Omega-202

But screaming from the rooftops or doing anything that might monetize the IP, even accidentally, can end in the game going away forever. So just play by the rules until further notice or else you could kill the fun for everyone.

Yeah, imagine the Hellions' recruiter standing in Atlas trying to bring in new blood as his comrade is Power Pushed across 5 city blocks through the the air by a living god that's just passing through. Can't see how they keep their numbers up that way. That lady's purse could not have had enough money in it to be worth it.

That goes without saying. But in all seriousness, it is a bit odd that Paragon is lacking in medium-high density residential areas resembling Queens. Brickstown has a bit of that flavor, sort of, with the lack of super high rises anywhere but the north strip. I think that a zone that looks like Flushing or South Boston or South Philly would be interesting. I mean, with each of those area's histories, the story of the zone would write itself (ie Family hotspots).

It's totally not a sophistication thing. It's a space thing. The space needed for a drive thru in center city Philly can instead be used to build a 20 unit luxury condo building, with each unit selling for 1 mil minimum. But despite the price, the concepts of "sophistication" and Philadelphia don't overlap.

I take it you don't spend a lot of time in US northeast cities. You could count on one hand the number of "drive thru with order boards" in Manhattan, Boston downtown or center city Philly, which are probably the closest analogues to Paragon City.

I'm pretty sure that Manticore's teleporting ability isn't even a power he himself possesses. It's explained that he hijacks the medi-vac teleport network. The teleport arrows seem like they're just an extension of that. "Manticore is one of the few heroes in Paragon City who operates without super powers. Though he is capable of teleportation, this effect is not a natural power, but is instead achieved through hacking into the city's Emergency Teleportation Network." http://www.cityofheroes.ca/game_info/signature_heroes/manticore.html

There is a slight issue with that idea in that Scrappers and Stalkers can get Hibernate in the Leviathan PPP. There might be people out there currently rocking both powers so that would need to be addressed by dropping Hibernate from Leviathan (making a small group of people upset), making the change only really apply to Tanks and Brutes, or diving into the spaghetti code to make it so that Scrappers/Stalkers can't take double Hibernate.

Electric blast is considered bad because it's secondary effect (endurance drain and -recovery) is usually useless unless you build specifically for using it. Lets do a quick example: Fireball and Ball Lightning both have a 16 second recharge and ~1 second activation so they are a good direct comparison. Fireball does 1.1928 base damage and Ball Lightning does 1.02 (85.5% of Fireball's damage). What do you get in BL in exchange for only doing 85% of the damage? -7% endurance and a 30% chance for -end recovery for 4 seconds. For the most part, that -end effect is completely useless. Minions and Lts will die before they are drained, and AVs have absurdly large endurance pools and debuff resistances. For the most part, the only time the drain comes in handy is on certain boss enemies, but even then, you need to stack multiple levels of -end. Another issue is that Electrical Blast lacks a tier 3 blast. That is less of an issue now that fast snipe is so straight forward, but it does mean that you need both the tier 1 and tier 2 to make an attack chain, whereas a set like Fire can go with tier 1, tier 3 and snipe and have a higher DPS chain. Voltaic Sentinel is nice, but it kind of does its own thing and does't always attack the right targets. I will say that if you really want to go with Electric Blast, Electrical Affinity is the only primary that would really make it work.

Ok, so may I suggest to any "sane" people reading this, who don't have your niche problem: having multiple viable endgame characters addresses this issue in 99% of cases.

May I suggest having multiple viable endgame characters to address this issue? I've encountered exactly what you're saying while in the middle of a solo Ouro arc and instead of bailing to run a trial, I parked the character I was on and just swapped to a different one. After the trial was over, I just switched back and kept going.

But not for all content. There isn't some magical "copy paste" flip to switch that makes the zombie invasion code apply to everything. And as said on page 1: there are already ways for us the players to exemplar down to any level we want. Why rewrite the whole game when we can already accomplish the goal of "make outdoor spaces level appropriate and give rewards" with the way things are?

My apologies on ESO, I only played it briefly, after that change and assumed it always functioned that way. Either way, that was done by an active, funded development team on a living game. I think that is a very different situation that has very little bearing on the current CoH situation.

So does GW2. But the difference is that they were designed for it from the start. Changing CoH to function that way would drastically rewrite how the game functions 16 years after launch.

...that's the point. HC has no profit motive so there's no reason to use manipulative player retention tactics. Hence why there's no need for an inflated grind. And regarding my demeanor, I honestly could not care how you perceive me.

Yes, its called Skinner box mechanics. There is something wrong with it, and once you look behind the curtain and realize how manipulative certain game mechanics are, you see how screwed up certain playerbases are. It's all about artificial player retention for the sake of profit. But obviously some mice don't recognize the morphine button for what it is.

Cool. Been here since beta, but go on with the condescension. Reflects really well on you as a person. There's a reason the grind is gone. Its because the "real OGs" all grew up and are old farts now with lives to attend to and don't want or care about the old grind. Why would anyone backtrack on a completely intentional change for the better? Look at the other servers with more grinding and tell me how great their pop numbers are with their "OG" feel. You are wrong. Also Suggestions forum is ^that way^. EDIT: The funniest part is saying "that's how the game will die". HC has been running for 18 months now, with the current level of "minimal grind" and still hits its donation goals every month in an hour or less. Numbers are steady. Where's this predicted death? Also, this isn't an actual MMO. It's a zombie unofficial game run by fans.

No content in CoH is obsolete. It's all there for you to play. Every TF auto exemplars you. Every story arc is in Ouroboros. I often go back and replay old story arcs, especially the Striga ones, just for the nostalgia. You shouldn't need to be rewarded to play the content. If you need a carrot on a stick to enjoy it or to be enticed to play it, are you actually enjoying it? I think that says more about you having some sort of screwed up motivational driving factors. In sum, /jranger

The zone NPC thing sounds fine, and probably wouldn't be the worst thing to implement. They can probably just make a TF-like contact that gives you a single mission TF with the objective being "click on this terminal next to me". Until you click said terminal, the "fake TF" exemplars your team to a set level that matches the zone level and allows you to street sweep until you go and click the terminal or quit the team. Overall, its just an extra step removed from what I suggested on the first page. You can already do exactly this using Oro. Or, heck you could just do this with any TF that already exists. Want to be level 20? Go chat with Synapse and ignore the mission.

I will second what others have said: mez resistance isn't worth building towards. At best, you'll half the duration of a mez, but that won't keep you from being chain mezzed by certain enemies. It's better to try and build mez protection into the character. Some options for a Defender include: - sets with protection built in (eg FF, Traps. Electric) - Rune of Protection in the Sorcery pool. With decent recharge, it's up 50% of the time. Also can be used when you're already mezzed. - Clarion Destiny incarnate power - Melee Hybrid incarnate power - Acrobatics in the Leaping pool provides a bit of hold protection You can also build towards soft capped defenses. You can't get mezzed if they can't hit you.

To each their own, but in teams, I find that my survivability and end issues completely disappear and everyone's role becomes DPS. And while there's overkill, there's also the disproportionate benefit of damage in AV fights. The higher the DPS, the faster the kill rate, the less time the AV has to regenerate. So while there's diminishing returns on damage to minions, the inverse is true for AVs.

It has NOTHING to do with procs. Basic math: Battle Axe Chop on a Tank does 82.31 base damage. 6 slotted with lvl50 Crushing Impact (NO PROCS) it does 165.8 damage. With Musculature Core, it does 192.4. 192.4/165.8 = 116%. So you're looking at a baseline 16% damage increase that holds for all of your ED capped attacks and has nothing to do with procs. Now lets say even if you're packing Hybrid Assault and 30% damage bonus from IOs. Then the numbers are 225.3 with and 198.7 without Musculature. 225.3/198.7=113%. Still a 13% higher damage value across the board. In sum, regardless of procs, even with all of your attacks already busting at the seams past the ED cap, you're looking at a 13-16% damage increase across the board. Again, that means you're killing and clearing that much faster. 1 hr long missions drop to 51 minutes.

But the bracketed part is still wrong. 10-20% overall DPS increase is pretty substantial, which is what those numbers are showing. Its the difference of finishing a 30 minute TinPex in 25 minutes instead. How is a 5 minute faster finish time "useless"? By comparison, if you're not dying and not losing endurance with or without Cardiac, then the Cardiac is literally useless. The part that shows you don't understand is that you think that Bill's numbers support your point. They literally disprove it.

Cool, I'm not going to give you a math lesson on how percentages work. You do you.

No, it's 20% more damage. It may be a marginal benefit, but it's still a benefit. Extra endurance or endurance reduction when you're already at endurance self sufficiency is actually useless. Extra resistance when you're at the resistance caps, or more practically, when you're immortal in 99% of content is actually useless. But if you are otherwise not resistance capped or have end issues, then fine, go Cardiac.

Unless you're damage capping consistently, Musculature isn't useless. Especially since your endurance management can be addressed in other ways. With both accolades, the big 4 end IOs and a sprinkling of bonuses (+total end being the best), you shouldn't need Cardiac. Worst case, you're still better off going Musculature Radial to give you 33% damage (~23% after ED cap) and an extra SOs worth of endmod in Stamina. Or are you running Cardiac for the Resistance?