PoptartsNinja

It's something I vaguely remember from talking with Pohsyb back on the live servers. I was in the same Planetside clan as Pohsyb and he was the one who introduced me to CoH (I had no idea it was in development and it would've slid under my radar without him). IIRC, knockback had a built-in soft cap so any magnitude above a certain value got diminishing returns'd extremely hard. IIRC, this was because, at the time (this was pre-CoV, pre-ED) if knockback got too high it could cause mobs to move more quickly than the servers could process them and they'd despawn. I was never sure if there was a crash involved, but I always kinda assumed so. Even in Homecoming you used to be able to still force-despawn enemies like this with Force Bubble. If you toggled it on at level 50 while standing right next to a level 1 Hellion in Atlas Park, they'd accelerate so quickly that they'd instantly teleport about 500 feet and then just despawn. Anyway, I'm not sure if the knockback soft caps are still actually true, so I did some testing on Brainstorm: All testing was done with Force Bolt, on a Level 7 Defender with different levels of knockback slotting. All attacks were made against the same minion, in the middle of an empty street near the King's Row hospital, with no obstructions or NPCs in the way. All tests were made against the same target, from their neutral 'weapon ready' animation pose, with their pistol drawn, from as close as the game would physically permit me to be (2 ft) My sample size was limited to 5 shots at each enhancement value because I really should be in bed. You'd need larger sample size, a dev toolkit able to make the mob AI completely unresponsive, and a way to reset everything to exact x/y/z coordinates and facings to get an actually accurate knockback test. Repulsion Bolt unenhanced knockback magnitude 10.44 vs. Level 7 Gravedigger Brawler minion (+0): 41 ft, 44 ft, 41 ft, 38 ft, 40 ft (avg 40.8 ft knockback) Repulsion Bolt (level 7) enhanced with 1 knockback DO (magnitude 14.04) vs. Level 7 Gravedigger Brawler minion (+0): 37 ft, 43 ft, 43 ft, 39 ft, 51 ft (avg 42.6 ft knockback) - Expected improvement over baseline: 1.3 - Tested improvement: 1.5 Repulsion Bolt (level 7) enhanced with 2 knockback DOs (magnitude 17.65) vs. Level 7 Gravedigger Brawler minion (+0): 40 ft, 53 ft, 56 ft, 61 ft (!), 30 ft (!) (avg 48 ft knockback) - Expected improvement over baseline: 1.6 - Tested improvement: 1.15 Repulsion Bolt (level 7) enhanced with 3 knockback DOs (magnitude 21.25) vs. Level 7 Gravedigger Brawler minion (+0): 45 ft, 51 ft, 46 ft, 54 ft, 50 ft (avg 49.2 ft knockback) - Expected improvement over baseline: 1.9 - Tested improvement: 1.17 Repulsion Bolt (level 7) enhanced with 4 knockback DOs (magnitude 24.66) vs. Level 7 Gravedigger Brawler minion (+0): 49 ft, 43 ft, 53 ft, 65 ft, 42 ft (avg 50.4 ft knockback) - Expected improvement over baseline: 2.2 - Tested improvement: 1.19 Repulsion Bolt (level 7) enhanced with 5 knockback DOs (magnitude 27.43) vs. Level 7 Gravedigger Brawler minion (+0): 63 ft, 59 ft, 53 ft, 59 ft, 65 ft (avg 59.8 ft knockback) - Expected improvement over baseline: 2.47 - Tested improvement: 1.32 Repulsion Bolt (level 7) enhanced with 6 knockback DOs (magnitude 28.40) vs. Level 7 Gravedigger Brawler minion (+0): 51 ft, 61 ft, 51 ft, 63 ft, 63 ft (avg 57.8 ft knockback) - Expected improvement over baseline: 2.68 - Tested improvement: 1.29 I also got 1 outlier launch to 93 feet with only 2 knockback enhancements slotted, I didn't count it because it was weird and I never replicated it again. So either knockback is hugely variable and doesn't really conform to magnitude the way other controls do (likely), however the server simulates air resistance is the densest of spagetti (extremely likely), or there is some sort of diminishing returns soft cap (possible) that makes high knockback magnitudes scale really weirdly. We'd probably need a current powers dev to confirm. And I have a feeling the confirmation would be "yeah, Knockback is just weird."

That's part of the intent too. And it's easy to control in high tier content, since knockback magnitude already scales with enemy level; so you almost have to enhance knockback if you want to knock-proc a +4. Then you can move Sudden Acceleration's KB to KD out of the knockdown set (Sudden Acceleration having a six slot bonus is a cruel joke) and into a non-unique universal damage set, and replace it with a very fun "your knockback magnitude has a low chance to no longer respect the purple patch" proc. If higher knockback magnitude is a higher proc chance, it stops disincentivizing trying to minimize the knockback rating in everything. And if a few powers like meteor become better, well... the spawn still had to survive long enough for the meteor to actually hit them so I think the high knock-proc rate is earned.

Because procs are more fun for the player. Nobody will care if knockback does ~1-15 extra unenhancable damage (the knockback magnitude hard cap is 15 IIRC), but if every knockback has a chance to do 40-ish extra damage it's a big enough pop to be noticable; and because it doesn't happen every time it adds some operant conditioning--I mean, it adds to the fun--and people will gradually start to enjoy Knockback more.

The problem with Knockback isn't that it doesn't contribute to survivability, but that it doesn't contribute significantly more than a knockdown and can be actively detrimental by scattering things out of buff/debuff anchors, away from damage, and all the other arguments everyone already knows that we don't need to rehash. If the perception is that knockback hurts damage, the solution is to add a damage component to knockback. Say, equivalent to a smashing damage proc to all knockback above an arbitrary but achievable magnitude (we'll say, mag 5), with a proc chance determined not by recharge but by the actual knockback magnitude of the attack (so a higher knockback magnitude = a higher chance for knock-proc damage). I feel like this is reasonable middle ground, since hitting a two ton walking rusty forklift hard enough to send them flying should have repricussions beyond "and then they took approximately 0.11 seconds longer to get back up."

Spines is toxic and lethal, two of the most heavily resisted damage types in the endgame. And the toxic damage isn't especially high since it was introduced before 'toxic' was actually a damage type. I also don't really understand the farmer hate. They are the 'supply' side of the AH, and they supply enough to keep AH prices reasonably priced. You can absolutely see what happens to AH prices when farmers stop farming AE when everyone's TOT farming during October. The enhancement supply drops and prices double until mid-November. If you're considering Spines from the perspective of AFK farming, improving the quality-of-life of a single single target attack isn't going to change Spines' farm performance in any significant way because the AFK farmer isn't using any single target attacks. If you're considering from the perspective of active farming... active farmers are playing the game so I don't really see a problem there either. Improving Spines might encourage non-farmers to take Spines more often, too.

I'm afraid I don't see this, specifically, having any legs. Animation time isn't a variable. The devs would have to build 30% faster animations for every power pool and temp power in the game in order for this to function.

Wolpertinger Foxtrot

Can I ask what you mean by "increase the duration or intensity" of your claw attacks? I have a feeling the game is already doing what you want, but in a way you aren't expecting--but I don't want to make any assumptions. If by "intensity" you mean strength, then damage enhancements already have this covered as they boost all damage the power does, both of the claw attack and of the toxic DOT at the end. The other way to enhance your strength would be to either team with someone who does -resistance, allowing you to do more damage accross the board; or to slot a Chance for -Resistance proc enhancment into one or more of your attacks. Achilles Heel Chance for -Resistance can be slotted into any attack that has a -Def component, Fury of the Gladiator Chance for -Resistance can be slotted into any melee AoE, and the weaker Annihilation Chance for -Resistance can be slotted into any ranged AoE. All will boost your damage against non-resistant enemies by 20% (and boost your damage against resistant enemies by a bit less) for a short time. If by "duration" you mean you'd like the animation times extended so you can get more hits in, that's unfortunately impossible. Altering animation time isn't something enhancements can do... but you get the same effect out of recharge reduction enhancements, which increase how often the power can be used, making it available more often. For example: if you have a power that you can use 3 times per minute by default, and a recharge enhancement lets you use it 4 times per minute, you've boosted the "duration" of that power by 25% since it's available more frequently. Some good general slotting for basic SOs/IOs is 1 accuracy, 2 damage, 1-2 endurance reduction, and 1-2 recharge reduction, depending on how much endurance the attack costs to use. If the attack is cheap it can take extra recharge; if it's expensive you may want to reduce the cost with an extra endurance reduction instead.

Fury is the reason I like brutes, they are sustained and steady damage encouraged to spend as little time between fights as possible. But I also feel like Fury is badly designed, and if they do spend too long between fights they can get frustrating.. Fury currently goes from 0 to 90% in ~two seconds with minimal player input; but on a full team that isn't operating like a well-oiled machine (i.e. letting the Brute absorb the alpha) it can feel impossible to build Fury at all. The simplest way to "fix" brutes would be to adjust their base damage a bit and then alter Fury to only build up with the Brute's own attacks. Making fury more directly player-controlled encourages brutes to keep up their onslaught. I could genuinely see a world where Brutes and Tanks shared the same overall stats, but tanks hit the resistance cap more easily and brutes hit the damage cap more easily. Fury also becomes much less useful on a strong team or league with +dmg buffers. The other-other "easy" fix to Fury would be to make it a pop of bonus damage, like the Incarnate Hybrid Assault; perhaps with a proc rate based on current fury level (and expending fury whenever the damage procs to encourage the brute to keep building that fury). That would de-couple Fury from normal damage buffing, so brutes would benefit from Fury no matter how many Kinetics users were around.

I went fishing in the Wayback machine because I was pretty sure there was a big post by Zeb explaining the ATs in the lead-up to CoV's launch. Unfortunately, I couldn't track it down after an hour of searching. So instead, I'll just show the old AT blurbs from the CoH and CoV websites explaining how the Devs view the ATs in question. And back to the OP's question at hand: The Brute was intended to be "the best there is in a straight melee fight," so I could see a fun argument being made for removing their ranged powers entirely in favor of some sort of PBAoE replacement. Them not having the same AoE advantages as tanks doesn't matter if they've got an extra Melee AoE to fire off. I'm not sure that's a change I'd actually make, but it would be interesting.

Going to need you to source an OG dev quote stating that Masterminds were intended to be the tanks, because I was there when they released and that was never said. They were always presented as "Pets! (+ DPS!)"

This is not true. It gets said a lot, but it's incorrect. The original CoH was designed with the Everquest Tank/Support/Mezzer triangle, and DPS was a secondary consideration. Scrappers were off-Tanks and Blasters were off-Mezzers (which is why Blaster primaries and secondaries have so many stray disorients and knockbacks). CoH pre-dated World of Warcraft, so a lot of WoW's design concepts weren't considered when it was released. CoV was designed with the World of Warcraft Tank/Support/DPS triangle in mind, but because the Tank, Healer, and DPS roles were already so heavily (accidentally) filled by the base game, the CoV ATs were "X but also DPS!" So the Brute was "Tank, but also DPS!" The Corruptor was "Support, but also DPS!" The Dominator was "Mezzer, but also DPS!" The Stalker was designed as a melee Blaster (with PVP in mind, its PVE performance was always secondary), and the Mastermind was never intended to be CoV's tank. It was designed because people who enjoyed Controller pets were clamoring for a pet class. People found out relatively early that "Tankermind" could be done, but it wasn't their intended role. If Tankermind was the intended role, Masterminds would have launched with an AoE taunt.

If I could do anything with Brutes, I'd change Fury from a spectrum to a series of tiered plateaus, where you receive the full bonus of fury upon achieving the tier. This puts less pressure on maintaining fury, and because it's tiered, would make it into a spendable resource. To compensate, Fury would only build from the Brute's own attacks, with fury generation per attack based on animation and recharge time; and how likely the set is to have a dead zone in their attack rotation. I'd give them a ~.85 to ~.9 base damage scale, but set their damage cap at tank level, so they reach their damage cap more easily than tanks (the same way tanks reach their resist caps more easily than Brutes). Then I'd replace Build Up (and Fiery Embrace) with a power that burned a Fury Tier for a big damage pop on the next attack. This power would only go on cooldown if the Brute popped it enough to reach Tier 0, so a brute could burn fury and damage dump or play more conservatively for higher DPS. That would make Brute a tactical damage dealer looking for opportunities to gain and expend their fury. Most of the brute's Fury damage would be moved into this active ability, with Fury instead providing a global recharge bonus (so keeping it high would still be beneficial). I'm pretty sure that change wouldn't fly though.

That's because it didn't really start as a damage type of its own. Toxic was originally untyped, unresistable damage that didn't respect typed defense (I think it was still affected by positional?). Which made a lot of low level mobs (Vahzilok, Hydra) absurdly dangerous back in the day, since their acid vomit ignored resistance. Eventually, Toxic became its own damage type and Toxic resistance was added (in I4?)--but toxic defense wasn't. And almost no sets had toxic resistance at first, which is why Forcefield's Deflection Shield grants +40% toxic resistance. Eventually eventually, Toxic Defense was added too (in CoV, I believe, when the Arachnos EATs were given toxic damage) and Toxic became a full actual damage type. But it's been a journey, and Toxic is still weird because of it.

I don't see how this is functionally any different than a regular tank. Tanks are already a melee-range control AT. They control enemy agro by redirecting it towards themselves, their powers often have secondary hold or mez effects, and their epics are usually control based with a smattering of ranged damage options.

Try turning your shadows down to minimum and see if that fixes it. Are you able to get in game at all, or does it crash the moment you try to load a zone? Shadows beyond the minimum "black dot under the character" don't work on my modern ATI card, if you've got an nVidia card it's possible their latest driver update(s) stopped supporting something and dynamic shadows are crashing your client.

Which would only be visible to them, which is the point. It'd be up to the SG or player to add what they want, and it'd be up to the player which versions they do/don't want to use if they're in multiple SGs.

If it can't be in game, what about 4-6 custom plaques in the base builder that read from appropriately named .txt files in the mod folder? Those would have uses beyond memorials, too. Offhand, I imagine people could use them to make teleporter directions. SGs could share text files with their members easily enough to make pretty much anything they wanted/needed.

What about a section of memorial plaques along the raised fountains along either side of the Statesman memorial in Kallisti Wharf that list as many names as a text block can handle? There would have to be some official means to submit a request for players to be added; but if you leave one or two with otherwise blank plaques that read from a local, editable text file, people could update that text file on their own if they want to have a personalized memorial for someone very special, or who played back in live but never made it to Homecoming, or who was a hero in their own personal life but has passed on, or anything else they'd care to write in? Since that file would be local and basically a semi-official mod, I feel like there would be no risk.

Most NPCs have custom parts, but the Girlfriend from Hell can be emulated pretty exactly. You can't get the Hellions chest detail, but you can get close. Choose 'Sleeveless Jackets' from the dropdown and do a biker jacket in red, top would be the Belly Tee in white with one of the arcane chest logos. Bottoms would be bottoms with skirts, fishnets, then stiletto boots with the flame pattern, and an animated demon tail. Back detail would be the demon wings. Edit: Forgot about the fingerless gloves, but there's a couple of varieties of those so take your pick.

I put together a better sample in Shotcut. Here's Titan Weapons without hitstop, as it currently exists: And this is with something akin to the proposed hitstop (and a free snare drum sound to punch up the hits):

But again. Hitstop does not represent a weapon getting stuck in its target. Hitstop is a dramatic pause... which emphasizes the power of the strike.

But that isn't what hitstop represents.

These statements are opposites, which is where you're getting hung up. Hitstop isn't about adding realism, it's a tool for adding drama. Like a pro wrestler flopping for 30 seconds to sell a suplex; an OBJECTION!; or an actor pausing in the middle of their dramatic speech to make their next line more memorable. The shortest possible version is: bigger hits and bigger weapons pause more on impact to sell that it's a bigger hit or a bigger weapon. Please watch the video I posted, it's only 7 minutes and some change.

You're misunderstanding what hitstop represents. It is not your weapon pausing because it's getting stuck in the target. There are plenty of videos on the subject, I'd encourage checking out this one if you have any interest in learning more: But, TLDR, hitstop adds rhythm to provide sensory feedback to the player. It's about making the hits more tactile, to sell the impact. That's why Monster Hunter typically adds more hitstop to stronger hits from the same weapon. The same hits, without hitstop, lack weight. They lose out on drama. It's entirely about adding feel to the weapon, like replacing a period with an exclamation mark. Edit: Titan Weapons is a set that really wants to have an exclamation mark or two, but feels like it lacks punctuation entirely.