TwoHeadedBoy

First of all, I know a lot of these issues boil down to the fact that COH is just old. Given the assumed interest in modernizing the game and competing in a market that isn't just people who already like COH anyways though, here are my top suggestions for improving the gameplay experience.

1.) Cut endurance costs on all powers before level 20 by 50%.

I'm not saying that the endurance costs of the actual powers should be increased that drastically, just that all characters below level 20 should be granted a 50% global endurance cost reduction on every power they use.

There's nothing fun about having to use rest every third or fourth group because your endurance is running out, and with hardly any inspiration slots to speak of at that point, pre-buying blues isn't an option- Not to mention most new players wouldn't even think that far ahead.

2.) Cut the endurance cost in half, and remove the animation penalty from all powers that miss.

There's nothing sillier than watching a low level character use Shadow Maul, have them know that they missed already, and then just keep punching. This is another part of the game that's just frustrating, and not fun or engaging in any way. I can't see it having a positive effect on any new players.

3.) Make the mez and debuff systems more reasonable.

I believe that all mezzes and debuffs should be able to be actively removed- My personal choice would be an intuitive pop up text that states exactly what debuff/mez you are afflicted by, and allows you to press a random key or sequence of keys in order to break the negative effect on your character.

This would mean that there would be no more "perma held" situations- If there's nothing you can do about a mez but click a break free, it's not challenging. It's not fun. It just comes down to a random generator that in no way reflects player skill or character ability.

The same thing applies to massive stacked debuffs- If you're fighting enemies with a lot of -tohit and you don't have Aim, or 20 yellows sitting in your tray, you can't hit your enemies. Forget all the global accuracy slotting you have, forget trying to fight through it. Once the game decides you can't hit your enemies, you just lose. This works in reverse too via defense debuffs.

The point is that this is a very dated and unintelligent aspect of the game. It's not fun or challenging to be told that you can't do anything, better luck next time, you lose. An active mez/debuff removal system is necessary in order to keep the game challenging while rewarding player skill and character strength.

4.) No more unresistable, indefensible damage.

We have exotic damage types for a reason- Toxic and Psionic damage should be doing plenty for Dev's to have options to design challenging content. If you think everything you can think of is too easy, that doesn't give you license to stop being creative and start cheating. It's not fun to build a high end Tank, only to have it trivialized by a type of damage that doesn't even exist in the game for players. This goes for defense too- No more "unpositioned non-existent-because it's-special" attacks.

If I have 45% defense to melee, ranged and AOE attacks, I don't care if the attack is Psionic, Lethal or Gubbly-Gobbly-Marauder-Chugged-A-Beer. I don't expect it to have more than a 5% chance to hit me. It's just illogical, and it goes against everything that we've learned by playing the game. No attack from an NPC should be indefensible. That's not intuitive or challenging, it's just a cheap trick.

When explaining how defense and resistance works to new players, should I be saying, "Building defense is awesome! Until you get attacked 3 times, and all your defense is gone!" Or, "Tanks are really survivable, they can protect their team by being on the front lines! Until a damage type that doesn't exist one shots them!" Or, "This Scrapper will do awesome damage! Until he gets hit with a certain kind of power that makes it so he can't even HIT anything, and then he'll just die!"

None of these things are good. Please fix them.

I swear around ~i20 on some >perma hasten builds I remember seeing it double stack in my buff bar for a short duration before the initial cast wore off.

First I absolutely agree with the OP, but I'd like to add something:

I believe that if complete status protection for all characters isn't an option, those without protection should be able to actively remove mez. ie: "Stunned! Press the following random sequence of keys in the order that they pop up in order to break the stun!" "x!" "a!" "b!" "Success! Stun broken!" This would add a whole new level of active play to the game while ridding unfair "perma mez" situations that aren't challenging, since you don't even have the opportunity to be challenged when you can't move or react in any way.

I play a human Warshade- Sacrificing all my toggles (using Nova form) is not an option when I just prefer a certain travel power. Afterburner +Hover means 2 more spots for LOTG 7.5's, and Hover means more defense. Fly itself takes a BOTZ set. I enjoy the flight pool and I'm glad that I'll be able to use my favorite travel pool on my main.

Look at this thread.

A small purple from the softcap to all positions, strong s/l/e resistance and perma Drain Psyche- It's designed for melee play, and about as much damage as you can hope to get out of Rad Blast.