How I feel about Excelsior Hamidon Raids

[Dev7on]

Ok I'm gonna go on a rant and to get this off my chest. Players on Excelsior do daily Hamidon Raids every night at 10 pm EST. Since the GMs have change the population cap to 50 now players have been going to the zone early. For some reason players don't announce it on the LFG anymore. They only announce it until AFTER The Hive is full and people can't get in. It's like people are doing Hamidon raids incognito style without people even realizing there's a raid on going and a lot of players end up missing out on it. Sure the Excelsior channel MOTD says "10 pm" on it but, it's not "really" 10 pm it's earlier than that. It's very inconsistent. I'm also aware of the Excelsior Discord but NOT EVERYONE uses Discord. It would be very nice if someone would announce the Hamidon raid early to encourage players to come to The Hive early due to the population cap. There are a lot of players that are getting frustrated including myself of what's going on now. Since players are constantly doing this now it take away the City of Heroes experience. This is not how it used to be back in the day and I miss it.  This is my honest opinion and this is how I feel about it. If you guys don't agree with me or don't like my rant that's fine. I just want the community to at least understand where I come from.

[DougGraves]

so you need to do another raid at 10:30?

[Doc_Scorpion]

Or use the instanced version.

[Veracor]

I've been running daily Hamidon raids on Everlasting since August and the whole "it fills 20 minutes prior without even advertising" is also a thing here.  The issue has been alleviated somewhat by Elmyder joining me to run daily Hamidon raids at different hours and ROBOKiTTY running bonus Hamidon raids on the weekend.

 

I'm not sure what you're asking, though; there's really nothing that the raid leaders can do about early arrivals and the zone filling up.  When we tried leading concurrent raids, the second zone would usually fail to fill and/or have a multibox leecher problem.  If we announce to arrive early, all that does is push the schedule off-track earlier and earlier each day, not to mention dealing with constant vitriol and complaints from rude and entitled players that think the schedule changes are being done on purpose to slight them.  The over-attendance issue is really only fixed by more people stepping up to run additional Hamidon raids at different hours so that the people who are attending at primetime, but could be attending sometime else, don't fill up the main raid slots.

 

Help fulfill the demand on Excelsior by scheduling and running your own Hamidon raids.

[Wavicle]

44 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Or use the instanced version.

Instanced version of the Hami raid?

[Dazl]

I've been doing the daily hami raid with my main Dazl for months now. The raid is supposed to start at 10pm, but due to the increasing interest the zone has been filling up well before 10pm lately. Once we hit the zone pop cap there is no point in waiting till 10pm, so the raids are starting well before 10pm now. It's very rare that the hami raid is ever announced on the LFG channel, since we never have an issue filling the league anymore.  

 

There is definite increasing interest in doing hami raids, but there may not be enough interest to run a second raid at the same time as the first one, but there might be an interest in doing one at a different time or after the first raid is over.   

[Apparition]

7 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Or use the instanced version.

 

AFAIK, the instanced version of the Hamidon raid is still in the development stages.  Last I heard about it was from Leandro on the Homecoming Discord back in late September.  I imagine that it's been pushed to the back burner with all of the other stuff going on with Homecoming the past few months.

[Apparition]

8 hours ago, Dev7on said:

Ok I'm gonna go on a rant and to get this off my chest. Players on Excelsior do daily Hamidon Raids every night at 10 pm EST. Since the GMs have change the population cap to 50 now players have been going to the zone early. For some reason players don't announce it on the LFG anymore. They only announce it until AFTER The Hive is full and people can't get in. It's like people are doing Hamidon raids incognito style without people even realizing there's a raid on going and a lot of players end up missing out on it. Sure the Excelsior channel MOTD says "10 pm" on it but, it's not "really" 10 pm it's earlier than that. It's very inconsistent. I'm also aware of the Excelsior Discord but NOT EVERYONE uses Discord. It would be very nice if someone would announce the Hamidon raid early to encourage players to come to The Hive early due to the population cap. There are a lot of players that are getting frustrated including myself of what's going on now. Since players are constantly doing this now it take away the City of Heroes experience. This is not how it used to be back in the day and I miss it.  This is my honest opinion and this is how I feel about it. If you guys don't agree with me or don't like my rant that's fine. I just want the community to at least understand where I come from.

 

 

Hamidon raids are not advertised because they simply do not need to be.  "Everyone" knows that Hamidon raids are run on Excelsior at 10 P.M. ET/7 P.M. PT and have been since July of last year.  After September, "everyone" knows that you need to get to The Hive early if you want to raid.  Like you said, The Hive is full before 10 P.M. ET.  There's simply no need to advertise.  What would happen if they did advertise is that the zone would simply fill even more quickly and the raids would start even earlier.

 

If this is an issue for you, then the only solution would be for you to run your own Hamidon raid at some other time.

[Corruption]

I'm not sure what your issue is. The people who go to the Hive early to ensure they get a spot are going to do the same regardless of how early the raid is advertised. 

 

Personally, I haven't been to a Hami raid since the zone cap change. Waiting around for a while before the actual start time of some of the most boring content in the game, is not for me. To each their own. 

[Dev7on]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

 

 

Hamidon raids are not advertised because they simply do not need to be.  "Everyone" knows that Hamidon raids are run on Excelsior at 10 P.M. ET/7 P.M. PT and have been since July of last year.  After September, "everyone" knows that you need to get to The Hive early if you want to raid.  Like you said, The Hive is full before 10 P.M. ET.  There's simply no need to advertise.  What would happen if they did advertise is that the zone would simply fill even more quickly and the raids would start even earlier.

 

If this is an issue for you, then the only solution would be for you to run your own Hamidon raid at some other time.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate. "Not everyone." There are still former CoH players that are just discovering the CoH private servers. Newly returned players might be unaware of that. Let's say a newly return player wants to do a Hamidon Raid to relive the experience since they haven't done it in 10 years. Those players are not used to going to the zone early and wait for the league to get filled up. That's being inconsiderate to those players. Also, I don't know how to lead a Hamidon Raid. I have the ability to lead mission teams, TF/SFs and incarnate trials but, never lead a Mothership Raid or Hamidon. Not "everyone" have good leadership skills. Come on guys, you have to be considerate for players like me. That's B.S. 

[Apparition]

5 minutes ago, Dev7on said:

I'm gonna play devil's advocate. "Not everyone." There are still former CoH players that are just discovering the CoH private servers. Newly returned players might be unaware of that. Let's say a newly return player wants to do a Hamidon Raid to relive the experience since they haven't done it in 10 years. Those players are not used to going to the zone early and wait for the league to get filled up. That's being inconsiderate to those players. Also, I don't know how to lead a Hamidon Raid. I have the ability to lead mission teams, TF/SFs and incarnate trials but, never lead a Mothership Raid or Hamidon. Not "everyone" have good leadership skills. Come on guys, you have to be considerate for players like me. That's B.S. 

 

You're right that there are still new and returning players, and eventually they'll discover that there are daily Hamidon raids every night, and they'll also discover that if they want to participate they need to get to The Hive early.

 

They are considerate of players like you.  Everyone has equal opportunity to get to The Hive early and wait.  If you don't like it, you also have the equal opportunity of forming your Hamidon raid.

 

What is it that you want?  For people to advertise upcoming Hamidon raids, and then for absolutely no one to enter the Hive prior to 10 P.M. ET/7 P.M. PT?  Wait for the clock to strike 10 P.M., and enter The Hive in an orderly fashion?  Yeah, sorry, no.  That's never going to happen.

 

As for "Oh boo hoo, I don't have good leadership skills and I've never lead a raid before.  Woe is me."  Please.  As I've pointed out before, I am not a leader, nor am I a follower.  I'm a loner in real life.  My "leadership skills" are little to none.  Yet I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, took the initiative, and lead Rikti mothership raids.  I also lead a few Incarnate trials before sunset, and helped lead Hamidon raids.  That was before I've ever done such a thing.  You know what?  I floundered the first couple of times I lead a raid.  But that's okie.  I learned from those mistakes.  You will as well.

[Rathulfr]

29 minutes ago, Dev7on said:

Let's say a newly return player wants to do a Hamidon Raid to relive the experience since they haven't done it in 10 years. Those players are not used to going to the zone early and wait for the league to get filled up.

Um, actually... The zone cap was 50 back in retail, so that's not any different for any veteran returning player.  The zone cap being higher than 50 was a phenomena unique to Homecoming, when it was raised temporarily for a period of time, before being reset to its original value.  So this argument is invalid.  Any returning player would know to get to the zone early/on-time if they want to get into the league.

 

Not that many of us from the old days really care that much about Hamidon in the first place.  Back in the day, nobody really cared about Hamidon.  Hamidon is a relic of the "early days" of CoH, prior to us getting the shiny new IOs and Incarnate stuff.  Sure, there were a few that did Hamidon occasionally, but that was the exception rather than the rule.  I think I did Hamidon maybe once or twice in the 8 years of retail, because it was more trouble than it was worth.  But since Homecoming made Hamidon worthwhile, I've probably done Hamidon about a half a dozen times in the past 9 months.

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Doc_Scorpion]

2 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

AFAIK, the instanced version of the Hamidon raid is still in the development stages. 

 

It went live months ago.

[Ruin Mage]

It did not, Doc.

That was the MSR.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 minute ago, Shadeknight said:

It did not, Doc.

That was the MSR.

 

 Aw crap, never mind then.

[Ruin Mage]

It happens. We -want- an instanced Hami, but thats going to take a while.

Everlasting has had a mad Leecher issue in the recent weeks, so its been getting frustrating.

[Corruption]

Instanced Hami can solve some problems by allowing the raid leader to decide exactly when to start forming. However, it will also bring its own set of problems, specifically not being able to get everyone in the league into the same zone to start. Also, some people will always be left out. 

[Dev7on]

50 minutes ago, Apparition said:

As for "Oh boo hoo, I don't have good leadership skills and I've never lead a raid before.  Woe is me."  Please.  As I've pointed out before, I am not a leader, nor am I a follower.  I'm a loner in real life.  My "leadership skills" are little to none.  Yet I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, took the initiative, and lead Rikti mothership raids.  I also lead a few Incarnate trials before sunset, and helped lead Hamidon raids.  That was before I've ever done such a thing.  You know what?  I floundered the first couple of times I lead a raid.  But that's okie.  I learned from those mistakes.  You will as well.

Well good for you for being self sufficient. YOU DON'T KNOW MY PERSONAL LIFE. Leading mothership raids and Hamidon raids take a lot of time and energy to do them.  I DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO DO THEM THAT'S WHY I RATHER JOIN INSTEAD. Now you're on my ignore list for being a smart-ass.  

[Myrmidon]

The only Hamidon raid that I have been on since being back was during the stress test on Pineapple. That time slot is usually when Tanker Tuesday, Static teams and SG teams form up, so it’s never likely that I will bother with one until they instance it.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Myrmidon

[Apparition]

11 minutes ago, Corruption said:

Instanced Hami can solve some problems by allowing the raid leader to decide exactly when to start forming. However, it will also bring its own set of problems, specifically not being able to get everyone in the league into the same zone to start. Also, some people will always be left out. 

 

I imagine that instanced Hamidon raids would form up in Pocket D or Kallisti Wharf, like instanced Rikti mothership raids.  Both are large enough co-op zones.

[Corruption]

16 minutes ago, Dev7on said:

Well good for you for being self sufficient. YOU DON'T KNOW MY PERSONAL LIFE. Leading mothership raids and Hamidon raids take a lot of time and energy to do them.  I DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO DO THEM THAT'S WHY I RATHER JOIN INSTEAD. Now you're on my ignore list for being a smart-ass.  

Well, now that you know the time, either show up early or risk not getting a spot. Raid leaders can't control what other people do. I'm not sure what else you want us to tell you. It's a high demand event, so some people will always be left out. 

[Corruption]

9 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

I imagine that instanced Hamidon raids would form up in Pocket D or Kallisti Wharf, like instanced Rikti mothership raids.  Both are large enough co-op zones.

You're right, I always forget the zone cap is different. 

[NNDeepdish]

36 minutes ago, Dev7on said:

Well good for you for being self sufficient. YOU DON'T KNOW MY PERSONAL LIFE. Leading mothership raids and Hamidon raids take a lot of time and energy to do them.  I DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO DO THEM THAT'S WHY I RATHER JOIN INSTEAD. Now you're on my ignore list for being a smart-ass.  

Everything in life has consequences. If you don't have time to lead your own raids, then you have to deal with the fact that the raids you want to join might fill before you can get there. There's a lot of things I'd like to do in this game that I can't because of time restrictions, the consequences of that time restriction is that I can't always do those things.

 

You said in your original post that if people disagree with you then that's fine, but it clearly isn't fine.

[Ura Hero]

Crunchyroll has been leading weekend raids fairly regularly lately.

[Shred Monkey]

OP gave the solution to his problem in his own post.  If you want to do hami, get there early before the zone fills up.   I don't see the point of complaining.