Futurias

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I understand the logic that something that "reduces" is debuff, and something that "eliminates" is mez; do we want to stick with that definition permanently?


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Do we want to? It sure wouldn't be my preference. But are we likely to? Yes. In which case why differentiate "control" vs "debuff" via more complex definitions when the current game implementation already encapsulates a pretty clear one.


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Its pretty clear, but not 100% clear. Just to play a minor devil's advocate for a moment, how would you classify -regen: it doesn't reduce, it stops. Special case? Lots of end drains also seem to (temporarily) stop end recovery, not slow it. Another special case?

Just to be clear: I consider both of these to be obvious debuffs. Its just that it appears that the rules for classifying a debuff do have some arbitrary twists, even in the current system.

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BTW, -regen only slows AV and Monster regeneration. It takes multiple applications to "stop" regeneration.

Regular mobs just have a very low regeneration so it has a dramtic (and mostly unneeded) ability.

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Even though I'm guilty of it myself... I'm kinda amused that we've spent so much time and effort splitting hairs over whether or not -speed and -recharge count as control or debuff.


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This started with the devs saying controllers are better at slows and me saying defenders should at least be better at -recharge since -recharge is obviously a debuff, and not a control, even though -speed can be argued to be a form of soft control. Somehow that got turned into me attempting to defend why -speed is even soft control at all, something that actually is not a critical element of my original point, which was that -recharge definitely *is* a debuff, and shouldn't be stronger for controllers than defenders.

And something that outside of this particular context, few would have even considered questioning (that -speed is a form of soft control).

Clearly, making controllers better at *all* slows is an error: I think everyone is in general agreement there. To be consistent, defender debuffs should be stronger than controller debuffs, and anything with -recharge is unquestionably a debuff. -Speed is a grey area, but I'm not sure its really a terribly important grey area: if the devs make defenders better at -recharge and controllers better at -speed, I doubt many would really complain, and if the devs made defenders better at both, controllers could simply ask for their -speed powers to be turned into immobilizes if the -speed in their powers dropped too low to be useful.

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As -speed movement does not really stop the enemy from attacking, it just hinders them, I disagree. It should be a debuff and Defenders should just be better at it.

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Last example, everyone knows a blast set does more damage for Blasters then Defenders, right? This is because Blasters have a higher AT damage modifier then the Defenders. However, on the blasts that have secondary non-damage effects, like Electricity's end drain a Defender gets more out of the secondary effect, because Defenders have the highest AT buff modifier.

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This part is *sort of* how it is supposed to work, but because Defender Damage (buff/debuffed) was too close to Blaster full damage (and could even sometimes exceed it) the Defenders got downgraded beyond standard levels.

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This may have been stated by others (and possibly better), but am I the only one that think it's screwy that controller secondaries can in some way function better than defender primaries? Isn't this unfair to the Defender AT? Is it untrue to say that, across the board , blasters primaries are stronger than defender secondaries, tanker primaries are stronger than scrapper secondaries, scrapper primaries are stronger than tanker secondaries, and controller primaries are just plain unique and incomparable. Yet somehow, a controller taking a defender secondary can use certain powers to better effect. Not only that, but their primaries allow them to use certain powers to better effect as well! (i.e. tornado, freezing rain, etc).

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This is the heart of the issue to me. If a power resides in an AT's primary it should be clearly better then the same power sitting in anothers secondary. This whole thread has been the eye opener for me. Defenders have complained about this issue since the game began and now we realize the problem is -by design-.

Not right Devs, sorry because if it is ok to do this then perhaps you should look over say the "Invulnerable" set because I'm sure an argument can be made for certain powers being more "scrapper like" and thus deserving of a buff or two.

Why is control the exclusive domain of controllers? If a controller had cobra strike would the stun be longer? what would be the argument there? perhaps that Scrappers do more damage with it and a chance to crit? (lol).

Very weak.

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It actually wouldn't be as big a deal, if our secondary did the base 100% damage (like tanks) versus 125% damage that Blasters and Scrappers had. Our set would be fairly balanced against Controllers then.

Which brings me back to Blasters and them being the causitive imbalance because their secondaries aren't really set up well.

I think Blaster secondaries being redesigned as 1/3rd buffing/debuffing, 1/3rd controllers and then 1/3rd damage (pets that attack or melee hits) would suddenly make them more viable soloists and would allow having Defenders function at 100% on ranged damage.

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This may have been stated by others (and possibly better), but am I the only one that think it's screwy that controller secondaries can in some way function better than defender primaries? Isn't this unfair to the Defender AT? Is it untrue to say that, across the board , blasters primaries are stronger than defender secondaries, tanker primaries are stronger than scrapper secondaries, scrapper primaries are stronger than tanker secondaries, and controller primaries are just plain unique and incomparable. Yet somehow, a controller taking a defender secondary can use certain powers to better effect. Not only that, but their primaries allow them to use certain powers to better effect as well! (i.e. tornado, freezing rain, etc). Do the devs just dislike defenders, what's up with that?

I get the dev's fuzzy logic on making controller-esque powers more powerful in a controller's hands, but where's the balance? Why give defenders controller-esque powers at all, then?

I thought I read way back when that defender secondary mez-type effects were more powerful than the blaster primary mez effects. Is this the trade-off? Why do I still feel like it's the short end of the stick?

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I believe the were referring to debuffs/buffs actually. I would surmise that Dominators would get the bonus to mezzing powers over Blasters in comparison.

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So let me see if I get what is being said in Castle's post correctly.
When it is said that controllers use defender primary powers at 80% of a defenders effectiveness, what is ACTUALLY meant is that the controllers have 80% of the base debuff power, possible 80%? of the base damage/healing? and 150+% of any base control aspect? But other than that the powers are identical between both ATs.

This would explain why I found the corruptor versions so bizzarly weaker then the defender versions despite the fact that 80% usage for controllers does not seem that far off from 75% usage for corruptors. The corruptors are also getting effected by their ATs lower base control effect on the defender powers.

Sooooo It looks something like this than?
(using a defender as baseline)
AT ...............Debuff........... Control............ Damage
Defender:.....100%...............70%................. 66%
Controller:.....80%..............100%..................50%(+s pecial)
Corruptor:.....75%..................?.....................77 %
Master Mind:...?....................?.....................50%

Since I think it would be hard to argue that control or damage are superior to debuffs, so defenders get out right hosed. Even compared to the reasonably built (IMO) corruptors.

Controllers are in actual fact functionally more powerful than a defender with any defender power that relies on control more than debuffs or healing to defend a team. So not only are certain defender powers just strangely better for controllers but in fact entire defender powersets are vastly superior(force fields, storm, sonic? trick arrow?, and theortically dark) despite the "80%" reduction in effectiveness. I am guessing alot of the strange numbers and discrepences that crop up on occasion with controller secondaries are because the Devs have been hand "tweaking" them to bring them "more in line" porobably meaning that the 80% difference is little more than a paper tiger.

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The numbers bandied around are "controllers debuff/buff at 80% of effectiveness" which was confusing.

Recently the developers have stated that people use powers at 1.0 (or 100% effectiveness) and certain ATs *always* have a bonus based on their maing thing they do.

{Edit: BTW 80% to 100% is just a different way of saying 100% to 125%. It's the same breakdown of effectiveness. So anything that they used to say 80% as good as the primary users is 100% or normal effectiveness.}

Tankers: Self Buffs (which include armors).
Scrappers: Melee damage.
Blasters: Damage.
Controllers: Control powers.
Defenders: Buffing/Debuffing.

So everyone of these ATs gets a 25% boost at what they are "good" at.

This theoretically works well until you run into Defenders.

Defender primaries are not fully about debuffs. A significant portion of the powers are actually controlling sorts. As discovered with Forcefields, Defender are 125% on the buffs, but controllers are at 125% all of the control powers. Effectively, this powers set is as effective for Controllers as for Defenders, just in slightly different ways.

Going with that concept, Defender secondaries should all be 100% of ranged damage and controls, with any buffing/debuffing at 125% (there are a few powers that actually debuff, so not entirely moot.)

But, as buffing/debuffing allowed Defenders to encrouch upon Blasters 125% damage, our damage was dropped. It looks like it's about 66% to blasters 125%. There is no way that Defenders could possibly buff themselves up to blaster damage.

Not all Defender sets really allow for good damage boosting, so they do really sub-par damage. FF and Trick arrows are the big ones right now, I believe. Dark Miasma was in this boat, so I can empathize.

Basically, it boils down to because Blaster Secondaries are subpar, it caused a cascade problem into Defenders.

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Any other ideas?

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Sorry to be a complete pessimist, but considering how low priority the small changes seem to be, I don't anticipate any large changes to the AT in the foreseeable future. In the short term, I'd say if you're having fun with your defender, by all means play them and enjoy them as they are. If you're dissatisfied with the inequities between defender/controller powers, PvP performance, etc... Then now might be a good time to roll up a controller.

Seriously, as I read through this, I'm actually kind of glad that my Rad/Dark defender is 50, my Kin/Rad defender is on the verge of retirement already, and my new main is a controller. As a long-time defender-a-holic it's a shame, but as CoH has changed (nerfs, PvP focus, etc...), defenders have been mostly left behind... So if I'm going to enjoy the game as it currently stands, I think I'm sticking with controllers for a while.

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I wouldn't give up *quite* yet. Once players have pointed out some glaring problems, the developers have looked into it (verifying) and then looking at possible options to fix it.

Sometimes it's just fixing a particular power, other times it's required a bit of revamping entire ATs. Now that the players understand what is going on, we can articulate better the problems we see and ideas to possibly fix it.

They might not agree with our points, but they generally are willing to communicate and try to understand our side.

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I think the most distressing thing we've learned here is that our Primary Power sets are not actually better for Defenders, even though we are the best at debuffing. That's because debuffing isn't really the mainstay of all of the power sets.

Even heavy debuffing sets have a fairly large amount of crowd controls that is equaled by anyone else using the power sets or is surpassed by Controllers.

With a (crippled) sub-par secondary damage and no defining "we really are best" at what we do, Defenders are the red-headed step-children of the CoX family.

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Which is the huge ol' problem for Defenders.

As of now, it's hard to see how any Defender debuff primary is better than a Controller secondary. A Controller's secondary mez effects are better, slows are better, and knockbak is equal. That leaves the accuracy/resistance/-accc/-resist debuffs, and the effective difference between the two is already negligible.

Defenders=Empaths. That's the CoH being presented.

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Yes, it does appear that Defenders don't get a full 125% "buffing" benefit over controllers, even there. It's closer to 114% to the base 100%. Probably a good thing that Empathy isn't a Corruptor/Master Mind set.

Now that we've defined the problem, we need to look at possible solutions.

Unfortunately, I can see only a couple of ways to do so. Revamp Defender primary sets so they always have 6 to 7 out of 9 powers having a significant buffing/debuffing ability and remove most crowd controlling ability, so that it sticks out better (highly unlikely), revamp Blaster secondaries with better buffing/debuffing and crowd controls at 100% effectivness so that Defender Secondaries can then be raised to 100% effectiveness without crowding out Blasters.

As a 3rd suggestion perhaps, set Defender "controlling" ability at only one step behind Controllers 125%. Perhaps at 115% as that seems to be our Primary power sets "secondary" purpose.

Any other ideas?

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This may have changed without our knowledge, then. It's been known information for a while that, pre-ED, Tar Patch can and did regularly stack. Will attempt to test that power, but it's not exactly easy to find enough Kineticists.

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Ah! Tar Patch is an exception. Well, no, it isn't but it's tricky. A single Tar Patch will not have the Debuff stick with itself. However, multiple Tar Patches, even from the same caster, will stack with one another. This is because each Tar Patch is actually a seperate "source" from the caster, and buffs from multiple sources stack.

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Acid Mortar's -Res debuff will stack with itself (even from the same mortar)

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We were actually told at one time that debuffs would always stack, buff would not stack from one target.

It seems they want to revise that.

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Dark Defenders and Rad Defenders are better against AVs, but their debuff toggles are a PITA to use with teams who don't know what they are doing. A bubbler's bubbles are working whether you have an anchor or not.

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So the primary advantage of FF is that it works better with the unskilled and inexperienced? That's a fair tradeoff for Rad and Darks healing, offensive prowess, utility powers, and ability to protect themselves? Wow. Now that's a great way to sell a set....

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I think the most distressing thing we've learned here is that our Primary Power sets are not actually better for Defenders, even though we are the best at debuffing. That's because debuffing isn't really the mainstay of all of the power sets.

Even heavy debuffing sets have a fairly large amount of crowd controls that is equaled by anyone else using the power sets or is surpassed by Controllers.

With a (crippled) sub-par secondary damage and no defining "we really are best" at what we do, Defenders are the red-headed step-children of the CoX family.

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I am going to say, Castle, that I think part of the balance design methodology has broken down here.

I'm going to cut to the chase and make a declaration. The logic behind it follows.

Any "control" power in a Defender primary should work as well for a Defender as it does for a Controller's secondary, because a Controller should have superior control powers in their primary.

"Cross functional" powers in a powerset have an opportunity cost. If I choose a non-controller powerset that gets a substantial number of "control" powers in my primary, then those powers should not be such that, in a shared powerset scenario, the powerset would be better as another AT's secondary.

Taking an easy example, Thunder Clap is a Storm Summoning power which Defenders get as a primary power and Defenders get as a secondary power. All it does is disorient foes. By AT role description, Controllers are better at disorients than all other ATs. However, blindly ignoring the distribution of a power as a primary/secondary power has been given to an AT as a primary power creates nonsensical balances.

My recomendation is that, for "cross AT" powers given in a primary powerset, the powers should function no worse than that power would function for the "correct" AT as a secondary power. In other words, Thunderclap should work as well for a Defender as it does for a Controller, because a Controller should have superior disorients in their primary.

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While controllers escaberate the situation by actually be *better* with Defender Primary powers, having so many powers in the Primary set that are controllerish that everyone is "good" at very much blurs the distinction between a Defender and a Corruptor/Master Mind.

Basically, because most powers (77.7% at least) do not get our "class" benefit, it's very easy for other ATs to use our powers nearly as effectively as we can.

Dark Miasma has three powers that would be pure debuffing/buffing. Darkest Night, Twighlights Grasp and Shadow Fall. Every other power has at least one component of controlling within it. Be it slows, fear, holds, phase, immobilize or what. Several of those powers *only* do that.

Basically, 66.6% of my powers are going to be as effective as a secondary, where as less than 33% of my secondaries are even possibly as effective (and those are the mezzing powers.) The actual damage is incredibly low.

I got thinking about the problem and it boils down to our secondary, which is gimped because Blaster secondaries are gimped.

From what I can tell, *every* other powerset is actually at 100%, modified by that Arch Types speciality.

So all debuffing/buffing sets are actually 100%, with Defender get their 25% bonus for buffing/debuffing and *controllers* getting a 25% bonus for the controlling aspect irrespective of primary/secondary.

Melee attacks are 100%, with Scrappers and Blasters getting a 25% plus bonus damage. They hide that Brutes and Stalkers are at about this level with Fury and the Assassanition tricks.

"Armor" powers are also 100% for Tankers, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers, with Tankers getting a 25% bonus for "self-buffing" (which explains Rage, BTW. As it is a self-buff, Tanks are supposed to be better at this.)

Ranged attacks are *not* all at 100% base, modified by a classes bonus. I can sorta see where Corruptors are hard to see, but they probably are at 100% or so of damage. Defenders are defenitely *NOT* doing 100% damage so we don't step on poor blasters toes, because a lot of blaster secondaries are not as good in many eyes. Blasters are doing 100% +25% bonus damage. I am not conversant with Dominator's damage to speak of.

All in all, just tagging things with a +25% effectiveness does seem to work on powersets that don't overlap much.

Buff/Debuff sets overlap a lot though and Control sets are *not* allowed as secondaries.

Controllers given exclusivity though powerset design, while Defenders are the anti-exclusivity by design. Everyone has 100% of debuffing/buffing/*controls* of their sets and can actually be better (controllers) or as *good* as Defender using the powers controllerish side.

Well, I'm off to work to ruminate more.

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Why are controllers better using some powers that are from a defender powerset regardless of their actual effects? Ther DEFENDER primaries, NOT controller primaries. im not sure, but i dont think any other at runs intot his problem like we do. With blasters their main funcion is to do damage. So the sets we share with them do less damage than theirs. For tankers their main purpose is to take damage, so scrappers shared sets are weaker than the tanks versions. But with defenders, we dont ahve any one specific abiltiy. Sure you could say buff/debuff, but our powersets are so much mroe varied than that. Its not about the specific effects in the sets, but the sets as a whole. And the whole knockback thing is complete bull, especially when you think about a set like ff where kb is so heavy a feature. SUre its not a debuff in the technical sense, but it is very much a defender ability in that its a "soft" control power. Keep the mobs occupied and they do less damage. Thats debuff-like!

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That's the thing, all "debuffing/buffing" sets (I'm including all Defender Primaries, Controller, Corruptor and Master Mind Secondaries) are all set at 100% effectiveness.

Doesn't matter if it is primary or secondary. The only difference is that Defenders get a 125% out of buff/debuffs.

But Controllers get a 125% out of all *control* abilities by default too.

Master Minds and Corruptors are as good at debuffing as Controllers and as good at mezzing as Defenders...

Even though *only* Defenders get these sets as primaries.

And this is the only powersets that aren't scaled between 66%-85% effectiveness as secondaries.

Can you imagine the screaming that Tankers and Scrappers would be yelling if the only difference between their sets is that 1/3 to 1/2 of the powers has a 25% bonus based on their AT?

And I'm sure I could hear Blasters scream about Defenders that could do 100% damage compared to their 125% damage.

And that doesn't even get to the Mastermind and Corruptor ATs. From what I remember being told, they are "100%" effect too, so *anything* that is not a buff/debuff is exactly the same effectiveness, even though they both get it as secondaries.

So even Dark Miasma get caught in a catch-22 situation, as it only has two powers that are primarily *only* debuffs/buffs. Everthing else has mezzing components.

So even that 25% boost that Defenders get is for some effects.

The difference between a Defender to Controller, Corruptor and Master Mind is actually *much* smaller than we'd thought.

I have to say with a gimped secondary and infringed on primary, that Defenders have very serious issues even though the developers are supposedly happy with them.

I think Defender Primaries really need to be rethought in how they relate to the other "buffing" archtypes.

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If this were the case then Defender damage needs to be bumped way up, since damage is their "gamma" function (as it is with Tankers).

The problem is that in the current scheme Defenders get the shaft in both of their roles except for the heal/buff-bots.

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What really bothers me is that all other secondaries are by *nature* downgraded between 65%-80% if they are secondaries, yet Controllers secondaries are not. They are pegged at 100% effectiveness for non-mezzing powers and 125% for mezzing powers.

This is not a fair and equitible situation. You are basically saying that the only difference between Defender primary ability and primary power sets is a mere 25% (buffs/debuffs) even when they are secondaries.

Yet Defenders are only allowed to have 65% of 100% damage in our own secondaries (where blasters have an additional 25% "best" bonus.)

Defenders are getting it coming *and* going. Controllers really *are* getting two primaries at full effectivness.

What happened to not encrouching another Arch-Type's speciality?

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Primary function of a power is unimportant because then you get into philosophical type discussions about what a powers "purpose" is and you cant balance an entire game around that. For instance Electric blast is primarily about dmg, Ill buy that, but the damage in Short Circuit is not it's primary purpose, the endurance drain is. So then shouldnt Elec Blasters drain more endurance with it? The Defender version of Short Circuit outperforms the Blaster version, your secondary is better than my primary.

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That's the thing, other people's primarys *rarely* have a large debuff. Where as many Defender primary powers are mezzing in nature.

Basically, about 1/3 to 1/2 of our *primary* powers are not allowed to be the best, because they happen to be control. Even though almost all of the controls are fairly limited in comparison to a well built controller.

Heck, Dark Miasma is about 2/3rds controller and every single control power is only set at 100% and we don't get perma-pets.

Ie. a lot of my "primary" powers are gimp, because I *might* control about as well as a controller, even though I don't have an AOE hold and don't have any mezzing ability that I can stack from two powers in my primary (a heavy consideration against bosses.)

Controller's powers generally synergize better and overlap nicer.

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Original comment by Statesman right after the global defense nerf was that ff was balanced because of the ability to SIX-slot defense buffs. He said it was the sixth slot that made all the difference. With ED, this means what originally made it balanced had to have disappeared. I mainly just want to know if Statesman meant what he said meaning it is now unbalanced or if he just said it and quoted numbers to pacify us.

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Actually, this was Statesman not trying to confuse people with a *possible* implementation of ED when it hadn't been announced yet. He specifically stated that this is why he didn't mention it in his examples. He was aware that ED was possible and may have happened, but it had not gone "public" at that point.

The did "balance" the numbers a bit around ED when they were lowering things in i6. If they hadn't, they probably would have downgraded powers another 25% or so in another patch.

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The devs have always said

Primary>Secondary>Power Pool

And let's put it like tihs: Controller secondaries *should* be working at 80% of defender primaries instead of somewhere between 80 and 110%.

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Basically it boils down to buffing/debuffing (which includes heals, BTW) are 100% for controllers (and Corruptors/Masterminds, I think) while 125% for Defenders *BUT* Controllers are always at 125% for any mezzing power, no matter if it is primary or secondary, while Defenders (and MM/Cors) will only ever be 100% as effective.

So for power sets with decent mezzing ability, they are effectively a second primary for controllers, just slanted towards mezzing more.

There is something very wrong when any secondary can outperform a primary only based on AT.

This is moderately worrying, actually.

Basically, any defender powerset that has "controlling" effects is in effect a much, much better power for Controllers.

This makes some sets inheirently weaker for Defender primary ability. As there are no debuffs in our secondaries for the most part, there is no way to keep a balanced set.

This really hurts Force Field and Dark Miasma, as both have a lot of "control" powers, but would be generally better as a secondary power for Controllers.

Why were Debuffing/Buffing sets allowed such a large percentage of "control" powers when they will not be allowed to function the "best" for Primaries for Defenders?

As other ATs don't have buffing/debuffing in *their* primaries, there is no way for a balance to be met.

And "debuffing" set with a decent amount of mezzing is going to have this problem.

This effectively gives controller *two* primaries sets, as the mezzing ability in these secondaries becomes "primary" potent in effect.

Radiation, Force Fields and Trick Arrows are *as* good for Controllers (or better!) than for Defenders.

Perhaps, as so many Defender Primaries have a strong controlling secondary effect they should be "boosted" up in effectiveness. Or perhaps even be *as* effective as Controllers, just with less choices.

I'm probably rambling.

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As several have noted, I7 features content mostly for City of Villains (levels 41 to 50, in fact). This is exactly what we did for CoH. City of Heroes will receive a cool graphics upgrade, new base items (Empowerment stations!) and access to Recluses’ Victory. It’s true that CoV received more attention, but that’s mainly because we needed to fill out the levels. I had the option of releasing I7 or waiting until we could fill out the City of Heroes content. Obviously, I chose the former. New content should get out there when it’s ready. We'll be focusing equally as much as possible on each product moving into the future...


For those who have speculated that Newspaper missions are coming to City of Heroes, they aren’t…yet. That’s coming a little later in the year. I’d like to add something different to the CoH system…

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Forgive me, but I'm a sick puppy. I'm literaly giggling to myself imagining what would happen if CoV followed the exact same development path as CoH. That would give villains 5 issues before heroes got one more.

Yeah, mean, I know.

For the record though, maybe a proverbial bone for heroes would squelch some of the dissention.

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Actually, if they could fit in the Fallen/Redeemed trial into i7, I'd be very happy as that adds *FIVE* Arch Types worth of content to City of Heroes!

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Doesn't do anything for the game either.

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"Exclusivity" actually does set apart the ATs a bit. Empathy is a "hero" only thing (at least when you started your character.)

Mace and Axe are "tank" powers, where as the rest of the melee attacks are more generic.

Brutes right now have *no* seperate and unique powers.

They share all of their attacks with Tanks and secondaries with tanks and stalkers. They need something that say "this is brute only".

Ranged attacks are a little muddled right now. I don't think that there is *enough* exclusivity in there yet.

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I call BS on anyone that says AT exclusive powersets is a good idea simply because it makes the ATs "different". It doesn't. It just makes them frustrating to play as you try to force them into the playstyle you wanted IN THE FIRST PLACE.


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Been saying that since I started. SS Scrappers. EM Scrappers. Nerf the set if you must, but share 'em.

The dev's do NOT feel the same way. Statesman certainly does not. And that's really all there is to say.

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It is sorta nice that there aren't Dark Blast blasters. A *little* bit of exclusivity doesn't kill the game!

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Anyone see anything that I missed?

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Just that Cassiopia definitely needs to be fleshed out more and given enough respect that she *really* stands out on her own.

Galaxy Girl saves Ms. Liberty, gets a zone named after her.

Cassiopia saves the *WORLD* on her own and gets a plaque and a statue.

And I vote that the Meteor that Cassiopia destroyed be related to the Shivan Meteor if at all possible! There's gotta be a way to tie it all together!

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Was anyone explicitly complaining about lack of a new zone?

Most of us have been calling for Hazard Zone renervations instead of new zones.

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HERE HERE! Renovate Faultline, Boomstown and Perez Park! Make new trials and taskforces for them!

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So, is the whole "Statesman was the VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY FIRST EVER hero" schtick just a Mary Sue event?

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No, he was the hero that basically kicked off the *modern* era of heroes in current times. Ie. he's the guy that inspired Paragon Earth's heroes to be heroes instead of just being in the background.