Thremaine

Aw, too bad my work (and school if I get in) both start mid august but I think there are weekends still left for me to play. Thanks for the information though.

Very nice changes. Thank you.

Alright, thank you for the info.

Does anyone know if for example achilles' heel proc applies before the power that triggered it does damage? So if I for example slot it to shield charge do I first get the -res and then damage from shield charge, or first damage and then -res?

Thanks in advance!

Subjective:

• Request: a belt piece for organic armor (one that covers groin as well)
• Request: organic armor chest detail (similar to ridges/crests in feet and arms)
• Request: version of organic armor "pants" with feet piece style ridges/crests
• Request: crested beard

These mostly because it would make mixing the sets more viable. It also feels weird that you can have full arm length organic ridges/crests but not full leg length? Costume parts are mostly fine but seem to be missing a few pieces that would make the set feel more complete.

Oh and the seam between head and torso in bioluminate set feels really really awkward.

On a positive side: luminescent parts are really cool. Any chance we can get some luminescent patterns for existing costumes? They would enhance nicely many tech costume pieces. It's also nice that you can mix hair with the organic armor "helm".

Subjective: Any chance for /e growl not to hide spines (when spines power has been used)?

They should just remove all targetted, persistent buffs from the game. I mean no one wants to be on the receiving end of one of those annoying buffs! All those flashy graphics effects are going to clash with your costume and character theme anyways. Plus there's the benefit it would make the game slightly harder! So say yes to removal of all targetted buffs. Let's have debuffs and self buffs only!

Say no to SB, ID, CM, force shields, ice shields, fire shields, frostworks and forges! They are poorly designed anyways and last way too long! At most they should absorb just one hit and go down. I mean now they let blasters and other squishies rival scrappers and tankers if someone casts them at them. Blasters and defenders should be squishy and die easily!

Optionally make them all have a prompt so no one has to suffer them. I mean if fortune gets one, shouldn't all buffs get one?

My requests are here. Again I try to focus on things that already exist in game but could use variation but there are a few unique ones. Some are ideas for alternate pool effects if you guys ever get to pool customisation (maaaybe in GR...).

• Emotes: /e fabricate (you summon/create random small items)
• Emotes: /e juggleice (we can juggle fire, electricity, or magic but no ice?)
• Emotes: /e meditate (like lotus/yoga but with the glow that npcs get)
• Emotes: /e tracerune (trace magical rune on air similar to demon summoning; loop)
• Emotes: /e groundport (character slowly sinks into ground and pops back up a few feet away)
• Emotes: /e throwglitter (you throw glittering particles in rainbow colors)
• Emotes: /cce groundvanish (character sinks into ground and then pops back up with changed costume)
• PowerFX: Brimstone teleport (alternative teleport fx with burst of smoke)
• Auras: floating crystals, flame, ice, runes etc that circle your character (body and/or head)*

The inspiration for groundport and groundvanish come from some animation I saw long time ago where this skeletal robed figure crossed arms and sunk into ground that was glowing with omnious black/purple aura - it then slowly rose up in another spot. Actually I think I requested this as alternate animation for tunneling in CO (you sink into ground, travel underground, and then pop back up).

*the aura request is in other thread as well since it's a costume part but also FX. Should it be exclusively there?

I'm one of the people who are annoyed about the prompt and wish to see it gone. Currently I request in teams that no one casts mystic fortune on me but people just don't seem to listen (though if I am leader I can always boot them).

Don't get me wrong - I love the buffs, but it is god damn annoying when someone decides to use it in midbattle and suddenly you are stuck and get face full of prompt. I'd like to see setting for autoselecting or autodenying it.

Hello, it's me again. I talked with a few SG mates and one of the things we would like to see is a Wand Blast powerset. I mean why not? There are already some animations and wand models in game, and it would give a nice new item based attack set for blasters and defenders. Plus it can be applied to both scifi and magic (even if the suggested names below are more magicy) - in fact it would be nice to see tech wands too.

When I thought about Wand Blast I tried to do something a bit different from regular sets while not going over the board. The set has much common with Archery in that it lacks the secondary effect for most attacks while others are unique to the set. There are three things going for Wand Blast:

• Damage versatility (energy, negative energy primary, with elements showing up)
• Wand charges (ability to draw power from wand)
• Higher base accuracy (as it's a weapon set)

Wand charges are something that the wand replenishes slowly and this can not be improved by any sort of recharge bonus. At most there can be three charges. These are used by two powers: Draw Power and Power Cascade. These are probably something that would require some testing to get right.

The primary idea behind Wand Charges is to offer some way to recover endurance on lower levels which is, at least for me, one of the primary annoyance factors in game. Once you get stamina they are still useful both for endurance, and later for the nuke. I also think they add something that is unique for the wand set.

Here are the powers for the Wand Blast:

• Mystic Bolt (minor ranged energy damage)
• Mystic Blast (moderate ranged energy damage)
• Conflux (moderate targeted AoE cold, electricity and fire damage)
• Draw Power (draw a charge for a damage buff and endurance)
• Hex (extreme ranged negative energy damage and random debuff)
• Bind (ranged immobilize)
• Leech Life (moderate ranged negative energy DoT and self HoT)
• Vortex (targeted AoE negative energy DoT and reverse repel)
• Power Cascade (extreme PBAoE energy damage, hits depend on charges)

Mystic Bolt is your regular first tier power with standardized damage, recharge, and end cost. Does not have secondary effect but has higher base accuracy. Does energy damage.

Mystic Blast is your regular second tier power with comparable damage, recharge and endurance cost. Does not have secondary effect but has higher base accuracy. Does energy damage.

Conflux takes the place of first AoE which exists in most sets. It's a targetted AoE which inflicts part cold, part electricity and part fire damage. Combined damage is moderate with 16s recharge. I imagine this looking like three different streams of elemental energy moving in a circular path until they hit the primary target. Has higher base accuracy but no secondary effect.

Draw Power drains one charge from the wand and gives short term damage buff (aim level) as well as restores some endurance (25% self). Has 10s recharge as damage buff has 10s duration, but depends on wand charges which replenish much slower. The idea of this power is to give low level prestamina endurance recovery! The animation of this power could be the Rikti cure "hold wand up" while energy focuses on the tip.

Hex is high damage ranged negative energy attack. Think will domination level damage. This also applies a random "curse" which is either damage, resistance or defense debuff. The base debuff should be a bit higher than regular blaster attacks since it can not be enhanced, neither can you apply debuff IO sets to it since the curse is random. Has higher base accuracy.

Bind is regular ranged immobilize. No damage on this and no secondary effect. Has higher base accuracy.

Leech Life dishes out moderate negative energy DoT and heals the caster over time. Think life drain here except without -to hit component and also as a DoT. Has higher base accuracy.

Vortex is a location AoE that spawns pseudopet which draws nearby enemies in (reverse repel) while inflicting minor negative energy damage over long duration. Think Ice Storm here. Has higher base accuracy.

Power Cascade is the crashless PBAoE nuke of the set. It inflicts up to three hits of energy damage depending on how many charges the wand has. When I think about this power I imagine the Static Overload PBAoE attack that Arachnos Heavy Blasters do, only that the caster is holding wand up while arcs of power shoot from it.

Seems like unscheduled one to me since I believe there was one yesterday as well (and at proper time which wouldn't be the case now I believe). Oh and for the record: US servers are down too.

Why I don't like CO combat...

Oh forgot to comment on CO combat. CO combat is not what I want. CO combat is about turning on autospamming endurance builder that does insignificant damage so you can actually use "real" attacks, and all those "real attacks" usually require either maintenance or charging. This leads to a situation where you simply spam the endurance builder and then use same attack, repeatedly - and in a manner that completelly halts the flow of combat.

I argued for long while CO was in development that they should nuke the endurance builders and replace them with real attacks that actually do damage AND build endurance. I don't think anyone calls fire sword, scorch or fire blast unnecessary attacks? At least I use them all. Especially if they can drop minions with just a few applications. What I hate in CoX is "building the attack chain with no pauses" which even some of my 50s can't achieve.

My idea is to have no pauses (other than animation) basic attacks that are perfectly capable of dropping minions and damaging liutenants. Switch to heavy hitters to finish off the tougher foes or to AoE the spawn - and empty your bar in process. Since your basic attacks are actually viable attacks the useless feel of CO endurance builders shouldn't be as much of a problem.

I also argued the CO has too many chargeable powers since most of your time is spent charging attack - same one attack. That was boring as hell and made combat stagger. It was spam end builder, charge AoE, spam end builder, charge AoE all over and over and over. Not fun. Most powers really need to be instant casting with charge powers and maintained powers being an exception (for really heavy hitting or special powers). This at least CoX gets right.

For CO it also made no sense that they seemed to make arbitrary decisions on what powers had recharge and what not. You could easily Fireball entire spawn nonstop but try to use much weaker melee cone maintained attack you suddenly had a recharge? In a system where you can freely pick powers? Yeah, that's going to go well...

What makes charging in CO even more frustrating is that there's also no indication how long you need to charge a power to have enough damage to drop a minion, so you usually fully charged it just in case, even if you could tap it. Oh and since most AoEs do (or at least did) same amount of damage, or actually more, than single target attacks, you would use those all the time.

There were also no real attacks that didn't require endurance. You had to build endurance to be able to use ALL attacks, and even heals - though running out of endurance is also a bad thing in CoX. The "rage bar" endurance system has the benefit that you always have you basic attacks - they even enjoy a damage bonus when endurance is high.

You also have your special powers that don't consume endurance and that you use as openers (i.e. snipes), or in special situations (build ups/break frees, rezzes), or even to get back some endurance (consume type powers). This is what adds flavor to combat and not just spamming same one attack.

Then there's also the issue with buffs being pretty much worthless. What's the point of Protection Field if it has 15s recharge timer and alpha from three henchmen is going to drop it instantly - or a single hit from any other enemy? With the rest of the damage bleeding through? It's like someone cast deflection shield at target, only that you can cast it once every 15s and it drops from the first hit.

Finally CO also suffers from stupid enemies, boring missions and weird graphics that are all off putting for me. Heck if it had STO-like graphics it might be more interesting. Missions still suck, and open world mostly lacks any sort of ambience. Then there was the whole release fiasco with imbalanced powers getting to release and the "repair patch" AFTER beta - even after we kept repeatedly telling them the powers are not balanced. Oh and then there were the content gaps, and no real end game content, too fast leveling (for no end game content) etc etc.

Thanks for the replies. I was quite sure there would be people who disagree with me and that's one of the reasons why I placed "CoX2" in the title. I think there's room for both games because I personally would like to see an approach to combat that someone are bound to call "consoly" while having interesting missions (especially open missions).

Even so, my next game is probably going to be Guild Wars 2 since they are actually trying to do something new with their game quests - or so it seems. Either way, NCSoft keeps the money. I just hope the combat is not mind numbingly boring "spend two minutes to exchange spells" style.

A few comments to PennyPA:

As to the Eden trial. It just seems to me that there's something wrong with the trial if you actually wish to skip to the end. Either it's too long or then badly designed. Perhaps it is because for me it has been more than two years since I last did it, and still I didn't feel I missed anything by skipping to the end. It felt just a bit pointless and uninspiring.

Oh and the "no ranged attacks in melee" is not going to work for current CoX - or it might, but everyone is just too used to having ranged attacks working in melee. Besides most ATs lack melee attacks currently. Still, it's not like you lose the ranged attacks if there are mobs within melee range, you lose them if your current target is within melee range - and then you switch to melee attacks, PBAoEs or tap target and fireball some critter a bit further away - or optionally knock them away from you. Most are things that controllers, defenders and corruptors can do currently.

Then to Steampunkette's comments:

Fair enough about level gated enemies. Just make there optional paths where you don't have to fight mooks with guns unless you have to. This is where tiered gameplay helps again. Have "natural path to max level", "magic path to max level" etc.

For zone events you could use trial zones. To me Crey's folly is pretty much a graveyard, so is Dark Astoria (which has awesome fog theme). Boomtown is also empty. Doesn't have to be within city zones. And events like hellions setting up fires could still happen within regular zones as they aren't that invasive - in fact they would add some new missions to Steel Canyon.

As to power/AT structuring. Yes, it would fail if you have free access to all powers. That's why you still pick a powerset, only now your powerset has more choices. You have a few options to swap out powers but that doesn't mean completelly free power selection - or are you saying people aren't borderline overpowered now?

A player who knows how to build IOed character with maximum defenses is going to be hugely more survivable than regular character. In fact it was recently pointed out to me that my Boardsword/Shield scrapper isn't quite properly build since he doesn't have tough, weave, aid self, and hasten. More importantly I wouldn't even dream about playing him without stamina. All this is bad from my perspective, and probably from perspective of a new player. Sets guarantee you have the basics covered and some limitations for picks. It's just that you have more flexibility if every thematic power is in one set. Currently most sets duplicate most powers anyways (i.e. tanker fire melee has a lot same powers as blaster fire manipulation).

As to animal characters. Again I've to agree that animal model should be something appearing in the new game. I believe they could have male, female and animal. Huge can be probably nowadays handled with better "tech" (I don't know as I'm not a modeller or animator, but I think so?).

As to powers: yes, I think toggles should be free. Their main downside is that they can be suppressed - in theory. This is not possible in current CoX. It's also not something I'd change in *current* CoX.

I also think you missed part of the point: some of these things were meant as suggestions to potential sequel. I don't expect them to completelly change how CoX currently works - that would be silly and cause a huge uproar for people who have stayed faithful to CoX. It would be like changes to Star Wars Galaxies, and lead a lot people leaving the game.

Still, they can do some things to smoothen the lack of attack chains and with endurance problems that lower level characters suffer from. I don't have the attack chain problem as I have sands of mu, blackwand and nemesis staff because of vet rewards but I remember how painful it was when I didn't have those. I also tend to create characters who are light on endurance consumption, or provide recovery early on, as running out of end is something that aggravates me to a point that it makes me want to turn into a villain and hurt people responsible for endurance mechanic (if villains didn't suffer from the same problem).

As to AV battles. Some of them seem to be very much AT dependant or you can't simply kill them. One of the key things is that there shouldn't be a proper "set up" for a team. There should be always tools within the mission to be able to complete the fight. Whether it's some sort of battle strategy, using enevironment and zone triggers to your benefit, or simply by granting players temporary powers (on a side note: I do like ITF and in fact looking to join into ITF team if anyone is planning to run one during reasonable (European) hours. ).

As to other things. I disagree with them on the grounds that they are playstyle dependant. If they ever get around to creating CoX2 they need to keep in mind that it has to stay somewhat familiar to players, but also change things. As I said: there's probably room for both games. I mean CoX is not going to keep for example me for long, I pop in and out to check new content, but after 54 months it is just too much same old. I still have interest for a different kind of superhero MMO - just not too different as CoX does many things well. Perhaps DC Universe Online actually will be released and proves out to be a good game?

About trial zones and zone events

Zone events are another thing that I feel are sort of underused feature - or rather I feel the zone event should have a build up period, and to be player triggered. For example consider current Steel Canyon: no one is blinking an eye when fires start there - it's done only to get badge. It's also completelly random so you are not likely to stop your mission and rush to help citizens.

What I'd like to see is sort of open mission where there are multiple small spawns of hellions setting up fires even when the event is not running. There's a counter with overlay similar to what deadly apocalypse has. As players defeat groups the counter goes up until hellions show up in force and start the actual torching of Steel Canyon. Players who contributed most get a few merits while everyone who contributed for the event gets something - i.e. recipe drop, or badge.

Even better if players are rewarded with fireman themed costume pieces and/or temporary powers because temporary powers are something that help quite a lot in lower level gameplay.

There should be also a repeatable lower level mission where you can defeat hellions for mission rewards (defeat x type) granted at the police station.

All in all I feel zones that have a theme and missions build around it are very good and fun. This is one of the reasons why I'm wondering why the interactive ones are mostly reserved for PvP? I mean in Siren's you can do missions to buff allies within zone (why not in PvE?) and in RV the environment changes based on fights, and there are a lot cool toys to have (turret stations and giant killer robots) why not in PvE side?

Maybe the answer is with lack of open world missions. They are something CoX is currently lacking - and it's always more rewarding if it also starts a mission. Incidently zone events are also one of the things where I feel tiered gameplay helps: you spend more time at the zones. Part of the problem currently is that while mission mobs scale to your level, outdoor mobs usually don't.

Oh and for fun a zone event that may happen in... say... Boomtown if it ever gets redesigned. Combines an open world event with instance. The zone being built around this event! Indeed trial zones are the best choice for these.

Citadel in the Sky
Enemy Group: Rikti
Allies: NPC heroes, paragon police, vanguard

The Rikti have brought in one of their motherships and attack the zone! The event starts with storm brewing and the zone darkening. A whirling nexus can be seen on a sky and swarms of Rikti drones appear from it. Some of them patrol the skies while others start actually assaulting enemy groups, heroes and NPC allies on the ground.

Soon after the mothership descents and starts powering up. Rikti ground troops start porting in and join the assault. Heroes can fight the Rikti and enter the mothership. There they have to fight hordes of Rikti and crash it down (yay for cutscenes) before it manages to unleash a massive blast (zonewide nuke). Players also have to defeat pylons and can man turret stations to take down Rikti.

This zone basically has two states now like RV: "normal" and "newly destroyed".

Then have some NPC allies actually help and provide aid when the event starts. Build the zone missions around this event too!

About Missions

One of the most important things for me are missions. Questing is the core of game experience for me and without interesting missions the game simply ceases to interest me. This is mostly what happened to CoX - albeit only after four years but nowadays I've very little tolerance for it. Everything else in CoX is pretty nice, and it's customization, WW and ambience which keep me entertained, but CoX seriously still "fails" in missions.

I tend to talk about missions being boring and feeling wrong, however this seems to often translate to the idea that I think mission story is boring - it's usually not, it's just that missions are mechanically boring. You go in, kill everything, sometimes skip most of the content and kill only the end boss, and then get out. This is what happens in many taskforces, too!

I like instanced content but I feel CoX seriously underuses its instance potential. Instances are the best way to give personalized experience: destructive environments, traps, changing maps, subgoal driven objectives... all this in CoX comes down to "find a blinky, click it/destroy it" or "get ambushed by a spawn you can see from miles away" or "defeat all" or "defeat boss". Now this all is fine if it's the primary goal. However road to the primary goal is what should matter, and that could be more interesting.

Also travelling to missions can be boring. It's not the travel itself, it's the travel being completelly unrelated waste of a time when it could be part of the mission itself. Endlessly repeating maps don't help either.

Below is a mission sample that is at least a bit more complex. It is mostly approached from a mechanical point of view, and doesn't actually tell any sort of real story.


The Temple of Doom
Enemy group: CoT
Primary objective: destroy wards protecting the temple, defeat main villain
Secondary objectives: prevent summoning, destroy teleport hindering obelisks, help midnighters, perform ritual of destruction, destroy debuff altar
Allies: midnighters
Enemies: villains, flying villains
Hazards: vines, temple debuff

The mission starts with a cutscene of Circle mages chanting in perez, the ground shakes and suddenly a temple and various large thorns erupt from ground. Circle mages and ghosts pour out of the temple and attack other villains.

Players are ported to the mission map: the air space is filled with flying CoT patrols (ghosts), and there are groups of CoT mages chanting around obelisks. There are a few fights between different villain groups, and Midnighters have erected a force bubble near Steel Canyon entrance, and are fighting CoT.

The goal of players is to find a path to the temple through the forest maze but this path changes every time. Those who choose to fly must fight with the flying patrols where as groundbound characters need to enter the forest maze, only now thorn tree vines erupt from ground and form blocking walls, and attack heroes (you destroy the walls and vines to proceed).

Teleportation is not possible until players destroy obelisks and defeat the villains guarding them (so no flyby or stealth teleporting before that).

The temple itself is warded against entry. You have to destroy the wards protecting it. When you attack wards they alert a group of CoT who show up on the scene, lead by rather nasty elite boss. If you choose to help Midnighters they will give you protective charms (temporary powers) that work well against the EBs, and you can even have a Midnighter ally to help you. Temp powers are removed when mission completes.

As you enter the temple another cutscene plays with some head honcho proclaiming doom and starts a ritual with mage lackeys. Timer starts. The temple is filled with vine corridors - dozens of vines that smack you around as you navigate the temple. Even better, the initial room has CoT teleporter that scatters the party and you all have to make your own way to central room (spawns are adjusted to single size but you still have to go through vines).

The main villain is surrounded by a large spawn of CoT but those with magical gift (magic origin) can take a detour to a subgoal location that allows them to perform a ritual that zaps the spawns around main villain to death. There's also an altar within the temple that causes constant defense and resistance debuff to heroes until destroyed.

Finally if the time runs out the CoT summon an AV (EB if solo) so now you are facing both EB and AV (or EB and EB).

I find missions like this much more interesting since they have a lot secondary goals that can help you to complete the primary one but aren't 100% necessary. They also bring AT into play which is nice too. They are also great for ambience.

The above is actually very simple mission idea. I've certainly more complex ones. I've to also discuss about zone events (my other love) in a new post.

Fire Control sample (about CoX2)

Below is a sample fire set. It uses CoX powers and it certainly isn't meant to be a "full" set. More like a draft of what could be. It's also more focused on damage and debuffs than some of the current fire sets are. Ideally the set has alternate animations and FX so you would rather have "fire melee" than "fire sword" - and ability to use power customization for fiery sword.

I feel some of the current power combinations are a bit silly (I mean, you actually shield someone with a shield made from fire, and that protects against ranged damage... uh, right). If you want buffs and healing you can use the "swap out" feature I mentioned before and pull a heal from other set - such as empathy.

I also feel all sets should have an inherent power that is only available for that set. If you use the swap out feature to pull powers from other sets, they are not affected by the set bonus.

You still normally pick powers from the set. They are not all available to you instantly, and some depend on other powers.


Fire Manipulation

• Fire inherent: chance for contangious fire DoT

Basic attacks/powers: no recharges, no end cost, always available, build endurance, have to cover all ATs, combos for greater final hit. These are the stuff you use most.

• Fire Blast (ranged damage; combo3: final hit for AoE splash damage)
• Fire Sword (melee damage; combo3: final hit has high chance to crit)
• Ring of Fire (ranged control; combo3: final hit holds target)
• Heat Exhaustion (ranged debuff; combo3: final hit deals fire damage and may disorient)

Instant attacks/powers: can have minor recharges, can use only at certain endurance level, effect scales with the amount of endurance you have, consume all endurance when used. These would be the powers that you use when basic attacks just aren't enough: to AoE a spawn or to take out a boss. The catch is that you can't use them until you have hit with a few basic attacks. Heck you could even have them do some damage when you have zero endurance since their damage heavily scales with your level of endurance.

• Fireball (ranged AoE damage; damage scales with endurance)
• Fire Cages (AoE immobilize; duration scales with endurance)
• Fire Sword Circle (PBAoE damage; damage scales with endurance)
• Melt Armor (AoE debuff; debuff severity scales with endurance)
• Blaze (high single target ranged damage; damage scales with endurance)
• Cremate (high single target melee damage; damage scales with endurance)

Special Attacks/Powers: something out of ordinary going with these attacks. They may be maintained or charged or what not. May consume endurance or may replace basic attack but not build endurance. Basically these are not used in a normal way and actually root you or *stop* the flow of combat. Most likely powers some people love to hate or hate to love while others go glee. This is where CO fails most in a sense that pretty much all powers are these "break flow the combat" powers - they require charges, or maintaining, or you to stay still.

• Blazing Bolt (ranged sniper attack)
• Breath of Fire (maintained cone with guaranteed contagious fire damage and fear)
• Consume (mantained PBAoE endurance drain with minor fire damage)
• Incinerate (melee range single target root and maintained fire DoT)
• Power of the Phoenix (rez target or self if no target)

Recharge intensive attacks/powers: these are too powerful to not have recharges, but they are also fast casting. Usually fire and forget powers and powers that allow you to focus on doing something else, or "oh &¤#&" powers.

• Combust (consume fire cages/RoF and deal high damage)
• Flashfire (fire and forget AoE disorient)
• Fiery Embrace (releases you from mez effects and boosts fire damage)
• Rain of Fire (fire and forget AoE)

Nukes: these are the most powerful, top tier attacks. They have recharges, and do weird things to your character - and hopefully worse things to enemies. These shouldn't be affected by any sort of recharge bonus. They are that powerful!

• Cinders (PBAoE fire hold with charge up)
• Inferno (PBAoE fire nuke with charge up)

Toggles: are you shields and other protective powers that are basically always on except if you are mezzed. Most armor powers should be toggles. There should be also less overlap with armors within sets. So if someone wants to be a fire themed tank, swap out a power and get invulnerability because Fire shield is mostly about fire and cold resistance - and about damaging surrounding foes.

• Fire Shield (+high fire and cold res, +minor smash/lethal res; PBAoE fire DoT)
• Hot Feet (PBAoE slow and minor DoT)

Passives: enhance existing powers and give set flavor. They also offer mez resistance (that is decrease in mez durations, not protection). Currently in CoX most passives aren't worth the time. Maybe in CoX2 this changes (if it ever gets made)? In fact I dare say that for example most invulnerability set powers should be passives.

• Greater Fire Sword (replaces your fire sword with a more damaging one)
• Smoke (fire attacks add minor perception and to hit debuff)
• Temperature Protection (+fire and cold res, +res slow)

Pets: are your... well. Pets. Controllable or uncontrollable. Masterminds probably have their own sets - or perhaps the speciality of mastermind is that they can pick pets from any set!

• Fire Imps (summons a swarm of tiny uncontrollable fire elementals; mobile DoT)
• Flame Servant (controllable pet with both melee and ranged attacks; customizable model)

Archetypes and Powers (mostly about CoX2)

Here are a few changes I'd like to see in CoX2 if it ever gets created. I believe both CO and CoX are on the right track: powersets are necessary but in my opinion don't have to be AT specific. If CoX2 gets ever created things need to stay familiar but also change a bit. Following ideas are answer to things that I find annoying both in CO and CoX. Feel free to disagree.

These changes should obviously not made in current CoH - changing entire system that has been in place for years would be a very bad idea.

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Archetypes should give bonuses to specific powers and come with an inherent. For example tankers still get their gauntlet and bonus to powers that improve their own defenses. Scrappers get higher crit chance and melee damage bonus etc. Players first pick an archetype and when they are selecting powers from the set those that get the bonus are highlighted so players know to make informed power choices.

I.e. in CoX terms it could look something like this (I combined a few archetypes to get the effect):

• Controller: +1 to all control power magnitudes and +50% duration; +buff/debuff power effectiveness
• Tanker: +max hp, +defensive power effectiveness, +gauntlet (AoE taunt on hits), +X magnitude protection vs status effects (not supremely high so that in team situations they still benefit from mez prot buffs)
• Scrapper: +melee damage modifier, +chance to crit with all powers, +X magnitude protection vs status effects (lower than tanker one)
• Blaster: +ranged damage modifier, +scourge (deal increasing damage on mobs with low hp)

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All themed powers under one set. So the new fire set would have all fire themed powers. The reasoning here is that this allows more versatile picks for powers. You can for example have mix of ranged and melee with a splash of control and defense. After all, this is close to what we get now on higher levels and it seems to work.

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No ranged attacks in melee unless they have versatile trait! This means that if your current target gets into melee range you either switch to melee or find a way to get him out of melee range (i.e. immobilize and back off, or knock him away). Versatile trait is required for attacks like single target roots, or knockback powers, or powers like shockwave.

The reasoning for this is to prevent spamming of a single attack and to increase viability of melee attacks. The PvP balance issues with ranged vs melee are common and this might help a bit with it.

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Endurance builds in combat and acts as a damage bonus, like fury, but also unlocks heavy hitting powers which in turn consume endurance. So in some cases it is more useful to hit basic attacks (i.e. when fighting a few minions) and in others you wish to unleash your full might (defeating whole group of minions, hitting a boss with heavy hitter).

The reasoning for this is that running out of endurance is one of the most annoying things that can happen. You are basically reduced to waiting until you have enough endurance to unleash even basic attacks. Not fun.

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Basic tapped attacks are used to build endurance for heavier attacks. These attacks you use most and are always available: they don't have recharges, they don't root, you don't charge them, and they cast nearly instantly. These attacks should essentially cover all themes within the set. I.e. for fire: fire blast (ranged), ring of fire (control), scorch/fire sword (melee), heatstroke (debuff), and cauterize (buff).

The reasoning for this is that I'd wager most people hate waiting for their powers to recharge and animate. Early levels in CoX are painful before you get a proper attack chain. You also don't want to stop charging every damn power which is the problem that *I* have with CO. Both slow down especially early combat. CO style endurance builders are also annoying.

Why have annoying, insignificant attacks that serve no other purpose than to build endurance when you could have actual real attacks that do the same?

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Combo chains should be used by basic attacks to allow some things that shouldn't be done immediatelly. For example ring of fire might immobilize a single target with first two hits and then actually hold the target with third one. Below are a few possible combos:

• Fire Blast: Tap1 (damage) --> Tap2 (damage) --> Tap3 (small AoE)
• Ring of Fire: Tap1 (immobilize) --> Tap2 (immobilize) --> Tap3 (hold)
• Heat Exhaustion: Tap1 (debuff damage) --> Tap2 (debuff damage) --> Tap3 (damage debuffed foe)

The reasoning for this is of course that some things shouldn't be allowed to do immediatelly. Currently in CoX it's way easy for a few persons to destroy whole spawn before others even have chance to land hits. Similarly why immobilize when you can hold?

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Heavy hitting attacks and AoEs should be unlocked once you have enough endurance. These can be chargeable or maintained or what not - like in CO. They can even have timers for nuke type powers.

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Less toggles and more passives that enhance toggles might be a good idea too. Especially since toggles won't be consuming endurance. Toggles are still nice to have because they can be suppressed via mez, and as such pretty much a necessity for any sort of AoE buff.

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Mez protection should be mostly left to break free type click powers, and as passive mez resistance (that is, mez duration is reduced). The reasoning here is that currently scrapper and tanker ATs are pretty much immune to enemy mezzes while blasters and others are heavily penalized by them.

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Charge (bullrush) powers for melee types. These function basically like lightning rod and shield charge now, except they close distance between ranged and melee and also break free from immobilize effects. These allow building of purely melee characters because with immobilizes/holds/knockbacks there is an option to build pure ranged character - even if they can't use ranged attacks if someone melees them, they can always mez them and back away.

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No pools. Signature powers and power swapping are the way to power diversity. Power swapping means that at certain levels you can swap out one of your set powers to power from another set. Signature powers are fully customizable powers that you earn a few during your career.

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Diminishing returns to powers and harsher than what they are in CO. Basically this means you are going to be hitting soft caps much sooner than in CoX but also that your initial numbers can be higher. This is even a necessity considering now all ATs can get armors and/or AoE buffs. Naturally those with tanker AT should be able to get more out of their defenses.

Tiers, zones, items, and levels

It always saddens for me to see early level areas pretty much empty. It also annoys me when I outlevel contacts, quest givers, and items. This is one of the reasons why I keep suggesting a tiered approach to game content. People usually counter that tiered system doesn't allow a sense of progress but I disagree - in fact I think it's actually the opposite: it encourages progress for a couple of reasons (more about it later).

What is a tiered system? Basically character progression is divided to 3-4 tiers that each consist of around 20 levels. For example tier1 might be levels 1-20, tier2 levels 21-40 etc.

Where this shows up is in quests and enemies. As long as you are within tier you won't outlevel any enemies, items, quests, or zones. Basically they are like Giant Monsters in CoX and are always your level though there are still different ranks such as minions, liutenants and bosses.

The main benefit here is that it allows developers to design better level coverage without need to have places like Atlas Park and Galaxy City being separate from areas like Steel Canyon. Essentially you would have level 1-20 zones instead of level 1-5 zone, level 6-10 zone, level 11-15 zone etc. This means that Galaxy City, Atlas Park, Steel Canyon and Skyway City could all serve as starting locations after which you move to Talos Island, Independence Port, Brickstown or Croatoa.

Tiers and enemy diversity

The other benefit is that you can have wider variety of enemy groups to fight, as well as clear rules when one enemy group ceases to be a threat. This is why it's a tiered system and not a system where all enemies scale to your level.

I find it really annoying when you are fighting thugs with guns at level 1 and thugs with guns at level 50 - or in fantasy terms spiders at level 1 and spiders at level 50. How am I supposed to feel more powerful if I keep killing same enemies through my character career? Though some enemy groups might cover multiple tiers or all.

Even for natural heroes there should be progress from common street thug to organized crime, and paramilitary organizations. Yet even in CoH we see family at level 50.

Again in Cox terms:

• Tier1 (lvl1-20): skulls, hellions, family, lost, outcasts, tsoo, warriors, cimerorans...
• Tier2 (lvl21-40): tsoo, red caps, witches, rikti, crey, sky raiders, freakshow...
• Tier3 (Lvl41-): rikti, crey, praetorians...
• Then there could be some that pop up in all tiers like council, arachnos, CoT...

Tiers and power level

Similarly I believe there should be some upgrades to power appearances. Visuals are a very effective method of telling you grew in power. Something to give you a sense of progress. Tiers are excellent milestones for these.

So instead of having just another version of power x with a new name you actually improve visuals, and power level of existing character abilities.

Levels within tiers are still important as they actually grant you powers and sense of personal character progression. However power/ability gain is slightly more frontloaded to prevent the standard situation where you have only one or two power to start with - and in worst case scenario those require "downtime" through recharges.

Tiers and environments

This is connected to zone design but I also feel that environments should progress from mundane to fantastical while you move through tiers. This is especially true for fantasy games but can also be applied to superhero games.

So it might look something like this in a 3 tier system:

• Tier1: mundane world, landbound, forests, cities, caves... regular stuff
• Tier2: skies, underwater, exotic locations
• Tier3: space, other dimensions

However I feel these are not mutually exclusive. What I mean is that as you progress through tiers more fantastical locations open, but you should still have content in lower tiers as well, and glimpses of upper tiers from lower ones.

I felt like discussing about a few things concerning CoX and potential CoX2. First post is a simple list about my likes and dislikes, and about things I'd like to see eventually. The second and third posts go into more details. These are just my thoughts so feel free to disagree with them. In fact it would be interesting to see how many people do (and I bet there are many).

Likes

• Customization: Enhancements, IOs and other ways to tweak individual powers
• Customization: Costume customization as well as auras and power customization
• Areas/Missions: NPC Ambient animations and placement (very important for me)*
• Areas/Missions: Zone events (but a lot wasted potential here)
• Areas/Missions: Difficulty sliders
• Areas/Missions: Instanced missions
• Areas/Missions: Badge hunting
• Areas/Missions: Zone events
• Other: Consignment and Black Market
• Enemies: Being able to fight multiple foes (feels heroic!)

*CoX has the best ambient life in any game that I've seen. This alone has kept me entertained for a long time. Lacking animals though - and lacking weather.

Dislikes

• Enemies/NPC: Fighting thugs with guns at higher levels
• Enemies/NPC: Boring AV fights (they are just big bags of hp usually)
• Enemies/NPC: Random NPCs pushing me around
• Powers: waiting for even minor powers to recharge
• Powers: waiting for endurance to recover
• Powers: Need for stamina / Pool power dependency
• Areas/Missions: Instance potential wasted (just go in and kill all)
• Areas/Missions: Zone event potential wasted (just go in and kill all)
• Areas/Missions: A lot mechanically boring quests (see above)*
• Areas/Missions: Lack of weather and ambient animals
• Other: Localized servers are annoying, especially when they run out of population. I've always played in the US servers and wish to continue doing so as my SG is there!

*Quests/Missions are the downfall of CoX for me. It's also the downfall of CO. When I talk about improving quests and making them more interesting, it seems to translate into developer head as "better story" (and more text). This is not what I look for even though story is important for me. It's actually game mechanics I'm looking forward to.

Wishlist

• Archetypes: Give bonus to specific types of powers instead of limiting powersets
• Customization: Deformations and multiple limbs
• Customization: Fully customizable signature powers (i.e. one per character)
• Customization: Animal heroes (four legged type, both mundane and magical)
• Customization: Alternate emitter points and animations for powers
• Customization: Option use to weapons (i.e wands) for blast type powers
• Customization: Replace normal enhancement with IO style system (including procs)
• Customization: Ability to customize summoned pets
• Powers: Travel powers from level 1 and travel power attacks
• Powers: Powerset specific "standard" attacks are always available (no recharge)
• Powers: Endurance replaced with brute style "fury" bar that boosts damage
• Powers: Heavy hitters/AoE attacks unlocked by "fury" and not controlled by timers
• Powers: Affecting other powers and environment (i.e. putting out fires with ice)
• Powers: Animal summoning powers (mundane, robotic, magical, elemental...)
• Areas/Missions: Subgoal driven missions (more to do than just kill everything)
• Areas/Missions: Contact for short repeatable kill x mission in every zone
• Areas/Missions: Contact that sells temporary powers and power boosters for every zone
• Areas/Missions: Hazard zones with actual goals (think zones like bloody bay)
• Areas/Missions: Zone events that "build up" from small zone missions to all zones
• Areas/Missions: Aerial battles and underwater battles (temp powers help here)
• Areas/Missions: environmental interaction for powers and movement
• Areas/Missions: Ambient animals

I thought I'd ask it here first since I didn't find anything about it in any of the patch notes. It seems that the fix for hide (ninjutsu power) experience point modifier also broke hide: I can currently see hidden enemies just fine even when I don't have any kind of perception buff.

I think this kind of defeats the point of hide since it doesn't seem to give any particular bonus for them now. Not even the damage bonus from hide (which I'd rather remove than the *hidden* component).

So is this a bug or some sort of weird change?