Greycat

September 23, 2024

Kheldian life, biology and drives

How long does a Kheldian live?

This is a more important question than it might seem, as it’s the driver that started the Peacebringer/Nictus war. (KLB, COH) Kheldians live up to 10 years. The KLB says they *can* live up to 20, and that reproduction shortens their life span.

There’s occasionally been comment that Nictus life spans were cut to 5-6 years, but I’ve never found anything to back this up. Granted, the Peacebringers wouldn’t argue…

Kheldian lifespans are also shortened by the energy they give off – including during form shifting. Form shifting at that time also led to degradation and imperfections. (Also part of why this was just initially accepted – the Kheldian mind, being electromagnetic, was assumed to just degrade near the end of their natural lifespans.) (KLB)

Kheldians do not sleep. (KLB) (Author note: This doesn’t sound like “joined Kheldians don’t,” just the native form.)

Kheldians making Kheldians

I initially stated in the original Kheld backstory guide that we don’t know how Kheldians reproduce. However, the KLB does give us this:

Quote

“Kheldians don’t normally need to eat once they’re born, except in the days leading up to reproduction when they have to take in and store vast amounts of solar energy. They then combine with three other Kheldians to produce a litter of offspring that are initially made of pure energy. The Kheldian parent group helps shape the resilient matter bodies for these young and begins teaching them how to fend for themselves. The average litter is between three and seven Kheldians….”

The only “reproduction” we’ve got definite evidence of – since it’s brought up as plot points in game - (COH) is on Earth, where the N-fragments introduced into Council soldiers start taking them over / converting them / growing in them, resulting in a “conversion rate” of up to 40%. The shards however are also created from a healthy Nictus. We don’t know if *that* Nictus dies, has its lifespan reduced or recovers in any way.

Kheldians come to adulthood in only a few months. (KLB)

Kheldian senses

Being creatures of energy, Kheldians literally see the world differently. (KLB) Their native senses run along the electromagnetic spectrum, so they will see things like radio waves or radiation. The “Music of the spheres” would be more a literal than poetic descriptor when they look out into space.

Quote

“They became especially intrigued by the stars and astrophysics in general. Their part energy/part matter composition gave them a whole host of senses that humans can’t even quite comprehend. They were naturally sensitive to radiation, a full spectrum of visible and invisible light, radiation, electromagnetic signals, and all sorts of other cosmic phenomena that we on Earth need special equipment just to detect.” (KLB)

So, early on this led to teleportation, solar powered regeneration of damaged tissue, and even the folding of space to create temporary wormholes for long distance travel. (KLB, DQ) Even before they could develop tech to really do anything with it.

Kheldian communication

Related to the Kheldian senses, Kheldians communicate via electromagnetic waves. (KLB) Kheldians do also have a written language called Khelda (COH, “A map of a new Earth.”)

Kheldians can, of course, communicate with whatever means their host uses. (COH)

(KLB) To communicate with other life forms, Kheldians have simply worn speakers to speak audibly. (Author comment: This doesn’t show up in game for practical reasons, much like the “rocks” formed around their bodies. I still find it amusing, honestly, and for my own RP purposes riff on this a bit to have any nearby speakers let the Kheldian half – or unjoined ones – speak on their own.)

McKheldians – How and what Kheldians eat

So there’s a little contradiction in here, though it could be chalked up to evolution of either the story or the Kheldians themselves. The KLB is, again, the only place Kheldian eating is even mentioned – early on it mentions the Kheldians being predators, and their society starting to develop because of herding “livestock” to eat. Meanwhile later in the document it mentions they don’t need to eat after being born, other than absorbing a bunch of solar radiation before reproduction.

The Nictus, of course, modified themselves to reduce the energy loss that was at the core of the short Kheldian life span – and to absorb the energy, vampire-like, from their fellow Kheldians. And with their modifications, from other beings as well. (KLB, COH)

The Nictus can “eat” this energy directly from biological sources. (KLB, COH – given Warshade and Nictus attacks “healing” being a good representation of this.) The Nictus even bred biological creatures to be more “tasty.” However, where one Nictus could live for about a year off of the energy of one Kheldian, biological creatures only provided them with around a day of energy. (KLB) However, in the Nictus’ current “pure dark energy” forms, they need less energy.

This feeding is referred to in game as well – Moonfire even mentions flat out that the nictus once fed on other Kheldians. (COH)

Since this was the primary driver of the war, some KLB flavor:

The Nictus, once they learned how to drain energy from other Kheldians, started bringing in old Kheldians near the end of their lives to their citadels. That these Kheldians were never seen again wasn’t seen as odd, since they were near death anyway. Later, the Science Lords (Nictus) started building an empire on false pretenses, sending the Kheldian fleets (not yet called Peacebringers) to invade and subjugate other alien worlds. This was easy enough to sell to the general populace, given the Kheldians were attacked when they returned (after trading goods, then abducting specimens and not understanding why it was a big deal) to the first world they’d met intelligent life on – obviously space was hostile. They also used ships disappearing to a “mysterious enemy” (the Nictus themselves) as a source of more Kheldians to feed off of – they were just considered regrettable but expected losses in a war… until the Kheldians found out otherwise and turned on the science lords. (This is very much an abbreviated version of what’s in the KLB, and interesting reading.)

So in short, Nictus definitely need to feed (COH, KLB) while it’s left vague for (unjoined) Peacebringers, other than (KLB) absorbing energy before reproduction.

September 23, 2024

So what is a Kheldian?

In game, “Kheldian” refers to the Peacebringer and Warshade archetypes (and to the Nictus enemies, technically, though they’re usually considered separate.) These are Epic ATs (EATs, or Hero EATs – HEATs,) meaning that they have specific game lore that helps define them.

When first introduced in Issue 3, they required a player to achieve level 50 on a character to unlock them. Later this was reduced to level 20, or a store purchase. Currently on Homecoming you can make one as your first character right out of the gate – I would not recommend this, though, as they do have some complexities built in to them. They initially were tied to a specific origin as defined by the lore – Science for Warshades, Natural for Peacebringers.

In game, you will run across Kheldians in the form of the NPCs Sunstorm (Atlas Park, Peacebringer contact) Shadowstar (Atlas Park, Warshade contact,) Moonfire (Striga Isle task force contact,) the Paragon Police “Awakened” and, of course, the various Nictus (Find the Shadow Seed, Imperious task force, etc.) as well as Requiem and Arakhn.

But what ARE they?

Kheldians are matter/energy beings from outside of our galaxy. (COH) While not specifically defined as far as “where,” their home is “a nearby galaxy” (KLB.) This was later refined (AMA, 2013, Matt Miller) as not another galaxy such as Andromeda, but more like the Magellanic Clouds.

While much of the Kheldian home world was never fleshed out (2014 AMA, Matt Miller,) the KLB describes their home, Kheldia, as

Quote

“A lone gas giant that circles a bright blue star in a nearby galaxy. By all Earthly knowledge, there’s no way any kind of substantial life forms could ever have developed there. But the rings surrounding Kheldia are comprised of a unique mélange of minerals, gasses and energy that do in fact support a wide variety of life forms. Although comprised of thousands of individual asteroids, the ring around Kheldia has its own atmosphere.”

It also mentions

Quote

“The line between matter and energy was much more fluid, with many life forms of all types being able to transform themselves from one state to another and back again with relative ease. Most creatures that migrated from one rock to another did so by either transforming into an energy form or by using that energy to propel themselves through space.” (KLB)

So Kheldians – and most of the other native species of their planet – are energy beings with the native ability to change their entire form to whatever they need. They shapeshift by changing to alternate forms as a whole (COH, KLB.)

Kheldians do not appear in Praetoria. The only reasoning we have for why we don't see them there (and, really, the only other dimension with them is War Wolf Earth in the Portal Corp missions) is a comment from the 2014 AMA, where Matt Miller says

Quote

"Battalion's existence ties directly with why Kheldians are on Earth. Battalion doesn't exist in other universes like it does on ours, hence why Kheldians never play a role in multidimensional stoires."

Types of Kheldians

There are three types of Kheldians, and the why of that goes into the bits of Kheld culture we have from the KLB.

Kheldians followed a similar path to humans, as far as going from predators to farmers – though the more clever of them are the ones that figured out how to herd and corral the beings they “ate” (also energy beings from their ring system.) Science and intellectual curiosity became highly prized in Kheld society. The earliest leaders were the ones who could most effectively domesticate animals for food, and they, the breeders and more were the ones looked up to with an almost religious devotion. Science essentially became a religion.

Kheldians eventually developed a caste system, or a technocracy, consisting of the leaders (often referred to in the KLB and CB as “Science lords,” though this title is never referred to in game.

This leads to the split we see in game, though we’ll touch on the history a little later.

Peacebringers: These are best thought of as the “natural” Kheldian (as referenced by their original origin lock.) They were the workers, explorers – and now the army that fights against…

Nictus: These were the leaders, the “Science lords” mentioned in the KLB and CB. They’ve scientifically modified their energies and fed, vampire-like, off their Kheldian followers. The Nictus are literally “inverted” Kheldians, the negative to their positive. (“Nictus” is the word for demon in one of the alien races they subjugated and fed off of.) (KLB)

Warshades: These are still Nictus, and are more a philosophical split and label for rebel Nictus. They refuse to do things the way the Nictus have done, looking more towards the Peacebringer ways of coexisting and of cooperation.

Flavor from KLB:

Quote

“Much like humanity, it is difficult to attribute a single motivation to the entire Nictus race. Many of its members have become horrified at what they’ve done to extend their lives. A few rebels have even begun to fight against their comrades by synthesizing with humans to become Warshades. These rogue Nictus are in fact trying to save mankind from enslavement at the hands of their brethren. The brave Warshades face hostility from not just other Nictus, but also the Peacebringers, who question their sincerity.”

This is also backed up by the game description as well as information in the Kheldian arcs. (Web, COH.)

From the Moonfire task force:

Quote

"I have told you that the Nictus once fed upon other Kheldians. What I did not tell you was how. The Nictus scientists developed a powerful energy transfer device that could rip away a Kheldian's life force, even at a distance of light years. This terrible weapon is the reason we Peacebringers have resolved to destroy all Nictus, wherever they may be."

There are no official Nictus arcs in game, though you can (of course) side-switch. And much like Nictus and Warshades, there are “Rogue” Peacebringers (COH) which fight alongside or otherwise support the Nictus for reasons of their own – the ones we run into are opposed to Sunstorm’s alliance with the Warshades.

September 23, 2024

Bias, weighting and handling on lore sources:

There aren’t many sources. There’s what’s in game, there's what was released on the live websites, there’s direct (original) developer quotes, there’s the AMAs, there’s the Kheld design document and the comics.

I take what’s in game, what was put out by Cryptic on their site/announcement, and direct developer quotes as A-tier. Everything else would be less reliable – mostly because the design doc (and original Blue King comic story arc) were written up or transferred before release (and alterations,) or for the comic have third party artistic license, and the AMAs did happen post-sunset, when the devs responsible were largely gone and there was no access (obviously) to “official” documentation that they may not have kept copies of. (And for obvious reasons, they never mention keeping any.)

I will endeavor to cite the sources where possible.

Source key I’m using, by order of reliability:

“Tier 1” – absolutely rock solid

COH – this is in the game. For purposes of the document, this will trump anything else.

DQ – Developer quote (live game devs pre-sunset)

Web – Typically an archive of the live website, such as www.cityofheroes.ca or a copy on archive.org, the more recent the better (unless being used to show progression of an idea.)

“Tier 2” - Post sunset, strong source

##AMA – “Ask me anything” from a specific year (IE, 14AMA = 2014 AMA, see note above) AKA “Loregasms.”

“Tier 3,” – Weaker, mostly due to age or other factors. May be the only source of info.

KLB – (the Kheld design document, that is - I have a habit of calling it the Kheld lore bible.) = while sometimes superseded by development, gives a look at intent. However, it’s the only source for some info, especially deeper background.

CB – Comic book (based off KLB, including scrapped sections)

HCW – homecoming.wiki (just because “anyone can edit,” not a slam on the site or those who run and maintain it. It and the work's much appreciated.)

So, for example, if something only shows up in the KLB (like much of the Kheldian “history” pre-game,) but isn’t contradicted, revised or obviously removed by a “higher” source, it’s being used with a note of its source.

If something’s listed in the KLB but is obviously removed (see “Synths,” later,) or otherwise revised by something that made it to the live game and/or website, at most it’ll be mentioned at the end in a list of things that were dropped, but the “higher” source (the game, the website, developer comments) takes precedence.

Where I’m making my own comments or suppositions, as opposed to statements backed by sources, those will be marked out as such.

I will use, quote and point to older sources, even if other things in them are superseded, either for them being the only source or specifically to point out interesting ideas had *at that time* for what they could be or do – even if that was changed or the technology wouldn’t allow it later. And yes, I’ll endeavor to call that reasoning out as well (“The KLB says this, but it’s also noted “if code allows” – which apparently it didn’t and was dropped,” for instance.)

September 23, 2024

Table of Contents

Yeah, this got a little long.

1. Introduction to the guide.

2. Bias and lore sources - what I used, and how much weight each is given and why.

3. What is a Kheldian? - what they are, types/faction overview.

4. Kheld Life - Lifespan, reproduciton, senses, communicaiton, care and feeding.

5. Kheldians and forms - the whats and whys of shapeshifting, relationships with hosts

6. Kheeelllds  innnn spaaaace - How they travel, Kheldians and Earth.

7. Nictus science - The dirty deeds done by the bad guys.

8. Kheldian leadership - a who's who, with a little what and when. Also includes a section on naming.

9, Non Kheldians - Kheldian adjacent folks affected by the Khelds - or more often, the Nictus.

10. "What could have been" - bits that were planned and dropped or changed, mostly stuff I find interesting that was noted in some source.

11. Sources

(Bets on if I remember to link to the individual posts? -MB)

September 23, 2024

Kheldian Backstory and Lore Guide 2.0

Original version (Kheld backstory guide 1.0) posted on the live forums, 1/19/2006 (https://web.archive.org/web/20120905121326/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=114391)

Long overdue update, thanks to game changes. Some of this may be Homecoming specific, but at time of writing, that shouldn’t be a huge amount. – MB/GC

What is this all about, then?

This is not a guide on how to slot or play a Kheldian, what powers are best, what IOs to look for or what powers are best. Most every Kheld of mine is different, with powers chosen as part of their own story and leveling experience.

This is a guide to what a Kheldian is in the game world. It will (hopefully) answer questions about what they are, why they’re here, what we know of their history and culture and why they can do the things they do.

Why this guide?

Because ever since seeing a Peacebringer pop out of a mission in the Hollows in Nova form and fly off in issue 3, I’ve been interested in Khelds. I’ve used them to expand stories for my characters, for entire story arcs for supergroups, for discussion – I like Khelds, and Epic ATs.

When it comes to COH, I’m very much more in the RPG side of MMORPG. I enjoy the lore. I enjoy backstory, almost regardless of what world it’s in. Tolkien, you’ll find me rereading the Silmarillion more often than The Hobbit. Narnia, I found published order (the way I had them) to tell a much better tale with the Magician’s Nephew being the second last book, opening up a glimpse into the beginnings of the world you’d spent the last several books in just before the end. Star Wars? TOTJ, thanks. All about far pre-prequel, intrigued by the Tho Yor and the Je’daii.

So when I came across Epic ATs, ATs that had a unique way of being tied to a specific bit of lore and dove deeper into it, rather than skimming the wider surface of COH’s story arcs, I was hooked by that and how it entwined with how it shaped gameplay for those characters. They may not be the most powerful, they may have quirks and challenges that keep them from being more widely played – though, for me, that’s part of the fun – but I love my Kheldians. And digging into them is part of that fun for me – and led to the original Kheldian backstory guide.

And with more information available now, some only available after the live game’s sunset, well… it was past time to revisit and expand it. Some people are just going to ignore everything and gripe about a source they don’t like. I’ve decided, frankly, I don’t care – you don’t like it, or have a beef with me, don’t read it. This is for my enjoyment, and it’s my choice to share this for others who might be interested. It’s part of *my* enjoyment of Kheldians.

-MB/Greycat

September 22, 2024

4 hours ago, Mimpyyme said:

3. I've considered it, but I'm not sure I'm good enough for PVP.

Pfft, didn't say you had to PVP, just that it'd give you a 50. 🙂

September 22, 2024

Someone PVPd?

*marks calendar*

September 22, 2024

11. That's cute. 😄

Anyway. If you want to get a character past that first ten levels?

1. Keep trying new combos. You really haven't gotten the "flavor" of them yet, by 10. But the ATs play differently, and the combinations of powers in the ATs play differently, so you may just not have gotten THAT ONE yet.

2. Do you RP? Find an RP group. Yes, RPers do more than stand in Pocket D. Such as RP teams. If you don't RP, but might want to, pick a character and decide what they're like. What sorts of things got them to start fighting, what they do or don't like, something in their background. Start picking missions and contacts that match that, and while playing, think of what their reaction is... congrats, you've now gone from some pixels and powersets on a screen to a character. You've dipped a toe into RPing. You'll find you spend a bunch of time on that character and... unless you deliberately choose not to, you'll find yourself at 50 with thousands of threads, shards and merits, wondering when that happened.

3. Desperate for a 50? Make a temporal warrior. They can only run around in PVP zones, but hey, they start at 50. 😉

4. Find (or make) a supergroup. When you have a group of people, it's easier to just play and keep leveling. It can be a fairly big one like Chaos United, or one of a few people that happen to be playing the same time you do you can join up with to run stuff.

5. Are you goal-driven? There are plenty of goals (besides "hit 50") in the game, from those (like badging) that are built in to those that you give yourself - for instance, while on Live, I had things like "One of every control set to 50," "one of everything electric," or "one of each melee primary" that you set for yourself.

For what it's worth, I even made a guide to this back on live... it's from 2011, but you can see you're not alone in this!

September 22, 2024

Stuff drops as you play (and continue to level, up to vet level 100.)

Things to avoid for now: Hard mode, Magisterium (which I typically see as advertised for 50+some levels, IE your level shifts.)

Things to run: Lower itrials (BAF/Lambda.) Dark Astoria - it's specifically incarnate content. Also "anything else," stuff will drop as you play.

Tip: If running Mender Ramiel's arc to unlock alpha? Just drop the difficulty to -1x1, skip as much as you can (basically stealth non-talk-to missions 1 and 3, IE finding Trapdoor and the well/fighting the minotaur.) Why? You get Alpha unlocked at the end *anyway,* so why go through all the effort? *shrug* Always feels like the ixp you earn during the arc is basically wasted ixp at that point, to me.

September 21, 2024

Sooooo... looking at this on the Homecoming wiki:

It mentions specifically "HEROES and vigilantes." If that's not awarding while as a hero you might need to put in a bug report.

September 21, 2024

Everyone has their own enhancements. I don't pull them out because (a) it's usually fairly easy to afford the enhancements - it's easier to transfer INF, which can help with other enhancements, after all, and (b) even if I don't play the alt a lot, I still *play* them, and want them ready to go when I am.

September 21, 2024

I wouldn't want them rotated - I'm typically looking for consistency. But different ones being added wouldn't be bad.

As far as animations and such (and we need some new dances, too...) it's all up to what the dev team can do.

September 20, 2024

*Reads title.*

No.

*Reads initial post*

Still no.

Yes, something more needs to be done with the "How do I make Group Fly not affect me" - honestly, if the token that's granted could be automatically granted on sets/powers that must have ground or near-ground contact, it'd probably fix ... 70%ish of the complaints. (With the option to toggle it off, still.) It's not obvious, it's not explained, it's not convenient when you're - say - in a raid zone. Other than that? Flight pool's fine.

September 18, 2024

The only problem with the Warburg nuke - hate to say "mission" - is that the scientists are obviously the dumbest scientists on Earth, as ramps are insanely difficult for them to figure out.

Other than that - which is a problem with most NPCs - it doesn't really need to be made easier or buffed.

Though the suggestion of two more for the other origins seems interesting.

September 17, 2024

Not reading through 8 pages of this...

Honestly, it'd be nice if:

(A) the options at Null were more widely known, and

(B) Null were available in more zones. At the very least in the raid zones, where you often don't *want* to leave the zone because you might not get back in.

(Or, (C) which apparently can't happen/is exceedingly difficult due to spaghetti, the option were in the player's options menu.)

September 16, 2024

I'll say I've gotten to appreciate "mouse mats" more - when the thing's also under your keyboard, probably part of your monitor as well, it's not going *anywhere.*

September 11, 2024

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

If you get bored in PI, you can always head to DBZ and run missions out there for a change in scenery.

... but to run DBZ missions, you have to have flight, float in the air and scream for half an hour while glowing before launching an attack. Having a costume with a change of hair color helps.

September 10, 2024

I'm done with a character when I'm done with their story. Might be done at 20, might be done years after hitting 50. Might not be done any time in the forseeable future.

September 7, 2024

10 hours ago, Triumphant said:

Kind of interesting to see what might have been, but never came to pass. I don't play the EPIC ATs, myself. Just too many moving parts for me. I didn't realize the EPIC tag referred to things like literary epics, though. Now I'm less annoyed by the powers in the EPIC pools not being as good as I might expect (given that I'm interpreting them through the lens of the "other" definition of epic).

*nod* It's ... had to be mentioned many times. It's also why I try to refer to the power pools that unlock at (now) 35 as "ancillary" and not "epic," because they use ... as I recall, kind of the D&D definition of "epic ability/level" there!

September 6, 2024

5 hours ago, Psyonico said:

TFs give rewards for those that do them, if people got the reward for only doing the last mission, there would be less incentive to form/join them at the start.

... see the Patron missions.

2 hours ago, kelika2 said:

a few would get lucky on the last mission

Hey, hey, now, this is a T-for-teen rated game... 😉

September 6, 2024

So we've all seen the question, "I want to get into RP, how do I start" by any number of new users - or just people who've played and want to try RP.

What about the mirror of that?

I have, in the past, co-led a fairly sizable RP SG. We had literal years of history - between SG RP and AEs with ongoing story lines, personal storylines that went back before and twined into the group... if I wrote a book on what we'd done and everything leading up to it, Tolkein would be going "... that's a bit much, isn't it?"

And I *know* this was an issue, because we had people join - or decide not to after a "get to know you" period - just telling me "it's just too much to try to wrap my head around."

Now, obviously some of this was some of them feeling they had to know *everything,* diving in headfirst to see the connections and such rather than gradually working in and getting a feel - but on the other, there was still a valid point there. We had a *lot* of history. The founding of the group itself tied into some of the leaders' backstories (as far as why some things were the way they were,) and those stretched *way* back. It would take a lot of time to get to know even just all the "relevant now" stuff, and that can be daunting (and that fish-out-of-water feeling isn't pleasant for some.)

As I'm looking at some of my - not even SGs, necessarily, but even just character groups - I think I'm getting there again.

So what do you do when your RP lore gets to that point?

I do have one group that's a generational successor (not "their kids," but just the next batch that inherited the mantle) of an old group. For them, it makes it somewhat easier as we introduce a few new people - it also doesn't hurt we only really meet once a week for SG stuff - to just have "well, this is a new chapter of this group's story" as a thing. We can point stuff out, "we have this because of the original group," and that's good - they don't have to know about this giant threat they dealt with, or those wacky interdimensional hijinks, or any of the years of other stuff the first group did. There's a dedicated cutoff point, and we have exactly one character who can act as a bridge between the two if needed (rarely is, other than a cameo of being checked up on.) But that's not really feasable for other groups.

So, if you've had a group like that, where if a new person wants to join and asks what the group's done, they're potentially facing the Library of the Legion's Lore... what have you done to make it less daunting and more welcoming?

September 6, 2024

My two cents?

I've played with AI a little. For image generation... blah. Just not fond of it. I've wanted to see what it would do with a character description and had it decide "purple hair" meant a purple superbikini outfit and get "hung up" on that to the point of extreme annoyance... that's without going into the whole "what it was trained on and who has rights to it" thing.

For writing - well, I write. I have ideas. Reading what AI comes up with is... obviously AI. Even the "good" ones seem to have an AI feel. HOWEVER, if you don't use it as a text generator, but an *idea* generator... well, I don't know if anyone ever used the "They fight crime!" website. It (or one of them) used to just take a list of words, slap them together into two... fairly unlikely "buddy cop" type partners and spit it out. Some friends and I used this to create a group, even. I don't remember what the full result was, but we had "He's a fast talking werewolf sorcerer with a robot buddy named Sparky, fleeing from a secret government program. She's a (something, it could spit out things like "a grizzled demonic fashionista with a taste for fast cars." I don't remember what the actual prompt was.) Together, they fight crime!"

... if anyone met Lucky Murphy, well, yeah. That's where he came from.

I'd say "Don't use AI to do the work," but if you want to use it to come up with prompts, be they for characters, just busting through writer's block, etc? For *that* I tend to see it as an evolved version of that same site. "I have a story about a fireball-weilding hero who must save someone, but cannot use his powers or innocents will be harmed. I need to introduce a group to assist him with this. Give me ten prompts of paragraph length with ways to approach this." Then pick and choose, facepalm, share for laughs...

September 5, 2024

Hmm. Thanks. I remembered the Primalist, but I wasn't sure that they'd be an Epic or if they were being looked at as a normal (or, from the last little section, possibly a "premium" or paid) AT. I'm not sure what they'd be tied into with lore. I'd love to find out just what they were planned as - "normal" (which, with that complexity, I doubt,) Epic (with what storyline? Inquiring minds want to know!) or Premium (got to get that money after all that work!)

For now, I'm going to edit and stick them in under "premium" unless/until there's more info.

When I read the term "hyper-advanced Clockwork," it read to me more like a description than "this is the name we're settled on." Can tweak that, certainly.

Thanks for the info!

And @Glacier Peak, given other things were mentioned as put off due to Goldside fatigue, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

September 4, 2024

10 minutes ago, Laucianna said:

As much as I love my Kheldian and the lore associated with it, I can not ignore the glaring issue that both the VEATs and HEATs are the lowest played toons in the game and that isn't getting onto the balancing issues 😄 It's cool to know what was planned but personally I am glad it stayed in the bibles and not becoming cannon in game ❤️

Which I suspect is part of why they were looking into the purchased ATs. Though it's completely up in the air as to if those would be exceptionally unbalanced or not. On the one hand, going by what we *have* and know was planned, there'd be fewer sets which would make it easier to balance than, say, a Controller (where Earth/FF, for instance, is safe but painfully slow, but Fire/Kin could be an effective farmer.) On the other... they'd want to put in some bang for the bucks. And I don't really like the way that tends to go in other games...

September 4, 2024

On 9/3/2024 at 12:20 PM, Rudra said:

Neither snipes nor assassin strikes have an interrupt time when they are used mid combat. Both have a quick version that gets used while you are already fighting. You only have the interrupt time if you are using them out of combat like sniping a distant foe to pull the spawn or drop like a Sapper before the fight with that spawn starts.

I think the confusion here is just the somewhat sloppy multiple game definitions of "combat."

We have mechanically "in combat / out of combat" that affects long and short versions of snipe and AS.

We have "I'm in a mission/my team is fighting" ... let's call it social or overall action definition of combat.

Scenario:

Melee prepares to engage mob of Malta. Blaster sees a Sapper - Blaster hasn't attacked anything, they're (mechanically) "out of combat" despite (socially - target picked, they're aiming at the sapper and starting the snipe) "in combat." Friendly buffer says "Missed you in the buff!" and hits blaster with buff. Buff interrupts (mechanically "out of combat") snipe that they were trying to use in (socially) combat to take out the sapper, snipe fails, END is taken anyway. (Or they hit the Stalker who was not being engaged or targeted, thus having the mechanically out-of-combat full AS while being socially in-combat while buffing the tank with an AOE buff.)

Short form reword of the OP? "Don't have friendly buffs interrupt long snipe or long AS, many buffs currently do and they cost the END and time already spent."

And I still want a "disable fast snipe" IO.

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