Fade

Does a team of two, one Warshade and one Arachnos Soldier, count as a full "diverse team"? Is it meant to?

Here's a followup screenshot to show the similar issue. My UI scale is at 116%, and turning it down to 100% did "solve" the issue, though the game is unpleasant to play with the UI at that size, so I set it back to my preferred size. I'd be happy to check the "two line badge name" theory, but I can't find any that are long enough to break into two lines.

I've also experienced this issue. It doesn't happen with other games or programs, it is a City of Heroes thing, and has been a thing on both of the computers I've played the game on since Homecoming started. No idea what causes it.

I'll chime in and echo Number Six's points. I play on Torchbearer now, and played on Triumph on the original servers. I prefer a smaller crowd for many reasons, which I don't have to get into here (I don't want to get into some kind of big server/small server slapfight). Suffice it to say, if I wanted to play on Excelsior, I'd be playing on Excelsior. If there was only one shard from the very beginning, I imagine I'd be playing on it. But as the system works now, a shard merge would show a callous disregard for my personal preferences, and it would be a faith-killer in the Homecoming team. That's why Number Six says people would quit over having more people to play with - not because more people is bad, but because the choice is removed from players like myself. Its comforting to see that the Homecoming team is not considering such a measure.

I mean that two players can stand next to each other, and one might see the NPCs while the other sees only empty space.

NPCs can be present for some players and absent for others, based on active or completed missions - some examples include Laura Lockhart, Aaron Thiery, Lt. Harris, and multiple NPC contacts in Praetoria. There's also a scene with Marauder surrounded by police near Manticore and Swan depending on your progress on the Provost Marchand story arc (the blueside level 30+ arc, not anything that takes place in Praetoria).

People are giving a lot of great suggestions in this thread. I dig a lot of the Sonic/Symphonic ideas, and using Leviathan Mastery or Force of Will as well. While the Water/Mental blaster might be closer to what the OP originally asked for, I think some kind of sound-based set would be even more interesting. I like the idea of pairing something with Storm Summoning, or even Empathy might be suitable as a psychic-ish support set.

Is a water blast/mental manipulation blaster off the table?

He also likes to hang around about 5 feet from an NPC having their purse stolen by a Hellion, near the parking lot behind City Hall. When you aggro the Hellion, he says a quip and runs off, and the NPC calls him useless.

To be clear, Discord.io is not the same thing as Discord. Discord.io seems to be a tool that some Discord server admins could use to create custom links to their Discord servers.

I dig both ideas, though I suspect permanent versions of Envenomed Dagger and the buffs (Offensive Amplifier, etc.) would likely be too powerful.

I think having some free (both in terms of influence cost and endurance cost) toggle powers available at the Pay 2 Win vendor would be a great way to implement it. That way anybody could pick up all the ones they want, use them when they're desirable, disregard the ones they have no interest in, and maintain any costume visuals they already enjoy on their characters.

Just gonna throw a link to a similar thread I made awhile back in here. Seems like maybe it was under consideration for a bit but newer, shinier ideas popped up and this got put off to the side.

Uh oh!

The game I played the most during the time between the live server shutdown and the Homecoming startup was Warframe, and that game was (and is) great in a lot of ways. I'd suggest taking a page or two from Warframe's book for some endless waves type missions. They have two mission types that would fit particularly well in CoH with limited modifications to the mechanics: Defense missions are about protecting an object from waves of spawns that are pathing directly to it. Enemies can attack players or the object, and if the object is destroyed, the mission fails. This one would probably work as-is with very little alteration, but would work on limited arena style maps that would need to be purpose-built for it, like the Terra Volta reactor. Survival missions involve picking up life support devices, which spawn at random locations on a map or from defeating enemies. This kind of design keeps players from picking a tasty chokepoint and camping there until the end of the universe. Survival maps in Warframe are the "normal" map types and are much more similar to normal CoH map types as well, with relatively linear paths that may branch at points. For CoH, though, the "life support" justification of the system wouldn't make as much sense, but the mechanics are solid - a bar slowly ticks down, and defeating specific enemy spawns or clicking on randomly spawning glowies partially refills the bar.

Hopped onto the Beta server to test out the new Effect: Flames power (the one bought with Prismatic Aether Particles). I was playing my corruptor with Fire Shield from Flame Mastery, which uses the same visual effect as the new Effect: Flames power. I found that when I had both powers toggled on, and then toggled either power off, the visual effect associated with the power turned off. This could result in Fire Shield still providing its buffs, and consuming its endurance, but with no visual feedback. The issue was first noticed using the default power customization themes (Original, Bright Flames, etc.) for both Fire Shield and Effect: Flames. Messing around in the tailor, I found that if Fire Shield is using a different power customization theme than Effect: Flames (say, leaving Fire Shield on Original and changing Effect: Flames to Bright Flames) both effects become visible at the same time, and as a result do not affect each other when toggled on or off. When using the same customization theme with different colors (setting both powers to Bright Flames, but turning the colors of one power red and the other power blue), only one power was visible at a time and toggling one power off turned off the effects for the other. I also tested this on my dominator using Mind over Body from Psionic Mastery and Effect: Psionic, but the bug did not occur (turning off one toggle caused a momentary visual effect drop, but the effects of the other power immediately activated). I have not yet tested using any other archetypes.

I see where I went wrong. I was missing the highlighted parts of the following (using Entropic Aura from Brutes as the example): 100% chance 2.25 second Taunt (Mag 3) if !target.HasTag?(Raid) && (target>enttype eq 'critter') 100% chance Apply "Execute Power" (all affected targets) ● Redirects.Inherents.Fury_Proc_Aura So in Raids, you get the 2.25sec taunt. Otherwise (including raids, or no?) you get the standard Fury proc, which includes a 13.6sec taunt. Meanwhile, the Scrapper is still only getting a 2.25sec taunt from Entropic Aura because they obviously don't get the Fury proc. Interestingly, the Scrapper version of Entropic Aura also has the "if !target.HasTag?(Raid)" tag on it. Seems to be true of other taunt auras as well, even though they all seem to work outside of raids, so I'm not sure if that tag means what it seems to mean on the surface. But anyway, all of that was a diversion from the point of the OP, so that's my bad.

Brute's Entropic Aura seems to be limited to 2.25 sec as well: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=brute_defense.energy_aura.entropy_shield&at=brute

For specifically the T-shirt request, that option is (somewhat) available. Set your character's torso texture to Bare Chest (or to any other option, like Tights, for a layered look), and use the Tshirt pattern (where you might otherwise select Stripes, or Blend, for example). Unfortunately, I can't get into game at the moment to take an example screenshot, but that combination will get you the look you're describing (if you don't mind a hint of nipples poking through your shirt). That said, there are a number of other female-only patterns that would work well for males (and presumably huges too). Athletic, Belly Tee Short and Belly Tee Long on the torsos, and Athletic Shorts on the legs, would work great as-is and only need to be enabled for those body types in the code.

A possible neat mechanic: The single target blasts create little ghosts, that linger around for a little while (say, 6 seconds to be conservative). The AoE attacks can damage those ghosts, and when a ghost is defeated by its owner, it causes an additional little AoE attack around itself. Perhaps one of the single-target attacks can, instead of summoning a ghost, be cast on a ghost to consume it for a self-heal or endurance bonus. On second thought, 6 seconds is VERY conservative for the lifetime of the ghosts. It seems like the Necromancy ghosts can last for 90 seconds, though there is a limit of 1 active per attack. Maybe they could last for 15 seconds? The point is essentially that they could be a temporary resource to be used, rather than an army to be slowly summoned over the course of a fight.

You're likely looking for the "costume colors linked" and "skin color" buttons, as shown in the picture. Welcome back!

Unfortunately, that IS working as intended. Back on the original servers, Paragon Studios decided that the "signature" task forces should always be fought at max level. I don't remember the reason given, and I could speculate on a few, but more info can be found on the wiki. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me at this point, and seems a bit outdated, but that's the way it is.

I'd love it if all the capes released at that same time (Autumnal Cloak, Cloak of the Eighth Circle, Unified Field Facade, Spliced Cape) had short versions as well.

As a long time Munitions Mastery user, I think the set has some benefits and some downsides. Body Armor was much more useful before blasters had sustain powers, for sure. I don't know that it needs to be changed, but if it did get a buff of some kind I would rather it stay an auto power rather than turn into a toggle. Cryo Freeze Ray is not much worse than the other holds available in the APPs/PPPs. Sleep Grenade, I will admit I have never taken and never used. Could it get buffed? Probably! Surveillance is a great power as is, I take it and I use it. No notes. LRM Rocket is easily the most disappointing of the powers in the set. Its usable, but not nearly what you might expect when you take the power in the first place. If I were asking for the moon, I'd ask for it to receive the same treatment that the snipes did: keep it at the same damage if you use it out of combat, and give it a "fast snipe" version that reduces the damage it does proportionally to the other snipes, and let it use snipe IO sets. That would make it a great targeted AoE power for characters that want more of it (such as my Beam Rifle blaster). Then, if you wanted to buff its damage as well, I certainly wouldn't turn it down. Also LRM Rocket has a redundant name. I am copying Troo with my formatting in this part.