Samuel_Tow

There's something fundamentally disturbing when people use vernacular like "there's no-one at fault here but you" in response to my preferences in entertainment.

I furthermore think you're reading something other than what I said if you're inferring that I'm saying anything other than "I don't like this." I said as much before, I'm saying as much now, therefore I'm not going back on what I said. Accusing me of "complaining" or suggesting a "conundrum" where one doesn't exist just baffles me, and I'm not saying this to offend.

I refuse to be drawn into another Strike Pack flame war of semantics, armchair psychology and accusations. Please don't turn my opinion into one.

Considering not being logged out in an instance or on a TF was specifically asked for and included back when auto-log-out was introduced, that's unlikely to change.

I'm going to restate what I said before - having the opportunity to do something I dislike does nothing to change the fact that I dislike it. I can be convinced to do it anyway, goaded with rewards, but that still won't change the fact that I dislike it.

Incidentally, this seems like a relevant place to restate another truth I hold to be self-evident: The way to make content more desired and more played is to make that content better, not to attach rewards at the end of content people wouldn't want to do unless "paid" to. And this doesn't have to apply to anything current, because I said as much as far back as the original reduction to the percentage of Hamidon enhancements.

I have not been diagnosed with OCD, nor have I ever claimed to have it, and have indeed gone out of my way to ask people to not assume that. What I have a case of is "I won't do things I don't like in a game." I pay money for this game, I put my time and effort into this game, and I will be damned if I'll spend my time in here doing things I don't want to do. If that means missing on large chunks of the game, then so be it. If ever that means missing on most of the game, then I'll re-evaluate my subscription if and when that happens.

I refuse to pay money and devote time to activities I don't enjoy, and if that makes me the bad guy here, I'm willing to accept that.

I use not a single power which has an Afraid or Avoid aspect to it. As a Bots/Traps Mastermind, you might think Caltrops does that, but I don't use it, and you may think the Assault Bot's Incendiary Missile Swarm does it, but it doesn't have that yet (only level 28 at the moment). Beyond that, what they have is Laser Burst and Heavy Laser Burst on the Drones and Protector bots, Plasma Blast, Dual Plasma Blast, Flamethrower and Smash on the Assault Bot and Pulse Rifle Burst and Pulse Rifle Blast from me. That's all the powers I use to cause elite bosses to turn into sissies.

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Another mission, another two elite bosses down (four EB fights, but only two actual elite bosses - Castillo, Castillo, Castillo and a Zeus Class Titan). Obviously, I'm talking about Roy Cooling's arc, whose writing I overcame by not reading it.

First fight with Castillo devolved into a Benny Hill chase around the room, but he teleports before taking too much damage, so that was easy. Second fight with Castillo, he tries to run but I manage to web-grenade him in place (he seems easy to immobilize) and my bots shoot him to hamburger meat while he does not fight back. Castillo finally breaks free and runs, but drops off the platform just as he goes blue reticle. Third fight with Castillo is disastrous. He runs away, drops off the rig and disappears. I don't have idea one where he went. After two minutes of looking for him, he strolls back to his original spawn point. I Web Grenade him and prevent him from running away, which he attempts as soon as he catches sight of me, but isn't able to Castillo falls.

Zeus Class Titan elite boss spawns, aggroed on me, personally. Obviously. He's one of those ambushes that will follow you through doors and never lose aggro. He insta-kills half my robots and... Runs away. I run away in the other direction, expecting he'll follow me so I can ambush him inside the door to the rig. No dice. I go back to find the thing idling in place, with Peter kneeling in front of it. I attack the Titan, it fires a missile swarm of some kind, misses and IMMEDIATELY takes off running, dropping off the rig completely. I set my bots to chase it, Web Grenading it from the air, but it just keeps on running around like an idiot until it loses half its health.

At that point, "something" happens to force the Titan to stand and fight (I don't know what it was - it wasn't anything I did) and only NOW do I realise just how tough that thing is. You know, now that it's actually fighting back, instead of Baywatch-running away from big mean ole' me. THEN it turns into a hard fight, with my bots going down to its Incendiary Missile Swarm (wish the Bots version were this strong) and not reacting to either Acid Mortar, Poison Gas Trap or Seeker Drones. I lose all of my robots several times over, as well as losing the Sky Raider Forcefield Generators, but with enough resummoning and Repairing, I'm victorious. In one of the dumbest fights I've fought in my life.

So far, that's Brukholder, Protean, Castillo, Castillo, Castillo and the Zeus Class Titan, all refusing to fight me and choosing instead to run away while my bots shoot them into goo, all the while not fighting back. Again - this CANNOT be working as intended. All right! What other EBs can a level 28 heroic Mastermind try just so I can add more names to the list of sissies?

That's usually my consolation prize. My 50 MA/Inv Brute hit my first billion ever through the combined power of three purples, one for 350 million, one for 200 million and one for 450 million.

It kind of reminds me of the old story of the man who got rich by buying an apple, polishing it and selling it for twice the price. With that money, he bought two apples, polished them and sold them for double price. With that money, he bought four apples and his uncle died and left him his entire estate and many million dollars.

And you're surprised about this why? A select group of people have made it a point to bring hatred and bigotry to every discussion regarding the subject of animal parts, so a thread about actually getting them was about as guaranteed to bring them out as guaranteed gets.

Personally, I'm happy to see that people are less trollish of the subject of late, especially with the announcement of the pack.

That's actually what some of us are saying. This kind of prejudice is both unrealistic and unwarranted, serving, really, only to troll people and, I assume, to hopefully change the developer's minds.

This I agree with. In the same vein as monster heads with hair, monster legs with skirts, shorts and even pants of some sort would be really cool. They're already almost identical to regular legs down to the knee, so can we really not plop down a detail like that on there?

Also - and this is only semi-related to the animal booster - I'd like to see armoured monster legs and monster legs in monster-leg-shaped boots. All of my monstrous characters are having to go around barefoot

If you have to ask, then my cover is working

Seriously, though, that's what I'm saying. If I told you how many of my characters were thought up, you may never want to speak with me again, but these same characters are the ones people compliment me on their costumes and their stories, and which are generally regarded as good, if perhaps a bit strange. "Why" I want a particular costume piece or a particular costume should never be anyone's business but my own, and that includes my making the costume such that I don't make it other people's business.

To give a counter-example, if I'm inspired to make a female character form a... Questionable movie, I will do my best to make that character presentable, with a cool, non-contemptible costume, and I will give her a respectable, in-depth backstory, such that the only way you'll ever know what gave me the original idea is if I out-and-out said it, which I usually won't unless asked directly.

All that we have left, then, is biassed people ASSUMING that just because I put a wolf head on a guy or cat ears on a girl, I must have been thinking of some unspeakable perversion at the time, when I would usually have been looking for just something cool, all the while never suspecting what that average-looking guy in the suit actually has in his backstory that I didn't put in the bio window.

All I'm trying to say is that I do, in fact, agree with you. We shouldn't brand people as malicious or twisted just because of the themes they choose to explore.

To a point, but I think it's much more a case of self-fulfilling prophecy mixed in with intolerance and bias. I've been playing this game for coming on seven years now, and the only "creeps" I've ever run into were average-looking characters with players who insisted on hitting on my female characters. I honestly think people are afraid of boogiemen here. The mythical "furry" who's both revolting AND hell-bent to ARP with you against your will, which I'm fairly convinced doesn't actually exist. It's a self-perpetuating rumour spread by sites like SomethingAwful, reporting about the experiences of a friend of a friend.

It's like DBZ characters. Everyone I talk to seems to be "sick of seeing them," yet I'm fairly sure they haven't been endemic, or indeed even popular, for years now. Yet just mention that concept and you'll get a whole bunch of people show up to demonise it, even out of context.

Personally, I'd like to "live and let live," if possible.

Would that it were only Brukholder, I wouldn't mind, but it's everything. Bosses, minions, elite bossed, NPCs of all cations. As I whined about later in the thread, Protean did the same thing, all the while talking about how he'll make me beg for mercy like Galaxy Girl's little sidekick. Towards the end, I was indeed begging for mercy, to PLEASE MAKE HIM STOP RUNNING!!!

As you mention, there's nothing more silly than having big bads like monsters and AVs running, and I include elite bosses in that. Not only is it absurd, it makes the fights unnecessarily easy.

No, he's a fairly new character. I created him on Saturday, and even with double experience he's still level 28. Not even at full strength yet.

This is what always baffles me. Just because I'm a pervert doesn't mean anyone who makes anthropomorphic characters is. After all, we've had children's cartoons that used just these themes for years, such as Disney and Warner Bros cartoons, or shows like the Swat Cats, Pig City, Camp Lazlo and so forth. It's part of the world's culture.

It's always a bad idea to link animal characters with sex out of context.