MPSCAPPY

Try doing a search without filter or search criteria, the list is truncated scroll down and see the actual number. For a long time on Triumph for example, it showed between 900 and 1300 players. Same on freedom. this was the regular amount at any given prime time during the week. It's not anymore. This past week end for example on freedom it was around 500 at prime times.

Well I can see that when you guys get challenged with the facts by someone you resort to name calling and cussing. Kinda sounds like whats happening in our government right now.

Simple, population is down period.
Will it get better? I don't know.
Did crazy farming affect the population? Yes
Weather you acknowledge it or not doesn't change the facts.
Cussing and calling people names won't change it either.
Your emotions on the subject are irrelevant. It is what it is.

BBQ_Pork makes a potentially valid point in server capacity. This would assume that the capacity has been upgraded.

However, I don't point to an anecdotal single event This has been an ongoing trend, nor do I believe that the "Company" is going to tell everyone that they are loosing players. Supposing that you believe you have legitimate information. They are in business to make money.

Again this is not something that you could just easily miss.
The servers are and have been way down in population and if your saying they are not you just lying.
(And for the record I have also had characters on the triumph server for more than 4 years). And compared to what it once was and especially now the population is down substantially.

Look I have really enjoyed city of Hero's but the facts are plain.

I have a number of my own die hard coh player friends. (who still play everyday) They didn't miss this ongoing event. It didn't get pass them that the number of players is way down. It's not my imagination.

And for Panzerwaffen: Gee ya think peoples are just posting "Server empty" to mess with you? No they are posting it because this because it is true.

For Mylia: Of course the dev's have said everything is great, right along with you. Its Propoganda. They are not going to say anything contrary. Duh...

Samuel,

1 . Your own statement about the streets being empty does NOT suggest that everyone is in a mission, this is because at any given time there will always be a proportional number of people both in missions and not in missions.

2. Yes the Severs are Clearly way below Any previous levels. (and have been Declining) If you don't see that then your are either lying or your head is so far buried in these forums and/or your own little world that you have become oblivious to the FACT! Or perhaps you just refuse to acknowledge it. You may wish to investigate the big shift of peoples that transferred their Characters to more populated servers because the once flourishing servers they were on had become barren. At Some Point even most of those die hard folks decided they were done.

3. Maybe you missed the piles of peoples lined up in Atlas trying to power level up when Mission Architect came out. Until pretty much everyone had there fill. Yes the Developers have augmented Farming for everyone to a point of self destruction. Heck Even the EXP is like quadrupled for M.A.. ( This is a real easy test to confirm, Kill an MA made boss in a an MA mission then go kill an equal boss from a regular mission.) and what the heck lets make it so there's an auto sk so now 6 or 7 people can be powered leveled now instead of 3. And lets put it in atlas so every level 1 can get walk right in. and by the way lets allow players to turn off exp so they can perma sk.
I'M sorry but for some reason the dev's gave in to the farming. I repeat, I certainly believe that farming is and can be an enjoyable part of the Game. But it is so far out of control there is no longer a good balance in the game. And THAT HAS had a major impact on the size of the and welfare of the "Community".

4. As you are a die hard COH player I can appreciate your own committed quest to go through each and every mission on the game with each and every build. You probably make teams and get on them just as quickly.
However, the point you seem to be missing is that there lots of folks who don't necessarily want to take on the burden of making and running 8 man teams. They just like to play. Even YOU would have to admit even in the best of times keeping a full 8 man team as team leader was a lot of work. In addition when there are so many fewer teams and players the tendency of teams and team leaders is to be far less friendly to those who are not as expert in playing the game as YOU. The Large Variety of peoples who use to be on made it easy to find a team that suited each individual.

5.The "COMMUNITY" was Largely made up of people who are NOT Like you.
If you look at the original post that YOU responded to, THAT WAS THE POINT!!

6. It sounds to me from your comments that everyone has to play and enjoy the game YOUR way or not at all.

Regards
Cappy

Even Though I admit that i haven't read every line here in every post, in advance i apologize to those who this post does not apply. With that said.......

I think you all have pretty much missed the reason for not leveling too fast.

The entire reason that game makers DON'T make leveling too fast is because once you've gone though and conquered everything there is no reason to hang around.

At this time I think the evidence is quite clear. The Servers are virtually empty.

As time has passed over the last 5 years and "Farming" has become slicker faster and easier to do, the population has decreased correspondingly.

I am amazed that the developers and number crunchers haven't seen or perhaps correctly understood this trend.

The one item I believe that made this game have a long term attractiveness to it for many different folks is the ease with which "team play" is made. The game encouraged team work, the game made it easy to find the appropriate team members for YOUR team and there a high number of missions and prizes that were for geared team play.
On COH and COV there are/were a good variety of individuals who had different agendas in mind as they logged on to play, Such as getting to the next level or exploring a story Arc or doing a Hami raid and may other things. The one thing that was needed and enjoyed was accomplishing these on a team. As a matter of fact if you are a person who wants to level quickly, being on a team doing just about any thing is/was the fastest way to level.
Other than "Farming".

I believe that "Farming" was certainly a part of the game that would be/ Could be enjoyed. However I believe that farming should be (or should have been in this case) held in check. However at every turn the wrong choices were made. I understand that keeping a game of this size balanced is at best difficult.

I can only guess that the forum junkies had the ultimate influence over the Dev's. (The squeaky wheel got the grease but when the Motor ran out of oil and the engine seized up... no one noticed).

With that statement I make this comment. The bread and butter of Coh and Cov was the average guy or gal who went to work and came home to spend some time having a little fun. They did not spend their time on the forums combing through thousands of posts or even really care. My bet is that more of those people had ongoing paying accounts than any other group. I believe that the Dev's felt that making the game "COOLER" would offset that farming disparity.

The Basic Psychology of the original success of COV and COV is Simple. The Comradery that develops while combating or conquering an enemy and the satisfaction and joy that occurs (as a team) is unequaled by any other form. Certainly the original "TEAM" that worked together to develop and deploy City if Hero's experienced the very type of satisfaction that the players of the game did that made it successful in the first place.

I personally know at least 10-12 people that were regulars on cov and coh who have stopped playing for the very lack of being able to make or join a team and go have fun.

I Never Had anyone Say to me .. ( I Quit playing because I couldn't power level my Character)

I personally enjoyed the idea of rounding up a bunch of baddies as a "tank" But not at the expense of conquering the game so fast that i was bored.

I am not sure that COH or COV will ever enjoy its previous success. I am certain however that the game will not flourish as long as the ability to make level 50 in a few days when ever one feels like it.

Last Comments: I have enjoyed every team and have enjoyed making missions in the Mission architect.
Unfortunately leveling has become so easy for the most part that folks will quit a team if they die even 1 time because they know they can level faster.

Cappy Out

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The majority of these crashes are a frozen "loading" screen, in which the loading bar fills about 1 inch and stays there indefinitely.

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I have seen enough crashes lately to know that what your fellow team mates see is that you simply disappear the moment (from your prospective) you go into the frozen screen.
I don't know how many times I've seen 2-5 people just go Poof gone the moment they clicked to enter the M.A. mission.

And when it happens like that, it always after adding a new player to the team. In between missions. Now if you add a player during the mission there's about a 75% chance that they can't get on the same map as you.
Or if you just have a player that enters after you've begun to do battle. Again, good chance they will be on a different map.

I think what's happened is that the dev's have taken Task force "code" parameters and merged it with Mission "code" parameters and there are some kind of "if/then" code statements that conflict. In other words they left some crumbs laying around and they are going to have to go find and delete or change them.

Considering that there are thousands of lines of code I'm betting that there are probably quite a few of these "crumbs" laying around they're going to have to clean up.

I hope it becomes more like missions instead of task force's because anytime someone takes the time to really make a decent story its going to take 1-3 hours to complete.

With that said, when your doing just regular missions you have recruit new players almost every time at the end of each mission.
It's worse now because people are so worried about getting "fast Exp" that the "polite players" can't barely wait for the mission to be over so they can go try to get on a farm team.

A lot of these kind of players will quit after 2 or 3 mobs.

when I'm the team leader I make a big deal about what we are doing before we start and more often get through 2 missions before someone drops. But when they do leave the team that's when the trouble starts. Its doesn't matter whether they quit or just log off it's going to be computer crash time if you add new team mates on these M.A. Missions.

People are complaining in game alll the time about it.

Farms on the other hand are only one mission long. so someone drops they finish the map then it gets reset. no problems. Some farms have a single glowie for mission complete in case there are to many people leaving or if there is some kind of problem. Just ckick on the glowie and its reset.

well that's all i guess I'm really frustrated that that we can't enjoy making and doing new interesting stories.

The Bug crashes have nothing to do with system make up. Those who crashed regularly before know who they are. I certainly have no objection to trying to help them. However, the adding and subtracting of players to a team has been a problem for AE since its beggining. players going to different maps, team crashes when adding a player and so on. this game like others does have minimum system requirements but... these are crashes revolving strictly around the mission architech patch. hundreds or thousands of players who never had any real problems before are now having problems with MA stories.

I don't have any crash issues to any regular missions or tf's.

If it is preformance related (since the MA patch)then the game has evolved beyond reasonable expectations.

Especially since my computer is within the published minimum game requirements. ( actually more )

Folks this is a programming issue.

With all the anger about farms. this bug is important to fix

I am desperatly trying to do ae stoy arcs. But like in everyday missions people come and go. the biggest and most violent crashes occur when you add a team member.

If the story arc is more than 1 map its trouble!

Guys if you can't finish a story because half or more of your team drops when you add a member. there's nothing left but farms.

Ya I know you can do missions etc etc. doesn't stop 90% or more of the people that won't. In the hopes they will get on a farm. its is absolutely faster exp than regular missions.


PLEASE fix this!!

Cappy

WOW Emp/Psi that sounds fun

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Sooo like an epic meter?

You deal enough damage or take enough or affect enough people with your powers after a certain amount? And you can only use the power every hour or so would seem fair. The epic meter sounds good to me, we could make it an insane amount say like this...

Blasters: 1000 damage dealt per level.
Tankers: 1000 damage resisted/deflected per level.
Defenders: 500 uses of powers per level.
Controllers: Immobilize, hold, confuse, disorient, sleep, or slow villains for 1 hour combined per level.
Scrappers: 1500 damage dealt and taken/deflected per level.
Kheldians: Epic meter fills after 10 successful missions in a row.

Deflecting/dodging = 50 points per level.
lvl 1: 50
lvl 2: 100
lvl 25: 1250
lvl 50: 2500

This is just a rough sketch of what I had in mind when I heard about some bar or meter involved. I don't know how well this will work but feedback on this idea will be appreciated.

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This might be a good direction except that the power sets are Highly irregular in end result. There are clearly "preferred power sets" And for good reason. For example there are like a Gazillion Fire Kins and almost no Bubblers If there was a good balance in power sets and archetypes it might work.

I think this is a good idea in general.

This makes me think of Epic powers

Careful thought would have to be considered though. The same way that epic power were. I have about 10 lvl 50 tanks several of them are relatively Unusable! My Inv/stone tank for example, really HAS to be used as a kind of an unbalanced scrapper because as a tank his life and endurance almost always goes down faster than it regenerates. I keep thinking that different tanks would be good for different types of baddies. However, that isn't really the case.
So with that said.
An epic type set up could be beneficial for these signature powers.

As a tank there are 2 basic philosophies in survival.
1. Kill all the baddies fast. or
2. be able to take lots of damage for extended periods.

In this case for example: Even though tanks are suppose to be able to deliver some damage. They should not be "damage dealers" So that leaves damage takers. In this example an Invulnerable tank might have 1 of 2 signature powers being
1. A rapidly recharging heal power. or
2. a massive boost to either defense or damage resist or both.

Something that resembles a granite tank (not in movement)

Although something cleaver like a "long recharge stun similar to the one that "Rise of the Phoenix" Deploys. Might be cool

There is another good example. since i mentioned it.
A stone tank with a signature power of better movement Maybe speed or super jump while rooted in granite.

A secondary signature power i would think should be something you can't get from an inspiration. Such as "Recharge"

Blasters are suppose to be "juggernauts" Definition as " an unstoppable force.
Since no blasters "really" meet this description i suppose there could be several signature powers that would be useful

I can Imagine some cool things for defenders such as a "Super full team Clear mind" or a "super full team adrenalin boost".
Ya this could be fun for defenders.

I can also imagine a similar thing for controllers except that a fire kin is already too much of a damage dealer. which controllers should not be.

Scrappers perhaps damage Maybe something that equals "rain of arrows. or a defense mechanism.

PB's and War shades would take some thought because they can be either blasters or tanks of a sort.

Well I hope something can come of this because there are some core deficiencies in almost all archetypes..
Some of which I would love to play and build up to 50's but are somewhat ineffectual or unwanted on teams or in battles.

Well Done Ultimus

Cappy

So here we are having a nice discussion about farms and non farms players. and how they effect the game. along with some different suggestions that would make everyone happy.

All of a sudden that forum is restricted! Hmmm! is it because people started coming up with real ideas that made sense? Someone didn't like that ? So who are you and why did you block this thread!

Cappy

there is an issue here where there should be a separation between agro limitations on an individual and a bad guys ability to attack another player.

Like this: if a tanker could pull 100 bad guys that would be ok but those bad guys could have the ability to attack other players.

So Maybe a tank could make as big of a herd as he/she would like But could only keep "X" number of bad guys from attacking team mates or other random players at any given time. Now in the mean time that original 100 bad guys are still hanging around because of the original agro. (more or Less) I realize that this would take some figuring on a programmers part but it seems to me that this path of reasoning while writing the program would solve these issues.

SWORD/Ledgend


Since the folks at plaync/coh refuse to give out specifications to players how have to determined these base rates