Samuel_Tow

To each his own, I guess. Personally, that's my most favourite kind of story.

I wouldn't say so much the effect powers have on the environment as the effect powers have, period. I don't know why nukes were designed to be almost entirely effectless, but the comparison with Self Destruct is a solid one. Self Destruct is better in every fashion, at least in terms of showmanship. Consider the following:

Self Destruct starts with what sounds to me like an alarm and steam shooting from the character's joints, does a pose, and then erupts into an animated fireball with screen shake and nice effects. Inferno, by comparison, does one wave of Blazing Aura with some screen shake and that's it. Lame! At this point, something as simple as Explosive Arrow is more impressive than Inferno, at least in visual effect. In fact...

Think back to when you've played with a Fire Blaster. You and your team wade into a huge spawn and start hacking at it, when suddenly all enemies drop dead. Immediately someone asks "What happened?" Because you don't know. There was fire, sure, but with a Fire Blaster around, there's always fire. How was that different? Oh, his entire endurance bar is gone. Of course! He must have nuked! Let me ask the following question, then: Why do I have to look at a Blaster's endurance bar to know that he has used his nuke? Should I not have been able to tell from the glorious, amazing effect his nuke had? Because it didn't have a glorious, amazing effect. It has barely any effect at all. Sure, enemies died, but it felt like they all suddenly developed heart attacks and dropped dead.

When someone fires Explosive Arrow, you know it. When someone uses Lightning Rod, you know it. When someone uses Inferno? "Wait, what just happened?" It's very strong as an attack, but very weak as an effect. Hell, Blackheart from Marvel Super Heroes had a better-looking inferno with his standard attacks, the one that opens a hole in a ground and shoots a pillar of flame. In fact, Captain Commando's Captain Corridor (stupid name, but whatever) looks more amazing to me than Nova does, and amusingly enough, a lot like what Luminary's nova looks like in that Top Cow comic book where the girls take Dominatix to Pocket D.

To be honest, in a lot of instances, I wouldn't want to so much as touch animations at all. Definitely don't want to turn everything in the ballet the gritty fans hate, believe me. But the game seriously lacks in the visual effects department. And I don't mean Bloom and Ambient Occlusion and Dynamic Lights. I mean simple effects produced by powers. So many of them could be so much more exciting if they had better sounds and better visuals. Hell, just look at that video I made for a better Full Auto sound effect that people seemed to like at the time and notice how much of a difference that makes.

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I guess that just reaffirms my affinity for big explosions. I will freely admit that when a movie or show deovles into just continuous streams of big explosions and nothing more, it becomes boring. The old Dragonball Z proved that to a fault. However, I also know that a show punctuated by big explosions and culminating in big explosions can be very, very entertaining, ironically, as the remastered Dragonball Kai proves pretty clearly, ostensibly by trimming most of the unnecessary filler booms.

I realise that some people feel this covers up for bad storytelling by throwing eyecandy at the viewer and hoping he's entertained in the most basic way. And with a lot of recent movies, I would actually agree that that is the case, Transformers being a fairly appropriate example. But at the same, when I watch a movie about super people and it ends on a low note with the bad guy causing his own destruction or being tricked out of victory, I feel cheated out of a climax. In a way, I WANT the bad guy to get as close as he can to victory, such that right at the end, he can be at his full strength and STILL be defeated clean as a whistle. Not cheated, not tricked, defeated fair and square. This is what makes me sit up and take notice. This is what makes me fully cheer on a character. This is what pulls me into the experience. And believe me - for someone as jaded on general fiction as I am, that is saying A LOT.

Conversely, endings like Fallout's alternative one where you unlock a door, hack a computer and set the vault to self destruct, never even facing against the final boss cheese me off to no end. Yeah, it makes sense, yeah it's cool it's there as an option, but man... How unsatisfying is it to skip what cold be the most exciting fight in the entire story?

Now that I think about it, this actually reflects on how I play not just this game, but any game - for the fights more than anything else. When people want to ghost, I complain. When people want to speed-run, I grumble. When people quit out of a mission while a fight is still going and whine for me to get out, too, I refuse. I will leave when the fight is done, or I will leave in a body bag. Any game I truly enjoy, I enjoy because it gives me the confidence to look for fights. I don't want to avoid the danger and complete the objective. I want to take the danger head on, walk through it and THEN achieve the objective. If I need to take out a specific boss, I'll just take out everybody, safe in the knowledge that the boss will be one of the guys I killed.

This, to me, is what makes a good story - a complicated build up leading up to a very simple, very impressive final confrontation. Which is interesting to finally put into words...

I should have specified, but I was looking for a discussion on the subject of WHY we like these things. Simply listing movies or games in a "my dad can beat up your dad" fashion just serves to elicit "I disagree," because there's nothing to discuss in "I like this movie." Why? Why does that movie work but this movie not? What does it have in it that the other doesn't? What does it do right?

If you don't enjoy over-analysing your, though, I have no problem with it. It's just hard to work with strict opinions.

*edit*
But I will admit - it was out of line for me to do that.

Yeah, I kind of get the impression that they were... But at the same time, they really, really aren't. Atomic Blast has a nice mushroom cloud, OK, but Nova, Inferno and even Black Star have almost no effect on their own and barely any on the enemies. You basically go boom, hear a moderately loud bang, the screen shakes and enemies die, as if from being startled too hard. And Thunderous Blast doesn't even look any different from Lightning Blast, to the point where I kept wondering how my friend was self-draining his Electric Blaster.

Most of these powers have upwards of three seconds of animation anyway. There's no reason why those, at least, couldn't be amazingly awesome. Inferno could either be a literal inferno of fire blasting from the ground or otherwise be a very large, very dense explosion. The very least Nova can do, as well, is have a shockwave, if not a visible pressure wave.

But, yeah, there is that. The stupid-long Bahamut Zero started to get on my nerves towards the end of the game when I had to fire the damn thing like three times per fight, and it takes like 30 seconds to play out. It's not so much a problem of every move being super, as Oni's Konoko was fully capable of shouting "Devil Spin Kick!" or "Rising Fury!" on every other attack and still come off really cool, but Final Fantasy's problem is that a lot of magic and a lot of summons are SO LONG! You start it out, and then watch a cutscene for the next minute. Sometimes literally, as is the case with Knights of the Round. That KILLS a game, and I wouldn't wish for such a thing in City of Heroes. But there is a LOT of room to make things "more amazing" without actually making them any slower.

Just a random example: Peacebringer Foot Stomp (rather, "Solar Flare") is significantly more impressive than vanilla Super Strength foot stomp, and for no reason other than because it adds that spiderwork of glowing cracks on the ground and that fountain of alien energy at the foot. I'm pretty sure it's the same duration, but it looks way cooler.

I don't think we'll get faster animations if we get alternates.

I couldn't disagree more.

That's probably the easiest flaw to point out in most fighting animes, and in a field that gets as goofy as this, that's saying a lot.

I think what a lot of anime fights look like is card games, because that's where some of the oldest ones actually come from. Pokemon, YuGiOh, Digimon, Bakugan and a few others are shows ostensibly drawn from card games and, to a large extent, made to sell said card games. That's fine when you're rendering a card game which is, by its very nature, a turn-based game of signature moves. That's what card games are. For a show like YuGiOh or Bakugan, that's understandable. They involve literal card play. For shows like Pokemon and Digimon... Rather less so, as they involve real time combat which still nevertheless consists of monsters standing around for the majority of the time. However, when it comes to something like Shaman King or Naruto or, yes, Dragonball Z, this becomes inexcusable because it's supposed to reflect actual combat.

In large part, it's just easiest to film this way, as most of your "animation" is static shots with the mouths moving and the actual costly animation is reduced down to a few seconds. This, however, produces instances of characters standing around doing nothing, looking surprised or grinning to themselves, and while DBZ makes no attempt to hide this (thus its charm), others are not as self-aware and produce pure parody of "standing around" combat that's reminiscent of Final Fantasy 7 more than anything else. To be fair, the Dragonball Kai anniversary release trims off most of the garbage and produces pretty amazing action, but that's neither here nor there.

All of that said, I would still take static combat if it meant seriously amazing scope and scale of powers. Final Fantasy 7, again, is a good example of this. Though battles there consist of people standing around for the most part, the kind of explosions, monsters and magic that gets brought to bear on the battlefield is staggering. I mentioned the Bahamut before, but that's the first of three, the others being Bahamut Zero who parts the sky and Neo Bahamut who shoots a death ray FROM SPACE. I'm sure amazing explosions can and probably have been mixed together with more dynamic combat. In fact, I dare say that Praetorians in general do a pretty damn fine job of this, especially the heavier Clockwork and the ACUs and BCUs. The effects they are given are just AMAZING.

A lot of the powers we have for our characters are OOOLD, and as a result, pretty boring (to me). The newer powers designed specifically for NPCs, on the other hand, demonstrate what can be done with a little bit of imagination and a rather a large bit of work. Hell, even going as far back as Kheldians, powers have been thoroughly amazing. For my part, I wish we had more of that for more powersets.

The Incarnate system may not bring more slots, but depending on what you want out of it, it can free up previously unavaliable slots. You can replace slotting across the board with an Incarnate Boost, freeing a slot of it per power if you wanted to.

So, yes, I agree.

I see. Let me explain and hope to put things more in perspective:

For the longest time, most of my 50s were Blasters. I have no idea WHY, since Blasters are my least favourite AT of those I can play at all, but there you go. These Blasters first even became viable at around 42 to 44 when I could grab their Epic shields and so provide myself some measure of protection and survivability enough to go wild with my attacks. And as we all know, going wild with your attacks is a surefire way for a Blaster to do some awesome things.

Over time, I've grown to adore certain powers. Personal Forcedield, in addition to saving my *** countless times, has been vital for my Energy/Energy Blaster both in setting up for Nova by herding things AND for causing Tac Ops to waste their stun grenades, Gunslingers to waste their ice bullets, Sappers to waste a shot and die while they animate, Dark Ring Mistresses to waste their Mask of Vitiation and so forth. In essence, PFF allowed me to strike first AFTER my enemies have expended their alpha. Foce of Nature, thereafter, was great at helping me get a leg up on EBs. Char, in addition, has been a boon to my Fire/Fire Blaster, Fire Shield has saved my life so many times, and despite how much people poo on it, I would never trade Rise of the Phoenix for anything in the world.

And then there's Munitions Mastery, the set which carried my first Blaster to 50. Between Cryo Freeze Ray acting as a third hold in addition to Beanbag and Taser, Sleep Gas Grenade letting me pick spawns apart one by one and LRM + Full Auto letting me take spawns apart all at once, the entire set basically made my Blaster. JUST AR/Dev sucks really, really bad. AR/Dev/Munitions, on the other hand, is well serviceable. I have since swapped Sleep Gas Grenade for Surveillance, which I may once again swap out of now that I've turned off bosses. We'll see. But the point is, at least for Blasters, Epics make the character for me.

To the point, in fact, that I feel a lot of the things in Blaster Epics - namely the shields - should have been in Blaster secondaries all along. If I were allowed to unlock Epics as early as, say, level 32 so that I could have the shield by 35, then my Blasters would be A TON more fun to play.

For everything else... Eh, not so much, I can see what you mean.

It's not really a case of what's VITAL for a character, Blasters notwithstanding, so much as what I WANT to take. I took my Time Bomb and six-slotted it. I took Rain of Fire and I think I six-slotted that. I take all my Mastermind attacks, and I slot those heavily. Five slots for the single-target ones, six for the AoE one (an extra endurance reducer). Really, not many of the powers I mentioned have much of a point, to say nothing of a strong benefit. But I wanted the powers nevertheless, and I found the slots to put in them. The problem is that for my 47 and 49 powers, there isn't much I can do to compensate. I can't pull slots from my other powers to them, because they come after most of my slots have already been allocated.

I want to have the ability to slot these powers if I so happened to have slots left from elsewhere. It's not vital that I do, it's not mandatory that I do, and I manage just fine without it. But I still WANT to have that ability. A couple more slots at 50 would be cool, but I know that won't happen. But if I can sacrifice slots from elsewhere... Why not? Seriously, why not?

This, pretty much, is what I had in mind when I posted the thread. And the reason I thought it deserved posting is I keep wanting more of that sort of thing, and as has been mentioned before... The game doesn't actually entirely deliver. Well, at least in regard to what we have access to, which is almost entirely old sets more than six years of age. In fact, look at some of the newer sets and you'll notice a LOT more... "Oomph," so to speak. Dual Blades has A TON of screen shake for a small weapon set, it has a lot of AoE damage and it has a lot of "wind crescent" effects that give it much more of a feeling of epic power than, say, Katana, which mostly just cuts.

The one biggest offender, in fact, is Sniper Blast, in my opinion. It's been described as a "bullet beam" to me, a concept I'm careful not to qualify for fear of offending the person who originally said it a few years ago. Suffice it to say that a power which deals this much damage really should look a LOT more amazing than what it currently does. Even Nova, a power which is already fairly impressive, isn't all that. Try using it with no enemies around you, and you'll notice it's an almost imperceptible effect. Where's my blue expanding fireball? Where's my pillar of light? Where's massive scorch mark? It's basically "Boom! You're dead!" I keep wishing either for a retooling of all the old powersets, or the addition of alternate animations which have greater punch.

I also want to expand a bit on Leo's view on "believability." To a certain extent, I can agree with that, as fights do indeed need to make at least an internal kind of sense. At the same time, however, I can't seem to resist the truly absurd types of fights, such as the bizarre sequences of events that pass for fights in Naruto and the large explosions festival of Dragonball Z and Dragonball Kai. There's something about a character diving from above the clouds, plummeting into his opponent and slamming down an amazingly powerful attack with full force. Yeah, any person would just splatter on such an attack, but I can look the other way if a world has no falling damage just because that makes for really cool fights.

Granted, as Dragonball Z showed us, too much super too frequently tends to make it lose its effect, so it's always a good idea to hold your characters' actual world-destroying powers back for the most part, both to avoid jading the audience and to avoid trivialising the plot. I like to build my characters like this, actually, but sadly, City of Heroes doesn't really lend itself too well to this, as it has very, very few actually "ultimate" powers. I can count about four or five nukes and about as many redundant "god mode" powers. Still, I like the notion of "layers of power" where a character is limited or self-limited to a certain level of power that he can't grow past unless the situation absolutely calls for it. One-shot powers, self-hurting powers, draining powers... The concepts are many, but as long as something spectacular comes of it, I'll always be happy

It's also in the Controls menu right under mouse sensitivity. Or possibly right ABOVE it, I'm not sure.

I think this is kind of a matter of semantics. I'm perfectly fine with "the game" in the sense of progression ending at 50 and there being a whole bunch of stuff to do with that accumulated power. It's what I do with my 50s, especially my newer ones who didn't have to do every arc in existence and then some just to hit 50.

But the thing is... We have sort of a middle ground. There's progress, but there really isn't progress. You get new powers, but you don't need them. If the game will end and have me fight things with a static power level, then do that. I won't complain. On the flip side, if there's progress, then let there be progress. Probably the biggest thing that turned me off Champions, at least mechanically, was that I kept taking stat boosts, and I never actually "felt" anything change. If the game's going to be static with no big power leaps, then so be it, but this kind of "semi-progress" is just... Eh. And especially 47 and up, the way power picks are bunched up. I keep thinking there has to have been a better way than to just flip level 50 and level 49.

The Incarnate system will indeed be interesting and, yes, will actually help with slots overall, at least in the Alpha slot, provided it manifests as the same thing I saw in Beta (and why wouldn't it?). In fact, I ran a few numbers back then, and I came to the conclusion that you can grab the Musculature Boost and gain about as much extra damage as the third level 50 Common Damage enhancement I have slotted in every attack. On, say, a Blaster who has approximately 10 attack powers, that means I can shave off a mass of slots for other things. Or I can get a roughly 9% damage increase across the board.

Of course, when I was planning this, those "more slots" were intended to go for endurance reduction, and with Stamina becoming inherent, the drive to do that is much lessened, to the point where I'll look into snagging either a general increase or something else entirely, like a recharge boost, though I don't remember if one existed.

To boot, we only ever saw the first two Tiers of Incarnate Boosts in Beta, which ignored ED by progressively increasing amounts and added more dual-aspect effects, even if the "secondary" aspect was rarely inspiring. I can imagine the T3 and T4 powers in that slot would be even stronger, and if they bypass ED by even more, I might just take a straight boost and deal with slotting as I always have.

With just "a couple of slots" with SOs, LRM is entirely worthless and, above that, pointless as a power pick. I honestly don't know how people can take attacks and not slot them for damage and accuracy at least, but for me if I'm going to pick a power, I want that power to be at least marginally well-slotted. LRM does not have to be a situational power and, indeed, isn't one if slotted well.

And, again, you ignore the bulk of my post. Didn't you quote that part? The part where I said:

Yes, I can do this. It also means that the last few levels for my character are entirely devoted to things I don't need, and often don't want because I put off that one power till the end when I didn't have to slot it and probably didn't really need to use it for the actual levelling up process. This is canibalising my final power, making the "achievement" of hitting level 50 decidedly "meh." Oh, great, another power I didn't need, followed by just three more slots. It's underwhelming, and it didn't have to be.

Just for comparison, the way the game ended before I1 when it was only up to level 40 was ideal. 38 was your final power pick, then the next two levels were both slot picks to refine that final power, or optionally something else. But because of how groups of three arrange themselves, we would have ended up with power picks at 41, 44, 47 and 50, with a power at 50 that would not be slottable, so they flipped 49 and 50 around. Personally, I'd have picked a more interesting solution, such as levelling up twice at 50, once for a power, once for slots, or such as spacing powers out even more and cutting out one power pick, or just giving out more slots at 50.

Yes, the current system works. My car works, too. It doesn't mean it's not a piece of junk and it doesn't mean it can't work better if the folks at Pimp My Ride wanted to pay me a visit.

It depends on the power. Some I do, some I don't. Total Focus I six-slotted, Headsplitter I six-slotted. I'm pretty sure I six-slotted Detonator, too. I'm not sure how that's relevant, however.

Two points:

1. This means that your final power pick which ought to be your best... Really isn't, because you're forced to deliberately put off a crappy power choice for last because of how the system is designed. Rather an anti-climax if you ask me. My game starts "ending" from around 47 or 48.

2. "Levelling just one level" will no longer be relevant as of I19, taking into account the Incarnate system. It will no longer be a case of "I'll be shelving this character anyway, who cares about the last few levels?" and be more a case of "I must take on tougher challenges now." That last power will have to last me through possibly ten Incarnate levels, if not more, so I REALLY have to make sure it's something that doesn't need slots, rather than something which needs them but I'm simply not going to use it.

Luckily, we have historically had art leads who are not "my way or the high way" jerks and have been very open to reason and suggestion, even in instances where they may not be fans of the suggestions. BABs was always cool about trying to break new ground and David has proven to be reasonable about accommodating player even when they make requests he doesn't prefer. The mere fact that I managed to turn him around on one point (and I'm the guy the developers probably listen to the least thanks after I rambled on for six years) is proof enough that the art team would not turn down any idea which expanded the game's breadth of concepts.

Monster and animal parts have been all but confirmed, and while we may need to ask for them repeatedly for some time and wait a year or two, "this isn't like anime" or "furries can suck it" will not, indeed, stifle people's creativity in ALL directions of character design.

Speaking of Mother Mayhem's new asylum, she really needs a new one. With Praetoria's reimagining as a high-tech, presentable world, her old decrepit clinic with armature sticking out the walls and pools of blood on the ground really doesn't fit. Back in the old days when the Praetorians were hideous monsters from a horrible, violent world who lived in caves and temples and old buildings and were basically Arachnos in all but name... Back then it made sense that this insane psychic would be torturing people in an abandoned building. These days, though, she's much more likely to be performing experiments in a sterile high-tech laboratory, rather than on the tile floor of an office building lobby.

*edit*
Let me get this straight: The new Maria Jenkins ARC got a makeover, but the old Maria Jenkins MISSIONS remained precisely the same as they used to be, save for a briefing touch-up and a few model swaps? Because I just fought Marauder's old thugs (who use Troll costumes without the green skin, no less), and this doesn't jive with what's in Praetoria. Praetor White's pack is Powers Division, i.e. supers of some kind, not thugs with guns. Even if they were just thugs with guns, Praetorian thugs don't use MP5s. If White had soldiers at his disposal instead of thugs, they'd be PPD, or at least TEST Rangers.

If the old missions and factions didn't get much of a facelift... Well, it doesn't lower my opinion of the missions, it just lowers my standards, which actually IMPROVES my opinion of them. It means that, somewhere in the future, Marauder can get a more fitting faction, Mother Mayhem can get a more decent hospital, Dominatrix's minions can ditch the gimp suits and muffled voices coming out of zipped-up mouths (seriously) and so forth. The potential is there for these missions to be worked on more in the future and to be done as well as the arc has been done, so hey - more power to that.

We've never gotten a consistent answer as to whether or not this is even mechanically possible. Right now, most "with skin" options use a full-on skin texture with nothing more than colour mask patterns. What you're asking for is multiple texture layering, such that you have a fabric-looking texture overlaid over a stone-looking texture, just as a random example. I'm not sure precedent exists to prove the engine can even do that.

HOWEVER

Go and check out the Science Booster Pack head gear, the ones that have straps that meet around the back of the head. These have unique geometry on the front where the visors and plates are, but the straps themselves appear to be nothing more than a texture overlaid over over the skin texture of the head. If this is indeed true, this provides precedent and evidence that the engine can, in fact, do this, which in turn empowers us to suggest just that, at the very least.

The only way to handle clothes over non-smooth, non-human skins that I can think of is to use Jackets and Skirts/Shorts approach of putting independent geometry over the base model. The problem is that in order for this geometry to not clip and meld with the body, it has to be offset by quite a bit, making skintight clothes impossible to make with it, and producing items which end up making the body VERY bulky.

It's up to the art team to tell us (hopefully directly here on the forums) what can and cannot be done or, optionally, what will and what most decidedly WON'T be done, so as to steer us into knowing what to expect.

*idle point of fact*
Champions Online does not, in fact, have the ability to layer textures as described, or at least did not last time I tried it. I'm not sure any game does. The best I can quote is decals in most games, and I haven't even seem much of those since the original Half-Life which managed to curve explosion scorching around complex shapes.

Again, you ignore context. That was in response to the claim that there was no power which needed many slots that you couldn't take earlier than level 47, when in fact there are several, therefore there is reason to look for a couple more slots at 50. Inventions ARE a solution, but they are a solution to a great many other things that have alternate solutions, as well.

If, however, I wish to have LRM Rocket, then this means both that I have to take it at level 47, which I can, and that I have to take something which I ostensibly do not need at level 49. As this is the final power pick in the game, I keep thinking it ought to be something awesome.

I don't challenged that Inventions can make something better, but I DO challenge the notion when they are brought up as the sole solution in what is a fairly common problem. And I say fairly common because the game post 30 has been one power pick to six slot picks, and right at the end it dumps two power picks with just six slots between them. I would honestly much rather have 48, 49 and 50 be slot levels.

Personally, I'd ask for super strength and invulnerability. Invulnerability so I no longer have to worry about getting injured, getting sick or getting mugged, and possibly so I can toss myself off the roofs of buildings for giggles. Super Strength so I'm no longer such a wimp.

Here's the thing, though. It is said that there is no power which requires many slots that you can't take before level 47, when in fact there is at least one. In fact, there are several, if memory serves, such as Foce of Nature (sic). Certain powers exist and have always existed, that can be taken at level 49 at the earlies, which benefit from many, many slots.

That's why I'm saying that a couple of extra slots at level 50 might not be a bad idea, both to make level 50 stand out a bit more and to not shaft what you take at 49 so badly. Because ANY power you take at level 49 HAS to be one that doesn't require many slots, which by extension means it almost always has to be one that isn't very inspiring, such Assault or Hurdle or something of that nature. They're good to have, mind you - every power is. But there's this inverse logic which, rather than holding off the best for last, makes us hold off the worst for last, thereby making the last, say, 4 or 5 levels of gameplay really boring because nothing you get in them will be slotted very well.

Either a few more slots, or opening up Epics sooner, say at 38 or at 35, such that I can take the final Epic power sooner than 47 would be great. After all, with Fitness becoming inherent and people apparently being given lots of "free" power choices, it'd make sense.

Yeah, unless otherwise specified, commands which take a variable will just dump the variable they have at the moment when invoked without any parameters. Things like /netgraph, /showfps, /forward, /autorun and so forth do that. Certain commands have unique messages in those instances, such as "This command takes 1 parameters, you gave 0 parameters. Try /command <parameter> instead."