gabrilend

no it's cool, I need to focus on work anyway. There's only really one other game I play right now, so maybe if I can get them to hate me then I'll really be able to focus haha 😄

I can't help it. But I don't want to be cremated, so I think I'm going to take a break from this game for a while. Might be back in 6 months or whatever. Sorry for bothering you.

Wow, I'm honored to have had the same thought as him 🥰 Genuinely that made my night EDIT: Maybe increasing the rate at which END recovers outside of fights? Idk probably a bad idea Ah, well, perhaps it's a bad idea for the melee archetypes. But I'm curious, do you think it would have the intended effect for the control archetypes? After reading what you said I don't think I'm in favor of the proposed idea anymore. But I can't help but wonder if it would have worked.

Most teams today operate by diving into a pile of mobs, obliterating them with AoE (or ST attacks if they're facing a giant monster or archvillain/hero) and then zooming to the next. It's certainly an efficient way to slaughter all in your path, but it lacks variety. I've noticed that most control characters seem to prioritize holds over immobilize, because there's little reason to deprive an enemy of movement. What, are they gonna run away? That's annoying at best. However I believe that immobilizes are incredibly useful, and I think that is desirable to emphasize the most interesting aspects of these control characters through balancing AT mechanics. They are, after all, one of City of X's most unique playstyles. As far as I know, every enemy in the game has both a ranged and a melee attack. However, each attack has a separate cooldown - an enemy afar can only attack half as many times as an enemy up close. I believe that properly utilizing immobilize effects would significantly reduce the amount of damage taken by a character, and would bring increased value to the control archetypes. Here is the proposed design change: double the endurance cost and double the effect of the toggled defensive powers on all melee archetypes. I believe this will encourage players to prioritize one or the other depending on the situation in a battle, and in addition I believe it will cause players to orient themselves around the immobilized enemies in a way that is not common in most teams. Most (all?) of these powers are split up into different damage types, and by thinking about which types the enemy is likely to use against them the melee character can switch between them in an optimal way. Should that be too much of a change for all archetypes, perhaps it would be a suitable change for Tankers specifically, since their powers are designed to be the most defensive. Here is the desired effect: melee characters will think about their defensive toggle abilities more, and will adapt their usage to the enemies that are currently attacking them. In addition, control powers (specifically immobilize effects) will become more useful, as they limit the types of damage that enemies can inflict on players. What do you think? Any ideas or alterations? Do you believe that the proposed change would produce the desired effect?

That idea sounds fun, but it also sounds like a lot of work to implement. Lots of content to create manually. Perhaps if there was a more programmatic way to create these random events? I like the idea of events, and we already have some of them (like oh no a building is on fire go put it out with your ice powers) but each of them had to be manually created. There's a lot of zones in the game. The idea presented in the original post would require significantly less content generation, basically zero in fact, but would require a lot of engine work. Different skillset, I think. So it really depends on what kinds of things the dev team wanted to work on. I'm a programmer so engine work sounds infinitely more fun to me than writing quests and placing invisible barrels in every map : )

You're right, and there's only so much we can imagine before seeing the design in the hands of the players. I guess... Maybe an extra-long period of time in the testing branch would be necessary? To identify all the various ways it can be abused. I had a thought back on page 2, but I didn't really see a good place to put it. I realized that with the proposed EXP distribution algorithm, there's a potential for abuse. The algorithm was stated as such: when a mob is defeated, 50% of the exp reward goes to any players present, and 50% is distributed to players who aren't present. I realized this is flawed. Imagine if there's a Mastermind soloing in one corner of the neighborhood, and 15 blasters and a tanker running around vaporizing anything that crosses their path. The 16 players would get 50% of the exp reward from any killed monsters, which would be duplicated for each of them since they were all present and accounted for. However, the Mastermind in the corner, being the only other player in the zone that is *not* present, would get 50% of the reward from each kill as well. This wouldn't work. If a Sentinel walked in to some third corner of the neighborhood, the Mastermind would get 25% of each kill the group of 16 made, but that's still far too much. I realized the algorithm needed to be adjusted, and I realized that in doing so it could be made simpler. Instead of segmenting the EXP distributed into 2 portions, 50% for the players present and 50% for the players not present, what if 50% went to players present for the kill and 50% was distributed to each player in the neighborhood? The distinction is subtle, but it negates the potential abuse by giving everyone in the neighborhood the same portion of the distributed EXP. I believe this would be a more fair system.

What if any fury gained over the cap instead of being wasted is turned into temporary health?

The +25% healing bonus from Field Medic is significantly less useful to an archetype without healing powers. I can't help but wonder if that aspect of it could be changed somehow, to be more useful for every powerset. Maybe it could increase all healing done to targets within 30 yards by 10%? Thematically, you could be sharing tips about first aid or whatever. This would have a similar impact for healing powersets and non-healing powersets. However this power suddenly becomes significantly more useful if you have more than a few healers on your team, and significantly less if you don't. Maybe it could give a +regen aura? Similar idea, your character is sharing tips about first aid, or maybe even using your little healing gadget thing to produce a healthy aura of some kind. This would be just as useful to healing characters as to non-healing characters, and it is just as powerful on teams with other healers as teams without. If an aura isn't the right way to go, then maybe if there are any overheals from your aid-other or aid-self, they get turned into a temporary health shield? Could be a good way to start a fight, and also it would increase the utility of the power as suddenly you don't have to worry about a target's current health - you'd only have to pay attention to who's taking damage at the moment. Which is something that can be done by looking at the field, rather than the health bars in the UI, which I think is a more ergonomic way to play the game. Perhaps this is a non-issue, do you think Field Medic is fine? Or if not, is there a different way you'd alter it's behavior?

Gaining Infamy and Influence in AE doesn't make a lot of sense thematically either. Like, is the simulation you're engaging with being live-streamed on the internet or something? Isn't this game set in 2004? "Watch out for The Punchinator, he's really good at playing video games" uh-huh yeah

That's a good point, and I think that in order to address that issue there would need to be a way to heal that all Brute powersets had access to. So, an inherent AT power, or possibly a replacement to the build-up power which provided some kind of healing. See this comment for an proposed idea I had. It's a little convoluted, which doesn't really fit well with Brutes, but in essence it boils down to giving them a toggle power which converts fury into health, while causing any damage taken to be dealt to their endurance bar instead of their health bar. I believe this would allow Brutes to heal themselves when out of danger, thus giving them the ability to survive after falling into the 0-10% hp state.

CoH is a sandbox to me : )

I don't understand how they could get infinite merits quickly and easily - can you clarify? The archvillains/heroes wouldn't spawn very often, and when they do they're in a random place that wouldn't necessarily be noticed right away. And once it is, they're only one step above bosses, so it's unlikely that people would be able to swarm them before being defeated. It'd be more like, a nice surprise sometimes for people who are dispersed away from everyone else. Or for groups who got lucky, I guess. If you're concerned about the fact that reward merits are being given out in general, do you have another idea? I figured a single merit was a small enough reward that was still valuable that it would work out. Maybe a salvage drop or extra INF? That feels a little too much like "the same things you were getting from street sweeping, just more of it" which kinda defeats the purpose of having a valuable reward given out for hunting down the archvillain/heroes.

The very first task you have as a villain is to decide which path your future will take. Do you work with Kalinda, and align yourself with Arachnos, do you work with Burke, as a mercenary? Or will you strike out on your own and street sweep your way to Port Oakes, where you can start doing newspaper missions (if you want) and picking your battles more carefully, thus defining your story on your own terms. I think that the first two options are for players who enjoy missions. The third option is for people who want to make their own story, and for that option the justification becomes more important. Because like you said, those who are working for Arachnos or Mercenaries probably wouldn't care about joining patrol teams. But renegade villains might. Hence, why I offered a potential explanation. If you'd like to come up with other reasons why this type of villain might join a street sweeping mission, feel free, but there isn't really a point to arguing that Arachnos lackeys or Mercenary villains wouldn't street sweep. Because you're right, they wouldn't. Rudra: Not really, no. My point there is that the opportunity to learn the lore is one of the rewards players get for doing instance missions. it is just one of the rewards though. And no rewards are currently available for street sweeping, which is why players don't typically do it. Add rewards to street sweeping and it becomes more enticing to players. So... How do you feel about the proposed rewards that would be added to street sweeping? Specifically, awarding a reward merit for every defeated archvillain/hero which is hostile to both the players and the local mobs, which spawns every time (100 * number of players in zone) enemies are defeated in a neighborhood. Rudra: And that is a problem. That is why teams work the way they do. And even if your suggestion were to be implemented, you will want to maintain that team dynamic or you will wind up with a whole lot of angry players complaining about being 'punished' for doing the implemented street sweep content. The last thing you want is team members being arbitrarily dismissed from a given team they just joined by any means because they changed zones or neighborhoods. Look at the Bug Reports forum for some examples there from players complaining that going into their SG base while a Rogue hero side or a Vigilante villain side and finding themselves dismissed from their team automatically. I think this is a clear demonstration of why it wouldn't be a good idea to implement both street sweeping missions *and* the proposed system changes. They would each accomplish certain goals in isolation, but in tandem they would conflict with one another. And I believe that the proposed idea would be more successful at addressing more of the stated goals than street sweeping missions.

Yes exactly! A "passive league" is a decent way to think about it. Though for most neighborhoods it'd never grow larger than a team, as there's seldom more than 8 players in one area at a time. I'm not sure if we should prevent it from being farmable. I mean, farming is the entire point of grinding mobs! However, if there's a large amount of players in an area and they *are* placed in a league, the current mechanics of the game already reduces the EXP gained. Perhaps that would be sufficient, perhaps not, I don't know... If not, then we can come up with another solution ^_^

Rudra: You are misunderstanding, so let me attempt to clarify. Using just myself as an example because I can't speak for others, the reason why I would not join a street sweeping team on my street sweeping only characters is because I do not want anything other than my chosen targets. My Croatoa street sweeper for example, which no longer does so for having out-leveled the zone, would only take down Red Cap bosses. And that was the only mobs I wanted to be involved in my character's progression. No minions. No lieutenants. No Cabal. (Though I was hunting Tuatha and Firbolg until I was high enough level to go after the Red Caps.) Because of my character's focus, I did not want any xp or inf' coming from other sources. I did this on another character where I was explicitly hunting Family bosses in Independence Port. Or a red sider that only hunted Longbow in Nerva Archipelago. Don't want anything from other sources. Yes, this is extremely niche. However, it is just one example of why a street sweeping character could choose to not join a street sweeping team. Because now their theme is out the window as the other team members go after what they prefer, even if that preference is everything within render distance. I see. Well, the benefit to an opt-in system is that players who have needs like yours would be able to opt-out by not opting in. So all you'd have to do is refrain from selecting the "looking for patrol" option in the team finder and you would not be placed on these teams and you would not receive the distributed EXP gains. Rudra: Poor example. I get your point, but poor example, because in Gotham, the city is very much divided up into specific gang controlled territories. They just don't spend as much time visibly shaking down the citizenry as in CoX. Most of their crimes are hidden in the back alley shadows, boardrooms, and political offices. In comics, villains most often band together to be able to defeat the heroes they know are going to come after them during their heists, but only after the heroes have previously prevented those criminals from successfully completing their crimes multiple times. Or they share an ideology, other belief system, or shared trait; so they band together into a set villain group. They don't band together just because. And often, their encounters with each other, at least during their crimes, are violent as they view each other as a threat to their own goals. That's part of the problem. While a patrol works well from a heroic stand point, it all but fails under a villainous one. Ah my bad, sorry. I don't really read comics, they never really grabbed me. And the marvel and D/C movies weren't my jam either. I think the reason CoX appeals to me so much is because of the inherent collectivist spirit in it? It's essentially the only non-American superhero piece of media that I can think of, and while American culture is very individualistic and I like it for what it is, I don't much like the idea of individualist supers because it glorifies the concept of centralizing power within a few choice individuals. I mean, Batman is literally a billionaire, there can only be so many of him. CoX however is different. In this world, anyone who works hard enough can be a superhero (see the "Origin of Power" contact mission chain in Cap au Diable when playing a natural character) and not only that, but there are SO MANY of them! They all work together for the common good of protecting Paragon City, and the villains are given the interesting moral choice of working for or against Arachnos, which is so much more interesting to me than deciding to be "good" or "evil". My characters tend to lean more toward "Kickass" and less "spandex", but that's just a personal preference. Also lots of magic and robots, because robots can be built and magic can be learned. But I digress. My point was that I don't know enough about comics to be able to tell. Oh, you mean like... Arachnos? We are "Destined Ones", after all. 😉 But not every hero wants to work with Arachnos. I usually don't. However, I do often team up with other villains. What in-game explanation currently exists for that behavior? Whatever it is, it would apply equally to mission teams as to street sweeping, I believe. Rudra: Because the story is told in the instanced missions, and because instanced missions give better rewards for giving mission completion rewards whereas just moving around a zone smacking down down random mobs doesn't, if the devs want players to spend time out and about in the various zones, they need to include street sweep missions. Players are going to gravitate to rewards. That reward can be discovered lore about the game, it can be xp and inf', it can be whatever. I believe the reason why street sweeping is so unpopular is because it lacks a reward system. You can't just award bonus rewards if there isn't a trigger to award those bonus rewards. So instanced missions get mission completion rewards. (Which means street sweep missions should too, but they don't.) Delving through the missions and reading the clues, briefings, debriefings, and enemy chatter reveals a massive story behind the game, which is itself also a reward. Just moving around a zone and randomly smacking down various mobs can't do that, though at least we do have explores that also give game lore. Because of that, yes, players need to be told to go to King's Row and search the roof tops and back alleys because the CoT are sacrificing people. Because otherwise there is no real incentive to do so. The rewards are found in the instanced missions. Now from a lore/comic perspective? You're correct, supers should be out there patrolling their home turf for multiple reasons. PR being one. Home security being another. (Bear in mind though, that from a realism point of view, most of those criminals the patrolling hero is beating up to save the day? Are just down on their luck regular people trying to get something to live on. Not a concern in something Like CoX where everyone mugging someone is a gang member running wild, but if you were to get down to it, at least in comics, that's what your patrolling heroes have to confront. That not everyone committing a crime does so because they are evil.) I don't think they *need* to include street sweeping missions, they only need to include street sweeping *rewards*. And, as already suggested, the rewards could be a single reward merit after defeating an archvillain/hero that spawns every ~100 kills (per hero). I believe this would be enough of a reward for people to seek to engage with the content. It seems like your concern here is primarily about the lore that is unread when players don't do contact missions. Well, I think street sweeping has always attracted the kinds of players who value creating their own story over reading the story of others. I mean I'm clearly a huge advocate of street sweeping, and I don't even read comics! Part of what pulls me to City of Heroes is the idea that these criminals we're fighting actually *are* evil. I wouldn't really want to play a game set in a modern day city because yeah, you're right, most petty criminals are just people trying to get by. They don't deserve to be beaten into a paste by "superheroes". However, in CoX, the enemies you fight are overwhelmingly members of organized gangs that take over territory and oppress and harass the people who live there. They are violent and cruel and the closest thing to evil that a human can be, in this century. That's the only reason I can stomach fighting them. I like playing villains though because people live on the Rogue Isles too, and I'd never hurt them. If the territory was in my hands, they'd be safe from harm. At least, until I moved on of course, but what can you do, I'm playing a villain teehee >: ) Missions are chosen by the team leader and are active for all members of the team. When hunting Hellions in Hyperion Way, the player is on the "Hyperion Way" team. When they cross the street, they are removed from the Hyperion Way team and placed on the Promenade team, which has a different mission active. Therefore, they can no longer gain progress on the old mission which was attached to the team, not the player. Check out this comment for more discussion on the motivations behind the auto-generated team system.

My understanding is that the identity of a Brute mechanically is that of a hybrid class, placed between Scrappers and Tankers. They should deal less damage than a scrapper but have more survivability, and they should deal more damage than a tanker but have less survivability. If your health bar is never supposed to dip, then what's the point of having one at all? I view it as a resource, and if you aren't fully utilizing your resources then you aren't performing at your maximum potential. People don't like dying, but I think the issue they should fear is the death component, not the process of being harmed. Especially for a Brute, who revels in the slaughter (or perhaps is most attuned to it), being harmed would be a natural part of that experience. Also... what are PUGmates? Like, players you meet in a pick up group?

I agree with what you're saying here. The proposed design does offer a reason to do street sweeping, just as street sweeping contact missions would, so I believe that we can assume that people would use the team finder if it unlocked some new functionality for them. Specifically, the ability to join teams related to street sweeping, which it *technically* does now, but like you said nobody uses it so it *functionally* does not operate as intended. Rudra: Because those teams already form as evidenced by paper/radio mission teams and how quickly they tend to cycle through members for starters. And because street sweep missions tend to be skipped by most players I've met as being boring and tedious from the repetition, secondly. And because players that just want to get their street sweep out of the way and move back to instanced missions will not opt-in while being in competition with the street sweep team thirdly. (I just don't see players scrambling to join this if implemented. Even players that choose to just level by street sweeping. For instance, on my characters I'm leveling through just street sweeping? I'm hunting specific targets of specific tiers. Like just Red Cap bosses in Croatoa. And even though I'm out in zone street sweeping, I would have no intention of joining a street sweep team in zone because they won't limit themselves to my chosen targets. So even other players that are doing street sweeping by choice may choose to not opt-in for their own reasons.) So to rephrase what you're saying into an easily addressable format, you're saying: 1. paper/radio mission teams cycle through members quickly 2. street sweep missions are considered to be an unwanted diversion from missions by mission teams 3. mission teams doing street sweep missions will compete with dedicated street sweeper teams 4. street sweepers won't join these teams because they won't be able to fight the mobs they want to fight I believe I can address all four of these concerns. 1. It seems to me that rapid cycling of team members lends itself well to the proposed design of auto-generated teams. Since there's so little emphasis placed on who's joining your team, why not automate the friction away? And if there's no leader determining who joins which team and such, then they are by definition decentralized. Perhaps radio/paper mission teams could benefit from such a system, as well... 2. I believe that street sweeping missions were added to story arcs in order to break up the monotony of doing just missions over and over again. However in this enlightened era of 2024 we've seen that players actually *like* that kind of monotony, or at least the kinds of players that you're referring to do. So to me that sounds like an issue with the story arcs, not the proposed design idea. In addition, it makes sense to me that players who gravitate to missions would prefer to do missions. Is it so strange to believe that players who gravitate to street sweeping would prefer to do street sweeping? I understand that currently there aren't very many players who street sweep, but I believe that changes such as those proposed in this thread could "till the ground" as it were, for the planting of seeds that may one day blossom into more dedicated street sweeping patrollers. 3. This is true. I think it's okay to compete, though. If there's too much competition in an area, then the dedicated street sweeping team will move on, and it only takes a minute or three for mobs to respawn. So there wouldn't be much delay for the mission team, I believe. I also mentioned earlier how I think that the community will collectively learn that certain types of enemies should be avoided because they are in high demand for mission teams. 4. One of the primary purposes of distributing EXP across a neighborhood is precisely so that players *will* be able to fight the mobs they want to fight. If your street sweeping team isn't fighting Red Cap bosses, but you'd like to, then you are more than able to fight them yourself. The EXP earned by you will distribute to your team, and the EXP they earn will distribute to you. Thus improving both of your experience, as you feel like you're contributing to a team even if you aren't in the same area. And, should they wander across your path, they'll be able to help you, and you'll all gain *even more* experience, as the distributed portion of exp is less than the earned portion of exp. I hope those responses addressed your concerns. You're right, the friction isn't significant. I would like to point out though that the cities portrayed in comic books are significantly different than those in City of Heroes. In a comic, there are usually only a handful of named supers. In City of Heroes, there are *thousands*. To add onto that, the threats that we face, the gangs, the criminal organizations, the monsters, the ghosts and undead, even Arachnos... All of it is significantly more present than in the comics. For example, in Gotham, 99% of people who live there are regular average people just going about their day. Batman's fight takes place in the shadows, because he's one of like what, 5 superheroes at any one time? Very few are operational and wandering around beating up baddies. And the baddies do not control the streets, they are ever-present in alleyways and whatnot but they don't own turf to such a degree as they do in Paragon City. However, when you compare the ratio of baddies to citizens wandering the streets, you'll see that they're roughly equal. In lower level zones, there are more civilians, and in higher level zones it's common to see very few. And hazard zones have none at all! That is a stark departure from the cities depicted in comic books, and one of the truly unique things about CoX that should be highlighted, rather than lampshaded. Rudra: That is a serious stretch. You may find petty criminals doing that, but a named super? Not likely at all. That interferes with whatever plans they may have. Even if they lack any plans and just want to run around smashing everything they see. Rudra: Again, not likely for villains. Even in comics like with the Legion of Doom. It is usually a dominant personality gathering underlings without letting the others know that is all they are to the founder or activities by heroes are forcing villains to band together, but only as much as they have to. The exceptions are cults and other organizations like HYDRA or AIM, but even there the bulk of the villains are faceless nobodies, not named supers. Well, can you think of a better generic explanation for why a group of supervillains would team up together? Especially lower-level ones. "Big fishes in small ponds", as it were. Seriously, why would villains ever team up? Gold, glory, and bloodshed. Those are the three reasons that come to mind for me. A feeling of superiority, perhaps, or a chance to flex, but that falls under glory so yeah. Villains typically strive for power, and what better way to usurp power in a neighborhood than to team up with a bunch of others and clear out the area from all the lesser minions and lieutenants? Once you've beaten the snot out of enough of them, you can consider the area "beneath you", and move on, after installing your own minions and lieutenants of course. Who will then be defeated in turn by the lower leveled noobs coming up from below you. Sounds like a decent enough explanation to me... Rudra: And your suggestion would still be intentional, not random. There is no way to form a team to do anything that isn't intentional. That's why teams form, to intentionally do something. In this case, street sweeping/patrol. Regardless of whether it is a contact given mission or just the team moving around wiping out everything they come across. There is intention in doing so. Well, yes you're correct in-so-far as opting in to be placed on a team is intentional. And just as these teams would be formed randomly based on geographic proximity, so too are mission teams organized pseudo-randomly when the leader invites whoever messages them first. I'm not sure I see the issue here? Both forms of teams are intentional, both are random, however I was attempting to highlight a contrast between them to differentiate them for rhetoric. Rudra: Then you are missing a part of the street sweep and patrol missions the contacts give. Their purpose is specifically to expose the player to different parts of the city and the factions that can be found there. Rudra: Then again you are missing the point of several street sweep missions as given in the game. Most evidenced by the Atlas Park missions and King's Row missions. Also to an extent by the Perez Park missions. Where your character is specifically told to go take down Hellions in Atlas Park because they are robbing the people or have caused a fire around a building. Or your character is specifically told to check the roof tops of King's Row for Circle of Thorns who are sacrificing people. Or to go into the woods of Perez Park to stop the Circle of Thorns from sacrificing people. While those missions are very few, there are street sweep missions that specifically tell the player character that there are people in danger and sends the player character to street sweep for the problem and put an end to it. The player shouldn't need to be told to check roof tops in King's Row. They shouldn't need a motivation to hunt down the Circle of Thorns cultists who are sacrificing people in the woods. They are supers, they are drawn to the fight. Heroes will strive to protect the citizenry, and villains will strive for power and domination. At first I thought street sweeping missions as proposed would be a nice addition to the idea as presented in the OP, but the more I think about it the more I think they would conflict rather than work in tandem. I'll explain why: street sweeping missions are intended to draw players to a particular area. Let's assume that there's a mission in Atlas Park to defeat 100 Hellions in Hyperion Way, on the east side of town. If a player moves to the north and enters The Promenade, then they will no longer be able to get credit for fighting Hellions in Hyperion Way. But they just crossed the street, why should that matter...? So the solution would be to expand the scope of the mission to Atlas Park the zone, rather than a specific neighborhood in Atlas park. Or perhaps even removing the scope entirely and telling the player to "defeat 100 Hellions" which works against the goals as presented earlier in the post, specifically the goal to highlight the unique character of individual neighborhoods. Now, if both ideas were implemented in tandem, they would conflict. Say a player is in a group and crosses the threshold to another neighborhood - suddenly, their mission changes! If they had 5 Hellions left to go in Hyperion Way, but then crossed the street to The Promenade, not only would their mission change to "defeat 30 Clockwork in The Promenade" thus invalidating their progress, but if they walked back across the street and re-joined their old group, then there's a chance someone would have killed 5 hellions and completed the mission, depriving them of the mission reward. Not ideal. So, I don't believe they would work very well in tandem. I also think that street sweeping missions encourage players to hunt down specific types of mobs to the exclusion of all others, which is not ideal when the goal is to make the streets safer / more open to your own influence. While I appreciate the abstraction away from specific enemy types, I think this contributes the same value to the design as the summoned archvillains/heroes to fight - namely, a periodic burst reward that acts as both an inflection point of intensity, and a stopping point for players to switch to a different activity. And idk, I think fighting a super every once in a while is more interesting than turning in a mission every 10 minutes.

Rudra: That would be easier to achieve with a mission completion reward for repeatable street sweep missions from an appropriate zone contact. True. It would be easier to achieve with repeatable street sweep missions. Rudra: Which fails if the opt-in system you agreed to earlier is implemented. Forming radio teams in PI for instance is a very ad hoc team formation, but it works because players can choose to join and run missions with that team rather than be auto-joined just because they happen to be going after the same targets in zone. And auto-forcing players to join teams, especially if they are already on a team of their own, is not something I will ever agree with. Ad hoc team formation? Sure. Automatic team formation? No. Just to clarify, as mentioned earlier in the thread this should be an opt-in system, potentially by utilizing the "looking for patrol" option in the team finder, which currently is essentially unused. There would never be any auto-forced team joining, it would be completely consensual. Can you explain more about why you believe an opt-in system would fail to encourage ad-hoc and decentralized teams? To me, it seems like a clear and explicit result of the proposed auto-team mechanic. I mean... It forms teams, automatically, on the fly, without any centralized authority organizing it. Rudra: Can be done using a zone contact granting repeatable street sweep missions. No new mechanics need to be created. The contacts will already stop granting missions when the player/team out-levels the zone. And there are street sweep missions that can be copied from existing contacts to populate the new contact. And even if new missions are instead preferred, it is a set of repeatable street sweep missions, so no need for any time creating a story arc around the missions, or need to figure out what maps to use and what objectives to populate the missions with. Everything needed already exists or takes minimal time to add. True again. Street sweeping missions would accomplish this goal. Rudra: Which can be accomplished just as easily from the players' point of view and much more easily from the developers' point of view if a contact giving street sweep missions that actually awards mission completion rewards is added to the zones. I disagree, I don't think that street sweeping missions will bring the community together any more than the current mission system currently does. At the end of the day, they're both missions, and they both are engaged with by the players in similar fashions. The proposed system offers a radically new gameplay style that is an alternative to the current systems, however street-sweeping missions feel more like an extension of the current systems. And besides, if you need to manually form a street-sweeping team, then you are forced to introduce yourself to others. Which defeats the thematic purpose as well of wandering around a city populated by heroes who do battle with the thugs and goons who contest the civilians attempting to live their lives in peace. Or, alternatively, the thematic purpose of wandering the rogue isles, looking for weaklings to punish for the audacity of being slightly-less-evil than you, alongside other super-powered individuals who want to show off. Or maybe compete with you. Or perhaps who want to join up and be stronger. Whatever their motivations may be... Street sweeping missions do not accomplish this thematic goal because they are intentional, not random. They are focused, not dispersed. They do not bring attention to the neighborhoods of the city, thus highlighting the world design, but rather focus on zooming about as fast as possible hunting down specific types of mobs and ignoring everything else. I do not believe street sweeping missions will accomplish the desired thematic elements as proposed in the OP. Rudra: Which already happens on teams I've seen when street sweep missions come up in the story arcs. The team scatters across the zone to hunt down the target mobs more expeditiously. So the OP fails to create something new in this regard because it already happens. (Edit: The times the teams I've seen/been on stayed concentrated for street sweep missions was when the target mobs were required to be in a specific neighborhood of the zone or if they were most common in that neighborhood.) They may be dispersed, but their motivations are entirely personal. They want to hunt down specific mobs, and only those specific mobs. The contact giving the street sweeping mission couldn't care less about the citizens who are being terrorized, and they have no connection to the strokes of opportunistic fate that give a wandering villain a chance to strike at an unsuspecting foe. They are just throwing anyone who'll listen at a wall of baddies that is constantly respawning. There's no purpose in it, there's no honor or glory. It's just... "Greetings adventurer, please go kill 5 boars in the forest. I'll give you a new dagger or a pair of shiny boots as a reward, and maybe point you to my friend who has another task for you." I don't like it. It feels unauthentic and antithetical to CoX and the unique design that has sustained it through these past 20 years.

Rudra: makes no sense. Mechanically, that would mean that lower level villains/mobs would be spawning across the zone as the team/league wipes out the existing ones. Which would be counterproductive. You're right, it's a bit of a contrivance. However if you want to develop certain mechanics, then you need an explanation thematically for them. Similarly, if you want to develop a certain theme, then you utilize mechanics that affect that theme for the player to experience. It's quite rare that they are one and the same, and usually mechanics like that are a core part of the gameplay loop which means the entire game is probably built around them. So, yeah you're right. It's a bit of a stretch, but can you think of any other thematic justifications for the mechanics as presented? Or can you think of any mechanics that replace a proposed mechanic that would bring forth the theme more successfully? Hmmm, that's fair. Alright, how about this instead: I know the game is supposed to be set in 2004, so maybe this wouldn't work, but player characters have emotes where they use smartphones, so they exist in-universe. What if the civilians who may-or-may-not be present take pictures and videos and such and post them on the internet? Then, later, when your character is at their day job, they check out what people are saying about them, and get the experience then by observing the mistakes they made. Which, by the way, wouldn't conflict with the original idea I had where the heroes / villains were talking directly to one another. I'm open to suggestions for better ideas... This problem doesn't seem to be much of an issue for other MMOs, I'm thinking specifically of World of Warcraft. That game has regular expansions, and during the launch of an expansion the issue you're describing (overcrowded questing zones) is certainly present, and so they developed a lot of tech for ameliorating the problem through zoning, increased spawn rates, etc. However, it's only a problem for the first couple weeks of each expansion, after which the players are more evenly dispersed throughout the leveling zones, thus giving people easier access to the quest mobs they need to level up. Frankly I don't think it'd be a big problem in City of Heroes, where there's very very few missions like the ones you've described. And I have faith in the community of Homecoming, I believe that we'd quickly learn which mobs are important to avoid fighting excessively, especially when someone is trying to do a mission there. We're a kind group of people, and we wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes, so honestly I truly believe that we are too honorable to do something like that out of spite. At least, not on a massive scale. I'm sure it'll happen sometimes, especially before people learn. But we'd learn. And if it truly ends up being such a big problem, then perhaps the combined solutions presented earlier for: 1. increasing the spawn rates for critical mobs depending on the number of players in the zone 2. decreasing the minimum distance a player must be from a spawn point that is attempting to spawn, but can't because of player proximity (no closer than the aggro radius, of course, which can also be reduced with higher numbers of players) and 3. potentially granting kill credit for specific quests to people with those specific quests when those mobs are killed by non-team members in the immediate vicinity. I'm thinking no more than 50 yards away. Those three solutions I believe when applied to varying degrees (the third one is the least desirable, I believe) should address the concerns you have with open-world mobs. Do you have any ideas for other ways to address that issue? Can you find any flaws with these three solutions? I disagree, I believe I've adequately addressed all the concerns raised in this thread. And those that remain are significantly less harmful than the positive benefits brought from the implementation of such a system. I understand posts like this can be difficult to read through, especially when I write SO MUCH but I put the "essay" tag on this post for a reason... I need the words in order to express myself clearly, honestly, and diligently. The street sweep mission idea is nice, but like I said it's insufficient for the goals of this post. Specifically, the goals are: 1. to make patrolling the open world more desirable through increased street sweeping rewards 2. to encourage players to group up in an ad-hoc and decentralized way through the auto-team joining mechanic 3. to provide a massive increase in the amount of content for players to engage with through minimal systems development 4. to bring the community together by fostering a sense of mutual aid and contribution as players help one another, even if they don't know one another 5. to encourage a new style of gameplay that is unique and not present in the game -> namely, the dispersal of teammates throughout a zone, rather than their concentration I believe these 5 goals are valid, and I've offered methods of achieving them with comparatively minimal effort. Well, adjusting spaghetti is always monumental, but I do believe that most of the work can be building upon the spaghetti, like a garnish of parmesan or a meatball, rather than attempting to untangle it. There are no alterations proposed, rather only system additions, and I think that's probably easier.

Maybe an auto-power that drains more and more fury the longer you have it on while toggled, it applies a CC effect to nearby enemies in an increasing radius with increasing strength/duration the longer it's been on. Idk if that really fits with the fantasy of the Brute tho?

Yes exactly! Which is why the anti-afk mechanics proposed here: Luminara: You can set up macros (computer macros, not game macros) with any halfway decent keyboard or mouse software, and even low-end input devices come with that kind of software these days. It's bundled with the drivers. And for those with bottom shelf crap that's just doing basic input, there's freeware that does this. And the game can't distinguish between a person pressing a key/button and a computer sending keyboard/mouse input to the game via macros. It's impossible to create any anti-AFK measure that a simple macro program can't defeat because it's impossible for the game to distinguish between macro input and manual input. Gabrilend: The type of AFK detection I'm advocating for is pretty simple, basically if a player hasn't defeated a monster in the past minute then they don't get distributed EXP rewards. That's pretty much it. I'll explain how I'd implement the architecture: Whenever a player enters a zone, they get added to a list. When they leave, they are removed from that list. This list iterates through all the players in the zone one step per second (or other interval as determined by the capabilities of the server and the number of players in the zone). It checks the timestamp for when the player last defeated an enemy, and if it's greater than 1 minute then a boolean is flipped on their character's record in the list. This boolean is used to determine which heroes to distribute EXP rewards to. Next time they defeat a foe, the boolean flips back (or perhaps the next time the list iteration rolls past them). I believe this is a simple enough solution that should handle most AFK issues. Combined with the limitation that mobs cannot spawn at a certain spawn point while a player or their minions are within the aggro radius (both of the mob and the "aggressive" pet aggro distance) I think that AFKers should be mostly defeated. What do you think? Am I missing any situations that might apply? And just to clarify, this limitation only applies to the NEW source of exp distribution. The default means of acquiring EXP, perhaps from your friends fighting things nearby for you, should still be in effect. Albeit at a reduced rate, as 50% of their EXP is being distributed to the neighborhood... ... would address that concern. You wouldn't be able to just "walk through a parking lot and get EXP", you'd need to do at least a little fighting. And maybe that little bit that you did was enough for the other people who are doing more of the fighting to share some tips with you about how to fight this particular enemy - essentially, knowledge for free. Well, free because you were in the right place at the right time and you contributed a modicum of effort. I guess that's all you need. Besides, if everyone's sitting, then the farmers won't be helping them that much. If AFKers are as much of a concern as you expect, then there will be proportionally a much lower rate of experience awarded to them. Essentially, if you don't fight, then any other method of farming exp would be faster for you. And, if the opt-in mechanics as suggested here: Gabrilend: I see what you mean. Perhaps this would be an "opt-in" system, like the auto-generated groups I suggested which (as proposed) are only applied when the player marks themselves as "looking for patrol team" in the team finder interface. ... would allow you to disengage from this form of content if you believe that the AFKers are leeching and not actually contributing. Since the spirit of this suggestion is to facilitate coordination among wandering heroes, it makes sense that one of the justifications for the thematic implementation of the mechanical effects would be based on communication. So, to reiterate: EXP is shared because your fellow heroes are sharing tips with you about how to defeat this particular foe. Once you've learned all you can from them and outleveled the zone, there's nothing more you can do, so you move on individually. To a villain, perhaps fellow Destined Ones are sharing tips about how to survive in the Hellscape that Lord Recluse has created? Or if cooperation isn't in their nature, then perhaps the act of clearing a zone of enemies has made the new ones that wandered in proportionally weaker (as they do not possess as much experience as those who came before) and so you, the villain, feels more powerful (as reflected in the distributed experience) and thus can defeat them more easily.

That would be nice, but at the end of the day it's not really a fundamentally different playstyle. Which is what is being proposed - take an inert piece of content (the entire massive open world) and provide the structure to encourage engagement in a different way than what other types of content provide, while also providing rewards that make it enticing for players who care about that kind of thing. My vision is a city of heroes where you can wander where you please, fighting mobs as you see them, and playing with friends around you. There should be no compulsion to stick together like glue, you are wandering superheroes on patrol. You should spread out and cover the whole area. I believe the proposed mechanics create space for that fantasy, and I think the suggested structure is neat, easy to play, and easy to implement. The downsides suggested thus far seem to be either addressable, or just like... not that big of a deal. QFT My understanding is that players "won't use it" because they currently don't do street sweeping. And they don't currently do street sweeping because there's minimal rewards for it. However, by providing rewards, I believe players would be enticed to engage with this content. I do not believe their current lack of engagement with the open world is due to an inherent distaste for it, but rather simply an issue of rewards. And while a simpler solution could be implemented, most simple solutions do not offer anything compelling and new. I believe the proposed idea would offer compelling and new gameplay, and again I believe it would utilize existing assets and not require anything more than a few systems implemented in code.

In that case, your team would be one of several in that neighborhood. And the exp gains from that kill would be distributed to you according to the algorithm presented earlier, where 50% of the exp is granted to those present and 50% is divided amongst others in the zone. See my conversation with Luminara and McSpazz earlier in this thread: Gabrilend: I think this is absolutely a wonderful idea. Having an increased threat monster arise due to the presence of heroes, or maybe an archvillain shows up to stomp on all the lesser villains, something to that effect. Perhaps there's a hidden counter or meter that fills up as players fight monsters in the zone, and when a certain amount have been defeated a hero/archvillain is spawned that is thematically appropriate for that level range. That's a decent reward, but I believe it's a little similar to the Giant Monster mechanic. Perhaps an additional twist is necessary...! What if this archvillain/hero that spawns is of the opposite alignment to the zone. So, for example, if you're in Paragon City, an archvillain would spawn who was hostile to the players *and* the normal enemies present. So a neighborhood in Atlas Park for example which is mostly populated by Hellions would have an archvillain spawn who was drawn to the fighting for some reason and wanders around much like a player does fighting both heroes and Hellions. I believe that would encourage players to fight them, because not only would they be worth a lot of exp and infamy/influence, they also would be reducing the potential targets for their street sweeping patrol. There's currently already a large group of NPC costumes created for the bank heist missions. Perhaps after (100 * number of players in zone) enemy units are slain / arrested / beaten down, it spawns a hero/archvillain in a random neighborhood? Ideally, without any proclamation or explanation of their presence. That way players would have to hunt them down. Basically mirroring the players and using the same behavior they're using, but for the opposite side. Gabrilend: Perhaps when defeating these archvillains/heroes, you're given a reward merit? Would that be sufficient reward / motivation to engage with this kind of content, for the reward-oriented players in our midst?

Both of those are true, and both of them are reasons why the proposed idea should be considered. Giving street sweeping teams a generic purpose (rather than in pursuit of badges) would encourage their creation, and if they were made in an automatic way then there is significantly less friction when compared to the league solution. Since street sweeping does not grant rewards on par with missions, if they are to be considered a valid form of content then the rewards for street sweeping teams should be increased. Ideally, not to the same level as missions, as it's not good to upset the entire balance of the game. Doing as such is like messing with an ecosystem, and we all know what happens when you bring cats to Australia or whatever. Not a good plan. So, ideally, they should grant rewards that are about 80% as valuable as missions and raids and such - currently, I'd estimate they're much lower than that. I believe this percentage would allow people who like to engage with this kind of content to do so without feeling like they're wasting their time. In addition, an auto-team-up mechanic would prevent randos from stealing your exp.

The formatting on this post is gorgeous! ^_^ I'm confused about the range: 0 feet tho - how would that work? Can you elaborate? I thoughts this was an AoE centered on the player, and a range of 0 feet means... nothing would get affected, right?