dangeraaron10

Well, regardless, being HC now maybe these characters can grow a little bit without developer bad blood influencing their growth.

Huh. With States and Psyche so close to their current looks, and the others are so drastically different I wouldn't have known otherwise. The more you know!

Huh. I didn't even realize NCSoft tried its own take on Heroes of the Storm. 😕 Little insulted they used CoH characters after shutting the game down. I guess, alternatively, you can give Ms. Liberty a bigger role since I always imagined she'd be the natural replacement for Statesman. She is his granddaughter, after all.

Wasn't Tyrant eventually due for a redemption arc of sorts, or at least a character growth moment, where he dons Statesman's attire and fills his role after his death? Kinda weird that, to my knowledge, Statesman and Psyche are the only NPC Heroes on the CoH splashscreen with the rest being generic, and those are the two NPCs not with us anymore. At least on Primal Earth. Regardless, it feels a bit unbalanced for Heroes to keep losing NPCs while Recluse gets his girlfriend back. I seen a suggestion once that noted this unbalance, and the suggestion stated that Heroes should get Hero 1 back to balance it out more.

Always willing to +1 Power Armor Blast/Assault/Etc. Criminal that CO gets to have cool Power Armor attacks while CoH doesn't.

I feel like if any power(s) are going to break Cottage Rule, it's going to be Serum and/or Repair. To be fair to Repair, you can still have it be a power that's meant to further boost the survivability of your Bots as opposed to something completely different. Though I feel even without Repair, once the powerset comes into its own at high level Bots are easily the most survivable pets. I guess, if nothing else, if Repair actually healed ALL of your Bots much like how Upgrades boost all your pets at once. "You can release a small swarm of nanites that can Repair all Robot Henchmen to full health and restore some of their Endurance. This power only works on your Robot Henchmen. Recharge: Slow" At the very least it'd make for a good panic button and if it's a full-party full-heal then it'd justify the long cooldown. I don't even think that'd violate Cottage Rule. It performs the exact same function, just to your full squad instead of just one Robot which feels pointless. Edit: I take it back. Bots is one of the best Pet powersets. Before you do anything to Bots, please buff Mercs. PLEASE GOD BUFF MERCS.

Absolutely not. Prestige is a dumb system that needs to stay in the trash where it belongs. Replace your INF gain to get Prestige so someone else can buy a lamp for their base. "Make sure you use SG mode". If Prestige really has to return, then keep it separate from bases and base props entirely. And do away with "you earn less INF while grinding Prestige". Personally I feel it serves no purpose at all. It'll just encourage mega-SGs and kill off "personal housing" from a single player/small group of players. Even if Prestige were to take some other form, why even have it? What purpose would it serve? Some sort of SG based currency. SGs should be a gathering of friends or otherwise likeminded players to group up to do the game's more challenging content. We already have shinies to prove a player's or group's accomplishments. If Prestige is a currency meant to be spent, what non-Base things would you buy? Enhancements? Temp powers? Merits? How would these be distributed between SG members fairly? @GM Widower I respectfully disagree with any iteration of Prestige. Edit: I thought it over, and if Prestige really must be brought back (if someone in the dev team had a really great idea on what non-Base stuff to spend it on), I think Prestige should be automatic, and not siphon Influence/Infamy gain. I feel like "SG Mode" should be abandoned as the vestigial feature it is. I suppose you could tie Prestige exclusively into Base-Defense props but keep all current (cosmetic) props free and immediately available for non-PvP bases designed for show and roleplay. Perhaps make cosmetic versions of Base-Defense items free as well, with the functional ones costing Prestige.

That'd be a really nice addition! For me, I'm imagining 3 variants of "Large Dinosaur Tail". One that's plain scales, one with two rows of spikes, and one with feathers.

An option for Fire Sword, Greater Fire Sword, and Fire Sword Circle to have "Fiery Claw", to replace the swords with Savage Melee animations so that it's still very obviously Lethal damage in combination with Fire, but lets you ditch the swords for more theme variety.

I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the reduction of the cone boost from 100% to 50%. It was the one change I was looking forward to the most with these changes, in spite of each new iteration that seemed to scale back buffs. Before the Tanker changes hit Release Candidate status, people argued about the actual damage output either exceeding or even falling short of Live, and back then many cited the amazing AoE changes for Tankers giving it something of its own niche separate from Brutes. So seeing this aspect getting rolled back is ...not inspiring? I'm pretty pleased with the Brute changes, though. It'll make gaining and maintaining Fury a lot easier.

Agreed. I like the mechanical tail that Champions Online added soon after launch. Something like this would be really cool.

I agree the proposed changes in the OP are quite a bit overkill. But I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't appreciate Tough not requiring a prerequisite and Weave only requiring one (ideally that being Tough). It's always a bummer to get a power-pick level and have to use it on Boxing or Kick if you never intend to even put either power on your tray. They aren't super useful by themselves but are good for slotting, and you're hard pressed to find a build that doesn't use them. Weave's mostly popular for recharge, so defense heavy sets can easily skip it. Tough on its own isn't that outstanding. I do think that they are perfectly fine as toggles. I know a couple people here are against that, and we're much less tight on power picks these days with Inherent Fitness, but I think it just feels bad to have to pick a pool power that's useless to you to pick up some toggles to slot for recharge. Am I seriously gunning for it? Not all that much, I've already built around Kick in order to reach Weave (for my Rad Armor Brute that has no DEF toggles of his own). There should be real choices to make in people's builds but... picking Boxing or Kick just sucks. Edit: As for Combat Jumping... it's immediately available for those that want it, it's own defense bonus is pretty negligible but it costs virtually nothing to toggle it and, again, the holy global recharge. I usually pick this up if I'm not taking Hover. I really don't do deep dives into Power Pools since I usually invest heavily into the Primary, Secondary, and Ancillary pools. Pairs up rather nicely with Super Speed, though, so I hear.

Edit: What's cool is if there's every a pteranodon model added to the game, that could make a great P2W shapeshift travel power! A little salty they removed Pteranadon Shapeshift in DCUO so it'd be like coming full circle for it to show up in Homecoming.

... Okay taking zones away from Heroes and giving them to Villains isn't going to make people that don't want to be a Villain suddenly want to become a Villain. They're just going to get annoyed with Villain players and the HC team.

Any damage buff Tankers get here will never make Scrappers/Stalkers obsolete. If these ATs are still in use in spite of Brute existing, Tanker sure isn't going to replace them.

I'm loving Savage/Rad on Brute at the moment. I use Savage Strike (T1), Maiming Slash (T2), and Vicious Slash (T5) for the primary attack chain. Savage Leap makes for a great opener and proc monster. Now I skip Shred, being a long animation, low payoff cone that it is. I also skip Hemo, because you only need one spender and Brute gets far more out of Rending Flurry (an AoE) than Hemo. Hemo is GREAT on Stalkers because of massive upfront damage but...not on Brute. So I tend to not spend my Blood Frenzy stacks at all unless I want AoE, then spend it on Rending Flurry. The key is to only do this when Blood Thirst is off cooldown, which will replenish your Frenzy stacks in spite of your Exhaustion (which ordinarily prevents getting Frenzy stacks which really tanks your DPS). It's a high damage (bleed DoTs scale with Fury), endurance-friendly set with a great emphasis on single target with a smidgen of AoE when needed. The "GO GO GO" gameplay loop of Freny upkeep already jives with the Fury generation of Brute. The thing to remember is to NEVER spend your Frenzy stacks unless you have Blood Thirst to get them back. Your DPS relies on you keeping 5 stacks at all times to maintain the high DPS this set can achieve. It hits hard, is satisfying to hear and watch, and feels really fun to play. Being so endurance-friendly, you can even run Beast Run in combat for the full savage monster experience!

Now this is a change I can get behind! I've been wanting a "Power Armor" powerset, something akin to Ironman for quite some time. Sure, Energy Blast sorta does this but wrist-mounted Beam Rifle attacks sounds like exactly what the doctor ordered on that concept. I'd absolutely use Beam Rifle if we got such animation options.

While I do appreciate the homework done on this, we have to remember that Paragon City is an alternate reality to our own. Being an established metropolitan city for many years will likely heavily change the immigration landscape compared to the Rhode Island of our reality. I'm not saying that Chinese or generic "Asian" architecture is the limit of different cultural possibilities, but I took a look at Paragon Wiki and here's a bit of information about the Tsoo, the Hong Kong born Triad, and mention of several types of Asian minorities that have been struggling against both of the aforementioned groups: "The Tsoo emerged on the scene in the late 1990s as a small but unified bunch under the leadership of Tub Ci, a brutal and calculating drug lord recently released from prison. Tub Ci claimed to have found his spirituality in prison – but it was the legacy of a warlord – and he named his group after a word that he defined as “the destroyers.” Independence Port and Talos Island were under the thumb of Hong Kong-born Triads at the time, who harshly exploited other Asian minorities in the area, but this wouldn’t last for much longer. Tub Ci claimed he could no longer see his people, the Hmong, suffer; and while there was some truth to his outrage over the hardships they faced beneath the Triads he was certainly not motivated by altruism. Tub Ci’s ambitions were grand, and his Tsoo were a fearsome lot, heavily inscribed with mystical tattoos that gave them super-powered abilities. His lieutenants, the cruel sorcerers, were his most trusted brothers, many of whom had spent time with Tub Ci in prison. And when their martial arts, gun and sword play, and magics were not enough, Tub Ci showed his sorcerers how to reinforce their ranks with ghostly warriors they claimed as their literal ancestors. They broke the backs of the ruling Triads and slipped into power. The Tsoo wanted nothing less than to control all of the drug trade and protection rackets in Paragon City. However, the Rikti War forced them into the simple task of survival for a time. They refused to aid the heroes, and they certainly would never help another gang, but they did do what they could for the people under their “protection.” When the war finally ended, Tub Ci consolidated his forces in the regions of Talos Island, Independence Port, and Steel Canyon. They basically own the drug business, gambling dens, and protection racket in those areas. They celebrate their domination regularly, with loud, raucous parties held throughout the month. These parties are usually held in abandoned warehouses or empty lots in bad neighborhoods – deep within Tsoo territory. Sometimes the parties devolve into blood sports, where both men and women participate in no-holds-barred scraps, earning prestige and glory among the streets. Offering a heady mix of drugs, flesh, and violence, the Tsoo gatherings act as magnets for those drawn to their dark lifestyle, and Tub Ci craftily uses them as a constant “recruitment drive” to bolster his ranks." https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Tsoo So we do know from the lore that various Asian groups, primarily Chinese, have had a significant presence in Paragon City since prior to the 1990's. I feel like there's precedent. Edit: In this case, I think Independence Port and/or Talos Island would be a good place for such a revamped area.

There is a lot of room for development in Paragon City. Having been wracked by war between various criminal factions and Paragon's heroes and police, much of the city is actually in total ruin! Maybe one day if the Homecoming team has the manpower, time, and possibly the legitimacy, they can set to work on an Issue that sees parts of Paragon City rebuilt. And while they're already focused on asset creation, we might see different styles of architecture based on who's putting in the work and footing the bill to rebuild. And in such a case there's definitely room for something resembling Chinatown, though I imagine new missions in the area would likely be dealing with Tsoo that want to control the new neighborhood as they done with other Asian groups under the Triad in the past.

You're probably right. Personally I think the options for the different Beast categories is fairly anemic as it is (I could go for some horns and not just ears, for instance), but I thought having larger tails would be a big step in the right direction. If it's easier to just make new assets then that is definitely the route they should go.

Electric cord tails would be pretty neat! I'd also love to go the Mechagodzilla route and have a full on mechanical tail. I figured taking existing tails and making scaled up copies would be the most feasible route. Just kinda weird to have a huge monster character and a tiny tail!

Yes, and I hope the negotiations go well. I just wish they kept ignoring it and I fear negotiations could go south at any time. Let me rephrase, being able to keep HC as is with NCSoft's approval is the best we can hope for. But HC being as is with NCSoft ignoring it outright would have also been good.

Voltaic Sentinel too, for that matter. Even if most people don't take it, it'd be great not to re-summon it every minute since, at least according to Mids, has a 60 second duration and a 60 second cooldown. I'm reading that right, aren't I? Does the cooldown begin after the Sentinel despawns or as soon as it is activated?

The best we can hope for is the CoH private servers remain stable on the lower end of population and NCSoft continues to ignore the servers since the source code is out in the wild. Hell would freeze over before NCSoft would sell the IP (at a reasonable price), but then, they haven't quashed any servers yet so they managed to surprise me once already. All I really want is the current status quo to be maintained. We got it good here on Homecoming with the volunteer devs continuing on balancing and improving the game over time, and all I ask for is the servers to stay online.

Maybe the Civilian AT can have an Inherent that increases benefits of Day Jobs. They don't have superhero/villain work to distract them from their careers.