MTeague

If we were dealing with a for-profit AAA gaming studio on an actively supported game that was generating revenue enough to be their bread and butter, I'd be "Dude WTF" that Illusion Control got something cool and no one else did. We're not dealing with a AAA gaming studio, and the very limited dev staff is doing this as a hobby / devotion in there free time after they do whatever day job they have to pay bills, keep the family happy, hang out with their own RL friends, etc. My expectations are vastly lower for a smaller "labor of love" programming team. Mirror option for Illusion Control, I see as a proof-of-concept babystep. Hopefully more options will come in time. But I'm plenty cool with the existing game as it is, and I have a legion of characters (well, slightly over 30) and that'll keep me busy for literally years. I can be as patient as needed. I'll still WANT new shiny toys of course. But I'm keeping expectations right at zero. Anything I get is a gift. Hell, having the game AT ALL to even HAVE this discussion, is a massive gift.

Dual Pistols / Devices. Mostly because my costume is a pretty darn close hybrid to a Malta Operative and Malta Gunslinger.

I'd like a better variety of crab-pack options. Like one that looks organic like an Arachnoid's arms. Or Boney-Spikey-Spine-y. Maybe an "energy claw pack", similar to the celestial wings. Who says Arachnos hasn't experimented with other things on their minions? It's not like Recluse was really worried about their retirement plans or worried about possible harm to individual mnions.

I'd love to have full customization. I hope we get it. but I wouldn't turn down the ability to recolor the existing minions, or be able to do power customization on them. Maybe I want a BLUE Oni who's powers LOOK like Ice, even if under-the-hook they all still function 100% identially to the existing fire powers.

Snake lower body for sure. But ONLY if I can use it on a Martial Arts character. If EverQuest can teach Snakes to Kick, then I expect CoH to match it.

Just make sure you get the spelling right on the names. Hate to be in this situation: https://xkcd.com/1012/

Just gonna say, whoever out there has the name "Kelvin" for an ice character... please please please have Ice Control as a powerset and name your pet "Hobbes".

I'd still really really like "Kick" from the Fighting pool to be able to use a Storm Kick or Thunder Kick animation. Even it does no additional damage and the animation times are set to match. I just really want a more martial-artsy Kick for an MM or a Defender, or for my Claws scrapper, etc. Similarly, if Jump Kick could do the Eagle's Claw animation, not any extra damage, JUST the animation, I bet it would become a lot more popular.

Two different types of weapon attacks, gonna need a "No Redraw" option. No objections. Though, I think most power pools kinda need 5 powers now.

The number of times in City of Heroes, whereI have needed to shazam myelf into a different character without logging out, can be counted on zero fingers. Soooo... yea. I'm saying I can't see it being terribly useful. Maybe I've just been really lucky. Maybe my experiences differ wildly from yours. Maybe I've just forgotten a few nights where it did happen and it's just gone from the memory banks because I didn't care that much. All things are possible. This kind of thing is certainly one reason why I liked having a couple of Druids in the raid group back in the WoW days, Back in WoW, having raid members with mutliple sets of loot and dual-specced and COMPETANT enough to play varied roles could reallllly help on certain progression raid fights. In City of Heroes... sure it could have stylepoints... and like I said I dont' really oppose the idea.... but my reaction, is indeed, "Meh".

Well, there's always the expression "Like Kicking Dead Whales Down the Beach" to describe something horribly unpleasant, almost guaranteed to leave you in dire need of a bath, and ultimately futile, But I would guess Greenpeace (and probably PETA) would object to that phrase too.

I'm not vehemently opposed to the idea. But I would probably never roll one of these. I would just roll a Fire/Fire blaster, and roll an Illusion/Kintroller, and roll a Necro/Dark MM, and just load up whichever one I felt like playing at that moment. I get that, for whatever reason, you want one single character that act like multiple different characters. I'm just not feeling it. I prefer making more alts to this idea.

I deliberately level slow. I prefer to experience my characters at varying stages of power as they develop. I have never run a single DFB, nor do I have any desire to do so. I do team about 50% of the time, but most commonly for radio missions, and usually not for more than 2 hours at a stretch. Also, usually not until level 15 at the minimum. I think endurance is perfectly fine right where it's at. Sure, sometimes low level characters have to rest after every fight. Sure, for a low level brute, that means I never gets to build up sizeable amounts of Fury. Sure, for some characters, I may even have to RUN, because I'm low on END and I simply cannot yet defeat the entire pack in one go. But it's taught me to think tactics, to use geography to my advantage where needed, to learn to ration my inspirations, and to look at every single tool I have in the toolkit, including Knockback / Knockdown as a damage mitigation tool, including immob's and kiting behind cover to split foes long enough to defeat a few, including use of Stealth powers to lower aggro radius, strategic sleeps and confuses, etc. I would be sad if they trivialized end managment at low level. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I do think you learn a lot if you work with the character at low levels of power, that helps you in rougher patches at high levels of power.

I wouldn't want to have to code it 😉 But I love the idea. Esp the idea as "Shapeshifter" being the AT and the KIND of shapeshifter being basically your primary/secondary powersets. So one kind could be beastmaster, shifts into eagle for flight, panther for combat, etc. But another shapeshifter might be like, Mr. Fantastic, and stay mostly human-ish, but could punch across the room with extendo-arms or do a knockdown attack by turning into a bouncy-rubber-ball and hurling himself into enemies. And ya a third shapeshifter could shift themselves into elements... an iron form, slow and tanky, or into mercury to zip along the ground, or a gas form to fly, etc. Very expandable to allow other ideas as they were cooked up. I could see it consuming a loooooot of coding time. But it would be really fun.

I could certainly understand keeping Signature Hero looks and Villian Group specific looks for NPC's only, esp if spreading them to players might be a bone of contention to NCSoft. Silly? Yes. But you'd be AMAZED at how many people can get piqued over the silliest things. I would like to see something like the PPD Hard Suit and PPD Shell pieces available to players, but .... that's so far down in the "it would be nice if" pile, and not even remotely approaching any kind of need.

I level up almost exlusively through story arcs, pickup groups, and taskforces. I generally don't group for extended periods of time on any character because even though I know it's NOT necessary, and I DON'T need to do it as I level anymore, I still consdier it something of a rite of passage to do all the Safeguards (if a Blue character) or Mayhems (for Red characters) as I level them. I have never done a DFB and I have zero interest it. I actually dont' WANT to rapidly gain tons of levels. I prefer to level up slowly and experience that character at several different stages of power.

all of the piece from my old costumes are there, but some were combined / moved from where I remember them. One example is the "Metal Plates" belt. I remember it being it's own main choice in the belt lookup. (Although admittedly, that's 8 year old memory and is VERY suspect....) I eventually found the exact look for that belt. but it's under "Normal" belt, and then a sub-choice selection group between Cloth, Metal, and Metal Plates. so you might have to dig through a variety of the menu options, but anything that was not an outright temporary costume / temporary power, I'm pretty sure is still there in the costume creator.

I think that would be a reasonable expectation if this were a AAA gaming studio of large developer teams who focused on this as their primary job to pay their bills. I think it is a very human and very understandable want, but still unreasonable to ask the same of the HC dev team. They're focused on untangling the spaghetti code. I am a programmer. I don't work in games, but I write code for a living. In the last 23 years I have seen source files you wouldn't believe that most people I work with, myself included, were loath to touch for fear of breaking things in all kind of critical and interesting ways. Sooner or later you DO have to bite the bullet and get it done, but it's always a hard sell to get people to understand how that many man-hours were legitimately spent with absolutely no customer-observable impact and defend that time spent as a "Good Thing" to observers who want to see something flashy. If they do nothing for the first YEAR but just scale down the technical debt and make the code more modular and supportable and performant, then they will have spent that year wisely and well. Will some folks go to other servers in the meantime? Possibly. Does that mean the gaming experiance will really be better on those other servers. *very* arguable. Me personally, I'm content to say here because this is the one group looking to get above-board and negotiate a legal standing with the actual legal owners of the game. Perhaps that doesn't matter to you, but I'm able to make a living as a programmer specifically because of copywright laws. I'm fully aware that I'm being a massive hypocrit playing what is essentially a pirated game, and donating money to said pirates on a semi-regular basis. I can square that circle in my head by talking very fast and not looking at it long 🤣, but mostly, by telling myself that they're TRYING to achieve a legitmate and aboveboard deal. That counts for a very lot to me on a moral and ethical level.

It would dispense with a lot of existing Kheldian Lore, or at least have to be retconned in. But the real killer I think? It would require *Considerable* artwork to make it happen. I'm not sure that's the best bang-for-buck in development time. I don't think it's a bad idea, I just think it's fairly low in the "It would be nice if" pile, and not so much in the "there is a pressing need for" pile.

Mostly IO's. Keep in my dominator is NOT 50 yet, so many purple sets, I just can't do yet.... I am planning to change some up when I ding. Plant / Psi dom From Sets: Ascendancy of the Dominator (6 slotted to single target hold) : 8.75% recharge, 3.13% ranged defense Malaise's Illusions (6 slotted to Seeds of Confusion): 6.25% recharge, 3.13% ranged defense Basilisk's Gaze (4 slotted to AE hold): 1.25% ranged defense, 7.5% recharge Obliteration (6 slotted into Psychic Shockwave): 5% recharge, 3.75% melee defense Steadfast Prot +3% def all (in Mind Over Body) Gladiator's Armor, tele resist +3% def all (in Mind Over Body) Other Def: Manuevers (2 slots): 3.41% def vs all Combat Jumping (default slot only): 2.44% def vs all Link Minds (4 slotted) +6.67% def all (a few seconds away from being perma, but close enough for this discussion) Gives 26% ranged defense, 22% melee defense, 18% AoE defense, and 32% smashing / lethal resist (not defense) I will be changing up a few things at 50, but I find this plenty good enough for misc levelling. Also helps that I have a few stacks of Drain Psyche running for +regen to top me off, and option of throwing out a pretty darn strong Spirit Tree if I need to spike the regen for a tough fight.

I do love my Spines/Regen stalker. He's scrappy as all hell and I have no hesitation in being "acting tank" (or at least, "alpha soaker") for a 2-6 man group. And he's a STALKER, not a brute, not a tank. But at lvl 35, he's still tricked out well enough to have 50% smashing/lethal resist, 24% melee and ranged defense, and he's ridiculously durable for someone who isn't even a tank. For an actual tank though... the problem is balancing things. If you regen too weakly, you can't sustain enough damage, the set becomes labeled "fail" and people shun it like a skunk sprayed it. Except for we few contrary folks who enjoy doing "Garbage of the Month" builds just to see if we can make it work when everyone else says no. If you regen too strongly, then your character is literally an immortal god and nothing of this world (or the next) can harm them. And then every other set becomes "fail" by comparison. I don't know how you square that circle and still keep things even enough that nothing eclipses everything else. I certainly understand why they havne't been eager to try. On the other hand, with IO's and Incarnates, I'm not sure "balance" even is a thing anymore lol.

I mean there is Kick, Boxing, and Crosspunch, and if you do get all three, they can be surprisingly effective. And there's Project Will and Arcane Bolt. But...... NOT an AT that I would likely roll. I wouldn't object in principle to it existing, but I think they'd get way more bang-for-buck via Melee/Support or Support/Melee.

I pack in as much defense as I can *after* hitting permadom. Permadom is just too damn good not to shoot for. Constant Status Protection alone is totally worth the price of the IO's. I don't care as much if my Dom gets softcapped defenses though. Most things are gonna be locked down or beating each other up from Seeds of Confusion or holds, or stunned by Psychic Shock Wave. After I have permadom, I favor ranged defense > melee defense = AOE defense. I don't totally redo power choices for it though. If I don't have Weave, ok, I don't have Weave. I don't need it on every character, and I prefer some flexibility rather than *always* taking the same pools on every character every time.

Actually that's not how i read it. I read it as a desire to channel people into other people's SG instead of people having personal SG's, so that then there can be a more populated "guild chat" and someone can set out organized and structured goals that other people should want to work for, instead of people doing what they darn well please with their own evening. Becuase you bring back Prestige, you bring back upkeep. Then someone's personal huge decorated superbase? SHUTS DOWN and can no longer be entered or used until the upkeep is paid. Admittedly, it could be done without upkeep... but the way I read it the original poster would be fine and dandy with 80% or more of the personal supergroups ceasing to exist and people needing to look for a new group to join. Maybe I'm just being very uncharitable in my interpretation however. These things happen after a long day at work.

There's always Kick / Boxing / Crosspunch too. If you take all three, they DO boost up quite nicely. And if you were already planning to get Weave, you're already dipping into that pool some. And, Kick becomes a VERY reliable Knockdown vehicle (40% chance), which is mitigation along with damage. If I was gonna do it I'd say Kin/Sonic, but it depends how much you plan to do this as a solo feat vs if you'll be teaming a lot. Dark/, Rad/, and Time/, are all very solid choices too.