Latex

Some good advice - on SG/VG's I'm more Villain oriented, my character is more on the fence, I've not really seen one that fits the character or me yet! As for hooks, what sort of thing might catch your eye? What would have you approach a character? Would you eyeroll at a player typing out a paragraph after arriving at the bar? I find a lot of people use fluff in intro's, like a paragraph about ordering a certain drink doesn't strike me as interesting.

I'm a main-o-holic, works for me! My Kat/Bio Scrapper though~

Whether you're new or old every MMO Roleplayer knows this issue. Your character is created, you made what you think is an awesome bio, your costumes are hours long labors of love, you might of even hit max level and enjoyed the gameplay of City of Heroes. But now it's time to Roleplay! You have your backstory set and sort of figured out what kind of personality you want for your character, you don't know many Players and know no Characters at all so your best chance is to probably hit up Pocket D and see what happens. You head there and emote away, no one seems interested in approaching you after half an hour of emote laden hints and enough hooks thrown out you give in. Everyone seemed busy within their own circles of people and weren't too willing to engage with a character they don't know even if some of your emotes were purposefully written to be eye-catching or raise a few questions (character hooks). The next day you try again but this time you're more... assertive? Instead of emotes you have your character approach and speak directly to others. Most of the time you'll be shrugged off by the cliques, sometimes you'll get a bite but it's so rare you may as well be actually fishing, hopefully you established some sort of connection to Roleplay again. ---- I have been in similar situations and have been outright ignored when I've tried to engage with a group of characters. My limited appearances in the game often means developing new connections and that can be quite a tiresome pain in the butt. How do you break the ice and use the proverbial RP crowbar to establish and form new connections?

This is spot on. Options like this give something for everyone. Options are like costume parts or music taste, we all like different things.

I get the feeling players want easier more casual encounters. The same players probably wonder why player retention is a problem and was even a problem back when the game was live. The game has next to no challenge from my experience. I can log on my Kat/Bio Scrapper whom has a finished build and decimate any level of content effortlessly, whenever I join Hami raids my HP doesn't dip below 99% I take a hit and the insane level of stacked incarnate buff, capped DEF and RES, capped DMG, extreme +Rech, it poses no challenge. Even Developers back in the day could not control the Pandoras Box of Set IO's and the gross imbalance it caused, they went from balancing a static powerset diversity to trying to balance characters who had covered up the holes in their powersets innate weaknesses. The lack of challenge in City of Heroes played a part in why it wasn't as popular as NCSoft wanted it to be and I'm of the opposite spectrum, the game needed content purpose-made for T4 Incarnates that have a fully finished IO build, a challenge that may take weeks of execution to successfully defeat like rival MMO's that came out at the same time and are still operational. This isn't 'Make every MMO like X or Y' but rather 'Make CoH have satisfying hurdles to overcome'.

It's not based on a Trinity but it's most certainly based on roles and the fantasies of said roles therein. The immoveable object tank, the selfless healer, etc. In hindsight I'd add some sort of mechanic for Controllers and Dominators to be essential for, just like the current Hamidon. And the Hamidon you refer to is The Seed of Hamidon, it isn't the actual big bad boss Hamidon imo.

Introduce Praetorian Hamidon as a brand new Raid Encounter- this won't upset anyone missing old Hamidon and will bring a new challenge to those that seek it; Praetorian Hamidon Phase One - 100% - 65% Any deaths during the fight become Mind Controlled. Mind Controlled Players deal massive Psionic AOE Damage to the entire raid and are attackable by other players, they have 300% increased HP it should take ten DPS around 3 seconds to kill them. Ground based fight in phase 1. Utilize the technology we seen in the Shivan at the Tutorial. Damage zones that mess you up, 'don't stand here' telegraphs. Have these boss telegraphs gib anyone that stands in them, pierces all defenses and resistances, certain death. These telegraphs need to be clearly marked and somewhat easily avoided unless you are not paying attention. The first Tank AT that uses Taunt becomes the Main Tank. Boss targets Main Tank, hits tanks for 25% HP every 2 seconds, flat damage, no RES or DEF helps, this means Healers, specifically multiple Empaths are extremely valuable. This hit puts a stacking Debuff on the Main Tank, if MT takes 5 stacks consecutively he dies and becomes Mind Controlled. MC'd tanks are especially dangerous due to the +300% HP, this is by design to deter Brute stacking for DPS. Off Tank will be designated by the Second Tank AT to use Taunt on the boss. Boss has a massive HP Pool so 48 players can't just DPS burn through this. Phase Two - 65% - 25% Hamidon splits into two bosses, It's the exact same mechanics as Phase One, but will require an organized split of players including two more Tanks and dedicated Healers and DPS. The catch here is that one of the Hamidon is now aerial, static, and the telegraphs will be a clockwise affair, you have to circle the Boss every two seconds to avoid dying to the telegraph. First Hamidon that didn't split has an AOE mechanic that forces players out of Melee or die. Moments later the 24 person raid must 'hug' the boss to 'soak' and split a damage AOE this puts major pressure on Healers and DPS to keep themselves at max HP ready for the damage soak. It's a true test of endurance as there is twice the chance of something going wrong. To top it off both of these have to die at the same time. Phase Three - 25% - 0% Praetorian Hamidon manifests into something that looks straight out of the Outer Dark. Aggro Reset and no aggro/threat, Tanks have done their Jobs, 25% is a burn phase, Hamidon targets players at random, the boss is static and uses ranged attacks. Hamidon does a huge telegraphed AOE every 10 seconds with a 3 second wind up. Anyone inside the AOE dies. Mind Control mechanic is upped for this phase, MC'd players have their HP increased by 1000%. (ALL of the DPS must target them and kill quick.) It's a pure burn phase where mistakes are heavily punished and people without any defense in their builds are a massive hindrance to the raid group, everyone needs enough survivability to take one hit off Hamidon as it randomly targets Heroes and Villains. Hamidon Defeat Drops exclusive Costume Parts, this should make everyone want to learn the fight and partake. You get one Account-wide costume unlock per kill, everyone in the raid does but they must be T4 Incarnate to be eligible, It will take 7 kills to collect all of the costume pieces. Badge for defeating Praetorian Hamidon. Badge for being Mind Controlled. Badge for having no Mind Controlled Players. Badge for killing 15 Mind Controlled Players. This series of Badges will play into the theme of Hamidon, players will have to trust each other to not be Mind Controlled, only very organized groups will manage the harder Badges. A vision of Emperor Cole comes forth in a cinematic at the end, he thanks you, Praetoria is rebuilt from it's ruins but in the next chapter Hamidons spores still linger! This cinematic expands on Praetoria and offers up new challenges and the toughest enemies, Praetoria becomes a level 54 zone and takes a similar route to what Dark Astoria did, basically it's no longer a dead zone but a zone everyone has purpose to go to in the endgame. I had fun writing this gibberish, I feel the key to any raid boss is for everyone to have a role. Healers are needed, Buffers and Debuffers are needed, Tanks are needed, DPS are needed, utilizing cooldowns for Phase Three is essential, this should be the hardest challenge in the game so... I wrote it that way!

Inspired by Cyberpunk themes ( Most recently https://i.imgur.com/uNKgfQD.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/V1d51bL.jpg ) a sentient Praetorian Clockwork. Blast pattern on Muscle Gloss top/bottom is modded from the Succubi NPC stuff so it won't look like that on unmodded clients. Not sure who made the patch, sorry!

True enough, it's certainly not on the level of hard math that has been datamined from other MMO's. But, it is the only resource I know that puts in some numbers (aside from Pylon testing), even if some are false or incorrect theres some that are correct, of course that doesn't make it a science but from my experience having played some of the 'top DPS' powersets in the Spreadsheet it 'feels' accurate to some degree, it still isn't accurate though I agree! One thing I've learned about this game is that damage cap is very easy to reach in an optimized team, the thing that brings the pain most of all seems to be -RES, -RES seems to be absolute in bolstering damage and that's how you get insane numbers and it's because -RES doesn't seem to have a cap. I begin to drool when I see a Sonic/Sonic Defender on the team (along with a Kin) cause I know I'm going to be hitting like a truck.

Heavily inspired by Spider Gwen An idea for a Thugs Mastermind I never used.

The closest anyone came to figuring out the hard numbers was this spreadsheet; https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19VuZ9zJ_8eKN11JytgaK9mt9Fy-8pjANopb-FGh68Uw/edit#gid=624942285 It doesn't account for changes the Homecoming team have made. IO's also change things immensely- the sheet is largely inaccurate for Homecoming, but accurate enough for i24 which was the official last patch. From my limited understanding Scrappers are the big hitters, Titan Weapons was king. I love my Katana Scrapper though, the flow of the rotation is unlike any other powerset in the game. I have 5 buttons and each of them delivers massive impact and has it's use. I dislike the general trend of 'ability bloat' in City of Heroes or any game for that matter.

Really like this one, sells the game perfectly. Not many games out there that you can describe like that.

I often get talking to friends who are looking out for the next MMORPG and I also often recommend City of Heroes. Most people haven't even heard of the game and I struggle to describe it in modern terms, people are quick to form an opinion so summarizing CoH into something bite-sized seems like a good idea. Make your own character not just Heroes but catgirls and everything in-between, every mission is an 8 player raid, personal loot for everyone, some good min/max endgame, 48 player raids, lots of RP. That's typically how I try to sum it up, how would you sum up the game in a sentence to someone that has never even heard of it?

The best Villains believe, truly believe what they're doing is for the greater good- for some of the best Villains it actually is, but their morals are too far out of whack it isn't accepted as the moral way to do things and thus draws the attention of Heroes who also believe they're doing things selflessly for the greater good. This isn't all Villains though, there are fantastic villains that don't care for the greater good they care only to corrupt; The Joker is kept alive by Batman over and over again, the Joker only seeks to have Batman break his one rule, to corrupt him, to turn him into the bad guy, you could use some of those ideas for your two characters where each of them are at odds. Ask yourself why Carmen would do what she does in the Rogue Isles, it can't all just be pointless murder? What is the reason in her mind behind those actions. She seems to come from a background that hints she isn't completely psychotic I got the 'Yin and Yang' theme from the two characters you mention as if they're at eternal conflict to strive ultimately for balance. Don't stick to what the game gives you redemption is too predictable, in the eyes of other Heroes you would be watched closely and judged, instead I would have the two characters at ends, have the balance upset for one or the other, your Villain sees a point in being good, your Hero sees a point in being bad, but ultimately they are what they are; Yin and Yang. Have your Villain do some good deeds without even knowing and vice versa to make them more 'questionable villainous', a Villain at heart but... sometimes you do genuinely good deeds. Just my 2 cents, hopefully it gives you a few ideas or inspiration!

Hello! I hope you enjoy it, RP is such a great form of expression where you can create something truly yours then allow others to shape that into something that sometimes extends consciousness; sometimes characters write themselves and it's a very strange surreal connection when that happens but I figure that's called immersion, RP at it's best. Sample all sorts, styles and flavors don't allow anyone to peer pressure or bully you into a pigeon hole, make your own judgement! Stay loyal to character and see the value in tragedy or things you may not think ideal, these events can shape your character in ways you might not of foreseen. And finally realize the distinction between IC/OOC, it's sometimes difficult to not get emotionally invested. I wish I was discovering Roleplay fresh all over again but if I could dish off some hints to my past self, they'd be these. Have fun with it!

I figured Magic is the anti-thesis to Science, Science you can replicate according to a specific set of instructions; it's not a Science till you can reliably repeat it. Magic always struck me as the opposite, it's chaos and can't be proven with Science "It just works!" every cast of a spell should be different in some form or other; if you cast a spell and the outcome was exactly the same each time, then it's a Science. My Robotic character is sentient but considers her sentience Magic because it's impossible for her to copy/replicate sentience, it just happened, it just is. She can't explain her sentience, thus it's not a proven Science, so, it's Magic! At least that's how I roll with it. I think every character should have some mysticism else everything is Midichlorians and not 'The Force is all around us.'

The thing that City of Heroes fell prey to on live was cliques especially in the RP scene, it was the worst out of any community I've been part of, you needed a proverbial crowbar to get involved as an unknown. I bore witness to a lot of backstabbing and bullshit in multiple SG's I've been in on live. I haven't settled into one on Homecoming but back then insulting character concepts in a subtle way or calling out character tropes in derogatory tones were top of the list. City of Heroes players are no different to any other MMO player in my experience but City of Heroes is designed in such a way that there is less of it in the open.

Overwatch is toxic because it's a competitive game, competitive nature breeds harsher opinions, I'd challenge you to name a competitive game that isn't toxic. DPS/Raidlogs made PvE WoW toxic, GW2's WvW is toxic, it's just human nature but there are tools to remove it from your line of sight. City of Heroes is a weird spot, nothing in the game deters you from grouping with others or being competitive. Even the PvP is... eh, on live Sirens Call was the place to be or RV and only regulars went there. The advent of 'quick queues' in modern MMO's killed a lot of kindness in community's.

I wing absolutely everything and I'm inspired in an instant by concepts I gravitate toward, honestly I think that is the beauty of Roleplay, dynamic, flowing and imaginative minds. My two main characters are inspirations OP mentions, but a dozen, hundred of them, with pieces taken apart and put in it's place. Philosophy is my thing, my favorite character (of all time) is a sentient robot that was initially created to serve humans base greed and lusts, in City of Heroes I researched Praetoria to make that concept plausible here, Praetorian Clockwork already laid the groundwork for that. Seeing first hand that the Resistance used Clockwork Bots as 'suicide bombers' in a few missions made my character side with Emperor Cole in any discussion related to her past, the game directly influenced the character, completely changed my idea of which direction to go; guess she sort of became a Villain. My other character is an outright Villain but for all the right reasons. Paragon City seems like a swell place to live until you take a big step back and break it down, on this character I go with the notion that all Heroes are narcissist as evidenced by statues dotting Paragon City whilst there is still major problems with crime and corruption literally beneath the statues feet, all media is owned by corporations with an agenda that generally dislikes painting Heroes in a bad light. You can think of Batman vs Superman, General Zod would not be on Earth if Superman didn't arrive, there would of been no destruction of Metropolis, Superman was the cause, Zod was the effect, alas Heroes need to be completely eradicated to bring back some semblance of balance. Of course it all goes way deeper than this but you get the point, Villain with morals, these are by far the best Villains imo. It's really hard to pinpoint a single thing that made an instant backstory/bio, it's a lot of smaller things for me! The suicide bot thing really stuck out to me and made me question how that would affect my Clockwork character.

I gave it a go, maybe there are some ideas you can take from this. My biggest hint would be that is if you don't use any 'top pattern' on your metallic chest/legs then use Blend (or Diamond Blend) and use a tone or two different on the blend to create some different tones to give it more depth. I gave her a cigarette too cause why not- you can use Bestial Breath aura for a smoke effect which I think looks cool. And don't mind the sliders I used my character as a base and she THICC.

I'm keen to see some takes on Faora-Ul from Man of Steel, seeing a take on her Battlesuit would be real cool! Seems I'm here I'm interested in seeing a take on Vayne from League of Legends, specifically Project: Vayne!

Wow, these are way better than what I expected. I am inspired! Love to see more goes at it too!

Yes, I believe so. I believe it's Emperor Cole who kills most civilians to feed his power via a nuclear explosion. This is after the Hamidon is absolutely unchained and wreaking havoc on the planet I believe. There are missions where you can go to current Praetoria, I wish I knew the name of those missions or if you can use the map in AE, from what I remember the Hamidon spores can really mess you up, even robotics, it's a wasteland with giant tentacles.

There's some talented costume aficionados in this Community and I'm stuck on something I'd love to make, call it 'Costume-block'. Faora-Ul from the DC Film and Comic Universe is one of my favorite Villains of all time. It's clear her look- armor in particular- in 2013's Man of Steel is inspired by Alien and H.R. Giger's work. The armor has a sleek almost insectoid look to it and has the addition of a Cape which is difficult to make look and fit well in the best of cases. I wonder if it's doable in City of Villains with all the pieces and tools we have, I don't think it is, thus this post, maybe you have discovered something I haven't when it comes to costume techniques, hints and tricks that could make it plausible. Another addition would be Powersets, what set do you think Faora-Ul would use? Super Strength? Street Fighting? Kinetic Melee? Invul? I'm keen to see anyone's ideas and brave attempts at a Costume!

Not a fan either, I'm sorry! The chat system in City of Heroes/Villains is literal perfection. I don't think there is a single thing that could be done better, I'm not blind to the games flaws but the chat system even destroys the vast majority of modern MMO's or any other chat system there is. It was way ahead of it's time, perfectly simplistic but with all the essentials needed and an absolutely fantastic consideration for Roleplayers, the chat system alone made the game great. I mean SWTOR doesn't even have chat bubbles, let alone customizable chat bubbles and a quasi-typing indicator. At a stretch, adding emoji's as an option? Maybe? I'm more biased to leaving it absolutely untouched.