Homecoming Server Update (April 5th): Nemesis Plots, Contests and Progression

[Jimmy]

Hello everyone, we hope you've been enjoying Page 5 this week!

 

Folding@home Update
Our Folding@home team is still going strong!

 

The latest stats:

• Over 500 of you have contributed
• We've completed over 24,000 work units and generated nearly 600 million points
• We're placed #330 (of #248,102) in the all-time stats, and #54 for the the past 7 days

 

The prize winners for the month of March have also been announced. Congratulations to our top contributor @honoraryorange, with a grand total of 18,282,782 points and 344 work units!

 

To thank those that are contributing, we're giving away a bunch of prizes each month. In total, there's 15,750 Reward Merits and 30 permanent costume powers up for grabs! Check out the full details here.

 

Take Your Child to Work Day Screenshot Contest Winners
The winners for the Take Your Child to Work Day contest have been announced - head on over to this thread to see the winners, or check out this thread to some more of the entries.

 

Nemesis Invasions - Ending April 15th
Nemesis will be remaining in Paragon City and The Rogue Isles for another week, and will be leaving during server maintenance on Tuesday Wednesday the 15th of April.

 

 

Black, White & Grayscale Costume Contest - April 18th
Our next monthly costume contest is taking place on April 18th - the theme this month is Black, White and Grayscale.

 

The contest takes place on all shards simultaneously at 9pm UTC (click to see this in your timezone). Over 5,000 merits and several permanent titles are up for grabs! Check out the full details here.

 

Architect Entertainment Dev Choice Submissions - Now Open!
@GM Arcanum is now accepting entries for Dev Choice arcs, head on over to this thread to submit your creations!

 

If your arc is chosen you'll receive 1,000 merits and eternal fame*.

 

*fame not guaranteed, may be substituted for mild recognition

 

Progression Improvements - Enhancements
Over the next few patches we’re going to begin testing and implementing some experimental improvements to progression in the game, primarily aimed at improving the play experience at lower levels.

 

A disclaimer before we continue: All of these experiments will be subject to changes and revisions. Some may be overhauled entirely (even after release), and some not make the cut and will never leave the beta servers.

 

With that out of the way, we’d like to present the first set of experiments, all aimed at improving the gameplay surrounding Enhancements. First up is a new feature to streamline Enhancement upgrades:

 

 

This feature allows you to easily upgrade any TO, DO and SO Enhancements slotted into your powers without needing to visit a vendor. The game will simply calculate the influence cost of upgrading all of your Enhancements to the maximum you can currently slot (3 above your current level, capping at level 50), and then ask you to confirm.

 

In addition, we’re making SOs available from stores beginning at level 5, and the Outbreak / Breakout tutorials will now give new characters damage SOs instead of TOs. Mission completion at any level now has a chance of dropping a random Power 10 SO and arc completion guarantees a random Power 10 SO that matches your origin. Yin’s market has also received an update and now sells special enhancements usable by any origin, which are also much cheaper than enhancements found at other stores.

 

 

These improvements are aimed at tackling Enhancements just not being that useful in the lower levels due to how quickly they expire. The goal is to allow you to begin (and continue using) standard enhancements as you level a character, only swapping over to IOs when you want to - rather than feeling forced to do so in order to avoid Enhancements expiring every few levels.

 

Check out the Beta FAQ for information on accessing the beta servers. Participating on the beta servers is one of the most impactful ways to help us - we rely heavily on your testing and feedback to keep development trucking along smoothly.

That’s all for today!

 

- The Homecoming Team

[SwitchFade]

I'm excited to see how this shapes up! Fun stuff.

[Schinopiraph]

Hmmmm, interesting idea. Though with SO's being available so early on it will make TO's and DO's mostly redundant. Though I guess it will depend on how much they end up costing as unless a character has help they might struggle to earn enough Inf to both buy and keep up to date with SO's. That being said it would hopefully really help the early levels where it feels like new characters can't hit the broadside of a barn most of the time XP

[Ariamaki]

This is a really neat concept (and I especially love the idea of improving Mr. Yin's sales offerings), but the result of this is going to be fundamentally flawed unless the current price-balancing of TO / DO / SO Enhancements is looked at. As it currently stands, a player can trivially slot themselves in solid 25 IOs at 22 for an easily obtainable (assuming they reached 22 while doing story arcs or TFs to get Merits) one-time cost, and then they will have have no reason to upgrade (beyond marginal improvements) until 50.

 

The cost involved makes this new "encouraging shop Enhancements" method, while interesting for players who want to do a no-trade no-alts experience... Well, it's not even worth considering otherwise. The amount displayed in the example GIF, 1.37 million Influence, is a huge cut out of a player's savings that cannot be compensated for, and will only inflate to worse heights as they level.

 

Improving the drop rates and availability of TDS Enhancements will certainly help, but it's not going to be enough on its own. These upgrade costs need to be significantly shrunk, or this will never be a method that can compare to just running 'Naked > 25 IOs > initial 50 build'. My recommendation would be to adjust the cost scaling for TDS Enhancements (especially in the Power 10) down to a much more achievable scale for players who aren't using Wentworth's or alts. This might require some field testing of the total costs required to run a character from 1 to 50 using only this method, versus the actual income the character makes over their lifetime.

 

On a related note, if we're going to give Pennydad some worthwhile Enhancements to care about, then there should probably be an equivalent method for hardcore redside characters to obtain similar enhancements through Marshall Brass' arc.

[Greycat]

Hmm. Wonder how this is going to interact with people using 2xp (and getting no dropped inf) at lower levels... Granted, INF isn't *hard* to get, even with that.

 

I think what'll be more - interesting? Valuable? - will be comparing it against generic IO 15s at level 12 and 25-30s at 22/27, cost-wise, as those are completely set and forget.

Edited April 5, 2020 by Greycat

[Galaxy Brain]

If you don't have enough inf to upgrade all enhancements, does it just upgrade X amount of them?

[Paradox Fate]

Does the SO boosting price scale up higher the level is, similar to amps in the P2W vendor?

[Number Six]

11 minutes ago, Schinopiraph said:

Hmmmm, interesting idea. Though with SO's being available so early on it will make TO's and DO's mostly redundant. Though I guess it will depend on how much they end up costing as unless a character has help they might struggle to earn enough Inf to both buy and keep up to date with SO's. That being said it would hopefully really help the early levels where it feels like new characters can't hit the broadside of a barn most of the time XP

The current plan - subject to change of course - is to remove TOs from vendors entirely (except maybe one hidden away somewhere for if somebody really wants a TO for some reason) since they're mostly worthless and almost always skipped, but leave DOs available as a more affordable option at low levels.

[TomatoPhalanges]

First-take thoughts on the upcoming Enhancement experiments- I think the primary goal with enhancements should be to use them as an exciting tool, rather than to streamline hassle out of the equation. The idea of getting SOs as guaranteed rewards from the ends of all mission arcs is very compelling, and I would conceptually find it super engaging to get one-time level-locked IO rewards from more significant storylines as you level up the ranks, perhaps with connected storylines feeding into the same set as eachother. In this sense, I think the upcoming SO changes are excellent. On the other hand, I have a couple concerns.

 

The first is the power creep that's happening with the game. With SOs and DOs available easier at low levels for players, lower-level content is going to become more trivial than it already is. While yes, there is something to be said about power fantasy being a significant element of the fun of City of Heroes, power is more fun when it's worked up too. A big part of the gameplay fun of this game is getting from being a flimsy level 1 hero to a massive level 50 with a buncha IOs and incarnate powers. That's awesome and thrilling, and it'd be so incredibly easy to fracture or weaken by giving lower-level players too much power. I'm not saying the proliferation of SOs at low levels is a bad thing- meaningful upgrades are extremely satisfying - but it's something that needs to be tempered if you ask me. Whether numbers as they are on the beta now are good or not remains to be seen of course- this is entirely surface-level concerns that I'm expressing.

 

The second (and arguably stronger) primary concern is the Enhancement Upgrade feature. It's my opinion that it would be a negative influencer on the game, in its current implementation. As I mentioned, I think the idea of being rewarded with guaranteed SOs and IOs for achieving things is very compelling, and (were my unique IO story arcs idea considered) could lead to different characters having very different levelling routes plotted out based on what arcs drop what rewards, or even just the simple goal of completing stories rather than moving on before they're done more often at low levels. That said, it feels like the enhancement upgrade button would weaken the impact of SOs as rewards, going entirely against this. While yes, it's just streamlining something people can already do, I feel like this is a particular thing that should stay un-streamlined. People making the effort to visit a vendor and buy their enhancements gets them moving around the world just that little bit more, and gives them another task they can set out to do to improve their character, no matter how small. It also means far chunkier bursts of power gain, as players will often wait to do all their upgrades at once due to inconvenience of visiting a vendor. This is more satisfying (to me) than slow, incremental growth that'd happen by whacking an upgrade button every few levels to bump your SOs all back up to relevance again. Going to buy my enhancements feels like a significant event as I level my character, and I feel significantly beefier after I walk away from that investment. I don't know that it'd feel as significant hitting a two-prompt button whatsoever. 

 

Anyways, hope my concerns don't come off as simply spouting hot air, as I'm more of a casual player than some who enjoy making builds. I'm excited to see how things play out, and think that overall the changes are for the better! Thank you as always for all your work, Homecoming team ❤️ 

[Bionic_Flea]

This is going to make people spend more money on SOs.  That may be the plan.  Get people to buy and continue to buy SOs to keep them in the green.

While I think influence sinks are generally good, this (along with the Auto-purchase) is a regressive tax that will hit low information and low influence players and will not affect power gamers at all.  I haven't bought SOs since before the official game was closed and I don't intend to start now.

[Greycat]

Honestly, low level I don't think power creep is going to be that big of an issue. After all, you're still dealing with barely any *powers* and barely any *slots.* And we've already been getting SOs low level for a while - via DFB. That impact, I don't think I'd worry about.

 

I'm not honestly sure how "compelling" getting SOs is these days, where we'd have to worry about lessening their impact. Granted, there are fewer milestones these days (nobody blinks an eye at hitting 20 any more to unlock Stamina and earn a cape, for instance.) But I don't think SOs are, or have been, one of them for  a while. Probably a victim of IOs, even common ones.

[Rathulfr]

Oddly enough, this change my alter how I create and level my alts.  Many times, I'll create an alt and farm them up to level 22 or 27, just so that I can equip the level 25 or 30 common IOs (which are the functional equivalent of -1 and +1 SOs, respectively). 

 

But if I'm going to start getting SO drops more frequently/consistently starting at level 5, I won't necessarily have to do that as often (if at all).  I'll be able to play the lower level characters and just slot the drops I get, because I can buy SOs and ignore/vendor the TOs and DOs.

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by Rathulfr

[TomatoPhalanges]

1 minute ago, Greycat said:

Honestly, low level I don't think power creep is going to be that big of an issue. After all, you're still dealing with barely any *powers* and barely any *slots.* And we've already been getting SOs low level for a while - via DFB. That impact, I don't think I'd worry about.

 

I'm not honestly sure how "compelling" getting SOs is these days, where we'd have to worry about lessening their impact. Granted, there are fewer milestones these days (nobody blinks an eye at hitting 20 any more to unlock Stamina and earn a cape, for instance.) But I don't think SOs are, or have been, one of them for  a while. Probably a victim of IOs, even common ones.

I don't entirely disagree - you're probably right on the power creep thing. It's more an expression of concern than anything coming from the world of WoW...

 

As for SOs being compelling, I don't find them such currently... I'm interested in the idea of making them more compelling though, something that the guaranteed-SOs-from-mission-arc-completion concept encouraged as a thought for me. 

[Greycat]

Just now, TomatoPhalanges said:

I don't entirely disagree - you're probably right on the power creep thing. It's more an expression of concern than anything coming from the world of WoW...

 

As for SOs being compelling, I don't find them such currently... I'm interested in the idea of making them more compelling though, something that the guaranteed-SOs-from-mission-arc-completion concept encouraged as a thought for me. 

Well, if anything the upgrade system might do that! 🙂  (More compelling than the time-consuming and "can fail" combining thing you do one at a time.)

[Number Six]

The biggest problems this change (which incidentally required very little developer time and is something that could be slipped in between larger updates) aims to address:

 

1. The early-game slog, which is enough of a drag that it compels many people to skip it entirely by DfB spamming or farm sitting. We're not too worried about low-level power creep since this part of the game is often not even played.

 

2. SOs making for a poor player experience in that leveling up during a series of missions actually makes you less effective unless you stop to go replace all your enhancements. Leveling up should always be something to look forward to, not a stressor that makes you worry your enhancements are going to break and significantly diminish your power in the middle of a mission.

 

It's not a 100% fix, but is intended to be an incremental effort.

[TomatoPhalanges]

2 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Well, if anything the upgrade system might do that! 🙂  (More compelling than the time-consuming and "can fail" combining thing you do one at a time.)

Maybe!! Time will honestly tell... I think the thing I'd love to encourage is the guaranteed SO's concept being a stepping stone into some levelling IOs that might come from specific mission arcs - which would encourage variety in levelling routes and give people some little IO set bonuses to hunt down as sub-goals while levelling.

Edited April 5, 2020 by TomatoPhalanges

[LQT]

41 minutes ago, Schinopiraph said:

it will make TO's and DO's mostly redundant

They kind of are already.

 

Barring completely new accounts/toons with no inf, if someone can drop 24k on a new alt [at level 1] then they can get 8 stacks of the 3 combat amplifiers from the p2w vendor that last 1 hour in game each stack.

 

Then using double xp they can:

Do the new AP arc for blues, will leave you on level 8 once you hand in at the very end at Matthew. Do DFB 4 times to get the 4 temp powers that grants for more stat boosts. This will leave you around level 16-18 ish. Do Posi 1 and/or 2. Will easily get you to 20, possibly higher. If not yet 22, then run Penny Yin once.

 

All quite doable within the 8 hour lifespan of the amplifiers [which can easily last until the low 30s so crafting level 25 IOs still isn't needing done ASAP at 22 as toons will be somewhat effective unslotted] plus the temp powers DFB will give, and without even having to rely on Beginner's Luck much at all.

[Peerless Girl]

1 hour ago, Number Six said:

The current plan - subject to change of course - is to remove TOs from vendors entirely (except maybe one hidden away somewhere for if somebody really wants a TO for some reason) since they're mostly worthless and almost always skipped, but leave DOs available as a more affordable option at low levels.

TOs have been a joke since...uh at least issue 6 if not before, I agree with this. Basically the only things I did with TOs were sell them, or slot them up until 7 or whatever level you can slot DOs the first time, and only slotted ones that dropped that happened to match the enhancements I was already going to use. SOs are still arguably better than IOs up until about 30 or so, depending on how much value you assign to "slot and forget" or if you're willing to keep your SOs at least white or maybe green. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about SOs being available so early...but...that'll take time to test and adjust to. I like the *IDEA* of it so far. We'll have to see. 

[ArchVileTerror]

Another idea is to create new Recipes.

TO/DO/SO + Inf = Brainstorm Ideas

 

Get some Inf out of circulation, get a use for those Enhancements, and get some more Yellow Salvage when it's most needed.

[Abraxus]

I love the idea of these changes!  My mouse will probably last longer with the reduced number of clicks to upgrade enhancements!  Not to mention the time spent!

 

[Peerless Girl]

1 hour ago, Number Six said:

2. SOs making for a poor player experience in that leveling up during a series of missions actually makes you less effective unless you stop to go replace all your enhancements. Leveling up should always be something to look forward to, not a stressor that makes you worry your enhancements are going to break and significantly diminish your power in the middle of a mission.

I remember the old days of "Ok so, everyone take a break so we can all go level up and green out our SOs, then we'll pick this back up in say 30 minutes? Ok cool!" I do not miss those. I do worry that just having them purchaseable from the enhancement screen will make most of the game vendors pointless. (I do miss the old good feeling you got unlocking your Origin-specific store contact back in the day).

[metacore]

I remember my first ever CoH character wayyy back in... i10 I think?
Trying to find the INF to fund buying SO's was so painful - even when all leveling was done via normal missions and the occasional TF.

Yes I could have played the market but with no money ...?

The cost to upgrade to maintain your ENH needs to be lowered unless playing the market is MEANT to be a large part of the leveling experience - in which case there needs to be an in-game tutorial explaining how to do so.
Making a Farmer should not be needed to fund low-mid level standard ENH (SO/IO) slotting.

How far prices need to drop I dont know.

[Duloth]

The way non-IO enhancements work honestly bothers me, and always did. I get equipment becoming redundant because you find better stuff as you go. But its as was already said; leveling up should always feel like an upgrade. Not you suddenly getting much weaker because you out-leveled your enhancements. If I go into some other game and get some random piece of equipment, when I level up past it it doesn't suddenly become useless; its just that I'm gonna want to switch because everything I can find is better. 

 

Basically, I think enhancements should never be -completely- out-leveled. Once slotted, they should always provide -some- benefit, down to a minimum value of slightly less than a level-10 IO. Or, even better, you can throw more enhancements in of unique/custom types like the 5 we got back in the going rogue era and we now get from P2W; ones that provide a unique benefit and, while not as good as SOs, are never out-leveled. Maybe throw in unique enhancement rewards. You fight through all of the Atlas Park new arcs? You get an 'Arbiter's Helmet' enhancement; a defense/resistance buff/endurance reduction that doesn't get out-leveled, or an 'Arbiter's Mace' enhancement, a Damage/Accuracy clone of the existing ones. You could easily make piles of these that tie into existing arcs and stories. That arc that lets you acquire a heroine's source of power? Could net you a +damage/+energy damage 4/minute proc enhancement instead of a temp power. 

 

Basically... anything you stick in that isn't completely useless after a few level-ups.

[Abraxus]

1 minute ago, Duloth said:

The way non-IO enhancements work honestly bothers me, and always did. I get equipment becoming redundant because you find better stuff as you go. But its as was already said; leveling up should always feel like an upgrade. Not you suddenly getting much weaker because you out-leveled your enhancements. If I go into some other game and get some random piece of equipment, when I level up past it it doesn't suddenly become useless; its just that I'm gonna want to switch because everything I can find is better. 

 

Basically, I think enhancements should never be -completely- out-leveled. Once slotted, they should always provide -some- benefit, down to a minimum value of slightly less than a level-10 IO. Or, even better, you can throw more enhancements in of unique/custom types like the 5 we got back in the going rogue era and we now get from P2W; ones that provide a unique benefit and, while not as good as SOs, are never out-leveled. Maybe throw in unique enhancement rewards. You fight through all of the Atlas Park new arcs? You get an 'Arbiter's Helmet' enhancement; a defense/resistance buff/endurance reduction that doesn't get out-leveled, or an 'Arbiter's Mace' enhancement, a Damage/Accuracy clone of the existing ones. You could easily make piles of these that tie into existing arcs and stories. That arc that lets you acquire a heroine's source of power? Could net you a +damage/+energy damage 4/minute proc enhancement instead of a temp power. 

 

Basically... anything you stick in that isn't completely useless after a few level-ups.

This still beats the heck out of most MMOs with the way their gear expires, or degrades.  Once of the reasons I have stuck with this one, over so many others.

[Blackfeather]

I definitely can imagine myself using this feature during the lower levels - I prefer going through them myself, and IO sets take a while to come into play, usually during the 20s and 30s, so this looks rather useful, thank you!