Contacts and the Outleveling Issue

[MTeague]

44 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

It's poor form for devs to post in the suggestion box. 

I must have missed the etiquette manual that you're reading from. 

I certainly would take no offense, and not consider it to be anything but HELPFUL for a dev to say "Codewise, that's a nightmare, I wouldn't get your hopes up, at least not at this time." or to say "Something like that is probably possible... do not take this as a promise it will get done... but in priniciple, if something like this worked its way to the top of the queue, it could happen.".

 

Hell, I wouldn't even mind if the devs said "you know what?  We could totally do that. It would take two seconds. But we're opposed to the idea, so it won't happen. Ever."  I mean, I might be disappointed, but at least there would be Word From On High, and that would be that. 

 

I also would not be offended if the devs chose NOT to post anything... if they prefer just lurk and skim posts, hey cool.

But "poor form"?  Sorry. I can't get behind that. 

[Snowdaze]

8 minutes ago, MTeague said:

I must have missed the etiquette manual that you're reading from. 

I certainly would take no offense, and not consider it to be anything but HELPFUL for a dev to say "Codewise, that's a nightmare, I wouldn't get your hopes up, at least not at this time." or to say "Something like that is probably possible... do not take this as a promise it will get done... but in priniciple, if something like this worked its way to the top of the queue, it could happen.".

 

Hell, I wouldn't even mind if the devs said "you know what?  We could totally do that. It would take two seconds. But we're opposed to the idea, so it won't happen. Ever."  I mean, I might be disappointed, but at least there would be Word From On High, and that would be that. 

 

I also would not be offended if the devs chose NOT to post anything... if they prefer just lurk and skim posts, hey cool.

But "poor form"?  Sorry. I can't get behind that. 

Think about it this way, soon as they start posting things like that then people are going to cry and complain when they arent answered. It's really a slippery slope. It's one thing if they want to make an announcement/update/future plans post, or hold and AMA event, or something. But when they start commenting on individual posts in the suggestion box, well like I said it's a slippery slope.

[MTeague]

17 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

Think about it this way, soon as they start posting things like that then people are going to cry and complain when they arent answered. It's really a slippery slope. It's one thing if they want to make an announcement/update/future plans post, or hold and AMA event, or something. But when they start commenting on individual posts in the suggestion box, well like I said it's a slippery slope.

I understand where you're coming from. I'm not sure I arrive at the same conclusion, but I can see the argument. 

 

Really, it was the "poor form" phraseology that struck me more than anything else.  I was more like "Dude this is their home and we are all of us their guests, how can it possibly be poor form for them to speak their mind?"

[Snowdaze]

7 minutes ago, MTeague said:

I understand where you're coming from. I'm not sure I arrive at the same conclusion, but I can see the argument. 

 

Really, it was the "poor form" phraseology that struck me more than anything else.  I was more like "Dude this is their home and we are all of us their guests, how can it possibly be poor form for them to speak their mind?"

I understand "poor form" can mean a wide range of things. But the Homecoming Team are definitely trying to be as professional as possible, and for that I am extremely grateful they do the game and the community tremendous credit.

 

So as much as we would like opinions or word about a suggestion from up on high, the homecoming team will most likely continue keeping a silent watchful eye on the suggestion box for good ideas that everyone likes, or at least no one hates, that could be implemented reasonably into the game without shifting the balance of the game or making the card house of code crumble.

[Monos King]

5 hours ago, Snowdaze said:

It's poor form for devs to post in the suggestion box. 

Fair, it'd have to be higher priority or already being discussed by them. Hopefully it shows up in a weekly discussion pin or something so it can be deliberated or rested.

[Oubliette_Red]

On 5/9/2020 at 5:59 AM, SurfD said:

On 5/9/2020 at 5:47 AM, Reiska said:

Incidentally, Praetoria goldside story arcs in the 1-20 are a well known case in the current game of content that violates the "you can always finish the arc" "rule" that applies to most of this game's content.

Not to mention that even only doing HALF the content in Praetoria is more than enough to push you past 20, where the initial 3 zones basically run out of contacts.  I just finished running a brute through the loyalist side, and even with no EXP boost I was almost level 21 having done ONLY the Power/Responsibility quest lines.

Ran into this issue yesterday, now I will need to reroll my Praetorian.

Not even HALF of the content. My Praetorian is running strictly Loyalists Powers contacts and arcs and I missed turning off XP and Tami Baker will not even give me the time of day. 

 

I can understand contacts not talking to us if we've out-leveled them at first contact, but not if you've already started running their missions.

 

Regarding running cut-off contacts via Ouroboros, problematic on a Praetorian.

 

[Lorak_Vanadius]

My 2 cents on this topic

 

Why don't implement a button when you accept the first mission of an arc from contact that enables you to get just the exp needed to reach the contact lvl cap and then it stops you from outleveling it cutting exp and doubling inf or receiving more enhancements? Practically impelment the "stop exp gain" option just inside the contact window

[Snowdaze]

4 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

Ran into this issue yesterday, now I will need to reroll my Praetorian.

Not even HALF of the content. My Praetorian is running strictly Loyalists Powers contacts and arcs and I missed turning off XP and Tami Baker will not even give me the time of day. 

 

I can understand contacts not talking to us if we've out-leveled them at first contact, but not if you've already started running their missions.

 

Regarding running cut-off contacts via Ouroboros, problematic on a Praetorian.

 

I just finished a run through Praetoria, and I have completely come to the conclusion that doing all 40 contacts was NOT the intentions of the original devs. There are 4 distinct Storylines going on, all of which (if played correctly) independently can level you from 1-20. There is no faster way excluding a DFB to get a character from 1-20 then Praetoria! However Praetoria is not for the new player. It is an expert zone! Everything is more dangerous then regular blue or red content. 

 

And lastly EVERY ARC in praetoria is in Ouro.

[Oubliette_Red]

 

1 hour ago, Snowdaze said:

6 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

Ran into this issue yesterday, now I will need to reroll my Praetorian.

Not even HALF of the content. My Praetorian is running strictly Loyalists Powers contacts and arcs and I missed turning off XP and Tami Baker will not even give me the time of day. 

 

I can understand contacts not talking to us if we've out-leveled them at first contact, but not if you've already started running their missions.

 

Regarding running cut-off contacts via Ouroboros, problematic on a Praetorian.

 

I just finished a run through Praetoria, and I have completely come to the conclusion that doing all 40 contacts was NOT the intentions of the original devs. There are 4 distinct Storylines going on, all of which (if played correctly) independently can level you from 1-20. There is no faster way excluding a DFB to get a character from 1-20 then Praetoria! However Praetoria is not for the new player. It is an expert zone! Everything is more dangerous then regular blue or red content. 

 

And lastly EVERY ARC in praetoria is in Ouro.

Nowhere in my post did I saw that I was trying to run every contact. Matter of fact, I highlighted the portion of my post which storyline I was running, Powers, which is a grand total of 10 contacts.

 

And while yes, Praetorian content is in Ouro.  My Praetorian (or anyone elses Praetorian for that matter) CANNOT access Ouro. Unless you transition them to Primal Earth which I have no intention of doing. I mean if that's the case, why bother rolling a Praetorian at all, just run all the missions on a Primal Earther.

 

 

[Snowdaze]

4 minutes ago, Oubliette_Red said:

 

Nowhere in my post did I saw that I was trying to run every contact. Matter of fact, I highlighted the portion of my post which storyline I was running, Powers, which is a grand total of 10 contacts.

 

And while yes, Praetorian content is in Ouro.  My Praetorian (or anyone elses Praetorian for that matter) CANNOT access Ouro. Unless you transition them to Primal Earth which I have no intention of doing. I mean if that's the case, why bother rolling a Praetorian at all, just run all the missions on a Primal Earther.

 

 

I really just quoted you as the latest to bring up Praetorian issues. And while I agree that Praetorian contacts should act more like normal contacts and let you finish the arc you are currently working on, Choosing to limit your praetorian to just Praetoria is just that, your choice. And it is a choice that comes with a certain number of drawbacks, like the inability to go to Ouro, or 90% of the other content in the game. None the less it's a choice you are welcome to make.

[Monos King]

5 hours ago, Snowdaze said:

I really just quoted you as the latest to bring up Praetorian issues. And while I agree that Praetorian contacts should act more like normal contacts and let you finish the arc you are currently working on, Choosing to limit your praetorian to just Praetoria is just that, your choice. And it is a choice that comes with a certain number of drawbacks, like the inability to go to Ouro, or 90% of the other content in the game. None the less it's a choice you are welcome to make.

Or we could remove some of those drawbacks because they're silly, and make praetoria somewhat appealing so that people actually want to play it unlike in the OG game. Good old improvement. People were so sick of playing praetoria and praetorian limitations that they just opted to not. Why introduce an entire new world just to give it nothing the other two alignments get and a lot more difficulty doing the things they do get for nothing more? That could at least be fixed. But....

 

@Oubliette_Red On the matter of ouroboros though, it'd be nice if praetorians could unlock it at level 20 or so through their encounters with the primal earthers, this suggestion aside. The devs kind of gave up on Praetoria and just made it a transitional space so choosing to play as it solely comes with a bunch of disadvantages that are consequences of the fact. It sucks, but praetoria is so not developed to stand on it's own that you'll be bound to run into even more problems if you are taking that route.

 

Anyhow. Ouro is a good supplementary feature but it can't continuously be alluded to as an actual solution to elements that should be apart of ordinary gameplay. If it were, why even have contacts when ouro was made, could've just added everything there from the get-go. You can level up doing other things, who needs contact progression? That's what the end ideology of what I keep hearing. Ouro is there to repeat arcs you liked, to do arcs you simply could not do through ordinary contact progression (even if you had XP disabled the contact choices simply disavow you from getting those arcs) and to get badges you missed or aren't able to get on your own, and not to compensate for doing what contacts are supposed to do in the first place -- giving missions. Ouroboros is additional, not fundamental, so when a fundamental issue comes up like I literally cannot complete or gain these missions and arcs when the point of missions and arcs is to be gained and completed, we have an issue. That's really for other people/devs Snow, I already know how you feel about this one.

[Snowdaze]

1 hour ago, Monos King said:

Or we could remove some of those drawbacks because they're silly, and make praetoria somewhat appealing so that people actually want to play it unlike in the OG game. Good old improvement. People were so sick of playing praetoria and praetorian limitations that they just opted to not. Why introduce an entire new world just to give it nothing the other two alignments get and a lot more difficulty doing the things they do get for nothing more? That could at least be fixed. But....

 

@Oubliette_Red On the matter of ouroboros though, it'd be nice if praetorians could unlock it at level 20 or so through their encounters with the primal earthers, this suggestion aside. The devs kind of gave up on Praetoria and just made it a transitional space so choosing to play as it solely comes with a bunch of disadvantages that are consequences of the fact. It sucks, but praetoria is so not developed to stand on it's own that you'll be bound to run into even more problems if you are taking that route.

 

Anyhow. Ouro is a good supplementary feature but it can't continuously be alluded to as an actual solution to elements that should be apart of ordinary gameplay. If it were, why even have contacts when ouro was made, could've just added everything there from the get-go. You can level up doing other things, who needs contact progression? That's what the end ideology of what I keep hearing. Ouro is there to repeat arcs you liked, to do arcs you simply could not do through ordinary contact progression (even if you had XP disabled the contact choices simply disavow you from getting those arcs) and to get badges you missed or aren't able to get on your own, and not to compensate for doing what contacts are supposed to do in the first place -- giving missions. Ouroboros is additional, not fundamental, so when a fundamental issue comes up like I literally cannot complete or gain these missions and arcs when the point of missions and arcs is to be gained and completed, we have an issue. That's really for other people/devs Snow, I already know how you feel about this one.

The element that you are missing in your analysis is CoH was a living game with an ongoing storyline that evolved from issue to issue. Now they had to make a way for old content to still "make sense" So ouro was introduced allowing a lot of functions in the game that weren't there before, along with adding a new plot mechanism. Also the devs didn't "forget about Praetoria"!  SPOILER:

Spoiler

Praetoria: IT'S GONE! HAMIDON WON! THATS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DEFEAT TYRANT!

 

Praetoria's story was developed right up to Issue 23, which was the last issue on the live servers! So please don't say Praetoria was forgotten about. 

 

Not everything that is in the game is supposed to being going on at the exact same time! That's why as you level up enemies change things get tougher, and old enemies become trivial, so you can FEEL the progress and passage of time.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Snowdaze

[Monos King]

41 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

The element that you are missing in your analysis is CoH was a living game with an ongoing storyline that evolved from issue to issue. Now they had to make a way for old content to still "make sense" So ouro was introduced allowing a lot of functions in the game that weren't there before, along with adding a new plot mechanism. Also the devs didn't "forget about Praetoria"!  SPOILER:

You're 100% right, and actually that was pretty effective then. And I loved the storylines in this game, that's why I want to open up these storylines to other people with suggestions like the OPs. It's just that that role of Ouro just doesn't really hold up anymore. Not in Homecoming anyway. I mean you're able to unlock post-Tyrant defeat arcs from Mr. G at the 30s, the timeline progression concern is kind of dead. Earnestly, I actually think that's dumb, but Mr. G isn't the only instance anyway.

 

So, let's remove the contact out-leveling mechanism. We've seen from various people its outright harmful, annoying, inhibiting and every reason it's still here is now archaic. In the process of innovating, it would be possible to clear up certain things for new players that weren't cleared up before; the fact that your enemies might not scale with your level and that you have outgrown the difficulty of the contact, and that you won't be given the same extent of rewards for completing the content as you would during the initial levels. There were some suggestions on how to do that earlier in the thread. Adding that explanation to the tutorials in blue text from your first contact for instance. Hell, even before Homecoming if the issue was that it would be confusing to the timeline, that could still be addressed pretty easily while implementing this suggestion. Progression is not impeded by opening up the entirety of a contacts arcs to you while you are progressing. Progression is impeded by it literally being ceased by losing access to a contact. Being forced to go to another contact isn't progress, it's subversion. A lot of people have never liked that aspect, I suppose you're just hearing it now. If anything this proposal assures it, by ensuring the aspect of arc progression is intact, moving through the missions and stories without a sudden cut off. 

 

Spoiler

(As for what I said about Praetoria, I'm going off of the AMAs. Perhaps forgotten about wasn't the best phrase, abandoned is much more accurate. They could've done different things with the world of course, they just decided not to because people were sick of it. I can try to find that for you if you want.)

 

[Snowdaze]

OK the ONLY WAY I am agreeing to any of this is if the following rules are observed:

1. "Outleveled" contacts only offer a players contacts from the players current level when introducing a new contact.
2. You can't just go introduce yourself to an outleveled contact that you haven't been introduced to. (So if you want to use your time getting everyone as a contact over actually doing any of those contacts and you want to do them later because, I won't presume to fathom your reason, that's up to you. But no "collecting" old contacts, thats what Ouro is for, if you outleveled them without being introduced, tough use Ouro)
3. Mission rewards have to hit the same rate of diminishing return as mobs do, so if you are barely out leveled and still fighting blues or greens with a +0 notoriety then the mission bonus is appropriately reduced as well, if you aren't getting any xp from the mobs well then don't expect any at the end. (I might be willing to bend on this one)
4. No merit reward. You want 'em? Go to Ouro! (Why should you get anything special for ignoring your contacts so long that someone else could have solved their problems and now they are trivial.)
5. Don't make scaling enemies, I don't like them in invasions, I certainly don't want them in my missions; And scaling up low level enemies not designed for high levels might have undesired results.

I just feel doing this is putting more spaghetti in the pot for no good reason.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Snowdaze

[Monos King]

12 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

OK the ONLY WAY I am agreeing to any of this is if the following rules are observed:

1. "Outleveled" contacts only offer a players contacts from the players current level when introducing a new contact.
2. You can't just go introduce yourself to an outleveled contact that you haven't been introduced to. (So if you want to use your time getting everyone as a contact over actually doing any of those contacts and you want to do them later because, I won't presume to fathom your reason, that's up to you. But no "collecting" old contacts, thats what Ouro is for, if you outleveled them without being introduced, tough use Ouro)
3. Mission rewards have to hit the same rate of diminishing return as mobs do, so if you are barely out leveled and still fighting blues or greens with a +0 notoriety then the mission bonus is appropriately reduced as well, if you aren't getting any xp from the mobs well then don't expect any at the end. (I might be willing to bend on this one)
4. No merit reward. You want 'em? Go to Ouro! (Why should you get anything special for ignoring your contacts so long that someone else could have solved their problems and now they are trivial.)
5. Don't make scaling enemies, I don't like them in invasions, I certainly don't want them in my missions; And scaling up low level enemies not designed for high levels might have undesired results.

I just feel doing this is putting more spaghetti in the pot for no good reason.

Yeah that sounds perfect, I'd like those terms. I'm sure a lot of other people would too (although I'm sure there'd be the odd few that insists on getting the full extent of rewards).

Edited May 20, 2020 by Monos King

[Snowdaze]

3 minutes ago, Monos King said:

Yeah that sounds perfect, I'd like those terms. I'm sure a lot of other people would too (although I'm sure there'd be the odd few that insists on getting the full extent of rewards).

Well tough for them they can go to Ouro and then grow a pair. I have absolutely no idea what kind of work code wise this requires, and for the current devs it really is a "Is the juice worth the squeeze" issue.

[tidge]

Just popping in from the future... all these changes were implemented and there is still no one playing Goldside.

[SurfD]

18 hours ago, Snowdaze said:

OK the ONLY WAY I am agreeing to any of this is if the following rules are observed:

1. "Outleveled" contacts only offer a players contacts from the players current level when introducing a new contact.
2. You can't just go introduce yourself to an outleveled contact that you haven't been introduced to. (So if you want to use your time getting everyone as a contact over actually doing any of those contacts and you want to do them later because, I won't presume to fathom your reason, that's up to you. But no "collecting" old contacts, thats what Ouro is for, if you outleveled them without being introduced, tough use Ouro)
3. Mission rewards have to hit the same rate of diminishing return as mobs do, so if you are barely out leveled and still fighting blues or greens with a +0 notoriety then the mission bonus is appropriately reduced as well, if you aren't getting any xp from the mobs well then don't expect any at the end. (I might be willing to bend on this one)
4. No merit reward. You want 'em? Go to Ouro! (Why should you get anything special for ignoring your contacts so long that someone else could have solved their problems and now they are trivial.)
5. Don't make scaling enemies, I don't like them in invasions, I certainly don't want them in my missions; And scaling up low level enemies not designed for high levels might have undesired results.

I just feel doing this is putting more spaghetti in the pot for no good reason.

1 - What would be the point of that, other than skipping a few steps inbetween?   Like, if i have a level 20 contact, and out-level them to level 40, all they currently do now is give me a level 25 contact, who then gives me a level 35 contact, who then gives me a level 40 contact.  Your suggestion would actually ADD more spaghetti code then it would fix, since all contacts have SPECIFIC lists of who they can potentially pass you on to.  Bloating those lists up to include every potential contact for every leveling bracket that follows that contact isn't needed, when the contact system already handles it fine as is.

2 - So being able to organically talk to a contact you have never met without an introduction is "bad", but being able to hop back in time and talk to literally anyone, regardless of if they would have ever met you or even talk to you given that you are a completely random stranger is "ok" because "Ouro"....  Never mind that being able to "collect" old contacts functionally changes nothing about the game at all or gives anyone who does so any kind of advantage of any kind.

3 - This already happens.   If you are too high a level running a severely out leveled mission arc, you get nothing.  No EXP/INF for killing mobs, no EXP/INF for finishing missions, no drops because the mobs are grey.

4 - If that's the case, every mission should have a timer on it.   Why should you be allowed to pick up 7 different missions and then ignore whichever ones you want for hours, or days or whatever?  Ooo, look. I have a mission to save a hostage that has been sitting in my quest log for several days.  Chances are the hostage is long dead by now.  I also have a mission to stop a bombing, but I put that off to run two taskforces, fetch something that Azuria lost, again, and rescue Percy Winkley for the 15th time.  Why isn't that location a smoking crater by the time i get around to doing that mission?

 

Besides, the contact's aren't designed around the condition of "when" you meet them, but rather "how influential you are" when you do.   You outleveling a contact in the meta-game context isn't about coming back long after their problems might have been dealt with by someone else, because the first time they meet you is THE FIRST TIME THEY MEET YOU, and their issues are assumed to be being presented to you for the first time at that time.  Them passing you on to another contact is never a matter of time, but a matter of "you are now so influential that they feel their problems are beneath your notice".  Which is literally what like 90% of their dialogue is when you talk an outleveled contact. I mean, their "pressing issues" can't be very pressing if they will just tell you to bugger off to the next person up the chain while still clearly having missions available to give you. It is also patently moronic, as nobody is going to look at Batman and go "sorry, I know you just rescued my brother from a gang of Cybernetic Sociopaths, but you are now too influential to be wasting your time saving my sister from a cult of Psychotic Murder Mages, be on your way while I wait for Robin or Nightwing to show up so I can have someone less important do it".   Contacts stopping giving you missions and passing you up the chain exists in the game PURELY as a mechanism to force you to move on to an "appropriate" leveled zone so you keep leveling. That is it.

 

Finally, merit rewards are fine. Considering that you can only do any given contact's story arcs once organically, it's not like people are going to be able to abuse it for easy merits.  Never mind that merit rewards are basically the payout for spending the time to do the whole arc, which they will still have to spend the time running through.   If someone wants to spend their time slogging their way through a grey mission arc that rewards them ABSOLUTELY nothing for their time other than the merits at the end, then more power to them.  I would consider it a fair tradeoff for the fact that basically the only thing they get out of the mission is the merits.

Edited May 20, 2020 by SurfD

[SurfD]

On 5/19/2020 at 11:21 AM, Snowdaze said:

I really just quoted you as the latest to bring up Praetorian issues. And while I agree that Praetorian contacts should act more like normal contacts and let you finish the arc you are currently working on, Choosing to limit your praetorian to just Praetoria is just that, your choice. And it is a choice that comes with a certain number of drawbacks, like the inability to go to Ouro, or 90% of the other content in the game. None the less it's a choice you are welcome to make.

Except that they do.  The problem is actually that Praetorian Contacts DO function exactly like normal contacts: They stop talking to you if you outlevel their pre-defined quest range.

 

The issue is that praetorian "story arcs" are multi part, handed out by multiple contacts (lets call them "Super-Arcs").   Ie, the first "Power" story Super-Arc is not a single arc, it is 4 or 5 individual short arcs, handed out by individual contacts.  And if at any time during the overall Super-Arc, you outlevel the range, the entire arc stops dead at that point because all the remaining contacts stop talking to you.   Since there are 4 individual "super arcs" in each of the 3 level range groups for Praetoria, it is trivially easy to block yourself out of a Super-Arc you already started if you aren't paying attention.

Edited May 20, 2020 by SurfD