Weekly Discussion 80: More Hard Mode or New Zones & Missions?

[GM ColdSpark]

Happy Sunday everyone! Last week you discussed Mercenaries and what you'd like to see happen to them - Writeup is here.

 

This week it's a discussion on the pros and cons of developing more Hard Mode options for existing content vs. developing new zones and missions

 

Weekly discussion 80 Week 5th Dec till 12th Dec 2020

YOU VOTED: Let's talk about - Hard Mode vs New Content

 

Things to think about:

• What you think would bring the most to the community at large and why?
• What is reasonable to expect given limited resources?
• Is there an order in which you'd do things?

 

Standard reminder - keep it respectful folks.  😇

[CrudeVileTerror]

We've seen this topic come up many, many, many times.  A lot of intensity and passion has come up due to it.

Ultimately, my stance comes down to one word:

 

Options.

 

Options to give players the capacity to fine-tune and tailor their own play experiences to their personal expectations.

We've seen what can be done ion a microscopic scale with the likes of Notoriety, AE, and the Experience Boosters.

Expanding on these things and developing some entirely new options will, in my personal and professional opinion, provide an immense amount of opportunities for players to get more of what they want from this game.

 

An idea which I'd like to reiterate:  https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/11876-new-difficulty-mechanic-advanced-enemies/

 

Also, for the record, these two threads have a great wealth of information on the kinds of perspectives players have in regard to the play experience here in terms of difficulty and reward:

Caution:   NOT light reading material.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/12155-going-forward-can-we-have-more-things-that-mean-something/

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/23876-something-to-play-towards-or-un-necessary-forced-time-sink/

 

[MidnighterClubPatron]

Strong vote against additional hard mode, just seems to introduce all kinds of balancing issues. I'd rather see current content made more available to lvl 50s. Possibly:

 

1) Make Hazard Zones useful again possibly by raising their lvl to 50?

         It is a shame to have whole zones just sitting there almost useless. Crey's Folly, Boomtown, and the Abandoned Sewers.

 

2) Make previous zones content scalable to 50 so you can run content you've never done before. How many people actually go through Faultline's or Skyway City's storyline?

           This way you wouldn't have to make an entirely new zones!  In particular, opening up other zones to lvl 50 radio missions would really help with the monotony of killing Archon Whats-His-Name for the billionth time in PI. 50 Croatoa radio mish's please!

 

Edited December 6, 2020 by MidnightClubPatron

[gameboy1234]

1 hour ago, GM ColdSpark said:

developing more Hard Mode options for existing content vs. developing new zones and missions

I think putting "vs." in there is unnecessary.  Can it not be both?

 

Given the "vs." as a something fixed and not mutable, I'd say overwhelmingly new content would be the way to go.  I can't see enough support for "hard mode" to make the critical mass necessary for it to work.  Hard mode should be about teaming up and solving problems that are too tough to handle yourself.  We'd need enough folks doing exactly that (and not "AE farm starting door sitters welcome") or it won't work.

 

What I'd like to see is a hard mode server (maybe name it "Hardcase", a contact in St. Martinal) where all the hard core folk will be together so they have the best chance of getting that critical mass.  Otherwise, like I say, I don't think you'd end up with enough people, as they are currently spread over four servers.

 

Also if "hard mode" is just equivalent to Notoriety then we have that already, then there's not really any point in trying to just make a different one.  We'd need something different.

 

Edit: also there was a discussion some months back of adding a hard mode, and it had a poll attached, which was pretty valuable because quite a lot of people responded.  Anyone got a link to that thread?  I don't see it linked above.

 

Edited December 6, 2020 by gameboy1234

[Parabola]

My take on this in general is that anything we can do to improve the huge amount of existing content is likely to be a more efficient use of limited resources than adding new content. However I'd hope that it didn't need to be a strictly one or the other choice.

 

The topic here seems to be suggesting the addition of further difficulty options on top of the existing tools we have. I get that this is a popular idea and that player choice in all things is generally regarded as the ideal. I'm not convinced this gets to the heart of the current balance issues though. I feel the game would benefit more from some powercreep rollback instead but I'm well aware this isn't to everyone's taste!

[Greycat]

18 minutes ago, MidnightClubPatron said:

1) Make Hazard Zones useful again possibly by raising their lvl to 50?

         It is a shame to have whole zones just sitting there almost useless. Crey's Folly, Boomtown, and the Abandoned Sewers.

Will generally argue against this sort of thing. I hated losing DA to the "new" DA, for instance.

 

4 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

I think putting "vs." in there is unnecessary.  Can it not be both?

This, honestly, is more the way to go.

 

Let's take Crey's Folly, for instance. It's already a 30-40 hazard zone.

Crey has also been around *since the old tutorial.* Yet Crey really ... doesn't have anything going on for it. Yes, there's - what, one arc with some investigation (*cough*) on what happened with the countess and her husband. And a bit on the paragon protectors. There are hints here and there ("mysterious armored figures" destroying the Hero Corps HQ, for instance.) But there's really no... spectacular narrative. There's a little behavioural change in Bricks... with no explanation.

 

If we start a chain of missions related to Crey in Steel (say, 25 and up - not that 25 needs a lot more content right now, it's got some of the newer stuff, but still...make it not cap?) we can have 25+ levels of content. It can go from Steel to Bricks, investigate any number of historical and current dealings in the Folly, lead into the RWZ (and a bit of Founders,) and there's absolutely no reason it can't end up with some decent 50+ content.

 

A lot of work? Absolutely. Worth it? If you roll it out properly, you're covering not only getting a hazard zone in use (no geometry changes needed a la faultline, either,) but getting new standard *and* potentially incarnate/hard mode content.

 

What about Boomtown? Again, several groups doing "things" there. The Clockwork kind of fade out there. The Council/Column thing is still going on. Set some 20-30 groundwork - it's not like we outlevel the council - and set it up for post-50 payoff. (Though by that time we've got arcs facing the Center, the various lieutenants, the Kheldian arcs have slapped around Requiem and ... for some reason I'm drawing a blank on her name... so it's not like the council is really hurting for content.)

 

Set up some content for earlier levels, taking advantage of the lore in underutilized zones, and set them up for payoff at higher and post-50 levels.

 

All this is mostly developing missions. Perhaps some new NPCs, but new *zones* aren't really needed there. Those *would* involve more work - and should be tackled if there's some major story expansion or point that really calls for it. (See "moon base" or "underwater.") And, ideally, new content like that would *also* work on the "early exposure leading to payoff" model.

 

Last point to touch on, we've got a lot of lore that *really* could use exploring. My personal charge is on the abandoned Epic ATs and their associated storylines. Some are nothing more than hints and clues in missions from way back when - and probably the most "developed" of them is the Blood of the Black Stream. They don't need to be ATs - but there is *lore* there to explore and widen the world with, stretching back to ancient Egypt. It's been left hanging for *way* too long.

[Darmian]

I'll post a proper and thought out reply later, but for now, tips to drop in co-op zones as well!

[Chaos Ex Machina]

Scale every NPC to 50

 

Thousands of missions, minimal cost

 

Universal newspaper regardless zone

Edited December 6, 2020 by Chaos Ex Machina

[gameboy1234]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

Crey has also been around *since the old tutorial.* Yet Crey really ... doesn't have anything going on for it. Yes, there's - what, one arc with some investigation (*cough*)

Part of what I think is "wrong" with missions and the way they are presented is the "wall of text" style of story telling.  In a visual medium like movies or games, you need to show, not tell, the viewer what is going on, and "wall of text" is just a much worse way of telling the viewer.  Revamping the in game cut scene engine is a different topic though, so I'll stop here.

 

Edited December 7, 2020 by gameboy1234

[Coyotedancer]

If it's an "either/or" situation, I would come down on the side of MOAR CONTENT before advocating for a Hard Mode.

 

Most of the belly-aching I see about the game being too easy comes from forum regulars and power-gamers, not the random people I'm PUG-teaming with on Everlasting and Excelsior. That tells me that the lack-of-difficulty situation may not be as dire in general as said forum regulars usually insist. It's very, very easy to forget that we're not the average, and what feels as easy as cake for most of us may not necessarily be so easy for everyone.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, MidnightClubPatron said:

1) Make Hazard Zones useful again possibly by raising their lvl to 50?

         It is a shame to have whole zones just sitting there almost useless. Crey's Folly, Boomtown, and the Abandoned Sewers.

There's sub-50 hunt missions and mission doors set in Crey's Folly and Boomtown, as well as GM events.  What happens to sub-50 toons if suddenly the surface spawn is 30-40 levels over their heads?
 

1 hour ago, MidnightClubPatron said:

2) Make previous zones content scalable to 50 so you can run content you've never done before. How many people actually go through Faultline's or Skyway City's storyline?

Every toon of mine that's interested in those arcs does them at the appropriate level or goes back and does them via Ouroboros.  (That is, in the latter case, the content you've never done before is already available to you.)  The problem here isn't that "content you haven't done before is unavailable"...  It's that you've either skipped past it or for whatever reason won't use the existing system for revisiting that content.

<Not aimed at MidnightClubPatron.>

The problem with "hard mode" is that eventually players beat it...  And then they're back here in the forums demanding ever harder modes.  It's a never-ending treadmill occupied by an ever decreasing number of ever more monomaniacal players.  My take is that it's better to create more zones/missions at all levels.  It's better to make more available to play styles other than "rush to 50" and/or "the game begins at 50".  You'll never satisfy that portion of the player base, they'll always be back demanding more... no matter what you do.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Doc_Scorpion

[MidnighterClubPatron]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

Will generally argue against this sort of thing. I hated losing DA to the "new" DA, for instance.

Has it really been lost if you can access it through Ouraboros?

 

43 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

There's sub-50 hunt missions and mission doors set in Crey's Folly and Boomtown, as well as GM events.  What happens to sub-50 toons if suddenly the surface spawn is 30-40 levels over their heads?

Perhaps you could echo it? I realize things can start to get messy when you have a 'present' day contact giving missions in the past, but considering how few missions actually go in there perhaps it wouldn't be that much of a bother.

 

43 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Every toon of mine that's interested in those arcs does them at the appropriate level or goes back and does them via Ouroboros.  (That is, in the latter case, the content you've never done before is already available to you.)  The problem here isn't that "content you haven't done before is unavailable"...  It's that you've either skipped past it or for whatever reason won't use the existing system for revisiting that content.

You're absolutely right. My main reason for disliking Ouraboros is that I'm locked within a taskforce like team to where I can't easily invite people to do arcs. You're also forced to exemplar for the content and lose abilities, which is doesn't feel great a lot of the time.  I've seen before that people have mentioned that if we were to have zones scaled to 50, they would have to make new types of mobs. There's no hellion or outcast that has abilities that would threaten a full incarnate team, so I understand why they did that.

 

EDIT: New Idea to Go Along With this.

Maybe use Ouraboro's less as a way to replay earlier content and a way to do challenges as a new hardmode? Something like m+ affixes on wow. 

Like:

 

1) All mobs have fire aura

2) All mobs explode when dieing

3) Mobs hit for 50% harder

Edited December 6, 2020 by MidnightClubPatron

[chi1701]

7 minutes ago, MidnightClubPatron said:

Has it really been lost if you can access it through Ouraboros?

 

Perhaps you could echo it? I realize things can start to get messy when you have a 'present' day contact giving missions in the past, but considering how few missions actually go in there perhaps it wouldn't be that much of a bother.

 

You're absolutely right. My main reason for disliking Ouraboros is that I'm locked within a taskforce like team to where I can't easily invite people to do arcs. You're also forced to exemplar for the content and lose abilities, which is doesn't feel great a lot of the time.  I've seen before that people have mentioned that if we were to have zones scaled to 50, they would have to make new types of mobs. There's no hellion or outcast that has abilities that would threaten a full incarnate team, so I understand why they did that.

 

EDIT: New Idea to Go Along With this.

Maybe use Ouraboro's less as a way to replay earlier content and a way to do challenges as a new hardmode? Something like m+ affixes on wow. 

Like:

 

1) All mobs have fire aura

2) All mobs explode when dieing

3) Mobs hit for 50% harder

How will you balance the archtypes that don't have access damage reducing abilities and then getting wiped by aoe? 

[MidnighterClubPatron]

26 minutes ago, chi1701 said:

How will you balance the archtypes that don't have access damage reducing abilities and then getting wiped by aoe? 

Those were just some random suggestions that I came up with for an example, not that I think that they would be remotely balanced. But maybe more directly to your question, I believe all  ATs without damage reduction abilities work at range, so the answer would be keep away.

[CrudeVileTerror]

And if all increased difficulty modes were -optional- then it's on the player to determine whether the extra challenging content is what they want to enable or not.

Not to dismiss Balance wholesale, but the idea (as far as I'm aware) is to give the players who want "MOAR" challenge the option to pursue it on their own terms, not create something which is mandatory.  The optional nature means that said challenges don't necessarily need to be "fair."

Creating entirely new content requires more effort for balance passes and the like.  See Piecemeal's recent arcs as two prime examples.

[Xeres]

Oh boy.  There's a lot here to talk about.  First, let me get the easy part out of the way - with AE there is no reason for new zones.  Now maybe new zones are the easiest part of all of this, but the limited resources should devoted to new missions and such, IMO.  In fact, if anything, I'd like old DA and Galaxy City to return, and new DA be the "other" alternate zone.  But we'll leave that alone, and just concentrate on the missions.

 

I've never been a fan of hard mode versions of the same content.  I'd rather see harder new content in existing zones.  Now, I have a motive when I say this - I am a fan of the gear treadmill.  I won't go into why I like it as that's a post in and of itself, but the future for this game is no longer leveling content, it's afterwards.  But, like I said, doing a harder version of... say MSR, doesn't interest me.  I think you're onto something with the new missions in I27, which could open up into harder, new incarnate-challenging content in i28, which grant better or new incarnate abilities or enhancements.  Or even raise the level cap to 60, which would be needed for future i29 content.

 

 

[Biff Pow]

I'd like to see more mission maps for variety, then we can add more content and "hard mode" ourselves with AE. Hopefully existing missions could use the new maps as well.

[Chaos Ex Machina]

Ouroborous painful to use antithetical to teams

[chi1701]

16 minutes ago, Supertanker said:

I'd like to see more mission maps for variety, then we can add more content and "hard mode" ourselves with AE. Hopefully existing missions could use the new maps as well.

How would you ensure that tanks/brutes dont abuse the same system that is currently in effect by solo farming them for even more influence? Content is easy because game mechanics are easy, gather mobs and hit them till they loose all their hp, rinse and repeat.

 

Strength of this game is also its weakest, there is a vast amount of playable characters with different setups, this makes it harder to create more difficult content. This game is easy to ensure that every build and class and team setup  is able to complete the current content, making it harder will only ensure that teams are more stricter when it comes to which classes, abilities are allowed in to ensure the harder content is completable.

Edited December 7, 2020 by chi1701

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, MidnightClubPatron said:

Has it really been lost if you can access it through Ouraboros?

It goes from being natively available (including things like hunts/patrols/mission doors spawning there) to being something you have to - basically (a) remember is there and (b) have access to. So in many instances... yes, it is functionally lost.

[cranebump]

We have plenty of zones, and lots of content. Much of it simply gets skipped. What I’d like to see, though, as far as content adds:

 

*re-do some of the old TFs (particularly Synapse and Cit). Consider having 2-3 parts for each contact, expanding the level ranges to fill gaps. Since each TF is multi-part, the number of mishes could be reduced (a la Yin, Posi).

*Consider additional signature arcs (that are perhaps tied to origin? Might be interesting for some stories to be unlockable only by certain kinds of backgrounds). Or include an SSA with the Weekly TF/SF.  This content seems to get bypassed, and it’s merit-rich. 

*Develop Kallisti. Plenty of room for new content there.

 

[Biff Pow]

2 hours ago, chi1701 said:

How would you ensure that tanks/brutes dont abuse the same system that is currently in effect by solo farming them for even more influence? Content is easy because game mechanics are easy, gather mobs and hit them till they loose all their hp, rinse and repeat.

That seems like a different conversation, my suggestion was only a cosmetic change- new maps for variety,

[Panthonca7034]

I also vote HELL NO on harder mode (no need for it)

Time to finish polishing the incarnate system (Vitae, Omega and all those other abilities that never got implemented)

 

Time to dust off the unused "Praetorian PvP Zone" that I saw in PChat and start finding a way to implement it (falls under new content)

 

Time to start adding some additional Goldside arcs that mirror some of the Primal arcs

 

Implement the coming of the Devouring Earth in First Ward, tying some of the NPCs from the earlier arcs to inform the player of malfunctions in the sonic fence, then an eventual onslaught which requires the arrival of Vanguard and Freedom Corps into Praetoria to start evacuating folks out and close the gap between the iTrials and some of the other arcs that came later.

 

Work in making Praetoria SALVAGEABLE , there's a LOT of regions not mentioned in the Number Six arc (I'm not going to mention any of them, as folks should know which ones I'm referring to), which leaves the possibility that such regions had some kind of protection, were able to turn back the Devouring Earth, or they were enveloped in the darkness of Night Ward, therefore creating large pockets of survivors (or a severe threat that Hamidon greatly underestimated and will later come back to bite him later). That whole "Its safe to surmise that Hami destroyed everything" fallacy just won't do it for me, Hamidon is NOT all-powerful, and there HAS to be a stronger entity which could be capable of either greatly weakening or completely eradicating Hami.

 

Tweak the primal Calvin Scott's background some, give him some kind of combat skills (security guard, pistols training, or even a Police Officer) and expand on the old Calvin Scott task force, or even create a second part of it that either mentions or makes a reference to his now "Fallen/Deceased" Praetorian Self.

 

Create followup arc to the Center and his plan to make an army of Marauder-esque Council super-troops.

 

 

That's all I got for now

 

 

 

[EdgeOfDreams]

The main problem I see with trying to create a harder mode is that the way you beat most existing challenges in CoH is already very simple. Either you have enough mitigation + enough damage output to win, or you don't. There are very few challenges that can't be beaten by giving your character bigger numbers. The exceptions are mostly Incarnate Trials, a few other trials and TFs, and the requirements for certain badges.

 

So, if "hard mode" will mostly consist of spawning more enemies or giving enemies better stats, I don't think anyone will really find it interesting or satisfying. Instead, I'd like to see more new content that includes complex challenges or more badges added to existing content with requirements that force you to get creative to earn them.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Here's one weird idea: is there any way to make badges that depend on having a certain team composition? For example, imagine a series of badges that require you to complete existing task forces or trials with a team of all one AT, or a team with no characters above a certain level, or a team of only four players, etc.