Luminara

I could see this ending well poorly. Denying spots on the team to anyone who doesn't have a rez in their primary or secondary, leaders refusing to run the *F without rezzing defenders/controllers/corruptors on the team, one dude trapping seven teammates in the *F (all of it, not just one mission, and despite not having an ally/group rez himself) while he tries to solo everything and bitching when they quit one by one... Hell, I say do it. The drama would be incredible.

Fascists aren't subtle.

That would permit players to reduce any power's endurance cost to 0. The existing calculation builds in a diminishing return to prevent that so there's always an element of risk (running out of endurance).

Neither is the way regeneration is conveyed to the player, if you're looking for something else to fix. "47.61 HP/s" when the character has 400% regeneration isn't useful because it doesn't inform the player that what it actually means is "5% of your maximum health is restored every 3s". There's no regeneration at all until the unspecified interval elapses. It's an inaccurate expression of the mechanic which misleads the player. It should display time between regeneration ticks, not HP/s.

Haven't seen the latest film, but I can answer this question.

Blow-up dolls aren't "employees".

I need to reiterate, this isn't a suggestion, it's not a proposal, it's never going to be part of the game. This is just something to think and talk about. It's far too radical a change. This will never cross a developer desk, I just felt that it was an interesting twist to the existing mechanics which we could examine and speculate about in a "what might have been" way.

Just the opposite, since archetype modifiers would still be in force. Controllers and dominators, since they have inherently higher Ranged/Melee control modifiers, would have the highest base magnitudes and would benefit the most from slotting, and be the only archetypes capable of attaining mag 4. Everyone else would have to be satisfied with mag 3, unless they went completely bananas with enhancements (slotting 6 control enhancements in complete disregard of ED), or used more than 3 enhancements and coupled that with an Alpha which improved the control's magnitude... and if they did that, they'd have to sacrifice other things they value, like damage. And that was the inspiration for the theorycrafting of mag-variable holds. Right now, we're playing a game in which any archetype can perma-mez bosses without sacrificing anything. My Ice/Stone/Earth brute has that option as part of her attack chain (Freezing Touch (slotted with Hecatomb) and Fossilize (slotted with Apocalypse)). There's no trade-off. I believe it could have been done better, that variable magnitude would have resulted in more developer control over control and more real build choices having to be made for characters who crossed over into the threshold of controller/dominator "territory". But I'm also convinced that there's a reason Cryptic did it the way they did. At lower levels, controllers (doms didn't exist at that time) would have had to sacrifice damage entirely in order to use their controls effectively, and that would have impinged on the carved in stone design philosophy of all characters being capable of soloing reasonably well. So even if they were considering this approach, they never would've used it as it was just too detrimental to controllers, at that time.

Pretty certain I recall all -Res being capped at -300%. But that wouldn't be how it would function under this system, anyway. It would never go that high. As I previously stated, it would have a set percentage factored for the base difficulty settings, and a formula which modified it according to the number of targets in the AoE. Using the defender value in this example, that would mean a spawn with three minions would have same current 30% -Res imposed if Melt Armor were used. If the player increases the base difficulty, or joins a team, or just herds up more than one spawn, and uses Melt Armor on a larger number of targets, there would be a corresponding decrease in the -Res percentage. Going the other direction, if the player has only a single target in the AoE, the percentage would be multiplied by a fraction, such as the 1.1 or 1.25 I posited in my last post. A small fraction increase to reflect the variance introduced with the target scaling. 1.1x, or 1.25x, or some other tested and acceptable multiplier of the base percentage, not 16x.

I'd expect the default difficulty to determine the base numbers. Full effects against three targets, lower per-target numbers as the target total increased, higher per-target numbers when below three targets (but not double or triple). So against a standard spawn of three minions, that Fire Ball would deal its base damage on each target, but in a spawn of one lieutenant or boss and one minion, it would deal 1.1 or 1.25 times the damage per target, and in a spawn of 10 critters, it would deal 0.1 or 0.2 times the damage on each critter (divisors/multipliers presented for demonstration purposes). This would present players with interesting choices. Use the AoE immediately, or cut the spawn down some first? Bring more AoE to blitz spawns, or bring more single-target to take down several easy targets before popping AoEs? As it would also apply to debuffs and buffs, it would vastly increase the value of having more than one debuffer/buffer. We wouldn't be neutering entire spawns with one toggle debuff or buff any more, we'd need multiple players working in concert. For status effects, I think it'd be better to vary the duration rather than the magnitude in this application, as it would otherwise render those AoE controls all but useless if they were only applying mag 1 or less on every critter in a spawn. That would obviate controller/dominator input at all game levels, whereas varying the duration of the control would have the opposite effect, making multiple controllers/dominators much more wanted, rather than making one all any team needs. An interesting side effect of this would be the obviation of target caps. If a player wanted to herd and nuke a dumpster filled with 300 critters, he/she'd be doing so with AoEs which deal 0.3% base damage with each attack. I believe the target caps would have to remain if this were how AoEs worked, though, to prevent players from unintentionally devaluing their own effects to the point of uselessness. They wouldn't be necessary to control player activity, but keeping them would ensure that the stats on powers never dropped below a specific number (presuming no debuffs were active on the player character). Of course, one of the negatives of this would be how it impacts AoE-heavy builds. Most of my builds rely on AoE usage (i really hate fighting three enemies and beating them down one at a time, it's much more delightful to knock the stuffing out of 10+ simultaneously). Farming builds would suffer. We'd all have to shift to more single-target oriented approaches to reduce spawn size before popping our PBAoEs on melee characters, rather than rely on PBAoEs to clear the trash while we hammer on the bosses. That's a lot of respecs and a lot of angry people. On the other hand, it does also bring more purpose and utility to various melee archetypes, as it creates a need. There wouldn't be any more teams where one player runs to every spawn and decimates it, then leaves while the other players clean up the leftovers. It'd take multiple players working in concert, as with debuffs/buffs/controls, to efficiently perform the same activity, so there'd likely be as many happy players as displeased players. As with my other thought experiment thread, this is just for discussion purposes. It's too vast a change for the game at this point in its life. The time for this would've been when Cryptic was looking for solutions to dumpster diving and City of Statues, at the very latest.

It's too much of a difference from current game play, not something they'd implement. I just felt like putting it out for others to ponder, maybe spark some interesting discussion.

AoEs of all kinds work exactly like single-target abilities. They have higher endurance costs, some have lower base hit chances, but they all function just like single-target powers. They have predesignated numbers which are applied on a hit. What if, instead, they had a maximum total for their effects, and the more targets in the AoE, the more spread out the final value? Example: I throw a Fire Ball at a spawn of 10. The game takes the power's maximum damage and divides it by 10, applying that final number to each critter hit. Example: I have 16 targets inside my debuff. The game takes the power's maximum debuff value and divides it by 16, applying that final number to each critter hit. There are some immediate pros and cons evident in this. The fewer enemies you're facing, the stronger your ability, so clearing the trash from a spawn quickly would bring "added value" to AoEs. On the other hand, the more enemies you're facing, the more likely you are to need stronger values but not being able to reach them without teammates/pets/strategy. Noodle it.

Buffs and debuffs have a fixed duration and variable strength. Take Flash Arrow, slot it with -ToHit enhancements, the -ToHit value increases, but the duration remains consistent. Slot Weave with Defense enhancements, the strength of the Defense buff increases, but the interval between and duration of each tick remains consistent. Status effects have a fixed strength and variable duration. Take any standard control, slot it for its control effect, the duration increases, but the magnitude remains consistent. What if status effects functioned the way buffs/debuffs do? What if every status effect started at a base magnitude and slotting increased that magnitude, but the duration remained fixed? Archetype modifiers would still apply, so controllers and dominators would remain the premiere archetypes for imposing status effects. What do you believe would be the positive results of such a thing? The negatives?

They stack.

A video game. Noob.

Braggart.

I'm seeing that a lot of attacks used just after Mass Levitate tend to be corpse-blasts or massive overkill. I know the goal is verisimilitude, but at 2 seconds, we're more likely to waste endurance and time firing off an unnecessary attack than we are to be impressed at the synchronization... and since we're also likely to slot a KB -> KD IO to prevent everything from being hurled out of melee attack range (mag 4.154 KU on a melee attack? did the designer of the power learn absolutely nothing from the feedback that resulted in almost all melee attacks with heavy KB being reduced to KD before Issue 3 because players were ready to lynch the developers?), it's not even synchronized at that point. The rapid and sudden application of force to propel the subjects upward would be sufficient to cause internal hemorrhaging, and there's no visual indication that the power actively slams the subjects back down, so a delay isn't really necessary to provide verisimilitude. If there does have to be a delay, though, it should be shorter. I'd recommend a 1 second delay, at most.

There's a level 2?

So, basically, a proc which is useless for Defense-based sets and Willpower? Or anyone who builds well? How about no? Does no work for you? Because I've got some no you can have. Would you like a side of no with that? A tall glass of no to wash it down?

I'll also add that I believe some archetypal comic book characters can't actually be confined to a single Co* archetype. How they're defined is entirely dependent on the threat and whether they're teamed or solo. Let's look at Batman. You can argue whether he's a scrapper, a stalker, a brute, whatever, but that's only applicable to a limited aspect of his activity as a superhero. As a member of the Justice League, or leading the Bat Family, he's clearly a mastermind. He's the planner, the organizer, the character thinking ten steps ahead while everyone else is trying to figure out what just happened, and moving his pieces into positions which will ensure that his team wins. And against a lot of JL antagonists, he's outclassed as a fighter. In Batman/Superman: Apocalypse, Batman faces off against Darkseid, but he doesn't do it by throwing every kick, punch and Batarang he has, he out-maneuvers Darkseid. Everything the others were doing was a diversion to give him time to arm Darkseid's own planet-busters, which he threatened to use if Darkseid didn't relinquish Kara. That has mastermind plastered all over it. Essentially, defining established comic book characters within the boundaries of Co* archetypes isn't strictly a question of their power levels or basic skills, it's whether or not they're part of a team and how they fit into the framework of that team in the context of the threat they're facing.

In the Justice League animated series, I think it was the episode Secret Society part 1, the JL is bickering amongst themselves and attention turns to Superman. He's accused of being egotistical because he insists on being the first one in when there's a fight. Superman responds (paraphrased, because it's been three or four years since is watched any of the episodes (RIP, beloved portable HDD)), "It's my job to take the hits so no-one else has to!". Pretty sure that definitively qualifies him as a tanker.

Found a reproducible bug which causes a client crash every time. Two crash reports submitted, with details, but I'm also posting this so players can avoid it. If you dismiss tip missions, you're likely to encounter the bug which causes the police scanner/newspaper to disappear from your active Contacts list. I tried opening the Inactive tab as an experiment when this occurred a couple of days ago, wondering if it would restore the missing police scanner (changing zones (entering a mission, entering a base, going to a different world map, etc) restores the scanner/newspaper, but i was looking for a faster solution). Instead, it crashed the client. I repeated my actions the following day (dismissed tips, caused scanner to disappear, clicked Inactive), just to see if it was random. It's definitely not random. DO NOT CLICK THE INACTIVE CONTACTS TAB WHEN YOUR SCANNER/NEWSPAPER GOES ON VACATION. Don't. No click. That crashes the client.