Blastit

A controller with storm summoning should be pretty safe. Of course it depends on what context you play in but if enemies are locked down, debuffed and/or scattered to the winds then not a lot of attacks are coming your way. Force fields give more direct defence while also having a lot of knockback so that's also an option.

When I say that it isn't a good premise to start from, I mean that I don't think it's a good idea to just accept the level of power already provided by sets and incarnates. "Our characters can already easily be built to be so strong that the difficulty level doesn't matter so you should just let us have even more efficient builds" is an argument that doesn't do anything for me except reveal a huge problem.

Maybe it isn't more gamebreaking than IO sets and incarnate powers already are but I don't think that's a good premise to start from. You can already create characters that can solo things that were meant to challenge entire teams.

Usually the sets that get a minimal FX setting are ones that either hugely cover up your character (Bio Armour and Ice Armour) or are more about an inherent property of your character's body (WP, SR, Invulnerability). Sets that defend you through putting up a barrier of some kind, be it stone or electricity, haven't been given a minimal FX option because it's the thing that actually protects you. It wouldn't be Shield Defence without a shield, after all. Picking one of the low-saturation colours for Electric Armour usually does the job pretty well in the meantime. Maybe the devs decide to eventually add minimal FX options to everything but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Stone Melee scrappers could be a lot of fun. I feel like tankers and brutes are a bit too beefy to fully benefit from the knockdown and stuns in SM so it could shine more on softer ATs. Stalkers would be cool too. You could give them one hell of a screen-shaking assassin strike. EARTHQUAKE BLOW!

I'm not really inspired by any one character. Closest was when I gave a guy chainmail paints and thought of it as his sort of "reverse Aquaman" suit. He had stone powers. Usually I go for a clean, classic superhero look. Two main colours, an accent or two, maybe a neutral colour for a belt or boots. I also like making costumes that represent a character through different eras and genres of comics. Lately, though, I've been inspired by the more limited colour palette of early print comics. Using three different shades of red is still just a solid red suit but it isn't truly monotonous. I'm also making a lot more costumes without shirts or that are pretty much a pair of battle panties a lá Namor. Very pulpy Spaceman Homo Superior sort of deal. I'm also fairly inspired by He-Man and his friends and adversaries. They're very nude, very beefy and often inexplicable. You don't need a name or power theme for which a bull head would make sense, sometimes a dude just has one.

Definitely a shitty apartment in King's Row. That's the default for all characters I make.

That set was designed specifically for villains and doesn't reference something done to hurt vulnerable groups.

Currently existing CoH is also orders of magnitude more twitch-based than a turn-based game with no time limit. Why are you fine with that? It excludes players who can't play other games and would be very loyal to the games they can play. CoH never did appeal to the largest demographic possible because it was specifically about super heroes before super heroes got real big. Why are you fine with that? The popular thing was fantasy MMOs and history has proven that fantasy MMOs remain more popular. CoH was shut down because it couldn't give better return on investment than fantasy MMOs could and CO is a wreck. WoW, FF14, GW2 and even Everquest endure where non-fantasy MMOs fail. The answer is of course that at some point you make a choice about what the game is going to be like and what the game is going to be about because it's what you, the developer, would like to play yourself. An MMO doesn't have to appeal to the largest demographic possible. It simply needs a fanbase that is large enough to sustain it for years. Some of the design choices made will inevitably exclude a portion of potential players and if all you're doing is making choices based on what you cynically think will appeal to the largest amount of people then you'll be left with a game that lacks soul and vision. You set it up from the start to merely maintain a customer base instead of having something to actually provide to people.

CO's blocking wasn't more twitch-based than CoH's healing or crowd control, though. CoH being real-time instead of turn-based also excludes the differently abled. It's done for the sake of letting you superjump and fly around in real-time and generally play the hero. Having a more dynamic fundamental defensive system in the game for a similar reason could simply be worth it. A line has to be drawn somewhere and it can go either way.

The secret tip to winning this game every time is checking for who has maximized the booty.

❗ People are apes. ❗

I do rather like the blocking system, though. I also liked that you could tweak CO controls to the point of essentially fighting by using a targeting reticle instead of tab targeting. Made for a very dynamic feeling.

Which would mean that the IO system needs to be overhauled before tackling AT balance can be done in seriousness.

I would say that's fine, because the joke is about a behaviour that is encouraged rather than about the disease itself. It's even specifically what the power sets do. You can have a character whose sole mission in life is to save old people and encourage proper hygiene and crisis discipline. Actually, embodying the practice of social distance with a costumed crusader is a very old-school thing to do. Very Saturday morning cartoon PSA.

People can indeed joke about aids, cancer, diabetes etc etc. There's just a difference between the punchline being the disease itself and the punchline being something about the experience of the disease. Additionally we can, as adults, determine that something is off-limits due to the current context.

I actually do have a metal hero. Headbanger, the pain domination/sonic defender. I made him just because I wanted to see how PD worked as a main since during the live years it wasn't very widely talked about and I picked a defender just because they got the powers earlier. Haven't played him in a while, I should do something about that. He is 100% the reason why I want an APP with sword attacks in it. It'd be perfect.

Well, the spirit of the Scrapper is "let's go get 'em!" so an AoE Build Up isn't too farfetched. But either that should have a lot longer recharge than regular BU or be a much lower damage boost, which will make it a worse soloing power. Which is directly counter to the mechanics of the AT.

I'd like APPs with melee weapons for non-melee classes. Defenders busting out a sword would be very funky.

Balancing around incarnate powers is a bad idea. Everything is lacklustre compared to incarnate powers.

They can ban that person if they want to. The press is highly unlikely to care. If six people are civil about something and one person is uncivil it doesn't mean that that last person actually influenced anyone making a decision on the matter.

The HC team can eject anyone they feel like with the click of a button. If the name was final then that would've been that. Instead, it took all of a handful pages of discussion for them to decide to talk about it internally and now here we are.

Obviously the HC team found their argument to be persuasive because it took a handful of people to make the point for this change to be decided.

It's also much quicker and easier to discuss the name than it is to test a new version of a new set.

Thermal Radiation and Cold/Pain Domination were all designed for City of Villains and as such styled for villainy. This new set isn't.