City of Heroes

For those that don't want to take the time to sift through the linked threads, here are some samples:

1) I have just returned to the game after a couple of month’s illness to find many of my online friends (PVE and PVP alike) who have closed their accounts and left the game for good. Every time I asked why someone has left, I get more or less the same answer 'issue 13 and the many changes to the game' and after I read them I can fully understand why now.

To be honest my jaw dropped when I was reading the issue 13 changes, and I cannot believe that NcSoft are going to carry some of the proposed changes that they call PVP 2 and against the wishes of many long time players of this game.

I know that many people only play PVE and don't want to know or care about PVP in this game, but what you all fail to grasp is that if they are going to do this to the PVP community in this game, then do you really think that they care about the PVE community? I really wonder if many of you will turn around and say that it is acceptable and I will get the usual response 'Well if your not happy just quit!' I don't think so. Whether most of you like it, we are part of this community and love this game as much as you guys, but for different reasons.

I find it strange that before there was pvp in this game I actually hated the thought of it being part of COH. I never fought in the arena or in the zones until I went badge hunting. Omg I got my [censored] kicked from the second I went into Sirens to the minute I left, and I hated every moment of it. If it hadn't been for a stalker on Infinity I wouldn't have gone back either. He sent me a ‘tell’ explaining why and what and actually helped to understand what pvp was about, and how to actually play and survive for a little longer. Many people on infinity will know me as Shana Storm, the noob stormie that took ‘energy’ as her secondary and got her butt kicked daily. I just took the time to learn how to pvp and to stay alive in these zones. Most importantly it became fun to play.

I found most of the pvp community were only too happy to help with my builds or pvp tactics. (People like Stasis, Josef, barbs and many more). I find it sad that good helpful players like them are leaving or have left and it seems like no one from NcSoft actually seems to care.

I urge and plead with you Castle to reconsider the changes to PVP you are making for issue 13. To sit down and listen to all the community regarding the wish list that you asked for the pvp community and discusses the future of PVP so that everyone can enjoy pvp at some level within the game. I just don’t understand why you would ask the community for their input and completely ignore them.

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I hereby ask the developers to delay the proposed release date of issue 13 to discuss many of the issue that many players are unhappy with and hopefully come to some agreement that could only be good for all the COX community. Please! : )

Signed

Miss De’Stalker"

2) "Here is the deal, I believe that LH's post was 100 percent the truth, these changes were never intended to be accepted by any of us nor to be made to address any of the things in the PvP wishlist which we were told to come up with so the Devs would have somewhere to look for what changes need to be made to make PvP better in this game and how to maybe entice some of the PvE only players into PvP. 100's of hours went into making that list and voting on which ones needed to be on it and so forth. Now with these changes, of which only 1 was taken from the wishlist, it pretty much shows us that getting us to make the list and telling us those are what would be looked at when they got around to looking at PvP was all just a way to placate us at that time. Heck there was even a ventrillo meeting where many of the Test PvP SG/VG leaders and LH were there and he "wrote" down the concerns that we had about the changes that were being implemented in this issue, again seemingly he took back a blank paper.
No matter what excellent suggestions or feedback anyone from the PvP community has for these changes they are worthless because we were not the targetted group for the PvP changes and damn us for not agreeing with these changes no matter how more broken this system is going to be compared to the pre-i13 system. Also most of these changes even though it was stated they were looking at arena PvP seem to cater towards the fightclub zone type PvPr's with the movement suppression, heal decay, the anti gank code(thank god that was removed) DR etc. In the test arena 8v8 scene, you didn't hear people whining that someone was running and not standing and fighting it out, or that purple sets caused the other team to win. If you were the "target" you are supposed to run(evade) break LOS, do what you can to stay alive, or any of the other things you read in broadcast in the zones which most of the changes seem to address. I could go on and on but this has gone on for too long and it is nothing that has not been said before. "

Both of these examples provide good summaries of what's currently going on in CoH/CoV regarding Issue 13.  Anything that fails to acknowledge this reality is likely p.r. spin, outright denial or genuine ignorance (which is understandable, since this is "breaking news" if you will--happening as I type this.  It takes time for awareness to spread.)

P.S.  Sync bug was a pain in the arse, but it's forgiveable, especially with the refund offer.  Delay of mission architect is also understandable, but getting an unwanted revamp instead of the architect is not.  I'm sure people would have been much happier to have them get custom bosses into the game instead of the revamps.  Also, having players compile a list about how to improve pvp, take 100s of hours to do it, and then say it's irrelevant, well that's just asking for trouble.  Tell current players that new potential players are more important than them?  That's just self-destructive.  With the revamp, it's not too late to turn the game back to a path that treats current players and their progress as valuable.  Hopefully the dev and management teams will recognize this, and rethink their current direction.  Work with current players, not against them.

Archangel, everytime a new release comes, there are changes, and every time there are changes, there are people who whine and cry. Some of them for good reason. But the very fact that they are in the forums whining shows that they are still in the game. Nonetheless they are entitled to vent. If enough people vent about the same narrowly focused complaint in a polite manner in the appropriate venue, the devs are prone to listen and might consider it a seious flaw. The begging of one player is not going to change the game. One very well written letter sent inadvertantly at just the right time might be a catalyst for such change. The game is after all a business, meant in the end to turn a profit --- some profit even if its not enough profit to please you --- and not given to intentionally piss off its clientelle. However there are no doubt a multitude of factors which play into these decisions that you and I will never know a thing about. NCSoft is after all not a publically held company and we are not on the board of directors. With all of your discontent, are YOU still playing the game?

PS. Synchbug - I had it - for three days. I play every single darn day, and I noticed the thing interferring my game for three whole days. Sorry you were sick for longer. <Shrugs>

Originally posted by TheRedPill

Archangel, everytime a new release comes, there are changes, and every time there are changes, there are people who whine and cry. Some of them for good reason. But the very fact that they are in the forums whining shows that they are still in the game. Nonetheless they are entitled to vent. If enough people vent about the same narrowly focused complaint in a polite manner in the appropriate venue, the devs are prone to listen and might consider it a seious flaw. The begging of one player is not going to change the game. One very well written letter sent inadvertantly at just the right time might be a catalyst for such change. The game is after all a business, meant in the end to turn a profit --- some profit even if its not enough profit to please you --- and not given to intentionally piss off its clientelle. However there are no doubt a multitude of factors which play into these decisions that you and I will never know a thing about. NCSoft is after all not a publically held company and we are not on the board of directors. With all of your discontent, are YOU still playing the game?

PS. Synchbug - I had it - for three days. I play every single darn day, and I noticed the thing interferring my game for three whole days. Sorry you were sick for longer. <Shrugs>

Sync bug affected thousands of players for the month long period until the /sync command went live, and until code modifications after this addressed server side issues.  I was not affected by the sync bug; many of my friends including our supergroup leader was.  I appreciate your empathy, and I take it as genuine; thank you.  Some people did not experience sync issues to this magnitude.  I consider them lucky, and apparently you're among this group.  Really I'm glad for you, and thank you for recognizing that the problem was much more serious and went on for a long time for others.
 

If you'll look at the post before I included the well-written letter, it includes links to threads protesting I13.  These are just a small sample of many I could have chosen.  One is about 300 PAGES long and filled with letters just as well written, or filled with a lot of confusion and frustration. 

There have been many modifications to the current game that I--and most other players--have been fine with.  These have included nerfs to powers and to Invention sets.  Issue 13 is not a change of this magnitude.  It is, in the words of the powers dev, "drastic."  It is a complete dismantling of the pvp game, and a rebuilding of it from scratch. 

The problems with this are many.  PvP 2.0 as it's called is being done in less time than PvP 1.0.  It is more buggy, unbalanced and incomplete than PvP 1.0 ever was.  PvP players were asked by Lighthouse to do ingame research and provide detailed feedback regarding how to enhance the PvP game.  We complied with this, provided a document from the community and had ventrilo chat with Lighthouse.  All of the recommendations, except one (dual builds for each character--one for pve and one for pvp) were utterly disregarded.  Most of the real issues in PvP 1.0 are not being solved by the unwanted revamp.  It is in fact dismantling things that work and that people enjoy.  So, it doesn't address the real problems, it adds many new problems, and it disregards current players and their ingame progress.  This is unlike any game modification that has occured in the last two and a half years.

You may be aware that you can play this game by time card.  If you choose to pay in this manner, you do not have a "cancel account" option in your account management screen.  You can stop playing anytime you like of course.  Since Issue 13 is still in open beta, and since I'm paid up until December, I and many of my pvp friends are enjoying our game until our sub time runs out, or Issue 13 goes live, whichever comes first.  I have stopped beta testing.  I did a ton of beta testing, and my feedback, along with most of the other feedback from current players is irrelevant.  Decision have already been made that NCsoft is apparently not interested in looking at.  If that's the way they want it, they really will have to count on an influx of new players to populate the game after this issue goes live.  I don't anticipate success for them.

Guess what? The game is a business. If they're breaking status quo to bring new peeps into the game, then somewhere along the line it was decided that is what must be done. We are not privy to that information. They would like us to think we have a say in what goes on and in some cases we do, but only out of their generosity. It is not OUR game but THEIRS. They do not answer to us except when it comes to whether or not we subscribe to the game. Whatever truths you might be repeating (until we are all so numb no one is paying attention anymore), I personally am just not one to cling to the doomsday negativity that you're feeding on. I play to escape real life, to have fun, to explore the new and different. Maybe its not new enough and different enough for you, but you know what? I've been in the game four years, and I'm not having a problem with that angle. Nonetheless you are different from me. If you want to be unhappy, and spend hours venting about the same thing adnauseum, you go right ahead.

Imma gonna go play.

Originally posted by TheRedPill

Guess what? The game is a business. If they're breaking status quo to bring new peeps into the game, then somewhere along the line it was decided that is what must be done. We are not privy to that information. They would like us to think we have a say in what goes on and in some cases we do, but only out of their generosity. It is not OUR game but THEIRS. They do not answer to us except when it comes to whether or not we subscribe to the game. Whatever truths you might be repeating (until we are all so numb no one is paying attention anymore), I personally am just not one to cling to the doomsday negativity that you're feeding on. I play to escape real life, to have fun, to explore the new and different. Maybe its not new enough and different enough for you, but you know what? I've been in the game four years, and I'm not having a problem with that angle. Nonetheless you are different from me. If you want to be unhappy, and spend hours venting about the same thing adnauseum, you go right ahead.

Imma gonna go play.

A few posts ago, you claimed that what I am saying is untrue.  Now that I've posted evidence to support my statements, you say I'm venting ad nauseum.  Hopefully you can see the contradiction here.
 

The last time I heard people take this track: "It's their game, they can do what they want, player's opinions are really not important," was in an MMO that is now empty and almost universally despised.  The company, SOE, is also nearly universally mistrusted.

Can they do what they like to "their" game?  Yes, of course they can.  Is it wise business to get your players to participate in a feedback campaign, then ignore the feedback, then say that new players are more of a priority?  No, I think not.

You can say I'm venting ad nauseum if you like.  I am in fact just providing evidence to support the views that you seemed to dismiss.  I did some venting when this all first came about, but I've been done that for some time now.  At this point, I'm information sharing--hence the statements, now supported with evidence.

By all means, go play, and I hope you enjoy yourself.  I may also enjoy myself right along with you, until issue 13 goes live.  Then my time will be done.  I'll have many happy memories to be thankful for, and a conviction that NCsoft is no longer a company I want to do business with.  That's fine.  I'm looking at a game by Turbine to play over Christmas, and I have my eye on StarTrek online and Champions for the future.

Any changes they can make to bring more people to the game is great. If it chases some away, that is fine too.  They are certainly taking a risk, but it could pay off.

They have a couple of other super hero mmorpgs to worry about and they know that people are going to bail when they come out.