Samuel_Tow

That's along the lines of what I was thinking, but the set already has one elbow strike. It would have to be something a LOT more painful to warrant the 7.0 scale damage, though I hear the Shoryken final power on a critical hit can exceed that. Honestly, though, I was hoping for a kick. No existing set has a kick for an Assassin's Strike. You could have a straight kick, a super roundhouse or even a version of Martial Arts' axe kick, only heavier.

More to point, though, I wanted to see if more people actually saw Assassin's Strikes as powerful but unreliable powers as I see them, or if most go with the suggested interpretation and see them as precision attacks. One reason to ask is I've seen player comments on making the Assassin's Strike power itself more usable outside of combat, and if that is to happen, the issue of what it represents would need to be addressed.

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All of that said, the "pressure point jab" version of the Martial Arts Assassin's Strike that was suggested before is actually kind of cool The "killing palm" (I believe it was called) is something I've seen in quite a few movies. In fact, the History Channel proved that it WAS possible to hit a man in such a way as to cause no visible external injuries but have him die in a few days from internal haemorrhage. I'd actually go out on a limb and say that probably every set can do with a "precise" and a "brutal" Assassin's Strike custom animation, come to think of it.

Example:

Broadswrod's current Assassin's Strike is precise. It's a targeted stab. A brutish version would be slashing at an enemy's head and embedding your sword most of the way through. Still as deadly, still as hard to pull off unless you get the drop on your enemy.

That's not old content, actually. When possessing Hero 1, the well talks about "the sword that she gave him[/url]. Hero 1 wields Excalibur, King Arthur's sword, which was given to him by the Lady of the Lake. This is immediately followed by you visiting "the Lady Grey" as Gaussian refers to her, who then proves knowledgeable far beyond any justification for it. It's not even a conclusion to reach that the game is inferring that Lady Grey is the Lady of the Lake. The mission structure is engineered - whether intentionally or not - to more or less implant that notion in your head. I'm almost tempted to call it a red herring because it's at the same time so seemingly obvious and yet never actually said at any point in the story.

Premetheus seems like too much of an arrogant dick to go around creating secret conspiracies, recruiting his own quirky miniboss team or leave cryptic letters for people. He's the sort who shows up, slams his fist on the table, yells at you about what needs to be done, then stands back and waits for you to go ask him if you could please help out. The letter-writer shows a bit too much humility and compassion (in his own way) for players and indeed quite a bit of trust in that you won't simply walk over to Silos and say "Hey, look at what I found in a crate in the past!" and have him go "Oh, THAT guy! Then I know how to find him."

As a point of fact, I don't think Prometheus is in any way, shape or form part of the game's storyline. The writers needed a plot device to tell players about the Incarnate Trials and since their current one was on loan to Sheep in the Big City, they came up with our giant Angry Smurph.

Like Assault Rifle, a lot of the set reuses the same one animation for most of its powers, that of Slug, Beanbag, M30 Grenade and so on, or the one from Sniper Rifle and Long Range Missile Rocket. And I agree completely - Beam Rifle needs new animations. Preferably before it launches and gets subjected to the "grandfather rule" of retaining shoddy visuals for the sake of those accustomed to them.

I believe Silos brought them with him when he formed Ourobors. We DO know that the one in the Midnight Club was given to them by the Letter Writer, though given how antagonistic he is against Ouro, I doubt Silos is the one.

Ramiel makes some degree of sense, but I think people play up the "rift" between him and Silos. The worst they ever got was Silos essentially yelling at Ramiel for getting him all the way out there for no reason. Considering the man is already far past his tether, I would infer that the trip back even farther to Cimerora carries serious dangers for Silos, but is a trip he makes because of the Well's significance. When he goes to find it is not there, Silos is understandably upset for having put himself in danger for nothing and hurries to leave before whatever tends to cause one to get "absorbed by the time stream" affects him. That's all the animosity I see between the two.

There is also the fact that the letter writer is the one to give the crystal of fire and ice to the Midnighters, an act which ends up actually hampering Ramiel's ability to read the past and know that the Well has been moved before travelling. I sincerely hope we're not dealing with one of those "future self tries to hinder past self" nonsense time travel stories. The game's lore is tangled up enough as it is.

Also, the message wrapped around the Incarnate Shard says "Or depending on WHEN you are reading this, you may have met me just moments before." If this were Mender silos, he would know precisely when you are reading this and that you HAVE met him mere moments before. The other time travel stories are somewhat random, in that we're free to attempt them in any order, so the letter writer has no way to predict when we are going to be doing them in relation of when we will finally interact with him. Not so with the Shard story, because if he IS Ramiel, then we reach the shard through his direct intervention, which means that we WILL have met him just moments before, making the cryptic message just silly.

Also, I believe the implication of this message is that we will join the Letter Writer's posse some time in the future, so we may be returning to that cave at a later time as his allies, meaning we did indeed meet him mere moments ago THIS time, but not THAT time.

I haven't seen anything about FrostFire becoming a god (I seriously wish that character would stop showing up everywhere), but I doubt he's the letter writer. He's too dumb for it. Besides, the crystals of ice and fire are said to be one of eleven time travel methods, which Silos chose because these were the most reliable. I think, at least. It's from the I11 Trailer with the awesome voice actor for Silos, so it's been a while since I've seen it.

I'm not sure if it even CAN be one of the Midnighters, considering the letter writer clearly describes them as "they," rather than "we," and claims he is the one who "gave" them the crystal. That's not "acquired" it for them, not "found" it for them, nothing that implies that the procured said crystal as part of the group, but rather that he, as an independent entity, gave the crystal to the Midnighters.

Truth be told, I wouldn't be surprised if he were Holsten Armitage. Yeah, remember him?

Go for it. You played the game, you had fun, you can do it again It's how I see it, at least. Long as the game is fun, levelling up is fun, too.

I believe the point was that you were late to gaming, like you should have started with Pong or those games made of radar equipment.

I know, right? I'm in sort of the same boat as you with Jun. She was born a mutant, with amazing strength and speed, but she had to hide those talents of hers and train herself to fight, so it just doesn't make sense for her to be pulling off crane kicks and jump kicks and flip kicks, since she learned to fight by fighting and picked up what she could from experience. I originally made her MA/SR because... Well, what options did I have for a Scrapper back in 2006? She's level 33 now, but she's going to be rerolled, and an old Kung Fu master will take her place as MA/SR

There's also the fact that Martial Arts looks a lot like a light fighter's set, which while appropriate to a little girl, is also a bit boring. Street Fighting is a heavy fighter's set, and on a little girl it looks both amazingly awesome and amazingly hilarious. I've always been a fan of letting the underdog tiny character kick ten kinds of *** and put big burly bullies on their knees

Argh! Why did Street Justice have to be delayed?

Heh, get in line. I'll be deleting a level 33 MA/SR Scrapper to remake her as a level 1 SJ/SR Scrapper Honestly, I don't remember being THIS excited about a powerset in years. Titanic Weapons is still my first love, but that's WAAAY out in the future, far enough that I can let sleeping dogs lie until that comes around. But Street Justice has me doing the /em cheer and yelling at my screen to "Go! Go! Go! We want Street Justice!"

Honestly, it's an awesome set, all told.

This concerns me a little bit, and it's something I noticed in my own preview - the set has the "Zapp problem," where the beams are attached to your muzzle, so when the muzzle climbs with recoil, the beam displaces up and keeps animating as leaving your rifle, but at an angle to the barrel. It looks REALLY bad, and I was hoping I was just overthinking it. I'm not.

I'll put this in the Feedback thread as well, but what needs to happen is one of two things:

1. The beams need to be cast instantaneously and disconnected from the rifle so when the muzzle climbs, the beam doesn't displace. It might look a bit odd, but "lingering beams" are not actually that uncommon in games.

2. The Beam Rifle firing animations need to be made without muzzle climb recoil, so that you keep the rifle in line with the beam at all times. If it has to recoil, it can always recoils straight back into your gut or shoulder, with the rifle vibrating but still pointing forward.

In either case, any weapon firing a continuous mean CANNOT recoil or that beam will just shoot into the sky.

Fake nothin'. I can sit my mom in front of my webcam to vouch for me. That still proves nothing.

The "competition," by which I mean Champions Online, doesn't even give its free users its key selling point - freeform power design. Free users are forced to use one of about 11 pre-set archetypes that aren't just restricted to being functional classes, but also come with concept already decided for them. In practice, what the game gives you is a choice between about 11 characters to choose from, with the actual ability to make your own still reserved as a pay option.

These two notions are precisely where I feel the City of Heroes lore has been failing and failing hard pretty much since CoV came out. Once upon a time, it used to be a story about THE CITY which simply allowed us to exist in it and follow it as we chose. Then someone decided that it had to be a story about US, and in one fell swoop overwrote a year and a half of description-writing tradition where WE would write our own stories for ourselves. Because we could. I didn't need to be told what I wanted, I didn't need to be told how I felt, I didn't need to have my dreams and aspirations written for me. What I needed was a setting within which to create my own characters and explore their backstories as I saw them. What I didn't need is to have creative control over my characters taken away from me to save me from myself.

Ironik is right - you very much CAN write a good, compelling, interesting story taking place in a rich, diverse, immersive world without actually trying to write the fine details for the player playing through it. Give us an interesting setting and send us through interesting events, but let US write our part in them and our response to them. I don't need a movie-going experience when I play this game, because I go to the movies to find ideas, but I play THIS game to make those ideas come to life. At the end of the day, what I create is far more important to me than anything the canon talks about, but there's no reason I cannot enjoy BOTH. So please - give me the opportunity to do that.

"Minor" nothing. It's a 62.5% damage buff, which is on the level of Aim. That may not be huge, but it's more than very decent, and the Level 3 combo it grants adds a significant damage boost to whatever finisher you use it with, along with some other nasties that I haven't quite memorised yet.

And, yes, the Combo system in Street Justice is ten times better than the combo system in Dual Blades. For starters, it isn't annoying fiddly busywork that only comes into its own past level 32. You'll be popping off full combos at LEVEL 2!

With the way Shield Defence can be customized, I see no reason why this has to remain technically unfeasible.

I'd also like to request the reverse - aura weapons. That is, weapons made out of just auras, or auras with a transparent base model, like the various Fire Swords. That would be a lot of fun, even if using a fire sword with Broadsword doesn't cause fire damage.

Not the thread for it, but no, such a thing won't happen. The knee attack is called Rib Cracker (I think) and is aimed at your opponent's chest. The one that does bother me, though, is shin-breaker, as it's a relatively low-key attack that nevertheless does a lot of damage.

If you're pinning your hopes on a new set, Street Justice is the one to bet on. It's completely awesome, especially if you find the right character for it. And when I say "right," I mean "not obvious."

Rularuu.

I trust you're being ironic (pun completely unintentional) when you say this, as I'm sure you know better than this. The "psychopathic criminal" you're referring to is Dr. Egon, whose execution was televised for all the Isles to see. While the man behind the name did not actually die and simply kept working for Arachnos under the assumed name of Dr. Aeon, that's not the person he is "known" as. Dr. Aeon is legal official of the state of the Etoile Isles, the governor of Cap Au Diable, the chief science officer of Arachnos (who are an internationally-recognised state) and the CO of Aeon Corp. That's what the world knows about him, and considering Amanda Vines has been unsuccessful in showing otherwise, that's all the world will know about him. WE know, but the world at large doesn't.

Oh, and that stuff about Aeon the developer? That's what I was hoping you were being ironic about, not the other stuff. That's just... Not a cool thing to say.

No, I understand what you mean, but again - this isn't the first time this has happened even counting real time. When City of Villains launched back in 2005, it launched with the arc "Automatic Villainy." In this arc - spoiler alert - Nemesis attempts to convince you that you are one of his automatons and that the real you has been captured and killed, all the while intending to use your distracted self and a fake Tech Naylor to lure you into a trap, kill you and replace you with an automaton he had prepared earlier. That's ANY villain of ANY origin with ANY type of abilities.

He eventually fails, as per the norm, and you never actually get to fight a dopelganger of yourself (for lack of such tech at the time), but there's every reason to believe Nemesis really DID have an exact, working copy of you done out of steam technology. Now I kind of want to see Tech Naylor's arc redone to end in a fight against a dopelganger, rather than with finding the dopelganger disassembled in a crate...

Anyway, yeah, his steam tech can be kind of magical and normally I would call out such obviously "fixed" writing, but so long as it's only ever done for the Nemesis, this can serve as his defining trait. Every fictional universe can benefit from exactly ONE character pulling plot points out of his ***, and in ours this is Nemesis, so he gets a free pass on most things. So long as there aren't others, I'm fine with it.

*edit*
Oh, hey, the star censor is back! Sweet, I can curse now!