The Curator

These changes will go live in the first patch that drops the Safe Mode client. There are a number of players that are still unable to use the 64-Bit or 32-Bit client, so until we can get them on board we're holding back on patching any major changes to the Live servers. There will be a patch shortly with several bugfixes to try to address the compatibility issues.

Powers Added new customisation options for Phantom Army Mirror (copy of current character costume) Phantom Mirror (copy of current character costume with Phantom Army VFX) Bug Fixes Fixes for many Mapserver crashes unearthed by the new crash handler Various fixes and stability improvements to the client This should allow some users that were previously stuck on the Safe Mode client to now use the new client Misc Behind-the-scenes changes to the costume data to prepare for upcoming changes Costumes created on Pineapple may or may not load properly on the live servers until these changes go live

Hello! As we’ve mentioned in the past, the Safe Mode client was a temporary measure to be used during our transition to the new client (labelled as 32-Bit and 64-Bit in Tequila / Island Rum). We will soon be ending support for the Safe Mode client entirely - please read the FAQ below for more information on this. Why are you doing this? Maintaining both the new (32-Bit / 64-Bit) and old (Safe Mode) clients in parallel is very time consuming severely limits our development capabilities. In order to move the game forwards we need to fully switch over to the new client. The new client doesn’t work for me! Ok! If that’s the case, then you need to tell us why. Without reports, we aren’t able to fix your issues. If you’re not able to run either the new 32-Bit or 64-Bit client on the Beta server please post in this thread if you need support with Windows or post in this thread if you need support with Mac OS X. Not everyone will be able to run both 64-Bit and 32-Bit, as long as one works you’re fine. Please read this if you need help accessing the Beta server. When will Safe Mode disappear entirely? It’ll likely be early this year - we don’t have an exact date right now. If you are having issues with the new client, please let us know as soon as possible.

It should apply to all pets.

Please post feedback relating to the Pets & Henchmen or Tank changes in the following threads: Focused Feedback: Pets & Henchmen Focused Feedback: Tank Updates Other feedback should be posted as a reply to this thread.

The following is a list of patch changes since the last Pineapple patch. For a full list of the consolidated changes (difference between production and test) see the main patch thread. Pets & Henchmen Updates Mastermind pets which have been commanded to Stay or to Go To a location will hold that position and will not chase after targets or move closer to use powers that are out of range. Be aware this also means they will not move out of damage patches on their own. Mastermind pets in Follow mode will now always stay within a 100' radius of their owner, regardless if they are in Defensive or Aggressive stance. Pets that are primarily ranged attackers will try to stay in the Supremacy radius. The pet AI now ignores the aggro cap. This should prevent pets from standing around twiddling their thumbs in Incarnate Trials and other situations where many pets are attacking the same target. Pets now give a strong preference to selecting targets that are within 50' of the pet's owner. This helps melee-oriented Mastermind pets stay in Supremacy range more often, while still allowing them to move and effectively engage targets outside the range. A number of pets have been classified as "Ranged Only" pets. The AI for these pets will no longer change position in order to use melee powers such as Brawl. They still possess these powers and will use them opportunistically if a target is in range, but will not move in order to do so. The pets that no longer move in to use melee attacks are: Demons > Demonlings Demons > Ember Demon Mercenaries > Soldiers Mercenaries > Medic Mercenaries > Spec Ops Mercenaries > Commando Necromancy > Lich Robotics > Battle Drones Robotics > Protector Bots Robotics > Assault Bot Thugs > Thugs Thugs > Arsonist Thugs > Enforcers

Pets & Henchmen Updates Mastermind pets which have been commanded to Stay or to Go To a location will hold that position and will not chase after targets or move closer to use powers that are out of range. Be aware this also means they will not move out of damage patches on their own. Mastermind pets in Follow mode will now always stay within a 100' radius of their owner, regardless if they are in Defensive or Aggressive stance. Pets that are primarily ranged attackers will try to stay in the Supremacy radius. The pet AI now ignores the aggro cap. This should prevent pets from standing around twiddling their thumbs in Incarnate Trials and other situations where many pets are attacking the same target. Pets now give a strong preference to selecting targets that are within 50' of the pet's owner. This helps melee-oriented Mastermind pets stay in Supremacy range more often, while still allowing them to move and effectively engage targets outside the range. A number of pets have been classified as "Ranged Only" pets. The AI for these pets will no longer change position in order to use melee powers such as Brawl. They still possess these powers and will use them opportunistically if a target is in range, but will not move in order to do so. The pets that no longer move in to use melee attacks are: Demons > Demonlings Demons > Ember Demon Mercenaries > Soldiers Mercenaries > Medic Mercenaries > Spec Ops Mercenaries > Commando Necromancy > Lich Robotics > Battle Drones Robotics > Protector Bots Robotics > Assault Bot Thugs > Thugs Thugs > Arsonist Thugs > Enforcers Tank Updates [Experimental Changes] Modifiers Tanker: Ranged damage modifier increased from 0.5 to 0.8, Melee damage modifier increased from 0.8 to 0.95 Tanker Self Damage Modifier (Controls Build Up) lowered from 1.00 to 0.75 (they still should do more damage than before due to higher base damage modifiers.) Bruise has been removed from T1 powers. Brute : Ranged and Melee damage modifiers are now equal. Epic Pools: All Brute and Tanker Epic pools now use ranged damage modifiers Tanker damage cap increased to 500% Brute damage cap lowered to 700% Most Tanker Melee AoE powers have had their target caps increased. Most cones are now 10 target cap. Most PBAoE are now 16 target cap. Tanker now gets an inherent buff to the radius of AoE attacks and arc of cones. +50% for sphere attacks. +100% for cones Some powers are unaffected by this buff. This is noted on the power description. Brute Fury Generation Hitting AVs no longer gives bonus Fury, but Fury generation for attacking has been increased in a variety of ways. Brute Fury generation now takes into account the cast time of the attack for successful hits. Any attack slower than brawl will now generate bonus Fury if it lands a hit. Brutes now get bonus fury generation in teams, the larger the team, the larger the bonus. Fury now takes 10 seconds without attacking to start its accelerated decay, instead of 5 seconds. The goal of these changes is to improve Fury generation in teams when the Brute is not the only brute, or is in the company of another tanking AT. To help debug these changes, the combat spam now shows +Fury and -Fury numbers. Note that this is a temporary change and will be removed regardless if these changes remain or get rolled back. Gauntlet Is now applied via a global proc. Any single target power that takes accuracy enhancements will trigger an AoE taunt. Every AoE power that takes accuracy enhancements will taunt the enemies it hit. Radius is now the same for all attacks (10ft, 5 targets max) Taunt scale is now 10% higher than Brute's Brute PunchVoke is now also applied via a global proc. Any power that either inflicts damage or takes accuracy enhancements will be able to punch-voke.) Power Levels To improve Tanker AoE capability during level up progression, the following powers had their acquisition levels changed: Battle Axe > Whirling Axe = 20, Swoop = 28 Martial Arts > Dragon Tail = 20, Focus Chi = 28, Crippling Axe Kick = 34 Stone Melee> Tremor = 28, Hurl Boulder = 35 War Mace > Whirling Mace = 20, Clobber = 28 Taunt Auras Brute and Tanker Ice Armor powers no longer have built-in Taunt, they are now instead covered by the inherent global proc. The following Taunt Auras are now all scale 1 Taunt (approximately 13.6s at level 50): Invincibility Against All Odds Rise to the Challenge (Brute and Tank only) Rage Experimental Change This change has been temporarily rolled back. After a lot of discussions I have come to the conclusion the set simply needs more work. It will be revisited after Tanking AT changes are out of the way. Misc Power Changes Tanker > Kinetic Melee > Quick Strike: Should now actually be back at its rightful place. Brute > Martial Arts > Taunt / Crane Kick: Fixed incorrect power order. Pool > Teleportation > Long Range Teleport: This power now grants a popup tray power that allows a second chance at teleporting should you fail to teleport the first time. The Second Chance power will remain for 2 minutes or until you zone. Lowered Weaken Resolve's -res debuff from scale -1.5 to scale -1.0. Bug Fixes Fix the team window showing "On mission map" when a teammate is in their Supergroup Base and vice versa. Prevent immediate crash when passing a -patchdir parameter to a nonexistent directory. This seems to be happening on certain Macs.

Advanced Crash Avoidance Technology Implementation The mapserver will no longer crash when attempting to transfer a character from one shard to another before logging it in. Explanation: the previous patch introduced some internal changes to character data, and those changes are applied when the character logs in. If a character transfer was attempted on a character that had not been logged in, the receiving mapserver detected that the character was missing the new data fields, and triggered a programmer breakpoint in order to warn about the missing data -- which is to say, it crashed. It no longer is so enthusiastic about detecting missing fields on the live servers. The Mission Computer and Oracle will no longer crash the mapserver when a player tries to craft at tip mission while in a Task Force. Explanation: Tip missions are really contacts, and crafting one adds a contact to your list. While a player is on a Task Force, it can only have one Contact available, and trying to obtain another caused the mapserver to freak out and crash. It has now been taught that it can just refuse to give the character another contact instead.

General Atlas Park is now ready for winter. The background color for Damage Resistance enhancements is now a slightly redder hue, to distinguish them from Defense enhancements. Bug Fixes Fixed clip region for the load costume list in the costume editor on high DPI monitors. Added a sanity check for the UI scale on startup in case it gets corrupted in the registry. Added a work around for a deficiency in old versions for Wine on Mac that resulted in a divide-by-zero crash on startup. Candy Canes can no longer drop in Architect Entertainment missions. Fixed mistimed VFX for the dark version of Atom Smasher. Homecoming Crash Handler The new Homecoming Crash Handler has been added to the game - however, it is currently inactive until we update our Privacy Policy to cater for it.

UPDATE: This patch has been rolled back due to unforeseen stability issues. It will be returning at a later date. Bug Fixes Fixed clip region for the load costume list in the costume editor on high DPI monitors. Added a sanity check for the UI scale on startup in case it gets corrupted in the registry. Added a work around for a deficiency in old versions for Wine on Mac that resulted in a divide-by-zero crash on startup. Homecoming Crash Handler The new Homecoming Crash Handler has been added to the game - however, it is currently inactive until we update our Privacy Policy to cater for it.

User Interface A fresh install now defaults to borderless windowed mode on the primary monitor, for maximum compatibility with monitors that don't support such tiny (and petty) resolutions as 800x600 or 1024x768. Pressing Alt+Enter to switch to fullscreen mode now always switches to the desktop resolution. Non-native fullscreen resolutions can still be selected from the options menu. Pressing Alt+Enter to switch out of fullscreen back to windowed mode no longer results in a huge window that is partially offscreen. Running the game with -safemode to reset the graphics options now resets them to windowed mode, rather than 800x600 fullscreen which is not very safe. When in borderless windowed mode, the game will drop topmost status on loading screens and when waiting for network connections, to ensure that it's possible to Alt+Tab out to other windows while the client is otherwise busy. Misc The Halloween Event has ended. Fall has come to Atlas Park. If you have leftover Halloween Salvage, you can still trade it in at the Halloween vendors (Annah in Croatoa, Granny Beldam in Nerva, Acantha in Imperial City). Bug Fixes Fixed a bug with the 3D resolution option sometimes showing incorrect values in the options menu when in borderless windowed mode. Closing the options window on the login screen will no longer result in various options being reset on the first character you log into. (Maybe) fixed the issue with the D-Pad on PS4 controllers.

Powers Fixed transparency values of Stealth and Invisibility. Stability & Performance The PhysX simulation thread is now completely decoupled from the main thread and should not cause lag or frame rate slowdown even if it is extremely overloaded and falling behind. PhysX is now more aggressive about dynamically removing debris if it detects the simulation is running too slowly. Fixed an issue with the particles generated by certain powers taking much more processing power than they should. Stone Cages was the worst offender. UI Fixed the Auction House search box not responding to input at very high (>2.5) UI scales common on 4k and UHD monitors. Fixed text of Auction House "Make Offer" button not scaling with UI.

Stability Minor adjustments to particle physics in an attempt to prevent or mitigate a crash happening deep in the internals of the PhysX library. As we have not yet been able to reproduce the crash under controlled circumstances, this may or may not have an effect.

Please post any feedback for the Shauna Braun and Bobby Curtin story arcs in this thread:

Please use this thread to discuss the new story arcs from Shauna Braun and Bobby Curtin published in today's patch. Please note that they intentionally do not touch deep canon or advance the existing storyline, as we want to make sure our standard of quality is high enough first. The stories were written by @holymittens.

Issue 26, Page 3 Check out this news post for details on the Halloween Event and more information about this update. Tasks The first two story arcs for Issue 26 are here! Both were written by @holymittens, a professional video game writer, and target the two “middle” alignments, with one story arc for Vigilantes and one for Rogues. New Story Arc: Shauna Braun Characters of the Vigilante alignment between Security Levels 25 and 29 can find Shauna Braun in Independence Port, near the southern Police Station, or using the Contact Finder. Shauna Braun is a young programmer from Paragon City. She was raised by her father in a tiny apartment in between Kings Row and Independence Port. Shauna moved out when she went to college, but her father - having sacrificed so much to give his daughter a good education - continued to live there until it burned down a year ago. The PPD closed the case, citing an accident as the cause of the fire, but Shauna doesn't buy the explanation. She wants to uncover the truth behind her father's death and bring the perpetrators to justice. This arc has two different endings, with a badge for each. The badge art was created by @Log. New Story Arc: Bobby Curtin Characters of the Rogue alignment between Security Levels 25 and 29 can find Bobby Curtin in Crimson Cove, in front of the White Elephant building, or using the Contact Finder. Bobby Curtin is a bouncer at the White Elephant in Crimson Cove, a private establishment which prides itself on being 'neutral ground' between the many warring factions in Nerva. Bobby is known by frequent patrons for being willing to step in and break up fights between anyone, be they Longbow, Arachnos, or mortal manifestation of an ancient god. This arc introduces true branching missions to City of Heroes; depending on your choices, you will be presented with a couple of entirely different missions, leading to several possible endings. There is only one badge for this arc, with art created by @Log. Rikti Mothership Raid The Rikti Mothership raid can now be started from the LFG queue. Characters must be level 35 and have the Member of Vanguard badge to join the raid in this way. If the league is not locked, a minimum of 16 players is required to start the raid this way. All enemies inside the mission map are level 54, including the ones that are lower level in the zone. All players are bumped to combat level 50 for the duration of the raid. Powers New Origin Power Pool: Force of Will This power pool grants you access to various powers that allow you to manifest your own willpower and use it to harm your foes. You can only have one Origin Power Pool (Sorcery or Force of Will) in your active build. Weaken Resolve: You overwhelm your foe with sheer strength of will, reducing their defense damage resistance, and chance to hit! Recharge: Long Project Will: You manifest your willpower into a blast and project it toward a distant foe, causing moderate psionic and smashing damage. Project Will has a fair chance to knock the target down. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Fast Mighty Leap: While this power is active you're able to leap great distances and jump incredibly high. In addition, while this power is active you're able to use Takeoff, which will knockdown nearby foes and increases jump speed. Recharge: Moderate Takeoff: You stomp your foot on the ground with tremendous force empowering your jump speed for a short time and shattering the earth beneath, knocking nearby foes off of their feet. Recharge: Long Wall of Force: You project an unfocused blast of sheer force at foes in a short wide cone in front of you, dealing moderate psionic and smashing damage and potentially knocking targets down. Wall of Force requires you to have two other powers from the Force of Will power pool. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Slow Unleash Potential: Unleashing your potential, you grant yourself a moderate boost to defense, regeneration rate, and recovery for a short time. Unleash Potential requires you to have two other powers in the Force of Will power pool. Recharge: Very Long Other Changes Zones The Abandoned Sewers have received a minor atmospheric tweak to make them visually distinct from the standard Sewer Network. Bloody Bay, Siren’s Call, Warburg and Recluse’s Victory now have a full complement of 8 Exploration Badges and one Exploration Accolade. The Exploration Accolade art was created by @Flashtoo. LFG Queue The LFG queue will now wait until you have the Recommended number of players for a Trial or Task Force before teleporting you to the contact or mission if the league is not locked. If the league is locked, Trials and Task Forces will continue to ignore the minimum players and start even solo. You can invite more players into the League once the Trial starts, but not to a Task Force. Incarnate and Holiday Trials continue to always require the minimum number of players, whether the league is locked or not. Incarnate trials will no longer automatically fail if a locked league drops below the minimum players. They will still fail if they drop below the minimum players in an unlocked league. This setup is an attempt to satisfy both players who want to start Trials and Task Forces solo or with small teams (lock the league) and those who want to use the LFG queue to find teams for Trials and Task Forces (don't lock the league). Bug Fixes The five Enhancement Sets from the Lords of Winter Super Pack (Avalanche, Blistering Cold, Entomb, Frozen Blast and Winter's Bite) are no longer incorrectly grouped with their Superior versions in the auction house. Many fixes to UI scaling for scrollbars, listviews, and compass elements. Fixed an issue preventing base item rotation in the 64-bit client. Implemented a workaround for a rare issue where the mapserver connection would get stuck while zoning into a map.

Issue 26, Page 3 As mentioned yesterday, we’re going to be releasing content in smaller chunks (Pages) which are bound together into larger collections / storylines (Issues). Pages 1 & 2 focused mainly on maintenance & quality of life updates, the new 64-bit client, and a sprinkling of base items and balance changes. Page 3, however, is our first major content release. Please note that the existing experimental powers changes are still live on Pineapple, but they are not part of Page 3. As such, they will not go live with the rest of Page 3 and will remain on Pineapple for additional testing afterwards. Halloween Event Trick-or-treating has been enabled in all city zones. Dr. Kane’s Mansion is available in the Holiday tab of the LFG window. Eternal night has fallen and the Deadly Apocalypse is upon us! The Halloween vendors (Malkiel in Atlas Park, Annah in Croatoa, Granny Beldam in Nerva Archipelago, Acantha in Imperial City) have stocked up with goodies to trade for your salvage. Tasks The first two story arcs for Issue 26 are here! Both were written by @holymittens, a professional video game writer, and target the two “middle” alignments, with one story arc for Vigilantes and one for Rogues. New Story Arc: Shauna Braun Characters of the Vigilante alignment between Security Levels 25 and 29 can find Shauna Braun in Independence Port, near the southern Police Station, or using the Contact Finder. Shauna Braun is a young programmer from Paragon City. She was raised by her father in a tiny apartment in between Kings Row and Independence Port. Shauna moved out when she went to college, but her father - having sacrificed so much to give his daughter a good education - continued to live there until it burned down a year ago. The PPD closed the case, citing an accident as the cause of the fire, but Shauna doesn't buy the explanation. She wants to uncover the truth behind her father's death and bring the perpetrators to justice. This arc has two different endings, with a badge for each. The badge art was created by @Log. New Story Arc: Bobby Curtin Characters of the Rogue alignment between Security Levels 25 and 29 can find Bobby Curtin in Crimson Cove, in front of the White Elephant building, or using the Contact Finder. Bobby Curtin is a bouncer at the White Elephant in Crimson Cove, a private establishment which prides itself on being 'neutral ground' between the many warring factions in Nerva. Bobby is known by frequent patrons for being willing to step in and break up fights between anyone, be they Longbow, Arachnos, or mortal manifestation of an ancient god. This arc introduces true branching missions to City of Heroes; depending on your choices, you will be presented with a couple of entirely different missions, leading to several possible endings. There is only one badge for this arc. Rikti Mothership Raid The Rikti Mothership raid can now be started from the LFG queue. Characters must be level 35 and have the Member of Vanguard badge to join the raid in this way. If the league is not locked, a minimum of 16 players is required to start the raid this way. All enemies inside the mission map are level 54, including the ones that are lower level in the zone. All players are bumped to combat level 50 for the duration of the raid. Powers New Origin Power Pool: Force of Will This power pool grants you access to various powers that allow you to manifest your own willpower and use it to harm your foes. You can only have one Origin Power Pool (Sorcery or Force of Will) in your active build. Weaken Resolve: You overwhelm your foe with sheer strength of will, reducing their defense damage resistance, and chance to hit! Recharge: Long Project Will: You manifest your willpower into a blast and project it toward a distant foe, causing moderate psionic and smashing damage. Project Will has a fair chance to knock the target down. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Fast Mighty Leap: While this power is active you're able to leap great distances and jump incredibly high. In addition, while this power is active you're able to use Takeoff, which will knockdown nearby foes and increases jump speed. Recharge: Moderate Takeoff: You stomp your foot on the ground with tremendous force empowering your jump speed for a short time and shattering the earth beneath, knocking nearby foes off of their feet. Recharge: Long Wall of Force: You project an unfocused blast of sheer force at foes in a short wide cone in front of you, dealing moderate psionic and smashing damage and potentially knocking targets down. Wall of Force requires you to have two other powers from the Force of Will power pool. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Slow Unleash Potential: Unleashing your potential, you grant yourself a moderate boost to defense, regeneration rate, and recovery for a short time. Unleash Potential requires you to have two other powers in the Force of Will power pool. Recharge: Very Long Other Changes Zones The Abandoned Sewers have received a minor atmospheric tweak to make them visually distinct from the standard Sewer Network. Bloody Bay, Siren’s Call, Warburg and Recluse’s Victory now have a full complement of 8 Exploration Badges and one Exploration Accolade. The Exploration Accolade art was created by @Flashtoo. LFG Queue The LFG queue will now wait until you have the Recommended number of players for a Trial or Task Force before teleporting you to the contact or mission if the league is not locked. If the league is locked, Trials and Task Forces will continue to ignore the minimum players and start even solo. You can invite more players into the League once the Trial starts, but not to a Task Force. Incarnate and Holiday Trials continue to always require the minimum number of players, whether the league is locked or not. Incarnate trials will no longer automatically fail if a locked league drops below the minimum players. They will still fail if they drop below the minimum players in an unlocked league. This setup is an attempt to satisfy both players who want to start Trials and Task Forces solo or with small teams (lock the league) and those who want to use the LFG queue to find teams for Trials and Task Forces (don't lock the league). Bug Fixes Many fixes to UI scaling for scrollbars, listviews, and compass elements. Fixed an issue preventing base item rotation in the 64-bit client. Implemented a workaround for a rare issue where the mapserver connection would get stuck while zoning into a map.