Captain_Simian

I understand that the -res to the whip powers is pretty spectacular, but it eats tons of endurance, which affects my bottom line of things such as toggles (leadership, suppress pain, et al).

I've been trying to get my build to work out with the right balance of survival, team assistance, dps.

If I could get all of that at once, that would be grand. What is the general consensus on all this stuff? (attacks versus toggles versus recharge versus defense)? Is IOing about the best way to go to get there?

My thugs (50MM) have trouble getting through all their endurance sometimes. Absolutely no clue about endurance reduction in the pet slots. NOTHING there makes any real kind of sense to me. Then again I feel like a range improvement should increase radius of point blank powers, but what do I know?

To (not-quite) quote the recent Doctor Who:
Little Girl: "The Scottish have their own ship"
Amy: "Of course they do."

Murphy's Laws do apply. Always.

As a side effect, this proves paranoiacs are not so much paranoid as ahead of the curve.

Technically you can have a plot before you die. And since we kill Nemesis bots all over...everything really IS a Nemesis Plot. It was just a play on words this whole time!!

Thank you for understanding Electric, that's precisely been my problem. I lurk alot and my play time has always been a bit sporadic. The few friends I made way back when I don't know their whereabouts.

Like you said, tucked-away in tiny corners. That's what bothers me I think. Virtue has (as far as I know) always been the home of the RPers, but upon my return recently they seem to be...invisible? Maybe I will wait until someone starts something that tickles my fancy and monitor the boards awhile, get started on the basement level for once.

Thank you for the help everyone. I will investigate everything you've told me, see if I can find some answers. If anyone else has some ideas feel free to let me know.

Because the AE is a great game mechanic, it allows people to play "their story" (perhaps a SG has a nemesis group/super villain) and can explore those options. Call it a super-group perk if you like. But it's a storytelling experience for player-to-player interaction.

It would allow supergroups (coallitions, et al) to create tangible storys that hook into one another and allow them to designate the rewards without having to be online right at that precise moment to run with the player/be waiting when they complete it.

Right now most RP I see is people standing around posing and talking about each other's hair.

I thought it might be something like that. I'll check them out then and see if that adds the requisite pepper spice to my gaming experience.

Long drives make my brain melt.

In absolutely no way would I want to generate a purple. That's crazy talk. Thank you for wanting to light me on fire if that's what you thought I was saying.

Let's try this again...

You create the mission, select the characters from your group/friend list you want to be able to run it. You then select an item (recipe, enhancement, influence) from YOUR inventory and place it into the mission (much like placing it into the auction house).

When the selected players run the mission and successfully complete it, they receive the reward you had selected for them.

A further use of the system would be to auto-promote a SG member, custom badges (maybe even only viewable by friend/group members), any kind of reward you couldn't receive from a storyline arc. First you would have to HAVE the reward to give out for example, the authority to rank someone in the group, the ability to great group badges (or have earned the ability to give out a special set of badges?), etc.

I'm at work right now, so I apologize if it's still as clear as mud.

I have played all the ATs on both sides, and yes the Villain Epic is pretty fun. I have a wife who plays WoW and friends who play WoW. It bores me. From word go. The trouble is...I have a wife. Who plays WoW.

I guess what I am saying is, I love it here. The new stuff is only that much better. It's not interest in the game I lack. (It could be argued I have too much interest in it.) but just that getting involved with folks is more difficult than it seems it should be.

I literally despise WoW, yet I have some great online friends from it. How is that? What am I doing there I am not doing here? Back when bases came out I remember how the community here flared up dramatically. Masses of new players, people interested in doing "cool" things, even if it wasn't "the most ultimate" thing to do, even if some of these people were twerps. (My apologies to the twerps out there.)

So the help I am asking for I guess isn't a SG or friends so much as HOW do you get involved with folks on a day-to-day basis? I log in, and no one is around. I put myself on LFG, no invites (on any AT/powerset), and rarely do I see much going on RP wise beyond people standing around posing and holding costume contests. (not complaining, merely stating my experience)

What do you guys think I am missing? A chat channel? An online forum? the proper bribes? What single element puts you touch with new people and keeps them in touch the most?

This may have been suggested, this may even be implemented (since I don't have that much experience with AE since its initial introduction) but I didn't want to sit on it on the off chance it wasn't.

Custom Rewards for the mission architect.

I'll give you an example of what I mean because it's late and I've just driven 30 hours...I am a bit tired.

So a Subordinate goes to their Villain Group leader and says "Hey boss, I'm looking for that snazzy upgrade<insert purple IO>, and I hear you might have a bead on it."

The leader has a group of missions he's created previously and saved. He goes to the Architect people, sets up the mission and puts the purple (that he has in his inventory) as the reward (or whatever the reward for the mission he wants to be specific). He then sets that reward to that player (so the next player running that mission won't accidentally receive it) and tells the Subordinate "Listen, I got this thing I need done. Go do it, and I'll give you this snazzy new thing".

The Subordinate goes to the mission, runs it and gets the snazzy new item.

Other things this could accomplish might be an auto-super group rank (you run this mission you become the next rank up in the SG) or any other thing that can be "given" to another player (custom super group badges...maybe?). To help prevent abuse to a given SG you can set lockout permissions with various criteria such as membership in the group, non-membership in the group, anyone below a certain rank in a group, and numerous other variables.

I am pretty quiet, but I've been around since beta. I keep falling away from the game because I find a distinct lack of ties to the game community in general.

So I need a good static group of players who are fun to hang with, maybe even an RP group to keep my interest.

Wait, did I just prostitute myself?

I like that. Made me chuckle. "I'm hiding...and you can't see me. At all."

Nicely done Rachel. Tasteful and not overly done. Also, as nice as the artwork is people put up, sometimes it can be jarring when comparing with actual characters in-game.

I am only sort of "meh" about the world. I didn't know that, thanks for pointing it out though.

What about non-bungie jumping? That has to net some damage...right? And the flight back up is enough time to regen. Worth the time you suppose?

[ QUOTE ]
Hey, BaBs, I've got a technical question about something I see a lot with my Ill/Rad hero.

Let me start by saying that I just re-read the first post in this thread and re-familiarized myself with why costume-based customization is insufficient as a path to full customization. Thanks for that, by the way. It was insightful and a damn sight more info than any other game's devs have ever given to their players in the games I've played.

Anyway, here's the thing I'm curious about - The animation for Radiation Infection and Enervating Field is a kind of upraised hand palm-down thing that summons a cloud of radiation onto the target. (A pretty good example of the distinction between FX on the hero and FX on the target.)

[edit]Now that I think about it, EF's animation is actually more of a "double-fist haymaker" move, which may mean that I'm mis-remembering some of the stuff I talk about below this paragraph and it's really just an artifact of EF combined with a visible Nemesis Staff. The wages of writing from work instead of having the game open in front of me.[/edit]

If I whip out my Nemesis Staff and then activate RI or EF, it doesn't "sheathe" my staff and then play the "radiation summoning" animation. Instead, it plays an animation where my hero swings the staff-head down towards the ground (as if he was trying hold it overhead with both hands and club something on the noggin with it) and then the cloud of radiation is summoned onto the target.

This is actually pretty neat looking and sometimes I'll do it on purpose just for giggles. Usually, it happens just because my attack chain happened to put the two powers in sequence.

Clearly, the Nemesis Staff isn't attached to my characters as a costume piece. Where is the animation coming from? Is my staff essentially treated as a temporary costume piece while it's visible? Are we in a kind of mid-way no-man's-land where it's trying to treat it as a customized weapon and so it lands on the default animation used by the NPC's that wield the staff? It's just a lucky coincidence that the attack animation happens to work alright with the target FX animation?

[/ QUOTE ]

In case Back Alley missed it, I wanted to be sure to bring this post up to his attention. It's a good question.

And I know it's a bit late, but thanks for the detailed post. Although I am in the boat with many others who think power customization and player created content will help see the franchise into the next level up against the competition. Unless you guys are just plotting for CoH2, in which case that's good too.

I'll be honest, I am an old table-top fan of Champions (now it's Hero system with version 5 right?), and had they opened on the same day I would have been on Champions because of that. But I have grown quite fond of Paragon City and it's crazy happenings. The 5th Column still isn't really back and I STILL talk about them.
So that's a good sign I am staying if possible. Keep up the great work.

What does SHOE mean? I know it is related to Hamidon Origin enhancements, but unsure how.

Shadowstorm
Contact Plaguethorn or me, Uzekiel for invites
In-game somehow. Try PM first, but email is accepted.
After a long hiatus, I came back to CoH and joined Pinnacle to be with some old friends. They've been working on the SG, and they've established the base with a couple of teleporters, a workbench and so forth. But what we need is some active members. We're all experienced MMO players, and my friends have been here much longer than myself. Since I am just starting over again from scratch on a new server, I though it best to post here and let everyone know we're around.
The theme to the group is mostly a joining of mingled people from various backgrounds, so whatever your story, you will fit in. We could use some new blood, but we're not terribly big on just letting anyone in, hence no broadcast calls for new members or influence bribes.
Let us know if you're interested in starting over fresh with a new group of friends, or in making some new ones.