Sakura Tenshi

could coincide with that idea I had for a submarine map set above. Trick would just be making a zone of water around the sub you're supposed to enter. Oh, and now making an outer shell of said submarine.

Well, usually passing train scenery in any videogame is handled via a looping skybox, the train itself is actually still and occasionally you'll have transition points which after the player makes a certain amount of progress. Falling off could be easily handled via 'instant kill zone' if you went beyond a certain point. Now, in City of, you can fly, but even that could still be managed by making the train's passing scenery include a lot of overhanging objects and off-to-the-side elements that the train 'swiftly passes by', so the implication behind that even for fliers, stray too far from the train carelessly and you're smashing into a tree or metal signage. Not sure it could be done, but staying with the train on the outside could just have fly powers gain a back trail regardless of the direct they're facing to imply you're always putting in an effort to keep up with the train. Edit: I apologize for necroing this thread, but I remember reading this and had a bit of an 'aha!' moment.

this one might not be popular since it would call for an alignment shift but: Pankratos (Defeat: requires defeating all Praetorians either through trial or arcs, all of the Freedom Phalanx, and all of Arachnos' inner circle) - No matter who they are, what world they're from, or what powers they wield, you have proven mightier still, forcing even the strongest beneath your feet.

Amen to that. A soloable incarnate storyline was cool and it resolved an old plot while making use of a sadly underused zone, but I loved the “Creepypasta” feel of old DA and if I had been asked to revamp it I would have probably made it a lower level zone filled with stuff like your police radio getting strange signals, low combat/puzzle centric missions, even hallucination event triggers.

Well, seeing as I’m of like mind with a lot of people here, I’ll post mostly what I know they won’t as an unrepentant weaboo: better Japanese pants for men and women (like, just take the Shorts 3 model women have, make it ankle length: boom! Hakama Haori and Happi coats in Jackets (with samurai armor and martial arts robes as chest details) martial arts robes with no overhang so they can look tucked in Sarashi body wraps for males and females (basically bandage wraps, often around the chest for women, around the waist for men) a normal katana that uses reflective surface mapping on the blade Katana to be visible again Tsoo glowing yakuza tattoos for men mustachioed samurai menpo mask kanabo/Tetsubo club customization for titan weapons (I want to “WAGA SUCHINI ARI!” some black knights) more hairstyles for men, preferrably covering the ears.

If I recall, the reason was a technical issue on live. I think it was something weird like procs on taunt auras hitting the user instead of the targets. Not 100%on the validity though, no source, and that may have been fixed since and they just haven’t gotten to it.

Not as pretty as others but I had some rough ideas for some APPs for Arachnos soldiers so you don't have powers conceptually tied to being a patron's lapdog. Telepathic Mastery: (You've honed the mental training Arachnos taught you to levels they could have foreseen) -Psionic Dart (kind of iffy these days because of Force of Will, also because Mental blast is better and available to Widows and Fortunata, also this is weaker than other PPP attacks, so it might need a damage buff) -Mass Hypnosis alternatively Neuralmotor Override (basically a PBAoE version of Subdual) -Horrify (Mind Control's Terrify, changed to only a mag 2 chance for fear but a decent tohit and recharge debuff, possibly no damage. Alternatively ditch the fear component completely for the debuffs and better damage.) -Empathic Soothing (basically Time Manipulations Temporal Mending, small upfront heal with a DoT) -Confusion (very iffy with this one, but I didn't want to give the psionic nexus pet NPCs have because that seemed too strong.) Technology Mastery (Without Arachnos breathing down your neck, you were free to pick up some new toys) -Sidearm (basically the revolver power with a customizable single pistol model with a longer range and 'high damage') -Caltrops (should work for a tier 2 as it does a lot of what the PPP tier 2s do) -Satchel Charge (Locational AoE pet summon, sort of like trip mine but you detonate it by attacking it, alternatively have a temp power popup tray for detonation) -Insulating Sheathe (+res v. Cold, Fire, Eng, Neg, -Rec, and -End. Passive. I do understand this strays pretty far from other tier 4s) -Call Drone (Thinking basically the minion-tier Robotic Drone lorepet ally. Gun drone might be either too weak and/or step on devices too much) Survival Mastery (You've pushed yourself harder than any other operative before) (This one is gonna get kind of weird I think) -Rushing Strike (Single Target 'teleport to' attack that deals moderate damage, probably use burst of speed animation to look like a lunging punch. Crane kick to look like a lunging side kick) -No idea, maybe Caltrops -Dragon's Tail -Physical Perfection -also no idea. So, as you can see the ideas are pretty sloppy and could be refined, a lot, but those are the rough ideas I have: three APPs for SoAs based on training, tech, and psionics. Anyone got some better ideas? I'd be all for it.

There's a lot of thematic powersets missing for epic pools that Tyrannical and a few others have worked out ideas for. I know I'd also like to see Kheldians get some APPs, possibly a thematic pair that involve dipping into nictus methods or higher kheldian ideas. Similarly I'd like to see Arachnos soldiers get some that are not tied to patrons. As for powers that underwhelm, probably laser beam eyes, if I could 'fix it' my own idea would be to turn it into a snipe power. Stronger, long range, but longer recharge and such. It's not unprecidented for at least scrappers and stalkers to have snipes as Patron pools show, and I can't see why this couldn't extend to tanks and brutes too. In the end though, the suggestion is not rooted in any balancing besides just 'laser beam eyes are normally pretty powerful attacks in comics'.

I mean, personally, if I had written the SSA, I actually would have had Statesman live, just be depowered. Blah blah blah, stuff I've said a million times... Statesman dies holding off swarms of incarnate powered Praetorian invaders with an SMG, hotblood, and the power of God and Anime on his side and found on his feet when dead like Cu Chulainn. That said, if I had been the one in charge of the SSA it might have been a copout with only Miss Liberty dying (then)

Funny thing about that, mythologically, the reason Zeus ate Athena's mother was because Athena was predicted to one day to one day overthrow him. Least as I recall. But no later myths had her try to take over.

Ehhh, not quite. Damage Type-centered Defense is the idea that something hits you and deflects off harmlessly like a stone's hard surface or being invulnerable. Positional defense is based around avoiding attacks. You can actually see this still in game, when you dodge an attack through Damage-Typed defenses, you get a little notice that says "deflected", if you avoid through positional it says "dodged" (or "Avoided" don't quite remember)

I mean, on the note of the car, phone, and computer aesthetics, I kind of always just accepted it as a mix of two things: 1. This game might be played in 2020, but was originally developed back in 2001, prop assets might have been originally designed by a third party developer even earlier or just recycled from something older (remember: flatscreens kind of came into vogue in the latter half of the 2000's and early 2010s) 2. The newest technologies tend to have copyrights on their appearances. So trying to make a modern car (or a closer to early 2000's cellphone) without infringing on copyrights of modern car company just led to us getting automobiles that look like they're from the 70's or 80's. Admittedly, they're meta-reasons and I REALLY wish they had gone through the new car designs they considered for Praetoria in the concept arts, but what can you do? More important stuff to develop. They did seem to get a little better about this as time went on, notice how the police cars seem significantly more modern and actually big enough to fit a person. (So, anyone want to volunteer modeling up new motor vehicles to submit to the devs? Bonus points if preexisting textures are used. I could really use a Camper RV for one of my characters.)

I will always wonder why the devs chose to make Heightened Senses Typed-Defenses instead of Positional since the name and concept implies you're dodgy, not taking blows and they glance off.

Pretty sure SHE'S not supposed to use Excalibur herself, but I'd love to have Ms. Lib 'respec' by managing to draw Excalibur out and become a Titan Weapons scrapper. Crit-Arc of Destruction on the whole SF! >:D As a side note on the "city of sidekicks" thing: I still prefer blueside over redside. I remember my first year playing City of Heroes and not really seeing mention of Statesman outside the game manual and thinking he was just a generic NPC they made up. Let it sink in that you can go a good while without knocking Statesman actually existed before the later tutorial. Compare that to Recluse where no matter how many times you kick his ass and prove yourself better, they still lord the whole 'ARACHNOS IS YOUR MASTER, NOW KNEEL DOWN AND [censored]!'

Does it make it better or worse to point out that they've clearly been corrupted by their fallen gods to such an extent that many aspects of human anatomy that should be there are not? Heck, I bet you take a dual blades character and split them open it'll look more like the inside of a teratoma than an actual person.

In another thread someone’s brought up that an important thing to agree on or at least find out is “what year is it in-universe?” And I wanted to hear from folks what they felt the year was in city of by this point? Some people I know did timeskips even further along than the shutdown. So for their characters, it’s 2030, for others - myself included - treat it as current year. But I think that if we want to continue the greater story, it might actually be best to pick up where we left off; in paragon and the rogue isles it’s still the year 2012, statesman’s death is recent as is the end of the praetorian war, and Gravity Falls started airing back in June. Part of why I feel this way is that it means the “coming storm” has not been twiddling it’s thumbs all these years, it also means that we don’t have to gloss over progress or changes which should have happened, and ultimately let’s the devteam exert a bit of control on the March of time in game. (Also, so many characters would be aged up otherwise). But that’s my thought on the matter and I want to hear yours.

Well, yes that is true too. That said, that last question is an important one. I’d like to find the answers.

and thus, it falls to our new volunteer dev team to try to make sense of it all. Heck a major plotpoint introduced all the way back in issue 12 was Requiem mentioning Cimerora was not his only temporal stronghold, implying he had more throughout history, but that's never brought up. As an aside note, I feel Penelope Yin replacing Sister Psyche in TF terms was okay since Penelope's TF is distinct. Though ironically it does downgrade in one respect by removing the unique Noise Tanks from Psyche's TF.

Yeesh, least they could have done was had positron get an upgrade to get a few rad melee attacks, maybe some 'armor' options and boosted resistances and let him be the tank-fender.

So, I never have done a Lord Recluse Strike Force, and I'm kind of wondering: who did they replace Statesman and Sister Psyche with? Well, obviously Psyche was replaced by Penelope Yin, but, what? The SF is devoid of one of the bigger challenges it could offer?

On the note of "Statesman as the Avatar of a Rapist": Well, okay, technically he unintentionally was if you count mind rape. The Well of Furies is kind of a dick like that but Marcus Cole (nor Recluse) thought that would happen, they were just desperately trying to cure Marcus' Mustard Gas poisoning and sought the Fountain of Zeus. Can you blame a guy for lacking a certain amount of foresight into mystical knowledge and not thinking too clearly as his lungs gradually eroded? Otherwise, funny thing about the 'Incarnate of Zeus' or even the 'Incarnate of any god' aspect about being an Incarnate: the devs once said that how one's powers develope as an incarnate are shaped by mental perception mixed with a bit of coincidence. Statesman as the Incarnate of Zeus because he thought he got his powers from the (apparently erroneously named) Fountain of Zeus and he could shoot a lightning bolt, so he figured "oh, I have the powers of Zeus, I guess?", but today's Incarnate of Zeus' was yesterday's 'Incarnate of Thor' or going back further some proto-indo-European lightning God. If Marcus Cole was Japanese and the locale was in Japan, he might have thought he was the Incarnate of Susanoo (and gotten a kickass theme to go with it) and then we'd be arguing he's a crossdresser and a animal abuser. If Statesman had been Indian, he'd probably think he was the incarnate of Indra. And it goes on. So the truth is: Statesman actually has as much to do with classical Zeus as an electric company naming itself "Zeus Electric", and the only thing he truly becomes an Avatar of is the Well of Furies. Which he did not really want. He just wanted to stock coughing up bits of his lungs.

I like your work, Tyrannical, but mental training might need to be traded out since Stalkers and Scrappers can get Quickness from Super Reflexes which is the same thing, and personally, much as I'd love to have a passive +40% recharge boost, I can only imagine how well that would fly over with whoever is in charge of balancing. Edit: Also, I LOVE the idea of a SCAR mastery which would let melee classes have some legit firearm powers (I mean just because my guy's supposed to specialize in his CQC doesn't mean he's helpless at a range) also, I would suggest maybe Bayonet for the Sentinel Rifle mastery be switched for Pummel since the animation and concept is more universally applicable to assault rifle models. It already bugs me a little that Arachnos soldiers' default weapons include at least two which lack a bayonet (also that one of the models is a shotgun but Arachnos soldiers get no shotgun powers)

going to be honest, if difficulty were to be increased, I'd lean more towards an enemy lethality buff - Primarily in the form of an accuracy boost (while defense focused sets got their base defense raised so it's an intended 'nerf' to people who rely almost entirely on sets to softcap rather than rub a middle finger into the faces of SR, nin, and the like) - because one thing I hate about MMOs and RPGs everywhere is that too many of them make 'damage sponge' a form of difficulty and it gets tiring to see these awesomely powerful attacks we're given just fall flat because the enemy is a giant sack of overbloated HP. That being said, it might be something to keep in mind to give enemies blanket scaling buffs based on team size. Perhaps something like: Enemy scaling begins at 4-man teams or greater (thus, small duos and triplet teams don't suffer and aren't pushed to optimize their makeup.) each teammate added after the third increases spawn HP by 2% per-player (so by a full team, it'd be +10% all around) each teammate added after the third increases spawn Defenses by 3% per-player (So a full team, all enemies have +15% to all) each teammate added after the third increases spawn Accuracy and Damage by 1.5% and 3% (So full teams face enemies with +12.5% accuracy and +15% damage) each teammate added after the third increases spawn Healing, Control, Buff and Debuff strength by 5% and gain .5 mez protection* (so on a full team, all enemies have a +20% control duration, stronger heals, buffs, and debuffs and gain 2 points of mez protection) *I do think the mez protection should only apply to minions and Lts, and possibly only cover a limited range like knockback/knock up, immobilize, and stun which are commonly used by Damage focused classes so Dominators and Controllers are not shut out in the cold. Now, naturally this idea has a lot of issues: numbers would need to be tweaked, not all AVs or EBs should benefit from this (imagine Reichsman benefiting from these full team buffs, or Protean), rewards should be adjusted accordingly, but at the end of the day, this could not only bring difficulty, but encourage big teams again.

Live Devs: Well, we finished the first Incarnate Storyarc of the Praetorian War. We're gonna need to really up the difficulty for the next series! Man, the future of City of Heroes looks brighter than ever! NCsoft: I'm about to end these people's whole careers.

The funniest part is that the devs have later clarified that they basically never intended to overwrite the player characters' origin and stories we had imagined, rather it was just a (sort of badly written) attempt to give some thematic naming and concept behind the incarnate system. I think the genuine worst offender though wasn't even incarnate content itself, but in the origin of powers arcs. All they had to say was "incarnate level science is NOT your character applying a universal mystical force, but your scientist having that breakthrough moment of realizing 'reversing the polarities' CAN work."