The_Coming_Storm

Originally Posted by Yogi_Bare

Thanks.

(Is it safe to assume that most of the activity happens at the Blue spectrum of each server?)

Originally Posted by Norse Star

As with most gamers my original characters are on another members account. Is there a way to have them transfered to my new accounts? This would be most useful for families whos now college age children would like to retain their old characters on their own accounts.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

This is an easy question to answer

Originally Posted by The_Grand_Nagus

User Generated Content:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_generated_content

AKA Mission Architect, in COH.

Originally Posted by plainguy

First off change the name to Grant Flight

Get rid of the hit debuff

Make group fly a buff type power similar to Speed boost visual wise.

Players must be in the same group to Grant or receive flight.

The receiver of Grant flight pays with his or her own endurance.

Users of Grant flight pays for endurance for their pets or if possible take the endurance away from the pets, whichever is easier to implement.

Remove the tether that group fly has.

If a person dies or gets endurance drained fly must be reapplied. The player can remove the grant flight power by clicking on the icon to remove the buff

End result is this is a power that requires 2 other powers to have access to it.. It should not be WORSE it should be better.

Since the OP was supposedly kidding I'm not addressing the whole mission thing. But taking the time to agree Group Fly is lacking.

Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay

I was actually using the form of "City of Heroes" that colloquially means "The entire franchise". I would think you'd know I was a hardcore villain.

Better Red than dead...blue...something...I'unno.

Anyway, answer for your villainous side, then.

Originally Posted by Garielle

Thank you, Storm. I was making the point that the villain side is less restrictive than the hero side. You just reinforced the point. And I say that, not in a smart alek sort of way. I mean exactly what I said, "Thank you."

Originally Posted by je_saist

Eh. I'll agree that the solutions were probably more subtle than I could have made them.



From TCS? All he generates from me is a desire to go look up a various pictures featuring facepalms. I'm not sure it's possible to hold anything resembling a discussion with whoever is behind that player's keyboard.

okay, as to the rest of the posts in the thread: if this gets some dialog moving over what players would like to see with Group Fly, that's a good thing.

One of the questions I saw repeated was the gating content behind a specific power. One of the assumptions made in the opening post is that every-player can obtain some form of flying in the game, be it native power or temporary power.

My actual feelings on the subject are a bit mixed. As a player of the game, I'm not sure I could actually advocate requiring any particular single power for any particular in-game encounter. It would pretty much suck if you joined a task force and couldn't complete it becaues you didn't have the exact right mix of powers.

That being said, I'm often left wondering if implementing required powers for game content might not be a good thing for game longevity. One of the aspects of City of Heroes I don't like is the development process where everything winds up equal, there's no real risk, and anybody can do everything. That makes for a plain boring game.

What's the point of rolling a tank if you can get the same level of relative protection in a scrapper, with a higher damage rating? What's the point of rolling a scrapper if you an get the same level of relative protection in a blaster and do even more damage?

Let me put it this way: It is widely accepted by most players that to have a quick ArchVillain, Hero, or Giant Monster fight, you need some kind of regeneration debuff. Yes, you can take down any of the 3 classes without any kind of regeneration, defense, or resistance debuff, you'll just be a long time at it.

From a practical point of view there is already is a precedent set that if you want to get things done in the game reasonbly quickly, you need some form of buffs or debuffs. You don't necessarily need a radiation emission power set to take on these powered-classes of opponents. Yes, a Rad Emission will make the fight generally easier since their powers are toggles, but other debuff sets like dark miasma, trick arrow, kinetics, and even storm can shred enemy stat values.

What I'm trying to get at here is the class of power difference. I have no real issues with gating content behind power classes. I have no problems with enemies that can only be damaged by ranged attacks, or enemies that can only be damaged by holds, or enemies that can only be damaged by melee attacks, such as those used in the Hamidon Raid. I would have issues if the creatures of the Hamidon could ONLY be injured by somebody with Energy Blast, or by somebody with Fire Blast.

Ergo, I have no real problem with the original bad idea of creating enviromental content that is hazardous or impassible under certain conditions. I have no real problem with content that forces players to be what they are and playing to the strengths of their chosen archtypes. I have no problem with the game forcing players to make choices about how they accomplish any particular mission.

Dragging this back to group fly specifically, the power is, in my opinion, largely made redundant by the available temporary powers. Group Fly, as a power on it's own, would only truely be useful under 2 circumstances: Circumstances were temporary powers were turned off; Circumstances where a player could not go get a replacement jetpack.

What If I were to posit a situation where Group Fly was not the only mass aerial transport option available to players? What if there were a class of powers that were based on the concept of giving players a viable means of transport while retaining full mobility and control of their actions? What if there were multiple travel paths that be used for mission completion?

Let my try to set up an example here: Let's say you were out hunting a Devouring Earth Monster in a Praetorian Task Force. You are deep underground in Praetoria and you come across a chasm that you can teleport through due to a teleport denial system, there's no place to land for jumps, there's no ledges to super-speed across, and due to an EMP that was detonated during the last fight you were in, you can't use temporary mechanical powers like Jet Packs or Rocket Packs.

You have a choice. You can fly across the chasm with a native flight power. On the other side of the chasm are 8 obelisks or some other object. With the full team assembled, you can unlock a door and proceed with the mission and go ahead and fight the Devouring Earth Monster. Fighting it early might give you a special reward: such as additional merits or a special drop.

Your other alternative is to work your way through the caves system around the chasm. Your access to this other caves system is through a new mission map that you can't return from. Say you jump down a big hole in the ground following a map, and when you get to the bottom, it's now blocked off by a cave in.

The Task Force itself can still continue. The player isn't locked out of the content, which is one of the big complaints against requiring powers, but the rewards will be different, trading off a larger special reward for increased chances for minor item drops, more experience, and more inf .

With this type of system, content could be created that could leverage particular powers and make you want to have a specific uncommon power. The game is not requiring you to have that specific power, but you might see or experience certain aspects of a story only if somebody has the tools to unlock a power.


Designing more mass transit aerial powers, or mass versions of any power set, is something I'm not sure I want to get into in this particular thread. So I'm going to let those possibilities slide by for now.

Originally Posted by Garielle

I don't see how this is any different than heroes being tied to the Freedom Phalanx/Freedom Corps. Players frequently just ignore that if it doesn't fit their concept. In fact, they freely and openly play villains who, by all rights, Freedom Corp would certainly hunt down and arrest. They don't give it a second thought.

This is even EASIER to do in the Rogue Isles since the group you are supposedly tethered to is one which is frequently trying to kill you, and you are frequently trying to kill them. Not much of a stretch to imagine that you aren't part of that organization.

I do, however, hope that when they get around to doing the CoH2 project, they try to stay away from black and white and go more with the shades of grey they are introducing with Going Rogue. A faction-based system seems like a logical choice here. Get in good with The Family and they give you better and better jobs and are less likely to shoot you when they see you around the city. Go up against them too often and they'll go out of their way to take you down.

Originally Posted by Ronin Oni

wait a second... I just posted a question about server pop.. .but my answer may lie here...

Are the rogue isles just dead?

Should I try rolling hero?

kinda a shame.... villain powersets are SOOOOOOOOOO much better

Originally Posted by Zamuel

This. I can tolerate the soul devouring endurance cost but the debuff makes no sense. Isn't it the single strongest to-hit debuff in the game? Plus, it's unresistable. While there doesn't necessarily need to be "forced" Group Fly content, making more airborne areas, airborne enemies of importance (GMs, TF/SF specific AVs), and having some way to refuse using it (powersets that require you to be grounded, having super speed/jump as a travel power) would go a long way towards helping it. I just have a feeling it'll never get touched because it's not a new shiny and people aren't vocal enough about improving it.

What do you mean by "stable"?

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill

Also see other thread re: replacing a power, as always, being a bad idea. The devs re-learned that lesson the hard way with the PPPs. Guess some people still need to have that cinderblock dropped on their head 'til the point gets through.

Possibly by someone with group fly.

Originally Posted by Venture

Right, because what AE really needs is even more arcs stuffed to the gills with overpowered mobs.

Originally Posted by DarkGob

Apart from TCS's incredibly rude phrasing (seriously -- what is wrong with you?), I have to agree that this is just not a good idea. I don't want to see content like this that can only be passed by one specific power that requires taking two other powers in order to even have access to. I also don't think Group Fly should be removed. Frankly? Not every power can be gold. Leave it as it is. A few people use it for specific utility reasons, or for concept/RP reasons, and that's fine.

Originally Posted by Demobot

Merits.