JKPhage

This would also not work, as the Generals are fought on the way to the valley, meaning you'd kill a Cimeroran General in the valley, then suddenly be magically aware that Requiem, the formerly disgraced and deposed leader of the 5th Column is here, despite not having rounded the corner and found their hidden base and giant robots planted in the middle of ancient Rome. Even once you enter the valley, you really don't even know that he's here, just that the 5th Column is, somehow. The only way changing the objective works is if it's proximity triggered by getting near him. At the end of the day, this is a change that *could* be done, but ultimately does not *need* to be done. It would be a lot of work to change for what amounts to zero reward. It was done the way it was on live for effect and to maintain the story surprise. If they had a way to change it properly, they likely would have, or maybe they also concluded that it was fine the way it is. Other things brought up here, decent points mostly, but this one is just something that has never needed to be fixed and I don't think anyone is going to devote the time to it for something that is ultimately not even going to be noticed by 90% of players.

A cool idea, and I certainly would love to see it implemented if possible for certain of my characters, but at the same time I think it might be subject to some wonky animation issues. The whole game is built around the default idle stance, and these were only ever meant as emotes. If you execute a power, your character defaults to resting pose, and if these were stances then they'd execute power > default idle stance > suddenly snap to new idle pose. It would look jerky and awkward. In all likelihood it probably won't be possible simply because it would create a lot of ugly animation jerking that doesn't look good, all in the name of saving someone a button press to execute an emote. Really, when you can set a keybind to execute said emote, or create a macro to do the same, this is just a ton of effort for something that probably won't look good and will be of minimal advantage to most players.

This. I'm particularly excited for the possibility of multiple auras (for real, I might want my eyes to always glow but have the rest of me light up differently in combat! or a police character with WEEWOO red and blue glowing hands layered over super strength!) but it's been shown that many of the "limitations" of the character creator are able to be overcome now. When COH was live, they were a business and had to prioritize things. The effort it would take to split up asymmetrical parts could be better spent giving us new costume pieces altogether, or new auras, or premium costume packs, etc., or having that man power devoted to building a new enemy group to feature in the brand new story arcs they were putting out. We've been shown that when that sort of thing isn't a priority, things previously written off as "very unlikely" are now very possible. Hell, some other servers have easily cracked the MM pet customization code, and I'm very much looking forward to that being a possibility on HC sometime in the future so I might actually be inclined to play one seriously. As far as multiple overlays, I don't see how it wouldn't be possible. As a proof of concept, one of the devs posted a screenshot showing something like 16 aura slots all running a different color in the same slot and a couple in different positions. I don't think it would be out of the question to add multiple color overlays to the face, allowing us to create some unique mask/cowl combos with something like... say Jongo and Demise to create a full-face mask with a skull motif instead of the half-cover/face paint look it is now. Likewise being able to layer two patterns on the body could be very interesting indeed, allowing for some cool combos that wouldn't be possible before. That said, I think I'd also just prefer some separate geometry domino-style masks as you mentioned. Something simple to color with eye holes if we want, and maybe another option with the classic comic-style whited out eyes, like Batman/Robin or Umbrella Academy. I know I'd love something like that so I could possibly make a decent Spider-Man expy character that doesn't look too "chinese knockoff". That would also allow the aforementioned makeup + mask combo, because I certainly wouldn't mind having a cat burglar character who robs in style with a classy mask and some vivid red lipstick to show off.

As I gathered from the patch notes and explanations it boils down to something simple: You can now enter Ouroboros and obtain the badge at level 1, and Ouroboros has all of these echo transporters available at the back of the zone. Considering you couldn't even use echo transporters in your bases on Live, these were likely added as simple convenience for players before Homecoming came to the wider public's knowledge. You'll note that we also *never* had access to "Echo: Faultline", "Echo: Crash Site" and (I'm pretty sure at least) "Echo: Atlas" on live. These were purely Homecoming contrivances, and didn't have base beacons, and until Homecoming went public, didn't have explore badges or... really any reason to go to them at all, while DA and Galaxy did. With all that in mind, and knowing that one can now simply ask someone in Atlas to drop an O-Portal fresh out of the character creator, pop in, grab the explore badge and have permanent access to Ouroboros, where one can then time travel to the various echo zones, it seems like more of a flavor/thematic thing than anything. When literally anyone can get to the echo zones through the designated time travel zone, it's more of a matter of semantics that they're restricted to Ouro, and I'm okay with it. That said... we also have a pillar of ice and flame in our bases that allows us to time travel and attune to different time streams to run past arcs, including a task force for Sister Psyche who is *dead*. If anything I feel like we already have access to time travel in our bases, and if they really and truly insist that we must not be able to use our basic teleporter system to get to echo zones, then at the very least they could find a way to retool the Pillar to offer two options when clicked on: One to access the mission list, one to access the echo zones. It would tie time travel to the "Ouroboros method", but still allow us to time travel from our bases. It's not like a creative base builder couldn't embed the pillar in a pile of other objects and functionally make the pillar into a completely different time travel device and/or artifact either. That would require a little doing on both parts though. In the end, it doesn't really bother me at all, because Ouro can be accessed at the drop of a hat if you want to go echo exploring, and at the end of the day, there isn't even anything of true merit to *do* in those zones aside from explore badges. If the HC devs decided to put in a little elbow grease and restore full zone functionality to them, that might be a different story. They're time travel zones after all, so why exactly wouldn't there be classic contacts, mission arcs and such in them? I only ever started one toon in Galaxy as a novelty and got bored, so went to Atlas, but now? I might just enjoy rolling a level 1, having someone drop me an o-portal, and jogging to the back to hop into classic Galaxy and run the mission arcs, hunt around the beltway, and see how long it takes me to outlevel the contacts before I move on. If there was some real meat to the zones then I might be a little miffed that they're not SG base accessible, but even then I don't think I'd be all that bothered since you can access them through another method just as easily. So yeah, devs, if you're reading this: Maybe add echoes as a second menu option from the Pillar and restore old NPC's/Contacts/Enemy spawns to echo zones so we have both easy access and reason to do so?

As I said, *hero* Patrons. Likewise, it's not even the existing Patron pools are intrinsically tied to their respective characters. Mako has ocean/water-themed powers. I took them on my Atlantean/Aquaman character who wields a trident in battle so he can summon sharks, call down a water spout and bring along a big, beefy coral golem sometimes (because some pools actually get a non-coralax pet!), and I also took it on my literal shark-themed character for obvious reasons and have shark blasts based on his totem animal and the ability to spew sea water as an attack. Both of these characters are straight heroes. Scirocco? Not so much themed around him. If we had a pool giving us Scirocco's powers then we'd have sand storms and wind attacks, but instead we get mu powers, with red lightning. Before power customization, this was perfectly on-brand for any generic electric power villain, and after? You can use it with any electric powers and nobody could tell the difference. Ghost Widow is much the same, with dark powers, though some particularly flashy colored ones in certain cases. Scorpion in the only one with a particularly strong theme of the Arachnos mace, and even then you can wave that away as being an Arachnos operative if you're a villain. By the same token, you don't *have* to take the pet. Most people really don't take the whole epic pool with very rare exceptions, so skipping out on a long-recharge temp pet power at high level isn't exactly a strange choice. As I also mentioned, most of the hero patron ideas could very easily fill in gaps in Epic pool themes, with Radiation for Positron, Psionics in two distinct flavors from Numina/Penny Yin, and even Energy and/or Super Strength for Citadel/BaBs. Synapse could even offer some electric powers for archetypes that lack an electric option. And here's the kicker: they don't *have* to have pets! The Arachnos Patron pools do mostly as a sort of flavor option showing that you've made yourself a figure of high standing in the organization and earned the right to boss around their minions. The Freedom Phalanx... doesn't have so much of that kind of structure. Positron doesn't have specific croneys tied to him, nor does Numina. One could make a case that Penny's pools should include some way to summon her Psi Vortex pet as a neat trick that she can teach you, and that would be a very cool pisonic power to earn as an incentive to pick it over existing Psi Mastery pools for classes that have it, but it doesn't have to be a thing. Likewise, Positron's patron pool would likely be bog-standard Radiation powers. He doesn't have a monopoly on them and it wouldn't be like you were using *his* powers. You just had to do a thing to unlock the ability to use that pool and expand your existing Rad powers. I think it would make a great batch of story arcs for fun, a handful of flavorful options that will be available to all characters (Posi, Synapse and Penny/Numina alone plug the rad/elec/psi gaps in epic pools by simply existing) and if the devs want to proliferate some extra epic pools around the party that fill some of those same gaps then go for it. Psi Mastery generic pool is likely to be a very different offering than Penny's particular brand of psionics (which would match the visual style of Psi Melee better, btw) and giving us an electric pool to choose from is liable to offer some more standard stuff like elec armor and ball lightning versus some of the more speedy lightning powers that Synapse would probably have on offer. And just to clarify, I'm not proposing one or the other, I'm proposing both. We don't exactly have to choose if the devs are willing to do this sort of stuff for the community. In the end, more options is not a bad thing, and frankly, I see it as the only way they can justify a "radiation mastery" epic pool, which would be a bit of an odd choice for spontaneous powers that manifested at high-level for many reasons. I'd love to have a handful of character arcs where we work with specific members of the Phalanx. We can get to work more closely with Numina, who's a little lacking in content related to her, see how Penny operates now that she's a high-level hero, do some errands for Citadel that *don't* involve running around seven thousand square miles of caves over and over and over, etc. Give us some generic options, and give us some more patrons, then let us enjoy having to decide which of the possible 18+ epic pools fit our character best! BTW - Tyrannical's suggestion in the thread he linked to add Recluse and Red Widow as Patrons so we can have a pool for each of the six remaining Phalanx members is fantastic, because it would expand the options available to exclusively Villain characters as well as giving us some new stuff to play with for side-swappers.

Well that's cool! Sad I missed that when it came around. That said, I love your ideas and kinda hope that that's implemented, especially if this was something of a "Please submit community input so we can use it for future content" kinda thing. That said, I'd also love to just see a general expansion of epics because as cool as it would be to just be able to snag Numina/Penny powers for psi characters, Numina has very specific control-esque powers, and Penny has her own flavor, neither of which really line up with the general psi flavor that is the general Psi Mastery pools. Like, I might just legit wanna have psionic tornado, world of confusion and mind over body on my character, without having to do a character arc, and Penny or Numina might not offer that particular flavor. Likewise we need some more straight elemental (fire/ice/elec/dark/etc.) pools on all the classes that are missing them, because at this point all the basic elements are represented in blasts, armors, controls, and supports, and not having a matching elemental pool to pick from just kinda sucks.

Exactly. Tyrant was chosen as the Well's champion, and as such he was able to draw on massive power, and also dole it out to others that he so chose. He was basically about to become a sort of avatar of the well. Likewise, imagine the later Incarnate Trials, like Lambda. Do you really think that Marauder could stand up to a several minutes long beatdown from 24+ hybrid-unlocked Incarnates, much less dish out an attack powerful enough to one-shot many of them if he didn't have a bit of Incarnate juice? Berry's super serum or no, you can't be that powerful without some manner of Incarnate ability. The devs also pointed out that our Hamidon is basically something akin to an Incarnate, but he kinda did it wrong, where the Praetorian Hamidon did it very *right*, hence his immense power and influence. They also kind of implied that he might have already gone that little step beyond and started on the path to becoming a font of power in his own right. Then consider the Knives of Vengeance. They're an Incarnate-level group, but in actuality they're simply the same old Knives of Artemis but assimilated/converted by the Talons of Vengeance, who are, you guessed it, agents of The Furies, who have a direct tie to the Well. There are any number of places that a Praetorian might stumble upon the secret to unlocking Incarnate power. Even on Primal Earth they've said outright that the well isn't the only way to power, just one of them. Hero 1 (and presumably Pendragon) was empowered as an Incarnate of similar power to States and Recluse when he pulled Excalibur. The Liberty Belt that Ms. Liberty (and Dominatrix) wears is in truth the Girdle of the Furies, which was gifted to her grandmother by the Furies, and grants power directly from the well. Trapdoor was empowered by an experiment using tainted water from the original Well of the Furies that doesn't exist anymore. It's possible that a Praetorian could somehow stumble upon a sort of remnant of a Hamidon beast that has a lingering bit of power and somehow resonate with it to ascend. Or perhaps they were attacked in Night Ward by the Talons but interrupted before they could be converted, but that little touch of their power was all that was needed to alter them just enough and start them on the path. Maybe they're part of Cole's army and were granted a fragment of power that sparked stronger than Cole intended and now they're ascending on their own. And that's not even accounting for the fact that the Well might just choose to bestow them with a fraction of power, or they might not stumble upon some random ancient artifact that holds a link to the Well on their own. There are myriad ways it's possible, and the only reason it's not explicitly spelled out is simply because the intent was always that you would be on Primal Earth by that point, and if you weren't then you had no way to start on the Incarnate path outside grinding iTrials.

Eh, if you read the lore behind the iTrials and such it's mentioned that Tyrant is basically doling out Incarnate power to his various lieutenants and armies to give them an edge in the war on Primal. This is why they're able to even stay upright for more than a few seconds against our onslaught. The problem is that the devs never really intended for people to *stay* Praetorian for the whole run to 50 and remain there for the endgame, so there's no existing arc to explain how they gained power. It's very possible that a Loyalist was simply granted some measure of power that they are now able to grow on their own as a member of Cole's army, with Resistance spies among them being granted power as well, though pure Resistance who aren't spies are a little out in the cold, unless they were to introduce an arc as I suggested where they investigate and manage to snatch some fragment of power themselves. Either way, it's established that Praetoria has it's own share of Incarnates, even that they're possibly more wide-spread than the Primals, but also implied that they might just be perma-stunted or currently underpowered because Cole only gave them a sliver of power so he wouldn't be outclassed in the long run. He gets to be the big man and the IDF gets just a tiny taste of power because they're rank and file, but he wants them to be decent canon fodder. Higher ups might get a bit more and be able to pursue further power on their own. Considering the various groups on Primal that have gained access to Incarnate power, it's entirely possible that there are still clandestine groups that have tapped into it on Praetoria. Hell, Cole tired to wipe out magic specifically because he didn't want anyone rediscovering the Well and gaining power like his, and the Riki canonically stunted and/or severed their connection to their own Well to avoid attack by Battalion. It's entirely possible that the Carnival of Light or the Ravenwing Cabal (what's left of it at least) might have a few members who have squirreled away such knowledge and are willing to dole it out to the right people if they know they have a noble cause. The biggest issue is that there's no Praetorian-oriented content to spell this out or involve said Praetorians, because it was never intended to be a full-game path. Hell, the next official issue would have given us Kallisti Wharf, and that story definitively ended the Praetorian war with the arrival of Battalion and eventually brought Tyrant around to pose as Statesman as a symbol for people to rally behind. The Praetorian content was well and truly done until such time as they decided to deal with the aftermath and have us deal with a world conquered by Praetorian Hamidon, if and when that ever would have come about. HC devs have the capability of adding stuff like this, but it would take time and effort, and have to be prioritized over new power sets, new endgame content, new anything else essentially. That said, it might not be a bad idea, as devoting a page or two to making Praetoria into a full-fleshed 1-50 experience and giving them in-game lore and explanations for how they are able to become Incarnates and such would mean that we now have a viable third playthrough option. Expand the places Praetorians can go and maybe allow them to travel to Primal Earth without having to choose a hard new alignment (just treat Loyalists as Rogues and Resistance as Vigilantes) and suddenly there's a hell of a lot of fun to be had with a new experience that you don't have to jump through hoops and street sweep to experience.

Okay, hear me out. It occurred to me the other night while I was reading over another topic that Patron Powers seem like such a cool idea that it's a shame it only ever extended to those four villain patrons, especially once we gained global access to Epic Pools on all archetypes and the ability to unlock Patron Pools by switching sides temporarily on a hero. Then it struck me that, considering we've seen the HC team retool powers and such, wouldn't it be cool to have a handful of signature heroes hanging around, say Fort Trident (like they already are) able to give out a short high-level mission arc resulting in characters learning a bit about their powers or how to use some new abilities from them? I don't think *every* hero should have such a pool, but I think keeping it to four "Hero Patrons" would be reasonable. As-is, epic pools have a sort of.... limited scope of flavor, especially when one considers the vast variety we have in primary/secondary powers. I can have a Rad/Atomic blaster, but don't really have a good thematic match among their epic pools, which are basically fire, ice, electricity, guns and generic energy. What if Positron was able to teach us how to use a bit of his tech, or refine existing radiation powers to give us a few rad-themed epic powers (repurposed from various rad melee/armor/blast/manipulation sets easily), or how about Penelope Yin offering psionic training to heroes so they can learn how to confuse enemies, shield their minds, or further improve their existing abilities? Maybe round it out with Numina offering some ghostly powers and BaBs or Citadel (please BaBs because he's criminally underused) offering some super-strength/tech related feats, like Hurl as a ranged attack, footstomp/whirling hands as an AOE, etc. Combine those with the Patron Pools and suddenly it becomes a lot easier to fill in thematic holes in the Epic Pools. At the same time, perhaps we could add in a few new epics to round out said thematic holes? It's all well and good for some people to have a Fire/Spines brute that also throws lightning balls, but some of us want a little more thematic cohesion. Controllers have Electric Control AND Electrical Affinity now, but have to unlock Patron Pools to get Mu Mastery and then recolor it to match if they want a corresponding epic pool. Likewise, a Cold/Ice or Rad/Rad Defender, or even an Ice/Ice, Elec/Elec or Psi/Willpower scrapper are kinda left out in the cold. While a Penny Yin psi patron would fill some of those holes in certain spots, and Positron could cover Rad, it'd be pretty nice to see some of these thematic holes plugged by just general epic pools that aren't too similar to existing Patrons, or that are different enough to justify it (looking at Dark Mastery and Soul Mastery on Corruptors/Defenders here) so we could have more choices and maybe get closer to our image of what our character should be without having to sacrifice a ranged attack on a melee toon because we can't justify our Ice manipulating tank suddenly hurling a fireball or lightning bolt, or resorting to throwing shurikens when they have super ice powers. Considering that most existing epic powers are just numbers adjusted versions of existing primary/secondary powers, it doesn't seem like it would be terribly difficult to cherrypick an armor, a soft control, a hard control, and a couple grab bag options from any given "element" of existing powers and proliferate them across the epic power pools. Likewise, a Positron Patron Pool could easily hand ranged characters a Rad Armor power, something similar to Beta Decay/Choking cloud, a click heal, a debuff and maybe a self-rez similar to Rise of the Phoenix that has a damage burst with the atomic blast effect attached. It wouldn't require any new animations and could simply copy/paste existing powers into new mini-sets to allow players the ability to stick closer to a theme. Any of the team care to weigh in on the plausibility? Anyone have any ideas that might be good for this? Perhaps a better signature hero than the ones suggested as Patrons? Even if new "hero patrons" are a no-go, I'd still love to see an epic expansion for fun and flavor!

I mean, Tyrant is the champion of the well and has been able to dole out Incarnate-level power to his various henchpeople, all the way down to Black Swan of all people. If someone is going to go to the effort of adding a Praetorian-accessible version of this particular story arc then it wouldn't exactly be difficult to put together a small Ramiel-esque arc (or realistically two versions of it) where a Loyalist is chosen for a vital mission and promised a sliver of Incarnate power in return as a reward for serving the empire, or a Resistance member is tasked to do some spy work and figure out if there's a way to siphon off some of that sweet Incarnate juice for themselves, resulting in them snatching a fragment of power along the way. Short, sweet and flavorful if someone wants to stick to purely Goldside, and then you have that requirement fulfilled by an in-game explanation. On the other hand, one could also assume from the fact that the IDF and tons of various enemies present in Incarnate trials are able to square up with (if not exactly successfully) Primal Incarnates, that perhaps Tyrant's deep connection to the well has sort of permeated Praetoria and allowed those with existing power to sort of "push through the limit" naturally without even realizing it at first. They "cap out" and then suddenly find that they have access to new and untold levels of power while fighting to defend their homeland and discover that it can be pushed even further. Of course I'd prefer the former, just because an in-game explanation is always better than a head-canon, no-need-to-explain approach.

Also a fun idea! It had been a while since I fought Talons as well, but just the other day I also saw the Banshee sonic effects that are basically standard sonic with a really cool shadow/dark effect combined with them. That would also be something really fun to play with and could maybe even be recolored to approximate a slime-spitting effect for gross heroes/villains.

Yeah, except you're glossing over the meat of the issue. He even specifically called out Leviathan Mastery, and made a point of saying that he wouldn't want to be forced to take other powers besides the thematic Mako powers just because they'd be less powerful in comparison. He was met with a bunch of people saying "LOL, then just pick other powers!" or "Just take them and don't worry if they suck!" Basically a handful of people telling him to do exactly what he just said he didn't want to, or telling him to just deal with it, when the suggestion of a balance pass on patron powers is not at all an out there request. And for the record, the intent was plenty clear. I'm not going to rehash what I already said, but it really is something that could stand doing. You have to go out of your way to unlock these pools in addition to the existing epic pools and overall a large chunk of the powers are incredibly flavorful and cool, but lack most any punch at all because they exist exactly as they did when COV launched and never got a balance pass. When they were the only option available to redside archetypes it wasn't so glaring, but now everyone has access to standard epic pools that are just handed to you, many of which were retooled/rebalanced for redside archetypes when they debuted to make sure they functioned in the current meta. Patrons, on the other hand mostly got stapled on to the blueside AT's at as close to a 1:1 ratio as possible with Defenders getting the Corruptor version of pools, Tanks getting Brutes, etc. They weren't touched up or anything. As I mentioned, the latest page served up a *huge* chunk of powers passes, with retools, reworks, rebalances and new functionality. I don't think that it would be at all amiss for the next update to feature a pass on the Patron pools to bring them in line with the other choices available, speed up some animations, boost some damage, make sure that they're comparable and on the same playing field as the other pools. Some of us play this game to have fun with it, and if that means we want an ocean-themed character to have the Mako shark blasts, it's decidedly unfun to stand there and fire it off only to see pathetic numbers, if it even gets to the enemy before someone else has already slaughtered them due to the long cast time. We don't *want* to pick another power, and when the ones that are incredibly flavorful and fit our character theme perfectly, it's very disappointing for them to be performing at COV launch levels.

1. That's just a side-effect of NPCs and stealth powers. Unfortunately I don't think there's anything that can be done for it without re-writing the entire game from the ground up. 2. You may not recall this, but when the ITF debuted, the big reveal that the 5th Column was back after they were thought completely stamped out forever, much less that they had a presence in Cimerora via time travel was a GIGANTIC reveal, and it didn't come until you walked through the huge valley, around a corner and were met with two giant bronze Mekmen and humongous 5th Column banners. Requiem being there too was also a huge reveal. It's done this way intentionally for the presentation. We don't *know* that Requiem is there until we find him. This doesn't need to be changed. 3. That I got nothing for, but if it's gone this long then it's probably something that seems simple to fix but in actuality would require a ludicrous amount of work for a teeny tiny profit, so it might be one of those things that the original devs just said "Unfortunately you'll just have to live with that." 4. This would be highly useful, though I'm not sure how it would be fixed unless they somehow disentangle the physical door object from the "click here to enter" object, though in doing so they might be unable to make doors swing open in response to characters entering as they are no longer connected. That said, it always struck me as odd that if they're so entangled that one can't, ya know, click on the open door object to get in as well. I don't know enough about the coding/mechanics/game structure to comment further, but I wouldn't mind if this was looked into at least to see if anything *can* be done. I've always referred to the Cimerora gates as the true final boss of the TF.

There we go then. Regardless of whether or not IO scaling is more or less powerful (I'm pretty sure that it's either slightly more powerful or such a small difference as makes no matter) keeping set bonuses all the way down makes them instantly way more powerful. I actually just exemp'd down for a signature arc (farming Magmite Lords in Who Will Die FTW) and noticed that I was basically untouchable even as a level 20. Those defense bonuses and such from my entirely attuned build made me ridiculously hard to kill at lower levels, and I can't imagine the damage output of someone slotted with a bunch of damage boosts and procs and such.

Some great ideas here. With the Winter Forest and changes to Atlas for seasonal stuff, the devs have shown that they can build custom maps and implement them. I'd love to see some new mission maps (perhaps with unique textures/models if they are able to be added?) to jazz up the experience of running missions. Just imagine a cyber-space type map that could be used on a mission arc to dive into the AE server system on a search and rescue for a few heroes who somehow didn't come out of it after completing an arc and are trapped in the network, possibly under attack by sentient computer viruses that were implanted by a nefarious villain (or perhaps intentionally by Doc Aeon to see what would happen?), and even toss in a few meta jokes like finding a team of fire farmers who got wiped out when something with psi damage popped up, or a lvl 50 Peacebringer who asks you how to get back to Steel Canyon. Just the first thought off the top of my head. There are infinite ideas for new mission maps that could feasibly be built and implemented to make new missions to go in radio/paper rotation, new mission arcs/TFs or otherwise. Likewise, while I know Kallisti Wharf would need to be the next project on this particular table, I'd like to see new zones added. First they'd have to flesh out Kallisti with more contacts, enemy spawns, perhaps the continuing story as originally intended, and that's going to be a LOT of work for them, but once that's done (or perhaps before as a side project and maybe some practice?) I'd like to see a new zone or two added to the game with new areas to explore, more explore badges, maybe a new enemy group or two unique to the area and it's stories, etc. A new red-side zone would be a very welcome thing, and open up the options for storytelling and enemy groups quite a bit. Beyond that, I think a new Incarnate zone would be a great addition to give the game some more playability, especially to endgame players who are tiring of the same things over and over. A whole big zone with newly amped up enemy groups and story arcs telling an incarnate-level story on par with DA and it's huge implications. Hell, I can't remember if it was on live or after HC popped up but I remember detailing the potential for a sort of "plague zone" ruled by Dr. Vahzilok where he managed to tap into some incarnate power and turned himself in a giant, fleshy monstrosity that spews plague and has started assimilating a city zone as a humongous, pulsating symbiont of sorts. You could have gross-nasty interior missions with slimy, pulsating walls that are stitched together, Vahzilok monstrosities roaming the zone, and a story involving you and/or several big-name heroes being infected and racing against the clock to find a cure for the incarnate plague, possibly involving a few fights against signature characters that have been infected and devolved a bit too far. Monstrous versions of Positron and perhaps Black Scorpion would be really cool. It would be a great way to bring in Ghost Widow as part of the story too since she's dead and Wretch is already mutated such that he might be immune to the plauge, meaning the world might end up owing their safety to Ghost Widow of all people. There are plenty of options available to the devs, but it's definitely a matter of "not a professional studio team" so they can't just crank this stuff out as frequently or as quickly as Paragon used to. We've had a honeymoon period where we were just happy to have the game back, they were doing small patches/adjustments here and there and slowly learning how the coding works, and the results are the latest page with power rebalancing, a new power set and two brand new story arcs with new enemy groups and unique badges. That's a lot of big stuff, and now they can apply that to other things to deliver new content. Honestly that's going to be the crux of it in the end. We can play the same game over and over and enjoy it, but eventually you're going to run out of things to do, and in ways that you enjoy doing them. I've currently got my main completely kitted out with all his expensive IO sets, ATOs, etc. and I'm working on badging with him. Defeat badges are already starting to wear thin, before I move on to other things, but there's only so much one can do in pursuit of badges as well, and once I have all the badges... well what then? I can't possibly make my character anymore powerful, and I've run out of awards to earn for him, and there's no new content. New Content is the answer in any estimation. It's what kept us excited to play on live, to see where the story was going and play the new missions and see what happened, all while enjoying new power sets and new areas. Even if it's not top-level content, it can still be fantastic, as evidenced by the new missions. They just need to be something that's different, that we haven't seen or experienced before.

"This enhancement's effective level is always the same as the user's." It says it *right there*. This is a non-issue. They have always functioned this way. As with anything in an MMO, there are pros and cons to something like this to make it a decision worth pondering. If you attune an IO set that is normally only available up to level 40, you'll get more bang for your buck out of it while still getting the associated set bonus when you are at level 50. They scale much the same as IOs would anyway, so there is no issue there, and in fact I believe they actually offer *better* enhancement than normal IO scaling when exemped, though I haven't looked at the math recently. An equal level enhancement value versus a percentage of a higher level enhancement tends to come out in favor of the equal level enhancement though. The only example I can think of where it kinda depends on the situation is Panacea, because the unattuned piece will give you a flat number tick of healing and endurance (which I forget off-hand but want to say is 50-something), while attuned will scale with level, meaning you'll get less of a tick at lower levels (to reflect your lower HP though, so it's still healing the same general *amount* of your HP bar) but at 50 is actually MORE than the base unattuned piece will give. I have an attuned one equipped to my current main and it ticks for 64 HP every time. You choose to have even better performance from it at max level in exchange for reduced performance at lower levels. In every other case, you're more or less choosing to be more powerful at lower levels than standard IO scaling, or slotting an IO piece that you won't ever have to worry about upgrading as you level if you know exactly which sets you want to use ahead of time. This doesn't even need to be a thing, but as Srmalloy pointed out, if anything might need looking at it would be the exemp effect on them versus non-attuned. They can and should always have reduced performance as that is how they are intended to work, but if the devs feel that they should be slightly more effective at lower levels owing their special nature then that's their decision to make. I don't know that that would even be possible though, or if attuned sets work on a set scale that would also affect other enhancement scaling.

Personally, I am *highly* opposed to the "per toon basis" that they initially proposed. I have quite a few characters that I really enjoy the concept for that I haven't had a chance to play yet, but snagged the perfect name, look and power combo to make them a project. Likewise, sometimes I start working on a character, get inspired to try something else and swap over to a new character or play one of the ones I'm already sitting on and waiting to play. Having to go through the list and log in and out of every character is T E D I O U S to the extreme, especially if I have to do it twice a month for anything under level 20. On the other hand, I think the best way to go about it would be to work off of account activity. If you've signed in and logged-in at least one character in the requisite amount of time, your characters and names are safe, locked and reserved. If someone hasn't even logged in for say two months? Anything not level 50 is up for grabs. That sounds more than fair to me. Any 50's that you poured a lot of time into are 100% safe if you decide to come back, but it also means that any of these people who might have come back at launch and then just disappeared in the interim aren't keeping names on lockdown. Either way, I don't see anywhere near as much of a problem with HC as I did with Live. Yeah, some of the more simple names are gone, but man, if you ever saw how long I had to sit at the character screen after coming up with the perfect costume, power combo, power customization and name only to have to come up with a different name that was both suiting and pleasing to me... I lost *hours* of gameplay to that. I've yet to encounter that problem on HC. This is absolutely right out for me. It's even more harsh than the initially proposed idea where any toons not logged in during such and such time period would have their names *unlocked* and if someone else made a toon using it, the existing unlocked one would be generic'd. You're calling for the whole roster to be generic'd if someone doesn't log in, AND including 50's. That's way too harsh, way too extreme and a great way to piss somebody off. Ya know, someone might end up in the hospital and be unable to log-in or play for a while, and I'd hate to have that happen to me only to come back and find out that every single one of my characters (including my favorite 50's) were just generic now. Given, I could probably get back most of the names, but it's also a pain in the neck to have to do that if nobody else has tried to make that character. I think the per-account basis is a much better way to go about it, where any characters on an account that hasn't logged in for a set amount of time have their names unlocked for use and if someone uses them, generic'd, but 50's stay at least. Automatically generic-ing toons though, and especially doing it to 50's is way too extreme. Frankly it strikes me as... kind of elitist. We're all adults now and sometimes we have life get in the way. If I can't log in for three months due to work or illness or other extenuating circumstances then I lose every single one of my character names? Nah. That's not okay.

So, I was doing a little hunting in Night Ward today, and while fighting Spirit Stalkers and Black Nights I was (literally and figuratively) struck by an idea. Both of these groups have enemies with archery abilities, but which fire some particularly neat vfx instead of a bog standard arrow. Spirit Stalkers have a cool glowy arrow effect and Black Knights fire arrows of darkness/shadow. Would it be possible to add these options to power customization for players? The ability to color these so I could have a character firing golden arrows of light, or sickly green shadows would be really fun, not to mention giving some cool character concepts an opening. Considering darkness powers current have an option for Soul Noir or Classic effects to be interchangeable we know it's possible to swap around vfx attached to powers, though I'm not sure how difficult it is. I'd hope that something like this might be relatively simple in the grand scheme of things just for fun. Likewise, we've seen some other really neat stuff, like Talons of Vengeance having a musical-note motif to their Siren song sonic powers that would look *incredibly* cool applied to sonic blast/resonance/etc. powers and open up some really fun character concept ideas. We also have Magmite Lords that cast fire blasts with a magma-esque effect and splash particles that could be fun to have access to as players, or even the ability to apply the hellfire skin from the firey abilities of Demon Summoning. Perhaps some of the new Psionic vfx from Force of Will and Psionic Melee could be backported to Mind Control and/or Psi blast/assault to give them a bit of an updated look as an option? I know that's a lot of stuff thrown out there, but it's mostly just to list things I can think of that might be doable to expand power customization options with minimal work required from anyone as the assets are already there in game. I'm not sure if the archery things would even be possible, but if so I'd love to see it, and I have more than a couple character ideas that would love to take advantage of magma or hellfire blast skins. I know for a fact that I'd make a pop star character if I could have musical themed sonic powers, and I'd be much more inclined to make a Mind/Psi dom if I didn't have to look at those outdated psi effects compared to the very slick new psi melee/force of will stuff. Any chance we might see some of these in the near future Devs? And anyone else have any suggestions from stuff that's found in-game already that might make an easy backport to player characters to expand our options?

I'm in agreement with OP, and I feel like some of these replies are... a little dismissive to be honest. Considering our most recent patch focused a lot on rebalancing standard power sets so things can play on more equal footing and everything can be more of a viable choice, I think it's a genuinely good idea for the devs to take a look at the patron pools. Especially considering you have to go to extra effort to even have access to them, I feel like they should be looked at and perhaps brought a little more in-line with the other available epics that everyone has access to. I happen to have an ocean-themed character who took Leviathan Mastery for thematic purposes, but it is not lost on me that Spirit Shark has an unnecessarily long animation with markedly low damage for the activation time, nor that Water Spout only sticks around for a stupidly short amount of time. That's just two of the powers from one set. I don't think they necessarily need a *huge* amount of work, but it wouldn't hurt anything at all to bump the damage up on Spirit Shark to match other epic ranged attacks and speed up the cast animation so it doesn't root the player for a stupidly long time and take forever between click to damage. There's no reason not to make that change as it wouldn't make anything else less viable, and only make a fun power seem more like a valid choice and less like a sacrifice made in the name of fun theme powers. Likewise, water spout's duration could be *slightly* extended to give it a bit more oomph as a damage/soft control power. I don't have much experience with Soul Mastery, but when I mentioned I was considering taking it on discord someone pointed out that I might as well just take Dark Mastery as the Dark Consumption from that set was more powerful. Again, there's very little reason for that to be a thing. If I wanna take Soul Mastery to get the super cool Soul Storm power, why do I need to gimp myself out of better versions of the other powers in the pool that are otherwise identical? I think it's a very solid request, and I'd love to see the next "page" address these things. As is most players either take Mu Mastery for Ball Lightning so they have a ranged AOE attack that does good damage or Mace Mastery for the armor toggle because it's very good. I feel like it wouldn't hurt anything at all to tweak Soul and Leviathan to bring them in line with other pools and make their powers more viable so we can enjoy taking the powers we want without worrying that they're going to be wasted picks.

This is amazing, and I look forward to using it on various characters! Would it be possible to add "Hover" to the Stances as well? I have a couple of psionic/magic characters that would pretty much constantly be hovering even at idle, and while toggling the power on isn't exactly difficult, I'd love to be able to use the animation whilst doubling down on ninja/beast run and sprint/slide (especially with a customizable slide or sprint color trail) to move more quickly around town. Just keep them hovering at the lowest setting to the ground, use the flying version of emotes and apply appropriate up/down/side animations and it seems like it would work relatively well. I know it's not likely to hit the server with this update since we're so late in the game, but maybe for the next page? Pretty please?

It would require an entirely new powerset to do so, but I'd be more than happy to have a spare clone set floating around with the bullet trails switched to glowing beams and some light laser sound effects to accompany them. Extra points if they could be color customized. That may be asking a lot though. Then again I'm the guy who just posted a proposal to clone MM powersets with alterations to the pet powers so they call different models since those are "baked in" to the powers, just so that we could have alternate MM minions, so I can't really say it's unreasonable as a request. Nor can I say it wouldn't make me roll a Dual Lasers blaster instantly, so ups from me!

Okay, so I've been around since the start for COH, and I know MM pet customization is a big thing that people ask for and the devs explained why it wasn't feasible. The explanation we were always given was that the powers were hard-coded to summon a specific creature/model. Changing the pet models through the customization menu just wouldn't have been possible, because it would have required a completely different power, where other customization just changed particle effects and colors. So hear me out on this: Would it be possible to "clone" a MM primary and alter the power to summon different models? By this I mean, for example, taking Mercenaries, creating a copy of the powerset, then altering the pet summon power to call pets that are the same creature from a coding standpoint but with say Longbow or Arachnos Wolfspider models, thus making another MM primary that's 100% functionally identical to Mercenaries, but is called "Longbow" or "Arachnos" in the menu? It would require creating a separate powerset for each set of "new" minions, but take a look at the Scrapper primaries list and tell me a long list of powersets is a problem. If this is possible, we could see such things as Necromancy being reskinned with Banished Pantheon zombies, Ninjas being reskinned as Tsoo, the aforementioned Longbow or Arachnos hit squads, or even robotics masterminds with Vanguard heavy models, various sizes of Longbow cataphracts, or PPD enforcer robots as they all use the same exact skeleton/model base and would just require putting in versions that are scaled down to the same sizes as MM robots, so we could have heroic Masterminds running around with a squad of PPD or Longbow mechs, or a villain with his own elite squad of Arachnos soldiers. I know Thugs is a different beast all together as it summons random models from a pool, but even then, might it be possible to clone the powers and set a new pool to select from? This would open up the potential option to summon from a model pool of Hellions, Skulls, Trolls, Outcasts or Warriors, maybe even PPD/RIP cops. This is the real stretch goal on this suggestion, I know, but if I'm gonna suggest the idea then I might as well go big and scale back expectations. So what say you various coders? Is this a feasible and workable solution? It wouldn't be "customization" per se, and once you select the minions, you're stuck with them, but it would breath a whole new life into Masterminds and open up hundreds of new concepts by just creating cloned versions of the existing powers and changing which creature they call. I for one would love to have a Longbow agent commanding a squad of Cataphracts then augment it with the matching Lore pet at high level. Is this something that is even in the realm of possibility? It might make the primary screen for MM's a little cluttered, but I'd rather be spoiled for options with a list to scroll through than locked into "this is what you get" with a barren one.

I like the idea behind this, but I don't know how feasible it is as something that could be implemented. Frankly I enjoy Ninja Run one most characters and Beast Run on the ones that it suits, because stacking them with sprint puts them on par with a travel power, freeing up a slot unless you need/want Fly/Hover. Creating a new version with no animation changes might be possible, but I have no idea how much control coders might have over power construction. If not, then I would absolutely *love* to have a free version of the animation as a passive power, because I've got a toon that would absolutely move in Beast Run mode all the time, and being able to switch to Sprint without losing that would be great. Would be interesting to see Super Speed with those movements too.