Samuel_Tow

That's actually a pretty cool path to take. In a lot of ways, that's what Mass Effect does. Granted, Shepard is not an all-powerful omnipotent GOD, but he is above the law, he is VERY powerful in his own right and he's basically able to either destroy the lives of most people he meets, or improve them significantly. That's the sort of moral choice system Mass Effect goes for. It's not a choice between whose orders to follow, it's a choice about what to do with your power and your status.

And again - Superman is just about the most powerful "thing" in his neck of the woods, but that doesn't seem to have diminished his popularity, or indeed diminished people's desire to play a game as him. A DC MMO, as it were.

In fact, we all have. Heroes have that one alternate dimension where your evil self killed everyone and destroyed everyone for no reason above simple dickishness, and the ghosts of the people of that world still haven't forgotten. Villains have that as a central point in Time After Time, especially in Ghost Widow's case where you find a world destroyed, everyone dead and you yourself buried and decayed, locked in battle with Recluse.

Basically, if my hero/villain alternative is badass enough to KILL an entire alternate dimension, then surely MY version of the hero/villain is good enough to wipe out/rule a pocket dimension or two, right? I mean, as long as only I have the keys to the teleporter and the coordinates to the place, other people don't have to be bothered by my megalomania, right?

In fact, I love this idea A LOT, specifically because it ought to be doable with current technology and only a narrative fudge.

Hey, I'm a reasonable guy. No problems on my end, really. I actually enjoy the discussion, as long as we're all on the same page.

I would agree without, except they've made such a complete mess of their storylines in several places that either the story bible is a myth or, much more likely, they keep disregarding it. Both 5th Column Task Forces are replete with "What the hell?!?" moments of all calibres, time travel seems to have no set rules and there is so much ret-con going on with the Origin of Powers storyline that it's not even funny.

Simply put, if they can make those gigantic messes for them and can presumably clean them up (presumably because I have yet to see it happen), then they can surely tweak the narrative of how newer content, such as the "Experiencing Some Delays Storm" storyline, is presented. If there's one thing I've ever learned about writing, it's that a story plan is just a guideline. What you actually write down can twist and pull that guideline in very serious ways while still keeping it factually consistent.

All's I'm saying is that if they can't keep their own story straight, then why not curve a bit of it our way?

Certainly. Having written a couple of arcs, myself, I honestly wouldn't ask for more. Well, OK, I WOULD ask for more, but I wouldn't demand and expect anything beyond that. Like I said, it's contacts' mouths that bug me the most, because they treat us like garbage. It's really demoralising when everyone treats your villain like garbage when he should be the one treating everyone like dirt. I realise it may be realistically unrealistic to expect that as our villains would be crushed in the real world, but this is not the real world. This is an escapist fantasy where it just makes sense for things to go my way.

Thank you

You know, reading about your idea reminds me of something I played recently - Assassin's Creed 2, more specifically the Villa Monteriggioni. Breaking tradition with the original, Assassin's Creed 2 protagonist Enzio gets a villa that he can walk around and that he can upgrade for benefits that are useful, but not exactly gamebreaking. Unlike our bases, Enzio doesn't get to pick how much of what to buy and where to place it. He basically has a model of the villa set up where he can basically upgrade what's already on there. And speaking of this, you know what else I'm reminded of?

Heroes of Might and Magic. Each "town" in Heroes of Might and Magic, and this is a feature present in all of them, is basically one pre-fab template that starts out with nothing but a leader's hut and gets slowly upgraded into magnificence, one building at a time. You don't really get to plan or design the city, you get to upgrade it.

Why bring this up? Well, the one line of text that I constantly throw around in regard to bases is "like the costume editor," in that our bases are nothing of the sort, despite apparently having been originally designed to be that. While I respect the massive freedom of expression of bases, there is a certain point beyond which customization becomes less a feature and more a hindrance, and that point is FAR shorter of placing every individual floor tile, wall lamp and ceiling vent by hand on a fine grid. When designing character costumes, we don't pick the length of our sleeves in millimetres, we don't don't have to align and centre out chest emblems, we don't pick the angle or our sunglasses in radians and we don't choose the colour of our tights from among 2^32 individual RGB combinations (more like 2^24, but anyway).

I've been over this before in a variety of situations, but my ideal kind of base customization implementation would be something with a LOT more structure to it. Less a blank, empty room with carte blanche to do go wild and have fun and more collection of pre-defined frameworks with specific items that can be tweaked about them. I've spoken about this in the form of an RTS-style above-ground compound editor where you put down buildings and roads but don't fiddle with the exact alignment of the vials on the counter in one room of the huge science lab. I can also see an underground Dungeon Keeper style "hollowing out" method of construction that gave us more of a "theme hospital" take on rooms, vs. the 3DS Max style the current editor gives us.

The reason I'm talking about this, in a roundabout way, is that if we want to have bases mean more and be bigger part of the game, we need to involve EVERYONE into using and editing them, and with the current editor that's just not possible. It's not even about Prestige costs, builder privileges or shared space. It's a question of an EXTREMELY hostile editor that far too many people can't be arsed to use. There are comparatively far fewer people who couldn't be arsed to make anything of the costume editor, in part because that comes with a Random button, in part because it comes with ready-made theme sets, in part because you can just scroll through the menus and still come up with SOMETHING within 15 minutes at most. So if we're going to lean on bases as a more important aspect of gameplay, we need to lower the bar to making, having and using one.

As for myself, I'm not even that keen on bases having a POINT. Costumes rarely do, yet that doesn't stop people from enjoying them. Instead, I'd like to see the point of such bases being the making of them much less so than the using of them. Maybe I'm weird, but the only thing I ever did with my Legos when I was a kid was to construct them, then take them apart and start over. They were pretty poor as actual toys. So, with this in mind, I'd like to restate my idea of how to make bases.

Going with the RTS style construction method, I'd put a series of missions staggered throughout the level ranges that unlocked more things for your base as you levelled up. First few missions would be about actually GETTING the plot, the next few about laying down a few buildings, then ext few about expanding it, then about clearing up problems in the area, then go from there. I have images of the old Settlers 2 game when I talk about this.

Basically, if I can focus on building up my estate, populating it with NPC guards, buying science labs, weapon labs and so on and so forth, then I can very easily deal with the rest of the game truing to paint me as a deadbeat loser, because either I won't do those missions, or I'll pretend they didn't happen and focus my attention on my own thing.

---

Just as a minor footnote, I feel that making bases simpler could open the door to a variety of themes, such as:

Standard volcano island compound
Standard Dungeon Keeper underground base
Underwater base with lots of windows
Oil rig base
Mountaintop base
Skyscraper penthouse base
City block base (say, like military bases in Prototype)

These can vary in scale, and I have no ptoblem with a volcano island base being much larger with larger structures, whereas a penthouse base (like the kingpin's) being just a few storeys of rooms and elevators. Point is, let me focus on this if I choose and I'll stop ******** about how the story is railroading me and the NPCs cheat.

Well, in that case I'm more than happy to eat crow As long as it works, that's all that counts. If it takes me making a fool of myself to get there, then that's just what it takes.

Thank you

Dude, please re-read what you're responding to. Nowhere in there did I once mention OTHER PLAYERS. Why does everyone keep assuming I want to measure myself by other players? I don't. I want to measure myself by the narrative of the game. A majority of people can very much be treated like the protagonist. A majority of people ARE being treated like the protagonist RIGHT NOW! Just... Look at the missions in the game and tell me:

Who takes down Dr. Vahzilok?
Who stops a Malta plot to start WW3?
Who stops the Rikti from opening a stable portal to their home dimension?
Who stops the Nemesis from broadcasting his mind over the Rikti metal network?
Who puts Countess Crey behind bars?
Who prevents the Council from creating a Vampyr progenitor and implanting a Shadow Seed in the city?
Who prevents Wolfgang Ubelmann from going back in time to help the Nazi win WW2?
Who helps take down the 5th Column?
Who takes down Vanessa DeVore?
Who stops the Envoy of Shadows from making another deal with the Circle of Thorns?
Who stops the Banished Pantheon from trapping Tielleku, stealing her power and waking up Lughebu?
Who stops Terra from becoming a Devouring Earth breeder and flooding the world with monsters?
Who destroys the PsychoChronoMetron before it can be used to destroy causality?
Who does seemingly ANYTHING in this city?

Because the single answer to all of those questions is $me. So, please, stop trying to tell me how "a majority of people" can't all the protagonist in their own instanced stories. IT ALREADY HAPPENS! I just want more of it.

That's a SERIOUS misreading of what I'm actually saying. I don't need to be the protagonist in THEIR stories. I need to be the protagonist of MY story. You're also talking about MMOs built over established franchises, and that's not a good example, because you can't just make stuff up as you please when you have, like, 20 years of "expanded universe" to trip over.

City of Heroes suffers from no such baggage. There's no reason why the game can't say "Oh, hey! There's this uncharted island that's not on the map. Wanna' have an evil lair on it? There sure are a lot of uncharted islands around here, boy-howdy!" There's no reason why it can't say "Say, $name, your $group is really cool!" Sure, there are a zillion other groups, one per player, but as long as I don't hear about them in MY missions, then they may as well not exist. I'm not looking for recognition from other people. I'm looking for recognition from THE GAME. I don't care if other people never even hear about it.

Again - where did I so much as mention "total independent freedom?" And I'd appreciate a quote with a single sentence and a link back to the source post.

Also, yet AGAIN, this is precisely what the game already does. YOU are the Destined One. YOU are the one who kills Lord Recluse in the future. YOU are the one who can scare him into leaving you alone. YOU are the one who matters. Yeah, you and the other eleventy billion players, but as long as the game doesn't bring them up, they may as well not exist. Whoever holds the mission at the moment is the protagonist. That's how it goes RIGHT NOW. And if this is not a problem RIGHT NOW, why is it a problem in theory?

And again, I'm not talking about changing the status quo. There are many, MANY ways to make a character the protagonist without upsetting the game's static world. It doesn't come down to technology or mechanics. It comes down to good old-fashioned decent writing and the ever-standby imagination. The game always boils down to "go to instance, kill stuff, click stuff, receive bacon." And that's fine. But WHY am I doing this?" Where am I going, what am I killing, what am I clicking, what am I achieving. All of this can be spun a LOT better than it is right now.

Take two instances. You go to a slum to beat poor people and break their garbage because some deadbeat loan shark said so, and in return you receive an insult to the face and a quarter flicked at your chest. Now consider the same mission, same parameters, different selection of enemies and location, different writing. You go to a high-tech military base to kill its commanders and wipe out their hard drives because the secret military organisation that owns it tried to blackmail you into doing their dirty work, and in return you receive a cash bounty, the contents of their hard drives and the satisfaction of having beaten them at their own game. What's so hard about THAT?

Nothing of the sort. First of all, your comparison is a HUUUGE misreading of what I said. Nowhere in there did I suggest that I wanted to be the SOLE hero or villain, and I'd actually challenge you to quote where I so much as alluded to this. It's especially bad because the villain-side propensity of Arachnos has absolutely no analogue in the hero-side game. At all. See, if we had to sign up with Longbow, train at Longbow Wardens, change our difficulty at Longbow Commanders, shop from Longbow Quartermasters, travel on Longbow helicopters, take missions from Longbow officers and revive at Longbow hospitals, you would have a point. But that would be a pretty bad game design choice, wouldn't it? Instead, we train at "just heroes," we change our difficulty at Hero Corps Field Representatives, we buy at a collection of different, unaffiliated stores (yes, including a Freedom Corps training facility), we travel by civic transport or on foot, we take missions from a wide variety of people, from policemen to former heroes to delivery boys to arms dealers to etc., and we revive at privately-held hospitals.

In City of Heroes, I'm not affiliated with anything at all, and only very loosely affiliated with the city in general. I gather my resources and borrow my facilities from a whole host of different sources, not placing me in the service of any one single provider. In City of Villains, it's the exact opposite. I could stick "Arachnos" at the start of practically everything in that game like Adam West sticks "Bat" in front of all of his items and I wouldn't be wrong by much. Arachnos trainers, Arachnos Quartermasters, Arachnos contacts, Arachnos Fateweavers, Arachnos Helicopters, Arachnos Forts, Arachnos Patrons, Arachnos Arachnos... Can I have something without Arachnos in it, please?

We already have bases. I've suggested the expansion of those bases to topside facilities that you do missions to expand and evolve. Why can't we focus more on those? Why does everything villain-side have to be Arachnos Arachnos Arachnos? The game's starting to sound like Shnitzel!

Again, it comes down to writing. I'm not asking for choice. I'm asking for the choices in the game to be made by MY CHARACTER, not by the contacts he "serves." Currently, in City of Villains, we're never even assumed to have made a decision. The contacts to all the decision-making. We just follow along like puppy-eyed puppies. Even Half-Life 2's Gordon Freeman keeps being reminded of what a cool and, if I may say so, strikingly handsome man he is and how everything he has apparently chosen to do when the player wasn't looking is totally awesome. The game pulls you along on a leash, but at least it isn't being a dick about it and reminding you all the time that "Hey, you can't speak! And you don't have any choices to make! Ha!" Instead, it takes the strikingly confounding approach of not insulting its players' intelligence and sensibilities and at least pretending to give Gordon free will, despite the whole game being one giant "but though must."

And I disagree completely. There's no reason this can't be done outside of some strong desire NOT to. Call me what you will, but I find no value to be gained in NOT being unique and NOT being the protagonist. I can deal with it, obviously, but I don't consider it a superior narrative choice. Even in a classic RPG party, every character still has his own unique story that he is the protagonist of. Baldur's Gate did it, Mass Effect did it, I don't see why City of Heroes can't at least ape it.

Why is this a cheat... Well, you can say villains need to be stronger than the heroes for the heroes' struggle to be meaningful, so OK. Villainous AVs are stronger than player heroes. But then we turn around and heroic Heroes are stronger than player villains, and then the truth reveals itself. It's not a question of thematics. NPCs are simply stronger than players. That is the DEFINITION of cheating. Whether it's necessary or not is a matter of debate, but in no way is this anything other than The Computer is a Cheating *******. I know it's fun times to patronise me, but let's try and be at least a little objective here.

That's not the point, though. That's semantics. The computer is a cheating ******* because the computer needs to cheat in order to provide a challenge. I get that. When you have eight heroes on one villain, he kind of NEEDS to cheat or it'd be a really boring fight. However, City of Heroes has proven to scale quite well with team size and difficulty settings. The computer needs to cheat, but it can cheat JUST ENOUGH to provide a challenge to any amount of people that might undertake a given task.

For instance:

People after the challenge can try Lord Recluse in Time After Time as an AV and have a big fight with him and his Bane Spiders. On the other hand, people like me can try Lord Recluse as an EB and have a much easier, solo fight. And I see no problem with either approach. Again, I am perfectly free to ignore Task Forces if I don't feel like being overshadowed. The very point of TFs is for them to be group affairs, not single-person ego trips. I know this coming in, so that's fine. Everything else, however, ought to scale down to me. And most everything actually does.

I can currently take on Recluse on both sides, I can take on the Statesman villain-side and I can rescue the Statesman hero-side. Now why can't we have more arcs like that?

Oh, thank GOD! I hope beyond all hope that the real numbers are wrong and my Ember Demon doesn't just suck. He's kind of like my puppy at this point. My... Disgusting brainless psychotic flaming puppy with half a bovine skull for a head. Really, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Ember Demon and the Hellfire Gargoyle are what make the set, because they're so very unique and so very expertly done.

I sincerely hope that this is a display bug and not the actual numbers the summon is getting. On that note, do damage enhancements really enhance his damage resistance toggle? I haven't seen that before.

Speaking for myself, no I have not. Nor do I intend to. Nor do I see a reason to even care.

High-level super-task-forces don't interest me. They're just a case of the game rubbing signature characters in my face and trying to convince me they're so much better than me by cheating and giving them stupid amount of spare stats. There's a reason I almost never do TFs and SFs. I prefer to play the parts of the game where I can pretend I'm the big bad and my dad can beat up your dad. It's not the entire game, true, but if I pretend the rest doesn't exist hard enough, it actually kind of doesn't.

You can actually see a tolerable version of him in Mender Silos' villain arc. He scales down to EB there, and he spawns player level, so it's a good place to take him on without having to beat the game at its own game. Not like Statesman the ARCHVILLAIN in To Save a Hero, where spawns as a level 54 Archvillain and proceeds to hit people for 5000 hit points per punch. Jack's subtle way of reminding us that the Statesman is and always will be better than us.

That's I1, though. In I11, you can slap the guy around on your own, which shows me, at least, that the development team is leaning our way, at least a bit. The Statesman is still tough as nails and he still cheats, but he's beatable with enough bravado. And that, really, is all I can ask for.

Why not? PvE is already like that hero-side. We're all equal, but that doesn't stop me from saving the world from everything you can think of, and no-one ever seems to wonder why it has to be ME and not one of the bazillion other heroes. Why can't everyone get a shot at conquiring some unnamed instanced island country? Sure, we'll all still be equal and no-one truly unique, but that doesn't matter because I can pretend the other people don't exist. I don't team with them, so they may as well not. But I can't pretend self-insertion persona Recluse doesn't exist because the narrative rubs him in my face all the time.

It's not a question of mechanical dependence on other players, it's a question of narrative dependence on established characters. I don't mind the game system and team requirements as they are now. They're not ideal, but I wouldn't campaign to change them. But what's wrong with giving me my own personal faction of goons that wear uniforms I designed for them and can occasionally be seen hanging about or occasionally even going out to do missions that I don't take part in?

Moreover, instead of trying to suck up to Recluse, why can't I be the big guy people suck up to? Say a new upstart villain comes up to me and says "Grumpy Santa! You're the man! I want to be just like you! And to prove I'm useful to you, here's this bit of information I beat up a hundred Skulls to get for you!" and then I'll be like "OK, I'll go have a look at this information that's clearly too big for you to handle. Why don't you stay here and shine my shoes until I get back, and maybe I'll give you a uniform and a bunk bed if I feel like it." It doesn't have to amount to anything. I just want my contacts to be nicer to me, or if they HAVE to be mean, I want the ability to be mean to them in return.

Actually, they can, because it's a question of narrative. Venture would probably stomp on my head for saying this, but I'd be perfectly happy to do fed-ex missions, kill-all missions, missions in faraway zones and so on and so forth if the narrative of the game just stroked my ego a bit more. The game currently treats villains like dirt. It's like it's actively trying to make me hate playing my characters because they're all so miserable. Never any ambition of their own, never any real villainy. Just heavy lifting for bigger villains.

It's not that hard to write missions that have the player as the sole antagonist. It's a question of writing. You don't need new mechanics, you don't need a new game. You just need to sit down and write your text to suggest the player is taking these decisions, himself. As long as the path of action makes sense and doesn't do anything too questionable, most people will be able to pretend they're making the choices.

"Able to" is not the same as "will." Honestly, I wouldn't bother. The Rogue Isles are a dump, and Recluse is squarely to blame. I don't WANT his failure. I don't WANT to waste my time fixing his mistakes. Not, more specifically, when I can be building my own version of New Latveria that's actually done right.

In fact, right at the end of the level range, Time After Time PROVES that the player character is stronger than Lord Recluse by pitting said character against Recluse. And even though Recluse cheats by bringing in reinforcements, all three of my villains kicked his *** and rubbed that future face plate in his face. He always tries to spin it, but the message is clear - Recluse does NOT mess with you, or THIS happens. Capiche?

And that's GREAT! Why can't we have more arcs like that? Why can't we have one with Daos, or Hardcase, or Westin Phipps? Why am I wasting my time bringing my contacts success and greatness when I can be doing something much more useful, like ruining their lives and benefiting myself. I mean, Willy Wheeler takes one for the team and I'm none too sad to see the little weasel go. That's a good place to feel like a big villain. A contact who's a pathetic wimp who makes your villain look much cooler by comparison is the perfect fit.

So give me an NPC faction of my own. Why is that unthinkable?

Yeah, no offense GG, but go to hell. The game does NOT have to be designed so that the NPCs are the bosses and the players are the workers. This is actually provable via one look at the Mission Architect. Just because you say it does not make it so.

Which I implied where Last I checked, players didn't take missions from each other

Your logic does not work unless the power curve is a perfect circle where it loops back to the weakest one when power goes off the charts SOMEONE needs to be the strongest and I'd like to see a game that puts ME in that position for a change

And even failing that a villain doesn't HAVE to work for anybody but himself even if he's not the strongest Last I checked Nemesis didn't have any taskmasters Dr Doom didn't answer to anyone and Lex Luthor typically did his own thing Even someone as relatively lower down on the scale of villainous success as the Lizard manages just fine without serving anyone unless a writer here and there forget who they're writing about

After I've killed thousands upon thousands of Arachnos soldiers destroyed raided or even saved literally hundreds of their bases trounced them in the street everywhere I've seen them beaten up their strongest HAND TO HAND I dare say :PArachnos are too strong:P begins to ring really hollow

Unless you want to have an argument beyond :Pbecause I said so:P I remain unconvinced of their supposed powers For all I know the Isles are populated by deadbeat idiots who are easily taken over The populace certainly doesn't give ME any trouble so conquering and ruling them doesn't earn Recluse any points

You have no concept of villain operations then Because of that were true then Malta would be ruling the Isles because they're stronger than Arachnos Oh wait maybe they're not Then Malta would have been wiped out by Arachnos. I mean what with them stealing Arachnos tech and all

Powerful villains can coexist perfectly well as the constant bouts between Rikti Council Nemesis Crey Freakshow and Devouring Earth easily demonstrate This stupid idea that :Pyou'd be crushed:P has no merit

Read what you quoted again and come back to me Here let me repeat it :Phave contacts come to ME:P Come to me as in come to my office show up in person and ask me to work for them This doesn't happen Even if I have a base and their phone numbers I need to call THEM and even then they don't :Pcome to my office:P It's a question of respect an authority I won't go over there to speak with them If they want my help they'll have to come to me And if they're too proud then they can go to hell

You're missing the point. I don't WANT the game to be "guiding" me towards picking a faction. I don't want to "belong." I don't want to be "with" the main bad guys. Quite on the contrary. I want to BE the main bad guy. Not necessarily in terms of the main bad guy on the isles, but in terms of the main bad guy OF THE CURRENT STORY. Someone tries to talk down to me, I kneecap him. Someone tries to use me as a pawn, I double-cross him. Someone tries to recruit me, I take his followers for my own. That sort of line of thinking.

It's not a question of choices. I don't think it ever was. It's a question of general game attitude. The game regards us as pond scum who exist solely to serve other, better villains. We're constantly serving SOMEONE, fulfilling THEIR plans and forwarding THEIR ambitions. We are, in essence, feeding off the crumbs of the real villains. In this story, Recluse and his lieutenants are the antagonists. We're somewhere between Miniboss and Boss in Mook's Clothing. Servants of Arachnos.

I don't want the story to expect me to side with Arachnos, but give me an out if I REALLY want to. I want the story to expect me to side WITH MYSELF. So when Arachnos play along, the story should have me playing nice with them. When Arachnos try to double-cross me or abuse me, I strike out against them. I want the game to treat ME as the protagonist and other people as "other people." As it stands right now, it feels almost like I fell over backwards into someone else's comic books and the writers are struggling to find things for me to do. Kind of like the Predators in most Aliens vs. Predator games.

Basically, I don't specifically want real choice as long as the "but though must" path is crafted in such a way as to demonstrate that my character can think for himself, has ambitions of his own and won't put up with being stepped on. Because that's what most of the BIG villains in comic books and other media are. They're the ones who commit the evil, not the ones who take lip from punks on the street.

Gimme' and office and have contacts come to ME. That might be a good first step.

I did. Everything other than "Off" on Occlusion Strength produces this artefact.

Basically, that's what I personally want. My choices don't have to have long-lasting consequences as long as what I do feels like my own choice. Basically, I want contacts to feel like a source of informations, at most partners in crime, not my bosses. I want to, when threatened or blackmailed, to have my reaction be to slap the guy in the mouth and still come out victorious DESPITE what he may want me to do. If defying someone is going to have consequences, then put me through the consequences. I don't mind. I'd sooner get the crap beaten out of my and snag a victory by the skin of my theeth than kowtow to Daos because he said so.

You know what? I feel it was a capital mistake to tie CoV's infrastructure to Arachnos so completely. We rez at their reclimators, we shop at their Quartermasters, we train at their Arbiters, we fly on their choppers, we confer in their Fortunatas... This is not good, people! Why can't I train with some underground unofficial sensei down in the sewers? Why can't I shop for enhancements from the "connected" neighbourhood bartender? Why can't I resurrect in the shanty town illegal reclimator? Just ANYTHING that doesn't tie me to Arachnso! Then we wouldn't have stupid arguments like "Yeah, well they can just turn off the reclimators and you're dead!" Now that's a narrative cop-out if ever I saw one.

How's about this: I give Daos the finger and next mission I walk into an ambush mission. I walk into a door, fade to black and I wake up in an Arachnos cell. O noes! Whatever will I do? Well, kick down the door, to start, then carve a path through their base big enough to sink ships in, and pinch my way through back topside. Then I waltz back to Daos and see him try not to sweat bullets. Good times

Point is, let me defy Arachnos, let me walk into trouble, let me get myself cursed. Let me do STUPID things, and just slap me with severe consequences that I can eventually fight my way out of. That way, it still feels like everything is my choice, because when people try to act tough with me, I defy them. Even if defiance is the only option, it still assumes my character can think for himself.

I actually have shadows turned off (that is, I'm using Stencil Shadows), so I have no access to the Shadow Shader detail slider. And I don't think it's shadow-related, really, because it's more along the edges of objects, specifically where things like buildings and powerlines and and the backdrop of the sky begins. I actually did a little mock-up:



Have a look at the lower-left edges of both pictures, because that's where this is the most prominent, just above and below the spike. You can clearly see the stepped pattern of on the edge in the left one, but in the right one it's much, much smoother. I DID NOT TOUCH my AA settings between the two screenshots. All I did was turn Ambient Occlusion on and off. It's on in the left picture, off in the right picture, and the right one looks decidedly better to me. You can actually see a bit of the problem in the antenna at the top, as well, but I goofed up and got the beacon flash in the first pic.

For the curious: This is the top of Ghost Widow's tower in Fort Cerberus. I'm just on my way out after warning her.

This is kind of what I was thinking. AO seems to be interfering with AA in such a way that AA works close up, but doesn't really work farther away. I'm not really familiar with how AA actually works on a mechanical level, nor what AO actually does, mathematically, but this is what I'm seeing as the end result. Objects close enough to display strong Occlusion shadows also see very strong AA effects and are very smooth. Objects far into the distance beyond the draw range of Occlusion shadows receive almost no antilailisng whatsoever. I don't know if it's some kind of stencil effect that only works where Occlusion shadows exist or if the AA option is somehow suppressed where shadows aren't present, but the result is not pretty, especially since I'm running medium occlusion settings anyway.

And, yeah, I'm running a low-ish resolution, myself. 1280x1024 (I don't know what DPI this is, but my screen is 17''), so I really do NOT want to play without AA turned on to at least x4. I can see the pixels from a mile away.

Ugh, don't remind me... Indigo, and especially Crimson are probably as good as Malta stories get in the game, and those are what? Five years old? Six years old? Crimson's World Wide Red is probably one of the only story arcs Hero-side that actually makes sense to be as long as it is, with very little filler, and I would guess because that's a story written for the Malta Group, whereas practically everything that contains them since has been stories written for a generic paramilitary enemy that the Malta Group just gets defaulted to because by that level, the Council are less para-military and more monster/demon club.

The Malta Group are a clandestine organisation that few people even know exists, and fewer still have any information about. Crimson seems to be one step ahead of them half the time because he's an old dog of the intelligence game who's been dealing with them for probably 50 years, and the only reason Indigo manages to outsmart them is because she's working with Crimson. Even her being a former Knives member doesn't help her as much, since half the time she basically sends heroes to work with Crimson anyway. The only reason the Malta can ruin a young heroine's career by making it look like she got a lot of people killed to a gang of Skulls is because no-one would believe her story of high-tech commandos suddenly appearing. They are an invisible force that needs to STAY invisible if they are to have a point.

To be honest, there's probably one other meaningful reference to the Malta Group in the game, and it's something Daos says at the end of Black Scorpion's first arc. Whether I like it or not, Arachnos and the Arbiters are being billed as CoV's badasses who are the strongest and who have the final say. So when Daos hears about Malta's involvements, it is outright shocking to hear him go "Malta? OK, that's not good." Paraphrasing, of course. Outside of Missing Melvin and the Mysterious Malta Alliteration and World Wide Red, this is about the only time Malta are actually treated with the kind of respect and thematic they deserve.

Trust me, I hate the Malta group, especially when I have to fight them. But they're one of the biggest bads out there, and I respect them for it. Please, let's not ruin their place because of rushed design. I mean, who the hell is "Grimalikn?" I thought the Malta Group didn't have one overall leader, but rather had a board of directors?

I'm actually not convinced that having armour pieces take some damage away from the player Bodyguard-style may not be a good way to go with this, as Bodyguard is unenhancible and applicable to all damage irrespective of element. I suspect it might be better to go with more conventional defence and resistance buffs, and maybe a hit points boost while we're at it.

I still want the pieces to have their own health, I just don't want them to take part of the player's damage. Rather, I want them to take their own damage, with the player taking all of his licks, but having resistance and defence to mitigate it.