ShardWarrior

I agree with you for the most part however I know a few role players who have non-super powered Batman-ish themed characters where Fly/SJ/SS etc. would not make sense for them to have. These also have utility for Hami raids and base building.

How are they flying out of range in caves?

In a word, no. I would also add that I would never wish for the game to be neutered to the point where support ATs - or any AT for that matter - would be required for team content.

I get it and it does work with regard to comic theme. It just seems counter intuitive to me that the rest of the time in game you are picking powers to try your best to avoid defeat. I never took it for my Regen scrapper back in the day.

Personally, I am torn on this one. I can understand your reasoning here and do not necessarily disagree with you. However, I agree with @Bill Z Bubba in that I always build to avoid being defeated. In a way, it feels like "we know this set is really weak and you will die a lot, so here is a free rez" is sort of admitting the set stinks.

I think everyone can appreciate the sentiment however you can achieve what you are looking for already right here. Avoid the AE, do not use the P2W vendor, do not join DFB teams, run through the sewers or Hollows and street sweep and run respec trials.

Mjolnir is not a very good measure to go by, nor is "X can beat up the Hulk". As examples, Thor has defeated and also has been defeated by the Hulk on various occasions throughout comic history. Plot armor can be very strong. See Batman versus Hulk Who does what to whom in the comics all depends on what plot armor the writer wants to use.

Yeah but he is Batman 😋

This does not solve anything other than make the game harder for people who may already find the game difficult. You can reduce overall damage and defense values and people who are "power gaming" now will find a way to adapt and/or work around it. History proves this out. Sure, feel free to add whatever difficulty options and nerf whatever, just be prepared to accept the consequences of those decisions as they may not be what you intended. It is their version of the game so they can run it however they like. I have repeated ad nauseam the game could use new, more difficult endgame content designed for and around IOs and incarnates. There is already plenty of challenging content pre-50. If you would like to add a higher difficulty setting, go for it.

Never underestimate the power of plot armor! 😁

You would not be able to place anything outside the borders of the plot unless it is a giant rock or something where most of it is inside the base and only part of it is outside. One thing to try would be to use glass floor pieces rotated around so the invisible side is facing inside the base. This may work as an invisible barrier.

There were people who felt the game was too easy as well. Here is a notable quote; "Perhaps play on Easy until you get the grip of things? The AI is very predictable in CoH and not that difficult to beat on highest difficulty. Tip is to not bite off more than you can chew early game. Depending on what faction play learn what the AI throws at you and then counter it. " I am quite certain we can all Google any number of articles and comments made over the years on either side of the coin here. I can only speak to my own perspective, I just never found the game to be all that hard nor do I remember people I ran with every having difficulty. I remember Hamidon being a challenge at first, but once we figured out the correct strategy, it was a piece of cake. We were all struggling with graphics cards that could not handle the VFX more than game mechanics.

My recollection is completely different as these were all things that existed for a brief period after launch. I can recall steam rolling TFs, Hamidon, SFs etc long before IOs were introduced Frostfire was never all that difficult either. Cavern of Transcendence or Atta mission maybe, but not Frostfire. Respec missions were hard when they were launched because they were released broken and even caused server instability issues.

Hi all, I did a little clean up on odds and ends here and added some curbing. Has been nice running in to all of you while in base! Feel free to share the code with others.

Of course it does. I never suggested otherwise. I am trying to understand when this mythical golden age utopia was where 8 players did not steam roll content or mobs lasted longer than 1 blaster nuke that some are purporting existed.

Was the game ever not easy? I cannot remember a time other than maybe launch when no one even had all SOs yet. Beyond that, content was never difficult.

It is not an opinion. Support ATs were always support ATs, melee was melee and ranged was ranged. Opinion has nothing to do with it.

I do. However, to say that roles were better defined when the game was live is inaccurate. I just finished an ITF/STF/LRSF TF train on a team of 8 of all Defenders and Controllers. I can assure you, there were no "diminished powers" and everyone brought something to the team. It was also a great deal of fun for all of us. EBs and AVs are not dying within 1 to 2 rounds of casting. Not being able to land a hit before something dies is as common an occurrence now as it was on live. You have eight people all shooting at the same things. What do you expect to happen? I still appreciate receiving speed boost or Fortitude/AB or whatever buffs someone wants to apply and it is a certainty I am not the only one. They are icing on the cake to me.

Why?

Saying the game had better defined roles back in the day versus now is not accurate either. I am routinely teaming with people who play the entire spectrum of ATs and power sets and everyone is bringing something to the table.

"Valuable" is entirely subjective. The game always had sets that were not as "valuable" or "desirable" for team content as others. Always. To say otherwise is spreading misinformation.

You are lacking the willingness because this simply is not true. Roll a toon on Torchbearer and join the channel I mentioned. You will be able to find the challenge you are looking for and then some. Post a request there that you are looking to find a challenge and I am sure you will find others to help you. Yes, it was a challenge. It still is. That was not the point. You keep alluding to this mythical golden age of CoH where scrappers and tanks could not solo GMS or where Empathy was never totally outshined by Kinetics in the late game. This was never the case even before IOs. Players were always able to achieve the levels of power they can today, most chose not to due to the price of admission. Those that did are not much different today. Why would you be expecting to easily solo and AV on a low damage AT intended for support even today? You must not do many Hamidon raids. The Mitos required a coordinated effort and each AT has something to contribute. Ranged ATs are not going to clear Yellow Mitos faster than melee because that is how the Mitos are specifically designed. New villain factions and new content can be created with similar concepts in mind. No nerfs to AoE that impact the entire game from 1 to 50, just being creative and imaginative to raise the ceiling that people have been hitting since the game was live.

I could not agree more. What you have said here sums up my feelings on TW as well.

I never said rebalance the entire game around IOs, only new level 50+ content.

The one you chat to and communicate to others in. This is not rocket science. If you are on Torchbearer, try TB Bag channel. Plenty of great players on there and always something going on. There are any number of ways to find the challenge you are looking for. Many people here in this thread have already made suggestions for what content to run. Sorry to be blunt, but stop blaming the game for your total lack of ability and willingness to work within the existing system. No, it does not. You could steamroll content then just as you can steamroll it now. You could completely remove IOs from the game and have nothing but SOs and people would still steamroll the content. IOs have had some impact but not to the extreme degree most think. You almost never needed someone to help with harder content outside of Hamidon raids. I know because I soloed quite a lot on my scrapper back in the day and soloed a few TFs here and there. There were a lot people soloing TFs back then. I remember the threads for it where they posted screenshots of their completion. Other players were never a necessity for most content. You are assuming that any new content would just be increasing a decimal or two in the code and calling it a day. There are any number of possibilities that can be done to add new mechanics to the game so something other than AoE would be required. See the various kinds of Mitos and Hamidon where it is not just about raw damage.