Starhammer

Wolf Spider Feedback: I've played a Wolf up to 43 so far without branching into any Bane/Crab powers, without taking any powers from Travel Pools, and even so, they're still quite enjoyable from a functionality standpoint. I did not feel underpowered in any way compared to the other branched VEATs I was playing with. Furthermore, While they are significantly more fun to play in groups (preferably grouped with other VEATs), they are perfectly capable of handling most missions solo (EBs are problematic at best, but that's usually the case for most ATs). They are a bit squishy, but no more than blasters, though since they lack a blaster's potential damage output, it would be nice if they were a little less squishy.

I'd really like to see the Wolf Spider Armor's damage resistance increased to a high enough base that putting a damres SO on it would not feel like such a waste. if the resistance were increased to maybe 7% it would start to feel a little more functional (2 SOs could raise it to 10% then), rather than just being token resistance levels to justify the access to damres sets. Of course then the Bane's armor would need to be increased to maybe 15% to keep it scaled appropriately. I don't think there's any fear of those levels of resistance turning us into uberl33t tank mages or anything, it would just give us the means to get some mitigation without having to dip into the Fighting Pool (Which is kinda a pain for wolves because 1- Tough is one more toggle to maintain end for, we're already running a bunch of those, and 2- we have to take Boxing or Kick as a prerequisite to Tough, and we have a pretty tight build already. One could certainly be taken in place of Pummel, but that just pulls us further from our core powersets.)

All in all, I'm very satisfied with Wolf Spider performance.

That said, the costuming debacle regarding VEATs has cut significantly into my high opinion of some of the developers, as well as my enthusiasm for the game in general. I could have accepted that with all the other things (like really great Roman costumes that are only available to level 35+ who beat a very difficult TF, making them non-viable tools for developing a Roman themed character at creation...) that had to be done for this issue, it wasn't a functional priority to make Arachnos uniform parts interchangeable with regular costume parts. I recognize that Wolf pants/boots and many other pieces would have to be rebuilt to be compatible. What really irked me is Jay's stance on the whole issue. "and never the two shall merge" was probably not the best phrase to use when dealing with a customer base that is expecting the game to continue improving and evolving. His remarks about not allowing any non Arachnos pieces to be available on Arachnos uniforms or vice versa even those some already work without clipping, because it would be "sloppy and unprofessional" strike me as high-handed and totalitarian, and completely contrary to the core idea of playing my character the way I want to play my character. It probably would have been better accepted and appreciated by most of us subscribers if Jay had said something to the effect of "This is what we can give you for now. I understand you guys want to be able to mix and match parts to bring your own unique view to the game that we (as developers) appreciate you playing. I'll look into seeing what I can make available as we move forward, and thanks again for caring so much about the parts of this game that I'm responsible for. You're all sexy!" Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be his take on the issue.

Some people think I'm making too big a deal out of appearance. That whether I can make a character look the way I want is completely irrelevant compared to game statistics like activation time and DPS. I happen to see it the other way around. The ability to make my box of attributes kill another box of attributes is available in almost every videogame ever made. What this game offers that most others do not is the chance to make a super hero (or villain) the way I want to make them, that then goes about killing other boxes of attributes. In this game, appearance is of paramount importance.

I would rather the VEATs hadn't been introduced at all rather than be introduced with these limitations placed on them. Now if/when I play a VEAT, my play experience is going to be tainted by the knowledge that the developers, who were aware that many people (I'm not the only one who feels this way, though some have tried to marginalize my opinions on this matter as being irrelevant) share this view, knowingly chose to give us something new, but insist that we can only use it in a way that lines up with their themes. It makes me feel as if Positron is saying "It's our sandbox, and you should be happy we let you play in it at all, now play our game the way we want you to play it or go away!" He may not think he's saying that, but it's what I'm hearing. You can throw all the blame you want to at me for "not getting it" or misinterpreting, or just being too nitpicky and unsatisfied and unappreciative, but that isn't going to change the fact that this is going to change my view of the game as a whole from this point forward.

I wonder if they'll give our build interface the sophistcation necessary to do things like changing the mission objective when a certain objective (not necessarily one that is obvious to players) is completed, or allowing us to add NPC Combatants as pets/allies. Also, will we be able to incorporate named Bosses, Elite Bosses, or AVs/Heroes, or maybe even Giant Monsters?

Imagine building a "King of Monster Island" mission, where your party is transported to an instance of Striga Island. Once there, they have to find a "glowie" that gives the person who clicks it a temp power, "Control Monster", which would cause that monster to be instantly defeated and respawned as a friendly "Pet" version of the same GM, which would then follow the party around the island, as they lead him/her/it to hunt down and destroy all the other Giant Monsters on the island. Of course, all the great *City of* Giant Monsters would have been transported to various sites around the island themselves (Much to the chagrin of various Council, Family, & Warrior NPCs also placed as more mundane challenges. The goal is of course for "your" monster to destroy all the others. if "your" monster is defeated, the mission fails.

Now if only there was a way to implement player made badges to go along with this. Then when you help Jack In Irons to defeat the others, you get the Master of Jack In Irons badge. Furthermore, when you have gotten all the "Master of" badges for each monster in the mission, you get the Master of Monster Island Accolade.

Of course, even if we aren't given this level of freedom, I might suggest that the devs themselves are welcome to build my Monster Island mission

That calendar's pretty cool. I might try using it with that CoH Splasher thing when I get around to figuring it out.

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Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You’ll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialog and any clues needed for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it.

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Woah. Awesome.

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Agreed, Totally Agreed...

I'd just like to chime in for a moment on the TK/repel issue. I'm not gonna comment of the numbers and systems ideas for keeping it from being abused, because I don't have a character with the power and I don't PvP much, so I don't have much knowledge in that area... What I do know, is that when I've seen it used, even when it was used on me (which was quite frustrating, heheh) it was a really cool effect. I'd hate to see the cool effect portion sacrificed because of a bug...

That's all... back to your discussion...

I like the way this is being implemented. Especially the retroactive Veteran Reward angle, since I'd like to see that method used for expanding existing Vet Reward options as time goes on... Sometimes something new comes along that would make a good Vet Reward but it's not quite so spectacular that it should be limited to the people who've already been around for 4 years. It gives me hope that one day I may be able to choose an Iron Blade instead of the Ghost Slaying Axe or Sands of Mu when I build a new character

I gotta agree with those that want to see this for real. If nothing else, it'd be nice to see a selection of "visual sound emotes", such as /e kapow, or /e freem, or /e bampf, and instead of just having an italicized word pop up in chat bubbles, have a big shiny graphic word pop up for a moment (only for select words though, it would get obnoxious if this just replaced chat bubbles for /emote text, heheh.

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Dominators get Earth as a new primary. Huh... ok. Pretty sure everybody wanted Illusion though. I'll come back to Illusion in a while. As a thematic fit to Earth, they also get... Electric Manipulation!? Hopefully not just a straight port of the blaster secondary, please!
Rating: 2/5

MasterMinds don't get a new primary as there was none to port over. This is fair enough but I hope you'll be working on one for I13 because MasterMinds will otherwise have the fewest choices of primary. For their secondary they get... Storm!? Firstly that's already being ported over for Corruptors. Secondly it's a notoriously chaotic set unless handled expertly. Storm MasterMinds are not going to be sought out for teams, that's for sure. You have a problem with porting sets to MMs because they can easily become overpowered so I'm not surprised to see that Kin or Rad weren't given to them, but Sonics seemed like a nice choice.

Empathy should really have gone to the MMs to provide access to its particular talents for villains, and the set clearly matches up with the concerns of a MasterMind without being too powerful (Name too heroic? Change it. Fortitude too much? Tweak the recharge, as has been done with many MM secondaries).
Rating: 2/5

Brutes get two new primaries, both of which are extremely similar. Nothing much to say about them, good call devs, please add Broadsword and Spines or Claws next. For their armour they receive... SR!? Why go the effort of porting over a set that's middling to bottom? Everyone wanted Ice! You're the ones with the spreadsheets, there's nothing to say Ice *had* to inflict slows and recharges. Just ditch -recharge and slow and switch it for more -dmg, -tohit, -def or -res. There's nothing to say you couldn't.
Rating: 2/5


Scrappers get Firey Melee. Awesome! Hopefully in the next rounds of proliferation they'll get more of the elemental/non weapon sets. Firey Armour is their second, and is a great fit for a scrapper - better than for a tank, in my personal opinion.
Rating: 5/5


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Actually, for Doms, I really wanted to see Trick Arrow/Archery. Only archers redside seem to be ninja MMs, unless I'm just not scrolling down far enough on corruptors...

What I'd really like to see for MMs wouldn't so much be a new primary as splitting the existing primary into two separate sets, allowing an MM to mix things up a bit. I really like dual pistols, they're wonderful thematically, but I'm just not very fond of the thugs I have to take along with them to maintain viable combat ability. I'd much rather use Ninjas on one character, soldiers on another, and robots for some. (Nah, I don't care for zombies much either... cool concept, but just doesn't quite do it for me execution wise... Wish I could summon a horde of Night of the Living Dead style zombies though, just kinda wandering along taking a bite out of people now and then). Anyway, If there was a way to split the primary into summoning sets and attack sets for MMs, it would also be alot easier to add new sets, because you wouldn't have to come up with new pets just to adda new weapon set, or vice versa.

I like that brutes get axes and maces now, it's nice to get access to the weapon customization. I'd still really like to see Brutes (and Tanks) get access to Broadsword, Katana, Claws, & Spines too though.

I like the fire on scrappers. That's pretty cool. I wish there were more fire sword powers though, and that we could use weapon customization on the fire and ice swords... Would also like to see an electric sword. I like the electric melee set ok, but I'd much rather be swinging something that looked like a lightsaber made out of lightning bolts...

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It sounds like a good first step in power proliferation to me. I hope that the next few issues continue with more PP.

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Gotta agree with this. I'm really hoping to give an Archery/Trick Arrow Dominator a try someday...

I'd also love to see Power Proliferation used as an excuse to grant a wider variety of epic power pools, like a Dual Pistols set for Tanks and Scrappers

Tomorrow... "Tomorrow" isn't a problem, and in fact, is pretty informative all on it's own, compared to the oft-quoted: Soon™...

I like what I'm hearing about the new changes to the Hollows. A neat zone, but low on my list of favorites. It's the zone that made me think of Stealth as a travel power (At least until we got safeguard jetpacks).

I've got a couple questions for War Witch though:

1st of all, I remember there being mention of a hospital function being added to the zone in the I12 announcement, but didn't see that mentioned in your devdiary... can you confirm or deny this please?

2nd, I was wondering if we'll be seeing any new story work to go along with all the new gangs moving in on troll, outcast, and CoT territory, or was there no time to include anything like that?

BAB, thanks once again for the very comprehensive answers, especially this one. Quite an informative read, even though I already had a basic idea of why PC can't be done at this time.

I am curious about two tangents of the potential for power/weapon customization.

Without performing the massive overhaul necessary to implement PC as described above, and setting aside issues of fairness to those who are stuck with the powersets they already have, would it be possible in the creation of a whole new powerset to open up the capacity for any level of power customization as defined above?

Also, in regard to powers like fire sword and stone hammer, do the "weapons" for those powersets fall into the weapon category, in that they could be rebuilt to make use of weapon customization (regardless of whether anyone wants to for the sake of avoiding issues of thematic appropriateness), or is there some aspect of those types of powers (like the auras on the weapon itself) that makes this impossible, or at least untenable?

Hey Zombie, thanks for pointing out this command and how to use it. I stumbled across it the other night by accident, and it was like finding a gold mine. I've got a /Dark scrapper who looks really great (at least in my not-so-humble opinion) with his powers off, but tends to be kinda squishy in that mode for my taste. Maybe others don't get to appreciate his proper costume all the time now, but at least I can.

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No badge with it?



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/agreed

The content is nice and all, but there isn't very much of it for my $10.81 (after tax). They could have at least thrown in a badge appropriate to the theme, probably an accolade.

Additionally, this would have been an excellent place to introduce a nicely rendered 3d flower (or two) to place in the jacket lapel as an "over" option for chest details.
::Lookin' at you Jay::

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To be clear....There are more players on Freedom now than have ever played on that server. Ever.

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...and that's why I only use Freedom to test out new costuming concepts.

Crowds = lag = no win...

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The one thing I question tho, he said they datamined how long characters were at certain levels. Could this info have been skewed by alt-itis? I know when I hit 22-27 range, I usually start another alt and run them for a while. Or even partake in a FOTM build.

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We have a "life at level" stat in seconds. This is how long a character spent at a particular level, logged in. While not a perfect indicator of levelling speed, it's an excellent starting point.

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It would also be nice to know that you have a statistic showing character creation date, when the character last logged in, and average login time for the past 3, 6, and 12 months. I think it would be helpful in showing more data regarding those "brick wall" levels the new XP curve is designed to fix.

In my case at least, "alt-itis" is how I tend to deal with a character's progress stalling. Most seem to stall around 14 or 16 (There's a pretty solid drive to get Flight/SS/SJ, but once achieving that, the next goal is usually Stamina or another lev 20, and those 4-6 levels seem to grind by so slowly on most characters).

Once I push through to 22 or so, things speed up, and in fact tend to go a bit too fast. That's where I find myself having to get creative or die alot in order to not outlevel content. Knowing that Orouboros is there is nice, because it lets me skipp a few things for later, like some badge missions, but it doesn't help me fill up contact bars. One of the things I like to do is get as many contacts maxxed out so that I have more places where it's convenient to shop for inspirations later in the game. (I would probably not feel as strongly about this if we could buy insp by "phone", then contact location wouldn't be so important). I also think that there's just too many contacts available, at least on Blueside. Redside works pretty good (though I wouldn't mind seeing another starting contact or two), but my Heroes find it far too easy to get a contact list that is cluttered with "Acquaintances". Something else I wouldn't mind seeing is that if you outlevel a contact, you would still be able to take missions from them, but you would be auto exemplared to the mission's range. Either that, or just a setting somewhere that would allow us to self-exemplar to our level-1. It would let us go around and get missions done without fear of outleveling certain contacts.

I can't comment much on the 30+ range. Even though I've been playing for about 40 months, I only have a few characters that have hit 30+, only 2 that have hit 40 (soon to be 3), and nothing over 41.

Anyway, I'm glad you're trying to address these issues. Thanks for your time and efforts in this regard, and all other aspects of the game. Even when it's not perfect, it's still pretty dang great

Like others, I found this thread through the Dev Diary, and must say that it is wonderful. I really enjoy the style of these stories. I hope they keep coming, and maybe if the muse should come upon me, I'll add a line or two myself someday

Wow, this is absolutely amazing work.

Back when I was new to the game, it was when I ran across the LoneS.T.A.R. website that I was drawn to the Victory Server, and while I have alts on all servers, Victory has become like a second home to me.

I have so much pride to be a part of the same game and server as people like Doug, and others who have so much talent.

I have a question about the Proc's chance to activate, specifically regarding multiple procs in the same power...

If you have more than one proc in the same power, does each proc generate it's own chance to activate at the appropriate time, or is there a single chance to activate check that is then applied to all procs on the power?

So for instance, say you put a 20% chance for smashing damage and a 10% chance for hold onto a scrapper's attack. When you attack with that power (presuming it hits) Do you generate one % check (say the check results in a 15%, causing the smash to activate and the hold to fail to activate), or do you generate two separate % checks (one for each proc)? What about the scrapper's critical chance? does this activate on the same proc % check, or does it get it's own "roll"?

In essence, if I have 2 different procs in the same power, and each has a 20% chance, if 1 activates, does that mean both activate?

I can see benefits to either system, but would like to know for certain which way it works, in order to make better decisions about how I slot my procs...

I've noticed alot of the Chest Details that are placed "over" a jacket lose their top third or so on larger physiques. It'd be nice if this could be adjusted to fit a little more smoothly.

At this stage, I'd be just as happy to see a print or pdf CoH/CoV sourcebook that gives a good compilation of comprehensive info which I could then simply use in either Mutants & Masterminds, GURPS, or Champions.

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So we can go back to the 5th column and Council fighting it out on the streets right????

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Doubtful beacuse of the international launch.

But I could be wrong. Heck, you might even be able to fight along side Atlas against them.

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First off, I wasn't finished geeking out over the Iron Man trailer yet and now we get Power Customization (or at least the early stages of it)... WOOT!

But ever since reading those backstory plaques on Atlas defending against the Nazi attacks during WWII, I've wished for a time travel story arc to go back and fight for/alongside our heroic GM (and as a villain, against him). I really hope something like this makes it in, even if not in I-11.

I thought the dual blades were kinda neat, but with the potential when combined with weapon customization, I'm quite stoked about this.

It occurs to me I really wish there was a "greater respec" that would allow you to take an existing character and change his powerset choices, or even archetype, without having to go back and start over. I hate rebuilding a character, cause it costs me certain irreplaceable badges (like the anniversary ones), but some new AT options (now or upcoming) are potentially a much better fit to a character concept than what they may be limited to currently.

Willpower: Just don't have any strong feelings about this either way, besides the fact that more options are ALWAYS a good thing. Need to know more about just what it can do I guess.

Thanks Devs, this is the most excited I've been about an update since CoV came out. All I need now is a way to redeem my villains and have a hero turn bad

Edit: Just got a look at Zombieman's comprehensive guide to Weapon Customization (and btw, Zombieman, thanks & GJ), and was slightly disappointed, though not surprised that the minigun is not a replacement option for the assault rifle, and just wanted to take a moment to beg for it's inclusion (again, even if it can't make it into I-11, as long as it gets in sometime). Thanks again.

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THAT'S IT!!!! That's the problem! You have too many keys bound with the "+down" command. You can only have 2 keys bound with that (Wow! I've learned something new!).

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I wanted to point out that I have well over two different binds that have the same command within. It's true that the system will only recognize a maximum of two keybinds for one command, however, this only affects single commands. Once you add one or more commands in combination to the same keypress, it seems to bypass that limit. (though I must admit, I haven't tried writing binds that assign the exact same combination of commands to 3 or more separate keys at once... maybe I'll experiment with that today)

btw cool avatar pic

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Technically, the system ignores underscores, so it sees "powexec_name" the same as "powexecname".

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Interesting. Never noticed that before. Just shows, now matter how much you may have learned, there's always more out there. That's one of the great things about this topic, no flamers, no trolls, just useful information

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I just tried that string for a bubbling bind.

Bub1.txt

equals "+down$$-down$$powexecname deflection shield$$bindloadfile C:\~path\bub2.txt"

and Bub2.txt

equals "+down$$-down$$powexecname insulation shield$$bindloadfile C:\~path\bub1.txt"

and nothing happened! no error no nothing.... suggestions?

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May be a simple syntax error, you use exactly what's up there? the correct syntax is "powexec_name powername", and "bind_load_file c:\~path\filename.txt".