AmazingMOO

It looks like we're about to lose the old 'legacy' tails in favor of animated tails. I have characters who use all the tails and will likely make great use of the animated tails when they're released.

Please let me take this opportunity to request something that has been missing from the tail menu since launch:

Bushy Tails

Most dogs do not have narrow tails. Most are quite bushy, with a few exceptions. Accordingly, there aren't many tail options for canine-themed characters.

I personally have a Racoon-themed character, so a striped texture on a bushy tail would be fantastic. I imagine that there are quite a few fox-themed character who'd appreciate a 'point' texture.

Thank you for your consideration.

It went down like this:

[Tell]<-@Sefu: I tell you, my friend, I'm never going to get my Infiltrator badge hanging out in the Rikti Warzone. I've gotten 'Zookeeper' ten times over, the OLD way, but I haven't seen a Protector out here since before Vanguard moved in.
[Tell]->@Sefu: I thought you had Infiltrator and the freeze gun already. Didn't we take you to do Manti?
[Tell]<-@Sefu: You're thinking of my alt, Sefu Ninedaji. He's the Spines/Regen Warden rather than the Ballista.
[Tell]->@Sefu: D'oh! Tell you what: I was kinda thinking of going for 'Redeemed', but I don't want to go through the idiot confuse farming business in Bloody Bay. How about you 'bust' me for Longbow for a few missions, and I'll get you an coalie invite to my SG so you can use the teleporter to Eden to get the explores and all the Paragon Protectors you need for 'Conspiracy Theorist'? You need the other explores?
[Tell]<-@Sefu:That sounds awesome!
[Tell]<-@Sefu:No, I got those back before they closed the door to Crey's Folly and locked me in here.

I saw it just now whilst sitting AFK in my base:

What, if any, defender combos would you consider running Fitness-less?

Some time back I made a Cold/Dark defender. I figured that between Defenders' inherent Vigilance, Heat-loss at l32, and maybe Conserve Power with APPs, I'd be pretty well set to live a Fitness-less life if I stayed mainly in groups.

However, at 27, I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth the agony. I'm slotted heavily for end reduction with at least 1 on all my Cold Domination powers. (3 on Arctic Fog) I've been concentrating on AoE control effects from the Dark sel, and have slotted them for end reduction as well. However, I frequently never get to use them because I seem to go through my endurance using only my Cold Domination powers pretty darn skippy.

My survivability is also laughable. My AOE debuffs like Sleet and Snow Storm seem capable of peeling agro off of even the best tanks. If I'm close enough to keep the melee in my arctic fog radius, I usually have to live on greens and purples to deal single target damage.

If I were to stick it out another six levels until 32 and then slot Heat-loss for recharge, I could get it down to recharging in the neighborhood of 3 minutes. Being that I can exhaust a full bar of endurance on one group, without getting all the way through an attack chain, It doesn't seem like that will be adequate.

Either I'm doing something terribly wrong (other than assuming I can try to play a defender without Fitness) or the set is close to unplayable without Fitness.

It leaves me wondering what other people are doing with their defender builds. I've played a Sonic/Sonic to 50 without fitness, even soloing quite a bit, and it wasn't nearly so frustrating. Is Cold/Dark doable without fitness. Are any other defender combos doable without fitness?

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2600427

Quoth Mod8:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2591550

Translation:

Get your pre-GR/i17 respecs tested NOW, because the Training Room is going to Praetorian Earth SOON(tm) and will be unavailable for those of us not blessed with beta access.


-- Edit --

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=2600427

The costume creator is, in my opinion, the crown feature of the game. It hooks and lands more players than any other aspect of the game.

In order to attempt to keep it fresh and new, the CoH devs have worked on adding new costumes and new costume parts over the five years or so.

I *had* an idea for a renovating certain aspects of the costume creator, and was building mockups of my idea to post in the Ideas and Suggestions forums. However, the concept of creating custom boolean 'cutouts' to let characters shear away parts of their uniforms sounds great, but there are a number of things standing in the way of it. Not only do characters constantly cycle through a breathing animation that would have to be translated to any kind of boolean object created for the system. Additionally, you'd have to include an animate a great number of boolean cutaway objects -- at least one if not more for every boned section of the body. Cutting sleeves away at exactly the same level and angle you cut the bottom off a jacket doesn't look real great.



It'd probably be less work for the costume team simply to build more clothing models and textures.

It occurs however, that there are new, innovative ideas out there to enhance the costume creator without a huge amount of development time.

For example, since the devs are working on 'ultra mode' graphics anyway, transparency, specularity, and reflectivity sliders on costume pieces might be a good idea. Maybe a 'glow' slider could be added after level 30.

What ways, other than simply adding new costume pieces, would you like to see the costume creator move in?

I've recently had opportunity to make a character that used both the 'High Collar' mystic cape and the Valkyrie cape for different costumes. I noticed almost immediately that the two capes seemed to behave differently:



Is there a programmatic difference between the two cape systems? In particular, does the does the 'High Collar' cape use the traditional cape system that we've all come to know and deride for its laggi^H^H^H^H^Hframerate-reducing effects? If so, why does it seem to behave differently than the other capes?

I've asked before about the difficulty of migrating existing cape systems to the PhysX engine, now maintained by nVidia, and incorporated into City of Heroes for use with various particle effects. The discussion usually draws some confusion on the difference between cape systems and other physics objects in game.

My understanding is that the cape systems do not use the PhysX engine. Instead, each cape system has a number of linked animations attached to it that drive its behavior in any given environment.

Something that I've been talking to a few friends about the last few days was that the in-game economy is broken in a few key ways. Primary among those is the fact that currency seems to enter the economy far faster than it leaves. This is inflationary and seems to contribute to the RMT problem.

(Please note that I'm not an economist, nor do I claim to be an expert on micro- macro- nor kupo-economics. 'Spice and Wolf' was all about the wolf-girl for me while the economics lessons were lost. Any corrections on my assumptions are welcome.)

Currency enters the economy via well-known game rules: Players gain it when they defeat enemies or complete missions, arcs, or taskforces. They can also gain it by selling recipes, salvage or enhancements to vendors.

Currency leaves the economy when players buy recipes or enhancements from vendors, buy consumables like temp powers from vendors, or trade influence for prestige. It also happens when they pay for costume changes.

Note that this isn't *quite* the same thing as value entering or leaving the economy. That happens when players have valuable enhancements, recipes, or salvage drop, or when they craft an enhancement. About the only time value leaves the economy is when a player destroys enhancements or uses up a crafted temp power.


Most players seem to acquire a steadily increasing supply of influence or infamy over their characters' careers, and slowly trade it for enhancements. 'Consumables' like tailor visits, temp powers, and bought enhancements don't seem to eat into this supply very much. Accordingly, the economy inflates at a pretty steady rate. The going trade price for sought-after goods goes up and up. The only thing that ever causes those prices to come down is to introduce new goods -- first Super-rare 'Purple' Recipes and then PVP Recipes.

A lot of people feel like they have to turn to RMT to have a shot at those items, which fuels the problems that've been discussed in the last few days.


The obvious solution seems to be to add more money sinks into the game. These could come in the form of new consumables -- new vendor-only temp powers, recipes, or the like. The problem there is finding the cost threshold at which players will spend their in-game cash reserves and not immediately go to RMT.

If the prices for a 'prestige' item are too high, lots of players will simply buy it with real cash rather than in-game currency. I personally saw that happen in Everquest when certain mounts were introduced. Lots of friends decided to 'skip' earning the dough to pay for a mount and bought in-game funds with real cash. (Everquest had some nasty cheats at the time, so this had exactly the opposite of the 'money sink' effect it was supposed to provide.


Another possible sink is to add in-game gambling mechanisms. We already have the settings for it in various in-game casinos and clubs. (The Rikti Monkey Fightclub seems custom-tailored to inspire player gambling.) However, there are many, MANY problems associated with gambling, even with virtual currency.


Do you think the economy needs more money sinks? If so, what kinds of money sinks do you see as successful or workable?

Don't give up completely on Frankenslotting for bonuses.

Just off the top of my head, for example, it's well worth slotting 4 Numina's and 2 Performance Shifters into Drain Psyche.

A fun new thing you can do at level 10 (or below!) since the advent of i16 is to obtain the majority of exploration and history badges.

All 89 exploration badges in non-keyed zones (read: No Cimeora, PVP, or The Hive) and 15/16 history badges can be earned with careful travel, but no stealth, even in the Rikti War zone.

The only badge that a level 10 simply cannot get to by these means is the 3rd history plaque for the 'Academic' (History of Nemesis) badge, down in the abandoned sewers. The enemies are too tightly packed to dodge between, and often block doors, especially the Hydra-men.

If you enter from the Steel Canyon entrance, there aren't too many Rikti drones, which makes the trip *with* stealth or invis slightly more doable, but they do start appearing just before the Plaque area, and there's groups of Rikti very near the plaque which can contain them. In the end, I had to get a level 50 to SSK me so that I could read it.

It's a fun challenge, and one that I'd recommend for any player making a new character these days.

Super-sidekicking is one of the better innovations in the game. It generally enables teaming in a broad array of situations that before would have been prohibited.

However, it fails badly in a few areas.

For example, this evening I left a solo mission in the Hollows on a lowbie scrapper to help a team in Skyway fight babbage. People were looking for teams to assist in broadcast and in badge channels, so I started inviting.... forgetting that I was level 8, with an active mission selected.

"Do we have to fight at level 8?"

"Yuck! Reinvite me when I get to Skyway. You killed my travel power."

I've had bad experiences with just promoting the highest-level player on a team, especially for badge events. A lot of people get really upset when you hand them the star, despite the fact they get equally upset when they're exemped and lose powers. Some just aren't very quick on the interface and get flustered or confused when you ask them to start inviting people.

Accordingly, my first reaction was to look for a player with a mission to select at a higher level. Lots of completed missions were in the list, but none were in a state to be selected. On to plan B.

I promoted the highest-level person on the team. However, as I mentioned, I had an active mission, and no one else on the team had a selectable mission. Accordingly, we stayed at level 8.

Plan C: Drop my mission so that the team leader regains active control. I wanted to complete the mission, but I wanted to have an enjoyable team experience more. I dropped the mission and called Detective Wincott back to clear it out. Despite this, the team stayed at level 8. I can only assume this is a bug since my understanding is that the team is SUPPOSED to be exemped to the leader's level when there's no active mission selected.

Plan D: The team member who complained about his travel powers being lost suggested disbanding and reforming. I quickly agreed and dropped out of the team.

I'd been working on this as quickly as I could, but by this time, Babbage was starting to lose health quickly since a number of debuffers had arrived to help wear him down. I rejoined the team started by the helpful traveler to get in about 3 hits on Babbage before he fell over. I apologized to my team for the difficulty and headed back to the hollows with my tail between my legs.

The end result is that I caused far more difficulty to my team than I managed to help them. I didn't exactly have my 'enjoyable team experience', nor did I get to complete the mission I wanted to. Granted, I can use Oroboros to go back and make the Outcasts suffer at length, but not for a while. I got the badge and two merits for Babbage but didn't really feel like I'd helped earn them.

Would you use an authenticator fob to log in to COH if NCSoft offered one?

Authenticators are small, key-sized gizmos that generate a number in a predetermined sequence once a minute. The sequence is unique, so every fob can be uniquely identified by what number it displays at any given time. You'd use this number in addition to your password when you logged in.

The upshot of this is that the game gains 'Two Factor Authentication' for logins. If someone tries to crack your account, they need not just steal or deduce your password. They also have to steal the fob. Likewise, if the fob IS stolen or lost, you've usually got a brief amount of time to get in touch with the support staff and get your account locked down.

With recent security concerns being mentioned, this seems like it might be a good idea. Additionally, that other game has made them available for some time, and is starting to consider requiring them.

Authenticators do have their down-sides. I've been using one for a couple years in a corporate environment.

First, they're relatively easy to lose. Most folks I know keep them on their keychains. If said key ring is misplaced, you've got to locate it before using it.

While sturdy, the devices are not bullet-proof. They're vulnerable to damage. They'll survive just about anything you do to them in the course of normal usage, such as jingling around in your pocket with sharp objects, being dropped, etc. They're not quite so durable around small children, pets who like to swallow things, under foot, or at high temperatures.

My knowledge of how they behave in the wash is that any given fob has a 50/50 chance of surviving. They're fairly water-tight and usually do okay in the washing machine itself, but they can develop cracks over time that negate that. Drying them has a good chance to destroy them.


How would you feel about them if NCSoft were to offer them for use with City of Heroes?