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Posts
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Quote:Um... is there such a thing as "seventhed"?Consider yourself lucky then, as it always resets for me. :/
I dread marking myself as a spammer.
If saving the window options makes the resize permanent, that's great, but the window is obviously dimensioned to display the email buttons even if the window is at its minimum size. It seems like it would be more consistent to move the "Claim" button into the row of other email buttons, and have the attachment icon shrink or disappear behind the button bar.
Then again, I'm guessing what is happening here is this is a separate window "glued" to the email window at the common upper edge. A quick and dirty fix to save having to redesign the entire window. Perhaps a better solution would be to disconnect the window and have it pop up from an "Attachment" button on the email window.
BTW, I am fairly sure I have clicked on the "Spam" button a few times and AFAIK I haven't reported myself as a Spammer. At least if I have I haven't heard back from the GMs. -
Quote:Oh, it's not difficult, you can open it with Wordpad or Notepad. The bigger issue of course is that it is a workaround, not an in game solution, and that at least on my installation the directory has only Administrator permissions.Oh, and I can't open costume files. I don't know what you need to do so, but I don't have it. Really, this shouldn't even be a problem in the first place.
Does anyone know for sure what the directory is? I think it's /data/costumes/<username>, under the City of Heroes directory, but I'm sure that's not exactly right. Probably the best way to handle it is to create a directory where you can edit them, then copy the whole contents out of the CoH folder. Then after you made an edit, drag and drop it back into the game directory. If you can find screenshots, you should be able to find it.
At least this way you have a quick fix solution, although of course getting the devs to make it easier to work with would be better.
(Then again, it would be better if the devs gave us a better interface for dealing with keybind files, and an interface AT ALL for macro files, and of course a respec process that doesn't require clearing and reconstructing all your trays, and a way to record your power selection and slotting so that you could reproduce it more easily, and...)
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Quote:Really, really trying not to mention the "goiter" here, when you push the male model to the max Physique -- and obviously failing.When you push the sliders as much as I have, the models start to behave in weird ways.
Quote:In both instances, I've used large shoulder pads to both elevate and extend the shoulders,
What I finally ended up doing is putting short sleeves on the jacket, and then making them the same color as the t-shirt over the arms. The difference in color made it look like the shoulders were still sticking out of the jacket, instead of being sleeves, but the resulting "shoulders" were quite a bit larger. That might be an option with one of your female characters, getting away from the "armor" look.
Quote:What I did was nothing more complicated than replacing the female skin textures with the male tights textures (because the make skin textures have nipples O.o),
Um, yeah. Anyway, as you said, it would be easily possible for the costume folks to come up with a texture with more feminine-looking abs than that. -
I typically use ratings to identify the globals of players I tend to team with, so I recognize them if they create a new character or I team with a character I hadn't seen before. I don't know that I've ever used it to rate someone on a PUG. (Although if I did it would likely be to one star them)
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My first and only Hero 50, an FF/Rad Defender:
Jade Dragon
Never farmed, soloed to about 35-40, teamed with an SG for most of the 40s
Created at release (April 28, 2004)
Hit 50 on Christmas 2008
777 hours (probably around 750 to get to 50)
My only other 50, a villain, Thugs/Dark Mastermind
Hitwoman Mandy
Never farmed, rarely teamed
Created 07/03/2006
Hit 50 08/03/2009, during a Double XP weekend
330 hours
JD is by far my character with the highest number of hours logged on him, but he has been levelled since the start, while levelling got markedly easier after CoV, particularly for Defenders and Controllers. It's also entirely possible many of those hours were spent flying around clearing "fog" off the map, or managing and shuffling around items in his personal base. He's not a crafter, though, so very little time has been spent on that. My second most played character, Blue Diamond, only had 383 hours at last count. Still, I wouldn't say that 700+ hours is that far off.
I am a serious altoholic, though, so I have dozens of characters in the 30s-40s.
I actually had not realized that it's been two years since JD hit 50. I even forgot it was on Christmas. -
I find figuring out the costume file format and figuring out how to "tweak" it to be one of the best ways to accomplish the "impossible".
In fact, that was how I copied over character height back when height didn't seem to be being loaded from the file. (Not sure if that was a bug or not, but it's fixed now, so I don't care) I would adjust the slider, save the file, then open it and see if the number matched the costume file I was trying to copy.
If you're having trouble loading a particular slider, there could be another bug. -
I have to admit, my first thought was, "Ah, Megatron's decided to be a semi-truck too. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, eh?"
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I find I like single target more than AoE for soloing, because it makes it easier to deal with foes quickly and whittle them down so I'm not overwhelmed. This is particularly important for Blasters and Dominators, and even some Controllers. AoE is nice, but to me it's the choice between fighting for 10 seconds and then having everything drop dead at once, and fighting for 10 seconds and having something drop every second.
Is AoE more useful for teaming? Yeah, since you can usually avoid the consequences of using those AoEs. And if you're bumping up against the limit of +4/x8, you can't get any more performance by going single target. But I regularly go higher level with my single target characters and larger spawns with my AoE characters, and it balances out in terms of levelling speed. -
Quote:No, I've got to agree. Even the picture that Samuel_Tow posted, that woman's legs are twice the diameter of her biceps. Her waist is only slightly wider than one of her legs. Take a look at that picture of She-Hulk again, her legs do not look like that.Two of those are the minority in superhero comics.
I haven't seen what you're saying however. I've seen plenty that reminded me of She-Hulk.
The problem is that the Physique Slider is proportional, so wider body parts become even wider in proportion. Moving the slider out increases the leg diameter more than the arms. There really does need to be a slider that balances the upper and lower body out, expanding the upper body while contracting the lower. (or just leaving it alone) And I'd want this for males, too, there are many of my male characters that I want to have large upper bodies and long, lanky legs, particularly for my werewolf and dragon characters, and you can't do that.
Samuel_Tow's pictures are also obviously covering up the woman's shoulders in order to make them appear larger. (That is why they look like "fantasy", it isn't because that's the style he's looking for) The other issue is that a muscular build, unlike a stocky one, is wider at the thickest points, but NOT at the joints. Again, She-Hulk's legs, while large in the thighs, are well defined in the knee and calves. But that's true of arms as well, and I don't see any way to change that without overly complicating how the Physique Slider works.
I'll also point out, as I have plenty of times before, that while it is possible to increase or decrease the depth of the male chest, it isn't for females, as that is their Breast slider. So when the Physique is at its minimum, the chest is actually by default too deep. It sticks forward too much. The Physique slider should actually increase diameter more in the X direction in the chest and waist, and more in the Z direction in the arms and legs. But it would probably just be easier to make that a separate slider as it is for males.
A new texture would certainly be simpler to implement, but it could really only give the illusion of more definition. It would be better than nothing, though. -
120 seconds. That's really enough time for about three fights, I have found, they'll usually follow me around and vanish on the third spawn. (Assuming I summon them in the middle of the first, which is always good)
It's interesting to not that although they're cannon fodder in the extreme (they can't even take a hit from a standard Boss, really) they have build in Taunt in their attacks. It can take a while for a Boss to wade through them. Of course, that means you have fewer to last the remainder of the 120 seconds, but I find Boss fights are where I use them most often. -
Yep, it only Placates, you cannot Crit from a Smoke Flash. But that appears to be WAI.
Not really a huge price to pay for an AoE Placate that can stop a good portion of the foes fighting you to just stop. And you can always follow it up with a Placate on a foe that IS still fighting you and Crit.
Blinding Powder, Kuji-In Sha (the self heal) and that you don't have to wait until 35 to get your AoE Defense, are the big differences between SR and Ninjitsu. Caltrops and Smoke Flash are nice, but not really as good as those other differences.
SR gets Quickness and the scaling resistances in the passives. -
Quote:No, no, while Traps and Devices have some good examples to build on, things like Force Field Generator are totally out of place in a Control set. You do not have buffs or debuffs in a Control set, that's why they're Control sets and not Buff/Debuff.you're thinking of a Traps powerset so to say, which is kind of tricky to convert it into a workable Controller set, because if it's going to be for the role of a standard being, who's just really good at making stuff...
Fortunately, Buff/Debuff and Blaster Manipulation DO have a lot of control powers, so they could be used. In general, you're going to want grenades, gasses and sprayed substances that hold foes in place and control their aggro. The Web Grenade, Caltrops, Taser, Cloaking Device and probably Smoke Grenade from Devices, and Poison Trap from Traps, as well as perhaps something similar to the Ice and Oil Slick Arrow.
There would need to be some new powers, though. There would need to be a single target hold (like the Ice Arrow) plus an AoE hold. There would also need to be an AoE soft control, probably a Wide Area Web Grenade to go with the standard Web Grenade. And unlike the other versions, they should deal damage, perhaps they could be combined with the Taser to produce an Electrified Web Grenade. Glue could replace Caltrops, since the webs would now deal damage.
While a Control set using a Bow would be a nice option, obviously you COULDN'T use the Ice Arrow, since that's already covered in Trick Arrow. And a Controller set without a single target hold would be really odd. However, instead of an Incendiary Arrow that deals damage, perhaps an effect similar to Char could be produced which makes choking smoke and soot. This would be a good combo to set of Oil Slick Arrow. A strong single target stun/knockback effect might be good for the return of the Boxing Glove Arrow, too.
I think that should be a lower priority than the generic gadget-based set though. And if you make a bow-based Control set, should there be an assault rifle and pistol based set too? Doms will also need an Assault set based on the Bow. (Although they'll need one for pistols or something anyway) -
Quote:I prefer the term "skill based".Also, "natural" can mean anything you want it to. While I understand what you are getting at, any power in this game can be considered "natural". It all depends on your bio.
Perhaps a more precise request would be, "Some sort of Control set based on gadgets or weaponry".
There's actually a lot of possibilities like this (Sonic or Rad in melee, or Earth at range) but it's not exactly Proliferation since the sets don't already exist. I definately think we need to start seeing them, though. -
Placate is only 1.5 seconds cast time. Only Ninja Blade, really, has a large selection of high damage attacks that are less than 1.5 seconds cast time. So you should be able to at least maintain your DPS, at least for single target damage, by picking your highest or one of the highest damage single target attacks to follow the Placate with. (For Electric, at least you can maintain the same DPA with Havoc Punch, although Thunder Strike would probably still be best for more than two targets)
Placate's primary advantage is that it prevents the target hit by it from attacking you. That means that if you Placate ONE target, and then select another target during the animation time and Crit on IT, you will double your damage and prevent the still standing target from dealing any damage to you until you either attack it again, or the Placate wears off.
Placate can also be useful for opening up an Assassin Strike. However, this is only really useful against Bosses or AVs, as a standard attack is usually enough to one shot anything else. An AS against something you are already fighting is typically overkill.
Certainly you don't ever want to follow Placate up with something fast and low damage, like Thunder Kick. Although, I often find myself using the combo anyway, just because I'm not thinking about it.
Another thing to remember is that while Build Up lasts for ten seconds (enough to get off about 3-6 attacks, depending on their animation times) Placate is true double damage. So even if you have a +400% damage bonus, you will be doing double that +400% damage bonus, for that one attack. Build Up typically averages only about +51% damage overall for a three slotted attack, less if you have other +dmg.
Also, it doesn't work on Temp Powers, although it can be used in combo with another attack after using a temp power. Or, before Sands of Mu to keep a second foe from hitting you while it's animating. -
I use Thunderous Blast every time it is up. Not so much the PBAoE nukes, but the range on Thunderous Blast makes it quite powerful. Since my Electrics tend to be End light anyway, it never really takes me more than a couple of seconds to recover from the crash. Plus, if by chance I end up missing them all, there's no crash, so it's rare that I'll be stuck with a bunch of now angry foes and no End. (I think that's universal to all nukes that crash)
The whole point of the weaker nukes is that they ARE weaker. Yes, they're of more use solo, but they're of less use on a team, where you've got plenty of backup to buy you time while you recover. Every set is not the same, they all have their strengths and weaknesses.
That doesn't mean you have to take a set with a crashless nuke to solo. But making every set the same would just penalize those who would like to have the nukes with a crash when teaming. -
Well, we're starting to see Dopplegangers in the game, and that's based on the custom "critter" technology. So I'm guessing the possibility exists to have custom groups in the future.
The MA technology isn't just old technology the devs have had around for years and they're giving it to us, though. Some of it is, yes, but more like the foundation of it. A lot was developed specifically for the MA. -
Quote:For a while there, the Rock Band site was using that 3D printing technology to offer your specific characters as figures. Statues, really, obviously they weren't movable. But I ended up ordering a whole set of them, and they came out pretty good except for one minor issue with a specific hairstyle.On an unfortunately off-topic note, I would gladly pay 30-50$ for an action figure of one of my characters.
They were $80 apiece. So no, the technology's not inexpensive, but it COULD be done...
Perhaps tellingly, though, the Rock Band site no longer offers the service, at least at this time. So it's possible there wasn't enough of a demand to make it worthwhile, even at that price.
I do like the idea of being given a selection of parts that you could assemble and then paint yourself. I've actually done a repaint job on a figure that I didn't like the color scheme on. -
Quote:Just to say it, IMHO the reason HEATs are not customizable is that the Forms cannot be customized, and if the blasts were customizable, the players would insist the Forms be as well. This is a technical issue, Granite Armor cannot be customized either, and AFAIK every attempt Back Alley Brawler made to get around the problem failed. Rather than give the players half the job, the devs have decided -- thus far -- that Kheldian powers cannot be customized.HEATS, from what I understand, are just too difficult to change at the moment. Every power has their effects 'baked in' as it were and would almost certainly require a re-do just to be able to give us a minor perk. Not only that, but the models for their transformations would also have to be redone so that they can be changed as well... otherwise you'd have powers colored all kinds of different ways... but with a Warshade Lobster Mode that's still a dark purple.
Patron Powers... those are like all the other pool powers in the game. You can't customize those either. As for why... I have no clue. I can only imagine it has something to do with you're ability to respec out of them that would cause things to go haywire.
As for Pool Powers, Ancillary Powers, and Patron Powers, the primary issue seems to be the interface. It's complicated enough with one Primary and one Secondary, imagine if you had to specify colors for EVERY SINGLE POOL YOU HAVE TO POTENTIAL TO TAKE. A less daunting solution would be to only provide customization for the Pools you have taken, but then you get into respec issues, as you said. Plus, you cannot customize your powers until you reach a level where you can take them.
The devs have generally said what they have said about "the powers are connected to the game lore, and thus have very unique looks" are in regards to the Patron Pools. Honestly, I think I would not mind if Patron Pools could not be customized but Ancillary Pools could, since Heroes and Villains are able to access both now. You would basically choose an Ancillary Pool if you want your own power that you can customize, or a Patron Pool if you want a power that, you know, comes from your Patron.
However, I can see why players would want to be able to customize Patron Powers, particularly when there isn't an equivalent Ancillary choice. Perhaps some of the powers could be customizable, with the "signature" powers, like Soul Storm, keeping the Patron look. -
Essentially what Rock_Crag said. Although there have been a lot of claims from players that devs have refused to make Patron Pools or EAT Power Sets customizable because "they are part of the game lore and thus must be fixed to that in-game source", I don't believe I've ever actually seen any post from a REDNAME stating that specifically. There have been posts that that is ONE reason. But not the only reason or even the most important reason.
The simple truth is, EATs are only a small majority of the player base, they used to be only a subset of those players who had reached 50, now they are only a subset of those players who have reached 20. Not everyone who gets to 20 tries an EAT, and not everyone who tries them stays with them. So it's a great deal of work for a proportionally smaller group of the players.
Where SoA are concerned, the biggest problem is that you can't have Weapon Customization AND Power Customization. Claws does not allow you to alter the color of the blasts you fire with Shockwave and Focus. War Mace does not allow you to alter the color of the flashes when your mace hits someone. Assault Rifle does not allow you to alter the color of the bullets that are fired, or the color of the flames from your Flamethrower.
This actually came up when Spines was not originally included with Weapon Customization, while you are able to alter the appearance and color of the spines that appear on you when you attack, you cannot change the color of the EFFECTS. They still still spray green goo, even if the spines are not yellow bananas, but silver spikes instead. (And I'm not sure the spines actually change when they LEAVE YOUR BODY, they may still be the bananas)
So in short, if you were to gain the ability to color your Fortunata blasts, you would have to give up the ability to color your claws. Yes, there is only one style of Widow claws, and I think that's a shame, really. But you can tint them, and if you could tint your blasts you would not be able to tint your claws. You can choose to customize one or the other, but not both.
Now, one thing that I haven't heard mention is that you can customize your Primary and Secondary separately. It should be possible to have the Widow Claws or Soldier Rifle be customizable, but the glow from Fortification or Mind Link have a customizable color as well. Also, I'm hoping that this restriction isn't permanent, in time I'd like to see both the ability to customize a weapon AND the animation that goes with it. Since Spines IS customizable now, when it WASN'T with Weapon Customization, this might suggest a way to reach a compromise.
The limited number of weapons customization options is a different issue. As I said, I think one set of Claws is too limited, and Widows should be given the complete selection from the Claws set, especially since Claws ATs get Widow Claws. Soldiers should get standard selections for machine guns and maces IN ADDITION to their unique options, so they can use those choices for their "civilian" costumes. At least, I don't think it's possible to make it so only the unique options are available for the first costume, and the others for the rest of the costumes, so I would rather have the more options even if that is out of concept for the first costume slot.
The Crab Backpack is yet another complication, as it is not a weapon or effect, but a costume piece which is added to your character. It would be nice if the backpack didn't appear if you didn't take any Crab powers on that build, but apparently the engine doesn't support it. Still, if you have Crab powers, the backpack is the emination point for the attacks, and saying that you don't want the backpack while being a Crab is a little like saying you don't want the mace while being a Bane.
More choices for the backpack wouldn't be bad, though. Perhaps a smaller option for civilian outfits, I think I heard that being talked during testing for the SoAs, although they could have been talking about using a different backpack for females. One without all the Arachnos ornamentation might be appropriate for a Crab "Gone Rogue", though. Or, even an organic option, like Lord Recluse's own arms.
One interesting thing is that since the backpack isn't a "weapon", it should be possible to customize its blasts, although Crab Soldiers still have to have Weapon Customization for the gun. -
Quote:Well, I'm guessing you can probably get things with A-Merits you can't get with regular Reward Merits (more of the rarer sets) but in terms of straight value, the two rewards are probably about equal. A little less for the Rogues and Vigilantes, of course, but that's expected.Now, if you're willing to throw a few million inf around, the Merit reward (60) for the second and later reinforcement of Vigilante or Rogue alignment can net you 6 A-merits for every 5 alignment missions...but you need to hold on to the regular merits and then switch your alignment to hero or villain to cash in on that, and even then can only cash in for an A-merit once every 18 hours.
Convoluted? Absolutely. But if that 20% long-term rate in Alignment Merits is worth the 20 million influence/merit and the wait to you, then maybe there is a little advantage to playing the gray side
If you're right that it's 30 Merits for the first reinforcement of Rogue/Vigilante status, and 60 each time after, and it's 50 Merits for the first reinforcement of Hero/Villain status, and 1 A-Merit for each time after, then it would follow that in theory 1 A-Merit is roughly the equivalent of 100 regular Merits. (twice 50 Merits) Apparently the ratio for the trade in is 50 Merits = 1 A-Merit, but that costs you Influence as well, which apparently adds to the overall value.
This is why I seem to remember it as being 30/60, too. Disregarding the Influence sink, which does allow you to "earn" the A-Merits a bit faster, the regular Merits are pretty valuable too, and probably only earn you a little less than the Hero/Villain version. (30 compared to 50, and 60 compared to 100)
I also seem to remember that you can turn in the first 50 Merits you get for the first Hero/Villain reinforcement for an A-Merit, with 20 mil Inf. So a Hero/Villain can actually get their first A-Merit right away if they want. -
Quote:Well, duh, the Evil Goatee gives it away, every time...It's not the same thing at all - like Statesman and Reichsman are the same, but the way they dress shows that one is a Hero and the other is a Villain, even though their bodies are the same - they've both chosen the way they dress, but they have no choice about their body.
(And yeah, I know Reichsman has no goatee... he doesn't have a goatee, does he?) -
Quote:Seriously, if you've written a few Applet games for the web, or have some sort of rendering software on your computer than you like to play with (like GG apparently doesNo offense GreatRock, but the only people I listen to when it comes to the coding of this game are the ones actually working with that code. (in other words, the devs)
You've programmed a few games, which is awesome for your age, but that doesn't mean you know how THIS game is programmed. You probably know more about video game programming than I do, I freely admit that. But I doubt rather a lot that you have experience with something as complex as this game has to be by it's very nature, since the only way you would have experience with something this complex is if you worked for a video game company, and I've never heard of one that will hire a 15 year old.) that's great. But I would be very surprised to find any 15 year old has been hired by a serious company to work on commertial software. Game or otherwise. And this coming from someone who at 15 also called himself a "programmer" and was coding games for the Commodore 64...
So far I haven't really found anything about your posts to criticise, but you're just opening yourself up to be made fun of, there.
I'll also expand on Claws' metaphor. Maybe you know about how to play the guitar, and maybe you can even repair it if something breaks. Maybe you can even replace the pickups and keys and choose the best strings for the sound you want. But that doesn't mean you know how to BUILD a guitar. Much less make it the quality of a Stratocaster. -
To me, as long as you still have the Endurance to keep it up, you can use AoE attacks against single targets if you want. Same thing using ranged attacks in melee.
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Wow, how did I miss this? For a whole day?
Sorry to hear you're going, man. Hope you've still got great plans for Christmas, and you move on to something great in the next year. -
Quote:That's only because their facilities have to be SO much sturdier...Nope, check the toilet doors in the base editor (and a couple of world locations as well). "Huge" is considered a distinct gender in the CoX-verse.
And thank KayJMM, while I can't really explain why it's doing that, I hadn't really noticed.