Focused Feedback: Giant Monster Balancing and Rewards

[Starhammer]

I like the name change to Monstrous Aethyr. I think it will perform better for its stated purpose.

[Monos King]

On 11/22/2023 at 8:49 AM, The Curator said:

Hamidon Bud:

• Hamidon Bud pet invention recipe has been added as a 0.4% chance drop from each Hamidon Mitochondria & Hamidon Bud enemy defeated from Hamidon raids.
• This drop chance is calculated individually per qualifying player, per defeat.
  • NOTE: The mission versions found in the Lady Grey's Task Force do not drop the recipe.
  • This mini pet recipe is not bound and can be freely traded or sold on the Auction House once acquired.

I know there was version of this power that actually does fight and is targetable. I can't see why we can't just have that version...seems pretty fair for the effort of collecting the recipe and assembling it (as well as you know facing Hamidon). In fact, if I'm being honest, it's kind of lame to only get a blob that does nothing and is so rare. I've always felt the rewards for Hamidon were lackluster and indistinct. If you get something that's actually somewhat useful it'd be better. Not to mention, we have a ton of vanity pets right now, if anything should be a real reward, I think it should go to the Hami bud. Their powers aren't even that strong, but it's just much cooler and more worthwhile if it does fight.

[macskull]

So I have no way of testing whether the recipe drop rate is actually 10% as stated without triggering hundreds upon hundreds of GM spawns which would probably take days or weeks, and I can't test the Hamidon Bud drop rate for the reasons @Glacier Peak already gave. What I can do though, is use the beta freebies menus to test out the random recipes from the hologram vendor. I rolled 500 times and here are my results:

 

 

 

It is entirely possible that this data set is simply too small to be accurate, but this distribution doesn't seem to be actually random, with seven of the seventeen entries more than one standard deviation from the mean. The four most and three least common ones are outside the range of what you'd expect, with the fourth least common just barely squeaking by.

[StarkWhite]

If those numbers are accurate, I absolutely approve of making Sally the most common result, putting even less pressure on people to go punch her (and make others wait for her respawn).

[Tigraine]

On 1/23/2024 at 2:00 AM, Dev Unitas said:

Regarding the currency conversation for a brief moment, I'll just reassure people that we on the team are very aware of the dangers of currency bloat, and while we see the value of currencies and want to make use of them where it makes sense, we are being thoughtful of that. We're not planning to inundate players with endless amounts of currencies, but we are intending to use them where and when it makes sense within our reward ecosystem. This was one of those such circumstances.

 

 

 

Quote

 

Giant Monster Mini Pets

• Unstable Aether renamed to Monstrous Aether to more accurately reflect the salvage's purpose and origin.

 

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that a hallmark of bad currency design and currency bloat is having single-purpose currencies.  That includes currencies that can be converted into other currencies.  The conversion doesn't count as an additional purpose, it's just another layer of tedium.

 

Renaming "Unstable Aether" to "Monstrous Aether" would seem to indicate that this currency will not be used for any other purpose, and appears to be a step in the wrong direction.  So for now I'll agree with others that a new currency is unnecessary and should not have been used here.

[StarkWhite]

FFXI's multiple pages of currencies would make y'all have an aneurysm. CoH is *nothing* in terms of amounts of currencies. This is fine.

[Tigraine]

1 hour ago, StarkWhite said:

FFXI's multiple pages of currencies would make y'all have an aneurysm. CoH is *nothing* in terms of amounts of currencies. This is fine.

 

I don't think one game making bad design decisions is justification for another game making the same mistakes.

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, StarkWhite said:

FFXI's multiple pages of currencies would make y'all have an aneurysm. CoH is *nothing* in terms of amounts of currencies. This is fine.

 

If you'd follow the conversation from the start the concerns are not about another currency but how more and more currencies are being added, and the desire to nip this from the bud before yet another currency is added in one or two patches.

[EmperorSteele]

I mean, honestly, maybe the best thing to do is have the currency be invisible, like some tracking badges. The more of it you have, the higher chance you get a pet drop or a Prismatic Aether. Once that happens, the currency is spent, and you're back to the default chance.

This removes currency bloat, but rewards people for continuing to engage in GM hunts by giving them a higher chance at an eventual reward. And players are none the wiser, with no additional currency mucking up their salvage window.

Just an idea to help "meet in the middle", I don't really care about the extra currency

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, Tigraine said:

So for now I'll agree with others that a new currency is unnecessary and should not have been used here.

 

3 minutes ago, Sovera said:

If you'd follow the conversation from the start the concerns are not about another currency but how more and more currencies are being added, and the desire to nip this from the bud before yet another currency is added in one or two patches.

 

If the new pets are purchasable with an existing currency (outside of the player market), players will run whatever content awards them the most of that currency instead of fighting GMs.  If they use reward merits, players will grind for reward merits instead of fighting GMs.  If they use inf*, players will farm/marketeer instead of fighting GMs.  Whatever existing currency they used, players would focus on accumulating that instead of fighting GMs for a low drop chance.  The players with a surplus of the existing currency could bypass the content and buy in immediately, en masse, allowing them to control the pricing on the player market.  The currency used would experience inflation, the pet supply on the player market would be lower and the average sale price higher, and the pets would be less available to players without ever-increasing sums of inf* or the used currency.

 

New currencies prevent hyperinflation, ensure availability for new players and encourage players to engage in the connected content.  This is a lesson Cryptic didn't learn, Paragon learned the hard way and HC has no intention of repeating.  If a few more icons in our inventory is the price we pay for not having items trading off-market for 1.5x the inf* cap, so be it.

[Dev Unitas]

9 hours ago, Luminara said:

If the new pets are purchasable with an existing currency (outside of the player market), players will run whatever content awards them the most of that currency instead of fighting GMs.  If they use reward merits, players will grind for reward merits instead of fighting GMs.  If they use inf*, players will farm/marketeer instead of fighting GMs.  Whatever existing currency they used, players would focus on accumulating that instead of fighting GMs for a low drop chance.  The players with a surplus of the existing currency could bypass the content and buy in immediately, en masse, allowing them to control the pricing on the player market.  The currency used would experience inflation, the pet supply on the player market would be lower and the average sale price higher, and the pets would be less available to players without ever-increasing sums of inf* or the used currency.

 

New currencies prevent hyperinflation, ensure availability for new players and encourage players to engage in the connected content.  This is a lesson Cryptic didn't learn, Paragon learned the hard way and HC has no intention of repeating.  If a few more icons in our inventory is the price we pay for not having items trading off-market for 1.5x the inf* cap, so be it.

 

This pretty much nails it. It's a careful balance to strike, and one we're viciously aware of. New currencies provide a lot of design value, more than people tend to give them credit for, but the bloat also isn't something to be ignored. Nothing to formally announce at this stage, but we would definitely like to tackle current extraneous currencies at some stage. We don't intend to just add and add and add.

[ZorkNemesis]

16 hours ago, StarkWhite said:

FFXI's multiple pages of currencies would make y'all have an aneurysm. CoH is *nothing* in terms of amounts of currencies. This is fine.

 

War flashbacks keeping track of Bayld, Dusk Stone +2s, Cruor, Imperial Standing, Kindred Crests, and everything else ensues.

[MidnighterClubPatron]

On 1/24/2024 at 8:15 PM, Tenkay Volts said:

Liking the revamps so far! I do wonder about Sally however, now that she has a chance to drop her own mini pet players are going to have more reasons to hunt her beyond the two times for her badge. Since she's a one-hitter, that could very well make it a little harder for players to get said badge if every time she appears it takes just one person to quickly go and murder her for recipe drop... doubly so if said recipe starts selling for a pretty penny on the AH (which could be likely given I expect there'll be way less players involved in her kill compared to other GMs). 

 

It might end up being nothing, but maybe something to keep in mind, I'm not sure what her spawn rate is currently, I do recall it was buffed to be a little more frequent in comparison to other GMs a while back, but she may need to get pushed further.

I would like the echo this sentiment. One of the best things about CoH is how collaborative it is and anything that adds competition like a limited spawn for cosmetics AND an accolade, is surely going to add negativity.

Couple of ideas:

1. Outside of increasing spawn rate, maybe we could increase her health so it takes ~1min for a a team of 4 +3 50 blaster to take her down. So that more people can get the opportunity to tag her but not so much that a support class couldn't conceivably solo her.
2. Give sally attacks from the Water Blast set and maker her a full fledged GM? I don't know how it'd work animation wise though.

Edited January 29 by MidnighterClubPatron

[Tenkay Volts]

7 hours ago, MidnighterClubPatron said:

Give sally attacks from the Water Blast set and maker her a full fledged GM? I don't know how it'd work animation wise though.

 

I get the feeling this would go against the thematic of Sally if she was actually aggressive. Though, then again, there isn't exactly much lore on her anyway so who knows, could be up for debate.

 

But yeah, if if there isn't attack animations held in reserve for her then that would be a bit more of a task to implement.

[yzdragel]

This is somewhat tangential, but I frequently change alignments (especially from Rogue to Vigilante and back).

 

There is a way to add Hero Zone Event Messages, Villain Zone Event Messages, and Praetorian Zone Event Messages to chat windows.

 

However, if you add all three to a chat and then change from blue to red or red to blue, you will lose the corresponding alignment zone message.

 

For example,

 

If you go from Vigilante to Rogue, you chat message unhelpfully deletes the Hero Zone Event Messages from any chat tabs.  Similarly, if you are a Rogue and then change to Vigilante or Hero, you can no longer see Villain Zone Event Messages.

 

Because of this recent pass on Giant Monsters (which are often detected in Zone Event Messages), I'd like to request that you please stop the game mechanic that removes the Zone Event Message of the alignment you shifted from.

 

It's a minor annoyance, but having to add it back to chat tabs is annoying whenever I switch sides.

 

Thanks and keep up the great work!

[Sovera]

13 hours ago, yzdragel said:

This is somewhat tangential, but I frequently change alignments (especially from Rogue to Vigilante and back).

 

There is a way to add Hero Zone Event Messages, Villain Zone Event Messages, and Praetorian Zone Event Messages to chat windows.

 

However, if you add all three to a chat and then change from blue to red or red to blue, you will lose the corresponding alignment zone message.

 

For example,

 

If you go from Vigilante to Rogue, you chat message unhelpfully deletes the Hero Zone Event Messages from any chat tabs.  Similarly, if you are a Rogue and then change to Vigilante or Hero, you can no longer see Villain Zone Event Messages.

 

Because of this recent pass on Giant Monsters (which are often detected in Zone Event Messages), I'd like to request that you please stop the game mechanic that removes the Zone Event Message of the alignment you shifted from.

 

It's a minor annoyance, but having to add it back to chat tabs is annoying whenever I switch sides.

 

Thanks and keep up the great work!

 

Hopefully it could be added. But in the meanwhile a small work around would be to make a macro that reloads your chat settings. So when ever you swap you also hit that subscr-.. er.. that macro button. Or even bind it to your whatever power, for example travel power. Something like /bind F "bind_load_file_silent C:\Games\CoH\settings\live/chat.txt$$powexec_toggleon Fly"

 

Change the directory to where you have your game and the chat.txt file.

[yzdragel]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

 

Hopefully it could be added. But in the meanwhile a small work around would be to make a macro that reloads your chat settings. So when ever you swap you also hit that subscr-.. er.. that macro button. Or even bind it to your whatever power, for example travel power. Something like /bind F "bind_load_file_silent C:\Games\CoH\settings\live/chat.txt$$powexec_toggleon Fly"

 

Change the directory to where you have your game and the chat.txt file.

 

Ah, thank you!

 

Although, I messed around with it and I think it's: chat_load_file or chatloadfile like: 

/bind F "chat_load_file C:\Games\CoH\settings\live\chat.txt$$powexec_toggleon Fly"

 

When I tried to use chat_load_file_silent it didn't work and I don't see that command in HC Wiki either.

Also, when I tried just doing it as a bind_load_file or bind_load_file_silent it says it's doing it, but it doesn't seem to be actually doing it.  For example, I removed all the event messages from a tab called Event then loaded the file and it says in System chat: "Keybinds file loaded: C:/Programs/Homecoming/settings/live/chat.txt" but it did not change that Tab.  When I do the chat_load_file I get: "Chat file loaded: C:/Programs/Homecoming/settings/live/chat.txt" and it does change the Event tab to include those 4.

 

I can use this as a workaround though. 😄

[Starhammer]

17 hours ago, yzdragel said:

This is somewhat tangential, but I frequently change alignments (especially from Rogue to Vigilante and back).

 

There is a way to add Hero Zone Event Messages, Villain Zone Event Messages, and Praetorian Zone Event Messages to chat windows.

 

However, if you add all three to a chat and then change from blue to red or red to blue, you will lose the corresponding alignment zone message.

 

For example,

 

If you go from Vigilante to Rogue, you chat message unhelpfully deletes the Hero Zone Event Messages from any chat tabs.  Similarly, if you are a Rogue and then change to Vigilante or Hero, you can no longer see Villain Zone Event Messages.

 

Because of this recent pass on Giant Monsters (which are often detected in Zone Event Messages), I'd like to request that you please stop the game mechanic that removes the Zone Event Message of the alignment you shifted from.

 

It's a minor annoyance, but having to add it back to chat tabs is annoying whenever I switch sides.

 

Thanks and keep up the great work!

Thank you for bringing this up. I wasn't aware it was happening.

I have a bind which resets a lot of my preferences to my defaults (/bind HOME "+up$$forward 0$$noparticles 0$$optionload$$chatload$$camreset$$camdist 50$$wdwload") so that may be why I didn't notice it, but I don't use this constantly, only when something is obviously a bit off (like if I move the camera around to look at myself from a different angle). So I'm going to add chatload to a bind I use much more often (/bind F11 "wdwload$$chatload$$dialogueyes") (F11 is what my down button on the d-pad of my X-Box controller).

So, the workaround is simple enough to incorporate into my setup (simple, but time consuming... among over 500 alts, I have at least more than 200-300 folders of character specific keybind sets, all of which will need to have this changed in 2 .txt files) though I do hope the devs can change this behavior. I can't imagine it being truly desirable for anyone to not know about a giant monster attack or other zone event just because it happens in a differently aligned zone.

[Oklahoman]

On 1/28/2024 at 4:50 PM, Dev Unitas said:

New currencies provide a lot of design value, more than people tend to give them credit for, but the bloat also isn't something to be ignored.

On 11/22/2023 at 10:49 AM, The Curator said:

• Unstable Aether is account bound and can only be transferred to other characters on the same account and cannot be stored in SG base bins; It can be held one-thousand (1,000) at a time.
• Unstable Aether can be converted at any BenevoLabs Hologram vendors into the following:
  • Trade ten(10) Unstable Aether for one(1) random Giant Monster mini pet invention recipe from any of the listed above.
  • Convert three(3) Unstable Aether into one(1) Prismatic Aether.

 

I guess it didn't register with me until just now that Unstable Aether cannot be sold in the auction house, like Prismatic Aether can.

 

Part of this may be my own low level OCD or something, but I always "cash out" my character after a play session. I go to Luna and convert all the Astrals to Empyreans, I go to the other guy and sell all the enhancements and salvage, then I put anything else I can sell on the auction house. If needed, I run to my base and convert Emps to Transcendants, then email those to a central character so they are all in the same place. All of this management is not especially fun, but I'm at a point I can do it relatively quickly so I guess it's not too bad.

 

Unstable Aether, then, will be kind of like vMerits. I have 10 vMerits sitting on a character and I can't do anything with them - they just sit there and take up space, and I can't even email them to another of my characters. At least I would be able to email and consolidate the Unstable Aether on one character, I guess, but then that character needs to make a special trip somewhere every now and again to convert them to Prismatic Aethers and post them on the auction house. My low level OCD demands it.

 

Maybe we could create something at a P2W vendor that would let you take the "cash equivalent" or salvage (or whatever) in lieu of Unstable or Prismatic Aether drops? (Likewise, if I could just donate vMerits "to charity" to get them out of my inventory, that would be great.) I appreciate that there are plenty of players who love collecting Aethers, but I really have no interest in chasing that, but I still have to deal with the currency. It would be nice for me (and any others who unfortunately are like me) if we had a way to opt out of that and just get something else instead that we're already managing. Just a thought.

[lemming]

50 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

 

I guess it didn't register with me until just now that Unstable Aether cannot be sold in the auction house, like Prismatic Aether can.

 

Part of this may be my own low level OCD or something, but I always "cash out" my character after a play session. I go to Luna and convert all the Astrals to Empyreans, I go to the other guy and sell all the enhancements and salvage, then I put anything else I can sell on the auction house. If needed, I run to my base and convert Emps to Transcendants, then email those to a central character so they are all in the same place. All of this management is not especially fun, but I'm at a point I can do it relatively quickly so I guess it's not too bad.

 

Unstable Aether, then, will be kind of like vMerits. I have 10 vMerits sitting on a character and I can't do anything with them - they just sit there and take up space, and I can't even email them to another of my characters. At least I would be able to email and consolidate the Unstable Aether on one character, I guess, but then that character needs to make a special trip somewhere every now and again to convert them to Prismatic Aethers and post them on the auction house. My low level OCD demands it.

 

Maybe we could create something at a P2W vendor that would let you take the "cash equivalent" or salvage (or whatever) in lieu of Unstable or Prismatic Aether drops? (Likewise, if I could just donate vMerits "to charity" to get them out of my inventory, that would be great.) I appreciate that there are plenty of players who love collecting Aethers, but I really have no interest in chasing that, but I still have to deal with the currency. It would be nice for me (and any others who unfortunately are like me) if we had a way to opt out of that and just get something else instead that we're already managing. Just a thought.

It would be nice if there was ONE place to do all the conversions.   It seems that Astral to Emp, at Luna.   Emp to Trans at Merit rewards.  And now the mini-aether at BenevoLabs.

[Lazarillo]

57 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

I guess it didn't register with me until just now that Unstable Aether cannot be sold in the auction house, like Prismatic Aether can.

The irony being now that I realize that, I'll probably want to avoid doing GMs so as not to end up with stray salvage confuddling characters' inventories.

If it can be converted into Prismatics (sellable), just make it sellable, I feel like.

[Luminara]

33 minutes ago, lemming said:

It would be nice if there was ONE place to do all the conversions.

 

Spreading things out reduces player congestion.  Reduced player congestion alleviates problems with power spam, noise, et cetera.

[lemming]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

Spreading things out reduces player congestion.  Reduced player congestion alleviates problems with power spam, noise, et cetera.

What I'm saying is any of those places should be able to convert any of the conversions.  Right now, for Luna, it's either Ouro or Echo Plaza.

[Oklahoman]

53 minutes ago, lemming said:

What I'm saying is any of those places should be able to convert any of the conversions.  Right now, for Luna, it's either Ouro or Echo Plaza.

 

If an NPC version of Luna and BevevoLabs could be added to a base, that would help. Not sure if that's possible. Then you could do most all conversions in a base, at least.

[tidge]

Would it be possible to add a tiny %drop chance to Monstrous Aethyr to the level-less spawns, especially in Croatoa?

 

Ideally there would be some way to %reward the players on the team that actually defeats the final spawn that resets the Grim Vale event, but anything to get players to actually clean up that event would be welcome.