City of Heroes: Design Theory / Raid Formation / Inertia Part 2

Let me be as clear as possible as I can at the start. This video was the result of a question over Raid Mechanics, specifically the Hamidon Raid mechanics. The question was posed by a player affiliated with the City of Heroes Homecoming server who justified changes implemented in the game's "Master Of" task-force modes by uttering abject nonsense that directly ignored the context of decisions implemented by both Cryptic Studios and Paragon Studios.

That event certainly colors this response and I would be lying if I was to indicate that I did feel not pressured to over explain the historical precedents and history of the internal game development. Likewise, in response, I feel it is critical to cover the MetaData of the game development, that is the events that occurred explicitly outside of Cryptic/Paragon that affected game design choices over the years.

This video references a Stream on Youtube on how to Build Enhancements and the economic considerations/implications of Server Population versus Product Procurement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C2gDKdYWew

This video also references Of Mice, Inertias, Valves, and Paradigm Shifts which deals with the contextual events of server populations and targeted audiences: https://rumble.com/v2gaf0a-of-mice-inertias-valves-and-paradigm-shifts.html

Also referenced are current examples of games that are bleeding players due to choices made by the developers internally, rather than to newer games offering nigh on identical play experiences. As there was a quasi imposed time limit, no, this video does not touch on EA's decisions over "Anthem."

Ostensibly the video is supposed to be about City Of Heroes Existing "Hamidon Raid," what makes it work, what doesn't work, and what could be changed. The conjectural theory is that Homecoming Developers are looking at implementing more Mass-Group Style content.

As the Hamidon Raid is one of the few zone-level events offered by the game, it certainly is worth talking about WHY Cryptic designed a Zone-level event, why they didn't really implement another Zone-Level event with a specific player count requirement, and why those design choices matter.