Sakura Tenshi

I do want to make some kind of snide remark, but there is an interesting point in the OP: The States/Miss Lib and Recluse TFs ARE supposed to be sort of pinnacle difficulty content. Now I know something like this has been suggested for TFs before and it's a bit too resource intensive to make one for all of them (shoot, even FFXIV doesn't do this for all it's dungeons) but what if we made a "Hard mode" for these two which were designed more to account for fully specced out incarnate players?

Honestly, a bit related to farming, but I'd like the EXP curve based on power selection for custom critters to be adjusted. I hate the idea of going through all the effort to make a cool story and cool enemies to fight only to find out if I want players to not be screwed out of EXP, my street-level thug is suddenly gonna have to carry what's supposed to be an SMG that can basically fire twenty different kinds of munitions like some high-tech super military grade gear instead of the Hellion expy they're supposed to be.

I feel like the only ones mechanically viable of those would be pets/control (and that's from personal experience when I made a thugs/mind AV in AE, so NPC modifiers might affect it), everything else seems like it's either going to be a slog to play or extremely difficult to make functional without making them overpowered as possible. Even Pets/Armor which might be a cool idea suffers because MM pets are weak as hell without constant support of a support secondary (or in the case of the example I mentioned: enemy offense being negated via hard controls). This is a bit of a shame since I'd love to otherwise do a staff/nature affinity character (THE ARCHDRUID!) Now, admittedly, this is just thinking about the powersets as they are, it could be viable if the powersets were tweaked a bit, and some might need to be to avoid redundancies with some of the other sets they get paired with, and then there's how their inherent power and modifiers might play out. (melee/support might be more helpful if they had tanker mods for self-defense and self-resistance, making Epic pools and power pools that much more helpful.)

Well, Gaia Redeemer, my Titan Weapons/Will brute, it tends to vary a bit. Sometime's it's like: and then there's days where he'll or then there's just...

I don't see an easy way to fix that, it might be why ancillary and epic powers don't get copied over. as is, I think blasters Dopplegangers probably go nuts, but I haven't seen it myself, so testing would need to be done.

honestly, I'd love for there to be scaleable dopplegangers and such, not sure how easily it would be done with picking up set bonuses, but something like you said: The regular boss versions we have now that just mimic our primary and secondary Elite boss versions who mimic primary, secondary, as well as pool powers including epics and patrons And lastly, AVs who will take on our full abilities (kind of and-then-some given the entire sets seem to be given to them) of primary, secondary, pools, epic pools, Incarnate selections, and even set bonuses (since those are considered powers) That said, the issue I could see is that the AV would get bogged down with the insane number of power choices players get and you'd deal with a version of yourself who not only matches you power for power, but has a few more things you couldn't take due to selection limitations and they have AV statblocks... But dude to AI attack rotation issues they're just spamming the fighting pool on you.

For the weaboo in all of us: O-yoroi Osode: large, square/rectangular shoulder guards (probably about ten to twenty percent large than the ones currently available). These might need to be back pieces actually as in my ideal form, they'd be animated so they rest over the shoulder while out of combat, but in combat, they slide and hang from the back, and to my knowledge back pieces are the only animated costume pieces or things which occupy the back slot. Haori coats over armor and robes: These long coats could probably done as a jacket item with the samurai chestpieces and martial arts robe made into a chest detail to fit under it. Hadate Skirt option: a type of armored skirt worn under the thigh/hip plates. Full Kote sleeves as a jacket option: to compliment the haori (and because haori worn over armor seemed to be sleeveless*) a jacket sleeve which could be the kote which included not only forearm protection as the in-game set shows, but also upper arm protection with smaller metal plates and chain. For the female version of the Kusazuri to not look like a mini-skirt version and actually cover the damn thighs. Nanban armor: The single steel chestpiece brought to the samurai from the Portuguese (thus the name 'nanban gusouku' or 'foreign armor'), the benefit of this one is that because it's basically lifted from 16th century European curaisses at the time, it's conceptually flexible and could just be introduced as a Portuguese armor. Tall half-helmets: as seen in one of the pictures, samurai also sometimes wore tall helmets designed to deflect blows to the top of the head, I believe it's also borrowed from Portuguese design. The tall Cone-head could actually work well as a basic half-helmet option. Another Men-po design: currently, the only options for men-po are the martial arts pack oni-mask and the Samurai set's men-po which is lion-design. Would be nice to have the traditional old-man face with the mustache and maybe even the proper neck protector bib (shikoro). Give men and women proper Hakama-esque pant: Hopefully not much, but for men all I'd want is the Japanese pants with some modeled creases on it, ideally I'd prefer the women's shorts 3 option and extend it down to the ankles (this would apply for the women too Tucked in robes: basically the martial arts robes but with no overhang, so they can look tucked into the pants as they are in some styles. (or in the martial arts robe 2, 4, and 5's case, used as a normal frog fastened Chinese shirt) Samurai Tsubo Suneate options: basically Basically versions of the samurai sandals that are just the sandals without the armored shin guards (and back straps). Coming in two varieties: one with socks and one with bare feet so at last, men and women can have sort of flipflops. I'd honestly go on all day but I think I've suggested City of Samurai enough and will banish myself back to For Honor.

think ubisoft would be cool if for these kinds of powersets we used animations from For Honor? (Well, as long as we make the animations ourselves, the motions can't be copywritten since a bulk of them are taken from old HEMA and EAMA manuscripts and teachings)

relatedly, I'd love it if we could get the kheldian powersets available for enemy NPCs. I'd bring up Arachnos powersets as well.

maybe the vanguard rifle too, assuming it could be rigged up to have the talsorian (they will always be talsorian energy weapons to me! >:| ) bayonet appear.

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?