The Future - An Open Letter from the Homecoming Team

[InfamousBrad]

Love it!

 

I have one minor concern with the numeric cool-downs screenshot you shared: the numbers seem a little too big, so they hide too much of the icon. Would you consider sizing them down to, say, the size of the text on the permanent buttons (Powers Inspirations Enhancements etc.)?

[Jimmy]

Will the cool down indicator setting be persistent or will we have to type it in when we start the game?

For this initial testing period I'm not entirely sure. Once we add it in properly it will be persistent.

First, thank all of you folks for making this happen. It's been wonderful to play this again after so long. I was wondering if you would be able to add a slower XP progression option though.

 

One thing I noticed while playing was that it felt like I was leveling far too fast, even at the 100% XP rate. Although it is nice to have the option to speed through levels, and the Flashback system allows for playing any missed content, I don't feel I get to really have that visceral connection with a zone as I play through it, which was something I loved back in Issue 0-8.

I would appreciate a Pay2Win option that allowed for a 75% or even 50% XP rate, allowing for even greater control of how fast or slow I want to level a particular toon.

 

Also, I only just learned that Homecoming was a thing two days ago and have been trying my hardest to both enjoy the content but also earn enough merit rewards to get back my old Anniversary badges. Would you consider bringing Luna back after this Month? At the very least, perhaps annually to allow for future opportunities to get those badges?

Luna will be back every year :)

 

Reduced XP rates are an interesting idea, we may look into it. For now I'd advise that you selectively disable XP if you think you're going to outlevel content (you can do this in the options window).

[_NOPE_]

Thank you again for bringing us home again. The only question I have for you all is a simple one: who are you?

 

I'm not asking for names, your pseudonyms are fine with me. I want to know what kind of people you are... What are your stories? What brought you to CoH? What motivated you to not only stay, but to help bring it back? What do you enjoy doing for Homecoming? What is your role? What is your place in the hierarchy? Is there a hierarchy?

 

But most of all, who are you?

 

Stories are how we define ourselves and our world. I want to learn your stories. Pretty please?

[CraterLabs]

You mention artists signing up at that link... any chance that extends to non-visual artists? I'm mostly personally asking for the writery sides of things, but the music and sound design has always been a big part of the game too.

[Jimmy]

Thank you again for bringing us home again. The only question I have for you all is a simple one: who are you?

 

I'm not asking for names, your pseudonyms are fine with me. I want to know what kind of people you are... What are your stories? What brought you to CoH? What motivated you to not only stay, but to help bring it back? What do you enjoy doing for Homecoming? What is your role? What is your place in the hierarchy? Is there a hierarchy?

 

But most of all, who are you?

 

Stories are how we define ourselves and our world. I want to learn your stories. Pretty please?

 

We are Borg.

 

But, more seriously, we're just a group of fans who want the game back. We are a co-operative, don't really have a leader, and are happy to remain (mostly) behind the scenes right now. We want our work to speak for itself and to just enjoy the game along with everyone else.

[Cipher]

Will the cool down indicator setting be persistent or will we have to type it in when we start the game?

 

During the testing phase it will be a command that you must enter once per client launch. Once it's in full release it'll be in the options menu and persistent like the other settings :)

 

Edit: The setting will actually be persistent for testing but only accessible through the command for now :)

[Zep]

I saw a COH screen shot posted on a random forum so did one of my periodic searches finding Homecoming online and working.  I just about dropped a brick in my shorts right then and there.

 

I doubt I can say anything unique in my thanks for being back - so please pretend I said them all. :)

 

It is also nice to see the door open for future development.

 

I should also thank Score without whose work this would not be happening.

 

We all have our favorites, of course, I hear that PhysX has been fixed elsewhere, any word when the fix will make it hear? All the /Storm or Storm/ peoples I play it is really fun to have working seeing all the debris swirling in a hurricane, pushed out of the way by other powers and attacks etc really added a lot to an already uniquely living game world.

 

Anyhow, THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS For bringing COX back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

How many accounts? Have we broken the 10k concurrent yet? Just curious.

 

-Zep-

[tajones011]

Hello Friends,

 

I didn't read all the comments so this may have been mentioned (or may be in the game already and I'm just slow on the uptake), but would it be possible to edit the enemy targeting frames so we could see their buffs and debuffs?  I never really realized it before, but after playing radiation support set I have found myself wanting to see if all the targets are being affected by my debuffs.  Just my little tid bit i wanted to throw in

 

Keep up the great work,

 

Teejy

[Silverlion]

I too, greatly appreciate the hard work you've put into the game. I'm curious is there a way to unlock some of the old movement powers (ninja run, animal run?) In the game?

 

[Silk]

Good work! 

 

I am especially looking forward to the numbered CD indicator for powers!!!!

[MisterControl]

I posted my "resume" to help out any way I can as an artist.

 

However, I did notice there's no section for anyone with QA experience to help out. Unless you want to filter all testing to be done by the community. Just a thought.

 

Look forward to some awesome updates in the future.

 

-Spy

[Eiko-chan]

I too, greatly appreciate the hard work you've put into the game. I'm curious is there a way to unlock some of the old movement powers (ninja run, animal run?) In the game?

These powers are, by and large, acquired from the P2W vendors in the tutorial zones, Atlas Park, Mercy Island, Grandville and Firebase Zulu. They appear as a $ on the map labelled "P2W". In Nova Praetoria, the vendor is "T4V".

[Kabal]

One QoL feature I’d like to beg for is a way to skip cutscenes. I understand why they were put in place originally, and while I appreciate the effort they put into making them, having to sit through the same cutscenes on multiple characters makes me want to pull my hair out. If I never see Dr. Vhazilok’s speech again, i’ll die a happy man.

[TerminallyNerdy]

Love what you all are doing, love the improvements!

 

Can't wait to see how you add to the game either.  I got my wife to try and me and her have been having a blast :)

[EggKookoo]

But, more seriously, we're just a group of fans who want the game back. We are a co-operative, don't really have a leader, and are happy to remain (mostly) behind the scenes right now. We want our work to speak for itself and to just enjoy the game along with everyone else.

 

You understand our moderate anxiety about this whole thing, right? Despite the name Homecoming, there's this fear that one cannot, in the end, go home again.

 

My wife and I met in CoH. I just let my 7-year-old daughter make a hero and run around in Atlas. Games aren't just entertainment -- they're bridges that bring people together. You have a precious thing here.

 

For myself, I can't thank you enough for restoring this bridge.

[Murcielago]

I find it entitled that people are complaining that the homecoming team isn't help other teams set up their servers.

[GraVmaN]

One QoL feature I always thought was missing would be that when you enable "Lock Powers in tray" could it also lock the action bar number setting please?

[misat]

GM_Jimmy as I have been called a fool by members of this 'community' for disagreeing about the AE nerf and that xp itself didn't actually need to be nerfed by members of this community whose only beliefs is 'farming bad', please elaborate on this

 

(Another aside before I continue: The AE nerf was originally to reduce the strain on the server as many AE farm maps used mechanics which were incredibly server-intensive,

 

As I have tried to tell people, the only server intensive thing in a AE farm is ambush farms and that is due to how the map/spawn points/spawns are loaded. But all I ever get told is that I'm stupid and all farming bad. So which is it, am I wrong or are ambush farms the only bad thing?

I'm with you on this. People are just rude to the ones that support AE and level with it. They rather force their play style on everyone else " sounds like real politics in the world". First, it was to give the servers a break from being overloaded and I agree it needed to be done but we where told it was just a temp thing until it calmed down. Now It's we are going to force you to level our way because you level to fast. Funny thing is people are still power leveling outside of the AE. I did it last night lvl 10 to 40's faster then it would of took me to solo do it. I joined a level 50 brute and He ran me through an end game TF. and what wasn't posted here is the GM saying it causes grief to other players that can't find a group because everyone will be in AE missions, which is funny. If you are really trying to find a group you won't have trouble finding one. LFG chat is proof of that

[Wolfbeast]

First off, thank you for clearing a few things up, especially about the future directions and what you are planning to make and keep the game more balanced.

 

I do have a different kind of donation in mind than coding expertise, being a GM or throwing money at you, and that is to offer the use of 2 dedicated (bare metal) servers in Europe at no extra cost to the homecoming team or players to run a second EU shard (location Sweden with good cross-atlantic connectivity through Telia). If you are interested in this, then please send me a private message here, or e-mail me, or chat me up on Discord.

 

Why this offer?

Simply put: I have the hardware and connectivity. I planned initially to go for i24 which does have its merits but I don't see the volume of users going to need what I got this hardware for. On top, I don't have the free time to manage everything that's needed to run a shard on my own properly (discord/forum, finding and managing GMs for the shard, etc.) since I do have a day job, but want to do my part providing a sustainable future for City of Heroes/Villains.

 

So, the offer is open, get in touch if you're interested :)

[Prototelis]

Any chance you'll be patching physX support in the near future?

[MetaVileTerror]

Pretty good news, from the looks of it.

 

As for this forum?  I think it's pretty much spot-on.  I don't think we need to worry about modifying the forum at all.

[Rachael Storm]

What about wanting to contribute story content? (Other than AE)

[Paladin]

Luna will be back every year :)

 

When will she be removed?

[blam]

• For those of you interested in being GameMasters and/or moderators: We tend to recruit our GMs from those we see being helpful and friendly on our Discord server and in-game, so that’s the best place to start if this is something you’re interested in.
  
• For those of you interested in helping with the website: Please go ahead and post in this thread. We are now starting to look at options for expanding the website (and hopefully moving to new forum software), so we’d love to hear what you guys have in mind!
  
• For those of you interested in helping with future development of the game: This is where it gets a bit more tricky. As mentioned above, we aren’t able to conduct open source development until we feel we would not be putting the servers in jeopardy by doing so. We are eagerly awaiting the day where we can open up development to everyone who is interested, and in the meantime there’s two things you can do to get ready for this. Firstly, post in this thread if you’re a programmer or this thread if you’re an artist. Secondly, start becoming familiar with OuroDev’s SCoRE (i25) branch, it’s close enough to ours that anything you create should be compatible without too much additional work
  

 

I am pretty familiar with the current source code available and would like to help out in any way I can. Be it through the CoH Code or if you're going to be creating stuff for the forum. I have been helping out where I can in the discord.

[Radionuclide]

GM_Jimmy as I have been called a fool by members of this 'community' for disagreeing about the AE nerf and that xp itself didn't actually need to be nerfed by members of this community whose only beliefs is 'farming bad', please elaborate on this

 

(Another aside before I continue: The AE nerf was originally to reduce the strain on the server as many AE farm maps used mechanics which were incredibly server-intensive,

 

As I have tried to tell people, the only server intensive thing in a AE farm is ambush farms and that is due to how the map/spawn points/spawns are loaded. But all I ever get told is that I'm stupid and all farming bad. So which is it, am I wrong or are ambush farms the only bad thing?

I'm with you on this. People are just rude to the ones that support AE and level with it. They rather force their play style on everyone else " sounds like real politics in the world". First, it was to give the servers a break from being overloaded and I agree it needed to be done but we where told it was just a temp thing until it calmed down. Now It's we are going to force you to level our way because you level to fast. Funny thing is people are still power leveling outside of the AE. I did it last night lvl 10 to 40's faster then it would of took me to solo do it. I joined a level 50 brute and He ran me through an end game TF. and what wasn't posted here is the GM saying it causes grief to other players that can't find a group because everyone will be in AE missions, which is funny. If you are really trying to find a group you won't have trouble finding one. LFG chat is proof of that

 

LFG is proof you can find a DFB team.

 

Powerlevelling doesn’t bother me but, I couldn’t pass up the quip.