TemporalVileTerror

PvP is a touchy enough subject that I don't think we should be cannibalizing their content for others' use. I'm not a fan of how PvP is done in this game because of how distant it feels from the PvE experience, but there are clearly a dedicated set of players here who are passionate about PvP.

I'm terribly sorry to see your thread get so entirely hijacked, @parabola. In a potentially vain attempt, I would like to try to reiterate the intent here: It's not about breaking free from a Hold. It's about giving a player something to do to feel like they're still engaged with the game while Held. All the existing gameplay tactics for freeing someone from Hard Control are still viable and valuable, but they're not infinite, universally accessible, or available at levels where Hard Control can hit the player. This suggestion provides players with a way to continue playing the game under conditions where they would otherwise be unable to do so at all due to the extreme nature of Hard Control.

The biggest problem is something akin to, let's say . . . a car. Cars have roads, and some can even off-road! But let's say your car's manufacturer decides one day that you're no longer allowed to drive on your own street, because of "reasons." Suddenly your car just won't do it. You try to turn the wheel, but it locks up and the engine seizes. That's the problem with "integration" when it comes to a corporation like Micrsoft or apple; they're not integrating anything for the users' benefits. They're doing it for their own at the expense of the users. @Number Six, is the Homecoming Team already looking in to alternatives? I've recommended Homecoming distance themselves from discord in the past due to other issues. While I don't want any of you to be inconvenienced if it can be helped, this situation at least provides a more 'vibrant' reason to establish use of a chat application that will have less risky terms of use.

Given the public stance of the original lead developer of discord, I wouldn't be surprised if this sale went through, and discord ended up getting the "Skype Treatment." May be time for discord users to start looking at alternatives to prepare for that inevitable decline. Element (previously Riot) has been pretty good to me. Not perfect, but fairly reasonable. https://element.io

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/27233-what-are-the-petty-but-real-annoyances-in-coh/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-339586 Absolutely! Although, I think using your actual Primary/Secondary Powers might be too much of a departure from the original gameplay, even if I like that idea. It would probably be disruptive and confusing to other players to suddenly have that show up, and players may feel they're "wasting" their Powers by accidentally using them while under the effect of a Hard Status Effect. Instead I propose a Server Tray pops up with a few new buttons to push. Either my "Simon Says" proposal from that other thread, or your "Endurance Cost" idea here. Maybe add another opportunity cost in the form of self-applied Recharge Debuffs or short term reduction of Max Endurance. In either case, I think it's important that such a feature doesn't instantly end a Hard Control effect, but rather just reduces the length of time it applies while also giving the player something to do; some kind of consideration and thought so they're engaging with the game even while their character is locked down. Also, good call on adding a visual indicator. Something to let players know that "Yes, you -are- working your way free of this" would be helpful if such a gameplay mechanic were added.

Yup. Yuuuuuuup.

Magic. I mean that legitimately, by the way. Oh no, SPOILERS! *flails limbs* But one of the major story elements for this island idea of mine would revolve around the discovery of this island was held back for so long due to a magical force keeping the island shrouded from discovery. Arachnos broke the spell to see what was hiding behind the veil, only to discover that it wasn't anything of particular interest to them, so they just said "meh. Leave the islands as scraps for the others. We have more important paths to power to bother with!"

This strikes me as a potential group who are working with the Sea Witch.

No no no no no! See, that's the RISING sun! -This message of TRUTH brought to you by the Cole Administration.

I think it's more of an issue with there being nothing to do while Held/Stunned/Slept. If, for example, Players received a mini-game of something akin to Simon Says which could be optionally completed to reduce the duration of hard Status Effect Powers, then it might actually go over a bit better. The Break Frees or Support and Survival Buffs that grant Protection would still work exactly as they do right now, but in this situations where a player is locked down and just sitting idle with absolutely no recourse, this would at least keep them engaged with the game, instead of feeling like somebody came along and yanked them away from the game. Some thoughts to explore, at least.

It's my present understanding (which I fully admit to probably being woefully incomplete) that building a zone right now is a process of writing the zone layout in text format, as there isn't a tool to drag-and-drop pieces of the map like the Base Editor. (Although, I do wonder if the two text formats are similar enough that a converter could be created to allow us to take a demorecord of a Base and convert it in to a valid Zone map, minus elements like pathing channels, spawn locations, and event triggers, obviously.) Be that as it may (and barring some dedicated members of this community or OuroDevs crafting a map devtool), I would really, really, REALLY like to see some of the southern Etoile Islands get fleshed out. It might even be a chance for a bit of low- / no-Arachnos presence Redzones, so @MTeague could be a little happier. While the following might be "Too Real!" . . . it would certainly offer a lot of opportunities for Villainy, Roguery, and Vigilantism! I've personally envisioned an island or archipelago with a relatively untouched aboriginal population. Arachnos sees no value in the islands for strategic or resource purposes, and leave them alone. BUT unscrupulous developers (backed by villainous enemies of Arachnos) see opportunity for building resorts and holiday retreats in the area, and start tearing down the rainforest there. Cue PLENTY of potential mission content! For Villains: Either throw in with the backers, or vie against them for dominance. For Rogues: Either take contracts from the developers for profit, or from ecoterrorist groups and/or Longbow to reclaim the land for the native population. For Vigilantes: Either destroy the corrupt businesses seeking to exploit the land, or tear the island apart hunting for international criminals seeking refuge in the dense jungle. But, yeah. I do recognize the complication with authoring content which deals with such subject matter. While we've seen it appear in other works of fiction, there's something to be said about wilfully participating in that fantasy. Writing such content should probably be done with a very open approach, so community feedback can be collected every step of the way.

Most of https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwjN2uVdL9A0i3gaIHKFzuA/videos A little of https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpvugL8Qxc8-aXlO0KUtXXQ/videos

That's a very grim prospect . . .

Which is why we're advocating their introduction in to the game with the existing animations, and thus the limited/unique way the Power Set suggestions work.

And the destruction of Galaxy City was -not- well-received in the slightest, from what I recall. Considered one of the worst moves prior to Sunset, even. I don't think we should be looking to it as an exemplar of what could be, but rather as a warning of what not to do. I'll have to double-check, but I believe First Ward has alignment-specific missions which force players to dissolve their co-op teams if there are members on that team who are the wrong alignment. So, if I'm remembering correctly, the tech is already in place for it . . . sorta-kinda. The "tense" of this game's narrative all over the place, and really has been since the first Invasion Event took place with the forces of Rularuu. Not to mention the bizarre interplay of player-characters being the primary protagonists on the same storylines creating a ludonarrative dissonance the likes of which could rip a hole through space-time. (Which is my personal head-canon explanation for Ouroboros.) Flexible temporal-narrative structures will probably yield a stronger return of investment on keeping the writing pithy and player-affirming. But someone could write a doctoral thesis on that subject before addressing all the salient points and how they interact with one another.

I suspect that the players who are entrenched with the game enough to want additional difficulty settings are the same players that have already made use of their three builds and don't have any desire to scrap a build for something which could be a Notoriety setting. More Options is Best Options.

It may have been a while, but I think the writing for the Peebles-and-company arcs are all VERY entwined with the notion of those characters actually -living- on Striga. It's their home. Moving them off of Striga is tantamount to displacing them as refugees, which would require massive rewrites of their mission narratives to justify. I do like the idea of Villains gaining access to Striga, though. If we're making an Echo of Striga for heroes anyway, why not do this the other way around and make an "Alternate Reality" version of Striga for Villains to play in, wihle maintaining the existing Striga exactly as-is?

But, the robots are completely cloaked in a hard light hologram.

This is City of Heroes. Offering help is ALWAYS a good idea.

Ironic, considering the general Canadian perspective on each of your cultures and perceived rudeness. Then again, the individual states tend to have VERY different cultural norms. What's even considered "polite" can be demonstrably different in the north, south, centre, east, and west.

Actually, one more slight aside . . . @Piecemeal? If that's not too invasive of me to ask this question: Which set of pronouns would be appropriate to refer to you? It's just that I've seen various folks in the community use different ones, and I'd like to ensure we're addressing you in a respectful and acceptable way.

Indeed, @DougGraves . . . although, what about the company providing the servers, the company providing the forum software, the lawyer(s), et cetera? There are clearly some "acceptable risks" in this situation in terms of people making money from the operation/existence of these game servers, even if it's not the people who are operating and developing Homecoming directly. So, I wonder where those lines are drawn, exactly. If Homecoming LLC is willing to provide money collected through donation to entities that -are- for-profit, then other than the determination to work on development "in house," do we have any other barriers preventing Homecoming from purchasing premade code, visual, and audio assets from the many, many resources that already exist? Given how little Homecoming has shared about operational policies, I'm not sure we'll get thorough answers to these more pointed questions any time soon. For now, we can thank the volunteers for volunteering their time and effort . . . but it would be nice if we could provide them some helpful reimbursement for that time and effort as well. Goodness knows the industry NEEDS a better, more ethical model for paying developers for their work right now . . . EDIT: Also, WHOA! Way off the original topic. Um . . . Ummm . . . er, uh, the Warriors! Right. The Warriors! They're not boring! But I'm not against Piecemeal or anyone else expanding them a little (or a lot). Just so long as the original canon and content is preserved in a meaningful way. BETTER than the Circle of Thorns and Rikti "updates." Granted, the Rikti Update was largely superior, but I do miss some of the old Rikti aesthetic. Would have been nice to have naked Rikti and the old Rikti armour still showing up in a few places here and there. Circle update was mostly BLAH to me. Made them much too cartoonish and garish, compared to the more sinister and decrepit look they used to have. So . . . please bear that in mind when working on the Warriors! Their current aesthetic is very plain and limited. But I believe it's better to EXPAND on it, rather than re-envision them wholesale.

Call the Regeneration-specific Absorb "Overheal" and recolour it to a darker shade of green.

Fundraising might be iffy, at best. Probably outside the scope of risk that the team would feel comfortable with, based on past comments. Similarly, and frustratingly, the option of purchasing third-party assets from online stores (which may or may not have been created by certain people), seems to run in to a wall with the "develop internally" non-spoken policy that seems to be in effect. There are a lot of untapped avenues which are very unlikely to ever be utilized.

In all seriousness, people have bad days. If you want to address them about it, I'd recommend refining your thoughts on the events of that session over the next few days, and then talk to them about it. Make sure to review what you have in mind, so that it's clear and easy to follow. Don't want any communication errors exasperating things further, after all. Granted, playing drunk . . . not a lot you can do there, except drop someone from the team when it becomes apparent they're in such a state, assuming you have the star.