AkuTenshiiZero

You know what would get you guys a large sum of my money? Paragon Point Cards. Purchasable cards with a set number of Paragon Points loaded onto them, which can then be redeemed like a game time card currently is.

Sound familiar? It should, because literally every other microtransaction-based game does this. I know CoH has only recently gone free-to-play, but it's very difficult, no, impossible, for those of us without credit cards to buy Paragon Points. And since I'm sure I'm one of many people in this position, you've gotta realize there's probably a pretty large untapped profit to be made.

Unless, of course, they already exist. I've never seen one, and believe me I've looked.

Y'know, normally I'm not into the fuzzy-wuzzies. I've seen too much squickish art on the intertubes to go anywhere near anthros for the rest of my years. But I have to admit, I like the overall look.

Don't have any suggestions for a name right now, but I thought I'd mention that.

I'm now doing the Odysseus mission. I expected it to be hard, saw it coming, still got wrecked twice but at least I saw it coming. But the problem this time is that I walked out the front door with the book and nothing happened. The objective says "Escape with the book". Well I did. What do you want me to do, skip out the door backwards while singing an Irish folk song?

Wait, just got it. I apparently had to exit and re-enter the mission four times to complete it. How could I miss a condition so obvious?

If you want me to fight four Malaises at once, please have the decency to warn me first.

Signed, a very irritated player.

P.S., New content is terribly balanced.

So my Bots/FF Mastermind, Dollmaster, is rapidly approaching Lore unlock. From what I gather, MMs are unique in that they can name their Lore pets. This poses a unique problem for me, because I have a pretty rigid naming scheme that, up until now, fit the amount of pets I had perfectly. They are...

Battle Drones: Lock, Stock, and Barrel
Protector Bots: Kit and Kaboodle
Assault Bot: Shabang

So each grouping of pets refers to a turn of phrase meaning "a group of constituent items". Until now, this has been a flawless naming scheme, but the addition of two more pets throws everything off. I've been trying for a long time now to think up another phrase with the same meaning, consisting of two key words. Unfortunately, I'm coming up dry. Sadly, the lack of any ideas is actually holding me back from pushing onward to Lore, because I know it'll drive me nuts if my naming scheme is ruined.

In short, I'm looking for ideas. With the aforementioned criteria, can anyone think of a good pair of names?

Some of us respect the lore and want to have our place in it. I've got no problem playing my former-criminal-turned-unwilling-hero Peacebringer, Day-Breaker. I play his as a true PB, with the expected conflict of a selfish thug that has a heroic squid in his brain telling him what to do.

Gameplay-wise? I find I'm pretty bad unless on a decent sized team. That passive makes up for a huge amount of my overall power. The lack of mez protection before Light Form is making me rather unhappy, as well as the fact that I'm usually forced to go shellfish-mode and pretend I'm a tanker.

Anyways, point being, if you're one of those people who wants to become a part of the game world, then Kheldians are for you. If you just want to ignore the lore and be Angsty McGrimdark #1138, then by all means don't make a Kheldian.

Put it this way: The alternative is Reichman.

I haven't even seen most of the trial because some bonehead on the dev team decided to front-load the rewards. Combined with the apparent difficulty and the fact that it's the only way to get Hybrid, they might as well have put a neon flashing message on it saying "farm me please".

Between that and the Night Ward content, this patch is sloppy as hell. Oh look, more enemies who just use player powersets with no regard to balance. I'm currently tabbed out and waiting for Ward to regen his health so I can take out the second of three EBs the game spontaneously dropped on me, despite the fact that Ward is not equipped to deal with it. This slapdash design of new content is beyond pissing me off, nostalgia and my love of old content is the only thing keeping me here. Whoever is in charge of new content can go jump in a lake, I've lost faith.

/endrant

This might be a stupid question, but I tend to be a stupid individual, so here we go:

Does the Brute's Fury proc per cast, or per target. I.E., would it be smarter to have it on a fast power like Jab or a AoE power like Foot Stomp. Is it possible to slot on a damage aura, and what would the result be?

This might incur the wrath of more than a few high-profile forumites, but I can't help but state my opinion on the matter:

Why would you want to gimp yourself with SOs in the first place?

I can already hear the people screaming "The Devs said IOs were not required!" The Devs also said that five freaking years ago. Can you get by with SOs in end-game content? Sure, you probably could. It would be a struggle, and you would be constantly falling behind your teammates. But why would you ignore the metric ton of IOs pouring into your inventory, except to be some sort of hipster who refuses to accept a core game element? It all reminds me of so many grandmothers refusing to accept that "new-fangled technolojomy and all them video-boxes."

6 years playing, just found out about a month ago that V + Click moves you to the location you click. Not that I care really, since I prefer WASD and clicking powers.

It's not so much that finding the zone the first time is difficult, as has been stated the game makes it pretty clear when it introduces the area to you at gunpoint.

The problem for me is returning there a second time. I know that if I want to get anywhere in the Rogue Isles, I need to take the ferry or helicopters. I know that if I want to get anywhere in Paragon, I need to take the monorail or highways. I know that if I want to get to First Ward or Dark Astoria, I need to...Locate a three-foot-wide portal slapped in a random corner of a random zone.

They handled the new portals poorly. There should have been a main hub of travel to get to these places. If only we had someplace with a lot of PORTALS. Like a CORPORATION of some sort...

Woot, Seung Mi-Na. Soul Calibur 2 was one of my favorite games of all time. Raphael was a bawss before they ruined him in 3.

I don't care about the suggestion one way or another, just letting my nostaliga fly.

Please note: I'm not very good at organizing my thoughts and putting them on paper. This isn't going to be a freakin' thesis like some people would write, and I can guarentee I'm going to come off as some snarky a-hole. Well that's because I am a snarky a-hole, but I would appreciate if you took it seriously.

To summarize the issue at hand: In the six years I've played this game, the costume creator has received almost as little attention as base construction, if not less. In such time, I have seen it undergo two superficial changes (which admittedly did streamline the process a bit) and one, ONE, change to the fundamental system: Relocating tails to their own section separate from belts.

The following is a list of things I believe have been in need of changes for a very, VERY long time. The costume creator is one of if not the biggest draw to CoX for many players, enticed by it's freedom and flexibility. Said costume creator is also a frustration to some veterans such as myself (don't give me an attitude if your opinion differs, because I know someone will) for it's utterly boneheaded limitations. It's a "one more inch" issue, if the costume creator just had that tiny extra bit of choice, it would be flawless.

1) Split up the Detail 1 parts under the head section. I've been irritated by this for years, and I've made multiple posts on the matter. There are items in this section which are located at the eye level and at forehead level, for example glasses and horns, which would have exactly zero clipping if they were used simultaneously. Why, then, can't we have three sections? Upper Head, Mid Head, Lower Head. I can't be the only one who's always dreamed of a devil-horned greaser in aviator shades with a fat cigar.

2) Robotic Arms are arbitrarily limited, asymmetrical costumes are treated like the black plague. Again, for some reason there are limits where they make no sense. Why have the Robotic Arm sections never been updated with new parts, despite the myriad of robotic parts added to the game? Why in the flaming pits of Hell can't we have a robotic LEFT arm? Why are they even limited to robotic parts in the first place, why not just open the floodgates and allow total asymmetrical arm customization?

3) Trenchcoats. Why does this need it's own section? To needlessly prevent the combination of a trenchcoat and back items? Is there a good reason why you can't mix trenchcoats and wings? Would the universe implode?

4) Auras make no donkey-boffing sense. Some of them allow certain combinations that others don't. A few allow asymmetry (le gasp) and most don't allow that perfect combination of effects you wanted. Here's an idea: Why not just let us pick whether or not we want to have an aura in a certain location, instead of giving us random combinations of fist-eye-body-hair? And if you really want to shake things up, let us customize each aura location completely independent of the others, so you could for example have pink lightning coming out of your eyes and lime green sludge dripping from your fists. Choose which auras you want in combat and which you don't, allow trails auras with regular auras, there is a freaking legion of options that are being totally ignored for no good reason beyond "We said no."

In closing, I love the costume creator. I really do. It is my favorite part of the game, and that is why it infuriates me beyond reason to see so much wasted potential and pointless limitation. I think that after six years of seeing very little change, it's time to take a serious look at what can be done to make the costume creator new again.

I guess I should be the one to point out the obvious here:

Take a look at the anatomy of characters from any comic book, cartoon, manga, or anime* over the past 10-20 years. Now come back and try to argue that people shouldn't make unrealistically proportioned characters. Look at this man's chest and shoulders. Holy crap, that's not natural. And when I was a kid, I didn't care because it made him look strong and stylish.

Conclusion: Anatomical distortion is older than the comic book. Why are we even having this discussion?


* ZOMG He said anime! He must be sacrificed to keep our All-American animation styles pure and untainted by scary foreign influences!

I refuse, on principle, to use real money to pay for a consumable virtual item. I will pay for consumable food. I will pay for consumable toilet paper. I will not pay for a line of code that makes pretty lights shine once and then disappears.

That being said, I also refuse to pay for Super Packs, because what that says to me is "Nobody's falling for out RMT consumables, let's throw a couple good items into a random draw and then pad the f**k out of it with consumables nobody ever wanted." If this is the future of CoX, gambling for a chance to get costume parts that used to be free with your subscription, then I'll have no part of it and I fear for the future of my beloved game. It's bad enough that they're releasing a glut of new items which the monthly stipend will never be able to cover, now you want me to gamble? No thank you.

Well, I'll always take an opportunity to babble on about my characters. He's what I've got for my four most fleshed-out villains, starting with my main:

Capt. Stormrider: Stormrider was always a space pirate out for Personal Gain, but recently given the nature of the incarnate storyline his purpose has changed. Nowadays he straddles the line between greed and Higher Purpose, being destined by powers unknown to defend the universe (from what is as-of-yet undecided, either he's intended to fight the Battalion or protect the universe from humanity's unchecked growth).

Emerald Dervish: Also hard to place. Misguided Idealism is close, he is a Djinn who feels it is unfair that his people are forced to serve humans, and has spent his long existence fighting to change the order to favor the superior Djinni.

Dollmaster: I really have no idea. He's a crazy old man who flipped his lid when the Hero Corps separated him from his family back during the Cold War, fearing his robotic inventions. Since he refused to give his technology to the USA, he was branded a communist and incarcerated. After escaping, he crafted an android modeled after his young daughter (who he hasn't seen in over 40 years) and uses it via remote control to terrorize those in power from a hidden location. So yeah...Figure that one out.

Rose Prince: Squarely in the Misguided Idealism area, an eco-terrorist trying to level Paragon City and cull humanity's numbers, in order to make way for a new age of plants as the dominant species on Earth. He's trying to save the world even if it results in innocent people dying because he feels there's no other way, and he's definitely hopped the moral line quite a bit.

God no. Please stop messing with the graphics, everything from GR-onwards makes my eyes bleed and causes unnecessary lag. I don't even want to go into Atlas Park anymore, it looks like it was designed with crayons.

Why is the average car waist-high on my 5-foot-8 character, and why can I outpace them with a leisurely jog?

Answer: Paragon Studios has no idea what scale is.

Could somebody explain to me when the hell Paragon decides to give their players what they pay for? My account renews on the 10th every month, and I still haven't gotten my monthly points or token. This is getting absurd, what the hell am I paying for if I'm not getting my money's worth?

Is their a record that shows when all these things were credited to my account, because I'd like to review my history. I feel like I'm getting ripped off and I don't trust Paragon's business model any more.

Just something that came up while planning out my Crab, I was wondering how exactly these two things interact? Does it grant the 6% Acc to the person casting the aura, or to everyone being effected by the aura? And what about other similar procs? For example, I would like in my final build to include the following:

TT: Maneuvers slotted with Kismet + 6% Acc and LotG Recarge
TT: Leadership slotted with GSFC Chance for BU

So how will this play out? Who is effected by these bonuses? I have a Corruptor who uses Tactics with the GSFC piece, and I've never noticed the BU hit anyone but me (granted, I haven't been paying much attention), so I'm guessing that one only effects me personally.