Jiro Ito

My vote is for Marine, it is outstanding

It looks like @GM Vayek, who used to run the Devs Choice stuff, has retired and not posted since 2022, and from what @Dacy said, the Community Rep role has been eliminated altogether. I think we'd have to come up with something ourselves to recognize arcs, either some kind of judge's panel, or rotating contests.

New NPC: Stock Broker What company would you like to trade? Langston Corp. Langston Corp is currently trading at $410 per share. Would you like to invest or short? Short. How many shares would you like to short at $410 per share? 10,000. Very good, you have spent $4,100,000 on 10,000 shares of Langston Corp. Your broker fee is 5% (influence sink). Player runs off to complete Dr. Aeon's Strike Force, assassinating King Midas, pummeling Princess Zoe twice, scattering the employee base to the winds, and handing their most valuable technology over to Arachnos. Langston Corp's stock value plummets. Player returns to Stock Broker. What company would you like to trade? Langston Corp. Langston Corp is currently trading at $310 per share. Would you like to invest, short, or close? Close my current shares. Closing your shares will return a $100 per share profit, minus 5% broker fees. Confirm you would like to close your shares? Confirm. Player makes $950,000 profit. *Note: "$" is used in place of influence Alternatively, you could do missions for the various Gold Bricker contacts to drive up their stock value. Doing standard contact missions would raise a company's stock value in small amounts, where doing a Task Force would have a larger impact on the company's value. IE, doing Tavish Bell's arc would raise Crey's stock value a little bit, but completing Manticore's task force and roughing up Countess Crey herself would have a much larger, negative impact on the value of their company. Any other business where you could work both for and against them would be good candidates for the Stock Exchange (Cage Consortium, Aeoncorp, Herocorps, etc). In a bit of indirect PvP, players would be working against each other to drive up and/or down the stock price of the companies they are invested in. Fun fact: in real life, there is no limit to how much money one can lose when shorting a stock. See: 2006-08 housing market crash.

I can get behind any idea to drive a little visibility and recognition towards authors, but really, there just isn't that much interest I don't think. Maybe I am just salty because my Devs Choice arc only has 82 ratings, meanwhile a farm I created two years later on an alternate account that I don't publicize or bring others on at all still garnered 90 ratings. It'd be cool if farms and stories were separated somehow, and then stories granted additional rewards like merits or aether; OR AE tickets earned by doing stories but not farms could be traded for merits, aether, recipes, etc.

leading a ToT league is the most unrewarding form of PvP

For me, it's all tied to what we know about them in the game. As others have said, we don't know much about them from the in-game task forces and other hero side content. Because my brain works in a certain way, I keep wanting the Freedom Phalanx and their tasks to be organized differently, and more personal to them. That, and the drawn-out, defeat-all, time consuming design strategy of the early task forces gives me anxiety of the mere mention of their name...Citadel? Endless defeat-alls in Council caves? Shudder... Synapse - this dude's entire torturous existence is thanks to Crey, but his task force has you chasing down the Clockwork King? Blue Steel - this guy should have the Clockwork King task force, and there's so much opportunity to make it personal to him, and explore his heroics and less-than-heroic actions, and really take a this story to a meaningful place. Do we ultimately place Blue Steel under arrest, along with CWK? Penny - the newest task force with the best design, and the one for whom I have the least animosity, strangely! She would be another good option for the Clockwork King task force as well though, but it would need to be rewritten as something that was more personal to her and explored their connection. Has that been covered enough by the Faultline arcs and Lady Grey TF? Maybe! Maybe she figures into Blue Steel's CWK task force! Give me all the lore. Positron - also has a backstory with Crey, lost control of his powers in the Rikti war, but his task force in any form is all low-level enemies. The reworked task forces are a massive improvement on the old design though. Citadel - also has history with Crey and the Rikti. This is my least favorite TF. He was Bastion, now he's Citadel? Can we play out that story, instead of 20 kill-alls inside Council Caves? Manticore - "Keep it together, Shalice!" The guy who actually does give out the Crey task force, but has his personal history is all the 5th Column. As least Twin Shot has us interacting with him more so we can get to know him on some level. Numina - the magical Midnighter Princess sends us off to fight Crey, Nemesis, Freakshow, Devoured Earth, every tech-powered and science-experiment-gone-awry enemy in the level range, but nothing magical? Back Alley Brawler - justice for BABS! Why not swap him out for the sole Atlas Park trainer, now that Ms. Liberty gives out her TF (which is great, and personal to her with her relationship to Recluse). Or give BABS a Superdine task force. Or a retake-Galaxy-City task force. Or something. He may be my favorite of the Freedom Phalanx-slash-Regulator-who-always-appears-with-the-Freedom-Phalanx-inconsistent-lore-alert, because we know so much about his history. Bro just needs something to do besides stand in a corner of Atlas Park. Overall, I think the villain-side missions give us way better insight into the Freedom Phalanx than we get from their own missions. Dr Forrester teaches us more about Citadel than Citadel does, Tavish Bell gives us more to do with Synapse, Kuhr'Rekt has us working more with Positron, etc etc. Obviously the mission design philosophy that gave us the first task forces changed over time, and the villains-side patron arcs that came after are wonderful deep dives into the big-named villains' strengths, weaknesses and motivations. Who Will Die is a nice step in the right direction. More like that please. I just don't know if it will ever be enough to overcome my hate of Citadel's TF. Seriously.

Yes please 🤘

It's simply "SFMA" 🙂

would definitely love some kind of a taunt/end for tank toggles

Added some animation ideas

Staff Blast An origin-neutral staff blasting set. Your mastery of your staff enables you to steal some of your enemies’ life force to shield yourself from damage. You might be a wizard, focusing your power through any old stick; you might not have any innate magical abilities but managed to pick up a magically-infused wand; or maybe you built yourself a powered staff in your laboratory. Staff Bolt: Single target, minor energy damage, chance to absorb a portion of your enemy’s health in the form of a temporary absorption shield. Blackwand's temporary power attack. Staff Catapult: Single target, moderate smashing damage, chance for knockback (mag 0.67). You use the power of your staff to grab a heavy object and propel it at your enemy at high speed. Gravity's Propel animation, but holding your staff. Staff Blast: 45° Cone, moderate energy damage, chance to absorb a portion of your enemy’s health in the form of a temporary absorption shield. Demon Mastermind's Enchant Demon animation, holding a staff. Staff Barrage: 60° Cone, moderate energy damage, chance to absorb a portion of your enemies’ health in the form of a temporary absorption shield. A Throw Caltrops animation, but holding a staff. Staff Focus: Self +To-Hit, +DMG. Standard build up animation but holding staff. Imprison: Single target, moderate smashing damage, hold. Cage your enemy in a force field you generate with your staff. Demon Mastermind's Abyssal Empowerment animation, but holding staff. Acid Rain: Location AOE, minor toxic damage over time. Rain of Fire animation, but holding the staff in your hand. Transmogrify: Single target. Sniper attack. If enemy is not outright defeated, it is shapeshifted into a harmless dog or cat that cannot move, use abilities or take damage. Summon Demonlings animation, but holding staff. Staff Dominion: PBAoE, extreme energy damage, stun, chance to absorb a portion of your enemies’ health in the form of a temporary absorption shield. Moment of Glory animation, but holding the staff in your hand. Some weapon skin options:

Architect Entertainment is still a thing, why wait for the devs to write your story when you could do it yourself!

I just wanted to point out, AE npcs have the player-version of powers, not the in-game enemy version of the powers, and they typically run stronger. Comparing AE enemies to standard enemies isn't apples-to-apples. Also, isn't knockout blow one of the highest damage powers in the game? Enemies with knockout blow should be wrecking players, especially defenders.

What year is it in City of Heroes? The first Rikti invasion was 2002. Has it been 5 years? 20 years?

"Shard?" Homecoming calls them servers.

Absolutely not. If I wanted the large server experience, I'd play on a large server. I know where they are. This ^

That's funny, I always imagined them to be in the south Caribbean, amongst the French-speaking islands, due to a lot of the French history and influence we see in the Rogue Isles in the game.

We already have animations in the game for the "for fun" frisbee power from the START vendor where you both throw and catch a frisbee. All you would need to do* is swap in a boomerang e voila. *I have no idea how easy the swap is, coding-wise.

No! This is NOT the time management tool I needed lol

Great Value Morrowind, Skyrim (mods!) Fallout 3, 4, New Vegas Planet Coaster Knights of the Old Republic I and II Dragon Age Origins City of Heroes, it turns out! Poor Value Starfield 😞 Dragon Age II and III Any other Star Wars game I've played since KOTOR WoW

Yes the description is an error. Outdoor maps do not have "fronts" or "backs", they are all one thing, so in your example you get 33 only, and only 11 collections. There is also no way to set what spawns where outdoor, like if you wanted an AV to spawn towards the back of the outdoor map. That can only be done on the indoor maps.

I read quickly but not sure I saw anyone mention his endurance drains, which is usually what i have the most trouble with. a base buff of endurance debuff resistance helps a ton if i can remember to grab it before starting, or some blue insps.

rad/rad Glowing One 😉

I've never been able to get a workable arc over 50% file size. I usually start crashing in the 40s and have to start scaling back.

Thanks so much for playing, my friend, and for supporting other authors' work in this cool format!