BasiliskXVIII

In this context, Kronos is being used as an English proper noun and title, not a loanword from Greek. Because of this, it should follow English pluralization rules, even when shortened. Thus, "Kronoses" is the correct plural form—just as multiple Zeus Titans would be "Zeuses" rather than "Zēnoi", and multiple Hercules Titans (from the Latinized form) would be "Herculeses" rather than "Herculēs." English doesn't retroactively apply foreign grammar rules to proper names used in English, and Kronos is no exception.

And everyone always complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!

It's a well-known Easter egg that most of the detectives in the game are references to famous and law enforcement in media: Freitags and Becktrees are Friday and Streebeck from Dragnet (1987) Martins and Rogers and Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon series Sluggitt and Westbrush are Frank Bullitt (Bullitt) and Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry) Kowaccio and Frasenbacker are Vecchio/Kowalski and Fraser/Diefenbaker from Due South Basinns and Coquette are Tubbs and Crockett from Miami Vice Davids and Hutchinson are David Starsky and Ken Hutchinson from "Starsky and Hutch" Junkers and Murwell are Rick Deckard (Blade Runner) Alex Murphy (RoboCop) McLord and Selnum are Steve McGarret (played by Jack Lord in Hawaii 5-0) and Thomas Magnum (Played by Tom Selleck in Magnum PI) (Detectives Fish and Miller are named for Sean Fish and Matt Miller, former devs for City of Heroes) I like to believe that somewhere in Kallisti Wharf there isn't a police station, but just a little detective's office. And there, if you could get inside, you'd find two men, eager for work. An older, rumpled-looking man, slumped lazily in his chair, beige trench coat hanging loose over his shoulders like he has been wearing it for decades. His expression is casual, even absentminded, as he stirs sugar into a chipped coffee mug. Beside him, another man sits, perfectly poised—immaculate three-piece suit, gloves still on, a glass of bourbon untouched at his desk. He leans back in his chair, watching you enter with an amused glint in his eye. You see, you've found the office of Detective Falk and Detective Craig. Their methods might be unorthodox, but the streets of Kallisti are kept clear, because they know what's going to happen before it even starts.

My point is if you are a new player (or even a returning player with a fuzzy memory of how the game works) and follow the breadcrumbs that the game lays out for you on how to play, it's very possible for you never to receive an introduction to any of the contacts with story arcs which were in the game at launch. You start with Habashy, who sends you through an intermediary to Thiery. At 5, you also get pointed at Twinshot. Neither introduce you to anyone, but you get Shauna Stockwell as a popup at 7 or when you enter King's Row as part of Twinshot's arc. So you run Stockwell and then Eagle Eye, as well as the Shining Stars Arcs. Finally you stop Veles and let's suppose you finish Eagle Eye at level 15. You're out of Vic Johansson's range, so Eagle Eye doesn't introduce you to him, and Twinshot's arc finishes up, and you're not introduced to anything here either. So you "Find Contact" - you get Jim Temblor, and you do that arc up to 25. Agent G doesn't introduce you to anything, so you're stuck. And in this whole time, nothing is introducing you to the older contacts, so you don't even know they exist. As far as you're concerned, there are two levelling paths through the early game - this one contact chain, and the TFs. (Three if you include farms.) So what I'm saying is that having people calling out in LFG "Hey, I'm running the Mind of a King arc as a TF Lv. 15+, LFM" is potentially beneficial as a way to direct peoples' attention to the fact that those arcs and contacts exist at all. This isn't "I want everybody to do all the content", this is "hey, did you even know this was here?" Because the way that the game is laid out right now, I am quite certain that there's players out there who have absolutely no idea that there's hours and hours of content in the game that the game almost hides from them. And yes, it is possible for players to form TFs through Ouro to do these task forces now. I just think people would be more likely to advertise to do it, if the option to do so was presented naturally to them as they played. Right now, the Ouroboros flashbacks arcs are kind of out of sight out of mind.

No, I mean at higher level. Eagle Eye doesn't pass you on to anyone if you outlevel Vic Johansson before completing his arc, so unless you specifically know to go contact hunting, even if you don't accidentally outlevel them, you will very easily miss out on contacts like Wyatt Anderson (Mind of a King Arc), Kong Bao (Tsoo Shenanigans arc), and the various contacts that were in the game at launch unless you know to do radio missions. The only contacts that the "Find Contact" button actually finds for you are the ones that are open for anyone to start at any time, like Montague Castanella or Jim Temblor.

I'm thinking more as a separate option - you get the mission arc offered to you, and then when you click it to select the mission, there's an option to run their arc as a task force. You can choose to accept the arc as normal, or you can put together a TF to run the arc together. I'm primarily a soloer, so I wouldn't want the option to run the mission in non-TF mode removed, but for the times where I do have a mission arc and a lot of free time, I might put out a call to do it as a group. Obviously, the biggest challenge to this implementation is that it becomes necessary to have a sort of interim state where you've accepted the mission, but it hasn't started yet, like the alignment tip missions have, which is why I say there would probably need to be new systems added to contacts as part of this. Which, admittedly, is potentially more effort than the Devs would find worthwhile. I do think, however, that having the option to run the arcs as TFs on-the-fly, and especially having the merit rewards shared, would make them more appealing to players, and would offer a bunch of content to teams that is currently kind of "out of sight, out of mind." Especially since it's actually really hard to get access to some of those arcs as you level now, with the "old" contacts not being offered unless you either don't follow the Matthew Habashy>Shauna Stockwell>Eagle Eye chain or you make an effort to do enough radios to get a safeguard mission if you do.

Somewhat related, but what I'd love to see is for contacts to give you the option to run their story arcs as a task force. You can already do the arcs flashbacked through Ouroboros, but it seems pretty lame that if I'm running a story arc and I have people joining me for the entire thing, then the only way for them to get arc rewards and credit for completing it is if they happen to also have the story arc and are running it parallel to you. Admittedly, this means messing around with adding a new system to contacts, which I could see not being a very exciting prospect for the devs, but it would be nice if there were better incentives for people to experience the mission arcs, cause some of them are pretty neat.

Most TFs are like Posi rather than DFB. Many players have run these TFs so many times that all interest and novelty have been wrung out of them and they are only interested in the reward, and there's a process which has been standardised to get through the TFs as quickly and efficiently as possible. If it's your first time running a TF, I would advise letting your team know when you start so that they can give you guidance on what to do and where to go next. I've never had any problems with this, there is typically someone who is willing to guide the newbie. Avoid any TFs which advertise themselves as "speed", because tearing through the TF as fast as possible is the intent of those, while KM tfs (Kill most) are generally going to be about killing enemies.

Two arms is the limit. You can't find an option to make a multi-armed character because one doesn't exist. The "Circle of Thorns" backpack option looks vaguely insect-leg-like, so you might be able to play around like that. Or if you create an Arachnos Soldier, you can eventually get the option for a Crab Spider Backpack if you choose the Crab Spider path, which has big spider-like legs over your head. Neither option will let you use these as regular arms to hold a weapon or something with though.

If I'm honest, I almost kinda wish that they'd break down the way that origin ties to the enhancements altogether. I kind of hate that I feel this way, because I do feel like Origin should be relevant at least in part, and the SOs are one remaining vestige of this remaining in the game. But basically the only thing it's really contributing is determining how annoying it is to buy SOs if you go to IP. I do like the thought that magic-type characters check out the neat baubles and charms in the magic shop and that techy characters visit the Radio Shack for the bits and bobs that they need for an improvement to their toys, because that's a very comic-y thing to do. But at the same time, a magic origin "Fury of Joule" and a tech origin "Portacio Ind Internal Munitions" are the same thing, given that as Stormwalker said, nobody pays that much attention to the enhancements they're slotting anyway. If all stores just sold a Damage Enhancement equivalent to an SO (don't really know what to call it given that it wouldn't be tied to an "origin." AO, maybe? All Origin?) and you could decide whether you want to pick it up from the Magic shop or the Mutant shop, it seems like that would eliminate an annoyance with SOs.

The problem with this is that when you start looking at SOs, there's some really extreme things that you're supposedly doing to yourself. There's a lot of tech-based heroes who aren't cybernetically enhancing themselves. You tell a reasonable Science-origin character that he should irradiate himself with Radon to boost his defensive abilities, or Alpha particles to make himself faster, then they will, very justifiably, treat you like a lunatic. And while my tech characters may be comfortable replacing an eye that's been lost with a cybernetic, I doubt many would go under the knife for the sake of being more accurate.

I appreciate the insights. I did a respec with some of this feedback in mind and it's feeling a lot less useless and disjointed. I am finding the KB in powers like Buckshot still annoying, but they also make a home for Sudden Acceleration sets, so at least the KB will be mitigated when I can afford the multiple KD>KBs. Since I am playing this character on Victory, I'm building under the assumption that I will be soloing a lot, so my new current build is more of an interim one as I work towards permadom, and then it'll get another rework to account for the faster recharge cycle. But at the moment, I'm definitely wishing for a better ST attack chain, because it's feeling pretty anemic ATM compared to my Symphonic/Savage dom. This one's become a pet project, though, so we'll see it through.

Claws gets unstoppable, Spines gets Elude, and Energy gets MoG. Elude and Unstoppable aren't too bad to deal with. For Elude, throw enough attacks, and eventually one gets through their defence and they go down, since they're already at low health, it's even easier if you have autohit powers or big -def debuffs. Unstoppable is likewise not too tricky, since it usually just means landing a few more hits. MoG is really the only one that's bad, since the combination of the two means that you can't hit them and when you do, it does no damage. Then, they also go into "afraid" mode and proceed to haul ass away from you at fly speed, buzzing around the entire map like a directionally-challenged housefly, only to eventually saunter back, and there's still entirely too long left on MoG.

I had a build I'm not really happy with, and as I'm levelling the character up, the less happy I'm getting. I'm trying to rip the thing back to bare bones and start from zero, but the more I futz with it, the less I feel I even know what I'm doing. I'm not really sure I can even identify the stuff that's worth taking. Part of this is that I don't really play control much. I have an Earth/Martial up to 45, but in general I stick to Corruptors, Tanks, and Brutes. Some things I'm not sure about: The Disorient/Immobilize combo is a common soft control pairing to make into hard control, but dark's Heart of Darkness as a PBAoE doesn't seem to play nicely with the Cone Immob. At the very least it needs a lot of repositioning comparatively. Should I not be relying on it, in favour of other soft controls? Trip Mine? Lot of damage, but a long animation. Is it worth it? My /Traps corr loves it, but here I'm less sure. Ignite initially struck me as a bit of a lame T9, but then I realised that keeping stuff in the patch shouldn't be a problem. I'll include my current build, but I realise it's a trash fire that isn't even getting permadom right, Please help. Gunsmoke - Dominator (Darkness Control - Arsenal Assault).mbd

Yeah, that's just North American urban planning. /s The map from the Wiki does at least show that the zones we play the game in aren't the sum total of the city. The war walls surround specific neighbourhoods, but there's significant areas outside the walls that are still just kinda doing their thing. There's an airport between Skyway and Talos, for instance, but you're right that it's weird that they'd put a Baumton Airport in an area that it's pretty apparent that there isn't an airport in and couldn't have been one before it was ruined. But it does, at least, seem fair to say that there's probably suburban development happening outside of the parts of the city that we see.

I tend to think that SS isn't really a particularly "scrapper"-y powerset. Any character doing the things that a SS character does in a comic would typically fall under the purview of a Brute or a tank. SJ "feels" a lot more like how I envision super strength from a scrapper. Which means I wouldn't make one. But the limits of my imagination are not a fair restriction to impose on others. I also tend to think that Fire Armor and Radiation Armor are absolutely stupid concepts as armor sets. But I don't begrudge their presence in the game. Now, if there's a balancing issue with rage, then yeah, that should probably get sorted before getting translated, but it would hardly be the first time we see a power set change in being adapted to another AT. My /Regen stalker deeply resents the loss of Quick Recovery, for instance. Other than that, though? Let the Stalkers have SS.

I feel like the worst part of this aspect is how obvious it makes it that Paragon City isn't a city but a city-themed video game level. Skyway City has all of these big elevated roads and almost nothing there for the roads to go to. Even zones that are more reasonable, like Kings Row, have weird overpasses and things that seem pretty clear that the only reason they exist is because someone in the design phase of the game was like "Oh, and you'll be running along and see a group of villains threatening someone below you, so you can jump down and be like Batman" Except, who does street sweeping? The only saving grace with Grandville, I find, is that at least they decided to build a zone with a lot of verticality and didn't fall back on "roads" as the driving force for it. What we got still doesn't make any damn sense, but at least it makes no damn sense in a decidedly Arachnos way.

This actually reminds me of something that I was thinking this morning while running a new character on Victory. What the heck is up with Twinshot's arc? I decided to run it just because I had no one around to do a DFB, First off you're getting a tutorial in an arc you can't access until level 5 or later and it starts with finding out how to level up? It also brings you to the hospital, as if you're ever going there without being teleported, and the police station, as if there's anything to do there. The only one that makes any sense at this point is maybe the auction house. But then there's also the plot. Graves gets a lot of stick because it's... just so bad.... But Twinshot's just falls apart if you think about it. You get attacked by Arachnos, You track Arachnos down to Justin Sinclair, and then he reveals that the Arachnos you've fought are a bunch of actors? Even ignoring the fact that I'm tearing through the enemies with an Arsenal Assault Dominator, and you need to have a lot of faith that I'm using that thing nonlethally, you're still recruiting people to intentionally put themselves in a position to get the living crap beaten out of them? And this is a test? Manticore's supposed to be CoH's Batman. He can't just tail us fighting Skulls, or even point us in the direction of a REAL Arachnos operation somewhere? By the point I was running this, I'd done Thiery's arc, so it's no surprise that Arachnos is there... Just the idea that Manticore's idea of a test is "hey, beat up a bunch of actors in costumes"... why?

This is about it: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Rogue_Isles_Villains Some of those characters do have their own page, which is linked from there, for those who take a more active part in the morality missions, such as Stardusk or Mangle. Most do seem to be blank slates, though.

More specifically, it's a suggestion in a suggestion forum, which means it's implicitly asking for people to point out why it might be a bad suggestion. While I'm free to suggest that a mode be added where every sound effect in the game be replaced with a sound effect of a screaming goat, even if it's optional, that would be a terrible idea and I'd expect to be told as much. Some feedback on this forum is overly critical and overly conservative. I don't think any in this particular thread has been.

The problem is that at its heart, this isn't really a hard mode. 99% of the time, players don't die. This does nothing to change this fact. If you're facerolling your way through +4/x8 content, then you can turn on this game mode and get bonus rewards, whatever they are supposed to be, for the risk of something happening that doesn't really happen. The enemies don't suddenly get instant-kill attacks, the whole thing is predicated on the player failing first. if that doesn't happen, then you're asking for something for nothing. Farms become even more ridiculous, because their whole appeal is tons of rewards for no risk. But it's also a "fail more" system. You try to push your limits, you die, and now your limits are lower, making you even less likely to succeed. As a result, if anything, this encourages people to play easier game modes, not harder. Why play at +2/x5 if you can turn on "hard mode" and play at +0/x1 instead for the same benefits? This is just a compounding mess of problems disguised as a suggestion to fix a problem that it doesn't even fix.

Sorry your findings haven't met the rigorous qualifications to meet the high standards of a prestigious publication like The New England Journal of Medicine *checks* The City of Heroes: Homecoming General Discussion forums there, OP. Rest assured, I still found it interesting and informative nevertheless.

Given that it's implicitly not a guide, but a table of endurance usage by armour set, it seems to perform that function absolutely perfectly. Especially when taken as something that someone has compiled for fun, out of casual interest, and shared their findings out of generosity in case anyone else is curious. It also makes a terrible helicopter, but I'm not going to gauge it on that metric either.

That's only relevant if you're aiming to create a comprehensive guide, though. Things like Bio Armour's efficient mode would be almost impossible to factor in in a way that would perfectly reflect its contribution, especially in a way that doesn't mean you have to dig into advanced calculus to factor. At most, I'd say it would be worth adding a dagger next to any sets with end-modifying abilities that could change the subjective performance, with a little disclaimer explaining this.

I suppose I may as well pitch in my top 5: 1. The intersecting problem between wanting to experience the story and wanting to play in a team. Only the team leader gets the context from any of the task forces, You can read the mission information while you're in the mission, but by the time you've read a paragraph of what's happening, someone's stealthed through the mission and completed it. The game frequently feels like it's not entirely sure whether it wants you to solo or team. 2. Contacts. Can we just make them so that they get added to your contacts roster if you talk to them? It seems like my characters are always getting their contact chains dying out in the late teens/ early 20s, leaving me with Laura Lockheart, Graham Easton, Montague, etc, but none of the older contacts that'll give the badge missions or older story arcs. 3. Stupid long rez animations. When I've died and have gone to the hospital, that "resurrection" animation feels like it lasts about three years. Worse are Freakshow and Circle Demons who leave you twiddling your thumbs as they go through their rez cycle where you can't target them until they're fully rezzed and then spent a few seconds to compose themselves. Also, as far as animations go, why is it that doors don't work until the third or fourth time you click them? 4. How it seems like the focus for HC-made content at non-50 levels appears to be aimed exclusively at 50s who are exemplaring down with all their incarnate stuff and set bonuses or teams who aren't running those missions. Came back, made a villain, and started playing through the arcs, got to Doc Buzzsaw. Ran through the first (original) arc with minimal difficulty on my Beam/Poison corr. Then I get to the Lab of Doctor Vahz arcs, and I'm like "Oh, I don't remember this". It was a bloody meat grinder. Throwing myself at the game again and again and again cause I couldn't find anyone who'd care to help and, as it happens, a Beam Rifle/Poison corruptor on SOs isn't phenomenally survivable out of the box. Getting slammed with bosses in spite of my difficulty setting because the game can't figure out how to downscale enemies that spawn in, while also being forced to deal with the Kraken at the same time? Every mission was like a new excuse to rage quit. 5. Constant junk clearing. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of recipes are actually used for anything. You can slot lower level recipes while levelling up for some bonuses, but generally you zip through the 10-30 levels fast enough that it's not worth the effort, and certainly not the rare salvage to bother with them, meaning that you're frequently having to just ditch all the junk you keep accumulating.