Samuel_Tow
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Posts
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Quote:That's actually what I was going off of. Demorecording already exists (as an admittedly Spartan technology, but it exists), so part of this is already possible. But demorecording isn't really guaranteed to replay what you actually recorded (it just bugs out a lot) AND your camera position is written into the demo. Even with skill and experience, the best you can do is script it to move around disconnected from the character, but you can't actually put it in the hands of the player to control in real time. That's the big kicker for me, and that's something current demo technology in our game just can't do.Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
In fact, /demorecord stores all of this information and the camera position in a simple text file.
It would be some effort to edit the camera position manually in a demorecord, and the renderer used for demos isn't quite up to par with the renderer used by the game, but there's precedent. -
Quote:Masterminds don't get Time Bomb at all, at least not as such. They get Detonator. Detonator on unthinking henchmen (Robots and Zombies) is a sort of self-destruct nuke, but on thinking henchmen (Ninja, Thugs and Mercs) it actually causes the henchman to summon an honest-to-God Time Bomb. The real kicker is that it's an explosion on demand at a location of your choosing, not at your feet 15 (23, actually) seconds later. And for not much less damage, either. True, it costs a henchman, but still.Originally Posted by Obsidius
Yes, especially since on Traps Time Bomb is Tier 9 for Corrs and Defs, whereas Blasters and MMs get off easy by having it as a Tier 8, making it more skippable. In either case, I'd rather not have a power that was easy to skip
I would personally love to see Time Bomb shored up a bit, because it really IS very situational, but I worry about the mechanical difficulty of such a change. -
Quote:Yeah, gaudy much?Originally Posted by Dispari
Cowboy boots?
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Quote:While I can't speak for walking in high heels (I don't believe they make shoes like that for me, and I don't believe I'd wear them if they did), but I agree that it does take quite a bit of effort and looks ABSOLUTELY ridiculous, at least on me. But it CAN be doneOriginally Posted by Golden Girl
But it doesn't come as easily as if you're in heels
Heels help the stride and sway, so while you can walk like that in running shoes or slippers or riding boots or anything else flat soled, it takes more effort
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I actually do think all costume pieces need to have an option to be reflective (or not), but I ESPECIALLY want to see all metallic type costume pieces have that as an option. And I'd actually want to see the CoV metallic pieces redone a little to have their sheen applied a little more, err... Skillfully. Right now they have two options "looks right," "covered in cooking oil." But at least they can be shiny. Older metallic options, like the various metallic shoulders and metallic costume pieces, can't be shiny because they pre-date the advent of shininess.
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Quote:Fraps doesn't allow you to rotate your camera as it plays, though. That's what I mean. Don't record it as a movie, record it as a series of events that I can observe from an angle and in a way that I did not in the original playthrough. Fraps only records over my shoulder. An instant replay would allow me to sit in the corner of the room and watch myself fight.Originally Posted by Blpup
fraps is win
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Quote:Well... I don't know about badges. I'm not a badge hunter, so I can't really say one way or the other.Originally Posted by Lord Mayhem
Badges are another good example for me - I don't mind picking up badges as a result of normal gameplay (i.e. not consciously badge-grinding for them), because it acts like a record of which content each character has done - but I would much rather badges acted like a record of what I have done as a player across my whole account. As it is, the only times I become a focused badge-hunter are for: a) badges that give accolades that grant powers (I try to earn these on every character), b) badges that unlock a custom weapon/shield or costume piece, c) badges needed to unlock contacts (redside), d) explore badges to unlock SG Teleport beacons (admittedly I have all of these now, both sides), e) badges that give titles I want for a particular character.
BUT
What about another kind of badges altogether - player badges. We already have those, sort of, with the Veteran Reward badges, the VIP pass and so on - badges we get on each new character as soon as he or she is created. So why not have a few of those that are earnable by in-game action? Say, something like "20 of your characters have visited this out of the way location, so here's a badge for you" or "you have 50 characters with at least 10 hours played on them. Congratulations!"
I certainly wouldn't be opposed to something like that, and it might add a new layer to badge hunting. -
Personally, I think Serum is just fine. Either increasing its duration or decreasing its recharge would probably be enough to fix any underlying issues of usefulness. And, why not do both? Up the power's duration to two minutes and slash the recharge to 600 seconds. Or even 360 seconds like Time Bomb.
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Quote:Um... Actually, I very much can walk like this in flat shoes.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
It's a very "heels" style - can't really walk like that in flat soles, unless you're on tiptoes
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What? -
Or not so instant, just replays. Yes, I'm aware of the demorecord function, but bear with me a bit and I'll explain why I mean something slightly different.
Way back before EA were evil incarnate and Need for Speed games actually allowed split screen gameplay, one of by far the most fun things in then was running a race with a buddy of yours and then watching an instant replay of it. The whole race from end to end, exactly as you'd played it, but from a variety of cool camera angles. Playing the game was fun, obviously, but while you're playing, you're more focusing on actually playing the game than marvelling at the details, and the in-game camera in pretty much every game, though it's good for playing through, isn't actually very good for a cinematic experience.
Now, City of Heroes DOES allow for a demorecording of gameplay to be made, but this has a lot of problems with it. I won't go into the HUGE HASSLE of playing one or the files' tendency to out and out break or not record properly, but even if all things work exactly as they should, all you really get is an exact replica of what you had in the game with the camera locked as you had it. It's pretty much the same as watching someone else play, which isn't actually all that entertaining. You can't even rotate the camera to get a better shot, to say nothing of spectating or having a stationary camera.
So here's something I would suggest - an Instant Replay function like what we had in Carmageddon 2. We can't quite pause the game in here, but let's just say we let it run. The system would record, say, the last minute or two of action and would allow you to rewind or fast-forward, speed up, slow down or just play the replay at normal speed. It would give you a few camera choices, like "as in-game," free-rotate, spectate, stationary and so forth. You know, all tools to allow you to watch your own actions, or the actions of other people, not as a player partaking in the events, but as a spectator watching what a veritable movie.
With the advent of... Just walking, I realised something about our game that I'd completely forgotten - sometimes it's just really cool to watch if you pick the right angle and just sit back. Back when I was a kid, by far the BIGGEST kick I got out of my games was playing them with a friend and marvelling at all the unexpected events our inexperience produced. Wrestle Mania was a gold mine for these, because the game was SO DAMN BUGGY that you ended up pulling off stunts you couldn't even dream of. And City of Heroes has its fair share of these. I still remember the old stories, like when two Gravity Controllers hit Lift on the same enemy at once and pancaked him into the roof among the rafters, causing both of them to burst out laughing on the spot, or the many occasions where you'd be fighting something, see an enemy fly DIRECTLY over your head and turn around to see your team-mate just standing around.
The reason I brought up Carmageddon is because this is practically me and my friends ever did in that game. We'd always try to top each other and pull off ridiculous stunts, so that we may then pause, rewind and look at the stunt like we were watching a movie. I had dozens of movies and thousands of screenshots from this game, all taken from its instant replays.
I know it's a silly suggestion, but I think it would go a long way towards making the game feel a lot cooler when we can record and file away all our cool moments, and then share them with each other. Never again would you hear "Man, I wish I'd taken screenshots of it!" or "You just had to be there!" If something cool happens, hit your instant replay and record it! -
I'm against this idea quite strongly for two reasons:
One reason is that I'm against craftable (and in general unlockable) costume pieces entirely and absolutely, unless you allow me to unlock these costume pieces for my entire account to be accessible at creation, which would defeat the purpose of the idea.
The other reason is that I CANNOT and WILL NOT stand for the notion of needing something but being unable to acquire it myself, therefore having to track down someone who can do it for me. Never, ever, EVER will I agree with this or accept the notion that it is a good thing. I am not going to change my mind.
City of Heroes is really good about this - no matter what you want, you can always get it by yourself. It may be harder, it may take longer, it may cost more, and on very rare occasions you might actually need a team to fight for it. But I never have to have someone craft things for me, and that's the way I like it. I team with people because I want to be with people. The day I have to team with people for a mechanical benefit is the day I leave this game and never look back. I'm completely serious.
I don't like the very spirit of this idea, and I don't believe it's something the game needs. I'm sorry, but I just don't. -
Quote:Brutes and pseudopets are a REALLY nasty example, because Brute Fury is a passive damage buff which reapplies itself every second for a duration of one second. Because of how pseudopets inherit buffs, the peseudopets usually inherits around half a second or less of the buff, which expires before its damaging power does much of anything. That's why things like Burn, Lightning Rod and Shield Charge don't benefit from Fury. Brutes suffer greatly every time they use pseudopets (outside of when they resurrect), which is why keying their pseudopets to their own damage mod is actually an extreme disservice to them. A simple Brawl with full Fury will do three times its own damage (four if you have it enhanced), but a Lightning Rod will do just as much with Fully Fury as it would do without. How that's solved, and whether it's through some average damage solution, where the power does more than it ought to, but not quite as much as it could, I can't say.Originally Posted by Carnifax
Burn is a funny one since it was such an infamous power in its heyday that I think its still unlikely to be changed for Scrappers so they get a better version. For Brutes it's technically correct but sorta flawed since it should indeed be using the Tank version, but because of the way Fury works it fails to benefit from Fury for it's duration.
But here's the thing - because Brute Fury is a looping passive, Brute pseudo-pets don't get it. Because Corrupter Scourge is a power-specific extra effect, however, Corrupter pseudopets DO get to Scourge. I wonder if there isn't some way to either extend the Fury buff when it's inherited, or otherwise give the pseudo-pets their own Fury which inherits the user's value or some such. -
Quote:Only pets from Control and Henchman sets are permanent. The Dark Servant is a pet from a support set, and those are never permanent as far as I know.Originally Posted by Hero2
So is the reason my fluffy and sentinel vanish after 4 and 1 minutes respectively, afaik, that I am a defender? The equivalent pets in controller last until killed/zoned?
*edit*
Are you saying a Controller Dark Fluffy is permanent and a Defender one isn't?
*edit*
I withdraw my question. Controllers don't have access to Dark Miasma. -
Quote:Yeah, I actually think I'm going to use that for a travel power for a whileOriginally Posted by PSLAnimal
I love this! A long time coming, but I love it.
Of course, once this goes live, we're going to have City of People Walking Around for a few days.
It's a pity it can't work with toggles turned on, but oh well. I guess we won't be walking around with Rooted on. -
Quote:To be fair, a lot of us WOULD like to have that consistency, but it just isn't there and I don't foresee it ever being there for everything. Shield Charge and a few others are outliers, but there are a LOT of pseudo-pets with their identical stats between ATs and I don't foresee them all changing any time soon. It's not just Burn. At the very least Blizzard is like that.Originally Posted by Carnifax
Although nearly the same thing happened to me. I was talking about Burn across the 3 melee ATs that get it and basically said "It's one shared pseudopet, and chances are the devs are never going to go back and revisit how they implemented them"
The next day the Scrapper and Tank changes to Shield Charge were announced
Not quite as bad but close -
Oh, come now. You of all people should appreciate the merits of Lemuria
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Quote:Is it me, or is it really ironic that in a movie about the new walking animation in City of Heroes, all the civilians are RUNNING?Originally Posted by Thyristor
Just had a quick go on the test server..and grabbed this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPGugKZH9eQ
Great fun
(btw is this what is referred to as 'putting the backfield in motion'?)
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Quote:Actually, it feels like he's flipping you the birdie, but you're too cool to acknowledge itOriginally Posted by ShadowNate
I felt way to obligated and entertained to NOT set up this screenie.
swing and a miss.
Either that, or he's saying "I would have gotten away if it weren't for you meddling kids!" -
Quote:For me, I draw the line on having things at creation on where cosmetic items end and actual powers begin. I would love nothing more than to have the whole costume creator with all of its pieces be dumped at creation for all players. That's never going to happen, but I can at least speak against the gulf getting larger. And mind you, I have everything but the Cape of the Four Winds, so it's not a selfish request, not entirely. However, I seriously draw the line at giving extra POWERS to people at creation, and in fact I find the veteran reward attacks to be a horrible idea, as they make veteran characters significantly more powerful in the lower levels. So against it am I, in fact, that I make it a point to never use veteran reward attacks with a few VERY rare exceptions.Originally Posted by je_saist
What I see, as a general trend, on the forums is people wanting everything now that the game offers, and it's really starting to get on my nerves. From what I see on the forums a small minority of players don't understand the concept of a game. They don't understand the concept of playing for a reward. They don't want to be punished for getting something wrong, or for doing something stupid. This attitude just grates me like a Cheese Grater saying hi to some Mozzarella. It also grates me even more how players respond when told that they are being a thick-headed... I can't say that without being insulting can I... Well, maybe you know what I mean.
My beef with unlockable costume pieces isn't the act of unlocking them. I've done the ITF and I've killed 100 Overseers. I'm not above working for my costume items. What bugs me is that I can't have them at character creation, and so any concepts that require them can't really get off the ground, or at the very least can't be good enough. That, and the fact that some of those items SUCK to unlock, is a huge problem. So huge, in fact, that I'd rather have new items be part of paid costume packs than be added to the game for free. Yeah, micro-transactions and all that, but if I had to pick between $10 and the ability to use them at character creation and free but having to wait until level 35, I'd pick $10 every time.
See, the trick is this - earning something once is fun. Earning it over and over and God damn over again isn't. Earning a cape once was fun. Earning it for EVERY DAMN CHARACTER is a chore. I don't mind the mission, really, I just mind having a cape hidden behind it. So here's the thing - I don't mind having a costume item that's difficult to obtain, or even a costume set that you need to unlock over several characters. But if that was unlocked GLOBALLY, then I would be jumping up and down with enthusiasm to unlock it. But it isn't. None of these unlockable pieces are. And so I have to go through the exact same trudge for every character. And that is just plain old not fun.
Here's the deal - I want to see either less/no unlocking, or global unlocking. If they unlock globally, I will gladly do whatever it takes to unlock them and never complain again. -
You guys have NO idea how hard I have to focus to resist posting "HA! IN YOUR FACE!!!" and making a complete *** of myself. I've started typing it and slapped my hand to stop so many times my knuckles are raw.
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Thanks for the Walk button, guys! Now I need to figure out what to bind it to.
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Having seen this now, I have to say that it is AMAZING! It's just difficult to describe how much of an impact something so small can have on the overall experience. Our entire game is so grand and large-scale, with us flying past everything at super speed and always rushing about. Having the ability to slow down and stroll around like we own the place is just... Amazing, there's no other way to describe it.
I'd have liked to see jumping and weapon use, but you know what? JUST walking is good enough for me. Thank you!
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Quote:I noticed that moving backwards (which includes flying backwards, too) is inexplicably slower than all the other run speeds, which I really wish would be abolished altogether. As well, I would really love to have the ability to replace my strafe and backpedal animations with the forward running animation just switching directions like Walk does. I've always wanted to have that functionality and I think it would look a lot better. We already have Free Camera Movement. Can't we have something like that for free direction movement? Kheldian Dwarves already move like that.Originally Posted by Red Valkyrja
Ad it's odd that Walk is the only one that will actually turn your character around so that they face you when you walk 'backwards'. Although slowed down even further make it even more visually hypnotizing.
*edit*
And because I forgot to say it: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! I love it! I don't know how to describe this, but I've not been this excited over an addition to the game in a very long while. I know it might be minor, but it's the small things that make the game, and this is a lovely, lovely addition. I can deal with the limitations. I just love my ability to walk now
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Quote:Emphasis mine. The sheer awesome of ragdoll physics is difficult to describe. It's one of those "you had to be there" things. I've seen other games with knockback, but all of them had what City of Heroes had at launch - animated knockback. You hit an enemy, they animate being knocked back, the engine carries them back a set distance, they land flat on their backs and bounce. Bo-ring! I cannot tell you all the weird and wonderful fun I've had with ragdolls, both in how they fly and in how they land.Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
1. Knockback with ragdoll animation. My MA scrapper is just so much fun. No matter how impressive a game's attack animations are, or how awesome its sound effects are, having the mob stay in exactly the same position/pose for the entire fight going through the same 'being hit' reaction animations isn't good enough. Seeing a mob get punted across a room to dangle over a bannister absolutely adds to the immersion and sense that I'm in a 'realistic' world. But far more importantly, it makes me giggle like a loon and it's just frankly AWESOME.
There are the simple things, like hitting someone so hard they go CARTWHEELING straight up and land on their heads. There are the more complicated things of knocking someone back into a desk and seeing him flip head over heels. Or knocking someone off a roof into a nest of pipes across the street and seeing him hit his face on every pipe on the way down like in the old UT2003 Bombing Run map. There was even someone with a pick of the aftermath of a battle, with one enemy sprawled on the ground, one enemy bent over a fence, one lying on his neck with his feet propped up by said fence and one spread-eagled on his back on the fence, with the caption "NO ONE MESSES WITH ME!" I loved it I have a whole huge collection of these pics, myself.
The beauty of ragdolls is their unpredictability, and the fun of them is just hitting hard and watching what happens. And, actually, I think City of Heroes might be one of the VERY few games I've seen that has ragdolls on characters BEFORE they die.
That's one thing that always, always bothered me about other MMOs. Now, I'm a good boy when it comes to that. I read my lore, read my briefings, read my dialogues and generally try to play the game like God intended. Except, in pretty much every other MMO, all I get to read is boring, pointless, uninteresting beating about the bush that's just many sentences saying the same thing - go kill stuff. And when I finally realise that God did NOT intend me to read this dialogue and instead just go for the objective, I stop reading. I can certainly see where certain players get the attitude that reading briefings is pointless - they just played a lot of games where it WAS completely and utterly pointless. Do I really need a long-winded explanation of how the caravan tipped in the river and frogs ate his ore when all he wants to tell me is to go kill frogs and collect items from them?Quote:3. Extensive narrative delivery. Briefings, entry popups, clues, dialogue, more clues, bio fields for mobs, objects, glowies, allies, hostages, escorts, more clues, exit popups, system messages, and more clues allow so much actual story to be told. "Hey, $Heroname, go over there and defeat 20 Hellions, because they're [doing something bad]', followed by the killquest, followed by "Well done, $heroname, here's your inf!' everytime with precious little other story would steal much of the goodness from CoH for me.
Granted, a lot of the old City of Heroes missions are pretty bad and, yes, a lot like that. Oh, no! The Trolls raided a building! Go save people! But, actually, a lot of those missions have a twist of some sort. For instance, the mission where the Skulls take over a building and threaten to force people to overdose on Superadine has larger implications, because there's no reason for the Skulls to have attacked the building. It is later revealed that they DID, in fact, have a reason, because they're working for someone else.
The world in City of Heroes may be static, but it's a lot less OBVIOUSLY static compared to most other MMOs where everyone knows everything as soon as you log in. In City of Heroes, the game at least pretends it has a time-line that advances as you gain in level. All new characters are trying to figure out the identity of Dr. Vahzilok, then they end up arresting him, then they look for the identity of Colonel Duray, then they confirm ours is the Real nemesis, then they stop him, then they learn a whole bunch of things about the Rikti and Malta and stop the Carnival and break up Crey and so on and so forth. Yeah, everyone does the same and we, as players, already know everything, but the game at least tries to give you a story. -
Quote:We see things a bit differently, then. While catsuits do tend to be what counts for stealthy, they really mostly go with athletic characters, e.i. those who can pass for cat burglars. When I think stealth suit, though, I think stealth game, and those usually have a brawny man in the lead who isn't so much athletic and wears less of a catsuit and more of a combination of fatigues and super-tech armour. Solid Snake is probably the best example of this, though the original Metal Gear Solid didn't have enough detail definition to let me know WHAT he was wearing.Originally Posted by IanTheM1
Well, catsuits are generally what counts as "stealth" so it works. ExoProto to me looks bio-tech. Not so much belts and clips as sinew-ish looking things.
ExoProto is sort of that - a very complicated, very incomprehensible suit of sleek super-tech armour. Granted, if you two-coloured it, it might look like tech sewn into the body, but I run mine uni-colour (and all black) and it actually works pretty well for a stealth suit. It also DOES have canvas belts and buckles, by the way.
Certainly they're different in detail, and done by different people, no less. I'm only saying they're in sort of a similar style, sort like how the ExoProto dual-coloured sort of matches the Cyborg Pack pieces, even though it's actually different when you look at it. Having things in the same style is not bad, I was just saying that Ulterior is not comparable to Vanguard or Enforcer in the slightest, and only to Justice if it's comparable to anything at all.Quote:I'll agree with Ulterior being at least somewhat similar to Justice, though they have very distinct patterns and specular effects.
Yeah, while "I don't like it" is a perfectly valid argument, "I don't like it so it sucks" isn't. Not in any incarnation. I actually went through the exact same thing with walking yesterday, and I feel somewhat vindicated to see it in the patch notes todayQuote:Just thought I'd clarify myself - you're free to dislike whatever you want, but comparing vastly different costume parts in order to complain that everything we get is samey is nonsensical. Admitting that you don't even use the pieces so you can't even tell them apart...that speaks for itself. (Not actually talking to you, of course, Sam.)
I need to work with the Ulterior set a little more, but I have to say that seeing the texture without the pattern and the pattern without the texture is what originally led me to believe it was bad. I haven't seen them in a while, so my opinion of them separately may have changed, but it wasn't until I saw them used together and woven into a costume with other pieces that I thought "Oh, wow! What set is that? I want to try it! Ulterior? Seriously? Man, was my impression wrong!"Quote:Something that a lot of people overlook is that you can use the Ulterior pattern separate from the actual texture piece. I'm not much a fan of the actual parts, but it's a pretty good pattern.
One thing of note - as with all costume sets, if you use every piece of it and go for a complete set with all the details and trimmings, you end up looking RIDICULOUS. This was true for Justice and Sinister, it was true for Enforcer, it's actually true for Vanguard, it's SO VERY TRUE for Valkyrie... Whole sets with nothing but the sets all coloured the same just look silly, and I have not seen them look anything but, myself. As always, mixing and matching between sets to add some variety and some interesting elements to the set is far superior.