SpittingTrashcan

From what I'm seeing here, the major issues people are having with ET are:
1. It's a second long-animating heavy ST hit in a set that already has a long-animating heavy ST hit.
2. Because the damage lands at the end of the animation, it takes too long to deliver on fast-moving teams.

I have a wacky idea for a way to resolve the above problems and make ET a truly unique attack power: make it a toggle.

Activation animation: as the old palm-thrust ET, forming a continuous beam of energy between you and the target for as long as the toggle remains active.
Activation time: 1 second.
Activation period: 0.25 seconds.
Endurance cost: 1 end per activation period (4 end per second, about 10 end over the current ET's animation time).
Recharge time: 20 seconds
Range: 10 feet
Effect:
Scale 0.456 energy damage to target (per tick: damage over 2.5 seconds equal to current ET)
Scale 0.375 special damage to self (per tick: damage over 2.5 seconds equal to current ET)
9% chance for mag 3 stun for 9.5 seconds (per tick: cumulative chance to stun over 2.5 seconds is approximately 60%)

The obvious benefit here would be the ability to immediately begin damaging an enemy, and effectively continuously hit him with Energy Transfer for as long as you sustain the toggle, while still being able to use other attacks on the same or other targets. The obvious drawback would be to continuously pay ET's health and endurance costs! If activated in 2.5 second bursts, it would have approximately the same effect as current ET; if the target is killed within 2.5 seconds then naturally the cost is less. To avoid abuse, the toggle should probably suppress itself after a certain time limit, as an indefinite-duration auto-hit damage and control power, even with a steep HP and end cost, seems open to exploitation to put it mildly. But even with that limitation, something like this would put EM back on top of the heap in its specialty: horrendous levels of ST damage at a steep cost to the user.

I have severe doubts that this would ever fly, but as long as we're talking...

* Hurricane only debuffs foes that enter its radius.
* The debuff persists for 10 seconds after foes leave the radius.
* The range of melee attacks cannot be debuffed.

The -range effect of Hurricane has a relatively minor direct protective effect; the -tohit effect is more useful in that regard. However, Hurricane's range debuff does have uses, especially in conjunction with Taunt.

The OP is a silly person, ascribing to malice that which can be adequately explained by indifference.

I would consider a FF defender/corruptor. You get status protection and defense from the big bubble. You can also take PFF and get an "invulnerable shield" to combine with Aid Self for healing, and take Tough and Mind Over Body for the higher S/L/Psi resistance. And since your ally buffs are relatively long-lasting, you can spend most of your time shooting.

I agree that a simple sum or average of votes would not be the best sort order. Sites that use up/down voting will generally weight those votes based on a large number of factors to determine a final score.

My overarching complaint against the rating system as it exists now is that it is embarrassingly naive, given the amount of prior work done on rating systems and the number of better implementations available for examination elsewhere. If nothing else, the previous forum software's silly and useless five-star thread rating system should have stood out as an example of what not to do, especially in contrast to the current forum software's reputation system (which is, if far from perfect, at least marginally more useful). Switching the user-side choice from stars to up/down voting would be one step in the right direction. There are others.

Well, if we're talking about the biggest mistake, it could be argued that it was to make the fundamental rewarded activity the act of defeating enemies, instead of preventing crimes and disasters. Sometimes the divergence between these two approaches doesn't amount to much - you stop bad men by hitting them until they fall down. Other times, however, it leads to the promotion of behavior that has absolutely nothing to do with the superhero milieu (e.g., setting loiterers on fire) or foils concepts in keeping with the genre (e.g., saving civilians from falling rubble or stopping runaway trains). If I were trying to make a superhero MMO right now, I'd put a lot of thought into how to reward a broader concept of doing good rather than defeating enemies. This is a significantly harder design challenge, it must be noted.

But for this game, that's water so very far under the bridge that it's nearly useless to consider.

Thank you. I will send this link on to pohsyb and Dr. Aeon.

For your consideration, I present the following article, and the blog post it links to:

http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/you...s-are-useless/

I encourage our developers to gather the same information that the YouTube developers did: count the number of n-star ratings to Mission Architect arcs. If the result is the same as it was in YouTube's case, I would also encourage our developers to consider switching to an up-or-down rating system for Mission Architect arcs, as YouTube did. Hall of Fame would need to be retooled appropriately, of course, and existing starred ratings would need to be converted into up-or-down votes by some criterion.

I would like to send this article as a PM to an appropriate developer. Is there a redname whose main purview is Mission Architect backend systems?

And it came out spotless.

Because it's not the same feeling. And because people are different, and like different things. Perhaps someday, when you've learned about more of the things that people like, you will find something weird that you enjoy. As long as it involves only consenting adult human beings, it's all good.

(Incidentally, I'd just like to note how charmingly quaint it is to find someone on the internet who has not been thoroughly exposed to the full ramifications of Rule 34. I thought ISP install CDs came with a complimentary care package from /b/...)

I agree with this.

But on top of this, I'd like to point out that not only is the number of palettes limited, but the number of maps constructed from those palettes is only a tiny fraction of the number of maps it would be possible to construct! It didn't take me long to realize, playing this game, that the palette items interlock in a tinker-toy fashion. At that point I assumed that, in the manner of Diablo II, instance maps were constructed on the fly using simple rules for which palette item could connect to which. It took me quite a bit longer to realize that, no, there actually were a finite (and very small!) set of pre-generated layouts using the available tile sets.

So, while I'd love for there to be a dev dedicated to generating new map tilesets, I'd also be pleased if developer effort went into either creating a system for on-the-fly tileset-based instance generation (which I fully admit may be a lot harder than it seems at first glance), or failing that just use the existing tilesets to manually create some new map layouts. Some new tiles for the existing tilesets wouldn't go amiss either.

Tileset maps are where a lot of this game is played, and sprucing them up would have a proportionately large effect on adding variety to the game experience.

I refer you to Brooks' Law.

I once got my mouse stickered by a coworker and didn't figure it out for a few minutes. In my defense, that computer had a history of periodically forgetting it had a mouse.

To add insult to injury, he had written "I just lost The Game" on the sticker.

At least one of my villains will be moving to "rogue" status so that they can infiltrate Paragon City and spy on heroes.

At least one of my heroes will be moving to "vigilante" status so that they can rampage through Grandville.

Don't hate on me, bro. I need all the dev brownie points I can get. I just can't take the stress of all the personal attention the devs are paying me. I saw Castle on my lawn last night peering into my window. When he was sure he had caught my eye, he set fire to a little doll of my favorite character. I have been intimidated into supporting this game. Please send help - oh god, BABs is behind me aaaaaaaaaaaaa

When the choices you make at character creation have mixed consequences, that is not bad design.

I believe the devs have said, from time to time, that there are certain decisions they make where they feel that if people quit over them, they wouldn't have been able to retain those people anyway.

Releasing features as soon as they're ready, instead of holding off until they can all be released at once, is probably one of those decisions.

When you do the same thing in every circumstance, and sometimes it doesn't work, that is not bad design.

Alternatively, taunt from range. Particularly helpful when combined with slows or immobs. Once debuffs and controls are laid down to the point where melee range is no longer lethal, step in and deal damage.

I'm somewhat bemused by this idea that if you are not necessary or optimal, you are useless and a waste of space. You must play with some awfully mean people.

Having had some time to think about it, I think I can point out the essential flaw in any argument that team based content is too hard in this game. The simple fact is that it is too hard, by design, if you approach it with the same builds, tactics, and mindset that you approach soloing. If you really want to be good at team based content, then yes you take Assault and Maneuvers! Yes you bring a team of the control/buff/debuff ATs that suck solo, because when they have 7 targets for cross-buffing they become tiny gods! But if your idea of approaching team based content is to take 8 characters optimized for solo play, throw them on a team, and play as if you're each soloing x8, then of course you're going to get destroyed, and that's exactly how it should work.

So, Heraclea, here's my suggestion. The next time you're contemplating throwing millions of inf away on tier 3 insps, save that money. Go to a trainer. Select your alt build, and build an SO build that incorporates Assault, Maneuvers, and as many good team buffs and debuffs as are appropriate for your powersets. Encourage your friends to do likewise. Go play some team based content using cross-buffing techniques and tactics that are built around the opponents you are fighting and the allies you are fighting with. And then decide whether team based content is "too hard".

Alternatively, just watch the Repeat Offenders at work. They've been doing this for years.

If it were me, I'd do the build in two stages. Early on, I'd take Bash to generate Fury better. Once I had access to my full attack chain, I'd drop Bash even if it creates a gap in the attack chain and instead fight large numbers of enemies to get Fury. Eventually, via Hasten, slotting, and sets, it should be possible to create a seamless ST attack chain with Pulverize, Jawbreaker, Clobber, and Shatter; but most of the time I'd be using ST attacks to fill in the gaps between WM, Shatter, and CC.

That's just how I'd do it, though.

I see you have perhaps not considered what having multiple control/buff characters on a team does.

Think about 8 Regeneration Auras and 8 Recovery Auras. Think about everyone having Adrenaline Boost and two or three Fortitudes and umpty bajillion Clear Minds. Throw 8 Assaults and 8 Maneuvers on top of that just for giggles.

Now think what stacking 24 mag 3 (chance for 4) non-aggroing confuses does against GW's mag 50 mez protection.

With all due respect, you should have known this before making statements about what is and is not "too difficult."