Issue 1

This article contains information that may not apply to the current version of City of Heroes Freedom. It is provided for historical purposes.

Overview

Issue 1, titled Through the Looking Glass, was the first major revision of City of Heroes after the initial launch of the game. Issue 1 went live on Tuesday, June 29, 2004.

This article summarizes some of the major features in Issue 1. For more complete details, see the release date's patch notes.

Some of the major features released in this issue were:

The level cap of heroes was raised from 40 to 50
The addition of the Peregrine Island and Rikti Crash Site zones
The addition of crystal prisons and 5th Column (later Council) base prisons
The Abandoned Sewers Trial
Ability to earn up to three additional costume slots for your characters.
Costume changes at the Icon store
Outdoor instanced missions (i.e. "Board Train" missions)
Hamidon was raised to level 50
Malta Operatives, Carnival of Shadows, and Praetorians enemy groups were added.

Detailed Notes

NOTE: These describe the changes as they existed at the time of the issue's release. Features may have been changed significantly by later updates.

2 New City Zones

Peregrine Island - This zone, north of Talos Island, is home to the secretive Portal Corporation.
Rikti Crash Site - In this zone, the Rikti War still rages. Join the battle and keep Earth safe from the alien invaders.

New twists to missions

5th Column Prison - When you're defeated in certain equipped 5th Column bases, you will have more to deal with than a hospital bill.
Circle of Thorns Crystal Prison - Like the 5th Column, if you are defeated in selected lairs, the Circle of Thorns will have a big surprise in store for you.
Circle of Thorns Gate Room - The Circle has found a new method of protecting its dark secrets: the Gate Room.
Circle of Thorns Orichalchum Crystals - Magic can bring power, or magic can bring pain. These crystals have become infused with the Circle's dark magic, and heroes will often find themselves surprised by the results.
Tech Danger Lab - Technology can be somewhat unreliable. The only way to find out what the Tech Danger Lab holds is to experiment and observe the results.

Outdoor Mission Maps

The villains of Paragon City have taken the fight to the streets.

Content For levels 40-50

The sick amusements of the Carnival of Shadows have turned deadly. Learn the source of their powers on your quest to save a single soul.
Expose the darkness in Countess Crey's closets and bring her secrets to light at last.
Begin to plumb the depths of the mysterious Malta Group.
Nemesis: How far will the Prussian Prince of Automatons go in his bid to conquer America?
As with many new technologies, Portal Corporation's advances involve great risks. Venture to alternate realities to keep Paragon City safe from the many hazards of the multiverse.
Is there any hope for peace between the Rikti and Earth? Not if you don't keep your eye on the factions that have begun to splinter Rikti society.
The Praetorian supervillains may well be the greatest threat your fair city has ever faced. Take the battle to their home dimension to keep Paragon City safe.

Trial Room

Sewer Trial Room - Deep within the sewer system, something is growing. Characters between levels 38 and 40 must battle the Hydra to keep it contained - but be sure to come prepared for a long, hard fight.

Tailor

Now your costume can change and evolve with your hero. At 3 locations within Paragon City, you can update your outfit - for a price.
At levels 20, 30 and 40, you can earn extra costume slots by performing tasks for Icon's tailors. Now you can customize your look on a daily basis! You may perform these tasks at any level after the initial level.

Power Bug Fixes

Decreased the difficulty of higher level foes. Foes 4 and 5 levels higher than you are now easier. Foes 6 and 7 levels higher than you are slightly easier, but still very difficult.
Fixed a bug that made some powers buff/heal less in an AoE if it hit a villain target (like Transfusion, Siphon Power, or Twilight Grasp) that was higher level. These powers will now buff/heal based on the casters level.
Fixed a bug that was causing Scrapper/Regeneration/Resilience to drain a tiny bit of END every 10 seconds.
Fixed Short Help description for Claws/Focus. It used to say it was a Melee AoE, but it is actually a Ranged Targeted power. Power did not change, only description was corrected.
Fixed Short Help description for Storm Summoning/O2 Boost. It used to say it was a Ranged AoE, but it is actually a Ranged Targeted Ally power. Power did not change, only description was corrected.
Fixed Short Help and long description for Energy Blast/Explosive Blast. Actual damage is Moderate, but description said it was Minor. Power did not change, only description was corrected.
Fixed O2 Boost and Clear Mind Resistance to Sleep (it would awaken slept Allies, but it gave no resistance).
Burn now also protects the caster from Sleep and Hold effects.
Fixed inconsistency in the short and long help of Energy Blast/Explosive Blast (power did not change).
Provoke now accepts Accuracy Enhancements.
Added a Critical Hit (small % change to do double damage) to ALL Scrapper Primary attack powers. Existing scrapper powers that already had critical hit damage have a higher success chance than other powers.
Added Resistance to Hold and Knockback to Moment of Glory (technically, this is a bug fix).
Decreased the Accuracy BONUS of higher level villains when attacking lower level Heroes. This change effectively improved Defensive powers (buffs and Defense armors). There was a discrepancy that made Resist Damage powers more effective against higher level foes than Defense powers. This change does not change any power directly, but allows Defense powers to be more effective against higher level foes. They should be equally effective as Resist Damage powers. This change does slightly reduce a higher level Heroes ability to hit lower level villains, but it should be hardly noticed since High level Heroes are significantly more powerful than lower level villains and will still hardly miss anyway.
Fixed a bug that allowed Slow (Slow Recharge Time) powers to increase a target's recharge time to infinity. Maximum debuff to recharge time is now 4 times normal recharge (this applies to villains and Heroes).
Fixed a bug that allowed Debuff Damage powers to debuff a target's damage to zero. A target's damage can not be debuffed below 10% of its normal damage (this applies to villains and Heroes).
There is now a MAX damage resistance of 90% for all (standard) damage types. No combination of powers or enhancements can bring your damage resistance beyond 90%. Any damage resistance beyond 90% will go towards damage resistance protection (it will protect you from getting your damage resistance debuffed).
Increased Max possible Resistance to Speed Running, Flying and Swimming to 100% (villains and Heroes).
Fixed Collision/Selection box of many larger villains.
The minimum resistance for a character has been increased. This change limits the susceptibility of characters to damage when they are debuffed. The limit is now four times the damage the power would do if the target was not debuffed.
Increased defense of Ice Armor/Frozen Armor and Glacial Armor.
Increased defense of Super Reflexes/Focused Fighting, Focused Senses and Evasion.
Heal Other and Twilight Grasp can now be resisted (in case the target is suppose to be resistant to Heal). This is a fix. All other Heals were always resistible.
Changed schema of CoT Mages Kamikaze power (Without giving away too much, their Kamikaze power will appear less random now, and you should be able to employ countermeasures to deal with this now.)
Added system chat message to villain sniper attacks.
Fixed small typo in Shadow Maul critical system chat message.
"Underling"-class villains like the Rikti Monkeys have had the reward for defeating them placed more in line with their difficulty.
Fixed Totem Damage resistance.
Fixed Provoke's accuracy.
Fixed Burn Radius (it was smaller than intended. It now functions as it should).
Fixed a bug with certain Powers that debuff resistance's. Before this change, a power which affected resistance would apply this resistance to itself. This resulted in compounding the intended effect, which made the power work incorrectly overall.
For example: Imagine one de-buffed a villain's resistance to Fire Damage powers, thereby making them more susceptible to powers of that nature. On the next combat tick, the villain's resistance is calculated again, but this time he's susceptible to Fire Damage powers-- including the one which made him susceptible in the first place. So, he would be made even MORE susceptible. On the next combat tick, it would happen again, etc. The compounded resistance makes the initial debuff much more powerful than intended. In fact, a very small stack of this debuff ends up being completely unresistable. Freezing Rain and Enervating Field are the two powers which are affected by this change. In typical circumstances, you should see little difference in their effects. When stacking these powers, though, you will see the change. If you've been using a small stack of these powers to trivially take out an archvillain or monster, you will find that you will need to stack more of them. In short, instead of the stack multiplying and compounding over time, its strength becomes the sum of the stack; as was intended by the original design. Hero resistance buffs have always been unresistable; they will not be affected by this change at all.

Mission Bug Fixes

Penny Preston will no longer give her mission to characters under level 30.
Serafina will now sell the proper Enhancements.
Broken Story Arcs have had a fix-attempt made to them. If you have had clues in your clue bag for several levels, go back and talk to all your Contacts to see if you can complete Story Arcs that failed to complete the first time (depending on your level, completing these missions might be rather easy).
Many, many missions that were giving "Internal Errors issuing this task" or no waypoints appearing have been fixed.
Many instances of out-of-range Bosses appearing in missions and spawns have been fixed.

Exploits

To deal with an XP sharing inconsistency for teams containing members with very wide level gap, we've made the following changes: XP splitting has now changed, giving a larger share to higher level people in your group. Characters groups with a level range of 6 or less should see no significant change as long as they fight mid-range encounters. This is to compensate for how much easier encounters are when the villains are well under the level of the Heroes in your group. Grossly under-level characters (not-sidekicked) in a group are ignored when determining the group's level in regards to rewards.
Increased the XP reward for villains 3 or more levels above the Hero defeating them.

Physics

The jump code was slightly changed to better reflect reality, to be modified by powers better, and to provide overall better gameplay.

Networking

Added networking code that handles client stalls better and should reduce disconnects for users with poor network connections.

New Slash Commands

/nojumprepeat - Disables jump auto-repeat
/whereami - Tells the name of the shard/map you are on
/costume_change, /cc - Changes current costume

Misc

Added character delete confirmation

External Links

Official Feature Overview