When are we actually going to see a large patch with new content?

[eldriyth]

It's been months since there was a "wish list" added to the patch notes section of what people want to see added. There was also a post about some amazing stuff coming including Mastermind Changes. When are we actually going to see this stuff? What is taking so long? There are other servers that have some crazy customization and they haven't been around as long as homecoming.

[siolfir]

4 minutes ago, eldriyth said:

It's been months since there was a "wish list" added to the patch notes section of what people want to see added. There was also a post about some amazing stuff coming including Mastermind Changes. When are we actually going to see this stuff? What is taking so long? There are other servers that have some crazy customization and they haven't been around as long as homecoming.

Soon™.

[boggo2300]

I think actually never

 

you will see lots of small content releases

[golstat2003]

I prefer Homecoming's approach. Especially when it comes to get their tech in order. 

[boggo2300]

24 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

I prefer Homecoming's approach. Especially when it comes to get their tech in order. 

ditto

[Outrider_01]

2 hours ago, eldriyth said:

When are we actually going to see this stuff? What is taking so long? There are other servers that have some crazy customization and they haven't been around as long as homecoming.

They have personal lives? Small unpaid team doing it pretty much as a hobby and you as a person have higher expectations for not getting the memo?  You can always play on the other servers?

 

Are the other servers trying to run legit like HC? Are semi-private without the cost of lawyers, server costz and stuff, requiring donations to run? I am asking, as I see it nearly full time just dealing with the lawyers and making sure things are running smoothly, tweaks to balance stuff are easier then making an entire story board plt?

[Carnifax]

The other server content seems slightly reckless to me to be honest. Some of the Kheldian changes and controller changes look like theres been little regard for overall balance (controller pets at level 1 for example).

 

Customisation stuff looks good from what ive read but the powers changes are very gung ho.

 

Also rearranging powers like that is, coding wise, very cheap resourcewise. Easy to do, the trick is knowing why and if you should be.

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

33 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

The other server content seems slightly reckless to me to be honest. Some of the Kheldian changes and controller changes look like theres been little regard for overall balance (controller pets at level 1 for example).

 

I know exactly what you're talking about - my reaction to both of those changes were "Have you ever actually played a Kheldian/Controller?". There was a patch to arachnos spiders too, a while ago, which I thought was a bit ridiculous as I believe historically that spiders could take down a ritki war zone pylon in under 30 seconds. 

 

Then again, there's nothing wrong with just wanting to feel like a superhero/villain for a bit.

[Lines]

I think its a good thing that we have different servers taking different approaches to how the game changes. Certainly of you prefer the cut of another group's jib, go to them.

 

I'm in perpetual astonishment that we have any changes happening at all, and volunteers happy to do it. I don't particularly need dramatic overhauls of content (pay no heed to my posts in the suggestions forum ...) so Homecoming's slow-and-steady, thoroughly tested approach suits me.

[Water]

You are aware that the team running our game is not the original creative team aren't you?

 

Everybody connected to the development studio has dispersed into the wilderness, probably never to return (maybe). Therefore the talent and ideas that produced CoX went with them. Homecoming continue to do amazing work by maintaining our game in a playable state.

 

You can always play any 1 of hundreds of other *FREE* games if you are bored with this one, or indeed create a new character right here.

 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Water

[Chris24601]

I've said it before, but I will say it again. The development of a 64-bit client and Homecoming's other back-end changes are what is going to make Homecoming the only game in town for City of Heroes sooner rather than later.

 

Spending your time developing crazy new power sets and such is useless if you can't actually play it. Apple's newer OS's no longer run 32-bit clients and I've no doubt that whenever Windows 11 drops it will also no longer run the dinosaur that is 32-bit clients.

 

That limits all the alternatives spending their time on flashy bits to an older and ever dwindling number of machines that can actually play them while Homecoming's "boring" work on a 64-bit client ensures it will be viable for years to come.

 

Throw in the work of actually going legit (the danger of shutdown is certainly limiting development work) and I feel safe in saying Homecoming is far more likely to be around in 3-5 years than many of the other rogue servers.

[DR_Mechano]

I understand why things are taking so long. Firstly this is a volunteer team and its one of only two server teams working on the Issue 25 version of the game (and the other one doesn't seem to do much IIRC when it comes to their own independent development). Rebirth/At least I have cake/CoxG are all working on the issue 24 server stuff which means that they have three very dedicated groups which can share info between each other and changes/stuff added to one can be ported over to the other.

 

Secondly the HC team are focusing on the backend stuff, hence why we've got the 64 bit client, that took quite a large chunk of time to create.

 

Unfortunately now we've got to wait until Safe Mode can be disabled before the Mastermind changes can be implemented. It just seems like its one thing after another with the "oh but wait, we've got to do THIS backend thing first before we can really do anything else.."

 

I get that all this backend worked NEEDS to be done but it is getting rather frustrating on how much it is slowing down EVERYTHING. Even simple things which, in my opinion, should be done, like loosening the restrictions on the NPC only costume items that we can use in Titan Icon with the -n prompt that work with no issues (there are a very large number of pieces that work just fine already but for some reason are still restricted behind being NPC only for no good reason).

Edited January 13, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[Ruin Mage]

imagine being impatient for content from a volunteer unpaid team.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Shadeknight

[Chris24601]

Honestly, there are so many possible sets available here that I never got to on live that I honestly would prefer they devote their effort first and foremost to the back end stuff that will make the game easier to add content to down the line.

 

By way of comparison, my substitute MMO before CoH returned was SWTOR. You know how many new classes and options for those classes they had in the seven year gap? ZERO. Same eight advanced classes with three talent trees faction mirrored (i.e. only the animations are different between a jedi and a sith).

 

Sure, they’ve added about 20 levels since then, but 15 of those only added railroad story content that amounted to maybe 3-4 hours of fresh play per character. The rest was all grinding the same seven year old content.

 

In terms of fresh play experience, those twenty levels added about 2 powers and 3 talents to each build... and homogenized everything so that a jedi tank plays almost exactly like a bounty hunter tank.

 

They had two straight years without an expansion during which they added a grand total of four missions designed to be ground again and again.

 

So the amount of progress both in getting i24/25 stuff, power set proliferation, new sets and even some new missions out, plus the backend work... as VOLUNTEERS... is amazing and praiseworthy; easily IMHO eclipsing the content produced by the professionals employed by EA/Bioware on their big MMO property.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Chris24601

[NNDeepdish]

 

11 hours ago, eldriyth said:

It's been months since there was a "wish list" added to the patch notes section of what people want to see added. There was also a post about some amazing stuff coming including Mastermind Changes. When are we actually going to see this stuff? What is taking so long? There are other servers that have some crazy customization and they haven't been around as long as homecoming.

Are you serious rn????

[Abraxus]

My take is that, between the efforts towards legal legitimacy, and the move away from the safe mode/legacy version of the client, there are a lot of things they'd like to do, which are predicated on sorting out those issues first.  There are other servers that cater a bit more to popular demand, and that's fine.  Variety is a good thing, and for some preferable.  For myself, I prefer the more methodical approach, trying to ensure that stability is not sacrificed for the sake of change.  I think there are a lot of folks here who are in the same position. 

 

I believe this will be a pivotal year for Homecoming, and CoH in general.  We will likely see some major things happening.  But, they won't happen on anyone's timeline.  Like most things in business, they will happen when they can, and not a moment sooner.

[Yomo Kimyata]

11 hours ago, eldriyth said:

It's been months since there was a "wish list" added to the patch notes section of what people want to see added. There was also a post about some amazing stuff coming including Mastermind Changes. When are we actually going to see this stuff? What is taking so long? There are other servers that have some crazy customization and they haven't been around as long as homecoming.

When are you going to pay the volunteer developers a salary and benefits?  You realize, of course, they are working for nothing and that they owe you exactly what you are paying them.  I'm sure the other servers would love the population, so report back to us and let us know how it went!

[NNDeepdish]

[Lockpick]

Trolls are going to troll.  Don't feed the trolls...

[DougGraves]

There is a good question here.  With so many different servers trying different things, will the changes that work well on a server migrate to the others?

 

I prefer a careful approach especially around balance.  But I also want good changes to happen.  So if Server X makes a MM change and it is deemed a good thing, will Homecoming copy that change?

 

Are all of the other servers effectively playtesting for Homecoming, or are they all siloed?

[ShardWarrior]

12 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

I prefer Homecoming's approach. Especially when it comes to get their tech in order. 

^ This.

[Rathulfr]

31 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

Are all of the other servers effectively playtesting for Homecoming, or are they all siloed?

They are all siloed, and doing their own thang.  Some of them are rabidly anti-Homecoming, so the mere suggestion that they would be "playtesting for Homecoming" made me snicker and would inflame them tremendously.

[Lines]

There are folks out there like Bubblewrap who are deploying their innovations to coxg (I think), simply because it's in-line with the more easily available Ourodev builds. Homecoming's build isn't so available.

 

I don't know if Bubble plays much on Homecoming anymore, but I know they're not averse to their work ending up here once it's in a working state.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Lines

[Sailboat]

You know, I came to play City of Heroes (or Villains).  Change is okay, but I DO NOT WANT large, sweeping changes, especially to how the rules work, as that makes it less and less like COH.  New Task Forces and missions are another thing -- bring that on -- but radical changes to ATs and Powersets and other stuff would make me lose interest -- especially if it happens rapidly.  I have plenty of things left to explore in the game before it changes into something unrecognizable.

 

My general experience with computer game communities over the years is that people who are impatient for dramatic changes often get what they've been pressing for, but leave the game anyway, because they are the sort of people always looking for new things.  That's not a bad thing to want, but it winds up changing the game for everyone else and then the people who argued for it leave, and the rest of us are left with changes we didn't necessarily want.

[Bill Z Bubba]

I'm just happy knowing I get to log in when I get home at the end of the day. I even donated for the first time this last month an amount that I feel is fair for a year's worth of access. I do not in any way think that this entitles me to anything beyond the ability to log in. Hell, even if everything got shut down tomorrow I'd consider it fair for the time I've played to date.

 

Everything else that happens is gravy and I'm thankful for it. Sure, I'll throw in a few "hey wouldn't it be nice if" requests to the suggestions forum but I have zero expectations such things will come to pass.