A Question from The Homecoming Team

[Colette Valiant]

I have observed a clash between those who want to preserve CoH as it has always existed, and those who'd like to innovate and tinker.

 

Let's take a simple example, the power "Hasten." This is very much an overpowered ability. While the initial rule of thumb was primary>secondary>pool, "Quickness" or "Lightning Reflexes" gives an SR or Electric tank 20% recharge reduction. For scrappers, same 20% reduction. Hasten offers 70% reduction. So now Pool>primary=secondary?

 

But try to re-balance Hasten, and we'd have an outcry as we've not heard since Enhancement Diversification.

 

Similarly, map builders have wanted to make additions and alterations to the city for some time, but again -- nostalgia...!

 

So what I'd like to see is not one, but two servers! The first would preserve Paragon City as a museum. No changes to maps, no drastic changes to powers, very conservative additions.

 

And in the other server, we can cut loose! Stretch the game, tinker, do crazy things like build a whole new Perez Park and Galaxy City. We can balance powers, improve mob AI, all without offending anyone 'cause the Paragon you remember and cherish is right there, safe and sound, and you can transfer your characters at any time.

[Potassium]

Don't lock content behind paywalls, it would be best for paid stuff to be reserved for cosmetics and other conveniences (xp boosters and the like) but never to stop the player from playing through the game

[Bastille Boy]

The cheapest way to get new content is to support player created content through AE. Here are some easy ways to help.

1. Give creators who are writing stories with plots a clear way to distinguish their mission arcs from farms. Maybe there could be a set of radio buttons, searchable by players: "complete story," "farm," "build testing," and "other." 
2. Some villain groups that appear in the game aren't available in AE (e.g., Prisoners). Why not include them?
3. Keep both standard rewards and ticket rewards.
4. I've read old AE guides that say specifying an enemy group is optional. It's required now. It'd be good to make this optional again. Maps with no enemies except for specified boss groups can be good for certain plot lines.

It would benefit all players, but especially AE content creators, to add more costume options and more options for body shape (ideally including androgynous characters).

 

Like many others in this thread, I'd like to keep the characters I have without starting over!

[DiceFumbler]

Not wading through all the other suggestions, but I'm sure everyone proposed 'new content' of some sort.  Here's my two cents.  

1.  Revitalize Perez Park and Boom Town.  Give us a reason to go there.  Zone centric story arcs there would be great.

2.  New Zones.  Underwater Zones similar to Atlantis.   Winter Zones.. other than just the holiday zone.  

3.  Power Sets.  Hard Light Constructs power sets.  Stretching Power Sets (Mr. Fantastic, Plastic Man etc..)  Shape-Shifting Power Sets.

4.  New Body Types.  Teens, Children (you'd have to limit costume choices.. otherwise it could be creepy), Obese (maybe a slider for that?)

5.  More movement options.  Web-swinging (Grappling hook/Acrobatics?).  Vehicles.. with customization options.  Motorcycles, Cars, etc.

6.  Complete alignment system.  Every mission choice gives you an alignment point.  Do the bad thing, get a villain point. Do the good thing.. you get it.

[StoneColdJoker]

To not have to start over and more importantly for the game not to go away. That’s what matters to me lol

 

Also....not that it’s possible....my original game account and toons would be nice. Not that I even remember the log in stuff for it lol

Edited September 8, 2019 by StoneColdJoker

[Glacier Peak]

Top 3:

 

1. Long term legitimacy.

 

2. Continued interest by the Homecoming team volunteers to make necessary improvements to the game. 

 

3. Continue upgrading the old game files to make it easier for developers to implement changes that are desired by the community. 

 

If these things can be realized, I'll remain a player for years to come!

 

[Celerity]

13. I forgot to ask: A server wide vault system we can access and store that isn't the base system where others may also access.  Per server, per account only, please.

[Rylandir]

Just a short list 😛

 

 - New archetypes (new combinations of existing powers)

 - New travel powers (swinging!  wall crawling!)

 - New power animations

 - New costume sets/patterns

 - Updated player graphic models (no more rubber mitts for hands)

 - New story arcs/missions

 - Hero/Villain vehicles

 - New zone models (outer space, under water, etc)

 

[Felis Noctu]

5 hours ago, Colette Valiant said:

I have observed a clash between those who want to preserve CoH as it has always existed, and those who'd like to innovate and tinker.

 

Let's take a simple example, the power "Hasten." This is very much an overpowered ability. While the initial rule of thumb was primary>secondary>pool, "Quickness" or "Lightning Reflexes" gives an SR or Electric tank 20% recharge reduction. For scrappers, same 20% reduction. Hasten offers 70% reduction. So now Pool>primary=secondary?

 

But try to re-balance Hasten, and we'd have an outcry as we've not heard since Enhancement Diversification.

I'd second this, and it's unfortunate. Evolution and change is the foundation for improvement. Hasten is so incredibly powerful that it's considered to be required in practically every build that's considered to be "competitive" in the end-game. In any other situation, that would indicate it's a problem, not a good thing. However, re-balance doesn't necessarily have to be a hard nerf, or a removal in drastic cases. For instance:

 

8 hours ago, lmollea said:

Pet peeves of mine:

 

- Remove hasten and give a flat recharge bonus to all characters based on level, like we give fitness pool, up to the average recharge bonus one would have with a hasten with 2x50 recharge IO (i.e. like the bonus one would have with a 2x50IO hasten on auto).
- Remove slotting for swift/jump/health/stamina and transform them to a flat bonus increasing by level

I like the idea of that first one for Hasten, but not the second for the fitness passives. Removing the necessity to select Hasten as a power means one additional pool available to builds, which can increase diversity. Removing slotting on the fitness powers (and by implication Hasten as well) would reduce diversity, impacting what those powers represent. It's a cliche example, but look what over-simplification and homogenization did to World of Warcraft: It feels soulless now.

 

Providing everyone with those benefits in some form I think is an excellent move, but re-balancing Hasten it due to it now not requiring a pool selection (thus 100% a buff to everyone), and keeping the slots across the board for all of those passives, is essential to allow people to set themselves and their builds apart. Having and being able to make those tough decisions (do I want a faster recharge or faster endurance recovery?) is the spice of life!

[CrimsonOne]

• More costumes options would always be nice.
• New powers for sure.
• More travel powers. 
• Customizable pets for Masterminds, it would be nice to be able to make them look different from all the other pets.
• Copy/paste for base building.
• Duplicate/repeat for base building

[Shoulin]

- Updated graphics for the character models

- Updated graphics for the world (if possible, big undertaking)

- I once asked about taking down the War Walls around zones to the original CoX team, and they said it was in the works.  But was never realized, this would be awesome!

- New powersets/AT combinations

- New Task Forces

- New Player Arch Nemesis that levels up with you, and has an ongoing story with you.  Somehow implement it so it is a perfect counter to your powerset/AT

- New Travel Powers

- Reworked animations for alot of the old powers

- Reworked graphics for alot of the old powers

 

I could go on, but I would just love for any new content you guys could bring us!

[Ya'dig]

If you did micro transactions it shouldn't be for p2w. Costumes, skins, vanity pets, etc. would be ideal. Just don't add "gear". I think not having gear is a major draw for this game and probably keeps those gear-hogs out of CoH hence keeping our community the way it is.

 

Other ideas:

• Better quest tracker would be awesome.
• CoH uses a "queue" system for abilities which is cool but maybe look at how SWG used theirs. Definitely promotes better macroing. Tons of information out there to check it out.
• Please do not use any of the WoW "QoL" stuff. Once they started in on that WoW became Candyland.
• Bounty system (totally stealing it from SWG) - maybe have a power set (weapons, hand-to-hand, traps, bows, melee weapons, etc.) for Villain to hunt down an actual player on Hero side. Maybe name it.... DUN DUN DUN.... Bounty Hunter! lol
  • The power set would be for non-heroes - no supes. Kinda like the Boys. lol
  • Villain picks up a bounty and has to track that player down in the world and take them out.
  • Good inf maker.
  • Promotes world PvP.
  • There's tons of ways to set up the rules but it's something I'd definitely enjoy.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Ya'dig

[cshadow133]

Lots of great suggestions.  My main one would be 'let us keep what we have.'  We spent a great amount of time building ourselves back up and more and would love to keep that.  Other ideas?

 

1) Keep what we have.

2) Update to existing stuff, be it balance, art, graphics, or what-have you.

3) Interacting with us in Dev Events would be awesome.

4) Free to Play with Micro transaction is fine and all, but not too out of control please.  Some of us wouldn't mind paying some a month for this to come back.

5) (someone else did it, but) Homecoming.  Keep that and expand.  Storyarc continuation or change up, map changes, etc.

 

Thanks!!

 

cShadow133

[Hero Star]

-I would like to see a continuation of the comics and story line. Seeing City of Heroes in a comic form really gave the game more depth. I'm sure there are plenty of artists here that would love to help.

 

-More Story Arcs. Maybe update some of the older ones to give them more flavor and personality. 

 

-More supported events of all kinds. Zone invasions(possibly create another instance that is unaffected for normal play).

 

-More superpowered NPC gang battles and maybe update NPC AI to give the environment more life.

 

-Update textures and graphics.

 

-Put more energy into marketing the game(publish articles, comic-cons, podcast interviews).

 

-Option to have your characters linked to the website and be able to view stats/info/bio, post video clips, etc.

 

-Ability for Supergroups to create a page with info/message board on the website.

[Plummtw]

Make assault bot(and other big pet) smaller especially in cave ( not blocking the doorway ).

Buff underpowered pet set

New archetype to have the pet mastery as second

 

 

[toolbear]

On 9/7/2019 at 11:55 AM, toolbear said:

In no particular order...

 

Adding to my list...

 

Fully Scriptable UI

 

Popmenus are nice, but limited. Replace the current in-game 2-D interface with a Lua scripted UI and backend API. Allow players to extend, compose, or replace these UIs with custom, user-created addons.

 

Replace Immersion-Breaking "Stores" with Something Else

 

Having NPC contacts, especially heroic/villainous contacs, offer to sell you things on the side -- while convenient -- is very immersion breaking. It's like Eagle Eye or Glacia are heroes down on their luck, reduced to trying to sell me fake Rolex watches. Or that every NPC contact is desperate to sell me some Amway rubbish or a gaudy LuLaRoe print.

 

A small improvement would be to replace "Ask about the store" with an NPC-specific, cannon-appropriate call to action.

 

Another would be to replace influence-based NPC "stores" with a resource economy; bonus this provides an alternative use for salvage. So it feels less like the person is a stand-in for a store, and more like someone who's helping me out by crafting something useful after I bring them the raw materials. Sure, some contacts would naturally be peddling something in game; those would remain influence based stores (though a better call to action would be nice).

 

An alternative way to address the convenience of having "stores" everywhere would be to redesign one of the city zones to have a market district with every origin store, Icon, Wentworth's/black-market all in the same few blocks right next to the transit. Talos Island for heroes is a great candidate as it's already accessible from Ouroboros. Perhaps this is a good use for Kallisti Warf at higher levels (if made accessible from Ouro as well).

 

The contacts who -- after getting in their good graces -- offer you enhancements, those enhancements are rarely beneficial, making it a pointless achievement. If instead they were unique or beneficial beyond what you could get otherwise, there would be a purpose to improving your reputation with certain contacts. This seems to be the original intent of the system, but it isn't successfully realized.

 

There's a spectrum between convenience and making it feel like you're doing MMO chores. The pendulum has swung too far to the convenience side. It's eliminated a worthwhile activity I could be doing in the game.

 

Gangs and other immersion breaking mobs

 

The random clusters of mobs in the streets of a city filled with heroes feels ridiculous to me. It's one part West Side Story, one part absurdist dystopia. While it's fun to imagine the residents of Peregrine Island have become so accustomed to weird shit happening all the time, that they just blissfully walk down the street past clusters of Nemsis or Rikti just chilling in a parking lot, it just feels silly and immersion breaking when you stop to think. With some good writing this could work for Peregrine, but almost all the zones from Atlas Park onward suffer from this. Even the zones intended to be overrun by mobs it feels silly with factions haphazardly thrown on the map with no particular in-game reason to be where they are or even in that zone.

 

There has to be a better way to satisfying the competing needs of having mobs to farm/street-sweep, not having to travel too far out of one's way, and preserving immersion. Successful, well maintained parts of a city zone wouldn't have random thugs in it. Neglected and industrial maybe so. Areas overrun with baddies that are barely kept at bay, yes. There should be a logical transition from one type of area to another.

 

Part of the problem is the linear, flat feel of most city zones. With WoW, Blizzard designers make excellent use of vertical terrain to create horizons where transitions from safe zones to combat zones make sense in the game world. The world of CoH needs to be less Manhattan and more San Francisco in terms of its terrain. Drop the war walls, eliminate loading screens, shrink some zones, and leverage terrain variations to make the transition from bustling city to thug infested backwoods make sense.

 

The parking structure under the PPD HQ in Kings Row is overrun with Skulls. The parking lot would a) be filled with police vehicles (it isn't) and b) have cops coming and going so frequently that crime would almost never happen. This lack of intentional design is a recurring theme throughout the game.

 

Add Undo to Enhancement Management

 

Until I leave the enhancement management screen, there's no reason anything I do -- from filling a slot, deleting an enhancement, to combining -- should be a permanent decision until I commit my changes by "Saving" or "Committing" and leaving the management UI. The "are you sure" dialog boxes aren't the solution; everyone immediately checks the box to make them go away. Confirmation dialogs are always a sign of failed UX; usually an indicator that you didn't implement some form of undo.

 

On a similar front, irreversible operations like attuning a +N enhancement are terrible traps that frustrate and cost the player significant amounts of influence and time. Undo as I described would do a lot to solve this.

 

Flight Poses & Travel Power Improvements

 

Fly poses should either be a sticky configuration instead of emotes, or the fly emote system needs a rework. You can search google/reddit for the kludges players are required to use in order to have a custom fly pose.

 

As mentioned in other posts, whether it's through a pose system or by making travel special effects more customizable, there should be more options: fly upright, on a hover board, in a personal chopper, running on a magical tiled walkway that appears in front of every footstep, etc.. I don't want my arcane themed character flying around like superman (and the purchasable flying carpet cannot be boosted and turns off toggles).

 

Minimal FX Option for Everything

 

Outside of PvP I should be able to disable effects on almost every power, certainly every toggle and travel power.

 

Color Options for Everything

 

Most powers allow you to choose Bright/Dark color palettes as an option. Those which don't, should. Those which do, but ignore one or both of primary/secondary color should be made to honor them.

 

Lethal Falling Damage

 

Lethal falling damage for NPCs/mobs. If I'm fighting a super, they should take damage. If I just launched a prisoner off of the Zig, they should be dead/incapped.

 

This should be true for some heroes, too. Maybe certain secondaries make you immune (e.g. Invul, Super Jump), but it's appropriate even in comic books for falls to be lethal or take a hero out (War Machine's fall in Civil War, for instance). If you cannot fly/hover before landing from a high enough fall, this should take you out.

Edited September 9, 2019 by toolbear

[Sauran]

Most of what I would like to see has already been posted above many times over (more content, no worry that game is going disappear again etc). A lot of people have asked for upgraded graphics and while that would be nice I think that may just take too much resources from the HC team at the expense of other stuff. Besides I very much like the current look of the game and some of us still play on the same PC from back in Live/beta 🙂

[Gan82]

I would love to join a faction, like a villain maybe join the skulls/freakshow/carnies, or a hero join longbow and have missions along those lines, working up the ranks, or betraying the faction. Might be difficult to pull off though, just always been fascinated by the thought.

[golstat2003]

New Incarnate abilities and trials.

New powersets.

New Epic ATs that take on some of the iconic groups like a Freakshow Epic AT, or Circle of Thorns, or Council, or PPD. 🙂

Finish up the parts of the game the devs couldn't when the game was taken away from them. 😞

[toolbear]

14 minutes ago, Sauran said:

Most of what I would like to see has already been posted above many times over (more content, no worry that game is going disappear again etc). A lot of people have asked for upgraded graphics and while that would be nice I think that may just take too much resources from the HC team at the expense of other stuff. Besides I very much like the current look of the game and some of us still play on the same PC from back in Live/beta 🙂

 

But even more recently created content by the original CoH team had better graphics. And they were in the process of redoing older zones. So your PC should be able to handle at least that level of refresh.

 

14 minutes ago, Sauran said:

may just take too much resources from the HC team at the expense of other stuff

 

While maybe true, we don't know what their aspirations are long term. Either way, it's really for the HC team to decide and prioritize based on player feedback, their own capabilities, and likely their own interest (especially if it remains a volunteer/non-profit arrangement).

 

---

 

That said, I think what you wrote was realistic. I've tried to include a mix of complexity/difficulty in my list of suggestions. My biggest asks are probably modern graphics and Lua scriptable UI. But I included things that are just changes to NPC conversation text as well. And even a pretty big ask (fixing claustrophobic maps); a map retrofit is somewhat easier than creating a new map out of whole cloth.

Edited September 9, 2019 by toolbear

[Zenex]

I want to see more incarnate content and the powers we never got to see!

[DoctorProteus]

I would also like to add a revamp of Villain/Red side. There must be a reason/s why Villain/Red side isn't as popular as Hero/Blue side. Particularly, I suspect it is because of how filthy and desolate it is. Most of the Rogue Isles is either literally burning rubble or covered in trash. The Rogue Isles should have been Gotham City to the Heroes Metropolis. So I suggest an overhaul over the visuals and physical content of the Rogue Isles, including cleaning up a lot of the mess, replacing most of the literal rubble with actual buildings with gothic architecture and in particular, make Grandville less hazardous. Grandville is just too damn hostile, and as always, filled with rubble, garbage and sewage water covering what little actual streets exist. Lord recluse is very bad at running cities. Might also want to remove all the unnecessary bits scattered around Grandville which make is more taxing on systems than other zones.

[ed fray]

 

SERVER STABILITY!  Without it you'll have a City of Ghosts.

 

 

[ColdSpark]

What would I like to see?

 

You guys recognised (by official powers) for the amazing job you’ve done bringing our game, and our community, back from the grave. 

 

It’d be good to avoid a server wipe, but aside from that anything new is good but what we have is amazing. 

 

Thank you!

[PaxArcana]

22 minutes ago, ed fray said:

SERVER STABILITY!  Without it you'll have a City of Ghosts.

... you say that, as if we didn't already have it ...