SilverAgeFan

There is one particular CoT recover relic X police band mission in Kings Row that has spawned an ambush for me going back at least six months now--several times. So the ambush mechanic being tied to paper/radio missions is not entirely new. I can't confirm or disprove an increase in frequency or which missions spawn ambushes though.

I think what you are witnessing is the density of features and details, after five years of continuous development, has finally crossed a threshold that unless you were here playing excessively for the entire five year span of the game, there is always some new treat to discover. It's stuff like this that can help keep a five year old game feeling fresh from moment to moment.

Edit to add: I'm betting it was an i15 addition but I only recently saw a new set of idle to active animations for the Vahz. All of them are on the ground as if dead, including the reapers and mortis. When you agro the group, all will get to their feet quickly and begin attacking. But at least one reaper will get to a funny pose on one knee with arms outstretched that makes as if to say "BOO!!" The whole thing looks like a corny version of drive-in monster movie scare tactics. I kept agroing such groups and chuckling last night, just to see that animation over and over. In my head as they did it I was saying "Bulahblahbla!!!" (<-- bad scooby doo style vampire vocalization)

All criticisms being of the OP's suggestion being fair and pointed, I wouldn't mind if power customization allowed for some sort of semi- or quasi- reactive acrobatic animations for combat leaping. Tumbles, barrel rolls, etc. Even if this was an aesthetic addition and nothing else and even if these various new animations were only employed (as they likely would be) at launch, apex and landing, I think I might end up taking the power on many a character for concept and vanity purposes.

So I guess I get both sides of the argument. Dodging in real time just isn't likely to become a reality in this game (or maybe any MMO for some time)--but I really do get the OP's desire for something that looks and feels more comic-bookie. And I share that desire.

Definitely been wanting an MA blaster secondary for sometime now. But in the form presented here, this still looks like too straight of a port of the melee archetypes' version of MA. All other blaster secondaries have a handful of tricks.

I'd prefer a customizable thrown weapon over just a shuriken (including knives, hatchets, hand fans, [strikethru]bat[/strikethru]boomerangs, maybe even something that looks like caltrops and of course shuriken). And not so interested in any of these exploding. Just having a secondary thrown weapon would rock--especially for AR and Archery blasters...

Plus I'd like to see a second attack--preferably shorter ranged cone damage with said customizable weapon. Some sort of secondary effect would be fitting--whether it be -def or -acc or -spd something...

Also I'd ditch at least one more melee attack for a click stealth power with the ninjitsu smoke bomb animation. And draw chi, though I think I get where you are coming from, just doesn't seem to do it for me either in name or function.

But again, as I said at the top, I've been on this bandwagon for a couple years now. So in full support of the general suggestion.

I can think of at least three other dead horses who never received a proper burial either...



(unless it's just one horse and a native american human... but I've always preferred the poetic punctuation that leads it to being three anthropomorphized steeds.)

I tend to level slowly as I enjoy all phases of this game. I sometimes turn xp off for various reasons at 9-10 and at 14-15. Having malingered through these parts of the game in it's current incarnation, I can say without a doubt that TO's still suck as much as they did five years ago. They are really a waste of space and should only be seen as a means to get a little inf from selling between missions.

If you are having trouble hitting and land a luck charm or two, consider slotting level 10 or 15 accuracy IOs. Though the level 10's are about only half as good as 15's, they are still MUCH better than anything you'll get from a TO. Likewise, there are MANY MANY cheap lowbie set recipes out there on the market. If you haven't landed a luck charm, you can still frankenslot temporarily for accuracy.

The reason why you are seeing your accuracy reduce as you go through the early levels btw is that a few years back, the devs added a sort of "beginners luck" for lowbies. It is an inherent buff to your accuracy that is most effective at level 1 and diminishes about 5% with each combat level until it is gone entirely. The sub 20 game before this was a terrible whiff fest that could be quite frustrating when you already knew the content. The result: each and every player learned quite quickly, via discovery or advice from peers, to double and triple slot for accuracy as soon as possible until they reached DO range. For those of us from those days, the current system is MUCH MUCH better but we still remember: slot hard for accuracy early. Unfortunately, those of us newer to the game didn't have a few years to reinforce this still effective strategy.

Getting this bad today, Monday Sep 7. Triumph server. It's playable but not enjoyable. May go try some characters on Virtue if as I read it isn't anywhere near as bad there.

Would it be possible to get strikethru text formatting turned on in the forum? I think our more wry and clever forumites would get a lot of mileage out of it.

I'd use it. Especially if it'd let me top off my contacts. I have this weird thing about doing that. I sometimes turn XP off on my favorite new characters just to "see and do it all"... and I hate that we so easily outlevel lowbie (sub 25) content currently. (Not that I want leveling to slow down, I'd just like to be able to talk to old contacts and get a pop up letting me know I'll be self exemping if I take Tony Kords missions or whatever.)

I was looking around for a thread like this... some sort of "unofficial theme request thread."

I understand that BABs is intending in time to turn his weary eye towards power pools. So I'll start with a few requests for travel power customization:

Superspeed:

• minimal to no fx on the feet
• colorizable feet fx
• alternate fx around feet or in trail of the run
  • prestige power slide cloud
  • ice particle effects
  • blazing trail
  • swirling debris particle effect alla physx particles (mail, leaves, newspaper)
• alternate run animations
  • prestige power slide pose
  • reworked no longer used "patrol skulk" animation as a "speed skating animation" (and this means we need some roller skate and roller blade boots from Sexy Jay! )

Flight:

• flight poses as customizable full flight options, along with the banking animations that were ditched in favor of flight emotes instead
• standing flight on customizable gliders, disks, etc. with at least a dozen choices of small platforms to choose from and color (may add a bunch of animation work for BABs? dunno. to be really elegant might need to add "banking" animations to the suite of standing pose animations...)

Super Jump:

• "feral" four footed super jump
• at least one other SJ alternate pose... not sure what it should look like... but in the opposite direction of feral. Maybe something akin to the hover upward thrust when you press space bar, followed by a somersault at the apex into a swan dive and a tumble at the end?

Combat Jumping:

• the same "feral" four footed launch and land suggested for SJ above
• Acrobatic tumbling. I realize this is a stretch. But admittedly one of the few things unique to CO aesthetically that I am REALLY interested in is acrobatics. If CJ could be customized to look MUCH more acrobatic for characters should we want it, I think I'd go gaga and sign up for two years worth of renewal on the spot. Srsly. (Yes. I get that this might be a tough nut to crack too in terms of animation work...)

Teleportation:

• a burrow and erupt from ground alternate animation
• an eldritch smoke animation, similar to the prestochango costume change emote but with customizable smoke colors
• a spin or twirl into a warped singularity followed by a starburst flash (you may have noticed the really cool warping effect that happens when emerging into the O-zone or from a base portal. this would be something similar, but sort of a "down the drain into nothingness" sort of portal)
• opening a colorable hole in the space below you and hopping in followed by a hole opening above you and dropping out on the other end

Powersets:

• alternates for all elemental "swords" -- icey fists and big fireballs in hand for no blades. additional alternates that are much more ethereal and wispy.
• if we are already going to get a "firewhip" for MMs, a replacement for the fire swords with a fire whip animation
• two new full themes for ice armor and cold dom's ice shields:
  • something more akin to a hoar frost style armor, tighter and closer to the skin with snowflake particles and cold "steam" indicating the presence of the armor
  • something more snowman-like with a few piles of icey snow on the shoulders and at other key points, similar to how some stone armors now currently don't cover the entire body
• a "garden of eden" floral and butterfly filled theme for plant domination. something opposite the current sinister flavor of the set including a more delicate pet than the venus flytrap
• via recycling and tweaking of AR and either existing or soon to be included GR dual pistols animations, a couple total conversion themes for energy blast to allow for lazer rifles and buck rogers style twin ray guns
• full theme conversions using playing cards, similar to the tarot animation for at least fire, ice, dark blast and rad sets

I know this is a pretty extensive and arguably greedy list of suggestions. But what can I say? All of BABs hard work really has my imagination spinning. Thanks again to him and the crew for the fortitude, determination and time they spent pulling off this feat. I really hope that the development cycle in the near future allows them to take it even further forward!

But they did just announce that the fourth wave of closed beta invites will be sent about an hour from my posting @ 2pm, pacific time 14 august.

I've not tracked closed betas that closely in the past, but they seem to be expanding the inclusion at a steady clip which hints at a smooth closed beta (as smooth as those things come).

I don't know what the average open beta length has been since they got to the new studios, but I'm sure someone here can work out the median and the mean for you. That should give you some nice rough estimates.