TalynDerre

I think, unfortunately, trying to implement this would be pretty difficult - if for no other reason than you would have to determine what counts as 'inside' for the purposes of NOT having the particle effects. Nothing ruins my immersion more than watching rain clip through the roof because the game doesn't realize it's not supposed to be there. (Looking at you, Fallout 4!) I'm picturing having to manually find every umbrella and overhang in every zone and manually carve out exceptions to where the weather happens... even if you ignore the 20 year old spaghetti code, that sounds extremely manpower-intensive. Which is a shame, because I would absolutely LOVE to see weather effects in CoX.

Adding customizable NPCs to bases would be fantastic, but even just being able to add NPCs other than 'generic civilians' to bases would be great. Having Arachnos soldiers guarding the door on my villain group's SG base (or Crey, or Malta, or Freaks, whatever fits my theme) would be fantastic. Even better would be being able to add names and descriptions to those NPCs, or give them some simple 'orders' (i.e. salute when an officer of the SG walks by, patrol from two pre-designated points, perform a specific emote every x minutes) would be even better.

So, I don't love Flamethrower and Ignite from a character aesthetics perspective - I don't want a Flamethrower, I want an Assault Rifle. Where I shoot people with bullets. From a rifle. If it were up to me, I'd probably drop Flamethrower, Ignite, and Buckshot, and spin off two Pool Powers called Flamethrower and Shotgun. Burst is fine as-is. Rename Slug to Targeted Shot, but otherwise keep as-is. Replace Buckshot with Enfilade, boost the range to the same as Burst, keep it a cone, make it a 1.5 sec DoT effect (with the same overall damage Buckshot). Replace the Knockback with a -Speed and -Def effect. Keep M30 Grenade as-is. Boost the damage on Beanbag to Medium damage. Keep Sniper Rifle as-is. Replace Flamethrower with an Aim Equivalent called 'Suppressing Fire.' For the duration of the effect, it boosts ACC by 7.5%, damage by 25%, and adds a -Speed and -Recharge secondary effect to all of your AR skills. Replace Ignite with Armor Piercing Shot. High damage, single-target, good accuracy, and it ignores 66% of the target's Lethal Resistance. This makes it good at taking out enemies who are under the effect of T9 defense powers or who otherwise have sky-high Lethal Resistance. Improve damage on Full Auto by about 10% or so.

The original City of Heroes website was pretty amazing - all the lore about the villain groups and parts of the city got me HYPED for the game back in 2002.

The short answer is, as other people have mentioned, 'nukes.' That being said, Arachnos has openly invaded the United States - uniformed soldiers attacking civilian targets exist in Atlas and Faultline, not to mention the more undercover 'deniable' troops that you can fight in radio missions in Founders and Peregrine Island. Faultline, in particular, does a number on my suspension of disbelief - there is NO WAY the United States would not respond to their actions in Faultline with anything less than a punitive invasion, no matter how many senators Arachnos bribes.

I evangelize the game every chance I get, but I am shocked at how little interest my (otherwise extremely geeky) circle of friends exhibits about it. This was the game for me, and I was so heartbroken when it was canceled, but I guess it didn't scratch everyone's itch the way it did mine. Even my friends who played it back in the day were basically, like, 'meh, that's interesting but I'd rather play Elden Ring.' I was kind of bummed out to be honest.

My favorite enemies from a lore/aesthetic perspective. are the Sky Raiders, Malta, and the pre-Transcendent PPD. 'Highly trained military specialists taking on super powered enemies with tactics and technology' is my absolute JAM. Of course, because of their bags of tricks, they are ROUGH to fight, especially solo, especially especially if you aren't a Tanker/Brute with good mez resistances. Mid-level enemies that debuff ACC are the most generically obnoxious - CoT spectres and Tsoo Sorcerers come to mind most predominantly. You aren't high enough level yet to have the tools to deal with them, other than by eating the right inspirations. The teleporting, healing AND ACC-debuffing Sorcerers are just the worst, which is a shame because the Tsoo otherwise have an amazing aesthetic and I love the eight zillion different boss types with different looks, powers, and kung-fu magic.

Oh wait, I forgot one more - proper skeletal limbs so I can make ghost and skeleton toons. Ooh, and while I'm dreaming, an 'x-ray' costume slot that shows the bones inside a semi-transparent body, sort of like the Shivans but with normal heroic proportions.

Military-style belts and pouches, like the ones that Malta, Shadow Shard soldiers, and Paragon Police have. Especially ones that can go over jackets and over pants. Shoulder holsters. Also, the belts/pouches/holsters should be in a separate slot from Chest Detail so you can have insignia and belts at the same time. Longbow gets it, so should we! More shirt options for both males and females - I especially want a proper button-down shirt with short sleeves for men, and a button-down shirt worn open over an undershirt for women. Having a 'skin' layer that lets you put tattoos, scars and body art on your character that costume pieces cover up, instead of having them be part of your chest/arms/face texture. - More tattoo options - body scar options Hair color options that let you have 'streaks' of color for ALL hair types. That way, I can have toons that are going gray or dye their hair and not be stuck with just one or two hair options. Jewelry options that aren't just recolored 'chains'. A proper crown headpiece. More backpack options. More skirt options for the ladies. Auras for weapons - I want a flaming sword! Audio options so that if you take the 'silencer' options when you make Dual Pistols or Assault Rifle, it makes the 'clack-thwip' of a silenced shot instead of the ordinary 'bang.'

I played through the arc on my fully tricked out Invul/Energy Melee Tanker. My difficulty was initially set to +0/x4. (For comparison's sake, I typically solo non-Incarnate content on this toon at +2/x8 or +3/x8.) First mission: - love the Praetorian Clockwork dialogue, very cool - the 'rescuable' robots all died pretty quickly at this difficulty, but I was able to escort one of them to the entrance as an experiment. Nothing happened when I did, except the robot when 'neutral' and stopped following me. Not sure if that was intentional. - I was only able to activate one of the three Rikti computers in the final room. I got 'Journal Entry #1' off of it. The other two gave the 'you cannot interact with this objective yet' message. - these bots are HARD. The final ambush that triggered when I activated the computer happened to have two Boss-level Sappers and a number of minion-level Controllers, by sheer bad luck, and I was END drained and nearly killed. I had to activate my T9 defensive ability, which I almost never have to do, and eat a whole mess of Blue inspirations to stay up. I appreciate that you want this to be hard, but unavoidable fights against things that nasty (and made nastier by the support bots stacking shields, so even with my seriously buffed stats I was only hitting about 10% of the time) should probably have a warning in the arc description Second Mission: - I'll reiterate, stacking Shield buffs from multiple mobs drops my hit rate to about 12% in large fights. At level 40, none of my powers have an ACC rating of less than 1.66, plus I have a base accuracy bonus of 1.40. That's tough to get around. - the assistant bot was basically just there for decoration - he went down in about half a second in the first fight after he was activated - your mission description talks about 'avoiding' the elite ambushes (the elites look really cool, by the way, nice use of color) - but there are two identical computers, one of which triggers the ambush and one which doesn't, and there is no way to tell except via trial and error. Not really much choice in avoiding it. Third Mission: - I dropped the difficulty to +0/x1, something I almost never do. The stacking shield buffs were just too much of a pain. - I'm not thrilled about the timer starting when I accepted the mission, instead of when I entered it, but I don't think there is anything you can do about that - clearly, the 60 second 'boot' is a trap... maybe some warning in the mission description? - between the long activation times, the fact that a bad activation summons an elite team... you need to put in mission description that this requires a team. Fourth Mission: - having dropped the difficulty to +0/x1, I didn't have a problem with the mobs - but when, as an experiment, I clicked on the 'wrong' computer, it summoned the elite ambushers directly on top of the mainframe that needed to be protected, which they killed within seconds without me even getting a chance to get back there. Bam, mission failure after I'd already protected that objective. That left a bad taste in my mouth at the end of the arc. In summary: You've really pushed AE to the limit with what it can do, and I admire it from a technical standpoint. I love the robot dialogue, and the implications behind some of the character interactions are interesting and make me want to know more. But the ludicrously steep difficulty scaling, the fact that most of the interesting lore is hidden behind super-finicky optional objectives which are never adequately explained to the player, and the fact that it is clearly designed to require both stealth and a team but that is not included in the description had me give it a 2/5. I'll note these are all fixable issues. Clearly, a ton of work has gone in to this, and the custom characters look fantastic, and even the super-high difficulty isn't a problem in and of itself - but it's a too opaque. More information would make this arc more accessible to people who don't go in knowing how it is 'supposed' to go.

When did you started playing CoX? Was it before or after the game shut down? Tell me a little about how you met the game. I was in the Coast Guard when City of Heroes came out. I read about it in PC Gamer magazine, and the costume creator REALLY got my attention. I just didn't have time to play EQ, and a more casual-friendly game was really what got me into it. I started playing City of Heroes and World of Warcraft more-or-less simultaneously. Have you played the game before the shut down in 2012? If the answer is yes, tell me about how you feel about the game’s “Death”. What was that experience like? Interestingly, if you look at 'hours played,' I played a lot more WoW than I did City of Heroes, but I got burned out on WoW after Wrath of the Lich King and quit, while I kept on playing City of Heroes. I was in law school when the game shut down, so my play time was limited, but I was still at least semi-active and was an officer in a RP Supergroup on Justice. (I'm sad that I haven't encountered any of them in the wild here in Homecoming - hey, if anyone knows Samuraiko or Torroes Prime, have them drop me a line!) I was heartbroken, and more than a little outraged, when I found out the game was going to be canceled for what appeared to be no good god damn reason. Clearly the game devs were caught as off-guard as the rest of us, because they had JUST started teasing the Battalion and were clearly excited. Also, the game had FINALLY found it's feet, writing-wise. Who Will Die and the Praetorian arcs were so much better-written and more engaging than the early game stuff. I was in the Atlas Park protest on Justice when the game shut down. I stayed up for a good portion of the night, with my main character Leading Lady holding a torch under the Atlas statue with the other protesters until they shut the servers off. And when the game returned in 2019? What did you felt? Was it like a “Homecoming”? I happened to be doing a little reading about Ashes of Creation of MMORPG.com when I saw a throwaway line about a City of Heroes private server controversy. I was about to blow it off (I figured it was about City of Titans or Ship of Heroes, neither of which I was honestly excited about) when I re-read it and saw it was the original, actual game. I was so excited I actually ran off to grab my wife to read the article to her, who did not care. (We had just started dating when the game shut down, and she is not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination.) I avidly followed news about it on MMORPG.com and Massively.com, and as soon as it was publicly available, I signed up. I was in that long, long queue on the first day when the servers absolutely could not handle the number of people who were in it. And yes, it ABSOLUTELY felt like a homecoming. I knew I had missed the game, in the sort of distant way you miss a relative who has passed but whom you only saw a few times a year - it was sad, but not a presence in my life, if that makes sense. But when I showed up in Atlas Park that first time, and saw all those different, awesome costumes clustering around Miss Liberty, and people cheering each other under the giant statue of Atlas - it all came back to me, and I loved the game even more for having lost it once. What was the first thing you did after playing the game for the first time in years? The first thing I did was remake the first character I made who got to 50 (not the first character I made, but the first one I loved) - Leading Lady, an Invul/Energy tanker, a former Hollywood B-lister who survived a villain kidnapping, said 'never again' and bought herself a suit of Powered Armor. What are your thoughts on the return of the servers? Did you brought something with you from the original server? (Avatars, builds, things like that) I'm actually WAY more into the game now than I was back on live - I've 'resurrected' my favorite hero (Leading Lady) and favorite villain (Colonel Checkmate, a Mercs/Poison MM). They are much more optimized than they were back on Live, I've actually taken the time to learn a little bit about how IOs work instead of just picking powers and enhancements more or less at random. I've also resurrected a Super Group I ran as a spin-off of the Longbow-themed RP Supergroup on live, the Malta Group-themed RP Supergroup, Task Force: UNITY. Right now, it's mostly just me and my eight zillion alts, but one day I'll turn it into a proper SG. I am still anxious that NCSoft is going to stop turning a blind eye to the server, and shut it all down. I'm not worried about the game being gone for good - the source code is out there, and there are enough people willing to give NCSoft the finger that there will always be SOME CoH, but I've fallen back in love with this community, and have friends in my new SGs I don't want to lose. Do you like to play with a specific character? (can be more than one) If yes, what makes it so special to you I have crippling alt-itis, and literally dozens of characters I consider 'active.' My favorite, however, is my rebuilt-from-the-ground-up Malta Gunslinger, Unity Black Tango. On Live, he was a Dual Pistol/Devices Blaster, and he never really 'clicked' with me. Here, I've rebuilt him as a Dual Pistols/Willpower Sentinel, and he's just a blast to play. I've also gotten a good handle on his RP 'voice,' so I'm always happy to group with him.

Very cool.

My suggestion would be to switch shards to Everlasting. It's the RP server, which to me is always a plus, but more to the point it's a LOT more laid-back about running content. I've been playing on Everlasting at least two days a week since it went live, and I can count on one hand the number of times somebody even commented on anyone else's build, let alone made any 'requirements.'

I'm guessing 'Vanguard' doesn't count, since they are usually allies of both the heroes and villains... If I can't pick Vanguard, I'd go with Malta. I am an absolute sucker for the trope of 'I don't need super powers to be the most dangerous person in the room.' Also, not gonna lie, Director 13's quote in the Apex Task Force about Malta fighting to prevent the world from turning into another Praetoria ruled by unchallenged supermen speaks to me. (Of course, Malta would prefer that the world be ruled by THEM unchallenged, but that's an issue for another day...)

I love the idea of having a Mercenaries 'Gang War' that summons additional mercs who buff your primary pets - I don't think I've seen that suggestion before, and it's great. I don't love the names (what's wrong with Medic and Combat Engineer?) but their powers seem well-thought out and appropriate.

I agree with this completely! A 'Warrior Base' could, like the Tsoo, have a shrine/dojo feel to it, but the statues would be Greco-Roman themed and the training weapons would be 'Western' instead of 'Eastern.' I would also prefer that Warriors get a chance to 'own their space' in public zones. The Warriors really only have a presence in-game in Talos and in Striga, and in both of those zones they spend most of their time getting bullied (by the Freakshow in Talos and the Council in Striga). The Warriors getting a revamp would be a good time to re-tool their public presence to show that they can protect their blocks from their rivals. If you are choosing to make the Warriors less villainous, it could also be a place to showcase this - have the Warriors standing between the overtly evil Freaks/Council and some cowering civilians.

I did not expect to be in the youngest quartile at 36, but here I am! I was in high school when City of Heroes came out, I played off and on from Issue 3 until the sunset.

Welcome home, hero.

I'd love to see the city transform based on my character's actions - a game-wide, aggressive implementation of the phasing mechanism. Hazard zones would remain hazardous, of course, but I'd love to be able to walk through neighborhoods where I've actually 'improved' things for the people who live there. Or, redside, where I take out a gang boss and now his minions are neutral to me and acknowledge that I'm a big man on campus in their territory. Also, I'd love implemented weather effects and to have the city change with the seasons. I know it's a lot of work for basically no gameplay change, but seeing snow on the ground in the winter makes the game world seem so much more alive!

Would this let me have chest insignia AND bandoliers on a toon? Because I've been wanting that since, I don't know, Issue 3 or so.

Having a 'nuked' Atlas Park sounds very cool, and not particularly resource-intensive to implement, to boot.

Generally speaking, I don't like my RP characters dying for any reason (unless 'coming back from the dead' is part of their super powers, of course) - even if I want to 'retire' an RP character, you never know when you might want to play them again! And it suspends my disbelief to have to retcon a 'dead' character back to life. Lots of other ways to 'die' narratively without needing to worry about it though - they could fake their own death, be badly wounded and need to go recuperate 'off-screen' for a while, they could disappear and have people assume they were dead, heck, they could just retire!

When fighting the Lost: "Rikti drugs - not even once." When fighting the Prophet during the DFB: "Let's go save the Lost some money on their taxes!" When someone inevitably asks what the hell I'm talking about, I say "we're about to make them a non-Prophet organization." When fighting high-level Council: 'This is what happens when you promote based on ideology instead of competence! All the super-soldier serum in the world couldn't turn this bunch of goose-stepping incels into proper soldiers.' (I play a lot of 'Natural' heroes and villains with chips on their shoulders.)

My Super Strength/Rad Armor Brute Troll pronounces it 'SOO-pra-DYNE.' I'm pretty sure the original manufacturers wanted it pronounced 'soo-PER-ah-dyne.' Pronounced the same way you do 'superlative.'

I will say, I will be disappointed if they bring female mobs into the warriors. The Warriors definitely have an ugly, misogynistic 'macho' ethos - that's why they are VILLAINS. One of my favorite bits of lore about the Warriors was a social worker interviewing people who considered the Warriors to be local heroes (mostly because they fought to keep the Tsoo and the Freakshow out of 'their' neighborhoods) - right up until the point where one of their Elites murdered his girlfriend because she spilled some wine on him when she was serving him. He picked her up and threw her out of a window, if I recall correctly. Another thing to consider is that their chief, 'Odysseus' Hill, is not only a violent, macho jackass, but he's also disrespectful to the Greek culture he supposedly idealizes - one of the two women in his 'harem' who accompany him in his office is named Persephone; that is, the wife of Hades, the only functional marriage in Greek mythology. Implying that you were able to 'win' her from Hades is a SERIOUS mythological no-no. I can't recall the name of the other 'girlfriend,' but it was something equally blasphemous. This guy has got a SERIOUS impious hubris problem.