UltraAlt

It is a scale thing. I wander into the PVP zones occasionally, but I'm not going out of my way to PvP in PVP zones. The Arena is pretty much garbage. Always has been. When this goes live, I might go to the PvP zones from time to time, but it is highly doubtful that I'm going to make a Temporal Warrior. If they are there, then I'm less likely to go there. If I could pick a ready-made I would be likely to go there more often, which would still be almost never. So no, the discussion thread isn't proof of how many players will participate on a regular basis in game. There are only 4 pages of comments and I know that I'm several of those posts.

I would tell the DEVs to keep their masks on. Yep. I doubt that any DEV is working dozens of hours a week. I'm very glad for what they are doing. I'm very satisfied with Homecoming in general. I think the incentive is that the DEVs and GMs truly love the game, they know that other people love the game, and they want to provide the ability for us to enjoy the game together. The players (DEVs and GMs may be included) pay the funds to make the game accessible to all of us. I don't think they are worried about attracting players. I don't think they should be worried about it. let me zero in on this bit ... Because I don't want to play end-game content because I don't enjoy it. I fully understand that some amount well over 50% of the characters on-line at any given point are level 50. So yeah, I'm not worried about being in or, for the most part, gaming with the "biggest pool" of players that currently play Homecoming. I understand your point is about population size in general. I rarely play on Excelsior. Because they believe that they are doing things that will make the game more enjoyable. Wow. Well, at least that finished on a good note. I wasn't sure where you were going.

That's great. I'm glad that sub-50 AE arcs are encouraged. You didn't get lucky, it was your skill in writing the missions and being willing to post to get them acknowledged. In no way do I begrudge you that, I keep my mask on so it limits my operations at some points and this is one of them. So this proves a point that it was acknowledged as a good arc by the DEVs. That is one thing and the other are they actually being played? You could still write, post, and get DEV accreditation for level 20 arcs even if only level 50's can have access to the AE. Why would a level 50 play them? Same reason they would play Oroborus mission arcs. Veering off is good. I would hope at some point that DEVs Choices could be moved into the actual game. Yours looks like a good example of the kind of thing that could be added into the game directly instead of random players finding it through the AE or by reading about it in the forums. Even if what you state is 100 % accurate - which I say it isn't, but that's descending into "She said/He said" - so what? I'm confused about your comment about accuracy in my statement. Are you saying that I don't post arcs? I think I have 3 up at this point. I have about 8 in various stages of being completed. Some of which just need to be updated from before the Sunset. I think I have had one commented on. I can't tell by ticket count how many of played the missions that I posted, but I would have to say not many. You should have an idea by the ticket count and comments if anyone is playing them. In my experience, most AE play tends to be done by the mission creator recruiting for players to run their missions the same way that one would get a team to run any other kind of content. I have run into 1 player publicly announcing that they were looking for people to run their arc in the /LFG channel, so well over 99% of the /LFG chat that I see for AE is Farming in general or doorsitters. In no way was my comment above descending into "She said/He said". You didn't reply into regard to how much traffic your missions get, and I haven't refuted your claims. There is no need to be defensive. The DEVs are seeing this. Some other players may be reading this. It is getting the situation out in the open which is the whole point. I actually don't understand this statement. Please break it down for me. Your point is a very rational reason that one could take to only allow AE access to level 50s. From your reply, you seem to have posted your comment with all sincerity. You have to understand that the people that want to continue abusing the AE are going to 1) always think that it is okay and 2) are going to find ways to defend the power-leveling. Myself, I find powerleveling in the AE different than power-leveling that occurs by level 50's say in police scanner missions in Peregrine Island. AE farming power-leveling is based on players building missions to abuse the system to reap rewards. Running police scanner missions can also level you quickly, but players are generally fighting targets that they have to defeat in a fair fight ... that isn't to say that they aren't picking and choosing the enemy type, but it is a limited choice and one that the DEVs worked into the game. Maybe you see where I'm coming from and maybe you don't. I wish the DEVs had stuck to their guns when the AE first came out. It would have taken policing efforts and/or a lot more coding to catch balancing issues. I know that the Homecoming DEVs don't have time for the policing efforts, so any abuse of the system would have to be handled through coding to catch balancing issues. AE Farming is ingrained in many as the way to play the AE and game in THE CITY in general. Honestly, that is one of the main factors that drove me to stop subscribing to City of Heroes almost exactly a year before the Sunset. My stance has nothing to you with you, and I'm sorry that you would experience collateral damage if my suggestion would ever happen. The Farmers and power-levelers all think it won't happen. I'm seeing changes and sometimes someone has to throw the bone out there to see who pounces on it. I would love to be able to go into the AE and pick any mission and not find myself in a farm. I can go in there and check out the DEVs choices, but all the farming stuff has kind of soured me on the AE quite a bit. I could ask the DEVs for more AE slots to post more of my non-farming AE missions, but I honestly feel like "what's the point?" I'm glad that you are sticking with it, keep on making honest story missions that other players might end up playing. I really used to think creating AE missions was a lot of fun.

If they were fine with characters getting power-leveled to 50, they wouldn't be taking the AE out of Atlas, or maybe it is only certain players they are trying to discourage from power-leveling. Removal of AE from Atlas is a thing. I have zero reason to lie to you.

I write them to, but how many players have played them? Only ones that you take along with you? I mean be honest about it. I don't want to say it sounds like a power-leveling defense, but it sounds like a power-leveling defense. Are your level 20 missions DEV Choice missions?

You can say what you want, but you aren't a DEV. If they wanted to say it to me they could.

It is in fact the game. The level 50 stuff is end-game.

You mean like pre-made characters that everyone has access to, but they have to be named and have the option to customize costumes? /e facepalm

I think that would be the wrong solution to get a TW an extra respec.

Great. They only excel by abusing the system that wasn't created to be used for farming. The AE changes are anti-farming. The AE was not built for farming. I make A LOT of influence off of farmers and those that they power level. They don't have respect for the currency. They think they are swimming it it when they are actually in the kiddie pool. Removing the AE from Atlas is great, but more needs to be done to stop the power-leveling. It might be time to start rethinking about locking the AE to level 50's only.

Agreed. I have done it just for the fun of running around in the PvP zone fighting the PvE stuff and getting some badges. I hadn't really thought of it as a place for easy Shivan hunts but I'm not a badge wh....er... badger. My favorite PvP characters on live were stalkers. I would wait until a hero was fighting a PvE enemy and were down to half health before I ran in for the assassin strike. Would you consider that ganking? You have to go running around looking for other players to fight in a PvP zone and most of the time these days you won't find anyone. PvP on live was pretty toxic and it drove a lot of players away from PvP. If there is too much ganking going on, then people just won't go the the PvP areas any more. It isn't like you are forced to go there. If gankers ruin their own fun, then it is on them. If the PVP zones are like they are now, there won't be that many characters to gank to begin with. It will balance out. It would be more of a balance if players could pull pre-mades, but this appears to be another step toward pre-mades. Maybe there will even be a DEV lead contest to post the best PvP builds so that they can add them to the game as pre-made selections!? Will this show that there really isn't all that much interest in PvP? What is the correct one?

The same way any other character would except you would have to hand-off the respec recipe from a PvE character to the PvP character. So I guess this also promotes that everyone should make an alternate account for doing some of the hand-off work.

.... because people power-leveling to level 50 isn't a thing? I mean, I'm glad that this bypasses doorsitters and, hopefully, reduces farming .... wait, you can get into the Pocket D and there is AE there, so.... a PvP flagged character can't go into AE missions, is that correct? I guess giving access to all of the incarnate powers is somehow supposed to be leveling the playing field, but, honestly, I think all the incarnate powers should be locked out of PvP.

What's the harm? No one is using those zones anyway. Are you seeing some population in the PVP areas on a server that I'm not seeing? I was thinking about that as well, but think they are built as critters and not player characters which makes a difference in how they operate. If you go with presets, I think it should be like Street Fighter. Everyone has access to all the premades. The additional ones would be the new releases as the DEVs had time to generate new premades and add them to the system. It isn't an all or nothing thing. Start with one of each archetype and then build on that if players utilize the premades. If they don't, then the DEVs can stop worrying about it unless they decide that it is something fun for them to do. I don't see why not. If a player expected to kit one out, then it shouldn't be all that hard to at least kit out a couple of premades for release. ----- in case there is some confusion, I'm suggesting the prebuilts as an option. During PvP character selection you would pick a premade the same way you would pick an archetype, and they would load into a character slot the same way any other character would.

This is your chance to provide suggestions to improve your (and everyone else's) game experience. What would you do to improve Blackbeard's Pub?

Okay. I can see how you can get to a supergroup base and exit into the same PVP zone, but how to you move from PVP zone to PVP zone? Enhancement issues? Really. Isn't that what base storage is for? Use your PvE Characters to put gear in your base for your PvP characters. Seems pretty obvious, but... Funny how development is one step at a time ... So how do we resolve this? Most PVP zones have a safe/starting/staging area. Add a supergroup portal in the PVP zone safe areas so characters can travel to bases? What about the players that don't have a supergroup base? (Trident?) I'm assuming you have to "level up" through the normal process to pick powers and slotting, or would it work more like a respec? I would think that since this is level 50 PVP that it should work like a respec. Pick your powers and then pick all slots. Do you need to talk to a trainer to do this? will there be one in the PVP zone starting areas? Will there be insp vendors in the PVP starting areas? .... because people power-leveling to level 50 isn't a thing? I mean, I'm glad that this bypasses doorsitters and, hopefully, reduces farming .... wait, you can get into the Pocket D and there is AE there, so.... a PvP flagged character can't go into AE missions, is that correct? Let's cut to the chase. At this point, this should be heading towards having cookie-cutter template PVP characters that can be picked that are already slotted up and enhanced, etc. (everything is locked in. You can look at the enhancements, but can't change any of the build. The only things that a player does with those prebuilt PvP characters is name them, costume them, and move the powers around in the trays. You can still make your own "Temporal Warrior" but the option for a pre-built character gets the player into PVP faster and .... I mean ... that is the intent for this ...to get characters prepared for PvP faster in order to try to promote PvP, is that correct?

level 1s average login/logout time 20 seconds 3 per minute 180 per hour playing 12 hours per day = 2160 characters logged per day 64,800 level 1's logged in within the 30 days if the player does nothing but log in characters for 12 hours everyday of the month. 32,400 if only 6 hours every day 5400 if they only spend 1 hour every day logging in level 1s to keep those 5400 names It is more likely that some people will start spending 2 minutes everyday checking to see if 6 names have been freed up? 5 minutes to check 15 names? I mean, that is what they want, right? They want to start checking names every day to see if they can get names that other people are losing.

You won't. That's the point. Neither will anyone else. Why? Because it doesn't let you know before other people so you can jump to get a name as soon as it is available? Not true. The only one that benefits is the one person that gets the a name once it is unlocked. That's how it works. Once it is available, the next person that tries that name gets it. How is it that "the first person that tries to get the name once it is freed up gets it" is not fair? And that is the first person that tries it once it is freed up, and not the 2nd one. Do you really think that the system should be designed to track every name a player enters into the system and fails to get?

I asked about that earlier in the thread. They said that was already in the system.

Ack! Maybe I should have posed this one the weapon sheathing thread.....

I'm been trying to figure out how to answer this. When it comes down to it, it's about being user friendly. Trident is currently built like a zone and not like an entry level base designed for ease of use. When you enter, the trainer isn't there to greet you like Ms Liberty in Atlas. There are so many contacts that is hard to distinguish who is just standing around, who is relevant, and what to expect before clicking on most of them. I seems to me it would be more user friendly for a new player if the vendor and leveling contacts all had the colored circles under their feet. I would put the trainer pretty much directly at the entrance near the railing before the submarine. I would put an enhancement vendor (and lock this so you can only buy enhancements of the origin that you can use), insp vendor, and P2W vendor right near that trainer. In the next section of the base, I would also include those 4 again, along with a base entry portal and teleports the low level zones, Hollows, Kings Row, Steel Canyon, Skyway, Perez Park. Maybe even have it drop you off at a Tram station or zone entrance instead of the SG portal. in the very back of the base put all the task force contacts with lowest level task force stuff closest to the way into the room. Put the Merit vendor and Respect contact back there along with maybe an O-portal and Null The Gul (even if this is a limited version that doesn't allow alignment changes. Honestly, the submarine seems like a great way to get to the PVP zones or the Rogue Isles. It would be interesting to put in some "open to the public" salvage racks and insp/enhancement storage.... just to see what happens.. Basically, what is a player that doesn't have a base want to get out of a base? access to those four basic contacts and a quick travel hub to get around the city in a way that is intuitive without needing to look at the mini map. Solve the door problem by putting you at the entrance door regardless of which door you enter. Isn't that how City Hall already functions? And make it like City Hall when you leave ... you always exit toward the Atlas statue regardless of which door you use to get in. Origin specific enhancement vendors that will direct characters of a different origin to the correct origin enhancement vendor, but will the option of additional origin lore to characters matching their origin would be kind of cool.

This would allow "people in the know" to get names but keep those that might randomly get a name from getting it. Seems like less flexibility to me. With the system the way that it is, no one knows when a name might enter the state where someone could get it. It is unlikely that any group of names would become available all at the same time. I'm seriously thinking it would be weird for people to take time every day to check even 10 names everyday to see if they can possibly "capture" one of them. I mean this isn't Pokemon, and no one is likely to capture all the names that they want. [ .... going off on a tangent here that isn't related to the person that I'm replying to, but I think it's relevant to character names in general ....] I understand that some people want "a certain name" or several names that they feel that they "own" or that are somehow inherently theirs. That is really what freeing up names really comes from. I never really bothered with using my favorite name(s) on every server on live (in order to keep other players from using it). It eventually did happen with one character name (the name of the first character I created when logged in that week before Issue 2 dropped) before the Sunset, but it was a unique enough name that no one had picked it. I've run into someone using one of my names from live here. (Well, I didn't actually run into them, the name was simply taken when I tried to pick it) I think the first revision of the name that I tried was successful. How long has it been now? A couple of years at this point on Homecoming? I finally went to another server and tried that original name that someone else had picked on the other server and I got it on Everlasting just a month or so ago. I honestly don't even think that I've tried more than 5 variations of any character name before getting a successful character name. Only one of the character names that I had before the Sunset that I have tried so far was taken and that was in the example above. It isn't to be mean, but you aren't really being that creative if you are having that hard of a time getting a name for a character. I would say that you are either picking a name that already exists somewhere in fiction or something easily triggered in the collective unconscious. I mean sometimes it just takes the addition of an adjective.... .... is so much a part of the comic book culture that gaining adjectives for your character's name as you level is built into THE CITY .... if you want to use them. I just find it ironic that people having issues naming characters in this game that is based on and allows so much creativity. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot .... it isn't about being creative, it about some players wanting to have "their name" .... so much so that they want to be able to take it away from another player that decided to try to pick it before they did. I mean, isn't that what all this is really about?