GraspingVileTerror

Sadly, more fluid animations might be kind of impossible with the current rendering engine and netcode. I'd gladly be proven wrong on this, but our current animations are kind of the pinnacle the game is capable of without a HUGE rewrite of an integral part of the code.

Ok . . . continuing down the road to off-topic'ness (sorry Oginth!), I contend that the Devs -could- write compelling content for Villains by breaking from the terrible single-character second-person fixed narrative structure which unfortunately dominates even the new writing. Explicitly telling the players how their characters feel or what their motivations are is the biggest problem here, and it only requires a change of writing habits to escape. Basically, looping it back in to tabletop roleplay, the game narrative as it's currently written is a Game Master stealing agency from their players by meticulously describing the actions of the characters, and therefore ascribing subtext. ie: "A natural 20? You swing with so much anger that you hit the target with such force that you cleave their head off." Rather, I think a more appropriate approach for the GM is to just adjudicate the mechanics, and allow the player to define their own action. ie: "A natural 20? Nice! Feel free to add a little extra flourish as you describe how this happens." We can achieve this in City of Villains by writing specifically to avoid the use of the second-person "you." Don't say stuff like "you are disturbed by the smell of cloves mingling with sulphur." Instead (and this is actually the example I tried to use with the Devs during City of Villains Beta, but it never stuck, even though it's actually a great example from the game itself): "The scent of cloves mingles disturbingly with the stink of sulphur." The latter writing (which is in a Mr. Bocor mission) really delivers all the important world-building and environmental storytelling, while also not robbing the player any kind of agency from their character. In fact, it doesn't even assume the character can smell! It just states, matter of factly, what the environment is like. It leaves the player entirely in control to define if that detail has any bearing, whatsoever, on their character. Now, in the past, I had advocated a total rewrite on content to fix this issue, but some players expressed a personal preference toward being explicitly told who their character is. Alright. Fair enough. Some people like things the way they are. But I think it's crucially important to bear these lessons in mind while writing all future content. We -have- the means to giving players agency and choice in the narrative. We just have to make use of them. As for giving players the authority to instigate things as Villains . . . well . . . a lot of suggestions were given (some of which are quite feasible): https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/19655-weekly-discussion-53-how-to-increase-villain-population/ More to the point: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17554-make-red-side-great-again/?tab=comments#comment-194213 So, trying again to bring this home to the original topic: Imagine, if you will, if player-villains had the power to build up points, and then collectively spend those points with other villains (or on their own) to launch invasions in Paragon City Zones. Suddenly the player-villain can vamp it up in roleplay about how great and nefarious they are for achieving such a lofty goal and therefore win the narrative conflict, while the player-heroes get the opportunity to beat back the invasion, save the day, and ALSO win the conflict. A classic win-win.

The pilums which the Cimeroran throw are fairly well rendered. How about an alternate option for all Archery and Trick/Tactical Arrow Powers to have a pilum-throw animation replacement?

Already do, @Magairlín. But roleplay with animated emotes is generally a more engaging experience.

Especially since getting Inf is generally easier and quicker to get than Merits. Even for those players who have Merit farming down to an art, you still can't trade Merits. And so Inf remains the easier currency to acquire, thanks to the market itself. Thus using Merits for things which are significantly cheaper with Inf on the Market is generally profoundly wasteful to the players' limited time. Now if Merits were as easy to come by as Inf, or if some significant changes occurred to the price of items in the Merit Vendor inventories, then we might be able to say "it's fine to use Merits" in good conscience. As it stands? It's not worth it (unless the specific individual loathes the market even more than I do, and wants even less to do with it than I. Which, fair enough). BUT . . . to the original topic (for @misat) : Each Archetype has two different Sets of ATOs, each of which can be regular or Superior. https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Archetype_Enhancements With the exception of a bug related to a particular Mastermind ATO right now, each of these Enhancements is Unique. That means only one of each individual Enhancement in an ATO Set may be Slotted in a given Build (so, 12 individual ATOs per Archetype in total). Additionally, the regular and Superior versions of each ATO count as the same Enhancement for the purposes of determining uniqueness BUT NOT for the purposes of getting Set Bonuses. So, generally, once you've hit level 50, you'll only want to use the Superior versions (with the potential exception for niche Builds, such as on Masterminds attempting to maximize their Recharge bonuses).

What if Null allowed you to gain Experience for Inf? I'd say (Level x Level x 400,000) Inf. That way 2 billion would jump someone up to Level 24, and it'd cost a little over 17 billion to hit 50. I know. I know. Old suggestion. We've been there before. It's just what I initially thought this thread was asking for based on the subject header, and I futz'd around with the math and wanted to share a version of the expenses that seemed "fair."

Also: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/19468-that-moment-of-realization-games-as-art/?tab=comments#comment-274585 I actually haven't gotten around to doing a complete dive in to the System Shocks. @Luminara and @honoroit (and anyone else); did you have a recommendation for which versions to prioritize?

I reinstalled Quake, but the poor old program just doesn't want to play nice with modern graphics rendering and audio systems. I can get the music to play if I run it through DosBOX, but then I lose out on many of the advantages which the various Windows-ports have. Even then, -every- version I've tried to run resets my resolution when the game boots up, and throws my other windows in to complete disarray. Having to reset all of my window placements each time I run the game puts a serious hamper on my enjoyment of it, so I've pretty much already shelved it again. Unless anyone has any troubleshooting suggestions on how to overcome these issues?

This isn't about accessibility. This is about representation and roleplay. I am hard-of-hearing in real life, and I personally think sign language is really cool and helpful. I would like to see it exist in-game, and then I would personally use it on some of the characters I do roleplay with. It's a low priority "wouldn't it be nice/cool/interesting" suggestion. I can certainly live without it, and instead continue to use ;explain and ;lecture to represent my characters signing. But there's no harm in posting a suggestion, request, or feedback.

Obviously, without fingers we can't do many of the ASL signs, but it would be very cool to add some of these when the creation of new animations can be tackled. To differentiate them from existing emotes that are meant to convey the same or similar messages, I'd recommend naming these new ones with ASL as a prefix. ie: /em ASL_yes /em ASL_thanks /em ASL_please

Just so there's a link to it: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/23253-funplex-graffiti-wall-contest-over/

Duck l'Orange!

Gonna weave around a few things here, and answer @Techwright:

Also: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Exemplar_Effects_on_Enhancements

I generally find your thoughts very insightful and positive, @TwoDee, but I feel you are deeply off the mark with the initial premise that leads your thought process there. City of Heroes isn't a comic book. City of Heroes was -partially inspired- by comic books, but what the Legacy Teams collectively brought into existence is so much more than that. Champions Online and DCUO, and the attempts by Marvel at MMOs are much more fitting the bill of "comic book." What we have with City of Heroes is a confluence of happy accidents; upward failures in an attempt to make a comic book game that became and remains so much greater than its original, narrow aspirations. Diverse minds and interpretations brought us this game. Inclusivity on that level is the foundation that makes City of Heroes special. I don't disagree that a player-villain as a narrative foil for the heroes to eventually overcome is in short supply within our roleplay community, but there's definitely more that can be done with villainous characters. Not all villains are antagonists. Not all heroes are protagonists. Not even in comic books. And to nip it in the bud, hopefully; I'm not saying that players can't view City through a narrow lens of comic books*; that's their personal prerogative. I just think it's a huge disservice to the depth and splendour that is City if we expect others to view it that same way. * (and let's be honest: Comic books are a HUGELY, VASTLY nuanced artistic medium. When people use the "just a comic book" reductionist excuse, it always comes back to whatever era of Marvel or DC that particular player latched on to as a child, rather than acknowledging that comics (even super hero comics specifically) come in all shapes, sizes, themes, tones, genres, deconstructions, re-imaginings, and everything under the sun and moon.) But . . . ultimately, diving in to this particular hornet's nest is something that I've been struggling to compose in to a massive essay post for the past . . . oooooh, 12 years? At least? Longer, honestly. I just didn't really grasp how restrictive the "it's a comic book" paradigm was to the overall progress of City until after I had played it for a few years. I know I didn't really bring any of my evidence to bear in this post, as all that's still largely disorganized as I piece my thoughts together, and I do apologize for any potential derailment of this topic. I'll try to prioritize the essay if there's interest in it, and post it in General some time, rather than continue to pursue it here. So, loosely trying to re-rail: I think that narrative conflict between player-Heroes and player-Villains in roleplay is probably best achieved by players first coming to an agreement on whose turn it is to be the protagonist and who is to be the antagonist in any given storyline, regardless of what alignment an given player-character is presently. Folks should feel empowered-to and rewarded-by switching roles from time to time.

Which raises the question . . . What happens when you speedball all of them at once?

ZSNES all the way!

Thank you for the reply, @Piecemeal. There does seem to be a couple of disconnects, if I may. "and so would you. You'd lose faith, see us as overambitious." Should I assume this is meant as a "the majority of the community - you", or is it meant to personally address me? In either case, I feel you're off the mark. I can certainly respect that your personal experience would not be positive. Even devastating, as you said. Your feelings are your own, and it's appreciated that you've felt comfortable enough to share them publicly like this. But the thinking that this over-ambition could be devastating for others isn't an appropriate estimation. From my time in the industry, it is one of the most manipulative myths perpetuated by marketing, and it creates a harmful chilling effect to meaningful progress. Even when the negative reaction is purposefully cultivated, the results are typically fiscal in nature. Unless the future of Homecoming is so delicately poised on the whims of some NC exec's estimations of this venture's net worth, I think the overall health of Homecoming would recover with some time and supportive encouragement. More than that: Explicit and informative examinations of what is experimental has a positive knock-on effect in a collective environment. Saying, in advance "this is what I'm going to experiment with. Wish me luck, I'll need it" or better still "if anyone as any ideas for thinking outside the box on this, I'd like to hear it" brings hope and inspires community involvement. Suddenly, if you become unwell or need to focus on responsibilities, there's an opportunity to keep momentum going. We're all in this together. With delegation and clear goal setting, we can improve resilience against project failure. Happiness being contingent on hype is one of the nasty parts of the game industry. It's something that has been developed and curated to prey upon the nature of the primary gamer demographic. It's not a healthy or sustainable path forward. We're witnessing the industry writhe through one of its roughest declines in history right now, and that's because the systems that were built to generate wealth were never meant to last. They were never meant to serve developers or players. We can't model the future of Homecoming on those systems if we want it to survive. The fear of promises isn't something we're going to be able to overturn instantly, though. I get that. It'll be a bumpy road. The industry has primed gamers to be, quite frankly, pretty shitty. But this community loves to remind itself about how great it is, right? Let's put rubber to the road on that! Let's get the community working to improve itself, as good as it may already be. There's always room for improvement, and striving toward that is a worthwhile pursuit. I appreciate your acknowledgement of the echo chamber issue, and for taking the time to share your perspective here. I'll admit that maybe I'm a dreamer; a hopeless optimist. But I'll be damned if I don't try everything I'm capable of to encourage you, the Homecoming Team, and this whole community to strive toward making things better on every possible level.

The personal identities of the Devs are certainly something which I feel is deservedly appropriate to keep private. Even without the looming spectre of litigation from NC or any number of other corporate bodies, the very real and sick danger of death threats and harassment can't be ignored. I give the Homecoming Team 100% support on keeping their personal information safe. It's a slightly different issue than their professional credentials, though. Even there, however, I'm fine with Homecoming being run by hobbyists. I'd personally prefer they remain honest with themselves and the community on what they are, but even THEN . . . I've known professionals who are talentless hacks (*sheepishly raises own hand, then slaps it down*), and I've seen hobbyists who blow those professionals out of the water. One thing that I would like addressed, however, is where the Homecoming LLC Code of Ethics (assuming they have one) stands on the systemic problems in the industry, and to what extent that informs their internal policy making. Again . . . this isn't a demand. It's the sort of thing that I believe would benefit everyone to have out in the open. (and before anyone laughs at the idea of a Code of Ethics on an illegal game server: Remember that morality, ethics, and law are not the same things.) @Glacier Peak I think there has been a communication break down. I'll take another read of the thread with fresh eyes some time later, but I think maybe some grammar or prose has crossed some wires, and the meaning/intent of the words is being lost somewhere between us.

So, looping back in to the sentiment of "Human beings are notoriously terrible AND great at communication; it all depends on who you ask, and how you ask," I find some elements of your reply oddly out of place with the sentiment I was expressing. Maybe we can try to get to the root of them? I wonder why you bring up "nefarious" here. It seems to show up a lot in any discussion asking for improved lines of communication. I don't assume malice on the parts of the Homecoming Team. I find it strange that anyone could assume the assumption of malice in these cases. There is, however, most certainly a hidden agenda. As I've tried to explain in previous messages on this topic, I understand the decision to not reveal anything which would put the Homecoming Team in a position of liability. There are some things, by the nature of the legality of the operation here, hidden. However, I contend that there are also other things being hidden that do not (to the best of my knowledge) fall under that same legality constraint. Evidenced by a number of posts made by Homecoming Team members throughout the years indicating that several elements of development are being withheld for reasons such as "not wanting to disappoint people" or "because some people get bent out of shape." I believe both of those are flawed reasons and there are more productive and healthy ways to address them. I recall messages to the effect in the early days of Homecoming where Team members self-identified as industry professionals. New messages of that nature are less frequent, to the point of me accepting the possibility that I've gone and Mandala'd myself. So, if Team members want to refute the belief that they have experience in the industry, I'll accept that my memory failed me. But operating under the current assumption that those statements were made and they were true, then I'm going to hold those members of the Homecoming Team to a standard based on that. I continue to acknowledge that they are volunteers and giving freely of themselves, but having industry experience (from my perspective) would also bring a level of social accountability in to the mix. People who have worked professionally on games have a shared experience, and it concerns me when certain behaviours here bear similarities to harmful behaviours in the wider industry. And to attempt to nip this in the bud: I am not saying that any of the Homecoming Team have any kind of obligation. I'm expressing personal unease and frustration that (from my perspective) I am seeing patterns indicative of larger issues, and nothing yet provides evidence to the contrary. And, on a more personal note @Glacier Peak, I find it particularly vexing that you have a habit of apparently attempting to undermine criticisms of Homecoming's methodology by simply reciting or linking posts about policy as if it's beyond reproach or criticism. May I suggest that when people express discontent on issues of authority, particularly those that you are fully aware the individual raising the issue is familiar with, that you reconsider relinking like that? Particularly when you aren't even the authority being called upon to do better. From my perspective, it comes across very dismissively.

I've seen those kinds of knee-jerk responses too, and I agree that they're not as helpful to the feedback process as calmer and more careful feedback is. But I really, really think there is more that can be done in terms of including players in advance to help pre-emptively address that sentiment. AND those knee-jerk reactions -are- valid feedback too. All feedback is valuable. It's definitely better when there is a dialogue and all sides can be on the same page, but -everything- is valuable for gauging the reception of work/product. I've seen very effective marketing teams who take an approach in these sorts of cases to reach out to everyone who gave feedback, organize groups, and -change communication strategies- with different subsets. Assuming "this person just likes to complain" isn't as productive as sitting down with that person and finding out what's really going on. Human beings are notoriously terrible AND great at communication; it all depends on who you ask, and how you ask All that said, I get that there's certainly a limit on volunteer time, and having a discussion takes time. Especially with someone that you have communication barriers with. AND this volunteer team can't hire more people to fill out their roster of community outreach positions, and they've made some attempts to recruit more (although those recruitment methods are a slightly different kettle of fish ...). But there is a strategy they could employ that has been called for since the start of Homecoming: Roadmaps. Give the community the tools necessary to bring themselves on to the same page of your own book if you don't have the time or resources to get on the same page of each player. Sure, this will still leave gaps in outreach. But there will be far fewer gaps, and that will only make any outreach that much easier at that point. It's the whole "an ounce of preparation is worth a pound of cure" thing.

I'd say they straddle the line effectively. Moments of martial arts. Moments of MCU. A good mix of both. It doesn't recapture that energy of the first Iron Man movie, but that might only be because we're a more jaded audience now, not through any fault of Shang-Chi itself.

Again, I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but to @Glacier Peak's sentiment I'll say that -some- members of the Homecoming Team have provided evidence to "keep the faith," as it were. As members of the Team have themselves pointed out, they're not a wholly united group. I'll certainly wait to see what @Piecemeal and @Cobalt Arachne have on offer this time before passing judgement on it. But I also won't stop myself from discussing past experiences which colour my expectations, no matter how much I try to repress those expectations from influencing my judgement. We're each only human, after all (allusions to character roleplay and feelings of dysmorphia notwithstanding). I'll share a page from @Bionic_Flea's book on this one, but I'll also continue to advocate for improvements and additions which I personally value, whether in terms of content or development methodology. I do appreciate Piecemeal's approach to the examination of The Warriors and bringing the discussion out to the community in advance as a first step. Again, like this difficulty scale thing, we'll have to see how it all shakes out. I acknowledge there's probably a great deal of pressure and frustration that members of the Homecoming Team feel too. But with things being played so close to the chest, it's not hard for me to see why people feel bitter and resentful. I stand by my belief that additional communication would be beneficial. There just needs to be a stronger push within the entire community (which includes members of the Homecoming Team, past-present-and-future) to press for compassionate and thoughtful words, understanding, and patience. And frankly, I don't see saccharine platitudes as the way to achieve that. I think the path forward will involve difficult conversations where we're able to ask one another to do better, and harmful language is addressed with improvements made to prevent that harm in the future. So, yeah. Very personal and subjective ranty bits incoming. And apologies in advance here to both Piecemeal and Cobalt Arachne, as I'm just using the messages here as a recent example, and not suggesting these are the only instance of this. I get being personally excited about something you've worked on, something you're passionate about, and sharing it with thousands of other people. I realize that from your perspectives this thing has been baking in the oven for ages now, and you wouldn't be showing it off unless you and the people close to you weren't confident that it was ready for that. But I kind of feel like your messages are still carrying a certain level of overconfidence here. And I believe that's a by-product of crafting this content in a bit of an echo chamber. You cite inclusivity, but I certainly don't think we're there yet on official and publicly accessible communication channels. I can scarcely imagine how much more narrow the point of views become when we shave away . . . what? 90% of the greater community? 95%? How many folks are actually involved in the process? How many of those voices are decidedly different from one another? I do appreciate that you've both been more careful than some other folks had been in the past with the choice of language used in this thread, and I absolutely do not want what I'm trying to say here to push anyone further in to secrecy and exclusivity. I don't want either of you (or any members of the Homecoming Team) to feel any less passionate about the work you're electing to do in your free time for what (I assume) you hope to be the benefit of thousands of people. I also really like that you've discussed some of your goals. Just . . . can we spare portions of the replies that are hype-train non-answers, please? I know. I have a personal bias of animousity against the sorry state the wider games industry is in, and the part I played in getting there with marketing, so please take my words with as many grains of salt as you feel appropriate. I just want us to move past that sort of thing and get the community on firmer foundations of communication all around. And hey! This is one of those two-way street things. Feel free to let me know what you need from me to lay that foundation I'm looking for. Please let the whole community know where we can improve in this effort too.

The problem with the ambiguous hype machine . . . loads of speculation, little of certainty. Another element of a culture of secrecy. And hey! More content is cool, even content that only caters to a very particular subset of players. I just hope we're able to have more diverse and inclusive content produced in tandem next time too.

So, my finger may not be on the pulse as much these days, but someone did show me something today which suggests my idea for https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/13484-eco-friendly-powerset-recycling/page/15/?tab=comments#comment-310562 could not only be feasible, but also be applied to the throwing dagger customization suggestion presented in this thread. Apparently something in the works right now (whether it's on Homecoming or one of the other servers out there) involves using invisible dummy-dopples which have the desired weapon geometry loaded and ready to use for costuming and power animations. I look forward to seeing if that bears fruit. It could mean a LOT of those customization options we've been clamouring for since the beginning of time immemorable might actually see the light of day.