Samuel_Tow

I see. Well, for what it's worth, I like the name a lot, but they are your characters so it's obviously your call.

I should probably try to think of a few more names, and probably check up the one I suggested on Virtue a few more times just to see if someone is spying on me

Well, that would be one way of solving the problem, yes, and a much more elegant one than scolding me into the corner because I don't have the same IP as all the cool kids.

Certainly. But I'm doing much the same - speaking from my own personal experience, things people I've played with have shared and things I've seen around the forums. Anecdotes, if you will.

Huh? "Technically" Brutes without Fury are crap? Brutes without Fury are Tankers in all but name for all the effect that has on the small scale. That purely depends on what you want out of the game, as far as I'm concerned. If you want the so-called "perpetual motion," then they may very well be crap in your eyes, but then understand that by my estimate taken in the same way, Defenders, Controllers and Dominators are "crap." I just don't like them, because they can't do what I want them to do. The way I play them, I don't concern myself with maintaining Fury between fights as I rather enjoy fine-point exploration and I'm prone to take my hands off my keyboard for a wide variety of reasons, from potty breaks to watching TV to just taking a stroll around the room. Trust me, they play just fine without worrying about Fury.

As for not being able to play without Fury... You can and you can't. While it's true that in the purely technical sense of the wording, you can't, as everything you do generates SOME Fury. On the practical side, however, that much fury matters exactly zilch. In fact, it isn't until I start getting in the neighbourhood of 40-50 Fury that I start feeling the impact in such a way that I can detect without scanning the numbers, and by that point, I can acknowledge that I am well "furious" enough for it to count.

I'm going to describe the combat strategy I tend to ascribe to my Brutes via the use of Dragonball Z. When Vegeta and Nappa first come to Earth, they're dicking around with plant men and so forth, but when those get blown up, it starts to get relevant. At first, Nappa is just playing around with Earth's underpowered heroes, crushing them one by one, but when he starts taking hits and his pride is on the line, he gets serious and starts really blasting them to pieces. Up until Goku shows up and basically one-shots him. Then Vegeta steps in and they duel, apparently on even footing, but it's clear Vegeta is just completely messing with him and isn't serious at all. Goku powers up and seems to finally match him, but again, Vegeta just laughs, powers up and shows that he's a LOT more powerful. Goku powers up again, beyon what he ought to be capable of and manages to actually hurt Vegeta, to which he responds by transforming into that cheesy cop-out ape thing and basically crushing Goku for the remainder of the fight

The rest of the fight plays more like a power-DOWN as everyone gets progressively more beat-up and weaker, but the above is a good example of how I play my own Brutes. For my Stone/Stone, for instance, it tends to go like this:

He's basically unkillable by the little things, so he doesn't have to put out much effort. Even without Fury, Stone Melee is just NASTY. But every so often, things get tense, and Fury builds up on its own. When Fury isn't enough, Earth Embrace resets the fight and makes him tougher. When even that isn't enough, Granite Armour + Hasten come to the rescue. And when even THAT isn't enough, he has a huge stash of inspirations to draw on. And, quite frankly, it's been rather rare that even THAT isn't enough.

My Scrappers open the fight with the highest Burst they can manage, aiming to kill the thing as quickly and brutally as possible. By contrast, my Brutes open the fight with a relatively low level of output, but thanks to their greater staying power, are capable of continually powering up to meet the challenge as it increases and sustain the battle as it drags on. And, furthermore, since I play at -1x3, Fury as a mechanic is rarely absent, because I rarely find instances where the enemies are SO weak they don't need anything to fight. But even so, I don't see a reason to draw my Brutes as inelegant.

Wait, so you're talking entire power swaps on the mechanical level? That I actually wouldn't mind, but I honestly don't think I can agree with you as to the direction these alterations need to take, since:

Yeah, no. In no way do I find Claws to be the most iconic Brute set. I may be going back on my word here, but I find that Stone Melee and Battle Axe are the most "brutish" sets, both because they do some of the highest damage, and because they actually look the most massive. Again, I don't equate strength with inelegance, so I have no problem depicting Brutes as "heavies" in terms of style, as long as they are not depicted as "clumsy" in implementation. In fact, the old idea that Tankers would hit harder than Scrappers but wouldn't be able to aim for crap is exactly what I do NOT want as a general idea of visual design.

Personally, I'm VERY disappointed with how Fury is generated by Brutes, because it naturally discredits slow, hard-hitting sets, which really ought to be the Brute's "thing." I'd much rather see the Juggernaut punch his fist through a tank and deep into the street below in a slow, wide, cinematic arc than to see him run about like a monkey, shin-kicking military jeeps really fast. And pretty much every cartoon that has ever depicted any combination of The Hulk, The Juggernaut, The Thing and Colossus squaring off against each other has done so via a series of slow, deliberate, DEVASTATING blows traded, rather than some kind of "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" fast-paced boxing match. If anything, that's Scrapper territory as they plain lack the "heavy" sets on their side. Brutes don't really need to be inelegant, and I don't mind them being fast and accurate, but I do not want to see the old standbys of hard-hitting, deliberate sets completely ignored. I'm sick and tired of people ragging on Battle Axe because it doesn't generate enough Fury when Fury should have been designed to be generated by output, not just speed.

Yeah, I can see how that wouldn't work. I'm pretty sure Naruto would be taken

I do not recall BABs ever saying that weapon sets can not have custom effects or animations, merely that they left weapon sets with no power customization options because they already had weapon customization working for them, which at that point was considered good enough.

Custom weapons are a costume effect, and as such they have absolutely no effect on power effects or animations. As BABs has described them being rigged, the weapon is "always there," but has two frames of animation - visible and invisible, and as such is an animated costume piece. That's why weapons in costume files are called with FX scripts, rather than basic costume piece definitions, if I may infer. Basically, when the weapon needs to be shown, it plays its visible frame, and when the weapon needs to disappear, it plays its invisible animation. As such, the weapon costume piece is always attached to your arm, it's just not always visible.

Weapon auras ARE attached to the weapon, which is true for weapons like the Nictus Imperious Sword, but those are part of the weapon in the same way that the dark aura is part of the Burned Wings. Power effects on weapon powers, however, are not tied to the weapon in any way, they are tied to the power's definition. Basically, anything that is not a continuing effect that constantly loops when the weapon is out is a power effect. This includes hit effect sparks, swing arcs, the red "pillar of pain" from Broadsword and the "weapons of glow" when using Build Up with a weapon. Those are all power effects and very much susceptible to powerset customization.

The reason those effects are not customizable is two-fold. First of all, power customization was a mountain of work, so they had to prioritise what to do first. As making a custom variant of most power's effects meant literally making a brand new effect from scratch, that is not insignificant. Secondly, weapon effects are not something that SHOULD be customized, as they basically consist of sparks and swing arcs, which don't really make sense to be neon pink. They might end up being customizable some day, but I'd put them pretty low on the totem pole of importance.

As far as animations go, there is no reason why custom weapons cannot have custom animations. What BABs discussed about Spines was regarding spine redraw which happened between the different types of spines, if you so chose to customize them, and that's a consequence of you actually using different weapons that call different models and as such can't really have the same activation sequence. However, as long as the power's activation sequence calls the same weapon definition, there's no reason why there should be a problem of animation, and as such no reason there should be a problem with custom alternate animations for weapon sets. The real problem is that there isn't much there to put, not a lot of time and opportunity to make brand new animations and the fact that a lot of other sets are much farther ahead on the need for customization, such as pools and Epics, at the very least.

It's also a joke that flew over so many people's heads it's like we live in a world of little people.

You forgot to mention availability, which is the real bottleneck to participation.

Bad example, since most people don't tend to pay to go to work.

For me, this "repetitive" argument always boggles my mind. On the one hand, yeah, it IS repetitive. What game that you can play for five years ISN'T? But on the other hand, yes it is repetitive, but so what? Every MMO is repetitive, and most are a LOT worse about it. Someone mentioned that having to find a specific enemy while avoiding all other enemies and hauling *** all over creation makes things seem less repetitive, and I have to ask what kind of Bizarro Sam I must be if that makes things a zillion times worse for me. Yes, City of Heroes is repetitive, but in a very "light" way, in that everything is relatively easy and painless to repeat. In most other MMOs, I have to spend an hour just finding what I'm supposed to be grinding, and that makes the grind itself all that much worse.

It's kind of like Spoony's review of Dirty Harry for the NES - several times he had to jump a really tricky gap. While this may not have been a big problem in your typical platformer, when he fell down, he actually had to backtrack around 5 minutes just to get back up to the platform and try again. What might have been an otherwise irritating but minor problem was transformed into a huge pain in the *** bad enough for me to reconsider linking to the reviews with what it does to the guy.

I don't know, maybe my brain was installed backwards when I was little, but to me, City of Heroes is the LEAST repetitive MMO I've ever played, and by this point, I've played a fair bit. Yes, you do a lot of the same over and over again, but at least what you have to repeat is fun to play. That is NOT the case in any other MMO I've seen.

Say what say what say what? What's wrong with Jalia Dragonfire? I love that name! Even if you could draw some argument as to why it's not good, is it any worse than Jaina Proudmoore? That one seems to be quite popular in a world of similarly styled names. Or, heck, is it any worse than Jada Fire?

Anyway, since you haven't really described any specific concept or context for this one, writing in a name would be pretty much a random affair. I tend to go for personal names a lot of the time, unless the theme specifically requires a name of some sort, and other than "something to do with a Valkyrie or possibly the colour blue," this look isn't too suggestive.

OK, after checking out names on Virtue, the first one I tried was the first thing that popped into my head, and it looks free for the moment. That name is "Swordfight" and I think it's appropriate for your character. I'd look for more names, but I'm actually simultaneously happy with this one and actually pretty pissed off that I'm being routed to the EU version of the site, so I'll have to limit my degree of thinking for today.

No, nothing of the sort, but it just shows me you only see what you want to see and ignore everything else. If you read my post and see it as rubbing it in your face, then you are beyond arguing with.

If you actually cared to read it, and I'm beginning to seriously doubt you ever did, it's more "I got a name that I like and so can you if you tried." but apparently that makes me some kind of elitist jerk. Do you really want me to play the bad guy here? Really?

Oh, hey! Sweet! I would SO go for that

Possibly we just disagree on interpretation.

Yeah, that's someone's interpretation of Scrapper criticals, but I don't like it. And if there's one thing this game is good about, it's letting me pretend things I don't like don't exist and not really losing anything. Not to mention that more than half of the Stalker criticals happen the same way, so there you go. I don't like the interpretation that Scrappers are somehow careless and let Criticals "just happen," so I choose to believe their aim for a critical spot only sometimes and tend to always hit. When they aim is out of my hands, but that's no less random than when they hit, so oh, well.

I can think of it however I want. That's my point. The entire reason I'm still arguing is not to tell you that you are wrong, but rather to defend the position that I'm not wrong in believing what I chose to. To be perfectly honest, I don't play Brutes or feel like you do when playing them. A Brute without Fury is Crap? Doesn't look like it to me, considering what my Brutes can do. Yeah, yeah, they're better with Fury. When that's actually needed, it builds up on its own. I don't play my Brutes like a rollercoaster of adrenaline, and if the game forced me, I wouldn't be able to play them at all. You are free to play how you choose to play, but understand that so am I.

"Small and fast" is not something I would associate with "brutal" in any sense of the word, that was my point. "Brutal" would be the Hulk, or Colossus, or the Juggernaut. A big, tough, unbreakable character who walks slowly but hits like a train and cannot be stopped. Even in the cartoons and in the movies, the Hulk doesn't spaz around when he's rampaging. He tends to leave enough time for things to shoot him, turn around, roar, rip the turret off a tank, stand around, get shot again, turn around, repeat. The Hulk doesn't DO "small and fast" attacks. Period. And that's where the whole system fails in my eyes, because building up Fury by using your own attacks should not be about speed, but rather by exertion. Granted, more attacks exerts more, but STRONGER attacks ought to exert more than weaker ones, as well, and they don't. Even if you're going purely mechanically, the system for building up Fury on a Brute is not really "brutish." In fact, it's something more representative of your typical Scrapper.

Furthermore, if they chose to give alternate, "more smashy" attacks for certain melee powersets, what sense does it make for them to land-lock them on a Brute, rather than tossing them into the general custom animations pool for everyone to use? Sure, you view your Brutes as low-brow bruisers and your Scrappers as able fighters. That's perfectly fine, and you'd be perfectly capable of choosing the animations that represent that and go with it. But why should I be lumped together with your tastes and forced to play things out the same when I disagree? Why shouldn't I be allowed to pick the animations that would fit my character concept as I have designed it?

Let's say Brutes had Martial Arts available to them. Would you suggest they ONLY have access to the new animations while Scrappers ONLY have access to the old ones? If you answer "yes" to the above, then this discussion is over on the spot. But if you answer "no," then I will expand this to ask "Well, then, why not let the same happen for all sets that eventually get alternate animations?" That's the whole point - let people choose what THEY think is appropriate, rather than what YOU believe the proper interpretation is.

Oh, well indeed, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. As you've mentioned yourself, this has the unfortunate implication of shafting some sets and outright making others impossible. And I don't believe it needed to.

I actually think a separate set for a two-handed sword might be in order, though. The current one we have is well brutal enough, sure, but a two-handed sword would need to be even heavier and probably work in wider arcs. Not like that'll ever happen, but a guy can dream

The point of the suggestions forum is to discuss suggestions with other players. If you are not interested in your suggestions being discussed, I would advise you to post them in a non-public fashion by PM-ing them to a specific developer that would be in charge of these things.

If you post anything on the forums, it WILL be discussed. Deal with it.

As far as I'm aware, the script didn't do much of anything above level 6, but if Trial accounts are the problem, I believe those get treated a little differently. I don't actually have any proof that they are, mind you, but it would make sense that a Trial account which never got paid for and has been inactive for a year doesn't hold great potential to spontaneously sprouting a new subscriber and, moreover... Well, let's just say that if I start a trial for some game somewhere and go away for a year, I'm not exactly going to be coming back for characters I may or may not remember.

So, yeah, I have no problem with all character names on Trial accounts being purged as soon as thye hit the 90 day mark.

Much in the same way, a Scrapper does not get to choose when he will aim for the eyes and look to score critical hits. The only way a Scapper can get a critical is by random chance on a random attack at some point. You could say that he's aiming but missing, but then that just means he's aiming at vital points all the time anyway, which would make that his status quo and, as such, make criticals still just as random and not dependent on choice to score. In practice and in mechanics, Scrappers score criticals not because they aim to score them or because they're very accurate, but simply because blind luck lands their hits in the right place. The fact that higher accuracy does not make critical hits more likely is an easy example of this.

Even something as simple as Vigilance has the same problem. A Defender tries harder in the face of adversity, but that Defender has no way to decide when this adversity is. He can only try harder when someone is low on health, even if that someone is actually perfectly fine at that level of health. A Defender can also not try harder if the situation is visibly really bad, but people haven't dropped dead yet. He has no control over his destiny, yet we accept this.

Why, then, do we not accept the same for a Brute - that the abstract of the mechanic can model someone like, say, Superman, who will never unleash his full power unless he realises it's absolutely necessary? The mechanic is not a perfect example of this, no, but neither is it a perfect example of anger, either, because, speaking for me, at least, the things that make me angry tend to make me blow up up-front without any process of becoming more and more angry. Yes, yes, I'm aware that "madder Hulk get, stronger Hulk become," but even THAT is not realistic, if we're really looking of realistic depictions of human interaction. It's an abstract concept, and it ought to be viewed in an abstract sense.

I'm not sure that's a good road to take, trying to infer AT design from the meaning of the word. For one thing, a "Tanker" is either someone who drives a tank or a large vehicle or vessel designed to carry large quantities of liquid. The connotation of the name comes from the word's similarity to the word "tank," in the sense of armoured combat vehicle, even despite the fact that real-life tanks are not designed to take damage instead of other ground troops so much as to give their main gun enough protection to be out in open country and for the crew of that gun to not die instantly. A true "tank" if we wanted to go by that concept, would be someone who's incredibly dangerous yet incredibly hard to kill, but suffering mobility limitations. Because of the abstract nature of player classes and the needs for balance in design, our "tanks" are incredibly tough, designed to be hit first and foremost and not designed to be very dangerous. As such, the meaning of the term "Tanker" is less derived from the meaning of the actual word "tanker" and more with the connotations of what the class usually called by a similar name does in other RPGs.

As such, branding a Brute as clumsy and inelegant because of what the word "brute" means is a bad path to take.

No, I can very much deny that a Brute excels at a specific attack type. From what you mentioned, Stone Melee is brute force indeed, but Claws very much is not. It's speed, and, at least to my eyes, precision. In fact, it's LESS strength by design, as it deals less damage and costs less endurance. Dual Blades are not brutish, either, nor is, to be honest, Dark Melee. Or, heck, Fiery Melee. And while Brutes no longer have it, Ice Melee wasn't very thuggish, either. And I don't see why it has to be.

Brutes are designed to equate time in combat with damage, and are furthermore designed to equate speed with damage. Time in combat could be achieved by being too tough to kill or just plain too hard to hit and speed is just the result of a no-accountability mechanic. Furthermore, "more damage" does not have to imply "more strength" or "more power" or indeed even "more determination." It can easily imply more focus, less restraint or, hell, even more fun.

This mechanic could easily describe a character who doesn't take anything seriously and always approaches every fight like a joke, but because he actually holds tremendous power, he has vast reserves to call upon when his enemies prove to be tougher than they look. Yes, I'm aware how people play Brutes. The way I play them, I have the most Fury in the situations where the fight is the toughest and my enemies the most numerous.

*edit*
I should also note that I am not a fan of how small attacks give as much Fury as large attacks and Fast attacks give as much as slow attacks. It creates a really one-sided system where only speed of execution determines how much Fury you generate, such that the small pimp slaps end up being more "fury-inducing" than hitting someone with all the strength of a massive earthquake. As well, getting pricked with a needle infuriates as much as getting your liver shot off. Not my idea of perfect balance.

Understood. No harm done, then.

Well, Scrappers or Blasters would be my response, really, and Blasters are very much the opposite in terms of ease of play. But, in this case, it's not so much a problem with the difficulty itself, as much as what causes it to happen. I understand it's a somewhat frowned-upon mentality to look for the perfect AT composition, but I will say one thing - when the easiest way to remove a major threat is to remove a team member, that's bad design. Kheldians, whether they are weak or not, are not overpowered enough to need Quantums, Voids and Cysts to balance their awesomeness. They don't suck, obviously, but they are not so far and above better than all other ATs that they need these mechanics to hold them down. As a result, they're a pain for the Kheldian, which is his own business, and a pain for the team, which sort of makes it my business.

I'm not against challenge in general. I prefer to be in places where I can avoid it, but that's besides the point. I don't believe challenge done in such a way as to make Kheldians "bad news" is good for the game and good for the AT. Even the most free-thinking people are going to grumble when they get wiped by the things a few times, especially if they weren't looking for a challenge right at that specific moment.

Far as I'm concerned, the meta-AT problems Kheldians face are unfair to the AT and unneeded as a form of game balance.

Yeah, see this? This would make me do one of the following:

1. Punch my keyboard.
2. Shut down the game and likely not start it up again.
3. Murder someone and bury him by the river.

Basically, when I "stumble upon" something which prevents me from playing a game I want to play in a way I'm interested in playing it, my reaction tends to be to play a different game. I've stuck with City of Heroes as long as I have entirely because it doesn't put me through such moments, and I love it for it. I don't mind it having such moments if I expressly stated that I don't mind being ganked, such as what happens when you go onto a TF, but I highly enjoy the fact that the game treats me like an adult who is capable of understanding what kind of entertainment he prefers, and so allows me to tailor my difficulty to where I'm comfortable. I do not enjoy surprises that insta-kill me.

I didn't have to "settle" for anything. I had a list of synonims to try and this is the first one that went through. When I realised how obscure it was, I fell in love with it, because I enjoy obscure things as long as I know what they mean. And this is always the argument: "I want a descriptive name, but I tried all the variants and they were all taken." Well, I had a descriptive name I wanted to use, I tried all the variants and I got a name. I take this as evidence that the process works. Hell, if I were able to just log in and get "Blindness" on the first try, I'd have posted asking "What the hell are you people doing? Why has this not been taken?" If you want a descriptive name (as opposed to THAT EXACT NAME), then good names are still very much out there and unused.

And this anecdote of mine very much does help make a point - for the first time in probably a year I make a character with a name that may not fly, and I get a name that is hugely satisfying within 10-15 minutes. Unless you want to claim that my experience was somehow aberrant and I just got hugely lucky (which I can't exactly dispute, but will you claim it?), the fact remains that I did what people complain is impossible first time around, first time I needed it. I did not need to rely on the statistic likelyhood of coming upon a concept for which there was a good name. I picked a concept, I picked a name, I found a name that worked and I did not skip a beat. If I had to change the concept or change the name theme, I would not be here posting about it. But I did exactly what I've insisted was easily possible all this time. And it was very easy and very possible.

No, I'm not saying what you continually claim I must be saying, functionally, technically, theoretically speaking. You keep missing a central part of the hypothetical situation - that you HAVE several names that you WANT to use to choose from. If you really, really, REALLY have only one singe name and one single name only and no names ever, ever, ever... Then you're boned. I'm sorry, but you are. If you can only ever call your character one thing and one thing only and you can't call him that because it's taken, then there really is no solution to that.

I don't agree that is as often the case as you suggest. I don't agree that all that very often, a person has a character that is already well-developed and with some backstory and yet doesn't go by at least two names. To my eyes, at least, that sort of thing goes hand-in-hand with the process of writing for a character. I'm not trying to put down any hard and fast rules, but I'm saying that, more often than not, even a set concept has SOME wiggle room. Maybe it doesn't for you. Hell, it doesn't always for me. But I cannot agree that's in the slightest a common situation.

Yes, I make no contest that it sucks when you can't change a name and it's taken. I don't think this is a situation nearly as common as you make it out to be.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I signed the petition. And I've been working extra hard to pretend it doesn't exist since