Samuel_Tow

Pretty much the extent of what I've done, myself. As I have a fairly stern rule to never "pretend" something is something else it's clearly not, I have the following few rules for when a power "alteration" applies:

1. The power's nature is not change and is explainable. If I pick an energy attack, it has to be re-purposed into something that might do energy damage, be that "generic energy," kinetic energy, electricity, radiation, sonics and so forth. Similarly, if I pick a power which deals negative energy damage, it has to be re-purposed into something which would naturally deal negative energy damage. So sand which doesn't count, but EVIL sand which saps your life counts.

2. The powers function is not changed. If I pick a power which holds, I don't re-purpose it into something that speeds people up. If I take an attack with a sword, say, I don't re-purpose it to pretend it's actually healing the people I hit with it. If I take an attack that burns people with fire, I don't pretend it can heal people, too. There ARE healing fire powers, but Blaze and Fireball ain't them.

3. Character ability does not alter in nature. If I make a Controller who focuses on immobilizing his enemies first and foremost, I don't pretend this is a character who charges in head first and beats people up with his bare hands. If I make a Stalker, it's a character who favours surprise attacks and isn't likely to pick an open fight for no reason. If I make a Brute, even if said Brute has a stealth power in it (say, Energy Cloak), I don't pretend that this character favours sneaking around, so much as I infer that he is ABLE to sneak around if need be.

That said, even with those rules, it's possible to stretch certain sets VERY wide, Willpower especially. The last incarnation of Willpower that I had relied on a "kinetic barrier" that the character - a robot - is able to recalibrate in real time to protect herself from a LOT of damage. While the barrier can be broken, it's much more likely for her to suffer if she loses her concentration and lets her barrier collapse, hence survivability relying on the will to keep fighting and the presence of mind to keep thinking even in the heat of battle.

And, of course, the obvious recolouring of Energy Manipulation to pair up with Radiation Blast for want of Radiation Manipulation. It still deals energy damage, making it consisted with radiation, it still deals damage as expected and it's pretty much what a Blaster does anyway - kill stuff with lethal doses of energy.

I'm 25, and I've seen it on TCM. Now, WHY I decided to sit through that slow, plodding movie I'll never know, but the design is sound. However, I'm not sure it's sound for an entire persistent zone, so much as for a one-shot mission where you go into such a park and fight berserk mechanical cowboys... And occasionally berserk mechanical Romans, for what that's worth. It just doesn't seem like something which could be maintained in the long run without self-destructing.

You still run into the same problem as you did with Cimerora: Why are guys with primitive weapons able to threaten my girl who can take an armour-piercing rocket on the face without so much as scuffing? Cimerorans are TANGIBLY believable, in that they're history's best warriors (as if), but even then it's a massive stretch unless they're somehow superpowered, which they don't seem to be. And when it comes to pistols, I realise that Malta Ginslingers already hurt supers with pistols, but Malta in general specialise in taking out meta-humans, so it's kind of believable they'd have special high-tech weapons that just look like ordinary pistols. But if the denizens of such a West World, if you will, "never evolved" past the technology of the 19th century... Well, put it like this - how is a Colt Single Action Army or a Winchester repeating rifle going to hurt an armour-clad, energy-shielded super when Clint Eastwood protected himself with something as simple as a wood stove hatch?

Well, I guess this might work if it's very low level, like late teens to early 20s, but bringing Portal Corp up makes me think 40s, like Cimerora.

And a few of us will be sad to see the only decent caves in the game go.

Should have titled the thread Poseur?, since that's what we're talking about.

I could not possibly disagree more. The notion that maps should be simple, brainless, straight corridors from entrance to objective has always been one thing I despise, because it has singlehandedly ruined gaming for me in practically every game. Maps become linear hallways, of which Final Fantasy XIII is the ultimate expression, and branching paths are removed for the sake of removing dead ends.

What we get as a result is the boring as hell, no imagination grey labs of Praetoria, which have no intersections and have no branching paths that go for more than 10 feet. I know that each hallway will only ever lead to a single room, and each room will only ever have one entrance and one exit, and as long as I find a door I didn't come in through, I'm moving forward. Why would I even need to use my map at all?

I hate boring maps most of all, and maps consisting of nothing but long, wide corridors and big empty rooms are the epitome of boring.The pink caves that came with the Shard are a primary example of this, and the Cimeroran caves, which are a remake of the pink caves, are just as bad. The Praetorian grey labs are even worse, just basically consisting of wide hallways and cavernous chambers. And Arachnos bases are just criminal. One long hallway from door to boss with practically nothing in-between. I explode in jubilations every time I find one of those huge, bottomless rooms, because it means something other than hallways, at least.

Blue and brown caves are easily my favourite tileset in the entire game, both because they are non-trivial to traverse and actually require a bit of thought above and beyond pressing forward, but also because they're virtually the only close quarters we have. Variety is what makes this game great, and having narrow, winding caves is variety.

Every time people exposit how maps should be "simple" and "linear," I facepalm out of instinct.

If I have to choose between having to unlock costumes on every character and there being a high veteran reward that unlocks them, I prefer the reward. It's better than nothing.

*edit*
And even with your link, I still barely find them. They're hidden amidst something like 20 stickes in a forum I almost never visit. What was wrong with having a copy at the top of every forum?

Why do people act like I want to eat my cake and have it too when I say I want to have the ability to pick all five Epic powers. It's not like I'm asking for an extra power pick. To take all five Epics, I have to give up something else, hence why there's still a choice. In fact, more choice, not less. Not all Epic pools have five useful powers. In fact, I dare say most Epics aside from Blaster ones struggle to string together three useful powers, let alone five.

Let's say I CAN take Focused Accuracy, Conserve Power, Body Perfection, Laser Beam Eyes and Torrent. Why would I WANT to? I mean, OK, maybe for concept over performance, or if I had any useless slots, but half of those powers are empty picks anyway. Yes, I have the choice of taking them all, but is it the SMARTER choice? I dare say no. No, not really. So letting me do that doesn't instantly give me a no-brainer decision.

Let me flip that around once more. I can take four power pools, and take four powers out of each of them. That's a total of 16 power picks, something which I am capable of doing mechanically. Am I going to? ... No! Of course not! Because that would be stupid! But I still can. Yet just because I CAN doesn't mean that I SHOULD. Just because an option exists doesn't mean it's automatically a good one.

What I'd like to see here is more choice. Maybe I want to stick to my 38 pick, or maybe I want to put it off for an epic power. Sometimes the former may be superior, sometimes the latter, only right now I don't have a choice. It's either my 38 power or pretty much nothing else that I want. Especially now that I won't have to worry about Fitness, there's very little in ANY normal pool that I want, outside of travel powers and their prerequisites.

That's basically a form letter you can put together for anything ever. You could make a counter-argument using those exact same words if the developers offered to pay us money to play their game.

Ah, the classic cutting wind... I've always imagined both Head Splitter and Golden Dragonfly as representing something like this, what with their ability to strike targets farther away than the blade can reach. And, yeah, among other things, this is precisely what I have in mind. It makes absolutely no sense, but it's so damn cool that it makes no sense NOT to have such a move

I know for a fact I stopped reading the Community Digest when Ex Libris made it a habit to just strike up idle conversations with people on the forums, and I haven't gone back to reading the Community Digest yet. I have no problem with developers and community reps just having fun and chatting it up on the forums, but it's not something I'll specifically seek out and read.

And that's pretty much what our Community Reps used to do - hang out a lot.

You almost had me going there.

Yeah, that was something I forgot to mention. Jack's Statesman was an obvious Mary Sue if you read any stories about him. He flung Rikti shuttles (the big shuttles, I might add, like the one in the Crash Site) at each other and walked off a direct nuclear explosion to the back of the head. The old City of Heroes intro shows him taking down a huge Rikti saucer, possibly the one that ended up in the Crash Site, basically by flying into it.

He was such a Mary Sue that he didn't even appear in the game - such was his power that the game simply couldn't render it. One has to wonder why you design your flagship character to be so far beyond the scope of the game, but whatever. When he did show up in all of ONE mission, many Issues after it was originally created, he showed up as a level 54 Archvillain whose Punch could deal several thousand points of damage and who basically couldn't be defeated by anything the mission had to offer.

The different versions of the Statesman we've been getting haven't been any better. Tyrant was the strongest on his world and emperor of everything and Reichsman cheats by having eleventy billion hit points. Even his counterpart, Lord Recluse, is written as the big bad with his own county that everyone looks up to, and that our characters want to be like. Ugh!

Luckily, since Jack left, the development team have really eased up on the Statesman's Mary Sue. We can beat him in several TFs, we can beat him solo (I have) and he even comes along, chanting "You lead the way, this is your adventure!" over and over like a broken record. He shows up as an Elite Boss who visibly loses hit points when he gets swarmed and whose attacks, while strong, are still on a reasonable level. He's just a very strong hero these days, but easily within reach of our characters, at least when we're solo. Tyrant/Emperor Cole is still a bit of a Mary Sue by being revered, feared and, above all, pulling an Arthas by not showing up anywhere to be fought, but I'm sure that when higher-level Praetorian content comes about, he'll get his own Time After Time equivalent story.

These days, the game is pretty good about making us feel as though OUR characters are the major players in the story, rather than the nameless extras we were treated as before. Anyone who doubts this, go do the new Maria Jenkins arc. It will change your opinion.

So is Tunnel Rat.

So is Scirocco, whose entire story is one of human folly and human tragedy, and whose only apparent motivation seems to be to make the world a better place. So is, for that matter, Barakuda's backstory - she was just an ordinary diver who was somehow changed by the Coralax. In her words: "I didn't want to be a monster like... Like all of you!" So is, in fact, the backstory of the Wretch.

And if we look further, a lot of villainous contacts are given a great deal of sympathy. People like Captain Petrovic, who watched while Scrapyard was brutally murdered and carried the guilt of inaction for years, or even Dean McArthur, who was a PPD cop that got wronged by the system and disillusioned.

Almost universally, the Circle of Thorns are looked upon with sympathy for their plight despite being pretty definitive bad guys, and you'll notice that I entirely skipped Praetoria for obvious reasons.

So are Miss Liberty's, Sister Psyche's (hell, sister Solaris wears an outfit to make Sleeze blush), Aurora Borealis (Check out Praetor Tillman's cleavage, yo!) and even Mynx/Bobcat, judging by that lounging pose. Oh, and Swan. Can't forget Swan.

Unless a female character is covered head to toe in armour (like Valkyrie) or riddled with ugly cybernetics (like Clamor) or otherwise meant to be specifically unattractive, all of their incarnation will be as attractive, if not more so.

Foreshadow's costume is entirely unique, using off-model arms, I suspect using the Robotic Arms tech, something we can't do. Mirror Spirit's costume is similarly unique, sporting a distinctly Asian face (something the editor doesn't provide), a hairstyle with "hair loopies and a cape rig, as well as two cape rigs attacked to a unique robe. Scirocco is also unique, featuring a tunic with a hanging coat tail, unique headgear and a unique weapon, from what I can tell. Black Scorpion is COMPLETELY unique, featuring what is ostensibly a unique uni-model all to himself. The Statesman uses a cape that's not available to players and Lord Recluse has that eight-legged spider pack, when all players can get are the distinctly uglier four-legged Crab Spider backpacks. Captain Mako has a wholly unique fish head, when the game has nothing even close to resembling a fish head, with the majority of our monster heads resembling roadkill mammals that someone left out in the sun.

Oh, and lest we forget, Maelstrom has functional holsters, something that is not only wholly unique in both player and NPC pieces, but also something which was alluded to being impossible to do.

When players found ways to hold AVs, the developers introduced purple triangles. When players found ways to permahold the Hamidon, the developers redesigned the encounter. When players found ways to short-circuit the Katie Hannon TF, the developers made the Ten Times the Victory fight mandatory for mission completion. Balancing encounters so they work as designed is an ongoing process. And last I heard, that "nerf" was repealed before it even hit Live. Oh, and let we forget Jacks old idea that bosses should be team-only content, followed by the I4 boss buff that bombed.

Furthermore, Ghost Widow is hardly the only AV that has unique or strong powers. The Nemesis Staff, as used by players, is single-target, whereas the same power used by Fake Nemesis or Nemesis himself, is AoE, and a rather large one. Scirocco has a bunch of unique powers of his own, all of Black Scorpion powers are entirely unique to his model (well, and that of Dr. Quatrexin) and both Lord Recluse and the Statesman have signature powers of their own. The Statesman has his Zeus Lightning, which may or may not have transformed into a ground punch, and Recluse has, in addition to his Bane Spider reinforcements, a whole host of his own unique powers. And aside from Soul Storm, Ghost Widow's powers are just pastel coloured darkness, something which power custimization ought to be able to handle.

Nosferatu uses Dark Blast, Dark Melee and Dark Armour, and I'm pretty sure he uses Chill of the Night, too. Positron, despite being a Rad/Rad Defender by design, nevertheless has access to Overload from Energy Aura, to say nothing of hit points and resistances to put Tankers to shame, which Defenders really shouldn't. Bastion has Energy Blast, Energy Melee and Energy Aura on him, as well. Synapse has Electrical Blast, Electrical Melee and what feels like Super Reflexes.

And that's just signature characters. Regular enemies mix sets all the time. Behemoths easily have access to Fire Blast, Fiery Melee and Invulnerability or, alternatively, Fiery Aura. Baphomet feels like he has all three and then some, and the Envoy of Shadows has Fire Blast, Fiery Melee, Fiery Aura AND Chill of the Night. Speaking of which, Infernal has half of Fire Blast, most of Battle Axe and some defence set which I think is Fiery Aura.

NPCs have never respected the same rules as players, not in power selection, not in power strength, not in stats. They cheat, because they pretty much have to.

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I think you're reading far, far too much into this. A Mary Sue is supposed to be a tacked-on character who puts established canon to shame and is beloved by all. Well, Black Scorpion hates her, Mako hates everybody, and while it looks like Scirocco likes her, he's actually trying to "save" her in a most patronising fashion. Additionally, the one time she tries to do something on her own, the narrative slaps her down hard and puts her in her place. She is strong, yes, but so are all AVs, and she does have unique powers, as has been the design principle behind signature characters. The story is not at all kind to her, either foiling her plans, painting her as a slave to fate or outright humiliating her.

If anything, Sister Airlia is much more a Mary Sue because she's never wrong.

The problem is that when you're given something to streethunt, pretty much 90% of your time is spent looking for the damn things. Just imagine hunting 50 Carnies in Peregrine Island on a Mastermind. You'd have to fight the entire zone ten times over before you were even half-way through. On a good day.

Outdoor missions, yeah, I'm with you on that one. You're there to kill stuff, so keeping track of your henchmen is part of game balance. But with overworld hunting, I disagree, because a large part of overworld hunting is travelling and NOT fighting.