Official Thread for Masterminds: Thugs
By
008Zulu,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 11:49 in Developers' Corner
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For whoever was wondering, the upgraded 2nd Tier thug has both Manuevers and Tactics for the thugs, resistance to lethal I believe it was and you can enhance him for Def Buff and ToHit Buffs. This all stacks along with your Supremacy. Yes, it's very, VERY nice.
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What is their attack?
Hope you can cue us in on the thrid tier 1 pet, Im really itching to hear about the mad bomber what bombs at midnight.
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The pistols are fantastic. The only problem I have with Thugs MMs is that none of the secondaries seem to fit, and I can't even think of one that would.
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Poison:
Why, most of the gang members I have worked with, either sold, used, or made drugs. Drugs are Poison, but some can help (until they get abused...). Poison is clearly the logical choice for this one if your looking for something that "fits"
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For whoever was wondering, the upgraded 2nd Tier thug has both Manuevers and Tactics for the thugs, resistance to lethal I believe it was and you can enhance him for Def Buff and ToHit Buffs. This all stacks along with your Supremacy. Yes, it's very, VERY nice.
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The Tier 2's have TACTICS? They have leadership pool powers ...??
Oh. My. Freaking. GAWD! *dies of happiness*
My current Thug-testing character, "Deals" (you'll know him by his grey, no-nonense suit and bright-red full mask), is already on course to take the Leadership pool himself ... knowing that there'll be STACKING Tactics going on even when I solo makes me burst with joy ...
Now ... I might even bother with Maneuvers, given the two-pronged attack of (a) the Tier 2's also both have it, and (b) Defense Scaling makes it more worthwhile, anyway.
Yep, the thing that makes Thugs different is the Tier 1 Thugs have no inate resitances like the other pets, but the Tier 2s have leadership powers.
My feedback so far on my lowbie Thugs. The animations are great for the two low level attacks, and the two different brawl animations with pistols out are a nice touch. The guns do seem a bit huge on my smallish female character though.
Only negative is that I hate the whistle summoning animation, and especially that it leaves my character in a weird crouched position.
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Personally? I'd love it if the guns were switched around - meaning the Tier 1 Thugs get my pistols, and I get their revolvers.
That would fix a lot right there, and the idea of a random tattoo artist dropping by is just too awesome.
It seems to me that while the thugs are squishy, they look like they pack more of a punch to try and compensate. A sort of 'all or nothing set'.. and I like it.
I've only played my Thugs/Dark to level 4 and haven't taken the Punk yet, just was having too much fun with my pistol powers. I really was a full Pistols primary now. 
As for the gun, they do sound a bit weak for what they look like. However, they do good damage against minions, just once you run into Lieutenants the damage falls off sharply it seems.
Most of the animations look good, the pistolwhip replacing Brawl was sweet, but for the crying out loud, why do we have the stupid sideways gangsta grip in there? Some of us want to look like we actually know how to handle a firearm.
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The guns do seem a bit huge on my smallish female character though.
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On my 3 foot tall character the guns look like they'd break her wrists with their recoil.
I have leveled my thug MM to 8. I'm not sure I like the ranged aspect of them. When I picture a thug, I see someone who can shoot a gun, and brawl with the best of them. My punks (about 90% of the time) just shoot from range and won't brawl unless someone runs up to them. I would rather see them doing the running up to someone (at least more often).
When I upgraded them at 6, I was impressed by how quick all of us can take down a minion. I have them slotted with 2 acc, and 3 dmg. (at 6 was 1 acc, 2 dmg)
Is it just me or do they run real slow? It seems like when I order them to attack, I'm waiting for them to catch up to me. I don't recall that happening with any of the other power sets...of course I don't play MM all that much either so I could be mistaken.
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That'd be cool or better still when you try to summon your thugs your character just pulls out his pistol and fires like 3-4 shots in the air like real thugs do and then they come running. Now that'd be sweet and no one would get too tired of that animation.Example....activate tier one summon then Character procedes to pulling out a pistol and goes blam blam blam into the air and then the thugs come running.Shots fired get your butts here my thug homies lol that'd be sweet.
(...) Oh and for the tier three pet summon i'd like to see it where police sirens sound and then he comes running up and then looks around like he is wondering if the police saw him anyway thats my 5 cents worth
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I don't agree with most of the post but I second these summoning animation. Especially the 'fire into the air' one.
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-The basic punk sometimes looks like a cool guy, but sometimes he looks like a really grungy, pot smoking embarassment. I like the randomly generated appearance, but sometimes the appearance can be pretty bad. Suggestion: Remove the nappy looking hairstyles from their possible appearances.
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I'd like to see it where we could choose how our minions look. Not in a costume designing way, I know that'd be a nightmare. But something where we could pick from the Thugs available who will be Thug #1, Thug #2 and so on.
I do like their look though. Why would a thug be anything else but looking like a random guy of the street?
What I like about the set:
* Henchmen have some nice damage.
* Dual Pistols is awesome! I like the knockdown of also.
What I don't like:
* Henchmen run waaaaaaaaayyyyy to slooooooooooooowww, it seems like it takes them to follow me even withOUT using sprint.
* It may just be me but they seem to be "dumber' than zombies.
QOL issue:
* Can we please have a way to choose which "look" we want for each thug? Having each thugs appearance being random makes nameing them a bit frustrating.
All in all great job, Devs
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I'm enjoying the set so far, and I'm not a big fan of MMs. I agree with some of the previous posters that I really can't find a secondary power that meshes well with the thug.
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QOL issue:
* Can we please have a way to choose which "look" we want for each thug? Having each thugs appearance being random makes nameing them a bit frustrating.
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Second'd.
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ok,
does the gangsta-**sideways**-holding-pistol shooting position bother anyone? (yea I shoot RL 
)
yech, 
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I'm so bad-* I don't need to aim.
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I wouldn't argue at all, with the upgrade involving tossing them a can. We can pretend it's beer or Red Bull or Ginger Ale or something, in order to stave off any moralistic or censor issues (i.e. "Rated T for Teen, Animated Violence, Drugs and Alcohol") so it'd be okay to be just a generic unlabeled can.
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I think there's a real-world brand of soft drink called Whupass.
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I'm enjoying the set so far, and I'm not a big fan of MMs. I agree with some of the previous posters that I really can't find a secondary power that meshes well with the thug.
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Dont know how hard this would be to implement, but I think a text command could do the trick.
/petcc 0-4 or something. Just let the command switch them to one of their alternate appearances.
This honestly wasnt a major issue, until this set, but it really throws off pet naming. Badly.
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The pistols are fantastic. The only problem I have with Thugs MMs is that none of the secondaries seem to fit, and I can't even think of one that would.
I really, REALLY hope you guys consider Pistol Scrappers. I'm aching for some Equilibrium style Pistols/SR with these awesome animations. Make it identical to Spines, with all the melee attacks as pistol whips, and probably trading Quills for one more 20-40' ranged attack.
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Neat idea but I don't really see it. Scrappers are melee and pistols are a ranged weapon. It just doesn't fit. Yes, I know scrappers have some ranged abilities but I just don't see it here.
Besides, I think the Spines power set is a result of someones acid flashbacks from the 70s...
Total Focus is a hold, right?
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while i do love a meaty gunshot, you do have to consider the possible scenario of such a sound effect un multiples and in unison with others of its type.
ie: a single shot might sound a bit weak. the same shot fired of by 8 different sources (2 thug masterminds with 3 henchmen each) shooting in rapid succesion could be a bit much.
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There have been enough obnoxious sound choices made by devs...let's not encourage them to make the sounds more annoying...
Total Focus is a hold, right?
Just to chime in, I also think the pistol sound needs fixing. It doesn't sound right at all, especially with the size of the hammers I'm toting around. They should at least sound like the handguns used by those Longbow Guardians.
The Punks seem to be awfully slow, but I think that's a symptom of the lag out in Mercy Island. When the server gets laggy, you tend to lose your pets.
Former Robots MMs take note: when in melee range, the Punks will alternate between their pistol attacks and their brawl, unlike Robots who will use their brawl exclusively. They prefer ranged combat, but if you think you can prop them up, you've got the option of running everyone into melee combat too.
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I think there's a real-world brand of soft drink called Whupass.
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Middle of the second row
Some early numbers on the Thugs pistol blasts:
PISTOLS
Brawl Index: 2.7778
Endurance: 6-7
Recharge: 3 seconds
Comment: Recharge is usually 4 seconds for a 2.7778 BI attack. This might be intentional; shortened recharge could be this power's "side effect." And a nice side effect it would be!
DUAL WIELD
Brawl Index: 1.8333 + 1.8333 (3.6667 total)
Special: KB vs -2s, KD vs -1s. (+1 level per KB enhancement)
Endurance: 8-9
Recharge: 6 seconds
Comment: Usually, DoT comes with a "free" damage bump. Here, 3.6667 BI is normal for a 6 second recharge attack, but it should probably be a tiny bit higher to compensate for it being DoT. 1.8611 + 1.8611 = 3.7222 maybe? That's a 1.52% increase for a split-second DoT; compare to Ball Lightning, which gets a 13.33% increase over Neutron Bomb for a 3 second DoT.
So far so good (built and dinged to 6 last night). Kinda hard to give a full review since I biased by Necro. The Secondary choices are off kilter currently, but I am RP'ng my choice.
The costumes do bother me, I keep on getting Hellions without the demon logo. They don't look very thug-ish to me. And without a major bump in lvl to test them at post 32, can't say how well they work.
Now, as for bodyguard...(oops wrong thread)
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The fact that our enforcers leadership dont do anything for us sux. I dont find myself likeing them much anymore. Myne is only 13 but im completely bored with it allready.
There slow, stupid and spend most there time running around in circles and they aint very aggressive either.
BUGS (and comments) from my level 10 Thug MM.
PET NAMES DISPLAY REGARDLESS OF SETTINGS
I changed two displays for names
1. Show Other's Other People's Names: Show only on mouse hover
2. My Name: Show Always
I'm only supposed to see my name, not my pets and not the pets of other MMs in the team. (This is how I run on live). When I grouped with five other MMs I could see the other MM's pet names (but not the names of the MMs).
PET SUMMONING BUTTON FAILED
In "Defeat Officer Birch," I entered the mission and the pet summon button didn't work. I also didn't receive any on screen error message why. I was able to fix it by exiting and re-entering the mission. I summoned my pet and completed it without any trouble. This has happened to my hero ill/rad a looong time ago... also fixed the same way.
BODYGUARD ICON?
I hope that this is a bug. COH/COV is very thorough about noting buffs and conditions, and it would be great if we could have an icon for Bodyguard when it's actiive. I think I love this!
THUG PATHING
As mentioned several times, the Thugs are slow to keep up. I've seen them sort of run in circles behind me which is probably why they're not keeping up.
Here are some comments and Feedback for the Thug pets...
Guns, darts, brawling
I really like that I don't unequip my pistols when I don't need to. The newbie throwing darts are done with pistols equiped and brawling looks like you're pistol whipping your target.
Pet Summon Animation
The Whistle for summmoning Tier 1 pets is too long .. could it be changed to sound more like a short, sharp whistle of when you're trying to get someone's attention?
Pet Jumping from S. to N. Mercy Island
I noticed that when I went from North/South MI that my pets didn't have to jump down and take massive damage. I suppose the new elevators fix that. Love the elevators.
Damages
I don't want to put this as a bug, but I noticed that when I moved my Thugs into melee range they did their ranged attack *then* used their melee attack. That got a squeal of delight out of me. The attack sequence/timer seemed to "normalize" to the expected delay that live pets have after the first rapid attack. Anway, nerf me now, not later if it is unintended. 
Pet Appearance
I like the randomness of the Tier 1 pets and variations in colors. I'm in favor of swapping out their casual street wear for white, shirtless tuxedos.
Ok,
So I got my thug MM to 30 today.
This is my 2 cents, well, maybe 5 cents.
1.) I LOVE the sound that we make to call the low thugs.
I mean, it is unique, its just like a gang members whistling for his/her buddies. I even spawn pets just to hear it.
2.) The whole random look of your thug when you spawn, very nice.
3.) The 2nd tier pets, I don't know if it is just me, but he seems to be a bit on the stupid side compared to the others.
For example.
So I am in a mish, and im walking down the cave, getting ready to take on some CoT right, and this idiot just goes hauling out from behind me and goes off runnnig forward into the mobs, and runs back bringing them to me, then decides he will turn around and shoot. O.o
4.) Gang War, this is probably THE most confusing power ever invented. When you call forth the 10 gang boys to come fight for you its like.. WHAT ARE THEY DOING! NO CONTROL!
Personally, I love it that way!!!
Lastly, my 5th cent.
5.) What in gods name are you guys talking about? Sound of the gun... Does it really matter? For as cool as it looks, and as much damage as it does, I wouldn't care if it Quacked when i fired, grow up.
Thank you for your time XD!
For whoever was wondering, the upgraded 2nd Tier thug has both Manuevers and Tactics for the thugs, resistance to lethal I believe it was and you can enhance him for Def Buff and ToHit Buffs. This all stacks along with your Supremacy. Yes, it's very, VERY nice.