Greycat

Wow, I know it's "talk like a pirate day" and people are talking booty, but this is just being an ass. If the event had an intentional "Keep them from escaping" - such as, say, the "Prevent 30 fir Bolg from escaping/stop the ritual" from Skipper's ark in Croatoa - there would be a "X have escaped" fail notice, and the event could reset. There is not one. Therefore, no, the point is not actually "stopping prisoners from escaping" in a game mechanics sense. The prisoners also make no attempt TO escape - they will, if people leave them alone, happily stand there staring at the PPD. They only run when generic NPC "run" conditions are met, like any other mob... and then do not return. ANd that, of course, is only the first and third parts of the event, and utterly irrelevant for the second, which can *also* fail with a (flying, typically,) Freakshow mob haring off somewhere. They are not trying to "escape," which makes your point moot. That's exactly what's missing. A few things, though: 1. There's not a "Prevent from escaping" area defined. From what I've seen and had affect me, it's fairly small. (It's also "Help the PPD apprehend the prisoners.") 2. Even if you get all the (first wave) prisoners, the second wave is Freakshow. Notoriously, they have flying NPCs. They take off and never come back, as well - and do so quickly and easily. Also, 3. I went onto test to - well, test - something I was fairly sure I recalled happening - namely, if a prisoner or freakshow gets too far away of the rather nebulous "Defeat here" area, yet you still defeat them, it doesn't count. However... guess what's stuck on test, with no prisoners in sight, for who knows how long. Since I seem to recall defeating one that ran, with the counter in the corner, and having it not count.

Every word you've written indicates you don't get it and/or don't want to get it. Has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with me. Frankly, it indicates the ATs don't click with you. Which is fine. There are a bunch of other ones to play. Have fun over there instead.

Short form, humanform you'll *possibly* be happier with peacebringers. But try both and see. I used to have a guide somewhere from live... Here. This is over a decade old, so there have been changes to the game, but I'd say there's a fair amount of still valid. (11/2010.) Quoting a section of it... (Again, remember... written in late 2010.) So in short, I'd basically call a Peacebringer more steady and predictable than a Warshade. You will have Build Up or your heal/HP boost *now,* it will recharge in *this* many seconds and then give you *that* much of a boost again, versus "I mired/eclipsed in a group, I am god! ... now I've been fighting this boss for a while, there are no minions and I'm barely getting anything from one target."

Quoting just this bit, but skimming through... there's a lot of bias in the post. And it seems you're aware of your own, which is fine. But some of this needs pointing out. There has been a *lot* of discussion about why more people play heroes, and it's not just - or, I'd posit, the majority - "I want to be Captain Four-Color GenderAppropriateScout." I mean, for starters the game itself is labeled "City of Heroes." Yes, there's "City of Villains," but ... look up. The site's not listed as "City of Villains: Homecoming" or "Cities of Heroes and Villains: Homecoming." Heroside is front and center. You start out (unless you choose Praetorian, and that is a whole other kettle of fish) in the blue, heroic environment, unless you take steps (add -cov) not to. We no longer split by AT, other than Epics (and that's a good thing.) But from the get-go in character creation, you're heroic blue. The only real nod to villainside is ... a click button in a box at the end. If people, new or old, ask where their friends are, where the teaming is, etc. they'll generally be told "heroside." Which leads to more people looking at heroside versus villainside, and that likely feeds on itself. Villainside is, at best, represented by a few mobs. Or, if you step toe into a PVP zone and someone else happens to actually be there who can fight you, you've been... defeated by a villain. And just being defeated leaves a bad taste in some peoples' mouths. *shrug* Then there's the environment and writing. Redside keep sgetting described as dismal, dirty, grey and depressing when conversations about "why aren't people playing villains?" come up. (On top of that, some of the arachnos maps make me *long* for the 5-layer-cake caves. That ridiculous 100-story-tall reactor room when you're on a kill all and need to find that ONE LAST MOB... ) And the writing - while it was changing a bit near the end - is just hard to reconcile with villains. Villains tend to be the ones driving the plot. Making the plans. Having their own agendas. Mission wise, you're written as a lackey and a dupe. Alternately, there are just missions that make people *really* uncomfortable. "Villain" does not mean "amoral, psycho- or sociopathic, murderapeillage is my middle name." And yet, the content railroads your character and makes assumptions about them - you'd deliver a young woman back to Bocor, you'd deliver people to be cut up by the Vahzilok and so forth. Playing redside, *far* too often I have to just ignore what the game *tells* me my character is doing and/or wants to do. But part of that is just the difficulty in writing for playable villains in an MMO. I don't want my character railroaded into actions they'd never take ... and so I rarely find myself playing redside, even though I do have characters that most certainly are "villains," to some degree, and belong over there. I think playing redside is what turns people off of playing redside. If we could *play our villains as villains,* as the planners, the instigators, the ones going for the big score, or going for revenge, or even "this is what they know, life's hard, to get what you want you need to beat it out of someone else," without having to know the ins and outs of AE and without being depicted as a dupe, pure evil or just pants-on-heads stupid and unaware, there'd be more people playing redside.

Everlasting's second (10 or 10:30 PM ET) MSR is going to be pirate themed. Trying to get Piracat set up and at a useful level before that.

Yes, and when that happens, the event cannot be completed, thus the description of "broken." I've completed it before, too. I've also had it become unable to be completed because of exactly what you described - and the mob *does not* come back, or doesn't count when it seems to. "It sometimes works" is not exactly the most confidence inspiring description. If my car "sometimes" worked, it'd be in the dealer for repair or replacement as a lemon.

Eh. Personally I think I see this as too much chance for confusion vs "just stop for 3 seconds and slot it when you can." I mean, given how many times basic questions are asked in the help channel (which, not a complaint, it's what it's *there* for,) "I slotted a level 50 enh and it's not working!" leading to several minutes of discussion before someone asks "What level are you?" "12" would probably not be uncommon as a result.

I don't know that I'd call this "unintuitive." Maybe it comes from being a big flight sim buff, where (like in normal flight) pushing a joystick (or mouse) forward makes you dive - IE, head towards the high-drag region known as "ground," or look down - and pulling it back makes you climb. But even without that, if you move your head forward, eventually it's going to tilt down, and pull back = up. I've found the other way to be the unintuitive one, and utterly impossible to get used to.

Got a few on the market or in storage, hmm? :)

Yeah, that event's been that way. Either a prisoner runs off somewhere, or one of the Freakshow (often one of the fliers) runs off in the second portion and breaks it. I know I've tried taunting one back into the general area and had it not work (one that specifically ran.) I've also tried just a generic "prisoner" to see if it would count (it doesn't.) The third phase is usually fine as you just have to defeat the three named/special prisoners and they don't normally run off. If I recall, this didn't (or barely) made it onto live, too. Frankly, I think this could be "fixed" (or cheesed, to be honest, but looking short term) by not requiring the specific mobs that spawned to be the ones killed (other than the three special prisoners in 3rd phase.) Make the walkway and area enclosed by the cops a "neighborhood," and let us draw generic prisoners or Freakshow into it to defeat X number if the ones supplied run off.

Ugh. Already don't like that setup just from the quoted bit. I don't like having Arachnos - a hostile foreign power - *building bases* in Faultline and Siren's (and part of Atlas, apparently) already. It's just ridiculously stupid. "The villains own half the city" is just that writ large. The only way a "villain" should "own a city" is something... oh, Crey could pull off, where they're a big enough corporation they "own" a large chunk of the economy, have political clout, etc. - enough to influence events and hide things. I mean, if at any point the USSR owned Brooklyn, it wouldn't be tolerated. Don't even have to go into the article after that.

Wy are you "cranking out" 50s? There's this whole other game, 1-49... And yes, you get build 2 unlocked at 10, 3 at 50. They have their own enhancements, pool selections, etc. As far as "should I do IOs," it's your character - do what you want with it. *shrug* Will it be as enjoyable without them, or do you need perma-cap-etc-etc-etc?

Yep. Edit: Though if one were to be added, I'd want it to be turndown girl. With commentary. "You're taking that power? Fine. I suppose it's your life..." "You're putting slots there and think you have a chance?"

Instead of snow, I foresee piles of coal ever... wait, that's Sharkhead.

So, there's a good bit hidden away in the .pigg files - people can swap textures, sounds, etc. by searching for items and either modifying them (client side) or putting a replacement file in the appropriate directory. What I'm curious about, though, are those clues that come up as you do missions. Now, yes, you get a souvenir when you finish a story arc giving you an overview of what happened, sure. But on the way there? Lots of other clues. Some are kind of boring ("You found a gun!") and some give interesting little details ("email" exchanges with lore info and the like.) The Wikis are missing some of these, or they're questionable, and those of us interested in lore minutiae can miss these puzzle pieces. Is it possible to extract these in some readable format?

Riiiight, hero. "So, where do the villains hang out?" Sure. Then we tell you and next thing there's this surprise raid by Longbow. I'm on to you.

Technically the Galaxies are "nictus weapons" themselves (along with some of the Vampyri and War Wolves.) ;) However, Nictus damage was "designed" specifically to counter Kheldians, lorewise. It wouldn't make sense to have that start damaging everyone. (And that damage type was pretty well gutted - Qs and Vs just do negative energy damage now.) (Heh. The image in my mind right now is someone with a powerful magnet going "I've scrambled these drives, you'll never get the data off... And now I'm going to scramble you!" Then trying to stick the magnet on someone and watching it fall off. That's pretty much Nictus damage vs Khelds, versus everyone else.) This, however, makes sense, given the Calvin Scott arc (I'm forgetting who actually gives the missions.) Plus they've gotten their hands on War Walkers. I'm sure had Live been live longer, we'd see them appearing more (I'd hope we would.)

Hmm. I flat out don't use "seeking" type lists. I prefer to just have connections happen. Might be a response to a SG recruiting, or an event, but ... yeah, I don't put "personals" out. Discord - Usually if I'm on one (actively,) it's a SG or coalition and I'll have a subset of characters there - since the few I'm actively on generally have a "cast of characters" for RP. Quick reference sort of thing. Rarely updated with "recent events," since the people involved know what's happening. Here - I started a list of characters. Also quick references, also not really "live." I don't tend to go back and edit them. FBSA: I've started pages. Eventually I'll get them done - this would probably be the closest to a "master list" for me, at least for my primary RP characters and ones I otherwise find interesting, character-wise. The ones I'd most likely try to keep up to date, though that falls behind as I'm horrible at updating and wiki-ing. Virtueverse itself, IIRC, had some database issue. When I went over to look at a few old characters there, the info was ... wrong. I'm kind of not bothring over there. So I guess in general I'm fairly scattershot about what I put where and what I do with it.

*gasp* GMs are biased against fire tanks! 😉

I ALWAYS USE MY INDOOR VOICE TO CHAT! IT'S NOT MY FAULT PEOPLE HAVE REALLY GOOD HEARING AROUND HERE! OK, seriously, though... I'm slightly on the fence. I'm not sure it would help the chat scroll issue *that* much. (Which could be environment dependent.) Then again, it could be adopted much more eagerly than I think and help a great deal. Can't say I'm really against it, regardless. Might need different coloration so it can be told apart from local more easily, that's about it.

(Nitpick: Archetype. Arch types are architectural features, or something to discuss with your podiatrist. Yes, it's a me thing 🙂 ) The ancillary pools are there to shore up some gaps in what the archetype has. For instance, if you look at melee pools, you won't generally see shields - they've got them in their primary or secondary. Look at a blaster, you'll probably see some sort of shield, but not a ranged attack. Probably a hold or some sort of CC. Meanwhile, that melee character gets ranged attacks, where the blaster doesn't. The controller will get a shield and ranged attack, since it's primarily control and buff/debuff. So proliferation of that sort won't really happen - a blaster doesn't need another ranged attack in their ancillary. However, when we come to ancillary pool... "themes," I suppose? Still plenty of room for those to get added - like your ninja tool or munitions examples? I'd love to see that balanced out across the ATs. It's surprising that some don't have dark, for instance, or psi... or, as pointed out, munitions or something else "Gadgety." (It can be argued, I suppose, that mace mastery touches on that, but ... eh....)

You're starting to look a little fenced in there...

Yep. I have two accounts, sometimes I have one to support a second main, sometimes I farm (rarely.) Most often it's RP related - a version of a character on the main account that needs to drop by for some reason while my "real" character is there, for instance. It's also letting me host Kheld arcs for a SG that's repurposing them without anyone having to reroll established characters in odd ways. It can come in handy in odd ways.

I think it's a mix of "The mission picked something of that rank and it happened to be a robot" and some group-specific things (that one Orb ... is it in the main goldside arcs or FIrst Ward?) If it's in a paper mission, I just assume RNG, most of the time.

Someone who is timid around gnus, obviously! Alternately, for some reason I think of just slightly overripe or soft fruit... "This apple's a little gnushy."