A pure, old school server

[MTeague]

17 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Yes...we do. You may think that is ridiculous, but you gotta understand that those of us who "want that back" find the current state of the game equally rediculous where everyone has everything handed to them up front with no effort at all. That's just not everyone's cup of tea.

Well, there's a lot of shades of gray along the way, too.

 

I don't like Incarnate powers being available in all 46+ content. I think it should be pretty much iTrials only, or any lvl 50 content that was introduced with or after the incarnate system, no other exceptions whatsoever. I'm never going to get my way on that, but that's where I would have drawn the line if it had been my choice to make.

 

But I do think Attuned enhancements, Converters, and the way the auction house pools resources into fungible pools is wonderously good.

And I do like largely unrestricted sidekicking.

I never minded doing missions to unlock capes or auras, BUT, if something like Wings were restricted, and I was trying to do a Birdman concept, I'd have been ticked.

And if my character concept involved having energy claws, but those claws were not available until I'd defeated X many mobs to unlock that look of that weapon type, I'd have been ticked.

So I don't mind costume pieces being all unlocked.

I like having Inherent fitness.

I like being able to choose Fly without first having to take a pre-req.

But at the same time I would absolutely remove things like Void Skiffs and the ability to buy 8 hours of jetpacks at a time from P2W vendor.

I sort of feel like characters *should* take a travel power. I'm never going to get my way on that one either.

I'd definitely remove all the amplifiers (offensive, defensive, survival) from the P2W vendor.  And same deal, I'm never going to get my way on that one either.

[Solarverse]

2 minutes ago, MTeague said:

Well, there's a lot of shades of gray along the way, too.

 

I don't like Incarnate powers being available in all 46+ content. I think it should be pretty much iTrials only, or any lvl 50 content that was introduced with or after the incarnate system, no other exceptions whatsoever. I'm never going to get my way on that, but that's where I would have drawn the line if it had been my choice to make.

 

But I do think Attuned enhancements, Converters, and the way the auction house pools resources into fungible pools is wonderously good.

And I do like largely unrestricted sidekicking.

I never minded doing missions to unlock capes or auras, BUT, if something like Wings were restricted, and I was trying to do a Birdman concept, I'd have been ticked.

And if my character concept involved having energy claws, but those claws were not available until I'd defeated X many mobs to unlock that look of that weapon type, I'd have been ticked.

So I don't mind costume pieces being all unlocked.

I like having Inherent fitness.

I like being able to choose Fly without first having to take a pre-req.

But at the same time I would absolutely remove things like Void Skiffs and the ability to buy 8 hours of jetpacks at a time from P2W vendor.

I sort of feel like characters *should* take a travel power. I'm never going to get my way on that one either.

I'd definitely remove all the amplifiers (offensive, defensive, survival) from the P2W vendor.  And same deal, I'm never going to get my way on that one either.

Yeah, I don't think either one of us will get our way on any of our nostalgic dreams of what once was but will never be again, lol.

[plainguy]

Not insulting the original developers.

 

Technology was different back then. Example Storage is cheap today, back then it wasn't. 

I think the developers were working with what they had. 

 

I think today's developers for HC are just much smarter. Technology has moved forward so has coding or how games are coded.  Even running a firewall back then is much more complex then it is today and all you had was a device that was a firewall and nothing else. Again unlike today when the device can be  used as a firewall, IPS an IDS.. ETC or a combo of both. 

I believe HC dev's are doing what would be expected today if they were working for Cryptic on COH. 

I think the devs today are much smarter. 
I can see on some of the post when they talk about powers or coding it is like they want to say "You wouldn't believe WTF we are seeing.. You would not believe how F**Kup this code is..  How they missed some simple mistakes." 

But instead want to be polite and say we seen some mistakes and we fixed it. 

 

I think somethings today in this time do not make sense as they might have many years ago.  Capes is one of those things.  
What is so magical about a cape that you need to do a mission to unlock them ? It should have been just another part of the costume.

What they could have done is missions to unlock UNIQUE costume parts.  

But again I think that is just how games have evolved.  The costume creator for COH was unique back then. Warcraft did not have transmog ( Transmog came with patch 4.3 in 2011, Googled it ) back then. But today again technology improved.. Graphics improved.. So many games now have costume creators and tranmog type of service, it is just a common almost expected thing in many games today.

 

I am of mixed feelings with AE and Farming..

AE allows me the ability to make money I could not figure out or have the patience with playing the Auction House..  But it also stopped me from playing the game in a more "normal way".   

AE allows me to create my crazy petless masterminds that  I can level to 50 and flesh out because I know I would not be invited onto a team. Even though the game is much easier today. 

 

For me the invention system I think did more harm. I always felts each player should be limited to how many invention sets or Invention IOs they should be allowed onto a build.  This would prevent everyone with many different builds to be defense capped or resist capped or sometimes both to some degree.  
I believe the IO system just made every player SUPER POWERED..  You have literally 3 IOed capped players on a team and you can do just about any TF on a 4/8 setting. Every other player is just DPS at that point.. 

 

I also think it would have made Incarnate powers a bit more of value.. EG Barrier..  But when I am defense capped and I get one or two more buffs that now put me into the 70s for defenses and then some other buffs that buff up my resistances, barrier becomes a bit more useless. 

 

Another simple reality is the Devs do not have that time to manage a classic server.

 

And of course my always on going conspiracy that this is all a free test to show NCSoft that a COH 2.0 is doable so they have to move forward with new stuff but that stays in line with the current game model. So they can't waste their time going back to Classic.  The Current Devs need to show NCSoft that they have and can still do better then the original Devs. 

 

 

 

 

 

[MTeague]

14 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

It's exactly the same thing that happened with WoW: Classic.  There was a wave of nostalgia for like the first 30-90 days, and then everybody remembered what a PITA that game could be.  Yes, some folks' pain is someone else's pleasure.  But many WoW: Classic servers are ghost towns now, a year later.  I've logged on a couple times to try again, every now and then, and it's desolate (with a T) there sometimes.

I can totally see that.  My brother and I created accounts on Project 1999 (EverQuest classic + Kunark + Velious, no other expansions) and played around with it for a couple weeks reliving some of the nostalgia. But the grind broke us in fairly short order. Feeding coin into Tradeskills. Only really being able to level up by getting a team and setting down in a 'Camp' to kill orcs or gnolls or what-have-you in the same area as they respawned again and again. Faction grinding. 

 

The "You Can Never Go Home Again" was very real for EverQuest.  Homecoming has managed it, though, in no small part because CoH was always designed to be vastly more casual friendly. 

[Coyotedancer]

57 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Yes...we do. You may think that is ridiculous, but you gotta understand that those of us who "want that back" find the current state of the game equally rediculous where everyone has everything handed to them up front with no effort at all. That's just not everyone's cup of tea.

 

Yes. I have some trouble believing that anyone found sidekick-juggling when you wanted to play with mixed-level friends or constant "You're too far from your mentor!" flash-messages fun. 

[Solarverse]

19 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Yes. I have some trouble believing that anyone found sidekick-juggling when you wanted to play with mixed-level friends or constant "You're too far from your mentor!" flash-messages fun. 

I never found it to be problematic in the first place. The whole system made complete sense to a lot of people in those days. It sure beat the dumbed down version of the game we have today IMO. It's like we went from a game that was meant to challenge players to a game that 5 year olds could play. Sorry that you can't fathom how I or anyone like me preferred the game in the old times...not even sure why that bothers you since clearly players who prefer it the way it is now got their way and the players who opposed the direction the game went did not.
You need to realize, the game may be what you wanted it to be now...but I remember a time when the clear and obvious majority of forum posters back in those days did not want the game to be put to a point where everything is practically handed to you. The instant gratification crowd won that battle...while the crowd who believed the best things come to those who wait and work for it lost.

So at the end of the day, you won the day because you got what you wanted out of the game...and ultimately I did not.

[Bossk_Hogg]

1 hour ago, Solarverse said:

Yes...we do. You may think that is ridiculous, but you gotta understand that those of us who "want that back" find the current state of the game equally rediculous where everyone has everything handed to them up front with no effort at all. That's just not everyone's cup of tea.

Then follow the rules you want to impose on others. Use DO's or TO's. Its a waste of resources to create this for the tiny handful of people who want the game like it was for a miniscule slice of its existence. IO's have been around longer than they havent. 

 

Or maybe youjust dont like COH outside of nostalgia goggles from when the game first started before you got bored by the gameplay itself. 

[Solarverse]

Just now, Bossk_Hogg said:

Then follow the rules you want to impose on others. Use DO's or TO's. Its a waste of resources to create this for the tiny handful of people who want the game like it was for a miniscule slice of its existence. IO's have been around longer than they havent. 

 

Or maybe youjust dont like COH outside of nostalgia goggles from when the game first started before you got bored by the gameplay itself. 

I'm not the one asking for it, pal. I'm just sympathizing. Is that okay with you or did you just want to pick a fight today?

[Coyotedancer]

3 hours ago, Solarverse said:

I never found it to be problematic in the first place. The whole system made complete sense to a lot of people in those days. It sure beat the dumbed down version of the game we have today IMO. It's like we went from a game that was meant to challenge players to a game that 5 year olds could play. Sorry that you can't fathom how I or anyone like me preferred the game in the old times...not even sure why that bothers you since clearly players who prefer it the way it is now got their way and the players who opposed the direction the game went did not.
You need to realize, the game may be what you wanted it to be now...but I remember a time when the clear and obvious majority of forum posters back in those days did not want the game to be put to a point where everything is practically handed to you. The instant gratification crowd won that battle...while the crowd who believed the best things come to those who wait and work for it lost.

So at the end of the day, you won the day because you got what you wanted out of the game...and ultimately I did not.

 

Wow. You sure read a lot more into that than what I actually wrote... But hey. If it makes you feel better to tilt at windmills and pretend they're giants, have at it, I guess. 

[golstat2003]

Alot of the old school things felt ridiculous even back then.

 

I'm glad technology has moved on, cause if a lot of those "Features" had not been fixed I don't think the game would have lasted as long as it did live. Not with more modern mmos constantly niping at the game's heals.

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Wow. You sure read a lot more into that than what I actually wrote... But hey. If it makes you feel better to tilt at windmills and pretend they're giants, have at it, I guess. 

Sorry, man. I have to admit that this is a bit of a touchy subject to me because every time I try to express my opinion on it, somebody always seems to want to tell me, "maybe this is not the game for you" or "maybe you would be happier on another server" or the worst one, "just play with DO's, problem solved."

All of those responses are common when I express my opinion and all of those comments piss me straight off because this issue is so much more deeper than just swapping out enhancements for DOs. I don't argue against it because I feel if somebody can't comprehend why that is just a spit in the face thing to say, then I don't have the energy to want to further communicate my point of view to them.

So yeah, I can get a bit defensive on this subject because it's A: A subject where I take a stance on it as an extreme minority and B: Somehow I always end up being treated like I need to go play someplace else.

My comment was kind of defensive and I do not wish for you to take it personally. You caught me at a moment when I felt like my back was against a wall (chances are, all in my head and not the reality) so you didn't exactly catch me at my best moment. I am sorry that I read too much in to what you said. My apologies.

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, Solarverse said:

Sorry, man. I have to admit that this is a bit of a touchy subject to me because every time I try to express my opinion on it, somebody always seems to want to tell me, "maybe this is not the game for you" or "maybe you would be happier on another server" or the worst one, "just play with DO's, problem solved."

All of those responses are common when I express my opinion and all of those comments piss me straight off because this issue is so much more deeper than just swapping out enhancements for DOs. I don't argue against it because I feel if somebody can't comprehend why that is just a spit in the face thing to say, then I don't have the energy to want to further communicate my point of view to them.

So yeah, I can get a bit defensive on this subject because it's A: A subject where I take a stance on it as an extreme minority and B: Somehow I always end up being treated like I need to go play someplace else.

My comment was kind of defensive and I do not wish for you to take it personally. You caught me at a moment when I felt like my back was against a wall (chances are, all in my head and not the reality) so you didn't exactly catch me at my best moment. I am sorry that I read too much in to what you said. My apologies.

No worries, dude. We all have days like that. 

[ShardWarrior]

On 9/29/2020 at 11:36 AM, MTeague said:

But at the same time I would absolutely remove things like Void Skiffs and the ability to buy 8 hours of jetpacks at a time from P2W vendor.

I agree with you for the most part however I know a few role players who have non-super powered Batman-ish themed characters where Fly/SJ/SS etc. would not make sense for them to have.  These also have utility for Hami raids and base building.

[MTeague]

28 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

I agree with you for the most part however I know a few role players who have non-super powered Batman-ish themed characters where Fly/SJ/SS etc. would not make sense for them to have.  These also have utility for Hami raids and base building.

yea. My preferred solution would be to eliminate void skiff, rocket board, etc as P2W powers, and put the animations in place as an alternate appearance / Power Customization choice for Fly.

So you'd still have to take "Fly" as a power in order to fly, but if you want to suddenly sprout a Raptor Pack whenever you activate fly, you could.

 

I am however, aware of the current limitations on combat animations for things like Rocket Board. I hope someday that can be addressed, and then also made into a Power Customization for Fly. I do have a rather extensive "It would be cool if..." list that will probably never be done.

Edited September 30, 2020 by MTeague

[Lines]

My position is that the game has developed largely in a way that conveniences and empowers players. The vast majority of those changes have been great, and rolling back verbatim would mean sacrificing a lot of really good stuff.

 

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.

 

In terms of player empowerment and going oldschool, I truly believe there is scope to develop forward into a game that has more bite. Maybe even a whole different sort of bite than the early game had. Certainly one with less grind attached and one with more varied challenges. I think the world we occupy needs to be empowered against us a little bit. I do want to progress my characters towards new challenges rather than just the current feeling of overpowering old ones. That's been discussed in a lot of depth elsewhere.

 

But the positive development of the game does, for me, outweigh those things.

 

 

* which, sigh I have gotten a bit too used to. Maybe it could be a temp power with an animation similar to the police radio scanner. I'd like it if the actual auction house buildings had something to offer. Obsolescence bothers me.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Lines

[Parabola]

18 hours ago, Solarverse said:

All of those responses are common when I express my opinion and all of those comments piss me straight off because this issue is so much more deeper than just swapping out enhancements for DOs. I don't argue against it because I feel if somebody can't comprehend why that is just a spit in the face thing to say, then I don't have the energy to want to further communicate my point of view to them.

So much truth in this statement. I feel your pain!

 

The whole issue of game balance is hugely complicated, this is an intricate system with so many moving parts. Those of us expressing concerns are too often met with reductive answers or dismissal. The very fact that the topic keeps getting raised suggests that there are things worth looking into and it seems the devs agree. I'm hopeful they will be able to dial in on tweaks that will improve the game dynamics but I don't envy them the backlash from some quarters.

 

On this specific topic: I think there have been many, many improvements to the game over the years. I couldn't imagine going back to an early version and doing without all that. But I'm in no doubt that some things have been lost or sidelined along the way and we are now at a point where some game dynamics are really suffering. I'd prefer to work on the basis of tweaking what we have to recapture a bit of what has been lost rather than rolling back wholesale though.

[Greycat]

9 minutes ago, Lines said:

My position is that the game has developed largely in a way that conveniences and empowers players. The vast majority of those changes have been great, and rolling back verbatim would mean sacrificing a lot of really good stuff.

 

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. I'd like to see those things find a more organic place in the game, at least.

Trimmed some, but in general, I think this is where I sit.

 

I was going to reply to Solar's ... well, vent 🙂 with something relating to this, but it got unwieldy.  Specifically, I was looking at an example of the Hollows, comparing QOL versus "getting easier."  Because both are at play in this zone.

 

I started in I3. This was the Hollows experience - note I'm ignoring some game wide things like IOs, early SO access from DFB, etc. 

You had sprint as a travel power. Since you could get in at 5, if you hit 6, you could get Hover. (Barring being a PB or WS - and with WS getting shadow recall early and builtin TP, well...)

Graendel's Gulch was a deathtrap you learned to avoid by running around the outer edge - a straight line basically not being the shortest route.

Because of this, Taxibots were a real presence in the hollows, and it seems a standard Empath build involved "grab Recall Friend ASAP."

Mobs would routinely not spawn until you were right at or in the middle of them - this, I believe, being more of a tech issue than "game" issue, as the hollows seemed to be notorious for this.

Death meant running back from Atlas Park. A team could wait a *long* time to get assembled if someone died.

Training (say, to get hover?) Running back from Atlas Park. ("Death Express" was a thing, after all, to eliminate at least half that run.)

 

The current Hollows experience:

P2W travel powers available, such as ninja run. Travel powers available at level 4.

The Gulch is - easily avoidable, or rushed through.

Mob spawning is fixed - and there are more types around.

The hospital and trainer are in zone.

A teammate (say, warshade, or an empath - since pain wasn't available then - who inevitably took Recall Friend ASAP) or taxibot who could TP you to the mission isn't anywhere near as required.

 

So, how much of this is "the game is now easier," versus QOL changes?

 

For me, I'd put the trainer and nurse as solidly QOL. Those are a matter of "wasting less time" rather than "needing or not needing a skill."

 

The travel powers, and everything associated with them? Are... kind of grey. They're game wide. It's nice to have them, and they've eliminated early expectations of what powers to grab (and, for the most part, taxibots) but... at the same time, the hollows was a place you learned the hard way about mob perception and how to evaluate (and usually dodge) mobs. And a lot of the changes branch off from that, as far as "the game being easier." It requires you to learn less and need less "skill" (I do say that somewhat tongue in cheek, this isn't learning to be a luthier, it's a game, but still.)

 

If we reverted travel powers, though, and removed the P2W options... there's still a definite "easier" to the game, since the mobs and where they spawn have changed. It's easier to work your way through them. They've been adjusted to be "friendlier" - or easier to dodge, even if you were just using sprint at level.

 

(See what I mean about the post becoming unwieldy? 🙂  )

 

So, looking at all this... when people want a "classic" or "old school" experience, what would they really want? Removing absolutely everything? Changing the mob spawning? Removing the nurse and trainer so they *have* to run back from Atlas? I think the "what would you be willing to give up / keep" would have a wide, wide range of answers, even among the "yes, we want a classic server" crowd. I know for me, the long, tedious sprint back from Atlas just to train or get back from a hospital visit was not an enjoyable part of the experience, it was tedious and annoying... so I'd want to keep the nurse and trainer. Others? I can't say. I'm not them.

[Solarverse]

@Greycat Honestly, as you described the original Hollows experience, I was foaming at the mouth. Like, all of it. I rather enjoyed the whole thing. Each QoL change made it less enjoyable for me. That may sound insane, but it made your heart skip beats when you were close to death because you knew what you had to go through to get back if you died and nobody had a heal or TP. The sudden mob spawns were intense as well. I miss that, "Oh shit oh shit oh shit!!!" *DEAD* panic the game gave me, lol.

[Oubliette_Red]

As I have said in previous threads with similar requests, I am opposed to this solely for the reason that I do not believe that an all-volunteer team of devs should be splitting their time maintaining multiple iterations of server code of the game.

 

[Greycat]

You know what else I forgot to mention in that?

 

We didn't have SG bases. SGs, yes, bases, no. Those were introduced with COV (and you had to OWN COV to have them.) So there wasn't even a "rez in base" option at the time when I started playing (and even after they were introduced, you'd have to have had enough people playing to afford power, control, rez stations...)

 

So, the question would be, would you completely give up an SG base for the experience? Honestly, Solar, I think you'd end up having a single player experience to get to the point where you want to be. 🙂  I think a lot of the "I want an older/classic experience" would stop at earlier points. Not wanting to give up an SG base. Or the nurse, or trainer.

 

Doesn't make anyone more right or wrong, I just think you'd have a hard time finding people who want to go *that* far back and give that much up. Most, I'd wager, would take a hybrid 'retro' experience (such as "the old travel power progression, but let me keep the SG base, and the nurse in zone.")  But you sound aware of that, in any case.

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

You know what else I forgot to mention in that?

 

We didn't have SG bases. SGs, yes, bases, no. Those were introduced with COV (and you had to OWN COV to have them.) So there wasn't even a "rez in base" option at the time when I started playing (and even after they were introduced, you'd have to have had enough people playing to afford power, control, rez stations...)

 

So, the question would be, would you completely give up an SG base for the experience? Honestly, Solar, I think you'd end up having a single player experience to get to the point where you want to be. 🙂  I think a lot of the "I want an older/classic experience" would stop at earlier points. Not wanting to give up an SG base. Or the nurse, or trainer.

 

Doesn't make anyone more right or wrong, I just think you'd have a hard time finding people who want to go *that* far back and give that much up. Most, I'd wager, would take a hybrid 'retro' experience (such as "the old travel power progression, but let me keep the SG base, and the nurse in zone.")  But you sound aware of that, in any case.

I have mentioned in previous posts that the perfect server for me would be a server that had all the goodies from today, costumes, bases, zones, story arcs, and the works, but in a setting with the old school mechnics and difficulty. I would happily give up IOs and set bonuses for that experience.  🙂

[golstat2003]

5 hours ago, Solarverse said:

I have mentioned in previous posts that the perfect server for me would be a server that had all the goodies from today, costumes, bases, zones, story arcs, and the works, but in a setting with the old school mechnics and difficulty. I would happily give up IOs and set bonuses for that experience.  🙂

 

That . . . sounds like setting something like that up would be a A LOT of work for any team of volunteers . . .

[Solarverse]

4 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

 

That . . . sounds like setting something like that up would be a A LOT of work for any team of volunteers . . .

I would never expect Homecoming to do this. Just hoping a bunch of old school know-hows come along and create one though on their own, heh.

[Gobbledygook]

Would I get toggle IH back on my Regen Scrapper?

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

[Golden Azrael]

On 10/1/2020 at 5:01 AM, Solarverse said:

I would never expect Homecoming to do this. Just hoping a bunch of old school know-hows come along and create one though on their own, heh.

I miss perma-hasten.

 

I remember when you had to maintain the 'side kick' lassoo.

 

Or when the Hollows was actually one giant death trap.

 

Or a tank could...well...herd the Hollows.

 

And when ET actually hit like a truck.

 

Azrael.