Solarverse

An Open Letter to the Original Poster: Note: This is personal opinion given through personal experience. Let's go back to when MMORPG's first came out. Well, I take that back, since I did not play MMORPG's when they first came out. However, I did play Asheron's Call before playing City of Heroes. The main attraction to (I am going to go out on a limb and say most even though I do not have statistical facts, all I have is experience and age) most of the MMORPG gamer type of players was that you had to put time in to these games in order to achieve the things that you wanted. It was a different world then because you simply did not have the same type of open world gaming on consoles back then. These types of games only existed on computers. It was a gaming world that most kids could not get in to because well...let's be honest, it was too difficult for your average kid. Sure, there we some unique kids who were well above their intellect level for their age who could play these types of games and do them well, but honestly, it was not extremely common. Not every kid could sit through them and learn them or even had an interest in them the way MMORPG type of adults could. MMORPG's caught the attention of a particular type of people who enjoyed a strategical and co-op type of environment set in a real and breathing world filled full of insane challenges, difficulties and adventures. Then came Star Wars Galaxies. A truly challenging game filled full of even more insane challenges...especially if you wanted to be a Force Sensitive. Nothing was handed to you, there was no way to get anything you wanted without a challenging and difficult road ahead; and that is what pulled these same types of players to these types of games. People burned for the challenge and people took pride in their accomplishments and they were admired and respected by their fellows players for reaching these accomplishments. These games were not made for everybody, especially not for people who wanted to max out and get everything they can in less than a day. It took some people over a year to finally unlock Jedi and it took hard work and dedication to become powerful and established no matter what profession you decided to go with. MMORPG's by their very design and nature was like this and that is what drew people like me in to them. It took a certain level of insanity for one to enjoy games like this and even more so; it took hard work, a lot of time and dedication. It was something to be proud of. Games like this held players for extremely long periods of time and had a very loyal fan base. People did not leave and then come back only when new content was released but instead they played the entire time while new content simply drew in more new players. Then comes City of Heroes two years later. It was a challenge then, it was not exactly easy and face planting and getting high amounts of debt were common. Nothing was handed to you and if you wanted to get the goodies in the game, you had to work for it. The major differences were, you got to fully customize your character and the way they looked straight out of the gate rather than working to get the drops that had the gear that fits the way you wanted to look. City of Heroes was considerably easier than Asheron's Call or Star Wars Galaxies, but it was still the type of game that simply just was not meant for everybody, you had to have that same dedicated mind that craved a challenge and you still had to have that certain level of insanity to play it. Suddenly, people who tried playing these games but were not having any fun playing them due to the difficulty and challenging aspect of an MMORPG started hitting the forums; and these vocal minority hit them hard. They endlessly and relentlessly complained about how hard it was, demanding that things be made easier so that they too could enjoy these games. They were the minority yet they were also the very loudest and most annoying players in the MMORPG world. They were met with players like me telling them that if they do not enjoy the game, perhaps they would be happier playing a different game and were told that the changes they were demanding would take away from the enjoyment of the game for everyone else. They did not care about the negative effects it would have on others who enjoyed the game as is and they threatened the very core of what made these games great for people like me. Eventually the Developers of these games caved in and gave them what they wanted by making the games ridiculously easier. All of the things the rest of us had to work hard to accomplish, these players who wanted things easy for them got for zero to very little effort. It was a slap in the face to players who were like me (and back then there were a lot more people like me than there were people like them) because what we enjoyed about MMORPG's were stolen (I say stolen because the type of game that they were ceased to exist and were replaced with easy mode versions of what we once loved) from us and practically handed to them on a silver platter. Games like Star Wars Galaxies changed and they started handing out Jedi as a Class that you could play at level 1 rather than working hard to unlock Force Sensitives. They completely changed the game and the mechanics of the game and as a result they suffered greatly in their population when players like myself left the game in droves that almost closed the game down due to lack of subscribers. Other games started going free to play and I personally believe that this happened because their customers who were happy to pay, left the games in a large enough number that companies had no choice in order to stay afloat. Now, they did not admit that, however, admitting that they were wrong would be a first for any gaming company. No gaming company ever admits that something they did was wrong and a bad idea, they always put the blame on the players. These gaming companies caved in to the players who wanted these games to revolve around them, instead of them learning to play the games as they were or finding some other game that is more to their liking. So the people who liked the games challenging and stayed because they were presented a challenge left the games and were replaced by players who wanted the games changed to fit what they expected the games to be. MMORPG's were made a certain way to attract a certain type of player, but instead caved in to the people who hated the games and wanted them changed to be made easier and I believe the MMORPG companies suffered greatly for making that huge mistake...which brings us to modern day. Now we have players who prefer things their way rather than how the game was originally intended to be and they far out number the players like myself who enjoyed the games for how they were intended to be. Not only do these players not want the game to be more challenging or have some type of gate behind rewards, they will literally ostracize you for suggesting that the game should go back to the old ways. Making such a suggestion will get you remembered for all the wrong reasons. This is the history of MMORPG's in general as I personally have experienced them. This is what I have witnessed with my own two eyes throughout the bazzilion years that I have been playing MMORPG's. This is what players like me have lost and this is why players like me have been pushed aside and even demonized for expressing how we feel about it. In fact, I imagine that I will get a bit of flack just for typing out my experience in the gaming world even though this is the absolute truth from my personal perspective. Players like me have lost what brought us to the MMORPG world to begin with and have been pushed aside for an easier and more inclusive gaming community. The difference is, it simply no longer includes people like myself in the way that we once loved them. Keep in mind, somebody else may have a completely different perspective on how things have changed, but this perspective is mine, so take it with a grain of salt since I am not backing this with any hard numbers but rather sharing my personal views. For players who are like me, the biggest slap in the face is when people say, "Then go play it the old way and grind for what you want, and we will do it our way." People just really do not understand how insulting that line can be sometimes...we simply have to overlook those types of comments and move on. People of those times got the games changed to what they are today....and by doing so they took a big part of the games away from players like me. Not all of the changes were bad, in fact some of them were downright awesome changes, however, the base foundation of what MMORPG's used to be is long since gone. So I truly understand where your mind is OP and where you are coming from, I truly truly do. However, there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it because you simply cannot ever go back to the way things were. You cannot tell people that all of a sudden out of the blue they can no longer have the things they want unless they work for it. The games have already lost a great number of players when they made the games easier for other players. Those players are gone and will never return even if the game is reverted back to its original foundations of what they once were. Those people are gone and I have had to say goodbye to a great deal amount of them, It's simply too late and the damage has been done. So if you revert it back to the way it once was, all you will do is lose the players we have now and these games will have nobody left playing them. None of us wants that because the other thing that makes MMORPG's so wonderful, is the people that you play them with. Without the people, we might as well go back to console gaming. I hope this helps you to understand why things have changed to how they currently are and why we can never go back to how they once were. If you love the game, you must nurture what the game is today rather than trying to make the game feel more like it once was. That is the only way City of Heroes will continue to survive. This is my perspective and my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt.

On a side note, we have badges, like over 1500 of them, and people are more than happy to bash their heads in getting all of them. 🤪

This should help you understand.

If somebody came out with a server that put everything back behind a gate so that you had to play the content to unlock them,l that goes for capes, auras, costumes, badges, respecs...everything but had everything else this server has, I think that would be the only way to get a more realistic idea to the statistics to answer your question. Without that option, it is just too hard to say.

You know, I thought on this a bit last night as I was laying in bed it a thought came in that made me think...Homecoming is trying to go legit with NCSoft. If I were trying to do the same, one of my talking points to help make my case would be, "We have X amount of players, there is still a profit to be made here and we can run that for you at minimal cost." If players start dropping, wouldn't that hurt HC with their attempt to do what they are trying to do with NCSoft?

Yeah, I'm not always best with my choice of words. I honestly have no other word to use on how to describe it though. To me, instant gratification is only a bad thing when it has a negative result. It can also have positive results depending on how it's being used. I am however open to using a different term, I simply do not know what else to call it. Here here. 🙂

No, not at all. Check out Vile Terror's last post. That pretty much sums it up. And keep in mind, it's not that I agree with it, but that is the only way to go about it without getting people on a warpath.

Doh! My apologies.

To do so would invite the rage of people who prefer the instant gratification. People who prefer the gated way would have no problems, but the other half of the population would come after you with torches and pitch forks. It's just one of those things that once you give to players, you can never take away. It should have never been done to begin with, but now that it has been done, you would end up pissing off half the players to revert them or even add new content that is locked behind them.

This, it would not make a significant difference and would even feel the same as far as gameplay is concerned.

Yeah, back in the old days when things were gated, I would have said everything should stay that way, it was how the game was designed back then. However, over the years the game has opened up and left the gated days far behind. Once that happened it is too much to require players to go back to the old ways so to keep it consistent I agree with @CrudeVileTerror and them. (I say them because he has more accounts than I can name, hehe)

Exactly. I myself was never a smack talker in PvP unless I was PvPing against a friend. For some reason I felt it was okay vs a friend. But in open PvP against people I did not hang out with, I almost always ran silent mode. I could read what they said, but outside of a gf or a hv, I was silent and I never gave much mind to people who might rage at me or any o the smack talk. To engage with it can invite hard feelings and I simply felt it was best to remain a silent runner. And then there were times I just turned off chat all together much like you. It just depended on how I felt that day. So +1 for that. 🙂

Some people go in to a thread with a hothead and lash out at people believing they will somehow insult the poster down to submission. After that poster responds unkindly (which is normal human behavior) the person who initiated the flaming likes to play the victim status because they feel that it works as a tactic. I think current society has catered to these personalities over the past 30 years and now they are more prevalent than they were 30 years ago. For an example, the way people act when they get their order wrong from McDonald's. People throwing their food at the employees, cussing out management, being the star of their very own Youtube show and they didn't even know it. This type of behavior was simply unheard of 30 or 40 years ago. There is a psychological reason behind this that I don't really want to get in to right away, but I don't think it's hard to figure out even if you have never studied Social Psychology. They do it because in their past experience, it has worked for them. This is why I said earlier that you have to have a thick skin to post forums. I have had SG mates and people on my Global Friends list through random chit chat, come up with an idea and ask me to post the forums about it. Of course I ask them why they don't post it themselves and let them know that I will support their thread (if I think it's a good idea) and they emphatically say no. They are literally repulsed by these forums because their past experience on these forums after posting was very unpleasant for them. First impressions leave a stain. I on the other hand have had 95% positive experiences on these forums. Most of the interactions with my fellow gamers on this forum has been a positive one. The *only* time I get people who are rather rude is if I post a (knowingly) controversial thread. That is to be expected. However, I have a thick skin and I can handle the negative feedback or backlash that I may receive from it. However, I don't take it personal because if I make a controversial post, I do so ready for it with a thick skin and an open mind to differing opinions. Sometimes players show me the error of my ways because I am open to their opinions....other times I leave the thread with the same opinion going out. It really just depends on how convincing other people's points of view are and if I feel they truly understand my point of view, or if they read my point of view with tunnel vision and did not take in the point of the thread as a whole. Some people will read one sentence and forget the rest of the thread, others read the whole thread, understand where I am coming from and hen respectfully disagree....those are the people who make much stronger arguments because they are actually arguing the entire point of the post rather than a single sentence taken out of context. Those are the type of people who garner my deep respect. The only posters that I feel are toxic are posters who argue strawman arguments. I absolutely hate strawman argument because they enjoy putting words or intent on to you when you never said any such thing or intended any such thing. However, there are only 2, maaaaaybe 3 people on this entire forum who I have ran in to who does this. At the end of the day, I want to say 99% of the people who post these forums know how to have a different opinion without being rude or without being passive aggressive about how they express them...and for a forum, those are damn god odds and I love this community and the people in this community for that very reason. I would probably go to a meet and greet and drink a few with 99.5% of the people who post these boards. 🙂

That's because most PvE'er (I'm a PvE'er now days, but I used to PvP religiously) mistake shit talking for the player being toxic. For somebody who never PvP's they don't understand that it is just smack talk in good fun. To each their own though.

There are a select few people who I consider toxic. Toxic to some is not exactly toxic to others though. Toxic in game is anyone who deliberately goes out of their way to cause grief to other players or gets on chat and just says one rude thing after the next. Toxic on the forums to me is anyone who continues to argue strawman arguments even though you have clearly corrected them time and again that you did not say what they continue to argue against. I see this mostly on General Forums and Suggestion Forums and I personally find those type of posters to be toxic. However, not everyone sees them as toxic, some may see them as a minor annoyance at best because they are more worried about winning the argument than they are with recognizing what they thought was implied was wrong. Some people just can't seem to be able to admit that they are wrong so they continue to argue strawman tactics. They are too worried about their self image I suppose...on a forum no less. As far as downright rude posters, I have honestly only seen one or two come and go, but they don't seem to last very long. The ones I do find outright rude find my ignore list, most usually after I make a few attempts to bring things back to a place of understanding and after they have shown me that they are just hell bent on being a problem. They usually make claims that they are being picked on even though they are the ones who instigated the rude behavior. They usually don't last long and leave pouting. Sometimes they come back to try again, but it's not long before they leave again for the same reason. Meanwhile, us long time and more regular posters tend to get along just fine for the most part....except for those occasions when I decide to bring up a heated topic...in which point I brace myself and get ready for the firing squad, lol. But at the end of the day, for the most part, this is a great community, helpful, kind and I consider this community to be second only to no one. Can people in this community be toxic? Sure, in fact I have several friends in game who ask me from time to time to post something on their behalf. When I ask them why don't they post it themselves and inform them that I will even support their idea or statement, they don't want any part of these forums. Their reasoning is usually because forum posters have a tendency to be pretty hard on people who have different opinions than they do. So yeah, I think you have to have a bit of a thick skin to post, especially if you are posting something that most do not agree with. However, out of all the forums I have ever posted...which were a lot...these forums have the most laid back people of all of them. So yes, forum posters can be rough sometimes, but if somebody can't handle this community and feels they are toxic, then they had better stay clear of other gaming communities...it won't be a pleasant experience. I would also like to include LotR Online players...those players were actually quite nice as well and very helpful, but not quite as much as this one.

Would just like to give you a friendly warning that gameplay footage is not allowed on HC forums. Might want to give the names of the videos and ask the players/Devs to check them out instead of actually posting the footage.

It still exists in Echo

n the tailor, a new Stance power in the Inherent tab will allow you to select one of the following stances: Default Ninja Beast Slide Very impressive, and I can't wait to see this on live! Thank you VERY much for this, Devs. Damn fine work and so glad you guys also pay attention to the little things! Many of us will very much appreciate this!

I'm really happy for you, man. That is the fastest I have ever seen a request be implemented in to the game. Very impressed. Good job, Starforge. 🙂

Is it just me or has the Collision Mechanics actually gotten bigger? I am finding it more difficult to maneuver in mobs than I used to and I am currently playing on a smaller framed character. I thought it was because I was playing on a larger framed Tank, but when I rolled a smaller framed Tank I noticed I was still having issues moving around in mobs; not to mention I have also noticed that I am being shoved around a lot more than I used to. For an example, there can be a clear opening in the center of a mob and I will go to jump in the center of that mob and instead of landing in the center of the obvious clear opening, I will instead ride the top of the mobs (almost like there is an invisible force fields surrounding the mob) until the collision finally places me on the outside of the mob. On top of that, I can be stationary and the mobs that I taunt will come to me, but then I get shoved all over the place. It just really seems to me that the collision mechanics have grown lately. It was bad enough before, I always felt that they needed adjustment to begin with, but it seems a lot worse now. Anyone else noticing this by chance who plays Tanks or some other form of melee characters?

That is strange. Is it possible it was tampered with?

I approve!

On your Ice Armor picture...I am asking why did you not use the already in place Minimal Effects for Ice Armor? I suggest checking it out. It will be much better if you pick that option. Also, keep in mind, I have mine set to bright while also using bright colors because I like the Icy frosty look for my Tank, but you can change the colors to make it even less noticeable.

Exactly. And yes, it was around issue 5 or 6 if memory serves and it came before power customization. I never complained about the Armor because I always built for the Armor with the Armor in mind. But, you know, ...people. Anyway, so now that it can be an option, I would like to have the originals back. More specifically the original Icicles. 🙂 This was my Ice Tank on Live....he was not EXACTLY like he was on issue 5, due to upgrades in costume, but with the original Ice Armor on, it fit him perfectly. Sooo like I said, I built the character to match the Armor instead of being demanding of the team to make the armor fit my costume.

I have tried the set on a Scrapper paired with Shield....simply was not impressed. Any change to help the set is welcomed.