UpandAtom

superhero mmos are bizarrely underrepresented for how the market for superheroes exploded I read somewhere the real problem is Intellectual Property claims that Disney and DC/Marvel will throw out at you, and that's probably the real problem devs hit

Cryptic took the idea of Wolverine as a Scrapper to heart. Then Regen proved to be such a problem powerset they wanted to forget about it, and by the time Willpower rolled around everybody went 'well this is just Regen, but better' and never asked for it again.

The zones themselves were pretty amazing looking when they came out. That was from early WoW era MMORPGs, and I thought that the Shadow Shard managed to do what EQ's Plane of Sky tried. Shame getting around was such a hassle and they really could've had more of those super secret mole-hole caves to set up a network of them for faster travel. It was terribly utilized. All the high-level Hazard Zones were badly used, honestly; at least a lowbie heroes could be seen patrolling Perez Park or the Hollows back in the day, but like nobody would just go visit Eden or the Abandoned Sewer Network unless they had a reason to. And the TFs have some horrible ctrl+v mission structure. QoL updates have made them much less painful, but those were 8-12 hour long and you had to hope no one lost connection, or just fell asleep! They must've been planning to place some Incarnate Content in the Shard to put it to some use, but then shutdown shut that down.

They're all silly imbalanced, but they were supposed to be breaking the game (both mechanically and meta-wise) to lead up to a City of Heroes 2 from the sound of it so...mission accomplished. I wish that Masterminds didn't have to cludge around with that one incarnate power so much. If that bit of code could be fixed somehow to not make you have to 'prime' the pet summons so they actually benefit, it would be nice.

Obviously, the eternal war between Anti-matter's clockwork and Neuron's clockwork must be waged by PEAT clockworks.

Yeah, being able to select one of the fly poses or use one of the p2w vendor powers (rocket board/sky skiff/void skiff) whenever you toggle a Flight power would be neato.

Revisiting AR could conceivably bleed over into improving Mercs, as their ARs would be improved. Synergy! But the super-long recharges on half of the commando's powers (which he doesn't use particularly smartly, and he can't hasten unlike a player) is one thing that could have some emergency treatment. One thing they do surpassingly well is behave, I guess. You can order them to just stand back and they rat-tat-tat away without getting in anybody's way (they benefit from Group Fly pretty well. Maybe they should steal some Wing Raider jetpacks in-set :)) Commando's LRM reminds me, that blaster ancillary pool he stole the power out of is sort of wimpy itself. I have a flavor-themed blaster who took Munitions but it's not exactly a great app set.

I think it was supposed to be a Mot's magical netherworld miasma spread out everywhere, but Mot waking up congealed it into Mot's physical body. Most likely the devs just decided they were going to get rid of it for whatever reason. Wanting to lift the veil so you see Mot's big body erupting out of the ground? Players smacking into buildings? Maybe some kind of technical reason to remove it? Dunno.

I WISH you could yank escorts around like that. Sadly I think Cryptic's devs thought that would be exploitative since you could stealth and TP escort VIPs right outta harm's way, like some kind of smart cookie or something.

This'll be...interesting for new alts to experience. A lot of stuff only really started to shine when SOs opened up in the 20s. Then again it's so quick to level to that point nowadays that TOs and DOs had already become stuff you blew past anyway. Those poor Freedom Corps merchants all out of jobs, though. The interiors of those shops should be turned into Amazon shipping locations.

I think that adding some extra AoE into MA might've could've been been a change to, say, Crane Kick? Since it's so totally samey to Cobra Strike aside for one stuns and the other KBs. Adding it onto EC seems a weird choice. Keeping the aoe potential loaded in the back?

Being able to vacuum enemies up and plop them directly in the path of the PAIN TRAIN sounds heavenly. Squishies MAY wish to avoid it (some squishies are still pbaoe or cone based and could benefit, I figure) but hey it'll make it easier for the meatshields to keep enemies over at them and not over at the squishies, too. I swear i remember some powerset that hoovered up the enemies but turned them Intangible that was just terribad. in Gravity, right? Maybe that one should get the same treatment--or rather a more precision control: suck up the enemies and deposit them where you ground target them to get plopped out.

Serum has just terrible numbers. Improving those values and also maybe just outright making it an AoE that hits every henchman so you dope up each merc in the squad, would be a good start to salvaging it. Obviously would probably want that t9 godmode debuff crash at the end of it removed. That never made sense to me, as you could just dismiss that pet and ditch that debuff'd minion anyway.... I imagine adding in Swap Ammo isn't such an easy proposition as they use Rifle attacks and it would be a lot of fiddling around to change everything around to add an ammo type proc onto them. It would be like adding Swap Ammo mechanic into AR. *which would be pretty cool, too.

Here it comes, the Impromptu Teammates! [for maximum fun make each summoned model just a generic model that hit the Randomize button] 1. Random Muscle: A melee pugilist joins the fray on your side! With some mild resistances and hard knuckled punches, he charges heedlessly forward into the danger! 2. Random Blaster: A ranged trigger-happy blaster joins the fray on your side! He stays in the rear, popping off shots with a firearm. That's one office worker who got tired of being taken hostage! 3. Random Defender: An enthusiastic healer joins the fray on your side! He's getting experience handling his shiny medical tricorder, providing assorted injections & serums! 4. Random Controller: A smug controller joins the fray on your side! He vaguely annoys people by holding enemies in place, irregardless of positioning considerations! 5. the ULTIMATE, the AMAZING, the TRAVEL POWER we almost forgot! You bought a van to haul your impromptu teammates around! [literally transform the player into a van and move at superspeed]

I think they added costume tailoring to the trainers specifically because back in ye olde live days players would complain about how they had to dare the dangers of the streets to get to the Icon or Facemaker shops. That was also when trains and ferries weren't consolidated so a new hero had to scamper across the length of Steel Canyon if they wanted to change their tights.

A Devoured Nemesis army in Eden, being opposed by the Nemesis Automatons whose fake bodies aren't mutated by the Will of the Earth! The Devoured all have spiffy military caps! It's most certainly NOT a Nemesis plot to transform Lord Nemesis into immortal goo!

i like bonfire as the fire is made of rubber than makes everybody fall and bounce. *IO sold separately :)

I'm surprised Null the Gull didn't have a sort of option to 'Ignore Stealth/force default Perception radius' come to think of it. some ATs would never touch it but some probably would gladly perma-disable stealth boosts on themselves.

Masterminds were great fun as a pet class and one of the best i've ever fiddled with, but yeah they were one that basically got shelved when you'd gotten them to 50 in CoX since they're slow and steady but nowhere near being a best endgame AT. It makes sense that Paragon wasn't devoting so much resources into making special Incarnate stuff for a single AT--a Villain AT, double trouble combo!--but yes they certainly did seriously neglect MM issues there. I wish an Incarnate MM had gotten a button which could just instantly assemble and train all their pets. Back in live, with how 90% of the player's time was spent on summoning and training ONE-BY-ONE, that really would've been a mega-QoL boon. If it's at all possible that's a QoL i'd love to see. Like, you're a level 50 MM? Boom here's a new Inherent that can call all the rent-a-thugs with a click on a 4 minute unrechargable cooldown or something.

The Toggle Instant Healing was hard to balance since the alpha strike was basically the only thing that could kill a Regenerator. If they could take the first volley then they wouldn't die to anything else that got thrown at them. I dunno how to fix it but neither did the official powers guys, apparently! Make it cost a horrible, horrible amount per tick? A negative recovery debuff to discourage just clicking it and forgetting it and explained away as being the cost of the regenerator throwing their body into overdrive? Regen is a set whose blue bar never moves... It's so darn click-oriented. Very active set, and a wild ride with how the green bar bounces compared to defense sets that require less work to work. And Revive is just poop. I think the Sentinel version would heal you like you popped an Insp if you weren't downed, right? Other versions should have that change ported over imo. Powers that require faceplants are kind of powers I never liked.

Ghost Widow is the patron of Mercy Isle, her spire is located there in the story arcs. And Sharskhead is Cap'n Mako's turf and the official home of the Chum Bucket. Curiously I don't think Black Scorpion and Scirroco were awarded their own little domains. I guess they skipped doing a Strike Force to get that accolade from Recluse :D Paragon was so covered with hero statues I think it was an intentional decision to NOT have Recluse or his lts line Rogue Isles with statues of themselves. The presence of the Arachnos forts on each island were all Recluse needed to affirm he's the supreme overlord, but indulged in the vanity of having that one giant statue of himself in GV.

Ha, now I want Serum to be replaced with something like a medical waste barrel prop that pulses an Assault +DMG aura to everyone in range.

All those unbound magics in the Night Ward seemed almost perfect to roll out some sort of Wizard mastermind. magical clouds as minions enchanted armament lts magical armor boss and then do magical vortex or scrying orb or something as the hell-on-earth/gang war sort of extra. empower the rest of the magics while it's out, but not intended to be permanent fixture of MM's gang

They could subtly replace those monitors with the ranting Recluse with a jack-o-lantern in GV! or not. i have no idea how those screens of him work.

Those missions were supposed to just sort of let groups chill at a spot and enemies would come running towards them without players having to even move. From a certain point of view, it could've been relaxing? The devs never really making those kinds of missions again showed how popular the idea was :D The outdoor hunt enemies missions forced you to interrupt the eternal war they have going on in there. It becomes a whole lot easier to find fir bolgs hiding in trees when they're not being stomped by dozens of groups of tuatha stomping every pumpkin in sight. The red caps...yeah, they only lurk on the far edges of the patrol area and made that mission aggravating.