Tannim222

A couple of things regarding history:

First, the idea of the fury mechanic was actually thought up and posted by a player in the Tanker forums. Many agreed it was a neat idea. A dev posted that it was indeed an interesting idea and that it'd be looked into.

It was not promised to be for Tankers, but by posting on the Tanker boards, in a Tanker thread, about an idea for Tankers gave the impression that it was going to be for Tankers.

Except, unbeknownst to the players, CoV was already being planned and the devs thought it was perfect for their new melee AT, and Brutes were born.

Second, ED was another idea that was thought up by a player. That player had already figured out that there was really no where many ATs could go power wise with the current system, and that the best way to handle this was with the ED system.

The devs agreed. At the time, the Lead was Statesman, and the powers designer was Gecko. Positron was a dev at the time, but not in the position of power he has now. In fact, after the ED announcement, Statesman came out and posted directly stating that there was stuff they wanted to do with the game, but couldn't do so with the SO system at that time.

They needed ED in order to create the invention system, though I *think* what they were working on at the time was a bit different than what we ended up with. Still, was said that while they were taking some things away, like the ability to perma-hasten on SOs, that with the proper investment, it'd be possible to do so again.

ED was indeed a bad idea, that is by introducing it without quickly having the invention system added on top of it.

Regarding Ramiel, neither my main Scrapper, nor my main Tanker could defeat him without using the vet Nem staff (neither has a knock back power of their own) and pushing him into the lava. My main controller had no problem laying down holds and taking him out.


About Tankers being the worst at "x". Maybe they shouldn't be trying to do that "thing" like say, running track with the sprinters. Just because I have two feet and a pair of legs doesn't mean that my body was designed to be a long distance runner, or a sprinter.

But I may have other traits that those sprinters don't and therefore if they were to step into my territory, they wouldn't be so good either in comparison.

JB, the devs can't enter into a dialogue with someone who refuses to even attempt to view the situation from their perspective.

Also, please oh please discontinue your hyperbolic stance that Brutes do everything that Tankers do because they can reach Tanker caps and do more damage.

You can't advocate changes for an AT based solely on the idea that every AT is operating at its maximum potential in every aspect of the game at all times.

It just doesn't happen.

AT design has to take into consideration going from level 1 - 50, solo, small and large teams, and the bulk of said time on SOs.

That being the case, Brutes in every possible armor they possess as a whole, do not all reach resist and / or defense caps, and still have less HPs a Tanker does.

Which also brings into consideration the idea that increasing Tanker damage caps will resolve all issues for pve for the AT as it levels. It won't.

Does anyone else realize that when comparing damage, there are some Tanker sets that surpass both Brute and Scrapper sets in DPS? Not many do it, and across the board, yes Tankers end up on the bottom of the damage calc's, but it does happen.

Changing Tankers to be more like another melee AT is in no way going to resolve the (if any) issue with Tankers.

xdI've long ago found that any logical discussion with JB is all but virtually useless when it comes to Tankers.

I've only gone so far as to agree that something needs to be done for Tankers. I'm leaning a change via game mechanics that would make their game play more interesting besides being able to withstand damage better.

JB doesn't like CoH Tankers. Period. From all the posts I've read of his, he doesn't like the Taunt mechanic. Doesn't like aggro control. Believes that the most difficult AT in the game to take down (iow the toughest one to beat) should also be the hardest hitting.

In his mind, there shouldn't be Brutes, Scrappers, or Stalkers as they exist in this game. There should be very tough, hard hitting guys, and quick, light hitting, but can't take a hit guys.

He'd merge Brutes with Tanks, and Scrappers with Stalkers. Except, give the Scralker the hps and defense values of a Stalker, and the base melee modifier of current Tankers, while Tankers would have a higher base melee modifier and fury.

The problem is this game doesn't work that way. He doesn't like it, but refuses to except it. So his solution is to buff Tanker damage so that they can compete with Scappers and Brutes in the damage department.

He's gone so far as to literally state that Tankers are stuck dealing with trash mobs at the door while the scrapper runs off to solo the rest of the 8 man map in the same amount of time.

Never mind that people have invited him to team with them on their server, offered to switch servers to where he's at, so that they could effectively play together and actually prove his points moot, but he won't because those people are quite simply wrong and he plays the game and doesn't need to inconvenience himself.

I find it quite sad when he's replies are so clearly hypocritical when basically accusing others of using hyperbole in their arguments when his own stances are just that.

Like this:

Quote by ClawsandEffect:

I really like Plant / Storm. Using super speed + steamy mist for invisibility to pull previously popped creepers into the next spawn.

Dropping Freezing Rain on immobilized mobs being chewed up while they're bashing each other, simply makes me giddy.

I'm not there yet, but I imagine that dropping Tornado, and Freezing Rain with -resist procs in each onto a hard target like an AV will be a thing of beauty. Add lightning storm to the mix, and some single target damage from the immoblize, an EPP blast, and the hold will work really well.

The way I look at it is, AoE damage, check.
Single target damage, check.
Ability to debuff, spot heal, check.
Synergy with defense armor in EPP and Steamy Mist to work with defense bonuses? Check.
Endurance will be a problem, going Ice EPP for hibernate, and proper Alpha slotting will make it quite manageable to go full out.

I've been calling Umbral Beast, Nanook.

I took it from the Lost Boys, in part because it's the name of the dog, but also because of the frequent requests in making it larger, or into a bear. Nanook is the Inuit name for the master of bears.

Other pets:
Phantasm: Phanty
Singularity: Singy
Animated Stone: Stoney or Pooman
Fire Imps: Stooges ('cause they're crazy)
Jack Frost: Jack
Gremlins: Grem Bros (a play on the Brothers Grimm)
Fly Trap: Audrey - I know there's a preference for Twoey but Audrey just stuck with me.
Voltaic Sentinel: Sparky
Dark Servant: Fluffy

Heard a radio interview with Kirkman this morning. He basically reiterated what was posted earlier, that the story isn't so much about trying to solve the mystery as these aren't the type of people for that kind of story.

But he said that their writing team does have a pathology behind how the zombies work.
For example, why some people on the highway apparently died in their cars but didn't become zombies.

While other people seem to take longer to turn than others, like Shane becoming a zombie so quickly. There's more to that than simply because they were in a crunch for time to fit that in.

Also, while we won't ever see marathon sprinter-zombies, "fresh" corpses will tend to be more agile and retain more motor functions than those of more rotted corpses that will mimic the old Romero style zombies.

I'd say the first thing to do is have the presence of Lt.s, Bosses, EBs, and AVs mean something more than an extra power or two, and more resists, defense, hps.

At best, they become the alpha strike targets for the team, up until AVs that is, and at worst, a boss might be a left over from clearing the mob.

Giving each mob rank above minion a team-buff aura that stacks with other mobs of the same group, and increases in effectiveness along with additional buffs with each rank would make large scale mobs more difficult without hindering small solo mobs much.

As an example:
Lt. Leadership aura: + 2% damage scales with difficulty to +5%
Boss: aura +3% damage, +2% to-hit, + 1% defense scales: +8 damage, +5% to-hit, +4% defense
EB: aura +5% damage, +3% to-hit, +2% defense scales: +10 damage, +8 to-hit, +6 defense
AV: aura +6% damage, +4% to-hit, +3% defense, +2% resist scales: +12% damage, +10 to-hit, +8% defense, +5% resist

Then, have EB encounters scale with team size and difficulty settings so that they always have a mob spawn with them.

Solo, +0 / +0 setting no bosses would look like this:

EB
(1) lt.
(2) minions

total damage to the mob would be +7% damage, +3% to-hit, +2% defense

Of course, these numbers are just an example but its a way of adding difficulty to encounters that scales appropriately with a team size and difficulty settings.

Now a team of 8 on max difficulty with an AV encounter would need to seriously evaluate what targets it goes after in order to eliminate the threat of multiple "leaders" of the mob encounter.

Kings Row revamped to be the "Gotham" to Atlas Park's "Metropolis" sounds like a fantastic idea. I like the gritty, industrial mood of Kings Row and would hope that any revamp keeps that theme.

Perez was always a weird zone. I remember it being around before the Hollows though, all the low level teams wound up in that place way back in the day.

It'd be great to see some dymic content for that zone. The outer perimeter is suppossed to be somewhat of a battle ground between the Skulls and Hellions, though I'm uncertain if there's ever been any clear indication as to why.

Making it so that if Heroes focus too much attention on Hellions, the Skulls begin to take their territory or the otherway around would be pretty neat. Having certain objectives to force both sides back for their story arc would be neat.

Allow villain access and give them arcs that let the player choose which side to manipulate so that one side appears to win over the other so they villain gets what they want out of it.

Do this for both heroes and villains, and have the stories later involve the other factions present in the area going all the way up to the Hydra.

This way, you have the following Hazard zones:
Hollows: 5-15
Perez Park changed to 10-20 hero / villain zone
Faultline 15-25
Croatoa 20-30
Striga 25-35

TA that's so cool to here. Many grats to you both!

I recall the old (old fantasy based on-line game) days of travelling from one continent to another before all the high level wizard and druid ports, or the moon ports. If I'm not mistaken, there was one particular voyage that could take 45 minutes, between sitting at the docks waiting for the right boat, getting to said boat, travelling on that boat, zoning, traveling, zoning again, and arriving at the docks of your destination.

Then I discovered that by hopping off the boat after the first zone, at the right spot, swimming and catching another dingy to another boat, you got to your destination faster. That's if I remember all that correctly. Either way, it was a horrid mess.

Sometimes you really did feel like the world was really large, and there was so much to explore, and that was wonderful. But it sure got old fast, particularly if you were trying to catch up with others to form a team.

According to this article the existince or non existence of the god paricle will be known by the end of 2012.

(pause for damatic music to fade)

All joking aside, it'll be interesting to see if it ends up proven to exist.

Dark / Poison

Already have the character name, basic background to explain her mutant power, and her first costume down.

The original sounds were often said to make the set into q-tip melee. Very soft air-woosh effect with a subtle padded-like hit effect. In early levels, using a staff attack with brawl used in the attack chain sounded as if brawl was the heavy hitter of your attacks.

The current sounds are often said to sound like someone twirled an aluminum trash can around the end of a stick for the air-woosh. The hit effect sometimes blends with this and ends up sounding almost thunderous.

Some people liked the first, many didn't.

They changed it.

Some people like the second, some prefer the first to the second, many people seem to not like the second or the first at all.

I think it's pretty safe to say the common consensus is that the first sfx didn't go far enough, and the second is overkill.

Except DC / WB will make a huge mess of it either way. The Marvel movie studio has done a decent job of creating their comic book-movie universe, providing the general audience with at least a basic understanding of the major characters in the Avengers.

The worst of which is Hawkeye which was little more than a cameo in the Thor movie. Of which imop was probably the worst of the Marvel movie studio films to come out. It's an ok movie, better than a lot of other movies to come out, super hero or not, but they set the bar so high with Iron Man

It just feels like they're rushing forward with the films of cap and thor simply to get to Avengers. While I really hope the pay off is worth it, I'd perfer if they had taken their time to put out even better films and then really hit the ball out of the park with Avengers. Now though, they don't have to try as hard to do so, which may be part of the plan

Either way, Avengers is looking great.

DC / WB would have a lot of work ahead of them to really establish the core JL characters in the minds of the general movie going audience. They'd have to do a way better job than they did with GL. If Avengers does really well and all they see is $$ and move too quick just to capitalize, they're likely to do an even worse job. Which would be a shame.

There are a couple of other techniques you can apply as a GM to curtail certain players from "hogging the spotlight".

One is to split the party from time to time. This works particularly well if you plan the encounters to work towards the split character's strengths or exploit their weaknesses to see how they work to overcome them.

Another is during combat, when the initiative is rolled, the call of action flows from those dice. So you get to address the player individually for their character's particular action. This can set the opportunity for some of those other players to step up and set the pace or tactics for the encounter.

Then as the GM you could also manage the flow of the group by calling on individual players asking what they are going or what they are currently doing, before those more forward players step up.

I'd be wary of utlilzing your NPC in any leadership type role unless the players specifically put your character in that spot. In which case, which is very difficult as a GM to both "play" a character involved in the dynamics of the team, particularly while leading them, and still effectively GM them as well.

There are many inherent dangers of the GM playing a character that's part of the player's group. Power creep, power abuse, spot-lighting are all very common pitfalls and sometimes end up occuring without the intention of doing so. Another thing is that if you're NPC starts trying to "help" by suggesting courses of action, some players may feel that you're micro-managing them, purpossfully taking over their decisions, or setting them up for failure.

I've ran games where my NPC at first designed to be something more like a mission contact ended up leading the party simply due to the player's desire for him to do so. I often found ways to take him out of the picture, or designed encounters that utlized the skill sets of the players and minimized my NPC's abilities. This takes a lot of planning to pull off well.

There was another long run campaign that I ran where I had an NPC involved with the group for a long time. He was always off the side taking care of little things that the group needed but not necessarily anyone wanted to deal with. Or getting caught up in a pitched battle with one of the lesser minions in an encounter just long enough to keep him occupied, but still seem useful without taking over what the other players did. He often ended up as the "back up" theif whenver the main thief was either not around or otherwise occupied.

It worked great because I designed the character to eventually be a major protagonist to the group, betraying them at the right moment. It worked really well surprising the entire party, and really got them riled up to try and take him down when they got the chance.

I bascially provided these examples to show you that if you're going to have an NPC in the party, make them as real as the characters are, but use them in a way that doesn't steal the show from the real players, after all you're already running the show for them. Finally, be sure to have a purpose for the character in the long term of the campaign, along with some character flaws that make them as real to the rest of the players as their characters are to them.

I personally enjoy melee sets way more than blast sets, but I wouldn't be bothered if all the next few sets that came out were all ranged. There's plenty of characters for me to run around Paragon and the Rogue Isles with before I get bored

That being said, there are still plenty of sets the devs can make, quite a few already mentioned.

Earth Blast / Manipulation

Wind / Storm Blast / Manipulation

Thrown Weapons (knives, shuriken)
Martial Mastery

Laser Blast (with many attacks designed to use long, narrow cones to simulate the beam boring through the target and hitting the next)

An all ranged version of Spines.

Water Blast / Manipulation

With some of these sets, the asthetics of the wepon models and the animations are all that's necessary, while with others there may be a need to design unique mechanics within them to set them apart from other sets besides what the blast set represents.

Devices:
-Taser: turn it into a toggle based attack (still has to-hit values) but the longer you keep it toggled, the longer the target remains stunned. I'd give it a .39 eps usage. This allows the user to keep a single target out of the fight on a controlled duration basis. Even after detoggling, the stunn effect may linger.

- Cloaking Device: add a damage bonus for the first attack used while stealthed.

- Targeting Drone: add +range.

- Trip Mines: significantly shorten the animation time and allow it to be a targeted aoe power. Now a trip mine can either be used as an in combat attack or an tactical attack where a field is set up. Allow the mines to be placed on walls and ceilings.

- Time Bomb: simple thing to do is allow it to be targeted by any player to cause it to blow up. More complicated is to give it a trigger power as mentioned earlier.

Broadsword: this set was supossed to be burst damage vs. Katana's damage over time. However, except for one particular instance, this isn't true. Which causes Broadsword to fall behind Katana and never gain ground. In order to have this set keep pace with Katana, it needs to be able to have instances of high burst damage.

Oft suggested is to change build up to provide a higher damage bonus that fades over time, as was done to Peacebringers. With perhaps an increase to duration with a higher recharge.

I was the new film recently as well. Everything was just bad. The writing, from plot, to main and side characters. The horrible use of "in your face" 3D which comes across particularly bad in 2D. And the sets, way too much green screen. It was a sad, sad representation of such a wonderful character and mythos.

So much can be done with Conan with endless tales worth exploring. I for one can only hope that Marvel gets everything cleared up in court so they can go on to produce a wonderful film. Until then, I shall continue to enjoy the original stories, the early comic book run, and first film.

I seriously doubt that'll ever happen. For one, I honestly believe that Lucas has too large of an ego to follow the Thrawn trilogy. And if he went in a completely different direction from those books, he'd have to make those films absolutely amazing or he'd have his fans even more angry at him than they already are.

Instead what he have is more Clone Wars stuff, which is just about okay. It's not great, but I find it more palatable than the prequels. Even though much of it carries on with stuff that I found horrible in the prequels, and it even managed to add more to it. Those parts I just kind of choke down and hope it doesn't rise back up.

Also, Star Wars Underworld, a live action series set between ep. 3 and 4 has been worked on. Well, suppossedly, 50 episode scripts have been written, with the fine details for the first 20 episodes done. But they can't film because it'll cost too much for live t.v. which is how the series is being designed.

Either it'll never see the light of day, get dramatically changed to fit into a series of films, or new tech comes out that'll drive the cost to produce down to the point a network will pick it up, or Lucas Films goes it alone and does it all, hoping to get picked up by a network with deals done to make a profit.

I don't mind that there were more "flashy" lightsaber duels in the prequels. The sparring use of them in the originals did add weight to them, and they should because there weren't any more Jedi and the two left were either protagonist antagonist, or father and son after it was revealed.

Also, with Luke being essentially self-taught on the use of the Lighsaber I could understand how his moves were more simplistic, yet functional.

Having more Jedi, classically trained, as in the prequels, allows room (to me) for more flashy light saber battles. The weight that was missing behind some of the show downs comes from the fact that throughout the entire prequel series, we were never given a proper protagonist or antagonist, nor were we given a clear plot that made any sense what-so-ever.

The entire idea of the Trade Federation blockading a planet because the hologram guy sent them there made zero sense. Why would they block trade when they're the trade federation?

Already have the senate falling apart at the seems with disfunction and disuptes creating an inability to manage the vastness of the republic. This could be explained in the scrolling text at the start.

The very beginning should've had General Greivous tired of following the orders of Jedi in keeping the peace, take control of a droid army and blockade naboo (and key resource magcuffin) to basically force the trade federation to fund him so he could amass a larger droid army and cull or conquer other dissatisfied worlds to his side.

Introduce C3PO has a trade federation droid on the captured ship that is sent to the Jedi sent to talk with Greivous, he remains as a tag along as comic relief.

Artoo remains as a naboo astromech droid.

Anakin should be one of the naboo pilots-in-training (make him a bit older as in teens) freed in the escape. Sent there to train by his mother who is on tattoine.

Either get rid of the gungans altogether, keep them in as a beginning bit but leave jar-jar behind, or make it that the gungans are upset with the naboo-ians because the precious resource macguffin is something the gungans use but feel is being stolen from them.

Get rid of Dookoo altogether, keep Greivous as our main antangonist, with Darth Maul being the one to convince Greivious to go this route making seem like he's pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Have Darth Maul in place of Dookoo throughout the rest of the films. Only reveal that he is in communication with someone else (being Palpatine).

Drop the midichlorians there's no need to explain the force any deeper than what was already known. Drop the entire balance of the force prophecy crap that made no sense.

After the escape from naboo, and the ship needing repair, Anakin knowing his mother is on naboo, heads there. Only to find out what his mother did to get him to naboo was put herself into slavery for the Hutts. He agrees to race to get the parts necessary for their ship. I'd make the pod race much more dangerous with the corse rigged with traps, and the racers doing more than bumping each other around.

Anakin's mother is freed but remains behind because she's met a man. Leave it all at that.

Now you've a much better set up with the rest of the films with Obi was your protangonist for the first film, giving us Akankin for the second, and Greivous with Maul as the antagonists.

Lucas retiring? It's not like he was working very hard in the first place

Really though, going back to the prequel movies, there's so much more wrong with them outside of the one character Jar-Jar. Most of this is due to the facts that:

1. Lucas had written the script for ep 1 in like a week and called it the first official rough draft - which he soley "revised" throughout shooting.

2. I believe Ep.2 and 3 both had sets being built based on his ideas before he actually had begun writing the scripts.

3. All three had no proper protagonist.

4. The main plot for all 3 films never make sense, have tons of holes, character motivitions are practically nonexistant, all the subplots (what few there were) were even worse.

5. The directing was terrible, most dialogue scenes are exactly the same, with 2 characters talking, walking or sitting, each shot the same way.

6. The over-use of special effects had an effect on the actors, without sets to work on, and non-digital characters to relate / react to, the actors were completely reliant on Lucas' direction to pull off a scene. Also, the lack of realism without the use of whole mood-setting sets is distracting to the human eye. Finally, sfx became the point and stopped supporting the story. The more they could put on the screen the better apparently.

7. The entire point on Lucas' writing for all 3 films was to get Anakin to Mustafar so he could become Vader, whether how and why he got there made any sense what so ever.

8. Lucas may practically be a hack when it comes to writing and directing, but is an excellent idea guy, sadly surrounded by yes men and not people who can take those ideas and pull them off like in the originals (well 1 and 2). But he's unquestionably a genius, he got my dollars on all 3 films even after the first 1 I knew the rest were going to be trainwrecks but I couldn't help myself, it was Star Wars