Tal_N

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Teleport beacons for all CoH zones?

Yes. It's in our internal QA right now, making sure they all work right. (So it's a patch or three away from the Training Room server).

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Looks like heroes are gonna need bigger bases....

Woohoo!! I'm off on vacasion this Friday Thats gonna be an exp-binge!

I have to ask exactly why it is that the Domination inherant is considered to be viable in a team when the fact is that you're attacking enemies less and less due to allies beating them up first. As it stands Domination and Fury do infact become diminished in a team situation compared to hero inherants which work equally well both on a team and while solo.

The fact is however that I think the difference between domination mode and normal mode is far too distant. Out of domination the AT is slow, sluggish and under performing as they deal defender grade damage and deal less than adequet control unless heavily slotted with SOs. Soon as Domination comes up they're god-like. Having to play for 10-15 minutes of tedium for 2-3 minutes of feeling powerful is not very enjoyable in my opinion.

I'd be happy with NPCs not giving exp if they also didn't give debt. Seems like the most obvious balance possible.

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Another mystery solved. *dusts off hands*

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Yeah, so get back into that damn van and take this dog with you.

Thought Manticore said he'd gone to work on the story line and writing for Tabula Rasa, thats when Arctic Sun took over.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that a couple of the AVs have the ability to hit a phase shifted enemy. Afterall it is possible for the base defences to do it now so its not impossible from a coding side like it used to be.

Well since I can submit something I think I will. Dunno when I'll have it ready so maybe sometime between now and the middle of next month anyway. Thanks for the support folks, you're inspired me.

Now all I need to do is sit down and have a brainstorming session with myself about how to go about doing this.

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You know - you could submit that kind of thing to the submissions box. You never know what might show up in the community pages of the comic or on the website.

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Doesn't the fact that I'm a UK subscriber on a US server kinda automatically disqualify me from that kinda stuff?

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I think Tal_N will get a new job as a reporter for The Paragon Times!

--NT

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To be fair I'd feel a lil inadequet compared to folks like Arctic-Sun who from what I have seen a very skilled and consistantly good writers. However I don't feel inadequete compared to whoever wrote the bios of the heroes in the Mayhem Missions. lol

The CoX universe is a very detailed world, where magic, meta-humans and multiple dimentions are common knowledge and there is every possibility that your neighbor or partner is or is related to someone with inhuman abilities. Clearly there is alot of legalities with meta-humans and we see the back history of the world is shaped by the actions if super humans and aliens however there is a significant lack evidence that you are taking part in a world where the popular culture has been shaped around the presense of meta-humans.

Its really something in the realm of Arctic-Sun to do I guess, it would be nice to see the Paragon Times have small articles detailing stuff happening in the rest of the world. A news report about a scadal where a woman has an affair with her husbands Kheldian personality and the subsquent divorse and forced removal of the alien being from the man. Or how about
sports designed especially for meta-humans, you mean to tell me there has never been a meta-human olympics? Super-football? Clearly its not fair to exclude meta-humans from sports because they outperform humans by such a large margin, for true competative sports they'd need to have special meta-human events and even special rules. How many tankers could have previously had a career as a quarterback for the Chicago Titans (the meta-human alternative to the Bulls).

On the news front again you might even have a scandal about using the same drug used in the Zig which surpresses powers to allow meta-humans to take part in normal sports. Then have claims that some athelete wasn't taking the full dosage and was using their powers to win.


Given the concentrated population of meta-humans in Paragon City you'd expect tp see alot of meta-human focussed advertising on the billboards as they might be fairly common but they certainly are a specialist group within the worlds population.

Trainers and shoe adverts with slogans like 'Capable of withstanding mach 7' or car billboards like 'The new SUV 46000XV, now capable of supporting 5 tonnes. Ideal for super-sized drivers!'. Insurance companies who actually DO cover you against acts of gods!

The list goes on and on when it comes to in-game fictional advertising and the visible effects of meta-humans about the worlds culture. I know its all fluff but it would make the CoX feel a little more complete.

I suspect Recluse has the smarts to realise that on many levels the spider is the ultimate predator. If they could grow large enough to compete with lions and tigers you'd quickly see spider's being the #1 predator on the planet. So it makes perfect sense for Sefan to want to change himself into a spider/human hybrid.

Just so everyone knows... the The Awakened officer costume can be copied almost exactly minus the sash and the PPD emblem and looks surprizingly good I might add.

I do think that the Night Widows need buffing a little, without their smoke grenade they really do suffer from being medicore. Giving them placate or AS like the Bane Spider Executioners would be ideal.

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By your powers combined...

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EARTH!

AIR!

FIRE!

WATER!

NERF!

I am JACK EMMERT!!

Ick!! Did you see that preview of the book cover? No way was that drawn by a professional, I used to draw things like that when I was 14 with all of the proporitions scewed. I really hope thats either a bad scan of the cover or its a rough draft because that is just embarrasing!

Fell behind schedual eh?

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yeah why are these powers so gimp? [censored] i still dont get it

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Patron and Ancilery powers in general aren't intended to be uber since they totally break the purpose of the AT. Since you don't get them until the 40s you can't enhance them as much either. Just be grateful that every villain has the potential for a pet, that alone increases their DPS and acts as an aggro reducer.

Frankly when you consider that the average base with 2 workshops (one mag and one tech) along with a telepad room, control room with Oracle, medical facility with 2 res rings and maybe one meeting room on a 8x12 grid leaves utterly no room for an additionally room to be added there is no reason to keep a workbench active at all now. I mean you have all your stuff and the workshops only allow 2 workbenches maximum anyway.

Ultimately people will just take their workbenches back and keep the empowerment stations in there. The only benefit now of the workbenches is for recovering items destroyed during a raid so a PvE SG has utterly no reason to keep a workbench 24/7 now.

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- Lay the Smackdown on Mako and Calyfishstix.

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Just had to say;

Calyfishstix... ROFLMAO!!!

I have to say that the mayhem missions thus far are nice but there is room for improvement. The two things I'd like to see changed is that after robbing the bank you should have to take the swag back to the truck in the same way you have to take the hostage back through the streets.

The odds going back SHOULD be against you, its bad enough that the path to the bank is fairly easy already but if you are in Paragon City and have been spotted in a zone then all hell should be breaking loose by the time you rob the bank. Considering its the 'City of Heroes' there is a noticable absense of them around, just alot of police. I'd like to see a more faithful recreation of how many heroes should be around. Having the police standing in the street is fine but there should be at least 2-3 heroes in the nighborhood patrolling around looking for you. Maybe even a group of 3 leuitent grade heroes that are on a 'team' going looking for you.

As it stands its the 'City of Policemen' not the 'City of Heroes' within the Mayhem Missions.

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This adds up to
Fire 6 +'s, 10 -'s
DA 11 +'s, 5 -'s
Elec 7 +'s, 9 -'s

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Breaking it down to raw numbers simply doesn't work especially considering how you have missed a few critical facts. While Dark Armor offers alot of crowd control you'll find that the Cloak of Fear loses almost all effectiveness when combined with Death Shroud. The heal bonus for DA also requires enemies within melee range, while fire armor operates at all times. Likewise FA needs enemies within range to recover endurance while Elec Armor can reduce its endurance cost without nearby enemies.

The stun aura for DA is also a bad thing because it needs to be combined with a heal to in order to avoid killing the brute. DA in general suffers from working against building your Rage meter because of how it stops all incoming attacks. DA might be safer, but frankly its better overall to have resistances and tons of rage enhanced damage as all crowd control results in is a stalemate.

So to say that DA comes out on top isn't accurate since some of its benefits are mutally exclusive from one another or require special conditions or additional powers to function with no drawbacks.

Some people see a lack of a heal as a weakness, yet not one single person would claim that Energy Armor or Super Reflexes is underperforming and they don't have heals or dull pain either. A heal is a perk, not a requirement at all. Knockback and immobilisation is the only weakness Electrical Armor suffers from and it can be fixed with a single powerpool if you choose to take it. Frankly though I've taken my fire tanker from 1 to 26 without any knockback protection and while it might be annoying when it happens its rarely killed me and its a limitation I choose to accept but will eventually plug with acrobatics anyway since SJ was always intended for the character. If people are concerned about knockback you can also consider getting hover which leads into the flight travelpower. So don't claim you're being pidgeon holed into SJ because for starters a character works fine without KB resistance and secondly you have at least two powerpools which over protection from it.

While I understand that puncturing someone with the claws is a way to harm them you cannot deny that the set has gone from 'rawr, gonna slice you up' to '[/i]meyow, gonna poke you to death[/i]'

Sweeping strikes which show the character slicing and dicing is what the claws set should be about, not standing there shadow boxing with fists held close to your chest with quick short jabs. If you have claws then you should use them to their full potential, not pussyfoot around slowly jabbing at someone.

OK I have to just speak up here about everyone moaning about Elec Armor needing this and that.

Lets look at this in the big picture rather than saying 'I want it to do THIS'. Each powerset needs to be induvidual to itself, it wouldn't be any fun to have 10 Energy Blasts which all behaved in the same way with maybe 1 or two signiture powers. Likewise armors have to be very induvidual as well. Additionally every powerset NEEDS to have a weakness and a strength. Without that there is no need to team as you have no limitations, armor in particular HAS to have holes within it.

Typically a powerset has a purpose, if a powerset breaks the purpose it takes penalties within to balance it out. A case example is Ice Blast. A primary for blasters is supposed to be about raw damage yet ice blast offers alot of control powers. As a penalty it suffers from mediocre AoE and heavy endurance costs. Fire armor is supposed to be a tanker primary intended for defence. Except it deals damage directly, as such it has weaknesses greater than normal because it breaks the purpose of what a primary tanker power is supposed to do.

Elec Armor is an interesting hybrid of abilities. Its more utility based than some sets plus it has direct damage potential. However alot of its powers are defensive in nature. You can see this balancing system in action. It has less damage potential than fire armor, so it offers higher protection than fire armor. However it offers more ultility than Invulnerability so it has less protection than invulnerability.

Now everyone compares alot of the armor sets to invul but I'll point out one simple fact. Invul is PURE PROTECTION with almost no utility. It only has one power which buffs something other than defence, health or resistance and that simply gives a moderate acc buff. So its amazing protection is because (a) it doesn't do anything beyond the purpose of the set and (b) it doesn't have utility powers or extra special protections.

I know knockback protection is something alot of people hate, but the fact is that in order to put it back in you'd need to lose something in return. Maybe alot in return, endurance drain protection seems most likely and perhaps teleport protection would have to go to since these are 'exotic' defences. Now some will say yes to stripping those out. But if you do then Elec Armor suddenly only has a few things to make it unique. The endurance reduction powers and a damage aura.

That might be enough, but lets be fair here. There is much defence against endurance drains so this set really stands out as special because of it, this will make enemies like MALTA, Carnies and Longbow a hell of alot easier. All things considered, I'd rather have a powerset with a hole I can fill with a powerpool than not have to take a powerpool but be completely unable to defend myself against endurance draining powers.

With the ability to fix the weaknesses in the set with just one powerpool I'd say its a fairly good trade to the number 1 killer of all brutes. A complete lack of endurance.

So lay off with wanting to turn the set into something less unique just because you don't like what its offering. If you want higher protection go make an invulnerability brute, its why the set exists. If you want to be a tanker go invul, if you want something different and more varied go elec.

Ok, I had a look at these new animations last night and I have to honestly say that I HATE them. Its mainly because in the animations themselves are totally unsuited for the type of powerset they are applied so. Claws is a slashing set, no different than any of the other things like swords or the axe. However these two new animations are clearly punching resulting in a very very lacklusre appearence to the claws's characteristics.

I can see they're from the energy melee powerset, but the fact is that they don't work with claws because the hands are held too close to the body, there is no sense of slicing as the character doesn't follow through with their movement. It's like they're simply boxing with claws on their hands, not using the claws at all infact.

I'm all for fixing the claw animations but they've totally killed the set's feel by making is look totally wrong. They may as well just replaced the katana power animations with the ones from super strength, that is how wrong these new claw animations look.