Completist

The brackets should be bigger on red/blue side, too! Changing it would probably stray too far from 'classic CoH', whatever that is, but I'm all for it. Locking story content after you level up means going to new areas for new contacts, which is irritating when you're playing in a group. The usual vet response here is "just do it in Ouro", but Ouro doesn't have all the content, just the story arcs. In Praetoria that problem is exacerbated, because are prevented from playing with the rest of the player base until you're "done" with the story. And the difficulty is tuned for big teams/high difficulty which, like you said, generates a high amount of XP unless you've got it turned off. I think it would be a reasonable compromise to un-cap only the Praetoria arcs, which would also spread that content over a much higher level range for players who want to stay gold and do it all.

The major issue is the large amount of content in very limited level brackets. If they simply got rid of the level cap on all those arcs, players could play through the story of Praetoria without skipping every possible mob or disabling XP. That would be huge.

Hmm @Rudra and I usually agree but I dee-clare this has struck a chord. First: My experience of petless MM comes from running mercs/traps until around 20. So the story of being exhausted by greens and blues, while true, is from the lower levels where slots are scarce. Once slotted up in the 30s you can confidently take on whites and yellows with those basic attacks and secondaries and only sometimes have to run away to rest. Second: Comparing MM attacks has to temp powers is problematic. Instead compare any of the T3 single target attacks with Arcane Bolt: They're equivalent. And thus: Look. The truth is MMs damage comes from their pets; they don't need strong ranged blasts. And those attacks do have uses: aggroing foes to trigger bodyguard, finishing off stragglers, giving you some buttons to push. Or just the satisfaction of shooting some dudes. But they are weak powers, numerically, especially the ones that don't have additional debuffing/utility effects. If they were better in the first half of the level progression, I don't think anyone would notice and we wouldn't be having this conversation. But lots of people do notice, and many don't bother slotting more than one of them. What would be the harm in making them good?

I think this post is right on the money. Have you ever tried Petless MM? It's pretty "hilarious" running out of stamina trying to kill a group of 3 green enemies. I don't think petless has to be viable, mind you, it just goes to show how meaningless the attacks are. I have never understood why MM attacks are both hugely expensive AND do terrible damage. At most one or the other, come on! I dunno, you give them some boost like, when a pet dies, they do more damage for 15 seconds stacking up to 6 times. Or synergy bonuses with each other like the Fighting Pool has. Like Lost Deep said, roughly, there shouldn't be a half-dozen pool powers you are inclined to take before even considering three of your Primary AT powers.

Also if customizations aren't enough because you want to get away from melee/slashing damage in particular, try Fire Melee (a couple fire sword powers plus a couple more in power customization) and Psionic Melee (psi-blades).

Done right and it wouldn't be too different than how it is now. Boomtown is 11-19 currently. Let's say instead it automatically levels you up to 15 and the spawns could be 14-20. In the south part of the map you'd see easier spawns and in the north part you'd be in danger until you've out levelled the zone. Something like that?

I think the hazard zones represent a great opportunity for experimentation. E.g. Changing Boomtown a little bit wouldn't ruffle many feathers. And if it doesn't work they can undo it. I don't think they need to be co-op, despite being all on the blue side... that is what the rogue alignment is for. But let's say you auto-level every player in Boomtown up (but not down) to level 20: facing those big piles of dudes in the 18-24 range could present a fun alternate way to team up and gain levels. Eventually everyone outlevels it and moves on to something else. (I personally love the idea because it reminds me of the really old days.) Seems like a simple way to revitalize a handful of zones, and get more use out of content currently limited to an incredibly narrow level range, without changing much of anything. Before DFB we used to do sewers; wouldn't it be cool to just hoof your new character over to Perez Park and start killin' skuls on a big team?

I think this is a fun idea, but have the winner become the Quartermaster in Atlas Park, instead of the generic longbow agent that is there normally. That keeps plot-important Ms. Liberty (and other trainers) where they belong but let a superfan be part of the game for a few months. Or practically forever, the next winner gets to be a quartermaster in another zone, and so on.

Why, though? Just because? The Praetorian alignments are for level 1-20 characters. You can still do that Wards content after choosing to become a hero or villain. This is like someone saying "I hate only being level 2 after the tutorial, can we get some more missions so I can get to level 5 in there without having to grind?" It's counter-logical. If it's frustrating, just play the game as intended instead? I get that choosing to stay Praetorian until 50 is a weird challenge (I do the same kind of thing badge collecting at low levels), but adding full support (~15 levels of content) for a teensy minority of stubborn/dedicated players seems, well... kinda silly, let's say. A Praetorian TF at the appropriate level range would speed up progression, encouraging players to skip over all the deeper Praetoria story, i.e., the reason you picked goldside in the first place. Dubious. An endgame TF could be cool, but not if it's limited to Praetorian characters... see my bafflement, above.

I played in the CoH beta and I played on and off for the life of the game. Never a full-time MMO player, or maybe just a short attention span, I would take months-long breaks from the game before coming back to it (while NCSoft happily took my 8 bucks a month or whatever it was). Anyway. Early on I made a self-insertion character of myself. I made a normal guy (Dark/Regen scrapper), in jeans and a T-shirt, named EP, which is what I go by in real life. On one of those long hiatuses the devs instituted a name release feature, so a bunch of the characters I hadn't logged in for a while had to be re-named to other things. Which was mostly no big deal. The name "EP" didn't get taken by anyone, but because they changed the name policy for new heroes requiring at least 3 characters (letters or punctuation) and I was no longer grandfathered in, I still had to change it. It bugged me, because at the time there was a Lore character named M1--does anyone know what happened to that guy? Did they rename him to Blue Steel maybe?--but my character had to run around with the name "EP?" until the end of time.

That would be too good, or more accurately, balancing it would necessitate an unviable damage nerf. Most support options have some built-in self buffing; making a general "buffs apply to the caster too" inherent would give some (like self-healing self-Fortitude empaths) much more potent defense than say, a blaster (to say nothing of corruptors and defenders). Meanwhile powersets without single target ally buffs (e.g. Dark Miasma) would get no benefit at all. You'd have to reinvent the wheel and modify powers ad hoc for every power set. What you really want is a simple Inherent that adds a little survivability--just enough to make up for being forced into melee, without competing with actual Defense sets--and then count on the Support secondaries to manage aggro as much as they currently do. And yeah, /Empathy would be comparatively harder to solo, but that's nothing new. At least you'd do good damage while punching dudes and relying on your Aura heal to stay alive. And they could do great damage! Even top tier (ignoring further AT bonuses like crits) wouldn't necessarily be unbalanced; unlike a typical melee character whose defenses are mostly toggles, this AT would have to pause their attacks to use their secondary powers, making their overall damage lower than a scrapper or blaster but still very potent.

It's a new AT: Who says it has to do poor damage? We can pick whatever melee scaling we want. Try 0.9 or 1.0 and tweak the buff/healing numbers to balance it out. Support + Assault could be cool, but would share roughly 75% of the same powers with a corruptor or defender which makes it harder to justify a whole new AT unless the Inherent was really something. I'd rather repurpose Assault in a Manipulation/Assault AT or Assault/Pets AT.

When flying, the Dreadful Discord effect shoots out in front of you instead of aiming down at your targets. Also, it bugs me that the power notes refer to Damage over Time as "dot" but I assume/hope that will be fixed before everything is baked in. Really neat powerset.

I recently searched the forum archive for new AT ideas and one with both Melee and Support abilities seems to be the most popular suggestion, which tracks with my own desires. So I brainstormed some Inherent abilities that would help define the niche for a Melee/Support (or Support/Melee) archetype. Here they are, presented rough and in no particular order. Which ones sound most interesting? Marshal: Your secondary support powers grant a small amount of +Absorb to affected allies; affected foes gain a moderate debuff to their Damage and -Defense. Medic: Your melee attacks empower your support abilities, increasing their duration for a short duration. The potency of your secondary Heals, Buffs, Debuffs, and Control effects are also increased. Grit: As you lose Health and Endurance, you gain increased +Recovery, Resistance to all Damage as well as Controlling effects. Desperation: If you or an ally is below 50% Health, you gain a huge bonus to +Recharge and all of your powers have a chance to cost 0 Endurance. Keen Edge: You deal Critical Damage to foes with more than 75% Health. Karma: Your attacks grant you 1 stack of Stress and your support abilities grant you 1 stack of Calm. Stacks last for 12 seconds and are refreshed when another is added, to a maximum of 5 stacks of each type. For each stack you have in both Stress and Calm, you gain a moderate bonus to +Regen and +Recovery. At 5 stacks in both Stress and Calm you gain a moderate bonus to Damage as well. Momentum: Every target affected by your powers adds to your Momentum, granting you a small bonus to +Recharge and +Recovery. Single-target abilities provide a much larger bonus. Momentum diminishes over time. (Maximum 7 ally targets and 16 foe targets.) Watchful Eye: Nearby allies gain significant Resistance to controlling effects, which gets stronger as you use your powers, gradually filling your Overwatch meter. When your Overwatch meter is full, you may activate Watchful Eye, depleting the meter over 30 seconds, granting you and your teammates a large buff to Damage and Damage Resistance.

But... why? Do 5 blue bars bother you that much? Or is it that you want to keep XP on, but not level up faster than normal?