2025 - A Look Back, A Look Ahead

[ZamuelNow]

The teams I was running Eden with on Live did Kill Most and it was an experience.  Not really worried about speeding it up.

[lemming]

15 minutes ago, ZamuelNow said:

The teams I was running Eden with on Live did Kill Most and it was an experience.  Not really worried about speeding it up.

Yea, the teams I've been on most recently speed up by just going down the right spots first to get to the right area.

Beat up Devoured to get the inspiration, get thru the walls, beat the Titan, free the heroes.

 

Avoiding what isn't needed is the only speed really which makes it good for a group without taking most of your playing time for the day.

[ParadigmShift]

Why question is, why does it seem like MMs and continuing the incarnate path are the least in the minds of the devs?

 

Rich

 

Naq/ParadigmShift on Torch

[OEM61]

On 1/8/2025 at 1:27 PM, ZamuelNow said:

For analytics, I'm curious: How many supergroups/villain groups were registered?  How many AE arcs were created? What were the most and least populous zones?

How would you measure "Most popular zone"?
Would that be "Most player-hours spent there"?  "Most distinct characters that visited that zone during the year"?  "Most players in the zone concurrently at any point in the year"?

I can't help but think that AP would be the winner of most player-hours spent, and it seems all but impossible that it wouldn't win criteria 2.
Criteria 3 might be more in doubt as, though AP is still going to be a contender, some raids may bring enough people to another zone to offer up some competition.
But maybe I would be surprised.

=============

I notice that over half of every Mastermind created this past year has one of three primaries.  MM has never been my favorite, but I started thinking of a Mastermind idea and it was also one of those three.  I'll probably make it later this year.  Might not get too much play, but I'll at least try and get it made.

I would like to see the complete list of ATs, though.
I know that some of these lists could get too long if you included everything.  Primaries and secondaries add up fast when you consider all of the ATs, and then possible combinations are multiplicatively larger still, but there are "only" 15 ATs, so a full list wouldn't be too long.
I notice that there are some Stalker sets that made least popular primary and secondary, and it makes me curious where Stalkers fall on the AT popularity list for the year.  Were these just particularly unpopular sets, or were Stalkers as a whole relatively unpopular? 

EDIT:  Obviously Stone Melee for Stalkers is specifically unpopular, since only 377 out of at least 8,117 chose it, and if the total number of new Stalkers was 8,117 with 18 primaries to choose, the average would be just under 451 but I am still curious as to how many Stalkers there were total.
Anyway...

Also?  I am curious as to what Power Pools, Ancillary Pools, and Patron power sets were most popular.  I guess I would measure that as characters that had one or more powers from that set.  Whether someone had one power from the flight pool or all five, they would count as 1.

Edited Friday at 08:48 PM by OEM61

[Gobbledygook]

On 1/9/2025 at 2:10 PM, kelika2 said:

i woke up with this thought

but why do we still need all the extra powers?

 

Like with Bio armor what stance you have on changes other powers in the same set.  so with that in mind why not delete all the nova and dwarf powers but start using the main sets powers and change their specs depending on what form you have?

 

All the blasts can have their range and damage buffed when you flip on nova form but you lose access to melee attacks aside from dawnstrike and seekers.  dawnstrike can even be turned into a ranged aoe and its animation can be using one of those seekers just amped up to x5 size or so and lobbed onto a target or reticle target

And a mix/mash of offensive powers in dwarf form.  short range laser beam eyes/lumi blast or enhanced target cap solar flare and the heals can get buffs too and maybe a toned down version of dawnstrike.  and hell, why not add a small aoe to their version of total focus whos name i cant remember right now

 

 

I'm liking some of these ideas.

 

Thunderstrike is the attack you're thinking of. Maybe, lol.

Honestly, I wish they had done this during the revamp of EM, instead of turning Stun into Power Crash.

[Arcalian]

Maybe an Arachnos themed mastermind? Yes I know the VEATS already somewhat do this.  But I mean a regular Mastermind who can summon the various Arachnos troops.  And would follow the Arachnos contact arc

[Darkaiser]

It's cool to see my OG Villain, a Necro/Dark MM, rated so highly!

[Force Redux]

On 1/9/2025 at 10:52 AM, Scarlet Shocker said:

I have two very important takeaways from this:

 

Only just over half a million toons created in an entire year, and @Snarky was 2nd highest poster on the forums.

 

The only conclusion I can draw from those two facts is that the game is doomed.

 

Snarky...Dark Miasma popularity...Necro popularity...coincidence???????

 

((I think not!))

[Thraxen]

I get how Posi 1 would be highest.  I often run it on new toons just to see how it goes.  Surprised ITF isn't top though.

[Warshades]

On 1/9/2025 at 2:10 PM, kelika2 said:

i woke up with this thought

but why do we still need all the extra powers?

 

Like with Bio armor what stance you have on changes other powers in the same set.  so with that in mind why not delete all the nova and dwarf powers but start using the main sets powers and change their specs depending on what form you have?

 

All the blasts can have their range and damage buffed when you flip on nova form but you lose access to melee attacks aside from dawnstrike and seekers.  dawnstrike can even be turned into a ranged aoe and its animation can be using one of those seekers just amped up to x5 size or so and lobbed onto a target or reticle target

And a mix/mash of offensive powers in dwarf form.  short range laser beam eyes/lumi blast or enhanced target cap solar flare and the heals can get buffs too and maybe a toned down version of dawnstrike.  and hell, why not add a small aoe to their version of total focus whos name i cant remember right now

 

Opening up more powers to be usable while in Nova/Dwarf form would be awesome and the form powers are basically copy/pastes of the regularly available ones (although losing double mire on WS wouldn't be as fun). Overall though, human only form Khelds could use a massive revamp.

1. Damage needs to be buffed across a lot of powers, and maybe increase in damage buff cap. Outside of a few powers like Gravity Well/Radiant Strike, nukes, and a few others, most attacks are severely under powered.
2. Knockback. It is extremely annoying that a ton of powers across khelds do knockback and essentially require wasting slots to slot a kb to kd IO. I can understand keeping it on a few powers, such as the nuke for example, but it would be nice to change a lot of the kb powers to kd instead, or at least offer players the choice of making them kd. You could even add umbra/luminous mastery epic (why do VEATs get epics while HEATs do not?) that has an always active passive power (similar to Widow's Fate Sealed) that changes KB effects to KD as an example.
3. Animation times could use an update. I don't know why Incandescent Strike is still animating at 3.3 seconds when all other such powers with the exact same animation (i.e. Thunder Strike, Total Focus, etc) have been reduced to 2.53. Would also be nice if Dark Extraction and Unchain Essence animation time could be decreased, also would it be to much to ask for Unchain Essence to release the energy of live foes as well as dead? Would make targeting a little less cumbersome.

Overall, I think the kheld secondaries are fine and don't really need adjusting, but the primary powers are in need of some buffs. Once buffed, you could then remove the ability to do changeling builds which IMO feels like it's abusing the way form changes are coded to be able to deal more damage.

 

21 hours ago, Arcalian said:

Maybe an Arachnos themed mastermind? Yes I know the VEATS already somewhat do this.  But I mean a regular Mastermind who can summon the various Arachnos troops.  And would follow the Arachnos contact arc

 

Longbow counterpart to Arachnos MMs would be a nice option as a "hero" themed MM.

[Traegus]

i know the community is pretty good as far as size is concerned, at least for what this game is. but i still have some trouble consistently finding groups for ATs that don't solo real well, there is a reason that brute and mastermind are two of the top created ATs, very easy to solo. i was just wondering if there had ever been potential to maybe tweak something to allow for a better chance to solo other ATs, i tend to stay away from control types because the bulk of the population doesn't seem to be on when i am and i can't really get through the game with these ATs. i know it won't be a popular idea, but i would like to see a significant power increase for controllers, maybe like the scaling damage of the defender change that was implemented, but higher (and increase the def one as well). i'll steel myself for the hate this will bring (and the "get gud noob" responses).

[zvelf]

I'm sad to see Eden as the least-played task force/trial in the game. It has perhaps the most unique and beautiful map in the game. I played it 10 times in 2024 so I participated in 1 out of every 91 Eden trials played during the year.

[Lunar Ronin]

1 hour ago, zvelf said:

I'm sad to see Eden as the least-played task force/trial in the game. It has perhaps the most unique and beautiful map in the game. I played it 10 times in 2024 so I participated in 1 out of every 91 Eden trials played during the year.

 

The Issue 27, Page Three changes to the Eden Trial did it no favors.  I used to love the Eden Trial.  I parked a blue side character at level 39 back when it was bugged on live just to run it.  But making the Crystal Titan's attacks auto-hit took all enthusiasm for it away.  I get it.  Barrier Destiny.  But the call should have been to neuter Destiny in the Eden Trial (and all other non-Incarnate content FWIW), not just neuter defense completely.  Most people that I know have stopped running it since.  C'est la vie.

[Lusiphur Malache]

On 1/10/2025 at 11:11 PM, Arcalian said:

Maybe an Arachnos themed mastermind?

get in line behind the clown, puppies, and pirates fans.

[Faelia]

On 1/10/2025 at 11:11 PM, Arcalian said:

Maybe an Arachnos themed mastermind? Yes I know the VEATS already somewhat do this.  But I mean a regular Mastermind who can summon the various Arachnos troops.  And would follow the Arachnos contact arc

Sadly the devs seem allergic to anything not ranged(consider support ranged) when it comes to new(not reworked) sets.

Edited 6 hours ago by Faelia

[the_osprey]

On 1/8/2025 at 8:58 AM, Widower said:

Hello Paragon City!

We wanted to take a moment to both review our year in 2024, as well as provide a look-ahead to our plans for 2025! The year started out with a bang, having been officially licensed! We also saw the completion of Issue 27, both a new Anniversary Event accompanied with a 20th Anniversary Celebration that we did, and the release of Issue 28, Page 1!

 

That was just our successes! Let's not forget some of the things you (the players) achieved in 2024!

2024 Player Stats:

• Number of Characters Created in 2024:  574,534
  • Torchbearer: 68,208
  • Excelsior: 255,972
  • Indomitable: 63,394
  • Everlasting: 120,017
  • Reunion: 66,943
     
• Powerset & Archetype Data of 2024:
  • Most Popular Archetype of 2024:
    1. Brute - 77,367
    2. Blaster - 75,570
    3. Mastermind - 67,112
  • Least Popular Archetype of 2024:
    1. Arachnos Widow - 5,183
    2. Warshade - 5,780
    3. Arachnos Soldier - 7,980
    4. Peacebringer - 8,116
  • Most Popular Primary of 2024:
    1. Mastermind Robotics - 14,547
    2. Mastermind Demon Summoning - 13,221
    3. Mastermind Necromancy - 11,632
  • Least Popular Primary of 2024:
    1. Stalker Stone Melee - 377
    2. Stalker Radiation Melee - 571
    3. Defender Traps - 591
  • Most Popular Secondaries of 2024:
    1. Brute Fiery Aura - 12,721
    2. Mastermind Dark Miasma - 11,681
    3. Blaster Devices - 11,681
  • Least Popular Secondaries of 2024:
    1. Corruptor Sonic Resonance - 770
    2. Stalker Fiery Aura - 777
    3. Stalker Ice Armor - 783
  • Most Popular Combinations of 2024:
    1. Blaster - Fire Blast & Fire Manipulation - 5,205
    2. Mastermind - Necromancy & Dark Miasma - 4,811
    3. Dominator - Arsenal Control & Arsenal Assault - 4,518
  • Least Popular Combinations of 2024:
    1. Defender - Sonic Resonance & Archery - 4
    2. Defender - Trick Arrow & Energy Blast - 6
    3. Tanker - Super Reflexes & Stone Melee - 6
        
• NEW 2024 Powersets:
  • Arsenal Control -10,311 characters made in 2024
  • Arsenal Assault - 5,631 characters made in 2024
  • Marine Affinity - 15,127 characters made in 2024
     
• Most Popular Task Force: Positron 1 Task Force - Completed 19,858 times in 2024
• Least Popular Task Force: Eden Trial - Completed 909 times in 2024
   
• Most Popular Story Arc: "What Was Lost" by Matthew Habashy - completed 112,892 times in 2024
• Least Popular Story Arc: "Light & Darkness" by Abyss - completed 911 times in 2024
   
• Support Tickets Resolved by Game Masters: 12,954
  • Game Master with highest ticket closure: @GM Crumpet (3,030 Tickets Closed in 2024)

 

2024 Forum Stats:

• Total Forum Posts in 2024: 101,569
• Total Topics in 2024: 7,469
   
• Highest rated forum users of 2024:
  • Luminara (5,179 posts & +2849 Reputation)
  • Snarky (8,394 posts & +2714 Reputation)
  • Rudra (7,627 posts & +2588 Reputation)
     
• Highest rated forum post from 2024:
  1. NCSOFT & Homecoming License Announcement (+245)
  2. Welcome Home! - An Open Letter from Homecoming (+133)
  3. City of Heroes 20th Anniversary! (+97)

 

Number of Kheldians Consumed: Infinite

 

It was certainly an exciting year! While we can't start 2025 in as exciting of a manner like we did last year, we did want to take the opportunity to give you our tentative plans and roadmap for the year ahead!

First though, we've had a lot of follow-up questions regarding the redesign of Homecoming's team structure that took place at the beginning of last year, so we wanted to shed some additional light on that.
 

---

 

Homecoming Team Structure:

 

You can always reference our Staff Directory for the most up to date listing of our current staff roster! However, the team is broken down into three major groups, which have a subdivision leadership structure within them. It's important to note that every member of our team is a volunteer, driven solely by their passion for the game and dedication to helping the community. From the City Council to the Game Masters and Developers, each individual generously contributes their time and expertise without expecting any compensation in return. We uphold strict protocols to ensure fairness and integrity within our ranks. Access levels are carefully monitored, and measures are in place to prevent any misuse for personal gain.

 

City Council

The first is our City Council. This is our group of administrators who oversee the entire Homecoming project, including both the Game Masters and Developer teams.

 

While the team makes decisions collectively, within the ranks of our City Council, some members take on additional leadership roles crucial to the success of our project.

 

• @Conviction and @Globetrotter oversee the Game Master team, ensuring that our moderation efforts remain effective and fair.
• @Faultline provides guidance to our Developer team and supports our Lead Developers in coordinating the City Council's vision for the project.
• @Number Six spearheads the work on the game's code, expanding the bounds of what's possible in Paragon City.
• @Telephone and @Michiyo run our infrastructure and server systems, ensuring seamless operation.
• @Widower (no relation :P) supervises our Discord and Forums and is our community manager, providing community engagement and regular updates to players.
• @Arcanum serves as our operations manager, supporting both the Game Master and Developer teams in their day to day work.
• @Cipher is the head of the project. He is the final voice on internal discussion and debates within the council.
• @Homecoming is our general account we use for non personalized messages. All City Council members have access to post from this account.

 

Game Masters

Game Masters uphold the Code of Conduct, ensuring that our streets remain safe from villainous behavior. They moderate our official communication channels (Forums, Discord, and in-game chat channels) and address any concerns or issues that may arise within our community.

 

Within our Game Master team, there are distinct roles that ensure the smooth functioning of our community.

• Lead Game Masters - Entrusted with the crucial task of collaborating with the City Council to shape moderation policies and guidelines. They oversee the broader operations of the Game Master team.
• Game Masters - The largely unsung heroes of our team! They handle all of the player tickets (both from in-game and forums) and are tasked with moderating our official channels and enforcing the Code of Conduct.
• Novice Game Master - You may see this role in our discord from time to time. These are newly onboarded Game Masters who spend time learning from the Game Masters and Lead Game Masters, with limited in-game access levels and moderation tools while they step into the role.

• @GM Bot - Our robot GM! This bot allows our Game Masters to perform numerous tasks and commands without being logged into the game. It also allows the team to post administrative messages across all shards (i.e. Notifying of our weekly server maintenance). While there may not be a human sitting behind this bot, it still has feelings! Be sure to send it a tell in game saying "Hi!"

 

Developers

Behind every thrilling mission and exciting update lies the hard work of our Developers. They're the creative minds drafting new content, enhancing gameplay experiences, and bringing your adventures to life. We internally have a structure of Lead & Senior Developers, who provide support & leadership across various development departments; including Code, Art, Powers, Story & Writing, and more. Together, these teams collaborate (under the guidance of our Lead Developers and City Council) to deliver new content and experiences to the game.

 

• @The Curator - Similar to our Homecoming account, this is a general Developer account. Several staff members have access to this account to post things like Patch Notes. It is not monitored by any one individual.

 

Hopefully this provides some invaluable insight into how the team runs behind the scenes and can answer questions we've seen pop up from time to time. If you have any others, please don't hesitate to reach out to either our Game Masters or City Council for additional info!

 

---

 

2025 Development Goals:

 

Now, let's get to the "fun" stuff and take a look at the upcoming calendar year! The team has been hard at work on several projects to make 2025 an exciting year! While we can't disclose all of the details yet, due to the fact it's a volunteer project and people's availabilities fluctuate, as well as the simple fact everyone enjoys a cliff hanger...

 

We did want to share some tentative plans with you!

Seasonal Event Updates:

• In 2025 we will be making some updates (varying in degrees) to all of the seasonal events hosted during the year! First up will be our Spring Fling event, which is set to run tentatively starting February 4th - March 4th.

Issue 28, Page 2:

• We hope to release Page 2 of Issue 28, continuing on the exciting building blocks of Page 1, in Early Spring 2025!

Issue 28, Page 3:

• Assuming everything goes to plan, we look forward to releasing Page 3 by the Fall of 2025!

While the main goal for the pages listed above will be to continue the overarching storyline, we also hope to release new powersets, costume pieces, base items, badges, and customization features that allow you to play your character's story the way you want to!

 

As a reminder, we are currently looking for a Tools Developer to assist us with some of these goals! If you're interested in volunteering your time to support the team in this capacity, please submit an application and our team will reach out!

 

We look forward to sharing more with you all Soon™ - in the meantime, here's some in-development images to share with you all 😉. Please keep in mind, as this content is in development; it is not finalized and subject to change.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading! We look forward to another heroic year in Paragon City and a less-than-heroic year in the Rogue Isles and Praetoria!

 

A GM simply closing a ticket doesn't mean much. What was the customer satisfaction?

[Glacier Peak]

2 minutes ago, the_osprey said:

A GM simply closing a ticket doesn't mean much. What was the customer satisfaction?

Closing tickets means a lot to players.

 

First, this isn't a business. There aren't customers. It's a volunteer ran operation. Everyone devotes their free time so we can play. Without fail, these GMs have come to my rescue within minutes of me submitting my help ticket to fix whatever issue I'm experiencing. That's faster than any game support I've ever experienced in any game, let alone one I don't pay for in any way.

 

Second, I get what you're actually saying and I'll repeat what I said already - I've received fantastic support any time I've requested it, whether in game or on the forums. 

 

Take a look:

 

 

[ZamuelNow]

51 minutes ago, the_osprey said:

 

A GM simply closing a ticket doesn't mean much. What was the customer satisfaction?

 

So, I play a lot of AE, there's times the Homecoming GMs haven't gotten to me in time due to timers or real life forcing me to log off but they've always been gracious in followup communication.  On the retail game that I was paying money for, if a glowie spawned inside a wall the GMs would say that they couldn't help me because it was AE.  Even if I don't agree with every HC decision, consider this customer satisfied.