MTeague

100% all for this. I'm just thinking it might require certain parts of maps be "safe for undercover folks" and certain parts NOT be. Like Kings Row? Lurking around the factories and warehouses and meeting villain contacts discreetly? Awesome. But if you literally walk into the police station or decide to dance in front of Blue Steel or Miss Liberty, they should use you as the Titliest-1 in a round of Hellion Golf. And maybe other in-zone heroes should be allowed to gank you until you flee the zone (or take a hospital ride to a "safe" hidden villain base in the zone). Something to keep it from being Toooo out of bounds and putting SOME limits on what you can do while undercover.

Currently, only Co-Op zones, and PvP zones, allow both Heroes (not Vig) and Villains (not Rogues) to exist in the same zone. Which is why I was envisioning a "Red Striga" and a "Blue Striga" that visually look the same but are technically separate instances. That said? I think it would be wonderful if some careful controls were put in place to allow for an entirely new classification of zone, where you can be in the same zone, can't team up, have totally different contacts and totally different story arcs, but yet is not an automatic pvp free-for-all. (I'd be willing to talk turkey on some kind of flagging conditions scheme though)

I'm not sure I agree with that. I get that you're not talking about hard mez protection. But if you're able to break yourself out of early, you are kind of countering it. Do I get to have a mini-game to avoid taking excessive amounts of smashing / psionic / fire damage? Or a mini-game to avoid end drain or to-hit debuffs? I'll drop the objections after this last post, because I'm afraid it will go round-and-round in a loop. But I find it hard to say why this and not that? I'd rather "no" across the board.

I guess my main objection is that I do think different kinds of mobs should have different ways to be dangerous. It would be boring if every opponent was just a blaster or scrapper. Some enemies are dangerous because of raw melee output. Some enemies are dangerous because of Debuffs (Tsoo Sorcererors, CoT Ghosts dropping your to-hit, the Shepherds in First Ward, etc) Some enemies are dangerous because of buffs they bring (Nemesis Vengeance, Rikti that bubble each other, or Devouring Earth emanators that spike the enemy's to-hit, Rularuu Eyeballs, etc.) Some enemies are dangerous because they impair your ability to move about the battlefield (300,000 Caltrops patches from Knives of Artemis, or being Siphon Speed'd by 6 Red or Blue Ink Men) Some enemies are dangerous because of End Drain (Sappers, Touch of Vitae, Super Stunners, etc) Some enemies are dangerous because of Crowd Control. (Yellow Ink Men, Master Illusionists, CoT Succubi, Malta tasers, the list goes on) All of these and more, I consider to be a Good Thing. There should be a variety of threats. Not everything should be counterable by everyone. IMO, anyway.

Perhaps if you also remove all incarnates and all IO's and all villain classes and anything that existed after launch. Hyperbole is fun! /s

Are we talking in game or real life? 😀

I acknowledge there's a difference between "what feels thematic" and "what would bring a performance boost to the set". But rather than adding AoE splash damage, I'd rather see Impact provide something like the extra damage gravity controllers get with grav distortion / propel. That is, additional single-target damage to the affected mob. If I punch enemy number 1, I just .... have trouble taking seriously the idea that that punch affected someone 3 feet away from him. I mean, I get it, comic books, we don't need no stinkin' reality, etc. But I also don't consider it such a bad thing to have some melee sets that are more Single Target focused vs AE focused. Even if that goes against the "what is most efficient" meta.

If we're going to make changes to mez/holds/stuns to allow people to break free early, hey cool, but I'd also like a similar reverse angle looked at. EB's / AV's with stupid amounts of Mez protection, leaving Control powers effectively useless against the. Yes, I'm aware with a hastened perma-dom you can stacck a lot of holds. I'm talking more when you're dealing with an EB on a lvl 24 mission on a Controller. At least allow for the concept of a Partial Hold. Some kind of sluggish debuff that reflects them having to fight to shrug off the control powers.

Just let me klonk the rescuee / kidnapee over the head and do the fireman's carry.

One pass-throuigh at ground level for the speedsters, and one opening about mid-height in the building for the flyers / jumpers / porters to aim for, should do it.

Fallout New Vegas / Honest Hearts DLC had an underteched tribe, and you had the option to help them fight off other factions who wanted the land, make a deal with such factions, or just outright say "nope, I wanna be a bad guy" and be a colonial conquistador. So, it can be done. Of course, could also argue that's easier to implement in a world like Fallout where a lot of social norms and expectations went out the window when the bombs fell. I find it more difficult to believe you could have untouched tribes like that anywhere in the Altantic in the modern era. Just TOO much sea traffic / air traffic, not terribly believable anything was so far out of touch for so long. But I could definitely see that kind of scenario and the assorted moral dilemma's popping up with Dimensional Travel.

I just can't take "really cruel thing to do" terribly seriously there. Maybe it's some oldschool tabletop Dungeons and Dragons lingering on me,, when having foes who could Charm or Hold you was just part of the fun. Especially when the rest of the table was like "D'oh! They charmed <character name here>! Everybody dogpile him!" and "Nooooooo don't kill me!!!!". Also, maybe it's just because most games that I've played for the past 30 years, if there was the ability to do any kind of Crowd Control / Charm / Hold? I picked the kind of character who can do that. Not totally without exception, but a *lot* of the time. So a) I don't really see me being cruel to others when i use my abilites, and b) feeling like turnabout should be fair play means it doesn't feel cruel to me if i get mezzed. I'm usually just "doh! I gotta be quicker next time" / "gotta scan the group before I jump in!". Of course, I also have no great gripe against Sappers / SuperStunners either. Yes, they're devastatingly effective against me. Yes, I have to treat them as High Priority Targets. But I never avoid Malta or Freakshow or Carnies or any other faction just because of this, and I would consider it a major mistake if they removed mobs that use End Drain against players from the picture.

He's a Lumberjack and he's okay... 😀 The biggest thing I hope they can do in terms of customization is separating "Hat" from "Hair". Maybe flagging some Hairs as "Incompatible with Hats" because the giant exposed brain? Not so much. But I ought to be able to do long hair with a fedora, or a low ponytail with a bandana / do-rag, or a pirate hat plus two-toned Illogical.

Honestly I'm still hoping for Praetorian Wu Yin to move in with the Syndicate, and take over a big chunk of terrain, perhaps co-opting portions of the Primal Tsoo and Primal Family. Probably won't happen. But they're a faction I definitely miss from Praetoria. Well connected Psychic Gangsters / Big Money, building up to levels of infrastructure to rival Crey.

I guess it's a perception thing. A true Co-op zone would imply some overall un-ignoreable threat such that they cannot afford to oppose each other, and must work together, for their own long-term self-interest. <Peter Venkman voice> "Heroes and Villains, living together.... Mass Hysteria!" I'm hoping for something more like sure, I'm a villain, in ur zone, causing trouble... but not an outright mayhem mission. More like grabbing some cargo from Independance Port, or conducting a deal with the Tsoo. I'm not in anyone's face, and unless there's City Wide DNA detectors constantly scanning the whole city, none of the good guys have any idea that I'm present or what shenanigans I'm up to. Honestly, the game's infrastructure might not allow for that. I don't know. But I would like to see more shared terrain. Not Co-Op, not necessarily PvP, but something more where you're working in the shadows.

Wait, we're playing in Sigil / Planescape:Torment?

I would see this as a baby-step towards getting ALL alignments in the same zone all the time, with just different contacts for each alignment. And I could count that as a good thing. (if I'm reading @TemporalVileTerror right, it wouldn't actually be the same zone...., there would just be a "BlueStriga" and a "RedStriga", same geography, same mobs, same NPC's, but diifferent contacts. But feels like a thing that could be a proof-of-concept progression towards merging zones. Maybe we could have a "RedPortOakes" and a "BluePortOakes" zone as well, where heroes do some pushback against villain factions there, etc)

For one single 100 damage attack, yes. What about three incoming 100 damage attacks? 1st attack: 100 pts - 30 absorb = 70 damage. "like" 30% damage resist. 2nd attack: 100 pts - no more absorb = 100 damage. 3rd attack: 100 pts - no more absorb = 100 damage. So you soak 270 hps. Whereas if you *actually* had 30% damage resist, you'd only take 70+70+70 = 210 hp's. That's why I can't swallow the "it's sorta like damage resist" comparision. I mean, I get what you're saying, but it's not exactly rare for me to have multiple mobs on me.

I never said anything about changing it away from being a toggle. Sprint is an inherent toggle, too. I do agree Hide's default slot is a it's a good place to toss a resist all unique. (or a LotG). But I'd be ok with not being slotttable in Hide anymore as the price of Hide becoming an Inherent IF, stalkers also got the same selections as Scrappers. Meaning at lvl 1, you got an attack, plus your T1 armor, plus Hide. If they did that, we'd probably have to give up Hide taking sets as the price for the extra armor selection. It wouldn't be that hard for me to allocate an additional slot to combat jumping or something else (if my T1 armor was not also a Defense power). Still. Since I don't really expect it to ever happen, I'm mostly just spitballing here.

Fair enough. I don't always read patch notes closely, and it's been awhile since I rolled a new character.

I contradict myself a lot in what I want out of the game. I very much enjoy Redside. Much more than Blueside. But I loathe what they did with Recluse, making him an untouchable king of the hill. Yes, in one story arc, you can beat up recluse, and bring his today-self a dented helmet that you took from his defeated-future-self. Woo woo. At the end of that arc, NOTHING CHANGES. Arachnos remains in complete control of the isles. There are no and have never been any rival factions that remotely threaten them on the isles. I would have far preferred the Rogue isles if it had been divided up between 5-6 factions, of which Arachnos was only one, and if the redside quests had you picking a faction and coming to rule them and gradually dominate the rest. Or just playing all sides against each other and profitting all the way to the bank, for those villains who can't be bothered with world domination because they'd rather hedonistically enjoy wealth instead of herd cats all day. This is never going to happen of course. Not now. But it's what I always thought the Rogue Isles should be.

I prefer to take my time levelling. I immediately turn off XP anytime I join a group, so that I can control when I level better. But the most common reason I can think of for whizzing through the first 20 levels? Missing SUCKS. And people want to at least slot some SO's or equivalent level IO's. The very early levels when you have just Training Origin enhancers and Dual-Origin enhancers can be rough for certain powersets. Especially anything Defense Based. Defense never REALLY stacks up enough until you have many slots and good enhancements. A low level /SR can be... frustrating. Esp because at low levels, you don't have any meaningful Defense Debuff Resist and a few Skulls can debuff away what you do have.

It's very possible to do sparkling auras around yourself.... body, hands, eyes, head, etc. I assume you're looking for something such that, if you throw a Fireball, the TARGET gets some fiery sparkles on them? Or sparkles just around the projectile / beam path? It could work better with some powers than others.... Dark Miasma you probably wouldn't notice it among the cloud on them from Darkest Night, or Tar Patch. Similarly it would be hard to notice through some of the Radiation glows from Rad Emission debuffs. But sparkles trailing some Archery shots, or following the blade of a katana, etc.... yea I could see that. I'm not sure i'd personally use it any. I can headcanon "magic" by other effects just fine. But, more OPTIONS for how your powers look is pretty much always a "Yes" from me.

The powers in the existing set should stay. That said, if they want to rename Assault Rifle to RubeGoldbergRifle, keeping all the existing powers, and then create a new set called Assault Rifle that focuses more on what you could do with a single rifle that doesn't include a grenade launcher or flamethrower... okay sure. Honestly though, I think a set that has nothing but a varying degrees of short controlled bursts or emptying the clip and.... what? A Rifle Butt attack? Maybe a Bayonet? I'm thinking it would get boring fast. The existing AR allows for a couple different damage types, a decent mix of single target and AE, with some soft control in the Knockback or the Fear effect in Ignite. Maybe I'm not being imaginative enough. I just don't see getting 9 powers out of a plain rifle though.

My favorite XKCD of all time. [EDIT: link for proper attribution: https://xkcd.com/386/ ]