Samuel_Tow

Yeah, I remember that conversation, and I remember that being the point where I realised I simply won't like the Furies as a concept. Ever. This is probably just personal preference, but I REALLY hate the concept of the amoral, almost primal intelligence that's at the same time damn near all-powerful. The Furies are all about oaths and laws and such, but if they didn't have divine power and actually existed in contemporary society, they'd all have been locked up forever and ever.

I know fictional representation of gods are also presented to be amoral or even or even barely sentient sometimes, but I feel a character just loses something when you make them such a devout extremist that this character becomes incapable of showing any distinct personality other than just a faceless entity like pretty much all the others. See, when a character's entire personality is defined by some unquestionable dogma, that character just becomes that much less interesting.

That, really, is why I'm not that much against Papa Smurf. Yeah, he's a plot device, but he's a CHARACTER, as a god should be. I don't like his personality, but that's because he's a jerk. And a jerk though he may be, that's still a personality. He seems capable of thinking for himself, of planning, of having emotions.

The Furies, the Talons and the Knives are just NPCs.

It does mean, however, that we'll never see any bladed weapons for that set, or shouldn't at any rate. The Vanguard Staff doesn't really look like a bladed weapon, so it's easy to miss what it does. Stick in a Halberd with a broad head and a long blade, though, and this WILL become painfully obvious.

This is precisely why I've been arguing that we can't have a single set that covers staffs, spears, halberds and poleaxes - accounting for all the ways these weapons should and SHOULDN'T be used is impossible. For what it's worth, Staff Fighting looks decent for a staff and a spear, but that's about it. Halberds, scythes, poleaxes and probably even pikes will have to wait for another set. Just sticking them into Staff Fighting will not work with those animations.

That said, there's still plenty of room for other types of staves in there. We could use a spear, probably one with a mace head, a crooked shepherd's pole and even that "lantern on a stick" as used by I-can't-say. There are a ton of magic staves that could be used, as well, like jewel staves, serpent head staves and... What was that Indiana Jones was using to find the Arc of the Covenant? And that too

Yes. BY NOT GOING THERE. There's a reason the Atlas Park broadcast used to be reviled and greatly criticised before Freedom pretty much killed it with the revamp and the DFB.

Hence why I don't play any sports and why I don't go to any sporting events. Other than not wanting to get a firecracker tossed in my face.

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You fail to understand that some of us don't like that. It's not a question of toughing it out or turning off broadcast, because these are still the same people we're playing with. Does it really matter whether I can or can't hear the tossers on the other side of the fence calling me names when these just aren't people I want to play with? Does it matter if I can or can't hear the tossers on MY team being offensive, for that matter? All that does is make me want to get them killed.

I've played plenty enough PvP in other games to know that once the drama starts, it doesn't matter if I can hear it or not, the game's over. And I refuse to waste my time with this.

This I could get behind. Frankly, I feel the current base editor is a load of old wank, to quote Yahtzee for a minute there, and I've had nothing but rage issues with using it. It CAN be used, granted, but it's just not fun doing so, and even then it's greatly limited.

Personally, I feel a more MineCraft-like editor - with grouping abilities - would be far superior, much easier to use, more flexible and actually fun, as opposed to work.

I know, Leo, and I'm not accusing you. I just know where this line of conversation goes. I danced this dance with Stamina, I did it with Inventions and I'll probably keep doing it till the cows come home. There's just nothing to be gained, trust me.

I can't say for sure. I know what Quartz do, so I never really gave a Sentry the chance to set one down. Kim can one-shot those guys at the start of every fight, and that's what I opted for. I may or may not have seen a quartz once, in Eden for a hunt, but I can't remember. It is possible, however, that they aren't setting them down. As I said, I haven't seen any since I22.

I mean she knows what's going on in Praetoria and acts like I should know, as well. And I just don't. Last I heard from Praetoria was when I rescued a suspiciously alive Statesman from an Olympian Guard.

Wheel of Morality, turn turn turn! Tell us the lesson that we should learn! And the lesson of today's story is...

There's no I in "team," but there's an M and an E.

So long as I know the major plot points, I can live without knowing the specifics behind the specific iTrials I'll never do anyway. What concerns me isn't really the iTrial plots themselves so much as the plot points that bleed into regular content that I'm supposed to know about. If Duncan acts like I should know this already, I'd like to know it

Then again, I don't specifically need to read it in the actual game. If a Wiki article exists for it, or if someone does a dump or a write-up, that's good, too. I do know it's a lot of info, though, so it's not something I can ask for in good conscience.

"Not enough custom weapons" is a problem as old as custom weapons themselves. Titan Weapons had nothing like enough weapons when it launched, but they released a weapon pack for it and that brought it up to a respectable number. Are there enough now? Of course not, there will never be enough in general. But there's enough variety in the weapons that it DOES have to make two, three and even more characters out of it. With Staves... Not so much.

Also, I'm disappointed that the bladed staff still salps with the side of the blade. Guess I won't be using that after all.

I still bought the set and I'll still use it, just not sure what for yet.

These are the people I'm forced to play with. If I don't want to hear a word they have to say, why the bloody hell would I want to play with them?

The only time I've ever had fun in a competitive environment is when all participants are actually cooperating towards the creation of a fun, pleasant gaming environment as opposed to looking for ways to screw each other over.

I am abusing the knockdowns, but there just aren't that many of them. To the best of my knowledge, there's one in the Sweep combo and one in One Thousand Cuts.

And I wouldn't bring concept into this, because it's concept specifically that's had me select Web Grenade and Targeting Drone over the Fighting pool. That's what made sense of Kim. Hell, I'd have taken Shuriken if I could, but I just didn't think I can manage it.

Still, I'm open to suggestions. Aside from powerset powers, what else could I use to mitigate that kind of to-hit increase? I looked through all the Pool powers, and aside from a few stat boosts, there really wasn't all that much which seemed like it'd help. I guess Air Superiority counts, but that really doesn't make sense for Kim from a concept standpoint and... What else? Heal Self? Even with the Inventions build, I still get hit too much to use it in combat.

Rats... OK, do you know of some place I can see the complete dialogue tree, or at least the parts I can't read as a non-iTrial-goer?

Done! I don't play any sport. I haven't played any sport since I broke my right arm playing soccer, what... 15 years ago? Ain't missed it for a second.

I don't like competitive environments that pit me against other people, it's as simple as that. A PvE game can control the experience. It can make sure I have fun at the expense of the NPCs, because NPCs have no feelings and no-one cares about how much they're enjoying themselves. It's OK to hurt them as long as we're having fun, and PvE content does just that. Is it fair that I can Assassin's Strike a boss and remain hidden thanks to that Stalker AT Set I was given? Of course not. If that boss had feelings, I'm sure he'd be fuming, but he doesn't so he isn't. The game lets me get away with it because, meh. It's just NPCs. They don't have feelings.

No game will ever do that in PvP. No game should. Besides, other people don't care about how much fun I'm having. They aren't trying to come together to give me a good time. On the contrary, they're there for themselves, they're there for their own fun, and if killing me repeatedly happens to be that fun, then they'll do it. Of course they will. The PvP game is "uncontrolled," so it can't guarantee that I'll have fun playing it. And I only need a few play sessions that piss me off before I choose to never come back.

Some say that fighting other people is the ultimate challenge because people are smart and don't fall for the same easy traps. I say that fighting other people is the ultimate boredom because other people fight cheap, unfair and don't let me win. I don't want that.

Call it SSA1.7, then. In either case, it's pretty much the only one of the seven that left me satisfied when all was said and done.

I'm sure this one won't be a horrible mess I'll embarrassed to have played through. Gotta' stay positive.

Oh, for ****'s sake... OK, that explains why I haven't seen it, and thank you for point that out. I was going to ask if there's anywhere to read up on this since dialogues are usually not included in the Wiki from what I've seen, but this one is... And it's huge. Guess I have my research material to read through.

Seriously, thank you for pointing that out, I really didn't expect Prometheus to develop more dialogue options.

Venture simply acts like his opinion on any matter on which he even has an opinion is entirely correct and the ONLY one that's correct and will accept no argument on the matter. I've found it's best to simply take any information he has to offer and not bother with any argument he wants to make. I'm sure he's a smart guy, but there's simply no argument with someone who argues to prove you wrong, rather than to prove a point.

I spoke with Papa Smurph and he didn't say anything about it. Is there some specific path I need to follow through his dialogue labyrinth to get to the information? Because I asked him about everything I could - even insulted him to his face - and he didn't say anything about the Well beyond the age old "Cole is the Well's champion" bit he had the first time he showed up.

I really need to sit down and chart his dialogue some day.

*edit*
I should point out that for all the times I've made fun of Prometheus, that isn't to say I hate the character. He seems like a plot device, yes - that's because he is - but the concept of a very tall, very arrogant god is not a bad idea. It's just a combination of how he's an excuse for the trials and how square his head is that makes me want to mock the guy.

I think that's pretty much it. Back at Launch, City of Heroes was a simple, easy, inoffensive game, an "MMO-lite" as they said. This attracted plenty of people who admitted that not only was this their first MMO ever (it was mine), but for many it was their first VIDEO GAME ever at all, not counting Solitaire and Minesweeper and the like. This is partly what made out community so positive, I think. And, yes, I'm aware of the forum wars, but all that said and done, people are still offering to give me incredibly expensive enhancements just because I said I was having trouble with it, and to the best of my knowledge I've never really contributed much to the community at large.

My point is that City of Heroes was a nice and simple game where competition didn't exist, and this bred a spirit of comfort and cooperation. When PvP first came out, there just weren't that many people who were interested in a trash-talking, fiercely-competitive type of gameplay, and the number of people who were never really rose all that high. To their credit, the developers did what they could to promote PvP, but I firmly believe the audience was simply never there. We have always been a relatively small community. Best the game ever broke is 180 000 right after launch, I believe, and I doubt we're that many left even now with Free players.

The point is we're a small community overall, with an even smaller PvP subsection, and we're a community that has historically proven to favour an easy way out over a "challenge." Yes, the I13 changes pretty much doomed PvP, but I don't believe it ever had any legs to begin with. The game's design was never good for it, the community never came together, and there was just never that much interest even when interest existed.

To me, introducing PvP to City of Heroes is a bit like taking CastleVille players and tossing them into Eve Online. Yeah, some will bounce back up and thrive, but many - myself included - would just find the whole experience stressful and unsatisfying.

But that's just my problem with it - the content EXPECTS me to have these high defences via Set bonuses and is designed to counter-act them. If I go there without them, my natural powerset defences get crushed, so I either HAVE to get those extra defences, or I need not apply. This is turning Set Inventions - and very specific Sets, as well - into essentially a gate, which in turn gets dangerously close to a specific gear rating. I need to have this much extra stats from my gear, and if I don't, I should go back to previous content and get that gear before I can run the content.

I was lucky enough that people just out-and-out gave me stuff and made a build for me, no less, but it's the very concept of it I disagree with. Yes, I can agree that the rampant capped defences for characters that have no business having defences in the first place should probably be addressed. I don't think it should ever have been allowed, but we've made our bed and we need to lie in it. But I'd honestly prefer it if people with many defence bonuses were addressed in a such a way as to NOT hurt those of us who don't have them. Because other people use many sets, all of a sudden my defences aren't worth as much even though I never did that. And I don't like it.

I'm really not sure how that might work, but to be honest... I worry about my SR, Ninjutsu and Energy Aura characters, because I have quite a few of those. Worse still, I have a DB/SR Brute (a lot like Kim) who has neither Combat Jumping nor Hide because she's a flier and a Brute.