Something to play towards or un-necessary forced time sink

[Hero_of_Light]

Which side do you agree with more?

 

Do you feel there should be in game goals/rewards created by the devs that players can play towards and helps keep engagement, or do you feel that it's a way devs force players to keep playing by 'locking' content behind gameplay?

 

Or do you have some other opinion?

 

(Stay civil and don't attack someone's idea of it or what they think they goals/rewards should be because you don't aggre with them.)

 

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Hero_of_Light

[CrudeVileTerror]

I think anything gated should have more than one avenue to unlocking it.

[Solarverse]

Yeah, back in the old days when things were gated, I would have said everything should stay that way, it was how the game was designed back then. However, over the years the game has opened up and left the gated days far behind. Once that happened it is too much to require players to go back to the old ways so to keep it consistent I agree with @CrudeVileTerror and them. (I say them because he has more accounts than I can name, hehe)

[Hero_of_Light]

1 minute ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

I think anything gated should have more than one avenue to unlocking it.

I could agree with that, long as the different avenues both encourage engagement.

 

[Hero_of_Light]

1 minute ago, Solarverse said:

Yeah, back in the old days when things were gated, I would have said everything should stay that way, it was how the game was designed back then. However, over the years the game has opened up and left the gated days far behind. Once that happened it is too much to require players to go back to the old ways so to keep it consistent I agree with @CrudeVileTerror and them. (I say them because he has more accounts than I can name, hehe)

But at what point does that hurt engagement, and should new gated stuff never be added?

[Nerio72]

I agree with both. I kinda miss earning something (capes, auras, etc) but I also don't have as much time to play as I used to 14 years ago. I do like having access to pretty much everything from the start and I could always impose those limits on myself if I wanted.

[Solarverse]

Just now, Hero_of_Light said:

But at what point does that hurt engagement, and should new gated stuff never be added?

To do so would invite the rage of people who prefer the instant gratification. People who prefer the gated way would have no problems, but the other half of the population would come after you with torches and pitch forks. It's just one of those things that once you give to players, you can never take away. It should have never been done to begin with, but now that it has been done, you would end up pissing off half the players to revert them or even add new content that is locked behind them.

[CrudeVileTerror]

You should be saying "them" because "he" isn't correct, @Solarverse.

 

But to expand on my earlier point, I believe the not-for-profit nature of the game affords us the opportunity to really get out of the boxes which were set up due to either a lack of foresight, or because profit was such a huge motivating factor for development.

 

For example, an idea I've been bouncing around that is entirely doable, but might not be feasible without solid support and interest would be to remove level gates from every Contact, and offer two or three methods to unlocking those Contacts.

1:  Reach the level that Contact is usually unlocked at, and they're unlocked as normal.

2:  Complete the missions from Contacts prior to that one which follow the same or similar storylines (ie:  Complete Contacts who have missions for The Skulls, and unlock Contacts for The Trolls.  Complete those Contacts, and unlock the Contacts for The Family, regardless of your level).

3:  Straight-up unlock a Contact by throwing enough Inf at them.

 

All of these could be achieved by introducing invisible Badges (or some other metric), since Contacts who are locked behind Badges already exist in the game.  Reach the appropriate level, and the Badge is automatically unlocked.  Complete the previous Contacts' missions, unlock the Badge.  Spend the Inf to buy the Badge directly.

 

Naturally, a venture of this nature would be a rather huge undertaking.  The current Dev Team may not be interested, but hopefully we'll be able to expand the Team in the future so options like this can become feasible.

[Solarverse]

Just now, CrudeVileTerror said:

You should be saying "them" because "he" isn't correct, @Solarverse.

Doh!

 

My apologies.

[Hero_of_Light]

3 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

. It's just one of those things that once you give to players, you can never take away. 

So keep current content as is, but new content could be whatever?

[Solarverse]

Just now, Hero_of_Light said:

So keep current content as is, but new content could be whatever?

No, not at all. Check out Vile Terror's last post. That pretty much sums it up. And keep in mind, it's not that I agree with it, but that is the only way to go about it without getting people on a warpath.

[Hero_of_Light]

3 minutes ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

You sh

 

For example, an idea I've been bouncing around that is entirely doable, but might not be feasible without solid support and interest would be to remove level gates from every Contact, and offer two or three methods to unlocking those Contacts.

1:  Reach the level that Contact is usually unlocked at, and they're unlocked as normal.

2:  Complete the missions from Contacts prior to that one which follow the same or similar storylines (ie:  Complete Contacts who have missions for The Skulls, and unlock Contacts for The Trolls.  Complete those Contacts, and unlock the Contacts for The Family, regardless of your level).

3:  Straight-up unlock a Contact by throwing enough Inf at them.

 

 

So story is something left to the player to decide on following or not since previous contacts that may or may not be important story wise could be skipped

[CrudeVileTerror]

I think calling it "instant gratification" is rather disingenuous, honestly.  It's certainly not your cup of tea, and I can respect that, but I think oversimplifying it like that just illustrates the underlying disconnect we have on a philosophical level.

 

But anyway; if not going back and unlocking all the existing content, I do hope that the Devs consider the "multiple avenue" approach for all future content.

Player choice.

It always comes back to that.

[Hero_of_Light]

7 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

No, not at all. Check out Vile Terror's last post. That pretty much sums it up. And keep in mind, it's not that I agree with it, but that is the only way to go about it without getting people on a warpath.

Doesn't that lead to people leaving anyways though if there's nothing to play towards?

 

Self imposed limits only go so far.

[Leogunner]

14 minutes ago, Nerio72 said:

I agree with both. I kinda miss earning something (capes, auras, etc) but I also don't have as much time to play as I used to 14 years ago. I do like having access to pretty much everything from the start and I could always impose those limits on myself if I wanted.

I share this sentiment.  I wouldn't be opposed to having capes and auras locked while having access via the trainers to unlock the capes/auras with 5 merits.  At least then, it feels like, if I decided to do the mission to unlock, I'm saving myself some currency OR if I have an abundance of currency, I can just send that to my new alts like I usually do with the 1mil inf stipend to start them off.

[Hero_of_Light]

I like to used Paragon Chat as an example because there was literally nothing to play towards and it was almost always dead.

 

Homecoming came, people came, but once they got thier main back and messed around a bit they left.

 

I think a large part of it is because the game has even less to play towards now than it did before

[Solarverse]

Just now, CrudeVileTerror said:

I think calling it "instant gratification" is rather disingenuous, honestly.  It's certainly not your cup of tea, and I can respect that, but I think oversimplifying it like that just illustrates the underlying disconnect we have on a philosophical level.

Yeah, I'm not always best with my choice of words. I honestly have no other word to use on how to describe it though. To me, instant gratification is only a bad thing when it has a negative result. It can also have positive results depending on how it's being used. I am however open to using a different term, I simply do not know what else to call it.

Just now, CrudeVileTerror said:

But anyway; if not going back and unlocking all the existing content, I do hope that the Devs consider the "multiple avenue" approach for all future content.

Player choice.

It always comes back to that.

Here here.  🙂

[CrudeVileTerror]

As discussed in the last topic of this nature, people leaving isn't actually that terrible.

Yes, naturally, a social game does need to have multiple players to -be- a social game.

But you don't have to stay here forever.   None of us do.

Everyone is allowed to "finish" the game whenever they want, and move on.  Maybe they'll choose to come back.   Maybe not.

Retention shouldn't be the end goal of all development.  It leads to very unhealthy decisions being made in the design process when its focused on to the exclusion of everything else.

[Solarverse]

Just now, CrudeVileTerror said:

As discussed in the last topic of this nature, people leaving isn't actually that terrible.

Yes, naturally, a social game does need to have multiple players to -be- a social game.

But you don't have to stay here forever.   None of us do.

Everyone is allowed to "finish" the game whenever they want, and move on.  Maybe they'll choose to come back.   Maybe not.

Retention shouldn't be the end goal of all development.  It leads to very unhealthy decisions being made in the design process when its focused on to the exclusion of everything else.

You know, I thought on this a bit last night as I was laying in bed it a thought came in that made me think...Homecoming is trying to go legit with NCSoft. If I were trying to do the same, one of my talking points to help make my case would be, "We have X amount of players, there is still a profit to be made here and we can run that for you at minimal cost."

If players start dropping, wouldn't that hurt HC with their attempt to do what they are trying to do with NCSoft?

[CrudeVileTerror]

Sadly, due to the media blackout, I can't reasonably answer that question.  The Homecoming Team have been especially secretive in that regard, very likely due to N.D.A.s, and as such the wider community can only speculate (to the best of my knowledge).

If player numbers/retention -is- something which ncsoft has particular demands regarding the claim to legitimacy, then . . . well, not to be a downer, but I think we're fucked.  I've had first hand experience in the industry.  I can't imagine ncsoft ever being satisfied with any reasonable numbers in that regard.

 

I can hope to be wrong . . . but that's one area I feel quite confident in due to past experiences.

[Solarverse]

6 minutes ago, Hero_of_Light said:

I like to used Paragon Chat as an example because there was literally nothing to play towards and it was almost always dead.

 

Homecoming came, people came, but once they got thier main back and messed around a bit they left.

 

I think a large part of it is because the game has even less to play towards now than it did before

If somebody came out with a server that put everything back behind a gate so that you had to play the content to unlock them,l that goes for capes, auras, costumes, badges, respecs...everything but had everything else this server has, I think that would be the only way to get a more realistic idea to the statistics to answer your question. Without that option, it is just too hard to say.

[Hero_of_Light]

5 minutes ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

As discussed in the last topic of this nature, people leaving isn't actually that terrible.

Yes, naturally, a social game does need to have multiple players to -be- a social game.

But you don't have to stay here forever.   None of us do.

Everyone is allowed to "finish" the game whenever they want, and move on.  Maybe they'll choose to come back.   Maybe not.

Retention shouldn't be the end goal of all development.  It leads to very unhealthy decisions being made in the design process when its focused on to the exclusion of everything else.

 

9 minutes ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

 

Retention shouldn't be the end goal of all development.  It leads to very unhealthy decisions being made in the design process when its focused on to the exclusion of everything else.

Definitely shouldn't be the end goal, but it must be incorporated

[Leogunner]

6 minutes ago, CrudeVileTerror said:

As discussed in the last topic of this nature, people leaving isn't actually that terrible.

Yes, naturally, a social game does need to have multiple players to -be- a social game.

But you don't have to stay here forever.   None of us do.

Everyone is allowed to "finish" the game whenever they want, and move on.  Maybe they'll choose to come back.   Maybe not.

Retention shouldn't be the end goal of all development.  It leads to very unhealthy decisions being made in the design process when its focused on to the exclusion of everything else.

To me, I always thought the sentiment of "leave them coming back for more" was a good thing.  In the aspects of MMORPGs, not having most things being accessible does make leave you with wanting to log in to try new things.  Of course, this is going by the F2P model but I feel that should likely be the approach here rather than completely embracing the zombie-game metric that you're nearly free to morph and manipulate to your heart's content.  Structure and limitations have their negatives and positives.

[Hero_of_Light]

People tend to appreciate something more and stick with it if there was effort involved and then something gained.

 

Shouldn't be a ton of effort and required everything gained because it is a game after all, but it should include some. 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Hero_of_Light

[AerialAssault]

Maybe it's just me, but I never felt the same rush of excitement when unlocking a costume.

 

I didn't wait all those years for City of Heroes to come back just to run the same cape unlock missions again.