Issue 40 Extra Large

[KidKourage]

Issue 24 would have been the final issue of 2012.  Had the developers kept to a pace of 3 issues per year, issue 40 would be the first issue of 2018 and would presumably come out between the Valentine's and Anniversary events.  So where do you think the game would be right now?  Would we be playing COH 2?  Would all the hazard zones have been made over into Incarnate zones?  Would Paragon Studios own the game, or would major pay-to-play features have been added to get some numbers on NCSoft's bottom line?

I know this post is massive.  Sorry, but it touches on everything I wished the game would do.

State of the Game
I will preface by saying I have zero insight into the game's closure.  My feeling is that we would still be playing COH 1.0. 
NCSoft wishes to sell the property, not invest further into developing a new version.  The trouble is the existence of Paragon Studios.  As a software house, PS is committed to supporting the game; but has aspirations about making other titles/genres which they have pitched to NCSoft and been rejected.  Selling the game draws interest, including a development house attached does not.  For their part, Paragon Studios continues to search for a backer, not a merger, hoping to buy the title as a foundation for future titles, but has never quite found a deal that satisfies NCSoft.
The game has moved on to a number of platforms, but the arrival of Windows 10 highlights the age factor.  The game is in a perilous situation, but the dev's continue to wring every ounce of innovation and fun they can – keeping a dedicated core of followers excited for more.

Powers
It is called Extra Large because Growth and Shrinking are finally going to be added to the game as power pools, as well as the fact that 40 in roman numerals is XL, which most people now associate with a clothing size.  Three other new pools are coming: Perception, Companion, and Extreme; and at the same time Intangibility will be split out of the Invisibility pool as its own thing.  The Swimming Pool (snicker) was added a long time back as have all of the origin pools, bringing the list to 21 power pools.
The Sorcery Pool was not as popular as the Devs hoped.  As the others rolled out, they were already working to alter them.  These 'origin' pools offered slightly weaker versions of powers than the regular pools but contain an 'origin mastery' effect that builds with each enhancement you add to any powers from these pools. Each enhancement slot adds .1 Protection, .8% Defense, and 1.6% Resistance, .35% Defense Debuff and 1.1% Resistance Debuff to powers matching the pool's origin tag.  This allows for a circumstance where a character would have no special resistance to heat or hold attacks, but as a master sorcerer is able to mitigate 'magical' flames and hold 'spells'.  In the same manner a super scientist would know how to counteract Science based powers.
The Ancillary/Epic pools have been reduced to 8 types, one for each damage source.  Each pool contains a dozen powers, but each archetype is still limited to 5 powers per pool.  Three more premium Ancillary pools have been added, based on delivery (Melee Mastery, Area Mastery, and Distance Mastery).  Meanwhile, the Patron/Agency pools have been heavily expanded to include a variety of benefactors from Praetorian Earth, the Shadow Shard, and organizations such as Longbow, Vanguard, The Midnight Club, and Oroboros. 
Archetype pools were added as inherent powers.  These pools alter a character's personal stats rather than individual powers, to produce the specific advantages for each archetype.  Doing this allowed the power sets to be truly shared across archetypes with the variations derived from here.  For example: Tanker powers increase health max, increase mitigation benefits, trigger a taunt AoE attack after every attack, etc.  Cold Domination, a set shared by 3 archetypes: Controllers increase magnitude, buff, and debuff, Dominators extend the duration and damage, and Defenders increase the range while decreasing the endurance cost.  Being fully enhance-able, players can now focus on being great at one or more roles within their archetype at the cost of reducing the enhancements to individual powers.
The Stalker is the most affected by this; the archetype powers are mostly special effects where the others get attribute bonuses.  Hide applies the Hidden condition while using any perception or status effect power.  Assassination is a toggle that repeats any one attack (and repeats it again if Hidden), and then makes a Fear status effect attack before untoggling.  Vital Strike boosts damage against Status Effected foes and builds a resistance to regen, recharge, and recover on its target, making it difficult for the target to sustain a prolonged fight.  This last ability finally makes them team friendly, particularly for monster and archenemy battles.
The defensive sets are now the same as the other Melee archetypes, and with Hide moved, Stalkers must pick up concealment or placate powers from some pool (Stealth, Super Speed, Misdirection, Pacify, Shrink, Blind, Phase Shift, etc.).  Blinding Powder remains in the Ninjitsu set, and other unique concealment powers are included in Expansion packs (Shadow in Dark Armor, Chameleon in Bio Armor, etc.). 
Masterminds added primary sets of Mind Control and Replication.  Additionally, most sets can customize with one of more enemy groups – the Council, Sky Raiders, Circle of Thorns, Vanguard, Longbow, Hero Corps, Clockwork, Family, and many others.
While all this adds a vast canvas to the game, drastic steps have been taken to boost revenue.  Most bitterly, power Customization was removed from all non-VIP accounts.  Players can purchase it on a per set basis (Force Field, for example – shared by Controllers, Defenders, and Masterminds) at about $5 apiece – which extends to all characters slots per account, unless prohibited by archetype, origin, or alignment.  Customization was also introduced for pool powers at about $2 per pool (normal or ancillary).
Additional revenue generation was created by giving both pools and sets Power Expansion.  Standard sets add 3 powers (HEATs & VEATs are different).  Pools return to a set of 4, with levels and prerequisites as they were originally.  Expanded, pools drop in level and gain a fifth power (as they were at shut down).  This applies to Ancillary/Epic/Patron/Agency pools as well, starting with 5 powers over levels 41/44/47 and expanding to 6 powers over levels 35/41/44.  Expansion costs are about $2 per set and $1 per pool.
The Fitness Pool, while remaining inherent, became a premium feature that needed to be purchased by non-VIPs.  Also unpopular was the Nova and Dwarf forms were moved into the Kheldian Power Expansion packs; which were further treated as Pools which had their own Customization and Expansion (jumping from 4 powers to 7 with expansion).
HEAT, VEAT, & PEAT unlocks are returned to getting a matching faction toon to level 50 (or by purchasing them).  The PEAT is a shapeshifter – having a canine form, a bird form, a bear form, an ape form, a big cat form, and a crocodilian form.

Game Mechanics
Critical hits add 1 to the magnitude of any Status effect power.
Origin was added as a tag to all attacks, similar to delivery (melee, ranged, aoe) and type (smashing, energy, psionic, etc.).  Melee mitigation set expansions include a power keyed to all origins, but all characters can develop their archetype pool to mitigate against their own origin tag.
Rest is aligned as the 0 power of the Medicine pool, Sprint the 0 power of Speed, and Brawl the 0 power of Fighting.  If you choose a power from the origin pool matching your own origin, then your temp power is replaced with a pool power (the 0 power of each pool) than is fully enhance-able.  Each of these gains synergy with their pool but does NOT count as purchasing a power within them. 
Resistance to Lethal damage is eliminated, making it somewhat the opposite of Toxic damage.  However, both types of mitigation (defense and resistance) are permitted when matching against the delivery or origin tags of an attack.  Thus, you may not be able to defend against toxic attacks, but you can defend against a poison dart thrown at you. 
The Devs embrace movement as king, not pawn, in both PVP and PVE. Travel suppression is eliminated.  In its place is the concept of 'Step Up/Step down'.  In this plan Sprint, Paddle, Combat Leaping, Hover, and Group Fly are step 1 powers.  Super Speed, Swim, Leap, and Fly are step 2.  All are given an interrupt time of 4 seconds and a recharge time of 5 seconds, and the step 2 powers must either cycle twice or cycle a related step 1 power and then the step 2 power.  All these powers can now slot both Recharge Reduction and Interrupt Reduction. 
Stepping up means when you activate a movement power, you have to cycle through slower powers up to faster powers.  You can do this without having the step 1 power, you just cycle through the first step with zero benefit.   You can also step from one group to another at the same level.  Stepping down only happens as a result of combat; deactivating a power immediately stops the benefits. 
Any time you make an attack, you step down one level.  When an attack hits you, its activation speed is compared to your active travel's interrupt time.  If the attack is faster, then you step down one level.  This makes the lightweight initial powers much more valuable in PVP as they typically have the fastest activation times.  Very long attack powers like Flurry can also slot interrupt reduction to reduce the attack speed used for this calculation – but the actual attack speed remains the same for the animation.
For PvE players, this changes very little other than you must wait the 5 second recharge time.  The interrupt time is seen as a delay while the power kicks in, becoming known as "the three steps" (taken from The Greatest American Hero). 
For PvP, these changes are revitalizing.  The step 2 powers have the obvious advantage of being fast but are slow to activate and easily interrupted.  The step 1 group are quick to activate and hard to interrupt, but are not particularly fast.  To be good at movement a player needs both, and needs to slot them heavily in order to be able to maintain their utility.  The player also needs good mental discipline to pace his/her attacks at the rate the movement powers can recharge in order to keep moving.  Investing two power picks and up to 10 enhancement slots towards movement exposes a big hole in either offense or defense.  At the same time, players need invest in light fast attacks as an interrupt.

Zones
With the Preatorian story line ending and the Battalion starting up, Portal Zed is introduced to the Shadow Shard, which allows Preatorian players to reach level 50 without having to relocate to Primal Earth.  Mole Point Alpha allows villainous characters access, and the Shadow zones all become Co-operative.
The Battalion story line adds a surface moon zone and a watery zone deep underground that has much to do with introducing the Water Breathing (more commonly called Swimming) pool.  Several existing watery zones add story arcs featuring the Coralax or Council naval forces under the command of an Admiral Nereus.  There is a trial involving the wreck of the Moraine, as well as a one involving the Banished Pantheon and the lighthouse on Astoria Point.  A small zone called the Red Flame Sound was added to the Rogue Isles with the Coralax as the primary foe.
Tempest Quay and Cutlass Islands have been removed from the Peregrine Island map by a transport connection to the Monster Island zone which has become a co-operative pre-incarnate trial zone and Essence farming.  A Strike Force involving the Abyss, the Cutlass Isles, and private instances of Eden and Crey's Folly was added.
With Sheridan revealed as a Battalion operative, the entire Preatorian travel to Primal Earth concept is re-written so that members of Power Division can join the Special Intelligence Unit at any level, tasked with infiltrating Primal Earth to spy and/or gain useful supplies and technologies (meaning they can transfer to Primal Earth at any level and play that content, then return).
With the end of the Battalion story line, the Devs return to Rularuu.  Purple side becomes a thing; the devs expressing a desire to redefine the franchise as Alternity.  Several low level zones are created for the Shadow Shard (one of which features gigantic water globs rather than land), showing some of the more benign zones where human inhabitants are far more numerous. 
Preatorian Strike Forces are added representing raids against Paragon City, The Rogue Isles, and The Shadow Shard.   Dr. Pencebald offers a few Strike Forces dealing with the intertwining of Night Wards and the forces of Reflection.
Rothenstein's Monument Company has locations on every server to help players identify all the history, exploration, and other discovered badges.  All of the History badges now have session play concerning the events they describe, making the players more to do than just click and run.
All movie theatres allow players to access a rotating arrangement of feature events by clicking on the box office window.  Clicking on the box office window provides a menu of the two current features, with a coming soon marquee showing the next two available.  These events are content created by guest writers, the Architect missions voted as favorites, past convention events, and retired story lines. 
Dispersion, defined as additional zones lowering the player population per, is a bit of a concern.  This is addressed by moving Incarnate content to three servers, Hero content to three servers, and Villain, Preatorian, Shadow content to one server each, with all PVP to one server.  Each of these faction shards has a single back-up server (fail-over during normal operations, open beta test servers for new issues).  Along with the test server, this makes 17 total, but during normal operations only 10 are available (with the devs running Test for their own nefarious schemes).   On the Hero servers, the pre-Incarnate versions of the hazard zone maps are returned to active use. 
On the Incarnate servers, many of the low level zones no longer exist, or show extensive changes, which helps maintain the illusion of the city evolving as the characters themselves do.  All Hazard zones from Paragon City have been re-built with Incarnate content.  Baumtown is rebuilt as the starting zone, with mostly hang-out features, the only Architect location for Incarnates, and a shopping district of other in-game amenities.
PVP has moved into a server of its own, hosting all the tournament matches, zones featuring two faction conflict, free-for-all brawls, alternate reality zones, and even a fully open PVP shard.

Super Groups
New transporters are available – a Monorail boarding platform, a submarine pen, a portal machine, and an aircraft pad with choice of vehicle.  Each can slot a different arrangement of zone beacons.
All the Souvenirs are made into trophy cases than can be purchased for base decorations.  A new decoration added is the 'Poster'.  These allow you to pick a group member, costume, emote, and background (street, office, factory, cave, newspaper banner w/ photo, etc.).  Unlike banners, each poster is unique, allowing you to assemble a hall of members.  Also there is the costume mannequin or cabinet.
A new room called Quarters is added.  On the base map, these take up a 1x2, 2x2, or 2x3 footprint.  This 'room' includes an allowance of prestige so that each member can decorate his/her personal space. Clicking on the door brings up a roster of the group's member, chose one and the door opens to reveal that character's personal quarters. 
A Registrar has been added for Preatorian and Shadow players to form super groups.