Issue 14
Issue 14: Architect was announced on September 25th, 2008[1], began closed beta testing on February 13th, 2009. [2], and entered open beta testing on March 17th, 2009[3]. It is currently scheduled to be released on Wednesday, April 8th.
Overview
Issue 14, titled Architect, will be a major revision to City of Heroes and City of Villains. The title refers to the Mission Architect, which was originally slated to be a part of Issue 13.
This article summarizes some of the major features in Issue 14. For more complete details, see the release date's patch notes.
Confirmed
Mission Architect
- Main Article: Mission Architect
First the City of Heroes Character Creator set a new standard for player creation and customization. Now, Issue 14 takes another giant step, allowing players to design their own missions and story arcs to share with the entire City of Heroes community. Using an intuitive interface similar to the game's detailed Character Creator, players can create missions from the ground up. Players will determine details ranging from environments, mission objectives, and enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue; giving their stories nearly infinite depth and personalization.
Among other rewards, authors and architects who create the most extraordinary content will garner acclaim and reputation. Community feedback will be paramount and some missions will elevate in status unlocking new rewards and benefits for their creators.
Costumes
- A Valkyrie option for Dual Blades [4] can be seen at the character creator on test.
SG & Bases
- Storage containers now have rank based permissions for each storage container. So each container can be set so specific ranks can add or remove items from that storage container.
- A super-leader position was added to smooth out some of the leadership change problems. Promoting a player to super-leader will make them the leader, and demote the original leader.
Other Changes
- According to Synapse "...there will be some small changes to the merit reward system (and the reward system in general) in Issue 14, that I am sure will be viewed as positive changes." [6]
Specifically, the Taskforce Random Recipe Roll and Trial Random Recipe Roll from merit vendors have been merged into one random roll pool. Also, the recipes generated by random rolls have been weighted so that recipes for common power types (such as Ranged Damage) drop more often than sets that are not so commonly used (such as Confuse). Finally, recipes formerly in Pool C or Pool D now have a small chance of dropping from a Boss class NPC.
- From Castle: "I checked in some changes for I14 yesterday that increases the minimum speed of Hover and the Suppressed Speed of Flight."[7]
- Bug fixes (via a "Known Issues" update) [8]
- P-strings no longer appearing in Hero Zone Event Chat.
- Art Costume: Female>Lower Body>Pants>Flared Pants made available in the costume creator and tailors
Confirmed Not In Issue
- Powerset Proliferation [9]
- Dual Pistols [10]
Notes
Release Scheduled for Wednesday, April 8th, 2009.