Keep the dev team in mind when you suggest

[GladDog]

The dev team is for the most part, if not completely, unpaid and doing this stuff part time.  It may take a year for a new powerset to be developed and tested.  Not to say that you can't suggest away, but suggestions that are small adjustments to powers are much more likely to be done that a new AT or even a new powerset.   

 

Earlier I suggested playable Rikti.  The only reason I suggested that is because Paragon Studios was considering doing this, and there may have been a significant amount of coding already finished.  There are a number of powersets I would suggest, but I hardly feel like wasting my time doing something that will likely never see the light of day.

 

So keep those guys in mind when you suggest things!  Or if you have some coding experience, maybe try to make that powerset and let the dev team balance it out if they think it is worth their time.  That would be far more likely to be finished and put in the game than 'A Dust Mastery powerset would ROCK!' type suggestions.

[MetaVileTerror]

Just to nip the counter argument in the dub before it gets here:  "But the other servers have new content!"
Yup.  They do.  And looking at OuroDev, you might be able to make some new content as well!

We don't /really/ know why the Homecoming Team isn't showing us what's in store for the future, but there's certainly a lot of pressure on the ncsoft negotiations.  I have some speculations on that, but all we can do is either step up and volunteer (and holymittens has demonstrated that volunteering can lead to getting your work put in to the game), patiently wait for the Homecoming Team, or consider migrating to one of those other servers.   That last option, however, comes with some other caveats, so be prepared to consider your options carefully.

[MunkiLord]

Disagree strongly here, people should suggest whatever they want regardless of how possible or easy or difficult it is. What I do think people should keep in check is their expectations. Suggest all the crazy and out there shit one wants to suggest, but don't expect anything. If the development team finds a particular idea compelling enough that they feel working on it is worth their time, they likely will. If they don't for whatever reason, they won't. 

[WanderingAries]

Shoot for the moon on suggestions, but remember to keep your feet on the ground when you consider typing out that "why isn't this done?" rant.

[GladDog]

16 hours ago, MunkiLord said:

Disagree strongly here, people should suggest whatever they want regardless of how possible or easy or difficult it is. What I do think people should keep in check is their expectations. Suggest all the crazy and out there shit one wants to suggest, but don't expect anything. If the development team finds a particular idea compelling enough that they feel working on it is worth their time, they likely will. If they don't for whatever reason, they won't. 

I did not say not to suggest.  I said to realize that a new powerset or a new AT or some-such is not something that is likely to happen soon, if at all.  Suggesting a tweak is something that may happen quickly.  I have suggested that they change the order of the powers in the epic pools Energy Mastery and Body Mastery so that Physical Perfection is Tier 1, moving Focused Accuracy to Tier 2.  Because this is something that (I assume - not sure since I am not a programmer) should be easy to implement.  I try to keep my suggestions simple, so that the devs may actually consider doing them.

[Captain Powerhouse]

On 11/11/2019 at 5:50 PM, MunkiLord said:

Disagree strongly here, people should suggest whatever they want regardless of how possible or easy or difficult it is. What I do think people should keep in check is their expectations. Suggest all the crazy and out there [blip] one wants to suggest, but don't expect anything. If the development team finds a particular idea compelling enough that they feel working on it is worth their time, they likely will. If they don't for whatever reason, they won't. 

 

This. Go crazy with  your suggestions. I personally try to make a personal habit of NOT commenting on any, in great part because it can just be fun to theory-craft stuff even if it cant happen. IMO, that is as much part of the game as the game itself, and would hate anyone holding back just because they think it's not realistic. Besides, it's rare that anyone might actually know what is realistic and what isn't.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 11/11/2019 at 5:50 PM, MunkiLord said:

Disagree strongly here, people should suggest whatever they want regardless of how possible or easy or difficult it is. What I do think people should keep in check is their expectations. Suggest all the crazy and out there shit one wants to suggest, but don't expect anything. If the development team finds a particular idea compelling enough that they feel working on it is worth their time, they likely will. If they don't for whatever reason, they won't. 

I’m with you on this, but I’d say that suggesters also need to be mentally prepared for the next post to be “Nope, that’s crazy and out there!” by another player.  It allows for a discussion, and an airing of opinions.  

[chigiabelo]

Some ideas get shot down not because they're crazy, but because some folks have an agenda, they want certain things implemented before others, and if your idea diverts developer attention away from that agenda, they'll poopoo it.

 

The good news is that devs (both in this game and others) will know a good and implementable idea when they see one. I can think of a few ideas that, while I can't be certain I was the first to suggest them on the original forums, I (1) hadn't seen anyone else bring them up before me,  (2) I got flamed for suggesting most of them when and most importantly (3) they got implemented either in CoH or Champions. Examples of things I requested that others did not think were such good ideas are the ability to hide from your friends (i.e., appear offline), a mission editor (AE), and Personal Arch Enemies (a version of which was implemented in Champions, pretty much the way I would have wanted it too). 

 

Here's something I always wanted: squads made up of your other characters and the ability to switch between them in the UI. Basically, I think with today's more powerful processors and cheaper, larger amounts of RAM, it should be possible for the client to instantly switch between characters, allowing you to play more than one. My idea was that once you got 2 characters to the level cap, you'd unlock squads, i.e., the ability to play special missions designed for much larger teams composed of one or more players bringing two or more of their Level 50+ alts and switching between them at will while playing. Characters that are not under your immediate control would automatically begin using AI to fulfill their roles, but be somewhat controllable using Mastermind-type commands. You could literally play the same mission different ways just by changing the order in which you switch between your characters.

[Piyerus]

Honestly as long as you're not invoking the standard code rant by saying how easy your suggestion will be, it doesn't matter how simple or complex the actual idea is. Some ideas may be so good that they're worth implementing even if they seem impossibly hard, and some ideas are just so bad that they're not worth doing even if it'd only take a minute to do. In other words the difficulty of the idea isn't as big of a factor as how good the idea may be.

 

Plus, as a mere pleb player, I don't actually know everyone on the dev team and what their strengths or weaknesses are! Maybe the suggestion that seems impossible is actually fairly attainable, because it happens to be something some of the devs are good at. Or maybe what seems to be a simple suggestion is actually super hard, because none of the devs would know how to do it! And even if I DID know what the devs are capable of, things can change. Maybe a new volunteer could come on, and what's impossible today could be easy tomorrow. 

 

All in all, I'd rather discuss if an idea is fun or not, or a good fit for the game. I don't care at all how easy or hard it may be.

[Myrmidon]

The Hell with that! No breaks until the Tanker changes go live!

[Haijinx]

Keep in mind that weathering criticism is potentially a decent test of an idea.

 

If the idea still seems needed and useful after the nay sayers nay say it, then maybe the idea is actually a good one.