Rarebit wrote:
M45T3RM1ND wrote:There are things you could've done (for example, item storage, which is something EVERYONE has asked for for the 3.5 years I've been on MxO) that would've gone a long way to getting MxO where it needed to be. The missioning system was fine. Now it's not.I think I understand where you're coming from, but here's some of my perspective on this.Item storage isn't a task that I can address myself--it requires engineering resources that I don't have at my disposal. So no, I couldn't have done that instead.The missioning system was all right for what it had been doing, but I felt pretty tapped out on it. We have 11 and two-thirds chapters of archived missions that still work the old way, not to mention all the neighborhood missions, and the standard random missions. That's all fine...but not so much for keeping people interested by being able to vary up the gameplay. If your focus was ONLY on getting all the story text and eyeballing all the NPCs, then yes, I screwed that up for you, and I was aware that would be the case going in. However, I still believe that story divorced from varied gameplay doesn't keep a game compelling for most game players.You can still get most of the story for your main's org without exceptional effort (or such is the intent). Squeezing every secret from every org is going to be more challenging, and, hopefully, more rewarding--if you actually give it a shot and put the effort in it to overcome the tough challenges guarding it.Anyway, I've said this in several ways now so I won't keep rattling on. I felt that it was fundamentally important to make the game's story challenging on a gameplay level as well as on a plot level. If you don't enjoy the game's combat and so forth, then yes this will be a problem for you, but as a designer I have to work on the gameplay and believe that it can be made fun--otherwise I'd just retire and write a book (which I would be very tempted to do even as it is if I thought I could keep myself housed and fed while doing it!).
M45T3RM1ND wrote:
There are things you could've done (for example, item storage, which is something EVERYONE has asked for for the 3.5 years I've been on MxO) that would've gone a long way to getting MxO where it needed to be. The missioning system was fine. Now it's not.
I think I understand where you're coming from, but here's some of my perspective on this.
Item storage isn't a task that I can address myself--it requires engineering resources that I don't have at my disposal. So no, I couldn't have done that instead.
The missioning system was all right for what it had been doing, but I felt pretty tapped out on it. We have 11 and two-thirds chapters of archived missions that still work the old way, not to mention all the neighborhood missions, and the standard random missions. That's all fine...but not so much for keeping people interested by being able to vary up the gameplay. If your focus was ONLY on getting all the story text and eyeballing all the NPCs, then yes, I screwed that up for you, and I was aware that would be the case going in. However, I still believe that story divorced from varied gameplay doesn't keep a game compelling for most game players.
You can still get most of the story for your main's org without exceptional effort (or such is the intent). Squeezing every secret from every org is going to be more challenging, and, hopefully, more rewarding--if you actually give it a shot and put the effort in it to overcome the tough challenges guarding it.
Anyway, I've said this in several ways now so I won't keep rattling on. I felt that it was fundamentally important to make the game's story challenging on a gameplay level as well as on a plot level. If you don't enjoy the game's combat and so forth, then yes this will be a problem for you, but as a designer I have to work on the gameplay and believe that it can be made fun--otherwise I'd just retire and write a book (which I would be very tempted to do even as it is if I thought I could keep myself housed and fed while doing it!).
The issue is that I can't even finish the crit because I'm too low-level to use the mission ticket. DOING the missions, in and of themselves, isn't the challenge. They were soloable fine. BEING ABLE TO ACCESS THEM is.
Mathalos wrote:
I've done all three 11.3.3 missions and the Machine one was harder by far. The Wright Accelerated Programs have very high defense and seem to buff their own resistance sometimes to prevent being able to be debuffed. The Level 55 Agent in the Zion one and the two Level 53 Agents in the Merovingian one were very easily soloable without any consumables needed. I think the Machine one should be scaled back a bit to match the difficulty of the other two.
And that WAP was level 55... Hm. Yeah, I know I made those things pretty tough--their buffs are probably about the upper end of what I intend to give to story mission NPCs, as is the level of 55--so that may be the toughest thing you'll have to face in one of these types of missions. I think part of my rationale for the tougher Machine challenge there--aside from the story aspect--was that they get precise data on Wright's location out of it, while the other orgs get only general directions. Also I won't deny that knowing our Machinist rosters include some of the wickedest NPC hackers in the game may have had an impact on my thought process.
It isn't quite as simple as that, since you wouldn't be able to solo them if you were too low-level, even if they didn't have the access restriction on them--the NPCs would maul you.
By the way, shouting at me is gonna stress the empathy issue you've said I have.
If the hard NPCs were made to scale levels, a Level 50 could just invite a lowbie to team and make all of their missions very easy. If a level of difficulty is going to remain in place, the level restrictions will have to stay.
Also I won't deny that knowing our Machinist rosters *included* some of the wickedest NPC hackers in the game may have had an impact on my thought process.
*Fixed*
WoW has some wicked Horde now.
M45T3RM1ND wrote:The issue is that I can't even finish the crit because I'm too low-level to use the mission ticket. DOING the missions, in and of themselves, isn't the challenge. They were soloable fine. BEING ABLE TO ACCESS THEM is.It isn't quite as simple as that, since you wouldn't be able to solo them if you were too low-level, even if they didn't have the access restriction on them--the NPCs would maul you.By the way, shouting at me is gonna stress the empathy issue you've said I have.
Oh, I wasn't trying to shout. Just wanted to accent the key words in the statement.
But what you're saying either way is that there's no way to finish them unless I grind up to 50 and get a team together, yes? Which, in my situation is a fruitless endeavour.
If you're talking about just finishing the missions for your org, then as you've said yourself, they can be completed solo. You would have to be 50 to do the last of them, yes.
The only part of 11.3 that should pretty much take a team would be taking down Wright. That isn't required for the missions, though, or for nearly all of the gear.
The only part of 11.3 that should pretty much take a team would be taking down Wright.
And now you've spoiled it for me. =^P
But you've also confirmed that I have to grind up to 50 just to do the darn thing, which basically means that it'll be a long time. I hate the idea of having to grind XP just to do what I would prefer to earn XP for. You see the connundrum here?
I hate the idea of having to grind XP just to do what I would prefer to earn XP for. You see the connundrum here?
If you mean that you would prefer to earn XP for doing the story missions, then yes, I do see the issue, but avoiding that entirely would mean that I couldn't design challenging story content for our large number of players who play with level 50 characters. So the compromise is that most of it doesn't require being level 50, but the very end part of it does.
Mathalos wrote:I've done all three 11.3.3 missions and the Machine one was harder by far. The Wright Accelerated Programs have very high defense and seem to buff their own resistance sometimes to prevent being able to be debuffed. The Level 55 Agent in the Zion one and the two Level 53 Agents in the Merovingian one were very easily soloable without any consumables needed. I think the Machine one should be scaled back a bit to match the difficulty of the other two.And that WAP was level 55... Hm. Yeah, I know I made those things pretty tough--their buffs are probably about the upper end of what I intend to give to story mission NPCs, as is the level of 55--so that may be the toughest thing you'll have to face in one of these types of missions. I think part of my rationale for the tougher Machine challenge there--aside from the story aspect--was that they get precise data on Wright's location out of it, while the other orgs get only general directions. Also I won't deny that knowing our Machinist rosters include some of the wickedest NPC hackers in the game may have had an impact on my thought process.
Win ;p
Danger_Frog1471 wrote:No i wasnt even aware it was soloable, Hell i've bearly even touched the .3 missions because i'm bored with grinding the first few missions for items... yay.It's good to know you're interested in the items, but you can always leave those for later and try going through the first time for the story. That will leave you with some additional items that you can use later as you go for the collector rewards.Also, repeating missions to get the spawns with the drops isn't a technique that I'm going to use all the time. It worked pretty well in the Valkyrja quest according to the feedback I saw at that time, and I was up against a tough deadline for 11.3 that didn't leave me time to experiment with other techniques, so I went with that one.Ignore it, i think you missed my point but its off topic either way so lets not bother. >.>Danger_Frog1471 wrote:I don't care how tough the story is, i always thought level dictated how developed your character was not how much of the story you could access. Tell me... In the Death of the destroyer did they restrict the ability to get a flint gun to fight against the level 50 Assassin to newbs? Nope everyone got the mish' everyone completed them and everyone got one. Granted the gun did static damage but it still included everyone.You've picked pretty much the single example of us doing something like that. Sure I think it was a good idea, but I don't think it makes sense to invent a new level-scaling Achilles heel for every enemy in the game--and I intend to make use of as many enemies are available to me for these story quests.I'd take it over this, at least that way we all get to personally share the story.Danger_Frog1471 wrote:Where was the critical missions before? In everyones mission system GUI. Where are they now?... As far as newbies are aware without direction the only missions you can do are the static boring ones you get stuck with... Great incentive, making it look real good. Hell even the archives are hidden without much signature. Thats why no newbies have complained they don't even know they exist. You shouldn't have to hunt for the story-line either it should be easy to see (thats a whole other kettle...)It is another kettle indeed. Our tutorial/UI stuff is baffling for new players, and this has been a big problem we've had in player retention. Unfortunately, changes in this game's UI almost always require a programmer rather than a mere designer such as myself, and programmer time for things other than quick critical tweaks has been severely limited for the past several years--except for the data node stuff, which was an awesome surprise (at least to me) but not something that appears to want to happen again.I understand, i completely appreciate just how restraining working on the matrix online might be but short or not your company is a multi-million dollar business. Don't get me wrong i understand your constraints, but lets put it like this my family own a mechanic repair shop. If someone comes to us with a car and pays to get it fixed, but say the part needs welding done to secure it. Do we fit the part as best we can? no we tell the customer one of two things. A: Nothing, they don't need to know details wait for a contract welder to fix it. B: Explain the situation and wait for the welder. Translated to this situation, sort the GUI out asap with a programmer either before you even mention or plan the changes or list as you require. A rather large example but the point is irrevocably the same. And dont reply, i know what you going to say and i know its out of your control but i need somewhere to vent my stress at Sony's blatant disregard for this section of their company. I go as so far as to accuse them of bad management but hey im not the one with the figures. EDIT: I suppose I can mention that the new cinematics show the collector locations very clearly for each new subchapter, and that I recently added in pop-up text for new players (it's when they reach a certain level early on--don't remember exactly which) that tells them about the archives. Those are the types of UI I can change myself. So yeah, it is a risk to make content that doesn't run through some of the obvious UI devices like the mission window, but if I stuck myself to those I wouldn't be able to make what I think is more enjoyable content.Great, its good to see you've noticed and taken it into account previously. But be quick on that note, the longer your waiting the more your putting at risk. Might have been better to sort something as pivotal as the new signposts for the new road layout. :pDanger_Frog1471 wrote:I'm sorry but to stereotype everyone as upset alt users is darn right ignorant. Do you honestly believe that nearly every low level is a level 50 alt? I don't think so, and to see a comment like that has really diminished my opinion of how you regard this game. Even if thats not how you implied that, i'd sure as hell not like to think thats the way you look at it.I didn't, I was referring to the several people who've been doing a large share of the forum complaining about the level requirements. From your comments (in my last quote from you below) about your sub-50 players on other servers and wanting to get the other parts of the story it sounds like you're another of the players who's been used to playing that way, so using yourself as an example, my comment may not have been all that off-base, hm?NO your missing the point (or atleast my point) here! forget that i have a 50. I am a new player i want to play the story! ... DENIED. *that* is my point rarebit. I have a character on all servers. One of which is denied access to the stuff its because of this i realised hey if i didn't have another character to play i cannot get play the story myself or collect the items. I never used my alts for getting the other side of the story other than live events. Mission wise i didnt care. *now* however we are forced to play the crits to gain any sort of narrative information. But unless your 50 we cant. *Thats* the problem rare. Danger_Frog1471 wrote:Edit: I went and asked a few new players who are coming close to 30 did they know anything about the critical mission system and how to use it.. I got replies of sorry cant help you there and To quote another: "don't you just get enough rep and you get one now and then.." When i explained what the system was like he had this to say:Him: "So now you have to go downtown to get crits? I'm going to get the access codes.."Me: "You cant they all now have a level requirement aswell."Him: " "Just one of many...The alternative there (were just the level requirement removed) would have been him rushing Downtown, putting in time to get the node, perhaps while doing some running from the high level street gangs in Downtown, getting the node, getting the mission ticket(s), and very shortly getting owned by NPCs six ways from Sunday. So to make them available to him and similarly situated players I'd have to go back to the old system of fairly generic Richland/Westview missions. Which brings us to the next point:Still can do it if he chooses rare can't he?... There is nothing wrong with making it available to him even if its still the same difficulty. I've seen many games that provide high level content if you can get it/to it. Guild wars, city of heros to name a few. THey all give you written warning before that what your about to do is rather stupid... But you *can* if you choose continue. I'll agree the items are a perk and if thats the problem with removing the cap then remove them or make them an optional thing. Danger_Frog1471 wrote:We've already seen you compensate for its lack of challenge, I did a critical mission earlier merovingian 7. something with a few parts first part contained 11 enemies second contained half that. (Majority of which where 2 chevron) These work around's are enough... As a designer, it seems to me that there are only so many times I can make up for the difficulty issue by throwing a mob of NPCs at the player before it starts to get old/ridiculous; it also very much favors AOE-type loadouts--or at any rate, loadouts designed to counter multiple enemies at once--over others. It isn't appropriate to have a large number of NPCs in some story situations, and, furthermore, the more NPCs a mission phase has to spawn, the fewer parts of the city it can use--the International District in particular has relatively few mission areas with rooms that support large numbers of mission spawns.Understandable... but when in over three years has anyone said to you on the forums or in games... Rarebit these overpowering numbers are too much i want simplicity? Not that i've seen? My point being as that of mastermind, why change something that was if at minimum "satisfactory". I've seen one person so far that has apparently genuinely enjoyed the change... Not sure why yet but i'm sure there is reasons.It saddens me that you tried to mix the updating gameplay and critical missions. I don't care that my "alts" cant access the content, but new players cannot either. The first thing i used to say to a new or potential player was we have live event interactions with real characters from the matrix... Now? We have what you can get everywhere else... and we charge more! One thing i'll never understand is that... in what well over 3 years, the price for this game per month has stayed static. Yet we have lost a test server, several developers, content and dynamics. I get more from guild wars and i don't pay buggerall. Danger_Frog1471 wrote:Oh I agree that you can muck with the system regrding missions but changing the method by which the missions are attained is the problem... make them harder to get... hell make the reputation higher. Level requirements are an unnecessary block. I haven't read one convincing argument yet to clarify why it's *Needed* so badly.Remember that I said 12.1 will have new illustrations of what level requirements allow me to do in terms of coming up with different ways to run the story adventure. I don't want to go into them now because that would be somewhat spoilerish, and also just reading about it won't give you the same idea as actually trying it out once that release is Live.EDIT: Oh, I forgot to respond to your point about using reputation instead of level. Two things: first, our reputation system is far more unreliable than our character level system when it gets up into the higher numbers, and second, high rep wouldn't mean squat to that level 55 NPC.Again, i don't doubt your next installment will be just as fulfilling. Point in hand: the mission still isn't available so what difference does it make to a newbie who cannot access the story. I think i realised why the critical missions suddenly seam so important... because its now all we got. I guess it all boils down to me looking at what we had a looking at what we have and saying... So why am i not as satisfied? I think the answer is what will ultimately determine if the "New approach" is worth it. (and i think in this case it is not going to be the changes as i will have to give in and "It" will become £10)Danger_Frog1471 wrote:The problem i think is that you tried to amalgamate two things and failed. A Quest system, with the critical mission system. Granted i may have one character that i can fully attain these items... But the reason im annoyed is because i have characters across servers, so i'm pretty much like a new player to MXO. So to find after leveling to 30/40 that i cant properly view the story myself without help is a let down. Its not a bit of wonder we lost so many people when we did. I'll take your word for it Rare. I trust you but so far your losing it, you've lost it with others your slowly losing the grip and i'm bloody trying my hardest to understand why. Prove me wrong and save this debacle.Combined concurrent user numbers that I see logged in across all three servers have not shown a significant drop since 11.3 went Live. In my casual checking of these numbers I generally only compare peak hours, so it's possible that I'm missing something at other times of day, but a true population drop would tend to affect all time periods. That's not to say that I can predict future population changes, but at any rate at the moment our jacked-in population has continued more or less along our usual no-we-still-don't-have-our-free-trial-yet-darnit lines of the past few years.It's possible that an unexpected population boost of some kind made up for a loss to keep us level, but I haven't heard that we've received an unusual influx of new players recently that would account for something like that. Over the past year or so there's also been a trend of population shifting from Recursion to Syntax that has tended to skew perception of overall population, although I didn't get the impression that that was what you were reacting to here, at least not primarily.To quote myself from earlier you have the figures, you therefore know alot more than i do on the topic. Thats said alot of people are simply waiting for they're subscriptions to run out. Nice choice of words but theres why you dont know where they came from... The reasoning behind the consistent numbers would be those returning for the holidays. Christmas MXO style was always a personal favorite, i guess i'm not alone. I can count atleast 5 or 6 old faces that have returned within the past 2-3 weeks
Danger_Frog1471 wrote:
No i wasnt even aware it was soloable, Hell i've bearly even touched the .3 missions because i'm bored with grinding the first few missions for items... yay.
It's good to know you're interested in the items, but you can always leave those for later and try going through the first time for the story. That will leave you with some additional items that you can use later as you go for the collector rewards.
Also, repeating missions to get the spawns with the drops isn't a technique that I'm going to use all the time. It worked pretty well in the Valkyrja quest according to the feedback I saw at that time, and I was up against a tough deadline for 11.3 that didn't leave me time to experiment with other techniques, so I went with that one.
Ignore it, i think you missed my point but its off topic either way so lets not bother. >.>
I don't care how tough the story is, i always thought level dictated how developed your character was not how much of the story you could access. Tell me... In the Death of the destroyer did they restrict the ability to get a flint gun to fight against the level 50 Assassin to newbs? Nope everyone got the mish' everyone completed them and everyone got one. Granted the gun did static damage but it still included everyone.
You've picked pretty much the single example of us doing something like that. Sure I think it was a good idea, but I don't think it makes sense to invent a new level-scaling Achilles heel for every enemy in the game--and I intend to make use of as many enemies are available to me for these story quests.
I'd take it over this, at least that way we all get to personally share the story.
Where was the critical missions before? In everyones mission system GUI. Where are they now?... As far as newbies are aware without direction the only missions you can do are the static boring ones you get stuck with... Great incentive, making it look real good. Hell even the archives are hidden without much signature. Thats why no newbies have complained they don't even know they exist. You shouldn't have to hunt for the story-line either it should be easy to see (thats a whole other kettle...)
It is another kettle indeed. Our tutorial/UI stuff is baffling for new players, and this has been a big problem we've had in player retention. Unfortunately, changes in this game's UI almost always require a programmer rather than a mere designer such as myself, and programmer time for things other than quick critical tweaks has been severely limited for the past several years--except for the data node stuff, which was an awesome surprise (at least to me) but not something that appears to want to happen again.
I understand, i completely appreciate just how restraining working on the matrix online might be but short or not your company is a multi-million dollar business. Don't get me wrong i understand your constraints, but lets put it like this my family own a mechanic repair shop. If someone comes to us with a car and pays to get it fixed, but say the part needs welding done to secure it. Do we fit the part as best we can? no we tell the customer one of two things. A: Nothing, they don't need to know details wait for a contract welder to fix it. B: Explain the situation and wait for the welder. Translated to this situation, sort the GUI out asap with a programmer either before you even mention or plan the changes or list as you require. A rather large example but the point is irrevocably the same. And dont reply, i know what you going to say and i know its out of your control but i need somewhere to vent my stress at Sony's blatant disregard for this section of their company. I go as so far as to accuse them of bad management but hey im not the one with the figures.
EDIT: I suppose I can mention that the new cinematics show the collector locations very clearly for each new subchapter, and that I recently added in pop-up text for new players (it's when they reach a certain level early on--don't remember exactly which) that tells them about the archives. Those are the types of UI I can change myself. So yeah, it is a risk to make content that doesn't run through some of the obvious UI devices like the mission window, but if I stuck myself to those I wouldn't be able to make what I think is more enjoyable content.
Great, its good to see you've noticed and taken it into account previously. But be quick on that note, the longer your waiting the more your putting at risk. Might have been better to sort something as pivotal as the new signposts for the new road layout. :p
I'm sorry but to stereotype everyone as upset alt users is darn right ignorant. Do you honestly believe that nearly every low level is a level 50 alt? I don't think so, and to see a comment like that has really diminished my opinion of how you regard this game. Even if thats not how you implied that, i'd sure as hell not like to think thats the way you look at it.
I didn't, I was referring to the several people who've been doing a large share of the forum complaining about the level requirements. From your comments (in my last quote from you below) about your sub-50 players on other servers and wanting to get the other parts of the story it sounds like you're another of the players who's been used to playing that way, so using yourself as an example, my comment may not have been all that off-base, hm?
NO your missing the point (or atleast my point) here! forget that i have a 50. I am a new player i want to play the story! ... DENIED. *that* is my point rarebit. I have a character on all servers. One of which is denied access to the stuff its because of this i realised hey if i didn't have another character to play i cannot get play the story myself or collect the items. I never used my alts for getting the other side of the story other than live events. Mission wise i didnt care. *now* however we are forced to play the crits to gain any sort of narrative information. But unless your 50 we cant. *Thats* the problem rare.
Edit: I went and asked a few new players who are coming close to 30 did they know anything about the critical mission system and how to use it.. I got replies of sorry cant help you there and To quote another: "don't you just get enough rep and you get one now and then.." When i explained what the system was like he had this to say:Him: "So now you have to go downtown to get crits? I'm going to get the access codes.."Me: "You cant they all now have a level requirement aswell."Him: " "Just one of many...
Edit: I went and asked a few new players who are coming close to 30 did they know anything about the critical mission system and how to use it.. I got replies of sorry cant help you there and To quote another: "don't you just get enough rep and you get one now and then.." When i explained what the system was like he had this to say:
Him: "So now you have to go downtown to get crits? I'm going to get the access codes.."
Me: "You cant they all now have a level requirement aswell."
Him: " "
Just one of many...
The alternative there (were just the level requirement removed) would have been him rushing Downtown, putting in time to get the node, perhaps while doing some running from the high level street gangs in Downtown, getting the node, getting the mission ticket(s), and very shortly getting owned by NPCs six ways from Sunday. So to make them available to him and similarly situated players I'd have to go back to the old system of fairly generic Richland/Westview missions. Which brings us to the next point:
Still can do it if he chooses rare can't he?... There is nothing wrong with making it available to him even if its still the same difficulty. I've seen many games that provide high level content if you can get it/to it. Guild wars, city of heros to name a few. THey all give you written warning before that what your about to do is rather stupid... But you *can* if you choose continue. I'll agree the items are a perk and if thats the problem with removing the cap then remove them or make them an optional thing.
We've already seen you compensate for its lack of challenge, I did a critical mission earlier merovingian 7. something with a few parts first part contained 11 enemies second contained half that. (Majority of which where 2 chevron) These work around's are enough...
As a designer, it seems to me that there are only so many times I can make up for the difficulty issue by throwing a mob of NPCs at the player before it starts to get old/ridiculous; it also very much favors AOE-type loadouts--or at any rate, loadouts designed to counter multiple enemies at once--over others. It isn't appropriate to have a large number of NPCs in some story situations, and, furthermore, the more NPCs a mission phase has to spawn, the fewer parts of the city it can use--the International District in particular has relatively few mission areas with rooms that support large numbers of mission spawns.
Understandable... but when in over three years has anyone said to you on the forums or in games... Rarebit these overpowering numbers are too much i want simplicity? Not that i've seen? My point being as that of mastermind, why change something that was if at minimum "satisfactory". I've seen one person so far that has apparently genuinely enjoyed the change... Not sure why yet but i'm sure there is reasons.
It saddens me that you tried to mix the updating gameplay and critical missions. I don't care that my "alts" cant access the content, but new players cannot either. The first thing i used to say to a new or potential player was we have live event interactions with real characters from the matrix... Now? We have what you can get everywhere else... and we charge more!
One thing i'll never understand is that... in what well over 3 years, the price for this game per month has stayed static. Yet we have lost a test server, several developers, content and dynamics. I get more from guild wars and i don't pay buggerall.
Oh I agree that you can muck with the system regrding missions but changing the method by which the missions are attained is the problem... make them harder to get... hell make the reputation higher. Level requirements are an unnecessary block. I haven't read one convincing argument yet to clarify why it's *Needed* so badly.
Remember that I said 12.1 will have new illustrations of what level requirements allow me to do in terms of coming up with different ways to run the story adventure. I don't want to go into them now because that would be somewhat spoilerish, and also just reading about it won't give you the same idea as actually trying it out once that release is Live.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot to respond to your point about using reputation instead of level. Two things: first, our reputation system is far more unreliable than our character level system when it gets up into the higher numbers, and second, high rep wouldn't mean squat to that level 55 NPC.
Again, i don't doubt your next installment will be just as fulfilling. Point in hand: the mission still isn't available so what difference does it make to a newbie who cannot access the story. I think i realised why the critical missions suddenly seam so important... because its now all we got. I guess it all boils down to me looking at what we had a looking at what we have and saying... So why am i not as satisfied? I think the answer is what will ultimately determine if the "New approach" is worth it. (and i think in this case it is not going to be the changes as i will have to give in and "It" will become £10)
The problem i think is that you tried to amalgamate two things and failed. A Quest system, with the critical mission system. Granted i may have one character that i can fully attain these items... But the reason im annoyed is because i have characters across servers, so i'm pretty much like a new player to MXO. So to find after leveling to 30/40 that i cant properly view the story myself without help is a let down. Its not a bit of wonder we lost so many people when we did. I'll take your word for it Rare. I trust you but so far your losing it, you've lost it with others your slowly losing the grip and i'm bloody trying my hardest to understand why. Prove me wrong and save this debacle.
Combined concurrent user numbers that I see logged in across all three servers have not shown a significant drop since 11.3 went Live. In my casual checking of these numbers I generally only compare peak hours, so it's possible that I'm missing something at other times of day, but a true population drop would tend to affect all time periods. That's not to say that I can predict future population changes, but at any rate at the moment our jacked-in population has continued more or less along our usual no-we-still-don't-have-our-free-trial-yet-darnit lines of the past few years.
It's possible that an unexpected population boost of some kind made up for a loss to keep us level, but I haven't heard that we've received an unusual influx of new players recently that would account for something like that. Over the past year or so there's also been a trend of population shifting from Recursion to Syntax that has tended to skew perception of overall population, although I didn't get the impression that that was what you were reacting to here, at least not primarily.
To quote myself from earlier you have the figures, you therefore know alot more than i do on the topic. Thats said alot of people are simply waiting for they're subscriptions to run out. Nice choice of words but theres why you dont know where they came from... The reasoning behind the consistent numbers would be those returning for the holidays. Christmas MXO style was always a personal favorite, i guess i'm not alone. I can count atleast 5 or 6 old faces that have returned within the past 2-3 weeks
Rarebit wrote:M45T3RM1ND wrote:But what you're saying either way is that there's no way to finish them unless I grind up to 50 and get a team together, yes? Which, in my situation is a fruitless endeavour.If you're talking about just finishing the missions for your org, then as you've said yourself, they can be completed solo. You would have to be 50 to do the last of them, yes.And therein lies the problem, atleast we have written confirmation that you acknowledge it. Anyone below 50 is excluded from receiving the full story. Yes there *ARE* work arounds, but as a paying customer not only should it not have to be tolerated but hell i'm getting tired of half-arsedness(tm by kind) from this company it shouldn't be our job to deal with the problems.
M45T3RM1ND wrote:But what you're saying either way is that there's no way to finish them unless I grind up to 50 and get a team together, yes? Which, in my situation is a fruitless endeavour.If you're talking about just finishing the missions for your org, then as you've said yourself, they can be completed solo. You would have to be 50 to do the last of them, yes.And therein lies the problem, atleast we have written confirmation that you acknowledge it. Anyone below 50 is excluded from receiving the full story. Yes there *ARE* work arounds, but as a paying customer not only should it not have to be tolerated but hell i'm getting tired of half-arsedness(tm by kind) from this company it shouldn't be our job to deal with the problems.
And therein lies the problem, atleast we have written confirmation that you acknowledge it. Anyone below 50 is excluded from receiving the full story. Yes there *ARE* work arounds, but as a paying customer not only should it not have to be tolerated but hell i'm getting tired of half-arsedness(tm by kind) from this company it shouldn't be our job to deal with the problems.
I'm curious, how many of the 'bad timing' crowd have actually asked for someone to help them out?I'm happy to assist people on Syntax, I'm not in America, I can spend quite a while in game most days and my Sundays are completely free.
I'm curious, how many of the 'bad timing' crowd have actually asked for someone to help them out?
I'm happy to assist people on Syntax, I'm not in America, I can spend quite a while in game most days and my Sundays are completely free.
Or is it that you feel teamwork in an MMO is somehow wrong?
Now, you know I've asked for help and advice on some things. But generally, when I do find other players in game, they are either very low level or Machines. Being a Zion flagged player, it's not surprising that it's hard to find help from the other org players. I also love teamwork, my best memories in this game are from when I was in an active faction and we worked together to accomplish our goals.
I also considered changing my org to join a more active faction -- but for that rep system and not wanting to lose my high rep with no solid assurance I could gain equivalent in another org -- is what stops me there. As much as I would love to jump in game during the day on weekends, too, (when I know there will be a larger player base) my two small children prevent that for the most part. So unless they sleep for a few hours in the afternoon, I can't play any game for a meaningful amount of time until the evening once they are in bed.
Now as far as soloing is concerned -- so far I've only played the first 11.3 mission (again due to time constraints and running the archives). I can easily (as an MA build) handle the 1 to 3 level 51 3 chevron NPCs that come along -- and did so enough to get 11 of the pens (which I figured was the minimum I needed). Once or twice, I've faced near death (when faced with 3 NPCs) but I expect that and prepare for it. When only 1 or 2 of the level 53s spawned, they were a walk over -- the third one upped the challenge. I also barely survived one of the commandos in International (I think it was level 55?), so I know my character build can handle several level 51s but will struggle with anything above 55 -- especially if there is more than one of them (never did get to the boss command by the way).
My real complaint there is that the level 50 item rewards for the crits -- the only ones that appear of real use to my character -- just seem unobtainable. That wouldn't be such a problem if there were slightly lesser comparable level 50 items that could be obtained -- or of course, if I ever luck out to find someone willing to help out when I'm in a position to be able to use that help.
On a side note when I jacked in yesterday all I pretty much saw at Tabor West were people moaning about how they are bored of the missions and don't want to do them =(.
Holy giant wall of text....
I think I'm going to hassle wow's devs using this strategy and ask them why i can't get raid boss loot with my lvl 15 alt...
WoKeN wrote:
Holy giant wall of text....I think I'm going to hassle wow's devs using this strategy and ask them why i can't get raid boss loot with my lvl 15 alt...
/facepalm. 1) Apples and oranges. 2) Not what anyone is asking for.
Villemar_MxO wrote:
WoKeN wrote:Holy giant wall of text....I think I'm going to hassle wow's devs using this strategy and ask them why i can't get raid boss loot with my lvl 15 alt.../facepalm. 1) Apples and oranges. 2) Not what anyone is asking for.
I respect your stance vill... and here is mine.
It's all content,no matter what game..imo the making alts for other orgs crits should not have been allowed in the first place.If it were up to me we would not even be able to have characters in different orgs on one account...and there are games that have it set up that way.
Certain aspects of this game have had us spoiled for a very long time.
