Greycat

Not sure what this is supposed to accomplish. As mentioned, "Turn off XP" is already a thing - has been since live - and free. Also, playing content "at level" is different from playing exemped through Ouro. Playing (say) Skipper Lagrange's missions at 30, with whatever slotting you can have then, is different from being fully slotted and having +5 levels of powers by being exemped down.

No, it isn't. They're not getting XP, etc, sure. But that's not what they're talking about - they mention specifically "for the badge." It doesn't matter if they're grey or not if you're trying to go for a defeats badge. And mentioning Skulls, there aren't "non-counted" skulls (like, say, Arachnos vs Rogue Arachnos.)

I don't mind the hollows, but I keep stopping to make sure (blueside) to play the Protean arcs (so.. 20-30ish,) and many of my magic sorts run Croatoa (25-33ish.)

And how did we hami at this resolution?

No bugs here, but an old one... (given the generated name, from 8/10/05...)

OK, minor thing. Pocket D Chalet, upper level. Chaz the Bartender has a *fascination* with Lord Winter. Even in the off season. Where he spouts the same three or four lines. Not, say, once every ten, fifteen minutes, but *every minute.* Which, when you have a group that likes to hang out there socially, gets *really* old *really* fast. Can we either get Chaz something new to talk about, or just shut him up entirely, when the winter event's not going on?

but they probably should have. (Was looking for something else in a screenshot archive. Ran across these from live...)

Honestly, the main thing I want to adjust in Sonic Blast are the *sounds.* Something consistent and sensible instead of "Hey, I'm a wolf!" "Hey, I'm a tech gun!" "Hey, I go woowoowoo!"

Click name. Tap F for follow. It will face you towards them and bring you closer. Hit Regrowth. (Not against the suggestion, just saying this'll help. I know other heals automatically face you to the target. I've run a lot of emp and pain during raids.)

Meh. I mean, there's just nothing *interesting* to it as it sits. It's "just another GM," basically.

I absolutely do not want a teleport component on those. There are times I'm using Confront to try to pick out specific targets - that does NOT mean I want to be where that target is (and in the middle of all their friends.) And there are times it'd be objectively useless, such as when I use it to taunt gates (and thus pull groups of Rikti) on mothership raids. For assassin's strike, I'm *already* in melee range, I don't want to teleport anywhere. You want to teleport, pick up combat teleport. And no, "Every other game does it" is not valid. Every other game is not COH. So many "every other games" rely on a holy trinity of DPS/Tank/Healer to get anything done. Know what I don't tend to play for very long? Every other game. Most other games have even more of a grind to them. Most other games seem to have you actually have to *pay* in some way (not talking microtransactions, usually) to level up. There are a lot of things "every/most other game" does I would *hate* to see in COH.

Main issue is that it's a 35+ zone. I really don't think they'd want to face that... (Honestly, I don't think it needs an event, but that's me.)

I'm not arguing. I'm here. I play the hell out of C&C remastered (and 3.) I *like* my old games. And a lot of indie games go for even less detail in the old 8-bit aesthetic. (Disclaimer: Yes, I do still own an Atari 2600, though the retron 77 console's much friendlier to try to play those carts on.) But it's not going to *help* draw people in, necessarily, or keep them past novelty.

Time: OK, so they sit a little longer on a farm first. INF: ... isn't hard to get. Side problem for any restricting is, well, a lot of us are "oldbies," and just want to get an old character up and running. (Or, like me, are in it primarily for the RP now.) All these sorts of ideas would do is add some annoyance. And as to the OP: Mentioned elsewhere, but this game's old enough to start trying to get its learners permit and crash the car into a tree. The game *looks old.* NCSoft butchered every chance they had to promote the game when it was live - deciding, instead, to try to sell us sneakers on billboards in-game. While we still had a profitable enough population then, now? We are still in a rather grey legal status, we have a volunteer dev team that does things as they can (and, yes, has been pretty good at that, but still, small, volunteer team,) and our character models don't even have fingers. I mean, I took a break during live and played Aion... with facial expressions, round characters, gorgeous environments, nicely done wings, and the ability to sit in chairs - and *that* game's a decade old now. We're not as flashy. We'd probably get more retro gamers interested than anything. Short of a total rewrite, with a new engine, etc. (and how are those "spiritual successors" going even with money?) we're playing an old game.

If doing the "on air," I'd almost think the space we use for prefixing titles (the "the amazing fabulous" and whatnot) would be the space to indicate it. See a red rectangle with "on air" there, it's distinctive, should be easy to notice. Don't know about desirable or doable, I'm mostly looking at "visible" and "unique."

What build should everyone try? We have 1000 slots per server. Try *all* of them. Don't worry about permacappcharging your defensiztance. Get some dice, pick an AT with it, then a primary and secondary set. Take it to 50 (actually playing, not just PL-then-incarnate-then-cap.) Find a FOTM build. Flip it. (I did this occasionally on live. It ... leads to interesting combinations. When Ice/Energy blasters seemed really popular, I ran around with an Energy/Ice.) Or take a popular combo (Rad/Fire brute!) and ... don't make it a brute. I don't mean "make it a tank." I mean a rad/fire sentinel. Or controller. (... granted, fire/rad there, but you get the point.) Or blaster. Make an MA/Stone Armor just for flippy stones, don't worry about "optimized." Try all the builds. ALL of them. Work through "Everything/Invuln." Or "All control sets." Explore a little.

Have to 100% disagree. Crossing over gives me more flexibility to build a character the way *I* want to - as mentioned earlier, the subject of this thread, "Do I want my damage or de/buffs first?" for instance. Or, if you're going controller/dom, "do I want to do support or damage." *I get fewer limitations in building the character I want.* As far as people migrating off redside? The only thing that had Redside feeling good about itself was how few people were on gold, even on live. There's a *lot* more going on for why people don't play red than "my AT is no longer locked to that side." And those get listed out - with obvious variation between people - every single time someone asks. People don't like being lackeys, or they're turned off by suddenly hitting an arc doing things they really don't want to do, or their character is railroaded (or basically called an idiot) in the missions, or they don't like the way it is environmentally, or ... how many more reasons? So... sorry, but saying "Yep, called it, crossing over sucks and should never have been done!" is just ... no.

Vorlon MM.

So, jumping around gathering explore badges in Talos. The ghost ship "event" comes up. And I hear someone actually ... ask for a team for this. I don't think anyone cared about this on *live,* past the ectoplasmic badge. Primarily because this is just such a basic, not interesting, not worth repeating event. GM hunts? 6-10 merits per GM? Yes, people do that... and ignore this. But this should be *interesting.* A literal ghost ship, dropping off ghost crew/passengers, tied to some of Paragon's lore. Tied to Striga, to Spanky Rabinowtz (and I know I probably spelled that wrong,) and earlier Paragon history. So what's wrong with it? - It appears in Talos and IP. IP's not fun to begin with, but the ghost ship's path takes it over water... long stretches where it can't drop off anything even if you ARE hunting for the badge. - There's no reason other than the badge to *do* it, and then you do it once, maybe twice, to get the ghosts... and they're probably grey to you. There's no reason to repeat it. - Despite being tied to lore (and some interesting dialog, sort of,) it just ... is there. Nobody asks about the Moraine. It's just "the ghost ship." Now, no, it doesn't need to be a giant GM to take down, or drop off a ghost-GM. Boring. But it should open up *some* possibilities... perhaps tied to Ouro, to the history plaques, to Striga. (While these don't make "attack the ghosts" necessarily repeatedly attractive, it'd make looking for the ghost ship worthwhile, perhaps.) Ideas: - Ectoplasmic badge earned: You get a chance to board the ship and travel to its last days, trying to rescue who you can. Reward: Honestly, not sure. More badges, typically, since that fits. - Ectoplasmic plus Striga exploration badges/Hess unlocked (something like that) - New mission chain on Striga ... which I don't have ideas about, since I'm somewhat spitballing things. Possibly a "Find the wreck, unlock the secrets, and stop bad guy from burying you back along with the secrets." - Ectoplasmic, Striga and Ouro unlocked - Time travel arc back to before the last voyage. See Old Paragon, see undarkened Astoria. Try to get your warning out, perhaps. (Yes, these would be stacked, you could have all three unlock when the ghost ship is out or something.) Rewards? Well, merits for the arcs, of course. Badges. Get all three for an accolade. Get a tiny ghost ship pet to follow you around (or ghost, if that's your thing.) Honestly, mostly spitballing to see what could make this an actually *interesting* event to look forward to.

I think we can ignore the whole "this is what the name is, so it's EVIL!" thing. There's no difference between, say, a "mastermind" and a "squad leader." Even the powersets - mercenaries are not necessarily evil, for instance. They're a squad of guys in uniform with guns. If we could reskin them they could be a SWAT team, private security, any number of things. Same with thugs. Same with brutes, as long as we're looking at ATs - it's the "tough guy that punches things." What makes a "brute" more evil than a "tank?" Hard to say tanks (the mechanical sort) haven't been used in evil acts. Zombies? I have zombies who are fulfilling oaths, working willingly. Demons? The whole "working towards redemption" thing isn't a new idea. There's zero reason to use "but they started on redside back when the two were "sorta separate games but not" so they're good/evil" as reason to argue against... well, almost anything. That's long past, both with side switching and Praetoria (which didn't ever restrict that way) and the terms are irrelevant as anything other than a label you see at character creation. As far as re-envisioning what MMs as a class were meant to be... no, not needed at all. They were, and are, the only pet-centric archetype, and there's never been any confusion about that (unlike "what's the point of tanks/brutes/scrappers?" that comes up.)

Well, the character screen's long been in need of an overhaul. I don't think I'd need it, but I wouldn't argue with it being there.

Back on live, I did a guide to one of the old trailers. Had some discussion on these: https://web.archive.org/web/20120905065800/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=117073

Yeah, preferred pre-13 zone PVP myself. Part of the question that comes up when someone wants ATs or builds in PVP to be "competitive" is - "what do you mean?" Should anyone be able to 1v1 anyone else? That's pretty much not going to happen - COH doesn't have a "fighter," "dps," "rogue," "healer" basic class setup, it's got ATs which can vary wildly within themselves, which makes that balance very difficult. Always has. My answer for some time on live about how "x is unfair/unbalanced" was, often, "bring a team," because while I'd had some fun 1v1 fights (or, honestly, 1vmany,) a team that worked well together - even pickup - could really shine. (Yes, held Siren's Call with a team of 3 for quite some time once, 'til we were overwhelmed by numbers. It was a *blast.*) Now, that's not to say things shouldn't be adjusted, but ... POV helps with these. And it seems everyone wants something different. 1v1 is always going to favor certian builds - my earth/FF troller isn't going to do anything, for instance, and I'd *never* expect it to find or be given any sort of "balance" to be competitive. Even in PVE, enemies tend to die of old age rather than damage. 🙂 Incentive-wise... I don't know about arena, but zone varies zone by zone. BB I think is ... fine, really, with its main issue being the level range and what that can bring (a new level 15 vs someone exemped down to 25 with up to level 30 powers... that can be rough.) Same with RV, it's pretty good. Warburg's ... mostly hobbled by stupid AIs being unable to follow or path up ramps properly and their issues with stealth. The big outlier is, of course, Siren's - bounty doesn't persist, even if you go into zone missions, it takes too long to accumulate and what you can buy with it isn't worth it (woo, an SO at ... what, 6000?) The zone battles are slow and uninteresting and take too long to get started or ... really do anything. Of all the zones that need a look over for reward, and events (I'm "eh" on the jade spider, personally) Siren's needs it... even if we were looking at it from a strictly PVE POV.