MTeague

this should be optional. Opt-In or Opt-Out, I don't care which. But I suspect it would get old, fast. Especailly if it were to affect every piece of music for every outdoor section of every part of the game, too.

We clearly take very different approaches to the game and value different things. I honestly don't care if my AoE's hit 4 mobs or 16 mobs. I shoot at what's avaialble. It's not like it's going to genuinely matter to me if a mission takes 4 or 5 minutes to clear, or whether a TF takes 20 minutes or 45 minutes, at long as I was on a team where people were using their powers and enjoying themselves. I'm not going to say your way is wrong. But I am going to say some of your suggestions are probably best handled by who you choose to team with vs altering basic powers/effects that have been in the game since launch.

Depending on the power. Tornado benefits wonderfully from KB-to-KD, because mobs stay in the tornado longer and take damage longer. Gale can be situational. Making a squad of mobs flop down but not move, can be useful, but there's also times I prefer to ragdoll them some distance into a corner. Power Thrust or Force Bolt I would never want a KB-to-KD in, sending the enemy FAR is the point of the power, it's a "Get outta my FACE!" tool. Buckshot / M-30 grenade, I can definitely see KD being better, particullarly if you've already sprayed an Ignite patch.

Okay, I'll bite. What is even remotely bad about Ice slowing the movement speed of NPC's?

No, but I'll tell you. Slotting a Panacea proc in Health, and a Power Transfer proc in Stamina, goes a long, LONG way on a Super Reflexes character. Depending on the SR character's other powerset / epic power choices, you might be able to have four different IO's pulsing periodic heals, and of course a Prevenative Medicine absorb, too. It can make them quite resiliant against the occasional whammy that streakbreakers it's way through. For a Regen character, I'm pretty solidly in the camp that Recharge and Recharge Resistance are the two most important things you can slot for, with Resistance right on their heels for a photo-finish third place. My spines/regen STALKER sometimes feels more Brute-y in combat than than my energy/energy BRUTE! (Though to be fair, I've spent a lot more effort optimzing that stalker....)

I'm perfectly fine with getting rid of Movement Suppression. But I would very much want it removed for enemy NPC's as well, and I'd like to see enemy NPC's exploit it more. Sky Raiders. Goldbrickers, Longbow Eagles, etc. Let's see them do their damndest to maintain distance and blast away at melee from range, zipping away at max velocity as they exhilerate in no more movement suppression. Let's see some Council using strategy to spread out and focus fire while actively trying to avoid being clumped up!

If you want knockDOWN to cause smashing damage "as theme" you shoudl also strongly support actual KnockBACK which sends you flying, to cause *even more* smashing damage. unless of course, your motivation 100% begins and ends with your first reason:

Being creative and being terrible are not mutually exclusive. And sure, qualify of names is highly subjective. Some will like names I choose, others will shake there head and say "Whatever dude." And that fine with me. Far more important to me is not having "xHell Beastx" Or "SpineyFireGuy". But, just as I would shake my head at those, I'm sure someone else thinks they're great.

There are definitely some low hanging fruit names that get scoffed up. But it usually doesn't take *that* much effort / imagination to find an available name if you put a bit of a twist on it. I wanted a brute. Villain. To punch things. A lot. Goes on mayhem missions. generally cause havoc. Ooo, let's try Havoc for a name! Taken. Havok? Taken. Plus, X-Men. So I filled his backstory with lots of Cold War stereotypes, put hin in a tanktop with a Hammer-and-Sickle emblem, and thus was "Red Havok" born. I wanted a sonic character. Most things i tried related to speakers or decibles were either taken or just didn't do it for me. So I made his backstory that he was an opera singer, and named him "Phil Harmonic". I wanted an Electric Affinity character. looked up some general electrical terms. A number of things I wanted were taken. So i took a break, started up some dinner, plugged in my phone.... and inspiration it. While quite rare "Cable" can be a first name. And thus was born "Charge Cable". Backstory has his full name as Cable William Guy, and oh yea, he's heard allll the jokes about "Cable Guy" "Cable Bill", and he's kind of got a bad attitude about them. Quirks like that just flesh out a character and make them so much more fun to play.

Honestly, I don't think the idea that someone might have once thought Arachnos was the good guys can pass the laugh test. I do think it's very plausible to have people join not because they like Arachnos even one small bit, but were conscripted in a press gang. Or just a random citizen who was sick of being extorted / preyed upon in the rogue isles, and decided it's better to be the hammer than the nail. Either such one might jump ship at the first opportunity. Sent on a mission, and stowed away on a freighter to Paragon instead, never looking back.

well, one thing with epic archtypes, is "epic" doesn't just mean "powerful", like an epic-rated WoW drop or something. In this context "epic" archtype meant there is an entire plotline and story specific to the archtype. Or at least, that was how the oldschool live devs saw it. Strictly speaking, HC devs are under zero obligation to care about that. But if it did matter to them, they'd probably want to create mirror missions of same appromiate difficult and number for your redside kheldians, and for your blueside SoA. I do think it would add a lot more flavor to it than just "okay you can start cross faction now".... but it would mean quite a bit of writing.

Foxes can do the trick, too. (that channel, along with CoH, has been one of my primary tools to get through covid)

I do sometimes feel lonely still flying from mission to mission, or taking the tram / ferries, or even using the actual street connections to zone from place to place. I enjoy it, a lot. travel time lets me actually appreciate my City and see misc nooks and crannies and "huh, didn't know that was there", kind of things. But.... clearly a sizeable chunk of the player base is "ain't got time for that".

Not currently possible. You *might* be able to set a different title ("the Amazing Superdude" / "the Powerful Superdude"), but even that, I don't think you can automatically tie to a costume change. Maybe to a Build, but not a costume change. I mean, I can see the appeal, if you want to mostly be a reknowned hero, but sometimes have a different costume for when you got full vigilante execution style street justice, or heck, maybe your hero has schizophrania. I've got a Praetorian Archer/TacArrow blaster who I used very different costumes for when she was Resistance vs Loyalist, but kind of had to headcanon any kind of maintaining a separate identity. The engine isn't kind to it.

I believe MM Group Fly is best used by Necro/Thermal MM's, because Flying Zombies ON FIRE. That said, my Beast / Empath MM will be fitting Group Fly into her build, and I'll just let the Doggos and Kittehs strike terror in the hearts of the squirrels all across Paragon City.

Admittedly, I really like Knockback. But I would find this even more objectionable than a Null-The-Gull option. A difficulty setting lets the team leader decide for me whether or not I'm even capable of doing knockback. Null would at least leave the decision to the players with KB powers. Honestly, if you don't like people using KB, and it's an unforgivable sin that you cannot accept, then just kick me / them. Don't forcibly neuter my powers against my will. But as a compromise, maybe if this difficult setting softcaps all enemies, and gives them 90% damage resist to all, and a large to-hit bonus. Then you have have your damaging powers and your defensive powers neutered as the price of neutering my knockback powers.

I think it's safe to say that nothing would be added to Homecoming as a straight port from some other servers. The HC devs would spend time reviewing it carefully, curating it, adjusting it, and making sure it's neither overpowered nor pathetically weak. A brand new powerset like this would probably spend quite a bit of time on the TEST server even after that, for additional review / feedback.

On reflection, I can support the player who has knockback powers having an option to turn off his/her own knockback powers. Ideally on a per-power basis, because it might be something like "you want it turned off for Buckshot, but not for Power Thrust". I cannot, and will never, under any conditions, support any idea that the player is ever, in any way, obligated by a team to make use of these options.

Fair enough. This I can get behind. You're not looking to say how anyone else should config their character, just how you want your own powers on your own character to act. I'm okay with that, until and unless it morphs into any desire to instill expectations on other players.

*throws down the gauntlet*

Tell you what. I'll support having the OPTION to turn off KB added exactly as requested, if everyone on this thread will sign in blood that if an energy blast player there teamed with says "nah, I don't want to use that option", you'll just say "okay, that's cool."

Use of knockback is not, in fact, griefing other players. It's using powers that the devs specifically put into the game for players to use against enemies becusae it's FUN, and sometimes very tactically advantageous. (mobs standing back up are not mobs that are shooting at you) Some of us just enjoy sending the bad guys flying. Has nothing to do with how anyone else reacts to it. It's purely a lulz / endorphin thing of ragdolling the enemy. Now if we were teamed, and I used it, and you threw a fit because I used knockback, well, if I joined the team more recently than you, I'd drop team. If you joined team more recently than me, I'd probably shrug and continue on as I was, unless someone who'd been on the team longer than me objected to it. But it has nothing to do with griefing you, or diabolically laughing as I log in my energy blaster. It has everything to do with actually ENJOYING the powerset.

I really don't get the Knockback hate. Never have, never will. It's just not that traumatic to me if my fireball only hits 4 targets intead of 10. Or if my scrapper has to take two steps forward before slashing. Somehow, I manage to hold onto my equinamity and just enjoy the game. But it's threads like this that make me roll a Storm / Energy defender. Who will NEVER use KB-to-KD's, and who will NEVER talk to Null, even if this idea were implemented.

<Grumpy Old Man Voice> "And we liked it that way! We liked it right fine! Gol-Durn Whippersnappers these days..."

I have a second build on exactly one character. I basically never use it. In theory, you can have one build optimized for lvl 50 content, and one build optimized for flashbacks. Or whatever else floats your boat. PvP, etc. Part of it is I just don't enjoy character builds that are super high on global recharge and which use only 3-4 attacks from their primary. I get that they can be efficient. I get that they can yield better damage output. I get that you can pick up more pool powers that way. I just don't enjoy it. In practice, I spend over 95% of my time in my "main" build, the one that's designed for flashbacking and uses 7 powers from my primary and 7 powers from my secondary.