AE Redesign

[KalSpiro]

I'll start by saying that I have no expectations that this is even possible.  It's a complaint I've had since AE was first implemented.  I just wish it worked differently.  I dislike that it's enclosed in the building the way it is.  It was meant to be a storytelling feature, but became just a farming method because it couldn't help but be.

 

I wish that when making a mission it was possible to define a zone for that missions to exist in, such that the door would actually be in that zone.  I also wish that the contact could exist in the zone.  Rather than having holographic person that becomes the contact I envisioned a series of phased contacts throughout the zones that can unphase when you start an AE and become the contact in the world.  Then AE could become, not only a storytelling tool, but an RP tool, better than it currently is.  If any of this were actually possible.

 

Additionally, and this one I hope is more possible.  It would be awesome if the AE base item was actually functional.  That would also help further RP because it wouldn't require taking the group out of the moment by crowding into an AE building in some zone, or Pocket D.

[Razor Cure]

Aww damn. ANd here I was hoping that you were going to talk about killing AE farming. Custom stories are awesome. Being able to hit level 50 in an hour or whatever it is, less so.

[Megajoule]

Way back on live, I hated what AE turned into / was actually used for, compared to its potential. By now, I've just given up accepted it. 

People who want to PL will find a way, whether it's AE farms or something else.  You can't stop them.  Close or nerf one path, they'll just move to the next.

[DR_Mechano]

3 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

Way back on live, I hated what AE turned into / was actually used for, compared to its potential. By now, I've just given up accepted it. 

People who want to PL will find a way, whether it's AE farms or something else.  You can't stop them.  Close or nerf one path, they'll just move to the next.

If it wasn't AE, we both know that it would just go back to the old Peregrine Isle freakshow/council farming maps. I make use of it purely to farm and PL other people for free (so I have some company on long maps) so I'm not exactly one to complain but...

 

...personally I feel that the amount of time and effort the Paragon Studios team put into the AE on live was a complete waste of time. While it was a great talking point on the back of a box it didn't really help because people wanting to create good story driven content are in the minority. They couldn't have the AE give no or very low rewards apart from the story since they knew that a very large chunk of the playerbase wouldn't even touch it in that case but at the same time by allowing standard rewards or even just AE tickets, they knew people would game and break the system in order to level up faster/farm faster.

 

So it was either going to be a feature people played around with once, maybe twice, then ditched because why would I do something for no reward even if the story is good or simply accept that it was going to end up what it turned in to. Instead they tried to have their cake and eat it, nerfing things constantly, the more nerfs piled on, the less people played  or made story arcs because they became less and less worth their time and each nerf constantly broke arcs meaning you had to go back in and fix them. Each time they bought in a nerf the farmers found a way around it and a new set of farming missions cropped up. They spent months and months of work for something that caused them no end of frustration and in the end became barely a feature and little more than a 'customize your own farming map'.

 

It was time and effort that could have been spent on improving the game as a whole, instead they spent what felt like almost an entire year chasing their own tail until they very obviously just gave up (Dev's choice awards stopped, bugfixing stopped, balancing stopped, everything just stopped).

[Jeuraud]

I like this idea, and you can make it so that you can only do the same Contact once in a 24hr period, unless the Contact has an Arc.

 

I don't really care if someone PLs themselves, but make it so they have to work at it at least. Being able to go from 1 to 50 in the same building is just wrong.

[Megajoule]

I think it was a fantastic idea for empowering those people who were content creators (Sturgeon's Law applies to the quality of that content, of course) which completely failed to take into account what most people are actually like and play(ed) this game for.  😛

[MunkiLord]

8 hours ago, KalSpiro said:

I'll start by saying that I have no expectations that this is even possible.  It's a complaint I've had since AE was first implemented.  I just wish it worked differently.  I dislike that it's enclosed in the building the way it is.  It was meant to be a storytelling feature, but became just a farming method because it couldn't help but be.

 

I wish that when making a mission it was possible to define a zone for that missions to exist in, such that the door would actually be in that zone.  I also wish that the contact could exist in the zone.  Rather than having holographic person that becomes the contact I envisioned a series of phased contacts throughout the zones that can unphase when you start an AE and become the contact in the world.  Then AE could become, not only a storytelling tool, but an RP tool, better than it currently is.  If any of this were actually possible.

 

Additionally, and this one I hope is more possible.  It would be awesome if the AE base item was actually functional.  That would also help further RP because it wouldn't require taking the group out of the moment by crowding into an AE building in some zone, or Pocket D.

I love all of these ideas. 

[Jeuraud]

30 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

...personally I feel that the amount of time and effort the Paragon Studios team put into the AE on live was a complete waste of time.

And I think that the OPs idea would make what I agree was a waste of Dev time, and IMO detrimental to CoH, no longer a waste of Dev time.

The AE building would be the place you build these missions, and could be like the Kiosk of SWG; you go in, find an interesting mission/arc, and then go find the Contact for that mission/arc. You could be on a Blue-side AE Kiosk and see an interesting mission/arc that is over on the Red-side, and choose to go Red-side for just that mission/arc.

 

 

[Clave Dark 5]

5 hours ago, Megajoule said:

I think it was a fantastic idea for empowering those people who were content creators (Sturgeon's Law applies to the quality of that content, of course) which completely failed to take into account what most people are actually like and play(ed) this game for.  😛

I think your take fails to take into account how AE got more and more broken over time as a storytelling tool. 

 

I was all over it for telling stories when it came out back in the day live and had to move on when the damage began to accumulate and was left unrepaired.  The only example I can recall right now is the mechanic for dialogue: you walk onto a map and when you got close to some foes, or NPCs (or both), they'd spout whatever lines you put in for them.  Both then and now, they spout it as soon as you walk onto a map.  Sure, you could cut lines from a story, adjust in one way or another, but this was close to a third of your material that an author can get into the story/game, and certainly broke every story I'd already sunk hours into.  I mean, my stuff might not be good, but try cutting out a third of any movie, TV show episode and see what you get. 

 

The only thing it still works well for is farming, far as I can tell.  Until this is addressed, I don't foresee myself getting back into the AE system,

[PaxArcana]

I wish they had done it where you used a sort of "Mad Lib" interface: you choose several elements, and then the game procedurally builds a mission from that.

 

A very temporary, nonpermanent, nonrepeatable mission.  (Nixes most Farming right there.)

 

You choose the mission objective/type; you choose the opposing group(s); you choose the map type; you choose the location (meaning, the Zone); you can then choose one or more Complications.  Two people choosing the same things right down the line, at the same moment in time, would get two different missions, on different maps.

 

...

 

Honestly, that would have worked brilliantly for Villains, as a replacement for the Newspaper (and, when 'ported over for Heroes with more heroic mission objectives, for the Police Radio).  It would have given Villains more of a sense of agency, just for one point.

 

No, there wouldn't be any stories in it; it'd just be Paper/Radio mission stuff.  But, again, more of a sense of agency - and more customizable than "pick one of these three".

 

...

 

Let's say you have a Fire/Poison Corruptor, a villain, by the name of Arsenist (portmanteau of Arsenic and Arson).  You envision him as a pyromaniac/sociopath - "Some people, Master Bruce, just want to watch the world burn" and all that.  With that "Mad Lib" version of the Paper/AE/Radio, you could actually make your character a serial arsonist, by choosing "Arson" as the type of crime you will commit for most of your missions.  Arsenist doesn't do bank robberies, he doesn't take hostages or kidnap people, he just wants to watch buildings burn to the ground (preferably with people inside, 'cause he's a sociopathic monster).  Maybe even entire neighborhoods.

 

Meanwhile, someone else has a Brute named Katastroph, who just likes to go "hulk: smash!" on neighborhoods.  He usually picks Mayhem-style missions, and just runs around breaking everything in sight.

 

And yet a third person ... well, you get the picture.

 

THAT would have been superior to the AE, and to the Newspaper/Police Radio, by at least two orders of magnitude.  PLAYER AGENCY, is the key.

[ShardWarrior]

19 hours ago, KalSpiro said:

I wish that when making a mission it was possible to define a zone for that missions to exist in

The Foundry over in STO had this functionality.  You could define where the mission(s) took place.

 

I say had because Cryptic poo pooed the Foundry and removed it from STO.  Sad, sad, sad day for that game.  🙁

[ShardWarrior]

11 hours ago, Megajoule said:

I think it was a fantastic idea for empowering those people who were content creators (Sturgeon's Law applies to the quality of that content, of course) which completely failed to take into account what most people are actually like and play(ed) this game for.  😛

I really don't care for farming and farming missions cluttering up the AE list, however those are still content and the people making them are content creators too.  Clearly they have an audience eager to run their stuff.  I don't care for it, but won't begrudge those that do.

 

I would like to see the better, non-farm missions get rewarded more somehow.  "Dev spotlight" or something like that.  STO allowed you to tip the author with in-game currency if you liked their mission.

[Xoza]

I believe they intended to expand on a few of these things, but we all know what happened.

19 hours ago, KalSpiro said:

I'll start by saying that I have no expectations that this is even possible.  It's a complaint I've had since AE was first implemented.  I just wish it worked differently.  I dislike that it's enclosed in the building the way it is.  It was meant to be a storytelling feature, but became just a farming method because it couldn't help but be.

I agree with you, but AE was created as a tool to help facilitate expanding content without developers and permit players to create their own content. This gave the game a self evolving content creation platform. Whether players used it for farming or creating legitimate content is solely based on the players, but at least that freedom was given to us. Farming already existed before AE. I would rather have AE and have farmers, then not have AE. Content is still content whether it's created or not and should still have rewards to offer incentive.

 

20 hours ago, KalSpiro said:

I wish that when making a mission it was possible to define a zone for that missions to exist in, such that the door would actually be in that zone.  I also wish that the contact could exist in the zone.  Rather than having holographic person that becomes the contact I envisioned a series of phased contacts throughout the zones that can unphase when you start an AE and become the contact in the world.  Then AE could become, not only a storytelling tool, but an RP tool, better than it currently is.  If any of this were actually possible.

I like that idea. However I feel like their orginal intent was a 'simulated story telling platform.' where they could separate not actual world effecting stories or events. Like we play video games in our world, supers of this world would go play AE.

 

20 hours ago, KalSpiro said:

Additionally, and this one I hope is more possible.  It would be awesome if the AE base item was actually functional.  That would also help further RP because it wouldn't require taking the group out of the moment by crowding into an AE building in some zone, or Pocket D.

Doesn't seem bases support 'mission doors' of any kind though, even if they did I think you'd always end up back in a regular zone after the mission. Everything you get from the Mission Terminal says you have to go to a regular zone and /ah doesn't even work.

 

Now if any of these things could be enabled, that would be great!

I'd also like to see the ability for players to enter the same AE mission from any zone. I could be in PI, team leader in Atlas and we could both enter AE in that zone and end up in the same mission. If it's a 'simulation' we would both connect to the same one. It doesn't work this way because when you start a mission it 'assigns a door in a zone'.