Zamuel
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Posts
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Joined
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I think it really depends on how devs calculate the AOE penalty on procs. Though on the flip side, it's probably a massive boost to ST Force Feedback usage.
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I've got a few thoughts here and there based on part of this event I was able to attend and some of the events from a while ago.
- Shorter events probably work better. While a large window helps more people get in who are late, it requires a lot more work to keep people occupied. It seems like an event designed around 30 minutes would work out better. With that kind of time window, you can do either redside or blueside all in one shot and then do the other faction. That way the only zone swapping will be either storyline based travel or checking for multiple instances. In theory, shorter individual events should lead to another needed thing...
- There really needs to be more than one community rep per server. Obviously, there's difficulties in timing but that's a distinct difference from when this Mako event hit Victory server to some of the older events back when Avatea and Ocho were still here. Having two (or even three) devs in a zone allows them to bounce banter back and forth and/or have one cover narrative while the other is on spawn duty. This seems easier when the event as a whole is of a shorter length and only one faction is done at a time.
- Players may actually be too powerful for events to work well. This is very subjective but in comparison to older events, the Incarnate system causes enemies to be killed off very quickly which alters the pace of things. It seems like this "problem" is either something that will have to be worked around or alternate methods of handling it could be applied. The latter is problematic since they'd be controversial. While people might not mind being killed, they would probably object to having their characters directly manipulated. One interesting thing that happened at an older event is that it traveled through a few zones and eventually ended up in Warburg due to the event plot. While that has a forced level down, it would probably only be appropriate for an event that explicitly notes that it will cross through some PvP zones.
- Explore options for volunteers. While Zwil had a good point in the other thread that there's a lot of tools that you don't want to give players, all that probably isn't needed. What's needed seems more along the lines of a magician's assistant who's planted in the crowd. Someone who's volunteered to let you kill/debuff/etc them for the sake of the event's plot and pacing and is somewhat in on things. It would be a way for the community to help out the Community Team since you guys are doing this in your spare time.
- There really needs to be a greater objective than just killing spawns. Actually makes me really curious on what you guys can and can't spawn in a zone. Various objects from AE and mayhem missions seem like they'd work well for objects to destroy or protect. A more defined objective should help keep the crowd occupied and if an event finishes quickly people can feel good about hitting an actual goal.
- When possible, fight directly in the finale. Also leading into the fact of not knowing where your control starts and stops, directly fighting with the lfinal boss can make things more interesting than a generic NPC value since potentially you have more options and you can be more dynamic than an AI. Mix in some custom made costumes or using a specific NPC skin will catch people's attention.
- Manipulate the environment to set the atmosphere. Objects are good but seeding the fameStrings ahead of the event or perhaps "rewarding" players with one afterwards make it feel like it's affecting the world even if it's just a temporary event. I've heard that you guys actually have the ability to manipulate the skyline. Doing so could make an area look more foreboding or perhaps have the sun shine triumphantly after a victory.
- Vary location. Blueside gets the massive advantage here but (when appropriate) try having some of the events in lesser frequented areas such as hazard zones or areas with fewer common objectives.
- Shorter events probably work better. While a large window helps more people get in who are late, it requires a lot more work to keep people occupied. It seems like an event designed around 30 minutes would work out better. With that kind of time window, you can do either redside or blueside all in one shot and then do the other faction. That way the only zone swapping will be either storyline based travel or checking for multiple instances. In theory, shorter individual events should lead to another needed thing...
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I had been out of the game for a bit but had been reading a few things here and there. Happened to be on a Synapse with my WS and oh my. The faster form changes almost made her feel like a different character. I was already recklessly jumping in for mires but double mire went smoother, swapping to dwarf when overwhelmed happened faster, and running away in nova worked better. It was amazing. The character is mid 30s and probably has subpar slotting but while I did die a few times, there were a number of times I felt invincible.
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Global Handle: @Zamuel
Vindicator: Ms. Liberty
Why: The obvious "American" theme needs to stay but I felt adjusting her outfit to something that seemed more mature. Retains a classic superhero vibe but the texturing is more modern than tights. However, in all this I wanted to make sure she looked like the same character so I tried to use the same face and mask as the original. IDF belt is the closest thing I saw to Statesman's belt.
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Vindicator: Valkyrie
Why: The primary problem with the old outfit is that it doesn't truly look as high tech as it should, given the description. A while back she was subject of a number of revamp suggestions that aimed at different ways she could be interpreted. I leaned more towards tech than warrior but opted to add a few Valkyrie pieces. Since she's an adventurer archaeologist who is wearing a suit of armor, I felt she had to remain tall and the physique slider had to be more towards the right. I also opted to make her brunette to add a little more visual variance from others in the Vindicators.
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Vindicator: Infernal
Why: While Infernal is probably a relatively nice guy, he gives off a grim and gritty anti hero vibe so I stuck with it. The type of guy who walks in the room and suddenly you hear electric guitars. When he speaks, every other word is in bold letters or all caps. Retained the armor but revamped it a bit to something more mobile. The sword was chosen as something that looked like it could actually slay demons, plus it broke up the color scheme a bit.
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Vindicator: Luminary
Why: Luminary is interesting in that she's based off another character in the lore. Admittedly there's a potential "Dude, not cool" to Positron basing a robot's appearance off of someone else's wife but we'll just chalk that up to Posi doing things for SCIENCE. However, being based off a person seems like an important detail and the main thing I think the current Luminary in Talos needs is an unique face. That was my starting point with this. Female Clockwork seemed to have been designed as "pretty" and this worked rather well but doesn't show up well outside of closeups.
Luminary's clothing was designed to give a more old school sci fi vibe as her personality and tastes would be developing. I figure she'd overtly want something non threatening as she interacted with people as opposed to heavy armor and shoulder mounted cannons.
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Vindicator: Swan
Why: Swan's biggest problem is that the structure of "With Skin" parts makes her look like she's not wearing anything. Figured she should keep white in the outfit and show some skin but in something better textured. Pity we don't have arm wings so I substituted the feather cape. Despite being a sorceress, being named "Swan" and having a feather shawl gave me more of an opera/ballet vibe for her.
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Vindicator: Mynx
Why: Made a few tweaks to make her look more catlike. I figure with her being a college student who had to live out on the street, her uniform would be less spandex and more whatever she could find. This gives her a more streetwise vibe and thus represents a different genre of superhero not showcased in the Vindicators.
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Vindicator: Aurora Borealis
Why: Similar to Swan, I tried to retain the idea of showing skin but with better textured materials. The ring visuals had to stay but I added a few splashes of purple. I also opted to make her hair color a black/purple mix like her alternate universe counterpart for more of a match between them while having more variance from her teammates.
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Vindicator: Woodsman
N/A
Why: I like the Woodsman a lot as is. It's a unique silhouette with a fair bit difference from the team. All he needs is an increase in resolution. -
Sup?
Hope you're ready because the terri...er, friendly and helpful Marauder's got some feedback for the community team. While I haven't been to this current event, I've heard about some of the others from the past. The main thing is that it seems like you can handle it a little better if there's more of you guys teamed up to run things rather than just one lone wolf. While obviously there's no way that the big fish could beat the Big Dog, it's nice to run with a pack. See, you can handle things a little better if ya got one guy on point and another handling crowd control. It also gives you the ability to split groups off a bit.
Next major thing is having a good set of objectives. Now, the pups here been yelping back and forth and it seems both sides got decent points. Gotta have some sort of objectives to keep people on their toes. Oh sure, they may have to shoot stuff but it's more interesting if they have to protect some sort of macguffin or blow up some sort of console and THEN shoot something. There needs to be more than just standing in one spot and they can feel a bit more proud over what they've done. At the same time, you gotta be careful not to lean to hard on an impossible mission. Nobody wants to go home with their tail between their legs. Perhaps always have a plan B so that even if an objective can be "failed", players can attack things at another angle and still win. Likewise, it's good to stand tall after victory but every enemy ought to be worth at least a little experience considering lag and disconnects. In fact, lag is good reason to try to split people up a bit.
As far as programmers, man where do I start? For Berry to have all that speed, it seems like he'll never take time out for a small request. Keyes was just as much of a nerd but he'd at least buy you a drink every now and then and chat a little bit. Now if I had my way, I'd...
...erm, a little off topic. Where was I? Oh yea! I know that you can't get some stuff from devs but maybe there's more creative ways of using what you have. Summon objects that can be destroyed or "glowies" that can be clicked. Especially if hidden. Use a special costume based off of player available parts on a character you're in control of. Use some of those "dev hax" powers to mix things up or maybe just use different powers players have access to. I also gotta wonder if it would be good to threate...politely ask the devs for some sort of general event tools like a generic doomsday timer or the ability to make targets show up on the mini map.
Well, that's all I got. I know you guys are trying so keep up the good work. Big Dog out. -
I can't believe I didn't notice this. I'll certainly be working on something.
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Quote:I'd argue that there's precedent for not doing a hard replacement and instead doing an option. One of the female Steampunk faces originally had makeup baked in. A seemingly valid argument was made late beta for removing the makeup since there were already makeup options and people wanted more control over it. Since no one else on Beta objected, it was eventually changed. This however caused issue with people who were using the face specifically because it had its own makeup. Furthermore, it was pointed out that the new face didn't take skin tones as well. An either/or option was never implemented to try to satisfy the valid points each side had. While I'm no where near Tier 9 VIP status and thus I can't benefit, I feel it would be best not to repeat this. As already shown in the thread, people had gotten used to the previous style and were using it with their outfits.Originally Posted by Dink
It's instead of.
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I'm making a suggestion to add one or two additional options to the Elemental Order belt. The current one barely takes advantage of the secondary color which could be put to greater effect. Forgive the low grade image manipulation:
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Quote:This is my main problem with Citadel, it sort of feels like it's insulting your intelligence. For all of their flaws, the others at least felt like they were trying.Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
My favorite poke-in-the-eye from the Citadel TF is in Mission Four where the entry text pop-up reads "This layout of this facility mimics the other three exactly."
Yes, thank you for making the monotony extend beyond the fourth wall.
I'm certainly not a pro but with the small amount of homebrew game design work I've done Citadel is just sort of mind boggling. It sort of feels like an untested idea where no one was tapped on the shoulder and asked, "Are you sure about this?"Quote:Originally Posted by Ein_Dose
And then you have Citadel. I don't care what era you were designing in, ten missions of the same enemies in the same maps repeatedly doesn't work. And like others have said, as a story it makes terrible use of the resources at its disposal, telling a story that really would take about two missions if it were written anywhere after about I3.
The other TFs at least have enjoyable parts about them, when describing them they sound like fairly low-budget but decent ideas, with different kinds of appeal to them that still sound worth doing. No part of Citadel sounds fun on any level. Yes, the development team has changed, the MMO landscape has changed, the game engine has changed, all of that. None of that excuses all of Citadel being in the same maps against the same enemies, making miniscule progress until you stop the bad guy.
Then all the other original TFs falter, we can point at the developers not having a handle on the game yet (not knowing how vital Stamina would turn out/how painful end drain was, not having the grounding to know hunts weren't popular, not knowing people would prefer doing TFs in one sitting instead of multiple). Citadel looks bad by any standard. -
Also, are you playing something with stealth? Sometimes dialog doesn't spawn when you're in a stealthed state.
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Quote:Wha..?Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Honestly, that pic makes me thin the Statesman is about to make out with the ACU.
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Oops, linking to full size image http://pixel-saurus.deviantart.com/a...-Art-310110286
I have a feeling we won't get it since it's clearly meant for around I18 or so and Praetoria is ending. -
Pity this never got used as the login:
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Five.
What I would suggest is that you read Memphis Bill's Architect Tutorials (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Missio...itect_Tutorial) and run @Paula's tutorial arcs in game. The two resources combined do a great job of getting you the info you need. Tutorial 300 is in need of updating but that's partially my own fault since I volunteered and then never got around to it. -
While it does vary per map, base difficulty can only spawn 3 enemies at the absolute most. In some cases, spawns are close enough to naturally draw aggro. +0x2 bosses on tends to be a decent way to test since you can see a variety of spawns and make sure everything in your enemy groups is working properly.
Also, never fully trust the size names as absolutes. There are "Small" maps that are bigger than some "Medium" and vice versa. -
Quote:As far as sword and gun abilities on one character, the Syndicate have that. When they were added in I18 I figured they would help pave the way for that. There is a possibility that there's some AI concerns due to having two weapons (since that's why it's blocked in AE) but I figure the devs could design them a little bit differently.Originally Posted by Triplash
In Spark Blade's case the problem is having one character using both a gun and a pistol. I recall Posi saying once that they tried it a number of different ways, and it never worked as well as you'd think it would.
I don't know why it's a problem, mind you. The Wiki lists him as a Katana/SR scrapper with signature pistol powers... that might be it. If he were instead a blaster with an electric pistol primary and a secondary using a mix of katana attacks and SR-themed abilities... well now we're talking. Develop him that way, and you've also got the basis for two new powersets, Energy Pistol and Sharp Reflexes. -
Quote:While it's probably more complex than it seems, I hear the "difficult to make" comment often made with Rose Star and Spark Blade but I'm not fully seeing it. I can see some overall time vs resources problems but not outright difficulty, especially with how nice some of the newer stuff looks. You could probably get away with a little cheating with Spark Blade's visuals since it's long trenchcoat + stylized belt.Originally Posted by Agent White
Q: Can we get some W.I.S.D.O.M. storylines?
A: Problem is we only have Foreshadow and Mirror Spirit made, difficult to make the other characters. -
Quote:It isn't for fashion models.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
The constant sad grimacing must be murder on their jaws.
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Anyways, bringing back up older suggestions: A while ago there was a big discussion with Noble Savage about how to handle old pieces and a lot of people leaned towards "up rez but don't reinvent". While obviously it wasn't unanimous, it did touch on a major sentiment on how some parts of the costume editor are viewed. Copy/pasting a quote for a moment:
My suggestion/request is to actually work on a few higher resolution variants for a few of the pieces like the Bikini top and bottoms. While a lot of cool stuff is coming out, refreshing the patterns will help a lot.Quote:Originally Posted by EmperorSteele
I think overall, it depends on how the changes are presented.
For instance, let's take a costume part that is probably near the top of the radar for a redo: The bikini. It looks TERRIBLE. It has jaggies, half-there coloring and literally is one of the worst examples of "painted on" costume bits in the game.
Here's how it looks now:
Now, what is the art team going to do about this? Are they just going to tighten it up and make it less jaggy, like so... (warning, bad photoshop manip ahead)
OR... are they going to completely reinvent the piece to have texture and bumpmaps and self-shadows and end up looking something like this (warning, REALLY bad photoshop manip ahead...)
?
See, if we're dealing with the first scenario, then I'd prefer Noble Savage's first option in the OP. However, if they were to completely reinvent the piece as in the second picture, I'd have to go with option 2. Making something too specific makes it lose versatility. Some people have it as a bra, some people have it as a bikini, some people use it with odd skin colors to create the illusion of nudity... you wouldn't have as many options if there were patterns and bitmaps and shadows all over the place. And therefore the old piece should be kept for those who want to use it.
But with the first picture, no one is "losing" anything. You can still use and re-purpose it for whatever you'd like, but it would just look BETTER. Second option though? Well, good luck finding a bikini pattern everyone likes. -
There's a lot of things we may want in AE ranging from greater spawn control to new maps. However, with the renewed push of adding new enemy groups, there's a number of older groups with mobs missing or not updated. I'm hoping to compile a list together of what they are. Let me know if I have anything wrong or if something needs to be added to the list. Here's what I've noticed:
- Girlfriend From Hell, Super Stunner, and several other individual enemies that were added in I18 are missing from their individual groups.
- Devouring Earth are still limited to the older, all rock spawns at levels 40+ as opposed to the newer spawns where the plant based enemies are mixed in.
- The various members of the Paragon Heroes and Rogue Villains who had their level ranges expanded in order to be used in Tip missions still have their old level ranges.
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Quote:Since nukes are mentioned, will this also be applied to EMP Arrow within Trick Arrow?Originally Posted by Synapse
All nukes. Ranged Blast is a classification of power set like: Fire Blast, Ice Blast, Assault Rifle and Ocelot Blast.
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I'm wondering if Air Burst is retaining, losing, or getting a buffed version of its 2% global buff to KB. That was one of those unique oddball buffs that while not always desired, seems like the IO system should still allow a few quirks here and there. Trying to remember what other unique buffs there were.
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Hopefully the Controller and Corruptor Poison: Alkaloid can get the Regrowth treatment since it's a Tier 1 that can only be used on allies and that's problematic since unlike MMs they don't get pets until much later.
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I find it a little interesting that it states "specific" mezz resists will be removed from some IOs. What I hope is that while some like the immob resist in melee sets gets removed, others like some of the stun/hold resists get buffed. The main problem was the sheer fact that the values were so incredibly low, sometimes hovering around 1%. Sorta on the fence about there being a new Defense set since defense is already so highly valued in the game.
While I'm glad to see new story content, it's a little disappointing that low level redside wasn't included. Granted, low level redside tends to be more organized and memorable than low level blueside, it would have been nice to not increase the disparity between the amount of content for both sides.
TYPO: The current attack is called Lightning Clap not Lightning Clasp -
I only got two copies of the proc but the first of those was on a PB at the same time he leveled up to get Solar Flare.
As far as Bonfire there's also area of denial (presumably the reason the move was made) plus dropping it at a AV or GM's feet. -
I also agree that having the belts with different items removed/duplicated would add a lot of versatility. I think another thanks is in order for the welder mask. It's putting the time into little things with a lot of worth that show dedication to the fans.
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While it's not for everyone, I enjoy the Abandoned Sewer Trial as a different challenge from the norm. I also happen to be that one oddball that likes the infamous 30 Fir Bolg mission though I wish it was structured slightly different.