Greycat

Jack's Jack Emmert, one of the original developers. Statesman? His character. He's one of the ones who left and... carried? Recreated? Cryptic, who made Champions ONline and STO. You'll see a topic about his latest move... two topics down from this as I'm posting. (Going to DCUO.) There's history. I'll just leave it at that.

I think the "Costume UI" change I'd like most is a "Propagate power change to all costumes" button. Just so you don't *have* to go to each costume to, say, set a travel power to minimal FX.

Heh. I'm worse with WW1 aircraft in Rise of Flight. Little too hamfisted to keep them from spinning or stalling out. FUn to try though.

It's not origin. Just doing a quick runthrough, I checked two Natural origin characters. One had Croquette in Talos, Rogers in Steel. The other had Basins in Talos and Martins in Steel. Which makes sense - you wouldn't want to burn out someone with the *same* contacts and arcs in the *same* zones just because someone really likes a specific origin. Honestly, it could be as oddly based as your name color in chat (which as I recall was determined based on character name in some fashion.)

That *still* doesn't strike me as problematic. Plus, don't forget, I was taking the *largest* files I could find, including power customization (which is actually larger, and I doubt looks anything like what we see when it's actually in the database, even *before* considering compressing anything.) I mean, looking at the file, I see" PowerCustomization { PowerName Incarnate.Hybrid.Support_Genome_4 Power 3207861323776 Color1 97, 97, 49, 255 Color2 76, 255, 253, 255 } ... for over 3600 lines. Plus space - which with all that takes room, yeah. I really doubt the database has all that spelled out for every character (we're exporting it, after all, so *we* can read it.) The same would go with costume files - a lot of things getting exported into a file we can read that I rather doubt the game cares about or stores in the same way. Then again, you don't have to look hard to run into COH code horror stories. I fully acknowledge I could be way off and *these* are stored in an Excel 97 spreadsheet 🙂 Even so. Storage isn't exactly dear these days. Not at the sizes either of us are talking about. And yes, I know, "it'll affect performance if it's larger." True. But did we notice when we went up to 10 costumes per character? Was there a performance hit when we went from 8 characters per server to 12, to 36? Or the 1000 we have now? People do use them. Or when we added power customization? I'm just not sold on the idea it would have any real size or performance impact to worry about. Technical difficulties in adding to the UI? Sure. I'd almost expect that. But that's about it.

See, here's the thing. That change was made so, basically, *the rest of the team had something to do.* I remember the whole "sit around, wait for the tank to herd the map back, figure out whose turn it is to nuke, go to the next map." It was *boring.* It was not good for the health of the game, frankly. If that hadn't changed, I don't think I'd have had any reason to stick around for all this time. There'd be no reason for it to be a MMO - your choice would be solo, or sit and be bored if a tank's around. And, honestly, the argument that the tank can't *control* the aggro past 17 is... false. Look, if you're playing +4x8, you're not playing "the normal game." Yes, the setting's in the game, yes, IOs and incarnates can make it trivial to survive that. But as a baseline, if you're dealing with x8, the game's assumption is that... you have 7 people with you. Even if we're not looking at multiple tanks, the rest of the team - unless they're doorsitting in AE - *can* take care of themselves. The stuff you're not controlling? is *being* controlled by the controller - maybe they're confused, maybe they're held, maybe they're flopping around on the ground from an ice slick or earthquake. Or they're getting killed by the blaster, most of whom have multiple AOEs to use. Or they're dealing with MM pets, or fighting the other melee ATs (who also have taunts and gather aggro via their own powersets.) And since you bring up judgement? You aggro a x8 group. You hit judgement. How many are left? A few LTs and bosses that are well within your aggro cap. Another group goes by? Attack. Taunt. As the group you're fighting dies, other enemies come in. Besides, it sounds like the definition of "control" of aggro here is ... limited. Most tanks have taunt, an aura that taunts, and some other form of AOE, at least. Ice? Icicles grabs their attention, the... cold aura I'm forgetting the name of keeps them from doing much even if you *don't* have their attention, and then you have whatever's in your secondary. And while you're doing that - unless you're PLing some doorsitters - your team's killing things off. Yes, you suggest a gradual increase in the cap as you level - but, to be honest, you're effectively *already* doing that as a tank (or brute) as you get more of your primary and secondary abilities. They let you juggle and control aggro without you having to do much. And yes, shortly after 50, again, you're judgementing and reducing the size of the crowds you're aggroing pretty quickly and effectively even *ignoring* your teammates' contributions anyay. So, in short, even as someone who plays tanks, has played tanks, and will play tanks... I'm just not sold on the need for an increase in the aggro cap, and my experience with it pre-reduction doesn't really incline me favorably towards it either.

DCS freed some money from my wallet with recent sales. Finally got that F-5. Now to actually be able to *get* a good flight sim setup (no real room for it in my current situation. Just couldn't let the sale pass.)

Nice of you to bring it up. As far as people expressing their opinions, well. Public (ish) board, and with a game with a link to COH (Cryptic being the developer) that will get people talking, so... just kind of expect it to show up here.

A few thoughts, there. First, "Holy" doesn't necessarily mean "Good." It just means it's dedicated to a deity or religion. A priest of Frank the God of Room Clearing Flatulence would have "holy" powers... just not necessarily good-aligned ones. 🙂 Second, we had this same argument with power proliferation, especially when it came to some mastermind sets and stalkers in general. "How can a hero use zombies, they're evil!" was fairly popular (and incorrect.) (Of course, given we'd always had heroes blasting fire at people, using Burn, attacking them with swords - and really, you can't expect to wield supreme executive power because some watery tart threw a sword at you... wait, wrong argument.) As far as the OP, worked on or not, I'd have to think wind control would just be... broken. 😉

I... honestly kind of doubt that. The files (plain text and editable) that we can see, per costume, aren't that large, and if they're stuck in a database I'd be fairly sure they're more compressed than what's exported for us to see. Going through costume files, old and new, the largest I see is 10 kb. Most are 7-8. Power customization files are larger - I'm seeing from 4 - 64kb. So even if we're assuming the largest there, uncompressed, at 74 kb (not Mb, not Gb) that's 740 kb currently for ten slots. 1480 if we doubled it to twenty - just over 1 Mb, uncompressed as plain text. And that's assuming every slot and all the powers are customized to that extent. How many people customize powers on all characters on every costume? Most, I'd wager, are using the default (so, no real "power customization" entry needed, just look to the default" or are using a minimal FX for a few, or have one customization they use across them all (which, most likely, referenced separately, because why copy that over repeatedly?) Yes, the database would get bigger. No, I don't honestly believe it would be any size to cause any real concerns.

People are going to do this regardless. Complain about powersets, tell people "everyone takes X" even if everyone doesn't, etc. Short of getting rid of people, you're not going to stop this. Granted, getting rid of "people" is tempting at times - let the meerkats rule the world now, they can't do worse - but not really feasable. (Amusingly and off topic, my spell checker wants to change that to marketeers... )

I'll either correct it, or test it (if possible) and (if then necessary) correct it. If I don't know, I either leave it or - if I'm "mostly" sure it works differently, will chime in, but make it clear that "I thought it did this, actually...can we doublecheck?"

Oh, now you've doomed yourself 😄 There are horror stories from those who have tried to untangle the spaghetti mountain of COH code. From the sounds of it, changing things to get more slots would probably... I don't know... make all Controller powers suddenly taunt every enemy on the map and drop team damage into the negatives or something. When they added the server slot (for things like the Lambda trial temp powers, etc?) In beta it completely broke Dominators and Kheldian forms. That said, yes, I'd love more slots. And more flexibility with existing slots, like not having to take two slots for a helmet/hat on and off option, for instance.

<snip for brevity> Yes. Many things changed. Among the things that changed: - More content, as mentioned. - Sidekicking changes. (Say it with me. "You are getting too far from your mentor. Your mentor is too far away! You are back in range of your mentor. You are getting too far from your mentor. Your mentor is too far away!" ... I can't help it, I'm superjumping just at the edge of mentor range!) - No debt under L10. - Half debt in missions. - Debt cap changes. - Patrol XP Among other things. I mean, we KNOW it sped up well before shutdown on live. We've had the "Disable XP" option for a *long* time specifically because of it. And yeah. When my first 50 was an elec/elec blaster back in i3? I *really* got to hate debt in the 30s specifically because of that content gap in the 35-40 range. I think I ran out early in level 38.

At least on a limited basis. Right now they're a joke. I just finished the final Kheldian arc early this morning (or was it last night... I don't know, I couldn't see my watch, it was dark.) In it, you're told Arakhn and Requiem - with their plan on taking over the Council from the Center in ruins - are desperate, and bringing something dangerous. What are those dangerous things? Cysts. These crystalline structures, which can maintain a Nictus without a host, which allow almost instantaneous travel across interstellar distance, are a threat, and are being positioned to begin a Nictus takeover. They're built up to be a major threat - appropriate for the final act in an epic storyline you've played from 1-50. And when you finally get there and face these? Place attack on auto. Sit and wait. Nothing is summoned, nothing happens unless you're too close (and even then, you - as a Kheldian - have energy/negative energy resists. You get knocked back a bit.) This is a major threat? My rent is more threatening than this. Yes, along the way you fight (in different missions) Nosferatu, Requiem and Arakhn, but the Cysts, for such a big buildup of what they are in lore are as threatening as pottery. At least the ones in the ITF have Nictus around them, even if they don't spawn anything themselves. They at least *look* like they did their job. Let the Cysts spawn Unbound Nictus again. (This also would have the side effect of giving a Warshade something to feed its Mire and Eclipse from.) At the very least, in that arc. Otherwise, they're pretty much nothing but a letdown.

Red Caps actually do have high level versions. They need to due to the holiday stuff with Snaptooth. You will occasionally see a level 50 Red Cap group in Croatoa - at least I did on live. Not sure if that spawning got fixed. Some groups are "segmented" - either through the entire 1-50 run (COT, Council) or with gaps (Tsoo disappear by 30, then show up in Incarnate variants, as do Banished Pantheon.) And there are quite a few more without high end, level 50 critters. The *rest* of the Croatoa critters (Cabal, ghosts, Fir Bolg and Tuatha don't - the holiday GMs are levelless, and the ghosts they summon are a different group.) Red Hands don't show up. Trolls, Destroyers (goldside Troll analogs, think that's the name,) ghouls/experiments, spetznatz (though they barely appear,) I don't *believe* the neoshivans do (and the shivans are ... one mission? so they can get added to the "with a gap" group,) - and a lot of groups are sort of "barely" there at 50, used for one mission or one arc (you don't *really* see high end Shivans, to my recollection - I half recall the mission from Ouro exemping you, as it is, but might be wrong.) It would still be a lot of work, yes.

I couldn't say what builds, but yeah, I've done it in the past. Some sets have skippable things, some are just chock full of goodies. (And some are situational - I often run dual builds, especially on support characters. Group build, lots of the primary/secondary, solo build, possibly as few as 3-4 powers out of it.)

Absolutely.

Welcome. Much of this is already done, as has been mentioned. YOu get merits for the various Atlas and Mercy arcs, as well as badges, merits (not many, as they're short arcs, but that's consistent) and even badges for getting everything in a zone done. And the stat boost - at least through 20, when you're pretty set with your own powers - is done through DFB. (Itself probably part of the issue you're describing - it gives those boosts, plus early level SOs.) What would be needed is more variety. Redside doesn't have another starter zone. Blueside lost one. Blueside, at least, you get some variety (hollows/kr, sky/steel/faultline, talos/ip, focusing on different groups and such.) When you've made a bunch of alts... well. (I do still tend to play through some of it, granted.) Part of the other reason people skip, though, isn't just what some people mention with "wanting to feel powerful," there's also" wanting to feel effective." Masterminds leap to mind for me here, especially in the 18-mid-20s range. You have three -2 minions, two -1s, no top tier and no second buff. They die *fast* (especially with all the AOE introduced - looking at you, Demolitionists.) It was just an annoying range, so I get people wanting to skip that as much as they can. And no, not everyone chases accolades and buffs. 🙂

It's the american medical system. Of *course* you have debt after being in a hospital. 🙂 (Serious answer, if you're not 100% sure if it's patrol XP or debt, hover your mouse over your XP bar - not the circle. It will report XP, patrol XP and debt.)

>.> NO idea what that's like. Nope. Ooh, sale... (I will say the PC+ membership has more than paid for itself.)

Back on live - when I was trying to make that bots/ff work and it was pretty well driving me away from MMs as a whole - this was me. I went to the MM forum, pretty much described what was going on and said "So, is there a set I'll actually enjoy or is this class just not going to mesh with me?" After a little discussion, they suggested a thugs/poison (since, really, I wanted to be busy, not a spectator) and that was a *fun* (and pretty fast) ride to 50. So, yeah. It might be the sets. Or it might just be the AT not clicking with you. Nothing wrong with either one of those.

You've described... pretty much what I mean when I've said, in the past, that I find the "nothing can touch me" builds boring. For me, they're like cheat codes (disclaimer before anyone misreads that: no, I am not saying people using high end IO builds are in any way cheating.) Might be fun for a bit, but after a while it takes something vital away from the game and I just can't enjoy it. I may not go with "gimmicky" (or what would probably be labeled "self defeating") but I pick up what seems interesting, play through and just try to be mellow about it. Haven't had to post looking for help with something ... pretty much ever, though if something unique spawns or I'm running something with a badge (or I see something GM-ish to be defeated,) I'll mention it.

Flip side being, if I'm going to do a lot of damage but the self-damage has to stay, I'm all *for* it. I like making choices like that, if it's worth it.

I think my favorite is from Dual Blades. *Stab* "Got your kidneys!" *slice*