Samuel_Tow

I don't think that's a pledge for a vendetta against PlayNC so much as resignation that "I can't renew my account, so I can't play until I can solve it." But I could be reading it wrong.

Ha! And here I stole it from Spoony who stole it from Warrior #1 I knew I had to do something with that sound effect sooner or later.

You know, in quiet times when I don't have any work to do, I let my mind wander, constructing hypothetical scenes and conversations, usually highlighting how awesome my own character is so I can marvel at my own work.

THIS is pretty much 90% of what I constructed for my flagship villain. A new villain has appeared, and that villain has something special - a mutant power, unique technology, an ancient artefact or something else of value to building a stronger, more complete criminal organisation. Then my guy shows up, completely dominates said villain, either through direct force or by browbteating the villain into submission and basically absorbing him into his own organisation.

I eventually made three lieutenants for this guy, and all three have been recruited in just this precise manner - by beating them down and taking their service for his own. If that had happened, instead of a glorified Mayhem mission (which is in the same school of thought which dictates that the zenith of villainy is killing civilians), then I would probably be here singing its praises.

*edit*
But instead, I get this - a retread of Scirocco's plight, basically. I managed to hurt a villain turned hero bad enough to turn him back into a villain. Which is kind of evil, I guess... If I hadn't killed him immediately thereafter. Why was I there again? Oh, that's right! To kidnap the guy for ransom, i.e. for money. Tell me again how this was a VILLAIN mission again? As opposed to, you know, a rogue mission? And I'm pretty sure I did get the right mission. I didn't run across that bug that switches missions on you, because it clearly said "Villain: Kidnap..."

I'm still baffled as to why I chose to hold a villain turned hero for ransom. The game never explained that to me. It didn't even suggest. It was like "Hey, there's... A good guy. Go be a dick and kill him for no reason. You're a villain, right?"

I think the best thing for me to do is to just STOP doing alignment and morality missions altogether unless and until I decide to cross someone over. Reaffirming my current alignment has done little more than piss me off these past couple of weeks. Well, everything other than Hero missions, though. Those seem to be appropriately puppy-eye idealistic, as they should be. But everything else is so jumbled that... Ugh! Vigilantes are villains, Rogues are Heroes, Villains are actually Rogues... This is so messed up...

Hm... "Secreted chemical rocks." Sure, why not? I've done weirder things After all, I can latch onto the "Salamander" angle and go with natural exothermic chemical reactions that produce this. After all, it doesn't have to be scientific and doesn't even need to be believable. I just need something. And considering I already made the dude red... Again, why not?

Be a bit interesting how I can justify him not having overt fire power or fire defences, but I guess I can restrict myself to just chemistry more so than open flames. Well, I guess that's settled

Apparently so, but I keep wondering what it could be, fan backlash notwithstanding. I mean, this essentially not only rewards but pretty much mandates perma-Rage, because if you don't perma it, you suffer a dangerous crash whereas if you do, you suffer a much lesser crash. Just seems like a really awkward way to balance it, if you ask me.

But at least I know HOW it happens now.

I think I just lost my ability to hear music. I do not know when it will come back.

I want to put your two replies here because they really got my brain ticking. I did end up going with Stone Melee as a placeholder for Shaffakoom, but that was more me being out of options. I never even considered War Mace even for a second. Now you both make strong arguments as to what to pick and why, so I'm really not sure which direction to go. I agree that a titanic warrior could easily fight with a mace. In fact, part of my inspiration was the Heavy Metal 2000 movie, where Tyler found some kind of lizardman tribe to take over, and they pretty much fought with clubs and maces.

On the other hand... I'm not confident that there's a mace big enough to really impress me. Given that this guy is Huge, I can't rely on Legacy weapons being very big, and the options available for War Mace are all relatively short and one-handed. The War Hammer really should look cool, but it's way, WAY too short and stubby to do so. I could go with something like the Fantasy mace or some such, but really - that kind of a huge frame seems a bit... Too big for a one-handed weapon with no shield. And I already have a Mace/Shield Brute (a butler, no less).

Stone Melee isn't half bad as an idea, especially because it has that pounding, reverberating high impact feel. More so than Super Strength, ironically. And the name does seem to suggest that, doesn't it? I actually pilfered it right out of a Spoony review of the Warrior #1 comic book, where Warrior jumps up to fight a bunch of Jawas with that precise sound effect - SHAFFAKOOM! I just thought it was too cool to not use somewhere, but I'd have used Skronk if that was taken

I currently have the dude using the lava-style stone melee powers, but I don't have pics of that. I'm content with leaving him with Stone Melee if only I can come up with a reasonable explanation as to why he's able to conjure up rocks at will. He's Natural (not that I couldn't change it) so I'd like to work off that, but right now I'm drawing blank. Why would a lizard be able to manifest volcanic rocks?

The Secondary I went with is Invulnerability. I've lost count of how many characters I have with that, but he. Why not? It's a solid set and it fits the guy's concept. Plus, I don't have a SM/Inv combo so far.

I kind of have a problem with Controllers and Dominators, actually. That's one big stumbling block. My problem with controllers is "it gets good at 32," which I'll never be able to last long enough to see. I've tried Controllers before, and the playstyle just grinds my will to live into dust. Dominators I honestly tried to play, but in the end their abilities just put me off severely. They deal decent damage, absolutely, but because I'm inclined to focus on that, I die a lot though lack of sufficient control emphasis. And when I realised I needed to emphasise control so much that I'd have to eat into my damage slotting AND the fact that things which really shouldn't be a huge challenge were just caused me to give up. Better to play what I like and can, rather than rant at people about how their favourite AT sucks in my view.

Right now, I've restricted myself to five ATs that I can play without reservations: Scrappers, Blasters, Brutes, Stalkers and Masterminds. Any combo of powersets for one of this I am game to try, provided I haven't already.

Yeah, yeah, I know I've been using the name Duriel on an off in various stories for some time, so I name-checked it as a joke. Turns out it was free on Pinnacle. It ain't no more I figure that as long as it's free and I'm not doing a Duriel ripoff (which I'm not), I shouldn't have anything to worry about. If anything, I'm more worried about being accused of a Kerrigan ripoff, which this one totally is

Yeah, Dark Blaster would be cool. If it existed

Can't say I'm a fan of the Flies aura, and for a couple of reasons. Flies indicate something rotten, especially the way ours are made, which isn't my design. If I had a swarm of bugs which looked more like they were under my command, I might consider it, but the flies aura just looks putrid. As well, I'd lose my eye glow, which I think is a very important aspect of the character. I have Alpha set to that so far, but that's more for lack of options. If and when I get her to 30, I'll reconsider it. I can't actually use Flies now even if I wanted to, since that too is locked to 30.

So you're saying I should avoid Claws. OK, done. I wasn't too hot on the idea, myself, but your suggesting it seals the deal. No claws. OK, so that's no Claws to avoid Kerrigan, no Spines because they look bugged, which leaves me with what? So far, Dual Blades and Energy Melee that I can see. If the choice is one of those, I'd probably go with Blades. Be interesting to see a female character swing around those two construction steel girders And I'm highly unlikely to ever get another character where they fit at all, to boot.

Hmm... One step closer to having solid concept. I like it! Thanks a bunch, guys

I really don't want to go Scrapper on Shaffakoom. I know Scrappers are just as able as fighters as Brutes are, but the guy is supposed to be a "heavy." He may look tiny in the pic, but that's because I zoomed out and because he has short legs. He's otherwise about 7/8 of the way to max height. I realise the old CoH manual paints the Scrapper as the big burly half-naked dude and the Tanker as the skinny dude in power armour, but I just want something for this guy that feel "heavy" before it feels "lizard."

However, I do know I set myself up for regen with my description of "hasn't figured out a way to kill him," because that's pretty much how Tyrant's relationship with the Hamidon is described. It was unintentional, however.

Actually making the guy to reserve the name and have a character ready to pick up, I looked through the sets and went with a Stone/Invulnerability Brute. I realise I only ever made one Stone anything - the Stone/Stone Brute who was my flagship villain - so I decided to give it a go. That doesn't mean the character is set, it just means I had to pick SOMETHING when I made him I am still very much willing to change his powers if I can make a convincing argument for it. Or, alternatively, I'd love it if you can help me form a convincing argument FOR Stone Melee

Hmm... Rad/Fire is not a bad idea in principle. Coloured rancid green, I can see them passing for toxins. I have a really hard time passing up actual toxins in the form of Poison, though. I'm looking for a reason to, but I honestly don't think I'll find one.

Iprit was the inspiration that finally got me off my butt to make these three characters. I was watching a WW1 documentary which mentioned mustard gas, which got translated in my subtitles "iprit" (or rather, иприт), which I looked up and transformed into this toxic monster. I'm not sure if it's in very good taste, but he IS a bad guy. Pretty much pegs him as a Poison dude, though.

Yeah, I kind of designed them as melee, though to be honest, I'm not too sold on Duriel necessarily being melee. If Blasters had Dark Blast, I could probably go with that. But they don't, so I won't.

As far as melee goes, I currently have her pegged as a Stalker. I did not, however, opt to go with Dark/Dark for Stalker, simply because that's more magical or scientific and less "insectoid." I went through a few iteration for a secondary, but the only one I could justify was Regeneration. I did Willpower recently, and nothing else seemed to "fit." I didn't want to go with Super Reflexes, partly because she has wings and I just don't want to, and partly because I already have a SR Stalker. I'm still open to suggestions, though.

For a primary... That's a complete toss-up. Originally I wanted to go with Spines, but I can't since they look terrible on those legs. They're designed to jot out from the shin, and sine she has empty air where her shin should be, they hang in mid air. I tried Claws, and those weren't TOO bad, but... Well, they're a bit unrefined, and I'm not a big fan of the flip in Eviscerate when I have wings. Still possible, though. I tried Energy Melee coloured pure black, and it kind of looked like some kind of evil plague. Not too bad, but it was a bit stiff. For a laugh, I went Dual Blades (you know, queen of blades and all that) and went with those ginormous Mutant Pack swords, coloured jet black. It actually looks kind of cool, and they look like they're an extension of her. On the other hand, they're really bulky, so I don't know.

Not really sure what to do with this one, I'm afraid. The wings she has now are place holders, as well. I'll give her either the dragon or burnt wings when I get the chance. Or you know what... I might actually give her the INSECT wings

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Thank you kindly for your help All of these guys are still open to interpretation and aren't likely to be sealed soon, so any arguments I make are more principle than anything else. I'm not rejecting anything just yet.

How strong is "so strong?" It's status protection. Is that considered "so strong?" these days?

This I will agree with. "Old world" buildings lose light in their windows at a very short viewing distance, making buildings farther away appear black and usually invisible against the black distance fog. My experience in Praetoria is that if there IS a distance fog, it's a very long distance away, so at night most building windows are visible from anywhere in the zone. This enhances the ambience factor greatly.

However, when it comes to basic city design, I cooled on that REALLY quickly because it's just a sea of white marble at street level. In fact, that's to the point where I was compelled to turn on Ambient Occlusion just to be able to more easily tell shapes apart. However, since AO basically backhands FSAA, I eventually turned it off again.

I don't think it'll be overpowered, and I think you took that out of context. I just want that, when I take attacks, that I have ATTACKS, not utility powers masquerading as attacks. When I pick up a rifle and fire a burst of rounds into a target, I want the primary effect of this to be the target taking damage from the bullets. I would not refuse any secondary effects, but if it's an attack, it should be an attack.

Yeah, probably. Giving Masterminds decent personal attacks on top of their henchmen probably won't happen. But at the very least they should have attacks that don't hurt more than they help. Seriously, these attacks have almost zero benefit, practically speaking, yet come with pretty steep costs overall.

Why take Mastermind personal attacks at all? Until something changes to give us an answer to this question, I will feel like there is a problem.

The problem is that I'd define this as a villain through and through. I'm so adamant about this, in fact, that I've put my money where my mouth is years ago and designed a villain who is pretty much like this - a person who claims to be fighting for good and justice and rainbows and unicorns, but is in fact little more than a cold-blooded murderer who will kill villains, common crooks, civilians of questionable morals, heroes who question his version of justice and just people who have been "tainted" by evil by being involved with anything evil at any point in their lives regardless of circumstances.

And then I see people who do pretty much that and still go on and do hero content. Ugh...

I do not agree with the vision of vigilante presented here. As far as I'm concerned, vigilantes are still heroes, just more unorthodox, more extreme heroes. They may break the law or end up causing as much harm as good, but their actions should always be positive. Almost invariably, they are not. They are vindictive, they are petty, they are malicious and they are basically everything I would normally associate with A VILLAIN.

I know people will be jumping on my back for this as soon as I hit Submit, but that's just how I feel. If the game's view of vigilantes is that of tolerated criminals, then I'm not going to be making any use of the alignment at all. If I wanted that kind of experience, I'd go villain or rogue.

That's basically what I'm saying. I don't want to dis Kinetic Melee, because it's a decent set, but I don't want Martial Arts to be like it. I don't believe it would be an improvement.

As well, Kinetic Melee falls into what I like to call the "Arachnos Base Syndrome." It's comprised of genuinely unique and interesting animations, but at the end of the day, they still "look" like a lot of the same thing - arm circles and palm strikes. And they're all straight palm thrusts, too.

The reason I name Arachnos Bases in this is because there are A LOT of corridor pieces in Arachnos bases, each very unique from the others. There are pipes, machines, different mesh configurations and so on, but it still LOOKS like still more incomprehensible indistinguishable evil tech. Offices are much more diverse diverse in feel despite being LESS diverse in terms of tileset pieces.

Even though Martial Arts is mostly kicks, each kick is visibly and obviously different from the other. One's a swing, one's a thrust, one's a sweep, one's a jump and so on. Much as I like Kinetic Melee, it's just fancy palm thrusts. There's not even a swing in sight. I guess it makes sense for what the set is, but I prefer Martial Arts how it is now.

It's not as fast as you're describing it, however, especially if you consider PvP to be an offshoot of PvE. The PvE game is very slow in terms of reaction speed, at last for most ATs. The difference between "doing great" and "about to die" is so smooth and slow to occur that even the slower-paced players are able to catch it in time and react to it. I can see a battle going sour from a mile away and I have ample time to do something about it. A fight that takes two seconds from the moment I lay eyes on my enemy to the moment I'm dead does not give me anywhere near this kind of reaction time.

What you're proposing sounds a lot like my experience in Battlefield 2142. That is to say, almost 90% of the time when I die, I die within a second of me becoming aware I'm even in danger and with precisely zero knowledge of what killed me. Around 90% of the rest of my deaths occur when I walk into a situation where I'm well aware of the danger, but am physically incapable of reacting to it due to game-imposed constraints such as necessary gun windup, depleted ammunition or simply being overwhelmed. I've been playing the game since it came out, and I can count the deaths I suffered where I could have easily done something about it but simply screwed up and died on the fingers of one hand. And most of the time, I die because someone tossed a grenade which exploded a millisecond after I saw it on-screen.

City of Heroes may be fast FOR A STAT-BASED MMO, but the speeds you are suggesting are far, far too fast for it. Such speeds eliminate all player participation aside from ahead-of-the-fact preparation and pretty much reduce everything to attack chains. They leave very little room to explore what I feel is this game's greatest strength in combat, which is situational awareness. The ability to see a situation as it develops in real time and decide how to react to it as it's developing. The more you take the game out of the real-time confrontation and drag it back into the ahead-of-time preparation, the less interesting PvP becomes.