Come one, come all, please join us in beta testing Issue 28, Page 1.

[Seed22]

1 hour ago, gameboy1234 said:

It's not terrible though, you should at least give it a look at some point.

If they don’t want to based on their trepidations with raid content I’d leave em be. 
 

I already played in on CB when it was being developed. It’s fun for me but I get others wanting to avoid it

[Apogee]

5 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

My only real complaint is no real fixes to Psionic Melee or Kinetic Melee. The fact that KM can go this long being the dumpster fire that it is IS concerning. Any buff. Any buff at all. 

 

Regen says welcome to the club 

[Sanguinesun]

On 7/7/2024 at 8:04 AM, Lazarillo said:

These are all really just one thing, and well, meh.  I figure it's the same as every other hardmode TF, just open world, and those aren't fun, so why would the new zone be?

 

Seems needlessly complex/laden with janky mechanics.  Can't see myself wanting to figure it out when there's more straightforward stuff out there.

 

A system I've never thought was worth engaging with.

 

Lost interest in badging a few pages back.  Ironically they became such a slog that I stopped trying to get more.

 

There's, uh, one new Teleport, and a change couple changes copy/pasted from Energy blast to the Energy APP, and from what I saw.  Was there more?

 

 

You can't, and I ain't saying it ain't grand for people who like this stuff, but it's a pretty bare-bones feature compared to what the last page was, especially if you don't care about farming Aether the way someone on the HC staff really, really, really, seems to think people should want to.

 

Its just a certain segment of devs that just want to put their mark on content more than much else.  Warriors (like council et al before) didnt need revamps but its just in line with said mark making. The new zone concept and implementation is trying to create challenges due solely to the premise that someone feels the game needs more challenging content like with how the hardmodes were impolemented.  

 

That said:

 

1. Warriors(like the other groups before them) dont need a revamp and never did. 

 

2.  New zone is a convoluted and overly thought attempt to put yet another erroneous perception of challenge content into to the game. Like the hard modes before it, it's likely going to follow the same results after the novelty wears off. 

 

3.  Marine affinity. Its akin to how mcdonalds every so many months(or every month in some markets) takes their already currently made foods, switches around the combinations of them to make a new burger, wraps it in a new colored paper, and pushes the idea to people that its great. Its ok. That's about it.  Im not saying its bad. It just that its ok.  Likely could've been better had community input been sought during the conceptualization phase of course but that's not permitted with HC.

 

4.  This "open" testing system is just an after-the-fact "check for bugs" only as usual.  Community's input by this point matters little else because of the insular and non transparent system that exists that essentially has 2 communities instead of one. 

 

 

In follow up then:

 

6 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

The Labyrinth of Fog is not advanced/hardmode content, it's not even Incarnate content, no more so than something like a Hamidon or RWZ Mothership raid is considered as such.

 

The Labyrinth of Fog is more... another style of group content aimed at providing a similar format of consumption to that of the popular Halloween leagues + GM hunts combined with a 'once a day per character' raid boss payout to engage with/target, and a variety of rewards that can be prioritized/optimized by the individual raid leaders.

 

It's not meant to be difficult, it's meant to be engaging.

 

But the zone is also a liminal space maze, with a variety of sights, discoveries, lore, stories, and prizes to discover that encourage exploring, a lot of which was designed to be doable solo with some stealth, independent of raids going-on.

 

I encourage anyone curious to give it a try, it's pioneering a lot of new approaches to things.

 

As with everything we create, there will be fans and those who decide it's not for them, which is normal for any work.

 

At least for me, I'm always looking to explore the horizons of new experiences, but I understand some prefer less complex experiences and that's okay too.

 

Let's be clear, this is intending to present challenge first and engagement second. The backhanded "some prefer less complex experiences" was a pretty similar denunciation against the criticisms that occurred when Hardmodes were implemented and under the perception that this is what the community wants when it was just then and still now, a niche set of the player base that bothered/bothers with it after the novelty of it wears off. 

 

Yes, it isn't casual content.  That in itself means the majority of the player base wont engage with it. If the priority was truly engagement as you allege, then I think the evidence is compelling that it wouldnt have resulted in this.    

 

I get there is also this admitted testing the waters so to speak with "its pioneering a lot of new approaches to things"; and it would be interesting if the community as a whole were more aware of where that may be transparently heading...

 

7 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

I like this idea! I'll look into writing something up for an introduction for the next patch notes.

 

There is a lot of lore to the Labyrinth, but parts of it are hidden, and those who want all the answers will have to look for it.

 

I wrote a lot of extra lore and details specifically for descriptions.... Powers, inspirations, badges, buffs; If it had a description, I snuck lore in!

 

This also implies that this was first about the mechanics or this challenge-based "engagement", and that how such fits in with game otherwise was/is an afterthought.  That's very much a shame.  Story/lore shouldn't have to be "snuck in".  

 

6 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

You are, of course, welcome to test or not test anything and to like or dislike whatever.  But out of curiosity, what sort of things would interest you enough to try them on a Beta.

 

Again this really is after-the-fact bug testing only and they expressed their reasons for disinterest plainly.   Asking them, "what sort of things would interest you enough to try them on a beta" wouldnt have to be asked if we had an open development system that engaged the community as a whole from the start of the process....  

[Glacier Peak]

21 minutes ago, Sanguinesun said:

 

Its just a certain segment of devs that just want to put their mark on content more than much else.  Warriors (like council et al before) didnt need revamps but its just in line with said mark making. The new zone concept and implementation is trying to create challenges due solely to the premise that someone feels the game needs more challenging content like with how the hardmodes were impolemented.  

 

That said:

 

1. Warriors(like the other groups before them) dont need a revamp and never did. 

 

2.  New zone is a convoluted and overly thought attempt to put yet another erroneous perception of challenge content into to the game. Like the hard modes before it, it's likely going to follow the same results after the novelty wears off. 

 

3.  Marine affinity. Its akin to how mcdonalds every so many months(or every month in some markets) takes their already currently made foods, switches around the combinations of them to make a new burger, wraps it in a new colored paper, and pushes the idea to people that its great. Its ok. That's about it.  Im not saying its bad. It just that its ok.  Likely could've been better had community input been sought during the conceptualization phase of course but that's not permitted with HC.

 

4.  This "open" testing system is just an after-the-fact "check for bugs" only as usual.  Community's input by this point matters little else because of the insular and non transparent system that exists that essentially has 2 communities instead of one. 

 

 

In follow up then:

 

 

Let's be clear, this is intending to present challenge first and engagement second. The backhanded "some prefer less complex experiences" was a pretty similar denunciation against the criticisms that occurred when Hardmodes were implemented and under the perception that this is what the community wants when it was just then and still now, a niche set of the player base that bothered/bothers with it after the novelty of it wears off. 

 

Yes, it isn't casual content.  That in itself means the majority of the player base wont engage with it. If the priority was truly engagement as you allege, then I think the evidence is compelling that it wouldnt have resulted in this.    

 

I get there is also this admitted testing the waters so to speak with "its pioneering a lot of new approaches to things"; and it would be interesting if the community as a whole were more aware of where that may be transparently heading...

 

 

This also implies that this was first about the mechanics or this challenge-based "engagement", and that how such fits in with game otherwise was/is an afterthought.  That's very much a shame.  Story/lore shouldn't have to be "snuck in".  

 

 

Again this really is after-the-fact bug testing only and they expressed their reasons for disinterest plainly.   Asking them, "what sort of things would interest you enough to try them on a beta" wouldnt have to be asked if we had an open development system that engaged the community as a whole from the start of the process....  

Yikes

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

7 minutes ago, Sanguinesun said:

Again this really is after-the-fact bug testing only and they expressed their reasons for disinterest plainly.   Asking them, "what sort of things would interest you enough to try them on a beta" wouldnt have to be asked if we had an open development system that engaged the community as a whole from the start of the process....  

 

Or you could answer the question now so that at least they have some idea for the next time:  What would you like to see in future Issues?

 

There's other stuff besides Labyrinth, Warriors, and Marine Affinity.  A new arc, new badges, new auras, new pets, new aether costumes, power customizations, Blarf, new accolade power, and fixing a bunch of geometry bugs.

 

And I don't think it's fair to say no one but the devs wanted challenging content.  You and Lazarillo may not have wanted it (and again, that's fine), but I have personally seen dozens of players in game, on forums, and Discord complain about how easy the game is and how much they want harder content.  I'm sure that the ones I've heard are only a sampling.  Hopefully the next issue will have something for you.  But if the players don't tell the devs what they want . . . 

[LegionAlpha]

11 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

I did not apply any sarcasm to my response to you. I think if you took the time to get on to the beta server, you would receive answers to most of your questions by playing through the content. I'm not a dev, I couldn't begin to tell you why this was added or what connection it has to the greater story. 

 

Why screenshots? Because I don't have access to video clips, so you're best served by logging in to the beta server and looking at the powerset animations yourself.

 

I don't have the answers for you on lore. These are new features and content that I haven't played. The point of this thread is to raise awareness of beta testing new content to find bugs or make changes before it gets published to the live servers. 

Do you work for Bethesda's marketing department or something? 

 

Todd Howard: "We are coming out with an expansion to Starfield called "Shattered Space". No we will not tell you about the story, you will have to wait 9 months minimum before we tell you about that. No, we will not show you any footage. Again you have to wait those many months. In fact we will only tell you about the title and hope you will be excited over it while you enjoy this buggy game, and where we will feed you content that should have been in on day one.  But, be hyped about the expansion." 

 

Now I am not saying the CoH devs are like Bethesda, far from it. But by using your approach, it sounds pretty damn close. I am not asking for spoilers. Just more lore too add and flesh out the new expansion a bit without saying too much that will ruin for some. 

[Without_Pause]

2 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

What would you like to see in future Issues?

Regen gets resistance to -Regen, -End, -Recovery Debuffs at a bare minimum. It is an outright crime it doesn't protect from the Debuffs for the things it is known for. This was a well beaten topic even 200+ days ago. I can't fathom this being a difficult fix. 

 

Psionic Melee could use a makeover.

 

Re: Kinetic Melee

 

I already did the DPA numbers for you. Even if Kinetic wins out versus Claws in terms of DPA, it is doing so with worse End usage and Recharges. If you convert these to actual DPS, and it gets so much worse for Kin. I mean seriously, CS has an animation time of 3.036 versus 1.32 for Focus. CS's recharge is 20 seconds versus 6.4, and oh by the way, Focus can actually crit.  I can at least see the idea if Kin won out decidedly in ST, but it doesn't and then you factor in the AoE. The real kicker in the pants? FU is +10% ToHit and +37.5% Damage with a 12 second Recharge. PS is +7.5% ToHit with a Recharge of 120 seconds, but becomes 'only' 20 seconds once CS comes into play. Oh right, FU also does damage. What the ever loving hell?

 

Attack	Damage	Animation Time	DPA	Recharge	End
Strike	67.5664	1.32	51.18666667	3.2	4.16
Body Blow	72.5713	1.32	54.97825758	5	6.032
Swipe	47.5467	1.056	45.02528409	1.7	2.912
Quick Strike	52.5516	1.056	49.76477273	3	4.368
Slash	82.5812	1.584	52.13459596	4.8	5.491
Smashing Blow	92.591	1.452	63.76790634	7	7.796
Shockwave	65.6896	1.188	55.29427609	12.1	11.565
Repulsing Torrent	68.8176	2.244	30.66737968	12	11.856
Spin	98.8472	2.64	37.44212121	9.2	9.152
Burst	78.2019	2.904	26.92902893	15	14.3
Focus	85.9605	1.32	65.12159091	6.4	6.822
Forcused Burst	102.6008	2.244	45.72228164	8	8.528
Eviserate	124.4974	2.508	49.64011164	8.867	8.876
Concentrated Strike	222.7189	3.036	73.35932148	20	18.512

 

I'm not going to complain about harder content as it is welcomed. I won't complain about the new powerset even if it falls into the category of being average. I will say Wind Control is the most obvious missing set since it is even listed on the Wiki's page. A Psy based armor set would also be cool as it feels like it is the one damage type which doesn't really have an armor. Again, Sonic or some other melee set which plays fast and isn't straight S/L.

Edited July 8 by Without_Pause

[Troo]

3 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

What would you like to see in future Issues?

 

Common regeneration comments from other discussions.

• Regeneration could use some debuff resistances
  • Recharge. This is one of the sets's achilles heal.
  • Regen. Really this seems like a no brainer since it is Regeneration. Could be SR DDR level.
  • DDR? nah, leave the chasing defense trap.
  • -End I agree with W_P that this would be nice.
• MoG has an animation which is practically 20% of the power duration.. That's a bit punitive.
  • Shorten the animation/cast time (or)
  • Extend the duration (just pick one or the other)
• **MoG has a nice +Recovery which may be under appreciated.
• Front-loading heals would be nice. Or at least shorten the animation-time-before-effect.

Take a couple of the these minor tweaks and see where we are. I don't think this needs all of the above but a couple sure would be nice. If that's the nudge it needs we haven't 'reworked' anything and have stayed troo to what is a popular set. Regeneration is never going to be Invulnerability.

 

 

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

Kinetic Melee

 

and this

[Clave Dark 5]

7 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

What would you like to see in future Issues?

To see something new done with/for the Architect system?  Y'all got miles of content in there, non-farm too!  (I know we love our farming though, which is what the new fog thing strikes me as) 

 

But doing something more to play that angle up isn't exactly flashy, I know.  But it's like deader'n PVP in there unless it's just farming.

Edited July 8 by Clave Dark 5

[Cobalt Arachne]

18 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

I get there is also this admitted testing the waters so to speak with "its pioneering a lot of new approaches to things"; and it would be interesting if the community as a whole were more aware of where that may be transparently heading...

I like pioneering new tech (primarily Lua right now) so we have a wider variety of methods and tricks we can use to create better content. There's no 'sinister master plan' here with new tech other than it's more interesting for me to work on personally, and it pays higher dividends to the team over time with the tech I come up with they can re-use and adapt later.

There's not much room for actual conversation if you so heavily taint your response with layers of bias and mistrust. We're not evil people trying to ruin the game.

 

18 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

The backhanded "some prefer less complex experiences" was a pretty similar denunciation

18 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

Asking them "what sort of things would interest you enough to try them on a beta"

We as individual developers pitch our projects to the whole team and then we approve them based on their individual merit after discussion, and if approved, the pitching developer is responsible for seeing their project to completion.

I have a passion for content that forces Teams to actually work together as teams and pay attention, that's how the game HAD to be played when I got into City of Heroes as a kid in early 2005, and it's the style of gameplay that crashed and died the hardest when IO's and Incarnates were introduced later on and then, bizarrely, people started attacking the notion that this game could be one that had content where you had to actively play.

So yes, I have a personal interest in making sure the style of content I enjoy actually exists in the game somewhere.

I've been working on the Labyrinth of Fog (by myself, it was a personal dev project that didn't pull anyone else on the team away from anything else) since August 2023, and it started as an experiment on liminal space maps.
It will likely total over 12-months of work before the Labyrinth sees release. The Aeon Strike Force took me 10 months.
I'm not paid to do this, I work on what interests me because I'm donating thousands of volunteer hours using my personal free time to strive to create production-quality content.

If at any point, we start to hate our work, then we slow down or stop working. The only compensation we get for our work is the appreciation of fans of our content, and we do have fans, I've had people send me personal messages thanking me for the Advanced Mode content because it got them to join an active super group and it helped them meet a bunch of their current friends they play the game with. This is the core reward for me, seeing people have fun and make new friends.
 

The above reason is exactly why I do this content, and it's been a success in that, even if niche.

I've spent a large amount of time adding enormous breadth and span of content that benefits all kinds of players, not just Advanced Mode players.

The game had thousands of missions worth of easy content, but very little for those who want to actually engage with the game in a meaningful capacity.

We aren't just robots who work on whatever we're told, we're driven creative individuals with our own focuses, interests, and ways of enjoying the game and we hope to pass that passion on with the content we create.

I hope people can understand that at the end of the day I consider myself a servant of the game and the players who enjoy my work, I barely find time to play the game because that time ends up going to development work instead 9 times out of 10.

I'm also not the only developer, sure Cobalt projects end up favoring certain things, but there are a dozen other developers all adding things to the game and deliver completely different stuff from my own style of content.

  

18 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

Story/lore shouldn't have to be "snuck in".  

I don't disagree, and that's why it was a priority to ensure it was here in the Labyrinth. If you have alternative ideas on how to implement narrative/story elements into an open raid zone with no contact or story arc text, I'm open to suggestions and other ideas.

[MoonSheep]

41 minutes ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

I have a passion for content that forces Teams to actually work together as teams and pay attention, that's how the game HAD to be played when I got into City of Heroes as a kid in early 2005, and it's the style of gameplay that crashed and died the hardest when IO's and Incarnates were introduced later on and then, bizarrely, people started attacking the notion that this game could be one that had content where you had to actively play.

 

i very much appreciate this - it’s why i love running the posi TFs, alts still need to cooperate to succeed. identifiable archetypes still exist at the lower levels

 

more sub lvl 20 TF’s would be great, posi 1 and 2 are great examples of the difficulty being just right

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

3 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

To see something new done with/for the Architect system?

 

Something like what?

 

8 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Regen * * * Kinetic Melee

 

This page doesn't have any power set rebalancing, but I think it's safe to say that future issues will.  I'm not saying what powersets and what changes because I frankly don't know and those things can go back and forth pretty quickly from major change to minor change to no change.

[Ukase]

Change is scary. But as much as I usually hate adapting to change, I reluctantly recognize that to change nothing will result in tedium and boredom for everyone, eventually. So, I appreciate the sacrifice of time, even if I don't always appreciate each change. 

The one thing about the labyrinth - a word that I rely heavily upon spell check to type out accurately - the place is interesting. I've never had the same experience there. Each time it's a little different. 



 

[Clave Dark 5]

There's a whole thread over on the forums there. 

My rough suggestions would be something to help drive engagement, many possible suggestions have been posted over the years on how to do so, here's one I found within seconds, I bet you can find more. 

The Dev's Choice engagement with the MA and the community alone was helpful, but again, not flashy, such as, say introducing Temporal Warriors was.

[Andreah]

I'm curious as to what the in-lore explanation for the Labyrinth is. It's suggestive to me of a connection via mythology of the well of the furies and etc. 

[Excraft]

12 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

4.  This "open" testing system is just an after-the-fact "check for bugs" only as usual.  Community's input by this point matters little else because of the insular and non transparent system that exists that essentially has 2 communities instead of one. 

 

12 hours ago, Sanguinesun said:

Again this really is after-the-fact bug testing only and they expressed their reasons for disinterest plainly.   Asking them, "what sort of things would interest you enough to try them on a beta" wouldnt have to be asked if we had an open development system that engaged the community as a whole from the start of the process....  

 

No personal offense meant to you as I can respect your position, but I don't think either of these statements are fair.  Nor do I believe that HC should be engaging with the community to the extent that some are asking them to.  If HC were to ask 100 different players what they would like to see in future updates, it's extremely likely that they'll get 100 different answers with no common thread among them.

 

It's important to remember, the HC people here are volunteers doing this in their spare time.  They are not paid professionals, and there is no financial incentive in keeping the customer base happy so that they are playing and paying longer.  This is a passion project for them and they're working on things they want to work on and find interesting.  Personally, I'd rather they continue to work on things they want to work on that keeps them engaged rather than trying to please everyone and getting burned out. 

 

Not every change they make is going to resonate with every player.  I personally don't like many of the changes they've made over the years, and ultimately I don't fault them for making them.  HC has also made some truly wonderful updates and additions to the game that I find a lot of fun and enjoyable.  For me, this update sounds interesting and I'll be sure to try everything out, especially the Labyrinth.  No, this update doesn't have many things I'd like to see changed or added, but that's ok too. 

 

Give everything a try and if you like it, great.  If not, that's ok too.  Again, not every update is going to be for everyone and try to keep in mind that this is a passion project for a group of volunteers. 

[Without_Pause]

1 hour ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

This page doesn't have any power set rebalancing, but I think it's safe to say that future issues will.  I'm not saying what powersets and what changes because I frankly don't know and those things can go back and forth pretty quickly from major change to minor change to no change.

The frustrating part is if a fix doesn't come out for a set that means it is likely and at best another 6 months before a fix happens. Regen at this point has been a meme for years. If I was on the HC team, that's a Day 1 once you get the source code fix versus it has been 5+ years since HC went public. Regen by no means becomes OP if it resisted the debuffs it needs to. 

[Paradox Fate]

10 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Regen gets resistance to -Regen, -End, -Recovery Debuffs at a bare minimum. It is an outright crime it doesn't protect from the Debuffs for the things it is known for. This was a well beaten topic even 200+ days ago. I can't fathom this being a difficult fix.

 

[Kinetic Melee comment]

 

I'd be also throwing in Traps here with their Trip Mine that, for some reason, still has a 5.0 Second cast time along with a 0.5 second delay of being active.

While the same Power in /Devices comes with 2.7 Second cast time and a 0.8 delay.

 

Both have the same damage values but very different values in their cast time, which should be remedied in Traps to improve its usability.

 

I'd also advocate improving Triage Beacon with more +Regeneration in favor for a slight shorter duration.

[Cobalt Arachne]

6 hours ago, Andreah said:

I'm curious as to what the in-lore explanation for the Labyrinth is. It's suggestive to me of a connection via mythology of the well of the furies and etc. 

Per an earlier suggestion in this thread, I wrote up a short intro to the zone, it will be included in the next set of patch notes.
That being said, there's a lot more lore to this zone to be discovered beyond this:

Spoiler

The secret vault of the Midnight Club is a vast trove and holds countless artifacts, most kept locked away for the safety of the world.

 

One artifact the Midnighters have utilized for many years in the training of their new magicians: A pocket dimension contained within an ancient cube created by the Cimeroran inventor Daedalus known only as the Labyrinth of Fog.

 

This labyrinth was a place constructed by the tools of the divine, housing an endless maze filled with visages of nightmare, borne from the memories of those who entered, and hunted by a monstrous beast that roamed its endless halls. It was a place where intelligence, strength, and wit could be tested to ensure the Midnighters who make rank can control the vast magics they command.

 

However, with the whole of humanity's safety at risk, the Dream Doctor has vowed to strengthen Earth's defenders by any means, and to this end sought to see the Labyrinth of Fog opened to any powerful hero or villain, to allow them to test themselves against superior versions of their greatest foes with no risk of death, a metaphysical danger room sustained by the arcane.

 

This would be the most promising method they had in their arsenal towards quickly building champions who could defend their world, and the need had never been greater. Any risks pertaining to the Labyrinth's original purpose would have to be dismissed in favor of the benefits it could provide to the world's strongest, after all, the Dream Doctor had himself trained in this Labyrinth.

 

Now, with the doors to this ancient dungeon opened to all, the Midnighters are providing support to those who are willing to face the worst of themselves and humanity's nightmares. Much hope was placed on those entering the Labyrinth of Fog and conquering its dangers that they might emerge as great champions.

 

 "Imagine the birth of an army of heroes... Where each carried the individual strength of Perseus, amongst history's mightiest. Earth would be secure." 
 "...If you truly believe that the benefits outweigh the risks, then let us test humanity's champions of today." 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

I like pioneering new tech (primarily Lua right now) so we have a wider variety of methods and tricks we can use to create better content. There's no 'sinister master plan' here with new tech other than it's more interesting for me to work on personally, and pays it higher dividends to the team over time with the tech I come up with they can re-use and adapt later.

There's not much room for actual conversation if you so heavily taint your response with layers of bias and mistrust. We're not evil people trying to ruin the game.

 

We as individual developers pitch our projects to the whole team and then we approve them based on their individual merit after discussion, and if approved, the pitching developer is responsible for seeing their project to completion.

I have a passion for content that forces Teams to actually work together as teams and pay attention, that's how the game HAD to be played when I got into City of Heroes as a kid in early 2005, and it's the style of gameplay that crashed and died the hardest when IO's and Incarnates were introduced later on and then, bizarrely, people started attacking the notion that this game could be one that had content where you had to actively play.

So yes, I have a personal interest in making sure the style of content I enjoy actually exists in the game somewhere.

I've been working on the Labyrinth of Fog (by myself, it was a personal dev project that didn't pull anyone else on the team away from anything else) since August 2023, and it started as an experiment on liminal space maps.
It will likely total over 12-months of work before the Labyrinth sees release. The Aeon Strike Force took me 10 months.
I'm not paid to do this, I work on what interests me because I'm donating thousands of volunteer hours using my personal free time to strive to create production-quality content.

If at any point, we start to hate our work, then we slow down or stop working. The only compensation we get for our work is the appreciation of fans of our content, and we do have fans, I've had people send me personal messages thanking me for the Advanced Mode content because it got them to join an active super group and it helped them meet a bunch of their current friends they play the game with. This is the core reward for me, seeing people have fun and make new friends.
 

I've spent a large amount of time adding enormous breadth and span of content that benefits all kinds of players, not just Advanced Mode players.
The above reason is exactly why I do this content, and it's been a success in that, even if niche.

The game had thousands of missions worth of easy content, but very little for those who want to actually engage with the game in a meaningful capacity.

We aren't just robots who work on whatever we're told, we're driven creative individuals with our own focuses, interests, and ways of enjoying the game and we hope to pass that passion on with the content we create.

I hope people can understand that at the end of the day I consider myself a servant of the game and the players who enjoy my work, I barely find time to play the game because that time ends up going to development work instead 9 times out of 10.

I'm also not the only developer, sure Cobalt projects end up favoring certain things, but there are a dozen other developers all adding things to the game and deliver completely different stuff from my own style of content.

  

I don't disagree, and that's why it was a priority to ensure it was here in the Labyrinth. If you have alternative ideas on how to implement narrative/story elements into an open raid zone with no contact or story arc text, I'm open to suggestions and other ideas.

 

This is great.  Thank you @Cobalt Arachne for taking the time to explain!

 

27 minutes ago, Excraft said:

It's important to remember, the HC people here are volunteers doing this in their spare time.  They are not paid professionals, and there is no financial incentive in keeping the customer base happy so that they are playing and paying longer.  This is a passion project for them and they're working on things they want to work on and find interesting.  Personally, I'd rather they continue to work on things they want to work on that keeps them engaged rather than trying to please everyone and getting burned out. 

 

I absolutely agree, but this also is part of what I consider the problem.  When this was a paid game, motivations were clear ("maximize profits!") and there was a lot of work put in on balance in order to keep as many people playing for as long a period of time.  For passion projects, it's very difficult to manage output based on what the overall audience wants, and frankly almost nobody will even try.  If I'm writing a novel, I'm not going to throw it out and start with a new premise because one person I met wants me to.  

 

As much as I hated it at the time, Lost (the tv show) went all kinds of directions, and then pruned and focused those directions based on audience feedback.  Sure, I was expecting a fully fledged story from the beginning, but I understood their flexibility and sometimes even their sense of humor about it.  "What ever happened to the polar bears?!?"  But I don't expect that to happen in this passion project.

 

Edited July 8 by Yomo Kimyata
grammar

[Without_Pause]

9 minutes ago, Paradox Fate said:

 

I'd be also throwing in Traps here with their Trip Mine that, for some reason, still has a 5.0 Second cast time along with a 0.5 second delay of being active.

While the same Power in /Devices comes with 2.7 Second cast time and a 0.8 delay.

 

Both have the same damage values but very different values in their cast time, which should be remedied in Traps to improve its usability.

 

I'd also advocate improving Triage Beacon with more +Regeneration in favor for a slight shorter duration.

At least the devs here have gone over things like this previously. I can't remember what was on my wishlist or what of those got changed for the better. As someone who thinks pretty much any of the longer animation times for attacks is ridiculous, 5 seconds is an abomination. 

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

3 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

There's a whole thread over on the forums there. 

 

OK, thanks.  I was just reading through the first one and that's a pretty long list of wants . . . including a pony!

 

Several of them were asking for powersets to be added and many of those were added with Issue 27, page 7.   https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_27_Page_7#Architect_Entertainment

 

Now I had a chance to look through the second one.  That was actually started by GM Arcanum back in 2020!  Some additional AE things were added in Issue 27, page 2 and page 4 since that thread was started. 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_27_Page_2#Mission_Architect  

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_27_Page_4#Architect_Entertainment

 

But I get it.  You want more AE love!

Edited July 8 by GM_GooglyMoogly

[ZamuelNow]

3 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

 

Something like what?

 

Adding to the AE discussion: 

 

There's spawn point oddities that cleaning up would do a lot to help in writing arcs.

Edited July 8 by ZamuelNow
Fixing hyperlink

[Techwright]

9 hours ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

So yes, I have a personal interest in making sure the style of content I enjoy actually exists in the game somewhere.

I've been working on the Labyrinth of Fog (by myself, it was a personal dev project that didn't pull anyone else on the team away from anything else) since August 2023, and it started as an experiment on liminal space maps.
It will likely total over 12-months of work before the Labyrinth sees release. The Aeon Strike Force took me 10 months.
I'm not paid to do this, I work on what interests me because I'm donating thousands of volunteer hours using my personal free time to strive to create production-quality content.

 

Though I've not jumped on beta yet to test, and I accept that there's always a chance I may not like something, I can't fault you for trying hard, and I'm deeply appreciative of the effort you've put forth.  In the event you see a previous comment from me in another thread mentioning my distaste for what I perceive as an over abundance of magic in a game I thought would be a balance between 5 origins, please take no offense.  I was only stating a personal opinion and preference.  I've nothing but respect for the entire volunteer dev team.    It's part of why I've gone through more than a dozen other games these past 5 years, but always maintain CoH.

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

51 minutes ago, Techwright said:

In the event you see a previous comment from me in another thread mentioning my distaste for what I perceive as an over abundance of magic in a game I thought would be a balance between 5 origins, please take no offense.

 

Let me guess: You like Tech, right?  😉