JKPhage

I'm just gonna clarify for the record, I don't care about the Double XP. I just think it kind of sucks that Excelsior and Everlasting don't even get the invasions to celebrate. Like, can we at least do that without the XP? I'd quite enjoy being able to use all of my Everlasting native toons to rock some Rikti face in Atlas Plaza for the week, but instead we get nothing at all. That... kinda sucks to be blunt. You're leaving people out of the celebration.

So like... we can't even get the celebratory invasions on the other servers? I get the XP to help balance populations, but it's basically saying "No celebration for you" to those of us playing on Everlasting. 😬

I know this is a *slight* tangent, but I was referred to this topic specifically by a GM on Discord after raising a discussion about it. While you guys are doing this work on Sonic sets, can you please please please look at porting the musical note vfx over to it as a power customization option? Symphonic Control shows that it is 100% compatible with sonic-style attack animations, and it was originally straight sonic attacks used by Talons of Vengeance. People were begging for it all the way back on Live, and I even made a topic suggesting it along with numerous other options a few *years* ago that got plenty of replies and discussion going about it. Recently made a new thread with this and several others that you can read over here to hear my whole schpiel on the subject. While I'm not gonna argue the merits of all of these options here (even though they're all 100% worth the team putting some time into for a huge chunk of player customization options), I'll at least say that while you've already got your hand in this particular cookie jar between the sonic revamp and the release of Symphonic Control, it would make all the sense in the world for this to happen. Doubly so because Sonic Assault was created and released alongside Symphonic Control and not having an option to switch it to a visual style that perfectly matches the two when they're already thematically compatible is just bizarre. Basically, please for the love of all that is holy, port the music effects to all the sonic sets. It's possible. We know it's possible. It would allow things to match well. It would give one of the blandest looking sets a huge facelift. It would allow for a ton of fun character concepts. We asked for it from the moment it existed on Live. Some of us have been asking for it since Homecoming has existed. Please.

So, I brought this suggestion up literally *years* ago and it seemed to be fairly popular, but here we are so long since and it seems that it vanished into the ether. Now we have a beta patch near ready to roll out with Symphonic Control appearing and it has rekindled my desire to see this happen. Proliferating Power VFX to Players What am I talking about? The plethora of awesome new VFX that were created for enemy groups in the twilight years of Live but not made available to players of course! The most obvious example to use here is the musical note effect that was given to Talons of Vengeance Sirens when they used sonic attacks. This effect has now been repurposed to create a new control set from whole cloth in the form of Symphonic Control, complete with color customization. Similarly, when Homecoming went live, one of the most impressive feats they'd worked was to proliferate the new darkness effects from Dark Control back to all the existing Dark-related power sets. Even some Fire powers had a subtly different "flame" option added to them, though not all for some reason. The tools to do this sort of thing and the capability are there, and would open up a plethora of new character concept options via power customization. What sort of effects am I talking about? Well for starters, I (and many others from all the way back to live) were absolutely begging for the aforementioned musical effects to be ported to Sonic sets. Sonic Blast, Sonic Resonance and the new Sonic Assault set could benefit greatly from this, as the effects is very visually dramatic as opposed to the somewhat generic-looking sonic waves we've had since the dawn of the game. Adding this as another option for power customization could also make it much nicer-looking to pair Sonic Assault with Symphonic Control, as well as Sonic Resonance for Controllers. Likewise, Sonic Blasters could benefit from a more "fun" visual effect to make Sonic more enticing to play. There are many other such things that could benefit greatly from having existing VFX ported from enemy groups or other power sets. Fire Sets Hellfire effects from Demon Summoning. The visual effect is very striking and could offer a fun new look for classic Fire Blast/Manipulation/Melee/Armor and even Thermal Radiation. While it meshes well enough as-is, it also means that Thermal Radiation could be made to pair even better visually with Demon Summoning. Magma effects from Igneous Bosses/Magmite Lords. This is a very unique-looking effect that is only used by one in-game creature that some players might never see if they don't venture into certain areas or missions in The Hollows. It gives the appearance of hurling lava/magma at the player. I'm not sure how well this effect would work with Fire Control/Armor, it might actually provide a cool effect, and more options are never bad. This also allows for more thematic customization and pairing with other sets. With Blasters now having access to Seismic Blast/Earth Manipulation which both have lava effects, pairing a fire primary or secondary set with these lava VFX could create a fully lava-themed character, as opposed to someone who has *some* lava powers and other generic fire powers. The same can apply to pretty much every other class with combinations of Earth/Fire armor/melee/blast sets and control/manipulation/assault sets to give players a huge range of options for thematic pairing that looks more cohesive. This even applies to weapon sets that have a magma weapon available, such as Titan Weapons, War Mace, Broadsword and the like. Archery Sets As a disclaimer, I'm not sure if this particular section of suggestions is possible, but given it consists of a similar system of particle effects summoned by activating a power, as well as the fact that enemy factions have copies of player powers that use these effects, I am assuming they could be proliferated. If not, my mistake but I'm still putting it out there. Shadow arrows from Black Knights. This enemy group fires arrows of darkness at players which look visually stunning and stick around in the player for a short time until they fade, much like arrows fired at enemies by players do. This and the next suggestion could provide a much appreciated "mystical" or even "technological" flair to archery characters that are a little lacking at the current time as well as making things a little less tonally dissonant for those that don't want to pair archery blasts with more archery as a secondary/primary. I myself have bemoaned how silly it would be to make a character with Dark Manipulation and Archery because why am I shooting arrows if I literally have power over darkness? With shadow arrows? Suddenly it makes a *lot* more sense to pair the two. This could also apply to Sentinels using Dark Armor. If coloration is possible then this could be paired with other armor or manipulation sets with dark coloration available to make nice thematic visuals, such as a dark force field set and shadow arrows, or dark-colored Energy Aura and Archery for a Sentinel. On the other hand, if you want something less dark... Energy/Crystal Arrows from Spirit Stalkers. These are, conversely, brightly colored energy arrows. Again, if recoloring is available then suddenly there are tons of options. Orange-red coloration for fire energy arrows that pair with fire sets. Color them to match energy armor/manipulation for Sentinels and Blasters to create a character who channels blasts through a weapon. Pair with a similarly colored Vanguard Bow and they create the bow from energy too! There are a ton of options that could pair well here and make it not seem silly to use archery when you have more objectively potent super powers. With these I am not sure if they could as easily be applied to Trick/Tactical Arrow, but it seems that it wouldn't be out of the question if the blast set is doable. If so then one could make a fun energy/shadow archer, or even alternate with attacks using arrows of light, and tricks played using arrows of darkness. Tons of concept potential! Psionic Sets Psionic Melee/Force of Will/Penelope Yin effects. This one in particular is near and dear to my heart and I would *love* to see it happen above all else. Psionic Melee has a few attacks that create an effect around the player's head to represent psionic power which is also used by the Force of Will power pool as well as a matching attack effect for an AOE effect. Said power pool also has two ranged attacks that use a matching power effect. Penelope Yin uses numerous powers with share the same effects but are not available to players. These could be cobbled together to create a new "skin" option for Psionic Blast/Manipulation/Control/Assault (as well as Psionic Mastery for epic pools) that would give them a very fun comic-book look and allow them to match the new Psi Melee set visually. Psionic Control has always been a little mismatched-looking alongside Psi Assault for Dominators and has long been the outlier with effects that just don't look anything like any other psi set. Porting this over to the existing Psi Powers could give control a needed facelift and allow the others to match up with it, as well as matching up with Force of Will if one chooses to take those powers, and even the Psionic Mastery epic pool to allow for a triple Psi Dominator using the fun, comic book themed new effects. Energy Sets This is a little more straightforward, but Arachnos Drone/Mace energy blasts. The Arachnos Drones and Mace blasts from Mace Mastery/VEATS has the somewhat sinister-looking, Kylo Ren's lightsaber-esque VFX that have a lot of character to them. Energy Blast has no alternate visuals as-is, but giving them this option could allow for some more wild-looking visuals for them, or more objectively villainous looks for those who play redside. While I don't hold out too much hope that this would work well for Energy Aura, I do wonder if the VFX could potentially port well to at least Energy Melee to provide a similarly unstable/villainous look to the set that is otherwise just glowy fists. *If* it could port to Energy Aura and not look seizure-inducing or just downright garbage then that would be a fun option to have as well. That's about all I've got to say on this one. Energy sets having a more villainous or unstable option would just be *fun*. Sonic Sets While I already mentioned the musical effects above and porting them to sonic sets, there is another option that could be very fun to port over. Talons of Vengeance Banshee Screams. These particular enemies use a sonic effect that is paired with a shadowy effect to give them a very intimidating "death scream" effect that could be paired nicely with dark-themed sets or other sonic sets that it would work well with. While I don't know that Sonic Resonance would play nicely with this effect, it just might, so it's worth putting out there. Even if not, porting it to Sonic Blast and Sonic Assault would open the door for a character to pair Assault with Dark Control visually for a Banshee-themed character, or Dark Miasma for a Defender/Corruptor for a similar effect. Even Blasters could take advantage of this with Sonic Blast/Darkness Manipulation. Praetorian Police Sets Bear with me, as this is somewhat reverse of the above. Praetorian Police have a hexagonal force field armor effect as well as a similar effect for melee attacks. This, I feel, could be used across multiple potential sets and provides a *ton* of extra character concept options with fun visuals to enjoy. The armor could potentially work nicely for Invulnerability or Energy Aura as alternate effects (and if it's possible to apply it to both, I say give them both the option, because more is always better) and the attack effect could make a nice alt effect for Energy Melee (giving a less glowy and more tech-oriented look to the set), Super Strength, Street Justice and perhaps even Martial Arts. All of these could give tech-related characters some great visual effects to reflect their super tech, and even someone simply wearing a high-tech pair of gauntlets could have fun pummeling bad guys with their force field-enveloped fists. This is a much broader suggestion and puts forward the idea of porting a single set of effects to multiple different themed power sets, but I feel like there really isn't one particular "perfect" match for these effects and that each of the ones mentioned is visually distinct enough via it's animations that having them share an effect would not be detrimental, and allowing for tech-heroes to pummel villains via brute force, reliance on generated energy fields, kung fu or just good old street brawling while shrouded in a force field would be a great thing. ----------------------- All of these suggestions could open up a ton of fun thematic power combinations that can now visually mesh much better with one another, as well giving a much-needed facelift to some older sets that, despite being able to be custom colored, still look a little dated, especially when held up next to more recent sets and power effects. Considering the team has completely constructed new power sets from existing animations and reused visual effects, such as completing Radiation Armor/Melee and Savage Melee from the incomplete versions that existed in the Issue 24 beta, and outright creating Seismic Blast, Earth Manipulation, Electrical Affinity, Plant Manipulation and others, it's apparent that the ability to add custom effects to powers is readily available and possible. I can't speak to the *ease* of such a process, though compared to creating entire new task forces and mission arcs, new enemy groups, and all manner of other things that are done one might assume that repurposing some visual effects to existing powers in the player repertoire would be at least no more difficult if not much easier. I understand the desire for more "actual" content, but this seems like it would be a relatively small task on the grand scale of things compared to cobbling together entirely new power sets, coding their effects, balancing them within the framework of the game, etc. as well as all the similar tasks related to creating new mission content and task forces to undertake, and for that effort it would bring *tons* of new character options to players, at least visually, and perhaps breath new life into existing power sets. I know that I personally have long wanted to play a Mind/Psi Dominator, but I just can't bring myself to do it because I find the Mind Control power effects to be ugly as sin. A port of modern style psionic effects to make it look more appealing, as well as matching option for the Psi Assault set would motivate me to finally dive in and play a character that I've always wanted to. I'm sure there are other players who might feel the same way about certain sets, or that might be motivated to try ones they never had interest in thanks to a cool new option, like someone who never wanted to play an Energy Blaster suddenly deciding that if they can use the Arachnos-style blasts, they might want to give it a go. I feel like this would be a huge net positive that gives the entire player base some new and incredibly fun customization to play around with, reinvigorate older sets without having to do actual balance passes or reworks on them, and give some great ways to pair more sets visually for those with an inclination to RP and trying to justify power combinations. While I say this with the knowledge that this wouldn't necessarily be *easy*, it also seems that it's not particularly *difficult* either, if entire new power sets can be created using repurposed VFX, as has been done numerous times, and the ability to grant alternate power effects to existing powers has been shown via changes to Dark sets, Fire sets and Energy Aura. With that in mind, this seems like a project that could be undertaken relatively easily and dropped as a huge chunk of new options all at once as a sort of "power customization extravaganza" that would make players very happy and excited to try out new looks, power combos and concepts, all for what is (with full knowledge that this is a vast oversimplification) mostly a cut and paste job within the graphical side of things. I know I'm not the only one wanting these things, so sound off if you think this would be a great update that the team should look into! On top of that, I've only suggested what I personally have seen, noted and desired for a *very* long time. I may have forgotten about certain power effects used by enemy groups that could port to players easily, so feel free to throw in any suggestions you can think of. Don't Fir Bolg have fire blasts that are skinned to basically hurl pumpkins? Maybe the Rikti blaster fire could be ported to Energy blast as well? Anything Vanguard uses that could add some nice flair to an existing set? Perhaps the Incarnate-level Banished Pantheon have some unique blast effects that could be used? Let me know if I'm not thinking of something cool that could make a great player option, and drop some suggestions for how certain power effects could be used to combo nicely with another set that would otherwise be kind of visually disparate! Let's get some traction behind this and see if we can make it a reality!

Slightly off-center, and not a recent occurrence, but back when Gurren Lagan first aired, I waited for it to finish and then watched the whole thing straight through. I was so absolutely hyped off of how badass it was that I immediately said "I've got to log on to City of Heroes and make a Drill Scrapper!" it took me until I was logged in and looking at the power list to remember that there was no such thing as Drill Melee. That show was so awesome it just put it in my head that drills as a weapon are just that commonplace and that of course there was one in COH. I still chuckle about that to this day.

edit - accidental double post. Sorry!

To be fair, the devs themselves stated that Superman would be considered a Natural origin, as his natural Kryptonian physiology affords him his abilities. Aliens with inherent racial "super powers" are still natural origin, even if that means breathing fire or manipulating gravity. That said, if we're talking strictly humans, then yeah, Street Justice and Willpower are the kind of quintessential street fighter combo. On the other hand, who says that Super Reflexes has to be particularly "super"? It's a defense based set that lets you dodge out of the way of damage, but if you get hit it still hurts like a bitch. That seems very natural origin to me. You could also use Invulnerability and just pass it off as being particularly tough, because let's be real, Willpower affords some damage resistance as well. Then you can move on to weapon-based sets, like Dual Blades, Katana, Broadsword, Mace and even Titan Weapons really. The latter isn't particularly *practical*, but it could still be pulled off. Range-wise you've also got Archery and Dual Pistols, with Martial Mastery and Trick Arrow as workable secondaries. Assault Rifle and Beam Rifle could also work technically, though these and Trick Arrow veer a little into "technology", but at the end of the day, that's a bit of a mixed bag. Really, the origins are a bit muddy and a little too restrictive when you really think about it. What would you classify an Alchemist as? Technically they're using science, but it's ooky-spooky science that uses arcane symbols and tries to transform something into something else using archaic methods, so maybe it's magic too? Does someone walking around in tactical gear using a bow and arrow with a bunch of weird gadget arrows really count as "technology" when the only real tech they're using is gimmicky shooty sticks? Seems like a natural origin to me, but the argument could be made for tech. There are instances in game of humans with psychic abilities being referred to as natural origin, as just a sort of given that all humans in super hero settings probably have some latent level of psychic capacity, and some are really good with it, but others are referred to as Mutants. Hell, back when Psyche was around she was used as the Mutant contact of the Origin of Power arc, and even she said she was a little on the fence about being labeled a mutant, because she doesn't consider herself one, nor other psychics. And what about mutants that use technology to enhance or augment their powers? Obviously they have mutant abilities, but they also require tech to be at hero level, so are they technically Tech origin because they require it, or Mutant because their mutation is needed for the tech to be viable? In the end, you could make a strong case for most anything to be a "natural" power set, especially with the lore surrounding the Well and how it's connected to the entire human race, so while it's "mystical" in origin, it's technically a natural part of existence in the City of Heroes universe and every race has one, so really someone suddenly being able to shoot lightning out of their fingers is kind of a natural occurrence. If you're looking at stuff that could stick for Warriors, then obviously the weapon power sets, street justice, super strength and Willpower, Reflexes and Invuln I think would be thematically appropriate. If we're trying to branch into a new subset that uses mystical artifacts/enchanted weapons to keep their edge in the new status quo, I'd give them a few enchanted weapons with elemental damage, maybe a few who could summon enchanted swords/staves like the Animus Arcana, and throw in staff fighting for a few of them as well, since no enemy groups use that as yet, and it would be the most appropriate place to stick a new melee weapon set onto an enemy group. It's easy enough to dip into a little mystical shit here and there for the sake of adding flavor. Even canon Warriors at high-level have some magical artifacts that enhance them so that starting to trickle down to the rank and file wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

I believe the live devs explained this way back in the day, but it bears repeating. Older villain groups do not have "costume pieces". They are singular models that were built with everything baked-in. Those are not a pair of boots, they are the legs of a model. That bandeau *is* their chest. The mask? Their face. To give Desdemona and Praetorian Vanessa the same mask they very likely had to have someone take the model and cut it off of her face to create a separate geometry piece, and on both, which use modern models, said mask is noticeably small and kind of out of place looking, because it was made specifically for the head shape of Vanessa's original model. To cut up the model and create a player-usable boot or chest piece would require crazy amounts of work and probably not look nearly as good as you might think it would. Same goes for Vahzilok, Hellions, Skulls (though you'll notice that most of the Skulls got a makeover in i24 with player-available pieces due to them being a focal point of a new arc, possibly signaling that they might be up for an Incarnate boost in the near future, possibly connected to Mot?), and the old COT. As soon as they gave the COT a makeover, they were able to offer those pieces to the players, and the PPD, Imperial Defense Force, Clockwork, Resistance and Carnival of Light/War/Vengeance had pieces made available to players pretty much from the get-go because they were build using the character creator. I have an inkling that the devs intended to go back and makeover a lot of the low level groups, much like they made over Atlas, to ensure that the low level/new player experience looked more modern, and hence allow players to use enemy costume pieces and such. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Carnival of Shadows was high on the list to get a makeover as well, with some plotline involving refugees from the Carnival of War/Vengeance or maybe even a few from Light deciding to join their ranks and bolster their power, leading to a fancy new look for them, and some swanky new costume pieces for us. A "Neo Carnival" mask for Shadows that emulates the Praetorian masks but has it's own sinister look to it would be an easy addition to them, and maybe a few new pieces here and there to reflect the more chaotic nature would have been a cool thing. Likewise, I'd have loved to see a makeover for the Strong Men that gave us a useable bucket helmet for players. As it stands, it's not a simple matter of just "giving us" the pieces, as the "pieces" don't exist. They'd have to surgically disassemble the character models, find a way to make these geometry pieces fit onto player models and scale properly, then figure out how coloration would work, if at all, considering they're rainbow colored to start with. They'd probably have to make them baked-in colors with no color selection affecting it, like multiple other color-locked pieces. It would be quite an undertaking, and if they planned to do it for one group, they'd probably have to do it for pretty much all low-level groups or be bombarded with endless requests for "You did it for X, please do it for Y!" If anything, I think the better approach would be to undertake a makeover of the group, maybe create a few new costume bits that are new to them and make them look unique, then give us most of them so they can still have a few bits and bobs that players don't get to keep them looking distinct, and suddenly we have a great new look for a launch-era group and some spiffy new duds to match them.

While I also think this would be really cool, I don't think it would be feasible. For several of the psi blade animations they'd have to create new particle/visual FX to attach to it as they're "chopping" animations, and the only psi "hand" effect we have is a fist. I suppose it *could* be animated as a fist smashing down/sideways, but it would look odd next to the open-hand animation. Likewise, the fist animations are very distinctly "punchy", with a forward fist animation and an uppercut animation. There's really no way I can visualize that would look good using a psi blade for those. Of course, they could always swap in alternate animations from other power sets (if the current devs are capable of this, which I guess they are?) that might need to be slowed down/sped up to match. Might be plausible to use a Titan Weapon animation with a psi blade for the uppercut and maybe a dual blade or assassin strike animation for the quick jab. I certainly wouldn't mind making my Psi/Will Brute use all blade attacks for consistency. I'm just not sure how well the fists would work as I don't know if they're capable of adding new VFX at this point, and then they'd have to find a way to make something that matches the existing fist closely. Either way, that one seems a little more "labor intensive" than simply changing the particle effects on a sword attack to a flaming fist without having to change the animation itself. The punches > sword attack versions seem like they might be a little more finnicky as well. Honestly, as long as we could get a version sans swords, I'd be happy to wait on an all-swords version until later, just so I could finally make a fire mutant that doesn't feel the need to do stupid flashy things like make scimitars out of fire.

I personally have a PPD character with red and blue glowing costume bits up and down both sides thanks to asymmetrical bits already. If I was able to give him combat aura glowing fists to match and give Energy Melee one of the "near invisible" colorations, I'd be thrilled to have a "WEEWOO POLICE!" melee character that I've always dreamed of having. The only way it could be better is if they stuck a police drone into the back slot so I could have yet another police-y detail.

No, I don't. You know who that makes you? Nobody that important. Also, I'm not even getting into this over the whole "gender politics" issue. Your first reply gave two very good examples of women using this same kind of mannerism then just saying "Nope, not a good idea." which is not only counterintuitive but self-contradictory. Then someone posted an example that shows and says "Yeah, this works just fine on the other gender rigs." and you proceeded to reply with "It's obviously near impossible, as you've just demonstrated!" as if you didn't pay attention to the blatant visual evidence that it works perfectly fine. You literally took an example that it works, in support of the suggestion, and claimed that it demonstrates that it doesn't work. Your entire contribution to the discussion has been contradictory and/or tried to turn valid examples of why it works just fine and is perfectly reasonable into examples that is somehow is not, even though said examples were clearly supportive of the point. Whoever you are, the fact that you don't see this is laughable to me. The fact that you've phrased things in a borderline insulting and dismissive way says to me that you don't support it due to some bigoted mindset ("Supes sitting like Alice at a tea") and that's the air you're giving off. If you don't feel that way then you need to learn how to adjust your language so you don't project that image. At this point, however, you come across as not wanting this to happen because of some sort of prejudice and have portrayed yourself as hateful and dismissive of other people, with a bad attitude to top it off. That's all I'm going to say on the matter, because I don't care to converse with people like you.

The problem you'd run into there is that they'd likely have to be programmed to use the same mechanics as said raids, so if you needed to hunt a Boss level mob, but were the only person in the zone, you won't find anything but minions. Likewise, if you're trying to solo around the area but two full teams roll in to street sweep, you're suddenly going to have to contend with huge spawns popping up wherever you are, spawning ludicrous amounts of minions, along with multiple lieutenants and bosses, which will make the experience very difficult for you. It would basically make the game impossible to play solo for any considerable length of time, and kind of cramp the style of the whole game, which has always thrived on "Play how you want" mentality, from soloing to teaming to picking whatever powers/archetype you want and still being able to progress. At the same time, it also makes badge hunting more challenging than it can already be by making every zone match your level. We all know that you street sweep in Perez for the Skulls badges to get massive amounts of minions and guaranteed boss spawns, not to mention Clockwork Princes for Gears, Embalmed Cadavers, COT Mages and Hordelings and Hellions bosses. If everything matched my level at 50? There's not a thing in the world that would make me venture into that forest maze ever again until the end of the universe. If it could be implemented without the associate raid mechanics it would make things a little less complicated, but still throw a monkey wrench in pretty much the entire progression of the game.

That's a surefire way for me to not want to go anywhere near Atlas Park for four months out of the year. As I pointed out earlier, Atlas is the central hub of the game, whether we openly admit it or not, and having it in a permanently snowy state (particle effect or no) for four months out of the year, and a Halloween/Fall version for another two means that for half the damn year we don't get to see the place in the default state meant for everyday play. I *despise* maps with ice because the slippery physics are annoying as hell, and they are currently all over Atlas. The Fall version was less obtrusive because it was just dead trees and crap on the ground, and Halloween I can deal with because it's spooky season and we have spooky shit going on everywhere, but these are big year-end holidays. They all happen in the last three months of the year and give us something different and exciting to look forward to. If Atlas is in a constant state of flux then I start to question why *every* zone isn't covered in snow/dead trees/whatever special thing is going on this month. It also means that it stops feeling special because every month something different is going on, or we get tired of the "special" snowy conditions because they're taking up half the damn year. No, I say be done with it in January, and just leave Atlas as-is, default state, no special crap going on, just Atlas. There's being fun and there's going overboard. Just because we *can* doesn't mean we *should*. As I proposed previously, stick the seasonal variants in an Echo zone and let people visit them if they want to. Feel free to put all the same mission contacts/phasing/whatever in them so people can run around in them doing what they feel like doing, use them for RP or just a change of scenery that can be accessed year round for those that want to be a bit more "Wintery". Gives the option to throw player events in a special themed environment if someone wants to have a spooky costume contest in Halloween Atlas, or throw an ice skating RP party on frozen Prometheus Pond. Keeping special versions of Atlas for more than these year end events is obtrusive and annoying.

Glad to hear it. I'll be thrilled to finally make myself a Fire character if I don't have to use those stupid swords. Likewise, I might actually enjoy making a hero that exclusively uses an Ice Sword for funsies.

Again, you're incorrect here. Other than it looking ever so slightly wonky on Huge, it looks perfectly serviceable on male models. It is nothing *near* an impossibility, and, in fact, is very very easy, given that the devs don't have to rewrite the code from the ground up to put additional emotes in the list available to players. If it's a simple matter to do so then I see no issue whatsoever with spending a few minutes to add these options to all toons, which would not take away in the slightest from the "considerable number of game issues" you mention. I'm not going to resort to personal attacks here, but I am going to say that from your viewpoints here I don't feel like you really have any place weighing in on this matter, and I personally find your point of view distasteful.

Oh, I'm aware, but I'm not not a fan of the snow effect regardless. It's extra screen noise that just motivates me to not be in Atlas anymore than I need to for the time being. The frozen Atlas was indeed on live during the Winter event, but by the same token, on Live the Halloween event didn't run for the entire month, more like two and a half weeks or so, so the eternal night didn't seem to drag on *forever* as it does on HC, things were right back to normal afterwards, with no fall trees or leaves on the ground, and then the Winter Events ran for a similar length of time, so it didn't go on an entire month. As-is, Atlas has been in some sort of "special state" for a full quarter of the year, and I'd rather not make it a third. Three out of twelve months having the hub zone of the entire blue-side game (and let's be honest here, the *majority* of the game) in a seasonal state is more than enough. I'm ready to have unfrozen, leafy green, normal day/night cycle Atlas back and keep it that way for the next nine months until it's time for the big year-end holidays again. We don't need to have it redone for everything. If we keep up that trend then we might never see "vanilla" Atlas again. Particle effect or no, I want frozen Atlas gone once the Winter Event is over. Change is only appreciable when there's a norm to change from. Seeing it in such a fun state is fun precisely because it's not what we usually see. If it's frozen 2-3 months of the year then it starts to be just another same-old, same-old, and the less zones that have large low-friction zones in open areas, the happier I'll be. Sliding on ice is fun for some, but I could do without it in large areas that I need to traverse for some low-level characters. I'll be glad when I can dive into Prometheus Pond again instead of fight with slippery physics to get to the Hellion cave on a lowbie mission run and see the whole place green and full of life. This year has been bleak enough, and I'm ready for Atlas to be vibrant and fully alive again, with full daylight, no dead trees and no snow.

Like the idea, but from what I understand of the inner workings of the game (which is not by any means extensive, mind you), I don't think it's that simple. To add scales for each individual part of the costume creator would require an extensive overhaul of the actual customization screen itself, and with certain pieces it could lead to awkward/bizarre animation issues. Say you wanted a glove to be bigger on one hand, and not the other. If you cranked it too much, then depending how the animation "anchors" when you execute an attack, you might have a blaster firing an attack from his normal hand on one side, and originating in the middle of his arm on the other, or launching fire from the palm of their big hand and several inches in front of their normal hand. Otherwise I believe the pieces themselves are sort of "baked in", so to speak. You set the general body scale, and the items scale with it. If you set a particular shoulder pad then adjust your character scales, it sizes with it to a certain set of dimensions relative to the character themselves. Changing that would require changing how basically the whole costume system works. On the other hand, it might be possible to simply "clone" said pieces a couple of times to offer a small/medium/large options perhaps? It would almost have to be done as a "choose piece from the dropdown menu" style then have a second dropdown beneath it to select from the sizes as many options already have for patterns/different versions/etc. With that in mind, however, it would take a lot of doing to implement as someone on the dev team would have to sit down, go through every possible costume piece and see if it can be scaled bigger or smaller without drastically affecting every animation in the game, choosing what qualifies as "small" or "large" in relation to the norm without making it look hideous or deformed, find some way to normalize things across potential mismatched gloves to prevent the aforementioned weird power origin points issue, then actually create those duplicate items and set up the list so that when you select, say a shoulder kitten, you get the drop down with the attached "small" and "large" versions and so on for each piece. There are some shoulder pieces that also feature things like straps around the arms which are part of the same object and thus wouldn't be able to scale, as they'd then have floating bands hovering around your character's arms. Some gloves/boots wouldn't be scalable either due to causing bizarre geometry problems, like high boots/carnival boots. Also, where do we draw the line? Do we extend this to helmets? Helmet details? Facial details? What about horns? Antennae? The team would have to go over every single separate geometry item to see if it scales well, decide what scales to offer, add them as options, and alter the costume creator to accommodate this, and every bit of work that goes along with it. Pretty much every piece in the game would have to be applied, run through every single animation/emote in the game to ensure it doesn't cause hideous clipping or deformity, then combined with other scaled costume pieces to see much the same. Don't get me wrong, as I said, I like the idea, but it would be a *lot* of work for the dev team, and likely have some heavy restrictions on what can and can't be scaled to avoid wonky animations and heads impaled by shoulderpads, as well as likely not giving every piece that you might want an option to be scaled. It's one of those things that the Live devs would have probably told us "We'd love to do it, but we just can't justify the man power it would take to make it happen when we could be giving you *new* costume pieces and other new content that requires that labor." I certainly wouldn't mind if it came to be, but I'm also not going to hold my breath on seeing it happen anytime soon. If it does happen eventually, awesome. If it doesn't, I'm not exactly going to be torn up over it.

The winter event is always cute with snow on the ground and such, but with the addition of the snow feature this year... I'm a little annoyed by it. That effect persists into the costume customization screen if you decide to make an adjustment to your newly picked pool powers or inherent stuff at Ms. Liberty, which can in turn make it a little difficult to discern what those colors will look like out of the customize screen, not to mention just being annoying screen noise. The frozen Atlas is all well and good as well, but I'm not particularly jazzed about it being like this past the end of December. We already had eternal night and a giant pumpkin in Atlas for the whole of October, and dead trees with piles of leaves on the ground (which looked more like there was litter everywhere if I'm being frank), and I'm kind of looking forward to getting back to vanilla Atlas as soon as possible. No special Atlas globe, no altered day/night cycle, no environmental differences, just plain old Atlas as it is supposed to be most of the time. Three months out of the year having an altered/holiday version is enough, especially when they're back to back. Just let us have our normal Atlas for the rest of the year and leave well enough alone. If people really want to play around with seasonal versions, maybe the devs can make clone zones with seasonal changes toggled on to be accessible through Null or the Ouro echo transporters? I don't know about other servers offering such customization at the moment, but back when things were still new on this particular scene, I was following some of the developments on reddit, and one particular developer who was working on this kind of system didn't require you to sacrifice *your* costume slots. They had an option that would let you toggle between your own costume slots and a second set, which would correspond to MM pets, so your first slot was your first low-level pet, fourth slot was your first mid-level pet, and sixth slot was your high-level pet. One could simply clone their first costume across said slots to have a "clone creator" character, or make each one look unique. If such a system were implemented then it would be very easy to have your full ten costume slots and let you choose your pets looks. Hell, depending how in-depth the system is, perhaps it would even allow for the 7th and 8th slot to change your Lore Pets even as a non-MM? I know I'd be more than happy to create some custom sidekicks for my characters. That said, I don't remember if they ever publicly addressed the rub that might be robots/demons/beasts. Robots have a special set of animations and a different skeleton if I remember correct, one that is shared by PPD robots, Longbow Cataphracts and Vanguard Heavies and their assorted smaller/larger counterparts with slight differences. I'd be kind of thrilled if they found a way to give us a set of MM costume slots like mentioned above and have a drop-down at the top sort of like the VEAT "helmet/no helmet" option or "special tops" option on regular toons that would let us select from a drop down menu of the various robot drones sharing said skeleton so we could perhaps make a Vanguard operative utilizing drones and heavies to match their costume, or a PPD officer directing a squad of semi-autonomous drones, or even a Longbow agent who perhaps has technomancer powers and fights through robotic enforcers. A similar option could perhaps be offered for beasts to let us choose spirit beasts or Lion/Liger models for the pets. I mean, we also have the dog pet, black wolf and coyote models that could be plugged in and presumably function on the same rig too. I know I certainly wouldn't mind having a pair of Lion/Lioness pets, or swapping them into Spirit Stalkers, or just changing them all into wolves/lions/panthers/etc. The wolf model at the very least is also shown to be color tintable under the Dark Control set, so being able to have a wolf pack that are all different colors, be they natural or unnatural, would be a cool concept, and someone who wanted to use a bunch of mystical spirit animals could easily have a few panthers/stalkers/woden to go for a shaman kinda vibe. Demons... well I'm not sure anything else runs on the same model/skeleton rig as they do. The demons and Robots at least could probably be fudged with human rigs to let us make our own custom pets though. I wouldn't mind being able to make a whole bunch of clockwork minions for a Praetorian robotics MM, or a bunch of junk robots for a scrapyard genius kind of character. Likewise, being able to make a bunch of vicious sub-humanoid monsters that hurl fire/ice/hellfire, roar and viciously slash at enemies with claws could be really cool too. Either way, that's the last I saw of the idea in practice and that was some time ago. I'm sure it could possibly be implemented on HC given the effort, but something like that would probably require a lot of work and probably be the main focus of a "page". I'm fine with that if it means being able to *finally* customize MM pets, and my thugs MM I'm sitting on would be thrilled to be able to theme his henchmen to his particular flavor. Obviously this is my big want out of the lot of things listed, so I say go for it if any of the dev team are looking this over. If our next update is literally nothing but MM customization, the entire community will be thrilled I'm sure, and you'll see a boom of MM's suddenly.

I agree that this can be annoying. This I do not agree with. Moving the spawn point is fine, but into the reflecting pool means an annoying area that you spawn into and have to jump out of every time, and to one of the islands means that if you don't have fly or a jump/jetpack (which some people may not) you have to leap from said island, fall all the way to the ocean below, be teleported into the pool, *then* jump out, which is even more obtuse and annoying. Even if one had a method of jumping/flying from the island, you'd be spawning well away from literally *everything* in the zone. Spawning into the pool would also mean that one of the pretty scene dressings of the zone that makes it nice to look at would basically be permanently occupied by six or seven people and their respecting hoard of mastermind pets, kind of ruining the ambience. If one must move the spawn point, I'd suggest moving it simply up and to the right or left, so you spawn at the foot of the stairs but not crowding The Pilgrim as he's a story arc contact that introduces new people to the whole Ouroboros concept, though now when you zone in you are centered with the rest of the zone, which provides a really cool line of site when entering, past the Pilgrim, across the pool and into the giant pillar inside the hub building. The only other reasonable spot I can think to zone people in would be at the back of the zone near the echo portal and recovery teleporters, but then when you zone in you'll be looking at a blank wall and a row of recovery beacons. If we must move the spawn point, perhaps we could simply move it *behind* the entry/exit portal? As we spawn basically out of it into the space in front of it, this makes it a little tricky to click on if people zone in and AFK, crowding it. If the spawn point was moved to *behind* the portal, there is still plenty of free ground space left there for AFK'ers to be dumped and out of the way for those of us just trying to get in/out of the zone. All that said though, the latest issue *did* add a new command line to interact with objects in front of you, such as doors, glowies and NPCs, so if the issue is you being able to click on the portal to leave because of a flush of immobile PCs, this command should work if you simply approach the portal and use it. I've personally never had an issue clicking on the portal myself, even with a significant crowd, but if you seem to run into it frequently, then that's an easy solution that you can bind to a key and use for *everything* from approaching a door to activating a glowie to talking to your contact. As it stands I don't think this is a change that's needed, because other than sometimes causing a large crowd of people in a small zone that doesn't really impede access to the portal, there's really no harm in how things are now. It just might be a bit unsightly.

I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring on this one and say that you are incorrect here. Provided that the animation would line up correctly across male/female/huge skeletons (because they do have different geometry and some limbs/intersections might look more mangled/distorted than intended for certain poses) there is precisely zero reason that these *shouldn't* be made accessible to all characters. I'm not saying to overwrite the existing ones, but if we each have say 5 sit emotes, 5 male/5 female, then simple add five additional sit emotes called something like "sitswap", "sitopposite" or "sitalt". The examples you give and say are "not a good idea" may be perfectly normal and valid ways for certain characters to sit. I happen to have a very gruff older lady character that would 100% do the spread-legged bench sprawl ala Mae West, likely accompanied by a scratch under her saggers and hocking a loogie for good measure because she just doesn't give an eff. Likewise I have a male character that would look right at home sitting or lounging with certain feminine emotes. In fact he'd quite *love* to have the Bobcat lounge available to him as he floats languidly in the air, and if he had the option to sit with his legs daintily crossed when he's being particularly sassy then so much the better. Point being, there are myriad characters, concepts and personalities, and the various sit emotes being made available across genders would be perfectly reasonable. I might not have really weighed in on this, but the fact that you just strolled in and gave a prime example of two female celebrities (iconic ones at that) who would do exactly as an ungendered sit emote would allow and then call it "not the best idea", not to mention phrasing it almost distastefully for men to sit in a feminine fashion is kind of offensive. Heavens forfend a man cross his legs! If anything the argument you made only accentuated exactly why such a thing isn't an unreasonable request and why an argument against it sounds, frankly kinda bigoted. If the animations/poses are incompatible with the alternate gender skeletons without making them twist themselves into pretzels then that's just how things are and no harm done since we can't change those things yet. If they *can* be proliferated without causing someone to clip an entire leg through their other leg? I say bring it on and let us decide how our respective characters sit, gender norms be damned.

By the same token, I'd really, *really* love it if we could get an alternate "no stupid sword" version of the powers. Considering Fire Sword Circle uses the same animation as Whirling Hands from Energy Melee, and the other sword attacks are basically punches, it would be so nice to be able to have an option for characters to just attack with fist wreathed in flames. Part of the reason I'm loathe to use some of the fire/ice sets is because those are very specific powers that are rather vital to most builds but like... what if I'm a tech hero with flamethrowers on my armor? Did I decide to engineer some way to make a sword out of fire for some stupid reason? Insert basically anything other than "magical fire hero" here and the same applies. It's always smacked of "I am a fire mage" to me, and it kills the flavor for a lot of ideas I could have for Fire/Ice Melee. Let me just slam people hard with my giant ice fist and I'll be much happier.

They can, AND they are now customizable. Surge and Rush in particular look freakin' *fantastic* with the right colors. Rush in particular can make for a really neat-looking trail effect to match your powers. Combine with Ninja/Beast/Athletic run for a free travel power that can be very fully customized in appearance.

I would very much love to have some more Lore Pet options to fit various character themes. Snowbeasts/Ice Golems for ice-powered characters would be awesome. I'd also *adore* a classic Banished Pantheon version that has a Totem as the big, beefy pet, with one of the masks as the alternate attack/support pets. Maybe Death mask for damage and Desire for support? Likewise, Carnival of Shadows, Devouring Earth, Coralax and maybe a Spirit Beast set of pets would round things out nicely. I'd be thrilled if I could have a Bladegrass and Quarry as my lore pets on my Plant/Storm/Earth Controller, and my ocean-themed Hero would love to have some coral people to help him out.

I created a topic very similar to this just a few days ago to suggest other particle effects that could be applied as "alternate animations/themes" for power customization. I specifically mentioned the Siren and Banshee powers from Talons as alternate sonic customizations that would allow for the music notes version or the creepy darkness infused version (which could possibly be recolored and themed into a slime-spitting hero), as well as the Spirit Stalker and Black Knight arrow effects as alternates for archery sets so we can fire laser/magic arrows or shadow arrows. Also tossed out Hellfire from Demon Summoning and the magma effect from Minions of Igneous as alternate Fire effects so we could have a lava blaster or a hellfire specialist. Wouldn't mind the Praetorian PD hexagon-weave/forcefield effects for Energy Melee/Super Strength and Invulnerability (maybe even Willpower/Energy Armor for a little tech flavor if we want?), and their blast effects for Energy blast. I'd just really love to have a techy character with customizable force field armor that has that cool futuristic look to it. There are a lot of awesome power effects that could be repurposed for player use that would expand our options and thematic possibilities dramatically, and we know it's doable because the various Dark powersets all have a Soul Noir version, and Dark Control has a classic option that was implemented by the HC people. I just wish that they'd give us some word on if this is even something they're considering, because it seems like it would be a great way to give us tons of new toys to play with while only having to do a minimal amount of work, but I might be wrong. I'd be more than thrilled if the next "page" was nothing but "We decided to port all the various NPC particle effects to players as customization options". I'd be rolling my first ever fire blaster who'd throw lava at people, making a power armor character with shields, a pop star with music-note sonic attacks and effects, and probably many many more. It's my biggest wish at this point.

If I may take this one step further: If he is a Lois Lane-esque character then I would very much like to see him being greatly relieved and highly flirty with our hero whenever we rescue him, perhaps a little witty banter with a wink and a smile. And yes, I mean all heroes. Percy can be our bisexual icon.