Sakura Tenshi

Carnival of Shadows be like: Are we NOT a joke to you?

Hmmm... I've more got ideas for adding and revamping old groups, but I will say I've had some ideas for purely original ones, I'll give an overview but only really delve into one. The Thule Society: Basically meant to serve as a villainous counterpart to the Midnighters. Their magic isn't as flashy and grand as Circle or even Legacy chain, but it is meant to involve plenty of debuffs and unusual effects light locational pseudopets. All in all, the core of it was just to have it so Villains wouldn't need to work with the Midnight squad and visa versa. Historically, the Thule Society would even have interest in fighting against the Fifth Column in Cimerora anyway as they were among the groups hunted during the Night of Long Knives. The Black Cats Gang: Meant to be a low level, classy crime syndicate of ladies in black leather coats, martial arts, blades, and guns, in a lot of ways they have a lot in common with the Praetorian Syndicate but the idea pre-dated Issue 18 on live. Admittedly it was also to add a bit of gender equality among enemies, something we see has started to adjust itself so... They kind of lost their place, especially with the third group. The Etoile Resistance: This is a newer idea I had, basically a low to midlevel group of citizens in the Rogue Isles who are rising up against villains and especially Arachnos, partly the idea being just letting villains have more 'heroic' groups to fight. And these are the ones I'll go into detail on. The Etoile Resistance Living under an oppressive tiger-eat-dog system of social darwinism that runs the Rogue Isles without any semblance of safety or consistency, even from supposed police forces, has left the populous coming together under mutual protection and even revolution. Aided by groups like Longbow, the UPA, Dockworkers, and even some types of supervillains and vigilantes who with ideals or see Arachnos as standing in the way, they also drive off just as much aid for their willingness to cooperate with groups like Crey, Freakshow/Freakalok, Sky Raiders, and more to gain the edge needed to bring down Lord Recluse and his generals, creating a mercurial and tense relationship. For his part, Recluse has a surprising respect for the group, though it is not one which he gives quarter to these rebels with the only courtesy being he never asks for any in return. Arachnos orders are clear: Etoile Resistance is to be exterminated on sight by all who wish to be on his good side. Subverting Arachnos' power requires more than just weapons and willpower, though, the group has managed to contract and train under UPA and refugee Syndicate pskyers and other sensitive groups to not only mask their presence from Seers but even assault the network directly, with this, they strike fast and from shadows and retreat as quickly, leaving a wake of devastation behind. They also are heavily dependent on working together, resulting in strong teamwork, meaning it can be important to separate squads to divide and conquer. Mob ideas - Minion: The basic minion members of the Etoile Resistance would be armed with shotguns, pistols, and SMGs, augmenting the damage they deal with incindiary rounds and shot to burn through the polymer armors used by groups around the Isles that might try to stop them. Along with this, it has the benefit of missed shots helping in their goal of torching structures. At higher levels they'll make use of molotovs to create burn patches of area denial. Stat wise, they would be weaker than normal minions of their level and even have a rare weakness to smashing and lethal damage due to being dressed mostly in civilian clothing, but they do have a decent resistance to psionic and toxic damage, the latter being an antivenom counter to their main enemies. Their teamwork also is represented as a self-defense buff that's basically phalanx fighting from shield defense. Lastly, at higher levels, they start keeping emergency medical stims that they'll use to help keep eachother alive (probably on an extremely long recharge so you'd only see them do it once and require they 'cast in melee' with their target) A slight outlier of the minion ranks is an unconventional foe: the spotter. Spotters possess good perception and help alert their allies of stealthed enemies, but more than that, they favor a unique weapon: the flare gun. The specialized flares they fire not only burn bright, but are designed to stick to surfaces as they burn, in this case: a living target. It deals only a moderate amount of damage overtime, but it debuffs a target's stealth abilities making it impossible to hide, and to make things worse, it also ggives them a powerful taunt aura that can override the taunts of tanks and brutes and these spotters have a knack for finding the weak links in parties. Dispatch quickly to avoid calling the attention of a hideout. This is really all I have at the moment, was also thinking at higher levels you'd have bosses who use pieces from PPD shells mixed with a bit of Freakshow and IDF, showing they have committed themselves to their cause by being just a torso in an armor. They're largely natural and tech, but not afraid to delve into mutations, science, and magic. If I fleshed this out I might include a few of such members in the group. The bottom line is just a sort of personal enemy for villains, at least from their standpoints. All the others are ideological, for these guys, they see every Destined One and Arachnos soldier as a blight on the islands.

Hmm, I used Triple H once as a faceclaim for Gaia Redeemer in another RP setting, but he’s also a lot older in that one. I might go with Chris Hemsworth but I think he might still be a bit old for the City of version I imagine. Of course, this doesn’t go into potentially casting past incarnations of Gaia Redeemer which might come up, but that’s a bridge to be crossed.

I kind of despise the logic some players have that "it's good for a powerset to have shitty picks because it makes it easier to skip!" like, that is the dumbest argument to avoid buffing something ever.

Still got money on them having Malta ties (admittedly have not played all the new arcs yet). As a side note, okay, so the 'don't fight where they spawn' aspect was on purpose. Which kind of makes an early bug I had reported about the shield drones not moving feel like it had been intentional. Also, as I keep saying, while I understand why, as someone who likes to play swordfighters and martial artists, it stings to see yet another mob with "big, fat, Smash/lethal resistance".

So, I have an idea for a Medieval Mastermind set, though I got variants of each tier in mind and one's pretty pie-in-the-sky. Tier 1 Pet A😞 Archers - Straight forward archers, their real bonus is they get rain of arrows when upgraded and can basically pincushion huge groups of enemies 'for the cheap'. Tier 1 Pet B): Footmen - Dudes with shields and maces, I imagined their two big ups is that they have phalanx fighting and grant cover, so like thugs, they work best when all together, but also fully upgraded ones would have Shatter and be able to stack -res on crunchier targets. Tier 1 Pet C): Levies - These would be dudes with spears, starting out two-handing them but upgrading to shield and spear, obviously meaning there's animation issues here. But like the above footmen, the idea would be they help support the rest of the pets with grant cover buffs and support eachother as well. Tier 2 pet A): Man-at-arms - Basically the footmen from above with one of the others being used for tier 1. Tier 2 pet B) Paladin - Sword and shield equipped knight, they'd actually only be moderately for offense with their main boon being support they add with a HoT and Mez Resist AoE buff. Downsides would be being too similar to Grave Knights and footmen or levies. Tier 2 pet C): Cannoneers/petardiers - Firearms aren't often thought of when it comes to medieval, but early firearms have been in Europe since the mid-14th century or so (Joan of Arc was also pretty known for being fond fielding cannons), in this case these guys would be carrying a 'heavy hand cannon' (held like the miniguns or Resistance Heavy Barrels) and dispense heavy ranged damage to enemies and potentially other things. Tier 3 pet: Champion - Basically, heavily armored dude with a greatsword (Titan weapons). Awe-inspiring to allies and fear inducing to foes. The personal weapon for this MM set would probably be a crossbow, possibly with the personal attack gimmick being the arrows are 'fire arrows' for extra damage, but also as a signal to archers (non-entity ones only implied to exist) to shoot a burst of arrows on the location making each attack have a small chance for an AoE bonus damage. Not sure what the 'special flavor' power would be exactly, maybe either some form of rallying standard/blowing a horn?

Well, I don't know how feasible some of these are but I'll try to keep it within what I think the devs might be able to do: Powers: Water and/or Kinetic Assault: I think this could be done with existing assets and some retextures. My big concern is actually that they'd be similar to one another that one would kind of exclude the other. Adjustments to Masterminds to improve viability in high end gameplay. Maybe another pass over Sentinels because Opportunity really doesn't feel that helpful in many situations. But this is my personal outlook and others might be able to say otherwise. Arsenal Mastery APP added to Stalkers, Scrappers, Tanks, and Brutes. Bonus idea: ranged attacks for Stalkers in AM would be with dual pistols, scrappers use Assault Rifle, and Brutes and tanks use shotguns. Prismatic Aether rewards: Embiggen! The opposite of the mini-mode, makes your character 50% or even 100% bigger than possible in the character creator. Incarnate system: New Judgements, Interfaces, and/or lore pet options. The former two could use some things that fill in missing damage types, also psionic interface's DoT is pretty weak, if I recall, as a penalty for being psionic. Judgement ideas could include: Photonic Judgement (call down a beam of light for energy damage. Kill sat effect. basically. Also Septic Judgement for toxic and Psionic Judgement) Something to do with loose incarnate threads and shards besides inspirations. Maybe we could cash them in for some prismatic aether particles or something? Costumes: Hoodie sweater top with shoulder options for it being down or using hood options to give it a hood. Also having open, closed, and pull-over variants. Varsity Letterman Jacket Leather loafer footwear, both clean and buckled variety. Skirts and kilts with monstrous legs Enemies: Expand on the level range of Legacy Chain so villains don't have to keep fighting CoT for high level magic origin foes. 'Human' boss for Skyraiders: just gonna plug this old idea Mission Architect: Rogue Paragon Police added to the critter list Adjustments to EXP/rewards distribution of custom critter powers. EAT/VEAT powers added Player bases: Sand and snow floor tiles and mounds Police vehicles

Golden roller, is that you?

You know what I mean: a human outside of a vehicle.

Scenes like this just seem increasingly silly to me as time goes on. I mean, yes, those are also Nemesis Automatons, but this also isn't the first or only of such things like this in the game.

not really infiltration, I think, more just restoring their numbers. I do find it odd that Rikti are a race if powerful psychics and the lost even use psionic conditioning, but we never hear about them influencing things via mind control.

I think the way Ouroboros operates is that they basically send you into a 'new' timeline where you make changes and basically 'save' and 'edit it in' later. So basically, out of thousands, potentially millions of runs through flashback TFs and and storyarcs, maybe a tiny percentage actually makes it into the main timelines we end up occupying. So that TF you abandoned because you kept faceplanting during that fight does not make the 'final cut' of history.

Randomly want to add something I've had an idea for in my head for years. Not sure how well the City of Heroes engine could handle such a thing, but the gist of it is a rather sizeable overhaul of how certain instanced mission maps play out. Offices were the main idea when I thought of this but I could see it working for some other map types like Arachnos and Longbow bases: Elevators/multiple floors are at the center of this. Namely elevators can now travel between all floors on a mission map. The caveat is that once you use it to get to a floor, the elevator is locked down until you clear all enemies on the floor (or perhaps find some security override, more on that later) But if you got the wrong floor once, there'd be other forms of getting between floors depending on the size of the mission map/number of floors. These would be things like fire-stairs, maintenance shafts, air ducts ("how does your max size minotaur fit in?" You figure that out!) and so on. Each time you use one though, that method also gets locked until you do the floor clear or security override. This would also mean bosses and other key objectives wouldn't always spawn in on the top floor (afterall, if this kind of thing happens a lot, it might make sense enemies holding up will act less predictably) Real pie-in-the-sky is that for these kinds of missions, there'd be two entrance doors, one at the ground level and another through the roof. Another aspect would be maps would now include sort additional paths and even 'bonus objectives' unrelated to the mission nature. One of these default bonus objectives would be security stations on each floor where you would be able to do things like shut down automated defenses, open up shutters/unlock doors/deactivate forcefields, maybe even get a helpful guide to your actual objectives. (like a chat message revealing the floor(s) they're on), and as mentioned, override lockdowns. (figure you can only have these Security stations do one action per-stationn/floor) Hallways might be blocked off by security shutters, forcefields, locking doors, and even makeshift barricades. Some of these you can slug it out and just smash through with your powers. Sometimes these barriers might not spawn in until you've completed a certain objective (like if you're kidnapping/rescuing a hostage), As mentioned above, turrets would be more common. Basic automated security systems to provide protection for a facility that you can shut down or claim them for yourself (not sure when or where that'd be appropriate) Lastly, for heroes these bonus objectives can be rescuing civilians not held hostage, but still trapped in a dangerous place or for villains, looting safes and other caches for a bit of personally appointed bonus pay.

Honestly, the fact that Perez Park's surrounding buildings seem in pretty good condition has honestly made me surprised it counts for a hazard zone. Part of why I even suggested that in twenty one years it'd become a normal zone was that, plus a lot of the gangs there both in canon and my own scenario would have become non-issues. Circle of Thorns were apparently massively weakened due to being disembodied souls and Mot basically feasting on them on breaking out during the DA arcs (might not be helped since it seems implied the empowerment of the Tsoo wasn't just their own ancestors but bonding Oranbegan souls too. But that's just my inference) Hydra and Lost would probably be getting rounded up with Rikti traditionalist and Midnighter aid. Vazhilok has been drawn away into Freakalok stuff combined with Vazhilok having been vanquished back in a level 15 or so arc and the Posi TF. Clockwork aggression may have a drop-off due to the events of the Signature Story Arc 2 and Penny having a talk to with CK (possibly getting help) Now outside of those canon things, my headcanon adds: Hellions would have largely disintegrated into smaller, independent gang cells due to loss of faith in leadership (which might also lead to said leadership, if still around, trying to purge them back into line) Skulls seem to be moving onto bigger things, though given the Petrovich siblings apparently grew up there, they might retain a presence as one of the few original gangs. But also the devastation of Skyway city and possibly Steel Canyon in my own timeline would basically prove to be far more appealing places for small gangs to migrate to.

Storywise, I do agree: thugs should be thugs. But this is a situation where gameplay and lore might always find themselves at odds. It'd be a bit unfair to make someone who views their character as 'street level' only allowed to run actual and appropriate content via ouroboros or push them into fighting the same cosmic threats as all the cosmic tier metas. But let's also not forget that this debate was kind of settled back on live in a lot of ways with Freakshow who, cybernetics or not, are really just thugs, still being threats from levels 20 to 50, even in the old City of Villains teaser trailer, the Freedom Phalanx was struggling against Freaks. But then you have other examples in game with the Family having been pushed up to level 50 before the game shuttered, even Skulls were implied to be a growing threat (and why not? Superadyne apparently can do a heck of a lot more than just make someone strong like the Trolls, in lore it's part of how dimensional travel was figured out. It basically seems like a synthetic well of furies in many ways) which seems to be how things are panning out over on the beta server. And in the end, whether something is a 'street thug' or a 'cosmic threat' seems more about how they're written in the grand scheme. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, force users are supposed to be fearsome and powerful opponents in the setting, but of non-force user classes, only the Imperial Agent truly gives the sense of frustrating helplessness and the catharsis of overcoming such opponents, and that's strictly in their class story. Side quests can then treat force users as little more than common mooks for anyone to mow through like B1s from the prequels.

I mean it’s kind of a loaded question since it would depend a bit on how things would have shaken out in the storyline. Like The Coming Storm could have flattened Paragon into an Atlantic-filled Crater (or some side effect of said attack). Or it could have basically been turned into some exclusionary zone like First Ward because I think any actual government would see the BS constantly coming out of Paragon and just write the damn city off. Especially with an eldritch god sleeping underneath. That and there’s also the headache of “you mean lorewise or actual in-game?” But setting it aside I guess for just how I’d imagine updating Paragon based on the times: in general you’d see more modern tech around. Computers, tvs, cars (which were honestly dated looking back at launch) Several buildings and roads might have received an update due to the combined Rikti bombings, Praetorian invasion, Mot assault, and Coming Storm. (I also imagine this could have led to several war walls being irreparably damaged and either replaced with a new system or just parts of the city opened back up) Per-above, this could have resulted in heavy shifts in population centers, I imagine Atlas would remain largely the same due to how heavily defended it is, but formerly disastrous areas which, for that reason saw little aggression in those events, were would become rapidly gentrified. So Overbrook, Baumtown, Perez Park, and even Eastgate Park might have been reinhabited and efforts made to rebuild/refurbish them. Terra Volta may have been retired and decommissioned for similar reasons as the above leaving Paragon, at least for a time, precariously dependent on either outside power sources or the Overbrook Dam for energy. With the extrication of Pandora’s Box, the Zig may have also been decommissioned and a new prison might be set up elsewhere. Further adding Brickstown to a gentrified area of the city. With all this, and as these disasters were not always localized and the demand for laborers and so forth could result in an immigrant population influx creating or expanding many minority communities such as Chinatowns and the like. This would have the double-edged sword of possibly resulting in new Ethno-crime syndicates as well due to inevitable tensions that would rise in communities. Whether natural or deliberately provoked via villainous agents. Speaking of crime, I imagine there’d be a heavy reshuffling of many gangs throughout Paragon due to a mix of attrition, new communities pushing out old ones, and just changing leadership and even mergers like we see in Freakalok. Some would remain like Nemesis, Council, and such who are international threats. But I could see others vanish like Hellions (how many even know who their leadership is?) Tsoo and Circle of Thorns (too many members lost in Dark Astoria and leadership changing), Sky Raiders (loss of faith of leadership, too many losses, goldbrickers possibly making better offers), and more.

Basically a random thought exercise I enjoy asking: if your characters had a patron pool powers associated with them, what would it look like? What would be its themes? What do you imagine players would be put through to unlock it (patron arc). Feel free to be as detailed or broad as you want. One of my characters from Live was related to cosmic horror, so I had the idea they would have an Eldritch Mastery pool which would involve lots of dark, psionic, and toxic damage and the unlock arc basically involves reassembling scattered pages of an eldritch tome to learn from its secrets. One of my current characters, Gaia Redeemer, despite being Titan Weapons/Willpower brute, is, as his name implies, basically pacted to the spirit of the Earth and thus would teach Sylvan Mastery which would include a number of plant, earth, and a bit of water and weather effects and an arc involving undergoing trials to reach the heart of Agartha.

Basically, it'd be more accurate to say the limit of the cottage rule would be that build up would have to still provide damage and tohit buff still, but it could also create a nice cottage at your feet.

I'm really not sure this is a thread to talk about requesting new costume pieces from NPCs and might be better to stay on topic with feedback options. But I will say: @The Volt It annoys me so dang much that when Going Rogue launched, a pre-order bonus was 'PPD gauntlets' and instead of those hefty, giant force gauntlets we see on PPD, TEST, and DUST, we got those dumb, anemic things that barely qualified for skidplates on the forearms. Also, I think it'd be the IDF leg pouches that would be seen as having clipping issues (due to being unable to scale, maybe? I do know it would theoretically be available to male and female as twinshot has them), the full chestpiece that covers the whole upperbody would clip, but honestly, I fail to see an issue since the way large pieces like that work is because they basically clip through the whole torso with the arms and head sticking out. I get the implication is it clipping with back and shoulder pieces, and to be blunt, I still fail to see an issue when plenty of pieces already do that sort of thing.

While I disagree on some specific details, I still love this purely on the grounds of the thought you put in and my fondness of Tarot Motifs. But I do feel dumb because when you mentioned “who else?” For Emperor, I thought how it fits either Tyrant or Nemesis.

To be as constructive as an emotional neanderthal like myself can be, I do sort of understand what they're getting at, though as someone who didn't really test out the Controller changes or even really play controller at all, I speak purely from an armchair developer point of view. I can recall faintly of some of my experiences playing control focused ATs and I'll start by saying what I do remember of them was anticlimactic and unrewarding. Solo or in teams, I rarely felt like my lockdowns meant anything against crowds or most AVs, the only times I enjoyed being a controller is using illusion or gravity control, which many might notice feels more direct damage oriented and sort of contrary to the typical controller playstyle. Especially solo, even with a pet, combat feels dragged out on about any difficulty, and I respecially recall frustrating playing redside where Arachnos and some other enemies, have hold resist on lieutenants and minions, which feels like a Jack Emmert balancing method to have extremely discouraging solo experience to encourage teaming (where you just become a mediocore damage dealer). This is sadly natural for any game focused around combat as the objectives tend to always boil down to 'defeat x enemy' not 'mez x enemy for y duration', so I will also add I do not see this as an issue necessarily with this update or even unique to City of Heroes. Where Controllers do, at least hypothetically, excel would be in the same place as stalkers in priority target elimination, namely when that target has an HP threshold power, so specifically Fake Nemesis, Paragon Protectors, Council Ascendants, Master Illusionists, and various ghost enemies. So, if I were to make my own proposal, it'd be one that wouldn't really be easy to implement, but part of rewarding control-focused characters should look into that last example of being able to effectively cancel out things you normally can't easily DPS around. This might mean certain otherwise passive abilities in enemies could be made into something that control powers suppress, an example could be the Ghoul AoE heal on death so you can block their ability to heal their comrades and let damage do what it does best/not set back a solo player. This could even apply to portions of an enemy's survival powers like defense (I mean there's really no reason someone encased in stone should still be able to dodge anyway) and even resistances. On a more extreme end, I've also had a suggestion that being able to stack up a certain duration of control on enemies should qualify for an instant defeat of said enemy. The logic being that in media, and honestly real life, when someone is knocked out in the way control powers do, it tends to be game-over. They're helpless and dragged off with even big heroes like Batman end up susceptible to knock-out gas or fear toxins* and awakened elsewhere in some death trap or another. So similarly, it could be made that enemies of certain ranks are just fully 'defeated' if they're locked down for a certain duration, whether it's from stacking an effect or just overpowering. To give kind of an example in my head: Minions and Underlings are auto-defeated if they are held, confused, or afraid and one of those effects would last for over 30 seconds, and similarly are defeated if they are put under stun or sleep or sleep effects which would last 1 minute on them. And from here, further ranks would need longer durations to be stacked before the game would effectively say "yeah, they're defeated" until maybe EBs but definitely AVs where things work as they do now. So, that's kind of my thoughts and it largely just covers controls since I feel that's probably the biggest issue in my opinion. I can't say how well I explained this but hopefully it provides some insight and ideas. *Purely a tangent, but when three of Batman's biggest enemies (Scarecrow, Joker, Poison Ivy) all make use of inhaled toxins as a mainstay of their arsenal, you'd really think Batman would think to make a gas mask standard part of his costume.

Honestly, as limitations go, I just wish we could have gotten Snakes, but I think Colbalt mentioned they are far from the same thing as a Disc Jockey. (I mean, fair enough. Disc Jockeys seem to just be dudes with their legs replaced with the disc and a hover power). Now what I will say is that I'd love for something like Scirocco's skirt and maybe eyebrows to be made available to players seeing as the dude's unique enough that he could part with those and still be unique.* Also still holding out for an Embiggen particle effect. *Still so annoyed the live devs reused Scirocco's sword model for the Talons of Vengeance. It's like, that sword is supposed to be a VERY specific thing in the game and now just any angry snake lady can have it.

Sorry, I can't hear you over my Titan Weapons brute who has been able to smack people in AoEs since level 1.

Personally, I feel a bigger drag in the mid-20s to late-30s game myself because the arcs tend to be a lot older around that range but they did update Striga among other things, and I’d prefer that solved with zone revamps than whole new ones (albeit that is kind of the same deal. I just think some of the new buildings would look nice in Other zones). That said, I’m kind of relieved they don’t seem to be going so hard in on the coming storm stuff. I also am a bit confounded with some of the rants people are going on about? I mean, if they wanted the game to go a certain way, maybe ask to join the volunteer dev team or at least sign up for closed beta and give your thoughts and critiques. They won’t always be heard (like my pleas for sand and snow base tiles and less enemies with fat Smash/lethal resists) but it’s not sitting on the bleachers and shouting at the teams when you realize it’s a basketball game and not a football game.

Necro'ing my own thread because I thought of a few other power ideas that popped into my head: Controller (and possible Dominator) power change Controller* primary and secondary powers no longer require line of sight. The idea of this is largely just how in media, fighting controller type characters tends to be portrayed as much a fight against the whole environment and a trial to discern the source of the attacks. *I consider also Dominators getting the same benefit, but with the way their secondaries work, the idea of hanging back/hiding behind scenery and targeting through teammates feels a bit antithetical to intended playstyle. If nothing else, because half of a Dom's assault powers are Melee. Though if LoS requirement was dropped even for melee, could lead to funny scenarios where Doms smack someone through a door. Controller and Dominator pet idea: pets buffing/debuffing Just a random idea where I thought about control pets also providing a buff to their summoner during uptime or applying decent debuffs to weaken enemy attack functions. Stuff like Tri-cannon Gatling Gun applies a decently strong AoE -tohit and -recharge debuff through its covering fire Golem grants a straight resistance buff to its summoner Jack Frost boosts a summoner's defense Really, these ideas are ones I know are incredibly dumb/bad, but they popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone.