Legree

I think it is just high traffic. While that is going to be party due to the number of people using AE I have to say the only big performance drop I've seen in Atlas has been when there's a costume contest on... and I'm sure noone can imagine a server without those! My two inf: I don't like AE - never have, never will. For all sorts of reasons I think it was bad for the game but I've long since accepted it as a part of the game - just not one that I, personally, will play. Indeed the only use I've made of it on HC is to use the one in Cap au Diable as an oasis of safety while navigating a level 10 with no travel power to the next mission door... so it's not entirely useless :) In any case even were AE removed tomorrow that wouldn't somehow bring back 'the good old days'. Farmers gonna farm, and if AE wasn't there they'd be finding a new Dreck map (which I'm sure some already have) or spending even more time in DFB/DIB. I also don't think the spam is that bad. I still see plenty of TFs/SFs being formed, as well as mission and radio teams, and LFG/Help/Broadcast don't get nearly as heated as they did back when the original AE craze was at its height. At times back then there was open warfare in those channels between those who AE'd and those who didn't... which had the fun side effect that people would form mission teams purely in defiance of the rush to AE. I think that's the only time I was ever part of a full team running Kalinda's missions in Mercy - so many snakes!

There's already contacts in the game with whom you have an antagonistic relationship, to one degree or another, as well as writing that ties itself in knots to portray the events as being of your instigation. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. Either way you're still heading into that warehouse to defeat all Mooks. There's a good reason why many contacts treat player villains as no more than freelance muscle, and that's because for much of the levelling experience that's exactly what they are. Regardless of what's written in a bio or the player's own personal head-canon they are one of many and a dozen more just like them are dropped off in Mercy on a regular basis. That's true at least up until Grandville, and to disregard that is to disregard a large part of the setting. There's always a bigger fish. Five of them, in fact, and they've got an army of spider soldiers - and every other freelance villain in the Isles - to deal with anyone who gets too far out of line. For me that's the most important thing Arachnos does in the game - it justifies why the Rogue Isles are the way there are, and more importantly it justifies why they don't descend into total anarchy.

I'd say expansion rather than rewrite. There's a ton of good stuff in the Isles, and the core criticisms of it, while valid to a point, are not without issues that would be difficult if not impossible to correct without reworking the entire game into something entirely new. The feeling of being someone else's lackey... well, that's inevitable in any contact/mission based MMO. What, you just killed the Lich King? Well done, now go bring me 10 bearskins. Thanks. CoH/CoV isn't as linear as a lot of more recent games in the genre, but it's not a free-for-all sandbox either. At best it can give you small choices, and the illusion of bigger ones, which Praetoria, for example, does rather well. Similarly you can challenge Recluse, but you'll never overthrow him, any more than you'll be hailed as the next Warchief of the Horde. It's a variation of the eternal problem of MMO stories - you're the chosen one, and so is every other player. I actually think CoV (and CoH) handles this better than most games - in that while you have to suspend disbelief for individual story arcs and repeat content the overall setting is one which absolutely recognises that you and hundreds of other heroes and villains exist. For me the setting works best if I think of my villains not as global menaces, but mid-level supervillains. We're not Doctor Doom or Darkseid, we're the Sinister Six or the Gotham City Sirens. (Of course a lot of that reasoning goes out the window somewhat once we get into the Incarnate stuff, but that kind of power/story creep is a different topic altogether.) As to being not evil enough - that's an extremely tricky balancing act that CoV, I think, mostly pulls off by softening even the nastier stuff with humor. Doctor Creed is a good example of that, but even so some people are repelled by parts of his arc, and let's not even start on Westin Phipps... Thee's a very fine line dividing villainous evildoing from gratuitous sadism and cruelty, and even if it was only to keep their family friendly rating I'm glad CoV stayed on the right side of that line... at least most of the time. If there's new content I hope that does too. All in all though I agree with you that "come for the xp, stay for the content" isn't going to work. I suspect most of the players who want to experience redside content are the ones who already are.

The issue is that there's two conflicting playstyles at work. The Tanker/Brute wants mobs in melee range to buff their defence - fair enough. Thing is the nrg/nrg Blaster wants those same mobs far away. It's why I'd never use the KB > KD IO in an squishy ranged build. When that melee mob stands up I want him to be halfway across the room not standing next to me already in melee range. Yes, uncontrolled knockback is bad. Yes, there are situations where a Blaster should take that extra time to set up their shot. But it's not every situation, and in casual PUGing the team does not exist solely to act as the tank's pets. Where's the fun in that, for anyone other than the tank? Again, uncontrolled knockback is bad, but so are melees who throw fits because they had to take three extra steps to punch something.

Mobs have always run away. Some more than others but this is absolutely not new. I like it. It keeps fights that would otherwise be static slugfests active and dynamic, and it's even useful when a potentially troublesome mob decides to go off and do a lap of the room leaving me free to concentrate on the rest of the group before he comes back. No change is needed.

In Twinshot's arc (and Dr. Graves on redside) the NPCs have a weird tendency to run up to you and then keep running instead of standing still, so they're constantly bumping up against you in this odd looking little trip/dance. It's distracting, to say the least. As for the follow - to tell the truth I was often unsure whether they were supposed to be following me or not. There's some fairly nasty boss fights in those arcs (considering the level) and now I'm wondering if I was actually meant to have a teammate or two along for some of them. Not that they're necessarily much help when they are there. After being given an express ticket to the hospital by a multiple boss attack in one mission I zoned back in to find them waiting for me at the entry point. Fair enough - that happens. Only Flamebeux was also there, and just stood there vacantly while the bad guys reminded me that I should have stocked up on purples before coming back. Mind you, seeing as it was Flambeux I'm not entirely sure that being vacant and useless was out of character...

I have mixed feelings on this. It did remove a reason to play redside (and goldside to some extent) and reduce the value of the side-switching/alignment mechanic, and I won't deny I miss the way that redside teams played differently from blueside, and vice-versa. On the other hand it has made it a lot easier to match a character concept to the AT that best fits it. I have most of the ATs on both sides now, though oddly enough I find that the majority of my heroes are still what I'll always think of as blueside ATs, and the majority of my villains are still, in concept, best suited to the redside ATs.

For me it was the first time I'd ran into a lot of enemies with AoE attacks (this was pre-GR, so no Destroyers) and after feeling like me and my ever growing entourage could take on anything in the later levels of Cap au Diable the first time all of my pets were basically obliterated in one shot by a Scrapyarder firebomb... that left a lasting impression. The next time I took an MM in wasn't nearly so bad, but that was Bots/FF, which is sturdier than Thugs/Poison, and more importantly I knew what to expect.

I think it's rather more complex than that. The issue isn't what other people play, not as such. The issue is that if the idea of 'one true build' takes hold in CoH - at it has done in other MMOs in endgame content - then anyone who doesn't follow that build slavishly will find themselves locked out of said endgame. This isn't speculation - it's already happening with the demands for specific ATs, specific builds of ATs, specific levels of Incarnate power that you can see in LFG daily. Because it's boring. If I want to smack around helpless mobs and never run the risk of defeat or even challenge I'll go and play... well I won't name names but any number of MMOs have flattened the challenge of content into the ground and there's a reason I'm here playing CoH rather than there playing them. Reducing everything to a rolling Incarnate DPS-fest is boring, and as for upping the challenge by choice that's not going to fly with the XP/per second crowd who are already running speed ITFs (min 50+ must be alpha slotted), and so the pool of potential players for team content shrinks further and further... and noone wants that. Let me put it another way. I'm not concerned that down the line I won't be able to run Incarnate content because I'm not optimal. I'm concerned that I won't be able to run non-Incarnate content like ITF, LRSF, STF etc unless I'm 50+3 and fully IO'd out.

There are Defenders on Redside now. You could be The Philotic Knightmare! I mean you've already got the evil goatee...

I've always considered Sharkhead - due to the Scrapyarders - a kind of purgatory that MMs have to go through for five levels until they ascend to the heaven of a full set of pets at level 26.

If I'd added a 6th option this would have been it, but I wanted to avoid an excess of options. It's not something that bothers me personally. Most of my villain concepts are formed to fit into the power structure of the Isles, and I do like the logic it runs by, with Recluse and Arachnos there as a justification for why the place doesn't descend into total anarchy. Still, I won't deny that the writing does at times tie itself in knots trying to provide villains with at least the illusion of acting in their own interest rather than someone else's.

So I'm spinning this off from a topic in Suggestions about incentivising players to visit the Rogue Isles more often, because it occurred to me that while there's a lot of conjecture it's still not entirely clear exactly why some don't. I'm not looking to start a debate on which side is best - just satisfy my own curiosity and maybe shed some light on why the divide is as large as it is. I've always divided my time (somewhat unevenly) between the Rogue Isles and Paragon City, as I assumed many people did. In a game a alt-friendly as this it never occurred to me that people would avoid all the content on redside, but apparently this is a thing that happens. The Poll options aren't exhaustive, of course, but I've tried to list the most common points I've seen made about villain content over the years. So if you don't play Redside - why not? If you do, but rarely - what stops you playing it more?

It occured to me that I haven't posted in this thread yet. I really should. City of Heroes was, in a lot of ways, my first MMO. Not the first I played (actually the second) but the first I subscribed to, the first I hit level cap on (and the only until I duo'd with a friend in another game last year), the first (and only) I pre-ordered an expansion for - and Going Rogue is still the benchmark by which I judge all other expansions. It's a game that even as a habitual soloist I enjoyed teaming in and one that's had a lasting influence on the way I play MMOs - not least in my love of alts. When the shutdown was announced I hadn't been playing for some time - mostly due to health reasons - and I couldn't quite bring myself to come back and rush the content I'd missed while the axe hung overhead. For seven years I've had to regret missing out on the newer zones, newer powersets, newer stories. I never dreamed I'd get a second chance at this game, but here it is. The best thing about this - other than the simple fact of being able to play again - is that coming back to City of Heroes I realise that it wasn't just nostalgia. It really was is as good as I remember. So thank you, Homecoming Team, for all of that. Thank you so much.

With the proliferation of ATs and powersets it's hard to resist a Brute rather than a Tanker or Scrapper. I unreservedly love Fury - it's one of my all-time favourite game mechanics, and for the first couple of hours on a recent new Scrapper I had, more than once, to resist the urge to reroll her as a Brute.

I usually take at least one of the personal attacks - to add some damage early on, for the secondary effect, for fun or flavor or just to have something to do while my pets are fighting. I also usually respec out of them at some point because by then I have more options and any of those options will do more for me than a basic attack. It's a bit like Brawl in that respect. When I do so depends on the set. An active set like /Poison will start to keep me busier much sooner than say /Force Field... though keeping a Boss out of the fight until I'm ready by pinballing them all over the map with Force Bolt seldom gets old. Still, there's a difference between a power being sub-optimal (solo or team) and utterly useless (solo) and the latter is what most of e.g. /Empathy or /Thermal is to a soloist. My point being that "this isn't optimal in a team" is not intrinsically any more reason to make a change than "this isn't optimal when not in a team."

I think this is the key point. I imagine that had the game remained in continuous live development for the last seven years there would probably have been measures introduced to restrict the use of Incarnate power in non-Incarnate content, and more actual Incarnate content would have been added to give those 50+ toons something to do, but as you say that ship has sailed and what we have is an unfinished system that remains unbalanced because it never got the multiple balance passes that other content did. I get that people enjoy the power boost that comes from an exemp'd down 50 being stronger than a character who actually is that level, but even so the rush to 50+ mentality that seems so prevalent now is baffling to me. The endgame we have is likely all we'll ever have - let's not kid ourselves that HC have the resources to significantly add to it anytime soon, if ever.

Powers should never be balanced around whether or not they're good in Incarnate content, seeing as 99% of the game happens before that. Anything from 3 to 6 powers in many support sets are hardpasses for soloists - all those "cannot use on yourself" powers make several entire sets a hardpass for some. Those players who prefer to solo are dealing with a lot more restricted power choices than those who don't. Let's not reduce the utility of those sets they can play in the name of squeezing a little more DPS out in full team endgame content.

As a long-time fan of Gang War I approve of this.

There is one surefire way to increase the redside population, though I daresay it wouldn't be very popular - remove Null the Gull. The proliferation of all ATs other than the HEATS and VEATS to both sides happened on live, and I imagine that in itself reduced the villain population somewhat, but the existence of Null the Gull utterly negates the side-switching mechanic if you choose to use it, and players are choosing to use it in sizeable numbers, if the amount of queries in Help chat about the fastest arc to run to get Patron Powers is any indication. Remove Null the Gull and 'heroes' will have to spend more than a half day holiday on redside if they want their Patron Powers, and who knows - while they're there they might actually join some of the teams people are trying to form. Isn't that forcing people to do content? Yeah, kind of, but as has been said about other game mechanics - e.g. accolades 'forcing' people to do Synapse TF - those mechanics exist for a reason, and that reason is in part to encourage players to do content they otherwise might not. I'm not actively advocating for Null the Gull to be removed - personally I don't care either way - but so long as he's there no amount of incentivising will convince blueside-only players to take a walk on the redside.

I know how that feels. At times I'll pass on playing the more active ATs (Blasters and Dominators for me mostly) in favour of something less demanding. On the flipside of that the other day I went onto a Brute instead and the adrenalin rush of chasing that fury bar really perked me up.

The key word is temporary. Regardless of what the Select Your Playstyle screen say the only true pet class in the game is the Mastermind. That's a pet class, and the rest are classes with pet powers. If you don't enjoy the mechanics - which again are there for balance and to keep the ATs interesting to play - then maybe play an AT where you do enjoy the mechanics?

It's an integral part of the game's design. A lot of powers - especially the stronger ones, like pets for non-MMs - are balanced by something - be it a slow recharge or high end usage or whatever. If you really want perma-pets or perma-hasten or perma-Dom or perma-anything that isn't designed to be perma then build and slot for it accordingly.

If the change was reverted I'd be happy for Atlas Park and Mercy Island to remain invasion-free zones. Aside from the level scaled mobs being disproportionately tough on very low level characters there's a lot of street-sweeping missions in both zones - especially since they were revamped - and the invasions would disrupt those a lot, if not make them impossible to complete. Sure there are street-sweeping missions in Kings Row, Steel Canyon and so on as well, but I suspect the people running those at this point aren't going for optimal levelling efficiency and might enjoy an intermission of battling Rikti in between hunting Skuls.

Both of my mains ran at +2/x2 (as high as it could be set back then) from somewhere in their mid-20s, and did both beat the first AVs they ran into, which I think was around level 40. But in both cases I did find it a bit of a slog, and that was with levelling up mid-mission so I had a +1 level advantage over them, and after that I would drop the setting so I would be facing an EB instead. I was a bit reluctant to do so, so I can appreciate your position, but I've always considered AV-soloing more of an art in itself than something any, or even most, characters should be able to do.