Possible ways to help support classes

[Leogunner]

16 hours ago, Wavicle said:

All that is required to "fix" the endgame is to make harder enemies (Carnies, Rularu, IDF, etc) worth MORE XP than easier enemies (Council, Romans, and so on) so that people WANT to run the harder content which DOES call for having Support toons around. Then continue to make content that is hard enough it calls for Support even with kitted out Tanks and DPS.

 

On the first part, that ship has sailed a long time ago.

 

Ideally, you'd want to make all kinds of content worthwhile to run rather than creating ideal content that max level will gravitate to more strongly.  

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

On the first part, that ship has sailed a long time ago.

 

Ideally, you'd want to make all kinds of content worthwhile to run rather than creating ideal content that max level will gravitate to more strongly.  

I wonder if part of it is simply a mechanical limitation of the linear % based system they used.  

 

At end-game hugging the rails of the system, there's not a lot of room to make adjustments, even if people wanted to.  

 

And increasing XP for high level content seems laughable as a motivator to play this harder stuff assuming you could design it.  Since we are talking about people that are either 50 or within hours of being 50.  The level climb is really short in COH these days.  

[arcane]

27 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

And increasing XP for high level content seems laughable as a motivator to play this harder stuff assuming you could design it.  Since we are talking about people that are either 50 or within hours of being 50.  The level climb is really short in COH these days.  

XP (and, as I said, also merits) is still plenty relevant after 50. I spend probably 20x as long finalizing IO’s and T4 incarnates as I do just leveling to 50, and this proposal could be relevant to all of that. Unless you’re exclusively doing iTrials and having decent luck too, your character is arguably not done until at least vet level 30 or so.

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

XP (and, as I said, also merits) is still plenty relevant after 50. I spend probably 20x as long finalizing IO’s and T4 incarnates as I do just leveling to 50, and this proposal could be relevant to all of that. Unless you’re exclusively doing iTrials and having decent luck too, your character is arguably not done until at least vet level 30 or so.

 

I guess.  I mean you can slot all the IOs by 50 latest.  

 

But I suppose you are right about the incarnates.   The game seems such a faceroll at that point I can't make myself see that as part of a level climb.  My playtime on a character drops off steeply after 50 with rare exceptions. 

[arcane]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

 

I guess.  I mean you can slot all the IOs by 50 latest.  

 

But I suppose you are right about the incarnates.   The game seems such a faceroll at that point I can't make myself see that as part of a level climb.  My playtime on a character drops off steeply after 50 with rare exceptions. 

I usually don’t have the half billion or so within the 2-3 hours it takes to get to 50. But yes, I am mostly saying this about vet levels and incarnates.

 

My playtime doesn’t even start until 50 though.

[Haijinx]

Just now, arcane said:

I usually don’t have the half billion or so within the 2-3 hours it takes to get to 50. But yes, I am mostly saying this about vet levels and incarnates.

 

My playtime doesn’t even start until 50 though.

 

I use the money from the last one lol

 

I find the previous character makes money a lot faster than the new one

 

But I am sure not everyone does it that way.  I concede your point.  XP and Influence awards scaling with more challenging content seems a worthwhile motivator.  You would need some way to measure this though I would think.   I am sure everyone has seen the Bads farm or S/L and Fire farms where the opposition is no real threat to the farmer.  If you started upping awards for challenging content.  It would have to be actually challenging.  

 

And one that would make it worthwhile to bring support and/or crowd control along.  The complaints of Control and Support sets based ATs are valid.  

[Leogunner]

15 minutes ago, arcane said:

XP (and, as I said, also merits) is still plenty relevant after 50. I spend probably 20x as long finalizing IO’s and T4 incarnates as I do just leveling to 50, and this proposal could be relevant to all of that. Unless you’re exclusively doing iTrials and having decent luck too, your character is arguably not done until at least vet level 30 or so.

The reason I say that ship has sailed is because of the already abundance of these rewards already.  Either the new reward cap would be substantial enough that you're going to want strict dedicated builds/players and only aim for the cap or the bonus would be minor to be mostly inconsequential.  Once you start giving concrete numbers on the new cap, that dilemma becomes more apparent.

 

Looking at the accessibility and bonuses of the current game vs how it was live illustrates the trend.

[Haijinx]

4 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

The reason I say that ship has sailed is because of the already abundance of these rewards already.  Either the new reward cap would be substantial enough that you're going to want strict dedicated builds/players and only aim for the cap or the bonus would be minor to be mostly inconsequential.  Once you start giving concrete numbers on the new cap, that dilemma becomes more apparent.

 

Looking at the accessibility and bonuses of the current game vs how it was live illustrates the trend.

Maybe (and I know this will never fly) , you could have diminishing returns on certain content within a certain time frame

 

If you do 5 missions of Council, the 6th one only provides 75% of the rewards, The 10th one only 50% and so on.  

 

[Wavicle]

6 hours ago, arcane said:

Support this but also add more merits as some players are more motivated by those.

I had an idea about that. What if some level 50 missions had a chance to drop a merit at the end, but not radio missions, and not architect.

[Leogunner]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Maybe (and I know this will never fly) , you could have diminishing returns on certain content within a certain time frame

 

If you do 5 missions of Council, the 6th one only provides 75% of the rewards, The 10th one only 50% and so on.  

 

Idealistically, that would have been something to implement way back when, perhaps not diminishing returns but merely the presence of a team bonus.

 

I think there was conjecture of diminishing returns in CoX before and I'm fuzzy on if it was ever proven or quantified.  I don't think many liked the idea of it. Quelling, culling or dividing rewards is probably a discussion for another thread.  The idea of giving every player a selectable reward they gain "exp" toward obtaining, putting diminishing returns on express farm efforts or locking certain types of drops to certain factions/content could have many positive and negative effects on player behavior but it might be more structured than the laissez faire approach the game sports now.

[arthurh35353]

2 hours ago, Leogunner said:

Idealistically, that would have been something to implement way back when, perhaps not diminishing returns but merely the presence of a team bonus.

You would never want to punish your players that are paying a subscription for playing a game with that sort of diminishing rewards.

[Monos King]

3 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

You would never want to punish your players that are paying a subscription for playing a game with that sort of diminishing rewards.

Funny enough, I think that's the exact opposite mentality of most MMOs over the last 20 years.

[arthurh35353]

9 minutes ago, Monos King said:

Funny enough, I think that's the exact opposite mentality of most MMOs over the last 20 years.

The only real way to do that would severely impact people with the most time to play (and the biggest fans). Making a large drop off in earnings after 4-6 hours a day would definitely cull the farmers, but only if they could tie the IP addresses for alt accounts. And then that could impact families playing together.

[Wavicle]

I don’t think making what people want to do now worth less is a good idea. Just make the stuff that they don’t want to do now worth more.

Edited April 25, 2021 by Wavicle

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, Leogunner said:

The idea of giving every player a selectable reward they gain "exp" toward obtaining, putting diminishing returns on express farm efforts or locking certain types of drops to certain factions/content could have many positive and negative effects on player behavior but it might be more structured than the laissez faire approach the game sports now.

To a degree this already exists, if you consider that you can buy any recipe or enhancement with enough Merits. 

I mean, influence wise, that's typically a Bad Deal, and not something you would ever do.

But in theory, if the AH prices ever seriously got out of whack, you could buy things with merits, so anything that gives merits is "partial xp" to a reward.

[MTeague]

3 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

The only real way to do that would severely impact people with the most time to play (and the biggest fans). Making a large drop off in earnings after 4-6 hours a day would definitely cull the farmers, but only if they could tie the IP addresses for alt accounts.

That's a losing game from the word go. 

What's the difference between running AE missions at +4x8 for hours or running radio missions at +4x8 over and over for hours?

What makes one "ok" and the other "bad"?

 

AE is part of the game. It can be used for good or ill.

"Farmers" are nothing more than players who obsessively focus for maxing rewards while minimizing effort. 

It's not my cup of tea. It never will be.  I'm more story-focused. But I can't say farmers are BAD or shouldn't exist, or somehow have less right to fun than anyone else.

I can't blame someone for being efficient within the mechanics that the game provides.

 

If they were selling influence for real life monies? Then I'd be up in arms. 

Particularly because that could be a thing NCSoft might take offense at and unleash their hounds instead of the current Détante.

 

[arthurh35353]

I was actually pointing out how bad it would be to do the draconian thing. I don't think getting rid of farming would fix anything other than to drive up costs/rarities. Which I'd rather they did away with anyways.

[Wavicle]

Frankly, I think JUST adding a few new mobs to the Council (and perhaps some others) at 40+ might do the trick.

[arthurh35353]

1 minute ago, Wavicle said:

Frankly, I think JUST adding a few new mobs to the Council (and perhaps some others) at 40+ might do the trick.

Oh, something mean and nasty like a .5s -300% res Mag 20 hold on a 60 second timer?

[Wavicle]

Just now, arthurh35353 said:

Oh, something mean and nasty like a .5s -300% res Mag 20 hold on a 60 second timer?

As long as it’s Melee range. Yes, perfect.

[arthurh35353]

19 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

As long as it’s Melee range. Yes, perfect.

10' range? I suspect it would just annoy a lot of melee characters (especially with damage/debuff auras). Their hit points might move a little, but I doubt it would actually kill them.

[Wavicle]

17 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

10' range? I suspect it would just annoy a lot of melee characters (especially with damage/debuff auras). Their hit points might move a little, but I doubt it would actually kill them.

Something else then. It doesn’t have to be quite so over the top. I just mean the same kind of thing they did with the Family.

[Wavicle]

I think I mentioned elsewhere, I like that they seem to be getting rid of Only Affecting Self powers and I hope that extends to Personal Force Field.

 

Also, I REALLY think Force Field should get a mechanic similar to the Draw In of Singularity or similar to Fold Space. One or the other. Or both. Give us a Force Field that CONSTRICTS, collecting enemies at its center.

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, arthurh35353 said:

I was actually pointing out how bad it would be to do the draconian thing. I don't think getting rid of farming would fix anything other than to drive up costs/rarities. Which I'd rather they did away with anyways.

The point I was making is, it's too late to change anything now.  But it's not really draconian if it was a system that works and was in place since many of the introductions of the new systems.  Like imagine if tips were exceptionally rare to get and the bonuses inside them were vast.  If that was just how tips were since they were introduced, that's just how they be similarly to how we just accept that street sweeping is more like a last resort throw-away activity with limited novelty that has no exceptional value besides the title given to the activity by players. It's just accepted that street sweeping is going to net you fewer of the same rewards as any other activity and I doubt any future updates with change that.

 

Off topic, but if I were suggesting how AE would have been implemented, you wouldn't even get xp in it, only tickets.  The tickets would then be used on lotteries and roulettes for rewards to include recipes, salvage, bonus powers, special salvage/merits AND xp with each roulette having various values for returns with the most prominent part being you have to take time out to get your rewards rather than them being automatic.  That, in and of itself would create a balancing factor between normal arcs/radio missions and TFs.  But none of that is either here nor there since no one is going to advocate for reducing the status quo to reallocate in other content.  It's a mental exercise to frame why certain content is vastly more rewarding than other content.

[golstat2003]

On 4/23/2021 at 8:31 PM, Leogunner said:

Easy counter: this game was built to not need the trinity so any particular class isn't required.

 

....I said it was an easy counter, not a good one.

 

No it is a good one. That's how the damn game works. That's how it's always worked. Grab any 8 and go to town.