Issue 16

This article contains information about a major update to City of Heroes Freedom. It is provided for historical purposes.

Overview

Issue 16, titled Power Spectrum, was a major revision to City of Heroes and City of Villains. The title references Power Customization and the complete overhaul of the Character Creator and Tailor functions, among other tidbits.

This article summarizes some of the major features in Issue 16. For more complete details, see the release date's patch notes.

• Closed Beta testing on the Training Room for Issue 16 started on August 5, 2009.
• On August 26, 2009, the Training Room was opened up for Issue 16 Open Beta.
• Issue 16 was released to the Live Servers on September 15, 2009.

Confirmed Content

New Character Creator

Purple Fire Control

Blue Fire Dominator

• Character Creator will allow players to jump directly between Archetype, Powersets, Costumes and Character ID in any order without losing progress.
  • Note that this does not allow re-selecting powers or powersets on an already-created character.
• Allows selection of colors and theme for each individual power or apply it to the entire powerset.
• Allows for color tinting of geometry and particle effects; the primary and secondary colors of any power effect can be changed individually for each power in the set.

Fully Customizable Powersets

• Cold Domination
• Dark Armor
• Dark Blast
• Dark Melee
• Dark Miasma
• Earth Control
• Electric Armor
• Electric Melee
• Electrical Blast
• Electricity Assault
• Electricity Manipulation
• Empathy
• Energy Assault
• Energy Aura
• Energy Blast
• Energy Manipulation
• Energy Melee
• Fiery Aura
• Fiery Assault
• Fire Blast
• Fire Control
• Fire Manipulation
• Fire Melee
• Force Field
• Gravity Control
• Ice Armor
• Ice Blast
• Ice Control
• Ice Manipulation
• Ice Melee
• Icy Assault
• Illusion Control (called 'Illusion' in the official announcement)
• Invulnerability
• Kinetics
• Mental Manipulation
• Mind Control
• Ninjitsu
• Pain Domination
• Plant Control
• Poison
• Psionic Assault
• Psychic Blast
• Radiation Blast
• Radiation Emission
• Regeneration
• Sonic Resonance
• Sonic Attack
• Spines
• Stone Melee (called 'Earth Melee' in the official announcement)
• Storm Summoning
• Super Reflexes
• Thermal Radiation
• Thorny Assault
• Willpower

Partially Customizable Powersets

• Necromancy
• Stone Armor
• Super Strength will have an alternate animation for Jab, Punch, Haymaker, Foot Stomp, and Knockout Blow
• Martial Arts will also receive alternate animations for some powers, including Assassin's Blow [1], but the complete list has not been released.
• Traps
• Devices

Powerset Proliferation

Main Article: Power Set Proliferation

Archetype	Primary	Secondary
Blaster	Radiation Blast	None
Controller	None	Cold Domination
Defender	Traps	Assault Rifle
Scrapper	Electric Melee	Electric Armor
Tanker	Electric Armor	Electric Melee
Brute	Claws	None
Corruptor	Archery	Trick Arrow
Dominator	None	Earth Assault
Mastermind	None	Thermal Radiation
Stalker	Broadsword	None

Additionally most Ancillary Power Pools and Patron Power Pools that don't already have 5 powers will be getting a fifth power and Blaze Mastery will be introduced as a new pool for Scrappers[2].

Enhanced Difficulty Options

Players can now fine-tune their difficulty levels by telling the game exactly how they want to be treated. They can choose to be regarded as a specific size team (even if they are soloing), and even have control over the level they are detected to be when it comes to the dynamic spawn system. So if you ever wanted to see if your Scrapper could take on a map that is populated for an 8 person team, four levels higher than your own, now you can! The difficulty settings of the mission owner dictate how the mission is handled, just as before, and you can change your difficulty settings at any Hero Corps Field Analyst in Paragon City or Fateweaver in the Rogue Isles. Finally, services rendered by Hero Corps and Fateweavers are now free.

Pet Persistence

Pets will zone with their owners in Issue 16. [3]

Power Changes

Conserve Power from all archetype versions of Electric Armor will be replaced by a similar power called Energize. Energize grants a smaller endurance discount and has a shorter duration, but grants slightly increased regeneration, recharges faster, and heals the user when activated.

Queue Server

Players will be allowed to join access queues to connect to full servers. [4]

Super Sidekicking

When playing on a team all players will be automatically Sidekicked or Exemplared to the level of the mission owner. Sidekicking will no longer have a range restriction. Exemplaring will no longer prevent experience gain, unless the player selects an option for increased inf rewards instead of experience[5]. Included with this is a removal of the level restrictions on all hazard zones except for for the Hamidon zones and PvP zones[6].

Email filtering

Issue 16 will implement a basic in-game email filter. Players can accept all emails, accept emails only from friends and members of the same supergroup, or accept no emails.

Badge Changes

Issue 16 added several new badges and lowered the requirements for many others. See Issue 16 Badges for more details.

Issue 16 vs. Going Rogue

Due to all the spectulation and confusion with Issue 16 and Going Rogue, Lead Designer Positron posted to set the record straight:

Issue 16 is NOT Going Rogue.

External Links

• Official Launch Announcement
• Official Feature Update
• Developer Diary #1: Overcoming the Impossible
• Developer Diary #2: Spreading the Joy