Lord Mayhem

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Actually he encourages her, he likes to have a voice of opposition.

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Yeah one of the arcs does say this - he likes to give people hope (hence Westin Phipps) so they don't think they're living in a complete dictatorship, but he does really control what she says - the Rogue Isles do have censorship - I've been an agent of it

Sometimes she gets over-ambitious though and tries to be a proper journalist - that's when she needs slapping down a bit

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Of course, along with a new 3D engine, new geometry for the avatars is a must too!

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As long as it's done well. Did you ever play EverQuest? Their first major engine update with the Luclin expansion brought in avatars that were technically better than the original ones, and looked better in screenshots and when stationary, but animation-wise they were atrocious, caused so much lag that on raids we tended to switch back and use the old models, and as terrain/zone graphics and most NPCs didn't get updated there was a glaring conflict in graphical quality if you used the new avatar models. Plus the face and hair options changed so much it was almost impossible to get some characters looking the same way under the new system as they did with the old.

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Having played a crab spider, I can tell you they are far from tankmage levels of suvivability. To an extent the suffer from the resistance-is-futile-on-a-low-hp-stalker issue. PBs are a lot tougher.

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My L50 Crab is certainly way more squishy than my L50 Warshade - tbh my L44 Stalker is probably squishier, but then he is /EA. But compared to my blaster when FoN isn't up (when it is he has tanked a Horseman Heavy Suit for 2 minutes on the LGTF, so that's quite tankmage-ish) or my other blasters and corruptors/dominators/controller my Crab is close to being a tankmage, being both ranged and able to take the alpha of a fairly large spawn (my Crab did ok taking the alpha occasionally on an 8-person ITF I did, when necessary - just not as confortably as my Warshade can all day long).

With a Crab I generally felt quite solid at range compared to most squishies - the only times I really died fast was against psi damage (Fortunata Mistresses especially - ouch) or when/if I got swamped in melee - tbh having played a mainly-ranged archery blaster, and having CJ+hurdle, I found jumping around to avoid melee (and re-position for cones) was a great help - especially against tough targets like EBs (I duelled Statesman for a while like that after my duo partner was defeated, while I waited for her to get back from the hospital, because I couldn't toe-to-toe and didn't have the dps to kill him when he was in Unstoppable so much).

Excluding melee ATs (because a tankmage has to be ranged really) the Crab Spider is probably the most tankmage-ish combo outside of Kheldians.

Admittedly my perception may be skewed by never having really soloed my Crab - 100% of the time I played him my friend's Fortunata was by my side (and her toggles capped my ranged def and almost capped melee/area, and did with Mind Link up) - but then ranged def on him is 40%ish even without her help - backed by Serum and 30%ish resists to most things that's pretty damn solid for a ranged character.

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I'd guess she isn't afraid of uncovering stories of Lord recluse's evil deeds?

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That's usually what gets her into trouble, yeah. We alternate between rescuing her or kidnapping her ourselves depending on our contacts' motives (sometimes they want her to print a scandal to discredit a rival)

She's easily the most-kidnapped NPC in the whole game - Fusionette may be dumber, but she only gets kidnapped, what, 3-4 times?

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If this is the one I'm thinking of that starts outside with the sky raiders then I did it about 3 weeks ago and she came up the lift ok and when working around to the entrance into the building she started on one of the sky raiders near the entrance and knocked him over the side then went after him and never came back. If it's a different mission then she obviously just has a berserker mentality generally.

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That's the one. Usually she can't use the lift to get to the top (just before you enter the indoor part).

They obviously just need to make the lift wider so she can fit her superpowered breas... errr physique inside of it

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Though again it's probably too late for this. But I can dream.

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Maybe not. Perhaps the whole redesign of each zone that's happening slowly will eventually iron it out.

And then the forums will be full of us old timers going, "it t'were better in t'old days...."

So no change there then

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Too true. Why, in my day we had to walk uphill to our contacts both ways, across the entire city, through slushy black snow and acid rain, in spandex that was two sizes too small for us, hounded all the way by ambushes of GMs, while photographers from the Paragon Tattler took embarassing photos of us, and we liked it!

Disclaimer: the above might be an exaggeration... or a complete lie

But yeah, I hope we will see more revamps/redesigns in future - sure, the hazard zones need to be looked at first, but city zones need some attention CoH-side as well.

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Indeed, believe it or not I already new what a sentinel was. Hence I said I felt Kronos was our version (they're both robotic assault units for superpowered threats).

Battlemech/Sentinel, they're both robots dammit.

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Yeah I definitely see Kronos as our Sentinel equivalent - The Malta Group even has a stated aim of controlling superpowered individuals (and culling them when necessary) so they're not a threat to normal humans, hence having their sapper guns so they can de-power superpowered threats.

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Though I guess some bases that had signs everywhere could end up looking like a hospital

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Is that supposed to sound like a bad thing?

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I guess it depends on how you feel about hospitals

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Ditto - I really dislike picking the same contacts and then having to do different missions (let's not talk about having to do the Mayhem/Safeguards twice, just because we've got different brokers/police contacts).

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For Safeguards yeah - I'm always rather sad when my partner auto-completes his Mayhems off mine (when he can), because I really enjoy smashing things up

Honestly though I really don't see why the Devs had to put 2 brokers/detectives into each zone when surely 1 would have sufficed (like in Grandville, funnily enough). It's just a needless annoyance and now it's probably too late to do anything about it. I have to wonder what design goal prompted that.

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It'd be nice to be able to choose arc or single mission (and have a filter which strips out all non-arc hunt missions too!)

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You know, I really wish the Devs had made contacts that only offer nice long arcs (like you get in Striga/Faultline/Croatoa/RWZ and with some of the unlockable contacts in CoV, or particularly notable contacts like Seer Marino) while other contacts only offered the one-off missions (like repeatable contacts and the newspaper/scanner do), so we could have a choice - instead of most contacts offering both arcs and a mix of one-offs.

On CoH I wish the Devs would just completely re-write the contact system to be closer to CoV-style - just get rid of most of the contacts so there was only one contact per level range per origin. It gets particularly stupid in CoH at L20-25 when, for each origin, you have 6 contacts offering exactly the same missions (and you get 1 of those contacts randomly): e.g. for Natural at L20-25 you might get Justin Greene, Oswald Cuthbert, Rondel Jackson or Wilson Eziquerra in Indy Port, but you may also get Barry Gosford or John Strobel in Talos - but all give identical arcs/missions, usually in different/random orders. It's just a pain when two players are doing the same arcs/missions, but not only getting them in a different order but they also have to go to different zones to get the next mission - that can really slow a small regular team down.

That also makes it almost impossible for them to have specific character quirks in their dialogue like CoV contacts (and is the main reason I find CoH a bit dull compared to CoV, except in the CoH-side story zones like Croatoa/Striga/Faultline/RWZ where the dialogue/story is a lot more involved/personal and themed to the contact).

If the Devs changed contacts across the whole game so that each specific story arc was only offered by a single contact (CoV-style), they could then move all one-off missions either to other contacts or to a repeatable contact in each zone (either like Meg Mason in Hollows & Marcus Valerius in Cimerora, OR put them onto the scanner/newspaper - that would make their content a LOT more interesting than the cookie-cutter generated stuff we get now).

Though again it's probably too late for this. But I can dream.

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I'd like to See an AT with Assault and Manipulation, a mix of everything in one

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Well that would give you ranged attacks, melee attacks, self-buffs and weak controls - so, like I said, a Blaster.

You couldn't use the actual Assault and Manipulation sets as primary and secondary for a new AT as there would be too much crossover with the same powers (compare Psionic Assault with Mental Manipulation, Fiery Assault with Fire Manipulation, etc) - both types of sets steal heavily from Melee sets as it is, with a few exceptions (like Devices).

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that's the same thing what happened with assassins in GW, most newbies play it from the beginning and it has a bad name, seen as a n00b class.
but while they just begon playing, experienced players that play the assassin has the same problem getting in a party, while they are actually good.
and after a small buff, they continue to be seen as a bad class.

currently, i'm close to immortal as an assassin, but because of the bad reputation the newbies made, it's hard to get in a team.

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It happens in pretty much every MMO tbh. Playerbase perception is a very difficult thing to overturn. It can even be tainted by other MMOs, such as players coming here from other MMOs and expecting all defenders to be healers.

Your example is as much about how other players perceive players of a certain class/archetype and that's a large part of it too. People start to generalise in-game - oh all rogues/stalkers/assassins are selfish gankers, all clerics/defenders/priests are main healers, warriors/tankers/guardians are the only viable tanks, or whatever, and the generalisations stick, even when it is no longer true for the class as a whole, or not true for the individual, or other classes can fill those roles just as well.

I must admit one of the things I like about CoH/V is you never get players identifying themselves by/as a single class/archetype and hating on most of the others - that's rife in other MMOs, leads to class generalisations, and it's really stupid too. I think it doesn't happen here because most of us level so fast and alt so much that most of us play most of the archetypes anyway - that makes for a much better understanding of team roles and what other archetypes are capable of.

Yay a relatively original idea - nicely done. I like the sound/theme of both of these powersets.

Balance-wise I think the secondary is a bit Toxic-heavy, but otherwise it looks great. The primary looks good too, though I'm not sure why it needs two area slows unless one of them is supposed to be a toggle somewhat like Hot Feet (could look cool, having a swarm of insects swirling around you - maybe replace Fire Ants with Locusts, a PBAE toggle that does -spd, -rchg, and some minor lethal/toxic damage), then change Termites to be a placeable slowing patch like Quicksand (that would work for keeping the -def on it too - the termites could be chewing up the ground and making it difficult terrain to move through like Quicksand).

Nice ideas, definitely /signed.

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Apologies if suggested before, I can't find a thread via search on this.

Personally, I could REALLY do with the ability to put signs up in bases. Eg, I want to easily identify the Talos/IP teleporter, the insp bin for reds etc.

I think that 36 small wall hangings ( a-z plus 0-9 ) would be a huge benefit. Ideally, multiply that by three for an arcane, tech and common set.

Fahie

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I really like this idea. Add arrow symbols (left, right, up and down) and a blank/space empty tile for a total of 41 to add as wall items (for each style) and this is definitely /signed by me.

Though I guess some bases that had signs everywhere could end up looking like a hospital

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Derandomise Arcs for groups that want to complete an arc together.

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I must admit this is something I'd like to see. Being able to choose from all the arcs (mini-arcs and full story arcs) that a contact has upon first speaking to them (or maybe after an intro mission, if that is necessary) would be most welcome, even if the one-off missions remained random.

I mostly duo with a friend and we used to do the same contacts and try to synch up on arcs, which often meant repeating most of the one-off missions until we had the arc-starter. But we got sick of repeating one-off missions (admittedly it took us around 6 months to get sick of it) and now we tend to pick different contacts and just do both alternately - but that can still lead to problems with some contacts having more arcs or mission xp bonuses than others so our level-ups get out of synch.

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GvE Jump Pack

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that's not good anyway

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Not good? It lets my SJers jump over buildings (yes, you can do that...), my SSers reach places they otherwise can't, gives TPers a power to stay airborne beyond TP's temp hover without needing another power choice, and lets my Flyers cap flight speed for 30secs (and does the same for my pre-travel power characters with the temp flight packs). That's pretty darn good for a bonus power if you ask me - a heck of a lot more useful to me than the prestige sprints or the Pocket D teleport. Heck, over the lifetime of a character I probably use the Jump Pack more than the Ghost Slaying Axe or Sands of Mu temps.

But yeah, definitely /unsigned as I don't see the point of the original suggestion beyond imitating anime/manga. I don't hate anime/manga either - there's some I like (not much, but some - I just started re-watching Ghost in the Shell: SAC at the weekend), but this is a superhero game based on western superhero comics and I want it to stay that way.

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Also an AT like Dominator wich has 2 offensive powers sets.

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A Blaster?

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I'd use it for concept reasons if they simply gave me a proper baton to use, a good straightstick.

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A US style cop's "night stick" would be good, as would a cricket bat and maybe a hockey stick.

Though the concept I'm probably going to use when I get around to playing a War Mace brute will look somewhat like my forum avatar, but with a Mr Punch puppet demeanour - "that's the way to do it!" BAM!

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Try looking things up on the Search tool, then you'd be able to see if it hasnt been said already.

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Sorry, but I laughed as well...

Though considering Zortel's current avatar that's rather apt anyway

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Increase dwarf damage

Increase nova resistence/HPs

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Tank mage. You have just rendered blasters and tankers obsolete by creating an AT that can dish out high levels of damage in almost total safety (since PBs can already dish out medium damage with a good degree of saftey it wouldn't take mch buffing to reach this level).

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Exactly. And increasing Nova resistance helps PBs more than WSs (maybe that's necessary, I couldn't say), because a WS can cap resistance at 85% to everything with Eclipse off 5 mobs anyway, and that's not exactly tough to get perma or close to it. Decent ranged def is easy to get too with IOs (my WS nova has 20% to ranged without even trying and floating up high he doesn't need melee/area def much).

Tbh an eclipsed Warshade nova is already a tankmage (and a flying tankmage at that!) - but then so is a Crab Spider in some ways.

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If we're talking popularity then do dominators and stalkers also need revamps because they're not as popular as brutes, scrappers, etc?

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uhhhh yes? did you miss the constant buffing of doms since i6 to the permadom gods they can be today? or the plethora of changes to stalkers? See how thats working? They make the unpopular more attractive.

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I guess I deserved that for not being specific - I meant from now onwards, seeing as the revamps to both ATs don't seem to have swung the popularity balance that much (I still see few doms and stalkers around compared to brutes/corrs/MMs). And no I certainly didn't miss the buffs - it's why I'm playing my highest level stalker and dom as my main characters again and have both near 50 at last (since abandoning both in I7/8 in the L30s).

I wouldn't get too attached to perma-dom though, not going by what Castle has said recently on the US forums (though I'd be glad if his ideas for putting the dom damage onto dominators outside of domination goes through - perma-dom isn't something that most people can reach before the high/top levels anyway).

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Personally, I've suspected for some time that a major game update will be reaching us not long before the competition come online. I won't be terribly surprised if there's a game engine upgrade in it either. Not that I'm saying we WILL, or that it'll come for issue 13... I just suspect it might happen soon.

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I think that's likely, but I also think it's somewhat likely that the feature additions in I13 may have a bigger effect on the game than even I9's Inventions did. This is NC's first issue fully in charge of the game and I think they'll want to do something really special.

I wasn't expecting the user-generated content until next year, but it's possible it might be in I13, along with the confirmed base editor revamp, more powerset proliferation, more QoL changes, new Shields powerset, and the new costume pieces which we usually get with new issues. I think we'll probably also get either a new zone or a zone revamp with new contacts/arcs and a TF too, because the last issue was relatively content-light in terms of non-TF missions and outdoor hunting - and of course the "Coming Storm" storyline will move forward a bit more.

A game engine upgrade on top of all that might be too much to ask, but I think it will come sometime next year (I just hope it doesn't push the recommended specs up too high or cause more issues in Grandville and other graphic-intensive areas than some suffer now).

Hehe, maybe they've cracked how to do power customisation as well!

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Personally i never could get into the Kheldians. While i applaud their uniqueness with the diffrent forms and such. I think my personal beef is it takes over my char too much. I could make a buck nekkid cossie and noone would prob see me naked cause i always got some bubbles around me, creepy glowing eyes or transformed into some sort of seafood.

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That's valid, but personally I liked being able to play a non-humanoid character (not something available in most MMOs) as a squid, with lots of tactics not available to most other archetypes. And I didn't feel a lack of individuality because there aren't that many HEATs around

My Warshade felt epic in that it felt different to play compared to other archetypes because of the shapeshifting and because it was a floating blaster that could transform into a makeshift tanker or controller as needed - that opened up tons of additional tactics. My Crab Spider on the other hand just felt like a Blaster that had traded some of its damage and self-buffs/melee ability away for some survivability, extra pets and the leadership pool - beyond Omega Maneuver it really had no unique powers/tactics I couldn't get from a normal AT. If Banes/NWidows just play like stalkers/scrappers with some extra ranged abilities, or Fortunata plays like my Mind/Psi Dom with added defence/damage or my Psy/MM Blaster with extra defence/control, then I'll be somewhat disappointed - I want new tactical possibilities from an epic AT - a new challenge.

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Also feel i didn't bring anything to the team. Average Damage, some sort of control, poor tanking, but not all at once.

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Well, as I've said, I think it's a mistake to tar Warshades with the "average damage" tag - most of the time my Warshade can do more damage, more accurately and more safely than my Blaster (Archery/Energy, which is quite a high damage blaster combo for AE damage - though sure the Blaster can out-burst the Warshade, as it should) - I certainly can't think of another archetype that can get near and even reach its damage, ToHit and resist caps reliably and often, without external buffing or abusing inspirations in a big way.

A Warshade with poor damage is a Warshade that either isn't being played well or has been poorly built, or built for something other than damage - but tbh dealing damage is the only thing a Warshade can be really good at - which as far as I'm concerned puts it in the same category as stalkers, blasters, scrappers and most brutes in terms of teaming. Do they not bring anything to a team either? They obviously do, even though it's not direct support of teammates.

Sure, it's fine for people to dislike Warshades or the tri-form playstyle, but they can't then complain the archetype isn't doing what they want it to (high damage) when it's capable of that via one of its many possible playstyles - that would be like complaining a stalker did poor damage because you didn't like using Hide & Assassin Strike, or complaining a Storm Defender/Corruptor can't heal if you'd skipped O2 Boost.

If we're talking popularity then do dominators and stalkers also need revamps because they're not as popular as brutes, scrappers, etc?

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With Dominator...

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And at this point it has to be noted that that the Dominator Mu Patron Pet has a single target Heal Other ability, which makes it a top-notch choice above anything else. Also, the Mu End Drain power is all-round superior to Soul one...

*ribbit*

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I didn't want to drill down into too much detail, but yeah if both of those are things you need then Scirocco is a good choice for Dominators. But my Mind/Psi Dom has Drain Psyche, and Aid Self too, so healing and end recovery just isn't a problem - I went Black Scorpion for the single target -res debuff to help take down EBs/AVs faster as that helps to patch a weakness in the dominator archetype (and /psi in particular), plus as a bonus I also get the biggest and coolest pet any archetype in the game can take

Honestly I could find reasons to justify any of the dominator patron pools for different powerset combos (planning to go Mu on my Plant/Elec for concept & the end drain, and Mako on my Earth/Fire for the Toxic cone), although Ghost Widow is by far the least attractive pool to me because of the long recharge you mention on that end-drain.

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When I asked this question I was told there's really not much of a difference.

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It really does depend on the archetype. Yes, the power choices are pretty much the same across all patrons for Brutes (ST attack, cone/AE immob, cone/AE attack, pet) and Masterminds (cone/AE immob, cone/AE attack, toggle armour, ST hold), the only major tactical difference being whether your multi-target immobilises/attacks are cones (GWidow, Mako) or targeted AEs (BScorp, Scirocco).

With Dominator, Corruptor and Stalker 3 of the powers are more-or-less the same across all 4 patrons, but one power in the pool can differ:
- Mako gives Stalkers a Water Spout when the other 3 patrons give snipes.
- Scirocco/GWidow gives Dominators an end-drain power while Mako again gives the Water Spout and BScorp gives a ranged single-target debuff (-res/-def debuff).
- Scirocco gives Corruptors an end-drain power, while Mako/BScorp give a mass immob and GWidow gives a +dmg/+ToHit drain power.

Even with the similar powers each patron has its own flavour, either from the damage type their attacks do, the secondary affects attached to them, the fact BScorp's shield gives defence instead of resist like the other 3 and that his immobilise/hold powers do no damage in exchange for -rchg/-spd/-fly/-jump debuffing - or even more min-maxing reasons such as Scirocco's powers tending to animate much faster or BScorp's tending to be slower because of redraw.

Sure patron pools don't have the variety of hero ancillary pools, but the differences are sufficient that I often make my choice based more on gameplay reasons than concept ones.

The Devs just want the Halloween/Winter events tested and then patched to live as part of the main codebase before they start making up their I13 build. That way, if issue 13 is horribly delayed (and from what the Devs are inferring I13 will add a lot of new features that will need heavy testing, so it could get horribly delayed by unforseen bugs and code conflicts), it won't prevent us getting the Halloween or Winter events.

If they package either of these events as part of I13 then it would mean they'd have to be tested at the same time as everything in I13, which could not only take focus away from testing certain features, but would also tie the issue into a definite timeframe (because the Devs would have to deliver I13 on time for those holiday slots).