short ones (puzzle, serious mission, perm power)

first, adding puzzles or mind games to some missions. Being optional, the hero/villain can choose to solve the puzzle to open a locked item, disarm a bomb, bypass security, or other options and gain certain rewards upon completion. By bypassing the puzzle, the player can force the chest to open, quickly destroy the bomb, or bash the security panel and be on their way. Since going rogue is coming close, you could gain a tip faster by noticing a letter in the chest, symbols on the bomb, or get a look at security footage. The puzzles would give access to other (hidden) parts of a mission when completed. The puzzles could be slider, having to rearrange scrambled letters to decode a message, or any other random puzzle. certain puzzles would be a challenge (all the time), while others (like the word scramble) could have 3rd party programs/webpages to cheat.

The second idea, having a "serious" mission. Same as normal missions go, but if you get defeated you are kicked from the mission (mission failed) and become moderately debuffed for a certain amount of time (of active time). You can go to a certain NPC to pay to have the debuff lifted. You could also wait it out, or promise a favor to an NPC (mission, or get him/her a piece of salvage). The mission would be significantly longer than a normal one, with more goals to complete (before mission complete). The mission would still be within the limits of casual play so anyone would have the chance to get through with it. Groups that enter the mission would be slightly different, with the option of if one player dies the whole team fails or the player is kicked out and can't come back in. You would only be booted from the mission if you are defeated, not if you are disconnected. Completing the mission would provide a permanent power/buff. With the power/buff, you have access to a menu upon completion (or when you talk to the contact, incase of disconnect) that you pick. You can have up to 5 powers/buffs, ranging up to ultra rare (purple)(only can have 1 purple). After you have gotten the max, the next time you complete a serious mission, you can swap lesser potent buffs/powers for more desirable ones. The menu would contain the same set until one is chosen, and differ each time to prevent people from logging and waiting for a purple to appear. The buffs/powers are all unique, so you wouldn't be able to stack all damage buffs on yourself. The amount of buffs/powers available would be large enough to where to where finding a duplicate shouldn't happen (or code it so they wouldn't appear)(okay, scratch the stacking buff statement). all the powers/buffs would be within balance to prevent PVP problems. The powers available would be the basic powers from all sets, but be watered down versions and scale as you level or be able to be leveled to a percent (of the base value) under someone that would have the power from the powerset. the way this could be set within "CoX" is that you accomplished a hard task so paragon city would like you to tryout or have an item of great value (that would provide the buff or power to you). The serious mission could be linked to your origin, so items or the debuff would be related and gain more potency if you pick an item that is your origin (but still under the base value). and example of the debuff would be you are cursed with magic, hazardous nanites have infected your body with technology, your mutant DNA becomes corrupted, you got a head injury (natural), and so on.

/unsigned. temp powers, fine. but not permanent. if people can't do the missions, they will never get the buffs which will lead to a whole bunch of cans of worms being opened.

also, this is not something that can just be added in before GR and the devs time after GR is already taken up by at least 3 more issues that we know of.

I like the puzzles idea. I was actually thinking of that awhile back. The serious mission, not so much. There doesn't really seem like a point.

IIRC, the devs don't want to do puzzle stuff. Too difficult to strike a balance between "so easy it's boring" and "too hard to do" over such a wide and diverse population.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

Point!

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

Then just add a puzzle option to AE. That way if you want hard puzzles, missions with hard puzzles will be labeled so.