doing well.

Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die.

Protect the pack kid, no matter how much it hurts. If everyone else in the pack is safe, you can carry on or die knowing you've done your duty. - Fanfiction

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id love giant monsters

id love giant monsters spawnable by taskforces.

that way my evil supergroup can do a bunch of taskforces at the same time... spawn all the giant monsters in noob zones and cackle as chaos ensues!

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This discussion can be

This discussion can be stretched a bit to include any open world event that is designed to draw players in to participate, not just giant monsters. Having events that excite players and draw them to a location for a common goal is a great way to foster camaraderie and community.

Giant monsters are a fantastic and very comic book example of this, but it can be almost anything that constitutes a crisis. Invasions of aliens, demons, fish people, etc can work. Supervillains with hordes of minions and a superweapon. There are many possibilities. Having a variety of events can really help it feel more organic. It also means you could have a more dynamic event director script for a server that can work with player and event data to determine when players are fairly spread out combined with how long it has been since the last event and trigger one. Many games (left 4 dead, vermintide) use this kind of logic to try to keep a decent gameplay flow and ensure there are spikes of excitement and lulls to relax without going too far to either extreme. This also allows for some randomness so you won't just be setting your watch by the 5 o clock monster attack every day.

Finally, giving players an option to force big events is another cool option that helps respect people's time, something developers often disregard. If enough players get together on their own and decide they want to fight a big bad, they should absolutely be able to do so. Perhaps manually requested crisis events could be handled in an instance rather than the open world, however, as a more traditional raid event. This would prevent a powerful guild from raining constant doom on the general public, allow for the sort of farm controlling cooldown timers other games have used for successful raids to ensure a power guild doesn't instantly obtain all the most powerful loot in the game, and still allow players to see impressive epic scale events on their own schedule.

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TheInternetJanitor wrote:
TheInternetJanitor wrote:

This discussion can be stretched a bit to include any open world event that is designed to draw players in to participate, not just giant monsters. Having events that excite players and draw them to a location for a common goal is a great way to foster camaraderie and community.

Giant monsters are a fantastic and very comic book example of this, but it can be almost anything that constitutes a crisis. Invasions of aliens, demons, fish people, etc can work. Supervillains with hordes of minions and a superweapon. There are many possibilities. Having a variety of events can really help it feel more organic. It also means you could have a more dynamic event director script for a server that can work with player and event data to determine when players are fairly spread out combined with how long it has been since the last event and trigger one. Many games (left 4 dead, vermintide) use this kind of logic to try to keep a decent gameplay flow and ensure there are spikes of excitement and lulls to relax without going too far to either extreme. This also allows for some randomness so you won't just be setting your watch by the 5 o clock monster attack every day.

Finally, giving players an option to force big events is another cool option that helps respect people's time, something developers often disregard. If enough players get together on their own and decide they want to fight a big bad, they should absolutely be able to do so. Perhaps manually requested crisis events could be handled in an instance rather than the open world, however, as a more traditional raid event. This would prevent a powerful guild from raining constant doom on the general public, allow for the sort of farm controlling cooldown timers other games have used for successful raids to ensure a power guild doesn't instantly obtain all the most powerful loot in the game, and still allow players to see impressive epic scale events on their own schedule.

I agree. I actually made those points, more or less, in my OP:

Dark Cleric wrote:

...a few gigantic monsters with minions or just hordes of normal-large size monsters.

In this case monsters could be anything relative 'normal' size; monsters, aliens, demons, etc etc etc. That's why I differentiated between the gigantic size and normal-large size to include everything and multiple types of events.

and

Dark Cleric wrote:

This would also make for an interesting RP event and discussion as some PC's would spend a lot of their time trying to stop the tear and others would want to open it to 100% for the 'big event'. There might be anti-containment fields that 'villains' could find to tear it open even more, quickening the event.

I agree that it would be fun to include events where players can influence the timing and existence of events themselves.

Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.

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We had some ideas like this

We had some ideas like this in another thread called "Complex Bosses" acouple years ago. That was a discussion of how to make bosses more challenging by making them more interesting interesting rather than just being bigger and bigger bags of hit points.

here is one such post about a variant to the chase style boss:
"I can see a chase boss in the open world, too. One variant of it could be just your average bag of a zillion hp (I know, that's the opposite of what the OP suggested, but stick with me) but with an irresistable trajectory to the center of town. Imagine something like the colossus from Cloverfield, spawning homicidal man-sized mites that drop off it as it trudges into the center of Titan City with the same kind of invasion mechanic like we see in Rift. It leaves world-changing destruction in its wake and if it makes it into the center of town it will dig in, set up camp and build even tougher defenses. All services and NPCs will be defunct or relocated to the outskirts of town (so people can still do a limited amount of other content) kind of like when your capital city got captured in Warhammer. So during its path across the world, the heroes/villians have only so much time to stop it, all the while running into not just the spawning mites but the indiginous gangs and ne'erdowells that populate the world. It wouldn't have to be a colossus, it could be an alien invasion dreadnaught, or a necromancer animating all the dead in the lands he walks over with an aura of constant AoE death around him, or an enormous radioactive sea cucumber looking for his son Nematode. All with the common element being a slow but steady march of destruction the players have to delay or stop before it gets worse.

Can you imagine being a lowbie on the first day of playing the game and you see all the great heroes and villians in such a desperate slugfest across the world? Talk about awe!"

Quite a few people did not like the idea of shutting down normal activities in the area where the monster is, but I still think that doing so provides even more incentive for more participation. It just can't be such a regular occurrence that it becomes a hassle for the people who just want to get through some quest chains.

I'm sure there are other ideas, such as this List of Required Giant Monsters thread, which Cyclops started a while back but was still active a few months ago.


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

We had some ideas like this in another thread called "Complex Bosses" acouple years ago. That was a discussion of how to make bosses more challenging by making them more interesting interesting rather than just being bigger and bigger bags of hit points.

here is one such post about a variant to the chase style boss:
"I can see a chase boss in the open world, too. One variant of it could be just your average bag of a zillion hp (I know, that's the opposite of what the OP suggested, but stick with me) but with an irresistable trajectory to the center of town. Imagine something like the colossus from Cloverfield, spawning homicidal man-sized mites that drop off it as it trudges into the center of Titan City with the same kind of invasion mechanic like we see in Rift. It leaves world-changing destruction in its wake and if it makes it into the center of town it will dig in, set up camp and build even tougher defenses. All services and NPCs will be defunct or relocated to the outskirts of town (so people can still do a limited amount of other content) kind of like when your capital city got captured in Warhammer. So during its path across the world, the heroes/villians have only so much time to stop it, all the while running into not just the spawning mites but the indiginous gangs and ne'erdowells that populate the world. It wouldn't have to be a colossus, it could be an alien invasion dreadnaught, or a necromancer animating all the dead in the lands he walks over with an aura of constant AoE death around him, or an enormous radioactive sea cucumber looking for his son Nematode. All with the common element being a slow but steady march of destruction the players have to delay or stop before it gets worse.

Can you imagine being a lowbie on the first day of playing the game and you see all the great heroes and villians in such a desperate slugfest across the world? Talk about awe!"

Quite a few people did not like the idea of shutting down normal activities in the area where the monster is, but I still think that doing so provides even more incentive for more participation. It just can't be such a regular occurrence that it becomes a hassle for the people who just want to get through some quest chains.

I'm sure there are other ideas, such as this List of Required Giant Monsters thread, which Cyclops started a while back but was still active a few months ago.

I like this, thanks for sharing. I would say that even this kind of scenario shouldn't impede low-level players TOO much if the events are focused in places that tend to be traveled more by high-level players but also travel powers should help dodging events like this. This was pretty common for me in CoH to get to places I wanted to go when I either didn't feel like dealing with enemies or needed to avoid the purples altogether to get this...fly over them, super speed around them, super jump over them...etc.

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One thing I hope CoT does

One thing I hope CoT does with open world events like this is allow everyone to participate regardless of level. I might be misremembering, but didn't CoX use a system where big open world events had enemies that scaled regardless of player's level? The level was never shown as a number the way it was for regular enemies and any combat interaction was treated as being player level + X for the purpose of determining damage rolls and the like. So a new character could still engage and participate, the only differences between them and a max level being the extra abilities and enhancements but not the massive difference in stats inherent in levels.

Perhaps I am thinking of another game that used such a system. It has been a long time.

My main point is that it would mean that such events would always be relevant and of interest to players (you wouldn't outlevel them), while also allowing everyone to participate. Both of these are desirable goals for big events, especially if such events were somewhat rare, varied, or random in order to make them more exciting.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

We had some ideas like this in another thread called "Complex Bosses" acouple years ago. That was a discussion of how to make bosses more challenging by making them more interesting interesting rather than just being bigger and bigger bags of hit points.

here is one such post about a variant to the chase style boss:
"I can see a chase boss in the open world, too. One variant of it could be just your average bag of a zillion hp (I know, that's the opposite of what the OP suggested, but stick with me) but with an irresistable trajectory to the center of town. Imagine something like the colossus from Cloverfield, spawning homicidal man-sized mites that drop off it as it trudges into the center of Titan City with the same kind of invasion mechanic like we see in Rift. It leaves world-changing destruction in its wake and if it makes it into the center of town it will dig in, set up camp and build even tougher defenses. All services and NPCs will be defunct or relocated to the outskirts of town (so people can still do a limited amount of other content) kind of like when your capital city got captured in Warhammer. So during its path across the world, the heroes/villians have only so much time to stop it, all the while running into not just the spawning mites but the indiginous gangs and ne'erdowells that populate the world. It wouldn't have to be a colossus, it could be an alien invasion dreadnaught, or a necromancer animating all the dead in the lands he walks over with an aura of constant AoE death around him, or an enormous radioactive sea cucumber looking for his son Nematode. All with the common element being a slow but steady march of destruction the players have to delay or stop before it gets worse.

Can you imagine being a lowbie on the first day of playing the game and you see all the great heroes and villians in such a desperate slugfest across the world? Talk about awe!"

Quite a few people did not like the idea of shutting down normal activities in the area where the monster is, but I still think that doing so provides even more incentive for more participation. It just can't be such a regular occurrence that it becomes a hassle for the people who just want to get through some quest chains.

Love this idea. Very much for the impact on the world. A temporary cessation of services would be more interesting/immersive than a mission dispenser standing there stupidly as the giant shambling mound loafs by. A potential solution to the service interruption and resulting potential annoying could be just repositioning said services to different areas across the zone for the duration of the event.

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** The best giant monster is

** The best giant monster is an armadillo. it could burrow underground, pop up in the middle of the city, tear open the side of a skyscraper, and use its long sticky tongue to eat office workers. With it's armor plating it could be immune to conventional military weapons.

The perfect giant monster!

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

** The best giant monster is an armadillo. it could burrow underground, pop up in the middle of the city, tear open the side of a skyscraper, and use its long sticky tongue to eat office workers. With it's armor plating it could be immune to conventional military weapons.

The perfect giant monster!

Pangolin?

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Yep, same thing pretty much!

Yep, same thing pretty much!

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Goofy giant monsters have a

Goofy giant monsters have a special place in my heart. It doesn't have to be a grimdark brutal horror murder monster. There are already storylines planned for more "classic comic" feeling stuff and more gritty stories, having events designed with different flavors like that would be great.

Having a giant mole monster, robot, etc would fit flawlessly into that caped hero aesthetic, but something more gruesome would be offputting for those looking for a more sanitized adventure. There is definitely going to be an interest in scary stuff, having it in the game would be great. It just might not want to be dropped into disneytown while the people looking for a sin city story are probably not going to enjoy having donald and mickey ask them to save candyland from the gumdrop menace.

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One benefit of predictable

One benefit of predictable sub-events within a larger event, is the ability for the player base to organize something to coincide,

I fondly remember the Drop Ship raids, and the unanticipated (by the devs at the planning stage) community response: Mobs of PCs gathering near the potential emerging points. Chasing ships across the sky and cheering as they crashed and burned. One of our mobs managed to take down every ship in one of those raids.

The odd thing was, the players got nothing for it in-game. No badges, rewards, special drops, etc. But they did it all the same, just for the fun and to say they had, and "It's what heroes do." *grin*

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vrghr wrote:
vrghr wrote:

One benefit of predictable sub-events within a larger event, is the ability for the player base to organize something to coincide,

I fondly remember the Drop Ship raids, and the unanticipated (by the devs at the planning stage) community response: Mobs of PCs gathering near the potential emerging points. Chasing ships across the sky and cheering as they crashed and burned. One of our mobs managed to take down every ship in one of those raids.

The odd thing was, the players got nothing for it in-game. No badges, rewards, special drops, etc. But they did it all the same, just for the fun and to say they had, and "It's what heroes do." *grin*

you mean one of these? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZHWhE6JQ_U

All Purpose Frog

Wait until you see the... nope, that would ruin the surprise.

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JWBullfrog wrote:
JWBullfrog wrote:
vrghr wrote:

One benefit of predictable sub-events within a larger event, is the ability for the player base to organize something to coincide,

I fondly remember the Drop Ship raids, and the unanticipated (by the devs at the planning stage) community response: Mobs of PCs gathering near the potential emerging points. Chasing ships across the sky and cheering as they crashed and burned. One of our mobs managed to take down every ship in one of those raids.

The odd thing was, the players got nothing for it in-game. No badges, rewards, special drops, etc. But they did it all the same, just for the fun and to say they had, and "It's what heroes do." *grin*

you mean one of these? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZHWhE6JQ_U

Hmmm. Smart aliens might introduce mini flyer drones to counter a hero swarm attack. But MWM would never do something like that...

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[
vrghr wrote:

One benefit of predictable sub-events within a larger event, is the ability for the player base to organize something to coincide,

I fondly remember the Drop Ship raids, and the unanticipated (by the devs at the planning stage) community response: Mobs of PCs gathering near the potential emerging points. Chasing ships across the sky and cheering as they crashed and burned. One of our mobs managed to take down every ship in one of those raids.

The odd thing was, the players got nothing for it in-game. No badges, rewards, special drops, etc. But they did it all the same, just for the fun and to say they had, and "It's what heroes do." *grin*

The reason there were no "tangible rewards" for destroying those Drop Ships was that, at least initially, the Devs genuinely thought that it was going to be virtually impossible to ever kill them. In fact the players themselves are mostly to blame for how relatively hard they were to kill by the time they were released on the live servers.

The reason for this is when those Drop Ships were first beta tested clever players quickly realized they were vulnerable to Slow powers. Once you had a bunch of players toss Slow Mez powers on those ships they could be virtually stopped in their tracks making them almost trivial to kill at that point.

So by the time the Drop Ships were finally "released" to the live servers they had be given huge defense buffs against Slow powers making them killable only when you had like several dozen players all working on them at the same time.

This is why there were no "rewards" for killing them. The Devs knew the only way they could be killed was with a large number of players all working together which didn't really happen that often, especially on the lower-pop servers. They didn't want something like a badge to be "trapped" on something that required that many people all willing to work together on it for an "open world" event.

If CoT decides to include something like Rikti Drop Ships I hope they will follow CoH's lead by -not- providing any kind of special reward/badge for it for the same reasons. It should be reward enough to kill something that's not "supposed" to be killable in the first place. ;)

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

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Atama wrote:
Atama wrote:

I’ll say that both DCUO and CO have the “big villain shows up and random players drop in to stop it” events happening on a regular basis. They seem to both work, but I think CO does a better job, because they literally use big Kaiju-size enemies for this. DCUO just has you fight a really strong villain like Solomon Grundy but having a mob of players against a regular-sized enemy just isn’t as viscerally satisfying.

CO's were not as good as live events, but better than City of Heroes. Their invasions ended after a fixed amount of time (every hour or whatever) regardless of whether the locals successfully fended it off.

I recall a zombie invasion of the Arachnos hq zone, forget the name :( and we defenders got our butt handed to us. Then they all just left.

Personally I would have them hold the zone at that point until evicted. I have never been a fan of the sentiment that something is wrong with a game because someone's journey to level is interrupted.

This is based on the most exciting moments in MMOs I've ever had. (Another is doing a dungeon for the first time in a PUG and nobody had done it before. Great time figuring out the puzzles. Warcraft raids where you must memorize all the rolls and what the monsters do and stages, FREAKING YUCK! That is the opposite of adventure excitement.)

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The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.