Winterminal

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  1. Pretty good Shadow! I very much liked the movement/traveling portion earlier in the trailer. The use of Super Jump made for a very dynamic camera experience. I thought it was a bit on the longer side, and cutting down the length of the combat scenes probably would have helped with that. But for putting this together this soon after beta launch, nice work!
  2. My two biggest desires in this category:

    - Lenses/White eyes options for masks (a la Batman the Animated Series)
    - Actual textured masks (versus the painted on effect we have now)
  3. The game as a whole is approaching "god-like" power, since (thanks to Incarnate powers) our characters can now do a little of everything. And unlike a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, the Incarnate power numbers are very impressive.

    That said, I have only one character who will be progressing through all the Incarnate powers, taking and using a T3 or T4 of every ability, because he is my one "phenomenally cosmically powered" being. With the rest, I have self-imposed restrictions on them that they will not break simply because it would clash with their story. Not every comic book character will contend with the biggest threats, and mine are no different. They may take on the minions of the big threats, but not necessarily the head honcho.
  4. Yep, though I changed my global, Winterminal remains my main character. Though I don't play him as often lately, he remains the most fun character I have, and is always the first toon with which I play through new content.
  5. "Lord of Winter" simply because it accentuates my main so well.

    Runner Ups: Bright Star, Received the Atlas Medallion, Defender of Primal Earth, Eyes of the Dark, and Ambitious (because of its location).
  6. I am sorry I missed the previous raid. Real life happens sometimes :P

    But I understand that Talsor Blade Dancer (@PhoebusApollo) led it to success, for which I am glad. And it sounds like you met many of the newest recruits to the Talsorian Guard, which also makes me happy. I look forward to leading you all next week!

    The OP has been updated.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mental_Giant View Post
    Oh sure, but other than that, what do we know?

    ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

    I think the OP has a point.


    What Zombie presented is a quite a bit of info. Plus, we have to remember, the holiday season is just now coming to a close, since most K-12 schools started up again today. Vacations are ending, people are going back to work, and communications should start up again.

    Yes, I miss the monthly producer's letters, but considering what is viewable on the beta forums, I would say we have a pretty good idea of what's coming soon.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheDeepBlue View Post
    I'm not sure why we couldn't just have this. Just fold the storylines and powers over from 1.0 to 2.0. I think this is what people are really wanting.
    You have to remember, in order to do this on a new engine, everything would have to be re-coded. It is the same reasoning behind why they have told us that re-doing something that already exists will take as long as creating something new. They wouldn't be able to just take the code for the Ice Blast power set (for example) and just copy and paste. If it were that easy, I am sure the game would be quite different than it is right now.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    Blasters lose the Manipulation aspect and gain Defense Secondaries. While they're ST is good, they become more about taking out mass smaller enemies. Less ST DPS than a Scrapper, but AOEness of yumminess.
    Don't touch my blasters! ... "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX
    You have a point Uber! But I think a lot of what people have in ideas for CoH 2.0 is basically taking CoH as it is, and giving it a facelift, when that likely wouldn't be what happens at all.
    I have to agree with this. When you start over, you do exactly that. Sure, you may have the ideas already, but even if you are just recreating everything you once had, it has to be re done under the new engine which is starting from the ground up. If they pulled all current resources from development, save for maintenance, and started working on that process, it might be done by... 2015? That's probably a generous estimate.

    Excuse my pessimism, because I would love a refurbished version of our current game. But considering the above, I would rather go on enjoying what we currently have and ignore its flaws. "You like 'em because, you love 'em in spite of..." and all that jazz.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Organica View Post
    That may be true at level 20. At level 20, the perfect AT is probably a willpower scrapper.

    But a fully tricked out level 50 anything is a beautiful thing to behold. ^_^
    Fixed.

    I have always judged an AT on how they perform in the level 1-50 game, and even then, more level 1-45. From what I've seen, the heroic archetypes tend to fulfill their specific role from level 1 (proportionally, of course). The villainous ATs, since they tend to have more than one trick up their sleeve, blossom later when they have enough stats/slots to support both their primary and secondary.

    Personally, I am a bit tired of Brutes because I think they have become the default for people who may otherwise have rolled Tankers. The Tanker is still by far the king of aggro management and toughness, but I think most would rather take the slightly lower stats in those two categories in exchange for the higher damage output of the Brute.

    On Pinnacle's latest Sunday Night Ship Raid, approximately 35 players showed up. We had at least one of every archetype there, epics included, except a tanker. This was only one time of course, but I thought I would mention it since it seems like a nice microcosm example of the decreasing number of tankers being played. But hey, I don't play melee characters anyway, so take that for what you will.
  11. I was able to run the Lord Winter's Realm trial once. I defeated one Winter Lord. I grabbed a few candy canes on my way through the various zones. But over all, I missed out due to the holiday season. I remember the event being a bit longer last year, and I was disappointed that it was shortened this year, since I usually have more time to participate once the holidays are past. As it is, I just didn't have time this year
  12. I was able to make it out Sunday night after all, and from the looks of things, so were many of you! We had a decent showing for a holiday weekend, not to mention a very smooth run across the board. I would specifically like to thank everyone for minimizing league chat. I can only speak for myself, but the lack of extraneous chat seems to definitely be lowering the number of lag spikes and disconnects. Hope to see you all this week!

    OP has been updated.
  13. Without meaning to, I managed to not even set foot in Pocket D for the entire duration of the Winter event. I have shamed my name!

    Though, that is because it has been the holiday season and I have been obnoxiously busy visiting family friends the past 2 weeks, especially the weekends (where I can usually log some decent playing time). I am betting I am not the only one in this situation, and I wish the event had been extended a week, since only now is my schedule returning to some semblance of normalcy.
  14. Winterminal

    Tpn

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wing_Leader View Post
    The Incarnate trials are unique in this respect. There is virtually 0% success rate amongst first-time raiders for any given trial. This is not all due to lack of coordination, or lack of experience with the game in general. It is primarily due to the trials not making it clear what is about to happen, what needs to be done about it, and with clues as to how to accomplish those goals effectively. This is a 180-degree flip in terms of content design philosophy, and I have not yet heard a single convincing argument in favor of it.
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MisterD View Post
    Again, I AGREE that most of the trails do not have enough instructions...for a good portion of general players. But where do you draw the line? DO the devs spoon feed us every section, with big flashing arrows and stuff? Then you know people will start moaning that we dont seem to have any freedom, within the constraints of the objectives!
    (Snipped for focus and brevity)

    I do not think the trials should be a cake walk to complete. I also do not think the trials (or any content for that matter) should require multiple runs just to figure it out.

    Here's the line that needs to be drawn: in general (not exclusively), the time in which a certain task needs to be completed should be completely in the control of players, which is compliant with the rest of the game. If you (the player) at first do not succeed against a particular mission boss, you get defeated, but you do not need to start that mission over. Rather, you revive or go to the hospital, and you come back with a new strategy.

    When one starts a puzzle, a literal cardboard puzzle, one does not start over every time they get stumped on where a certain piece fits. Rather, the person looks and looks until they find where it belongs.

    Each trial's strategy is a puzzle to figure out, with each individual phase requiring at least a slight variation from a previous phase. However, unlike a cardboard puzzle, the league is under the pressure of an arbitrary time limit. If their initial strategy is failing, it will usually lead to the failure of the trial due to the countdown.

    Since this topic is about TPN, I'll use that as an example, specifically phase 3. Here, the league is already dealing with Public Opinion slowly decreasing, as well as the health of H.D. depleting unless proper countermeasures are taken. Both of these are time-sensitive in that the trial fails should either of those meters reach zero. Yet there is a completely arbitrary timer on the phase, over which the players have no control. Therefore, there is little to no time for a league to change strategies mid-trial, most likely leading to failure, and thus leading to frustration since players will either be out of time or at least have to start over from scratch.

    In summary (TL;DR)

    If the trials were less time sensitive, and players had time to figure out strategies mid-trial rather than having to repeatedly start over, people might enjoy them a bit more. Initial runs would take a long time while a strategy was formulated, but in figuring it out without having to start over, frustrations would decrease, and eventually run times would be faster as people figured out the best and fastest strategy.
  15. It took me a LONG TIME to realize it, but I have found that my characters that begin with a concept get pursued, and ones that I start purely to experience the powers tend to stall out by level 20 or so.

    Now, if I get an itch to try a certain power set combo, I will not make the character until I have thought up a thorough concept featuring those powers.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Melancton View Post
    The Well is problematic on two main levels.

    1) It retcons everyone's heroes and cosmology: simply stated, your origin story is wrong, it was the Well of Furies that gave you your powers.

    2) It gets into areas really not required. The Well takes on the trappings of real-life Diety in many aspects, and that is not necessary. Like it or not, however, here it comes. "Incarnation" has specific definitions in many religions, and as long as we are not getting any more serious than Greek mythology style "incarnation" giving us Heracles, then we are still in Wibbly Wobbly Superhero Stuff and you can sort of hand-wave it all away. When I was reading the comics, Odin and Zeus happily co-existed without any thought as to who was Top Dog. The Well, as it is being presented, goes above and beyond the call of duty, and when it is presented as being the source of all power for everyone and everything everywhere and able to possess Statesman, against his will, and make him chatter like a sock puppet... that puts a whole new look and meaning on being an "incarnate" of the Well. They did not need to go there. They did anyway.
    This sums it up for me.

    My electricity blaster was born with a unique nervous system that allows him to channel and expel synaptic signals and static electricity, but apparently it was the Well that saw fit to have him born in such a manner.

    My Shield/SS tanker is a product of Crey experimentation, but apparently it was the Well that arranged for him to be abducted, experimented on, and eventually escape.

    My dark blaster is a former human who was lost to the Netherworld, mutated and brainwashed, and released back upon our dimension to wreak havoc. But apparently, the Well saw fit to curse him with all of that.

    Etc., etc.... bull.

    If I wanted a deity or omnipresent being as part of my character's background, I would have made it so. If the Well had remained passive, simply as a source for which all power originates, that's cool, I can get behind that. But I do not want any one thing deciding the fate of my characters.
  17. And after the holiday break... WE'RE BACK!

    For this week, my schedule has been absolutely full. Sunday night is still up in the air for me, so I am not sure I will be able to make it. If I am not there, another member of the Talsorian Guard will be leading in my place. Hope to see you all there, but if I cannot make it, best of luck and Happy New Year!

    The OP has been updated.
  18. I'm looking at the inherent alternate animations of Titan Weapons.

    Now I'm looking at the changes in the pipeline for Stalkers and their Assassin moves.

    Perhaps they can do a similar thing with sniper attacks. Each sniper attack would have one version of the ability exactly as it is now but harder hitting, and this version of the ability won't fire unless you haven't activated another attack for, let's say, 3-5 seconds. Then there would be a separate version of the attack that would fire off in the heat of battle, with no interrupt time, that would be less damaging (somewhere between a stereotypical T2 and T3 Single target blast i.e. between Power Blast and Power Burst). That's a solution I could very much support.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
    My dark/dark corr uses his snipe a lot when soloing. It adds to his burst damage at the start of battle.
    Gotta remember, as a dark/dark Corruptor, you are piling on the -To Hit, which makes Moonbeam all the more likely to go off without interruption since it is a lot less likely that your enemies will hit you. Most other sets have to find some other means to decrease or negate the interrupt time.

    I'm all for this. I have actually neglected using and/or picking up Trip Mine, Time Bomb, and Gun Drone on my Archery/Dev blaster. I find my DPS is much better if I just throw down Caltrops and Smoke Grenade and go to town with my Primary. It would be nice to get some more use out of the secondary.
  20. I play a lot of blasters.

    My Ice/Ice/Cold and my Elec^3 play about the same: Fire off the Hold powers to remove the Lieutenants from play, annihilate the rest of the mob, reapply holds, then take out the held enemies.

    My Energy/Energy/Force and my Fire/Fire/Flame play about the same: Just keep shooting until everything is dead. Both are hover blasters.

    My Archery/Devices/Munitions plays much differently between solo and teamed. Solo, I will typically stealth a mission to the objective via Cloaking Device and Smoke Grenade. On teams (or on a kill all mission) I make liberal use of Caltrops, Smoke Grenade, and Rain of Arrows. One is a devastating AoE machine, the other is a total ghost. I love the versatility.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker View Post
    My complaint is that the rocks and the debuffs are very bad content.I've done the TPN successfully, but when citizens can defeat you by throwing rocks, that is not awesome, it is not epic, it is not exciting and it is not a challenge.
    I agree with that whole post, but I only quoted the excerpt because I feel it is a concise summary.

    A citizen defeating my lone lvl 10 blaster: totally understandable. Hell, Hellion and Skull minions are basically just angry citizens. A level 50 character (never mind +3), benefiting from an entire league's worth of buffs, getting hurt by a rock? Does not compute. When a maximum of six telepathists can debuff a character to the point where a rock does significant damage, especially if that character was buffed to begin with, the character ceases to feel like an Incarnate, which should not be the case on content specifically designed for Incarnates.
  22. (Careful with the subjective comments. While I personally agree with you on most of it, those comments will be what takes this thread from a civilized discussion to an argument or worse.)

    The following phrases have "changed the game for me" (or some derivative) attached to them

    Being able to customize the color of my powers.
    Being able to choose different animations on some powers.
    Being able to switch sides with "gray alignments."
    Inherent Fitness.
    Starting any regular archetype on any side.


    I will limit myself to three things I would like to see happen that could change the game (in my opinion of course):

    -Diversifying and greatly expanding the number of Ancillary Power Pools per archetype.
    -Developing new travel power pools, or modifying the current ones to allow for greater customization (permanent jet packs, jump boots/packs, alternate running animations, etc.).
    -Break down the War Walls (adjacent zone travel would be akin to Praetoria).
  23. I have to see if that snowball power is purchasable alone. I don't need anything else there, but I would have endless fun if my jokester of an ice blaster could throw snowballs at fellow players all year long.
  24. Winterminal

    New frontiers

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by EU_Damz View Post
    Dinosaurs in a land of the romans filled with giant robots and alien nictus would look strange?
    Touche`

    I meant a zone accessible in a similar manner as Cimerora, where it is made apparent that you are traveling back in time. But your point is well seen.
  25. Areas without a time limit. Gamer mentality generally means finding the greatest reward per time invested, so the general population already pushes these things to move at a fast pace. We don't need a time constraint on the trial itself. Despite the length, the Underground is still my favorite trial because I can take a second between objectives and appreciate the surroundings and the work that went into creating them.

    Changing dynamics. Another thing I like about the Underground Trial is that it requires the player to adapt as they progress through. Each objective has a different strategy, making for a more dynamic playing experience than the TPN Campus trial, for example, which is really just the same strategy/pattern that increases in difficulty from phase 2 to phase 4.

    The principle of "you are enough." I enjoy the trials that do not require the player to bring any specific power/inspiration along in order to survive. The first incarnation of the Keyes Island is an example of this since if a league did not have enough green inspirations or healing powers to go around, they were most likely going to fail. I do not think a team/league/player should have to bring anything to an event in order to survive.

    That's all I have for now. I am sure I'll come up with a couple more. I also agree with much of what Lazarillo said above.