AmazingMOO

If you're in the habit of fighting near Castle during the Rikti Invasion event in Peregrine Island, you should probably move it out into the parking lot instead.

Castle has 4 new PPD Drone buddies who are pretty much capable of insta-zapping a full spawn of Rikti Heavies.

The science booster's big feature is the Super Tailor. This is not the same Super Tailor as the nice Super Tailors at Icon who tailor for Superheroes.

No, those are Cosmetic Surgeons, not to be confused with the Cosmetic Surgeons who work for the Facemaker and Dr. Vhazilok in Cap au Diable. There are certainly Cosmetic Surgeons working for the Facemaker, but they shouldn't be confused with the other Cosmetic Surgeons like the Icon staffer who works out of the Rikti War Zone.

You should not confuse Stalkers with Rogues, either. Yes, Stalkers fill a role in the game that is usually considered 'Roguish'. They slip around hidden and backstab their opponents' weak spots for massive damage. However, Rogues in City of Heroes and Villains refer to those who've changed their alignment, be they chain-class melee or not.

Don't even get me started on the people who confuse Rouge for Rogue!

Be careful with 'Chain', too! Chain refers not to the type of armor you wear, but to the order of your attacks! There's actually not terribly a lot of Chain armor in the game, but there are all kinds of chains you can wear around your neck, arms, waist, and other fun places!

First of all, I'm extremely happy to see the feature list for i16.

That said, I have some requests for information and functionality. I figure other players might as well.

Transparency/Sharing on Power Customization:

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The primary and secondary colors of any power effect can be changed individually for each power in the set.

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This sounds like that powers will each have a 'Primary Color' and 'Secondary Color' selector the way most costume pieces do. Will there be any options to change power transparency? Will power colors work the same way aura colors work: ie, if you choose a darker color, it will appear more transparent than if you choose a lighter color?

I ask because I think a lot of players will want to have 'black' effects for various reasons, including both the Lord Darkity Dark of Darkness types and others. I, myself, was thinking of trying for a 'negative' effect on Energy Blast. However, if choosing 'black' means mostly transparent, it might not be an option. A transparency slider might be a better option.


Non-graphical customization:

Has any thought or work been given to changing non-graphical aspects of powers?

For example, I'm entirely happy with the look of Sonic Resonance, but the sounds are miserable. I might actually be able to play with the sound on if I could pick and choose sound effects.


PVP Concerns:

I'm not a PVPer and doubt that I will be any time soon, but it has occurred to me that PVPers might appreciate an option to disable at least some of Power Customization on the client end whilst in PVP zones or Arenas in order to better understand what powers their opponents have and are using. Will there be a 'disable customization in PVP' option button?


Themes and power objects

I'm looking forward to more information about power 'themes', but have the following questions in specific.

Will players be able to remove objects that don't make sense for their powers? Can the various little skulls and whatnot be removed from Dark Blast for example? I heard another player asked for the ability to remove the 'tricorder' from medicine pool powers.

I'd love to be able to replace them as well. Like eating instead of using the tricorder for Aid Self.

wwwwwwwwwwwwddddddddddddddIt seems that, post patch, the time I'm MOST likely to get this is when I'm manually switching global channels in the chat bar.

The Science Jacket is rather bulky, especially on female models. It uses about the same geometry as the newer jackets introduced with Day Jobs. It's a great-looking jacket, but can make a slender character look stuffed. Or pregnant.

This is Rebecca, The Iron Rose, my MA/Regen scrapper on Victory, in one of her usual costumes and wearing the new jacket. She is intended to be something of a 'fertility figure', so is relatively curvaceous.

However, note how much 'bulk' the jacket adds to her bust and waistline.

From left to right, I've placed her in a pre-Science Booster costume slot with build sliders visible, the new Scientist Jacket, and then for the sake of reductio ad absurdium, with her chest slider all the way out.

The jacket could be a lot more form fitting, clipping be damned.

It seems like since they put in the boss drop chance, I've been getting about a single pool D every few taskforces. None worth mentioning.

I'm trying to get it to go off, but so far all my chat entries have been clear of wwwwaaaaasssstrash.

110020000110001000000Can anyone verify that this bug is gone?

AE doesn't need 2x XP.

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It was great for the first five minutes or so. Then it got even more awesome.

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Fixed that for you. ^_^

Seriously, I did two LGTF's last week, and while there were times that I couldn't see a thing I still love this bug. ^_^

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In fairness, I'd just come off a Citadel TF, where the bug also affects Valkyrie/Hoverbot models, so I had a bit of eyestrain already.

It does look pretty darn awesome if you're not actually trying to play through it.

Hopefully this morning's insta-patch (HAMIBUBBLEBANHAMMER?!) will include a fix for all the extra fireworks.

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* Zenith Hoverbots will no longer loop their exploding death animation
* Rikti Drones will no longer loop their exploding death animation

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Thank you, devs and QA types! (Also, thanks for all the other good changes!)

It was great for the first five minutes or so. After that, it was pretty frustrating not being able to see either your character or what you were targeting.

Theoretically, there are about 14 players in that screenshot, including me.

Anyway at all we can get a patch in this week to fix the looping animation bug for drones before the Rikti Invasion this weekend?

This was a relatively small invasion group... about 2 groups of players. It was a never-ending fountain of exploding drone bits. You couldn't see the players or rikti for the explosions.

Holly Star, my energy/energy/force blaster, has a mutant ability to draw power into her body via microscopic wormholes. (And teleports the same way, by shifting her mass along the same.) She drains energy out of the environment and then re-releases. If it's at all possible, I'm going to go with a dark/negative look to indicate the draining ability. Either way, it's going to be entirely monochrome. No blue/red/green mix.

Iron Rose, my regen scrapper, was mutated during the Rikti War as a small child by the energies coming out of the force field generators that power the War Walls. Each of her, now extremely durable, body cells exudes a small healing aura that stacks linearly. She has 'fecund feet', ie, plants and vegetation grows where she walks. Accordingly, her regen powers will all stay green.

I'd vote for destruction by Rikti since we have an invasion next weekend.

Paragon City has never been terribly geologically sound, so a massive earthquake would also be nice. (Oh, those poor people who were trapped in the data stream when the power mains broke!)

Also, there's fairly significant construction in orbit, so a big deorbiting chunk of space junk would also fit the bill nicely.

Right now, you get a pop-up at 5 that's an introduction to the AE Manager who gives you the AE tutorial arc. I'm thinking that ought to be bumped to 10 or 15.

I really like the idea of yanking AE from Atlas, Galaxy, KR, Mercy, and PO. Players who want to do AE will have no trouble finding it in Steel or CaD and those who are new to the game won't be bombarded by information that encourages them to go into the AE building and never come out.

Hey, Devs, could we have the Rikti concentrating their bombing on the AE buildings next weekend and then patch them to a 'rubbelized' state? It'd make for a nice little bit of in-game story -- conflict between the Rikti, Crey, and Aeon. Crey could even try to get a government bailout to cover their losses. And if, say, a MA terminal were to open in Pocket D, well that'd seem completely legit and above-level since they'd so tragically lost their buildings in those other zones!

Slot KO Blow with Kinetic Crash, and you slot it for [i]Awesome!!![i]

The best part is that the library could be fully stocked with very little effort from our own 'Guides' section.


Interestingly, it occurs that you do publish other content there, such as the COH Comics, various 'approved' fanfics, and smple chapters of the 2 COH novels.

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AE buildings out of Atlas, Galaxy and King's Row, yesterday.

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Once you get a character to 25, then AE is unlocked for the whole account.

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I've heard both those suggestions and variations on them, such as AE was unlocked with the 3 Monrh Veteran badge. I like the removing the AE buildings for Atlas, Galaxy, and KR because it solves the problem of having new players exposed to group requests from experienced players with high-level characters.


Also, I think more work needs to be put into having 'teacher' NPCs. The Day Jobs Recruiter is a good example. City Rep could send you to a vendor who explains how to buy and sell. You'd then be sent to the Day Jobs requiter, after that, stick a mini-tailor into City Hall who can only change colors and chest details. She will tell you where to find the other iCon locations and the best routes for finding them.

Like I mentioned, I think Atlas should be an extension of the Tutorial zone. It should have some tutorial content.

Replace the AE building with a public library where patrons can read help-files and how-tos.

Mrs. Moo wanted to play a new scrapper this evening, so I rolled up a cold defender that I'd had an idea for. We went through the tutorial and then went to Atlas Park, simply for ease of travel to various locations. Usually we'd go to Galaxy to avoid the zone spam.

As we leveled to 5 (in a level pact), I heard several things that really bothered me. Most them would go in the farming thread, but a couple things really stood out:

"Looking for a team to fight enemies that hit back!"

and

"Aren't there any people here my level to team with? Where do I need to go to team with people under level 5?"

Before issue 14, the new player experience hadn't really changed since issue 5. Atlas was a hangout spot and a spot for newbies to get teams. The zone chatter was stupid, but zone chatter in most MMOs is stupid. For the most part, a new player could treat Atlas Park, and to a lesser extent, Galaxy City, as an extension of the tutorial and begin learning how to play the game.

With AE in Atlas and Galaxy, there is very suddenly a mix of experienced players with high level characters, experienced players with new characters, and inexperienced players with new characters. The inexperience players get thrust into activities the more experienced players are doing via AE missions.

A frequent groupmate told me yesterday he was grouping with a level 6 Kheld in King's Row doing newspaper missions. The Kheld was a new player. He'd started less than two weeks before. He was ecstatic to learn that there were other zones in the game and other stuff to do other than AE missions. He didn't know what a Taskforce or a Safeguard mission were.

This guy got really shortchanged by his new player experience. He fell in with a group of high-level players who power-leveled him to 50. His initial impression of the game is that you go into the Atlas AE bulding and never come out.


What changes should we make to avoid this kind of bad NPE?

I'd like to avoid debate topics here that should go into the farming thread. I want to exclusively focus on what steps can, should, and should not be taken to make Atlas and Galaxy more friendly and more conducive to hooking and landing new players.

If you were going to change things about the zones, what would you do?

I personally don't care to scale my windows, because it makes them look... well... a little blurry.

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Mine ... 1920x1080 resolution.

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Goliath, I *must* know how you get the custom font on your character name display. Does it also work for other UI elements?

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Mine

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Niviene, Your inspie tray strikes me as a difficult place for the mouse to land on. You ever have problems with that?

I know that it'd probably be a security issue, but I'd LOVE to see the way the devs have their dev clients setup.

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Wow, we are actually learning stuff from this thread. I know you can change the color of your text and bubble but I didn't know you could change the color of your windows. I always thought the colors were locked to blue for hero and red for villain. I think I'm going to try this out.

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Like some others in the thread, each of my characters gets custom window colors (and speech bubble colors). The colors are based on characterization, but not necessarily costume colors.

My GUI. Holly Star is camping out in a hospital for the day job badge.

All globals go in the top-left chat window. That way it's easy to tune them out while I'm fighting.

The 'bracket' area formed by trays 7 and 8 on the right also makes a nice place to 'dock' other windows like pets, base control, and power attributes.

I can reclaim a lot of those spaces if I customized the quick emote menu, but I haven't had the opportunity yet.

Things that need testing:


- Do gender specific badges behave in a consistent or specific manner?

Example: Weatherman, Newsgirl, Man in Black, Watchwoman, etc...


- Does the AE interface and replacement strings behave in a consistent or specific manner?

Example: When clicking on the AE screen, does it identify your gender properly? Does $hisher, $heshe work properly?


- Does the AE interface behave in a consistent or specific manner regarding alignment?

During the i15 beta test, heroic players were getting flagged as 'Villainous' and vice-versa.


- Does the Supertailor cause players to assume the 'body type' model?

During the i15 beta test, accessing the Supertailor often caused players to assume the glowing model texture that's displayed on the 'select body type' screen while changing their costumes. This was visible to other players.

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I am picturing a level 5 training 25 Deathsurges around Cap au Diable, LOL. That would be interesting to see.

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Sand Giants are slightly larger than Death Surge and Oasis is somewhat 'open'. There's a lot of room to run.

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Off-topic: Since you've been over there in EQ, Moo, excuse this stupid question: what in the name of blue blazes is a "loot and scoot"?

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In EQ, when you died, you had to journey from your bindpoint (usually in a city) to where your corpse was and loot all the gear and inventory. If your corpse despawned (we called it 'rotted') you lost all the gear and whatnot on it.

'Loot and Scoot' was, for PVP EQ players, the equivalent of saying 'Yep, I'm beat. You win. Let me loot my corpse and I'll vacate the premises.'

The alternative was 'corpse camping', where the grief-player would stand over the corpse and attempt to keep anyone from looting it. It was difficult, but if he kept at it, he could keep the original owner from looting and eventually cause him to lose all his gear due to corpse rot.

After rule changes, that became relatively unfeasible as corpses would not despawn for.... I think it was fourteen days? It was still quite possible to ruin someone's evening or weekend, however.

A later rule change, about the same time they eliminated Sullon Zek server entirely, was to create a utility zone where players could summon their corpses without interference, which more or less ended the practice.