Greycat

Another "been playing with Symphonic" thing. Like Mind and Illusion, Symphonic gets a single target confuse early on. Unlike them, it has a damage component. The issue with this is that it notifies the enemy they're being attacked - which means that, unlike the other two ST confuses, the target (A) will aggro on you, (B) can well get off a buff or summon before the confuse takes effect, and (C) continued application of the confuse can kill the target. I get Seeds of Confusion doing a notify - it's kind of crazy having a fast AOE confuse that early, so the aggro on target gives at least some sort of balance to consider - but Serenade isn't unusually early or strong, and is only single target. The notification, damage and DOT make it less useful than the other single target confuses, with no real upside to balance it. I use confuses quite a bit - grabbing something that does a heal or a buff, turning what could be a problem (say, early on, Spectral Demon Lords having a -tohit aura) into a help for myself or my team, etc. The damage letting them get notified and get these things off early just isn't a good tradeoff, to me.

Playing with Symphony control just reminds me... again. It would be a *lot* of work - I'm aware of it, and aware it involves UI work (which is apparently a PITA,) on top of creating or finding sounds without license issues, but... dear lord, I'd like to be able to customize sounds (in a way that actually affects my character in game, versus a mod.) Symphony's sounds are at least a *little* more consistent - one of the issues with Sonic Blast, for me, is the whole "Hey! I'm a werewolf! I'm an electronic thing! I'm... I don't know what I am but I make a weird noise!" In my *ideal* world, and I'm just going with Sonic and Symphony here (proliferation as needed later) we'd have a Sound Customization that goes with power customization. We'd have options to mix and match with a selection like: - Original - Silent (less for sonic, more for options for armors and such that people complain about.) - Male Low - Male Mid - Male High - Female Low - Female Mid - Female High - Electronic - "Weird" or "Alien" (or whatever other name, I don't really like "alien" TBH, but this is for unusual effects.) Note I'm using "low/mid/high" because not everyone knows the relationship of bass, soprano, tenor, etc. and this is perhaps more clear. And yes, of course they could be mixed per-power. Why not use a mod? Well, that's doable, yes, BUT - (A) it doesn't customize per character (if I make two Symphony characters, they're going to sound the same whether that makes sense for them both or not) and (B) as I understand it the mod is going to affect anything that calls a specific sound, which may have unwanted side effects. Do I expect this to happen? ... Not really. Not in the next 5 years, without some new tools, more devs and resources, etc. As mentioned, this would likely be a lot of work. But, well... this forum's a wishlist, pretty much, so there you go.

Heh. Mentioned those in the other one. Yeah. I've built fences/walls/etc. and then noticed they were a *little* off (which might be a base shift) ... and then had to move them one by one, which is irksome.

I put something about *most* of the descriptions for the powers over in the "Report typo here" thread. Most of those descriptions needed an editorial pass, *badly.*

Edit - Moved original response to the other poll, where more appropriate. But yeah. I'd love smaller letters - give me a medium, small and tiny for things like door numbers, addresses and the like that don't have to be giant.

So, symphonic control's descriptions need an editorial review, I guess. Description of Aria of Stasis: " Your audience they take psionic damage and is rooted in place by Aria of Stasis. Stronger foes might still be able to move, but will do so at a reduced speed." Er... unless we're-a Mario, something like "Your audience is rooted in place and takes Psionic damage" would work better. Hymn of dissonance: " Hymn of Dissonance causes pain on its listener, the pain can be disruptive enough to hold them in place. Stronger foes might persist, but will still attack at a reduced speed." Again... Weird structure. Try - "Hymn of Dissonance causes pain in its listener that can be disruptive enough to hold them in place." Melodic binding: " Melodic Binding immobilizes your target in place and inflict psionic damage. Stronger foes might still be able to move, but will do so at a reduced speed. This power also applies a mag 1 stun that will make the target more vulnerable to stuns." Inflicts psionic damage. Also that last sentence can probably end at the "applies mag 1 stun." Impassioned Serenade: You serenade your target with an impassioned song, charming them into fighting for you. Note: this power inflict dot for up to 30 seconds as long as the target is confused. Should be this power inflicts, DOT should probably either be capitalized or expanded into Damage over Time, and "Up to 30 seconds as long as the target is confused" is, itself, confusing. Possibly "Up to 30 seconds or as long as the target is confused?" Enfeebling Lullaby is ... ok...ish. " A song that will put even elephants to sleep. Enfeebling Lullaby will relax foes, causing them to sleep and their attacks will do reduced damage for some time." The elephants sentence is weird. Flavor text, sure, but the flavor is ketchup lutefisk mint ice cream. The second sentence could be improved. Say: "Enfeebling Lullaby will put foes to sleep. Even if awakened, their attacks will do reduced damage for some time." Confounding Chant: Confounding Chant will disorient anyone that hear it, while dealing psionic damage over time. Note: this power will only inflict damage for a longer window as long as the target is stunned. Should be "anyone that hearS it. " The comma is probably unneeded. The second sentence is, again, weirdly structured. I'm not sure "note" is needed. "This power will only inflict damage as long as the target is stunned" would make more sense. Reverberant: You summon an entity capable of repeating your songs a short while after you have executed them. This entity will be mostly passive and only repeat slightly weaker versions of your songs only after you have executed them. Type ''/release_pets'' in the chat window to release all your pets. Not sure the /release_pets thing is needed. Also, both the phrase "after you have executed them" and the duplication *of* that phrase are awkward. That could probably be cut completely.

Any big "what happened" change after a patch - Read the patch notes. Apparently the AE building in Atlas (and I guess Mercy, for the two people playing redside) was causing hordes of people to be utterly unable to navigate out of a paper bag.

Well, only the warning system is in right now, nobody's snagging anything.

.... er... Water and ice put out the fires just fine, yes.

Meteor would like to have a word.

I: (A) don't care about the accolade, (B) *do* just play them as they come up and people want to, so if I get the accolade, yay - and also am an atheist so have nowhere to burn, thanks, and (C) RP, so I spend the entire time BSing with friends and mocking the bad guys in character.

If there were some overarching endurance issue that can't be fixed by player education, maybe - but I've got to agree, to me they seem fine as is. (Edit: for clarification, I know Biostem's been around and knows how things work, so the player education isn't directed at him.)

History plaques for what, specifically? (Not against it, I rather like finding them, but there has to be some sort of lore bit tied to them. Then again, I'd be a smarta** and put one at the opening DFB with a randomly chosen date and "On this date, we reached 250,000 heroes slimed in the sewers!" or something similar.)

I've played this since issue 3. RP and my own cooperative worldbuilding with my friends - IE, our backstories and continuing stories - are what keep me going here instead of "let's watch Flight Simulator download another three hours again."

It doesn't. The slots unlock, but you get no effect until you do *something* with them. As far as the OP, lore and whatnot - Game-wise, I can't help but see the system (given when it was put in and how it was handled) as a "Grind to make people subscribe instead of play free" hook. Obviously not true now, but it has several remnants of that that could potentially be cleaned up (get rid of shards, we already earn Physical, Psychic, advanced, etc. IXP at the same rate now instead of having to do specific tasks for each, etc.) Lore-wise, frankly, I hate the "The well is granting you power!" thing. Back before incarnates, the Well was this vague "thing" that, as I recall, just captured and eventually released (paraphrased) the "potential" of mankind. Which was fine, it allowed "ages" of heroes and not, and still left quite a bit in your hands. These days, I pretty much ignore the lore for my characters - my electric-based characters, for instance, don't need the well to tell them how to keep doing what they're doing. Mechanically they get a little stronger at what they're doing. *shrugs* My biggest decision tends to be what lore pets to go and get, in terms of what fits the character. Gamewise, I think they're a bit OP in standart content and could be toned down, but not necessarily taken away (don't have Judgement outshine a Blaster nuke, for instance.) Keep the full Incarnate power for Incarnate content - and yeah, get more Incarnate content... but not that godawful Batallion nonsense.

Hmm. I'd say "RP and everything around it," for one. It's what I'm mostly doing. Even running MSRs, which ... for reward, sure, and the occasional hami, if it weren't for the BSing with everyone there, I wouldn't go. Specific content wise? Much of what's in the 20-mid30 range. Keith Nance/Jenny Adair, Croatoa, Striga. Croatoa has some nice self challenges (keep up the 0 fir bolg escapes, for instance.) (Also why I'll PL VEATs, for instance, to the mid 20s or so. That forced respec at 24 feels like I've wasted 24 levels of play, no matter what I do during them, and given I don't care for the VEAT arcs either - I'll just skip to that.)

Yes. We'd be closer to Romulus then, than he would be to the start of Egyptian civilization. As it is, the Path of the Dark (also nictus related) existed before Romulus. From the Path of the Dark bit on the HCWiki, Imperious sent Romulous with a contingent of men to investigate "dark ones" in some caves. Romulous joins with a nictus, kills the rest of the team, and attempts a coup. (Of course, we fight romulus after he gets Nicticized in the ITF... so the only way that makes sense is if he "joines" - as in allies - with the Nictus, and then is merged later. Which does somewhat fit the dialog, as he sees the Nictus that zaps him as a superior.) If I'm recalling the lore AMA correctly, Shadowstar was a Nictus when she arrived and came around to being what we'd consider a Warshade while on Earth.

Shadowstar's probably the most clear cut. I don't recall if Prometheus was mortal before or not...

It was well before shutdown. They wholesale replaced some powers in beta for ... whichever issue. Final result after *extremely* negative player feedback was having five powers in the pool instead of four. I agree.

Top of Posi's head. Redside, well... look for the feathers.

Now, that I could see. it wouldn't disrupt the fact you're being called in to *find* the bomb/computer/mutant cat-alien diplomat mage... of course, it depends on the tech working, as mentioned. 😉

Call it PLAEPVP and see who comes closest to being able to pronounce it.

... because knowing where they go ahead of time fits that mission (you *know* where you're going to plant them,) versus "you have to find X before it explodes/loads a virus/puts more pineapple on pizza?" Besides, the whole "Show last objective/enemy" thing is still flaky and would probably need to be fixed first.

Would it, though? That kind of leans on the "AE farming is for PLing," versus farming for drops/inf/etc. that happen to open the door so others can get XP at the same time. Besides, most of the time I end up on a farm, it's a friend/sgmate/etc. who happens to be running one anyway at the time and it's an excuse to BS. The XP is a side benefit. (Same holds true for doing missions, for that matter.) Granted, I'm *hardly* new to the game, so...

Yeah. I don't know if there's something wonky in the UI that prevents it, but it'd be nice to be able to adjust that splitter.