Steampunkette

For the record: I'd rather have an Infernal Assault powerset than a Whip Pool. I feel like the whip is niche enough that there shouldn't be a pool centered around it. Now a 'Sports Equipment' powerset for some Casey Jones action? I'd kill for that.

ERPvP Love it.

It never quite got off the ground. We got a fairly large number of players interested, but because it was everyone's alts no one was ever really 'around' at the same time. Crimson Jackal is working on a base to base our next go 'round on to try and help give people a more concrete sense of identity, but until that's done the whole thing is kind of on the back burner.

Could work, definitely. But it feels less 'Inherent'. By anchoring it in the world with a target click it feels more... I dunno... It just doesn't feel as -personal-. As -inherent-. What if it was a PBAoE mechanic? You put down your 'Protection Radius' pseudopet right where you're standing (Or flying) and get buffed while you're in it's area. Call it "Hold the Line" and have it 'trigger' both Offensive and Defensive Opportunity (Just let it trigger the secondary mechanics tied to the attack powers that are already in place), maybe add a Taunt Buff to increase the aggro generated by attacks while you're in the area. If it debuffs enemies in the area I think it should only slow their movement and recharge. Sort of a battlefield control ability that gives others time to reposition.

Good old ID:10t error!

It's still the same fill bar + button mechanic. The button's effects are different, but it's still the same mechanic. ... What about a Bodyguard mechanic? Sentinels protect. At least that's what the -word- Sentinel means. How about instead of a bar and buff mechanic they get an inherent that allows them to explicitly choose a teammate to place a 'Watched Over' buff on. When -that ally- takes damage, a portion of it gets transferred to the Sentinel? Alternatively we could have the buff get stacks whenever the person under it makes successful attacks, and have it apply an Aura-based buff to the Sentinel with the ebb and flow of stacks. If we went bodyguard I think it'd be best to make the Watched Over buff be mutually exclusive: One Sentinel per Target. Meanwhile for themselves, we can give them "Precision". For the Baseline Sentinel increase their target cap with their attacks and slightly reduce their damage scale, increasing their maximum Damage Buff accordingly. Then give them a 'Precision' toggle as an inherent that allows them to limit their target counts for increased damage. Basically a change in the power-call triggered by the buff to select a higher damage version of their attacks with a lower target count and inherited enhancement use... why yes, it -would- be a massive pain in the ass to implement! It allows them different Firing Modes for different situations (High Count AoE gets Precision turned off, ST and Low Count AoE gets it toggled on) and the ability to help the team, possibly in a -really- important way (Watch Over the Defender, or the Tanker!)

Buffs for Sentinels? Well! Firstly I'd remove Opportunity as a Mechanic. They need something -different-. The domination-filling-bar thing is all well and good, but they really need something to make them not only work differently but -feel- differently. My current thought is an 'Unleashed' mode where for X seconds out of Y Seconds they get to increase their target caps or add a control effect to their attack powers. Or maybe have their defensive abilities apply a portion of their bonus to nearby allies or something similar. Crits are done. Fury is broken. Domination and Overpower are nifty but not applicable. Defiance? Sentinels who are near death have already failed. Current opportunity is a built up Bruising which is significantly less powerful. We need something -new-.

It's definitely a problem, yeah. Thank you for understanding! Though if there -is- a simple fix? You'd think one of the Devs would've just flipped the switch. Or maybe there is a simple fix, but it's just SO SIMPLE that no one has thought of it in a serious manner. One of those "It can't be -that- easy... oh shit... CAN IT BE?!"

None of us know exactly how it works, sure. But it definitely isn't as easy as add a zero or delete brawl. Otherwise that would have been done years before City of Heroes shutdown or months after it shut down with the private server happenings. I'm not trying to express a deep and arcane understanding of the engine that no one else has. I'm trying to express reasons why it's almost certainly not as easy as people seem to think based on what I've learned about AI design. It isn't as helpful as digging through the code and getting you guys answer, but I don't have time for that and everyone here could do it just as easily.

Feel free to go digging through that spaghetti code to the AI of the relevant NPCs. Let me know what you find. Meanwhile I've worked the last nine days out of 10 and I'm going to be doing another nine days out of 10 for the next two to three months at 8 hours a day. What little free time I have is not going to be spent digging through the code.

If the brawl AI contains an if and then with movement in it that would need to be removed, too. It would also need to have its priority rearranged, and potentially aspects of targeting. Just adding a zero to it wouldn't necessarily fix anything, if it's a is told you have to run up and hit somebody with brawl. It would just run into melee range and then hit somebody with a 40-foot distance brawl ranged attack while standing right next to them. As to copy pasting an AI it doesn't always work right. Not all of the same conditions will apply to both characters.

I'm not knowledgeable enough of how the AI is rigged to go into what would or wouldn't break. One thing that's important to note is that every power has its own AI information. Not just "you must be this close to use", but some measure of understanding of how the power works. Otherwise the NPC AI in the Architect wouldn't know how to Target and Buff their allies. Or when to do so rather than just constantly spamming that power over and over again. Last nightI randomly did a mish about Branded Hellions (With fire, not Corporate Logos) and their Lieutenants had the Fire Buffing set, so they would throw Fire Shields on an entire group and reduce my Titan Weapons character to 10-20 points of damage because the whole spawn suddenly had capped Smash/Lethal. (Two Lieutenants and even the minions had Fire Armor for their 'secondary') It may be that the brawl AI includes specific if / then mechanics that interact with other powers I do not know. But at the very least it would need a "Brawl is available and all other powers are on cooldown. Move to target and use Brawl."

Parts of the power suppress, but not all of it. Flight in combat is slower, sure, but you're still 20ft off the ground and out of range of enemy melee attacks, making it a -powerful- defensive tool. And while Superspeed's Speed is reduced, I -think- you still get the stealth bonus, right? Which reduces additional aggro. Teleport isn't surpressed 'cause it's not a toggle. And Superjump just gets it's values lowered, not canned, so it's still 'somewhat' beneficial in certain situations to maintain it being on, or toggle it on, so you can jump over a wall of NPCs that have you in a corner. That said... I mostly agree... I think Fly's cost should stay just about the same, but Superspeed and Superjump's costs should get reduced. So should Teleport's, but that has more to do with it being a travel power you can't get across a zone with unless you've slotted heavily for end or you're willing to stop teleporting for a few seconds to recover some endurance. It's cost is just too damned high! Maybe give it a range-penalty when you're in combat, now that we have the in-combat/out-of-combat mechanic functioning.

Honestly... breaking the Cottage Rule for Group Fly seems like the best idea. Turn it from a Toggle into a 45 second pulse that is, out of the gate, permanent with an 8 second overlap, make the cost 1/3rd of your bar, make the end cost ignore external changes or even internal changes. Have it apply a fly buff to all targets within the area like it's Mind Link or something, allow Flight Speed Slotting, and away you go.

That's a bit more complicated... "Afraid" was supposed to be a compound mechanic which caused NPCs to both cower in fear, if cornered, and run away, if not. But the AI would just repath around anyone cornering it and run away, regardless. It also tended to not have a long enough duration for it to really matter. These powers were altered during Issue 2, shortly before Issue 3, that is to say -early- in the game's life, when the Afraid Mechanic was modified whole cloth. Now it is the 'Fear' mechanic, and everything is cornered all the time. The "Cottage Rule" would hardly have been reasonably applicable at that early time.

There will always be people who aren't willing to argue in good faith. They'll throw logical fallacies or sea lion about 'til the entire point is lost in so many irrelevant questions that digging it out requires a backhoe. And oftentimes those people will try to take over the thread. Dominating any discussion through flurries of posts that derail and accuse, mislead and waste time, seemingly intent on wearing the people actually discussing the matter down to the point that the discussion just dies off. From page 1 it was appeals to emotion, slippery slopes, and ad hominem by page 3. Degenerate is probably the wrong term for what this thread has done. But hey. At least we reached the idea of testing sets in the AE using OBS to monitor times for direct comparison. Because the balance of the game has always, invariably, come down to a single simple metric: Time to Kill < Time to Die

How y'all dodge the question is SO IMPRESSIVE! They turn it from a simple math question to a hilariously blatant "Well maybe it's about -skill-! Did you think of that?!" turnaround to present the question as shallow or uninformed when it's coming from the current 'Lead Dev' for Power Design and Balance. So here's the question reframed: If all the powersets, save one, performed right about the same level, only separated by a couple percentage points up or down from 100%, but one remained around 30-45% more effective, regardless of skill, situation, slotting, or other incidental factors: What would you do about the single overperforming set?

I never tried to solo a TF, before... But I can vouch for Hopeling. Back in the day, my husband and I would grab one or two friends and then run the 6 person plus TFs. We'd just ask a couple SGmates or randos to join the team long enough for us to start it, then they'd bail and we'd run it, start to finish. I know people who DID solo several task forces back then. Particularly the ITF. Biiiiig bragging rights for the 30 seconds it took for people to read you bragging about it, type in 'Gratz', and forget that it was a thing.

Momentum would be the easiest implementation. Can't use Follow Through without Momentum, just change Momentum to 'Bullets' or 'Shells' and go from there. It would let players at low levels 'Fan the Hammer' to quickly take down a couple of minions or an LT, then reload to take out the rest. Then wait to reload, again with no 'bullets' left. ... now I just wanna design this mechanic into a full on 'Gunslinger' powerset...

I get that, but there's also just "Defense Bonus" and "Resistance Bonus" IOs, like Edict of the Master. Is it the same thing as the Expedient Reinforcement buff or is it -exclusively- the pet that it's slotted in? They've got a different description is the reason I ask. Edict of the Master is just "Defense Bonus" where Expedient Reinforcement is "Resist Bonus Aura for Pets" On looking it up on Paragon wiki it seems like there's no difference... which makes me wonder why the hell they used different language.

Alternate suggestion: Ammo Based Shooting Powerset. When you take the Pistol power you get a free click based power with a moderate recharge time. This power is "Reload Bullets". This power grants you up to a maximum of 6 stacks of "Pistol Ammo" and 2 stacks of "Rifle Ammo". These powers do nothing on their own. The Pistol Power itself gets an animation reduction to make it faster, and no recharge time. But it can only be used if you have a "Pistol Ammo" buff, and each shot removes 1 stack. Dual Pistols takes 2 stacks per use. When you take the Shotgun Power, you get another free click based power with a moderate recharge time. This power is "Reload Shells". You get 4 stacks of the "Shotgun Shells" buff when you click the Reload Shells button. Using the Shotgun uses 1 shell. Super Shotgun uses 2 shells. The powers have no recharge times. Heavy Assault Rifle uses the Rifle Ammo, so you only get 2 shots before you have to reload it. And then leave the rest of the powers normal when it comes to recharge times and activations. Obviously the relative availability of Pistol, Rifle, and Shotgun shots means those powers need to take a slight hit in overall damage, but I think it would be a neat game mechanic for the set to have a sort of 'pseudo-burnout' power that ignores recharge rate changes to give back your use of certain abilities. Or if possible just make "Reload Bullets" and "Reload Shells" freebies at level 1 regardless of what power you choose. Whatever works!

Also: Control Core Embodiment, baybeeeee! Gonna extend my holds and immobilizes for eternity while also doing extra damage! ... shit. Do pets get the benefit of Hybrid abilities?

Question! The "Defense Aura for Pets" is all my pets but "Defense Bonus" is just for the pet it's slotted in, right?

Definitely going to look at some different slotting strategies based on your suggestions, here! But I'm keeping the Tentacles. They're for RP purposes, rather than effectiveness. I am dork.