Chris24601

My two big asks for the bases would be… 1) complete Nova Praetoria/Imperial City/Kallisti Wharf buildings. They look gorgeous and placing them around the edge of a large open to the sky base plot would just be *chef’s kiss.” 2) more non-vendor heroic/villain NPC options. While my ideal would be fully customizable NPCs, a practical level would be having NPCs akin to the civilians currently available for say… Arachnos, Vanguard (I know there are the vendors for those two, but I’m talking purely cosmetic ones), Longbow, and IDF (the latter just because their uniforms are so spiffy)… bonus points for having other groups like Circle of Thorns, Legacy Chain, Council (perfect for generic faceless villain minions), Freakshow, and maybe all the MM pet types (because MMs clearly have a legion of backups given how often their pets fall in battle). It wouldn’t need to be the whole roster for them either… just 2-3 really iconic ones (ex. a Freakshow Juicer, Metal Slicer and Tank… or IDF Ranger, Seer, and BCU) and could probably just be in the neutral/idle pose.

Some of the “take out 20 Carnies” missions can be accomplished with a radio mission, but there’s at least one that counts only Carnies on Peregrine Island who only spawn at night in a couple of places (most regularly fighting another group on the two cargo ships on the SE side). If you’re very quick you can typically get all 20 in a single “night” (i.e. ten minute window), but it’s a bit luck of the draw and requires you to make your hunt loop in a wide enough area that they’ll respawn in the main locales for them). Completely seperate from the radio request, I would not mind a bit if they allowed the Carnies to spawn day or night in at least a few spots on Peregrine (like the cargo ships… unlike the other locations they’re in a fight with someone else there and it’s not like you can pick the time of day for another faction to jump you).

Tips require them to drop randomly (I’ve run out while soloing and had to run something else to get one to drop) or spending a merit using a base item to acquire a specific one. They also have specific stories attached. Stories that can get repetitive as there’s only a dozen-ish in the 40+ band. I know a few RPers who attach their own fluff to radio missions with their friends because there are no special mechanics past Defeat, Rescue/Capture, and Get Item (personally I wouldn’t mind “rescue 3-5 hostages” that don’t need escorting and “click/destroy 2-4 items” being added to the rotation, but that’s a different request). Tips are fun, but they are not the end-all, be-all either. I’m so sick of the 30-39 Doc Quantum morality mission while grinding through the post 30 xp slowdown that I completely skip tips in that range now. Once I’ve run the two alternate morality missions at level 40+ I rarely touch them again because I’ve already done them all at least once and many of them multiple times. Yeah, there’s no merits or story arc XP bonuses, but not everyone is playing for those once they’ve reached Peregrine Island. My character is typically fully equipped with IO sets by my mid-30’s so I only need 3-6 million at levels with slots to fill them in and you can get that just from 40-50 enhancement and generic recipe drops along with the occasional rare salvage and prismatic aethers. Post 50 threads drop from everything and if you’re sick of grinding the first Dark Astoria arc for Emps/Incarnate salvage, have already run all the main story arcs and iTrials at least once then radios are as good as anything. So yeah, more variety to the radio/newspapers (and more tips and repeatable non-Oroboros solo content in general) is a good thing.

Instead of a car, I’d suggest a Vehicle Support pool out of it. 1) Motorcycle. The pose for riding one already exists thanks to the Thugs MM. there’s also a section of the slide in where the bike is at an angle while the rider has his leg on the ground. For attack animations the bike drops off once they start (use the last bits of the MM summon) and then gets re-summoned once combat movement suppression ends. Functionally, it’s superspeed right down to the improved jump after building up some speed. 2) Chopper Pickup. A zone teleport where a Helo appears overhead, a rope drops, and you use the Spec Ops summon animation in reverse to go up off screen. Once the new zone has loaded a rope drops and you use the Spec Ops summon animation normally to arrive. 3) Ambulance/EMTs: Self-rez that also teleports you back to the map entrance (instead of back at a hospital). 4) Turbo-boost (must have motorcycle): toggle that adds significant +jump to the motorcycle power. 5) SWAT Support: drops a SWAT Van in any outdoor location that functions as an inspiration and possibly temp-power vendor for a short time. All of those should be doable via existing assets and would cover the “I don’t have innate travel powers” hole with a few extra options to round out the set.

You misunderstand. I mentioned it as a NEW option (i.e. not from the radio or newspaper), particularly if our devs don’t want to mess with the existing radio/newspaper code. Set it up as a “Portal Corp Volunteers App” or “Archanos Dimensional Testing Opportunities” uplink (i.e. a contact). This would be a way to implement something like what the OP suggested without having to touch the Radio Mission spaghetti code directly if that would be impractical.

One thought I had about level 40+ radio missions would be adding a “Portal Corp Radio” category that sends you to explore various worlds where you could run into many of the one-off mob groups like Council Earth or Psychic Clockwork or Warrior Earth, and so forth… in addition to ones so close they match the existing groups. Redside has a few Portals that could function as their mission doors for Arachnos missions seeking opportunities to exploit from other dimensions. If the spaghetti code of the existing Radio/Paper missions is too delicate to futz with directly, maybe a semi-clone with new options enabled in it would be a safer way to build.

That’s part of what would need to be balanced out… enough damage and hit points, and tweaking the buffs that can target themselves (or debuffs to enemy attacks) to provide sufficient mitigation relative to the attacks coming in to avoid face planting in whatever the dev’s define as reasonable content. As a baseline I would expect base melee damage and hit points to be ahead of either the Defender or Corruptor ranged damage (depending on if Melee is primary or secondary) due to the increased risk in close combat relative to range. That said, it’s also worth noting that without some type of mitigation (immobilize, stun, etc.) in their blast set, range is only a temporary advantage over being in melee and Defenders/Corruptors are perfectly capable of soloing, so it IS a solvable problem for some set of numbers that aren’t too much above those of the Defender and Corruptor.

For me, the only AT concept that seem like they’re actually “missing” vs. just “expressed with different priorities than you’d prefer” (ex. the defender support/blast and corruptor blast/support or tanker armor/melee and scrapper melee/armor) and wouldn’t require a LOT of powerset working would be the Melee/Support option. Melee/Control is already fairly doable with the Dominator. It doesn’t get the full raft of powers thar a Melee set gets, but it gets a fair number in its assault set. Just don’t take one of the ranged powers and it’s there. This is a “already doable but with different primary/secondary priorities” AT. By contrast, a Melee/Minions set has the opposite problem that the Minions set is where the MM’s ranged attacks are actually found. So you either need to swap those out with three melee attacks and give a different secondary (probably still support since MM minions actually need that support to really thrive) or you have to replace those three attacks with three support powers that are specific to each power set so the AT can get a full melee set. The first is a fair amount of work and rejiggering just for a three power difference between it and a standard MM. I think some Pool sets with various weapons would be easier to implement for that concept than a whole new AT. The second would probably see a lot of grumbling since you’d have to thematically match the support to each Minion set and that might not match the concept very well. Say Bots gets three picks derived from Force Field (to match the Defender bots), but many would probably prefer it be pulled from Traps or insert your preferred pool paring here… and you only get three so there’s probably some real holes in that support. Again, a lot of work and probably a lot of people not happy with the paored limited support choices. It’s basically a No Win for the devs to even try. Melee/Support (or Support/Melee depending on what the AT’s concept favors) though requires little actual redesign of the respective sets (both set categories run mostly independently of the other category in each AT that has melee or support) with the only tricky bits being coming up with an interesting AT mechanic and balancing the numbers appropriately. It also is NOT something we really have elsewhere in the game (outside of custom AE mobs) because, to date, melee has exclusively been paired with armor sets (and sorta with control as part of Dom Assault set) and the risks of melee vs. being able to stay at range is a different playstyle. That makes it far more plausible an activity for a small volunteer dev team to tackle and different enough to be worth tackling. As to a potential AT gimmick; I would suggest something akin to the Brute’s Fury Bar (or Blaster’s boosts) but instead of boosting their damage as it grows with each hit, it boosts the strength of their buffs/debuffs, creating a playstyle where the AT must keep up its melee attacks to boost the power of its buffs/debuffs which again makes it play very different from the other support sets which are pretty “steady state” and operate virtually independently of the other power set in their AT. That is the bar for me and making another AT… does it offer a new play experience compared to what is presently available (while remaining feasible to implement for the devs)? Melee+Support I feel has that potential that other options either don’t without a much more extensive inherent or could, but would require far more work to implement than is reasonable.

As a compromise between no control and MM-tier control, I would suggest pets come with two exclusive toggles (meaning you can only have one of the two active at a time like Dual Pistols ammo or Bio-Armor). Make the default state Defensive Follow (pets only attack what attacks you or them), with one toggle for passive follow (pet ceases attacking and moves to your side) and the other for aggressive (pets attacks anything in its perception range and returns to following you only if nothing remains in its perception range). This leaves MM “Attack My Target” and “Move to this specific place”, plus their advanced commands (arguably the most useful commands overall and their version of Defensive Follow has added bonuses to themselves while MM just get base command) as commands exclusive to the MM while giving just enough control to non-MM that their pets aren’t actually detrimental to them.

Honestly, the valid part of this suggestion is the second one. I’ve noticed a lot my missions lately are basically “duping” spawns… ex. an entire floor of nothing but Nemesis snipers with a Lancer minion. A room where every spawn is a Galaxy, warwolf, and marksman. I think there could well be a glitch in how mobs are selected that’s slipped in somewhere in the spaghetti code and it might be worth at least giving a cursory look at it or the RNG it calls upon. It could be that I’m just in the middle of a very repetitive section of the random seed (it can and does happen) and it’ll go away eventually once the RNG checks roll past that section. But if it’s not, it’s something I would appreciate being looked at.

I approve, but only if using it causes a poof of smoke and Null appearing standing on your head for the duration the window is open.

Aether is often associated with the realm of the spirit or mind so I’d say base it off the various psionic power sets.

Actually, this got me thinking… what if they were specifically updated versions of the Praetorian villain groups? Basically make it an extension of the New Praetorians and Mr. G arcs. What does the UPA do after Scott’s death? They still have their underlying goals and need a base of operations. They choose Kallisti Wharf. Praetorian Wu Yin, absent the memories of his daughter, would put his focus into rebuilding The Syndicate (perhaps picking up assets from Crey after the Countess is exposed and arrested). Not every Destroyer is going to have an easy time detoxing and an underground Fixadine racket could get started. Likewise, the Awakened could come out at night on the “villain side” of Kallisti Wharf, while the Carnival of Light would be targetable by villains coming there. Maybe do something with the Dregs, Pilgrims and Lost/Ghouls as well. If you’re not playing goldside much, these would all be relatively fresh villain groups for players to experience and wouldn’t need much tweaking to play in the 40-54 range since the goldside critters always punched a bit above their weight to begin with. Throw in Arachnos and the PPD and you’d have a good selection of enemy groups for both sides and a set up for adding some related story arcs to the zone.

To summarize; the sum total of the objection is “I can’t imagine it, therefore no one else is allowed to have it, even if they can imagine it.” Do I have that correct?

Pedantic much? I already stated “wrist launchers” and “similar.” You know what that effectively looks like? No discernible weapon in your hand. You just point your arm at something and bullets, grenades, flame, etc. comes out because it’s built into some contraption on your forearm or into a cybernetic hand. Or are you demanding that there be one preset “not in the hand” option that must be visible while in a combat stance? Because that’s just so needlessly nitpicky as to basically be a suggestion intended to shut down others’ suggestion because of your arbitrary standards.

Conversely, could we get “no gun” animations for the dual pistols, assault and beam rifles? I’m fond of wrist launchers and similar for powered armor type PCs.

Personally, given it’s cross faction access and complete lack of hostile mobs, I’d think Kallisti Wharf would be an ideal locale for placing all manner of new story arc contacts and door missions.

My personal fix for “The Coming Storm” would be to recontextualize it as not a single event with a singular Big Bad, but as a series of crises striking in close succession. The Praetorian War would be the opening of the Storm. Praetorian Hamidon trying to merge with its Primal counterpart might be another. A fresh push by Rularuu could be a third. The Battalion (who from a deep lore dive should strongly resemble the Rikti… as the Rikti had to adapt from being humans to their present form as part of defeating their dimension’s Battalion and their tech and forms were about adapting to Battalion terraforming) in this scenario would be just one of the many threats in this storm wracked age. The main advantage is each threat can be built one at a time and largely from existing tech capabilities. It’s only the aggregate as endgame content (all at once in the “level=time” setup) that creates the perspective of a massive storm of threats all coming to a head at once.

All I want is to be able to keep my ACCUHUD on my hi-tech while also having a real* aura effect for their incarnate-tier costume. * Seriously, it’s a slightly animated costume part like the new Clockwork hand. It could easily be a head detail.

Question for the Lore Purists and needing forms for extra damage/tankiness… Can Requiem, Arakhn, and Romulus (all Nictus; identical to Warshades in all but philosophy) inflict and take damage like an archvillain while remaining in human form? If so (and it is), then your interpretation of the lore about needing the forms for firepower or resilience is just wrong.

Actually, back during Live during one of the updates until it was patched there was a glitch where a Kheldian would lose their form appearance, but kept all their stats. The dwarf glitched to look absolutely normal and used the equivalent human animations. The nova glitched to the hover pose (couldn’t land or anything) and the eye beams shot from your eyes (without an animation) and the other blasts came out of your chest. The point of mentioning this is that it proves there’s nothing locked to the actual form model. The default nova animations don’t work with human shapes, but powers can now have alternate animations completely with different effects (see the darkness noir options). As power customization options* the only real issue is time needed to make it happen… that old glitch proves it’s possible at the technical level. * This is a point all the “just don’t take forms” people seem to ignore. No one wants to take YOUR form models away. Others just want to not have to look at them in order to not be effectively nerfed. ** Also, since human form Khelds are things that exist in lore, a Kheldian who uses dwarf/nova powers in human form doesn’t break anything about the lore.

It doesn’t even take work. Bang out the three arc chain starting with Habashy in Atlas and you get 9 merits in maybe 15-20 minutes… 27 converters x 65k average sale price (about 60k each after commission) is about 1.6 million influence. That’s enough to refresh your SO’s every 5 levels up through at least level 26-ish… and that’s with no other drops or merit rewards. The only thing easier would be for the merit vendor to just do a direct merit to influence conversion (which I am totally against because the converter market is the key to keeping all the good set-IOs stocked on the auction house at reasonable prices… offering direct merit to inf conversion would just raise the price of everything on the AH).

One reason for the paucity of content is, obviously, it was added in issue 1 way back in 2004 and, for the time when WoW was just launching itself, it’s got quite a lot content… lots of large open world mobs, endless repeatable missions (including ones that originally rewarded large inspirations, rather than mediums today; a big deal pre-IO sets) and a number of lengthy task forces. It was certainly better developed than the old Rikti Crash Site. Also of note is that, before Fitness became inherent, I remember the geysers working extremely accurately if you followed the gravity geyser tutorial’s instructions to turn off all your travel powers (including sprint) and did NOT have Hurdle from the Fitness pool (all the numbers for speed and height of the geysers were relative to the base numbers for jump speed and height and would drop you right on target if you had those… no one has the base numbers now due to inherent Fitness which is why they’re so inaccurate today). This also suggests that fixing said accuracy might be fixable as a kludge via a “temp” toggle power that sets your run and jump speeds and jump height to the default values (call it a GTS… Gravitational Turbulence Stabilizer) even if it’s otherwise impossible to just set the jump values to ignore buffs. Anyway, the zones are definitely showing it two decades these days, but given the closeout of issue 27 with Piecemeal’s personal story setting up the Battalion (and the new gravity mechanic), I don’t think it’s beyond salvaging/revamping… particularly if you’re looking to continue the story of the Oncoming Storm. The most obvious update would be to replace the generic UN military presence with the UN military force specifically created to deal with trans dimensional threats; the already cross-faction Vanguard. Subsequent issues have introduced Nemesis’ secret Shadow Shard base and the Rularuu-Shin cultists into the mix. There’s also supposed to be debris and survivors from Primal Earth (or mirror copies of them anyway) from when the Shard was created to imprison Rularuu that could also create more visual variety in the zones along with fodder for mission content. TL;DR - Make the zone into a Vanguard-coordinated co-op zone (which is already accessible from the RWZ if you’re of the proper alignment). Possibly an Incarnate Zone as only Dark Astoria and parts of Cimerora really work like that (and only the DA arcs offer Incarnate rewards outside of Vet levels/Trials). - Fix the geysers either by fixing the way it interacts with the player jump values or via a temp toggle power (GTS) that suppresses player movement buffs to the base values while active. - Add mission content based on seeking out Incarnate power (heroes for prepping against the Oncoming Storm, villains for their own ends). Possible new enemies would be high-level Rularuu-Shin (perhaps adding them to Rularuu proper for more variety in their forces) and giving more purpose to the Shadow reflections as harbingers of the Battalion (just like during the now-optional Incarnate unlock mission) seeking to stop you. - Incorporate city debris (with human survivors) and a Nemesis base (and maybe a Circle stronghold) into the zones for a little more visual variety.

In addition to the usual “more maps/powers” things which are a given, I would request the ability to add “radio chatter” aka the dialogue boxes with someone outside of the mission communicating with. That first took off with the doppelgänger missions and quickly became one of the most effective way to convey information to players in a number of situations. But it’s not something AE can add. I suspect it would have to be a mission objective element (since it is generally triggered by moving into an area or completing some task), but I’d sacrifice a few objectives just to be able to add some clear narration to certain missions.

This is pretty self-explanatory. Even with the slight bump in level bands Homecoming added, you still have to turn off your XP bar to run more than one faction’s arc set (i.e. Warden, Crusader, Loyalty or Power) and possibly even during that single arc if you end up with any significant patrol XP in the process without out-leveling the ending moral choice. True story; I ran as a Warden, got a full boat of patrol XP due to Altitis and when I came back that was enough to ding me up to 11 before I got Dr. Arvin’s moral choice mission… which, because it’s a separate arc, meant I had out leveled and could only come back after leaving Praetoria to unlock Oroboros. The same happens in Imperial. You come in with a quarter of one bar of XP into level 10, run just the Warden arcs and if I had had any patrol XP going in I would have out-leveled Seer 1381’s moral choice too. I really started to notice the issue after the change to the exploration badges adding proportional patrol XP rather than fixed (and tiny after you have a few levels under you) regular XP and how many exploration badges in Praetoria you can run into without even trying. So, I’d like to suggest the level bands be expanded enough that a single-faction run through won’t need to disable earning XP just to actually finish out a single arc. Say… Nova 1-12, Imperial 8-18, Neutropolis 14-24 (keep the exit missions at 20 for those who do get it without out leveling things) would probably do it. You’d still need to turn off XP to run multiple arcs, but this suggestion is more to smooth things out for normal players than making completionist runs the standard. It also means you don’t have to adjust First/Night Ward levels since First Ward already runs up through level 29. Anyway, that’s my suggestion.