biostem

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...

In addition to adding defense debuff resistance to deflection shield, insulation field, and possibly dispersion bubble, it'd be nice to add some absorption to the ally-only powers as well.

A large defense insp does sometimes sell for that amount.

So I've been really enjoying playing my stalker, "The Sage Shade", and have come up with a more streamlined "classic" costume for her:

Truly amazing!

Even on a "perfectly clear" night, you're still looking through many miles of atmosphere, not to mention that your telescope isn't going to be perfectly stable, and both the Earth and the moon are moving/rotating. I'm not sure just how much you can actually discern, since your field of vision is several miles wide by the time the light bounces back to your eye.

Most likely illusion, for superior invisibility. Heck, if you're duo-ing, grant invis is probably enough...

Agreed. SS + stealth was a pretty popular combo before there were any Stalkers...

On a side note, didn't they have to rename the Dinobot, because "slag" is a rude word in England?

Another quick way to make some "seed money" is to grab the Inner Inspiration power (for free if you haven't already taken Mystic Fortune or Secondary Mutation), from the P2W Vendor. Make sure you have 3 empty inspiration slots before you use it, and it'll give you 3 random medium or big inspirations. Depending on which ones you get, you can make up to 50,000 INF by selling them on the Auction House. There are many guides on how to make lots of INF, here. Cheers!

The thing is, stealth is universally useful. Enemies already notice you and attack by default, so you don't need a power to make them do that. The presence pool also already includes an AoE taunt. I could see them adding a melee AoE damage IO set that includes either a proc or a constant effect that causes said melee AoE to also apply a taunt, since that's fitting with the specific focus of existing IO sets...

That's the pattern that they follow...

As others said, you get it from defeating enemies, completing missions, selling items to vendors/shops, in exchange for items listed to be sold on the auction house, and so on. The only caveat is if you use the XP boosters from the P2W vendor, which reduces your INF gain in exchange for better XP rewards. Also note that it is called "infamy" for villains and "information" for Praetorians, but is effectively the same...

I think it's because the carnies were added after the 1-40 content, and they probably didn't feel like retroactively adding them to the older content...