MTeague

Well of course not. They're separate and Even Bettah!

There might be some way they could split the difference. Ie, if leader already has credit for the tip, bypass it, if not, add an extra pre-requisite mission to the Strike Force. or maybe if every member of the strike force has credit then bypass? Not sure what would be considered proper balance. I mean, that probably wouldn't be fun to CODE. but it would allow longer-term redsiders to have the feeling of gradual progression while not leaving visitors stuck behind an unexpected "Nope!"

Presence / Pacify?

some of the one-off tips, I believe, were intended to provide a gradual feeling of progression for a Villain. Not just a checkbox for "okay, i did this TF and got this badge", but a feeling like your character is having some agency and some plans gradually come together as you come into your power. admittedly, that's no doubt less important to a primarily bluesider who's at most a tourist to redside, but ... is what it is. I like the current system.

As long as each power has a 30% chance to result in

I don't believe either unique directly boosts the power of Health at all. So if endurance is not an issue? I'd sacrifice the Miracle unique and keep the Numi's, and the Numi's would still carry a slight +Regen boost.

Life is hard. I don't think there's a single story arc in the entire game that can't be solo'd, though some might require use of certain temp powers at certain levels. (and I'm not talking P2W, I'm talking Shivan Shard, HVAS, Ring of Peebles, etc) If people don't want to join you, they don't want to join you. Be more personable and persuade them. Or accept that their choice is their choice and solo the darn thing. An appeal to the devs to hold out more prizes just so more people will be available to help you.... I can't get behind that.

"Judge, eat a snickers"

Because they're my kind of fun. My favorite, even if I don't play him that much on any given week, is always going to be my Mind/Kin Controller. (also, my avatar, and the first character listed in the page my sig links to) At City of Heroes launch, I came from EverQuest, and the AT and powersets were specfically chosen to be as close as I could get to an EQ Enchanter. It made him feel like an extension of my EverQuest character. I mean, sure he wasn't a gnome, but enchanters are masters of illusion. Who knows what he *really* looks like, or what species he *really* belongs to? In flurry of new people trying out a new MMO, people were doing Superman or Wolverine or Ironman or Batman knockoffs. I made Cygnus specfically to be a "Hidden Hand" type of hero. NOT one who's probably going to make the evening news. Not one you'd see combating an alien invasion downtown. But more like a Dark Watcher figure, before I even knew there WAS a Dark Watcher NPC. Someone who might slip into the enemies lair undetected, warping what they see and percieve, and leaving them all trussed up and ready to be arrested without the bad guys ever even understanding what had just happened. More of a teacher and a guide than a Man of Steel. Both powersets are amazingly Click-Heavy. I know that's a huge drawback for some, but it WORKS for me. Anytime he's in a mission, my brain is rapid-fireing triage of what I need to do next.

(bold/italics mine) Even if the game just trolled / lampshaded it. Hellion Slammer: Bob looks different today. Hellion Gunner: Yea, not quite sure what. Hey Bob, did you get a new haircut? But SOME acknowledgement, even with a wink and a nod, would go a long way.

Costume Contests are always inherently unfair, because it always comes down to personal tastes on the part of the judges as to what is better than what, who considers what to be a "more true" representation of a theme than what someone else consider it to be etc. Even if Cel Shading were completely removed from the piccture, this would still be true. Also, because People don't accept my 100% flawless and always accurate judgements as the One Word of Truth , so they're doomed from the get-go. ninja'd by TVT

I'm not a fan of bribing people to play content they don't want to do. If you want to see more people on redside, talk to some friends. Maybe try to drum up some interest for a "Villainous Veekend" a couple times a month. (or even get totally wacky and do a "Goldside Gameday"....). Even a recurring group of 3-4 other people can make for a very fun time. But honestly, small bribes aren't going to work. It's like when I see someone in Help chat offering 1 million influence to someone who helps them find a certain badge. It's not enough to care about. I may decide to help the person because I feel bad for them looking for it. But a million inf? Pfft. Wouldn't get me to get up and go brew coffee. A couple extra merits here and there? They'll make more merits and faster rerunning the content they already know. It'd have to be a Biiiiiig bribe to move any sizeable numbers of people and frankly, that's not a direction they should take.

Rather than "Shuriken Blast" I would say "Thrown Weapons". Then you can have a skin for shurikens, a skin for thrown daggers, a skin for thrown javelins / pilums, a skin for thrown playing cards (*cough*), a skin for thrown baseballs, Well. Not sure on Javelins, might be too much difference in animation for something above a certain size. but shurikens/daggers/small axes, for sure.

Everyone's got their breakpoints. Some folks just don't want to team with anyone else, ever, period. Some folks want to team with people, but not if it means a facerolly stomp fest that you could literally be alseep through and they'd barely notice. Some folks want to team with people, but not if means being debuffed to the point that they miss with their attacks, find that their wonderful softcapped defenses are cascading downhill, and they're being slowed out the wazoo. Some folks just want the hardest content they can do, even if that means leaving teams behind. Some folks don't care if the content is super easy or super hard as long as it's got a well written story and some feeling of agency. as long as they're not being massively hypocritical, sure fine. Takes all kinds.

At risk of derailment, I see no way that could be possible without removing Enhancement Sets from the game, OR, changing it so that Set Bonuses were 100% suppressed during TF;s / similar content, OR seriously ramping up the difficulty in such content, and essenntially designing the game around people having top-end tricked out IO builds. All three are Bad Ideas in my book. Still. I do not mean to invalidate the nostalgia of "Ya know, there was a time where you just couldn't do that, you HAD to team." It's a still a valid regret, even if I think we're going to have to accept what is going forward.

Kind of amazed at people saying Glue Arrow is skippable. The kitability and -Recharge is very nice. I am quite happy with my Praetorian Fire/Trick Arrow controller. He's only lvl 12 so far, but Flash Arrow + Hot Feet + Fire Cages + Glue Arrow = you're melting, can't hit me, get very few chances to attack me at all, can't escape, and if I mistime Fire Cages you'll never get away before I reapply it.

If the goal is just to have the visual of the pack itself though, I have no objection to them being added to "Back Items" like the other Retro Rocket Packs / Backpacks, etc.

They are permanent powers. They just can't be toggled on and left on indefinitely. They forcibly toggle themselves off after X seconds, but so does Leaping/Double Jump. I do /boggle at the number of people who seem to never take a travel power at all, ever. I mean, I can sorta see saying "for these powersets for this AT, it's not so critical to take early, compared to wanting this attack, this debuff, etc." But I guess I also approach the game with a lot of built in / from the old days expectations, and among them was "get a stupid travel power, don't be that guy who's always asking for a teleport to zone". And....ultimately, that's really just my preferences, I guess.

As long as it's optional, I think this would be great. ie, the Villain starting the mayhem should be able to choose "Nope, I don't care how many heroes are in the queue for a PvP safeguard, I'm not doing PvP, give me NPC opponents" Same for Heroes too, it's just by population numbers, I expect there to be more of a bottleneck with villains vs heroes. probably better as a totally new type of event though... both mayhems and safeguards are also timed, and have badges, and crowds of NPC ambushes, not sure you can nicely fit an opposing team into that without lopsiding too badly. But a new event type designed that way from the ground up? Sure.

I mean, sight unseen? There's always going to be X many people who choose to sail STRAIGHT over that line. So someone probably already HAS exactly that, not as a chest emblem, but as some kind of huge wall decoration in their SG base. Because either they like it. Or because they think it would be funny to get reactions from people. Or because they Just Don't Get It. Etc. And someone could twitch a variety of "SG Bases in CoH" going through a list of bases, and someone gives them the code to enter it, just to troll them and get offended reactions. The GMs probably have to deal with this sort of thing already. It wouldn't shock me if they HAVE had to deal with something similar, more than once. Maybe not on twitch, but player encounter / player reported. I'd hope they're not shy about busting out the Banhammer when it's called for. But I wouldn't expect them to log itt for the player base as a whole to review. Their approach seems to be even if you report something you are not informed of the ultimate action taken on the offending player, and I can respect that. Crowdsourcing some images might be good / might not. But I would hope, if they choose to open that door at all, it has an approval process with a "no appeal, denied is just denied".

Several years ago, in World of Warcraft, there were a few PvP servers that essentially 100% Alliance, and a few that were essentially 100% Horde, because people hated to lose in PvP and kind of gravitated away from servers were they were being walloped, and over TO servers where they could more safely wreck face. Which led more and more players to self-select into servers that favored "their" faction until there was no longer any point. I believe Blizz probably took some steps to address that with cross-server queues for battelgrounds, or something.... memory gets fuzzy after X years. That's probably less a concern for CoH, since we don't have truly open-world PvP rules. Heroes simply can't gang-rush Cap Au Diable and start killing quest NPC's, etc. But I do think it makes more sense to go by player activity, than by player faction. Also, what @Blackbird71 said. I prefer Gold over Red over Blue, but I enjoy all of them, and I wouldnt transfer my characters off Excelsior unless I was going to mass-transfer ALL of them off Excelsior. I have no interest in temporary transfers. Many people enjoy that and it's cool, but I prefer to remain on one server at all times.

I mean, Immobs are ok. I'd rather a Lost Lieutentant pulled out a pistol a pew-pew'd me, than whipped out the Buick-sized razor sword and bisected me in one swing. Is something to be said for "you stay over there." But I reallllly favor Confuse (best of all), Holds (solid), Sleeps (will wake up, but not until I do something) for safe full lockdown. Fear (via Terrify at 26) is not too shabby either. Sleeps are mostly an issue with teams, because teams typically have lots of area damage flying around and things WILL get woken up. But does sound like you're mostly soloing. I would recommend at some point you try Mind/Kin. Esp for a soloer, I think you'll like the toolkit. But I get that that would not fit your current character's concept. Just something for the backlog. You know. Alt #417 😄

Dominator / Psi EPIC pool has Link Minds. Dominator / Psi Assault has Drain Psyche (crown jewel, honestly), and Psionic Shock Wave (close 2nd). TK Thrust I also think is underrated, and still makes a nice damaging interruptor with a KB-to-KD in place, and a great "Get Outta My FACE!!!" without a KB-to-KD. But it does sound like @Rinwen would probably not use much other than Drain Psyche from Psi Assault.

Yes Please. I'd be Ok with them being fully removed from the Active contacts tab, as they should still be availalbe via "Find Contact" browser.

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure you can. Possibly in the info page where you inspect another player, it might have the Hero / Villain / Rogue / Vigilante icon. If they have an alignment power, you could see their list of powers when you inspect them and tell that way. "Oh you have Call to Valor, you're a Hero.", etc.