Vanden

Well then why give them a buff aura or make them target-able at all, other than to taunt players? The were originally a veteran reward, added for a tier of vet rewards where putting truly useful items was becoming less and less attractive because of how long a new player would have to stay subscribed to get them.

I've seen a couple people recommend Frozen Aura and I can't imagine why. It looks utterly skippable to me, just a minion sleep. No slow, no damage, not even a good Defiance buff. I guess the Call of the Sandman proc might be interesting in it, but that doesn't seem like enough to make it worthwhile.

I noticed the damage bars in the Info tab are showing the DPS of the powers. How do I get it to show the damage of one activation?

The buff pets were never intended to be truly useful.

It's certainly possible; back before the shutdown a player had made a program that could assemble icons in any existing color scheme with your choice of inner symbol and border. AFAIK, the devs had a program that did that too and that's how they made them in the first place. That might even be where when player got the program from, rather than making it themselves; I don't really know how it came to be, or who made it unfortunately. Anyway, to put that in the game they would have to make some kind of UI for creating a color scheme. The program that I saw couldn't do that, only read image files of a gradient, and those had to be created with some other kind of image editing software. Of course, I don't know how creating power icons on the fly would run; probably pretty well on modern machines, honestly.

This is the normal pace. The XP curve was adjusted waaay back in issue 11, resulting in a faster leveling rate across all levels.

I'd more describe the power tripping RPer to more closely resemble the example I quoted from that RP thread. Power Tripping would be taking advantage of the leniency of the base concepts of the origin system while also disregarding the established rulesets that come with the base premise of the environment you're playing in. To illustrate what I mean: So you're a magic guy who got his powers from some kind of magic circumstance outside of his control. Gotcha. And he has no knowledge of magic thus when confronted with a situation of casting some kind of spell, he can't do it off the cuff. Reasonable. And he also can't be arsed to try to unravel any intricacies of magic despite the source of his power hinging on it as a source. Hold on, does he not want to improve his powers then? And he'll never need to because his magic will just grow depending on just getting stronger. Wait, but it's kind of ingrained in magic within the background of CoH that knowledge is power. At that point, you're starting to power trip as the setting doesn't require the magic guy to be a skilled spell caster with memorized spells but if his power comes from magic, why would he not want to learn how his powers work so at the very least he doesn't screw something up. But most of all, if he has any aspirations to get stronger, save lives, destroy heroes, get money, etc, why *wouldn't* he want to figure out a simple ritual spell if the outcome can be a better understanding of his own power as well as an outcome that he desires? At that point, it's not a matter of the game powertripping (not even sure how that would happen) into making your character do stuff out of character but rather the player needing to explain why he can't do something that most in his shoes would. I am not a big role player, but I'm pretty sure it's not okay to tell someone what their own character's motivation is. And who did that? The answer is, both of us. How can you make that argument without sounding hypocritical? You had to make up a specific suggestion with specific flaws and then create a specific character concept that doesn't fall under the flawed umbrella idea you concocted. The difference between our perspectives though, is from mine, such a character concept you concocted could just NOT do that specific mission lol Sure, you could just not do it. But the whole point was to write an arc for specific character types. If you wrote an arc that excludes the vast majority of characters, and then large portions of the target audience are just not running it even though you specifically wrote it for them, what was the point? If I were you, I'd question if you're arguing for the broadest appeal rather than just assume you've got what it takes to speak for said broadest appeal. I know exactly what I'm arguing for.

I’m not seeing a Numina’s Healing/Absorb in Pines so I assume that data bug or mismatch. Getting past that though, I see 2 pieces give +12% regen while the Regenerative Tissue Regen gives +25%. What am I missing to make the set set bonus better than the Regen Tissue bonus? I'm talking about the enhancement in the Numina's Convalescence set that only enhances Healing/Absorb. It enhances the regeneration buff of Health, that and the set bonus add up to more Regeneration than the Regenerative Tissue unique.

This is an example of the powertripping roleplay that Leogunner is talking about. It's reasonable to assume that a character has a human-level intelligence, that they are familiar with the setting that they inhabit. It's not reasonable to assume that a Magic origin character is the "cast spells and perform rituals from memory" type of Magic character, or that a Science origin character is also some sort of scientist. What was assumed? That a magic-based character in Paragon City might try to contact another magic-based character if they think that they could help them with a problem? That some spellcaster used his abilities and the spell led them to your character? That some seer might have seen your character as the one that must undertake the mission? That some other magic-based contact might have told their magic-using friend that you were a good hand? You've assumed that the Magic origin character has intimate knowledge of the mystic arts, or that they have some investment in the magical community. If the contact themself has some kind of magic way of identifying the character as the one who could help, that's fine, but I can't see any reason why it would limit itself to Magic origin characters without the writer just insisting it has to be a Magic character and then railroading the player character. All I have done is suggested that they could make origin-specific arcs that only characters of that origin could play. Something that would do it's little part to set aside the different characters of different origins. Something that might encourage people to not just re-roll new toons with different ATs, but to re-roll new toons with different origins. A natural hero would have at least one thing in the game that would play to that origin. Their own story arc that only natural heroes could do, and that it wouldn't matter if that natural character was Batman or Superman or Captain America. Yes, you suggested they could make arcs. But you didn't write any compelling reason that they would be limited to certain origins. If Batman and Superman alike could easily enjoy the arc, then Green Lantern and Wonder Woman could as well, but they're excluded for some arbitrary reason. Again, if every character has even one exclusive story arc based on origin then origin matters more. Yes, it makes origin matter more. It's not up for question that adding arcs exclusive to origins would make origin matter more, obviously it would. It doesn't, however, offer any reason why origin should matter more, how adding these exclusive arcs is a good idea. Other people have. It would be better to say that in response to them, then, not to me. Because the current content doesn't look at what your origin is and try to make a connection with your character. How is that so hard to understand? Then it's not an argument against the suggestion. That is, to clarify, bringing up how content assumes your competencies in a piece of origin content in a game that already assumes your competencies in other content. How is this so hard for you to understand? Assuming that your character can function in society is reasonable. Assuming that your character falls into only one or a few subsets of valid concepts under an umbrella that houses many valid concepts is not. That is an extremely reasonable character concept. Ever heard of Greatest American Hero? That guy fits this concept to a T. Then see the portion of my rebuttal about holding other concepts hostage for a minority power-tripping roleplay. So because it fits the concept of some character you mention, we always have to build the story for every tech character to assume they are incompetent and thus an outside source is always required to progress the story. Any mission content written runs the risk of not being appropriate for certain character concepts. My argument against origin-based content is that it immediately becomes innapropriate for 4/5ths of characters. The idea is that in exchange it then becomes much more appropriate for the remaining 1/5th of characters, but the reality is that there's so much variety in even that 1/5th of characters that that benefit never comes to fruition. There's only so much time in the day. Writing for the broadest possible appeal just makes sense. At this point, the arguments you're responding to are in direct response to your previous claims. To be clear, you've railroaded the argument AWAY from trying to make origins matter toward how story can be origin based/centered. You should really clear THAT point up (likely by dropping it) before further discussion on HOW origins could be focused on. I'm really not sure what the issue is here? The poster I was responding to responded to my claims that origin shouldn't matter with a bunch of plot outlines for possible origin-based content. It didn't support the argument that such content should exist, it only brainstormed the actual content.

How is it any different from current where an artifact or ritual is needed to progress the story and it all just works out without intimate knowledge of the workings? Your argument crashes into the brickwall that is the already existing content. Because the current content doesn't look at what your origin is and try to make a connection with your character. How is that so hard to understand? That is an extremely reasonable character concept. Ever heard of Greatest American Hero? That guy fits this concept to a T. Pretty sure they do that now, don't they? No, that's virtually never done. The only example I can think of in the game currently is a mission in Praetoria where the way your character disarms a bomb depends on your origin. I honestly can't see how you would draw this conclusion from what I wrote. I never said anything about immersion. Sounds fine so far. This writer isn't trying to make the player's Origin matter. Aaaand you've lost it. You've assumed something about the character based on nothing more than the origin, and will most likely be wrong in a large amount of cases. What is the point of these arc descriptions? How do they support the idea that origin should matter in the game? I'm arguing that it shouldn't, and you specifically responded to me, so I think you're arguing that origin should matter, but all you've written here is some plot outlines that don't have anything to do with the topic at hand. (As an aside, the Council are a Science origin group, not Natural.) Again, how does that support the argument that Origin should matter more? I never said anything to that effect.

*doesn't want to use rare and expensive sets* *15 PvP IOs, 6 winter event IOs* Anyway, as for your build, if you put the Numina unique in Health, you get a better regen buff by then slotting a Numina Healing/Absorb and getting the Numina 2-slot bonus than you get by putting in the Regenerative Tissue unique. The Panacea proc is very weak in Dull Pain. While it will have a 90% chance to activate, the benefit it gives is very small, and you want it going off as much as possible; it's better in Health or Physical Perfection. I assume you put the Freebird: Fly Speed in Mystic Flight because you wanted the set bonus but didn't want to be transparent from the +Stealth IO? If not, that enhancement is wasted, because Mystic Flight caps flight speed unenhanced.

Indeed I did! The "endredux" should all be "recharge reduction." This would provide ~97% Heal and End Mod at 5 slots, which roughly equivalent to (very slightly worse than) than four Positron Particle HydraOs or six conventional IOs. Since most of the Blaster sustain toggles aren't targeted, don't consume endurance, and don't have meaningful recharge times, I think those are the only benefits they'd get. Surely there's something more broken than that? Force of Thunder in Electricity Manipulation and Drain Psyche in Mental manipulation both recharge and have accuracy checks; Cauterizing Aura in Fire Manipulation has an accuracy check. Reaction Time in Martial Combat has a function that requires the power to be toggled off to use, and would benefit from recharge enhancement. Energize in Energy Manipulation has a 2 minute recharge, and definitely benefits from extra recharge. That set would be excellent for a lot of them.

I get that with where the game is now that this is the likely outcome of such an addition; If they added "Origin-specific costume pieces" then everyone would get them. But why call them "Origin-specific costume pieces" at all if they are not limited to specific origins? I am not defending that; I think that all costume pieces should be available to every origin, AT, whatever. But this is not adding "Origin-specific costume pieces", it's adding costume pieces. Calling something a "technology helmet" or "mutant boots" wouldn't change that. If it's available to everyone then it's not an "origin-specific costume piece". The Circle of Thorns is in the game. Is it a "fool's errand" to write missions that use them as the enemy? Crey is in the game. Is it a fool's errand to write missions with them as the enemy? Then it is not a fool's errand to write stories for magic or technology heroes that use those groups as the enemy. My magic character is not a spellcaster. They are a lot closer to Juggernaut in the sense that they are just fueled by a magical source. That doesn't stop the "magic contacts" from sending him on the same missions that they send the spellcasters on. That doesn't stop the contacts in the game from sending him on the same missions that they send natural, science, technology, or mutant characters on. The power gap between Batman and Superman is a construct in the comics, not in this game. It doesn't matter what origin you gave your character or what powers you selected, the missions are the missions and if your headcanon doesn't allow for certain level-appropriate enemies to be a threat to your "Superman" then that is your problem. ============= Not going to edit what I have already wrote, but will add some things based upon recent responses: The natural story, to use a mentioned example, doesn't have to be a "gritty noir murder mystery". That story isn't about natural characters, it's about detective heroes. You keep trying to shove things into the conversation that the game itself doesn't seem to suggest. What do natural heroes do out of the gate? They fight some Council, they fight some Skulls, they talk to the Security Chief and fight some Hellions. And then when they are through with all of that, they get introduced to some contacts that seem to specialize in the Lost, so now they are dealing with that faction. Where is the "gritty noir murder mystery" that you think they have to do to stake themselves out as natural heroes? How many "gritty noir murder mysteries" are there in the game, anyway? Of course, you are not limited to your origin contact anymore, and so the natural character can end up fighting Vazhilok or Clockwork out of the gate if they would rather, but I am still looking for those "gritty noir murder mysteries" that you seem to think natural characters must be involved in. The closest I can think of on any regular basis are the Vazhilok. Not really gritty or noir, but they are definitely behind some murders. But I suggested that they use the Council for natural characters. Why neither Batman nor Superman could enjoy an arc where they are trying to stop the Council from taking over the world I will never know. I don't know how you could write the first half of this post and then turn around and write the second. Using the Circle of Thorns as an enemy group in a story does not make it a story for Magic Origin characters, it makes it a story with the Circle of Thorns. I'm not objecting to them adding new content or stories, I'm objecting to them adding those stories and trying to tie them into our characters for us. You say you have a Juggernaut type of character, empowered by magic but generally ignorant of its workings; what if they wrote a Circle of Thorns story and, seeing you have a magic origin, gave you an objective to perform some ritual, because as a Magic origin character you must know how to do it? That would completely fall flat as a way of connecting the story to your character. That's what I'm objecting to, that's the fool's errand.

Let me reframe it. Let's say we introduce a new arc, available to all players. However, some of the specific content in that arc makes reference to your origin. Some of the choices are shaped by your origin. The overall flavor and tone of the arc is informed by your origin. Does it feel like you're locked out of content because it's tailored for you when you run it, and tailored for me when I do? It would likely miss the mark on a large portion of players' interpretations of their characters, and be a wasted effort.

WAY overdesigned! But, out of necessity. Let me flip it a bit. Almost all of the Unique Attuned sets, except Winter sets (which just get purple numbers on their kit bonuses), cheat like this. The Universal Damage sets don't cheat as visibly because we conceptually gloss "PBAOE/Melee/AoE/Ranged" as the same attribute even though they were intentionally separated for set balance. It's far more visible if you look at e.g., the Controller ATOs, which need a wall of text just to identify what gets the bonuses. So instead of looking at this as "zomg but rulez," I'd ask -- what things actually in game, or things you can imagine in-game, does this actually break? What types of things benefit from many/all of those bonuses at once, or *could* benefit from many/all of those bonuses at once? Meanwhile, if we stripped off the bonuses -- made it just a regular Accurate Heal set, for example -- how many kits could actually use it at all? As far as the unique goes, it's basically a power effect (a Defender-themed build up) on a proc. Rather than evaluating it by number of effects, I'd ask you to evaluate it by comparison to other Unique Attuned procs en toto. Pretty much all blaster sustains would greatly benefit from being able to enhance their end recovery and heal with this set. Also, you said that "AR" was supposed to be Accuracy and End Reduction, but then you put down multiple enhancements in the set as having End reduction on top of "AR." Did you mean for one of those to be Recharge Reduction?

The obvious answer to this reply is "Then don't play it". Well that's the rub. Why write a story with such a targeted audience in such a way that it alienates a large portion of that audience?

This thread isn't about adding new content, it's about making character origins matter. And that, I'm against, and I like to think at this point I've made it clear why.

I mean it's kind of basic logic. Making your choice or origin have consequences for content is like a textbook example of making it "meaningful." I don't if it can be explained any plainer. Regarding excluding a portion of the players, so what? The game does that all over the place. Heroes can't take missions in the Rogue Isles and vice-versa. Praetorians are stuck in Praetoria until lv20. Barring turning off exp gains, you can outlevel content in a given area that another player might have been able to do. I'm not suggesting all content be origin-locked. Having origin-specific missions only "excludes" you if you choose not to make a character of that origin, and in an alt-heavy game like CoH there's little excuse for you to not roll one up if you want that content. Further, missions are shared across teammates. If you're Science and you are teamed with a Natural, you'd be able to do their "Natural" mission with them just like you could do any other of their missions. If anything it would be an incentive to team and encourage "origin diversification" if such a thing was ever needed. Finally, CoH has a history of soothing these kinds of restrictions, like the aforementioned exp disabling. Beside an origin respec, I'm sure they could have special circumstances where you can have a kind of "all origin" task force or whatever. I mean I know creating new TFs is even more pie-in-the-sky but it's not a problem of concept, just a question of resources. Then I'm still a hard No on this suggestion. I don't see the value in producing content locked to the majority of characters, or in putting up a framework that requires putting out five times the content to equal the output of a typical content push, or in creating an environment where a writer would have to produce a type or genre of content that they aren't enthusiastic about in order to meet a quota. That last detail is sure to result in subpar writing.

I feel like you're trying to apply an impossible standard to the idea and then rejecting it because it can't live up to that standard. CoH already sends your "Superman" and "Batman" on missions to clear gang members from warehouses, and then into portals into other dimensions/timelines to fight aliens. No one's head explodes. If you're deeply into your concept as a street vigilante, you just bypass the content that doesn't fit that. Adding origin-themed/oriented mission content would just be more of that. And the vast majority of players aren't so deeply into their concept that they filter missions based on some kind of setting or genre standard. Frankly I'm baffled at resistance to the idea of making some aspect of the game more interesting. I mean I expect people to say it's unworkable or possibly confusing or even flat out impossible without a a major code overhaul, but if your objection amounts to "that might make me have an opinion about my origin" I'm kind of at a loss... Your suggestion is to make origin more meaningful. How does adding mission arcs themed around origins make our choice of origin for our characters more meaningful? If you limit the content to just characters of matching alignment, all you've done is add a mechanic that excludes 4/5ths of characters from running it. If anyone can run it, that literally describes all the content already in the game. Yes, the game already sends us to fight gang bangers and dimensional invaders alike. What it doesn't do is cloak that in some kind of theme, saying "the gang bangers are for Natural and the dimensional invaders are for Science." Firstly, with all due respect: no one cares. No one cares if the gang bangers are natural, mutant or omnipotent cosmic beings. What matters is WHAT they're doing, likely pushing drugs, stealing money, fighting for turf, etc. It also doesn't matter if the dimensional invaders are Science, Natural or Mutation (*spoiler*), it matters HOW they invade. Most Street-based heroes don't have the means or connections to stop a space fleet from pushing into our dimension without contrively linking them up with an individual who just so happens to have all the tech and knowledge BUT doesn't want to get off their duff and do the job themselves. Secondly, I believe, to the OP's discredit, that the idea is to morph and combine ideas. It's not set in stone what SHOULD or HOW origins could be emphasized. I'm going to go off on a limb and say he's already conceded to YOUR points of people not being able to be held accountable for their choice of origin so some means of circumventing or bypassing that choice is likely the solution to your misgivings. Thirdly, I read someone else's post about RP and character concept and how good RPers find ways to FIT into the lore of the game while also being creative. Post here: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,5323.msg42264.html#msg42264 Point in question here: To that extent, I'd argue, if you're TRYING to push boundaries with regards to origin that you then hold the entire concept of powers origins hostage, and how they interact with stories, in what fashion can we rectify THAT? That should be the question rather than "how can we not upset those individuals who might just be a minority or under the assumption their power-tripping is how their experience should be?". I'm not really sure why you're bringing up "power-tripping" roleplayers or people who intentionally roleplay characters that don't fit into the setting. I'm saying that if someone says "I'm going to write a story for all the Natural heroes, it'll be a gritty noir story about a murder mystery," that sort of story is not going to connect with a Natural character who's an alien, or a dragon, or something. Those aren't wild or out-there character concepts for a game about superheroes. I'm just saying that coming at content from the angle of "this will be the story for Natural/Magic/etc. characters" is doomed to fail.

All available themes should be present in APPs, where possible.

I'm a big Anime guy & I totally agree that that hero communities of MHA & even more so One Punch Man are like COH as anime so if you like mHA i suggest checking out One Punch Man as well! I have seen One Punch Man, and I like it too, but it's very tongue-in-cheek. Two of the top-ranked heroes are a guy with a baseball bat and a guy who literally never does anything but somehow gets the credit, for example, and they're up there with a girl who can crush a kaiju with her psychic powers. My Hero Academia treats its story seriously, much like CoH does.

I feel like you're trying to apply an impossible standard to the idea and then rejecting it because it can't live up to that standard. CoH already sends your "Superman" and "Batman" on missions to clear gang members from warehouses, and then into portals into other dimensions/timelines to fight aliens. No one's head explodes. If you're deeply into your concept as a street vigilante, you just bypass the content that doesn't fit that. Adding origin-themed/oriented mission content would just be more of that. And the vast majority of players aren't so deeply into their concept that they filter missions based on some kind of setting or genre standard. Frankly I'm baffled at resistance to the idea of making some aspect of the game more interesting. I mean I expect people to say it's unworkable or possibly confusing or even flat out impossible without a a major code overhaul, but if your objection amounts to "that might make me have an opinion about my origin" I'm kind of at a loss... Your suggestion is to make origin more meaningful. How does adding mission arcs themed around origins make our choice of origin for our characters more meaningful? If you limit the content to just characters of matching alignment, all you've done is add a mechanic that excludes 4/5ths of characters from running it. If anyone can run it, that literally describes all the content already in the game. Yes, the game already sends us to fight gang bangers and dimensional invaders alike. What it doesn't do is cloak that in some kind of theme, saying "the gang bangers are for Natural and the dimensional invaders are for Science."

Origin-based content is a fool’s errand, because there’s so many different ways origins can be played. There’s no way to write one-size-fits-all content using origins as a base. The Juggernaut and Dr. Strange are both Magic origin characters, but they couldn’t be more different otherwise. Batman and Superman are both Natural origin, but the things they deal with are on completely different scales. It’s far more sensible to do what the devs did, and just write the interesting content they could without trying to shoehorn some connection to the player character that’s likely to miss the mark.

The Hollows would be a perfect place to put a Hogger-like mob so we could have some CoH equivalent of the Hogger raids in WoW.

Unfortunately we don’t have an off-topic forum, so this topic has to go here. Anyway, I am by no means an anime person, but my friends kept bugging me about this show. Once I realized it was literally City of Heroes: The Anime, I was hooked pretty much immediately. All-Might definitely got a lucky blue inspiration drop in the second episode, and that super industrial area they have for one of their training grounds is Terra Volta, you can’t convince me otherwise.