Samuel_Tow

It's not restricted to just moving the side bar. Like with everything in this game, moving salvage sometimes doesn't "take." I'd blame lost packets, but I've had powers unqueue themselves and not fire, I've clicked on doors and nothing happened, I've bought from vendors and nothing happened. It's a fact of the game. Annoying, yes, but it happens with everything.

[ QUOTE ]
I've heard this argument about people not liking the raids, but I'm sorry, I can't give it any credence. It's part of the game, and only impacts people minimally and only occasionally. You can still do your story arcs and run missions in the zones (though hunts would go on hold, that's true), you just need to be wary of the Rikti.

[/ QUOTE ]

It impacts hunts, which are part of more than a few story arcs, and it impacts my ability to speak with my contacts if Rikti are spawning around me. Not all contacts can be spoken with wile having cover overhead.

Beyond that, what you're suggesting isn't something that inconveniences me "only occasionally," but rather something that will inconvenience me ALL THE DAMN TIME when all zones are permanently taken over by the Rikti. You're assuming that players will band together to fight the common threat, but you're projecting heroic values onto Average Joe players, and I know that I, for one, would rather log out of the game and play something else than be bullied into a raid when I don't feel like raiding.

Think of a way to improve the event that DOESN'T suck for those who don't want to take part in it and I won't have anything to complain. But please don't hide behind "it's part of the game." Just because it's in the game doesn't make it a good thing. Either work around involving people who do not wish to be involved or don't touch the event.

[ QUOTE ]
If we listen to this argument, nothing will ever get added to the game. Personally, I don't think that's a good plan. There's always someone who won't like something.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, if you listen to this argument, you'll end up making events that are both good for those who WANT to take part in them AND don't yank the rug from those who DO NOT WANT to be part of them. You don't get to pick who matters and who should be catered to. You cater to people who want it and give people who don't an out. Having all zones taken over by the Rikti and all regular spawns in them removed does not give such an out. For all I care, reward all people in the zone if a raid is fought off and simply don't if it isn't, but don't mess with the zone afterwards, please.

[ QUOTE ]
It seems to me that the reason people are sick of them is because they're pretty dull and meaningless and because they cause tons of lag. As I said, this idea would spread people out, thereby reducing the lag, and it would make the invasions more interesting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the reason people are sick of them is that not everyone likes to be forced into a raid. You can make it as interesting as you want, you're still not going to get everyone interested in being yanked out of what they were doing and join a big team doing some overcomplicated even. If you want people to not complain, then don't give them REASON to complain. Don't make them participate into something they don't want to.

You don't see me clamouring that Rikti and Zombie raids should be permanently discontinued, do you? I don't want to take them away from the people who DO like them. Won't even mind if they happened all the time, rather than on select weekends. But by the same token, don't clamour about how I should deal with the raids or go away because my attitude is bad for the game, please. Add options, don't change the game for everybody.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lag, space and vision are my main concerns for any team larger than the current maximum. Spawn points can be retooled (though given that Vernon's arcs still have the pre I7 bugged spawns, it may not be simple), but that won't solve the real problems.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not a problem for raid encounters, which is what I think the OP was getting at.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Not a problem" is subject to debate. A couple of days ago my game crashed upon arriving at a Rikti Raid mosh pit. The one I attended later the same day caused my video card temp to spike. The last Rikti Ship Raid I attended was a slideshow and several times caused server-side lag that made it highly uninteresting. And I still remember years ago when, while fighting the Hamidon, most of the participants along with the Hamidon himself would simply disappear because we hit the actors on screen limit.

And I don't have a weak machine, lemme' tell ya.

To each their own. I don't mind the fact that clothes look painted on one bit. I wouldn't refuse them being retooled to look a little better and be made much higher resolution, but I don't find it problematic to look at them or use them, and indeed use them on a lot of my designs.

I'm also not a big fan of Bridal or Witch because they're too detailed. I like the game's stylistic inclination, so unless my costume is designed to be ornate, I rather enjoy the flat, smooth look of the painted-on clothes.

[ QUOTE ]
Personally, I find tile-matching puzzles irresistible. I count the time I spent in Free Realms sorting letters in the same category as the time I spent on Popcap's website playing Bejeweled. The fact that I levelled up in Postman is pretty much incidental.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's an interesting introspect about the nature of minigames inside a uni-macro-game. For me, these things are a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE distraction that I want to get out of the way so I can get back to whatever else the game was about, as I can't stand these things. I hate tile-matching games, I can't stand to play Tetris for more than 15 minutes every few years, I despise the rearranging the tiles to form a picture game if it's anything less than straightforward (say, using non-equal shaped pieces) and so on and so forth.

In my time, I've played a couple of pure puzzle games. One was a point-and-click adventure that was quite literally one puzzle after the other. They started fairly easy, like "you have a 3 gallon jug and a 5 gallon jug, how do you fill the big one to 4 gallons," only done with chains and weights or the one where you have to match a pattern, but every action moves several pieces at once. They were annoying, but fairly easy, until the game started getting into more and more bizarre puzzles with absolutely no explanation given, or only a riddle to guide you, I suppose with the idea that I'd simply blunder through the puzzles and come up with an idea of what I'm actually supposed to do, let alone how to do it. I ended up reading a guide, and even with THAT, I couldn't track down where in the game I had clues what needed to be done. And that's in a game with a tips system, no less.

The other was Safecracker. I got this game with the idea that I would be cracking safes, and I was hideously interesting what they would have done to make that interesting. The answer was "nothing," because the game ended up a Zork-style explorer in a house with multiple inane puzzles in each room, none of them simple or even comprehensible. The one that really did me in was the aforementioned "move the pieces around to form a picture," only some pieces were too big and couldn't be moved past others. There was also a ball puzzle, where you have to roll a ball around a table until it hit something and mind that you don't roll it off the table. Took me half an hour but I figured this one out, just barely. When I realised, however, that this was a game ENTIRELY about inane puzzles and that they were only going to get WORSE, I removed it from my hard drive. Yuck!

Some people like puzzles and minigames, and truth be told most people can tolerate any puzzle that is simple, obvious or at the very least quick. But I can guarantee that the number of people who will want to sit through a puzzle drops off SHARPLY as the puzzle's difficulty and complexity increase and the amount of available explanation decreases. Very few are the people who will look at a table with pieces scattered around and think "Let's see if I can find a pattern to these and see if I can't figure out how they should be arranged." Most people would just say "Forget this!" and either go do something else or look at a guide.

I'm the kind of person who will give every puzzle a try as long as I know what I'm trying to do. If I find a puzzle that's sort of there and I need figure out what the actual point is, forget it. If the puzzle is so complex that I can't understand how one could possibly solve it, forget it. And, oftentimes, if it feels like it's more a chore than fun to solve it, forget that, too.

With the above tirade in mind, I'm not sure I'm a big fan of introducing minigames and puzzles as an integral part of the game. I'm not sure I'd be specifically opposed to them being added to something like Pocket D as distractions, but given that they're already widely available on the Internet, whereas free games about my custom-made characters kicking [censored] aren't as common, I'm not sure that's a very worthwhile investment of resources.

Sorry about the stupid title, but I have a couple of questions on how to make a few specific things. Since I was completely unable to find the old guides I read, here goes:

How can I make a "defeat boss" objective spawn a lieutenant instead of a boss, or at least how can I make it let me pick from the default group bosses?

How can I make a set of click objectives, only one of which actually matters and the rest do not, such that it doesn't display the total number of objectives to click?

Alternately, how can I make an objective NOT show up in the bjectives screen? Would simply not making it required work?

It may not be a bad idea (and it isn't bad), but let's not jump to "great" straight away. Making Rikti Invasions more obnoxious and FORCING people to participate in them or lose their zones is not something I want to see. The biggest complaint about Rikti Invasions NOW is that people are sick and tired of them and would rather not lose access to their zones over an event like that.

Believe it or not, not everybody likes events.

Aside from saying that I do believe Storm Summoning is a thematic match with Electrical Blast (what with all the lightning and a little power customization) and that Gravity Control seems like a thematic match for Forcefields, I don't really have much. You can make a point that red power blasts are a good match for Corrupter Pain Dominations (and you'll get your red power blasts), and that it isn't really a straight-up case of "matching" sets for Masterminds, though.

I would, however, say that I'm not sure I'd like to see old sets specifically remade to match so much as brand new sets. Old sets remade I'd view more as a bigger version of proliferation, but when I think NEW sets, I think... Well, handguns and demon summoning.

Choosing between working on PvP and working on bases is a little like choosing between a sack full of rats and getting kicked in the nuts.

I used to be like this, myself. Every little bit of clipping, lack of match between the shading of two pieces and so forth, would bug me to NO end. Hell, just ask Zombra Eventually, I had to make the decision between giving a character a pair of Tech Wings that made him look REALLY good, even though their shiny texture would NEVER shade quite the same as his matte back. I opted to pick the combination despite this imperfection, and it bugged me for a while, lemme tell you.

I don't know whether I simply got used to this, and the other things I chose that bugged me, but I've slowly started simply not noticing these things. And not just the things I picked before and that I'm used to. I'm generally a lot less picky about perfection as long as it looks good from a fair distance. Sure, whether it looks good or not when it bugs you all the time is an apt question, but for me I found that what bugged me was compulsive, whereas what I liked was conscious. Ignoring the compulsive didn't really decrease my enjoyment of my character, whereas embracing the conscious increased it significantly.

In short, sometimes you just gotta' do stupid, ugly stuff and stick with it for a while. It may grow on you

You ought to be very careful not to make things require a specific AT or be either impossible or at least a major pain. There are plenty of other reasons to invite Stalkers to teams than their stealth. In fact, their stealth is pretty much the primary reason NOT to invite one.

I'm also a very big opponent to "stealthing" missions as a valid game mechanic. Let people who like doing that do it to their heart's content. They're missing more reward than they're getting for the time it takes. But City of Heroes does not have a good mechanic for sneaking around, beyond "they can't see you past 5 feet." No climbing pipes, shimmying on ledges, sneaking up behind guards and so forth. Hell, why bother when you can just teleport?

I'd say let stealth be a combat tool, and leave it at that.

Lag, space and vision are my main concerns for any team larger than the current maximum. Spawn points can be retooled (though given that Vernon's arcs still have the pre I7 bugged spawns, it may not be simple), but that won't solve the real problems.

Lag is a big factor. Graphics lag is the immediate concern - too much geometry and and particles bog down and overheat your system and, much more plainly, lag you into a slideshow. The developers have stated a few times that they specifically made spawns smaller and made them swell up by replacing minions with lieutenants and bosses, rather than purely in size, though that may have relaxed over the years. There's also network lag. If your connection is anything but very fast and perfectly stable, a large battle will tax it and you WILL lose packets, ping time and ultimately connection to the mapserver. There's also server-side lag to contend with. The servers are made to handle thousands of people at a time, just not thousands of people IN THE SAME PLACE. I remember years ago being part of a Hamidon raid that crashed Victory twice as close to 200 people started entering the Hive, back in the day. Crashes take a LOT of load, but it doesn't take all that much to cause server-side lag, such that a 10-second recharge power takes 60 seconds to become available and queued powers take 10 seconds to fire even though they are ready. Rikti Invasions already produce this.

There's also the matter of flatout land area available in most missions. I was once on a team of four Masterminds, and between us, our henchmen and the lobby guards of the Talos Island Mayhem mission, we jam-packed the lobby such that it was almost impossible to move around, and that was back in the days before pushable henchmen. That's a team of four, some without their full range of henchmen and fighting a spawn that wasn't really full-size. A team of eight is even worse, and it would have to squeeze past much smaller maps, like blue caves, sewer bulkheads, office building doors and so forth. It's bad enough on an 8-man team now, a team even bigger than this, with the potential of overflowing pets, henchmen, temp power summons and so forth, it would just make certain maps flatly unplayable. Even a single Mastermind causes problems in caves now, and it's not rare you'll see multiple on a team if the team leader is not a jerk.

There's also the matter of visibility. Large teams tend to have an overabundance of special effects. Heal auras, forcefields, Dark debuffs, Rad debuffs, Poison debuffs, damage auras and so on and so forth. That's before we take into account the many, many effects that attacks are constantly generating, both from the team and from the enemies. After a certain point, actually SEEING anything in the pea soup of effects becomes difficult, making targeting difficult and picking an appropriate target pretty much impossible. That's whit eight people. With more, it just becomes far too much, both throwing strategy out of the way when you can't see past the reach of your arms and throwing off the point of the game if all you're doing is looking at your powers tabs.

For special occasions with less graphics-intensive enemies on less graphics-intensive, wide open terrains, maybe I can see this. If there's enough room to house all players, pets, NPCs and NPC pets and enough objectives to kind of spread them around, then sure, I don't see a problem. But not as an extra difficulty setting or an expansion to the regular team size.

To get rid of Fire Sword, no doubt, which I doubt would ever happen. I don't see elemental weapon attacks as a problem in elemental sets, as there really are only so many ways to "punch things with an element" and explaining an elemental weapon is simple.

As for Super Strength, that might actually make for a pretty cool Stalker with the right animations. Think of its Assassin's Strike as a REALLY powerful punch delivered against an unaware, unbraced target. I'd give it mag 100 knockback and SERIOUS knockback distance

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, and the GMs & Devs don't really come here and they typically do not respond directly to Suggestions from this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not exactly true. I don't remember who it was, but at least a couple of developers have said, at one point or another, that they read, but rarely respond to suggestions as most of what we suggest is either flatout impossible or things they already thought of.

And, yes, Power for tech support, please!

It used to be that the first item you'd put on the store would default to 10 or the number of items in the stack you tried to move if the stack was smaller than 10, then every transfer thereafter would default to the number given to the previous transfer.

This changed. Now the first transfer you do will open with NO default (literally nothing, not 0, not even a number in the field) and would then default to 1 if you try to move the slider. It won't let you move the slider when it defaults, so you need to click a second time if you want to drag it. I've gotten into the habit of simply double-clicking the slider the first time I visit the Market after logging in.

[ QUOTE ]
Well, they wouldn't move to all adjacent zones, just one at a time. For instance, they would go to Steel, but not the Hollows and Perez and so on (or to one of them, but not the others).
Also, I would love to see this kind of thing happening more often, the zones are pretty boring as it is.
Maybe once a zone is captured (ie the heroes fail to repel the Rikti) the heroes could then try to retake it?
just going around mindlessly doing radio missions or grinding is just BORING. We need something more interactive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your boring zones are my perfectly right zones, and I would hate to have a zone hunt holding up a story arc put on indefinite hold because there weren't enough people online to stop a Rikti invasion.

You're going about this from the stance of wanting to make Rikti Invasions more interesting. I'm going about it from the stance of wanting Rikti Invasions STOPPED because I prefer a static world. I'm simply not going to agree to any change that has a chance to deny me access to part of the game and stop arcs in progress dead due to conditions outside of my control.

Hell, you don't even need a melee character all the time. I've played teams of, say, all Blasters and it was pure carnage before anyone had a chance to so much as even think about attacking us. I've also played teams of all Dominators since I15's changes, and it's been much the same result - a bunch of enemies incapable of taking action waiting to be killed.

I suppose if you're going for some stupid difficulty setting and want maximum return for your time, you may want to build the perfect team, but for regular contact instances? Who needs anything but whatever you snag off team seek?

I'm actually not opposed to the addition of traps in missions. Remember the mission against the Sea Witch on the Carpe Diem? The Legacy Chain there have this cute little sigils on the ground that, when you walk over them, explode and summon a Lumpy Rocky, a trio of Fire Monkeys and a renamed Phantasm. It's a very basic "spawn" that I think is part of the map, and it's really a LOT more annoying than it's fun to encounter, but it's not a bad idea.

We already have the Terra Volta trial explosive barrels, the Mayhem Mission alarms that summon ambushes and the Legacy Chain monster traps. The foundation is there to give at least a few enemy groups their own traps. Say, the Malta Group could have motion scanners and claymores, the Devouring Earth could have gas bags that burst when you step on them, the CoT could have wards that debuff you when you walk over them and so forth. Might make perception a bit more useful in PvE, too.

[ QUOTE ]
UMMmmmm...
Your Registartion on the forums is 2006. ^_^;
So um why is everyone saying welcome to coh if you have been around since 2006 thats 3 years....
I think its funny that people who have registared in 2007 and 2008 even said welcome to you...
=<_<=
I must be missing something....

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, you're missing the part where he said he played CoH for a week three years ago and left. It pays to read the whole thread before you post the obvious, especially in a thread that's relatively small and full of short posts.

As for the OP, grab yourself a couple of global channels of your server forum and chat in them. Broadcast is limited by zone and few people use it, so I wouldn't expect much chatter in it. I would, in fact, not LIKE much chatter in it. A SG will help, as will global friends you make, but a couple of global channels will probably be the best choice.

I subscribe to the KKND approach to teaming. That is to say, Krush, Kill n' Destroy. If you're going to turn teaming into a needlessly complicated dance, then I'll go kill stuff by myself, or with a team that's more open to just flipping out and killing stuff.

Hell, why does everyone always paint "the Tanker" as the big man on the team who's the most important? Pretty much every team I'm ever on doesn't even HAVE a Tanker, yet we still do just fine.

[ QUOTE ]
Skimpy outfits. I'm pretty sure some of you know my attitude towards nudity (well, Lothic should at least). That said, the problem with wearing skimpy clothes is that they are nothing more than body paint. Female models are already awful (where's the belly button by the way?) and outfits like Eden that lack any "substance" to them produce the effect of an animated, painted plastic doll. It's not alluring in the least and results in the uncanny valley effect again.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're missing the point that some of us go for the "uncanny valley" effect on purpose. That said, I never saw either women or men as "animated plastic dolls, as I tend to have a more relaxed view on "realism." In fact, I prefer CoH's more stylistic, less realistic visuals over pretty much every other game's over-detailed, realistic-wannabe designs which just don't look... Interesting. I've been a long time fan of animation, specifically anime and manga, and it has been my impression that characters don't have to look photo-realistic, realistic or even NORMAL for them to be both interesting and exciting. That's why I got so interested in Dragonica's absolutely unrealistic chibi characters.

As a matter of fact, I'd go as far as to say that characters don't need to look human at all. Hell, half the characters you'll see in City of Heroes overtly AREN'T. I don't mind the paint-on clothes. In fact, I actually like them. I'd like them more if they could be used over anything OTHER than human skin, but what is the ever. I don't mind the legs. In fact, I like the long-legged design and pretty much all of my characters have their leg slider anywhere from 3/4 up to all the way up. I simply like the look.

As for "decency," yes, I remember your views on the matter. Suffice it to say that I don't see decency as something that should stand in the way of a good design. As long as it's made with taste and skill, I can get over anything it may have done "wrong" to get there.

OK, here's a relatively stupid question, but it's one that's been eating at me for... Probably years. What does a Mercs Mastermind say into his radio when he's calling in troops or supplies? I know he has three or four lines that he uses at random irrespective of what he's actually calling for (the dispatcher must be psychic or something) but I can only actually parse one:

Bravo 370

Which I guess could also mean "B370," which in turn can be code for... Something. I'm fine with not knowing what the codes mean. I'm sure not even the developer who put the messages in knew or cared what they meant. But I want to know what they SAY.

So... Anyone with a sharp ear or inside information think they can write them out?

Empowering ANY player not under the employ of PlayNC with Game Master privileges is pretty much the equivalent of Pandora's Box. No chance in hell.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Quick question - what does the rest of your team do while you're conversing with the Skull. For that manner, what do the rest of the Skulls do while you're conversing with one specific Skull? If the answer is "wait," we have a problem.

[/ QUOTE ]
obviously, nothing is not an option. keep the rest of the goons busy? hold up the wall that is getting ready to collapse bringing down the rest of the building while you find a quick way to save all the occupants? i dunno. answer it for yourself. what would you like to do while the team "leader" is conversing?

[/ QUOTE ]

Same thing I do when I'm watching an unskippable cutscene for the zillionth time - turn around and watch TV for 5 minutes. Which is NOT a good thing for a game to incite. Ideally, what I would like to do is AVOID having "the leader" engage in conversation while we're fighting, because having one team-mate and one enemy stand still for the majority of the fight does nothing to enhance my gameplay. This is good for a single-player game like Mass Effect, but not so good for an MMO.

Besides, it would be nice to stay within the realms of what's conceivable to do in the game. Pretty much the only two options are "stand around," which is bad, and "fight," which makes the entire conversation patently possible. The only way to make this in the slightest at all meaningful is to make the encounter practically unwinnable but through diplomacy, which then becomes cheap and lame right off the bat, especially in a game that's about killing things. I don't mind more interactive missions, but I don't consider them to be the holy grail of gameplay. In fact, for the most part those "minigames" irritate me more than they help me enjoy my time. I certainly got sick of all the riding around in super-slow lifts in Mass Effect.

Also, "figure it out yourself" is not a very good stance when you're trying to sell an idea.

This is a very old issue, been here since 2004. First time it happened to me, I contacted CuppaJo, and she told me to wait and see if it goes away, and then contact customer support if it doesn't. It fixed itself within around half an hour to an hour of appearing.

If yours doesn't fix itself, keep asking customer support.