Ebon_Angel

Not a battlecry, but one of my tankers did have bound with her taunt, "Come over here and look at my t*ts", since it was the only thing I could think of that would make a gang of thugs all gather round a nubile school girl.

Well, okay, not the /only/ thing, but you get the idea. And it was very funny to watch.

I had to take it off after a while, since I'd keep hitting it by mistake when not in combat, and that kind of sentence randomly inserted into group conversation tended to kill the flow a bit...

Heh, this is fun. Hmm...

"I lost a contact lens!"

"Are you my mommy?" (though for Dr Who fans it's possibly less silly sounding...)

"Come here and give me a hug."

"Time for a no-toggle fight."

"What does 'Archvillain' mean?" (when on a radio mission)

"Scrapperlock FTW!"

Replying 'cos I post little enugh on these boards as it is...

1. What is your favorite word?
Wibble

2. What is your least favorite word?
Most expletives.

3. What turns you on?
Innocence

4. What turns you off?
Trying too hard

5. What sound or noise do you love?
A cat's purr

6. What sound or noise do you hate?
Fingernails on a blackboard/cutlery on a plate

7. What is your favorite curse word?
Darn/damn

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Stunt man

9. What profession would you not like to participate in?
Anything involving interacting with the public

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"Okay, now you get to pick a super-power and have another go..."

Reviewed "Celebrity Kidnapping" in game (@cruise) - will get to the newer arc when I have a bit more time.
Can I request my arc be added to the list at some point? I'm looking for critical feedback, so feel free to be as pedantic as you like :P

A Falling Angel
Arc ID: 133390
Length: Long
Morality: Villainous
Description: A curious offer from a less-than-perfect "hero" leads to a plot years in the making threatening the Rogue Isles and beyond.

Very, very good story - I love tales of sacrifice and hopeless last stands, so for me this is exactly what being a hero is all about.

Good use of unique maps that ensure your surroundings never feel repetative, and the numerous patrols, ambushes, resuces and escorts make each mission feel very alive, rather than a bunch of enemies lining up to be hit.

It is let down by a few bugs with critter AI, but generally these don't interfere with the mission completion. A lot of detail is given via clues, so if you don't stop to read them, or the rest of the team don't know to read them, they'll miss out on most of what makes this arc so good.

A few times I admit groaned at the increasingly long lists of people to find and/or rescue, but the maps chosen mean everything is usually easy to find, so I only had to hunt for a stray hero once or twice.

The Amulet of J'gara:
Played as a lvl 46 illusion/storm controller.

As you said earlier in the thread, it's a good thing when pretty much the only thing I can find to complain about is "our" mistyped as "out" in the first mission intro ("out members out").

It's interesting reading this thread and seeing how the arc has evolved - touches like the Tuatha saying they feel dishonourable in the first arc, the CoT commenting about studying the living armour later, etc. all non-essential but really do contribute to a well thought out and tied together storyline.

The progression of enemies in the fourth mission is excellent - a nice, "huh?" moment when you meet the first shadow form, and then additional info on the enemies after the reveal as you fight back out. Excellent use of a little used AE feature. If I'm going to be super picky having at least the first enemy having an empty enemy group tag (or ??? again) would just help - it does feel a little odd that my hero looked at it and went, "I have no idea what it is, never seen one before, but it's obviously a void demon..." I do acknowledge that creating an entirely seperate group just for that is probably overkill though :P

Difficulty was well judged to my mind, and I like the addition of mission text explaining you don't have to keep allies alive. 'Specially for Jeremiah :P

Good pacing - I like the short mission lengths as it keeps the story moving along and means you're always doing something different.

Gameplay: **** No complaints, but nothing amazingly clever, since the story was the focus.
Design: ***** Well laid out, good characters, excellent dialog and story.
Overall: *****

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That's the goal here - get farmers centralised somewhere /other/ than where the rest of us are.


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That is an unattainable goal and a setup for pure failure.

People really need to just play the game their way and stop worrying about things they don't have nor will they ever have control over.

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*shrug* So's getting rid of the farmers, but people seem keen on trying lots of ideas for that :P

I did say in the original post I don't expect to ever actually see this, I just hoped it might make a good start for thoughtful discussion.

Yeah, the glass is half full, why do you ask? :P

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Why would someone who wants to farm for drops, cash, xp, et al ... bother with the zone when there are ingame mechanics vastly superior already in place?


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Because they aren't vastly superior - the point of the zone would be to be the quickest way to get xp, bar none. The caveat: it's also the most boring way imaginable.


As I said in the original post - if you want to have fun and enjoy the game, nothing's being taken away from you apart from those currently abusing your normal missions. If you've got getting a level 50 character confused with being an awesome person then there's this hazard zone.

I hope from my choice of words show I'm not on the farmer's side - levelling a toon to the top by mindless repetition of the same things is exactly why I don't play any other POW, but apparently some think it's a really good thing. And I'm reliably informed they're people too, and have rights and stuff :P. Fair enough, I don't mind if they go ruin the game for themselves, but I do object to them ruining the game for me.

I'm trying to be realistic, however. Real life tells us that many things people want to do cannot be prevented by laws and rules. They'll find loopholes and ways to stay hidden. The next best thing, then, is to bring it under your control, so that it doesn't interfere with anything else. That's the goal here - get farmers centralised somewhere /other/ than where the rest of us are.

We will never prevent people from farming. We can, however, take steps to prevent their actions from impacting negatively on the rest of the game.

That should get some attention :P

It occurred to me when trying to form a non-farm AE mission team the other night that really the problem with the farming isn't actually the farming itself.

We've always had it, and it will always be part of anything with a levelling system. You'll never stop it programatically, and there's better things for the CoH GM's to be doing.

So rather than trying to outlaw it, bring farming into the game so you have some control.

Huh?

Yeah, you read that right. With the sidekick/exempler system and auto-levelling for missions level matters rather less than most POW's (MMOG's) anyway. It greatly reduces the workload of the devs desperately trying to figure out ways of blocking power-levelling without hurting standard gamers (as if there's a distinct line between the two anyway), and clears the farming spam out of the AE building so you can actually find a decent story mission.

[u]The Proposal[u] is this:

1) Create a new co-op hazard area, Rikti or Freaks, whichever.

2) Have several teleporters/gates/entrances from which enemy spawns constantly appear.

3) Spawn size are always set for eight players, at level 53.

4) XP is standard, influence is half*.

5) Everyone in the zone is auto-sidekicked to 50 if lower.


Hop into the zone, grab a team, kill the same enemies constantly for 50 levels or your eyes bleed, whichever comes first.

If you want to do something fun, there's the rest of the game, right where you left it.

Do I actually expect to see this? Unfortunately, no, since the devs have demonstrated their hatred of anything with even a whiff of farming, but I can hope, and I figured it might make an "interesting" discussion




*fast levelling is one thing, completely destroying the already precarious market is another.

It was a while ago now - a stalker-hunting stalker in Warburg, set to the music of Denis Leary's "I'm an ---hole". Pretty sure the stalker was a spines/regen too.

Can't find it on you tube with their search, so I'm hoping someone here remembers it...

@cruise

I have bases on Infinity on red and blue sides, and I'm happy to make a throwaway toon on any other server if needed.

And of course, I have to plug the BaseBuildersInc. global channel, for all your base building needs :P We're a friendly bunch, I promise

Glad to see this is still hanging around - I still think it's an awesome idea.

To anybody who's worried about the balance aspect, I'd encourgae to search my posts in the thread - I spent a lot of time on working out a system that seemed to generally produce balanced results, but the more eyes the better :P

Wow, that's neat - completely forgot about those variables. That's definately going into a SG channel chat button - it will make organising things much easier.

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You could make toggles (I think I covered this somewhere) but toggles would have penalities.

1) They would deactivate after X amount of time. I believe as X increases (Longer duration) that the amount of points spent should be become greater.

2) Also possibly the same deal but with an endurance cost. As the endurance cost cheapens to run the toggle, the amount of points spent becomes greater.

Basically you couldn't have a permanent toggle they would function closer to how phase shift works where it shuts off after a certain time.

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Easy enough to extend the current system - "duration" becomes how long until the toggle shuts off in, say, increments of 10 seconds?

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Also, I'm not really (or at all) educated on the programming of MMOs, but why couldn't you just have a create-an-animation thing? Like in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games. >_> Just string together a bunch of small movements/particle effects or something, like a macro?

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Because you'd have to design the game engine to allow that from the start, like the recent comments from the devs about colouring powers. You have to make certain assumptions when creating a game engine, and anything that doesn't fit within those, well, doesn't fit :/

It would be nice, however, to take a string of small animations and link them, I agree.

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This, my friends, is pure genius. This is like 10 pounds of awesome in a 5-pound sack. Seriously.

Addressing the concern over a sort of Signature Power Respec, could it be included as an option during a normal Respec? Like, after you've done everything else, the game would ask you if you want to change your Signature Power, or just leave it alone.

Let me toss in a suggestion: How about the option to tie SigPowers to one of a character's ordinary powers? That would, for the most part, take care of the animation, although additional effects may be added. My idea is that, when you used the Signature Power, it would also count as using the ordinary power, so they'd both have to recharge. The ordinary power would recharge at its own speed, based on Enhancements, buffs, etc., while the SigPower would recharge according to how many points you put into it. The SigPower would use the normal power's abilities as a base, and it would cost points to tie the SigPower to a regular power -the cost would be determined by the regular power, so a Tier 9 would cost more than a Tier 1. Nukes and Moment of Glory powers might have other restrictions.


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Now /this/ is clever.

Rather than start from scratch with a completely new power and animation, you could tweak or add effects on an existing one....hmmm.

Requiring /both/ powers to be recharged is also a neat idea - would really help stop spamming the powers if you're losing a power from your normal attack chain to do so...

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To-hit set bonuses - This one is going to be sneaky. I don't think it's the best PvE option, but I'm a little concerned at how much to-hit there is out there. Defense is basically screwed in PvP, even more so than it has been before I think.


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Where are the tohit buffs? I only see one in the paragonwiki info, which is the unique in Kismet.

+accuracy can cause issues, but +tohit is considerably worse for defense in pvp, I think.

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There are a lot of to-hit set bonuses. The uncommon high level melee damage set for instance has to-hit. I think you can get around 20% to-hit without much trouble.

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Playing about with Iokana's planner for Ebon Angel (DM/Regen) gives me 22.5% tohit from set bonuses. Double that for recharge and regen. If you focus on only a few set bonuses you can get some really nice totals. Though I think I may be able to get higher.

Sudden thought - set bonuses of the same amount do not stack more than five times - but what happens if you use a lower level version of a set, so the set bonus is correspondingly lower? Could you just have one set at, say 39 and one at 50 to get twice as much of a boost , even if they would clash at level 50?

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Now saying Cast Away was a good movie because it had Tom Hanks is about the same as saying Last Action Hero was great jsut because it had Arnold Swarztneggar(sp?) in it. And LArry is only funny because he has the other three in Blue Collar after his act so you have to usually go through the drudgery of listening to Git R Dun every 2 seconds.

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Heh. I liked Last Action Hero, actually, and while Larry is my least favourite of the four, I still find him damn funny. (Ron White is actually my favourite, just in case you were curious...)

I've just noticed that I completely forgot to address the animation length aspect in my suggestions.

The obvious way to include that is to say:

Interruptable - 0 points.
4 Second Animations - 1 point.
3 Second Animations - 2 points.
2 Second Animations - 3 points.
1 Second Animations - 4 points.


Actually, this makes some of our earlier powers a lot more balanced - having a maxed out AoE attack be interruptible is a lot less explotable.

I think initially using the preset animations might be an easy way to get this up and running - but having each animation being built up from "character movement" and "particle" effect is not much more complicated, and allows somewhat more flexability.

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To be pedantic for the sake of thoroughness: Your notation and examples all assume 100% combination success. Another way of looking it is that a + indicates an enhancement that you've tried to combine, whether it was successful or not. I am going to stick with that assumption for ease and consistency of notation.

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Yeah - it wasn't necessary for my points, so I didn't bother mentioning it :P

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Combining at x3/x8 means going from:
XXX
to:
Y+Y+Y+


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To be pedantic again: For any enhancement level after you switch to a new enhancement type (12 for DOs for most people, 22 for SOs for most people),

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I actually edited in a comment while previewing to explain I'm assuming the first round of upgrades in each for simplicity, but then posted the original comment (with spelling mistakes and everything) by mistake. Doh :P

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One of Cat's underlying assumptions was that he was testing for a power that is optimally 3-slotted. The most accessible example I can think of is Stamina. The most efficient use of slots is to add 3, because due to Enhancement Diversification...

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snippage of "I'm not that dumb" stuff :P

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But if you have slots to spare and you don't want Stamina's effectiveness to fluctuate, you can add a fourth slot to Stamina and put an SO in there.

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Ah, gotcha , that's the bit I didn't follow, 'cos I was thinking in general terms where you might be mixing several enhancements in a power (say the default attack slotting acc, rchg, end, dmg, dmg, dmg) where you don't have the space to do this.

Yeah, I know he says "4 slots" in the original post - my mind just read that as "4 SO's" for some reason :P