Samuel_Tow
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Quote:Death lasers are becoming quite common these days. They show up on people's shopping lists.Originally Posted by FlashToo
Re: Lasers - They still work if you just call it a "Death Ray" instead.
We already have precedent proving that pet customization is possible within the limits of the game's engine, courtesy of the... Well, pet customization for the Earth Control pet, Lumpy. You can have him show up as a rock, as magma or as a crystal. Furthermore, this also shows up for Fire Monkeys, the Dark Fluffy and so forth, which are pets that we can recolour. That's clear evidence that summonable pets can be customized.
However, Mastermind henchmen seem to be a bit... Different. And I believe the reason for it is their upgradable costumes. Henchmen have four states: 1. No upgrade, 2. First upgrade only. 3 Second upgrade only 4. Both upgrades. This means four costumes per henchman, in addition to whatever other alternate costumes a henchman has so that you don't summon all clones, like Thugs and Mercs have. And I'm not making this up, as anyone with a Thugs Mastermind should already know. I'm also not exaggerating, because the Thugs upgrade has something like two dozen costume change commands in it.
Of course, this doesn't mean I don't want to see customizable henchmen. I want it! Very much so. -
Yeah, Thaw is a pain in the *** to use for its cold resistance. I'd like to see its damage resistance component, at least, be made AoE. I can accept that the status protection component is too "big" to extend over an AoE range and can afford to status-buff accordingly, but at least have the more minor effects extend over a longer range.
As it stands now, Thaw sees very, very, VERY limited use on my Mastermind since protecting henchmen from status effects is not useful all that often. Most of the time it's just one henchman out of the fight for a few seconds. Bad for a solo squishy, inconsequential for one henchman out of six. Being able to get a minor resistance buff out of the thing that I can actually maintain would be a boon. -
Quote:What Rubyred is describing is a legitimate problem, actually. The in-game camera's centre of rotation is at around our character's shoulders, and that's somewhat below screen centre. What this means is that you can only zoom up to a certain level before you begin cutting the legs off the screenshot, with two-thirds of the screen left with dead air background. It works somewhat well if you run at a very high resolution like I do (and I suspect you do). At 1920x1080, even a small section of the screen can easily make for a 400x600 screenshot. But if you run at, say, 1280x1024 or, God help you, 1024x768, you just don't have the resolution to make anything presentable out of such a small area of the screen.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
How do you mean? I get full body shots that way all the time (for reference pieces.) You can zoom in and out with the mouse wheel - if you get in too *close* (basically to first person) it'll reset, yes.
If I take a screenshot from the editor. I my character can fill a good 9/10 of the screen, which is large enough to make for a good screenshot even at low resolution, but I can't do that in-game, because there's no way to get the shoulders above mid-screen, so at most you're taking screenshots of half your resolution vertical. Less if you want a shot that's not angled down.
I'm not in favour of moving the camera completely freely like in, say, Sexy Beach 3, as that would cause a number of problems, but I DO want to have the ability to focus the camera lower down on my character's body. If I could focus on the abdomen or the pelvis, then I can take a full-body screenshot at around my full resolution vertical right out of the game, which means I can pick a location, use powers, stage a scene and so forth, all things I can't do in the editor. -
Quote:That argument became invalid the moment power customization was introduced into the game. That argument was, as a point of fact, never valid, because customization has been one of the game's strongest selling points since day 1. Furthermore, your argument is "I don't want this." which isn't an argument, in that the only retort even possible to it is "I do want it."Originally Posted by _gohan661_
When you purchased the game you bought it knowing it did not have customisation yet you still bought it. After the fact is a little late to complain.
As to confusing powers by appearance, powers still retain their visual effects even with customization. Dark powers remain dense and fluffy, Energy Blasts retain their Kirby dots and sound effects, Energy Melee powers retain their "pom poms of doom" albeit in another colour. If you have encyclopaedic knowledge of the game enough to tell what every power in the game does at a glance, you should be able to tell what a power is by the sound effect it uses and by the visual effect shape. Failing that, nothing's stopping you from opening you team-mates' Info windows and verifying what powers they've taken.
If you're talking about a moment-to-moment appraisal of what each person is using, then I contest that this is not and has never been relevant. It makes no difference whether your team-mate just used Hasten, Build Up, Aim, Power Build Up, Domination, any inspiration or one of the myriad of other powers that use that animation. Such precise teaming precision is never necessary even in very organisation-heavy environments such as the Sewers Trial. About the only real need to know what powers other people are using comes in relation to "anchored toggle debuffs," where you need to be able to identify which enemy serves as the anchor so as not to accidentally shut down your team-mate's debuff. It may be only very occasionally relevant to know where team-mates have summoned location-based debuffs such as Tar Patch or Oil Slick so as to draw enemies into them, but unless those are cast ahead of time to pull into, drawing enemies into patches mid-fight is rarely relevant given the lifespan of these patches and the pace of combat.
"Because I say so" arguments only work when you're arguing a self-evident point that doesn't infringe on what has proven to be a very popular request which has existed for the full seven years I've been with this game. Once you begin to argue that people shouldn't have the things they've been asking for years and years, you need something more than throwing your weight around. Literally the ONLY response your "argument" leaves for is "NO U!" because you have deliberately left room for nothing else. -
Quote:I'm talking about the custom Dark powers. All custom powers (or rather, all custom sprites) obey either an additive or subtractive model for transparency, and that's coming straight out of BABs when he was working on that. Most powersets got custom options which were either entirely additive or entirely subtractive, which is what the game calls "Bright" and "Dark" themes. I have no idea what Dark Melee/Armour/Miasma got, but I highly suspect it's a mix of both. I say this because the effects are almost invisible in pure black and almost invisible in pure white. Maybe THAT particular powerset uses something eccentric that differentiates it from all others, but my point was that it should have options which DON'T. I happen to want my dark powers to be a pure inky black, which current options draw very, very transparent and in turn very, very ugly.Originally Posted by Serva_Obscura
I don't think so Sam. I'm pretty sure it's all appliqué textures with alpha rather than additive or subtractive. Lets just say that my Dark powers have been a deep bloody red for a long time before power customisation came in.
And I want to be able to make my powers look like what I want to make them look like. That's the point of power customization, which already exists in the game.Quote:Originally Posted by _gohan661_
I'd really rather not have things changed, it's taken long enough to recognise all the different animations to all the powers and new colours. I want to be able to tell what powers ppl are using and when. -
Quote:Where? What NPC can I speak with that will explain this? Which clue talks about them? That's what I mean when I say "the game doesn't give an explanation." I've done every arc to do with Vanguard and no-one so much as mentioned the fact that they have energy weapons. Is there a badge I missed somewhere that explains this?Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
It does.
I know people have explained it, that and their history. I know the developers have talked about it. I suspect it's said somewhere on the main site's history and fiction sections. But I didn't see anything about that in-game, and the first I heard about it was people bringing it up in this thread. -
Quote:Heh, that's my revised costume for an old-ish character of mine I didn't have a solid concept for. She was originally intended to use those Vanguard Claws when I rerolled her, which is about half the reason I was so excited about the Vanguard Pack. When I saw the claws in action, however, my enthusiasm died on the spot. I did eventually recover, and she now uses Dual Vanguard Blades, though it meant I had to sacrifice another character's dual blades design in order to do so.Originally Posted by EU_Damz
Cant put my finger on it but im REALLY liking the costume Sam posted.
See, I don't mind ridiculous so long as it's cool enough to make me not care. Take Dual Pistols, for instance - it is by FAR the game's most needlessly ridiculous set, and yet I really love how it looks and feels. Or, for an easier example, I have no problem sending a woman running around with a sword longer than she is tall.Quote:Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Heh. I'm usually the one railing against the horrendous use of weapons, explosives, and tactical operations in video games with friends in real life, but I just don't see the point here. The genre's so cram packed with the ridiculous that its virtually become a requirement. It'd be like protesting the lack of realistic physics in a Loony-Toons game....
However, the Vanguard Claws (and I assume the Rularuu Claws) just look BAD in actual practice. Not goofy, not weird, not ridiculous. Just bad. awkward. It's like if you took a double-bearded axe, grab it by the head with both hands and proceed to jab at enemies with the haft. It looks more than ridiculous. It looks plain bad.
I don't want to make a big fuss about the Vanguard Claws being two-dimensional. I'm sure that even if the game doesn't supply an explanation (and I'm fairly confident it doesn't) that a reasonable one exists. It just bugs me. Like I said before, it doesn't bug me enough to swear off the weapon just for that. After all, I used a Vanguard Bow for a very long time. But the two-dimensional "shape" makes me a bit "meh" on the weapon, so when I see it acting REALLY bad in actual animation, it's one more problem to poke me in the eyes every time I play a character.
A lot of what I say here on the forums comes off as nit-picky and needlessly pedantic, like I do nothing but look for things to bug me. However, the truth of the matter is that these things build up over time. The first time I saw the two-dimensional Vanguard weapons, I didn't really care all that much. But the longer I use them, the longer I see that two-dimensional blade, and each time I see it it bugs me more. This has been on my mind for three, maybe four years, and it took off-centre claws to finally push me into saying something about it. If I can't get over it after several years, I'm not getting over it. Ever.
I keep thinking we're about due for some new weapons, though, so I'm hopeful for the future... Whenever that comes around. -
I got a screenshot of what I mean:
That's the basic stance on the left and about the mid-point of the animation for Swipe on the right. You can see on the left how the claws look like they should be coming up from below as the fists are pointing up, but the actual claws are on the upper side of the arms at an odd angle. Worse still, you can see on the right that Swipe actually swipes with the flat of the blade, at least partially.
I like how the Vanguard Claws look, but I can never use them in the actual game, because they bug me far too much to use with Claws animations. They just aren't made for forearm-mounted claws.
Sorry about the complaint post. I just wanted to get that off my chest. -
Quote:You have a point, and I tried to use that to my advantage. But in this case it's less that the forearm doesn't twist right, it's that the stance Claws powers leave you in is so iconic and recognisable, even aside from Wolverine. The thing is that I tend to have a strong sense of how force is applied through a claws swipe, and I expect the claws to be on the outside of the arc, so as to send all of the energy directly into the elbow. Having the claws stick out on the side feels like they'd send the force twisting into the forearm and that's... Awkward. Even if they're energy blades or if they don't impart any force, it still looks awkward to my eye.Originally Posted by Leo_G
Just to continue the thought experiment: put on a jacket or some gloves that go past the wrists. Depending on what material and how it fits will determine what you'll see. That said, I see your point and think it'd have been simpler to attach to the hands in that case.
Ah, that particular sceneQuote:Originally Posted by Leo_G
If viewed from the tip going down toward the handle, apparently the lightsaber disappears almost wholly. I suppose, a lightsaber is basically a round column of light, it's still pointedly skinny while the Vanguard blades are wide but still very skinny. In that regard, the two different weapons are similar. That said, I'd say some elemental weapons, akin to the fire swords, might be in order. Something with mass perhaps.
Though I HAAATE the Star Wars prequels for their shoddy storytelling, I do admire them for the lightsabre special effects. I recall that particular scene confounding me as a kid, making me wonder if Obi-Wan's lightsabre wasn't running out of batteries (I was a kid, remember ) and that maybe that's why he was losing, because his weapon seems to all but disappear in a few scenes. I'd personally expect that when a lightsabre is viewed head-on from the tip, I'd see a circle of light to the diameter of the hilt, if not slightly wider. Not much, but at least it still depicts a three-dimensional body.
*edit*
And I wouldn't call their thickness a "bug." It's just something that bugs me, with that connotation of the word. You make a good point that something more like the Fire Sword would be in order. Remember - both the Fire Sword and the Greater Fire Sword have width, mass and a 3D shape to them. Energy weapons in their image or, hell, THOSE weapons without the fire sprites would be awesome-cool. -
Quote:I recall BABs talking about this, yes, though I always took his explanations on the matter to be more tongue-in-cheek than straight-up canon. But even if it's explained somewhere in-game, I tend to look at things from a pragmatic standpoint: Getting the complex shape required for something like the Vanguard Claws or Vanguard Bow with a mesh is far more complex and prone to performance issues and graphical glitches than just rendering it out of what is essentially one (or two) flat polygons with a transparency mask over them, which can be about as sharp as its bitmap resolution permits, and the Vanguard weapons masks seem to be pretty high-res.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
That's because, if recall, Vanguard claws are supposed to implement a sort of mono-molecular blade technology, it's not that they're energy weapons, just VERY VERY VERY thin conventional weapons. (Not sure how the hell this works with the bow, but that's ALWAYS been a little ridiculous to me) So the blade disappearing when you look at it from the side would probably be accurate to what our character would be viewing if the game was real.
As I said before, I really can't complain about how they're done, as I do see legitimate technical reasons to make them like this. But it just bugs me too much, fiction or no fiction. It reminds me a bit too much of the limitations of 3D graphics that I've had to put up with since the days of Tomb Raider (I'm not THAT old). I list that as number 2, though, as I could put up with the width-less texture if at least they animated well, but they just... Don't.
I'll try to get a screenshot from one of the animations that bothered me, if I don't have one uploaded already. -
Quote:Hmm... Your Avatar still has Bill Z Bubba using the Legacy Hero clawsOriginally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
I bugged BAB quite a bit about the misalignment of rularuu/vanguard blades. Oh well, I just don't use 'em. Matter of fact, I pretty much use nothing but the fury claws these days.
But, yeah, I wanted to bug David Nakayama about those, until I realised there's nothing that can be done about it. The way the model is rigged, the forearm is locked to the elbow, and they'll never, ever mess with that, even if it produces really weird wrist distortions sometimes. And considering what the Vanguard Claws look like, reattaching them to the hand isn't an option.
So, yeah, I'm with you on that one, though I don't restrict myself to Fury. I've actually taken quite a liking to Legacy Hero and Legacy Villain, since they're BIG
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It's been a while since I've talked about big weapons, though. Might be a good time to revisit the All Things Art thread. -
How I make the most of my money is by NOT making the most of it. The thing about money is that we value it so much we sometimes let it take control of us, whereas the exact opposite is kind of the entire point. Once I've paid for a month, I don't feel I "owe" the game any playtime, any achievement or even any spare thought. Sure, spending $15 a month to never log in may seem like a waste, but spending $15 and then doing something I don't want to do is a BIGGER waste. Not only have I wasted my money, I'm wasting my time for the illusion of making my money back. Sunk costs, however, have no positive connotation that I care for.
When I do play, by far the most important thing for me is to never feel like I HAVE to do anything unless I specifically want to go and do it. I'd say a fair few people need to remind themselves that we pay money for this game. We don't owe it anything. It owes us entertainment for the money we put into it. Once I'm in-game and know that I don't have to do anything I don't want, it's a pretty simple matter to do whatever it is I fancy at the time - kill some stuff, chat with friends, make costumes, run around the zones, write and re-write character descriptions, or really whatever comes to mind. And if what I fancy doing is playing another game, I can do that just fine without worrying I'm paying for services I'm not using.
A week ago I got a ridiculous bargain over Steam: all five of Ubi's Prince of Persia games, all for 16,25 Euro. That's less than ANY of the five costs normally, and that's what I've been doing for the past couple of days. Depending on how I feel when I'm done making this post, I may spend a couple more days doing that, and then we'll see. But I don't feel I'm missing out any of my paid time in City of Heroes because I wanted a break from the game anyway. I'm still subscribed, I can log in for as much as I want whenever I want, but I want it to be MY choice, not something I feel I HAVE to do. -
This has been on my mind pretty much since the Vanguard pack came out, and I just really want to get it off my chest. If you do like the Vanguard claws a lot, then more power to you, guys. I don't want to take anything away from you. But I just need to talk about this because it bugs me so much!
I actually have a couple of reasons to dislike Vanguard claws:
1. They're mounted to the forearm. Almost all claws in the entire game are mounted to the back of the hand, the two exceptions being Vanguard Claws and Rularuu Claws. Normally, you can't tell the different when editing them as part of the costume, but that's for one very simple reason - all poses the costume editor offers have the hand aligned with the forearm. The problem comes once you start actually using the powers and see the basic stance that Claws powers leave you in, that being the classic "Wolverine squat" with the arms slightly to the side, wrists rotated with palms facing up and claws up and towards the inside of the stance.
This is not how it works with Vanguard Claws, however, and it's an artefact of how our character models are rigged. Hands in City of Heroes rotate cleanly around the wrist joint as though you have robot hands. Here's a thought experiment: Hold your hand forward at about waist level, palm facing down, and draw a little circle just behind your wrist. Now rotate your hand so your palm faces up. Notice that the circle rotated to point all the way down. That's because when a human wrist rotates, the skin of the entire forearm twists around to follow it. This isn't how it happens in-game. In-game, only the hand rotates and the entire forearm remains aligned with wherever the elbow is pointing. An easy example of what I mean is to use something like Vanguard or Enforcer gloves. Go ahead, use them, and note how the glove does not twist to follow the hand. That's what I mean.
The problem with the Claws stance, then, is that for the Vanguard claws to point up as the wrists are suggesting, the elbows would need to point up, and they don't. Because of how the squat has the elbows to the sides, you end up with Vanguard Claws that seem to stick out on the side of the hand, almost in line with your thumb. Because so many of the Claws attacks do an uppercut slash from that stance, you end up slashing with the flat of the Vanguard blades a lot of the time, or at the very least it looks like you do.
To a very large extent, the Vanguard Claws work almost like Blood Rayne's elbow blades, but weapons like those don't really fit the existing animations very well. They might have at one point, but after BABs went around redoing Claws animations to use a closed fist, the animations just don't match claws that don't follow the orientation of the fist.
2. They're two-dimensional. This was kind of a shock to me, one I first discovered when using the Vanguard bow. ALL vanguard energy weapons are two-dimensional, using just one flat cutout. They're not just thin like Rularuu's Bane, they are literally two-dimensional. If you have the misfortune of having one of your basic stances position the blades parallel to your camera angle, they disappear completely, because the two-dimensional texture has no width. I highly suspect that this may be the reason why a Vanguard Mace doesn't exist - you can't have a two-dimensional mace.
This is kind of a problem for me with Vanguard Claws, as the stances I enjoy the most either show the blade to me from the thin side, or even straight ahead. Now, I realise that the blade aura is supposed to give it some width, but it really doesn't, not when the texture itself disappears. With most other Vanguard weapons, even if you can't always see the blade, you can always see the metal handle, and that's three-dimensional, lending some physicality and weight to the weapon. But the Claws don't have that. They project energy directly out of the gloves and so lack physical parts, making them look almost like they aren't even there.
I suspect the two-dimensional cut-out was made to save on polygon count and make the edges a little smoother, as it would take quite a few genuine polygons to make that smooth curve of a blade, plus they may end up with a faceted look like crystal models do right now. But it's just disconcerting when you spend a lot of your time looking at a texture that has no width. Even jedi lightsabres had a three-dimensional shape despite having no physical blade. Sure, they were just a mish-mash of coloured light, but any way the lightsabre turned, you still saw saw it and you still saw a brad shape. Vanguard Claws, by contrast, come off almost like paper.
I may be biassed ever so slightly after my HORRIBLE experience with the Vanguard Bow, which just so happens to turn thin-side towards the camera when you hover forward with it out, but the two-dimensional nature of the energy field just bugs me to no end. I really hate seeing supposedly large objects turn thin-side and just about disappear, and that's exactly what Vanguard claws do a lot of the time.
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I'm sorry if this comes off like a rant. I don't want to hate the claws. Hell, I was amazingly excited about them more than most things when I unlocked the Vanguard pack. I even did all of those lovely mock-ups in the Architect even before the pack came out, and it all looked fine. It wasn't until I got them in the actual character editor and saw what powers do with the claws that I got really disappointed. I've tried and tried to use them since, putting them on Vanguard gloves, Enforcer gloves, Large Robotic gloves, all in the hopes that I won't see the rotated fists, but at the end of the day, I see a combat stance which should have claws under the fists pointing up that instead has claws on the sides. And it bugs me too much to use. -
Quote:Two things to address:Originally Posted by Evangel
And for the most part I do this too. However I sometimes have an idea that is not covered by the current powersets and one or two alternative choices would cover that for me. I also like the idea that the toons adventures (at the players discretion) have a distinct effect on the toon themselves, in this case, the result of fighting against X number of faction Y gives the toon a badge but also the *option*, if they have a slot unlocked, to salvage an item for future use.
1. If what you want isn't covered by the current powersets system, I suggest you focus on suggesting new powersets, expansions to current powersets, the introductions of new power pools or epic pools patron pools. Temporary powers and not enhanceable, often immune to buffs, are unreliable and, worst of all, constitute using other people's technology.
2. I want to choose what adventures my "toons" have had by myself, and often choose to depict them having adventures outside of the game's directly-stated environment. I view my characters as original creations shaped by my own imagined fiction, not by what the game tells me they are. It is for this reason that I HATE temporary powers, because they're just a meta-game boost with no customization options of any kind. They're "stats" more often than they're an integral part of a character.
And then, completely separate from the above, is the fact that these temporary powers DO become the status quo. Take, for instance, the three Veteran powers that many of us have now. At character creation, you are born with three incredibly powerful attacks for the time. Sure, damage ATs grow out of them quickly as their own damaging attacks become better, but non-damage-dealers do get use out of them throughout the levels. I do my best to pretend I don't have these powers, which is one more reason I don't play non-damage-dealers - it's not as easy to ignore the powers then. When you put powers in the game that people COULD have, all you do is shift the status quo up. If you give people the choice between having more power and not having more power, then that's no choice at all.
You should never, ever put the player in a situation where he has to pick between performance and concept. Being who and what we want to be AND being strong at the same time is one of City of Hero's greatest achievements. ANYTHING which runs counter to that is aberrant in my eyes.
Question: Why do you need this to be in the form of temporary powers? What's stopping you from, for instance, claiming that you took your Targeting Drone from a defeated enemy? Or your Shuriken? Or your Arachnos Mace? Hell, that has "Arachnos" in the name. This is, in fact, the same issue I have with City of Villains Patron Powerpools - I HATE the things. I do not want to go around using other people's powers, but for the longest time, that was the only option available. People kept telling me "Well, say you stole their powers." "Well, say you intimidated them into giving you their powers." I don't want to!Quote:It wouldnt be happenstance. The player would deliberately elect to forego a power selection to open an item slot. the player would have undertaken whatever missions to get whatever badge, if thats happenstance, well than thats the way the game is being played currently anyway. the player would then decide if there is a power available that they would like to use, thenthe player would decide what form the power should take and what type of costume piece it should be and what it would look like and incorporate it into their own costume. it really cant get much elss happenstance than that. I would envision it as an OPT IN system meaning that unless you deliberately decide to participate you would continue your game as if the system didnt exist.
I choose my character's stories, I write my character's stories. They are mine and nobody else's. The more the game attempts to butt in and fill in the blanks for me, the less interested I am to play it. If I need my characters' concepts to be put together by chance and happenstance, I am fully capable of writing their stories and building their costumes and powers accordingly. I do not need the game to do it for me, and as a point of fact, I don't WANT the game to do it for me. I want the creative freedom to tell MY stories and build MY characters as I imagined them, not how the game's random chance chose to play them out for me.
In fact, for your viewing pleasure, I present MyBrute, a fighting game where character development is entirely based on chance and happenstance. Characters level up and get skills and points assigned to them by the system, in so doing developing their own unique fighting style, tactics, strengths and weaknesses. And I must admit that it's somewhat charming to watch them grow. And even then, this is not how I want my characters to evolve and power up. My characters develop how I want them to develop, not by how they interact with the meta-game world. -
I wish the developers were more active on the forums like they once were. Even people like David and Tunnel Rat, who seem like chatty, personable folk, disappear for months at a time.
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As far as I'm concerned, the fewer the "items" in the game, the better it is overall. One of the primary reasons why the game started off with no loot was exactly because the hypothetical situation you describe in your original post is very, very specific. In a sword and sorcery game, you can be expected to pick up items from the ground and use them. In a super hero game... That doesn't really work. Super heroes are far, FAR too broad a term and far too many of them just don't make sense to cart items around. Most of them don't even have pockets.
Granted, someone like Batman or the Punisher might make sense to snag an item off a defeated criminal, research it and use it, or make his own item just like it, that much I admit. But then you have characters like, say, Superman. The guy doesn't even have a utility belt. His powers are many and varied, but none of them come from the stuff he carries. He doesn't have goggles of x-ray vision or Mentos of frost breath, right? Or how about someone like the Silver Surfer? He doesn't even have clothes. All he has is a surf board and a Ken doll physique. All of his abilities come from the Power Cosmic.
Yes, granted, we have temporary powers now. And I hate the lot of them. I liked the game back in the day when those disappeared when you finished the mission that gave them to you or just took too long. Personally, I'm not a fan of Inventions temporary powers and I would DEFINITELY not like to see that concept expanded to include even more superfluous powers.
When it comes to character powers, I want those to be restricted to what I take from the powers system. Powersets, power pools, inherent powers and the slots we put in them. I don't want to see us get our powers from happenstance. I want my characters' powers to reflect the concept I have for them, not the luck of the draw as to what dropped on that particular one. -
Quote:I neglected to specify: I was looking at putting together "custom" Mastermind henchmen by drawing from the existing in-game NPCs. Considering I have no idea what the cost of such a system would be and therefore whether the art investment in making new henchmen would make or break the case, I have no real reason to do so, other than that it's easy to explainOriginally Posted by Forbin_Project
As Herc said Mafia Gangsters vintage 1920-1930's for thugs.
I'd like to see Necromancy henchmen get REAL skeletons, though - just bones. The Grave Knights were previously called Revenants and appear to have been called "Skeleton Knights" even before that since that's their system name, so apparently the development team did toy with the idea, but didn't go far enough. For my money, I'd like to see a full set of just skeletons. Skeleton brawlers, skeleton swordsmen and a skeleton sorcerer
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Quote:Having other people's actions affect my gaming experience when I never even see or interact them is a really fast way to get me to find another game, as is putting in a system that I have to participate in for fear of consequences. PvP was done the way it was done because the development team knew full well that a large portion of the community not only had no interest in participating, but were violently opposed to being dragged into PvP, which is why it was made into a separate game. As well it should be. I really cannot complain about a system that's cordoned off where I don't have to see it unless I specifically go look.Originally Posted by Alpha
The results in the PvE zone should be able to be felt throughout the city so more are encouraged to do something. It would help show that heroes/Villains are the enemy.
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I agree with Bill. It's more than a little irritating having to explain to team-mates that you're responding to Help Channel questions. Over and over again.
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Personally, I want some kind of power generator backapck to put on the back of my bulky robot dude to make him even more bulky.
Also, jet packs. Fixed-wing, Buzz Lightyear extending wings, jet motors jet pack, and more. I really, really want to see that.
And while we're on the subject, a miniature Lara Croft "internal tesseract" infinite space backpack would be nice. -
Personally, I want some kind of "space soldiers" for mercenaries. Think Star Wars storm troopers or StarCraft Marines or, hell - I'd be satisfied with Arachnos uniforms, actually. They're sufficiently "weird"
Which is to say, I agree with the general idea for customization of not just Robotics but all Mastermind primaries in general. In fact, I think I can make a list just off the top of my head.
Mercs
1. Soldiers - Wolf Spider Enforcer with rifles
2. SpecOps - Night Widows... With guns!
3. Commando - Bane Spider Executioner with an omnigun
Demons
1. Demonlings - multi-coloured Hordelings, with or without arms
2. Demons - Behemoth Overlords, using the same animations
3. Demon Prince - Blade Prince
Robotics
1. Drones - recoloured Wolfpack Robots
2. Protector Bots - Hercules titans
3. Assault Bot - Zeus Titan
or
1. Drones - Clockwork Gears
2. Protector Bots - Clockwork Dukes
3. Assault Bot - Clockwork Prince
Unfortunately, something came up, I lost my train of thought and I got nothing for Necromancy and Thugs. -
Quote:Ha! OK, I admit, that made me smileOriginally Posted by Olantern
I did pay for an Incarnate booster pack already. It was called "Going Rogue."
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This kind of predicament is why I don't write my characters with secret identities and many "normal" friends. Most of my characters are either loners, or have associates who are as dangerous as they are.
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Quote:Wow, I'm getting a lot of very interesting sentiments from this thread, and I'm glad someone else is there to say them so I don't have to pick up all the flak by myselfOriginally Posted by MaestroMavius
The Dev's would never release the Incarnate goodies in a booster because it's their incentive for us stalwarts to get into the endgame and they want it to be hard to attain by default, so you spend longer trying to get said rewards and thus are an able body ready for the trial for all the others out there still chugging along. But, yes, in a nutshell, that is my impression of the Incarnate armour pieces - to bribe those of us who don't want endgame into serving as warm bodies for others who do like end game with rewards that have nothing at all to do with endgame but that we like for various other reasons. This is the same "unclean" feeling I get from people making the argument that PvE accolade badges and powers necessitating PvP was a way to get more unwilling warm bodies for the PvPers to gank, kicking and screaming, so that they had greater population density.
I still remember the furore that took place when I think it was Lighthouse commented in response to the violent dislike PvPers had to the I13 changes, saying that "They're not aimed at you." Pruportedly, the aim of the I13 changes was to make PvP more accessible to non-PvPers as opposed to, you know, throwing them to the wolves to serve as meat on the table. But you can bet your third nipple that the actual PvPers at the time did not take the notion of having their entire combat system yanked from under them in a change not aimed at them rather badly. And having seen the fallout from that - PvPers left, PvEers still don't give a crap about PvP - I can't say they were unjustified in feeling as they did.
I've always been a strong believe in the saying "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." I honestly don't get why the development team continuously goes off charging after birds in the bush, leaving us with pieces of greater projects, like bases, PvP, items of power, the Architect and so on. What is the draw in changes which can potentially alienate a large section of your player base for CHANCE to make that up with either new customers or resubs? I honestly don't get it. -
Quote:I'd say there's something profoundly wrong with the whole system once players start feeling unwanted.Originally Posted by bromley
But I don't like grinding or teaming, so maybe they don't want my kind around here.