I want to see them activate it in a mission. :P
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As Claws pointed out once a thread is started we have no control over who posts in it or when. People can continue posting days, weeks, months and even years later. Here's one example from 6 months ago that someone necroposted today.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Not trying to be a dick, just pointing out that just because you started a thread doesn't mean you can decide when it's done. In the future, remember that when you start a thread, it will remain started until it dies on it's own (which this one will probably do fairly soon).
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http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=237236
Only a Mod can lock a thread and they don't do that unless people have broken the rules or they deem the discussion has been exhausted and nothing new is being contributed.
In my opinion if you feel you've gotten an answer then let others blather on. They'll get bored and the post will drop off the front page.
The biggest issue I see with any vehicle in this game is that the engine just doesn't do a 'moving platform' of any type. Think of anything that moves in this game- you can't stand on top of it as it moves. Everything that moves is either 'slippery,' (cars/blimp) intangible (moving boats) or 'blocks.' (skyraider vehicles/etc.) The best the game can do for moving characters is a straight coordinate change- teleport. This is why we have shield charge as a burst teleport, not a 'running forward' charging power. The game just doesn't seem to be capable of moving a character along a path.
Very simple method is to make it like the Kheldian form powers. The first two powers are available in normal mode and vehicle mode. Can be attacks, defenses, or whatever. The third power is the vehicle form and the fourth power is a power only activated during vehicle mode. While in vehicle mode, all powers not associated with vehicle mode are inactive. It is not necessary to have vehicles anymore complex than this.
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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I do not get behind the idea of vehicles, simply because there really aren't large enough spaces to justify having them. Independence Port is large yes, but how much of it is actual road?|
Originally Posted by Whardel
From what I'm getting while playing city of heroes is that a travel power is kind of a necessity. Its not NEEDED, but getting around fog areas such as Dark Astoria is really better if you've got fly or super speed or jumping. Super hero vehicles would be so cool because you could cruise around with your SG in a souped up Transport vehicle with your SG's emblem on the front or you could ride solo and grab a bike and cruise around town without having to choose a transport power. This could even expand to having small jet planes for flight or helicopters. You could also give the vehicle upgrades like weapons or jets, for more influence/ prestige at a shop.
The lowdown looks like this. Vehicles can be purchased with influence or prestige, but prestige gives you more seats in your vehicle and gives you flying vehicles. USING INFLUENCE: Motorcycles, Small two seat sports cars. PRESTIGE VEHICLES: Larger vehicles such as trucks or transport vehicles. Small jet planes. Helicopters. kind of a quirky idea, but it has some serious potential versus getting the transport power. It would also make traffic more of a hazard rather than just a moving wall. If your car crashed, you would have to pay for its repairs. Thoughts anyone? |
Now what would get me to support it? The space required, because even if we did get vehicles, you would get people complaining that drives are too short. Hence, each and every zone would have to become as large as a Grand Theft Auto city.
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-anim.php
Can't come up with a name? Click the link!
Can't come up with a name? Click the link!
Here's the closest way I can think of to getting vehicles into the game: You get to design them, but they don't move. Instead, vehicles would work as an alternative to the city transit system.
Copies of your vehicles would be parked in various spots around each zone. Other players would see it as just another vehicle, or their own. Clicking on your vehicle would bring up a menu to choose what zone you want to travel to, and what part of the zone (some zones would give more options than others). You then show up in the new zone, next to another copy of your vehicle.
I doubt this would be a very popular idea, though.
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This is completely wrong. For examples of all the many problems this does not address please read this thread. Or the dozens of other threads in which this elegant in its sheer simplicity "solution" has been brought up.|
Originally Posted by starphoenix
Very simple method is to make it like the Kheldian form powers. The first two powers are available in normal mode and vehicle mode. Can be attacks, defenses, or whatever. The third power is the vehicle form and the fourth power is a power only activated during vehicle mode. While in vehicle mode, all powers not associated with vehicle mode are inactive. It is not necessary to have vehicles anymore complex than this.
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And to stop your next "fix", hoverbike is not the solution either.
"Mastermind Pets operate...differently, and aren't as easily fixed. Especially the Bruiser. I want to take him out behind the woodshed and pull an "old yeller" on him at times." - Castle
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And how is it wrong? Kheldian Forms already do what we want which is to replace our hero form with another form. Without knowing the actual engine involved, then any other suggestion is pure speculation. My suggestion would work while others might work. Also I said vehicle not car, truck, or any other form of wheeled transportation. It could be a mech or a jet. After all we have mechs (War Hulk, Titans) and jets (Longbow Chaser, Sky Raider Skiff). Give everyone the same look for the vehicle or add it as a permanent temp power for doing future content where you can decide the style would stop people asking for vehicles. We can just lump them together with the people asking for henchmen customization. Personally, I could care less if vehicles are added or not. There are plenty of MMOs with vehicles and some even completely replace your character with no indication of what your character looks like and is able to reach any point in the game. Operating under what a vehicle is "supposed" to do is not possible with this game.
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Originally Posted by Oldeb
This is completely wrong. For examples of all the many problems this does not address please read this thread. Or the dozens of other threads in which this elegant in its sheer simplicity "solution" has been brought up.
And to stop your next "fix", hoverbike is not the solution either. |
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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Ah the "KittyCrusader Hypothesis" taken from the "I Wrote Code for NWN Accords". Where the poster argues a feature should be added to this game because it has been done in other games. Easily refuted with the application of the"Standard Code Rant".
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Originally Posted by starphoenix
And how is it wrong? Kheldian Forms already do what we want which is to replace our hero form with another form. Without knowing the actual engine involved, then any other suggestion is pure speculation. My suggestion would work while others might work. Also I said vehicle not car, truck, or any other form of wheeled transportation. It could be a mech or a jet. After all we have mechs (War Hulk, Titans) and jets (Longbow Chaser, Sky Raider Skiff). Give everyone the same look for the vehicle or add it as a permanent temp power for doing future content where you can decide the style would stop people asking for vehicles. We can just lump them together with the people asking for henchmen customization. Personally, I could care less if vehicles are added or not. There are plenty of MMOs with vehicles and some even completely replace your character with no indication of what your character looks like and is able to reach any point in the game. Operating under what a vehicle is "supposed" to do is not possible with this game.
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How is that relevant? He's not arguing that it was done in another game, model replacement is already done in this game. Re-purposing existing tech is clearly doable.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Ah the "KittyCrusader Hypothesis" taken from the "I Wrote Code for NWN Accords". Where the poster argues a feature should be added to this game because it has been done in other games. Easily refuted with the application of the"Standard Code Rant".
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So you are going to go with the hoverbike solution. Please explain how this addresses the following issues, many of which are already mentioned in this thread (and every other vehicle thread):|
Originally Posted by starphoenix
And how is it wrong? Kheldian Forms already do what we want which is to replace our hero form with another form. Without knowing the actual engine involved, then any other suggestion is pure speculation. My suggestion would work while others might work. Also I said vehicle not car, truck, or any other form of wheeled transportation. It could be a mech or a jet.
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- Appearance - It's going to have to be a Longbow Chaser or some other entirely enclosed vehicle, not a sky raider skiff. You can't have any vehicle where the character is a visible pilot since everyone will have to look exactly the same when using "vehicle mode." Also, go take a look at the size of a Longbow Chaser. Now go take a look at how large you can make a character. How exactly did the pilot even fit in there? And while you can tell people to suck it up and deal with everyone looking identical that's probably not the best solution in a game that devotes so much to individual appearance. People complain about Khelds all looking the same now or how they never get to see their costume because they're always shapeshifted.
- Getting inside the vehicle - How, exactly, do you see this happening? Go activate Nova on a Kheld. See how it works? There is an obscuring burst of energy and Character Model A is replaced by the Nova Model. Is your new vehicle going to be the same? It's not going to show you climbing into it. So you just sort of, "Wonder Twins Powers Activate!" your way into vehicle mode? (*sings* Jon can give you cancer and turn into a car!)
- Overpowered/Underpowered - How does this compare to existing travel powers and how does it interact with other powers in the game? Remember that Khelds have their own powers and so only need to be balance against other ATs as a whole. A vehicle shapeshift power pool is going to have to be balanced against the entire game - all powerset combinations, all ATs, and all existing travel powers. Is it faster than Fly? Slower? If it's slower why use it? If it's too fast does it render Fly obsolete? How does it compare to Superspeed or Super Jump? If I can have Superspeed travel rate along with full x-y-z travel why ever use Superspeed? What powers can you use with it? Defense/Resistance toggles? Attacks? What does this vehicle do? Sure you can grey out all of the normal powers and give it it's own powers to use. Can they be slotted? How do they compare with other power pool selections? Power pool attacks and defenses are going to be weaker than normal powers, so why don't I just take Fly and use all of my regular powers? Making the vehicle pool powers stronger to compensate for the lack of regular powers is not the answer unless you would like to see everyone take it and ignore the regular powersets in favor of the new vehicles. What is stopping every single character in the game from taking this at level 14 (or 6 with the right vet rewards) and never leaving vehicle mode?
- Potential to look really stupid - Ever heard anyone make jokes about just how do sky raider skiffs get into the reactor room? Ever laughed at finding out the boss in a newspaper mission is a longbow chaser hanging out in the back of a cave or office building? Now you too can look just as out of place. Are people going to be able to fly their plane through the tunnels of Orenbaga with their wings clipping through the walls the whole way?
- Random annoyances for other players - How big is the target box on this vehicle? Can I block an entire hallway by myself? Will people be walking through the vehicle?
"Mastermind Pets operate...differently, and aren't as easily fixed. Especially the Bruiser. I want to take him out behind the woodshed and pull an "old yeller" on him at times." - Castle
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As has been explained repeatedly in every thread this topic has been discussed over the past seven years, and again in this thread.|
Originally Posted by Shadow State
How is that relevant? He's not arguing that it was done in another game, model replacement is already done in this game. Re-purposing existing tech is clearly doable.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill The subject at hand: Vehicles. Vehicles as travel powers. This gets brought up a lot. Short answer, don't expect it. Long answer: There are a lot of problems with the idea. 1. Movement. Forward and back,even turning - ok. But you can do things that a vehicle can't - such as strafe (direct side to side or angular movement.) It doesn't work with a vehicle. There are also issues such as drift and "realistic" handling. We can go side to side, as mentioned, and make immediate right angle turns. Cars... not so much. 2. Movement, part 2. Go stand in the road. No, not you personally. Take your character out and stand in the road, if you're heroside. Or even in the path of civilians. What happens? You get pushed. While not as big an issue with a motorcycle, perhaps, a car would have issues. What happens if two cars meet head on - yours and an NPC, or yours and another player's? Do you just pass through each other? Would you be satisfied with that very odd result? Or would you get stuck? How about those NPCs, can they walk and push your car, or are they walking through it? Neither answer is very satisfying, and intelligent, dynamic pathing is too computationally expensive. 3. Terrain. Not every place has roads, or even makes sense for "off roading." Go look at Founder's Falls. Go look at Crey's Folley. Or Eden. Try to get to the north islands in Talos. What, do you have a kubelwagen? Look at the Pit in Sharkshead. Try to use your travel power (car) to get up to some of the doorways in high caves. Cars and motorcycles would be more like Superspeed - horizontal movement, period. And look - I'll be blunt - flat out *stupid* tied with, say, Combat Jumping or Superjump. 4. Combat. You get ambushed on the way. How do you fight? Just have your powers blast out of the rolled up windows? How do you buff or debuff? EVERY power would need a new animation. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Then you want people with motorcycles instead of cars. Redo ALL the animations AGAIN. And they still wouldn't make sense - how do you use Footstomp in a car? Or Stalagmites? 5. Customizing. Yeah, it would come up. Not everyone would want a sports car, or a mid-70s Buick boat, or an exotic, or a minivan, or whatever else. 6. Making "sense." This was touched on in terrain - how do you get across water? How about the Shadow Shard? And if you want downright ridiculous looking, go do the heroside 25-34 Respec. Look at the Sky Skiffs inside of rooms or the reactor room. It makes no sense and looks *ridiculous.* Something that, yes, the devs try to avoid. That's just a quick overview of why vehicles as generally envisioned aren't a spectacular idea for a travel power. Further discussion This I think merits a bit of extra commentary, honestly. "Vehicles" covers a lot of different ground for different people. Some only consider cars/jets/motorcycles vehicles. Others add jetpacks, wings and the like. Much of the above considers cars and similar sized vehicles, with nods to motorcycle type vehicles. Jetpacks and such, I don't see happening as travel powers. As costume options for Flight? Or as invented pieces that interact with Fly, similar to wings? Absolutely - but they don't need to be a separate travel power for that. I'm all for more jetpack and wing (or combination) designs. Besides, there are so many "temp" jetpacks, I don't see introducing yet another one as really being feasable - just my opinion. But vehicles - cars, specifically - as a travel power, have issues. One way to have them "somewhat" work. For all that, I know some people *would* still like to pull up in front of a mission. So how do we do it? A temporary power, based on the same tech from the Mac/Valkyrie pack Mission Teleporter. The temporary power would: (a) be an invention - dropping from enemies. (A reward, because you saved... well, we'll get to that,) (b) be a single use each time - you can only hold one at a time, not one of each, one total. (c) use rarely used salvage, because... it's rarely used, and cheap. No Luck Charms here. (d) come in multiple varieties. How does this get around the various issues? Terrain - It doesn't pass terrain. It just arrives. It follows the same 'rules' as the mission teleporter - it's not indoors, doesn't go to contacts, etc. Just mission doors. Customizing - It's not "your" vehicle. It's a temp power. You've called a cab, limo, or other transport. Power animation - since you're skipping the space in between, no powers can be used 'til you arrive anyway. The varieties? - Limo: Stereotypical slightly stretched black limo. - Checker cab: The classic yellow cab. |
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Originally Posted by Oldeb
Appearance - It's going to have to be a Longbow Chaser or some other entirely enclosed vehicle, not a sky raider skiff. You can't have any vehicle where the character is a visible pilot since everyone will have to look exactly the same when using "vehicle mode." Also, go take a look at the size of a Longbow Chaser. Now go take a look at how large you can make a character. How exactly did the pilot even fit in there? And while you can tell people to suck it up and deal with everyone looking identical that's probably not the best solution in a game that devotes so much to individual appearance. People complain about Khelds all looking the same now or how they never get to see their costume because they're always shapeshifted.
Getting inside the vehicle - How, exactly, do you see this happening? Go activate Nova on a Kheld. See how it works? There is an obscuring burst of energy and Character Model A is replaced by the Nova Model. Is your new vehicle going to be the same? It's not going to show you climbing into it. So you just sort of, "Wonder Twins Powers Activate!" your way into vehicle mode? (*sings* Jon can give you cancer and turn into a car!) Overpowered/Underpowered - How does this compare to existing travel powers and how does it interact with other powers in the game? Remember that Khelds have their own powers and so only need to be balance against other ATs as a whole. A vehicle shapeshift power pool is going to have to be balanced against the entire game - all powerset combinations, all ATs, and all existing travel powers. Is it faster than Fly? Slower? If it's slower why use it? If it's too fast does it render Fly obsolete? How does it compare to Superspeed or Super Jump? If I can have Superspeed travel rate along with full x-y-z travel why ever use Superspeed? What powers can you use with it? Defense/Resistance toggles? Attacks? What does this vehicle do? Sure you can grey out all of the normal powers and give it it's own powers to use. Can they be slotted? How do they compare with other power pool selections? Power pool attacks and defenses are going to be weaker than normal powers, so why don't I just take Fly and use all of my regular powers? Making the vehicle pool powers stronger to compensate for the lack of regular powers is not the answer unless you would like to see everyone take it and ignore the regular powersets in favor of the new vehicles. What is stopping every single character in the game from taking this at level 14 (or 6 with the right vet rewards) and never leaving vehicle mode? Potential to look really stupid - Ever heard anyone make jokes about just how do sky raider skiffs get into the reactor room? Ever laughed at finding out the boss in a newspaper mission is a longbow chaser hanging out in the back of a cave or office building? Now you too can look just as out of place. Are people going to be able to fly their plane through the tunnels of Orenbaga with their wings clipping through the walls the whole way? Random annoyances for other players - How big is the target box on this vehicle? Can I block an entire hallway by myself? Will people be walking through the vehicle? |
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None of that had anything to do with the question I asked, but I figured out my confusion with your earlier statement and withdraw mine.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
As has been explained repeatedly in every thread this topic has been discussed over the past seven years, and again in this thread.
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My suggestion was merely to show how to get vehicles into the game using tech that has already been proven and feasible not based on some future tech that might come into the game. I agree that lack of customization, hammerspace, and magically entering/exiting vehicle would be limitations due to this method. The other suggestions are a matter of balancing and adding certain limitations. Doesn't make sense to have a vehicle in an office building? Then add a restriction so vehicles can't enter an office building, City Hall, Wentworths, etc. Vehicles being an annoyance by blocking another person can be prevented by making them have no collision boundary. I don't want vehicles in the game since it doesn't make sense with all the present travel powers and it doesn't take 20 minutes to get from Atlas Park to Peregrine Island unlike other MMOs. Although I do think it would be cool to have a temp power that lets you control a mech. The size will be about the same size as the Vanguard Heavy.
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Originally Posted by Oldeb
So you are going to go with the hoverbike solution. Please explain how this addresses the following issues, many of which are already mentioned in this thread (and every other vehicle thread):
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The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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Except you didn't. You just pointed out that it's possible to have Power X that sets your character to Model Y while giving you access only to Powerset Z. That hasn't been news since Issue 3 six years ago. It also doesn't in itself make vehicles feasible in any way.|
Originally Posted by starphoenix
My suggestion was merely to show how to get vehicles into the game using tech that has already been proven and feasible not based on some future tech that might come into the game.
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| I agree that lack of customization, hammerspace, and magically entering/exiting vehicle would be limitations due to this method. The other suggestions are a matter of balancing and adding certain limitations. |
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| Doesn't make sense to have a vehicle in an office building? Then add a restriction so vehicles can't enter an office building, City Hall, Wentworths, etc. Vehicles being an annoyance by blocking another person can be prevented by making them have no collision boundary. |
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| Although I do think it would be cool to have a temp power that lets you control a mech. The size will be about the same size as the Vanguard Heavy. |
"Mastermind Pets operate...differently, and aren't as easily fixed. Especially the Bruiser. I want to take him out behind the woodshed and pull an "old yeller" on him at times." - Castle
Good grief this is getting vicious. I just wanted to stir the pot, but i in turn caused a fire! oh well, as long as this is just friendly conversation.
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Vicious? Heh, not even close. If you want vicious you should see how people react when the topic is something like AE exploits, Speed Boost, or petitioning offensive/copyrighted character names. |
Originally Posted by Whardel
Good grief this is getting vicious. I just wanted to stir the pot, but i in turn caused a fire! oh well, as long as this is just friendly conversation.
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Not infeasible just limited. I would say it is possible, but not practical. However, if people wanted to play a mech or a hovercar, then they will adapt to those problems. Hoverbikes imply a futuristic motorcycle with the pilot visible. Limitations don't make an idea infeasible. Besides we are limited by comic book physics not reality physics so having a vehicle that is bigger on the inside and can appear out of thin air are not good enough reasons to dismiss the idea since those two concepts have been around for years in comics. Just look at Dr. Pym. He could hide a car in his pockets and shrink to fit the size of the car if he wanted to. The only real limitations my idea has is lack of customization and does vehicles fit in City of Heroes. If the devs wanted to put in vehicles, then they probably could, but there are more important things to put in and they are more trouble than its worth since we have 7 different forms of travel (4 travel powers, sprint, walk, and ninja run) as well as numerous methods to get around the world in a quick manner. This is the main reason why I don't see vehicles ingame not because of lack of tech or immersion.
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Originally Posted by Oldeb
So you agree with me that those problems I brought up all make the idea infeasible, i.e not possible or practical.
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The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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not just that the game doesnt handel fast movement well either you would be restricted 100% to the road and car would be so slow so you could make the turns or you would have a city with out predestrians|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
You have to understand that this is a very common suggestion. Those of us that tend to frequent the suggestions and ideas forum see this come up a decent amount. Most people don't search for other, similar suggestions, so don't account for the same problems that others forgot to account for.
You say that there's no strafing, but that would mean that the Q and E buttons would need two different mappings, and the game would need to be able to tell if you're in a vehicle or not. Also, other things that are often brought up when an idea likes this comes up: How do you handle powers in the vehicles? Do you turn them off completely? If so, this makes vehicles less useful than individual travel powers by far. Or, do you create new animations for when you're in the vehicles? This takes 5*2*3*9*10 (plus a few for the EATs) = 3240 new animations PER VEHICLE. Just as a rough idea, that's equivalent to about 120 new powersets in terms of workload. Also, how does the car handle water? The motorcycle? How do they drive up sheer cliffs? If they can't do these things, then normal travel powers are still better once again. Basically, to do vehicles, you either need to do a TON of work, or they end up being less useful than travel powers, or both. As such, it's seen as a very, very, very low priority. |
the vehicles in game are kind of like NCP they dont follow and kind of law of physics they just display translational motion which is not fun
"Never attempt to balance mechanics through Role Playing."
Castle
Personally I always thought a simple motorcycle could be done. The only real problems would be water and jumping. Jumping could be explained as the hero could still sort of jump with a typical motorcycle, however that would still leave water and swimming. Turning would be like ninja run animation, very quick, but do-able, and not impossibly bad looking. Pedestrians could still theoretically bump into them and cause problems so the need for no-clip would not be there.
Yeah, it could be done as super run, but with different animation, but to fix this last problem, I am thinking of more a alternate stealth power. Ups sprint speed a little, same stealth bonus, but with an added resist damage effect. Does not work in water or some mission maps. More bonuses to stealth might be in order, up to invisibility probably, as attacks would be impossible.
Much like PvP if vehicles aren't designed into a game from scratch then adding them later is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Sure it can be forced but it may never work right.
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Or a swinging travel power! |
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Vicious? Heh, not even close. If you want vicious you should see how people react when the topic is something like AE exploits, Speed Boost, or petitioning offensive/copyrighted character names.
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^
"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull
"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat
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While that does draw a certain amount of confrontation I don't think it's anywhere close to the hostility I've seen in threads about the topics I mentioned. Some of those were down right nasty. I know for a fact at least one person got multiple forum accounts perma banned when the devs dropped the hammer on the first AE exploits and she came to the forums to vomit her venom and bile over getting punished and then started hopping accounts when the Mods enforced the forum rules on her.
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Originally Posted by McBoo
Or a swinging travel power!
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Made a comment like that to my team a few days ago. One of them said that they build them there. :P
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Originally Posted by Oldeb
Potential to look really stupid - Ever heard anyone make jokes about just how do sky raider skiffs get into the reactor room? Ever laughed at finding out the boss in a newspaper mission is a longbow chaser hanging out in the back of a cave or office building? Now you too can look just as out of place. Are people going to be able to fly their plane through the tunnels of Orenbaga with their wings clipping through the walls the whole way?
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Not trying to be a dick, just pointing out that just because you started a thread doesn't mean you can decide when it's done. In the future, remember that when you start a thread, it will remain started until it dies on it's own (which this one will probably do fairly soon).
And in order for super hero vehicles to be a reality, a new game engine is in order. Content isn't really the issue so much as the game engine doesn't lend itself well to vehicles.
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.