San_Diablo

To make a slightly positive note here...

The Cooper Street Walmart in Arlington, TX has a man named Micah in the electronics department. He's twice looked over the backroom stock for me, and has taken a lot of time to try to help out. I'm hoping that the store gets it in soon, but either way, I do intend to tell his manager that he's gone to the mat for me.

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Website with some pictures for reference are on the way!
After many delays caused by "Hey, sounds like a great idea!" from almost every fansite out there, and then another huge delay caused by lazyness combined with a broken scanner...

<a href="http:/www.wawco.com/cohcameos" target="_blank">COH Comic Cameos</a> is up, and every month new cameos will be added. Next up are Issue 6's cameos. If any of these characters is yours, feel free to drop by and post about your cameo and I'll include them on your character's page.

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First link's missing a /, making it bad.

Here's the one I submitted to the contest, before I knew there was an automated variation possible.

GHOST WIDOW

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they're council cronies. the only reason that they can survive on earth in mass numbers is because the council incubates them in their prisoners (after much physical and mental abbuse ofcourse). the council also extensively uses the nictus (specificly pieces of them) to make it's galixy soldiers, war wolves and void hunters. council higher ups have absorbed the nictus (arakhn and reequem) and use thier new found power to assert council rule. hence council cronies.


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I wouldn't say chronies, necessarily, but they certainly have ties. It would depend on how vital to their plans the Nicti consider Earth, how trustworthy/useful they find the Council, and how long the Council or a variation thereof has existed as a secret society. Given that the Nictus presence on Earth dates back to the age of Pharaohs in Egypt, it's possible that the Council's existed for far longer than people give credit.

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hero1 gave excalibur to Ms liberty for safe keeping, if he came back from rikti-earth she would give it back to him. i do like the recluse tie in to why rikti-earth is now open again.


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It's also possible Hero-1 could be the villain, mutated against his will. Alternately, he may have a Rikti version of Excalibur.

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BotBS needs to be tech, it's the only way it would make sense to me. i'm sorry if supercomputers and oil scream machines to me. a shape shifter EAT? hmmm... sounds like the transformers!

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Sounds like the Khelds, honestly.

It's also worth remembering that the origins aren't always clear-cut in the source comics, either. Beast was always a mutant, but a science experiment mutated him still further - is he science now, or still a mutant? The Scarlet Witch's mutation gives her the ability to use chaos magic. Red Tornado was, until recently, an air elemental in a robot body - is that technology, magic, or natural, given that he's literally directly created by the cosmos as a whole? Hell, how do you define a demon if its natural ability confers magic? Or what about (bleah) Cable?

Will GvE's VIP card unlock the tiki room in the Pocket D? If so, will there be another way to get in, such as by giving the badge out as a veteran reward, too?

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Patron Respec issue should be fully solved in the next patch as well.


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What about accusations that the powers are only marginally stronger, thus the arguments for their restrictive nature being misleading?

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Dominators are getting a buff that should make them more desireable on LRSF in I8 as well.


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What about stalkers?

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We are constantly datamining PvP, seeing which side is winning more. The results are not what you expect. One side wins, then the other side, then the balance shifts back, and then back again.


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Which side wins is irrelevent, honestly, compared to everyone having a shot at being more than just a moving target. It's not heroes and villains, it's ATs and power sets.

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I had 2 PM's in my box, back to back. The first was "Stalkers are useless in PvP" and the next was "Stalkers are overpowered in PvP". The grass is always greener they say...


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What about dominators and controllers?

I hate to harp, Posi, but a lot of time we see devs putting forward high concepts that fail to meet the description once they go live. It's especially unnerving when we can find posts saying that yes, there is a problem, but that a year later nobody's even acknowledging it anymore, as is the case with phase shift's too-long animation time.

Not to be harsh, Posi, but one of my VG's best players left the game due to memory leaks causing constant crashes for her.

Grandville's still a lag-fest that's not spawning its giant monster, though the gamemasters are still so fond of "working as intended".

Sonic powers still cause migraines.

Phase shift is still useless.

The players are still wondering what the devs intend for controllers, dominators, and stalkers to contribute to AV-level fights, much less Lord Recluse Strike Forces. Worse, the LRSF complaints have been rebuffed out-of-hand with comments that it's "supposed to be hard" - as though cookie cutter teams aren't capable of walking through the Phalanx in ten minutes.

The feature overview for I8 shows that, far from the "slight" proportionate favor heroes would be getting this time around, villains get virtually nothing, even less than heroes got in I6 and I7. Is this truly the case?

Badges remain horribly skewed. Zookeeper is now virtually impossible for villains to attain. Farms are necessary for many of the badges to get earned before 2010, especially the epics. Far from being a "difficult" badge to acquire in Recluse's Victory, as was promised, Isolator is simply very time-consuming. The RV version of Back Alley Brawler still gives debt. RV's two badge chains (heavies and pillboxes) feature strong disincentives for team play, but PvP is heavily team-based. The fusion generator SG badge is still broken.

Bases are still borderline content. Even aside from crashes, empowerment stations' bonuses are negligible, despite claims that they were there to give a good benefit to smaller groups. Since players have to give up influence/infamy and attendant badges to get primarily cosmetic bases, there's very little incentive to play with them at all.

Patrons are still buggy in their respecs, and despite promises to the contrary, are not particularly stronger than hero-side equivalent powers. Tests showed a 5% boost over the hero powers, a token bonus at best, and yet the relative strength of the PPPs was sold to us as the exchange for the inflexibility and lower overall utility in comparison to ancillary power pools. Sniper powers are especially suspect here.

PvP is still horribly one-sided, and absolutely unforgiving and unhelpful to newcomers. Two ATs are almost completely marginalized by an inspiration. Other power sets wield huge advantages in PvP, such as force field players' ability to push opponents out of pillboxes or confuse effects allowing "allied" characters to kill people respawning in hospitals. Brutes still have no fury bonus in PvP. Recluse's Victory is full of all kinds of griefing opportunities, since players who want the Blackguard/Justicar badges can have their targets despawned in the middle of fights, while players trying to get the 1000 point target in zones must prevent either side from winning to do so.

Don't get me wrong, Posi, you've got some good issues up, but as far as top? Some people have been questioning priorities such as these for a long time now. In other instances, we've been already told repeatedly that something is fixed, without a fix actually being effective.

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It seems worth noting, to me at least, that the third empowerment station provides very little value for its rather large cost over the 3rd station; those extra 2 buffs come at a hefty price. The second one, I was pleased to find, does seem to provide some useful value, however, and might be an upgrade worth considering.


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I'd imagine that the devs don't consider the stations finalized yet, since their powers aren't described. That said, I do think that the mez resistance vs. holds is useful in a very narrow margin. By late game, the foes who mez tend to have multiple mezzes available. If your group is hitting the 40+ game and has the prestige and salvage to spare, I wouldn't consider it a bad investment, particularly if your group's going to be farming Hamidon or especially the Lord Recluse Strike Force, when your choice of inspirations needs to be tight.

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In addition to crafting the empowerment buffs, the stations also provide the ability to craft the basic tech/arcane components.


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You may want to clarify that you can create refined salvage components. Basic suggests only the tier one refined salvage (used by 'basic' craft tables), which isn't the case.

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For supergroups that create stations opposite their standard base type (tech bases with arcane stations, or vice versa), this is quite useful as an alternative to placing worktables in order to create components for crafting buffs.

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It's worth putting down both, IMO. The salvage you really care about - the rare and special salvage - doesn't feed into temporary powers with the empowerment station. Similarly, since anyone can use a craft table and add a crafted item to the base (costing its salvage and prestige), empowerment stations may be safer in the long run.

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Artic Sun - I'd really like to know if we can ONLY use known Praetorians or if we can create our own (eg Copper Shield as the Praetorian Blue Steel).

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OK, I was just waiting from the "nod from the powers above," as it were.

There are two questions I'm addressing here
1. - one is creating new Praetorians of signature characters (like the example above)
2. - the other is creating new Praetorians about *your* characters -- "Evil Arctic Sun," if you would (with a goatee). (He might have a nemesis called Arctic Moon...or maybe Antarctic Moon, but she'd be a hot supervillain...I digress).

The answer to question one is a very tenative/iffy "yes." It won't automatically disqualify you, but if Manticore has plans for Blue Steel's opposite, then he might nix your story. That's the risk you take if you feature a signiature hero (as opposed to using them as a guest star).


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OTOH, writing a story about a hyper-competent woman named Airuza who hoards magical artifacts in an impenetrable vault? That's a lot silly, but a little easier.

The further from the spotlight the subject, the more freedom you have with it.

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And I don't want to see a dozen stories about Decaf Jane, ya hear?


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He wants three dozen.

Words cannot describe how much I think this game owes to you, personally, Cuppa. Fans. Devs. Everyone.

This isn't to say Cricket's not up to the task, just that your efforts, Cuppa, have meant so much to so many.

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This relates to a discussion that was just going on...it's never been explained, are the Freedom Phalanx/Vindicator Praetorians the only Praetorians? Or would stories of our own mirror-universe characters be accepted?

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With regards to the first question, other analogues do exist in some form, most notably the Carnival of Light (the Praetorians attack "our" Carnies at one point, confusing them for their own breed), and Nemesis (whose analogue is only briefly mentioned as being destroyed back in the 1930s, presumably during his first encounter with Tyrant).

As to the second... your guess is as good as anyone's.

Hm. Guessing the signature characters are mostly off-limits here.

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WRT not having a hard copy, perhaps you should go to the Prima website and ask there and report back useful information.

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Considering that Prima's posts are months in-between and barely acknowledge player concerns, I doubt it.

And yet, all my new villains automagically know to hunt Paragon Protectors...

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You've got a good point on Gangbuster. What about Weed Wacker? not all CoT bosses count for that one.


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No, but the difference is easier to notice, given that Soul Binder's likely to come along fast enough on its own, and that after a point, the Weed Wacker bosses are pretty common in missions and world maps. Given, too, that Gangbuster's tied to unlockable content that players can outlevel, and an accolade, I don't think Weed Wacker's nearly as bad.

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Though, should badges have a certain sense of exploring and experimentation? After all, they have meters, so you can see what counts for them and what doesn't. Though unfortunately in both Family and CoT cases they're nowhere the same place in the window.

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To an extent, perhaps, but the difficulty's in deciding where to draw the line. For instance...

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Illusionist - Some people have reported that the number of MI-spawned Illusionists required for this badge skyrocketed from 200 to 500 in recent months.

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Prima Guide says 500, so I think that was simply an undocumented change and not a bug.
Is it now worthy of a QoL problem with making the accolade even tougher?

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...here we have one of the more annoying badges, either side, more than doubling its requirement for no obvious reason. While, yes, it's possible to farm MIs for the Illusionist badge, it's also a tedious badge in the first place, being that MIs are some of the more difficult bosses in the game, and that it's quite easy for groups to accidentally kill them on said farms. If anything, this should've been dropped to 100, with Soul Binder increasing significantly - at least Soul Binder has the whole game to collect towards.

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"Missing" Gladiators: (For some of these it's not clear if they were intentionally removed after CoV Beta, or if their absence is a bug. Perhaps a Dev could simply confirm if they're not supposed to exist?)
- Tarantula Queen

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I wasn't aware people still thought this was missing; it awards just fine for getting Dazed and Confused, the 3rd villain mez badge. Per PMs with CuppaJo, it is flagged Villain-Only.


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That's Wailer Queen.

Other notes:

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- Role Model has odd text for a villain.


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"You've spent considerable time with a lackey of your own."

I'd say this is fixed.

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- Demon Slayer has odd text for a villain.


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"You have defeated Baphomet, an evil spirit summoned by the upper echelon of the Circle of Thorns to destroy Paragon City."

Technically, I don't think this is at odds with the awarding mission(s) for CoV.

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- Master of Olympus has odd text for a villain.


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"You have destroyed the Kronos Titan, showing Malta that you are a force to be reckoned with."

I'd say it's fine.

Others I think might be off:

Gangbuster - The message bar (and, last I heard, the Slot Machine) refer to defeating Family bosses to earn this badge. Only Marcone bosses count, however, with no in-game text clarifying the appropriate targets. Likewise, Untouchable does not count Marcone bosses, despite the message bar not excepting them.

Wanted - The authorities have mentioned your name in more than one report on successfully completing PvP missions. Just seems a touch odd that people are ICly doing reports on "PvP missions".

Indestructible/Nigh Indestructible - Both are used as damage badge names hero-side, but Nigh Indestructible is higher ranked than Indestructible.

Bling/Mr. Big/Midas Touch/Trillionaire - These badges are awarded for infamy earned, but refer to money instead of influence.

Gearsmasher - "You have learned that the smallest gear can power the greatest menace, and have taken steps to stop the Clockwork menace." - Repetitive text.

Illusionist - Some people have reported that the number of MI-spawned Illusionists required for this badge skyrocketed from 200 to 500 in recent months.

Devourer of Earth - "You have shown that you can protect the world from the energy sapping eminators used by the Devouring Earth." - This is the villain-side text, and is a touch odd for villainous characters. Also, I do not believe that any in-game text identifies what an eminator is.

Paradigm - Title is inappropriate, especially hero-side where it refers to the character as exemplifying ideals. A paradigm is a world-view, and an incredibly odd thing to refer to a person as.

Folks, chill, okay? The guy feels he met the requirements (if only technically), and doesn't like the notion of spending all that time for what he feels to be nothing.

IMO, I think that the devs should make an epic accolade for each of the three tiers of epic badges.

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I didn't say it's not a problem. I said a lack of response is not a problem. This is not a major issue no matter how you slice it.


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Positron has ignored several points of import with regards to his methodology. He has conflated increasing the length of time for a task with increasing its difficulty (Isolator, BiB, the AV/GM changes). He insisted that patron powers were superior to hero equivalent epic powers (something players quickly learned was marginally truthful at best). He proclaimed that empowerment stations and storage units were for smaller groups, while simultaneously stating that, by intent, you need several of them to be of use.

These are, individually, minor issues. Collectively, they're not, IMO. We have to pick these issues if we want change.

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The wailing and gnashing of teeth is inappropriate.


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An the exagerration of others' arguments, while simultaneously ignoring their points on it.

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If lead designers took the time to make everyone feel good about them they'd never get anything done.


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Just as I'd already stated.

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It is not like this is an important issue or problem.

Not addressing peoples concerns about a crash bug. that would be a problem. About an accolade? Not a problem.

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Unless, of course, it were symptomatic of something else. Perceived inequalities favoring heroes. A general tendency by the devs to confuse tedium with difficulty. Encouraging modes of behavior that were previously considered undesirable by the devs. Oh, and, of course, the numbers of people who've asked just for a statement, of any kind, about this or other problems they're having with Posi's handling of the game.

Just because you don't think it's a problem, doesn't mean it's not one.

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Dissing the Devs on the forum for past injustices while asking them to make an aspect of the game easier doesn't quite seem like a good tactic to me.


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Past injustices? I seem to recall that the ones listed so far tend to still be active, or very recent.

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As you guys reminded me in my BiB thread so many times: The Devs DO read the forums. San Diablo, I'm sure you have Positrons attention now, and I'm sure he's now more than willing to show you some compassion on this matter.


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I'm sure of neither. Lack of evidence either way and all.

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You might have just kicked yourself in the butt with steel toe boots.

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I might have. I might also have kicked him that way, and gotten him to realize that maybe he should remember the PR side of his job, too. Again, we have no hard info to go on, so we cannot assume either way.

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Bolded for emphasis. You are indeed free to say what you like, but in this context it's not necessarily helpful.

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Fair enough, but it's not like this hasn't been attempted before. People tend to get frustrated when they raise points, only to be ignored.

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Developers are people, too. People make mistakes. The purpose of this thread is to point out one specific mistake and ask that they correct it. Personal attacks on Positron or anyone else accomplish nothing.

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It's not that I blame Posi for making mistakes, it's that he makes mistakes and has tended to respond to criticisms of all stripes by apparently just ignoring them.

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I call shenanigans on this post. There isn't a pejorative label thrown at or perceived attitude attributed to Positron that hasn't been thrown at or attributed to Statesman 10 times and counting. In part, it's the nature of the beast when one becomes Lead Designer. "The Buck Stops Here," and all that.

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I'm not talking about anything grand in scale, or much even about others' feelings on Posi v. States (just that it's something I've witnessed several times since I7 went live). I'm not saying that it doesn't go with the position, nor that the general populace agrees with me down the line.

What I am saying, however, is that as much as I disagreed with States on many things, I could at least respect many of his positions. Posi, in contrast, has rarely given a substantive position on anything, and while it's ridiculous to expect a response to every PM sent his way about any given subject, it's just as ridiculous that he's said so little with so much going on, above and beyond this one issue.

If he doesn't address salient questions about his policies in a timely manner, then yeah, I'll throw out the word "aloof". It seems to fit here, in my opinion.

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Statesman has been called everything but a Child of God in the past, but now Positron is worse because he won't lower the badge requirements for an accolade?

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Hardly. Amazingly enough, I have other issues with the man's methodology, too, that aren't pertinent to the discussion at hand. I even mentioned several.