Redlynne

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest Illusion/Electrical Affinity or even Illusion/Nature Affinity. I've got a Mind/Nature Affinity build that I'm in the process of updating (Mind Over Vegetables) and I've found that even with only a few Nature Affinity powers in the mix the build has a resiliency that is rather peculiar to it. I was playing on a Mortimer Kal SF with it (that had to be abandoned, but it was going good until we dropped from 5 to 4 teammates) and the buff potential of Nature Affinity to allies was making a rather noticeable contribution. The key reason for perhaps wanting to play Nature Affinity is that you can leverage the Level 35 power which is the PBAoE Hold to blend with your Illusion Hold and the damage production of your Pets. Of course, if you want pure chaos ... there's always Illusion/Storm ...

Finally ... 👍

Credibility Loss now exceeds TOTAL. /thread

So you want to play this instead ...

So ... you just want to NERF Fire powersets so they don't do extra DoT as their special effect, but rather instead do something else? Maybe make Fire cause $Targets to run around in Terror/Fear because they're ON FIRE ...? Not to put too fine a point on it, but THAT WAS TRIED. The Players HATED IT when Fire caused Fear because it meant $Targets would run away from Burn patches, nerfing their damage throughput. This was done during the Cryptic Studios/Paragon Studios days. I remember it. If your stance is that Fire powersets shouldn't have Damage over Time as their added effect ... you're going to have to justify yourself better than "because Electric sucks!"

The problem with that is a premature optimization of the game that existed before City of Villains was developed. This was stated in no uncertain terms by multiple Devs as the Player Summits in 2011 and 2012. If you were making the game from scratch that is a perfectly valid thing to do. But the sad reality is that retrofitting the entire game for co-op access is apparently something the programming was designed to actively discourage allowing that to happen without an urban renewal level of reprogramming effort (that will no doubt cause all kinds of other things to break completely). It's one of those Load Bearing Boss kinds of things.

So ... your big idea is to homogenize the game ...? Um ... no ...?

This left me wondering how it is possible to make a Super Strength/Street Justice and Super Strength/Martial Arts ... uh ... Tanker ...?

That's an exaggeration. The Broker system is a solid pattern of 3 Newspaper missions enable 1 Mayhem mission after which you are introduced to a new Contact. 3+1 does not equal 5.

Hmmm ... what's this on page C2? "Local catgirl sues previous owner for ... insufficient petting(?!?) ... and is demanding compensation for ... feelings of mental lethargy and terminal boredom(??)." Seriously, this town just gets weirder all the time.

On the topic of changing out the skyboxes for varying the world lighting in zones ... I kind of have to wonder if enabling any kind of minor randomization factor would be a good thing to do for all of the "normal" city and island zones. Basically, have tables of the skybox being randomly chosen to be one out of a short list of options for that specific zone. Being able to go from clear skies to cloudy skies via such a system wouldn't enable actual zonewide RAINFALL in City of Heroes/Villains (and Rikti bombing raids don't count as zone weather!) ... but it would help dispel the sense of Eternal Sameness™ to the day/night cycles we have in zones right now. Unfortunately, enabling such a feature could potentially be a rather daunting undertaking ... another one of those things that is easy to say in a post, as well as being easy to visualize in the mind's eye, while being a matter byzantine demonology to try and convince the underlying game engine programming to provide without wrecking everything. Easy to Say but Hard to Do (and all that). Still, if it could be done, it would make for a decent Quality of Life upgrade not only to the Rogue Isles but also to Paragon City and Praetoria (proper, not First Ward and Night Ward or the Shadow Shard) if rolled out more broadly than just merely implementing it for the Rogue Isles only. Some days are sunny. Other days are cloudy. And then there's the sewers ... because we're ALWAYS going to have the sewers ...

This is the explicit reason why at no point have I (personally) advocated for the elimination of the Null the Gull option. Instead, I look for ways to reward PCs for committing to playing Redside content as either a Villain or a Rogue AFTER the 7 day countdown for a Tip Morality Mission is completed. It doesn't "push" anyone into playing Redside, but it does reward them for sticking with it in the Level 20+ bracket (because you have to be minimum Level 20 to get Tips). That way, you avoid the "Day Trading in Villainy" option via Null the Gull for making better rewards on Redside "too accessible" so as to reserve them for people who commit to playing Redside content on a longer term basis. You want a carrot ... not a stick ... to encourage a small fraction of the people playing Blueside to decide for themselves that playing on Redside might be worth their while. You don't need to convince EVERY Blueside Player to switch (and stay switched) to Redside, and indeed you wouldn't want to bring over EVERY Blueside Player(!) ... but if you can bring over even as little as 5-10% of the Blueside population to Redside, that will make a pretty dramatic difference in the Redside population, without affecting the Blueside population all that much.

And here is what the server population looks like ~12 hours later in the early evening North America time, same day ... Torchbearer ... 5.65 to 1 Heroes Excelsior ... 7.22 to 1 Heroes Indomitable ... 4.95 to 1 Heroes Everlasting ... 3.60 to 1 Heroes Reunion ... 4.81 to 1 Heroes Total ... 5.22 to 1 Heroes So irony of ironies, it looks like (today) the ratio of Heroes to Villains improved on only ONE server ... Everlasting (go figure, eh?) ... while all of the other servers see greater Hero numbers than Villains. Note that if the total Heroes (2040) to Villains (391) across all servers were balanced "better" at even a 4 to 1 ratio we'd be seeing (2040+391)/4=608 Villains instead of 391 Villains across all servers, and only 1823 Heroes instead of 2040 ... using these latest numbers. That would amount to a +55.5% increase in Villain population(!) but only a -10.6% decrease in Hero population, if the overall alignment balance across all 5 servers was a 4 to 1 ratio instead of the 5.22 to 1 ratio that I'm seeing here. So when people talk about worrying that Players switching from playing Heroes to playing Villains will somehow meaningfully reduce the majority of Players continuing to play Heroes ... I honestly don't think there's a whole lot of merit to that argument. Yes there is a zero sum game of -1/+1 in absolute terms as far as that goes, but the difference in proportions is really asymmetrical. It's basically at the point where adding +1 Villain to Redside is "worth" adding +5 Heroes to Blueside, in terms of proportional impacts to the population density right now. So on that score, I'd say that "cannibalizing" as little as 5-10% of the current population of Players to switch from Blueside to Redside would be something the game as populated now can "afford" to do without impacting the community health on Blueside while dramatically improving the community health on Redside. In other words, you don't have to convince EVERYONE to play Redside, but convincing even a few people (5-10%) would make a significant difference to the Redside community. Which is another way of saying that Heroes are a dime a dozen and making another Hero won't make much difference in the overall scheme of things. But making another Villain? Oh yeah ... more Villains will DEFINITELY make a difference! 😎

In my experience, Super Reflexes is MUCH better realizes on a Tanker than on a Scrapper. Being able to add +Resistance proc stacking and +Absorb shielding via Tanker ATOs is way more valuable than adding +Critical or +Fury is to a Scrapper or Brute. Additionally, it's possible to (with Martial Arts in particular on a Tanker) exceed the 59% Incarnate Defense softcap, rather than needing to settle for only the 45% pre-Incarnate Defense softcap, while still being able to add a respectable amount of Resistance into the Tanker build. I haven't played Street Justice, so I wouldn't be able to speak to that specific pairing of primary/secondary, but I do know that Super Reflexes gets a lot more out of Tanker ATOs than a number of other protection schemes will.

Really? Okay, let's review what you actually said then. This amounts to "change the zones" which is functionally a request to redo the world geometry of the zone maps. This amounts to "change the NPCs" which is functionally a request to redo the spawn groups AND MISSIONS found within the zone maps. This amounts to "change the buildings/urban environment" which is functionally a request to redo (all of?) the art assets of the zone maps. This amounts to "not enough zones" which is functionally a request to MAKE NEW ZONES. This amounts to "rewrite every mission" which is functionally a request to do an overhaul/urban renewal of every mission (or at least the overwhelming majority of them) on Redside. Redside is not limited to the "villain" Archetypes. It is perfectly possible to start gameplay as a Blaster, Controller, Defender, Scrapper or Tanker in the Rogue Isles starting at Level 1 (I know because I've done it). Non-issue. So what do we have in what you're ACTUALLY wanting to do? Change the zones. Change the NPCs ... AND the Missions those NPCs feature in. Change the zones. Make more zones. Change the Missions. Boil that down and you have ... Change the Zones, Change the NPCs, Change the Missions and Make More Zones ... at which point you've basically taken the Rogue Isles AS IS and thrown them in the trash in favor of SOMETHING ELSE that is NOT what we have. Which is to say ... you're asking to make an almost entirely new Redside. Hence why I say what you're asking for is to throw Redside in the trash and start with a clean sheet of paper. Not to put too fine a point on it ... that's a very non-trivial ask you're making there, and I shouldn't have to point that out to you. Your turn.

Good question and the answer is ... NO. One of the advantages of the entire City of Heroes system is the whole "you don't have to compete for resource spawn nodes" feature of how the game is built. It's not like you need to wander around picking herbs or mining nodes or any kind of resource gathering where you have to compete with other Players for spawns. It's one of the reasons why botting in City of Heroes never took off like it did in almost every other game, because you actually have to PLAY THE GAME in order to gather resources, rather than just repeat a specific farming pattern in open world zones that can be handed off to a bot to run for you. I honestly can't think of a single instance where a Villain can do something a Hero can't do because of a lack of competition for doing that thing on Redside compared to high competition on Blueside. The reverse however is DEFINITELY true ... where a Hero can do a large number of things (like grouping for Task Forces) that a Villain will struggle much harder to do (like finding a group for a Strike Force) simply due to the population disparity. Pretty much the only instance of the lack of competition thing being true is in regards to Zone Monsters (Lusca, Adamastor, Paladin, etc.) which are featured on Blueside but which basically don't happen on Redside ... so that's out.

That would be my guess. Client/Server desync.

That's our cue kids! If you're having buggy Interface proc issues, you need to document what's happening and deliver that info to the Dev Team for Powerhouse to crosscheck if there are any outstanding issues.

Some locations are "safe" locations where there's not going to be any combat (or even a chance of combat) so the logout happens immediately.

So your "best fix" is to throw ALL of Redside in the trash and start over from a clean sheet of paper. And just how many man hours do you think that would take to implement? 1 ...? 10 ...?? 100 ...??? 1000 ...???? 10,000 ...????? 100,000 ...?????? 1,000,000 ...??????? ... more ...???????? How is this in any way a PRACTICAL, let alone ACHIEVABLE(!), suggestion you've offered? Inquiring minds want to know. I mean, you're basically saying "make a different game!" here.

I pulled this snapshot of the server population just a few minutes before posting this reply (which, granted, is early morning North America time, but it still illustrates the point). Torchbearer ... 3.86 to 1 Heroes Excelsior ... 6.22 to 1 Heroes Indomitable ... 3.44 to 1 Heroes Everlasting ... 3.76 to 1 Heroes Reunion ... 4.06 to 1 Heroes Total ... 4.47 to 1 Heroes If you're wanting to solo ... forever ... that ratio imbalance is Not A Problem™ for you. But as soon as you want to team up for a Strike Force, let alone a Redside Hamidon Raid, you're in real trouble. This means that a significant portion of the group content is "out of reach" for Redside Players, simply because the population "density" just isn't there to (easily) support forming groups for that content. When there's under 50 Villains playing, that means that you need 1/6th(!) or more(!) of the presently online population to join your group in order to run a Team-8 on Redside. That's a pretty high bar. So the answer to the @DrInfernus question is ... YES ... we do WANT to increase the quantity of Player who are committed to playing Redside as opposed to merely incentivizing what I'm going to call "Day Trading in Villainy" via use of Null the Gull for rapid alignment shifting On Demand. Moving the ratio of Heroes to Villains so that it's closer to a range of 3 to 1 or even better yet, 2 to 1 in favor of Heroes would vastly improve the playing experience on Redside as far as group content is concerned (because soloists don't care about server populations). What we have right now on Blueside is a Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Game (MMORPG) on essentially all of the servers. What we have right now on Redside is a Massively Singleplayer Online RolePlaying Game (MSORPG) on essentially all of the servers. That makes group content for Redside MUCH harder to fill, unless you're dealing with co-op zone group content. So if increasing the number of people playing Redside is the goal (which, spoiler alert, is the entire premise of this discussion) then what should be the means to achieve that goal is the entire point of this discussion thread. What can Homecoming DO to encourage (not force, but encourage) more people to play Redside? Well, I've given my answer for what they could do game mechanically to incentivize more "durable" commitment to playing on Redside. As for the visual aesthetics of Redside ... the "drab and dreary grimy look" that people have been complaining about since Issue 6 ... I'm thinking that a significant portion of this impression could be changed by some subtle yet simple changes to the global lighting of zones. Allowing the Rogue Isles zones to randomly have a DAYLIGHT daytime lighting that is comparable to the daylight lighting we see in Paragon City and Praetoria would go a long way in this regard. Likewise, allowing the Rogue Isles zones to randomly have a NIGHTLY night time lighting that is comparable to the overnight lighting we see in Paragon City and Praetoria would also go a long way in this regard. It seems to me, and to a lot of other people, that the Rogue Isles have this sort of Eternal Cloudy Skies Lighting feel to them which washes out all of the color of the Rogue Isles in a way that you don't get with Paragon City and Praetoria. If the Rogue Isles cycled between Overcast and Clear Skies as part of the day/night cycle in the Rogue Isles, that would improve the appreciation of colors in the Rogue Isles zones so it wasn't all just Drab And Dreary all the time. Note that this simple lighting change for Day/Night cycles is something that ought to be relatively easy to test on the test server. Better yet, no additional assets would need to be created in order to enact the change ... simply use the already existing skybox assets from Paragon City and Praetoria to test out how much of a difference a change in lighting would make. Now, ideally speaking ... having a way to randomly choose "what the weather is going to be like" for the next Day/Night cycle so as to determine how the zone is going to be lit for the next Day/Night Cycle is something that ought to be determined during Twilight between Day and Night. That way you don't wind up with an "eternal sameness" of Day/Night lighting for the respective zones, but rather it can VARY from day to day (and night to night) in a way that presents a subtly changing color palette for the Rogue Isles that isn't the current eternal Drab And Dreary Grime And Grey that we have right now. So that's two things that can be done by Homecoming with relatively little difficulty that wouldn't require creating whole cloth NEW assets for Redside Players to enjoy. Incentivize Players to STAY with playing Redside, via passive rewards tied to the Frenzy (Villain) or Duplicity (Rogue) Alignment powers (which are thus lost immediately upon switching Alignments!) as a game mechanical element. Vary the zone lighting of the Rogue Isles so the place isn't always (quite so) Drab, Dreary and Dirty looking under cloudy skies at all times. I'm thinking that simply making those two categories of changes would make life (and thus playing) on Redside "more enjoyable enough" to shift the balance of the Hero to Villain population ratio sufficiently for our purposes with regards to this topic of discussion.

There are two intertwined issues related to low villain population ... motivation and retention. Motivation speaks to ... why are you playing as a Villain/Rogue instead of playing as a Hero/Vigilante? Retention speaks to ... are you going to keep playing as a Villain/Rogue or are you going to hit up Null The Gull to switch to Hero/Vigilante at the drop of a hat? Quite right. When alignment switching is TOO CONVENIENT and available "for free" (essentially) then there's very little retention going on to staying Redside. So here's what I propose. When you complete Morality Missions you start a 7 day countdown to getting a buff for that Alignment. Once you complete those 7 days of waiting without changing your Alignment you gain access to an Alignment Power. Homecoming could add additional modifiers to the Alignment Power reward for sticking with Alignments through the 7 day countdown ... but deliberately NOT make the additional rewards symmetrical (so Blueside doesn't get the same benefits as Redside because Blueside doesn't NEED the "carrot" to get people to play Blueside). I'm thinking specifically that while a PC has either the Frenzy (Villain) or Duplicity (Rogue) powers the PC passively earns more INF from Redside Contact Mission Completions and bonus INF from Redside Bank Robberies (on top of the Mission Complete bonus). PCs who have either the Frenzy (Villain) or Duplicity (Rogue) powers also earn extra Merits for completion of Redside (only) Strike Forces. The point of all of this is that the incentive structure is greater rewards for PLAYING on Redside become available when playing CONSISTENTLY on Redside. Rogues could still travel to Paragon City "as normal" and participate in Blueside activities, but they wouldn't be getting the same advantages playing on Blueside as they would playing on Redside as a Villain or Rogue who has CONSISTENTLY been a Villain or Rogue for more than a week. Likewise, Vigilantes would still be "welcome" to visit the Rogue Isles, but they would not earn the same bonus rewards as CONSISTENT Villains or Rogues would. Beyond that, you could do something like have 1 Weekly Task Force on Blueside while enabling 2 Weekly Strike Forces on Redside. All of the above are going to fall into the "tinkering at the margins" of the incentive structure for playing the game category, but I'm thinking it would be enough to tip the balance JUST ENOUGH that more Players would decide it's worth their time (their most precious resource!) to play on Redside, without the proposition becoming so lopsided that it's more of a No Brainer that makes EVERYONE figure they ought to be in the Rogue Isles and everyone "votes with their feet" to move en masse into Redside. The basic idea though is that you want to incentivize Players to want to not only PLAY Redside but also want to STAY Redside, rather than becoming "day traders" of Alignments who come and go on a whim. Would it be "unbalanced" to do all that? Duh ... YES ... of course. That's kind of the point. The only way to get more people playing Redside is to modify the incentive structure in a way that MOTIVATES and then RETAINS them to continue playing on Redside. The best means to measure that Movation+Retention of Redside alignments is ... tracking if the PC has either the Frenzy (Villain) or Duplicity (Rogue) powers. Mischief managed. 😎

The wind would whirl around you ... it's just that you wouldn't be spinning with it. Kind of like how Hurricane works in the Storm powerset. The visual FX swirl around you, but you don't have to swirl with them. It's the visual aesthetics difference of the whirlwind being "caused" by your spinning around Way Too Fast™ ... versus the whirlwind "being there around you" and you yourself simply Stand In The Eye Of The Whirlwind unaffected by it (while everything that gets close to you is not standing in the eye of the storm and ARE affected by it).