Zem

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This is a paid expainsion, the Devs have never brought out anything that you have to pay to get that you cant access from level 1, or at least level 5. Ao it stands to reason this will essentially be a new starting contact, endgame contact and anything in between for thoses that buy it.

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Not if buying CoH:GR gives you access to the whole game. You'd start as normal in Paragon or Rogue Isles and then, like everybody else, be able to visit the expansion areas.

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Seeing as you CAN always swap back I would imagine any of these things 'Lost' in the swap would be active when you return. Meaning you would only have acess to Villain stuff as a Villain and Hero stuff as a Hero, but nothing will be lost.

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Making it easy to flip flop back and forth at whim? Yeah, I can see the devs wanting that.

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Not. My bet is you lose that stuff for good. They may not be willing to make side-switching a one-way trip, but I bet they will want to discourage it somehow. Not that anyone would really "lose" anything that is tradeable. They'd just give it to their alts that are staying put on that side.

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With the swap over I would sumise that you would start as level 1, like you just swapped to your second build, and have to retrain to your present level. Which would give you access to 2 builds Hero side and 2 Builds Villain side. As there there is no easy way to merge the economys I caution a guess that this would be the way to go.

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I suppose they could do that, but again it makes it really easy to return to your original side and just have all your enhancements back as before.

Replacing an entire build's worth of enhancements without being able to carry over any inf would certainly qualify as a way to discourage rampant side-switching, but it might be a little TOO harsh. If you're not already loaded with inf on both sides of the game, how do you start over at a high level with no money and no enhancements? Day trading at Wentworths?

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So I would guess this would be a Co-Op'ish area, they might add a PvP Zone to seperate the 2 sides of the fence. But I would Doubt they would make it mandatory for a side swap. They would probably have a Neutral Zone where there is an uneasy truce and where the actual transition from one side to the other would occur.

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There are already PvP zones that connect both sides, but it stands to reason the actual switch might occur in Pratoria. No expansion? No side-switching. Pay up!

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I'd say Dual Pistols and Demon Summoning would be avialable for everyone though, no reason to limit it to the people who buy the expansion

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Debatable. Any feature of Going Rogue is an incentive to buy Going Rogue. I think you may be right, but I could see it going either way.

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Id guess they will proliferate Thermal Secondary to MMs for Demon Summoning, a more team focused version of Devices for Fenders maybe and probably proliferate a few more just to make things more enticing to try all sorts of ATs while Side Swapping.

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I expect Pistols will go to all ranged ATs. After Blades and Shields, the ranged folks are due. So Blasters, Corruptors, and Defenders get Dual Pistols. MMs get Demon Summoning. Proliferations are anyone's guess.

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I would just assume a villain going rogue would just not have any Patron Powers. A drawback to switching sides.

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Well I guess that would prove once and for all the devs really DO hate villains.

In all seriousness though, heh, no way would they do this. I don't care what kind of RP sense it makes for villains to lose their Patrons while Heroes keep their APPs when switching side... ain't gonna happen. Not without villains getting something in exchange, like access to hero APPs when they are redeemed.

I certainly hope they DO go to the trouble of giving redeemed villains access to the existing hero APPs and vice-versa fallen Heroes, simply because it's more interesting that way. Potential balance issues? Sure, but probably not that many. Case-by-case tweaks could be made.

In fact, I'd go as far as to have existing Patron/APPs on side-switchers done away with by forced respec upon crossing over. You wanna go Rogue? You pick a Patron, just like any other Villain.

The cheap and dirty solution of course would just be to auto-unlock all the patron pools when you hit 40 blueside. In other words, just pretend they are APPs. Not a solution that respects "concept" but then again neither is allowing people to switch back and forth multiple times, yet apparently that's going to be allowed nonetheless.

No, the first 10 levels or so are easier than ever thanks to "Beginner's Luck". Now you can mostly ignore Acc enhancement in the early levels and either slot damage or endurance. Even with TOs, 3-4 in a power will make a noticeable difference. I prefer damage first. The faster they are dead, the less time/insps I spend putting myself back together after a fight. Even before Stamina, endurance still comes back faster than health.

But by 10, I can already feel things slowing down. Mob hitpoints are scaling up. Beginner's Luck is fading, and enhancements aren't doing much more than they were at 1. DOs help, of course, but it still becomes a chore until Stamina and SOs. I generally find levels 10-22 the least fun of anything in the game.

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3 buffs (2 single target, 1 AoE), 4 heals (counting Soothing Aura), 1 rez, and 1 debuff.

Sounds to me like the focus is that it's the "healer" set - even moreso than Empathy, which is actually more about the buffs.

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Technicality. Soothing Aura is really just the counterpart of Regen Aura, though it does so with a regen buff + small heal toggle rather than Empathy's much stronger regen click buff.

Well, funny enough, the point NOW would be... why bother? They've already gone to the trouble of creating Pain Dom. At this point, why NOT keep Empathy as a blueside AT exclusive and vice-versa Empathy?

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Brutes are probably the best AT in the game, they can tank, they can kill, what cant they do?

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Wait.

I was gonna say, you can't swing a dead catgirl on Virtue without hitting a half-dozen anti-heroes, redside "undercover" heroes, blueside spies, etc. etc. People have been playing at this for quite some time, they just haven't been able to select any AT while doing it.

Or maybe that's just Virtue.

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Redside:
-fewer annoying cross-zone FedExes
-no lvl 2 mishes in insanely dangerous areas
-No "Go talk to frigging Lt. Wincott" (instead redside gets the annoying 'go talk to this PvP 'contact' who just says 'behind me is the door to a PvP area'.' ALMOST as boneheaded and annoying, but not quite.)
-cooler Epic Ats
-getting to be, you know...evil?

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Those are all good points, but I was talking about the population as a whole. Currently, people prefer blueside to redside almost two to one (whenever I've checked the pops on Virtue anyway). It'll be interesting to see if that stays more or less status-quo after crossing is possible or not. Basically, if the only thing keeping you on your side is preference for the ATs... that goes out the window with this expansion. Are there more such people blueside than red?

We'll see.

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welp, there goes any reasons to play dominators, corrupters, or brutes.

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Actually I'd expect plenty of Tankers to go Brute and Defenders to go Corruptor if given the chance.

But.. we don't have all the details yet. I see "crossing over", not "starting out" with villains on blueside. It's unknown yet whether you can cross back. What happens when you cross? Do you revert to level 1? Stay at your current level? What level minimum for crossing over? 35?

A larger issue is probably what this is going to do overall to the villainside population past whatever level is required for crossing sides. There is simply more content blueside. Granted, this is less of an issue with AE, but as one can access AE from both sides why not be on the side with more dev content and have more of everything?

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I don't think it's a double-standard, at least not insofar as the developer's reasoning. Most of the time, the "not heroic" or "not villainous" is bandied about by the players themselves in an attempt to defend/counter their reasoning behind the desire to see/not see certain sets proliferated.

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I can't seem to search up the posts discussing why villains weren't getting Empathy directly, so anyone else feel free to prove me wrong but my *recollection* of those discussions is that the devs came right out and said they were not porting Empathy to Villains because they didn't consider it villainous. Hence the need to make a "Villainous version of Empathy", as Positron called it.

It wasn't about uniqueness, though that is also a worthy goal. Same reason given for Poison not going to heroes. Not heroic. Hence... a double-standard. This standard is not applied to existing sets like Dark Miasma and in the case of Empathy, as I've pointed out, isn't even accurate.

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I said Empathy, as a name, doesn't sound villainous.

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Actually, the meaning of the word is neutral if you bother to look it up. You're confusing it with 'sympathy'. But even that aside, "doesn't sound villainous" is still a double-standard. 'Dark Miasma' hardly evokes anything good. Miasma is a word used to describe vaporous pollution or disease. And there are many examples of power names such as Eviscerate or Disembowel that sound more like means of torture than tools for fighting crime.

Again, don't get me wrong. *I* don't have a problem with these names, just as I do not have a problem with the name "Empathy" or "Poison". I say leave it up to the player to justify or roleplay the actual powers as some different thing entirely (if they even care about such things as concept).

I am just pointing out that "doesn't sound villainous" is most definitely a double-standard to use when it has not been applied to powers that heroes have access to. Heck, even Pain Dom itself has "Soothing Aura". Isn't that pleasant?

What's in a name?

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My bet is, when it came to the decision of "do we port Empathy over to villains or not?" they decided that they would probably have to rename the powerset and come up with new names for some of the powers. Empathy, as a name, doesn't sound villainous at all.

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That's no bet. This is their stated reason.

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Regarding your claim that heroes have "decidedly unheroic sets", I think you're mistaken. A power is not inherently good or evil -- it's what you do with the power that decides your alignment.

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Oh I quite agree, but how then do you reconcile this statement with "empathy doesn't sound villainous"? If you can imagine your axe wielder isn't actually splitting the skulls he shouldn't split (like say, a purse-snatcher in Steel Canyon) then I can well imagine a villain who empathizes with other villains.

It's really a paper-thin argument as to why villains didn't get Empathy. Again, if they want to go to all the trouble to create a new powerset, fine. I don't think it's necessary and don't want it to hold up future proliferations. That's my point.

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Empathy is to Pain Dom as Katana is to Ninja Blade

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Hardly. 7/9 powers are identical in name, description, and effects (except for AT inherent differences) between the two and the 2 powers that are different are an absolute requirement for Stalker primaries, Assassin Strike and Placate.

There is no such requirement for Pain Dom vs. Empathy and yet the two sets are even more different than Ninja Blade and Katana. Significantly different, I'd say. That's not a bad thing, just pointing it out. I don't mind that the sets are different at all, I just don't swallow the b.s. that they HAD to be different for concept reasons.

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Villains will not be getting empathy, so don't hold your breath...

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I'm not, but I have some small hope the devs might dump this ridiculous double standard when considering future proliferations. Genie's out of the bottle already. Heroes have powersets that are decidedly un-heroic, so where is the harm? By not proliferating sets that you now see as un-heroic or not villainous, you're not changing anything or preserving anything about the character of each side.

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Meant no offense by it. My reasoning was when they proliferated electric armor over they took out lightning field as an offensive power on the secondary. I could be wrong. This is all just speculation and guesses anyways.

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Ahh... I see where you're coming from now. No, Lightning Field was removed because it's a damage/taunt aura toggle. Stalkers don't get those because running them would drop you out of Hide as soon as you run past someone who is hit by it. And also because Stalkers don't get taunts in their primary/secondary powersets.

Dark Armor is a bit of an exception because it had 3 toggle auras that would interfere with Hide. The taunt/damage aura was removed, as usual, but the fear and stun auras were left in and are a micro-management problem for Stalkers that take them.

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They'd probably take out Against All Odds. Would be silly for Stalkers to have a taunt aura.

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It's probably as academic as this whole argument has been. I suppose I just enjoy tilting at windmills sometimes. Given that the devs went to the entire trouble of inventing Pain Dom in order to avoid giving Villains Empathy, I suppose I'd have to agree they'll probably never proliferate SD to Stalkers anyway. Not because I agree with their reason, but because I believe they believe it enough to stick to it.

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And anyone who thinks Shield Charge is a problem [for stalkers], I'll refer them to the Tier 9 in Electric Melee.

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My only problem with that argument is that electric melee is a primary set and shields are a secondary set. My guess is they would take out shield charge for hide, but I could be wrong. I'm not against shield stalkers, just I agree that the set would need a decent amount of tweeking to be proliferated.

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Why would Shield Charge be removed? Brutes have both LR and Shield Charge available to them if they so choose. A Stalker using either or both powers gains nothing that a brute doesn't already have. Neither power causes a critical hit for Stalkers and neither power can be used without notifying enemies of the Hidden Stalker's presence, so.... what's the problem really?

Also it would be a little ironic for Stalkers to lack SD's only offensive power given that among the four standard melee ATs, they are supposedly the most focused on offense at the expense of survivability.

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Why is it everyone automatically assumes everyone else doesn't know anything about this game? Oh, by the way, you forgot to mention how Brutes have a threat rating of 3 against a Stalkers 2.

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I don't think people are assuming you don't know "anything". They know you're wrong about the aggro and are trying to explain why you saw what you saw. I don't have an Elec myself, but I know how the aggro works with my Ninjitsu's Caltrops. I don't get aggro for dropping them, but anything hit by them will know about me and attack, whether I am still Hidden or not.

But if you really want to see it for yourself, ask in the Stalker forum and I am sure someone will be able to demonstrate it for you in game. There's a Lightning Rod thread going on now that mentions the aggro you take from it. You could ask there.

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And anyone who thinks Shield Charge is a problem, I'll refer them to the Tier 9 in Electric Melee.

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Which does make it a problem. Two powerful AoE TeleNukes that don't notify? Uh...

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Uh... they do notify. A Stalker using LR today won't drop out of Hide, but every mob he hits will aggro on him immediately. If he's quick, he can still get his Hide crit following the LR, but he's due one Hide crit anyway at the start of a fight so really, it's not about extra damage or getting away with something an Elec/SD Brute can't already do.

Next?

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[shameless plug]My theory as to the REAL reason Shield didn't get ported to Stalkers? It's bad enough on Brutes and Scraps, the set would have required a major reworking to be even tolerable on Stalkers. That and AAOs wouldn't play nice with Hide.[/shameless plug]

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Neither does RttC. Porting armors to Stalkers has always involved a little rework. They don't get damage and taunt auras as a general rule, although Dark Armor for Stalkers did retain its fear and stun auras which DO in fact interfere with a Stalker's stealth. So it's been done. Precendent has been set. AOO is not the problem.

The only other potential sticking point is Grant Cover. They could dump Grant Cover for Hide (it has to take the place of something) and modify AOO to remove the taunt and defense debuff auras, perhaps strengthening the damage bonus to compensate or adding a slight self def buff.

And anyone who thinks Shield Charge is a problem, I'll refer them to the Tier 9 in Electric Melee.

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Like most words, arrest has several meanings. One just happens to mean to bring to a stop. Both, death and incarceration achieve that. It's up to your character to determine how they "arrest".

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Oh you did NOT just play the dictionary card!

"Arrest" has a specific definition in this context and it is not "to kill". This is the devs' concept of Paragon City we are discussing, remember. It's not the players that are preventing these powerset proliferations. It's the devs. Players do whatever the hell they want, but officially according to canon, the heroes of Paragon City are bound by laws not so different from those of modern day America not to mention comic book ideals of what is and is not heroic. Hosing down a purse-snatcher with a Flamethrower... is not.

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We've already addressed killing so the battle axe argument is moot.

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Bzzzzt!

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Why do stalkers get Electricity but, not shields? I don't know. I would not have proliferated Elec if that was my decision to make. It makes about as much sense as ducking behind a shield or knowing someone else can't see you (willpower).

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Point being that Stalker secondaries do not necessarily HAVE to explain how the Stalker is able to hide. Your Super Reflexes Stalker is free to decide that he's just hiding in the shadows (natural), moving so fast he can't be seen (mutation/science/magic), or just plain switching on his cloaking device (tech). Hide is in the secondary because it had to be put somewhere. If the devs had made it an inherent like Domination, we wouldn't be having this hang-up right now. Really only Ninjitsu, Dark, and Energy have anything resembling built-in explanations, so like I said, the "peek-a-boo" shield idea makes for a funny post, but it's really not a valid argument in the way of preventing Stalkers from having shields.

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I have no problem with gadgetry making you silent or invisible but, a shield is not the best representation of such a devise.

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I can come up with several plausible ways a tech or magic-based shield could conceal you but like I said, it's not necessary. It's not a requirement for current Stalker secondaries and thus not a requirement for any future Stalker secondaries.

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It's all about where you want to draw the line. Of course we all pick a different place.

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It seems more like a "when" than a "where" to me. You realize that the word "deadly" does not appear anywhere in the power descriptions for the MM's Poison powerset, yet it appears several times in the descriptions of Radiation Emission powers? And before anyone tries to say descriptions don't mean anything, remember... we're talking about concept here, not mechanics.

If anything, the Poison powerset looks carefully designed to be harmful, but not lethal, whereas the Radiation Emission powerset reads like "you might easily die from exposure to this". And just look at Fallout! After an ally falls you can "extract the energy from their body"?! Corpse explosion? You have to be a necromancer in some games for that. Here it apparently won't stop you from getting your face on a cereal box.

But thank goodness Villains can't empathize with one another, cause that would just be WRONG.

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Why is "concept" brought up only for certain cases of proliferation and given a complete bypass for others?

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Because devs like concept and have made changes based on it. This is why villains don't have Empathy and heroes don't have Poison.

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You're missing my point. Why is it only brought up SOMETIMES to deny a proliferation when there are so many examples of existing powers that would seem to break those same rules? Why deny Poison to heroes when they already have powers that "generate toxic radioactive gas around yourself". Why is Poison any worse than "deadly radiation"? Or burning people alive? Or cutting them up with a Broadsword?

Even if they suddenly started caring about concept only recently, unless they plan to go back and remove all the non-concept powers from each side that has them... what's the point of caring about it now? This is closing the barn door after the horses have left.

Also, as funny as the MGS references to "It's just a box!" are... in all seriousness Shield Defense wouldn't have anything more to do with HOW the stalker hides than Regen or Willpower or Electric Armor currently do (which is to say, nothing at all).

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I dunno. Shields just don't match sneaky ninja types.

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Nor is it possible to "arrest" someone by hosing them down with a flamethrower, but that doesn't seem to prevent the devs from giving all manner of terrible weapons and powers to heroes who are generally expected to defeat, not kill, the bad guys.

Why is "concept" brought up only for certain cases of proliferation and given a complete bypass for others? Villains can't heal each other with Empathy but heroes can go to town on a purse snatcher with a massive BATTLE AXE of all things? Stalkers can't hide or move silently while carrying a shield, but they can do so while surrounded by a brilliant crackling field of electricity?

The clear case of double standards aside, I see no reason why a Stalker carrying a shield made of negative energy, or advanced stealth materials/gadgetry can't be silent or invisible. Not to mention the fact that a Stalker spends less time attacking from stealth than just scrapping it out.

Good ones anyway.