Dementor_NA
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Quote:Yes, well, items 3-10 were supposed to be up for discussion.Originally Posted by Pixel
11. Binary Numbering Systems
This is a great way to add excitement to your Top 2 Items lists. -
An ongoing discussion of very useful game elements in City of Heroes that people don't use, don't know about, or don't appreciate enough.
1. Empowerment Buffs.
For the price of three pieces of salvage (two common, one uncommon) you get a full hour of a buff of your choice from the Empowerment Altar in your Supergroup Base. Your dominator still 3 LotG's away from perma-dom? No problem, get a 20% boost to your attack rate for pennies. You have issues with endurance below 20? The Empowerment Altar can grant a recharge rate boost as well.
The altar also grants bonuses to resistance of various damage types, and even protection from unusual and annoying effects like knockback and endurance drain.
Somebody cranking up the price of Demon Blood today? No problem, each buff has three recipes, one for each salvage tier!
2. Confusion
In the category of "Something people don't appreciate enough", I hear all the time people complaining about confused creatures "stealing exp." This is true to a point, but the math behind how confused creatures' damage effects the rewards gained at the defeat of an enemy means you won't get a better deal on exp/time than pitting confused enemies against each other.
Think of it this way: Say it would take you 30 seconds to defeat monster X with your normal rate of damage. That's too long! Lets enlist monster Y to help us out by confusing him: You and monster Y both wail on X and it takes you half the time to defeat the enemy, so about 15 second.
But wait, Monster Y dealt half the damage! Now he steals half the exp, right? Nope. Monster Y only steals 20% of the exp, you get a full 80% Do you see what just happened there? Your exp/time just went up by 60%
Let's say you're fighting really tough critters, and your damage is just piddling compared to theirs: in this situation, Monster Y deals a full 90% of the damage! Well, surely you'll get a piddling percentage of the rewards, right? Wrong. You get a full 30% from a mob a confused creature dealt 90% of the damage to. It would have taken you ten times as long to kill this guy by yourself, which means by using confuse here your exp/time went up 200%! That's three times as much exp as normal. Unless you're facing enemies you can one-shot kill, confusion is ALWAYS a bargain.
Add the fact that confusion is a hard control: confused monsters will not attack you. Even better, confused monsters will actually turn around and buff you if they have buffing powers. Confusion is, quite frankly, overpowered. However, the intense misunderstanding of how it works by the playerbase have kept is fairly safe from the nerfbat all these years. -
Well my perma-powerboost blaster will love it. He's playable right now only because of how often he has Conserve Power up, then Force of Nature handy for when it drops. With stamina added in for free he might be unstoppable.
Now to find two slots... -
I just hated the ending.
(spoilers)
Okay, so supersmart kid got everyone right where he wants them, played everyone like chumps, got every angle accounted for, nobody saw it coming, etc etc etc...
Then, plan over.
Um, wait, what?
Not the first time a supersmart guy got beat by suddenly becoming dumb for no reason, but it a was a pretty big letdown after such a good twist. -
Quote:Not to the other players. RP is an odd narrative, one where the audience is also the co-creator.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Ahhh... But it is the players choice if their minions are generic or meaningful.
I'm sure when Penguin sees Jasco, he sees a man struggling to make ends meet, a man who can't get a job because of a B&E conviction from when he was too young to know better, and man trying hard to make child support payments and take night classes at the same.
But to Batman, he's just Black Turtleneck #2. -
Quote:See, now there's a key error alot of people make; the mastermind archtype of City of Villains is not synonymous with "supersquad leader". Mastermind minions are generic, throwaway thugs. Splinter isn't a mastermind with 4 henchmen, he's a scrapper with 4 teammates. Especially true of Professor Xavier, not even close to a mastermind.
No wonder people can't stand Splinter of TMNT, Nick Fury, Professor Xavier, Sgt Rock, Zordon of the Power Rangers, and Gen Hawk of G.I. Joe cuz they are a bunch of untrustworthy Masterminds.
Now Shredder, Shredder is a mastermind, fielding a ton of faceless ninjas (or robot ninjas, for the spineless animation companies of the 1980s) who get swatted around by the dozen. -
Quote:Yeah, no. Not even a little bit. Not even when he was Bannerhulk. Do you even read comics?Originally Posted by CactusBrawler
Um.... The Hulk teams up all the time, he's a regular Avenger's member.
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Quote:A key element of steampunk is that steam technology is used in a much broader, more advanced way.Originally Posted by spice_weasel
some amazing detail in that piece, including the working lights.
can't help but wonder what some of the other transformers might end up as...
iron hide as a grain mill?
bumblebee as as a manual water pump?
megatron as a loom, which might finally explain where 'wanted' went wrong
the tech has got to be pretty thin... ;p
However, it would be rather amusing to see Soundwave turn into an Edison-era phonograph, or Starscream become a zeppelin. -
Quote:Don't be silly. Batman uses an array of incapacitating devices, combined with a mixture ranged and melee combat.Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Oh great let's open the old "Batman is a stalker" argument. There are plenty of examples of heroes that could fit into this games CoV archetypes.
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Quote:Right, CoL didn't appear in an arc, that was a standalone mission.Originally Posted by Xzero45
That's...nice, I guess? Went into quite a bit of detail there. Don't know why, but it's nice you're showing enthusiasm.
But Posi still said the old arcs happened and should be treated as such, soo, don't know if that addressed your point or not. -
Quote:A stalker's tactics are pretty obvious, sneaking around and stabbing people. Further, it's not a stretch to disapprove of such methods, feeling they are dishonorable, perhaps.Originally Posted by Shadowe
The only problem I have with someone "distrusting Stalkers in general" is How does the character know they're a stalker in the first place? People don't walk around with little symbols floating above their heads to tell you what Archetype they are. My main is a Blaster who has Stealth, and Superspeed with a Stealth Proc in it, yet no one has ever accused him of being a villain when they first met him.
In short, unless Moo actually said, IC, "I'm a stalker", the other character had no realistic way of knowing it, which makes IC dealing with it a waste of time, since the other player has gone OOC when reacting to his character.
The Villain AT's have a villainous feel to them. It's one of the reasons the Hulk doesn't team up much, dispite being a "hero". His powers are furled by his anger, and it makes heroes feel uncomfortable. It's also reasonable for heroes to feel uncomfotable with a 'hero' that sends lackeys to do his dirty work (those ninjas/soldiers/thugs have families too, and summoning demons and zombies is definitely cringe-worthy... robots are probably okay.) Corruptors and Dominators can probably pass as blasters, defenders, or controllers if needed, but keep in mind dominators feed off the pain they cause, and corruptors strike with extra power when they're going in for the kill. -
Quote:CoH has an odd sort of continuity. In effect, there are two forms of precedence, intra-character precedence, and extra-character precedence.Originally Posted by Xzero45
Actually, I think Posi stated that parts of the old Prae arcs did happen, and that the new updated ones are sort of another stab at invading or something, I guess. But GR isn't pre-any issue.
Intra-Character Precedence is how your character experiences the world. For your character, the clockworks are thought to all be machines until you help discover otherwise, Nemesis is thought to have disappeared until you discover cronies working in his name, and other such revelations. One character discovering the true nature of the Clockwork doesn't actually inform that contact of this fact after you finish talking to him: the next guy that talks to the contact will result in him being all "find out stuff about dem clockwerks, herp derp." though any missions your character goes through after that period assumes you know this, and that it's common knowledge.
Extra-Character Precedence is stuff which effects all characters at the same time. The Calvin Scott TF was only around for one (a few more?) issues, and heralded the change from Sister Psyche inhabiting Aurora Borealis' body to regaining her own. When the council took over the 5th Column there was a big "event" where huge 5th vs Council battles would rage in the streets. However, a character that levels from 1-50 after that change will have their character always assume this is how it is: Your missions don't go from 5th Column to Council at level 20 with a big story arc.
There are goofs and gaffes, and in-between states here. During the 5th Column to Council change, all mention of the 5th column was wiped from the game, even in a historical sense, turning precedence into a a total retcon (though some of this has been re-retconned back to the original form) Past certain levels it's assumed your character has certain knowledge, even if arcs in which you learned such things have not been experienced (Omega Level Clearance issues nicely bypass this, with statements like "you may or may not know this, but...") What side is Requiem on now, now that the Column is back in action? And when is he on which side?
I haven't run the new arcs yet, but my impressions are that they are a little of both. The mission where you rescue the Praetorian Carnies is a stand-alone mission, not part of a larger arc, so I see no reason why that mission couldn't be entirely Intra-Character, even if the others aren't. -
Quote:Hey, didn't know... yeesh.Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
Nononononononono.
Do not start discussing That Which Must Not Be Discussed in a thread of awesome. If you must discuss TWMNBD, do it in its own thread so when it gets modlocked and deleted, it does not take this with it.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite -
I didn't see any evidence of any carnies besides Vanessa herself.
That said, the chronology of the story is odd: it follows your character's level, not the time the feature was released. So while the mission where you rescue the Carnival of Light from the Praetorians was released a long time ago (issue 2? 3?) the events of Going Rogue occur beforehand. This Vanessa between levels 20 and 40 (45?) to make the duplicate masks that allow her to spread her power around and thus create her Carnival of Light. -
How is Champions Online doing anyway?
All I know about it is I hated it, and my friend who got suckered into the lifetime subscription played for like a month before going back to WoW.
Do we have any numbers on subscribers, income, etc? -
Quote:Well Maelstrom does feature in several Praetorian arcs, so there's that. But hey, look at the four characters featured so heavily in the Korean release: two of them are trainers, and are in a few (two each?) missions, but the others have no counterpart in game that I'm aware of. Now, I suppose it's possible "City of Hero" was a very different game though, and featured them heavily somehow.Originally Posted by Noxilicious
Incidentally, it amuses me how Maelstrom and Desdemona feature on everything Going Rogue-related, even have huge biographies on the GR website, but in-game they are little more than just two members of the Rogues Gallery. Not just that, they're probably the least interesting Rogues Gallery characters, overshadowed by all the others.
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Quote:True, and it works fine for Draconians, Dragonborn, Kobolds and the like, but making actual dragons does not yield great results.Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Do you recall DragonLance? They made a D&D spinoff based on the novels and one of the groups of bad guys were Draconians. They were created by corrupting the eggs of good dragons. Something similar could easily be created by using our own lizard costume pieces.
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Quote:Ha! I love it!Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
I had actually considered an AE arc like this, with the contact supposedly being the DM, and towards the end, he'd get frustrated with how you whizz through all his challenges and there'd be an ambush of DE rock monsters.
"Rocks fall, everyone dies. ... Or not." -
There's actually some logic to the progression, as I see it.
Vigilantes are so crazy anti-evil (in their minds) they do whatever they have to stop it... killing villains, sacrificing innocents, etc.
Rogues are purely mercenary, following no code except what best suits them at the time. Is there a good reason to kill that hero, or can I profit more from warning him of his doom?
The two are opposites. One believes so adamantly in a cause they cross the line to get it done. The other has no cause to speak of, and crosses the line because why the heck not? -
I think there should be (fully optional) PvP mayhem vs safeguard missions.
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I found it kind of weird when I'd go up and talk to contacts and they'd be all like "I've heard about all the good you've done for the city..." or "while you've been here doing good, another you has been doing evil." ...except that I just got here!
What I'd like to see is a short arc which introduces you to the "Praetorian Underground" where you continue to do secret missions for Cole/The Resistance while you gain levels as a hero/villain in paragon. You could maybe choose between being an overt agent (you're "out" as a Pratorian, here to show the primals you guys are a-okay) or covert agent (nobody knows you're praetorian.)
So we'd need eight short (2-3 mission) arcs:
Covert Loyalist Heroes (forge documents to make you appear to be a primal)
Overt Loyalist Heroes (stage then stop a crime, for example)
Covert Resistance Heroes (see Covert Loyalist Heroes)
Overt Resistance Heroes (publicly reveal a Loyalist Underground plot)
Covert Loyalist Villains (Out of ideas, but you get the picture)
Overt Loyalist Villains
Covert Resistance Villains
Overt Resistance Villains
And then a spattering of arcs as you level, maybe at 23, 28, 33, 38, 43 and 48.
It'd take some work, but it would improve the "Praetorians in Primal Earth" experience alot. -
Team Teleport can be very useful, for Masterminds, Controllers (anyone with pets, really) and anyone with a team that can use it properly. There's nothing like the entire team engaging at EXACTLY the same time to tear a spawn apart.
That said, I think a great idea would be to expand all the existing power pools, to add a few new powers. The suggestion I had originally made was that each pool get one additional level 6 option and a level 30 option. My level 30 option for teleport was essentially your "Wayfare Teleport" which I called "Warp" I think. The extra level 6 option was called "Blink" but it was a short-ranged teleport with no casting time, a cooldown, and a small +defense buff. -
It looks like it would be alot of fun by itself, but I think to be viable it would need a control set to match it. The nature of dominators means they have very few toggles or passive powers, and because of this the redraw issue is very real for them because of how much they need to switch between their secondary and primary sets.
At one point, I had suggested a pair of powersets using a Kusari Fundo (a ninja weapon which is effectively a blade on the end of a long chain) but I'm sure the post is long gone now. -
As I was sitting there pondering the uses for the MA system, it occured to be it would be an interesting thought experiment to piece together a D&D-esque campaign using the system (without violating any of WotC's trademarks of course.)
The D&D Classes already have good analogs in AT's and power sets (though I'm annoyed at the lack of a buff/melee AT)
The one major drawback is the total lack of dragons. The humanoid dragon-thing one can create with the character creator just doesn't cut it.
Thoughts? -
... and found it! Thanks guys. NCSoft has my [STRIKE]10[/STRIKE] 7 dollars.