So, like some of you, I'm one of those players that makes a lot of alts. I *need* to build more characters, to explore concepts, to experiment with looks and personalities and backgrounds. I can make a dozen different toons with the same class/build and not see any of them as derivative... right up until I'm running that story arc in zone 2 with the same powers/gear/etc. I need to make a lot of alts, but I don't need to level them all to max. But I do wish I could get more functionality out of them other than replaying the same content (and no, I'm not capable of intentionally skipping some content with some characters to keep it fresh for other characters... I'm just not wired that way).
Lately the games I'm playing most are SWTOR and STO. I keep looking at their Legacy, Companion, and Bridge Crew systems, and wishing there was a little more to them (Bridge crew is awesome... it really helps with my altitis, since I can build a character and apply a backstory without burning a character slot). Wouldn't it be great if I could use an alt as a companion, or on my bridge? Not just build a crewman that looks like an alt and uses the same name, or build a swtor alt that's a clone of another character's NPC companion just to hammer the screw into place... But a way to incorporate alts as support characters in each other's story, and have the changes the alts go through (levelling, gear, factional alliances/enmities, their own story choices) relevant to their contribution as a support character.
I'm not suggesting anything mandatory. Not saying you have to build extra characters to unlock any significant functionality in the game... just that there'd be a potential for those that do to tie them together if desired.
People have already suggested having alts or other SG members wandering about bases, even when they're offline, to make them appear more lived-in. Perhaps even allow bases to have a roster, complete with ranks or titles that only appear when the character is in the base. Heck, even allow friends to volunteer their characters for each others' personal bases to add a little more variety.[color=red]*[/color]
Never did care for the SWTOR Legacy system. It was a nice thought but the implementation was clumsy in the extreme.
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[color=red]*[/color] This could also allow a small group of people to act as their own little supergroup without having to form a proper SG, perhaps even because they're deliberately an informal, "off the books" group.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I kinda of see what you're getting at, but I think most of the "NPC" toons you'd design would end up being the Lois Lane/Jimmy Olsen type of support people and not costumed heroes/villains per se. If they're support characters, they're not terribly compelling, which is kind of the point of using them as window dressing. If they are costumed types, then you'd naturally want to do content with them and have them fighting crime, etc.
There was also the idea of the "Sidekick bot" type NPC thats a toon you build, but is driven by some kind of Mastermind Pet A.I. I'm not sure how much I like that as a thing, because two warm bodies putting out superpowers is way better than one, if you synergize the powers and A.I. right. I can't say I'm 100% in favor of giving EVERY toon that much power. For one thing people would have no really good reason to team up with other people, and for another I think most people would just try to min/max the duo instead of doing it for RP reasons.
I know people say that "Look, if a player just wants to solo, let them. Make everything soloable." I disagree. Some fights against some giant monsters or archvillans ought to be too much for any one character to handle, thus requiring a team. Also, people will have lots of opportunity to solo as it stands now. Eliminating reasons for teaming up actively destroys part of the game, to me (the team up part). Without teamups, everything feels like one guy's story arc all the time. So I dislike the idea of giving everyone the option of having a sidekick bot because it makes actual teamups between players largely unnecessary/obsolete. I feel like in that world, way too many people are just going to make a DPS machine with a healbot sidekick and then never talk to (or listen to) anyone ever.
As far as leveling and content goes, I would assume there will (eventually) be more content than is needed to level a toon fully. That said, if you're an altaholic and a completist in terms of content, well, that's a combo that insures you'll try to do every mission with every toon, and that you'll keep making new toons. You're your own worst enemy in that sense, and there's nothing the devs can do about that, really.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Yeah the real problem with allowing characters to have a group of "support alts" in CoT would be how to balance it out.
Games like STO manage to have "bridge crews" because of the built in limitations of the subordinate NPCs which keeps the entire mechanism from being overpowered. The idea of allowing a group of fully independent alt chracters to serve as each others' swappable "support characters" would probably be far too powerful. Instead of one primary character surrounded by lesser minions you'd have an entire team of top-tier mainline characters. Think of the difference between a single Superman leading an army of human soldiers and an army of Supermen. Big difference.
As FYI my alternative idea for a "sidekick bot" (which I've been suggesting for years BTW) has been to be able to have a NON-COMBAT pet with a player designable costume slot. This would let us have a "sidekick" that looks anyway we want it to look follow us around without having to worry about game combat balance issues.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
More like a [b]civilian[/b] sidekick then.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
If we were allowed to design our own sidekick pets with their own costume slot then I guess it could be any kind of sidekick you want. Not sure you'd have to limit it to being "civilian" only.
For instance you could have your own Lois Lane for your Superman or you could have your own Dynagirl for your Electrowoman:
[img=200x250]http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/smallville/images/d/d4/Superman_and_Lois_Lane_MoS.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130508131820[/img][img=200x250]http://celebrarty.com/PHOTOS/TV-E/Electra_Woman_and_Dyna_Girl/images/Electra_Woman_30.jpg[/img]
They'd work pretty much like the non-combat vet pets did in CoH except of course having their own player customized costume slot.
If the Devs got real fancy they might make these pets mimic what you were doing so they could stand still next to you while you're standing still or they could appear to randomly "fake brawl" with NPCs (or cower in fear) while you're fighting them for real. Maybe being able to run generic emotes through them would be workable too.
Admittedly these kind of pets would be mostly for show or RP purposes, but then again it'd be much easier for the Devs to implement something like this than worrying about pets that could actually affect combat for real.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I think what this post pokes at ultimately is the desire to control the whole group, like in Freedom Force. In that game you had to pause time regularly, give everyone their orders, then roll the tape forwarsd a little and see what happens, rinse repeat. You can't do this with an MMO in real time, really. Spinning more than one plate, so to speak (or juggling more than one chainsaw, if you prefer) takes too much time and attention to do well for more than one toon, I think.
Oh, and.. Moons of REIKSHALL!!!!!
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I agree that you couldn't "pause time to give orders to a team" in a realtime MMO.
But I kind of got the idea that Starhammer actually wanted to create multiple alts and make it so that those alts could form their own teams such that one character was the "prime" and the rest would act like subordinate pets to that prime character. It would be like running a Mastermind in CoH but instead of having generic NPC pets your "pets" would actually be other alts you've created. The key point here is that all of these "alt pets" would somehow be earning their own XP while being played like this. In effect Starhammer wants a way to run multiple alts simultaneously to, I guess, save the time it would take to play them individually.
For the various reasons already discussed I'm not sure this would really be doable even if the Devs actually agreed with the idea of one player playing multiple characters at the same time.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If leveling up toons in parallel like that is the intention, I would actively avoid it if I were MWM. Basically, it would take a process that's normally done in series for X toons and make that doable in parallel for those same X toons, this dividing the total play time by X, where X is, likely, the largest team size you can have. Assuming X=8 that cuts the amount of time a play plays the game down to one eight what it might otherwise be, assuming we're talking about heavy alters and not dedicated single-toon players. If I were MWM I would want to find ways to get people to spend MORE time playing so as to play the game for several years, not hand them 8 fully leveled toons in the time it would take to level one solo.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I could see utilizing MH's Team-Up mechanic, or TOR's 'companion' mechanic being used for this. But instead of using some pet found/purchased in game, using your own alts.
Now, let me start by saying I am NOT a numbers/programming guy. I see cool ideas, and I run with them.
In both games I mentioned, it allows people who don't really like to group up (oh no! Solo players in MMOs! The HORROR! But they are Legion, for they are many...and their money spends quite well) knock out some of the harder content, while still avoiding the REALLY hard stuff. Essentially, it's about as effective as having 3/4ths of another person with you.
Have these 'Team-Ups' count towards your group size limits. If group limit is, say, 5 - you have you and two others, then only two of you are going to get to pull your pets. The upside to this, is, in TOR for example, I can play a tank and using my healing pet as a 'healer' when I don't want to group find, but only have two other friends on. I can also use my 'tanking' pet to tank for a group if I'm playing a healer - assuming we're careful. The full functionality of another 'player' isn't there - limited by AI.
Now you could achieve this by using a hotbar triggered with, say, Alt keys (sorry, couldn't resist). Alt+1 is slot one, Alt+2 is slot 2, etc. Or any key combination.
For example, in TOR, I tend to remap my tilde to be my Companion basic attack, so I can direct them.
At that point, if you have a hero 'slotted' as a team-up, active or not, you could then give that slot XP equal to the character you're playing. Or maybe they each earn 75% or 90% or whatever of the XP earned from kills/drops/missions/etc. Only allow 1 slot per character.
Make the slots a premium type item, unlock able, etc, and in the above model, you'd have to use the character's you've made in other slots. This opens up potentially even MORE revenue in other character slots.
The other option, of course, is as stated - just having a minor combat pet (or noncombat pet) with a paperdoll you can dress up. But I think that's different than the OP Wanted.
Another aspect that I think would be cool is if they took a page from TOR's housing decorations - and let our pets be 'decorations' in our bases. Except...maybe animated. Or have decorations that can be purchased and, again, 'dressed up'.
Maybe I want to have a computer tech sitting at my Mighty Crays in Honey Badger Den - who makes odd comments to me when I'm in there. I could put him/her in a lab coat, or jeans and a t-shirt.
If I have a couple alts, and I want to make an extended 'Badger Family' with them all, side-kicks, hangers on, butlers, etc, have them wandering around doing different things...
Again, far from what the OP Was asking, but I think it fits with some of the other comments made.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
Pros:
- Players might buy More Character Slots.
Cons:
- Wayyyyyyy More convenient for Gold Farming, IF this spans cross accounts. Which will have to be added because Players will complain why they cant do it if they have more than one Account.
- No one will play their Masterminds (whatever its called in CoT), if players can use Particular ALT's builds as Pets, avoiding all the Balancing concerns put into all Masterminds sets. (I made this argument before, I just know I have.)
- So, instead of it being balanced for a team of 8.... its should really be balanced for a team of 8 + all the ALT's.
- And if the Devs Nerf the ALT's when playing like this, players will complain that they are just as weak as Mastermind pets. They will revolt, since that's not how weak their ALTs are. :/
Not sure if this might be a way for you to avoid this feeling but CoT has many features in the works that will make each playthrough unique.
The alignment system....just by making a new choice will sway your alignment opening up new stories for you to pursue.
The notoriety system.... a sort of friends and enemies list of the games groups that you can influence making each run though different.
Leads system... a sort of on the fly mission construction system. Effectivly you get a lead drop from a foe which starts a unique mission arc, as you get more leads the mission arc progresses until its completion.
Arch villain.. not sure if this is still in the works but originally it was intended to give you a character specific foe who could show up from time to time and mess around with you.
Arcing stories.... a story set that has divergent paths for you to follow.
Basically CoT is designing the games progress with alting in mind...they have said a few times that the end game of CoT is alting.
Not familiar with Masterminds - was outside of my time in COH, but these, seem like valid arguments.
If they did implement something like this, I would recommend having the Alts count against the party size. In lieu of members, instead of in addition to.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
Wow you must have only played a little bit of CoH at the very beginning of the game - Masterminds came in with City of Villains and existed for roughly the last 90% of the time (roughly 7 years) the game existed. Welcome back to being interested in a game like CoT.
Anyway I think Izzy pointed out a good number of "con" issues with this idea. Even with a limit against party size like you're talking about there still would be plenty of "solo" players who'd run around with a "team" of their own alts and abuse the heck out of this.
Assuming the Devs allowed this we don't even know how many alts they'd let a single person run together in the first place. Masterminds worked only because all the minions they controlled were relatively weak compared to average player characters - a team of powerful alt characters run by one player would be major overkill no matter how it was "limited" by the Devs.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Actually, I knew a player that ran a 'hydra' of 5-8 characters, essentially having multiple accounts and instances of CoH running at the same time, on a few computers, and juggling keyboards. They would have the 'extra' characters on auto-follow and 'assist' the main. According to that person's report, they found running a Single character kinda boring...
I just boggled and asked to join the team. 4 Rad/Rads, even on semi-automatic, makes the enemy melt like Jello in the microwave.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I like the Idea of allowing us to Change the look of each of the Pets though in the Costume Creator. As far as choosing which powers each pet has, errr, like we did for enemies in Architect Entertainment, thats another bag of worms.
Maybe even allowing pets to be a Certain AT.
Lower level Pets being Blaster types or any of the squisher types.
Mid Tier pets, Scrapper'ish AT types.
Very High level pet being a Tank type AT, or Controller.
Of course power-sets being limited to that AT, and not every power can be chosen.
Out of 8 powers, only 4-5 can be chosen from a power-set for a pet.
Maybe allow more powers for a Higher tier pet.... but that might make it hard to balance, methinks. :/
Just thinking out loud. ;)
The Incarnate Lore slot powers and jello men and PPD Hardsuits were one thing. They were either very long recharge time for a limited amount of "pet time" or an exhaustable commodity you had to go refill. Giving people the ability to have a sidekickbot all the time is just too much of an "Easy Button" in my opinion. This sort of idea sounds good, because it sounds like it makes everyone MOAR POWERFUL! but in reality it's BAD because it really does make everyone MOAR POWERFUL! to the point of making the game too easy.
And for the record, I think PC toons ought not have the ability to be set on autopilot like Fireheart described.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Yeah...I was in for a couple months of Beta...and maybe the first 6 of game? I have the attention span of a gnat, soni never got very high with any characters. I DID play CoX a bit...briefly (like a month). But again, never got very high, and just sort of focussed on things friends were playing, so my experiences were lacking. And my memory is crap.
Plus, when I start playing, Galaxies was the extent of my MMO knowldge at the time.
I just remember CoH being my favorite of any of the superhero games - and being sad when i heard it was closing. And really excited when i started hearing about CoT. I'm built weird, I guess.
And yes, to get back on topic, those are all very valid points. I was thinking along the lines of a single teamup style, using a single Alt.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
I just want to clarify that the characters were not on 'auto-pilot', the player had to press the buttons to get anything to work. Just auto-follow and 'target through leader' functions, like anyone might do.
Be Well!
Fireheart
While I don't technically "approve" of having a bunch of bots following one main character I'm not necessarily against people doing what the guy Fireheart mentioned did. Sure he technically had the advantage of multiple bots but he had to go through the hassle of having all those computers set up and constantly pressing all the buttons on multiple keyboards. In effect he was never going to be as reactive as multiple players playing multiple characters could be because he was bouncing around juggling all of it by himself. Basically the only thing doing what he did was good for is mission farming and if that's all you want to do then that's your deal.
The guy might have claimed "running a single character [was] kinda boring" but frankly I think there are plenty of other people who would not like to have played the way he did just because it would have been far more of an annoying hassle to keep all the alts gathered together. As they say to each their own.
Basically as long a CoT makes it as cumbersome and annoying to "hotseat" multiple bots as CoH did then I don't really mind the few people who might be weird enough to actually try doing it regardless. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I'd be more inclined to think he had a bunch on auto attack or even possibly used scripts. Rad defenders....more than likely he had 1 on auto heal and the others on auto buff.
That's the way it sounds from his initial description. Its unlikely he could run more than 2 at once even if he each had a dedicated computer.
Its a common enough practice...more common in free games but common enough in pay to play ones. Farmers and PL'rs would do it regularly.
My view is if they paid for each copy AND what they are doing does not negatively impact the game for others then its fine.
The real point here is that Starhammer wanted a feature that would let a person gather together a bunch of "bot alts" together on one team using a single client and single account. While we might be able to debate whether or not doing the multi head/account farming thing is fair or not the idea of making it that much easier to do with one game client is clearly in the "making it too easy" territory and I doubt the Devs would ever allow for it.
Basically the Devs don't really mind when some people farm with bots - they just don't want it to be "too easy" to do. I simply think Starhammer's idea crosses that line.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
That's not what I got from the OP at all....that's how everyone interpreted it IMO.
going back the OP says
To me it sounds like he wants the alts to make an appearance in each others stories. He seems to want a feature that allows his alts to have direct ties to one another,
I think the confusion is in his use of the words 'companion' and 'support character'. In the context it does not seem like he is looking for a combat tool .....more a RP tool.
When Starhammer says "each other's story" his pretty clearly talking about "each of his own alts' stories all at the same time". He wants multiple alts to be involved in a single activity and he wants every alt involved to be gaining their own XP and loot according to how much "support" they are contributing to the main character they are following. This is exactly along the lines of his SWTOR and STO examples. Instead of "bridge crewman" (which are built to always be a companion/minion tied to a single specific character) he wants full blown alts to be able to act as temporary "companions" to each other. He literally says "wouldn't it be great if I could use an alt" the same way you can use one of those minions from those other games.
Bottomline he wants to play multiple alts at the same time and be earning XP/loot with all of them at the same time. Not sure how that couldn't be any more clear. Re-read the last sentence of his post where he talks about the "changes" all the alts would go through - that should help you see what he's after here.
Sure he might think this would serve some kind of RP purpose. But as suggested he'd be mainly using it as a way to level up multiple characters at the same time on one client. Trust me that will never happen.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
That's actually the part that made me think it was more for RP use than combat.
Basically he is asking for the concept of hirelings to be included in CoT (not completely out of the realm of possibility)...except instead of NPC hirelings they are alts. They would level separately make their own story choices and alliances ect but when used as a hireling those choices previously made influence the stories the currently played hero engage in. It just seems clear to me that leveling, drops ect all need to be earned separate from the alt team mechanic. To me his greater desire is the influence that alt would bring to the current characters stories rather than its combat tools.
As I see it, an alt hireling isn't an unreasonable suggestion. It would require a lot more work from the devs to make it a reality.....not the least of which would be how to balance the alts...but it can be done. Due to the nature of NPC AI its highly unlikely this alt hireling would provide the same benefit as an actual human controlled character.
So the only two real gains from this system are RP and a weaker solo team. Judging from his example of 'background for bridge crew' and how 'he didn't need every character to hit max level' I got RP desires more than the solo team desire. I also got the impression he was thinking of making it only a duo situation.
Just so we are clear....I am not in favor of it as I described it either because of the negative social impact this would result in.
Of course I could be wrong and unless Star jumps back in to clarify ....well I would rather give the benefit of the doubt
Obviously it would be nice if Starhammer would clarify what he's talking about here.
Until that happens my "takeway" from his post is still the idea of allowing multiple alts (even if it's only two) to be run simultaneously which is the very definition of multiple characters on the same single account earning their own XP/loot at the same time. That fundamentally will -never- happen in a game like CoT.
There's a huge difference between way the STO bridge crew works in STO and the way having multiple mainline alts in a game like CoT would work. The bridge crew in STO are NOT individual standalone characters - they are in essence fancy henchman or very fancy CoH Mastermind pets.
I would have nothing against the idea of getting "sidekick henchmen" for CoT which might work very similarly to the way STO bridge crew or CoH Mastermind pets work. They would be lesser minions used to serve a main character. It'd even be cool if you could name and create the costumes for such henchmen. But there will never be a way make full mainline alts "pretend" to be a henchman for another character. Remember it's almost borderline cheating when one player sets up multiple accounts and clients to run "bot alts" for farming - the idea that the Devs would make that trivial to do with a single account and single client is simply unimaginable.
I understand there's a fine line between the two things we are talking about here. But trust me when I say having "a single character controlling a bunch of minion pets" is a very different thing than having "a single character controlling a bunch of full powered alts who are 'temporarily pretending' to be minions". One could happen, the other never will.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The earning of xp/loot was not really alluded too...and that's where the issue comes in....I agree if each character earned xp/loot then yes this is a ridiculous suggestion....but without xp/loot for the alts there is fundamentally nothing wrong with the idea. Hirelings and henchmen have long been a staple of RPG's and many MMO's use this to some extent...Neverwinter makes extensive use of hirelings. Using an alt as one such hireling would in essence just be a more advanced hireling.....if certain restrictions were put on this feature to keep it balanced then its not out of the realm of possibility.
Just to show what I mean, using CoH as a baseline, I have a level 20 blaster and a level 20 tank. Both earned the levels as normal but now I want to run them as a duo with the Blaster as the one I control the tank as the hireling. I still earn the same xp for the blaster, but the tank doesn't. The tank has access to all his attacks at full power...but just like MM pets the limits of what you can make it do is fairly limited and it doesn't use attack chains, lacks reactive response and will at times be a hinder due to AI restraints. This to me seems the logical way to incorporate alt hirelings.
Its hardly unbalancing. Especially if you limit this hireling to only one at a time AND it takes up a team slot (meaning you cant have a team of 8 players and 8 hirelings....its 8 total among the two). While enforcing the team limit with a hireling you would also easily be able to justify using the same team difficulty measure the two human players would encounter.
The benefits of this would be it would make forming TF's easier, give solo players a helper in off hours, provide the devs with the options to make missions require multiple players (in more unique ways than just click the glowy at the same time we have seen before), let players test out duo combinations, offer a different PvP variety option, allow players to get a deeper understanding of the notoriety and alignment systems and give a longer life to each character you play.
The drawbacks would be it makes teaming less common (presumably), make farming easier, could be exploited and require an entire new metric for devs to balance around.
In truth I think we agree on many of the same points we just both are assuming something different from Star's post (earn xp/ loot for all vs not earn for all). Well that and the reasons why it won't be included in CoT (yes I agree it won't ever be included in CoT). I just think the gain from this is not worth the devs time and the social drawback would hurt the game. After all I think we are just engaging in academic discussion on this one.
If the game allowed alts to be brought along as "temporary minions" that somehow did not earn their own XP/loot while acting as minions then this might almost be a workable idea. I'm still sure that Starhammer wants his minions to be earning XP/loot while doing this, but I'll consider your variation of them NOT earning XP/loot.
Even without XP/loot I'd argue that a system like this would make the concept of a CoH Mastermind-type character almost pointless: Why would I bother with a team of minion level NPC pets when I could just have my own personal team of mainline fully optimized player characters? I will go back to my analogy of A) Superman leading a team of normal humans versus B) an entire team of superpowered Supermen; if you could choose between those two options why would you ever choose option A?
Again I understand that this idea might be interesting from a RP point of view. But unless the "alts pretending to be minions" were actually reduced in capabilities down to the level of a minion then I don't really see how this whole thing wouldn't be very overpowered and unbalanced. CoH Masterminds and STO bridge crews only really worked because all the "sidekick henchmen" were much less capable than the average player characters. These games (as well as CoT) are not balanced to have one player running multiple fully capable player characters at the same time.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Damn save button (edited)
Again...not a team...Just one.
I do agree even at just one it would make the MM class less attractive...but I don't think it would make them unwanted if you could use a single alt as a henchman. Still its just another reason something like this is not good for the game.
CoH had gotten to the point where pets were very common with some being quite powerful indeed.
Here is a bit of an example of a pet that would be almost of the same power as an alt henchman....the Bots in RV. Yes I know they were limited to a PvP zone and there for the PvP zone goals....but its an example of a very powerful pet. Or how about the elite level jello pet. They had limited duration and uses sure....but if you applied limits on an alt henchman....long recharge ....one mission (or arc/tf) duration it starts slipping from being an overpowered addition into a more manageable (balance wise) feature.
Like I said...it could be done...it could be balanced....but it won't happen because its just not worth the effort. A better option would be a purchasable minion sidekick that operates like a temp power pet with the added benefit of being customizable (a limited set of powers to choose from and full costume options)....but that not at all what the OP wants and I don't think (could be wrong) there would be enough interest in that to warrant the work required for even that.
What do you mean by this? Why would the "alts acting as minions to a main character" not be considered to be on the same team?
If you're somehow assuming that the "alts acting as minions" would not count as being on a team then you could potentially have 8 human player characters on a team each with his/her own "group" of "alt minions" tagging along. You think having 8 Masterminds together isn't overkill imagine having 30 or 40 player characters (composed of various PC and alt bots) travelling together. It would be sheer madness.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
No I mean a player can only activate one alt henchman at a time....he can't fill an entire team of alts. A solo player could be just his playable character and a single alt at once...no more...and it would count as a full team member....so if the team sizes were 8 man teams he could only invite another 6 people to his team because he is using two of them. If any of them have an alt active then their alt would use a team spot as well....
I said this in regards to your MM comment....how a full team of alts would be better than a MM....while true...I was clear that limiting this type of feature in the manner I described above was the logical way to have a full powered alt as a henchman.
Also....the previous post I made...accidently clicked the save button before finishing it...there is more to it now.
Its actually worse than that....if each is full powered....and every player can have 7 alts and his main at once.....and all are MM's.... well now you got 64 MM's and 384 minions on one team.
Seriously...did you think I was suggesting this?
To be clear I'm not fundamentally against the idea of "henchmen/sidekicks" for CoT. Whether full-powered alts intended to be PCs could be used as such is a tricky matter.
Clearly as can be shown by our lively discussion that it would have to be handled in a very controlled way in order to not be overpowered or make other expected features (like CoT's version of Masterminds) seem pointless or useless. This is actually one reason I re-suggested a completely 100% RP oriented non-combat "sidekick pet" earlier in this thread because that would be one very easy way to make sure that this concept could not be disruptive to any kind of team or combat mechanic in the game.
Having alts be able to be "temporary combat minions" may eventually be possible. I'm more or less just trying to point out they would likely have to be far more limited than I think people like Starhammer would be hoping for.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I actually am against the idea of henchmen in CoT...far too often they turn into the measuring stick for balancing the games difficulty around and limit the appeal of teaming overall.
Completely agree. I am just illustrating one way it could be done with minimal disruption to the games balance. Remember I said to include the alt henchman in determining the mission difficulty.
I agree with the impact it could have on a pet class...but I am still fuzzy on how...using my restrictions for alt henchmen, it could be overpowered. Can you explain this more? Or maybe just give an example (even if its hypothetical) just so I can understand where we differ in opinion. Just so I am clear...not trying to start a fight...more just trying to understand what you consider overpowered. I enjoy these types of civil discussions of differences in opinion. If you don't ...just saw...'naw...not interested'.
While not close to what the OP wanted I think this is probably the best way to have alts RP together. Personally I have zero interest in RP but I will not be the only player so I get that a simple to implement feature like this is the most bang for the buck in the RP avenue.
Possibly...I still think he is just looking for ways to keep all of his alts relevant in his own internal storyline more than he is looking for source of additional firepower.
On a side note...for those who have played neverwinter....it has a way for your henchmen to go and adventure while you are using other minions or when your not logged in.... something like that could easily be used for alts instead of this system....here is a basic description of the feature I am talking about...
http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Gateway
This would not only give alts something to do....it would give players the ability to access the game from phones or tablets (something that has been asked a few times).
Ther was another thread that broahced the subject of npc hirelings playeds could purchase, with a caveat that such hirelings would not be pets but count as pcs toward team size, and give priority to actual pcs when forming teams. There are some not so insignificant hudles to such a system, and I won't go into all of them. One aspect of this suggestion is slightly skewed, in that when considering dynamic difficulty. If the player is experiencing difficulty in content and the solution is to have a psiedo-pc-npc the diffcultu would adjust to a team of 2 pcs. Meanwhile the pseudo-pc-npc would not operate as well as a pc.
The far simpler solutions are to either decrease the difficulty, or the game provide a handy Help tool where players can volunteer as helper and can be queued to optionally assist a player calling for help. Another way the game will be different is with our tertiaries allowing for far more flexible builds, including the possibility of Operator-like summon sets.
Having alt-npc as a team where the their indivial play-throughs affect the main-pc's play has to account for how teams work in general. When teamed, only the team leader's progress matters for the team, what other team members have done does not affect the team leader's interactions or mission selections. The only affect is what team members do during play, and of course voting on alignment choices. The game is meant for multiple players while allwoingnfor solo play and allowing the individual character to be "the character" in their own story.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
[b][i][size=36]BURN THE HERETIC !!![/size][/i][/b]
Er ... I mean, wouldn't doing that be an admission of "defeat" by the Player?
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
That depends on the individual's point of view. For some people asking for help of any kind is an admittion of weakness and in a game it would liken to "admitting defeat".
If the game is designed with the intent that even a basic build (that is if someone didn't go really out of their way to avoid any and all adversarial effects) can solo content at the stndard difficukty setting, the. It stands to reason that either: the player really did go out of their way as mentioned (see below for further details on this), or they increased the difficulty. To which either their build isn't optimal for the particular content with increased difficulty or their tactics aren't optimal.
Now with regards to the concept of a build that went out of the way to avoid adversarial effects sufficient to solo content at the base difficulty, one has to wonder why the attempt to solo content was being made. And if the solution is "get an npc", the player *should* (not that they necessarily will) realize then that they wither need to re-evaluate their build (at the very least taking a pet summon tertiary) or re-evaluate their classification and making a summon / support operator (when available). Or, the player may need to acknowledge they purpossefully built a character with combat limitations and should employ their character in a way that it is best suited, by playing with other players, especially since this is an MMO.
The only argument I've seen in support of allowing players have npc henchmen that did not require a pet class or tertiary power set (game metrics be damned) is that said players did not want nor like to play withnother players and preferred that the MMO play more like a single player game with optional co-op (which can be ignored). The truth is that the game is an MMO. One that just so happens to be very casual friendly (ease of play, every class capable of soloing most content). This does not excuse designers from designing an MMo and the. trying to design systems that affect he game play at large for the gsme as if it were a single player campaign.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
While I think its a bit dismissive to say the only argument for a feature like this is solo desire and that there is no way to actually make all content work on the principle of 'solo=standard difficulty' without watering it down so much it becomes pointless ...I do agree that those far less common situations that actually warrant a henchman are not worth the possible issues, development time/effort and social drawbacks a feature like this would have to overcome.
Please note I was not being dismissive, but very specific in the arguments I've seen on this very subject: a PC using an NPC combantant as an ally that is not itself part of a classification (pet class) or from within the character's build (tertiary power set), which also willingly ignores a majority of game metrics and attempts to qualitively account for those metrics by stating that the npc henchman should operate-like and be considered by the game as a PC for teaming purposes.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
See, that right there is a solid statement. It shows the fact that they've considered the fact that people DO like to solo sometimes. One of the most casual MMOs out there for solo play is also one of, if not the, most financially successful games of this type has that very same mentality. You can see maybe two-thirds of the in-game lore and content without every joining a group.
But you do lose out on a LOT of the game, and there are parts, the most fun in my opinion, that you'll never get to experience at all if you don't.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
If this is referring to some of the statements I've made - that viewpoint wasn't the type I was trying to make. I was simply drawing a parallel to a game that has a companion-based system in place where the companions DO count that way (if to a lesser degree). With careful use can be used to hit some of the more 'difficult' non-solo content - i.e. that listed for 2 players, or 4 if you have 2 players and their companions both.
However, what I should have clarified, is those games were developed WITH that very metric in mind. In a game where it's not an initial consideration. I guess at that point the parallel is moot - because that's a red-definition of what both solo-able and group content then is in these cases.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
No its from a comment I made where I said exactly that....
I get that it wasn't intended to be dismissive. And the word dismissive is probably far to harsh for what I meant but I honestly cant think of a better word.
All I meant was that there are other benefits to an alt henchman than just solo purposes. Or rather based from the experiences of CoH (which could be entirely moot in CoT) I can see other uses for an alt henchman than just to give solo players more power.
Just a few examples would be helping teams form a TF, off hours teaming, mission design, duo team testing, zone event issues and RP purposes. I do agree that these are much less likely than just someone using an alt henchman as a combat tool, but they were common enough to warrant being considered as an argument for.
As for the 'willingly ignores a majority of game metrics' ...well I would assume that if you included a feature like this then the game metrics would include this feature in its equation....
Again...I am not arguing for the inclusion of this....I just don't think the gains are worth the cost....more I am just playing the devils advocate out of boredom...
Can I ask about this part though....
Will these tertiary pets be customizable like any other power....if so...will they use the entire CC or just a portion of it?
Which MMO('s)? Sorry, I keep picturing Champions Online. I tried playing it... most of the time i was playing SOLO. Uninstalled it after 2 weeks. I might have played Scarlet Blade a week more than I did Champions Online. ;)
Back when AE was cool, i made a AE Arc called "Once Upon A Time." I had to change it up a bit so that it was more SOLO (or 2 players) friendly. I created a NPC Ally that spawns at the entrance of each mission, so it didnt seems so depressing when i was SOLOing it myself, because no one really wanted to hop into AE, unless it was a FARM. ;D
Note: Non Farms in AE were played by some players, but not by actual teams on a regular basis I felt. It seemed couples that dug story based arcs were the only ones that gave a damn after the AE fad had swept through town like a snow storm in Georgia. Here today, gone tomorrow. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the Highest, AE as a tool rates as a 6 to me.. as far as time, energy, sweat, return on investment, marketing ploy to retain existing customers, etc... Kinda Just barely breaking above even.
Note2: Gold Side Praetoria, well... it was a 5 out of 10. Maybe a 4, if you consider the initial level 20 limit. Which even after raising it, it was too late to get players interested Again. If only LATER (after raising the level limit) they came up with AT's that were specific to GOLD Side, maybe they could have restore some interest and it could have made designing GOLD side WORTH THE TIME and EFFORT they spend on creating all of those years. :P Oh Well. :[
A few people played through my AE arc, but thats all. SOLO oriented stuff sucks. I might as well just play Batman: Arkham *Whatever* and enjoy the cutscenes so i dont feel all alone and depressed like when i tried to play CoH SOLO, when it was like 2 AM and everyone already headed to bed because work the next day. I really hated that span. Well, until Masterminds went BlueSide at least. Then I was kinda OK SOLO'ing on my Thugs Mastermind.
But I'm a min maxer... so I kinda need to show off my builds in front of other players. So SOLOing isn't my 1st option. It will be the last thing on my list of things to do. I rather watch Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, than SOLO. Or maybe Birds Of Prey! :D
So first of all, sorry I haven't been a regular part of this discussion. I tend to spitball ideas and move on rather than hanging around waiting to respond to responses. I'm anti-social like that I guess.
I can see I obviously need to clarify a couple things. Most of you seem to be interpreting different parts of my thoughts right, and getting the wrong idea for the rest. Again, probably my fault for not being more involved, or at least not being sufficiently comprehensive enough with my thought processes.
So I am in no way suggesting anything that would allow alts to earn any sort of standard advancement/xp/loot/etc by playing another character (I wouldn't be opposed to global currency access, but that's just a QoL thing that's really a different subject, which I feel the need to mention since I've probably mentioned it elsewhere and don't want anyone saying "But you said..."). I'm not even going to get started on dual boxing since it's something I don't really have the patience to do myself. I'd never suggest that any character on one account should have performance or advancement tied to/affected by a character on another account (the levelling pact was an ok idea, but frankly I prefer coming at that problem from a completely different angle that most of the game industry seem to totally disdain). I'm also not suggesting that we should be able to supplement team power by having a team of people, each with a squad of alts, allowing dozens or hundreds of combatants to mega-steamroll content that can probably be steamrolled by a good team in the first place.
So a couple things I am in favor of... These may not address previous points in respective order.
I like a few things about STO's bridge crew function. It touches on Tannim's observation that some want to solo play with the option of co-op. In STO, most (not all) of the content is consistently balanced toward a "team" of 5 characters. If your bridge officers can keep from getting stuck on a door, almost anyone can bring a group of 5 to a mission, even if they're playing at 3am and don't want to wait an hour to find 4 other players to queue up with them, or if they're like me, do often prefer to solo through most story content, because it allows me to stop and read the text, look around at the cool environments, wander off in search of easter eggs that usually aren't there, and not hold up the other players who want to steamroll through and move on to the next chunk of XP. Let me be clear, unless teaming with RP groups, which I don't really belong in either, every MMO team experience has been at least an attempt to ignore content in favor of steamrolling everything as fast as possible. That's fun sometimes, and I like having that option, but I want to experience the story too... otherwise why not just play some MOBA?
Now of course, this is a super-hero genre. For *some* characters (Masterminds) having a team sized group of pets like the STO bridge crew is appropriate, but not most. However, the SWTOR "companion" system is a tactically reasonable representation of the sidekicks that many comic book heroes have. Having at least one pet does make the solo experience less harsh, especially when some environment bosses are built to be especially effective against some classes/playstyles but not others. Again, there's not always going to be a glut of other players that want to help you out when you're having trouble with something. I like the idea of a henchman as a tertiary power. It's something that puts the style in the hands of the player.
What I would like to see is for situations where you would add a henchman, MM pets, or other various NPC contacts that the game story doesn't require to be the same for everybody, to have the option of having the game look into your character list, and assign certain variables such as appearance, some aspects of gear, battlecry/catchphrase, combat role if applicable, and so on based on an alt in your list, if desired. Gear aspects being things like "this character has a rotary pulse laser equipped, so the NPC will have the same. Combat stats like Defense and Damage numbers will be determined by whatever the NPC would get normally, but the character model will have the rotary pulse laser equipped, it will graphically fire the same effects rather than firing SMG effects or something out of a different gun, and the damage type will be energy. Increased damage or secondary effects for high level, high rarity, or special feats/abilities would not be added. It comes down to, you want this alt to function as this NPC, ok, but the invisible math will be scaled appropriately and slightly generic'd to make sure they have the same general power as the NPC would if it were randomly assigned or individually customized. It's not a function that is completely neutered just to be for RP like a vanity pet, but neither is it going to give you a minmaxed player character as a combat pet. It would take a function that was already available, like a tertiary power or MM pet, or maybe a vendor or contact that doles out a certain flavor of missions, and customize appearance and style, tailoring some parts of the game world to your story, if you choose to do so...
Someone mentioned the way you can add companions as stronghold decorations in SWTOR. That's another aspect that fits well with my idea. Similar to in Final Fantasy 3(6) how you had all the character's you've unlocked hanging out on the flying ship, or the adventurer's guild in The Bard's Tale... (except in those games, when you added them to a party they would gain xp, and each was fully powered. Again, that is NOT what I am suggesting) however, that would also make a cool *optional* (maybe cash shop extra? maybe incorporated as a sub-function of a housing/base system) interface for selecting/switching characters. Again, especially handy if you're the type to build alts have having some relation to each other. Personally, I don't always do that, but it'd be nice if there was more game support for it than just writing it down in the character's bio (something STO does passably well, but SWTOR lacks entirely).
It was also mentioned that "if a character is built, they shouldn't be Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen." I can't disagree enough with that. It's my game experience, and optimally, the characters I make should be whatever I want them to be. Requiring me to build only action heroes is as flawed as requiring that I could only play a crafter or only take part in costume contests. Some of my favorite characters in some of my favorite games have been "support" characters. Crafters, wanderers, or even just a character that was build to explore a concept like being an addendum to another character's story. One of my more enjoyable characters in CoH was an AE CSR who would hang out at the AE building and help people with questions about mission design or help them bug test their missions. She was an Illusion/Force Field Controller, with the concept that she was an NPC that was immune to damage and caused occasional lag or targeting errors. My favorite character in UO was Gorfu Half-Fang, a blacksmith who was an Orc (by way of the masks that let you go among other orcs without agro, unless you attacked them and it blew up your head). Yeah, I have plenty of "Action Hero" characters, and I enjoy them, but that isn't the only gaming experience I want from a game that I am likely to invest a significant portion of my life in.
So I probably forgot to address a couple concerns and misinterpretations of my ideas, and who knows, maybe created even more, but I need to stop writing for now and actually go play something. Hopefully I've addressed enough to steer this in a meaningful direction and away from "He just want to abuse the game and find ways to make phat lewt without playing."
But, when I ran into trouble, playing solo in CoH, I would call out to the zone and ask for assistance. Because CoH people are Cool, people would volunteer to team up for a difficult end-boss. Sometimes, after success, we would stay teamed for a couple of missions and then split.
I remember, one time, where the end-goal was to stop the boss from escaping. He would run through the entire map, back to the entrance, and exit. For a Melee character, this was almost impossible to solo, because the dude would not stop for aggro, so you literally had a running tail-chase of trying to beat him down before he got out. The second time I played that mission, I deliberately shut it down before the boss fight and went out to recruit a Controller. Did the trick, perfectly.
I do not understand why we can't let that happen again, in CoT.
Why MUST we make it so that everything can be handled by a soloist? The discussions I've seen do not say 'most things' but insist on 'everything'. Going solo, classically, always increases the chance of failure - in every medium. Of course, this makes the Lone Adventurer totally cool... but still prone to failure.
One of the rules of thumb that I learned while playing City is, "Two does easily, what gets One killed." And this is a Life-lesson that works in reality, just as well.
It seems to me that, non-pet 'sidekicks', be they Alt or NPC, are a matter for role-playing and don't need to have a mechanic. If someone wants a more complex association between characters, let them multi-box. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-boxing
Be Well!
Fireheart
So, to break it down, in any situation in which the game provides a NPC who helps the PC, or whom the PC helps, the player has the option to have the NPC appear to be one of their existing PCs. While the NPC looks and fights like the PC, all the numbers are those appropriate for the NPC for that mission.
It's an interesting idea and I see no problem with this approach, although I expect that such opportunities would be few and far between if such situations have not been planned from the outset. Even in the relatively few cases when a NPC who could have been re-skinned was available, in CoH, it would not always have been possible to do so. Re-skinning Fusionette to some random PC alt, for example, would have thrown that whole little story arc into chaos. The scenario in question would not only require that such a NPC be available, but that they be sufficiently generic that almost any character could slip into that role (i.e. basically just combat support).
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Guild Wars 1 has the option to hire NPC support players for their content. The down side? Reduced XP/currency gain IIRC (basically you don't pay anything up front to take the help, just that they reduce your overall earnings). This is different to when you team up with normal players though.
And yes, they are "generic" NPC's... (although the warrior will look like the warrior that you could hire at level 5 as at level 20... is it the same person? Who knows... just that he IS available)
I was specifically referring to That Which Shall Not Be Named - World of Warcraft. Ever since Vanilla, you've been able to see the vast majority of the storylines (again, 50 to 75%) without ever grouping. While it can be boring as all hell to do so, and you do miss out on a lot of interesting things in 'dungeons' and 'raids', lore and story wise, it's still enjoyable. When I get a little nostalgic, I'll re-up my sub there and tool around a bit, doing just that - seeing what lore and content I've missed. Until I get bored and drag my friends along.
Another game, that can be argued as to if it's 'successful' or not, which has this mentality it SW: TOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic - which I fully admit that I enjoy more as a Star Wars Fanboy than I do from any other aspect - though they have done some innovative things I enjoy). The storyline was actually their original focus, and they want to go back to that. With this in consideration, class storylines are COMPLETELY solo-able. Just the player and his companion, which is an AI pet.
Class story lines are..,.wow, I'd say maybe a tenth of the quests you can do? And every zone these quests send you to is mixed with mobs you simply cannot solo at appropriate quest levels. Period.
In the case of both games, what the soloists tend to miss out on is the overarching 'Meta Plot' that takes all those individual quest threads, storyarcs, and lore and weaves them a grand tapestry.
I agree - not everything should be. Not the majority. And I would argue not even a 'large portion'. In fact, while I would say enjoyment can be found in solo play, I like the need of relying on others. Be it guild (or whatever you want to call them), friends who play, or just random strangers who need help/want to help in General and LFG chats.
The thing is, I can see the desire for people to NOT have to group up. I have friends (and I'm guilty of it myself) who simply don't like to group up sometimes. Sometimes I don't want the hassle of waiting for a group when I play at odd times (diverse servers help this), sometimes I don't have the TIME to wait for a group. I might only have an hour of play before I need to run off to wherever, or I have Laundry or food cooking that I need to keep checking on, so I have to bounce up and down from my seat every ten minutes. It's nice to have content other than mindless loot/mob grinding at those times.
I have other friends, and this is the group I primarily belong to, who like to group up even if we're not actually running the same stuff. That way we have resources to tap when we need them, or in cases of games with specific class stories/content you might not see otherwise. Sometimes we'll just sit in vent or party chat and just BS while running to the four corners of the world.
It's that camaraderie thing, I guess. The sense of being part of something greater than the individual.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
This was not always the case. During the off hours it would be frustrating to find someone to help....especially if it was in one of the less traveled zones.
Because there is a significant portion of the playerbase that want to solo ...be it always solo or sometimes solo.
The thing that those who want a team experience forget is that the entire game is geared towards their chosen playstyle. Unless the mission actually blocks teams (like some missions in secret world) its all team oriented.
The same is not true in the reverse.
How does my solo play influence your ability to team play?
For those with concerns of off-hours play, keep in mind we will be running the game in a single "shard". There won't be different servers like most games.
I do have a question: ifnthe game is designed (and assuming designed well) to be capable solo play, other than any "team specific content", to what need is there for an in-depth henchmen system, particularly if there is a classification which heaviky utilizes pets, and everyone has an option to choose a summons tertiary set?
Here are some things to consider in responding; one of our goals in creating Summons sets is to make them more diversified than the old game's MM sets. That is from having one pet, a pair, to multiple pets. Each with different "roles" or ay styles in mind. Each customizable nearly if nit equally to that of pcs. Part of the goal is to make this work as a Tertiary set. In essence players can, as part of their build (which will account for game play metrics) be able to create their own noc ally (or allies).
Another thing to consider: while most content will be designed for solo play, there will be content like task forces with a higher base difficulty without forcing a minimum pc threshold. The idea is that this is meant to specifically be a greater challenge for solo players, pushing the limits of the character build. This thpe of content would of course warn players of the increased difficulty. Again, the aim is for people to play with people but possible to solo, not make a single player game with co-op as an ignorable option.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
It doesn't. In fact, that's what I've been saying - I support solo play. I recognize that there's a decent population in online games that does like Solo play. I often find myself in that camp. But they shouldn't cater ALL content to the soloist. Just like not all content is catered to the need of a team. Or to the strictly PVEer. Or to the die-hard PVPer. There has to be content for everyone.
Even the games I pointed out where pet's are a big portion, and allow you to see more than you could without them, doesn't alleviate the need for groups for some of the content.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
Until we know the population of the game off hours continues to be a concern for me. This does make it less of a worry to be true...but even with a single server you find that off hours play is usually populated by those from other countries (time zones) as your own. Language barriers can be an issue in those cases.
There isn't one really....other than those few rare instances of missions that a particular solo player finds overly difficult (enemies that heavily resist the damage type you have, Elite level bosses on a moderately support based character or who excessively use mez powers for example). Those rare instances are inevitable but hardly worth the time or effort to design a code heavy feature to turn alts into henchmen.
You're great.
I love you.
Marry me.
I'm confused...you're saying you support solo play but when Fireheart expressed his displeasure over content being solo friendly you replied that most content should not be solo friendly. I will need a bit more explanation on this one.
Mmm, I think you're taking my comments farther than I intended. I have no problem with some content being 'friendly' towards the solo player. I have no problem with some content being 'un-friendly', but still doable.
What I object to, is the (seeming) demand that the Devs spend energy creating an environment where a solo player can do everything, even content that ostensibly requires a group. I fear that this will enable isolation.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I'm confused...you're saying you support solo play but when Fireheart expressed his displeasure over content being solo friendly you replied that most content should not be solo friendly. I will need a bit more explanation on this one.
My apologies - I wrote that post while at work (don't tell my boss!) and I worded it wrong when I said 'not even a large portion'. I meant not even the LARGEST portion - for a bit of clarification.
The rest of my statement still stands - I've found, especially as I've gotten older and my experiences have broadened, that while I love to solo, the draw of the group holds me to a game more than otherwise. I respect, and understand, the desire to solo. It's the primary reason I brought up some of the suggestions about companions/pets/etc that I did. I want EVERYONE to be able to enjoy the game to the best of their, and the game's, abilities
And what Fireheart actually summed so nicely was my thoughts on it. My wording was just poor in my statement.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
Not really, you were pretty clear that you thought solo friendly content hurts team play....hence my saying you expressed displeasure over solo friendly content.
I don't understand this thought process at all. how does making a mission solo friendly stop that same mission from having it be increased in difficulty for teams?
That's still most content. Perhaps you can define what you consider solo vs team content.
I still don't understand why you think solo content must be different than team content?
Whats Solo vs Team content? I'm not sure.
But...
Since this is a MMO... I'm assuming Every Mission or TF or the like Will be Team Friendly 100%.
Secondly, if all is 100% Team friendly... you have to use whats already present and make it Solo friendly right?
How is the best way to get there, methinks is the question that needs asking.. or where the discussions are delving into.
My experience with World of Warcraft indicates that this assumption is less axiomatic than you might think. I hope MWM does a better job than Blizzard of making it so.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
There are two ways to do things.
Built for Solo yet Team Friendly.
Built for Teams yet Solo Friendly.
This is not a half-empty/half-full sort of (non-)difference, since it speaks to the "bias" of the game at a design level.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
You can also build for teams of one then teams of 2 and so forth......a ramping difficulty which has no bias
I don't understand this thought process at all. how does making a mission solo friendly stop that same mission from having it be increased in difficulty for teams?
Assuming open world mentality for the majority of the game (story line and leveling, which takes up most of the 'Early Game'), how do you do this without using the artificial inflation of HP/Damage/Resistances that ARPGs use when there're multiple people in a zone or instance? You'd have to literally re-code every dungeon. Change mob tactics, etc.
You can't code the tactics the same way for a single player that you do for four. Or five. Or ten. Or forty. Unless every 'zone boss' in the game is nothing more than zerg tactics, tanks-and-spank, and avoiding areas of mass damage. There's not real thought in any of that, no need for planning. Just reaction. You can't plan on needing two off tanks to keep adds away from the boss, when there's only one person planned for the group. You can't expect that one person to have a group of pets with him every time.
At the end of the day, individual mileage may vary. I don't knock your desires for the game, or your play style. As I mentioned, I like soloing quite a bit. I just happen to like content for groups more - and I see most games making the vast majority of their End Game content, which then becomes the majority of the game as time goes on, about the 'Group'.
I think the statements that Tanimm222 has made, about the development mindset and plans, has rendered this argument pretty much moot. They're obviously doing their best to make the game accessible and desirable to as many people and playstyles as possible, and this is fantastic!
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
There is a lot more to good mission design than just numbers of enemy. A mission designed for the Batman would not be as much challenge, or as much fun, for the Avengers, even if you added more goons. Even if you added LOTS more goons.
Be Well!
Fireheart
CoH did not use inflation of hp/damage/resistance to increase difficulty ....at least not in the traditional sense.
For Instanced missions (the majority of content in CoH) spawn size and makeup was determined by the size of the team and/or the difficulty slider (notoriety...not to be confused with notoriety in CoT). A solo player at baseline difficulty would find boss grade foes be lowered to luet (in most cases), AV's would be turned into Elite Bosses and the spawn size was manageable. By increasing the difficulty and/or including team members the spawn makeup and size would raise in predetermined rates.
They did not design for solo or for teams...they designed with player choice in mind by using a ramping difficulty in spawn makeup.
You can code tactics the same way...because we are not talking about actual AI...we are talking about programed behavioral patterns. The big tough gronk foe will rush you but the sneaky assassin type will sneak and assassin stuff.....its programed behavior....the fact that a foe may have a preferential target or how it attacks is still just programed that way...to simulate what you define as tactics....if that preferential target is not there it will move down the list of who it attacks and how it does so. Facing team that foe will do what it is programed to as it would facing a solo.
What I am getting at is there is very few reasons to specifically design for team content over solo content unless there is a specific mechanic that requires a team to complete....all I hope is that the specific mechanic is more involved than clicking something at the same time or just increasing the damage/health of the foe.
In todays gaming environment players demand choice in what they do and when forced into something (even if they want it) will be a black mark on the game.
More vague comments on mission design. Still no actual examples of something that is specifically team content design.
I would love it if someone could actually describe what they think team designed content is and why that can't be a ramping of difficulty from solo content. I explained how mine works....and worked successfully in CoH.
I want to echo this and register my agreement with Fireheart here. In any game environment where teaming up is never strictly required, people will tend to be more anti-social and uneazy about teamups in general. In CoX, there were some things that had a minimum team size as a hard requirement, which was a bit of a drag at times, I know, but it added legitimacy to the act of asking random people to join a team. If you take that requirement away, you're living in a world where the very idea of teaming up with strangers seems really uncomfortable and "ghey" for the basic reason that nobody sees any need for it. If having a certain team size is proven to be more lucrative for all involved than soloing, then people will do a lot of that, otherwise they'll solo and remain anti-social.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
If you need teaming to be 'required' then what does that say about peoples desire? Or the team dynamic in general.
I do get what you are saying....that people will take the path of least resistance (solo) unless there is a specific gain to take the more difficult path (teaming). Or to put it a better way...people are lazy and forming teams requires effort so people will be less likely to team.
This is not reason enough to force a teaming mechanic on players.
It will always be a better option to allow players to choose their playstyle and offer bonuses to the more difficult path.
CoH did this to great success with the xp/inf/drop bonuses you saw on teams vs solo.
Having a minimum team size requirement on any one TF or trial is not REQUIRING anyone to do anything. People who don't want to team up can still NOT team up and in the process NOT do that TF. It's not like there's a hard and fast rule that everyone must do every bit of content. I went all 8 years in CoX having never done half the villain content and half the signature story arcs, and I was VIP during all of Freemium. Even if there's a Synthetic HamiO or something at the end, you can probably still buy those if you solo grind for enough IGC.
Giving the devs a strict mandate that "all content must be soloable" limits what they can do in terms of mission and TF plot and mechanics. You can't have "pull all 4 levers at the same time" etc if you HAVE to make the thing soloable from square one forward. In the interest of having fun, compelling TF stories and plots, I would really hate to take that sort of stuff off the table from the get-go just because SOME people are too anti-social to want to play cooperatively with others AND are too obsessive-compulsive to have their toons live in a fake world where there might be some mission or other that cannot be attempted solo. It is an incontrovertible fact that such "unsoloable" content COULD exist and might be enjoyed by some people, so to rule such content out up-front is limiting the amount and type of content that can be made, and thus handcuffing the creators of content in certain ways for no good reason. I don't beleive we ought to do that just to satisfy the obsessive urges of the completist solists who want to have their cake and solo it too. The existence of a "minimum 4 person" TF deprives players at large of exactly nothing, it does, in fact, create something new that would not have existed if the 100% soloablitiy mandate were in place. Missions aren't baseball cards where you have to collect the whole set.
From a storyline standpoint, if a job is too big for a single toon to do alone, the NPC giving that content out would probably not offer it to just one toon. I'm in favor of having enough storyline RP immersion in the game that some content can and should be team-size gated. That's just how I feel. I know there are people who feel differently. Those people were, in my mind, wrong before when these arguments have arisen in the past, and they still are now, but I know we're not gong to convince each other of anything, at this point, because these arguments just go around in circles when they crop up. I can agree to disagree on this score.
It is my opinion that mandating all content be soloable is a big mistake. I think content creators ought to be given the option of creating missions/TFs/trials that, by their fundamental nature, actually require more than one PC to be able to attempt them. I believe that mandating they NOT make that content is a pointless limitation to impose. Others are entitled to their own opinions. That's how I feel.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
And
Which means you ignored the example I did, briefly, give in my post where you put the first response, and then claim that no one gave an example.
From me:
Now, to explain:
Take your average Iron Man style Villain. We'll call him...Tech Lord. Why? Why not?
Tech Lord has developed a low-level suit of power armor, and also relies on things like turrets, robots, drones, and the like.
Now, the developers decide that, after slogging through Tech Lord's warehouse of technological horror, that our Hero(s) come across the man himself. They decide that the boss is three stages.
Stage One - Typical Tank and Spank. You rush in, beat the living hell out of the bad guy. He gets down to about 50% of health, and then he flies/teleports/runs/whatever to a pad in the center of the room, where he pops an energy shield. Bam, he's untouchable. Start stage two.
Stage Two - while Tech Lord is invulnerable, he summons a group of his robotic minions in. Doesn't matter how many, it's an example. While the hero(s) fight these adds, Tech Lord is undergoing a self-diagnostic and repair. Say it CAN get him up back up to 75% life, if the hero(s) can't knock his adds down in time. Whenever the last add drops, the repair protocol drops, as does the shield - After all, it's likely that some enterprising young hero(s) may find the 'off switch' for the force field (no mechanic for this, it's just the way comic book villains think). This leads directly to Stage Three.
Stage Three - Up until now, it's been pretty cut-and-dry. Do damage. Avoid massive attacks/areas. Spank the badguy like his/her parents should have. But now, feeling that the hero(s) may end up winning (OH NO!) our dastardly bad-guy pops his end game.
Two Drones emerge from opposite ends of the control room and begin a slow journey towards Tech Lord. IF they manage to 'merge' their tech bodies with his Super Tech Suit, then he gets the following: A % damage buff, a % Resistance buff, and a % Health Buff. If BOTH drones hit, then the second drone gets to add it's bonuses as well - using the new 'base' numbers from Tech Lord + Drone 1.
It's essentially a 'rage timer' mechanic. That can be held off by the Hero(s). See, the trick is you need someone to 'off tank' the two drones. Their dumb (Tech Lord makes machines, not smart AI). So they have two things they HAVE to do: Stay Alive and Boost Tech Lord. In that order. Cause you can't really do the second, unless you've succeeded at the first. BUT...by themselves, they do very little damage.
So you need to off-tank them. It's so simple a child could do it. Just hit them and keep their attention. They'll a hero down eventually, yes, and they'll also eventually lose interest in a hero who doesn't KEEP taking shots at them, at least one every turn of whatever the GCD is.
So...you can't program that for a single character. That's a tactical fight, in the simplest most broken down form.
You can say 'Well, I'll have my PET TANK THEM!' Sure. And that might work. Then you 'force' people to use pet-powers, if their build and concept calls for it or not. Or, you just accept the fact that: not every aspect of a game like this is going to be available to every single person out there. UNLESS they're willing to put forth the effort to do it. Being it team up. Or PvP. Or end game PvE. Raid. Run dungeons. Re-Run content. Grind resources/materials/whatever.
All are staples of these types of games. I hate to PvP. HAAAAAAAAATE it. I get drug, kicking and screaming, along with friends sometimes and I bitch, piss, and moan the entire time. I don't care how good the gear, prestige, and benefits of even competing - much less winning - are. I don't like it. I because I don't like it, I suck at it. And that makes me even worse at it. Vicious circle, I know. But I accept that there are people who do like it, and that it's an important part of any MMO. So I accept the barbs of people calling me 'Care-Bear' and 'cry baby' because it (PvP, not the name calling) is a part of the game, and those PvPers have just as much right demand decent content, balancing, and effort put into what they love, as I do in what I love.
Solo players are an important part of the population of the game. So are the people who like the strategic fights, where they pit themselves in a group against something more than just 'extra spawns' with increase potency and dodging out of red geometric areas flashing on the ground.
So, you want to know what teaming being 'required' says about people desires? That they have them. That they have a way that THEY enjoy the game, and they're entitled to content geared as much towards them specifically, as you are with solo content. No one assumes that someone's 'lazy' just because they don't want to take the time to group up.
As for how City of Heroes did it...I understand that they did a lot of things right, they were innovative in a LOT of ways, and that it taught a lot that, even today, can be learned from - but it's gone. I know this is a harsh statement, and I'll apologize first - but if this game does everything that CoH did, then it's going to have the same, inevitable fate: Taken from us before its time.
EDIT: Somehow, I lost my quote tags.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
[url=http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/]The Daedalus Project[/url] was* a long-running survey study of MMO players. (The psychology of MMO players)
ex: from site
[img]http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/01_01/image002.gif[/img]
Still, If i could find a survey of CoH/V players to see what the percentages were of purely SOLO vs purely Team oriented players, i assume Team oriented pay would win hands down. and the financial stats would show Team oriented content raking in majority of the profits.
I would assume, from a lucrative standpoint, Team oriented demographic might win out in content creation.
What you said before
What you say now
Hard to keep things straight when they change that fast.
But ok....so a TF has a minimum team size which can't be broken (yet still is not a requirement). As I said before a TF is essentially the biggest and most exciting parts of the game but the only way I can even see them is if I change my playstyle? Guess inclusion is just not a 'requirement' of a game you want.
I guess when I said earlier mechanics could be a reason to require a team you missed it.
But lets talk about the 3 most common mechanics that require teaming...simultaneous clicking, division of resources and increased difficulty
Simultaneous clicking...such a poor excuse for requiring a team and one that could VERY easily be avoided without changing anything in the mission. Make the glowing clickables spawn based on team size. When a team of 4 goes through you have 4 clickables...when a single player goes through you have one. Hardcoding the 'levers' to 4 means that if by some chance the team drops below that amount the mission cannot be done even though it started at the right amount.
Division of resources...much better mechanic for requiring teams but again pretty easy to make solo without changing the mission. Basically the division of resources is the team needing to split up to complete multiple goals at the same time, if they don't complete all of them they get reduced rewards. Whats nice about this is if you don't change it then the solo player is unable to complete both goals his first pass. This will make those that want to see it all re run the mission to see the path not taken...extending the life of the mission and the game. Also...and this is a nice one...it illustrates that the solo player can't do everything alone but never stops them from trying. In essence it encourages teaming without enforcing it.
Increased difficulty...basically the most simple reason for required teaming. According to the story the foe is too tough (lots of HP) and hits too hard (big damage) or there are just too many (huge spawns) for one player to handle on his own. Well, this is the easiest of all to make inclusive.... as its been the core of difficulty ramping for years.
With a bit of forethought and open mindedness any mission can be made to fit both a solo player and a team.
Well...I had hoped that name calling wouldn't get into this but ok....you are being ignorant and selfish when you say the only reason people may not want to team is because they are anti-social or obsessive-compulsive.
Off hours, limited playtime, language barriers, distracted environment, personal friends not online, desire to take time and enjoy the content, have a specific goal they want to complete that day, testing a builds effectiveness, teamed constantly for days now and want a break from it or just simply have connection issues to name but a few of the reason someone might not want to team.
Its simply ignorant to think that people who don't team are anti-social and without a compelling reason to force it on them (as I explained) its selfish to make them adhere to your idea of fun.
You can have your interpretation of the story and I can have mine from the same story..but you are right we are unlikely to convince one another because somehow to you if a story can be attempted by a single person it means that story is worthless.
I would agree with you if you could actually come up with a situation that can not easily be made solo friendly or involve a storyline so hardwired that it can't even entertain the possibility of varied team size involvement.
But none of this is the real reason you want forced teaming. You want teams to be force so you have it easy to find and make teams.
Taking this a step forward...
Simultaneous clicking: dynamic generation based on team size
Division of resources: dynamic generation based on team size
Increasing difficulty: dyanimic generation based on team size or player set difficulty adjustments
See the pattern?
For a task force we can apply all the above, with an exception: task forces start with a higher base difficulty even for the solo player, then reference all of the above.
What this means is that a solo player entering into a task force may not get to do *everything* in the task force if there are portions set up specifically for multiple players, but they will have a version of it they can play through that is more difficult than standard content.Teaming also yields greater rewards, and not just the xp earned but given our achievements and challenges with team play, there are achievements that can be earned only when teamed. But teaming doesn't have to be exclusive for the majority of content, those who will want to team will, those who won't don't have to. Now this doesn't necessitate a mandate that all content be designed this way, as there may be very specific multi-team content (raids), but if the base system is set up well, a raid could very well have a solo mode (just very difficult).
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I dismissed it because all it said was off tanks to contend with adds. Which can be done by a solo player just by lowering the amount of adds. It was barely an example ...and a poor one at that. It fell into the tired holy trinity concept of mission design and without further explaining why you needed to keep the adds away one could only assume the mission would fail if they reached....which is the very definition of missions on rails.
There is nothing in your example that requires a team....a team would make it easier... but using the same mechanics I described earlier (ramping difficulty based on a mission slider or team size) it can be a solo encounter just as it could be a team encounter. I can explain how a solo can do this mission without changing anything in terms of combat progression if you want.
And in my explanation of how the game can be inclusive at no point do I ever say that team should not be allowed. But in yours you do. If everything is team friendly then the reverse should be true. Or are you saying that there should be a corresponding amount of missions that require a team size of one? Because I would have something to say about that as well.
I don't want CoH back...its dated and has too many issues. But to not take a page from its successes and apply it in CoT is downright silly. You honestly can't mean that so explain this a bit because all I am getting from this is a ham fisted insult to those who support CoH's revival.
If you look at the chart it actually does speak to team desires....one heading is 'Being part of a group; teamwork'
2.6% is hardly team oriented play winning hands down.
These are the exact definitions I used (except as usual said better). Is this directed at me...if it is I am not sure what point you are making as I already said this.
I would obviously like an example of 'specifically set up for multiple players' but I assume you can't actually speak on that right now so I can wait. Otherwise my marriage proposal stands (or to be less creepy I love the direction you guys are taking in the development of content).
My issue is with limiting content based on team size.... team gating if you will.
Rewards are not content. My only issue would be content being gated with team mechanics.
As long as there are ways for everyones playstyle to be expressed then I am fine with it.
Over in [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/97106#comment-97106]another thread[/url],
This may make it more difficult to ensure that one character using only single target powers can't cycle between pulling the adds and doing damage to the Big Bad.
Of course, area effect powers might be able to pull the adds while damaging the Big Bad, and other types of control powers might be able to lock the adds down for a while...
And a single character built to put out damage to single targets might just be able to defeat one or both of the adds before they can merge with the Big Bad, or maybe just defeat the Big Bad first...
So if you want this mission to "require" a team, you'll have to make sure that none of these methods (or others I haven't thought of) are practical.
Don't worry. The devs are already doing certain things differently that will make it very difficult for the game to be taken from us once they get it into our hands. ^_^
As for the basic question: I definitely want most of the content to be solo-accessible, especially along the main storylines. But challenges that require (practically, and by design, but not arbitrarily please!) a team-up, are needed for the genre. How many, proportionately, is a decision that the devs will have to make.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
There was no insult in that at all. Ham-fisted, or otherwise. Simple statement of fact. The game WAS innovative. The game DID break new grounds. The game WAS fun. Unfortunately, none of that was enough to keep it going in the face of the modern market - at least to a level of profitability that was deemed it needed at the time. Which meant it couldn't maintain the necessary. Which means that it needed things done differently - what needed to be done differently? Who can say.
See, no insult - just the truth. It happens in all media, sadly, and we lose great things.
Every word we've exchanged aside - please understand one thing: while we may not, and may never, agree with each other on this particular topic, I am not trying to seem dismissive of your thoughts and opinions. Quite the opposite. In fact, you've pointed out a few things to me I hadn't considered - and again, while I may not agree they are well thought out . If any of my comments have seemed that way...well, it was never intended.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
Nope...never thought you were insulting me or being dismissive. The ham fisted comment was in relation to your CoH comment that seemed out of place and not directed towards anything I actually said. Hence I thought you might be trying to ham fist an opinion into the conversation. That's why I asked you to explain it which you did. But allow me to provide another side to your position.
CoH had a profit level that was on par with many other MMO's (higher in some cases) that have continued. The official explanation for its closure was consolidation of company resources. As the devs for CoH were based in North America and the head office of NCSoft is in Korea to consolidate they needed to shut down the North American locations.
If you go just by what NCSoft said....the games profit margins had little to do with the closure.
If you are more inclined to speculation one needs to look at international law and the almost complete failure of CoH in Korea. One can also look at the games NCSoft still supports to see the abundance of grind content and micro transactions that were not as easily applied to CoH.
Its not as simple as just profit reasons....there are much deeper things to consider.
That said, the entire reason why CoT is being made is because there is still a decent sized population of fans who want a revitalized CoH. What I mean is, people are not just looking for a superhero game...they are looking for a game which takes the best of CoH and improves on it while offering new and better innovations.
To ignore those things that made CoH great only hurts the development of CoT. I am not saying recreate COH...I am saying improve on it. One of the things that proved to be great in CoH was the fact that the majority of the content in CoH was inclusive (could be solo'd or teamed by choice of the player) so I think that's a nice place to start when designing content in CoT and improve on that design choice.
This is a subject I feel strongly about as I think to force a playstyle on a player (be it making something solo or team only) will be detrimental to the overall life of the game. It seems that the devs came to this conclusion (or at least close to this conclusion) with what Tannim has said about content design.
In other words, if we dumb down and scale down every aspect of a TF, we can turn it into a soloable mission arc. I believe you can do that. I never for a second thought the technology in any way prevented that. I'm saying I would prefer that you don't actually do it. I think it takes a lot of the fun out of the TF when that happens, and out of the game in general if all TFs work that way. And for the record, pulling levers is just one example of a thing that could be done that might require a group to be able to do it, there are a lot of others, just from CoX, that I could cite (The Lambda trial with the two maps, the BAF trial with the escape, the Keyes with the gathering of glowwies and accessing of computers, etc). I'm sure all of those things could be eliminated or changed to the point where one person could defeat Nightstar and Seige solo. I do believe you that this could be done. And if it were done, it would feel just like another generic mission or mission arc to me. Ho hum, nothing special, just leveling up my toon and getting swag. Maybe I DO get some of my friends to do it with me, so what? It's still just like any other mission arc. When TFs and trials had minimum team sizes they felt like more of an event when you got one to happen. They felt like more of an accomplishment when you finished them. They were really fun to do. I don't want to lose that. I don't want a game where the vast majority of that sort of content get's done solo by the vast majority of players the vast majority of the time.
And again, I will point out, in a world where there are minimum team sizes gating TFs, people immediately understand inherently why someone would solicit requests for teamups. You want to do that TF, you gotta have 4 people, or whatever the number is, so you ask around. So when people get teamup requests, no matter how much they want to NOT do that TF right now, they at least understand from the outset WHY those requests get made. They don't react to it with some "What?!? NO! Just do it yourself, noob. What are you, ghey or something?" response. It's an MMO, not a bunch of hermits exhibiting parallel play where nobody communicates with anybody else and we all just go about our solo business not bothering anyone else. I still think the game loses something very important when all content is mandated to be soloable.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
True, since most of these surveys are from EQ, WOW, or other MMO's. Not so much CoH/V. :{
Sadly I could not find a survey of CoH/V to see what the percentages were for SOLO vs Team play. :/
Still, i would venture a guess that Team play was winning in CoH/V vs Solo play. But that's just from my perspective. ;)
If you took a look at the "Death From Below" Sewers trial, just that mission alone would sque the results towards Team play. ;D
In CoH/V, the broadcast channels weren't being spammed with requests Wanting To Sell, or Wanting to Buy stuff.
Instead, they were spammed with Requests to Join Teams. ;)
Of course, as soon as i log into a new game and see global requests to sell or buy stuff, and its frequent, I get a bad feeling about playing that MMO. :P
I don't agree with it being 'dumbed down' but if I did....it still does not change that team mechanics of the mission you enjoy at all.
Lambda did not require you to split up...it just made it easier
BAF only needs to have spawn size reduced and AV's lowered to EBs to be soloable
Never did Keyes but from what I know about it, it had a series of tasks that needed to be performed which could be done solo by lowered spawn size and mob levels....
None of these require the team mechanics to be changed when a team is being used. You get the same mission you enjoyed and I get to see the content without being rushed through it by a team focused on the rewards and not the spectacle.
I can't even understand this...because a less difficult version with lowered rewards mission can be done by a smaller team than what you want to play with it now has less worth? You perceive the value of content based on how other people do it? I could solo the blue side respec long before IO's....does that make it less fun to you if a team does it? Solo'd Positron and Manticore too...Duoed Lady Grey, Solo'd Imp all the way to the final boss and even had a 4 man team for Stateman. I wasn't special.....a pretty decent amount of people could do what I did....I am sure you could have too if you wanted to. My being able to do that in no way lowers the value of you doing it with a full team.
Lets forget that this isn't the case....teaming will not disappear if something can be done solo. So the vast majority want to solo but to hell with them right....cause you want to make them team with you....who cares if it shortens the life of CoT. Yup creating resentment towards teaming is the obvious choice in this and not providing encouragement through increased rewards or difficulty to get people to team. It must be min team size or you just wont have fun.
To which I will reply again...the MAJORITY of CoH was easily solo'd yet teams exisited. There is no need to gate anything behind a team minimum. If you got responses to your team invites like you describe then I can only wonder HOW you would invite people. In no MMO have I ever gotten a response like that when inviting people to a team....
Understand inherently why someone would solicit requests for teamups? Is it ever confusing why someone wants to do this? Do you think people are too dense to see the benefits to teams ....even if they don't want to do it?
I would guess a more even mix of solo vs team myself.
As all trials, TF's and SF's required a team if you just take a look at them the results would most definitely lean far to the team side.
Sadly CoH's team finder was not that extensive nor did it have click to join options. The reason why so many LFG requests were made was not just desire for a team but the strong dislike of forming/running teams....
If CoT introduced a simple click to join option which did not require one person to be team leader it would go a long way to helping those who want to team but not actually run the team. Of course the standard formed team we saw in CoH should also be available for those who wish more control in a team than vote mechanics. There should also be a great deal of flags for LFG options to ensure that you are on the team you want to be on.
First off, thanks for the clarification - that made some sense, on the closure department. I tend, however, to look at the specific statements/press releases made by the company over other comments - such as ones by 'sources that wish to remain anonymous'. And NCSoft actually cited profitability in their decisions in multiple statements.
I'll admit, though, it's hard to know what to believe on that front - with so many conflicting stories out there. But, since they still have several IPs running from US Based development studios, it's a weird situation. In fact, Champions Online was at Cryptic Studios, in Cali, went to Cryptic North in 2013, then moved back in 2015.
As for not wanting to pigeonhole someone into a single playstyle - I 100% agree. Which is actually the bases of the point I was trying to make. I don't WANT everything to be group content only. Just like I don't want it all PVP/PVE/Raid/Crafting, etc.
The point I wanted to make, before we got into a mechanics debate, was no one should be forced to play any certain way. There should be content for everyone. But how is it a bad thing if there is content dedicated to certain play styles? No one's forcing anyone to do anything - every inch of the game is an option. I hate crafting in most games, but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the game as a whole, when I have to grind out more credits to afford the things I want/need.
Having content aimed at group play is no more or less restrictive to individual play style than having different factions. Or, if you take Star Wars: The Old Republic, different classes within each faction AND factions themselves. You're not going to see every bit of content unless you're willing to make different characters, see different things, explore other options. Plus, depending on the class story, there can be different options just based on Male vs Female characters, and Light vs Dark alignment (though those are, of course, more limited - and non-restrictive).
But the person who wants nothing more than to play a Jedi Knight, tanking spec, to see the story (or any other aspect) is not losing out on anything if they don't want to do anything more than that. They still get to see the entirety of the story
Every choice we make is an option, not a requirement.
That being said, Tannim's told us that there's a LOT of options on there. This is a good thing.
Edited: For my own person preferences of clarification
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
Thanks for pointing that post out to me! I had somehow missed it! O.O
And, while I was using that outline as more in a general sense, this is another thing that makes me happy. I've never been a fan of the GCD, despite how popular it seems to have become.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
I don't think NCSoft ever said this (at least I can't find it anywhere).... The recently jobless employees of Cryptic Studios (which is not part of NCSoft) have said this though. As far as I know.....NCSoft only has the offices in Korea and England.
Champions is not part of NCSoft...its cryptic. I think all of NCSofts stuff is in Europe and Asia.
There is nothing wrong with gates to content as long as they are not arbiturary. Just saying you need to have 3 people to do something a single person can is bad for the game. It will breed resentment towards that concept.
Let me explain it a bit better....
If a task involves picking up 3 apples there is no reason to require 3 people to do it...one can do it even if it is more difficult and takes more time. If you change that task to say no one can pick up more than one apple all you have done is created a needless restriction on the task in a blatantly obvious attempt to make the task more difficult.
That is my complaint and what I rally against....needlessly restrictive and blatantly obvious attempts to require teams. I dislike the idea of someone having to change the way they have fun without a damn good reason....'because I said so' is not a reason.
Not sure you thought this out. I can play solo as one faction...then make another character to play solo as the other faction. My playstyle does not change.
I have no issue with it taking me longer...or its more difficult to see everything on my terms....When that option is taken away is when I get upset.
Never said everything has to be done with one character. A character is not a playstyle....it may be suited to one style or another but unless you are required to play that way I have no issue with it taking a long time to do all I want.
True...but when the option is do it my way or not at all its not a choice we should have to make in a game.
Just so you know....I do team...often... my preferred style of play is with a few RL friends but when bored I join/form PUGs regularly. There are just as many times when I want to play alone and when I do... I don't want the game saying I can't do something in the game because I don't have a team....anymore than I want the game to tell me to break up my team if I want to continue.
I have not played Secret World since the first few months it came out (little replay IMO) so I don't know if this is still the case but the game is scattered with missions you cannot be on a team for. One you get within the first 20 mins of a character creation..... this is not the tutorial which I could understand being solo required... but a mission in the first arc (for lack of a better term).
My friends and I bought the game to play together and right away we find points where we can't. Whats more ....many of the puzzle type missions are completely without the need for a team as they require you use an ingame browser to seach for clues. Think on that....your running around and enjoying the teaming and all of a sudden you have to stop, ignore your team for a bit and web search.....and...the answer does not change so if you find the answer before the others ...well they just wasted their time looking.
Now imagine you are running along solo because that's what you want to do and you get to a point where the game just flat out tells you to continue find some friends..... it doesn't say find some friends or else you are going to have a tough time...it says find some friends or find something else to do. Now not only do I have a less than fun choice to make I am upset I had to make it.
This is why ...to me... the idea of designing content which inherently excludes a playstyle is bad for the game.
Comparing the "mandated soloability" version of CoT to CoX is not a fair comparison, at least not early CoX. When Jack Emmert was in charge, several of the classes were written in such a way that they were terrible at soloing. My Gravity Controller didn't get decent solo damage output until like 6 months before the end. The game practically forced Controllers and Defenders to get on teams, where they could shine, under Statesman. So, if CoT is going to make all of the classes pretty soloable in the first place, that right there removes one of the driving forces for teamups that CoX had which CoT will not have. I'm not saying "make some classes unsoloable", I don't want that at all, but if the attitude people have is "just relax, people will still form teams." I don't know that they will. People are inherently resistant to agreeing to anything up-front when they could more easily just say no and keep their options open. People hate to have to deal with other people and strike compromizes. Logistics are just horrible. There are a lot of roadblocks in the way of the teamup inherently, psychological and otherwise.
To make an analogy, you can put up a sign in your store that reads "open gaming of all kinds, Friday and Saturday nights" and you'll often get very few people. If the sign reads "Magic Tournament Friday night, entry fee, prizes" people show up MORE despite the entry fee. The reason for that is that people just don't self-organize for no reason, they get organized when there's a compelling reason for it.
I will concede this point: if the larger team version of a TF has markedly better rewards for completion than the solo version, that is, if the deal is "do it with at least 6, fight the AV at the end, get a good drop at the end; do it with less, get the Elite Boss instead, NO chance at the really good swag" then you could see people teaming up for better swag. In that case the minimum team requirement is not placed on the content but on the rewards for doing it. And then, my prediction will be that the same people who used to complain that there wasn't enough soloable Incarnate content will complain that they have to herd cats to get themselves a decent Augment. So that's probably the catch 22 that the soloist is facing: be able to solo everything albeit with lesser rewards for TFs/trials then the bigger teams get, or just have minimum team sizes for the TFs/trials. You're either gating the content or the reward drops based on team size, take your pick. In any event I see absolutely NO reason to give anyone a Synthetic HasmiO for defeating the Boss (or even Elite Boss) version of Anti-Matter that you're going to get in a solo TF with the difficulty lowered and all the "team necessary" parts taken out or nerfed.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
NCSoft West, as they list it as being a part of, has four offices in the States. Washington, 2 in Cali, Texas.
And here's one of the articles I had read (took a little digging to find) - http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/3/feature/7015
Again, I tend to look for quotes from people in the company. Though I DO find it a little suspect, with their quarterly reports. Then there's a couple statements made by former Paragon Studio employees that mentioned issues they had with NCS thinking that the future of Superhero games was limited. That, I think I can find some truth in. For a belief and a reason - not for the truth, necessarily.
Sweet Christmas, you're right. What the hell was I thinking? I was looking up some stuff on other publishers for an entirely separate reason (seeing if the statement about Superhero games in general doing poorly), and got my companies crossed. Please forgive me that.
That'll teach me to look up multiple things at once.
I get you, there. I have that problem with Marvel Heroes and the 'gate' they put on more advanced content. Just to see if people could pass it. The problem is, their 'gate' doesn't really coincide with the content their gating against. I've played it. Past it. And promptly went 'This is worthless' and didn't bother afterwards.
No, see, that's exactly it. You hit the nail on the head. 'on your terms'. And YOUR play style doesn't change. The doesn't mean it doesn't impact others. In TOR, the story changes, somewhat drastically if you play Light vs Dark (side, not beer). So, playing a character Solo vs Group content is just as much 'on your terms' as it is playing someone who's a valiant goody-goody as it is playing someone who's a right d***. I know people who refuse to play each side of the story for that exact reason - it goes against how they choose to play. Their choice and style of a perceived 'good guy' vs 'bad guy'.
That is still a play style.
I appreciate the statement. Because if you were to actually look at a breakdown of my mains in the games I've historically played the most (TOR, WOW, SWG, and Marvel Heroes) - you'll find that probably two-thirds is solo content. I play with friends, mostly. Tend to hate pugs with a passion. And, honestly (despite my comments that solo play doesn't inherently mean you're lazy - which I still FIRMLY believe) - I AM too damned lazy sometimes to bother getting a group together, and too damned impatient to wait for friends.
But that's on me, not solo players in general.
And I respect that, I do. But I also think that by trying to make every aspect available to every player, you run the risk of washing out the content.
I know I sound like a bit of a broken record - but look at EQ1. 16/17 years, and still moving along somewhat strongly. Because of their End Game/Raid content. They barely touch early game at all, because all of their players are there. This is content that that not only excludes the solo player, but excludes the 'small group of friends' players, because some of these raids are MASSIVE.
World of Warcraft still cranks out a LOT of solo content each expansion. But if you watch their forums, and follow their changes for classes 'tweaking' 'balancing' and the like, it's generally driven by two groups: The PvPers and the Raiders. Both which continue to be a driving force in keeping the game up and running.
And both of those require specific play styles, and leave other play styles out.
While I don't have the most extensive MMO knowledge (I think you can see from my posts which games I favor) - I've yet to be in a game situation where seeing the main story line, from beginning to end, was impeded by a choice of Solo over Group play. I've run into instances where I can't see some of the side stuff - i.e. the details that end up as Lore by time the next XPac comes out, but nothing that's stopped me from seeing the main story line. Gating for other aspects, yes (and MH is hard to compare, since it's an ARPG, not an MMO in the truest sense, and is as completely F2P is more of a loot grind to keep people playing), but never for the important parts of the game.
Sadly, it sounds like you've run into the exact opposite. This fact alone explains our philosophical differences on the subject.
A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.
~Roald Dahl
We already have the evidence of the past that forced minimum team size did not in of itself end up being too much of a barrier of entry for those who were determined enough. We also have the evidience of the past that any rewards required for any form of character progression being limited purely to team or multi-team content created a rift in the player base enough so that development time and resources had to be used to create alternative methods for those who hard a much harder time getting involved.
These are good lessons to learn from. There is a very good reason to allow team sizes of even 1 person to attain the same rewards, just not as easily mind you, as full teams in any scaled-task-force-like-content. It helps mitigate the necessity to provide alternative content paths for those rewards for players who play less often and / or have more strigent time constraints than it may take to form a team (or multiple teams), or play through said content in a single play sessions. This also saves some development time and resources on creating said alternative paths for said rewards.
We, as a development time have to work smarter, not harder in developing this game as we have a fraction of resources (time, funding, and man power). If we can create content that in general is accessible for the solo player and the team, and then create content that is set up for a team but accessible to a solo player, just with a different reward rate, we avoid many of the hassles that really don't end up working as they were intended (forced minium team size). The larger the team size, the more opportunity to earch achievements not available to the solo player with team challenges, which in turn nets greater possibility of rewards. Let's not even think of xp or drops, even something as simple as a badge can cause people to team up and complete content for the team-related badge. And since the content would dynamically scale to the actual team size, getting a group of people to door camp while the person attempts to solo the truly-team-ramped-up verson won't work.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
You could still solo...it was tougher but you could still do it. I took a illusion/emp controller and dark/dark defender to cap mostly solo.
That's not even a close analogy to what I am saying. If you said. open magic Friday and sat and then compared green magic deck tourney on Friday how do you think things would go.
Provably false....I am wanting the solo and don't care about the rewards at least not the tangible ones. I'm not special in this thinking.
I have...I said the rewards would be lesser.... back when your entire argument was how a TF made you feel good.
People don't solo because they want the rewards...they solo because they find it rewarding.... The exact same reasons you team
With an in game market the rewards are not limited to team play either....they would be an incentive to team but not the only way to aquire them.
Played like 2 minutes of SWTOR....so I have no idea how my choice of playing solo or team influences your game experience. Please explain what this entire paragraph means because I can't draw a correlation to anything I have said.
Until a mechanic is exampled that can't be simplified to allow for both team play and solo play I just cannot agree with this. The teams encounter is not washed out if there is a less difficult version for solo players.
I am not 100% sure of what you are saying here. I think you are implying that EQ's continued existance is due to its teaming (if not correct me). I would have to strongly disagree with this. EQ is still around because its the place where many cut their teeth in MMO's ....its what they know best, its where they have invested so much time and its their 'safe place' for lack of a better term. I don't mean they hide there...I mean its a game they can pick up and play on autopilot because they know it so well.
WoW has been in steady decline for a while now....it may still have the largest playerbase but it is not by far the largest share of the playerbase. With so many other MMO's drawing players away it too will eventually be left with the hyper dedicated or occasionally curious that EQ has unless it finds a way to do something innovative to revitalize it. Again...not sure how this relates to what we are discussing.
Main storylines are fast becoming secondary to evolving storylines. Each new update adds new story element to the game in the form of Trials, raids, dungeons, ect. Those same new games tend towards giving players the choice to enter alone or with a team....such is the evolution.
TSW was the worst I had seen in that regard but hardly the only one. CoH used the TFs to conclude stories that you began in the main game (the entire Cimerora zone was the most obvious).
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