I can play City of Heroes blindfolded. With my forehead.

[Ruin Mage]

The game is not coded for anything higher than +4/x8.

Giant Monsters/Monsters do not count, mind you.

The on-their-freetime dev team would have to take a warhammer to the game's code to get anything asked for in here. Health doesn't mean much when a team full of scrappers/blasters could cheese any increase in health. The game was not made to be uber-difficult across its levels. Even non-incarnate stuff became trivial before Incarnates outside of "ugh great its x." (sappers, etc) and the occasional death-grip holds etc.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Shadeknight

[Klaleara]

5 minutes ago, skoryy said:

But it doesn't answer why put something in a hold if it can't hit or do serious damage to begin with.

 

We have to begin the discussion with how twenty years of MMO meta theory has rendered CC irrelevant outside of special mechanics.

Idk, can 15-20 minions/lt's do damage if they are capable in doing so?  I know solo, if I was just to jump into that group as a MM, it would hurt, even if I debuff them.

 

In a group hard to say, cause they are simply dead lol.

 

Granted, I do think we should raise their accuracy a bit.  Problem wtih raising accuracy across the board, is that you have to make it so they CAN hit, but not make defensive powers useless.  Touchy to balance that.

 

Another option is to set it up so Boss's have Leadership.  Add some strategy to it.  Try to burn down bosses, as to "Demoralize" the Minions/Lt's.

[Sailboat]

Incarnate powers were probably a mistake.

[Ruin Mage]

1 minute ago, Sailboat said:

Incarnate powers were probably a mistake.

Not really. The game was not made to be difficult, even prior to Incarnate stuff. You could cheese +4/x8 before that.
Incarnate system just tipped the scales, at best.

[Sakura Tenshi]

The only mistakes with the incarnate system were:

1. The devs poorly worded the lore behind it to make it sound like we were all being shoe-horned into a mystical origin instead of origins picked at character creation and imagined our characters' story around

2. Interface should have been broken into two slots: the damage proc and the effect so we can actually get the appropriate effects we want like energy damage and end-drain to make a psudo lightning sword

3. Relatedly: interface feels like something that would have been cooler as part of base gameplay

4. No lore pets based on Mastermind pets so masterminds can feel like they've summoned even more Robots, Mercs, Thugs, Zombies, Ninja, etc.

5. NO WEAPON JUDGEMENT ANIMATIONS (I just want my katana tocatch the lightning then shoot it out in a swing!)

Edited February 4, 2020 by Sakura Tenshi
forgot one

[skoryy]

2 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

The only mistakes with the incarnate system were:

1. The devs poorly worded the lore behind it to make it sound like we were all being shoe-horned into a mystical origin instead of origins picked at character creation and imagined our characters' story around

2. Interface should have been broken into two slots: the damage proc and the effect so we can actually get the appropriate effects we want like energy damage and end-drain to make a psudo lightning sword

3. Relatedly: interface feels like something that would have been cooler as part of base gameplay

4. No lore pets based on Mastermind pets so masterminds can feel like they've summoned even more Robots, Mercs, Thugs, Zombies, Ninja, etc.

5. NO WEAPON JUDGEMENT ANIMATIONS (I just want my katana tocatch the lightning then shoot it out in a swing!)

Oh heck yes.

[VileTerror]

I do appreciate you putting #1 as #1 in your list there, Sakura.  I don't think it can be stressed enough.

[Sakura Tenshi]

2 hours ago, VileTerror said:

I do appreciate you putting #1 as #1 in your list there, Sakura.  I don't think it can be stressed enough.

The funniest part is that the devs have later clarified that they basically never intended to overwrite the player characters' origin and stories we had imagined, rather it was just a (sort of badly written) attempt to give some thematic naming and concept behind the incarnate system. I think the genuine worst offender though wasn't even incarnate content itself, but in the origin of powers arcs.

 

All they had to say was "incarnate level science is NOT your character applying a universal mystical force, but your scientist having that breakthrough moment of realizing 'reversing the polarities' CAN work."

[Chris24601]

34 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

All they had to say was "incarnate level science is NOT your character applying a universal mystical force, but your scientist having that breakthrough moment of realizing 'reversing the polarities' CAN work."

My headcanon is that my natural archery/tac arrrow’s armor is lined with incarnate thread mesh, their bow is enhanced using incarnate thread-based myomer (for increased draw strength) and incarnate shard arrowheads.

 

I wear incarnate tech, but am not incarnate myself.

[Haijinx]

8 hours ago, Sailboat said:

Incarnate powers were probably a mistake.

They probably thought they would be able to do more incarnate content ... but then .. click.

[Sakura Tenshi]

3 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

They probably thought they would be able to do more incarnate content ... but then .. click.

Live Devs: Well, we finished the first Incarnate Storyarc of the Praetorian War. We're gonna need to really up the difficulty for the next series! Man, the future of City of Heroes looks brighter than ever!

 

NCsoft: I'm about to end these people's whole careers.

[DR_Mechano]

9 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

Live Devs: Well, we finished the first Incarnate Storyarc of the Praetorian War. We're gonna need to really up the difficulty for the next series! Man, the future of City of Heroes looks brighter than ever!

 

NCsoft: I'm about to end these people's whole careers.

Yup as I've often said there were HUGE plans for the next tier of Incarnate abilities and according to various post sunset AMAs the next set of Trials with the Battalion would be tough even for an Incarnate with rares in every single one of the currently available slots but...then the game gets shutdown probably 2-3 months before they can finish everything. We know a lot of it was being prepped just by the fact that the zone was in the game files and the Shivan meteor map is in there as well, this suggest the first 'phase' of the Battalion content was already in the 'getting everything together' phase and after Issue 24 we would have seen issue 25 and 26 bring about the next step.

 

Whichever server can actually get to doing this storyline first and expanding out the Incarnate powers is going to have one hell of a draw, even more so if whichever server can get Mastermind Customization first.

[CU_Krow]

I vote close this topic and continue in this thread:

 

 

Currently, it seems like the thread mostly likely to actually affect anything, IF anything is affected.