Lord Mayhem

Turning both Black Hole and Dimension Shift into PBAE toggles is a great idea - I might even be willing to take Black Hole on my Dark Miasma characters if the Devs did that. Otherwise I think the single target caging powers in /FF and /Sonic are just more useful (and even then, only situationally useful, and not that often).

Something I thought of that might make them more handy is if phasing powers like Black Hole and Dimension Shift had a stun on them that was 5-10secs longer duration than the intangibility - after all, being phased into a different dimension must be disorientating. A 10sec Intangibility followed by 10secs of Stun, with a 45sec base recharge, would be quite handy - with two nearby overlapping spawns you could take one of them out of the fight while your team dealt with the other spawn, plus the stun would ensure that you didn't receive an alpha strike for your troubles. Because I think one of the problems with Intangible powers is that all of the affected mobs wake up at the same time, so unlike most other control powers (especially hard controls) you can't use them to mitigate an alpha.

You know what would make MMOs more fun for me? More physical interactions with the world. I love games with physics effects in them. Heck, just having rag-doll physics in CoH makes a huge difference to me when compared to MMORPGs I've played that have the same boring death animation for almost every mob. The destruction in mayhem missions is most pleasing too.

Online FPS games are usually better at this than MMOs. Having a few different weapon types, but with complete freedom over how you use them, can give you more tactical options than having dozens of spells/abilities/powers in an MMORPG. Part of this is due to MMORPG easy targeting - it's too binary - I can target my enemy, or not. In an FPS I can go for a headshot, I can shoot at the torso, I can shoot at a foot or arm sticking out from behind an object, I can even fire an explosive weapon at the wall or the ground next to my enemy, or loop a grenade over his head, or bounce a grenade off a wall to land next to him. It's not just the additional skill required, it's the additional options available - and there is that pleasing learning curve where you find new ways of using certain weapons, often depending on the type of terrain present and how the enemy (or you) are using it.

Some of my funniest moments in Planetside came from in-game objects interacting in unforeseen ways - random unlikely events that you and your friends might see once but never again - moments of emergent gameplay that developers never imagined happening - moments that you would remember and re-tell as nostalgic anecdotes to your friends ("hey, were you there when...").

This includes things like:
- an explosion flipping a moving buggy over into a group of infantry
- launching a tank over a hill and landing on another tank just as it fires its main gun
- scraping the bottom of a Dropship across the top of a base and squishing some poor grunt stood on the roof
- setting off explosives to blow up the enemy as they come through a door, seeing one of their corpses blown up on top of some crates into an awkward pose
- dropping bombs from a Liberator Bomber and managing to hit an enemy Dropship flying beneath you
- air-dropping a tank onto the roof of a base from a Lodestar transport, just to freak out the defenders
- hacking an enemy tank while the driver was repairing it, then jumping into it and running the poor sap over
And so many other situations I could relate.

Those moments were more cinematic than any number of cutscenes. They made me feel like I was actually in a sci-fi war film. No MMO has ever provided me with that level of immersion.

The problem I have with a lot of MMORPGs is that the combat feels so static, repetitive and predictable. CoH is better than most in that respect, because the combat seems more action-based (in CoH I feel more like I'm playing a character than managing a character - I haven't been able to say the same for many MMORPGs).

But DCUO is promising that a cold-based hero will be able to freeze an enemy inside a block of ice, then another super-strength hero will be able to pick up that block of ice and throw it at another enemy, or pick up a car and throw it at the block of ice, shattering it and doing extra damage to the enemy inside. I like powers with multiple uses like that and situations where players can find synergies between their characters in dynamic ways.

You see I think MMOs should be all about adventure, just like pen & paper roleplaying was. And just as the latter had very few limitations, MMOs should be trying to build worlds where interactions haven't been planned out and restricted into narrow lanes of predictable gameplay. MMORPGs should be providing us with emergent gameplay and memorable moments like PnP RPGs did, those gems of unpredictability. Sure, we can't have total freedom like in PnP RPGs, but I'm sure we could have a lot more than we get now. That doesn't mean directionless gameplay, but it does mean that MMOs need to be more dynamic and less predictable.

Here's one example: I remember when RPGs had random encounters, but most MMORPGs put too much control in the players' hands about what they will face and when - there are no surprises anymore and it's draining the adventure out of MMOs. Enemies line up to be slaughtered, rather than hunting you down. It is all just so predictable.

I'd still like to see the Hamidon Raid revamped to be more like the Rikti Mothership Raid, to give that same feeling of fighting overwhelming numbers of tough enemies with progressive goals/rewards, and to make it easier to run on the lower population servers. Sure, Hamidon should be more than a speedbump (like U'Kon Gr'ai often is), but I'd go with similar principles so that folks are encouraged to attend the whole raid and enjoy it. The Mothership Raids are run weekly on Union and Defiant (or at least they were a couple of months ago when I last played before my arm injury) because they're fairly straightforward and they're fun, regardless of rewards.

I've had a lot of ideas today for how I'd revamp the raid, plus how I'd change the HO reward mechanic to be more like Vanguard/Reward merits (so you could progressively save up for specific HOs or random roll for them at cheaper cost) - which I see some of you have mentioned.

However the idea is far too long to post here, as well as being slightly off-topic in terms of the OP, plus it would be somewhat egotistical of me to foist a wall of text on you guys here, so I've made a post on the Suggestions forum at this link, for anyone who cares to read it and comment.

It's been a while since I last posted any zone suggestion threads on this board - well, technically I've never posted on this board before, only on the EU board before the merger with the US forums, so be gentle... nah, get stuck in

This idea is for a revamp rather than a new zone - one inspired by player comments and interactions with the Devs on this thread. This post is mainly focused on a detailed co-op revamp of the Hamidon Raid(s), to be more in line with how fun the Rikti Mothership Raids are, but I think this could be rolled in with a minor Eden revamp as well to make that zone more worthwhile too (I haven't detailed the Eden zone revamp or Eden Trial revamp in more than broad strokes as it is outside the scope of what I need this post to do, and there's enough text here to wade through as it is).

For the Hamidon raid revamp I will be borrowing heavily from the Mothership Raid design, so bear in mind that is intentional. This is more of a blending of ideas than an original idea (do those even exist anymore?). Basically I want the Hamidon Raid to have that same feeling of fighting overwhelming numbers of tough enemies (lots of L54 lieut/boss/EB-level DE), with progressive goals/rewards, and also be easier to run on less populated servers - and be fun!


ZONE REVAMP:
This part is probably nothing you haven't heard before - I'd make Eden more popular by revamping it RWZ-style into a co-op zone, adding at least 4 contacts with story arcs giving the history of Hamidon and the Devouring Earth in a more progressive, focused and exciting way than existing content does. I would also have a repeatable contact with outdoor and indoor missions set in Eden. The contacts would be present at a small outdoor outpost with a trainer, hospital and vendors, etc.

These new NPCs at the Eden outpost could be from Hero Corps (who are under-represented in-game), working with Crey Biotech scientists, perhaps under contract to the US Government (or perhaps just for Paragon City's mayor). This alliance with Crey would show that Hero Corps has less scruples than Freedom Corps and will work with anyone and hire almost any superpowered individual (even villains) if the price is right and a contract needs completing. Hero Corps is somewhat slanted towards heroes, but Crey more towards villains, and we know there is a prior connection between both parties from the Disciple history badge - so I think this would work as a neutral-ish combined group for both heroes and villains to work for. Both factions exist in the shades of grey between the hero and villain groups like Freedom Corps and Arachnos who are at the more definite ends of the good/evil spectrum.

I don't think this zone revamp would need a huge art overhaul with lots of new art assets like RWZ had - existing art assets could be used for everything except the outpost and the NPCs - so it might be closer to The Hollows revamp than RWZ in that respect, though I wouldn't mess with spawn sizes too much. Though I'd be tempted to scale Eden's spawns from L30-ish at the Founders' Falls end to L54 at the opposite end by The Hive (again somewhat like RWZ spawns scaling from the Vanguard end to the Mothership end).

The Eden Trial could also be revamped (so long since I've done it, I won't make detailed suggestions for that - I'm sure others have) - preferably into a L35-50 co-op TF (same level range as the ITF and the old LGTF), but keep the chance of failure like old-style Trials have.

Having some fresh Dev-created content to do at L30-40 on both sides would be a big boon, but I think having extra content available at endgame is also very much appreciated by a lot of players.


REWARDS:
Stealing from an existing system that works, I would add Hamidon Merits to the game - a 10% chance of awarding 1/2/3/4 for Minion/Lieut/Boss/EB Devouring Earth (with more for AVs/Monsters/GMs/Mitos/Hami-buds/Hamidon), with all DE on the Hamidon Raid being a guaranteed Hami-Merit drop (like with Vanguard Merits on Mothership Raids). To earn these you would need to earn a badge available at L30+ from the introductory Eden arc (much like with Vanguard Merits in RWZ).

Taking part in a whole Hamidon raid might get you 250-350 Hami-Merits (roughly the number of Vanguard Merits I get on Mothership Raids). Post-revamp perhaps the Eden Trial would award around 100 Hamidon Merits (or Reward Merits if you preferred), and the STF/LRSF would give either their usual Reward Merits or 250 Hamidon Merits at the player's choice.

Random rolls for Hamidon Origin enhancements (HOs) would cost 250 Hami-Merits from the vendor at the Eden outpost. Specific HOs would cost more, e.g. Microfilament HO = 500; Golgi / Ribosome HO = 750; Membranes / Nucleolus HO = 1,000, etc.

For lower level players, especially ones doing the Eden Trial, I would have L40 Crystal Titan Origin enhancements (CTOs) available on vendors as well, with CTO random rolls for 100 Hami-Merits, up to 500 Hami-Merits for the most desirable specific CTOs.

As HOs and CTOs are much less desirable now (with the possible exception of things like Membranes and Enzymes for certain powers), what with set IOs in existence and specifically purples, I might be tempted to adjust the percentage boosts on all HOs to be equivalent to a +3 (i.e. L53) HO and make CTOs equivalent to an even level HO. Then I would change CTOs to not expire at -4 to your level, so that they would be more akin to IOs in longevity of usefulness.

I'd guess that most players would still save Hami-Merits up for L50 HOs anyway, but having a choice of CTOs to spend Hami-Merits on at L40 would still be nice, otherwise players earning Hami-Merits from L30+ wouldn't be able to buy any special enhancements until L47.

There could also be a few DE-themed temp powers for 50-100 Hami-Merits (Hamidon creature disguise toggles, Hamidon creature pets, etc.), but no costume pieces available for Hami-Merits. Maybe there could be DE-themed custom weapons and a costume piece/set awarded with a badge for defeating Hamidon once (ITF-style), but beyond that I wouldn't go overboard on costume rewards here (more new art assets required = revamp far less likely to happen, and it's unlikely enough as it is with the devs focused on GR and new zones).


RAID DESIGN:
There are a number of phases to the raid:

MONSTER PHASE
I would keep Devouring Earth Monsters as the Hamidon-spawning method - once one Monster in The Hive is defeated start a timer until they all respawn (like Rikti Pylons do) - once a dozen or so Monsters are defeated spawn Hamidon and his Mitochondria (6 of each colour, same as now).

MITOCHONDRIA PHASE
Mitochondria would be less annoying than they are now with only minor attacks, as their purpose would be more to do with directly buffing/protecting Hamidon. The Mitos would each have a point-blank area of effect (PBAE) toggle buff (or a very short duration PBAE buff that was click-refreshed often with no self-stacking) that overlapped on each other and Hamidon like some crazy Venn diagram with Hamidon in the intersection of all the circles.

Each Mito would provide a different type of protective PBAE buff:
Yellow Mito = +defence (all)
Blue Mito = +resist (all)
Green Mito = +regeneration

At the start of this phase each Mito would be buffing 2 other mitos of its own type, plus itself, plus 3 each of the other Mito types - so each Mito would have 3 buffs of each type*, with all 18 buffs affecting Hamidon. On top of their base regen/resists/defence this would make Mitos reasonably solid at the start of the phase (pitched somewhere between an EB and an AV in difficulty), but once you had taken a few Mitos down, the Mitos adjacent to them would drop in difficulty as they'd lost some of the overlapping buffs (down to EB difficulty).

Hamidon himself (itself?) would be made completely invulnerable by all of the buffs at the start of this phase. The more Mitos you defeated eventually Hamidon would become vulnerable - depending how many debuffs you had of a certain type, Hamidon might become vulnerable sooner to your specific raid.

(Sorry for lacking numbers - I'm not sure what quantity to set for the buffs and base resists/defence/regeneration in order to make the raid possible but also no pushover - it would probably need lots of testing/tweaking)

Now defeating a Mito would spawn a Devouring Earth ambush on the raid, scaled in size according to how many people were near Hami. This would be in addition to random ambushes. So you'd have to defeat Mitos under continual ambush pressure and would have to decide between either carefully defeating the big ambush after each Mito kill (potentially taking longer on the raid and running the timer close), or gamble and take out loads of Mitos quickly (spawning lots of ambushes), hoping you could survive long enough to take down Hamidon (easier for buff-heavy raids, perhaps).

Mitos would also be controllable (perhaps a 30 magnitude base, plus buffs as below) with hard controls suppressing their buff. A control-heavy raid could lock down a few of the mitos to make Hamidon more vulnerable without spawning the extra ambushes that defeating those Mitos would bring, or to make other Mitos easier to take down (controls being useful at a GM fight/raid? Imagine that!). In addition to their primary protective effect the Mitos' PBAE buffs would add mez protection so controlling Mitos would become easier once nearby Mitos had been defeated or hard-controlled - to add extra strategy each Mito would provide protection against a different type of hard control (the ones that would shut off their PBAE-buffs):

Yellow Mito = +10mag hold protection
Blue Mito = +10mag stun/disorient protection
Green Mito = +10mag sleep & intangible protection

Probably best to make Mitos immune to Confuse though, as it might make the raid too easy if the players were Mito-buffed

Mitos would award a reasonable amount of Hami-Merits, 10 perhaps.

HAMIDON PHASE
Once Hamidon was vulnerable to the raid the players could either attack him, or continue wiping out Mitos to make Hamidon even easier to defeat, bearing in mind that the extra ambushes would slow the raid down further, perhaps making it impossible to complete if they were too slow or suffered a wipe. If you took out all of Hamidon's Mitos he would be as easy to defeat as any average GM-level foe in terms of toughness, but the more Mitos left up the tougher Hamidon would be. I would envisage him being almost completely invulnerable with at least 3 Mitos up of each type unless the raid force was packing an awful lot of buffs/debuffs.

Hamidon would do decent damage with a hold effect, so that having at least one Tanker/Brute/Mastermind tanking him would be desirable (not sure about PA... as much as I love Illu/, the PAs can really trivialise things). To make multiple tanks stack better Hami could have a chance to shed much of the taunt aggro built up on him from the player at the top of his aggro/threat list, making multiple taunters useful.

Once defeated Hamidon would give more Hamidon Merits than anything else among the Devouring Earth mobs (50 perhaps).

HAMIDON BUD PHASE
After Hamidon's defeat lots of fast-moving Hami-buds would spawn and try to flee in all directions. These would be easily controllable (to give control classes another job to do) and would not be too tough to defeat (EB-difficulty). Defeating Hami-buds would again spawn DE ambushes scaled to the raid size.

Hami-buds could be worth maybe 10 Hami-Merits each as a post-Hami bonus.

JURASSIK DYNAMIC EVENT
As a random dynamic event, to make the raid more unpredictable, for each minute of the raid there would be an increasing chance of Jurassik appearing to defend/avenge Hamidon. If he had not appeared by the time Hamidon was defeated he would immediately spawn and attack the raid.

In this situation Jurassik could be worth perhaps 20 Hami-Merits.

TIME LIMIT
The time limit before Hamidon despawns and the DE Monsters respawn could be gauged to be tight for an average raid that tried to take out every Mito plus Hamidon and his Hami-buds plus Jurassik, maybe allowing time for one total wipe if the raid re-assembled swiftly.

RAID WIPE RECOVERY
I would advocate having some respawn location inside the Hive, near zone-in - maybe at a Hero Corps + Crey outpost (something temporary-looking, like some tents surrounded by sandbags with Crey guards walking perimeter) - to allow defeated players to return fairly swiftly, without needing to traverse the full length of Eden and undergo a zone-transition (with the possibility of being locked out of the raid if zone caps were necessary).

STRATEGIES
As mentioned a control-heavy raid could lock down some of the Mitos instead of defeating them and a buff-heavy raid might kill Mitos a few at a time, triggering several ambushes and not worry too much about the danger they presented while the DE were AE'd down by Blasters/Corruptors etc. Raids with lots of +ToHit buffs and/or -Def debuffs might be able to ignore some of the +Def buffing yellow Mitos, raids with lots of +Damage and/or -Res debuffs might be able to skip defeating some of the +Res buffing blue Mitos, and raids with lots of damage dealers and/or -Regen debuffs might be able to leave up some of the -Regen buffing green Mitos, to save time.

Of course if players just wanted to take the simple-but-long option, which would probably be the most rewarding in terms of Hamidon Merits, then they could defeat all of the Mitos, handle the ambushes spawned by them, and then mow down Hamidon and his Hami-buds, dealing with Jurassik whenever he appeared. I could see this being popular for larger raids and as mentioned there would be time for it as long as the raid didn't have multiple wipes.

I could also see a strategy where having one tanking group on Hami, one group of single-target damage dealers (and maybe a group of controllers/dominators) on the Mitos, with everyone else (especially area damage dealers) handling the ambushes as they came in.

This gives a few variants, but allows the raid to be done in quite a vanilla/straightforward way if that is what the raid wants.


CLOSING WORDS:
Sure, these changes to the Hamidon Raid do make it more akin to the Mothership Raid in style, but I think there are enough quirks to make it interesting. I do maintain that I10's RWZ revamp was one of the best issues this game has ever had - if something just works then I don't think there's any shame in using it again to fix underused old content.

Lore-wise this design also makes Hamidon seem more like some kind of mastermind-type villain that needs protecting by his hordes of Devouring Earth creatures, and is much more dependent on his Mitos in some kind of symbiotic relationship, rather than just a powerful monster in his own right - I think that suits his appearance as a big jelly-blob too. Also, somewhat like fighting a mastermind in bodyguard mode, the more of Hamidon's pets (i.e. Mitos) you defeated, the easier the main mastermind would be to defeat, which I think would be a nice progressive feeling for a raid, as you could feel that you were making progress as a group (much like the gradual journey to the centre of the Mothership on Rikti Raids).

Also lore-wise Hamidon and his Devouring Earth are a global threat at least as serious as the Rikti, so I have no qualms about heros and villains teaming up to fight them, even if they have to work for organisations that are somewhat outside of their usual remit.

I do love the chaos of big brawls (despite the lag, the Mothership Raid is still incredibly fun) so maybe I am biased, but beating on one target at a time is just too EverQuest/WoW-ish for my tastes anymore. Multi-mob fights have always been CoH's major signature difference to the old style fantasy MMORPGs. Vive la différence! I think all raids here should embrace it and do what CoH does best.


* Not sure if this works out exactly - I can't draw it at the moment to see if it works as I surmise, because I've injured my main hand. I think it should work though, maybe adjusting a few mito positions.

I am glad I never read Emerald Twilight - I've been enjoying all of the GL/GLC storylines in trade form from Rebirth onwards. Geoff Johns may have made some terrible mistakes in the past, but he's doing ok at the moment for my money (which DC has been getting quite a lot of - certainly more than Marvel recently).

I was aware of most of those 15 dumb moments though - they make me glad I don't (and can't) get comics here. Trade collections ftw! You can just pick and choose the best bits and avoid all the dross - well, providing you can work out which books to buy to get the whole of the story you want - I do find DC easier than Marvel in that respect.

The main continuities of DC and Marvel are so tortuously twisted after all these years - and the terrible attempts to fix them - made worse by having too many titles that just compound the problem with quantity over quality - that I do avoid the main universes most of the time unless it's for a crossover event or something equally big (like the Rebirth / Sinestro Corps War / Blackest Night trilogy). Instead I've always bought lots of self-contained series, plenty of DC Elseworlds stuff, and alternate universe series such as Marvel's Supremeverse, Zombieverse, bits of the Ultimate universe, and 1602 (and I really miss the pre-DC Wildstorm universe too). Good or bad, they don't really have time to outstay their welcome and you don't get drawn in to buying consecutive titles just in the hope they'll get better and back on form.

I'm going to have to agree with EvilRyu on one thing - Dominator snipes need to be ditched - I just don't see how they're supposed to fit the Dominator playstyle. Give some sets another area attack, give other sets another single target attack, anything but the snipes. The only times I take the snipes on a dom are for set muling.

As others have said, Gravity Control is the obvious set that needs a rebuild. It needs at least one more form of useful area control that comes earlier in the set (L12 preferably - maybe as a replacement for Dimension Shift with the set's order being changed) and/or maybe some soft control too (maybe turn Lift into a Targeted AE knock-up that also has a chance to stun). Propel also needs to have its animation time reduced, and maybe a stun and/or knockback effect added (even if it means increasing the power's recharge - I'd rather that than reduced damage).

Though if I was only allowed to change one power instead of one powerset it would be a tough choice between turning Dark Miasma's Black Hole into something useful (preferably a reverse-repel that draws enemies towards it - maybe using a Taunt mechanism like Omega Maneuver - then perhaps has a chance of applying a hold or stun to them while they're within its area), or alternatively turning Storm Summoning's O2 Boost into a PBAE heal rather than a targeted AE heal (preferably without losing the secondary effects) - though the latter probably skirts the edge of the cottage rule.

Because I forgot to list it in my original recommendations:

Appleseed (+1)

I tilted my head on one side and it does look a little like the buildings in Boomtown, but then it also looks like some of the cheap concrete piles in the inner-cities of Russia... or Birmingham/Wolverhampton

Probably a coincidence.

I doubt the web/forum team have spare time to do more than switch the rep comment display on or off, but if they do then the easiest way to bring back visible rep without increasing their moderation duties would be to:

1) Get rid of comments on rep altogether, or alternatively offer a list of selectable pre-set comments - e.g. for good rep: (a) I agree with you; (b) very well said; (c) I agree with you and that was well said; etc. - e.g. for bad rep: (a) I disagree with you; (b) I can't understand what you mean - please phrase your posts better; (c) no need to be so rude; etc.

2) Get rid of the anonymity - when you get positive or negative rep, show who awarded it (although this might potentially increase moderation if some posters feel they are being stalked/victimised).

To me there are three things that make an MMO:

1) Persistent character progression - you can continue to use the same character and develop their abilities/equipment over time.

2) Persistent world - the zones exist, even if there are no players in them, and the world continues to evolve/change/continue even if you don't log in

3) Massive numbers of players - certainly more than the 64 player cap you run into on most online FPS games/servers, and you can interact with those players in large gatherings.

You need all 3 to be an MMO, in my opinion. Diablo 2 had 1) but didn't have 2) or 3). Battlefield 2142 has 1), but runs into the FPS cap with 3) and doesn't have 2) at all. Guild Wars had 1) and 3) but didn't have 2) (at least it didn't when I tested it). But EverQuest, WoW, etc. have all three.

Beyond that there are no limits to the game designs/playstyles that an MMO can support.