_Synchrotron_
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Posts
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Joined
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Regardless of the desirability of the power accepting PBAoE IO sets, mechanically, it's a Targeted AoE power - the effect of the power is centered on the target, not the player.
This may <standard code rant applies> mean that it cannot accept PBAoE slots, since it's not a PBAoE power. I don't know, but it may not be as simple as people seem to be assuming... It's certainly not a bug, as the power is accepting the sets that match its implementation. -
Quote:This. This arc (along with the Path of the Dark arc) worked much better prior to the Council retcon. Returning them to their original forms would be an excellent place to start.Originally Posted by Dr_MechanoEU
One thing I'd like to see is Ubelmann the Unknown and all the originally 5th Column focused arcs to be switched BACK to being 5th Column.
Ubelmann just doesn't work right with Council as the main enemy. -
Given the technology currently in the game, it's unlikely that we'll see customizable rocket boards anytime soon.
They'd have to fix the current UI and underlying issues with power customization for "optional" powers first - so until we get customizable pool powers and the like, don't expect customizable purchasable powers.
They can, however, make multiple purchasable rocket boards, flying discs, broomsticks, whirligigs, etc... But each would be a separate purchasable power. -
No. There's a six-pack of them on sale in the store (or there was yesterday), which you could use some of the "head-start" points you got to obtain. It's quite a good price if you're going to use them.
We'll be getting one free transfer sometime next week, if the fates are kind.
Quote:The VIP Character Transfer Tokens will not be available to players with the launch of the City of Heroes Freedom VIP Head Start. We plan to include these in a patch that will go live early next week. Players will be granted their token upon the first login after the patch. -
And then there was the kind soul who grabbed the "main" name of a SG-mate of mine, in order to give it to them. Gratis.
So they're not all evil villainous name-camping schemers out there... -
Quote:I think you're mistaken. We got power customization for the Incarnate powers - which, while clunky from a UI perspective, does work. So they're aware it's important, and willing to do some work to get it done.Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
IF they gave a monkeys, they'd have finished power customization ages ago, but the clearly don't so don't be expecting them to EVER get it done. Not without the dev who was the impetus for it in the first place.
But adding customization for epic/ancillary/temp powers is obviously more work than it appears, on the UI/data front anyways. As an example, for the Incarnate powers we don't get the power we currently have slotted, or all the powers we have built, we get every possible power for that slot.
The implication is that for pools, we'd have to list every single pool/temp power. And toss around the data for all of them. Plus whatever work there is to attach the per-character color data to the pool powers. If I had to guess, it's not making colorizable versions of the powers that's the holdup.
So I suspect it'll come eventually, but it may be a while. It gets brought up all the time on the weekly ustreams, and they seem quite (painfully) aware of how requested this is... -
Quote:Two reasons (at least) - one, as mentioned, it's a bonus. Don't look equine-presents in the pie-hole.Originally Posted by EtherealStar
Why not, instead of only giving us the option of 1 transfer per month, let us choose between 1 transfer, 1 rename, 1 power respec token, or 2 character slots?
Transfers generally aren't very useful to people on a monthly basis, but additional character slots definitely would be. We could progressively make new characters each month to keep things interesting. Likewise, players tend to change power setups every now and then, and a respec token would be useful. A rename token is an extra option for those interested, as the transfer should also be.
This is just my two cents, though... I personally have no use for transfers whatsoever, and likely will never use them, but I could and would use the other ones.
Second, giving us a choice would be work - work that would take away from other features/bug fixes.
Right now, VIPs just get +1 to their number-of-transfers. Adding a choice would mean something like making a character item that, when claimed, brought up the list-of-things-you-could choose, which then granted a character item for that thing. (Which you would then claim, although I don't know how that would work for transfers. See - this is already getting messy...)
Way more complicated to do, and way more complicated to explain - it would probably generate customer support queries, and refund requests ("I didn't mean to claim a transfer! Can I get it back?") and, in general, cause hassles. For a bonus.
So while it's entirely understandable that you'd prefer something else, nothing they chose would be universally welcomed, and implementing a choose-your-bonus system would likely be more trouble than it's worth. End result; We get a free transfer.
And if you have two transfers (and a couple free slots), they can act as a proxy for a free rename. Transfer character "Generic Hero" to another server. Create "Generic Hero" again on your home server, and transfer him back. Viola! He (She/It) gets renamed... -
Quote:It's not just the time to fix the animations, it's the time to get the game to "know" you're flying on a rocket board instead of just-regular-flying.Originally Posted by Aggelakis
I'm just wondering why they didn't do Only Affect Self instead of detoggle. Oh no, I can click self heals and keep my toggles running! The number of animations required to 'fix' Only Affect Self animations is a fraction of the total number of animations in the game. (Especially since most of the Only Affect Self powers all use a handful of the same animations.)
They'd have to add another mode "standing on a flying thing" to the game, and duplicate all the animation tables for it, and then make sure adding another one hadn't broken anything, etc. It's highly non-trivial to do. Then they could make new animations (or use the ground ones in some cases). And it wouldn't work for "riding on a flying thing" powers (just in case magic brooms are in our future...) - the game system, as currently implemented, isn't set up to support this sort of thing.
They might eventually be able to suppress powers instead of turning them all off, but that would still require some technical work - although not as much as allowing power activations would.
For the foreseeable future, we're not going to be using powers on rocket boards and friends. -
Quote:The fundamental reason they can't go with "only effecting self" is that you'd be able to activate new powers on the board. And since the board flies, you'd be using the flying versions of those animations, which would look, well, very wrong.Originally Posted by Socorro
I just got it - it's neat but kinda wish I'd held off buying it. Dropping all toggles is tiresome. I understand not allowing attacks due to animations issues, but why couldn't it behave like Afterburner does (when on, you have 'Affecting Only Self', meaning you can't attack, but your toggles don't drop)
Changing that is non-trivial. And if you have ambitions for other travel-gadgets that you don't stand on (magic brooms, mini-copters, etc...) every one of them would also require yet-another-special-case for animations. It would be a nightmare.
Something more likely (although still requiring some new tech) would be to disable activations and suppress all powers, instead of detoggling them. That wouldn't require entirely new animation data/travel modes, and would be universally applicable. You'd still be powerless while in the air, but at least you wouldn't have to turn them all back on again when you got off.
Near-term, any new travel toys we get are likely to be a) uncustomizable, and b) detoggling.
Oh, and just in case it's not clear, ALL powers are disabled on the board - not just toggles. So passive powers like health, stamina, or the melee sets passive resists are also not in effect while on the board. -
Quote:The primary reason for that (Kinetics is a set that it's particularly obvious on) is the original graphics aren't limited to two colors. Or the color palette we have. The combination of those two things means there is often no possibility of duplicating the original art using the customized settings.Originally Posted by NuclearToast
My biggest complaint with power customization? I CAN'T MATCH "ORIGINAL" COLORS.
On my force field/energy defender, I wanted to make the energy blasts with the same colors and the force fields (which I didn't change). But there's no way to find out what the Original colors are. As soon as you hit Customized, some sort of random colors comes up. Which then requires me to trial-and-error my way into matching the colors.
(I've had to do this for several characters. The above is just one example. And I'm rarely pleased with the results, even after several iterations.)
--NT
So there's no pair of colors the UI could select as "defaults" that would work. They could go through all the sets and come up with something close, but it still wouldn't be right, and it would be a substantial amount of work. -
Quote:The difference is that you're flying on the Rocket Board, and on the ground for Power Slide. Thus, any powers you activated would use the flying animations, which aren't "rooted" to the ground - or, in this case, the board.Originally Posted by AquaJAWS
I get the animation argument for walk, however I'm not sure how it applies to the rocket-board.
If the rocket-board animations are based off of the power slide animations, that have been in the game forever, and able to use with other power animations just fine...why is it unreasonable to just use the same animations that you would use with the power slide with the rocket board?
You would need to add a genuinely new "travel mode" to the game, and then duplicate all the animation data for every power, and then redo the animations where the ground versions wouldn't do (I imagine many of the melee sets would need substantial work). This would let you do "standing on" things, but wouldn't work for "riding on" things, barring yet-another-redo-of-animations. Prospects of riding a broom/vehicle/board while being able to use powers are dim for the foreseeable future.
If it was easy/simple to do, they'd have done it. It's not. But if the statement of one of the senior animators for the game isn't good enough for you, I'm not sure anyone's will be.
Customizable Rocket Boards won't happen until after pool powers are customizable - which they're (probably painfully) aware we all want, and haven't ruled out yet, so that might actually happen someday. At the moment, the best they could do would be to make different versions, separately purchasable, for each desired option.
Not only do they have to find a way to add customization data for pool/temp powers to your character data, they need a UI that allows you to select and customize the powers you have - look at incarnate customization, for example. Currently you get the list of all possible powers for each slot you unlock. That's already awkward enough, without adding every pool, epic, patron and temp power to the list... -
Synchrotron, the heroine, wasn't such on Day 1 of the Rikti War. The "lab accident" Crey arranged didn't occur until later. Carolyn Carter, however, was in her labs - located in Steel Canyon on that day. She would have been trying to use the prototype battlefield support armor (which would become the basis of the Synchroton armor) to help people, and leverage anything else from the labs in support of the City's populace and heroes. Portable power supplies, energy weapons and prototype medical systems and the like would have been available.
Erin O'Carroll was a college undergrad working for a Crey subsidiary studying portal technology when the Rikti invaded. Captured by the initial raid, their scanners revelaed her latent abilities, and they decided to use them by using her as the core of a force field generator to protect the foothold. She spent the next few months as a defense component, until rescued by heroes. She became the heroine Quantum Field.
Natalie Johanson, codename: Mindwrack was still a Malta Group telepathic assassin at the time of the first invasion. Raised as such from childhood, she would have been striking from the shadows with telepathic assaults from long range - and reporting to Malta on intel gleaned from reading the minds of the invaders. Ironically for the Malta Group, the aftermath of the war and the formation of Vanguard would set into motion the series of events that led to Natalie discovering the Group's true nature. -
Originally Posted by Stray Kitten View Post
Looking to run this this coming Saturday, 9/3 at 4PM EST. Sign ups below:
[Team 1]
1. @Stray Kitten - Claw/SR Scrapper
2. @BigMoneyHustla - Ice/Fire Blaster
3. @Sweet Justice -Dark/Dark def tho I could bring one of several other AT if needed
4. @Disciple of Horus - Fortunata
5. @Synch - Synchrotron
6.
7.
8.
[Team 2]
1. @Rad Avenger - Fire/Cold Corruptor
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
[Team 3]
1. @Force - Fire/Cold or Rad/Therm Corruptor
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. @gameboy1234 - Iron Mistress -
The solo damage boost Defenders get will be superior to Corrupter scourge for minions and lieutenants - bosses and higher, it begins to get more interesting, as they will be alive for longer when scourge can kick in.
For elite bosses and AVs, scourge is clearly superior. There are threads in the forums analyzing the whole issue, but that's the back-of-the-envelope summary.
So to some extent it depends on if you intend to face a lot of bosses solo. If so, the Corrupter may have a real advantage.
I'd make the decision based on what you want the focus to be - especially at the early levels. Are you a beam rifleman with some deployable traps, or are you a traps-master with a beam rifle?
Corrupters will get more beam rifle attacks sooner, and Defenders will get the better traps sooner. Especially at the lower levels, the earlier access to more attacks will make more difference than the inherent powers will in terms of defeat-rate.
Another possible question is what you intend the character to be when "complete" - if you're going to try for things like soft-capping defenses, the higher Defender numbers for Maneuvers and the force field generator may influence your choice.
There's also something satisfying about seeing the "scourge" come up - even when it's overkill and didn't really do anything.
But at the end of the day it's about making the character fun for you to play - so pick the AT that better matches your vision, and how soon you want access to the various powers. Either one will be perfectly capable of soloing CoH mission content, and will be capable of supporting a team when you're inclined to do so. -
Quote:The pragmatic reason for destroying Galaxy is the Atlas Park revamp. The devs wanted players leaving the new tutorial to have an updated zone to transition to, rather than one of the oldest zones in the game.Originally Posted by Flarstux
Grumble, grumble.
There's plenty of space on the city map between the zones we know for a whole new tutorial area. There's no need to destroy Galaxy City. Why do it, anyway? Shock value? Bah. I would once again advocate destroying Atlas Park, but upon reflection all that would likely accomplish would be to turn Galaxy City into Atlas Park II.
Grumble, grumble.
I'm not keen on losing Outbreak, either. I take screenies of all my new heroes with Flower Knight. It's become a TRADITION. I'm sure there are others who would like to keep Breakout as well. Why the heck can't the devs keep *both* of those starting areas in game and just *add* this new one so we can CHOOSE which one we want to start in... and keep Galaxy City, too!
Grumble, grumble.
Keeping Galaxy City would have doubled the work required to do that - so it had to go, and if it had to go, it may as well go out with a bang.
I'll miss Galaxy too - I do hope for a new event/trail fighting Shivans in the ruins of Galaxy, however. I also do like the idea that the game world evolves over time. -
Quote:3 is highly unlikely (very highly unlikely) - allowing attacks would require a new animation for every power in the game, much as flight did when they made the game. It's just not practical to re-animate every power in the game. Even an "only effects self" style change would still mean new animations, as you can still activate powers.Originally Posted by RavenSoul
3- How many here would prefer that Rocket Board didn't disallow attacks and detoggle you, or would you be happy enough to keep the toggles?
@Raven Lord
So while it would be very cool to swoop in on a rocket board attacking, it's not happening anytime soon - and probably just plain isn't happening. Because of that, it's also unlikely that Rocketboard (or other vehicular powers) will become another travel pool, or an option to customize existing travel pools. -
Quote:If the development team ever does anything on the scale of Going Rogue again, it seems likely they'll charge for it - I think they'd have to in order to justify the time/effort/resources that such an undertaking would require.Originally Posted by Doctor_Gemini
Access to zones or missions. As a VIP player, I believe I should never have to worry that I might be invited to a team and find I can't run the content they are planning on doing.
Sadly, the fact that it would upset me would not stop me from paying for it.
So while I wouldn't expect (or like) them charging for "finishing off" Going Rogue, it would neither surprise nor upset me if they charged for a new set of zones, and the content that went with them.
To a degree, I share the concerns about fracturing the playerbase - but if the entire zone is gated, and missions don't just "dip" in and out of it, I don't think there's much risk - you don't (or I don't, at least) see teams forming in Primal earth, and then saying "lets do a few Praetorian missions now" - I don't even see teams switching red/blue midstream. I do see co-op teams staying in the RWZ, say.
So I wouldn't like the idea of selling individual missions to VIP players, for the reasons you state. I'm a bit iffy about the signature stories - they will fragment the VIP/non-VIP playerbase - I'd have preferred to allow folks along who haven't bought the mission, but not give them any badges, end-of-mission XP, or other spiffy end-of-mission rewards. But that's something they can address over time if it turns out to be an actual problem.
As for the original question, I'd be mildly unhappy to see PvP and Purple IOs in the store, or anything in the store that you could sell for inf. Other than that, if they put something in there that I don't like/want/think is too costly, I'll just ignore it. -
Here's an evil idea; In Going Rogue we have missions where the decisions we make govern which contact disappears from the world for our character. What if they use that tech in the signature arc?
"Very well, <Player>, you can save Manticore, or you can save Sister Psyche. One will die, and you will choose. But know that I, Protean, will be victorious no matter how you choose. Of course, if you fail to choose swiftly, both will die. Bwahahahaa...."
Not that they'd be that evil... -
Quote:No, it means that subscribers who've been playing CoH since it began will be in tier 9 - Here's the link with the details:Originally Posted by JanusFrs
Lemme see if I get this right: If I will be inside a subscription period when i21/CoHF goes live, I will automatically be made a Tier 9, regardless of how many veteran rewards I've got?? Is that what this means????
http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/fre...s_details.html
The short of it is one point for every vet badge you have, plus one for every year you've been subscribed. -
For all that, I enjoy the heck out of my psi/mental/soul mastery blaster. It's not an AoE machine, but it kills... er... defeats things rather handily, and I didn't find the resists problematic on the way to fifty.
The psi blaster and the fire blaster are the two blasters I've taken through the incarnate stuff - the fire is fun for burning everything in sight, but for more precision mayhem I prefer the psi blaster - and soul storm is a wonderful thematic add.
The soul mastery hold shows up rather late, and requires side switching - not to mention having an onerous recharge, but the animation is great and it does help a lot - between the snipe and the hold, few spawns are much trouble. -
If you're running Windows 7 (or Vista), the OS uses the 3D hardware for the fancy desktop visuals - this may be sucking up more memory than you have available by the time the game is running too.
If so, Disabling the aero theme may help - try Windows 7 basic. That should reduce the video memory the desktop uses.
Something else to check is to see what resolution the game is running in - there's the 3d scaling setting, which renders the game smaller then scales it up. That will lower the game's use, as will lowering or turning off antialiasing.
Good luck... -
Quote:They tied Hami-Os to Hamidon raids, they tied the Task Force Commander accolade to the Task Forces. Both of those had non-team-related gameplay impact. In practice, the "solo path" to the Vanguard costumes wasn't much easier than the solo incarnate path - an hour's mothership raid would give 400+ Vanguard merits, as opposed to the one or two you'd get from the occasional rikti defeat, and some of the Roman costumes are gated by the ITF.Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades
Since you all continually CHOOSE to ignore it I will keep it in front of you:
THEY TIED COSTUMES, AURAS AND OTHER THINGS TO TRIALS.
Those are not trial only powers.
That team play gives rewards that alter the rest of the game is not new - that you may care more about what they've gated behind the trials, or dislike the trials more than the previous gates may be, but that's not a design issue with the game, that's a preference issue on your part.
If I were king of the forest I wouldn't have put some of the things in the astral/empyrian merit store that they did - but they're the designers, not I - so they got to pick.
If you want to express a desire to have an alternate means to obtain those things, then by all means do so - but to claim that having a non-trial-related reward available for the trials that both isn't available anywhere else, and that some people who don't team will want equates to a game-breaking change to the design philosophy? Well, that just doesn't match with reality. -
Quote:Five minutes seems a long time - I have a couple of suggestions:Originally Posted by Avatea
Elaborated on the Open League patch note to clarify that a 5-minute timer will start from the moment an Open league has reached the minimum number of participants for any given Incarnate Trial.
- This 5-minute delay will allow the Team-Up Teleporter system to look for more players queuing up for an Open League so there are potentially less players waiting in the queue after the start of the trial.
- The Trial will start when the timer reaches 5 minutes after the minimum number of participants has been reached or when the maximum number of participants has been gathered.
- Display the timer. Right now, people don't know why the trial isn't starting.
- At the least, put a message up saying it's going to wait for more players.
- Set the "auto start" threshold to something less than the maximum size. (maybe 75% of the maximum trial size?)
- Just make a shorter delay. Five minutes is a very long time. -
Some images from the New Valkyries base:
(not entering, just posting) -
Here's the PoM Library by Dinah which I'd like to enter:
