COH I12 Info "The Midnight Hour"

[Lyrical]

/yawn. It still looks lke we are still getting more rehashes of the 1-50, and not much in the way of endgame.


City of Heroes Community Site

The Midnight Squad
JOIN THE MIDNIGHT SQUAD (LEVELS 10 - 20)
The clandestine organization of mystics, scholars and mages, known only as the Midnight Squad, seeks to rebuild its numbers since the devastating assault of the Rikti Invasion. The Midnighters hold a secret that could bring the alien assault to an end, but without the help of the Heroes of Paragon City™ it will remain Lost forever.

NEW ROMAN-STYLE ZONE MAPS (LEVELS 35 - 50)
The Midnighters hold many secrets within their walls, including a highly coveted Ouroboros crystal, enabling them to travel to the far reaches of time. There is a familiar threat in an ancient land and the Midnighters need the help of both Heroes and Villains to stop it. Players step foot upon the ancient land of the Roman Cimeroran Peninsula, where they battle deadly creatures, defend an ancient city and ultimately come face to face with the enemy of time itself. Throughout this journey players uncover the mysteries of power and the origins that guide them today.

UNLOCK ROMAN-STYLE ARMOR COSTUMES
Through their accomplishments, players unlock the new Roman themed armor costume set.

Villain Epic Archetypes

Infiltrate the Arachnos organization from within! Upon reaching level 50, Villains unlock two new Epic Archetypes; Wolf Spiders and Blood Widows. They have their own unique storyline and missions, power combinations and costume sets. Branching powersets allow the Wolf Spider to specialize as either a Bane Spider or Crab Spider and the Blood Widow chooses from the Fortunata and Night Widow branches. Each brings with it unique costumes for your Arachnos duties, as well as your newfound role as a Destined One.



Powerset Proliferation

Using his newly built Resonance Manipulator, the Villain scientist known as Dr. Brainstorm™ has discovered a way to alter the energy strands which connect every Hero and Villain to their powers. This discovery has not only opened the door to new powers for his fellow Villains in the Rogue Isles™, but has also done the same for the Heroes of Paragon City ™! Specifically, new characters of almost every Hero and Villain archetype gain access to an additional primary and secondary powerset that they didn’t have access to previously. Details to come!



Hollows Zone "Gameplay Makeover"

Significant changes have been made to the Hollows zone to make it more fun! NPC encounters have been rebalanced, including new spawns, new villain groups, mission door improvements, and a mobile hospital has been added to the entrance of the zone. Additionally, Meg Mason, a new contact, has been added to give out repeatable missions.



Major Gameplay Improvements

Eight configurable new power trays let players customize their User Interface by placing them anywhere on the screen.

Contact display redesign: Contacts are now listed separately as Active and Inactive, and players can sort contacts by a range of criteria including Name, Zone, and Level Range.

Inspiration Conversion: Right click an inspiration to convert three of that kind into any one inspiration of another kind.

Level Up Boost: Upon reaching enough XP to level up (at all levels), one of each type of large inspiration is immediately cast upon your character, and health and endurance bars are immediately filled.

Chat improvements: Right click on character names in chat window to ignore, add to friends list, invite to team, etc. Drag any item (enhancement, inspiration, salvage, etc.) into the chat window so that you and others can click a hotlink to view the complete info box.

More Real Numbers: Players can now display stats on powers before they choose them enabling more informed power selection and new temporary powers allow players to display enemy stats.

[Genjiro]

The new costumes look pimp though. Incoming 1000 Leonidas/Maximus dual blade clones w/ gladius on Freedom!

[45th Parallel]

Yeah, CoH definatly has a great art team. Those roman outfits look better than that one rome mmo game that got shitcanned.

I'll probably reactivate for a while to try out the new villian epic ATs. But the continued lack of level 50 content means I'll probably cancel within a month or two.

[Cantatus]

JOIN THE MIDNIGHT SQUAD - Looks like RWZ for lowbies. That's not necessarily a bad thing as RWZ is probably the best zone they've come out with. I can't say as though that level range really needs more content, especially considering the exp bump.

NEW ROMAN-STYLE ZONE MAPS - I'm excited about this one. I love Roman history and architecture. But I'll echo Lyrical's sentiments - endgame content, where are you? At the very least, I can hope this zone has some sort of Mothership type raid.

Villain Epic Archetypes - From a story perspective, I'm fairly disappointed with this one. The one thing Villains have been wanting since release is to not be so tied to the Arachnos story. This is why Mercy Island eventually got a couple new contacts. So they have a chance to add 10 new story arcs (judging by what Kheldians get) and they tie the EAT even more to Arachnos?

I'll withhold judgment until we actually get more details though. As I posted on the boards, a lot of the reason I enjoy my Kheldian so much is based on the way he plays, not the storyarcs he gets. Those are just an additional boon.


Powerset Proliferation - Good way for people to have some new combinations. I wonder if this means the old rule of "Each archetype has one exclusive powerset" is going out the window. I sort of understood the reasoning behind that rule, but them I can't say as I'm disappointed if they did away with it (which sort of looks to be the case considering the only unique archetype Dominators had was Plants).

Hollows Zone "Gameplay Makeover" - Meh. Hollows had some problems that needed to be addressed for sure, but this really doesn't strike me as a "feature" so much as a "fix". There are other zones that need the attention far more, in my opinion. And a contact with "repeatable missions"? That's one of the worst features they came up with for the Shadow Shard. I really wish they'd stop throwing it in every zone they touch.

Major Gameplay Improvements - Some good UI improvements to be sure. The CoH UI has always been fairly inflexible (even compared to EQ's). Good to see it finally getting some attention. The contact display redesign is enough for me to cheer for though.

[McCheese]

This strikes me as one of the better updates.

Lets face it, they're not going to focus on endgame content at this point. I'm sure they realize that almost everyone who wants that sort of thing has long since moved on to other games. Their playerbase now are the type that love making alts, dressing up their heroes in new costumes, and playing super casually.

And props to their art department on the Roman stuff; it looks great.

[Cantatus]

Originally Posted by McCheese

Lets face it, they're not going to focus on endgame content at this point. I'm sure they realize that almost everyone who wants that sort of thing has long since moved on to other games. Their playerbase now are the type that love making alts, dressing up their heroes in new costumes, and playing super casually.

They've recently said with NCSoft's acquisition that endgame content would be forthcoming. The storyline (ie the "Coming Storm") seems to be building up to it anyways... hopefully...

[goatface]

Originally Posted by McCheese

Their playerbase now are the type that love making alts, dressing up their heroes in new costumes, and playing super casually.
.

so true
I was just talking my only rl friend that still plays, he has been playing his 2-10 hours a week from beta and just leveled his 3rd 50. lol


those hero outfits do look pretty cool, don't really care for the villain ones

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Cantatus

They've recently said with NCSoft's acquisition that endgame content would be forthcoming. The storyline (ie the "Coming Storm") seems to be building up to it anyways... hopefully...

Yay, finally we are getting some endgame. Wait a second, they've been saying that for the last four years

[45th Parallel]

Indeed, the current player base doesn't seem to be interested in end game stuff. However, based on the latest subscription numbers, the current player base is dwindling. They need add an end game to draw some of the players back that left long ago. Especially with the Champions mmo coming out, they need to step up if they plan to compete.

[Genjiro]

Yea, fuck messing with anything hero side. Villain side needs another entire issue devoted solely to content--like hazard zones added in for one, to even come close to matching what hero side offers content wise.

Been playing heros again being away from them for a couple years, so goddamned overpowered compared to redside in every way--even bank missions are laughable comparatively.

Fire/kin--do I need say more?
----------------------------

On another note, the devs have confirmed that the major ATs will all be receiving 2 powersets, all of which get a new primary and secondary except Masterminds (who get no primary and two secondaries), and brutes (who get two primaries--1 we know of which is axe).

Things I would cream myself for:

Masterminds--->Kin---> This is self explanatory. Ninjas with speed boost and fulcrum shift would be lol hilarity as you couldnt even watch them because they run so fast. Robot or thugs/kin would be fucking jesus. Radiation is the same way, perma Am etc for all the pets and an aoe heal = gg.

Brutes--> Spines. Good lorrrrrrrdy lordy, build up fiery embrace-->spine burst throw spines ripper would be so goddamn nasty it wouldnt even be funny.

Dominators--> Illusion control. Doms with the ability to blast in complete safety behind a wall of phantom army would be good stuff.

Scrappers--> Anything with electric armor. Lets face it, electric armor is the best melee defensive set in the game, bar none, no arguing, game over. Massive resists + power sink + lightning reflexes for 20% recharge would make this the fotm of every scrapper.

Tankers--> See above with electric armor, slow resist? yummmmm

Corrupters--> /poison from the mastermind set, this goes for controllers too if they get poison. Nastiest single target debuff set in the game with ice would be pretty unreal.

Anyone else got a wishlist? Controllers also will be getting plant control from domis too, should be interesting to see full heal builds with plant/empaths with fully slotted tree of life on top of empaths heals. Plant with seeds of confusion (mass confusion on steroids) + something like radiation would be pretty win too, confuse--->toss on rads debuffs and rake in salvage at an astronomical pace. While still not fire/kin...it would be really fast and a hell of a lot safer too.

[Malakie Torsade]

Originally Posted by Genjiro

Anyone else got a wishlist?

Haven't played since shortly after release, but making it so Mastermind pets zoned with you might entice me to re-sub. Having to Summon, Summon, Summon, Buff, Buff, Buff got old very fast.

[Cantatus]

Originally Posted by Lyrical

Yay, finally we are getting some endgame. Wait a second, they've been saying that for the last four years

Hence my skepticism.

Originally Posted by 45th Parallel

Indeed, the current player base doesn't seem to be interested in end game stuff. However, based on the latest subscription numbers, the current player base is dwindling. They need add an end game to draw some of the players back that left long ago. Especially with the Champions mmo coming out, they need to step up if they plan to compete.

I think there are a lot of players that want endgame content, but they're just the players who hit level 50, got bored, and quit.

Originally Posted by Genjiro

Yea, fuck messing with anything hero side. Villain side needs another entire issue devoted solely to content--like hazard zones added in for one, to even come close to matching what hero side offers content wise.

Hazard Zones are unnecessary. They're a model that went defunct when Cryptic decided instanced missions were more important than non-instanced content. At this point, adding Hazard Zones to CoV wouldn't be adding content, it'd be adding space.

[Genjiro]

Originally Posted by Cantatus

Hazard Zones are unnecessary. They're a model that went defunct when Cryptic decided instanced missions were more important than non-instanced content. At this point, adding Hazard Zones to CoV wouldn't be adding content, it'd be adding space.

That's not the point I was making, really. The reason hazard zones on redside are needed is because they have created such an imbalance and this market dichotomy now due to the ease of raking in shitloads of magical salvage heroside. They are also a much, much better place to solo if your character is capable of doing so.

No fucking joke. Easy way to prove my point---> Go make a spines/dark scrapper, take lunge spine burst and death shroud, and then go to Perez Park and kill the groups of green hellions, and then hellions/CoT. By the time you're level 15, you probably have 10+ million influence just from selling the common salvage. I took my fire/kin into dark astoria and did the same shit, and was walking out with deific weapons, soul trapped gems, and a salvage can full of luck charms, spell scrolls etc worth 10-75k each. There is no way to replicate this on the redside really until you get a good outdoor farm mission, and even if they merged the markets, the sheer volume of hero players compared to villains and limited good drops will just make it worse.

Of course, if they actually made tech salvage worth a shit, and made good recipes require it---then it wouldn't fucking matter so much. As it stands now, heros have a huge, huge advantage in terms of acquiring wealth. Their builds also make this easier, as there is nothing even really remotely close to the farming speed of my fire/kin controller on the villain side--flashfire + fire cages + fulcrum shift with hotfeet running on top of 3 speed boosted imps lays down carnage which has no equal.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by 45th Parallel

Indeed, the current player base doesn't seem to be interested in end game stuff. However, based on the latest subscription numbers, the current player base is dwindling. They need add an end game to draw some of the players back that left long ago. Especially with the Champions mmo coming out, they need to step up if they plan to compete.

I am starting to think that ChO is going to have just as shallow an endgame as CoH. If you have read dev comments for CoH, they say everytime they bring up raiding that it isn't received well on the official boards. CoH has carved out a niche among casual players. The problem is that if you go to the CoH boards, there are a ton of CoH players talking about how they are going to switch to ChO. Some of the same devs that are working on ChO have admitted that they have made design decisions based on what the very vocal casual playerbase said on the CoH boards. So my guess is we are going to get an MMO close to CoH, which is akin to kissing your sister (no endgame, where's the fun in that?).

From a business standpoint, it makes no sense to cater to the same demographic in the superhero segment of the MMO market. It would only make sense to do so if it was growing. But we know that CoH has lost 75-100K subs from its peak. How do you expect to split subs between two games? You have to differentiate these games, or both teams are going to feel alot of pain. Both teams are going to have to do something other than cater to casuals, or they are just going to have to accept 175k subs/2 (or some variant of that).

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Genjiro

That's not the point I was making, really. The reason hazard zones on redside are needed is because they have created such an imbalance and this market dichotomy now due to the ease of raking in shitloads of magical salvage heroside. They are also a much, much better place to solo if your character is capable of doing so.

The devs have stated over and over again that if they could re-do the design of CoH, they would remove hazard zones altogether. I don't agree with this, but this is what they have said. They said they want people to run instances and run storylines, and that they feel that hazard zones aren't very comic-bookish. By some of their posts, you could almost infer that if they want to remove street-cleaning altogether.