Contacts and the Outleveling Issue

[Emperor Cole]

4 hours ago, SurfD said:

This is not ambiguous.  It means exactly what it says.  It does not mention MISSIONS at all.  It does not mention MOBS IN MISSIONS at all.  It mentions only one thing, the contact.  Out leveling a contact is not ambiguous.  It is well established that once you exceed a contact's level range, they simply pass you on to another contact in the next range and then stop talking to you entirely unless you have an active story arc.  Not out leveling a contact literally means exactly what it says: You can still get missions from a contact once if you have exceeded the 5 level block range they exist in.  That is all.

 

And yet you immediately go hareing off into "but what about the level of the missions" and "but the Mobs might eventually turn grey" arguments. AGAIN.

 

I am sorry reading comprehension is difficult for you, but there is no ambiguity here.  You simply insist on overthinking the question and then blaming everyone else when they point out that you are over thinking it.

Guys, don't bother replying to SwitchFade anymore, I don't want the thread to go off-topic.

[ArchVileTerror]

SO!

Has anyone tested that Merit thing I mentioned?

If you out-level an Arc to the point where you don't get Inf or Experience from it, does the conclusion of the Arc still award the Merits?  If not, then there really isn't any metagame reason I can see to reasonably deny this request.

 

Oh.  Wait.  I just realized another potential issue:  New players.

It would need to be very clearly explained to those players that these extended windows for Contact Arcs will not provide rewards.  They could feel that's very unfair, since they could be quite invested in a Contact which they out-level, and still want some in-game rewards for doing it for the first time.

The other alternative, but then we're back to the issue of introducing more coding effort for the Devs is to have it that you need to specifically flag/toggle an out-levelled Contact to get the grey-con missions.

 

I really do want more accessibility for all content . . . 

Well, here's hoping that when the Homecoming Team does their refactoring of in-game rewards that they keep talking about, that they also address these level barriers and open things up.

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by ArchVileTerror
Moment of Clarity

[SwitchFade]

OP, instead of asking for civility, you support people who blatantly insult another's person, versus discussing the actual merit and explenations of the idea. In the future I may find it difficult to consider your views credibly, knowing that you advocate such behavior 

 

Sorry, contacts and level ranges are fine as they are.

 

Hard no vote.

[Monos King]

6 hours ago, ArchVileTerror said:

Oh.  Wait.  I just realized another potential issue:  New players.

It would need to be very clearly explained to those players that these extended windows for Contact Arcs will not provide rewards.  They could feel that's very unfair, since they could be quite invested in a Contact which they out-level, and still want some in-game rewards for doing it for the first time.

The other alternative, but then we're back to the issue of introducing more coding effort for the Devs is to have it that you need to specifically flag/toggle an out-levelled Contact to get the grey-con missions.

Yeah I thought that might be a concern, the specification of how rewards won't be given. I imagine extra work wouldn't be neccessary though; they'll understand that the Grays they'll be fighting won't yield rewards so it would be clear they've surpassed the reward threshold. 

[ArchVileTerror]

I appreciate the point of view, Monos King, though I also come from a background where we try to (and please excuse the negative overtone here) "idiot-proof" our games.

That's not to say that a new player is lacking intelligence for not immediately understanding the grey-con visual signifier, but that for the best practices of accessibility we need to be cognizant of such possibilities, and try to soften the blow it might have on players' enjoyment.

[Monos King]

2 hours ago, ArchVileTerror said:

I appreciate the point of view, Monos King, though I also come from a background where we try to (and please excuse the negative overtone here) "idiot-proof" our games.

That's not to say that a new player is lacking intelligence for not immediately understanding the grey-con visual signifier, but that for the best practices of accessibility we need to be cognizant of such possibilities, and try to soften the blow it might have on players' enjoyment.

Haha I suppose that's fair. Maybe it would be possible just to add in blue text "Note: Mission Reward Eligibility will not scale with player level. If you are too high of a level to receive experience from mission enemies, you will receive no rewards from the mission or story arcs of the contact" to a tutorial contact in Galaxy city, the beginning few low level contacts, or as a pop-up prompt installed with the completion of your first story arc.

[thunderforce]

22 hours ago, ArchVileTerror said:

If you out-level an Arc to the point where you don't get Inf or Experience from it, does the conclusion of the Arc still award the Merits?  If not, then there really isn't any metagame reason I can see to reasonably deny this request.

It does. I don't really see that that's exploitable, though, because you can only do this once per contact+arc pair. If I wanted to farm merits, I'd get some friends with Mission and Team Teleporters and run through Dr Q (it can be done _really_ quickly, especially if someone goes ahead to the location of the next hunt and Assembles the Team as soon as it's up), not leave all my contacts to age so I can collect their merits slightly more quickly at the cost of not getting any XP/inf.

 

I do agree there's an issue with the interface; there has to be some way to switch the view of these outlevelled contacts on (and off again).

[Grouchybeast]

8 minutes ago, thunderforce said:

I do agree there's an issue with the interface; there has to be some way to switch the view of these outlevelled contacts on (and off again).

If outlevelled contacts went into a separate, new tab, the whole tab could have a big warning at the top that completing arcs from these contacts will award Merits only, no XP, inf or drops.

[SurfD]

33 minutes ago, thunderforce said:

I do agree there's an issue with the interface; there has to be some way to switch the view of these outlevelled contacts on (and off again).

Why though?  I mean, the "Inactive" contact list already exists.  This is where all of your unlocked contacts go when you out level them.  Literally the only difference would be that now, when you hit that call button on them they still have their missions available for you, instead of telling you they are too insignificant for you to bother with.

[thunderforce]

2 hours ago, SurfD said:

Why though?  I mean, the "Inactive" contact list already exists.  This is where all of your unlocked contacts go when you out level them.  Literally the only difference would be that now, when you hit that call button on them they still have their missions available for you, instead of telling you they are too insignificant for you to bother with.

I'd like to be able to distinguish "inactive" (has nothing) from "inactive" (has only outlevelled missions). Not vital, and slapping them all in inactive (perhaps sorting the ones who have nothing to the bottom) might be the easiest option.

[Snowdaze]

I think honestly, Ouro was the original attempt and being the remedy to the problem you want to solve. And I am willing to admit that Ouro doesn't have every arc. It does have most of them. The easiest thing from a programming stand point would to be expand Ouro to contain things that it is missing. 

 

And to the OP Emperor Cole, according to the details of your original post, you "abandoned one"... you could have left it active and finished the arc.

 

The rest is buried under 10 tons of "I want to play the game this way" vs "That doesn't thematically fit the game." Which often boils down to "I've been playing this long" vs "I've been playing this much longer."

[krj12]

I think the best solution would be to auto exemp you down to the max level of the arc, vs not giving any rewards at all.

 

[Monos King]

2 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

I think honestly, Ouro was the original attempt and being the remedy to the problem you want to solve. And I am willing to admit that Ouro doesn't have every arc. It does have most of them. The easiest thing from a programming stand point would to be expand Ouro to contain things that it is missing. 

 

And to the OP Emperor Cole, according to the details of your original post, you "abandoned one"... you could have left it active and finished the arc.

 

The rest is buried under 10 tons of "I want to play the game this way" vs "That doesn't thematically fit the game." Which often boils down to "I've been playing this long" vs "I've been playing this much longer."

That's been discussed earlier in the thread, the ouro stuff. Particularly on avoiding assumptions of what would be easier being the main argument, and just looking at what would be ideal. Pretty much, what to actually do is dev domain anyway, so let's brainstorm just see what would be most beneficial for the matter. 

 

The gap between "all of them" and what we have now, pretty big for ouro. And frankly, it just isn't the same as someone else had noted. It would be way easier for players to just not out-level contacts, while not nullifying the value of contact progression like adding every arc to ouro would. 

[Emperor Cole]

19 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

And to the OP Emperor Cole, according to the details of your original post, you "abandoned one"... you could have left it active and finished the arc.

 

You can finish a mini-arc, but once you're outside of the range, the contact is gone and you can't complete the arc.

[Snowdaze]

6 minutes ago, Monos King said:

That's been discussed earlier in the thread, the ouro stuff. Particularly on avoiding assumptions of what would be easier being the main argument, and just looking at what would be ideal. Pretty much, what to actually do is dev domain anyway, so let's brainstorm just see what would be most beneficial for the matter. 

 

The gap between "all of them" and what we have now, pretty big for ouro. And frankly, it just isn't the same as someone else had noted. It would be way easier for players to just not out-level contacts, while not nullifying the value of contact progression like adding every arc to ouro would. 

I feel that this would not be the "easier" choice. The way Ouro logically works is to exemp you and reactive a contact for you. Now It would be very "easy" to expand on this system, once the part of the code for it is identified and analysed. To the Point that they could add an Ouro category and just activate the WHOLE contact for you, and not just the single story arc. Modifying how the normal conacts work would probably be much more difficult, as there is way more things to "change".

 

New function is easy, Changing old function is hard. 

[Snowdaze]

1 minute ago, Emperor Cole said:

You can finish a mini-arc, but once you're outside of the range, the contact is gone and you can't complete the arc.

That is the original reason why Ouro was put in. I hear you, and I understand what you are saying. But it is a problem of your own making. It is entirely possible to do every mission from almost every contact (I think there might be mutually exclusive contacts in Praetoria) on a single character, if one is inclined to use the tools they currently have.

Plus ultimately almost all of us make more then one character, it's really just an opportunity for you to do something different on a new character.

 

I still think this is an unnecessary Suggestion.

[Monos King]

2 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

I feel that this would not be the "easier" choice. The way Ouro logically works is to exemp you and reactive a contact for you. Now It would be very "easy" to expand on this system, once the part of the code for it is identified and analysed. To the Point that they could add an Ouro category and just activate the WHOLE contact for you, and not just the single story arc. Modifying how the normal conacts work would probably be much more difficult, as there is way more things to "change".

 

New function is easy, Changing old function is hard. 

Easier for players, not code, sorry about that confusion. 

I mentioned earlier that this idea being functionally difficult to install could be a real, and disqualifying, issue of the suggestion. I'm still of that opinion. But I think it'd be convenient and helpful, so until that gets corroborated I'm all for this idea. I'd love to just play arcs for story without worry of losing them as a byproduct of simply playing the game, and without hassle of joining an ouro taskforce. Ouro is a minor plight though, and if that's the suggestion they went with I wouldn't mind that as much either.

[Emperor Cole]

1 minute ago, Snowdaze said:

That is the original reason why Ouro was put in. I hear you, and I understand what you are saying. But it is a problem of your own making. It is entirely possible to do every mission from almost every contact (I think there might be mutually exclusive contacts in Praetoria) on a single character, if one is inclined to use the tools they currently have.

Plus ultimately almost all of us make more then one character, it's really just an opportunity for you to do something different on a new character.

 

I still think this is an unnecessary Suggestion.

Agree to disagree.

[Snowdaze]

2 minutes ago, Emperor Cole said:

Agree to disagree.

It's there for you! 😵😵😵

[Monos King]

8 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

But it is a problem of your own making. It is entirely possible to do every mission from almost every contact (I think there might be mutually exclusive contacts in Praetoria) on a single character, if one is inclined to use the tools they currently have.

Right, but that's an extreme inconvenience and it would be far funner if you didn't have to carefully plan just to enjoy storylines. Just because the means exist doesn't make them ideal or even good. Thats why we suggest qol ideas. Investing time? Definitely, that's a sacrifice inherent to them because you have to complete missions and unlock the contacts. But to find an imposed obstacle to that embedded within the act of doing the missions themselves is pretty silly. But again, if adding every mission to ouro turns out to just be a vastly better option, despite what that would do for contact progression, I'd be content.

 

And we had a big disable XP discussion already earlier, I'm not revisiting that one hahaha. I don't think anyone in favor of this idea is too settled with that option.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Monos King
I noticed some XP

[Snowdaze]

1 minute ago, Monos King said:

Right, but that's an extreme inconvenience and it would be far funner if you didn't have to carefully plan just to enjoy storylines. Just because the means exist doesn't make them ideal or even good. Thats why we suggest qol ideas. Investing time? Definitely, that's a sacrifice inherent to them because you have to complete missions and unlock the contacts. But to find an imposed obstacle to that embedded within the act of doing the missions themselves is pretty silly. But again, if adding every mission to ouro turns out to just be a vastly better option, despite what that would do for contact progression, I'd be content.

Please don't give me that, I have never had an issue navigating the flow of contacts, it's even much easier now then it used to be, with the "find a contact" and safeguard/mayhem missions. I have never had an issue except in the very very low low ranges from out-leveling content or multiple contacts. Don't use the xp buff from the P2W vendor, don't run on +2/x5 (example), experience the original leveling curve and there is plenty of time to get all the things you want to do in. And frankly running any content with more then 2 people you are probably going to pick up extra xp too.

There are a ton of options currently available to everyone. And yet it's still not good enough, and frankly you all just don't want to be told "NO". 
This suggestion is STILL an unnecessary suggestion. <insert having cake and eating it too idiom>

[Monos King]

17 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

Please don't give me that, I have never had an issue navigating the flow of contacts, it's even much easier now then it used to be, with the "find a contact" and safeguard/mayhem missions. I have never had an issue except in the very very low low ranges from out-leveling content or multiple contacts. Don't use the xp buff from the P2W vendor, don't run on +2/x5 (example), experience the original leveling curve and there is plenty of time to get all the things you want to do in. And frankly running any content with more then 2 people you are probably going to pick up extra xp too.

There are a ton of options currently available to everyone. And yet it's still not good enough, and frankly you all just don't want to be told "NO". 
This suggestion is STILL an unnecessary suggestion. <insert having cake and eating it too idiom>

Well, you can keep doing that if this gets implemented. I'll keep suggesting to make things convenient scorp. 

[Snowdaze]

31 minutes ago, Monos King said:

I'll keep suggesting to make things convenient scorp. 

And that's what happend to WoW, and now look at them! They relaunched a classic version because they messed up their game too much!

Edited May 8, 2020 by Snowdaze

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, krj12 said:

I think the best solution would be to auto exemp you down to the max level of the arc, vs not giving any rewards at all.

If this was going to be the result of having an "outleveled but incomplete" category for contacts between Active and Inactive, I would like to see it made a game option to select either being exemp'ed to the max level of the contact/arc or retaining your actual level; sometimes you want the feeling of total superiority that being able to casually blow through a mission gives you (without having to wait for the first mission of Mender Ramiel's arc).

[SurfD]

4 hours ago, Snowdaze said:

Please don't give me that, I have never had an issue navigating the flow of contacts, it's even much easier now then it used to be, with the "find a contact" and safeguard/mayhem missions. I have never had an issue except in the very very low low ranges from out-leveling content or multiple contacts. Don't use the xp buff from the P2W vendor, don't run on +2/x5 (example), experience the original leveling curve and there is plenty of time to get all the things you want to do in. And frankly running any content with more then 2 people you are probably going to pick up extra xp too.

There are a ton of options currently available to everyone. And yet it's still not good enough, and frankly you all just don't want to be told "NO". 
This suggestion is STILL an unnecessary suggestion. <insert having cake and eating it too idiom>

Sorry, but this is a pretty bullshit argument.   There is ABSOLUTELY no way you are "experiencing the original leveling curve" AND "having plenty of time to get all the things you want to do in" simultaneously without artificially blocking your progress rate by turning off EXP.   Literally all of the content in the game is hard locked into 5 level blocks, and even solo with no EXP modifiers, questing through most single zones will easily have you blowing through 5 levels without much problem.  Unless you are stealthing through everything and only clicking glowies/killing bosses, and ignoring task forces completely, you will EASILY outlevel probably 2/3s of the content available at any given 5 level block range.  And that doesn't even touch on the whole "well don't group for content either" cause that just makes you level faster argument in a social game.   Maybe some of us don't actually want to play City of EXP Frozen Social Outcasts.

 

And sorry, but no, turning off EXP is basically a shitty hack of a solution.  It does not improve the organic flow of the leveling process (because you just completely stopped leveling), and it also basically gimps your progression since you get no real benefit from turning EXP off.   And while Ouro is a somewhat viable alternative, it still doesn't preserve the natural flow of basic contact interaction.  Ouro is basically just forced instancing of mission content as you have to return to ouro every time you complete a mission or arc in order to set up and start the next one.

 

To use WoW as an example, since you decided to throw it in for no reason whatsoever: Imagine WoW if every zone had a hard cap on it's level range, and all the quests in the zone simply shut off the instant you outleveled them.   What's that?  You out leveled this awesome level 20 to 25 zone while you were only half way through it?  Nope, sorry, you can't just take your level 26 toon and continue with your questing experience, get lost and bugger off to the next available level 26-30 zone.  What? You wanted to continue with the available story in this zone? Ok, but now you have to unlock a special gimmick mechanic through the Bronze Dragonflight so you can warp back in time and experience this zone only at level 20-25.   Oh, and you have to repeat the process for every. singe. quest chain.  And by the way, only about 3/4 of the quests in the zone are actually available through this mechanic.  The rest of them?  Well, sucks to be you, maybe you should have disabled EXP when you hit level 25.

 

It makes no sense in WoW.  Currently, I can go to any zone I want, at any time I want, and complete any quest I want, and nobody cares that I am a level 90 god stomping the crap out of a level 30 quest zone.  It makes no sense in CoH either, for the exact same reasons.  Nobody should care that Captain Atomic takes some time out of his busy schedule saving the world from intergalactic threats to beat the tar our of a local level street gang who stand absolutely no chance against him. Basically the only reason this mechanic exists in CoH is to forcibly drive you to the next level range of content, even if doing so could potentially cut you off from a multi part story arc until you get to ouro.  Hell, the only reason it possibly needs to exist is because there is the potential of being able to effortlessly curb stomp your way through a low level story arc for a pitiful handful of merits, which is a pretty damn weakass reason, since you can basically do that right now ANYWAY simply by setting the difficulty to as low as it gets before you fire up your Ouro flashback.   It won't take a level 40 character noticably longer to stomp their way through a level 20 mission chain than it would a level 20 character with the mission set to -1.

 

And even the argument that new players might end up doing an arc and not realizing they are getting no reward from the critters is weak.  I mean, practically everyone who has ever played a role playing game EVER understands that it is possible to outlevel content.  You would practically have to be new to the entire concept of how 99% of RPGs work for this to come as a surprise (and somehow I doubt that there are many people who are complete RPG neophytes who also simultaneously managed to discover a MMO as niche as Homecoming), not to mention that the way the conning system works should be brutally obvious to anyone with basic common sense by time they are level 5 or so (what? Grey Mooks give you nothing? Mind. Blown!)

 

CoH is the only RPG I have ever encountered that literally just straight up goes "nope, not letting you do that any more, move along" when you out level content.  And there is basically no reason for it to do so.

Edited May 9, 2020 by SurfD