Interface

I won't miss forum trolls.

(although I do agree that cysts should have been taken out about 5 years ago).


EDIT: Semitransparent buildings in Steel? What have you been smoking and where can I get some?

I should get Bug Hunter for this.

From a concept standpoint, there's only one character I never got a chance to make. Way back in '07 or '08 or something, they mentioned the possibility of a Rikti archetype, and I immediately name-reserved "Icon Purple".

I always wanted to make an Architect arc where the player thwarts Lord Recluse by giving him Hostess fruit pies. Or maybe Nemesis. Of course, no one under age 30 would get it, maybe even older.

Seconding a Robo/trap MM. Calculate the cost of summoning each piece, sum it together, and tabulate whether each mission is worth it. In fact, maybe the Assault Bot is a giant adding machine come to life.

As for a name, something like the opposite of Rogue. If I can digress for a second, one of my few gripes with the game's writing was the Rogue-to-Hero morality missions. "Hmmmm, here's a situation where I can make some money! But oh no, something has gone wrong and I can't make money! But, I'll save the day anyway just because I'm so nice!" Every single mission. This guy could be the polar opposite. "I could stop Malta's plan to kidnap the City Council... but for the same cost I could put out that burning building and stop two purse-snatchings! Away!"

If there was time, I would have been all over writing MA missions for this guy.

Posi said in his lore post that there's a backstory to him, but it's in a design doc he no longer has access to.

Just to throw this out, here's how I would have handled the Architect:

Have the basics be as it is; you write an arc first as a text file locally, then publish it when done. However, basic published arcs have a significantly reduced XP/INF rate, and drop nothing but inspirations. The rate should be high enough so that players don't feel that they're wasting their time, but still low enough that even the most lucrative farm earns less than running radio/paper missions. As a pulled-out-of-my-rear estimate, 50-60%.

However, players who feel that they have created a gem of an arc can pay a small fee, maybe $5-$10 worth of Paragon Points, to have their arc looked at. First, a GM or low level Paragon employee spends five minutes looking over the arc, to make sure that;

1) The author spent more than ten minutes on it; it works properly and is not riddled with spelling errors.
2) It's not a farm.
3) It's not horrible. ("Mynx's Furry R.ape Adventure")

Then, some player volunteers play through it, with the author's name removed to prevent favoritism. Arcs that tell a good story and/or pose a worthy challenge are given a "Paragon Stamp of Approval": they are listed separately from the bulk of arcs, and yield full XP and drops.

And, 3-4 times a year, the devs go through the top rated arcs and choose one or two that they really like. These become part of main CoH lore, like the SSA, and the author gets some sort of reward.

Opinions?

I know I'm necroposting here, but honestly, you spent eleven pages arguing about grammar? When the game closes, you're going to wish you had spent that time playing instead of arguing.

P.S. Electric Armor wins.

Wow, I can't believe I forgot this in my previous post, but they should never, ever have removed, or reduced the requirements for, badges that people already had.

I can understand reducing the requirements for the Empath badge from 10 billion to 1 billion, and again to 100 million. Nobody could possibly get it. It was estimated that even if the healy-est healer were to spam heals 24/7, it would take 17 years to get the badge.

However, I practically screamed when I came back from a break and saw that the requirements for the Back From The Future badge had been reduced from 1,000 pillboxes to 100. During a particularly obsessive badging period, I spend countless, countless hours hunched over the keyboard, taking pillboxes in RV with my Warshade, mostly solo. I still remember the look in my 8 year old's eyes as he stood by my desk, begging me to play catch with him in the backyard, just this once. "No, dear," I would say as I ruffled his hair, "daddy still has 327 pills to go! But we'll have three minutes while the zone is resetting. Hand me that crumpled piece of paper, I'll toss it to you a few times."

Okay, I'm kidding there. But if I had a kid, I probably would have neglected him as I put in those countless hours grinding pills, just to see my badge counter ding. When they reduced it, I was so incredibly POed that I gave up badging until this past month.

First off, in case any devs are reading this, please don't think I'm complaining. This list of things CoH did wrong is far, far smaller and less significant than the many, many things they did right.

1) Too many currencies. OK, Influence is money, and if we do certain thing we get reward merits. No problem. But if we do stuff in the Architect we get architect tickets... if we kill stuff in the RWZ we get Vanguard Merits... do Incarnate stuff and we get Astral and Empyrean Merits, plus two completely separate salvage paths. Too much!!

2) Since it became obvious after a year or two that absolutely everyone had alt-itis, they should have made more account-wide stuff. Black Scorpion was mentioning that they were looking into making Accolades account-wide, so alts wouldn't have to grind them out on every character. What I would have loved was a personal base that all characters could access, with a Big Box to put recipes, salvage and IOs in, preferably with a crafting table nearby.

3) The Architect. Incredible idea, but handled poorly. The text interface is clunky and the forbidden text thing was handled poorly. Too much farming, and the attempts to halt farming were heavy-handed. Worst of all, there was very little way for a good arc to rise to the top amid so much chaff.

4) Kheldians. Beyond awful at first, they got some love later but never became really good.

By now, I've done pretty much everything I wanted to. I've gotten at least one of every AT to 50 and IOed them. I've done every TF/SF, and I'm sure at least 80% of the missions. I thought of using Ouro to do every single mission, but since the old missions are all the same from a mechanical standpoint (go here, kill everyone, click glowie) I could get the same effect from reading the text on Paragonwiki.

I've been on plenty of fun teams. I've soloed dozens of AVs, heroes and GMs. I've been in several fun supergroups, and started a few of my own, mostly because I didn't want to be bothered by SG invites. Twice I logged in to find I was the leader of a big SG because the leader had dropped out.

I played dozens of AE arcs, and wrote several, which were received well. I wrote a thread reviewing other people's AE arcs. I wrote a guide. I submitted a bug and had it fixed. (ok it was just a typo). I tried badging, and at one point had the most badges on any Warshade.

There's really not much I regret not doing. I wish I had spent more time here on the forums, and I wish I had used the Beta name-reserve to take "Mary Sue". The possibilities would have been endless. Oh, and I never ERP-ed, but there's still two weeks left... (bow chicka wow wowwwwwwww..)

From a flavor standpoint, Omega was supposed to make you a Well unto yourself. As for power, they were kicking around the idea of an account-wide buff.

Two weeks before close, and I finally get my first FPARN!!

Just so this isn't totally content-free, a ranged mag-3 confuse for a melee type would have been great, especially since the purple Contagious Confusion turns every confuse into an AoE.

GMs don't have the ability to do this; only coders do, an they're gone. The chalet closed when the winter event stopped, and this can't be changed.

The only possibility is that, if any of the devs still have GM powers attached to their accounts, and the accounts are still open, they can go to the D on a specific time and teleport you into the chalet.

Lord Recluse. The Count of Cruel, the Archvillain of Anarchy, his very name casts a long and bloody shadow across the Rogue Isles, where he rules with an iron fist. None dare disobey his orders... not even when he ordered his prize Persian to be injected with an experimental growth serum, fitted with robotic spider arms, and inducted into the ranks of his most brutal soldiers, the Crab Spiders. Thus, five years ago was born one of Arachnos' most feared and deadly agents... Operative Fuzzypaws!



I finally gathered together purples from all my characters and gave them to Fuzzy, then used about 120 Enhancement Boosters to get her to maximum power. Behold, the Rogue Isles' ultimate force of destruction...

Channelgun 5x Apocalypse, Touch of Lady Grey proc
Aim - 6x Gaussian's
Arm Lash - 5x Armageddon, 1 Endredux
Venom Grenade - 5x Ragnarok, Javelin Volley damage proc
Frag Grenade - 6x Dominion of Arachnos
Omega Maneuver - 5x Positron's Blast

Wolf Spider Armor - Aegis Psi/Status resist
Combat Training: defensive - 3x LotG including global
Combat Training: Offensive - 2x accuracy
Tactical Training: Maneuvers - 3x LotG including global
Mental Training - 1 Runspeed
Tactical Training: Assault -2 endredux
Tactical Training: Leadership 6 Adjusted Targeting
Call Reinforcements: 5 Soulbound Allegience

Crab Spider Armor Upgrade - 1 Damres
Fortification - 3 Steadfast Protection, 1 Damres, Titanium Coating resist/endredux
Serum - 6 Doctored Wounds
Summon Spiderlings - 6 Blood Mandate

Heath - Miracle proc, Regenerative Tissue Proc, Numina proc, Numina health, Numina heal/end
Stamina - 3 Endmod
Hasten - 3 Recharge
Super Jump - Jump
Combat Jumping - 1 Defense
Assault - 2 Endredux
Stealth - LotG recharge (just a mule, I don't use it)
Invisibility - Karma Knockback protection (ditto)

Alpha - T4 musculature
Destiny - T4 Barrier
Interface - T4 Reactive (damres debuff + fire dmg proc)
Lore - T4 IDF
Judgement - T4 Vorpal
Hybrid - T4 Assault dmg buff

Even before full purpling and incarnating, she could meow through swarms of 54 Rikti in the RWZ, and go toe-to-toe with AVs. Sadly, in the last two weeks I can't think of anything to challenge myself with... maybe soloing Adamastor or Lusca.