Samuel_Tow

Yeah, I don't know what level that happens at, but my experience with them was underwhelming at best. They obviously do well enough solo, but then Defenders do well enough solo and I'm not rushing to solo one. They have barely any hit points and I lost count of how many times I was two-shotted, Voids and Quantums stunned me on practically every shot and knocked me back on every single one, and my Inherent was perfectly useless unless I was on a team.

Kheldians are a team-centric AT loaded up with several team roles that you can pick and choose between, yet they cause grief to teams that will have them just by being on them.

Yeah... That kind of uncharacteristic, mean, malicious slander is not something I'd have expected from you, Bill. I am honestly incredibly disappointed, especially since you're throwing insults in my face so freely. Reflect on that how you will.

And again, you miss the point - Cysts are a really bad place to put challenge, as they are out of the control of the people who spawn them and brand them with a not entirely undeserved stigma. If your argument is that "If you don't like Master Of runs, never team with Kheldians," then I see no way to read that as anything but an utter fallacy, as that basically dooms Kheldians to never being teamed with. Luckily, Cysts spawn rarely enough to where they're not a problem and most people don't have to worry about them, but if they were, then you'd be dooming Kheldians to a perpetual solo game unless they can find a powergaming team. And these aren't as common as they used to be.

Basically, your position seem to be "My Kheldian is mine. The rest of them can suck it." which, once again, is something I'd have considered beneath you. By all means, vouch for challenge, I have no complaints. But look for it where people not looking for challenge aren't tripping over it in the dark. One of the key strengths of City of Heroes is the ability to customise your playing experience, and yet you're suggesting that something which basically forces challenge down people's throats without being affected by difficulty settings is a good thing? I cannot agree in the slightest.

And you know what? You may consider me a lesser person because of it, but I WILL go make another Scrapper.

And I never said that, either. I said to pick from one of the ways you WANT your character to be called. If you don't want your Kid Flash to be called Bart Allen, then simply do not call him that. I'm sure there are at least a few other things you can call him. The point is, even comic book characters can be called multiple things, like Superman being called the Man of Steel. Just try one of the alternate variants. It doesn't guarantee you'll get a hit, but you might.

I'm not saying "just use another name," and I'd really like people to stop misquoting me on this one. I'm saying that even if you HAVE to use a particular name, you still have at least a couple of decent variants that you can go off of. Any reasonably developed character has those. And, of course, there is the off chance that yours doesn't, but it goes back to the original point - if you absolutely positively must use one specific name and no variants can EVAR suffice not one iota... Then check it, find it's taken and throw your hands up, because you can't make that character.

And no, a non-unique naming system is not the solution until one such that's both clear and not fugly is invented.

Yeah, see this? This I can go with without a second thought. I'm aware of the technical difficulties of making it so, but let me put it like this - if I were put in a position where this had been implemented, I would have no reason to complain. It's mechanically sound, it's visually clean and it gives people more options. I seen no reason to argue against it.

Well, there are three ways to stagger the problem: make the endgame really slow, make it really repetitive or make it really, really hard. The problems with those are, in order: it's boring, it's very boring, it's really very boring and HIDEOUSLY irritating. And even if you stretch it, it has to end at some point. And this is my fear - that this will be designed to cater to the unrealistic expectation that any game ever made can last forever without any replays. It won't, it can't, and trying to make it do that is just a recipe for terrible content flow.

You missed the point of what you quoted. Every single change that has to do with enemies is shouted down as the ONLY challenge left in the game. There certainly seem to be a hell of a lot of only challenges left in the game, huh? And, to be honest, this is probably the WORST place to look for one, spawning it on people's heads who most probably do NOT want a challenge all of a sudden.

Kheldians are a real enigma to me, when it comes to the thought behind their design. They inspire questions to the tune of "What the hell, man? What the hell?" when I think about them. A lot of people tell me they're really powerful, and I wonder if I should be mad at them for lying to me. Kheldians can do a lot of things, none of them really good, and none of them really good without a team around them. And for that not-really-good quality of theirs, they get some sadist's idea of balance in the form of crippling weaknesses to enemies made-up on the spot just to be a pain in the ***. There is no reason for Voids to exist, and even though they no longer deal unresistable damage, they still deal A LOT of damage, they stun, and they're so resistant to energy damage they're a pain to kill. To the point where one lieutenant is harder than most bosses.

And Cysts just boggle my mind. They're designed to work on a team, yet simultaneously designed to screws their team over just with their mere presence. And even if they weren't spawning instant death just for having been on the team somewhere within the past 20 years, they still have to be babied because "Eek! Quantum!" "Help! Void!" Yeah, I've seen so many otherwise competent Kheldians get blindsided by these it's not even funny. Frankly, I'd see Voids and Quantums stricken from the game entirely and cysts capped at some reasonable level. There's no need for Kheldians, one of the most team-dependent ATs in the game, to be this much of a detriment to their team. Not, specifically, in light of how Soldiers of Arachnos can be an asset to a team without being a detriment in any real way.

Survive like Blasters do. In other words, they won't. No, I don't think such an AT can work.

I'm not sure I can agree with your interpretation of Brutes as clumsy, as that would write pretty much every Brute I've ever made out of existence. I rather see them as the kind of characters who would pick to use a "brute force approach," whether or not it involved literal brute force. An assassin, for instance, can choose to lie in wait, sneak around and pounce in his victim, then slip away into the night, and that would probably be a Stalker (in theory, if not in practice). An assassin can also choose to attack the victim openly, dispatch his guards with incredible speed and precision and then skewer him in front of a huge crown just to make a point. That would very much be a Brute, both in practice and theory. A Brute does not always survive by being tough, and often does so by avoiding being hit or debilitating his enemies. A Brute does not always win by flailing his fists as hard as he can, and indeed often strikes with precision. It's a question inflicting as much damage as possible, but that does not come with the burden of doing so in the most inefficient way.

And, really, a Brute isn't just limited to the Huge model

As far as staying on topic goes, I have to agree with this. Sooner or later we ought to be getting some alternate animations in power customization, and I don't see why those can't be designed to impart different styles. That's a lot of what happened with Martial Arts, after all - the newer animations are a lot less refined and a lot more brutish. It's a lot of work, obviously, but it's work that should get done at some point, and I see no reason why it can't be done like this.

If I didn't think I'd get kicked out of the union, I'd suggest a brand new two-handed sword powerset. But you do have a point - a two-handed sword animation would be, to quote Albert Einstein, totally rockin'. However...

There is more than a slight problem that exists with everything that isn't the Legacy Broadsword on female characters, in that BABs designed all the custom weapons with a one-handed, short hilt. That's not a problem insomuch as the set is designed to work with a one-handed sword, but it IS a problem if we're looking at adding two-handed amimations. Most swords don't even have enough hilt to act like a ******* sword (you know what I mena), and many have a hilt that barely goes past the knuckle.

Amusingly, I have a "girl" I described as "8-feet tall, built like an anvil and carrying around a sword bigger than most men." She's basically an incredibly large woman using the Legacy Broadsword. In my mind's eye, she'd be using a two-handed sword, but such simply doesn't exist, so I squint really hard and pretend.

The problem with swirds and other melee weapons is that they're basically things you swing around, and when you have to design seven attacks with one, you run out of material fast. Look at the SwordAxeMace family - they have, in practice, three swings that double up. You have a horizontal swing left and right, a downward swing and a bigger downward swing, and an upward swing and a bigger upward swing. That, and Whirling Weapon. OK, Broadsword has Parry, but it still sort of counts. Even Dual Blades, where BABs went berserk and chased his colleges around with dual sticks, still double up a lot. You have two slices with one hand, two sliced with both hands and a stab, a stab with both hands, two slashes one after the other, two slashes at the same time... It's about as varied as swinging swords around gets, and it still reuses a lot of the same swings. It's really, really cool, sure, but the point remains

That said, I'd still like to see alternate animations for it. I just can't imagine what they'd look like.

That's still changing the name, though. Specifically, changing the name from something that's an actual name to something that's a Counter-Strike clan tag. I don't have a problem with people doing that, of course, but I would never consider it.

No, it very much does not. It is incredibly fugly, and I'd rather have no name floating above my head than have my global name@local name floating above it. Under no circumstances do I want to see this abomination in this game. Ever. I've said this multiple times before - designing a good non-unique-name system is a Catch 22. The underlying mechanics must never be visible, but the identity of the player must always be unambiguous. And I just don't think it's possible to get both at the same time, because you need to see the underlying identifiers in order to tell people apart, and I don't want to see any underlying identifiers ever ever.

Did you even read what you quoted? Who ever said anything about not caring about names or not using them in conversation? I said use the same name, just use more of it. Or use a different part of the same name. Or use a callsign. ALL of that is still part of the same character. It's just a question of which of his multiple names you choose to address him.

To give you an example, you can go with The Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, Banner, Bruce Banner, Bruce, Dr. Banner or Dr. Bruce Banner. That's 7 names for the same Marvel character, all of them equally his, all of them equally appropriate, simply because he's known as Dr. Bruce Banner, aka the Incredible Hulk. Trying to suggest that picking one over the other is somehow not caring about it is absurd, because they are all things he is called and has been called in comic books and on comic book covers.

As far as I'm aware, tornadoes are very concentrated areas of low pressure, which would indeed mean they suck.

Clever! So they leave, but who says they can't come back right around?

Yeah, I have to bring this up all the way from page one, but I am contractually obligated to geek out over this. Let me see if I can put this in an eloquent way.

*ahem*

ZOMG! Are those GLOWING COLOURS? Seriously? That... That face, that's a player face! Is that a player model? Can those things be used by players... As in, by me, on me for my own glowy glowy fun? Really? Please? That's been like, man... What, FIVE YEARS I've been asking for this? If that makes it into the game, one of two things are going to happen:

1. You earn a permanent customer who isn't going to leave for anything short of civil war.

2. You lose a customer to spontaneous head explosion.

And either one would be AWESOME!

So does that mean we're shifting the rating into A for Adult, then?

I've nothing against more content to do at level 50. In fact, I have a habit of bringing up my old level 50s from time to time to brush up on all the content that has sprung up since they were last active. I very much welcome more to do that isn't just grinding scanners or papers, but I honestly enjoy PROGRESS halting at level 50. I treat this like I treat the "end game" of Carmageddon 2: Carpocalyse Now - the game is over, I can replay all the old stages, do free runs and I own all the cars now. I could possibly brush up on all the engine upgrades I missed out on, too. But I can't expect that a brand new game will open up with ever newer races and ever more upgrades and pickus and ever-newer cars. The game's done. I've seen what I'm going to see. I can just stick around and play it some more, or start over.

At level 50 currently, the game pretty much ends. You can stick around and play, and you can keep on collecting Inventions if you really wanted to, but the character is done. There aren't any more levels, there aren't any more levels by a different name, there aren't any more levels by another different name, and there aren't any more levels presented in such a way that it's not clear that they're just more levels. And there aren't any more levels, either. I'm not half-way towards getting that next major upgrade that has three more major upgrades behind it. I'm done. And I like being done, because I have around 30 other characters waiting in line.

I very much doubt that will be the case when this hits.

You sound like someone who isn't sick of Sharkhead Island. How can you not be sick of Sharkhead Island and spending five levels in there every God damn time you start a new character? Please, that could save me so many brain cells next time

Honestly, what doesn't need more zones is blue-side, but I firmly believe red-side can use at least a couple of new zones. Particularly zones that aren't designed like a Lego town that's comprised of oversized, disproportionate single buildings crammed next to each other, and specifically particularly zones that aren't a run-down, crime-ridden, depressing, evil-oozing slum controlled by Skeletor's drunken mother-in-law. The place is smaller than it needs to be and it's too much Arachnos-themed. It's less City of Villains and more City of Arachnos. And Longbow. More space to distance myself from both and avoid god damn Sharkhead for a change would do the zone so much good.

As far as on topic goes, I'll join the others and agree that theme-specific zones would be very welcome as long as they were opened to everybody and available at some point before level 50.

Let me put the question like this, then: What do you deflect with this? You can't deflect everything for a variety of reasons, but what, then? Parry deflects lethal attacks to cover swords, bullets and arrows, and it deflects melee attacks to cover non-physical swords and blunt weapons. I can't see bullets deflect melee attacks AT ALL, myself, and it seems a little odd to let them deflect all ranged attacks, partly because it's weaker than Parry and partly because that'll have you deflecting thoughts

Yet again, I like your concept, but I have a hard time seeing it fit into the system.

I just disagree. Of all the powers in the game, Broadsword's animations look the strongest to my eye. I may be no expert, and the pillar of pain certainly helps, but I'll take Broadsword over Super Strength any day. In fact, I've done just that for at least one character.

As far as Head Splitter goes, I believe the "stop" animation is intended to display it sticking into your intended target, rather than cleaving through. Personally, I'd prefer a version that swung all the way through, like what Hack does while flying, but even what we have isn't bad. And again, I love the animation when done with a long weapon. A giant woman wielding the stupidly oversized Legacy Broadsword is practically life-altering

Technically, they spawn on a TEAM that has had a Kheldian on it pretty much at any point since its creation. A team "belongs" to whoever has the star and is passed on to whoever gets it when the leader leaves. The team as an entity exists until it's left with only one person on it and that person logs out or joins someone else's team. A person leaving the team will no longer be associated with it, but even if it's just two people, the other person who didn't quit will still inherit the team and whatever else was on it.

Easy example of an old bug Zombra and I ran across a while back to illustrate this: I'm the team leader, he's the only member. He force-selects his mission by entering it, then quits the team (we'd agreed to separate from before) and I go do my own mission. Mid-way through mine, I get a Mission Complete message. It wasn't mine, since my mission is still going, and he proceeds to complain for a good 10 minutes that he can't complete his. Turns out his was already completed, but he didn't get his Mission Complete message that I received instead. Why me? Well, the mission he started had his name on it, but "belonged" to the team I inherited because it was started while he was still on it. Because I "owned" the mission and he was "just sort of there," I got the mission complete message and he got nothing.

That's more or less how these things work, and it's useful to remember when dealing with Kheldians and their "consequences."

As for the topic at hand, I don't know. I've never, ever seen a genuine Cyst, so I can't speak about that.

I'm not aware of it being a solution to lack of content. I always perceived it as a solution to a barbaric levelling curve that left many blue-balled with long stretches of diddly squat but rerunning old missions. I know I'm in this camp, myself. I remember grinding missions for a full 8-hour day just to get from 44 to 45. And what did I get for my efforts? Three more slots which, by that point, I may or may not have even needed. This is not a good levelling speed, not in any way like what I would describe as good. When the game runs me through what no-one can deny is pretty repetitive content and keeps me from seeing anything new and interesting for days, and indeed weeks on end in the old days, I call for a fix based on that alone. It could have had a zillion hours of content and I'd still have called for an increase in levelling speed, because it was too damn slow.

Isn't that what happened, though? They fixed, I believe, around 10-20, where the biggest schizophrenia was taking place and certain levels felt like brick walls, and they fixed 35-50 where the levelling speed fell on it *** and ground to a halt. That's where the big problems were, that's where the fixes went.

We have precedent to judge from. If City of Heroes suffered from arbitrary runaround, City of Villains most decidedly did not. All missions were in the same zone, most were nearby, and few had much travel to do to them. People still complained to no end, and the complaints were as various as the fish in the sea. People wanted travel powers. There was no one specific problem they wanted to fix with travel powers, and I'm convinced that there was not and IS not a problem that out and out REQUIRES travel powers to fix. People just want travel powers because people just want travel powers. That's why the temporary travel powers were given - because people asked for them. Not because there was any specific problem that they were intended to fix, even if they ended up fixing a few anyway. It was a player request that got fulfilled when a free reward slot opened up with the introduction of Mayhem missions.

And again, that's assuming that travel powers were solely intended as a solution to the problem of people finding travel to be a problem. As far as I've seen, people only see travel as a problem in comparison to travel powers as the better alternative. Why walk when you can ride? And why not ride when you COULD ride? That's a lot like the complaints we're hearing now about why, to drag out an old meme, a casual player can't completely purple out his Warshade. Why does he even want to? Well, it's there. Why would he NOT?

If we assumed that temporary travel powers were intended to solve some kind of problem with travelling pre-level 14, then I could conceivably concede to your point, but it'd take quite a bit to convince me that that assumption has merit. I just don't see it.

A specifically mention butcher notwithstanding, yes, it very much does usually turn out for the better. Except for when it turn out to not happen at all, because revamping a new zone is as much trouble as making a new one, so why bother? That's the point - if we can't see zone retouches because it takes too much effort, then can we at least see SOMETHING happen to them that doesn't take as much effort? My weariness of them ruining their own designs aside, I can't really refuse a full-scale redesign, but the chances of this happening to a good half a dozen zones can best be described as "When pigs fly through a frozen hell during a blue moon." And I'd sooner have old Hazard zones redone half-way than not redone at all, as that would at least give us another zone to play with.

Here's the problem with that - from about the time of the Rikti Invasion, we have gotten almost no new content in the game, save for a few missions here and there. And even a lot of that is terrible. I don't know who wrote Montague's dialogue, but he or she should have been given more time to do it than over a lunch break. I understand that we got several major systems in the meantime, and that we're basically stockpiling our new content in Going Rogue right now, but I can't escape the feeling that asking for pure masterpieces every time harms the overall game as just not a lot happens in it. Not every mission needs unique maps and enemies, and a few less MINDBOGGLING arcs might do the game some good.

I'm certainly going to hold the developers to a pretty high standard overall, but for the sake of just having more content, I can live with one masterpiece and a good bit of decent work, specifically over two very short masterpieces. Not everything has to be the arc of the covenant with thunder and lighting on the side. In fact, looking at old content, Operation World Wide Red uses absolutely nothing other than generic off-the-shelf instances and stock enemies, with the possible exclusion of the Kronos Titan, and it still manages to be a damn good arc just on the strength of its writing.

I'd like to see more arcs, and while I DO want them to be great, I don't want them to be so great they never get made to begin with. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as it were.

I picked the price mostly based on "Why not make it a cool million?" so I'm not really set on it It seemed expensive enough to where someone who's loose with their millions could possibly consider this, while someone who's kind of short won't, but isn't going to suffer too badly for it. The price is negotiable, but I look at it this way - if someone can drop a hundred million on a recipe more or less on a whim, he's getting 100 uses for the teleport power, which is... Pretty much more than you're really ever going to need. But again - whatever works. I'm just glad the concept doesn't seem to be horribly flawed in some way