Cantatus

The thing I don't understand is that Longbow were created to go to the Rogue Isles and intervene there. What are they doing in Paragon City? Are there not enough superheroes there already? What about using Freedom Corps (which, I know, are basically the same thing), Hero Corps, the army, or even some new made-up SGs.

Longbow are boring enough on their own. They all look the same and don't appear to have very diverse powers. Arachnos is a much more fleshed out group. You have robots, soldiers, mages, armored people, etc. They should really spice up Longbow if they're going to use them so often, but I really think they should add some new groups.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I know you mentioned that you didn't want PvP to go all the way to 50, so here's one posible solution: have a gap of a few levels between the level range for each zone. This way characters would have to do missions or hunt outside of the PvP zones for a couple of levels to be able to get into the next PvP zone.
I mention this possibility because I would really like to see higher level characters be able to get missions in PvP zones. I mostly solo with my lvl 50 Blaster, so I find a little disheartening to not be able to get some badges simply because I don't team as much as the next person, especially since, at level 50, I'm not getting experience anyway so it shouldn't hurt anything if I'm doing missions in PvP zones to get influence/prestige and the badges.
Just my 2 cents worth.

[/ QUOTE ]

Recluse's Victory in Issue 7 is a level 45 to 50 PvP Zone.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is the level restriction to enter the zone 45 or 40? The Game Update page indicates that it's 40.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have eleven wonderful avatars he is free to use...

[/ QUOTE ]

Where are they?

[/ QUOTE ]

They have to load.

[/ QUOTE ]

Stuff loaded on that site, just nothing "wonderful."

[ QUOTE ]
I have eleven wonderful avatars he is free to use...

[/ QUOTE ]

Where are they?

It's shelved but it's still being worked on?

[ QUOTE ]
I seem to recall somebody saying that Valdermic also left. He was NCSoft, IIRC.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, he's working on Auto Assault now.

I'm thinking Alexa and Arctic Sun went to Tabula Rasa as that game doesn't have forums up yet, and they'd need their positions to get that up and running.

Good luck in your new job, Alexa!

Farewell, Arctic Sun. We hardly knew ye!

Good luck in your new job!

[ QUOTE ]
I've been trying to spot the Brute with the electrical melee.

Fun video and read, regardless.

[/ QUOTE ]

On first watch, I was thinking it was the guy using the red electric type powers that various Arachnos do. Watching it again though, one of them uses a range attack with it, so I'm inclined to think that's a Patron Power.

[ QUOTE ]
That way they would still be rewards for the explorrs, as a lot of them are so out of place I've personally never seen them, let alone unlcok them, but it would be simpler once you actually find them.

What do you think about that, just as a concept off the top of my head?

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally, I like that they reward explorers and badge hunters.

However, if they were going to use your idea, I'd rather see it where the hidden contacts were far greater in number with less missions per. Right now, you'd find the hidden contact and that'd be it for 10 levels. This way, you'd still be encouraged to keep looking if you had, say, 5 hidden contacts per zone, each with about 3-5 missions.

[ QUOTE ]

Until someone TOLD me about them, I just assumed the guy I was walking by was a contact I was either going to get later or one that I wasn't going to get at all (like you don' get EVERY contact in CoH).

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point. Right now, a "hidden contact" looks just like any other contact. Since you don't readily know which ones are hidden and which ones you just haven't gotten yet, there's no way to tell them apart. Perhaps they need to give the hidden ones a unique aura.

[ QUOTE ]
I am putting the requirements for Contacts - and their location - in the Prima Guide...

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the ultimate flaw in game design, in my opinion. Don't require your players to leave the game world to read spoilers to be able to play the game. It ruins immersion.

[ QUOTE ]
but here was our intent with these Contacts - reward Exploration. Reward people who poke around to find new things. Now, the down side is that once found, these Contacts don't inform the player about what it takes to unlock them.

[/ QUOTE ]

States, I'm the type of person that does the exploring. When badges were added to the game, I refused to look at spoiler sites to figure out how to get them despite my friends doing so. I ran around zones looking for the badges and the plaques. There's an important different here though: I knew the badges were there.

While no NPCs in the game actually explain the purpose of badges (which would be a nice addition as well), there are at least obvious clues that they exist. I have the badge tab on my compass window, and I get badges automatic badges pretty early on (one at 10, for example.)

Hidden contacts, however, don't. I'm not saying that you should make it extremely obvious of where they are. I, personally, love the idea behind them, but I at least think there needs to be something in the game that clues you in, whether it be a contact like Kalinda explaining it to you or civilian NPCs chatting about the hidden contact or such. You have to let people know there's a reason to go "poking around."

But, please don't make it where we have to resort to looking at external sources to clue us into the various features of the game.

[ QUOTE ]
I've never liked how CoX has made somethings "secret." Things you HAVE to use out of character knowledge to know about.

* Level 30+ stores (pre-I6)
* Task force/strike force/trial contacts
* The entire freaking Shadow Shard
* AND the four task forces in it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good list. I agree on all four points. I'd add difficulty slider NPCs as well since they don't appear on maps, making you have to commit to memory where they are.

The Shadow Shard is probably the one that irks me the most (among other things.) You have four zones with no reference to them whatsoever?

Hope a dev is reading this thread!

*thinks certain people on this forum have a running contest to see who can necro the most random thread*

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Having to get the Bling back (1 million inf) for Doc Buzzsaw doesn't really.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Miners, workers, evenmembers of groups such as the Sky Raiders and Arachnos; I give aid of my skills to all. Unfortunately, often the desperate men who hite my services cannot afford to pay when the bill comes do." - Doc

I can only guess that the good doctor wanted to employ someone who values currency as much as she does. In that light, it makes sense. =P

[/ QUOTE ]

But we've been told in the past that infamy/influence isn't currency, so it doesn't.

It'd be better if he said something along the lines of, "I don't recognize you, and that means you can't help me. I have a very difficult task, and a neophyte like you is better off making snakeskin boots for Mongoose. Come back when you have enough infamy where I've actually heard of you."

[ QUOTE ]
Alright, so there seems to be a concensus (spelling?) that there's something stinky about the unlockable contacts.

Anyone disagree?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure most would agree, but we'd likely differ on what we'd want changed.

[ QUOTE ]
Also, they require actions that in no way correspond to the contacts themselves, and the reasons behind these actions are never explained.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like how Veluta is done. Given her storyline, it's not unusual that she'd require trapping ghosts to start talking to you. Having to get the Bling back (1 million inf) for Doc Buzzsaw doesn't really.

[ QUOTE ]
Is anyone else outraged they changed Arbiter Leery's requirements to using a respec?

[/ QUOTE ]

Positron's explanation on this makes a lot of sense. Apparently, they can only have contacts unlocked via one badge. You get a badge for completing the respec trial, but using the respec replaces that badge with a new one. So, the way it was set up previously made is so it you used your respec, he'd stop talking to you.

If they can reward an invis badge for this like Samual_Tow says, all the better.

[ QUOTE ]
My problem is that the hidden contacts are for a 5 level range, instead of being larger. Is there any reason they can't be allowed for 10 levels, at least?

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably repeating myself here, but I agree. The ones I especially don't like are the ones where completeing the task to earn the badge earns you so much exp that you end up outleveling it. Veluta is a good example of this. Exp goes so fast from 10-15, that you might outlevel her while killing those ghosts. The ones that require something like just killing the Ghost of the Scrapyarder are much better in my opinion.

But overall, my biggest problem with them would be what was said above. There's no ingame indication whatsoever that these contacts exist. It's also not alway clear what the contact wants you to achieve. Veluta just tells you to kill ghosts, not that you have to trap them. I don't want to have to rely on spoiler sites to know how to play the game.

I think the best route would be to have an early contact like Kalinda talk about the hidden contacts, and then maybe have your contacts give drop a hint or two about them. For example, Mr. Bocor says, "It's good to have some help accomplishing my goals. That Veluta Lunata has been stealing too many of my cohorts away. People would rather hunt ghosts than recover ancient artifacts. Go figure." It doesn't have to be limited to contacts. You could have civilians saying things like, "Veluta and Marco's story is so sad," and "Why are so many Arachnos soldiers heading over to Fort Hades. Don't they know that place is haunted?" and "Someday I'm going to prove myself to Veluta. She'll pick me over Marco."

If you're going to have something hidden, at least provide clues to its existance. Something like this would be a lot more fun than just finding a spoiler site. It'd require thinking about what was being said and trying to figure out what the hints meant.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

I wish I still lived in Austin so I could've gone.

[ QUOTE ]
::looks around nervously::
Um...,

I realize that one should not look a gift horse in the mouth, and I don't want to come off as not being gratefull, nor a nit-picker, but...

Why can't we use the various paterns on our bare legs like we can every other body part? For me, my main has tiger strips on his bare skin, on his arms, his chest, but I can't have it on my legs? Just dosn't look right.

[/ QUOTE ]

/agree

My Scrapper has a pattern on his skin, but you can't do it on his legs.

Like you said, I'm not trying to be ungrateful, but I hope this isn't it as far as bare leg options for males go. We could really use some options for short pants. You can sort of make it work with baggy pants and bare feet, but it looks more like parachute pants that are a few sizes too small.

Read his article in the most recent CGW? Pretty funny stuff.

[ QUOTE ]
Y'know what I don't want to see? The Babbage buffed to the point where a Synapse team can't be expected to beat him, leaving him to rampage through Skyway at will.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's sort of what happens with the Kronos Titan. I'm not sure a group of 8 could take it out. We couldn't even dent it's health with 5-6, and with 14 it still took several minutes to kill him. If there weren't people around willing to help, I likely would've been forced to just let him go window shopping along the Red River.

He lives!

(Notice how he completely ignored Celtic's question? )

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are we really going to care about the lack of trainers in Pocket D a month from now when this event is over?

[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe not...but on the other hand, it's interesting that Positron said they would see about putting buy-back contacts in there, and the stated reason against Trainers was technical rather than "but why will you need it after the event." Sorta makes ya go "Hmmm..."

[/ QUOTE ]

Now I'm starting to wonder if DJZero will be the cross-over contact...

[/ QUOTE ]

It's possible. Maybe changing your side will require grouping with the opposite team.

Thinking about this some, I have to wonder how much of this event is a way for them to test how cross-over is going to work. Allowing us to team up in a very limited fashion, must be a good way for them to datamine to see if any glaring problems come up before they implement it. If that is the case, I'd imagine we'll get some more missions there even after the event ends. (At least, I hope.)

[ QUOTE ]
Are we really going to care about the lack of trainers in Pocket D a month from now when this event is over?

[/ QUOTE ]

That is something I'm curious about. After the 22nd, is this even going to be an issue?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No, Flame is right, though his response was a bit antagonistic. When a dev says that there are technical problems, that's probably the best answer he could give.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really - he doesn't have to explain why - just that it is that way. For example, when they rolled out ED, they realized they made End Drain and End Recovery enahncements work exactly the same - so they changed them to End Modification. And told us why - that the two types in one power stacked with each other. This mostly shows up in things like Transference.

Another example is when they pulled the ability to enhance Damage resitance via enhancements (and defense too, for ninjas to balance it out) from Mastermind pets because, just like the two types of endurnce modifcation enhancements, damage and damage resistance worked off the same variables. They just didn't notice how they interacted until the little pop-up showing what is getting enhanced came along, and had a lot of people with pets. Which is the ONLY type of power that would have both damage and damage resitance.

neither time did they explain why, just that it is that way, and they really couldn't change the way it works (without redoing the engine itself) so this is how they are fixing it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, both times they did explain why, and pretty much goes along with what I'm saying. Those gave good for the changes with delving into the coding even though they were changes resulted by the technical side of things.

[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes they have and sometimes they haven't. The decision is up to the devs. Since Positron often gives complex and detailed answers, he probably had a reason for not going into more depth this time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps you're correct. They have been fairly liberal with answers in the past, so it's possible there is a matter they can't reveal. Of course, Positron is also the type to jump in when he can and offer a quick answer (which is greatly appreciated, no doubt), so it's also possible he just didn't have the time. Regardless, I think Silas_Tzin is correct in that the more information we get, the more accepting people will be of the answer. Not only that, but it might help the playerbase to come up with some ideas that the devs haven't considers.

My main point for replying though is that no one is going to the extremes that FlameBlade is suggesting.