Issue 25

Overview

Issue 25, Unbroken Spirit, was a major revision to City of Heroes Resurgence developed by SCoRE after the live servers were shut down and before public community servers were opened. According to notes documenting these changes, the title "references the community's strength to persevere beyond the official shutdown of its game." The final version of Issue 25 served as the basis for Homecoming: City of Heroes.

The only public record of these patch notes made available by members of SCoRE can be found in this Google document.

This article provides consolidated patch notes for all the changes made for Issue 25.

• Server-side only updates for Issue 25 started being patched on January 22nd, 2013.
• Client-side updates for Issue 25 started being tested in March 21st, 2013.
• Issue 25 launched in May 21st, 2013 with the release of the client patchers, Tequila and Island Rum.

Selected highlights of Issue 25 include:

• New archetype: Sentinels
• New power sets: Atomic Manipulation, Ninja Training, Radiation Armor, Radiation Melee, Radioactive Assault, Tactical Arrow, Temporal Manipulation
• Powerset proliferation
• New zone: Kallisti Wharf
• Rebalanced Incarnate system
• Currency consolidation
• Extensive updates to supergroup bases

All of the above highlights are detailed further below.

Incarnate System

• All enemies drop Incarnate XP and Incarnate Threads for level, at the same rate that Incarnate Trials dropped it on the live servers.
• Altered the Reward Tables for Incarnate Story Arcs: Heather Townshend, Mu'Vorkan, Praetor Duncan, Sister Solaris, Dream Doctor, Belladonna Vetrano and Number Six; as well as the Apex and Tin Mage Task Forces:

• Incarnate Merits: Before, it was 80% chance of Astral, 20% chance of Empyrean. Now, 100% chance of Empyrean.
• Incarnate Components: Before, it was 75% chance of Common, 20% chance of Uncommon, 4% chance of Rare, 1% chance of Very Rare. Now, it's 40% chance of Common, 30% chance of Uncommon, 20% chance of Rare, 10% chance of Very Rare.
• Players will receive a random Common Incarnate salvage for completing the arcs, in addition of the rewards listed above.
• The cooldown to get the Incarnate rewards from these arcs has been removed.

• Taskmaster Gabriel has been removed.
• The Apex and Tin Mage Task Forces can now be started even if a member of the team has not unlocked the Alpha Slot. The 4-level debuff still applies to those characters, but they won't prevent the Task Force from starting.
• The Incarnate Level Shifts from the Lore and Destiny slots will work in the Apex and Tin Mage Task Forces.
• A new Judgement power, Mighty Judgement, has been added. It's a PBAoE attack that does smashing damage around the caster. The Core tree does more damage, the Radial tree inflicts high-magnitude knockup.

Supergroups

Quality of Life

• You can invite other characters in your account to your supergroup by using the /altinvite <name> command.
• You can promote/demote offline Supergroup members from the Supergroup window, or using the /promote <name> and /demote <name> commands.
• The /sgwho command is now available for everyone. It will list, in the System chat channel, basic information about your supergroup and a list of all members.
• The maximum time before a SG leader will be demoted has been increased from 45 days to 600 days.

Co-op

• Villains in hero supergroups (and vice versa) can now be in SG mode, enter the base and rez there.
• The base entry portal will now allow you to enter bases regardless of their alignment.
• Switching sides will no longer drop the Supreme Leader rank, shut off SG mode, or display the member's name in whatever that ugly color is.
• Villains can be invited to Hero supergroups and vice versa; they can be promoted all the way up to Supreme Leader.
• Hero and Villain supergroups can now coalition.
  • Important: sometimes, the game will force-kick a player from the team if they go to a zone where co-op teams are not allowed. Avoid going inside a base if you're on a co-op task force,as this may kick you from team.

Bases

• Prestige has been removed from the game, you will not earn Prestige in SG Mode and all base items are free.
• Upkeep has been removed.
• Item rotation with the ALT key now can rotate an item in any axis:

• If you hold down the SHIFT key and then hold down the ALT key, objects will rotate on the "roll" axis.
• If you hold down the CTRL key and then hold down the ALT key, objects will rotate on the "pitch" axis.
• Note that the axis are relative to the object, not the world, so this can get quite confusing! Most of the time the keys won't do what you expect.
• Ctrl+RightClick will reset the orientation of the selected item back to the default, facing south.
• Doorways can now be placed next to each other.

• You can place NPCs inside bases; both functional (trainers, tailors, notoriety, stores) and for looks (doing random emotes).
• The high ceiling option "Tech Grid" is exactly identical as "Tech Circles", so it has been removed. In its place, there is a new option: "Open Sky".
• All base items that had to be crafted in Workbenches are now available in the editor from the start.
• All items except Storage have been reclassified as Decorative and can be placed in any room in the base. They will still perform their normal functions.
• Personal Storage Vault is now classified as a decorative item (but will still bring up your vault if you click on it); you can place as many as you want and it won't count against your Storage limit.
• All teleporter beacons can be placed on bases of either faction. Heroes trying to load into a villain zone (or vice versa) will be booted back into Atlas (or Mercy).
• The Combat Logs and Contemplation Charts will now sell every small inspiration, not just Break Free.
• There's 450 new base items. See the lists here and here.
• You can change the height of a room section even if there are items intersecting it.
• Empowerment and Storage items can now be placed on any room.
• The Entrance portal can be placed on any room. However, using /stuck will still bring you to the Entrance room, even if the portal is no longer there.
• Two new room sizes available in the editor: 12x12 and 24x24 (under Decorative).
• You can enter base edit mode from anywhere in the base by using the command /editbase 1.
• Supergroup members with the Set Base Entry Permission can set a Base Access Passcode to allow anyone who knows the passcode to enter the Supergroup base, even if they're not members of the supergroup or coalition. See Base Access Passcode for details.
• All base plots now allow the same amount of base items (20,000 decorative, 18 storage).
• New tab: "Skies". This tab contains volumes that can be used to switch the sky in your base. See Skies for details.
• The command /see_everything 1 can be used while in the supergroup base editor to see all sorts of internal details; it's meant to help with placement of the sky boxes. Type /see_everything 0 to disable it; it will disable on its own when you exit the base editor or leave the base.
• Improvements were made to hit boxes and flickering, see here and here for details.
• Many items are now tintable with the SG colors, see here for list.
• New tab: "Alphabet". Contains the letters A-Z, numerals 0-9, and two arrows. They are all tintable. In order to aid with text alignment, the hit box on all these items is centered and a fixed size, even if this causes the glyph to "spill" outside its hit box.
• Deprecated a ton of rooms with identical sizes, and consolidated them into four tabs: "Small", "Medium", "Large" and "Huge". Added some more room sizes while at it.
• Deprecated plots with the same dimensions and put them all in a single tab. The plot selection tab will now display the plot sizes correctly, instead of solid grey boxes for every single one of them.
• The following items will no longer need to be attached to anything to show as powered; they have all been split into unpowered and powered (active) versions:
  • Arcane Power: Mana Crystal, Mana Seal, Mana Lens, Mana Resonator
  • Tech Power: Brief Capacitor, Backup Capacitor, Emergency Capacitor, Aeon Capacitor
• Added a Merit Rewards ATM under "Tech Worskhop".
• Set every room in the base to accept 100 Workshop items, and the plot maximum to 1000 Workshop items.
• Supergroup base teleporters will no longer show zones that the player's alignment is not allowed in.
• New slash command: /sg_music <filename> will play the given sound file in the supergroup base, using the Music channel. You must have base editing permissions to use this command.
  • This will play any sound file from inside the piggs or data folders. Everybody who enters the base will hear the music you selected if it is in the pigg files; but if you place your own .ogg files in your data/sound/ogg folder, only you (and those who have a file with the same name in that folder) will hear it.
  • The music will update in real time if you use the command while inside your base, so you can use this to pseudo-DJ events in your base.
  • File names that end in _loop will loop forever. So if you use /sgmusic levelup7 it will play the level up sound once (when you enter the base) and then be silent, but if you use /sgmusic Objective_loop it will play the glowies sound forever (and drive everybody insane looking for it.)
  • To remove the music, use /sgmusic ""; currently playing music will fade out, not abruptly stop.
  • Removed the background sound WarehouseAmb2_loop that played on the Sound FX channel everywhere in the base. You can, of course, keep that sound in your base by using /sgmusic WarehouseAmb2_loop.
• When placing a room, any potential doorways will be automatically valid, regardless of what's on the other side of the room. This might result in floating items in the doorway opening; simply delete any doorways you do not want.
• Rooms can be placed (or moved to) a spot where they don't connect to any other room in the base. This should make it easier to place new rooms in the "middle" of a base plot.

Zones

Paragon City

• The map of Paragon City has been updated to show Kallisti Wharf and the Hive.
• The red text ticker displays in various zones were updated to the current green line layout. Talos Island still listed Brickstown as its next stop, skipping both Founders' Falls and Skyway City. The new "loop" goes: Talos > Founders > Skyway South > Brickstown > IP South > IP North > Kallisti > Steel North > Talos. Croatoa isn't included in the loop.
• The following zones now share a common Submarine line:
  • Independence Port
  • Sharkhead Isle
  • Grandville
  • Monster Island
  • The Abyss

Atlas Park

• Missions that take place in the Omega Team Memorial will now have their door where it's supposed to be inside City Hall.
• Back Alley Brawler has been going stir crazy in the police station, so he's relocated to Argosy Industrial, near Aaron Thiery, to provide training assistance to young heroes while he awaits news from Galaxy City.
• Merit Reward vendors have been replaced with ATMs; one inside City Hall, another in Wentworths.

Boomtown

• Added construction to Boomtown.
• The Council has established a base of operations near the west War Wall to coordinate their battle against the Fifth Column in the area.
• New Zone Event: Council Goliath War Walker. A progress bar will display how many War Walkers need to be destroyed to spawn it, it can only be spawned once per hour, and there is a way to weaken it if your team can't handle it at full power.

Cimerora

• The zone will no longer kick players that are missing the Midnight Squad badge.

Crey's Folly

• The hazard gate leading to the Rikti War Zone has been reopened.

Dark Astoria

• The hazard gate leading to Talos Island has been reopened. Heroes, Rogues and Vigilantes can use it to enter Paragon City.

Echo: Dark Astoria

• All mission doors from Echo: Dark Astoria have been removed. Missions that have already been granted might break and need to be abandoned. No new missions should be given in Dark Astoria; post in the bug tracker if you get one.
• Deprecated hunt missions in Dark Astoria: SL4_BanishedPantheon_Errand2, SL4_BanishedPantheon_Errand3, SL5_BanishedP_Errand1, SL5_CoT_Errand3.
• Villains and Rogues can now access the zone with the Ouroboros Echo Transporter. There are no police drones waiting for them at the entrance this time.

Echo: Faultline

• The Hazard Zone Gate leading to Skyway City has been closed; an Ouroboros Echo Transporter has been placed nearby.
• It is possible to access the Overbrook Dam with a door at the bottom of Reservoir.
• All the exploration badges that exist in regular Faultline have been removed from the Echo.

Echo: Rikti Crash Site

• The Hazard Zone Gate leading to Crey's Folly has been closed; an Ouroboros Echo Transporter has been placed nearby.
• The following badges have been moved from the Rikti War Zone:
  • Ace
  • Asunder
  • Eyewitness
  • Powerful
  • Scarred
  • Under Fire
• The following new badges have been added:
  • Communications Specialist (Exploration)
  • Shielded (Exploration)
  • Crash Landed (Accolade)
• Players of all alignments can access this zone using the Ouroboros Echo Transporter.

Independence Port

• Paragon Transit Authority has opened a new station: Independence Port South. The existing station was renamed Independence Port North.
• The monorail track was also adjusted to no longer levitate 0.5 units off the ground, fixing a lot of small geometry issues in the process.
• Merit Vendors were replaced with Merit ATMs.
• The base portal was moved slightly and will no longer disappear when you move 20 centimeters away from it.

Kallisti Wharf

• New zone: Kallisti Wharf.
• Kallisti Wharf now has a Teleport beacon, in both Tech and Arcane flavors.

Mercy Island

• The geometry for the gothic clock tower has been fixed and should render more cleanly from a distance.
• Some of the Issue 21 edits around the governor building have been rolled back. Main change is that the governor building itself has regained its top part, which had been replaced by a copy of the Grandville statue. Some walls that had been removed have been restored as well, as their removal resulted in floating geometry.

Night Ward

• All the of the Night Ward contacts and enemy groups have been lowered to start from level 25 instead of 30. This change was made because the First Ward arcs can only level a player to around level 26, leaving a considerable content gap for Praetorian characters who decide to not leave via the Rift Enclosure. The Night Ward zone still spawns enemies starting at level 30 until further adjustments can be made.

Ouroboros

• Added Faultline (pre-i8) and Rikti Crash Site (pre-i10) to the Ouroboros Echo Teleporter.
• The Ouroboros Echo Teleporter has been attuned to allow travel to Echo: Atlas Park, the version of the zone from launch day, with swaying trees, no AE, no Wentworths, no Vanguard, no TUNNEL, no DATA portal, no Hollows exit, and a bucketload of nostalgia.
• The exit portal will now list all the zones (hero and villain) to Rogues and Vigilantes. Heroes and Villains will only see the zones for their side.
• There is now a single Ouroboros zone that serves all Primal alignments.
  • Heroes and Villains can team in the zone and start any flashback. However, only flashbacks that are co-op can be played by such a team. Missions that are hero or villain specific cannot be set on a co-op team (you can start the arc, but you can't set the mission in the compass or enter the door until the team is not co-op). Make sure everybody is the right alignment before starting it.
  • Missions that send you to Ouroboros to talk to contacts (like the SSA2) should work fine for both alignments.
• The reclamation pads will now accept rez requests from villain players.

Paragon Dance Party

• The doors to Paragon Dance Party have been re-opened in Steel Canyon, Talos Island, and Independence Port.

Peregrine Island

• All supergroup base teleporters have been recalibrated to deploy heroes at Portal Corp.
• The Midnighter Club has finally managed to close the portal to Dark Astoria that opened next to the Arena.
• Arena employees forgot to lock certain doors.

Pocket D

• The Vault Reserve Corporation have closed the blue-side Vault in Pocket D. The red-side branch will work for heroes, villains, vigilantes, rogues, loyalists and resistance members.
• The Merit Corporation installed a new Merit Rewards ATM at the entrance of the Monkey Fight Club.
• Architect Entertainment install a new branch. The badges that Architect Entertainment grants are still old issue and will call Loyalists "Villains" and Resistance members "Heroes" until new badges can be printed.
• The Supergroup base portal draw distance has been increased, and it has been moved to the other side of the club, so it won't block the view of the Ski Chalet.
• The Tiki Room in Pocket D no longer requires the Pocket D VIP Gold Club Member badge to enter.

Recluse's Victory

• The Freedom Phalanx and Arachnos reinforcements will once again drop rewards: experience, influence, and two Reward Merits each.
• Ms. Liberty and Penelope Yin will now grant Temporal Points when defeated.
• The bonus for killing players from the losing side after winning the zone has been changed from 100 Prestige to 100,000 Influence.
• The points system for the zone event has been adjusted so it has more emphasis on winning the zone and less in killing Signature NPCs.
  • Destroying a turret: 25 points (was 15)
  • Capturing a bunker: 50 points (was 20)
  • Killing a player: 50 points (was 25)
  • Dying: -50 points (was -15)
  • Defeating a Signature Hero or Villain: 100 points (was 250)
  • Winning the zone: 100 points (was 25)
  • Points multiplier when the zone is won: 2x (no change)
• A solo player can:
  • Destroy the turrets from 6 out of the 7 bunkers (600 points)
  • Capture 6 bunkers (300 points)
  • Zone is won (100 points)
• That's exactly the 1000 points needed to get the Heavy. If you die, the turrets in the 7th bunker will be worth 50 points each after the zone is won, so you can die 4 times and still reach 1000 points.
• Remember, the heavy temporary power is awarded when the zone resets, so once you have the 1000 points, stay safe until the reset.
• You will now get the Longbow Mini-Heavy or Arachnos Mini-Blaster when the zone resets if you have exactly 1000 temporal points.

Rikti War Zone

• The hazard gate leading to Crey's Folly has been reopened. Heroes, Rogues and Vigilantes can use it to enter Paragon City.
• The following new badge has been added:
  • They Are Still Among Us (Accolade)

Talos Island

• The hazard gate leading to Dark Astoria has been reopened.
• Praetorians arriving from the Rift Enclosure will now spawn outside the warehouse that has the actual portal.
• Arena employees forgot to lock certain doors.

The Abyss

The Abyss is now a co-op zone where heroes and villains can raid Hamidon together.

Veteran Leveling

• Level 50s will continue to earn experience and will "Level Up" after earning 5 million experience. When that happens, they get the satisfying whoosh of light and noise that we've all been conditioned to love, including all the inspirations being cast on the character.
• Each time this happens you will earn a "Veteran Level" which will replace the character's actual level in the character info window.
• When you accumulate 3 Veteran Levels you will earn one of the old Veteran Reward badges and will be rewarded with a number of Empyrean Merits. To a cap of 99 Veteran Levels.
• The actual character level doesn't change; level 50 is still the cap. But you can continue to ding and get the leveling rewards forever.
• Legacy characters imported from the live servers will still retain any veteran badges earned and will "re-earn" them when they accumulate enough Veteran Levels
• You can disable this feature from Options: set "Disable Earning XP" to "No XP".
• Awards for the various Veteran Levels are:
  • Badges 3 to 24: 20 Empyrean Merits
  • Badges 27 to 48: 15 Empyran Merits
  • Badges 51 to 69: 10 Empyrean Merits
  • Badges 72 to 99: 5 Empyrean Merits
  • Levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 grant a Respec and a Costume Token.
  • Veteran Levels 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11 reward 120 Incarnate Threads

Tasks

Mayhem Missions

• Mayhem missions are now available from their minimum level to level 50. This means that a level 50 with a full Broker progress bar in Port Oakes, for example, will be able to talk to Mikey the Ear or Drea the Hook and obtain the mission Mayhem in Atlas Park or Mayhem in Kings Row.
• You still won't be able to get your own Newspaper missions in a low level zone, but you can team with other players in those zones to increase your Broker's progress bar.
• Since the enemies in low level Mayhem missions don't scale all the way to 50, entering the mission will set the team to the appropriate level.
• Villains with the Hero Slayer badge can talk to Lord Schweinzer in Port Oakes to receive random Mayhem missions without first running Newspaper missions. He is located in the "Hidden Getaway" cabin, northwest of the zone.
• Citizens are no longer invulnerable.

Safeguard Missions

• Safeguard missions are now available from their minimum level to level 50. This means that a level 50 with a full Detective progress bar in Kings Row, for example, will be able to talk to Detective Freitag or Becktrees and obtain the mission Safeguard Atlas Park or Safeguard Kings Row.
• You still won't be able to get your own Police Band missions in a low level zone, but you can team with other players in those zones to increase your Detective's progress bar.
• Since the enemies in low level Safeguard missions don't scale all the way to 50, entering the mission will set the team to the appropriate level.
• Heroes with the Villain Disruptor badge can talk to Agent Hassell in Steel Canyon to receive random Safeguard missions without first running Police Band missions. He is located next to the PPD Truck in Steel Canyon, northwest of Blyde Square.

Task Forces, Strike Forces, and Trials

• All task forces, strike forces, and trials (but not Incarnate or Holiday trials) may now be started with any team size, including solo. Beware, however, that Archvillains will not scale down.
• If a Task Force is down to two members and one of them quits the team, the Task Force will not be disbanded; the last player can try to finish it solo.
• The simultaneous-click objectives in the Dr. Quaterfield, Faathim the Kind and Ernesto Hess task forces have been changed to normal objectives.
• The simultaneous-click objective in the Cavern of Transcendence trial has been changed to a normal objective.
• The Cavern of Transcendence obelisks will now have the standard "glowie" effect until clicked.
• The simultaneous-click objectives in some high level Banished Pantheon, Devouring Earth, Family, Rikti, Nemesis and Carnival missions have been changed to normal objectives.
• The Prisoners of Eden and Descent to the Hydra trials are now available up to level 50. All the enemies ignore combat mods (meaning, are levelless) until some time can be spent to properly scale the enemies to level 50. Because the enemies are internally level 41, any recipe drops from defeating them will also be level 41; Hydra and Titan Origin Enhancements go all the way to level 50, however.
• The Dr. Quaterfield Task Force will now exemplar to level 45 instead of 44, allowing players to keep their Incarnate powers for the duration of the Task Force.
• Most Task Force contacts have been given cellphones, dimensional radios, psychic crystals, or some other means to communicate with Task Force leaders from the beginning.
• The Hydra Head in the Sewer Trial should once more show a shield FX when untouchable.
• Rogue players will no longer be kicked out of the Khan TF when going to a villain zone. More generally, players in a Task Force should never be kicked out of teams when they zone, no matter what.
• Manticore got tired of players never catching the Countess. The Countess will now appear after defeating Hopkins for the first time. Task Force completion will require a second defeat of Hopkins and an initial defeat of Countess Crey.
• Lady Grey's required security levels has been returned to original ranges. Players with a level 35 Security Rating with either Arachnos or City Hall may now join teams employed by the Lady Grey.

Legacy Content

• The origin contacts: Azuria, Jonathan Smythe, Kiros Nandelu, Rick Davies, Susan Davies, Paco Sanchez and Rachel Torres will now once again give missions to low level heroes in Atlas Park. Just talk to them and they'll introduce themselves.
• For villains, Fortunata Kalinda and Matthew Burke will now introduce themselves as well.
• Antonio Nash, who originally gave the GIFT introduction missions and the first Council task set, was repurposed as a contact for a Signature Story Arc. Because of this, his missions were given to Kiros Nandelu, who used to be the Galaxy City GIFT contact.
• Officer Flint will add himself to your contacts list when you enter Outbreak, allowing any's teleported there to run the old tutorial. The map will be added to the Echo Ouroboros Teleporter in the future.
• For villains, H.T. will add himself to your contacts list when you enter Breakout.

Ouroboros

• All the Praetorian story arcs have been added to Ouroboros and now list their zone name to make it easier to find them. There are known issues due to phasing tech.
• The villain Patron story arcs have been added to Ouroboros. You can earn all on a single character now.
• Teaming restrictions have been removed from all the Ouroboros story arcs. You will be able to start any Dark Astoria arc even if someone on your team hasn't done the arcs, for example.
• Underground contacts inside a Resistance bunker have been given cellphones so players on Flashback can call them, though you can still click the Ouroboros Pillar to teleport to them.
• The Task Forces that were given by Menders Lazarus, Tesseract, Twilight Son and Silos are no longer Task Forces; they are now standard story arcs. The arcs themselves have been added to the Pillar of Ice and Flame, so you can still run them repeatedly. They are:
  • The 5th Column Overthrow (co-op; identical on both sides)
  • Spider Weaves His Web (villain only)
  • Smoke and Mirrors (hero only)
  • Trading Places (has a villain version and a different hero version)
• The Pilgrim will give both hero and villain versions of his arc, to the proper alignment. Same for Mender Silos.
• The Ouroborus Entry Mission is available in the Ouro Crystal
• Mender Ramiel's arc with the Trapdoor mission has it's own explicit Ouro Crystal Mission
• Signature Story Arcs have been added to Ouroboros. It is also possible to start them by talking directly with the contact.

Others

• The mini-arc "Catch a hostile infiltrator in the Rikti before he can return to the Council" from Angus McQueen will now always have its mission doors in Founders' Falls. If you already have the mission without a door you might need to abandon it and obtain it again.

Costumes

• All tailor sessions from levels 1 to 9 are completely free.
• The cost of power customization has been severely reduced.
• All costume pieces are available at character creation.
• The Freedom Corps costume pieces are available to players.
• There are more Arachnos pieces available to players, including a tintable Arachnos cape.
• The Kheldian Belt is available for males.
• Fixed bug that was preventing power customizations from applying unless you changed something else in the costume.

Powers

Sentinel

• New archetype: Sentinel. The Sentinel is a powerful ranged combatant with moderate protective powers and protection against control powers.
• Inherent power: Scrutiny.
  • The Sentinel is always on the lookout for vulnerabilities in their foes defenses, and sharing this strategically information with their teammates. As a result, any enemy that the Sentinel is focusing their attacks on will suffer additional 10% damage from any incoming attack in addition to being easier to hit.
  • Multiple Sentinels can work together to make this effect stronger.
  • Occasionally, the Sentinel may find an extreme vulnerability in the target that can be exploited to deliver up to 30% additional damage against it for a limited time. Only one such extreme vulnerability may be exploited at a time.
  • Scrutiny is built similar to how Domination's "Meter" is built, with a progress bar you can plan for. This "Meter" decays is very slowly.
  • You can only trigger Vulnerabilities with your Tier 1 or Tier 2 attacks, allowing you to hold that opportunity for when you feel is best so long as you are willing not to use those attacks.
  • There is no lockout to Vulnerabilities or use of Opportunities; as soon as the effects fade, you can start building Scrutiny immediately.
  • PBAoE, Targeted AoE and Cone powers generate Scrutiny as long as at least one foe is hit. Pseudopet summon powers generate Scrutiny even if no foes are hit.
• The damage inflicted by offensive opportunities has been doubled.
• The duration of Vulnerabilities and Opportunities is now 15 seconds instead of 8 seconds.
• The duration of regular attacks resistance debuffs is now 10 seconds instead of 5 seconds, giving lower level players with few powers more time to take advantage of the debuffs.

Power Updates

• Fixes to Tanker Ice Melee:
  • Frost had its DoT accelerated to deliver its damage quicker, but still does the same amount of damage.
  • Frozen Fists had a two fist animation but was only delivering one tick of damage; the power was adjusted to deliver two ticks of damage.
  • Freezing Touch was doing less damage than the damage formula dictates. Damage was increased and the DoT was accelerated.
• Fixes to Blasters:
  • Ninja Training's Kuji-In Toh now recharges in 200 seconds and lasts 210. Should be perma out of the box, but recharge slotting can be used to combat potential recharge debuffs.
  • Temporal Manipulation's Time Wall should now accept regular Immobilize duration enhancements and Set IOs.
  • Dual Pistols was using the wrong costume slot to store the weapon customization info, which prevented any blaster secondaries from having a customizable weapon. This has been fixed, allowing Ninja Training to work with Dual Pistols.
• Fixes to Controller Force Fields: Repulsion Bomb should now do containment damage.
• New customization option for Dual Blades: Battle Axe.
• New customization option for all Lore powers: Minimal FX. Summons without FX and removes transparency and wispy aura from summoned pets. Just removes transparency from Polar Lights and Robotic Drones as they don't use the reflections aura.
• Fixed a bug where the color customized version of Force Fields powers weren't anchoring to the character.
• The Burn power will now display its up-front AOE properly in the Power Information window.
• Normalized day job powers:
  • Pre-badge day job powers now charge at a rate that would max them in 10 days.
  • Post-badge day job powers now charge at a rate that would max them in 7 days.
  • Accolade day job powers now charge at a rate that would max them in 7 days.
  • All activated powers now max out at 30 charges.
  • Jet Pack now has a max duration of 2 hours.
  • Pre-badge day jobs now receive the same power as post-badge day jobs in cases where they previously differed.
• The few remaining powers that accepted Intangibility enhancements have been modified to no longer accept them since they did not actually benefit from the effects of the enhancement.
• Spider's Bite: Chance for Toxic damage should no longer affect the caster or any friendly target.
• Super Reflexes for Tankers now has the correct taunt duration in the Evasion power. The Brute version was already correct.
• Fixed powers to accept the correct sets:
  • Blaster > Darkness Manipulation > Touch of the Beyond: ToHit Debuff Sets and Accurate ToHit Debuffs Sets
  • Blaster > Devices > Web Grenade: Speed Debuff Sets
  • Blaster > Electricity Manipulation > Force of Thunder: Healing Sets
  • Mastermind > Cold Domination: IO Sets.
  • Sentinel > Sonic Attack: Universal Sets
• Don't unconditionally dequeue powers in character_DisablePower unless it's the power being disabled. This fixes a bug where Assassin's Focus dropping a stack would cause powers to be dequeued in the middle of an attack chain. The same issue affects any power sets with expiring temp powers -- Water Blast, Street Justice, etc.
• The following click powers that include mez protection can now be activated while mezzed:
  • Electric Armor > Power Surge
  • Energy Aura > Overload
  • Ice Armor > Hybernate
  • Ice Armor > Icy Bastion
  • Invulnerability > Unstoppable
  • Regeneration > Moment of Glory
  • Shield Defense > Active Defense
  • Ninjitsu > Kuji-In Rin
  • Ninjitsu > Kuji-In Retsu
  • Super Reflexes > Practiced Brawler
  • Super Reflexes > Elude
  • Pools > Sorcery > Rune of Protection (if you use Rune of Protection as a mez breaker, it will not grant damage resistance.)
• The following powers should be usable while mezzed:
  • Ninja Training > Immobilizing Dart
  • Plant Manipulation > Entangle
  • Temporal Manipulation > Time Wall
• The following powers should no longer drop when mezzed:
  • Plant Manipulation > Wild Fortress
  • Temporal Manipulation > Temporal Healing
  • Sentinel > Willpower > Up To The Challenge
• The following Weapon Sets now have a No Redraw theme:
  • Assault Rifle
  • Battle Axe
  • Beam Rifle (Currently bugged)
  • Broad Sword
  • Claws
  • Katana
  • Mercenaries' Rifle (masterminds)
  • Ninja Blade
  • Robotics' Pulse Rifle (masterminds)
  • Trick Arrow
  • Tactical Arrow
  • Thugs' Dual Pistols (masterminds)
  • Trick Arrow
  • War Mace
  • Archery and Dual Pistols already had a No Redraw theme.
• Archery, Trick Arrow and Tactical Arrow should no longer stab the player's head when you activate an attack without a target while using a No Redraw theme.
• Katana should no longer stab the player's head when you activate a katana attack without a target while using a No Redraw theme.
• Fixes to Martial Combat:
  • Some PvP damage formulas were bugged, this has been fixed.
  • Throw Sand recharge has been lowered to 90s and magnitude increased to mag 3.
• Fixes to Atomic Manipulation:
  • Electron Shackles hover text no longer claims it does -end
  • Ionize text description no longer claims it grants -def and toxic damage.
  • Positron Cell should deal its damage as damage over time as originally intended, hover text no longer says it does negative damage.
  • Beta Decay now accepts Accurate ToHit Debuff IOs
  • Radioactive Cloud now accepts Accuracy enhancements
• Fixes to Fire Manipulation:
  • Burn should now do damage in PvP
• Lightning Rod can now be used while flying.
• Defiance duration formulas were bugged in many powers across multiple sets, this has been fixed.
• Mercurial Blow for Brutes no longer applies Bruising on the target.
• The temporary power Disable_All will now disable travel powers.
• Sentinel > Willpower > Up To The Challenge will no longer root on activation.
• The Rage crash will no longer fail to expire if Rage is activated while crashing.
• Steam Jump and Jump Pack should no longer disable each other for 30 seconds.
• Psi Melee > Telekinetic Blow should now animate properly while wearing a shield.
• Sentinel > Psy Blast > Will Domination: should now accept Sleep enhancements and generic IOs.
• Sentinel > Psy Blast > Psionic Strike should no longer accept Sleep enhancements or IOs.
• Stalker > Fiery Melee and Ice Melee should now be affected by Stalker's Assassin's Mark ATO Proc.
• Empowerment Station buffs no longer have a visual FX. If the player is defeated, they will reapply their effects within 10 seconds of waking up.

Proc Changes

• Procs with damage that dynamically changed based on the power used (like those seen in Offensive Adaptation, Plant Manipulation's Toxins and Hybrid Double Hit) were doing too much damage when used in most damage auras. Instead of doing the intended percentage of damage they were using doing damage as if the auras where click AoE powers. Going forward, these procs will have a separate evaluation when working on damage auras and pseudo pets.
• Heal procs used by Bio Armor's Defensive Adaptation were using the damage formula in addition to healing for each target hit by AoE powers. Although for players this was not a huge issue (the heal values for Bio are very slow at nearly half a percent) when the effects are used by pets they can result in too powerful heals. This resulted in combinations of Bio Armor and Rad Melee’s Contaminate Ground to earn healing badges in mere minutes.
• Going forward, dynamic heal procs will only yield one heal per attack and use a formula based on the power's cast time, not the power's recharge. This cast-based behavior has also been applied to Sentinel's defensive opportunities.
• In addition to this, Bio Armor's Defensive Adaptation should no longer heal for less while fighting a higher level foe. For Bio Armor, this should even out and net in either a neutral change or a buff while fighting higher level foes.
• The following procs no longer use GrantPower hacks. They now use a combination of collective caster stacking, stack keys, and linked chance mods:
  • Absolute Amazement
  • Achilles' Heel
  • Annihilation
  • Basilisk's Gaze
  • Bruising (Tankers)
  • Dark Watcher's Despair
  • Dominion of Arachnos
  • Fury of the Gladiator
  • Induced Coma
  • Pacing of the Turtle
  • Winter's Bite
• A code change has been made to include "Linked Chances", which means when the proc rolls true, multiple attributes can fire at once. Those procs now apply as an effect from the caster to the target, instead of a temporary power on the target. The end result is two changes.
  • First, the proc can now stack properly. This is a net buff with no downsides. Before this patch, if you rolled a proc on a target while an earlier version of the proc was still active, you'd lose the roll. This made it impossible to perma the effect of a proc on a target, because the existing effect would need to expire, and then a roll would have to land again. With this change, if you roll a proc while a previous copy is still active, the duration is extended; this means the proc effect can now be permanent if there are enough sources of it; be it multiple powers slotted with the same proc in one player, or multiple players using the same proc.
  • There is one special case: if someone rolls the attuned version of a proc which does 8% resistance debuff, and someone else rolls the superior version of that proc which does 12% resistance debuff, the 12% debuff will overwrite the 8% one, and further applications of the attuned version (8%) will extend the duration of the existing 12% debuff, as long as it doesn't expire. This is because they share the same stack key, with the Maximize stack method.
  • Second, the procs now obey combat mods (level differences). They're stronger on lower level critters, and weaker on higher level critters. Even level critters will be the same strength and benefit from the stacking changes, so it's still a plain buff; critters 1 or 2 levels above will be at basically the same performance over time due to stacking changes; critters 3 or 4 levels above will get a slight nerf; critters 5 levels or above will see a considerable nerf thanks to the purple patch.
• Shield Wall's proc should no longer be affected by damage buffs.
• Preventive Medicine should no longer display a proc message when the proc isn't actually firing.

Enhancements

• Any Invention Set enhancement can be turned into its Attuned version by applying an Enhancement Catalyst on top of it.
• You can use an Enhancement Catalyst to turn any Set IO, of any level, into its Attuned version. Attuned IOs will still be part of the set, and set bonuses will work just fine with a mix of Crafted and Attuned IOs. However, Superior Attuned IOs have different (higher) set bonuses, and so they won't retain bonuses when mixed with non-Superior Set IOs, Attuned or otherwise.
• Attuned Enhancements including ATOs and Winter IOs are no longer account bound and can be freely traded at the Auction House.
• Addition of new Knockback Set: Sudden Acceleration

Pets

• All ATs can rename their pets now. Any pet created from a power should have the Rename option. This includes pets created from Temporary Powers.
• You can now see the Combat Attributes of any pet, not just controllable ones.

Emotes

• The following emotes have been enabled for players:

• WalkieTalkie
• DoubleFacepalm
• SLRCamera
• Smartphone
• LookUp
• LieDown
• Shocked
• Despair
• Text
• Cameraphone

Trading

• The number of auction house slots has been increased by adding a zero at the end. Read: 160 slots at level 50, instead of 16. Bonus slots apply on top of that.
• The amount of items you can claim from the Auction House at once before being locked out has been tripled.
• Dual and Team Inspirations are now tradable, but their duration has been nerfed to 60 seconds, like normal inspirations.
• Enhancement Boosters, Catalysts, Converters and Unslotters are now tradable.
• Super Packs are now tradable.
• Boosted enhancements can now be placed into the Auction House, but will lose their boosts.
• Boosted or combined enhancements can now be gifted, traded, emailed, and stored in bases without losing their boosts or combinations.
• The following salvage is now account bound and can be sent to yourself via email: Reward Merits, Hero Merits, Villain Merits, Astral Merits, Empyrean Merits.

Rewards

• Dual and Team inspirations will now drop from enemies. They are uncommon, but not rare; about 15% drop rate.
• Normal minions have a 1 in 480 chance to drop a PVP recipe.
• By default, stores will only list Enhancements that are usable by your origin, and up to 3 levels higher and one level lower than your current Combat Level as determined by the amount of XP you have, whether you've trained or not. You can return to the previous behavior by going to Options > Miscellaneous and enabling Show All Enhancements in Stores.
• Enhancement Catalysts now drop from all critters, not just those in Incarnate content. The drop rate has been increased 10 times: it's now 1 in 200 minions, 1 in 66 lieutenants, 1 in 33 bosses.
• The Holiday Respec available for 500 Candy Canes is no longer an instantly applied freespec that can be obtained only once per year. Instead, 500 Candy Canes will buy a Respec recipe, with no cooldown.
• Fixed SSA exploit where the SSA arc reward was given prior to the mission's completion, making it possible to abandon and repeat the final mission to get the reward multiple times.
• Intangibility enhancements have been retired. They are no longer available in stores and their recipes will no longer drop from enemies.
• The Astral and Empyrean vendors no longer sell shard or thread vouchers, since you can now email Astral and Empyrean Merits.
• Hamidon now rewards 4 Empyrean Merits instead of 4 Incarnate Shards, or 80 Reward Merits instead of 53.
• Enhancement Converters were removed from the Astral and Empyrean vendors since they are now priced equivalently in the Reward Merit vendors.
• The "core" story arcs, which follow a formula based on datamined time, had their Merit Rewards for arc completion increased 67%. This puts the merits/minute on par with running Task Forces.
• Newer story arcs that have no datamined times had a more modest 25% increase in their Merit Rewards, until we have some solid data to decide what's a good point for them.
• Several single-mission non-combat "story arcs" available in Ouroboros (mostly the Praetorian side switch missions) had their rewards slashed to 1 merit to avoid farming.
• Hamidon, Titan and Hydra Enhancements now drop based on a new table, with the following weights:
  • Damage/Accuracy x8
  • Damage/Mez x4
  • Accuracy/Mez x4
  • Resistance/Endurance x3
  • Travel/Endurance x3
  • Heal/Endurance x3
  • Buff/Endurance x3
  • Buff/Recharge x3
  • Debuff/Endurance x3
  • Debuff/Accuracy x3
  • Damage/Range x2

Currency Consolidation

• Reinforcing your alignment will now grant 50 Reward Merits, regardless of what alignment you are reinforcing. Hero and Villain Merits should no longer drop.
• Signature Story Arcs will no longer drop an Alignment Merit, since with the conversion to 50 Reward Merits it was just too good a drop for arcs that are rather short. You can still get 20 Reward Merits from them once a week, 5 Reward Merits on every other run during the week.
• You no longer lose Alignment Merits when side switching.
• Added the following conversions:
  • 1,000,000 Inf -> 1 Reward Merit
  • 10,000,000 Inf -> 10 Reward Merits
  • 1 Astral Merit -> 2 Reward Merits
  • 1 Empyrean Merit -> 10 Reward Merits
  • 10 Vanguard Merits -> 1 Reward Merit
  • 100 Vanguard Merits -> 10 Reward Merits
  • 1 Hero Merit -> 50 Reward Merits
  • 50 Reward Merits -> 1 Hero Merit
  • 1 Villain Merit -> 50 Reward Merits
  • 50 Reward Merits -> 1 Villain Merit
  • 5 Astral Merits -> 1 Empyrean Merit
  • 1 Empyrean Merit -> 5 Astral Merits

Merit Vendor

• Reduced Merit Reward costs for many items and added new items:
  • Respec Recipes: 50 Merits
  • PvP Recipes: 100 Merits
  • Very Rare Recipes: 100 Merits
  • Rare Recipes: 50 Merits
  • Uncommon Recipes: 20 Merits
  • Common Recipes: 5 Merits
  • Single Origin Enhancements: 1 Merit
  • Archetype Origin Enhancements: 100 Merits
  • Event Enhancements: 100 Merits
  • Random Large Inspiration: 1 Merit
  • Random Rare Salvage: 5 Merits
  • Random Recipe Roll: 10 Merits
  • 1 Enhancement Converter: 2 Merits
  • 10 Enhancement Converters: 20 merits
  • 2 Enhancement Unslotters: 1 Merit
  • 10 Enhancement Unslotters: 5 Merits
  • 1 Enhancement Catalyst: 20 Merits
  • 5 Enhancement Catalysts: 100 Merits
  • 1 Enhancement Booster: 5 Merits
  • 5 Enhancement Boosters: 25 Merits

Removed Things

• Removed the Teleport Suppression field from Pocket D.
• Added an option to hide the icons that appear above Contacts in the game world (the spinning "coins"). It's under General, Miscellanous.
• The NCsoft Account buttons have been removed from the log in screen.
• The EULA after the log in screen screen has been removed.
• The "Shop" button has been removed from most windows, and the "Paragon Market" menu entry is gone, replaced by "Resurgence Forums".
• All Hazard and PvP zone maps now have a "soft" fog of war just like normal city zones, instead of the fully black one. Mission maps retain the black fog of war.
• New option: "Email Alert for Account Items". When enabled, the Email tab will appear red if you have Account Items; when disabled, the Email tab will only appear red if you have messages in your Inbox, ignoring Account Items completely.
• The "Video Camera" screen overlay power used in the Mr. G arc can now be disabled: right-click the power in your buffs tray and select "Cancel".
• Deprecated "Talk to X" intro missions for PvP Zone liasons, notoriety contacts, Seer Marino, David Wincott, Stephanie Peebles, Jim Temblor, Gordon Bower, and General Hammond.
• Ksenia Stray can still be found at her locations in First Ward and Night Ward, but will no longer be introduced by other contacts.

Slash Commands

• New slash command /maxmenufps <number> to limit the framerate while in full-screen menus. Helps prevent video card overheating when Vertical Sync is disabled. Defaults to 120 fps.
• You can set your difficulty levels from anywhere at any time by using the following slash commands:

• /SetDifficultyLevel <0-4>
• /SetDifficultyTeamSize <1-8>
• /SetDifficultyBoss <0/1>
• /SetDifficultyAV <0/1>

• The command /showfps <0/3>:
  • /showfps 0 will display the camera's POS and PYR coordinates, useful for demo editors and for finding badges and such. In first-person mode, the camera coordinates will match your character's location, except for the height.
  • /showfps 1 will display only the FPS
  • /showfps 2 will display the CAM POS and PYR under the FPS
  • /showfps 3 will display the CAM POS and PYR in large type at the left of the screen.
• The command /showtime <0/1> will display the current in-game time, useful for things that only happen at specific in-game times, like defeating demons to spawn Caleb.
• The command /citytime will print the current in-game time to the chat console, if you don't want a real-time display.
• New command: /macro_image "image" "name" "command". This works very much like the normal macro command, except you can pick an image for the button, instead of being limited by a grey background with text in it. Two examples for Masterminds:
  • /macro_image "PetCommand_Action_Bodyguard" "Bodyguard" "petcom_all follow defensive"
  • /macro_image "PetCommand_Action_Dismiss" "Dismiss" "petcom_all dismiss"
• The pop help window can now be closed. If there's an invisible window getting in your way of clicking inspirations or powers, type /window_hide pophelp and watch your problems disappear.
• /respec will now work for any type of respec that you have available, not just the non-stackable freespec.
• /custom_window "Title" can be used to create one of the macro-holding windows from this post; note there's no command to destroy one of these yet, so you still need to text-edit the file to get rid of it, for now.

Interface

• There is a new "Set Notoriety" menu in the quick chat menu button to set your difficulty levels.
• The Powers Window can now be resized. This might make it a little less painful to find the temporary power you're looking for.
• Combat Monitor now tracks Knockback Resistance.
• The "Collect" tab has been reverted to its pre-microtransactions function: it's now the "Badges" tab and displays only badges and their categories. The various unlockable item submenus are gone.
• The "Combine" button on the enhancement combination screen can now be clicked at any time once the enhancements are in place. If clicked before the success chance counter finishes animating, it will skip directly to the final value.
• Speed up sliding animations on enhancement combination screen.
• Fix placement of salvage box on combination screen when both boosters and catalysts are available.
• Fix a memory leak causing the client to eventually exhaust its address space when displaying catalyzable enhancements on the combination screen.
• The Recipes window has been reorganized. Instead of displaying a ton of tabs for each Common Invention category, it now has four tabs:
  • Invention: contains recipe drops that can't be bought at a workbench.
  • Memorized: contains all the common recipes you have memorized.
  • Special: contains the Brainstorm conversions and the Lost Curing Wand.
  • Workbench: contains all the common recipes that can be bought at a Workbench.
• Contacts can now display a workbench directly, without requiring a the blue hand.
• The character selection page has been slightly redesigned to include a search box, so you can find a character via name, AT or powersets.
• Powersets are listed under the character name (instead of origin) and also at the bottom of the screen.
• The context menu that appears when clicking on someone's name in the chat has been slightly reorganized, and conflicting hotkeys fixed.
• Invention worktables will now refresh themselves if the character's influence or powers change.
• The -ignoreBadDrivers command line parameter will hide the popup and warnings about your drivers being out of date. You will still get a warning if the driver is in a (very small) list of drivers that are known to cause problems.

Critters

• Circle of Thorns changes:
  • Enemies are no longer specific to city of villains maps.
  • Succubi go up to max level.
• Carnival Illusionists (both lieutenants and bosses) now have greater translucency when phased, to make it more clear. Additionally, they will be unable to phase if they are held, slept, or disoriented.
• PPD glue grenade used by the Equalizer will stop affecting players once they leave the area of the glue.
• The PPD Ghost's flashbang has been reduced in duration from 60 seconds to 15 seconds, and its tohit and defense debuff power have been halved.
• Increased interruptible period of Malta Engineer's drone summon from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Resistance faction allies should no longer buff their own perception with their leadership, causing them to chase enemies more.
• Quantum gunners will no longer spawn excessively in Crey and Freakshow groups in Brickstown.
• Hamidon Buds will now spawn after the Hamidon is destroyed.
• Mind Scramble (a powerful debuff) will no longer stack from multiple Tarantula Mistresses.
• The Paragon Police Heracles units were firing off a Tear Gas grenade with a visual FX that was too subtle, causing players to step on it and be held without realizing. The FX has been made more noticeable.
• Paragon Police in general have received a substantial nerf to their ability to mez players like there's no tomorrow. Among other things, the 60-second grenades have been lowered to 15 seconds, and a suppression window has been added; if you are held, slept, stunned or terrorized by a Paragon Police critter, you can't fall under the same effect for 15 seconds. For knockback, that window is 10 seconds.
• The following Giant Monsters have had their AI configuration tweaked to never become afraid and run away from players:
  • Default: CircleOfThorns_CoV_Caleb
  • Default_GiantMonster: Arachnos_Arachnos_Flier, Clockwork_Babbage, Clockwork_Paladin, DevouringEarth_Jurassik_Monster, Event_Pumpkin_King_Low, Event_Pumpkin_King_High, FirBolg_King_Eochai, Hydra_Kraken, Malta_Kronos_Titan, WinterHorde_Snowman_Monster_Lesser, WinterHorde_Snowman_Monster_Greater
  • Default_Ranged: CapauDiableDemons_Giant_Deathsurge, Event_Nemesis
  • Default_Melee: Council_Goliath_War_Walker_GM, Event_Jack_in_Irons, RedCaps_Jack_in_Irons, Rikti_Master_At_Arms
  • DevouringEarth_Boss: Scrapyarders_Giant_Ghost_of_Scrapyard
• Adamastor: After Talos Island authorities caught some so-called heroes summoning a giant zombie within city limits, they exclaimed "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING IN A POPULATED AREA, YOU MORONS!?" and called the Midnight Squad to clean up the place being used for the summoning ritual. The Midnighters found a similar ritual location in Sharkhead Isle, and have cleared that area as well. This change has the following consequences:
  • Ritual of Summoning Adamastor (Recipe): will no longer drop from any Banished Pantheon enemies. Existing recipes can be sold to a vendor, but not crafted.
  • Ritual of Summoning Adamastor (Temporary Power): should be gone from all characters. If a character still has it, it will show up in the popup powers tray until they zone, then it'll be gone.
  • Talos Island: the area for summoning Adamastor has been removed, and the Paragon Police Department is guarding the Dark Astoria gate.
  • Sharkhead Isle: the area for summoning Adamastor has been removed.
  • Echo: Dark Astoria: heroes and villains who wish to summon the creature can travel through time from the Ouroboros Citadel to a time right before Mot erupted in Dark Astoria. As they get close to Moth Cemetery, they will automatically recover a Ritual of Summoning from the area, and be able to summon and defeat the beast.

Badges

• Added 9th Anniversary badge: Torchbearer. Awarded to characters who logged in during the months of May 2013 or August 2013.
• Everlasting: new badge for logging in during Anniversary Month.
• All previous Anniversary badges are available to purchase from Luna in Ouroboros, but only during Anniversary Month.
• The "Defeats" badge listing has been re-ordered. It first lists badges for defeating large numbers of enemies from a specific faction, then badges that are specific to a single zone, followed by badges that can be obtained inside missions, and finally those for defeating Giant Monsters and other special enemies in City Zones.
• Reduced/changed requirements for PvP badges:
  • Forward Observer now awards after 10 player kills instead of 100 rep.
  • Disruptor now awards after 50 player kills instead of 400 rep.
  • Temporal Spy now awards after 25 heavies instead of 50.
  • Temporal Soldier now awards after 50 heavies instead of 250.
• Reduced Day Job badge requirements from 21 days to 100 hours.
• Gladiator badges can now be clicked on the badges interface to set them as your character title.
• The badge "Longbow Warden 1" has been renamed to "Longbow Warden"; "Longbow Warden 2" has been renamed to "Longbow Defender".
• Each badge in the series "Once the Victor" to "Ten Times the Victor" will properly revoke when you get the next one in the series.
• All former Paragon Reward badges have been turned into Exploration badges and will no longer grant to every character on creation (characters that already had the badges will keep them, though the icon and description will change to reflect their new status). Placement of the badges in different zones is still on-going. Currently placed:
  • Echo: Atlas Park — Rookie, Trustworthy and City Traveler
• Knowledgeable has been repurposed as an exploration badge in Echo: Atlas Park.
• Echo: Atlas Park has 8 exploration badges (Rookie, Trustworthy, City Traveler, Knowledgeable, Virtuous, Out of Harm's Way, Condemned, Resilient) and a zone accolade (Walked Down Memory Lane).
• The Constant is now an accolade awarded for having all badges in Atlas Park and Echo: Atlas Park.
• Pocket D VIP Gold Club Member is now awarded for spending 5 hours in Pocket D. (Note: the Pocket D VIP Pass teleporter power was updated to not require this badge; all characters will still get the power at character creation.)
• Supergroup badges were removed. (The items they used to unlock are now automatically unlocked.)
• New badge Terminator for defeating 1000 citizens in Mayhem Missions.
• Caleb can now be seen from further away to aid in hunting him.
• Patron badges now award on the final mission of patron arcs for all team members. The patron respec is also granted with the first patron badge earned.
• New badge Gullible can be earned by asking Null the Gull the right questions.
• New badge Buddy can be earned by defeating 100 Hamidon Buds left behind when the Hamidon is destroyed.
• Welcome to Earth: new badge for destroying a Rikti Drop Ship.
• Badge Progression Fixes
  • Passport: should once again award automatically to all characters.
  • The progress meter for the Task Force Commander badge will now count Penny Yin's task force as an alternative to Sister Psyche's.
  • Firefighter: fixed progress meter.
  • Fire Chief: fixed progress meter.
• The old Veteran Reward badges have been repurposed for use as Veteran Level badges. (See Veteran Levelling section for more info)
• Pre-existing badges have been modified; some which contribute to accolade powers.
  • Doorbuster: now awarded for destroying 100 Force Field Doors, Magical Barriers or Reinforced doors. Moved to Defeats.
  • Gangbuster: now awarded for defeating 200 minions or lieutenants of The Family.
  • Untouchable: now awarded for defeating 100 bosses of The Family, of any kind.
  • Pirate: now awarded for defeating 100 Spectral Pirates. Accolade Badge Requirement
• New Inspiration Badges. Inspiration drops can be turned off at P2W/T4V vendors
  • Aloof: new badge for rejecting 50 inspiration drops.
  • Unconcerned: new badge for rejecting 100 inspiration drops.
  • Apathetic: new badge for rejecting 500 inspiration drops.
  • Couldn't Care Less: new badge for rejecting 1000 inspiration drops.
• New Task Set badges
  • Chameleon: new badge for completing the task set "The Chameleon Suit".
  • Do No Harm: new badge for completing the task set "Hippocratic Oath".
  • True Nemesis: new badge for completing the task set "Nemesis Rex".
  • Itsy Bitsy: new badge for defeating the Jade Spider in "Trading Places" (Hero version).

Mission Architect

• All the unlockable content should be available by default, without having to spend any tickets for them.
• The "Kallisti Wharf Office" map set has been added. This includes 8 maps of various sizes.
• The copyright filter has been removed. The profanity filter is still in place.
• File size limit for arcs has been tripled, though the UI will still claim the original limit.
• Fixed range on Snakes group to be 1-34 and 46-52 instead of 1-52.
• Added new critters in the following groups, see here and here for full lists.
  • Freakshow
  • Generic Hero
  • Generic Villain
  • Hearts of Darkness
  • Hellions
  • New Praetorians
  • NPC Pets
  • Paragon Police
  • Praetorian Resistance
  • Shining Star
  • Tsoo
  • Vahzilok

PvP

• Heal Decay and Travel Supression has been turned off in PvP zones.
• The options "No Travel Suppression" and "No Heal Decay" are now selected by default in Arena matches. They can still be disabled (thus enabling Travel Suppression and Heal Decay) from the "More Options" dialog.
• Players in an arena match will now be able to chat in all channels, send and receive tells. You can return to the previous behaviour by checking the box "Disable Public Chat Channels" in the "More Options" dialog.
• Sending a global tell to a player in an Arena event with chat disabled will no longer cause the recipient to see a tell saying that they're in the arena.
• The Atlas Park arena map has been updated to the current geometry of the live zone.
• New Arena map: Stadium (2-32), based on the stadium construction in Kallisti Wharf.
• Observers in the arena now fly at 2x the Flight speed cap, and their perception has been buffed to the cap.

Quality of Life

• You can have up to 1000 characters per server.
• Characters under level 10 can now send email.
• Character titles will no longer be wiped when you switch sides. Your villain can now wear the title "Heroic" ironically.
• Null the Gull can now change players' Alignment between Hero, Vigilante, Rogue and Villain at no cost and with no cooldown.
• Players on static maps have their logout timer reduced depending on how long they've been "out of combat" (not attacked or used foe-targeting powers):

• 0-15 seconds: 20 second logout
• 15-45 seconds: 15 second logout
• 45-120 seconds: 10 second logout
• 120+ seconds: 5 second logout

• Players in supergroup bases, Pocket D, Ouroboros, or in a "safe zone" volume (mostly day jobs that are indoors or in protected areas) are able to log out instantly.
• Removed the 15-second delay between sending emails.
• Global email no longer expires.

Memorials

Several fallen heroes are memorialized around the City. They include:

• Ascendant, behind the statue in Blyde Square, Steel Canyon.
• Curupira, in Icon, Steel Canyon.
• Luna, incarnate vendor in Ouroboros.
• NorseWind (@goodtime), in Croatoa near the tram.
• Todogut, in Point du Hoc, RWZ.

Miscellaneous

• The classic login screens are back, including the music.
• Greater and Superior Protection Imbuement inspirations will now last 90 seconds, just like the self-only versions.
• All inspirations were 5% stronger than the text said, due to an old veteran reward applying to everybody. They've all been nerfed to match their documented values.
• Penelope Yin has gone to see the Facemaker and demanded her face back. All incarnations of Penelope Yin will now use the face she had in Faultline.
• Using an Ambrosia will prevent you from activating another Ambrosia inspiration for 50 seconds. The inspiration still lasts 60 seconds, giving you a 10-second window to re-buff with no gaps. Same for Essence of the Earth.
• Upon completing a Flashback arc, contact points earned during the Flashback will be added to the contact for each player who has that contact in their list.
• The Deadly Apocalypse, as well as the Nemesis, Rikti and Zombie Invasions will no longer disable all the spawns in the map.
• The broken watch tower model (with beams sticking up its side and a single wimpy support for the roof) has been replaced with the version from Issue 8, which looks fine.
• Demo Recordings: The pet version of Umbra Beast (and maybe other critters) will no longer try to use the default skeleton and get completely bent out of shape. This applies to all demo recordings created after today's patch; older demos can be fixed by adding the EntTypeFile command to affected entities after the COSTUME command, like so:
  • 0 1584 NEW "Umbra Beast"
  • 0 1584 COSTUME ...
  • 0 1584 EntTypeFile DarknessControl_UmbraBeast
  • Of course, you can use this command to force a regular player costume to use an animal EntTypeFile, with hilarious and/or horrific results.

SCoRE Server Only

The following notes do not apply to Homecoming:

Leveling Pacts

Editor's Note:

This proved buggy and was disabled shortly afterwards; there are no levelling pacts on Homecoming

• Leveling Pacts had been disabled for the F2P launch; they have been re-enabled.
• Leveling pacts now allow up to 8 characters in a single pact. You can use the slash command /pactwho to get the full list of characters in the leveling pact. The UI will only list the first leveling pact.
• Note that all members of the leveling pacts are equals; anyone in the pact can invite more members into the pact, and nobody can be kicked out of a leveling pact, you can only remove yourself.

See Also

• Issue 25 Badges