Rarebit wrote:
Mathalos wrote:The Wright Accelerated Programs have very high defense and seem to buff their own resistance sometimes to prevent being able to be debuffed.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.
Mathalos wrote:
The Wright Accelerated Programs have very high defense and seem to buff their own resistance sometimes to prevent being able to be debuffed.
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.
Is Mathalos right about a resistance buff or are the WAPs actually sweeping the debuffs?
Danger_Frog1471 wrote:
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.
Nailed it! Thank you, thank you thank you!
Rare I'm happy to see you've taken on this issue, finally! I now have a much better understanding of what you're trying to accomplish. What you are trying to do looks good on paper. But the devil is in the details. And never discount the Law of Unintended Consequences. Rather than go point by point on the many things you've raised which I agree with and strongly disagre with, I want to touch on the big picture here.
To summarize another thread:
Ballak wrote:
The overall point of this thread, is basically saying this:MxO probably will still continue on even with the, "Minority" gone/disgruntled, so I'm not saying MxO is going to die. It's just the new way in which we receive "storyline content" no matter how much it is portrayed as "more dev time devoted" it somehow feels like so much less is dedicated on what a lot of us players liked most.The physical interaction with the storyline.
The overall point of this thread, is basically saying this:
MxO probably will still continue on even with the, "Minority" gone/disgruntled, so I'm not saying MxO is going to die. It's just the new way in which we receive "storyline content" no matter how much it is portrayed as "more dev time devoted" it somehow feels like so much less is dedicated on what a lot of us players liked most.
The physical interaction with the storyline.
Prior to 11.3 how would I personally defiine this? 1) Live Events 2) LESIG 3) Critical missions 4) Ancillary side stuff that gives you a sense of immersion.
Now that 1) is effectively gone for most people, and 2) is definately gone; we are left with 3) and 4) above.
This gets exactly to what Danger Frog said above. I can live with 1) provided there's some wiggle room down the road. I understand 1000% daily LE's were completely and utterly unsustainable. 2) didn't effect me that much although that was pretty neat to have.
Leaving us with 3) and 4), heightening their importance as vehicles for delivering dynamic storyline content. As far as these new crit quests I see it as a means to accomplish two things. One, access current storyline content. Two, obtain cool new gear. I separate the two in my mind. I came up with this idea way upthread:
Villemar_MxO wrote:
That's my biggest problem with the update by far.Solution: Make them dual-purpose critical missions. If you just want the storyline, then provided you have enough rep (60 sounds fine by me), and you're willing to risk missions instanced Downtown (if that's the case), then you should be able to achieve that goal. In fact I like the idea of missions instanced downtown, it gives it an added element of danger that's very Matrixy.If you want the gear, then yeah you can go for them via farming the secondary spawns. Keep those reward items level based, 30/40/50 whatever....To summarize: Keep the rep requirements. Instance them wherever you please...in Stratford Campus and Creston Heights if you want. Keep the level requirements for gear obtained by farming secondary spawns. No one loses anything at all by eliminating the level caps this way.If you character meets the requirements and/or is willing to dodge higher level mobs, by all means they should have at it!
That's my biggest problem with the update by far.
Solution: Make them dual-purpose critical missions. If you just want the storyline, then provided you have enough rep (60 sounds fine by me), and you're willing to risk missions instanced Downtown (if that's the case), then you should be able to achieve that goal. In fact I like the idea of missions instanced downtown, it gives it an added element of danger that's very Matrixy.
If you want the gear, then yeah you can go for them via farming the secondary spawns. Keep those reward items level based, 30/40/50 whatever.
...To summarize: Keep the rep requirements. Instance them wherever you please...in Stratford Campus and Creston Heights if you want. Keep the level requirements for gear obtained by farming secondary spawns. No one loses anything at all by eliminating the level caps this way.
If you character meets the requirements and/or is willing to dodge higher level mobs, by all means they should have at it!
And elaborating further based on what you've said and using 11.3 as an example. BTW I've fooled around with running my Mero 50 with a lvl 2 to see what happend scaling-wise. So lets use that as an example too.
Mero 11.3.1: There are no NPC's just Suit contacts here but I assume if there were they would be scaled at lvl 26. I step outside and am attacked by lvl 30 Accellerated Suits. They don't scale below 30....exactly as it should be. They drop pens.
Mero 11.3.2: There are NPC's to fight. Scaled at lvl 26. I step outside and am attacked by level 40 AWP's. They don't scale below 40....exactly as it should be. They drop O-Bits.
Mero 11.3.3 There are NPC's to fight, scaled at lvl 26...but to complete the mission you have to fight 2 lvl 53's. Mission finished.
So my question is, would it be possible to say compromise for those who only want to access the current storyline, and understand they ain't gonna get any sweet gear out of this? By 1) Removing the pen needed and the anti-override thingy to get 11.3.2 and 11.3.3; and 2) Scaling the final .3 Big Boss to +3 (x2) or +5 of your level, whatever the case may be? Is that possible?
(The reason I'm trying to spell this out so crystal clear is because of some naysayers that still continue to conflate accessing storyline content with getting cheap eazy gear.)
But I did want to touch on 4) because there is a lot of potential here. The best things about Update 64? RSI masks & new neighborhood contact mission. I've had a lot of fun farming the masks, honestly. I've gotten re-aquainted with a lot of the neighborhoods and gangs, especially gang bosses that don't drop any keys so you normally wouldn't have any reason to seek them out. This gets to immersion in Mega City, which I'm all for. I'm also a big fan of the new Neighborhood Contact mission. For the lowbie content and again the immersion factor.
And no, just because I have two alts that have done every critical mission since probably Chapter 3 yet are now shut off completely from criticals 11.3 and onward, I am not saying there should be more lowbie content as a backhanded way to lobby to get access back for my two alts. I've actually taken an honest to goodness new player, level 13 atm under my wing. Last night I asked her, "So, how are you levelling, are you doing standard missions?" Her: "Yes." Me: Have you done any archive missions yet?" Her: "What are those??"
You get the idea. Really if the stated goal is to bring new people in to the storyline, and now current storyline is designed for endgame, how is a new player supposed to get from Point A to Point B without getting bored and leaving after a month?
This is where 4) can help. New neighborhood contact missions....perfect. How about new Standard Missions? New Graduation missions? (lol those are completely irrelevant now!) You get the idea.
I'm sorry for the long post but I see what you're trying to do and seeing what we as players want...and what we signed on for in the first place....and am just trying to reconcile the two.
(disregard)
i need somewhere to vent my stress at Sony's blatant disregard for this section of their company.
It's difficult for me to take your proclaimed point of view seriously when you use the forum for that kind of thing.
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
I'm not sure we're on the same page here, and I can't tell if you're having a bit of joke with me. The things I mentioned (crit location pointed out in cinematic, pop-up text for low levels talking about archives) are already in the game.
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.
I understand the point and I realized it was a trade-off when I made the decision. However, I have yet to see new players distinctly turned off by the change. You aren't a new player, and it's dangerous to assume that you are correctly interpreting another person's or group's point of view.
A few reasons I felt able to make the change were because a) we have so much previous story now that a new player just catching up by way of the archives will already be pretty high level by the time they've played through all that b) the cinematics are available to everyone and can readily convey the essential "this is where we are" part of the story.
Also, it isn't accurate to say that you have to be 50 to play the new story missions. You only have to be 50 for the last one. They begin at 30. I realize that's still a barrier to entry, but there's no need to confuse the issue by exaggerating the number.
Back to the new player thing, another motivation behind the change as a whole was that in my interactions with new players--sneaking up on people in Uriah, mostly--the vast majority I tested on this point had little to no awareness of the current state of the story, which tells me that a driving need to jump on top of the very latest story segment is not--for most of them--the driving force that's been bringing people into the game. I would have liked it to have been, but I haven't seen that happening by and large.
Expectations will be different for new players who've been brought into the game by vets who've been telling them about the story, events, etc, but those same vets also usually help the new players get established by teaming with them, factioning with them, running them through the lower level content (which for us is relatively plentiful, even aside from the archived story missions), providing them with items, and so forth, all of which will tend to negate or shorten the drive to level 30.
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.
They haven't, but there'd be no reason to bring it up, because I haven't resorted to overpowering mission NPC spawns very often.
Forum feedback is a tricky beast. When people are happy with what's going on they seem to have better things to do than to spend their time on the forum, whereas when they're unhappy with something, they spend a great deal of their time here talking about it--so the feedback in this medium tends to reflect the negative opinions more than the positive or ambivalent.
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!
There are still Live Events, although the new format is not very much appreciated by most veteran events-catching players right now, which isn't hard to understand, since their frequency has been reduced quite a bit.
In the end, the old scheme of daily events failed to reach new players. It was extremely rare for me to be able to interact with actual new players in those events, and I was very disappointed that I wasn't able to make that part of it work. There are many reasons why it didn't work out as I'd hoped, but that's a whole separate topic's worth of discussion, some of which has been touched on elsewhere.
Although fairly often in those rare times I did come upon new players, on their own, they tended to assume I was a regular player, or perhaps some freakish sort of NPC.
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.
You aren't excluded; you have to put in some work to get to the point where you can access/beat that content. Yes, it takes more time and even more skill, but flatly calling it exclusion is a misrepresentation.
We certainly never promised that we'd make the entire story easy for a single person to access, and I don't feel obligated to do so. Enough to interest them, yes, and enough for them to get at if they make the effort for the rewards--and whether or not it is currently enough is under debate here on the forum--but not dishing up the whole thing on a silver platter from the get-go. I do understand that you preferred it that way, and I'm not going to try to argue you into liking the new way better.
Cadsuane wrote:
Rarebit wrote:Mathalos wrote:The Wright Accelerated Programs have very high defense and seem to buff their own resistance sometimes to prevent being able to be debuffed.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.Is Mathalos right about a resistance buff or are the WAPs actually sweeping the debuffs?
They have a chance of removing debuffs, sort of similar to a player using an antibiotic.
Cadsuane wrote:Is Mathalos right about a resistance buff or are the WAPs actually sweeping the debuffs?They have a chance of removing debuffs, sort of similar to a player using an antibiotic.
I thought that was the case. Thanks :)
Rare I'm happy to see you've taken on this issue, finally!
Me trying to clear up misunderstandings and misrepresentations here isn't the same thing as me "taking on the issue." Generally I try not to make reactionary changes based on forum ranting, and the more someone rants--by which I mean engaging in spam, exaggeration, griefing, rabble-rousing, and other sorts of chicanery to try to "win" their argument--the less weight I give to their statements. And I have a long memory for that sort of thing.
1) Making the player engage in some of the intended gameplay experience in order to reap the benefits of the next stage--story or otherwise--is part of the goal.
Additionally, many elements will be tied into the difficulty factor involved in the missions or related quests. In 11.3, as I mentioned earlier today, I was barely able to scratch the surface of what I think I'll be able to do there. I'm going to continue mixing things up as much as I can. The activities in 12.1, for instance, are pretty different from 11.3, at least in terms of utilizing types of gameplay MXO has to offer.
2) Not really. I want Wright to be a fixed, single spawn--a real titan on that Hampton ledge--and that doesn't really allow me to utilize the various means we have of generating scaling NPCs. Implementing reduced versions of her elsewhere (she'd either have to pop up inside a mission area, at who knows where between mission areas, or out of a player-activated "box," probably) would a) reduce the impact of her titanic presence b) require reimplimentation of some of her nasty abilities c) remove much of the meaning of that final "???" story reward for the players who took her down.
I've actually taken an honest to goodness new player, level 13 atm under my wing. Last night I asked her, "So, how are you levelling, are you doing standard missions?" Her: "Yes." Me: Have you done any archive missions yet?" Her: "What are those??"
If she's level 13 she may have passed the level where the new pop-up about archives now shows up, before it got into Live. It's also quite possible that she didn't read it, forgot about it, or whatever. I haven't hit upon a sure-fire means of guiding players to the archives yet--not one that I can implement myself, I mean. Generally speaking we don't have great mechanisms for guiding players to particular spots in the world. I suppose this is because the original concept was that the world would all be procedural in feel--like a mechanical creation of dull sameness that just goes on and on. Later during development it was realized that that wasn't very compelling, and they started to put in things like the monuments and clubs and "town centers" with vendors near some hardlines, but that's about all that was managed.
The standard missions aren't something I was involved in, so it would require ramp-up time for me to get a good handle on them. Even now though I know for certain that that system is too large, and too specific, for me to revamp in a great way, and I don't feel confident in being able to revolutionize it simply by adding new randomly chosen phases, either, because they'd just get blended up into the standard pudding. The standard mission system is a scheme of generating "random" content, and as a result, anything you get out of it is going to feel generic to a significant and unavoidable degree. I prefer to try to work on things that I'm confident I can at least make stand out one way or the other.
Graduation missions aren't something I was involved with either, but they're quite a bit simpler. I haven't been inspired to try to do much with them because they come up relative to nothing aside from you ticking over a reputation number in the database, so it's hard to make them relevant as anything other than a "Hey! Who's Mr./Ms. Awesome? You are, you crazy mongoose!" affair. HCFrog of course was trying to work out org-based abilities to distribute through them, but that was fraught with a myriad of other difficulties (again, another topic). I could do something similar to the level-scaling org archive clothing items as rewards for those missions, but there are two problems with something like that in this case: a) they aren't really repeatable, so players who've already hit them would be left out--unless we tried some sort of vast scheme of forwarding the items to players in the org who've bypassed that rep point, but our chances of success doing something like that are what I would rate as very low, and b) they rely on the reputation system, which has its own issues. So that's another ball of string I'm not too keen on tangling with, although it's slightly more doable than messing with the standard mission system. I certainly agree that they *should* have more of an impact.
It is my intent to work on neighborhood missions, gradually. I *think* I'll be able to get to the point of adding a mission and reward to a single neighborhood per update on a semi-regular basis--like 11.3, which added one in Tabor--in addition to the regular content I'm committed to--I might have tried that with this next update, for instance, but I had to do the Winter Holiday instead. Hm also coming up here I have to take some time to poke into MXO on Vista, since I've ***finally*** managed to wrassle up a Vista testing system of my own (and I have no idea how long that will take me to look at or if I'll be able to get any positive changes out of it, but it's really gotta be tried).
Hm also coming up here I have to take some time to poke into MXO on Vista, since I've ***finally*** managed to wrassle up a Vista testing system of my own (and I have no idea how long that will take me to look at or if I'll be able to get any positive changes out of it, but it's really gotta be tried).
I love you.
what?
Villemar_MxO wrote:Rare I'm happy to see you've taken on this issue, finally! Me trying to clear up misunderstandings and misrepresentations here isn't the same thing as me "taking on the issue." Generally I try not to make reactionary changes based on forum ranting, and the more someone rants--by which I mean engaging in spam, exaggeration, griefing, rabble-rousing, and other sorts of chicanery to try to "win" their argument--the less weight I give to their statements. And I have a long memory for that sort of thing.I hope you aren't putting me in that catagory...I've tried to be as civil and diplomatic as possible, and if I've been a little obsessive about this particular issue its only because I really love this game and want it to succeed, and have tried to be very cognizent about not slipping into dev bashing or anything remotely close to that. My point was just that I'm happy you shed some light on this subject, I cetainly understand more of what your trying to get at, and I'm even more curious to check out 12.1 now.Villemar_MxO wrote:So my question is, would it be possible to say compromise for those who only want to access the current storyline, and understand they ain't gonna get any sweet gear out of this? By 1) Removing the pen needed and the anti-override thingy to get 11.3.2 and 11.3.3; and 2) Scaling the final .3 Big Boss to +3 (x2) or +5 of your level, whatever the case may be? Is that possible?1) Making the player engage in some of the intended gameplay experience in order to reap the benefits of the next stage--story or otherwise--is part of the goal.Additionally, many elements will be tied into the difficulty factor involved in the missions or related quests. In 11.3, as I mentioned earlier today, I was barely able to scratch the surface of what I think I'll be able to do there. I'm going to continue mixing things up as much as I can. The activities in 12.1, for instance, are pretty different from 11.3, at least in terms of utilizing types of gameplay MXO has to offer.2) Not really. I want Wright to be a fixed, single spawn--a real titan on that Hampton ledge--and that doesn't really allow me to utilize the various means we have of generating scaling NPCs. Implementing reduced versions of her elsewhere (she'd either have to pop up inside a mission area, at who knows where between mission areas, or out of a player-activated "box," probably) would a) reduce the impact of her titanic presence b) require reimplimentation of some of her nasty abilities c) remove much of the meaning of that final "???" story reward for the players who took her down.Oh yeah I get the Wright business. I was talking more about the final 11.3.3 NPC's...in my Merovingian mission it was the two lvl 53's. But I assume its not possible...say in any mission in general, wheras on "hard" the NPC's will scale at +1, whether it would be possible to scale an NPC at +3, or +5 for that matter.Villemar_MxO wrote:I've actually taken an honest to goodness new player, level 13 atm under my wing. Last night I asked her, "So, how are you levelling, are you doing standard missions?" Her: "Yes." Me: Have you done any archive missions yet?" Her: "What are those??"If she's level 13 she may have passed the level where the new pop-up about archives now shows up, before it got into Live. It's also quite possible that she didn't read it, forgot about it, or whatever. I haven't hit upon a sure-fire means of guiding players to the archives yet--not one that I can implement myself, I mean. Generally speaking we don't have great mechanisms for guiding players to particular spots in the world. I suppose this is because the original concept was that the world would all be procedural in feel--like a mechanical creation of dull sameness that just goes on and on. Later during development it was realized that that wasn't very compelling, and they started to put in things like the monuments and clubs and "town centers" with vendors near some hardlines, but that's about all that was managed.Villemar_MxO wrote:This is where 4) can help. New neighborhood contact missions....perfect. How about new Standard Missions? New Graduation missions? (lol those are completely irrelevant now!) You get the idea.The standard missions aren't something I was involved in, so it would require ramp-up time for me to get a good handle on them. Even now though I know for certain that that system is too large, and too specific, for me to revamp in a great way, and I don't feel confident in being able to revolutionize it simply by adding new randomly chosen phases, either, because they'd just get blended up into the standard pudding. The standard mission system is a scheme of generating "random" content, and as a result, anything you get out of it is going to feel generic to a significant and unavoidable degree. I prefer to try to work on things that I'm confident I can at least make stand out one way or the other.Graduation missions aren't something I was involved with either, but they're quite a bit simpler. I haven't been inspired to try to do much with them because they come up relative to nothing aside from you ticking over a reputation number in the database, so it's hard to make them relevant as anything other than a "Hey! Who's Mr./Ms. Awesome? You are, you crazy mongoose!" affair. HCFrog of course was trying to work out org-based abilities to distribute through them, but that was fraught with a myriad of other difficulties (again, another topic). I could do something similar to the level-scaling org archive clothing items as rewards for those missions, but there are two problems with something like that in this case: a) they aren't really repeatable, so players who've already hit them would be left out--unless we tried some sort of vast scheme of forwarding the items to players in the org who've bypassed that rep point, but our chances of success doing something like that are what I would rate as very low, and b) they rely on the reputation system, which has its own issues. So that's another ball of string I'm not too keen on tangling with, although it's slightly more doable than messing with the standard mission system. I certainly agree that they *should* have more of an impact.It is my intent to work on neighborhood missions, gradually. I *think* I'll be able to get to the point of adding a mission and reward to a single neighborhood per update on a semi-regular basis--like 11.3, which added one in Tabor--in addition to the regular content I'm committed to--I might have tried that with this next update, for instance, but I had to do the Winter Holiday instead. Hm also coming up here I have to take some time to poke into MXO on Vista, since I've ***finally*** managed to wrassle up a Vista testing system of my own (and I have no idea how long that will take me to look at or if I'll be able to get any positive changes out of it, but it's really gotta be tried).Great news about the possibility of adding more Neighborhood Contacts. Like I said I love anything that immerses you more in Mega City. I'm one of those nerds that actually did every single Neighborhood Contact mission. And yeah absolutely I agree that rep points should stand for something!
I hope you aren't putting me in that catagory...I've tried to be as civil and diplomatic as possible, and if I've been a little obsessive about this particular issue its only because I really love this game and want it to succeed, and have tried to be very cognizent about not slipping into dev bashing or anything remotely close to that. My point was just that I'm happy you shed some light on this subject, I cetainly understand more of what your trying to get at, and I'm even more curious to check out 12.1 now.
Oh yeah I get the Wright business. I was talking more about the final 11.3.3 NPC's...in my Merovingian mission it was the two lvl 53's. But I assume its not possible...say in any mission in general, wheras on "hard" the NPC's will scale at +1, whether it would be possible to scale an NPC at +3, or +5 for that matter.
Great news about the possibility of adding more Neighborhood Contacts. Like I said I love anything that immerses you more in Mega City. I'm one of those nerds that actually did every single Neighborhood Contact mission. And yeah absolutely I agree that rep points should stand for something!
Danger_Frog1471 wrote: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! There are still Live Events, although the new format is not very much appreciated by most veteran events-catching players right now, which isn't hard to understand, since their frequency has been reduced quite a bit.In the end, the old scheme of daily events failed to reach new players. It was extremely rare for me to be able to interact with actual new players in those events, and I was very disappointed that I wasn't able to make that part of it work. There are many reasons why it didn't work out as I'd hoped, but that's a whole separate topic's worth of discussion, some of which has been touched on elsewhere.Although fairly often in those rare times I did come upon new players, on their own, they tended to assume I was a regular player, or perhaps some freakish sort of NPC.
You do realize the problem with making current events level-exclusive and attempting to provide current live events to low level players, right?
Essentially, they'll have no idea what's going on. Unless you pop up at Uriah and browse the marketplace as Rose or something, and quite franklky, that's dumb as hell and no one wants to show up to that. Sorry to burst your bubble.
The other thing is, the majority of your playerbase are not new. Or, if they are, they will only know about live events because of veteran players, who would likely then lead them to said event. Now, well, it's anyone's guess. But if you weren't reaching them then, I highly doubt you're reaching them now more than then.
You bring up a very good point here, Rare, and I would also like to thank you for at least attempting to wade into all of this in the last couple of days.
As you state above, the feedback on something like a message board (or feedback anywhere, really) tends to reflect more of the negative than the positive.. and when one's time is otherwise occupied it's tough to find time to post negative commentary. Maybe the fact that there is so much negativity as of late can be used as a yardstick, if nothing else, of the fact that MxO's forum using playerbase sees enough negative to warrant posting about it and now have enough free time on their hands to spend posting.
Danger_Frog1471 wrote: 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.Nailed it! Thank you, thank you thank you!Rare I'm happy to see you've taken on this issue, finally! I now have a much better understanding of what you're trying to accomplish. What you are trying to do looks good on paper. But the devil is in the details. And never discount the Law of Unintended Consequences. Rather than go point by point on the many things you've raised which I agree with and strongly disagre with, I want to touch on the big picture here. To summarize another thread:Ballak wrote:The overall point of this thread, is basically saying this:MxO probably will still continue on even with the, "Minority" gone/disgruntled, so I'm not saying MxO is going to die. It's just the new way in which we receive "storyline content" no matter how much it is portrayed as "more dev time devoted" it somehow feels like so much less is dedicated on what a lot of us players liked most.The physical interaction with the storyline.Prior to 11.3 how would I personally defiine this? 1) Live Events 2) LESIG 3) Critical missions 4) Ancillary side stuff that gives you a sense of immersion.Now that 1) is effectively gone for most people, and 2) is definately gone; we are left with 3) and 4) above.This gets exactly to what Danger Frog said above. I can live with 1) provided there's some wiggle room down the road. I understand 1000% daily LE's were completely and utterly unsustainable. 2) didn't effect me that much although that was pretty neat to have.Leaving us with 3) and 4), heightening their importance as vehicles for delivering dynamic storyline content. As far as these new crit quests I see it as a means to accomplish two things. One, access current storyline content. Two, obtain cool new gear. I separate the two in my mind. I came up with this idea way upthread:Villemar_MxO wrote:That's my biggest problem with the update by far.Solution: Make them dual-purpose critical missions. If you just want the storyline, then provided you have enough rep (60 sounds fine by me), and you're willing to risk missions instanced Downtown (if that's the case), then you should be able to achieve that goal. In fact I like the idea of missions instanced downtown, it gives it an added element of danger that's very Matrixy.If you want the gear, then yeah you can go for them via farming the secondary spawns. Keep those reward items level based, 30/40/50 whatever....To summarize: Keep the rep requirements. Instance them wherever you please...in Stratford Campus and Creston Heights if you want. Keep the level requirements for gear obtained by farming secondary spawns. No one loses anything at all by eliminating the level caps this way.If you character meets the requirements and/or is willing to dodge higher level mobs, by all means they should have at it!And elaborating further based on what you've said and using 11.3 as an example. BTW I've fooled around with running my Mero 50 with a lvl 2 to see what happend scaling-wise. So lets use that as an example too. Mero 11.3.1: There are no NPC's just Suit contacts here but I assume if there were they would be scaled at lvl 26. I step outside and am attacked by lvl 30 Accellerated Suits. They don't scale below 30....exactly as it should be. They drop pens.Mero 11.3.2: There are NPC's to fight. Scaled at lvl 26. I step outside and am attacked by level 40 AWP's. They don't scale below 40....exactly as it should be. They drop O-Bits.Mero 11.3.3 There are NPC's to fight, scaled at lvl 26...but to complete the mission you have to fight 2 lvl 53's. Mission finished.So my question is, would it be possible to say compromise for those who only want to access the current storyline, and understand they ain't gonna get any sweet gear out of this? By 1) Removing the pen needed and the anti-override thingy to get 11.3.2 and 11.3.3; and 2) Scaling the final .3 Big Boss to +3 (x2) or +5 of your level, whatever the case may be? Is that possible?(The reason I'm trying to spell this out so crystal clear is because of some naysayers that still continue to conflate accessing storyline content with getting cheap eazy gear.)But I did want to touch on 4) because there is a lot of potential here. The best things about Update 64? RSI masks & new neighborhood contact mission. I've had a lot of fun farming the masks, honestly. I've gotten re-aquainted with a lot of the neighborhoods and gangs, especially gang bosses that don't drop any keys so you normally wouldn't have any reason to seek them out. This gets to immersion in Mega City, which I'm all for. I'm also a big fan of the new Neighborhood Contact mission. For the lowbie content and again the immersion factor. And no, just because I have two alts that have done every critical mission since probably Chapter 3 yet are now shut off completely from criticals 11.3 and onward, I am not saying there should be more lowbie content as a backhanded way to lobby to get access back for my two alts. I've actually taken an honest to goodness new player, level 13 atm under my wing. Last night I asked her, "So, how are you levelling, are you doing standard missions?" Her: "Yes." Me: Have you done any archive missions yet?" Her: "What are those??"You get the idea. Really if the stated goal is to bring new people in to the storyline, and now current storyline is designed for endgame, how is a new player supposed to get from Point A to Point B without getting bored and leaving after a month?This is where 4) can help. New neighborhood contact missions....perfect. How about new Standard Missions? New Graduation missions? (lol those are completely irrelevant now!) You get the idea.I'm sorry for the long post but I see what you're trying to do and seeing what we as players want...and what we signed on for in the first place....and am just trying to reconcile the two.
Quoted to demonstrate full cohesion of opinion.
It is my intent to work on neighborhood missions, gradually. I *think* I'll be able to get to the point of adding a mission and reward to a single neighborhood per update on a semi-regular basis--like 11.3, which added one in Tabor--in addition to the regular content I'm committed to--I might have tried that with this next update, for instance, but I had to do the Winter Holiday instead.
Sorry for going off topic, but I was curious if you had any problems (gameplay, personal, or otherwise) with somehow making the neighborhood contact missions replayable. It's one of the few examples of content in this game that can't be replayed. Sure, it's old content, but there are people who haven't done some of these missions for years (myself included).
It would also help people refresh their memories, which would be helpful if there were new neighborhood contact missions that referenced older ones. Like the new Chessman mission you added, which is a continuation of the one before it. I hadn't done that older mission in a long time, but I do remember that it was about the chess set that was described in the new mission.
Neoteny wrote:
You do realize the problem with making current events level-exclusive and attempting to provide current live events to low level players, right?Essentially, they'll have no idea what's going on.
Essentially, they'll have no idea what's going on.
That isn't much different from how it's been already. They may have more of an idea because of the cinematic, and possibly because of the org meetings (where I did run into a few new players, and at least one of them had a pretty good question, which was nice, if not statistically significant). Also, a side effect of not having daily events and weekly missions, is that the story is going to be less scattered and more concentrated, and probably easier to follow as a result.
Unless you pop up at Uriah and browse the marketplace as Rose or something, and quite franklky, that's dumb as hell and no one wants to show up to that. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Haven't you heard? The next Agent Smith is a bubbly, somewhat insecure, rather stereotyped teenage girl armed with daddy's credit card.
Me, me, me.
Speaking of a new credit card, Rarebit, this is Sunday, shouldn't you be out Christmas-shopping or something?
