BasiliskXVIII

I totally forgot about Vorpal Judgement. Maybe just "I wonder if we could make a Melee cone without a target and still have it work?" I dunno. Even if it's not literally a test of a concept, it feels like it is one. I kind of wish they would change it to a targeted cone because I agree- I've had far more misfires and wasted uses of the power than I've been able to find use cases where the untargeted version justifies itself, which is why I was curious if there was a reason for it.

It's a bit of weird bird, if you're not familiar with it. Spinning Kick is a cone that doesn't require a target, simply hitting any targets in front of your character. It kind of feels like the devs were like "hey, I wonder if this will work?", and the result, while unique, feels to me like something that causes me to use the ability ineffectively more often than it provides benefits. Am I completely off the mark? It's kind of nice in Synapse, being able to kick gears before they're targetable, but is there some other great functionality that I'm missing, or is this just uniqueness for the sake of uniqueness?

I think it's not very well explained, like many of the features in the game. I tend to use it more as a quick way to check global names than for its actual purpose of keeping notes, because while it's all well and good knowing that some guy is a dick, it doesn't really make a practical barrier when you sign up for a PUG and see them on the team. I do have some people I play with regularly 5-starred just so I can spot them on an alt.

I wouldn't be opposed to a new MSR added in, but Victory only barely manages to get the population together to run it as it is, and I'd hate to see that taken away in favour of content that will need a larger team. as it's currently one of the only pieces of mid-range league content that regularly fires.

I've run a few Manticores over the last few days, and with a lot of new controllers and doms in the game trying out Pyro control, it's not uncommon ot have 2-3 on a team at a time. One thing that I've noticed, though, is that despite the control players working to shut down the PP, it would happen where some would get through because everyone missed that one or more of the PPs didn't get zapped. I am now running the Revenant Hero Project, and with the 7th Gen protectors this is happening at a whole other scale just by myself. The yellow lightning is brief and easy to miss, especially if you're looking a different direction or the PP is obscured by something when it goes off. I'd love to see an effect applied to the PPs after they've been zapped, whether that's a yellow "Electricity" or "Sparks" aura (as in the costume creator) which indicates the power is disabled to anyone who wasn't able to immediately see the initial zap for whatever reason.

I think the intent for the "flattened" bubble effect was so that you can see more of the effect while you're on an indoor mission, making it more visually apparent.

You are insisting on a condition that is incompatible with the structure of a shared, developer-managed game: namely, that you should be able to play Homecoming without allowing the developers' judgement to direct development. That is not how this, or any comparable platform, works. You are free to offer feedback, as we all are, but the final decisions rest with the development team. A fact to which you have given explicit consent to every time you log in and agree to the EULA: To frame this as an “illusion of choice” implies coercion where there is none. Participation is voluntary. Declining to participate is an available and consequence-free option. To illustrate: if someone were to demand that City of Heroes be made playable on a Game Boy Color, it would not be unreasonable for the developers to respond, “That isn’t in accordance with our development goals.” The fact that the demand cannot be accommodated does not make the existence of choice illusory. It simply reflects the limits of what this particular platform is designed to support. Expecting a collaborative space to conform solely to one individual’s preferences, while dismissing the needs of others, is not a viable model for any shared experience. That is not persecution; it is simply how collective systems function.

I'm not telling Troo to leave because he failed a 'purity test.' I'm pointing out that what he's asking for, namely, a version of the game where he doesn't have to trust an external development team, is fundamentally incompatible with how shared, developer-managed games work. No one is forced to play Homecoming. At this point, you're not even forced to play Homecoming if you want to play City of Heroes, unlike, say, Diablo IV, where playing the game requires using Activision-Blizzard-King’s servers. Choosing to participate in this environment inherently means accepting that the devs have final say. That's the general idea behind that EULA you agree to every time you log in. That’s not gatekeeping. That’s just the structure of the game.

Ah, yes, of course...

The forums aren’t the only venue the devs use to gather feedback. They also take input from Discord, monitor in-game behavior through metrics, and apply their own judgement based on feasibility and available manpower. No single channel speaks for the entire player base, but each provides useful signals. Your own examples actually support this. During Open Beta, there was strong forum pushback against the Tanker changes, with many claiming it would ruin the archetype. The devs made adjustments but ultimately stood by the core of the update, and pushed it live. Tankers are still widely played. That suggests the devs considered broader data and were confident in their assessment. Take Kinetic Melee as another example. The forums have been vocal for years that it underperforms, and there's plenty of both anecdotal and numerical feedback to support that. Yet the devs haven’t made significant changes to it. That suggests they’ve either evaluated the feedback and concluded that the set is functioning acceptably as is, or they’ve chosen to prioritise other issues given limited development resources. In short, forum sentiment is only one piece of the puzzle. The devs know that, and their decision-making reflects it.

Certainly, we can't know every individual player's reasons for avoiding a powerset. But design decisions have to be made based on the information we do have, even if it isn't exhaustive. There's a reason consumer research relies on focus groups and representative feedback rather than polling every human on Earth. If a power or set is consistently avoided, rarely picked, and regularly mentioned in feedback from engaged players, that tells us something valuable. It may not capture every opinion, but it's still a better foundation for decisions than doing nothing for fear of being incomplete. At some point, a line has to be drawn. We can act on observable patterns, or we can wait forever for data that will never be perfect.

You appear to have misunderstood. I did not tell you to go play elsewhere, nor do I encourage it. I simply corrected your inaccurate claim that you are forced to trust the Homecoming developers. You are not. You choose to, as we all do by remaining here. That distinction may be semantic, but it is also factual and important.

Perhaps if you find a polite, neutral correction of your erroneous assertions unpleasant, you should consider avoiding erroneous assertions.

That is not entirely accurate. You are not required to trust the developers' decisions. Several alternative servers exist, and you also have the option of running a private server with rules and balance changes that reflect your own preferences. By choosing to play on Homecoming, however, you have implicitly accepted the authority of its development team to make design decisions, including those related to power balance. This is not a coercive arrangement. It is a voluntary association. If the terms become unacceptable, alternatives remain available. That is the nature of participating in any shared platform: we are all subject to its framework, whether or not we agree with every decision it produces.

You'll be happy to know I haven't been personally responsible for any changes to any power in the game. The devs haven't sent me a PM asking for my opinion, and I don't expect one. So no, I don't get to decide. The final call rests with the devs, who we as a community trust to make those decisions on our behalf. It is, functionally, a benevolent dictatorship. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't. But the goal is that changes should be made with an eye toward consensus, so that the voices of a small number of players, whether for or against, do not block improvements that are broadly requested.