Unfortunately they're also 50, which means everyone is already capping their own defenses and worthwhile bonuses on their own via sets and Incarnate abilities, which makes a buffer redundant, but hey, if the Homecoming team ever make endgame not pointless, this crabby is ready!
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
I'm gonna be on for the next few hours if anyone sees this and wants to shoot me an invite.
Hmm. I haven't played city of heroes since christmas, and now whenever I try to play the game it keeps crashing on me. Whenever I try to do a mission it crashes a few minutes into the mission. Tried two different missions, although they both contain praetoria clockwork.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I assume you've tried to re-validate the files? Though a buddy of mine was also having stability issues, though in his case it was connected to an iffy internet connection (his Discord would also drop or cut out).
I assume you've tried to re-validate the files? Though a buddy of mine was also having stability issues, though in his case it was connected to an iffy internet connection (his Discord would also drop or cut out).
Re-validating was the first thing I tried.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
No difference between 32bit, 64bit and safe mode? If safe mode runs fine, but not the others, you'll want to report it here.
No difference between modes. No difference after a reinstall.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I played this game off and on with an old friend who was really into it (multiple max level characters of all different types. He's also a huge Marvel guy.
I never really liked it other than the fly ability which was BALLER in uh...something Canyon? The map with all the skyscrapers.
Anyway, just wanted to say I'm still reading this thread just to enjoy all of you enjoying this game you love so much and I hope you all keep enjoying it.
I am very much enjoying this still. My main has reached end game with all the incarnates and trials, but the recent tanker improvements has been thinking about switching from a brute.
Also the Roleplayer community on Everlasting is pretty good, and I'm having a lot of fun there too.
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
So I know everyone says MMs are OP. But when I'm soloing content, it seems like occasionally my minions just stand there and the enemies ignore them and aggro me and there's nothing I can do except die. The damage share doesn't seem to work at all, even if I don't give them any commands besides go defensive when we load in to the map.
If you've not yet, you'll want to turn on advanced commands (it's hidden behind some tiny arrow on the pet window I believe?) to start with.
The thing to note about MM pets is that, while the default commands obfuscate it by setting them both at the same time, there are actually two tiers of orders you issue:
- mode (aggressive, defensive, passive), which determines how they behave
- command (attack, follow, goto), which determines what you want them to do
Bodyguard, your share health feature, only works when you have Supremacy (your pets are in range) and they are set both Defensive and ordered to Follow. This depends on your pets and secondary powerset, but usually the way you want to engage groups is by having them set to that and opening up at range- the moment enemies aggro on you, even before they can actually attack you if you're out of range, your minions will engage them, and then you basically want to stand in the middle of them (to keep Supremacy and Bodyguard active) and support them.
If you want more control you'll want to bind those 6 commands, that way you can quickly issue commands without relying on the limited repertoire the game provides (you want them back next to you? Passive+Follow, then back to Defensive. You want them at a specific spot? Passive+Goto, followed by Defensive so they engage. Are they standing in an AoE? For the love of god, Passive+Goto them out before you do anything else, etc. If it's not obvious, while potentially dangerous, using Passive is the only way to guarantee a bot will will obey a command regardless of circumstance, use with care)
For example, on my Bots/Dark MM I bound everything around my WSAD hand. So
Alt + Z/X/C will select my Battle/Protector/Assault bots (Alt+\ will select them all)
Alt+Q/W/E will issue the mode (aggressive/defensive/passive)
Alt+A/S/D will issue the command (attack/follow/goto).
Oh, is there an AoE under my Assault bot? Alt+C,E,D (Assault, Passive, Goto), click to make them move, then Alt+E,S (Defensive, Follow) so they switch back to Bodyguard mode. It's kind of a lot to take in at first, but it gets very natural when you get used to it.
Also, this depends on your powersets, but on my Bots/ mastermind I always opened up the fight by using a ranged attack with some sort of control to it- /Dark's Fearsome Stare, Bots/ plasma rifle's AoE with a chance to stun, etc. That way I reduced the incoming alpha.
[edit] Also, try to keep them in Bodyguard whenever possible. If you get mezzed you can no longer issue orders, so if they're not in Bodyguard you're screwed until the mez wears off.
This game went through all heroes, then villains but separate, then cross interaction, then fuck it everyone can more or less do anything at any time right?
The exemplar / sidekick system is still unmatched in MMOs as far as I'm concerned.
This game went through all heroes, then villains but separate, then cross interaction, then fuck it everyone can more or less do anything at any time right?
The exemplar / sidekick system is still unmatched in MMOs as far as I'm concerned.
Basically, yeah. Pocket D was the hero/villain best friend hangout, then they did cooperative missions in there as part of an event, then they introduced other cooperative zones like the Rikti War Zone and Cimerora, then there was alignments where heroes could go vigilante and run around redside, and villains could go rogue and run around blueside, then there was the incarnates which are 100% coop-ready.
Sidekicking similarly evolved, from just sidekicks to the exemplar option - both of which were just one to one - and then the current form, where everyone sidekicks or exemps to the team leader.
Kicking someone who doesn't have DOs/SOs to someone who does is still going to be a little flaky, but otherwise it's a pretty good tool for getting people at various power levels to play nice together.
Also, in the spirit of "game initially canceled before some people joined the forums", here's a little talk about that unmatched sidekick/exemplar system.
Advancement in City of Heroes is pretty unconventional. There's only two parameters that increase as your level increases - your total hitpoints, and your raw health affectors: damage and healing. Everything else is a fixed percentage, modified by the difference in levels between you and your target, if any. As you level up you get access to more powers but you tend to go wide rather than deep - at level 2 a blaster will have access to the first two blasts in their primary power set, single-target range attacks that can almost but not quite be cycled into one another. At level 32, with the ninth and final power, they get a potent area attack they can fire off every other minute or so. There's a time to use pretty much all of your powers. You get a new power every two levels, or every 3 levels after 32.
At levels where you don't get powers, you get enhancement slots. Every power begins with one slot and you can add up to 5 more, for a total of 6. You get slots at every level where you don't get a power - 2 per level up to 30, 3 per level after that. Each of those slots can be used to enhance some parameter of the power - its base accuracy, its total damage, its cost in endurance, its recharge time, secondary effects, etc. You can get up to +100% of almost anything (+100% cost and recharge time makes each point of endurance and passing second twice as effective, so -50% cost and -50% recharge time) except a few more potent bits like hitbuff and damage resist, which enhance for less per slot and cap out at +60%.
What enhancements you can get also varies based on level. To start you can get training enhancements, which work for everybody. They boost most attributes by +1/12, or +5% for the less potent bits. At level 12 you become able to equip dual-origin enhancements from stores - they're sold at level 15 and you can hop on 3 levels early. They boost most attributes by +1/6, or +10% for the lessers. Each of them can be used by 2 of the 5 power origins. At level 22 you can equip the level 25 single-origin enhancements you buy from stores; each of them only works for one power origin. They boost most attributes by +1/3, or +20% for the lessers.
I told you that story so I could tell you this one.
When you sidekick to a higher-level hero, you're treated as one level lower than them for most purposes. You have that many hit points and do that much damage, and your powers drop off in effectiveness relative to what enemies are to your boosted level. You get experience as if you were your actual level, fighting enemies relative to yourself.
So: you're a level 5 hero, sidekicked up to a level 50. You have the hit points and basic damage of a level 49, though you have many fewer powers and haven't enhanced the ones you have as much. If you fight level 50 villains, your powers drop off as though they were one level higher than you, and you receive experience as though you were a level 5 fighting level 6 villains, one level higher than you.
When you examplar to a lower-level hero, you're treated as their level for the purposes of hit points and damage. You lose access to all powers you picked more than 5 levels away from where you are, and your enhancement bonus for each power is scaled down, most notably if you're going from having SOs or DOs to not having them. You receive double cash rewards as though you were fighting enemies relative to yourself. (Homecoming lets you earn 1x experience and 1x cash, not sure if that's new or not.)
So: the reverse happens, you're a level 50 hero serving as exemplar to a level 5 hero. You have the base hit points and damage of a level 5 hero, and if you fight level 6 villains they reward cash as though you were fighting level 51s. However, you lose access to all the powers you picked after level 10 (5 + 5) and while you have more slots in the powers you retain, if you put SOs in them they're only about as powerful as training enhancements right now.
And in the current state of the game, or as it was when it was canceled, everyone in a team was sidekicked or exemplared to the team lead as appropriate. Everyone could stand up to opposition at any level and not get utterly pasted or completely trivialize it.
So you can, for example, have a weekly rotating schedule that just sticks endgame rewards on the task forces available to level 10s now and again, and max-level heroes can show up and participate and not just invalidate everyone else's contribution.
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
...And then there's Invention Origin enhancements.
They can get complex. But the 'generic' Invention Enhancements (at level 25, more on that later) are basically Single Origin enhancements that anyone can use, that never lose effectiveness. Glazius mentioned that you can slot level 25 SO enhancements at level 22, but what they didn't tell you is if you keep those enhancements slotted and continue levelling, they lose effectiveness. They give a little more when you're 22 and they're 25, they give the baseline 'SO' level when you match their level (so +33% for most, +20% for others), but when you go past 25, they drop off. If you still have level 25 SO enhancements slotted and you hit 29, they suddenly stop giving any bonus AT ALL.
As mentioned, Generic Invention Origin Enhancements give a bonus that increases with their level, but they keep that bonus forever. Level 25 IOs give just a little less than SOs, so common convention is to slot IOs at 22 if you can. Luckily, the Pax Arcadia supergroup base has storage full of level 25 IOs that I try to keep stocked up for new characters that want to be effective and not replace their enhancements every 6-7 levels.
ALSO, there are non-generic Invention Origin enhancements. Rather than boosting a single aspect of a power, they can boost multiple aspects (at a lower level, though). These all have funky names and give you bonuses if you have multiple IOs from the same set slotted in the same power, and are the main reason that high level characters can be super untouchable in PVE content.
And at level 50 the Invention set bonuses can give you crazy boosts, depending on which you get. There are even what some refer to as 'purples' which are your equivalent of epic loot, because they bonuses of the set are so good. And because the recipe text is purple.
They're how high level players boost their stats really high, like how my brute has 90% resist in almost everything.
They are, however, also super expensive for the more desirable ones and fully kitting out a min/max build will cost you upwards of 500 million.
And then you have the IOs which are a part of sets, but have a UNIQUE tag. These you can only equip one of, but the bonus for that one item is super good. Like 3% defense in everything, or a random chance to just get healed for no reason. Often people won't even bother using the whole set, instead just that one peice.
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
[edit] That's a point, I don't think we can link to HC forums. Shouldn't be too hard to find for anyone that wants the details.
New Origin Power Pool: Experimentation
New Support Powerset: Shock Therapy
New IO Sets
Dark Melee Update
All players can now move through Mastermind henchmen and push them out of the way, not just their owners.
Also, I never realised that the Sentinel Beam Rifle replaced the annoying Penetrating Shot (yay, lining up long range powers...) with one that splits as it hits targets. I mean, it's a Sentinel power, so it's undertuned as hell, but it just seems more fun. I might make a BR/ Sentinel just to try it out.
Wait, you can directly link the HC forums here? Thought you couldn't.
Just in case, going to quote some stuff:
Shadow Maul (Tanker, Scrapper, Brute, Stalker) is now a much larger, faster cone that's actually capable of easily hitting multiple targets - especially on tanks!
Arc increased from 45 to 120 degrees.
Recharge increased from 8 to 14 seconds.
Cast Time reduced from 3.07 to 2.35 seconds.
Damage lowered from scale 2.156 to 1.588.
DPS reduction is minor, it has only been lowered from scale 0.653 to scale 0.633.
Target Cap increased from 10 to 16 for Tankers.
Target Cap increased from 5 to 10 for Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers.
Thank. Fucking. Christ. Holy shit is Shadow Maul obnoxious to use. You know how hard is to get Sands of Mu to hit more than a single target? Imagine what is like to spend a primary power slot for the privilege.
Big things are the Mastermind henchmen thing, since with that maybe people will stop complaining about MMs on cave maps, and the Endurance Modification IO set, since that maybe will make Electric Blast not worthless and Electric Control is just missing that little extra push. Also Shock Therapy sounds cool.
Yeah, my main problem is....I had a Pain Dom/Rad defender who I didn't like so I rerolled him into an Electric Control/Pain Dom Controller who I like a lot more
But I don't think there'd be an archetype combination where you could get the new "Shock Therapy" and Pain Domination, but...those powers sound so cool
I'm very excited about Experimentation. The attacks alone are going in at least two, maybe three of my characters. Very hype.
The Focused Feedback threads, aka the exclusive feedback threads for each aspect of the patch (Experimentation, Shock Therapy, Dark Melee Update and New IO Sets) are up. Shock Therapy already has an answer to the very early feedback:
Teams with pets / random chaining
The set was balanced with the random chaining in mind, and we were concerned about the potential for this causing issues on teams with pets but we were interested to see how the set fared as-is. However, we agree that some changes are needed here, so we're making the following adjustments to the four Circuit powers in an upcoming patch:
At 5 stacks, the maximum target cap will be 255 instead of 7
Target cap at 0 to 4 stacks remains unchanged
We're investigating the possibility of prioritising players for each jump
The strength falloff per target will be adjusted
The strength falloff is now -25% per jump instead of *80% per jump
The strength falloff now caps at -50%
Lack of offensive power
Shock Therapy is a hybrid buff/heal/debuff set with a primary focus on buffs. At this time we don't feel additional offensive / debuff power is warranted beyond what the set currently has (+damage on Empowering Circuit, -end on Shock, Discharge and Amp Up and -damage on Shock and Discharge).
Endurance drain in PvP
This will be looked at, but may not make it into the next update.
The name of the set
We appreciate the concern here and are actively monitoring the feedback. We're going to discuss this internally and will update you when a conclusion has been reached.
I wish they would let us to set more than 1 non-offensive/self-only power on autocast. I understand not wanting to let the game play itself, however thanks to Hasten being in pretty much every build it means the moment you have something like a clickly mez protect you're having to manually click one or more powers once a minute just to keep your self-buffs up; it takes no skill, it's just busywork.
The auto-cast power is basically the "having to hit Hasten makes you lose DPS so" gimmick.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Hasten, to me, feels like the Fitness Pool. Remember when that was a power pool you had to give up slots to get, rather than just being something you unlocked automatically at certain levels? And then they realized that it was such a universally optimal choice that basically everyone was taking it so they baked it into the level curve instead?
I understand from a lore perspective why its a super speed power and not just something everyone gets, but from a gameplay balance perspective it's way too good to pass up for most characters. That's a design issue that either needs to be addressed, or just bake it in.
It actually bugs me a lot that "everyone" takes it (I don't, personally, unless it fits concept), but I understand why.
What it reminds me of, really, is how in tabletop Champions, everyone bought up SPD - again, even those whose powers and Origin had nothing to justify them being faster than a normal human. For the simple reason that going only twice in a 12-round turn sucked.
Like you said, a break between lore and gameplay.
If they removed the recharge meta that turns all endgame builds into "your chain is your two biggest nukes plus Incarnate powers" I would be all too thrilled, let me tell you, playing fully kitted out 50s is boring af right now.
I don't think it's ever going to happen, not only would the task be monumental, much of the playerbase would riot that they spent weeks working on a build that no longer works. Like, people lost their shit over ED, but all they lost there was SOs and a respec, not hundreds of millions in inventions.
But ideally what I think should happen is that recharge gets softcaps same as everything else, they make Hasten an inherent passive so it's not eating a pool and retune powersets/pools for whom high/perma-Hasten is the only reason you'd even play them to begin with (Dominators) to hit it naturally.
I gotta say, I jumped back in for the first time in months last night and had an absolute blast playing my Elect/Pain controller. Took him from 27 to 34 over a few hours with a good group.
However, I realized as we kept playing that...I guess a ton of my stuff was just unslotted?
I jumped on the black market and whooo boy did Homecoming's level 25 IO market tank. Over the summer when everyone was playing, it was super easy to spend a few million inf and get every single level 25 IO you could need. Now many of them only have 3 or 4 available, and they cost a couple hundred thousand instead of 45-50k.
This is a problem! I might have to *chokes* learn to craft!
I'm also trying to think about the best way to build and slot an Elec/Pain controller. I saw a really interesting idea involving adding Call of the Sandman into Static Field to turn the power into an additional pulsing self-heal, and apparently electric control is a Good Set to lean into proc-heavy building so I know that for the Electric powers that's what I'm going to aim for. Haven't figured out what to do about the /Pain powers, and I know some stuff is going to move around in a bit, when Experimentation lands.
I really can't wait for Experimentation to hit live, as I'm going to immediately respec into it on this guy.
Man I love Electric Control so much, my favorite character is Eelectric Maiden who is Electric / Nature. The nonsense that I can get up to without even using the fancy inventions (just regular IOs) is a hell of a lot of fun. The idea of making Static Field also a pulsing self-heal sounds amazing, next time I play the character I'll have to look into that.
Man I love Electric Control so much, my favorite character is Eelectric Maiden who is Electric / Nature. The nonsense that I can get up to without even using the fancy inventions (just regular IOs) is a hell of a lot of fun. The idea of making Static Field also a pulsing self-heal sounds amazing, next time I play the character I'll have to look into that.
Yeah, my Elec/Pain guy is a rogue doctor named Malpractice who can control people's nervous systems so he can either paralyze them, make them able to ignore pain, or cause intense pain in their bodies!
I was really proud of this character and then I read the "Villains" series from V.E. Schwab and realized oops I accidentally invented Victor Vale
Still, I made him before I read the book, so I don't feel too bad
| Zinnar on most things | Avatar by Blameless Cleric
+3
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Can't feel as bad as I did after rolling up a character for a tabletop supers game and belatedly realizing that by combining two of my favorite X-Men I had faithfully recreated Naruto
+2
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
I once concepted a character for an online X-Men roleplay place who had real limited precog capabilities, like they could only predict the next few seconds and only if they were present.
Between that and some hardcore physical training they were an incredibly competent hand to hand fighter. Like almost preternaturally lucky, as long as people didn't know their power.
Don't think that rips anything off, just wanted to mention it.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
+1
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Longshot has actual Luck powers
But they are ridiculous and he has 6 fingers on each hand so you're probably safe
But they are ridiculous and he has 6 fingers on each hand so you're probably safe
Domino has luck powers as well. Normal number of fingers, but odd skin pigmentation in the comics.
The near future vision thing sounds familiar. I think Nic Cage did a movie where he could see a bit into the future and used it for fighting a few times.
Posts
Unfortunately they're also 50, which means everyone is already capping their own defenses and worthwhile bonuses on their own via sets and Incarnate abilities, which makes a buffer redundant, but hey, if the Homecoming team ever make endgame not pointless, this crabby is ready!
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Re-validating was the first thing I tried.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
No difference between modes. No difference after a reinstall.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I never really liked it other than the fly ability which was BALLER in uh...something Canyon? The map with all the skyscrapers.
Anyway, just wanted to say I'm still reading this thread just to enjoy all of you enjoying this game you love so much and I hope you all keep enjoying it.
I am very much enjoying this still. My main has reached end game with all the incarnates and trials, but the recent tanker improvements has been thinking about switching from a brute.
Also the Roleplayer community on Everlasting is pretty good, and I'm having a lot of fun there too.
The thing to note about MM pets is that, while the default commands obfuscate it by setting them both at the same time, there are actually two tiers of orders you issue:
- mode (aggressive, defensive, passive), which determines how they behave
- command (attack, follow, goto), which determines what you want them to do
Bodyguard, your share health feature, only works when you have Supremacy (your pets are in range) and they are set both Defensive and ordered to Follow. This depends on your pets and secondary powerset, but usually the way you want to engage groups is by having them set to that and opening up at range- the moment enemies aggro on you, even before they can actually attack you if you're out of range, your minions will engage them, and then you basically want to stand in the middle of them (to keep Supremacy and Bodyguard active) and support them.
If you want more control you'll want to bind those 6 commands, that way you can quickly issue commands without relying on the limited repertoire the game provides (you want them back next to you? Passive+Follow, then back to Defensive. You want them at a specific spot? Passive+Goto, followed by Defensive so they engage. Are they standing in an AoE? For the love of god, Passive+Goto them out before you do anything else, etc. If it's not obvious, while potentially dangerous, using Passive is the only way to guarantee a bot will will obey a command regardless of circumstance, use with care)
For example, on my Bots/Dark MM I bound everything around my WSAD hand. So
Alt + Z/X/C will select my Battle/Protector/Assault bots (Alt+\ will select them all)
Alt+Q/W/E will issue the mode (aggressive/defensive/passive)
Alt+A/S/D will issue the command (attack/follow/goto).
Oh, is there an AoE under my Assault bot? Alt+C,E,D (Assault, Passive, Goto), click to make them move, then Alt+E,S (Defensive, Follow) so they switch back to Bodyguard mode. It's kind of a lot to take in at first, but it gets very natural when you get used to it.
Also, this depends on your powersets, but on my Bots/ mastermind I always opened up the fight by using a ranged attack with some sort of control to it- /Dark's Fearsome Stare, Bots/ plasma rifle's AoE with a chance to stun, etc. That way I reduced the incoming alpha.
[edit] Also, try to keep them in Bodyguard whenever possible. If you get mezzed you can no longer issue orders, so if they're not in Bodyguard you're screwed until the mez wears off.
The exemplar / sidekick system is still unmatched in MMOs as far as I'm concerned.
Basically, yeah. Pocket D was the hero/villain best friend hangout, then they did cooperative missions in there as part of an event, then they introduced other cooperative zones like the Rikti War Zone and Cimerora, then there was alignments where heroes could go vigilante and run around redside, and villains could go rogue and run around blueside, then there was the incarnates which are 100% coop-ready.
Sidekicking similarly evolved, from just sidekicks to the exemplar option - both of which were just one to one - and then the current form, where everyone sidekicks or exemps to the team leader.
Kicking someone who doesn't have DOs/SOs to someone who does is still going to be a little flaky, but otherwise it's a pretty good tool for getting people at various power levels to play nice together.
Advancement in City of Heroes is pretty unconventional. There's only two parameters that increase as your level increases - your total hitpoints, and your raw health affectors: damage and healing. Everything else is a fixed percentage, modified by the difference in levels between you and your target, if any. As you level up you get access to more powers but you tend to go wide rather than deep - at level 2 a blaster will have access to the first two blasts in their primary power set, single-target range attacks that can almost but not quite be cycled into one another. At level 32, with the ninth and final power, they get a potent area attack they can fire off every other minute or so. There's a time to use pretty much all of your powers. You get a new power every two levels, or every 3 levels after 32.
At levels where you don't get powers, you get enhancement slots. Every power begins with one slot and you can add up to 5 more, for a total of 6. You get slots at every level where you don't get a power - 2 per level up to 30, 3 per level after that. Each of those slots can be used to enhance some parameter of the power - its base accuracy, its total damage, its cost in endurance, its recharge time, secondary effects, etc. You can get up to +100% of almost anything (+100% cost and recharge time makes each point of endurance and passing second twice as effective, so -50% cost and -50% recharge time) except a few more potent bits like hitbuff and damage resist, which enhance for less per slot and cap out at +60%.
What enhancements you can get also varies based on level. To start you can get training enhancements, which work for everybody. They boost most attributes by +1/12, or +5% for the less potent bits. At level 12 you become able to equip dual-origin enhancements from stores - they're sold at level 15 and you can hop on 3 levels early. They boost most attributes by +1/6, or +10% for the lessers. Each of them can be used by 2 of the 5 power origins. At level 22 you can equip the level 25 single-origin enhancements you buy from stores; each of them only works for one power origin. They boost most attributes by +1/3, or +20% for the lessers.
I told you that story so I could tell you this one.
When you sidekick to a higher-level hero, you're treated as one level lower than them for most purposes. You have that many hit points and do that much damage, and your powers drop off in effectiveness relative to what enemies are to your boosted level. You get experience as if you were your actual level, fighting enemies relative to yourself.
So: you're a level 5 hero, sidekicked up to a level 50. You have the hit points and basic damage of a level 49, though you have many fewer powers and haven't enhanced the ones you have as much. If you fight level 50 villains, your powers drop off as though they were one level higher than you, and you receive experience as though you were a level 5 fighting level 6 villains, one level higher than you.
When you examplar to a lower-level hero, you're treated as their level for the purposes of hit points and damage. You lose access to all powers you picked more than 5 levels away from where you are, and your enhancement bonus for each power is scaled down, most notably if you're going from having SOs or DOs to not having them. You receive double cash rewards as though you were fighting enemies relative to yourself. (Homecoming lets you earn 1x experience and 1x cash, not sure if that's new or not.)
So: the reverse happens, you're a level 50 hero serving as exemplar to a level 5 hero. You have the base hit points and damage of a level 5 hero, and if you fight level 6 villains they reward cash as though you were fighting level 51s. However, you lose access to all the powers you picked after level 10 (5 + 5) and while you have more slots in the powers you retain, if you put SOs in them they're only about as powerful as training enhancements right now.
And in the current state of the game, or as it was when it was canceled, everyone in a team was sidekicked or exemplared to the team lead as appropriate. Everyone could stand up to opposition at any level and not get utterly pasted or completely trivialize it.
So you can, for example, have a weekly rotating schedule that just sticks endgame rewards on the task forces available to level 10s now and again, and max-level heroes can show up and participate and not just invalidate everyone else's contribution.
They can get complex. But the 'generic' Invention Enhancements (at level 25, more on that later) are basically Single Origin enhancements that anyone can use, that never lose effectiveness. Glazius mentioned that you can slot level 25 SO enhancements at level 22, but what they didn't tell you is if you keep those enhancements slotted and continue levelling, they lose effectiveness. They give a little more when you're 22 and they're 25, they give the baseline 'SO' level when you match their level (so +33% for most, +20% for others), but when you go past 25, they drop off. If you still have level 25 SO enhancements slotted and you hit 29, they suddenly stop giving any bonus AT ALL.
As mentioned, Generic Invention Origin Enhancements give a bonus that increases with their level, but they keep that bonus forever. Level 25 IOs give just a little less than SOs, so common convention is to slot IOs at 22 if you can. Luckily, the Pax Arcadia supergroup base has storage full of level 25 IOs that I try to keep stocked up for new characters that want to be effective and not replace their enhancements every 6-7 levels.
ALSO, there are non-generic Invention Origin enhancements. Rather than boosting a single aspect of a power, they can boost multiple aspects (at a lower level, though). These all have funky names and give you bonuses if you have multiple IOs from the same set slotted in the same power, and are the main reason that high level characters can be super untouchable in PVE content.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
They're how high level players boost their stats really high, like how my brute has 90% resist in almost everything.
They are, however, also super expensive for the more desirable ones and fully kitting out a min/max build will cost you upwards of 500 million.
And then you have the IOs which are a part of sets, but have a UNIQUE tag. These you can only equip one of, but the bonus for that one item is super good. Like 3% defense in everything, or a random chance to just get healed for no reason. Often people won't even bother using the whole set, instead just that one peice.
[edit] That's a point, I don't think we can link to HC forums. Shouldn't be too hard to find for anyone that wants the details.
Also, I never realised that the Sentinel Beam Rifle replaced the annoying Penetrating Shot (yay, lining up long range powers...) with one that splits as it hits targets. I mean, it's a Sentinel power, so it's undertuned as hell, but it just seems more fun. I might make a BR/ Sentinel just to try it out.
Just in case, going to quote some stuff:
Thank. Fucking. Christ. Holy shit is Shadow Maul obnoxious to use. You know how hard is to get Sands of Mu to hit more than a single target? Imagine what is like to spend a primary power slot for the privilege.
Big things are the Mastermind henchmen thing, since with that maybe people will stop complaining about MMs on cave maps, and the Endurance Modification IO set, since that maybe will make Electric Blast not worthless and Electric Control is just missing that little extra push. Also Shock Therapy sounds cool.
Sure, Shock Therapy is a real thing that fucked people up, but it doesn't seem too out of line, given the context?
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Mainly is the ties to conversion therapy which...yeah. Perfectly avoidable issue.
ORIGIN
POOL
*Defender only
B...but...I already rerolled my Pain Dom guy....if they port this to controllers...argh
ArGH!
I love it though I need it
But I don't think there'd be an archetype combination where you could get the new "Shock Therapy" and Pain Domination, but...those powers sound so cool
I'm very excited about Experimentation. The attacks alone are going in at least two, maybe three of my characters. Very hype.
I understand from a lore perspective why its a super speed power and not just something everyone gets, but from a gameplay balance perspective it's way too good to pass up for most characters. That's a design issue that either needs to be addressed, or just bake it in.
What it reminds me of, really, is how in tabletop Champions, everyone bought up SPD - again, even those whose powers and Origin had nothing to justify them being faster than a normal human. For the simple reason that going only twice in a 12-round turn sucked.
Like you said, a break between lore and gameplay.
I don't think it's ever going to happen, not only would the task be monumental, much of the playerbase would riot that they spent weeks working on a build that no longer works. Like, people lost their shit over ED, but all they lost there was SOs and a respec, not hundreds of millions in inventions.
But ideally what I think should happen is that recharge gets softcaps same as everything else, they make Hasten an inherent passive so it's not eating a pool and retune powersets/pools for whom high/perma-Hasten is the only reason you'd even play them to begin with (Dominators) to hit it naturally.
However, I realized as we kept playing that...I guess a ton of my stuff was just unslotted?
I jumped on the black market and whooo boy did Homecoming's level 25 IO market tank. Over the summer when everyone was playing, it was super easy to spend a few million inf and get every single level 25 IO you could need. Now many of them only have 3 or 4 available, and they cost a couple hundred thousand instead of 45-50k.
This is a problem! I might have to *chokes* learn to craft!
I'm also trying to think about the best way to build and slot an Elec/Pain controller. I saw a really interesting idea involving adding Call of the Sandman into Static Field to turn the power into an additional pulsing self-heal, and apparently electric control is a Good Set to lean into proc-heavy building so I know that for the Electric powers that's what I'm going to aim for. Haven't figured out what to do about the /Pain powers, and I know some stuff is going to move around in a bit, when Experimentation lands.
I really can't wait for Experimentation to hit live, as I'm going to immediately respec into it on this guy.
Yeah, my Elec/Pain guy is a rogue doctor named Malpractice who can control people's nervous systems so he can either paralyze them, make them able to ignore pain, or cause intense pain in their bodies!
I was really proud of this character and then I read the "Villains" series from V.E. Schwab and realized oops I accidentally invented Victor Vale
Still, I made him before I read the book, so I don't feel too bad
Between that and some hardcore physical training they were an incredibly competent hand to hand fighter. Like almost preternaturally lucky, as long as people didn't know their power.
Don't think that rips anything off, just wanted to mention it.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
But they are ridiculous and he has 6 fingers on each hand so you're probably safe
Domino has luck powers as well. Normal number of fingers, but odd skin pigmentation in the comics.
The near future vision thing sounds familiar. I think Nic Cage did a movie where he could see a bit into the future and used it for fighting a few times.
Fake edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_(2007_film)