Samuel_Tow

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Rularuu Sentries have an inherent +100% tohit.

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I think the Soldiers of Rularuu are a relic from a time when the developers were still trying to introduced forced teaming by making enemies who were impossible to defeat solo.

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Interestingly enough, my storm/elec defender has no problem whatsoever with the rularuu. But then a strong -tohit, that has a repel, plus a hold and three damage pets will do that. The only ones that bug me are the boss wisps, cause they can det field you.

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I think that's part of why it was dropped as a driving priority. You can't really make a boss that's universally hard for everyone, and the harder you try, the more you run the risk of making that boss IMPOSSIBLE for some while STILL trivially easy for others. The I3 boss buffs, the pinnacle of this mistaken thinking, proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. The herder bosses became only kind of meaningful to Scrappers, but completely impossible for Blasters.

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Absolutely possible, and absolutely inappropriate to be doing so.

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Well, I guess that sinks that. Still, better to be shot down by a red name and know it than be shot down by other posters and debate it

BABs, if you get a few spare minutes some time, would you like to go into a bit more depth why that's inappropriate? Is it something in the system that's causing this to be too much work for too little effect, or is doing emotes while defeated (not stated anywhere that I can find to mean "dead" or even "unconscious") considered to be something you guys don't want to see? It's always interesting to get a bit of insight on how things work.

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I wish I was freakin' demorecording it. Seriously, my jaw dropped. I don't know why on earth it would have played the whirlwind animation, but it did, and it looked freaking AWESOME.

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I think some powers play that if you activate them while you're falling. My flying Broadsword Scrapper used to do that a lot when Avalanche Shamen hit me with -fly just as I was doing it. Probably not exactly the same reason, but BABs has said in the past that there are more animations, stances and modes than we can guess from looking at the game, and you've likely caused an animation to play from a mode where it was wrong.

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I made one... and then decided it was far too much work.

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Just about this. Making story arcs per se isn't much to write home about, but making GOOD ones is a LOT of work, a lot of testing a lot of refining, and it can make you frikkin' sick of the game for a good long while afterwards. I can sympathise with the developers on that one, though I'd probably take it better if I were being paid for it

That said, I'm making an arc right now, slowly but surely.

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My idea for the next issue is a small one but I think the costume slots should be changable. When you make on of your other costumes you may like that one better then the main one your using. To save ALOT of infulence/infamy I think the costume slots should be switchable.

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I'd like that, too. I know I can just save both costumes and tailor-swap them, but an actual system that can do this for me would be very much appreciated.

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I don't think I've ever said anything is "hard" to do or even intentionally implied it. Challenging isn't really a factor for 99% of the stuff we do. Instead, it really boils down to time, available manpower, and prioritizing what's needed over what's desired or what we think will have the biggest impact on the game over what will appease the vocal minority.

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I guess "hard" in this case is what the system can and cannot do, then I suppose there's little you guys CAN'T make it do with enough work, so I see what you mean.

While you're here, though, how about it? Is it even possible for dead characters to perform emotes without having to rewrite core systems?

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Rularuu Sentries have an inherent +100% tohit.

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Is Sentries what they're called collectively? I always wondered about that.

Yes, Sentries have 100% to-hit buff. They also have a very nasty defence debuff that, because they're so accurate, almost always lands and WILL stack from multiple Sentries, tearing through defence quite a bit. I'm not sure if the AI changes haven't ruined this, but it used to be that if you rushed them into melee range, they would use their spine burst power instead of their debuff. Of course, that still almost always hit, but at least it didn't bomb your defence against all OTHER enemies in the spawn.

But the Soldiers of Rularuu aren't just nasty to defence. Resistance-based characters face strong psychic damage from Wisps and resistance debuffs and ally buffs from many Brutes, whereas non-melee characters face the Natterlings with their holds and slows, as well as every boss there is.

I think the Soldiers of Rularuu are a relic from a time when the developers were still trying to introduced forced teaming by making enemies who were impossible to defeat solo. Remember, the Shadow Shard was introduced in I2, and when that didn't work, I3 brought us the repealed boss buffs.

Post deleted by Moderator 08

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The point to this post? Disappointment may not always be expressed as "arrghh, doom, i hate this game, the devs are evil and monstrous fools, ARAHRGAHRGAH."

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You know, Bubba, that's probably the only thing that can actually make me worried. Five years ago, someone said something very wise. There will always be vocal idiots who will scream and moan and threaten to quit, no matter what the developers do. That's not even noteworthy. It's only when the level-headed, respectable posters begin saying, calm and cool, that they are no longer satisfied with the game that we need to worry.

That said, I'm not worried quite yet. The people who screamed bloody murder and threatened to quit don't threaten me, and most of the rest are saying they're giving the game a break until something interesting happens, which I assume will be Going Rogue. I'll wait until then before I start getting worried. Honestly, though, I'd sooner see people leave because there's little for them to do at the moment than stay around for one single thing, then blow up when it's changed.

That, yes. The clue contradicted itself (and is hardly the only map in the game that's of a place it's actually not) and then the game contradicted it twice. Typically, wrong-location maps tend to at least spawn a mission within at least one of the possible locations the map is of. This one... Not so much.

Oh, and I just love it when a contact says "Hmm... This looks like an address in Founders' Falls. OK, go to the building in Steel Canyon that's at the address." Right!

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This is very interesting, but while it would be nice to have that stance available (to male, female, and huge models) as an emote, I really, really would not like it to become the default stance of female models.
The first time I saw the female stance in Guild Wars, I thought "Yucks, worst thing ever", and felt really repulsed. It looks unbalanced to have someone's foot stick out toe-pointed, just to make a character look more "feminine". If female models in CoX get that stance I will never be able to play my female toons again.

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Lineage 2 uses the same stance for women and MEN of their effeminite races (elves and dark elves), but that's besides the point

More on target, it's likely far, FAR too late for a base animation change like that and, frankly, I'm not sure I'd be up for it as a total, no-opt-out conversion even if it did happen. Five years in is a bit late in the game to do things like that, both in terms of technicalities and in terms of people being used to the status quo. So unless we get running style customization (and I doubt we ever will), it's not very likely.

Still, as an idle emote, I would LOVE to have that. BABs (at least I think it was him) spoke about these in the past, and I'd love to see them come to fruition eventually.

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Why was there even a map? Does it look like the Devouring Earth need maps? Or could even hold a pen to draw a map?

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I think it was a map the kidnapee hurriedly drew. Which is an entirely other kind of bizarre in itself. It seems everyone in this city has precise geographical knowledge of every zone all over the place, enough skill to draw a map of the whole zone and, oh, enough time to do it all! Of course, if you don't know the address of where you're being taken, you can't really leave that, but it's just strange how many people draw maps of where they are being held.

Hell, there was some guy whose soul the Circle of Thorns took away, and he had the time and presence of mind to scratch a map of Oranbega leading to the Library of Souls ON THE LINING OF HIS JACKET! I assumed he used his fingernails.

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... if you only want the clue given once, then wouldn't only attaching it to one thing work..?

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In my case it's a revelation that would be apparent from accomplishing ANY of the objectives, so NOT getting it for accomplishing all bur one of them would be inappropriate. Sort of "Hey, so that's how that was!" "Duh! We've know! You've found this out, like, three times already!"

Like I said, it's probably better to put in a mission complete clue at the end. That both keeps things consistent and acts as a summary, rather than a play-by-play observation, as well as not cluttering up the clue window with dozens of 'em, since they never disappear on player missions.

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You can also set all of the nav text as a certain color to make it easier to catch the eye. When I used this, I made the actual nav text for plural set as yellow, but I didn't include the number '1' in the colored text for 'singular'. That way, the number stands out the same as it does when the numbers are added by the system.

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Yeah, making them one thing on the nav bar is easy, as there's a system that actually looks for that. Unifying their clues such that all items will give the same clue and it will be given only ONCE, that's tough

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For 1. Make a custom group, and put into it only a minion (or a lieut or whatever you want to usexas your 'boss'. Then choose this group and it'll let you choose the minion fir your bosscencoubter

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Well that's a fat workaraound... But it should work Can't test it now as I'm mid-way through Terra's humongous map, but I'll let you know how that goes a soon as I can try it.

As far as chaining the bosses, that's a bad move I don't want to resort to, because I don't trust the map to put them in the right order and could lead to an "earlier" boss spawning after the later one, meaning the player would have to backtrack. Not good.

Still, I can just put a mission complete clue about them.

I have a couple of questions about how to do things in the Architect and what works and what doesn't.

Question 1: Can I make a boss fight that features an enemy that is NOT a boss in the "boss" slot? Theoretically, I don't see why that wouldn't be the case, but in practice it the interface does not seem to list anything OTHER than a boss in the boss selection dropdown.

Assuming it's not possible, how can I have a boss fight that's against a lieutenant, such as how many Nemesis missions end on a lieutenant who is a human, rather than on a Warhulk or a Fake Nemesis, who are generally NOT all human.

Question 2: Is it possible to have multiple unlike objectives have the same clue and make it so it only appears once? I know that if compass objective names for multiple objectives are the same, the system will pool them together, but can it do the same with clues? I have four separate boss fights, each with a different character, and all of which have to lead to the same conclusion. It would be quite silly to repeat the same thing for each character.

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Toon names - You quit and it's been 90 days, any toon below 6 has the risk of losing their name. Now this sounds week because level 6 is easy to get too, but so does your complaint about having to pay a maximum of 3,600 prestige and how if you don't your base will go away/power down. 3,600 is chump prestige.
Badges - I earned over 100 of the AE badges when i14 came out. Now my badges that I earned honestly are being taken from me in i15.

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Erm... I meant in-game upkeep, and I should have specified. Yes, not paying for the service for which I've already admitted to paying upkeep, I stand to lose things. Mostly access to the servers. The thing, though, is that that's all tidy and neatly tucked away in the real-life portion of the game, which is billing and support. If I had to, say, log a character in every 30 days or risk losing the name, then I would very much agree you have a point. I would also be very, very majorly pissed off. The fact that people have suggested that and it has not come to pass brings me no small amount of satisfaction that I won't one day wake up and suddenly have to play catch-up on THAT, too.

As for badges, that doesn't qualify as upkeep in the slightest, not any more than Instant Healing going from a toggle to a click does, or any more so than the servers crashing does, though I suppose the latter would be failure in upkeep on the part of PlayNC. Badges were removed as an executive decision, and nothing we could have done would have changed that. This isn't upkeep, it's a straight-up change. It's not like if we did the grind for them twice as much, we would have been able to keep them twice as long.

I'd have to say, then, that yes, I would very much like a few more examples. The thing is, bringing in real-life money into the game is guaranteed to invoke this. The 30-day jetpack you have to keep buying over and over again, for instance, is a clear example of this, but the idea behind this is clear - make more money. In fact, depending on how you regard these things, replenishable temporary powers like the ones from the Inventions system or the Vanguart ones also count, as do Shivan and Nuke runs. Frankly, I find all of them to be bad design that encourages grinding and boring play, and at least to an extent the developers agree. The justification is that those things are so powerful they have to be hard to get, but the result isn't always pretty.

I still maintain that this is not good design, and I STILL don't see a good reason for it. I can see a few BAD reasons for it, like time sinks and extra costs for the kitty, but I cannot, for the life of me, think of a good one.

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Apparently you're all alone in this, others suggest and support things with a rent system.

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People suggest all manner of things. Just because one person suggests something I find to be despicable does not mean I'm alone.

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Maybe if you explained yourself, but you still fail to show me your point, if you want god mode go play Sims and use cheats.

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Err... What? Could you possibly clarify how my dislike for paying a continuous rent that shuts down my base if I happen to go play a character not in the given SG and constantly drains my resources unless I constantly replenish them equates to god mode. Is having a working base without paying rent somehow giving me game-breaking powers, whereas having a base I pay for isn't? I guess I should really envy all the people with bases that have no rent, then, right? I mean, they must have found the god mode. Right?

Or we can stick to reality and not rely on ludicrous hyperbole to emphasise a point. I don't find a process by which I can fall behind and LOSE resources to be good game design. Ever. In any game. I'm perfectly fine with a process that slows me down as debt does, even slows me down a lot, just as long as everything I do causes progress. It may be expensive, it may be slow, but it is ALWAYS getting closer, never farther away. Rent, by its very nature, does not work that way. Rent is a constant drain irrespective of income, an income I may not always have. The reasons for not having any income aren't restricted to not playing the game, either. Turning off SG mode also has the same effect and, surprising as it may seem, some people actually do.

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Well um you know this is a MMORPG right? RPG stands for Roleplaying Game. From a roleplaying stand point it make a lot of sense, like much other things in this game do when you understand the story behind it.

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You do realise that, because this is a Roleplaying Game, I can come up with JUST as convincing a rationale why we never have to pay for anything at all, right? I mean, we save the city every day. Without us, Paragon City would go to the dogs in a heartbeat. They owe us their lives, but since we're not evil, we can't take that. Instead, we take all the support, gear, land and supplies we ever need.

Wait, no... That's not how it works... Why didn't my roleplaying justification work? Because, and this is a fact with all roleplaying justifications, everyone can make up whatever they want for why things are the way they are. A roleplaying justification is never a reason for bad design, though very often it is an excuse for bad design.

Why do we need to wait until level 20 to get our capes, after all? Because we have to honour Hero 1? Well, why doesn't this happen at level 10? Or at level 30? Or at level 50? Why is that the only way to gain a cape, when we have so many capes gained otherwise? You can weave all the excuses you can come up with, but the ACTUAL reason is quite simple - because Jack says so.

Or, are you seriously going to tell me that the reason the developers implemented Powerset Proliferation was because Dr. Brainstorm did whatever the hell he did in his lab? Or are we going to accept it happened because that's what players wanted and it made good business sense to give it to them? What business sense, then, does rent make? Apart from a money and time sink, obviously. Because if a sink is all it is, that is the very definition of bad design, at least in my eyes.

I can ask "why do we have rent?" the same way I can as "why do we have travel powers?" or "why do we have archetypes?" Roleplaying isn't the reason why, it's the the in-game explanation of a done deal AFTER the reason why has come into play.

Let me ask you a different way, then - what does having rent add to the game? I'm really curious to know.

That... Actually makes sense... Dang you!

Now about that space armada...

I'm torn between disputing that and just smiling and keeping my mouth shut

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Top 20
It would seem that not everyone agrees he is the plague to end all plagues.

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I'm one of those people. He started City of Heroes

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Nitpick: Rick Dakan started City of Heroes.

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There's also that. Most of the pre-Beta articles and developers' diaries I've seen of City of Heroes dating back to 2000-2002 or thereabout all bear Rick's name. From what I've read of his writings, he seemed to be very passionate about the game in general and determined to give people a new and unique experience. I don't know one way or the other, but I suspect it was during Rick's time that the meaningful origins and AT-less, pick-your-powers-out-of-a-list build was being worked on which, while largely a good idea, ended up proving impractical for the game. I'm not sure where or why he left the game's development team, but I don't believe Jack was in charge of the game until at least 2002-2003 or something like that.

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I don't agree. They were obviously competent enough to 1. get elected and 2. not be impeached.

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You really do NOT want to go there.

You know, I have to say that's fascinating, Desmodos. I mean I'm pretty basic in most fields of science aside from mathematics, but it's always really cool to listen to other people talk about it. I like to gather information where I can, and hopefully when next something on this subject comes up, I'll come out as less of a clueless dunderhead

You know, ever so often there are clues that contradict themselves in their very own text. Like, say, a clue that directs you to where you can find Fieldmarshal Bulech, who turns into Archon Cassidy when you enter his mission, or how Desert Adder is called Sidewinder in one spot. But today was the first time I found a clue that contradicted itself TWICE.

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Map of Eden
You found this map of Brickstown on one of the Devouring Earth creatures you defeated. A large X has been scrawled across one corner of the map, and the word 'Terra' is scribbled above it.

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When I spoke with Gigner Yates, she sent me to the location on the map, which was in Talos Islan.

Let's back up for a sec and review. I found a map of Eden which shows a location in Brickstown which is in Talos Island. Maybe when I enter the instance, I will end up in Steel Canyon which is in Atlas Park!

I understand that it's hard to keep all text properly proof-read and that many of the older missions have undergone many, many transformations (No, Independence Port was not attacked by a space armada. The Security chief is lying.) and I can sort of understand Maria Jenkins' bio stating she was the first one to notice the Statesman was missing... When he actually isn't... But there's just a border past which these mistakes stop being mistakes and get just plain old funny

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Pretty sure Killing Crew became freakshow.

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Unlikely, as the Freakshow are themselves listed in the same montage.

Hey, Desmodos, I figured I'd give you a bit of vindication and post something that just occurred to me. The build I posted ended up with two empty slots, whereas I would have needed three for Stamina. Well, pretty soon I'm going to get the veteran reward that allows me to skip Teleport Foe. That would make it three empty slots, and I might just be able to fit Stamina in there. It all depends on how things go.