Xaphan

Ah, thread derailments are fun, aren't they? Anyway, I don't mind the idea for a permatemp version of one of the costume powers. Heck, why not expand the list to ALL the costumes offered during the Halloween event, and not just the ones given out at the cons? Though that would end up being a long list, and there ARE some costumes given out at the cons that aren't available in the event...

It's back up now. I can get into Atlas.

Just a casual observation, but it seems that every issue, there's some people who complain about massive lag. The group seems to be different each time, and relatively small. The discussions always turn out the same... a small amount of people complaining about lag, and the majority of people respond by saying they haven't noticed anything, and that it may be a hardware or ISP issue. This seems to repeat every issue release.

Congrats, OP. You were lucky enough to be hit with the lag bat this time around.

Really, I don't care about reputation one way or another. Or rather I should say that I try to ignore it, so that may put me more in the "dislike" group. I turned mine off on a whim just because I didn't want to get sucked into caring about it. And I know I'm fickle enough that I'd suddenly care if there were red dots below my name. But in all honesty (and in my opinion, of course), reputation seems to be about as accurate a show of a poster's character as their post count is.


All that said, getting rid of reputation does have at least one tangible benefit. It'd stop threads like this from being posted. Thinking back to the days when we got rid of stars, I can't seem to recall and "Bring stars back!" posts. I'm sure there were some, but they weren't a big enough blip on the radar to commit to memory.

So I say get rid of reputation. If only just so people will stop complaining about it.

There is a reason for this, though it's not how the OP describes. Basically, missions always spawns based on the settings the mission owner has. But in TFs the current leader is considered the mission owner, and if that leader changes (such as if the original leader disconnects), then the new leader becomes the new mission owner, and the missions will begin to spawn based on those settings. And of course, any new mobs in the active mission that HAVEN'T been spawned yet will now spawn under the new difficulty.

This can be a problem if you're suddenly going from the minimum difficulty to the maximum. Especially if you're doing a speedrun or a Master Of... attempt.

So, the solution to this is to have everyone be on the same settings, so that no matter who becomes the leader, the missions will be the same.


Of course, this has been done over and over without proper explanation, and most people probably only hear the "Everyone make sure you're on Heroic" part without really knowing why. Those people come to their own conclusions, pass it on, and eventually a rumor starts.

But at least this one has a reason behind it. And one that's unlikely to change since, AFAIK, difficulty settings above the default TF settings will still affect it. So the new difficulty system changes nothing.

One of the most important things to know about the Zombie Apocalypse: You don't know anything. Doesn't matter how many movies you've seen, or how many survival guides you've memorized... the reality could be entirely different from what we've seen in fiction. Of course knowing the possibilities and the various different scenarios will be a big help, but relying on them as faultless truths will only get you killed.

Well, simply put, the best survival tool you can develop is versatility. The ability to adjust yourself and your methods to fit any situation. As long as you don't hold too tightly to what you THINK you know and don't refuse to accept the new reality, you should be fine. Or rather, you'll have a better chance than most people.

I think that by the next 2x weekend the PLing problem will either be dealt with (in one way or another) or not. In either case, it makes this suggestion pointless. If it IS dealt with, then there's no reason to close it down. If it's NOT dealt with, then the devs don't think it's as big a deal as some people seem to imagine, so they'd have no reason to shut down the most popular 2x xp leveling method.

So whether it's a real problem or not, I just don't see it happening.

I can only see this ending badly.

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Goodness, enough with the gift baskets. I know you want into I16 beta, but bribing them with food isn't going to get you in.

[/ QUOTE ]What about fine wines and/or hard liquor?

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I doubt changing colors will be enough to make the bubbly energy blasts look like wind or give the energy fists of Energy Manipulation the hazy look of CoH radiation.

[/ QUOTE ]Which is why I said add in new effects. Which means more than just changing the colors. As per This Post it would SEEM that FX is customizable in the engine in addition to just color and animations. The thing is that it's just more work and takes time, so they can't do a lot of it in time for i16 launch.

The point of my post was that simply suppling new effects for various power sets is a LOT easier than making entirely new sets.

For a new set, you need to:
- Make new effects
- Come up with powers to fill up the set
- Test, balance, test, make sure it's not more/less powerful than other sets, etc etc..

For turning an old set into a new one via PC, you need to:
- Make new effects


...and that's it.

With power customization, I think we should look more at what powersets will DO, rather than what they look like thematically... since with enough customization, the only static things about powersets would be their combat stats (damage type, amount, recharge, etc... most of which of course are modifyable via enhancements)


So, for example, the OP has Wind Blast as a potential new powerset... but what would such a set do? Well, the secondary effect would probably be knockback. Wind knocks you back, that's a no-brainer right there. To go with storm summoning, there's probably be an electrical component (energy damage type), and of course smashing would be the damage type associated with wind itself.

...and as you can see, I'm describing Energy Blast right now.

So, rather than making a whole new set for Wind Blast, just add in new effects for Energy blast so you can change it and make it LOOK like wind. The sets are close enough together in what they'd do that you can just change the effects and have one stand in for the other.




tl;dr version: Rather than looking for thematic holes in what sets LOOK like, we should look for thematic holes in what sets DO. Fill them up, and then add more and more power customization so we can turn any set into what we want, and go from there.

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Allowing users to upload their own models or textures would probably be the worst idea ever, if the devs decided to do it. Ignoring the copyright problems, we'd still be flooded with poor quality materials of the eye-bleedingly bad variety. And then of course there's be the nude mods, graphic pictures put up as pictures/wall textures, and other such lewd things. We're much, MUCH better off without such things.

That aside...

While I think there's still some things that could be added to MA to improve what you can make (custom placed mobs, scripting (even if it's just simple), in-mission NPCs with dialog trees, etc..), what we CAN make in MA already is still better than most of the missions in the game. Sure, some of the more recent missions and taskforces outshine what we can do, but for run of the mill missions (most notably the original ones that shipped with the game), we can almost duplicate them entirely... and improve on them.

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You say that now, but wait until you start enjoying Warshades

[/ QUOTE ]Easy solution. Have everything explode, but make them leave piles of debris that you can effect like how you can effect defeated enemies right now.

As an added bonus, make any power that is used on a defeated enemy cause them to explode AGAIN.

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Wow. Watching the second vid, I notice there were some cool power sets such as:

Super Intelligence
Super Willpower
Super Personality
DARKNESS CONTROL
DENSITY CONTROL
ELECTRICITY CONTROL
AIR CONTROL
LIGHT CONTROL
Paralysis
Shape Shifting
Kinetic Control (prob just /Kin)
Sonic Control (prob just /Sonic)
Super Vision
Radiation Control (prob just /Rad)

The CONTROLLER in me is crying, and wants the other control sets ASAP. Let's get cracking, Devs.

Lewis

[/ QUOTE ]It's worth noting that, as far as I can remember, those weren't power SETS. They were powers. Or maybe just a small group of powers, a couple at most. I can't recall exactly. Still, it wasn't anything like the system we have today, where you pick a powerset and have a bunch of themed powers in it. You picked a bunch of different powers, and you could pick from anything (Origins determined how many you could pick, and how powerful you were).

So, we lost "Darkness Control"... but it was probably just a single dark power, and was later expanded into Dark Melee. Remember, control in this sense didn't mean Controller powers. It just meant you had control over darkness... As I recall, the fire sword they showed in the demo was "Fire Control".


Or I could be remembering it all wrong. Regardless, none of those things were fully fleshed out sets, and most of them weren't even designed when the videos were made. They were just cool sounding names they threw in, since they were planning to make them eventually.

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Well, at least it will get people out of the AE... I doubt the expanded difficulty settings will work in there.

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Even better - I hope if a character goes into an AE mission as an eight-man team it locks that character for a week, strips them of goods, and makes them level 1.

Setting yourself up as a "larger teams" is so obviously an abuse of AE that there would be no debate or not if they player was trying to abuse it or not.

Like it.

Cut to the quick!

[/ QUOTE ]Uhm... you do realize that AE is the best source for challenge maps, and is capable of making some of the most challenging encounters in the game, right? It's pretty easy to imagine how people looking for a true challenge might want to use this system with AE...

Or are you just assuming that people only use AE for farms?

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Maybe I'm totally not remembering how things used to be but wasn't this in the game before and they removed it?

[/ QUOTE ]Nope. Entirely new feature.

I'm wondering about one thing concerning this.

If I set my difficulty to be a certain number of people, does it mean I can do TFs solo? I realize I can ALREADY do this, but it'd be nice to cut out the steps of inviting and then kicking people.

I'm going to assume that, like powerset proliferation, this power customization is just the start. Sure, it sounds AWESOME, but it could be even awesome-er. I dream of the day when we can change any animation we want (within reason) and alter the particle effects of our blasts in addition to "just" the colors, etc..

As far as I can tell, the initial release of Power Customization was the real hard part. Past that, further customization is just busywork... assuming they actually KEEP most of their new employees after Going Rogue is released (unlike what they did with CoV, reducing down to a skeleton crew after release), then I can imagine some very neat things in the future.

Does the inf you earn in AE count for badge progress yet?

Still no? Never will?


Then I don't care.