Population?

[AkuTenshiiZero]

It's been a couple months since I last logged in, and news of upcoming changes sparked my interest in returning.  However, the reason I fell out of CoX was the low population, specifically the redside population.  How is it looking these days?  Finding a villain team was literally impossible when I last played, is it any better now?  Worse?  I'm on Indomitable.

[Apparition]

Welcome back.  Red side population is about the same, at least on Excelsior.  There are red side teams out there though, again at least on Excelsior.

[Lunchmoney]

Currently looks like this

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/status/

[EmmySky]

I am on Indom daily...hero though, but most of the people I chat with on general seem to think red side best side...I blame polluted water...anyway...just judging from that you should be able to find one easily.  And lots of people will switch if you announce a team forming.  

 

Also, transfer tokens are up to 5 every 3 days...so you can move a toon and check out the population on one of the more populated shards very easily.

 

Welcome back and happy hunting!

[Vanex]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

Welcome back.  Red side population is about the same, at least on Excelsior.  There are red side teams out there though, again at least on Excelsior.

Nope, AT proliferation literally killed retention to play redside.

Check chart you posted, 5:1 ratio, do you remember about 6:4 on live?

 

[Apparition]

1 minute ago, Vanex said:

Nope, AT proliferation literally killed retention to play redside.

Check chart you posted, 5:1 ratio, do you remember about 6:4 on live?

 

I meant the same as a couple of months ago.  And while AT proliferation lowered red side retention, it didn’t kill it as I play red side exclusively.

[VV]

32 minutes ago, Vanex said:

do you remember about 6:4 on live?

I do not remember that on Live. Maybe when Red first came out, but most of the time, the ratio seemed even lower than it is now.

 

Anyway, to OP, as was mentioned, changing shards is super easy now. But, also, changing alignments is. Run some red stuff and encourage people to swap over. Show them how. 

2 hours ago, AkuTenshiiZero said:

Finding a villain team was literally impossible when I last played

Really, I think your main problem is that more soloers play redside than blueside. People who want to be left alone go there specifically because of the lower population. If you look at the numbers, 70-80+ on Everlasting and Excelsior should be plenty to put together a team, IF they want to team up.

[The_Warpact]

I play on red exclusively, while I don't solo per se, I do have a VG and we have known each other for 15 yrs(?) now.

So while some may solo, alot are duo or in teams of people that are friends.

So cracking into that shell I guess would be hard, considering we don't hardly more like rarely team with ppl we don't know.

Although one of our members does team on blue alot, he does drop everything when we do something. 

Its a very hard barrier to get over when you've been friends for so long.

[Ironblade]

1 hour ago, EmmySky said:

And lots of people will switch if you announce a team forming.

My badge hunter is a Vigilante so he can go anywhere.  To me, going to St. Martial is no different than going to Brickstown.  My base has all the red side beacons.

 

1 hour ago, Vanex said:

Nope, AT proliferation literally killed retention to play redside.

Check chart you posted, 5:1 ratio, do you remember about 6:4 on live?

um.. no.  Unless there was one shard where people particularly liked villains that I didn't hear about.

[TraumaTrain]

I also play on Indomitable. I mostly play red side; I really enjoy the look and feel of the place and the contacts and story arcs.

 

I do solo a lot, but I've been considering putting together a weekly red side team to run through certain arcs or the SFs and such. Maybe Monday nights. (I am east coast USA.) Would you be interested in that, @AkuTenshiiZero?

[Vanex]

I remember Freedom and Virtue with hundreds for redside pop, for sure not at current ratios (5:1 to 10:1)..

in any case a server with 30 people is a dead server.

 

There are many reasons contributing to current low redside pop, what i recall is:

1- AT proliferation

2- too many servers

3- more blueside content. TFs and Trials

4- "City of Heroes Homecoming" blue label, Tequila/HC Launcher starting with CoH interface: which side to pick for newbies?

 

[Gulbasaur]

Honestly, the best way to deal with "finding a team" struggles is to start one yourself. Lots of people just don't like starting teams and I get that because it involves knowing where contacts are and stuff, but... just start one. 

 

I did some redside teaming just now, which is very early morning in the US, and I got a few people together redside after posting exactly once in the LFG channel. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Gulbasaur

[Lunchmoney]

18 hours ago, Vanex said:

in any case a server with 30 people is a dead server

All the servers are currently dead!

/Sarcasm winkie

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Lunchmoney
Added winkie to illustrate sarcasm

[CrudeVileTerror]

and now they're not!

 

I suspect we'll see quite a jump in those numbers on the weekends after I27p1 hits release status.

And as for Villain-side population specifically . . . we've tackled that topic a dozen times or so.  The really juicy thread for that particular topic was:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/19655-weekly-discussion-53-how-to-increase-villain-population/