Golden Azrael

It was Madam Web in the Twinkie adverts for me. I guess you can't help who you fancy. Azrael.

Ah. The 'old' 'breadbasket...one to the chicken nuggets. (That'll hurt in the mornin', son.) Admire what you're trying to do. My old duo partner and I tried to do this and found it very difficult to do. We had two 'natural' alts. I guess you've got around that turning off xp. Makes sense. Along with the Kheldian arcs, I'm in favour of HC devs creating scrapper, tank, troller etc AT arcs that tailor missions to said ATs starting out like with the Origin contacts. But following the 'Origin' arcs as you outline is something I'd like to do. But I always found it a bit 'woolly' at times. Maybe it just wasn't clear to me what the eg. Magic path through the game was. We tried to get 'Oro' and level just by following arcs. Maybe something for HC devs to think about. Paths through the game and if anything can be done to make that more clear. Just as, for me, the marketing side of the game, isn't clear either. A quick Wentworth tutorial on completing arcs for merits to convert to converters and sell for coin. Somethings may appear obvious, but it never was for me on Live or HC either. Thanks to the community I'm a bit more enlightened than I was. Azrael.

Running Mac OS Bootcamp for Windows 10. I'll avoid W11 for the foreseeable future. CoH runs fine. (Apart from 5 man+ teams, Rikti Raids.) Azrael.

The 'four man' team has that balance of AT contribution and feeling like you are making a difference. A Tank, Defender, Blaster and Scrapper would be able to cope with most things. Hey, it worked for the Fantastic Four when Ben Grim and Torch weren't falling out. Well, Ben fell out with everyone... Azrael.

Yeah. Know what you mean. You can't even watch an episode of Coronation Street (allegedly) without being lectured. Azrael.

I guess you have to state your intentions and at least people know what they're signing up to. Azrael.

Aye. 🙂 CoH has it where it counts. Sublime playability and game design. (Great care would need to not upset this basic core in any transition.) Though giving the textures a refurbishment and being done in keeping? Doesn't seem out the realm of possibility. Even porting to eg. Unreal engine could keep the basic playability and let UN5's lighting engine do the rest. I remember the C64 games. 'How it played' mattered. Great visuals were a bonus. Boulderdash Construction Kit is my favourite ever game. Coh is proudly no.2 Azrael.

A Manga/Anime' style option. That would be cool. Azrael.

Sometimes porting over to a new engine can give the visuals a new lease of life. Atlas Reborn (led by Irish Girl?) did a few test demos of CoH on Unreal 4 Engine. Here's what 'Superman' tech' demo looks like in Unreal 5 Engine. 'Super.' Azrael.

An aside. I'm running the CoH Cel Shader for the 1st time. It's a visual revelation for me. It gives the game a new lease of life for me, in a visual way. I like it. Azrael.

Fair enough. Azrael.

Yeah. I never got that. Or the Stone Tanker on live being a 'pure' tanker because he picked Stone fist and the rest of the powers were chosen in honour of 'tankiness' I guess. Guess they liked Stone Fisting alot. Azrael.

I suppose we have enough of prescribed mono-political downloads with 'mainstream' media and corporations lecturing us. Political stuff in general chat? No thanks. CoH. Pure escapism. Azrael.

Hey, I like Radio missions...(and tips...) Mind you. They're getting a bit 'old in the tooth' due to a lack of variety? I've done them to death (and still go back for more. A bit boring?) I think I'd like to see the Radio / Tip format expanded to include 'developer' choice AE missions integrated into the game? We'd get far more variety real soon? There are those that stick to TF/Strikeforce, incarnate level/uber stuff some of which needs an instruction manual to complete. I can find that a bit sprawling and tedious in a different way. Azrael.

Good point. I often wonder if it would be possible for the devs to put a 'team size' lock eg. 2, 5 in search. (I guess you could put '1-5 person' teams only in the search for your hero. So a person knows in advance your team size pref' before they begin asking, 'Can I invite this army of friends...' and you're at a team of 😎 8 and maybe that's not what you wanted but were too polite to say so.) I think that's what I'm probably intimating re: 1-5 team preferences. Often feel 8 ways can be a bit 'meal time at the Simpsons.' Azrael.

Excellent point and example. You've kept the flavour of the original and upgraded her. Bravo. Azrael.

Thank you for the contributions so far. I enjoyed reading them all. Solo, I guess you're in charge of your own destiny without considering another hero's needs or wants. Duo, nice and intimate and you get to know the other player reasonable well over a given length of time and they can compensate for your weaknesses and allow you to push the envelope. The down side is, if you're running a 'dual concept', you've just hit your mid-30/40s and your Duo-Partner decides they want to start again from scratch... It has 3-5. On live, my 'Hamster' PC couldn't handle teams of 8 (lag/stutter/crawl). I used to actively recruit a 'one of each AT' to give the team balance on a PuG. PuGs are more relaxed and 'go with the flow' and I usually just run 'Tips' when I PuG. 'Hamburger' missions for casual CoH play. 8 man 'here's how we roll' Incarnate Uber Content. I generally avoid. 1stly, my i9 cpu gets hot and I find 8 man TF/ITF teaming more sprawling. Less focused. The good news. CoH is incredibly customisable to play how you wish. eg. If a fledgling hero needs help. Easy enough to side-kick them a few levels higher. I did notice that some Duos were husband and wife teams. And on Live, I fondly remember a family of four playing a 'family FF' style concept. Sonic Defender was the Dad. Mom/Daugter(?) En Blaster. (I think her name was Rodeo Rose. Alot of fun to team with them. Kick az combat style. Well done to you, 'Dad' and Rodeo Rose...wherever you are.) Azrael.

I spent alot of time on Live: Pugging. 8 way team (how was I to get from L40 to L50 back on Live?) Duo-ing. Do you have a preference? What the pro's? Cons? Or do some just like flying solo? Azrael.

I was never the same about Cherry Pie after particular American 'Pie' Movie Comedy... Dude, it's for eating. Well. It was. Azrael.

Amen to that. Azrael.

Yes. I know. You said as much in your post. 'What if.' 'If you had the power....to re-imagine it...' *Waves wand. As such, I gave you my viewpoint. Potential. Yadda, yadda. We get it. I think the biggest up lift in the near future would be 'air drop' the entire system into Unreal Engine 4. CoH 1.5. I think part of the charm of City of Heroes is the graphics engine the 'way it is.' So moving it to a new engine would retain it's charm whilst returning some bang for buck on a 'lustre' upgrade. Even in 'Fantasy' land, full on Alex Ross is probably CoH 2 or a whole nuther game. Mind you. Transplanting to Unreal 5's 'Lighting Engine' and even mitten glove low poly stuff might look crazy good if you re-bake the textures with a scaled up texture, painted and scaled down and rebaked into the model. Only HC dev's know where they could take this. And lots of games use all sorts of tricks to keep geometry economic. WoW. An example of an engine that has been upgraded. But it's kept its cartoony fantasy look. And it's charm, such that it is. 'It's just code' as someone once said. To go full on 'next level' Ross. From what I've seen of Unreal 5 looks amazing. COuld the CoH engine be dropped in as is? Brain transplant? That's one for HC's Devs. I think the visual returns of such a transplant would look pretty dramatic, even without re-working the geometry and textures. UR5's Lighting Engine looks immense. And for that Alex Ross flavour. It's lighting that is key. That 'HDR' look. Maybe between Unreal 5's avatar system and whole landscape system it has and some moody Mignola shading you might be able to approach Ross's work. (Although, credit him, I thought he was just re-working the pulp/Loomis era visuals. Which stood out in the dark and gritty rut comics got stuck in.) That said, I remember tech' demos done by the Atlas Reborn contingent showed what was possible if you put the maps/models/textures into Unreal 4. And it did give the visuals a new lustre. There's probably low hanging fruit in the near future. But after that. Could be a lot of work depending on the technical feasibility of keeping the asset's charm whilst upgrading them. ie. Higher res models. Higher res textures.

Looks a bit naughty. When it comes to pies? Lemon Meringue Pie. Nice out the oven. But naturally, I'd like some Coffee Cake too. Azrael.

Coffee Cake. Azrael.

Another thing. If you roll a Tank and try -1x4 or -1x8 (eating the Luck inspire you can get from Wincott) on do the Hollows early arc, you can roll the dice much harder. I got x4 orange salvage drop on this arc which I sold for 2 million. Paid for my SOs. But now, more recently, I'd go to the Auction House and just get IOs which would save updgrade £££. Azrael.

I wonder. Do we have an Auction House 'tutorial' for new comers to the game? A welcome to Atlas Hero Commerce Tutorial for newbies? Might be nice for Newbies to do a Wentworth tutorial like the sequence you outlined above? (A bit like the crafting tutorial that comes much later...) Good advice, though. I've only recently cottoned onto this and I've been with the game since Live and with HC since it rocked up. It's not obvious to everyone and probably not to newcomers. To get some integration into the game for how 'commerce' 'can' work would be nice. Azrael.