spice_weasel
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Posts
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Joined
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i keep seeing PEATs mentioned...
don't you know your playing right into the hamitorian's hands..er...mitochondria?
it always starts with the fungi... -
Quote:/this. you just reminded me of pvping then pveing on any character. bunny hopping in mission always seemed to be very jarring to the other staid and seemingly still members of the team.Originally Posted by PC_guy
I'm not so sure about this because I am a pretty good example of this. I couldn't care less about pvp until about i11ish then found it rather exciting but after playing for a while i found that this game (the good pve content you mentioned) got really repetitive, monotonous, and really really easy, and pvp was the only thing that offered a challenge.
pve play has gotten a bit more engaging with the enhanced options, but i still miss kiting teams in siren's. -
Quote:^this. i can see a case being made to reduce health and stamina to levels closer to 50% of current with the switch, and potential influence from incarnate offerings later on.Originally Posted by Great_Scott
When I heard the news I was horrified. Not because this won't be a good change, it's going to be a fun awesome change. Until one issue later...
_CASTLE_ : It's been discovered that since the opportunity cost of Inherent powers is less than pool powers, the power scale of the Fitness pool is being reduced 50%. -
luxuns really nailed it with that write up, and repeats what has been said many times before in a touch more eloquent way.
personally, i pvp'd from i6 release up until about 2 weeks into i13. the biggest headaches were:
damage based on activation. a reasonably logical way to base pvp damage, but it relies on players willingness to learn an entirely new system of power ranking/damage. it also somehow led to the example of flurry. these two issues alone should have raised some major red flags.
travel suppression. inspirations? buffs? really?
approaching ridiculous in diminishing returns. yeowch.
pvp io's on ridiculous timers/drop rates for risk/reward ratios. they are not any where near that good in most drop cases, and the bonuses are fairly standard to be temporarily nerfed into oblivion when used in pvp.
finally, the stated commitment and complete 180 in action and discussion. nobody expects a miracle for a nickel, but there had to be some interesting discussions at the office with the community waving giant flags about these issues and having it pushed out the door anyway. then not talking about it, ever, burning the birth certificate, killing the midwife, nuking the hospital, and e.m.p.'ing the internets.
i'm 'hopeful' the endgame/incarnate offering takes a look at pvp in a positive way to extend that portion of the game further as well. glass half empty might suggest that incarnate powers would simply be disallowed in any pvp circumstance, or only in arena settings to minimize workload and avoid addressing it entirely.
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Quote:this is what happens when your chat window stays active and a stalker has sidled up beside to steal your wallet.Originally Posted by Marsha_Mallow
*scratches head* huh?
followed shortly by:
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Quote:well, we could test them a touch further:Originally Posted by Gehnen
I see. So the ship that carried him here as an infant is entirely operational, and suits his adult size just fine.
Five years of oxygen (or whatever the heck he breathes naturally when not powered by our sun), food, water, all in what is an escape pod.
I know I'm digging a little far on what's supposed to just be fun, but even comic movies shouldn't test the limits of my suspension of disbelief this far.
superman held his breath for the entire trip.
he also didn't eat as he absorbed whatever he needed from sol, and whatever other sun he came across along the way.
peeing light is far more spacesaving than peeing water.
a #2 in photons is even more efficient than a #1. zero need for toilet paper.
the real problem for supes on a trip like that? scanning earth for good tv along the way that isn't inverted left/right or up/down.
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Quote:while deception and selfishness are defining traits of biological life, another is altruism. what is the difference between altruism from a biological perspective, and typical programmed group effort from wholly separate parts? or more precisely, if in the example above the selfish machine includes dynamic aversion to injury, then the next step would be to include a rider on that behaviour that states something to the effect of: 'if i have been injured, or my value uninjured is less than the value of another portion of the squad, then i should sacrifice myself to allow the higher value unit to survive'. it does walk around higher order thought/behaviour of: 'is there something i can do that allows both myself and the other unit to survive?'Originally Posted by Lothic
Qualities such as selfishness might be considered negative if they are taken to absolute extremes. But a basic component of the human ego is the need to assert itself and protect itself. If machines can be ingrained with the working concept of selfishness and a means to act on that desire (via the ability to deceive) then they would develop a functional degree of self preservation and by extension a degree of self awareness.
Obviously that has uses in a combat situation (a machine that doesn't "want" to be hurt will probably function more dynamically than a machine that has no real sense of self) but clearly this research will further contribute to the overall impending Technological Singularity in general.
The real trick won't be making selfish robots.
It'll be making them just selfish enough to be productive members of society without being sociopathic.
what might be very interesting is the consumer and commercial use of semi independent robotics and the value placed on the robot either above or below that of a human being, and how that would impact the insurance industry and the businesses who can't legally be in business without insurance. would it be cheaper to disallow acts of 'heroism' on the part of the robot? would it be cheaper to allow a person to die over the destruction of the robot? etc.
one thing i always felt asimov got wrong with his 3 laws was that he assumed a level of care and attention to the individual human that really doesn't exist except as a mutually reassuring agreement in principle in society. further, if there's one thing we can say about corporations, it's their distinct ability to act like complete _________ and get away with it. now apply that to a revised 3 laws as written by, say, haliburton, or xe nee blackwater, or even apple for that matter. -
is the story that robots can be programmed to be deceitful to other entities? or that the next step would be robots that can tell when other entities are being deceptive? hello automated tsa security with permanently affixed latex arm with camera fingers...
alsowaiting for the next generation of the dogs playing poker picture, with one of them pulling a gun on the 'bot with an ace up its' sleeve.... -
Quote:i think we'd definitely see high end praetorian content, otherwise what would be the point of having all these reworked arch villains. potentially some interaction with the hamitorian as well.Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
I'm betting they skip 20-30 Praetoria. They've set up the praetorian story to include some sort of travel to Primal Earth. Levels 40-50 will show a return to a changing Praetoria... with upper-level content and Incarnate stuff situated there.
at the same time, the well of the fury's and state's background suggests a place in cimerora as the start of incarnate levels of power.
it will be interesting to see just how many elements come together during these next few issues and the direction it takes from there. with the time traveling oro and the coming storm, the time traveled cim and the origins of the phalanx, the alt universe/timeline praetoria, there's definitely some elements for interesting interaction, or at least story exploration there.
with the new function of locking out contacts available in praetoria would it be possible to not just lock out a contact, but change a contact's available mission set to suggest change according to how you play the game? and while likely very difficult, could this be extended to areas of zones or entire zones? for instance, you've gone back in time and managed to prevent the worst of the rikti war, how does the rwz change in response? or even an instanced version of it? far from an easy task obviously, but this is the speculation thread..... ;p -
it's fun to see this make the kind of cultural and academic inroads that little green men have had for sometime. in some ways zombie fiction has really allowed a certain spin on survivalism that we haven't seen much of since the height of the cold war.
I've actually found it really useful as a training tool in some of my own work (disaster/emergency mngmnt) that is otherwise as dry as choking down sawdust after eating sand. especially front end training where getting someone to read an emergency procedure manual is difficult at best, knowledge retention goes up by well over 60% after 3 months.
the dry runs are always classic when something like a hotel tour happens upon first aid training day. ; p -
Quote:at the same time, imho, using the example of hbo and showtime as early cable offerings it was a pretty empty place too. hbo, etc, didn't have much to compete against as the pie was big enough enough for everyone, and the novelty factor was very high. after a while more cable channels appeared, semi cable channels that had a smaller niche such as all golf all the time, and *shudder* the shopping channel. all sharing a marginally increased number of eyes.Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Part main problem with MMOs is content creation. It takes a lot longer to create than it takes to consume.
Take a TV show. Takes a long time to film a season but limiting the viewers to one episode a week is hopefully enough to keep them coming back. MMO content is a lot like season DVD box sets, someone can set down one rainy weekend and blow through an entire season. Months and months of work, consumed in only a few days. This makes it hard to rationalize a subscription.
Same model applies to premium movie channels like HBO. When I got cable at my first apartment in the mid 80s I went nuts over HBO and Showtime. Watched tons of movies I wanted to see or simply see again. But after a few months I've seen everything that I wanted to see the 4-6 new movies per month, only a few I care about watching, weren't enough to encourage me to keep the subscriptions.
if i had the time (and honestly, the sincere motivation) it would be interesting to see if sub numbers suggested a particular churn of a few months here, a few months there centered around fresh content offerings. i might seem like a potentially obvious thing, but for some mmo's the flow could be business model breaking and difficult to plan for the long term when content releases end up needing to be put out at a higher rate with potentially less of a chance to recoup. -
Quote:the one thing i notice about inherents is their utility in the early game tapering off into near disuse.Originally Posted by ransim
Actually the dev seemed to have taken a lot of the negatives into consideration based on what we were told at the panel. Its precisely why they waited to do it. So I'm fairly confident we aren't going to see any nasty side effects. But who knows.
Its possible the numbers are going to be a bit different then they are for fitness as a powerpool.
fitness in the inherent pool definitely fills a large fun sucking hole in the early game by limiting the amount of rest one needs to take and giving back 3 power picks for more things to mash, all pre lvl 20. post lvl 20 stamina still has a large effect on uptime that may be exceeding expectations of player survival/risk in some situations. i could see a similar tapering of stamina's effectiveness into the late game where it may then be influenced by incarnate offerings.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Psyte
I'd like to see PVP be more than direct conflict. PVP via PVE? I'd love to see ways for us to compete with each other via other means. Broaden the ways players can compete with each other and you'll see more folks get involved.
PVP is as much spirit as it is anything else.
i was fortunate enough to come across a bugged map during the i10 beta that we managed to leverage into a pvp mission that turned out great for a short while. an old shadow shard mission of mine had anchored in the now coop zone of the rwz allowing a mixed hero/villain team to enter. after entering the team auto broke, but didn't kick villains from the map most times. we could then reform into hero/villain teams and pvp throughout the shard caves, around the eyeballs, wisps and brutes. as it was a glowie mission with multiple glowies we could set rules for different win conditions.
it was great fun. i wish i'd had a mission map in the open shard, that would have been better.
it didn't last long after being /bugged. <sniff>
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Quote:seconded. given everything else up for discussion the only thing worth 800 posts and 40 pages is fitness?Originally Posted by Rubberlad
After 41+ pages of discussion, the fact that most of you are obsessing about the Fitness pool becoming inherent more than any other feature announced for I19 at PAX really says something.
I'm not sure what - but it really says something nonetheless...
something seems off here....
*notices the toilet is draining ...Backwards
*everyone seems to have a goatee...even the women
Damn you Cole! what have you done to primal earth! -
Quote:an unconfirmed feature in issue 20 requiring the extra testing are several extra sliders, similar to the 'mouse look' or 'turning' speed in the options menu geared towards run speed, jump height, and a toggle click for including a heavy limp as well.Originally Posted by Slashman
It's not...when I want to run slightly faster. It's not a problem for my /SR scrapper or my /elec brute. Do I want another speed boost on top of those? Well maybe...but can I have that choice instead of having it dumped on top of me? If I want to run at sprint speed, can't I just turn on sprint? Or is the trend to make sprint less relevant now?
..............................
I get what you're saying and I don't imagine this will be a complete game breaker for me. But I do feel like I have to at least question whether or not a global buff to speed, regen and jump height is necessary to fix a problem with end at the low levels.
Conversely, could they not just open the fitness pool from level 2 while making stamina inherent?
I'd always liked the fact that the game was about choice. I'm never happy when it is removed in any capacity. I'm OK with making things easier for the people who complain that they cannot enjoy low levels without stamina(regardless of my agreement with that or not).
;p -
regarding issue 20 and coh 2.0.
it would be very interesting to see what the numbers are on detected video cards within the playerbase. without those numbers continued statements of swaths of players still using pentium 3 and nvidia geforce seems overrepresented given the realistic minimums required to actually run the game at better than 5 frames per second, let alone use went's.
taking eve as the example of the reissue/ upgrade cycle (rather than a new game and fractured player base shown in lineage, etc) suggested earlier, they introduced a brand new engine to accommodate the graphical update. is it really realistic to have done all the work on ultramode and the expansion in praetoria if less than a year later they dump it for a new engine? on the flip side, all the work needed to make ultramode a reality and a variety of dev comments that basically amount to 'we can't do that due to inherent limitations of the engine' suggest some very real and potentially expensive walls to progress on that front.
can we expect some more type r programming in the future? probably. a whole new type r engine? unless they can directly port the assets and characters while somehow upgrading all the textures and everything else it seems unlikely, but not impossible. is there a way to do this in stages perhaps, with ultra mode as a first step and the underlying engine next so as not to be wasteful? -
have you considered prepaid credit card gift cards ? visa & mc have more than a few flavours through various banks. i tend to use them in long term accounts to limit any account compromising headaches. anywho, i'd be surprised if you couldn't find a place selling them within driving distance.
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some amazing detail in that piece, including the working lights.
can't help but wonder what some of the other transformers might end up as...
iron hide as a grain mill?
bumblebee as as a manual water pump?
megatron as a loom, which might finally explain where 'wanted' went wrong
the tech has got to be pretty thin... ;p -
Quote:this is something i would love to see. default flag off of course, and high traffic areas such as went's/market, within 100' of trainers, train stations, etc marked off limits to pvp. alternatively, flagging allows for pvp style bank missions incorporating assets that already exist, are destructible, and have clearly defined goals in:rob bank and leave; stop robbing bank for short period of time(?maybe? this has wiggle room). effectively a dressed up capture the flag scenario.Originally Posted by EvilGeko
EvilGeko's PvP wishlist:
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- Ability to flag yourself for open PvP based on Alignment (i.e. Vigilantes can fight Villains/Rogues in RI; Rogues can fight Heroes/Vigilantes in Paragon if all opponents flagged)
it might make for an interesting test ground. -
/just a thought
after using a 'smartphone' for sometime (blackberry) i came to realize that what i wanted from a smart phone and what it delivered for costs incurred were very different. (consideration: i'm in canada, the choices are few and the costs are among the highest in the developed world.)
eventually i settled on a dumb phone, that makes great calls, and an ipod touch for all other needs such as email, internet, etc. over wifi when a bubble presents. this covers very nearly all considerations 'for me' outside of corporate use and required encryptions.
the next purchase will likely be a pair of 4th gen touch for myself and my son, considering the inclusion of facetime/camera(s) and that it, again, works over wifi. there have been a few mobile wifi devices linking cell to wifi, but i'd like to let that niche mature a bit before jumping into it.
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Quote:exactly. a good number of posters here seem to believe that pvp 'generalists' consist of nothing more than completely min/max'd characters chocked full of inf-amy/luence and the greatest io's you've never personally seen.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
I guess that depends on your definition of "horrible." When I had ... i think it was a (pair) of Mind/ controllers break my Brute's status protection (and I saw how fast they were layering on holds - I think I had two full, stacked (non-numeric, non-full-icon-per) lines of holds and such on me) I got around to asking them about builds. Fun doing nothing? No, but 1v2, generic vs dedicated builds, I didn't expect to.
I had far too many interesting zone moments pre-I13. Fighting AlienOne's PVP 'shade while he was developing it (and how to use it) with my Nec/Poi MM. Yeah, I usually won, but the point was helping him tighten up what he was doing to actually kill me before my pets showed (or get around my holds, slows, debuffs, etc.) Eating a triple-AS on my PB in Dwarf form, or holding off a team of villains for several minutes on the same character, solo. Fighting (and finally whittling down) a Stone tank on my MA/Regen stalker - and when he tried trash talking, having his own side say "Dude, just drop it, she (my stalker) beat you." A running and very good natured rivalry (on my PB again) with a Stalker I don't think I've seen since I13.
Post-I13? Being suppressed for *using an inspiration.* Not bothering to take anyone with Teleport into the zones. The various suppressions - I could see what the devs were trying to do when it was being beta'd, but it seriously fell apart, and I'd call the situation now far more horrible than anything that happened - oh, I'd put it between I8 and I13 (once they had various geometry holes plugged, a few extra reinforcing drones, and the roof put on the villain hospital.)
Arena-focused PVPers probably have a different point, but I tended to prefer the "never know who you'll run into" side of zones.
the character i used most blueside - a claw/sr scrapper in mostly siren's call with strictly so's even after io's became available. easily several hundred hours between i6 and i13. easily several thousand stalkers jailed and several thousand defeats later ;p about another 20 hrs post i13. some of the fights i used to have in there were delicious, and not in a 'tears' kind of way. ah, ender, soulie's stalker, soulie, and dammit a russian stalker whose name escapes me...maybe.... soviet missile?
/anywho, appreciate the chance to reminisce
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personal vote would be striga isle and the hess tf. given that it's a villain dominated zone it may make sense to make it a co-op zone. it also quite readily allows for alignment applications.
the hess tf needs 1 more thing after burkholder and the destruction of the base. that giant mekman needs to escape and begin to make its' way to talos in a similar way that babbage spawns for the synapse tf. i'd love the opportunity to beat on the bot while walking down the side of the volcano, across the island and into the water. failure to destroy the mekman then causes a mission fail, but not an outright tf fail. you simply didn't meet your objectives and that one guy in a sailboat bought the farm before a collective assault from talos island stopped its' advance.
i wonder what a 'public opinion' mechanic might look like actually. for instance, you've failed a mission and the public 'hears' about it, somehow causing an effect. something like bad press and what that might do to a hero...
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Quote:probably one of the most reasonable statements on this thread topic. of course reasonable and 'in the schedule' / 'coming soon' are very different things ;pOriginally Posted by Golden Girl
I don't think it's possible for them to add endgame content and not work on PvP in some way at the same time - unless they're planning to make Incarnate abilities only work in PvE situations.
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Quote:having been one of those vanishingly small numbers of people who pvp'd a great many hours between i6 and i13 a large part of my enjoyment in the game went out the window and led to some very long breaks.Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
City of Heroes just wasn't built for PvP, the community just isn't there for PvP (anymore at least) and being brutally honest you could strip it out and probably only 1%-2% of the CoH community would complain (prior to the gutting that was the Issue 13 exodus only about 5% of people did PvP with any kind of regularity if I remember what a dev said at the time correctly).
i would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the discussions that led to pve vs pvp effects and damage. i get having some different rules, but changing powersets effects/damage values when in pvp enough to require a second build defeats the goal of being inviting for the newbie.
travel suppression and heal decay have been done to death already ;p