Starhammer

Anybody noticed yet that when you put a Roger's jetpack with Rings on a Huge model, the rings are displaced? I think they're positioned where the one's on the male model are, might be calling up the wrong file or something.

As much as I'd love to have access to a taunt aura on my FF/DP Tankfender, I don't see this happening. They'd have to lose either the ranged taunt or the new tier 5 to make room for an aura, and I don't see either of them going. The ranged taunt is too important now that the other ranged taunt has been replaced, and I'm not sure I'd be willing to take two prerequisite powers just for the taunt aura if this replaced the new Tier 5 (which actually looks pretty cool also, and provides a self rez for those who might need it).

I know this may seem like an odd request, but I'd like to see one or two robotic tails. one slim (cat-like) and one thick (dinosaur-like) would be great.

I was just kinda bummed because the Firefighter Armor for the beta toon that tested Water Blast is what I went with for my first live toon, so I copied it over... then on the announcement picture in the loader, the thing firing the water looks almost exactly like mine, so now I'm gonna get an inevitable stream of "Oh hey, I see you copied the costume on the loader..."

:/

And in a surprising move today by the Arachnos Public Relations Bureau, Lord Recluse and his top lieutenants have been given a public image makeover.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Lord Recluse is now backed up by Ghost Widow - The Friendly Ghost (who gets to have Halloween every day of the year! I wonder what her favorite candy is), Black Scorpion - Dancinest Superperson in Pocket D (Ask him to dance "The Robot" it's his FAVORITE!), The Heroic Scirocco - The Breath of Fresh Air (If you get the chance, ask him about his "secret identity" as a hero...), and last but not least, Captain Mako - The Smiling Cousin of Dolphins (If you're lucky, you may be able to spot "The Ballerina of the Seas" catching a quick bite to eat at Scrapburger in one of their many Sharkhead Isle locations)!

So there you have it folks! The debut of The Friendly Neighborhood Lord Recluse and his Amazing Friends, the Friendly Foursome!



*This message brought to you by Scrapburger. Cold day? Try one of our bowls of fresh, hot chili. The key to good chili is using the right meat. Also, to mark the event, plushies are available!

Ok, that thread seems like a lot to do right at this moment, but in the meantime, I have 2 gb RAM and running Windows XP 32bit (sp3).

It's not like it's a catastrophic thing... game runs fine most of the time. This only happens just often enough that I started to notice it was always the same file (with the clouds and such).

Every so often, I crash when I'm zoning. Sometimes, I get the following error:

As awesome as everything else was, what would get me much more excited about what I saw in today's chat would be the implementation of "gun hands" or at the very least, a trial run on the idea by giving us a "none" or "invisible" pistol option in the creator for DP. We have video proof that it looks cool. I'd love to see the devs let us move forward on this idea

Had I the ability to implement a new AT (or more specifically a pair of new ATs) the ideas I've been kicking around for some time were "Guardians" and "Skirmishers" (yeah, sorry for any confusion with your already listed "Skirmisher" but that's how the names stuck in my head, and if I copy and past any of my files on it, I don't want to worry about changing the term some places and forgetting it others)

Guardians and Skirmishers are intended to fill the "jack of all trades" niche in such a manner that does not overshadow EATs but allows their role to be filled by characters using powers that are not iconically tied to any one faction or origin. Unlike EATs which have larger than normal pools to select from, Guardians and Skirmishers will have a wider array of power pools each containing the standard 9 tiers of powers from which to select.

Guardians and Skirmishers will use Assault pools (similar to Dominators) for offense and Teamwork pools (similar to Soldiers of Arachnos) for defense and support. Assault pools will consist of a mix of ranged, melee, and aoe attacks. Assault will be a Primary Pool for Skirmishers and a Secondary Pool for Guardians. Teamwork pools will consist predominantly of a mix between personal and group buffs and debuffs or limited (soft) crowd control (like immobilize). Teamwork will be a Primary Pool for Guardians and a Secondary Pool for Skirmishers.

Guardians and Skirmishers will have similar Inherent powers, both directly effecting team buffs.

The Guardian inherent [Hold The Line] gives every member of the Guardian's team (including himself) a .5% buff to Resist Damage (all) and .5% buff to Defense (all) for every member in the Guardian's team (including himself) for a maximum possible buff of 4% Resistance and Defense to every member of a full team (within the zone). Half of this bonus will be applied to any allied character within 50'. Though this bonus stacks with that from other Guardians, no character can hold more than the 8 largest stacks they have access to (maximum 32% teamed, 16% unteamed). This will allow Guardians to provide a benefit to others outside their team in league events or zone events, but will show preferable benefit for actually being teamed with them.

The Skirmisher inherent [Killzone] gives every member of the Skirmisher's team (including himself) a .5% buff to To Hit and .5% buff to Damage (all) for every member in the Skirmisher's team (including himself) for a maximum possible buff of 4% To Hit and Damage to every member of a full team (within the zone). Half of this bonus will be applied to any allied character within 50'. Though this bonus stacks with that from other Skirmishers, no character can hold more than the 8 largest stacks they have access to (maximum 32% teamed, 16% unteamed). This will allow Skirmishers to provide a benefit to others outside their team in league events or zone events, but will show preferable benefit for actually being teamed with them.

When designing Teamwork power pools for Guardians and Skirmishers, the Tier 1 Teamwork power should always be a passive buff to survivability, Tier 2 should be a toggled 10' PBAOE damage and/or debuff aura, and Tier 6 should always be a 50' PBAOE toggle that is either a buff or debuff of some sort. While there is some wiggle room, generally powersets should not contain pets, ally resurrection, or powers offering significant control (So as not to upstage other ATs that specialize in these things). Usually a power should not outperform a similar power from another AT's primary set, though balanced exceptions may apply (For instance: Shadow Teamwork uses Shadow Fall (like Defender's Dark Miasma variant) as it's Tier 6 group buff. In this case it significantly outperforms Defender Shadow Fall because it encompasses a greater area, making it useful to more allies. This is balanced against having less control and no pets than Dark Miasma. Personal defensive capabilities for a Guardian should be comparable to a Scrapper or Stalker (maybe slightly better, but definitely not Tanker levels), and a Skirmisher's personal defensive capability should compare to a Guardian as a Scrapper compares to a Tank.

When designing Assault power pools for Guardians and Skirmishers, generally use the existing Assault pools for Dominators as a guideline. Unmodified damage output for Skirmishers should be comparable to Tanks and Defenders. Unmodified damage output for Guardians should compare to a Skirmisher as a Tank or Defender compares to a Scrapper or Blaster. Any healing, buffing, or debuffing capability should be comparable to a Corrupter or Controller.

While Guardians and Skirmishers seem to be getting the "Secondary" power levels on their Primary abilities, this is going to be somewhat offset by their wider range of over usefulness, as well as the buff/debuff nature of their support powers.

The power pool concepts I had in mind for them are as follows:

Assault

Dark
Earth
Electricity
Energy
Fire
Ice
Psionic
Thorny
Pistol (single pistol (to allow using pistol + shield) plus some kicks and pistol whips)
Munitions (rockets/grenades)
Ninjitsu (mix of weapon, martial arts, and shuriken)
Spec Ops (similar to SoA)
Crossbow (Archery with Pummel and Bayonet)
Super Strength (similar to SS melee, but fewer melee attacks, and more hurling stuff)

I used to have detailed lists and descriptions for the Teamwork powersets, but they were on paper, and that notebook was lost when I recently moved. Hopefully I'll find it soon, and come back to list more details. Generally they are similar to similarly themed defender/corrupter sets, but with more personal defenses, less healing, and no rez/pets (except maybe a Gun Drone)

Teamwork

Cold
Force Field
Nature
Ninja
Pain
Radiation
Shadow
Shield
Sonic
Spec Ops
Storm
Time
Thermal
Traps

Again, sorry I'm lacking more detailed numbers and descriptions... lost notebook (grr).

I do like the changes they discussed quite a bit. I might actually take the Presence pool on one of my many characters finally.

As much as I like the mechanic for the Fighting Pool attacks to be more effective the more of them you have, I'm still disappointed that I will *have* to take Boxing or Kick in order to get Tough and Weave. While the attack powers are pretty cool, they're still quite extraneous on many builds that heavily benefit from the toggles Sometimes it just because the redraw is a pain like on many weapon sets, sometimes it's just because in a melee attack set you have no shortage of melee powers anyway. So many times I find myself just being stuck taking Boxing or Kick as a "throwaway" power to toughen up a bit. At most, I may put a kinetic Combat chance to KD in it and cycle it in place of Brawl on a set that doesn't use weapons or have endurance issues, but that's about the most use I get from them.

Though it wasn't covered in this video, Aid Self from the Medicine Pool has always irked me just the same... Where I may need a self heal for a character that will likely never use the first two powers, but I have to take one as a throwaway anyway to get Aid Self (yes, I solo a lot, and my Shield Drone Pet doesn't have enough HP to live long enough for me to use Aid Other on it. Now here's an idea... If Aid Other put an absorb shield on the target that was based on MY Max Health, I could at least use it periodically on my drone to keep it tough enough to not get one-shotted by stern glares and harsh language, thereby keeping it up more often, and making Aid Self potentially useful while soloing.)

Another thought regarding The Fighting Pool... I do really like the "Synergy" idea, though I wish it extended to (and from) Tough and Weave also. Doing some extra damage with the attacks if you have Tough and the attacks having higher accuracy if you have Weave perhaps, and perhaps Tough and Weave getting an endurance reduction and (mild... comparable to Wolf Spider Armor) Status Protection if you have the other powers in the set.

I could see this kind of Synergy making a lot of the weaker or lower priority powers in some sets much more desirable also. It'd be awesome to see the Med Pool get a Tier 5 PBAoE Heal, that, if you have Resurrect, would also function as a self rez (timer would have to be pretty long to justify it), or if you have Stimulant, would also apply a small Status Protection to the AOE (or having the AOE would apply a AOE effect to Stimulant). Just spitballing here, but I could see pool synergy being really interesting.

Jukebox Jamwhammer is an AWESOME name. That is just epic cool.

Ok, maybe I'm ignorant of an anime reference or something, but are the Mecha Armor wings and backpack supposed to stick out of the back on a giant peg like a poorly engineered action figure accessory? I think they'd look vastly better if the inner plane of the "mounting surface" (those bits that would actually be pretty epic looking on their own without the wings or warp nacelles) was flush with the back. Does it need to be that way to accommodate some of the beefier "chest option" pieces like PPD armor?

Having just absolutely wasted the last couple days, I thought I'd drop in and remind the developers that there's one thing I absolutely, passionately hate about City of Heroes... Outleveling content. Leveling up is supposed to be a good thing, not an "Oh [pancake]! What a [pancake] waste! [Pancake] my life!" moment.

Coh tries to work around this problem. There are numerous tools to help avoid this. You get to stay on a story arc if you outlevel it (better hope you're done with the contact though, and they don't introduce you to another contact you need). Ouroboros will let you go back and play through a story line you may have missed (unless you're working on Praetorian stuff, and it has no bearing on your status with the contact if that matters to you). You can even turn off XP, which is the best so far, unless you get more xp for a mission completion than you were expecting, or you forget that you have to shut it off at 15 (not 16) for Imperial City mission arcs. And unless you've memorized contact level ranges on Paraonwiki (since they aren't listed in the contact description, or any other place actually IN the game), you're bound to miss one every now and then, especially if it's one of those "hidden" contacts that nobody actually introduces you to redside. The worst thing about it is that we have the tech in the game to totally remove this problem, with the automated exemplaring, but it only gets used for Task Forces and Orouboros "flashback" arcs.

I really hate when I run into things like this in this game and am reminded that I'm an obsolete fool for having goals in this game other than reaching level 50 in record time and maxing out my DPS efficiency

If you're playing a melee set in Praetoria, Electric Armor is advantageous, since it gives you a lot of energy resistance very early, as well as some Psi resistance. While energy damage isn't the only thing you face there, I generally find that the most dangerous opponents usually use it in spades. That, and Electric Armor continues to be useful throughout the game.

Water jet is really cool (npi) and offers some beautiful power effects. There's one change I'd like to see made, even though many won't think it's a big deal, and it may seem counter-intuitive so some...

Even though Steam Spray and Geyser do fire damage, which makes perfect sense, I do wish they had a cold damage component to them as well, because even if they're hot, they're still water, and should be useful for putting out fires. It would be totally acceptable if this component was only effective against fires (or other critters that use the same mechanic to only take damage from water/cold). Even Steam Spray is negotiable on this point, but Geyser should not be useless against fires. That would be a truly unfortunate break in suspension of disbelief.

Frankly, because of the nature of the set, I would be thrilled to see every power (that does damage) in the set have a "bonus" cold damage component that only works against fires, making it even more effective for fighting them. I know it's a very tiny niche where functionality is concerned, but it's really important conceptually.

I know I risk running afoul of the political correctness police here, but I'd also really like to see some turbans in the game as hat options. Some simple, some ceremonial, some outlandish. I don't think they fit with everything of course, but for the right costume or concept, they can be an amazing lynchpin to the look. I know some people will want to use them to make socially inappropriate characters, but so many more can use them in ways that are tremendously appropriate to the scifi and superhero traditions... think of all the mystics, Persian heroes and just randomly interesting looks they can be used for.