Samuel_Tow

If it lasts for five seconds, then that wouldn't be too bad. I can usually squeeze an attack in within three seconds of Eagle's Claw no problem. A 33% chance, however, is something I'd expect to show me more criticals than I'm seeing. Not literally one every three attacks, but more than I seem to be seeing just the same. I'll keep an eye on that. Might feel a bit better when I have slotted the power some, as it currently only has its default accuracy slot.

So, the power icon is wrong, then? Should I take it as fact that it disappears before the boosted critical chance buff does?

Sometimes I wish I could see to-hit rolls for separate power effects, just so I know what's happening behind the scenes.

I apologise if this question has been raised before (as it probably has), but I honestly can't figure out what the Scrapper version of Eagle's Claw has been doing since the I18 power changes. I'm asking only now since I deleted my level 50 MA/Inv Scrapper and rerolled her as a SS/Inv Brute (now also 50) so I had nothing to test with. But I'm playing around with the power now and I'm not sure what I'm seeing.

The power's "real numbers" are dog. I don't look at them since they're missing that crucial critical hit bonus. I know the power is supposed to increase my chance to score critical hits with other Martial Arts powers after I use it, partially because my combat spam says "You increase the Critical Chance of your next attack." when I use it, but... By how much? For how long? Counted from when? What powers does it apply to? The only other place I can see this even admitted to is the power's basic stats, which include a +Speical, but the power's long and short descriptions don't feature this that I've been able to see.

I've been alternately told that the power gives me an extra 15% chance to score a critical, an extra 25% chance and an extra 30% chance by different people. I'm not told if this is instead of or on top of the powers' existing "5% minion 10% lieutenant and up" chance, but I feel it's safe to assume it's "instead." I'm also told that this effect lasts for two seconds.

My reason for asking despite being told all this is because I ain't seeing it. Yeah, I'll occasionally see a critical hit after Eagle's Claw, but that's rare enough to be 1 in 20, which is within my powers' normal critical chance anyway. I was told to watch out for a buff bar buff icon from Eagle's Claw, and indeed one exists. Only it disappears before the power is even done animating.

This concerns me. If the buff indeed lasts for 2 seconds and starts when the power starts as the buff icon would suggest, then the buff seems to be expiring before I can even fire off another power, because Eagle's Claw has a 2.53 second animation, give or take Arcanatime, which is over half a second longer than the buff is supposed to be. That might explain why I'm not seeing it.

If this sounds like a rant or a complaint, it's not. I just want to know exactly what the power does, both so I will know how to use it and so I'll know if I want to see something happen to it. And the in-game resources have so far FAILED to deliver the relevant information completely and entirely.

Does anyone knows what this power actually does?

It appears I've been proven correct. Incarnate powers render regular level 50 content trivial, which means they require their own content, something Matt Miller keeps insisting we wouldn't need much of because Incarnates are "a system" and not "a TF that people will be done with in a week."

No, Incarnates are their own level range, and they require content worthy of an entire level range. Two, three, four or five Trials does not cut it. A large body of content of all types is needed. That's precisely why Jack Emmert argued against end game, and things must be getting pretty desperate if I keep bringing up things Jack did right as a contrast to things Matt and Melissa are doing wrong.

---

Simple fact - if you want Incarnates to be noticeably more powerful than non-incarnates, then you need to treat Incarnates like a level range, not like a level 50 advancement system, which they are not. Incarnates are not like Inventions.

Thank you, Tunnel Rat

I have a question regarding priorities: How high of a priority do you consider the fixing of bugs with existing visual effects, such as those that exist with a few custom powers, vs. working on brand new effects?

Mech Mechanica is pretty cool. I've never been able to use that mouth detail in any presentable way before, but it looks pretty good here, and even adds a little detail to the back of the helmet. Nice touch!

Also, Battleguard is a really cool design in a completely different direction. The use of the Thug mask under a helmet is ingenious! What face are you using underneath to make the eye slit black?

Bodyshop is a sentient mass of cancerous tissue drawing intelligence from the AI in that helmet.


Genersis is a robotic life form who wants to replace humans.


Jack is a tortured soul in the body of a demon who hides his face.


Tyler is a cyborg who believes organic life should be replaced by machines.


Majik is a scientist working on replicating magic with the technology inside his suit.


13 is a machine who gained sentience through personal experience.


Kim is an alien residing within a hazard suit.


The Steel Rook is a scientist and an inventor who uses power armour.

I've wanted to make a screenshots thread for a while now, but I could never pick a decent theme for it, until today. I suddenly realised there was one part of character design (of a specific type of characters) that really deserves recognition as its own art form, and that is the art of making whole helmets. I thought it might be a fun idea to compare and contrast our different designs for whole helmets

What I mean by whole helmets is a helmet which covers the entire head and neck. It doesn't matter if you used Helmets, Half Helmets, Full Helmets, Hats, Hoods or even just a clever use of faces and face details. So long as you can't spot "skin" anywhere on the head or neck, it qualifies.

Here are mine, posted in a follow-up (ETA typing time) so as not to mess with the horizontal of my text post.

So, come one, come all, show up, show off and let's see if we can't trade some inspiration between us

Here's something I'd ideally want to see:



Something like this is how Tyler was originally supposed to look like. And it would work if I could colour the backpack black, instead of very dark brown with lighter brown.

And, yes, Tyler is big. A little too big.

I should actually comment on the built-in tie-scarf-thing that the Victorian male jackets come in. Why couldn't that have been put in the Chest Details section? That way, we could pick if we want the scarf or not AND we could pick what colour it is, as opposed to always only black. Or, hell, at the very least, can we have a version of that jacket without the black scarf?

Furthermore, why are there uncolourable gold stitches on the Steampunk jacket and its associated sleeves? I can understand there being contrasting stitches, but why gold? Why not white or black or a colour of my own choosing? The same goes for any costume item that has brass on it, because everywhere there's brass, it's not colourable. The boiler backpack deserves special mention, because while it IS tintable, its base texture comes heavily pre-coloured, so any colour you stick on it is going to end up in the dirt spectrum anyway.

I really like the idea behind many of these costume pieces, but I really dislike how much of them is set in stone and not customizable. I mean seriously! How did a hat option without tintable hair ever even get approved?

I have two topics to discuss:

1. The above pics:

The top one - guy in white suit with red hair - is William Worthington. His entire shtick is that he's a suave, well-dressed immortal villain who has turned to evil out of sheer boredom. The left-most is his original look, a sort of contemporary business suit that he manages to fight while keeping clean. The second is the Steampunk take on his more elaborate complex gentleman's suit, with the third being its original form he's using now.

The bottom one - butler - is Charles Ludlow, a bred and brainwashed servant who is skilled in combat, technology and cleaning up other people's messes. One of his greatest strengths is to assist his master while remaining in the background. The left-most suit is his classic butler's getup. The middle one is the Victorian take on his "outdoor" suit. The right-most suit is what I got out of a fairly long thread on classic clothing and my take on several suggestions a poster made to me, which is what he has now.

I bring up original, old and new as comparison. In all cases, I see little meaningful improvement to be had with the Victorian jacket vs. the Baron jacket, with the upside that I can use a tie of my choosing with Baron and I don't have to contend with the awful, inappropriate golden seams. Furthermore, neither of the Steampunk facial hairs looked superior on either of those two characters. William needs a more contemporary mop of a beard and Ludlow needs an old man's moustache rather than a Kaiser one.

2. "This is what Steampunk is like"

That is a weak and disingenuous argument. Yes, the pieces are accurate to both Steampunk fiction and Victorian fashion as far as I know, but then the pieces could have contained Starfleet uniforms and they'd have been accurate to Steampunk and Victorian clothes as far as I know. My point is that there's no convincing reason other than cutting corners for these costume pieces to be unable to represent ANYTHING else.

I see no convincing reason why the Victorian jacket has to come with a built-in black tie that I cannot remove, replace or recolour. That alone means I can't use the jacket for William, because the bright red tie is central to his person. Furthermore, he is supposed to have an iconic colour scheme of white clothes, red tie, red hair. Yellow and black do not enter into it, yet I can remove neither the yellow nor the black from the Victorian jacket, and I'm not even counting the buttons.

If the Victorian jacket came without a tie, and that scarf was instead included as a chest detail for the jacket category, then I could have the exact same jacket with the exact same black scarf if I picked that for my chest detail and then picked black for it. As it stands, I'm denied this choice, and for what? So I can have my ties clipping through my other tie that I can't remove?

And then I go back to the brass pieces. If I were allowed to colour these myself, then I could pick brass, or I could NOT pick brass, but the choice would be mine. I could have a brass boiler, I could have a wrought iron boiler, I could have a steel boiler, I could have it covered in copper patina, something which should be just as natural to a Steampunk theme. But I can't. I can only pick from a colour in the dirt spectrum, because the base texture for the thing is brown with a little more brown on the side.

We've had costume sets added before that don't really work well with other costume pieces, but we've never before had one that aggressively interfered with other pieces by clashing in terms of colour and clipping with them. This is a "Steampunk AND NOTHING MORE!!!" booster, and it really didn't have to be one.

Look at the Praetorian Clockwork chest piece. Everybody's using this for a whole wide range of purposes beyond aping the clockwork and indeed beyond representing robotic or even Tech characters. It's because it works so well with so many other pieces. The female Victorian pieces somewhat do, but the male ones are total fail in terms of character customization. What men get is one step removed from a Halloween costume code.

Big pics below, so text to follow in a subsequent post:

Hair colour is not changeable for hats for males in the same way that the brown of brass is not changeable on any Steampunk piece that has brass on it. No, I don't like it, either.

I agree. When I first saw the curly hair in the video, I was stoked! As you said, we've never had curly hair before, and this one had such a unique, sharp look that I couldn't wait to use it... Only to discovery I had to use it with a fairly ugly hat that doesn't fit anyone outside of a specific Steampunk story. So what if I want to make something like Karin, then? Not Steampunk but still curly.

This is going to be an inherent problem with any system which requires large teams made of level 50 characters. While it's pretty safe to say that a large number of players have at least one 50, I don't think it's as safe to assume that that one 50 is a support AT anywhere near half the time.

When we're talking about lower-level teaming, or teaming for content over a broad level range like the ITF, you can typically get people to swap characters and pick something more relevant to the team, because on average, people have more characters in the 35-50 range than they do at 50. There are exceptions, obviously, but it's a pretty safe bet nonetheless.