PeregrineFalcon

You know, I probably would too. I have about 60 characters across the servers, and there's exactly 3 whose names I wouldn't voluntarily give up if a GM politely asked me to. Those are my namesake, my main, and another character who's named after my oldest son.

Your statement here implies that GM Crumpet is a complete idiot. Worse, it makes it apparent that you think we're all idiots, because that's the only way that anyone could agree with this disingenuous post. Now I've had some serious disagreements with the moderators in the past, and I have the warning points to prove it, but I don't believe for a minute that any of the Homecoming GM/Devs/Staff are stupid. I find it far more likely that if GM Crumpet had seen a bunch of accounts with names like Test0001 -> Test 0857 it's highly likely that he they (sorry, didn't mean to assume your gender) wouldn't have said anything because they understand that no one is upset that they can't name their new main Test 0157. People want "cool" names like "Captain Skyway" and "Knight of the Hollows", so it's far more likely that the hundreds of camped names, that they're referring to, are names that fall under the subset of "cool", not utilitarian stuff like Test 0485. And you know this Excraft. Your entire post is utter disingenuous nonsense. No one is gonna get banned for having 800 variations of Test 0123, no one is getting banned for having a ton of characters named "Bzzrzrzrzrrrk" and "Urmomomoommmmmz" and you know it. In your zeal to win the argument you've gone completely overboard and you're trying to make a point that no one with a 3 digit IQ is going to believe for a second.

Thank you both for confirming what I said, years ago, in the last thread where we talked about this name release policy. Just to recap: we have a GM confirming that many accounts have hundreds of unplayed, name-camping, level 1 characters. And, we have a player confirming that he logged on shortly after Homecoming started and made characters with all of the forum names that he could remember from the retail servers in a deliberate effort to keep them from getting the name that people associate with them. Please remember, just as I said before, that these are the people (players, not the GM) that don't want you to be able to take their character names. Not because they're using those characters, but just because they don't want YOU to have those names.

I wonder how many players would voluntarily give up a name if contacted by a GM. How many of you in this thread would?

There are 5 different MMOs that I play off and on, as well as a half-dozen or so other games that I play now and then. Do you know how many games forums I read often? This one. There are two more that I will occasionally read if I'm bored (or on a temporary vacation from this forum) or I'll read the patch notes if I see an update being downloaded. The rest? I just don't care. I don't go to the forums, I don't read the patch notes, I just play the game. There have been a couple of times where I've logged in and seen a big change to my character: name, outfit, skill tree, etc., I just shrug and ask another player what changed or I google it. I don't get upset, no matter what, because if I cared enough about those details I'd read their forums or at least their patch notes. And this is what's more likely to happen if someone who hasn't played Homecoming in three years logs in one day to suddenly find that he's lost a character name. If they cared enough to get upset about a character name they'd have cared enough to log in more than once in the last three years.

You already know why. Blackbird was right.

Well, I guess I can no longer say that the developers don't listen to our feedback. Between that and the mods no longer banning people for giving negative feedback in the feedback threads, I'm going to have to find something else to be grumpy about. Seriously though, thank you for the change.

Yes. If you're talking about moving characters between Homecoming's servers then yes. If you're talking about moving characters from Rebirth or Thunderspy to Homecoming then NO.

I would like to point out that adding gravity as a controllable variable allows the Homecoming developers to finish the Moon Base zone that Paragon started.

All rules are fictitious things invented by people. And all rules occasionally need to be broken when necessary. Neither the Cottage Rule, nor the Prime Directive, are supposed to be sacred texts or life-long ideologies. They're just important rules that you only break when necessary. You make a good point, but no, the change to Energy Transfer did not break the Cottage Rule. Energy Transfer's core functionality was "high-damage attack with a stun". Currently it's a "high-damage attack with a stun." Its core functionality has been preserved. I'm not sure if this is an example of breaking the Cottage Rule or not. As Cheli pointed out, determining the core functionality of a power can be a little tricky sometimes. One could argue that its core functionality was "ranged control", or that it was "ranged hold." The new version does seem more in line with the name of the power which, for me, makes it difficult to decide. Ultimately though, it's still no longer a ranged hold, so I guess that I have to say that Core Functionality has changed, if only slightly. Which is just a long-winded way of saying "you're right."

Nope. Try again. Try harder.

Please explain to me where the developers broke the Cottage Rule in Page 7.

I find this very interesting because, in open beta for the last page, a developer said that one of the reasons that feedback gets ignored is because it "doesn't address the reason behind the change." Many of us responded with "how are we supposed to address the reason behind the changes when you never tell us what they are?" And a developer responded that in the future they'd try to let us know what the reason behind the changes are. And they did that with some of the things, like the Ancillary Pools changes, but not so much with others. Like the new gun control powerset. At the start there's no explanation about the theme or goals of the powerset and what they'd like us to test. So the thread devolved into bickering back and forth about "the set can't do this" and/or "the set does this but doesn't do that." A lot of those arguments would never have started if a statement right at the beginning said "this powerset is intended to do X without having an AoE immobilize." But hey, at least people aren't getting banned for disagreeing with changes in the game anymore! So that's an improvement that also makes people more willing to test and provide feedback.

Try a Sentinel. Slightly less damage than a Blaster, has a great Inherent Power that will reduce the damage resistance of a boss, Mez Protection and armor that's almost as tough as a Scrapper.

Lieutenant Commander, Ensign, and Fleet Admiral?

It has always been this way on Homecoming. This is why myself, and a handful of others, complained back in 2022 that the devs were ignoring feedback. Of course we were attacked and insulted by the Dev Defense League, many of whom are moderators and devs on their personal accounts. At least they aren't banning people from the forums anymore for disliking a change in a Focused Feedback Thread. You read that right. In the last couple of updates if you disagreed with a change and asked the devs not to implement it your posts would get deleted and you'd get a temporary forum ban. I know this because it happened to me and at least a dozen others.

And what happens to enemies when they're hit with Rain of Fire? They get FEARed and SLOWed and they run away. And you know what they're not doing? They're not shooting at my Blaster. How is that different than the flippity flopping that enemies are doing on Bonfire? And yes, Bonfire is a good AoE CC power. That's why people take it. But it's also supposed to be an EPIC power. And I'm not even asking the devs to revert the change. I'm just asking them to remove the word epic from the name of the pools and to just call them Ancillary Power Pools. They're nerfing the powers to be balanced and mediocre. Ok fine. So if they're going to be mediocre then we can't call them epic. And clearly the developers are concerned with names meaning what they say, look at the "Global Epic Pool Thesaurus Nerf" (their exact words, not mine). From Merriam Webster: epic 2 of 2 adjective 1: of, relating to, or having the characteristics of an epic an epic poem 2 a: extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope "his genius was epic" The Times Literary Supplement (London) b: heroic What part of that means mediocre?

I've been on the test server, and this is my feedback: Bonfire does the same amount of damage as Rain of Fire. Of course Bonfire does that damage across 45 seconds, instead of the 15 seconds that Rain of Fire lasts. And Bonfire isn't available until level 35 (it used to be 41), while Rain of Fire is available at level 6. And Bonfire can't even do the full damage unless it's slotted with a KB>KD IO because it keeps knocking people out of its area of effect. Rain of Fire helps to keep enemies in its area of effect because it has a slow. And Rain of Fire's recharge is 60 seconds while Bonfire's is 120 seconds. So Rain of Fire is numerically superior to Bonfire in almost every way. But we have to nerf Bonfire because it's so OP that no one wants to pick any other Epic Power Pools!!!! It's not as good as Rain of Fire but it's OP!!!!! No, the other 'Epic' power pools suck. What's worse is the way that Bonfire's being nerfed makes it completely obvious that the problem is the KB>KD IO. That just makes it feel like the developers are punishing the players for being smart and using the tools the developers provided us to solve a problem. Let me say this again: you're punishing the players for making smart decisions. If you're not going to reverse this nerf, and we all know you won't, if you're not going to buff the other 'Epic' pools so that players might want to take them, and we all know that you won't, then please remove the word 'Epic' from the title of these power pools. They are many things, but epic they are NOT.

No. City of Heroes cannot "save" the superhero genre. It's not really endanger to begin with, but I suppose that you're specifically talking about the MCU and DCCU. They're movies that were watched by billions of people world-wide. Not anymore though, which is why superhero movies are now failing at the box office. The 100k or so people who might end up playing Homecoming aren't going to be able to buy enough movie tickets to change that. Period. It's simple math. But the genre itself isn't going to cease to exist.

There are several superhero name generators out there. I remember using one that even allowed you to pick a theme for the superhero name.

I see what you're saying, but I don't really think it is to the detriment of the veteran experience. One of the first things that I do when I make a new character is have them fly all over Atlas Park to get all of the explore badges for the free teleport ability. I've done it so often that I know where they all are. With my suggestion all I'd have to do is that and then go to Kings Row and hit the helipad for the final badge. Then I can port back to Atlas and continue leveling up. I agree with you that it should just be left as is. However, since the Council of Thirteen has decided that isn't going to happen, then my suggestion is not only a great compromise, it also addresses Jimmy's issue of discoverability for new players.

Someone suggested moving the Rookie badge from Echo: Atlas Park to Atlas Park right at Ms. Liberty's feet. So what if you did that and the badge caused a pop up that said something like "This is an exploration badge. if you can find just 9 more of them you'll get a free power that will teleport you to different areas of the city, and even to your Super Group Base. Hint: there are 8 other badges here in Atlas Park, so you only have to find one more in another zone, like the one on the helipad in Kings Row."

I just want to repeat this. BONFIRE WAS NEVER OP. The other 'Epic' powers are just trash. TRASH!!!