The Caretaker

Do me a favor and keep your precognition in the Vault, ok?

Oh right, you wanted a teaser.

Please! I need time! The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy... and bruised!

The map is set up to have PPD and Freaks spawn in CLOSE proximity to each other, forcing them to fight on sight. Freakshow will almost always win that fight. I can only theorize: Someone back in days of yore may have decided that was rather bland, and instead made it blander by neutering the Freakshow to give the PPD something to do. And the players as well, by extension. While I've reinstated the nature of their conflicts, I will be revisiting this scenario with other tech some time in the future. Thus, the wish has been granted, and there may be a diminished presence of PPD in that mission for the interim, by circumstance 😄 Be careful what you wish for!

Technically... flag melee should be slated for 4/1 release.

I've isolated the problem and as usual, it's a dumb one.

I'm looking into it.

No conspiracy, three heroes have made it into beta. More coming.

Ouroboros only handles the content flagged as "Story Arcs" and certain tasks for replayability. This is for two reasons: One, Story Arcs (and certain tasks) tend to give out rewards and advance plot, and thus are more timeline sensitive for Ouroboros from a thematic standpoint; and two, the tasks in this game are numerous and some of them are redundant, distributed across legacy contacts as filler missions, referrals to the Hazard Zone security chiefs (Which is a holdover from when Hazard Zones were level locked and you had to earn clearance to enter), etc. Adding them *all* would make a fine mess of Ouroboros' curated list to things to do and some would be a darn fine waste of time. While the missions you've listed are not ALL entirely just timekillers, talk-tos, etc., they are filler missions that largely just help push a super to the next level. The only way to access that content is to be in the level range it's offered. Some missions have been flagged by players as lore-important, such as the recent badges added to two Rikti missions. As such, if some missions in that list are plot-related they can be tagged in Ouro in the future. (Past? Future-Present?) CT

Can neither confirm nor deny that shenanigans are or are not afoot in the ruined hellscape that is or was Galaxy City, should it exist.

Hero Corps will be relaunching in Paragon City with a presence that does not **exclude** the field analysts from work - they are happily employed right where they are. But they will be called on in a pinch for delicate political situations when a regular hero might be a liability to go off script or bungle the optics. And yes, each costume that I could work with in the costume contest was minorly adjusted, given a brand new name and backstory, and being added to the roster.

PRESS RELEASE Contact Information: Hero Corps, Ultd. Rebecca J. Foss, Esq. 555-519-2801 x 101 [email protected] HERO CORPS BRINGS A LEAGUE OF HEROES TO PARAGON CITY New legal framework opens up for increased global cooperation. The effects of the Praetorian invasion and the awakening of “Mot” within the confines of Paragon City are still felt today, and all around the world. Countless lives were lost in those frantic moments, not the least of which was that of the beloved hero Statesman, the world’s strongest champion. Time and again in the face of great hardship, terror and tragedy, super-powered beings rise to fight for the greater good. Even against an eternal god of death, supers from all walks of life, from righteous to dastardly, laid their differences aside and came together in a great, albeit temporary, alliance to defend all of humanity against supernatural extermination and extradimensional subjugation. Once again, humanity proved that when push comes to shove, nothing can stand up to a united Earth. In the wake of such events, Hero Corps is proud to announce a return to the beloved birthplace of the modern superhero, Paragon City. Hero Corps is a global franchise with branches all over the world, from Mexico City to Jakarta, from Rio de Janeiro to London. Over a hundred local branches employ thousands of heroes to serve and protect their communities, reducing crime and increasing protection against natural and manmade disasters. Our heroes are well paid and provided for - a necessity to let them focus on doing what they do best: helping you. While Hero Corps has been a force to reckon with globally since 2003, the local Paragon City branch has until now exclusively employed local heroes to serve as advisors, in deference to city sentiment and legal challenges alike. However, recent developments in both city and national ordinances have opened up an opportunity for members of all our branches to bring their considerable talents to Paragon City, under a new program of temporary licensing provided to members of select internationally established supergroups. Make no mistake, we fully support and respect the Citizens Fighting Crime Act, but Hero Corps offers up an improved incentive: Liability Protection, Accountability, and active involvement in our employed supers' continued growth and mastery of themselves. We encourage all supers to work for the greater good, but remind everyone that a super without accountability to an employer, government, or country is a fine line that can shift with a single decision. We are not Heroes for Hire. We are Power with Purpose, Duty with Direction, and Action with Accountability. So today we have re-opened our doors in Paragon City to bring our resources in the time of Galaxy City's need. If you need someone, we'll be there. Look for a shining beacon of hope in these dark times. The Duty of Power

This is correct - in an attempt to repair her wild child behavior, we stripped flight from mission 2. I was fully expecting pitchforks if the Aggro Queen couldn't fly in the finale, however.

Actually, Norse reference is intentional. Won't say more on the subject in case it doesn't come to pass in the future.

*SIGH* Will re-investigate this weekend.

That's changed in the pipe. All ambushes in Valeria's arc no longer chase you with impunity. When I implement the chase feature in the future, itll be for assassin whambushes of 1 or 2 very ill tempered LTs, or the like.

Error, and corrected in the pipe.

That's why we test. I ran Valeria mission 2 with a friend and hit the wall with those EB spawns. You can only get so much perspective locally with certain ATs and power choices. His T4 Blaster got flattened and fundamentally changed the momentum. I didn't experience that until then.

Lots of feature creep and power creep did eventually open that gap up. Toolkits expanded, and Controllers got a few things (Looking at you, /Time, dear Lord) but the other ATs starting getting a lot of sustain and survivability bumps that made the Support aspect of the game less and less needed, to where certain powersets and playstyles (Healer types) really fell off the map in terms of play and desirability.

It's being reduced to 52. I think that's an agreeable midpoint. 51 at -1.

That's a miss on my part. I'll own that. I thought the DA missions ran at 54 because they were incarnate content. I scaled them up, and now I realize that was a mistake so I will scale them back. On that note though, I see no reason to flatline them to 50. If this in Incarnate content, There should not be an option to run them at 49, level shift-less or powered up. So I will reduce the minimum level to 52, so that a "new" incarnate will still function without a level shift. Holdover logic from when these were upscaled from Marcus Valerius. Rarely does a timer cause a mission fail, so I'm going to leave them there. What you have to try and see, from a certain point of view, is that the subjective impression left from Live is that "In order to make our content harder, enemies just got more HP, one or two annoying extra powers, and rip apart Defense with enhanced ToHit". It was an unsustainable path forward. We want to give you guys something fun, different, fresh, and engaging without simply wasting your time in a fight (More HP) or undoing the benefits granted from a system (+ToHit to unravel the softcap builds) or badly implemented mechanics that just frustrate (Avoid this, ya Green Stuff 😠 ) In order to give the players even a modicum of interesting new mechanics, we first have to change the expectation that all content is explicitly soloable. To make everything soloable means a LOT of very fun, interesting, or otherwise experimental mechanics leveraged against that playstyle are impossible to implement. And before I take my place on the stake to be burned, just understand that: I'm trying my very best to find the line here. I'm already making and have been making changes based on feedback, including the most recent posts above yours. Not every AT can solo. So I'll mention once again that the argument for solo play limits the arguments to "typical" cases of ATs designed for the task. I cannot accommodate a Petless Mastermind's ability to solo, even if that's a hyperbolic statement. Mind/Empathy would also not be a super-fun time solo in Incarnate Content. (and that's not a knock against either build - but rather if you're making it work, then you're far better at the game than most, and your situation is unique.) Then again, a soloplay experience can be completely overrun by a single AT with the right IOs. If I were to design for soloability, I'd have to pick some metric for my baseline, which will automatically exclude some at one end of the spectrum and then cause others at the other end to complain that the game is too easy. HOWEVER, the game is designed as an MMO, and that Mind/Emp inviting a single other person suddenly changes the ENTIRE dynamic. Unless they invite the Petless MM, which could make things in fact even harder than if the Petless MM never came along. The moving parts are really interesting like that. The ITF became a benchmark for a real problem: The way Cimerorans were designed gave average run of the mill Controllers a maybe-shot at being effective with help from their secondaries, while Dominators had a straight-up miserable time in many configurations. So we're looking, aggressively, at trying to design enemies and experiences that have opportunities for everyone to shine, and to bring an acceptable amount of risk. (To date, we designed a few of these things before we had solid data of how they'd be received. Ravenna Conclave's design is inferior to [********* **********] coming in the near future.) The future looks bright, but in City of Lone Wolves we're still balancing the sheets. We need to test, implement, and design engaging content that allows a wide variety of team compositions to have epic experiences against a future world-threatening apocalyptic fight for their lives. We are a City of Heroes (and Villains... and Displaced Bizarro Dystopians), and it needs its heroes to work well solo or as a group. We want to bring sexy back team dynamics back to the forefront and remind people of the incredible interactions and force multiplication shenanigans that come with it. TL;DR: I'm adding a patch to the pipe that will make the tasks Minimum Level 52, not forced to 54.

I see what you're saying. The encounters are tuned just fine at +0/x1-8 which are acceptable soloing standards as far as I'm concerned for an Incarnate. The soloing argument is really an impossible thing to accommodate because a Mind/Emp soloing this (or any) content shouldn't and can't have the same capacity as a claws/fire scrapper. All content in this game is team content as far as I'm concerned. If that Mind/Emp wants to run a task and it's too hard, that's not really the content's fault, OR the player's fault, or the archetype's fault. Some tasks challenge convention. The content is designed with the idea that there's a pool of free agents (hopefully!) that can be recruited to assist. Difficulties can be adjusted. To the person pointing out that their tank was having little success with crowd control in Hand Clap - that approach works well on other groups - it just so happens that this group has been given more utility to challenge you. I think the Incarnate Cimerorans are in a fine place for +0, and with level shifts factored in, get a tad easier over time. You can certainly solo it, but knowing that the wide diversity of character options leads some to be team-support specialists, trying to accommodate it becomes a real universe-brain endeavor. Tankers can put out an impressive amount of damage, but in my eyes, they are specifically designed to help ensure the survival of their teammates as a primary function. The thing I'll have to look into later, is the question I can't answer at this second. Are DA repeatable missions explicitly defined as "solo incarnate" or is that a socially accepted use for them?

The changes to Cims regarding CC were for controllers and dominators to have a greater role. The utility in a tankers toolkit, solo, may not see as much. However there was a definite mentality of "control need not bother" in the ITF and we sought to address that. One of the big offenders was the Shout, which IIRC was changed in effectiveness by rank. @Cobalt Arachne may need a summoning for more deets.

Definitely don't want to be misinterpreted here, so know I mean this with a smile - this group is hard to solo and that's OK - its another step towards preparing players for target prioritization, situational awareness, and team composition. As for their CC, one of the goals with Hard Mode ITF was that Cimerorans were nigh-impervious to control and making control archetypes have a purpose was very high on the list. This change to Cimerorans trickled back to regular enemies as well, if I'm not mistaken, to make control useful even in the regular ITF. Try bringing a controller or dominator along and see if there's an appreciable difference.

Some slight changes are coming to the repeatable Incarnate Missions in the next patch, including Ravenna Conclave repeatable missions added to Sideris that unlock AFTER you complete Valeria's arc. All maps have been upgraded to the larger size versions as well for all missions.