Charistoph

Very true. At most, there is the incentive to briefly hop over to Red-side to get the Patron Pools unlocked, since the powers available there often do not match certain ATs on the Epic Power Pool sets.

Are they, though? Again, within the fiction of the game, my MM's thugs are actual people, with unique names and (presumably) personalities and identities. They're not disposable or interchangeable. When they're defeated, they come back (from the hospital?) just like any PC hero. The issue being that there is zero customizability for the actual pets you summon. Sure, you can give them names, but in terms of looks and powers, they match every other MM with the same powerset. This is what makes them faceless and disposable despite anything else about it. Even considering that you can set them to be additional health pools for you. Heck, even when City of Villains first launched, that was the idea behind Masterminds. Unfortunately, since MMs can be created as Heroes, this is rather a moot point for incentivizing people to play the Rogue Isles.

Within the fiction of the game, what's the difference between a MM and, well, just a team? A lot and not much. Sorry for the confusing answer. With an MM, the character played is the lead, while everyone/thing else is largely disposable and otherwise faceless. Heck, I did a Mercs/Trap MM who was called Insertion Point, and while he was team lead, his first job was to get in to a position to bring the Mercs in to the Mission. It could be set up that way, but most of the Reeds aren't like that.

MHA is more like if Japanese writers wrote Paragon City's storyline. Best girl is Best Girl, after all. One should keep in mind that MHA, CoX, and OPM are all much different takes on the hero theme. In MHA, we're looking at the heroes rising up to take on the challenges of the work day. A little closer to Teen Titans instead of Justice League. CoX, you're already established, and improving to face the terrors, more the workaday of the MHA world. You're part of the Unlimited League now and doing the jobs that need doing. OPM is more about the dangers of being TOO powerful and the boredom that comes with it, and not being able to exemplar or sidekick at all. Think of taking a rank 50 Brute/Tank/Scrapper against Frostfire, but he's still level-locked to Hollows range of 9, and he's the toughest fight you can find because almost everyone else is locked from 8-10 without control resistances.

Galaxy city option for heroes no longer exists since it was switched during issue 21 to being a coop tutorial for Primal Earth characters. All heroes unless praetorian will start in Atlas. The Galaxy City tutorial IS the option I was speaking of. For Tutorials you have the choice of the original tutorials as well as Galaxy City.

Not really. All you have to do is go in to the maps and change the doors to being inaccessible. The code can remain without tearing it out so long as you literally cannot reach the contact points. I have, as part of the Shining Stars story arcs and the quick tutorial, but that's it. Part of why I play is experiencing the journey of the story arcs. I can find some in AE (and of course, there are the badges), but I've never had a character progress much past the 40 content on the Blue Side, and 20s on the Red Side. I've just managed to get through 11/12s of the Praetorian content (1/12 is bugged) as it is.

Not entirely. If you start with Galaxy City, you probably won't even KNOW those contacts are there, and will be directed to a contact outside of the hall to the left of the steps. Origin has no bearing on these mission arcs. Furthermore, if you start on the Rogue Isles or in Praetoria, Origin literally means nothing to who you are getting missions from. To expand on this, it also can affect who you want to take missions from and against. While in DO range, doing Midnighter missions range is good for Magic, Mutant, and Natural Origins, because they are missions focused on Magic-based enemies. However, once you progress in to SO ranges, they are better for Magic Origins alone. Oddly enough, I've noticed most Praetorian missions will often just give you the appropriate enhancement to your Origin, unless you are facing against Vanguard or Arachnos.

You need to Copy Image Location after right-clicking it in order for the images to show. Just sharing the link doesn't do much unfortunately. You also need to make sure you've shared the image or its location to anyone with the link.

You know where most of the villains are, right? Blueside. What, villains cannot be redeemed? Like Hawkeye? Or are you just talking about ATs? Should I point out the Hulk? While the AT used to be side-locked, that is no longer the case. Now, if you're just talking about people with the blue moniker leaving teammates to be brutally mobbed, then you may have a point. Should I say, "Hail Hydra?"

It would give you another power that you'd never slot. Well, hey, if one wanted it to progress like Brawl... such as the IOs you could fit in there?

1. there should be two different channels, not one mixed channel. 2. sort of. blueside is a set of content that was connected to heroes originally, now there's no limit on who can access it. same for redside. 1/2 my characters are villain ATs, most play blueside most of the time (but can switch to redside content in seconds by talking to one npc). specific example: my brute has never been redside. my defender has done considerable redside content. Yeah, except that color of your UI and Icon next to your health and energy are tied to such concepts as "Hero" and "Villain" as far as the game's mechanics are concerned.

Would making them slottable like Brawl help address that?

Global Handles are usually the first character you log in with. It can be changed, once.

So long as the AT literally brings no new powerset to the table unique to them, the rest is just database adjustments. As new as the Sentinel is, it really doesn't bring any new powerset in to play. It modifies most of the Blast sets to alter their Snipes to being something else, and ties the animation of them to something that already exists, but you can take Sonic Blast between Blaster, Sentinel, Corruptor, and Defender and only see the differences in the base damage (and Inherent interaction). Building a Melee/Pets AT and doing a direct copy of the Brute Primaries with just the Mastermind Pets as Secondaries, or Pets/Manipulation AT with Mastermind Primaries and Blaster Secondaries, while bringing absolutely no new powersets (like Dinosaur Pets and Gravity Manipulation) wouldn't be that hard. The real difficulty, as the Sentinel AT already shows, is setting up the Inherent and what it does, while making it fun and balanced. You could just incorporate them in to the powers, much like the Tankers are set up, or have it as a build-up release mechanic that the Sentinels and Dominators have. But that balance and fun issue will always be in question.

I did one a while back after watching an MiB movie. He was AR/Energy Manipulation Blaster. There was no Beam Rifle set at the time. I just named him "Agent" and put a random letter after the name. Went well. As far as this goes, yes obviously from time to time. Some were quite easy as they are characters I brought over from live. I knew who they were and I'd already gone through that in the past. Others the naming convention already exists, so again, not difficult to come up with [title][name] or whatever. And in some cases the name comes first. For instance, my Mexican ex-Skull member was pretty obvious la Calavera. I just had to come up the appropriate design and power set which was still easy. My collection of Iron Man like power armored characters has been more of a challenge and they've been through several renaming conventions trying to find a theme I'm happy with. Agreed. I have a Resistance > Villain character who is a Savage/Radioactive brute whose body is mostly Bioluminescence. Yes, he is patterned a little off of Godzilla, especially in one 'costume'. I was trying to come up with a name, and then went to Google Translate and went Eng > Esp for "Green Claw" and it brought back "Garra Verde". In his Bio, I gave him a spanish name, experimented on by Neuron, and then dropped, and there you go. Back when playing Dark Age of Camelot I made a Lurikeen Ranger and made his name a modification of the scientific name of cholla, aka jumping cactus. For my Global Handle here, I made the character to be Stone Armor for the strong and complete defense arrays and went with Energy Melee for the low recharge times (boy that worked out later, didn't it?). I kept trying to think of a theme with pink stone which led me to quartz. But pink didn't really fit, and I remembered the name Jason Blood from the Justice League cartoon. Blood was too literal, though, and there was a pirate named Bludd, right? So, Gabriel Bludd was now a mutant with a stone mutation. To explain his Energy melee, he lost an arm and both hands in the first Rikti invasion and now has cybernetic hands. White Stone skin for the quartz and Circuitry to give the veined feel, and voila, Bludd Quartz is born. Powersets = names more often than not for me, and I always try to include them. The only exception are those who would not have their own personal identity, like aliens who wouldn't blend in any ways (made three pseudo-Protoss, and may add a 4th at some point).

Not so helpful. The mission to complete the Crusader Storyline in Neutropolis becomes available at 14, the mission to meet Crow and do his mission arc is at 15. See an issue? Access to Calvin Scott's first story mission to 17 or 18 would be more appropriate.

Gauntlet as a power is a placeholder. If you look at its detailed info, it is an auto, self, single-target power with no effects. If you look at the detailed info of any of your attacks, you will the +400% Taunt listed (duration and range varies by power). Bruising is already an effect in-game; a -20% resistance debuff on the first attack of all Tanker secondaries. Hunh, I've missed that for a long time. Thanks for pointing that out. Why? Hmm, possibly because they are to be the ultimate shield of the group? Their AT is the only one that really ties in to their Role without exclusion.

Did it wriggle and wriggle and wriggle inside it? No wait, that's the spider... I knew an MMO that swallowed an Arachnos. It swallowed the Arachnos to catch the fly Then it became the fly. I don't think permadeath is even possible in superhero comic books. Everyone comes back somehow; either they didn't actually die, were saved by technology/magic/other power, return as an evil twin or doppelganger from another universe/dimension, etc. Really, the only superheroes who face permadeath are the ones whose comics sell so poorly that they get cancelled, and even then it's not guaranteed that they won't be back in a revival or show up as part of a group serial or something. Now come on, that's not fair. Some characters stay dead...Like Bucky...if you are Bucky-dead, you are really, really dead. I mean even in the coldest Winter, you'd never Soldier back to the land of the living. And Barry Allen, he died a massive heroic death in Crisis...and Hal Jordan - didn't even he go to the great unknown never to be seen again. Sometimes, in comics, dead is dead :P Even Gwen Stacy didn't stay dead, if cloning a person is the same as resurrecting him. Of course, I think Uncle Ben has stayed dead, despite other universes having not killed him in the first place.

Possibly. I'm just saying I don't know where in the code the Inherents are set up to do this in, as I'm not hip deep in to the code. If all Tanker Secondaries are in a separate database from Brute and Scrapper Primaries, and, as you said, programmed individually to perform the Inherent's actions, then all it is is manually going in and changing each appropriate power to do it. However, I see the Inherent listed as a separate power, and I don't see the Taunt on either my Brute or Tanker's attack listing, so that's why I'm not making an assumption as to the ease of changing the Inherent. Still, all and all, if the Tanker Secondaries are all in their own database to be individually tweaked, just adding that "Bruise" affect without even considering Inherent interaction wouldn't be that much more difficult once one notes how to program that affect in. Your original list was definitely one to look at for possibilities in increasing Tankers groupability. I still think having a small splash damage akin to Radiation Melee's ability (though, obviously not as good as its proc or raise Radiation's proc to be the strongest) would provide a reason to include Tankers as they bash and bruise the minions gathered round. It wouldn't kill Blaster's thunder as much, as their aoe melting would still be superior, but it would be something we could be doing while also keeping the Bosses off their arse. Nor are Tankers the only ones whose inherent powers incorporate their secondaries. Notably to your point, Defenders' Vigilance has a very large damage buff component, which is really only relevant to their secondary sets -- but every Stalker secondary includes Hide, Blasters' Defiance works across primary and secondary, etc. Several Inherent powers (notably all EATs') aren't tied to either Primary or Secondary at all. Focus on the role first, and names or conventions second. Admittedly, that statement was made before Defender's Vigilance was changed to affecting their Blasts. Stalker's Inherent depends on Hide, but still only affects the Primary Powerset. While Blaster's Defiance will work on their Secondaries, the output of their Primaries puts the focus on that from the design perspective, despite what all those Blappers will tell you. My point was that a lot of fixing on Tankers tends to focus only on the Secondaries, while ignoring the Primaries. The Inherent should be focusing more on the Primary than just the one power aura (and maybe the self-rez a few have). Part of that would be differentiating just how effective Tankers are at taking those mobs' onslaught that the Tank gets instead of just Taunting a little better over the Brute. I am focusing on the role, and the Tanker is to be the ideal of what you are looking at for the Tank role. This isn't discounting Brutes doing Tanking, just that they should be doing it different than the easy ideal, is all. Oddly enough, that's why I brought up WoW earlier, is because they currently have 6 classes that all Tank very differently from each other as an example that YES, how they handle the role is different and it should be considered instead of just looking at flat numbers. When WoW first launched, Paladins and Druids could tank for small encounters, just not very well, often lacking basic tools that Warriors had in completion, while not considered effective at all for the Raids. Unfortunately today, they either have those tools, or the tools just simply aren't as required in the game.

You mean like Radio/Newspaper mission groups?

-Resist comes with the issue that some of the Support Powersets come with it already, as well as all the Sonic Blasts. How do you address it to make it useful, while also not taking over the roles of those Powersets? What could be interesting is doing -Resist to Debuff and Control Resistances. Of course, that's only really useful when fighting against Bosses, AVs, Heros, and the occasional Monster. It's not as useful against Minions and most Lts. On the other hand, it would make what control powers the Tanker Powers come with that more effective as well. It could be a devil to program in, though. I don't know what access they have to the Inherents. I do have a problem with the name, though. Gauntlet brings to mind one of two things: an armored glove OR an onslaught. While it could be attributed to the armored glove (throwing down the gauntlet in challenge), I've usually seen it as the Tanker's role to face the oncoming onslaught as well, and as someone back before Sunset stated, Tankers are the only one whose Inherent is focused on their SECONDARY. Something rather odd for a class dedicated to the Defense.

44 as of this writing. Keep in mind that I am an altoholic, and creation of characters and enjoyment of the stories is why I play most of these games. The first MMORPG I played was Earth & Beyond. I got in to the beta and played when I could, then EA happened to WestWood Studios, ...cutting of rant now. Then I was introduced to Dark Age of Camelot because my brother-in-law's friend gave me a copy so I could box his Bard for him. Found my home in the Theurgist and getting to 50, and then getting my Theurgist his robes. Even here, I found my altoholism as I had to try every class, yes EVERY class. Got in to City of Heroes beta and enjoyed. Discovered it through gaming magazines of the day. Got it at launch and eventually rotated its play with two others over time. Its robust character creator made it almost impossible for me to get a character up high, though I did manage to push my Stone/Energy Tanker Handle up to getting Granite. I don't think I ever got any of them to get access to Elite Pools, much less the Incarnate content, though. World of Warcraft was greatly anticipated by me as I had played and enjoyed all of Blizzard's work up to that point. Aside from loot lag and my favorite class being a Druid, I enjoyed playing in that world. This would be a game that would part of my rotation, though I did take most of Cataclysm and much of Wrath off because my account got hacked while it was off rotation and lost pretty much everything on my highest characters. I have completed the Class Halls for Legion for every class and unlocked all the Allied Races up to 8.1.5. Admittedly, being unemployed for a couple years helped with that. Haven't been back since then, even though I really wanted to get the KT and Z Druids up. That may be why I liked the Pandarian experience more than most since I remember the Warcraft 3 April Fool's progression. (Pandarens were announced as the 4th Race for WC3. The 4th race was later announced as the Scourge. The popularity of the joke rose to including the Brewmaster as a Mercenary Hero in the Frozen Throne, and every expansion of WoW had requests on the forums for Pandarens till Mists.) Star Wars: the Old Republic was another one on my subscription rotation. A lot of people complained that it was a theme park MMO, and while I can't disagree with that, I still find few problems with that. Even with my DAoC background, PvP just isn't one of my favorite things anymore due to poor reaction times, so SWtOR's general lack of it wasn't a concern, as I enjoyed playing it specifically for the storylines. Oddly enough, that's what I enjoyed about WoW and City of Heroes. I have played Secret World off and on, but only ever got out of Kingsford with one character (altoholism plus a little completionism strikes again). Since I'm married and have little kids in the house, I really can't play that one much any more. The horror aspects are cool, but could be scarring to my littles, and some of the enemies are a bit to risque for my Mrs to see me with. I was in Vanguard's Beta, bought it as I liked the premises, and enjoyed the world and general system, but requirement to team up to do anything past 12 was a little harsh. But not as harsh as... Final Fantasy XI. I like the Final Fantasy series up to this point, I really do. I like the concepts of the game as well. But I'm not a group hog spamming invites everywhere I go, and when you can't even be an altoholic very easily because you couldn't even pick the server you created a character on, it became tough to WANT to slog through all the messes involved with this console port. Rift came along and did almost everything that Warhammer: Age of Reckoning tried to do, and did it right. The soul system was (and is) interesting, as it really gave you opportunities to modify your character. However, it was easy to get caught up in the raids in the first zone, so I never really progressed any of my characters out of there. Warhammer: Age of Reckoning I played because I found the area quests a good option, I was in to Warhammer on the tabletop at the time, and I liked what Mythic did with DAoC. Unfortunately, they forgot a lot of what got DAoC right when trying to fit it in to GW's mold. The game became bogged down to level 10s fighting over one small section of one of the first zones. The classes an zones were quite characterful and I enjoyed the atmosphere. I played Tabula Rasa and was even able to progress in it, partially because they had a thing called, "cloning". Every character starts out in the same class, and as they progress, they can choose to follow a path which focuses on certain paths. When you reach that split point, you can clone the character and have the clone go down the other path. The active environment made it interesting, but NCSoft, Garriot, and the limited technology of the time pretty much guaranteed its doom. While on hiatus from employment and paid subscriptions, Guild Wars 2 offered its base for free, so I checked it out. It's very limited character slots (2) for this made it hard to find a character to lock on to play with since I had to destroy at least one. I did get a flower Ranger up to his 30s before I stopped playing it, though. I ran Champions Online in Beta and bought a copy, and well... It came up in subscription rotation about as often as Vanguard, but for fewer reasons. Going F2P made it worse since I couldn't access my old characters with it without subscribing. I played a lot of Star Trek Online and my character in to the flag ranks, and then interest waned. Character slots were at a premium in that game, which made being an altoholic hard, and the ground combat reminded me almost of Doom, and not in a good way. I did run in to a situation where I completed a story arc of missions before I completely ran through the arc. Basically doing mission 6, and then going to do missions 4 & 5 of the arc, leaving me a little confused. I loved the starship combat, though. My old roommate still plays it, but I just don't feel the pull back to it. I have played a lot more MMORPGs, but most were not even past demo time, like Horizons or Wildstar. I have really enjoyed my time on City of Heroes, both past and present, and was really disappointed that it had gone through a Sunset.

I've had 3 characters go through it, and going on the 4th. Running through the storylines is interesting to me. Honestly, Gold-side really is dedicated to the story lines with capstones being set for only the owner of the mission (they mostly don't involve a lot of combat, though, so, meh for teaming anyway). As it is, unless you modify the difficulty or XP gain, you're going to have to do a couple of "radio" missions at certain points to finish the last level to progress in a storyline. Of course, there is the interesting the badge challenge of completing all 4 storylines before you leave that pretty much requires turning off your XP. ;D

That might cause some redraw issues with the MM primary's attacks, but would otherwise be an interesting AT to play. You could play it defensively by having your pets on Guard mode to soak damage, or go all-out and blast alongside your pets. What I think would be interesting for that would be an inherent that gives your attacks a chance to heal or +Def/+Res your pets while they're near you. Many of the Masterminds have had to deal with redraw issues since they were created. It's similar to how most of the Weapon-using PowerSets have to work with since Beta. Assault Rifle using their Secondary, any type of Archery for Defenders, or all of the blades the melee classes have had to redraw since the game started.

It could also be a linux skin of the early Windows, too.