Sakura Tenshi

Plus, Mot's given us a mystical incarnate threat, Praetoria is extra-dimensional/tech, so maybe the Battalion should just be good ol' Science and a proper alien invasion?

Honestly, having been playing Final Fantasy XIV a lot, I might not mind level cap increase... If this game was more like FFXIV, the problem is, it's not. In XIV, you do not pick and choose your abilities or build. Every single class is more linear than an late-2000's/early 2010's Call of Duty level because every class has a very very very specific slot to fill in a dungeon, trial, or raid. City of Heroes could take some cues from FFXIV, sure (like ground AoEs that are only dodgeable by physically moving out of the damn way, and even if you don't die from them, you take a stack that massively cuts down on your survivability) but in the end, City of isn't the kind of game that supports increased level caps, even less so without live, active development from a professional studio dev team and certainly not on the spaghetti bungled code this game runs on.

Yeah, it's moments like that that make me kind of glad the game shut down? Because if it hadn't, the story would have apparently just started to jump the damn shark multiple times like some gymnastics centerpoint obstacle.

I know you said: not suggestions, but damn if wouldn’t want these sets: Semi-Auto long ranged rifle (I want to be Simo Hathaway) Shotgunnery (One/two powers in assault rifle aren’t enough and there’s no shotgun customizations) mecha/robotic blast set (basically let players have the powers of robotics mastermind pets and Malta titans)

Complete side note, I think if I were made lead writer or something for a reboot of the City of storyline, I think how i'd handle Statesman is go the All-Might route: in the public's eye, he's still the same iconic hero as ever, but he's secretly slowly getting weaker and a life-time of throwing himself headlong into danger has begun to take it's toll. He lives on borrowed time and only hopes to find a worthy successor in heroes he guides as a recurring contact and generally do as much good as he can for all he can, and maybe realize a hero doesn't need powers, get in a cool last last fight with Recluse or some other major archvillain with the remaining slivers of Incarnate energy he has. Top off his contact stuff with him doing things like giving you temp powers or usually make sure you get backup of some kind to "bribe affection out of the players".

Personally, I thought this was the dumbest idea the live devs could have ever had. Going Rogue content time and time again hammered home that even if you could sympathize with Tyrant, he made even Reichsman look nice by comparison. Dude freaking dropped a nuke on the players (no big deal, honestly) and his own fleeing citizens after how long he spent ranting about how their safety was his priority to get a quick power boost by feeding off their souls. Not to mention all the leadership he surrounded himself with during his reign, and basically, Praetorians started the damn war because Primal Earth which Tyrant knew would have angered his Hamidon. As for me: I don't want Statesman to be brought back into present, but I would like to see him brought back into the Recluse SF because the Freedom Phalanx are literally down one from their old strength and Penelope Yin's NPC-only brand of psionic melee doesn't necessarily make up for it when she replaced sister psyche. So the FP have no tank or heavy hitter and decaying the challenge of the Recluse SF. Plus, it's made clear the Recluse SF is not necessarily present time stuff. Now if we were rebooting the whole storyline/lore of the game, yes, I'd like to see Statesman back, I'd like to see the launch heroes and so forth written by writers who have some God given common sense when they write characters. But that's a massively different story.

it's absolutely f-ing surreal to imagine Katana could be called a toptier set. Yeah, it's got fast animations and good recharge but holy hell, with how heavily resisted lethal it, it feels like I'd be better off spamming brawl sometimes. But then again my perceptions are painted from my experiences on live, I had paired it with /SR (which to my understanding is kind of a weak set to pair katana with) and I lacked resources or knowledge for a strong IO build. (though, you mentioned using SOs)

necro'ing this thread with another dumb thing I'd still want to see in this game: During the magisterium trial, anytime Tyrant using Hammer of Justice, it will be heralded with a cutscene caption of him shouting HERE COMES THE COLE TRAIN!!! Edit: I've seriously wanted to see this since live. along with the masterium trial completion badge being Sic Semper Tyrannus. I still can't believe the live devs passed that chance.

Longbow flier is a maybe? Raider Skiff probably not because pilot is exposed (and yet the Longbow flier is smaller... I suspect they have to be drone controlled.) That said, we actually don't: there's the rocket board, void skiff, and magic carpet which has us stand on a platform in a pose for that kind of stuff. And there's the shadow panther and coyote travel powers which are also form shifts.

Now, time to shove my own unasked for opinion on the future of incarnate powers: To be blunt off the bat, I know Black Scorpion had mentioned what ideas they had planned, but I honestly didn't care of them. That said, my own ideas are probably much worse if only because they'd be harder to implement mechanically, but the two big ones I have are... Genesis - If Hybrid was about your character branching out, Genesis should be an incarnate slot about focusing back in on the core of your AT (see? really difficult because I just proposed about a dozen at least with a need for eventual growth, even assuming some can be rolled together like stalker and scrapper). But to give an idea, scrapper core path would be about either increasing your chances to crit, while radial could be about upping the crit damage, but both also change the critical portion of their damage from a matching type to the powerset, to a special damage bypassing resistances. Something to that effect. Omega - This one I had a much clearer idea on, but also is probably even more elaborate: on it's own, Omega is 'useless', what the omega slot is supposed to be is an augment to previous Incarnate powers, giving you a closer glimpse of the power you felt in the Mender Ramiel memory, with a theme naming would be based on deities. So "Omega-Alpha" slots would be Jehovah (you know, 'the alpha and the omega') and the core path would allow you to reap to double the value of your current alpha slot, while the Radial path would allow you to 'link' up the benefits of another tier-3 or less Alpha enhancement have active effects alongside your existing one, regardless of your choice, the benefits of the Alpha slot now all but ignore ED diminishing returns. The Rama Slot would relate to Judgement (based on the myth of Rama's arrows being described as hitting like a nuclear bomb (eerily before atomic bombs were a known thing)) and the core path would boost the maximum target cap and AoE side of your existing alpha and allow it to no longer need line of sight letting you hit through walls, even enabling some of the benefits of the unchosen branch of your slotted Alpha tree (so core void now also debuffs damage), the radial path though changes your Judgement into a Meteor Shower, over ten seconds in a wide area dropping a series of ethereal meteors that floor lesser foes instantly for massive Smash/Fire/Energy damage and topped off with a single giant meteor crashing into the ground leaving even non-incarnate AVs feeling the pain. Basically, really grandious stuff like that, possibly have it be on a timed toggle like Hybrid.

To be honest, I’m more wondering if anyone’s looked into TVtrope pages. Probably put them under Fan Works with their own pages and probably wait for a few more powers and/or story arcs to come out. but the new electrical power set we’ll be getting will definitely expand the Lightning Can Do Anything.

What if instead of resin mining per-say, each time a tier-1 zombie drops, two or possibly more ‘lesser zombies’ spawn in their stead, giving you some breathing space to resummon the lesser zombies would basically work like gang war minions possessing only a single weak melee and ranged attack and they won’t take direct commands rather only keeping a proximity to you and attacking anything that attacks them or within a limited perception range and will expire on their own after an amount of time even if you do keep them alive (maybe two minutes?). But you could end up with a legitimate zombie horde roving with you.

Necroing this thread because I thought of another big thing: Tying the mission timer to objectives in missions. Not just to entry and completion, but to stuff like starting upon getting an AV to a certain level of health and ending clicking a certain glowing object but not be the final objective. Bonus point if we could even make it so the timer ending does not automatically fail the mission, but rather cause like an ambush or AV to spawn.

Probably my favorite incarnate power is Interface just because as someone who plays a lot of smash/lethal characters it adds a bit of elemental punch and play out having a sword of flames. though interface is honestly something I kind of wish was part of base game and/or separated between damage type and effects so you have more freedom to make a lightning sword or turn martial arts/street justice into Hamon. edit: I have more thoughts but just wanted to get this in before thread lock as this is my biggest thing.

Lore pet versions of all mastermind pets.

I can understand the frustration having been on the receiving end of this many a times myself, not to mention playing Defense based characters who really feel the +ToHit, but this is meant to be a way to afford some difficulty to the Nemesis group, and that part I can't deny. It's a tricky matter to resolve, especially to my own tastes relating to the lore. I guess if I had to give an alternate solution that does not involve revamping the group massively, I'd just make it so only bosses benefited from Vengeance. Conceptually: it can show Nemesis' leadership sense by having the defeat of his officer outrage him (or the warhulk field officer) sending them into a rampage. Even of they are just machines, it's a resource being lost and failing to serve their greater function in the machinations of the Prince of Brass. Mechanically: Nemesis bosses are a little underwhelming outside of size, the fake nemesis can make two attacks (actually even EB and AV nemesis can only do two attacks), so this adds a bit of a layer of threat to them and stacked veng makes it feel like you're suddenly really fighting the real nemesis (another reason why the dude can be hard to pin down). But also helps teams not get completely overwhelmed or stuck waiting because a dozen minions are now AV levels of tough. Another alternative I thought of while writing this is: Vengeance no longer stacks, but the individual buff is now much bigger. So it's a flat-rate jump, enough for it to be felt even in team-scale fights (so maybe like +35% defense, +20% ToHit, and +30% damage?) but the lack of stacking caps it from becoming overwhelming and stalling. As a side note: I remember checking awhile ago, and I don't think Nemesis Veng is comprehensive like the player version, I believe it's typed damage only and does not cover psionics and possibly even negative damage. Lastly, I suppose both of these really do just nerf it and feed the faceroll feel of combat in city. I can understand that slowing down in a team can feel frustrating, but perhaps some roadblocks could be useful to allow certain powers to actually be used as brought up by Leo: devices, traps, long snipes, and assassin strikes are all things that suffered as the game's pacing sped out, and at least two of them had been changed to accommodate even back in the live days. So, my point being? I can't say. People hate the faceroll and others hate having to slow down, and there doesn't seem to be a happy middle ground and I can't say if either one is wrong or right. It feels like just a side effect of City having been a game originally intended for methodical battles, but ended up going towards fast and relentless speeds.

My own thoughts is mostly that high end groups should not rely on a single gimmick to be a challenges. Least that's my view.

honestly, I don't mind Nemesis having Veng, but lorewise it feels strange for two reasons: 1) Nemesis' army is built around a cult of personality, for the human portion of it they wouldn't likely care if a rank and file officer was murdered, it's not like he's Lord Nemesis. 2) an indeterminable part of Nemesis' army is made up of automatons, and while they can seem sophistocated, we commonly see the standard one is massively flawed and only cannot be recognized because the plot forces you to fail to see it, and thus are unlikely capable of even emotional mimicry besides some stilted, prerecording that would sound like a Bioshock Infinite Motorized Patriot. I guess if I were asked to redesign Nemesis Army, I think I'd probably just give different types of Lt's each a different leadership buff aura. (Probably including +recovery, +recharge, and +regen to keep any one from stacking to unbearable levels). Fake Nemesis are the sources of Venge buffs, playing on the idea that each Fake Nemesis is both a representation and mobile monument to their great leader. Nemesis automatons like jaegers and the civilian based ones do not benefit from veng because they're too dumb. Admittedly, there'd be a lot of other changed I'd like to make too but that's really another thread and this goes a bit off topic.

Honestly, I've made an effort to try to distribute my characters more evenly compared to live (one of each archetype, half villains half heroes, discounting a few 'special exceptions' such as my farmer). That said, I think biggest turnoff is a bit of a lack of teaming. Sure, you can find SF groups easily, but as an RPer, just getting together a decent redside team and all for RP running can be tricky. I suppose that's also the bigger issue: as an RPer, doing villain stuff with other villain RPers can be precarious just because of a saying I had about content writing back on live: "There's a few ways to be a hero, because at the end of the day it's just important to stop disaster. But there's a million and one ways to be a villain." So, while some of my villains might be more honorable rogues who try to keep body count at a minimum, so they're not going to enjoy working with people who literally eat souls and make it a habit to feast on every single NPC they come across. On the flipside, a few of my (yet to be rolled) villains are not so compassionate, and they're going to tick off more amicable ne'er-do-wells.

Anytime I play a stalker, hit build up and ready assassin's strike from hide... And miss.

Bullette Hell is basically female Giovanni Potage from Epithet Erased.

basically a lot of the newer costume pieces we have here are ported over from NPC pieces (the live devs denied us) best that could be done. This has kind of led to it's own issues though because when making NPCs, gender parity is the last thing on the mind of the Live Devs. Noteably there's not a single Huge CoT member, so... yeah, out of luck there. And all the fancier pieces stuck with males while female NPCs only got the most basic of stuff in the group. So, similarly, if we could ever get the REAL IDF armors working (you know, the ones with an actual backside), they probably will only be for males since IDF troopers are only males.

Personally, my other concern about mastermind customization is getting the look right and such. Robotics has some pretty big changes like added missile racks, they have attack animations human players don’t really have, and so on. I don’t want to put all the work into custom robots only for their animations to just not work with the upgrades, nevermind a big joy of leveling MM pets is watching their appearances progress with each upgrade (and why demons, zombies, and beasts honestly suck if you ask me) Speaking of beasts and demons: what do for customizing them? They use unique skeletons (actually so do robots) and for beasts, the selection of quadruped models is limited, you’d have to reanimate the powers to not end up with things psychically smacking enemies while stuck in a t-pose edit: at the end of the day, I feel like the only decent way to customize MM pets would just be having some premade options to select from so you can pick from regular street gang thugs, mobster type thugs, and maybe syndicate/agents. This allows for animations and upgrades to line up, and I guess avoid controversy. That said I wouldn’t mind female pets, I do know a number of female mms who would like to run an actual girl posse. additional edit: actually I do see that merits can outweigh the risks. We have female lore pets we can customize to not look ghostly (shoot, seers are pretty damn scandalous without player input: they’re girls who have been mentally abused and locked into sci-fi bondage gear by a woman who insists everyone calls her mommy and dresses... well we’ve seen how she’s dresses) and with phantom army, you can switch costumes then switch back to make them “different” people.

because I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV, so my anime levels are dangerously high and anything monstrous that becomes (even more) super powerful must also become handsome.

No argument there, and the second SSA's first part seemed to hint at the beginnings of it, Penelope Yin was able to talk him down for the most part and you could leave things on a peaceable note. Going into some headcanon stuff, it's been noted the police are soft on the clockwork, likely for the reasons you've mentioned: his schemes are nothing worse than a slightly weird rat infestation in Paragon, plus they do are aware of their own responsibility in things. And I'd wager the only reason the clockwork king hasn't gotten a new body is because he'd lash out and escape from custody to give it to him, combined with a likely complication of pushing such a powerful mind into a whole new body (I think he's canonically second only to Penelope Yin who, herself is the strongest psyker in the lore, which even means someone as powerful as Sister Psyche and Aurora are dwarfed by CK) And right into fanfiction territory, I kind of had this idea a bit ago that it'd be a kind of cool incarnate level content where, in order to stop Penelope Mayhem/save her, Metronome basically reached out to our CK and the CK of the Psychic Clockwork world and basically pulled a Dragonball GT Super Seventeen Saga. They fuse into a singular powerful psychic, powerful enough to basically WILL a new flesh and blood body for themselves and confront Penelope Mayhem.