Greycat

Only works if you're named Grant.

Tested on a 21 Water/dark sent. Used a second build since I didn't want to redo my character, actually. After leveling up, did a respec - worked fine. However, that build has no enhancements, so if that's a factor it wouldn't have affected me.

Well, *this* one's going to be popular... 🙂 I'm predicting some mention of Serum in 85-90% of initial posts... Including mine, since it's one of the times I actually agree with general logic that it's "skippable." The idea of making it an AOE... ok, maybe. I like these for being security/paramilitary themed, they really fit some character concepts well. They're fairly straightforward, mostly ranged, you pretty much know what to expect. The T1s are one time I wish the "odd man out" had slotting of his own. If I want to slot so Medic's heal is enhanced, it's wasted on the other two T1 soldiers. (Unlike, say, slotting the T2 'bots for defense or end use, or the Thugs T1s, since they all do the same thing, essentially.) While we're on the medic - he's a medic. He knows his chemicals. Remove the frag grenade from him in favor of, say, toxic grenades, doing a debuff on the enemy and perhaps having a small chance to stun. Just a couple of thoughts.

*Debates waiting a month for this to fall from attention before replying. Seems appropriate to do necro a thread, right?* 🙂 OK, that aside... (1) Resist by theme - if you went with "typical zombie archetypes," you missed something. They'd generally be more vulnerable to fire... which is *already* a pain in the 18-26 area (when they're generally at the weakest) and you're hitting Demolitionists, Sky Raiders, and (always) Longbow (flamethrowers) / Arachnos (fire tarantulas.) Argument could be made for "they should be weak to lethal, then" for the "shoot them in the head" feel. (2) Why should necro get 5 pets with other ATs only getting 3 - whether they need help or not? Also, given our minions go down 1 level for every additional minion on their tier (thus the "minions at -2" when you have all four,) are you willing to have them drop farther? Seems fairly self defeating. Wouldn't argue with the AOE-on-death, though - they *are* dead, re-killing them should smell like it. Speed, so they get into range, could be a thing, though - "fast zombies" aren't unheard of. (3) Removing their ranged blast means they're utterly useless against fliers (and runners and other things they can't immediately reach.) While "preference" could be looked at and tweaked, which may help, removal would be more of a nerf. (4) Lich - ehhhh, I'm usually iffy about giving pets the ability to summon more pets (I don't think they do well with it,) but I don't really have anything against it. Probably fit it in with the last upgrade, I'd think. (5) I don't get the "counter prodctive" argument - the pet's dead anyway, you'd need to resummon and reupgrade, so this is simply one more click. It seems to last reasonably long on balance, depending on how you play and what you're fighting. That said, thematically I could see applying it to enemy mobs as well. As a warshade player as well though, I can tell you there are times that's decidedly *not* an advantage (invasions, for instance, where they have sped up the fade-defeated-enemies thing to reduce clutter, and of course certain classes of enemies that just vanish on defeat.) It wouldn't have the disadvantage (as much) that Warshades have with it, though, since you'd still have your *own* minions to use if they die.

Man, nobody remembers Fantasy Island. 🙂

Usually that sort of thing has the XP transferred to whatever summons them (Comm officers summon a portal - anything coming from that gives no XP, comm officers are boosted.) So that wouldn't really work. If this needs to be looked at here...

... I thought you wanted a back detail of a little guy in a suit pointing out airplanes.

Look, I was just giving you information on how to check this and other stuff out in the future. It's called "trying to help by telling you something you may not know."

There's a lot that could be done on the character select screen. AT, alignment, alphabetical, last on, more things to search by (like SG,) yeah...

... and? The information I gave you will still be valid when you're not.

I don't know about sliding down, but if you're right up against the war walls (most notably in the RWZ) you'll be able to run up them as you run past.

No. You can always check something like this yourself by clicking that "Combat Attributes" tab on your Powers window and watching whichever stat you're interested in that's affected by a buff. It will give sources, as well, unless you hide that.

I think they're thinking Mastermind primary, Illusion secondary - especially if taking Thugs.

I'm ... generally not a fan of VEATs. I like Epic (tied to a storyline) archetypes. Part of what I like about Kheldians are their storylines and that the world reacts to them, at least in the form of Quantums. VEATs... have a forgettable, if not somewhat insulting, storyline, and an annoying forced respec ("pick your path") at level 24. (I know. "I fought statesman/positron!" Yeah. Everyone does that. It's called the LRSF.) But other than those, they may as well be "just another archetype." I want the world to react to them. Now, it doesn't *really* make sense to have something Quantum-like for them. They're not aliens fighting a shadow war. They're Arachnos troops that have broken away from the rest to prove themselves, essentially. So how do we have the world react to them? 1. "Easiest" (I say, tempting the gods of COH spaghetti code.) Dialog. Villainside and in missions, have Arachnos troops see you as a traitor and say so (outside of the VEAT specific missions,) or otherwise at least remark on you being there. Same with mobs in general, indicating (as you go up in levels) that maybe there are bounties on your head. This isn't *adding* mobs or ambushes, just adding flavor that "You and your actions have been noticed." Heroside, NPCs and contacts can mention their opinions ranging from "I don't trust him/her" to "Brave to break away like that" and the like (with enemy mobs doing the same dialog as villainside.) 2 Specialized tip missions. Maybe you're being called out. Maybe you're being contacted by others who want to escape. Maybe you're being given chances to lay false trails or alter your information to make your life a little easier and throw any hunters another direction. These should be VEAT specific - especially once you pick your path, given the information about widows and banes learned later on. Path specific would be very interesting. 3. Open world. Sort of a specialized "tip." You get information you're getting hunted. Activate the tip and - *outside* of a mission - first some scouts, then extra mobs, ending with a boss/eb/AV if you want (and are high enough) come to put you down. If you're not in a legit area for these, they'll kick in when you zone. You need to watch out for and deal with them. Honestly I just want VEATs to feel like they have more of an impact on and ties *to* the world than regular ATs. They're supposed to be epic (story driven,) after all.

No, there are no "anti-blaster" mobs. Blasters are not tied to a storyline - they are not an epic class (see prior definition.) Blasters and the other "classic" ATs are blank palettes for the player to do what they want on. It's part of why some people complain that X mission (especially morality missions) "railroad" their characters and make assumptions about them. The game world doesn't particularly care they exist. And no, there are no anti-VEAT mobs, which is part of why I dislike them. There is absolutely nothing in the world that pays attention to them existing any more or less or for any reason other than "you entered my aggro radius." The storyline missions are bland and almost insulting. If anything, the VEATs are the one that need an overhaul in that respect. Even if it's just some custom *reactions* from Arachnos mobs - "Look, it's the traitor!" or something. Anything to feel like you have an *effect* on the world. As far as the guns showing up? There's no reason to take out an anti-tank weapon if there's no tank. Lore wise, the Quantum weapons are distributed to multiple groups (not all) as part of an overall attempt to cut them down. They *used* to have Void Mercenaries show up, as well. So, yes, they are actually fairly widely distributed - though the ones not given to the Void hunters aren't as high quality. This is explained fairly plainly in the Kheldian storylines. Last, saying they're there as a "screw" to Kheldian players? All that you need to do to counter them is *pay attention.* Yes, it means not rushing in and facerolling powers. As mentioned previously, they've already been watered down to be a shadow of their former selves. The only way to water them down further would be to give them nothing but brawl. Kheldians already have tools to deal with them, from Dwarf form to built in energy/negative energy resists, the ability as a Warshade to teleport them directly to you, stealths and intangibilities to shrug off an alpha, a PBAOE stun field, pets that attack (from range or just exploding,) holds and high damage attacks that also apply a hold - oh, yes, and knockback. They can't do a thing while they're flying away from you and having to get back up - while you can still attack. Yes, if you don't pay attention and get hit by multiples because you didn't check a side corridor or watch for an ambush, they can hurt. A minor challenge isn't a bad thing. Frankly, the game needs more challenges, not less. Ways to deal with Quantums: 1. Dwarf form. Whether you TP in or just charge in. Higher resists, mez protection. 2. (Warshade) Target Quantum. Have Inky Aspect, and/or Shadow Cloak running - the cloak for a bit of defense. TP foe, immediately hit Gravity Well. Result: Quantum in a stun field, hit with your hold which is also your largest Melee attack. Garnish, serve with a purple wine and olives. Even better with extracted essences ready. 3. (Warshade/PB) Charge into group. Eat alpha while in Nebulous Form (Warshade) or Quantum Flight (PB) - which put you intangible. Mire/Eclipse (warshade) and go to town. 4. (Peacebringers) Light form. Attack as desired. 5. (Peacebringers) I like to take stealth - either as a power pick, temp power (do patrols in the PVP zones, get them free) or IO - on my PBs. Target Q, build up, fly, hit F to follow, queue up Incandescent (or radial, early on) strike. You'll build up speed, fly past, hit the Q which should eithe rknock them back or put them in a hold, usually before they have a chance to fire. Even if they do stun you somehow, you'll float past, turn around and be ready to attack again. Finish off as desired. Just as a few examples. That's not even touching on what people do with IOs. No, Quantums do not need to be nerfed, reworked or removed.

If they bring it up? Find the noisiest, flashiest, most obnoxious toy you can and point them to that. Tell them you can either get their kids that for Christmas, or not...

100% melee support. Punch an enemy to do damage. Turn around, punch an ally to heal them, kick an enemy that gets too close, slap an ally to break them out of a mez. >.>

Way back when, I created a guide to the original COH trailer. The links don't work now (as I recall) and going through the wayback machine breaks the formatting, but here it is. Edit: Hmm. Wonder if I can copy paste and make it readable... ================================================================================================ Once in a while, questions pop up about the first COH video listed on the site. It shows quite a bit about the changes in the game - and naturally leads to questions about what's in the game, what's not, what changed and why. Out of boredom, I decided to write this guide up. The video is the first one rendered completely "in game" at the time, and is at low (640x480) resolution. When was this video made? This was pre-beta. If you look on the FTP site, it gives a date of 7/6/2005. Given there are *several* other movies (such as one on the Shadow Shard, which came well after) with that date... that isn't accurate. I don't have an exact date, only that this was much earlier. Bolded numbers are time references. 0 - 0.12 - Cryptic logo. Nothing special here. 0:13 to 00:24 - City render. Compare to how it looks now, with depth of field and other graphics updates. I really wish they'd do the "comic box" on cutscenes... 00:24 to 00:35 - Our first look at a hero, who apparently has Superjump and Flight, but nothing notable to me at this point other than that. 00:40 - Our first look at the costume and character creator. Notable - Across the top, it shows the steps, which are far different from what we have now. 1-Stats 2-Powers 3-Skills 4-History 5-Costume (highlighted) 6-Profile And "CFG" which I *assume* stands for Configure. Next notable item - right next to "Costume" on the main screen is what appears to be a cost of 20485. Some of this is slightly rearranged (for instance, instead of all being in one list, we currently have "Head," "Upper body," "Lower body," "Capes" (soon to be back detail) and "Auras." I'm assuming this was done to help clean up this screen a little - though the layout is much the same. Also notable is that "Eye detail" is being modified to "Lightning." This is the same hero shown at 0:25, apparently, with the lightning "crest" which this *might* be referring to. The animated background is interesting, too. The origins, at this point, were *much* different (more of them,) and had more of an impact on the game. My guess would be the background is related to the origin. For those who are curious, there were seven Origins. As Jack Emmett described in the dev diaries (linked at the end of the guide - worth reading ]As it flashes through other options, you can see some minor changes: 00:41 - boots, Geometry ("Big,") texture ("Banded 01") and Mask ("Lightning.") From what I'm seeing, "Mask" is simply "pattern." Also, bottom of the screen, "Save visuals." The blurred bit seems to be instructions to click for more INF... unsurprising in an early test version. 00:46 shows "Skin head 04." Yeah... I think we can guess why they renamed that. Mask of "Cheetah," which looks like "spots" to me. 00:46 - Powers This is the section that often gets a lot of comment, with "Electricity control," "Darkness control" What has to be remembered is that these were actually picking the equivalent of power pools, with very few powers involved, according to those who ran through this (alpha/early beta.) You can see an example on this early version of the website. The first hero shown, for instance, has "Air control," "Cold control," "Core powers" and "Fire control." I'd say he's very much what turned into a Controller. Yes, at this point there *were* no Archetypes. No blasters, tanks, scrappers, just people with origins and powers. This has been asked for over and over. So, why was it changed? Per an interview with Jack Emmett/Statesman, players weren't just being flexible. They were either building "tank-mages," overpowered characters that had no real challenge in the game, or gimping themselves into unplayability. (Say, they have Flight and Invulnerability. Which is fine... they can... fly and be invulnerable. They cant' fight anything, though.) So, despite wanting to get away from "classes," they ended up with Archetypes. The issue, simply put, is that some had come from a pen-and-paper RPG world and were designing an MMO. Exceptionally flexible creation is automatically (in theory) balanced in a PnP game by the Game Master, who runs things and adjust difficulty on the fly so that everyone, even Mr. Invulnerable Flier, can have a role and participate. That can't really be done in an MMO. Or from another perspective, a quote (Sword) : Where did some of these go? Some ("Earth control") are obvious in what they inspired. Others... Super Stamina - hmm... Super Intelligence: Found a quote, of course Super Willpower, Super Personality - not knowing *what* they did, I'd hazard a guess at some. The idea of Personality *might* have morphed into the Presence pool (taunts and fears.) Of course, they also seemed to have a "Fame" statistic (those of you who want to lose XP vs going into debt....) Darkness control - from board comments previously, sounds like Dark Miasma. Density Control - a search actually got an explanation of this from Tal_N: Life Drain - several powers have this component. Warshades and Dark scrappers touch on this. Light control - No telling. Possibly Illusion ("Blind.") Paralysis - sounds like a generic Hold. Plant Control - well, we now have a Dominator set with this. Poison - again, we have a Mastermind set with this. I have to say again, these weren't powersets, but powers... at best, from what I've been seeing prior, power pools. When I'm saying "This turned into this," we're looking at inspiration or themes for sets. Shape Shifting - Again, not knowing what it did... Sonic control - finally made it into the game as a set, giving people headaches. Super Vision - sounds like part of Leadership (Tactics,) giving +perception now. What it did then... unknown to me. 00:50 - A group of heroes heading out. Things to note at 00:51 = - The chat interface. Rough around the edges, but, it is alpha. "Targetting Body" (upper left.) Yes, targettign specific areas, to a point. "Gest," I'm assuming means gesture. With what *appears* to me to be chat choices beneath it, if I'm seeing SG and TM ("Team?") in the bottom two. Next to it,t he power window - text feedback saying he's "using power punch." There's no enemy bars above their heads with HP and END. I'm *assuming* the bar above the power bar shows enemy health. (These look like Hellions.) Boxes to the right... I'd love feedback on. Is the slider a choice between "Attack" and "Style" (IE more effective, but straightforward, or more flashy but less powerful?) Same with the buttons. In the upper right - three bars. i'm *guessing* these were Health, End, and XP. (so these are very low level...) 00:55 - Enemy groups. This is the other thing that brings up discussion. Some of the names are familiar, some... not so much. Listed: Circle of Thorns Seraphim The Lost Revelation (from the font, I'd assume a tech/space/future group) The Rikti Twilight Men - we know them as Malta Nemesis Fifth Column Freakshow Killing Crew - a search found this: Crey Industries Devouring Earth Fear Factor (Also for completeness, though not seen in the clip - "Soul scavengers" turned into the Carnies. (Found under Doc_LotD.) Heroside groups changed, too. At high levels you got to the Freedom Phalanx, Dawn Patrol, Midnight Society, etc. for missions of the Elder Game. (Groups that didn't make it in, or were altered: Explorers, Free Company and D.E.N.A. - Dept. of Extra Normal Affairs. Easy to see what happened there.) (The_Spy_Is_Dead) ) 00:59 - back to our heroes (and some eye popping colors.) 1:03 - Panning around the city, we seem to have a "fisheye" effect... given they say this was rendered in game, I'm really glad to not see this, even at 640x480. 1:06 - The Flip. Hero flips off a building into flight. Perhaps that "Style" slider 1:10 - A peek at the Fifth Column uniforms, if you haven't seen them, as they're given a good beatdown. 1:12 - A few other interesting things. You can *somewhat* see a targeting icon at the hero's head (apparently aiming for the crotch - what is it with crotches and this game?) Alternately, it could be something for the Alpha dealing with character cameras, as it's the character's eye level. Also, what is she fighting? My *first* instinct is that it's what turned into a Vahzilok Eidolon. 1:21 - COH logo after some fights vs Fifth Column, and fade to black (six seconds of it...) - MissInformed. That quote is from this thread, if you're interested. A link worth going to: theCity of Heroes Design Diaries (Edit - go to one of the other diary links, or use this one. For some reason, the link to all of them is borked, but they're all linked at the bottom, too) at IGN. If you want to see what's going on, or what *went* on, during design, why certain things were done one way or another, why things were scrapped - this is very interesting reading. It's almost easier to go to Diary #9 first - which is short, and "is it ready" in summary. The reason to go there first is that at the bottom, all the development and design diaries - including the (often rambling) ones from the original lead designer - are at the bottom. If you want to see the evolution of a game from "we'd really like" and "this would be fun" to "this doesn't work, we have to change," go read them. ======================================================================================= The original video was on ftp.coh.com and I don't think that link's recoverable. (Edit - No! It's actually archived - just not on the internet archive. Found a link that has it for download... and it works.... ) Trying to find links to the dev diaries on wayback. Sadly I apparently used tinyurl on them. (Ooh. I can probably finagle them from this one - devi diary #4: http://web.archive.org/web/20090415070740/http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/366/366748p1.html) Some other links from the recovered thread: Early discussion about COH tech, OCT 5 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20011005102755/http://www.cityofheroes.com/tech.htm First completed listing of each origin type, dec 7 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20021207210910/http://www.cityofheroes.com/heroes.htm (And I suspect this bit of design still lingers on in the current game as being why origin is so "baked in" to an AT that it's one of the four things we can't change.) Some of the other comments in the archived guide are worth reading, too...

Yeah, Ghost Falcon is a fun "Just want to kill Rikti" mission for me. And Holsten Armitage is nice if you happen to hit 30 and have forgotten to get your Ouro portal. Plus, more Rikti.

IKR

I've got to admit, while I'll use them occasionally, I've found them to get in the way quite often. I don't recall which system it was - I think it was Skype, since I think it was at work at one point, but it may have been elsewhere, but I'd try to give people steps to do something like (A) go here, (B) do this, (c) look for this, and get an apple, a mug of beer, that sort of thing. Not what I'd be looking for. (Hell, I had a coworker accidentally send our boss a middle-finger-up emoji because it was tiny enough on the screen he thought it was something else.) And yeah, the emoji spam thing is ... annoying. Besides, the way COH's coding is, trying to show a smiley face in text would probably suddenly delete your enhancements, kick you out of your supergroup, delete the next three alts, slap your dog and eat the fridge emptier than a horde of teenagers could.

Is your suggestion to move to suggestions a suggestion?

Well, I'd throw some caveats into that "any new laptop." Chromebooks, for instance - forget it. (They're usually plainly labeled as Chromebooks, though. Typically from $100-600.) And I don't know right now if the new Apple M1 chip powered systems can - I'd *assume* through Rosetta II they can (built in, generally transparent,) but... well, new, so expect new and interesting bugs. 🙂 Quick search on Amazon for "Gaming laptop" with a range of $500-1000 brought up these three (one of which is *slightly* over) : Link I'm not sure why the MSI Modern is in there as a "gaming laptop," right offhand, since it looks more like one of the light, portable professional things. The Pavilion has a dedicated graphics card which will work fine for COH. Processor is fine, memory's fine and upgradeable, SSD should be, and it squeaks in under your budget. I'd probably look around for a few reviews (not on Amazon as well) and consider what else you want to run. Honestly this comes close to the specs of my Acer from... 2? years or so ago, newer processor than mine, but otherwise it's been fairly solid.

So, one of the more... useless things, honestly, since live has been the supergroup search window. It is: Small Fixed in size other than height. Not that helpful to search in. Not a source of particularly useful information. It has a "Top 100 supergroups" button which... doesn't tell how they're the top, and doesn't really give any information. It used to go by prestige (as I recall,) but right now if you hit it everyone shows 0, since prestige isn't a thing now. IF the group has put in a description, you can hover over it to read it, but not all groups have that or have useful info in it. Also, the "Search" (by name) limits what you can put in. Yes, it'll match anything with what you put in it, but it's still tiny. This window *really* needs a revamp to be useful. Hand in hand with it would be "Revamp the SG description window." What I'd like to see done to it: 1. Let it be resized. You can resize the columns, but not most of the window itself. And with more information, you'll want this to be resized. 2. Get rid of the prestige column. It has no use. 3. Give it room for more information! Name and description are great, sure. But it doesn't really help, if there's nothing in the description. Give the SG description window more options to show up here: Public/private Tags - RP, casual, PVP, closed/accepting invitations Hero/villain specific (if the SG wants to be described that way.) Or "mixed membership." The leader's name! (Barring this, a "Send SG message" button if the leadership doesn't want their name showing, in case someone wants/needs to contact them.) Perhaps a "Number of members / number of unique globals" and/or "last active member on" type option. (This would help sort out "me and all my alts" groups for those looking for active SGs, for instance.) All of these, of course, are optional for the SG, or would have defaults that can obviously be shut off. For instance, from blueside I can search and find my redside "give my alts a home" group. (Yes, I *know* I can throw them all in one SG.) There's: - No indication the group exists - I'd have to know the name or be lucky on a search to find it. - No indication that it's redside focused. - No indication it's private. - No way to reach the "leader" of that group, by character or by global. - No indication on just how active it is. So if someone happens to find that name, they have no idea if they'd want to join, what it's about, if they'd fit at all - anything. They can ask in Help, yell in broadcast, or come and look to see if I've posted anything about it on the forum (if they know where to look.) End result would be going from something like this: Name Prestige Description SG OF People 0 People persons 0 We do stuff! To something like, oh: Name Alignment Tags Accepting New members Public/Private Unique Globals Leader Description SG of People Villain RP, Alts N Private 1 Send Message People Persons Any RP, PVP, Events Y Public 42 @Leader Person Hey! We're open and always active to PVP, RP, farm. Daily TFs. Just don't be a jerk and you'll fit right in! Base code Whoopee-123456. A bit more useful, hmm? Obviously this information doesn't have to be *these* categories, but something more useful would be *very* nice.

I think we'd have to be able to sit properly on things... but sure 🙂 (Though I'd rather sit and have it on a desk... but again, it'd have to be aware of where you are, where what you're sitting on is, and where the desk is, or it'd look odd... as so many do.)