srmalloy

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr_Grumpums View Post
    Full Auto is nice, aside from forcing you to be planted, but you can get around that by teaming with a tanker or troller. Rain of Arrows is a huge boost to your DPS, an is probably the better of the two. Lots of recharge in it will let you use it on every other mob.
    Rain of Arrows can be squirrelly in practice, though, because of the way the game handles mob spawn activity. I see this happening regularly with Rikti Monkeys when I do a bit of vulching them in Crey's Folly for progress toward Zookeeper. Basically, a 'fresh' spawn will just stand there, not doing anything. When a player comes within a certain range of the spawn, though, the spawn will 'wake up' and start going through their preset 'idle' actions (wandering around, reading a paper, etc.); this happens while you're still outside aggro range. Because Rain of Arrows is a location AoE, once you drop the target on the ground, mobs can wander out of the beaten zone before the arrows hit, and they'll escape damage altogether. This is even more of a problem trying to use Rain of Arrows in the middle of a fight if you don't have a Tanker or Scrapper working to hold the mobs in one spot, but that's part of the tradeoff of a nuke; its use is sort of situational. That said, toe-bombing Rain of Arrows during a Rikti Raid or Zombie Invasion works quite well.
  2. srmalloy

    Incarnates?!?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DarthAcerbus View Post
    If the soon to be implemented Incarnate system lets you choose a deity, as I assume it will, which deity will you choose?
    Kalkin the Binder, god of battles and lord of the living lightning.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim View Post
    Did you delete your original e-mails? There is an e-mail cap on your box now, so if you didn't do that, the subsequent e-mails may have not gotten there because of the cap.

    If not, then yeah... e-mail system didn't work. I haven't had any issues with it yet myself, even though I have sent a bunch of stuff between characters.
    I tried to send myself a set of costume salvage yesterday morning, but as of the time I logged that evening, I still hadn't seen it -- or any other email, for that matter (even the usual run-of-the-mill RMT spam) in my otherwise-empty inbox.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Umbral View Post
    In I17, the power is getting changed to deal slightly more damage per successful tick (roughly 2.225%) but the big difference is that each tick is going to have a 60% chance to deal damage, compared to the 50% that it currently sits at. Based just off of that, you're going to experience roughly 22.67% more damage out of the power on average. You'll also notice fewer cataclysmic misses (if you did, in fact, experience any that weren't just a player issue).
    I think the disconnect is coming from the fact that you can crank the power's accuracy to the cap, but it has only a marginal effect on your ability to defeat any given target. Once the initial attack has hit, nothing in your slotting affects whether each individual tick of damage hits. This creates a perception of suckiness in the power, as the base stats for the power make it relatively easy to cap the initial-roll accuracy while not visibly affecting the damage done by the power. I suspect that the general perception of the power is that it should be a rain power, but it's not performing like a rain power.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by PC_guy View Post
    this might be the worst build i've seen that uses 6 purple sets and a glad and shield proc.
    It never ceases to amaze me how many people post a build and ask for comments on it, and the build incorporates multiple billions of inf worth of rare and purple enhancements, while so few post builds for comment that show the slotting and enhancements the character's going to have for the other 99% of play -- the time spent getting up to 50 and collecting the inf to buy all those purple enhancements. For all that you may be short-stroking all over yourself at how studly your character is going to be once they're fully purped out, you're going to be a long time getting there, and not making any plans for the trip is going to cost you more in the long run.
  6. srmalloy

    Real Talk

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Westley View Post
    If companies waited until all the bugs were fixed before releasing any software - no software would ever be released.
    "There comes a time in the life of every project when it is necessary to shoot the engineers and go into production."
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Quin View Post
    I swear releasing Ultra Mode at the same time as a TF that makes use of unique sewer maps is some sort of stealth reminder that we're wading boot-deep in crap/assorted blood products.
    Unfortunately, until we get workable aroma generators, we won't get the full experience of sewer missions.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kasoh View Post
    I never let concept get in the way of effectiveness in comabt. The closest I came was thinking about skipping the fire sword powers on a fire tank...but I chose to be effective instead.
    However, there is a distinction between "Deliberate gimping" and "failing to min-max to the fifteenth decimal point" that some people fail to recognize. For example, back when Integration and Instant Healing from Regeneration were both toggles, I built a Katana/Regen Scrapper around the concept of relying entirely on healing, and deliberately avoided the Tough/Weave combination from the Fighting pool, as well as Moment of Glory. Was he 'gimped'? I had some people tell me that I 'needed' to take both Tough and Weave. But he was a ton of fun to play -- learning how big a spawn he could jump into and expect to be able to take down enough mobs to reduce his incoming damage to something his healing could keep up with before the incoming damage ran him out of hit points was challenging. And it could be nailbiting to realize a couple of seconds into a fight that I judged wrong, or the mobs got lucky with extra hits, and I'm looking at a dirtnap, and then have a couple of well-timed criticals tip the balance back the other way. And I liked the 'hands off' character of the secondary, letting me start all the defenses and then concentrating on fighting.

    With the way that Regeneration has become a lot more 'clicky', I'm probably going to scavenge the character and reroll him as a /Willpower
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Fusion_7 View Post
    So, just curious, what other names have you guys given your MM Bots?
    Let's see... For my first, Brigadyr, they are:

    Assault Bots: General Bukov, General Konev, General Gurev
    Protector Bots: Marshal Zhukov, Marshal Chuikov
    Assault Bot: Alexei Zaitsev

    For my second, Komandyr, they are:

    Assault Bots: BT-2, BT-5, BT-7
    Protector Bots: T-34, KV-1
    Assault Bot: IS-2
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by LiquidX View Post
    Castle: Boxers or Briefs?
    Depends.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Seldom View Post
    Archery/Energy/munitions blaster- death from afar...enmass. boost range>buildup>aim>Rain of arrows>explosive arrow> rejoice over the fallen foes.
    That's what I love about my Assault Rifle/Energy/Munitions blaster; I've been tempted to rename her 'Beaten Zone' for all the AoEs. With LRM slotted with three Centriole Exposure HOs (Dmg/Rng), two Accuracy IOs, and a Recharge IO, it's got a base range of 234 feet, 365 with Boost Range. Being able to stand in the middle of the bowl during a Rikti ship raid and sweep the lip of the bowl with Full Auto, or Snipe a Headman Gunman up on the lip and queue up Cryo Freeze Ray to catch him as he ports down next to me before lighting him up with Burst and Buckshot as he skids out to the edge of the cup frozen in ice is immensely entertaining to watch.
  12. srmalloy

    Ultra mode!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    I want to give you a warning right now, though - if you're going to use online auto-translators, do NOT use them for large volumes of text, such as multiple sentences. Use them for words or phrases, at most. Translating actual texts, such as full bios or large monologues is a REALLY hazardous venture, because to anyone who actually speaks the language, it's going to look like jumbled gibberish. I can say this with a fair degree of certainty, because I actually speak a fair bit of Russian, and I can spot some REALLY weird stuff.
    I use the auto-translators for single words or short phrases -- character names, the chat binds (which are limited to quick typing-replacement items like 'hello', 'welcome', 'yes', 'no', 'goodbye', 'congratulations', 'thanks', 'good work', etc.); for the rest, I use references that give complete phrases, particularly for the few expressions of annoyance where I used some of the milder expressions in мать. For the automated rotating taunt insult tool that I set up for Ledyanoy Kulak, my Ice/EM Tanker, the insults in the list that were in Russian were taken from references that gave the full text of the insult, so I wasn't worried about getting garbled grammar. And, of course, there's always the aphorism 'бля—это русский артикль, который ставится после каждого слова'.
  13. srmalloy

    Ultra mode!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Evilanna View Post
    Cool. Thank you!

    How does one make keybinds and macros? Is there a guide? Also, is there a way to alter the F7 Ready! emote so that it looks exactly the same, but it says Привет! instead?

    Actually, I'm gonna go make another Soviet character right now. CCCP forever!
    There's The Incomplete and Unofficial Guide to /Bind over on Paragonwiki, and the section on binds and macros over in Player Guides on the forums here have information on making binds and macros.

    Unfortunately, the modification to the way chatbinds work about two years ago broke the chat modifiers for colored text, so you can't replace any existing binds that have colored text; I still have two characters with modified and colored 'Ready' overwrites, but the one in Russian:
    Code:
    /bind F7 "em thumbsup$$say <bgcolor #009900><color #000000>Готовый!"
    doesn't work for color if I bind to a different key; the chat bubble just comes up in black and white (and 'ready' is 'Готовый!', not 'Привет!', which is 'Hello!').
  14. srmalloy

    Ultra mode!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Evilanna View Post
    Wow...

    I just generally call my teammates "comrade" and denounce all the villains as running dog capitalists... I'm not sure how good I'd be at all that unicody bindy stuff.
    It's not that hard, even if you do it just by pasting the Unicode into binds via the chat window. What I do is edit a bindfile with a Unicode-capable editor -- I found Babelpad, which works well enough for my uses. I decide what my binds are going to be saying, and make up a basic framework like this:
    Code:
    numpad1 "say Hello!"
    lshift+numpad1 "say Welcome!"
    numpad2 "say Yes."
    lshift+ numpad2 "say No."
    numpad3 "say grats!"
    lshift+ numpad3 "say Thank you."
    Then I go to a translation website (I use PROMT's) and feed it the words and phrases I want to have in Russian, then copy and paste the translations into the text file:
    Code:
    numpad1 "say Привет!"
    lshift+numpad1 "say Добро пожаловать!"
    numpad2 "say Да."
    lshift+ numpad2 "say Нет."
    numpad3 "say Поздравления!"
    lshift+ numpad3 "say Спасибо."
    So I wind up with a file of basic Russian chat binds that I can load for any character with a Russian background. Generally I'll make a custom version of the 'introduce self' speech, such as "Рад встречать Вас! Я - Ядерный Огонь, разряд $level Диспетчер Мутации." (I have to use 'rank' instead of 'level' in the text I feed to the translator, or 'level' gets translated in the sense of 'flat').
  15. srmalloy

    Ultra mode!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Evilanna View Post
    That post reminded me of my love for making Soviet themed heroes.
    And you can use CoX's Unicode support to make chat binds to have your characters say things in Russian using Cyrillic -- 'Готовый!' with the thumbs-up emote replacing the standard F7 'Ready!' bind, 'Привет!' to greet someone joining a team, 'Поздравления!' when someone dings instead of 'grats', etc.; I've used this on all of my characters that have ex-Russian or -Soviet backgrounds -- Yadernii Ogon, Ogon Moroza, Komandyr, Tenevoy Ogon, Zvukovaya Radiatsya, Ledyanoy Kulak, Stalnaya Deva, and others.

    It's also entertaining to use real Russian research institutions in character backgrounds, such as the I. M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry (Институт эволюционной физиологии и биохимии им. И.М.Сеченова), which give all kinds of interesting opportunities for various origins. And with no canon to contradict anything, you have an open field to create individual heroes and villains as well as groups for more background detail -- 'Народная Армия' ('People's Army', one of the state-sponsored hero teams), 'Красная Угроза' ('Red Menace', villain), and 'Генерал Зима' ('General Winter', villain), for example.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tyrrano View Post
    Raisin bullets would be better. Grapeshot, as it were.

    Give 'em a taste o' the ol' grape, me hearties!
    The phrase isn't nautical in origin, despite it being used in Napoleonic naval fiction; it comes from the writing of 19th century historian Thomas Carlyle, describing artillery lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte's battery firing a "whiff of grapeshot" into the Royalist mobs on the streets of Paris on 13 Vendémiaire (October 5, 1795).
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    Well, the problem with "naked" really is, as you mentioned, genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics. Basically, female nipples and everybody's crotch. Everything else is fair game, so if you can manage with a character that lacks both (well, has a crotch, just with nothing on it) then yes, censors will generally allow you to go with that. I'm not sure that counts as "naked," though, not unless you can establish that your character's species and culture typically go around wearing clothes of some fashion.
    One of my first characters, Yadernii Ogon (Fire/Rad Controller) runs around naked. I used the Chitin pattern, picking colors to look like chitin plates over exposed muscle tissue; this fitted into her mutant origin. As a bit of characterization, I built a bind for her as a reply to someone commenting on her costume -- "Это не костюм, это - мое тело; 'подарок' 'великолепной советской технологии'." ("This is not a costume, this is my body; a 'gift' of 'glorious Soviet technology'.") She has some issues connected with her appearance and her childhood, fallout (more or less literally) from the circumstances of her mutations.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Culex View Post
    Enemies Removed:
    <5th Column> 5th Column Krieger [only found as gladiator]
    ...and in the 3rd and 4th missions of the Imperious Task Force.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan View Post
    Mmmnotquite. I am obviously not privy to Figure Prints' processes, but there are aspects of the WoW character generator which would permit certain brute-force pre-caching approaches that CoH's more flexible generator would not. I'm not saying that FP can or can't do it, but I don't think that it's as simple as "you can do it here, so you can do it there."
    Figure Prints would essentially need a full rendering tool to handle the possible variations for all the slider combinations and the way the various costume pieces distort over the different body types, which is a moderately significant piece of coding. The UVWmapping of the textures would be relatively straightforward, though. Poses should be simple, although basing for any aerial pose (flight, leaping, hover, ninja run, etc.) would need an elevating post.

    Still, it should be doable with present technology.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Unknown_User View Post
    I would love to see something like this, but wasn't there a dev post way back that said they wanted to avoid puzzles because either they eventually become repetitive themselves or frustrate players that might not understand how to resolve them?

    What kind of balance would you think the devs need to create for something like this in order to keep the players excited yet not want to hunt them down and pelt them with rotten fruit?
    Have the missions provide the series of clues that the player can either figure out themselves or take back to their contact to see if a second head can give them additional insight (i.e., point the character more blatantly in the right direction). Figuring out the clue on your own earns you points that you'd be able to trade in for something, like temporary powers.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MrVacant View Post
    Well I'm not 100% sure that foes can actually get a few shots off before you can target them, but I did notice that either my reaction time isn't as good as it used to be OR there is something wonky with the re-targeting mechanism... because I could swear a Freak Tank smacked me at least once before I could even get a lock on him.
    I noticed this doing one of Unai Kemen's missions last night on the 'Freakshow in flooded Boomtown' mission; when a Freakshow rezzed, it was always able to start an attack before I was able to target it... at which point, because of the mechanics of CoH, it becomes impossible to stop the attack either by mezzing or defeating the mob.
  22. srmalloy

    Ultra mode!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    On the flip side, what we tend to see as a "metallic shine" isn't actually white OR black, but more just "reflective," as in we don't see much of the underlying surface so much as we see a reflection of what's around the surface. Playing around with reflection maps and raytrace reflections 3D Studio Max (way back when) showed me one thing very clearly - an object that is 100% reflective actually loses its own texture to reflection. We see such mirror-like surfaces as greyish-white because light tends to focus on points or sharp edges, condensing into white lines, and light also tends to reflect directly into your eyes, again causing the objects to white out. And as we're surrounded by light and objects that are usually grey or light, these mirror surfaces end up looking greyish and shiny.
    Actually, that's 'plastic' reflection, where the surface reflects the actual color that strikes it; metal surfaces tint the reflection with the color of the metal. In the image below, both of the spheres in the background are blue with reflective surfaces; the left sphere has the 'metallic' property, the right one doesn't:



    For a real-life example, look at this picture of copper sheet:



    See how the reflections take the color of the metal? The difference is that for 'plastic' reflections, the reflection can be considered to be on top of the surface, so that the reflection doesn't take on the color of the surface, for metallic reflections, the reflection occurs 'in' the surface, so it acquires an overlay of the surface color. And I don't think that the CoX graphics engine is really set up to do either properly.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by DarkGob View Post
    WOOHOO, I FINALLY GOT THE BOXING COSTUME SET!!! I CAN DIE HAPPY!!!!!!
    BOOM. Headshot.

    There you go.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Riley_Delacroix View Post
    Was "Feckless pack of incompetents" taken then?
    I think the forum posters pretty much have a lock on that one.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frosticus View Post
    They also don't seem to attack before they are targetable (iirc), they spend the rezzing time casting their ice armor. Compared to a freak tank rezzing and trying to two shot you before he becomes targetable. Despite it being the same mechanic I think hordlings are working well, but other rezzing npc's not so much.
    If the Freakshow are firing off attacks while being untargetable, then that's bugged in the opposite direction (i.e., risk with no possibility of reward) and should be reported. When the rez completes and a mob is able to activate a power, whether it's defensive, like the hordelings, or offensive, like the Freakshow, they should immediately become vulnerable to attack.