Cyclone Jack

How about instead of creating an entirely new power, you just select a single power from your Primary/Secondary as your Signature Power, which unlocks Signature Enhancement Slots. Then create some Signature Enhancements that can modify certain aspects of a power beyond what normal Enhancements can do. For example, add splash damage to a single target attack, or a small radius Immobilize to a single-target hold, or splash a lesser AoE buff onto a single target buff, but then also add increased endurance usage and recharge, perhaps additional threat, things like that. I like this idea as well.

Well, the 1st 3 missions can definitely weed out those who are not up to the task, since they are placed randomly throughout The Chantry and, like you said, they are Defeat Alls vs Soldiers of Rularuu. And no argument from me, getting around The Chantry (and the Shadow Shard in general) can be a PITA w/o Flight or TP, especially if you aren't used to it. The Storm Palace isn't nearly as bad, but it still has its little nuances. But, if you have 1 person with Teleport Target you're fine. Though, I'm not sure why Kill Alls are a bad thing, especially in a 4* challenge. That's part of what makes it challenging. 😉 I mean, what's the point of doing a challenge if you turn around and stealth half the missions? But hey, one of the missions is stealthable. 😜 And yes, it would definitely earn it's Invincible/Relentless challenge rating. Though the biggest challenge on the dev side of things would be to insert exclusive challenges and mechanics not found in the default difficulty, as well as adding Elite Bosses to the mix since some of the factions in the TF do not have any Elite Bosses as of yet, though they could sprinkle in a handful of additional AVs here and there. I'm going to have to run this again this week to refresh my memory and see if I can come up with some fun ideas. 😄

Ah, OK. I see what you are doing. The way I read your comment, it sounded like there was a way to hover over the power and also have a submenu pop out with additional information. What you're doing here is displaying the list of powers in a menu and then each one opens its own submenu with the clickable power as well as additional information. I'll do some testing to see how that looks/feels in practice. Thanks! 😄 Nice find on the missing bracket, Lemming! Thanks! 😄

Yes, please, that would be very helpful. I'm trying to add a submenu to an existing line and I don't seem to be able to find exactly where to put the Menu line. I'll attach the .mnu so you can see what I've got. MyStuff.mnu

I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this, since I've not seen any mention of it, but I figured I might as well ask just to be sure... There's no way to have a custom hover over tooltip pop up if you mouse over a line for a second or two is there? I'm making this Pop Menu for two reasons, really. One, so I can clean some of these powers off of my tray, as many of them are useful but not used very often. And two, so I can see what I've got and what I've not got. It would be nice to be able to hover over one of these and have a tooltip mention which Day Jobs earn more charges of a Day Job Power, or which Story Mission grants a certain Temp Power (like Divining Rod or Summon Tsoo Sorcerer). If not, no biggie, I'll just have to get more creative. 😉

Now, its quite possible that I may be the only one that would like to see this, but I would absolutely 😍 love 😍 to see the Saga of Lanaru get the Advanced Mode treatment. I'm sure there are a number of other TFs on the list already for the Advanced Mode treatment, but please don't skip over this one. This was easily my favorite TF in the game back in the day, and it was a good, fun challenging TF on its own merits; and it may very well still be my favorite TF. I remember that you'd almost always lose 1-2 players in the 1st 3 missions, because Soldiers of Rularuu can be quite nasty, and it was easy to double pull, or even triple pull, in those tunnel intersections. The TF has a number of AVs to fight, and you're tackling a number of high level factions (Soldiers of Rularuu, Malta Operatives, Nemesis, Circle of Thorns, Knives of Artemis, Rikti), often facing off multiple combinations at the same time. And, of course, it culminates in a fight against Lanaru the Mad; an AV so notorious that Cathedral of Pain Trials would be abandoned if he was the AV at the end. 😂 My fondest memory of the TF was when I was *finally* able to get a full 8-man Unstoppable to go through the entire TF and face off against a +4 Lanaru the Mad. It was easily the most fun and challenging TF I had run prior to Incarnate Trials, and seeing this get the Advanced Difficulty treatment would be such a treat. Running up against a +5 Lanaru with double health, higher resistances, and possibly even additional powers (add some Storm Blast to him and/or his Storm Elementals) would be absolutely amazing, not to mention what all can be done to the rest of the TF as a whole. And if there are players who have not yet ran the Saga of Lanaru TF, you owe it to yourself to do it; and if you think your team is up for the challenge, then x8/+4 it. It *IS* in the Shadow Shard, so make sure you pick up your free Jet Pack in Fire Base Zulu if you aren't completely and absolutely aware of how to traverse the Shard and know all of the nuances to the geysers.

So it looks like my initial testing of the Power Ready names were wrong, but also right. 🙂 You want to use just the last part of the Power Ready name: powexec_name web_weaver_grenade powexec_name mayhem_web_grenade I'll need to verify this for sure once I'm able to get duplicate powers with the same name (easier said than done). 😜 Note: I should clarify that using the Power Ready name does work, I just don't have a character currently with both of these powers, or any other duplicates, such as Med Kit or Stun Grenade.

Well, the Power Ready names are different, but you don't call those via powexec, right? You just use "powexec_name Web Grenade", right? For example, these two abilities are still just Web Grenade even though the Power Ready is different: temporary_powers.day_job_powers.web_weaver_grenade temporary_powers.temporary_powers.mayhem_web_grenade Or should I be using "powexec_name temporary_powers.day_job_powers.web_weaver_grenade"?

So here's a question, when using a powexec_name, what determines which power is used if you have a Day Job Web Grenade, Mayhem/Safeguard Web Grenade, and Devices/Traps Web Grenade, or some other source of Web Grenade?

I can't believe I missed that colon. 😖 I stared at that thing for hours! 😭 And this is why its always good for every programmer to have a second pair of eyes. 😄 Thanks! Edit: Categorized it:

I'm working on a Pop Menu for all of the Day Job Temp Powers, and here is what I have for the Monitor Duty Teleporter, which crashes the game. I pulled the Icon and PowerReady information from City of Data 2.0, so its possible that I'm getting something wrong. // Top comment line to make sure 1st line is blank. Menu "MyStuff" { Title "MyStuff" Menu "Day Jobs" { LockedOption { DisplayName: "Monitor Duty Teleporter" Command "powexec_name Monitor Duty Teleporter" Icon "dayjob_teleport" PowerReady "temporary_powers.day_job_powers.rapid_response_member_teleport" } } }

Exactly. With more ATs covering more roles, it becomes easier, in general, to fulfil the requirements. If your average team leader creates a party of 8, regardless of them aiming for the bonus or not, the more coverage the easier it becomes. Stalker, Scrapper, Tanker, Brute, Controller, Blaster, Corruptor would fulfil all roles based on what is in Character Creation, but would fail to fulfil all roles with the proposed list. Now, it may be that this trivializes the reward, and in that case I would agree, but since the reward was taken away in this case I don't see why the Roles screen can't be expanded to fit the Playstyles during Character Creation, which would actually be a very good reminder to everyone, new and old players, of who can do what. Now, If the goal is to have team leaders have to think about party composition, I really don't think roles is the way to go, because eliminating ATs from roles they were designed to fulfil is just going to cause more confusion than anything; these threads alone should be enough proof of that. 😉 Instead, I would focus on just having a diverse team overall. For example, by not having any duplicate ATs on the team. Another option, as has been pointed out by a number people, would be to have Classic Hero ATs and Classic Villain ATs options. That alone opens up 3 different party compositions, with a 4th being the Duplication option. All 4 of these offer entirely different experiences and would be beneficial to both new and old players alike, IMO. To me, these would be much more fitting for rewards. As for what kind of reward, I'll leave that part up to someone who understands the economy much more than myself. 🤣

Why would they earn less? Every team that fulfills all 5 roles would gain the reward, no matter what ATs are in the group. Warshade, Stalker, Blaster, Scrapper, Defender: Fulfils all roles even though there are 3 Melee Damage ATs and 2 Ranged ATs listed. In fact, with ATs covering all the roles they are designed for, the specialized ATs would end up have a higher chance of getting rewards since more roles are covered by fewer ATs, leaving more room on the team for a wider variety of ATs in general. Going by the current list: Warshade, Peacebringer, Mastermind: Fulfils all roles. That leaves 5 more ATs that can join the team, all of which could be Stalkers. Additionally, it is important to remember that Epic Archetypes aren't epic because of what they can or cannot do, they are Epic because they are tied to the storyline. Granted, Kheldians are an advanced AT, but that's more from the standpoint of building and slotting, whereas Arachnos are pretty generic but stack Leadership buffs.

I guess the only question I have is, why the hard push to marginalize the ATs into a single "role" so to speak, when its obvious that most of the ATs are much more diverse than that? I think that's the part I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around, and I know I'm not the only one. And I'm not talking specific combos, because there are always outliers, but the core design of many of the ATs is to have the diversity to fill more than one role (Controller, Defender, Brute, Corruptor, Dominator, and Mastermind).

How about having a variety of these weird "group composition challenges" and a character needs to complete, say, 5 of them for the Badge. That way, you could have a bunch that are limited to specific ATs, but each of them counts towards the completion of the overall Badge. So, All Hero and All Villain would both count towards the same Badge. You could end up having bunch of these, and so long as 5 of them are completable by each AT, then that would cover everyone. Also, since we're talking about Badges and this just popped into my head... I'm not sure if characters are flagged as Praetorian, especially after they leave Praetoria, but if so, I think it would be pretty neat if they got a different name for the Dimensional Warder Badge, similar to how Grass is Greener/Meaner works? I figure Praetorians beating up their Praetors would be kind of special to them. 😉

I will say that I do like the idea of Team Badges for TFs/SFs, and hopefully we can see more of these added over time for fun. For example, all Hero, all Villain, all EAT, all Praetor, all Pet, maybe even throw in some weird ones like, Blasters and Brutes, Controllers and Corruptors, Defenders and Dominators, Scrappers and Sentinels and Stalkers (Oh my!), Warshades and Peacebringers (War & Peace), Mastermind Madness, all Tanks on a Tuesday (for the Tanker Tuesday Badge), etc. 😄

This is the key. All they have to do is update their little chart to match the Playstyles already in the Character Creator. I don't know why that's so difficult. Updating the chart would help show new players just how diverse the ATs are in CoH.

Would it be possible to do a pass on the Mayhem/Safeguard maps and fix the sewer hatch thing on the ground to be clickable while open? Also, the submarines on Villain-side that lead to Mayhem missions (which use the same hatch, I believe).

Hopefully they can pair this with the New Player Experience and remove the ATs from the Playstyles that do not fit these roles. For example, there's no reason a Defender should be listed under the Ranged Damage playstyle, nor the Brute and Tanker under the Melee Damage playstyle, nor should the Corruptor or Controller be listed under the Support playstyle. That would just confuse new players.

Well yeah, the push for "Pick Sleep or Sleep" was pretty obvious. But like I said, that never should have reached Open Beta, because anyone stepping foot into the Tutorial with Sleep Grenade paired with say, Traps, would have *immediately* seen red flags. He did not. The Forum Moderator did when his feedback was yanked out of the Beta Feedback thread.

You know what's not opinion? No other powerset has a Tier 3 power with a 40s recharge. Why? Because both Cryptic and Paragon knew that's *Bad Design*. The fact that Smoke Grenade was a Tier 2 power in Beta 1, available at character creation, shows that this set was not fully thought through. That means it went through Design, Implementation, and Closed Beta without *anyone* thinking about or testing it with a new character. *Everyone* up to that point instant-leveled to 50, fully slotted the set, and then said "This is good." Not a single person entered a Tutorial with Smoke Grenade as their first power, because they would have immediately known there was an issue.

Well obviously, they are planning on making a Firefighter secondary for Controllers where you run around with the Large Extinguisher. 🤣

Mids is great, I use it all the time, but I feel that the Power Description page for the powers is fine. Why? Because the numbers are already available in a nice, clean Power Details window, available for every power. There is no need to dump all of that into a basic description of a power. I would suggest allowing the player the ability to view the Power Details of powers they have not yet unlocked. If I'm L10, let me right-click on a L12 or L20 power and view the details. Good idea overall but, even with a tutorial message that'll be forgotten in a few minutes, Damage Scale doesn't really mean anything; I've been playing since 2004 and I've never used Damage Scale in any conversation. If you're going to show numbers, just show the base damage of the power at that level. But, the problem with showing 1 or 2 numbers, is that then people will then want all of the numbers, which will absolutely clutter the Power Description. That's why we have a Power Details screen.

It was.

The hard part of doing this is that a lot of players will put up with mediocre powersets so long as they fit a thematic character, and, honestly, I'd say a lot of players don't know, and don't care, that their powers are lacking because its almost impossible to tell when you're on a team that is always steamrolling content. I mean, heck, I've got a Sonic/Inv Sentinel, T3h N0i5e T4nK, because of Aether Particles. Even at its best, it hardly reaches mediocrity, but its still a fun concept character. I've got a buddy that genuinely enjoys his Seismic/Earth Blaster. So its going to be difficult to determine what's in a good place based solely on what's being played. And to give them some credit, Electrical Affinity is pretty solid, especially on a Mastermind.