Samuel_Tow

Instead, they'll die from the mass of bosses in the ambushes. Tit for tat.

You might have intended it as a joke, but the attitude you exhibit suggests it is true nonetheless. That's kind of why I attached an entire post to that half a sentence you quoted.

To me, it's like playing a character I created, which - again to me - is the single greatest part of the game. If I could design an enemy and have that enemy pop up in the game proper... Well, that would pretty much double my excitement.

Just as an example, one of my all-time favourite missions is the one where I fight my character's double. Well, any one of those, anyway. This is incredibly exciting to me, because I get to see something I designed integrated into the game and controlled by the AI. In essence, I get to see my work as part of the game proper, and this is FAR more fun than any PvP you can think of.

"Fine, then I'll walk around, because you can't move yourself."

Rooted is the single most annoying power in the entire game, and I'm counting things like Repulsion Field. Inherent Swift will help with that to a point, but the complete inability to jump will still remain, and still be annoying. I adore Stone Armour for its "immovable" aspect, but I'd rather that applied to ENEMIES, not to my own controls.

Rooted is a relic from a VERY old design where balance by annoyance was the rule of the day, and anything which was strong had to suck. Back then, Rooted did exactly what it said on the tin and rooted you to the ground completely, using the Stone Cages graphic, as well. I'm not sure why the decision was made to turn it into this when Unyielding Stance became Unyielding, but I guess one got a debuff, the other a slow. Only Unyielding no longer has that debuff. So why does Rooted still have the slow?

All you said here is "it doesn't matter." So I ask again - why can't I write my heroes however I please without other people trying to re-write them for me when I'm not trying to re-write their heroes for them?

I personally believe that Super Speed should be given the Ninja Run treatment and get both a jump height buff and an air control buff. It shouldn't be anywhere near Super Jump, but about the level you get with Combat Jumping and/or Hurdle. And, no, I have no shame in this becoming better than the actual Ninja Run - a bonus pack power which requires no power pick.

*shakes magic 8ball* "Signs point to yes" Hmm...

I have a Fire/Fire Brute whose fire powers I recoloured a dark blue and black variant, to imitate what I like to call "dark fire." I designed the character as more of a force of destruction, and have written his fire as less of a chemical reaction and more of a manifestation of that force. As of I18, I have access to Pyre Mastery... Only I don't, really. I can't take any of his Fire Epic powers because those epics are orange/yellow, whereas his fire is blue/black. Bummer.

My 50 Energy/Energy/Foce Blaster recoloured her energy blasts and energy punches both into a bright cyan colour, but now her Foce Mastery powers are in this sickening green tinge that would fit a Forcefields Defender, but doesn't fit my theme at all. It wasn't as bad before I could customize, but now...

My 40-ish DP/Elec Blaster is right now put on hiatus, because I recoloured her Electric Manipulation powers to be a dense teal, whereas her Electric Mastery powers show up as a purple, clashing pretty bad.

My 50 Fire/Fire/Pyre Blaster from before customization is right now forced to retain her Original fire colours, because I can't recolour Pyre Mastery.

My 40-ish Ice/Ice/Cold Blaster is forced to retain her original Ice effects because I can't recolour Cold Mastery.

My 40-ish D3 Scrapper is forced to retain his original Dark colours because I can't recolour Dark Mastery.

My 30-ish BS/Dark Scrapper cannot take Dark Mastery because I customized his Dark Armour colours to a blood red.

Both my 30-ish Necro/Dark and 30-ish Thugs/Dark Masterminds cannot use Ghost Widow's Patron pool because her brand of darkness is pastel yellow and not customizable. I'm not sure if they got access to a Dark Epic with I18.

I can't customize the powers for my 50 Stone/Stone Brute if I ever want to make use of the new Earth Mastery Epic he got access to in I18, because that's not customizable.

And I have others I'm forgetting about.

You could and you should. Treating people like cattle is insulting in the extreme, and while you may or may not be successful in that endeavour, expect people to take offence at your approach. A lot of the community spirit in City of Heroes comes from the fact that people here, in general, tend to be more personable and more open, treating their fellow men as a friend and an equal, providing fun, engaging and fair environment. Treating people like pack animals there to be herded by an alpha male runs precisely contrary to this tendency, and is likely to cheese off a great many people otherwise used to belonging to groups of friends.

I, myself, would not have tried to "fix" you over tells, as I know that's a pointless affair from years of experience. Telling people off changes nothing. However, I would give you a curt "No." and make a mental note to keep away from you because I do not appreciate being treated a faceless warm body there to fuel a soulless SG. Maybe it works for you, but it doesn't work for me. I am not a lost child just looking for guidance and I do not seek to latch on to the first person who offers me strong leadership. Quite the opposite - I'm willing to oppose anyone who tries that.

There's really only one thing to remember: When you invite people to anything whatsoever, the ONE thing you need to include in your invitation is a reason why they should care and why they should want to join you. Don't expect people to want to join ANYTHING and be in a constant state of waiting for an invite. Expect them to be perfectly happy the way they are, such that you have to CONVINCE them to join you.

I, on the other hand, feel completely the opposite way, and care precisely nothing for City of Heroes being a "world." I signed up with this game for just that reason - to play a game. And it's a fun game to play. I don't need a world to come attached to it, and I'm perfectly fine with outdoor zones being scenery and little more.

Matter of fact, I already do most of my "playing" indoors, shunning outdoor hunts when I can. The zones are pretty to explore. The zones are not, however, fun to live in.

*edit*
Just to clarify, I only speak for myself, and I hope everyone else will do the same.

That's one of the things I wanted to suggest, yes. Making the Hidden status harder to break by external forces while letting the Stealth component suppress as usual is one of the things I'd really like to see, at least in PvE. Yes, that would give Stalkers some serious protection when hidden (isn't that how it should be?) but the catch is that this is essentially Shadowy Presence - you're hidden, but you can't actually do anything without breaking that hide. In essence, it doesn't give the Stalker that much of an advantage over what he has now, other than just that little piece of mind that you can, in fact, move five feet without having your Placate's hide broken by some jackass with a fire axe.

I've already suggested that the Hidden status doesn't actually break from being attacked and only from attacking, but people didn't seem to take that well. I suppose I can see how this would be overpowered, but really, all that does is let Stalkers actually pull off their criticals, instead of constantly getting them interrupted. And it doesn't help you pull off an Assassin's Strike, because that's still interruptible.

You know what else I'd like to see? A chance for a "double critical." Every time a Stalker lands a guaranteed critical from Hide, he also has, say, a 5% chance to score ANOTHER critical on top of that. It's not something that's predictable or indeed very useful, as Scrapper criticals have shown us, but that added chance for ZOMGWTF?!? damage every once in a blue moon when your Total Focus happens to crit twice might grant a few smiles here and there. I don't foresee adding the chance for a double critical to basic out-of-Hide scrapping, however.

Really, though, those are just random ideas. I would be perfectly satisfied with Leo's idea of a re-hide on a kill (or an enemy defeat on which the Stalker did the most damage) and possibly making Hide harder to break by external forces. The rest is fluff.

*edit*
GOD DAMN REMEMBER ME YOU PIECE OF CRAP FORUM SOFTWARE!!!

Something that's probably been suggested, but how about adding a placate to every out-of-Hide critical? That still encourages Stalkers to fight, it still encourages them to seek teams (as the chance to placate increases), it helps them deal better damage and so be more useful to teams, and it makes sense - you just hit that guy right in the nuts, say, so he's likely to lose focus for a moment and lose sight of you.

*edit*
Oh, and before I forget - bringing Build Up up to 100% (at least) is something I've meant to support from the start, but I kept forgetting.

*edit*
I apologise for the disorganised nature of this post, but I'm putting these down as I remember them.

Can we please give target AoE powers and cones a guaranteed critical on JUST the target you're aiming for? That way, Head Splitter and Thunder Strike don't have to suck for criticals out of hide.

While I do agree that Stalkers need options between more stealthy and more open, I'm not sure tweaking resistance-based sets to aid in scrapping is a good solution. For one, certain sets straddle the line between the two, of which Willpower is a good example. For another, you're actually running into a serious risk of making defence-sets redundant. Right now, defence-based sets have an advantage in that it's easier to exploit the AT's mechanic, which is both fiddly and uncertain. If you give resistance-based sets an advantage that produced comparable results without the need for fiddly re-hiding, then you're creating an imbalance which actually sounds very dangerous.

The reason I keep poking at the Hide mechanic is because it's rigged to respond to hits or misses, which is intrinsically linked to defence, but not resistance. I feel that if the mechanic were less one-sided, or had other aspects which minimized its one-sidedness, then that problem would take care of itself. That's why I cling to Leo's suggestion of on-kill re-hide. Because such a re-hide does not depend on either accuracy or resistance, but rather on killing things, it's inherently unbiassed. It depends on your primary, and regardless of flavour, Stalker primaries are designed to kill stuff first and foremost.

This isn't a unique problem, actually. Brute Fury is just as biassed. Fury depends on the speed of outgoing player attacks and the speed of incoming enemy attacks. This has the effect of benefiting sets with weaker, faster attacks over those with slower, heavier attacks, even though both designs are considered legitimate. It also serves to make slow effects undesirable, hence why Brutes lost Ice Melee and Ice Armour in Beta.

This, pretty much, is the root problem of designing one mechanic to span across all powersets in a given AT - it all too often doesn't play well with some of them. If each set had its own "inherent," then I feel it would be much easier to balance, but that's out of the question at this point in time.

I cannot disagree with this. Well stated.

I haven't really seen much evidence of that, considering what Gaussian had me do to the Rogue Vanguard leaders, but even if we assume killing is frowned upon... My question is "and what of it?" The characters who kill in this game are still tagged as heroes, or at most vigilantes (who are still heroes).

Furthermore, do we have reason to believe that Sister Psyche in particular would look down on killing?

Manticore is a hero, according to the game. Manticore kills people according to the game. Logic would suggests that it is possible to kill people and be a hero. Therefore, it is not "my game in my own head," it is stated in-game lore allowing for that.

*edit*
And your link does nothing to answer my original question - what's stopping Sister Psyche from just reading his mind?

Unless you have an example of lore stating that, in this game world, anyone who kills is a villain, which you don't.