Cobalt Arachne

New content and special difficulty options are coming that take all those Incarnate powers into account; In the not too distant future you will have the option to face enemies who are more than happy to stomp you into a fine paste even with your Incarnate powers and Level Shift. But as always, it'll be a choice, but those who endure the peril will get extra rewards for it.

This is correct, and also accurate to the archived game version. The defense was flagged as kStack and the mez was flagged as kReplace.

Just to be thorough, I went and pulled up one of the old archived versions of the game that was only ever touched by Paragon and looked at the power to make sure we didn't inadvertently make any numerical errors, and can confirm it's the exact same there as it is currently: +3% DEF (All but Psi) per ally and +3 magnitude protection once.

This was a bug fix in the last patch to rectify that it was temporarily disabled previously due to it being the primary suspect in a severe performance problem on the third mission of the Imperious Task Force. Later, the actual culprit was identified and fixed on that map, and it had nothing to due with Energized Shield (now Roman Armor), so the power was re-added and the group's difficulty restored to what it had always been for the entire duration of its existence on the live servers. The only thing done was the content being returned to the original difficulty. You can see the power in question, Energized Shield, in the archived Paragon Wiki: https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Cimeroran_Traitors The description on it is wrong of course, it should have had Phalanx Fighting's description, but it functions as intended.

The goal is organic inclusion; Content where bringing a Controller feels nice and you feel like you're helping your team win without it being 'These enemies cannot be defeated unless held'. We're working on finding suitable grey-tones that help accommodate vs. extremes that force hands. The goal is far more granular than 'make bad things desirable' and that has never been the goal; I don't work on player power balance, just content design, and things were designed with broad role value in mind, not necessarily with any kind of 'make bottom tier things better' mentality. Granted, I am sure some people will see anything that challenges the dominance of a meta they're comfortably sitting at the top of as exactly that. We can have 'support/control roles can contribute to a team in a worthwhile and rewarding way for players who enjoy those styles of gameplay' without it becoming a black/white issue. A space where the most valuable thing to bring might not be another Fire/Fire Blaster is healthy for the game as a whole.

We aren't changing the difficulty floors, and the new content has been tailored to fall into brackets depending on the experience you want to have, if anyone likes the way the game is right now, where they can play it without really thinking much, the option to do so will continue to exist.

Which is a fair concern! My design aim is not actually going for 'difficulty' as much as it's been content that 'every role feels like they're contributing to the win' while always keeping City of Heroes mantra of 'bring anybody who asks for an invite to the team' style at it's heart. Inclusivity is at the core of all my decisions, and part of that element has to come from the difficulty in order for it truly matter. I don't think there's any denying that in many cases right now the 'endgame' level content leaves very little to do for control and support roles, and those types of players often feel like they're contributing very little to their team's success when everyone has inherent defense caps and everything dies so quickly that controlling it serves little purpose when you could've brought a damage AT instead and helped more. The benchmark to achieve is a level of challenge players can choose for themselves that makes every member of the team's contributions worthwhile to some extent no matter what role you bring, and right now some roles are extremely unrewarding to play. What does support bring to the team when everyone on the team is already defense capped and will take no damage anyway? What value does a controller bring when the entire mob is dead in half a rotation and their control powers haven't even recharged before the mob after is nearly dead too? These roles don't contribute enough to the success of their team right now, and that hurts how rewarding they feel. Part of that involves enemies that are actually threatening and hardy enough that control/support players feel like they're contributing to the success of their team just as much as the blasters are because the team needs support to help survive and the team is glad the held enemies aren't hurting them. Edit: To make this on-topic; 😛 Many powers that are 'useless' right now are only so because the elements that they are very helpful against have been made nearly extinct at max level by how powerful players have become.

I've run Linea's arcs with them 1-on-1 and discussed it with them in voice chat. I'm very impressed with what they've managed to create within the limitations of the AE, but we both agree their method of difficulty isn't ideal for the mainstream content, but I'm very glad their content exists to fulfill that niche for the players who want that style of difficulty.

Fair enough! You're free to quote me on that when Page 3 goes to testing; I've been very explicit to ensure existing content's difficulty perimeters don't get impacted. Insofar as my new difficulty balancing work is concerned. That being said, what I said doesn't apply strictly regarding brand new content or future self-contained new difficulty modes of existing content that might be created down the road.

I've been roused from my den of evil. 👀 People who like a challenge and feel that the current the endgame has become too homogenized are in for lots of good news and things that will kill their Tier 4 incarnates and 50+5 IO builds. That being said people who like things right where they are now shouldn't be worried either. We're dedicated to ensuring that everyone can enjoy this game the way they like moving forward, there will be options to move the difficulty ceiling up for those who are looking for it, but the floor where it exists isn't moving.

You don't want those badges back as they were... They promoted aggressive and unhealthy 'rating farms' where player circles would organize running pointless empty missions (which fill up the AE database) for the sole purpose of quickly finishing them and ranking them 5-stars to try and farm/boost their way up to Hall of Fame and the 2,500 star badge. Things that promote negative community interactions are not good ideas for badges.

One must appease the baconizer or it will create insufficient bacons and the map will be angry. >o> 🥓

This is fixed internally already; Just wrapped into Page 3. 👍

Correct, this is exactly why. Immunes Surgeons have no offensive powers whatsoever. This was required for them to be added to AE, where players could make a custom enemy group containing nothing but Surgeons and farm enemies that can't fight back.

There's a LOT coming; Page 3 is shaping up to be one of our biggest content releases to date. The AE updates were a tiny piece of the pie that we shipped early so we could run the story contest currently happening. Good (and EVIL) things in store... 😈

Slight update to the patch notes... The Cimeroran Traitors restored power 'Energized Shield' received a small update for better tracking and theming and was renamed 'Roman Armor', which has confused some players checking the Combat Attributes when they did not see Energized Shield. Also worth noting due to the fast track; The powers on the level 50-54 Cimeroran Traitors bracket are not quite final, and will be getting a few updates when Page 3 goes to testing later. Also, the (currently very WIP) Minotaur Nictus Axe will be going to players at that time as well. Stay tuned for more good things, there's a lot coming soon! 😉

Pineapple on pizza is simply the current stage of evolution that humanity is on before we advance to the promised land of kiwi on pizza. 😄

No Trammel! Oh wait...

To clarify on my statement, as it's being quoted to the wrong effect here. New methodology of increasing the difficulty are already built and in testing now, and in more engaging ways than just making numbers bigger. As always, we're watching the feedback and are always looking for opportunities to improve existing content. When we approach adjustments, it will be with intent and in ways beyond purely stats. Various elements have already proven that simply having bigger numbers alone does not engaging challenges make. (Keep in mind challenge is not strictly the same as difficulty, and the degree of punishing elements and accessibility play into what defines that.) We're absolutely interested in giving the players a good challenge. The upcoming team content should be extremely difficult if players choose to play it on max difficulty. Setting difficulty should be a choice that means something. Perhaps it is more accurate to say there are no plans to retroactively adjust the difficulty floor, but the ceiling, that's a different matter. What's important is players having the ability to opt up or down depending on their preference so that people who enjoyed previous content where it currently is can continue to do so.

I'm happy to say that with the next batch of new content, we're aiming to do just this using some new methods of dynamic enemy definitions and power assignment. The new content should be able to be played sub-50 (under enhanced), 50+0 (SOs), or 50+ (IO incarnates) and will change to accommodate and challenge the players depending on their preference for the game. This should enable all player types to enjoy it how they prefer, be it leveling an alt, feeling powerful on their built character, or facing an intense challenge. Reading a lot of what's being said I think people will be happy with what's coming. This is controlled via the levels at which the enemies spawn, with enemies at 52+ being given additional powers to make them more dangerous to built incarnate players; Players who wish to play the content at max level and not deal with challenge or the additional mechanics will be able to simply set the difficulty to +0. That being said, there are currently no plans to retroactively adjust or change previously-existing content's difficulty; But we're always evaluating based on the feedback.

That is really unusual. I've let the admins know.

Rejoice, for this is in the works! The current plan is to have these invasions trigger when a player finishes the final mission of Signature Story Arc 2, Part 5.

Spicy! Can't wait to see what people put together! 👀

Please don't take it that way! No suggestion with thought and purpose put into it is ever a waste of time; Provoking new ways of thinking and always striving to make this game the best it can be is something I always want to support. Creating a more fluid definition of levels as you suggested is something other games have done, has worked in various capacities, and has it's own set of pro's and con's, as anything does. Strictly speaking, it's not an objectively bad or wrong idea. In City of Heroes' case, it's tricky given the game's many systems and overall gameplay structure that has already been established over the years; It's tough to introduce large high-level design changes like this without it being a consideration from the initial concept drafting, and Kallisti Wharf's planning is too far along at this stage. That being said, your suggestion was not a concept I had ever considered before. Obviously, I can't speak for what the unseen far future holds, maybe someday there'll be a "oh heck this new zone we're planning is PERFECT for a system like that!", in which case your having suggested this idea here would've been where that seed was initially planted. But it would definitely be something that would have to be baked into every facet of that zone's planning, from concepting to realization, and constructed with such a goal in mind.

It's not an Incarnate Trial Zone like Dark Astoria, so incarnate-level threats won't be out in the streets. Kallisti Wharf is planned to be a 40-50 zone, as it says on the tram destination in-game. Without explicitly detailing what; I can assure you, they're not generic thugs, and that the new threats vying for control of that zone are not ones that a brand new hero or villain (as the game defines them as players) could expect to handle. If you get too granular in either direction in regards to gameplay vs. narrative, the whole scope becomes weaker, it's about finding the right balance for any particular element within a given context.