Leo_G

It's 'Scorpion' and scorpions are arachnids, not insects. Perhaps 'Arthropod Swarm/Control'?

Nah, it's just look like this:



But maybe with updated looks to make it cooler looking. And I'd actually suggest maybe a 'Hive' pet that basically summons more bees...so the bees would be weak defensively, but the hive can just summon more and quickly.

And the ants could have a similar effect (cloudy aura with a creepy/crawly overlay) but rather than flying through the air, it'd move across the ground and glob up around the target's feet.

Now that's another name idea: Creepy-Crawly Control, Creepy-Crawly Crowd Control for alliteration purposes...

You know? /signed.

...if only because you pretty much kept the post down to around 2 short paragraphs...and such an option would be pretty snazzy.

Unless you have a means to balance those characters that don't seem to fit within our current ATs (knowing you, you're talking about your inability to make a 'Superman' character), you're talking out of your bum.

You shouldn't be able to make Superman in a game because then you win. And if you don't win, there'd have to be some stupid tired excuse that explains why your invulnerability didn't make you immune to everything thrown at you or why your fist didn't liquify anything coming into contact with it.

How does Superman possibly work in comics but is seemingly impossible in a game? Well, he always uses kid gloves. Are we expecting players to keep kid gloves on 90% of the time to police their own power levels? If you think so, you're very naive

I think I have a very bland tongue for most fast foods. A burger and french fries just tastes like a burger and french fries no matter if it comes from McD, BK, DQ or Sonic. Maybe that's why I don't eat fast food very often...

But pizza's a whole other story. We have crap options for pizza where I'm at but when I go out of town, I'm always asking who's got the best pizza in town.

I'd probably be in the camp of 'not wanting this kind of thing to exist'. Coming in from FFXI before this game, one of the annoying limitations on the game in graphics and latency were the fact it had to be able to be ran on PC and the outdated PS2. And since the PS2 really can't be upgraded, everything is going to be limited for future installments of the game.

Similarly, we'll never have truly impressive water effects/powers because it would require a graphic update that would mandate Ultra Mode to see. Since the devs don't want to burn the bridge on low-spec machines by requiring Ultra Mode, we won't see water blasts.

I'm sure branching off to the iPad would gate performance even more but if I'm wrong, I'll gladly read your response. Then I could probably put this harsh opinion to rest and have more hope for future additions to the game.

He doesn't. He doesn't play ranged types.

Try: "How do you currently choose between Fiery Melee and Dark Melee?"

Heh, that's basically the concept I was thinking when I was talking about the 'tag' system that would depend on origins chosen. But I'd go one step further and eliminate origins completely.

You could still write your character as having whatever origin you wanted but for the effects/affect you'd get is formed from choices you either choose at character creation or later in your career, but whenever you choose, it'd be permanent.

For enemies, origins would be basic. That thing is a 'psionic', he's a 'zombie', that's an 'android', she's a 'ghost', it's an 'alien', so on and so forth. For players, a modified/simplified list of options would be open but it wouldn't imply what the character is (incorporeal or just a character that you'd describe as having the properties of a ghost would choose a similar option but it wouldn't label you as such, just give you its properties) to allow the player to basically 'form their own origin'.

Similarly, the powers/abilities they used would allow to customize how your powers affect the world such in the example of the 'shatter effect' vs rock/robots/crystal enemies, choosing something like an 'exorcist style' would extend that shatter to ghosts and demons but perhaps to a lesser extent.

Hmm, you want significant choices that you can handpick for better performance based on knowledge and forethought and yet you don't want gimped choices that might give you worse performance. You want consequences for your decisions and yet you do not want to be faced with situations where those consequences would result in below-average performance? If I'm understanding you right (and including #2), you want strong and useful effects and for the utility of these effects to be universally obvious when making your choice. So either you want homogeneity or you want the game to hold your hand. Or maybe I'm just not understanding what your argument is.

Needless to say, if I were using Arcana's ideas and forming my own system, it wouldn't even be useful to min/max because there would simply be too many variables to cover. Like here, you're looking for capped defense, some -def resist and you're fairly golden most situations. I'd be looking toward means where it's not so easy to predict or exploit the NPCs and their AI and their abilities would vary drastically from one encounter to the next. You could *try* to min/max for *specific* encounters but they'd be set up and mixed in with *other* encounters that just wouldn't behave the same. In some situations, you *want* that quick hitting sword that can fear but when you run into those undead, you'll definitely feel the difference had you choosen the hammer.

Naw, that might be a quick road to min/maxing. It'd be like if you could bundle the effects of our powers like we want. Screw the extra fire DoT of fire blast, just choose to add -res instead...or get rid of that useless -def of radiation blasts and swap in some -ToHit and debuff the crap out of everything.

That is, I'm not *against* such an idea, but that's not going to somehow relieve players of their min/max ways by giving them the means of min/maxing everything they get.

Funny, I've actually been playing a bit less recently (not anyone's fault but myself) but the times I do, teaming is rather slow going. And this is on Freedom.

I restarted my corruptor at lvl 21 when the new incarnate slots first game out and so far I've got her to lvl 41. *sigh* And all I'm really trying to do is get her to 50 so I can hurry up and start the incarnate stuff up on her.

Then you understand that requesting this bugged feature, not intrinsic to the AT but affects every character equally, to be fixed is more of a 'wishful' suggestion rather than an 'impactful' one. If this ever gets fixed, it won't be a 'fix on Stalker' but a fix to stealth/aggro in general. And the likelyhood of it actually being fixed anytime soon?

...but for general play, if you're trying to get AS off, general rule of thumb is do it quickly or move back and wait. If a target peels off onto you (use an object or corner so they literally have to run up to you), you take care of them or placate and find your target fast.



Didn't say they couldn't. But effects are resisted by resists and levels both, or the purple patch as it has been called.

And Stalker pools and epics are already different in that, attacks are tagged with criticals differently. Swapping out all their debuffs for granted temp powers would increase the amount of changes required which might be a big deal, but the power itself will already need to be different.

Not tripping over his own feet. Foes *shouldn't* be stupid. Some will be oblivious and some won't. In real circumstances, facing varied opponents, you must bring into consideration the intelligence level and perceptive abilities of the opponent. In game circumstances, some just aren't going to forget about you and you have to keep this occurrence within the breadth of possible scenarios as not to be caught off guard. I usually just expect the foe to always attack after placate wears.

But beyond that explanation, some foes just resist placate.

Just offering solutions that would most easily solve the problem. Even if the hidden effect granted was delayed, it would still be broken if an enemy attacks at the same time. So it's not really solving anything, if the problem being solved is aggro infringing on Stalker offense.

But rule of thumb in using placate is to literally wait until after the foe attacks and/or using soft control before using placate. Common sense really, but it's generally to be expected, even on defense characters, to have placate stripped if you simply use placate when you want to crit. You have to time its use.


There was a change, back when AS was also made to not cause aggro when it misses (or maybe this was before that change) for Placate not to draw aggro either. I remember long before, when I was but a young and hopeful Stalker, I would accidentally use placate since I placed them right next to eachother on my tray. Often times, accidentally using placate resulted in instant death or the need to run for the hills immediately. This was changed. I don't do it as often, but when I accidentally use placate to start now, nothing happens.

Yes, this is an age old trick (at least as old as the change to Placate not notifying mobs): Rikti spawn that has a clicky you need to pick up. The spawn has their backs turned but the instant you turn the corner, that drone will start shooting you. Just placate it, hop over them and mouse the clicky. Problem is many rikti spawns have more than one drone...

Suggestions 1 and 2 sound wishful rather than impactful. It's akin to saying "My suggestion = make people like Stalkers. The end." The issues brought up are already know but apparently they aren't as simple to fix as saying "Fix nao".

3 might be possible but not in that way. I wonder if they could simply tag Stalker debuffs as granted temp powers so that, despite the foe being debuffed, it'll aggro as if it debuffed itself. Not sure what other kind of effects this would have (because I just thought it up) but it'll probably allow the Stalkers debuffs to seem to not discriminate vs foe level (weaker foes wouldn't be debuffed greatly but harder foes will feel it as if hit by an even level foe). Just for reference, this is how demoralize works and it's a debuff that doesn't draw aggro.

For 4, I think, if we're talking purely offensive, making the Hidden effects it grants unbreakable unless the stalker takes an offensive action would be a simple solution, IMO.

And you're sure that this friend of yours isn't just you in this story, correct?

Easy, take both. When you're fighting humans that aren't resistant to poison, use the sword. Vs undead, who are most likely resistant to poison or fear or both, use the hammer. When neither situation is present, it probably doesn't make any difference which you choose, they'll both kill things and you'll just have to make choices around your decision. You took the sword and are killing things slower than you'd expect? Pick up some rings that modify attack power or use spells that speed up attack speed or something. You took the hammer and suddenly find yourself taking damage too fast? Pick better armor and use vitality spells or something.

The idea isn't for there to *be* a right or wrong choice at all *if* there are enough choices around to modify any situation. When/if you learn more about what's what, then you can have a preference and pick the hammer over the sword.

Then I'm unsure what you and Arcana are arguing about.

But character building is half the fun!

I think you're just taking things too seriously. When you first pick up an RPG, you're suppose to make a character you simply like and have fun with it. For instance, new game has a scythe so I'll probably gravitate to making a character with that weapon regardless if it's a spell-cast weapon or a melee weapon or usable by both. Then I'll just make a character I 'want'. So he'll be a shape shifting scythe user with some necromantic spells or something. Later, after I learn more about the game is when/if I optimize. If I'm having fun, I might just restart the character and do it 'right', in a sense. Or I may find something even more fun than a scythe.

Yup, I love me some Castlevania. Have been a fan of that game since I was a no-front-tooth kid watching my brother play, but that is a different type of game. Obtaining the ability to turn into mist and then acid mist is different from equipping an orb that has a chance to negate damage vs a ring that increases magic recovery because acid mist is just broken...but damage nullification vs magic recovery is a style call. It doesn't matter which you choose because ultimately neither outshines the other in every situation. Making choices is the basis of RPG character building and it's never a bad thing to have when there is no right or wrong choice.

Huh? Who's been picking on you, Sam? (although you do make it kind of easy )

Anyway, I'll just say I think CoX has spoiled me. Even when the devs are giving us stuff I don't want, I still feel like I'm being spoiled. I haven't been in a game where the dev team actually tries to give us stuff we ask for and speaks to us directly.

If there is another game out there that does that, I might consider giving the game a try but it probably won't have a Sam to poke fun of.

Ditto

You probably won't be running repulse all the time since you won't really be able to hit anything unless it's one of those really annoying bosses with psi damage or something...then you can just joust them and keep them on their bums. But otherwise, it'd be costly and time consuming for not that big a pay off.

That said, repulse has its uses. It's soft control which not many sets come with. I'd use it as an initial alpha-blocker by having it toggled on when you waltz into a group then once AS rolls and hits, your toggle will unsuppress and everything (within melee range) will go flying. After that point, I'd switch repulse off then just fight as normal.

You can stick a Force Feedback proc in there and get a moderate chance of some +rech lined up just after you used your Build up. But by and by, I wouldn't invest many slots in it. Only the base cost of running the toggle is affected by slotting for endurance redux, but the power still costs more endurance per target it hits (which isn't affected by slotting), I don't think it requires accuracy and I guess if you like, you can slot it for KB to get a bit more mitigation out of it. Beyond that, there's nothing else to put in it.

I doubt the devs created the mechanic with the intent for you to learn every foes resistances. Heck, I don't even bother with my DP user. He/she fires either fire bullets or ice bullets depending on the costume (although they both can use regular ammo too since they *are* using real guns, after all).

If anything, the simplest use would be '*shoot* *shoot* *shoot* My damage seems to be resisted. Let's try a different ammo. *swap*'. It was designed in a manner that, you can swap whenever you want, as many times as you want. This is simpler than combos on an academic level.



If swinging a sword (or by proxy, shooting an arrow) were simple, their use wouldn't have been obsoleted over firearms all those years ago. And if there weren't so many ways to swing a sword (or many seemingly simple weapons) there wouldn't be schools dedicated to years of training in their use.

As for the animations, don't even go there. You already said you love how simple BS's are and I've expressed how I hate how weak they look.

I won't comment on the rest considering I don't disagree with any of it. But I also feel it's rather pointless to bother. We have swap ammo and that's not going to change. How the devs balance powers seem to change with time and I think that'd be a better use of energy, to get them to balance the secondary effects properly for this set.

Well, there is the whole loading thing. It's usually faster (can't speak from experience, not an avid gun user) to load a pistol than an equivalent era gun, so jump that to super-levels, and you have the ability to load your gun with all kinds of neat stuff in a blink. In context of the game, Malta gunslingers are probably, lore-wise, some of the best pistolers in the CoX universe and they use alternate ammo types.

Also, I don't understand the Archer/TA analogy. You're comparing archery...to trick arrow? Or archer to dual pistols?



I was speaking to use. You might think combos are easy to use, but subjectively, I don't think they're easier than switching on an endurance-free toggle when you want to.


Like I said before, I'm with the OP in improving the debuffs to be on level with related sets. Cryo-rounds should slow as much as Ice blast and Cryo will still not step on its toes since Ice still has 2 holds that last longer. The KB in normal rounds could have its chances improved and still not overshadow Energy since that set has 100% chance KB in a power or two. The chance of DoT, I don't see why it is so low considering it won't be stepping on Fire's toes at all. That the set could give each of those other sets a run for its money is irrelevant since you can't give each of those other sets that run simultaneously.

Okay, now translate that to Pistols. It doesn't quite work.

With arrows, an archer has many ways they can shoot an arrow or multiple arrows at a time. A pistol only shoots 1 bullet with 1 pull of the trigger. You can't line up 5 bullets in the barrel and hope they all come out when you pull the trigger. And you can't shoot anything other than a bullet since you're not going to shove a rock, bomb or net into a bullet.




I don't disagree, but now you seem to place yourself as the opponent of similar innovation. It's not necessary, really. People complain that DP doesn't outshine other blast sets. People complain that the animations are way over the top. That the set lacks specific powers. You have to understand that there are a *lot* of different views how things can and do turn out and not everyone will be pleased in the end. I'm just saying, what we got is what we got. Not much use bemoaning on what could have been and seek to improve with what innovations we have.

I think the point was, it doesn't reduce toggles to 'small buffs', just removes the rule that says they must be the other way. That is, there could still be toggles with moderate bonuses on them but there could also be passives with moderate bonuses as well. But it'd be entirely up to design goals how the actual bonuses are distributed over the powers of a set/tree rather than some rule dictating toggles get the lion's share.

You know, I always thought detoggling could be a cool specialty of specific ATs that might have limited options for branching abilities, primarily Blasters and Stalkers.

In both PvE and PvP, it'd be a useful effect if both had a strong ability to drop enemy toggles by simply attacking (because Blaster's attacks can conceptually be overwhelmingly powerful to blast right through, and a Stalker's attacks are so maniacally pinpointed to near always bypass a foes defenses). Of course, it have to be made so dropping toggles wasn't so debilitating (as outlined by your post) but would still be seen as a form of 'debuff' since you could potentially decrease some useful/strong effects that would take much debuffing to counter.

It's effects like that (and phasing, and stealth and a few other underutilized effects) that could really create uniqueness between ATs but the game has be so horribly backwards nerfed, neutered and limited, it'd be impossible to do anything with these new effects...I mean, why do we need a 'no phase' state for PvE anyway!? That just screws over anyone that decided to pick phase shift and hibernate as concept powers. Are the recharge on them not enough?

I think you're looking at it wrong. Pistols =/= debuff and the way it's implemented doesn't say it is either. For our game, Pistols = variety of clips. That's their gimmick, so to speak.

And this argument will always be countered by "Why does every new set need to outshine the old sets?"

Yeah, both that variable recharge and combos is more complicated than the current swap ammo mechanic >_>

I'd actually agree with you if we actually got new sets more often. But as is, new sets are rare to come out and if it's just a recolored fire blast, it'll most likely be as forgotten and ignored as Sonic Blasts seems to be...and heck, even *that* set has several unique factors about it.

And, in and of itself, swap ammo isn't a 'not GOOD' mechanic. It's actually pretty cool. It shows that a set can have 3 powers added to it when you choose one, it shows that chances for different effects can be set from 100% to 0% and that these can be tied to toggles and it shows that these toggles can also change the particle effects of a power as well.

You could make a *TON* of cool new powersets with assets like that, just like you can make some interesting things with the jump mechanics of Chain Induction/Jolting Chain, the extra-dmg effects of the new Fiery Embrace, the teleport mechanics of Shield Charge/LR, the procs on attacks of Interface, so on and so forth...