Samuel_Tow

You know... I can't find the post I was thinking about. I wonder if it was from an old thread or something, or if maybe it wasn't from Castle or not from recently... Right, I think I may have spotted it in one of the necrothreads. Basically, it went along the lines that it's not an exploit and not something that people are really going to get banned for doing, but it's an artefact that they're not at all happy with and which may actually change at some point.

Either way, I AM taking a conservative stance on the matter. If it doesn't take a certain kind of enhancement, I'm not enhancing it for that aspect.

It's not a question of complexity. It is kind of a question of doing work, but that's not the actual problem, either. My beef with Inventions is, and has always been, the fact that they are split up into abstract sets defined and unified by concept, rather than by function. However, I will never see enhancements as a concept thing, because they are pure numbers. To me, these sets are at the same time restrictive and redundant, and they represent a construct that I am so unhappy with that I'm not going to touch with a 10-foot pole. And it's not their complexity or the math behind them that stops me, it's the fact that they break the one cardinal rule I exact on any type of enhancements in this game.

An enhancement needs to exist to slot every aspect of every power (that the power permits) at all levels and in all slots. Whether doing so is actually optimal or even smart is besides the point. Whether doing this is even economically feasible is, again, irrelevant. These enhancements need to exist and be attainable.

And again, if this seems like a tall order, consider that it's true for Training enhancements, SOs, DOs and Common Inventions, coincidentally all the things that people who insist they hate Inventions tend to use. Consider that I can say the following about any of the above: an enhancement exists that can slot every aspect of every power that the power permits at all levels in all slots. If I want 6-slot my attacks for damage, I can do so at every level. If I want to 6-slot my toggles for endurance reduction, I can do so at every level. Granted, DOs show up 12+ and SOs 22+, but I tend to consider Trainings, DOs and SOs to all be part of the same system, much like how Inventions scale up in percentage. They just do so in a much more ***-backwards way.

Of course, the other source of frustration is the cost and availability of Inventions Sets. People continually explain to me that, for the most part, I CAN get everything in a few copies, but a lot of people forget that not all copies are easy to come by, with a few people making caveats that "Yeah, it exists, but it's a Purple recipe." Furthermore, I can bet my peg leg that you simply don't get the exact same set functionality throughout the levels. I mean, it'd be kind of pointless to have different sets at different levels otherwise. This is another problem that violates the above condition. Even if I can't get SOs at level 15, I can get DOs that enhance the same aspects in the same way, just with a smaller percentage.

In just one sentence: What I hate about Set Inventions are the set designations, the lack of availability of all combinations in sufficient qualities applicable per power and the need to represent them as some kind of epic loot, in part or in whole. What I'm suggesting is more along the lines of currently-existing Common enhancements, which I strongly believe is about the only common ground between high-end Set-lovers and low-end Set-haters (like me). Expanding it a little ought to be good for the game, especially for people who would otherwise stay away from more conventional Sets.

Wait... Isn't Against All Odds a toggle? I know toggles can take recharge reducers, but I've never found those to be particularly useful. And I don't think it slots for defence at all.

Oh, wait, you mean Active Defence, the status protection power? Does that even grant defence debuff resistance? More importantly, can it be slotted for defence? Because if you mean to "sneak in" defence slotting by Hamidon enhancements, I'm pretty sure Castle had a comment recently about how highly unintentional that option was, and I'm willing to respect his decision.

Precisely the problem, and well-stated. I have no problem with some ATs killing slower, especially if they're designed to last longer, as well (i.e. Tankers), if only they were also designed to burn through their endurance slower. Yes, it would typically take longer for them to level up (it already does), but it wouldn't take as long as it does now, because they'd have to worry about endurance a lot less. In fact, if the extremely high levels of damage of your average Scrapper or Blaster came at the cost of extremely high endurance burn while lower damage values came with lower burn, I'd be satisfied. I might actually play a Tanker for a change, too.

You know, I've been here a long time. I've seen a lot of people basically give up on Tankers, and the reason is usually the same: "I can't kill anything without running out of endurance." This is a problem that I don't expect to ever see addressed unless we start balancing on damage DEALT to endurance used, rather than on damage MOD to endurance.

Um... Yes we do. We totally do. In fact, we had jet packs IN THE 60S! Sure, they couldn't fly as fast, as high or as long as ours do, but then real-world guns can't curve bullets and real-world swords can't cut plate steel, yet none of that ever stopped this being the status quo in City of Heroes. Oh, and real-world flesh doesn't absorb bullets as a form of nutrition.

And on the flip side, this isn't the real world. In Paragon City, teleportation technology is commonplace, levitation technology is sold at the corner grocery store, you can find energy weapons in toy stores and a lot of heroes have about 25 cybernetic hearts. Technology is commonplace. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to think up a technology that is NOT contemporary to the world of City of Heroes.

I think I have a new favourite developer. My apologies, BABs, you'll always be the best in my heart, but David still gets the First Place for Coolness medal this year Thank you kindly for the responses, good sir!

I have a hard time imagining such a relationship, to be honest, but maybe I'm too polar for that sort of thing.

One thing this thread DID inspire me to do, however, is write a letter to a friend of mine who seems to have stopped writing. I should act responsibly about these things for a change. See if her marriage is going all right, at least.

Yeah, but that's kind of what bugs me the most - that I'm looking for the existence of specific, named enhancements that do this. One of the reasons I was even entertaining this idea in the first place was so that I could do away with just that. Having JUST ONE enhancement that does this, which I can slot as many times as I want, and ideally get the recipe for out of the University, would be what it takes to make me do my homework on how to use dual-aspects.

Yeah, the problem with that is if you want to respec your villain, you're SOL. You either have to swap side, do a respec, then swap back, or... Well, you're SOL. I really, REALLY hate the concept of that decision. I mean, it gives us a possibility, but it's a very, very awkward one.

To be honest, I'd say they need to just bite the bullet and give villains regular Epics. I'm sure at this point few will complain that villain-side is being favoured by the developers just because heroes don't get completely new Patron powers with fully-developed storylines in return.

With those power gloves of his, I don't think he'd want to. We need that handsome face of his to stay exactly where it is.

See, the reason I ask is that I've actually seen this in various ways in-game. Currently, the female Icon mannequins use the Male upper body texture (Tights Muscular, to be precise), and while opinions on how appropriate this is vary, I don't believe many have said that it looks BAD so much as that it looks odd. And mind you, this is a texture that I don't think was ever designed for the female torso. If that works well enough to pass...

Additionally, a curious bug a couple of years ago introduced arms on the female model that used the male upper arms texture (again, Tights Muscular). They Shirt and Uniform Shirt sleeves for Jackets did this, and when I tried it, it didn't look half bad. Obviously not as good as it could have if it were intentional, but it wasn't too bad for a bug.

Finally, CURRENTLY ON LIVE female lower arms that use anything "with skin," such as the Fingerless Gloves texture for Smooth Gloves or the Pointed Glove and Flared Glove 3D model options will have the MALE lower arm texture, with all the heavy muscle striations and tendons popping up, which actually creates a sort of "line" between the smooth-skin upper arm and them muscular lower arm. I've bugged this several times, going as far back as 2004 and that still remains the same. I agree with you that it doesn't exactly look spectacular, but again - it's a texture that was intended for a much broader forearm.

All of that is to say that this may not look as badly as you fear if done properly and not over-the-top. Certainly, it's a matter of taste, and you clearly outrank me in terms of decision weight But I would still suggest that you guys at least look into this and see if there might not be something to it. It'd certainly make me personally VERY happy, and even if nothing comes out of it, at least I know SOMEONE heard my suggestions after all these years

Oh, I have respecs coming out of my ears, it's the bother of having to redo my whole build that bugs me, specifically since I'll have to scrounge up three extra slots that I don't remember having to play with.

Oh, if only there were some kind of... Common multi-aspect enhancement. That would make things easier, I bet

Huh... You do have a point there. I don't believe I am, however, as I've been told so by a friend of mine (without me asking, even). What you see here on the forums is what you get, and yes, I really AM just this annoying and long-winded in real life, too.

Speaking of Facebook, by the way, I have a friend over right now, and lamenting to him about this topic (yes, I seriously do talk with other people about things on the forums, go figure), and while he DOES use Facebook, he too explained his annoyance at all the crap it was notifying him of. In fact, as we were speaking he was updating his list of things he didn't care about.

On the plus side, he did catch a friend of his posting about a black muscle-bound porn actress that we spent the next probably half hour looking up the name of. Good thing I knew about her, or he'd wouldn't have believed she was real.

Yeah, seriously.

*sigh*
You do realise that means I have to respec now, don't you?

That's actually another problem. There probably are enough of every kind of enhancement, but they aren't all available in the same level range. In fact, I don't believe the selection is even remotely the same in every level range at all. It's all well and good to plan your builds for level 50, but a lot of people (myself among them) tend to forget that we want good, or at least decent builds all the way to 50, or at least post 20.

Now, I HAVE been talking about increasing complexity, but one way I did NOT want to do it is by instituting radically different slotting options throughout the level ranges, because that would leave people constantly guessing or, much more likely, in a constant state of "can't be arsed."

Basically, if we simply got multi-aspect enhancements of every kind that doesn't cause technical problems available to all powers that can use them at all levels, then I can deal with whatever subsystem they employ. That may sound like a tall order, but remember - I can say this about the current enhancements just fine. We have single-aspect enhancements to enhance all aspects of all powers available at all levels.

Hmm... I come off as an introvert to you? Seriously? I mean, in theory I'd agree with you, but seriously? I have, like, eleventy billion posts and I've been called names by practically everyone who's held an account here. I think I've done well for myself

Yeah, I kind of figured they were the same modifier, but what I don't get is why code it like that. It seems to me like that actually makes things more complicated to balance when effects are interlinked like that. In fact, the complexity found in most logical puzzles actually comes from the same source - the fact that you can't move all pieces independently, and you have to figure out a way to plan far enough ahead to have them all click into place.

Basically, other than convenience, I don't see a reason to interlink things like that.

I want to address both points together. Set limitations may or may not have been born out of the need to counter-balance these problems, but set limitations are centred around... Well, the actual sets. This is problematic in a system that has no inherent sets of enhancements, as the current constructs are less mechanical and more thematic, in a lot of way. The reason I'm reinventing the wheel, as it were, is because I want to reduce these enhancements down to their basic effects as much as possible and divorce them from any other abstract collections that may bind them. Sets are, whether we like to admit it or not, linked together by theme in a large way. "Heal" sets are going to have some degree of healing enhancements in them, whereas attacks sets probably aren't, making attacks that heal (like Syphon Life) a little harder to slot.

Lastly, it's not a question of powers that I want to slot but can't (I haven't actually looked into Set enhancements much, and it shows), but rather a general problem of approach. One of the reasons I dislike set enhancements is the fact that they're split up in abstract sets, rather than sets based on aspect effect functionality. At a stretch, I would not be averse to reusing the same mechanic that divides Set enhancements into their respective sets, provided we redefine what those sets hold. For instance, I would not really mind having a Targeted AoE category for these dual-aspect enhancements, provided ALL combinations that don't cause direct problems with these powers were available there, and they were not further subdivided.

To be honest, in terms of pure sense of aesthetics, it's the abstract nature of named sets that bugs me the most. Alleviating that would make the system vastly more appealing to me.

I'm actually specifically looking at Grant Cover for this. Normally, I wouldn't care about whether enhancing defence-granting powers for defence would grant defence debuff resistance, because I'm going to slot them for defence anyway, hence it doesn't really matter. Grant Cover, however, provides defence to OTHER people, but NOT to me, which makes me reluctant to slot it for defence. If it gave me defence debuff resistance, then I would, and other people would benefit from it. If it doesn't, then I'm just going to stiff other people and feel really sorry on the inside.