Samuel_Tow
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Quote:I tend to feel bad turning down people's good will, especially in situations where I ask for advise, so I just want to generally avoid getting into the hows and whys of Inventions. This never ends well.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Hey, I offered an IO and he said no. I doubt that would result in a character Sam would play.
Well, it looks good on paper and I have good memories of both sets, plus very good memories of Masterminds. I do remember getting bored of them quickly for some reason, but then my record-holding character in terms of consistent playing was my Bots/FF Mastermind at 1-36. Currently, Crash, my Brute holds this, at 1-43, soon to be 44 without swapping characters. I might just get her back up to 50 before long.Quote:Bots/Traps, Sam. Seriously. It's good. 
Either way, yeah, Mastermind sounds good. I haven't made a new one in YEARS. -
Quote:I got a lot of enjoyment out of the original Diablo, as well. Far more than I did out of Diablo 2. In fact, I played the hell out of Diablo's Spawn version when my friend took back his game CD. But that was ten years ago, and a lot has changed since then. I never played Diablo for seven years at a stretch. At most I'd count a year sporadically, and even then I was burned out on the game BAD. I did all this before I had a good idea of what I actually wanted out of a game and how I preferred to play, something which has nearly cost me City of Heroes on numerous occasions since.Originally Posted by UberGuy
So given such characters and my willingness to play them, it's easy for me to hop on, log one of them in and run around for an hour or something beating stuff up. I'm one of those players who was able to get long, long enjoyment out of single-player Diablo (the original). Running around being bad-*** compared to my environment is just inherently fun to me, and I'm willing to do it to some extent just for its own sake.
The fact of the matter is I just don't want to play like this. I COULD play a level 50 character without making any progress, but that'll last me all of a week, about as long as it takes me to get through your average single-player game. Possibly long enough to run all the content that 50 has left to do. But then what? Redo old missions through Ouroboros? Grind TFs? Just kill stuff? Why? More specifically, why when I can do the same with other characters and have fun and make progress while doing so? I'm sure you have an answer for yourself, but for me, I see no reason. Yes, I like my characters. I like them just fine sitting in character select being 50 and reminding me that they are done, exactly as I would want them to be.
Yeah, I've done that, myself. Someone shouts out about an ITF and I hop on because I know it'll give me about a level in the span of an hour. But this returns me to my question: And then what? Say this is my hour for today, and it's been a whole level. Great. What about my hour for tomorrow? Do another ITF? No. Out of the question. Tomorrow, I'll want to make up for today's day of "work" on the ITF (an activity I am no longer capable of enjoying) by essentially kicking back and doing my own thing, which is running missions and killing stuff for experience. And in that hour, I might earn one half of one bar of one level of the next, say, 12 that I need to get to 50. Then, against my will, my brain does some simple math and tells me that I'm going to need MONTHS to get anywhere at this rate, and I lose the enthusiasm to play at all.Quote:Originally Posted by Bosstone
Continuing the above conversation, I've been working my butt off with 10-12 hour days these past couple weeks. Last night I was particularly beat, but I logged on to City to see what my friends were doing. They were, in fact, starting a Dr. Kahn TF. An hour and change later, I was up 3 Shards, an Incarnate Salvage, some recipes I haven't even looked at yet, and I'd had some fun (it's quite satisfying to take Reichsman and his cronies down with only 6 people).
I realize this is pretty much anathema to your own playstyle, Sam, but I wanted to reinforce anecdotally that it does depend on what you want out of the game.
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I'm still harping on this anecdote because it's relevant to the discussion at hand. If I go days and days without seeing progress on a character, I find something else to do. That's not because I find playing the game itself to be unfun, but after seven years, I want more out of the experience than just pushing the same seven buttons over and over again.
I can name almost every power in every melee set off memory and probably quote numbers for them, as well, and unless something changed, I can probably quite AT mods on top of that. I can name almost every instanced map in at least the more frequent tilesets from about 50 feet into the front door, and quite a few I can name by file name, as well. I can quote probably half the mission briefings in the game, and I can certainly retell almost every single arc that is doable solo, with the possible exclusion of Kheldian and Soldier of Arachnos ones. I can probably make you a list of about 90% of all costume items in the editor by name. I have as of right now over 50 characters, with around 10-12 of them at 50 (provided I don't start deleting them), and I've run through practically every contact multiple times.
I don't say that to brag. Hell, most of that should be a source of shame, not pride. I do say that, however, to explain that I'm long since past playing the game just to see the same five or six animations replay over and over on the same five or six models in a faction over and over and over again. If the game does not give me progress of some sort, if the game does not advance my journey, then I lose interest, and I lose interest FAST. I have, quite literally, done this many times before, and I have no desire to do it all over again for absolutely no reason.
And team encounters are even worse. At least solo I have the excuse of story to explain why I'm doing these things, and to provide some kind of context which helps pretend I'm not regrinding the same ten instances over and over again (because the game feels like dropping the same map on me mission after mission for some reason). But in a team setting, even ignoring the fact that no-one ever seems to care about story as long as there are Shards to be had, you just don't get any of the narrative. It's some instance full of some guys for some reason. Kill they ***! That's fun for a day. That's fun for a week. That's tolerable for a month. That don't cut it for seven years. -
Quote:I'm not in the habit of taking something I don't like and turning it into something I do, that's what it comes down to. Not when I can start up a Brute, a Scrapper or especially a Mastermind and have that same experience for none of the hassle.Originally Posted by Smersh
Sam?
With an IO build, you can have that feeling again.
I'm just saying.
I should never have gotten as "invested" into Blasters as I did, and I blame my own foolishness and a massive case of a sunk cost fallacy for it. I'd sooner play ATs I like and make them better than ATs I don't and try to compensate. -
Quote:If I only had three hours a week to play, I'd have dropped this game like a hot potato. It simply requires - and I picked this word intentionally - rather a lot of time in order to be worth playing. In fact, at times when my job picks up and I have a lot of things to do, I start feeling like I'm wasting my time even logging into City of Heroes, because it feels like I'll spend a week looking at level 24 and no meaningful progress would have been made, making me question why I even bother.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I'd be willing to bet you have a lot more time to play than I do.
I'm lucky if I can fit in 3 hours of playtime across an entire week. When I get to play, it is one of the few times during my average day that I get to do anything just for the fun of it, without it having to be productive in some way.
It just doesn't make any sense to me to spend that time not enjoying myself so I can maybe have fun 2 months from now. If I had more time, perhaps I could stomach doing something I don't enjoy for the rewards, but since I don't have the time, I see no point in playing at all if it's not fun.
It seems the willingness to do things you don't like so you can have fun later is directly proportionate to the amount of time you have available to play.
I'm happy for you that you can find so little time to be helpful in your relaxation, but I couldn't play this game if that's all the time I had. If that's all I had, I'd be playing single-player games that I can normally do in a couple of days of vacation time, or alternately over the weekend. -
Quote:I have to agree with Venture here, especially about the Origin attacks. These have never meant a thing.Originally Posted by Venture
Since Inherent Fitness scales with level, it actually does not do a whole lot for you at low levels. The origin ranged attacks are pretty much meaningless too. Beginner's Luck is the only real boost lowbies have gotten.
The game does need to be more difficult, just not at low levels. Praetorian mobs, and evidently everything coming after them, are just absurd.
Beginner's luck IS a boost, yes, but only insomuch as it allows us to acquire high-level to-hit levels earlier. One has to remember that THE WHOLE GAME was design for lower-level to-hit values, with players expressly expected to sometimes go for weaker, more accurate powers and sometimes deliberately making powers stronger but less "precise." No-one ever did that, throwing off the difficulty of not just lower-level content but content of all levels in general.
I have ZERO problem with the low-level game being embarrassingly easy. It's the time that's meant to let people familiarise themselves with their characters and potentially snag new players. If challenge is necessary, the low-level game is exactly the wrong place to put it. -
I take my hat off to Arcana, because this was beautifully stated and nicely encapsulates how I feel about the game.
I've often said that City of Heroes is the only game where my characters feel like they are truly my own, like something I came up with, designed, though of and "own," even if I don't own it legally. I'm not entirely sure of the processes that lead to this, but our characters here rarely feel like "toons," in the sense of mathematical constructs that we design just to serve as our tools for interaction with a virtual world.
You'll note that a lot of people, even devout non-roleplayers, will often talk about their characters as "he can do this" or "she just got that" or "I made him whenever" and so on. Even subconsciously, a lot of people see their characters as characters, possessing at least enough personality to be referred to as a separate entities, rather than the player always saying "I did, I got, I beat" and so on.
The game is constantly nudging us ever so slightly into making a deeper connection with our character. "Pick an origin. But pick carefully!" "What do you want to look like?" "What's your backstory? Well, whenever you think of one is OK." "Did you make a good costume yet? That's OK, here's another slot in case you think of something else." City of Heroes gives you many character slots and deluges you in constant inspiration and ideas, always offering more and more ways to personalise your own characters, to the point where they feel interesting enough to use somewhere else, be it in another game or in another context entirely.
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I also have to agree on the communication angle. I remember the horrible old days when Team Search only looked in the same zone you were and where Local Friends were all we ever had. We didn't even have server-wide chat channels like Help is nowadays. Now, with all the options we have, even anti-social dicks like me end up as part of the larger community, for no effort more than just being member of a few channels and having a long-ish Global friends list.
I've often joked around with people I mostly only chat via global that "this is how I do the bulk of my teaming," and it's actually true. People like Nuclear Toast, Serevus and the Vulpish One I have NEVER teamed with for a single mission, yet I chat them up every time I catch them on, and while I did team with the Mental Giant for one Lady Grey TF, most of our interaction has been over global tells. The game's proliferation of communication means that I don't have to be on a team with people and we don't have to be attacking the same enemy in order for me to both be part of the community and to be social.
If the goal of teaming in an MMO is to create friendships and familiar bonds between players and thus retain people longer, then that has been a huge success on me despite the fact that I almost never team. Why? Because THE FIRST thing I do when logging in is to check my Global Friends screen to see if there isn't someone on I can chat up.
This is where the "MMO = teaming" mentality fails for me. Yes, multiple players occupying the same persistent world is more or less build on the assumption that these people will interact with each other, but that interaction does not have to be teaming. -
Oooh! I remember why I started playing Blasters and why I thought it was a good idea at the time! Doh, I can be so dense sometimes. Sit back, folks, and let me take you on a journey in the Wayback Machine.
As I mentioned, the Steel Rook was my original Blaster, made way back in 2004, and was AR/Dev. Remember what else 2004 is famous for? "City of Blasters." Remember what Devices was famous for in 2004? Smoke Grenade, or more specifically the decimal point error in Smoke Grenade which made its to-hit debuff 50% instead of the intended 5%, as well as whatever tag wasn't put in place which allowed the debuff to stack from the same caster. Um... Yeah, remember those glory days?
To put it simply, I made the Rook, and I was getting killed. A lot. Right up, that is, until I got Smoke Grenade. From that point on, the Rook became a tank-mage, because nothing could hit him or damage him. Fun was had by all, and a truly overpowered character dashed all the way up to 34. Just in time for I2, and the "Smoke Grenade Nerf." I watched my paradise crumble before my eyes, waking up to the very real experience of being one-shotted by a Tank Swiper back when that could happen and Blasters had less health. I decided I wasn't going to play the Rook any more because... Well, I didn't know HOW. I mean, after all this time relying on the one trick pony of Smoke Grenade which had let me essentially not move and just cycle through my attacks, playing like a Tanker with Assault Rifle, I didn't know what to do and how to play. Truth be told, seven years later, I still apparently don't, so I'm finally calling it quits.
I should have been smart. I should have just let the Rook hang and not bothered, but he was a friend's character, so I kept wanting to play at least him, and I kept getting pissed off and logging out in a huff. Eventually I gave him a backstory worth a lot of effort, and Castle did that Defiance 2.0 upgrade, so I managed to convince myself that maybe I could still play Blasters without Smoke Grenade. But I can't. Let's face facts - I don't want to.
Point? Not much, but now I do remember WHY I thought I could and should play the AT - thanks to Geko leaving in a bugged debuff ten times as strong as it should have been and leaving it in for what amounted to six months. -
Quote:Come on, Man. This really isn't necessary.Originally Posted by Zombie Man
You. You seem challenged.
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Quote:I don't know who wrote it, but I have an axe to grind with whoever it is that keeps making inept arcs like this. I don't know if it's the same person, but SOMEONE is greenlighting these things. The first time it really hit me was with I11 and the Midnight Squad. Ashley McKnight's writing was actually pretty good, but Montague Castanella's writing is HORRIBLE, to the point of being painful to sit through. And I have to sit through it if I want access to the Midnight Club.Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
Do you have a personal axe to grind against the person who wrote this arc? You seem to be constantly calling this person out as being inept.
What makes me the most mad is that there are obviously talented writers on staff, as evidenced by some of the better content we've seen lately, such as Vincent Ross' arc and earlier than that Dean McArtuhr's arc. And, hell, most of Praetoria feels like it was written by actual professional writers. These stories make sense, they tie together, and above all they are well-written. So why the hell are they always paired up with such obvious amateurish work? It wouldn't be as obvious or as grating if everything in the game were badly written, but not everything is. Some of the new story arcs are very good, and some are very bad. And when you have very good stories, the very bad really, really, REALLY stand out.
I know the City of Heroes developers and writers can do better than this. I want them to do better than this.
*edit*
Just as a random example, I'm doing Division: Line right now, after having run both of Levantera's arcs and Serpent Drummer's arc. By this point, I'm well aware of the factionalization of the Rikti society here on Earth, of which faction stands for what, of the human-Rikti peace talks, of C'Khelkah's personality and contribution to the peace talks and the entire situation. And yet Angus has me exploring the possibility that the Rikti have split into factions, trying to figure out which Faction we want to fight more and "capturing" C'Khelkah and interrogating her, all in an eventual attempt to stop the second Rikti invasion which happened two years ago.
Just about everything that has taken place in Division: Line up until now has made me instinctively question events. Why are the Rikti stealing Portal technology when they clearly have their own, and when they already have a "tenuous" portal back to their Homeworld. How was C'Khelkah at the negotiations when I'm just capturing her now. Why don't I know that it's not the Traditionalists who are evil? Why is it surprising that the Rikti would try magic? And so on, and so on, and so on. Division: Line is a great arc, easily one of my most favourite, but these gaping plot holes are ruining it for me. Of course, I don't blame the original writer of the story for this, because back in I1, it still made sense. I blame whoever it was that decided to move all of these revelations back to the 35-40 level range, yet left Angus' 40-45 unchanged. Even Maria Jenkins and Tina McIntyre's old arcs got updated so as to make sense (kind of), yet this one was left behind, and it's really, REALLY souring me on the experience. -
Tech wings are slightly shiny and have a rather coarse bump map on them, both of which make the colour significantly darker. Since we're not given free range to pick colours, and are instead limited to a 10x12 colour palette out of a 256x256x256 possible options, that just means that Tech Wing colours end up in-between colour choices, making matching them impossible.
It's even worse since the bulk of our colour palettes consists of colours are a set hue and variable liminance, so if you pick one of the last two or three colours in a row that actually has decreased saturation and you get THAT darker, there's no way to match anything to it. The only brighter colours are also more saturated, and this REALLY shows. -
Quote:Presumably, when you "click on the map" to teleport, you'd get the same result as you would when placing a thumb tack, which disregards terrain completely, and will often appear deep underground or high in the air.Originally Posted by MunkiLord
Bill I'm confused. When you type /loc it gives you the height coordinate. Or are you referring to the mini map?
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Quote:Use your map. It'll give you a top-down view of the area and tell you exactly where you are. I've been here long enough to know all the instance maps by heart and I still swear by the map. It's one of the game's most useful tools. The map and your compass are vital tools.Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I can't even tell you how many times I've been playing a mission, defeated all of the enemies in the map, and been completely lost looking for a glowie to click for way too long, because all tunnels/hallways/rooms in every map look EXACTLY the same. It gets to the point where I can't tell if I'm at the end of a map, or if I'm back where I started.
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Quote:Much much better. Launch content is better than this, at least in terms of storytelling. Sure, it's not as complex mechanically and is sometimes padded with unnecessary bulk, but at least the stories make sense and follow some semblance of logical progression.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
So, basically? If the Roy Cooling arc is bad? Just what the nine hells do you call the rest of blueside, I have to wonder?
During the time when I could do the Roy Cooling arc, I could instead do, say, Ubelmann the Unknown, an arc which is still very good even after "Councilification" just about ruined it twice over. It's an interesting if simple story delving into Requiem's self-serving nature, as well as a very interesting plot of Nazi time travel. I could also do "A Hand of Iron," an arc which explores the hedonistic lifestyle of the Freakshow and the allure of such an existence. They're not expertly told, but they are competent, logical and interesting.
Everything that the Roy Cooling arc is not. Roy Cooling's arc comes off like it was written by someone's first attempt at writing an actual story AND first attempt at using the Architect, and I know a thing or two about both. It's sloppy, inconsistent, disorganised and really, really inept. Its game mechanics may be interesting (and that's debatable), but game mechanics alone don't make a good game when the story is bollocks. That's not to say every single story arc has to be a masterpiece of cat head theatre, but at the same time, I should not be stopping at every step asking how this or that makes sense and what the blue balls is going on. And I'm not nit picking here, either. Major plot points constitute major plot holes which are never addressed.
Why is Vincent Ross' story arc so good and Roy Cooling's arc so bad? The Vincent Ross arc is no less ad-hoc and made up on the spot. Blood coral? Yeah, that thing that's so important and powerful that we... Didn't think to mention until about, oh, 13 Issues in. It's obviously someone just trying to tack on a bit of extra canon where none existed before, but it's done logically, so it still works AND it manages to involve Merulia - the Coralax godess - into the mix. Oh, sure, I was left wondering "Shapers? WHAT Shapers? Calystix was THE shaper who kept coming back, there weren't a zillion of him!" but again - that's just one question, and as such doesn't really serve to bug me as much. The writing is good enough to make it not as bothersome. -
Energy Wings, yes, of course. I've suggested as much myself on numerous occasions.
VANGUARD wings? I'll have to pass on this. It isn't necessary and I'd rather not have more locked costume pieces, even if they'll be giving a Vanguard Pack away soon.
Energy/Aura wings don't have to be tied to Vanguard, especially since nothing in Vanguard flies, save for that one solitary helicopter. -
Quote:Speaking of which, we may probably want to invest in the gorilla arm, just for the sake of completeness.Originally Posted by Tangler
We need gorilla options if we really want to call ourselves a superhero mmo. Preferably ones that can wear labcoats or sport a classy monocle.
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On a more serious side, I would very much like to see the aforementioned lion's mane. As long as we're talking about animal heads in general, my prerogative here (after just HAVING more animal heads) is that they be usable with hair of some sort. -
Quote:Probably not. I wouldn't want to get into Inventions until I decide to actually get into them, and even then I probably wouldn't use the non-standard ones. I like repeatability, is all.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
If I bought you a -KB IO to slot in Hover and sent it to you, would you use it?
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Quote:If Blasters are out, then Defenders and Corruptors are DEFINITELY out. I've tried both ATs at various points in time, and neither really works for me.Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Or if you want to keep the Assault Rifle, /Traps Corruptors can be quite survivable if you're willing to be flexible with how you handle the power armor concept, or you could make a Defender I guess.
To be honest, making the Steel Rook a Blaster to begin with was a mistake, and one born of ignorance on my part. My friend asked for a "Fallout guy" and I immediately though "Durr... Rifle!" with no thought or concept of what AT I was actually picking. In my defence, this was probably done no more than two weeks after I'd gotten the game, back at a point in time when I felt obligated to try and play all ATs because... Well, they're there, so why wouldn't I, right? It's more than a little embarrassing that I managed to let a rookie mistake like this hold me back for seven years, but there you go.
The only four ATs I want to use are Scrappers, Brutes, Masterminds and Stalkers. I've tried Corruptors, and they just don't do enough damage. I've tried Defenders and they're just blah. I've tried controllers and I run out of patience. I've tried Tankers and they're just too slow. I've tried Dominators, and while I was able to play one to level 31, it was with a LOT of effort and a lot of unglorified pain, which is something I just do not want. I've not tried either Soldier of Arachnos AT, or Warshades, but I have tried a Peacebringer and was vastly unsatisfied with the AT.
I have never had a Scrapper, Brute or Mastermind that I have been unhappy with, not in any meaningful way, and while I've been unhappy with a Stalker or two, I don't have many of those, so it's possible I just haven't played them enough. I dare say that after getting three Blasters to 50 by convincing myself that things would be better at some point and still hating the AT, that's reason enough for me to cut my losses and run. -
Quote:Temp Invulnerability is definitely something I'd look for, so that's a big plus. I need to stop closing the Mids' window. The rest essentially seem to be attacks, which is actually a good thing for this guy. Probably not rifle attacks, but what is the ever. That, and Foce of Nature. That's always a plus!Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Tough and Temp Invulnerability (from Field Mastery) give my Mastermind (in addition to her softcapped defences) nearly capped resistance to S/L as well. Once she gets higher levels of Incarnate slotting, she should get capped.
My difficulty went back to +0x2 when I was browbeaten into submission over the Incarnate Shards issue, so that's where it's at now.Quote:Bots/Traps is a blast, Sam. Give it a roll. You might even feel a need to creep up from your usual -1/x3 difficulty.
And I agree with your assessment. I don't have a Bots/Traps yet, but I have Bots up to about 36 and Traps to 50, so I can definitely vouch for the awesome factor of both sets. This is definitely something to look into, ESPECIALLY for the Assault Bot!
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Quote:I really wish Patron pools didn't require one to be evil. I could use Surveillance. But nah, I'll have to make do with one of the default ones. Probably Field. Again.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Link to MMs in the wiki.
Non-PPP, Chil, Charge, Heat and Field masteries.
PPP, of course, same four as everyone else, so "tech" = mace, or a reason you're throwing electricity/sharks/soul bits around. -
Quote:No knockback protection? Uhh... Scratch that idea, then. I've already said enough curse words about Dark Armour and Fiery Aura to send me to hell, I don't need another one of these.Originally Posted by M_I_Abrahms
You're going to have similar problems with the Arachnos character. They don't have any Knockback protection either. If we're talking absolutely zero Set IOs of any kind, you're going to want to stick with Super Jump so you can get Acrobatics.
Why Electrical Armour, though? If I go with melee, it'll probably be Invulnerability, for the simple fact that it's the closest to "encased in steel" that the game has, and I don't really mind. I USED to have a 50 MA/Inv, whom I deleted (hence why I'm no longer afraid to do it again), and my only other Inv Scrapper is BS/Inv, and a giant green woman, to boot. So if I do go Scrapper, I see no reason not to go Invulnerability.Quote:Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan
Hmmmm... what would you think of a Kinetic Melee/Electric Armor/Weapons scrapper?
Keep the electric armor customization set to "bright" but pick an almost black shade to reduce the effects. And if you have the origins pack, maybe add a combat sparks aura to him/her. -
Quote:I really don't know whose Masteries Masterminds get, but I don't see one that's specifically tech-based in the same way as Munitions was, so snagging something non-epic is not at all out of the question. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to get Pool defences, but again, it's well possible. I'll probably still go with a smaller suit if I go non-melee, however. The big bulky shoulders never sat well with me, not on this guy. I can still make him big, just not fat. Or not AS fat.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Without IOs, you'll be around 40-43% defence to everything with Bots/Traps, and if you take Acrobatics you can get KB protection to avoid the "flopping around" problem (and you'll probably want Super Jump as your travel power anyway, with the concept).
And that's really the extent to which a Masterminds' "squishines" really matters in this case - how big do I want to make the armour. Considering I'll probably want to make a "from scratch" rebuild of the costume using new parts but keeping to a similar design, it's not really something to worry about.
I know Masterminds are well tough enough. I got a Mercs/Traps to 50 some time ago (like, a couple of years...) and I was always astounded at the ridiculous crap I was able to kill in a stand-up fight just flying by the seat of my pants. If anything ever made me feel like I don't want to play Blasters, it was a Mastermind going at full tilt. YE GADS are those guys impressive, the lot of 'em! I've sometimes said that, with a Mastermind, you can up and forget you have a secondary and you'll still be fine the bulk of the time. About the only problem I've ever had with Masterminds is the cost of... Well, everything, especially since I use and spam the crap out of their personal attacks. Luckily, inherent Stamina ought to be able to help with that, and help big.
As far as Leaping goes, that's not really how I designed the Rook. If you've ever seen me argue for the introduction of jet packs into the game, this is the guy I've always wanted to give one to, so he's a flier all the way, and that means Hover and Fly.
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I'll have a look at Huntsmen in Mids', but I'm actually starting to feel nostalgic for a good Mastermind. And... You know what? THAT is how I want to feel about an old, dear character. "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to play that guy?" as opposed to "Ugh, I don't want to play that guy! But I have to at some point, otherwise why keep him around?" -
A long time ago. Like I said, I seem to get a purple every time I team with you.
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On melee: To be honest, my problem is that I don't know what I want. Energy Melee sounds a bit too... Blah, as does Kinetic Melee, to be honest, and while I'd want a weapon... I'm not sure I can get to grips with using one like that. The problem with this one is I just don't know what to do or even where to go.
On Mastermind: When I say "isn't personally strong," that's not to criticise Masterminds. Far from it, I know how strong they can be. That's just to say that if I DO go that route, I'll probably want to modify the costume a little bit. I just don't want to see a big armoured guy flopping around from knockback.
As a side note, Inventions Sets are not considered here, as I have no plans to invest into them with anyone other than my previously stated test character, and my preliminary results with her are not promising. I'll build this guy on Commons at most, so no building against AT.
Quote:Now that's a curious idea. A Bane Spider would, I assume, have access to rifle attacks, melee attacks, personal protection and... I don't know what else. I've never examined the AT. I just have a problem with their being linked to Arachnos, however, and that makes the idea very unlikely. However, yes, that would be very, very close to what I'd want visually.Originally Posted by monkey0707
Reroll as a crab spider or if you don't like the spider backpack reroll as a soldier and just pick up the bane powers but none of the mace ones, you will still have your gun attacks.
See, this is why I keep begging the developers for a combination Assault/Defence set. I want something that plays like a Peacebringer or an Arachnos Soldier without being tied to Arachnos or Kheldians.
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So far, the things I hear are making me lean more towards Masterminds, simply because I can get personal "toughness," visible technology and a character I actually don't feel afraid to long in. -
Quote:The answer to that, in my eyes, is to simply let multiple activities be about equally good at acquiring one of a multitude of rewards. The general idea of Reward Merits was introduced to do this to TFs - ideally, you wouldn't want to run the fastest TF to get the most shots at a random roll, but could run any which one. Faster ones would be done sooner, but reward less, while slower ones would take longer but reward more. In this way, if you don't like a TF (say, Kathie Hannon), you don't have to feel obligated to do it and could instead do another TF. Of course, that's not always how it pans out, but that was the idea - if all TFs are as efficient in terms of time-to-reward ration, then the only choice is which one you WANT to do, not which one you HAVE to do.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
The stumbling block here is that it is outright impossible to design content that 100% of the playerbase will agree is "good". No matter what you do, there will be some subsection of the playerbase that doesn't like it.
This does nothing for me since I don't want to do TFs to begin with, but that's neither here nor there.
This does run into a bit of what Arcana points out as a problem, in that it's a single-source, single-goal system where all possible activities grant the same resource and all resources can buy the same rewards, otherwise known as "money." I personally don't have a problem with the concept of money, however, in their very basic function in society, which is as "equivalent goods." The point of money is to provide such a trading item which everyone accepts and everyone has, so as not to make traders have to find the precise person who will take their goods AND offer the goods they want.
The concept of money in a game may feel... Odd, at least in the sense I'm describing it (gold has been a staple of RPGs for a long time, but less so in MMORPGs), but what I'm saying is I'd personally prefer a system where everything you did in any variety of activities generated some amount of "money" and everything you could acquire were purchasable with that "money." I can certainly see some reward classes as being gated in other ways, such as by level or unlock. Vanguard Merits are a good idea. Any Rikti you kill and any Rikti mission you do has a chance of dropping Vanguard Merits, and you can buy anything Vanguard with a certain amount of Merits, but you still have to do an arc to join Vanguard and start earning them.
My point is that locking one reward to only one class of activities pushes people to engage in those activities even if they don't necessarily like them. Give these people alternate paths to the same reward, and your chances of letting them have their reward AND via the way they wanted to earn it at the same time.
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There is a persistent idea among MMO developers and a fair few players that you HAVE to make your players participate in EVERY part of your MMO, or else you're wasting resources and hurting player retention. After all, if a player isn't, say, raiding, then that player isn't as invested in the game and therefore isn't as likely to stick around for seven years. Speaking from personal experience, this is not just wrong, but damaging, as well.
Were I forced, or even just coerced into experiencing every part of City of Heroes on a continuous basis, I would have quit this game before even my first game time card was out. I have been here for seven years not by picking things I like, but by AVOIDING things I don't like. I don't like certain ATs, I don't like teaming, I don't like Inventions, I don't like the Architect... I don't like a great many things, probably over half the total content of the game, yet I'm still here and still going strong. Why? Because I never really felt forced to participate in these activities. It never really felt like the developers had designed the game to passive-aggressively punishing me for not playing their way, Jack Emmert notwithstanding.
In short: Allowing people to play the game their way and still earn progress in at least all main areas - within reason - keeps people playing. Forcing people to do things they don't want causes animosity and anger more than anything else. -
Yeah, crazy idea, I know. When I say "reroll," I mean delete the character and create a new one with the same look and backstory, but different powersets and/or AT. To answer the obvious question of why in as short a form as I can: Because I'm done playing Blasters. I really don't want to discuss this, beyond saying that recent changes to the game have made me realise that I never actually liked them to begin with, and I will no longer torture myself playing an AT I don't like.
The "50" in question is The Steel Rook, my second oldest character ever created, second only to Samuel Tow himself, and designed by a good friend of mine back when we were both much younger. The Rook originally started out as, and still is, an AR/Dev/Munitions (eventually, those didn't exist at the time) Blaster. The concept that my friend gave me amounted to "make me a character that looked like the Brotherhood of Steel armour from Fallout and Fallout 2. I did what I could at the time, and thus The Steel Rook was born, pictured here some time later as evidenced by his Justice shoulders. I didn't give him a story up until somewhere around 2007 when I was in the UK and so had time to kill, but his story isn't all that complex: He's a genius inventor who started out working on creating an autonomous robot with his wife, until she was killed by muggers, causing him to turn around and form his own weapons development and security company to combat crime of all natures.
The original idea for the Rook is the idea that never was - that of a guy in very strong power armour armed to the teeth. The "armed" part was easy - Assault Rifle has decent damage and Blasters are good at dealing it. The "armour" part... Not so much. Seven years later, I am done seeing this big armoured brute dying like a chump, so I'm rerolling him, along with a fair few other characters when time and opportunity permits. The question, and the very reason I made this, is "Into what?"
I have four options here, highlighting the four ATs I'm prepared to play: Scrapper, Brute, Mastermind, Stalker, in that order. Of those four, I have two overall directions I could go:
1: Melee of some sort, capitalising on his power armour and likely going with Invulnerability. This means either Brute or Scrapper, but WHAT/Inv? I want to keep the high-tech aspect of the character, but I really don't know what to use for that.
2: A Bots/Traps/SomethingElse Mastermind, delving into his background of robotics design and his general aptitude for science and technology. This will probably require that I downsize the armour suit, however, as Masterminds aren't known for being personally very resilient.
Any of the ATs above will fill the criteria I have for character performance, so I'm really mostly looking for which one will suit my concept and design the closest.
Any ideas?