The_Incarnate

Why not have it for Acid Blood, to be a damage aura that goes off when you reach certain health levels, like the SR passives. Every 10% you go down could stack a damage aura of 1/5th (or so) the strength of a regular one on you.

Aside from that, there needs to be more resistance or something, because that set is not too survivable.

The powers of the Consume type, like Dark Consumption, are currently inferior to Power Sink and even more inferior, to Energy Drain. How?

Consume type

Insignificant damage
Same end mod
Longer range (Excepting DC, which has the same range. Power Sink's shorter range means nothing since you will nearly always go 0-100 anyways with it.)
No heal (Not Power Sink this time, but Energy Drain, which has a 3% heal per enemy hit, which can work it's way up to significant when you take into account the 1/3 recharge of it. Which leads me to...)
Long Recharge (180s vs 60s. Which is vastly unbalanced when in the grand scheme of things they have the same end result each time you use them, minus Energy Drain, which is more powerful AND has the short recharge.)
No end drain (While they do some small damage, Power Sink and Energy Drain do drain a large portion of their enemies end, which in PvP can actually be pretty helpful.)

The only thing that Power Sink and Energy Drain have on their side as a disadvantage is their end cost to use, which is trivial. So, how to fix?

Bring Consume type powers down to 60s. Leave the effects the same.

Leave Power Sink and Energy Drain alone. The point of this is not to nerf, but bring some powers out of the realm of inferiority. Please fix.

Often enough spears were used with one hand with a shield instead of using two hands. That's not only in real life, but in popular culture like 300, where they used one hand for the spear and one hand for the shield. That connects with CoX by the way that the shield set was modeled so massively around 300. So, we could have spears and maybe some others, under the name of Polearms.

As far as staffs go, I care less about that. We could have it be a lot of one handed things, and then in some attacks that require two hands, make the other hand seem like a guide maybe... Hmm.

Anyways, more sets,
Laser Rifle (Energy/Fire fits popular thoughts better [Lasers cauterize wounds they make in Star Wars], but if we followed the CoX trend, it would be Energy/Smashing.)
Laser Blade (See above)
Eye Blast (Ranged Energy/Smashing, modeled after claws would be cool)
Crossbow (Lethal, slower recharge and slightly slower animation than archery, but higher damage. Like Katana/BS)
Dark Control (Negative, a lot of fears and -to hit components)
Dark Assault (For Dominators)
Wind Control (Smashing, lots of KU, KD, Holds.)
Wind Assault (Smashing, would include the next two powerset's powers. A bit of control through KD, KB, and KU being mixed in would give it a bit of damage mitigation.)
Wind Blast (Smashing, KD, KB, KU)
Wind Melee (Smashing, resemble Electricity in the fact it would include a lot of AoE)

As far as content goes, I'd like damage buffs for brutes, like BU, Rage, Follow Up, and Soul Drain to be increased in magnitude. Because they have such a low damage modifier, due to Fury, the rest of their damage buffs suffer. Scrapper version powers have nearly 2x the base damage that brutes do, which is kind of unfair when it comes to those damage buffs.

Decrease the animation times for crab spider attacks. They are vastly unbalanced for the damage some of them do, like longfang, and suppression.

Finish the epic pools for everybody, I hate how some only have four.

I'd like some more pools that have powers that let us expand the story behind our character. We could have some common ones, like,
Super Senses (Defense, perception/accuracy, recharge, -res/defense debuff)
Gadgets (Grenades, defensive devices, small bots)

Polearms: Melee Offensive, many cones, bonus of +range (like 12ft or so)
Pistols: Ranged Offensive, ST cone mix, shorter range but fast animations.
Grenade Launcher: Ranged Offensive, highly AoE oriented with some good control, but low ST.
Minigun: Ranged Offensive, ST and cones, high damage, slow recharge and -slow component while using.
Beast Mastery: Pets Set, control beasts which are mostly melee tank types (Wolves, Bears, Dragon)
Wizards: Pets Set, control wizards which are mostly ranged magic users. (Elemental Wizards, Life/Death Wizards, Ancient Wizard [Everything])
Spines/Claws/Broad Sword/Katana/Regeneration for Brutes
Electric Melee/Energy Melee/Electric Armor/Energy Aura for Scrappers
Psychic Blast for Corrupters
Kinetics for Masterminds

To start the wheel rolling...

Please do not post things like, learn to search or anything else alike to this. This post is about a new way of implementing customization that will be balanced, efficient, and effective. Thank you. On to the longest post I've ever done,

For a long time, the players of CoX have requested that we are allowed customizability on powers. My idea is to allow semi customization and diversification, by doing this,

1. Grant players “Points” they can use to change their characters base aspects.
2. Create a second set that are diversifying while not overpowering, for all sets. The players would then be able to choose between powers received from each tier.
3. Allow players to have multiple inherent abilities to choose from (for ATs and origins) that resemble each other in story, but allow for diversification of the usage of the AT.

So, if one looks at that, they can see that it would fairly well dissolve many distinctions between sets. As long as some people can sit back and calmly realize, that some people want to play, for example /Shield for concept, and not have their hopes smashed for a toon that can charge through massive amounts of enemies, and sacrifice damage a bit, that’s fine. So, on to the detailed explanation of #1.


Points

Points is the concept of being able to add and subtract from the base values of certain aspects of ATs. There would be three points max, one point minimum, for simplification, but that’s changeable. All base values would have two points automatically. You would automatically have 0 extra points. This means that you would have a stock AT. They could have different modifiers for each point from value to value. Example, damage could be a .1x difference between points. Max HP could be .2x difference. The example below of a custom AT base is shown below. Note that this is not what must be done for it to work, but I believe it’s all the ones that are changeable.

Damage X X O
To-Hit X O O (I believe it would be this modified, not accuracy. I don’t think both)
Recharge X X X
End Usage X O O
Range X X X (This could apply to all powers, giving meleers the polearm effect, or rangers a sniper effect)
Defense X X O
Resistance X X O
Regeneration X O O
Max HP X X O
End Recovery X X X
Max End X X O

Extra Points: 0

You could also do it in pairings, such as Damage vs Damage Mitigation, but I am unsure of how to do that without impairing the customizability of it.


Second Set Diversification

This is the concept of having two powers of each tier, where you may choose one of them and only one. This could have many benefits to story and playability, but is likely one of the hardest to implement due to massive work on balancing and other such things. This would likely not be available on epics, due to them having so many powers anyways, but that’s in the hands of the Devs. Example below. Note that I have a 50 DM/Will Brute, which is why I have those as examples.

Dark Melee (All melee here, except Tentacle Eruption. * Means second set)

Tier One – Shadow Punch - ST Damage
Tier One* - Shadow Blind - ST Damage/Large To-Hit Debuff
Tier Two – Smite - ST Damage
Tier Two * - Clinging Shadows - ST DoT Damage
Tier Three – Shadow Maul - Cone Damage
Tier Three* - Shadow Rift - PBAoE DoT Damage
Tier Four – Touch of Fear - ST Fear
Tier Four * - Withering Touch - ST Damage Debuff
Tier Five – Siphon Life - ST Damage/Heal
Tier Five* - Condemn Soul - ST DoT Damage/Special resurrect on death as minion pet. 1 max.
Tier Six – Taunt - AoE Taunt
Tier Six* - Confront - ST Taunt/-Range
Tier Seven – Dark Consumption - PBAoE Damage/+End
Tier Seven* - Tendrils - Toggle PBAoE Damage
Tier Eight – Soul Drain - PBAoE Damage/Damage Buff/To-Hit Buff
Tier Eight* - Dark Gift - Self Auto Damage Buff/To-Hit
Tier Nine – Midnight Grasp - ST DoT Damage/Immob
Tier Nine* - Tentacle Eruption - AoE Damage/KU

So, there are many choices and sacrifices to be made on this set now. A single set like this would warrant a few go throughs with multiple builds each time to experience the set in all of it’s facets. It isn’t terribly overpowered either, and each choice is either similar in concept, or polar opposites, which I believe is a good way of going about it. Example, Midnight Grasp and Tentacle Eruption both have good control, but there is a choice between ST damage and AoE damage. On the Siphon Life and Condemn Soul combo, they are both excellent looking powers, and a big choice. Touch of Fear and Withering Touch are both debuffs for survivability, but achieve it in different ways. On to Willpower then.

Willpower (* Means second set)

Tier One – High Pain Tolerance - Self Auto Max Hp/Resistance
Tier One* - Ignore Pain - Self Click Max HP/Heal
Tier Two – Mind Over Body - Self Toggle Resistance
Tier Two* - Disciplined Reflexes - Self Toggle Defense
Tier Three – Fast Healing - Self Auto +Regen
Tier Three* - Resolute - Self Auto Status Resistance/PBAoE Damage Debuff
Tier Four – Indomitable Will - Self Toggle Status Protection
Tier Four* - Momentum - Self Click (Less) Status Protection/Damage Buff
Tier Five – Rise to the Challenge - Self Toggle +Regen for enemies in range
Tier Five* - Pull Together - Self Click Heal
Tier Six – Quick Recovery - Self Auto +Recovery
Tier Six* - Clear Mind - Self Click +Recharge (Not much, sustainable)
Tier Seven – Heightened Senses - Self Toggle Defense/Perception
Tier Seven* - Inspiring - PBAoE Toggle +Damage/Status Protection
Tier Eight – Resurgence - Self Click Resurrection
Tier Eight* - Sacrifice Self - PBAoE (Nuke) Damage/-90% HP
Tier Nine – Strength of Will - Self Click Resistance/Recovery/Status Protection
Tier Nine* - Final Stand - Self Click (MoG Type) Resistance/Regeneration/Recovery

There are large offensive bonuses not in here before (Like Momentum), as well as some other types of damage mitigation (Like Ignore Pain). There is the choice between Strength of Will and Final Stand, a Moment of Glory type power as well. There is the ability to be more of a team player also (Like Inspiring). A nuke that practically kills you unless you have near full health (Sacrifice Self) ironically replaces resurgence. If all defensive sets were like this, it would allow people to tank with /Elecs (Which isn’t a bad thing) or SMASH! with /Will. We now move on to multiple inherent powers.


Multiple Inherent Powers

This idea is of having multiple inherent powers (Origin and AT) to choose from when creating a character. Fairly straightforward, this would at the same point not allow things such as a Fury power on a Controller, as that is not what they are built for. These should not be overpowering either. Just for diversification, customization, and replayablity. This example will be for Brutes, as that is what I have the most experience on. I don’t see any reason epics (or any other AT excepting Stalkers) couldn’t get this.

Brute Inherents

Inherent One: Fury, Damage buffs for hitting and getting hit.
Inherent Two: Aristeia, (Like Domination) Large Damage/Recharge/Resistance Buff followed by crash, that is allowed to be used every once in a while.
Inherent Three: Frenzy, (Like Fury) Recharge buffs for hitting and getting hit.
Inherent Four: Unrelenting, Auto Damage/Regeneration/Recovery Buffs

So there are many possible inherents, with this being only the tip of the iceberg. As a note to the Devs, this particular feature alone would warrant many trips though each AT just for the special inherents. Then we have origins, which are less major so I will have a small example.

Natural Origin Powers

Inherent One: Throwing Knives - ST Ranged DoT Damage
Inherent Two: Nerve Strike - ST Damage/Disorient
Inherent Three: Molotov Cocktail - AoE (Minor) Damage/(Chance Mag 1) Fear

The different origin powers are more or less for a change to the norm, rather than things that are meant to make a large difference.


So that’s effectively my plan for customization. It is truly not full customization (and has no things like green fire), but is just a huge diversification in each set and AT. This is done in a fairly efficient way that should bring back and keep many players for a very long time. Do it Devs, you know you want to.

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Better solution: make sending emails cost inf. Not much (somewhere in the 1000 inf range), but it would cut down on the spam oh-so much because now, in order to advertise, they've got to use their "product".

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That wouldn't even make a dent in their inventories. They sell influence in lots of 100 million and more.

User-configurable email filters are the only viable solution that I've seen proposed here so far.

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But it would cost time, which costs money. I believe that the toons they use to send out their advertisements are low levels off of new accounts, so that if they are banned it doesn't make a huge difference, and they can delete their advertisers to make it less traceable. If they had to transfer inf, or earn it at that level, it would take a good amount of time.

Although there's that, I think there should be an auto check for all emails. The following words/phrases should be banned, IMO,
.com
Inf for sale
Infamy for sale
powerleveling
www
(Insert names of companies here)

There are a bunch I'm missing... Anyways, /signed.

Having some personal experience with this and it's link to the AE, I posted a mission arc five missions long called Trainer Mission. In this, you were sent to a cargo ship 5 times, each time filled with ninjas, which were regular DB/Regen Lieutenants, and were some good experience and tickets. Also please remember that in the description or the intro dialogue (one of them, I forget) I practically told the people who played it to not play it if they didn't already have good experience with the game. After two or three days and 18 perfect ratings and good feedback, someone must've reported it for farming, and it got banned. If I could just please say, farming is a useful tool for getting salvage, recipes, and more from the AE. As said before, farmers can come up with some of the best builds. I have a 50, and I'm working on getting more, but when I'm out of inf or need experience, I'll farm. Please unban, devs are starting to sacrifice fun for balance, and games aren't meant to be about balance, they're meant for you to have as much fun as you can.

On the rating system, we could modify the Hall of Fame part by adding another button for rating, which could be called, Nominate Mission/Arc (Unlimited Nominations). Monthly the game would count the Nominations. Then, the top ten of these would be listed on a front page type thing on the menu of the MA when you go to play. These top ten would, for a month, be voted upon for the Hall of Fame, with one vote being allowed per account. The one with the highest votes would be put into the Hall of Fame, in a slot of a month, (Example, March 2009). This would eliminate any possibility of the Hall of Fame being swamped with things that may not deserve it, make it so that a few people wouldn't throw it off, and organize it better as well. At the same point that the new Hall of Fame mission is inducted, the new voting process, (Not nominations, as they would have been done during the previous voting session), will begin. All in all, simple, and easy to implement, while effective.

On a sidenote, we could change it to weekly if we'd like the Hall of Fame to be larger. Missions/Arcs staying in the running as long as they're up for Hall of Fame if they're not already in no matter what would be better in my mind, but the devs can change things around if they were to implement it.

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Again, I think if you looks at some classic comics and their epic storylines you'll get a good idea of what works. This Roman thing is weak. It should be a new group of super enemies, different aliens, different planet etc. That's what we want to see. The Roman stuff is ok but enough of it already - for a supers game this isn't too super.

For example, most of your opponents don't even look that super or seem it. The CoT (weak), street thugs (your supers are being beaten by street toughs..ugh), carnies (a bit better but not much) and the list goes on. There are some great opponents along the way too but the ones noted don't make me feel like I'm a super in a comic.

The DEVS need to focus back to super hero/comic stuff. New group of costume clad opponents. Maybe a new group of 4 or 5 main evils and their henchmen who are also costume clad. Anyway, spend some time coming up with a good look and add them into the mix for spawn groups and adversaries.

Since you have some new revenue streams coming up (costume packs and in-game ads) you can get help developing some new super ideas.


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I disagree... a lot. I don't want more aliens, or a different planet, or any of that. Because guess what, it's going to be extremely similar to the Rikti. And even if it was different, like the dragons from Marvel, I wouldn't want it. We have a great base of heroic things, but if they don't diversify, the game will become stagnant and boring. No, CoT aren't weak. No, street thugs that come into possession of magical artifacts and spells killing your character doesn't give you a sense of not being super. Any super hero/villain that gets cocky and takes off more than he can chew, will die. They are not all powerful gods, who's enemies bullets reflect from their skin, and enemies attacks do nothing to them. What we need, is interesting enemies, because I for one don't want a new villain group that is exactly like all the others. What the devs would do, would be put new costumes on Longbow, and then call them (Insert Name Here) and that would be your group. Guns for minions, guns for Lts, special powers for bosses, EBs and AVs. Possibly some weak powers for Lts or minions. But thats almost exactly like the CoT, and you say they're weak. The thing MMOs come under fire from the most seems to be being too repetitive. In WoW, go to camp, and get a mission. You go out, collect 5 bronze bars, go back. Get mission, collect X, go back. In CoX, it's get mission, go to mission, kill X, get mission, go to mission, kill X... The only change we might ever get is PvP, and there's no xp in that. We need things that are interesting, we can relate to, and are unique. Revolutionary. I want some change in the system of the game, and diversifacation.

Well, since we're on the topic of stretching the genre, I'll give a few suggestions.

WWII: Blue Side, fight Nazis and save the Jews, bomb Nazi camps, and fight the Japanese in Pearl Harbor and Iwo Jima. Red side, fight the Allies and round up the Jews, prevent attacks, lead attacks on other Nations, and fight in Pearl Harbor. I'd want to see it like suggested before where it's a copy of the same zone, but different for both sides. (Meaning that its not PvP, but it is the same zone as for the other side.) Access at lvl 40.

Prehistoric Times: For prehistoric times, I want something like RWZ where it's cooperative, or as mentioned above. For mission and story ideas, i want to fight random swarms of small dinosaurs as they emerge from the trees, (which would be treated as doors), large dinosaurs as they roam the jungle, fight alongside or against cavemen, save people from dinosaurs/provoke them to attack others, and save humanity by bringing species back to the present, like in the Star Trek movie, where I believe they were saving a whale because it was the only thing that could talk a certain language. A main feature here would be a dinosaur you can tame, being able to call it forth from the past every two hours. Access at lvl 20.

The Future: I want to see flying cars, huge skyscrapers, robots, cybernetics, and flying policemen. For this, I say we do something like Grand Theft Auto. Red Side, As you destroy/steal things, police will begin to chase you, then bring in larger and heavier weaponry and more troops, till you get to a certain threat level, you are granted debt protection till you zone and a xp bonus, about a normal missions worth. Then, as you reach higher and higher threat levels (Probably going up to 5 or so, which would take about 2-4 hours) you'd have mounting xp bonuses, and more things attacking, until they send a massive wave that has to kill you. Blue Side, your job is to stop any villains, with regular attacks by them every few minutes. (Note, this will be villain gangs of the future, not big AVs) Then if you thwart enough of their attacks, an EB will attack, having a good sized gang with him. If you defeat him, you will get a mission sized xp bonus. Then, the gangs will riot (We're talking a mass outbreak of villain groups, somewhat like troll raves, except all over the whole map) ,which is when you get the most xp. The whole map would be scaled to lvl 40, (Like how Rikti are scaled to 30), and you would have access at lvl 30.

Fantasy: No matter what people say, I want a fantasy zone, with humans, orcs, elves, trolls, undead, and dragons. I think, you should be able to join a side, (one of the ones above), and then deal out mayhem to the other groups, gaining ranks in the faction. Then, as you grow, you are granted important missions in the faction. Newspaper missions would be things like raiding camps and caravans, or kidnapping royalty. This would be a pve zone, copied over and seperate. Access at lvl 25.

Not exactly relating to zones, but Vehicles. After all, almost all the superhero/villains had some type of vehicles. I think, with this, you could add a outerspace zone, (See SWG, but make it much better.), where you fight others like rikti in your space ships, or you can chases with villains/heroes, either in a Catch the Bad/Good Guy type, or in a Get to X Location First type mission, which would be another great addition, and also get more console gamers to our side. You could even buy an customize a super group vehicle, then fly it around and do SG missions, only accessible from your base, if you have a sg vehicle.

So those are my ideas, and guess what devs, if you do some of those, things like WoW won't know what hit them, because people will start leaving them pretty fast. You'd at least get a lot more money, with which you can advertise on TV/Internet. After all, I think if more people knew about CoX, they'd play it, they just don't know.

Great idea, I hope that we end up being able to do that.

I think instead of you giving it a monstrous recharge time though, it should reflect the strength of the power or what it does. Example for what your power does: You are a WP Brute with a good amount of Smash/Lethal resistance, yet you can't max your resistance even with Strength of Will. You want to have a stronger resistance and not be so reliant on regen, so you make a toggle that is +resistance to boost you to 70% or so, enough that you can get to max with Strength of Will. And after all, you wouldnt have a click +resistance power that takes patron pet sized times to recharge...

Other example: (Keeping with Brutes) You are a Elec/ Brute that wants another PBAoE for farming. You would be faced with the choice, do you want an attack that works like Irradiate, good dmg but not too long recharge, or you could get something like Thunderous Blast and have a Nuke that one shots most minions, but have a six minute recharge time and cause you to get drained of all end.

I also dont think it could be imbalanced since everyone would have it, and they could bump the difficulty of the mobs if it was too bad, providing its not that hard. If i saw Power Reflective Costs like that implemented, it's /signed