Chris24601

To me, the need to leave Praetoria if you want to continue your story is basically the same as how, if you want to not be a villain, even a Rogue needs to completely abandon the Isles around level 40. All the 40+ content outside of Rogue tip missions is written as if you have fully embraced being a full villain employed by Arachnos. If you want any rogue-ish nuance at that point you can do the one Rogue arc in Independence Port and the Rogue tip missions. If you want more non-repeatable content you have to ultimately “pick a side”… not literally, you can keep the trappings of being a Rogue on your character sheet… but if you’re doing the 40+ Redside arcs you’re acting like a flat-out villain… or you can pull the trigger and become heroic so you can do Blueside content. It’s the same for Goldside… eventually you have to pick between Blue and Red side or just run out of things to do there. That is the story of every PC as the reach the endgame. While the game has a LOT of options they aren’t actually unlimited. You can write “I’m a Council Officer” in your backstory all you want. Council mobs will still shoot you like they would anyone else. By the same token, regardless of whether you believe you’re the most Loyalist to ever swear fealty to the Emperor; he’s done with you at level 20 and he has no interest in letting you fight for him. His soldiers will shoot you on sight. The New Praetorians won’t let you remain a member no matter how much you want it. You don’t get to stay in Last Bastion after you save the day there. That’s the story you get to play. If you want your own stories that deviate from the canon, that’s what AE is for. * * * * What I’d like is a fairly extensive evaluation of mission level access so that stuff is moved back to “level = timeline.” That includes the Praetorian and Signature Story content. Given the downward pressure on power access (all primay/secondaries available by late twenties, ancillary/patron start at 35) and upward pressure of IO access (set bonuses making up for fewer slots) I think the lower band for many story arcs could stand to shift down a bit (leave the upper limit alone) to make room for more of the “end game” content in the 45+ range. Think of it sort of like the time compression in comics where, despite the real world decades, Spidey’s only been doing his thing for about a decade and the stuff they said happened five years ago at one point instead happened just last year so it all squeezes in. Decide what level various events occur and adjust content to match. Move stuff that absolutely can’t fit anymore into Oroboros. - If Statesman and Sister Psyche are intended to have always been dead from the start of a player’s play through, then move the WWD signature arc to Oroboros. - If their deaths instead happen at the earliest level you could play the signature arcs they occur in (level 40), then restore Sister Psyche to Independence Port and restore the original Stateman sends you a note after you disguise yourself as him in the level 20-29 Rogue tip missions since in the level = time scale they should both still be alive. Do the same for Goldside as well. Figure out where the equivalent events occur; what level does Cole launch his invasion? what level does Praetoria die? Maybe there’s some more room in there for some things to do before the fall, but the idea that just because you don’t want to leave means Praetoria needs 40+ content just runs counter to everything else in the game. Heck, I’d argue Night Ward is only peripherally Praetorian in the first place; Drudges, Animus Arcana, Black Knights, Talons of Vengeance… and even that is done by level 35. First Ward is over by level 30. It’s not really worth the effort, but maybe using the phasing tech to put burning buildings and IDF barricades starting at level 30 and a giant crater in place of the Magisterium with DE monsters rampaging everywhere once you reach level 40 would drive the point across. Praetoria dies. That is the story. You standing around in the completed mission so it doesn’t despawn doesn’t change that.

Frankly, I think putting the New Praetorians arc at 35-40 (originally; on HC they merely removed the back end so you could take it all the way at 50) was a huge mistake on the original devs part and sorta sits with Stateman’s death being retconned into lower tier content in terms of the biggest disruptions to the old “level = point on the timeline” rule that kept things fairly coherent. I’m not entirely sure what the live devs were thinking there beyond adding more content to the biggest level slog in the game and someone deciding to basically start a second “leveling timeline” where new PCs could begin their careers already in the aftermath of the Primal/Praetorian War. The only good thing is Homecoming allows you to delay it until after the war content if you want. If it were up to me, I’d have moved it to be exclusively level 50 content because I really value the level = timeline approach for story arcs as a way to keep the player experience consistent. The earliest you can do Stateman’s death mission is level 40, so to my sensibilities, every 1-39 mission arc should act as if Stateman is alive and all the 40-50 content should treat him as dead. The real complication is the iTrials where you need to be level 50. But I think, I think there’s a way around that. The current story progression for characters who are still Praetorian ends at 35 with Night Ward… and it just sorta dangles with Pazuzu thanking you and telling you Night Ward is now a permanent feature thanks to all the magic meddling and that’s it. Technically you could then hop the portal, and do the whole New Praetorians/Mr. G arcs immediately and either skip the Tina/Maria arcs or just acknowledge they’re out of order. But I think a viable solution to all of this timeline muddling could be as follows; - Move the Praetorian portal mission exit to Primal Earth into the Vanguard headquarters in the RWZ. The portals there allow access to Blue and Red sides respectively. - beginning at level 30 or 35, those who still have a Praetorian alignment can use a portal to travel to the RWZ without changing alignment. They can do any of the content in the RWZ while retaining their alignment. - Move Tina and Maria to the RWZ and lower the minimum level for their arcs to 35 (and set both to a max of 50). Change any mission doors to portals within the Vanguard base. At level 35, Praetorians have Tina added as a contact automatically (and Tina introduces Maria when her arc is done). - Drop the Tinpex task force level requirement to 35 and, if begun at 49 or less, the debuff for no alpha slot doesn’t apply. - Create story arc versions of the iTrials with a minimum level range of 40+ for the early part and 45+ for the late ones (effectively the same range for all the other end game content) and with contacts in the RWZ. The iTrials themselves remain as they are; treated as “master runs” of the story arcs. - Lower the level of Belladonna’s arc to 45+ and move the portals for its missions to the RWZ. This allows it to played in order with the iTrial story arcs. - Instead of auto unlocking at 35, Marchand and Mr. G are instead offered as a choice by the last contact from the iTrial story arcs. This unlocks either Blue or Red side zone access to Praetorians along with radio/newspaper and tip missions that correspond to the respective side (i.e. hero/vigilante if you pick Marchand, villain/rogue for Mr. G). You do not gain access to regular contacts until you swap your alignment to one of the standard four, but you can team up with others for their missions normally. * * * * I get the “I’m gonna remain a Praetorian forever” sentiment. I really do. But CoH has never been a “choose your own canon” sorta game. Even the 1-20 Praetorian arcs ultimately end up in the same place with your PC needing to go to Primal Earth and only trivial differences overall between who actually survives. There is no version of any timeline where Tyrant does nuke Praetoria, Keyes doesn’t further nuke whatever survived by blowing his reactors and Hamidon doesn’t basically eat Praetorian Earth outside of Last Bastion (which only survives at all because Hami got distracted by Keyes and a full Incarnate deciding to stand in the gap… realistically it can’t stay as it is; either Praetorian Hami has to be destroyed or Last Bastion eventually falls). That is the story. Praetorian Earth as a dimension habitable to humans is destroyed by the Praetorian War and the survivors relocate to Primal Earth while a handful of, frankly, fatalistic holdouts insist on throwing their lives away on a doomed cause.* You can play that story… but all stories end and the ending of the “I’m staying in Praetoria til I die!” is the Last Bastion arc. You choose to stay and will one day die fighting the Hamidon. The End. If you want a story past that, it happens on Primal Earth with primal alignments, even if you’re a Praetorian.** Put another way; you’re basically saying “I want to continue being an East German” after the Berlin Wall came down and East Germany stopped existing. You’re free to proclaim that to the heavens, but you’re a German (hero/villain/vigilante/rogue) now as far as classification by the world goes. Demanding more new East German content is ridiculous. East Germany is dead and gone. * best case as imagine it with one of my characters is scattered tribes who developed some type of immunity to “the Devourer” before Last Bastion collapsed entirely, but are little more than stone age scavengers in a world ruled by DE monsters. ** worth noting is that if you started as a Praetorian, you retain unique leveling badges regardless of what primal alignment you have.

Vanguard RWZ content starts at level 35 and their troops show up in a few of the Neutropolis missions as well. Vanguard allies are given to you in a few of Tina and Maria’s missions as well. You can still get the pre-Vanguard versions via flashback, but the normal leveling ones available by going to the contacts are are post-Statesman’s death (and post 1-20 Praetorian content). In terms of the Praetorian content timeline, its original Tina and Maria arcs, 1-20 Praetoria content, First Ward, Night Ward, current Tina and Maria, Apex/Tinman, BAF, Lambda, Keyes, Underground, TPN, Dark Astoria (peripherally), Minds of Mayhem, Diabolique (peripherally), Belladonna, Magisterium, Last Bastion, New Praetorians/Mr. G arcs, and finally the Homecoming original John Houston rogue arc (basically following up on New Praetorian dangling bits). Ideally you’d want a Praetorian play through to see most of those in approximately that order. The main kicker is that even if you are a Praetorian, the story does expect you to come to Primal Earth at some point. If you go hero it’s ahead of the Tina arc (the next time Praetoria comes up Blueside) I think holding off on the Warden to Hero Portal Chamber is vastly improved by doing First/Night Ward first, but that becomes nonsensical if you delay it past when the actual war starts (and Maria’s arc is definitely the opening salvo… so if you’re not Primal by then the story just falls apart and you’d need completely separate content for a “stays in Praetoria” run). So, basically, I think Praetoria probably does work best if the content dries up at level 40 and you need to abandon Praetoria to continue the story. In that vein I definitely think there needs to enough story content (not just grindable repeatables) to get a Praetorian to level 40. Night Ward is only really solid until 35. After that all that’s left is repeatables. That’s why I suggested a 35-40 “setting up the Last Bastion” arc as something you could squeeze just enough Goldside content out to get there. Night Ward continues First Ward but is very tangential to the actual Praetoria conflict. One final zone focused on those driven out of “Paradise” and the actual threat of Praetorian Hamidon could really focus back on why you can’t keep putting it off and do need to finally go to Primal Earth (either to selfishly abandon the lost cause as a villain, or heroically align with Vanguard and do your part in bringing down Cole/evacuating innocents before Hamidon comes and destroys everything). That would put a bow nicely onto the storyline that is Praetoria.

How about taking the Last Bastion map and turn it into a zone connected to First Ward via the unused Transit Station there (it’s only used for missions in Night Ward) and say it’s part of the Resistance’s underground railroad for moving dissidents to safety. Storywise, by the time you’re done in First Ward you’re on the outs with the Crusaders (no one says no to Calvin Scott) and Loyalists (particularly once you break into the Magisterium to steal Diabolique’s amulet)… so basically you need to get out of dodge. Enter a level 35-40 (or more) zone where the missions involve getting Last Bastion set up to the point it is by the time the incarnate arc happens… getting ahold of the anti-air defenses for example. Getting food and supplies for refugees, components for the eventual portal device used in the arc, etc. Part Two of my Praetorian content plan would be to move Tina McIntyre and Maria Jenkins to the Rikti War Zone (by rights those missions should fall under Vanguard’s oversight anyway) and, by completing the Last Bastion 35-40 arcs you unlock access to the RWZ where you can participate in those arcs. Part Three of the plan is to create a non-iTrial version of the war against Praetoria as a story arc experience so you can pause to read the content without the pressure of the iTrial going on around you (you can still do the iTrials, this would just be an alternate way of experiencing it. My thinking here is the maps and mobs are already built; they just need to scaled to solo and team play. Fold Belladonna and Last Bastion into that series of arcs as well so that, by the time you’re finally done, you’ve played through the entire Fall of Praetoria story. After that if you’re not level 50, you’re doing something wrong.

Given there’s a literal monstrous glove and nearly all the melee attack animations* are reused from various punchy sets anyway (just with claws on fists)… I don’t see why “invisible” couldn’t be an option for one or both hands. A punch doing lethal makes more sense than a plasma blade also still doing lethal. In the meantime, if you use Widow Claws + a very bright Glow fist - combat aura, you can just about hide the claws behind the pom pom aura (which is when I really noticed how many of Claws’ animations are just energy melee ones with claws extended).

I’d request at least one more co-op Incarnate-tier zone before we really expand the Incarnate system. There’s precious little incarnate content as it is that making it even easier with more incarnate bits before there’s something to do with it seems counterproductive. Perhaps link said new incarnate powers to that new zone (perhaps an update to the Shadow Shards with cross-faction access through Vanguard and new incarnate missions that unlock the mind and possibly vitae slots).

I’d like the START vendor jump pack and the Cybernetic Aura ACCUHud to be made available as back and head details respectively. The first is because of a lack of good small (between the shoulders) jet packs (I might feel differently if the Vanguard “jetpack” had ANY sort of flames to go with it), and the Jump Pack already has its flame animations designed. I’d be happy even with the base (non-colorable) version. The second is because it’s clearly just a costume part with a combat animation (like the new clockwork hand) that shouldn’t have to lock you of actual auras (I have a tendency to throw Celestial onto one of my costume slots once I hit Incarnate, but most of my tech PCs use the ACCUHud as basically a flip down combat faceplate for their helmets and you can’t have both. Having an option for static (always in place) and dynamic (how the aura version works) would be cool too. Another request would be for the Praetorian PPD energy auras as an aura option for players, along with the Seer visor and some of the other costume pieces available to the generic Praetorian mobs (the bigger PPD arm shields, the heavier IDF chest armor and gloves like Grant Creston also has). And finally, a repeat of my request for the chain/wire wrapped hands to use any of the hand textures (instead of just leather or wrapped) so you could have the glove actually match the rest of your outfit.

My favorite fanon explanation is its a Midnight Squad ritual thing in association with the office of city planning. The office arrangements and how people have to navigate them to get to and from their place of work act as a perpetual ritual that keeps an Eldritch Abomination buried deep beneath the Earth asleep. Should normal practical geometry be introduced the world would be doomed.

I suggest that Aid Other in Medicine should be Yellow (conditionally useful). A lot of the newer content insists on throwing in allied NPCs you’re expected to keep alive to actually balance the threat in the mission when you’re soling (keep the three Vanguard in good health on some of those Instant Army/Hero’s Epic missions and the Praetorian AVs will melt really fast) and we all remember THOSE missions where you have to try to keep alive a suicidal moron who insists on attacking everything in aggro range despite being made of tissue paper or you fail, right? Aid Other is the sanity saver on any AT that doesn’t have a primary or secondary that can keep them from dying. Without it, once you’ve run out of immediate targets for the NPC with a death wish, but still have more you’re going to have to fight, you can have a 1-2 minute wait for their health bar to refill. Aid Other with just it’s original slot drops that to a handful of seconds to top them off and really reduces the mission difficulty and/or risk of failure. Not saying it’s Green, just that it does have a situational use depending on the content you enjoy running so deserves a Yellow.

Personally instead of the word bubbles that come on at often ludicrous ranges then fade before you can get a bead on them all, I’d like to request a sound queue like the various other mission objectives have. Maybe the fire chief safety whistle? 😆

Nope. I remember those horrible missions from live and they not only didn’t say a word, the two minions packed in next to them as they cower in a corner seemed to have their threat detection turned down to practically nothing since you can run right past a dumpster they’re all behind and they won’t even twitch. Now some of this depends on the missions you’re running. It primarily crops up in the issue 0-6 missions with objectives like “rescue the police officers” (14 left to find) on an Oranbega map or a number of the Portal Corp missions in city maps, ruins, or graveyards. But yeah, on those they’re always dead silent (and always have been) until after you’ve rescued them.

Instead of faster animations, how about just ones with more movement to fill the animation time? ex. Staff’s activation times aren’t any faster than most of the other melee sets, and in some places are worse, but because the animations include a lot staff twirling to take up that time, it feels a lot smoother/faster than broadsword where it’s often a fairly basic swing or chop, wait for it to reset to neutral, then see next basic animation. It might be interesting to see what the staff animations with, say a broadsword or axe positioned in place of the staff, would look like (basically need to keep the handle in the right spot relative to the hands compared to the staff where you can shift your grip along its whole length).

My suggestion would be the “Guardian of Forever” badge obtained by re-doing the Laura Lockheart arc in Oroboros and changing the original ending to save her. Because being a true blue hero means it’s not good enough to stop the Council/5th war, you go the extra mile to save everyone you can.

Ask aside, the main reason for contact level bands is that, with certain exceptions, most of the mob groups are themselves level locked and built for certain levels in both the number and choice of powers. Even with scaling hp and damage, no mob with just a pistol and punch attack like the starter Hellions and Skulls have would be threat to a character in their mid-20s. That’s why villain groups that have a long time presence have different mobs in different level bands. One reason the Praetorian mobs hit so hard in the early game is they’re built to with all the powers they’d need to be a challenge all the way up to level 24, but you’re facing them with a single digit level tool kit. Now, with that in mind, I could see an argument for expanding certain contact level bands… to the max level of the mobs they send you against. Ex. Clockwork can spawn at up to level 20, so let the early contacts that deal with the Clockwork give out their missions until you reach level 20. Vanilla Banished Pantheon* spawns from 21-29 so let the contacts handing out missions for them do so through level 29, etc. * while they have no current missions in the 30-39 range, the BP do pop up again in 40+ content so, if such an approach for contacts were done, it might be worth building some intermediary BP mobs to fill that range as a sort of lead up to the BP ultimately supplanting even the Circle of Thorns (whose story arcs end with your defeat of the Envoy of Shadows pre-level 40.

Not a punishment perhaps, but it should also not be required to turn it off just to not out level the moral choice at the end of a normal single faction playthrough just because you accidentally got too much patrol XP. Which, as a reminder, is the ask… smooth out the level bands enough that you don’t have to resort to turning off XP just to do a complete single faction playthrough. You’ll also note I don’t think it takes a radical shift. 1-12 for Nova, 8-18 for Imp and 14-24 for Neutropolis. Keep the exit missions at 20.