Minor Membership Privilege Proposal: Popping Private Phases

So the new Phase Shift UI is out for a while and it got me thinking what is surmised in the title already:
Let members have the ability to create private phases for open-world maps!
This isn't an extensive plan but I would like to think this also means you can give your phase a customizable name and a password so not everyone can barge in.

What use would there be for this, you might think?
My main reasons for using this would be for when I want to solo stuff and don't want random people to bother me, or when you just want a small pool of friends and league mates together with you, but other people I've talked to about this also suggested this can be useful for collection farming or to hold Livestream of open-world competition with two (or more?) evenly sized phase.
I admit that the last one seems weirdly specific.

You might be thinking: "I have no use of this function, pugging would get more difficult and there will be shady phases with speed hackers, so I believe this to be a bad idea and whoever cooks up and supports this idea should ROT IN MMO HELL"
I think these are valid concerns but also not really such a big deal; it's okay that you don't care about using this and just join other public phases, which is what most people are doing anyway so it's not like casual players would find it nigh possible to run OW content, and speed hackers mostly exploit instance content anyway that they really should be curbed in other ways than not letting this idea happen.
As someone who-I-spoke-to-in-private-and-will-not-reveal-so-this-is-the-most-credit-you-will-get said: "the on duty menu is basically just popping private phases, anyway", so I don't see any side-effects that come out of this would be particularly detrimental to the game at large.

Why make this a membership privilege then?
With the biggest paywall features selling points of Legendary being open to most, this might be a tiny thing that members can have, and I expect any future perks the devs would be willing to add might be features of a similar nature.
It might also be a minor step to avoid this being abused, though maybe other safeguards can be imposed like a cooldown timer of 10 minutes so no one can start an infinite number of empty phases?

That's all I have on this topic, scratch that itch for the toilet puns you no doubt have in mind.
Just please don't send me recordings of you reading the title ten times fast.

That would probably put unnecessary strain on the servers if everyone was opening up their own private phase.

As someone who-I-spoke-to-in-private-and-will-not-reveal-so-this-is-the-most-credit-you-will-get said: "the on duty menu is basically just popping private phases, anyway"
So, how is starting private phases any different from everyone starting a new instance?

Because stuff from the on-duty tab tends to be smaller maps, or at the very least smaller than what you're asking for. Plus on-duty stuff doesn't have respawning NPCs. Take out the mobs and you're done.

Open world maps are bigger and have much more going on. Respawning NPCs, shifting bounties, collection nodes, and so on. Something like that is going to be a bigger strain on the system and likely a waste of resources as well if it's spawned only for one person.

Plus, to be blunt, asking for your own private open world map just seems kinda selfish. Believe me, I get how annoying it can be dealing with other players at times in open world sections of the game. But open world sections are playgrounds for ALL players, and sometimes you're just gonna run into other kids who don't want to play nice.

Apples and oranges.

Isn't this what PVP phase is for???

Absolutely not, considering the heavy nerfs to shields and healing applied to players while in there, and the risk of being assaulted (with HQs not even being safe anymore.

So you can't explain it and just dump a snappy one-liner instead. Brilliant.
You really owe willflynne likes for making an effort where you dare not. So goes to all who praises you instead of him.

There maybe a difference in scale, but so far as I know, assets between OW and instances isn't that different in terms of how they are being processed.

Another thing is the server isn't just handling assets rendering but also player actions. Try this: use a very slow internet to load whatever map and do nothing, it might take a few seconds to be sync'd with what an npc is doing at the moment but your internet can catch it up pretty soon. But if you have 8 players (or even less!) fighting a boss, the connection would need at least a few minutes to get back in sync if not up to an hour. What we can surmise from this is that even a few player's commands requires more processing than a giant map. So there's another reason I don't think the "Server can't handle this" argument holds up to scrutiny, you can try my example yourself.

I almost wish I can get a developer or two to comment on this. Almost.

I don't think you need a justification like "people are mean" to want to run things alone or in a small group, like it's simply less likely to step on others' toes when you want to farm collection, you may want to test things that even one player joining in would mess up the results, or you're an introvert and having a bad day that makes you not want to interact with other players as much as possible. An MMO is for everyone to play together no doubt, but I don't think it means that alternate playstyles/niches that doesn't cater to having a party crowd should be cast out.

I know people who use pvp phase for a more private experience yes, but there are still disadvantages like weaker shield calculations and unwanted pvp combat that people can sucker you into, hence I gave my suggestions that might appeal to them and with more potential uses.

I didn't feel like typing out a whole paragraph from my phone especially after someone had already typed a reasonable explanation. As you were.

Healing / Shield nerfs only affect players in an Arena - the PVP phase itself in open world actually doesn't much (if any) noticeable effect on Shields and Healing performance. I do pretty much all of my "I did this for ****talking points" bounty hunting there.

Besides, if someone sees you solo an Elder Demon, they're not going to attack you - unless, you know, suicide's a thing now.

(Edited because apparently you can sneak one past the goalie and I don't want to mess up the Forum mod's "no profanity" rule)

Not true. Just being in PvP phase weakens your shield calculations considerably. I tested them myself while soloing many open world bounties, my shields become at least twice as weak.

Also, I was talking about being assaulted while on the way to whatever objective I had, or (with how there is still a faction HQ glitch) even being attacked as soon as the phase shifter is used.

I will try to elaborate the pros and cons about this idea, but before I do I will try to explain how things work.

In order to create an OW map there are a few requirements that must be met:
1) Allow a great number of players to interact simultaneously
2) Extend a big area (Metropolis/Gotham are the best examples)
3) Provide multiple quests (Bounties/Collections/...)

In order to create an Instance:
1) Very little players/Low Interactions
2) Small/Medium sizes maps
3) Straight forward progression (Kill adds, Kill boss, done)

As you can see, this are too very different scenarios, in one side you have the necessity to allocate resources in order to allow the many players, in the other, the goal is to allow as many simultaneously instances as possible.

As you may know for different problems there are different solutions, and that translates into different types of servers.
That's also why there is a limit of how much players can join a given map, is not because of developers will to do some, but instead a compromise between Price/Resources.

So now that we understand the differences, I will like to explore the pros and cons:
Pros:
. Great to play with friends
. Great to test stuff

Cons:
. Requires an additional infrastructure(server) to support said players that join and its highly volatility(1-all your friends)
. Development time taken to develop such feature (UI, Servers Allocation...)
. Costs (Development, Maintaining Resources, Purchasing resources)
. Unecessary increase of code complexity, hindering future development a.k.a future legacy system
. Can be easily exploited (hackers, money sellers, Yo mama, you name it)

Well this is all I can think off. Personally I think the idea is cool and some games do it, but for dcuo to my eyes it doesn't seem practical. Still new ideas and suggestions are always welcome

But as I said, those mobs are gone once you defeat them in an instance map like a solo or alert. They don't come back. Even in a multiplayer instance that's likely less stress on the system because there's less overall activity. And in instances where collections appear (like the Science Spire solo) you get maybe a couple spawns and that's it. No collection respawns (at least none that I've seen).

Meanwhile an area like Central City or Time Torn Area 51 constantly has new mob spawns, not to mention maps that have collections nodes that are scattered all over the map. That's a lot more activity taking place on a consistent basis because if you take out one spawn, it will either respawn or start another one nearby. Grab a collection and it sparks another one to appear elsewhere. It never ends.

I am very much a player who likes and prefers to do as much as possible on my own, and in open world areas I would prefer to be left to my own devices most of the time, so I do get where you're coming from. It's especially irritating for me because in the other MMOs I've played basic etiquette says you don't jump on someone else's spawn and you don't jump in on someone else's fight unless they ask. But between the "everyone gets credit" bit and the "gotta do it NAOW!" mentality of some players, and who knows what other reasons, that doesn't happen here.

But between walk-in portals and the on-duty tab full of instances, there's plenty of content a player can hit if they want to isolate themselves from the idiosyncrasies and irritations provided by other players. If you happen to come across an open world map where you're the only one there or there's maybe only one other person around, enjoy it and appreciate while it lasts. But I stand by what I said earlier, it's selfish to ask for a whole open world map to yourself, especially as a part of membership.

Hmm....

Umm....

I think it would be more feasible to ask if members could have "exclusive walk-in" raids. Since we already have walk-in raids in the HQ's perhaps the devs can rotate those out for new raids on a regular basis and make those "member-access only" walk in raids. I don't think the devs would consider this idea, but I think it would be a more approachable project.

In response to the first point - interesting, but I did verify it and you do not appear to be incorrect. I'll chalk my not having noticed it before now up to the fact that I was more focused on killing things and succeeding in that meant that I wasn't noticing the damage coming in quite so much.

In response to the second point - I usually switch over to my PVP armory when I got into an area in the PVP phase initially, because I've been ambushed too". You kill someone five seconds after YOU show up, and they tend to leave you alone.

But to address a much earlier point: I have also found that - if you want to run something solo and people keep interrupting your fight?

People will let you run it solo when you stand there, let it kill them, then say "I'm going to let it keep killing you if you interfere again".

That's one I never really get tired of.

Right, but outside of soloing bounties, how impactful is that to open world solo gameplay? I know soloing bounties is your thing and I myself count doing that as one of my favorite things to do in this game. But IMO, that benefit alone doesn't warrant the gargantuan mountain of work it would take for the devs to make this suggestion a reality.


People tend to forget that for the devs to do something, that's time, energy, resources, etc that aren't going towards something else. For a team as small as they are, that can have a major impact on the game. Sometimes I wonder if people make requests with the mindset that they just need to convince the devs that it's something that should be in the game. At which point someone snaps their fingers, utters the words "it shall be so" and it then magically appears in the game

Appreciate it :3

Though about exploitation... I already said speed hackers should be dealt with in other ways (and really, if there are only a few players in a phase with just one speed hacker in it, wouldn't that just make it easier for such anomaly to be detected?) but I'm curious how can money sellers take advantage of this specific proposal

...except that's not what happens behind the wheels. Those mobs are ultimately scripts. The script says they don't respawn, they don't respawn. The script doesn't just get deleted to free up space after that. The same goes for collection nodes, effects that appear on the screen is just the tip of the iceberg of what the server is maintaining, I don't know why you think "things respawn" is such a deal-breaker for this to work.

You mentioning Area 51 only serves to remind me that old alerts DO have constant mob spawns and collection nodes, and their scale is big enough to warrant repurpose as open worlds. They aren't going to cause vastly more strain than say Atlantis solo.

Did I mention the slow internet test to see what loading causes more burden? I mentioned the slow internet test to see what loading causes more burden. Spoiler: it's not necessarily the contents of the map itself!

I... already said that the behaviours of other players are not a necessary component for people to want a quieter experience.

A phase being empty does not mean it is a gift as well: picture a scenario where you only have 1 Metal Gotham bounty left, both PVP and PvE phases don't have the one you want, but both have 1-2 players in there that prevents the map from being reset. That would be a good opportunity for such a feature to come into play. It's not just about solitary but also as alternate functions.

This suggestion is no doubt not for everyone since it's not for conventional use, but I don't think the idea itself is inherently selfish.

I would suggest it's the opposite. Phase functionality is a hot topic in recent years and this suggestion is an extension of that, while walk-in instances are practically phased out and not touched again, see Paradox Wave. Wonderverse solos don't count as they don't function the same way, see the scoreboard description.

I have to say, it's a bit surprising that those two topics don't overlap here much, and I feel the same way about the cold reaction that portal topics don't get as much, at least that's the impression I got.

People... use shields? Like when you're killing a bunch of Gotham goons or foot soldiers that you can't deal with quickly thus use a more survival loadout? Some interactives you just pop a shield, do a cog/carry away object then run away so not to do any killing? For the bonus DPS effects that some provides?

I think everyone here is exaggerating the negative effects if such a function is implemented. This isn't an out of nowhere suggestion but an extension of the ongoing hot topic of phase functionality, nor a system that needs to be built/rebuilt from the ground up. This not being a necessary component of gameplay is why I say it's a great candidate as a membership perk as it may come in handy in some circumstances.

I am so sorry that my suggestion is not a full assessment of the situation worthy of a business proposal, didn't hammer every single minute detail, show no awareness of opportunity cost and gave you the allusion that I believe devs are magical fairies that don't need to be paid and can just whip up whatever on a whim.

There's another thread of changing power colours. The dev explicitly said it would require an "extremely massive undertaking". It garners popularity. Why are there so few naysayers there wanting resources to be "allocated more efficiently" while here I'm considered no being realistic, and when the cost here are all pure guesses? Just to be clear that's a rhetorical question.

Yeaaahhhh no. This is a terrible idea. Why would people want a private phase? What good would even come of that? This game isnt populated enough for all that. Whats even the point of that?

Or use the new phase shifter to go into a phase with minimal people?

Your reasonings behind having it are not enough to allow for it to become a member benefit. Point me in the direction of an MMO that has this option for open world content.

RED - They respawn, thats what everyone does when everyone leaves the instance, they stay in and go on hunting for collections.

YELLOW - Thats still very very very low amount of CPU cycles to just respawn one thing, since Collections have an absolute respawn point, there isn't even a random to choose a different place for them to respawn.