Rotating Hard Mode / Challenge Server

[kingsmidgens]

I'm getting the impression that some on the dev team here want to create a game that is much different to the original game, one that's harder and more "balanced" which okay, some people are all for.

Some of these negative changes remind me of another game on the market, Path of Exile.  Just look at how players enjoyed their recent changes.

For those of you who don't know, the bulk of the playerbase in Path of Exile plays what are known as "Challenge Leagues" which appear once every 3 months or so, and run for most of those 3 months.  Running concurrently with this "League" is "Standard" which is the accumulation of everyone's prior Leagues.

The system, as they've set it up, is used to test out new features for the game.  There are things that are exclusive, initially, to these leagues.  I think that it's actually a great system - what's NOT great, is their mentality that the game always has to be: Slower.  Less rewarding.  More dangerous.  It's a slippery slope to follow that path and the antithesis of what was set up on Live for City of Heroes, a game where over time we've gotten more and more power by design.  It feels cool to be a super hero, and if you were around for the old days where you were equal to 2 minions, or whatever the old theory was, it's extra cool to see how far we've come.

I'm not saying we're at the point of a completely unrewarding and practically impossible game - yet - but that changes are a slippery slope, if you make a change here and it's "not that big of a deal" you can do something similar, later, and it's "not that big of a deal" if you're comparing A to B and then B to C... but A to C, well, that may be.  Over the years, think about the little-by-little comparison of A to G, at that rate.  This game has a fanbase that's endured and we endured because we, I guess, like the game, idk.


Well, here is my proposal:

Add a new, temporary server.

- Make this server as hard as you like, tweak it to your heart's content.  Those that want a challenge can play there.  I'd honestly recommend nerfing a lot of rewards.  For instance: No Vet level rewards.

- Have this server, like Test, be in it's own separate little area.  No shared market, no shared characters - everything is brand new.  It's up to you if you stock the market.  I suppose you'd have to with superpacks.

- Have exclusive content to this server.  Throw together a Trial that rewards a 3rd ATO set for instance, which you can only acquire on this server.  Have early access to a new Incarnate slot.  Just throwing that out there, gotta have some carrot.

- After some amount of time, say 6 months, roll the characters from this server onto the live servers, which remain the same.  Put the new content in at that time.


Pros, as I see them:

- You can treat this a bit like a beta.  Players will be making their characters from scratch, so there's no insta-50s with a perfect build annihilating content from day 1 thinking: yeah this is easy.  You'll get more honest feedback from the original balance standpoint of "what will people without perfect builds think of this content?"

- Experiencing a fresh economy is actually great from my perspective.  New players who are coming to HC at this point in time are inundated with farms and humbled by the price of things - which, I honestly think are fairly cheap currently.  But, newer players haven't had time to farm like I have.  Speaking of New players, if the challenge isn't to extreme, this could be a good opportunity for them to be interacting with the game at it's best.  Lots of people in varying level ranges and strengths all buzzing about - and by rolling their characters into existing servers, they'd have a fun experience and a leg up.

- This can be a way for you to do things like disable AE.  If people want that, they can still play on the existing servers.  I feel like everyone's happy.  If you want to play with the cutting edge stuff "you need to get it how I want you to get it"

- The "New" will keep some players on the hook for longer, and may bring back players who've fallen by the wayside.  Everyone, together, can experience making new characters and if AE is disabled for instance, 95% of the first characters probably won't be Spines/Fire Brutes.


Cons I can think of:

- Population might be split a bit.  I don't think these servers will end up being super popular, though the population would undoubtedly rival Indomitable for instance.

- Yeah, this would be a fair amount of work to put together.  The "Rewards" i.e. exclusive things don't have to be very extensive, though, and could just include a couple of new IO sets, which is something that I feel you can't ever go wrong adding.

- You PROBABLY can't go too overboard with the challenge, but it'd be fun to see what happens.



So here's an example:

Fresh economy, new characters only
No EXP in AE, Tickets only
P2W limited - no boosters, no freebies
Vet levels don't give rewards
All enemies have +10% Accuracy
Characters have a 10% Resistance debuff (resistable)
Several new IO sets are available in the general drop pool
After 6 months, the characters are migrated and the IO sets are made available on the current live servers


Just off the bat, with little investment, enemies are going to be hitting 10% more often for 10% more damage.  They'll always do 10% more damage, but I'm not sure what impact the Accuracy buff would have, long-term.  It SHOULD scale and mean that they're going to also hit you 10% more often, but if they have existing accuracy buffs or get debuffed that exact value might change.  I do think scaling Accuracy is less punishing than ToHit, although even if you're Softcapped it will mean you're getting hit more often.  Ideally a squishy would want a tank and a tank would want support - win/win - though I think a "Tanker" could probably shrug off the change easily enough.

Again, with the Path of Exile example, they started by testing out a lot of gameplay additions - like Shrines, if you're familiar with ARPGs, they spawned randomly and you click them for a short-term buff.  That was an early "League" in that game, which they then rolled into the entire game afterwards.  I'm not imaginative enough to think of anything like that to add to CoH as a whole - I suppose things like Super Stunners and Cryogenists count - so I gave the example of introducing new IO sets or Incarnate slots to this theoretical server, first.

You could also forego the player stat debuffs/mob buffs entirely and stick exclusively with no AE and P2W limits but keep the carrots and use it as an extended, level-by-level, testing grounds for new powersets.

Anyway that's it.  I feel like the servers as they are should only ever receive buffs and anything that "nerfs" the game would best be left to a server that people can choose to play on, and I think the aforementioned "League" system would give people an incentive to play there, how you want them to play, while preserving the game for those who like it how it is.

[Rudra]

Soooooo... ... incremental changes are bad because they go down that slippery slope since the next change is not compared to the original, but to the previous change instead. I disagree, the purpose of incremental changes is to keep from completely changing the game in one fell swoop and so be able to measure, test, and either retain or discard the changes without immediately rendering the game unrecognizable, but I can at least understand your logic. ... ... Then you basically propose to instead of progressing form A to B to C until you finally get to G, just go straight to G? Make a new server that uses ideas that have been shot down in the forums and then after 6 months roll them into the live servers? Bu-what?

 

(And for clarification, I am basing the preceding statement on:

15 minutes ago, kingsmidgens said:

After some amount of time, say 6 months, roll the characters from this server onto the live servers, which remain the same.  Put the new content in at that time.

Specifically the highlighted part.)

 

Also, how would those rolled over characters get to keep their names? Names are specific to each server and that character's name could already be taken.

 

Increasing the accuracy of all the mobs runs the risk of making the Super Reflexes and possibly the Ninjutsu power sets useless. With Streakbreaker, the lower the chance for the attacker to hit the defender, the more misses it takes to trigger it, up to 100 consecutive misses before Streakbreaker will force the hit. Conversely, the higher the chance for the attacker to hit the defender, the less misses it takes to trigger it, up to a single miss triggering Streakbreaker to make the attacker's attack hit.

 

Why do you want a 2nd test server anyway? Wouldn't that split the focus of the test server and reduce available feedback? Especially since your proposal as it currently reads only grants 6 months to test and correct changes before being forced onto the live servers.

[Mezmera]

They want to leave the game as it is and offer additional options above and beyond to account for the decked out IO'ed and fully incarnated characters running around.  You know, what the live devs started to progress towards with the Going Rogue teaser before it got abruptly shut down.  

 

I'm all for the added content creation.  We're getting new task forces while leaving the base difficulty as easy as usual and adding additional optional challenges on top.  How is this a bad thing and why would you need to split up the community when all options plus more are still there and everyone is getting new stuff?  

 

This dev team does a real good job play testing this new harder content, they are very thorough.  It's real neat quality stuff they are crafting, I'd suggest people give it a whirl at various levels, it'll certainly push you to get better on your characters.  

 

 

[Psyonico]

Nobody is forced to play the new challenging content, they didn't make the base ITF any harder.  Why do you think adding content that isn't faceroll rest is a bad thing?

[golstat2003]

57 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

They want to leave the game as it is and offer additional options above and beyond to account for the decked out IO'ed and fully incarnated characters running around.  You know, what the live devs started to progress towards with the Going Rogue teaser before it got abruptly shut down.  

 

I'm all for the added content creation.  We're getting new task forces while leaving the base difficulty as easy as usual and adding additional optional challenges on top.  How is this a bad thing and why would you need to split up the community when all options plus more are still there and everyone is getting new stuff?  

 

This dev team does a real good job play testing this new harder content, they are very thorough.  It's real neat quality stuff they are crafting, I'd suggest people give it a whirl at various levels, it'll certainly push you to get better on your characters.  

 

 

 

There also the fact that there is no possible way the devs have the manpower to do anything as complicated as what the OP wants, besides the name issue pointed out earlier. This . . . doesn't seem realistic.

 

Let the devs keep adding optional difficult content while keeping the game easy for everyone else who runs at based difficulty. Yes.

Splitting the code base in a way that will make updates and changes take even longer than now with a volunteer dev team. NO!

[Grouchybeast]

This seems like kind of a dramatic overreaction to the devs adding an entirely optional challenge mode to one of the most popular TFs in the game.  People have requested harder content in the past, and the response has always been 'leave the base game difficulty alone, any extra difficulty must be optional'.  And that's exactly what the devs have delivered.  I really don't get the terrible downside that you're trying to address, here.