SDragon

You really could squeeze every element out for every AT. I'm sure if you squeezed hard enough you'd get "Sword Control" And might even make it a good set. And I AM all for having these sorts of choices. It makes me feel like I can choose different "styles" of combat for my character.

Right now, a character with fire or powers can be offensive, range, melee, defensive. And a host of in between.

Not so with lightning.

Yes, Storm does kind of match lightning. But if my character controls LIGHTNING and not the weather... How is he making it rain or gust? There's really only two lightning powers in that set.

I think there IS room for a pure lightning buff/debuff set. Along with a control set.

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Now you can take that case and plead it for Rad and Sonic and Earth and so forth and so on.

Ok, yes, with what's coming in Issue 16 you can make a case that they don't HAVE to make all these new sets. We can just alter what's already there. But that's a slippery argument. Why make ANY new powersets then?

The answer is, while we can make new colors and designs. We can't alter the actual powers and what they do. If I want a character that hurls stones at his foes and makes quicksand. One who shields his allies with rock and stone. I can't recolor a set or two for that. I need some form of Earth/Stone Defender. Personally, I'd like to see a plant buff/debuff set. With a lot more flowers to it.

The conclusion I've come to is. With Issue 16 coming. They need to start working on sets that have mechanics that can't be replicated. Or effects that can't be replicated. Ideally both. To fill out concepts that we can't accomplish now.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work on my Pollution Control set for Doms, Decay set for Corruptors, Subdue and Tactical melee sets for scrappers, Sanctuary set for Defenders, Explosives for Stalkers, Adaptive armor for Melee characters, and Metal Armor for Tankers.

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Since we're going to be able to adjust height and such with the booster pack is it possible for numerical values be added to height in the costume creator? (Maybe even with the facial features too)

Basically, if we move the height slider a numerical value changes. All the way left could be "0" and all the way right could be "10." As you move the slider the value decreases or increases.

The ultimate point would be if I wanted to make two characters the same height (Like in MA or maybe making twins). So I could look at character "A" and see he is height 6.6, ok I know if I recreate him to use height 6.6 without having to guess.

Seems like a simple enough addition is it possible?

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I would also suggest that the number large enough for fine tuning. A value between 0 and 100 Base of 50 perhaps.

Yes I'm OCD about this, what of it?

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Quick question - what does the rest of your team do while you're conversing with the Skull. For that manner, what do the rest of the Skulls do while you're conversing with one specific Skull? If the answer is "wait," we have a problem.

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Ideally, this would be something that's easy enough to do you can do it in the middle of combat if you wanted.

Maybe hold down a button to make the wheel come up, slide mouse in a direction. Let go of button to select. Maybe if you have evidence it asks if you want to use that too.

So, the answer is "Same thing they do if you're holding or buffing or attacking. Helping in some way."

It should be an addition to the system. Not required for normal progression or anything.

I would rather enjoy it if they added more to missions beyond just "slaughter X"

Computer mini-games, hacking and finding files. A good chance to drop in a bunch of lore. OR you could just click through as usual.

Better stealthy options. The ability to crawl through air ducts. Use back/side entrance. So you can spawn elsewhere in the mission. Perhaps a place of your choice.

Fighting more then just "foes." One of the biggest things that Heroes do is stop disasters. While we do have a few of those. How about more? Missions that are just that. Stop a falling plane or prevent a dam from bursting. Better yet, stop forest fires, tornadoes, and earthquakes. Include enough stuff there that players without the requisite powers can fix the issue. Example: Plane mission: Players leap from another plane in flight. They can either fly over and attempt to catch it or slow it's decent with attacks/powers. Or "fall" inside the plane and take control via a mini-game.


For mini-games. Charity events are a potential. Or simple "get cat out of tree" type deals. Why? Because sometimes people want to do stupid stuff like that. Pocket D is a good place to have ACTUAL mini-games. Copy of Bejeweled that uses the CoH/CoV icons instead of jewels. etc.




Maybe this is getting off point, but most of all I would like methods of dealing with foes in non "combat" ways.

I'd like to be able to talk them down. Convince them to give up. Or subdue them. A lot of people RP that as it is. But... I'd like a mechanic for it. Perhaps some sort of "will" bar for foes that we can whittle down. Throw in a chat wheel so we can talk to the foes in the game. With a few options of course.

There's a lot of times where heroes don't "beat up" a foe. They convince them to give up or flee. A little wheel with several options that we could use when fighting... that would be nice. So if I say the right things to the right foe. I can achieve something. Perhaps at low levels, nothing big. Scare them a bit. Lowering any groups in a radius from the fight's aggro radius. Or convince them to, when you win, give up more. Maybe Inf, maybe salvage. No XP I would say.

At high levels, cause foes to flee in terror(run and vanish). Or surrender(hands up). Defeating them and maybe earning diminished XP/drops, but better alternate rewards. Perhaps for this new system. Some foes, of course, can't be scared away. At least not with any ease. Demons for example, Rularru. Some won't surrender, DE. For them, there's always the distracting sarcasm and jokes.

You couldn't put words in the player's mouth. But you COULD make the foes spit out responses that imply things...


As my final thought. You could tie these together into a nice little system(ok big system)

Give foes a new... lets say yellow bar. Chat options fill it up slowly, though it decays like Fury and domination. Vary that based on the foe type. Different things affect different foes. Skulls are easier to taunt then scare. Hellions are easier to scare then taunt. etc. If the bar fills, you achieve your goal. Whatever it was, might be something you picked. Might be dependant on the foe. Might be dependent on what you said.

Higher level foes might not respond to basic taunts. Tie this into the other systems. Add in evidence, that functions like a build up. Adding a boost to what you say to them. Taunting Countess that her hair looks stupid means nothing to her. But taunting her that you caught her on tape doing illegal things...

Might rephrase "taunt" into "Goad" though. To keep confusion down.

But wait a second... now look what I did...

I tried to make a few comments and ended up making an alternate advancement system, maybe a skills system too. (if you add levels and such to it, easy enough)

...I need to make a full proposal for this now. Eeheehehe! I do so love making this sort of stuff up! Realistic or not

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Apart from Spines being able to use the geometry from Thorns, and Thorns being able to use the geometry from Spines (both of which can be colored), there will be at least one other set of alternate geometry/FX.

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Is that the steel-y spines that whats-her-face uses? Uh, Silver Mantis? I always thought that'd be a keen look for a spiky hero and/or villain...

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No. It never occurred to me that Silver mantis had spines. The ones I made are very basic, conical, metal spikes.

I am not a hotshot modeler/texture artist, so I prefer to work on the basic looking stuff that can accept a broad range of character concepts being projected on to it. My opinion is that the more specific and detailed you get with something like this, the more narrow it's potential for fitting a lot of character concepts become.

Similiar sort of philosophy for all of the shields and weapons I personally modeled. Except for the Rularuu stuff.

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Mmm, Ok. Yeah.

Just remember, a few "detailed" "specific" things wouldn't hurt. You'd be surprised what we can do.

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Positron's dev diary and the updated GR web site are great, but I'd like a little more info, like the targeted release time frame. Not a date. Just a year.

This year? Next year? 2020?

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I doubt they have one

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Plus I think this is the first time it's actually been confirmed that they are allowing Side Switching.

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And here I thought it was confirmed with the title of the big, paid, boxed expansion being Going Rogue...

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The Title itself was not an admission of Content. It is just reasonable to assume that was going to be part of it.

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They confirmed it in the press release that NCsoft put out when they announced it

DUN DUN DUN!

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Once you are moving past tinting power colors, and you move into changing power animation... Isn't that pretty much you being a developer at that point?

I guess it makes sense, we write our own missions now, we should go ahead and make all the animations too. Slowly the Developers will turn its subscriber base into its work force. We all have jobs at paragon studios, we only have to pay 15.00 a month plus tax for this part time job that won't do jack for us on our resume'. Awesome!

Honestly I don't want custom animations, even if they could implement the feature, seems like you would run into problems with people trying to shorten animation time, activation time etc, and even if it wasn't all that, sounds like it would be a lot of work to animate each of my characters by myself. Or I would have to select from pre existing animations and how is that different than what I have now?

Give me color tintable powers and I'm happy.

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I'd assume that you'd chose from a set of standard animations that all last for the same time.

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Or separate the activation time from the animation time. This way, if you picked a shorter animation, you'd have a short pause in the animation before or after the power activation.
Mostly is wouldn't be noticeable as most typical animations are, I believe, quite similar in the length of their animations.

It would look weird on some long casting animations such as snipe but only a few problems are concerned.
Another problem is if you pick an animation that is longer than the original one... I case, in this case, that's your own darn choice. And, after all, it does not change that much anyway.

I don't know how much effort it would require from the devs to implement this. After all, all the animation work is already done.

If they are going to implement it, I would also like an option to select several animations for one power and have the game cycle between them.
My main idea would be to use this for the various flight poses, although it would be fun and bring a bit of variety in the fight scenes...

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Well, they already have a formula for End/Dmg/Recharge set up. Lowering or raising one alters the others. They might have/could design a similar formula for cast times and activation times.

If you make your animation longer, it does a bit more damage and costs a bit more end and takes a bit longer to recharge. Reverse for the opposite. At least for attack powers.

For toggles it likely wouldn't mater.

And this works out if they just let us pick from a set of animations that already exist(with maybe some new ones added in) They can just put in the modifiers for each animation individually.

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I guess I need to spend more time on that site. I keep looking for what I think would fit my characters, but apparently it's under different names or something, because I keep coming up with nothing.

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Describe some, I'm sure someone will be able to hand you a few tropes that match

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I don't see why everyone's complaining about the lack of information. Why would you want more now, seeing that Going Rogue won't be released for a long time? If we had all the information, it would seem like an even longer wait before it comes out.

Right now, I'm content with the fact that I'm going to be able to bring my Dom over to heroes at some point.

[/ QUOTE ]Less info means the less we care.

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They'll release more info as it gets closer to release. Releasing everything now means they'll get a good bit of attention now then no one will care for 6 months - 18 months (or more)!

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Yeah, basically.

If they don't know exactly when it's coming out. It's better not to say anything until they're more sure. If they say it will have X in it. Everyone goes bananas with joy. But if X takes another 6+ months. All that excitement? Gone.

You know what they use that excitement for? Selling the product.

It's good to warm up the car before you go out. But not the day before you go out. That just wastes fuel.

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I really did miss you posting more often.

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Must mean he was unlocked out of his cage, may mean his work with power customization is complete and I16 will be here a month after 15 hits live.

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Or maybe I was banned from the game and forums for 'dupin rares'

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Oo, double ban for talking about it on the forums.

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Mr. Brawler, Sir., I have missed your posts on this forum so very much

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Sh!! Read the dev diary. He's clearly working on [Redacted]. HE MUST NOT BE INTERRUPTED. He doesn't need to talk to us filthy ingrates, as long as he produces the precious.

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Is this the EB?

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No... But don't think I didn't give SERIOUS thought to it

Friends urged me to post this here so here I am.

I'm not entirely sure how this works, but I get the impression that I'm suppose to post one link in the sticky so it doesn't fade from view. And one here, in case anyone wishes to talk about it, so as not to fill the sticky. I'm new here, I've spent all the time since the MA came out working on the one arc.

So, here's the details.

Arc Name: To Serve Crey
Arc ID: 210267
Faction: Hero
Creator Global/Forum Name: @SDragon
Difficulty Level: First two missions are as easy as any Crey mission. Last mission has EB and custom foes. If played outside the level range listed in the first two missions(30-34) it will be much harder due to the percent of custom foes to normal spiking up.
Synopsis: That wacky Crey is at it again, violating laws of nature and man. You've been asked by a former employee to investigate the latest horrors.
Estimated Time to Play: In tests, took between 30minutes and an hour. Depending on team size and difficulty level

To avoid spoiling anything for people that like to see things first hand, I'm being a bit vague. The EB is tough, quite tough. I had trouble soloing him. You might have to bump it down a bit. Get him to Boss level. Almost surely if you're a squishy.

The custom foes run from levels 1-50. But they're in a custom group along with basic Crey who only go from 30-34. So, the mission lets you play from 1-50 and only spawns the Crey inside their own level range. So, I blame the limits of the game. Not letting me... limit it.

So anyway, there's some dark humor, I cleared out most of the typos and such. Any feedback is welcome.

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you seriously cant see whats wrong? theres a good sized piece of the armour missing. your not supposed to be able to see the bottom of the helmet.

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Maybe you should have used a screenshot that focused on the head then, as well as mentioning it in your post.

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Also, that's an awfully dark screenshot. I couldn't tell anything was wrong, in part because I couldn't see half the costume.

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As a general thing, turn off powers when taking a picture to highlight the costume. Unless the power is part of the issue. They tend to obscure the costume

We can't assume anything about it. It's quote possible that "weapons" can't affect your base model except to add to it. Thus, it would have to ADD to them. Only way to do that is have giant mitts that go over the hands. Keeping in mind, it can't change the hand's animation. Which is a fist. So, the "hand" part of this "mitt" would have to be huge to cover up the hand. So, it's going to look very large and out of proportion. If we assume the Devs make this as tight to the skin as possible to offset this, then sliders(because weapons aren't affected by these) will easily make it look worse with clipping or scaling issues. Not to mention if you're using any types of gloves outside of the basic skintight option.

The other issue, is what KIND of hands to mold? Hairy claws? Keep in mind, at best you can color this hand. Hairy/scaled/robotic/zombie? And do they have to be bare? All claw uses have to take their gloves off to fight? Any other hand/glove/arm types get canceled out unless they go out of the way to make a new hand for it. And again, they will still have to distort to fix the fingers in the "mitt."

So, yeah, uh... they would rather not go through the insane amount of effort that would take, and rather just make NEW costume sets for the same amount of effort.

Alternatively, they could redo the animations to make them open handed. Which would look a little silly for normal claws, but would mean they just need to add little "nails" as an option to stick out the fingers.

But that means they have to redo every single animation in claws. And all the claw "standing/running/stoping/getting hit/flying x 3 for all body types" etc etc.

For that investment, they could just make a new set.

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Giant Mech Men descending from the sky....

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We'd better be able to get purchasable G Cores to fight them, as we all know the only thing that can handle Kaiju robots is Godzilla.

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Hahahaha!

We need megazords!

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IT'S MORPHIN' TIME!

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So which conversation DID happen

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Castle: Hey BaB, check this thread out. Some people seem to be really upset about the PvP changes. What do you think I should say? I'm going to grab a Mountain Dew, be right back.

BaB: Gimme a sec, I'll check the thread out.

Castle: You know on second thought BaB maybe you shouldn't read that one. The last time I showed you a thread that ... BaB? BaB?

Positron: Dammit Castle you broke BaB again! Now we're going to have to delay power customization to I16!

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DAMNIT PVPERS! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE NOW!

Raaaage!

*rolls around foaming*

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If a nerf to PSW means a buff to the rest of /psi I'm all for it.

However, it depends of course on how much of a buff the rest of /psi gets.

Couldn't care less about the rest of the other sets. They'll probably get buffs/nerfs as needed.

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How exactly is buffing the rest of /psi going to remotely come close to making up for a PSW nerf?

Even if you doubled the dmg of dart, mental blast, tk thrust, mind probe, subdue, psi scream and psi lance, PSW would still be better then them combined. It hits more targets, recharges faster and has a superior DPA than those attacks. It also complements the melee control sets of fire and ice like no other power.

You seriously need to think about what you're saying.

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You've pointed out the problem right there.

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In the survey it was mentioned about 10 unlockable Enhancement Slots that if all are unlocked make a 50 a virtual 60.

Why not just add new End-Game Content and up the Level Cap?

I know alot of folks who are tired of toiling to 50, and retiring toons.

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TL;DR: It wouldn't solve anything, just break more things.


Because then they have to redo the entire end-game. Hami, STF, RSF, ITF, RWZ. PvP explodes. HOs/IOs are rendered useless, turning all that time they spent into a waste. Every single villain group has to have 10 more levels added to them, they have to add one, if not more, zones to the game along with dozens of contacts and even more missions. At least one TF/SF.

They've already said they can't give us anymore powers/enh slots. 24 powers and... whatever number of ENH is already enough to make a silly powerful character. 10 more levels worth and you'd run out of things to get/slot. Unless you add in 10/11th powers to all the sets. Maybe some 5/6th to the epic sets. 5th to the power pools. That's... what, a hundred powers? Powers the game balance can't handle us having?

If they do that, and then keep doing it. Advancing to 70, 80, etc. Eventually. You will 6 slot everything. You will have all the powers in both your sets and all your pools. Unless they keep expanding them. And if the powers team keeps expanding them, well, they have to do them all at once to be fair. And that's a LOT of effort. And it means that they can't make any new sets. They'll be busy.

And they WILL have to keep doing it. People will hit 60 just as easy as 50, no matter how hard they make it. Thus stalling content as they try to appeal to the end-gamers. Sure, they could alternate, but that still slows down the content production by a lot.

That's why they added IOs to the game. Purples. Badges. Day Jobs. Etc. These are ways to advance your character without throwing the game out of wack or delaying everything forever. They're also considering(it seems) adding a new form of Enh slot that you earn at 50. To replace actual leveling.

To me, this sounds like a good idea. While you still have to deal with making tougher content for these new Turbo-50s to fight. You don't have to worry about powers/enh or the actual "leveling" issues. To appease those that want this system, they should do something else as well, maybe have a little circle fill in around the "50" on their display to show what "level" 50 they are. But that's just me wondering, topic wise, at this point.

The point is, it's a large can of worms that the Devs don't want to open. For actual game balance AND mechanic reasons. That's why these alternative leveling systems are more desired and strived for.

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Another question;

What was the point of Pain Domination again?



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Maybe Defenders/MM/Corrs will switch powersets if they jump sides...

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B.) The problem with power customization was that it would take too much time or energy to do in an issue. Being that this is an expansion, and much bigger than any 1 issue, Power customization could fit.


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I think people read too much into that one scene. To me, it was It was just symbolic are being able to crossover back and forth.

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NO, IT WAS POWER CUSTOMIZATION.

YOU CAN'T HAVE MY DREEEEEAMS!!

*runs off into the night*

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A possiblit: I would say it's more of a server performance issue then player. Might be that the server has to do more work with more capes. And that slows them down if there's too many. No matter where they be

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The video is good DONT GET ME WRONG... but it's not TV worthy. It would need actual dialog not just music in the background. It's my only critique. Beyond that great video!

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It's not that, it's that it's only advertising a feature. And it DOES do that very well.

But you can only do that once people are aware of your product.

Video: "Look, product X has feature Y now!"

People who don't use Product X: "Uh... what's product X?"

Of course, this would make an awesome addition as part of an ad-blitz. If it was included with a basic add showing the game, a villain counterpart add. Maybe throw in some of those other adds they made. Or amalgams of them anyway.

But as a stand-alone ad? Show it to us, first off. Which they did. And then show it to other geeks/nerds/gamers. Who might have heard of us in passing or would be willing to look it up. You can count on those three types to do that if it looks interesting enough, not the average person really.

Uhm, so yeah. It is a VERY well done ad. And grabs the attention of people. Especially former players who already know most of what they're looking at and thus can focus on the awe of the new feature. But it's not for the populous as a whole.

Or maybe I'm talking out my bum. I'll leave that for people who know more then me to sort out.