TheLyle

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Yes, because God forbid they give the players what we, the paying cutomers want.

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"There's something almost disgusting about this business of letting the audience tell you what they want, and then you go out and make it. The audience doesn't know what it wants."
--John Cleese

Sorry. Totally off topic. But when someone reminds me of a great quote, I just have to post the quote.

I am, however, interested in hearing what comes of this mysterious meeting.

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The best business saying I've ever heard (and, hence, I've seen it on only two motivational posters) went:

"The customer is not always right, but the customer is always THE CUSTOMER."

That's always the challenge with customers, I think. A lot of them don't know what they want and, if asked, will give you the wrong answer. A truly gifted business person knows how to listen to the customer's demands and see what would really satify them best... usually something that hasn't entered the dialogue yet.

However, I've seen some good thoughts in this discussion and I think a lot of insight into what CoH customers want has been shown. I think there's good material here.

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As for why we put Bosses in missions at all – in other words, why isn’t everything solo-able – the answer is simple. We want gameplay that encourages the best part of the game: teaming up. Soloing is fine, but a MMP really shines when you meet other people and play alongside them. I’ve made many good virtual friends through other MMP’s that I simply would not have done if I could solo everything all the time. I admit it: I’m anti-social. It’s hard to get me to group up with strangers. But after I do it, I always wonder “why don’t I do this more often…” I might still be anti-social in “real life”, but in MMP’s I’m a social butterfly (I have no doubt that this will appear in sigs for years to come…)

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I realized that my problems with this perspective are twofold.

One, making it harder to solo doesn't encourage teaming, it discourages soloing. In the end, teaming may end up looking more desirable once soloing has lost some points, but "Damn, it's harder to solo." isn't a thought that leads to "Wow. Teaming *is* the best part of the game, I should do this more."

It's kinda like closing some roads hoping that making it more inconvenient to drive will get people to take the bus. It might but you'd get much further by improving bus service so that commuters look at the bus riders with envy.

In short, trying to get people to pick up one side of the game by making the other more inconvienient only raises the overall inconvenience level of the game.

But also upping the bosses doesn't make teaming any better. Team spawns also increase with bigger teams and now we're getting more of those hard to defeat bosses. Last night my friends had our first big grouping and we got hit hard with a good number of deaths, including one that caused a mass crash (all of our dead teammates got booted from the game). We didn't have fun.

I have become more and more convinced that the conflict isn't about team players vs solo players. It's (once again) about min/max'ers vs the casual players.

My friends are hardcore casual players, we play for long hours but we like the content, by which I mean we like the stories, the villains are cool when they can be beat and we like the archetypes. Sometimes we pick powers because we think they "fit" with the character or we think they sound cool.

More importantly we team to play together. Sometimes we get teams that are too large and get those awful mega-spawns. That sucks for us because we just want to play together. We'd rather not kick each other out of the team because including someone on our team tilts the balance off. It's not that we want to play in god mode, we just want to play in hero mode.

It's frustrating enough that we feel like we have to take "turns" on playing Task Forces. The first time we did a TF we made a big deal of it and treated it like something special. People arranged their schedules so we all could play together for the day. That turned out to be a mistake because when you have a team of seven, you end up facing way too many foes and multiple bosses. We went in so excited and left very frustrated.

Then again, taking turns on a TF isn't that difficult if only because we're all still so frustrated that a number of us avoid them until it's their last chance for the group to do the TF.

So. Yeah, I think teaming is broken too because my SG logged off last night not sure if we could still have fun together in this game without switching to one of our alts.

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Just remember: "Encourage team play" should mean encouraging team play, NOT forcing it, or discouraging solo play....

having different missions, and a better xp bonus for helping someone clear a mission than for clearing one of your own, that's encouraging. [for once it really is 'not a bug, it's a feature'!

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That reminds me of a recent frustration my friends had. One of us had the Wheel of Destruction storyline and, with my hyping of how cool the final mission is, she saved it until we could all get on together and play it together. When we finished it, all but one of us got mission XP. (Of course, the mission holder also got her DO for mission completion.)
The guy who didn't get mission XP petitioned it. He got a response that only the mission holder was supposed to get mission XP (what I got wasn't more than usual for mission XP, BTW) and the rest of us should petition to get the XP taken back.

I mean, WTH? We don't get mission XP for helping a teammate if it's the final mission in a story arc? That makes little sense and doesn't make us more eager to coordinate our schedules to play together. I mean it's like we team and get the stick and we solo and we get the stick.

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Sounds like it's an important, maybe even crucial part of their design of the game to me.

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In that case, the game succeeded on the design not being realized. For me, now that it has been the entertainment value has plummetted.

One important market factor to consider, too...

CoH's big success is that it's picked up a lot of people who've never played an MMORPG before, people who've been hesitant to pick up the genre because it sounded like the hassle and enjoyment didn't meet up. CoH has won over those customers. I'm one of them and the people I play with also fall in this category.

When we're not having fun in CoH we don't compare it to other MMORPGs. We don't think "Well, in WoW I hear travel is even slower." or "If this looks like forced grouping it's worse in EQ."

We ask ourselves if perhaps we'll have more fun playing The Sims 2 instead... or Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.

Keep that in mind as your competitors. A lot of players like me are paying for CoH despite the MMO aspect. A lot of us picked up the game thinking "I can't imaging paying a monthy fee to pay a game I've already paid for." with our friends' enthusiastic endorsements winning us over. The MMO has always sounded like a hassle and CoH had (until I3) found a balance that made the MMO much less of a hassle than we thought. Now it's getting to be a hassle since we have to do it. Why bother loading up CoH if I'm gonna log on, find out conditions aren't ideal for teaming (low pop in the right zones, my SG all offline, etc) and close the game? Why not just load up The Sims 2 instead?

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The only changes I've found so far in the Hollows is some graphical changes to the Outcasts, some badges, and the caverns trial now has a level cap. In fact, one of the Hollows cave missions has even been made easier. There used to be a mission with two named bosses fighting in the last room, Greased Lightning and Redrum. Now poor Redrum has gone AWOL and Greased Lightning is forced to fight a lowly Gardvord. Go figure.

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I did that mission last night with a team of 8. We ran into three named bosses that I recall in that mish. I was mostly there as an XP leech, unfortunately, since my mind controller could only get a third of her holds to hit.

Thanks for the response, States!

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In levels 1 to 22ish, this system works perfectly. Things are about as hard as we wanted them to be. But as soon as players can purchase single origin Enhancements, they rapidly make the above calculations almost irrelevant. A player enters a mission – or a zone – and can rapidly breeze through +1 to -1 leveled spawns using the calculations above.

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Hm, what I'm hearing here is that the real problem my level 26 blaster is suddenly facing is that I didn't run off and buy him SO enhancements right away.

Which kinda sums up the problem for me.

I wrote about the dedicated but casual player after I2 came out and my friends and I suddenly stopped enjoying the game. I'm getting a similar feeling here.

I don't want to play CoH with crib notes on the absolutely optimal build for the game. I don't want to have to stop every time I level and look for a guide to know what to do next. I want to enjoy the game. I was not aware that switching over my DOs for SOs at level 22 (or that 22 was the level this was possible) was a goal I had to focus on. Quite honestly, I looked at my level 23 controller recently and realized I hadn't switched all his trainings for DOs and I wasn't able to afford that. A teammate told me my problem was that I should've been making sure to sell my enhancements at the "right" stores all this time, which is just further of that kind of perfect game grind that makes the game lose its appeal.

I guess the short version is that I'm feeling that, like in I2, the powergamers' perspective on what makes the game challenging was seen over the more casual gamer's perspective.

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As for why we put Bosses in missions at all – in other words, why isn’t everything solo-able – the answer is simple. We want gameplay that encourages the best part of the game: teaming up. Soloing is fine, but a MMP really shines when you meet other people and play alongside them. I’ve made many good virtual friends through other MMP’s that I simply would not have done if I could solo everything all the time. I admit it: I’m anti-social. It’s hard to get me to group up with strangers. But after I do it, I always wonder “why don’t I do this more often…” I might still be anti-social in “real life”, but in MMP’s I’m a social butterfly (I have no doubt that this will appear in sigs for years to come…)

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Teaming unlocks a lot of what makes and MMO great, but it also draws out unhealthy MMO behavior in me. I realize that and I have characters that are meant for soloing so I could get my CoH fix without taking a risk. Unfortunately, teaming brings out some compulsive behavior for me. I'm not good at walking away. I've skipped meals, caused relationship tensions and been a zombie at work because I had a hard time walking away from a team. I know that's my problem, but one way I deal with it is by playing solo. However, now I'm feeling less like I can't jump in for a quick game, take care of a mish and satisfy a CoH itch.

I guess one question I have to ask is was so many people feeling like the higher level game too unchallenging so that everyone had to had their difficulty upped to this degree? I see how some people felt that way, but at level 26 with DOs not SOs the game was feeling comfortable to me. Still giving me challenge but not frustrating me.

I think a good part of my frustration is the increased power of the bosses. With cautious strategy, I used to be able to solo a boss. I'd have to take the time to isolate him and be ready to run, but now a Freak Tank can send me from 2/3 HP to zero with one hit. It feels like I should run the first time I get hit by a boss. Increased HP is understandable, but they also seem to be hitting much harder. I used to feel like I died because I made some dumb move and if I learned to be more alert in my play I would survive the next battle. I'm not feeling that way anymore, I don't see lessons to be learned when my character dies.

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I think the problem is many people who play the game don't really want to deal with the challenges posed by hazard zones. They are difiicult to get to, inconvenient if you need to sell or go to the hospital, and hard to get around in unless you have certain travel powers (the ones the FOTM builds tell you are a waste to get). And there are easier ways to get XP.

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It's kinda different strokes, too. I know some people find missions repetitive and boring, but I tend to be the opposite... I usually find hunting in hazard zones really boring compared to missions... especially in Boomtown or Fautline. There's an overall interesting look to both places, but they get repetitive really fast for me. I wouldn't go to Faultline, either, without flight.

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That's not a bug. The Hollows is a Hazard Zone - just like Perez Park. It's spawns are designed for small groups of heroes. If you're a solo player, you should be able to avoid the spawns, if you're careful. If you're hunting, then find a friend.

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Overall, I like that. My problem with the Hollows is how the missions are set up. The indoor missions that you can get at level 6 are in areas where you find plenty of level 9 - 11s. Same for the second contact which comes into play fairly quickly.

If you die in a mission it takes a lot of effort for a solo character to get back to the mission. I've seen more than a few teammates quit a team rather than risk death from getting too close to the seventh mob of purples. Same for if you get recruited by a hunting group who are already in their game.

Last night I died twice trying to get back to my team and I thought I was being careful but I eventually drew the aggro of a purple mob who quickly took me down as I ran away.

I think the indoor missions should be placed in an area where the villains in the area are a lower level like Cherry Hills so that a solo player trying to catch up with their team can at least survive running away from a mob.

...or just set up that mish to have a higher minimum level to deal with the thugs in the vincinity.

I've got a ton of characters who are all fairly low level, top is 16 lowest is 4, and I think with the last comple of patches the game has been fine at a lower level.

The Hollows is a challenge and I think it has its problems (I'm looking for a thread to address that) but otherwise things are fine. Sure I can't really solo in the Hollows but I can't solo in Perez or Boomtown until I'm a few levels above the highest spawns, either. I kinda like the new powers the outcasts have but then again a lot of my characters are defenders and controllers, so the added challenge for those characters is just right.

Most villains I can solo a mish (in soloing ATs) and the ones I can't I know about (Outcasts, Trolls).

Quite honestly, I thought the +1 mobs bug had been fixed because I haven't had a problem with missions any more.