open to suggestions Incentivizing Street Sweeping: an Open Discussion

[Ardebitis]

This is an open discussion thread on possible ways to give players an incentive to actually do patrols, or as they are more commonly called, "street sweeping".

 

While nothing in particular will be lost if patrols never get incentivized, I feel a better general experience will be gained if they are incentivized. As it stands, there is a sort of "imbalance" of the number of players out in the overworld areas, compared to the instanced mission maps. Not to mention the complete lack of players in a majority of Hazard Zones that rely on patrol content, such as Perez Park and Boomtown. As an additional benefit, causing patrols to be worthwhile would also make it somewhat easier for HEATs to fight solo, due to less of a requirement to actually interact with Void Hunters.

 

So, how can Patrols possibly be incentivized? Well, I don't think a hard-and-fast solution such as "2x XP in open-world zones" would work, as there would still be the issue of players focusing on certain zones while avoiding others. I do have a solution for community consideration, however: Crime Levels

 

Imagine, if you will, that every overworld zone in the game has a corresponding "crime level", ranging from 0% to 100%. This percentage represents the general level of in-the-open crime in the area. This number increases at a certain rate over time, and decreases very slightly for every enemy defeated in the zone. This percentage would be applied as bonus XP to enemies defeated in that zone with 0% Crime being a standard 1x XP, and 100% being 2x XP. I feel that this system would not only incentivize players to actually do patrols, but also encourage players to visit zones that are normally desolate and playerless.

 

I am of course open to suggestions and potential improvements to this mechanic. It's mostly just a springboard, intended to raise discussion.

[RikOz]

Are you talking about streetsweeping missions (i.e. getting people to choose the patrol mission when offered a choice between patrol mission or door mission)? Or do you mean just "grinding" at random bad guys for the sake of it?

 

If the first, then the best incentive would be to overhaul a number of things to make them less frustrating. For example, doing something about all of the "Defeat X Council" missions in Steel Canyon, which are a problem because nearly every Council to be found is lying unconscious on the sidewalk at the feet of half a dozen 5th Columnists. As I understand it, those missions were created long before the decision to reintroduce the 5th Column, so they were at one time more reasonable because you could actually find groups of Council soldiers to fight, instead of having to beat up a bunch of 5th Column just so you can punch their one prisoner. Then there are the Skulls in Kings Row, which are suffering from level problems - particularly the ones in the northwest area that are several levels higher than the player characters are when they get the relevant missions (a lot of them are just plain too high level for the zone).

 

If the second, well, grinding is boring when there is no end objective other than XP. I also have "moral" objections - I'll cheerfully stop a mugging or two on my way to a mission, or defend myself if attacked, but mindlessly beating up every gangster I see, regardless of whether or not they're actively committing a crime, goes against my conception of what a hero is. Sure, I know those Hellions in the parking lot are probably criminals, but unless I see them doing something, I don't have any evidence to justify beating them up. That's just me, though.

[Gravitus]

Great idea actually. But since double xp is already a thing you can already activate automatically, maybe increase drop rates or some other reward system?

 

it is nice in the rare occasion I come across heroes and villains battling in the streets . Gives the game more of an immersive feel.    

Edited August 22, 2019 by Gravitus

[Steampunkette]

How about giving Open World Enemies a global buff on kill to all Heroes/Villains within 40yrds. You beat an enemy in the open world, you get a 2% XP buff for 2 minutes. Stacking up to 25 times for a 50% extra XP bonus.

 

Have it stack with the double XP bonus and suddenly you've got a nice enough incentive to beat up a couple large groups of enemies in the open world regardless of what other task you're doing. Heading into a mission? Beat up some enemies, first, for a short-term XP buff on top of your Double XP buff. Gonna whack a pile of Zombies or Rikti during an invasion? EVEN MOAR XP!

 

It could work without being an overbearing level of improvement that way.

[LateNights]

I'd love this for hazard zones - but for the normal zones i'd actually prefer to be able to use the phasing tech to do away with any and all spawns once you'd completed all the missions or leveled beyond a certain point.

 

That way I'd no longer have to internally RP that I'd only walked past a dozen crimes in Atlas (or whatever zone), because I knew I'd be abusing the hell outta time later to fix the mess I'd just ignored!

[srmalloy]

As a really minor and side aspect of this, I would suggest that -- as long as we can establish a redside analogue -- that there should be a floor for the influence you get from an NPC when you defeat the mobs assaulting them. The minimum shouldn't be high enough that it competes with ordinary defeat rewards, but given the premise that influence represents your positive reputation, rescuing citizens from hostile mobs should contribute to that reputation even if you're too high level to get XP from the mobs themselves. Something like 10% of the influence that an even-level hero would get, rounded down, with a minimum of 1, perhaps.

[dangeraaron10]

I would love if you could interact with the crime levels in places like Atlas and such.  No matter how many muggings I stop it seems like every block there's someone about to get assaulted or have a purse stolen.  Either having crime rates reduce if more crimes getting stopped, with crimes increasing when ignored, feels like any solo or group of Heroes could make a noticeable impact on visible crime going on.  It's nice when phasing technology turns a group of Hellions burning a building down into a group of police apprehending them so it feels like you can finally take a breath and say "My work here is done" and you're not going away knowing that crimes are going on behind your back but you don't have all day fighting a never-ending stream of crimes.  

 

No wonder everyone just hangs out by the Atlas statue.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Crimes aren't happening if I can't see them!

[Vanden]

4 minutes ago, dangeraaron10 said:

No wonder everyone just hangs out by the Atlas statue.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Crimes aren't happening if I can't see them!

Well that is literally how the mapserver operates.

 

That's right. You literally cause crime by being in the neighborhood!

[dangeraaron10]

Just now, Vanden said:

Well that is literally how the mapserver operates.

 

That's right. You literally cause crime by being in the neighborhood!

 

Don't let Paragon City's lawyers find out about that.  We'd be out of the job!

[Redlynne]

If we're talking pure Pie In The Sky™ here ... probably the best outcome would be what amounts to using a Police Scanner (either stolen or legit) to acquire street sweeping missions of the Defeat X of Y in Z area of the current zone map variety.  Think Newspaper missions ... except that instead of being directed into instances, you're instead directed to perform street sweeping missions in the shared world.

 

That would be my personal preferred "best solution" to the problem.

 

 

 

However, the real challenge is that that "balance point" for street sweeping is going to be ABSURDLY hard to "tune" perfectly in the Goldilocks sense of being able to get the rewards for doing it JUST RIGHT™.  However, something that would help in this regard would be the notion (backed up by game mechanics to enforce it) that any of the street sweeping missions you complete from the Police Scanner (I'm just running with that idea) would be that while you have that street sweeping mission active you are auto-exemplared to match the Security Level of the area of the zone where those mobs are supposed to be found, but only while the street sweeping mission is active ... and furthermore, that you only advance the defeat count for the street sweeping mission while it is active.  The basic notion here is that you want to make it possible for PCs to go do street sweeping in ANY zone (including the (Abandoned) Sewers?) regardless of the PC's (actual) Level, while at the same time ensuring that there is still some challenge in the completion of the street sweeping mission.  Extra bonus points for allowing the Reputation modifier to be used "inversely" so as to lower the auto-exemplar target Level of the PC downwards if it is set for +4, and upwards if it is set for -1.

 

Street sweeping mission is set in Level 12-15 neighborhood.

Reputation -1 Level enemies results in auto-exemplar to Level 16 while street sweeping mission is the active mission.

Reputation +0 Level enemies results in auto-exemplar to Level 15 while street sweeping mission is the active mission.

Reputation +1 Level enemies results in auto-exemplar to Level 14 while street sweeping mission is the active mission.

Reputation +2 Level enemies results in auto-exemplar to Level 13 while street sweeping mission is the active mission.

Reputation +3 Level enemies results in auto-exemplar to Level 12 while street sweeping mission is the active mission.

Reputation +4 Level enemies results in auto-exemplar to Level 11 while street sweeping mission is the active mission.

 

 

 

Want to play BatManticore cleaning up the streets of Gotham King's Row, even though you're Level 50?

Well, with this idea ... you can.

 

 

 

I mean ... can you imagine seeing other PCs out "cleaning up the streets" in The Hollows ... or Crey's Folly ... or Brickstown ... or Eden?

Right now I can't.

But if this idea were pursued ... it might start happening.

 

 

 

As for a reward?

I'd honestly start with something as offering "bragging rights" by implementing Badges that do nothing more than recording how many street sweeping missions you've done in a specific neighborhood.  Do another mission in that neighborhood and you get a +1 on that badge's counter, which other PCs can see (if they care to look).  If additional rewards are needed, SLOWLY add them in an iterative process to verify that the increase in rewards isn't going to unbalance the distribution of PCs throughout the game (like everyone going to AE and never leaving).  That way the rewards increase in a measured way that doesn't require nerfing for being made To Generous™ from the get-go.

[XaoGarrent]

You'd have to make enemies in an open world area scale to players within the level range of the zone, and on top of that make them scale to difficulty settings. At least, if you really want to make this an option that is both competitive and balanced, not to mention consistent with existing design philosophy.

 

Not saying this is impossible, but it would certainly require monkeying around with the scaling tech they use for invasions, giant monsters, etc.

[Ardebitis]

These are all excellent suggestions. Honestly, even if none of these suggestions actually get implemented, it is raising discussion, which was the point all along.

Yesterday, I also considered another possible justification to incentivize street sweeping: lightening the server load. I'm not 100% sure on this one, as I don't have any statistics to back it up, but based on what I do know, I'd have to guess 40 people in a single instance would be less demanding to a server than those same 40 people split into groups of 8 over 5 different instances...