Samuel_Tow

Good point. I figure if we release this in SO as enhancements that turn red and drop off and then double-up on it as Commons that have similar percentages but don't, that might take a bite out of what many people feel is a NEED to get into Inventions Sets to either stay competitive or get much-needed performance.

I've heard a lot of complaints about Inventions in general, and aside from them being complicated (which is an argument I don't think anyone but me makes), by far the most common I hear is that they're difficult to obtain and require a lot of market know-how. Making them Common and even Vendor might solve this problem, while still letting sets do things "just enhancements" can't.

On the flip side, you do make a good point - might that not be too powerful? Does this need to be limited, and if it does, then how? One dual-aspect per power? Two dual-aspects per power? A limited number times an effect can be enhanced? I don't really know, but look at how this would play out.

If you were only allowed to slot two dual-aspect enhancements per power, then you could conceivably only get almost one extra aspect. Instead of slotting, say, one accuracy and three damage, you slot two accuracy/endurance and three damage, getting close to the same accuracy PLUS endurance reduction and the same damage, but no more.

If you were only allowed to enhance the same aspect, say only twice with dual-aspects, but as many times as you want with single-aspect ones on top of that, then you could have a power with three damage an accuracy and two endurance reduction and then alter that to two accuracy/endurance, three damage, but then what? You can't stick on more accuracy/recharge or endurance/recharge because those are capped, and you can't slap on damage/anything because it would be pointless, so either you stick in a dual-aspect something completely different, or you put in a single-aspect enhancement.

What this also does is it prevents you from taking a power that's slotted for 3 recharge and 3 damage and reslotting it with 4 recharge/damage enhancements, because you'd cap out at only two per aspect and then have to improvise. I assume 3 recharge/damage isn't quite on the same level as three separate ones, and adding another recharge and damage would just put you too far over the cap, wasting too much. So it might actually be smart to go 2 recharge, 2 damage, 1 recharge/danage 1 something else. Probably single-aspect.

I'm just brainstorming here, because I'm well aware that if left TOO unrestricted, multi-aspect enhancements have the potential to take over. But there ARE restrictions that could be put on them, and kept to ONLY whatever new enhancements get added.

Well, isn't the solution to that to have enhancements that don't have set bonuses to worry about, and in return come with reduced rarity and/or cost? I mean, it would seem to make sense.

Yikes! Yeah, that would be a problem. I guess you could still do the port-to-port thing just for the sake of recharging, say, your Elude, but at the cost of massive bother, I can kind of see that as balanced. In this case, it's not the recharge that's the problem, it's the ability to use it inside a mission, and that I could easily see as explotiable.

And, you know, it's not so much the exploit that bothers me as the fact that, if this became common practice, it would mean I'd be expected to use it, and given that two builds means twice the slotting... That's a scary prospect. Besides, it would pervert the meaning of having two different builds for two different situations.

I still don't like doing that at contacts, though. There has to be some way to rig it so that I DO have to leave my mission and go somewhere, but still not require another person to change it for me. Perhaps slap a few techno-magical crystals around the maps for us to switch via? Yeah, it's still kind of drawing power from something else, but at least it's not SOMEONE else, which would be enough for me.

Frankly, letting me switch by myself would have been ideal. I know the system is there to safeguard against people abusing dual builds to just flip-flop between setups, but surely there has to be a better balancing factor than having to visit a trainer? Again, just upping the timer would have solved that problem completely, but then I don't know. It just bugs me.

Needing help to learn new powers, that I can understand. You're developing them. But needing help switch setups? There's no excuse for that!

Yeah... I'm going to put on my dunce cap and go sit in the corner, because I really don't know much about marketeering. I didn't even consider that that might be a problem. I can't really contribute any solutions, since you know my stance - I'd rather buy anything I need from vendors than from other fickle, greedy people

Well, that's good to hear. If this DOES end up happening, I'll do a little dance, grab my pen and my thinking cap and sit down for a nice long numbers binge. That I can actually work with, because it's a much "more finite" system, at the very least restricted to 5-level increments. And who knows, maybe I'll fall in love with multi-aspect enhancements.

But I'm still not dealing with Sets. Sorry.

BotZ? Seriously? I love it!

But, yeah, that's yet another reason I have to hate Inventions - exemplaring. Call it compulsion if you will, but I enjoy having my enhancements be all high level, all the same level, and all orderly. The moment I have to so much as CONSIDER getting a lower-level enhancement because a higher-level one is actually worse, I just lose my will to bother. It's the same with practically every MegaMan game I've played.

Either X gets some kind of Hyper Armour and Zero doesn't, or I have to backtrack through all of the levels and use characters I don't want to play, or I have to either cheat or grind metals, and either way, this ruins my sense of parity and flow. Really, I can deal with all the trials and tribulations and growing pains of progressing through the game, but for the love of God of War, please let me get my perfectly-ordered, uniform build by the end, at least!

That's why I keep asking for multi-aspect commons. Screw set bonuses! I want all of my enhancements at level 50 with the same picture for the same effect. I don't want uniques and rares messing up my clean enhancements screen. And I know this may sound like a petty argument to make, but remember this: I've given up a Hamidon Heal/Endurance enhancement for free, and I've dumped at least three purples on the market for 5000 inf for this one specific reason above all others. I don't WANT a mutant, deformed, disorderly build dictated by what levels each set is good at. I want a stock, shiny, orderly one, even if that means less performance.

Currently, nothing beyond Commons is anything even remotely approaching "orderly."

*edit*
Seriously, I'm serious here. Can anyone give me any reasons why dual-aspect commons, and possibly dual-aspect SOs would be a bad thing? Just off the top of your head.

Well that's disappointing...

Cool costume, though. I like the more stylistic designs.

Is it me, or does she really have no underwear?

Well, even aside from a purely in-game mechanic, you still have your Omega level clearance that explains how the Rikti are (redacted) because they actually come from (redacted), which you need to earn to be allowed to see the documents on (redacted). So even in fiction, you have that working against you

A couple of points here:

First of all, I don't actually have a problem with Dual Builds, themselves. I have a problem with the necessity to visit a trainer to swap them. Why the (REALLY redacted) hell do I have to visit someone else to shift my stance and alter my preparation? Even if we accept that the trainers can help us evolve our powers, which admittedly is a stretch, there's no reason for them to be able to switch between two different setups. What, did I leave my M30 Grenades at Positron or something?

And, you know, I don't think that's even needed. By all means, if you want to keep us from swapping builds too often, then just slap a half-hour to two-hour recharge on the thing, but let us do it in the field. Give it a 60-second activation time if need be, just SOMETHING that doesn't require me to run back to my trainer every time I want to swap!

At this point, I'm willing to concede that a lot of the entry messages and little hints are just poorly conceived, especially the ones that tell you how you feel. I guess for me it's a question of apparent intent. The intent of these little quips, inept though their execution is, is to add a little flavour text and set the mood, not define fact. But the intent of most of the villain narrative appears, at least to my reading, to be geared towards establishing your character as an unambiguous villain through his actions and reactions.

Once again, if there were Hero-tagged missions doable in the Rogue Isles that only Rogues could take part of (which I kind of doubt), then I wouldn't have any problem whatsoever. In fact, I WANT to see this kind of thing, because it would really bring Rogues and Vigilantes to life as more than just faux factions. And, really, with the advent of Going Rogue, I really have very little ground to stand on when it comes to this subject, because the iconically obvious alignment of both sides is about to become a lot more ambiguous, and that's by design. So, really, I'd say wait for Going Rogue, and the we can pick this back up

Huh? Is that new? Last time I looked through inventions, there was only one for resistance and one for defence, and both were at level 30. I haven't been keeping up with the times.

How about this, instead: Upon reaching whatever veteran reward this is, you can outolevel one character. Period. That I could actually see happening.

Yeah, and that's two hours total, all together.

Well, I congratulate you on learning piece-meal. I don't roll that way. I do not enjoy using a system that I don't fully or at least mostly understand, and I DEFINITELY don't enjoy just slotting whatever unless I have a good idea of what I'm doing. I've done enough crappy builds by just putting slots with no forethought and planning, and I don't enjoy respeccing very much at all, put it like that.

"If I put" is where the disconnect happens. To put an Invention enhancement in there, I first need to obtain it. If I decide to obtain one that's even slightly rare, then that becomes a non-repeatable task, in that repeating it is too much of a PITA for me to want to repeat. For instance, I COULD unlock all the Vanguard gear on all of my characters, so it's a task I can repeat. But within context, it's not a repeatable task, because it sucks and I'm never going to repeat it again.

Not in the slightest. What's tripping me up is that I don't have full access to all Inventions in the kind of quantities I want for a civilised price, and that even if I did, the vary too much just between each other. Different names, different themes, different set composition, different levels. I like my slotting like I like my numbers - clean, pristine and uniform. This is not the case with Inventions, not least of all because if I want knockback protection, I HAVE to have a level 30 enhancement even if I'm level 50.

My repeated comments that I'd use milti-aspect Inventions if we had commons of that sort ought to suggest what my problem is - the fact that Sets come in sets and the fact that they're rare and disorderly. I dislike the set mechanics, not the multi-aspect mechanics.

You people insist on misquoting me, huh? Do me a favour - go back and reread my original post, then please quote any place I accused or criticised anyone. Not where I alluded to it, not where wording might have suggested it, not where one specific word may have implied it. Quote me where I said anything that would be dismissive of other people. Because I checked. I specifically went back and re-read my original post from a month ago, and I found precisely what I remembered - I detailed the events that led up to my finding my own name.

You may insist on ignoring context, but I'm going to reiterate it once again, despite me having explained it no less than three times in this very thread, which you conveniently ignored. This whole thread never intended to tell people that they sucked, or that they should be more creative. The single purpose I created it was because I was overjoyed with the name I found and I decided to post about it. I'm saddened that you're so determined to read malice into my joy, but at this point I'm half-expecting people to read my posts backwards and expose me as the anti-christ, with all the insults and misquotes I've had to wade through recently.

Read carefully, because this is important: I thought good names were running out. I did, myself, alone, on my own. I never suggested or inferred that other people thought so or were uncreative. Not in the original post, and the rest was likely a response to someone else. I thought that good character names are running out, and I proved MYSELF wrong. Well, I hope you'll excuse me if I delight in proving myself wrong and finding a good name I like despite not expecting to. I seriously thought I'd have to settle for a personal name of some sort, but lo and behold, I didn't.

And frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn if you don't like it. It's MY name for MY character that I like, and since you have no business playing my characters, you have no right and no place to judge how good it is, unless you can convince me that I only think I like it but actually don't.

Please, next time you decide to misquote me, actually include quotes with links to the source posts.

Ugh! For the love of... Context! Context! Context! Why must everyone insist on pulling specific points completely out of context and then hold me to task on them? I wasn't arguing your example at all. I don't WANT to argue your example at all, because it's irrelevant (I'll explain). I didn't want to quote all of your numbers because I did not address any of your numbers, which should be obvious from reading my reply.

The whole point was to explain that I didn't feel naming your character just "Flame" was something people do, but even if they did, the names are not taken.

And again you ignore my evidence that both Fire and Flame are available on Pinnacle, choosing instead to point out that they're taken on Virtue. So? Are we somehow looking for the names to be free on ALL the servers, or do they need to be free on Virtue in particular? I checked on the server that I play, because that's what I had selected. If you were talking about names running out ON FREEDOM AND VIRTUE, then it may have benefited you to specify that, so I wouldn't have to go looking for examples you're just going to handwave as irrelevant.

I'm not sure why you insist on claiming that I'm doing this because I don't want other people to use my names, but it just proves that you didn't actually read my post to begin with, as I don't want to assume you'd sink so low as to string together straw man after straw man. If you'd actually read my post or pretty much any part of the actual thread before laying your unfounded, insulting allegations, you'd have spotted that I have no problem with people using my names. I don't value the uniqueness of names any more so than I value the uniqueness of costumes, and given that I'm not suggesting that costumes cannot be duplicated, it should be safe to assume that's not very highly.

What I HATE is ambiguity, and this is why numbers exercise is irrelevant. A system for naming HAS to be non-ambiguous. This is a basic requirement for a naming system to have any point. It must give me at least one clear, always-visible indicator by which I can tell one character from another at a glance, one parameter that cannot change, or at least not change easily. This is the character's name. Any system that allows multiple people to use the same name at the same time is flawed in its very exception, because it ignores the point of having names to begin with. The system needs a unique identifier, and unless that identifier is a name, then the system becomes fugly.

Many people suggest that we go the Champions Online rout of appending global to the end of character names, and I WILL NOT support this. Not now, not ever. I don't care how you spin it, global name attached to local name is UGLY, and I do not want to see it in my game. You can browbeat and demonise me all you want. I'm not going to concede. In fact, you can save yourself some time and effort and, you know, read the thread, because this is at least the second time I'm explaining this exact thing.

If you can suggest a system that is both unambiguous at ALL times, and yet not ugly ever at all, then by all means, suggest it. I've made that offer dozens of times, and every time I get either no response, or it is suggested to me that I go to hell. No, I'm sorry, but slamming your fist in your hand and calling me a big meanie will not convince me. Either find an argument that doesn't rely on character assassination, or drop this.

Says you. Why is everyone suddenly the end all and be all of public opinion? I LIKE that name, and if it's not used, I'm actually going to use it, myself. Why is it that every time one of these threads come up, invariably someone decides to descend into arrogance and claim that the names of people who are happy with the system suck and they should be ashamed of themselves, while the only names that don't suck are the names already taken? It's almost as if a name can't be considered good if it ISN'T taken.

How much do you want to bet that either Fire or Flame will have been taken on Pinnacle after I listed them here?

Really, though, why is it suddenly incomprehensible for the forum population to make an argument without browbeating the person they are arguing with? What, did disagreeing turn into declaring open warfare when I wasn't looking? The point to having an argument is to have two sides that disagree. If you start with the belief that you are invariably right and the other guy is incurably wrong, then you come as a big self-righteous arrogant bully. And you have the temerity to tell me to get off my high horse?

Several missions explain that Crey experimentation is causing periodic security failures in the Zig, causing prisoners to escape over and over again. Why they haven't fixed that in the past six years, I can't say. But I do know that Arachos run Zig raids basically every day, causing even more prisoners to escape, and seemingly very few of them get taken over to the Isles. The rest just spill into the streets.

As for why it's not disrupting the people... I really can't say. They don't seem to be bothered about living in a city where aliens abduct, nazi recruit and evil wizards steal souls on every street corner, so what's a bunch of violent convicts on top of that all? Besides, we always seem to save them anyway.

Like I said - if you have a decent explanation for the powers, then I really have no qualms. If it makes sense, it makes sense, and I'd say your explanation makes sense.

You can always screenshot it and put a giant pic in your sig.

The power of Jackson compels you!

More specifically, the fact that the first wave of user Beta testers are usually hand-picked from those that have proven themselves good, focused testers who are more likely to stick to the script and not delve into massive debates and flame wars. This is not the case with open betas, as even the most focused eventually get dragged into "NO U!" debates by the sheer weight of the masses. I've seen it happen in practically every Beta I've been in, which is why I'll never fault Paragon Studios for not inviting me.

*sigh*

I never asked you to accept anything. I can just as easily point out that it doesn't make sense that bullets do knockback and that arrows fly in a straight line, but it kind of does, doesn't it? How many people have you seen complain about it? How many people even notice? To my eyes, it's explanation enough that Back Alley Brawler has dealt with enough young heroes to know how to help them develop their own abilities. If you think of him drawing diagrams of thought patterns and waving around FMRI scans as a means to train up a psychic, then you're overthinking and overspecifying the concept. ANY part of this game can break if you set it as your objective can break it. We're allowed to do too much for it to be any other way.

But to refuse to believe that a veteran hero would know how to help other heroes unlock their own potential? Aside from dismissing Penny Peterson's entire existence, you're overlooking the simple fact that the trainers aren't devising techniques for you to learn. Those techniques are yours as soon as you pop up into the world, and ever trainer you visit can help you with the exact same. All you need is a trainer to help you realise them. They're your powers as learned by you. The trainer is only a guiding force, not a source of power and knowledge.

Really, why are you so determined to bring down trainers, when it's so much easier to shoot at things like Fateweavers and Hero Corps Field Analysts, or to attack the Trainers' ability to swap builds for you? Those DON'T make any sense whatsoever, yet even with the concentrated effort to prove the game doesn't make sense, no-one has yet mentioned them.

I have no problem with claiming your powers to be something they COULD be. Presenting energy as radiation or temporal force I can live with, so why not? But trying to present Ice as energy, when it clearly deals cold damage and scores extra hurt against fire-based enemies and less against ice-based enemies... It's ice. You can call it sand, tar, time or cookie dough, but it's ice. I don't buy it. You can change the look, but you can't change the graphics and, moreover, you can't change your damage type. When I get hit with it, it still says Frozen Shield in my buff bar, and I can clearly see you using a kaleidoscope Jack Frost.

The ONLY way I can deal with this is if people go the whole hog and explain ALL aspects of their powers, including why they do the damage type they do, why they have the effects they have and why they don't look like what they're supposed to. Again, energies are easy. No-one can really say what radiation is supposed to do, given how many different things radiation actually does in the game, so claiming that it does damage and stuns is a good way to ret-con Energy Manipulation, Energy Melee and even Energy Aura. But taking Dark Armour and Dark melee and colouring them a yellowish-brown is not enough to claim you're playing a sand character. You still need to explain why your sand draws its power from the Netherworld, because I'm pretty sure Nethergoat is all out of magical sand.

A decent explanation is required if you want to claim things are what they are clearly not. Just the bare claim is not enough.

Yeah, I admit. That was my bad. I was trying to say what they give in general, not what they do for other people, so my choice of address was easily ambiguous. Sorry about that.

Maybe it's just me™, but I've always been on the side of "No, you don't need these things!!!" Even back in the old days, I managed to do "just fine" without Stamina, Hasten or 5/1 slotting. Just fine here stands for "being able to solo my own missions without tearing my hear out. Things have only gotten easier since, and not because of Inventions. OK, perhaps because of Inventions as well, but for plenty of reasons OTHER than that. And, sure, we see fewer discussions to that effect, but I, personally, didn't buy into them even then.

I... Really can't disagree with that notion. As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to see them offered for direct purchase for those of us who don't want to bother. I don't care if it's at inflated prices, like 500 000 per level 50 common. I'd still buy that off a vendor than fret over supply, demand and market fluctuation, and certainly without worrying about planning ahead. Inventions are superior to SOs in every way BUT obtaining them, and if they weren't "craft only," I'd probably be using them full-time. Since they're not, I relegate them to where the numerical benefit for having them outweighs the unpleasant cost.

And again - why are there no multi-aspect commons? It's a more complicated levelling system, but I could deal with it if it didn't come attached to rarity, set bonuses and non-standard enhancement levels.