Basilisk
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I'm inclined to agree with this. However, going even deeper than this, I would say there's another fundamental problem in that villains in literature tend to have a broader spectrum of methods to going about their villainy, and there's an underlying expectation to be able to get yourself into this villainy.Originally Posted by Tired Angel
I haven't read the whole thread (sorry) but my main thinking around this is that it is a limitation of how missions are issued in CoV (and CoH). Because you rely on contacts to give out missions it difficult to write story arcs that revolve around villains doing naughty things of their own free will. You can't really get the feeling of "today I am going to go take over the world and I am going to do it like this" it is more "today so and so is taking over the world and I am going help them by following their plan".
Some newspaper missions simultate this with the whole "go kill so and so because they've annoyed you" but for me these lack any real depth
With heroes, while their motivations are different, their objectives tend to be more or less the same- to help people in trouble and to bring evildoers to justice. This fits nicely with CoH because if the end objective is helping someone or bringing someone to justice, then the mission's story will almost always be able to mesh with a character's personal backstory without too much mangling.
Villains, on the other hand tend to be motivated differently. Some are in it for personal gain, some are in it for some righteous cause, some want power, some want money, and some just want to blow **** up. Even when two villains have the same objective, such as getting money, there's going to be a massive difference between how a villain like the Shocker might go about it (robbing a bank) and Dr. Evil might (using a moon-mounted laser to ransom world leaders).
With a hero, given their own objectives such as rescuing a hostage, they might go about it slightly differently, but in the end the same hostage will be saved from the same bad guys from the same location, and probably in largely the same manner (ie: beating the stuffing out of anything that is not a hostage) regardless of whether it's Superman or Daredevil.
Because CoV is based on CoH, its mission structure tends to work best with the mercenary-type villains. They would need at many, many more arcs villainside to be able to go 1-50 completely with missions that fit each villainous paradigm and frankly, I don't think they ever could span the entire spectrum, from vicious anti-hero to psychotic slasher to mad doctor to everyone's satisfaction. So, we get the one path that is sort of the past of least resistance for the story writers while simultaneously being the greatest common factor across as many backstories as can be reasonable expected.
It ain't perfect, but it's better than a kick to the crotch with a steel toed boot. -
Quote:I mostly agree with this argument. Sometimes, increasing kill speed is more than enough to merit a slot on a team. For example, if you're in your mid-20s and teamed with a pair of tanks, mitigation isn't worth as much as a boost to kill speed.Originally Posted by EvilRyu
The only thing they contributed realistically is increasing kill speed. That team either already had someone to take care of the damage mitigation so they could actually take advantage of the resistance debuffs or they played powersets like WP or SR that little to no extra damage mitigation to not get scratched. Try this on all blaster team with 1 TA defender and he is liable to be kicked for something else.
On the other hand, you're right that boosting kill speed isn't universally useful. I'd also argue that there are more situations where increased kill speed becomes redundant than there are situations where mitigation does
The problem I see is the same one that faces forcefields. TA/* does one thing, and it does it very well, but it sacrifices too much general utility to make it competitive with other sets which offer a broader spectrum of buffs, debuffs, and heals. A Rad/* will find him/herself in a better situation to deal with any team composition or any challenge than TA/*. This isn't to say that TA/* won't contribute to a team, but rather that it doesn't have a key for every lock, like Rad/* or Dark/* have. -
I would probably be more inclined to PVP if it were more balanced, yes, but I think the biggest thing that PVP needs right now is something that the devs can't provide through simply coding some new mechanic. It needs a larger population.
I don't think there's much argument in the fact that PVP is better balanced towards teams. If I could simply jump into the zone at any point in time and decide to get on a team for some PVP, then I believe that a lot of the issues would be minimized. The problem as I see it is the fact that if you jump into most PVP zones without having anything planned, you'll find maybe 1 other player on your side, and 4 on the other. Sure, you might be able to get both sides teamed up, but then your side will get handily trounced by the other.
On the other hand, if you could always count on having at least one full team on each side active, then at least if you wanted to do some pick-up PVP, you could probably get in on it.
My best PVP experience was when they arranged for beta testing the lower level PVP zones. A friend and I went into Bloody Bay, and it was unadulterated chaos. There were literally hundreds of people in the zone, and lag was incredible, but there was no difficulty finding a fight. It was crazy, and it was crazy fun. If there were some way to bring that back, I would be on it in less than a heartbeat. -
I got a leather jacket that unfortunately doesn't fit (I'll have to take it in for a return later this week), a new video card (with which I can play CoH in Ultra-mode), and several DVDs.
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Quote:Great, now I have this horrible mental image of some taxi driver snacking on a pooch in the front seat of his cab.Originally Posted by Anti_Proton
<snip> ...the taxi driver eating a beagle turns into a giant stone golem and lumbers off into the distance...<snip>
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A flatulence of Rikti Monkeys
A plague of Infected
A blizzard of Winter Horde
A protest of Luddites
A mirror of Praetorians
A putrescence of Vahzilok
A rave of Trolls
A staff meeting of Crey
An ambush of Knives of Artemis
A colony of Devouring Earth
A collective of Nictus
A column of Council
A council of 5th Column -
Quote:There's always someone else around to pick up the slack, you walleyed muck-sucker.Originally Posted by Nethergoat
And destroy what little intrinsic value your posts have?
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The exact layout of my trays tend to vary depending on the AT of the character I'm playing.
Melee:
Tray 1: Primary attacks
Tray 2: Secondary powers
Tray 3: Vet attacks, utility powers, APP powers
Tray 9: Ouroboros portal, Pocket D transporter, mission teleporter, rest, travel powers & sprint
Tray 8: Temp powers/Booster pack powers
Buff/Debuff
Tray 1: Attack/control
Tray 2: Debuffs
Tray 3: Buffs
Tray 9: Ouroboros portal, Pocket D transporter, mission teleporter, rest, travel powers & sprint
Tray 8: Temp powers/Booster pack powers
Blasters:
Tray 1: Ranged attacks
Tray 2: Melee attacks
Tray 3: Controls/Utility powers
Tray 9: Ouroboros portal, Pocket D transporter, mission teleporter, rest, travel powers & sprint
Tray 8: Temp powers/Booster pack powers
Dominators:
Tray 1: Close range
Tray 2: Controls
Tray 3: Ranged attacks
Tray 9: Ouroboros portal, Pocket D transporter, mission teleporter, rest, travel powers & sprint
Tray 8: Temp powers/Booster pack powers -
Quote:I'm sorry, I'm afraid your right to have opinions has been revoked.Originally Posted by synthozoic
First, I gotta say that accordions and yodeling rock! They rock most heavily! (But then again, I like bagpipes too so maybe I'm biased.)
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Thanks to Dark_Respite, we're now up to 91 entries. Also, I've made a small change so that when you answer or give up, the quiz gives a short blurb about who each of these heroes and villains are, just to give them some context.
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Quote:I welcome them.Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
46/79! On the first try!
And Basilisk, I might be able to scare up a few more entries for you.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
I've also dropped the gauntlet to Manticore. I'd like to see how much he remembers.
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Thanks to Ad Astra for another secret ID I'd missed!
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Quote:It is. I tried to make it relatively generous to mistakes, but there's an awful lot of mistakes to try and account for.Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
Is this thing spelling dependent? It feels like I'm taking a timed-typing test.
-edit- Thanks to MDanger, there's one more entry on the quiz. If anyone else can think of a missing hero/secret ID pair, feel free to PM me. -
Inspired by this thread, I decided to put together a version from our lore here in City of Heroes.
The City of Heroes Secret Identity Quiz!
This is no softball quiz. I've dug as deeply into the lore as I can to find 91 names from the novels, the comics, the game, and dev posts such as "Canon Fodder". Have fun, and don't feel too bad if you're spinning your wheels. -
Quote:And naturally the proper response, if you can't use said gift is to spit in the gifter's face and claim they have ulterior motives for giving you something.Originally Posted by Karl_Rove_Man
Not that I agree with the OP, but this is equivalent to Obama giving everyone in the world a Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen DVD for the holidays. Sure, everyone gets the same gift, but it's sort of useless to those without a DVD player.
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I suspect that given the never-ending problems that Oil Slick Arrow seems to have, this is very unlikely to be put in. Oil Slick Arrow's oil patch is supposed to ignite with any fire/energy damage. In practice, however, it only lights some of the time, a bug that drives Castle crazy.
I really like the idea, but I just don't think it's likely to go through because of all the troubles that their first endeavours have given them. -
Quote:I'm pretty sure those are just resources from earlier versions of the day job/ Super Secret Out of Combat System (SSOCS) that never got put into the game because they could never find a way to make it "fun" that satisfied them.Originally Posted by Lycanus
interesting, do we have any idea what detective, academia and science breakthroughs do? I'm assuming Recall is some sort of teleport.
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Quote:Maybe they just assumed you were there trying to get your Shivan and didn't want to bother you? And as was mentioned above, not everyone likes PvPing. If it had been me on the PB, I probably would have left you alone just because if I'm PvPing, I'd prefer a good stand-up fight.Originally Posted by InfamousBrad
So, they're getting Shivans. We're still talking "fight you can't lose" territory here, practically, in both cases. So what they're doing is putting off recharging their Shivan Shard for 24 hours or more so they don't have to put it off for 15 or so seconds? How does that make sense?
And even if they did lose the first fight, they'd be out, what, another minute, tops, since neither of them had their first fragment yet? How is running away and setting themselves back many minutes, maybe hours, more time-efficient?
But more to the point, didn't they sign up for this game to feel like superheroes? What kind of superhero runs away from a fight they can't lose?
But really, if you're that curious, why didn't you just ask him/her? -
*takes position on a nearby rooftop with a sniper rifle*
BOOM! Headshot!
(Ok, so it didn't do much other than smear his makeup, but I think my point is made. Next time it won't be just a standard bullet) -
Let's see, I have:
Rock-hopper (Ice/Earth/Ice Tank): My first 50, and an absolute juggernaut on the field. He was made way back in I2 or so, when Ice tanks didn't have stacking shields, so he ended up shelved for quite a while. He finally hit 50 a few years back, but tends only to get pulled when a friend is nearing 50.
Avatar of Basilisk (BS/Regen/Body Scrapper): He took a lot longer than he might have otherwise thanks to the fact that I find the combination painfully easy and slow. With my newest Spines/Inv scrapper much more fun to play, he might end up shelved indefinitely. I like to bring him out for ITFs since he can hold his own against an awful lot of punishment.
Pyrphoros (SD/Fire/Fire Tank): My first 50 on my second, currently inactive account. Insanely fun, but unfortunately a student's income just won't permit two accounts. A pity, too, since he's even more fun since getting him softcapped. If it weren't for some endurance issues, I'm not sure anything could stop him. I have an SD/EM tank working his way up the levels, so it may not be too long before he's replaced.
Void Defender (Humanform Warshade): This one was a bit crazy. He's a lot of fun, but a major break from the pure invincibility that I get on my tanks and scrappers. If it weren't for the constant mezzing, he would probably get dusted off more, but I simply don't care for the back-and-forth of form shifting, especially the long animations that are a part of it. His second build does include Dwarf form, but I try to avoid it where possible.
Comanche Rogers (AR/MM/Munitions Blaster): All I can say is: "Never again!" It was great fun up until 35 or so. He's armed with enough AoEs to demolish a small country, and barely enough defence to stand up to a stiff breeze. His single target attacks are resisted like crazy. I got him from 35-42 over 2XP weekends, and 42-47 helping a friend to 50. The only reason I bothered with the final push is because I want to get one of each AT to 50. Still, if I were to do it over, I would convince myself to go with something, anything, different than AR/MM.
Living Foundry (Spines/Inv Scrapper): This guy was the exact opposite of Comanche Rogers. Rough going at low levels and a behemoth at high levels. He's also my most recent, having hit 50 two weeks ago.
Caesura (Sonic/Traps/GW Corruptor): My first villain 50, and still probably one of my favourites to play. I was playing /traps before it was cool. He was also my first 50 to solo an AV, so he gets a special place in my heart for that. I like to solo a lot, so the /traps playstyle is perfect for that, plus he can bring plenty to the table for a team, too.
Ascella (Grav/Fire/Mako Dom): Wormhole is fun. Really fun. That is all.
Pankratios (WM/WP Brute): Another one that suffered a bit due to boredom with the character, though it picked up a bit when I got the Rularuu hammer. He can smack the crap out of you as long as he bloody wants. One of my favourite things to do pre-AE nerf was to make missions with as many enemies as possible, run them in testing mode, and see how long it would take to kill them all using just one power (the power would change each time). Brought back good memories of tanking in I3 and I4. Unlike heroside, if the situation calls for a level 50, there's pretty much an equal chance that any of my level 50 villains will get called to the plate, which says something, though I don't know what. -
My characters tend to start with a very rough idea for a bio right from the character creator. However, they don't tend to get actually written out until much later, say around the 30s or higher. Even when they do, there's no guarantee that they will actually get written in-game, and instead just written on another forum or on notepad.
As far as having some idea as to who this character is in my own head, I'd give it around a 75% or higher. Written out in game? Maybe 33% -
Quote:I appreciate the idea, but for as much as it might help to get newbies interested, it brings up a host of other problems. The most notable would be "What if you're a noob who wants to play with the vets?" or vice versa.Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
It all seems to boil down to one fact, IMHO:
Noobs and Vets should be separated.
Vets don't really want to fight noobs: they are no challenge, they whine, and it just drives them away from PvP completely, resulting in a dead PvP zone.
Noobs don't really want to fight vets: they can't win against them, they can't escape them, all they can really do is hit the hospital button over and over. With the wrong build, skills, and mindset, they can't even form a strategy, and worse -- they have no incentive to. Since their experiences are telling them PvP "isn't fun", why should they want to get good at it?
In addition to vets taking noobs under their wing, what I think would help would be a revamp of the rep system:
Idea: There are seperate PvP zones for various Rep Tiers, and you can't play in a zone too low for your Rep.
It would have to be very difficult to lose Rep, to prevent players from sandbagging for a while via twoboxing and dropping down so they could snipe lower tiers. But it may be necessary to allow players to sometimes drop a tier, for the occaision when a lucky streak pushes you over when you aren't really ready yet.
Sure, you would still see the occaisional vet sniping for low tier players with a new character, but their own success would drive them out of the zone.
In general, players who were interested in PvP, but borderline, could go into the noob zone and probably do all right, facing players similar to themselves: Players on their PvE build, RPers, and those just there for the zone goodies.
Then, as they continued being successful, they could graduate to another tier. Sure, every time you to a new tier, you would get thrashed for awhile, but you could know that you are facing players of the same general skill at both builds and play.
Moreover, a setup like this would open the door for more PvP rewards: with PvP broken into tiers, you don't have to worry so much about someone who has earned an OMGCannon 9000 running around with it repeatedly one-shotting you: they will just level themselves to the next tier and be out of your hair. Hope they picked up some Skillz...
...just an idea...
If you're forced into a specific instance of a zone based on your rep, then you're going to mess up any potential SG PVP nights, since you'd be hard pressed to find any large group with all the players at the same level of PVP awesomeness. Also, what would happen with the group is one member, through the course of play managed to have a good night and got bumped to the next highest tier? Or the next lowest? "Sorry, you can't play with us with that character anymore?"
And since PVP rep is character based, all a veteran would need to do to have a chance to wail on newbs would be to use a different character. Even if it's not a PVP specced build, the veteran will have the edge because they would know how the system works better than the newbie.
Finally, what about the value inherent to the fact that some vets DO help newbies learn the ropes? If all you have in a zone is newbs, then it's kind of the blind leading the blind. If the veterans are all separated into their own tier, then they can't pass on their wisdom.
It's an interesting thought, but I believe there's a lot of issues preventing something like this from working. -
Oh, well. How about a few more
What did you say your name was, again?
Funny, you don't LOOK like a Troll...
So maybe building a parking lot in the middle of a swamp wasn't a good idea.
Falling through the map; always good for a laugh
Where the heck is TexWord_STMARTIAL3 and why would I want to go there?
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Quote:I would prefer this go in for everyone rather than just as a vet reward. Talking to contacts is an annoying time-sink for everyone, and it might as well be taken away across the board.Originally Posted by Tealeaf
I just hope that sooner or later the the devs will take my suggestion and give us a Little Black Book, that gives all the contact's cell numbers. If you call them when you are too low a level for them they'd just tell you to talk to them later. And you could also use the "book" to call the "Go see so-and-so" so you don't have to go chat with the pvp contacts or the dude in the hollows or whatever again for the hundredth time.
Until we get this, I don't want the vet program to end!
For my part, I don't really feel strongly either way. If they just decided no more new vet rewards after this batch, then fine. If they want to keep going with it, that's good too. If they do keep going, I think the best way would be to have less "showoffy" things that people really want such as powers and costume pieces, and go instead for stuff that's nice to have, but not teh awesomesauce. This latest one hits that right on the head.
Other things I might like to see in upcoming vet rewards would be things like a free rare recipe roll, free character slots, a free rare salvage roll, a free mystery gift (as from the winter event), and other things along those lines. They're good, but if a newbie wants one too, s/he has plenty of ways to get it themselves.