Ultimo_

I didn't know you could convert Influence to Prestige... That could help a lot. Does that mean that I could win a costume contest and buy a million prestige?!

Well, that's the thing, I don't have ANYTHING in it that uses power. I might have tried to put a work bench in there in preparation for eventually putting in teleporters, but basically what I was after was the ability to create a decorative base with no real utility.

I mean, I realize it would grow as the characters grow, but it's only on the basic plot! even if I could fill the whole basic plot, the thing would still have room to grow.

My issue is that decorative rooms are just that: decorative. They're there exclusively because they're fun. Yet, for some reason, we're so restricted in using them that there's no fun to be had. It seems counterproductive to me.


As for adding members, the SG is really meant just for my Avengers homages, and I don't expect to have more than 6. I could add other people to the group (if they had avengers homages of their own, perhaps), but it kind of defeats the purpose of the group, and very likely no one would want to join a SG with a non-functional base.

It's just frustrating.

How about the option to replace the glowing base portal with a door, or bank of doors?

I've been trying to build my base to resemble a mansion, but there's little to help with that.


Ordinary doors

Windows

Plain interior walls

Wood planked walls

etc.

I've asked something similar before, I think, but I can't find the thread, so I'll ask it again.

I'm building a base right now for a team of my own heroes. As it stands, I can't put in more than a couple of rooms, because the prestige costs are so high. I mean, I don't understand why it's necessary for purely decorative rooms to cost tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of points of prestige.

Certainly, rooms that have a function, like control, or power, or medical facilities; those I can understand the high costs. Why are decorative rooms so expensive? They don't do anything but take up space.


What am I missing?


I mean, my SG has 5 characters in it now. They all joined the SG at L2. They are all now L16. They have all been in SG mode from the moment they joined. All this, and I still can't add more than two rooms, and NEITHER is actually functional because the cost of the power and control pieces are so expensive.

Are bases intended only for L50s or something?

It always amazed me that they wouldn't think players wanted it. I mean, they knew we would want to customize the appearance of our characters, and gave us the most amazing character design system extant, then dropped the ball with customizing the powers themselves...

Ranged ATs do have access to melee attacks. Blasters have their whole secondary. Dominators have melee in the Assault sets, and everyone else has access to things like Air Superiority, Boxing and so on.

I realize it would be a daunting task to replace powers in some sets. Even looking at Energy Melee, it was hard to decide what would be replaced.

I was covering myself with the comment about the sets being balanced in the first place. Just noting a premise we were all assuming.

That a power can be balanced is not the reason to add it. The reason to add it is to fill a hole in the power sets. I've often been left running away redside, because my melee character can't reach that Bombardier. It's the same reason they gave ranged attacks to all NPCs - to keep them from being helpless in some common circumstances (and from my personal perspective, to allow better realization of certain character concepts).

Yeah, that's what I mean, there would be a set for each of the main types of damage, Energy, Fire, Ice, Rad, and so on. All they'd have to do is make sure they're all the same (excepting special effects).

That is, the first power would be Power Bolts/Flares/Ice Bolts/Whatever, and each would do that 30 damage, plus the side effect of the power type (ie. Energy does knockback, Fire does a small DOT, Ice a minor slow effect, etc). If they're all the same, it wouldn't matter what you picked, except for concept reasons (AceMace could actually get to call some lightning in the game!).

Of course, I wouldn't expect this to be a trivial task, but at least most of the animation and art is already in the game.

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I agree, some sets are easier to do this for than others. However, these sets were recently given ranged attacks in the MA. Granted, they're not great in many cases, but they are something to start with, at least. As you say, the weapon sets are the hardest to come up with something for. In my opinion, it just requires a little imagination.



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This is a horrible example to use. Some of the ranged attacks actual make some of those critters ridiculous. I would not be looking at custom critters for examples of balance.

And yes BALANCE trumps imagination. Sorry.

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They make the characters ridiculous because they didn't bother to balance the damage output (for the custom critters in general OR for the ranged powers specifically). If the powers and NPCs were balanced, there would be no problem.

All I was saying is that, worst case, Dual Blades would be tossing Shurikens (which I consider FAR from ideal, but this would be the worst case scenario, after all).

What if a series of ranged power pools were created that could be selected like any of the others? They would have less effect than similar powers in existing primaries and secondaries.

As an example:

Energy Powers:
Energy Bolts (L6) 30 damage
Energy Blast (L6) 50 damage
Energy Torrent (L14) 30 damage
Exploding Blast (L20) 30 damage

These numbers are based on Mids', and would put the effect a bit below even Defender damage. Accuracy, endurance and so on would be the same as usual.


If there were power sets like this for several power effects, you could have your Broadsword guy toss Flares or Ice Bolts or whatever suited your concept. Do you think this could be balanced? I mean, if it's available to everyone, no one has an advantage. Do you think it would be too much? Are we treading into Tankmagery here?

Aett did say more than NO!, and I did say more than YES!. It works both ways, I was summarizing the arbitrary nature of what we were saying. Try and keep up.


Your soccer analogy is well taken. I didn't suggest which powers might be best replaced, as I took that to merely be bait for the straw man, that is, I figured you were just trying to get me to say something you could easily shoot down. Considering the history of these boards, that kind of defensive thinking is becoming second nature. I'm glad to see you were actually in earnest.

If Bone Smasher was replaced, the challenge would be to replace it with a ranged attack that was as effective as the power it's replacing (this assumes the set was balanced to begin with). The effect of the stun, for example, might be deemed more useful than knockback, so the liklihood of knockback might be increased to compensate for the difference. It's just a matter of adjusting things in the new power. It doesn't require adjustments throughout.


I agree, some sets are easier to do this for than others. However, these sets were recently given ranged attacks in the MA. Granted, they're not great in many cases, but they are something to start with, at least. As you say, the weapon sets are the hardest to come up with something for. In my opinion, it just requires a little imagination.

Also, I would agree that ALL melee sets should have at least the one ranged attack, regardless of the AT (well, Blaster secondaries likely don't need them...).

The hyperbole was meant in jest.

Correct, it's every bit as arbitrary. You say NO! I say YES! and there's really no reason for either stance, other than to create a kind of balance between the sets. Is it necessary? No. Would it be nice? Absolutely.

Hurl has been changed, and recently. They didn't change the rest of the set, just THAT POWER. If they added new ranged attacks to the various melee sets, they would simply have to ensure to balance THAT POWER. It would not require reworking the whole set to add one power.


As for Epic pools, here's an analogy.


I want to play Hockey. I want to be a Goaltender. Now, I don't expect to be the best goaltender in the world, right off the bat, but I do have certain expectations. If the coach says to me, "Great, you want to be a goalie! Now, go be a forward, and in 2 or 3 years, we'll let you play goal," I'd be very disappointed.

Similarly, I come to CoH with a character concept in mind, much as I had a concept of a goaltender. I'm then told I have to wait several years before I can realize that concept. It's inadequate and disappointing. The Epic pools are a nice add-on, but they're not part of the core character.

Is Super Strength unbalanced because it has Hurl? is Spines unbalanced because it has a ranged power? That argument holds no water because you just have to make the power added appropriate to the set, and appropriate relative to other, similar powers. It's not rocket science.

As for the notion that people would be irritated to see a power replaced with a ranged power, I suppose that's true. You're not going to please everyone. I guess that means they better not do anything to the game ever again, because SOMEONE might potentially maybe be upset for a day or two. Perhaps the best way would be to add that tenth power.

That Tankers are "supposed" to be a melee class is arbitrary. There is nothing in controlling the aggro of the enemy that requires melee only. This is what my last sentence in my previous post is about.

Why not? Some sets have ranged attacks, so giving all the sets one would balance them out in that regard. Plus, it would fill a hole in the power sets that really doesn't need to be there.

Yah, I didn't think it would be a big issue, what with the damage output being reduced as well (since ranged attacks do less than melee attacks), but I'm prepared to allow that it might be an issue. That's really why I liked the idea of adding Energy Blast to Energy Melee. It's just one attack, after all.

As noted, though, most melee sets don't have a ranged attack! Maybe this is something that should be added to all melee sets? At least ONE ranged attack?

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You claim "X is easy," and when called to explain how you know that, you say it's easy because "you have an imagination."

Your imagination is not proof. You can't prove that your ideas are easy to implement, and there's evidence that they are, in fact, not.

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I never said "X is easy." I said there are things that could easily be done, and I stand by that. Doubtless there are things that would NOT be easy. None of us here are in possession of the information to say what would be easy and what would be difficult.

However, it's not a stretch to think that porting a power that's already in the game into another set would not be terribly difficult. There would be no need for new art, animations or what have you.

I'm happy to reply to criticism. I'm not going to reply to baseless insults and ludicrous personal attacks.

I think I can agree with all of that. Well said.

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MMOs are extremely susceptible to the law of unintended consequences. Very little is "easy" to do, and the stuff that is could lead to a lot of not easy work later on.

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Alas, this is very true.


As for you, Talen, I think I've shown already that I'm capable of forming ideas. I'm not going to dignify your comments with any further response.

Because I can THINK. I have a brain and the ability to use my imagination.

Having seen many of JB's posts, I have to say I agree with him in spirit. There are many things the game doesn't do that it COULD do with a little effort.

As I say, there's no reason tankers can't have energy blasts if they're balanced to do appropriate damage (whatever that may be). The same is true of anything.

The problem is that they can't allow any AT to use any power sets because the powers are no balanced against one another and the ATs are not balanced against one another. This is such a fundamental aspect that I don't see total proliferation of powers ever happening.

However, as I said earlier in this thread (before it started wandering all over), powers with simple effects should be entirely compatible as alternative to similar sets.

That is, damage sets should be easily swapped around, and the same is true of defensive sets.

As an example, I would probably say Spiderman would be a SR/MA Tanker (were he a CoH character), because of his ability to get and hold the enemy's attention. That's one of his defining characteristics. In my mind, there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to make a SR/MA Tanker. It's the same pairing as Inv/SS (ie. Defense/Offense). Ranged attacks complicate this a bit, but again, with a little effort, they could be balanced too.

Giving armor to Blasters wouldn't be in keeping with the class because both primary and secondary sets are offensive.

Giving Bots to Defenders wouldn't necessarily be inappropriate, but since it's not a simple damage set, replacing a simple damage set with it would be inappropriate.

I did think of allowing ALL melee classes access to the Assault power sets, but I wondered about the balance of it. Scrappers do significant damage, so giving them ranged attacks might step on the toes of the Blasters. It's entering the realm of Tank Magery (ie high damage at range and high defenses). Tankers, with their low damage output, don't have this problem. However, I'll concede that adding extensive ranged attacks to a Tanker might well increase his survivability, as has been pointed out.


Someone suggested adding Energy Blast to Energy melee (since it doesn't get a ranged attack, and most other melee sets have at least one), and I have to say, I like this idea. What about all of you? Could you get behind this idea? What power would you take out to add Energy Blast?

Hm. With Going Rogue coming along, I was wondering if Tankers were going to go the way of the dodo in favor of Brutes, but now I'm wondering if it's Scrappers that will disappear...

Heh, yeah, I've not really spent much time on Scrappers, and those I did play, I just never noticed the lack of epics because they usually used one of the ones that IS there.

My experience with Defense sets (admittedly not much yet) has led me to believe that defense powers can be almost ignored until L20+. Focus on your attacks and other powers and don't worry about the defenses until later. Practised Brawler and such are still useful, of course, but powers that add Defense are not much help at lower levels.

Again, that's in my limited experience.

I've been leveling a Scrapper lately. He's intended as my Thor homage. I had originally hoped to make him a Tanker, but the lack of the Broadsword set for Tankers (necessary fr the concept - Siegurd, who had a "magic" sword) required he be a Scrapper. I originally meant to make him a BS/Inv Scrapper (the myth of Siegurd describes him becoming invulnerable after bathing in the blood fo Fafnir), but an inconsistency in the myth (that was killed by his son despite his invulnerability) and the suggestion of other players led me to make him a Regen Scrapper.

Thus, I have been playing a BS/Regen Scrapper and rather enjoying it! He's fairly tough, and is a monster in melee combat.

I loaded up Mids' to plan his build (as I usually do), and was struck by the lack of Epic power pools. Do Scrappers really only have three pools? Is Mids' missing anything?

If not, are there any plans to add one or two Epic Pools?

Personally, I'd love to see Fire as a pool because it would suit this character, but I wondered about it in general terms too...