SkarmoryThePG

Absolutely yes to #1, why not to #2, sure to #3, no to #4.

Frankly, I'm surprised nobody posted something like this earlier.

Last week, we were shown Divided We Fall, Mortimer Kal's, Citadel's, Luminary's and Emperor Cole's reaction to an invasion of Hamidon Seedlings. But one wonders, what of the other characters? How would they react?

That is what this thread is for. Feel free to comment or give your own story.

* * *

She was basking in the sun.

It felt such a ridiculous thing to do, and yet, there was something in it that she enjoyed, a simple pleasure for an ancient mind. Not only the rooftop she claimed had a good view of the mid-afternoon sun, the light further reflected off the mirrored office block behind her. Most creatures would complain about the heat caused by the metal roof and the doubled-up sun.

But then, most creatures wouldn't be thinking about the sunshine's flavor.

Her name was Harmony of Sorrow, though the city at large knew her as Sorrowdancer. She was also nine purple feet of tentacle-backed, somewhat translucent serpent, curled up on a hot metal roof. To a casual observer.... well. To a casual observer, she was just an alien monster. To a slightly more open-minded one, she'd seem to be dozing, taking a break from a hard day of oppressing and/or protecting the weak.

The truth was, of course, not that simple. Her eyes were closed but her mind was open. Her attention moved from area to area, sensing for presences and oddities. The wells of energy that were evidence of a Peacebringer and the voids where a Nictus was. She touched upon them briefly, long enough to recognize the beings in question. Allies. Rivals. A few friends. They weren't who she was on the lookout for. But her kin and prey knew better than to risk leaving their hiding places today, it seemed.

Thus, it was pure chance that her eyeless sight fell upon the disturbance.

Six eyes flew open in surprise. The Warshade raised her head, squinting off into the empty sky. There was something there. A gentle disturbance - a gravitic shadow of something that wasn't there. That wasn't there yet she corrected herself. She probed the disturbance, trying to make sense of it. Less than a minute later, her mandibles locked as she recognized the pattern. She didn't see it before because... because she didn't think to consider it at such scale.

The building far end of a bridge. The mouth of a dimensional portal. Something was coming. Something immense.

She threw her head back and screamed. No sound came from that alien throat, because her message did not need sound. She felt it received by other minds. She did not care who received her warning - Peacebringer, Warshade or Nictus. Very soon, she'd feel it echoed, carried along, spreading like wildfire.

Something was coming. It was time to get ready, whatever it was.

The Warshade coiled up and sprung into the air, a silent prayer repeated like a battle mantra.

We still wouldn't have nearly as much buying power without the ability to convert merits into HVAMs. I'm well aware of the reason for the introduction of HVAMs.

And counter-balancing the counter-balance is not a bad thing if the initial counter-balance was too much the other way, IMO.

Being a tourist (Vigilante/Rogue) is awesome. Except for the rewards. Without the ability to convert merits into HVAMs, our buying power is half that of a pure alignment. I certainly understand the desire to encourage staying pure, but I think that's a bit too much of a punishment for those who enjoy touristry - I know that for me, the introduction of HVAMs moved my perception of Merits from "meh, why do I bother" to "ooh, wonder what I'll get!", while adding a useful and affordable inf sink.

Thus, my suggestion, which I take from something already in the game.

Did you know that a Tourist reaffirming his alignment, instead of a HVAM, receives 60 merits? That's only 60% the buying power of a HVAM, but 120% of a HVAM if you switch sides and convert - of course, the problem being, it takes a lot of time and effort (30 tip missions for the round trip, meaning at least six days, plus 20 hours for every HVAM you want to convert).

So in the vein of "tourists can earn more merits but pures get more bang for the buck (after an inf investment)", I propose the following:

Tourists may receive extra rewards from one red and one blue side Weekly Strike Target per week.*

Thank you for your attention.

*: Unless the WST is co-op, then they can't.

Mm.

The Pocket D races are... notoriously unreliable, I find.

Don't know if want. Distinguished Competitor Unreliably Online had very fun races, but that game was built from the ground up to work well with them.

Four chimes.

"Team leadership changed." - Bleep
"Team leadership changed to you." - Bleep-bleep!
"League leadership changed." - Bloop
"League leadership changed to you." - Bloop-bleep!

Agreed to both of those. I want those cool ionic blasts and properly aligned plasma blasts with working sounds.

If you haven't noticed yet, I hate the sounds of Elec Blast, and would trade them for Mu or Ionic any second.

You know what else would be neat?

Irradiate's alternate animation for Solar Flare.

In fact, it'd be even neater if we could pick alternate animations for Kheldian attacks, even if we can't (and shouldn't) colors.

You know what I want?

Pulsar made reliable and a TAoE. The animation will even work.

Oh, and KD Solar Flare.

Not fair.

PBs get all kind of buffs and get to swap a LotG caddy for a fun power and we have to try and squeeze in a teleport.

Not fair, I say!

Powersets. After that, costumes. After that, ale and wenches.

Thank you, Samuel, for explaining that better than I could ever have.

Sorry, Katt, for the outburst earlier. Game balance is a delicate thing, and selling power... yeah. Never a good idea. It turns the game into haves and have nots and there's already too many of those on the market.

....yeah, I got nothin'

OH GOD YES YES YES UNF YES

[edit]will Agony mages be finally changed to use Pain Domination instead of Empathy?

I'm gonna agree with Foreshadow, both the original and in-game designs. It gets across the image of young, determined man who kicks PANCAKEPANCAKEPANCAKE with feet and chi.

[edit]...it seems we have a new profanity filter. Well played, mods. /slowclap

I'm pretty sure some other arcs do it, for example, Willy Wheeler's.

I want the option to speed it up.

Absolutely no. Never.

Honestly, if you need an explanation why, you shouldn't even be posting any suggestion related to game balance.

No.

For me, what everybody should know about CoH is "It's that MMO where you can look however you want, and it doesn't affect how good your gear is."