The Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #54: What content do you wish you were playing?

[DougGraves]

Goldside is pretty dead, Red side is kinda dead, pvp is pretty dead.  Lots of zones get ignored.

 

What content do you wish you could be playing but are not because other players are not playing it?

 

Have you joined groups that plan on playing seldom used content?

 

What would you do to lure other players to that content?

[A Cat]

Goldside I guess. But personally, I have a hard time getting into the story unless I'm on a team. Unless I'm the leader I can't read half the text, and no one wants to wait for someone to read all that anyway. So I'm more or less ok with the teaming situation as is already. 

[Darmian]

I play Goldside all the time!  What I wish I was playing was MORE Goldside. I've had to write the continuing Goldside adventures myself in the AE to scratch that itch. 

[huang3721]

Goldside.

 

I love it so much that I kept playing its contents and story arcs over and over again.

Also, I was very lucky. When I started playing my Praetorian toon back in 2020, I met with Darmian. Playing as a team (even with only two members) is much better than playing alone. It was a great journey.

 

Problems:

• Most of its contents are in the low-level bracket and they are harder than its Primal counterpart. Starting a new gold toon is more challenging than red or blue.
• Some people feel the morality system isn't quite adequate.

 

I used to lurk at nearby hospitals (or First Ward's field hospital). Offered to team up with people and finish their mission. Or just helping them survive First/Night Ward.

 

Wasn't quite successful. Pretoria is more or less a single player map and people often returned back to Primal after a few rounds of First/Night Ward.

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, huang3721 said:

Goldside.

 

I love it so much that I kept playing its contents and story arcs over and over again.

Also, I was very lucky. When I started playing my Praetorian toon back in 2020, I met with Darmian. Playing as a team (even with only two members) is much better than playing alone. It was a great journey.

 

Problems:

• Most of its contents are in the low-level bracket and they are harder than its Primal counterpart. Starting a new gold toon is more challenging than red or blue.
• Some people feel the morality system isn't quite adequate.

 

I used to lurk at nearby hospitals (or First Ward's field hospital). Offered to team up with people and finish their mission. Or just helping them survive First/Night Ward.

 

Wasn't quite successful. Pretoria is more or less a single player map and people often returned back to Primal after a few rounds of First/Night Ward.

And I was lucky to have met @huang3721! And some other dedicated Goldsiders along the way. Enough to keep a small Gold based SG ticking over, even if it never reaches the numbers of a Red or Blue SG.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Darmian

[SeraphimKensai]

Honestly I never had more fun in the game than when I was actively all about PvP. But that was most likely due to my team shooting the shit over TS/Vent at the time and laughing way too much at Chappelle Show skits. That team was so close we all had each other's logins and would often surprise each other so the next time you'd login there might be a new lvl 50 PvP toon complete with an 8-12 billion inf build.

 

For PvE I really like the Red and Gold side aspects of the game as often the mission story writing is better than blue, but it can often be difficult recruiting for a team, especially gold side (because the way it's designed if you team you'll likely out level your contacts, so you might have to freeze your XP if running contacts to completion is a big thing to you).

 

I hate stuff like newspapers or radios, and get so bored of Council it's not funny.

I like to lead teams of lesser ran content, like the other day I was leading a PUG through Serpent Drummer's arc, and someone whispered to me "I didn't know they had missions here, I thought it was just MSR, Apex and Tin Mage". Other areas I like to run is bringing people out to the Shadow Shard, pretty much anytime I run missions out there it's someone's first time even going to the Shadow Shard. Also Cimerora has great missions, besides the ITF.

[Skyhawke]

The high end sewer trial. I have never, ever seen anyone broadcasting for that one. I tried soloing it, but just couldn't be in multiple places at once.  It wasn't hard, not even time consuming to progress through, it's just the final fight needs more hands on deck. To this day, I don't understand why people don't do it.

[Without_Pause]

1 minute ago, Skyhawke said:

The high end sewer trial. I have never, ever seen anyone broadcasting for that one. I tried soloing it, but just couldn't be in multiple places at once.  It wasn't hard, not even time consuming to progress through, it's just the final fight needs more hands on deck. To this day, I don't understand why people don't do it.

I think I saw it advertised once on HC. 

Red side happens decently on Excel. I solo a lot so I tend to play the content I want, but for teams, yeah, Red side could use some love, and I think I have seen one Gold side team in LFG on HC.

[Clave Dark 5]

33 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:

The high end sewer trial. I have never, ever seen anyone broadcasting for that one. I tried soloing it, but just couldn't be in multiple places at once.  It wasn't hard, not even time consuming to progress through, it's just the final fight needs more hands on deck. To this day, I don't understand why people don't do it.

I've done it all of twice since HC started up; never did it on Live.  And I saw someone advertising for it just last night, or maybe the night before?  Plus I play during usually dead hours.  Still, that is only 3 times.  My guess is it doesn't contribute to an accolade that makes min/maxers super happy, and it can't be easily farmed, or maybe doesn't pay out well enough.  Lots and lots of stuff in the game gets ignored because of that.

 

I keep thinking I'm going to start starting more teams myself to get away from the usual TFs, DFB, and Incarnate-level TFs only style we've encouraged with endless farming... still really haven't gotten to it though.  Maybe just some random AE stuff (played a fun one last night), but the way only the leader can see all the text is just a pain.

[laudwic]

I like grouping occasionally, but I'm predominately a solo player.  Gold side with the missions being able to switch from loyalist to resistance lends itself to solo play.  Same with Redside.  I encourage folks to pay through that content as it is great story telling, and will occasionally try to group with someone to assist with their missions.

 

With that said, I really haven't had a chance to run some red side Task Forces.  I would love to do that.  Part of my problem is time and availability on my part, also I don't see them advertised.  I don't lead groups much, and I don't want to lead a Task Force that I don't have familiarity with.

 

I would love to take down the Seed of Hamidon some time.

 

I also want to just fight my way in the sewers.  I've just never done it, and I haven't seen the point to doing it, but I wonder if I'm missing something.  Not a trial, just jumping it and seeing what there is.

 

Frankly, I'm just concerned about population.  When I was playing on live, I got into the habit of doing /whoall in zones just out of curiosity.  I always loved it when I would have a zone to myself.  On Live, that happened, occasionally, in the original Dark Astoria or the Crash Site.  It was just fun knowing this map and all the enemies at that moment only existed for you.  Now I'm seeing time where I have Talos or Independence Port to myself.  Admittedly I'm on Torchbearer but population seems down.  

[Snarky]

The content I wished I was playing?  Won the big lottery sailing on a yacht content….

[JasperStone]

49 minutes ago, Snarky said:

The content I wished I was playing?  Won the big lottery sailing on a yacht content….

ummmm .... how does that work for a vampire?

Night sailing?

[FupDup]

Goldside, redside, and iTrials other than BAF. 

[JasperStone]

Redside. Beginning to end.

 

I have done Goldside with two different ATs.

 

I am currently going through all my alts, spending a month on each.

Getting as far as I can Incarnate, badges, etc.

 

[Snarky]

16 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

ummmm .... how does that work for a vampire?

Night sailing?

Okay, so that is my lottery dream

 

My real sailing experiences are slightly less glamorous…

[SeraphimKensai]

31 minutes ago, Snarky said:

My real sailing experiences are slightly less glamorous…

[Techwright]

12 hours ago, DougGraves said:

What would you do to lure other players to that content?

 

Am I correct in assuming that we're not talking of adding stuff to the game, just re-addressing stuff already in the game?

 

Goldside definitely.  I've got a character I'm very slowly working the way through Goldside with, but it's a tad dull running solo, for me anyway. YMMV.

 

Perhaps if team members had full access to all the scripting that the team lead has, they could better follow along in the story, rather just being dragged around to "go there, hit that".

 

Now if we're talking the potential for additions to the game, then address the shortage of events and Giant Monsters in Goldside, to make it more equivalent to Blueside.  Also the period of time (aka levels) necessary to reach the moment storywise where you can move your character into Redside or Blueside tends to be isolating.  I'm not sure how to fix that, but something more likely to let people move freely back and forth between sides, while still running Gold stories might get more helping out.

 

As to Giant Monsters, maybe get a couple of Praetorian Devouring Earth GMs as something of a testing group, probing borders, and showing Praetorian Hamidon's impatience with the treaty?  Might be interesting if, like the flagpole event during Halloween, we have 4 GMs randomly appear around the city simultaneously.  Use the characters already in game, promote to GM status, enlarge, and perhaps color their skins a bit different.

 

I'd also like to point out that I'd be willing to do the content related to the Shadow Shard, however, I've never felt there was a dedicated team interest for it, and I have to wonder if it is the nature of the floating islands that is cause for that.  How to improve that, I cannot say.  I do know I'd be much, much more interested in running the Shadow Shard TFs if they were given the Positron TF treatment and broken into 2 or 3 components TFs.  I suspect we'd see a notable boost in Dr. Quarterfield TFs in that case.

 

 

[Darmian]

42 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Okay, so that is my lottery dream

 

My real sailing experiences are slightly less glamorous…

Saw Nosferatu last year in the cinema for the 100th anniversary. Wonderful on the big screen.

[Skyhawke]

13 hours ago, DougGraves said:

What would you do to lure other players to that content?

 

I forgot to address this part. For the sewer trial? I dunno. Giving it too much reward would just make it become yet another speed-run-a-thon, but as is it's not (obviously) bringing 'em in either. It didn't feel overly challenging (except the part where I was 1 dude trying to do the work of many), so that's not what's keeping folks away. It didn't feel overly long. I think like someone else said, it's not part of an accolade or doesn't grant crazy rewards so why bother. Hmmm...maybe a small accolade? Like something along the lines of fighting through the sewers and all the crazy gunk therein gives you a 5% recovery or regen boost or maybe resist to all? Nothing game breaking, but a niceish bump. 🤷‍♂️

 

[Vic Raiden]

I have dedicated redside and goldside toons, and it feels pretty upsetting that I can hardly see any other player in either place unless I specifically hit up a friend I already know. Eh, would be fun to actually do some team play, especially in Praetoria, and to generally have more things to do there. More zones, more events, maybe even a dedicated TF or two.

[Clave Dark 5]

7 hours ago, Techwright said:

Perhaps if team members had full access to all the scripting that the team lead has, they could better follow along in the story, rather just being dragged around to "go there, hit that".

Very much this.  They need to make some change so that every bit of text that the team lead sees can also be seen by anyone they're teaming with, like a Clue drop or a big ol' text box that shows up on screen (although I'm not a huge fan of those; even with my new much wider screen they always post up under my map or a Pet window or something).

[Yomo Kimyata]

8 hours ago, JasperStone said:

ummmm .... how does that work for a vampire?

Night sailing?

 

just sailing, at night.

with the fifteen year old daughter of the dean

 

[Greycat]

9 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

On 11/17/2023 at 12:51 AM, A Cat said:

Goldside I guess. But personally, I have a hard time getting into the story unless I'm on a team. Unless I'm the leader I can't read half the text, and no one wants to wait for someone to read all that anyway. So I'm more or less ok with the teaming situation as is already. 

Very much this.  They need to make some change so that every bit of text that the team lead sees can also be seen by anyone they're teaming with, like a Clue drop or a big ol' text box that shows up on screen (although I'm not a huge fan of those; even with my new much wider screen they always post up under my map or a Pet window or something).

 

So, while it doesn't share some of the clues (as I recall...) if you're looking for a lot of the mission text, contact exposition, etc?

 

Hit the "i" in the red shape in the nav bar. (Yellow if it's not actually *active,* but that tends to just be for your own missions.)

 

 

You'll get the contact text, in both regular missions/TFs and AE.

[Clave Dark 5]

Yeah, that's still not everything, but it's a good start.

[Go0gleplex]

Red side - not sure if anyone else has the same issue, but definitely a lack of contacts when switching zones. Have to almost always run paper missions when arriving.  

 

Gold side - fun place and it actually feels like a city despite the lack of traffic on the streets. More varied content would be great. 

 

Blue side - anything but Skulls, Sky Raiders, and claustrophobic tunnels/passages. Would love to see Galaxy come back with anti-Shivan missions, Hollows content centered on taking back the habitable areas around Grindle's Gulch. A mission rescuing Super Unknown would be amusing too.  Mini-TFs for us solo player types would be cool too: the main guy being wrapped up with larger affairs and needing some assistance with less grand but still urgent issues.