mechahamham

Going back to the cancer analogy, I feel like this is saying 'Cancer is inevitable. You're never going to stop it.' Even if it's inevitable doesn't mean we shouldn't stave it off as along as we reasonably can. I think the kind of bitterness we see really is fatal in the long term to the game, especially with our pruned playerbase. I highly doubt even the most stringent of rules would stop people from doing this. However, even basic rules and a sense of care among players would go a long way toward making it less harmful. Right now we have a situation where most players think there are *no* rules. Code of Conduct? What's that? I'll discuss my personal politics if I bloody well want to.

As the HC community grows and we engage both returning CoH and new players, we're developing a pretty serious problem. A vocal minority of players loudly deride certain power-sets in help and general chat. Some of these are people who are still bitter about nerfs that happened over a decade ago. Some just want to complain. The end result is the same -- new and returning players both hear power-sets described as inadequate, under-performing, and even unplayable by others who *seem* to be knowledgeable on the subject. Please note that this isn't the same as more quantitative discussions on why powers or power-sets need re-balancing. It's also different from in-jokes about powers. 'Can we even have an update if we don't nerf regen?' isn't the same as 'Regen has been completely neutered. It's a shadow of what it used to be'. The latter is something I heard pretty much verbatim in Excelsior's general chat channel. Nobody wants to hear a power-set they like dumped on. In the mind, it's very easily equated with 'your character is weak' or 'you chose poorly when creating your character'. That's bad for player retention and for attracting new players. More problematic, however, is that it leads players away from choosing power-sets they might otherwise have picked to fit their character concept. When a new player asks 'What's the best power for brutes?' and hears nine players say something along the lines of 'We don't really do 'best' here. The strongest players are those who spend time learning their characters' but then hear a tenth player say 'Whatever you do, don't choose Energy Melee. It's been nerfed to the point of uselessness', that rail against Energy Melee stands out. Even if a player is attracted to the brightly-glowing fists of doom, one player's bitterness about a previous nerf has now been seeded into another's mind to fester and distract them from the positive qualities of the power-set. (Again, the line about Energy Melee is taken as verbatim as I can remember it from Help chat). This reduces the perceived broadness of the game. It makes it look like it has less to offer than it does. In turn this has a real negative effect on the longevity of the game by reducing player retention in the long term. This *kind* of complaint is endemic to MMOs in general. You can hear it on any forum or any chat channel in pretty much any MMO. It has similar effects. The reason it's a more serious problem in City of Heroes is the fact that our playerbase is somewhat tenuous and much smaller than it would be had we not all had an enforced hiatus from the game. Some people are wary of coming back to the game even if they want to for fear of a 'crack down' on private servers on NCSoft's part. The damage inflicted has far less growth to overwhelm it. If the game and its playerbase were a cancer patient, large parts of the patient's body have already been amputated. While the patient hangs on doggedly, even small tumors are much more dangerous. What can we do to counter this? First, make it as well known as possible that the Homecoming staff is working with NCSoft to become officially licensed. Linking to posts like the one Jimmy recently made: wherein he indicates that communications are still open with NCSoft is a good idea. Any official information from the HC Devs or NCSoft on this process will broaden the game's long-term 'viability', making damage done by bitterness less intense on the balance. Even little tidbits like this help significantly and can draw new players and returning players to the game. Second, positively-minded players should increase their vocalness and engagement of new players. It doesn't really accomplish anything to argue directly with those who want to bitch. However, directly telling a player who's been told 'that power-set sucks', 'there's nothing wrong with that powerset. A lot of people really enjoy it. The person who told you it sucks is bitter about an old nerf. Choosing it absolutely does not mean that you won't be able to do any content,' does a tremendous amount of good. Reassure new and returning players whenever you can. Finally, we need some real accountability rules in help, lfg, and general chat. These are the first places new and returning players see. Plainly stated rules that appear upon player login would help in other areas, especially with the U.S.. general elections coming up this fall, but would certainly help to stem this problem as well. "Rules: 1. No politics or religion. See our Code of Conduct for details. 2. This is not the place to complain. Do so in our Suggestions and Feedback forum. Please /petition players who break the rules." Most players who complain, when asked why they don't play on another private server where changes they dislike have been reverted, will reply with something like 'I know, but I like to be able to group.' They know that HC is the best thing going for the CoH community right now. However, they also cling to the idea that because Homecoming is a 'free' service they can say what they want to without consequences. 'Let's call in a GM and have them tell me I can't say what I want.' (Once again, both directly taken from chat.) Please make the game as welcoming and as positive an experience as it can be for both newcomers and returning players. That's the only way to make sure that CoH survives into the next decade.

Your suggestions are good, except for getting rid of the knockback. I like my KB on Dragon's Tail. I WANT my enemies to go hurling away so I can chase them down. There are already options for players who want to change KB. Don't take it away from those who want it.

It means that the security cert expired at midnight and has yet to be renewed. Notice that end date there (today). It may require a manual install on the HC devs part. It's not a huge deal unless it gets dropped on the floor and left for more than a day or so.

And that's the wonderful thing about having the code 'in the wild'. I can play on those servers if I want to. I've heard that some servers cater to the pre-i3 experience, reinstating such things as no aggro caps. I know people who'd love to play that way. I'm not one of them, but the choice exists. I should have clarified my OP with the statement that I thought that a 'Classic' experience would be a good feature if and when Homecoming got an actual agreement or license from NCSoft. It would probably be relatively low-hanging development fruit... database work and fairly simple conditional coding. Right now, I'd *rather* have work on new costume options if possible (More asymmetric goodies, please!) A "classic" option would be something to help expand the playerbase.

One of the things I love about Homecoming is the ability to tailor your own game experience. For example, I don't much care for accelerated exp of any kind. I disliked 'Double Experience Weekends' on the Paragon-era live servers. I can, if I want to, use the NoXP option to completely turn off my experience as I'm going forward to avoid outlevelling content. However, as I explained to my wife, showing her the contents of the P2W vendor's inventory, if you want a 2xp weekend, this is where you get the stuff to make that happen. 'Slow' experience is not the only part of the 'Live Server Experience'. There are other limitations that were designed to make the game more engaging that we have cast away for the sake of time and longevity... like having to actually go to the Consignment Shop or Black Market to use it. I can see a demand for an game option or temp power that would reinstate the 'Live Server' conventions and limitations. At least I have that demand on some of my characters. You could even tie it to membership in a Supergroup, so you could have 'Classic' Supergroups. Why not having a 'Classic Server'? While Everquest has proved that these work and work well, our limited population causes a problem: Homecoming players seem to gravitate to where they can group. At the time being, this means that Excelsior has a large population. If you were to tie 'Classic' settings to a server, so few players would use that server that it'd almost be pointless to have it. With a setting or a temp power, you don't *have* to provision out a new shard. I'd like to see the 'Live Experience' setting or power come in two varieties: The 'Going Rogue Experience' setting would have restrictions that were in place right before the shutdown: You had to use the auction house physically, couldn't use base passcodes, etc... The 'CoX Experience' setting would have restrictions that were in place before the release of 'Going Rogue'. Hero and Villain ATs are enforced. There were no heroic brutes or villainous scrappers. Alignment changing is not allowed. Certain powersets are 'villainous' or 'heroic'. There are no heroic pain domination defenders and no villainous empathy corruptors. WSTs don't award extra benefits. There are no incarnate abilities, etc... Allowing these settings to be placed on a supergroup would encourage large teams of players to group together under the same limitations. Yes, you absolutely can challenge yourself and adhere to these restrictions if you want to already, but having a unified framework for doing so encourages a larger number of players to use it and group with others who are using it. It also opens the door to gearing new content towards this framework. Imagine awarding an account-wide badge to a player who leveled a character to 50 with no experience modifiers at any time, perhaps at issue 3-era speeds. Do you like this idea? Do you hate it? What changes would you make to it? What restriction sets would you like to see made available?

Today, I answered the trouble call to help Admiral Sutter defend Independence Port from Sky Raiders and Praetorians. By the time my group had finished, we'd followed the trail of Praetorians to Talos Island, into the sewers beneath the island, and up into Skyway City, where two (or more) Colonel Durays were coordinating an attack on the city's transportation infrastructure. We engaged the multiple Durays, dodging strafing fire from sky-skiffs and attack aircraft and... And there was Derek, calmly walking along the center median of a still-intact stretch of freeway. While we were fighting, and Derek didn't even look up. For my group, it was a do-or-die fight against invaders from another dimension. For Derek, it was Monday.

This. A thousand times this. CoH is in the hands of the players now. Solicit and promote AE arcs for this kind of content. Freed Seer: "Some of my sisters have banded together for protection, but they don't know how to tell the difference between people who are merely hostile to them and people who are actively attacking them. We need to restrain them before they go to far. Please save this group of protesters, hateful though they may be, from my sisters." Things like that. Give some general direction on the kinds of story arcs needed for the zone and then cherry pick. The best part? The runners up stay in AE and broaden the amount of content available for players!

One of the things that I believe either Manticore or Positron said while working on some of the later issues is that there's a real problem in tying things too close to the original design intent. "We're asking new, creative people to work on something decided by people who don't even work here any more if we do that." In our case, we're asking volunteers to complete work by people who were quite unfairly fired years ago. I think that we either need to let the Battalion go, or put development of Battalion-related content in the hands of someone who is particularly devoted to the idea and really wants to carry that torch. I personally think that, at least until we know one way or the other how Homecoming's status as a 'legal' hoster and/or developer will go, we need to say that the Battalion is on indefinite hold. IMO, We don't need more itrials. We need more 1-50 content for all the players making new characters. There are lots of good ideas in this thread. I particularly like the ideas about Praetorian Wu Yin and Syndicate attempting to move in to the area. We don't know what the Sky Raiders are planning after the big reveal in Market Crash. I do think that Nemesis and the Rikti have been done ad nauseum. I also think that there are lots of good NEW villain groups lurking within creative minds. Mission Architect is full to bursting with them, if you can just dig down below the compressed crust of Fire farms. Even if we want to stick to ideas that have been partially fleshed out in game, the Coralax and Black Blood of the Earth haven't been well explored at all.

That would be the ideal solution if it were to work consistently. I've had players drop team as soon as they got the star or refuse (or not know) to invite others. Some are intimidated by the league interface for big gatherings. In the situation I mentioned above, I didn't have time to so much as ask if the 50 wanted the star. The other happens too. I've been on a team that filled, and the fifties on the team asked the 20ish team leader pass the star. He was either not reading chat for focusing on the event, or refusing to pass the star. Pretty much everyone on the team dropped and reformed without him. I feel that's punishing someone for trying to take the initiative when nobody else would. When in zones with invasions where I'm not high level, I often say something like, "I'm willing to help organize, but don't want to exemp anyone down to my level". It *usually* works out eventually. I just feel that there is a code solution with relatively little effort for this problem.

The recent Nemesis invasion event and the current Rikti invasion event are highlighting a problem that's existed since the Paragon-server era: Invasion zones are full of folks requesting teams or leagues, but have very few people willing to lead. Usually there are a few, but unless they are 50, people invited to their teams are exemped down to the leaders' level. While bomb hunting in Talos as a 24ish blaster, I had a teammate tell me 'Sorry, too low', quit the team, and immediately go back to asking for a team in broadcast before I could try the usual work-around of seeing if he had a mission I could set as active. It kinda ruined the vibe of the event for me-- it killed my imaginary sense of urgency. Here are some suggestions for addressing this issue: - Extending the 'select a mission as active' work-around, if a mission is not set as active when a player joins a team, the highest-level mission available is set as active. This is not terribly ideal since it could set a 30 mission as active if a level 30 joins a team and then a level 50 joins the same team later. - Allow team and league leaders to use a command like /setactivelevel 50, or implement a UI that does the same thing. This has the benefit of allowing knowledgeable leaders to deal with the situation, but might cause problems for those who haven't read the patch notes or command listings. It'd also have to be very carefully tested to a) make sure it works with GM scaling and b) ensuring that players could not use it to horribly cheese their way through content. I can see it going awry if players were to use it to speed through badge farming or 'defeat x enemies in zone' missions. - My personal favorite: During and only during an invasion event, characters in the zone all have their levels hidden and are given GM scaling so that they are effectively 'level-less'. Again, this would require a fair bit of testing. I'd love to see a message like 'This zone is under attack. You can safely ignore your security level to defend yourself and others from invaders.' A less-complex variation on this one is to temporarily disable team-based exemping if your team leader is in a zone with an invasion. This has the benefit of needing less testing and probably less coding, but runs awry of breaking 'player expectation' for the sake of providing a convenience.