EmperorSteele

I'm sorry, but the idea of NPCs spawn camping is hillarious! Though I imagine it losses it's charm after dying for the third time in a row!

I don't know if it's so much not doing enough damage per hit, as much as them not having enough attacks and special gimmicks or better AI. If you want GMs to be something special, they have to be something more than giant bags of HP that occasionally punch back.

I always wondered that, too. It'd be nice, that's for sure! Still, I assume there's a reason or three that the Live devs never implimented it. It's hard to imagine no one thought of it before.

Disclaimer: This isn't an actual suggestion for Homecoming to implement. Stalkers are currently a fun, solid AT and for that reason alone, there's no real reason to rock the boat. This is just had an idea that I wanted to share and get feedback on. That said... CoX has four melee/armor-based ATs. They have mostly all the same powersets, and mostly the same powers within those sets, and therefore, similar play styles and roles on a team. Clearly Stalkers see the most changes to the melee and defense sets to foster the inclusion of their key powers like Hide and Assassin's Strike, but, is that enough to truly differentiate them? With Tanks, you stand in the middle of a group and hit them. With Brutes, you stand there and hit things. With Scrappers, you stand there and hit things. Stalkers sneak up, kill a dude, then proceed to... stand there and hit things. My proposed change for Stalkers is this: Get rid of the current secondaries, and replace them with all new debuff/light control based sets! Kind of like cranking Ninjitsu up to 11 and having the other sets follow suite. If you look at comics, movies, TV and games, the types of characters Stalkers are meant to imitate, like Batman, the Predator, some iterations of Spider-Man, and the protagonist from ANY stealth-based game, all tend to use use tricks, traps, and subterfuge against their foes, because they themselves lack any significant protection. The character has to set up the battlefield to their advantage, whittle down their foes, and then strike when an opening presents itself. The new Stalker Secondaries would look like this: T1: Hide; increased Melee/Ranged defense, but no AoE defense (Being invisible doesn't stop a nearby explosion from hurting you) T2: A single-target "soft" Mez: Immob, Sleep, or Fear. No Holds or Stuns. Just something to keep a troublesome boss or LT off you until you've whittled down their men and are ready to engage. T3: A Light defensive/resistance armor of some kind, which would be thematic to the set. Stalkers ARE still a Melee AT and need some protection, but it won't be as layered as before. The defense numbers would vary based on the effectiveness of the rest of the set (usually between 7.5-12.5%). T4: An AoE -ToHit/Perception Debuff of some kind, like a smoke bomb or a flashbang effect. This provides a bit of extra protection not just for the Stalker, but their whole team. T5: "Key" power. This is where each set would be radically different. Some get a sleep/slow effect, a Knockback effect, a Confuse, or Caltrops, or a repel... or something else that's thematic to the set. They're not all made equal, which is what helps determine the strength of their few armor powers. T6: Mez protection clicky. Gotta have that if you're going to be spending any time in melee, after all. Short-duration (30 seconds?), low mag (5?), just enough to get you out of a tight spot. T7: A Light AoE control or debuff: Fear, Sleep, Slow, KD patch, or an additional -Acc to stack with other powers. T8: A "strong" Single-target Debuff, that would include two or three of the following aspects: -Acc, -Dam, -Def, -MaxHP, -Move Speed, -Regen, -Recharge, -Res, etc. This power would be mid duration and high recharge (Maybe just barely perma-able?), and be tailor-made to take the edge off of things like AVs and GMs, whether solo or on a team. T9: Agro Redirection: Mass Confuse or Phantom Army clone! These pets (if applicable) would be VERY low damage, and have taunt auras; the whole purpose would be to keep a group's attention off you for about 30 seconds. They'd be thematic to the set, like Fire Imps, Ice Imps, Shadows, clones of you... or, just a slightly weaker version of Mass Confusion. And here are the Secondaries I whipped up (Names and descriptions only, you can probably guess what kind of powers each set would have using the above as a guide) Dark Utility: Focuses on -acc and fear debuffs far more strongly than other sets. Devices: Well rounded, with a bit more in the realm of AoE debuffs. Earthen Utility: Probably the beefiest set for self-defense over debuffs. Fiery Utility: Trades some defense and debuff numbers for, what else, a bit of extra damage! Icy Utility: Utilizes slows more than other sets. Illusions: Makes your foes see things that aren't there (and not see what IS there)! Mental Utility: Psionics-flavored set; the ability to see attacks coming gives it the highest defensive numbers of the bunch. Ninjitsu: A lot like the OG set, but following the pattern set above. Telekinetics: Or gravity, w/e you prefer to RP it as; focuses on moving stuff around with kd/repel effects Temporal Utility: Time powers to slow your foes, and the only set to have an actual Hold. Trick Arrow: Oil Slick ftw! As you can see, the idea here is two-fold: Make Stalker gameplay feel a little more like other entries in the stealth genre, as well as give them additional ways to contribute on a team. Not that they NEED it, mind you, but I feel that 4 ATs who all play mostly the same is a bit much, and Stalkers were a prime candidate for a shake-up, IMO. So, again, this is all just theory crafting, I don't see this change ever happening, but I just wanted to share and see what everyone else thought! Would this be something that would get you interested in Stalkers? Would you hate it and delete your Stalker? Should this maybe be a different AT all together that steps on a Stalker's toes the way Brutes step on Tanks toes? Let's hear it!

Pretty sure we had this as the weekly discussion a while back. Anyway, Synapse could stand to be a little shorter. I mean, we're working with the fastest person in the canon, you'd think he could check out some of the warehouses/powerplants while the team does the others. I also had another idea, which would be unpopular/complete nonstarter because it would "require" certain types of players: the TF should focus on how to find the Clockwork King by discovering that his minions aren't electronic, but telekinetic, psionically-powered puppets. If a player on the team had any psychic-themed powerset (Mind control, illusion control, psychic blast, psi melee, empathy, etc), then they'd be able to suss this out and skip half the TF, because they'd know how to track CK. Otherwise, you'd need characters with electric powers to confirm that the clockwork aren't really electric to skip a few missions, and past that, a science-origin character to maybe skip 1 or 2 missions. This might have to come with a merit reward reduction, though, as the ability to turn a 90 minute TF into a 60/45 minute TF shouldn't give the same reward (the reduction would only occur if you use the clues to skip missions). I'd also involve Blue Steel in some way, since he's partially responsible for CK's current state. Citadel: Yeah, keep it all in Talos, and make the story more obvious to the players. I've run Citadel more times than I can count, and I'm not sure what's going on, other than we fight Citadel copies at one point? I think? Maybe that's another mission? If not, we should be, since that's the whole schtick, it's "Citadel's children", after all. And this could easily just be like, 5 missions. Manticore's okay, it could stand to lose a mission or two (I think it was actually updated before sunset, I don't recall the double-boss-fight-with-a-rez when i played it on Live). Numina is fine, IMO.

I mean, that page you linked says the target will cower OR flee, so, how am I wrong? That said, I've noticed less runners against my Stalker than against my Mind Controller after a blast of Terrorize, so, guess that just means the weakest Controller in the game is more intimidating than a powerful Stalker. Ouch!

I know @Xenosone was being silly, but he brings up an interesring tidbit: Stalkers CAN emit a fear statis when they AS. This increases survivability, but can decrease DPS if the terrorized foes decide to run off. So there can be a bit of tradeoff there. Overall though, I don't think it has a huge effect, but just enough to be noteworthy.

Yeah, a lot of the civvie NPCs are like 7 feet tall for some wierd reason.

Clearly Kaiju just wanted me to look like a fool. Joke's on him, I don't need the help!

*Looks at @Skywise's chart* Your misaligned alignment column bugs me, as does the implication that you don't have any Praetorians. I mean, if you're only gonna play to about level 20, might as well play a 20-level storyarc! Which begs a question: What content DO you play? I figure you gotta be sick of Mathew Hashby, Twinshot, and Rebecca Stockwell by now, as well as the generic-ass non-story contacts in City Hall, not to mention DFB. AE, I guess? Anyway, i have like, 3 mains and about 15 alts. Rookie numbers, amirite? 😃

Don't get too excited, hyperstrike doeant look like a mod or gm or anything, so wait for someone with a colorful border to reply.

Well, Winterpacks are creeping back up to 20m already, so I cashed in a few of those. Seems a bit too soon, but if its what people are willing to pay, then so be it! Also been slowly trading in thousands of merits worth of unslotters and converters. Don't want to flood the market and drive down my own profit, afterall (though it is tempting to try to fill every bid and bottom out the price, even if that would only last for a few minutes) Also, today is only the 12th =/

Yeah, I'm doing this in my new-ish Stalker, too! Of course, I have to bankroll him with my mains, because as a Stalker, I'm fighting as few mobs as possible, which means less drops and inf... but that's ok. A part of this feature is being an inf sink, and it wouldn't work if the game dropped a ton more money than it costs to upgrade every other level (which it still does if you get some rare drips to sell). The fact that SOs are so much better (stats wise) than basic IOs up until level 30ish is just icing on the cake!

I just made a 3rd build with confront and teleport-foe (as this was my Mind/Kin, I also specc'd in TK and Repel for lulz). Simple enough 😃

Wouldn't it be cold garbage?

Well, there's the chance you won't get ANY ATOs and will have wasted your 10 mil (or, yes, you might get 2!). And, converting to the one you want takes up the most valuable resource of all: time! Sure, you might get the one you want on the first try, buuut you might also be sitting there for a few minutes just clicking "convert" over and over!

The only issue I forsee with allowing all blasts to come from the eyes (or really let them all use the same animation or w/e) is animiation time. Some blasts are supposed to take a half second, some take a second and a half. The devs would probably have to make quicker and slower versions of the eyeblast animation to match all the various powers, or else things would probably get borked =( Other than that? +1, more options are always good 😃

I'd like access to more City parts: Road tiles, sidewalks, buildings, etc Also, +1 on making smaller, more sensical versions of functional SG objects, like the storage bins and meeting tables. As for PvP bases, I believe trying to get them to work in the current set-up would be a non-starter, and more trouble than it's worth. I think a new system could be made from scratch to create PvP/PvE-enabled bases/maps, which then would have cross-compatibility with AE.

IceScream Man: Cold/Sonic Defender JenericElectricChick: Elec/Elec Blaster. I just liked the rhyme scheme 😃 Patty-Sue Ivanova: Mind/Kin Controller (If that doesn't sound like a pun, figure out the acronym 😉 ) And my favorite, though it involves reading his bio to get it: Balaka. CSB time: This was my 2nd or so character back on Live, and I wanted to name him the Black Ninja, because I was terribly unoriginal. Well, surprise surprise, the name was taken. So, I tried Black Warrior. Taken. Dark Ninja. Taken. Black Shadow? Taken. Black... uh, bllllaaackkk, uuuhhh.... And it occurred to me in that moment, that if this poor sap was actually sitting at the Hero Registrar's office, having this exact conversation, trying to come up with a cool name that wasn't taken, while there was a line of heroes behind him, the registrar would at that point roll their eyes, type in "Balaka" (Black uh), hand him his Hero Registration card, and send him on his way. And I thought that was hilarious, so, that's what I named him!

One of the devs, I forget if it was 6 or Powerhouse, opined that raising the agro cap actually makes Tankers even LESS desired on a team, because you need fewer Tanks to control all the agro. If one tank can herd an entire room/floor/map, why bother with a 2nd tank, especially when the need for more AoE damage becomes more apparent? I was fairly on the side of raising the cap until I read that, and really have had a really hard time trying to come up with a suitable a rebuttal.

So, I was playing around with the "random" button in the costume creator the other day, and I noticed a weird pattern. A lot, and I mean, damn near MOST, of the randomly-generated costumes had either an animal head, the "brain in a jar head", monster legs, and/or the Crab backpack. Heck, it seemed to cycle through most of the same options over and over. So, if this is a problem, why would I ask to "de-randomize" the randomize option? Simple. Currently, it weighs all the top-level options equally. If we stop it from doing that, and maybe give certain options more "weight" than others (like cape for back details, since there are a ton of cape options), then the results would no longer be "random", BUT, the end results WOULD be more varied. Just a thought.

Sounds like that would beat the alternatives (either overwriting the SOs with IOs, or using unslotters, which I don't think would be financially viable).

I know some people try to distance themselves from CoH's lore, but, technically, EVERYONE is "Magic" origin to some degree. The only reason super powers exist in this world, from super science to advanced gadgets to people being able to naturally train themselves to superhuman heights to being born with that X-tra something special... is because Marcus Cole and Stephen Richter opened up Pandora's box (A magical relic) and unleashed all of humanity's latent potential. Humanity not only gained the benefit of 2,000+ years of progress in mere moments, but also re-learned all the old forgotten magics taught to us by the Old Gods. Or maybe I'm misreading that bit of the lore, idk.

The individual server buttons (Live, Pre-Release/Staging, and Beta) should have the version numbers in the lower left corners.

So, a Blaster Arch/TA will have the highest damage and a few unique tricks up their sleeve, but the debuff numbers are meh. Also get Munitions Mastery for concept TA/Arch Defender will have the highest debuff numbers, and slightly higher numbers for Stealth and Combat Jumping to bolster their own defenses. Arch/TA Corr won't be saddled by a wimp T1 attack, and seems like they'd fit square in the middle between the other two options. Or, if i wanted to be a masochist, i could roll a Petless Ninja/TA! Opionions/ideas? My only crutch is fitting in Stealth, Invis, and Misdirection, other than that, whaddya all think?