Oh Shard Cannon, how you taunt me!

Well that makes zero sense.

Thanks for checking. Can you explain in more detail? Because I don't understand how the Celestial Rifle and the Steampunk Rifle made it over to Arachnos Soldiers with no issues, but the Shard Cannon has issues?

And give us back the pulse rifle model from beta (Mercenary rifle Mk II, IIRC); yes, if you had it out when your character went into the 'hands on hips' idle stance, you'd stick the middle of the rifle inside your midsection, but as I see it, that's a failure of the 'enter idle animation' code to not put away any weapon you're holding, not an issue with the weapon... and the standard pulse rifle it was replaced with looks immeasurably lamer.

This.

I was okay with the answer I received to this whole issue until afterwards when Steampunk/Celestial popped up. I was happy to see this as I assumed this was setting a new standard in weapon model proliferation. Now, we take a step back with this Shard Cannon/Beam rifle situation.

Ok normally, I don't find you funny.

But that was awesome.

Agreed - that WAS a great joke.

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

The Celestial mace is already there, which is just the ax backwards. Unless you're saying you want the proper ax pointing forward.

I think this pretty much nails it right on the head.

::headdesk::

I love you guys, but how many times have the playerbase responded to things like this with "let US decide if we like the aesthetics" before it's taken to heart?

Sometimes I feel sorry for Zwill. He's the bearer of bad news and the guy we tend to unload on when we're told something remarkably illogical from the greater development team. Honestly, I like the guy. He does a good job and he does it with passion.

But DAMN if "headdesk" wasn't my response, too. It's a weird sci-fi weapon that could shoot bullets, lasers, fish or leprechauns. Let US decide whether it looks right for our Robotics Masterminds or Soldiers of Arachnos or what have you. There really is no argument for why the weapon makes no sense. The only argument is someone in power doesn't like how it looks.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Mace Mastery uses completely different animations. If you have Mace as a primary/secondary and take Mace Mastery it redraws the mace for your attacks regardless of which mace you take.

Devs have stated it cannot/will not be fixed due to program limitations. May also be that that all Mastery powers are balanced on having a redraw. Eliminate them for some powersets and it unfairly unbalances things.

That doesn't stop Munitions Mastery having no redraw with Assault Rifle. The real reason for the redraw - at least what I think is the real one - is that Mace Mastery uses Arachnos maces which Mace Brutes aren't given access because reasons.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

That does not explain why Mace Mastery does not have access to these models. You can, for example, select the Celestial Mace for War Mace and select the same for your Mace Mastery. I'm unsure if it causes redraw or not on those powers, but the option to have matching weapons certainly does exist already. Secondly, that doesn't address the other ATs that have no War Mace option at all; using the Carnie models is still going to cause redraw for Blaster, Controllers, Defenders, etc.

If the reason we aren't getting these models proliferated is due to an aesthetics issue I wonder what the plan is for these pistol models?



It almost seems like the devs would have to create a Laser Pistol blast set in order for us to use them.

Because if they decide to compromise on one area, might as well just scoop their brains out with a shovel and turn over the keys to the players.

Always I feel sorry for the developers, who are always accused of having "vision" when they do not compromise as if that were a curse, and always accused of being inconsistent when they do compromise as if that only proves they could always do it our way if they can do it once.

You're making a sliding scale argument that you really shouldn't, especially since you're doing that instead of addressing the argument I made. Said argument is that at the very least Robotics Masterminds use weapons which can be defined as "weird sci-fi guns." The Retro Pulse Rifle looks like a set of bagpipes to me and that's appropriate to shoot lasers, but not the Shard Cannon?

What's funny is you're saying it's a no-win situation because we extrapolate developer decision to infinity and make absolute arguments, yet you take my argument, extrapolate it to infinity and present that exaggeration as evidence to its fault. If you argue for moderation, then please be consistent with it and argue case-by-case. How, in your eyes, is the Shard Cannon not appropriate for Robotics Pulse Rifle?

For that matter, how are most of the Beam Rifle inappropriate?

Ah, but we're arguing Arachnos, of course. Well, their weapons, too, are usually designed to be strange, inexplicable and over-designed, almost like what guns would look if they came out of a Fantasy MMO that had in it. It makes sense for their weapons to be weird sci-fi guns, too.

Larger social commentary on the dynamics of the forums as a whole aside, do you disagree with any of the arguments I made?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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Thanks!

As long as Beam Rifles can get the Rikti Rifle, I'll be set.

Thank you!

Personally, I believe that a good argument would harken back to how you define the limitations on what weapons are available in which category. Once upon a time, BABs asked for new pistol suggestions for Dual Pistols (and that came to absolutely nothing, but that's besides the point), and one of his primary criteria was that the weapon needed to look like it could fire multiple rounds in rapid succession. That's what the set did, so it made sense for the weapons in it to require that as a prerequisite... Even if the flintlock didn't exactly adhere.

Now, I obviously don't quite know your design specifications behind each set, but here's how I see them for Arachnos rifles and Robotics rifles:

Arachnos rifles: Fantasy-inspired, overly-designed weapons, purportedly owing their design to the high-tech, strange science behind their construction, as well as owing to Arachnos' love for the Fantasy villain look. Any weapon which can appear to fire small kinetic projectiles in rapid succession would fit the bill. I suppose you could argue that the weapons would need to have a small barrel, thus why the Devastator cannon wouldn't work, but at the same time, I believe that it's easy enough to infer that one is hidden inside the darkness of the much larger barrel. Or that the larger barrel perhaps houses multiple small barrels on a rotating rack similar to a gatling gun.

Robotics rifles: "Indescribable" science contraptions that don't always resemble an actual rifle, owing their design to the unorthodox technology which spawned them and to the futuristic design of Robotics in general. Any weapon which appears able to fire a basic thin pulse laser beam should be applicable. Again, you could argue that having a larger barrel could be problematic for the smaller beam thickness (though not for the Photon Grenade), but I believe the Death Star is a prime example of how a big hole can produce a small beam. It is fairly safe to assert that the formation of the laser blast takes open-air space without you needing to show it via power effects.

To conclude, I believe that your players are significantly more forgiving of minor misalignments and irregularities than most people give us credit for. Sure, we'll raise all hell when we feel that a good job wasn't done, but considering we've been asking for greater control over our characters, even if that produces unappealing combinations, I believe we'll be able to handle a few possibly unseemly combinations once we understand that we're getting something you originally held back because of exactly the problems in question.

That is my argument.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.