Kaika

Oh for sure, I think the game is easy, but it's not entirely bereft of challenge or anything even at the more casual levels of play. Sometimes you do need to stop and think strategy and such, enemies can vary wildly in strengths and weaknesses so sometimes you have to think outside of the box. It's a core part of the game that when problems arise there are usually many was to tackle them. It allows for a lot of creative solutions, like in your case splitting the aggro to help manage the alpha strike and this kind of creativity is exactly what the game is made to foster. Problem solving like this working is a big part of the reason why the game is so open many play styles and skill levels. Quick Edit because I'm bad at telling when my thoughts are together: To elaborate a bit more, other MMOs, or at least the ones I played, are usually much more rigid on how to solve a problem. Even if there are theoretically many ways to go about it, the player base will often come to one or two ways to handle a given problem. On top of that there is usually alot less variety to any given encounter. It might not play out exactly the same every time, but it often is far more predictable then CoH ever is. Usually they have some way to enforce a specific group of roles on a group, with mechanics that play out roughly the same every time, and you generally have a idea of what to expect. Compared to CoH where your group comp can vary wildly, causing the same encounter to play out very differently, and on top of that EVERYTHING is layered in large chunks of RNG. Groups of Arachnos for example can be filled with fairly non threatening crab spiders or loaded to the brim with fortunatas, giving encounters alot of variance. In order for the game to function it needs alot of ways to solve problems that other MMOs just don't really need. Inspirations I'm fairly certain were the devs direct response to this, and likely the reason they remain so powerful, but there are many other ways to turn the tide. Sure there is some room for expression and creativity in other MMOs but often thats only when people mess up. When I say the game fosters creativity, this is what I mean, it gives you the freedom to be creative by offering many different routes of problem solving. People have gone from 1-50 using just brawl since there are so many ways to get by in this game if you are just a bit creative about it.

I would say no, but it's a more nuanced then that In this game I see it generally as "No one knows or care what you are doing unless it directly effects them". When was the last time you were in a team with PUGs and you actually cared what anyone else was doing, how well they built, how well they are doing their chosen role. For me at least the answer is, basically never, unless what they are doing is specifically getting in the way of me doing what I want to do. Knock back and power sets like energy blast are often considered controversial but no ones really talks about people who take flurry which is arguably one of the worst power picks in the whole game, because it really only effects the person using it. The reason no one really cares really come down to one major point: City of Heroes is a very easy game, with a heavy focus on player freedom and creativity. It always has been, it always will be. Due to the freedom of creativity the game was designed to foster, it was made in a way which removes the need for the normal trinity and roles, or a heavy need to rely on other players for success. Sure the game is made with the intention that players should need to team up for harder challenges but it rarely requires specific capability to succeed, and the few times it does are usually things that can be handled by a large amount of players. Hold, heals, taunt, ect. can either be commonly found in many powersets, or can be specifically taken from power pools if you feel the need to have them. It's also much harder to notice improvement and define methods of improving, when there are effectively several hundred thousand classes in the game. Sure AT generally define role but they don't always even in melee a SS/Invun brute plays alot differently then a TW/Bio, its hard to notice when someone is playing "sub-optimally". Compared to say another game I play like FF14 where classes are static and have very well defined roles, where I can tell if a PLD is playing their character correctly at a glance normally as I have the exact same kit when I'm using it. Something other MMOs are huge on is end game content, and long term progression systems "Gearing and Raiding" effectively. While these systems do somewhat exist in CoH they are again extremely varied in how you can approach them, and don't really require a huge amount of skill or investment to succeed. If you wanted to you could level up to 50 and go full incarnate through just DFB. This means that the importance of things like Incarnate Trials is diminished compared to other MMO's raids, and its rather common for players to obtain full incarnate before even stepping into the higher end ones. On top of that, most things in this game are very mechanically simple, usually with mechanics not really progressing much in difficulty past "Don't stand in the bad", meaning that even in high end content the barrier for entry is rather low from a skill standpoint. I think this is why the community seems to be a bit abrasive to people saying things like "Regen is bad" is because there is almost never a need to on efficiency to that level. Even in the highest levels of content or 4* challenge runs/speed runs most groups seem pretty open to inclusion unless they are specifically going for the meta, or the class kinda gets in the way(Sorry MMs >.<). As long as you can meet the requirements to make their strategy function (usually just barrier which everyone can get). Everything is viable is all content at some level, and outside of extreme exceptions, everything can work. How you build and play your character is seen more as personal preference and even difficulty selection then a fault of the player playing the character. Long story short I don't think it will ever be rude to be bad at City of Heroes. Creativity and freedom of choice are far to important to this game the community. Just don't knock my mobs out of melee range (PLEASE)

Yes, in general, though in different whys depending on the team comp and what I'm playing. If I'm on a tank, or I'm the beefiest person the the team I generally try to play just slightly a head of my team, moving to the next group just before they are done finishing with the last group. Usually when it's down to a boss or two the team doesn't really need someone to take hits so I find my time is better spent gathering up the next group and clearing out the fodder before the controller with itchy trigger finger on their AoE immob that's in every PUG can stop them. Even when I split off I usually keep a eye on where the team to see if they need me to come back, or to just avoid people who have play styles that don't jive well with me (basically anything that spreads enemies out >.<) most of my characters are built so they don't need support. When staying with the group, keeping a eye on your teammates can give you a lot of room to optimize, if you see blaster popping aim and build up, they are probably about to nuke the group and its best to focus your efforts on the bosses as attacking anything weaker will likely just result in overkill. If you have a kin it's best to keep track of them to maintain FS uptime. In just about any situation there is something to be gained by keeping a eye on what your teammates are doing if you are in the mood to exert the effort to do so.

It would be a huge amount of work, I don't see it happening anytime soon, Kallisti wharf was partially done when the game shutdown and the zone still isn't feature complete, so I don't see another happening for a good while. If I recall though, the original devs mentioned the plan was to make Galaxy an incarnate zone, like DA, but the game shutdown before it could happen.

100% Jousting, any experienced melee player in pvp knows how to do it. Attacks are all calculated the moment they are activated, you could teleport to the edge of the zone on the startup of TF and you will get hit still. Basically you jump right before the attack activates to preserve your momentum and move during the attack. It's extremely an useful technique to master, even in PvE as you can use to to close the gap to another enemy while still attacking. It's alot easier to do with range, but the same principle applies to melee.

That's kinda how it is these days anyways, you can go into BB/SC/WB at prime times, and walk to your objectives and no one will bug you, zone pvp barely hes enough population for a single zone these days. It's really just one guy in RV last I checked and he needs to dangle money in-front of people to get anyone to show up. Most actual pvp happens in arenas or during events.

Yeah I'm aware, I'm just not a fan or the half-joking "hah I tricked you into defending a completely unrelated point", especially when it really does not apply. If was just a joke and he left it at that, it would have been fine, but the moment you stand by it and defend it, its not a joke anymore. I was rather enjoying a rare time when people here where actually having a fairly civil pvp discussion for once, So I felt I needed to make my mind known after a bizarre rug pull, either way I don't see myself interacting with him anymore, I've had him 1* in game for a long time before this anyways specifically for refusing to turn off group fly.

Really? 1: Let me correct this, when you enter into a team you are the the whims of the team leader and how they want to run things, and the possibility that they might not want to put up with your play style. Like say, kicking you for refusing to turn off group fly. Just like you accept the fact that someone may gank you in a pvp zone. 2: You can just leave the zone, just like you can, leave teams that don't want to put up with you refusing to turn off group fly.By removing you from the team, they have taken correct steps to stop group fly from effecting everyone. and Bonus 3: You clearly aren't over this and that wasn't meant as a joke considering you are still trying to defend it, posing it as someone else goading you into it doesn't change the fact that you seem to think you somehow made a point here. Seriously you had a GM on the first page of the last thread literally tell you that you're wrong, get over it.

1: Pretty sure it does, but you don't really want to be using it anyways since its really bad as a attack (same with boxing) 2: No, this hasn't been a thing for years now. Every time you zone you only draw your weapon the first time you pull it out. after that it has no draw animation (unless you hit escape with it out)

Because it's hard to get into. You're entering into a place where experience is key, and you are entering with little to none. In open world/PvPvE content by nature it's difficult to impossible to ensure you will find players near your skill level, so it helps to offer some secondary goal that doesn't require good pvp skills to obtain, or some way to even out the odds, so a player doesn't leave empty handed. Elden Ring is a really good example of this done well, as the Host has a MASSIVE advantage over the invader, they are always a higher level, they get twice as much healing resources and they have access to powerful great runes that the invaders don't get, and thats before we consider that they will always outnumber the invader. This is done to smooth over the process and in a way that evens out the playing field. Even if you get REALLY good at pvp in those games, it's very easy to just get caught between two players and a wall and get blended. Even if you can't take out the invader you can always use your back up to speed-run to the next checkpoint or boss door(which send the invader home), which to alot of players would be considered a win. This is why rewards in PvP zones in CoH tend to be very strong but don't really require you to ever touch another player, it allows you to avoid pvp as a practical way to obtain these rewards, which in a way trains you on how to get into the heads of other players and think in pvp way. It's just not really well designed and the games balance has always been atrocious.

Those "Distractions" are entirely what makes this kinda content interesting and what serve to get players into this kinda content in the first place. I do agree that it should never be "Forced" things like villain accolades requiring entering a pvp zone was a stupid move. However those quest/node/whatever serve to get you into the zone, they are the carrot on the stick to get you to try it and the rewards for sticking it out, often you don't even NEED to pvp to get them, just risk encountering it. Elden Ring is a fairly good example of this working. People summon Co-op players to help them with difficult sections of the game and having another player with you provides a MASSIVE boost in power, however it opens you up to pvp, something you wouldn't do if the reward wasn't so worth it. This exposes players to pvp who otherwise wouldn't, and to many it seems like just a obstruction added to the co-op mode, which gets these players to try to find ways to combat it, and just like that a PvEr is engaging with PvP in a meaningful way by just trying to overcome a problem between them and their co-op. This often leads to them deciding to help with co-op as helping people is fairly fun, and by doing that they engage in more pvp, learn more about it better tactics, until suddenly, you aren't scared anymore when a invader shows up, your looking forward to seeing if your new build works. By trying to stop the invader from ending your co-op, you've basically become a pvper. This goes on until maybe you decide it's a good idea to learn more about how invaders work and you try it out.... and its fun. This is the core pipeline of the Elden Ring co-op/invasion system, a system people use for mainly by people just trying to PvE, which has lead to a fairly thriving pvp community. Ugh this. Look honestly answer like that are more the kind that sound cool, pvp is big on individualism and self expression and people tend to say stuff like that. I'll give you a honest answer of why I like this kinda pvp: There is nothing quite like the thrill of facing down a unpredictable thinking being, in a unpredictable environment. Hunting down and setting up the prefect kill on a target, while trying to make sure they aren't aware of me until the time is right. Watching their behavior to gauge how much knowledge they have and how much of a threat they are, and ensuring they can't get away once it starts. Challenge is part of it, but it's more nuanced then that, it's more that it's hard to predict where things will go when you target can think, and you aren't quite sure what their goal is. Sometimes your the hunter, and sometimes you're the hunted, and and you never know when a third or forth party will show up and change everything. This is the contract you sign when you walk past all those warnings into the pvp zone. This is why they try to add incentives that pve players would be interested and only require exposing yourself to pvp as there is a huge learning curve no matter what you do, the more your expose to it, the more you learn how to handle it. Honestly this is kinda still on topic, since badges are incentive to expose players to pvp. Games like Halo or battlefield can't replicate this experience simply because everything is very clear, everyone has a clear goal and objectives. They are really set up more like sports, everyone is there for the same reason, side are supposed to be evenly balanced, and objectives are made clear. It leads to a much more predictable experience. Look I'm not gonna defend the pvp balance in the game, it's never been good, however everything you listed there has counters accessible by all players if you know what to do and care to find them. While I really enjoyed zone pvp in CoH it wasn't very well designed, I can understand why you would see it this way if this was your first exposure to pvp content like this, but the principles it was built on CAN very much work. I stand by my point earlier, it's just not for everyone, and you are very clearly one of the people it's not for, and that's fine.

To be fair alot of that was only in the early days of pvp. Stalkers were a problem early on but there were counters to them in the game though not a huge amount but many were quickly added, people just took a while to catch on to them. If you could see a stalker, they were effectively a really weak brute unless they really knew what they were doing. I'm not saying this wasn't and isn't a problem though, eventually people figured out how much burst damage blasters could output and now you have the same issue but from a mile away. I disagree with the statement that pvp can't work in this kinda situation, I've had alot of fun in games like this, I used to live in sirens back on justice, and played WoW, Rift, Warhammer, and GW2 in open world pvp rather often. I think this issue really is that it's something that not alot of people enjoy, and by it's nature can be unwelcoming to players new to it. It doesn't help that alot of people simply see it as a excuse to grief people but, thats part of the point. PvP zones are about the human experience in a way, you have freedom to approach it however you choose within the establish rules of the game, which are usually extremely loose (no cheating, no gamer words, no legitimately harassing people), everything else goes, you are free to be to villain of the game that everyone hates, or the hero who protects and teaches the new players. Everyone who enjoys these sorta systems usually have boatloads of story's to tell about the players they knew, and battles that happened. It's not really a thing in most MMOs these days because it's niche, and it often faces players with a reality/ego check they aren't ready for, that they don't know nearly as much about the game as they thought they did. They die once to a player who's put way more hours into it, declare it terrible and unfun content only played by jerks, and never touch it again. For the players that enjoy it however it very much does work, with a air of unpredictability that you just can't get pure pvp arena style games. Games like Elden Ring with it's invasion system and Sea of Thieves are pretty good modern examples of open world pve goals and content mixed with pvp working well, it's just not for everyone.

To be fair, thats the entire reason why they are so powerful, but it's such a hassle to get them, to encourage players to steal them from each other.

If you ignore the big warning signs posted out side and the loud countdown when you enter the zone, that's on you. That's sorta how pvp works in games like this, as long as the game doesn't forbid it, it's allowed. "Etiquette" only exist to people who are willing to follow it, and if no hard rules enforce it, to many people it doesn't exist. This is a big part of the appeal of open pvp in games like this. The game gives you all the warning in the world that "People can and will attack you here" and they are entirely within their rights too as long as you remain in the zone. Personally, back when I used to PvP everyone was fair game at least once, and anyone who entered that zone was a valid target. However if I already killed someone, there was a cooldown where you get no rewards for doing it again so if it seemed they were just here to collect some badges I would let them go. Unless they started getting mad with me in chat for killing them once in a pvp zone, then it became my duty to show them how pvp zones function.

Keep in mind, you don't NEED to do any of that as well, you can go in with a few people, or are just strong enough on your own, and just fight stuff. Sure it's easier if you know how the place works but you don't really have too, and the enemies in there give massive amounts of XP and influence. It's like never ending, harder radio mission, with a insane variety of enemies that can actually give a bit of a challenge to teams. I rarely see anyone just in there for casual murder (outside of the EB room) but I highly recommend it.

Forgot about them, but just checked some in game, and they use the same animations that thug MMs use.

The issue is as magericzero says, animation time is a major factor in DPS to expand on that, this means that you can't change those without majorly effecting the sets DPS. This also means to enact these changes you would basically have to entirely remove the current animations if you wanted super fast snappy ones, and create brand new gun animations. You can't have a powers effectiveness be impacted by the visual animation you choose, for numerous balance reasons and I'm not even sure if thats possible in the game engine, so everything would have to change to accommodate. While I'm not against dual pistol animations not having you go through a entire ballet routine before firing, alot of people really like the animations the set has right now, and adjusting the animation time by anything more then a fraction of a second would kill alot of the current animations. Not to mention how much animation work that would be for the dev team. If you look at the animation new sets they've added, you'll notice they basically all use preexisting player animations and mostly repurposed and combined effects. It's a efficient way to design set that fit perfectly into the games style and are light on resources, but even then it's still alot of work. What you are asking full is a full secondary set of animations, for a preexisting set, that need to be created from scratch effectively. Sure there is a handful that kinda fit the bill in Thugs and with groups like the resistance but these aren't enough to fill out the entire set, nor do they fit the power profile of the set. Is it possible? Yes. Is it a crazy amount of work and extremely unlikely, also yes. I'm all for seeing dual pistols get some kinda rework though, fun as the set is, it lags behind a bit.

Auto hit or close enough to not matter, ran it on my SR tank and not a single attack missed.

Yep, straight up Will Smithed me on stage. (Artistic Recreation)

Look I heard the PvP timer and everything went red, the pvper in me just re-awoke like I was some sorta sleeper agent. I got the one death while I was trying to figure out how to damage a GM, he slapped me once and that was all it took XD. Murder aside, it was a absolute blast, Monty and the crew really outdid themselves (and the extra 250 mil in my pocket ain't too bad either :D)

AV solo testing is one of the first things I do with every 50. No insp, no Temp, no daggers, no lores. It's ALOT easier then people think, I main melee and even my tanks can all solo 54 AVs in a reasonable time and none of them are specifically built for just that. You just need a solid build and a good understanding of how DPS works and how to string together a decent rotation. All you need to do to solo most AVs is beat their regen, which is only around 100ish DPS(at 54), anything after that is just speed. From my experience this gets easier the lower level you go as the game expects much less from lower level players. A fully kitted out 50 can absolutely make a low level AVs look like EBs in TFs like you saw, regardless of AT. Corrupters are very good at this as well as strong debuffs sets make it trivial to beat the regen, and their damage is high enough they they can likely manage even without, specially with a set as strong as fire.

I'll give you that, didn't realize you were going THAT far back, however I still stand by what I said. Howling Twilight being usable off oil slick is very clearly an unintended niche interaction, removing it was more of a bug fix then a nerf. It just isn't a good example, especially considering it requires knowledge of the game balance from 2004-5ish. If you want to use old Dark miasma as an example of a under-preforming set, that was a good explanation, but that specific change isn't. Anyways this is getting a bit meta. Edit: Also looked it up just for clarity sake, Afraid was changed to fear in issue 3, the -res was added to tar patch in issue 4 and TA as a set was added in issue 5, so dark was good when that interaction was patched anyways

No Dark has ALWAYS been good, TA honestly used to be horribly underrated but was always ok (and is now insanely good BTW). In particular this interaction was nerfed because it goes against the strengths/weaknesses of the established powers and caused them to over-preform in a niche setting (hami raid). Oil slick arrow is target-able just due to needing a way to be lit on fire, howling twilight needs to target enemies as a condition to both add a level of risk and limit the powers effectiveness. Using oil slick to activate howling twilight, while a neat interaction from the player side, goes against the intention of how both powers are used, removing the risk and requirements for howling twilight's incredibly strong res, while using the oil slick in a unintended way. This is what we call a exploit, when abilities in a game are functioning correctly but able to be used in a unintended manor. If anything the change you are talking about was less of a nerf and more of a bug fix. Neither Dark nor TA got any worse outside of the specific niche scenario, where you have players with both sets together, alot of player bodies, and no enemies to target off of. That's not really a nerf or anything "underpreforming"

Are you just... trying to make up an example here or...? Trick arrow and Dark miasma are both considered very good atm in end game. Even if you are just trying to give a hypothetical here I'm not sure what your point is under-preforming sets aren't like that because the devs have some vendetta against them. They are considered underpreforming because they are considered to preform below the standards of their peers, this doesn't mean they are unusable junk the devs nerfed into the ground because someone found something cool. An underprefoming set can still be good in isolation, Just that the sum of their parts arguably adds up to less then that of other choices. Not counting beta I'm pretty sure kin melee has never been touched by the nerf bat, it's just that the damage is a bit lower overall and tends to be loaded into the back of the animations, making them often hit dead targets in groups, it has long animations which don't quite make up for it in DPS, and the build up replacement it gets is kinda bad. It's still fully functional, hell most players probably wouldn't even realize it's a underpreforming set if played in isolation (see OP for example) but when put side by side with something like energy melee it falls behind a bit in most situations. That's all underpreforming means.

From a efficiency stand point you generally don't want to do the long AS after a placate as in combat even with no crit fast AS does more DPS, though if you want the fear effect or just want make sure something gets deleted it can be nice. I usually see Placate as a weird mix of people overvaluing it or undervaluing it. When leveling its absolutely amazing but once you get with enough recharge/survivabilty it tends to not get used and alot of high end builds skip it. It IS however very fun to use, and still nice utility, love it on my bane where it tends to get more value due to it being their only method of criting after combat starts.