Moonlighter
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Posts
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Quote:The sidekick system is not only fantastic, but in my opinion this is a mandatory feature for any new MMO. It boggles my mind that companies spend so much on new MMOs and completely forego systems to help grouping that were perfected years ago. Coupled with auto scaling missions this game is years ahead in encouraging grouping.Originally Posted by Crystal_Smoke
[*]Super-sidekicking/exemping. Love being able to play with my friends no matter what level our characters are, without any of the old hassles (like getting suddenly whalloped if I got too far from my mentor; I still have an amusing memory of that one.
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One of the biggest competitive advantages for City of Heroes is I can log into any of my characters, group with my friends, and find quality challenging content within minutes.
The only real impediment to grouping is that the architecture still has separate servers so characters on different servers still cannot group. -
Quote:I almost think that a Well based trial makes more sense than a radiation accident given current lore.Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
radiation accident is the Champions term for allowing a respec in the old pen and paper game. I imagine the new devs are less attached to that idea than the originals. So changing the respec trials makes sense.
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Another problem with posting in a thread that proposes some kind of change: once the devs do that many players will adopt the belief that the proposal will be developed in some fashion in the game. Simply saying "that's a neat idea" is the equivalent for many readers to pre-announcing the feature and, if the devs decide not to do it, almost guarantees a "What ever happened to this suggestion" thread later on.
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Quote:They certain need elemental staves for Staff Melee and a glowing power staff or a Jack Kirby metal staff with glowing ends.Originally Posted by Seschat
"Rod Mastery", so we can use all those wands and staves the CoT and Carnival of Light uses, plus some tech options, like a calssic King Kirby New Gods power rod. Plus will work well as a Dominator secondary.
That reminds me. Both Titan Weapons and Staff Melee lack an arcane or regal element in their weapon choices. I want to thump things with a mage's staff or a royal scepter, darnit!
I would love a new magic pack that focused on armor and weapons. -
Quote:I like that most of the new content doesn't feel onerous to run like the old task forces. They need a Synapse revamp!Originally Posted by Organica
Penelope Yin Task Force: It's not up to the level of the Positron revamp, ie no really new maps or anything, and I saw someone in game call it a "trash TF" (they didn't elaborate), but for my money it's a vast improvement over the old Sister Psyche TF. Not that I particularly hated Sister Psyche's TF -- it was one of the better of the old Freedom Phalanx TFs, possibly even the best of the six. I mean, old Positron and Synapse were/are both pretty horrible with endless repeat missions, and Citadel gets knocked for the same thing, and Numina suffers from all the problems associated with the zone hunts... and Manticore is just really generic and boring... so yeah, probably Sister Psy was the best of the six. But the new version is an improvement. It's fast, it actually takes place in the zone it starts in, and most importantly, just like Posi 2 it ends at a location where the enemies are actually providing a threat, instead of bombing another random, generic sewer. It takes one of the cooler old maps and instead of twenty minutes of boredom you get a really exciting battle on the same map. That's all good!
I am really looking forward to the cyberpunk set with it's trench coat variant.Quote:New Power Sets and Costumes: Yes. Moar please! (I think they need a "magic blast" or "magic staff/wand blast" or somesuch....)
For a long time my favorite zone was the Rikti War Zone. It was really their first concentration of new interesting content. The storylines were interesting and epic, the villain was classic City of Heroes fare, it had an alternate currency mechanic, and the Vanguard were surprising nasty.Quote:Dark Astoria: I think most players would agree that they hit this one out of the park. Well done!
Cimerora was a giant step backwards - a giant zone outside the flavor of the superhero genre that had nothing but a task force and radio missions. Worse, I was getting my butt kicked by... bronze era spartans? Why? Vanguard are encased in Impervium and have energy claws! Now bronze swords are cutting up my power armor? Ugh. At least give the footsoldiers an aura so I can pretend they are powered up by magic or something.
Fortunately the content after that zone fiasco has been great, and Dark Astoria has been epic. I don't generally like "consume the world" plots but the DA story has been fairly well done. The new villain groups are nasty without being "cheaty" with select debuffs that totally hose you, or annoying like Carnie bosses. They are well balanced. Some of the DA missions, though, are *really* tough in a good way. -
Quote:I think you could just have the initial power do damage, give a trait or invisible power, and create a small AoE attack that did the mez and caused all affected targets to themselves create an AoE attack for a small amount of damage that only affect someone with the trait/invisible power.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I've been thinking of ways to do this efficiently: pseudopets might be one way, and dealing the damage and then using a scaling healback would eliminate the need for target messaging or grantpowers. It ultimately might take some new tech to do this in the most efficient way possible.
The user would see the main damage in the target then a bunch of small numbers - one for each surrounding target. This would mean that no special messaging (other than the AoEs themselves) would have to be sent back to the target. It also would have an exponential server hit based on the max targets.
Honestly I don't think the bonus damage on the main target is worth the server performance hit. A small AoE mitigation is probably enough. -
Quote:Conceptually that is interesting, but I would not want to have to implement that system in a way that would be efficient for the server. Your suggestion would force all single target attacks not only send out AoE messaging to check targets in range, but to depend on the response from those targets, or worse the lack of response from non-existent targets, to resolve before figuring out base damage on the main target. If the CoH code base can do that efficiently I will be suitably impressed. I wouldn't think it could though.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Yes and no. In extremely rough terms, you could say Dominators went down the same path as Blasters, but in a better way.
But there are significant differences to gameplay, and its illustrative to look at Controllers to see the difference. Although both Controllers and Dominators on the surface have the same control set, they don't actually because of a critical difference: containment. Controllers and Dominators both have control sets, but Controllers use theirs as their primary means of dealing damage. Dominators have assault sets that are generally more efficient at dealing damage. So from a gameplay perspective, Controllers deal control and get offense automatically, and buff/debuff when they need to. Dominators deal control and get some offense from that, but have a separate offensive option in the assault sets.
Blasters would be like Dominators in that they would have two offensive sets, one ranged focused and one melee focused with some utility powers. Dominators would have two offensive sets, one control focused and one melee/ranged attack focused. But Blasters would also be like Controllers in that while Controllers primarily deal control and get damage for free, Blasters would always be dealing damage and get control for free.
And distinct from both of them, while both Controllers and Dominators would possess long-duration control which means they would have the means to control some targets while attacking others, Blasters would only have the means to control targets they were actually attacking, and only while attacking them. In that sense, their gameplay would be very much like old school blappers, but with a ranged option.
I mentioned counter-mez, but the proposed addition to blasters in the other thread was more sophisticated than just adding counter-mez. It added it in a specific way:
1. It would only be added to single target attacks
2. The effect would center on the target, and affect up to a small number of targets nearby in an AoE, similar to gauntlet
3. If no such targets exist, the effect would trigger additional damage on the target.
The idea here is that Blasters have AoE as an option, and this idea doesn't change Blaster AoE at all. But it improves single target attacks in two ways: it makes single target attacks have AoE mitigation (to a degree) and it also makes single target attacks deal more damage when that AoE mitigation is unnecessary (because there are no targets to affect). And because this is bonus damage within an inherent effect, its a way to increase Blaster single target damage without tampering with any blaster attack's endurance costs or recharge. It would be like containment, only in this case the concept would be concentrated fire. If you shoot a single target attack at three targets, you'll damage one and splash counter-mez on the group. But if there's only one target, the full force of the attack "concentrates" on the lone target dealing more damage to it.
That, combined with D2.0's ability to shoot two single target ranged attacks while mezzed, would make Blasters distinct from Dominators. Dominator persistent control would give them advantages, Blaster higher ranged AoE modifiers and concentrated strikes would give them an different advantage. Ultimately, high magnitude and duration mez would still make Dominators more survivable at the high end, but Blasters would have significant advantages and a unique playstyle over Dominators in a not insignificant range of performance below that.
Edit: I am specifically talking about doing this as a side effect for all blaster single target effects. I understand there are some big ticket powers that do similar things - like Fulcrum Shift. Those are typically limited to longer cooldowns. -
Quote:No, or at least I try to pretend they don't.Originally Posted by JohnnyKilowatt
Soldiers of Arachnos don't count?
Do you think the devs would try to move blasters to be more like SoA? -
Quote:I understand your post and I like the concept of attacks providing active mitigation. It invokes, to me, the concept of covering fire to force enemies to duck and limit return fire.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
There exist other options to modify the blaster role that have no game integration, balance problems, or cottage rule issues whatsoever.
Currently active mitigation comes through control, typically favored by controllers and dominators, or debuffs and/or healing, typically favored by defenders and corruptors. Mechanics like this already exist in many other archetypes. Cold and Psi, for example, reduce recharge just by attacking. Dark reduces ToHit. Dominators have many controls built into their damage powers.
Would that mechanic, as much as I personally like the concept, just make blasters in practice Dominator-light? Wouldn't it just push blasters down the same path as Doms, just with less control?
If it would, would that even be an issue? In a game where we can have Brutes, Tanks, Scrappers and Stalkers all basically doing the same thing with different flavor and Defenders and Corruptors being almost identical I wonder if it would even matter if blasters became more Dominator like.
Edit: As an aside, I don't really think adding extra mitigation to their attacks would be a role shift in the vein I was talking about. -
I have been throwing out some criticism recently and I realize that many of my posts have been negative so I wanted to post about some things I am really enjoying recently.
~ Staff Fighting Animation Tempo. I really like the animations on this set. Unlike Dual Pistols, the animators were able to design the tempo of the animations and sounds and hits so the set feels like the character is fighting fast even though the animations are standard length. I appreciate that the feel of the set invokes a rapid tempo even though I was concerned that the break dancing PBAoE would hurt the feel for me. The feel of the set is really good.
~ Dark Control. I really like the tactical options of the set. It played well and had good options through the entire leveling process, and it's very fun and effective as I do DA arcs. I love how the set split the pets so you get Haunts early on and the hound at 32. This avoided the problem with Fire Control (where it just isn't fun for 32 levels until you get Imps) nicely. I know the set has gotten some flack for not being powerful enough, particularly when compared with plant, but I am enjoying it.
~ Signature Story Arcs. I like the concept, and I like the execution. I like that characters running though these the first time can stack some hero merits but you are more limited on repeat. I like that they can tell stories that can really change the game world. I love the three mission length of them. For me that length is the sweet spot for grouping with friends.
~ New Content. I really like that new content is so much better, for the most part, than older content. As an example, I really enjoyed the new Steel Canyon story arcs. They are executed so much better than older content. I like the Positron Task Force revamp. I liked the clone story arcs, particularly on the villain side. You can really tell the difference when you hit the 30s and finish Croatoa and you are stuck with doing Bricks or Founders and its just bad. The best thing about this is it makes me confident that new stuff that comes out not only has a high chance of being entertaining, but that the leveling process will continue to improve as you generate new content to fill the 30s and 40s with new arcs and areas.
I like that new content avoids the mistake that more missions in the arc equals more epic. Some of the ancient high end arcs with 15 missions are tiresome. I like that the newer mission arcs avoid defeat all missions on huge maps, and I also like how DA missions make destroying all enemies on a map into an optional goal.
~ Dark Astoria. Thank you for providing, for the most part, solo content that rewards incarnate level rewards. I am enjoying the arcs so far for the most part (despite my complaining about Black Scorpion and the taunt mechanic) and earning incarnate rewards for solo arcs is nice. It hasn't prevented me from doing the iTrials, but it gives me something to do when none are running or when I would just rather solo. I realize that players have discussed the specifics of the reward frequency, but please continue this overall trend.
~ iTrials. I feel that having a good selection of high level raids improved the game. While I might not want to be forced to raid, or to have to repeat raids over and over to advance, I think as an addition to a solo path for advancement they are a great addition to the game. I am currently adding incarnate abilities to a new alt and being able to run in Dark Astoria and jump into a raid forming in the Looking In Group channel to accelerate my progress is great. I like the variety and being able to play in multiple ways. Maybe it was a rough road getting there, I really like the final result of DA as a solo incarnate zone for advancement supported and supplemented with iTrials to break things up.
~ Official Looking For Group channel. Thank you.
~ Freebie Fridays. Love it. I like how you put in a small costume piece this week even though I am pretty sure I will never use a pretty princess hat. I like seeing what is available each Friday. I also like how you left the last one going through the weekend.
~ New Power Pools. I just want to say that I know it was a leak, but I am ridiculously excited to see the introduction of new standard power pools. I hope they are cool enough to provide variety from the Fighting - Jumping - Speed - Leadership - Medicine rut I've been in.
~ New Costume Items. Now that females have Baron coats and we are all on the same page on the whole tinting issue I like the quality of the new costume pieces I have seen. The new retro space stuff looks really good, and I really liked the recent pieces I've been seeing. Even pieces that I personally didn't like seemed like they were good quality, they just didn't appeal to me personally which is totally cool. I love the communication we are seeing from the new artist and the response to player feedback.
~ New Tsoo. I've always like the Tsoo conceptually, so creating new high level versions with glowing frikkin' tattoos is just awesome. I also like how we get to interact with some of them instead of just using them as generic enemies in some on the new arcs.
Thanks! -
Quote:Sadly I can't pull my camera back, nor can I effectively run because I am in a Circle of Thorns Oranbega map. My camera is forced most of the time right up to my character by low ceilings, and if I can see I can't spin and navigate passages with torches that catch me.Originally Posted by Eislor
Actually that giant boulder is covering you! Of course you can't see.
I also found it annoying fighting those Knives of Vengeance with the Earth powers. One of those powers drops a few large boulders on and around you, so all you see are the boulders. What worked for me was zooming out a good ways and also leaving the vicinity of those Earth powers that are obscuring the combat area. Don't worry, those Knives of Vengeance will follow you (and continue to try to bury you under boulders).
Are those particle effects? Can I turn down particle settings to stop them? -
Quote:What I mean is what setting would affect something like that? I didn't think my personal settings mattered.Originally Posted by Texas Justice
*looks at Moonlighter's settings*
*has too much difficulty seeing them and gives up*
[Guide] Asking for technical help on the forums -
I hate this change.
You know what this game didn't need? More effects that prevent players from playing their character and making tactical decisions. The worst thing about this effect is that the "solution" is to tank it up with inspirations and mindlessly attack the taunted target until it goes down. It's not even adding tactical complexity - the effect is removing it. -
I am having a problem with a graphic effect that seems to be bugged out. I am in the third mission in DA of Praetor Duncan's arc trying to fight Circle of Vengeance in an Orebaga map, or however you spell that.
When they use earth powers on me the game bugs out and all I can see is a stone blob over the entire screen. It blots out the entire 3D screen and it looks like it screws up my camera. I have lost all visual for as long as 10 seconds.
Is there some setting I have wrong? Has anyone else seen this bug? -
I don't think blasters will see a significant role change. Really the only combo of roles left to pair with ranged damage is passive mitigation, and the devs have already said they don't want tank mages. Even if they did, there are too many problems with changes to existing characters to really make large scale changes to blaster secondaries.
The best we can probably hope for is either a new inherent power, bits of mitigation added to existing powers, and/or a snipe upgrade. -
Quote:Thought I'd chime in as I am doing DA stuff currently on my Dark/Fire dom.Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
I'm going to respond to myself:
2. Dark control is okay. Nothing great. Nothing terrible. My biggest problem is that when doms were skipped with the previous round of proliferation the reason provided by the devs was that doms had a surprise in store. I think this got a lot of people excited, but I personally don't think Dark Control lived up to its hype. Especially when Beast Control was leaked first.
6. I think doms rock the new incarnate stuff. However, I think permadom is almost mandatory in DA. Mobs toss out so much mez and kb that without domination, you get punked pretty fast.
First, I don't have permadom and I am having no problems running DA missions at +2/x4. The only problem I've had is I died several time to Black Scorpion because I couldn't eliminate his Arachnos minions and I can't tank stealth strikes. I could probably run a bit higher on settings. I only occasionally need to hit break free.
One beautiful thing about Dark is that I can safely take a boss and a Lt. out of the fight with my Confusion at the start of the with no domination and I don't draw agro. This is huge for missions that present strings of bosses because I don't have perma-dom yet.
Another great thing is the ability to completely negate the alpha strike with Fearsome Stare which even now is perma. While it's not absolute control, it cuts down damage by a large amount even if I follow up with my immobilize and Rain of Fire.
Having three pets perma is great, especially since Haunt comes so early. Also unlike Fire Imps and the Umbral Beast my Haunts are targeted and recycle quickly. This means I can start a fight by summoning them on a mob and ducking back so they cause havoc before I come forward again.
The only group I have issues with is Nemesis because they are resistant to both Fear and Confusion which negates my most used powers and I am not perma-dom. -
Quote:I would actually like to see blasters get a Mez release power; essentially a power that mimics a Break Free inspiration with a longish recharge. They gain a tool that helps deal with Mez that requires some skill to use, it's different than other ATs, and it isn't just blatantly handing them Mez protection. The biggest issue is trying to shoe horn another power into their pools.Originally Posted by Antigonus
Blasters do not currently get mez protection/resistance shields in any set. Other non-melee oriented ATs do get some specific power sets that offer mezz protection/resistance through resistance shields, the caveat being they must take and use those shields which some people consider to be less than optimal. My question is why should Blasters get free mezz protection/resistance as an inherent power, which is what many have been asking for, when those other ATs do not. In fact no other AT gets free unconditional mez protection/resistance. My preference would be for any mezz protection/resistance that is granted be done by adding it to existing powers.
If you want an option that impacts actual builds the least then here is one off the cuff thought:
What if build up powers like Aim and, well, Build Up had mez protection as part of their effect, and they could be activated while mezzed?
Of course you would also have to do some special case fixes for primaries and secondaries that lack those abilities. You'd have to add a special case for Dual Pistols, for example, and /Devices. But I feel that adding fixing up those special cases wouldn't be that hard.
If you want a more annoying solution, then make snipe powers give 20 seconds of mez protection. I don't like that as much either from a thematic or functional perspective, but it would certainly make snipes useful. -
Quote:Seeds of Confusion is broken. It's better than Mind's top tier power, and a power that is supposed to compensate Mind for not getting pets. Comparing other sets to Plant will probably get Seeds nerfed. In a world where Seeds was not broken, however, Dark is a very good set.Originally Posted by CyberGlitch
I've read on here before that its very, very hard to compare almost anything in the Dominator world to Plant/* and really have to agree. I don't think I'll be taking this guy onto iTrial content as I've already got my Plant/Psi fully T4'd out. Since that's easily the better of the two toons, I'll be pulling the IO's back out of this guy to re-use on other toons instead.
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Honestly I'd probably buy store IOs if I could enhance them.
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I think it's a combination of things:
~ The systems are a solved problem so there's nothing really to discuss. Sure, we can tweak a set or two but there's been nothing to shake up build discussions in a while. The devs probably need to release the new power pools, and release a bunch of new sets to get us to revisit our builds and start the cycle again.
~ The big new challenges are raids, and the stats are out of reach for most soloing just on sheer regeneration. The step up was too big. If the Incarnate missions were 8 man you might see scrappers trying to solo them, but raids are out of reach. There is no interim content to try to solo.
~ We haven't had a new defensive set in a while. -
Quote:Wait, what kind of zone is that?Originally Posted by Arcanaville
in the danger zone.
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Quote:Yes, it won't attack until you are attacked or you approach so the enemies are within its very short perception range.Originally Posted by CyberGlitch
Is the dog still bugged? He doesn't seem very aggressive and usually waits until I've been attacked before attacking. I thought Synapse said a fix was coming in the next patch but not sure of timing of "next" patch and I haven't seen anything about it in recent patch notes history.
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So my shadow hound spends a majority of its time hanging around me begging for food while I am trying to fight long bow. Is there some macro command I can use to get the shadow hound to, you know, attack my enemies?
(The issue seems to be that it won't attack until something attacks me, which if I am doing my job properly they aren't) -
Quote:I'd like to see Street Pistols, or Gun Justice. Basically a "gritty" version of Dual Pistols like they did for Street Justice. As a bonus they would suck away more of my precious store points.Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Any changes to animations in powersets will most likely be via alternate animations--like you said, anything else would tick people off that like the current batch. And given how often those happen (and never for a single powerset, that I can recall), I wouldn't tell anyone to hold their breath for alternate DP or Staff animations.
Biggest thing I want from Dual Pistols is to have each of its ammo types be competitive. Fire and standard are pretty much the only worthwhile options for a Blaster, and even then I almost never use Standard... Fire just does what you need it to do: kill it fast. That's a pity in a set that technically should have a lot more options. The damage of the set is okay for the most part (low end standard, middle with fire, with maybe the biggest issue being the length of its animations... but even then people make more of that then is necessarily true), it just doesn't let you use its main gimmick as you should. -
Quote:They fixed Eagle's Claw by shortening quite a bit without losing its concept or coolness.Originally Posted by StratoNexus
It is very difficult to change any of the animations now. People have grown attached to them. Changing them in beta is really when it needed to be done. I still hope for ES to be shortened, but the devs must tread carefully now that it is live.
They could probably do it to PR. They could *definitely* do that to Executioner's Shot just by removing the dead time where the character is standing there aiming.