Chris24601

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.

So, I’ve been thinking of how to reframe Redside into something that makes more sense with a minimum of effort and retconning and I think I’ve hit on something along the lines of the Tina McIntyre and Maria Jenkins arcs that could work. The gist of the concept? Through something akin to the Death of Statesman (i.e. the arc that retroactively removed Statesman and Sister Pyche even from the early game; everything Blueside now essentially happens AFTER WWD?)…Longbow “wins.” By “wins” I mean Arachnos is successfully pushed out of the majority of the Rogue Isles*. For Mercy Island this means reverting to the old map layout. Fort Cerebus is the last stronghold of Arachnos outside of Grandville and used as the launching point for their insidious plan to retake the isles (and the world) - Project Destiny. New villains scooped from the streets of Paragon or liberated from the Zig are dumped there and told to “prove themselves worthy” of being contacted by Arachnos in the future. Now new characters have to fight through to the elevated walled city now guarded by RIP with Longbow advisors trying to keep order (and stretched thin so there’s plenty of opportunities for new villains to start their careers). Replace the texture maps of any Arachnos flags/signs with a new “Free Etoile Isles” one and maybe the Arachnos wall textures with something a little less shiny and a bit battered. At Port Oakes replace any Arachnos patrols with RIP and ditto for the signage. Any Arachnos contacts are now out of sight instead of the middle of streets. The ghost fortress still has the same contact, but with a little dialogue tweaking they’re dealing with the rogue ghost Arachnos not as an authority, but as an operative trying to complicate RIP/Longbow’s attempts at uncovering Arachnos’ many experiments regarding the ghosts there. In Cap Au Diablie, Doc Aeon is overthrown (and has withdrawn to a hidden lair somewhere on the island… I’d personally make it one of the doors on the Architect Entertainment building) and Marshall Brass is now working with RIP to clean up all the potential ‘landmines’ left behind (including pretty much the same missions as before). The BaneSpider Reuben mission becomes one of figuring out HOW Longbow turned all the Cap villains against Arachnos and ends with you freeing the villains and destroying the Longbow base… handing Longbow its first big setback in a long time. As you can see, a LOT of the needed changes are more contextual than requiring entirely new missions. Sharkhead and Nerva require little actual adjustment… for Nerva leave Arachnos doing it’s experiments out in the jungles and swap out the small amounts of Arachnos on both for RIP** and repeat the pattern of swapping out the texture map for any Arachnos flags and walls. The only place I might do a serious revamp to is the Arachnos base on Saint Martial (with the large one on Sharkhead as a stretch goal) or, at least, relocating the arrival ferry to closer to the Golden Giza and main strip of the island. The final physical change for all the islands would be to remove Grandville from the Ferry Lines and make it accessible only via the Black Helicopter line (with a beefed up troop presence around the flyer indicating it’s basically only there long enough to pick up villains and ferry them elsewhere… for serious bonus points make the flyer invisible and clicking the nearby Arachnos agent causes it to “decloak” as part of the animation before you jump aboard it) and the Submarine line. Park a sub several flyers on the dock where the Ferry used to be. The story holding everything together becomes the Rogue Isles are a fragile and corrupt government. Arachnos seeks to regain control over the Isles and has relaunched Project Destiny to try and overwhelm the isles with crime and to seek powerful operatives to fill their ranks after their loss to Longbow. You make your way through the Isles committing whatever crimes you care to and staying ahead of the local authorities and the supergroups (Longbow, Wyvern, Legacy Chain) backing them (plus all the other criminals working from the shadows) until you have done enough for Arachnos to reach out to you on behalf of the Patrons. You then learn of Recluse’s true plans and must prove yourself even stronger… marking you as an even greater villain (or more clever rogue) than even Recluse. In terms of genuine new content; open up Red and Blue to all alignments, add some hero missions to the Rogue Isles and villain missions to Paragon City (establish a villain hub in the Paragon sewer network akin to the Resistance bases in Praetoria). Then fill in Kallisti Wharf with level 40-50 hero and villain content for a place for those who want to avoid Arachnos to find mission content. * for ease of art/story assets Arachnos maintains control of Grandville as its “Volcano Base” that only elite (high level) villains are invited to visit. ** To require less revamping of general models, higher level RIP should use re-purposes Arachnos gear (bits of body armor and weapons akin to Grant Creston in First Ward using bits of IDF armor) just repainted because that’s what’s most readily available.

Personally, I’d move Matthew Habashy to just off Ms. Liberty to the left facing her so the mission icon over him is clearly visible as you’re headed up the stairs (default human behavior if you’re placed at the bottom of a flight of stairs that are clearly dominating your field of vision is to climb them because the view will be better). Alternately, I would move the Start location to inside City Hall (in the alcove by the merit vending machine facing out) with Matt at the top of the stairs heading down to the Origin contacts and Ms. Liberty in the center of the rotunda. If I was going really wild I’d redesign city hall to remove the doors (or rather have them sitting open so you could walk in and out without needing to click anywhere). I’d also put the START vendor and a basic Freedom Corps vendor near the Supergroup registrar and give that FC vendor a dialogue box (like START has) that has them explain Freedom Corps, enhancements and inspirations (in the context of FC being Hero Support) in more detail. That way when you first appear you have the trainer dead ahead, your first mission contacts just past them in the confined area of the building, to your left along the wall would be the merit vendor, basic vendor, START vendor and supergroup registration and to your right lies the open world.

Thank you. Genuinely. It was driving me nuts. So observer status currently includes the Holy See, Palestine, Taiwan and similar that are either very small or contested. That makes sense. It’d still be nice to have something about Longbow’s invasion of a country having some sort of backing by another nation(s) and not just some hero with a private army unilaterally deciding it’s a good idea to try and overthrow a country. I think part of the problem is it feels like it’s a “dog catches car… now what?” sort of situation. Just what is Longbow hoping to replace Arachnos with once they’ve completed their military campaign to completely excise Arachnos from control? Free elections among a population that is utterly dominated by super villains and criminal organizations? An oligarchy of Cage and Crey and AeonTech? Reforming RIP into a legitimate police force? Or are they going to do the US standard of occupying it indefinitely while propping up a friendly government they picked, suffer ongoing attacks from local resistance until it gets too expensive in money and lives and they abandon it and any allies they had to a power vacuum where the successor is as bad or worse than the one they overthrew? It may have made sense when it was written in 2005-6 when Ms. Liberty was an overly idealistic teenager (and the audience bought into America as the unabashed good guys bringing democracy to the world at the end of a gun) But if it’s 2024* then Longbow’s efforts aee a near two decades long operation led by someone now pushing 40 and the audience for the story has long since grown sick of American military interventionism and its disastrous consequences for the people they’re ostensibly trying to save. Regarding the being more a theme park than something that actually functions I think the LiveDevs arguably made things worse during the Praetorian Invasion event when they broke the illusion by having Lord Recluse pronounce “Protect the Shrimping Industry! Do you think we survive on an endless cycle of crime!?!” And now you’re left with that either being a non-canon joke by a dev poking fun at how stupid the Rogue Isles are as a concept -or- it’s a serious statement and… and that’s almost worse because now you have to justify why Arachnos tolerates ANY crime within its borders (outside of say a Hunger Games-ish arena for potential recruits to prove themselves) given it now actually has a real economy it needs to support to keep its military arms going. Redside is a mess that isn’t coherent and exists only because back in the day Jack decided to make the CoV setting into something based on Doom’s Latveria (which in the Marvel Universe has ZERO crime because Doom crushes anyone who attempts it) instead of being Gotham to Paragon’s Metropolis. I think it could mostly be fixable with some text changes and revamp of the RIP into a real (if Gotham-tier corrupt) police force (shifting certain contacts that are more “law and order” focused like Marshal Brass into the RIP… Brass is totally the Commissioner Gordon type trying to keep the corrupt cronyism of his bosses from blowing up the city) and then reframing Arachnos as just the top villain organization with their fingers in everything (i.e. puppetmasters who fixed the elections to keep Doc Aeon in power instead of just appointing him as Governor) and Grandville as essentially Arachnos’ Volcano Lair that only high level villains are allowed to visit. Now you reframe Longbow as still a private army, but one hired by some of the few legitimate authorities of the Isles who know the RIP are completely outmatched in the war on crime. They’re not there to take over, they’re there to keep things stable for the legitimate government. You’re still broken out by Arachnos and dumped on Mercy Island (restore the original arrangement where you start in the wastes and have to work your way up to the city) because they’re actually looking for recruits/the Destined One, but now they’re more hands off until you get strong enough to be recruited by an Arachnos Patron though various underlings like Kalinda and existing Arachnos contacts can still make use of your abilities in the meantime… just not as an authority of the island; the actual authorities (RIP and Longbow and even Wyvern and the Legacy Chain in some places) are universally out to get you. Basically, make the Rogue Isles into Gotham and Arachnos into the premiere villain group (akin to the Council or Nemesis, but bigger) and slowly rewrite the contacts from people treating you like lackeys to people offering you opportunities for profit** until you’re strong enough for Arachnos to reach out to you again (in the meantime you check in with the Arbiters to level up who evaluate you on your progress to be worthy of joining the organization). * even if it’s decided that it’s officially still 2013 in the verse it’s still been nearly a decade and Ms. Liberty has long since stopped being a teenager… which is to say it’s stopped looking like an ill-conceived teenager’s plan and looks a lot like doubling down on stupid out of pride with no clear exit strategy nor plan for what to do if they actually won. ** A decent Redside perk I could see adding would be single-use summon powers for some of the contacts you’ve finished the story arc of. You did them a solid, so now they’ll do one favor for you in return. Yes, it’s unfair compared to hero rewards (where you’re helping out of altruism), but Redside is all about seizing the opportunities you care about… so it makes sense the rewards would be more tangible.

At a certain point you are what you demonstrate yourself to be. For all China’s insistence that it is not, at the end of the the day Taiwan is an independent country because everyone else treats it like one. If unanimous consent of the world were required to make something officially a sovereign nation then Israel wouldn’t be a country. Most of its neighbors still do not recognize it as a sovereign country. The Rogue Isles are a nation because Arachnos has been in control for more than half-a-century and behaves as if it were the legitimate government of the Rogue Isles and no one in all that time has been able to change that. To try and drag this back to the topic at hand; one of the problems with Red Side is that the Rogue Isles, Longbow, etc. don’t actually hold together conceptually very well compared to Paragon City or Praetoria. You don’t even think it’s a real country; I think it meets every meaningful criteria (and I swear somewhere in one of the missions or other bits of canon there’s a line about Arachnos having a UN representative… I can’t find it presently, but that’s way too random for my mind to have whipped it up out of nowhere… maybe it did, but until I finish my Ahab-like quest for the White Whale/Arachnos Ambassador through all the lore I’m not giving it up yet). Basically, Paragon City makes sense as a post-invasion metropolis that is basically an American city except where specific events have altered it (in their Pre-CoV form Freedom Corp were just the vendors that PCs visited for early level enhancements and selling enhancements/inspirations which fits the original description as a private organization committed to assisting heroes). Registered Heroes were specifically set up as an adjunct to the police with laws that granted them a security level and police powers. The structure of the government and the role of various elements like Freedom Corps makes sense and the villains are criminal organizations acting within the city. Similarly, Praetoria makes sense as a fascist dystopia in which the PC is a registered member of the Powers Division (and may or may not also be a member of the Resistance). The leadership again makes sense and within the game even the Resistance PC is undercover within Powers Division. The Rogue Isles are just a mess. The relationship between Arachnos and RIP is weird. You have a clearance card and get training and enhancements through Arachnos, but also get attacked by Arachnos mobs just because the PCs need hostile mobs to fight. Longbow seems there mostly just to stir up trouble (and concoct awful schemes like using mind control on villains to make them your army) and give PCs another group that are actually ostensibly heroes to fight. Various corrupt corporations are present along with the Mob and… … I’m just going to say it. The main reason Redside doesn’t work is it’s a Theme Park not a place built to actually function. It’s easy to plug conventional economics and politics into Paragon City and pretend it’s something that actually works. Real care was taken in the Praetoria revamp to make it into a place that wasn’t just a bombed out mirror universe (i.e. more akin to The Justice Lords instead of Earth-3’s Crime Syndicate; the latter of which only isn’t a crater out of sheer narrative fiat that it be Prime Earth’s perfect mirror). The Rogue Isles lacks that. It’s a Darwinian anarchy one moment, a tyrannical military dictatorship at others, a crony capitalist dystopia and an crime-ridden urban hellscape all smushed together into something that is trying to be all things to all villains at once. It would literally make more sense as some sort of villain theme park or Hunger Games type competition for who gets to live long enough to join Arachnos’ ranks than as any sort of even-remotely functional society. Longbow is just a symptom of that lack of cohesion and decision to make CoV it’s own separate environment instead of an underlay of the criminal underworld to an otherwise functional city (ex. Gotham doesn’t have Mayor Bane or Joker except as a brief aberration). “Shoot, we made it a setting where the villains are actually in charge, but need to give players the chance to punch heroes in the face. I know, let’s have the heroes conduct a military invasion of the isles!” Its one thing for the government to be too weak and ineffectual to stop criminals. It’s another when TPTB actually want you to commit crime sprees to prove yourself worthy of membership. The foundation of Redside just doesn’t work and that makes it hard for other elements of it to work.

Indeed, it’s about the only time you see them. ”Let’s mind control people into being heroes because that’s TOTALLY ethical” is literally one of the story arcs. And even if they’re all registered under the same act that lets heroes operate in Paragon City, they’re still a military NGO operating unsanctioned in a foreign sovereign territory which by the Geneva Conventions makes them unlawful combatants and war criminals. “I’m a HERO and they’re the VILLAIN so that makes whatever I do okay” is for toddlers. It’d be one thing if Arachnos were itself an NGO seeking to overthrow the Etoile Islands legitimate government and Longbow was a UN peacekeeping force headed by Ms. Liberty and working with the legitimate government to stop Arachnos. It’d also be another thing if Longbow were say, associated with Interpol and comfined their operations to the pursuit of criminals wanted in other countries who’d fled to the Rogue Isles (and used methods appropriate to that purpose). But it’s not. The Rogue Isles are recognized and has a seat in the UN. Longbow is an American NGO conducting illegal military operations in a foreign country (and other dimensions in defiance of UN charter where that’s the perview of Vanguard) specifically seeking the overthrow of that government and should, realistically, be causing no end of headaches for the US government and its foreign relations. Longbow also unilaterally decides it should be able to shut down a sanctioned UN military operation just because they don’t like how it’s being run. Their core argument is “I (Ms. Liberty) am popular so I should get what I want.” Imagine Elon Musk thinking that he has the right to take over running the Ukrainian war because he didn’t like how it was being run. Yes, it is THAT stupid. Longbow is THAT stupid. It’s hard to sell “Rogue Longbow Agents” when their whole operation is a violation of international law. Which is why it either needs to be acknowledged as an off-the-rails villain group with good publicity that needs to have real heroes stop it -or- it needs to be fixed so it’s not a massively criminal organization that realistically would be labeled as terrorists by any nation not the USA. Here’s a simple, text only, fix… make Longbow a division of the US Military, remove UN recognition of the Rogue Isles government, and have Longbow’s actions in the Rogue Isles be a sanctioned UN operation to overthrow what the world has declared is an illegitimate regime. Now Longbow are uniformed combatants in a declared war and when they seek to get Vanguard shut down, it’s because they’re the US Military and it’s US Soil that Vanguard is operating on (and doing black ops stuff without coordinating with the actual government). Their level 35+ troops could still seriously stand some revamping (make their uniforms more obviously armor, use energy weapons, more jet packs, etc.), but that’s a separate issue.

The related issue to the weapons/disregard for collateral damage (and tip missions where Longbow says “screw the law, I’m murdering this person” and you as a hero have to stop them) is that they are NOT some government agency like Vanguard (UN sanctioned defense force) or Arachnos/Praetoria (government raised armed forced). No, Longbow is a private military company funded by an NGO (Freedom Corps). It’s the equivalent of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation deciding to assemble a private army and sending it into sovereign countries for military operations to seek their overthrow. Their very existence is basically a war crime that only makes sense if you consider the complete chaos following the Rikti War and that the daughter/granddaughter of Statemen are the ones backing it. The further the story gets from that point, the more one would expect questions to start being asked about Longbow and it’s authority/purpose.

For me, the powers that most need alternate animations are the Medicine Pool. Pulling out a chonky green tricorder really doesn’t fit very many concepts at all (and yet Aid Other proves absolutely vital if you don’t have another option to all the high end content where they drop an NPC you’re expected to keep alive on you… unless you LIKE afk-ing for 5 minutes for them to regen because their aggro has been set to “if it’s within 1000 yards… attack it. Attack it NOW!”). An option to pull out a wand (for magic types) or just a generic wave your hands around while colored light shoots out would do wonders.

Yeah, Longbow really got itself Flanderized since it’s introduction and I’d say the RWZ revamp was the start, and the advent of the tip missions (where they invariably show up as extremists looking to kill rather than capture various villains out of some officer’s need for revenge) sealing the deal. It’d be one thing if they were actually sanctioned by some sort legitimate government; but they’re not. Freedom Corps is a private firm and Longbow is Ms. Liberty’s private militia/army… who use miniguns and flamethrowers against civilians and, based tip missions, are little more than vigilantes given cover by their boss being Stateman’s granddaughter… butting into things that are literally police matters with an intent to murder someone. Per the Praetorian arcs they also cause headaches for Vanguard by trying to invade Praetorian Earth because apparently they never got the memo that it’s not actually “Earth where everyone is Evil so you’re free to murder them.” Frankly, there either needs to be… A) canon acknowledgment that Longbow is off the rails and actually villains with good publicity… preferably with a Ms. Liberty tries to shut them down, but they go rogue (or elsewise stop with Ms. Liberty as basically the face of the game/starter zone trainer and put Back Alley Brawler at the base of the Atlas Park statue). Make them con Yellow in Paragon (in addition to their usual Red in the Isles). B) Give them a total revamp using the powers and FX for the Praetoria Police (and Paragon Police) that are meant to represent non-lethal apprehension devices as a basis. No one would be making jokes about war crimes if they were lobbing electronets instead of grenades, tear gas in place of flame throwers, or using stun beams in place of miniguns. This would also eliminate some of the silliness of high end missions where compared to Vanguard (troops in Imperivium armor with rail guns, energy blades, and outright sorcerers), Arachnos (power armored troops, psychics and mystics) or the IDF (power armor, robots, psychics) you have Longbow still using guys in spandex with miniguns and flamethrowers.

Personally, I’d like to see the zone limitations removed entirely and some hero contacts added to the Rogue Isles and villain contacts to Paragon City. Set them up with Newspaper and villain tip missions in Paragon too because the idea that the villains all fly back to the Rogue Isles after every bank heist is pretty absurd. Take advantage of the low level Sewer Zone to set up some Villain lairs more like the Resistance has in Praetoria. Flip the conning for Longbow for heroes/vigilantes and put some sort PC accessible “forward base” options for them. While we’re at it, maybe consider giving a serious revamp to Longbow so the ostensible “good guys” aren’t regularly committing war crimes (beyond the already existing “invading a sovereign country to attempt its subversion and overthrow” bit). Right now they’re practically a joke in the sense of basically coming off more villainous than a lot of the ostensible villains and the Praetoria Police Department (literal fascists) look downright humane compared to Longbow. I mean, maybe Ms. Liberty and Longbow are supposed to be played like the protagonists of the Starship Troopers movie, but that whole thing just rebounds so badly into the Blueside that it’s hard to take any of the big bluesiders as anything but thugs with good publicity… to the point I’d almost like an option to play as an unregistered superhero just for the “not cooperating with corrupt authorities” angle. In lieu of villains being able to hide out in Paragon City, I’d settle for an alternative to Grandville (i.e. Arachnos central) with its heavy focus on outright villainy that makes playing a Rogue in the level 40+ range largely a matter of repeating the Rogue Tip missions and Newspapers until you get tired of them (Hardcase typically marks the last real Rogue-friendly contact in the Redside level-up game). Pretty much everything else after that seems to presume you’re in it “for the evuls” instead of having any sort of standards remaining. I dunno. This is probably just me being rambly. I said my main piece a while back, so this is more just random supplemental thoughts that have come to me since then. ETA: just realized that for the alternate 40+ zone, we already have the one side of Kallisti Wharf if it could ever get populated with mobs and some contacts.

Personally, if something were to be done with the fighting pool, I’d replace both boxing and kick with buffs to brawl (which has an alternate kick animation for weapon users). I know it already does this as a minor side buff, but I’m saying make the buff to brawl the actual focus of the power and thereby replace the extra click power with an auto power that makes brawl better. Also maybe include the kick animation along with the left and right punch in brawl’s default animation rotation… or make it a customization option; standard, left only, right only, kick only, punch/punch/kick mix).