Arcanaville

Making up even more stuff as usual.

Catwhoorg was one of the proponents of the DDR survivability theory, aka layered defenses. It was a more rule of thumb based theory that echoed the calculated Def x Res x Regen theory that formed the basis of most mitigation calculations, particularly after my first I2/I3 scrapper comparison thingy.

It might have also been partially based on numbers that were circulating around the forums after I started posted my proliferation spreadsheet, which tried to show what ever mitigation powerset would look like if ported without modification to any of the four melee archetypes. Ninjitsu kept showing up as a really strong player in those calculations. Outside of tier 9 Ninjitsu was a strong def + heal player, and within tier 9s Elude + Reconstruction was a tough combination to beat.

Not only did Ninjitsu have the only Def+Heal combination for a long while, it was and as far as I know still is still the only combination that has strong positional defenses and high psionic and toxic resistances, which are the primary damage sources that can leak past positional defense.

Making up stuff as usual it is.

Between 10 and 11. I wouldn't mention it, except for the fact that its an obvious massive outlier. The two characters are tending to run missions within a couple minutes of each other most of the time, but on this mission the blaster ran it in about 7 minutes (or rather, the time from entering it to entering the next mission was 7 minutes so there's some travel in there) while the Stalker ran it in 19 minutes, with a note that some critters couldn't be found and it was eventually autocompleted. The stalker leveled at the 10 minute mark so I know a kill happened there, and so I assumed the remaining 9 minutes was just searching the map. For completeness sake, I mention both times with and without that extra time.

I would agree. In fact, that description probably applies even better to controllers, from the on-guard before combat part to the immense power to overcome any foe, to the ability to turn the tide of any fight.

And they do tend to need their friends, although fortunately for them they can summon those.

Which archetypes lack the "immense power" to overcome most foes? Its great that Blasters can fit that element of their description, but also endemic of their problems that so can everyone else.

Even before the Well was introduced into the lore, I was already complaining about the Origin of Power storyline which seemed to take the five origins, already on shaky ground, and make them even more shaky. I worried that Origin of Power was implying that all five origins were just constructs of some higher power, and that made no sense even when allowing for the shaky definitions of the origins, and separately made the definitions of the origins even less tenable. And I suggested an alternative at the time, which I mentioned here: the "origin of power" could be potential. The universe allows for great potential, and the five origins are really just different paths to that potential. That's why "natural" even exists: its a way to seek that potential without supplementary aids. Science seeks to explore that potential with the tools of Science. Technology seeks to instantiate that potential with the tools of Technology. Mutation occasionally releases that potential in living beings. And Magic tries to attain that potential through mystical means. And the reason why the five origins' definitions seek shaky and blurry is because that really a limitation of human understanding. In reality, those five paths are just the five paths that human beings carved out in the wilderness. On another planet, there might be five different paths, or eight, or only two. Maybe on an ocean world somewhere, intelligent dolphins pursue a Musical path to power.

The point is that the Origins aren't Power, these are Paths to Power. And the number of paths to power is limited only by imagination. And since all paths lead to the same power, none are superior to the others. That's why technology isn't superior to natural. Technology is better than no technology, but using technology to explore potential isn't necessarily better than seeking natural ways to unlock that same potential.

In my version of Origin of Power, the Well of the Furies would be a roadblock on those paths to power. Like a test. Something that in trying to achieve greater potential represents the limitations of the human mind. It would be the temptation to self-destruct, the threat of triggering insanity, the fear of going beyond a certain point. It would be a reflection of our darker sides, which empowered certain beings as echos of our darker natures. Thus: Reichsman, Romulus, Tyrant.

Prometheus would be our guide past the Well: someone who would allow us to outgrow it and move past it, and on to the next threat. And because the nature of the Well is to reflect our worst natures, Prometheus would be limited in what he could tell us about it. Because telling us about it would empower it against us, because he would be feeding our darker natures with more information inadvertently.

With all due respect to the writers, I honestly believe that works better, and it doesn't eliminate any opportunities for storytelling that the current version otherwise enables. Everything they did up to this point they could have done with this structure, only better in my opinion.

Others might disagree of course, but I do have an alternative in mind when I criticize both Origin of Power and the Well of the Furies storylines. In fact its precisely *because* I can see an elegant way out that I'm more critical than normal: the bizarro errors in OoP and the Well seem like they would have been so easy to correct, and that's not just in hindsight, because the basics of this idea I posted soon after Origin of Power was released.

You don't but common courtesy requires you judge something by either its own definitions or the commonly accepted ones, and not ones uniquely your own, unless you *explicitly* state otherwise. The presumption is that you're doing the former and not the latter in a critique. Otherwise, other people would be free to do likewise: I could judge your posts by my own definitions of every word you use, and then state that its only my opinion and complain about having to preface my posts with that statement.

You should comment with the presumption of reciprocity.

Stalkers should get some interest on their money if they paid for something back in I6 and getting delivery in I22.

Also, just exactly what prompts you to say that their reduced survivability "just happens" to fall at the balance point for that? That sounds like you actually believe you can state a) what the average survivability gap between scrappers and stalkers is (and its not proportional to the health difference) and b) there's a metric that balances survivability against AoE damage. Please enlighten us. Because I have no such metric, and I know for a fact the devs don't either. So that makes exactly one of us, and I'm sure you will be more than happy to educate us.

Or you're just making stuff up as usual.

That may be, but you cannot criticize an industry by first redefining it in a manner inconsistent with their own definitions. You can choose to believe that cosmically powered beings are magic, but its less defensible to say "the whole idea that 'Cosmic' is anything other than magic is kind of odd considering Science doesn't say jack crap about these concepts and tends to go against them." It shouldn't be odd if you know the mainstream definition of science fiction and fantasy corroborates that, and you deliberately ignore that to follow your own definition.

Separate from that, Science says its far more plausible to say that Galactus is powered by cosmic energy than Superman is powered by Solar Energy. The first statement is highly speculative. The second violates the law of conservation of energy. You can make up your own definition of science fiction if you like, but you cannot make up your own definition of Science. Not in a public discussion about Science.

Super Reflexes. Numerically speaking, until you stack enough power pools and inventions to soft cap, SR stalkers are actually probably just as survivable as SR scrappers if not moreso. This is also possibly true for Energy Aura stalkers. Stalkers also get Ninjitsu, which is quantitatively a stronger mitigation set than the average Scrapper secondary. If the devs intended Stalkers to be defensively weaker than Scrappers on average, they did not do an especially good job.

You say that like reading the words multiple times will make it more true. Stalkers did not pay for the privilege of doing "one thing a little better" with "lowered survivability and less AoE."

That statement is false on its face.

I think that's partially because of history. I think the last time to make (deliberately) a comic book "star" was the 80s. The implosion of the 90s heightened risk aversion and the need to protect existing properties, and by the late 90s and 2000s most of the new and creative energy was almost completely diverted into making smaller works less likely to reach enormous audiences.

In any case, there's the more salient issue that a comic book character capable of driving a movie franchise is likely to have had to exist for a long time regardless, because the character must be both popular with younger comic book readers today and be at least known by older movie going audiences many of which are no longer contemporary comic book readers and would only know the character from years ago, barring lightning in a bottle exceptions. And I honestly think they are starting to run out of the obvious choices there.

That's where you disagree with basically the entirety of the science fiction industry. Speculative science fiction often just "makes things up." It doesn't derive everything from actual scientific principles, at least as someone who actually understands science knows them. They may dress them up in technobabble good enough to fool people who don't know anything, but that's not the same thing.

The common thread that usually binds most people's definitions of science fiction is that the story itself *relies* on a consistent scientifically grounded approach to the novel things introduced within it. But it often starts with a completely made up premise. From that premise, they see where they can go. Hard science fiction tries to extrapolate from known science, but not all science fiction is equally hard in that regard.

Saying "superman is powered by solar energy" is no different than saying Galactus is powered by cosmic energy. Superman is getting about a kilowatt of power from the Sun during the daytime: that's not enough to lift himself off the ground much less fly around. And that's separate from the fact that its scientifically impossible for x-ray vision to work the way Superman uses it, that his ability to fly violates the law of conservation of momentum, that the level of invulnerability he possesses is structurally impossible for his mass. These things are only scientifically plausible in a genuine sense to people who don't know anything about science.

At least Galactus taps an energy source that delivers more power than the average home electrical wall outlet. Cosmic energy could be anything: it could be vacuum energy, or string binding energy, or an as-yet unknown vector field, or dark energy, or inflation energy. All these things exist on magnitude levels capable of vaporizing the Earth. The amount of solar energy that strikes Superman is barely enough to boil a decent sized pot of water.


In fact, the only scientific theory that plausibly explains Superman's solar dependence, and you have to make a whole bunch of miracle exceptions just to explain how those abilities can exist at all, is that solar radiation is actually just a catalyst for an energy source specific to Superman himself. His own body somehow generates all the power to do what he does, but it needs solar radiation to catalyze the reaction for some reason. Kryptonians might have evolved to use the radiation from their weaker red sun, and the higher radiation intensity from Earth's Sun radically increases their power. That also explains why Kryptonite can have such a deleterious effect on them: the radiation from Kryptonite isn't enough to kill them, its essentially a metabolic poison to them. It destabilizes their natural energy producing systems just as solar radiation energizes them.

The effort it takes to get all the way to the point where you have a plausible mechanism for solar dependence, and then a power source strong enough to produce his abilities, and *then* a set of mechanisms to allow those abilities to even exist, is way past the point of plausibly explaining how Galactus can exist.

If Professor X isn't magic, then psionic abilities exist, and the astral plane exists. Making the leap to say its possible for conscious minds to create consensus personifications is not a big leap at all. Its all built on a house of sand scientifically, but that's not because personifications are unscientific, but because the entire edifice is: an astral plane where they might originally form is unscientific, and astral projection is unscientific, and psionic powers are unscientific, and that's because Professor X is unscientific.

He's not magic because he exists within the realm of science fiction, not magical fantasy. Not especially hard science fiction, but science fiction nonetheless. And he violates the same number of laws of physics as Galactus does, and he violates them just as badly. Actually, probably worse.

1. Stalkers paid nothing for their latest round of fixes.

2. I'll take that bet.

The science of fictional worlds doesn't have to be identical to the science of our world. Otherwise, lightsabers are magic. Warp drive is magic. Iron Man's suit of armor is magic: our science doesn't allow for any of them as explicitly described in those fictional universes. Mutant powers are also magic, because mutations don't allow people to violate the laws of physics: Magneto is magic. Cyclops is magic. Storm is magic. Even Wolverine is magic.

The question should be: what's normal for those fictional universes. If something is natural in that universe, and it obeys rules that the scientific method could unravel, then it ought to be considered non-magical for that fictional universe. Otherwise, in your first picture calling the source wall magic, but not the flying, invulnerable, laser beam eyed superstrong guy not magical is tunnel-visioned.

Scott Pilgrim was a niche within a niche. John Carter is so far outside current cultural memory most people who saw the trailer were wondering how a medical student got to Mars.

I recall they did. If I remember correctly scrappers had about mag 30 and tankers about mag 45 protection at level 50 at one point. Did that not get reduced at the same time as teh GDN?

What field would you not do that in?

In the Marvel Universe, as in the normal universe, Science is not distinct from Technology and Mutation like it is supposed to be in the City of Heroes universe.

But the answer to your question is that in the Marvel Universe, the Phoenix Force is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Attempts to *tap* it have generally involved either high technology or magic, but it is not magical itself. But that's because its natural. The Marvel Universe doesn't attempt to describe the Phoenix Force as something that is beyond classification: something beyond science, beyond magic, and beyond natural existence.

Galactus, as generally depicted in the Marvel Universe, is a naturally cosmic powered being that uses high technology.

The writers were skating on thin ice when they claimed Science and Technology were totally different things, but at least Origins were mostly hand waved originally anyway. But saying that there exists something that is not natural and not supernatural, something that is not science and not magic, that is believing that if you write a random string of words on a piece of paper, they always mean something. You might as well talk about sounds that have no frequency, or motion that has no velocity.


In physics, there is the idea of unification. There are four fundamental forces in physics: gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, and the strong nuclear force. Each is, at a glance, a completely different force. And they are different forces. But there's a theory that they are all aspects of a single force. But not in the sense that the one creates the many. How that's possible is through a process called symmetry breaking. The idea is that at very high energies, all the four forces appear to be the same. But at lower energies, differences in how they are mediated (transmitted) mean that the forces start to look different. The important thing to note is that the four individual forces don't disappear and get replaced with something else: rather they all remain and become indistinguishable.

That would have been a wonderful model for the origins, because it would amplify the idea that in a real sense, it doesn't matter what your origin is. If you pursue it high enough in power, eventually your capabilities expand to include everything everyone else can do. Instead, the opposite occurred. Canonically, the five origins are inferior constructs of a higher power, which makes the "incarnate origin" a super-origin, and not just what happens when natural or tech superpowers become so powerful they become indistinguishable.

And the developers from this game that were said to have moved to the new game were turned into soylent green?

It would take a full time staffer just to run that pool.