MTeague

I've long looked at AE as a venue for perhaps crowdsourcing new "official" story arcs. If I was the developers, one of the first things I'd have done was add a checkbox, which STARTS UNCHECKED, because really, that's how it should be, that says "If you check this, you give the devs permission to harvest this AE mission and convert + modify it to become official content, if they choose to do so." I mean, it's all a private server, so maybe they could already technically do anything they darn well pleased with any AE mission at any time. But it would keep a lot of feathers unruffled if it were done on that basis. And for all I know maybe there even IS already such a checkbox? I keep meaning to play around with Mission Creators and ... keep loading up other things instead.

Agree 100% I would however, be perfectly on board with it using my characters powersets and costumes to appear as an actual NPC to be fought in someone else's mission. Where I would not be in control of that clone at that point, it would just be the AI doiing it's best to use what powers it thought were most useful at any given moment. Looks like @FoulVileTerror already posted that idea 13 hours ago. Man I gotta learn to read the whole thread before reacting and posting lol.

yea. My preferred solution would be to eliminate void skiff, rocket board, etc as P2W powers, and put the animations in place as an alternate appearance / Power Customization choice for Fly. So you'd still have to take "Fly" as a power in order to fly, but if you want to suddenly sprout a Raptor Pack whenever you activate fly, you could. I am however, aware of the current limitations on combat animations for things like Rocket Board. I hope someday that can be addressed, and then also made into a Power Customization for Fly. I do have a rather extensive "It would be cool if..." list that will probably never be done.

Chains (I think) should be just one alternate weapon look for a Whips set. <Obligatory 'Whips and Chains' joke goes here> I'd like a variety of such looks, to allow for an Indiana Jones bullwhip, or the Desdemona fire-whip, to something like Spawn whipping a length of chain around a foe. I wouldn't mind a Hawkman Ball-and-Chain.... .... but perhaps that should be under War Mace. I have no idea how much resources and time that would take to produce. I suspect it's not trivial just to decide what types of attacks would make for a balanced set comparable to other melee sets, and then produce the animations. I suspect we're talking a serious time investment. There is a fair bit of demand though, evidenced by the Petless-Demon-Summoners.

Somehow I missed this thread all year long. I gotta say, I ... will have to roll up a Kinetic Mele Scrapper, just based on the original post alone.

Just please please please when Redside content, writers should keep in mind "Team Evil" is not very team-centric. Lord Recluse wouldn't give two spits what becomes of the Restructurists in principle. It's not "Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend". It's "Enemy of my Enemy is a Useful Stooge". Recluse should only send forces to aid them if he stands to benefit in some way. Now sometimes, that would be preventing Vanguard from forming a lasting peace treaty, to keep things shaken up so he has more room to move, and keep Vanguard's forces occupied. Sometimes, that might be because he sees a good opportunity to nab some tech for Arachnos. Sometimes it might be because he sees an opportuntiy to assassinate someone on the opposing side who's been a pain. But it should never be to support the Restructurists JUST for the sake of doing so. There should always be an ulterior motive. For that matter, as much as possible, the missions should also be written to provide an ulterior motive of personal benefit to your redside character. Sure, RECLUSE may want to use them in his game of chess against Statesman Lady Grey. But why would my stalker give two spits what Recluse wants, or what benefits Arachnos? What's in it for me?? Redside content that doesn't cover those angles would barely be worth playing.

Automatic upvote for RUSH

My brother jokes that if we're ever invaded by high tech aliens that we have NO chance against in battle, we should just give them free subscriptions to MMO's and enslave them all that way, because they'll be too busy doing progression raiding and having infighting over who deserved what piece of loot to finish us off.

This makes me a bit more sympathetic to the Circle of Thorns, actually. It sounds like the Spectral Daemons would properly appreciate Wierd Al's #WordCrimes video.

Escort missions aren't especially irksome to me on a stalker. But I do admit, ever since the gloriousness that is Assassin's Focus, I kind of build my Stalkers as Scrappers. They still have the OPTION to use hide, for particularly nasty openers, but most of the time, they're unhid, diving into piles of foes and doing the "stab stab stab Stab Stab Stab STAB STAB STAB" bit Once in awhile they Pay The Price. But generally they wreck face. And the /Regen stalker pretty much always ends every fight at max health and laughes evilly as he dives into the next group. The defense based ones can be a bit more touch-and-go, but the IO procs give them very good maintence heals as they go.

I like MOST of the ideas here. But I cannot support the proposed changes to Instant Healing and feel it's a complete deal-breaker and destruction of the set. A third Click Heal, even with short-to-no-cooldown, would be vastly less useful to me than the current sky-high regeneration boost that IH provides. I would leave IH exactly as it currently exists. Mayyyyyyyybe drop the cooldown a touch. Maybe.

Cel-Shading does that? jeez. If it wasn't already in my "no thanks" bucket, this kind of thing would be enough of a deal breaker for me to put it there.

I can totally see that. My brother and I created accounts on Project 1999 (EverQuest classic + Kunark + Velious, no other expansions) and played around with it for a couple weeks reliving some of the nostalgia. But the grind broke us in fairly short order. Feeding coin into Tradeskills. Only really being able to level up by getting a team and setting down in a 'Camp' to kill orcs or gnolls or what-have-you in the same area as they respawned again and again. Faction grinding. The "You Can Never Go Home Again" was very real for EverQuest. Homecoming has managed it, though, in no small part because CoH was always designed to be vastly more casual friendly.

Magical Sonic attacks are a thing in tabletop dungeons and dragons gaming. But it is rare that it gets used. Rare enough to earn this honorable mention: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0345.html I do agree 100% on Traps and Assault Rifle / Beam Rifle / Dual Pistols. I've seen suggestions on toher threads to make use of rifles and pistols just one more "weapon" choice, and instead also allow wands or staves or casting animations, or allow wrist mounted beam emanation points for a more technological hardsuit look if you wanted, etc. I have zero expectations of that. But I really do with the original devs had put in more animation / looks to allow even THOSE sets to have passable analoges for each Origin.

Well, there's a lot of shades of gray along the way, too. I don't like Incarnate powers being available in all 46+ content. I think it should be pretty much iTrials only, or any lvl 50 content that was introduced with or after the incarnate system, no other exceptions whatsoever. I'm never going to get my way on that, but that's where I would have drawn the line if it had been my choice to make. But I do think Attuned enhancements, Converters, and the way the auction house pools resources into fungible pools is wonderously good. And I do like largely unrestricted sidekicking. I never minded doing missions to unlock capes or auras, BUT, if something like Wings were restricted, and I was trying to do a Birdman concept, I'd have been ticked. And if my character concept involved having energy claws, but those claws were not available until I'd defeated X many mobs to unlock that look of that weapon type, I'd have been ticked. So I don't mind costume pieces being all unlocked. I like having Inherent fitness. I like being able to choose Fly without first having to take a pre-req. But at the same time I would absolutely remove things like Void Skiffs and the ability to buy 8 hours of jetpacks at a time from P2W vendor. I sort of feel like characters *should* take a travel power. I'm never going to get my way on that one either. I'd definitely remove all the amplifiers (offensive, defensive, survival) from the P2W vendor. And same deal, I'm never going to get my way on that one either.

My only quibble is I don't like powersets to virtually REQUIRE a particular origin. I like Energy Blast, because the source of the energy is indeterminate. It can be magical. Or a mutant power. Or powers you gained by science, from a tech suit, or maybe you're an inhuman and it's natural for your species. Ditto with Energy Aura. By contrast, "Arcane Blast" with "Mage Bolt" or "Mystical Aura" with "Residual Magic" feel much too baked into Magic Origin. I'd just rather the powerset / power names be kept more fungible. Even if the combat effects would be exactly as you propose, I'd like the concept/naming to plausible as something that COULD be Magic, or Tech, or Mutant, etc. Yes, there is the Sorcery pool, but that's even labeled an Origin pool, and it's neither a primary nor secondary.

I'm absolutely sure I would come up with some inventive curses as I spent 20 minutes swearing at my computer screen. Then, I'd start laughing at myself and calling myself the Biggest Idiot Ever (though I tell ya, there's a LOT of competition for that title....) Then I'd realize 55 mil, while it would sting to blow it on 10 rare salvage, I can earn back with fairly little effort from a few rounds of converter roulette. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't bother me after that.

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/all-things-scottish/n10127

That's a fair point. I'll admit, part of me wanted to be snarky and read it in a Jeff Goldblum "Life... finds a way!" voice. But snark aside, you're right. Strictly speaking, we don't know. Maybe some computational algorithm, Siri version 98002, will actually become truly self aware, AND, able to make choices on it's own beyond what data and programmed responses were initially available. I'm ... HIGHLY... skeptical of this. I think we're really good (and getting better) and giving things versimialatude of seeming like it's sentient without actually BEING sentient, and I don't think we'll ever cross that bridge. (though, I admit, in my more cynical moments, I also wonder if HUMANS count as "actually sentient" and not just "looking like it"....). But if I'm going to be honest with myself, I has hunches and guesses and no clue what we'll have in the year 2525. Or even 2022.

The cel-shading doesn't do it for me. I don't want to feel like I'm looking a comic book. I want to feel like it actually IS the real world. But I definitely appreciate having the OPTION to turn it on or off.

I strongly suspect it's an issue with your internet. I don't think I've experienced rubberbanding, ever, since ... Oct 2019? Or so? and I've played it a lot this past year. I get that it's GOT to be frustrating as hell. I remember dealing with Rubberbanding issue in EverQuest, Diablo2, and WoW, and man o man, it SUCKED. I do not mean to pooh-pooh the issue. But I don't see how it can be an issue on the Homecoming side of things.

I've been a programmer for 25 years. I have ABSOLUTELY no fear of a Skynet situation. Experience has shown me, time and time again, that All Code Is Bad <--- not mine, but a HILAROUSLY TRUE rant If an AI does begin to emerge, it will die, choking on bugs, it's last thoughts being "Why? Why does bad code happen to good people!?" as the uncaring sky fades to black.

Scrapperlock Haiku!

Absolutely, right there with you. Once upon a time, I saw this mission wipe teams. We're talking before IO's. SO's only. No inherent fitness. And probably wasn't the best config'd team. The first few waves? Easy Peasy. Next few? Easy Peasy. Then people starting running out of END. And kill speed plummetted. And Red Caps were diving into the earth and promoting themselves to Lieutenants and Bosses, because we couldn't kill them fast enough while scrapping the bottom of the barrel in need of END. It hit a point of no return when there were over 8 bosses at once, throwing gnomes on our heads to blind us and dogpiling on. Later on, with a team that was actually prepped for that mission, and which had sufficient boosts to END recovery (Empath + Rad defenders), that team stomped the bejeezus out of it. Now, today? With IO's? Panacea Procs and Perf Shifter Proc's being almost standard? Not so much. Now, it's largely a joke. You're not going to hit a point where you start hemmoraging END and suddenly everyone's DPS hits the floor. But once upon a time? It was possible.

the chosen one who will bring balance to the equation?