UNfocused Feedback

[Ruin Mage]

god damnit i fell for a trap. curse you.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, Shadeknight said:

I disagree with the bolded.

I don't think bogging development down with "Here's what we are thinking", when it's entirely their show, is the way to go - it's simply not a guarentee that what they're thinking will make it past Alpha/Closed Beta. Things do get scrapped, and it would create a false hope if what they're thinking aligned with people's wants...only for it to be scrapped for reasons. The way we have things isn't broken, so why change it?

But it IS broken. Didn't the 40 pages of the weeping and gnashing of teeth tell you anything? 

Now please understand - I'm not very good at being clear, so I'm going try harder than my usual effort. 
Some of you have experience not only playing other games, but working for the publishers in some capacity or another. I do not. So certainly some of you have this idea of "how things are done", and you genuinely are coming from a good place, and believe these things are done that way for good reasons, whatever they may be. 

Whatever you may think about "how things are done", there is no rule of law that says they should be done that way in this situation. While it is true there are a key handful of people who released the code, and some have added to the code, and some are continuing to add to it. And some of these key people created the Torchbearer server and in dealing with the burdens of that server from the playerbase, they set up an additional server, and eventually set up three more. 

I do not know this, but I suspect that these key people are not the same people that are making these changes in the closed beta. At a minimum, some of the people in there are not the same folks that opened things up for anyone and everyone to play. I suspect they got some kind of invite due to having certain coding skills and a willingness to contribute. And that's great! But that does not mean that they should be able to steer the figurative CoH ship in whatever direction they wish. 

This is just the way I feel - and I am reluctant to share it, lest I be labeled as entitled, which is kind of creepy for an old curmudgeon of 55 years. I do not really feel like this is "their game and I'm just a guest". While that is a realistic statement, and the world could care less how I feel - like many of the rest of you who may not share my view - I have invested hundreds of hours in this game since HC came out. Those hours were mostly in 5-6 characters, the ones that either have all the badges, or have all the badges but one. Because of that time investment in various characters, some of which have back stories - and even a costume that wasn't created by the RNG, I feel like this game IS mine. Or at least partly mine. I did pay for it, after all. I bought the CoH game from Circuit City in 2002. I bought CoV, and the Praetorian set - both the same month they came out. And I was a VIP subscriber until the shut down.  
Now -that has nothing to do with this alpha/closed beta stuff - but I still feel invested. This idea that we're all supposed to just blindly accept the direction these key people who've somehow, someway found themselves steering this ship is unacceptable to me, and to many others. We don't know who they are. We don't know what qualifies them to make these calls. You may be quite alright with these people making these decisions, but for all I know - you're one of them. So of course you'd be okay with it. 

Rules without relationship reap rebellion. We cannot blindly accept direction from people who are hiding behind a wall. Let them show themselves, and explain themselves. And let them allow us to help steer the ship. Some of us have a lot of knowledge about the game, the in-game economy, various mechanics. It's foolish of any of these folks to think they can't benefit from our knowledge, or dare I say it my knowledge. 

But this idea of keeping things hush-hush in closed beta is unacceptable. We deserve to know, and none of this "entitlement" label some like to throw around takes that away. As people who have been holding the torch for over a dozen years, we have earned the right to know where the game is headed and who's steering the ship. 



 

[Ruin Mage]

1 minute ago, Ukase said:

But it IS broken. Didn't the 40 pages of the weeping and gnashing of teeth tell you anything? 

40 pages of weeping/gnashing? Well, no. Because I, to be blunt, don't care for the idea of "deserve" and "must" know information on a private server run by people that aren't me.

What one has done in the past in regards to subscribing, pouring hours in, and so forth does not mean we have to know everything. This is not live and this isn't Paragon Studios. The fact of the matter is that this is the Dev's show, and that's that. The luck is in that they do want to cultivate a community of some unknowable size. That they sometimes strike gold with what people want is just a cherry on top. 

I myself poured hours into the game both live and HC. I do not believe this to be my game. Perhaps that's where we differ. I'm more realistic in my views - I know that at any minute the game can go down and that's that. The power remains in other's hands that aren't my own if push came to shove. At any minute I could be banned and that would be that. Sure, I'd wonder what I did but I'd accept it. It's part of being an adult, or so I feel at least. 

Hush-hush closed beta is the best way to go about it. You do not want to cause more havoc by retracting a potential change because it just wasn't working. That is what part of the Alpha/Closed Beta is for. Hell, things in Brainstorm have been walked back but not in comparison to what has gone through. The secrecy works like anything with an Alpha Test or an NDA. It's just enforced through having your access revoked or through them further shutting out the means of access. The latter is an extreme I don't think ever will happen, but even the .1% risk is there - that if people pushed it, they would have to find some way to keep things in this method.

We have earned nothing & we are owed nothing - plain and simple. This is how all private servers for any game work. I've been around a lot of private servers for World of Warcraft - they can shut down at the owner's whims and development/balance is at the dev team's whims. This is how it generally works, and that is a standard that is matched by the current open-ness of the Dev Team. I will reiterate that it would be nice to see more, but I am not going to throw up a manifesto on how we should do it. That, in my eyes, is entitlement and arrogance in the same.

They steer the wheel because they are the ones in charge. They are the ones with a pipeline, and it is on them on if they wish to share it. If they do not wish to share a roadmap, pipeline, or general ideas for where HC will go? So be it. That doesn't bother me at all, because my enjoyment doesn't come from peering under the hood. I am personally in the Closed Beta to help test new content - until some power change comes that affects me (Katana, Willpower, Dark Melee, Shield Defense, Bio Armor, Energy Melee, Fire Blast, and Dark Miasma) and that's fine by me.

What's broken about this method we have besides some supposed "earned right" to see more? I do not consider the backlash over Vet Levels/Emp Merits to be good evidence for that. All that told me is that they were taking up a risky change one way or another. Risky changes without consulting the community are a dime a dozen, because no one in majority believes that one's activity entitles or earns them any more right than a less active player.

The idea that one has earned any extra right because they played the game more creates an us vs them situation. We are all equally gamers of a game we enjoy, but just because we play does not mean we are to thank for anything. I for one am just here to see what vision the devs put forth, and in conversations (open conversations in the Discord I linked) I am plenty happy with what's to come or what they have potentially brewing. But hush is the word of the day, and that is one I can follow.

[Bionic_Flea]

@Ukase, while I am always a fan of transparency and the freedom to discuss the game without too much moderation, I also understand that some secrecy and some moderation are necessary and helpful.  It's not just Homecoming that works this way.  Before a movie, or an album, or a book comes out the creators don't generally rehearse in public or release each page as it's written.  Instead, they have editors, friends and family, and sometimes test audiences to take a look and give some feedback.  It's not just artistic endeavors.  Lots of businesses test market new products and services to a limited group before a general release to the public.

 

In fact, HC is more open than most of those others.  You don't get a preview for most things unless you work in the particular industry or are invited to participate.  Here, everyone is invited to try it on the Beta server and everyone can request to be a part of Alpha testing.  The best way to get invited to Alpha test, beyond asking and joining the Gold Standard Testers Discord, is to actively test things on Beta and give reasonable, honest feedback.  That doesn't mean you have to love it or hate it.  It simply means you have to try it and articulate why the proposed change is good or bad or needs adjusting up or down.  They need all kinds of testers.  Folks who like to edit text, folks who use spreadsheets to min-max, folks that play by "feel" and many others are all valid and needed.

[Number Six]

Trying to design by community consensus died with the Rage thread. Go back and read it and tell me what useful information we were supposed to get out of that other than (1) the power is broken, (2) any way that we try to fix it will piss off a different chunk of the player base, (3) so will leaving it alone.

 

Now I don't disagree that we could communicate better. We could use a liaison to talk to the dev team from time to time and try to explain the thinking to people who don't want to hang out in the testing discord (and that's fair, some people ain't got time for that!). Jimmy used to do that, but he doesn't have the free time to devote to it these days. I sometimes try to step in when things get crazy because the yellow name comes with a lot of responsibility, but I'm not much of a people person and to be honest I'd much rather be spending my time optimizing server performance or building a storyarc variable storage system or any one of a dozen coding projects.

 

So, anyone want to volunteer to be our PR person? I'm serious -- though I imagine we'd probably need to set up a formal recruiting process and jump through some legal hoops which may take time. But something to be thinking about.

[Ruin Mage]

3 minutes ago, Number Six said:

So, anyone want to volunteer to be our PR person? I'm serious -- though I imagine we'd probably need to set up a formal recruiting process and jump through some legal hoops which may take time.

If I could find the gif that comes to mind...

I volunteer as tribute, as said in the Hunger Games.

[Bionic_Flea]

I appreciate whenever you chime in #6, and while a PR person sounds like a good idea, in my experience they usually end up sounding like a corporate shill.  I will say that Jimmy was a great exception to that rule and I wish that he could still fill that role.  But real life comes first.

[Snarky]

I do not know about what is going on

 

I do know this. I started playing WoW in approx early August.  I “soloed” all Horde side on one Paladin.  I started hanging out in CoH again the last few days.  It is NIGHT and DAY different.  It is dead. D E A D.  Deadsville man, and that is sad.  

So, unless I was the glue holding everything together…. Someone changed something under the hood and people left.  A LOT of people left.  
 

Keep in mind I am dead.  And Nuetral.  I am writing a book and developing an art practice.  Carry on anyway you want to.  I have no ownership

 

But you may want to look around the empty theatre and ask who you are staging the performance for…

 

[MistressOhm]

28 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I started playing WoW in approx early August.

 

Compare and Contrast, a game that is actively marketed as a subscription model, with a worldwide playerbase, to a 'community revival' of a game shut down 10 years ago, with no publicity or marketing save word of mouth.

 

Of COURSE it's going to be night and day.   

 

Also, I gave up WoW long before the "culture" at Blizzard got aired out.  Every expansion was a new grindfest, making your best gear worthless and changing skill rotations at a whim.  I got tired of logging in to a completely different game every time (and having to pay for it on top of the monthly costs).  I MUCH prefer CoH, regardless of whether or not there are any other players in the game at the same time as I am.

[Snarky]

3 minutes ago, MistressOhm said:

 

Compare and Contrast, a game that is actively marketed as a subscription model, with a worldwide playerbase, to a 'community revival' of a game shut down 10 years ago, with no publicity or marketing save word of mouth.

 

Of COURSE it's going to be night and day.   

 

Also, I gave up WoW long before the "culture" at Blizzard got aired out.  Every expansion was a new grindfest, making your best gear worthless and changing skill rotations at a whim.  I got tired of logging in to a completely different game every time (and having to pay for it on top of the monthly costs).  I MUCH prefer CoH, regardless of whether or not there are any other players in the game at the same time as I am.

You REALLY missed my point.  It is night and day from when I left to when I got back a few fortnights later.  It is different here NOW from here two months ago.  Something changed HERE

[MistressOhm]

Ah!  OK.  The WoW reference threw me for a complete loop then.  Was thinking since you mentioned it specifically, you were comparing the two.   

 

No idea which server you're on (I'm strictly on Everlasting) but I have heard that people are migrating from the less-populated servers to the big ones.   I've been playing pretty regularly for the past few months, and I haven't noted a falloff that drastic.  When the last patch went live (and subsequently foreclosed upon/nuked the starting zone AE buildings) I did notice a lot less people IN the starting zones (gee, who'd a thunk it?) but Pocket D still seems quite lively, and theres's usually a few roaming around Oakes and KR in the evenings. 

[Snarky]

13 minutes ago, MistressOhm said:

Ah!  OK.  The WoW reference threw me for a complete loop then.  Was thinking since you mentioned it specifically, you were comparing the two.   

 

No idea which server you're on (I'm strictly on Everlasting) but I have heard that people are migrating from the less-populated servers to the big ones.   I've been playing pretty regularly for the past few months, and I haven't noted a falloff that drastic.  When the last patch went live (and subsequently foreclosed upon/nuked the starting zone AE buildings) I did notice a lot less people IN the starting zones (gee, who'd a thunk it?) but Pocket D still seems quite lively, and theres's usually a few roaming around Oakes and KR in the evenings. 

I’m on Excelsior. It looks to me way deader

[Sovera]

As long as I type '/lfg looking for more to do X' and people show up I feel the game has enough.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

 

Keep in mind I am dead.  And Nuetral.  

 

 

Aren't vampires Lawful Evil?

[Tachstar]

I dunno who all is on now but clearly they are the... well...

 

[Redletter]

I thought this thread was gonna be a funny meme thread where we talked about "changes" being made in the newest build, that weren't infact changes that were happening at all. Or maybe ever. Like...

 

"How do you feel about Scrappers getting Energy Blast proliferated as a secondary power set? Will this upset the PvP enviroment in Pocket D?"

"I'm not sure how replacing all the shivans in the Galaxy City tutorial with clowns will work out in the long term, but, this has been a change we've needed for a long time IMO and Im happy to see it."

"Another update where the devs cater to the toxic vocal minority asking for YET MORE blanket difficulty increases, I think it's going to KILL this game now that Back Alley Brawler has been moved to Butcher Bay, DEPRIVING Atlas Park of a trainer to help keep lowbies safe."

 

Sadly, it's not that. I'm sad now. How could you do this to me? CUUUUUUURSE YOOOOOOUUUUU, COOOOOWWWWARD DEEEVS!!1

[Sovera]

Just now, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Aren't vampires Lawful Evil?

 

That's profiling, Yomo. Vampires are not a hive mind. Some can be lawful evil and some can be neutral snarky.

[Redletter]

2 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

That's profiling, Yomo. Vampires are not a hive mind. Some can be lawful evil and some can be neutral snarky.

Bold to assume Snarky is, or has been, neutral.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 minute ago, Sovera said:

 

That's profiling, Yomo. Vampires are not a hive mind. Some can be lawful evil and some can be neutral snarky.

 

Take it up with Hasbro, bro!  They own Wizards of the Coast and they are the ones publishing pamphlets with this information.  Light your pitchforks and sharpen your torches!

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

(...)

Keep in mind I am dead.  And Nuetral.  I am writing a book and developing an art practice.  Carry on anyway you want to.  I have no ownership

(...)

9 minutes ago, Redletter said:

Bold to assume Snarky is, or has been, neutral.

 

I rest my case. Though I'll technically grant he is nuetral and not neutral.

[Seed22]

2 hours ago, Number Six said:

Trying to design by community consensus died with the Rage thread. Go back and read it and tell me what useful information we were supposed to get out of that other than (1) the power is broken, (2) any way that we try to fix it will piss off a different chunk of the player base, (3) so will leaving it alone.

 

Now I don't disagree that we could communicate better. We could use a liaison to talk to the dev team from time to time and try to explain the thinking to people who don't want to hang out in the testing discord (and that's fair, some people ain't got time for that!). Jimmy used to do that, but he doesn't have the free time to devote to it these days. I sometimes try to step in when things get crazy because the yellow name comes with a lot of responsibility, but I'm not much of a people person and to be honest I'd much rather be spending my time optimizing server performance or building a storyarc variable storage system or any one of a dozen coding projects.

 

So, anyone want to volunteer to be our PR person? I'm serious -- though I imagine we'd probably need to set up a formal recruiting process and jump through some legal hoops which may take time. But something to be thinking about.

Im gonna be honest: At this point it’s too late for a PR person. 

 

Whoever it is, they will be polarizing to another aspect of the community and then something something favoritism towards this or that subgroup. Trust me on this one, pulling from this limited pool of players will end horribly. 
 

I’m not sure of a better alternative but that would NOT go well, of that, I am sure.

 

*I hate leaving on a negative note, so maybe as a solution, one of the current GMs can be a liason?

Edited October 10, 2022 by Seed22

[momentarygrace]

32 minutes ago, Redletter said:

I thought this thread was gonna be a funny meme thread where we talked about "changes" being made in the newest build, that weren't infact changes that were happening at all. Or maybe ever. Like... *snip*

"I'm not sure how replacing all the shivans in the Galaxy City tutorial with clowns will work out in the long term, but, this has been a change we've needed for a long time IMO and Im happy to see it."

 

 

Oh I am so here for this...  *_*

 

 

Edited October 10, 2022 by momentarygrace

[@Ghost]

2 hours ago, Number Six said:

So, anyone want to volunteer to be our PR person? I'm serious -- though I imagine we'd probably need to set up a formal recruiting process and jump through some legal hoops which may take time. But something to be thinking about.

 

I've been pretty vocal about communication and that whole process, so, I mean...

 

[ivanhedgehog]

On 10/6/2022 at 6:47 PM, Shadeknight said:

Necessary to bring certain sets up to par with Post-Freedom/F2P sets or otherwise make them not feel clunky/bad.
 

Is that why they are destroying IR?

[Ruin Mage]

Not a clue, I have no dog in that fight.