How do we fail new players?

[BZRKR]

1 hour ago, mechahamham said:

 

So because I don't have a high post count, I'm a troll? I'm expressing a genuine concerns and offering what I feel is a great solution, and am asking others for their concerns and solutions. What are your concerns about the new player experience and what ideas do you have to make it better?

My post is an observation that every week or so, someone posts a controversial thread, and then leaves it while various other Forumites cuss and discuss.

 

What I have observed is that the folks who post these threads seem to have low post counts (in some cases the controversial post is their first post). Without further evidence, that makes me suspect that someone has made a disposable account to post said controversial topic.

 

I'd say this is more of a bait thread. You posted with a pretty inflammatory subject line, and only now that someone has made the observation that I have do you choose to engage in the conversation you started. I find that interesting, especially since I was responding to another poster's (tiny font) question that seemed to call the intent of this thread into question. I will say that you swooping in on my post like this makes me think you may have been looking for a confrontation. This will be the only post you get from me.

 

To answer your second question, I don't have any. People come and go, and that's okay. The lights are on, monthly donations fill quickly, and the outstanding HC team got a license(!!). I don't think the sky is falling, so I'm not devoting any energy to solving falling skies.

[mechahamham]

28 minutes ago, BZRKR said:

To answer your second question, I don't have any. People come and go, and that's okay. The lights are on, monthly donations fill quickly, and the outstanding HC team got a license(!!). I don't think the sky is falling, so I'm not devoting any energy to solving falling skies.

 

There's the ideological difference. I believe very strongly that we all have the onus upon us to make our surroundings better both for ourselves and for each other. Especially now that City of Heroes is firmly in the hands of its community, that means we don't have the luxury of ever treating the game or our interaction with the rest of the game's community as 'good enough'. There should NEVER be a point at which we stop trying to improve upon things. I want to offer my suggestions and hear others offer theirs as well. I want the HC team to continue being awesome caretakers of CoH, but I also want players to continue to make mods and tools for the game. We can't afford to let any part of it start to stagnate

 

I do believe that we're far enough into the game's life that there's no point to try to keep people from playing it the way they want to. But I also believe that it's important to say 'this one aspect is harmful'. Not 'don't do that thing you enjoy doing', but instead, 'maybe do that thing in a way that doesn't cause something bad to happen for someone else'.

 

tl;dr: Don't feel attacked or confronted. Do feel like you should share what you think are pain points that can be polished by both us as players and the HC staff as developers.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, mechahamham said:

There should NEVER be a point at which we stop trying to improve upon things.

Have to disagree with this sentiment;  Sometimes you like a thing for what it *IS*, not what it can become.  If you invest heavily, (emotionally, time-wise, etc), in something, hoping it'll reach some greater heights in the future, then you will forever be unhappy and never looking at "the now".  If someone doesn't like CoH for what it is, then they aren't going to stick around for what it might become in the future...

[mechahamham]

10 minutes ago, biostem said:

Have to disagree with this sentiment;  Sometimes you like a thing for what it *IS*, not what it can become.  If you invest heavily, (emotionally, time-wise, etc), in something, hoping it'll reach some greater heights in the future, then you will forever be unhappy and never looking at "the now".  If someone doesn't like CoH for what it is, then they aren't going to stick around for what it might become in the future...

 

Why not both? Can you not love the Art Museum, but still hope that they get more amazing works to put on display? Can you not love the Statue of Liberty, but want the monument to be well-maintained and easier to visit?

 

My feeling is that we, the game, the community, everything, really, is subject to slow decay. The game in and of itself doesn't get objectively worse over time the way copper oxidizes, but if the population dwindles it'll become less enjoyable. The way to avoid that is to constantly improve. Preserving the now is wonderful, but the preservation is still work

[tribunaltd]

I came back about a month ago. Ourouroubos has been my favorite. I started at level 30 and am level 41 and about 70% through 15-19. I really wish that was how you could play the storyline. It's fun to see the arcs but since they don't have any impact on your specific story, like loyalists vs resistance, it loses some luster.

 

But when playing normally, I realized I was just leveling too fast to go through the proper story mechanics. Going through the story the natural way is just too disjointed. I know I can stop XP and there are some guides but that's just not inviting. If they could make the story structure more pointed and "on rails" naturally, I'd be excited about creating new toons and making different decisions. It would extend the life so that when I do hit 50, I have more options to play through the story several times or do level 50 things. 

 

I'm sure this has been brought up and don't want to say negatives about the time traveling, though. It's great and so much content.

[biostem]

39 minutes ago, mechahamham said:

Can you not love the Statue of Liberty, but want the monument to be well-maintained and easier to visit?

Sure, but not fundamentally changed.  CoH should *not* be made into a "modern game".  At some point, enough "improvements" will make CoH into something else, and that is what I'm against. 

[Sanguinesun]

On 6/4/2024 at 4:33 PM, mechahamham said:

Over the recent long day weekend, I noticed a large uptick in new players. I answered as many questions as I could in /help and was as welcoming as I could be. However, I noticed some oddities that made me think we, as a community, are failing our newest members. We're doing things that harm them and NOT doing things that would help them.

 

I noticed one person advertising in help chat, "I've gotten level 50. So now what do I need to do to equip my character and start enjoying the game?"

We've failed that person. They're level 50 and want to START enjoying the game. They've missed most of the game on their first character. If they're lucky, they'll be introduced to taskforces and the flashback system. If not, they'll discover that a lot of level 50 players do nothing but the same two trials over and over, get bored and leave the game because it seems like there's nothing to do compared to other MMOs. We can hope they make more characters to experience more of the game.

 

A significant number of players take pride in powerlevelling anyone they can. They feel they're helping others by doing so, or even giving them a gift. In games where all the content is biased towards the end of the game, that might be true. For CoH players who've experienced the game's content many times over, that might be true. For new players who haven't really had much experience with the game, powerlevelling them means we're robbing their character of the missions that are not in Ouroboros flashback system. It means we're taking away a relatively gentle learning curve and expecting them to learn their character at level 50.

 

The answer to keep this situation from happening is pretty straightforward. Don't advertise free powerlevelling. The players who WANT powerlevelling will still ask for it, and are not shy about doing so. People who want to powerlevel as a 'gift' will still have every opportunity to do so, even if they don't advertise.

 

More recently, I saw a farmer encouraging a new player to play a character 'the long way' rather than powerlevelling. They explained that they wanted the newbie to enjoy the game and to stay for the long haul, and that they felt the best way to do that was to learn the game organically. That's the best solution, in my opinion. We ALL need to communicate to new players that the game's content and major story does NOT begin at max level the way some others do.

 

What ways do you see that we fail new players and what are your suggestions for fixing those problems?

 

 

1.  This is a veiled "stop power leveling" thread/post and really just stirring up this nonsense again that crops up every so often.

 

2.  Real villain for new players is the various information gaps that are presented by the game, lack of transparency to understand, and a segment of the player base that treats understanding the game like a filter/initiation. One of the more nefarious examples of this is attaining influence where people intentionally provide inefficient ways to try to attain influence in the game. Worse intentionally even causing those players to have to struggle/lose more in the long run.

 

3.  Not everyone benefits from raw experiential learning.  Not everyone enjoys playing the game like others.  Helping new players invariably means making "help" be subordinate to the individual's needs without assuming -you- know what they need without ego or other agenda laden reasons.  That's not always going to be as smooth or even attainable for everyone to help nor to benefit from.

 

 

 

 

[Sanguinesun]

17 minutes ago, biostem said:

Sure, but not fundamentally changed.  CoH should *not* be made into a "modern game".  At some point, enough "improvements" will make CoH into something else, and that is what I'm against. 

 

Like when a stop sign goes from being a stop sign to a partner logo laden multi colored mess with pictures and other nonsense to where the whole point to stop pretty much no longer matters 😛

 

 

[UltraAlt]

On 6/4/2024 at 10:52 AM, JasperStone said:

Power leveling existed before AE.

• Council map with the portals. "We clear, but don't touch portals." Rinse and repeat.
• Wolves map
• etc.

 

And things were done by the DEVs to limit and/or remove this kind of behavior by adding timers on some missions and limiting the amount of enemies that a character can taunt.

 

Those DEV actions were done before the AE was released.

 

The DEVs said that they would ban accounts that posted farming missions in the AE.

Then they caved once it was clear how many accounts where being banned and the backlash for banning accounts - after they had warned players that it would happen.

The DEVs or GMs even actively when back and removed posts that delineated the abuse of the AE that would cause account bans after the DEVs caved on the abuse of the AE.

 

Even now, we see how the sidekick/mentor relationship has changed in order to stop power-leveling through that mechanism.

 

It isn't like the DEVs didn't understand that power-leveling was bad for the game.

There are simply too many players that would rather power-level to 50 than to explore the game through the leveling process.

What percentage of players are there that only play by power-leveling to 50 and only actually playing characters once they reach level 50? I have no idea.

 

What I do know is that players that bypass the leveling experience have bypassed the actual game to go directly to the end-game. The part of the game that was added once the full game had been release to keep players that had reached level 50 - that didn't want to play the game any more - subscribing to the game.

 

The fact that the game allowed a player to make so many more characters than other games goes to show how much the DEVs believed that players would want to replay the game experience differently by picking a different archetype and/or origin. 

 

Of course, even before City of Villains was released, they realized how few players would play the villain content and didn't even bother adding the origin system into the contact selection on the villains side - the DEVs were already in funneling mode trying to concentrate players into a limited amount of content in order to increase the number of players wanting to play that content. The DEVs removed Galaxy City. The DEVs removed heroes from being sent directly to their origin contacts to start getting missions.

 

I think all of us that had been subscribers for years know what kind of change happened with the free passes were released and again when F2P came to the CITY.

I don't think that anyone that was playing back then didn't know about the AE babies that came out of the AE in Atlas as 50's and thought that Atlas city was the entire game environment.

 

There are other long running MMOs where the game really sucks if you are a low level player. He fun is in the dungeons (or whatever) and it is only fun if you can team with other players - and no one wants to run the lower level content.

 

I said it in my other post. That can happen here as well, but there are plenty of long term players that only play content under level 50. Some of them post here in the forums.

 

The main problem with new players being power leveled is that they haven't learned how to play the game.

If they had played the game and leveled up to 50, then they would have learned at least some of what the game has to offer.

City of Heroes has a vast amount of activities and most of it can be experienced while playing the game.

It is an entirely different experience to be leveling up and run into enemies that seem unbeatable and then eventually level up enough to "show them who's boss" versus being power-leveled to 50 and no understand how to slot enhancements or even where to get enhancements from (just to mention the most overly obvious things that someone that had played the tutorial and leveled up a character through playing the game would know long before getting to level 5. How many times do I have to hear about level 50's with NO enhancements slotted?!).

[UltraAlt]

58 minutes ago, Sanguinesun said:

1.  This is a veiled "stop power leveling" thread/post and really just stirring up this nonsense again that crops up every so often.

 

I think this is intentional obfuscation of the original post.

 

I'm against power-leveling and farming, but players do that. I accept that is how they enjoy playing the game.

 

The point of the OP is that power-leveling is bad for new players because it deprives them of the learning process of actually playing the game and throws them directly into the end-game. And what can we do to promote first time players to play through the leveling process versus coming into the game and requesting to be power-leveled to 50.

 

1 hour ago, Sanguinesun said:

2.  Real villain for new players is the various information gaps that are presented by the game, lack of transparency to understand, and a segment of the player base that treats understanding the game like a filter/initiation. One of the more nefarious examples of this is attaining influence where people intentionally provide inefficient ways to try to attain influence in the game. Worse intentionally even causing those players to have to struggle/lose more in the long run.

 

The thing is that you don't have to understand everything the game has to offer in order to play it and enjoy playing it.

There is a lot of added content to keep players busy doing things once they have the handle on the basics.

 

Yes. The L337s do behave that way and they are level 50's. So why throw a new player into a group of players that behave that way?

 

No. Influence isn't as big of an issue for a character leveling up through the game as it is for a character that has been power-leveled to level 50.

A player that has been power-leveled to level 50 feels that they don't have to work for anything. They don't have to work to be able to level, so they shouldn't have to work to gain influence. Gimme gimme gimme.

 

Yeah. whatever. I'm still playing City of Heroes because I enjoy the challenges and not because the game is giving me [insert goal here] for no effort on my part.

 

1 hour ago, Sanguinesun said:

3.  Not everyone benefits from raw experiential learning.  Not everyone enjoys playing the game like others.  Helping new players invariably means making "help" be subordinate to the individual's needs without assuming -you- know what they need without ego or other agenda laden reasons.  That's not always going to be as smooth or even attainable for everyone to help nor to benefit from.

 

So maybe you should take time to create tutorial videos for the things that you think are so "raw experimental learning".

 

No, duh. Everyone plays City of Heroes differently. We all approach it with our own point of view. Sometimes those goals/methods/etc. align more closely with another player. Sometime players with different goals/methods/etc are thrown into the same team/environment. You're there now.

 

I'm sorry but anyone is helping on the /help channel because of their ego or agenda. It can be because they want to be a font of knowledge or it can be that they just want to be helpful/altruistic. It isn't being egoless. If you think you can answer a question, you obviously think you know more than the person asking the question ... unless you are a troll and then you are just being a troll.

 

We all have our own handicaps whether we want to admit to them or not.

 

A new player that is power-leveled to 50 does miss the leveling experience, exposure to the CITY, a learning experience that prepares them to use powers as they progress, and gradual exposure to the different things that the game world has to offer.

 

Players that only make one character, only play one archetype, only play with the same players, only use mids to build a character, never build a base, etc. are missing out on a massive amount of gaming experience that is available to them.

 

The players that come and go are many in a F2P environment.

The players that stay are ones that enjoy playing the game for whatever personal reason or addiction.

I think that players that come to the City to experience what the City has to offer instead of trying to beat the game are going to be around longer.

[Excraft]

35 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

And things were done by the DEVs to limit and/or remove this kind of behavior by adding timers on some missions and limiting the amount of enemies that a character can taunt.

 

Those DEV actions were done before the AE was released.

 

The DEVs said that they would ban accounts that posted farming missions in the AE.

Then they caved once it was clear how many accounts where being banned and the backlash for banning accounts - after they had warned players that it would happen.

The DEVs or GMs even actively when back and removed posts that delineated the abuse of the AE that would cause account bans after the DEVs caved on the abuse of the AE.

 

Even now, we see how the sidekick/mentor relationship has changed in order to stop power-leveling through that mechanism.

 

It isn't like the DEVs didn't understand that power-leveling was bad for the game.

 

I appreciate and respect your opinion on power leveling even though I fundamentally disagree with you on it, and you're missing a very important distinction.  One thing I think important to remember is that these steps the LIVE Devs took were done for a LIVE game that was commercial product, where the objective was to keep customer playing and most importantly paying for as long as possible.  HC is not a commercial venture and according to the repeated statements from HC will never ever be a commercial venture.  Ever.  Worrying about player retention isn't so relevant as it doesn't have the same meaning anymore.

 

Worrying about theoretical newcomers PLing to 50 and getting bored then quitting no longer has the same relevance here as it did on when the game was live.  It isn't up to us players to keep the game going, it's up to all the individuals here and on other servers graciously volunteering their precious free time to keep it going.  If all us regular players go away, HC can just trim things down to a single server and carry on just as they had for years before the secret society server went public.  HC could also decide tomorrow that they have had enough and shut everything down whether we like it or not.  The HC folk are volunteers who can shut everything here down at any time for any reason they like.  They are under no obligation to keep things running for us.  I'm not at all suggesting they would do this, so please don't misconstrue what I'm saying here.  They can do it.  I'm not saying they will do it. 

 

As for people supposedly getting PLed to 50 and getting bored and quitting, let them.  Chances are very good even if they had spent the extra day or two running through story content the "correct/righteous/approved" way and hit 50, chances are very good they'd still be bored at 50 and move on.

[biostem]

11 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

The point of the OP is that power-leveling is bad for new players because it deprives them of the learning process of actually playing the game and throws them directly into the end-game. And what can we do to promote first time players to play through the leveling process versus coming into the game and requesting to be power-leveled to 50.

I think part of the issue is that some people only have X amount of time to play the game, and in their mind, would they rather play a character with only a few powers and struggle against some "lesser" enemies, or sit in an AFK farm and do other stuff, so they can play what is, in their opinion, a "fully fleshed-out" character.  Game knowledge be damned - they'd rather struggle with learning their end-game character than slog through yet another "kill all" or "find the glowie" mission in a confusing cave map.  The only ways to get people to behave in a desired way is to punish them for deviating from the "correct" way to play or to reward them for adhering to said "correct" playstyle.

 

Some possible solutions, IMHO, would be:

 

1. Grant players a significant amount of reward merits for completing non-flashback story arc completions, (while sub-50).

 

2. Grant players significant amount of XP for completing said sub-50 story arcs, (again while being sub-50).

 

3. Related to 1 & 2 above, implement a system whereby one can still follow the chain of contacts and storyarcs, even if they have outleveled them, and still have those missions provide level appropriate enemies.

 

4. Dramatically improve how mission objectives are tracked & handled.  For instance, if a glowie passes through your field of vision, mark it on the map and/or provide visual/directional indicators, beyond just the audio ones.  Give hostages +1000000000 perception, or whatever amount would be necessary, so they can still see the player through stealth/hide/etc.  No more stealth kill-all's!  Respect a player's time and don't pad out missions with things like portals generate endless enemies - either have them grant XP and be endless, or have them be limited;  If it can kill you, it should grant XP.

[Mr. Apocalypse]

On 6/4/2024 at 1:13 AM, MoonSheep said:

to some people, PL’ing to 50, making a farmer and then spending their all their time in AE just PL’ing alts is the game and what they enjoy. for some, just churning through fat mobs is a laugh and to them it’s worth logging on for

I resemble this remark. 🙂

Edited June 6 by Mr. Apocalypse

[Ignatz the Insane]

Discussions about power leveling and farming are rarely about individual experienced players.  I think with a handful of exceptions, the cummunity at large doesn't give a hoot how you play.  It's not personal even if it seems so.  Again, with the caveat that there are a few posters who are more absolute in their disregard for farming and power leveling.  Most of the concern I see is about new players being power leveled. 

 

But when is a player still new?  For my part, I'd never advocate someone power leveling their first character.  How about the second, or third?  For at least the first few times around, it's worth leveling organically for myriad reasons.  I can only think of a very few reasons why someone wouldn't.  There IS something to learning powers as you go., especially the first few times around.  For me, it's an all time thing.  I much prefer to level organically.  Yes, when I hit the late thirties on, I wish I could speed it up a bit, but til then, I love testing each power while leveling.  Leveling story arcs and TFs is still really fast.  And I get it. I've been through the leveling process hundreds of times.  The few characters I have power leveled, most into the mid thirties, sat on the bench forever.  Oh, I'd maybe look at slotting and try a respec, maybe even buy a bunch of IOs.  It just didn't work for me.  I doubt I'm alone.  The same goes proportionally for new players. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 6 by Ignatz the Insane
Minor typo

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, Excraft said:

Worrying about theoretical newcomers PLing to 50 and getting bored then quitting no longer has the same relevance here as it did on when the game was live

Funny you mention this. I actually played the game normally from 1-50 on my primary account and got several 50s this way. 
 

One time was so shit and exhausting I took a sabbatical from CoH for 3-4 months. Playing normally is exhausting, and the only reason I still even make alts/play now is because of PL’ing. Ironic ain’t it?

[Neiska]

Has it not occurred to some people that -

 

AE inf/exp was nerfed. People still farm.

They have added prisms and such to all non-AE activities. People still farm.

They changed the AI to make farming more difficult. People still farm.

They have changed some powersets, adding things like inherent -DEF. People still farm.

They have added all kinds of story content. People still farm.

Many farmers have been farming for nearly 5 years now. People still farm.

 

I am not sure how else to point out that some people, farming IS their peak enjoyment of the game. I can't speak for everyone as for the WHY. It may not be about the inf or the drops at all. Most players now are adults with adult lives. Some of us, don't have the weeks and weeks of free time required, to play every possible powerset combination we are interested in. Farming, gives me an option, to level a new character quickly within my available hobby time.

 

What keeps me personally playing, is not the story arcs. It is not PUG-ing. It is not the raids. It is not the new content. It is not the old content. It isn't the new badges. It isn't the new shiny costumes. It isn't anything that they have used as a "carrot on a stick" to do whatever non-AE content you choose to apply that to. What keeps me personally interested, is all the fine that goes into a build. I find it intellectually stimulating. I will spend hours, no exaggeration, hours, in MIDS tinkering with power sets. Moving powers around, trying new combinations, new enhancement setups, and what have you. And the mental satisfaction of getting a build "perfect" give me a sensation that nothing else in the game offers.

 

If leveling in content was as the same speed as AE leveling, I might do it more. But leveling multiple characters is what keeps me invested in COH. And as long as I can do it in a reasonable time and make back the money I spend so it is effectively free, I will keep doing it. But, the moment it gets too tedious, or costly, I will likely lose interest in doing so.

 

As far as the "but, but, new players shouldn't level fast!"

First off, what BUSINESS is that of yours? This is a open sandbox game. Don't yuck their yum. Let them build their sandcastle THEIR way. Some of you act as if people who are helping other people get money, or exp, are mustache twirling bond villains here. None of these people helping them level, are dragging the new folks into the AE by the ankle. There are no screams of torment echoing from the AE. There is no busload of orphans moving mountains of people into the AE. But by some of the theatrics here on the forums, you would think that was the case.

 

Secondly, I would like to point out that these new people, are choosing, CHOOSING, to do this. GASP! Wha-wha-WHAT! No! WE CAN'T HAVE THAT! People deciding how to have fun THEMSELVES?!? WHY I NEVER! Why the server mods shall certainly hear of this immediately! I do NOT approve of this! HMPH! They should have to earn every snippet of EXP! They should have to claw over mountains of foes for every enhancement, like ye olden days of yore! Yes yes, I know many many changes have happened since then, so many that this isn't entirely the same game anymore with new powers, sets, even a new AT, but that DOESNT MATTER! I suffered! THEY MUST SUFFER TOO! How DARE they use tools and options available now to circumvent an antiquated game design in a game old enough to vote? I won't stand it! Jeeves! Bring the car around! TO THE FORUMS! I shall cry havoc and release the POSTS OF WAR!

 

-Seriously, that's how many of these posts read. It comes off as a form of gatekeeping. Of trying to force people to play the game how it was played 20 years ago, when if you want to split hairs, it isn't even the same game, and just reeks of gatekeeping and trying to force new people to do the same content they once did, in the same ways they once did. To bring back a bit of nostalgia perhaps, or to simply have more people to re-live favored memories with. Well, hate to break it to you, but that's 20 years ago, and you have absolutely no right to do that.

 

Unless your name has "Homecoming Staff" next to it, your opinions on how other people should play, and who they play it with, can sod off.

 

Normally, I only power level people that I know and ask for it. But the more I see posts like these, the more it makes me want to post in LFG -

"FASTEST EXP FARM Has room for two! Maps cleared every 3 minutes! New players ONLY! ALL ABOARD THE EXP-TRAIN! CHOO CHOO! Don't forget the EXP BUFF!" - out of spite.

[shortguy on indom]

• AT THIS POINT I WOULD LIKE TO NOMINATE "YOUR NAME HERE"  TO TAKE THE LEAD BY FORMING A FOCUS GROUP TO STUDY THE POTENTIAL FAILURES OF THE HC COMMUNITY AND WHAT OUR NEXT STEPS SHOULD BE.
• WILL ANYONE 'SECOND' THE NOMINATION?

 

NOTE: (I DO NOT FEEL STRONGLY ENOUGH ABOUT THE TOPIC TO SUPPORT THIS AGENDA, BUT AM VERY HAPPY THAT IT IS IN GOOD HANDS).

[battlewraith]

I remember the first time I encountered a rikti in a mission. "wtf is that?"

I didn't know what I was doing, didn't understand defense mechanics, damage types, took the power descriptions seriously, etc.

So I fought this alien and lost.

 

I then made a solemn vow: I would learn to play better. I would get more experience, powers, enhancements.

I would improve, and then I would come back and have the satisfaction of....

 

--nope. I just got a bunch of inspirations, popped them and kicked it's ass.

 

But I'll be damned if I sit here idly in the year of our lord 2024 watching these damned filthy farmers and their "gimme gimme gimme culture" rob new people of the experience of using standard game mechanics to cheese encounters. The long winding, tab-targetting  road of vicarious heroism should not be sullied in this way!

 

[cranebump]

30 minutes ago, shortguy on indom said:

• AT THIS POINT I WOULD LIKE TO NOMINATE "YOUR NAME HERE"  TO TAKE THE LEAD BY FORMING A FOCUS GROUP TO STUDY THE POTENTIAL FAILURES OF THE HC COMMUNITY AND WHAT OUR NEXT STEPS SHOULD BE.
• WILL ANYONE 'SECOND' THE NOMINATION?

 

NOTE: (I DO NOT FEEL STRONGLY ENOUGH ABOUT THE TOPIC TO SUPPORT THIS AGENDA, BUT AM VERY HAPPY THAT IT IS IN GOOD HANDS).

Heh, heh. "We have FAILED this city!" (I find that sentiment amusing)

 

Not so sure about a focus group, but actual flesh-and-blood "ambassadors" might not be a bad idea. I'm talking knowledgeable and helpful player contacts new players can be directed to if they want some human contact, either live, or via the boards (and with the players' consent, of course). We have enough experts on all subjects to help players experience the game, however they want to play it. While I side with the "really, bruh...do a LITTLE bit of research" crowd, direct contact with our TF experts, Mission/Lore gods, AE designers, slow play specialists & build pros might be a nice resource we could develop as a community to support and keep new players.

 

Outside that, the best teacher is experience. So the old pros can help new players by doing the things they advocate for. Like mission play? Form contact teams at all levels. Are you a task force pro? Do what Blapperella does, and lead regular runs of not just the common ones, but the ones people miss out on (Who Will Die?, for example - 20 merits a pop, usually 3 mishes). I have a couple toons who have access to all the bank mishes. I could form groups just to run through the banks, using the SC contact right next to the truck there (I've thought about it, but haven't done it yet).* You offer enough alternatives, you'll get some folks. As JEJ once said, "If you build it..."

 

*my current, active contribution are creating SFMA arcs and doing reviews of same.

Edited June 6 by cranebump

[tidge]

Excellent point made:

 

4 hours ago, Neiska said:

Has it not occurred to some people that -

 

AE inf/exp was nerfed. People still farm.

They have added prisms and such to all non-AE activities. People still farm.

They changed the AI to make farming more difficult. People still farm.

They have changed some powersets, adding things like inherent -DEF. People still farm.

They have added all kinds of story content. People still farm.

Many farmers have been farming for nearly 5 years now. People still farm.

 

I am not sure how else to point out that some people, farming IS their peak enjoyment of the game. I can't speak for everyone as for the WHY.

 

I can offer my own guesses as to why folks prefer farming... but they would simply be guesses. From my own, extremely limited "farming" experience, I can say I did it explicitly for:

• random drops, and "daily rewards" used to
• build up a "nest egg" that has been used in the many subsequent years to improve the play experience of subsequent alts

I honestly never considered AE farming for XP... mostly because it is pretty easy to get as much XP as fast as I want otherwise... and I don't usually "want" fast XP.

 

I can post my impressions what other "farmers" have liked during the assort "rage quit" periods... there is some number of "farmers" that simply want as much as possible for as little effort as possible (my words, not theirs). This was most noticeable IMO when the changes to Vanguard, and later Empyrian, merit rewards occurred (see also the "level 49 cheat") ... I write IMO because there is no in-game reason to have been hurt by those changes except in the raw accumulation of MOAR. The MOAR certainly can be used in different ways, but the in-game economy was being affected in some peculiar ways that the devs felt like they should step in.

 

I think it is self-evident that many players absolutely will accept and migrate to content that they feel is offering them the most (in-game) rewards for the smallest amount of effort... this is human nature. It see it manifest in game quite a bit:

• Torchbearer's "Saturday Night Synapse" started as a sort of fun stress test of giant monsters in-zone, but the total number of players simply calling out in zone for "overflow" makes it somewhat obvious that some fraction of players are just there for the merits. The last several months don't look like "playing", at least not to me.
• The change to the Ghost of Scrapyard rewards, after Monstrous Aethers were introduced. It used to be incredibly difficult to get players to go to "red side", up until it became widely known that this GM could be trivially farmed. Torchbearer has hours upon hours of leagues constantly resummoning and defeating that Giant Monster.

[Pleonast]

13 hours ago, biostem said:

I think part of the issue is that some people only have X amount of time to play the game, and in their mind, would they rather play a character with only a few powers and struggle against some "lesser" enemies, or sit in an AFK farm and do other stuff, so they can play what is, in their opinion, a "fully fleshed-out" character.  Game knowledge be damned - they'd rather struggle with learning their end-game character than slog through yet another "kill all" or "find the glowie" mission in a confusing cave map.  The only ways to get people to behave in a desired way is to punish them for deviating from the "correct" way to play or to reward them for adhering to said "correct" playstyle.

 

Some possible solutions, IMHO, would be:

 

1. Grant players a significant amount of reward merits for completing non-flashback story arc completions, (while sub-50).

 

2. Grant players significant amount of XP for completing said sub-50 story arcs, (again while being sub-50).

 

3. Related to 1 & 2 above, implement a system whereby one can still follow the chain of contacts and storyarcs, even if they have outleveled them, and still have those missions provide level appropriate enemies.

 

4. Dramatically improve how mission objectives are tracked & handled.  For instance, if a glowie passes through your field of vision, mark it on the map and/or provide visual/directional indicators, beyond just the audio ones.  Give hostages +1000000000 perception, or whatever amount would be necessary, so they can still see the player through stealth/hide/etc.  No more stealth kill-all's!  Respect a player's time and don't pad out missions with things like portals generate endless enemies - either have them grant XP and be endless, or have them be limited;  If it can kill you, it should grant XP.

I love these suggestions! 
 

I’d add another: 

• All DO and SO drops in non-AE, level-appropriate missions should be usable by the character receiving the drop. For example, a Science-origin character should be getting only Science enhancements. Furthermore, characters below level 50 should get a boost to the enhancement drop rate while doing non-AE, level-appropriate missions. 

Reasoning: Characters should be getting enough basic enhancements while leveling to give them meaningful choices about what to slot as they are leveling. In terms of level-50 content, DO and SO enhancements are vendor trash; the game should be much more generous giving them to players who are leveling with appropriate missions and task forces. 

[tidge]

IIRC, the original DO/SO drops being usable by characters (by origin) were supposed to be handled by the character picking contacts that were offering specific enemy groups. This is manifest in the pre-40 content when introduced to (and before selecting) contacts when the player is informed which enemy groups a contact will offer missions for. Early contacts will be more explicit about which origins they align with.

 

Back-in-the-day, there were more resources out-of-game to be able to learn which groups favored which SO/DO drops. The Invention systems (even common recipes!) essentially supplanted DO/SO. Mathematically, I see no real reason to worry about SO/DO once a character can slot level 25 common IOs.  If folks want to play with DOs/SOs... I feel that those players have made a choice such that they probably shouldn't need the game to be modified to support a version of the original, unmodified version of the game.

 

As an aside: because of the rewards associated with crafting level 25 and 30 common IOs, the market place (introduced at the end of the IO tutorial, should have plenty of enhancements at those levels, for relatively cheap.

[Pleonast]

4 minutes ago, tidge said:

Mathematically, I see no real reason to worry about SO/DO once a character can slot level 25 common IOs.  If folks want to play with DOs/SOs... I feel that those players have made a choice such that they probably shouldn't need the game to be modified to support a version of the original, unmodified version of the game.

That’s fair. But as it is now, DO and SO enhancements are a trap to new players. They don’t get enough useful drops to keep them up to level. Spending inf to buy them is a huge waste. We need to either make them not a trap, or remove them like TOs were removed. Maybe replace the drops with basic recipes and salvage. 

[MeltingPenguins]

Hi, hello new player here, maybe I could throw in my two cents:

 

The game is fun so far (highest character is at level 12 now), but what I found a little frustrating are these bits:

• The chat and how to filter it: I still don't know if it is possible to filter NPC dialogue that's not relevant to a mission from the chat, or open a global chat that only shows player messages (outside of Help)
• It took me far too long to realise I can 'call' NPCs to hand in a mission.
• Enhancements etc are still a book with seven seals to me, and I played the tutorials a few times now. How do I keep missing how to use them. Similar with Salvages and recipes. Right now I feel a little lost.

In short it can feel overwhelming without a handy and easy to access glossary, and people might easily shy away from asking in chat as it can feel they're making a fool of themselves.

 

Aside from that it's a fun game so far (albeit I hope that down the line they manage to get rid of the weird lag)

 

Hope this was helpful?

[tidge]

2 minutes ago, Pleonast said:

That’s fair. But as it is now, DO and SO enhancements are a trap to new players. They don’t get enough useful drops to keep them up to level. Spending inf to buy them is a huge waste. We need to either make them not a trap, or remove them like TOs were removed. Maybe replace the drops with basic recipes and salvage. 

 

Trap or opportunity for learning? It's hard for me to recall my feels from the earliest days of Live w.r.t. slotting (mostly because debt was so burdensome at launch), but because the leveling experience was so much slower at launch, I remember being able to tell (beyond the red numbers on the enhancements) that my character was struggling upon leveling. I'd combine DOs and SOs all the time. I don't remember feeling like there was pressure to keep all my DOs/SOs at peak performance.

 

Now with so many ways to quickly level by just playing.... I suspect the issue is that some (uninformed) players may want to both level quickly and have those quickly leveling characters perform at a peak levels. This is of course possible, even trivial, but it requires things like:

• Players need to know about the Invention system and the Auction House, and use them
• Players need to have a little bit of a nest egg (rather trivial for level 50s to build, assuming they vendor IO recipes)
• SG storage makes this much easier for multiple characters, but in-game email can also work

Once a player gets familiar with those things, DO/SO will stop using head-space.