This is just a "fun" server now

[srmalloy]

7 minutes ago, Player2 said:

I have yet to name the song of my symphony controller's attack chain.

Julius Fucik's "Entry of the Gladiators".   😉

[Luminara]

Most of what people refer to as power creep is, in actuality, more accurately summarized as the ease of set IO acquisition.  Amplifiers exist, yes, and they're no longer gated behind real money, but they're also entirely optional.  Not a single character created since these servers were started has had even one amplifier automatically applied to it, it's always the player's choice to use them.  Same with the 2xp buff, it's not mandatory, it's not forcibly activated, it's something people opt into.

 

Nor has the HC team been buffing power sets or powers left and right, they've only been addressing under-performers and bringing them up to par.  They haven't bumped up archetype modifiers and scalar values across the board, they've made some adjustments here and there, always targeted and never for the sake of making something overwhelmingly powerful.  Incarnate abilities are still restricted to 45+ content, so they're not impacting the game below 45 any more than they were on the original servers.  There's no more power creep in these aspects than in amplifiers.  No, the accusing finger is leveled at set IOs when people say there's power creep.

 

But stop and consider what that really means.  The "problem" is that no-one has to grind for six to twelve months to afford a build with full IO sets, or beg to get them, or rely on luck; that anyone and everyone can use set IOs, benefit from IO set bonuses, and plan and play around the expectation of having them.  That's what people refer to as power creep, which is ironic because the crafting system and resulting enhancements were specifically added to the game to make our characters more powerful, to give us lateral progression in lieu of raising the level cap.  And the only thing keeping that in check on the original servers was an economy that failed spectacularly.  That wasn't planned, it wasn't part of the design drafts or development philosophy, neither Cryptic nor Paragon held a meeting and discussed ways to tank the economy so thoroughly that it would restrict most players from accessing set IOs, it was a fuck-up of monumental proportions that couldn't be fixed by any means short of a hard reset, the total shutdown and wipe of everything and starting over from square one.

 

Yeah, the game is "easy" when you're not hindered by a broken economy... but that broken economy was never intended to be a limiting factor.  Set IOs were created to be used.  Not dreamt about or wished for, or looked at on paper and forgotten about because they were forever out of reach, but to be used.  And not used only by the incredibly lucky, the wealthy elite or the players belonging to the largest and most generous supergroups, but by everyone.  And that's not power creep, it's the way Cryptic and Paragon imagined the game.  In making it possible to actually do that, Homecoming has brought the game closer to the original visions of Cryptic and Paragon than it ever could have been on the original servers, or, from what I've seen, any of the other servers.

 

A broken economy isn't a valid control over power creep, in any game, and what we have now, on the HC servers, is the way it should have been when I9 went live, and would have been if the economy hadn't so poorly planned and completely ignored prior to that.

[Captain Fabulous]

36 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Most of what people refer to as power creep is, in actuality, more accurately summarized as the ease of set IO acquisition.  Amplifiers exist, yes, and they're no longer gated behind real money, but they're also entirely optional.  Not a single character created since these servers were started has had even one amplifier automatically applied to it, it's always the player's choice to use them.  Same with the 2xp buff, it's not mandatory, it's not forcibly activated, it's something people opt into.

 

Nor has the HC team been buffing power sets or powers left and right, they've only been addressing under-performers and bringing them up to par.  They haven't bumped up archetype modifiers and scalar values across the board, they've made some adjustments here and there, always targeted and never for the sake of making something overwhelmingly powerful.  Incarnate abilities are still restricted to 45+ content, so they're not impacting the game below 45 any more than they were on the original servers.  There's no more power creep in these aspects than in amplifiers.  No, the accusing finger is leveled at set IOs when people say there's power creep.

 

But stop and consider what that really means.  The "problem" is that no-one has to grind for six to twelve months to afford a build with full IO sets, or beg to get them, or rely on luck; that anyone and everyone can use set IOs, benefit from IO set bonuses, and plan and play around the expectation of having them.  That's what people refer to as power creep, which is ironic because the crafting system and resulting enhancements were specifically added to the game to make our characters more powerful, to give us lateral progression in lieu of raising the level cap.  And the only thing keeping that in check on the original servers was an economy that failed spectacularly.  That wasn't planned, it wasn't part of the design drafts or development philosophy, neither Cryptic nor Paragon held a meeting and discussed ways to tank the economy so thoroughly that it would restrict most players from accessing set IOs, it was a fuck-up of monumental proportions that couldn't be fixed by any means short of a hard reset, the total shutdown and wipe of everything and starting over from square one.

 

Yeah, the game is "easy" when you're not hindered by a broken economy... but that broken economy was never intended to be a limiting factor.  Set IOs were created to be used.  Not dreamt about or wished for, or looked at on paper and forgotten about because they were forever out of reach, but to be used.  And not used only by the incredibly lucky, the wealthy elite or the players belonging to the largest and most generous supergroups, but by everyone.  And that's not power creep, it's the way Cryptic and Paragon imagined the game.  In making it possible to actually do that, Homecoming has brought the game closer to the original visions of Cryptic and Paragon than it ever could have been on the original servers, or, from what I've seen, any of the other servers.

 

A broken economy isn't a valid control over power creep, in any game, and what we have now, on the HC servers, is the way it should have been when I9 went live, and would have been if the economy hadn't so poorly planned and completely ignored prior to that.

This. All of this. The live game also hugely benefitted from people grinding away endlessly for threads and INF. It kept people in the game playing and (hopefully) paying. That need no longer exists, so no reason to make things overly difficult to obtain.

But to be fair, a full build of the best IO sets can easily cost upwards of a billion INF, which is not something the average player is going to have access to. Now this is not to say it's not possible to have a solid build for far far less because it is. But there are still thresholds that simply cannot be reached without the extreme wealth that comes from playing the market.

The game is as easy or difficult as one wants to make it. I've never understood people who go out of their way to make themselves godly and then complain the game is too easy.

[Jiro Ito]

The Live game was designed to create a lengthy grind that keeps people reupping their subscriptions.  I don't have the time for something like that now, so I appreciate the options HC offers to avoid the grind.  It's also not required, so you can still do the MMO slow-grind if you want to, and earn your IOs the hard way, etc.  This server is fun for me and I'm happy to have the chance to play here.

[BurtHutt]

Completely disagree with the OP. Power creep? complaining about the XP/farming/PL? I don't really see what you mean by power creep - it seems we all have different ideas on this. The rest? I am quite sure that was there on Live. You may not have seen it because you could go to different servers and the players were spread out more than here. 

 

I feel HC is close to Live. Hence why I prefer it. Having said that, I don't play much because there is some CoH fatigue so maybe a break is where I'm at. This game feels the same and seems like it is on a path that is similar to where Live would have gone (Live would likely have had more innovative stuff since they were paid etc). HC could be much more but there is a lack of innovation and originality but I can't complain - it's a volunteer crew. I appreciate them!

 

Anyway, OP, maybe you need a break? 

[biostem]

18 hours ago, dtj714 said:

The continued power creep was just too, too much.

There was already power creep in the OG CoH, with the additional of newer and more versatile powersets, the proliferation of older powersets & ATs, as well as Incarnates.  What I do see the Homecoming devs doing is being a bit more respectful of players' time, (especially since many of us are no longer the youngin's we were some 10+ years ago).

[SolarCenturion]

To each their own. Not invalidating your feelings but I absolutely disagree. For me it's the same game that I have loved since i2. Sure things have changed. Games die if they don't change. But the heart and spirit of this game is just the same as the first time I logged in and made a Hero... before you could even make a Villain. No other game feeds my superhero craving the way this does. Not DCUO, Not Champions Online and surely not the cookie cutter games on mobile devices. And other CoH private servers just don't do it for me, either. Either they lack the costume options or the powers i want or they're run by people so shady I feel like I need a shower after visiting their server.

[Xiddo]

I’m always sad when reading about people leaving. I quit live CoH because I felt “what more can I do now?” But here I am.

 

I go through phases of needing breaks. I had a while where I played it as intently as one had to on live to amass enough inf to buy 1 purp recipe, but I could afford to deck out three sub-30 alts. Take breaks, come back, refresh your patience, we don’t need to burn the oil for 4 hours at a time anymore. It really helps.

 

This game wasn’t perfect on live, it isn’t perfect here on HC, and it probably isn’t on the other servers. But I’ll try to not log on and poop on someone else’s parade. Each to their own I guess.

 

Think this is our first forum argument of 2023, how exciting!

Edited January 17, 2023 by Xiddo

[Seed22]

5 hours ago, roleki said:

The only 'difficulty' associated with CoH has ever been due to QoL issues.  It's fancy rock-paper-scissors, it's not Kerbal Space Program or FTL.  I'll never understand people who have  nostalgia for level-gated mechanics and forced cooperation, and frankly, I don't want to understand them.  

 

And while I may disagree with certain aspects of development and direction on HC, that doesn't preclude me from acknowledging that their version of the game is functionally superior to the few other rogue CoX servers that I've tried, and infinitely more playable than Live was at any point, full stop. 

 

And honestly, using the word "fun" as a derogatory term to describe a GAME server seems a refined form of rhetorical self-dick-shooting.

This. It's less well...angry than my post, but this 😛

[biostem]

51 minutes ago, Xiddo said:

I go through phases of needing breaks

Breaks are extremely important, lest the game start feeling more like work...

[Lines]

30 minutes ago, biostem said:

Breaks are extremely important, lest the game start feeling more like work...

 

Or, god forbid, it starts feeling like fun.

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Lines said:

Or, god forbid, it starts feeling like fun.

Huh?  It should be fun from the get-go.  Are you *not* in favor of taking breaks?  I'm confused by your thinking, here...

[lemming]

18 minutes ago, biostem said:

Huh?  It should be fun from the get-go.  Are you *not* in favor of taking breaks?  I'm confused by your thinking, here...

I think Lines was using sarcasm in reference to this being called a "fun" server.

[tidge]

I agree with everything in the quoted post, and offer my congratulations on it, yet I think the OP has a wee bit of wiggle room to offer a very specific complaint about Issue 27 page 5 and "power creep".

 

4 hours ago, Luminara said:

Most of what people refer to as power creep is, in actuality, more accurately summarized as the ease of set IO acquisition. 

 

I don't think the OP specifically identifies the single straw that has caused his pro-fun(?) back injury, but I do think it is fair to identify the Quality-of-Life changes specific to level ability of powers as a form of 'power creep'. Personally: I don't know what would motivate this as a complaint (assuming the complainer isn't an in-game NPC enemy). Nor do I think this is a bad change at all... as a player from Live (from the era when you had to take the Fitness pool, yeesh!), even when the level cap was raised I never like the waiting, then cramming, of marquee powers into a relatively tight span of levels. Of course, like much in Homecoming: no one is obligated to take powers per the new availability structure.

[Lines]

33 minutes ago, lemming said:

I think Lines was using sarcasm in reference to this being called a "fun" server.

 

Thankies! Not as clearly conveyed as I'd have hoped, perhaps.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Well...

 

Of course it depends on what kind of game you want to play.  Right now, HC is doing a good job of hosting a "I'm the greatest superhero ever!".  Personally, I like strategy games.  And resource games.  So for engine building, as in figuring out a strategy to accumulating your resources and progressing, HC is terrible.  It gives you everything you want from the get go.  Or it gives you a strategy system that is so simplistic that you can get everything you want from the get go.  

 

That's fine if you want to be Superman, and they've done a great job of letting everyone who plays be the strongest character ever.  That's my biggest complaint.  Because when we all can solo anything +4/x8 on almost anything from the very beginning, what's fun about that?  For me, strategy is a critical part of the enjoyment, whether it be "Take out that one first" or "slot the -kb first" or whatever.  But this is a child's version of the game now, in my opinion.  Your mileage, as always, may vary.

 

On the other hand, they have done great things in terms of stability and fixing broken things.  I have a presence on other servers, and maybe it's just my settings, but HC feels crisper and cleaner.  

 

If I had to pick my ideal situation, it would be HC's system of pooling (salvage, recipes, enhancements) but with a more parsimonious distribution of converters.  

[Black Talon]

Nothing particularly revolutionary or insightful here; just giving the big "Yeah!" to Luminara's argument and providing a bit of limited personal experience.  I have been - and continue to - operating under the impression that the HC version of the game has been under the dictum of, "Teaming ain't that common any more."  ATs which almost demanded teaming in order to achieve advancement - Defenders, Controllers - have, through the Devs' application, become something that can actually handle a mission solo.  I did, and do, have a number of Defenders on my roster, and I recall, back in pre-Shutdown days, that they would have dedicated insp use with +0 bosses.  Now, my SS/EB Defender can keep his End at an equitable level, with regular Electrical Blast hits; there's no need to send out a holy-crap-I'm-in-trouble alert that would bring assistance on the run.

 

Luminara's point about the IOs is also, in my opinion, dead-on.  I stuck with the level 50 generics for a long time with all my 50s, and finally decided, "Huh.  Fine; I'll start spending some of the 100 million-plus Inf this guy's got on some recipes that look half decent."  As indicated, they're not mandatory in any shape, form or fashion, as also goes for the Incarnate thing.  Over a year and a half on, and I still have no desire to put any of my alts through that process - and I don't particularly feel the loss for it.

 

If we were to regress and go back to a pre-Enhancement Diversification (eternal ugh) state, would there be advantages?  Yeah, we'd have perma-Hasten as a possibility again, but we'd also be stuck in a world where forced teaming for several ATs would pretty much be a given.  To join with the chorus, I have every appreciation for what the HC Devs have done and continue to do here, and will be playing/contributing to the monthly sustaining fund for as long as possible.  There ain't no perfect game; there's the perfect game for you.  If this one has fallen off the pedestal in that regard for you, my condolences...but the population here certainly don't seem to have no major problem with it.

[Solarverse]

On 1/16/2023 at 9:45 PM, dtj714 said:

I lost all interest in this project after the last major patch (I27, pg 5). The continued power creep was just too, too much. But my replacement project is down atm, so I figured I would come post a comment I wanted to make back then, but didn't bother to.

 

IMHO, Homecoming has departed so far from its genesis (the live game), that it's just a "fun" server, and no longer any valid facsimile of the original. You might as well let people create insta-50s with 100 million inf. That's only a few steps removed from its current state.

 

But obviously, for those who continue to play, that's fine. Or at least acceptable. I know there are other more "purist" or "vanilla" projects out there, but unfortunately none of them has nearly the population as Homecoming. And when it comes to private servers, population is king.

 

Anywho, just my .02 inf. Curious to know what others think. If there was a "vanilla" CoH private server with Homecoming's population, would you rather play that, or this?

Honestly, I was hoping somebody would create a server that took this game back to its roots and start fresh. I mean all the way back...to issue 1. Maybe keep current powers, maps  and missions, but drop the aggro limit, drop the target limit for holds/damage, and get rid of ED and Travel Power Suppression...and most of all (of course everything I said everyone will hate, but they will hate this one even more...) get rid of those damned IO's/Sets. And for the love of God, bring back the original Regen and all the ambush mobs that have been removed from the game. That is just a fraction of changes that would be needed to bring this game back to its roots. This game has been one nerf/power creep issue after issue since then.

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Solarverse said:

Honestly, I was hoping somebody would create a server that took this game back to its roots and start fresh. I mean all the way back...to issue 1. Maybe keep current powers, maps  and missions, but drop the aggro limit, drop the target limit for holds/damage, and get rid of ED and Travel Power Suppression...and most of all (of course everything I said everyone will hate, but they will hate this one even more...) get rid of those damned IO's/Sets. And for the love of God, bring back the original Regen and all the ambush mobs that have been removed from the game. That is just a fraction of changes that would be needed to bring this game back to its roots. This game has been one nerf/power creep issue after issue since then.

Does the code base for the game work like that, though?  Can you just toggle a bunch of different things on and off, or is the code whatever version was leaked and that's all we have?

[WumpusRat]

1 hour ago, Solarverse said:

Honestly, I was hoping somebody would create a server that took this game back to its roots and start fresh. I mean all the way back...to issue 1. Maybe keep current powers, maps  and missions, but drop the aggro limit, drop the target limit for holds/damage, and get rid of ED and Travel Power Suppression...and most of all (of course everything I said everyone will hate, but they will hate this one even more...) get rid of those damned IO's/Sets. And for the love of God, bring back the original Regen and all the ambush mobs that have been removed from the game. That is just a fraction of changes that would be needed to bring this game back to its roots. This game has been one nerf/power creep issue after issue since then.

While an issue-1 server might be interesting to play on for an hour or two out of nostalgia, there's no way I'd play there for an extended time.

 

Level cap of 40 instead of 50, no epic power pools, fitness wasn't auto-granted but you had to choose it as one of your four pools, travel powers limited to 14th level, the exp to level being about 4-5x what it is now...ugh. No thanks.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I kind of understand the OPs main point that it's very very easy to get to 50 with a bit of help for no actual money - but what I don't understand is what he cannot now do that he could before? To my knowledge, nothing's been taken away.

[Wavicle]

It's a superhero simulator. 🤷‍♂️

[Gulbasaur]

10 minutes ago, WumpusRat said:

Level cap of 40 instead of 50, no epic power pools, fitness wasn't auto-granted but you had to choose it as one of your four pools, travel powers limited to 14th level, the exp to level being about 4-5x what it is now...ugh. No thanks.

I remember being slightly chastised for being off-meta for not taking the Fitness pool on my kinetics defender, who literally had an endurance refill power. 

[tidge]

5 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Honestly, I was hoping somebody would create a server that took this game back to its roots and start fresh. I mean all the way back...to issue 1. Maybe keep current powers, maps  and missions, but drop the aggro limit, drop the target limit for holds/damage, and get rid of ED and Travel Power Suppression...and most of all (of course everything I said everyone will hate, but they will hate this one even more...) get rid of those damned IO's/Sets. And for the love of God, bring back the original Regen and all the ambush mobs that have been removed from the game. That is just a fraction of changes that would be needed to bring this game back to its roots. This game has been one nerf/power creep issue after issue since then.

 

When will the nerfing of Brutes end??!?!?!!

[roleki]

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

When will the nerfing of Brutes end??!?!?!!

When they are finally implemented on a "back to formula" server, I hope they rename the At "Tuber."