Shijuro

What was the rationale for limiting Pacts to characters 5 and under? I've been doing the same thing with a friend, trying to keep our experience as close to equal as possible along the way -- if experience is close to the same, why can't we Pact regardless of our level? I assume there's a way this can be abused, but I just don't see it yet.

Combining Double-Crosses and Fences

Instead of the the two separate concepts, perhaps at the end of dealing with a contact you're offered a really big score. At the end of that mission, you choose which new contact to fence the goods with, and that choice sets you up with a little bonus and the next series of missions.

This would allow more branching of the CoV missions and again provide an in-character mechanism for contact progression -- forcing you to abandon one contact for a more profitable alternative.

Fences

Several CoV mission descriptions involve an opportunity to obtain a valuable item. The conclusion of these missions is always a bit of a let-down, with nothing but the standard Infamy/Prestige rewards. Occasionally needing to fence goods would further differentiate CoV missions from CoH.

Several contacts in each zone would be available to fence the stolen items. At the conclusion of the mission, a dialog would suggest before returning to your contact to close out the mission, you could fence the item (while you still had the "clue" describing it). Each fence would make you an offer (infamy, enhancements, or salvage) and ask if you want them to fence it. Once you accept an offer, you gain the reward and the clue is removed. You may then return to your contact to close out the mission and gain the next.

Double-crosses

Instead of the CoH-ish progression of contacts, when a CoV contact is nearing the end of their missions they'll provide a "Go see xxx for details" and an intermediate contact before receiving the job (simular to CoH's Security Chief function). The intermediary would ask the Villain to return to him/her directly instead of their regular contact. At the conclusion of the mission, they MAY return to the intermediary (or choose to return to the intermediary instead of their contact via a rewards dialog-box). This would provide a small bonus of infamy, change the intermediary into an active contact, and end all relations with the betrayed former contact.

This would allow a bit of branching between contacts instead of the linear path, and provide a more villainous feel to the process (choosing the right moment to betray the current contact).

Accosting NPC citizens

To provide Villains with an equivalent to the CoH "Thank you" bonus Influence and Prestige from saving a civilian from NPC thugs.

A new power innate to ALL Villain classes, "Accost" Using this power on a non-cowering, non-fleeing NPC on the street (in an appropriate level zone for the Villain) would put the victim into a cowering animation, have them say "Don't hurt me!" or "Just take it!", etc., provide a small Infamy (and prestige) bonus, then cause the victim to flee.

Occasionally (especially likely if the power is used again within a few minutes), an ambush of zone-level-appropriate Longbow heroes will descend upon the scene to rescue the victim, attacking the Villain. This provides a small risk to balance the rewards.

Villain-specific General Power pools

These would help differentiate the CoV classes that are most similar to CoH counterparts. A couple could be simple parallels of the CoH General Pools, but with more villainous names and animations/effects.

An example of a new one would be:
Fighting Dirty
1. "Throw Sand" - temporarily blind opponent, a point blank version of Blind power.
2. "Low Blow" - a punch or kick below the belt, a low-damage temporary stun/confuse effect.
3. "Sucker Punch" - A moderate to high damage punch, only valid on stunned/held/slept targets.
4. "Kick While Down" - A high damage kick, only valid on targets recovering from Knock-Down.

I remember seeing a bind sequence for Inspirations, that uses the inspexec_name to attempt all 3 levels of, for instance, Catch a Breath so that it executes the least powerful of that line that you currently have. I can't find it now, does anyone know how to do this? I believe it relies on only one of them triggering.
Thanks in advance!