_NOPE_

Thanks for picking up this dropped ball!

Here, I found it for you: Every time I saw that name, all I could see was this smirking face in my head:

Why is CoH > CO? If you want to know my opinion, it's all in the attitude, the philosophy. The attitude of CoH when I login is "Hey, go nuts, have fun!" while the attitude I see when I did try to log into CO was "you GOTTA do this, and this and this, and do it fast! Faster! FASTER! Go here, attack that, block! Zap to get endurance back!" It's the difference between catering towards a casual audience, and catering towards the "gamer" audience. Not everyone always wants to "be a gamer", at least, not all the time, not even gamers. But all of us, ALL OF US, need a break - a place to escape away from all of the pressures and frustrations of daily life. A place where we aren't PUSHED into this or that, where we can just RELAX and go at our own pace. THAT is what City of Heroes does and does well. Even if it's not always Easy, it's always RELAXED. It's Cheers: The Game. Most MMOs don't offer that. They cater to "gamers" that make their chosen MMO their reason for living after they get off of work - or their second job. They force you into twitch game play, and spending hours and hours grinding to get what you want. They make you go at THEIR pace - just like the rest of the "real world" does. THEY set the rules, and you have to follow them, just like you hear from your boss, or your teacher, or your parents, every day. City of Heroes, just wants you to come and play, whenever you want, for as long as you want, whatever you want to do. It's all about you, and what you want to do. And that, is what makes all the difference.

Thanks for your perspective, @UltimateXao.

Yeah. But that should have also affected CO as well. My point still stands. When people have a choice between CO and CoH, guess where the vast majority goes?

No, it doesn't speak highly of CO at all. Because CO is ALSO free to play.

I always thought the CO characters looked more like apes than people.

Yes, actually, using the trading interface to trade with other characters in person. Does anyone even still use that anymore?

I mean, technically, isn't ALL of this pretend?

Guess what, @Ultimo, you already CAN do a lot of what you're talking about in-game. Not all of it, but a lot of it. It's called Architect Entertainment. You can make a nemesis, you can make missions where you're a REAL villain and work towards global domination. The tools are there. Sure, you can't make changes to the ACTUAL game world, but with AE you can "pretend" any storyline that you wish.

There *is* one mission in the game where you fight your "shadow self", so there's that. MAN it was tough as an FF Defender to beat another FF Defender. So. Much. KNOCKBACK!

Seeing this reddit thread from a year ago made me wonder - how *IS* this publicly released Superhero game, created by Cryptic, released in 2009, and sponsored and hosted by a global corporation doing, by comparison to our humble illegally run servers, which are hosted by a small anonymous team of independent fans? Well, let's look at our servers at this exact moment first: Over 2400 players in the middle of a Friday during the work week? That's pretty darn good if you ask me, for an over 15 year old game that's still OFFICIALLY dead. Now, let's look at the competition. What does Steam say? Wait, wait, 163 players??? With an all time max of 984 players??? That can't be right... maybe that's because people aren't running it THROUGH Steam, so Steam can't track it? Let's check in-game. I log in, and check ALL of the possible maps (which include instanced maps, by the way), because for some reason the game doesn't keep and display data like that publicly, and I'm frustrated to find out that their search window has a limitation of 100 players at a time, so I have to take this section by section and do some math... so, here we go: So.... 86 + 96 + 17 + 75 + 51 = 325 REALLY? 325 people in-game right now, with a legal game that was created and released in 2009, that's supported by a multinational corporation, that presumably has a paid staff and is still making content updates? Compared with 2,400 at the same time period for an illegal game that was created and released in 2004, which officially shut down in 2012, and is being supported by players and an unpaid staff? I think the data clearly speaks for itself. Cryptic made a bad choice in giving up City of Heroes and trying to recreate a wheel, that they already created pretty damn well the first time. I'm thankful that we have a team that's working to make this legitimate, and to hopefully take it into the next level. The foundation is good, fantastic. Now, we just need to see what this puppy is capable of. I think that this pretty much proves beyond a reasonable doubt which superhero MMO is the greatest. Our very own beloved City of Heroes.

The fact that that game is running, um, ILLEGALLY right now, and they don't want it to?

This complaining about yellow salvage prices is all a moot point anyway, if you ask me. Why? Because the salvage pools are shared by EVERYONE, which means that a level 1 player and a level 50 player are on the same playing field when it comes to buying and selling them. This is GOOD for the lower level player. Why? Because they can sell their yellow salvage for high prices on the market and fit themselves for TOs/DOs/SOs and common IOs EASILY with no issues. And higher level characters have an essentially infinite supply of influence pouring in left and right just from playing the game, so they're fine. The only thing this really affects is players that are trying to fit their lower level characters with uncommon or rare IO sets. In short - powergamers. And you'll never see me cry a tear for them, they can just fire up their Fire Brute and go farm some mobs to dump some influence on their lowbie. I'm really, REALLY not seeing the problem here, to be honest.

Amazing work.

I'll take the challenge. I'm going to take a break from my Web Build Planner, and roll a Dark/Elec blaster, because I need a break from coding and I think it's been a few months since I've ACTUALLY played. Going from FF/Elec Defender to Dark/Elec Blaster... it'll probably be an upgrade, to be honest. Because my "favorite" set to play has always been labelled as "masochistic" and "painfully slow", so I suppose changing ATs and powerset combos will be an interesting experiment to see if even this "gimped" build is going to be that much easier than solo-ing my Defender. I'll keep y'all posted.

This is why I generally tend to pick Assault ASAP, because it help my Defender through his entire career, even if I'm solo-ing.

I see that name, and immediately think...

Fixed that for you.

Well, I mean, I think Willpower/Street Justice fits the bill myself, thematically.

This is a FANTASTIC use of the game's resources for data scraping, good job!

Alternate Power Suggestion for Corruptors: Force Wall (Level 18) replaced with Force Snap - Insta-kill power on any enemy except an AV/Giant Monster/Purple. The theory here, and I've never seen this suggested in any medium before, but it comes instantly to my mind when I think of force fields/telekinesis, is that someone with the power to generate fields of force or telekinesis could potentially be the PERFECT assassin. All they would have to do is to literally "scramble the brains" of a target inside of their own head, or create a force field INSIDE of their head. BAM, instant kill, with no trace from the outside - it'd just look like an aneurysm. I frankly don't know why this wasn't thought of or used in books/movies/etc before, be because when I first read about Sue Storm, I was TERRIFIED by that possibility instantly popping into my head (pun intended). Of course, The Philotic Knight would NEVER use such a power. The Misotic Knightmare however....

It's not terrible, but everything else BUT FF has gotten better over time, and FF has been hardly touched, except for the changes to how single target buffs work, and the slight buffs that Castle made to Repulsion Bomb. Now, I do have my "Buff FF" thread, as I'm sure you all know. But I want to thank @Apparition for opening THIS thread for reworking the whole set. That being said, how would *I*, the resident Force Fields Guru (my former forums title on the live boards 😉 ) handle a total re-haul and revamping of the set, ignoring the Cottage Rule entirely? This is what I would do, and here's what I see for powers if I could do literally ANYTHING that I wanted. Here's the powers that I would have, in the order that I would have them: Force Bubble - (Level 1) This isn't the "old Force Bubble", but rather a merger of Personal Force Field and Detention Field. It brings back the "glass dome of DOOM", but makes it a toggle that can affect ANY target. It uses the "untouchable" effect and the "cannot attack" effects, so the target cannot interact with the outside world, and the outside world can't interact with the target. Target is also immobilized. However, the target can still use abilities on itself. The toggle would have an endurance cost that would increase every second, until the field was no longer maintainable and would HAVE to toggle off, so that it couldn't be abused. You can cast it on yourself to give yourself a breather, and could potentially use Rest while inside of it. You could cast it on an AV (no accuracy check needed!) to take the AV out of the fight and give your team a break, for a while. You could cast it on an ALLY to save that ally from any incoming damage that's not already applying DoT on them (perfect pairing with a Tanker to take the alpha after they taunt or jump in?). The number of uses for this power, and the tricks you could pull off with it would be... innumerable. Force Bolt - (Level 1) A bolt of pure force. Knockback guaranteed 100% on hit (Accuracy/ToHit check still required though, like any other attack), though the KB-KD can still be applied to change it to knockdown. Tier 3 Blaster Bolt damage, and an added Disorient effect for 20 seconds. Can be a part of an FFer's standard attack chain due to the good damage output. Defense Shield - (Level 2) A merger of Deflection and Insulation Fields, provides the same level of Defense that the other two fields did, but for ALL damage types, as well as Melee/AoE/Ranged and even untyped damage (like Hamidon attacks). Makes the FFer much more popular during Hamidon raids, and missions against enemies with either untyped damage, or damage that's usually not protected against (I'm looking at YOU, negative energy!). Dispersion Bubble - (Level 6) The same, but plug the Sleep hole, and add a small tick of Absorb to all allies in range every second. Not much, but it helps minimize cascading defense failure. Repulsion Field - (Level 8 ) The same, but reduce the endurance cost for maintenance of the field to negligible levels so that it can be permanently on, to protect the FFer from melee attacks at all times. Same cost per "hit" of the attack when it actually hits an enemy. Force Crush - (Level 12) The reverse effect of the knockback that Repulsion Bomb USED to do - instead, knocks all enemies within a certain range of the target (let's say, a range of half the size of Dispersion Bubble) in TOWARDS the target. It would use the same effect as the "first half" of Gravity control's Wormhole, without the second half, so I know the effect is already in the game. This would make the FFer the best friend of Tankers that want an easier way to gather all of the enemies, as it would LITERALLY gather them. Also does Tier 1 Blaster Bolt damage to the enemies. Force Wall - (Level 18) A translucent, place-able wall of Force. Cannot be moved after it's placed. Either a toggle, or a click power with a set timed duration. Breaks Field of View for the purpose of attacks for all entities on both sides of the wall, as attacks CANNOT go through the wall, either way. Could be used while inside of a mission to "give everyone a break", or possibly used to help "herd" enemies towards a desired location by making an obstacle. Could also possibly be used for players to reach areas by jumping that they normally wouldn't. Repulsion Bomb - (Level 26) Equivalent damage to a Blaster's Nuke, without the crash. Give the FF player access to a second nuke, thus substantially increasing their damage potential to add to the team. Maintain the Knockdown component and disorient component for any that survive the nuke. Impenetrable Field - (Level 32) What the "old" Force Bubble should have been, a "perfect" Repel field against enemies. Half the diameter of the old Force Bubble, and enemies CANNOT push in - even AVs. Let's call it say a THOUSAND mag of Repel against non-allies, just to be ridiculous. But, as with the "new" Force Bubble, the field cannot be maintained forever, as it will have an exponentially increasing endurance cost. However, teammates can sit inside the field in perfect safety from Melee attacks, only Ranged and AoE attacks can get through. Could be used to "pin" even AVs against a wall, or make them "fly off" far in the distance. Can also be used to help cover a tactical retreat, or for the FFer to "hold the line". That's what *I* would do, if I could redesign City of Heroes Force Fields from the ground up, with no limitations. The FFer would have SUBSTANTIALLY increased damage output, but not from passive buffs, but rather active powers/attacks, and by merging powers, we have more room for even MORE positional "tools" in the FFer's arsenal of enemy positioning tricks.

@Oubliette_Red used a smirk, thus making it a sarcastic remark, methinks.