PoptartsNinja

I dislike changing the long range teleporter to be 10 exploration badges on its own. Being able to pick it up safely in Atlas Park is a good thing, it's the first thing I like to do once I have my travel power and forcing me to duck into the sewers or King's Row is a frustration. Could that change be made into an Either/Or? Either get a zone explore accolade or 10 exploration badges, so people who know can get the LRT quickly and people who don't will still probably stumble on it quickly?

I love AE. I like building missions for my SG team to take on, and while I do personally have a predilection towards making difficult enemies and combinations, I’ve always loved making new enemies and enemy combinations. My only disappointment with AE involve some of the few things that it won’t let us customize: enemy types and power colors. I know a lot of AE is limited by its UI, so I have a few suggestions I think might be doable without breaking that UI. Power Color Customization CoH’s power customization is fantastic… except in AE, where everything uses the original colors. I can’t make a custom CoT boss that uses demonic green flames; a vampire using blood-colored water in the upcoming water blast; a dark control/dark blast that has matching powersets as one will be soul noir and the other will be black fuzzy original flavor, or an electric armor electric blast combo that isn’t stuck using both red and purple lightning. While I know adding the power customization options for all custom mobs probably wouldn’t work, what I think would work would be power-color presets with a few options for players to choose from. I think these could be added as an expansion to an existing menu using a function that menu already has. This could also give us access to the dark version of powersets that have a dark version, even if it was limited to a default black/black. Rather than being a simple selection, my suggestion is to make each powerset a collapsable fold-out that then presents customization options. For example: I feel that this would add a lot of value to AE, as people could further customize their mobs even if they couldn’t choose the exact specifics of every power. Enemy Type Customization Minion, Lieutenant, Boss, Elite Boss, Archvillain. That’s the primary choice we get to make for all enemies in AE, and while the choice is significant it’s also… limited. We’re stuck at the baseline power scaling, and it’s difficult to tweak the difficulty of enemies. My suggestion is to change the current Fighting Preferences tab to a scrolling list that enables certain AT-specific bonuses, so that we can give our AE mobs a pseudo-AT of their own. To avoid forcing difficulty, we’d keep the current melee and ranged options we already have (maybe changing them to ‘base melee’ and ‘base ranged’ for clarity), and then add something akin to the following: Tanker +30% base mob HP, making the mob tougher by default (which also inherently boosts the power of any armor sets it might take) DPSer Mob gains the equivalent of 1 SO in accuracy and damage for all damaging, non-control powers. So the mob gains a 33% accuracy and damage boost. Critseeker Mob gains a reduced accuracy boost (20%?) to attack powersets and powers can crit like a scrapper. Supporter Mob gains an SO equivalent +Buff All/+Debuff All/+Heal All and prioritizes using support powers over attacks until it’s the last mob standing. Controller Mob gains an SO equivalent of accuracy for all control powers, adds +1 mag to controls (maybe?), and prioritizes using control powers. Pet Controller Pets summoned by a pet controller have +30% hp Enrager +15% base HP, mob gains a scaling damage bonus as its HP is depleted, achieving maximum damage (maybe 2 or 3 SOs worth?) bonus at 20% or so. So it hits hard towards the end of its existence and is a little harder to put down, but doesn’t get any bonus accuracy. So it’d look something like this: I think this has a lot of potential for letting us tweak mobs, and potentially opens the door for some more advanced AI if the devs are willing to go that route. It could also be expanded if other ideas come up, or if one mob type turns out to be too strong. For example, supporter could be split into Buffer, Debuffer, and Healer if getting +Buff All/Debuff All/Heal turns out to be too good. Or if the Kheldian powersets get added, a Transformer enemy type could be programmed to try to use a transformation power whenever its health drops below 80% And while we’re on this screen, how about expanding the ‘flight options’ into travel options and adding the Tsoo/Rikti/Smoke Bomb Random Teleports, and super speed? EAT (and VEAT) Powersets The Kheldians and Soldier/Widows of Arachnos have been left out of AE. I know Soldiers may have problems due to their costume being different, as some people might enjoy making custom Arbiters while others might want to use the mace blasts on other custom characters; but Kheldians really shouldn’t have that restriction. The problem with Kheldians is they just have too many powers to represent with one attack set and one defense set. So I believe the Kheldians should be presented as a trio of powersets each: Luminous Blast 1: Gleaming Bolt 2: Glinting Eye 3: Gleaming Blast 4: Proton Scatter 5: Inner Light 6: Pulsar 7: Proton Seekers 8: Bright Nova Luminous Melee 1: Radiant Strike 2: Luminous Detonation 3: Reform Essence 4: Inner Light 5: Incandescent Strike 6: Solar Flare 7: Dawn Strike 8: White Dwarf Luminous Aura 1: Incandescence 2: Shining Shield 3: Essence Boost 4: Thermal Shield 5: Quantum Shield 6: Restore Essence 7: Conserve Energy 8: Light Form Umbral Blast 1: Shadow Bolt 2: Ebon Eye 3: Gravimetric Snare 4: Shadow Blast 5: Inner Darkness (A warshade version of Inner Light: 6: Gravitic Emanation 7: Dark Detonation 8: Unchain Essence 9: Dark Nova Umbral Melee 1: Umbral Maw (a warshade version of Shadow Maul: / Umbral Strike (Radiant Strike with Warshade particles: 2: Essence Drain 3: Gravity Well 4: Sunless Mire 5: Orbiting Death 6: Stygian Circle 7: Inky Aspect 8: Dark Extraction 9: Black Dwarf Umbral Aura 1: Absorption 2: Gravity Shield 3: Penumbral Shield 4: Shadow Cloak 5: Twilight Shield 6: Shadow Slip 7: Stygian Return 8: Eclipse I feel this would be a good way to represent the Kheldians in AE, giving access to all of their forms and powers in usable combinations that can be added to ranged blast, melee attack, and defense categories respectively. This would open up a lot of fun options for flashy NPCs, let us make our own custom Council Galaxies, and etc. If a way to choose between Arachnos/Normal costumes could be implemented, the same could be done with VEATs using Huntsman, Bane Spider, and Crab Spider for Soldiers and Blood Widow, Night Widow, and Fortunata for Widows.

My personal want would be to give Banes the Stalker/Scrapper APPs since they're more damage oriented and it's weird that they can't get the mace sniper attack; while Shatter Armor effectively gives them two of a power they already have. With them getting easier access to venom grenade, the appeal of shatter armor drops off pretty hard. I haven't played Widows so I'm not sure if Fortunatas/Night Widows are in the same boat.

Can I see it?

All of the melee pool attacks should scale with and be modified by the fighting pool. So you'd be looking at something like: Air Superiority - +10% base damage for each fighting pool power taken, +5% base damage to fighting pool powers in return, grants -fly to Cross Punch Jump Kick - +10% base damage for each fighting pool power taken, +5% base damage to fighting pool powers in return, doubles Cross Punch's knockdown chance from 40% to 80% (or maybe even guarantees it) Flurry - +10% base damage from boxing and kick, +20% base damage from Cross Punch, +5% base damage to boxing and kick, +10% to Cross Punch So if you took all three and fighting you'd wind up with: Air Superiority +30% base damage Jump Kick +30% base damage Flurry +40% base damage Boxing +50% base damage +current fighting synergy Kick +50% base damage +current fighting synergy Cross Punch +60% base damage, -fly, 80% (to 100%) knockdown chance, +current fighting synergy Or something to that effect. Edit: Then let them all grant +5% base damage to brawl. 😄

Field Control Brief Description/Idea: Force Fields as a control set, inspired by early CoH videos that showed Sister Psyche using her bubbles offensively. The set focuses on knockdown effects, but also dips into Forcefield's intangible effect. Because intangibles are (rightly) unpopular, it also provides a way to attack intangible targets (in the form of Bubble Slam); which should be a fun surprise for Council ascendants. Tier 1: Leg Lock - Ranged, Moderate DoT(Smash), Foe Immob, Foe Chance for Knockdown Description: You wrap the target's legs in force fields, immobilizing and potentially tripping them. Tier 2: Bubble Slam - Ranged, Moderate DMG(Smash), Foe Vectored Knockdown, Foe -fly, Special Description: You lift the target in the air in a force field bubble, disrupting their ability to fly before violently hurling them at the ground (combines Lift with a bubble around the target). May be used on intangible targets, deals bonus damage to intangible targets. Tier 3: Containment Bubble - Ranged, Moderate DoT(Smash), Foe Hold, Foe -DMG Description: You encase your target in a bubble to contain them. Even if the target isn't held, they are still constrained and deal reduced damage (non-stacking debuf) until they are no longer contained. (Standard force field bubble animation). They take damage over time as the bubble slowly runs out of air (combining a bubble with the choking animation would be fun). Tier 4: Detain - Ranged, Foe Capture(Special), Timed Toggle Description: You detain a foe in a force field, rendering them intangible. This is a timed toggle that lasts up to 30 seconds, after which the toggle automatically ends. Tier 5: Bolt Storm - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Smash), -Res Description: Discharges multiple bolts of force that knocks down foes in a cone and deals Smashing Damage. Foes struck will have their armor shattered by the force of the impact, leaving them with lowered damage resistance. Uses Psionic Darts' new mechanic to launch individual bolts at applicable targets in the cone. Tier 6: Cavitation Bomb - Ranged (Location AoE), Minor? DMG(Smash), Foe Knockdown, Foe -Jump, Foe -Res (non-stacking) Description: You create a rapidly expanding and contracting force bomb that deals damage and knocks foes off their feet. Should have a higher damage than Ice Slick/Bonfire but half the duration. Animation should combine Force Bomb's basketball throw with Repulsion Field's knockdown waves in the target location. Tier 7: Wrecking Balls - Summon Wrecking Balls: Melee Minor DMG(Smash, Knockdown) Description: You summon a trio of ultra-dense forcefields (basically: use a wisp model and put a little force field bubble around it). These pets move quickly, dealing smashing damage in melee and potentially knocking foes from their feet. They're most powerful when they can riccochet between foes and should try to target a new enemy in range after each attack; but deal reduced damage if they attack the same target twice (if this is trackable; if not maybe they could get a temporary flight speed increase after swapping targets to make them even more chaotic?) Tier 8: Containment Field - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe Hold, Foe -DMG Description: Bog standard mass hold Tier 9: Force Bubble - Ranged (Location AoE), Vectored Repel, Immobilize, Timed Toggle Description: You place an immobile pseudopet that immobilizes in a radius and draws all contained enemies towards the center. Any enemies outside the bubble radius are slightly repelled away from it. This is a timed toggle that lasts a maximum of 30 seconds before dissipating.

I do kinda wish VEATs got to choose between the brute or stalker APPs/PPPs. Banes are the closest we'll get to a War Mace stalker, and Black Scorpion's PPP feels so thematic. But instead of getting a sniper beam they get a duplicate of Shatter that does -res? Also, it feels a bit bad that the PPP mace beams so drastically outdamage their core kit.

I have no idea, I haven't seen CoH's code. Ideally you'd attribute the damage done by the pet to the player directly, so instead of seeing: Skull Brawler shoots Skull Brawler with Pistol you'd see <Playername> shoots Skull Brawler with Pistol. I know it's not feasible, but that's why I called it a wishlist item not a practical solution to Mind Control's woes.

Track the damage done on an invisible pseudopet?

My personal wish-list for Mind Control would be to make its version of confuse semi-unique in some way. Let it stack with normal confuse magnitude from other sources, but let it overpower them as long as it's active. It shouldn't be more effective than the current confuse (Mind doesn't need higher magnitudes), but should grant full XP for the damage dealt by the minions because confuse is mind control's thing. If you want to take it a step further, you could call it "Enrage" or "Berserk" and have it give the target mob an unmodifiable, unresistable accuracy and damage buff for the same duration as the confuse, to add a little element of risk if the confuse breaks due to insufficient magnitude (because suddenly now you've got a buffed and angry enemy). Or just keep calling it confuse and make the difference more subtle. Edit: Then give the single target version to CoT Succubi.

Warshade and Peacebringer auras

It would be nice if we could get normal human arms for Robotic Arms 2 (and possibly Robotic Arms 1, that'd make for some fun asymmetric costume options). Just a bare arm to the shoulder. It'd be a great way to make a costume with armor and bare arms, or otherwise turn any chest piece (and pattern!) into a "tanker" style piece. This may already be an existing art asset, too. It's just only accessable on jackets with sleeves using one of the short sleeved options. While I'm at it, the Samurai belt with the armor pads removed would be pretty great for making the baggy tops look nice and rumpled...

It always surprised me that the Sentinel of Mot wasn't an AV in all of its incarnations. It'd downgrade to an EB automatically for soloers who haven't voluntarily chosen to encounter AVs.

For a moment, I thought the fly protection was like the teleport protection where it's a proc that's up 20% of the time and not always-on protection. Hypersonic's Fly Protection is mag 2, but is -fly even working on magnitude? Seismic Blast's -fly is -160%, as is the -fly in Air Superiority. For comparison, the 20% chance for teleport protection in Gladiator's armor is -100% teleport distance.

The OG Paragon City Freakshow were Rikti War veterans who were either given Excelsior and hastily cyborged to fight the Rikti, or who survived debilitating injuries and turned to cybernetics after. That's why, whenever the Freakshow build something, it's a fortification. And it's also why their greatest fortification is in Crey's Folly, just below the entrance to the RWZ, so that the Freaks would be the first on the scene for the inevitable breakout. These OG Freakshow are mostly gone now, and under Drek's leadership (and unwillingness to get vaporized by Rikti plasma) the urban disaffected the Freakshow have recruited have almost entirely lost the original plan. Rikti are afraid of the dark have almost no night vision, which is why their armor always has built-in night lights.

While we're at it, can we port the existing sitting poses to female characters?

Honestly, a set that was - End Mod - End Mod/End Redux - End Mod/Recharge - EndRedux - Recharge And then either - End Mod / End Redux / Recharge - a proc Would be pretty nice. It wouldn't even have to be a damage proc, being able to slot Power Sink with a chance for knockdown proc would be pretty fun. For set bonuses you could probably do something like Rare 2) 2.5% Recovery 3) 1.88% MaxHP or 1.8% MaxEnd 4) 3% Resistance (Smashing, Lethal) 5) 5% Rech (to make it slightly better than Efficacy Adaptor but slightly worse than Synapse's Shock) 6) 3.75% Defense Melee, 1.88% Defense (Smashing), 1.88% Defense (Lethal)

Tracking those stacks is core to how those sets function. I could definitely see exempting those from the 'hide autopowers' selection. A theoretical new player (either to the set or to the game) accidentally hiding their set's core mechanic is unfriendly design. It's why Brutes can't hide their fury bar.

Levitate does smashing damage in a set that does almost exclusively psi, which makes it really useful for the things that resist psi. The things that resist psi damage tend to resist it heavily (70-95%). Try soloing a bank vault door with only mesmerize vs. only levitate and you'll see levitate's value. It's also a knockup which tends to ragdoll its targets in a way non-vectored knockdowns don't.

City of Heroes predates the Tank/Healer/DPS "Holy Trinity." CoH was basically a generation 1.5 MMO, which means it was hot on the heels of Everquest and Ultima Online; and released six months prior to World of Warcraft (which established the Tank/Healer/DPS trinity). Prior to WoW, the "Holy Trinity" was Tank/Healer/Mezzer. Issue 0 CoH conforms to this to an extent (CoV does not), which is why Blasters have Beanbag (or an equivalent) in most of their primaries and nearly every secondary starts with an immob or a knockback. The biggest exception the OG devs made to the Everquest Trinity was turning the (frankly boring) MMO 1.0 healer into a buffer/debuffer. Which were things "healers" often did but were never their primary calling. That was CoH's biggest mold break, and I still remember having a blast shortly after launch running with organized teams of 8 defenders of various types getting a feel for how powerful the buffs/debuffs really were. CoH just grew in ways the OG devs never anticipated; and had grown out of the Tank/Healer/Mezzer "Holy Trinity" before Issue 1 even came out. Heck, the original design intent for armor sets was that tankers/scrappers would run maybe one or two of their toggles at a time and switch between them depending on what they were fighting. It's why they have a recharge time, because they expected we'd be turning them on and off in combat. Fortunately, the game's core mechanics (things like character movement, responsiveness to player controls, character creation, and the core gameplay loop) were really fun and ones the devs dialed in on that they usually delivered more of the things we enjoyed. The additions they made over time (like sidekicking/exemplaring in all of its forms) to make the game more accessable were a huge boon as well. And the devs never really tried to re-establish any form of "Holy Trinity," which was to our benefit in the long run. The fact that we can engage with nearly all the content with any AT combination and make it work 99.9% of the time is a good thing. We were doing that back in Issue 0 and we're still doing it today. If, say, Stalkers weren't considered to be able to contribute materially to, say, Rikti Raids? This community would figure out a way to make a 100% Stalker Rikti Raid work. That's just what we do, and it's a blast every time. Anyway, TLDR: CoH was designed before the modern MMO Tank/Healer/DPS "Holy Trinity" was a thing. It never tried to conform to something that didn't exist until 6 months after its release.

While we're fixing helicopters: Can we get helicopters (and the Paragon City smuggler ship to Striga) de-linked from the tram door timer? Half the time you click on a chopper or the boat door and have to wait around for 5-15 seconds until the next time the blue line opens its doors. It's clearly not a necessary limitation since there are doors near the RWZ helicopter that can be used instead of the chopper that don't have the same timing restrictions. For that matter, I'd be all for removing the timer from the trams, too. Let the train arriving/departing just be cosmetic.

As with the last thread: a disable patrol XP option on null the gull or something seems reasonable. Even if I wouldn't personally use it, I can see no reason not to do something like this. Especially now that it's clear it isn't only Rudra who'd be interested in this as a challenge setting.

Since we now have the option for stances that only activate when travel powers are in use, is that something that could be ported to the path auras as well? Right now, our options are to have them always on or to have the path aura show up with any movement, but I think adding a "travel powers only" option would be a fun addition. That would let players burst into flames or start glowing, but only while actively flying, within a 2-3 seconds of teleporting, using super jump, super speed, or possibly even infiltration if it's also considered a travel power now?

You could get a third party screen reader program to try to accomplish this. They're primarily intended for the visually impaired, and they read (in the form of text to speech) any words on the screen. I'm not sure how they'd interact with City of Heroes, you'd have to try one and see if it worked for you; but because they're an accessability tool they're usually completely free.

It's hard to fit anything semi-usable into one of those cargo containers without completely sealing them off (or breaking the game camera 😄). I'd do an 'S' curve if I thought I could fit. I'll try using the new spacing tool and see if I can't come up with a reasonable visual barrier.