Sakura Tenshi

I think part of the trick with all this is that masterminds can simultaneously highly invested in their powersets to be functional as an AT while simultaneously not. You basically need five powers from the primary set to be considered functional as an MM, these powers are so quintessential that it's not entirely undue to call anyone who skips a pet (nevermind upgrades) to be called masochistic if not outright insane. But simultaneously tier one pets are so laughably weak as you get into things like Incarnate content you might as well not even bother, ad the only reason tier two pets hold value when they die nearly as quickly is their support functions which often make or break the set more than the tier 3. On top of that, MM pets, even with changes can feel obstructive and obnoxious to other players, frustrating to command because that attack you NEED them to use that should be recharged isn't used, and they put a greater strain on the server than any other archetype. It all really does not feel worth it no matter how hard you try, and those five powers are basically required to make the Archetype function per it's intended purpose. In some ways it's as absurd, if not moreso, than the ability to opt out of assassin's strike on a stalker (feasible because most attacks will give stealth-strike bonus, and programming wise each AS would function differently enough that actually including them in the sets is not unreasonable) on the flipside, three to four powers on an MM primary can be so laughable both in the damage output and their costs that you wonder why the live devs even bothered to put them there to begin with. While I would wager heavily the MM was not intended to be the main source of damage per-my earlier post, I also am certain the developers both here and live never intended for the powers to feel completely worthless. But there does feel like an underlying message shouting "this is a trap choice. do not pick it!" So in my opinion, the mastermind Archetype does need fixes. I have my own ideas but there's at least two whole threads of wishlists already and posts made by more informed players than me. If you asked me though, the starting point would include eliminating the level gap, giving all pets an inherent 30% AoE defense (back on live I watched an MM friend feel pretty useless beyond being a buffbot around Nemesis, and having tried to play an MM once through praetoria and fighting destroyers is just a nightmare.) and a 10-20% increase in HP.

I always thought live devs imagined MMs would be attacking alongside their pets. I mean it's part of why the last two MM sets added actually directly synergized with the set itself (Beast and to a lesser extent demons), heck you could argue Robotics actually synergizes well with it's set as you add to the knockback your battledrones and protector bots and the photon grenade stacking with the latter pets' own so the three of you could collectively stun bosses. The whole "MMs not taking any attacks" was an unintended style of play developed as players realized the DPS contributions an MM could make were insufficient to focusing more on supporting their pets.

it should be noted on a conceptual level, positional defense is your character dodging attacks, environmental is that the attack might connect but slide right off or glance, you can see this in the little popup words that appear above your head. When you avoid an attack with positional defense, you see a small "avoided" above your head, when you avoid damage through environmental, you get a "deflected" notice, this is why Invulnerability has so much environmental defenses: because you see superman sometimes getting hit, but he's so damn sturdy the attack slides off or just cannot even be felt by him. (which makes me seriously wonder why Heightened Senses in Willpower grants environmental defenses instead of positional) Furthermore, I think there's only a few instances where attacks are straight damage type and lack positions: mind control powers being a bit one, but I believe damage patches like Caltrops, Burn, and Talon of Vengeances' Ashfall similarly lack positionals, though I suspect they are not purely autohits.

I'm just gonna repost the content I made for another thread: 1.Broad 'Themed' Powersets Have you ever wanted an AV to provide a challenge just not possible within the scope of TWO measly power picks? Is it too hard to code a third power selection? Well with this choice we can have our enemies and they can kick our asses too! The idea behind this would be to make some new powersets with every power that could be thematically appropriate all lumped into one mega powerset. So a 'Ice themed' Powerset will include a list which comprises of Icy Blast, Icy Assault, Ice Melee (including stalker version), Ice Armor, Cold Domination, Ice Control, and even Storm Summoning (there could be plenty of overlap in these sets allowed), and miscellaneous things only covered in ice-themed epic pools, ice manipulation, icy assault, and possibly even a special version of Spines locked into 'crystalline' customization that deals cold damage. Not all powers would have 'broader themes' that could be tapped into, but you could still, in theory, merge Assault Rifle, Arachnos Soldier, and Mercenaries sets and throw in Aim for good measure. At the end of the day this could promote much stronger or just more interesting enemies in AE. For some examples of of these broad powersets and what would compose them... Ice Themed (As mentioned above could include Ice Blast, Ice Melee (including stalker version), Ice Assault*, ice armor, ice control cold domination, and storm summoning from just existing things) Fiery Themed (Fire Blast, Fiery Melee, Fiery Aura, Thermal Radiation, Fire Control) Psionic/Timelord Themed (Psychic Blast, Psionic Assault, Mind Control, Psychic Melee, Empathy, Leadership pool, Willpower, Super Reflexes, Temporal Manipulation, Time Manipulation) Martial Arts Themed (Martial Arts, Street Justice, Martial Assault, Kinetic Melee, Energy blast, Super Strength, Fighting Pool, Super Reflexes, Willpower) 2. Mastermind Minions as their own AE Mobs Basically let us flood a damn map with robotics drones or mercs, or generic ninjas. Please? (Relatedly: include the Rogue PPD as a selectable mob) 3. Allow us to add Cutscene Captions. I imagine for this you'd just need to add some special optional dialogue boxes and tag them to specific event triggers like finding a certain clue, entering the mission, finishing the mission, X-boss at Y health Percent, and so on. 4. Outdoor maps with express 'start', 'middle', and 'end' spawn points. I know it's theoretically possible, and I'm not asking for exact control over spawn locations (which would be very nice but I get why that could be a pain) 5. Relatedly: new Warwall/Tramless/Lore-free maps Probably the hardest one to pull off, but I'm talking about things like taking the ruined city maps and removing aspects of them being in Paragon like the warwalls and tram tracks, or making removing the golden glow from some of the Croatoa outdoor maps and replacing the entrance with a more generic entry instead of the faerie ring, and lastly just removing warwalls from many outdoor maps in general so they can feel like they're set in places that aren't paragon. 6. 'Generic' EBs/AVs for each faction Another hard one to pull off, but basically going through existing mobs to take some of the existing bosses, maybe giving them a few new powers and upping them to 'elite boss' or 'av' status for a bit of extra challenge without needing to go through and try to make a custom character that often doesn't look a thing like many of the canon gang members.

He plays the /coxg/ server and showed off it’s features by rolling a blaster you could have made on Live outside of the weird Bow customization that is literally one of the old green character creation scales dummies. Seriously, what a weird and annoying choice for a streamer.

I mean, part of the Shining Stars arc is Twin Shot realizing she's wrong and you're out of HER league than you just being within hers. That said, I still don't mind running Twinshot and Graves are somewhat regularly because it's still a bit more interesting than some of the older content than stuff like Jake Montoya or the literal non-arcs handed out by Azuria and the other old origin contacts (which is a hell of a shame because 'origin related storyarcs' was a cool concept). Also does help that my main villain on this server, Bullette Hell, was THAT kind of an idiot.

Bumping this thread a little with more stuff I'd do in a sequel/modern remake of City of Heroes. Completely ripping off My Hero Academia, one of my ideas for Statesman would be that by the start of the hero story he's been slowly weakening from injuries and strain he's built up over his life and a rather nasty one taken in the tutorial's storyline. Statesman would be a recurring contact throughout the levels, not only giving you missions (small arcs usually around 3 missions long, though the missions themselves might be a bit long and be filled with choices) but could also be called for help (similar to how Vincent Ross and Roy Cooling arcs let you call on previous contacts) in some form or another, whether it's calling on his own contacts to help you, some direct intervention (like bonus objectives being automatically handled by him like rescuing rogue police officers trapped in a burning building), or even bribing the player's affection with sweet temp powers. Ultimately it culminates to the secret of Statesman's creeping mortality getting out and the player has to effectively step in, with a little denouement mission sometime later where you rescue/help him with a gang of street thugs who kidnapped someone. And that would basically be what could be called 'The Main Story Questline' for my idea of a revamped Blueside. For players who hate Statesman, he's rewritten as a better person and in a position of humility. Also gets Darth Malgus'd (if you're familiar with SWTOR) so he stops being part of the storyline in post-launch content (along with the content that would not involve him). People who liked him as an idea get a better chance to know him as a person and associate with him more, and he gets a better sendoff than walking into an obvious trap and going "oh, okay, guess I should just give up. *flump!*" A possibility (depending on how I'd end up handling the whole concept, really) would be that your work with Statesman also means he sees you as someone he can entrust the secrets of Incarnate Power to. He can't give the power to you himself, but can give you what he's learned, which, even without Incarnate power being in base game content, would be effective foreshadowing. Unless you've made a bunch of asshole choices and killed innocents over your time working with him or just didn't ignored his storyline, in which case you would get nothing and need to run a separate arc to learn anything. (Because I want to take a bit of the Bioware approach to storytelling in that you can Dun Goof hard and end up missing out on additional content without the use of time travel.)

I think the original Vigilante Arc from The Major could be improved with a few things: DO NOT make us drop off AND retrieve the orders from the Dead Drops, that is completely pointless and makes no sense what-so-ever. Either have us drop them off or pick them up (the latter making much more sense) Make the first mission instead the last, possibly shuffle around other missions, but the one where you take on the shopkeeper using Freakshow feels very vigilante: you're murdering a guy who, while being an unlawful cutthroat, could just be tried and sentenced through conventional judicial systems but instead some unknown group called 'Void Sanction' decided they had no interest in waiting or going through proper channels. If the arc ended on that, especially after fighting Holoman and hearing his accusations it should make you think "oh, shoot, did I just go too far?"

I do agree the dialogue could use some touch up and the level of the arcs (and difficulty, all those Arachnos boss spawns which can include two bosses to a mobs even on x1/+0 can be painful, especially to a controller and only marginally less-so to a Dom) lowered to a base introduction contact. But people could very well powerlevel past that stuff without setting foot in AE: it's called Death from Below Trial, something very popular to run even now, nevermind how easily you can outlevel twinshot or any of the Atlas arcs if you run the DFB more than once which many will. Especially on Live where getting the badges could be tricky because of new players not getting it. As for the 'cool kids' dialogue stuff feeling patronizing, do you consider that City of Heroes was ultimately imagined to be an MMO teens and young adults would play, even if it's done roughly through the filter of middle aged shut-ins like Matt Miller and Jack Emmert? Most of us even during live were a periphery demographic to the game, so yes 'cool kids'. Also, the Twinshot finale is freaking worth it if you ask me. A bit moreso than the Dr. Graves arc (though I feel Doctor Graves was mechanically better done) Pretty sure there's actually a sound option to silence the voice over.

Redside needs more content to make it great again. When heroside got the Kings Row arcs, I don't think Redside got anything, admittedly because a vast majority of Blueside content is far more antiquated and the leaders of the skulls originally were Marrowsnap and Marrow Drinker appearing as dialogue-less bone daddys in the Bonefire arc.

I don't know about completely petless MMs, because that would just be kind of a neutered Defender. But an MM that can instead opt for making one super strong pet does sound awesome.

I kind of want to suggest throwing in DE Quartz or Cairn into this set no matter how stupidly broken it would be. (They grant about +50% to ToHit or Resistance respectively.)

I mean, I don't know if it's necessary, but for Sonic and Forcefield shields, as well as a few other powers, the answer as to how to do it would be to change it from a targeted power to a PBAoE affecting the caster. I know it's not that simple but it seems the most likely fix.

I would kind of want an alt version that's 'shieldless' so we could pair it with katana, claws, and make it a sentinel secondary. Though the problem there is that I think Shield Defense (and some future sets like titan weapons) were expressly balanced around the idea that they couldn't be paired. Imagine Titan Weapons/"Shield" on a scrapper.

Personally, I'd kind of like this if it took a little more from MM Robotics Pets. Okay, really I just want to fire swarm missiles, is that too much to ask?

My own idea for a "city of Heroes 2" wouldn't actually be a sequel so much as a reboot of the current game including changing up the timeline a bit and a bit of lore streamlining. Some key ideas I would have include: Paragon zones are parred down/mashed together into zones now, but they are bigger zones (averaging larger than Independence Port). War Walls would still exist for some (Though there'd be differences between human erected walls, rikti erected walls, and a few raised independent of the war, not to mention personalized touches like the combined Kings Row/IP turning their walls into memorial murals.), and other zones would take heroes and villains out of the Rogue Isles/Paragon with a big example being the Zig being relocated into a large zone set in the New Mexico. (Yes, it's basically stealing a page from Champions Online but I felt it was one of their better ones). Another big example being the Rikti War Zone being split between the Vanguard forward base being at the southernmost tip of Chile and the actual Rikti mothership crash (and their own strongholds) set up in Antarctica. Original Rikti Invasion instead began in October of 1999 instead and concluded in June of 2000 (Basically as a reference to the old New Millennium Doomsday Predictions combined with a reference to War of The Worlds, this is all purely personal preference) More villain groups would circulate around the idea of operating as henchmen (so like Freakshow, a Skyraiders remade as generic paramiliary group, robotic servants, summoned demons and cultists, etc.) to more unique and powerful villains (like, say, Flambeaux.) It's not to say full villain groups would not necessarily return, just that they'd be treated as rarer, global threats (CoT, Rikti, Arachnos, Fifth Column, Nemesis) The Rogue Isles would now have an inter-island highway system going between them, and it would now be possible to swim to most islands in a similar manner of going from peregrine to talos), also Port Oakes and Cap Au would be properly connected together and oriented. However, certain zones would be set up such that trying to swim certain ways (which would geographically set you as fleeing from the rogue isles, like saying east off the coast of Port Oakes or north or east of Nerva) would basically have you suffer from effects similar to the Sonic Fences in Praetoria. Though graphically it would be Arachnos coastal patrols shooting the everloving @#$% out of you to keep you from leaving. Skyway city would instead be a sort of massive central hub zone with roads which could take you to every zone in paragon so it's freeways and highways could behavy like mother@#$%ing freeways and highways. I don't have much for mechanics, but I'd probably take the Incarnate Interface slot and break it into two things that you actually work on throughout your base playthrought to augment your damage with an element and additional effect. The point really being so players can have that cool lightning sword they always wanted. And that's all I have off the top of my head for now.

I sort of doubt it since several lore pets are ultimately canon NPC critters with their own animations and such (key example being robotic drones, IDF support orbs, IDF in general, Praetorian Clockwork, and probably a few others) and wouldn't be compatible with the human frame we're limited to. Though if it was not applicable to all lore pets, I could sort of see a possibility of something like what was done with Phantom Army where the lore pets just copy player immediate appearance.

I mean, I could kind of get behind this but there's a lot of issues beyond just that texture distortion. There's modeling issues too, for example the victorian corsets would likely clip into and sink entirely into male chests. And some male chests are completely topless with nipples out and everything and that won't fly on a female model. Yeah it's a double standard but it's a double standard enforced by laws and such.

okay, like I said, I'm bummed about the nerf too, but I'm really upset now everyone is so focused on it and not all the other cool stuff we got. I mean, hello, CHEMISTRY POWER POOL and COSTUME ASYMMETRY anyone?

Doom and gloom aside, the asymmetric costume pieces allowed me to realize and idea for a 'Clockwork' Hero, though in this case, the idea turned out as an Alternate Universe Clockwork King (or "Lord Clockwork" as he's known there) who's low-level technopathy, electrokinesis, and psychic powers allow him to rapidly assemble robots in the field and battle his Arch-Nemesis, and alternate Penelope Yin. Don't think I'll keep him as a character but the concept felt cool enough to share.

Do not speak to me or my son ever again. Edit: amusing part is, the character of mine pictured is my stone/stone dom: Dadrock.

The Short and Dirty: once the team has gotten down what they'd like with getting the code stable, I think for content they should look at revamping old Hero TFs (mostly Citadel, Synapse, Numina, and Manticore to a lesser extent) and adding new Villain SFs. And so I'd like to hear to open this thread to ideas on how to improve existing TFs/SFs and maybe come up with new Redside ones. The Big, Long, Reasoning: So, the recent NoEXP option nerf got me thinking a bit, and long story short, I think one way people might be a bit cooler about that sort of thing is if Merit Rewards were a bit more plentiful (from which we could buy a lot of our needed IO sets but not all, which is important), which in turn led to my initial idea that perhaps what should be done to help with this is expand the Weekly TF/SF to include a second TF/SF for both sides as well as even a storyarc (done through ouroboros) to help increase flow of Reward merits. The problem I realized with that is that Blueside has 16 Task Forces to draw from without coop stuff like Lady Grey, Imperious, etc. Meanwhile Redside doesn't even have half of that at only 7 Strike Forces unique to redside*. And while I have no doubt the Redside ones are mechanically and narraively superior, it doesn't make up for the fact that if you want to do a TF where you're a villain with friends, you only have seven stories to choose from. But Blueside should not be left out in the cold either, especially since, as mentioned, of those 16 TFs, only 6 or so have a decent narrative and structure and most are extremely repetitive in their design, and in Manticore's case had only the most minimal of updates to it (the end fight), and even some of the ones updated could use a fix (mostly Penelope Yin's because there's no noise tanks, which is a damn shame) *I am also discounting the Ouroboros 'TFs/SFs' as those feel more like precursors to Signature Story Arcs than a proper TF. The actual discussion point: So with that said, how about some ideas for new Strike Forces for redside or even improvements to existing SFs and ideas on how you would like to see existing TFs improved both writing and mechanically. For blueside in general, one thing I'd like to see improved upon with the likes of Citadel, Manticore, Synapse, Moonfire, and Hess is the inclusion of more than one enemy group to break mob monotony and inject a bit more excitement into the story such as what they're doing there. Positron is ultimately a prime example though Numina could be seen as an example of how it can go wrong (why the hell were we even fighting half these guys anyway when we knew only two groups in Paragon would be able to give the spirit of Woodsman trouble?). For example I could see Citadel's TF be improved with the additional pressure of both the Fifth Column and Arachnos getting involved for their own reasons and perhaps by dealing with them they inadvertently help us get closer to solving the case. For Manticore it'd be easy to see them hiring our Freakshow thugs to try to stop the players or 'release' some test subjects of captured devouring earth to fight us, or even have Malta swoop in at one point (being higher than the TF's level range) and force us to make a hasty retreat.

random thought that comes to mind is that if inf inflation is an issue, maybe a nice inf sink could be adding in some of the NPC costume powers to the Pay 2 Win vendor? I mean the halloween vendor has all of the halloween costume, but nothing like the Rikti Mentalist or Mark-VI "Victoria" costumes and I kind of miss mine from Live and don't think there's been an introduced way to get them on this server. Make them 10,000,000 a piece and should give a somewhat decent stave off of economic issues. Can't really say much more since i was kind of a casual farmer and I only just barely had enough to build my second character who wasn't my farmer and kind of hoped to have my staff/nin scrapper turn out equally awesome. So I have some massive biases here, Plus, others note that determined inf gatherers will find a way.

slightly off topic but I'd honestly settle for Bullet Rain to not have a stupid animation that rips off an even dumber movie.

Honestly, even with farming, I'm still generally opposed to arbitrarily ramping difficulty, especially if they aren't going to change EXP values for powers. I want to make custom NPCs at low levels who have the same number of attacks normal NPCs would have at those levels. Instead they end up being valued as giving out as little as 30% the EXP for a level 5 Lt. having one attack. This kind of thing honestly discourages me from trying to make AE arcs knowing if I want my players to get full rewards I can't really afford to stray from pre-made NPCs and and the powers my NPCs get made with will also be highly limited (why doesn't assault rifle have snipe even? There's no traps powerset even though NPCs in-game have been able to make use of it's powers, and the AE devices is gutted)