Samuel_Tow

There are plenty of other things to earn, like everything else in the entire game. Experience, inf, enhancements, recipes, salvage, badges, titles, levels, incarnate levels, souvenirs, etc. Cosmetics should not be among these, less you want to earn the right to use your Enter an Space keys when writing bios.

Well, that's what bridges and elevators would have helped with. People got lost in the crevices because the only way to exit them was in the far South of the zone, so if you fell towards the dam wall, you had to backtrack all the way out. Adding elevators for an easy way out, however, would have fixed that. They added elevators anyway, so I don't see what more flooding helped with. You still need the lifts to get out, they just go less far down than they would otherwise have.

I'm not saying they're not worthy of a good bio. To each their own. However, every time a thread like this starts, funny characters dominate completely and entirely. To me, personally, this is not interesting, and it has caused me to lose interest in backstory threads very quickly when all I read are joke characters.

Here's my old argument from several years ago: If they were meant to be a power-up of sorts, they fail completely and utterly. Yes, some characters benefit from suddenly getting glowing hands. Other characters, however, do not. My tough, nimble martial artist most certainly does not, to the point where I've disabled all Super Reflexes auras, as well. She doesn't make sense to glow.

I understand locking a reward that's "always good," like an enhancement or a recipe or hell, even a power. Something that's always going to at least have the potential to add to my character. But not all characters benefit from auras, and not all characters' increase in power manifests by glowing lights. As a rule of thumb, any character whose power is physical, such as strength, speed, sense and so forth, is unlikely to need an aura, or indeed WANT an aura.

Let me put it like this - I've seen a LOT of people grab an aura for no reason that I could determine, seemingly just because it's a reward that suddenly opened to them. I don't know if it's for prestige or because they might as well, but many people wear auras because they're "rewards," to the detriment of their own costumes. Now contrast that by how many people wear Combat Auras. Very few that I've seen, and for the simple reason that they're available at character selection. Anything available at character selection, you can use. So the question is SHOULD you. Anything that comes as a reward comes with an incentive to use it. After all, why bother with the aura mission otherwise?

Personally, I prefer to work with not-loaded tools. Let players assign values to their own costume pieces, instead of having the game assign values for them.

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All of that said, of course, I would still be OK with leaving capes and auras as unlockables provided the assinine weapon unlock badges are made global. It's just a principle argument, but I can sidestep my principles in this case.

I wouldn't call it "nerdrage," I just didn't understand what you were saying. Starting with the fact that you were getting disconnected and so prevented from using the power would have helped. As you phrased it, it sounded like "I'm playing other games, so make the power not time out!" which is "I need scissors! 61!" levels bwha?

"Useless," in that it has no real practical use. It only work on Infected, it voids any rewards and it times out very quickly. Yes, I suppose a power which makes people explode is cool (if you're Kimblee), but I'd hardly call that "useful."

I'm pretty sure my gun-totting character is more than six years old, but given that she's a space alien, eh. You never know. Could be she experienced time dilating on her way to Earth and is actually 200 years old, but it only took us a year before she was created and when she came to earth and "slowed down." You never know.

A distinction needs to be made between badges given to the player and badges given to the character. I fully believe there should be a stronger division, with more stuff being global, especially costume-related stuff.

As far as the "why are you desperate" question, you may as well have asked "why do you care about badges at all." It's a legitimate question, actually, and one I've asked before, but you've been here long enough that an answer to that exists, and it is very convincing to the people who have it.

Patch on Test? Lemme' update and have a look. I don't see necks mentioned, however.

True, true. That I like. Well, the gloves a little less so, since the hand size is still about the same, but I'm still counting that. The Omega boots, though. MAN! I love those. I need a monstrous concept that can use those. I wish we had something like them for Monstrous legs.

Oy Vey. I don't know why it was believed that weapons had to scale down by THAT MUCH for women, but it's made picking out a weapon a very solemn affair.

As far as the Rikti weapons go, I've conceded that they pretty much may as well not even exist. Period. They're harder to get than most other weapons, Vanguard included, and that's IF you can even snag an invasion, and that's IF Invasions don't lag you to the pits of hell.

I may rant about the ITF, about 100 Overseers or about hundreds of Vanguard merits, but these are a cakewalk compared to the Rikti weapons. Such a massive investment for a single weapon, something you have to do multiple times for multiple characters, is just... Bad design, to say the least.

I was worried this would devolve into what these threads usually devolve into: iPwn, Followed by Ninjas, Deja Vuvuzela and that sort of "joke characters," like that Malibu Ken I ran across the other day. Thank you, Samuraiko, for proving me wrong and restoring my faith

For myself, there are too many to name, and most are too complex to waste people's time with. If I had to choose a few simpler ones, they'd be... Let's see:

Kyle Young: A young boy born into a normal family, who is in fact the mortal embodiment of an incredibly powerful eldritch demon. The hitherto unnamed demon decided to vacate "hell" and move to Earth because he was dissatisfied with what hell had become. Once a place where the wicked were punished for their sins, these days hell is a place where unscrupulous demons tempt innocent souls and harm them undeservedly, and for this traditionalist hardliner, that is completely unacceptable. So he left his brethren to make a mockery of his legacy and instead moved to Earth, where he could punish the wicked in more direct ways. So you have this little kid running around in a baseball cap, acting like a little kid for the most part, but who massive demonic power and demonic assistance to call upon at a moment's notice.

Cecity: A young, spunky girl who went completely blind at one point. She learned to compensate with her other senses, until she lost them, too. Locked in a complete sensory black hole with neither sight nor sound nor touch, she eventually developed a sixth sense of sorts, the ability to simply "know" what goes on around her, apparently by extra-sensory means. This sixth sense gave her unmatched awareness and reaction speed, which she now uses to "fight crime and the forces of evil," just as her childhood heroes had done.

Slime Girl (seriously) - An experiment to create an "infinite energy" generator based on highly reactive biomass went awry, killing the entire staff of the facility and exploding in green good everywhere. An unwitting janitor who had essentially slept through the apocalypse mopped up a puddle of goo before he realised the disaster. The goo reacted with the high-tech cleaning chemicals in his bucket, producing a sentient life form which developed both intelligence and personality at a very rapid pace, assuming the form of one of the bishujo dolls our sad janitor had in his home. With the ability to reform after any injury and the high electro-static charge her biomass was capable of, Slime Girl is now trying to find her identity, enacting the heroics as found in her "mentor's" comic books.

And an artist that's not actually against it, which (believe it or not) is my primary concern. The one thing I am more afraid of than anything else is that the City of Heroes art team in general is simply against this, and that they view the big legacy pieces as just that - Legacy pieces they are obligated to keep in the game, but which they would not want to make more of.

Believe me, Jay's Enforcer set was amazing at the time, but it was pretty much the last big set we got. Everything else has been small and skintight, pretty much. OK, aside from the PPD boots. But where are the PPD gloves with the large shields? Those are the ones I wanted to use, but I can't...

They're incredibly "hands-off" for people who are supposedly running the show, though.

I haven't noticed her running ahead of an invisible Specter, myself. I see her running after them and shooting as she catches up.

And what I'm talking about isn't so much perception as whatever mechanic it is that makes me lose target when an enemy is "too hard to see." If she loses target, she may not try to chase, because she'll lose aggro with it, as well.

I'm not exactly "fine" with that, but if it means all other costume pieces get to be globalised, it's a concession I'm willing to make. That said:

Capes already exist as a precedent in the form of every booster pack cape ever sold. Having unique and special capes earnable this way, though, I could see. "Other people's stuff" is a different concept from "generic costume pieces" in my book, and while which is which is debatable, "capes at 20" is a small price to pay for Rularuu Weapons at level 1, given the badge beforehand.

The Witch Hat I can concede on, though not on principle, but mostly because it looks terrible. I don't agree with it, but again, I'm willing to compromise where it don't bite as bad.

The dice I'm easy on. Keep 'em if you wish, I make no contest.

I'm not sure how happy I am with auras at level 30, however, not now with Alpha and Omega around.

Well, these pictures are what finally inspired me to post this, and Leo is right - the first pic makes the sword look bigger than it is thanks to a wide camera angle. It was the only decent shot of the whole sword that was from a cinematic, however, at least that I could think of. Luckily, Darksiders stores its cinematics as WMV files

But, yes, that's the kind of compromise I'm more than willing to make - I don't necessarily want stuff that's bigger. I just want stuff that's as big as what we have now, just more of it. I already covered weapons before, but think about costume pieces.

When I think "big shoulders," what choices do I have? Well, Medieval or, at a stretch, Valkyrie and... That's about it. All the other shoulders are either CONSIDERABLY smaller or just long and not massive looking. I will freely admit that the Vegeta shoulders are probably the biggest ones we have, but they don't look massive. They just look pointy and decorative, in case you felt like giving Emperor Ming the Merciless a run for his money. Same for gloves. It's Large Robotic or bust. Even Enforcer are too small. And you already mentioned boots.

The problem is that I have a LOT of characters, and a fair few of them benefit from being big. Pretty much as soon as I made Tyler, however, I may as well have stopped trying, because he just about used up every large piece I had access to. Of course, Tyler is an exception (and the guy I'd make as tall as a Fake Nemesis if I could), but I have others who would do well being big, and there really aren't many options left that I could use on them without feeling like I'm making Tyler again, but on a smaller scale. It's always those boots, those gloves, those shoulders, or maybe the one variant that exists here and there.

I don't really need gloves bigger than Large Robotic. Those are ridiculous as it is. But can I please have a medieval texture for them? Or maybe a variant that's a large bio-organic arm, like what Omega almost achieved and ultimately failed to do? We already have two sets of large gloves - Large Robotic and Engorcer, and both of these are tech and robotic. Why not a large leather glove, or a large hand made of rock like what Hellboy had? Why not a giant medieval glove like what War had? There are plenty of things that could be done with this without actually getting any bigger, but by actually just simply being "as big."

Exactly. The options we have right now for swords, at the very least, are actually LONGER in some cases than even I'd like, but almost without exception all the long options are very thin. Personally, I want to see a sword that looks like it has mass behind it, even just a little. The Legacy Broadsword does a good job on females, because the way it scales up give it very broad and above all very THICK blade, something Rularuu's Bane does not necessarily accomplish for women. Rularuu's Bane itself sort of does that for the Huge model, because it scales up quite a ways, allowing for its otherwise thin flat blade to grow quite a bit of thickness, and the breadth of the blade, as well as the thickness of the grip guard, play well into a feeling of mass. It's still a sharply pointed weapon that tapers almost continuously towards the end, however, and I'd be interested in seeing a more straight-edged blade that only starts to taper in towards the end.

"Fat" is exactly what I had in mind. When it comes to swords, I want broader swords with thicker blades. When it comes to axes, I want larger axes with broader heads and thicker blades. When it comes to maces, I want wider handles, bigger heads and longer shafts.

See, when it comes to swords, they have length enough, even more than enough. LONG broadswords are a dime a dozen, even from the default options, now with the two Chinese swords. But almost all of them are just too thin. Another thing that bothers me is how short the handles on most of these swords are. I know BABs argument back in the day was that they're one-handed weapons and should have a one-handed weapon grip, but you know what? I actually prefer to have weapons which look like they might actually be two-handed, but are wielded with one hand at the moment. Even when they're not two-handed, a longer grip serves to offset the "oddness" of a longer, more massive bade very well, plus they make the sword look even bigger without actually making it functionally bigger, which I'm all about.

When it comes to maces and axes, however, these have very, very little length. Outside of a few special case, most axes and maces only ever reach as high up as the character's shoulder, with the elbow at 90 degrees. I'm not sure why that is, but I would LOVE to see my morning star screwed on the top of a longer shaft and my Roman Axe bolted to the end of a longer axe handle. Not as long as a sword with an axe at the end, obviously, but longer than this. At least getting as high up as the character's eye level when held in combat stance. Right now, the only axes and maces that do that are the Legacy ones on women. Roman axes kind of fit the bill, though their shafts are still as short and the Fantasy Mace and the Tech mace (of all things) are relatively longer, but the Warhammer - the one option you'd THINK would be very big - is actually remarkably short, offering a very small, very shallow swing.

But again - weapons don't need to get much bigger than what we already have, if any bigger at all. We just need more big options, and big options that are less about total reach and more about a feeling of mass.

*edit*
Shields are another matter entirely. Almost all of the ones we have are very thin metal and actually rather a small flat size, as well. There are a few that feel massive, true, and I had to make do with the Celtic shield (I don't know what it's called - the one with variable spikes) for my Axe Brute, but even that's just a very small shield. In fact, it's so small that the circle of the shield is about as big as the circular head of her Legacy Battle Axe

Now, I know that larger shields have clipping problems, as BABs lamented back in the day, and that's mostly with shoulder pieces. I guess that would be less pronounced if they move out with bigger gloves (they do that, right?), but I'm more than prepared to simply not pick shoulders which stick out if I choose to carry a bigger shield.

What I mean by "bigger shield" is just thicker metal, more than anything else. I'd love to see a round shield bigger than the Romulus Shield, but even that's not too small, it's just too thin. It's probably realistic that it's thin metal backed up by would, but can't I have my large chunk of iron backed with more iron on the inside and plated with more iron on the outside? In fact, the Vanguard shield is probably about as big as I'd like to use, but that's both unlockable and highly tech, and energy shields just don't have a feeling of mass to them. Give me a metal shield as big as the Vanguard one and I will be overjoyed.