Live Server Experience Setting

[mechahamham]

One of the things I love about Homecoming is the ability to tailor your own game experience. For example, I don't much care for accelerated exp of any kind. I disliked 'Double Experience Weekends' on the Paragon-era live servers. I can, if I want to, use the NoXP option to completely turn off my experience as I'm going forward to avoid outlevelling content. However, as I explained to my wife, showing her the contents of the P2W vendor's inventory, if you want a 2xp weekend, this is where you get the stuff to make that happen.

 

'Slow' experience is not the only part of the 'Live Server Experience'. There are other limitations that were designed to make the game more engaging that we have cast away for the sake of time and longevity... like having to actually go to the Consignment Shop or Black Market to use it. I can see a demand for an game option or temp power that would reinstate the 'Live Server' conventions and limitations. At least I have that demand on some of my characters. You could even tie it to membership in a Supergroup, so you could have 'Classic' Supergroups.

 

Why not having a 'Classic Server'? While Everquest has proved that these work and work well, our limited population causes a problem: Homecoming players seem to gravitate to where they can group. At the time being, this means that Excelsior has a large population. If you were to tie 'Classic' settings to a server, so few players would use that server that it'd almost be pointless to have it. With a setting or a temp power, you don't *have* to provision out a new shard.

 

I'd like to see the 'Live Experience' setting or power come in two varieties:

 

The 'Going Rogue Experience' setting would have restrictions that were in place right before the shutdown: You had to use the auction house physically, couldn't use base passcodes, etc...

 

The 'CoX Experience' setting would have restrictions that were in place before the release of 'Going Rogue'. Hero and Villain ATs are enforced. There were no heroic brutes or villainous scrappers. Alignment changing is not allowed. Certain powersets are 'villainous' or 'heroic'. There are no heroic pain domination defenders and no villainous empathy corruptors. WSTs don't award extra benefits. There are no incarnate abilities, etc...

 

Allowing these settings to be placed on a supergroup would encourage large teams of players to group together under the same limitations.

 

Yes, you absolutely can challenge yourself and adhere to these restrictions if you want to already, but having a unified framework for doing so encourages a larger number of players to use it and group with others who are using it. It also opens the door to gearing new content towards this framework. Imagine awarding an account-wide badge to a player who leveled a character to 50 with no experience modifiers at any time, perhaps at issue 3-era speeds.

 

Do you like this idea? Do you hate it? What changes would you make to it? What restriction sets would you like to see made available?

Edited May 30, 2020 by mechahamham

[ImpousVileTerror]

I do believe that there -are- other Servers out there which cater to the "classic" experience.   Was it the Rebirth Servers?  Victory Servers?  I can't recall off the top of my head right now, but there's definitely at least -one- out there.

[Alchemystic]

Rebirth is that way ---->

[mechahamham]

53 minutes ago, Tyrannical said:

Rebirth is that way ---->

 

1 hour ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

I do believe that there -are- other Servers out there which cater to the "classic" experience.   Was it the Rebirth Servers?  Victory Servers?  I can't recall off the top of my head right now, but there's definitely at least -one- out there.

 

And that's the wonderful thing about having the code 'in the wild'. I can play on those servers if I want to. I've heard that some servers cater to the pre-i3 experience, reinstating such things as no aggro caps. I know people who'd love to play that way. I'm not one of them, but the choice exists.

 

I should have clarified my OP with the statement that I thought that a 'Classic' experience would be a good feature if and when Homecoming got an actual agreement or license from NCSoft. It would probably be relatively low-hanging development fruit... database work and fairly simple conditional coding. Right now, I'd *rather* have work on new costume options if possible (More asymmetric goodies, please!) A "classic" option would be something to help expand the playerbase.

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, mechahamham said:

Allowing these settings to be placed on a supergroup would encourage large teams of players to group together under the same limitations.

I'm kind of doubting the "large teams of players to group together," at least here, and for more than a brief run. I also don't think having new content geared towards it, *here,* would be wise given limited resources - we've got a small pool of volunteers, after all.

 

Honestly, as a "setting" in the middle of Homecoming,  I just don't see it flying.

[Oubliette_Red]

As a separate server?  I'd have to vote No.   That would require an all-volunteer staff to split their time between 2 different branches of server code.

 

If there was a way that they could create an option to disable bonus XP% like Legacy 2XP weekends and temp boosts, sure, Things that players can do to control their own experiences within the game I'm all for. Usually...

 

😄

 

[ShardWarrior]

On 5/31/2020 at 11:32 AM, Oubliette_Red said:

As a separate server?  I'd have to vote No.   That would require an all-volunteer staff to split their time between 2 different branches of server code.

I would have to vote no for this reason as well.