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Yeah, I lose interest in a toon when there's nowhere else to climb. It all comes too soon as well. I hope it doesn't contribute to an overall loss of interest in the game, but it's having that effect on me.

This story follows the events of The Hollows, which should be done first. Contacts and characters will remember you from those events. Sam Wincott is missing again. Trolls Task Force, still led by Lt David Wincott, went on the offence against the trolls but vanished. The only person you can contact is Julius the Kindhearted Troll. ---- This is my first real stab at an AE arc. I've kept it simple for now to see what's up and wanted to do something no more or less complicated than a regular arc. I felt like the ending of the Hollows arc was a little incomplete, so I wanted to try my own take of what could happen next. I'm looking for feedback and am prepared to make some changes. I've been able to play through it on a generic IO build in the upper range of the levels. It might be difficult a little lower due to a few EBs. There are a few unfortunate compromises I needed to make, such as using the Bat'Zul level instead of the Cavern of Transcendence map.

I think that just comes from not understanding that this is an idea for the journey, not the destination. Some people like the creative freedom that having no unlockables grants. But I'd prefer to earn an expanded creative freedom. It feels a bit backwards to front-load reward like this to me, but others don't see it that way.

I don't think you're getting attacked here. It's just a difference in expectations about how folks like to play the game. I, at least, would like to see larger varieties of content have its own unique reward, rather than all the reward having been given before the content, and the benefit to playing either concentrated in a few places or standardised throughout the game.

Yeah, cat’s out of the bag with existing things. You wouldn’t even be able to get rid of Null the Gull, which subverts a whole gameplay feature, at this point. The culture has adapted with it. I’m also in favour of account-wide unlocks, where perhaps progress is shared between characters as well. I don’t see this at all as ego-stroking, as some have suggested. Thinking about the cabal hat from live, I never wore it but really enjoyed the process of unlocking it.

Even outside of the crimewave event idea, having cops regularly sweeping the streets themselves, moving from area to area and needing player assistance to progress their patrol would be great!

Read all about it! It definitely carries across into this discussion, especially if the invasions were kept to Hazard Zones (partly so they don't troll with places like Atlas and PI where folks might be minding their own business, and that it'd add a hazard to hazard zones.) I managed to get a few levels out of Crey's folly recently and enjoyed exploring the place. You don't get the same kind of verticality and environmental variety in missions. It was a shame I could only do that for five levels or so before I outlevelled the place. Powerlevelling, it was not, but it was fun.

I've seen a few conversations turn to either the lack of population throughout the zones or the lack of reward for using them, and we often talk about looking at Streetsweeping for solutions. I wanted to consolidate some ideas in one place and have one topic for talking more specifically about this. Streetsweeping (going around the streets beating up mobs) is a very high-risk, low-reward activity as it stands. You get unpredictable enemies, level ranges that could go from blue one mob to purple the next, debt for death is higher, travel to find level-appropriate zones is higher, and by and large it rewards nothing you wouldn't find better elsewhere. There's an opportunity to make Streetsweeping a valid way to get 1-50, fill some of those blank levels, or farm for their own rewards. A few ideas have included - Unlevelled mobs in hazard zones. - A new merit of similar conversion value to vanguard merits, with their own rewards as well. - Taking control of zones and neighbourhoods in some fashion. - Co-op hazard zones. - Zone events that are initiated by streetsweeping. (Redside GMs already do this) - PvPlite, where players don't engage players but focuses on winning against street groups instead. I'd certainly like to see Hazard Zones become Hazardous and Rewarding enough to be interesting to spend time in. I think some of the ideas above could displace a little bit of farming into Hazard Zones, which I don't see as a bad thing. With leagues, more people can join in and with unlevelled mobs more people can contribute for efficient earning. Unlike AE, of course, there's no control over damage type so there's still some degree of limitation preventing a decked-out farming toon for a single purpose. One stretch thought that comes up now and again is for hazard zones to each have their own zone event, with similar complexity and reward value of an MSR raid. What could each zone have for a event? Looking at the more emptier, 'blank canvas' neighbourhoods and zones: - Grendel's Gulch in The Hollows - Boomtown (Something about reclaiming neighbourhoods, or war between the Council and the 5th Column?) - Crey's Folly (Freakshow Thunderdome?) - Eden Note, This is purely just for the sake of thought exercise in designing CoH gameplay, I'm not demanding any new features here. Just blue sky talk about what could be.

I’d like some grindy rewards to reappear as well. I don’t have much time in my life to commit to the game either, but I’d like to feel like I have more than just veteran levels to work towards.

🖕

I’ve not had weird experiences like these since live. Bad communication is always a killer. Even if the language isn’t shared, something as simple as an emoji would help.

(FWIW, I just wanted to add that the reason we saw new vigilante/rogue arc content was because HC was trying out branching stories with moral choices. It’s obviously easier to give distinct moral choices to the two intermittent alignments than to heroes or villains.) It would be a huge undertaking, absolutely. Something like this could transform redside and set it apart properly from blue. In my head I’m imagining a copy-paste of the alignment UI, with each fill being a milestone with one group. A paper mission adds 1, a relevant arc adds 2 and a mayhem mission adds 3 (or something). Rival factions get their alignment reversed in this way. Milestones each develop the plot: 1 - destabilise the faction’s leadership 2 - rise to power 3 - establish a powerbase 4 - doomsday! (or something) Each level adds perks you can do with the group, like a long cooldown summon at lower levels, or some way you can start a Paragon City invasion at higher levels. Over time, tonnes of things could happen. Spawns of your faction versus rival factions could sometimes appear near you in some zones. Entire gang wars and controlling territories could gradually be built off this system. There would need to be enough to do in the process to level the lion’s share of 1-50, with existing arcs as filler, in order to have an effect on the character as an antagonist so sheer quantity would take a lot of work. The character still needs to be a destined one, so their power level can’t exceed Recluse in the pecking order. The doomsday schemes can’t outshine project destiny. It’s about balance. One thing that would create work is having too many factions. One for each existing villain group would be huge. Would one per origin be too few? (Who do you pick for natural, for instance? Family or Knives of Artemis? They share origin but are nothing alike.) Or could the framework be designed such that adding a new faction isn’t too labour intensive after the core mechanisms are in place?

I agree that’d be coolest, but the issue was then avoiding how existing arcs place you at odds with those factions. Some complex stories and task forces could become a bit strange. Establishing sub-factions, splinters, rebel groups, etc, of the existing villain groups would be an easy fix. Plus those subgroups could have a narrative power vacuum just waiting to be filled, whereas existing groups already have established and sometimes complex hierarchies. And it would give Vahz minions the potential for a presence on the rogue isles.

There might be a little bit of dissonance as you align yourself with existing groups, say Hellions, and then find yourself in an arc that requires you to hunt Hellions. Maybe there’s a way around that though. One might be to introduce new factions with a few generic themes and clear rivalries. Villains would encounter them almost exclusively in paper and mayhem missions and heroes if a villain prompts an invasion with their group. (The group could also be a sub faction or splinter of an existing villain group to avoid adding to the villain soup) If normal defeat badges are associated with the factions, this might create an interesting out-of-character meta coop where hero badge hunters need villains to invade.

Not to compromise your idea against reality (I think we should dream big and I adore anything that breathes life into the city), even something as small as paper missions and certain arcs developing a factional standing, with some kind of reward for each group, would go a long way to make redside feel villainous. From there you could really build up ideas. For instance, your highest faction could help you rob banks in mayhem missions while your lowest tries to compete. This kind of agency is how you change the PC’s role from protagonist to antagonist, which is why the existing content missed the mark. You’re still a protagonist in CoV.

I think about this often. I find it helps to think of your character on redside as the same narrative role as blueside; you respond to the needs of others rather than have your own agency. The difference is that it’s in a world where goodness is actively discouraged and self-centredness is the paradigm. I really enjoy redside with this attitude; you’re basically a hero in evil circumstances. What would villain content look like? It was attempted with the Protean plotline, but that was very stifled in its writing. It made presumptions and put words in the character’s mouth. It gave you a very specific agenda. It ultimately goes nowhere. The format of typical mission arcs just doesn’t quite mesh with evil schemes. However! HC has just proved that they can do a branching plotline. That could really open things up. Could there be one long redside plot that goes 1-50, like the VEAT arcs, that allows the player to choose from different ways to terrorise Paragon City (magical mind control, technological canon on the moon...), using different origins as prompts, and to feel like they own the scheme by making decisions. Think Evil Genius, if you’ve ever played that.

We know some broad details from postmortem interviews with Positron et al. The next big plot development was all going to be all about The Coming Storm, which involved a new enemy group called the Battalion. There’s not a significant amount of information more than that, and I’m certain no assets made it as far as the i24 build if they ever existed. AE can be made extraordinarily difficult, if you so choose. I think mobs of AVs are possible, for instance.

Folks usually say BS, but there’s an outdoor hunt with arachnoids that can trip me up if I’m not ready for the debuffs. I stormed through Mako’s arc recently, though. I think it will be my new go-to.

Tell no one.

Yeah, 4-5 is a really comfortable team size. It’s great to have the option to be able to start most content with smaller groups. I can’t remember some of the minimums from live, but they certainly became overcompensated by the end.

I very much agree with this point, from experience as a perpetually new player. The ‘path of least resistance’ route in CoH doesn’t have a whole lot of traditional ‘game’ going on and doesn’t make for very good first-time content. Sometimes I see new players being advised to run like eight DfBs to get started, which just sounds like a lifeless grind to me. I think we can’t let ourselves get jaded and unenthused by the game world either. The game still has to serve as a functional, immersive RPG. I played sporadically on live and ended up leaving altogether because the attitude of players seemed to treat parts of the game that I’d never done before as inconvenient chores to get over with. I didn’t know the game well enough to know if there were other ways of doing it and couldn’t figure out how to find like-minded players. It didn’t even occur to me that the game might have gotten too easy in the time I was away, but that’s more or less what happened. It just looked like the game wasn’t for me and it’s only this time around, having known how it got, that I’m making the decision to play my own way come what may. Granted, it was also at a time the markets were in full-on inflation, so the game was just impregnable for someone who missed a few issues.

Picking these two points out in particular: AE PLing: The difference between the supposed problem and your proposed solution is negligible. All an insta-50 would do is save the few hours it might take to power level. In this sense, AE is the closest thing we may ever need to an insta-50, without any extra effort from anyone. We’re yet to see if the accelerated income of inf from AE starts to cause a ruckus with the market, but so far so good. Live’s market got impregnable indeed when I played, but the introduction of reward merits and converters look like they’ve stabilised things, as has pooling certain items. If the economy stays stable, then it doesn’t matter at all how fast people get income as long as any content is feasible. Currently, there’s opportunity in some content to create new incomes, like Street Sweeping, which could have a reward system of its own. Speedrunners: It’s worth speaking to record holders about this. While there are folks who just want to make it to the end of the TF quickly, as though the TF is a chore between them and merits, the competitive players are a whole other matter. That’s not just outfitting your build, but knowing your powers, knowing all the enemies, preparing temp powers in the PvP zones, knowing which insps to pop when and getting team coordination down pat... There’s definitely something to be said about the guys trying to get those last couple of minutes down. As for rushing TFs for getting to the reward fastest, this is just having clear communication with the leader when you join. Going slowly through content is a self-imposed challenge; the game isn’t asking us to do it but it makes sense to us to often fight our way to objectives rather than ghost them. Some don’t see it that way. There could be an opportunity to reward the slow-and-steady or thorough players as you say, but I don’t personally really feel like I need to be any more or less rewarded for taking my time than what’s already there. I don’t really wanna feel like I need to optimise chilling out and playing.

You can’t create those particular components from threads, but the components that you can create from threads can be used to create alpha incarnate powers. As Tafilr said, It’s a separate recipe hidden below the first alpha recipe. If you scroll down, you should find it. Might save you some trouble, unless you feel like you’re committed to the shard recipes.

I think this thread is a little too identical to the other thread at this point in the conversation. Could I raise that one be closed and the conversation encouraged to continue in one place?

Can we give pleated skirts to the existing huge model? and then make them compulsory?