Parsec_NA

Call me crazy, but I actually liked fighting Sorcerers. Anything that behaves differently than normal makes things interesting. It can be annoying at times, but overall it makes it feel like you have to be smarter to defeat them.

But this thread isn't about mobs we like, it's about mobs we dislike.

I can pretty much sum it up with a phrase I came up with within a couple of months of when CoH started: "I do not like Green Inks and Ham...idon."

Worst mob I ever fought, though, was actually in the AE. It was just a boss with a lot of SS/Invul powers. I'm still not sure what element of it was the problem exactly (maybe the Rage?), but something about it made it extraordinarily deadly. It was impossible to fight one alone, and two of them together caused us numerous team wipes. Even a normally nigh-invulnerable tank on the team was like, "How is this thing doing so much damage to me?!" It was probably a bug that was fixed in a patch later (never replayed it to find out), but I guarantee at the time that if you pit the enemy against any other boss, it would wipe the floor with them.

There are 5 missions in the arc. Level range is technically 1-50, although I have not tested lower than level 15, so I'm not certain if it might be too hard for those. All of the enemies are customs; there isn't a lot of varation, just the infected humans you'll be fighting, but there IS one EB in mission 4. Only the last mission is a defeat-all, and it's on a small map. The only mission that might be difficult is mission 3, which requires you to find two named bosses on a huge level; that one can be rather time-consuming, especially if you're playing low-level enough that nobody has travel powers (another reason that 15+ should probably be the level range).

The Ragnarok Virus: Paragon
Arc ID: 236358

A deadly virus has spread across the globe, turning most people into ravenous infected that attack the unhealthy. This story follows some of the survivors, a small group of heroes attempting to see if there is any hope left for humanity.

This is a RP arc, which means that even though it does have a story, it functions extremely well as a roleplay setting for people playing it. It is obviously meant for a team of players, and I highly encourage people to RP heavily while playing the arc. (If your character has a story, consider this to be non-canon to it, since it IS a post-pandemic apocalypse setting; just act it out how your character would actually be in this situation.)

If you have a good time RPing this arc, please post your stories here; I'd love to hear them. Everyone I've run the arc with has enjoyed it and come up with some interesting stories.

The Ragnarok Virus: Paragon
Arc ID: 236358

A deadly virus has spread across the globe, turning most people into ravenous infected that attack the unhealthy. This story follows some of the survivors, a small group of heroes attempting to see if there is any hope left for humanity.

This is a RP arc, which means that even though it does have a story, it functions extremely well as a roleplay setting for people playing it. It is obviously meant for a team of players, and I highly encourage people to RP heavily while playing the arc. (If your character has a story, consider this to be non-canon to it, since it IS a post-pandemic apocalypse setting; just act it out how your character would actually be in this situation.)

If you have a good time RPing this arc, please post your stories here; I'd love to hear them. Everyone I've run the arc with has enjoyed it and come up with some interesting stories.

Good lord, Aqua, your sig.

Anyway, in the spirit of G.I.Joe, remember the phrase, "Knowing is half the battle." Then ask yourselves why you would want to give half the battle to people trying to sneak into the beta for a sneak peek instead of testing.

When you use a power that buffs another person, can you customize the color of the effect on them as well, such as putting a red forcefield around someone or green ice armor? I assume it can, but if so, this leads into my second question: what happens when you stack two effects of the same kind but of different colors, such as a yellow and a red forcefield, or blue and green ice armor? Which color takes precidence, the one that was cast first, or the one that was cast last? Or do they both display somehow?

Sorry to double-post, but I have a suggestion. Whenever initiating a costume change emote, temporarily load an invisible 'fake' skeleton identical to the one you're going to be changing to, and apply the emote to it at the same time. Then when you change to the new skeleton, have it copy whatever position the 'fake' skeleton is in.

Kinda sloppy, but it works. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to do the same thing, but hopefully this gives ideas anyway.

It occurs to me when changing between two of my costumes, both of which are Male but one is short while the other is tall. The animation is cut off regardless of which costume emote I use. I would surmise that if the height is different between the two costumes, the bug occurs because it still considers the costumes' skeletons to be 'different'.

I made a 'completely natural' character one time that had no travel powers. It's realistic, all right, but slow. It does tend to free your power slots up for more powers, though, which is always a huge plus. Though it doesn't seem worth it anymore, now that I have the veteran reward that lets you take a travel power without the prerequisite. Even my natural characters get superjump, which I explain off as a grappling hook or something.

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Time Control.

I've been trying to push a Time Control powerset for a long time. It has a lot of potential to include interesting effects, and a particularly unique one would be the ability to shorten animation cycle times (if that's possible). Anyway, we need more powersets with unusual abilities, not just another new weapon set; we have plenty of those.

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"You know, my son, I wouldn't be Emperor of the Galaxy if I didn't have a few powers at my disposal. Imperial Battleship, halt the flow of time!" (Star Crash)

There's no way they'd have the courage to put something like that in, because it means that not only do they have to balance the powerset against its "peers", but also go through all other powersets to make sure the effects don't cause major balancing issues.

That, or it'd just be a bit of a cross between Gravity Control and Kinetics. Speed up, slow down, out of phase...

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Actually, I do have a character that's supposed to be a time controller, and I've been simulating it with Grav/Kin.

It would be similar to a mix of those sets in a way, but there's room for a lot of unique things. Tops on my list would be a "Temporal Fugue" power (creates temporary duplicates of your character that attack with other Time Control powers) and a "Time Stop" power (a VERY wide-range and powerful AoE hold that also applies a sepia tone to the screen of anyone within the effect radius until it wears off). It would also have the requisite target heal ("Undo") and target hold ("Stop"). Since each current powerset also has their own unique visual effects for targets that are held, it would be cool if possible for Time Control holds to actually freeze a character in whatever frame of animation they were in when they got hit, maybe even apply a sepia tone to them (though that might be getting out of the realm of what they system can do). This wouldn't pause whatever action they were in the middle of, of course, so energy blasts and such will still complete their animations, but it would still be fun to watch targets get frozen in different ways.

There's a lot of untapped potential here for the devs to go wild and be unique. It doesn't HAVE to be a clone of grav/kin; that's all I'm saying.

Time Control.

I've been trying to push a Time Control powerset for a long time. It has a lot of potential to include interesting effects, and a particularly unique one would be the ability to shorten animation cycle times (if that's possible). Anyway, we need more powersets with unusual abilities, not just another new weapon set; we have plenty of those.

> Fill out Hero Registration Form with #2 Pencil

Using the #2 Pencil, you fill out the Hero Registration Form to completion. It is now ready to be turned in at City Hall!

>_

> Fill out Hero Registration Form

What do you want to Fill out Hero Registration Form with?

>_

> Take #2 Pencil.

You take the #2 Pencil.

>_

> SLASH at Hellion with Katana

You take a swing at the Hellion, slicing easily through his baseball bat and delivering a critical hit. Now that's one sharp sword!

The Hellion has been defeated. The woman thanks you for your bravery, makes some offhand comment about how she might have been wrong about "capes", and scuttles off.

The Hellion drops a #2 Pencil.

>_

> warn Hellion

You warn the Hellion that if he does not unhand that purse immediately, he will have to deal with the business end of your katana.

The Hellion releases the woman, but then equips a baseball bat and advances menacingly!

>_

(Oh! Whoops! I'll have to rectify that when I get a chance...)

I've got a question. Does the badge you get for collecting 600 badges COUNT as a badge?

I'm asking because technically, it would be impossible to have exactly 600 badges if that were the case...

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I'm willing to listen to ideas on how truly horrible content can get rated without having to endure all of it.

[/ QUOTE ]How about let the player rate without completing only one mission per week or month? To ensure that it's only used to get out of "bad" missions, the rating for such an aborted mission would always be "one star".

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I like this one, too. Limited no-play ratings. I'd allow it to be more frequent though, like once per day.

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Oh! Better idea... Is there any way you can give certain ratings more 'weight' than others? If someone rates a mission without playing it, it would have a low weight against the total rating, while someone who completes it has a greater effect on the overall rating. What do you think?

*EDIT* This could count more towards the badge, too, in some way.

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That's a reasonable idea. Someone who rates an arc after playing half of the first mission shouldn't have an equal vote compared to the person who played all the missions in the arc.

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But in the case of "Mission That's Virtually Impossible" you'd get a bunch of low-weighted 1-stars from people who couldn't finish it, and a bunch of heavily-weighted 5-stars from the few who could finish it and enjoyed the challenge.

Or you'd get a mission so annoying that nobody would ever complete it except the mission designer and his friends, who all 5-star it.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but there are ways to game virtually every rating system.

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Of course there is. And that's why I think the way that offers the LEAST avenues of breaking the system works the best. What you described could be done with any of the rating systems, but overall I think having the responses weighted would help reduce (not fix entirely, since that's impossible) the number of incidents.

Oh! Better idea... Is there any way you can give certain ratings more 'weight' than others? If someone rates a mission without playing it, it would have a low weight against the total rating, while someone who completes it has a greater effect on the overall rating. What do you think?

*EDIT* This could count more towards the badge, too, in some way.

Maybe have some sort of threshold, a certain amount of the mission that has to be played in order to rate it, similar to how you have to be on a mission for so long to get the end of mission bonus. The player should at the VERY least START the first mission.

Ultimately, I don't think someone should even be rating an obviously bad mission to begin with. I'd rather just let it sink to the bottom of the unrated mission list, than for people with genuinely good content being stomped down by griefers.

Positron, I am a little concerned about the possible rate griefing involved with being able to rate an arc that hasn't been played. Especially when there are badges involved in rating unrated arcs or ones that don't have many ratings. A lot of people will probably get their badges simply by going down the line of unrated arcs, slapping a 1 star rating on them, and getting their badge in the process. I've seen rating systems on web-published content experience things like that, and that's WITHOUT the enticing badge. Please reconsider allowing someone to rate an unfinished arc.

*EDIT* Been here since CoH beta, and this is the first time I've posted after a redname.