Replacement

B...atman?

That is such a wonderfully simple way to explain an issue I've struggled to explain for years. There's also a distinction to be made between Warriors, the gang, and Warriors - the individual members. Heracles thought he found a secret weapon to take down [hero]. That's a Heracles problem. I think if you make it individualistic, or as I mentioned before - emphasize that it's as disposable as the axes they swing or arrows they loose - then some magic here and there is just fine. You could even say this is reinforced by the finite magic in the Wedding Band! I would also hope to see it paired with some more Badass Normals though like a (not named) boss that always starts out with Spring Attack on whoever they aggro. So... new Warriors Arc: "Warriors discover Magic Origin SOs" 😄

I think if you're going to give more warriors magic items, it's best to imagine they use it like ammunition. Something used, as opposed to something they build themselves around. The warriors also highlight, to me, the lack of "natural" power sets outside of melee and archery. Like yeah, I'd love to see some of the later sets migrated over, (though they're all over dark astoria and night ward with dual blades, street justice, titan weapons, and even dual pistols), but those sets wouldn't really help break up gameplay with new combat roles. I'd like to see a dedicated archer with some trick arrows in their quiver for starters (tac arrow version of Entangling, maybe poison gas?) On a different note, I think it would be fantastic to run into a unique boss with a magical beam rifle. Just imagine the captions with all the other warriors freaking out when it starts firing. ... And now suddenly I wish staves were in the list of beam rifles for players.

Don't forget - if you interrupt a combo with a new opener, you don't open the new combo but you do lose your old combo. Lose-lose!

Counterpoint: Uber's suggestion isn't about balance; it's about an entire AT being effectively shut out of playing their class in particular fights. Consider this a test run for the actual mechanisms of shared inspirations, with the discussion on the balance implications to follow.

I think a lot of people would say "over enhancing" is part of going all out. It's a more cognitive version of seeking a challenge. It's one thing to tell me to hold back, but to tell me to hold back on my own ideas? Sounds quite shite. Ok that part done, I absolutely agree - the game should never be designed around edge cases. It's one of the reasons I avoid games with an eSports presence - I hate when interesting options are destroyed because of specific things pulled off by the top 25 players of a game. You know, this leads me to what is perhaps the more salient question of this thread (or at least a new phrasing for other folks to try on). While the game shouldn't be balanced around what some broken combos can do, should it at least be balanced around how it's usually played? This would mean building with your player metagame in mind, as opposed to how the developer thinks it should be played. Frankly, it's amazing the answer for this game isn't an obvious "yes," when literally every other online game I've played has people complaining on their forums and subreddits that "these devs don't even play their game" - indicating anger at design decisions made without knowledge of how the game is played in reality. Fwiw, my personal answer is actually more "no", and this is the only game where I feel that way. It's an echo of the very first response on this thread: Sets and IO builds are this game's version of high end gear, but it's important that casual, roleplay, new, and self-found players are still capable of experiencing as much of the game's content as possible.

Holds have: A PvP set, a Winter Set, and a Purple Set 3 other sets that can scale to 50 3 damage proc options, a +effect option (+2 mag), and a survival/utility proc (absorb). Also a slow proc for kicks Stuns have: a Purple set 2 other sets that can scale to 50 No damage procs, 2 +effect procs (Immob, ToHit Debuff), and a +KB proc no one would seriously slot on purpose - making the set name incredibly on-point (Stupefy). While Holds are probably less common than Stuns and tend to have longer recharges (and thus general usability), it's obvious this set advantage gives more opportunity to a set like Ice Blast - with access to 2 Holds - over something like Archery with a disorient. Yes, this can be made up in-set with hard-wired benefits, but that doesn't really help with build diversity. Snipping the rest, because Jesus. You are doing this thing where you're taking Galaxy Brain's very general suggestions and claiming a very, obtusely hyper-literal interpretation of it. I don't even know what you're trying to achieve, here. Parity does not require equivalence. You know this. To put it another way: things don't have to be direct copy/pastes of each other to bring equal value to a party. And you know this. And you know Galaxy Brain isn't arguing anything to the contrary. I don't have a horse in this race, since I'm immune to nerfs, I just don't think you want to make the argument I'm reading you as making.

This is hilarious. Because I had the same idea and even used the same name for it (Disruptor). No, I'm not claiming thief or anything -- I just lost interest in posting theoretical ATs, so kudos to you for chasing your dreams. However, I'll use the space here for my vision. Hopefully, you'll be amused at the similarities and see how I solved some problems through needless complication. Inherent stats: lower range and/or target caps. Something like -30% range on your controls to force a little bit of mid range. 75% resist cap (mayyybe 80) Inherent, Disruption: The Disruptor and their pets taunt enemies they attack, and their controls inflict a Disruption effect on enemies. For each stack of this effect, your controls inflict a minor amount of additional damage and (?maybe?) have longer control durations, to a maximum of 3 stacks. Your Taunt aura also inflicts Disruption once every 10 seconds. But see Control section for the true use. Armor primary changes: taunt aura is ALWAYS t2, and the area is enlarged. Control secondary changes: aoe hold (or equivalent) is moved to t9. Pet is moved to t6/t7. T1: this power cancels any stacks of Disruption currently affecting the target. For each stack removed, a stack of Nullification is added, max 3. The aoe Hold, now at t9, always applies 3 stacks of Nullification to all targets hit, turning this power into a Control Nuke. Nullification: for each stack on an enemy, your Controls benefit from increased Magnitude. I would also consider giving the Disruptor a stack of +Absorb every time this is triggered, if necessary for survival (thus also referring to how you Nullify incoming attacks). With the rest of the mechanics, base mag of their controls could stand to be 1 lower than normal (typically mag 2) -- except that aoe hold on a 4 minute timer. Goals of this setup: You choose between a moderate damage increase plus longer mez against weaker foes, and good mag controls. And both require a few moments investing in each fight. I imagine even against fully charged enemies, your damage would still fall short of the modern Tanker, but it would be a super safe AT for solo work. The t1 control you are stuck with maintains purpose as a lever for targeted micro-Domination. Pets come online in the 20s, and further the sense that you break up enemy attack waves more than all-out denying them (the "brick" approach of a tanker) This all originated for me out of envisioning how Praetorians would divide along AT lines in a more general warfare sense. If Blue focuses on team solidarity and Red on a mix of zerg/overwhelm and creating/exploiting weaknesses, then Gold would be about pressure, disruption, and ultimately breaking enemy formations before they can mount a clean attack. Sentinel as a ranged Scrapper (ranged harassment and counterattack denial), a Control-heavy tank, etc, would fit this approach pretty well. Cheers

Sooooo what about those of us who are more interested in 5000 character slots than being level 50? You can't pay for this stuff when you're first at the level to obtain it, where your inf gains aren't good unless you're actively playing the market (let me temper this: converting merits to millions and leveling off of arcs is always enough to pay for the cheaper sets like Crushing Blow/ Thunder strike for some early accuracy). So the issue with balancing around expected income is that you're ignoring how a lot of people play. You are telling them to not only have a high level character, but to continue to play it well after they consider it "done." Maybe this thread has been about changing level 50 only content difficulty and I didn't notice? It's a very long thread. Note - I don't really disagree with your assessments, but I did want to mention this devil's advocate perspective.

Adding mag is tricky. There is a completely unknown number of immobile NPCs that rely on teleport protection to not screw things up (think gun emplacements, etc). I'm still hoping we see it hit a beta build with an "EXPERIMENTAL: BUG FINDING PROOF OF CONCEPT" tag on it to outsource locating anything that needs its protection raised.

I would 100% of the time use this to lock my "tail" slot to nothing. And if there's a way for me to filter out the seemingly 40000% chance of rolling "animal/monster head," I'd go for that too.

I think I would actually finally make a "Challenge" character. Something like all-pool attacks for example, and I think I would try to play at higher challenge than I can handle while leveling. Maybe I'd just end up frustrated and stop, but I think something like this would be a good way to really try to experience the city, since a single character slot is basically robbing me of the ability to explore character instead.

I'll still push for emptying bar on activation instead of expiration of domination, unless some more extreme approach is taken. It's a flawed AT, and underplayed because it's a jumble of mismatched incentives. It would however, also be nice if they had some minor version of blaster Sustains (they do get Drain Psyche, afterall, which was supposedly the impetus to give all the other Blaster sets Sustains). Something like that, especially on the +Recovery side, would be something beneficial to non-permas while being more or less unfelt by permadom characters. Dear Patrons, I hate that jagged performance curve.

@Bill Z Bubba @Infinitum Maybe you should rehash this and go nowhere in a different thread, instead of page 23 of an "SOs vs IOs" thread? Aka get a room, you star-crossed brawlers?

Good stuff so far. @DoctorDitko, I enjoyed reading your signature after reading the backstory. 🙂 I have one like this! What's really neat about this example is the idea that it's more like dueling origins than dual origins! The technology is the only thing keeping them from becoming a rampant mutation, so... who's the real hero in the equation? One of my favorite character backgrounds is a former med student who was infected with a wasting blood disease. She ended up using what I called "garage medicine and black magic" to pump her blood into a ritual and return it as essentially a living artifact under her control. Parallel to Doctor Strange's origin story, certainly, but I enjoyed the notion that she, being new to magic, would approach it and experiment with it as scientifically as possible. She is Magic origin with the Experimentation pool, which fits really well except for the green syringes I wish I could color recolor. I have some others, like a Natural with a talent for improving others' techniques - easily manifests in fighting, but applies to technology just as surely and houses a slew of borrowed and tuned-up gadgets from other supers.

Yes, you have described how the game currently functions. What I am suggesting is an improvement to this flow. I suggested this change specifically because it seemed of lesser scale (these were costume slots that used to not exist, so I presume there is already a lever to set this up without tremendous development cost). I would indeed like slider values (I have a thread on that too), though that wouldn't save me from having to edit Tough to "Flex" 7 times. Certainly would prefer this. As above, that just felt a little out-of-scope-y.

Yes, you have described how the game currently functions. What I am suggesting is an improvement to this flow. It would cost you about 4 clicks on a new character while you're already there picking up your other p2w goodies, but it would save me a great deal of irritation. Just so I'm clear, your opposition is coming from a perspective of "there are better things for the devs to do with their time"?

No seriously, this is a QoL buff. I would love if, instead of all costume slots unlocked for free, we started with 1-3 costume slots unlocked, and all the rest were redeemed for free from the P2W. I would expect this to only apply to new characters moving forward. But why..? Because some of us (and so probably many of us) often make tweaks after character creation and would like them to propagate through to the other slots. I'm to the point where if I notice my Scales are off, I'm more likely to delete and remake the toon than go through and ensure I keep them consistent across all slots. Aside from Scales, I think the other big area we see this is Power Customization. Forgetting to update a power's colors or set a no redraw, fixing it at level 2, then forgetting about the other billion slots until level 30 when I make my... I dunno, Croatoan Farmer Theme outfit - gets old. Functionality tip for context (tested just before typing this): costume slots are copied from slot 0 at the time of costume slot unlock. This means you can save yourself work by making any "affects all slots" type adjustments to your slot 0 costume before running your unlock missions. And ideally, before obtaining them via p2w. Thread title edit for clarity: costumes -> costume slots.

Correction for everyone else: this wouldn't be so much a new code base as much as separate server settings (AS FAR AS I KNOW). Everything that's being asked for here is already maintained on the Beta server. The OP is really asking for (unknowingly?) A beta shard that never experiences server wipes. However, I never saw the part where you explained how Homecoming has caved to the "make the game easier" crowd. Literally the only thing I can think of is low-level SOs, which is not at all what you claim - the very people who want to skip levels do not bother with SOs. They don't even bother with the low levels!

Ra's al Ghul is what I would consider a "natural" character, judging by his capabilities and the sorts he deals with (Batman). But he only became so talented due to the long life granted by the mystical or chemical nature of the Lazarus Pits. Spider-Man is certainly a Science origin character, but one of his most iconic attributes (webshooters) are definitely Technological marvels. To make it even more interesting, no mere human could ever use the webshooters the way he does! Aside from dexterity and a spider-sense to keep him from swinging into traffic, there's the simple fact they're basically engineered to dislocate the shoulders of any baseline human! I've recently become obsessed with this idea of "dual origin" characters, or simply characters that blur the lines of the origins and/or what they fight. This is only getting more intense with the "Origin" pools. For example, a Natural origin Martial Arts character could be a lot of fun Unleashing Potential and going full Anime with the Force of Will pool. Do you guys have any technologists who needed sorcery to overcome their nemesis? Any Bio Armor mutants concocting Experimentations based on their own mutagens? It's especially exciting when you need one half to really make the other work (Spiderman example) but I'd like to hear them all. Tell me about your toons' stories that blend the origins!

Don't want to spend too much on the derail, but did want to point out that's one shard hitting 1k at high time. Total concurrent count (unsure if/how costume creator figures into this) is over 2600.

We have enough threads on proposed fixes, and laughs too. But to the thread topic: I hope not. As was the case with Energy Melee, simply returning to the old isn't good enough. You either end up not fixing the problems or you've reintroduced old ones. There's just no good reason to look backwards, ever. Better to focus on what the game needs the set to be now.

I don't think it's been true for a long time. Powers aren't balanced around SOs - content is. (In other words: every challenge in the game should be beatable with a team/teams on all SOs. And then there's gear logic: Look at other generic MMOs. In starting gear, your rogue class should be roughly the same power as your fighter class. When you're both wearing end game raid gear, the Rogue should still be roughly the same power level as the fighter. Enhancements are the same. SOs are the cheap stuff every vendor sells, and IOs are the superior player-crafted, player-listed, or raid gear.

I'd split the difference between @Monos King and @Haijinx -- Enhancements are absolutely this game's equivalent to gear, but they are not the progression gate we see used in many MMOs. Or at least, they aren't in Homecoming. I think this is more of what Greycat was mentioning, where the promise of power is locked behind high-level content. This is more accurate to Incarnates, actually. Though again, not-so-much here on Homecoming (Thank the server gods).

In regards to what this version of Sentinel would bring to a party, I think it's worth noting how it changes the gameplay of a party. That is: everyone reaps rewards by doing stuff to the big guy with the glowing crosshairs on his feet. This sense of "calling out" priority targets would have a tangible effect on your party's behavior, just as surely as having a Tanker in your party means (at least in theory) that you jump into the pack after them. Sure, it's not necessarily filling some hole in the AT roles -- but we already know a few controllers can replace a tanker too. But it's offering something different, with a different playstyle focus for your group. It's offering identity.