Samuel_Tow

Huh... That actually makes me doubt even more.

What Thunder Strike does isn't really what you're suggesting. Thunder Strike doesn't apply effects at two different ranges, it applies one to its entire range and one to the target alone. It's not one effect at 7 feet and one effect at 0 feet, it's one effect at 7 feet and one effect ignoring the AoE component entirely. It's actually the same as what Gauntlet does. I'm not convinced this can be levied to give a power multiple effects at multiple ranges, both because we lack precedent and because each power is given one and only one range characteristic. Thunder Strike does not have two AoE radii. It only has one. And even then, radius and cone angle are not interchangeable, and I'm not convinced it's possible to alter cone angle at all.

As far as Lightning Rod goes, I'd completely forgotten it works on pseudopets. That complicates matters significantly since its effect is not replicable in a cone range setting, at least as far as I'm aware. Castle originally attempted to give Shield Charge a cone effect through its pseudopet, but that fell through completely, which is why it works as an AoE pseudopet attack. I'm not convinced this is something which can be faked with multiple pseudopets.

Then again, re-examining Lightning Rod reveals that all three of its damage effects are all put in the same attack power, so maybe there's something there which I just don't understand. Still, I'm not convinced giving one power multiple effect ranges is possible, as I don't even know how the power works.

Hmm... that's an interesting effect. It's close to what I suggested a couple of pages back, but definitely more interesting. I'm not sure if it could work, though, but since you seem to be going off Chain Induction, let's dissect that and see if we can't replicate its functionality.

Chain induction works by hitting a target, dealing damage, setting the target as immune from getting hit by Chain Induction for the next three seconds then summoning a pseudopet. As soon as the pseudo-pet becomes aware, it hits another target within range that isn't set to immune, deals damage, sets THAT as immune to Chain Induction and summons a second pseudopet. The second does the same and summons a third, the third does the same and summons a fourth and the fourth ends the chain by just zapping a target that isn't immune and dealing damage. Basically, you have a chain of pets summoning each other, but because it's a chain with a rigid linear progression from one jump to the next, it's not too complicated.

So how would this work with your version of Ignite? Well, the way I figure, it would be something like this. You ignite a target for full damage, and also cause the power to summon pseudopets at the target once every second for four seconds. Each time a pseudopet is summoned, it hits all targets in AoE ranged, inflicting a fire DoT for 2 seconds, making them immune to Igniting and causing them to spawn two pseudopets, one when they are first hit and another a second later. Each of those pseudo-pets then hits all targets in range which aren't already immune (i.e. on fire) and gives them a DoT effect without spawning pseudopets.

I guess you can look at it as tracing through a graph. Where Chain Induction is linear tracing, your version of Ignite would be recursive tracing, where each stop would catch all nodes around it not already caught and expand in all directions. Chain Induction is limited to five steps (one hit + four pets), but at one target per step, it's limited to five targets. Your Ignite would be limited to only three steps (initial hit, main pseudopet, secondary pseudopet) but because they are AoE, you could potentially hit a LOT of people with it. It depends on enemy density, but even if you cap each pseudopet at a Melee Cone level of 5 targets, you can still balloon out into a LOT of enemies, not to mention giving it a much broader radius.

Chain Induction has a written range of 7 feet, but with each subsequent jump having a range of 10 feet, your bolt can theoretically travel 37 feet away from you, given a specific enemy arrangement. Current Ignite has an AoE range of 4 feet. Even if we keep it at that, your first pet will hit 4 feet out and your second 4 feet out from that, for a total of a theoretical 8 feet across, quadrupling its area of coverage, and I suspect AoE ranges would need to be increased further still to ensure most ticks don't just fizzle.

In general, I like the idea, but I worry about how complicated it would be to make, how reliable it would be to use and, more than anything else, how resource-intensive it would be to run by the server, as you're talking of recursively-generated pets that could really mount up. If this is possible, it would be cool, but I would still vote for my own less interesting idea of turning Ignite from a patch on the ground into a power that gives an enemy a damage aura hurting him and those immediately around him. It would give Ignite the ability to be used as a third single-target attack while still retaining some of its old AoE use, even though its AoE use right now is somewhere between bugger and all.

Flamethrower's cost is about the highest I've seen on a regular Blast power, but its efficiency per target is actually only slightly lower than average at around 5.064, whereas say, Frost Breath is 5.77 and Empty Clips is 5.586. Considering this is one of the hardest-hitting cones, the price is justified, it's just that its damage comes in too slow.

*note*
As with most cones, Flamethrower becomes more efficient than single-target powers when you hit two and a half (essentially three) targets or more, meaning it's actually saving you endurance to use it as opposed to using a single-target attack on each of the three or more targets. It's not broken numbers-wise, it's just really uncomfortable to use since you often end up killing things before they burn, or they kill you before they suffer full damage.

Are you sure it can be done? I haven't seen precedent for that anywhere in the game. I guess I've seen AoE range be variable in Lightning Rod, and probably with some kind of dirty hack that shows up neither in Real Numbers nor Red Tomax's City of Data, but I've never seen arc angle as variable anywhere in the game.

If that's even possible, I'd say it's an interesting solution, but it has the potential of making Assault Rifle really overpowered by giving it something like five single-target attacks AND AoE attached to them. Are you sure that kind of setup won't make it exceed pretty much all other Blast sets?

You can already do exactly that with something as simple as WinAMP, or whatever your favourite music player is. City of Heroes no longer crashes when you alt-tab it, and you can easily mute the in-game music (and you should either way) so you can listen to your own. I don't really see a point in doubling up that functionality.

I might, but it's really best I don't do this right away. I can't guarantee I'll be objective, as "spite" is something I can control outwardly, but not inwardly, and I really don't want to get into that kind of debate. Suffice it to say that almost everything I've seen you post here in General Discussions is how bad intentionally emotional content is botched up.

It's a question of sensibilities, however, as I tend to find the acclaimed and renowned dramatic stories bland and boring, myself. That's kind of why the more Oscars a movie has won, the greater the chance I'll hate it and want to punch its creators.

Yeah, that was quite silly. The fake double had an illegal Mediport, but my actual double didn't? Come on, now!

And the other side of the problem is what people have already mentioned - shouldn't there have been something the double could have done to survive? Like go intangible, turn on Personal Forcefield, turn to stone, teleport, etc.? In my case, the double of my Slime Girl should not have died because she CANNOT die, not permanently, anyway. She can splatter, at worst she can evaporate, but like Ghost Widow, she would always reform and re-merge back together.

But then, I can see past that and acknowledge a heroic sacrifice, so oh well.

Err... No, not really. The "good" duplicate is not a clone and there aren't more like it. It's the only one duplicate that's actually real. As real as your character is, because it's the real you, just from another dimension (presumably Praetorian Earth). You can remake it after it dies, true, but it will be just another clone. You can, however, still bring the original, uncloned one back to life.

Way to be a dick. You win a cookie.

There's a reason I turned my rep off as soon as I realised I could and it's not because it was red (last I checked, it still wasn't, even after making an *** of myself multiple times). It's because it worthless, useless, pointless and other words with -less appended. If it were intended to be a computer emulation of reputation, it failed utterly, because that's not how reputation works. People like Arcana, Bill Z Bubba and so on have a reputation not because they have a number of coloured bars under their names, but because we all know who they are, what they stand for and what they do. THAT is reputation. Not a number in field somewhere.

By the same token, I don't judge people on their reputation, for the simple fact that I suspect people with their reputation hidden may well have more than people putting it on display. The only people I actually take reputation seriously for are those with massive negative reputation, and not because I think they're notorious, but simply because I find trying to garner a lot of negative reputation as a badge of honour is juvenile. So sue me.

Reputation as a game sucks. The only fun part about it was having a list of comments people sent you in your User CP, but they took that out. Now there's no use for it left.

Huh... You know, for all the complaining I did about "glass towers," I actually LOVE this idea. If youmMake Aeon City look iPod sleek, futuristic and affluent, then it will serve as a very good contrast to the rest of Cap Au Diable and the misery, overcrowding and poverty to be found there. As it stands, there really isn't THAT much of a difference there, except that lower-level Cap Au Diable is brown and Aeon City is grey. Aeon City's actual buildings are still far too retro, still far too black and the whole area is still far too unassuming. Make it the jewel of the Isles!

And I agree with the general take on City of Villains. There's too much misery and not enough glamour. I guess the original design was that even the best villainy could offer was still a hollow, futile reward existing to delude the rich that they weren't living in a world half empty, which might have been a good idea the karmatic punishment of a bad guy we love to hate, but it neglects one very important fact:

WE PLAY THIS GAME!

I don't know about other people, but when I play a game, I do so for fun, entertainment and to feel better about myself. City of Heroes delivers almost every time, but City of Villains rarely ever does, because the game is purpose-designed to be DEPRESSING. I don't want to play a sad, pathetic character carving out a little pointless haven out of a crapsack world, always reminding of the futility of my efforts and always witness to the decline of the entire world, my slice of it included. This is not a good sentiment for something players play as.

There is no appropriate zone music in ANY zone in the game, with the possible exception of Ouroboros, because the music in general is bungled. You get a short-ish loop that plays on zone crossing and the stops, only to replay if you leave and re-enter. And if you're looking for stuff to kill along the zone boundary, you get to swap between zone music back and forth.

We need mood music, and mood music does not just play a clip then end. It plays on a loop, giving a location or an event the proper ambience. For instance, this clip gives a scene a somewhat tense, foreboding feel just as it plays. Yes, it's out of Final Fantasy again, and yes, it loops the entire time you're on location, but you know what? It works!

As long as we have the ability to turn off the music (and we do) or have it fade (which we don't, but could), then I see no reason to have any time in the game that doesn't have mood music. It helps. A LOT.

I don't mind the concept in general, as I feel almost all contacts should be in-doors, either in offices, at home or in hiding, but I really hope they do better than a butcher shop.

Yeah, but you've basically made it a point that you're heartless in the past, so I'd actually interpret that reaction as working as intended.

I reinstalled the nVidia System Monitor just to be sure, but I don't think it's card temperature. My GPU is running at 69-70 degrees right now, and its specifications list a maximal temperature of 105C before it incurs actual damage. From what I've read around the 'net, I shouldn't even worry unless it goes over 85-90 degrees or so, and it isn't anywhere close to that.

Probably. I'm going off memory here, but I mean the new emotes that come with Going Rogue.

Exactly.

Look at Manga, for instance. Open any Manga with a non-everyday plot and you have a bout a 50/50 chance or running into angels and about 1/1000 chance of actually having an explicit religion mentioned. Hell, Sephiroth himself apes an angel in his final form.

As well, angels never seem to stop game designers. Heroes of Might and Magic has always featured Angels, Archangels and occasionally Seraphims. And our own PlayNC designed the Kamael for Lineage II, who to my understanding are basically humanoid angels.

I feel there's easily room for angels in City of Heroes, even as Mastermind summons, because some of the coolest villains in general fiction are those who present themselves are saints and martyrs, using divine-looking power for the wrong cause. You don't even have to call it "Angel Summoning." You can just go with "Celestial Summoning" and start with something simpler, light elementals or preachers, only ending in one singular angel for the final henchman.

On that note, I have to say I feel touch-ups on old zones should be at least as important as new zones and new content, at least until a few are done, because especially the hero-side game is in bad need of "something." If you can do large-scale remodelling to fix building foundations and footprints, then by all means, go ahead. If not, then just swapping out buildings or diversifying them otherwise would still do.

Also, I hear Going Rogue has specific locations and instances associated with specific buildings and doors. I don't know if that's true, but whether it is or not, I'd like to see more of that in City of Heroes and City of Villains. It's much more... "Homey" when you can actually tell where thing is.

Skulls have themselves a Superadine lab? I know where that would be. Crey base under attack? It's probably in one of the (non-existent) Crey buildings. Portal Corps lab under attack? Probably within the Portal Corps complex. That sort of thing.

Which presumably don't zap heroes, pedestrians and car traffic, allowing clandestine criminals free passage as long as they're not brandishing assault rifles, screaming "Wolverines!!!" and charging at people, D-Day style.

I don't think that's quite right. I know I've gotten 2+ mile waypoints in Independence Port, so I'm sure the zone is at least two miles long, looking like two and a half. But let's say 2 miles long at 40 mph. At that speed over that distance, you'd need 2/40 of an hour, or three minutes straight. That doesn't sound like a lot if you're late for work, but it's a LOT if you're sitting on your hands, looking at your character bob in the air.

The War Walls were meant to keep the Rikti forces from manoeuvring freely between the different city locations, and they're credited with saving the city during the Rikti war. They were never designed to combat domestic crime, as those tunnels between the zones are completely unguarded and lack checkpoints of any sort, meaning any criminal who wanted to travel could just walk between locations. As such, it's unreasonable to expect them to stop domestic crime.

The walls were also never intended to prevent small-scale infiltration, on account of the fact that they can't. There's only so high you can build them and flying vessels will always fly higher. Historically, they have been unable to stop the large-scale Rikti Saucers, as well, as was demonstrated at the end of CoH Beta, I assume because they fly too high, but they've been very well capable of stopping the small-scale Rikti bobmers.

As for the Rikti causing them to shut off, yes they do. Ten years after the fact and with renewed strength from their dimension, yeah, they'll shut them down. Even then there's still the WALL part, but look at it this way - when the walls go down, they attack in full force, for as long as they can keep the walls off. As soon as the walls go back on, their attacks halt. Without the War Walls, it might well be invasion all the time.

I have to disagree here. One of the few things that made me go "Oh, wow! This is so cool!" when I first logged in was the war walls. They're huge! The first time I stood at the base of one of the walls and looked up, I damn near sold my soul to the game.

We don't have very many truly big things in the game, and no, the dinky statue of Atlas doesn't count. It's a statue, and not too big, at that. The Galaxy Girl statue sort of counts, but only kind of. I mean big on the level of the Combine Citadel. I mean big on the level of Sauron's Tower. That sort of towering, hulking huge. Recluse's tower would be very impressive if it weren't tangled up into other buildings and webs and crap, and the Faultline dam wall used to be very cool before they flooded the Reservoir. The War Walls are just that cool kind of huge.

And, to be honest, looking into the distance and realising I can see the walls all around is one of the cooler moments in the game, even now. I'd go to visscale 4 in a heartbeat if it didn't belt-hang my GPU. It's one thing to stand at the base of the thing and marvel, or to look at it from afar in-between other buildings. But when I break the skyline and look around, realising just how MASSIVE that construction is, it always blows me away. Even these days, when I'm basically jaded on everything in the game, this still gets me going.

As far as architectural sights go, the War Walls are EASILY my favourite, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. And to my eyes, they actually make the city feel bigger. It's much easier to imagine what might be behind them when I can't actually see it, as opposed to CoV's approach of just having the world end in water.

I use this site.

Beyond that, I don't worry about the timeline unless it specifically references itself, at which point I just go with whatever it claims.