Click_Beetle

Where are these awards people keep talking about?

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Every AT thinks it is getting short shrift. 3/5 have to be wrong about that.

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I think the above means the Kheldians are right.

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The entire powerset follows this theme of being unpredictable, including the pet.

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Darkest Night, Tar Patch, Shadowfall and Howling Twilight are all completely reliable. None of them involve to-hit rolls of any kind and always the same way work when activated.

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Positron and I will certainly keep this in mind for the future… And, unfortunately, Chum Spray has been renamed to Bile Spray. Our powers guys’ felt that Chum was just too campy.

[/ QUOTE ] Well that blows chunks.

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Actually, the problem is that it's won't blow chunks.

God, ain't that the truth. The Super Soaker has managed to resist change all this time, too.

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2: Conform or be cast out: nullify everything you've ever thought or written about your character: it doesn't matter, never mattered in the first place.

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Perhaps another way to put this would be "realize your character was not etched in bronze and that 'conform' is not a swear word".

I think it becomes a case of progressive minorities, there. Quite a lot of players don't consider story for their own characters whatsoever. Of those that do, quite a lot have loose concepts that take up a paragraph or two. Of those with more fleshed out biographies, some will have PPP-compatible biographies already. Of those that don't, some can make the mental adjustment we just talked about. Of those that can't... there'll be a problem. But how many is that going to be by that point, really?

I understand it'll suck for those that fall into those categories, but it'll probably hit a lot less people than something like the global defense nerf did, and it's going to hit them in a way that is, all apologies, self-inflicted. Ignoring the idea of ignoring story text for a moment, for there to be a problem it has to be the case that not only is their pre-existing story incompatible with Arachnos and/or the Patrons but also that they have to be unwilling to adapt future progress of the story to the new reality and also unwilling to rewrite or retcon the character in any sort of meaningful way. I rewrote my energy blaster twice from level 1 to 38, once to change the nature and original purpose of his powersuit to accommodate an unexpected rule change, and once because I didn't like how part of the design was working out so I rewrote the background to accommodate a respec.

I understand people like their characters. Heck, Lord knows I've been [censored] over a couple. I quit for three months after I5. I just think it's important that people realize the source of the sadness in this thread isn't one-sided. It's two-sided: the direction the devs are taking on the one hand, and a certain level of stubborn rigidity on the other. Not meant as an insult. Just as an observation.

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While what you say is entirely possible, it might not be. Sure some Brute might go into the whole thing with the idea of taking Mako's power, and then using it against him, only to discover that as he gets further and further along in the story that option doesn't exist.

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That would make a great tragedy.

Some of the best stories have the protagonist lose, y'know.

And we are villains...

Trapped by one's own lust for power is a perfectly plausible and workable turn of events if what one is really interested in is story.

Well, I'll agree with that. There is such a massive array of skull and bone pieces I'll probably never use, except for maybe the Ribs belt and the bone cage upper arm things, but there was some stuff I really wanted, like the Hammer & Sickle chest emblem.

I used the chains on one villain, and it can be done with good taste, but how many times am I going to do it? There are a great number of options for barbed wire and chains, but I'd really like more kinds of footwear more than BDSM options.

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Darth friggin' Vader had a Patron.

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That is both a very good example and a not so good example.

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Episodes 1 to 3 never happened.

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Even with your example of the Airforce, while I'm sure you didn't drop rose petals at the officer's feet, I'm also pretty sure you didn't openly disrespect them, or be insolent in public unless they gave you permission to do so first. I'm also pretty sure they told you when you could work, and when you couldn't, when you could go on leave, and when you couldn't, what you could wear etc, etc, etc.

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It's not always that clear cut, even in the military. Plenty of things went on that the officers never heard about, and the officers commonly had the sense not to pry too deeply into some things. And while an O-1 could technically give orders to an E-9, that sort of interaction was actually usually handled a lot more delicately because the E-9 could probably crush the O-1 like a bug and they both knew it.

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You were just saying how there's a difference between being a lackey and working in a hierarchy. Well there's a difference between being in charge, and not taking orders as well. Just look back at CoH. None of my heroes have felt like they were in charge, but they didn't feel like lackeys of the Freedom Phalanx either.

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Well, that's fair enough, but I know I felt like the errand boy of every guy in Paragon City with a cellphone. Hell, I would have preferred being the errand boy of people with cellphones.

You know what, this sums it up better than I could. Scroll down to where it says "Green Lantern Memories". Ah, Seanbaby.

In any case, I don't feel significantly different as a villain in that respect. Every random name in the phone book throws work in my general direction and I go do it. With the Patrons... jeez, it just feels like a big contact who throws some nice temp powers at me more than anything. I took orders from Hard Luck for a friggin' badge. This guy wants to give me lightning bolts.

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But villains? No, the villains that make good characters are the ones that don't lick the boots of a superior. There's no room for those kind of villains on the rogue isles, only the kind that can follow the rules and do what their told!

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I don't think that all the villains that make good characters bow to no man. I've always thought the Super-Adaptoid was cool, and he works for whoever's pushing his buttons that day. Deathstroke is cool, and he works for who pays him. The Super-Skrull is cool and he's beholden to his military superiors and the Skrull throne. I always liked Terrax the Tamer, but he's been lackey to one being after another. Geez, even friggin' Sabertooth is usually somebody's stooge.

I don't think it's even the case that characters that don't usually bow to anyone are unable to work for or with people. Ultron worked for Doctor Doom in the Secret Wars. Doctor Doom himself worked for Loki without realizing it in the Acts of Vengeance. Loki in turn worked for Those Who Sit Above In Shadow for a while. Kang's Immortus self worked for the Time Keepers. Thanos considered himself Death's servant for decades, and so did Mephisto.

In my opinion, a lot of these objections boil down to me to be "I can't be in charge and I can't be cool if I'm not in charge". I just think that's bogus thinking. Darth friggin' Vader had a Patron. With lightning! Not red lightning, but lightning...

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Honestly, I can't imagine how any of this got off the drawing board without that feature.

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Honestly, they probably didn't figure that people would freak out like this. I still don't think it's that big a deal. I know people are worried that this power pool will turn out to be more UBAR than that power pool and they're stuck with Gimp Patron, but, jeez, all the PPPs are damn near identical. If I were going to complain about anything, it'd be that.

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Most of the pools given are magical in origin, and if you don't think that these patrons won't have ways of enforcing those who they have embued with their power, then they are dumber lackeys of Recluse than I thought. Ever heard of demonic pacts? These patron powers certainly sound like they could be something similar, and given that one of the Dev's themselves said in an interview that you get these powers by swearing allegiance to one of the patrons, it sure does sound a lot like boot licking to me. What a patron give, no doubt a patron can also take away, and if someone did take the power and run, then I'm sure the patron would just strip the offending villain of the powers they bestowed.

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There's a wide margin between swearing allegiance and becoming a toady. Allegiance does not equate to servility. Don't any of you work in any sort of hierarchy?

When I signed up for the Air Force, I took an oath to obey the President and all officers appointed over me. That doesn't mean that I spent all my time spreading rose petals in front of second lieutenants. It sure as hell doesn't mean that for guys like Marine Recon.

As for enforcement, if you're allowed to read behind the lines to make up magical methods of enforcing pacts, you're allowed to read behind the lines to do whatever you want; you just can't change the surface of it, but you can see the underlying motivations your way.

Even on the removal of powers, that's not always so smooth in comics. Loki didn't have such an easy time pulling power back from the Wrecking Crew; Immortus's powering up of the Scarlet Witch left all kinds of consequences, including drawn out, pointless crossovers.

Accuracy of Wikipedia

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Wait, wait, wait. Villains???

Where's the option to pick up 7 of my buddies and just get into a fight with the patron and take the powers?

Where's the option to sneak in and steal the powers under cover of night?

Oh right. We are villains who follow the rules! Grrrr! Scary!

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Where's my option to borrow or steal temporary powers when I think I need them in CoH instead of waiting on the occasional largesse of a contact? Where's my option to take Portal Corps portals where I think I need to be instead of where some contact heard some other guy tell his shoeshine boy that there was a strange signal? Where's my option to take sidekicks into Hazard or Trial Zones where there are people waiting to be rescued and to hell with the gate guards?

There's a certain level of "deal with it" necessitated in either system.

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Where's the option to change alliances and go over to other patrons?

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They said they're working on it.

"Keep your friends close but your enemies closer."

EDIT: These are villains. They don't have to be telling you the truth all the time.

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I don't have Arachnos following me around, commanding my every move. It's a freedom that CoV just dosn't have.

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Maybe I just have a different view on Arachnos than you do, but it doesn't seem to me that Arachnos is commanding my every move. To me it seems more like a loose confederation of warlords than a really tight pyramidal structure, y'know? Arachnos seems like a completely fractured structure where branch #1 not only doesn't know what branch #2 is doing but also mounts actual assaults on branch #3. A person can move about inside that framework doing more or less whatever they want. Not to mention that a large number of the contacts aren't Arachnos at all.

It also seems to me that there's a pretty significant difference between taking a Patron and licking boots. People seem to be taking it as some kind of insult that a major figure in the organization would recognize them and grant them extra powers and they also seem to be taking it that means they'll be waxing the Patron's car every Saturday afternoon and picking up his coffee at Starbucks every weekday morning. You could just as easily take it that the Patron is afraid of what your character is becoming and is sucking up to you with gifts...

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I actually like that the COV campaign is a bit more structured, I know that this is a sore point with some. But we are not playing any old villain in COV, which seems to be what some are asking for, we are instead playing villains in a specific setting.

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I agree with everything he said. I honestly don't see what's so limiting about making characters in a shared setting. I must have made twenty-five villains so far all with very different backgrounds and yet I have had zero problem making their backgrounds unique while still making them Arachnos-friendly.

Maybe it does come down to whether or not you were ever a pen & paper role-player. I expect to have my characters have to fit into someone else's world, and I expect the challenge to be making a creative and unique character while preserving the elements that have been set in common. For me, that's part of the fun - how do I integrate this into that?

I also think the red lightning looks cool. Part of being a long-term comics nerd, though, is expecting the same energies to be different colors. I even expect energies to have colors that don't make any sense at all. I can think of two related characters off the top of my head for whom sound is pink. Does that make any sense? No, of course not. Why the hell would sound have a color? 'Cause it's a comic book, that's why. Bad guys with red lightning doesn't faze me at all.

Be nice once you can customize power coloration, though. That would be even closer to the source material.

I just realized I completely forgot the debuff change was live while I was playing my fire/dark corruptor just now.

I never noticed the difference.

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...if only PvP had never been introduced...

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QFT



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QFQFT

I can live with it since they'll be slightly improved after I7. I'd rather have the nerf be the temporary condition than the reverse.

Bill after I7

Does anyone have a screenshot of the message the system used to pop up sometimes if you nuked like 200 mobs or more?

I don't mind the idea of maintaining a steady state to limit the improvements to the defense powers, if that's the intent here. Most of the numbers work out to more or less the same as before, so no worries... However, I'm not fond of making it harder to fight even cons and plus ones, of all things. Those're supposed to be our meat and potatoes. Maybe a slight base value nudge to focus the steady state maintenance on +0/+1?

Also, hey, by the way, does the 2 SOs = 66% in the calculations mean that To-Hit Debuffs aren't going to Schedule B? EDIT: Aha! Pretending I'm literate, no, no it doesn't.

Maybe we could just leave the enhancements in Schedule A and call it good?