A pure, old school server

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, Golden Azrael said:

And when ET actually hit like a truck.

ET never stopped hitting like a truck, it just takes longer to do it now.

[Solarverse]

8 hours ago, Vanden said:

ET never stopped hitting like a truck, it just takes longer to do it now.

To back up Vanden, it appeared to hit more like a Truck because it was easy to chain behind the combo of Total Focus + Bone Smasher + Energy Transfer. You add all of that up on a geared up build and you just hit for 2536 damage in less than 5 seconds. That's without Build-Up and that's on a Tank. Add Damage Procs and Build-up to that and you will hit for a hell of a lot harder. With it currently as it stands now, you can do that same damage, but it will take 7 seconds instead of 5 seconds. And in a battle, those 2 seconds feel like an eternity.

SO yes, as Vanden stated, it still hits like a truck, it just feels like les damage because it takes longer to dish it out.

On a side note, I am in full support of returning the old animation to ET. I just wanted to clarify Vanden's point.

[Outrider_01]

23 hours ago, Keovar said:

IMO, that's true, but incomplete.  What experience is the player looking for?  Is part of an achievement's fun dependent upon its rarity, for them?
Rollback related: 

 

I raise you Everquest 1 and progressive servers releasing old content every 3 months.  Then a new server starting every 4 months making the last one pointless.

 

Go fish.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars.  YAHTZEE!  

 

The OP is asking for optional things like P2W not be included.  Hint: you don't have to use it.  Nobody forces you at all, they are asking for a server for things that already exist with out something being included. if you want to run content with people but no DBLxp and slotting SO, make friends and plan a trip down memory walking up hill both ways in the snow; fighting a Nemesis plot that isn't a Nemesis plot. 

 

You can make 3 builds, exemp and use Oroborus to run all the content even with your favorite Incarnate character; using the multiple builds.  The respec trials, can always run them for fun and a challenge instead of grinding to the top the slow way.  Everything you need for a nostalgic old school trip is already there and you don't even need to use P2W to grind up when you can slide down with your favorite characters.

[Ukase]

I think I understand the desire of some folks to go back to the way it was. 

I remember clearly, starting the game in issue 3. I was fairly ignorant of what to expect, in fact, I thought it was a single player game, not really paying attention to, or knowing what MMO stood for, if you can believe that. 

I eventually settled in to the game, and then issue 4 happened. I didn't understand why they took a perfectly good game and added things to it. After playing the game so long, now, I get it. 

I still thought ED was a mistake. I thought IOs were a mistake. But I don't think so anymore. 

The truth is - the old CoH model was geared to keep people playing - and paying. That's why you had to "earn" your way. It wasn't just so you would appreciate the reward at the end. It was to keep you subscribed and paying. 

After HC came out, I was quite pleased, if a little irritated that people had been playing all this time and didn't leak the code immediately.  I mean, intellectually, I understand the code we're playing on is essentially stolen intellectual property. But - I rationalize it with having purchased my copy of the game. I paid for my right to play it. Of course, there's the mice-type in the EULA to shred my argument to bits, but I'm old and even with reading glasses, I'd be ignorant due to myopia. (Willfully ignorant) But, damn, you have the code, leak it right away! You think NCSoft would do more then than they're doing now? I don't. The cat would be out of the bag as it is now. But, I digress. 

After...I think, it was a year, I'd leveled up a good 30 characters from 1-50, at least 27 of them by doing a dfb, maybe two, then hitting the Hollows, Steel Canyon, Striga, Talos, Bricks, Founders & PI to tackle Tina Macs and MJ's arcs. It was getting dull. My badger had all the badges..so it felt like there wasn't much left. So, I went to Rebirth. I like to solo, and it was certainly easy to do there. 
 

The people on Rebirth are knowledgeable, and friendly for the most part. On a percentage basis - most of those players know more than our players. But, unless you're running with a group on a routine basis, Rebirth is going to be a true grind. There are no vet levels to give you emp merits and threads. Astrals don't combine to make emps, but you could use them to get PvP IOs, or other rare recipes. 

Hero/Villain Merits were earned by doing SSAs and tip missions. 65 of them to get ONE pvp IO, because they don't drop in pve. 
It was a lot to get used to. And you want your own base - better make some extra accounts and invite 15 more alts for that 20k prestige boost. It took me about a month to get a barely functional base with all the ports.  Oh yeah, you have to get all the explorations in a zone before you get access to the beacon, too. Want an insp dispenser, you better roll a character that heals. And get used to earning less influence, because you need to play in SG mode to get that inspiration dispenser. 

After a month or so, when I got my base up and running and then got a villain base up and running, I came back here. I know what it's like to grind and I see no reason to do so. Do the same SSAs once a week for a hero merit; can only do 5 tip missions a day, so every two weeks, you can earn 7 hero merits. If you don't do iTrials, it's going to take you a long, long time to get ONE Glad Armor 3% def(all). And I needed a good dozen of those, the panacea +hp/recovery, and the shield walls. I really don't need to beat my head on a wall like that. 

The idea is to feel super, not inadequate. On HC, I feel super. On Rebirth, I felt like a hamster running in that spinning wheel in a cage. So, while I get it - HC is terribly easy - I don't want to go back to that grind. 

[FoulVileTerror]

"People play the games they do because they're looking for certain types of experiences.  Sometimes they mistake nostalgia for quality, sometimes a game actually has shifted to serve a different audience."

Well said, @Keovar.  That's a very quotable line.

[FrauleinMental]

On 9/30/2020 at 1:26 PM, Lines said:

A lot of stuff does fall into greyer areas, as MTeague says. Things get a little subjective in that area: for me personally, I'm no big fan of when conveniences feel 'meta', or unthematic. I don't like to feel like I don't have to engage with the world, or parts of the world only exist to convenience me. Some harmless things like the /enterbasefrompasscode command, the /ah command*, the goddamn nonsense TUNNEL system and even the P2W vendor irritate me for that reason. I'd like to see those things find a more organic place in the game, at least.

That's kinda where I am.  I won't mourn too much when /enterbasefrompasscode goes away, though I do love all the well-built travel hubs out there.  (I do tend to use my own base, since I can control it and it was free anyway.)  I wouldn't mind getting rid of /ah and having to go to the AH to trade.

 

The TUNNEL system kinda has a story reason behind it, with the Praetorian evacuation, but I would've thought Portal Corp would look to control these more securely (or at least not have them out in the open).  It certainly makes getting to/from the Shadow Shard way more convenient, but that by itself should have been a reason for Portal Corp to lock it down, especially having weathered the Rularuu Invasion.

 

The P2W vendor has no reason to exist other than to sell the P2W items.  I'd rather have that done by existing contacts, maybe the initial origin contacts (Azuria, etc.) or the "new tutorial" contacts (Twinshot and Dr. Graves).

 

As far as power creep, I wouldn't mind having powers exemplar to your combat level instead of +5.  That is, you should have to be fighting at 50 to access your Incarnate powers.  (I do love my Incarnate powers, but I don't need to use them on mid-40s content.)  It would balance a bit better on TF/SF teams where you have people who are still leveling.  (It'd be kind of a big deal in Posi 1, for example.)

[Yomo Kimyata]

This has been an interesting thread, and I actually went on Rebirth and played about 10 levels.  I think that my "long-term" future with this game, if there is one, will be something more along the lines of that version in some ways.  But the real sticking point, of course, is population.  And if I'm going to be essentially be playing a single player RPG, I'd want to do a lot more fine-tuning and may just be better off learning how to host my own server.  But that's long-term.

[Solarverse]

On 10/4/2020 at 9:42 AM, FoulVileTerror said:

"People play the games they do because they're looking for certain types of experiences.  Sometimes they mistake nostalgia for quality,

 

My first experience of Pac-Man was the home entertainment Atari version. Then I tried it at the arcades and played Mr.s Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, then a few of the console games over the course of the years. In after all that time, I still prefer the old home entertainment Atari version.

Same can be said for a lot of games that has evolved over the years. I speak for myself only here, but I can say with 100% accuracy that the way I miss the game the way it was (mechanics anyway and the level of difficulty and the old progression of travel at 14, cape at 20 and Aura at 30, along with HO's being the best enhancements you could get) pre i5, is the game I will always consider to be the best version of this game.

The things I would add are the new costume options, the new power sets and the new TFs and missions.

I'm not a huge fan of the "You wouldn't like it if you actually had it once the nostalgia wore off" argument because here it is, 1 year later and I am still playing City of Heroes now...and the nostalgia for this game has worn out a long time ago. I play it because I enjoy it, but I would enjoy the pre i5 mechanics more, heh.

And before I get ripped by somebody for saying that, once again I am not pushing for Homecoming to change, I am just giving my opinion as to what some of us find to be the better version of the game and defending against the "nostalgia" argument that not only gets used here on these forums, but also gets used a lot about other games as well.  🙂

Edited October 6, 2020 by Solarverse

[Fortuneteller]

Only issue i can see with this is further dilution of the shard populations. So i'll have to say nay.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Fortuneteller

[DSorrow]

On 10/4/2020 at 7:01 AM, Ukase said:

So, while I get it - HC is terribly easy - I don't want to go back to that grind. 

This describes my position quite well. Of course, I've got nostalgia for the classic CoH experience, but a big part of that nostalgia would really be experiencing a game like CoH for the first time while also being 15 years younger, neither of which I can have. I've had similar nostalgia with so many games (Dark Souls, Halo: CE, DA:O, etc.) that still hold up years after, but the experience just isn't the same even if I do get my fix of nostalgia. 

 

Instead, I opt being realistic about what's possible given my current situation in life (why does one have to do this as an adult..?) and I just have to admit that I can't play for hours at a time. I sure as hell can't play every day. The QoL changes in HC are a prerequisite for me to be able to enjoy the actual gameplay part like I want to because I simply don't have the time to grind for 2 billion Glad Armor uniques like I could back in the day.

 

Some of the QoL items I'd never go back on:

• inherent Fitness and travel power prerequisites, I already dislike the 1-22 part of the game the most and having to spend four (often bland) power picks just to be functional at 22 didn't add any value
• IOs. With or without ED, builds were far too simple without those and you had basically every player, character and build use the same slotting for everything because 5x DMG / 1x ACC or 3x DMG / 1x ACC / 1x END / 1x RECH was basically always the best slotting. With IOs there's so much more depth.

The rest is so interrelated that it's impossible for me to say which individual items I wouldn't mind being gone, but frankly I'd like to keep most of them.

[Golden Azrael]

On 10/2/2020 at 9:20 PM, Vanden said:

ET never stopped hitting like a truck, it just takes longer to do it now.

ET.  Trucks aren't slow.  So it sure aint hitting like one.  The rest of the set feels very tippy tappy.  The brute version feels more compelling.

 

As for the original hit like a fairy animation.  I prefer the 'tank buster' double fistin' kerrrRRRRRRRRRRR-POW!!!!!!

 

As for the old game.  It aint coming back.  You can still apply many 'old school' rules.  

 

Nobody is forcing anyone to P2W Lady.  Or use the loot drops.  Or make IO mega builds.  Or use the crappily designed incarnate system.

 

My Duo Partner and I are doing an 'old school' 1-50 challenge.  Natural Origin.  Using Oro to pick the arcs.  Sprint/swift travel only.  No IOs allow in build other than ATs.  etc.

 

Azrael.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Golden Azrael

[Rathulfr]

On 10/3/2020 at 11:01 PM, Ukase said:

So, I went to Rebirth. I like to solo, and it was certainly easy to do there. 
 

The people on Rebirth are knowledgeable, and friendly for the most part. On a percentage basis - most of those players know more than our players. But, unless you're running with a group on a routine basis, Rebirth is going to be a true grind.

 

OMG, I thought I was the only one who did this.  I got bored of HC and decided to put on my nostalgia glasses and went back (I tried it last year, too) to Rebirth.  And I've had a frustrating time of it.  It's so painful and slow.  The people I've met there are really nice, and I've never had a problem with them.  But the "make 'em grind to keep 'em subbed" system that's baked into the game is brutal.  It's a relic of a different era that I'm glad is ancient history.

 

[Rathulfr]

15 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

This has been an interesting thread, and I actually went on Rebirth and played about 10 levels.  I think that my "long-term" future with this game, if there is one, will be something more along the lines of that version in some ways.  But the real sticking point, of course, is population.  And if I'm going to be essentially be playing a single player RPG, I'd want to do a lot more fine-tuning and may just be better off learning how to host my own server.  But that's long-term.

 

It's interesting to me that off all the other hosts besides Homecoming, only Rebirth seems to be completely invested in the "classic" experience, while many of the other hosts (Thunderspy, Cake, Sanctuary) have all veered in significantly different directions.

 

Thunderspy flipped the Controller AT on its head and added a bunch of new power set profilerations/combos that are completely unbalanced (IMO).  Cake is the "I WIN" button server with instant 50s (optional, of course).  Sanctuary (the one with which I have no experience) seems to be focused on new storylines and a new trajectory for the lore (as far as I can tell).  None of these are bad things, in and of themselves: but they do distinguish each host from the others.  And I think that's good for the health of the overall community at large.

 

Ironically, Rebirth -- the most faithful to the original game -- also has the smallest population of the "public" hosts (as opposed to semi-private or private hosts).  There's about 20-30 players peak on weeknights (I don't have the numbers for weekends because I'm usually doing other stuff on weekends).  While small, their community is active and engaged, friendly and helpful. 

 

But we're still talking about only two or three dozen folks committed to the closest we've got to a "CoH: Classic".  I'm not sure that rolling back to "CoH: Year 1"* (Issues in the single digits) would attract that many, or at least, not keep them for long.  Again, it would be an interesting novelty for a period of time, but then the novelty would wear off as we quickly remembered how much we all like many of the later changes to the game, especially the QoL changes.

 

It's these QoL changes in HC that distinguish it from Rebirth and the others.  They're not better or worse than the others -- just different.  Ironically, Homecoming is just as subject to the old adage as anything else: "You can never go home again."

 

(* Sidebar: Isn't SEGS working on a "year 1" progression server?  And even they gave up on Issues 0 and 1, if I recall their last public update.  But I could be wrong.)

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by Rathulfr

[Bossk_Hogg]

Aww, where's the love for the Issue 1 server, with mutually exclusive tank armor toggles?

[AerialAssault]

17 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Aww, where's the love for the Issue 1 server, with mutually exclusive tank armor toggles?

[ZacKing]

On ‎10‎/‎6‎/‎2020 at 12:26 PM, Rathulfr said:

Ironically, Rebirth -- the most faithful to the original game -- also has the smallest population of the "public" hosts (as opposed to semi-private or private hosts).  There's about 20-30 players peak on weeknights (I don't have the numbers for weekends because I'm usually doing other stuff on weekends). 

And that should tell people something.

[Hardship]

On 10/2/2020 at 9:07 AM, Gobbledygook said:

Would I get toggle IH back on my Regen Scrapper?

If so, I'll be right there with you.

Instant Healing SHOULD be a toggle again. I remember my son played a regen scrapper, finally got IH was AWESOME for about 2 weeks and then it changed to a click power. He lost interest in the game at that point.