Lockely

Heroic ATs are all written in neutral language.

You have to take into account that the new blood Homecoming needs to be directing their efforts to are the subset of people who 1) still play MMOs in 2024, and 2) aren't already used to CoH's archaic systems. I've tried getting friends into this game. Some have been successful. Most got to level 10-20, said the game felt clunky and the enhancement systems overly complex with poor in-game info on them, and that they kept running out of money without being able to fill up their powers, and uninstalled it. Thre's a reason I've been so active in the NPE threads both on beta and around here, and it's because I'm literally watching people try and immediately leave this game. We can't support it forever on the lineage of old players. We need new blood to pick it up, and if that means making some of the pain points easier, then we should. None of those pain points are going to matter once you get your first 50 and start doing end-game content anyway, so why make it harder than it needs to be in the interim?

Ideally, it would award you a Vigilante point. Vigilante's very specifically sometimes kill people if they deem it 'justice.'

That's kinda what I was getting at above with my General Feedback and Focused Feedback split threads suggestion. Focused is *functional* testing. Does X work the way Y intends and what things are we missing to ensure it does? What barriers are we hitting when trying to reach that goal? General is *emotional* testing. How does this feel to play? Is the design intention viable within the gameplay loops when combined with other ATs in group content? In a perfect world, how would you redesign it? As someone who came up in my industry from front-line staff to now management, I have found the most valuable tool in my toolkit on both sides of the coin is explaining the "Why?" behind the "What." The "What" is good. It's important. You need to know the meat and potatoes of it. But the "Why" is just as important as it can get people to see your perspective and the importance of it. People are free to disagree with the "Why" and those perspectives are valid too, as long as they're presented in a civil manner, and sometimes they might even change your mind. But the "Why" goes a long way towards setting reasonable expectations. At the end of the day, we're all volunteers here. Volunteer devs with volunteer testers. We're all focused on making the game the best it can be as a group. The devs clearly have a vision for things, so please let us know what that vision is, even if its just in general terms.

Back to my initial point however, the Focused threads are anything but Focused because we're not being told the intentions of what you actually want tested. It's just "Go. Play with this." and then nebulous build changes without any explanation that spin off into arguments with borderline antagonistic dev responses to valid feedback (*waves hands both vaguely and furiously at the Arsenal Control thread that both THIS thread spawned from, AND the "What I wish Arsenal Control Looked Like" thread spawned from*). Like, the entire ten pages of "Wet" arguing should never have happened. Just tell us what you want us to test and what your intentions are. Jimmy, you're good at this. Your NPE thread is great. We've gotten a lot of actual good testing and revision from it. The powers threads need to match or exceed that level of communication, especially for something as in-your-face as a powerset. We interact with our powers more than anything else- more than contacts, more than missions, more than character creation, more than literally any other thing. The core gameplay loop doesn't have a loop without our powersets, so they're the single most important piece of new content being added, and they need the love and care you're giving to other additions.

I would absolutely *love* a PEAT, but I think the way to make it happen functionally with a smaller dev team might lie with the choices we get in Praetoria (and be maybe make it fit into existing lore since everyone is force-drafted into Powers Division anyway if you have any aspiration of powers or usefulness with them.) Instead of starting at 1, you have to choose to become a PEAT at 20 in the Rift Enclosure mission. "No. I will stay here and fight for Praetoria." At this point, it closes down the Rift and you remain a Loyalist or Resistance, and you end up getting funneled to First Ward with the existing storyline, but a new contact and a side story every 5 levels: Provost Merchand for Loyalists, Belladonna Vetrano for Resistance. At 24 you undergo elite training for either of them, forcing a respec with two new primary/secondary powers unlocked (similar to Arachnos EATs) Praetorian Guard for Loyalists who want a Physical option, and Seer for Loyalists who want a Magic option. On the Resistance Side, you have Resistance Commando for Physical, and Resistance Runesoldier for Magic. At 30, you'd have to be funneled into a Hero or Villain zone as we have officially run out of Praetoria themed zones, but you retain your alignment representing the interests of Praetoria. Power Loyalists and Crusader Resistance are functionally Rogues and go to Villain contacts/the Rogue Isles, while Responsibility Loyalists and Warden Resistance are functionally Vigilantes and go to Hero contacts/Paragon City. Unless we get a new/converted 30-40 co-op zone like Crey's Folly or Eden (which would make sense as you're maybe sent to help destroy the Primal Hamidon so there aren't *two* Hamidons.)

I would grab some screenshots showing what you mean and put it in Bug Reports.

Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes (or a dozen) can make all the difference in the world. CoH is under new management. I'd prefer to hear it from a Homecoming dev that it's "impossible," because as someone with a programming background myself, nothing is "impossible" just "really inconvenient" or "not worth the man hours to refactor other systems to get it to work." Expanding the backpack in WoW was "impossible" too, but they eventually did it. Additional examples: In FFXIV, YoshiP (the producer) was on record stating that both a checkmark on consumable collection items you had already obtained was not possible with the game's code, as well as damage type colored/demarked scrolling combat text for enemy spells (i.e. physical vs magic vs unaspected). We now have both. Impossible is usually a cost-benefit analysis away from possible. You just need to spend the time refactoring legacy code to make it happen, and that is, quite frankly, excruciatingly hard in these old MMOs. Doable, but that's time you could spend working on new things instead.

Hero - Superpower Technology And Resource Trader ( I like this one best from my post above) Villain - Shameless Trafficker of Arachnos Reserve Tactics Praetoria - I can't come up with anything that starts with START that fits Praetoria. Additionally, I liked that it had a different but similar name altogether (Transact 4 Victory), so I propose calling their vendors: P.O.W.E.R. - Praetorian Operational Warfare Equipment Requisitions Alternatively Praetorian OverWatch Equipment Requisitions if you want to keep the no war/utopia in Praetoria lore point

Today I received my first piece of in-game feedback for my AE mission, and was surprised to find out that the form you fill out sends a global whisper. I later found out from a friend they had also filled it out, but since I was offline, I never received it. Is there any way we could have those feedback forms re-directed to global email instead, especially if the creator is offline? I don't think it's reasonable that I have to be terminally online to see people's in-game feedback, ya know?

So we're actually doing a backronym for S.T.A.R.T.? Okay, few ideas below: Superpower Technology And Resource Trader Super Training And Resource Tools Selling Temporary Auxiliary Restrictive Toolkits Switching The Acronym for Recent Testers Supplementary Tools for Ability Refinement Trader

Thank you for the test! Yeah, I thought the Energy/Electric theme was a good fit for a group using steam-punk theming but maybe I overdid it? I rarely chose custom power selections, relying on the programmed difficulty selectors (Standard for Minions, Hard for Lieuts, Bosses, and EVs). I was kinda designing by the seat of my pants, so maybe I should go back and actually plot out who has what and see if I can adjust a bit to make things slightly less like fighting an army of Malta Sappers. I initially did most of my building and testing when I was in the level 20s, so even I have gotten surprised on recent tests. The Advanced Prototype in Mission 5 absolutely demolished my Bots/FF MM in half a second on one test. Only allies got the extra powers because I wanted them to feel like they *mattered* to the mission and with them you'd stand a chance against a GM solo. I actually created both male and female versions of each type of mob, with both ranged (dressed in Red Vests) and melee (dressed in White Vests) in each category, with the exception of the robotic ones since they're meant to be mass produced. Mission 4 notes: Edit: Further discussion on Enemy Powersets Below the Spoiler

I feel like, without knowing exactly *what* the goal of the specific tests are, the nomenclature of "Focused Feedback" isn't really helpful. I know it's more for you folks to read, but maybe open a General Beta Feedback forum alongside Focused Feedback so we have a place to 1) discuss specific sets outside of the focus of specific tests and 2) have a place for testing under a specific direction. General is "Mix/Match this with everything and tell us how it *feels* while trying to break it in ways we couldn't have possibly foreseen." Focused is "This is our intention for the set/change/update. How well does it work under that specific criteria." This way it eliminates the back and forth chatter of both groups and eliminates the animosity between both the devs and the testers. On top of that, it offers us clarity so we don't have to play a guessing game where something is supposed to fit in to the overall mold of the game, and aren't trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. A direct clarification that you are not accepting suggestions for major changes within the Focused Feedback threads would also be useful, as it sets an expectation on what the testing is meant to accomplish. As said before, this is the first time testing for a lot of us since the NCSoft announcement a month ago, and I, along with others, was under the impression things were more malleable than they apparently are. That should be made clear at the start so people understand the scope of our mission here. Blank Slate testing just seems to generate aggro between all parties.

Update: 2/5/2024 Added some optional Lore glowies and gave the text boxes both a readability and style pass for mission titles. Added tips to missions where optional lore clues are as well as number that can be found.

Hey there, do you happen to have an updated Dual Pistols - Marital Combat Blaster build (not Blapper)? Thank you!

Knife Thrower is absolutely something I'd love to see. I have a character I want to re-create from Matrix Online who was a Master Knife Thrower, and going dual blade stalker doesn't scratch that same itch.

I wonder if it would help everyone testing these (and future) new sets if the devs behind them put their intentions for the set into the testing prompts at the top post. I know that's significantly helped with FFXIV's balance patches, as they explain in a few short sentences the reasoning behind specific buffs, debuffs, and reworks so the players can better view it through the lens they're intending us to view it through.

You might want to refine this and post as a new player over in the Beta Focused Feedback: New Player Experience thread. For everyone else: As discussed in detail in the "Is the in-game economy weird and broken?" thread over in general, for a new player the market seems like a daunting 300 step list of things to do before you can afford anything. (See PatternGhost's post above.) It really shouldn't. I don't know if the solution to that is to bring the costs of DOs and SOs down a bit so they can be more affordable for new players or maybe nudging drop rates to more match the players origin or what, but we shouldn't be dismissing the feedback of new blood and dumping three wikis worth of info on them as they struggle through their first character and then expecting them to stick around long enough when they're wiffing 3/4 of their attacks and hitting like sponges while getting totally wrecked by even/+1/+2 conned mobs. As soon as they max out, they're going to quickly find themselves rolling in Inf and funding their alts, but most people forget the struggle of their first character once they're six alts in.

There's room for compromise is there not? The standard display right now is incredibly basic, while the detailed info pane is the polar opposite, being somewhat daunting to parse. What Fade is proposing here is a good middle ground in-between, allowing players to choose their level of more granulated complexity. Having a Basic, Intermediate, and Expert power display option is only going to help people in the long run.

That's why I suggested a toggle up above. Default is the vague pips-like system @Jimmy proposed. I like that idea. It gets the information across a little better than "Strong". But a toggle for an at a glance look at the base numbers on the power itself for more veteran players (similar to how you can toggle on recharge timers) would satisfy those who want to dig deeper without having to pull the power details window up for each and every power.

To be entirely fair to them, they did a significant amount of testing trying to make the set work before coming up with this alternative (seriously, you can find their testing on the main FF thread), and the only response they got was to have their feedback moved out of the thread and into the new one under a title they didn't get to pick and is borderline insulting. They're angry and rightfully so.

As an avid FFXIV player, I'd argue that if you asked 30 people who all raid what 100 potency actually meant, only one of them could tell you that it was 3 auto attacks worth of DPS. Numbers are good, but most people just go "Bigger Number = Better Skill" unless they're hardcore theory crafters. Recharge time is something that should absolutely be visible on power selection, as "Slow, Fast, Faster, Very Fast, Very Very Fast, ect" are all only minimally useful. I think the problem back in the day is that people might be turned off from the game in general if they knew their first two attacks had 4 and 8 second recharge rates off the bat. I can understand that. People still complain about FFXIV's GCD being 2.5 seconds and saying combat is as slow as molasses due to it. But once you're in and really getting a feel for things, I don't think it's a problem. So, what about a toggle solution? Initially start with text, and then have a menu toggle to swap to numbers once you know what the game loop actually is and you're bought in enough to understand it.

I will echo the exact same thing I said in the other thread to the person who said "Well you should have applied for Closed Beta if you wanted your feedback to matter." The NCSoft Announcement was almost exactly one month ago. For a great many of us, this is our very first opportunity to provide any kind of feedback on a new powerset being introduced. What is the point of having "Focused Feedback" threads when they're really "bug reporting and unintended interactions" threads? Focused Feedback gives the impression that the feedback we provide, especially if it's overwhelmingly on one specific issue, is going to be taken into account and adapted as needed towards the final goal. It does not give the impression that what's been moved to Brainstorm is set in stone and they're looking for simple tweaks. No one is calling the devs idiots, and I would thank you not to put those words in our mouths. I, as well as many others, love the concept of these new sets, but they need baked a bit more. The non-power Focused Feedback threads have seen the devs in charge of those going back and making non-insignificant changes to their plans, or adding things on to alleviate the issued provided as well. We seem to only be having this issue with new set development.

I don't play controllers a lot but I find it's worth listening to the people who do. As a relative layman, it felt okay, but the more I read from those of you who actually know what you're talking about the more apparent it became that there were fundamental issues with it. Shin's set made a lot more sense with that context, but it's unfortunately clear the devs are too busy focusing on their specific, unnecessary timetable rather than ensuring that everything that's put out is good. I understand the need not to sit around fiddling with things forever and eventually ship it, but locking things into place before people to whom it isn't their personal project have had a chance to test them seems counterproductive to me. I've seen larger dev teams who are actually getting paid and need to meet deadlines to make money on the project have less abrasive reactions than this (as well as pulling planned features back to cook a bit more taking the feedback into account), and moving this entire thread of discussion under a title that frankly feels belittling is borderline insulting. I'm sure the features they have planned are outstanding, but at a baseline, the power sets are the things we interact with *most* in the game and they're what needs the most assurance that they're making sure each new one is as best as it's going to be. Even if that means holding it's release off for another issue.