Goodbye to CoH message boards.

[momentarygrace]

[srmalloy]

20 hours ago, Aracknight said:

 

This is a wonderful description of the location, denizens, and issues that inhabit that specific forum.  I haven't seen a more accurate description that didn't also include the words "a wretched hive of scum and villainy."

As wretched hives of scum and villainy go... it's about average.

[Captain Fabulous]

1 hour ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Can we please not get into another tit-for-tat posting battle?

You must be new here. Welcome!

[MoonSheep]

2 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Can we please not get into another tit-for-tat posting battle?

 

you heard him fellas, straighten up or you’ll get whacked like the last wiseguy!*
 

*please don’t smite me kind and benevolent GMs

 

oh.. what’s this? i appear to have dropped a sizeable bag of influence outside the GM HQ, it’s too heavy for me to pick up so i am forced to leave it here… 

[BlackSpectre]

Wait! I want to be smacked!!! What now? 

[Scarlet Shocker]

4 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Can we please not get into another tit-for-tat posting battle?

 

I didn't think that was allowed but hey if you wanna see my tats... 🤣

[GM Crumpet]

2 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

you heard him fellas, straighten up or you’ll get whacked like the last wiseguy!*
 

*please don’t smite me kind and benevolent GMs

 

oh.. what’s this? i appear to have dropped a sizeable bag of influence outside the GM HQ, it’s too heavy for me to pick up so i am forced to leave it here… 

Who left this heavy bag of influence on my doorstep? Looks like I can get those superior winter sets I've had my eye on

[Championess]

1 hour ago, BlackSpectre said:

Wait! I want to be smacked!!! What now? 

 

Think thats a different kinda dungeon you're looking for...

[golstat2003]

On 1/22/2025 at 11:22 AM, Ukase said:

So, I completely get this perspective. And, the past few months, I think I have to give the benefit of the doubt to at least a couple of the usual nay-sayers. I'm not capable of really grasping how one thing might affect several other aspects of the game. 

One person pointed out to me in detail things it just hadn't occurred to me to consider. But man, it did seem to me like they slash every fun sounding idea that's posted. Ultimately, even if most ideas don't get used, I think it's still helpful. We never know when there might be something clever the rest of us hadn't thought about. 

 

The devs like to hear all suggestions. Doesn't mean they auto agree to add even 10% of what suggested. Nor should they. Nor will they ever have the manpower to do so. Anyone expecting that is not being realistic.

[Scarlet Shocker]

32 minutes ago, GM Crumpet said:

Looks like I can get those superior winter sets I've had my eye on

 

Now there's a euphemism if I ever heard one!

[Championess]

9 hours ago, High_Beam said:

He works in and is often frustrated by infrastructure and/or logistics (trucker) and he's studying German.

 

Shit, he's preparing to invade France.

 

Ah so you're suggestion his coms could be a perfect ruse that explains his absence during his conquest?

 

If history has taught us anything about invading France its that he'll be back here posting in a fortnight.

[Sanguinesun]

18 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

Can we please not get into another tit-for-tat posting battle?

 

In the most dripping Southern Drawl possible:  "Oh, bless your heart."

[tidge]

In fairness, the tit-for-tat posting *is* one of the behaviors that I think often leads to the more toxic types of behavior, including brigading. It is somewhat common for someone making their Nth post (especially in a suggestion thread) to eventually include something insulting... likely because they've run out of other things to write... and at that point there is just a pile-on. Or, as happened here *in this thread*, someone brings up a personal sore spot tangential to the actual thread to start that process.

[Apogee]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

In fairness, the tit-for-tat posting *is* one of the behaviors that I think often leads to the more toxic types of behavior, including brigading. It is somewhat common for someone making their Nth post (especially in a suggestion thread) to eventually include something insulting... likely because they've run out of other things to write... and at that point there is just a pile-on. Or, as happened here *in this thread*, someone brings up a personal sore spot tangential to the actual thread to start that process.

 

"the only way to win is not to play the game"

[Nerio72]

19 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Now there's a euphemism if I ever heard one!

"Check out the superior winter sets on THAT guy! 👀"

[aethereal]

20 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

The devs like to hear all suggestions.

 

Do they in fact?

 

20 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Doesn't mean they auto agree to add even 10% of what suggested. Nor should they. Nor will they ever have the manpower to do so. Anyone expecting that is not being realistic.

 

I think they add 0% of what is suggested.  Like, literally 0%.  I think it'd be really hard to find even one specific suggestion that was clearly added to the game due to a post in the Suggestions forum.  Certainly, I think they add 0% of the kind of complex, controversial suggestions that draw arguments.

 

I like arguments.  I even just sometimes like spitballing about game design in a way that will never have any impact of anything.

 

If the suggestions board was adding value, I think it'd be easily worth whatever controversy it contains.  But it is genuinely not clear to me that it is adding literally any value.

Edited Friday at 05:38 PM by aethereal

[tidge]

35 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Do they in fact?

 

I'm struggling to think of any specific suggestion from the forum that was implemented... I want to say that there was at least one relatively minor quality-of-life addition that came from the forum bu I'm blanking on it ATM.... something like a minor interface or a vendor-purchased item? Did anybody actually suggest giving everyone "Athletic Run" (a good idea, but also a no-brainer)?

 

I wouldn't count the revamps to power sets (e.g. fast Snipes, Energy Melee, Mastermind Primaries, two secondary choices at L1) as coming from the suggestions forum... even if some of those might have been tangentially suggested. Specific to the power sets... what we got was clearly somebody's idea, but I think (prior to the revisions) I saw many different suggestions that were at least as-balanced and in some cases would have been preferable to what we got. (I'm not trying to knock any specific update, just saying that some of these look like someone's idea that maybe wasn't shared with a wide group before the change was rolled out.)

[aethereal]

2 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

I'm struggling to think of any specific suggestion from the forum that was implemented... I want to say that there was at least one relatively minor quality-of-life addition that came from the forum bu I'm blanking on it ATM.... something like a minor interface or a vendor-purchased item? Did anybody actually suggest giving everyone "Athletic Run" (a good idea, but also a no-brainer)?

 

I'm sure that at some point in the thousands of posts on the Suggestions board, someone has suggested something that at least loosely is similar to what actually happened -- I just have some serious doubts that the relationship is causal.

 

Like, if a dev wants to come here and say, "Oh yes, I read the Suggestions board religiously, and while there is very little that makes it 1:1 into the game as suggested, I find it an invaluable tool for springboarding into the changes that we actually do make, and a lot of what makes it into the game owes some amount to the suggestions board," then cool, I'd be happy to take them at their word for that.  But honestly I think it's very likely that most or all the devs either don't read Suggestions or read it from a sense of obligation and then ignore it.

[arcane]

Only looked at the most recent big patch and immediately found an example of a suggestion that was implemented…

 

 

[aethereal]

35 minutes ago, arcane said:

Only looked at the most recent big patch and immediately found an example of a suggestion that was implemented…

 

 

 

Neat!  I honestly missed the Mark & Recall power because it's behind Labyrinth content that I ignore.

 

I also note that that topic you linked had zero replies and zero reactions.  I'm not like...  one hundred percent sure that it actually causally resulted in the mark & recall accolade power, though the same naming certainly implies a linkage.

 

So I guess a slight modification to my claim:  My understanding is that the threads in Suggestions & Feedback that get very heated are the ones where someone is like, "Okay, here is my detailed critique of power set X and how I think it should be revamped," or the ones where someone says, "Okay, here's a fundamental modification to a core subsystem of City of Heroes," or one where someone says, "I think the direction of development should be [going further down the incarnate path|focusing on such-and-such a subplot|whatever]"

 

I continue to see zero sign that those topics are ever, at all, impactful on the development of the game.

 

Little one-off micro-suggestions -- I still don't know if they are worthwhile, but even if they aren't, they don't result in big blow-ups and mod actions.  Certainly there's no harm to them.

 

Side note here: one of the reasons why I'm dubious that the devs actually pay attention to the Suggestions forum is that they never say, "Hey, look, this kind of suggestion is just...  be aware that we're never going to take one of your 5 hours of effort mega-posts on a powerset revamp and actually use it.  What would be more helpful is this kind of post instead: [blah blah]."  Like, if the devs are interested in the Suggestions forum as a tool, they sure don't do anything to aim the tool where they want.

[shortguy on indom]

• TRUST THE PROCESS.

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

I'm struggling to think of any specific suggestion from the forum that was implemented... I want to say that there was at least one relatively minor quality-of-life addition that came from the forum bu I'm blanking on it ATM.... something like a minor interface or a vendor-purchased item? Did anybody actually suggest giving everyone "Athletic Run" (a good idea, but also a no-brainer)?

 

I wouldn't count the revamps to power sets (e.g. fast Snipes, Energy Melee, Mastermind Primaries, two secondary choices at L1) as coming from the suggestions forum... even if some of those might have been tangentially suggested. Specific to the power sets... what we got was clearly somebody's idea, but I think (prior to the revisions) I saw many different suggestions that were at least as-balanced and in some cases would have been preferable to what we got. (I'm not trying to knock any specific update, just saying that some of these look like someone's idea that maybe wasn't shared with a wide group before the change was rolled out.)

 

I suggested that many eyewear pieces be given a glow effect and that was implemented very quickly. Granted they aren't labelled especially well but it did happen and fast.

 

[Championess]

Eh I bet they actually do look through the suggestions.  If the topic is reasoned out well enough with little bickering and something already easily to be able to be coded into the game I'm sure there's been quite a few things.  

 

I know I've seen topics about adding new accolades which we've gotten.  There's been more costume stuff added like the highly requested Cim robes.  Sure maybe not as much costume stuff as we may like but most of those suggestions I'd assume would need more dedicated artists since they might not be already engrained in the game.  

[Ukase]

On 1/23/2025 at 10:51 AM, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

tit-for-tat

On the lighter side, or perhaps the regrettable side, you just reminded me of an invuln/stone tank I made back in retail days called....wait for it... Tat. 

The name had 2 purposes. I knew as someone who led teams that if you had some polysyllabic name that was a pain to type out, I probably wasn't going to bother with any /t action. So, I always leaned towards trying to keep the names fairly short. 

And, of course, in the character bio, Tat was not someone who had tattoos, or wore tattered clothing. He just had a yen for Colostrum. And you know the saying, tit for tat. It seemed funny to me at the time. Of course, in this day and age, I'd never resort to such naming conventions lest I get generic'd.  

[jprewitt73]

3 minutes ago, Ukase said:

On the lighter side, or perhaps the regrettable side, you just reminded me of an invuln/stone tank I made back in retail days called....wait for it... Tat. 

The name had 2 purposes. I knew as someone who led teams that if you had some polysyllabic name that was a pain to type out, I probably wasn't going to bother with any /t action. So, I always leaned towards trying to keep the names fairly short. 

And, of course, in the character bio, Tat was not someone who had tattoos, or wore tattered clothing. He just had a yen for Colostrum. And you know the saying, tit for tat. It seemed funny to me at the time. Of course, in this day and age, I'd never resort to such naming conventions lest I get generic'd.  

 

This was a roller coaster. I was trying really hard to figure out how you'd get there, and then the last paragraph really just opened it up for me.