Meben

Power Bolt's animation was shortened long ago. The sound didn't line up any more.

Ice/Ice for Scrappers.
Energy Aura for Scrappers; up-front burst damage without stealth suppression leading to instant death from the next spawn.

Stone - hmm.
Stone Melee: Stone Fist
Earth Assault: Stone Spikes, Fissure (damage version of Fault)
... Stone/Stone for Blasters!

(I'm hoping for Ice/Ice on Scrappers, and playing Tankers pre-SOs taught me that not being glued to the green numbers vs. full spawns is certain faceplant.

But don't let this "but battlestars and Star Destroyers don't - " post stop the discussion!

... I don't like barbecues. Meatlovers' pizza, please!)

Estimated cost marks

• [R+] Re-uses existing animation
• [R] Existing animation, time adjustments
• [N] New animation, or old animation chopped up.
• [N-] New animation, no suggestion!

Groups of powers/Common powers

• Build Up and Aim: One new animation that a great many powersets can use. I like the one we have, so I haven't got any ideas for alternatives. MoG? [R+]
• Stalker | Assassination powers (no weapons): Proliferate the horse stance, the one from Claws/Spines, and particularly for me, Fist of Annihilation.[R+]
• Confront (no weapons): Touch of Fear? [R]

• Archery/Trick Arrow: Replace some of the 'point the arrow at the target and wait' with the arrow-draw animation. (O'course, a couple of those went away with I18...)[N]

Specific powers

• Ice Melee | Ice Sword: Hmm. Says Clobber/Hack would fit. I always thought Ice Sword lacked oomph. [R+]
  
• Battle Axe | Swoop / War Mace | Jawbreaker: After Disembowel, not having particle effects on these is jarring. [R]
• Dark Armor | Dark Regeneration: No idea what. Power Sink? Reconstruction? [R]
• Stone Melee / Earth Assault | Hurl Boulder: Not that Hurl Boulder by itself isn't awesome, but, well, Legacy Chain! Propel (Boulder), please! [R]
• Ninjitsu | Kuji-in Sha: You struggle to hold the basic pose for a bit, then green numbers happen. No oomph.
  Easy answer: Reconstruction . Not thematic, though. [R]
• Radiation Blast | Cosmic Burst: Snipe animation! [R]
  Or, new particle sfx where the lime cream puff of doom is built (Kin. Melee) before you throw it. [N]
• Energy (Melee/Manipulation) | Stun: Be it Touch of Fear or Cosmic Burst, I could see someone wanting a Stunned by the Hand.[R]
• Sonic Attack | Siren's Song: Fearsome Stare. [R]
• Devices | Gun Drone: Both set mine and summon robot.[/color] [R]
  
• Energy Blast | Power Bolt: New sound. Hasn't lined up since new Defiance. (Yes, as written, power customisation doesn't do sounds.) [N]
• Devices | Smoke Grenade: A throw-grenade animation that doesn't move back and forth as far as that. [N]
• Spines | Ripper / Claws | Eviscerate As standard, but flip forward.[N]
• Claws | I forget, it's the one that looks like Boxing.: Always thought that using Boxing's animation with claws wasn't taking enough advantage of the pointy things on the end of your fist. [N-]
• Empathy | Resurrect: Even presuming the rooting's been fixed, I reckon people would want alternatives. [N-]
• Dual Blades | Typhoon's Edge: As per Dual Wield, I just can't buy it. [N-]
• Devices | Trip Mine: Similarly, it always seemed a bit ostentatious. (I'm no bomb tech, though.) [N-]
• Dual Pistols | Dual Wield: bugs me most, followed by the Flurry-like bits in Bullet Rain and Hail of Bullets - but you'll probably find, for each power in the set, someone who doesn't like it. [N-]

Travel powers: Unbolting the animations from the model (e.g. Coralax costume power) and the power (Ninja Run)... but hey, ultimate flypose! [Booster? Probably three boosters...!]

Snap fingers: Assault Bot, Thunder Storm, Quicksand, Rain of Fire... Endessly realigned for activation times and when the summon shows up, mind you. [N]

Ridiculous animation proliferation: Make a power-chain of the Siphon fist? Pop the RAs with Thunder Clap's animation? Single target hold ground punch? Touch of Fortitude? Swap Fossilize and Stone Prison? [... to start, we need a programmatic definition of 'powers with similar animation times' ...]

Power customisation we have now doesn't do these, right? Better add them to the booster budget...!

• pool and patron/ancilliary
• SoAs and Kheldians
• Manipulate sound timings
• Add particle effects

Whoever collates answers for these things should be able to tick every power available to players by Monday.

Our tall buildings:

I wonder where the loading dock is, and if there's enough doors for people to go to work through.


I, uh, heard somewhere that level designers have to try quite hard to make players look up.

Looking up is expensive. You have to hold a mouse button or take your hand off the mouse button and put it on Page Up. Then you have to reset it to do any travelling or fighting. Having the camera looking down is useful in combat; you can see more of what's behind you and around you. Exactly the opposite perspective for enjoying architecture.

The only building I really remember looking at the top of from ground level is the PCPD HQ. That's got accent lights, the King's Row SG portal, a ramp in front of it, and a terrace that'll show up on screen while looking forward, telling the player that there's something worth seeing by looking up, or at least that's it's not another ten floors of the same windows.

Oh, and the Golden Giza. ... Actually, Jackpot also offers enough eye candy for taking time out of combat and stuff.

Come to think of it, the ramps leading up to Aeon City help the player notice that there's some tall buildings around there, but after looking up there's nothing to keep the eye's interest. (Actually, there's this one red and black bit near some flags somewhere.) Also, the street spawns mean that lowbie characters'll jetpack to the Arbiter, skipping the ramps entirely.


Tall buildings are kinda cool, but I figure here you need something to draw the eye up, and something to keep it there. (It needs to be more than in an FPS since it's less work to look up with those controls.)



Ninja Run is the right size for rooftop-hopping; build terraced buildings with it in mind.

Building greebles!

• Those white boxes with a blue light on them.
• Fluorescent strip lights.
• Doors painted "NO PARKING".
• Plumbing: which side of the warehouse has the toilets? The one with the row of right elbows with access covers.
• An earth spike.
• Weeds growing next to the fences and the buildings, where 'next to' means 'can be whiteboxed by putting a tiny bush halfway through the fence'.
• A pickup truck in the parking lot. <.<
• Torn bill posters.
• Corrugated iron lying around. Oh, and racks of pipe.
• Conversely, cleaner areas ... we can't do signs (or the lump of concrete with the company logo on it) outside of Nova Praetoria, but how about the rack of mailboxes?

(Do we already have a trailer for motorboats?)

A mall interior with an atrium would look cool, but be bad for team cohesion. (Even two overlapping floors is bad. :S )

Yes.


ding ding ding ding
DoooooOOOOOoooooommmmm
ding ding ding
DoOOm

HORK!

• Prototype won't let you continue the storyline until you buy a particular move, like the air dash. Odd.
• Pri/Sec guides:
  • RedTomax's City of Data refactored away a chunk of stuff from a lot of guides: the power stats.
  • Another part is showing which levels to slot things at, which varies from a minor convenience (Scrappers, Blasters) to not having to wait for a freespec (Kheldians, Defenders). The principles are the same across Scrappers, so those could be refactored away.
  • (This leaves the important and interesting part of a powersets guide: how does it play?)
• I thought I knew the standard form for how (when) to slot things; now I'm not so sure. *wince*
  • You can pull the slots off Swift (unless you're Stone Armor).
  • Er...
• The doom part: I've never seen the mission structure change in Open Beta, so, we'd better storyboard our own slotting tutorial.
  
  That is, by the time we see the Praetorian tutorials, it'll be too late to fix them. :S
  
  *crosses fingers for a normal-vendor UI upgrade*
  
  It'll be interesting to see what they do put in the new tutorial. When a Tanker can get to 30 on TOs, a message like It is not recommended to combine enhancements at every level., or even Slot for Accuracy! isn't gamebreaking enough to get posted. That was before the Going Rogue gearup, however.
  
  (The loading tips don't say much about enhancing, come to think of it.)

We hope that the Incarnate system doesn't come from bizarro-Paragon Studios, who'd give its minions Dark Regeneration and a PBAoE -Res toggle.


... aww, wrong forum section for talk about other games. I wanna hear tales about these melee-destroying raid progression! And, like, wince and go "glad I'm playing City of".

It's about Builds.

Defenders

• Premise: Power selection and slotting for soloing a Defender is very different from the team build.
  Conclusion: Defenders were broken until dual builds.

I know the above might be wrong. I know the premises might be wrong. I don't want you to care about that. Suppose someone believes it. I want you to see how they could also believe this:

Tankers

• Premise: Power selection and slotting for soloing a Tanker is very different from the team build.
  Conclusion: Tankers are not broken, because dual builds exist.
  
  
• Premise: Power selection and slotting for Tankering Ghost Widow or Vanguard is very different from the normal build.
  Conclusion: Tankers are broken until triple builds.
  
  
• Premise: There's already things that need a third build. They don't have to be played.
  Conclusion: They could be added in ways they do have to be played, like a raid progression system.

Disclaimer: Stepping outside of the 'Let-' box; I know that Paragon Studios gives the impression, like oh say by adding SSK, they know about people who can't play six hours a day. Still, even the words 'end game' are worrying until GR's release.

*glances around while holding dual blades*

New animation thingy for "I've been standing still for a bit, but not long enough to put my weapon away".

New animation thingy so the draw-arrow part of the animation (wait, is that still used anywhere?) doesn't play if coming from the arrow-down animation. Except for RoA, o'course.

Archery gets Blazing and Stunning Shot, and Trick Arrow gets more points.

One new animation for each of: Archery, AR, Katana, one-handed weapon, one-handed weapon and shield, shield, unarmed.

{{WouldMoneyBetterElsewhere|animation}}

I pander to my instincts by slotting some endred in everything[1]. Since the smallest attacks get the best damage/activation time[2], for faster recharge they get their sixth slot first. This may give them more endred as a side effect.

I can understand Samuel_Tow's position on the market; rare salvage does not exist therefore it (set IOs) does not exist. I know there's some other things I treat that way. Strangely, I can't remember what they are. ... Must be working!

We need more transaction slots!^Y

You can't determine a base inf for a crafted IO without flipping all the items involved!^Y

[strikethrough]We'd really like a strikethrough code sometimes![/strikethrough]


Bets are on hold until I17 goes open beta; no mention yet of more history. (Or some kind of purpose-defeating auto-creeper. Maybe the near-500ms delay in cancelling a bid will go away?)

Conversely, sometimes I forget to clear the flag. I forget it's there!

*krak-OOM!* (Name that power!)

Stone Melee on an archetype that doesn't have either no damage and a team role that is both impossible and completely Whappen-incompatible or no damage when played by someone not prescient.
...
What?
That's Tankers and Brutes, folks. Could you at least end on a positive note?
*ahem*
Scrappers, o'course, but how about Assassin's Stone Spears? Anyo-
*is defeated by some surprise stalagmites*