OEM61

In no particular order: 1) Rearrange my UI - This is mostly minor stuff, but I put my various bars and windows where I want them to go. 2) Set up the windows - Adjust the opacity (I like 100%) and set the border color (and speech bubbles) according to the character. 3) Visit the P2W vendor - I do not grab as much as some people, but I do pick up some things. 4) Organize my powers in the power tray - Self-explanatory, I think. Just want to organize the powers to my personal tastes. 5) Organize chat tabs - I make one new tab and rearrange what appears where on some of the others. 6) Invite to my personal SG - Maybe one day I will join a "real" SG with different players and everything, but for now it's just convenient to have a place to stash things and let my various toons share. I may not get right on this one. … And that's it, I think. After that it's off to play the tutorial and grab the badges. If I didn't invite the character into my SG by now I will generally do that once I get to Atlas Park. Edit: I messed up the numbering in the original post and added one more item.

Thanks for the info. I didn't use the hero builders, but I did test some builds and just sort of winged it on the IOs; Slotted what felt like it would be "right" to slot then just looked at my IO options from there. It was good enough for a quick test; To see what these other powers looked and felt like. Anyway, after running through a few builds I didn't like kinetic at all and rad was okay, but EM is still my favorite. It may be lacking, but to me it looks and feels best.

I played an EM tanker back in the day, and I am trying to make them (or a reasonable facsimile thereof)again here, but all this has me questioning the idea. It's about the concept to me; I can not just take War Mace or Titan Weapons or whatever and call it good, but after looking at the different options Radiation Melee and Kinetic Melee are potential substitutes. So, how do those two stack up to Energy Melee? I guess maybe I should just try out each of them on a disposable character, maybe try them out on scrappers and brutes as well as tanks just to see which one I like best, but if someone has any suggestions I would certainly be willing to listen.

I agree with you.

Okay, back to where I was and some ideas on how to handle this in the game. Note that I have zero expectations of such a thing making it into the game in its current state. I do not even know if the current engine could handle such a thing. This is all just wish list stuff. Also, I am writing from the hero perspective when applicable, but villains would have arch-enemies, too. 1) One arch-enemy per character. Yes, this is a limitation but combined with the next idea this would encourage alts. 2) Missions tailored to the arch-enemy specifics. What specifics? Those come down to one or both of the next two items. 3) Arch-Enemy backgrounds. Magic, mutant, natural, science, and technology. Just like our characters. 4) Arch-enemy personalities. What makes them tick? The genius type (mastermind in CO) and tough guy type (brute in CO) are staples in the comics. CO also has the maniac, which is way too over the top for my tastes, and that is it. It's very limiting. Either your nemesis is a super-genius that loves to hear themselves talk, a tough guy with a below average vocabulary if not intellect, or a complete nutjob that makes you wonder how they manage to function at all. Where is the villain motivated by only greed? Where is the villain that is a true enigma? That doesn't speak at all? Where is the alien or "outsider" type that might speak, but the words don't always make sense and the motivation isn't exactly clear? In Co this may not work too well because they only have a single nemesis story arc, and while repeat runnings may include or exclude a mission here or there, they all end in the same place. This brings me back to item #2. With missions tailored to the personality types of the villains, if not also their background, it creates a much greater opportunity to tell a more unique story, and this makes alts more desirable for those that want to see those different stories. 5) Arch-enemy contacts. Here I am thinking like Twinshot, Matthew Habashy, Eagle Eye, etc. Special contacts that will work with you for the arch-enemy missions. Whenever they had something for you then you would get a notification and they would move to the active tab. These do not have to be people. The "contact" could be "detective work", "rumor mill", "Arch-Enemy clues", whatever. I mean, they could be people but they do not have to be. 6) I am thinking that missions could start at level 10 and then appear every 10 levels, so something like 10-15, 20-25, 30-35, 40-45, and then 50. There should be at least two different level 50 missions just to try and keep things semi-fresh. There should also be an arch-enemy TF. Super-villain team-up time. Let's say three different ones. ~20, ~35, and 50. Every character's arch-enemy would appear, with each randomly assigned a spot within the TF itself. The bigbad would be randomly determined from the arch-enemies of all of the characters when the TF was formed, but every enemy would appear somewhere, possibly with a mission or two having two of them together that the heroes have to fight. 7) Minions should appear in other missions. Nothing major, but I think that if a hero is fighting some Trolls in a cave then one or two of the Troll spawns should be replaced by a group of their arch-enemy's minions talking about how they hope the Trolls can take care of the hero or how they think that making a deal for some superadine might give them the edge the next time they run into the hero or whatever. An occasional appearance in the street during am arch-enemy mission is also okay, like how sometimes a special enemy spawn might appear in some open-world missions now, but there won't be any open-world spawns otherwise. 8) Minion types should include both in-game factions and generic minions. I do not understand why in CO you can not pick minions from existing groups, and I certainly do not understand why they did not at least use the art assets for some of these groups as minion types. You can pick ninja and pretend that your nemesis is a part of Red Banner, or maybe pick insectoids and pretend that they are Qularr, but why can I not pick actual Viper Agents? Heck, they didn't even give the players an option to pick generic super-agent types. They did give players an option for pirates and cowboys, though. I enjoy some goofy fun now and then, but when I think of everything that they do not have for minion types and then look at some of what they do have, I think that they could have done with a little less goofy. So, anyway, to make my point, I should be able to pick CoT minions for my arch-enemy and then maybe the dialog would reference the CoT themselves, or I could pick some generic "mystical minions". I am fine with the players being able to design their arch-enemy's look from the ground up, but I think for minions they should be limited to colors only (if that), unless they pick established faction minions in which case they just get what they get. 9) Pick sets, not powers. For the arch-enemy himself just picking the AT and power sets is enough for the players. After that the powers should be automatically determined based up what is "reasonable". I am not sure how the game handles this sort of thing, but the idea should still come across; If I want my arch-enemy to be a mind control/psionic assault dominator then the game should at least be able to present an approximation of that if not actually deliver an NPC mind control/psionic assault dominator. I am fine is someone wants to pick an invulnerable tanker arch-enemy for their psionic melee scrapper, but I do not think that it serves the game well to encourage some players to go out of their way to make bad builds, like petless masterminds.

So you are fine with just "killing people" for fun, but "killing a female" because a psycho can't handle rejection is too much? Every time a villain character goes about a mission that results in the death of innocents that are accepting that as "right". Period. Rather than looking at the characters as having an option to agree that this was right, what should stand out here is that they have an option to decide that the mission was wrong. "Hey villain, I need you to go here and kill these guys for not paying their protection". A few minutes later they are all dead, you are getting rewarded, and the contact is pointing you towards your next victim. Here, in this case, you get to say "No. That was wrong, and while I did the larger mission in service to Arachnos/Lord Recluse, what you asked of me was wrong, and now you will pay for that". That is not a common occurrence. The issue is that by and large society accepts that killing people for money is bad and there's not really any discussion around it. It's just... what is. But with men killing women over rejection, there's people who cheer for it. Who -laud- it. Same thing for racists killings. There are people who basically cheer on Reddit whenever one of these bigoted murder sprees happens. Makes it a particularly touchy subject for some people. Like I said, before, put a note on it so people who would be made uncomfortable can avoid it and that should be enough, largely, to fix the perceived problem. The people "cheering" violence against women are also psychos cut from the same cloth as Harris. Let's not pretend that mainstream society in the US is all about beating up some women because it's fun. I can find people that think that killing for money is okay. After all, the killers must have really needed the money and the person that had the money was no doubt some corrupt rich guy that got it by ripping other people off, right? You don't think that those people are out there? What makes this a "particularly touchy subject" is that some people have decided to be particularly touchy about it. IF you were a victim of domestic violence then I can understand that this could be a touchy subject, but anyone that has been mugged, robbed, or assaulted could find a whole lot of villain content uncomfortable for that same reason; It hits too close to home for them. If playing the bad guy is a major issue for someone then I suggest they not play the bad guy, not try to demand that the bad guys should be portrayed in a less-bad light.

I remember back in the day having binds to call out my anchors for my defender's de-buffs. "Embalmed Abomination is my anchor" and that sort of thing (enervation wouldn't allow them to explode, so it was extra-effective on them). And people would still kill them indiscriminately. Maybe some markers wouldn't be so bad.

I am going to post this here to show my general support for the idea, but there are definitely some changes from CO in how I would like to see it executed. I am just too tired right now to really get into it.

So you are fine with just "killing people" for fun, but "killing a female" because a psycho can't handle rejection is too much? Every time a villain character goes about a mission that results in the death of innocents that are accepting that as "right". Period. Rather than looking at the characters as having an option to agree that this was right, what should stand out here is that they have an option to decide that the mission was wrong. "Hey villain, I need you to go here and kill these guys for not paying their protection". A few minutes later they are all dead, you are getting rewarded, and the contact is pointing you towards your next victim. Here, in this case, you get to say "No. That was wrong, and while I did the larger mission in service to Arachnos/Lord Recluse, what you asked of me was wrong, and now you will pay for that". That is not a common occurrence.

You never really know until you jump in, right? So, as suggested, just pick one and go. If you want to use your first impressions from the server boards as a guide then do that, but just pick a server and roll a toon. And if after playing for a while you think that maybe that server isn't for you then you can switch, but I wouldn't expect that to be necessary.

So basically "Screw everyone else. This would let me play a toon that I would rather play without forcing me to put in the time to level them up"? Glad you aren't calling the shots.

There are no "official" anything servers. Everlasting is the "unofficial RP server" meaning that if RP is something that you enjoy then you might want to check that server out. Just as Indomitable is the "unofficial PvP server. They are telling you that if you enjoy PvP then you might want to roll your toons on Indomitable. It's just good for the community. If RPers can find plenty of other RPers to play with then they are more likely to find others that fit their style and it raises all of their enjoyment playing. If the PvPers can find plenty of other players to fight, then they are more likely to enjoy their time playing and stick around longer. None of that means that you have to be an RPer to play on Everlasting or a PvPer to play on Indomitable or that you could be attacked by anyone at any time while you are there. No play style is enforced. You can not be reported for refusing to RP on Everlasting or for refusing to duel on Indomitable. The only server choice that might truly matter is Reunion or not. That is the European server, so lag and communication may be more of an issue for those on the Americas side of the Atlantic.

I think rather than "worst builds" it should maybe be asked what are the worst power set combos for the various ATs. Anyone can make a bad build. These petless MMs people keep talking about, for example. Anyone could strip their power tray and click brawl all day long. That doesn't mean that an energy/energy blaster or dark/dark brute or whatever is "bad", just that the player is clueless. But as far as that goes, I do not have the experience to really speak on it. In the years that I played, the toons I really focused on all seemed to be just fine. I never encountered a power set combo on an AT that I felt really underperformed to the extent that I felt it was just not worth playing. I built toons that I didn't like that much, but that, I think, was just a matter of taste, not a bad AT or bad combination of power sets on the AT.

I remember this from back in the day, but I have forgotten pretty much all of the old bind commands. I might have them written down somewhere, but if you guys are suing what used to work for you and it doesn't any more, then I am sure that if I did find my old notes that they wouldn't do me any more good than your commands are doing you.

I'm not them, but I'll shoot... Starting with the last item, some people are jerks and I would have zero issues with someone treating them poorly as a result of their behavior, but no one has any right to treat people poorly as a matter of course, veteran status or not. The first item? Of course no one deserves "special treatment" based on veteran status. Outside of veteran rewards, anyway. This is, however, sort of a bridge between the second and third items, though. I covered the third already: They do not deserve special treatment any more than they are entitled to treat others poorly. However, getting into the second item, their opinions are probably worth a second look and may, in fact, be "more right" than someone else's. I mean, Joe Clueless goes to the AT boards looking for ideas on powers and slotting for his X/Y whatever. Where is the most useful help more likely to come from: Someone that spent an hour on Hero Builder playing around or someone that had been there and done that and got all the badges? That's not to say that when you are talking about opinion threads that vet status matters, but I shouldn't have to clarify that, either. Someone talking about what costume pieces or designs that would like to see? It doesn't matter how many years you played. Someone talking about the "best" power and pool choices for a Grav/FF Controller? I think that vet status could absolutely matter. But this is also the internet. People lie. Someone may think that they can use the "CoX Vet" claim to end conversation while having never played a day before the Homecoming servers came up. Heck, they may just think that trolling the forums is fun and have never played CoX at all. Who knows? That's why nothing should be accepted with blind faith. That "veteran" build advice may be worth a second look, but players should feel free to disregard it if it doesn't feel right to them. Maybe just put it in your back pocket and keep it for another day if what you end up doing instead doesn't work.

Well, that kind of falls short because having a reason to bring 3 of them means having less of a reason to bring others :P theres only 8 spots~ The earlier discussion was about ideal team not so much viable team. Theres not a lot of combo that isn't viable enough. You can have 7 tankers and 1 debuffer and get through literally anything. When i said utility in tanking, i was speaking entirely on a tanking perspective not so much general utility. I may not have been thorough enough in my wording. This idea was only to expand their role as the primary tank and not much else as there is a lot of conversations that could happen on how to make them more universally desired on a team. Theres some decent ideas on that topic in this thread though if you just ignore all the debate fluff :P Does having a reason to bring three controllers cause a problem? Bringing three defenders? Bringing three brutes? Bringing three of anything but tankers? Why is it okay for every other AT to "take" a spot that could have went to a different AT but it's apparently not okay for a second or third tanker to take a spot that could have went to a different AT? Unless the design moves towards all-different ATs being desirable if not necessary to accomplishing team missions then why, again, I ask is it okay that tankers be the one and only archetype that no one wants more than one of, if they even want that one? Making them better at aggro isn't likely to change that. If a brute can tank now then a brute will be able to tank after they change tanker aggro abilities and there would still be room on a team for two or more brutes. And yeah, maybe 7 tankers and one of the "right" AT/powerset can get through stuff, but if you are playing that "other" AT and are trying to get a TF started, how many tankers do you accept after you put out the call that you are looking for others to join you? My guess would be one, and then after that the rest get a "No thanks. Already have a tank. Need other roles" but if a second brute volunteers then they get accepted with no questions. I do not want to see a return to the days of "okay, everyone wait here while I drag the map to you" tankers. I would rather see an increase in actual tanker utility that makes them as welcome in groups as every other AT.

Would a good 8-man team have two Brutes? Two Defenders? Two Peacebringers? Two Dominators? Why deliberately single Tankers out as "the only AT that we currently and will always want one or fewer of"? This is the question that I think needs to be addressed. If in a game where the design idea moves towards "play what you want. Every class is fun and every group should be viable" then there shouldn't be any asterisks and footnotes saying "except for tankers". Because in an 8 man team, ideally you would only want 1 person handling the tanking. If you want to do another job, play a different AT. This doesn't mean you -have- to follow this because you don't. I've done TF's filled with nothing but brutes/tanks and it went just fine. Changing the tank to be something other than a tank is just silly. We're here to discuss improving tanker utility. If the admins don't have the time to read the post then It's whatever. Tankers as a whole are mostly fine, they just in my opinion need something to set them apart from other ATs capable of tanking. My suggestion for doing so has been stated a couple of times. If you'd like to discuss how those specific changes could help, I'll be more than glad to expand my position on the change otherwise I have little interest in arguing semantics or opinion on other classes. So wouldn't expanding the utility of the tanker improve tanker utility? I mean, it may sound silly but you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth here. "Expand tanker utility" and "If you want to do another job then play another AT" is at least somewhat contradictory. Every other AT is welcome in multiples. This includes brutes. Tankers should be welcome in multiples too. How to accomplish this? By expanding their utility. As in, give them something to do other than taunting for aggro. More AoE attacks? I wouldn't want this to become too widespread but having one or two AoEs in each secondary would help them grab/keep aggro. It would not, however, expand their utility. It just makes them better at the one thing they currently do. Higher aggro cap? Well, I guess if you like to aggro the entire map then this is fine. But again, it still doesn't expand tanker utility. Again, this just makes them "better" at the one thing they already do. I want them to add a reason to want to bring a second or even third tanker along. So one idea that comes to mind is to have them offer a protection field. To provide a +resistance bonus to all teammates within a certain range. This would have to stack, or course, for multiples to be welcome, and so may not be a huge bonus, but it would be something. Another possibility could be a +damage bonus to a tanker based on the presence of other tankers. Two tankers together would each do a little more damage, making each more valuable to the team if there are two or more. That, to me, is adding utility. Those are ideas that I think would make multiple tankers more welcome in groups. More welcome enough? Enough to make people want a second tanker instead of some other class? Maybe not, but maybe, just maybe, enough so that if a group has been trying to get a TF going or whatever and a second tanker volunteers that the group might go ahead and let them run instead of saying "no thanks, we already have a tanker".

You said Marcus Cole and all I could think of was the character on Babylon 5. I was sure that you meant a different Marcus Cole so I had to look it up. :)

They could be, or they just plotted out what they plan on looking like when they finally get there. Respecs are part of life. People will take powers to help them advance now and then dump them later because other/better options became available. It can be a little risky maybe if they exemplar down and lose access to those better options, but that is going to be a small fraction of their time spent playing. No one is going to sacrifice their build at 50 in order to make playing as an exemplared 20-30 a better experience for themselves. For example, some blasters may take tactics and/or fighting in order to give them some defensive options, but later on they can get defense from IO sets and epic power pools, so tactics and/or fighting could be replaced. I suppose that someone could post their "this is how I got to 40" build or their "this was me at 50 before I respecced" build, but they probably don't see much benefit since it isn't what they are using to play the game at 50. If you have questions about specific power sets in relation to the AT that is using it then I would suggest asking in the appropriate archetype forum. If you want to compare a blaster with energy primary versus a blaster with electricity primary, for example, and want to know the strengths and weaknesses of each or what secondaries compliment them and get advice on which powers are "must have" as you level up and that sort of thing.

The "basic first attack" of any power set is better than a pool power attack. Besides, why should they shoehorn a weapon attack into a pool that otherwise has nothing to do with weapons? Now, creating a weapon-based power pool akin to fighting could work. Not sure what it would offer to distinguish itself from the fighting pool, but it could be an option. It would be enough to let characters that want to have an axe, sword, mace, or whatever at the ready an opportunity to do so without them having to commit to a weapon-based framework to do so.

Yeah, but if the order that you'd like is always changing, for example, you like to play them in a rotation, so you want them sorted by "longest time since last played" on top, then it is going to be a problem if you have very many toons; You are pretty much going to have to go through them, however many pages that may be, until you get to where you left off. It all depends on how much work is involved, but in general I always support more sorting options. If it makes someone feel happy to be able to sort by most recently played, longest time since last played, by AT, alphabetically, whatever, then that can build a lot of goodwill towards the game. I won't pretend to understand people wanting to play a thousand characters, but who knows? Maybe someday I will, and maybe someday I will want all the sorting tools I can get my hands on to help me find the toon I want if I do.

Isn't knockdown generally better? Not saying that there aren't times/conditions where knockback isn't a good thing, goodness knows that energy thrust has saved my energy/energy blaster on occasion, but I think that knockdown would be the preferred choice by far. It would certainly be more welcome in teams or in connection with close combat heroes that would rather not have to chase enemies down after hitting them. So yeah, this would have to be handled extremely carefully.

This. I don't know if it's worth whatever amount of work might be required to make it a thing, especially under the current conditions, but being able to pick the music from a jukebox would be nice. Just click the jukebox, pick the selection, and go about your business. Personally I think that I am partial to Steel Canyon. Been a long time since I heard some of the other zones so maybe I am forgetting something, but I have always liked Blyde Square, and Copper District has sort of grown on me since I started playing here.

If you cooked a delicious meal but spotted a small improvement you could make for next time that would take almost no effort, would you try that improvement out the next time you cooked the meal? But who says that this is an improvement? I mean, obviously some people do, but others disagree, so if you are cooking for many people, and many people like the dish, do you risk changing the flavor to make some happier at the risk of making others unhappy? I mean, this seems like it has "New Coke" written all over it. And, in the end, I see this as just another one of many caps that exist in the game. If they did change it then I would expect them to likewise change some others things to raise the defense on enemies, especially boss and better enemies, to end up where hitting the accuracy cap would result in a ~95% chance at best to hit certain enemies, and that doesn't really serve anyone. It just forces people to chase extreme accuracy to the detriment of other things.

, he asked, apparently without irony, in the community built around a game people are running for free and at some legal risk. The code was out for the MMO. Is the code out there for running the CCG online? I believe that that makes a difference. NCSoft knows that they could try to shut down these rogue servers but they would do so knowing that a new one may pop up, and you are also only dealing with NCSoft here. That matters. Also, the MMO community being as large as it was also improves the prospects of collecting money to keep the servers running. For the CCG then AEG could also get involved, and shutting down the server would be a more permanent solution. Sure, sure, someone else could come along later and do the same thing, but the likelihood is smaller for a variety of reasons already alluded to. But hey, if someone has already done it then they have done it. It's either so far below the radar that no one cares or it was set up legitimately. Either way, I guess it's there is anyone wants to take a look.