Starhammer

This would be a nice addition to the S.T.A.R.T. vendor, in the same way you can purchase a restriction on what inspirations drop for you. That way, those who might find it useful could get it, while everyone else could keep things as they are.

What I 'want' is wholesale, yes, as was suggested by someone, similar to what we see in some other games like ESO, (and to a lesser extent, SWTOR & STO) and so on. We gain levels and advance our abilities, and the world around us keeps itself morphed to our level rather than us having to be in the right place (or engage in dysfunctional extra steps) to be its level. What I'm suggesting, considering the resistance to wholesale change, is doing this to a few specific factions, maybe to certain story arcs (Ganymede and Scratch's Spring Fling missions would be a good test bed, requiring only 3 factions that already function across the full level range, so minimum consequence for trying it out), or even to a specific zone (I think Cimerora would be a neat place for it, especially considering the relatively small number of enemies that would need to be changed... but a new zone built around a Moon Base complex with both space station and an underground ocean where Neptune has been building an army to reclaim the Earth would also be good) in order to allow more folks to get used to the idea slowly, and as they inevitably realize they didn't actually lose anything besides nuking grays, continue the project forward over the years until it becomes the default, especially for new content. Things like sidekicking and Ouroboros were workarounds for a problem. They each addressed it in their own way, but they were not really a solution. Don't get me wrong, they're both significant improvements, especially sidekicking as it stands. They just aren't quite enough. This is, in my opinion, a better way and how it should have been done from the start. Obviously it wasn't, and now the spaghetti code is baked into the lasagna as it were, but using this as a new workaround could eventually replace the need to fix the unsatisfactory default.

That was part of my idea as presented too.

Some of the standard melee sets already include (short) ranged attacks, Claws, Spines, and now Axe. A Lunge could also fill the role of one of these attacks, adding more examples of "ranged" potential already in melee. This idea is just an evolution on that. It's still primarily a melee set idea, not half & half like Dom Assault or VEATs. Just Melee with options. I find I'm always trying to add a ranged attack or two for runners and the like, and for holding purple sets. This also helps ensure, if they're built into the set from the start, that they're thematically appropriate to the melee set, as opposed to being a Nemesis Staff or something. Also, Rebirth calls them Guardians? My mistake, I thought they were calling them Paladins. I'm not very knowledgeable of Rebirth, just a few of the rumors. I still like Guardians better, but Wardens would do the job.

So every so often (usually under a different name used on another server group) discussion arises about an AT using Support/Melee powersets. This is just some thoughts on that. I would prefer "Guardian" as an AT name over "Paladin" Even setting aside potential (probably unlikely) confusion with the Clockwork Paladin, I feel like "Paladin" has a bit of a medieval fantasy theme almost hardcoded into it at this point (The AT certainly isn't going to be an armored artillery cannon [if you don't get that reference, don't worry about it, just ask one of your Army buddies later]). "Guardian" is a lot more open to thematic interpretation. Even using Melee and Support sets, I would like to see some differences in power selection compared to standard versions. For one thing, while I would like to see the melee sets be more or less what other Melee ATs use, I would like to see at least one ranged attack built into the mix, preferably at Tier 2. Something thematically appropriate to the rest of the set. Energy Bolt for Energy Melee, Throwing Dagger for Broadsword, things like that. Perhaps Mace could have a Pistol attack (Police baton idea for the mace. It leans a little more specific than I prefer, but I feel like at least one of them should come with a gun). And a bit shorter range, like Sentinel's 60 feet. Enough for engagement and smacking runners, allowing more variety in tactics without being a dependency. Also a container for Ranged Damage purples. Perhaps at mid-high tier, a shorter ranged (again, 40' like Sentinels) ranged AoE. So still a predominantly melee set that still feels a little different in usage from others. I think Melee should be the primary, but the damage should be somewhat higher than Tanks, yet lower than Scrappers. Furthermore, even if they didn't in other ATs, each Guardian Attack power should have some sort of debuff attached to it to lean into the Support role of the AT in general. For the Support secondary (Let's make them a smidge better than Controllers and Corrupters, but not as good as defenders) go with most of the same Support themes as already exist, but as a rule try to lean in on making every set have some point blank AoE powers. At least 1 click, at least 1 toggle. All buffs/heals should be self-effecting as well (This may require some rebalancing with bubbles of various sorts). Much like the attack has a pair of ranged powers, I'd like to see the support lose a pair of support powers in favor of two defensive powers (self only), one toggle, one auto. These two powers should each hold some status protections. Being designed to be in the thick of things, they should be a bit tougher than Defenders, even if not so much as ATs with proper armor sets. Some of the support sets already have PBAoE toggles that can be repurposed with little or no change to fill this need. As a note, no powers that would phase an enemy out of interaction. Those just feel like grief powers as is. For their AT power, I would suggest a passive PBAoE buff of significant radius, like 40-60 feet, that buffs the secondary effects of everyone's buff powers... so a boost to leadership, other support ATs, and so on. Obviously still affecting self also. They make everyone a little better at what they already do, but without having to click a button to do so. Epic/Patron pools should probably offer a bit of range/control and a defensive toggle that is weaker than what most ranged ATs get but offers a little more status protection and maybe some regen/recovery, along with a pet at Tier 5. These options let the character choose between filling in holes or supplementing what they already do. The best mix of variety, in my opinion. Anyway, just what I'd like to see. Your views may vary.

Having a /petcom* Leash [value] command would be a nice addition. Not only keeping them close during travel (having them also inherit your travel powers would be nice), but setting a range beyond which they will not stray even if set to attack aggressive.

I just wish we could expend a power selection on making the origin attack a real attack, taking slots and the like, and scaling through the full level range. Even at level 50, they have some use as is, but the ability to keep them fully relevant (at appropriate expense of course) would be very desirable. Stick it in the "Inherent" pool, and let players choose one of them at level 14, if they so desire.

I think the better solution is making weapon models proliferated throughout the other weapon sets, disregarding name and damage type. In this game, wherever possible, form should be divorced from function, putting the descriptive aspects of a character in the hands of the players. As for the 'gather' ability itself, I'd love to see this in a melee AT damage aura, such as armor sets with a Gravity, Hydro, or Weather theme.

I did. MMs are certainly less annoying to play now, but they still too often feel like an inventory management minigame.

I can't speak to AE functionality as knowledgeably as I'd like to. It's just not a subsystem of the game I've managed to dig into thoroughly. I do know that when you're building a custom enemy you're able to set the level range and choose what powers it has access to, which determines how much xp it will provide. But let's look at the hordes supporting the GMs in the War of the Vale in Croatoa. They do not seem overwhelming when fighting them at low levels (any more than such numbers would seem overwhelming in any other content in level appropriate zones) nor do they feel irrelevant as a threat at high levels (any more than any level appropriate content in standard zones). They feel like they fit the situation, no matter what level you are. The same feels true of the Clockwork trying to build the Paladin in KR. I can't just stand there with a lev 50 damage aura and go afk, knowing they'll pop like mosquitos on a bug zapper, but low level characters can also take part and contribute meaningfully. The Spring Fling missions also show content allowing the full range of character levels (well maybe not level 1s and such) to be quite functional. Does a full team of 50+ characters steamroll it? yeah, but they do that to everything anyway, so they're as much an outlier to the topic as level 1s. But it's something everyone in the middle can take part in, being meaningful and relevant, without having to engage in some workaround like altering your own level with a local TF (which still leaves you restricted in where you can go without having to change it every time you zone, or whom you can team with.) The wedding event that was just released reinforces my view on this, and compels me to say all named NPC heroes and villains should also be on this list (even moreso than the omnipresent groups). Ultimately, I feel very strongly that making more content accessible and relevant to more characters in more places is good for the game.

Suggesting a non-solution is rude. It's trolling at best. I'll be adding you to ignore now.

Exactly. You have precisely described what's wrong with it.

If you're just going to be rude, you can see yourself out.

Lovely game. This aspect of how it works is what I'd love to see here. Unfortunately, as much as I also love ESO, City of Heroes is many other things I love that ESO doesn't do.

There's that mission for Burke in the "new" introductory story arc where you disguise yourself as an Arachnos to find out about [REDACTED]. That seems like it would be a good place in Mercy to add a SG registrar. I don't think the old one should be removed since many folks might be confused if it wasn't there, and there's no value in that.

See, that's the thing... I find grays boring. Yet, there's still things I need to do from time to time in places that are populated solely with grays. Gotta spawn Death Surge? go park afk at a power station with a damage aura running while you make dinner, surely no threat you should need to be paying attention to the game for... For many level 50's white cons are "boring" but at least you can't casually pretend they aren't there. Similarly, a lowbie may find an area populated exclusively with purples "boring" since there's still "nothing to do" game wise in what might be an important area for something unrelated to combat. But then the point was, start this off with certain factions that are to some extent, omnipresent. A Longbow Lieutenant is a Longbow Lieutenant is a Longbow Lieutenant, whether you find them in Mercy, Cap, or Nerva... I get it. We're not going to agree. We're not going to change each other's minds.

Love the bow tie on Black Scorpion and Mako. Hope we see them available for players as more generalized chest details or shoulder options soon 🙂

You're right of course. And that sucks. And I have over 600 alts, many of whom have 3 or more costumes I would have to edit. And I'd still rather have to start over with something significantly better and vastly more options and have to re-edit each and every one of them.

My personal preference for additional auras would be to have each costume location have it's own aura option. Yeah, I know that's a lot of UI to overhaul. Of course if the UI were to be overhauled, each costume location could also have an option to overlay a second costume piece, so we could do things like make new hairstyles by combining two existing hair styles, Or have barbarian bracers combined with fingerless gloves. Frankly, I'd love to see the entire costume creator UI get a complete overhaul and re-sort. Too many options that are locked out of compatibility with other options, like putting hats on Lizard heads, or goat horns on lion heads, or ear muffs as ear options. [EDIT:] In relation to the Prismatic Aether prices, I wholeheartedly agree the advanced tiers cost vastly too much. I don't want to grind Dr Aeon SFs on 5 star over and over and over. I knpow that's some people's cup o' tea, but not mine. But at 250 PAs for a mini-mode or a Spines aura (for a non Spines character), even at 1.6 million for PAs on the AH, that's still around 400 million inf (a 5th of the cap) for a purely cosmetic effect. I have hungry alts to feed. I don't have that kind of game money sitting around.

Yes, the topic has been broached before, but I'd like to try framing the suggestion again in a more limited yet thematically appropriate scope. I like enemies who are automatically matched to my character's level, whatever that may be. Such as the support minions for the War of the Veil in Croatoa, or clockwork building or following the Paladin in King's Row. I would like to see more of this in the game. I like the idea of enemies maintaining relevance and not having entire zones "go gray." I think the two factions that could most safely and justifiably have all members replaced with this type would be Longbow and Arachnos. They're staples of the "enemies" faced, regardless of what level zone you're in. To have them hold onto that relevance regardless of what zone you travel to I believe would be great for immersion. If it works as I believe it would, it would set a good standard to follow with other omnipresent factions in time, such as 5th/Council, Circle of Thorns, and so on. If it works as detractors have claimed it would, it's only a limited slice of the content and not a catastrophe for anyone's game experience. The other place I would want to see this applied is ambushes. It seems to be the case for some ambushes already (Clockwork ambush for Synapse come to mind) But I think there's still some missions that may cause ambushes of inappropriately high level enemies in low level zones (I recall high level 5th/Council ambushes in Steel Canyon being a problem at one point, though in all fairness, I don't see that ambush very often anymore since we have a lot fewer players than live, and most seem to bypass the mid levels using AE farms or PI radios). Nonetheless, I think making sure it applies to all ambushes should be a quality standard. {EDIT:} Ultimately of course, this would be my preference for most if not all content in the game. I dislike having to "turn off XP" or risk missing content just because I want to team up with friends who are doing a lot of high XP content. Having to go back to do something through Orouboros is insufficient, especially since flashbacks function as a sort of TF, and we can't add folks on the fly.

I agree with many points above (and before). I'd love to see travel between Red/Blue simply opened to everyone, and as time goes on, add the occasional blue contact to red zones and vice/versa. As it is, I just make every character a Vigilante or Rogue so I can access either when I want to join a team or TF/SF, but it would be nice to have that be unnecessary so I could pick faction based more on character development than Interfaction Multipass. Moving the Black Helicopter over by Dollface would be much more useful. As is, if we have to go to that part of the zone, we might as well just take the Ferry/TUNNEL. Then the current Black Helicopter could be used as a transit to RWZ... a bit out of the way, but not a different zone at least. I'd like to see more semi-interactive *stuff* around the zone too. Ruined labs, basement hideouts, a vendor or three... just stuff to see and do besides most of the zone being an open hunting ground (which is of course a problem for most of the zones in the game, but if we're talking about Mercy here...). I want more things to explore, and more reason to do so. I love places like the Arachnos tunnel in Faultline, the Council bunker in RWZ, more stuff like that. Of course, such places should have exploration badges. Now that we no longer require a full zone of exploration badges to unlock Long Range Transport, perhaps we could set aside the standardization that each zone have exactly 8 badges.

Personally, I just wish all the Praetorian content had no levels, and just automatically adjusted to your character's level (+/- difficulty modifiers).

At least in the case of [Kick] I'm confident it wouldn't require new animation, merely adding options for alternatives that could be pulled from existing kick animations in other powersets. the thunder kick from Blaster /MA and the spinning leg sweep would both be awesome options.

It has been my opinion for some time that the universe of City of Heroes (like many other MMOs) exists within a temporal anomaly that prevents standardized entropy, and as such, the perception of the forward movement of time. Certain powerful beings are partially immune to this, progressing forward themselves (gaining levels, acquiring badges, etc), and their immunity even extends outwards from them to a limited extent, allowing for the defeat of enemies in the nearby vicinity, yet also explaining how the same enemies will soon once again be trying to steal the same purses from the same civilians as if noting had happened. And even these powerful beings are only able to break through to forward movement in time for short periods, often remaining unknowingly static for short or even very long periods of time (among the lesser powered among them, they may remain dormant for so long they forget who they are, and when they become active again, may start going by a similar but different name (or even a very different name). Certain events seem to come and go, often coinciding with their thematic counterparts in real life, though rarely for the same precise amount of time. But even as they come and go and even return the following year, they are usually just a repeat of the previous year, soon to end and be forgotten by the world at large until they return yet again, likely with few changes, if any at all.

Sooo... was this delayed?