Sakura Tenshi

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."

this is apparently the old storm kick.

The only mistakes with the incarnate system were: 1. The devs poorly worded the lore behind it to make it sound like we were all being shoe-horned into a mystical origin instead of origins picked at character creation and imagined our characters' story around 2. Interface should have been broken into two slots: the damage proc and the effect so we can actually get the appropriate effects we want like energy damage and end-drain to make a psudo lightning sword 3. Relatedly: interface feels like something that would have been cooler as part of base gameplay 4. No lore pets based on Mastermind pets so masterminds can feel like they've summoned even more Robots, Mercs, Thugs, Zombies, Ninja, etc. 5. NO WEAPON JUDGEMENT ANIMATIONS (I just want my katana tocatch the lightning then shoot it out in a swing!)

sure there's nothing I missed?

I guess I should also say the floor is open to discussion on this kind of stuff and what you'd like to see. I did try to keep my wishes semi-realistic.

oddly, it wouldn't violate the 'signature costume piece' thing if it were just the antlers. Woodsman's antler's are attached to a helmet.

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.

I may or may not want fiery orange eyes for something with the spectrum body and black colored slime aura to create a filth creature from The Secret World.

And regardless of how impassioned things have gotten, I stand by that we don't need to do away with the Cottage Rule since there's no need to. As I mentioned the Cottage Rule can effectively be seen as "as long as it does not effectively invalidate the IO sets someone has already slotted into the power, anything else can be changed, even the name"* How could we change time bomb? How about we make it into a 'Volatile bomb' which you 'throw' as a ranged locational AoE and then, when hit by any friendly damage source detonates in a massive explosion with a firepatch DoT? Confront? Make it 'Mark Foe' and give it a -Res and -Def component to add to a scrapper's DPS (I feel AoE taunting is a perfectly legit thing for brutes since, even if MMs are theoretically the Redside tanks, brutes actually have aggro management). Detention Field- okay, this one I'm a little stumped on because foe intangible sucks. But to rehash my summary: in theory, the nature of the cottage rule actually means is that you COULD have build up create a small cottage. It just would have to do that in addition to it's +Damage and +toHit buff. *it should also be noted live devs were willing to redo powers in such ways that it would invalidate normal enhancement slotting, such as removing the use for end reduction enhancements on things like Cauterizing Aura or Field Operative.

Honestly, I think the cottage rule isn't a bad rule because there's a lot more leeway in it than people think. I'm going to use Healing Triage from Traps as an example: What the cottage rule says you basically cannot due to Triage would be to remove it's healing aspect (note: just the healing aspect, not if it's regen or a heal) to turn it into something like a damage buff, or a defense/res buff, or anything like that. Up the regen Turn it into a HoT Make it a locational AoE drop Turn it into a following heal pet Add a +recovery. damage, tohit, defense, resistance, or any other number of buffs Also make it into an immobile gun sentry that shoots incoming enemies while healing teammates Basically, as I understand the 'Cottage Rule', the reality is that as long as you keep the core elements (like retain the enhancements/IO sets that can be slotted into it) you can make all kinds of changes. So Build Up could build up a cottage, it just has to do that on top of it's existing function.

You know, I've always felt the intent with the launch MM pets was for all of them to have sort of their own roles. Bots were supposed to be a tanky MM set, Zombies were control/debuff/exotic mechanics, Ninjas should be highest DPS, and Mercs would have been 'the jack of all trades, master of none'. I mean, they don't function like it but that's how I imagine the original intent was. they are good for AV crunching, admittedly, but all their -regen is solely from the assault bot, along with a nice DoT patch to go on top of it, but in the end, that assault bot goes down and you just have to pray the rest of the bots' defenses are high enough and the AV's been smacked with enough tohit and damage debuff from seeker drones. I dunno, I've heard some people come up with effective combos with serum, like using the poison tier9 and possibly sonic resonance.

I wouldn't call 'the live devs are willing to do it' as a greenlight, Mechano. It's pretty clear with as much passion as they pursued for the game in it's final days, they clearly were throwing stuff together in desperation. Need I remind you of the office buildings that got retextured with base assets in the Malta Arc? Especially the 'monastery' that was just hirano and miyuki textures and all the stairs removed.

Wait, I'm thinking of Banished Pantheon Shamans, not Talons.

Didn't stop the live devs from giving it to the Talons and Knives of Vengeance without the belt piece.

Totally random on the note of of uniques to NPCs: I really freaking hate that Talons of Vengeance have copies of scirocco's sword. Bugs me that weapon that's both signature to scirocco and has exspress lore related to what it is... Is apparently standard issue to any ToV snekgurl.

Okay, so I had an idea for a possible difficulty increases, some of which could be mutually exclusive or combined. First one, as i mentioned, is that 'mission objective bosses' that come up in content should have an option to be upgraded into EBs, this one sticks out to me from playing a Citadel TF where we had to defeat a boss. A regular old boss for an objective and I thought to myself "there's no way in hell that was a challenge for an eight-man team even before IOs". The challenge would come from needing to basically make new 'generic' EBs and the coding options. Nevermind if you want to be fancy and give them some special attacks. Still, I think this could be, if nothing else, a way to let soloers have bigger challenges and big teams actually have time to notice a mission boss. Second one that could be tied to this would involve giving standard bosses, EBs, and AVs a +5% accuracy boost (and thus +10% to Incarnate content bosses, etc.) A large part of 'runaway surviability' is how easy it can be to softcap the defenses of many builds, such a change would mean builds would either need to give up other functions like recharge boosts or recovery for more defense or accept a loss of survivability and focus on their other functions. Now, just doing this means that powersets geared towards defense (SR, Nin, Energy, Ice, possibly shield, SoAs can take it dry though.) would need to be boosted so they don't get screwed over, allowing them to basically continue on as somewhat normal, if not laughing much more heartedly laugh at minions and Lieutenants. The second one though is really just a rough idea, I know the 'ease' of city of heroes is a much more complicated situation than just runaway survivability, but it could be considered as one facet of a larger difficulty rise.