Balanced

We all knew it would come to an end some day; nothing is forever. But to be blindsided like this, when the game has been experiencing an extraordinary renaissance, is a terrible shock. It seems a little strange to me that I'm as upset as I am. It's a game, right? But it's been a part of my life for so long...all these years, the arguments, the passionate advocacy--everything from the old "empaths can solo" crusade to the myriad Incarnate discussions. And the devs listened to us, and acted on our feedback. I think, maybe, I made the original suggestion that became Pocket D. (Yes, Virtue folks, go ahead and blame me for the Catgirl Menace. I'll take the hit.) Whether they were already planning it or not, seeing what I envisioned manifested in the game makes me feel like I have a stake in it. There's an awful lot of emotion tied up in there.

City has been so innovative all along, solving problems years before the rest of the MMO companies even started trying--sidekicking, and super-sidekicking, and the Architect (which, for all its faults and the trouble it's caused, is a stunning achievement). To see it thrown aside now in favor of...what? WOW Clone 25: Prettier Pictures? The idea disgusts me.

If I could work my will--short of reversing this decision--I would see the people of Paragon stick together to form an independent studio. They have the talent, they have experience, they are already a team, and they certainly have a lot of good will. I want to see them go on to make a great new game together. And in some quiet corner of that game, there would be a thinly disguised NCSoft office. Directly across from it would be a statue of a superhero in the sniper pose, taking aim.

Regardless of that dream, thank you, devs, for the dreams you've already brought to life.

I do play a defender (several actually). My main and namesake is an Emp/Dark, who recently took great satisfaction in defeating the army of Romulus Augustus, purging Moth cemetery of Banished Pantheon, rescuing the Vindicators, and crushing Mot beneath his heel. All by himself.

Just think what he can do with some pets...er, I mean, "teammates".

Mercedes Lackey has played CoH for years, and has been doing The Secret World Chronicle alongside that.

I devised Britannic Earth as part of the background for one of my characters.

A strain of preternatural perception arose in the British royal lineage, and several monarchs made key enlightened decisions regarding colonial practices. These practices defused rebellious sentiment in the colonies, which eventually became semi-autonomous member states of Great Britain. As a result, the sun truly never set on the British Empire, and eventually every nation on Earth became willing members. The Pax Brittanica persisted for centuries...until a previously insignificant gang of demon-worshipping street punks botched a ritual so badly that they literally unleashed Hell on Earth.

It was an honor to be in at the "kill", so to speak. (Also, I was happy enough just to get the Master badge on that run. )

Something I've advocated in the past is giving the boss an equivalent to an inspiration tray--a set of powers that work just like inspirations, on an extremely long recharge, that are triggered by events in the fight. Low health is an obvious trigger for popping a green, for example, but the boss might trigger a red or purple on aggro, a Break Free when immobilized, or even an Awaken when killed. You can tweak the contents of the "tray" for different bosses if you like, but a standard load-out should be sufficient for most cases. Then, if you want to adjust the challenge, you adjust the scripted triggers for the pseudo-inspirations. Ideally, you could make the triggers dependent on team size, so a solo player wouldn't see any triggers, a small team might face a boss who starts with a couple of buffs, and a large team gets a boss who empties the tray. Even if that's not an option, you could at least use it to tweak the challenge in response to beta feedback.

If that takes too much work on powers (or the scripting tool), there's an alternate approach: caches. The boss has caches of resources in the map--essentially inspiration bins. The caches are stationary critters that look like objects, and each has one or more very short-range buff/heal powers, again on a very long recharge. They will activate those powers on any friendly target within range whenever they're charged. Then you give the boss a run-away script with a path that leads to the cache spawn points. When he gets within melee range of a cache, it triggers a heal or buff on him, then becomes inactive for the rest of the fight (due to the long recharge). The number of caches that spawn would rely on the regular spawning rules, so the boss would get more of them when facing a larger team.

There could be other types of object-critters, too--fortifications to hole up behind that have an aura that buffs the boss's defense, for example, or even things that are already in-game, like CoT healing crystals, Vahz barrels, or DE emanators. (How about a DE boss that flees into a room full of cairns and trees when it gets low on health?)

Just in case this needs to be reinforced: the giant sack of hit points/massive regen approach needs to be not merely off the table, but sealed in lead and stuffed under a mountain somewhere. We've been there, it stinks.

The whole setup annoyed me. My main is a Magic origin empath that has been pushed to be about as powerful as he can currently be made. So, who's in that room when the flunky shows up to interfere?

1) A bloody archmage with angelic blood who specializes in healing.
2) One of the world's most powerful psychics.
3) A rich guy with a bow.

Why would the psychic and the healing mage run out to deal with the flunky, while leaving the guy with no magical or psychic powers to supervise a dangerous magical healing ritual on a psychic? In fact, it doesn't even matter what character I was on. I could have been playing a Natural tanker--it still wouldn't make sense for Penny to leave.

I was okay with not being able to rez Statesman, despite being right there and swatting Wade aside like the bug he is. They explained why in-game, and it was acceptable enough, especially given that neither I nor my character have ever much liked the guy.

Psyche, though? No explanation. Just dead with an arrow through her...a wound that might not even kill a regular human that quickly, depending on exactly where it hit. By game mechanics, she should have been back on her feet the moment I got back to the chamber--assuming neither the mediport system nor Manticore managed to do something first. There are plenty of workable handwaves, some already mentioned here--her soul/psyche was distributed among everyone she was in contact with, she's mindriding someone in particular, the ritual itself sheared her soul from her body when it was disrupted, and so on.

The next arc had better give a damn good reason for it.