[Heroes are murderers]

2 hours ago, Sovera said:

Now if people want to headcanon being the Punisher go for it, but I'd rather go by his own words and have Captain America as a role model. None of my heroes kill even if they are fire users.

 

I can completely respect this.  And yet...  Captain America and the Winter Soldier.

 

Agent Sitwell: Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof? Because it's really not your style, Rogers.

Steve Rogers: You're right. It's not. It's hers. (Natasha kicks him off the roof)

.....

although, Falcon DID catch him before he splatted. Darn it.

[Heroes are murderers]

44 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Now let's make two more series of that stuff!

 

TNG was great.  I loved it. 

 

But Babylon 5 had me forever after S1E13. I still await the reboot with a mix of giddy anticipation (JMS is in charge) and complete dread (HOW can you reboot? How in the world could you ever cast anyone else for well over 60% of the roles? They were too perfect as-was!).

[Burn Out]

I took an 8 month break from the game. This was my first week back in a long time. 

 

The itch did come back full force, and I very much enjoy all my old characters again. But I did have to put the game aside for a time.  I focused some on just generally taking better care of myself. What gaming I did do was on single player games I could do for a few hours here and there and put down again.  Skyrim. Darkest Dungeon. Civilizaiton IV.  I spent some time looking over misc retirement plans and going over numbers to see how doable it is (plenty) in the time frame I want (not so much). I took a pair of two-week trips to visit with family and unplug. I even tried my hand at a bit of writing. 

 

But I didn't even log on Homecoming again, until I *wanted* to play the game again.  No testing the waters after a month, etc. No half-hearted "Well maybe."  When I actually MISSED beating things up on my scrapper, or flying into piles of mobs with Hurricane on my Stormy, or having my Controller set enemies against each ohter from the shadows, THEN, I logged on.

[Heroes are murderers]

The long and short of it is, Eye of the Beholder. 

 

If you want to feel your heroes are noble and upright, and when they're teleported to jail, the teleportation process heals life-threatening wounds, nothing I see in game lore contradicts that. Can even keep conservation of matter intact by just reshaping some of the existing matter (body fat), harvesting those protons,electrons, and neutrons to make new matter in a different configuration to patch the grievous wounds.  I mean, yea, that's Magic Tech, but we're dealing with a world where Magic is REAL, so honestly, we don't even HAVE to concern ourselves with conservation of energy and matter. It just comes down to what flavor of handwaving you prefer. 

 

If you want to believe that YOUR PERSONAL "hero" is in fact a ruthless killer who does leave bodies on the floor, with the coroner says "he's dead, jim", nothing I see in game lore contradicts that either.  Even if most OTHER heroes are linked into a teleportation system somehow to protect their targets, you can handwave something about your own characters powers that negate that and prevent it from working on your OWN targets. And no one can ever "Disprove" you on that, either. 

 

So let's all join hands, and remember to stab Crey in the face. Lethally or not, dealer's choice.

[Heroes are murderers]

Wait you mean the move labeled "Beheader", isn't just whacking them with the flat of the axeblade?  Who knew!?

 

But yea.

• Blueside main is Mind/Kin for this reason. He can defeat foes by giving them repeated Migraines until they collapse still clutching the side of their head.
• My Claws/SR scrapper? Definite Vigilante. Kills foes, no bones about it, no shame about it, considers herself flatly not answerable to any law except her own sense of what's right.
• Tanker?  Invuln/SS. Not hard to imagine easing up on some of the punches as foes are almost out of it. Or going all Hulk Smash if it's Crey. He don't like Crey. 
• Storm/Sonic Def?  Sonic could plausibly disable / render you unconscious. The lightning storm..... not so much. 
• Assault Rifle / Martial Kombat .... um, yea, she kills. No way around that. Headshot sniper. 1-2-3 SEE YA!!

[New Signature Heroes & Archvillains]

I do think it would be interesting if when it chose to vary from the "standard" heroes/villains, if it always chose one of your OWN alts to make that work. 

 

a) would need to be some filtering by alignment, hero won't be robbing a bank, villain won't be protecting it. 

b) I also think your alt should also have access to every single one of their set bonuses, and if the encounter is 45+, should have access to any incarnate powers that character has. It shouldn't be a kittenized / nerfed version of your alt. 

[New Archetype: Commander]

If you give the AT their own armor toggles... well then it's not Pets/Assault, it's Pets/Grab-Bag-of-Armor-And-Attacks.

 

Not at thing that I would use. 

That said, I don't have to want to use everything the devs add.

 

[The Sniper : a new power based on Beamrifle.]

a) that's some serious horizontal scrollbar on your post.

• It may be worth looking at your browser, or whatever method you're using to post, that's causing that.  The less effort it takes people to read your post, the more likely people are to read it, and consider your ideas.

 

b) to the content. 

• Assault Rifle literally has a move called "Sniper Shot", so personally, I kind of put that as "closest to a sniper". 
• also, if beam rifle is too "pew pew pew" for you, again, there's good ol' Assault Rifle, right there. It's a fully functional set. 
• Still. I'm not opposed to alternate animations that do not adjust the performance of powers.

 

[Challenge Zones]

Honestly the biggest challenges in the game always felt to me like First Ward Night Ward, done at level. Where your character REALLY IS lvl 25-40. (ie, not exemplared down, when you don't have full winter sets slotted, etc)

[Is defeat just an inconvenience?]

Barely a speedbump, UNLESS, I do something so stupid as to cause teammates to die. Then, only then, do I feel any remorse.

[Help requested for a "fighting controller"...]

I use Boxing/Kick/CrossPunch on my Mind/Kin controller.  (only CrossPunch is on his bar of the three, but he HAS all three for synergy.)

 

He does not have actual status protection. But if I'm soloing, it never matters,

• Mass Hypnosis as an opener.
• Hop into the middle of them. Fulcrum Shift for mass stacks. 
• Siphon Speed to keep the +Recharge insane. 
• A couple well placed Holds or Confuses for particularly troubling mobs
• Terrify for +damages and more lockdown
• wreck face with Crosspunch.

[Casual Server?]

This is why I took an 8 month break from the game. 

 

Exclesior was definitely the most populated, but my controller (Mind/Kin) consistently felt useless after the mid-30's. I'm fine with Control not being necessary, but it wasn't even remotely helpful to any team I joined. And I didn't want to only be useful for my secondary. So I solo'd him. From 34, all the way to 50, with only the occasional group. Then I did a ton of flashbacking on him. It was lonely. But it made the maps far more challenging, and made me use every power wisely, going up against a wide variety of enemies. 

• I really enjoy IO's and set bonuses. 
• I deliberately level slowly, and have been known to disable XP first thing on joining a group, if it's a character I dont' WANT to level yet. 
• I use a ton of Attuned IO's as I level, because it can take me 5 months to ding 50.  I level sllllllllooooooowwwwly.  I enjoy doing a great deal of content "at level". Not all of it, there's always lots more to flashback later, but i like experiencing my characters at different levels of power as they mature. 
• To an extent the IO usage makes me complicit in my own problem, because yea, I do build my characters to be pretty durable through those bonuses. 
• I do not enjoy incarnates, and I wish they weren't activated in all content 45+, but I also wish I'd win powerball one of these days. And it's about as likely. I have no illusions there. I can't say people are wrong to use incarnates. I just.... rarely team after lvl 44 because of them, except on Goldside. 
• I hate speedruns. Always have. 
• I hate when a "team" is 5 soloists racing around a team while a controller and a defender are trying to figure out how to catch up without dying.
• I actually enjoy travelling around the city oldschool style. I don't care if it takes me 6 minutes to get to the next door. 

The bottom line is, how I want to play, isn't how most people play. 

And I'm reluctant to join a "regular team" because I can't guarantee I'll want to team "every wednesday and thursday" or something like that. 

So, to some degree, it's a single-player game with some chat windows for me. 

 

So, every once in awhile I take a long break. Fiddle with Darkest Dungeon, or Skyrim, or Civilization. 

I don't have a better answer.

[Have you ever discovered a new place?]

I came across a shantytown under the main strip in St Martial with an explore badge from a tour guide tip. 

Since there's a badge there I figure probably several people did know about it, but it was new to me. 

[You -- yes, you, the person behind the keyboard -- wake up in Paragon City. What now?]

8 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

She is ...

Excuse me ...gotta run .... another mission for Ghost Widow

...

She says it is the last one ..then we are together

 

There's always Belladona Vertrano, too.  Might be a bit warmer.

[You -- yes, you, the person behind the keyboard -- wake up in Paragon City. What now?]

Walk along the sidewalks content in my absolute invincibility and shove heroes into oncoming traffic while saying stuff like "Isn't <name of guy I just shoved in front of a truck> the best?"

[Get rid of hunts]

I don't think I've ever seen a police chief meeting be a placeholder that I *have to* clear to get a different story arc / badge mission to activate.

 

And *most* of the police chief missions aren't really that hard. Tedious perhaps, but so is going through a five story buidling to find the kidnappee to rescue. It's just part of being a hero. Somedays you rescue people, somedays you put the smack down on a criminal operation that's gotten out of hand.  (annnnnnnd somedays you do a Mayhem Mission and blow up most of a downtown area....)

 

Now, when the police chief wants me to go into the Abandoned Sewer Network for 50 Rikti, I do sigh deeply and decide just how much I care. "C'mon chief. Can we wait until they actually threaten someone on the surface?"

[Invulnerability Unstoppable]

I suspect the original T9 was more about making sure you hack a clicky super boost to your resistances so you could keep going even in the face of being de-toggled / drained by sappers / carnies, etc. 

 

And it was probably handy in the *very* early issues.

After so many changes to other powers, and how certain effects work, and the baselining of the Fitness pool, and the introduction of IO's and set bonuses.... not so much.

[Can't decide on a name...]

Vermillion Visage.

 

and there's always the option of other colors.

Cobalt Casque, etc.

[Is it time to do something about ATOs?]

I don't see any need for a change. It's not hard to scoop up some of the lesser used one and convert them 10-20 times.

And it's not that hard to squirrel away enough money to buy a few superpacks yourself.

 

Mostly I'm with @Bopper. These things come and go in cycles. If people notice a price spike as certain ATO's get rare, you'll see a lot more go on the market as people try to cash in. Maybe they'll be converted-used-to-be-Kheldian ATO's.  Maybe they'll be ATO's from a freshly bought pack. I've seen dry spells and floods a couple times since Jun 2019. Not really thinking developer action is warranted yet.

[Enable prestige but keep base items free]

I see no point to a currency that doesnt' do anything, and I see no benefit for allowing a Guild to stock up a currency instead of individual players.

 

If you truly *care* whether or not your SG members play in /sg mode, *ask them* to do so. 

If you don't trust them to, maybe they're not actually your friends, and maybe that's because you're trying to dictate their playtime for them.

[What do consider “Soloing AVs” to mean?]

I have never used Envenomed Daggers and never will. None of the Amplifiers, either.

I do not like flinging money at a P2W vendor for a combat advantage. That offends my sensibilities.

 

Every player is free to do what they will of course, but that's my stance on it, my own personal self-imposed-restriction for my characters.

 

That said, I will periodically go get myself a Shivan Shard from Bloody Bay. I recognize some consider them not much different / consider me slightly hypocritical on this point. My stance is Shivan Shards were available long before there were ever Veteran Rewards or a Paragon Market,  and to me, such things matter.

[You're threatening me with going outdoors or actually doing some work?!]

3 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

People gotta get their fix from somewhere MAN!!!!!! *shakes from withdrawl*

 

Seriously. It's like when a PC suddenly dies on you. Yes, I could spend a week and a half looking around and researching for what's a good box to replace it with, and what kind of components I'm really going to want to put it together to meet my specific needs.... Or I could drive like a madman to Micro Center and fling money at them like a seriously Jonesing addict, because I NEEDS MAH NEW COMPUTER!! NAO!!! 

 

Not that I've ever done this, you understand.   <nervous laugh>  No, of course not. This is purely hypothetical, of course!

[You're threatening me with going outdoors or actually doing some work?!]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

I have a decent first chapter on a vampire story about my main. I am not bad at origin stories.  Longer plot lines are seriously more challenging for me.  I need to losten to people like Neil Gaimen and just write.  Then fix everything in the rewrite and act like i planned it all lol

 

Gonna say up front, I am not a serious author of any kind. I'm a programmer by trade, and gamer by hobby. 

But I've done some novelization-style "Journal Entries" for my characters in various single-player sandbox games and.... it's pretty addictive once you get past the first few.  I start creating 17 chapter backstories for how my character even came to be where the game is set, and flesh out motivations / things they care about / non-existent NPC's of family members and friends they think about along their journeys, etc.

 

But that style of doing "one journal entry" at the end of each play session has really helped me both a) get in some writing, a little bit at a time, and b) peridocally read through each one, realized I've created discrepancies, and go back and figure out how to resolve them, keep their timelines straight, etc. It's kind of wierd and to some people it will sound like a self-inflicted second full time job, but it's really been kinda fun.

[What would you like to see in a Goldside rework?]

26 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

And even if Freedom Phalanx wasn't open, if Cole negotiated with Recluse, who might even be more open to an accord. With Cole on his side, Recluse could take Paragon City for his own.

Well, I do think Cole and Recluse would have been doing the "My Dear Good Friend" (spoken in Londo Mollari voice, if you've ever seen B5), fully intending to dispose of the other one once they were no longer necessary / too likely to become a rival for supremacy, and both of them probably knew that from first contact.  Or at least, would have suspected the other of that. 

 

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

If they're powerful enough to defeat the person who defeated the global threat, they're probably powerful enough to defeat the global threat, too.

 

Arguable. Maybe you can find something that temporarily de-powers Cole, just like Darrin Wade de-powered States in order to kill him. That doesn't necessarily mean that exact same trick would have worked against the Hamidon itself. Or maybe a sufficiently strong Psi attack against Cole might revert him to a toddler playing with his crayons. But which bounces against Hamidon.  If you don't know for sure that your Anti-Cole weapon WILL work against PraeHami, then congrats, you still just damned the planetary population of praetorian earth.

 

Soo.... my order of operations would be Kill Hami first, THEN get Moose and Squirrel Cole and Keyes.

[What would you like to see in a Goldside rework?]

17 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

See above. Praetorian Imperial Secret Service was exactly that (although I grant that it was conceived originally as an envelope pushing joke that even got Avatea to laugh (and approve) but it soon became quite serious due to the realization that this was a huge hole in the canon.

 

If the players take the view that Praetorians are not fundamentally evil, that they go about their lives in the day to day, trusting in their government to do "the right thing" and work in their society's best interests, then that is a basically good goal.

 

There must obviously be a cadre of people who are close to the edges of power, if not directly connected to it, who believe in Cole's mission, ideals, and core beliefs. They may not believe or accept his methodologies (especially in later arcs when we see what an insane twat he becomes) but still believe in the primacy of their society and the right of their people to live the life they live.

 

I suspect there's also a sizeable chunk of people in the power structure who think Cole is in fact a brutal and overbearing Tyrant, fully deserving that name.... but who, from the history of Praetorian Earth, understand that He Stopped Hamidon, when no one else could.  Ie, maybe the guys a jerk and tyrant.... but without him, we'd all be DEAD, consumed by Tellurian Plague, etc. Maybe he's not the ruler we'd like to have, but if it's Cole or be consumed by the Devouring Earth, then "OK Mister Cole, What can we do for you on this fine morning?".

 

Because that was always one thing that bothered me with the Resistance. Sure. Say you bring down Cole. Either kill him and all his praetors, or send them packing.

Then what?  Next time Hamidon makes a strong push forward.... you're screwed.

 

I mean, yes, Freedom of THOUGHT should at least be allowed even if Freedom of Expression isn't.... but in context of the Lore, I can see a number of people choosing Cole, not because they like him, not because they WANT to be ruled by him, but because of what lives beyond the Sonic Fences. The Carnival of Light and Eltontown are out there, sure, but they have thier own sonic fences too, and the center of First Ward is testament to the fact that those sonic fences will only hold Hamidon at bay for just so long.  Now, we as players who have read the lore and already done the Underground Trial know that Cole never really "Beat" Hamidon as such. But the NPC's who live in this world?  They don't know that.  From their point of view, literally nothing mankind has really stopped Hamidon cold except for Cole himself.