Basilisk

So, if your rep is off, can someone still use the reputation button to send feedback/vitriol?

Ok, so I know about the cursor problems that have been plaguing Vista, but since the patch and rollback this afternoon, I seem to be experiencing the same deal with Windows XP. The cursor flicks in and out, and strange boxes appear to follow it as the cursor moves. The only change that's happened to my system between last night when it was working fine and today is the updates. Adding -compatiblecursors 1 to my startup does seem to fix it, but I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same problem?

Got my 60 month just a few days ago.

I'm just playing a dom, and a thought sort of broadsided me as I was playing: Instead of changing anything about the powers, what if the power of endurance inspirations were increased? The problem I'm finding is that one CaB will give me 25 more endurance. When you look at the base cost of powers, even if they're enhanced, you're only going to get another 2 or 3 attacks off.

If the blue inspirations were on a scale of something like (and this is just a gut feeling, not anything that's been meticulously calculated) 33 for the Catch a Breath, 50 for Take a Breather, and 66 for Second Wind, then you would need to hold on to fewer to regain a full bar, plus you'd be able to squeeze in another attack or two from one insp. As an added bonus, there's still incentive to slot for endurance reduction, since you'll be able to go further on one insp with endrdx than without. It still requires at least 2 insps to fill your bar, and unlike purples, you're not getting any bonus by popping 4 or 5 at a time.

Absolute favourite? Probably Caesura, my Sonic/Traps corruptor and first villain 50.

But because other people are listing names, so shall I. Other favourites include:

Time Sync (DB/SR scrapper with the ability to see a few seconds into the future.)
Chlorochyll (Plant/Ice dominator)
Blarney Rubble (Stone/SS Tank who is also a leprechaun)
PhR34k 0f N47uR3 (Plant/Elec dom, and former member of the Freakshow)
Greaser Lightning (Elec/Elec blaster, who also happens to be a time-travelling 50s-era greaser.)
Northern Patriot (WP/Ice tank, all Canadian and patriotic)

I am amazed that I still have mine. I can't imagine "Basilisk" is a terribly obscure or esoteric handle...

<Generic sarcastic remark>

<Implication that OP's mother is a hamster>

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You know, the more I look at my response to Aett, the more I like it. Here's the amended idea.


Change the initial raid as I described before. The Rikti come in and attack the three targets. If they succeed, the raid moves on to an adjacent zone, and the zone they were just in becomes "conquered."

"Conquered" zones will have three rikti control points for the heroes to attack. Destroying them would return the zone to normal, and the raid would stop.

While conquered, the zone would behave normally, however raid-style Rikti would spawn in the normal spawn points, IN ADDITION TO the regular spawns.

Thus, wherever normal foes are spawning, the Rikti are spawning there too (and likely attacking the regular spawns).

This would allow those doing hunts to do them, though they would risk having to fight a few rikti here and there, and it would allow people that need to talk to contacts the freedom to do so, all while maintaining the sense of being in a warzone.


NOW what do you think? Does that satisfy everyone?

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I see this as Skyway City Supatrolls all over again. What starts as an amusing diversion quickly becomes something that's old hat that simultaneously causes inconvenience for everyone while not actually motivating anyone to participate.

I'm not sure why you don't see how your proposal is for all intents identical to the Skyway situation, with the possible difference of frequency. And quite frankly, I hate the Rikti raids now, but this change is in no way an improvement.

As far as I'm concerned, this is an irredeemably bad idea. The general consensus in this thread seems to agree with me. Whatever the magic solution is to making Rikti invasions good for me, this isn't even in the same continent as it.

1. What is your favorite word? Catechumen, at the moment, but it could change at any moment.

2. What is your least favorite word? Paradigm

3. What turns you on? A sense of humour, alternately, eyes.

4. What turns you off? Egotism

5. What sound or noise do you love? A barbershop 7th chord that rings like crazy.

6. What sound or noise do you hate? That sound a TV makes when it's on but tuned to the video feed. It's sort of an ultra high pitched squealing

7. What is your favorite curse word? Câlisse

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Rock Star

9. What profession would you not like to participate in? Farming

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Nothing. I don't think there's any god who would approve of my own personal heaven, so why bother including him?

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Tanks, Brutes and Corruptors probably make up the bulk of my roster, but I'm away from my CoHing computer right now, so I'll have to wait for a bit to check the actual numbers

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So, I have:

Scrappers: 9 (131 Total levels, average level 14.5)
Tankers: 16 (223 Total levels, average level 13.9)
Controllers: 6 (116 Total levels, average level 19.3)
Blasters: 9 (199 total levels, average level 22.1)
Defenders: 4 (84 total levels, average level 21.0)
Warshades: 3 (56 total levels, average level 18.7)
Peacebringers: 1 (26 total levels, average level 26.0)

Stalkers: 2 (56 total levels, average level 28.0)
Corruptors: 5 (110 total levels, average level 22.0)
Brutes: 12 (228 total levels, average level 19.0)
Masterminds: 5 (46 total levels, average level 9.2)
Dominators: 7 (90 total levels, average level 12.9)
Arachnos Soldiers: 1 (36 total levels, average level 36.0)
Arachnos Widows: 1 (26 total levels, average level 26)

Despite my earlier prediction, Corruptors are not even close to top 3. Instead Scrappers and Blasters tie for third. Tankers and Brutes have the highest total levels. Interestingly enough, I have more heroes than villains, but I tend to have more total levels on villains than heroes, despite playing since 3 months after game launch.

Tanks, Brutes and Corruptors probably make up the bulk of my roster, but I'm away from my CoHing computer right now, so I'll have to wait for a bit to check the actual numbers

Suddenly, I get this image in my head of the devs all running around looking like Francis from Left 4 Dead...

Yes, you have slow protection with Wet Ice, but more importantly, you have it with Energy absorption. You get something like 20% slow and -recharge resistance per enemy hit, so you don't need Permafrost for the slow protection.

If the invasions were something that ONLY happened on one weekend, once every few months, I wouldn't mind it as much. However, between the zombie invasion and the Rikti one triggered from the LGTF, you often see a number of invasions daily anyways. When all you want is to run missions, and you can't do your "Defeat 20 whatevers in X zone" until it's gone, the charm really wears off. Compound that with having to dodge the dropships if you're in the zone when it starts, and I've just lost all interest in them.

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Might well be inspired by - I grabbed something in a short time period.

Still, you're not exactly disproving my point any. Infact, you're offering supporting evidence. I personally find it too simplistic to be considered really art, whether or not the man that did it (or inspired it in this case) had actually produced what could be considered actual artistic work beforehand or not. It's lines and color. That's all it is - not even particularly interesting lines, or truly inventive use of color or blending.

It's not what I consider art. I find it flat, bland, and completely uninspired. The motivation behind it is, to me, entirely secondary to the point of it being too simplistic. I have similar issues with a lot of abstract art as well, because it's not exactly like a lot of great effort went into the creation of the piece.

Most certainly not in comparison to other postmodern styles that were around at the time.

However, and here's the meat of the subject: All of this is my subjective opinion, and one I've formed over a very long period of art study, and just viewing the world in general.

We're all entitled to an opinion, after all, and though we may disagree with what other people have to say, they do have a right to say it.

...not in as completely crude a fashion as it was originally done (IE: The comment that prompted this point), but not everyone can be gifted with civility and tact.

Least of all me.

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So, then the question is: "What is art"? Where is the line of complexity whereby something becomes too insubstantial and shallow to be considered art? For that matter, does complexity make something into art?

My grandmother has an old chair. It's made out of some cheap wood, like pine, but it was repainted with a fake wood grain to make it look like oak. The illusion is incredible- if it weren't for the places where the paint is rubbed you'd never believe it wasn't oak. Someone hand painted that chair. Is it art? It is, after all, extraordinarily complex.

Now, to say that "I like this, but not that" is completely fair. Edvard Munch's The Scream creeps the ever-loving bajeezus out of me. It's still art.

I'll admit, before I started taking art and art history courses, I felt very much the same way you did- that an awful lot of "art" is just visual noise. To an extent, I still do. The biggest thing that I have taken from my learning so far, though, is that art is just too big of a thing to simply draw a line in the sand and say "this is art, and that isn't" because the grey area is too gradual.

In the end, a lot of it is because artists are perpetually toeing the line between "art" and "not-art", and if anyone comes by to say what is and is not art, then the artists will come along and intentionally find some way to make the "not-art" into "art".

At the end of the day, art is the product of an artist. You can like it, or you can hate it,(and many artists would prefer you choose one of the two) but it's art either way.

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Not everyone sees everything the same, or forms the same opinion of it when viewing.

Some call this art. I call it bland, and relatively uninspired.

C'est la vie.

EDIT: Should probably clarify the piece linked was done by Piet Mondrian, a recognized abstract artist.

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While I like his earlier stuff, I'm not well versed enough in Art Culture to really get the point of things that he was doing later, like the one you linked. As long as we are going truly abstract, I think I like some of Pollock's stuff better than Mondrian's late stuff.

EDIT: Earlier work, Grey Tree

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Oh, being a Fine Arts major, I could go into a long winded dissertation on what the artistic merits of Mondrian's work are, as well as those of De Stijl. Suffice it to say that it's surprisingly deep for a piece that's just lines and rectangles of colour.

Also, I'm not sure the original link is actually a Mondrian piece, but rather a sampler for a craft project. Mondrian's lines tend to be straighter and cleaner than that, given that the precision of them is part of the point. Like this

Then again, I always have liked the simplicity to Mondrian's compositions, even if I never really considered it artistic before.

Let me just reply to LordLundar on a point-by-point basis:

1.As Tyger42 said, Positional means it has defence values based off melee, ranged, and AoE damage, as opposed to typed, which is smashing, lethal, fire, etc..

2.Shield also has not insignificant damage resistance built into a number of its toggles. While it's probably not going to make or break a fight, it's around 15-20% on a tank. If you pick up One with the Shield and Tough, you get around 60% to smashing and lethal. In addition, Against All Odds offers a damage debuff which, while not terribly large, complements the resistance you have.

3.Endurance does tend to be a problem, since there's an awful lot of toggles and no endurance recovery power other than OWTS. On the plus side, thanks to the fact that your set is defence based, you have a good chance to simply avoid attacks which drain end like sapper rays.

4. In all the time I was levelling my SD/Fire I never really felt like I "needed" a team. It was nice when they were there, but they were mostly just providing support in the same way they would for any other team I played. It's uncommon for teams to sit nicely within that tiny bubble from Phalanx Fighting to give me the buff, so by and large, I simply played like it wasn't there. I did use grant cover, and only once did I ever hear anyone mention that it seemed to be helping them- and that was because a Shadow Cyst exploded near a squishy and gave them the "Deflected!" message instead of "miss".

5. Click based resistances have their ups and their downs. Because it can stack, you can get better protections than with a toggle. I've got mine 3-slotted, specifically so it stacks and lets me get bigger -def debuff resists. It's less of an issue now, but click powers do not get suppressed in the off chance that someone does mezz you. Plus you won't lose your status protection when end drained until it expires. However, if something happens which cancels your buff effects, you have to wait for it to recharge in order to reapply. Also, if you're slowed, it might not recharge fast enough to keep it up.

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OK all well and good, BUT... have the Devs explicitly stated that they want you to level your first character from 1-50 within the MA?

To my knowledge, they have not.

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I don't think they have to. As has been pointed out, if you're paying money for the "Architect Edition" of CoH, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to actually be able to use AE from the get-go.

Now, that said, I agree that a new player going into the AE building at level 1 and going 1-50 without ever seeing the rest of the game is a Bad Thing. Doubly so if it's because they think its their only feasible option for keeping up. However, I think that said new player should also have the option to use the features they were sold on.

The consensus I'm hearing is that the problem isn't that the AE is making people not know how to play- it's that people are using it to PL en masse, and therefore they don't get the experience to know how to play their characters. I don't think there's anything about the dev-created content that intrinsically leads to revelations about how to play the game, outside of the tutorials.

If people can be made to play "normally" within the AE, which is to say running missions that don't take the time/reward curve, strap it into a gimp suit and make it call you "mommy", I think that would be every bit as effective at curtailing the rampant n00bery, while limiting this feeling of "hey, why can't I play the game like everyone else?"

However, as I said in my first post, I do agree that the AE buildings don't have any place within the lower level zones. Out of sight, out of mind. I just think that instead of hard-locking people out of the AE content, there should be a means by which it can both be used by the newbies and let them experience the game.

In fact, another idea popped in my head as I was writing this- I don't feel that first time players should be barred from using the MA. You think they should be level gated to prevent PLing. The middle ground would be that until at least one character on the account reaches X level, the MA may be used, but no rewards are given. A new player can try out custom missions and such, but can't PL.

I was dealing with support yesterday and found a lot of the same things you describe here. Strange sentence construction, lack of knowledge of the game, confused instructions... I got my problem sorted out, but it was almost in spite of the GM, not because of him.

That said, it seems there's either a pool of bad GMs amongst the good (variations within a population? Impossible!) Because some of the GMs I've dealt with in the last few months are exactly the opposite: fluent in English, knowledgeable, and friendly- to the point where I've been able to joke around with them as they're fixing the problem... And they get the jokes.

At the end of the day, I think it's just luck of the draw- There's some good, some bad, and you just have to hope that you get one of the good ones.

My feeling is that any solution has to take into account one thing: The devs want the player to be able to level 1-50 in the MA. It's shown in the loading tips and it was touted as a feature when the AE was being released, so I don't honestly think that any solution that takes out the ability to do this will be seriously considered.

First off, I like the idea of scrapping the AE buildings in the lowbie zones. Ideally, a new player should be able to use the MA, but not necessarily know about it until level 10, when they're introduced to the AE contact.

Secondly, while I understand the motion to remove the ability to autoSK, I don't necessarily agree with it in this form. It's not unheard of to have arcs with level ranges that are all over the place, even in this age of being able to set the level range. What I would offer is instead of totally removing the AutoSK, instead a character who has been autoSKed receives no rewards. This way, someone can still show off an arc they like, or that they might have made to their friends, but they are obligated to either SK those friends to make their time worthwhile or have their friends accept that they're solely there for the story.

Admittedly, this would probably cause the return of the bridge tells, but it also accomplishes two things:<ul type="square"> [*] PL teams would have to work harder to get running[*] Lower-level mission arcs would become more appealing, since they would be in a level range that lowbies would get XP from.[/list]If PLing were still to be a problem, or the bridge tells were getting out of hand, the next logical step would be to simply remove rewards while SKed in an MA mission. That's not really where I'd like to go from the start, but would be a possibility if the devs needed to escalate.