FredrikSvanberg

I think they should merge TP Foe and Recall Friend, and add an attack to the Teleport pool. Or make TP Foe cause some damage and possibly a stun or immobilize as well; even if it fails to teleport it would at least hurt the target.

1: I'll save this for later in this post, for dramatic effect.

2: More proliferation. Blasters get modified versions of Martial Arts, Katana, Broadsword, Dual Blades, Mace, Super Strength and any other melee power set I have forgotten as a secondary set. Scrappers get Bow Mastery, Gun Mastery, Rifle Mastery and Poison Mastery as auxiliaries. Brutes get Regeneration. Brutes and Tankers get Radiation Melee/Aura. Dominators get Martial Assault (combination of dual pistols and martial arts) and Blade Assault (dual blades + thrown weapons).

3: AT overhaul. Tanker secondaries are now Assault sets with a mix of melee and ranged attacks. Stalker secondaries are now a mix of defense and debuff sets, primarily Dark, Kinetic, Poison. Stalkers get Hide as an inherent freeing up a power in their secondary. Stalker debuffs are suppressed and don't cause aggro until Hide drops. Kheldians get their own special epic pools with mez protection toggles and stuff.

4: I hire Eva Destruction to do his/her stuff.

5: I also hire Arcanaville for the same reason. Non-binary mez? Sounds like something I've been thinking about and wondering why they haven't put in the game yet. Like having AVs who have a few really powerful attacks and some not so powerful attacks, but the powerful attacks can't be used when the AV is mezzed. Stuff like that. Anyway, moving on...

1: Finally I would finish off all the old stories and unresolved plots in CoX, and then reveal CoX2. It is a new game set "on top" of the old one, using crisis zone tech to keep them apart. The new game has a rebuilt Boomtown with all new stories and problems, but the old Boomtown is still there, just a flashback away. Bright Astoria looks good now that the undead armies have finally been defeated, but the old Dark Astoria is still available, and something sinister is surely brewing under the surface of the new area. You don't build a house on an ancient cursed burial site unpunished. The details of the new game isn't really important, it would just be a way to modernize things and make it shiny, but most importantly the old game would still be there, available through flashback sequences. You wouldn't lose your existing characters and new characters could still go back to do the old zones and contacts and task forces whenever they wanted. It could move the stories of some zones forward without losing their histories.

Purification (352381)
by @Flame Kitten

Act One: pointless timer. Cool but overused big map. Objective overload with 8 objectives, only one of which is an escort that need to be led to the exit, mercifully. So far so good, regular DE fare - something dangerous has been released, threatening to kill mankind.

Act Two: They didn't put everyone from mission 1 in quarantine despite me overhearing the DE bragging about the new strain's virulence, the desperation of the Crey scientist, etc. Not off to a good start. Either I never told them (which leaves me with the idiot ball), or they didn't listen to me or believe what they heard, which doesn't make me look like someone they trust and respect. Good job. Oh, and the acceptance text for the mission and its response makes me look like some kind of moron. "You need me to follow the only lead we have?" "YES!". Again, a bit of objective overload with 7 objectives. Thankfully it was a small map but chained objectives forced me to run back and forth a bit. Now the story has taken on regular Crey fare.

Act Three: Unnecessary complexity to this mission if you ask me. Yes, it's neat to trigger patrols all over an otherwise mostly empty map. We've all done it. This time all it did was make me run all over the map many more times than necessary thanks to chained objectives. Could have been done much easier by having the contact tell us about an attack on a laboratory and send us in to save the day, straight up.

Act Four: has me running to quell a prison riot and also distributing/field-testing a possible cure for the virus my contact and her idiot friends released. 3 identical sick prisoners to treat, with identical dialogue. The "charismatic" leader of the riot, a prisoner called Jimmy, is about as charismatic as a wet rag. Not easy to convey with just three or four lines I guess but why even try?

Act Five: Big surprise, the "cure" was actually a lethal poison to the one percent of the population who was immune to the virus to begin with. And once again my character's acceptance text makes him seem like a moron: "I'm not totally sure I follow, Jenny. Spell it out for me, and I'll make the call." - if I can understand what the contact is saying I'm pretty sure my character can as well. Okay so I rescue Speedbolt and deliver her to Crey so she can't warn her supergroup and prevent them from delivering the cure to the rest of the world. Again my character is treated like an idiot - I could probably have come up with some other way of preventing her from warning them without having to hand her over to Crey of all people. Also, now that I have done what the arc was about: committing evil for the greater good, why do I have to do all the rest of the objectives on the map? The deed is done, let me get out of here!

Finally I'm done and the contact treats me like this was all my idea and my fault. Yeah, don't ever talk to me again, Jenny Firkin. The feeling is mutual.

I'm not saying this arc didn't deserve a DC. It's certainly better than 99% of the stuff out there, and also better than about 90% of the other DC arcs. It's difficult to present choices without the nifty new GR dialogue technology and I think this arc did a good job of it: save the other super and bring her to Crey to prevent her from stopping her friends spreading the cure (and killing off the one percent); or save the hostage and let her get defeated and mediported out so she can warn her friends not to spread the cure.

I believe the reason this arc got a DC was that it was a runner up in one of the contests Dr. Aeon held. This one was the morality contest where a hero is forced to do evil for the greater good. My personal morality doesn't allow me to sacrifice billions of lives to a virus I unwittingly helped release, in order to let the millions who were immune to the virus die as well from the collapse of society/rampant DE monsters, so I don't see where I was doing evil here, but maybe I'm strange. Maybe it was when I delivered another hero into the hands of Crey. My hands were tied and I couldn't click on her to try to convince her not to warn her friends after I beat her up, but that's what I would have done if I had the choice. Instead I will have to save her from Crey after the mission is over. I've done it before, I can do it again.

When are you going again?

I'll add a vote for Empowered as well.

Cue golden girl drivel in 5, 4, 3...

Seriously though I think you are right, they are abandoned. All our characters are supposed to realize that Cole is a mad-man by level 20 and willingly escape Praetoria for some reason. There's probably not much to be done about this due to the usual linear MMO storytelling methods.

Fortunately you can always write your own pro-Loyalist content in the Mission Architect!

The Authority

Planetary

I have actually started writing a new arc. It's going to be a challenging arc for teams of Incarnates. I hope I can get it done before any canon content invalidates my take on the same story. Naturally I don't expect anyone to ever play this arc.

If it only knocked back weaker foes I wouldn't be complaining, would I?

I can think of a couple. Lightning Rod doesn't mention that it can't be used while flying - or at least it didn't use to, I don't know if they fixed that. The hand-clap stun power from Electric Melee claims to be a "knock-down" but enemies are actually knocked back. And that's just off the top of my head.