FDR's Think Tank

1.) Discord is notoriously unsecure and often the transitional point that social engineers will use to learn your real identity. You shouldn't be sharing your identity with people you meet online. A previous poster gave in depth links to this topic. 2.) Discord has been rumored to turn a blind eye to criminal enterprise and silence people who mention those issues or request Discord to take action. These events come and go, most of the focus is usually on the Discord communities in question, as opposed to Discord Corporate. 3.) It's not great using any external communications program with CoH. It reduces your ability to communicate effectively because you may have to switch screens. It also opens you up to being hacked, harassed, or scammed. When CoH was live, it was standard practice to ban anyone who promoted or used external communications programs on many online games. Obviously the industry has changed quite a bit since then.... but CoH still has a complex message/search system in game that largely obsoletes Discord. The only exception is the voice chat, which has many alternatives. That's back to why I was suggesting running a Roleplay Paragon Radio station. If you have people who are confident at speaking, they could be giving thematic background noise to CoH. Then that's going to be way more successful than trying to build a normal Discord community by dividing the existing CoH Community. There is a way forward... but you can already see how people who don't even know about Discord controversy are resistant to the very idea of using it. If your purpose is to organize events on Discord, that mindset totally derails that vision. You can argue that Discord is safe and welcoming... but CoH has a high bar for tolerance and chill attitude that very few game communities can replicate. It's hard to convince people and it looks like some people really don't want to be told to go to Discord to find teams. I think in a sense, the original poster doesn't understand how an Online PC game wouldn't have a Discord Community... so he is questioning why the players of City of Heroes are so resistant to FORMING a community on Discord. What he doesn't understand is that between forums and the very functional in game chat function, most City of Heroes players already feel like they are part of a vibrant community, even on a Zombie version of the game that hasn't even come to the attention of half of the player base that existed during CoH Live.

For Masterminds Demon Summoning would be funny for a really cartoonish take on the character. Mercenaries would make sense from the standpoint that he has infiltrated the Postal Service. Faceless Paramilitary Drones! Either Way, you can name the minions after Postal Bureaucrats. Fire seems like a good secondary set, from the video clip. Cash would be a decent aura effect, but don't rule out Tarot Card Aura, which would look like Lost Mail. Alternative costumes could have Flies/bugs Aura, since he has a plot to steal Garbage. You could make his powers gross green in this set up, where they can be colored.

If you want to promote a Discord Channel for City of Heroes, especially a VOICE channel, I suggest you pick a server and run a "Radio Station" for that server. Everlast has a lot of Roleplayers, so you might find volunteers there. Have D.J.'s discuss in game conspiracies, play good music for adventuring to, and use the text/chat part of discord to do requests so the DJs can do Warriors style callouts and let players know a team is forming. You're not going to get many people using it at first, but if you make it fun... and most importantly, make it something people can just run in the background without having to interact or talk... then you'll lower the natural suspicion Discord attracts as Unnecessary competition to the powerful in game search and communications platforms. I know there are Radio stations that do just dance music and stuff for clubs and chilling out... but you want a more active Radio. Paragon News/Talk during high traffic hours... during low traffic it's Music focused with DJ narration breaks to give weather or notify people of in game events. It would be neat to hear Supergroups have members show up to talk events to boast and talk about their team vision. I don't know how far you could go with it. But frankly, I don't even like Discord for the games that I use it for now. It's a hassle in my mind, and really shady to use. Even CoH Vets who aren't aware of controversy behind it will ask "why do I need to do this as well?" So... good luck on your endeavor, whatever you decide to do.

If I think of the "Word" Sentinel, it makes me imagine someone who is searching for what is hidden. If this class had a bonus to detecting stealthy units, it would be neat... but there aren't enough stealthy NPCs to Justify an entire Archetype... and this might really tick off Stalkers in PvP. Alternatively, when teamed up, the Sentinel could get bonuses for attacking enemies that landed a "Final" blow on a teammate, knocking them out. This wouldn't really translate to Solo Mode, so the Sentinel would need to have an Inherent that flexes based on if they are teamed up or not... Frankly, I would like a power that increases Tip drop rate (Or other drop rates.) If it was an inherent, I wouldn't mind that at all. Some people feel the Sentinel is balanced. Some people feel it isn't because less survivable classes can eventually make themselves survivable and the sentinel doesn't have the kill power to compete. I hear people mentioning target caps being an issue for the Sentinel. Another alternative is to not give a perception boost, but give a damage boost to attacking enemies that have left the hidden portion of their stealth powers. However... it's so situational.... The nice thing with a situational power on an otherwise "Balanced Jack of All Trades" that doesn't shine in most circumstances is that they have a chance to be super useful to a team... But Stalkers would certainly want some sort of highlighting system in PVP so visible Sentinels would really stand out to them. This way they could avoid them more consciously. Another thing to play with is that the Sentinel is survivable, but it doesn't want to get mobbed. You could tinker with kill bonus mechanics, but each kill boosts your aggro. Then the Sentinel either needs to lose the aggro or flee.

I still regularly see new returning players in the game who hadn't even heard that City of Heroes was playable again. The real issue is that people don't KNOW about the game. And I think the people who would benefit most from knowing about the game are people who like to chat and are looking for a live social platform. If Homecoming can secure the rights for the game or get the rights firmly in the public domain, the best way to market this game wouldn't be as a game. It would be as a virtual chatroom with an optional game. Then you would have plenty of people logging on and open to playing the game and learning. The biggest problem with this approach is that many people probably use cellphones to do chatting these days... but realistically, people without a P.C. weren't your target audience anyway. There are many Gamer themed communication programs too... if City of Heroes could be promoted as a place for gamers to virtually meet up, socialize, and hangout in low pressure situations with online friends, that could work too. They might need to find some ways to prevent spam in the global channels if there WAS a huge influx of users... particularly chatty ones. I just don't see people who want to play an MMO going for City of Heroes unless they have a special attachment to it... The thing is, this game has so much to offer even if that's not what a person is looking for. To promote use as a social platform you'd want more "actions/interactions" that players could use socially. It wouldn't hurt to consider making use of actions more fluid too.... perhaps a "Civilian mode" that swaps out power icon trays with Action trays. Adding more dances would be good too... having some sort of online Radio station players can tune into an listen to at the same time would be really nice too. If this approach worked, the devs could work on creating more Neutral social areas for players to gather... treating the city and mission areas as transit points between rooms. And of course.. the more costume customizations, the more you attract casual players. It might not be a bad idea to start locking new costume parts behind badges/accomplishments/goalposts if too many people only come to chat online.

Wouldn't that be a cool Offensive set for Sentinels? Instead of Ranged attacks, they would have lots of "jump kicks" and "teleport smashes". It allows them to attack from a distance, but forces them right into the thick of combat. I don't know if that would let them take Shield Defense, but Shield Offense would be pretty cool. If they could do both, maybe they could have Shields in both hands! Or maybe that's absurd. They could certainly have a Shield toss ability... maybe there could be some sort of defense buff mechanic like Titan weapons have, but for ranged attacks? Of course, if they are going to do throwing weapons, I am sure people would prefer Boomerangs/darts at this point.

Does anyone know what happened to Fear Factor and The Killing Crew? These two were originally planned for the game, but never saw the light of day... Were the models even done for the game, only to be repurposed into a different faction? Maybe the powersets? Or was it dropped when Cryptic sold the game? Was there any concept art or lore that might have been saved from the old days, or did it all get lost?

Every time I think about CoH PvP and the issues about why it is so complex to balance, I find myself thinking a few things: 1.) This game does Cooperative MMO incredibly well. 2.) PvP has always gotten worse in this game, they have no clear idea of how to make it fun. 3.) The game is built for PvE in an extreme way. 4.) PvP is a nonsensical game of Psychic Damage/Psychic Immunity, plus whatever the current Meta has become. 5.) The only way to have PvP work is for the game to be built from the ground up with it specifically in mind, letting Players and NPC's share the same system rather than building different systems for each. You can skip the rest of this... this is just my in depth thoughts on the topic. On the discussion of how to Balance PvP for a new game, I have many ideas... but for this one, I'm afraid nothing can make people happy. You just have to enjoy it as is. My best memories of the PvP in this game was always before they started to "Rebalance" it. Now the changes are so baked into the structure of the game, you would destroy the PvE balance if you made any of the changes necessary to fix this. I actually think that the original designers of City of Heroes were closer to what MMO PvP needs than anyone else. We are talking when City of Heroes before it got Tankers, Defenders, Scrappers, Controllers, and Blasters as the Archetypes. The ORIGINAL concept Archetypes: Mutant, Altered Human, Magical Powers, Cyberware, Superior Human, Gadgeteer, and Mystical Artifacts. These Archetypes didn't factor in PvE playstyle at all, which meant two things: The creators would have needed to give the player the flexibility to build their character to fill the team role the player envisioned for the character and the powers had to be balanced with each other, rather than with the gameplay environment. This obviously proved to be too much to pull off. There is more to it than just blazing a trail, after all... you have to have a clear vision of how to support those dreams. We all know the game was sold to a team who already had experience building MMO's the traditional way, with Levels, EXP punishment for death, and locked in player roles at character creation. While these elements can be balanced for PvP, I have never seen an MMO balance them in a way that doesn't require constant rebalancing. That's all fine and dandy when you have a subscription service and people are paying you to update the game constantly... there is plenty of room for what ultimately becomes Programming Malfeasance, no matter how unintentional. We need only look at the Peacebringer and Warshade situation for an example of what could and DID happen. Honestly, both should have gotten Power Proliferation and Archetype expansion. We could have gotten Malta Peacemakers with Tank Robot and Jet Flyer forms and Circle of Thorns Warlocks with their own demonic twisting's. I could even see Arachnos Soldiers and Widows becoming powerset choices in Soldier and Fatale Archetypes. I could easily see us getting Wyvern Fatales and Longbow Soldiers... However, that was all under the premise that NCSoft had kept the game going and was willing to let programmers make it happen. We were all shocked when they shut the game down, which, while not doing gangbusters, was still profitable for them. The reasoning that "They wanted people to play their other games" doesn't fly either, since we know that most of us never played another NCSoft game again. I know I personally wrote off multiple franchises NCSoft had planned because of it. We have to ask ourselves at some point "What was NCSoft afraid of about this game?" I think it's somewhere in the programmers constantly telling people in the forums that there would never be new powersets for the Peacebringer or Warshade because, initially "They have everything they need" and then when that line got stale "We don't have anyone who understands how they were programmed in the first place". It's fine and dandy to say that to your playerbase, but you can't use either of those on your investors. We are darn lucky to have people reverse engineering the game and making balance patches today... but I am more optimistic about Power Proliferation finally hitting Epic Archetypes than PvP being actually balanced in this game. And that's okay. It doesn't need to be balanced if it's fun. My favorite PvP game to this day was the throw away Multiplayer games Rare included with Conker's Bad Fur Day. They weren't balanced at all but they provided endless fun. What is PvP balance? For fun? Or for Competition?

I like the idea of using this to make a Sword Immortal... they would need to give us a Flying Sword Travel Power to round it all out. I could also see making a Cartoon themed character very loosely based on the few scenes in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where Eddie Valentine fights using the Singing Sword. Of course, none of the Mastermind Powersets are set up for the Mastermind to specifically go into Melee... that is a choice the Mastermind makes by building into power pools to get enough Melee attacks. I am sure there are people who would love a Melee Mastermind Primary set... It would open up the road for people to build Paladin type characters too with the Mastermind's Support Secondary. If I am being frank, I would rather see a Luddite Themed Mastermind than Floating Swords, because Cultists are way more useful for Mastermind Characters. Perhaps this powerset would be better expressed in the Dominator Archetype? You would get less summons, but you also have a better chance that someone could actually MAKE this powerset.... albeit it would likely be split into two different halves. You'd have the Control/Summoning Half and the Secondary Assault set which would have room for Melee attacks. You could almost have a Titan Weapon Assault for the Dominator where they get a few Melee Strikes, and then a bunch of Sword Intent/Massive Sword Smash Ranged attacks. I would seriously consider reworking your idea for this, because it opens up way more flexibility in character design.

I used that Warrior plate dome helmet for a hard hat. I think I added a brim to it? It would be neat to see more civilian parts for use in game. Really, I think they should start making the new Costume Parts connected to hunting for exploration Badges. Too many people play this game from the endgame viewpoint... and the game needs to be made to have all sorts of things for new players to discover and be delighted by. I know some Emotes are connected to badges. If players want to short cut around it, they can give the P2W Vendors GPS Satellite Scans for 1 million influence. Vets can snag all the badges paying the price, rather than travelling to each exploration badge. I could see having a MM set with Minions wearing hard hats, in bright colored Speed suits. They would probably use tranq guns, but could have tool related Melee weapons. Really give us that Bond Villain feeling by having tier one minions that aren't quite Paramilitary and could possibly have no idea what they are really involved in. Their upgraded form might use explosives and get bags of it, like the Destroyers in Pretoria.

So what if Endurance issues don't exist at Level 50? Doesn't that answer the issue right there? The Defender needs a way they can raise or lower the endurance their powers consume... It would be similar to Bio-Armor, but an Archetype Power. Stamina Efficient- Is the Standard that you have now, it's not actually using less Stamina since that was stated to not be an issue in the game. This might be considered on, if nothing is selected. Support Boosted- This would increase the To Hit of Debuff Powers while increasing the Stamina Cost of those abilities. For Buffs and Heals it may be harder to justify increase expenditure. Damage Boosted- This would increase the To Hit and Damage of the Defenders offensive powers, while also increasing Stamina use for those powers. This way, the Defender can burn the candle at both ends if they feel they need to, depending on the situation. Of course, at this point, you're trying to solve an issue that arises for players informed about the traditionally orthodox way to build endgame characters. Is Vigilance even a concern at that point? Maybe it doesn't do the things other Archetypes inherent powers do, but that's because when Defenders are built up to the max, they are already doing what they should far better with the accumulation of their power picks. The other character classes have to focus on specific areas of battle... killing, not being killed, or controlling movement and placement of enemies. Is the Defender Inherent mostly supposed to help the Defender get through the lower levels of the game, perhaps?

What if you had more "Opportunity" types, but the larger the team the less opportunity types cycle based on team composition? Offensive Opportunity - Damage Dealers (As before, when the team lacks damage dealers) Defensive Opportunity - Tanks (As before, when the team lacks tanks) Control Opportunity- Crowd control/Support (Sentinel gets boosted support effects on their abilities when the team lacks support classes) If the Team is well rounded and has those bases covered, the Sentinel could unlock a different kind of Opportunity.... Interrogation Opportunity, which allows them to gain more points towards the related broker for the mission area they are currently in. This would result in more Mission generation... which allows a Sentinel to keep the team busy with fun missions. This way, you are only trying to balance the damage a Sentinel is dealing when it's on a small team or soloing. If it's on a big team, then the bonus it gets is completely untethered from the need to ensure the Sentinel feels useful.... The Sentinel has a different contribution to the team.

If we are getting The Angel Summoner, I hope they can also release a powerset for the BMX Bandit. ( Really, you could tweak this a bit and make it a "Cultist" Summoner type. It could have regular lethal/toxic damage, but with Upgrades, you get Energy/Psychic Damage. First off, you'd have the Acolyte Summoning for Tier One. Your ranged attacks would be dagger/shuriken/boomerang throws. Your Tier Two would be Bishops. Your Minion Upgrades would be Rituals... granting your faithful that special damage type. The "Angel" would be a top tier summon. As to whether it's actually from Heaven... or some alternate plane of existence, that's up to the player. It could just as easily be a High Elemental, a Dragon, or some sort of Reaver. You could even have a skin set with the Grim Reaper. Of course, this takes time for the Devs to make minion costume sets that are generic enough to satisfy the players imagination. I think Power Proliferation is going to be their focus on expansions, but it would be awesome to see more Mastermind Sets. It's too bad there isn't a way to streamline creating Mastermind Powersets, because it's the hardest to do... Not counting what they did with Warshades and Peacebringers... which would theoretically be great for power proliferation for shape shifters, exo suit specialists, or other Lore specific Toon types.

There should be more "Search and Rescue" type missions in the game. Whether you are rescuing drowning civilians, dealing with burning buildings, picking up helpless NPCs and running them out of a combat zone, or even getting cats down out of trees for little old ladies... the game has a lot of nooks and crannies it can fill in with mini games and team challenges. I love the firefighting/arson challenge in Steel Canyon... it's a shame there aren't more events like that. A good example of the gameplay to add might be Sim Copter. You have a bounty board with all sorts of missions. Some are hospital transport, some are crowd/riot dispersal... and while these things are certainly represented in CoHs in limited ways at very specific locations, I think there is a way to make solo mini games ramp up into team effort games where each team member has a different designated role. Villains, on the other hand, should be able to fight for gang territory and direct "non-combat" minions to commit crimes for profit. They are bad guys, duh.

Which word refers to all the "Duplicator" summons, what word describes the vanishing strikers best, and what word describes each level of clone best? Simulacrum does sound like the best entry level term for clones, but Duplicate you have used all over While "Perfect Copy" and "Minor Copies" aren't unique, especially next to each other. Once you figure out how you organize the words, I think this set will be clear and striking. If the "Vanishing Strikers" are all shadows, I think that would work fine. The Pets are the ones people want to look like your character. The question is, how close do they match your characters details and color scheme? In some ways, a duplicator Mastermind would be a good expression of a speedster.