Lord Mayhem

I really liked the Super-Science booster - especially for the goggles/masks - but I'd rank it behind the others because it didn't provide any full costumes (not that I ever use full costumes on a single character anyway, so I wasn't bothered, but it's nice to have new pieces for every costume location). The Cyborg/Tech booster has been the most use to me personally (especially the shoulder pieces), but I think the Magic booster has been the best value for costumes as it has the most intricate/classy costume pieces with a very wide variety of uses (especially the high collar cape).

That's exactly how I see it too. The only problem I have is with cyborgs/robots - I have a cyborg who is science origin, mainly because the technical pieces added have fundamentally changed his existence, effectively making him not human anymore (plus it was an evil experiment that changed him), but a player did once tell me I'd got it wrong and the character should have been Tech origin. I disagreed (and still do), because I see Tech as something the character can "put down" (or "take off" in the case of power armour) and then just be a normal member of their race. However if/when I create a pure robot character I can't see I could give them any origin but Tech, which would clash with how I have defined Tech origin in the past.

Then there's the case of technical prosthetic replacement - to what degree does it need to progress before you change origin? Fortunately my only character with prosthetic replacement (he has cyborgised arms, because his arms were cut off as punishment), an Electric/Ninjitsu Stalker, is magic origin because he is a Mu descendant who can manifest magical Mu electricity where his arms used to be (hence his primary powerset) and he uses that to power his cyborg arms.

Yeah I own several Batman Elseworlds stories, including that one, which was why I specified main continuity

Having a "background in the sciences" does not make you science origin, though, no more than being a car mechanic makes you tech origin. To be science origin the character themselves must have been altered by a scientific process which grants them their powers - CoH is fairly explicit about that - in fact Science is probably the second least ambiguous origin (after Mutation), its parameters are so clearly defined.

Dynamic events, like GG describes, is something I have wanted in MMOs for a long time. Ad-hoc mission tasks you can get in a zone that just happen, regardless if there are players there to stop them. I'd also like to see NPC heroes/villains contacting players (through cellphones, psychic/magical means, or whatever) to offer them dynamic missions at random, perhaps based on the dynamic events that are happening in a certain zone (perhaps when a GM spawns an NPC might contact every hero/villain outdoors in a nearby zone to request their aid against it - I believe DCUO is going to have a system like this).

This would also link in to zone events like the fires in Steel Canyon, but instead of just happening at certain times the player might be able to observe a build up of Hellions that preceded the burning (and have the option to stop it) - a bit like when Paladin gets built. And these events would escalate - when the building starts burning perhaps you can enter it for a short instanced mission to rescue civilians. If the Hellions manage to burn down one building then perhaps they would try to burn down the building next door to it. If enough buildings get burned down without player intervention then perhaps some of the facilities in the zone would be suspended (maybe if the hospital in a zone burns down you can't respawn there for an hour and must respawn in another zone, if shops burn down you can't shop there for an hour, etc.).

Things like this make a world seem alive - more importantly it reduces the predictability of gameplay - you can't log in and think "I'll do this arc tonight" because you don't know what missions the game might offer you or place in your path and give you the option of doing. This offers a huge amount of replayability, because your journey through the game with each of your characters is likely to be drastically different. It also creates what I like to call "anecdotal moments" - when something happens that you want to tell your friends about - you wouldn't feel the need to tell the story of the ITF to your in-game friends, because the chances are that they have experienced it and know it, but a series of dynamic events creates a customised story applicable only to your character and anyone with you - it personalises the experience - and gives you more reason to tell friends "guess what happened to me last night - I was flying through Steel Canyon when..." ... "and then, just as I was finishing that up, Positron phoned me and asked me to help with..." ... "but then Numina contacted me magically me and warned me that..." ... "but I knew that I couldn't do both in the time limit, so I decided that..." etc.

I think this ties in with dynamic events - GMs shouldn't just be spawned based on time, I think it should be linked to events in the zone. If BP are not slain, or prevented from setting up ritual sites in DA, then Adamastor spawns and wreaks havoc. If Trolls are not suppressed in Skyway then Supa-Troll raves would start appearing and if they were left unsuppressed then eventually a Mega-Troll GM would appear and rampage around, perhaps seeking out players to attack.

You do have a very good point here.

I had a friend in EverQuest who played a shaman (very buff-orientated class) who liked buffing and it was because what he mainly wanted from the game was to help people by doing something that wasn't too challenging/reactive, so that he could fulfill his role while also smoking, watching TV and chatting with the team - so he was our buffer, but we never expected much else from him. I just didn't "get" his playstyle, but then he couldn't understand why I found gear selection, tactical pulling and planning how to take a spawn/room apart so fun. I just thrived on reactive and dynamic gameplay with multiple tactical possibilities, whereas he wanted predictable repetition. The difference between a Social player and an Explorer I guess, in Bartle terms. Horses for courses.

Like you say there are obviously people who like how CoH's buff-heavy powersets play (though not many, I'd argue, seeing how rare the Thermal, Sonic, Cold & FF sets seem to be in-game), so I can defer to you that they shouldn't be changed - it doesn't bother me to just go on as I have done previously, thinking "those sets just aren't for me" (and Kinetics too, because I find that repetitive thanks to SS/ID/SB - though I do like the rest of the set), except that I wish there were more sets that I did like playing, as I have played Rad Emission, Storm Summoning and Dark Miasma to 50 (and am playing them again in the case of Rad and Dark), I'm currently working on /TA and have plans for /Traps (Pain/Emp I avoid because I'm rubbish at healing ) - I just hope we get another new debuff/control/PBAE-buff set soon, so I can play something different.

With that my ulterior motive is clear - the debuffs in Sonic/Thermal/Cold are the main reasons I am attracted to those sets enough to want the "mini-bubble" type buffs changed to a duration that I find less of a chore.

Possibly depends which way you are facin...

Natural/Tech yeah, but I'm not seeing the Science - is there some main continuity Batman story I'm not aware of where he's been granted special powers by a scientific process? (I hope not...)

We're gonna need a montage!

That comes with the caveat "depending on the activities of the team/teammate."

Sigh. Buffs... only buffs... it's even in the title of the thread...

But I guess I'll tackle this head on, just in case you fail to read the line above as well. Attacks (and debuffs and controls) are obviously very different because they affect something which will probably not be around for very long and will likely be trying to defeat you, unlike your ally who should be with you for the whole mission (all things being equal) and unless they're a damn poor teammate will not be trying to kill you. What that means is that attacks/debuffs/controls involve a lot more tactical thought re when/where/how to use them compared to an ally buff which, as a preventative measure, should probably be up all the time - you just never know when someone might be attacked due to an unforeseen ambush, overspill of the aggro cap, over-aggroing by themselves (maybe by using fireball at the wrong moment ), so if that damage/attack type is present somewhere in the current mission then you should probably maintain that protective buff shield on all allies. Also there is only one way to use a buff, whereas attacks can have other applications (as debuffs, as an aid to pulling, as an aggro tool, etc.) - again, more tactical decisions/uses. Many of my favourite powers have multiple tactical uses (Howling Twilight is a very good example).

I like ongoing tactical decisions - 4 minute buffs do not really involve ongoing tactical decisions, to my mind - they are just a time-dictated task to maintain (i.e. a chore, to many) - no real thought or skill involved once you determine whether they are needed in the current mission - and even the chosen 4 minutes for the duration seems rather arbitrary. Now if there was a defensive buff you could cast on a teammate that gave them +75% resist (all) for 10 seconds, that could instead be cast on an enemy for a -37.5% resist (all) debuff for 20 seconds, but that also caused -75% resist (all) to the caster for 10 seconds when used, and it had a 3 minute recharge, then that would be a protective buff that required ongoing tactical decision making (especially if it was in a powerset without heals, like Force Fields, so that was one of the few ways of preventing damage to teammates directly) - that would be a buffing power that I would find fun.

Taking your ridiculous accusation to the opposite ludicrous extreme, would you rather mastermind pet upgrades were changed into 4 minute buffs as well, in case someone somewhere enjoys activating those? After all, they do have very cool animations... Hey maybe the detoggle bug should be brought back as a "feature" too... [Warning: sarcasm may be present in this paragraph]

This is how I feel. Those are the buff sets I always avoid too. I tried /FF on a Mastermind in CoV beta and just re-buffing a few pets every 4 minutes was annoying enough for me. I just know I'd hate being nagged for buffs by players on a full team if I was slow to re-apply.

With so much rational opposition to making these buffs PBAE, I think a longer duration is the answer - I can't see any reason for players to oppose that (though I'm sure someone will...) - but the real question is would the Devs go for it?

Personally I'd love it if these buffs lasted long enough for one entire regular mission, so you only had to cast them at the start of a mission - and if they only needed re-applying once during a long mission, such as on a TF/SF - maybe a 15-20min duration. That would be enough to convince me to play the buffing sets that I currently avoid, because 4 minutes just feels too short a duration for my liking - especially as I don't benefit from the buffs either.

Or maybe I'm just not selfless enough to devote my playstyle to defensive support - perhaps I should stick to debuffing or controlling when I want to play a support role - at least I enjoy that, regardless of whether my contribution is noticed/appreciated. I guess buffing doesn't have to be its own reward when you have so many players thanking you for it (probably from relief that they don't have to be the ones rebuffing every 4 minutes ).

That could work too, though I'm not sure I can see the Devs going for perma-buffs, not without a limiter or system to back it up (maybe something like Concentration in DAoC).

I found this old link on Massively.com, referring to this short article at Kill Ten Rats, where it was briefly discussed - comments on the latter mention CoH as being especially tedious for buff re-application. Bad press like this (and the underlying tedium) is the sort of thing that can put potential subscribers off playing certain MMOs.

Rob Liefield works for Paragon Studios now?

I fully appreciate that - I was just dreaming out loud, expressing my opinion, because I don't like having to grind badges for costume pieces or powers - I actually like having things unlock at the ends of arcs and TFs/SFs, just not for badges that promote repetitive farming as the only way to get them. I was very glad to see the Devs reduce some of the defeat badge targets, because I just hate it when badge-grinding is pushed onto those who wouldn't otherwise be interested in badges.

I find myself completely agreeing with you again, Sam, especially for capes and auras (I use the Valkyrie and magic booster capes a lot these days... wonder why.. ).

Badges are another good example for me - I don't mind picking up badges as a result of normal gameplay (i.e. not consciously badge-grinding for them), because it acts like a record of which content each character has done - but I would much rather badges acted like a record of what I have done as a player across my whole account. As it is, the only times I become a focused badge-hunter are for: a) badges that give accolades that grant powers (I try to earn these on every character), b) badges that unlock a custom weapon/shield or costume piece, c) badges needed to unlock contacts (redside), d) explore badges to unlock SG Teleport beacons (admittedly I have all of these now, both sides), e) badges that give titles I want for a particular character.

In many of those cases I find badge hunting a chore. I can understand why some enjoy it - I've been obsessive about collecting things in other games (Collections in EQ2, getting 100% in the Grand Theft Auto games, etc.) - but I don't feel the pull of it here, because I have so many characters that it gets repetitive getting the same badges again and again (in EQ2 and the GTA games I was focused on just one character). Plus, on redside, the explore badges for the Invader accolade makes me treat the mayhem missions as mandatory content to do every 5 levels (because it would be more of a hassle to get them after I'd outlevelled them).

If all badges were globally earned I could see myself caring about badge-hunting a lot more. I think badges being global would make much more sense in a game where altaholism is so promoted (due to the fast levelling pace, massive variety in characters, and the lack of a full endgame). Also global badges would mean that costume pieces and custom weapons earned through badges would also be global. And I would rather that all of the accolade powers were unlocked by TF/SFs (a good way to further promote teaming).

Hmmm, there was that position at Paragon Studios for a new skeletal animator... wait, you know something, don't you, GG?

You heard it here first, folks - horses in I17/GR!

With animated manes...

I completely agree with you, Sam. In particular it irks me that I cannot have a Roman-themed character until after I have done the ITF.

Veteran reward costumes annoy me too when they have no parallels in the costume creator that don't require any kind of unlocking (even though I have almost all of the vet reward costume pieces I want - all I'm really waiting for is the boxing pieces and I get those in 8 days time, as one of my characters is a boxer). The samurai armour would especially irk me as a new player - having to wait 18 months to make a samurai concept character - there are 3 styles, so why couldn't one of them have been made available to all leaving two variants for the vet reward? Ditto with trenchcoats, boxing gloves/shorts and wings. Tech Sleek is fine, because there are several other tech armour options available to new players at character creation.

In most cases I would rather that the Devs issued a basic costume of a certain type to all players and have the more attractive variants being the in-game unlockables or vet rewards. E.g. a basic trenchcoat available to all (think Columbo style), but a leather trenchcoat being the 3 month vet reward (as it is now) - and I wish basic Roman Legionary armour had been available to all when I12 was released, but have more fancy Tribune/Legate-styled Roman armour unlockable by the ITF.

This way no concepts are blocked at character creation, but there are still interesting and attractive variants to unlock through gameplay that players will strive for - i.e. everybody wins.

It would look incredibly weird if you didn't take the forearms with blades on your costume, though. About the only VEAT you could do this for would be Night Widow branch Arachnos Widows, as they always have claw attacks - but they're unlikely to use Brawl beyond the earliest levels, so it's not really worth doing.

I'd be willing to go halves with you on that

Sam, CoV borrowed lots of things from CoH (costume pieces, game engine, powersets, tilesets, etc. - it has since donated a lot of its content back to CoH: all costumes, some powersets, plus tilesets/maps used in Faultline/RWZ content etc.), but the zones and missions were all new - and in terms of the number of contacts/missions I don't think you can say CoV had diddly squat content compared to CoH - I agree with GG in that respect. In fact CoH has so much filler (arcs/TFs with repeat missions, hunts, etc) I'm tempted to argue CoV has more non-TF/SF unique mission content than CoH has.

That's still mostly assumption though, GG - you don't know the intention is definitely to move Praetorians out of Praetoria at 20 - just that it's an option. All we know is that Praetoria has 1-20 content and that native Praetorian characters are forced to choose loyalist/redside or resistance/blueside at 20 - beyond that it's all speculation (unless I've missed out on seeing some dev info from Herocon).

I'm still hoping it will be possible to level 1-50 in Praetoria without going to Paragon City or the Rogue Isles (unless you want to) - I think GR does need that - especially as, like Nethergoat noted, the Devs have the MA tools now which should enable them to churn out content much faster, and at similar/higher quality to CoV (and certainly higher than pre-CoV) standards. I won't be massively disappointed if it doesn't happen, but that's what I hope, because new Dev-created mission content is almost always top of my list of things I want to see added to the game.

When MA was close to release we kept hearing how it would enable the Devs to produce content more easily - and how MA was first developed as a tool for the Devs to make mission creation easier and more intuitive (but that they later decided to release it to us) - yet so far we haven't seen any evidence of the Devs being able to churn out content faster - in fact the past few issues have had precious little new Dev-created mission content.

I believe the reason for that is that the Devs have been busy creating lots of content for Going Rogue. Almost every new feature so far, both in recent issues (Mission Architect, Power Customisation) and most of what has been announced so far for GR (side-switching, ultra-mode), has presumably kept the artists, animators, programmers, etc. busy - but what have the mission/zone designers (like War Witch) been doing? What about all the new hires? Sure, AE and power customisation must have been very work-intensive, but they're out now and presumably the whole Dev team is focused mainly on GR.

I believe/hope the Devs intend for Going Rogue to be a new game experience from 1-50 that will show off everything they have learned in the past 5 years - something to attract new subscribers (as I think a CoH+CoV+GR box will be hot on the heels of the GR expansion release) and hold on to the rest of us. This is their chance to "set their stall out" against the new generation of MMOs (and in particular the next superhero MMO competitor in line - DCUO - even though I think that game is going to have a very different gameplay focus and payment method to CoH).

It's a dream I have

Also, regardless of the intent behind an expansion or expanshalone, if the Devs expect me to pay the same box price for GR as I did for CoV (and yes, we don't know that yet), then I'll expect a comparative amount of content, or more (considering the MA advantage). Of course if I'm still enthusiastic about playing CoH when GR is released (and that may depend as much on SW:TOR as it does on CoH) then I'll buy it anyway, but I might feel somewhat hard done by if GR is as light on mission content as recent issues have been (AE is a bit too much of a lucky dip sometimes, and I love lore so canonical story-telling will always be more important to me).

When I was young I used to think I had "no accent". When I travelled, and especially when I went to university abroad (well, in the UK, but that is abroad from my home even though I am a British passport holder), I was soon dissuaded from that line of thought.

An American I knew thought I sounded Australian. When I lived in Buckinghamshire (south England, near London) a lot of people there thought I was from New Zealand. When I lived and went to university in Yorkshire (north England, I was near Leeds) several locals and a Scot I knew at uni thought I was Canadian (older Guernsey folks, like my late grandfather, do/did tend to add "eh" to the end of every sentence, though I only slip into doing that when I get drunk), while many Scousers, Mancs and Geordies (all Northern English folks with strong regional accents) thought I sounded like a "southern English softy" (yes, England has a strong North/South division/rivalry too). A girl I dated from Gran Canaria even said she thought I was South African when she first met me.

So I no longer think that anyone has no accent. And I think the accent you natively have can even affect how other people sound to you. Funnily enough people from the south/southeast of England also sound like they have "no accent" to me, in addition to folks from where I live, and yet when I used to go on family holidays to Hampshire (mid-south England) we always got asked by strangers where we were from - they could detect we weren't local from our accent, while they sounded "accent neutral" to me - weird, eh?

That quiz is just for Americans though, a bit like your outlook in certain posts in this thread . For fun I took the quiz - apparently I sound like a New Yorker, which tells me that quiz is a little bit ... insular. I don't think I could sound less like a New Yorker while still being a native English speaker.

As far as the BBC used to be concerned Edinburgh English (England + Scotland hybridised accent - somewhat like Prime Minister Gordon Brown's accent) was the perfect neutral accent for broadcasting - the one least likely to cause offence, be misunderstood or evoke regional bias in the many areas of the UK which have their own strong regional accents. Thankfully nowadays they're a bit more broad minded so we get plenty of different regional accents on TV (which probably makes a lot of British shows utterly impossible to understand to Americans, and also to anyone who doesn't speak English natively but learns it).

I agree with both of you that CoH, and most other MMOs, are a very cheap form of entertainment. My monthly CoH sub works out at around £8-9 locally, which is one cinema ticket, or 3-4 pints of beer, or half of the most basic satellite TV package we have - that's a pittance for any form of entertainment you can use 24/7 (if you didn't sleep ), let alone an interactive and social form of entertainment that also encourages creativity and is updated/improved regularly - especially for me as usually I'm making use of CoH 15-20 hours a week (just not at the moment due to an arm injury). Heck, over the course of a year I spend far more at Amazon.co.uk, for books/DVDs/CDs that all combined will entertain me for around the same amount of time (maybe less, actually) than CoH does on an annual basis.

Nowadays I only tend to buy non-MMO PC games that I know will last me a good long while, to justify their purchase cost - which is probably why in the last 3-4 years the only ones I've bought (or asked for and were given as birthday/Christmas presents) were Civilization 4: Complete, Settlers: Rise of an Empire, Dawn of War + all 3 expansions, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Battlefield 2142.

I hope CoH:GR will have as much content as CoV, and preferably more - we know it will have as many outdoor zones, I suspect it will have less archetypes & powersets and probably less costume pieces too, but I'm hoping for far more new enemy factions and mission tilesets than CoV had (and the Going Rogue system itself is analogous to bases, imho - a completely new game system).

One thing I do know is that it would be daft to assume that everything announced so far for CoH:GR is everything that will be in it at launch. Those complaining GR is content-lite already have obviously never experienced/followed the launch of an MMO expansion before (or an MMO, for that matter), as they certainly don't realise that marketing dictates drip-feeding features to the press/playerbase between announcement and launch to keep public/press visibility of the expansion high, and to feed the hype generated by the playerbase.

Is it wrong that after reading both of the above posts I had a mental image of Heath Ledger's Joker pitted against Adam West's Batman?

It did not go well for Bats...

I've got you covered:

Considering they're already locked out of the power pool which has the first melee attack I'd want to take (AirSup), the idea didn't really grab me as a great idea to equalise things for PBs. Basically you're talking about an enhanced Kick, Boxing, Flurry and Jump Kick. Flurry I'd still skip for the long animation time and Kick/Boxing would need serious levels of improvement to make them more than filler. Jump Kick... well, if at the same time the Devs gave it the same KD chance as AirSup then maybe. An improved Tough/Weave might be more useful, but really I don't see a thematic or even gameplay-driven reason why this would be a particularly suitable improvement for a PB, or any Kheld.

Your idea to turn Glowing Touch into a PBAE heal was a good start - maybe turn PBs into the support/protective Kheldian, whereas WS would be the full-offense Kheldian - that would work for me. Taking it further, Restore Essence could be turned into a PBAE rez with a decent radius (25?) so that you could use it either to rez yourself, rez teammates, or rez all of you after a wipe (if you died close together) - giving you an ability to combat-rez multiple players which only Dark Miasma Corruptors/Defenders/Masterminds have otherwise.

Conserve Energy could likewise be turned into a PBAE buff for PBs, reducing end usage from power use for any teammates within range. Group Energy Flight could be changed into something useful, such as a PBAE click-based group buff that granted SJ instead of Flight (like IR does) but also granted +def or +res or +regen or +status resists. The PB human-form shield toggles could also be changed to grant slight benefits to nearby teammates (like Grant Cover does for Shields).

I'd change the inherents too - as well as the existing bonuses the Kheld gets, have the team benefiting from some buffs too - maybe +1% +dmg per team member from the WS, and +1% resists (all) and/or +5% regen per team member from the PB. Maybe differentiate the nova/dwarf forms more as well, so WS nova could gain some status resists (because we suspect the Devs would never give them status protection) while PB dwarf could gain a +regen aura for allies stood near which also functioned as a threat aura.

That would fit the storyline too, with pure Kheldians (i.e. PBs) being generally peaceful and helpful, and the Nictus (i.e. what WSs were/are) being the life-sucking warmongers.

I do like that phrase. It perfectly sums up why I was indifferent about so much of the modern art I saw the last time I went to the Tate Modern gallery in London - too many vague ideas with zero craftsmanship involved - it just didn't tickle my internal "art detector".

For bonus points it also sounds like something a Jedi would say!

Especially if you're a bit clumsy with them. Not so much take an eye out, as sever half of your head from the other half. Something like that can really ruin your day!

The faces don't bother me - I think they're fine (I still prefer many of the old faces over the new ones tbh). The hands, they bother me slightly - not enough to be a major issue, but I would like to see separate fingers, as long as they weren't as freaky as the fingers on most CO avatars I saw during beta (and on my own characters).