MTeague

I've occasionally been annoyed at missions that tell me that I've been poisoned, when on my Fire/Fire/Fire sentinel who, headcanon, literally no longer has flesh or blood. He's a creature off living steel and fire. So how exactly did you poison me? But I get mission writers cannot foresee these things, and even if they could, they'd have no way to tell when a character is organic vs robotic vs extra-planar vs non-corporeal vs other. Maybe such a system of quirks, both positive and negative, could allow for such. But really, no one is going to go back and scour every existing mission and look for ways to refine them, the mission text, NPC speech etc, to tailor it to your character. So, from an RP perpsective, I don't see it accomplishing much. Headcanon items will remain headcanon items that the game does not account for, and that's that.

I've beaten that mission on my Mind/Kintroller. Not sure if everything is as applicable on Dark Control, but at least for Mind, Confuse causes no aggro, and I don't have any damage procs slotted in it. It's slotted with a confuse set, so good accuracy and duration considerably longer than it's recharge time. So I basically stacked 4-5 applications of Confuse on just ONE of the Wardens. Only one. Don't even try the other. Eventually it was enough to overcome the Confuse protection/resists. I had to completely sacrifice all XP for the other Warden, just keep maintaining Confuse on the first one, until he killed the second. When it was just the one Warden left, then I kept maintaining Confuse, and alternating Holds until I had him helpless, then normal damage rotation. Its an annoying mission, to be sure. I don't take it nearly as personally as I take Purple Triangles, but it's the nature of the game. Also, once I get to lvl 15, I always grab a Shivan Shard, So when the mission in patently unfair, I can be every bit as unfair right back at them. Admittedly, getting the Shivan Shard at lvl 15 on a controller is.... not the most fun thing either. But it's not that that hard to simulanteously weaken-but-not-kill the firebase turrets, and then pop them all in rapid-enough-fire to use the firebase and grab the temp power.

Keep in mind, CoH is extremely friendly to "bring the player, not the class". I've seen All Scrapper Task Forces, All Blaster Task Forces, All Defender Task Forces (loads of fun when that many support classes turn each other into steamrollers of DOOM). CoH is also extremely friendly to alting. Back when I played WoW (Burning Crusade through Pandaria), the time demands to fully level and gear alts was... considerable. I knew several players in WoW who didn't even have a single Alt, becuase they didn't want to take focus away from their main. I knew others who had four raid-geared characters, but at that point WoW had completely consumed their entire life. That's not a concern for CoH. Getting multiple charactrers to max level and fully kitted out will feel like no time at all if you're coming from WoW. So, don't overthink your first character that much. How do you like to play? Sneaky and Stabby? You'll have loads of fun as a Stalker. If you'd rather be the one who has full court vision and plugs any holes on the battlefield, Controller or Dominator will do you right fine. Ranged damage with big numbers? Blasteriffic. King of buffs or debuffs? Defender or Corruptor. I will say Debuffs tend to matter more late game than Buffs, but I have never hated having a ForceFielder or Empath on my team. And if you just enjoy being the Unkillable Man, Tanker is hard to beat, and a well built Brute does not suck, either. MM's can be fun but I would not start with them. Pet Management is just one extra hurdle as you get into it.

Honestly, Flambeaux being entirely self-centered fits her to a T. It's also part of what makes it satisfying to beat her down in some of the Going Rogue Tip Missions, later on. When she's trying to be full Villain, and completely utterly failing at that too, because she's not a Villain, she's an over-arrogant Diva / Attention Hoor(b). Redside mission tip, Filmed Announcement in particular, but there are definitely others.

Not opposed, but honestly, I barely notice XP debt as it is.

The Redside counterpart "Hearts of Darkness" mission arcs, lack only one thing. You're not allowed to actually murder all of them at the end of the last arc. Sure sure, during the arcs, there's reasons to hold back. After the arcs, when half of them have promised that they'll get you, and your little dog, too, really, why aren't you perrmitted to just END THEM, once and for all, right then, right there? Sigh. Shining Stars, I mostly like their arcs. Mostly. Dillo is amusing. Grym is a Good Boi, and you should be able to give him treats. Twinshot should stop calling you kiddo all the darn time, but hey, sometimes people use annoying figures of speech in real life, too. Definitely treat some of those arcs similar to 1-20 Praetoria arcs. Timed waves where you may not always finish the last one before the next shows up. Laser guided ambushes that do not care about Hide, a mix of damage types you may have no defenses against at low levels. You may find it extremely punishing if your difficulty is increased too much. They feel like they're meant for team play with co-operative missions enabled. Though I still solo them because I'm a stubborn sonofa.

I mean, I get the character concept of the "Unkillable Man" who literally regenerates from Anything. Even completely vaporizing his entire body, nope, too bad, quantum particles start forming and rebuilding him. And there is nothing wrong with mentally treating your character that way in headcanon. But some degrees of balance are necessary. Myself, I would be happy if Regen could just get considerably more -Regen resistance.... like, 80-90% or so, just like SR pings the heck out of Defense Debuff Resistance. If Regen and heals are your one trick pony, at least let them own that trick.

Most of what I want (the complete removal of Arachnos, Recluse and all his Patrons, entirely, POOF, they're gone) would never be given approval by either the Homecoming Dev Team, or NCSoft. So this is absolutely a never-gonna-happen spitballing wish-list. But in their place I'd setup a power vaccuum on the Rogue Isles. You could pick any faction, join it and gradually come to literally rule that faction, and then have your faction war against other factions for domination of the Rogue Isles. Oh, and I would also banish Longbow to Niflheim forever, too. ..... there's a reason I've never run a game company.....

Oh you'd love me then. I don't use vidiotmaps or any other mod for CoH. Never have, never will. On the plus side, I'm generally uninterested in zone events and wouldn't join anyways.

Don't be shy about starting a team, either. Basic mission / story arc / TF teams do not require advance knowledge of any encounters or maps. Just the gumption to accept the star and put your name out there in LFG.

I don't have the conceptual revulsion to patrol xp that Rudra has, but I seriously lean on the "No XP" button a lot, since I enjoy doing a lot of story arcs at level content. Flashbacks exist, yes, and I do like them, but I want each character to do a moderate number of story arcs in each level range as they level. The point (for me) is to know that i can use the character well no matter how many enhancement slots they have, before theyre completely tricked out. Because of this, very often the first thing I do on joining a team is click "No XP". So, for me, "no xp" is all I truly need. But I admit, i never cared for "rested xp" in any MMO. If an option existed to decline it, I would use it.

Aw. And reading the title,I was hoping for a sub-faction of <Malta> run by a host of grandmas with Assault Rifles and Dual Pistols.

Won't anyone think of the Redsiders??

Spidey: You guys remember that really old movie, the Empire Strikes Back? Rhodey: Tony, how old is this kid?

I took a year's vacation from CoH at one point when I'd overplayed it for a time and burnt myself out. But I'm back. Wouldn't shock me if every so often other players take a break from the game. But I do think the server is at least as populated as it was when I left, maybe more populated now. Not sure mornings are the greatest indicator, in any case. Especially weekday mornings. I'm sure there are some retirees playing CoH, and I may be one soon, but lots of folks still working for the man.