DougGraves

Yes, but running DFB for a 5th time is more fun than running Habshy and Shauna's arcs for a 5th time. I can only assume that people without altitis have no idea how often we create and play low level characters.

Are you playing a female character? Everyone knows women don't have pockets.

Here's what I would like to see: Divide the ATs into groups where you pick a primary: control, buff/debuff, melee dmg, ranged dmg, pets, defense (might be missing some). Then for each primary choose which secondaries are available: i.e. control can have buf/debuff, melee dmg, ranged dmg When you make your character you choose one primary and the primary powerset, then two different secondaries and their powersets. Your builds then have your primary and the secondary of your choice from the two. That way you can have a controller who has a teaming build of control electric with a secondary of buff/debuff electric, and a solo build with electric control and electric assault. Your character is still limited to a primary theme - you can't just play 2 entirely different builds. But you can truly have a team vs solo character. But I think this is too much work to be doable any time soon.

Electric/Dark. Static Field is amazing control up every combat. Jolting Chain is good control but mostly just fun. And /dark heal, -regen, a great rez, stealth. Basically electric/dark gives you everything except damage.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Daisy... Daisy...

It seems to me that we have enough city zones. Another zone of skyscrapers will add nothing to the game. But what kind of zones don't we have that would be fun to add? I would love a forest zone with giant trees that actually had things in them, so the zone had multiple levels (but then I have superleap not superspeed). I would love an asian historic zone like Cim.

so zombie invasions as instanced missions?

They have support, but defenders are better at support. So if control is pointless, a controller is just worse than a defender. And relying upon IOs to fix game balance is a bad idea. That is a possible solution for a small percentage of players rather than fixing the problem for all of the players. The game should not be balanced based on IOs.

They were not meant to deal loads of damage. That makes them hard to solo and not useful on high level teams where their control is not useful. And containment damage on pets would only help on levels 32+ which leaves out a huge chunk of play.

I know you are never going to let me down and desert met. That's why I gotta have faith.

And then the high level ambush hits you. You cannot scale down all villains since not all exist at all levels.

Controllers do little damage. This is especially a problem on teams with multiple controller or when facing one foe. If you cannot control an AV you get little out of your control half. But even facing a boss you can have them held and just plink away at them. So I suggest having Containment provide a damage bonus based on the highest magnitude control on the target that causes containment. If you are fighting a boss and keep stacking hold on them, you do more damage. Or if multiple controllers are stacking the same control on a foe you get a damage bonus. The damage bonus does not need to be linear (and probably should not be). And it does not have to be by point of magnitude (although the computer could calculate that easily). My recommendation is: Have non-Hold control provide a 100% damage bonus at Mag 3, and an increase that scales down 50% for each additional Mag 3. So Mag 3 is 100%, Mag 6 is 150%, Mag 9 is 175%, etc. Maxing at ~200% due to math. Have Hold control provide a 100% damage bonus at Mag 3, and an increase that scales down 25% for each additional Mag 3. So Mag 3 is 100%, mag 6 is 175%, Mag 9 is 231%, mag 12 is 273%, Mag 15 is 304%, etc. Maxing at ~400% due to math. Non-hold is treated differently because it is so easy to stack immobilization. And all control sets have different powers, so giving the hold bonus for confuse but not fear would make some sets better than others. Whereas all of the sets have about the same amount of hold.

I like the idea of dailies. They work great in GW2. A zone gets flooded with players doing the daily missions there. If you do the dailies you see a lot more different content than if you just grind the best permanent reward. I don't know a good way to implement them in CoX. In GW2 you have events in the zones - like the SC house on fire or SC troll rave. Those are repeatable. Also in GW2 you are leveled down automatically to the zone. So if you go into a level 5 zone to defeat mobs you are also level 5. In CoX that does not happen so street sweeping as a daily would be pointless. Level 50s would just go into a lower level zone and one shot everything.

The thing is that the old hollows arcs are great for teams because they are mostly defeat all with little story. Whereas the newer arcs tend to be story focused and are better solo. A team going undercover as a reporter with no combat is lame. So I don't want to solo the hollows myself, but it would be nice to get teams there.

Did you ever play the old X-Men arcade game? Each character had the same basic punching attacks, but if you built up enough power you could use your characters super power. Wolverine had laser claws that shot across the screen.

Yep.

You are correct, of course. That explains my build

Controllers need their epic for aoe damage.

If Unleashed Potential increase recovery that means it effectively has a shorter recharge than 600 seconds. My guess is that is taken into account.

This manifesto defines standards for mission arcs of 2+ missions. These standards are intended to make a mission arc interesting to play and non-repetitive, while remaining coherent. It is understood that bad mission arcs can be created using these standards, good writing and creativity is still required. Length: Mission arcs can have no more than five missions. Maps: Mission arcs cannot use the same map type in more than half, rounded down, of the missions. A map is considered the same type even if it has some thematic difference (warehouse and warehouse on fire) but not if a significant portion of the map is a different type (office and office leading to Rikti base). Enemy Groups – Max Repeat: Mission arcs cannot use the same enemy group in more than half, rounded up, of the missions, unless there are other enemy groups in the same mission in significant numbers. Single spawns of an enemy group do not count against the is limit. Enemy Groups – Min Repeat: At least one enemy group must appear in at least half, rounded down, of the missions. An appearance counts even if it is only a single spawn or a non-combatant. Objectives: A maximum of one defeat all is allowed in a mission arc. A maximum of one escort is allowed in a mission arc, if the escort is required. A minimum of two objectives is required in each mission. Patrol missions are not allowed in mission arcs (the clicking on patrol box missions). Zones: A maximum of one move to a different zone is allowed in a mission arc. Phones: Only starting the first mission can require talking to the contact in person. After that the phone must be available for starting and ending all missions.

You create tools so that you do not have to touch the code. Players can create mission arcs in AE without touching the code. Creating mission arcs for the regular game should also use a tool so that the mission arcs are created just from data, no code. Same should go for creating costume pieces, modifying powers, etc. It should just be data.

Is that worse than freakshow self rezzing? I find mopping up Freakshow after they have all been defeated once annoying.

Old school was contacts and you had to be introduced to contacts. No you can find contacts and even teleport to them. You can call contacts on the phone. You can get radio missions without going to a contact. And you can get missions in Oroborous or AE. So if homecoming was going to add a lot of new missions arcs, not just a few, how should they add getting them? Is it worth placing contacts for each mission arc in a zone? Will you go to the zone and talk to them? Will you just get the arc at level 50 from Oro? Would having phone contacts be good enough? You find a contact and talk to them by phone. You see their picture. They have a story and flavor, but you do not have to go to see them in person ever. Is a generic contact good enough? Could the detective in each zone give you the arcs? Or just get them from searchable a Crisis Monitor computer in your base or Oro? I would like to see new mission arcs divided into story focused and action. Story focused is like the new arcs they have created. A lot of talking, running around, maybe being in disguise - stuff that you want to do slowly and pay attention to. Story focused arcs would have a contact in the world that is part of the story. Action focused would be like the newer task force missions. Basically just combat, but more interesting combat than radio missions give you. They would not need a contact in place, you should pick them up by phone.

A developer is a specific technical role. You can have content creators, testers, and approvers on the homecoming team that are not developers.

Here is what the plan should be for Homecoming Development Refactor the code using modern standards and techniques and include lots of comments if they do not exist. This not only makes the code more stable, it is required if you are going to have a significant number of people working on it. Add automated testing to the code as much as possible so that testing is fast and reliable. Create tools so that as little of the game content is code as possible. Where this requires re-writing the code to support the tools - do it. Costumes Missions Zone changes (changing tree leaf color, changing buildings, etc) Adding/modifying villain types in existing groups and adding new villain groups Modifying existing powers Adding new powersets and ATs As each toolset is created, create a subgroup dedicated to that content. So once you have good tools for adding and testing costumes without requiring devs, create a costume group for costume pieces. Determine what the limits are for costume pieces. Can we have unlimited pieces, or is there a limit due to memory, processing, etc. If there is a limit, create a costume philosophy - generic pieces for more re-use, match NPC costume pieces to fit into the world, specific cool pieces for the coolness factor, etc. Then have a group that creates costume pieces, accepts work from others, reviews and modifies them as needed, approves them, and adds them to the game. Determine what the limits are for missions. Can we have unlimited pieces, or is there a limit due to memory, processing, etc. Come up with a mission philosophy - following canon, are custom villains allowed, use of AVs, etc. Decide if you want to revise the old missions, just add new missions, or remove old missions that are considered too bland or painful (looking at you patrol missions). Zone changes, etc..