If you could radically overhaul 1 thing....

[Lines]

3 hours ago, Twisted Toon said:

Doesn't look two-handed to me.

It only looks one-handed compared to Troo. Look at him, that guy is HUGE. 😍

[Twisted Toon]

5 hours ago, Lines said:

It only looks one-handed compared to Troo. Look at him, that guy is HUGE. 😍

Could be because I'm a guy, but, I'm not really unpressed. Sorry Troo. 😉

 

There is a problem with the reasoning of, if you're strong enough, then you can use a great-sword in one hand.

Congratulations! you have a one-handed weapon.

I'm not talking about using a weapon in one hand.

I'm talking about using a weapon with both hands.

And then, using a shield on top of that.

 

If you'd like to add the Titan Weapon skins to the Broadsword power-set so you can swing a giant atomic baby rattle around, go for it.

It's already been done in Anime. (not that I watch much anime)

[Tantricsecrets]

Buffing all enemies hp/dmg/res/etc at +1 and above. Every difficulty higher than +0 would give them more attacks/buffs/debuffs. At +3 ebs and +4 avs would automatically be in the mix. I'd like to see enemy groups use fulcrum shift and titan weapons to destroy you plebs lol

[Golden Azrael]

On 9/11/2020 at 9:02 PM, Galaxy Brain said:

Figured this could be a fun, "pie in the sky" topic for folks to kind of toss ideas out that would probably way too drastic to actually do, but would be fun to muse about!

 

For me, I would revamp Endurance. 

 

This has honestly bugged me for a while, but we see seeds of it's problems all the way back from Issue 0 until... whichever issue made Stamina inherent. Characters seem to either have major End Issues, or 0 end issues with the in-between being incredibly rare. It also seems that starting out, Endurance is the number one issue for many characters to the point of being unfun / punishing just trying to play the character especially where toggles are concerned, slowing things down or making things much more dangerous and frustrating. Once you build past that point though its like you never had issues at all and End may as well not exist.

 

There are many ways to take it, but personally I would be cool with a switch from Strategic Endurance (where your build/plans dictate performance) to Tactical Endurance (where your decisions in the moment dictate performance). As an example, lets say end costs were Doubled but recovery was Quintupled. You could rip through your end quickly, but the downtime between would be incredibly small. Or you could pace yourself and essentially never run out of end but play slower but steadier. That would allow for a much "smoother curve" to leveling and different kinds of builds and playstyles in my opinion.

 

 

What would you all take a swing at?

One thing?  Asides from Energy Melee damage for tanks being so mediocre?

 

I'd overhaul AE.  I'd extend SG bases and have the option to walk out or tp into your own zone.   Where you can place the contacts for your own scripted/created missions.

 

eg.  You could have Kings Row as the 'private' map for your SG base.  And like the SG base.  You could invite people to play you on your 'private' map.  You become the 'GM' of your own adventure in CoH this way.

 

That way you could customise your own levelling experience in CoH.

 

Azrael.

[silverforte]

The more I play the more I'm getting annoyed by stunlocks. NPCs seem to have a lot of stun/sleep/hold abilities and they use them over and over with no diminishing returns. Not only is this annoying because it stops you from doing anything for 10-15 seconds at a time, but it turns your toggles off. Having to turn my toggles on over and over is irritating. Yesterday I wandered too close to a group of mobs and they stunned me permanently. Just over and over, I couldn't get away and they didn't stop. That sort of thing needs to be dialed back a lot.

[Techwright]

Some of y'all really need to understand the word "one" better.  

 

Man, that's a long read coming to the thread late.  Like others, I could do a list, but I'll simply say the first thing that sprung to mind:

 

Either switch the powers default setting so that knockdown is the default and knockback is the option you get by slotting a special enhancement (more likely), or (my personal favorite) provide a toggle, either per power, or per character, that allows the player the option to choose KD or KB.  "Simple" as that, and ranged energy (and others) gets  all their 6th space slots back, assuming they aren't those who prefer to work with the unpopular KB.

[Gobbledygook]

On 9/24/2020 at 5:47 AM, Lines said:

It only looks one-handed compared to Troo. Look at him, that guy is HUGE. 😍

That's because he's The Hulk!

Lou Ferrigno, that is.

[FoulVileTerror]

Have you seen https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17635-not-actually-an-insane-request-honestly/ @Krimson?

[FoulVileTerror]

No no!  Sorry, that wasn't my intent.  I just wanted to share with you a thread which sounded like it was in the same vein of interests that you had.  I'm sorry.

[Luminara]

37 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:

No no!  Sorry, that wasn't my intent.  I just wanted to share with you a thread which sounded like it was in the same vein of interests that you had.  I'm sorry.

 

Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

 

*rings the bell*

 

Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

 

*rings the bell*

 

Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

 

*rings the bell*

[WanderingAries]

I don't feel like reading everything, but if there's ONE thing it would be to detangle the spaghetti that is the base code for the game so that the devs can more easily fix and expand it. ^.^

[CursedSorcerer]

I thought of another thing I'd probably overhaul. As many players would know, the CoH Universe is mainly focused on three major areas: Paragon City, the Rogue Isles and Praetoria. I'd expand to include more major areas including other cities, other countries and even other planets and Dimensions.

[FoxyPrime]

Honestly, with all the alting we do, I would prefer an overhaul that made the game less grindy, and redo some of the older content that is excessively grindy. The Citadel TF is literally the same Council clearing mission 10 times in the same cave system (sometimes literally the same cave - apparently another regiment of Council moved in as soon as the team walked out). Another one had us going to multiple redundant sub stations doing the same boring chore of clearing everything out. AE farming is done because the grind for xp and inf to get anything accomplished is slow and boring and people want to just get that over with, not helped by the fact that the early game is also annoyingly difficult with high miss rates that can make for a painful experience until you overcome it.

 

I wouldn't farm at all if I didn't have to and would instead be looking for fun and genuinely challenging content (I'm of the opinion that grinding is not a challenge). Could just quickly get alts up and running and try them out, learning to play them well, and not having to be bogged down waiting for an experience bar to slowly rise or my inf amount to climb up enough so I can throw another 20-30mil at 1 out of dozens of enhancements I need off the auction house, all so I can just try the build out. There's only so much time in the world and I would rather spend what time I invest in the game enjoying it feeling like a comic book character in epic battles rather than grinding and farming.

Edited October 6, 2020 by FoxyPrime

[CursedSorcerer]

4 hours ago, FoxyPrime said:

Honestly, with all the alting we do, I would prefer an overhaul that made the game less grindy, and redo some of the older content that is excessively grindy. The Citadel TF is literally the same Council clearing mission 10 times in the same cave system (sometimes literally the same cave - apparently another regiment of Council moved in as soon as the team walked out). Another one had us going to multiple redundant sub stations doing the same boring chore of clearing everything out. AE farming is done because the grind for xp and inf to get anything accomplished is slow and boring and people want to just get that over with, not helped by the fact that the early game is also annoyingly difficult with high miss rates that can make for a painful experience until you overcome it.

 

I wouldn't farm at all if I didn't have to and would instead be looking for fun and genuinely challenging content (I'm of the opinion that grinding is not a challenge). Could just quickly get alts up and running and try them out, learning to play them well, and not having to be bogged down waiting for an experience bar to slowly rise or my inf amount to climb up enough so I can throw another 20-30mil at 1 out of dozens of enhancements I need off the auction house, all so I can just try the build out. There's only so much time in the world and I would rather spend what time I invest in the game enjoying it feeling like a comic book character in epic battles rather than grinding and farming.

Yeah, I agree. After seeing what has been done with Positron's TF and to some extent, Sister Psyche's/Penelope Yin's TF, the other TF's (At least the longer TF's) need to be updated.

[indigoshroom]

I would change it so if a character does not have any crafted IO's or set bounces ( just SO's) then they are not effected by ED. I think this could open up new builds for people and would help out those that are  not as familiar with IO sets. 

[Chris24601]

14 hours ago, indigoshroom said:

I would change it so if a character does not have any crafted IO's or set bounces ( just SO's) then they are not effected by ED. I think this could open up new builds for people and would help out those that are  not as familiar with IO sets. 

During the dark times after the Snap I tried out several MMOs seeking a replacement and one thing that really strikes me about CoH by comparison to them is the degree to which abilities can be enhanced at all.

 

I mean, sure, gear in those other games makes a massive difference in performance, but they also just give you the gear that puts you a couple ranks behind the current top end every time there’s an expansion so everyone is at least in the ballpark.

 

Similarly, the enhancement equivalents are TINY by comparison; reduce a 15s recharge power (that lasts 2s) to 12s, buff the damage of one ability by 5%; and set bonuses are similarly weak; 2% here, special effect every 90s there; and you might get 2-4 of them from having ALL your gear be part of the same set to get those tiny bumps.

 

By contrast, CoH enhancement slotting is improves power attributes by 20-40% EACH with six available per power and set bonuses are providing up to 5 small bonuses per power.

 

Then throw in that basic slotting expires so someone unfamiliar could easily end up effectively unslotted because they don’t yet understand that a red enhancement isn’t providing any bonuses. By contrast, gear in other MMOs may end up being woefully underperforming for your level, but it never actually expires and “put on this better armor/use this better weapon” is way more intuitive than “put this, this and this into each of your attack powers.”

 

Basically, there is a MUCH larger spread between the floor and ceiling of performance in CoH than in a lot of other similar games and a much less intuitive learning curve.

 

In terms of a radical overhaul in this area, my idea would be this; empty/expired slots instead of being truly empty instead provide a small enhancement buff to the power that raises the floor on performance.

 

I’m not the greatest numbers guy, but say each empty slot provided 1/6th of an even level IO to each enhanceable stat; i.e. six-slot an attack and even empty it performs as if it had one Acc, one Damage, one EndRdx and one Recharge IO in it.

 

That’s still less than properly slotting even basic IOs, but it’s a higher floor to start from for people still learning the ins and outs of the system.

 

I’ll let someone else figure out how to adjust the ceiling.

 

****

 

Another semi-radical overhaul I’d like to see is to make the t1 attack powers have no endurance cost and little to no recharge (some sets are nearly there, Rad blasts t1s for example).

 

The idea here is to smooth out the early game where even with the prestige enhancements you’ve got about a 3s recharge and are regularly left with an empty endurance bar. Having a basic attack from your actual power set you can always rely on would make those low levels a LOT smoother.

 

For a more radical suggestion than even that, make the t1 unslottable, but with sufficient base accuracy and damage (along with no END and recharge) that it functions as a fully slotted power (appropriately scaled for its tier/new stats).

 

Now starting characters not only have an attack appropriate to their power sets for the early levels, but it also frees them up to put their early slots into something other than their starting attack so there’s more variety. It also means there’s more incentive to pick up non-attack powers earlier since the t1 can chain with itself for attacks (I’ve seen more than a few melee builds ignore their armor set powers until they start faceplanting regularly because they’re trying to build a reasonable attack chain).

 

Coinciding with this, open up the t2 on the secondary set so that players can choose to skip these t1s entirely if they wish (I know many players who respec out of the t1 attacks at higher levels once they’ve got enough powers/recharge/endurance for a full attack chain without it... opening up the t2s would allow this build strategy to be an option for tankers, defenders, etc.

 

Short version: The lower levels would really benefit from players having a “basic attack” power that isn’t brawl or the origin attack.*

 

* side-bar: Not a radical suggestion, but I’d love to see a “origin attacks” power pool so I could get slottable versions of the taser, throwing knives, dart, etc.

[DSorrow]

16 hours ago, indigoshroom said:

I would change it so if a character does not have any crafted IO's or set bounces ( just SO's) then they are not effected by ED. I think this could open up new builds for people and would help out those that are  not as familiar with IO sets. 

Interesting idea, but I think it would have to be handled a bit more delicately, otherwise an unsuspecting player might just handicap their build by throwing in one IO. 

 

Also I totally wouldn't run an SO only SR/SS tank with incarnate soft caps along with capped damage.

[kiramon]

On 10/1/2020 at 5:23 PM, silverforte said:

The more I play the more I'm getting annoyed by stunlocks. NPCs seem to have a lot of stun/sleep/hold abilities and they use them over and over with no diminishing returns. Not only is this annoying because it stops you from doing anything for 10-15 seconds at a time, but it turns your toggles off. Having to turn my toggles on over and over is irritating. Yesterday I wandered too close to a group of mobs and they stunned me permanently. Just over and over, I couldn't get away and they didn't stop. That sort of thing needs to be dialed back a lot.

Mob holds last too long - they last that long for the ATs with mez protection/resistance, but for those without... you're stuck for like 30 seconds doing nothing and just wait to die... 

[DrBasics]

I would overhaul the enemy threat system. I think it should go up to +8, x8. Obviously it is just an option and there will be no requirement for people that MUST run their teams +8. Keep the system the way it currently is, an option for +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, +6, +7, +8. The current meta shows that a team with just 2, or even just 1 fully IO'd, incarnate player can make a +4 missions team trivial.

[Zep]

The War Walls - they bug the [Redacted] out it me in their current form.

 

I am not saying remove or change the zone boundaries. I am saying change them.

 

1) Reduce the base of the in Paragon walls to a much smaller, lower, structure - perhaps even upgrade them with Praetorian Sonic Tech.

2) Make them invisible unless up close like the Rogue Isles (and other places), or at least reduce how visible they are a lot. 

3) Improve the assets/geometry behind the war walls. There is already some stuff back there - improve it to look better, but being behind the force field not visible unless close like the war wall it's self to not impact game performance.

 

 

[Jacktar]

Hi, 

The Enhancement screen!

Firstly to be able to see the chat box whilst I am using it so I can moniter my private messages and LFG shouts.

Secondly to be able to select multipe slots to delete/ replace new enhancers. (like selecting non contiguous items in windows)

Being able to then drag those selected to the delete bin or to replace them with better enhancers.

Thirdly be able to “order sort” slotted enhancers in a power by drag and drop same as our power trays.

Fourth to sort the powers in primary and secondary specifically for PB’s and WS’s into form groups so Nova or Dwarf and Human only powers are seperated so selecting a new power choice is much easier when levelling up. Similiar to the Veats pages with seperate sections for the build process.

(I am aware the the Khelds were originally special and needed the player to have at least one lvl 50 alt to unlock them and so perhaps more wise in build power selection) but now a shiny new player can roll one from day one a little clarity in power usage when in differing forms would be a huge help even for the more experienced player base.

[Soyuz]

On 10/1/2020 at 10:23 PM, silverforte said:

The more I play the more I'm getting annoyed by stunlocks. NPCs seem to have a lot of stun/sleep/hold abilities and they use them over and over with no diminishing returns. Not only is this annoying because it stops you from doing anything for 10-15 seconds at a time, but it turns your toggles off. Having to turn my toggles on over and over is irritating. Yesterday I wandered too close to a group of mobs and they stunned me permanently. Just over and over, I couldn't get away and they didn't stop. That sort of thing needs to be dialed back a lot.

The binary nature of mez in CoH has always been one of its weakest features. It's also forced some major unintended design changes on the game.

 

When the game launched, it only had one mechanism that would help you if you were hit by a mezzing attack - mez protection. This is what Tankers and Scrappers have. Under this mechanism, you have a mez threshold which an attacker has to exceed in order to mez you. It's still very binary, but the values are high enough that if you have Tank or Scrapper type mez protection, you probably don't have to worry much about mez in practice. I played from open beta to the end of 2008 and I don't think I ever had a toggled-up Tank mezzed in all that time.

 

There were no Break-Free inspirations. There was a mez protection insp, but you had to pop it before you were mezzed - no power, including insps, could activate when you were mezzed. Mez also dropped all running toggles.

 

The fact that you were de-toggled was actually a real problem for Tanks and Scrappers, ironically. At launch, the game only allowed you to run one toggle at a time (or was it one defensive toggle? I forget) and past a certain relatively low level, Tankers found they couldn't do their job if they didn't run their mez protection toggle 24/7. If you tried running a damage resistance toggle instead then you jumped into a spawn, got held/slept/stunned, lost your damage resistance toggle anyway and were unable to protect the team. This left them with sets full of toggles they couldn't use at mid to high levels.

 

This led directly to Issue 3, which fixed the issue by allowing you to run as many toggles as you wanted to. Unfortunately that introduced a slew of other problems, because there were no damage resistance caps in those days. Certain Tanker sets, in combination with the Fighting pool, could actually give you >100% smashing/lethal resistance.  The devs responded by introducing resistance and defence caps, then noted that Tankers could still hit the caps "too easily" and a round of nerfs to defensive powers began. Pool powers, which were initially intended to provide some protection for Blasters, Defenders and Controllers, were nerfed hardest, leading to a counter-intuitive situation where they were little use to those AT's and of most use to Tankers, who could still use them to hit or get close to their S/L caps.

 

Even powers like Stealth used to give fairly significant chunks of defence. I'm going by dim and distant memory, but a figure of 7.5% springs to mind (half that if you broke stealth by attacking). Given that ED wasn't around at that time, you could triple that value if you 6-slotted for defence. In the post-ED, post-IO world, the figures such powers offer are derisory by comparison.

 

Issue 3 was also the point where Stamina stopped being a nice-to-have. All those toggles could tire a body fast.

 

It's a pity, because I actually rather liked that earlier design - or I would have done, if it had worked. Tankers and Scrappers required a bit more thought to play in a know-your-enemy kind of a way, but because you only ran one toggle at a time, you theoretically had a lot more build freedom. Meanwhile, the squishier AT's had ways to get reasonable, but not ridiculous defences if they needed them, by dipping into the Fighting ot Stealth pools.

 

It didn't work though. IMO they should just have made the Tank and Scrapper mez protection toggles into autos instead, but they wanted to keep the possibility of a Tank being de-toggled by enough mez. Like I said though, I never saw it happen.

 

------------------------------------------------

 

That's all ancient history. The game now has other mechanisms for dealing with Mez.

• Break-Frees show that the engine allows for click powers that can activate when mezzed. Blaster T1 & T2 attacks also.
• Mez resistance is now a thing. This shortens the duration of mez, but doesn't change your mez threshold.
• Toggles which don't drop when you're mezzed are now possible.

Metabolic Acceleration from the Atomic Manipulation set is a great example, being a mez resistance toggle that doesn't drop when you're actually stunned, slept or held. It would be pretty useless if it did, when you think about it.

 

------------------------------------------------

 

If I was getting radical and wanted to make the mez situation less of an on-off switch than it currently is, I might do something like the following.

1. Make mez resistance much more common across all AT's. Put it into autos, or into toggles and clicks that ignore mez.
2. Make those same powers enhanceable for mez resistance.
3. Give every character an inherent Break-Free power of short duration. Slottable for recharge, but by no means perma-able.
4. Lower, but do not remove the mez protection level of those powers that currently offer it.
5. If mechanically possible, set a separate, higher and AT-dependent threshold for dropping toggles.

That creates a game where every character has some form of defence against mez, but also one where mez doesn't necessarily leave you completely helpless. Enough mez will de-toggle you, but that first hold or stun won't necessarily mean game-over. Enhanceable mez resistance means that it's harder to mobs to overlap holds, giving you at least some freedom of action, and the inherent Break-Free gives you an escape option.

 

If you play a Tanker, Brute, Stalker or Scrapper you might actually end up briefly mezzed from time to time, but fully dropping your toggles would be as hard as it is right now (e.g. very hard indeed).

[Grindingsucks]

I'd get rid of enhancements and the Incarnate system, so that team tactics and AT roles actually mean something.  Either that, or add end-game content so challenging that AT roles and good team tactics would be needed to beat that content, even if you have all of the best enhancements and incarnate powers.

[Player2]

Make some of the prestige powers slottable like inherent powers (Brawl, Sprint, the former Fitness pool).  No extra slots given out, but if someone wants to make their Ghost Slaying Axe more useful, why not?  If someone wants to rely on Beast Run as their travel power because it suits their character theme, why penalize them by not letting them be able to put Endurance reductions in it?  The buff pets? How about letting us slot them to boost performance and/or give a defense buff to the pet itself so it can survive a little better?

[Grindingsucks]

Regarding the prestige powers, some of them shouldn't even be powers at all.  Rocket Board, Flying Carpet, and Void Skiff should simply be animation choices in the drop down menu for the flight power.  Adding insult to injury, is the fact that they shut all of your other powers off when you activate them.  This is not a reasonable balance for something that is nothing more than a free (and somewhat inferior) fly power.