Xanatos

I've noticed this too. In myself, as well. I think it's just covid lockdown & the political climate putting people on edge a bit. If it makes you feel any better, it seems to just be a forum thing. People in game as as nice as they ever were.

Whoah there buddy. Let's slow it down on the PVP ideas. If you don't PVP, please please please don't start suggesting stuff for it. My dig was at the sort of thread you see all the time in the suggestions forum. They're always bad. But because people keep making them, they start getting traction. Things like this: Or this: And a bunch of posts towards the end of this thread: The forums are RIFE with people who play the forums, and not the games. It can lead to genuine problems. If you disagree. Remember it was forum feedback that lead to Issue #13s PVP changes. Anyway, didn't mean to get into anything here. Just wanted to drop in my perspective. Hope no feathers were ruffled. Mucho love to the Homecoming folks for all they do.

Not if they're being replaced.

Please leave the T9s alone. They're essential (and balanced!) in PVP, and not needed in PVE. If you're adamant about tweaking Overload/Elude/Kuji-In Retsu/Power Surge/Unstoppable, then all you need to do is lessen the crash. (Similar to how the blaster T9's had their crashes removed.) They don't need reinventing. They don't need replacing. Please don't listen to the people with 1000+ posts in the suggestions forum who play the forums more than the game.

You can see the stats here:

Be very careful. If everyone does something, that means they enjoy it. You start making it harder to hit the defense softcap with IOs / mess with hasten / noodle too much with endgame staples, and you're going to irritate every endgame player. (To the point where it will overshadow all the good stuff you're doing.) Again, be careful. Nobody wants to play City of Respecs because you decided to switch off Incarnate powers in regular content. I think it's wise to accept that 8-man content at level 50 is actually just 4-man content now. I would say accept this as the status-quo and build new content on this understanding, rather than mess too much with players. (I.e. New content = 4man limit. Hard as hell. Insane rewards.) There's a thread here from the playerbase about balancing and MMORPGs you might find interesting. Some varied takes found within (Mine is the correct one, of course ): Is game balance pointless in MMORPGs?

Accountability?! Are you mad?! These people aren't accountable to you. You're just some random person playing on their privately-owned server. The Homecoming team have gone above-and-beyond in being transparent with everything, even when they didn't need to. Reign in your entitlement please.

What a horrible thing to say. Donations are for those who support that the game should be back. They don't exist for people to dictate how.

While this makes sense theoretically, in reality this is not the case. To use City of Heroes as an example... I, and plenty of players like me, have fun playing non-OP sets. (I.e. powersets that aren't Titan Weapons, Bio Armour, Fire Blast, etc). On the other end of the spectrum, plenty of people play the aforementioned OP sets every day and are not growing bored of them. (Evidence: How active the playerbase is, and how many of them play the OP sets. (See the player stats thread.) This game isn't challenging. It is incorrect to think that players require challenge in order to stay engaged with it. What players have always required from City of Heroes is their sense of competency being reinforced. This is why min/max TW/Bio players will do hami raids every day, or do TFs over and over; doing so isn't challenging, it merely reinforces that they are competent at the game. To reiterate what I said before - the superhero game makes them feel super. While I agree that a PVE-foocused MMORPG should have some form of baseline balance at release, that's not what's being contested here. What I'm contesting is the idea that further balance tweaks should be pursued beyond this baseline at the expense of player happiness. (I've yet to see a compelling argument in favour of this; And I'm actively looking for one, because you should always test your own beliefs.) My opening post already mentioned that City of Heroes is "balanced enough" to make anything viable, and the context I gave was that balance tweaks -not- at the expense of player happiness are fine.

Was watching this video on balance in fighting games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsC8io4w1sY&list=PLWIbhIYLOq-T7XwgHe2y2hBE8Zr_yeODi&index=14 And I agreed with most of it. Yeah, the obvious counter-argument is: "it's easier to nerf one thing than buff everything else". But I still feel a lot of the points made in that video are forgotten by a lot of nerf-happy game developers. Mainly: that the focus of balancing the game should be to make it more fun to play for everyone. (l'balance pour l'balance = developer vanity.) Yesterday's Flame war PVP Thread got me thinking about how this applies here. PVE in City of Heroes isn't competitive. It's co-op. Not only that, but it's incredibly easy. The thing about PVE in City of Heroes I love the most is that I can take any powerset, any pool powers, roll my face across the keyboard, and still play just fine. It's perfect for a casual gamer like me. It requires none of the twitchy/strategic "gamer skills" that games like Dark Souls/Tekken/League of Legends/Counterstrike/etc require. PVE in City of Heroes is a really deep character-building tool, with a chat client attached. It's a great way to express an idea for a character/style of play, and then play alongside other people doing the same. This is why I think game balancing, nerfs especially, are so detrimental. They limit player expression. Either by making someone's RP character concept weaker, or making a non-roleplayer's unique playstyle weaker. I have never understood why PVE-focused MMORPG developers make their games less fun with nerfs, because I've never understood why game balance matters in an uncompetitive PVE environment. I think this is one thing the old developers from live didn't really -get-. (And one thing the Homecoming team -do- get) This is a superhero game. Don't make people feel weaker today than they did yesterday. The key word in the above sentence is "feel". One of the things that really resonated in the video I linked above was the example of the Ryu dragon-punch nerf: it was a nerf, but it didn't feel like one because it gave Ryu players more freedom. That's what game developers should be aiming for when balancing IMO: trading. If you're gonna nerf one thing in a powerset, buff something else. It makes the nerf sting less, and also ensures the "overall power" of the character hasn't decreased, so players don't feel that you are "taking their character away from them". If you can't find something else to buff, then really consider whether the nerf is necessary.

C'mon man. Don't say stuff like this. MMORPGs are full of people with mental health conditions.

"Lolol triggered!" - @Troo Yes. It is the PVPers who are toxic. Clearly.

Given that you've already admitted you hate PVP so much that it gives you a "seething hatred for the whole of humanity", you'll forgive me if I find this peal clutching a teensy weeny bit insincere. If you think CoH PVP isn't hard, then I suggest you gather 7 friends and go 8v8 over on Indominable. PVP is leagues more difficult than PVE. PVP makes PVE look like a glorified chat client.

"Why do you want more people to play the game with?" lol wat

I very much doubt someone cheesecakingly inclined will be put off by a waiter they can mute.

"I might be lactose intolerant, but the main reason I don't want to eat that cheesecake is because the waiter is rude."

Oh right. I genuinely thought other MMORPGs such as WoW, SWTOR, AOC, etc, had healthier PVP populations. Homecoming's PVP population is around ~4%. So the answer to "how can you grow it" is...you can't. It's operating at its potential already. How disappointing. Makes sense, though. Competitive people aren't drawn to MMORPGs. They tend to go to MOBAs/FPS/fighting games.

@DrBasics, @Dragotect, @Troo and everyone else who disagreed with my above post. (It's hard to tell. What with so many of you agreeing with me whilst also saying you disagree), a challenge: Outline how griefers/toxic players in CoH differ from griefers/toxic players in other PVP games. Outline how this difference is significant enough to be the main reason PVP is unpopular in CoH. Thanks.

All this "police your own" stuff is nonsense. Trash talkers are in every game and are not the reason PVP is unpopular in CoH. Stop being so solipsistic to assume that your own bad experiences/judgements are somehow universal. The reason PVP is unpopular in this game has nothing to do with how toxic/nontoxic people are. It is for two main reasons: CoH PVE is insanely easy/casual/uncompetative. CoH PVP is the opposite of this PVE builds play differently in PVP PVP doesn't match the PVE experience. So people hate it. It really is that simple.

Self-imposed rules are as meaningless now as they have always been.

100%.

Siren's Call is such an incredible map. And the bounty system is amazing.

Why don't PVE people arguing and being toxic on the forum, or PVE people being trolls in the General channel, put you off PVE?