Focused Feedback: Role Diversity Bonus

[Digirium]

Like it or not I think this daily PAP reward will end up being the default objective looked for by every team that is formed for TF/SF.

 

Diversity is accepting whomever applies to join a team and running that way.

 

Diversity is not enforcing a team composition from 20 years ago and calling it "diversity".

 

Some servers there is really a struggle to get a full team to do anything even despite the influx of players at the moment. If this idea had instead been about encouraging players to join teams no matter the composition it would have worked out better. Time will tell -- my prediction is this will place a harmful negative on how we play the game.

 

 

Edited January 22 by Digirium

[Doc_Scorpion]

3 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

Not a simple problem to solve due to the primary reason that low level players are so poor is that Double Experience Boosters turns off their Influence gains and so, as a result, they have no money to buy SOs.

I agree and disagree with this part. (I heartily agree with the remainder.)  While 2XP (and the imbalance between XP and Inf in DFB, even without 2XP) contribute to the problem - they do not in and of themselves cause the problem.  I've cold started a number of toons (without using either 2XP or DFB), and it's still very difficult to afford a SO build with nothing but normal gameplay.  (By which I mean running the missions the game steers you toward, not using hacks that will not be obvious to the new player, such as earning the Atlas Tour Guide accolade.)  Even affording a DO/TO build can be difficult.

As I said, I agree with the goal (making enhancements easier to afford), I only disagree with assumption (that the problem is lack of cash rather than high prices) and the solution (driving characters towards a given playstyle).

[Blackbird71]

5 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

That's fine, if you'd like to suggest an alternative solution to mine that would achieve the same design goals then go ahead I'd love to read it, otherwise I will disagree with you on your point.

I believe our players are smart enough to understand the context of the game and know through common-sense that the main roles one is expected to perform when joining a team of strangers does not equate to them being the only things a character can possibly contribute.

There were already good suggestions made of simply requiring five different ATs in a group to get the bonus.

[Cobalt Arachne]

3 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

There were already good suggestions made of simply requiring five different ATs in a group to get the bonus.

Disagree, that is not an alternative suggestion because it does not achieve the same goal. ATs are not roles.

Simply bringing 5 different ATs does not promote healthier team composition balance because all five could technically be the same one or two roles.

[Blackbird71]

6 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

If you've got alternative suggestions on any names that communicate the bonus's goal and function, I'd love to hear them!

The name can be changed effortlessly, it's a single string to adjust; If somebody has a better sounding idea, please let me know.

 

Open a thesaurus.  Call it a "versatility" bonus, a "variety" bonus, a "complimentary" bonus, whatever.

I think the immediate "thumbs down" reactions on my other post emphasizes just how controversial and divisive the suggested terms are.

[Blackbird71]

Just now, Cobalt Arachne said:

Disagree, that is not an alternative suggestion because it does not achieve the same goal. ATs are not roles.

 

Neither does pigeonholing ATs that serve multiple roles into single-role categories, especially some that are poor fits compared to the AT's actual function.

[ecogranjapsi]

I agree with the mixed signals surrounding this change.

Also. New players are considered to be both unfamiliar enough with the game that there's a need to draw paralels to previous MMOs (via holy trinity, even considering CoH does not only not follow it, CoH doesn't even enforce it in its queuing system, vs things like party finder/duty finder/raid finder in other games) and yet clever enough to know that "controllers = control" is not the only role they can play.

 

Keeping it as it is now, instead of surrounding about roles in party, maybe make a reference to when the ATs were released? Kinda a call back to AT bingo in some streaming circles. Like the X-Men Legends/Marvel Ultimate Alliance had, where characters with a team history applied a bonus. So "Hero AT Bingo" and "Villain AT Bingo" is just a nice bonus for landing the 5 original ATs, and the V/EATs fill an empty role their respective side (if there's one available).

 

This way it unties the system from the AT <-> role discussion, and focus on the game's history and community.

 

And also opens the door to other possible bonus (like same AT groups) down the line, which are also a somewhat popular community activity (like all MM ITF runs).

 

edit: missing letters/words

Edited January 22 by ecogranjapsi

[Cobalt Arachne]

6 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

I agree and disagree with this part.

I don't believe that the x2 Boosters are the ONLY cause of the imbalances, just one of the various factors, it's a complex game with many facets.
The team has been having on-going discussions regarding the difficulty of maintaining an SO build while leveling due to various factors.

A bit off-topic now, can't say much else yet because decisions about that aren't made, but we're absolutely aware of that Influence deficit and are looking for solutions.
 

[Police Woman]

Suggestion:

If the goal is to give influence to new players while encouraging varied teams, what about:

 

• Give +10% influence bonus to defeating enemies when on a team with 5 different ATs
• Give +15% influence bonus to defeating enemies when on a team with 6 different ATs
• Give +20% influence bonus to defeating enemies when on a team with 7 different ATs
• Give +25% influence bonus to defeating enemies when on a team with 8 different ATs

You would get this extra influence even if you took the double XP buff that turned off influence.  Maybe there'd be some protection against some of these players being idle (door sitters/multi-boxers), and maybe the bonus would taper off starting around level 30 so it doesn't flood high level characters with influence.

 

 

I think you'd want to decouple it from PAPs (new players might not know how to use the auction house and/or might think they need to hoard PAPs "for later" - if you want them to have influence, just give influence) and from TFs/SFs (that way new players doing door missions or radio missions still get the bonus; also helps people who started in Praetoria).

 

 

[Lunar Ronin]

3 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

I think the issue is most folks don't want to spend 3-4 hours doing hard mode content, as they don't have 3-4 hours to do said content. So they want to speed through it. I don't think there is any issue with that. Also optimizing the team to make the hardest content a little bit easier isn't bad .  . . as long as the wait to start said content isn't 2 hours of the leader doing "looking for this or that so we can start".

 

There is an issue when it locks out nine to twelve of the game's ATs, and the vast majority of power sets.  Also, we're not talking about three to four hours with a team with diverse ATs.  I was once told that bringing a "non-viable" AT to a hard mode would increase the time by 20 minutes.  20 minutes!  The sheer, abject horror!  Also, yeah, I've heard "we don't have time for that," but then they go on to do a half dozen other TFs/SFs, taking two hours or more.  So... I guess you did have time for it, you just chose differently.

 

I don't have issues with people playing how they choose, with who they choose.  However, there is a severe problem with people telling others that hard modes simply cannot be done with "non-viable" ATs and power sets (and those non-viable ATs and power sets comprise about 90% or more of the game), when that is 100% objectively false.  I've seen it plenty of times on these forums, on the Homecoming Discord server, on other Discord servers, and in-game.  It leads to people believing that, and they won't even join hard modes if they don't have the "right" composition as a result.

 

But I digress.

Edited January 22 by Lunar Ronin

[Marbing]

17 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

If you've got alternative suggestions on any names that communicate the bonus's goal and function, I'd love to hear them!

The name can be changed effortlessly, it's a single string to adjust; If somebody has a better sounding idea, please let me know.

Role Versatility Bonus or Team Versatility Bonus

 

That’s my input. 😁

[Cobalt Arachne]

If the consensus here is that this change will be a negative for the game, we can simply remove the free bonus and drop this feature.

The sense I'm getting from reading feedback is that many feel like any attempts to influence the nature of team assembly is antithetical to the nature of City of Heroes.
 

[Marbing]

5 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

If the consensus here is that this change will be a negative for the game, we can simply remove the free bonus and drop this feature.

The sense I'm getting from reading feedback is that many feel like any attempts to influence the nature of team assembly is antithetical to the nature of City of Heroes.
 

FWIW I like the idea. It’s a free bonus that encourages versatility without requiring it. Often times you will end up with this without thinking about it. 
 

Maybe to make it easier to achieve, require less. Like just 3 of the 5 roles? 
 

EDIT: Teams often seek at least one support and a tank to go with their damage anyways.

Edited January 22 by Marbing

[Cobalt Arachne]

Just now, Marbing said:

Maybe to make it easier to achieve, require less. Like just 3 of the 5 roles? 

What I'm reading is more that many players take issue with there being any kind of bias towards a defined team structure at all, not the requirements or rewards.

[Doc_Scorpion]

4 minutes ago, Police Woman said:

I think you'd want to decouple it from PAPs (new players might not know how to use the auction house and/or might think they need to hoard PAPs "for later" - if you want them to have influence, just give influence)

Good point!  One of the dev team's goals (previously stated, not in this discussion) is for new players to use the auction house.  Giving them something in high demand that will quickly sell is a good step in that direction.  But there's still something missing - something that steers them towards the auction house in the first place.  The only place I'm aware of that does so currently that is Twinshot's execrable arc.

[skoryy]

5 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

This free bonus is not an attempt to disrupt the City of Heroes element of 'any team can work', because while that's always been true...
'any team can work well' has never been a guarantee and there have been plenty of teams I've joined that have been rough experiences because the composition just wasn't considered while forming the team. While lopsided teams can always work, they shouldn't be considered the ideal or baseline experience to strive for giving our new players.

 

I feel like this is getting ignored.  Anecdotal evidence, of course, but last night I was on a Manticore run with one brute, one controller, one scrapper, one sentinel, and four blasters.  (Yeah, okay, I was one of the blasters.)  We had about thirteen faceplants during an hour and a half run, a couple times because I- er- some of us went the wrong way but often it was a matter of running into two or more spawns at once and not having enough aggro and support to keep everyone upright.

 

You any team can work, sure, but a lot of that is post-50 incarnated experience.  An experience that, I will note with the CoT and Council changes, isn't going to stay the standard for too long.  Diverse teams can and will work better.  Rewarding diversity is a good idea.

[Marbing]

2 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

What I'm reading is more that many players take issue with there being any kind of bias towards a defined team structure at all, not the requirements or rewards.

Which I can understand as it’s similar logic to giving any bonuses to origins. It would push people in certain directions. But this isn’t entirely that, if the requirement is lowered to not needing all 5 you will end up with what many teams already look for anyways. However I can see how some would be like “we already have 5 blasters, we need a defender for the bonus, sorry corruptor!”  Adding more roles to ATs could solve that and lowering the requirement to achieve it. I see no issue with it in that case but that’s just my opinion and majority rules.

[Lazarillo]

13 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

If the consensus here is that this change will be a negative for the game, we can simply remove the free bonus and drop this feature.

The sense I'm getting from reading feedback is that many feel like any attempts to influence the nature of team assembly is antithetical to the nature of City of Heroes.
 

I think it's one of those things that at least should be held off on for now.  The intent behind it is good, but the implementation has some issues, and I admit, at least, I can't think of a good way to really make it work in a way that suits what I think about how teaming in this game is supposed to feel.

 

I think that if you want more diverse teams, there's no real trick, only the "hard way"...have the ATs balanced in such a way that you don't have the majority of players all playing the same two or three (and good luck with that...it'd be the hard way for a darned good reason).

Edited January 22 by Lazarillo

[Fade]

4 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

If the consensus here is that this change will be a negative for the game, we can simply remove the free bonus and drop this feature.

The sense I'm getting from reading feedback is that many feel like any attempts to influence the nature of team assembly is antithetical to the nature of City of Heroes.
 

 

Honestly, I think that would be for the best. I know the dev team is trying to do something nice for the players, but I think this idea needs a bit more time in the oven.

 

I don't know whether trying to promote more balanced teams in some way is something we should strive for, but if we do decide to do that, here's how I would tweak the system as presented:

As for "what counts as a well-balanced team", the game already tells you what ATs do what roles, on the character creation screen. In this section of the character creator (which I skip every time) we have listed roles that perfectly match the roles in this new system, plus "Pets" which isn't so much a role as a playstyle. Clicking "support" gives you a list of the archetypes that someone, at some point, considered the full list of archetypes that can fulfill a support role. While I can see why it might be seen as "unfair" to give the classic ATs like Corruptors more roles than a more focused AT like Scrappers, I think it's more unfair to not recognize their full contributions to a team. Personally, I'd align the roles listed here with the roles for the system. Simultaneously, I'd limit each player to "counting" as only one role at a time for the system - not as something a player has to choose (so player's don't have to "queue as support" or whatever), but as something calculated in the background. This would mean that it requires a 5 person team to get this bonus, which I don't love but makes more sense than assuming one player is performing three roles at a time.

[arcane]

32 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

The sense I'm getting from reading feedback is that many feel like any attempts to influence the nature of team assembly is antithetical to the nature of City of Heroes.

The players that take issue with it can simply play the same way they’ve always played and won’t be punished for it. No reason to remove an optional bonus for those who like it.

[GM Tock]

The topic is the bonus.  Let's stay on that, please.

[PeregrineFalcon]

53 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

What I'm reading is more that many players take issue with there being any kind of bias towards a defined team structure at all, not the requirements or rewards.

There's no need to implement another in-game system to reward diversity. We already have two, time and success. Diverse teams are already more likely to succeed and in a shorter time frame than badly composed teams. Encouraging more diversity with more in-game rewards will also encourage toxic behavior as people strive to enforce the requirements to get that extra reward that you're offering.

 

And, according to your own admission in this thread, too much inf is already a problem and this will only exacerbate that.

[Cyclone Jack]

1 hour ago, Fade said:

I don't know whether trying to promote more balanced teams in some way is something we should strive for, but if we do decide to do that, here's how I would tweak the system as presented:

I like this idea, because it reinforces what new players are already presented with when they create their first character(s).  Deviating from this and pigeonholing ATs to a single "role" is antithesis to what they've already been shown.  Going this route also reinforces the fact that some Archetype are more specialized, while others are more diverse.

 

I think the only other problem I have is forcing 5 players.  Reason: It only requires 4 players to get the group XP buff.  Also, a number of TFs were designed around a minimum of 3 or 4 players (yes, I know you can start them with less than that now, but this should be taken into consideration).

Edited January 22 by Cyclone Jack

[Bionic_Flea]

Personally, I don't mind the addition of the diversity bonus.  I see it as a bonus.  But I also never require specific ATs or builds when building a team unless absolutely needed (like a Hammy raid or LGTF).  So, for me it would be a bonus if we happened to fulfill the role requirements.  If we don't, I would never ask someone to change just to get it.

 

However, the first time someone kicks me or tells me that I have to change my character because "I brought the wrong AT" is the time I stop thinking of it as a happy bonus.

 

I don't run a lot of 4* stuff because many leaders enforce a very narrow group of "required" builds and I-Powers.  I hope this Role Diversity thingie doesn't have the same effect, but it might.

 

One solution might be to expand the roles and let more ATs have multiple roles so that it is more likely that just about any group would have the requirements as long as the ATs were different.

 

I'm not against the bonus, I'm against other players enforcing diversity on me so that they can get the bonus.

[StarseedWarrior]

Dont some of us need a hybrid choice? I am not sure how all this works, but I do not think anyone wants to be pigeon holed into a playstyle if thats the case.