rsclark

I think the other thing to point out is that earlier when you suggested (in a non-serious sort of way) that there be exclusive rewards for solo content, that Arcana took exception with it. It's funny how the exclusive rewards are only a good idea when it benefits the side Arcana is advocating.

As stated before, this is not a single piece of content. It is the endgame. It is the entirety of post 50 character advancement.

I hope you adequately greased up the English language before you did what you just did to it.

But what you continue to fail to address is how allowing people to have a solo path would fail to represent anyone since it would not be compulsory.

Yet, seemingly, in this thread, you have taken the exact opposite position. You have been siding with the people who say "I want to ensure this game does not have a viable solo incarnate path".

Compared to the 2 hours you could do it in trials it is. And I don't think it's an accident that you list the number of days instead of the more informative number of played hours.

I'm going to begin this post with a parable.

Timmy and his younger brother, Tommy, are outside playing one day whehn they decide they are hungry. They go into the kitchen to get one of their mother's chocolate chip cookies, but discover there is only one left.

Their mother, being the progressive sort, asks each child what they think should be done.

Tommy thinks for a moment and says that she should break the cookie in half and give half to each of them.

Timmy, being older and wiser, says that his mother should give him the cookie since he is the oldest.

Their mother, in a desire to teach them about compromise, gives Timmy 3/4 of the cookie and gives Tommy 1/4.

Most sane people can see the problem with the mother's reasoning, but I get a feeling you don't.

You have yet to address how giving a viable non-trial path would eliminate anything entirely.

I would call this ridiculous caricature a "strawman", but that would be an insult to scarecrows and other plant based lifeforms everywhere.

I haven't seen anyone demand a solo mothership raid; although, oddly, you can even attempt that solo if you want.

What tends to be the central idea in these arguments is the endgame. That's not "everything". That is a fundamental and vital part of the game. It is not different in any meaningful way from saying you can solo to 30, but to hit 50 you have to group.

Demanding a viable endgame is not the same as demanding every bit of content be available and claiming otherwise is being intellectually dishonest.

And then we get back to Timmy and Tommy.

At least I can understand Timmy. He's a jerk, sure, but he's just being greedy and selfish, and we can all relate to that. He's not actively trying to take cookie away from Tommy, that is just a side consequence of wanting more for himself.

But the people against solo content don't even have that weak excuse. How would a pro-trial person be harmed by the DA rewards not sucking quite so hard? Even in situations where company resources must be directed to produce the soloable content, we have this amazing scaling technology in the game. Every bit of solo content they create is also group content, so the group people lose literally nothing.

They are essentially saying "look, I gain nothing by denying this to you, but the important part to me is that you don't get it", and that is the attitude of an *******. And when deciding how to measure a compromise, I think you should side against the ********.

What player demands solo only content - good/goose/gander

Just look at the relative rewards.

Run the correct TF and get the reward you need? Good job, you saved having to earn 4 shards.

Run the trial and get the reward you need? Good job, you saved having to earn 150 threads and several hundred million inf.

For all it's problems, at least the shard system didn't jump an order of magnitude outside of reasonable.

Amen.

4 people > 30 people

Yes, it will make them plenty of money. It is a very effective technique. You know what else is effective? Cold calling people and pressure selling them crap they don't need. "Listen up Gandma, go get your checkbook and write what I tell you."

If I'm allowed to hate the people who do that, I see no reason not to extend it to practices like this. Profitable doesn't automatically equate to acceptable.

A. The pre-order arachnos helmets did not come after the justifications for Freedom of allowing players to only purchase what they want
B. The pre-order arachnos helmets were part of a straightforward sale of goods and not part of a scumbag gambling money grab.

Villain or not, shouldn't 8-Ball sell cocaine to children instead of crack?

So, the 1-3 people you can put those powers on say "yea", what do the other 3-6 people say?

Since there are already mechanics in place for using alternate mechanics, there is no reason to "polish up" the current powers as opposed to offering alternatives. This is especially true since there is no consensus that the paid sets actually do look or perform better (see DP).

To repeat - how about actually answering the questions that were actually asked, then instead of evasive non-answers?

And your comment is about as relevant as their answer. Since the question is about what will happen with future trials, what leads you to believe that making your statement about all current trials is a meaningful thing to say?

And... CoH displays amazing dexterity by deftly answering the exact opposite question to the one actually asked.

I give it a 9.5.

Which part? The easily observable fact that games are moving in the direction of less large group content or the easily surmised idea that a game never known for large group content might have fewer people who enjoy it than other games that have always provided that form of content?

The biggest place to complain about being redundant is in Itrials. No where else in the game does a player matter less than in an itrial.

You are missing the point entirely. Those other games aren't moving towards some idea point - at least not intentionally. They are moving away from something that wasn't working. Those 20+ man raids aren't getting enough players involved in them to justify the effort that goes into making them, so people aren't making them any more.

That's why it's strange that this game is putting the effort into making them. Given the history of this game, I find it hard to believe that this game has a higher percentage of people who want to do that stuff when other games have been trying to pull those people in for years.. If it's not worth it for other games to produce this type of content, what makes this game special?

And, really, it seems pretty clear that it isn't worth it in this game any more than it's worth it in the others. If it was worth it to produce and there was this hidden demographic that desired that content, then the DA revamp wouldn't need such abysmal rewards to (effectively) bribe people into playing the raids.

The ability to have your character be important by increasing the difficulty to the point where failure is possible vs not wanting to make it so hard as to drive people away?

That sounds like exactly what you were talking about in that post.

It's one of the many traps that exist for no other reason that to prove that people who make marketing decisions tend to be jerks.

Oddly, in the rest of the game they circumvented that problem by actually giving us the dial (in the form of the difficulty settings). For some reason they chose to ignore that successful aspect of the game when it came time to designing the trials.

Personally, I'd compare it to a particularly rough prostate exam.

Normal mission complete XP.