Its so frustrating to see all these cool new costume ideas and implementations only to see that they're Rebirth.

[arcane]

34 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

If you're referring specifically to patch notes for the Page 3 content update going to Brainstorm for public testing, Our goal is November.

Nice to have something like a tentative timeline instead of the “Soon” I’ve been misinterpreting for months now 🙂 thank u ❤️

[Solarverse]

Interesting. I tried Rebirth. I couldn't get in to it. Why? Because they don't have some of the costume options that are here. To each their own.

[InvaderStych]

[tidge]

Costumes are a low priority for me. When I think about costume pieces, my mind wanders to:

• There are certain pieces *I* want, for specific character ideas (ehem, turbans) but the lack of the costume doesn't mean I can't still make the character.
• HC has already provided options I wouldn't have asked for, but are still kewl (asymmetries)
• Other players (and artists, and devs) will think of things I wouldn't even consider... and will do their best to make sure that they work.

[PeregrineFalcon]

More costume parts are also a low priority for me. I play on Homecoming because it seems like it's the rogue server that's the least likely to just vanish without warning, as at least one other already done. Population is a big factor in that calculation.

 

Also, I'm stuck with Homecoming because they fixed Energy Melee. That may not seem like a big deal to most of you, but my main is Energy Melee, and I really really hated what the live devs did to it. Now that they fixed it I can't see playing on any server that still has the broken version.

[Dona Eis Requiem]

Who wouldn't love more options? There's always seems to be that extra something I'm looking for when I'm in creation mode.

That being said, I've waited this long so it won't bother me to wait for things to come out; as they will in their own time.

Content keeps the engine running, costumes are the chrome. :)

 

[macskull]

6 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

I don't expect HC will ever be made official. The only way for that to happen would be more people coming here and developing the game and being official would still be a low maybe. You are happy with the many flavors of CoH. I would rather see HC's team double in size as an example and put out twice the content.

The entire reason the other servers exist is fundamental differences in how they think the game should be experienced (veteran levels, incarnate XP/drops everywhere, P2W vendor, XP boosters, etc.). That's not something that can be resolved by something like "hey, come work for us now" unless you want a bunch of different codebases and at that point... why not just keep doing your own thing?

Edited October 19, 2021 by macskull

[Dazl]

Not sure where all these costume options are unless they are something that is level or content dependent. I created a couple of characters there to test out the Guardian AT (which is kind of cool), and tried to use some costumes from HC and found many costume pieces not available. I understand the whole retro thing they are trying to do there and for the folks that want that more power to you. I was there when the game launched and have fond memories of those early days but don’t miss that version of the game at all. 

[arcane]

Rebirth is a low population server *because* of this. Thunderspy is a low population server *because* of their new powersets.

 

Can’t move full speed ahead on the creative side with limited resources and zero thoughts on stability, balance, things that actually make games work instead of just the shiny toys, etc... and expect otherwise. That’s just having your cake and eating it too.

 

So when people suggest we emulate the cool things about other servers without emulating the bad... they just need to be reminded there’s no free lunch.

Edited October 20, 2021 by arcane

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Dazl said:

Not sure where all these costume options are unless they are something that is level or content dependent. I created a couple of characters there to test out the Guardian AT (which is kind of cool), and tried to use some costumes from HC and found many costume pieces not available. I understand the whole retro thing they are trying to do there and for the folks that want that more power to you. I was there when the game launched and have fond memories of those early days but don’t miss that version of the game at all. 

Rebirth just did a bunch more asymmetrical costume stuff, specifically how patterns interact with each other, and they don't have all costume pieces unlocked from the get-go like HC does. On the surface it doesn't look any different but it significantly increases the number of costume combinations you can use. Trying to use HC costumes on other servers is not usually going to end well because HC has rewritten a good chunk of the costume-related code and HC's version doesn't always play nice with OuroDev-based servers because those are using the legacy I24 costume code as their base. One of the stated goals of Rebirth's costume changes is to maintain maximum compatibility with other I24-based servers.

 

16 minutes ago, arcane said:

Rebirth is a low population server *because* of this. Thunderspy is a low population server *because* of their new powersets.

This is a pretty bad take on it - those are both low-population servers because they didn't spin up until around a month after Homecoming by which point they were never going to pull a significant fraction of players away. You can argue otherwise 'til the end of time but the single biggest motivation for players to stay on Homecoming was players were already established and didn't want to start over again. In the case of Rebirth at least, they've done a pretty good job of making sure everything's relatively true to the way it was at shutdown and have no issues in the "stability, balance, things that actually make games work" department. Thunderspy definitely has more of a "throw things at the wall and see what sticks" vibe though,

Edited October 20, 2021 by macskull

[Ukase]

On 10/18/2021 at 12:55 PM, Krimson said:

At this moment. Rebirth claims to have 13351 Registered accounts with 37711 characters...

 

Also at this moment - 20 players online.

 

Costume bits might draw people to that server, but it sure looks like they don't keep them there. 

What may not be widely known is that Rebirth has things set up in such a fashion where they encourage multiple accounts. It's not an unusual thing for some players to have 8 accounts on at the same time. 

The reasoning is partially due to the tiered reward system, which I would think most are familiar with. Once you get to that tier with the hero/villain packs, getting 2- 4 packs each week, with 8 accounts...you can get your ATOs & purples now, for free fairly quickly. And the outrageous 5 reward merits and 250K for one converter exchange...and the packs tending to have a lot more reward merits than HC's does, for sure, your alts can do the converting when your primary runs out. 

The folks there are every bit as knowledgeable as many are here, and yes, they have some clueless folks there (and here) as well. But overall, the community is the same, just smaller. 
It's like one SG over there. 

[Sovera]

*shudder*

 

No... thanks... That has all the trimmings of playing a F2P game.

[starro]

No I am good bring on a server with slow but steady development.  My wish list for COH is long as well but steady maintenance and stability is the best feature this old guy likes. 
 

What is my wish list ?  More everything. 

[Hew]

On 10/18/2021 at 6:45 AM, Shadeknight said:

And its not like we don't get new costume pieces (or other things that x server has). We just don't throw out massive amounts.

What we DO get is immensely playtested, validated, tested some more, debugged, and quarantined for 1000 days to prevent spread of lice or other patch born illnesses.

 

Not sure other places are quite so diligent in their patch hygiene! 

[archgemini24]

On 10/19/2021 at 2:33 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

More costume parts are also a low priority for me. I play on Homecoming because it seems like it's the rogue server that's the least likely to just vanish without warning, as at least one other already done. Population is a big factor in that calculation.

 

Also, I'm stuck with Homecoming because they fixed Energy Melee. That may not seem like a big deal to most of you, but my main is Energy Melee, and I really really hated what the live devs did to it. Now that they fixed it I can't see playing on any server that still has the broken version.

 

I completely understand. Powers and adjustments are the reasons I pick one server over another for certain builds. Kheldians and /Regen got a lot of the TLC that have been discussed at length (several times, in Regen's case) never got the go-ahead here.

 

That said, the pendulum swings both ways. I could not imagine rolling my Shield/Dark Tank anyplace other than HC with the current changes to Dark Melee (even if they were the pared down changes) and the Tanker AT as a whole.

[golstat2003]

On 10/18/2021 at 5:27 PM, macskull said:

Sorry, I'll clarify. I'm defining "competition" as "if a player has more than a basic knowledge that CoH is playable these days they know the server exists." By my count that's another three or four servers on top of the Homecoming ones. I play almost exclusively on Homecoming and dabble a bit on Rebirth because they do have some pretty cool stuff over there which I hope one day makes its way here, but if you think Homecoming has the lion's share of the population for any reason other than "it was set up by the same people running the 'secret' server and was the first public server out of the gate" you should re-evaluate.

 

I'd say has the lion share because it has a better experience. Many folks DO NOT want the old experience from Live. Various threads and arguments on the suggestion forums about difficulty and old-school versus new school COH experience also bares that out. They prefer the path Homecoming is on: Aka a more streamlined approach to COH that doesn't waste the player's time with time sink nonsense we had from live (which was necessary for a subscription game).

 

On the other hand they also don't want the insane (but admittedly fun for a short period of time) sandbox feeling of Cake, where you can sneeze and everything falls over (With the changes that team has done the word "difficulty" is not even a serious discussion on that server).

 

Costume pieces are nice, Full on sandbox COH is also nice (for a short period of time), better play experience over all trumps that. That's why HC KEPT the population all this time. Regardless of who set what server up first.

[Drakwatch]

Content might be slow, but do any other servers have as many under-the-hood improvements as Homecoming? We've got 64bit support, Mac support, our own launcher with security improvements, and countless bug and performance fixes. The content we do have is also professionally made and tested, while also improving the quality of life in the game with every update. The devs here, as small as they are, are always working on something cool and interesting too, the content we have been getting has been top quality. I'd rather stick with Homecoming at this point. Sure, I guess it would be nice to have gun straps or more tights like Rebirth has, but Homecoming has proven itself, to me at least, to be the highest quality experience.

[Marshal_General]

On 10/18/2021 at 2:05 PM, Snarky said:

I would rather have a sensible dev team and a great community.  If i wanted hot garbage i could always play champions

I must say we can always count on you to live up to your name! 😛

[Sovera]

While I don't want to fall into the groveling some people fall into when talking about HC devs I have to say that me staying here is as much the server itself as the professionalism being shown. It is very much like watching 'real' (excusing the word) devs at work. The care for balance, the reworking of the architecture to 64, no wild piece meal 'improvements', that insta 'we have enough donations to keep the server afloat so closing donations now', showing where the money is going (and sure, they could be lying about the money is going, the more cynical amongst us could say, but none asked to be shown where the money was being used and it came from the devs themselves).

 

Someone mentioned how one of the other oldschool servers pushes for multiple accounts to get the veteran rewards. Ew, ew ,ew. That's like we are still paying for the game and being time gated and having to scrounge. It's just so F2P.

 

Kudos for those who like it because there's room for us all, but not me, thanks.

 

 

Things I -would- like: more recruiting. Someone passionate for bases to handle bases for more items being imported and perhaps re-working the UI (It's an abject pain trying to place things down as it is), someone passionate for the character creator being recruited to handle making/bettering/importing more costume pieces.

[Glacier Peak]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

Things I -would- like: more recruiting. Someone passionate for bases to handle bases for more items being imported and perhaps re-working the UI (It's an abject pain trying to place things down as it is), someone passionate for the character creator being recruited to handle making/bettering/importing more costume pieces.

It is kind of funny to say this, but for anyone who has worked in local or municipal government before, asking for people to show up and do stuff for free (volunteering) is hard! Even if it is in both the individual's best interest and the requesting entity, there are other competing urgencies that make volunteering not possible. There are probably lots of folks who are passionate about bases and for more base items to be imported. Same goes for the character creator. I don't doubt that and I think with a little patience we will see these things happen. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes and isn't announced until it is tested, broken, tested again, and once more with feeling, and then ready for release. 

[Marshal_General]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

It is kind of funny to say this, but for anyone who has worked in local or municipal government before, asking for people to show up and do stuff for free (volunteering) is hard! Even if it is in both the individual's best interest and the requesting entity, there are other competing urgencies that make volunteering not possible. There are probably lots of folks who are passionate about bases and for more base items to be imported. Same goes for the character creator. I don't doubt that and I think with a little patience we will see these things happen. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes and isn't announced until it is tested, broken, tested again, and once more with feeling, and then ready for release. 

Since Covid its hard to get people you pay to show up and work. I am seeing it everywhere. People don't want to work.

[Glacier Peak]

8 minutes ago, Marshal_General said:

Since Covid its hard to get people you pay to show up and work. I am seeing it everywhere. People don't want to work.

I can understand this. I wouldn't go so far as to generalize it, but I certainly have experienced the outcome of planning for volunteer support, only to find the one craz... I mean passionate citizen with time on their hands show up at the council meeting on water conservation to provide their input on a policy or program being implemented in another county or state entirely and has nothing to do with... you know I'll just stop there lol

[A Cat]

1 hour ago, Marshal_General said:

Since Covid its hard to get people you pay to show up and work. I am seeing it everywhere. People don't want to work.

Not true, I never wanted to work. 

[GraspingVileTerror]

@macskull has a really solid grasp on the situation with https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/32038-its-so-frustrating-to-see-all-these-cool-new-costume-ideas-and-implementations-only-to-see-that-theyre-rebirth/?tab=comments#comment-407941

Kudos for that.

 

There are also other factors at play:

- The Bree Element (both the original spin-up that got scared down, AND the reporter over at Massively who has given Homecoming quite a bit of spotlight).

- Brand Loyalty (people will just about commit verbal suicide to defend a brand which they've tied their personal identity to, and City already had many of us in its grasp seven or more years ago)

- Cognitive Biases (including the human tendency to make a choice and stick with it, and THEN come up with arguments to justify their decision, even though those arguments could easily be applied to competitors.  Marketing teams LOVE to exploit this, by the way)

 

So . . . sure.  Some individual may be choosing Homecoming for specific reasons and be fully self-aware in their decision-making.  But years and years working marketing?  I don't have faith that everyone chose Homecoming proactively.  In fact, I imagine very few of us made the choice that way.

 

Also, people tend to "betray" a brand if they feel actively pushed out of it.  I can't speak with certainty regarding Homecoming and the other servers on this particular subject, I'd need more data, but I've seen posts in the forums here or messages in-game that speak to that.

 

It certainly doesn't do harm to compare one product to another, and share that feedback.  

Getting compared to another human being can feel really shitty, sure.  And as personally vested as many of us are in City and/or Homecoming, it's important to remember that a lot of us FEEL very connected to this product.

But if someone isn't happy with something here (or, more to the point of this thread, not happy about something NOT being here), then it's nothing to feel hurt about.  

It's just helpful feedback.

 

So, hey!  If someone's still got Tequila, they love City of Heroes, and they haven't personally checked out the other servers yet . . . I suggest they try giving it a shot! 

The overhead is low, and that person might discover something beneficial elsewhere.

[macskull]

9 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

I'd say has the lion share because it has a better experience. Many folks DO NOT want the old experience from Live. Various threads and arguments on the suggestion forums about difficulty and old-school versus new school COH experience also bares that out. They prefer the path Homecoming is on: Aka a more streamlined approach to COH that doesn't waste the player's time with time sink nonsense we had from live (which was necessary for a subscription game).

For what it's worth, many of the post-shutdown QoL improvements came about in response to a much smaller population while the game was still in hiding. Specifically addressing veteran levels and incarnate rewards here, but based on past developer comments some of the "streamlining" that was considered necessary at the time is now the source of significant frustration from a balance standpoint. I would not be surprised to see the incarnate-related rewards from veteran levels significantly nerfed at some point in the future.