Alchemystic

Hero Patron Pools have been discussed in the past, they were even one of the HC Weekly Discussions back when those were a regular thing, so it's definitely something that's on HC's radar. I'd love to see some HPPs, but the question is who are the best candidates for the role? Freedom Phalanx? Vindicators? The New Praetorians? I suppose any could work really, but regardless of what group is picked, they would likely outnumber the villain patrons. Do we stick to just 4 heroes, or do we also expand on the villain side of things to compensate?

Dark/SJ Tanker seems like a good thematic fit, or MA if you wanted to focus entirely on kicks 😉

You yourself cited that Defenders and Controllers had the same healing scales until issue 3, what you neglected to mention was that Defenders were the ones who received the increase. Youre the one obfuscating the facts here, stop trying to gaslight people.

If we're strictly sticking to the example of Empathy, then we should also consider Ressurect and Regeneration Aura, which definitely have a broader gap in levels between archetypes. But that's if we're just looking at accessibility. You already made the point that Defenders have higher healing scales, which is enough of an argument to say they perform better than Controllers in that regard. Refuted or not, the point remains that it offers more benefit to healing powersets than others, even if that wasn't the intended effect. So long as we agree that it's your word against mine, sure. A lack of empyrical evidence lends itself to neither side of the argument, so unless you can provide something tangible to refute me, then we're at an impasse.

Even before healing scales changed, Defenders still had the significant advantage of accessing healing powers sooner than Controllers, which made them the preferred choice for healers. The move to increase healing scales for Defenders during issue 3 further solidified their position as the primary healing archetype. If as you say the inherent power had no tangible effect on primaries like Force Field or Trick Arrow, then we can assume that it does benefit primaries like Empathy and Radiation, which seems to support the concept "healer bonus" I'm offering an eyewitness account of events, I'm not beholden to provide anything else.

Not exactly true. Defenders were originally the only archetype with decent healing output, and their inherent power (Vigilance) was directly tied to the team's health. With access to powersets like Empathy, Radiation Emission and arguably Dark Miasma, Defenders were pigeonholed into being the dedicated healing archetype, and players who didn't choose from these powersets were often rejected by teams. It wasn't for a long time until Defenders were really recognised as anything else, and even to this day they are still the best choice for optimising healing output.

You'd be surprised how many people make this same suggestion in earnest 😆

One of the more well-received ideas was making it so that Sentinels had more AoE potential since their secondary powers would allow them to endure more aggro. Similar to the Tanker treatment of increasing the target cap on their AoEs, and maybe change their inherent power entirely, since it's not all that effective. Maybe something as simple as giving powers a chance to chain or deal splash damage to play on the theme of increased AoE.

is elec/elec controller a valid pick or is that too recent to have much merit.

I didn't want to have an exact carbon copy of Shield Defense, but I wanted to retain a lot of the core abilities. It's kinda like how Pain Domination mirrors Empathy in a lot of ways, but for Weapon Defense I wanted to move away from the AoE powers abilities like Phalanx Fighting, Grant Cover and Shield Charge since they didn't quite fit the concept and instead introduced new powers that would suit the focus on the weapon and its wielder.

I'm gonna try something a little different for this one. So far we have Shield Defense, which is the only powerset in the game that currently restricts usage of certain powersets along with it (Stone Armor used to, but I believe those restrictions have been lifted). So for this one I'm going to take the theme of Shield Defense and instead make a new powerset that fills a similar role that can only be picked while using weapon powersets, even if they can already be used with Shield Defense. Weapon Defense You are capable of using your chosen weapon as a means of defense, improving your weapons expertise by incorporating stances and techniques that allow you to evade harm. This powerset can only be chosen if you possess a weapon, such as Battle Axe, Broad Sword, Claws, Dual Blades, Katana, Spines, Staff Fighting, Titan Weapons and War Mace. - Combat Stance: Identical in effect to Deflection, instead having the FX follow the arm(s) holding a weapon - Agile Fighting: Identical in effect to Battle Agility, instead having the FX follow the arm(s) holding a weapon - Fighting Spirit: An autopower with the same benefits as True Grit - Defensive Technique: Identical in effect to Active Defense, instead having the FX follow the arm(s) holding a weapon - Warrior's Might: Identical in effect to Against All Odds, instead having the FX follow the arm(s) holding a weapon - Battle Ready: A new toggle power which grants a small bonus to all defenses, and also increases perception - Counterattack: A new power that works like 'Parry' or 'Divine Avalanche'. This cone attack varies depending on the weapon powerset chosen, but always grants melee defense and deals high damage - Hone Weapon: A click power that increases accuracy and boosts the secondary effects of your powers - Weapon Master: Identical in effect to One with the Shield, instead having the FX follow the arm(s) holding a weapon

It wasn't so much a "trinity" but it did have classic RPG roles. It's still comparable to the traditional DPS/Tank/Support formula, but the DPS and Support roles were split between Blaster and Scrapper, and Defender and Controller respectively. In those early years of the game team composition was very important, as players had to rely on the base mechanics of their archetypes unadulterated by IOs or Incarnate powers. With the introduction of CoV, new archetypes compounded elements of the old ones, so moving forward the lines were blurred as there was less of a focus on dedicated roles anymore, especially when IOs came out not long after. Then if you fast forward to Going Rogue, all archetypes could intermingle, eliminating the need for specific hero/villain team compositions entirely, and with Incarnate powers allowing for far greater flexibility. So the game certainly had a 'trinity play-style', though now those roles aren't as apparent anymore. I can see that. Judging by the Incarnate Hybrid slot abilities, we have Assault (DPS), Melee (Tank), Support, and lastly the 4th one; Control.

*prosopographia 😉

How do you expect to see changes in the community if nobody steps up to moderate it? Or better yet, how do you expect to change the community by perpetuating the animosity towards ours? As for accountability, nobody is using that to take away your right to express yourself, quite the opposite. People are saying that as a developer, you are accountable for how the community of Thunderspy expresses itself. You've dismissed these toxic individuals as being "literal teenagers" or "edgy users", which says to me you're not taking these matters seriously, and are behaving as if it's not your responsibility to moderate them beyond a simple slap on the wrist. Nothing's going to change if Thunderspy continues to refuse accountability for its userbase, or feigns that there's no association between the game and the discord/forum, or disingenuously declares other servers as being no better. You might not agree with HC's policies, but at least they make efforts to enforce them.

There's your problem. HC enforces the same policies in the forum and official discord channel as it does in game, whereas Thunderspy does not. It seems convenient for Thunderspy to claim less responsibility over these channels so they can distance themselves from the toxic elements highlighted above, when they should be properly policing their community across all official platforms, so it's naïve to think that the controversy caused by these individuals are all isolated incidents that exist outside of Thunderspy's reach. If you dislike the notion that these vitriolic statements have become representative of Thunderspy, then that's no fault of ours, it's the result of a dismissive approach to community management.

Thunderspy is run by a small clique from 4chan, if it's any surprise. As for the topic at hand; these arent strictly Thunderspy updates, they're made on Ourodev24 for any compatible server, which sadly HC isn't.

Ahah! I've been looking for this! It was what inspired me to make the 'Tactical Gear' armor set, but I couldn't find the original material, but I'm glad to see that the vision I had ended up being pretty similar to the original concept! I had a look through the rest and it seems that Gears and Kinetic Assault seem to the the only two powersets there that we don't have (excluding Wind Control)

I was gonna go for Chain Fences, but figured it would be a little too close to Mu Mastery in that regard. Short Circuit could work, if the numbers were tweaked, or maybe Jolting Chain perhaps?

So, like I mentioned yesterday, I have plans for some of the other laser-themed powers I didn't include in the laser-blast set (since they're more of a rapid-burst kind of thing which doesn't quite fit with the Superman/Cyclops theme I was aiming for). I do however have plans for integrating them with another set of unique powers I dug up. Those who follow the thread may have noticed that I've borrowed a lot of material from various Praetorian factions for use in powersets here in this thread, most namely The Resistance, which helped shape the Marksman Rifle and Heavy Weapons powersets, two new weapons powersets with very different themes. Some of you may have noticed that I may have overlooked another key Resistance asset; their energy pistols. I had originally intended to pull the unique FX from the unique pistol attacks these NPCs have and use it in Marksman Rifle, but I noticed that they didn't seem to have solid projectiles, it was an entirely energy based weapon (despite being lethal/energy in effect). So with that in mind I decided to put the idea of using them on hold until I found something fitting that could work with the few unique powers available, until I decided to make revisions to the old Arsenal Blast powerset. With the laser powers removed in favor of the new Arachnobot Blaster ones, this prompted me to consider where those laser powers might go. Some helped make the new FX theme for Laser Blast, which originally relied on using Beam Rifle assets (which I thought was a bit cheap admittedly), but the rest I'm going to combine with those energy pistol powers from The Resistance to make 'Ray Guns'! Ray Guns is the best name I could think of, since the idea of laser weapons is something heavily influenced by atompunk stuff and pulp sci fi, and it gives us a chance to use those cool retro sci-fi pistols as actual energy weapons! The only problem was what kinda unique mechanic to give this powerset, and... well, the idea of these weapons stunning people has always been a popular theme, so why not that? So I present to you now.. Ray Guns You possess two powerful energy weapons capable of delivering quick blasts, rapid bursts and precision shots. Many powers have the ability to stun your targets, delivering a low magnitude disorient effect. - Snap Shots: A unique power belonging to Resistance Officers, dealing light energy DoT to a single target. No stun chance. (default tinting is laser red instead of plasma blue) - Laser Blast: One of the powers unique to Robots, firing a burst that deals moderate energy DoT and has a high chance to stun. Uses the 'Uzi Burst' animation belonging to Thugs' Enforcers - Fusillade: Another unique power belonging to Resistance Officers, dealing moderate energy damage in a cone with low stun chance. (default tinting is laser red instead of plasma blue) - Aim: Standard Aim power - Overcharged Shots: A Resistance Officer power that charges up a shot that delivers an AoE blast of moderate energy damage and has a good chance of stunning. (default tinting is laser red instead of plasma blue) - Aimed Shot: The final Resistance Officer power, dealing high energy damage to a single target at short range, and will guarantee a stun. (default tinting is laser red instead of plasma blue) - Heavy Laser Burst: Another power unique to Robots (specifically the Battle Drone version), firing a heavier burst that deals superior energy DoT with high chance of stunning. Uses the 'Uzi Heavy Burst' animation belonging to Thugs' Enforcers - Laser Volley: This power is similar to the 'Heavy Laser Burst' power of Protector Bots (same name, slightly different power). Fires from both pistols in a narrow cone to deal extreme energy DoT with high chance of stunning. Uses the 'Dual Uzis' animation belonging to Thugs' Enforcers. - Full Auto Laser: Another power unique to Robots, retooled to work as a powerful T9 ability that delivers superior energy DoT in a cone with a high chance of stunning. Uses the 'Uzi Cone Blast' animation belonging to Thugs' Enforcers. Possible weapon models for this powerset include; Resistance Officer Pistol, Crey CBX-9 Pistol, Rikti Pistol, Match Compensator, Match Compensator w/ Laser Sight, Patented Potent Pistol, Celestial Pistol, Rad-X, Quartermass Pistol, Quartermass Pistol w/ Fin, Plan 9 Striker, Plan 9 Striker w/ Fin, Sidereal Sidearm.

Well if you go back a few seconds before the timestamp you set for the video, he states "If the possibility existed to remake CoH/CoV" The word remake is very important to the context here, these are changes that would be proposed for a new project, not an existing one. As for what ATs he meant? It's a high possibility that he could mean all of them. It's not uncommon when looking at a revision to something like this that all materials are considered, not just a choice few. The Archetypes we have now might not appear in a potential remake, or the idea of archetypes in general might undergo radical alterations. All we know is that what's inferred in this video has tenuous bearing on the CoH we play now.

From the context, it seems these are changes Positron would make if he were to completely remake the game, which doesn't really fall within the scope of development for the small volunteer team we have working on the game right now. It's also important to note that this interview was dated 2012, directly after the game's shutdown, and references the state of the MMO genre at the time. The speculations they make might vary when measured against today's MMO scene, or the various new models for multiplayer games that have seen a surge in popularity over the years.

Went back to revisit a few earlier concepts in the thread and made a few updates, most namely Arsenal Blast incorporating some of the unique Arachnobot Blaster powers into the powerset, and removing the Laser and Anti-Matter powers to make space. Not to worry though, those powers have been incorporated into the 'Laser Blast' powerset instead as a new FX theme, where I think they're better suited (with the exception of the rapid-fire ones, which I will reuse in another idea soon!)

I tried my hand conceptualizing something similar called 'Heavy Weapons' a while back, but it was mostly focused on projectiles instead of energy blasts. Still, there's plenty weapon models in the game that could accommodate a similar theme.

Back onto Ancillary powers, I'm gonna take a stab at some more Electric and Dark type sets. I was initially avoiding these since all Archetypes already have access to Mu and Soul Mastery, but I think it's possible to make them different enough so there's not much overlap. Electric Mastery - Controller/Dominator / - Lightning Bolt/Discharge: A traditional blast power for Controllers, and some AoE Debuff for Dominators - Charged Armor: An armor toggle as is customary for these sets - Ball Lightning: An AoE attack that works for either archetype - Surge of Power: A strong buff power that mirrors Mu Mastery too keep it competitive / - Thunder Strike/EM Pulse: A heavy melee attack for Controllers, and another AoE Debuff for Dominators Surge Mastery - Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker/Brute - Static Field: An AoE sleep patch that works similarily to AoE immobilizes - Lightning Bolt: A standard blast power as you might expect - Shocking Bolt: A hold which seems common for these ancillaries - Ball Lightning: A large AoE attack that works nicely here - Discharge: An AoE debuff that some ancillaries of this type possess Shadow Mastery - Controller/Dominator / - Dark Blast/Tar Patch: A traditional blast power for Controllers, and some AoE Debuff for Dominators - Dark Embrace: An armor toggle as usual - Dark Obliteration: An AoE attack power that helps damage gathered mobs - Soul Transfer: A powerful ability that works similarly to Rise of the Phoenix / - Midnight Grasp/Fade: A heavy melee power for Controllers, and an AoE buff for Dominators like Mind Link Shade Mastery - Tanker/Brute - Torrent: Since this is a copy of Darkness Mastery from Scrappers/Stalkers, I've not changed anything - Petrifying Gaze: ^ - Dark Blast: ^ - Night Fall: ^ - Tenebrous Tentacles: ^ Netherworld Mastery - Blaster/Mastermind - Night Fall: A cone attack that mirrors Static Discharge in utility - Dark Embrace: Standard armor toggle as one would expect - Dark Obliteration: An AoE attack that helps increase DPS / - Fearsome Stare/Midnight Grasp: A cone mez/debuff for Blasters, and a heavy melee for Masterminds - Soul Transfer: A powerful ability that works similarly to Rise of the Phoenix