FDR's Think Tank

On Shapeshifters: I have been thinking about how neat it would be if there was a Stalker "Shapeshifter" powerset. It would let you shapeshift into whatever you target when you activate your "Hide" defense initially. One downside of this set is that you would need to deactivate and reactive the power more often, since disguising yourself as the wrong minion or as an ally hero or as a civilian is an excellent way to get detected when you are trying to infiltrate. Perhaps the benefit of this set could be that while you don't become stealth (Without taking a stealth power pool) you gain more placate options or the ability to "reverse taunt" forcing opponents to temporarily lose your target, thus be reset on being uncertain of your Friend/foe status. As a Non-stalker defense set, Shapeshifting could easily handle Growth/shrinking, fluid flexibility, and bloated expansion... but it would likely be another exclusive toggle defense power set and they haven't exactly fixed the main one we have. Also, I don't know how well Giant Growth will work in the game. The original devs always threw a wet blanket on it, saying the game had too many indoor scenarios and was incompatible with it from both a practical and a visual standpoint. I think a compromise can be reached on low ceiling maps, even if they can't add crouching/crawling animations for cramped giants. Obviously, it's worth considering making serious Giant Growth some sort of Epic Archetype if it requires tons of time to engineer. If it works, they can offer a weaker version as a Power Pool set or Incarnate Power option. I could also see a stretch/morph/grow/shrink attack power set available to melee classes that give them a small striking distance boost. There are so many stretch characters in comics! This would probably the most visually obnoxious/pointless with a Shapeshifter Stalker power set, considering it would instantly give away who the shapeshifter is each time you strike, but in the end, that's pretty much already the case with any primary power pool attacks. Of course, I have no idea what is appropriate for stats, given that this would be a largely concept driven power set, relying on the wacky ability to change into any costume you can.... I suppose it wouldn't be hard for player opponents to figure you out, once you use a non-generic attack... but PvP is hardly a top priority anyway. I doubt a shapeshifting set would ruin the meta, even if it managed to change it significantly. More on the direction of the topic: As far as changing the EAT Aliens goes, it breaks down when you consider how important it really is to the lore. They even have specific foes that deal extra damage to them. Also consider - They have locked origin types, don't they? While it would be cool to have different animation sets to alternate the forms... Dinosaurs, Animals, Fairies, Hamidons, Werewolves/Vampires, and so on... This is probably better addressed by how standard archetypes use the Incarnate System as it continues to evolve and add options for the dedicated character fanatics. Better to consider new AT and EATs to add in than to disrupt the existing ones. Sorta like the power pool policy they had: if they had a highly disruptive or experimental change to make to an existing power set they were trying to balance, they typically kept the old set classic and tried to balance it from it's original concept while trying the new idea out on a new power set. It doesn't SOUND like a disruption until you realize it's just a shoehorned animation that isn't distinct in function and probably confusing on the battlefield. (This game can have really chaotic battlefields right now...)

Having the powers tie into existing Melee draws or even changing into pistol whips would be very very cool.

There should be a defensive set that has more timer clicks and less toggles so you have more playstyles tankers can focus on. If you were to totally swap out toggles and innate stat buffs for all timer abilities, you could have like a super-power cola based defense set. I suppose they might need to work in some "Taunts" with the activation some of the defensive abilities, just to keep the taunt timing from not getting totally disrupted by the need to re-up on ones defensive abilities. Of course, balancing a totally click based defense set might be a real hassle. I might put it below balancing the Toggle-Exclusive activation Stone Defense, which really needs a bit of work still, after all these years.

This blows my mind how dangerously close this comes to IP infringement (largely established by Nuclear-Option Lawfare against companies too small to protect their Fair-Use and Parody applications of the law) AND crossing over into Politics. In a way, it's part of the deep crisis comic books are facing right now. The virtual corporate enslavement we have on shared touchstone stories and culture. The constant shifting sands of what is or is not offensive. The nostalgia for when the stories were better, even though in the past they were treated as a throwaway product and now they are treated as a CRITICAL signal boosting medium. City of Heroes made it's own thing. Marvel and D.C. aren't losing money because someone makes a vague tribute character any more than they lose money because someone directly makes fan art of their characters in Adobe Photoshop and distributes it for free online. These corporations need to chill out, they want to monetize everything. Videogames are getting to the point where they want to get paid by influencers who even name drop them. Look at Bethesda and Fallout 76, which has gone far past any defensible efforts to make money off the free mods the Bethesda community has fanatically created to fix the often broken and buggy software. Honestly, Marvel might as well sue Tumblr or the like for fan fiction stories. It's absurd, it's a waste of all our time. Honestly, I can't even see why, 20 years after the conception of a character, these companies need to maintain sole IP rights. Even if that isn't the case, they certainly shouldn't be allowed to sue someone because customers are able to use their imagination and model/name characters after a STORY that has been part of our culture since before most of us were born. It's perverse. I like the idea of Praetorian AT. The Olympian could even be a later branch build for a Loyalist based AT. It's pretty easy to see why Goldside groups would sent Agents to infiltrate a rival and comparatively Hamidon-Free Parallel Earth. From a comic book standpoint, none of this seems remotely illegal from any standpoint... but we increasingly live in an informational corporate police state that wishes to control our fiction. So maybe instead of Eye-Lasers, go with eye-lightning. It's darn cool and not really contested. We also have options for Resistance, Hamidon, and other PEATs that would be a blast and give players new combos of power sets with possible alternative downsides. Maybe they could have a Cascade Resonance Failure weakness, sorta like Stargate SG-1 encountered when they tampered with parallel universes. Of course, then you might need to explain why non PEAT Goldsiders don't all have it, but you could easily give Goldsiders special Ancillary Powerpools and throw the weakness on once they unlock them.

Wait a darn second. You are arguing that game balance shouldn't matter because you only want the power for ROLEPLAYING purposes? The power pool boxing set doesn't just have a game balance reason for requiring you to learn a punch or kick first. It also has a roleplaying reason for it too. Tough and Weave are abilities associated with boxing/kickboxing where a person learns the fundamentals of competitive fighting. In Boxing, the footwork and toughness of a fighter is essential, but it is learned after they learn about striking. As far as insulting the beloved game, don't put yourself on a pedestal buddy. You are asking for the game to be broken because you don't like having to take powers you won't slot... but do you slot every power you have? The powers you (and everyone else) start with are powers you took because you were given no other options. You took them, but you won't slot them all, even across different builds. If you love something, you can admit it's flaws. You aren't admitting flaws, you are insulting the game for not letting you ignore building prerequisites... and you ask for a power handout based on that alone? There isn't a game balance reason and we have illustrated there isn't a roleplaying reason why the change should be made. There are way more pressing matters than early costless access to Tough and Weave, and most people think that change represents a bigger problem than anything you have outlined it being a solution towards. To be totally honest, I don't think you are being honest about your intentions or a single idea you have presented, @Bentley Berkeley. One moment you are screaming about roleplay being the most important thing... then next you are strawmanning me and putting words in my mouth about power sets and number crunching. You say that tanks shouldn't take more defensive powers, but it's widely acknowledged that one of the prime things the melee classes aim for is hitting their soft caps and caps. You don't need to know a single number for that. What is fun to play on your own and what is fun to play in a team is certainly different... but Melee classes are more likely to sacrifice a taunt power for a solo build than they are to sacrifice a defensive power. However, I think you know that. I think you are the sort of min maxer who wants to play the sort of broken silliness like a double armor class, simply so that first punch or kick from boxing doesn't feel like a wasted power slot. I have made my feelings on Trick Arrows Defenders pretty clear. I don't need them to be directly supportive of the team, but they ought to be Defenders in some way. Making them crummy reverse blasters or nerfed controllers is a waste of time, because it doesn't solve the core issue for why to play a DEFENDER and not any other Arrow class available. Defenders BENEFIT from teamwork, and the inherent, Vigilance, is one small part of that. For an arrow defender, it doesn't feel like it does much at all. I want more combo options for Trick Arrows, like the Oil Slick Ignition. There are others who feel that is too much to code or that they would rather the Trick Arrow Defender be directly buffed back to relative similar levels it had when it was first released. The only question I have then... is why was it nerfed in the first place? They completely nuked the class, from one of the best Defenders builds to the worst. That is something the original team was VERY clear on: a fully functional Trick Arrow Defender made the blaster superfluous, because the Debuffs put his damage over the top... the class didn't FUNCTION like a Defender class at all. The Key with Defenders isn't that they heal/buff the team... but that they create opportunities to interact with the team. Typically it is the Defender that does the interaction, and the team enjoys the benefits... however, there is no reason that dynamic can't be reversed. More Trick Arrow combos could be exclusive to the Defender power set... and they could give the team opportunities to interact with the changes the TA Defender makes to the battlefield. Is it a lot of coding? Yes. Is it impossible? No... they already have the first example. If people weren't so opposed to combos/alternate purposes for TA Defender arrows, we could have a better discussion about it. Instead, it's the min maxers who dream of a day when they can min max Trick Arrow Defenders again. As far as I am concerned, they already have TAC Arrow Blasters. Why do we need to cater to that even more? There are no Throwaway powers. There are Build sacrifices, and this wouldn't be a discussion if it wasn't happening already. You can't just pretend that it doesn't matter when it clearly does. Most importantly, I don't think you really understand what you are calling for. When a game is broken, dysfunctional, or buggy in a way that makes it too difficult or impossible to win, people go to the forums and complain about it. They ask for it to be FIXED. You aren't asking for a fix, what you are railing against was intentional as part of the design. I am not opposed to making a different power pool that offers something similar to what you want, but with different downsides, but I strongly urge for Boxing to be left as is. If you simply got your way,, the game would be broken and dysfunctional in a way that makes it less enjoyable to play with other people. What you are asking for would be FINE on your own private server, but in a game world you share with others, it reduces the variety of decent build styles. For a multiplayer game, variety is essential... but you want to eliminate it. Do you know what happens to a game that is broken and dysfunctionally flat and easy? It dies quietly. It was frustrating trying to understand some of the choices the CoH Devs made when the game was official, but they never made a choice to give us something easy unless they were already changing a core reality in the game. There is a reason people want to play the old issues of CoH, prior to Free 2 Play. That reason is in direct opposition to cracking the power pools open as you suggest. Don't be lazy. Propose a new Power pool or Epic Power Pool. I don't oppose finding a way to balance that.

They have already failed to make every power fun, effective, or worth taking for all builds equally. Some of this is baked in because character creation is limited and necessarily defined by the archetype system for ease of play and progression. The issue is that each power represents something different to each archetype and even some significant differences between power set choices inside of Archetypes as well. The rest is because they failed to balance the sets remotely well, there is no rock paper scissors mechanic to combat structured in... it's great for PvE and Cooperative ventures... but deeply wrong for competitive play. You still have sets like Trick Arrow for Defender which are basically neutered and poorly functional for the Archetype... this is compounded by the fact they took a brokenly weak set and gave it to Corrupters, Masterminds, AND Controllers... despite the fact these sets are secondary for them, and therefore less impacted by the weakness of the set. Any universal changes or buff to the Trick Arrow set could upend the poorly balanced game and still make Trick Arrow Defenders the worst Trick Arrow Class. I say... balance all weak Primaries so they are at least middling first, then hit the Secondary Power Sets, then go back and tweak the next weakest Primaries... and so on a few times before you start trying to open the flood gates on pool powers. I think it was deeply misguided to give everyone early access to travel powers, which only doesn't wreck early builds because 1.) you can level up fast away from your early build and 2.) you get a bunch of free attacks from the P2W specialist. I don't expect them to reverse the lockout on Travel powers until 15... at least not on the main servers, maybe if they make a "Progressive Server" that nixes most of the "QoL" power creeps the game had in going Free To Play/Purchase Prestige Sets. However, I am opposed to messing up the Boxing set just to get weave and tough. Now if they want to make a new power pool... or best yet, a Prestige power pool (I.E. you only get one, it locks you out of the others) that perhaps offers some early defensive powers... or the possibility of adding free prestige powers (similar to the attacks you can get right now) that give click timer defenses, movement boost, mez protection, kb protection at P2W.... it might nuke PvP at first, or it might make more builds viable. Basically something that forces players to juggle more click responsibility to gain defensive benefits... NOT something that just gives them innates/toggles they can basically ignore. The way it functions now, an Illusion controller has few normal attacks, basic punches and kicks are more necessary for him than for any scrapper, who has many melee choices, often more interesting. However, while the Illusion controller can benefit from the improved defenses, it's not a crucial as it is for a Tanker, whose play style solo and ESPECIALLY in a team is focused on damage mitigation with defense. The Tanker doesn't NEED the punch or kick, many would rather not take it even... but they are willing to make a build sacrifice to get to it. The REASON for this sacrifice is simple: It promotes build diversity. What if a tanker decides to focus on all their mains instead? Should the tanker be punished because he didn't take what became a required power the moment you reduced the cost to get to it? The Boxing Power Pool, if we are being honest, shouldn't even be offered to Melee classes. It's primary reason is for variety, of which it offers none to Melee classes. Instead, it allows them to reinvest in what they can already do, perversely rewarding them for doing so. That's what Primary and Secondaries are for. Power Pools primarily offer powers that are outside the playstyle focus, maybe giving redundancies or direct support to Primary and Secondary function after slots are invested in abilities that might see less use or development. Let's break this down another way: IF the cost associate with taking a power is what determines how it is balanced... you could reduce the benefit Melee Classes can gain from a power they can take without sacrificing a slot to a power that might go unused. I think MORE people would object to reduced benefit than to the slot sacrifice. The only other cost you could bake in would be that the toggles would be incompatible with specified other defense powers..... like concealment and invisibility is usually not allowed to stack or Stone Armor functions with some of it's mutually exclusive toggle defenses. This cost might be even MORE onerous than the other two cost options. Why must their be a cost? There is ALWAYS a cost.. and if the cost for a pool power is less than everything else to the point that taking another power becomes a painful cost... then that power is TOO good to offer your character. Power Pools shouldn't be BETTER than your Primary or Secondary Powers... they should be starkly different and give your character flexibility or QoL you needed. Swallowing a redundant punch power is a small price to pay for the people MOST concerned with Defense. If you offered them a long range attack, like a pistol blast or hidden dart toss, you might break the balance... (since unlike the prestige powers, it could be upgraded. Melee classes love attacks they can use to draw people to them for solo.)

Where you see a retcon, I see a plot device. People who are mind controlled don't always STAY mind controlled. Most do, but there are some minds that are naturally resistant. For instance, if she mind controlled a handsome rich young Aristocrat who turned out to have Dissociative Identity Disorder, she might have the dominant personality under her thumb, but either be unable to detect or largely unconcerned with the other Personality. If she's forcing them to degenerate or traumatic things, I think it's pretty clear that there are people who would end up damaged mentally. Sure, if they accept it, it's probably going to be pretty smooth, but do you think she's particularly compassionate about those who object? There is plenty of reasons why they wouldn't become heroes or pull away from the organization directly as well. Mind control works best on willing targets, whether it's through cold reading and con artistry or psychic domination. Everyone else is in for a bumpy ride. Even so, Sub-factions don't have to oppose the parent organization. Maybe they just oppose other sub-factions internally or splinter factions. Their absolute loyalty to the leader doesn't mean that there wouldn't be infighting or potential for friction. They are happy to serve her, not her other subordinates. For any Villainous leader, the benefits you get from pitting your subordinates against each other typically outweigh the downsides. If she has a follower who keeps ugly subordinates, she probably wouldn't waste much time sampling their thoughts, but she wouldn't turn down any people they brought her. If anything, keeping a sub-faction of unwashed masses who resent the rich is a great way to kidnap wealthy people... Obviously her character would rather not personally run or oversee that more ugly operation in much detail, regardless of her ability to access and process information. Of course, if you just want the Carnival of Shadows ignored, I am sure they have plenty of gangs to work with if they decided to update them in a subfaction manner.

Atlas Park isn't a safezone! You could make Crimewave mobs the levelless sort, so white is white, yellow is yellow, etc. Debt Protection could be activated in limited aggression places like Atlas Park, Steel Canyon, and P.I., but it would be nice if underside areas like King's Row, Skyway City, and Hazard Zones got a little more crazy. Crimewaves could even have increased law enforcement too. One of the biggest features of Galaxy City was the fact you could follow Longbow around as a Solo character and snipe the capture for mobs they engaged. It was a great experience. Given, you occasionally see cops out in King's Row, especially around the station... There is room for more. If there was a way to make it so police raids don't advance unless player characters show up to assist them, the cops wouldn't clean up all the crime too quickly without Heroes

I understand what you are saying, but from a story writing standpoint you've just shown why my point is viable. You have to stop thinking about everything in a static field. All those NPCs, even the criminals, have lives, thoughts. The founder of an organization rarely is able to control the entire organization and all splinter groups that form as a result. You could easily have former high level subordinates grow jaded with the specific goals of Vanessa Devore/Giovanna Scaldi... but their own Carnival Subordinates would still follow them, form their own inner circles. They would take the theme in their own direction..... While it would be a stretch to associate the Carnival of Shadows with Grocery Store Themed goons or murderous accountants... a circus theme and vegas sideshow theme are very easy to run with. Meanwhile, the Family could easily have murderous accountants, most Mafias do... Most real world Crimewaves are caused by Gang wars... and the most VICIOUS gang wars are usually internal conflicts or faceoffs between the main body and a splinter faction. I don't know the policy on discussing real world crime, so I won't cite examples, but I am not stretching the imagination too much here. Most importantly, from a coding standpoint, you can reuse many of/all of the existing Carnival of Shadows Minions, making only small changes to costumes/color sets or a small power set swap. And this same theory applies to every gang. It's much easier to write stories based on existing content than it is to fabricate new groups from whole cloth. This isn't a retcon, because I am not saying you need to change the past. We are moving FOWARD.... and that means things change in the present. That doesn't mean the original Carnival of Shadows is gone, or even that the leadership at the top changes... these are massive organizations and they likely exist in MORE than just Paragon or the Rogue Isles.

Dare I say it here? I don't want to be predictable, but this desire for more Patrol viability/enjoyment really aligns well a discussion being had about Villain Free-Agency. While it seems a round about way to address this concern, I should point out, for an MMO, Player-driven and organic methods are the best medicine! So what am I talking about? Crimewaves! On Redside, Villains would get special Newspaper Missions that allow them to build up reputation with sub-factions of various in game gangs. By doing so, they are able to forge their own destiny and legacy... while doing the groundwork to empower their own crew to do a spree in Paragon City. On their own, Villains would earn points to gain rewards temporary pet/power rewards that reflect who they have been helping/working with... when enough Villains assist a specific gang or gang faction, they would trigger a crimewave in Paragon! This would let the heroes combat the Villain efforts and gain access to their own blueside temporary power/pet rewards... while vastly improving the flavor and reasons for going on Patrol.

I take it you've never seen Cirque Du Soleil? They are a circus with a very upper end flair/appeal. Also, for Circuses being so low, Bruce Wayne never shied away from them. I think Circuses, in the modern sense, are an artifact of entertainment and easily have entered the niche interests of the Philanthropy Class. Heck, they should probably qualify for "Endowments of the Arts". They far outstrip the "Class" of the nonsense my local city shells out for people to dump literal garbage on the side of the road. All the same: You could have an Unwashed Masses sub-faction of more Circus leaning Carnival members. Honestly, that internal gang struggle just writes itself. It's probably even more perfect than "Frozen Hellions". In the same note, you could have a very Vegas style Faction that focuses on Gambling, Sideshows, and Lounge Singers.... and you could have a Mardi Gras Faction that doubles down on the Louisiana style. I think deep down, you want gang factions too!

On the otherhand, giving the existing Carnival some sort of Lion Tamer that occasionally spawns has to be easier than creating a whole NEW circus. Or, as was mentioned in a thread concerned about Villain Agency and Crimewaves, you could make sub-factions of each Gang. With a Sub-faction you have several advantages. First, you remove the unpredictable nature of the new units they have. Once players learn that say, the Carnival faction with Lion Tamers has a Mastermind Mob, they will adjust their tactics accordingly. If you mesh this Advanced Enemies concept with an effort to give Villain's the free Agency they lack through Gang sub-faction reputation/reward missions, then you make it so all the coding that goes into this gets multiple purposes. Players would also find that the new advanced enemies ARE an option, since Heroes would only fight them by participating in "Crimewave Response" and Villains would only encounter them while participating in "Schemes" against opposing gang factions. Other options for new units might involve giving "advanced units" powers or playstyles similar to what is used in PvP. On one hand it's incredibly annoying... on the other hand, if a larger part of the community is participating in countering/playing against these tactics, it might give some insight into what the best balance is/what is properly fun for both sides. So that would involve giving gangs units with KB, units with Psychic damage, etc. The other possibility for Crimewave's is to integrate those older "Supadyne Raves", Arson/Burning Building Missions, and other city events more organically and widespread in tandem with related Gang Faction Crimewaves. Villain's can feel like they are affecting Paragon, Heroes can feel like they are standing up to Villains, and all the gangs can get more variety.

It's topics like this that remind me of how fundamentally hopeless game balance is for City of Heroes. On one hand, this isn't a particularly great idea, just like giving people early access to travel power completely upends the game for almost no purpose (you can power level to 14/15 very easily without much slogging around.) It's crazy to eliminate prerequisites or make Power Pools totally feature flat. On the otherhand, I don't think Game Balance is a compelling argument. Game Fun and Purpose is it's own sort of balance, but City of Heroes is hopelessly unbalanced and the complaints about coding difficulty pretty much make reworking the balance in any core manner time cost prohibitive. It's better working on adding features or making smaller sets of changes to repair unfun or difficult sets. Heck, even the fact that you can get all those sweet goodies from the P2W vendor right away completely changes choices I make in building and the challanges I face playing. It obviously shouldn't, but since it does that's how it is. I think people who want a balanced game would be better served establishing those ideas on a game getting built from scratch. I personally have very specific ideas how to achieve that but it could never be implemented here... Here they have to keep fiddling with the numbers and hope they don't break it. Incarnate powers take time and work to fill out, right? You have to get to 50, then grind lots of missions to build into that. I suppose to people on the top, game balance between low level characters doesn't really matter.... But that's honestly where alot of games fall apart. They forget the things that drew people in first. Like having to work hard to get your first travel powers. Maybe to balance power pools they need to toy with having different prerequisites based on your archetype. There should never be a power pool that is "required" to make a class playable. There shouldn't be a single one required to make a class competitive. There should be as many viable builds and options as possible, limited only by the playstyle of each player. That's very hard to accomplish. A "power creep" can certainly make that problem even worse, effectively destroying build creativity.

On one hand, I like the idea of giving Sentinels an overwatch power of some sort... Really drive home the playstyle. On the otherhand, it seems fairly balanced as is too. You aren't a glass cannon, but you can't tank. The problem is the role is subtle without something like a covering fire/overwatch mechanic built into the powersets. Sentinels aren't an Epic Archetype either, so perhaps they feel a bit homeless. Perhaps if there was a way to hint they are a Goldside Archetype. There is lots of soloing there, and that's what the Sentinel really shines at anyway... Maybe he needs 4 non epic buddies to keep him company. We are a way out from that. I would also note that you can't crunch numbers very easily on positional defenses. A Sentinel should be like a sniper, or playing like they are fighting a DFB Hydra all the time. Staying in one place is bad. You might not have the glass jaw of a Blaster, but you don't have his variety of ways to push enemies away or lock them down when they are approaching. If a WAVE of them come at you, you are in JUST as much trouble, rightfully so. The ENTIRE reason why anyone uses a ranged weapon over a melee one is because DISTANCE IS ARMOR. You can't calculate that so glibly by throwing out numbers and saying "LOOK, my Archetype doesn't do as much as much damage as the guy with no range and he doesn't do as much as the guy with a glass jaw!" You are trading off TTK for slightly lower chances of dying, with those odds being GROSSLY in your favor if you play like a total coward, zipping away the moment you bite off more that a nibble. Perhaps an Overwatch/Covering Fire mechanic could be a varied Buff/reaction power. You'd grant it to an ally... for allies with Primary/Secondary Defensive powerset, the Covering fire would give them some sort of defensive bonus/resistance to binds/kb. If you use it on an ally without a defensive powerset, it would make your character automatically attack an enemy who strikes your chosen pal with a mini alpha strike (possibly force changing your target... or not.)

On one hand, those gangs are big enough there are bound to be internal struggles... On the other hand, it would be great to see them add "Frozen Hellions" or some other variants of each Gang. I know we are already calling Gangs as Factions here, but what if Factions were actually different parts of each Gang? Then Crimewaves could be longer lasting and actually be represented by a change of the Footsoldiers on the streets! It's one way around not having territory gangwars and has to be easier to code... But with nearly the same payoff.

Or make cone powers have two clicks to activate. The first click would project the cone estimate. This way, someone who doesn't have time to really check their cone range can just unload it fairly quick.

Toggles are a matter of resource management. If you aren't careful, your stamina can crash and leave you extremely vulnerable. Click Timers are a matter of Memory Management. If you don't renew, you can be exposed at a critical moment. While Auto Casting removes the entire Crux of the struggle, people would likely script around it anyway.

He's not wrong. Aliens are better citizens, they work for less and never go against my political interest....

To really define the kind of criminal you are (or aren't, for those ~purpleside traitors~ 😛 ) You could even go into detail about what sorts of crimes each gang faction specializes in. I.E. Vazhilok focuses on Science Origin and Organ Harvesting/Human Trafficking. Or Hellions Deal in Magic Origin and Theft. And so on! If you choose certain types of crimes, you will get more reputation with associated factions. Then it feels less like the contacts are directing you and more like you are using them.

I think a crimewave mechanic is definitely something the Redside would get excited over, certainly. I don't want to give up on something more in depth though... If the game goes legit, they will likely get their hands on official code notes, nevermind link up with some of the original devs! Perhaps Crimewave mechanics could be tied into special Newspaper missions where villains can advance various gangs for special gang specific rewards. Heroes could earn those rewards fighting the Crimewave, but they would have functionally less agency and opportunity than Villains, due to the opposing nature's of the playstyle.

But for Villains only (not counting missions generated for heroes in response to overwhelming gang Influence) and across the entire game! It can and should be done!

In some ways you are correct... Even as an Agent of Arachnos, you are less an independent Villain and more of an expendible pawn. Arachnos doesn't own Villainy. The first to fix this is to improve the Newspaper Missions, which allow you to perform your own heists and scheme your own plots. It's the right direction and bank robberies are the most specific reminder than you are actually an outlaw in City of Villains. The second way to consider the difference between Blueside and Redside. Blueside has organizations like Longbow, Wyvern, and more specifically G.I.F.T., S.E.R.A.P.H., etc.... The organizations on Redside occassionally mirror Blue, but are usually more the personal projects of different NPC villains. You could argue there aren't as many specifically for Redside, since many organizations serve as punching bags for Red and Blue. So for villains, it's important for them to have a goal. Heroes have a desire to protect. If Villains are in it for the benefits, those probably shouldn't be left entirely to our imagination. Villains are harder to write custom story archs for because motives are more ranged than for heroes. So... How do you fix it? Masterminds can summon goons, but all villains should have the opportunity to form gangs with NPC groups, fight for territory, and have lackeys that carry out petty crimes for them... Even if they all basically can't help in the battles the Villain fights themself. Power over others is a key thing all Villains want to some degree. Redside needs more ways to compete with itself, and since PvP is totally unbalanced, it needs to be largely removed from combat and rely on management, tactics, and Grand strategy. In fact, Redside players could even fight over territory in Paragon too, being string pullers and boosting gangs they are allied with. This is a massive project, if you understand... Giving villains the ability to affect the territories gangs actually hold on maps. Heroes would need a way to know what gangs control where, but in many ways this is something that should be done for the long term benefit of the game. You need to be able to create dynamic territories for a living breathing game and a superhero game needs it even more. It's better to create a point of player interaction and control rather than only changing the city when a giant story arch is concieved, then keeping mirrors of the old layouts. You can even build in mechanics for strong gangs to fall, either due to increased police pressure, special hero missions targeting strong gangs in each zone, or increased rewards for villains to support smaller aggressive gangs. A villain needs a way to show off to other bad guys, but also to heroes as well! Each City zone would need to establish gang headquarters for the gangs of each territory... Something they probably should have done a while ago anyway, with improvements to graphics. Give us Gang Wars!

Does this make Torchbearer the unofficial Base Builder's Server?

Private servers and decentralized game management. NCSofts biggest problem was always that Marvel and D.C. have Mickey moused their I.P. and basically ignore fair use and parody laws to sue anyone who tries to make a superhero. How can Marvel own Thor? They can't, it's absurd. Even if they could, City of Heroes should not be legally liable for what it's player base does with a costume creator or naming convention. If it's decentralized, lawsuits would be as pointless as suing Tumblr. Sure, it's nice to have official servers and I think we can all agree not to step on big IPs toes over products they want to run into the ground themselves... But I don't want to see support for private servers evaporate or be eliminated if the game goes legit again. There are opportunities as well, in Private servers testing out unbalanced new content and hammering out the kinks on a scale a centralized City of Heroes could never afford to playtest. If someone cracks Giant Size Archetype or creates a custom vehicle creator the official servers might eventually benefit and add in their own more balanced version.

I would maintain what made CoH into CoH was the overwhelming scope and vision of the product compared to other MMOs. They were often the first to the market with many features that other MMOs ultimately had to replicate. Even to this day, the original vision of City of Heroes which shattered the archetype paradigm... Sure, they ultimately gave up on it, but they still tried first. What they made still shook things up... And kept doing so. Admittedly, it helped that the team changed several times throughout development. The new blood constantly took CoH in new directions. Because this is now open to Hobby Programming, there ARE more options. You aren't limited to one dev teams vision. Maybe not just having Beta servers... But having different running experimental servers would be a good plan. There are opportunities to bring many people back and even into City of Heroes for the first time because the MMO industry is dying under badly run corporations.