A "Designated Hitter" Shard

[Shenanigunner]

Not sure if this has ever been suggested seriously, but I'm doing it now: Split the game.

 

Add a new shard that completely mirrors the others, updates and all,
but has a unique menu/command to choose any starting level the player wants.

 

90% of players on that shard will go right to 50 and on to end-game content. Power to 'em. But these alts will not be transferable to other shards.

 

Why? To end the continual demand that the game be bent to allow the fastest possible leveling and power acquisition. The HC devs have been steadily bending things in this direction, slowly removing the progress / leveling / strategy side of gameplay. For every change that has taken away a minor annoyance or hurdle and made veteran play a little more pleasant, there have been changes that (IMVHO) simply remove a proper part of the leveling strategy to make some character advance cost-free.

 

Some of us still like the game much as it was, with the need to roll up a toon and choose powers and slots and enhancements as an integral part of play. It's not about mad power-leveling and grinding and shortcuts to get to end-game content. But the power gamers — mostly veterans who have rolled up more than their share of toons, to be fair — are continually asking for the game to be dulled/dumbed down for everyone else. (The current thread on making travel powers available at 4 is what triggered this post.)

 

It's not reasonable to ask all other players to ignore these shortcuts and do things like play the Classic Hero path, just so that some subset of players has a dragstrip to 50.

 

So solve the problem by creating a whole shard that completely caves to end-game players, let them skip directly to Go and collect their 200 powers and slots... and leave the rest of the game structured much as originally, with a few of the nice little conveniences and shortcuts and maybe even rolling some of them back. It's like the Designated Hitter rule in baseball: if you want to shortcut most of the strategy, have at it. Some of us want our pitchers to have to take at-bats. Hell, give new players 1M per level in Inf, even.

 

I don't see this as having any downside, as long as the ONLY unique characteristic of the new shard is the command to set a starting level. Development would be seamlessly parallel, no special considerations needed. And preventing transfer would forestall game-jacking on the other shards. Maybe even require rolling up a 50 on a regular shard before entry to this new shard is allowed, to keep out an extreme power-gamer segment that might be... unwanted.

 

Call it the Genie shard... unlimited cosmic powers, itty-bitty world space. 😄

 

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by Shenanigunner

[Alchemystic]

That's just the "We Have Cake" server.

[Ruin Mage]

Nnno thank you.

[AerialAssault]

Personally, I don't think we should be making servers tailored for a specific type of player. That's what other places like Cake & Thunderspy are for.

 

In any case, I could only imagine this dividing an already small community even further.

[Shenanigunner]

3 minutes ago, AerialAssault said:

In any case, I could only imagine this dividing an already small community even further.

 

Then so be it. The two player communities may be compatible, but the devs can't accommodate both on one shard style and the development path is continually accommodating the power-level, end-game crowd at the expense of everyone else. One community or the other is going to wander away.

[Moka]

You need to elaborate. I've seen no such accommodations. Exploits have been removed from the game, even, such as the GM merit farm.

[AerialAssault]

35 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Then so be it. The two player communities may be compatible, but the devs can't accommodate both on one shard style and the development path is continually accommodating the power-level, end-game crowd at the expense of everyone else. One community or the other is going to wander away.

In what way are they accommodating the crowd you speak of? You said yourself this thread was made in response to a suggestion. I haven't seen any evidence that the Homecoming Devs have cow-towed to this 'crowd'. We don't have unlimited aggro cap, we don't have Mez Protection on every AT, and we certainly don't have all travel powers unlocked. If anything, the opposite is true, with the removal of the /enterbasefrompasscode command and de-scaling of Blaster secondaries.

 

The Homecoming devs shouldn't be accommodating for anyone. They run a server in accordance with their own design philosophy. Our suggestions here are merely that, suggestions. They're not beholden to do, or even entertain any of them.

 

 

[Ruin Mage]

It's not really accomodating anyone in particular, unless you're reading patch notes wrong/reading some alternate future ones.

[Alchemystic]

The last few big patches introduced new powersets and low-level mission content, that's accommodating the opposite of end-game crowd.

[El D]

53 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Then so be it. The two player communities may be compatible, but the devs can't accommodate both on one shard style and the development path is continually accommodating the power-level, end-game crowd at the expense of everyone else. One community or the other is going to wander away.

 

The devs aren't doing that, though? The Homecoming devs have not made any major endgame content as of yet, and leveling in CoH has always been easy outside of the first few Issues post-launch (namely after Issue 5, when the OG devs first adjusted how Debt worked). Yes, the P2W vendors have made leveling easier still due to Double XP Boosters combined with the abundance of farms in AE - but there were an abundance of AE farms on Live, and if you want a more traditional leveling experience you don't have to use Double XP. You can play the game however you want to, as can everyone else that's part of the Homecoming community. That's the reason (I assume, at least) that the devs made Double XP a permanent option rather than a scheduled event as it was on Live - so folks who wanted to focus on high level content could do so and have fun the way they wanted to, while folks who had enjoyed running story arcs and going 'old school' could have their fun doing that.

 

To suggest that the Homecoming devs go to all the work of making, updating, and moderating a whole separate shard solely because you think some folks are playing the game so wrongly that you want to kick them out - in-particular because you suggest they're 'unwanted' - and that the rest of the game should have options removed to cater to your own personal playstyle is actually the kind of attitude Homecoming's playerbase doesn't need. Focusing on how other players are 'doing it wrong' and using optional content you don't like is not healthy to your own enjoyment of the game. This isn't a 'community vs community' problem; the only one burning themselves out over this is you.

 

The game is here for everyone to have fun with - however they like, using whatever optional content they choose to partake in. Just relax and enjoy it, dude.

Edited January 17, 2021 by El D

[Shenanigunner]

28 minutes ago, El D said:

To suggest that the Homecoming devs go to all the work of making, updating, and moderating a whole separate shard solely because you think some folks are playing the game so wrongly that you want to kick them out ...

 

That's nowhere near what I meant. There are two player communities with vastly different goals, and eventually one or the other is going to get unhappy and leave. One more shard, with one (1) uber-command added (which already exists for beta and testing, anyway) is not a request to kick anyone out or excessively multiply the dev/moderation load.

 

Keep the game balanced for "all these players" — and accommodate those who keep agitating for more and more shortcuts and antinerfs. Everybody wins.

 

'Nuf sed.

[Ruin Mage]

That's not how any of this works, lmao. No live service game works like that, and only WoW private servers have the member number to accommodate to such a wild and weird suggestion.

[Apparition]

"I don't like how you play, so instead of either ignoring you and going on with my life or taking my ball and going home, I want you to take your ball and go elsewhere where I don't have to see you!"

 

Yeah, not a great look on your part I'm afraid.

[AerialAssault]

What happens when the population of this quarantine shard (because that's what this suggestion is, let's face it) are upset because new content isn't made for them? Do we make a new dev team specifically for them? What happens if this 'power-gamer community' has a split over a proposed change? Do they make a new server for those people as well? The second we start tailoring for people's preferred playing style is the second the flood gates open, and people's entitlement spills over. 

[Arctique]

The thing about shortcuts existing, is nobody's forced to take them. The option of taking a bullet train across town doesn't take away the option of taking a scenic walk to your destination instead.

 

These different styles of play can co-exist, worst we're going to ever see is a vocal minority from one side complain about the other, but we're not going to see some mass exodus of players like you seem to be insisting will happen with so much certainty. We might all have different ways we prefer to play the game, but we're all here for the same reason. Because we all love this game.

 

You know what would fracture the community and cause a large chunk of the playerbase to leave? Alienating anyone who enjoys a certain playstyle by making a whole separate server and telling them they should play there instead.

 

Which is what's being suggested here.

[Starforge]

36 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

There are two player communities with vastly different goals

I’d wager a guess that there’s many more than just two player communities here.

[Apparition]

In all honesty, re-reading this thread, it sounds like you'd be happier on Rebirth if you're that unhappy with playing on Homecoming that you want to segregate the player population even more than it is already.  It's more aligned with how the game was prior to sunset and sounds like what you're looking for.

[Arctique]

17 minutes ago, Starforge said:

I’d wager a guess that there’s many more than just two player communities here.

This, too. What about people who indulge both these styles of play? I might want to rush to 50 on one alt, but take it easy leveling through regular content with another. Do I have to play on both servers then?

What about people who are focused on PvP? Do they have to migrate over to this other server and try to establish a new PvP community within a now split community too?

What about roleplayers? I know people on both sides of the coin that I RP with, so then that splits up a sub-community that's completely unrelated to the issue of fast levelers vs. slow levelers.

What about large SGs that support multiple playstyles? Do they now need to try and establish a presence on both servers in order to keep their membership, or just up and lose potentially a large chunk of their roster?

What about the endgame content itself? If all the people that just rush 50 to play the endgame move off to another server, that's likely to cut into a large portion of people running and joining endgame raids and trials. It'd suck having to go to a whole other shard just to find consistent hami raids to join.

Edited January 17, 2021 by Arctique

[Alchemystic]

2 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

That's nowhere near what I meant. There are two player communities with vastly different goals, and eventually one or the other is going to get unhappy and leave. One more shard, with one (1) uber-command added (which already exists for beta and testing, anyway) is not a request to kick anyone out or excessively multiply the dev/moderation load.

 

Keep the game balanced for "all these players" — and accommodate those who keep agitating for more and more shortcuts and antinerfs. Everybody wins.

 

And herein lies the real issue. 

 

You're arguing there's some great divide in the playerbase over how to advance your character... There really isn't.

 

There certainly isn't "two player communities with vastly different goals", you're in a very small minority of people who seem to have issue with how the rest play the game. You're trying to subvert people into thinking there is far more backing behind a suggestion like this than there actually is, and making it seem like its going to benefit the greater community and not just a small clique.

And lets be real... if that teeny tiny fraction of the community are unhappy and leave? It would hardly impact the game at all.

 

So don't try and delude yourself (or others) that you're doing anyone any favors, you're the agitator here... if you don't like how people play then that's too bad, go to Rebirth if it bothers you that much.

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by Tyrannical

[Grouchybeast]

It takes, what, an hour or so to farm up a new 50 with an alt account?  I think if some people find that unbearably slow, then they're probably leaving anyway, since I imagine they're also going to be unable to bear to wait for the time it would take to buy and slot their enhancements.  Unless the new shard also needs to provides IOs on demand?  In which case, yeah, I think these entirely hypothetical people would be a lot happier on Cake.

[SwitchFade]

I'm very sorry...

 

Absolutely no vote.

[golstat2003]

3 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Then so be it. The two player communities may be compatible, but the devs can't accommodate both on one shard style and the development path is continually accommodating the power-level, end-game crowd at the expense of everyone else. One community or the other is going to wander away.

Ummm, absolute BS. So no to the suggestion. The already limited volunteer dev team CANNOT handle two different code bases.

 

Hard pass.

[Hardship]

The test servers are pretty much like this now. Log in, make a character, give it as much XP as you want to be whatever level you'd like.

[macskull]

/jranger

[SeraphimKensai]

I've decided that from time to time to time you shall be able to use popmenus and buy stuff for free on the test server. As I am a benevolent God, I am not without waning interests, so from time to time when I seem necessary you will not be able to use those features on the test server.

I will it that I shall entrust the Homecoming Team to decide when you shall be graced with my benevolence.

 

Thanks.

Edited January 18, 2021 by SeraphimKensai