Sardan

No, it'll be entirely new. The devs are phrasing this a little awkwardly because they've made it clear they aren't going to raise the level cap, but they also want to convey it's more than just normal slotting can do now. In the August '08 marketing survey they talked about something called Universal Enhancement Slots, that once fully slotted would give you power roughly equivalent to a hypothetical level 60.

We have to take that with a grain of salt because they may have abandoned or heavily changed the mechanism, but at least in August '08 that's what they were plannning.

In case you don't remember that survey, when it was leaked by Beefcake, a lot of people wrote it off as fabrication. Then when it was acknowledged by the devs that it was real, they wrote it off because it seemed too good to be true. Then as one thing after another that were on the survey have been revealed (AE, side-switching, etc) it became clear that it was really a list of stuff they had planned to do over the next couple of years. HOWEVER, in an old thread BaB warned not to take it too literally because some of the things mentioned have been dropped or heavily changed, and lots of items that weren't on there are in the works.

Sure, perceived value is subjective. Player reaction will be all over the map. Some people would pay $40 just for side-switching and everything else is gravy. I'm sure there will be others that look at the whole thing and just go "meh".

The one part of your reasoning that needs critiquing is this:
They've intentionally told us very little about GR. It's way premature to try to conclude what it's worth.

That said, you left out one big thing the devs talked about at Comicon: GR will include a new end game that will be far more difficult than any current level 50 content and will include a way to make level 50 characters more powerful but without raising the level cap. I'm guessing that'll be a lot of content, not just one big Hami-style encounter because they made it clear that the end game stuff was a major part of GR.

Ryu cites items like CoP, City Vault, and base raids as "broken promises". A less childish way of looking at this would be to acknowledge that the devs are just people doing their best, not malicious Norse gods, and a shockingly large percentage of software projects fail. Businesses run on schedules and can only alot a certain amount of time for non-critical tasks.

In fact, Ryu's post illustrates why the CoH devs tend to keep mum on things far longer than we'd like. They're crucified on the forums if they talk about something that ends up delayed, scaled down, or even just takes a long time. If I remember right, it took about 6 or 8 months of steady work to do power customization, but the project was greenlighted nearly a year and a half before it was finally released. Can you imagine the drama that would have ensued if BaB had talked about power customization when it was approved? "Where IS it then? Nothing but broken promises!" And with all that time for speculation to escalate, tons of players would have been disappointed when it finally was released.

Of course, none of that changes my desire to know more about GR nowwwwwww, dagnabbit!

It's a major reason I have 2 /Energy blasters. Fire Breath + Boost Range is a huge spawn-enveloping cone. Likewise Full Auto + Boost Range is pure happiness.

That pretty much sums up where I am. I have a villain sitting on 1.8 billion and a hero with about 1.7 billion, and they fund new lowbies. I don't play the market unless I have a need for funds, and basically I don't have any felt need right now. I haven't been doing any farming or marketeering lately, just playing lowbies. I think I'm earning 20M a week from low level drops (mostly rare salvage).

Once you manage to get to 100% defense, you will be INVINCIBLE!!!!

Hmm, good point. We know that people will be able to switch sides at any level and that GR is going to have a super challenging new endgame. For all we know, much of that new content could take place in Praetoria!

No, you're confusing their lame marketing with reality. CoV was basically new zones and ATs in a shared world. Yes, at first they tried to market it as a separate game, but all that did was artificially restrict you to a certain subset of zones. CoV runs on the same servers, uses the same game engine, and heavily reuses a great deal of art assets from CoH. It was a separate game in the same way that GR will be a separate game, i.e. not at all.

And of course the utter failure of the marketing resulted in rolling it back in with CoH. Poof! Now it's not a separate game! You can't buy COV any more, and none of their official marketing materials that I've seen in the last year refer to it separately. Navigate to www.cityofvillains.com and you get redirected to cityofheroes.com.

If it was a truly separate game, they wouldn't be able to magically merge it with COH with the equivalent of the stroke of a pen.

Don't assume that they've told us much about GR yet. They have a huge team working on it and they've been doing so for over a year. The scope of this will most assuredly be comparable to COV, not a regular issue.

Plus, it's something they can build on. We've been told that Praetoria will go only to level 20, at which point you have to go either to Paragon City or the Rogue Isles. But no dev has said that's permanent. Conceivably they'll do future issues that add zones to Praetoria and raise the level cap there. Given how fast we get to level 20, it seems like a ton of work to do if they don't have plans for higher level content their going forward.

That about covers it. I tried his farm and he does have mobs that debuff defense in it. But as you said, all that's needed is going a little above the softcap, plus using a Luck when needed.

Personally I hope Fire Kin Master keeps tweaking his build and posting here. We can all use some comic relief while waiting for news on the expansion.

The great thing about an SD tank is it's inexpensive to softcap them due to their higher starting defense values. Don't forget about getting +HP set bonuses and accolades. With a tank's HP plus True Grit, they really add up.

If you can find a Kin to partner with, the Brute pulls way ahead due to the ginormous Brute damage cap. Speed Boost to speed the DPS, Transference to cure End woes, and Fulcrum Shift to keep you perma damage capped is pretty sick.

I got that mission a couple of days after the new Faultline went live. I figured the entrance was bugged, so I filed a support ticket. The GM who answered was kind enough to walk me to the cave mouth. I was pretty embarassed.

SS/Shield is the combo of choice, at least with Brutes.

People like you and Samuel_Tow impress the hell out of me, as I speak only English.

I'm puzzled and saddened by the aggressive ignorance displayed by people like fire_minded. I'm mystified that someone can have specific, easily corrected mistakes pointed out to them and fail to correct them. Drunk or sober, he has an attitude problem.

You set it on +2 right away? To each his own, but accuracy at low levels is generally not too good to begin with, and if you have it at +2, then anyone you SSK is going to be fighting +3s and likely wiffing a lot. Not only does that slow things down, but at low levels endurance is also usually a problem so protracted fights aren't pretty.

I usually keep it at +0 until I am level 20ish.

Thank you for that little essay, je_saist, that was fascinating.

I'd be happy with something that offered roughly 2/3 the "stuff" of COV. Still, I hope for more. They have more people working on it (don't they?) and are only tackling content for levels 1-20, as opposed to COV's 1-40.

EDIT: I take back the 1-20 comment. While it's true that you have to leave Praetoria once you're level 20, with the ability to switch sides it's likely they're creating a ton of new content for all level ranges and that content has to allow you to start from different points at the loyalty spectrum and end up at different points.