Rudra

I never said otherwise. My original comment that started this discussion between us was strictly in response to @FupDup's comment because I took his/her comment as meaning the character's origin was a handicap or straightjacket limiting what that character could pick up, learn, or do later on down the line. I'm not against the OP. (I'm in favor of it, actually.) I'm not saying that players don't get or ahve a choice as to how their characters got their powers. (I'm both surprised and pleased that the Soldiers of Arachnos and Widows of Arachnos are no longer constrained to being natural, actually.) I'm not saying that weapons by default mean "natural". (Not least of which is because that would invalidate a large part of the premise of the technology and magic origins if weapons automatically meant natural origin.) All I am saying, is that just because a character starts out as a specific origin, that does not mean that character cannot gain new abilities, skills, talents, powers, or anything else unless that new whatever is also of the same origin. Characters grow and change over time. Their core always stays the same, but not what they can do or how.

It states that it is the source of their power, but it does not state that they are unable to gain more power from other sources. Edit: For instance, the natural origin character does not lose his/her drive to push himself/herself to and past their limits, achieving seemingly superhuman feats, simply because (s)he picked up that really great plasma cannon and figured out how wizards do magic enough to manage a few minor spells himself/herself. His/her nature did not change. (S)he does not stop drawing power from their drive and natural talent, but (s)he does now have access to powers/abilities that are not themselves considered natural in origin.

Black Scorpion gives them advanced weapons. A natural origin character can use weapons. Mako shows them how to tap into and use the power of the Leviathan. A natural character can be taught how to harness power given to them. Ghost Widow shows them how to command the souls of the dead to accomplish different things. A natural origin can give commands. Scirroco shares with them the power of the Mu. A natural origin character can utilize power granted to them. All the origin says, is how the character started. A natural origin character can later develop mutations (such as by exposure to radiation a la Terra Volta respec), study and learn magic (just need a suitable tutor or the determination to figure out what those crazy symbols and rituals mean, then how to make use of them), can be improved on by science (such as by a friend or foe injecting them with some concoction to either help them or harm them, and their body adapting to it), or take up any technological creation and use it or command it through its appropriate control. The idea of Soldiers and Widows of Arachnos being natural origin and then contradicted by the patrons is false. (Other origins being able to make use of other origin paths and abilities also apply. The origin is just that, the character's origin. How they started out on their path of being a super. [Edit: It also determines what their affinities are, so how easily they can adapt to different things, and what methods they are likely to use to gain more power or understand something. That more falls under roleplay though.])

I don't solo at x8 on anything other than my Brutes*, so I have no solo play reference for your experience to compare notes with. I know when solo and I open with Full Auto on mobs, I never have any problem quickly hitting everything in the spawn even at x4. And when on a team at x8, I still never had any issues with being out of position to hit everything in the group. However, I am aware that sometimes it can be tedious or impossible if the group is spread out. Also, it can be tedious to quickly target a central mob to anchor Full Auto's attack with depending on mob placement. And the wider cone helps with those since it gives more room for error. That didn't change the attack's DPS though. As for Flamethrower having higher DPS, it really, really, doesn't. It looks and feels like it does, but it doesn't. My current Assault Rifle Blaster does not have Flamethrower, but I was led to believe the damage is applied when you use the attack instead of waiting a half second for some unknown reason to apply the damage now. Not having that pause before the damage is applied is not the same thing as a faster projectile. The cast time and animation time are unchanged. (Edit: So the projectile still hits at the same time as before, but that nonsensical pause in damage application would be gone instead.) The same amount of damage is being applied to the target. The same period of downtime before the power can be used again is still in effect. There is no increase in DPS. What the shorter duration at equal damage did was make it more likely that all the damage, or at least more of the damage, is applied to the target before the target dies from your other attacks or your teammates. The math doesn't lie. The DPS didn't change. It's how quickly that damage is applied that changed. (Edit: For clarification, yes, targets die faster from the attack, but that is not due to a change in DPS. It is due to a change in rate of damage application.) *- Edit: I have no Tanker characters I use for play. I have 2 of them for base building, they are only level 4 and will always be level 4 since that is as high as they need to be to get Hover so making bases is easier. The only Tanker character I ever made that I enjoyed I have not brought back yet. (The focus on armor instead of attacks at low levels turns me off from Tankers. Things can't hurt me if they're dead.)

And from 18 minutes prior to your response: (Edit: It's even in your quote of my post.) Let's see.... Recharge 20 seconds. Didn't change. Cast time 2.33 seconds. Didn't Change. DoT duration reduced to 4.7 seconds from 7.1 seconds. So lets check that DPS. 121.119 damage usable every 20 seconds is 6.05595 damage per second. Original Flamethrower at 121.119 damage usable every 20 seconds is 6.05595 damage per second. The damage accrues over 2.4 less seconds of DoT now, but the attack's DPS didn't change. At all. It's just more front-loaded now. Just how much time were you spending trying to position yourself to hit a group of mobs with Full Auto before?! It never took me longer than a click.

I don't know if this is a bug or intentional. However, when Master Midnight shows up after clearing the Talons of Vengeance in the Defend the Chapel of Enduring Light mission from Vanessa Devore in First Ward, the mission changes to Defeat Master Midnight as well as to defeat the waves of Carnival of War attacking you. Except, you can't even target Master Midnight. Only Vanessa Devore can target and attack him. Fortunately, she won, but still. Isn't the player also supposed to be able to attack Master Midnight? Or is this a sit back and eat some popcorn as you hope Vanessa Devore is up to the task of kicking his face in?

Not all Blaster secondaries get some version of Build Up. Darkness Manipulation, Ninja Training, and Plant Manipulation all lack a version of Build Up. So your comment that Assault Rifle is now the best at clearing groups of enemies is wrong if you are tying it to using Build Up prior to using your nuke followed by quick AoE followup attacks. And since Full Auto, Flamethrower, and Buckshot didn't get any damage increase in the last patch, then the statement applied to even before the patch. Full Auto only had its cone widened. Flamethrower had its DoT duration reduced, but maintained damage. Buckshot wasn't even touched. So you are saying that AR was always the best at clearing groups of enemies. (Edit: Full Auto having a wider cone just makes it easier to catch everything you are trying to.)

Thanks. I'm really not a fan of driveby buffing. Don't want the effects on my characters and I prefer to see what my characters can do without others help when running around solo.

Because it is feedback on the new power set. And this is the Suggestions and Feedback area of the forums. Edit: Also, as for Beanbag, if people do still use it, then it is because they were already using it and find it useful. You don't get to claim that the reason someone is using something changed just because it got improved. Now if others decide they suddenly like Beanbag and start using it after calling it worthless all this time? Then yeah, they are probably using it for the damage. That doesn't mean from now on everyone that takes it is doing so for the damage, just that most likely most of them are.

They can be cancelled?! I don't have to stand there like a fool seething until they go away?!

Except that it is the discussion that leads from limited options a single person may be able to think up to completely new ideas the post originator never considered or improvements on the post originator's idea that may be more appealing to a much larger group. A blind poll where no one can see how the votes are going or give their feedback on the provided options limits the responses to which of a limited group of ideas others are more interested in and not what those players may actually be interested in that would fall under the same idea. Regardless of whether that poll was originated by a dev or anyone else. It doesn't matter how creative a person is, no one can think of everything, even within a limited scope such as a specific concept the idea originator may have. A more developed suggestion derived from the combined feedback of others gives the devs more data (from reading the back and forth on the idea) and options than any poll anyone can come up with.

Except a blind poll doesn't manage expectations. A poll can be a good source of information depending on the sampling size, but in something as interactive as a video game where the developers are looking at changing or adding content, a blind poll where the community is as invested and involved in the game as CoX does not help manage expectations. The dev including in a focused feedback thread on what specifically the dev is looking for, what is still up for change, what it would take to add something to also be up for change, and what the dev is going for with the power, set, or arc helps manage expectations. (Edit: Nor can a poll, blind or open, give nuanced feedback. Which in a game like CoX, is often necessary.)

It's not a question of not wanting data. It's a question of community perception. As far as the community goes, would it make the slightest bit of difference if the devs did a secret poll and acted on the results that only they could see the results of as opposed to the devs combing through the game's data to draw their own conclusions and act on? As far as the community is concerned? It would still be the devs doing secret squirrel stuff with nothing for us to see or understand. So nothing would really change, because no one would understand what was going on in dev world any more than we did before this thread was started. If anything, it would most likely lead to angry players. "I know for a fact that option C was the preferred one! Everyone I know or spoke with voted for option C! What did the devs do though? They went with option A! Our voices don't matter!" Edit: And of course I wind up starting a new page so my comment is floating in La La Land with no references for what it is about. This comment is in response to @Rigged's last comment on the preceding page.

Here's a better question: If you devs took a poll from the players, the players could not see how the poll progressed, and you devs did not release the results of the poll and made changes, would anyone believe you or blindly accept that the implemented change was actually requested and not just being shoved down the player base's throats with the poll as a plausibly deniable smokescreen? Going through the threads on these forums, there are instances where people don't believe when actual proof is presented, so I can't see mystery polls with no reported results going over well.

There is a slash command to turn off or on the particle effects. It would take away the effects that would trigger you, but only affect you and your display, leaving everyone else to deal with the effects themselves. Can't remember it off the top of my head though. Sorry.

If its two very different posts, you have to copy your post to a clipboard and go back to that post. Otherwise you have to do as I think you did. If trying to quote from multiple posts in a thread, the person can just either click at start or end of the desired section, drag to highlight, and then click "Quote Selection" for each separate post to be quoted, or just keep clicking "Quote" for each separate post to be quoted and editing down to the desired sections to respond. If trying to quote across multiple pages of a thread, then the "+" button lets the person retain all quotes to be added into their post in the order added (via the pluses).

I am against the OP for being able to get the same powers (from the same power pool) twice. Reason 1 is that the author runs out of slots faster than power picks. Well, then you can throw in some filler power picks and reserve the slots that would normally go to those for the powers you actually want them on. You can leave any power you want with just its starting enhancement slot, leaving more slots available for use elsewhere. So that is a non-issue as far as I am concerned. Reason 2 can be addressed by slotting for END recovery or reducing END cost. Preferably both. I've got some very END intensive power sets on some characters that never have any END issues after I get them built up enough. No need for incarnate abilities to make up the difference. And I'm not hurting for recharge, damage resistance, defense, or accuracy. Sure, you can't run max damage output doing this, but you can fight all day and not give a hoot about who or what is trying to kill you. Reason 3 is intentional from a game design perspective and the Fitness pool didn't give any resistance powers anyway. So trying to bring back the Fitness pool while still keeping the Fitness pool as an inherent won't do anything to address this. (Edit: And between all the damage resist set bonuses and incarnate powers, more damage resist powers from set pools is hardly a need. Especially since there were comments on other threads about how easy it was for someone to turn their Blaster into a tank.) Reason 4 with the player base argued necessity of taking the Fitness pool is why Fitness was made inherent. So I don't find any of the provided reasons compelling. I'm not a dev and they are the ones that would need to be convinced, but I have a hard time seeing them being convinced to give players double access to a single power pool. Especially for the provided reasons.

Your post. I don't know how to quote multiple times with cited sources. 🙃 A few options to do this. First option, just click at start or end of what you want to quote and then drag to highlight it. Instead of doing a CTRL+C or anything else, use the "Quote Selection" 'button' that pops up when you are done highlighting. It still shows who you are quoting. Or second option, just click the "Quote" button for the post you want to quote sections of, edit the quoted post down to just what you want to quote, post your comment to it, and then do it all over again to get to the next section you want to quote.

Forgot about that. Thanks, @biostem.

I've never had any problems with those maps and I play on very high settings. On a very old computer. Maybe it is your provider causing you problems? There is an Arachnos flier at Mercy Island, but it is not targetable. I was unaware of there beinga flier in Sharkhead as well. The only GM flier I know of is in Grandville. (Which is much easier to deal with in a mission than the zone.) St. Martial may not have a GM, but it does have an event. And personally, I would rather an event over just another GM thrown into a zone. Events require me to be more involved than just standing there smacking a very large bucket of HPs. And you can spawn Scrapyard by smacking down 100 Scrapyarders, I believe. Seems to be the trigger for GMs. 100 Scrapyarders, 100 Gremlins, 100 spectral demons (during either the day or night cycle, can't remember which), 100 (very specific at very specific locations) Clockwork (for Paladin or Babbage, can't remember which) before they reverted it back to not needing the 100 Clockwork, and 100 Council WarWorks to spawn the Goliath WarWorks. Players are going to play where they want. Players used to spend a lot of time red side because it had the more linear zones and most of the missions/arcs were self-contained to the contact's zone. So no need to run to Atlas Park, the Peregrine Island, then Steel Canyon, then Striga Isle. Being able to stay in zone was a large selling point for a lot of players. However, some players just don't like the idea of playing a villain. Other players don't like the missions/arcs for being red side. Some players stay blue side because that is where their friends and SG mates play. Adding more GMs isn't going to get players to suddenly run to play red side. All it will do is get their vigilante aligned characters to pop over to the red side zone to smack down the GM and then go back blue side to continue what they were doing. And if the devs were to add incentives to get players red side? Then gold side players would demand the same thing to get their even emptier zones more populated. And as the population shifts away from blue side, blue side would demand incentives to get players back there. So basically, just let players play where they want.

@Rigged, I'm reading through the thread and it looks to me like the devs have actually responded as to the why for a lot of your comments. Yet, you keep arguing with @Shadeknight. So I have to ask, and I apologize for insinuation here, but are you reading the dev responses? If you are, why the continued debate with @Shadeknight? Personally, I'm glad to know that the development process doesn't work as described in the OP. I'm also glad to find out that if an individual makes the effort to teach themselves how to mod or create content for the game, there is a process through which they can apply to join the volunteer dev team and possibly become a dev. If a person wants to mod a game as broken in code as CoX, then I agree, a very good step would be to find the available materials and show that the person in question is willing to take the time to go learn and work with the system for himself/herself. In some businesses, showing initiative to get something done isn't just appreciated, it is required for employment. As for the devs? Thank you for taking the time to respond in this thread. I think more in this thread than any others so far, your responses were needed to help find a resolution.

They have 1 animator. That is their biggest holdup with new animations.

Yes, Spark Blade wields a single pistol. Apparently at the same time, though not for attacks, as his sword. And both are electrified with his power.

The Live devs said we would get Ghost Widow hair never. Because it is a cape on the model's head and it apparently fails spectacularly on player character models.

Modding isn't going to happen. Not on CoX. I don't remember why and am disinclined to go looking for the answer, but it is out there, somewhere. If you want to become a developer, there is a process that someone linked on another thread to apply to become a dev. (Edit: Yes, I know there are mods out there. I'm using one to shut the gargoyles up when on my demon summoner. However, they are not officially recognized and fall into the "user beware" category.)