Chris24601

The fact that you can’t see yourself when using the sustain power for blaster devices led to me re-rolling them as a Tac-arrow secondary (the power preview in the character builder didn’t include any fade out, just a blue aura... so it was annoying to get to level 20 and have your character just disappear). It kinda worked out because I was already dual pistols so the bow was invisible and you just saw the arrow appear and launch and I eventually used the Resistance gloves to justify it being hydraulically launched from your right gauntlet; but I would have much preferred devices for variety. Similarly, my stalker hides using the equivalent of Jedi mind tricks so having them remain visible to me would actually be more thematically appropriate.

Oh and regarding the “NCSoft Bad” and “Gimme Shinies” post above... NCSoft is made up of people and those people change over time. The NCSoft of today is not the NCSoft of eight years ago. Their priorities then are not going to be their priorities now. The people making the decisions now aren’t the people who made the decision then. There’s also a big difference between shutting down a game with the thought that the IP might be useful elsewhere and that the market would move to their other properties... and licensing an IP that’s laid fallow for nearly a decade to be used in a market in which they have no interest in even trying to compete in. As to things like growth and wind control and all those other “shinies”; Apple just ended compatibility with 32-bit programs. The next iteration of Windows is almost sure to follow suit as the last 32-bit systems are nearly a decade old at this point. All those shinies aren’t worth a thing without a system to play it on. It may not be glamorous, but the Homecoming team did the work to upgrade the client to 64-bit architecture that ensures new players on new systems can actually play the game (and older players aren’t locked out forever because their old machine finally died). Cleaning up the fundamentals like that is the sort of responsible use of resources that will keep Homecoming running long after flashes in the pan offering poorly tested shinies have faded away.

Nah, the interesting part was they put the most traditionally heroic types (Warden goal of overthrowing the evil empire without endangering the population) with the worst possible monsters (the Crusaders are willing to blow up hospitals full of innocents and set off a neutron bomb under the city just to make Cole look bad) and then put the folks struggling to make the least bad of a bunch of awful choices (Responsibility) with the ones who only care about the fame of being a super (Power is basically The Boys). Thus, each faction is a study in contrasts; The Resistance is “What means are justified?” and the Loyalists are “What do you do with your power?” By the end the Responsibility Loyalists and Wardens are basically on the same page that Cole’s invasion plans have to be stopped (and fit naturally into Blue-side) and Crusader and Power, while their overall goals don’t align, are naturally better fits for the Might Makes Right philosophy of Arachnos and the Rogue Isles. As to Red-side, I’ve done several characters who make it to about level 35. Prior to 35 there’s enough content that is Rogue-focused that I can work with the setting as a fugitive or jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold type who robs from the even worse and tries not to get any bystanders hurt. Past that, particularly once you reach Grandville, the only Rogue options left are basically tip missions and newspapers (beat up or rob another villain). There’s no way a Rogue (at least as I envision a Rogue) can justify not shooting Westin Phelps in the head after being given their first assignment from him. Bottom-line for me; if you want me to be interested in late-game Red-side then I need more arcs that let me stay a Rogue; an Ocean’s 11, John Wick, just about any comic series where a villain is the protagonist. The biggest problem with a lot of Red-side content is you’re basically being written as the antagonist during acts one and two of a three act superhero story instead of as a protagonist of a full three act story... basically you’re presented as a monster (ex. the lackey mission in the Graves arc; the Skull agrees to help you and be your minion only for you to turn him over to a serial killer not two-minutes later... this is particularly jarring if you’re playing a rogue-ish Thugs MM as the Skull was perfect recruitment material for your gang of misfits). Even better from my PoV would be to start adding actual hero missions on the Isles and full-on villain missions in Paragon City. Let the players who really want to play a Batman type have the rundown urban decay and overtly corrupt police forces and corporations of the Isles along with the worst villainous scum to fight. Let the villains who prefer to plot crimes against the rich targets of Paragon have missions beyond just the timed mayhem missions and other instances to explore there. But as written currently, I start into Rogue tip missions as soon as they’re available and leave the Isles behind for Blue-side after I get done with Hardcase and unlocking the Patron powers.

Why no disabled people? Have you seen how inexpensive a set of cybernetic legs are from the technology origin shop? Heck, there’s magic stores you can just walk into and buy powerful enchanted talismans that boost all manner of things. So the “everyone (or at least a fair percentage) is actually super” argument actually has some merit to it.

This is because every architect in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles was replaced by a member of the Circle of Thorns. They designed every building in the City and Isles to force hapless mortals by their erratic paths through their office buildings to enact eldritch rituals that empower the Circle and their demonic minions. At least that’s the only sane reason I can think of for the layouts. The layouts are too crazy to even be.a Nemesis plot so the only remaining reason is “a wizard did it.”

Spectrum for the boots is at the very bottom of the texture lists for the basic, stiletto, flat, folded, etc. boots rather than a separate boot type.

For me, all of my toons monitor; -Regen Rate -Recovery Rate -Endurance Consumption -Last Hit-Chance -Inf Depending on the toon I will also montor; -Current Hit Points (if the toon regularly rides that edge... regen rate and the basic bar are usually enough) -PVE Stealth Radius (if the toon has stealth) -Hold Protection (if mez protection isn't steady state; ex. a clicky or Blasters with the stacking ATO proc) -Damage Bonus (if the toon has a non-permanent means of buffing it) -A relevant defense bonus (if the toon is defense focused and has elements that will cause it to vary)

Think more Alucard from Castlevania (hmmm... maybe I should go fire mastery instead, but can I shoot three fireballs at once?). Basically traditional vampire powers minus burning up in the sun (at least no more so than your usual ginger ); superhuman speed and strength, fast healing, limited transformation like growing claws/fangs or turning to mist (hide+flight+a cloudy aura), some hypnosis (i.e. placate) and channeling the power of their blood (boosting strength/damage, speed/defenses or endurance). In the level 30+ range this will also include some blood sorcery (pulling blood from nearby people to heal, trapping opponents in bloody tentacles, etc.).

I have zero characters with Mace Mastery... my Archery/Tac Arrow Blaster went Munitions for the armor auto power so I could slot the two +3% defense IOs from the resist sets. My Statesman heir from “Elysian Earth” (Rularuu, the Rikti and Praetoria never reached them because Primal Earth took care of them first) had her evil twin from “Tartaran Earth” (where Recluse took over everything) unlock the Patron Pools so both could wield Zeus’ lightning as intended. My hi-tech Claws/WP scrapper went with Fire Mastery for built-in plasma blasters in addition to the forearm plasma blades. My widow has no patron powers at all and, by their fluff, is faking the psi-attacks with a psychic generator she got in trade for helping Psimon-Omega (because she just barely qualified and only earned above average marks in running in high heels). Her bosses keep sending her to assist with actual Destined Ones schemes in the hopes she’ll meet a sticky end and be out of their hair, but she apparently has the survivability of a cockroach. My Dhampyr Savage/Bio Stalker will be going Soul Mastery because it’s the easiest pool to recolor to look like blood magic (just like I did for Bio’s auras) and some actual ranged attacks to pick off runners will be useful. My Magic Grav/Storm Controller will be going Blaze Mastery because it sticks with the whole “fundamental cosmic forces” theme way better than something like a Mace would (a funky wand maybe?) and some characters you just don’t want to bother with side switching. So... yeah, Mace doesn’t even exist in my world of character creation.

One of my favorite endgame activities; Hellion Launching. Grab your biggest knockup power, hit a level 1 Hellion with it and count how long it takes them to fall back down. Hellion Golf is similar, but requires a knockback power and teleport foe to get them to a rooftop for optimal distance.

I tend towards classic comic looks, but with more modern textures. The Olympian Guard top and bottom have a nice base texture complete with actual seams and the very basic retro-sci-fi gloves and boots are basically updated versions of the original gloves/boots. Similarly, my archer got good use out of the Circle of Thorns costume while still looking like a fairly classic superhero.

I brought my laptop with CoH on it over to my Godkid’s house when I was watching them for their folks’ anniversary. We plugged it into the big screen and I helped them each make a character. And let them run around in Atlas Park. They’ve been preaching to their parents about needing to play CoH together for me ever since as a result. Mwuhahahahahahah!!!

Having tried an Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor, Trick Arrow/Archery Defender and an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster I can say without reservation that Tactical Arrow does everything Trick Arrow needs to do, only better and with personal survival buffs on top. Net Arrows? Check, plus they're electrified so they do energy damage, helping you deal with ghosts and robots, the two mob types most resistant to your bread and butter lethal damage. Ice Arrows? Also check, plus they deal cold damage over time and fast enough on recharge you can double stack them with little difficulty. Glue Arrows? Check, plus toxic damage over time (you noticing a theme yet?) Flash Arrows? Check... basically the trick arrow version. EMP Arrow? Check, but faster to recharge and you get it 3 levels earlier. Self-buffs include strong regeneration, so much recovery you only need a single End-mod SO in Stamina to never worry about endurance again, to-hit/perception buffs, knockback and immobilization protection and a 20% recharge buff to what is already a fast recharging pair of power sets. In short, you deal exceptional single target damage, have solid off-controller (like off-tank only a controller) level lockdown ability, solid debuffs and ridiculous survivability for a squishy class (tactical arrow being all ranged with multiple immobilize/slow/hold attacks and a good base regeneration can prioritize IO slotting for ranged defense and more regeneration to deal with what little actually does get through). And it can't be cited enough... Archery + Trick Arrow gives you lethal damage, one attack with some fire damage and one attack with some smashing. Archery + Tactical Arrow gives you all that plus a T1 scale energy DoT you can get down to a 1 second recharge time, a cold DoT attack and an AoE toxic DoT attack. In short, all those things you were weak against with Archery + Trick Arrow are much less of a problem for Tactical Arrow. Trick Arrow needs a hard optimization pass to bring it more into line with Tactical Arrow's capabilities.

I have to carefully select my red-side missions to not get disgusted with it and just flip hero at the earliest opportunity. I always stop the intro arcs after the Harris introduction (before he gives you his story arc) because I wouldn't care enough about Longbow to use some sucker to murder one of them (I also spare Fire Wire). I also skip the Graves arcs because I don't want to have to deal with Crosscut; particularly the lackey explanation mission where you have to give him the Skull who just swore himself to you. There's villain and then there's being a dick. You treat your help well so you get a rep of being good to work with... otherwise you're stuck hiring the few people living under rocks who haven't heard of your glorious exploits yet. I always appreciated that they managed to stick the two most extreme sub-factions (LG and CE essentially) into the same group while still managing an opposing axis for the other (LN and CN essentially). My recommendation if you wanna get out of Praetoria with your morals intact; do Warden (Resistance) missions only until the last one, flip Loyalist there, then run the Responsibility (Loyalist) arcs (but take every Resistance mission option you can within them) and finally flip back Resistance at the moral choice point. If you wanna feel even better, run First/Night Ward before leaving for Paragon City... putting the exit scenes with Katie and Noble after First/Night Ward feels a lot warmer than leaving and then going to First/Night Ward. Conversely, if you want to really feel like a villain forget Red-side; go Crusader (Resistance) all the way then go join Arachnos like the proper psychopathic terrorist you are... you'll easily be more villainous than 99% of the most despicable villains of the Rogue Isles and you'll only be in your 20s.

The problem there is two-fold; First, unlike the Patron Pools there is no set themes available to every AT; Tankers have Ice, Scrappers do not. Scrappers have ninja weapons, Blasters have a rifle. Second, the Ancillary pools don’t map well to any existing major character. Blue-side Blast Furnace (after he goes hero) and Flambeaux (before she goes villain) are the only two I can think of who even have fire powers. Do we REALLY want Flambeaux as our patron just to get Blaze Mastery? We do not.

I made it to level 40 as a Praetorian by going directly to First Ward and then Night Ward. I had to a number of the First Ward repeatable missions and I probably could have dinged 50 if I’d used an SG base pillar to run all the arcs, but ultimately I left Praetoria at 40. I jumped straight into the Portal Corps Praetorian arcs and then the “New Praetorians” arcs. Those combined with double XP got my Praetorian to 50 where I ran the Last Bastion incarnate arc. It takes a little planning, but you CAN actually do Praetorian content all the way from 1-50 and only need to be Blue-side for the last 10 levels. You can’t do it Red-Side unfortunately since it only has the Mr. G arcs (added contemporaneously with the New Praetorians arcs) connecting to Praetoria while Blue-side has the revamped Portal Corps arcs to fill in the needed XP gaps.

If it helps on the incarnate front, my all natural archer’s fluff around the incarnate stuff is that they built incarnate stuff into their tech. Their uniform is reinforced with Incarnate Threads for added protection; Threads were also woven into their bow string and polyfiber bow to give it increased strength and their arrows are tipped with Incarnate Shards for better penetration. Ionic Judgement isn’t even them... they’re calling in a strike from a Vanguard orbital ion cannon. The character invented all their tactical arrow loads; incarnate is just a very advanced form of technology to them; akin to Tony’s ARC reactor or Vision; they’ve learned to adapt into their tech.

I should have explained more clearly. ”Redeem Scirocco” would be the Blue-Side arc to access the Patron Pools. Still have to do an arc to get Mu Mastery for your concept, but you aren’t playing a villain to do it. “Kill other villains and take their stuff” with Manticore as the contact would be a new Red-Side arc to access Patron Pools without becoming Recluse’s lackey. We’ve needed some new story content and the Vigilante and Rogue arcs were both appreciated and well done. So my suggestion is that these would be two good 35+ arcs to add because the payout/reward (Patron Powers without being a Recluse Lackey) is already in game. And because the rewards ARE the draw, I don’t think you’d need to add anything that can’t already be done for the actual missions in the arcs. No new programming needed, no new art or assets needed, just whatever amount of work goes into writing and scripting a 4-5 mission story arc. Heck, reduce the writing load by make a contest of who can write the best arc for it in AE and credit the winner as the arc’s writer (one award for Redeem Scirocco and one for Monsters Fighting Monster).

The problem is they (particularly Mu) are SO generic there’s no reason to justify them being patron specific. Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes and Tanks don’t have a generic Lightning epic option and I’m reasonably certain the reason is “Because Mu Mastery.” So if you build a heroic Elec/Elec Scrapper and want to cap them off at 35+ with being able to throw lighning the ONLY way to do that is break character, use Null the Gull, run a villain arc, and then hit Null again to go back. Meanwhile a dark/dark, fire/fire or ninja themed hero could just snag dark, fire or weapon and stay entirely in character. There is NOTHING about Mu Mastery that says, this and only this elemental energy should be available only to one-tims villains (except the Summon... which no one wanting it for their hero would take anyway). THAT is exactly the sort of thing that makes me resent Red-Side. Its something really generic needlessly gated to being a villain that keeps an alternative for Blue-only characters from being developed. IMHO; the next actual content arc that needs to be added is a pair of level 35 arcs “Get Scirocco out of Arachnos” (a simplefied version of the original devs plans where you play as yourself... with the final mission allowing you to steal power from Recluse’s lieutenants) and “Monsters to Fight Monsters” (an arc where Manticore recruits you to a team that hunts and kills villains to take their stuff... including patron powers). Then either do my idea of linking the summon to completion of the original villain arc(s) or put a mutually exclusive sixth power choice that lets you summon a Legacy Chain (instead of Mu), a Midnighter (instead of Widow), Longbow (instead of spider-bot) or ??? (Coralax are probably sufficiently neutral they could be summoned by either side). Basically pick one or the other, but like the Widow Build-up options, you can’t have both.

My biggest complaint about the Patron Powers is that Mu Mastery is basically an excuse to not bother giving Scrappers a proper “Charge Mastery” type pool. You could build a heroic Electric/Electric scrapper, but if you want his epic powers to be using lightning at range you have to hit Null, run a villain arc, and Null back. Seriously... fire, darkness, laser eyes and shuriken does not actually supply much in the way of options if you want a consistent theme for your scrapper. That you have to jump through hoops just to get lightning is kinda lame. Mace Mastery in general I think suffers in that most of the ATs have some other sort of weapon/munitions option that ISN’T explicitly tied to a common Arachnos weapon. Also, are you really telling me that you can’t just take an Arachnos Mace off one of the thousands of Arachnos mooks you’ve pummeled before level 35? Likewise, Soul Mastery is conceptually similar to Darkness, just with slightly fancier graphics. Leviathan Mastery has similar issues to Mace in that it is such a specific theme that it’s only going to serve a very limited pallet of characters. The overall result is just sort of “blah.” It worked okay before faction swapping and proliferation of the epic pools across the ATs (i.e. when they were the ONLY option for Redside), but that ship has sailed. So to sum it up; - Mechanically there’s nothing about them that makes them any better than a thematic ancillary pool. - Other than its pet, Mu Mastery has no business at all being locked behind side-specific Patron arcs... so says every elec/elec build that doesn’t have an elec ancillary because Mu Mastery exists. - Mace and Leviathan are almost too lore specific in their FX, which limits their usefulness to either those with a very narrow theme or those who don’t care about thematic cohesion in the first place. Now a suggestion; The only real thing that sets the Patron sets apart from the Ancillaries is their pets. So turn all the patron pools into generic ancillary sets EXCEPT the pet. The Pet becomes a power akin to the prestige sprints (i.e. both permanent and slottable) that is awarded for completing an appropriate Patron Arc. Meanwhile, Mu minus the pet becomes a generic Lightning Mastery set. Soul becomes generic and gets alternate animation options from the generic Darkness sets. Mace becomes a generic high-tech weapon set with alternate skins. For example, the Scrapper/Stalker set features all ranged energy blasts and a web grenade effect... so allow that set to choose any of the skins available for Beam Rifle; opening up a lot more ways it could be used. I’m honestly not familiar enough with Leviathan to know what a generic would look like; maybe allow some of the water blaster effects to be swapped in in place of spectral sharks and the like? This keeps a real tangible reward for those who run the patron arcs (and a pet from the patron’s faction is much more power/theme agnostic... you don’t need to summon up souls of the dead to be authorized to call for backup from a fortunata) while those who want certain sets for thematic reasons unrelated to Arachnos can select the parts they’d actually want.

For me, the problem with WASD is that the forward and back keys aren’t lined up like the arrow keys are. I tried, but that misalignment made it basically unusable for my brain. This goes double when you’re using an ergonomic keyboard (I do a lot of typing and it’s a carpal tunnel saver). Being able to slide my finger smoothly from forward to reverse by feel is the only way I can play a game. If I can’t remap my movement to the arrow keys, I just don’t play that game. Likewise, I’ve never seen the appeal of clicking your powers with a mouse when you can hotkey them and never have worry that you’ll accidentally fall outside the power’s bounding box when you click.

For me, this setup dates back to DOOM, the old Dark Forces FPS and Mechwarrior 2; arrow keys for movement, number row for weapon selection, space for jump/up, x for crouch/down. The main reason why I mention Mechwarrior 2 though is that because of how it’s jump jets worked (they were fully directional vs. later versions and used the inverted “T” on the that block of six keys to handle jump jet steering just like the arrows controlled ground steering) I got into the habit of binding commands to those keys because they’re easy to reach while still steering with the arrows (that CoH also pauses your movement when you use powers makes it even less of a hassle). To this day Insert up there is always “Target Nearest Enemy” and Delete, Home, End, PgUp and PgDn are my core attacks.

I was just about to post that this is what I do. I appreciate having the basic sprint NOT have any extra FX because sometimes you just want to run quicker; Surge is my goto for the Stealth IO since it’s just adding some extra FX to what’s already there and the glow associated with movement makes it easier to see where you’re at in some crowded scrums. But then, I’m someone who had to delete and re-roll my Devices blaster over their sustain also making you almost unseeable (which was not reflected by the power customization bar at creation at all... “Blue aura, but you can still see yourself? Okay, I can live with a blue aura.”). I like looking at the characters I painstakingly design... not at some empty space they occupy because of stealth effects.

I feel like the Rogue Isles would have worked better as a Gotham to Paragon City's Metropolis; a US city awash in crime where everyone in power is on the take and no Batman has arrived on the scene yet. It could be insane for some, but not all... it wouldn't be for Captain America, for example. No one would accuse him of insanity for doing so, even if the odds were long... because motivation is key. Regardless of their actual ability, the end the hero is trying to achieve is the continuation of things like running water, prepared food and being able to binge Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix. If they're capable enough to live through the effort their life and that of those in the path of the giant robot get to continue to enjoy good things that if the robot was left to run rampant you and others probably would not. Likewise, even if you know you can't beat it, but are willing to risk your life to give others the chance to get out of the robot's path while you distract it, then you're not crazy, unless you consider every law enforcement and rescue services officer to be crazy for risking their lives to protect others. By contrast, regardless of whether a villain is capable of conquering the world to rule it with an iron fist or intending to cause the world to burn, you are objectively making your life more difficult. You are either desiring your life to become an over-complicated mess where you'll never know another moment without rampant paranoia or desiring to live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the few remaining people are fighting over the last Twinkie and roll of toilet paper. In short, being a hero (if you're capable of it) is generally in your long term interests... being a villain (if you're capable of it) with the conquest or burn the world motivations is against your own long term best interests. The only sane villain path is "acquire large quantities of money by whatever means you're willing to pursue and then spend it on things you want; hookers, drugs, politicians, a movie about how awesome you are, an endless supply of Twinkies, your ailing mother's medical bills..." because that is the only villain path where you're not automatically making your life harder in the long run (you still might if you piss off enough people getting that money, but its not automatic). Too many Redside missions involve you doing stuff just "for the evulz" and while it can be fun for a mission or three; long term it just starts to get one-note because your villain isn't building towards anything... even conquering the world; they're just committing random acts of violence for the sake of causing violence. Its Saturday Morning Cartoon level villainy like Cobra Commander or Megatron who are being evil just to be evil so the heroes can stop them from their evil.

Taking over the world and/or watching it burn is for the clinically insane. In the first case, why put up with all the bureaucracy and scheming underlings that ruling the world would entail when you can just buy-off various politicians to pass/enforce whatever policies you want and not have to deal with either paperwork or all those plucky heroes/rebels and other would be conquerors putting targets on your back? Hell, if you buy off the right politicians and media groups you could get anti-superhero laws passed and make it look like it happened because of popular support of the masses have turned against them and you can then sic the police on them if they try to interfere with whatever you're up to. In the latter case, unless you're one of those complete nihilists who wants to off themselves after killing the world, isn't it better to have all sorts of pretty and interesting places (not to mention food and nice clothes and gas for your luxury cars, planes and yachts... if this Covid thing has taught anything its the importance of infrastructure to civilization) to see as you enjoy your stolen loot and legal loopholes that allow you to indulge in all your vices without fear of prosecution? Seriously... does your supervillain want to live in a world without toilet paper? Cause if you burn the world down that's what you're going to be doing. See... that's the fundamental problem with most of the CoV content; it presumes you're mentally ill instead of a criminal genius. :D ETA: What I would MOST like to see Red-side is the canonization of what the Live Dev running Lord Recluse said during the "Going Rogue" invasion event... "Protect the Shrimp-Industry! Do you really think we can sustain an economy off an endless cycle of bank thefts?"