Redlynne

Samuel ... thanks for bringing this up, because I share your anger and frustration at this environmental "feature" of the Shadow Shard in full measure to your own.

Full Disclosure: it is my personal opinion that the Shadow Shard represents the pinnacle of environmental development and beauty that this game has to offer ... even after almost 8 years of abandonment. Yes, I'm including such later efforts as the Eden Trial, Grandville, above ground Praetoria, Faultline and the revamped Atlas Park in that statement that the Shadow Shard zones are the BEST environmental locations this game has to offer.



My take on the Inaccurate And Imprecise Geysers problem ... and it IS a problem ... is that any sort of fix for it would require a mix of effort from the Powers Team (Black Scorpion, Synapse, Arbiter Hawk), the Environment Team (Think Tank, and friends?) and the Programming/Engineering Team (Dark Watcher, and Neon Walker?) to resolve.

The FIRST thing that needs to happen to *FIX* the Geysers ... note I am not advocating for a *replacement* of them, but rather a FIX for them ... is for the Geysers to apply an automatic 1 second suppression of Movement Buffing Powers (all!) when they affect your character. The reason and purpose of this momentary suppression is to ensure that the vastly preponderant Movement Modifier affecting your character will be due to the action/influence of the Geyser, so as to keep things as close to a reference "benchmark" as possible, without putting the onus of "Zero-ing" out Movement Modifiers on the Player in a way which is tedious and annoying.

This means applying a *temporary* suppression of all Travel Pools that rely ground-bound "movement" (Leaping, Speed) as well as all Primary/Secondary powers that modify movement (Inertial Reduction, Speed Boost, Accelerate Metabolism, Quickness, etc. etc. etc.) and also the Inherent Powers of Swift, Hurdle, Ninja Run, Beast Run, etc.

It's not possible to "suppress" the Movement Buffs of Set IOs (as far as I know), but the thought I have is that those modifiers should be "small enough" in isolation, when not boosted by other Powers, to yield a "small enough" margin of error so as to make the next set of synergizing modifications to the effects of the Geysers so that they can become "accurate ENOUGH" to be reliably used.

The SECOND thing that would need to be done is that when using a Geyser, for one second after launch, Player control over the character's movement direction needs to be "ignored" by the game. The reason for this is so that the only initial "control" input to the character's launch trajectory is the one *automatically* imparted by the Geyser. Again, this is a deliberate attempt to "zero out" imprecision and inaccuracies that can be imparted by Player control inputs in a laggy network connection context when "launching" from a Geyser.

Combining the Powers Suppression and Control Suppression effects AT LAUNCH from a Geyser, it is possible to "zero down" towards a much narrower range of possible launch trajectories than would otherwise be possible (without these suppressions) such that the Circular Error Probable (CEP) of where the character will "hit/land" when engaging in Hands Free "Flight" courtesy of the Geysers becomes far more stable and predictable through a much wider array of conditionals and situations ... which then makes the NEXT change one that is worthwhile to make.

With the Circular Error Probable of the landing point of Geysers constrained by the above changes, the LAST piece of the puzzle is Environmental in nature. The Geysers either need to "aim" characters to either come "down" to land (by falling) in a designed area large enough to accomodate Hands Free travel ... or ... to be flung "against" a vertical(ish) surface which can be used as a "backstop" to halt further forward horizontal motion (by "splatting" into it). At no point, should the "intended" arc of parabolic motion imparted by Geysers involve "head bumping" into a ceiling or overhang ... which then requires Player Input Control to avoid having happen. I know there are some Geysers in the Ski Chalet(!) and also in The Cascades which basically require ACTIVE Player Control to avoid the "head crush and fall" that will just about ALWAYS happen when performing Hands Free travel by Geyser.

Needless to say, there are a LOT of "little islands in the sky" in the Shadow Shard where you are essentially "flung" by a Geyser in a direction that is vaguely towards a teeny tiny bit of a rock ... and if you don't ACTIVELY control your character EXACTLY RIGHT (with almost no reaction time whatsoever) you completely miss it ... and fall to the bottom of the map. I too have despaired over the question of "who programmed THIS MESS?!" when using Geysers that flung me anywhere BUT when I wanted to land. The ones which throw you in an almost FLAT TRAJECTORY ARC to try and "land" on itty-bitty rocks that have almost no upper surface to them ... and no backstop to "catch you" has had me overshoot and fall out of the sky is just one of those "and I'm *supposed* to make this work, HOW?!?" kind of experiences. I really resent those tangential intercept Geyser jumps that are so extreme because they really do have No Margin For Error ... and the game's underlying powers and physics have changed so much since the Shadow Shard zones were created that now it is a major accomplishment(!) to be able to "stick" one of these landings without NEEDING to resort to a Flight and/or Teleport power of some kind.

Geysers should be "aiming" us at surfaces that are perpendicular to the trajectory of travel our characters will be on at that point in space ... *NOT* at surfaces that are parallel to our direction of travel!!

The NEXT TO LAST thing that would need to be done is to have Geysers programmed to impart their Jump Vector effect on characters on a very SINGULAR bearing and azimuth trajectory (ie. a very CONTROLLED one), rather than being highly dependent upon the "angle of entry" the character used to approach the Geyser. By assigning "control" of the imparted Jump motion to the programming of the Geyser, rather than allowing it to be dependent on a circumstance of under Player control, the angle and trajectory of Geysers can be more rigorously defined and the Circular Error Probable of the destination landing point can be more easily defined ... giving the Environment Designers a more tightly controlled set of "we need something HERE" to work with so as to make Geyser Travel something reliable enough for Players to use it WITH CONFIDENCE, rather than Geyser Travel being (literally) Hit Or Miss.

And the very LAST THING TO DO is to increase the size and visibility of the Geyser Route Markings on the Minimap. As matters stand currently, I have to zoom in almost all the way just to be able to see the *TINY TINY TINY* markings on the minimap for not only where the Geysers ARE ... but also where they are meant to GO. These "waffer thin lines o' Geyser" are demonstrably INADEQUATE as present on the mini-map and need to be made MUCH clearer and more obvious!



Put all of these things together, and Hands Free Geyser Travel will become much more RELIABLE than it has been (and has become as the game has evolved out from under it). Note that all of the modifications I am advocating here involve dramatically improving the consistency and reliability of launch conditions during the first 1 second after launching from a Geyser so as to better "control" for where the landing point ought to be ... and that this means that after the initial "launch" of a character is completed, full control authority (and friction effects) are restored to them ... meaning that Players are still free to "screw it up themselves" if they want to. The difference being that if they DO "screw it up themselves" it will be due to heavy handedness on the Player's part, rather than not being "quick enough" to play a Hyper Precise Twitch Game over a laggy network connection where you're trying to land on a postage stamp ... edge on ... at high velocity ... with severely limited depth perception cues (because everything around the floating rock is just SKY!).



Mind you ... that would take a LOT of QA time to make sure that each and every single Geyser in the Shadow Shard zones *and* in the Ski Chalet(!) are programmed "right" with the correct velocity vectors to "hit their targets" correctly (most of the time) when used by characters with a wide range of Movement Buff modifiers (most of which would hopefully be suppressed, since they're imparted by Powers).



Oh and the Cop-Out Teleporters are precisely that ... a Cop-Out by the (now long past) Development Team. We should be using Mole Points, rather than Cop-Out Teleporters, to get around the Shadow Shard. Yes that means Unlockable Content. No ... Mole Points are not THAT hard to unlock.

If the Devs were serious about switching back to the Footstomp rather than the Handclap animation, they'd have to do something which would make the White Dwarf Flare CANCEL the Flight Duration of using White Dwarf Step's teleportation. That was the limitation. You could teleport into a pile of Foes ... and then you'd have to *WAIT* to stop floating before you could PBAoE Damage them on a Peacebringer, which you most certainly did NOT have to do on a Warshade (because Dwarf Mire had no "on the ground only" limitation built into it).

It was just yet another example of TEH STOOPID on display of how Peacebringer powers as originally conceived and designed all limit and conflict with each other to the detriment of the whole ... rather than synergize together (like Warshade powers do much more successfully) so as to make the sum greater than the parts.

My Dearest Tammy,

For the longest time, I was an untouchable man
The anti-matter I had become
Could only be contained when I armored my flesh
And hardened my spirit against never touching another soul
But you, my Lady, have shown me the light
That what makes a man a Man
Is not the matter he is made of
But rather the quality of his heart, and mine beats for you...

Ray

If Placate could Critical Hit for a "Contagious Placate" sort of effect, similar to the Contagious Confusion effect from the Coercive Persuasion purple Confuse IO Set ... then it would be a much harder decision as to whether or not Placate was "worth it" or not.

Hmmm ... maybe I should mention that in the Beta Forum Feedback on Stalkers ...

/powexectoggleon Hide
/powexecname Sprint

The best thing they could possibly do is make the Origin Attack Powers actually scale with your Level, so they don't become completely useless after Level 10. At present, the only reason to pick ANY specific Origin is when playing Trick Arrow ... since you need to have Energy or Fire Damage to light the Oil Slick, and only the Magic and Tech Origin Attack Powers deliver that for you.

If the Origin Attack Powers scaled with your Level, then Origins (might!) "mean something" in terms of rounding out your attack chain (sometimes).

Good news is that I told Tunnel Rat about the ... visual problems ... with this power at the last Player Summit, and then followed up by posting about it in her All Things FX art thread here on the forums. At the Player Summit, when I mentioned the power, she said that the most likely way to "tame" the FX on the power would be to simply delete some of the pulses so they go off less frequently (eliminating the "strobe" effect). Since that would be a "subtraction" of existing FX, rather than adding new ones, she said that ought to be something relatively straightforward/simple to do ... the problem is just finding time in her VERY TIGHT schedule to be able to go do that. Then when I followed up by posting the issue in her FX Art thread, she said that was helpful for her because it helped her remember our conversation at the Player Summit, and the things we'd talked about, and it gave her a "marker" that she could return to at a later date and confirm everything under discussion rather than having to "remember" it all in her head (which given the way she talks sometimes might be a somewhat leaky place ... I dunno ... have to ask Honey Badger about that one).

At the very least, the issue of the FX with Disrupt has been brought to the attention of Tunnel Rat and Honey Badger, who are the people who would be tasked with "doing something about it" should something ever get done. At this point, I'd infer that a lack of changes (yet) for this power has more to do with budgeting the schedule for FX, rather than a desire NOT to do anything with Disrupt's FX.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Oh, David ... it might be a little late in the process for "more inspiration" ... but there's always a Retro Sci-Fi Pack 2 which could be done in the future.

I'm thinking you could draw on the Art Design for the props used in Walt Disney's "The Black Hole" movie from 1979. Things like this:



... and this ...