issue 26 Patch Notes for September 10th, 2019

[jubakumbi]

1 hour ago, GM Capocollo said:

Additional quality-of-life changes will be accompanying the removal of the command.

But that will not stop many people from finding the absolute worst way to interpret each announcement, sure that the HC team hates fun and the game...

I mean, after all, HC gets to be the 'bad guy' now for 'ruining' the game, right? 😉

 

[Ironblade]

18 hours ago, QuiJon said:

But hamidon now is one of the best reward/time investment in the game for the merits.

Which is why the change was absolutely required.  It was either reinstate the zone cap or nerf the hell out of the reward.

 

The target reward metric, if I recall correctly, is 1 merit per 3-1/2 minutes of effort - based on average performance.  So a super-team can blaze through an ITF in 10 minutes while an average team takes....  whatever, an hour?  This is why the Dr Q task force rewards like 120 merits.  On average, it's a tedious slog.

[Profit]

19 hours ago, QuiJon said:

But hamidon now is one of the best reward/time investment in the game for the merits.

Hamidon has always been the best reward/time investment. It's a 20 min raid for 80 merits. I'm sorry for you people that like the 1 minute raid for 80 merits with no chance of failure, but that was wrong. It was amazing to zerg the first night to see it done with that many people. But it was wrong. Just wrong. My advice to you is to learn the raid, learn the strategy that's as old as most of you, and participate. On Justice, when we were firing on all cylinders and everyone was on their game, we could do Hami in 10 minutes. With the strategy. 10 minutes for 80 merits. And once you've learned the strategy, see if it can be improved, who knows might be able to get down to a 5 minute raid if you put your heads to it.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 9/10/2019 at 11:57 AM, ILIWAPCT said:

9/10 Patch Issue: Steam Controller

Steam Controller not fully Recognized when running

Homecoming/ Homecoming (64-Bit)

Steam Controller was fully recognized prior to 8/22, 8/23, 8/27, 9/10 Patch

 

Currently

Homecoming (Safe Mode)

fully recognized the Steam Controller.

I would totally play a Steam/Thermal controller.

[Squid Vicious]

2 hours ago, GM Capocollo said:

 

This has already been acknowledged and announced.  It's not a secret that we're planning on reverting this.

I never said it was.   I just predicted it was next.   😘

[Squid Vicious]

2 hours ago, GM Capocollo said:

Additional quality-of-life changes will be accompanying the removal of the command.

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”  🥄

[Crowe]

2 hours ago, GM Capocollo said:

Additional quality-of-life changes will be accompanying the removal of the command.

Good. I don't PvP so I haven't seen any downsides to using it thus far.   I thought that the base/transport thing was the single coolest improvement to the game since re-launch.  I could even use it on un-guilded alts as long as I had a legit base code.

[Yomo Kimyata]

My thoughts on the zones reverting to their old size:

 

It seems to me that people do things for two primary reasons in this game:

1.  for the experience

2.  for the rewards

 

Although there is some merit to the argument that the Mothership raids and the Hami raids are a great social experience, let's be honest here and acknowledge that the reason these are so popular is because the reward in terms of merits/minute is substantially higher than any alternatives.  Like many multiples higher.  It is human nature to want the greatest reward for the least effort, and the "new" Hami raids were exactly that because of a bug which increased the zone size.

 

If the devs want to encourage people to do other content, then it is well within their rights to adjust things in order to do so.  One way would be to cut the merit reward on Hami raids; another would be to increase the reward on everything else.  And people would complain about that too.

 

Everyone seems to want an "I win" button.  Heck, why not have a counter that gives you one merit for every ten minutes you are logged in and a purple recipe for every boss you kill?

 

[QuiJon]

3 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Which is why the change was absolutely required.  It was either reinstate the zone cap or nerf the hell out of the reward.

 

The target reward metric, if I recall correctly, is 1 merit per 3-1/2 minutes of effort - based on average performance.  So a super-team can blaze through an ITF in 10 minutes while an average team takes....  whatever, an hour?  This is why the Dr Q task force rewards like 120 merits.  On average, it's a tedious slog.

First of all Hamidon didn't meat that target reward metric to begin with. Secondly if that is the metric then lets really use it, get in a TF and lets say you want a ITF worth 42 merits cap, but your team blows through it in 15 minutes, well you get 5 merits for your time investment. Does that sound fair? I am not saying that changing the reward might not have been needed. I mentioned back in one post maybe about making initial take down like 60 merits and then half to 30 etc. They changed the reward merits earned off the MSR a while back and it kind of pissed people off but we still raid the ship. And lets be honest there is absolutely NO chance of failing a MSR or most normal TFs either. So this idea of "with that many people winning is a given" is BS. I think I have been on 1 TF that could not finish since the game came back and that was because we started with only 6 members and then lost 3 of them due to internet outages during the TF and couldn't do the last AV on ITF with the 3 left. That is 1 out of hundreds of TFs I have run since last april. 

Again my issue with the change is not the rate of reward, though that was nice. My issue is that I am not 22 anymore. I can not game 5 hours a day anymore. Having nightly raids that I could attend was a viable means to earn a reward every night in a time frame that I knew I had available to me. The higher zone caps meant more people can attend, which means I don't get locked out of content in the game because I don't have the ability to be in game and then just camp in a zone for 60 minutes to get a reward. That is it, That is my complaint. This "fix" could have gone many other ways. Toughen Hami, lower rewards, change the mechanism of defeat so force fighting instead of zergs. but they slapped on a change that has the most chance to be a pure negative impact on many players that just wanted to be able to take part. 

[QuiJon]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

My thoughts on the zones reverting to their old size:

 

It seems to me that people do things for two primary reasons in this game:

1.  for the experience

2.  for the rewards

 

Although there is some merit to the argument that the Mothership raids and the Hami raids are a great social experience, let's be honest here and acknowledge that the reason these are so popular is because the reward in terms of merits/minute is substantially higher than any alternatives.  Like many multiples higher.  It is human nature to want the greatest reward for the least effort, and the "new" Hami raids were exactly that because of a bug which increased the zone size.

Quote

I wont argue that those are two reasons. However some time back they almost halfed the rewards you got from a MSR by increasing the exchange rate to turn Vmerits into normal merits, and the desire to raid in the MSR didn't seem to go down. You earn about 35-40 merits in the MSR for a 45-60 minutes commitment of time which is pretty much comparable to a normal Task Force and people still came out to raid it. It is fun because you get a big group of people and see people you might otherwise not meet on the server. And yes because you are rewarded. 

 

If the devs want to encourage people to do other content, then it is well within their rights to adjust things in order to do so.  One way would be to cut the merit reward on Hami raids; another would be to increase the reward on everything else.  And people would complain about that too.

Quote

Who isn't doing other content? On excelsior the raids were commong 3 take downs per night (enough  you can take one of each reward option) and ran normally from 7-8pm (west coast time) that is hardly monopolizing the time of players from taking part in other content. 

 

Everyone seems to want an "I win" button.  Heck, why not have a counter that gives you one merit for every ten minutes you are logged in and a purple recipe for every boss you kill?

Quote

There is a big difference between wanting an "Win" button and wanting a game that can reflect that its core user base is no longer 20 something college kids and have lives and obligations outside of a game now. And reflect being able to make character gains in a time reflective of this new dynamic. What I don't get is where is all this "I win" complaints when it comes to other stuff. Why is this just about Hami Raids? All the same people complaining about merit from hami I am willing to bet are still buying double xp boosters, are still using AE to farm up new alts, are still joining teams that are 20+ levels above them and soaking in xp at levels they couldn't naturally obtain. They are still playing the market to earn billions of influence on top of the billions they have. I mean lets get real why is none of that "game breaking" or an "I win" button? Oh because it fits with those people sensibilities of what the "right" way to play the game is. And that is really what this change comes down to. If it was really about being to easy, and servers and players doing 10-20 raids at a time you could simply cap the rewards per day from it by character or account and be done with it. Oops you ran it three time now you can not get reward from it for 20 hours again. Problem solved isn't it? But no a cap just takes away the fun of a large group event and punishes players that can not make it into a zone to take part to solve the same problems.

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

First of all, it has been repeatedly stated that a cap over 50 was a bug and that they were fixing an error.  Now, they could have just let that error slide, except that hami raids became a way to make several hundred merits an hour.  Which was several times as profitable as that of the next alternative.  I absolutely understand why the devs chose to remedy their error, if for nothing else, for the sake of game balance.

 

Secondly, I'm sorry that this change so strongly adversely affects your ability to enjoy the game.  I really am.  Personally, I don't have the time or the schedule to earn lots and lots of merits, so I figured out other ways to enjoy my playing experience.  I hope that you are able to find other ways to enjoy your experience.

 

Thirdly, if you look, there are complaints about the "I win" nature of CoH on HC all over the place.  It's an easy game that was specifically made easier on Homecoming for exactly the reasons you state -- people want an enjoyable experience for as little effort as possible.  People should feel free to exploit bugs, but shouldn't complain when those bugs are fixed.  For that matter, people shouldn't complain when the devs do anything to change the game.  It's their server, I'm just choosing to play on it.

[swordchucks]

3 hours ago, Crowe said:

Good. I don't PvP so I haven't seen any downsides to using it thus far.

There is nothing PVE players loathe more than having their stuff taken away because it's unbalanced in PVP.  I'm glad to see some QoL improvements (which I hope to mean Base Teleporters that are worth using with more Oro Portal-like mechanics and CDs). 

 

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

the reason these are so popular is because the reward in terms of merits/minute is substantially higher than any alternatives. 

I won't argue on Hami because you are right.  Hami was out of line for the time commitment and difficulty (being honest, it is still out of line for time commitment per merit - it just requires more effort now).

 

However... what were the rewards from MSR with 200 people?  I never ran one quite that big (though I think there were a few I ran with a second overflow partially filled - so maybe 120 people).  Was it really that high?  I recall an average run turning up ~40 merits plus what you get off the drop ship.  I never paid that much attention, though, so does anyone have solid numbers on the rewards before and after the change?

 

I've had a real journey with this issue (a good bit of it chronicled here in past posts), and I want to reiterate that not everyone has the same experiences and sees the same things in the same ways.  I feel like Homecoming is slowly transitioning from a game which had a fairly homogeneous player base (mostly hardcore CoH fans) to a more diverse player base (those same hardcore fans, but also folks that were more casual fans or are even completely new to the game).  The zone cap removal was accidental (or, at least, it wasn't discussed with the whole dev team), yes, but there are a bunch of people playing now that didn't play it with the cap.  That perspective has to be taken into account.

[Abraxus]

I feel fairly sure they try to take in all perspectives, but in the end, they know that any change (with the exception of QoL changes) are going to be met with a certain segment of the player-base who don't like it.  If the push back/outcry is significant enough, perhaps some compromise can be reached.  But, things are done for a reason, and contrary to popular belief (especially those who don't like a change), they don't do it just to see how mad they can make people, or screw-up their enjoyment of the game.  We just aren't privy to all of the reasoning, and discussions that go into changes/bug-fixes.  So, while folks accuse them of not taking their perspective into account, remember they have a perspective too, and it's one that would be difficult to explain in most cases, because of the complexities of coding for, and trying to run a 15 year old game.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Abraxus

[QuiJon]

25 minutes ago, Abraxus said:

I feel fairly sure they try to take in all perspectives, but in the end, they know that any change (with the exception of QoL changes) are going to be met with a certain segment of the player-base who don't like it.  If the push back/outcry is significant enough, perhaps some compromise can be reached.  But, things are done for a reason, and contrary to popular belief (especially those who don't like a change), they don't do it just to see how mad they can make people, or screw-up their enjoyment of the game.  We just aren't privy to all of the reasoning, and discussions that go into changes/bug-fixes.  So, while folks accuse them of not taking their perspective into account, remember they have a perspective too, and it's one that would be difficult to explain in most cases, because of the complexities of coding for, and trying to run a 15 year old game.

I understand that not every change will be popular or without push back, but the zone cap changes were stealthed. You can argue that it was  fix all you want, but these patches exist on a test server for months sometimes before they get pushed live. How long was there discussion on the "perma-fast snipe" changes before that finally got a finalized version of the change? And frankly a lot of that discussion that was able to take place shapped how those changes got implemented thereby helping to make a end result that was less a problem for people. 

But when you just drop in a change that was never even announced, and frankly was never said to have been  a "mistake" or unintended change  to begin with, and then "fix" it without any discussion then yeah I think they deserve some blow back for not thinking how this impacts their players. just in this thread alone, in 2-3 days when people get beyond just wanting to insult people by calling them names or accusing them of wanting win buttons, there have been 3-4 if not more SOLID suggestions on how this issue could have been remedied with less impact to players. Think about what might have come about if we had the same length discussion as there was about insta snipes since this was evidently broken back that far also. 

[Pheonyx]

On 9/10/2019 at 10:36 AM, Uun said:

Hey now, my friend wrote the Sharknado movies (well, the first four)!

Really? That's cool, actually.

 

While I may joke around about those movies, they are still fun little movies to watch.

[jubakumbi]

47 minutes ago, QuiJon said:

I understand that not every change will be popular or without push back, but the zone cap changes were stealthed. You can argue that it was  fix all you want, but these patches exist on a test server for months sometimes before they get pushed live. How long was there discussion on the "perma-fast snipe" changes before that finally got a finalized version of the change? And frankly a lot of that discussion that was able to take place shapped how those changes got implemented thereby helping to make a end result that was less a problem for people. 

But when you just drop in a change that was never even announced, and frankly was never said to have been  a "mistake" or unintended change  to begin with, and then "fix" it without any discussion then yeah I think they deserve some blow back for not thinking how this impacts their players. just in this thread alone, in 2-3 days when people get beyond just wanting to insult people by calling them names or accusing them of wanting win buttons, there have been 3-4 if not more SOLID suggestions on how this issue could have been remedied with less impact to players. Think about what might have come about if we had the same length discussion as there was about insta snipes since this was evidently broken back that far also. 

What do expect from a group of voluteers?

Seriously.

They are just fellow volunteer gamers, trying to make things work, not a full QA-backed, AGILE-following, development house.

 

So, frankly, you should perhaps take a breath, maybe get some fresh air.

 

It's a game run by volunteers who did not, in fact, make changes just to piss you off.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, QuiJon said:

I understand that not every change will be popular or without push back, but the zone cap changes were stealthed. You can argue that it was  fix all you want, but these patches exist on a test server for months sometimes before they get pushed live. How long was there discussion on the "perma-fast snipe" changes before that finally got a finalized version of the change?

Apples and the thing least like apples you can imagine.  This wasn't a change - it was a bug fix.  It was correcting a mistake made months ago.  

There was no need to consult the community or have a lenghty discussion.

Give it a rest.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, swordchucks said:

 

However... what were the rewards from MSR with 200 people?  I never ran one quite that big (though I think there were a few I ran with a second overflow partially filled - so maybe 120 people).  Was it really that high?  I recall an average run turning up ~40 merits plus what you get off the drop ship.  I never paid that much attention, though, so does anyone have solid numbers on the rewards before and after the change?

 

I mentioned the MSR mainly because before the devs adjusted/nerfed the Vmerit/merit conversion rate from 10:1 to 30:1, there was a similar disproportional reward.  I don't remember if that was before or after the cap limits were lifted.

 

I suspect that fixing the cap limit for the RWZ was more about keeping the limit for all raid zones consistent rather than specifically trying to make the MSR less profitable.  

 

I hear the argument for lifting the limit on the RWZ because there is a lot of other content, but I imagine (I don't know for sure) that other instances would be spawned pretty quickly.  If you can only get 20-30 into RWZ before it fills, then dogpile into RWZ 2.  I can see how this could be inconvenient though.  If you are running missions or TFs in RWZ, then it doesn't matter which instance you get in, and I think that if RWZ is full it will automatically spawn a RWZ 2, right?  

[Doc_Scorpion]

52 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I hear the argument for lifting the limit on the RWZ because there is a lot of other content, but I imagine (I don't know for sure) that other instances would be spawned pretty quickly.  If you can only get 20-30 into RWZ before it fills, then dogpile into RWZ 2.  I can see how this could be inconvenient though.  If you are running missions or TFs in RWZ, then it doesn't matter which instance you get in, and I think that if RWZ is full it will automatically spawn a RWZ 2, right?  

They're trialing converting the Mothership raid into an instanced trail - taking away the problem of RWZ population caps entirely.
 

 

[HeroReborn]

9 hours ago, Korbian said:

@HeroReborn Go into Options>Windows, and provided you patched up correctly, the very top option should be "Automatic UI Scale".  Disable it and you might be good to go.  It may need tweaking still.  There's a thread in the help section you can refer to:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/10074-ui-problems-i-think/

 

Thanks for advice, but disabling didn't seem to do anything to the issues.

[macskull]

4 hours ago, swordchucks said:

There is nothing PVE players loathe more than having their stuff taken away because it's unbalanced in PVP

It's a good thing that this has never once happened in this game. (No sarcasm there, it literally hasn't.)

[QuiJon]

2 hours ago, Derekl1963 said:

Apples and the thing least like apples you can imagine.  This wasn't a change - it was a bug fix.  It was correcting a mistake made months ago.  

There was no need to consult the community or have a lenghty discussion.

Give it a rest.

Sorry but I refuse to say that something is a bug fix simply because it is different then it was on live. I would get it if say like the base portal slash command is a bug. They have said it was, and said in the future it will be rectified. But there has been no cap on the zones for atleast 4-5 months and not one mention that it was not intentional or would be fixed at some point. I don't think it is asking a lot that when they do see it as being a problem to consult or start a discussion on what the problem is, and how it could be fixed before just making a blanket change and calling it a fix. May things on Homecoming operate differently then they did on live. Yet changing those things would not be considered a fix any more then this is. The game came back in april and by may when many people were getting their first level 50s the zones were already uncapped. When more time has been spent on the servers with no cap then with a cap, with no mention it was broken and would be fixed at a later date, that is no longer a fix.

 

And if you want me to "give it a rest" then stop responding to me and I will stop responding to you. At this point I am only responding to people that directly reference my posts. 

[Abraxus]

Perhaps we can agree that changes were made during the SCORE years to accommodate a much lower player population, from which these servers were derived.  Perhaps we can further agree that in a higher population environment, some thought was given to how to roll some of those back to the way things originally were, because leaving them the way they had been modified was having predictably unfavorable consequences.  I am not on the team, and I don't have any insight into the conversations that took place for any of these changes.  But, extrapolation from what I have learned of these situations over the past few months tells me that is as feasible a theory as any other. 

 

Perhaps further discussion, where empirical data is accumulated, and provided in the correct threads to make the case for a degree of compromise, who knows what can happen?  But, simply expressing dissatisfaction probably won't accomplish much more than finding some folks that agree, and some that disagree, and some that don't care, because they don't do Hami raids, which won't change anything.  🙂

Edited September 13, 2019 by Abraxus

[swordchucks]

16 hours ago, QuiJon said:

I understand that not every change will be popular or without push back, but the zone cap changes were stealthed.

I think that there are some fundamental shifts that have happened since the game came back (and are still ongoing) that are at play here.  From the hardcore live-player perspective, this is just a bug and a simple fix.  No problem there.  From the new player (or "never did this content before" player) that only started doing the content after the cap raised, it doesn't feel that way at all.  Having lived with it this week, I'm in agreement that it was absolutely the best short-term fix for Hami.  A 50 player cap on RWZ, however, is a pain in the butt.  Especially with the folks for the weekly TF zoning in and out all the time (and all it takes to mess up RWZ2 is one group zoning in to the wrong version at the wrong time).

 

Even with the proposed creation of an MSR Trial, I feel like we're losing something by taking out the large-scale activity that you could do with 100 other people.  That's where my main complaint lies.  Half the point of the MSR was the social activities that were going on in the chat while the bowl fight was going on.  Everlasting had some great themed MSRs and I often ran MSR just because I knew it'd be another episode of Pep Talk.  The 50 cap seems to have deflated that and a Trial version won't do anything to help.

 

15 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I suspect that fixing the cap limit for the RWZ was more about keeping the limit for all raid zones consistent rather than specifically trying to make the MSR less profitable.  

MSR doesn't seem to be any less profitable now, though maybe the profit isn't as consistent as it once was.  The cap was set back to 50 because that's what it was before.  I don't think any other real thought went into that number since it wasn't an intentional change to make it 200. 

 

14 hours ago, Derekl1963 said:

taking away the problem of RWZ population caps entirely.

It takes away the specific annoyance of having to jump zones repeatedly trying to fit your whole league into one.  It doesn't otherwise change anything with regards to population.

 

13 hours ago, macskull said:

It's a good thing that this has never once happened in this game. (No sarcasm there, it literally hasn't.)

Mind blown.

 

To be fair, the base port thing is a bug, in general, and the only reason PVP enters the conversation is because that's the best argument for fixing it.  If the QoL changes are good, then I'll have no complaints.  One reason I only fiddled with Classic WoW for five levels is that I strongly believe that travel time shouldn't substitute for content. 

[TheAdjustor]

On 9/10/2019 at 1:33 PM, Lazarillo said:

So, legitimate question here, if HC sees all this feedback decides "okay, we need to open up the Hive/Abyss to let erryone in" but also, say, triples the HP on all the Mitos and Hammy increases their target caps, debuff/control resistance, etc.  Would you be cool with that?

Probably less than triple but double with more serious diminishing returns sounds about right.