gameboy1234

New enemy group: Dr. Aeon decides to combine his cloning machine with a device that distills his evil genius down to its most concentrated essence (i.e., "genius" = not much). This does not go wrong at all, and does not produce about a zillion three foot high big headed jerks who seem to delight in nothing more than purposely making everyone's life miserable. Said jerks like dressing in flamboyant colors and adopt a clown and candy theme for their costumes, attacks and weaponry.

I'm not sure *what* CoH maps are missing, but it's definitely something. Many maps seem low contrast, either too dark or too mid-level grey. (Lot's of design videos on YT talk about how to design computer game maps and make sure the Values work -- as in Hue, Saturation, Value. It's an art thing.) Possibly the current devs could do something about it but I think it could also soak up a lot of resources for little gain. Art, esp. good art, takes a ton of time and resources. Anyway I'd support someone taking a look at changing stuff like draw distance, lighting and texture values but I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope that something useful could be done. At best I think a few incremental changes could be made. (P.S. a lot of point light sources in game are *insane* and need to be looked at too. Vanguard Base and Icon stores are guilty of this. They are much too strong when you're close and seem to also blow out any nearby textures.) CoH in general lacks "hubs," central places where playesr can hang out. Atlas Park works because it's largely a big open space with no enemies, and the big Atlas statue acts as a Point of Interest that players can easily see, orient on, and move back to. Villain side lacks any such hub area. Aeon City almost works, but it's too high level, the central area is physically isolated by the high ground it sits on and the lack of travel options directly to the central area. The area itself has too much vertical and the high walls in the center around the globe break the space up too much so players can't really use it. Again it would be kind of a PITA and a fair amount of work to try to change that. And I think any other zone would require at least as much work, if not more. The only thing I can think of would be something like remove all or most of the enemies from Aeon City, add a bunch of services and vendors to hang out there, add a base portal too, then add a direct portal to Aeon City from Mercy and a new low level quest to send new players there and have them talk to all the new vendors so they know where to go and hang out. Also move the "hospital" (the respawn location, the building can stay where it is) so that if anyone gets lost and dies they don't respawn in an area that they're too low level to deal with.

This is a nice fix, good job finding it. I hope it fixes some of the frame rate issues I've been seeing.

If I go to Options, then the Windows tab, the Apply Now button starts flashing and won't stop even if I click on it. It stops if I go to a different tab, then click, but it always starts up again with the Windows tab open.

In the first mission of Ashling Corlett's arc, Search Crey Facility for Hero Corps Files, the mission object text for the final objective is wrong. It says "act of sabotage remains" instead of "1 act of sabotage remains". A minor issue, but confusing.

Been in the Fog a couple of times now, once with a small team (four folks) and once solo on a Widow with Mask Presence and Celerity Stealth. Overall it seems OK, it's fun to explore and it's a difference experience than any content in game. Most things seem to be working, I didn't find any obvious bugs. However I'm thinking about the design and content, and I think it could use more work. The random content makes me think of rogue-likes. And those games are known to not actually be random. There's selected patterns they use, and certain floors have more of these special patterns than others, which creates variety. There's often side quests like the shopkeepers in NetHack and Crypt of the Necrodancer. There's stuff to do as the players explore, it's not just "random stuff until you find the end." There's ways of increasing power by successive runs of the dungeon (you have this, in the form of the Fog insp; I feel there could be more though). Mapping is a big deal in many rogue-likes, the player start off knowing nothing but are able to figure things out (you prevent this). Some games have a definite progression in terms of levels, when the player clear a floor and go down a level, it's obvious that they have done so (again, nothing like that here). Overall it's OK but might need some more bake time. If the current team wants to keep working on this, I think that would be fine. It could be released now and magical "events" later could cause upgrades. Providing a sense of progression for players while still keeping some of the random elements would be ideal I think.

Stuff like this should be in-game. (Is it?) In a lot of "random dungeon" players can find items that explain things or give clues. Maybe some stone tablets or pedestals that the players can click on to get hints or outright instructions? Maybe make a glowie in the middle of some mob spawns so players have to defeat the spawn first. And maybe a boss key too....

Thermal has kind of ugly buffs if you're at all into your costume. I don't mind but it might get tiring after a while. Controllers can pair nicely with melee because they lock everything down and keep it in range. Maybe Gav/Time (Time has very light-weight visual effects), or something similar. Depending on your preferences, Arsenal/Traps is kinda fun, though it's very stationary, the debuffs can help melee a lot. Of course just about anything will work...

With four of us on test we were able to kill mobs and move around ok, and get buffs from the labyrinth. It's not really soloable but you don't need a "raid" team to do the content. Then again the four of us where all of our "hard mode" toons built for tough content, so don't bring a marshmallow and expect good results. With the exception of the Minotaur, which we could basically do nothing with except flee. It's not terrible though, you should at least give it a look at some point.

Isn't this what Psionic Melee is supposed to be? Honestly Psi Melee seems like it could use a bit of a boost in the animation department, maybe even borrowing some animations from Claws to smooth out the attack chain. (I tried playing a Psychic/WP stalker, couldn't get past the animations. I don't think I got past 20 or so.) I'm not saying "no" to Sonic Melee, just pointing out that there are options and maybe those options could use a bit of a buff too. Let's see there are Energy Melee, Dark Melee, Cold, Fire, Electric, Rad, Psi... That's most of the exotic damage types already. Are none of those "faster play style" than the physical sets? Maybe they should be looked at also. Oh, thinking about it: vibro-blades used to be the cool weapon in SciFi books, and they were often "sonic" based. A fisticuffs style of sonic melee would be cool, but so would an energy type damage where you wield a blade. Could borrow the animations from Kantana and Broadsword. But a faster sword set that does energy would be cool.

The real answer is to play whatever interests you. There's basically no bad builds in CoX unless you try really hard to make them bad. Anyone is useful and playable on a team. VEATs are a lot of fun both solo and on a team and you also get to play on the best side.

I like the new patch notes so far, seems like a lot of fun. Especially the new zone and the new powerset, those will be cool to try out.

Until it does rise to the top of the cost-benefit equation. Which could certainly happen. Which is why I said "dev hours" and not money. It takes time to make updates. If working on the Shadow Shard means no other updates for a long time, wouldn't it be better to work on shorter content that people can enjoy, at least until there is in fact a compelling reason to work on the Shadow Shard? I think I've only got through the Library of Souls arc in Bricks arc once you get to level 30+ content. Every time something better comes up. Part of it is there's so mach farming (radios, Tina McIntyre) at these levels that it's just super easy to skip the arcs. Part of it is that a lot of the content is very, very dry, so there's no real reason to do them (and I think that's why people farm). If the the arcs in that level range could be spiffed up, I think it would help more than trying to do an entire multi-zone revamp.

Yup, lots of places in this game for content re-vamp. I'd say more places than the devs have time to work on. I wouldn't mind a re-vamp of the Shadow Shard, just a matter of folks getting time to do it. You want to consider marginal cost here. For each dev hour spent, where do they get the most bang for the buck? Shadow Shard is like level 40+, so only some of the population can use it, and needs a lot of work. A minimal job probably wouldn't bring the fun. So what else could the devs work on instead? Anything that brings more fun for less work than fixing the Shadow Shard is a better proposition, and I'm pretty sure we could come up with lots of those. Almost any content in the 30+ range could use some love, with the possible exception of Rikti War Zone. Plus I think that "new player experience" is probably something that could be worked on almost constantly, and would be worth it. I think my idea would be to start The Battalion invasion there, would kind make sense for them to latch onto whatever the Portal Corp. has been messing about with (you know, portals to unknown dimensions, what could possibly go wrong?), The Battalion can probably "feel" the disturbances or something. Maybe start with Lord Recluse leading a red side invasion with his own portals, then a second revamp adds new critters and content and The Battalion. They're just too wonky and easy to mess up. I'd put characters on some sort of "track" the fixes movement so they can't mess it up. Just move them on a fixed path that puts them exactly where they need to go, without any effect by jump speed or height or anything else. Either that or replace all gravity geysers with just flat out teleport pads.

I kinda want the double breasted trench coat from Scourge of the Underworld. Oh and that skull mask is another request for hat options with no hair attached.

I'd agree. While in general, "generic" powers should be preferred, making some origin specific powers I think should also be required. We just got the Arsenal set which is basically a Natural/Tech set, and that's fine. Great even. Don't restrict things if making them helps players play the character they want to.

An FX option that is just a quick fade out would be pretty cool too, esp if like you say it just keeps playing your current animation.

I think that's what I was thinking of, that there's still some powers in the set that don't work with "minimal FX" options. Also those textures/SFX are kinda heavy or don't respect the minimal SFX option either, they're hard to get rid of. Last time I checked was probably more than a year ago however.

I think it's basically a bug in collision detection. The CD runs, finds a collision between two players, and attempts to move them away from each other. Unfortunately the code uses the wrong variable or doesn't calculate the vectors properly, so both players move in the same direction. Which as you point out just results in exactly the same thing happening over and over again. It's a pet peeve of mine and I've long since despaired of getting anyone to look at the code. Separately, I think your idea about giving priority to players moving less, or already at a spot and stationary, is a good idea. I'm pretty sure this code is different though. The game should check speeds (actual speed, not max speed of the current power being used) and just give priority to players moving slower (Hover, for example) or stopped. Figuring out how to make this "feel good" will take a bit of work, but I think if this can be done it'll make collision detection feel better and work more intuitively for players.

This is a decent suggestion. The current "Heel" (Follow Passive) is kinda useless, this could replace that macro for default MM binds. (The other suggestions are good too. Don't forget on the Pets window for MMs there are marco buttons similar to the default macros that are set up in a tray. These would need to be upgraded as well.)

I've never had that problem, but that's good to know. I wonder if the devs could look into it and allow a pet to be teleported even when it is super stuck or rag-dolling. @Rudra

Teleport Target will also yoink a pet to you, I think regardless of what state it's in. But yes pathing is kinda nutty in this game. If they fix it, they'll have to make sure not to make enemies too much smarter, while also making player pets and rescued NPCs much much smarter. I'm not sure how fraught that would be, but I think the basic request is valid. (Seriously, my pets are frequently dumb as rocks.)

I'd like to clock them in the head and then drag their floppy rag-doll bodies to the door, no "following" at all, they just stick right to me. For blue side, I wouldn't mind seeing something like either a "princess carry" for all non-combat npcs, or a hand-hold where it's literally the NPC attached to your avatar so they just go where you go, like you're playing ICO. As a trade off/game mechanic, maybe you can't use attack powers while holding hands? And the "hold hands" option is a right click menu anyone can pick, as long as the NPC isn't holding someone else's hand.

Man, this thread is super old. Ignoring the whole "it's Warrior Masterminds all the way down" meme, I think I'd like to see groups in game evolve and change. They don't always have more powerful though, the group could evolve in different directions. The Warriors could start to sport some cybernetics so they can gain more power (but this makes them heretics to the purists, politics and drama ensue), they could gain female warriors (which start as a reaction to the all male group, more politics and drama, then they join forces), "real" warriors from Cimerora could show up (causing more politics and drama) and then the whole group could suffer a huge setback and be basically reset to something like their starting point (everything changes! nothing will be the same!). It's more a matter of avoiding stasis imo, and not necessarily having to "power up" everything.

This is more like what I'd expect. However I think there's a difference between modding stuff on your own computer, and making all the changes necessary for it to be accessible for everyone. Choosing animations is part of my character, like my costume, and I want others to see how I have chosen to animate my character. It's part of the look. But yes, fundamentally, I'd expect that the code has a "slot" for each powers' animation, and an animation for each power just gets put into the "slot" for that power, which then plays when you use that power. It doesn't sound like a game breaking change.