Samuel_Tow

David, I understand the concerns about adding an entirely new character model, but what's your take on "faking it," as it were? What I mean is, have you guys considered adding, say, an alternate skin texture that has more muscle definition like what you did for the Male chests (Smooth vs. Muscular)? That in itself would help so much it's difficult to describe.

Additionally, have you considered just retweaking, extending or expanding the sliders? That would help a great deal, as well.

The reason I'm saying this is because I don't believe we need a whole new model, per se. Just a few more specific costume options and other tweaks. The model in itself is fine. The problem with the much-discussed "huge female" is how it scales and what textures we have access to. Those shouldn't need such a massive expenditure of resources.

...

Should they?

See, that's a lifestyle choice. Me, I'm never gonna' HAVE 118 friends because I don't WANT 118 friends. I don't know if I have 18. I had "friends" in primary school, whom I lost touch with, and I do not care. I still have one real friend from there that I see maybe twice a year, and occasionally play Battlefield 2142 with if we log on at the same time. I had a bunch of friends from high school (oddly, mostly girls), who moved to the capital to study in university. They eventually stopped writing, aside of organising the occasional class reunion, and I'm simply not going to bother writing to them any more. The one girl who did occasionally write to me is the one I keep in touch with, though. I have a bunch of friends from University, and while I like them and occasionally keep in touch with them, the most I can do with these people is go out to a restaurant, which as far as pleasurable activities go for me is somewhere between watching grass grow in winter and riding the bus home. I have a bunch of colleagues at work right now, including an Indian guy on a researcher exchange programme, but I spend enough time with them at work. I'm certainly not interested in "status updates" about their lives. If I were, I'd call them up and ask, which I have from time to time.

Maybe I'm a Luddite. May I'm just a hostile *******. Maybe I'm just a sociopathic dick. Point is, I don't really care about what other people are doing in their daily lives, even when it's interesting. I very much care about them when we're together in the same room, on the phone, in DIRECT chat or suchforth. I don't want to KNOW about them. I want to INTERACT with them. I don't want to feel like I'm surrounded by people that I'm not in the slightest close to. I want to feel like I'm actually tangibly interacting with these people. Frankly, even just one person is enough, as long as the interaction is real. I don't need to feel like I have many friends IN THEORY. I want to feel like I have a friend RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

This is kind of why I solo so much in-game, as well. I don't need a specific minimal body count before I feel like I'm having fun. I'm quite capable of doing so by myself. What I want out of other people is not their direct presence. It's having a person that's actually "in the room." That's why Facebook and Twitter and whatever else is out there for "social networking" is just never going to do it for me. You can have fun with it, guys. But please understand that I despise the very concept of it.

Huh... See, this is kind of why I wanted to make that thread - to look into all the potential holes such a suggestion would open up. I was well aware there were things I wasn't taking into account, but I honestly wasn't taking THIS into account. It makes sense now that you mention it, though.

So, basically, what you're saying is that we can't have an enhancement that enhances say, 33% damage and 20% damage resistance because that's basically two of the same thing? That could be problematic. I'd actually ask why that's done like this, but I'm sure this is a question none of us can answer. We could possibly hope on Arcana, but in this case I have my doubts about that, as well.

So, that explains the restriction of sets by type. Is there something that can be done to limit this effect in such a way that could still be applicable for a more free-form kind of enhancement production? Obviously, we can't go with what I'd originally planned, because what I had would produce effects like the above-mentioned speed buff/speed debuff enhancements, which you explained can't work. Clearly we'll need some system to prevent redundant enhancement effects from being put together into the same multi-aspect enhancement, and that should be fairly simple to work in, at least in terms of planning. Simply prevent certain aspects of being put into the same enhancement with certain other ones.

How can we keep Schedule A enhancements from enhancing effects intended to be Schedule B, however? That is, how do we do this without resorting to simply retreading Set categories? I realise we'll have to look at SOMETHING like that, so perhaps modifying the system a LITTLE may be the key.

Here's what bugs me about the status quo of Set Inventions as I understand it: You have several wide-scale categories with rules defined per category that powers are split into, which is a pretty severe example of high-level management. The problem with high-level management is that it works by stating design rules and basically shoehorning existing examples into the rule they fit best, making no distinction between the actual individual settings. I guess a possible alternative to this would be tagging powers not by the set that they belong to, but rather by the intended function of their effects. Here's what I have in mind, and this is something which may bring a bit more optimizational complexity to the table.

Suppose we are allowed to make multi-aspect enhancements in any combination we want that doesn't double up the same actual aspect. This would allow us to make enhancements with effects that could possibly enhance an aspect for more or less than its schedule permits. So let us pick the enhancement schedule when combining it. If, for instance, I pick a Defence/Damage enhancement, such as for slotting into Parry. Upon making this enhancement, I will be allowed to pick whether it is Schedule A, so say ~30% on both aspects, or Schedule B, ~20% per aspect, just as illustrative numbers. They're probably not true, but I don't want to go hunting down numbers now.

The flip side of this is that each power will have the effects it can even be slotted for tagged as what schedule they are. For instance, in Parry, damage would be Schedule A and defence Schedule B. Each power, when being enhanced with a dual aspect enhancement, will only be permitted if the enhancement values are LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO the schedule of the LOWEST-VALUE aspect. So, if you want to slot Damage/Defence in Parry, you could only slot a B/B Damage/Defence enhancement. As such, if you want to use combined Damage/Defence enhancements in Parry, you will have to deal with lower values for damage. Alternatively, you could not bother and slot the power with single aspect enhancements, or multi-aspect enhancements that don't affect a Schedule B aspect at all, like Damage/Endurance or Accuracy/Recharge.

See, when Inventions came out, people started asking questions like "Well, why use anything else?" or "Why use Hamidon enhancements, then?" This would sort of answer that question. The same kind of slotting won't always work in every power, nor will the same kind of enhancements always be applicable. This breaks up one of the biggest complaints with ED back when it was new - that it didn't diversify anything, but merely changed the "ideal slotting" to something else. This could (I don't know if it will, but it could) make it so there is no one single ideal slotting for, say, every attack power. Sometimes multi-aspect enhancements work best, sometimes they actually get dragged down by intended schedule and single-aspect ones are better. And even then, you're still foregoing Set bonuses, which gives Sets a point as well. It complicates the system a bit more, but I honestly think that's not as big a problem as it seems, at first.

*question*
Incidentally, does Defence Buff slotting not also increase Defence Debuff Resistance? People tell me it doesn't, but real numbers seem to show that it does.

That's just it - I don't. In the slightest. I don't care what my mother had for breakfast, I don't care what problems my brother has with his wife (for entirely different reasons)... I just don't need to know. If friends and family want to share, then by all means, I'll listen, but I'm not going to ask, because I honestly don't care. This isn't the kind of thing that's interesting to me, and I'll never understand why it confounds people so much.

For instance, I can be friends with a person for a year without knowing his name, as it happens with some people I've met over City of Heroes. Then my friends will ask me "Well, what does work?" "Is he married?" "How old is he?" I don't know. I never asked. It never came up. And, frankly, that's rarely interesting even when it does come up. I know this probably makes me come off like a jerkass, but I see no reason why I can't be friends with someone without nosing into their personal lives and especially why I have to care about the daily lives of my family, most of whom I'm not even that close with.

Hence, to me, Facebook is an utter waste of space, and the more people bring it up, the more it irritates me to listen about it. Those who have some use of it have my blessing to use it to their heart's content, but if it suddenly ceased to exist, then trust me, I wouldn't give a rats ***, if you'll pardon my English. I won't exactly go out of my way to throw a party, but I WILL NOT CARE.

The whole point of this idea (and at this point I might as well just handle the actual suggestion here) was to sidestep Set limitations of availability and applicability. In a sense, to allow people to handle their enhancements in a way identical to how they handle SOs or commons, not worrying about which enhancement can fit into which power, which enhancement even EXISTS and which enhancement can be slotted with which other.

Now, on the other hand, I haven't actually looked at Inventions, themselves. It is quite possible the more popular enhancement combinations exist in multiple instances at all levels. I'm willing to accept this as generally true without asking for proof. I do not believe, however, that less popular combos exist as commonly at all levels, if they even exist at all. For instance, how many powers can use both speed buff AND speed debuff enhancing? Outside of Syphon speed, I'm not aware of any, but even if there are, they are few. How many different sets have that?

This recreates a VERY old problem that is currently already fixed - The Power 10. Remember that one? Out of I think around 30 enhancements total at the time, only 10 became available as DOs at level 12 and only 10 as SOs at level 22, with the rest ulocking one tier later at 22 and 32, respectively (30, actually). I don't remember which ones were Power 10, but I believe it included damage, accuracy, endurance reduction, defence, resistance, heal and a few others. Notably, NOT hold, stun, sleep or confuse.

This is the problem I see with Set enhancement applicability as a general case. Yes, sets combos do exist to give the more popular slottings to the more popular powers, but do enough sets exist to give ALL possible slottings to ALL possible powers? I do not believe so. I realise that that in itself is a major benefit, but so are Set bonuses, and I'm suggesting that those be removed from these theoretic enhancements. I'm suggesting a trade, as it were.

I should also note that my math from before sucked big time. 26 enhancements in two slots, excluding doubles and ignoring order, doesn't actually go THAT high. Let's see if I can figure it out. It's not 26*25, but rather 25 + 24 + ... + 1 = 325, by Excel's calculations. Not quite 600+, but still quite a lot.

Hence why I was looking at limiting it to two aspects only. Cramming all possible aspects in each enhancement is just so badly overpowered it's not even funny. Hell, the aforementioned "craftable HOs with Inventions scaling" is skirting the line of overpowered as it is, especially with the kind of slotting Tetris solutions I've been getting in this thread.

Techbot says it well. You CAN sell Inventions-related paraphernalia to the vendors, but you get dick for it in return. Common recipes CAN be pretty expensive, but they don't become expensive until the late 30s to early 40s. Before that, they aren't worth much. All salvage is dirt cheap to the vendors, and Set recipes are even CHEAPER than they should be. And you know why? As a direct incentive to sell them on the Market. On the one hand, that's good, because it ensures supply. On the other hand, that's bad, because you depend on demand.

Easy example: A piece of rare salvage sold to the vendors brings me 5000 inf. A piece of rare salvage sold to the Market will almost always bring me 70 000 - 150 000 basically at any point after level 15 or so. A couple of days ago, I got a drop from just running missions, which I listed for 5000 and sold for 20 million. I don't know what recipe it was, but it was not unique or purple. Just a regular set drop that didn't look at all remarkable. That would have sold for MAYBE 50 000 at the vendor.

Well, that doesn't quite work as you think it would, at least not without a good deal of additional explanation. The problem is that while Inventions do not degrade, they also scale. SOs do not. So if they don't run out, what level do you set them to be constantly? Even con? Not good enough. +3 is where I want their performance to be, and with a bit of expenditure, I can typically keep them at that level, or close to it. Upgrading them to + and ++ as those become available will keep them your level or above almost constantly, and since I can usually spare the cash, I'd rather have performance over convenience.

On the flip side, if you set them at +3 value, then you basically screw over Inventions almost entirely, because Inventions don't break even with +3 SOs until the 40s. And then, even if you DO fix them at that level, which level's costs do you use for their purchase? I assume we'd just drop the notion of SO levels entirely? Why ever need to buy more than one set, then? SOs are a decent inf sink, and if you never need to upgrade them, then that's not very good for the economy. Even Inventions you CAN upgrade for some gain. set-level SOs you just can't. Back to price - Inventions are expensive. More expensive than SOs, in fact, if you don't have the Inventions badges. JUST the cost of making a level 50 Common is half a million. A SO is something like 30 000.

It's not just a simple matter of "make it so," I'm afraid. There's much to figure out before committing to something like that.

So, essentially:

Is that what you're referring to? So, does that ever state WHICH era, version or style of comic books, or hell... Does it even state AMERICAN comic books? Because I searched, and I couldn't find it. In fact, I couldn't find any mention of "super hero" at all. There's "hero" and there's "comic book" but that's about it.

First of all, even if we assume this is a super hero comic book of silver to pre-modern age American comic books of a very specific style, I cannot agree that that should mean other styles should be consistently given minor importance. Whatever the game's genre may be called, the fact of the matter is that people play this game for themes from practically all across the board. Science fiction, film noir, slasher flicks, anime, action flicks, fantasy, paranormal, conspiracy theory, cloak-n-dagger, spy thriller... One of THE greatest strengths of this game is its ability to absorb absolutely any concept and make it work within its world, so if you're trying to weigh your personal preference more than those of other people just because the game happens to have "comic book" in its description, then I simply cannot agree with you.

Furthermore, you yourself admit you're sticking to a particular subset of American super hero comic book, and you're trying to judge based on that preference. However, the availability of themes even just in comic books is a lot broader than this. ANYTHING you can come up with as an example of things not in comic books, I can bet money someone will come out and quote out of a comic book. And then there are non-American comic books, like manga, which people keep unfairly excluding. You know what? Foreshadow - the man who butted the Statesman out of centre stage for City of Hero and who was billed as one of the most powerful heroes in the city, could as well have been right out of a manga. And that's without even thinking about it too hard.

You're completely justified in preferring what you prefer and asking that it be prioritised. But please don't try to use empty justifications to give it undue weight. It just ends up annoying people who don't share your view of what the game "should be about."

The problem with outdoor maps isn't context, but rather legacy. The game plain didn't HAVE outdoor maps until I1, whereupon the only outdoor maps were those used in Portal Corps' alternate dimension missions. Now think about that context and think about what the outdoor maps actually look like:

We come into the map via a red energy square, and the map is cut off by a blue forcefield. This is pretty much exactly how Tina McIntyre explains the dimensional pockets that we visit when we travel to other dimensions. This same mechanic apparently looked innocuous enough to re-use for general-purpose outdoor missions.

Now come I2, and a lot of missions were revised to use outdoor maps even outside of Peregrine Island. Check out any I2 content, though, and you'll notice a recurring statement: "I've called for an emergency forcefield." This is the developers trying to explain that "Hey, you know that blue energy wall thing that stops you from moving out of the instance? THAT'S what this is! Cool, huh?"

Then come I5 and Croatoa, where the whole zone is permanently surrounded by this blue forcefield and all of its spirit world maps are surrounded by it, too. No-one spares a thought to explain why it is there. It just is. It's kind of less a physical barrier and more an "invisible wall" that just happens to be visible, but serves the same purpose of an invisible one - to keep players contained within a specific area.

Then comes CoV and the last alternate dimension legacy is removed. You know how those outdoor maps in City of Heroes kind of LOOK like places we've known in the city, but actually aren't? The buildings are the same, but they're jumbled. That was originally done to make the maps look familiar, yet different. We're on an alternate Earth where things look a lot like they do on Primal Earth, but not quite exactly the same. Well, with City of Villains, the outdoor maps are simply instanced pieces of the overworld with NOTHING AT ALL changed about them, often even retaining the old geometry of a zone after something in the actual zone has been changed, but not updated in the instance.

All that said, I feel we simply need more instanced maps. We have a grand total of between ten and twenty outdoor instances, and more outdoor missions than that from just Unai Kemen. I don't really suggest we should have a unique map for every mission, but we need more by at least SOME stretch.

Come on, Tenzhi. I tend to have a lot of respect for you, but this is just silly. "Fuddy-duddies?" Are you seriously going to start blaming cliques, too? That sort of stuff ought to be beneath you, and I'm really disappointed to see you resort to that.

As for staying on topic, Positron's reasoning was all you should have needed to hear. The game emphasises "alts" pretty much as its main focus. A full/complete/super respec basically stands to contradict that focus very much diametrically. I realise you don't like the answer of "just roll another alt," but you have to face the music sooner or later - this is not going to happen. You can either pout about how you don't want to do 1-35 again and never ever get that character to 50, or you can bite the bullet and actually do it.

I agree it's probably not the ideal solution for you, but we don't always get what we want. I should know.

That's handwavable. Confounding, but handvavable. What I feel is the bigget hurdle is actually technical - going up terraces. We live is some kind of odd, awkward terraced city where every neighbourhood is on its own plateau 50 feet above or below its surrounding area. How do you go up that terrace via tunnelling? The obvious answer is "just dig up on the inside, but think about it: We are discussing this as a form of regular sprinting with effects and stats applied. Well, regular sprinting can't just "warp" to the top of ledges, can it? Not to mention - is this going to be instantaneous? Because we can't "dig up" vertical walls.

And again, in the spirit of digging through structural steel and fire escapes, what about digging through BUILDINGS? I mean, conceivably that could be done, but can you really imagine the implications of something like this?

I have the agree with He Who Punches Vandal - this is a basic functionality that really shouldn't require specific setups to monitor. I was really dubious at first about how that would work, but having blue text saying "Held" while hold magnitude is lower than your protection is actually pretty clever. It gives you a good idea as to whether you can turn off your toggles, whether you can rest and, most importantly, whether running out of your endurance and having THAT drop your toggles might not be a BAD idea. There aren't terribly many situations where that is too useful, but at the same time, I can't think of a single situation where it would get in the way.

Huh... Didn't you just complain about having to use an optional element of the game, such as the Market and Inventions? If they just dropped SOs altogether, THAT IS ALL THAT WILL BE LEFT! Think about that very carefully before you support these ideas.

Well, obviously that's what they'll say, and it IS what they said. Do you honestly see them coming out and saying "Well, now that we have this Market thing, we feel you no longer need the income because you'll obviously be using the Market from now on." That'd have caused a shitstorm big enough to turn a small moon into a swirling toilet.

The fact of the matter is that the Market was intended to replace the lost revenue to the removed enhancements (and it did), that instantly shot the idea that you'd be able to make money WITHOUT the Market in the foot. You're not gonna', and I think that thread is pretty good evidence for it.

This, I believe, is the quintessential problem with endurance management for a lot of ATs, especially non-damage-dealers that nevertheless have a damage-dealing role. Defenders come to mind, but Corruptors and Kheldians of some walks would count. The problem is that, as an AT's damage mods fall, its damage gets weaker, but its costs remain the same, thus efficiency drops, and sometimes significantly. Tankers, in fact, had a problem not too dissimilar from this way back in 2004-2005 (I think), and while I don't remember the exact nature of the problem, I do remember them simply not doing enough damage to justify their costs.

The general formula is indeed 5.2 units of cost per unit of scale damage, but each unit of scale damage does different amounts for different ATs. Taken as ACTUAL damage delivered (at level 50), Scrappers and Blasters deal around 12.031 while Brutes deal about 7.something. I don't have numbers for Tankers, but I'd assume they'd be slightly more than Brutes. In the context of endurance cost, this is where your endurance goes, as it were - into an utter lack of efficiency.

Personally, I feel that endurance cost should not be based on scale damage, but on ACTUAL damage, instead. A Scrapper deals hideous amounts of damage, so I can live with that Scrapper's attacks costing more. Tankers, however, despite what apologists would have you believe, simply do not deal quite as much, and so I would have no problem with their attacks costing less. For instance, for a Scrapper to deal 1000 damage, that Scrapper would have to deal 15.984 scale damage, and pay 83.118 endurance points for it, recovery notwithstanding. A Tanker, on the other hand, would need 22.478, costing him 116.885 points of endurance.

To my eyes, this is not good design. I have nothing against certain ATs doing less damage. We can simply say that they need to fight longer to overcome their enemies, that they don't hit as hard. But there is no justification for why they should expend the same amount of energy doing less damage. A Defender trying to deal damage, even with the new Vigilance damage buff, is still SOL, not just because he can't kill things as fast and so takes more damage, but also because he's sucking wind for no reason whatsoever.

Far as I'm concerned, we need more parity between cost and effect, and we need to look more at the ACTUAL effects and less at effect modifiers.

Because THE WHOLE GAME already deviates from whatever narrow definition the term "super hero" may once have had. The very fact that you see a lot of people do non-classic super heroes should be proof enough that that is what the players want to make. And I seriously doubt it ruins the immersion for "a lot of people," since outside of the exceedingly rare complain, I simply don't see this. Not in-game, not on the forums.

Furthermore, it's actually pretty insulting to suggest what you suggest. Say I keep making non-traditional heroes because that's I like. Heroes who fit into the setting mind you. Are you seriously going to try and suggest I'm doing it wrong and the game shouldn't be about my concepts? That what I want more of should be added last because it's not what YOU want?

City of Heroes is not and has never been a comic book simulator. It's a game inspired by comic books, but it is not a game that IS a comic book. It is not a game that is dictated to by what you see in a comic book. It is a game with its own fiction, its own story and its own thematics. If you want a game that's desperately trying to be an interactive comic book, that's what Champions Online is practically in its entirety. Since I'm posting on this forum and not that one, I obviously prefer this game.

And, again, we're running up against an extremely narrow view of what comic books represent. If you want to stick to just silver age or golden age spandex costumes and campy heroes, then go right ahead, but comic books are much more wide and varied than just that. I can almost guarantee you that there is not a single (serious) character that you can take out of this game and NOT find similarity with in at least some comic book somewhere.

In short, stop trying to impose your vision of thematics onto other people's game. The chief selling point of City of Heroes is freedom in customization.

That's kind of a loaded question, since, and I'm sorry to say this, I couldn't care less about ANY of the three. I'm not exaggerating.

"Something to do" and "takes months" are not mutually dependent, as Abrahms points out. You can well have a lot to do in terms of new content, but there's no real reason to lock side-switching behind ALL of it.

A wise man once said that the easiest way to ruin a pleasurable activity is to get paid to do it every day. This is what that line of thinking leads to, because the easiest way to sour people on good content is to force them to do it about 20 times in a row.

One would hope so. In fact, has anyone bothered to do the math on this one? If they're shooting for 1% a week, that's 100 weeks to fully switch over. According to the Internet, there are 52 (and a bit) weeks in a year, so that's TWO YEARS to switch over ONE CHARACTER. This is so completely stupid that I have a hard time believing that's what they're really shooting for. Either that answer was misspoken and ambiguous, or we're reading it wrong.

I want to think it's what Futurias suggests, in that you can switch over much more easily than that, but will have to wait a week before you switch back. Which would make sense.