macskull

Not really. There have been many systems which were rewritten from the ground up as they were changed and reverting those changes wouldn't be trivial. The original code doesn't exist anymore, unless someone happens to have source code for older versions of the game floating around.

It's what, like 1 or 2% buff/debuff? In an environment where DR already reduces buff/debuff values, they're essentially meaningless.

I'm the exact opposite - with a few exceptions I find little reason to play a Defender over a Corruptor. The higher damage cap is huge, and while it's true Scourge is kinda useless most of the time, it really adds up against hard targets (and honestly that's the only time sustained DPS is relevant since other mobs will die quickly anyways).

It's possible, but to get numbers like that they'd have to siphon off a sizeable chunk of Homecoming's playerbase, and that isn't going to happen. That, or have a huge advertising budget... which also isn't going to happen.

I think the SEGS project is working with an old code base, though I don't remember if it's I4 or I5. They also don't have a playable product yet either.

I'm sorry what

Why not play this one? Sure, the graphics are a bit dated, but there really aren't any others with similar combat mechanics.

Seems so. "They fixed" that in the summer of 2019.

What do you mean, they already fixed the bug that bypassed the -def if you stacked it! /s

Rebirth has weekly PvP events which usually have a dozen or so players attend. It is entirely possible for someone to play on more than one server (raises hand). Rebirth exists because a group of players wanted an experience that was more true to the progression system on the live servers than what I25-based servers have. They're doing their own independent development with that principle in mind, though they've taken steps to reduce the "grind" compared to what it used to be.

Sure is. I'm here for the same reason everyone else is - this is where the people are - though I do use Rebirth as a "vacation home" so to speak since every time I log on my Guardian over there I cry inside because Homecoming is stuck with Sentinels. As to why this is where the people are, that topic's been discussed at length.

The first "competition" (which is an odd way to put it since it's not like the servers are competing against each other at all) used an I25 code base as well, but can you in good faith fault anyone for looking at the huge list of post-shutdown changes and going "woah wait a minute that is very different than what the game used to be and I don't like that?" EDIT: I also did not include in my previous post a discussion on the queue server kerfuffle, which prevented teams from running high-capacity servers unless they had specific configuration information. Since Homecoming basically had that delivered in a gift box it's not hard to see why they might have been at some advantage to begin with, even if someone else had managed to pony up the resources to run a server.

First point: if tens of thousands of players had weeks to establish themselves on a server and another server came along that server would need to have some absolutely knock-your-socks-off features to get a significant number of those players to move. Unfortunately no other server even had the chance to do that since the codebase was in the hands of a single group of people. Most players started on Homecoming because they found it first and then either didn't know or didn't care that other servers existed. Second point: you are correct in that Bree came before Homecoming, but the same people behind HC were the ones behind Bree (for the most part). The individual hosting it may have been different, which is why it shut down when they got spooked by a fake DMCA takedown notice. Here's a rough timeline of how the first month of things went down, for those following along at home. April 15, 2019: news comes out that a "secret" private server exists. April 18: the "I25" code gets dumped into the wild. April 20: the first publicly accessible server (Bree, or "the test server") launches. April 22: Bree is shut down due to fear of a DMCA takedown which turned out to be fake (at this point Bree was the only publicly accessible server). April 24: a new "temporary" server is launched and no characters or accounts from Bree are kept. That "temporary" server's name is... Torchbearer. The server's URL (http://score.savecoh.com) now redirects to the Homecoming forums. Also April 24: the Reddit Discord mentions they are working on releasing an I24 server but as it was not packaged in a ready-to-use format like the I25 files, they haven't been able to launch a server yet. April 26: the team behind Torchbearer renames themselves Homecoming. April 28: Homecoming launches its own Discord server. May 3: the first I24-based test server starts up but is only for private OuroDev testing. May 4: /coxg/ (Thunderspy) launches its I25-based server, with the intention to roll back to an I24-based version once it is ready. Unity also launches an I25-based server around this time, with a maximum capacity of 300 players. May 7: Victory launches as an I25-based server. May 15: the first public I24-based test server launches. May 18: Rebirth launches as the first stable non-I25-based public server. TL;DR: After Bree shut down there were no publicly-accessible servers until Torchbearer, and the next independent server didn't show up until over a week after that. No, I can transfer characters between Everlasting and Excelsior pretty much at will, and I can pull on the resources I've already gained (inf, recipes, enhancements, salvage, etc.) to give me a leg up with any new characters I create on either of those servers. Not only can I not transfer characters between a Homecoming shard and any of the other servers, but none of my resources can be transferred either and I'm starting over from square one.

I suppose I could summarize the whole thing in a series of bullet points: Existence of a "secret" server is made public The powers-that-be behind said server launch a public server, which shuts down within a few days for various reasons The powers-that-be make a second attempt, which is Homecoming All returning players go there because it's the only large-scale option (the software for a DIY server exists but it requires substantial hardware to support more than a handful of players) Some players aren't happy with all the post-shutdown changes and want to start their own server(s) based off the I24 beta code This code is not initially available to the public since it needs to be scrubbed for sensitive information A few groups launch I25-based servers which then roll back to I24-based once that code becomes available In short, yes, it's the first result because it's the most popular - but that's just causing a cyclic effect of more players going there because it's the first one they find, ensuring it stays the most popular. The overall argument I'm making here (and it's the same one I've been making since 2019) is that Homecoming became popular because it was the first and only option, and stayed popular because that's where the players already were.

"The here and now" is because that happened. To be clear, I agree with you that options are good (and I don't understand this wacky "the other servers' devs should start contributing to Homecoming and stop splitting the player base" that some posters here seem to want), but I don't agree that Homecoming has a population orders of magnitude higher than any of the other servers because it is somehow better.

If you do a Google search for "City of Heroes" Homecoming shows up multiple times on the first page alone. There isn't an explicit mention of any other server in the first ten pages of search results. When a player rediscovers the game odds are Homecoming will be the place they end up because it's the one they found first - and if they know the game is back and know there are multiple options, they'll go to Reddit to figure out where they should play and most people will recommend Homecoming on the basis of its population. Players tend to gravitate toward where the others already are - we saw it with the individual shards from the Live servers and we're still seeing it on Homecoming. Homecoming launched on April 24, 2019 and by April 29 there were over 30k registered accounts. Within the first month it was almost 100k. The other servers never stood a chance.

It wasn't them having their act together so much as it was the people who were running the server while it was "secret" for 7 years.

"First one out the gate" is hugely important in situations like this. When tens of thousands of people have had three weeks to start over playing a game most hadn't seen in at least seven years, and they've used those three weeks to reform old friendships, level old characters, and otherwise get established, it's a hard sell to get them to move anywhere else. Homecoming players can move at-will between the HC shards because server transfers are free and they don't really have to start over, but the same isn't true for moving from, say, Homecoming to Rebirth or Thunderspy. Once player momentum like that is established it's next to impossible to stop barring any cataclysmic events. EDIT: Also, man. I would kill for Guardians, but instead we're stuck with... Sentinels. Yay.

The single biggest reason Homecoming has the lion's share of the playerbase is because it was the first server cluster. If Rebirth had a 3-week head start over Homecoming this conversation would be happening on the Rebirth forums. Sure they are, but in order to use them you: Unlock Unai as a contact Do his story arc up to the farm mission of your choice Hope you or someone else doesn't accidentally (or maliciously) complete the mission Get lower rewards for time spent In order to use an AE farm you: Go to almost any zone Start the mission arc of your choosing EDIT: I'm looking through old Massively articles because information on player numbers going back earlier than April 27 of this year is hard to find - apparently HC set a concurrent player record of 7950 players in mid-May 2019, about 3 weeks after the servers spun up. We are seeing peaks of around 1/4 that number on the weekends.

Would likely have the opposite effect.

...which is why I also addressed that concern and included citations from the Homecoming team.

If @Luminara is a staff member they're either doing a great job of keeping it secret or I'm just really dense. Here's your citation. I'll even quote the relevant bit so you don't have to click it: We really didn’t want the Mission Architect to be an environment that encourages farming for XP, Rewards or Badges That took me all of five minutes to find. Even if I couldn't find an explicit statement to that fact, it's implicitly acknowledged by simply looking through the patch notes between I14 and I15 when the vast majority were AE fixes to address various exploits or "get lots of XP at low risk" strategies. If your argument against this is "well that's a dev from live, not Homecoming's stance" here are a couple more sources for you. The Homecoming dev team takes a very "pick and choose" attitude toward the live devs when it comes to changes the HC team wants to make.

I think it's partly a forum thing. Player population is down from the end of last year (hitting 2500 on weekend peaks was routine in November/December and now 2100 on weekends is a high number) but there are still enough players to easily find teams for what you want - on one or two servers. According to my data roughly 3/4 of the entire player base is on Excelsior and Everlasting and none of the other servers peak at much more than 200 players at a time. So there isn't a population problem but the player base is so stratified you get entirely different experiences depending on which server you pick.

Everyone's allowed to have their own opinions, of course, but when you present your opinion as fact that's where your argument starts to break down. "This is just my opinion" and "let's agree to disagree" are just cop-outs when an objectively correct answer exists. Excepting all that, every argument you're making is geared toward players who already play the game, and are therefore not the target audience of this thread's topic - gameplay changes and the community will not attract new players. The only way you will get a non-trivial number of new players is advertising, which Homecoming is not doing. Let's be real here anyways, this game is nearly 20 years old and MMOs don't have the cultural sway they had even ten years ago.

I am confused by the existence of this topic, as Scrapper/Brute/Tanker taunt/confront powers all come with -75% range which essentially forces your target(s) into melee range. Stalkers? Eh, whatever, that AT is probably the least in need of buffs and they have the ability to invisibly delete mobs anyways.