PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST IF EVEN THE MENTION OF A CERTAIN MMORPG COMMONLY REFERRED TO BY ITS THREE INITIALS WOULD ENRAGE YOU INTO FLAMING ME. Thank you.
With that out of the way, some of the Raid boss encounters in WoW are good examples of this. They juggle various gameplay elements which are not present in standard tank-and-spank fights, forcing the team to be more creative and alert, being on their toes, knowing what they're doing. Whether it's forcing people to move around to avoid swinging blades or laser beams or to keep warm so the freezing aura of the boss doesn't give you lethal frostbite, or to be prepared to destroy some object the boss summons periodically to draw power/healing from if it isn't destroyed fast enough, or mind controlling one of the party members...
Two problems with this, of course.
One, the CoX engine seems somewhat limited in what it can and can't do, so it might not be feasible to think of particularly exciting and innovative tricks for AV fights.
Two, some people actually prefer the easymode steamroller gameplay we have right now, where an AV is just a Boss with more HP and maybe a cutscene.
Of course, point two is easily made moot by the fact that nobody would be forcing these people to play this hypothetical new content with more complex (and fun) AV fights at all - the LRSF and STF are annoyingly hard. Not because of any particular tricks like what I mentioned earlier, but because one has eight Heroes ganging up on you, and the other has an uberbuffed Archvillain twoshotting your tank if you get unlucky. Sure, I whined about the LRSF a lot, but, eh, I really shouldn't have, because nobody was forcing me to do it, either. I wanted the badge, and should've just sucked it up. It was an actually challenging Strike Force. Would've been nicer if it wasn't challenging because of cheap fake difficulty, but still, it's SO much different from the normal tank-and-spank variety.
Unless your team is 7 Corruptors and a Granite Brute, of course. 
tl;dr: We need more fun, complex, and tricky AV fights.
Granted, this is getting a little off topic. Should probably start a new thread on this.
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The thing that irks me about it, is half the time, the people who attempt to do the ghosting really aren't equipped for it and end up dying or annoying the whole map.
Its a total waste of time and actually slows things down because then the rest of the team either ends up clearing the map to rescue or rez them, or they insist on doing the farce all over again.
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Whenever there's been ghosting on a team I've ben on, we've always done the mission as normal, only the ghoster moves on ahead while we clear mobs as usual - if they run into trouble, then we're closer to rescue them, and have not really wasted any time.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Also, mashing buttons 3-6-7-8-1-4-2-3-4-2-3-5 repeatedly is pretty much how the entire game goes. Including AV fights. If that bores you, I don't see why you're playing CoX (or (most) MMORPGs in general) at all. 
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Because of the people and the non-button mashing parts of the game-play, of course, and specifically CoX because of the cossie generator. It rocks.
Still @Shadow Kitty
"I became Archvillain before Statesman nerfed himself!"
I think 'ghosting' is perfectly acceptable, and that it's a team's / player's choice.
If you want the early CoV trailers, Statesman asks Synapse to 'scout the building'. It's a very 'hero' thing to do.
[B][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]@Winter Flare[/COLOR] - [url="http://sites.google.com/site/thenewguardians"] The New Guardians[/url] - [url="http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php?/page/view_player.php?id=339"] 1211 Badges [/url][/B]
Other examples:
the vanguard mission where youre specifically told not to alert the guards or fight the main boss, but focus on the 4 glowies.
the 10minute mission in peregrine. Its simply Im-poss-ible to fight your way thru to click all the glowies.. You HAVE to rush/ghost through it.
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Because of the people and the non-button mashing parts of the game-play, of course, and specifically CoX because of the cossie generator. It rocks.
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except you cant make fox girls.. :P
UNION
Officer Cuffz lvl 50 Inv/Nrg Tank
Badge lvl 50 dwarf/human Peacebringer
Dark Air lvl 50 Ice/Cold Corruptor
Ayre lvl 50 Storm/Elec Defender
Total Cat: @Officer Cuffz
"When I say interview, I mean engage in combat and defeat..." -Laura Brunetti, on how to deal with Warriors.
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the 10minute mission in peregrine. Its simply Im-poss-ible to fight your way thru to click all the glowies.. You HAVE to rush/ghost through it.
[/ QUOTE ]Technically you're expected to fail this one, storywise the end result is exactly the same. It's just a little "sure, go have fun" goal for those who want it.
I ghost when I can or when It's necessary the likes of low lvl TF's after some particularly long defeat all missions most of the team is ready to slit their wrists so when a defeat X and his buddies mission comes up it can be a relief to not prolong what has already been a prolonged TF.
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would this be in the same context as people who insist on flying directly to a bank when you have 8 on the team and dont actually realise that by doing that they trigger LOADS of longbow and then wonder why everyone is wiped out.
I find the mayhem missions are easily done in the time frame if you take your time and kill quickly and efficiently means less chance of ending up in the prison which is slow.
I think cryptic should seriously cosider looking at the time frame a Task force should take i think anything over 2 hours is way too long. And i was on a positron task force about 2 years ago that took 12 hours (yes i really did) thats not fun when the game isnt fun then im all for ghosting. BUT if it can be done in a reasonble time i dont see why it has to be ghosted.
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would this be in the same context as people who insist on flying directly to a bank when you have 8 on the team and dont actually realise that by doing that they trigger LOADS of longbow and then wonder why everyone is wiped out.
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This has more to do with that the entire team dont arrive at the same time because of the disparity in travel powers, or some schmuck being afk or still in the load.
The group teleport power, either in its pool power, temp power or veteran power version goes a long way to remedy this.
UNION
Officer Cuffz lvl 50 Inv/Nrg Tank
Badge lvl 50 dwarf/human Peacebringer
Dark Air lvl 50 Ice/Cold Corruptor
Ayre lvl 50 Storm/Elec Defender
Total Cat: @Officer Cuffz
"When I say interview, I mean engage in combat and defeat..." -Laura Brunetti, on how to deal with Warriors.
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would this be in the same context as people who insist on flying directly to a bank when you have 8 on the team and dont actually realise that by doing that they trigger LOADS of longbow and then wonder why everyone is wiped out.
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This has more to do with that the entire team dont arrive at the same time because of the disparity in travel powers, or some schmuck being afk or still in the load.
The group teleport power, either in its pool power, temp power or veteran power version goes a long way to remedy this.
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It's got more to do with the fact that Mayhems were designed with the idea that you fight your way to the bank rather than ghosting it really, the polar opposite to how Safeguards are intended to be played.
Fun when soloing a flying brute though. I like fighting my way to the bank and then flying up and around it a bit before ducking in in order to generate some lovely clustered bags of XP at the doorway.
I play an ill/kin with tp the perfect build for ghosting but I will only do so if requested by the team, if the scrapper with SS decides to scout caves instead of me I let him go ahead and die then continue to scout/ghost professionally 
Last week I was on a long tf with my empath, the scrapper and tank decided they would ghost most missions together however because they left all the squishes behind and needed to fight their way to 4 glowies as it was a co ordinate clicks it took longer as us squishes were left to deal with all the mobs. Whilst they stood at their glowie wondering why we were taking so long.
i like to occasionally ghost, but it depends on the character. i find it one of the few times when a comic archtype can be properly played. you get a chance to play the likes of Batman or Moon Knight, sneaking through the enemies base to your goal, rather than just bludgoning your way through
@Doctor Destiny
...from the Ryman League of posters
http://drdestiny.deviantart.com/
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I run 5-6 TF's a week and out of them at the very most one is ghosted, and usually not any. I prefer doing it the normal way, and usually on 4th diff, and is in no rush to complete stuff.
It all depends on the attitude of the players doing it, if they are there only to get some merits in the end that attitude will collide with mine. Thankfully i'm in a SG where most players share my view of how to do things and who rather do a TF slow on 4th diff and have more fun instead of ghosting it on 1st diff and get the reward faster.
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It's got more to do with the fact that Mayhems were designed with the idea that you fight your way to the bank rather than ghosting it really, the polar opposite to how Safeguards are intended to be played.
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Guess whoever designed mayhems have no idea how a real life bank robbery is done. At least safeguards is a little bit better.
Guess SuperVillain means SuperStupid.
UNION
Officer Cuffz lvl 50 Inv/Nrg Tank
Badge lvl 50 dwarf/human Peacebringer
Dark Air lvl 50 Ice/Cold Corruptor
Ayre lvl 50 Storm/Elec Defender
Total Cat: @Officer Cuffz
"When I say interview, I mean engage in combat and defeat..." -Laura Brunetti, on how to deal with Warriors.
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It's got more to do with the fact that Mayhems were designed with the idea that you fight your way to the bank rather than ghosting it really, the polar opposite to how Safeguards are intended to be played.
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Guess whoever designed mayhems have no idea how a real life bank robbery is done. At least safeguards is a little bit better.
Guess SuperVillain means SuperStupid.
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In terms of real life, sure.
In terms of gameplay I find the Smashy-smashy of Mayhems way more fun than "run to the bank, beat up boss, exit out again" Safeguards.
I'm still hoping we get the chance to make Hero Mayhems with i14 (hey it's all virtual right? So no problem with it being unheroic any more).
It's incredibly annoying when someone uncovers the entire map on a defeat all. Once you've made some progress through the place there's no way to tell where you've been and it ends up taking twice as long as necessary.
Hey I love collecting an instant full fury ambush on Mayhems, it is joyful
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
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It's got more to do with the fact that Mayhems were designed with the idea that you fight your way to the bank rather than ghosting it really, the polar opposite to how Safeguards are intended to be played.
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I enjoy running to the bank and get ambushed by all the longbow .
Guess whoever designed mayhems have no idea how a real life bank robbery is done. At least safeguards is a little bit better.
Guess SuperVillain means SuperStupid.
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In terms of real life, sure.
In terms of gameplay I find the Smashy-smashy of Mayhems way more fun than "run to the bank, beat up boss, exit out again" Safeguards.
I'm still hoping we get the chance to make Hero Mayhems with i14 (hey it's all virtual right? So no problem with it being unheroic any more).
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The Nictus Romulus fight WITHOUT a Kinetics character on the team can be a fun AV fight that requires a bit of thinking, positioning, proper agro management and everyone knowing what they're doing.
(Of course, Fulcrum Shift just lets you pile up on him and smash him down like any other baddie without any tactics needed.)
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There should be more fights that require planning.
Fr'example, an AV that runs for switches to summon new waves of minions, and the team has to either bust the switch first (only unlocks when he goes for it) or immob the AV long enough to stop him from getting to it. Or an AV who fights on a multiple level room, who TPs at certain health lvls and the Heroes have to find him again (his health would have reduced regen, but high def or res to compensate in such a case). Or an AV that used actual stealth, and tried to sneak around the team, and they need to stop him from running after a stealth attack, etc.
E.g. creativity