First things first, there’s not much about CO that one can wag their finger at. We can all clearly see Cryptic's hard work and effort has finally payed off in providing us with such a spectacular MMO. However there is a huge "issue" with the way the mission and teaming interface operates that has the potential to cause this great MMO to have a short subscriber life span.
Now before any of us get up on our soap box, please listen and listen carefully and if you agree that something needs to be done to address this issue, please keep this topic on the front page by bumping it with your signature of support. Let’s get this petition going.

Ok Dev's here’s the problem:

The problem is with the teaming interface and how it DISCOURAGES rather than ENCOURAGES team and co-op play. Anyone who has been lucky enough to enjoy your previous incarnation of the City of Series knows that the pinnacle of entertainment for that MMO (not to mention why even after nearly 5 years it’s still a solid performer on the market) is the ease and reliability of its PUG's. (Better known as Pick Up Groups)

This interface is such a success in many ways, but perhaps it’s best because it assumes that not everyone is capable of organizing a team, getting everyone on the same page, providing directions to a location, and making sure their level is sufficient. Each of these tidbits are reasons why the CO teaming and mission interface needs to be altered and addressed. That doesn’t go to say it should be identical to the City of Series, but it shouldn’t be so demanding where as only a tight group of well organized friends can enjoy the co-op aspect of the game.

In the city of series, each player was responsible for playing any arc of their choosing that fell within their level and like Champions Online, are rewarded with a mission bonus for its completion. Consequently in the City of Series, REGARDLESS of what arc any player CHOSE, if they wanted to play with a FRIEND or STRANGER at any given time to support them on a mission that was DIFFERNENT from theirs, THEY TOO were REWARDED with a mission completion experience bonus. It’s this basic motif of “lets work together to reach a common goal”, with the common goal being to level up, that is the core to building a solid foundation for a successful MMORPG.

For those who may not understand, or whom may be confused, here is the general…I repeat GENERAL of two scenarios of Champions Online that has the potential to make this a subpar mmo. Player 1 has the mission “Why did it have to be purple “. Player one attempts the mission, and finds out he/she is not able to complete it on their own. The NATURAL thing to do in this situation is to FIND TEAMMATES. Player 1 is lucky enough to find fellow CO players which will be referred to as players 2 and 3. Now that there are three members on the team, Player 1 and his/her companions are ready to try “why did it have to be purple” again.

STOP

Now the first problem with this scenario is that with the Champions Online teaming interface, in ORDER for ALL members of that team to receive mission complete XP, the mission needs to be shared….fair enough. However…”Why did it have to be purple” IS NOT A SHAREABLE MISSION. The major question is WHY?! It’s a random instanced indoor mission given by a civilian contact. This mission share feature NEEDS to be ELIMINATED from the game completely because the rules behind what are shareable and what isn’t is calculated behind the scenes and unknown to the average player. Members of the community should not have to be REGULATED, FORCED, or EXPECTED to be on the SAME CHAPTER of the SAME ARC as the tens of thousands of other players in the community, in order to be rewarded for their time and effort if they want to team. Not only is this a ridiculous idea, its next to impossible as thousands of people can’t and won’t all play on the same schedule, have the same goals or will want to work together.

Now since this is the current Champions Online interface, and seeing how for most players this is their first experience with the game, players 1,2, and 3 will attempt “Why did if have to be Purple” in hopes that since THEY ARE HELPING another player complete a mission, they too will be rewarded for their assistance. Well its now twenty minutes later and even though it was a tough battle, players 1, 2, and 3 have succeeded in completing the mission. However since players 2 and 3 DID NOT have the “Why did it have to be purple” mission in their mission computer, (AGAIN BECAUSE IT WAS NOT SHARABLE) they are not rewarded for with bonus mission complete XP like player one. Twenty minutes of time for players 2 and 3 have been wasted getting only minute kill XP, while player one not only gets the Pay load of mission complete XP, but the minute kill XP as well.

STOP

A blind man could see this ENORMOUS PITFALL. For those of you who can’t see it I’ll spell it out for you. For those who understand please sign the petition so something can be done.

Players 2 and 3 come to realize that they were not rewarded for their time and effort for helping player 1. (Again through no fault of their own since the mission WAS NOT SHAREABLE)Player 1 is apologetic about this misunderstanding and offers to help them run through two more twenty minute runs to make up for it so that players 2 and 3 can receive their reward. Neither players 2 or 3 have the energy, or for that matter have the drive to participate again because neither one of them wants to run the same mission AGAIN without being rewarded for their efforts.

None of this would be necessary if EVERY mission was SHAREABLE, or if the mission share feature was ELIMINATED and everyone on a team was REWARDED for their time and effort. However this is only the tip of the iceberg as to why this pitfall can destroy the community. Here lies the real problem….

Now realizing how the teaming and mission sharing interface works, Players 2 and 3 NO LONGER join teams with players who don’t have the exact same missions as they do. Which in turn ostracizes about 80-90 percent of the online community. What this does is causes too many players to SOLO in order to level up, which in turn SLOWS DOWN THE PACE FOR EVERYONE who has realized the flaw in the teaming interface. You now have a queue of up to about 15-20 players in your instance trying to kill the same Super Villain or enemy in order to progress in their own arc. NO PAYING CUSTOMER IN ANY MMO SHOULD HAVE TO WAIT IN LINE in order to progress their game or enjoy their story. Both parties are now losing out…those who wish to team cant because no one wants to because they aren’t rewarded for their time and effort, and those who wish to solo are now hindered because they areforced to wait in long lines in hopes of getting a shot at a enemy spawn to progress their own story. It deadlocks the game for the entire community.

Now the smart-alec may say “this is when people should be teaming and this will solve the problem” and while yes that may be true…the damage of not being rewarded for your efforts has already been engrained, not to mention solo players will now be FORCED to team and the queues won’t go away because there with now be four teams of five waiting for an enemy spawn as opposed to twenty individuals…this will still cause a deadlock.

Perhaps the absolute worst part of all of this is what the next poor player 1 who attempts “why did it have to be purple”. He, like his predecessor, simply cannot solo the mission alone so NATURALLY he seeks teammates. When he does this one of two things happen….

He and his fellow players will be introduced to the same scenario, realize they are better rewarded for playing alone than in a group, and become solo players. This in turn only increases the queue amounts and the overall time that everyone else will have to wait in order to continue playing, thus eventually driving us to spend our twenty minutes doing something else outside of Champions Online, rather than waiting fifteen minutes trying to get enough damage in on a spawn to get credit to continue our story.

In all fairness to Cryptic they have Lairs for players later in the game, and a feature they call Open Missions. This is their answer to the problem listed above….however open missions and lairs are in some cases TOO DIFFICULT for small groups to complete, and with players already under the assumption that if they don’t have it they won’t get credit for their time and effort, they don’t bother to try and participate. And what does this result in…MORE SOLOING and bigger queues. This is a simple problem that cryptic can fix with a patch. Either allow every mission to be shared so that ALL players are REWARDED FOR THEIR TIME AND EFFORT or remove the mission share feature and allow everyone that is on a team be rewarded with the mission completion bonus.

I know this is a lot guys but if you’re like me you’ve been a City of Fan since the beta, suffered through the horrendous open beta fiasco of August 17th-20th and are now doing all you can to enjoy the head start weekend prior to the launch on the first. If you agree with any portion of these statements and desire Cryptic, a studio that is known for listening to their customers and integrating their feedback, to make this MMO as successful as it can be, I beg of you to sign.

Let’s come together as a community and do what we can to make our new and spectacular game even better. Besides…with CoX third full disk expansion pack right around the corner, we need to help Cryptic get off to a flaming start so that most of us won’t abandon this MMO and invest in one of our old ones.

Block Of Text Attack Go!!

Signs.......

Your absolutely right this could become a major issue i exprenced this problem already. Lucky my friend and i were doing the same quests for the most part so it worked out but each and every quest should be shareable. And defininitly upgrade search menu such as level ranges and such. Maybe even search under 2 superstates so you can pick the general kind you need.



SIGNED!! ALODYLIS THE TRUE ARTEST

Signed.

I said the same thing >>>here<<<. And from the mumble of other players, there should be others saying the same thing.

I'd sign, but that was a huge text attack and as far as I can tell a lot of it was arant over what I'm sure isn't intended behaviour.

It makes absolutely no sense for Civilian missions not to be shareable, I don't think we need to petition this, I'm sure it's on the agenda.

The team interface needs some changes to let people group up. I like the gist of where this was going but I'm sure something is in the works.

//Signed//

And, he was not talking about JUST random civilian mission, he was talking about all of them. it makes now sense why I cant join my friend to help her with Medusa, and not get any XP for it.