MTeague

The comics "pages" for the Galaxy City tutorial are nice. But oh my god, the HORRIBLE GOD-AWFUL nails-on-blackboard voice acting. And no I don't care about Blue Spectrum in the slightest buddy, in fact even my heroes slaver at the chance to kill him, not because of anything against him? But because of the over the top dude SCREAMING in my ears to save him. I simply can't tolerate that.

I prefer redside to blueside, by a lot. Out of my 40 characcters, I think 3-4 may use a Patron Pool. A fair number of redsiders will do a Patron Arc. Because merits and story. But generally, I prefer my characters to use their OWN powers, not something Sirocco or Captain Mako etc taught them how to do. If the characters powers already firmly overlap (ie, Leviathan Mastery for a Water Blaster), I can justify it. But also consider; Patron Pools are 35+. You CAN get to 35+ as a Praetorian if you never leave praetoria and go straight from Neutropolis to Imperial Underground to Doorman to First Ward and then Night Ward. Most will have left for the Rogue Isles or Paragon long before. I can't really see any in-game scenario where it would make remote sense to go back and ask dear kind Mother Tillman to root around inside your head. Or where Praetor Berry could be bothered to spare more than 2 minutes to do anything other than scold you for wasting his time. Even my most buy-into-the-gold Responsibility Loyalists would never want to deal with Sinclair for more than absolutely necessary and still feel slightly unclean after. Just having a hard time seeing storyline how to work these in.

Philosophically, I don't like inherents that only function when teamed. /eye Defender, /eye Khelds. That said, they are fine soloists, and it's really "what do you bring to the team" that people gripe about (in my experience), soooooo okay. I could live with that if need be.

What I would do? Give Sentinal's a damage boost when they're Attacked. I'm not talking "when they're low on life", like oldschool Defiance. I'm saying kind of like Brute Fury. Much lower damage bonus cap Fury Bonus Cap (+100%?) because you're not supposed to outperform Brutes or Scrappers damage when you have the benefit of being at Range. And probably it would wear off faster than Brute Fury by a good bit. But that way, you kind of use both your Primary AND your Secondary. If you offtank for a team (or solo), lots of mobs attack you, you hurt things more. But if you're hanging back and blasting and no one is attacking you, your damage is meh.

Four pools still allows for a very wide variety of use. It's only really limiting if you're irrevocably tied to the siren song min-max off defense powers to slot LotG's and Hasten. It's OK to let that go. You can just.... not take the Fighting pool. At all. Or Hasten. Skip it entirely. I promise, your character will still WRECK FACE. And it won't feel nearly so cookie-cutter anymore.

Tellin you, man. I still want a Dominator with Legal Control and Legal Assault powersets. Now THAT's some scary stuff!

That's a losing game from the word go. What's the difference between running AE missions at +4x8 for hours or running radio missions at +4x8 over and over for hours? What makes one "ok" and the other "bad"? AE is part of the game. It can be used for good or ill. "Farmers" are nothing more than players who obsessively focus for maxing rewards while minimizing effort. It's not my cup of tea. It never will be. I'm more story-focused. But I can't say farmers are BAD or shouldn't exist, or somehow have less right to fun than anyone else. I can't blame someone for being efficient within the mechanics that the game provides. If they were selling influence for real life monies? Then I'd be up in arms. Particularly because that could be a thing NCSoft might take offense at and unleash their hounds instead of the current Détante.

To a degree this already exists, if you consider that you can buy any recipe or enhancement with enough Merits. I mean, influence wise, that's typically a Bad Deal, and not something you would ever do. But in theory, if the AH prices ever seriously got out of whack, you could buy things with merits, so anything that gives merits is "partial xp" to a reward.

I'm picturing you sitting there fuming in Vendetta Mode, grumbling in Yosemite Sam voice "I'll get that blasted enhancement converted if it's the Last Thing I Ever Do." Knowing your long past the point of doing it even remotely economically, tossing influence out the window to buy more converters, and just being in a contest of wills with the game to finally produce the stupid piece that you wanted lol. Lord knows I've done exactly that more than a few times.

Not super opposed to it. Most people who are going to buy the Purple sets in enough bulk to think about twinking characters are going to spend FAR more time at lvl 50 than in the levelling phase. Not much difference in them rushing to 50 and then slotting them vs slotting them earlier as they do task forces / radios. I don't think it's needed. But I don't see it as changing much either.

I like the concept, the power names, and the stances. And I like that it's modestly flexible. About the only origin I can't justify off the top of my head is Technology. Character could be a magical hunter, or a primal spirit, or it could be just a very skilled outdoorsman, paired with either Archery or even Assault Rifle. or the product of an "Isle of Doctor Moreau" twisted experiment for science mutant senses cover pretty much anything you handwave I do wonder if it's.... too busy. Buffing too many things, debuffing too many things. That said, I also appreciate that you specfically did not list numerical %'s. Devs would need to tweak any such numbers anyway. I guess all in all, mark me down as cautious approval.

seriously consider using /Thermal, because Flying Zombies ON FIRE.

just thought that part deserved some extra highlighting lol. You might need 2 stacks of it up before you're like "sappers lulz bring it", but it's not hard to get enough recharge to get 2 stacks.

I suspect it's just RNG is R. But neither have I done a serious mathematical analysis.

The devil is firmly in the details. As a big picture idea it sounds good to me. But I'm not sure how you get a Tank/Brute to NEED help at higher difficulties without punishing the bejeesus out of the buff-centric support sets even more at middle-sy difficulties.

Plasticman / Mr Fantastic style stretchy / bouncyness.

I guess it depends what you call need. Debuff centric support doesn't need anyone else if they choose to solo..... within limits. My Storm/Sonic defender can pretty much trounce most story arcs solo at +2x4 with bosses. True, that's not +4x8. Do I care about that? No. +4x8 is purely "it would be nice if" for me, I don't even have that as an "I ought to be able to" for my Scrappers or Tanks or Brutes. And, I do slot my characters out the wazoo with sets. So there's that angle to. But "DPS don't need support" already says to me, "they're going wild with sets." At least in the case of blasters. But a Sonic Resonance Defender? I wouldn't want to try it solo. I mean I have seen screenshots of solo empath defenders doing weird-wild-stuff. At 50. Fully kitted out. With incarnates. I wouldn't want to solo an Empath through say, First Ward, from levels 20-29 when you still don't have most of your eventual slots, no superior enhancers, etc. But Archery/Trick Arrow, yea, I could see that being done no problemo. It's not so much the entire AT. But the Team-Buff-Centric subivisions thereof.

"fixed" as in "the cat got fixed", eh?

#4 is probably not going to happen. I can't find the thread, but I think they pretty much explicitly said you should need to rebuff your pets after you resummon them. Although.... You do have a bit of a twist on it by saying after every time you "exit combat". Maybe after the fights over, they'd see that as a "sure, fine"? #2+#3 I'm agnostic on. I haven't seen it be an issue for me personally, but I *do* use some of the faster moving pet types (Ninjas and Beasts) and their AI has seemed pretty good for getting into melee. I don't see any harm in it, certainly. #1 .... I get what you're saying.... I mean, I do claim any Team Inspirations I get from Superpacks on my MM's. I'm not sure the devs want to go there, but I could see an argument for it in that the pets basically ARE your damage powers, you popping a red and having it buff your pets is "kinda" like a blaster popping a red and then having stronger blasts.

I'd go further. "As a matter of design philosophy, should all powerset combos be able to solo any content at +4x8 with bosses?" Y/N "What about non-TF story arc content at +4x8 with bosses?" Y/N "What about non-TF story arc content at +3x6 with bosses?" Y/N "What about non-TF story arc content at +2x4 with bosses?" Y/N "What about non-TF story arc content at +1x2 with bosses?" Y/N But frankly, I would never expect an answer. Ever. Lord knows I would refuse to supply one if I were the developer lol. not all players are going to have equal skill not all mission maps are created equal. There's a biiig difference from final Perez Park mission in the Bonefire arc, and the Defend the Midnight Mansion mission in Night Ward. some players go nuts with set bonuses and IO's to acheive amazing things. Other players actually DO stick with just SO's or basic IO's. (Really! Some do! I've seen it!) issuing a public stance on who should be able to do what strikes me a great way to generate thread after thread of "BUT YOU SAID!!!!" arguments when someone isn't able to do it. So yea. I would never, ever, answer those questions if I were the developers lol.

I mean, obligatory MCU Civil War memes aside, superheroes are at least traditionally working together more often than they're at each others throats. Not saying doens't happen in comics, just that it's a lot more common for them to work either together against an enemy, or alone. Maybe that factors in on some level? But a huge huge part of it I think, is you're allllllmost never in direct competition with anyone else. For anything. Biggest source of MMO epeen wars / guild drama bar none: Disputes over who "should" get a particular piece of loot when it finally drops. Here, the game awards the loot directly, no ifs ands or buts. Doesn't matter if it's an enhancement, a recipe, a piece of salvage, etc. You get what you get, and no humans are controlling that decision making process. Also, here, loot is a LOT less rare. Yea, I know, you can go a week without getting a purple recipe. Maybe a month if you're super unlucky. Compare to WoW where the most coveted best-in-slot weapon or trinket might drop TWICE, grand total, over six months or more while your guild does that raidset. And only from 1 boss in that raidset you can only kill once a week. and there's 6-10 people in your guild directly competing against you. And you have the backstop of the AH treating enhancements/recipes as level-fungible. And you have the backstop of Enhancement Converters. And you have the backstop of being able to buy the really rare enhancements/recipes with Merits Second biggest source of epeen wars, (IMO) is extremely punishing raid mechanics causing raid wipes, and X percent of the people getting vocally unhappy at the 2-3 people who are fouling up, either due to inattention or bad connections, etc. This still probably comes down to loot, as in, "we wiped and didn't get any loot, and We Blame YOU." basically doesn't happen in CoH. Yea, sometimes you might wipe for like 20 minutes straight, in a REALLY rare ubertough battle. But not like "we've been trying this boss and wiping on him for 3 hours straight, 3 nights a week, for 2 months straight.". That can happen in WoW progression raiding. I've seen people dropped from a raiding roster and deguilded over it, and then lots of bad blood as some are "hey it's just business" and others are "he's my best friend WTF!!". there's almost no mechanics in wow gonna brutalize people that badly. Just nothing for people to get upset at each other FOR, or start to work against each other FOR. (and, to be clear, that's a Good Thing) Only competition I can think of is for rare world spawns that are killed before you can arrive. But even those, the giant monsters are still up often ENOUGH that it's not seen as Cask Of Amontillado style offenses if someone downs Caleb just before you arrive, etc. It's more "jerk, i was on my way" and then you get it a week or so later. [EDIT: lol, @HelBlaiz said it in about 6 paragraphs less than me. But yea. What he said.]

Sprint you can always turn off. Swift was the problematic one. A few folks screwed themselves on ALL rescue/kidnap missions that way. But yea, the removed several slotting options with that change. hasn't been a big deal to me, but I wouldn't be opposed to re-enabling some of it.

Think of the Granite Tanks!! 😄

Now I have to figure out how to work Teleportation into my Thugs/Traps MM. Love the idea, though.

Visually? Claws: are weapon extensions from your hands or perhaps wrists (Vanguard claws) can be selected to look like metallic blades, or some option have "energy claws" that are kind of lightsaber claws. have 2 attacks where you launch a force projectile (Focus / Shockwave). I get the feeling of a more graceful dodging warrior from Claws animations. that's just me. Savage: you're tearing into the enemy with your fingers, nails, and fists. grabbing and tearing at gobbets of flesh. doesn't have any blade looks that I've found, though you can wear Spiked Gloves for a costume option if you wish. one that looks particularly nasty, is if you use Assymetric Gloves, and use the LARGE hook option on each hand. Looks just "oh man that's brutal" on several attacks. OTOH, that only really works if your character is conceptually some kind of shapeshifter, and could switch to other costumes with regular hands if you need to turn doorknobs, or work computers, or take care of certain biological functions. does not launch projectiles away from you. But Savage does have a teleport attack where YOU are the projectile. gives me the impression of a warrior who would happily be soaked in the blood of his enemies.