biostem

I get a good chuckle out of how folks often seem to follow instructions on leagues better than on single 8-person teams...

That's actually a very interesting approach! I could even see throwing in some of the spines animations as a sort of "offensive burst" attack afflicted upon your enemies...

I think it's in Night Ward, where there are some animated armor NPCs that have a sort of hood/wrap on their heads... Those would be some awesome pieces, if made available to us!

Frankly, it boils down to the players; I've run many PI Council radio teams, and there have been times when a few people left, and the team actually performed better, (missions run at 8-person regardless). There have also been times when I've been on a team of 4-5 people, and with just another team member, things really picked up. I don't think there's any hard-and-fast rule...

I would like to see some of the costume options expanded like how Champions Online does it, (not saying I want to emulate their graphical style, only the options available). For instance, different materials for all pieces, (matte, glossy, metallic, etc). I'd also love to see upper arm, forearm, and gloves broken into their own categories. I'd also love to see hair that flowed and moved.

It could just be my imagination, but the -threat in stealth seems to help my squishies avoid some enemy attention, even if I'm in combat.

I was thinking a generic energy ball, but more options are always welcome!

Simple request - could we get a generic energy ball/bolt option for Arcane Bolt - keep the animation exactly the same, but instead of the rune, just have your character project a generic energy ball or bolt. As an added bonus, perhaps we could get a simply will 'o the wisps or other option for the "Arcane" effect as well.

I remember calls for people to "bridge" the lowbies, so they'd be just at that -5 threshold of the one doing all the killing...

Frankly, I pretty much stick to Mystic Flight or regular Fly, as they're the most universally useful travel powers. Mighty Leap is nice on some characters, for the free foot stomp power, and Combat Teleport is decent for the tohit buff, but that's about it. I messed around with Speed of Sound, and while its teleport sub-power is neat, the lack of any stealth component and no "hang time" for the teleport, makes it of limited use as a main travel power.

Try to open your owned recipe menu at the same time as the AE or Merit Vendor interface. They seem to be flagged as the same thing, so trying to open one while you have the other open closes the first one you had open... What you appear to have open is the auction house interface and your owned recipe window, which is something different than what I'm talking about.

I wonder if they could tie some sort of outdoor mob XP or reward bonus to the patroller day job, (or create some sort of street-level police contact, who provides relevant outdoor mob kill X missions, similar to regular radio missions).

So I've been leveling up a few alts lately, and one thing that's annoying is that I cannot view my owned recipes while simultaneously looking at the vendor menu for places such as AE or Merit Vendors. I would really like being able to have both menus/windows open at the same time. Your thoughts? Thanks for reading!

Still down for me as well...

Inspired by your pilot uniform, I present to you a hero for the digital age: "The Circuit Lurker":

So you strawman me too? I never said there was anything set in stone. There is balance, and balance is important. As I've said multiple times, now, there is a design philosophy behind how powers behave and how their values are calculated. I've also stated that there is room for wiggle room within those calculations. I neither said I was against shortening the animation time(s), only that if they are part of how the powers are balanced, then the other aspects of the powers would have to be adjusted as well. Can you compare the cast times and all the aspects of the darkness powers and compare them against similar ones? Maybe a change is actually warranted, or maybe it's just the perception of some people who want to see a buff, but it is not actually justified...

Way to strawman me, there. If animation times are factored into how strong powers are, then the other components of the power should be adjusted if said animations were to be shortened - it's called balance, and it isn't a bad thing to try and maintain it. I never said there was some unbreakable rule across the gaming industry, but it is a good idea to try and maintain some semblance of giving a damn when it comes to what changes you make and their ramifications. You do not get to say that you basically want to throw out game balance in one breath, then claim that it will not hurt anything. You may not care if things are unbalanced and changed willy-nilly because you like said changes, but in the long run, it can be detrimental to the game's longevity.

You are welcome to your opinion. Your examples were anecdotal. Provide the numbers. Those are the "objective" aspects I'm talking about. Nice humble brag there as well. So give me an example of how, objectively, you'd adjust the powers while keeping within the various design guidelines for powers. If you aren't willing to give up anything in exchange for quicker animations, then you are being disingenuous. Well, at least you're being a little honest. I have no issue understanding most other posts in these forums, so I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. People from all over the world play CoH, so if you think being anon-native English speaker is a diss, that's on you. I won't hold my breath.

You replied to my post first. I then continued to respond to your responses. If they are objective, then provide the evidence. CoH was built with certain formulae and patterns in place. You either think it's ok to just wildly deviate from those design philosophies or just don't care, and want things a particular way, regardless of any precedents to the contrary. I didn't. It seems like you are jumping to conclusions. Your posts are hard to understand and you don't speak in a clear, concise manner. I don't know if it's a language thing or just a genuine disconnect. If it's the former, then I apologize for not understanding you. If it's the latter, then I'm not sure I can convince you otherwise, anyway...

It's a given that each person would think that their own reasons are good ones. That doesn't make such opinions objective, however. An unwillingness to be convinced otherwise is dangerous; You become set in your ways and unwilling to look beyond that. I admit I may not have done a good enough job of convincing you otherwise, but don't you think that your very reasoning could be used by me towards your suggestion in the first place? Have you compared the actual animation times of dark against other support sets? I'm pretty sure that you aren't taking other factors into consideration, such as the strength of the heal compared to others, the other secondary effects, and so on. Regardless, do what you like...

I mean, it's basically a mathematic formula that you follow; animation time A + end cost B + recharge time C = power effect D. They generally stick to it, but I'll freely admit that there's some wiggle room. They added evasive maneuvers and made afterburner a "freebie" when you take fly. I don't think they split anything. Evasive maneuvers is pretty innovative, but I don't think its "alien"... I suppose it's a matter of opinion, then, because I find Homecoming to be very true to the spirit and intent of CoH...

I'm not clear on what you mean by your 1st sentence; Homecoming took the very code/architecture/systems of CoH, brought it back to life, and added/changed some things, but the core is the original CoH we know and love. They didn't have to replicate anything, but the newer stuff they added is most certainly following the basic design tenets of other such powers/powersets. Can you give me an example of a "hangup" that the HC devs have ignored or implemented, that the original Cryptic/Paragon devs had?

If the game was founded/relies upon certain design tenets, and you later start throwing them out the window, you can basically throw any notions of balance out the window. I agree that the devs could certainly change power values however they wanted, but the more important question is whether they *should*...

I'm not against shortening the animation times per se, but from my understanding, those are factored into how powerful the healing/buff/debuff values of said powers are, meaning that if the animation times were shortened, the effectiveness of those powers would also have to be lowered...

Well, I was thinking more like "pure" elements, only you can change between them. Something like a "lava" se that combines fire & earth, or a mud set that combines earth & water, could be interesting...