AzureSkyCiel

If I were the lead Dev and had all the knowledge and tech of today to make City of...

Let's see, a lot of what I'd do for blueside would have been to change things up, have arcs from the first level to the last, and revamp the zones to make more sense in layout terms. (Actually, that last part applies for the Isles as well)

In general I would have both sides have at least ten standard City Zones, two for each 10 level range increment, put in a starting contact for each origin in the two starter zones for each side, and they'd give you (or you could call them for) various arcs that have you fight enemies and/or involved in plots that could be considered thematically fitting to your origin. (This might cause lots and lots of rage about origins and their definitions...) And otherwise set up a contact flow that would mirror the moralities,

A lot of work would then go into changing things up redside, I might keep the Destined Ones framing, but have it played a bit more subtly. Like the Zig isn't exactly attacked by Arachnos, you just find yourself in the middle of a Zig riot (which you may or may not have started or helped start), a hundred different villain groups are out and about, smashing the place up, and you meet an Arachnos agent who offers you a ride out of the City... And you get dumped off in the Rogue Isles.
For the next Twenty levels, you hear about Arachnos a bit more, specifically what they were doing at the Zig breakout and why they seem to be rounding up all the villains into the Rogue Isles, and heck, the first few times you meet them, Arachnos faction would be allies, seemingly amicable and affably evil... Then 'rogue' Arachnos agents start coming after you, you keep working you way up, and either the Destined One story will simply fade away with Lord Recluse losing interest in you as you go about your own villainous activities, or you see the story through to its glorious end where you can either choose to tell Lord Recluse to not mess with you, or not say anything. After all, at the end of the Time Again arcs, you've beaten Lord Recluse at the height of his power, you have foreknowledge of his eventual betrayal, and that at least a good chuck of Arachnos would side with you, ultimately, maybe not now, but down the road, you could use all this and your foresight to crush Lord Recluse under your foot and then lay claim to a world that you rightfully conquered and ended up playing Arachnos like chumps.

I'd also probably expand on the critter factions and maybe drop a few new ones in. Like have a Thule Society become a villainous version of the Midnighters. (If you read the history right, they'd even have a reason to send you after the Fifth Column too!)

Also, more zones set across different parts of the world.

Something's that's bugged me for a long while has been, of all things, box cover art.

On the City of Heroes box, you've got Statesman, Sister Psyche, along with a dozen or so other heroes charging.
And you know what? If you think these guys look cool, you can make them! or at least something reasonably close to them.

On the City of Villains box, you have Lord Recluse producing his minions from his armpits.
And you know what? If you think these guys are cool, too bad.
Can I duplicate Ghost Widow's costume? No. Can I get something close? Nah-ah.
What about Captain Mako? Sorry. Something close? Out of the question.
Scirocco? Nada on both accounts.
Black Scorpion? Nope.jpeg
What the hell? And it's six issues before I'm able to even make myself look like any of the mooks behind the four Generals. Oh, and Lord Recluse is right out.
Hell, even with GR's cover we have ONE character we can make something close to (Dedemona, though there's only three if I recall).

I thought I would like to say that, while not entirely what I was expecting, Issue: 19's alternate blast animations were a big step in a right direction.

Also, because of that, I am performing thread necromancy. (though perhaps the reason this thread died out was because Castle had this taken care of?)

I am honestly amazed there is really any debate on this.
This game's main feature is customization, and being locked from using something that affords greater customization on creation seems to be a relic of older days when Jack Emmert believed in doing everything possible to keep a player from achieving what they want without grinding for long periods of time to get it.

I would also like to suggest some map tile set ideas, namely more maps that transition into other map types.
This is most notably for the sake of missions where it's mentioned that "X business is a front for Y villain group". so in these cases, perhaps making an office building (or a warehouse) with an elevator that leads into, or transitions into through a door (that could need a key to unlock, maybe even the door being sort of its own glowie), into a tech lab or Council/fifth Column base.
This can also be useful instances of business that also make use of laboratories (offices into tech labs and praet tech labs), or make use of a basement storage facility (office into warehouse), and various combinations of these 'chained' map sets can be used to create many different facilities and break a lot of monotony in instanced maps.
We've already seen this with "office into caves and/or sewers", and a few other map sets already in the game (especially being nicely used in the I:19 blueside arc), and I think more widely implementing it could lead to quite a bit more enjoyment of instanced maps.

A rough idea I had for such a thing...

1. Laser Burst- Single target, 3 ticks of Moderate energy damage, Recharge: fast, Foe: -regen*

2. Laser Blast- Single target, Moderate Energy Damage, Recharge: Moderate, Foe: -regen, 80% chance for Knock down

3. Full Auto Laser - Cone (5 targets max), 17 ticks of High Energy Damage, Recharge: Long, Foe: -regen, Knock down

4. Aim

5. Laser Sweep- Cone (10 targets max), moderate Energy damage, Recharge: moderate, Foe: -regen

6. Cutting Laser - Single Target, Superior Energy Damage, Recharge: long, Foe: -res, -def

7. Laser Beam - Narrow Cone (3 targets max), high energy damage, Recharge: Moderate, Foe: -res

8. Stunning laser - Single Target, Minor energy/smashing damage, recharge: moderate, foe: stun, -regen

9. Orbital Laser - Targeted AoE (16 targets max), superior energy damage, Recharge: very long, Foe: -regen

*I had been thinking of something like this too but the big question was "what would it's secondary effect be to set it apart from energy blast, radiation blast, Electrical blast, and sonic blast?" in my grand imagination, I figured just using -regen we see in plasma blasts.

Well, the problem with this is just that Defense, for example, doesn't translate well between vs. PC attacks and powers, especially so with how common defense debuffs are, earlier I had been playing around in open beta, and found my katana scrapper had managed to stack a 50% defense debuff on a target!

Though I do agree that AVs need to be somewhat looked at to be more than bags of hit points, and speaking as someone who deals lots of lethal damage, more than just walls of resistance. (God help you if the two are put together *cough*reichman!*cough*)
What would be interesting is if AVs began taking after ATs their supposed to fall under and maybe use just such inherents (might not work with NPC AVs that are supposed to be tanks and defenders...), but things like Black Scorpion starting fights doing piddly damage, but as the fight drags on, his own Fury bar would go up, or maybe instead of Ghost widow having a cheap mag 100 hold, she could actually use Domination, or Synapse having defiance.

I'd dress all my ninja up like a Touko Sentai Squad.
I'd also give my robots actual hands. I don't care if they're meant to be engines of destruction, dammit, I would want to make sure my robots can help me in my bank heists more than using their arms as crude forklifts!

What's really interesting is: What happened to Arachnos in Praetoria? Arachnos had already been around before Marcus and Stefan took their fated journey, and also, what happened to it's other notable players besides Ghost Widow and Paolo?
Part of me is seeing Scirocco, still as Ihmad, fighting in the Resistance, opposing Cole's Tyranny.
The big question now is: is he a Warden or a Crusader?
Also, what about Gideon Ray? AKA: Captain Mako?
Or Black Scorpion? Barracuda, Ice Mistral, Silver Mantis, Westin Phipps, etc. etc.? Where are they now? (In praetoria)