FupDup

The biggest hurdle that we seem to have is with animations and modeling, due to how ancient and unsupported this game's tools for those are. I don't even care if the graphics look the same, a newer engine would just allow us to actually make stuff and offer better performance/stability. But of course it's all a pipe dream.

I think you're really overestimating the size of the proposed buffs, and also really underestimating the power of other competing armor sets like the newly revamped Electric and Dark armors (or even NuRegen).

We recently got several armor set revamps, but Willpower was conspicuously absent. I think that is unfortunate, because the set is pretty ancient numbers-wise with a ton of glaring weaknesses with very few strengths. Even Regen is now pretty much outright better than it now. WP needs some serious buffing action, but of course it should still retain its iconic "toggle and forget" playstyle that people like it for. This is just a straight number increase for the most part, not a gameplay change. Let's look at each power individually, and I'll say what I think should be done (if applicable). The power order is a little messed up on Stalkers so I'll go with the standard structure. T1: High Pain Tolerance >I think this one pretty much does what it ought to do and doesn't need adjustments. Maybe higher resists to the non-S/L damage types would be nice because those are currently pretty minimal. -------------------- T2: Mind Over Body >This one is also mostly fine. Adding other resist types to it would be nice but I might be asking for too much. -------------------- T3: Fast Healing >This is the start of where I'll ask for changes. WP is a highly regeneration-dependent set, so I think it could use some regen debuff resistance on this power. It shouldn't be anywhere near what you get from the proper Regeneration armor set, but it definitely needs some more. >Additionally, for Stalkers only, I'd suggest adding a bit of recovery to it like how Stalker Regen got that too. WP is supposed to be very good at endurance management. -------------------- T4: Indomitable Will >The change I'd like to see here is to add some Toxic defense equal to the Psionic, with the reason being that the set has almost a complete lack of Toxic protection (and Toxic def is also super rare in general). WP is often described as a "jack of all trades" but it's hard to live up to that when there's such a glaring hole. If Invuln can be allowed to have Psi protection, WP has no justification for this crater-sized hole. -------------------- T5: Rise To The Challenge / Up To The Challenge (Sentinel) / Reconstruction (Stalker T3) >RTTC is probably fine, I think. The Stalker and Sentinel versions however are up for debate... >UTTC: This power currently trades the scaling regen effect for a high static effect. I think this trade is pretty fair considering that Sents will generally have fewer enemies within 8ft of themselves than the 3 melee ATs who get RTTC. What isn't so fair is that RTTC also comes with a small To-Hit debuff, but UTTC gets nothing to replace that. I think that UTTC should get some kind of extra effect to bring it up to parity, with the most direct translation being a small defense buff (debuffing enemy To-Hit is functionally equivalent to increasing your defenses). Alternatively, it could give something else like a small continuous absorb shield like what Sentinel Regen used to have but lost in the NuRegen revamp, or something else entirely. I'm not married to any one idea, but it definitely needs a second effect of SOME sort considering how RTTC has 2 effects while UTTC only has 1 effect. Sentinels don't need any further handicaps than they've already got to deal with. >Reconstruction is very weird, being a clicky power in a normally toggle/auto heavy set, and not to mention the totally borked power order. I kind of think that Stalkers would make sense to have UTTC proliferated to them as a branching mutually exclusive choice, and reordering the power tiers to more closely match the other ATs. Stalker Invuln does already do a similar thing with the Invincible power (static effect instead of scaling like the 3 other melee ATs get), so there's a precedent. -------------------- T6: Quick Recovery >I'd just give this power a bit of resistance to end drain and recovery debuff effects, like what NuRegen got. Maybe add a small amount of slow resistance too, going off of the athleticism theme and making it a bit easier to build. -------------------- T7: Heightened Senses >The defense debuff resistance could stand to be a little bit higher. The set isn't supposed to depend on defenses, but the fact remains that the F/C/E/N damage types all currently have extremely low resistance values on this set, which makes the set feel like an S/L specialist like Invuln instead of an all-rounder like it's billed as. A bit higher defense values would help with this, perhaps subtracting a little from S/L because you can easily cap resistance to those two types so they don't rely on defense anyways. -------------------- T8: Resurgence >The main thing that needs to happen here is removing the damage and to-hit crashes from it. I'm pretty sure this is the only self-rez in the game with self crash effects? >There's also a side debate about trying to make self-rez powers useful even when you aren't dead. One option would be to have this power become a click heal that has a popup self-rez option if you die, trying to get the best of both worlds. But that might be seen as adding a clicky to a set that shouldn't have any, so we might have to think up something different or just deal with it. Since it does already come with some self-buffs (before the crash), maybe let people use it while alive for those buffs. -------------------- T9: Strength of Will >The crash on this power is actually pretty fine IMO. It's only 50% instead of the usual 100%, and there's no recovery debuff that most come with. Factoring in Quick Recovery, this is fairly easy to deal with. >The part that sucks about it is the distribution of resistances. It currently gives very high values to S/L, but very low to the other types. The problem here is that WP's native S/L resists are already quite high, but everything else is very low, so you end up overcapped to S/L and wide open to everything else. I would suggest heavily cutting down the S/L in exchange for heavily bumping up everything else, to further iron out any holes in the set. Again, the set is currently designed like an S/L specialist stat-wise instead of the mythical all-rounder. All in all, I think these changes would keep the spirit of a toggle-and-forget easymode set, but with bigger numbers so it sucks less. It just gets better at what it already does, so you can keep playing like you were before.

I'm pretty sure at least one of the other COH servers already did a similar color customization thing? So it should be possible coding-wise.

Realistically you can’t even buff Defender scales because they’re already within spitting distance of Corruptors (0.65 vs 0.75 I think it was), and you sure as hell can’t buff Corrs when they’re already the strongest meta AT.

There are definitely a lot of categories that need more sets/procs in them for parity’s sake. The worst offender is how Holds have more proc choices than every other mezz category combined, despite Holds being objectively the strongest form of mezz already. Stuns and Sleeps on the other hand get literally no damage procs at all. The rich indisputably got richer here. And for ranged ST damage, sure you could argue that it helps other sets compete with Fire Blast, but I can counterpoint this by noting that Archery doesn’t get any more proc options than Fire does (besides KB procs on Explosive Arrow). We need a lot more sets and procs so the playing field can be at least somewhat leveled.

I don't think procs are generally the main issue in and of themselves, I think the broader issue is that they're literally the only way to surpass your hardcoded limits. Slotting for giga defense is pointless because insps and teammates can buff you up without spending slots. Slotting resistance is pointless because, again, insps and teammates can hardcap you at all times without spending a single slot. HP is the only one that is useful, and that's only because there are so few external HP buffs available (if there were ever more support sets with +HP then HP would be useless too). Procs, meanwhile, let you go over your AT's damage cap. And to be clear, that's completely fine. One would expect a person who invests in damage to have a higher max damage ceiling than someone who did not. This is logical. Where it falls apart is that this logic should extend to other attributes too, i.e. a person who invests heavily into +res bonuses should have a higher maximum res cap than someone who goes glass cannon. However, this game is 800 years old, so this is probably not even possible to code. And even if it was, absolutely everything would need to be rebalanced to account for it (i.e. probably lower the starting res cap, so that you have some room to grow without Blasters getting a 90% cap from investment). This would naturally piss off a lot of people and throw everything into pure chaos, so we're pretty limited in what we can do. One ray of optimism would be the new "proc boosting" feature from the Cupid IO set, wherein slotting more pieces from the set makes the proc stronger and/or adds additional effects. Proliferating this to other IO sets could help add some more give-and-take to building besides "as many procs as you can possibly fit, all day, all the time." We could get creative with it too, like maybe Positron's Blast could create a small Irradiate-like effect around its main target or stuff like that. This is proven to be possible from a coding standpoint and would not disrupt any existing builds or expectations, just add entirely new options. It'd also be nice if recharge slotting stopped nuking your proc rates, which would make sets slightly less useless and would help us leverage any potential proc boosting (because it's hard to make use of the boosted proc if the PPM is sandbagged to oblivion). Some set bonus effects also kind of suck, like %damage in particular is just sad. In what world is 4% damage equal to 10% global recharge? Like seriously who the hell thought of this stuff. There's some bonuses that are quite rare, like range and speed, that could be made to appear more often for more interesting slotting options. Maybe try to come up with a defensive equivalent to procs? Like standalone global buff pieces that get slotted into non-attack powers. We already got several but not all of them particularly good (like Gift of the Ancients, Regenerative Tissue, etc). Buffing those and adding more could add extra non-damage options that are sorely needed. And when it comes to procs in attack powers, perhaps add more non-damage procs because there's so few utility options there (and most of them suck).

Ston once suggested that Fury grant a mobility buff, which would fit their aggressive nature and help them keep Fury between engagements. Someone else suggested debuff resistance to emphasize the “too angry to put down” idea. In general, I think their armor modifier should be higher than Stalkers/Scrappers because of their offtank role. Minimum of 0.8, but no higher than 0.85 (note that Tanks are 1.0, Scrap/Stalk/Brute are all 0.75 right now, and Sents are 0.7 because fuck those guys). Brute caps are very high, but you have to pay with slots and blood to reach them on many armors (and defense armors hardly gain anything at all). The +Fury ATO could probably use a replacement due to how easy Fury is to build, maybe just a Smashing damage proc. The other ATO proc is fine but maybe the regen could be higher.

I think that effect would make more sense on a full blown Toxin Blast set, since Chemical Rounds already set the precedent for toxic-themed things to reduce your damage. And it just makes more sense (poisons can weaken you) than getting weakened by getting cut or stabbed (most normal blades and bullets in COH don't produce the -damage effect so it would be out of place).

I think it would be easier to introduce new toggle-heavy support sets (Leadership Affinity, perhaps?) than try to revamp preexisting ones without making current fans of those sets become upset at the attempt.

Praetoria has pretty much already collapsed and most of the world has been overtaken by the Devouring Earth, with The Last Bastion (from Number Six's arc) being one of the few places still inhabited by humanity. Many of the old Praetors are dead, Bobcat is working with Mr G. in the Rogue Isles now, Battle Maiden is working for Malta, and Marauder is with the New Praetorians. That part of the equation is already taken care of.

I kinda agree that the method of killing was pretty lame (got killed by a normie-power Postal Dude looking nobody), but the deed has been done and there's been enough story around it that a sudden reversal would feel weird. I'd rather go with the original live dev plain for Tyrant's redemption arc because it would slip in more organically/smoothly.

I'd call it either Shuriken Blast or Martial Blast. Alternate weapon options could include various types of knives, playing cards, frisbees, sports balls, etc. For the powers, I think it might look something like this: T1: Shuriken Throw (basic crappy ST) T2: Basic slightly less crappy ST T3: Fan of Knives (basic cone, perhaps Energy Torrent underhand throw animation) T4: Masterful Throw (sniper power, Sents get something else) T5: Envenomed Blades (Aim replacement) T6: Trick Shot (Chain) T7: Another strong ST of some sort (a volley, perhaps?) T8: Exploding Shuriken (TAOE) T9: One Thousand Blades (One Thousand Cuts, but as a ranged cone) For its "utility," I think it could be tuned to have quick/snappy attacks like a sort of "ranged Claws" set, and it has the added toxic damage on its Aim replacement.

Rad Armor can be colored bright yellow to evoke a "holy" kind of feel, and its minor teammate healing ability even plays into this.

Unfucking the economy is objectively the best thing HC ever did (besides bringing the game back in general).

I'm talking pure melee primary and pure support secondary, no "half and half" compromise sets like Rebirth did with their Guardians (they did Assault/Composition, the latter of which was a split of armor and support). You've got epic pools for ranged attacks, and the buff reflection thing takes care of armor.

The main new AT we'd need is Melee/Support, with an inherent to help them bulk up a little. My idea would be for it to reflect a portion of teammate buff powers (and heals) back at the user, and solo players could target enemies for the same effect. And maybe a bit of baseline mezz resistance. Epic pools would be a mix of ranged and control powers.

Someone on the Discord once suggested that most currently KB-enabled powers should be KD by default instead, with the onus being on the player to slot for KB enhancement if they really want to fling targets around (as opposed to the current situation where players who don't want to annoy others will need to slot for KB->KD). ST attacks can get away with it a bit easier but AOEs really can't in most cases. Flipping the onus around like that would prevent accidents and remove the slot tax aspect, plus it would be way easier to identify people who are doing it on purpose because they'd have to slot for it specifically as opposed to it being the default state.

I'm going to counter-argue that most set bonuses are ultimately rendered obsolete by team buffs and/or insps. Like, sure, a Blaster can try to build for 45% ranged defense, but a Blaster with nothing but procs slotted still has the same max defense potential as the softcap Blaster, but with more damage too. Hoarding set bonuses will only raise your minimum values, not your maximum values. Thus, building for pure damage (via procs) is objectively the best choice at all times because it gives you something that cannot be replicated/replaced by any other source. My opinion is that our max caps for things like res, hp, etc. should be influenced by the bonuses we pick so that there's some kind of value from them that can't be rendered useless by teammate/insp buffs. I think it should also vary by powerset, i.e. Fire Armor should have a higher max fire resistance than any other armor type (right now it just caps easier but the cap is identical to everyone else). And even the damage buff set bonuses should raise our damage cap too, because right now they're hella useless (there's no world where 4% damage is equal to 10% recharge).

I'm not one of the "make the game harder" people, but the part of the Council buffs that got complained about was how tanky/spongey they became, especially considering some of them could rez after you finally whittled down their health bars. Bullet sponges aren't challenging, just tedious and annoying.

Broadly speaking, the game has a few mechanics that stand in the way of picking every power in a set. >Animation time budget (once you have a full chain, adding more powers is literally useless) >Limited power choices >Limited slots ...So being able to get by without the full 9 powers is practically a necessity. However, it also sucks for some powers to be pure noob traps with no legit use case. My take is that powers with weaker DPA should generally have higher utility or something so there's a little more give and take as to picking which ones you want. Like for example, in Dark Blast, right now you always want to take Gloom as your first attack because it has higher DPA and that's the end of the story. What I would do is make the T1 blast have a noticeably stronger to-hit debuff (perhaps last longer too?) than Gloom so that it would be a choice of DPA vs safety. You aren't expected to take both because, again, animation budget and limited slots, but maybe the choice would be a little less of a no-brainer? Some sets with limited utility might be harder to translate this idea to than others, admittedly. Like maybe Flares might have a chance to spread fire to nearby enemies or something because Fire Blast lacks secondary effects, I dunno. I think you get the idea.

It just occurred to me that Rad Blast might actually be a better candidate for this than Beam Rifle. Rad already has an eye beam power, so adding eye beam alternate animations to some of the attacks would keep with the theme and not run in to the potential issues of Beam being coded as a weapon-holding set. We could try to find some "head blast" animations from Psi Blast and/or Sonic Blast and replace their FX with eye beams. Neutrino Bolt -> Shriek (exact animation time match) Electron Haze -> ??? (Several animations are shorter but I'm having a hard time finding something equally long...perhaps it's time to shorten it in general. Perhaps we could take Psionic Strike from Sentinel Psi Blast and trim it down with sequencers, or Psychic Scream from Psi Assault). Proton Volley -> Psionic Lance (exact match, maybe animate as a "pulse laser" kind of thing) Cosmic Burst -> Shout (only off by 0.07 seconds too long, can use sequencers to trim that off easily) Neutron Bomb -> Mental Blast (exact match, this would maybe be visualized similar to Refractor Beam from Sentinel BR)

We might be able to creatively work around it. The new Reactive Regeneration power tracks each time a player gets hit and does something afterward, so maybe a reflection power could use that as the basis to deal damage to a nearby enemy (might have to be random instead of targeted at the shooter) instead of buffing the user's regen rate.

Regarding the Labyrinth, it's really not that hard at all in a league. The final ballroom is almost like a stationary KM-ITF. And of course it's run daily on multiple different servers. That aside, there is most definitely truth to the accusation that the playerbase mostly focuses on easier content. I see this as a feature more than a flaw most of the time.

PBAOEs seem to be treated differently/favorably compared to cones. Here's a Page 2 patch note for Sweeping Cross: At one point there was going to be something similar for Jacob's Ladder but that got cancelled. Based on previous history/precedent, I would not trust the powers team to give us free arc buffs, which is why I suggested the compromise of "penalizing" recharge instead of damage.