PaxArcana

[Citation Needed] Because that's not a universal truth. For example, I spent years running a PvP, forum-based game (using the tabletop 3.X edition rules for Dungeons and Dragons, and at extremely high levels, if it matters). I, and the co-GMs I recruited, did a LOT of work tweaking and modifying our "House Rules" to bring the game into better balance. Much of which did not benefit any of us, even as a group, at all. Our eye was not on personal benefit, it was on the good of the game as a whole. Even though, yes, we also all played in the game (though GM rulings were always handled by someone else on the team, not the one actually playing - ethics and all). I take the same approach with things here. For me, in fact, it's reflexive and automatic. I'll even oppose ideas here that would greatly benefit me, personally ... because they would be bad for the game, overall.

Levelling used to take longer. There was no DFB, no DiB, no AE. And I think those lower-level sets were intended to be used when IOs of those levels were appropriate. ... Which is damned stupid, if you think about it. The odds of completing any one of them, without massive use of the Auction Hall (and, massive bankrolling by a sugar-daddy alt) are so low as to be indistinguishable from zero ... which is why most people back then decided "screw those sets, I'll just use Commons until I get the GOOD sets!"

Personally, I'd be perfectly happy if all sets were 10-50, just for the simplicity of it. And normalize the set bonusses, too, of course.

Yes, it was. I was here when it happened. ED made the game better, all by itself, long before IOs happened. ED happened with Issue 6 (actually, IIRC, a couple weeks beforehand, with a preparatory patch). The Invention System did not happen until Issue 9. Which means, all of Issues 6, 7, and 8 were played under ED, but without IOs. Yes, and no. The problem IMO is when you declare you would be opposed to anything that negatively impacts you no matter how much good it might otherwise do. A more adult position to take would be, IMO, "if a change will negatively impact me, I will oppose it unless you can show me that it will hugely benefit the game as a whole." Immediate edit to add: Enhancement Diversification is an excellent example of that: it negatively impacted nearly everyone, across the entire game. Every archetype, every powerset, every anything. But, in the end, it was HUGELY beneficial to all of those anythings, too.

I hate to say this, Munki, but .... you've just invalidated everything you've tried to contribute in this discussion. "Petulant spoiled child" is not a good position to have staked out.

No, not really. I've written "letters to the editor" before (and had them printed in the paper), you see, and learned two things: Most of them never get published. The larger the paper's circulation, the less likely you will ever see your letter in print. Even when they do, they are often HEAVILY edited, and while the core message is usually not altered, the tone likely will be, and there may be a LOT of pruning. Whereas, on the internet? Unless you break the rules ... your words, all of them, absolutely will be what show up in that forum. Or on that social media platform. Etc. 🙂

Mea Culpa; you are entirely correct. However, that would mean that you would need those IOs to be much higher than level 30, to keep pace with "just SOs". A Level 39 Common IO (schedule A) gives 38.2%; a Level 40 gives 38.6%

Common IOs give teh same bonus as a +3 SO at level 26. At level 25, the difference is so negligible that it can be ignored. A +3 SO, or a Level 26 Common IO, provides 33.3% enhancement; a Level 25 Common IO provides 32.0% enhancement.

Your abhorrently condescending attitude towards people presumably younger than yourself is what is wrong. To an audience that was inherently smaller. Forty years ago, your typical person could not communicate their thoughts, good or ill, to a community numbering in the tens of thousands, perhaps even the millions. And yet, here we are. Right here, on this forum. That has (as of this writing) 144,535 members. And, as MMO communities go, that's a pretty small forum. How many people might be reading, say, the World of Warcraft forums over the course of any single week, do you think?

I was trying to figure out a good way to say what @cejmp just did. Turns out I shouldn't have been worried about fancy wording, because the simple-and-to-the-point version works fine. For example, you should be able to use "Doctor Strange" for a technology-origin inventor / gadget-user (MM, Robo/Traps, for example), give him a steampunk-ish look ... and be completely in the clear. Just stay away from flying, former-neurosurgeon Sorcerors. 🙂

This is wrong on so very, very many levels. Wrong, and deplorable.

No, with EIGHT power choices - once per member of that team. Eight times almost ANYthing shareable team-wide, that doesn't run into soft or hard caps, is going to be damned good. DUH. The problem IMO, is that Hasten is incredibly potent for one character, solo, without anyone else helping.

I'm one of them, actually. I have one possible build that can, eventually, someday, perma-Hasten. Otherwise, eh. Not even my Superspeed characters necessarily take Hasten.

I did not whine. And, it really isn't the smartest thing to do, to start with ad hominems immediately after a GM reminds people to remain civil. Besides which, in those "other threads", I distinctly remember relating the story of my Champions Online character, Patriot ... 14yo boy with Super Strength, Invulnerability, and Flight. Very, very much inspired by the Kon-El "Superboy", down to the very same "tactile telekinesis" schtick. But with his own story, not at all related to any DC property. And one of his alternate costumes ... oh hell, let me see if I remember my CO login credentials ... and install the game ... this could take a while. I'll come back edit in some screenshots when it's done. EDIT: seems I didn't keep that costume around, after all. Shame, I remember if being quite good. Anyway, one of his costumes is very much "Superman/Superboy". I made it as his halloween costume ... he's a kid, only fourteen. Superman is, in-character, sort of his idol / role-model. So of course that's what he chose for Halloween. ... that's cosplay. Not theft of the Superman character from DC.

When something has synergy with the rest of a character's powers that is so good, that it is treated by nearly the entire playerbase as required-or-else-you-are-gimped ... then either it is too good, or the rest of the game isn't good enough. Usually it is the former, and not the latter. With regard to travel powers, first: they have no real synergy with anything except themselves. Second: they were adjusted and nerfed back on Live ("combat suppression"), specifically to eliminate what little synergy they had with combat powers. As for Fitness, the devs carefully datamined for months, examining why players were taking Fitness. And the reason was, because everything else in the game was costing just that little bit too much Endurance to use; Stamina was seen by the players as needed, not because "or you're gimped", but because, "or you'll be using Rest all the time instead of actually playing, and that's no fun". Picking up Health and either Swift or Hurdle was just a matter of "well since I've got to unlock the pool anyway, why not?" It's a fallacy called "Bulverism" - where the person assumes their opponent in a debate is wrong, and then sets about trying to explain WHY they are wrong. Instead of, as they should do, first explain that their opponent is wrong, in the first place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism So, now I have an alternate suggestion, that is a sort of "hybrid" thing. Let us split Hasten's effects into both an Autopower, and a Click power. Give the Autopower the 20% global recharge. Give the Click power another 60%. That's actually a buff, albeit a small one. BUT ... the click version? Instead of a base 300sec recharge, it goes to, say, 450sec. Just long enough, no-one can PERMA it anymore ... but you can still have it up more often than not. And when it is up, it'll be worth slightly more than before. Simultaneously, when it's down, it won't be worth nothing anymore.

The difference being, most people took MOST or ALL of the Fitness pool. Not just a one-power "dip", like with Hasten.

Don't delete it. Double it's recharge time, so it can't be perma'd. Watch it get respec'd out of most of those 50K characters double-quick.

I agree. Hell, I think in mythology, he has RED hair, not blond ... so there's your first, obvious point of difference. to include 🙂

Unless the Code of Conduct requires you to make such reports, then no - there is no Duty to report imposed upon you, and so, no discipline should arise from just saying "meh" and not reporting someone.

Homages are always okay. Where you and I differ is in defining what an Homage is or is not. I say "not a 1:1 carbon copy". Cosplay should always be okay. Where you and I differ is in defining what is or is not Cosplay. I say "not name, costume, and powers, all the time". If your character named (for example) Commander Smash-Fist, dresses up as Superman for a CC, or even for Halloween ... that's cosplay. Even if his powers are SS, Invul, and Flight. ... A CC that invites cosplay and homages, that fit those definitions, I think should be fine. But wanting to play "The Incredible Hulk" as a SS/WP Brute, green skin, torn purple pants, and your bio reads like a wikipedia summary of the Marvel character of that name? That's not cosplay, and it's not an homage. It is a 1:1 carbon copy.

Report yourself. Make it clear you're doing that, and ask if the character needs to be changed or not. On Champions Online, I made a tribute/homage to "Invader Zim". Called him "Conqueror Zuub", had a whole bio written up that (IMO) parodied the Invader Zim story, and everything. Then sat there, at the end of the tutorial, and thought: "I may have gone too far with this, and it'd suck to play him for twenty or so levels only to get generic'd that far down the line." So I reported myself, explaining what my aim was - and providing links to wikipedia and such for comparison. The GM that responded sent me an in-game mail saying I was fine, and he had set a flag on the character showing it had been reviewed, to stave off any possible reports that came in later. I don't know if CoH has that functionality, but, it's worth a try. And in the very least, you learn within the first 5 levels whether or not you need to tweak it, rather than at level 40-something, right?

I didn't ignore it. The risks you pointed to are so slim, as to be IMO unworthy of consideration. Especially since the worst that happens is, you get slapped with the Generic costume and name. The character isn't deleted, you just need to visit Icon or the Facemaker. And of you think there's even a one-in-a-hundred-thousand chance your character could be generic'd ...? Save the costume(s) to your computer. If you do get generic'd, talk (civilly) to the GMs. Worst case, you have to tweak your costume a little bit. Change one or two colors, change one piece, etc. Distance the name a bit more, maybe.

Hell. You can maybe do it publicly. Hold a monthly "Cosplay as your favorite character from comics, movies, etc" costume contest. Then be up-front in the rules: all entrants have to have their name, and #1 costume slot, not violate the Code of Conduct. Indeed, until the judge gets to you and says "show me", you stay in a not-infringing look. Maybe even set it up to have one award for "best 1:1 carbon-copy costume", and another for "best original homage" (like my Kenneth Clarke example just a moment ago). Since none of the participants would be trying to directly copy an IP for long-term play, but instead put together a costume for a contest ...? I suspect it'd be fine. Maybe @Jimmy or one of the GMs * @GM Capocollo, @GM Widower, especially) could confirm if that would work? Heck, for that sort of CC, I might try my own hand at making one of those "squint and look at it sideways" homage characters myself. Just for the fun of it.

I disagree. Remember, a report is not an automatic "poof, you're Generic'd"; that report goes to a GM, and the GM then makes a judgement call - preferably after setting eyes, themselves, on the character in question (and yes, they do have the ability to look at your bio and costume(s) even while you are offline, or playing a different character). And if the same person is filing umpteen frivolous reports a day/week/whatever, eventually the GMs will just start ignoring their reports altogether. Quite possibly, that person may even face disciplinary sanctions themselves, for wasting the GM's time and trying to grief other players. ... I am, admittedly, one of the more fervent anti-copyclone players in the community. And yet, I've posted repeatedly (a couple times here, too) that my standards, aside from names, are "at least two of three" between costume, powers, and bio. If you're in a superman-like costume ... but you're a gravity/empathy controller, your name isn't a variation of Superman, and your bio doesn't make you the last scion of an exploded planet who gets their powers from the light of a yellow sun? Eh, I could wish you'd made a more original costume, but it just isn't a copyclone. OTOH, if you make a character whose name is ... oh ... The Last Son, in a very superman-like costume (maybe with color differences - swap the red and yellow elements, for example), with a bio that talks about being Kenneth Clarke, the last survivor of an alternate timeline, whose amazing powers (being of the "standard Superman package" SS/Invul/Flight variety) arise from the differing physics of your original home? Bonus points if you do things like make him a YouTube video blogger with a channel called "The Daily Podcast", maybe with your friend Jenny Olsen providing the IT and AV tech support to keep it running, and that sort of thing. Unmistakably a Superman homage. Different enough to be (easily) argued as a transformative work, and thus, not an infringement on DC's copyrights and trademarks. And so, I wouldn't report that. Bloody hell, I'd likely send you a /tell congratulating you on the excellent work to put it all together. IMO, that would be fine, and I would not report it, unless the character's bio was a direct 1:1 take from the game. "Dark haired, black trenchcoat, red gloves" isn't really distinct enough, by itself, IMO, to be an issue by itself. With the name being different, and the bio being different (or even just absent, as with most people) ...? No harm, no foul, no report.

Some advice for people with top-tier recreations: Make sure your name isn't 1:1 copied. Then, edit your base, default, #1-slot costume to be different enough to pass muster as "homage, not copy". This can be fairly subtle differences - as I mentioned upthread, a Batman-copy could change out the Blue or Black for a dark Green. Maybe swap the Yellow (utility belt) for the same green, or for a brown (leather). If your Bio is a direct 1:1 copy, you'll have to do some serious work there. Change the names of things, mostly. Better if you can wax creative enough to spin a tale that clearly hits all the same high points, but is also as originally yours as possible. Then, your ALTERNATE costume slot(s) will preserve the work you put into making it work within the CoX creator. You can trot it out for CCs and the like, and still enjoy the fruit of your labor ... ... but, along with the name/bio tweaks ...? Spending much of your time in the now-changed base costume should shield you from being Generic'd, having moved yourself into compliance with both the letter and spirit of the new policy. IMO, anyway. I'm not a GM or a Dev.