LittleDavid

Yeah, but if the drain is an arbitrary amount of so many influence/infamy per minute or second or what not, then it shouldn't matter what powers a hero or villain are using alongside that, right? Those powers would drain endurance as normal.

It's not like the power would switch ALL endurance drain to influence/infamy drain, rather that the toggled power drains a slight amount of influence/infamy while active, giving a subtle boost of some kind.

... You might be missing my point, then.

I never said the power should be like a Blaster nuke.

I thought my post was clear enough that I wasn't talking about nuke-type powers ... but you didn't seem to catch that.

Unless there's a game mechanic/power I'm not yet aware of which would wind up causing this kind of situation, even with subtle toggle powers.

Passing thought, but--I wonder where that leaves the people who mutate WITHOUT having been born with mutated genes. For example, the Science origin says this:

This seems to imply that Science-origin heroes either gain their powers from a purposeful scientific experiment, or through an accident when a scientific experiment goes out of control (like Spider-Man did in his original origin story).

But wouldn't there be cases of people whose genes/bodies are mutated by circumstances outside of a scientific experiment, purposeful or awry? For example, one scientist in the Rogue Isles claims that there are is no evidence of Mutation-origin heroes from before the development of nuclear weapons.

If someone is exposed to a mutagenic substance and wasn't directly involved in a scientific experiment concerning that substance--like, say, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whose origin story usually involves careless disposal of a mutagen--wouldn't that qualify them as part of the Mutant origin, rather than Science?

More blurred lines, I suppose ...

I was thinking more of taking on the Rikti given the pun, but that's a good idea! It took me a while to realize that was possible through AE, since I kept thinking "but Snakes only show up in the Rogue Isles ..."

"I'm stiiiiiiill in a dreaaaaaam, Snake Eataaaaa!"

Huh. I didn't know that!

Hmm! I'll give it a poke and see what I come up with. I'd be missing a good mongoose-style tail, though ...

What, conferring an added damage bonus with Defiance? I wasn't thinking about that. Aren't a lot of temporary powers excluded from stacking with Defiance, anyhow?

Well, I poked through the FAQ, but I'm not entirely sure--does Ultra Mode (or perhaps the basic game) include a slight increase in poly density for player models and/or existing zones?

I'd love to see an Alton Brown epic archetype.

Let's face it, the man could make some pretty Good EATs.

Hm. Street Fighting ... I'd see it as a kind of rougher, dirtier expansion of the Fighting tertiary power set. Less refined, rougher, "dirtier" ... maybe as a go-between Claws and Martial Arts in terms of effects and damage types.

Street Fighting could involve a mixture of Smash and Lethal damage (for example, if some of the powers involve using knives). It could be less about mezzes and more about general attack/defense debuffs (dirty fighting that seeks to disarm, weaken, or disable limbs, etc.) ... kind of like what the Broadsword and Katana powersets do, but maybe not as much focus as those.

You owe me a new monitor for making me spew coffee all over it by picturing Statesman with Jack's head--as in, Jack from Jack in the Box!

Yeah, Striga's a good place. I spent some time there recently. Definitely one of the few Hazard Zones that doesn't fall under my statement about most Hazard Zones lacking the stuff the Hollows offers!

That said--your assessments are right on target. Perez Park, Boomtown, Terra Volta, Dark Astoria, Crey's Folly, and Eden ought to be given some sweet dev lovin'. Give 'em the same kinda treatment the Hollows has, with story-driven arcs, a repeatable contact like Meg Mason, a hospital, and the like. It'd also be nice to see more hero group presence.

I went checking Boomtown just now to see if the Council vs. Fiftth Column battle is in full force there--I'm happy to see that it is. Though, it does bring up something ELSE that's bugged me ...

A number of hero and villain groups (such as the Fifth Column, Council, Arachnos, Longbow, etc.) include characters who are clearly built for ranged combat. Yet for some reason, they seem eager to close ranks like they're melee fighters.

I was watching that in Boomtown. Fifth Column and Council guys would bunch up into a mosh put, all shooting at each other at point blank range, with assault rifles and rocket launchers.

That just kind of ... weirded me out. It might be a nitpick, but one of the minor detail things I'd like to see is have characters who clearly were meant to fight at range try to stay in ranged combat--not immediately rush up and melee just because they have an inherent Brawl ability, but only melee if they have a Scrapper/Stalker or Tanker/Brute rush up and start clobbering them.

Maybe add a ranged substitute for Brawl that they will use if they aren't within range for a melee attack--call it Potshot or something, looks like their normal ranged attack but only has the damage potential/damage type of Brawl.

When he meant "epic" I think he means the Patron Powers.

With his twin handgun idea, you could take a Blaster like me (AR/Dev) and have twin handgun powers on top of that, for added flavor and diversity with weapons.

I actually like the idea of having some more Patron Powers that are based on current power sets ... I don't see it as redundant at all, save for heroes/villains who have the powers as a main/secondary power set.

I can understand that, but there's just better ways of encouraging people to play on a less-populated server than deliberately misleading them.

You could have just said something like, "Play on any server you like--as long as you use my guide to effective team-forming, you won't have to worry about how quiet a server seems."

That totally needs to be recreated, with the Indiana Jones theme music playing in the background.

"Clockwork ... WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE CLOCKWORK?!"

Misleading the guy ain't helpful! He might wind up quitting, thinking the game has become a ghost town.

Definitely agree on seeing some polearm/staff power sets.

With the explosive/demolitions powerset idea, you can mix up AoE with explosives that do cone damage. For example, the Claymore mine in real life.

The very idea, though, sounds like it'd turn a Blaster into a very different animal. Hell, as an AR/Dev, I already find myself acting pretty strategically, setting up ambushes and the like ... A purely explosives/munitions based powerset could turn that up to eleven.

Definitely agree on the idea for new Mastermind henchmen. Battle maids and butlers. What's not to love? The idea for killer toys would be great, too.

Teamwork and Tactical Control could make great natural powersets for Controllers/Dominators and Defenders/Corrupters.

Yeah. Unless I'm exploring or badge hunting (which tend to be one and the same), I find no reason to go to a lot of the Hazard Zones; I only visit them if a contact mission requires me to go to them.

As far as Hazard Zones go, the only one I spend a lot of time in is the Hollows. It's got things most of the other hazard zones just don't; a story arc of its own that spans several contacts, a battle with a villain group leader (Frostire), its own hospital, and the Cavern of Transcendence.

Oh, and it has one thing I've not seen except in newer or revamped content; a significant presence of heroic groups like the PPD (who hold the fort at the Atlas Park gate), Legacy Chain (who openly battle the Circle of Thorns), and Longbow (who work with the PPD over at the Skyway City gate). I like seeing the other hero groups trying to hold down the zone; it really does breathe life into the game, especially if you happen to be in a quiet zone where no one else is around.

You can see that in the revamped Faultline, too--PPD officers in New Overbrook are doing their job and reigning in the defiant members of the Lost. I've not been in Overbrook Dam much, but it looked like Longbow's regulars actually get involved in the Sky Raiders/Arachnos fighting that happens there.

The discrepancy between hero group presence in places like Faultline and The Hollows as compared to more normal zones (Atlas Park, Galaxy City, Kings Row, Steel Canyon, Skyway City, Independence Port, Talos Island, etc.) is such that when I visit the normal zones, I find myself wondering why the PPD, Longbow, or Legacy Chain aren't making more of an effort to control crime there.

Speaking of that--it might just be me, but I've noticed that in the Hollows, villain dialogue is more interesting. In the other Hazard Zones, villains seem to rarely speak. If you go to Perez, you'll see huge groups of Hellions and Skulls just hanging out, not saying a word; encounters are more interesting in the Hollows, even if you're just passing by.

You'd expect a zone like Perez to be in the throes of a full-blown gang war between the two groups, or at least see some of them mixing it up ... Perez could do with some Hollows-style quests/arcs involving the gang war there. The issue with Everett Lake, which is only covered by contacts in the level 30-34 range, could also be made into a series of missions or an arc for the lower-leveled crowd.

You'd be surprised. I only decided to try the game out back in late 2008, and wound up getting hooked.

Granted, that's more than a year ago, buuuut ...

You were interrupting their line dancing session!

But that's okay. I'm known to lob grenades at Hellions trading comic books.

Count me in on this! While I don't mind so much for certain enemies like the Council and 5th Column (they're given doses of super-soldier serum, after all) I do mind that Paragon City's civilians and more mundane villain groups stand a good foot or two taller over the average height for humans.

It's also disconcerting for Mercenary Masterminds; I had to make my own as tall as Michael Jordan just so he could look his own men in the eye.

If NPCs use the same character building system that we as players do, it should be really easy to fix this.

I'd like to see this, too, though I don't think it'd take whole new animations. They could probably reuse some of the ones seen with the Lost Curing Wand and such.

Eh, my question stemmed from someone saying that they'd like to see more clear-cut guidelines on when a character is violating the IP rules. Poking around this forum I saw other tales of people who got genericized because they were mistaken for plagiarizing a character from someone else's IP.

Being a superhero MMO, it's incredibly tempting to want to make characters based off favorite shows or one's own works. I mean, check out some of the videos of Soul Calibur and how people will create fascimiles of other well-known characters to pit in duels. Granted, SC isn't an MMO, but it's the same kind of appeal that drives that kind of thing.

Granted, I should have probably asked about it in a new thread.

It'd be for the best if that notice was automated--for example, if the mission architect system had a set of options/things to add a mission that were set aside and marked as "Two or More Team Members" ... and if any were added to a mission, the game would automatically add a message warning possible players that it would require more than one character to run.

... A superpowered version of Sweeney Todd.

I fear for my life.

First time I saw a Hitler Reaction video, it was about 3D Realms biting the dust. That's left the biggest impression on me.


Anyway, it's good to know that the game isn't a ghost town across the board. Guardian's felt a bit more quieter than it did last year, though--especially on redside ... but it was noted in another thread I read that redside's usually quieter. (Still sucks for giant monster-related events, though.)

Ah, okay. Sounds pretty messy ...And that some people who didn't base their characters on others' IPs but still got in trouble because others mistook them for such is kind of distressing.

Isn't the whole reason why they cause lag is because they're physics-enabled objects?

I mean, a hundred characters hanging around doesn't sound like it'd cause much of a drain on frame rate (not considering combat here, mind you). There's plenty of busy places in CoX where you can find almost as many NPCs like that.

That was the whole reason they started making physics cards--you can have a great CPU and video card, but when you start dealing with multiple physics simulations in a game, the frame rate will go into a tailspin. Whenever I mess around in Gary's Mod, I can cause my computer grief by tossing a bomb into a pile of ragdolls. Not pretty!

So ... instead of having the ability to remove capes, what about an option to display physics-enabled costume parts as not-physically enabled instead? Simple animations for movement/flight, which might not look like the best thing in the world, but it'd save the computer the juice needed to process physics simulations ...

I never noticed any non-Euclidian geometry in most City of Heroes zones. Care to point out some examples? (Faultline, The Hollows, and other ruined excluded of course.)

In the defense of Paragon City's design, though, I'm pretty sure that plenty of real world cities have mind-bendingly illogical layouts.