Chris24601

Word to this. I played a PUG Tinpex at base difficulty on my just alpha-slotted scrapper the other day. We had no support classes and my scrapper faceplanted more in just one of those two TFs than I did in my entire solo run to 50 (including soloing all six of the TFs for the Task Force Commander badge while in their level bands). The supposedly invincible all damage approach ran into a wall so hard we had to actually stop and regroup after a couple of TPKs. Frankly, I think the people asking for “hard mode” are playing in such rarified air they can’t even see what the general playerbase looks like. I’m betting they have a multi-billion INF, fully T4’d incarnated builds and think everyone else plays that way... when 95+% of the player base is running on uncommon/rare IO sets and haven’t gotten their destiny and lore slots unlocked yet. The difficulty is plenty hard enough already for the vast majority of the playerbase and the ones complaining would be complaining about the difficulty being too low even if the baseline were pushed past the point the majority of the players couldn’t even try to participate. The OP says they can’t find enough people to team with interested in their version of hard mode and presume it’s because people don’t want a challenge instead of realizing that the current levels of difficulty are STILL a challenge to most players. OP. You ARE the elite. The reason you can’t find enough people at your level is because there just aren’t enough players AT your level. You are Blue Steel, my friend. The difficulty you want everyone to shoulder would crush them.

For me it’s as simple as “I am constitutionally incapable of playing evil.” Not just here; in any game. I’ve never seen the villainous endings of video games I own outside of YouTube videos. I couldn’t even take the vigilante option in the new HC vigilante-only arc (which I used Null to try out because the Vigilante tip missions require too many moral compromises for me to actually manage 10 tips plus a morality mission to do it organically). I stealthed through most of it and, when given the option, ultimately arrested the guy for the lesser offense rather than killed him. I tried a Chaotic Neutral PC in a D&D game once. By the third session the GM declared them Chaotic Good. The first villain I rolled in CoV was an undercover hero from the future trying to stop a horrible event from happening and needed to play the villain. I picked only missions that seemed to have other villains as targets. I deliberately failed certain missions. For the mission to stop Amanda Vines broadcast I just zoned in and door sat until the timer ran out. I was basically playing like the lightest-grey rogue, before the Rogue alignment was even a thing. But by the 30s the content was getting darker and harder to avoid the moral event horizon. So when the final Kelly Uqua mission allowed me to deliberately fail it and thereby allow reveal the secret Rikti plot, I decided THAT was the event my Redside character had been sent back to stop and benched them immediately thereafter at level 38. Then I re-rolled the character blueside as they started their life over as a hero in the light of day. When the alignment system was put into place, the first thing I did was run that benched character through it so they could be a hero using their original AT. Years ago I learned I was someone who, without thinking, ran towards real life danger just because I saw a stranger in need of help. I am literally not wired to enjoy even pretending to be a bad guy. That’s why I don’t play redside.

Its considered a little below the Street Justice and such level in performance, but Kinetic Melee, particularly with the effects set to the darker shades of "light" (i.e. light customization then pick the darkest red or blue you can) makes for a good soft martial arts style like Tai Chi (which I believe some of its animations were based on actually).

Mr. Rogers was a Scrapper.

So, I like my toons to fit the setting lore and my latest one led me down the rabbit hole of the canon timeline. The use of real dates was fine in 2004 and still passable in 2012 when the game shut down, but in 2020? Let me present a few examples; Manticore was born in 1968 so he was 36 in 2004, 44 in 2012 and 52 in 2020. Mynx was born in 1982 and 22 at the game launch (right age for college student turned new superhero), but would be 30 by 2012 and 38 in 2020. Back Alley Brawler’s heyday in the eighties was 30-40 years ago, putting him (a natural orgin hero) at least in his late 50s, but possibly into his 70s today. Now for some heroes it doesn’t matter as much... Ms. Liberty is probably as ageless as her mom (who was 72 when she died in the SSA) so, apart from her fashion choices despite now being in her 40s (maybe even 50s... her mom was in her 20s during the 1960s) it’s fine that she still only looks 20-something. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that City of Heroes is now getting old enough that, unless you want Star Trek V or the later Star Wars EU (“70 is the new 30” was actually said by one of the authors when asked why Han Solo could still be running around like a young man despite being in his 70s by that point)... then the game should probably start implementing the concept of “comic book time” as applied by DC and Marvel. In other words, remove specific dates unless absolutely necessary (or the subject is functionally immortal) and replace them with X years ago. The other alternative; and possibly a way to make Homecoming stand apart from the game as it appeared live; would be to let the march of years progress in future story content. Manticore passes his mantle to an apprentice or pre-Sister Psyche illegitimate child (fitting for a Batman/Green Arrow expy mashup). Back Alley Brawler retires entirely (while the super serum Marauder used extended his lifespan). Ms. Liberty steps up as a senior hero along with other members of the Vindicators becoming members of the Freedom Phalanx as older members retire. Comic Book Time would probably be easier to implement.

I was thinking as another ATO set. Call it “Long Arm” (of the law) and have its sixth slot include a significant enough global range increase to bump a melee AT’s reach say 25%. The reason I say it needs to be an ATO set (or four sets; for scrappers, tanks, brutes and stalkers) is because that way the range increases can be significant enough to matter for melee attacks (even a 40’ one would only go to 50’), but wouldn’t be slottable on ranged classes (where 80’ becomes 100’ and a snipe goes insane).

You know, forget 40 feet; I’d pay good influence for something that would up my scrapper’s reach just a couple feet (or expand that silly 50 degree melee arc on that might as well be a single-target attack for all the targets it ever hits, but has the END cost of an AoE).

Honestly, my biggest influence on hero creation is probably "Sky High." My first hero on live was the grandson and third in a legacy of superheroes based on an old tabletop RPG character I ran. Most of my later toons similarly followed the pattern of "Young hero comes into their own." It just feels tailor made for the 1-50 journey. I'm also particularly fond of using in-universe lore for concepts. I hooked off the Nictus having been in ancient Egypt to write a PB hero whose past host was mistaken by the ancient Egyptians for the god Ra. Come Homecoming and the nebulous "seven year gap" gave me some other fun opportunities. Given his Batman/Green Arrow pastiche nature, it seemed obvious that my Archery/Tac Arrow Blaster should be one of Manticore's (pre-Sister Psyche) many illegitimate kids (think Connor Hawke or Damien Wayne). Those extra eight years mean an unknown love child from a one-night stand just before the Rikti War could be 18 by now. Given Manticore's penchant for calling your PC "kid" or similar diminutives and questioning your accomplishments/decisions in the missions where he turns up (or in the Shining Stars that you're the only one he's vetted enough to trust), it feels just like you'd expect the relationship with an estranged illegitimate kid following in his footsteps to feel. So yeah... "Sky High" is probably my biggest influence on character concepts.

Speaking as what I guess would be the "casual merit earner" category (I don't power level, I just run whatever contact and tip missions interest me, mostly solo because I like to stop and read), as soon as I learned the "sell converters bought with merits on the auction house" trick, I've never particularly felt underfunded. I've never had more than about 10-20 million or so at any one time (typically after a long big aware arc), but that's usually enough to buy the next set of attuned enhancments I need for my next level. You don't even need to worry that much about purple IO sets until you actually ding 50. If you're mostly soloing through stories, about a third of that climb to 50 is in level 40+ range where the inf rate and common recipe vendor sale prices start ramping up and longer story arcs start dropping 40+ merits at a time leading to big inf infusions you probably don't need all of to fill your one or three slots when you level up. Thunderstrikes and Crushing Impacts (my go tos for ranged and melee attacks respectively for their good range of set bonuses) just don't cost that much. ATOs are maybe 10 million each, but that's basically what you'd get from a decent length story arc or merit reward after a periodic morality mission. The point is, as a casual, my usual experience is that I can mostly slot my 1-3 slots per level with whatever I want as soon as earn them just from merit to converter to auction house sales. How much more wealth do you NEED than that?

Good Lord, now I want a “Justice for Russel” arc where heroes help him get justice against Blue Steel (seriously, who beats a 13-14 year old homeless boy into a sack of broken bones and gets to keep their badge... or not go to prison for that matter?) and apparently Posi and Synapse for basically taking the brain of a homeless kid that wasn’t even confirmed dead yet so they could study it. And there’s at least three different groups that have cloning capabilities and not one of these so-called heroes ever thought “hmm... maybe we should grow this poor kid a clone body to replace the one Blue Steel beat to death so he doesn’t have to go through life as a brain in a jar?” This has actually succeeded in replacing the walking war crime that is Longbow flamethrower troops as my top pet peeve directed towards so-called heroes (for which I almost hold MISS Liberty more responsible than her daughter; it may have been Ms. Liberty’s idea, but Alexis was the one in charge of Freedom Corps and approved the Longbow division... don’t let your kid play with flamethrowers Alexis, that’s bad parenting).

I always took the Max missions to be an “enemy mine” team up situation. And, with the exception of the guy in PPD custody (which I always skip), it’s not like you’re not also putting a stop to Arachnos and 5th Column plots to obtain incarnate power by rescuing the Malta operatives from those villain groups. Freeing two non-incarnate Malta agents from the clutches of two of the worst villain groups around (one a literal group of Nazis bent on world domination) seems like a more than fair trade for stopping two major threats before they began AND securing aid to stop a third villain group from hastening the end of the world. It’s basically akin to letting a couple of low-level criminal types off because they and their buddy helped you stop the plans of three terror cells. That’s a deal I could sleep soundly making. Plus, it’s not like you can’t just go back to smashing Malta after Mot is dealt with. Just save the World Wide Red arc for after you run Dark Astoria and imagine the guys you rescued from Arachnos and the 5th Column to be among the nameless gunslingers and operatives you take down in that arc (heck, them trying to up their game via the Kronos Titan fits right into the lore of them seeking an edge vs. incarnate heroes and villains).

My thought on removing the geographic restrictions is that, once our devs have finished all their backend projects (i.e. 64-bit client, code clean-up, etc.) and start focusing on new content in earnest, adding hero contacts to the Isles and villain contacts in Paragon would be a good way to essentially add “new zones” to the game (in the sense of having varied playthroughs for different toons). One interesting way this could be explored might be interlocking stories. This is the approach that SWTOR used for it’s worlds/zones; the vibrations disrupting the droids in one side’s mission turn out to be from a device that’s the McGuffin of another side’s mission. The Imp-side bounty hunter’s final mission results in the assassination or resignation of the Republic’s chancellor and nearly all the Pub-side conclusions involve dealing with the chancellor’s successor in one way or another. So my thinking would be to create faction missions that either set-up or follow the existing missions of certain contacts. The villain player is the one who stole the McGuffin for the villain group that has it in a hero arc (ex. make an arc out of exploiting the chaos in Galaxy City to steal the artifacts Habashy is trying to recover from the Hellions in Atlas Park). A hero arc sets out to put right what a villain contact set wrong (ex. make a Mercy Island hero arc out of recapturing as many of the villains Arcachnos broke out of the Zigg in their original tutorial mission as possible). Even better would be, if specific mission doors can be set, you could specifically direct opposing faction players in the “new” zones towards less explored/traveled regions of the zones; almost as if they’re skulking about in the background of the zone’s original factions (anywhere in Skyway for example... he says only half-kidding). Another potential location to do this too would be pre-Incarnate War Praetoria. Dark Watcher, Longbow and Dr. Science are already working in secret there as early as the Neutropolis content and Arachnos is probing there as well. So, how about two level 14-20 story arcs that involves your character helping to create that beachhead for their respective side (before being sent to First Ward to look for allies there... where the normal FW/NW content plays out as normal)? Blue-side you could even spin that out of the early Praetorian incursions from the Shining Stars arcs... including Dr. Science using Photon’s confiscated portal as the means level 14-20 characters can reach Praetoria.

Re-quoted for truth. It's also ridiculously low END cost so you don't even need slots in Stamina or the secondary that grants bonus recovery so you can basically just fire off whatever is up at the moment. There's a LITTLE strategy in terms of when to use your snipe (if you can use it as a finisher and another mob is nearby it'll buff your other attacks to beyond normal mob perception range for ten seconds making it super easy to pull single mobs from your next targeted spawn without aggroing the rest).

I’m a bit of an introvert so I’m fine with my own little base made up to be an outpost hidden on a Shadow Shard Island run by “The Young Midnighters.” People are welcome to visit (Everlasting shard; passcode Shadow-10242; all the functional features), but having a place mostly to myself is nice for little old introverted me.

The one place I’ve found hoarding useful is inspirations. I always snag the Inner Inspiration power from P2W and just bank any large inspirations I get on the way up. Then when I want to solo a TF AV I grab some larges and go to town (so far I haven’t needed an envenomed dagger, but I’ve only soloed Posi1-2, Synapse and Yin).

Lore-wise, both Miss Liberty and Ms. Liberty can throw lightning bolts (not something associated with Hera) and, at the least, Miss Liberty was ageless like her dad (per the lore, Miss Liberty was born in 1939 and died in 2012... does she look 73 in the signature story arc?). Further, Ms. Liberty's in-game description notes that she has superhuman strength and endurance "as well as" the power of the Liberty Belt. The Paragon Wiki notes under Incarnates that "Both Ms. Liberty and Miss Liberty also possess some measure of superpowers genetically inherited from the patriarch of the family, Statesman, who himself derived his powers from the Well of the Furies." Personally, I figure it was passed on the same way that Hercules was superhuman because his dad was Zeus. As I recall, there was some clarification, maybe in one of the AMA's, that the Greek Gods were basically just superhumans of the ancient past and Zeus was basically powered up by the Well the same way Marcus Cole was. If so it would stand to reason that the power would get passed on just like it did to a lot of Zeus' kids in the myths. Regardless, the canon is Miss and Ms. Liberty both have superhuman powers that include super-strength (Martial Arts powerset because Scrappers don't get super strength, but seriously, they can kick super-powered robots to pieces... there's super-strength involved), invulnerability and the lightning bolt power because they inherited them from Statesman. Its' may not be considered "Incarnate Strength," but it comes from the same source.

Scrapper/Stalker choices are extremely lacking in diversity. Darkness? Sure. Fire? No problem. Exploding Shurikin? Got you covered. Laser Beam Eyes? Kinda outta nowhere, but sure. Lightning? ... Err... break character to unlock the patron pool and recolor it (Thank God we added instant switching via Null the Gull... that would have sucked to have to do 40+ character breaking missions over 8 days just because you had a concept involving using lightning... >_> ). Cold? Zilch. Earth (including throwing rocks)? Zero. Guns or Bows? Nada. Psionic Blasts? No Soup For You! The point being; dark ninja fire with laser eyes is NOT a great spread for heroic choices and Mu Mastery is the only villain pool that isn’t either a variation (Soul Mastery is basically prettier darkness in terms of theme) or with very specific animations that are hard to reflavor.

I think you’re overthinking it a bit. Ms. Liberty has essentially the same powers as Grandpa, just not at incarnate strength... as did her mother. Whatever made Marcus Cole an incarnate clearly had follow-on effects since his daughter and granddaughter were also long-lived (Miss Liberty was already active in 1963 so even if she was in her 20’s then she sure didn’t look to be in her 70s when she died almost 50 years later), super-strong, invulnerable and can channel lightning and they had those abilities because of who their father/grandfather was. It may not be incarnate strength Zeus-iness, but it’s definitely inherited because granddad had Zeus’ power inside him. For that matter, the Olympian Guards were non-incarnate clones of Emperor Cole and also possess similar powers. You can say that’s not the power of Zeus, but to me incarnate-boosted lightning powers aquired because an ancestor had the power of Zeus and incarnate lightning powers from a Zeus-shaped connection to the Well feels like a distinction without a difference. We just interpret the lore differently is all, and until someone “official” does something to conform or deny one, the other or both there is no actual right answer.

Not exactly. Here’s the exact words from the SSA; “What happened to the energy contained in Pandora’s Box?” “It has dissipated, Character. The power still exists, yes - in one form or another. But it has spent too long disconnected from a host, and has lost all form. In time, it will manifest in other ways, but never again to the same degree.“ As I previously mentioned, Ms. Liberty already has SOME of the power of Zeus. It’s why she has the lightning bolt and thunder strike powers. Her pulling off grandpa’s lightning doesn’t require her to gain NEW powers (except in the purely game mechanic sense), just a boost to the super strength, invulnerability and lightning powers she already has. The point being; there’s enough wiggle room between the “power collects” and “the power still exists and will manifest again” to justify buffing Ms. Liberty with fly, Hammer of Justice and Zeus’s Lightning... all of which are just boosts to what she already has.

According to the lore she’s a Martial Arts/Invulnerability Scrapper (though I suspect that’s more a function of Scrappers not having the Super Strength set... she’s depicted in other media as having super-strength in the “lift great weights” sense) and does have the Lightning Bolt and Thunder Strike powers as well so she’s already got some of Zeus’ strength (as did her mother). I don’t see why she couldn’t get a bit of boost by some means. Yeah, the power of Zeus got spread far and wide at the conclusion of the Pandora’s Box SSA, but another point of that arc is that the power always gathers, flows and pools where strength already exists. So Ms. Liberty could have gotten more of Zeus’ dispersed powers than others since she already had some for it to pool with and BOOM, like a thunderbolt, her powers get an upgrade.

To be fair, if the game hadn’t been shut down, Sirocco and Ice Mistral we’re going to get a heel/face turn and become heroes (you can definitely see the groundwork in the Dark Astoria arc). This would have let Red Widow slide in and replace him as one of the patrons. I always figured it was just a cool bit of zone phasing like Matt Habashery’s wife being by his side after you rescue her to reflect that the team you helped was continuing their heroic mission (in a general offscreen sense). And to be fair, the New Praetorians arcs were literally on test when the shutdown happened so it’s not like the devs left it hanging because they lost interest; they left it hanging because they lost their jobs and the whole game shut down. Another dangling plotline was BAB getting hospitalized by the guy sent to “break” him (seen in the personal mission at the end) while you were out fighting the Petrovic brothers and I wonder if the intent wasn’t to phase him out so there’d be less confusion between him and up and the redeemed Marauder going forward in a variation of the “One Steve Limit” trope (i.e. Battle Maiden can stay because she’s an evil twin and could get a redesign to fit Malta’s aesthetics, but two heroic Michael Whites couldn’t last) I do want to reiterate too that a possible reason the State’s version of the LRSF isn’t already on Oroboros is that the old version just may not have been part of the leaked code and therefore not recoverable without a lot of effort akin to writing a new SF from scratch. I also agree with the idea that they should have subbed a powered up Ms. Liberty in for States in the Freedom Phalanx instead of just leaving that hole. Let Posi be the leader due to experience sure, but giving States’ slot on the team to his granddaughter makes thematic sense.

At least the HC devs made the New Praetorians aftermath arc available all the way to 50 (I believe on test at shutdown it was to be 35-40) so you don’t HAVE to do it before the Incarnate Trials. This is also why I’d really like to see the “Who Will Die?” arc streamlined into a single arc in the early 40s and a story arc version of the Incarnate Trials done for level 50 with the “New Praetorians” arc unlocked after its completion. In the level band equals passage of time aspect you’d kick off 40 with Statesman and Sister Psyche’s dying and the Freedom Phalanx in disarray. This also puts RularuuWade in the same band that the Shadow Shard is found. If you haven’t already, Tina McIntyre then introduces you to the Praetorian threat in the 40-45 range which continues into Maria Jenkins arc in 45-50 then the Praetorian War arc for incarnates (with the opening contacts for the Excalibur quest and Dark Astoria being introduced at the appropriate points). Completing that arc unlocks the New Praetorians and Last Bastion arcs which effectively close out the Praetorian story. Then combine the Pandora’s Box SSA into a normally accessed arc and make it into the launching pad for any new incarnate content as the Box and the Well are clearly connected and as was said at the end, that energy is now out there in the world so it will eventually pool into new incarnate threats. The Battalion don’t HAVE to be as game shatteringly powerful as intended (i.e. eat the wells of entire civilizations) in this new universe and we can leave concepts like The Dimensionless out entirely); still a threat, just not one that actually requires creating an Omega slot and essentially saying after we blow up the Dimensionless it’s time to just start over with a CoH2 like the original devs suggested. The point being; the LRSF and MLTF as level 50 events would fit as occurring after States and Sister Psyche died in that case. One thing that I think slightly hampers CoH in this regard is that while it was live they bucked the usual MMO tread by keeping the level cap at 50 and then sending PCs back to interact with things in the older zones meant to represent the past. Then backfilling content that clearly happens AFTER other content to all level bands instead of just as new content at a new top tier. For example, if “Who Will Die?” and the replacement Yin and Miss Liberty TFs and Maria Jenkins arcs were introduced as level 50-60 content in the new Kallisti Wharf zone with all mission doors in the KF zone the progression of events would feel more intuitive I think. Instead its peppered throughout the existing 1-50 climb and zones and even cancels out older events you need to understand the replacement.

For Khelds that bond with existing heroes... a luminous/umbral ranged, melee, assault and armor sets might be some low-hanging fruit in terms of reusing existing art assets. Ex. The PBs Luminous blast set includes a light, medium and heavy single-target blast, a cone and targeted AoE, a build-up and a nuke... throw in maybe the flare and photon seekers and you’ve got all nine powers for a ranged set. While it may look a little short on melee attacks with just Radiant Strike, Incandescent Strike and Solar Flare, it would also need a build-up power and several melee sets include a short range cone and blast so Gleaming Blast and Photon Scatter with 40’ ranges could be added bringing it to six and a generic taunt/confront bring it seven. It really the just needs a tier 1 and 2 light and heavy strike and... coincidentally, the dwarf-form attacks have animations that show up on the human-form model in the power customization screens so it’s two single-target melee attacks could be pulled from there to round out a “Luminous Melee” set. A blaster secondary using the three melee strikes and another build up plus some of the other support/self buff effects; essence boost, conserve energy, reform essence and quantum flight gets you to eight powers; one more as a passive buff and you’d have it done. An Assault set would just need to pull from the ranged and melee sets above. An armor set is pretty much already done too, you just need to figure out where to slot mez protection into it. It’d be more work, but adapting the Kheldian bubbles with force field animations, plus the glowing touch heal power and fx could probably create a buff set of some type that mixes resist with heals. Warshade versions of the ranged, blaster secondary and armor sets, plus a control set (maybe a debuff set) would also be real contenders for having enough art assets to create. * * * * The point of all that though is that you could then mix and match those with sets on every non-epic AT to reflect a Kheldian who has merged with an existing super-powered being and has a mix of both powers. Or you could use two sets together on some ATs to create a human-only Kheld who has specialized in the particulars of an AT instead of the generalist tri-form. ... Or be a mad scientist who’s built a suit that channels the same cosmic power as the Kheldians do. It’s City of Heroes... anything’s possible.

And lo, you have discovered the TRUE endgame*... 😀 * I mean, we have A THOUSAND character slots PER SERVER. What are they there for if not to use them?

My process is pretty simple. Do a different path each time. My first toon back went blue after the Galaxy tutorial (and the connected new Atlas Park contacts and new KIngs content), so my next started red-side with the Breakout tutorial and my third was Praetorian. My next hero did Outbreak, the original origin contacts, followed by the Hollows and old issue 0-1 story arcs. I’d guestimate there’s enough content for at least 3-4 separate trips through blueside without repeating an arc. There’s probably 2-3 trips through redside. My current Praetorian is level 36 in Night Ward and still hasn’t taken the portal to Primal Earth yet (by my estimates I’ll be about level 40 so should be able to jump right to the Portal Corps and then New Praetorians arcs and will probably wrap it with the mission to save Last Bastion from Hamidon on Praetorian Earth). They also did only the Warden arcs in Praetoria (outleveling stuff is a serious thing there) so there’s probably 2-3 more routes through the 1-20 content I can take. And by the time I’ve gone through those seven separate routes, repeating something from 6-7 passes through is long enough back that it doesn’t feel like I’ve just done it.