ICF_Zombra

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To clarify a point that some people are missing:

Prior to Issue 5, hostage NPCs could see you when you were stealthed and had no trouble following you. In I5, the devs deliberately chose to make hostages unable to see through stealth. Shortly after, they gave NPCs who assist in combat the ability to see through stealth, on the basis that they were going to draw aggro to you anyway. And in I6, they gave Warburg scientists the same ability, presumably because they felt it would be unfair to make people unstealth in an open PVP zone.

So this is not an issue of "LOL Devs can't fix hostage NPCs"; the hostages don't follow you when you have stealth up because the devs don't want them to be able to do that. And they're probably not going to change their minds just because players like the idea of something as (quite frankly) broken as an auto-stealth power that can be stacked to get auto-invisibility.

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Eh, I think they should simply reverse that decision. It adds more annoyance than anything else to gameplay. It's causing big problems with some cool new IOs. It would probably be a very easy fix since they have the old code. Why not just change it back?

If they wanted to balance it out so you couldn't just sneak past the "get the hostage back" ambushes, I have no problem with hostage AI being changed so they always "leash" back to enemy mobs in range, stealthed PCs or not. Or they could just use what they have now anyway: ambushes that see through stealth no problem.

Wow. It takes a little while to get through the cliched beginning section, but once that's past, it's worth it. Pretty grandiose concept! But hey, we know you make ze monsters big. By the time I got to the end, I was well invested in the character ... now I care not only about how good her costume looks, but about her life as well.

My one complaint: "Put the hurt on the bad guys"? Hey, I know she pretty much grew up on Earth, but even so, that seems a little colloquial for an alien princess and guardian of the power of the universe Make her talk serious!

Just a note about the "cape crash" ... the only people I see talking about the cape crash are devs and mods. The only time normal forum users bring it up is to mention that capes don't seem to have any effect on whether they crash or not.

There are more crashes lately though!

Hey, I just had a thought - maybe we will be able to "invent" the old hairstyles in I9. That would be pretty hilarious.

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So, have we lost all hope regarding getting the Straight, Flip and Wedge hair changed back?

I'm still upset about the loss of the old Straight.

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Well, there are only so many times you can creatively post the same thing before you're in like blatant violation of the board's anti-spam rules. I for one haven't completely given up, but actual hope is fading.

And I know individual anecdotes aren't something the devs can take seriously, but I will say one more time that my Peacebringer is dead until the old Flip comes back, and she was the character I was going to take through the new Faultline.

It continues to burn me since it would be so easy to just have both old and new versions available.

Fun. Apologies to any RP purists - I'm replying in OOC style. Having not read the challenge situation yet, I'm choosing three of my CoH characters to respond - my three "classics". Stu, Shiela, and Ingrid (aka Radio Girl).

[EDIT: This is my response to Sam's first scenario. I'll look at the second one another day. ]

Spooky Stuart: As usual, Stu will have the easiest time of the three in accomplishing this objective. He can't go through the front door since there are cameras on it, and he doesn't want to leave any physical evidence of his passage.

Scenario 1: The easy way. Approaching the guards invisibly, he hypnotizes one into abandoning his post, and quickly interrogates him. He finds out when the object will be moved, and through which door, and simply waits for the transfer vehicle (having sent the guard back to his post with a good excuse in case anyone has radioed about his absence). When the movers are hauling the object out of the building, he creates frightening illusions (Spectral Terror) which quietly incapacitate the few guards escorting the object (Spectral Terror is loud, but only to people who can see it!). He hypnotizes the guy carrying the object into handing it over. He goes to the guards one by one and knocks them out, then plants the suggestion that the transfer happened with no problems, wakes them all up, and sends them on their way. They all return to their posts, and the transfer vehicle drives off, and to all appearances everything has gone just as they planned. The bad guys open the box, envelope, whatever, at the other end and simply find it empty.

Scenario 2: The somewhat less easy way. If it's a nuke or something of extreme importance, Stu might not be content to wait around, in case something went wrong. Nevertheless it would still be a very simple exercise in hypnosis, knocking out the guards one by one. If there were too many in one place, he might have to resort to hypnotizing one into setting off an alarm somewhere else, radioing the surplus troops to fortify the front door, or suchlike. But if it got that bad he could also easily summon enough illusions to keep many guards busy at once. It would be child's play to find out that only the boss had the combo to the safe. Since we all know Bosses are hard to confuse in one go, Stu might hypnotize a few guards into extracting the combination by force. More likely though he would just take the time to hypnotize the boss into quietly and peacefully leading him to the safe and giving him the item. If he found the boss early on he might have him issue orders to disband certain guard posts or otherwise make Stu's passage easier. Of course, depending on circumstances, Stu would prefer to take the time to hypnotize every guard who is disturbed over the course of the evening to erase all evidence of his ever being there.

Radio Girl: Ingrid will have a much harder time of it. I'll let her have some SG mates to help, since she's smart enough to know that she may fail alone, but since she is the star of this operation we'll say that she has her friends posted around at various vantage points to keep watch and make sure that no one escapes with the item. Only she is going in.

She decides to avoid the front door simply because there are too many guards there.

Cloaking Device is nice, but she probably won't get through even the lightly guarded back door without being spotted. She'll fly around the building looking for a window, but just for fun we'll say that there aren't any. She has to use one of the two doors. So she goes to the back door, plants a concussion bomb near the guards, then attacks. She'll use her taser to knock one out, revealing herself. Then she'll try to get the rest to chase her to the bomb. We'll say that one guy goes for the alarm and she knocks him out with an energy blast. A couple guys open fire but can't see her too well because of the cloak. The rest charge her and get taken out by the bomb (her suit is specially insulated against her concussion blasts, so she's fine). She knocks out the remaining guys with energy blasts, rewires the security lock, and heads in.

Sadly, someone has heard the commotion and the alarms have gone off. She knows there are only two ways out of the building, but she also knows the object is in a safe somewhere and will take time for the bad guys to recover. So she files through the building as quickly as she can to make sure no one has time to escape with the object. Her cloak helps a lot, but even without it she is too fast for the guards to react to. She does have to fight a few guys, but she's convinced that she has acted fast enough to prevent anyone escaping. Soon she finds the boss with some guards in tow about to open the safe. There is a fairly long running battle, since she's not tough enough to just slug it out with that many guys, and more guards are swarming around the whole time. The boss doesn't have time to get the safe open because RG is always flying out, KOing a guard, then flying back to harrass him, so he just decides to make a break for it. Maybe she is able to take him out before he gets away, but that's immaterial. She is happy to leave apprehending this guy to her teammates. In any case he is going to be in no condition to give her the combination, so she will just have to crack the safe. If it's a computer lock, no problemo. If it's an old style safe, she might try to crack it using her suit's advanced sensors, but more likely she will just use a bomb or two to blow the hinges or other weak point. Then she'll battle her way out with the object and be on the front page the next morning.

Red Shiela: Good luck, Shiela! She can't get through the front door because it's too heavily armored, but that won't stop her from trying. After killing the front door guards and searching futilely for a way to open it for a while, she will circle around and look for another way in. Yep, she kills the guards in the alley, too, except for one, since she actually is smart enough to know that she might not be able to get in on her own. She threatens the guy into getting the door open for her (whether he uses a code, radios inside to get them to open it, whatever the guy does, it works). She knocks him out with the pommel of her sword and barges inside. Plowing through guards like the relentless death machine she is, she eventually finds either the boss or the safe. (It's quite possible that the boss will have time to escape with the loot, in which case - you guessed it - she uses brute force to learn from the remaining guards where he might have gone.)

If she finds the safe, she will try to smash it open. Assuming that doesn't work, she'll wait for more guards and/or the boss to arrive so she can beat the combination out of them. If the boss escapes, she'll just wait until the cops arrive and turn the safe over to them. She probably doesn't care about the whatchamacallit herself anyway. (If she does need it personally for some reason, she'll let the cops open the safe - and then take it from them. She'll try not to kill them though since they are supposed to be good guys.)

If she finds the boss first, she will probably end up killing him, most likely in some cinematically satisfying way like knocking him off the roof of the building. Then it's back to waiting for the cops to open the damn safe.

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So if you've already made 1 Kheld, you can probably feel pretty safe deleting that lvl 50, as long as you save the Kheld.

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Seems like good advice. No reason not to just make some level 1 Kheld on some worthless server to "lock in" your Kheldability.

I find it interesting that the thread was left unlocked, probably as a gesture of tolerance from Lighthouse, and now it's gone on to all kinds of crazy rulebreaking stuff, and it's still unlocked. Just an observation. Some very interesting discussion here.

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I guess the big question then is WHO determines if a law is unjust or unfair?

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A little biased in your examples there?

It's the responsibility of each individual to determine right and wrong, dude. Society at large can and should try to establish a framework to bring the greatest justice to the greatest number, but a pretty "big picture" is small consolation to someone who's getting screwed right now, in this moment, in this place.

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I don't think we should accept any laws that are unjust or unfair either, it's one reason I speak out quite vocally on such things in my own private journal, however the laws should still be followed even while you complain about it or rally against it.

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I'm cool with that. It's interesting (to me, anyway) to note that we don't actually have freedom of speech here; really, the only "laws" here are those governing what we can and cannot say or talk about. I wonder how many rules there are here that you can't complain about without breaking them ...

You are a better citizen than I. I don't have faith that due process will always change things for the better. I have no compunctions about breaking rules when I disagree that they should exist in the first place. Of course, I am always prepared to pay the proscribed penalty for my actions within a given system. But while such disobedience is "outlawed" by the system itself, I feel that others can observe my actions as being outside the system, and use that stimulus to reconsider, from an outside-the-system point of view, the merits of staying within the system. In other words, I don't like to let the system itself have the final authority in setting the terms of discourse.

Tundara:[ QUOTE ]
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I still don't think that means we should accept bad, stupid, or unjust rules.

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I don't feel we should either. I just object to the use of comparing Slavery or the like with forum rules. =^.^= Let's face it, I break any number of forum rules every day, mostly those about staying on topic. >.< Mew is silly and lives off coffee, whatcha expect? =~.o=

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We're in agreement then. Cheers.

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I never said that everyone who chooses to break rules they don't like is always a hero and all of society should back them up every time. It's even possible that someone who objects to a given law may be wrong to do so! I still don't think that means we should accept bad, stupid, or unjust rules.

[/ QUOTE ]True, but there are ways of protesting that don't involve 'protesting' or angry rants. You could probably say just about anything to anyone depending on how you say it.

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Sure. I don't think anybody here said anything like "Ranting is a great way to solve problems." BBhumeBB was responding to a few posters who said, basically, "Them's the rules! Don't break the rules!" His assertion was that blind adherence to all rules under all circumstances isn't actually a good idea. That's what I was trying to support. We're in agreement here. Cheers to you also.

evil_evil_evil:
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The problem is, if the law or rule is just "a little unjust", then theres a good chance you're not going to have a lot of support rallying against it.

[/ QUOTE ]Tundara:
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The problem with laws being just a little unjust, is that the injustice of them could alll be in your perception of them. Or, the law may not be unjust, but the law enforcers may be evil twisted little scociopaths, if you will permit to be a little extreme. Or, if you rather, the enforcers could be too heavy handed.

[/ QUOTE ]TargetDummy:
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Civil disobedience is just an excuse for breaking a rule.
It in no way should suggest that the person doing so shouldn't face the full punishment.
If someone means to try to relate it to forum moderation then I say to them go ahead and break the rules if they feel they have to but then accept any deletions, locks, or bans that result as the fully expected consequence.

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Heh, you're all correct of course. I never said that everyone who chooses to break rules they don't like is always a hero and all of society should back them up every time. It's even possible that someone who objects to a given law may be wrong to do so! I still don't think that means we should accept bad, stupid, or unjust rules.

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Personally, I think comparing a posters right on this board to slavery is a HUGE insult to anyone who honestly suffered under such oppression. The comparison isn't only silly; it's disrespectful.

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I agree that the scale is completely different here. But are you saying that people shouldn't be responsibly disobedient in the case of a small-scale injustice?

We could probably come up with smaller-scale and much less resonant examples of injustice if you really want. I think BBhumeBB made his point very well. Maybe his examples were in bad taste, but arguing about that will get us nowhere. Agreed? If so, let's talk about the substance of his argument.

ANYway, I just wanted to add my thoughts about Lighthouse in particular.

I do think it is kind of weird that he posts in so many threads he locks. I end up seeing the posts in the Dev Digest and then I go back and read the thread - so his doing this is the direct cause of "innocent bystanders" reading inappropriate material! Then again, thanks to this thread, I'm looking at that in a new way ... since he's telling people why the threads are being shut down, people like me can take those "bad" threads as cautionary examples. How not to post. So I can't decide whether this is good or bad. Both I guess.

Personally, I am looking forward to the day (which may never come) when Lighthouse is able to "loosen up" a little in his posting style and become "one of the gang". I was never truly a fan of CuppaJo, but she did have an undeniable charm and charisma. Somehow we never blamed her for laying down the law. She was just doing her job, after all. But there was just something so amiable about her. Like a cop who arrests a burglar, but after the guy gets out of jail he goes out drinking with him. I don't know. Lighthouse still has that "new car smell". I think we need to get him drunk and convince him to get a stupid tattoo. Something like that. Then hopefully this tension will disperse a little.

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Uh, I don't think it is fair to draw a connection between the Civil Rights movement, Slavery, and the Underground Railroad with anything on the forums. For one thing the is the matter of scale, and another the gross injustices that those laws created or movements sought to undue. I don't think any but the longest and most strained corrallation can be drawn between Forum Moderation and any of the three examples above.

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So if a law is just a little unjust, it should be followed blindly under all circumstances?

BBhumeBB's examples are extreme, but why should his logic only apply to really really super bad laws? 200 years ago, those laws were not viewed as really really super bad.

Ever heard the phrase, "give an inch and they take a mile"? Just because a particular injustice is "small stuff" doesn't mean it isn't worth opposing.

The length is intimidating at first glance, but wow, what a page-turner! (Proverbially speaking!)

A great read, and I love this character again. It must be great fun to play him in game, knowing the whole process by which he got his powers. And his cranky personality.

Good show!

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Where are the Samurai chest pieces located? For female? I can't find them.

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Aren't they under Chest Detail?

[EDIT:] Oh yeah, bring back the old Flip, Straight, and Wedge, in addition to leaving the new ones in since Outfreaker likes them.

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Need to fix that sort of thing as well, having to pay to have something stay the way you wanted it is not a good option.

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Agreed, but I'd call this a low priority, at least for I8, what with all the tokens being sprinkled around. It does suck for those who need to make minor alterations though. I for one hate to waste tokens on those, but I have no choice when it costs me 2 million just to get my costume back to the way it was in the first place.

(A HIGH priority of course would be to bring back the old versions of the hairstyles that received major renovations: Straight, Flip, and Wedge! Let's have Straight 1 and Straight 2, etc. And no, I am not only posting to plug this again!)

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quick question.... is there really any hope at all they will be changed back (hair styles) or fixed to not be a butt flap (trench) or are we going to be forced to "deal with it"? i dont see Ray anywhere on the dev/mod/gm list so i dont know who to ask this to.

any help?

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First, it's Jay.

To answer your question, I'd say the trench coats look good enough that their basic design probably won't be changed. We can hope for more textures in future, but I wouldn't hold your breath for a coat that flows off the shoulders.

Going by the precedent of the skirt situation, I'd say we can hope for the old version hairstyles to come back, although there has been no official response that I know of. Let's hope it doesn't take a freakin year.

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There *shouldn't* be any negative changes to Cloaking Device. In fact, you should not be seeing any changes at all to the power.

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You shouldn't be SEEING any changes? Get it? Stealth nerf? Any changes were "cloaked"? Get it?

Sorry, I'm bored.

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And as always my biggest costume request: Large Afros for male characters!

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They are in, for Huge at least.

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Jumping on board the unhappy hairstyle train, here.

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Same. Our pleas in the official thread on the Training Room forum got zero response. Now this is the official thread to cry in, so here I am.

Every hairstyle that was changed dramatically needs to have the old options available as well.

I demand the old Flip and Straight back. Leave the new versions in as additional options, great. But I have two characters who are staying on the shelf until their hair is fixed. Including my new Peacebringer who is my only hero low level enough to check out the new Faultline. That's right; I am boycotting Faultline until that character can have her trademark hairstyle back.

I don't like Wedge myself, but the new one looks even worse, and I totally support those who want to be able to use the old one.

A few people say they think it's a bad idea to "clutter up" the costume menus with "thousands" of options. We are talking about 3-5 hairstyles here. Put the old ones back. I am normally not very pushy or demanding, but blatantly removing distinct hairstyles is simply unacceptable.

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Yea but when the Human Torch goes nova, he can melt Ultron to slag.

When I go nova, there's still two remaining Devouring Earth bosses that chuckle and then proceed to introduce my hero's face to a radical pummeling and an opportunity to use my HMO copay on the teleport to the hospital.

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When the Human Torch goes nova, he's usually actually begun the fight and gotten a few hits in before he uses up everything he has in one final blow.

It's not an alpha strike. It's the omega strike. You gotta wound the bad guys first.

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That, and Johnny doesn't light up every 5 minutes. If they make the recharge on it once every couple months, I'll be all for having it do "guaranteed victory" type damage.

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A portal mission more or less states [the Hydra are] people, too. Weird, alien people, yes, but they are kidnapped by the Rikti since they make useful shock troops, and they can't resist because they're not technologically advanced... Basically, the Rikti did the equivalent of rounding up a bunch of primitive peoples and stuck them in front of their army.

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Far out. Now I feel even weirder about the idea of having a Hydra pet.

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You just need to exercise more creative imagination as to why.

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First, thanks for your thoughtful and interesting post.

Second, if one more person patiently explains to me that there are many possible creative justifications for having evil-looking pets, I am going to scream. I understand this. I said the same thing myself more than once. Yes, creative explanations by the players can justify anything. It just irks me that by default, goody goody superheroes are hanging out with demons and Nazis for no evident reason. Having to grease up my shoehorn and force fit it so that it makes sense annoys the dickens out of me. The world should be coherent and consistent when taken at face value.

When I watch The Empire Strikes Back, I don't want to see a scene in which Darth Vader is dancing in a pink tutu and smearing jam on himself and have it never be explained anywhere. Yes, I can go home and make up a reason why he did that, but that would be fundamentally unsatisfying. I want the explanation to be part of the movie (or revealed in a sequel), and have it fit the story seamlessly. That may be a weird comparison but hopefully it illustrates my problem with superheroes having cuddly Nazi and Satanic pets. It should not be up to the players to explain away blatant inconsistency.

AND. I already know that the description for the Red Cap, at least, changed the default so that it makes sense (it's not actually a cruel, evil, homicidal gnome; it's just a hologram of one). It's not the ideal situation, but that solution is good enough. The explanation is there, even if it does seem pretty half-[censored]. Hopefully all the other pets will get the same treatment. Assuming that they will, I consider the matter closed.