Luminara

Probably would've been a good idea to read some of my other posts before trying to troll me with comments like that. That was so painfully obvious and laughably off, it's not even worth wasting the time to counter. Back under your bridge, Bentley.

I HATE THAT SO MUCH! A woman who's 5' if she stands on her tippy toes and weighs 95 lbs after a heavy meal DOES NOT LUMBER. It's just wrong. WRONG.

It was tough when I was struggling through it as a TA/A, back when TA was buggy and had long animation times (so not only did some of your powers not work properly, you spent a lot of time posing dramatically while critters ripped you a new one), and lieutenants spawned bosses when they self-defeated. I had the same problems in Council missions, and it was so bad, I stopped doing Council missions on any character for almost three years, because of my experiences as a TA. Once the bugs were fixed, and on anything with shorter animation times (including TA since Issue 11), slotting isn't really relevant, the content is so much easier it's night versus day because the player isn't fighting the powers and engine in addition to fighting critters. The game does feel easier now, but a not-insignificant part of that is because there are fewer bugs of the sort that made my TA suffer so much, and because, toward the end of the game's life on the original servers, the developers finally listened and started toning down animation times (in fairness, BAB did what he could in Issue 11 and subsequent Issues, until he was let go). I'm really not exaggerating when I say that an underslotted controller or defender can easily handle this mission now, even doing it the "classic" way, fighting every wave, because now, their powers work properly, and quickly, and the game has fewer bugs.

I reported every bug I ever found, most of them in PMs to Castle. Including the bugs I might have wished the developers could ignore. I did that because I knew that even the least of them could turn into something major if it weren't fixed (happened many times when the original servers were up). A bug might not be critical now, but everything affects everything else in this engine, sometimes in completely unexpected and unpredictable ways, and something non-critical can turn into a real problem later. Unless or until the code is locked and there are no more changes being made (meaning, the HC team disbands and no-one else picks up the project), bugs are risky to leave untouched, and they can't be fixed if they aren't reported.

I suspect it was the result of a holiday event idea getting more than a little out of hand, and eventually becoming a zone because they'd spent so much time and money on it that they couldn't justify only having it available for a few weeks each year.

9 dogs... it's their cabin, you're the guest. Majority rules. 😉

I've always had a somewhat individual approach to building a character, but that's not really unusual around here. We all focus on different things when we're making our characters uniquely our own. For every "I can has cookie-cutter build?" post, there's another asking about making a concept work with a specific set or power, or how to wrestle the mechanics into working in favor of a build idea, and that's one of the really interesting things about being here, we can poke around in one another's mind, see the game through different eyes. I love that. It's like reading a really fantastic book, you become so immersed that you forget the reality around you and slip into whatever world you're reading about. So I thought I'd give everyone a chance to peer at the game through my eyes, rather than merely mentioning personal choices or preferences when it comes to characters. I talked about my latest obsession, Antianeira, in another thread. The idea of this character has been around since I started playing, back in '04, but the tools to bring that idea to fruition didn't exist then. She could never work as a blaster, defender or corruptor, because they simply lack one or more aspects of what I felt the character needed. The closest I was able to come was a weapon-wielding scrapper with the Weapon Mastery APP, and that never was quite good enough. Too few ranged attacks to make a chain, too little AoE, too many limitations. It wasn't until I decided to see what sentinels were and how they might be used to fulfill any of my character concepts (or if the archetype might spark a few new ones (of course it did)) that I realized I could, finally, make the one character I'd all but given up on. A character which was fully functional at both long range and in melee, with good damage output in both situations and which fit the Amazonian theme I had in mind. As I mentioned in that other thread, I started with Archery/Ninjitsu, for no reason other than the Jump Speed buff in that set. That's always the first thing I look for when I'm beginning to form up a character concept, because most of my character concepts are centered around not having a standard travel power. I have no particular aversion to travel powers, I just... well, I like hopping at high speeds. Everything is distant, the world below moving so slowly, when you're flying. Running at high speeds feels limiting, it's difficult to avoid tiny obstacles that catch you and leave you jittering on them until you either pop off or use /stuck, and moving around in caves with only 35 mph running speed is trying enough (really, who thought it would be a good idea to put all of those walls there? i want the excavators fined! and shot!). Teleporting has never really been fun for me. That only leaves leaping, and there's an unusual problem with leaping that very few people notice, or care about. You see, Cryptic went to a lot of trouble to create realistic physics in Co*. There's a friction mechanic. There's a momentum mechanic. There's a gravity mechanic. And all of the mechanics were designed to be as realistic as possible. Normally, you don't notice any of them, because they're part of the immersion created by the game world. They're background code, completely meaningless, unless you're specifically looking at them and figuring out how they work. You can see the friction and momentum mechanics at work when you're flying. It takes a moment to build up speed, and it also takes a moment to slow down. You can also see vectoring at work, when you try to fly up and forward at the same time. If, for instance, you fly perfectly perpendicular to the ground, and press the space bar (or whatever you have mapped to Jump), your vector is no longer straight ahead, nor is it straight up, it's a 45 degree angle, and that angle is where all of your movement speed is being applied. Consequently, you're moving forward at a slower rate than your actual movement speed, because of that vectoring. That's the realism built into the game, and it's really, really well done. But it also, consequently, hinders leaping in a curious way. When you jump, the game calculates your friction, your current momentum and speed, then determines the arc of your leap. When you reach the apex of that arc, your forward speed is turned into falling speed, and your momentum is altered similarly. Basically, you stop jumping and start plummeting. With certain powers, you can steer your fall, somewhat, but that's not actually the problematic bit, it's where the apex of the leap occurs. The higher you jump, the more of your jumping speed is "wasted" on upward movement, and the less of it you apply to forward movement. Additionally, none of your movement speed is applied when you reach the apex of your jump and begin falling, so that arc which started out so gracefully becomes a precipitous drop after the apex, and you're only moving forward slightly in comparison to your previous rate. The best way to get the most out of jumping speed is with shallow leaps... like what you get with Hurdle and Combat Jumping. Mind you, none of this is a bug, or erroneous code, or something exploitable. It's exactly how the engine was designed to work. All of the travel powers were created with these limitations and systems in mind. So when you use a power like Super Jump, you're only spending part of your time moving at the jump speed cap, because some of your speed is being spent moving upward while moving forward, and once you reach the apex and begin to fall, you're at the mercy of the gravity mechanic. Your momentum declines rapidly, friction applies more and more the further you move (even down), until you're struggling just to hit a specific point when you land. Of course, SJ doesn't bring you up nearly high enough for all of your momentum to bleed off, so you still have a modicum of control by the time you land, but it's still a net loss in speed. I never liked that. I love that they designed the engine with these kinds of things in mind, but I never liked the way SJ felt. Or Ninja Run. So I don't bother with travel powers. Occasionally, if it's thematic, I'll take one. My Ill/TA, Star of the Show, has Mystic Flight because she's an actress, and modern actresses do a lot of wire work. I've got Hover on a couple of characters, but only when I can bring it up to the flight speed cap. One of them also has Group Fly, but she's a Bots/Rad mastermind and I really, really want to play something with Rocket Boots and a bunch of robots with rockets. Mostly, though, Hurdle + CJ, because it feels, viscerally, like sticking your face out of a car window while traveling at 80 mph. So that's always the first consideration when I start working on a character. How fast can I be with this one? If the net result is lower than the Fly speed cap (58.64 mph), I won't even try to make the character. If it's above the Fly speed cap, I'll work it and rework it until I can either push it past 60 mph (including Incarnate buffs), or I'll tear it up and try the concept with different sets. I'm very particular about this, to the extent of abandoning a concept altogether if I can't get the speed up to what I consider to be "reasonable". When all we had were SOs, I'd three- and four-slot Hurdle, in spite of ED, to maximize my speed. IO sets and the Alpha slot have made it much easier to break 60 mph, and with a pair of +5 boosted Jump IOs in Hurdle, it's almost a given on any character I care to create. Getting back to the build, after I abandoned /Ninjitsu and started over with /Energy Aura, I found myself staring at the build for hours. When I was home, not playing and there was nothing going on here, I'd be eyeballing that build. It just didn't sit quite right with me. The movement speed was fine, but a lot of other things were bothering me. Here's one of the early revisions of the build (in a spoiler drop-down, because this post is going to be loooooooong). On the surface, that looks fairly decent. Defenses to almost all typed damage soft-capped, almost 130% +Recharge, that's not too bad. But... the ranged attack chain is lacking. It's fully formed, but every time I looked at the build, Stunning Shot caught my eye and I found myself wanting to try to squeeze it in. And the melee attack chain? Didn't exist. It wasn't possible to chain two attacks sequentially without pause, not at that level of +Recharge, or with any slotting. And having to wait until level 50+1 to cap my Defenses meant I wouldn't be capable of turning up the difficulty very much, meaning all of that lovely AoE/PBAoE potential would go to waste. Of note, though, is Fistful of Arrows and Rain of Arrows. With my slotting, the ranges on both powers is nearly identical to the range of the single-target attacks. That's a vital consideration for me when I'm working with cones, or any short-ranged power in a collection of primarily longer-ranged powers. I don't like moving forward and backward to make use of powers with different ranges. I also don't like staying closer to avoid having to move, because it means critters are going to close in on me that much sooner. Granted, with soft-capped Defense to everything but Psi, and melee attacks of my own, it's really not a critical issue, but it violates the basic precept of the character. I wanted to stay at range when I was playing at range. Extending the range of cones is something I started doing back on the original servers, when I was maining a TA/Dark. Her attack chain consisted of Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall. Just those two attacks. I bumped up the range on TT until it matched NF, packed both powers with procs and went to town on big spawns of +2-3 critters. And on my Archery characters, I carried over that technique and used it to turn Fistful into a "single-target attack with benefits". Take a look at Fistful of Arrows. Superficially, it has comparatively low DPA. The common wisdom would be to sideline it and only use it in concert with Explosive and Rain, strictly and specifically as an AoE chain power. But if you stick it into a single-target attack sequence, the DPA rises dramatically. How? Well, we're almost always fighting more than one foe, aren't we? And if you're dealing damage to multiple foes while attacking a single one... bingo, DPA goes up. In fact, when used in a single-target attack chain, and there are only two foes, the DPA climbs to second best, just behind Stunning Shot. And with those three procs, even at the lowest proc rate (20%), it's the highest DPA attack in the set. Furthermore, with Fistful slotted for range, the cone width at that distance is a massive 75'. I'm not exaggerating when I say that you can hit anything within sight with it, as long as it's within 70.5' of you. That makes it incredibly easy to leverage the higher DPA potential. It's no longer potential now, it's a given. And with a short recharge time and very low endurance cost (for an AoE), it's perfect for filling a single-target attack chain. Rain of Arrows was slotted for maximum range as well. While the HC team may have shortened the animation when they set it up for sentinels, 40-48' just isn't far enough to use it without being seen unless you're corner shooting. Matching it to the range of the other attacks just made sense. Having the ability to do that, via enhancement boosters, without giving up any damage or recharge time, made it a given for my build. So, I was happy with my movement speed, range and recharge times, but I knew there was a lot of potential being wasted in this build. Energize was little more than a slot mule, I had four Sprints slotted, my damage mitigation was reliant on the Alpha slot, and I was going to have a lot of down time when I used my melee attacks. I could do better. This... this was better. Soft-capped Defense before level 50. More utility from Energize. A slightly longer Stun duration on Stunning Shot (i dropped Explosive around revision 5, in favor of Stunning. i felt that having more single-target damage was preferable to having weak and intermittent additional AoE), which would allow me to Stun a boss briefly (handy for dropping critter toggles, if nothing else). I've got a complete, chainable melee attack sequence with no down time. I've had to sacrifice some global +Recharge, but I've gained quite a bit in exchange, things I couldn't get without the Agility Radial Paragon Alpha enhancement. With this build, I switched over to Spiritual, since I no longer needed the +Def from Agility, and that improves more powers, across the board, rather than filling the Defense holes I had. Using this build, I laid out several other alternate builds with differing focuses. Regeneration over 500%. Higher Psi Defense and Resistance. Variations I thought might be worth investigating. But, no matter what I did, I still felt that it wasn't quite there yet. There was something missing, something I couldn't identify until I blew a respec at level 28. I'd had in mind a plan to spec out of Aimed Shot and focus on using Stunning, Fistful and Blazing to create an attack chain. What I didn't know at that time, though, was that I'd made a critical error in my estimation of animation times and recharge times. Part of that was my own inattention to the numbers. I was in such a hurry to make this work that I didn't factor my animation times correctly, and ended up falling short on recharge times. But part of that was also due to the sentinel data entries, for both powers and procs, being erroneous in several cases in Mids'. Power Armor, for example, allows the player to slot Healing sets. And the +Recharge values on the ATO procs are set to Schedule A/single aspect, when they're actually 4 aspect (like acc/dam/end/rchg). I didn't discover these faulty entries until I was mousing over powers and enhancements after trying out the new single-target chain and discovering that it was really falling short on Blazing Arrow's recharge. I ended up burning through two more respecs, one to try another slotting scheme, and lastly, to move slots back to Aimed Shot and put it back in the tray. Having gone that route, though, I realized that having Stunning/Fistful/Blazing as my single-target chain was what I was missing from the build. The problem was, it was impossible to achieve. Every attempt I made to change slots, cram in a little more recharge, move powers around, barely had any impact. I had to find a way to close the recharge gap, or resign myself to using Aimed, and not being able to create a perfectly sequential attack chain. It ate at me, like a field mouse gnawing at a wooden door, trying to get inside where it was dry and there might be an easy meal. I went to bed thinking about it. I woke up thinking about it. I'd sit here, staring blankly at the screen while Jessica cavorted wildly around the cabin, trying to figure out how to make it work. How could I create that perfect attack chain without giving up any Defense or movement speed? It wasn't until my 19th revision of the character that I finally found an answer. There was one possible option, only one, and it would mean giving up 6% +Jump, but it would give me that attack chain. This is actually the 20th revision, but it only slightly differs from 19. The Defense numbers are incrementally higher (0.1-0.2%), Regeneration is a little better (will hit 400% when Energize is active), but otherwise, this is where I finally hit the target. It did cost me 6% movement speed, as I noted above, but that 6% loss nets me 70% more global +Recharge, that small amount of increased Defense and Regeneration, a few more HP, and, most importantly, my single-target ranged attack chain is complete with only Stunning, Fistful and Blazing. Though, in point of fact, it's 0.122s short on Blazing's recharge, but that's less than 1/8th of a second, it won't be noticeable as more than the standard "I'M STILL RECHARGING, STOP PRESSING ME!" sound, and when I slot the Spiritual Alpha, it'll be well past the necessary recharge time. 20 revisions, from the false start with /Ninjitsu to the final product, and including multiple variations. 20 different builds, each time trying to make it slightly better in some way without losing core aspects like the ranges on Fistful and Rain (i could've easily slotted both with fewer enhancements if i'd been willing to sacrifice the additional range), or my super zoomy boing boing jumping ability. Every slot and enhancement is so critical to the entire build, changing even a single one would cause the whole thing to cascade into ruin. One minor alteration drops a typed Defense, or reduces movement speed, or disrupts either the ranged or melee attack chain. It's the kind of build that you're afraid to breathe on before you get to 50, for fear of it collapsing like a house of cards. All of that, because I don't want to take SJ or use Ninja Run. It would've been so easy to use either, and opened up more options by allowing me to step back from the focus of +Movement Speed. This... this is min/maxing at it's purest, taking something raw and unrefined and distilling it down the the very essence of what it can be, hammering the critical aspects into place and keeping them there while everything around them is shifting and changing, and dragging every last iota of potential out of it. This is what I do to relax. This is both enjoyable and rewarding for me, as much as playing the characters I've worked on in this manner. This is the game through my eyes.

Eye of the Storm followed by Innocuous Strikes looks like a choreographed dance routine. I spent most of the late 20s to mid-40s wondering if I was playing Co* or Breakin' - The Video Game. Characters perform whichever animation belongs to the last toggle that was turned on whenever they change zones. Weave being last in Legionette's toggle-up sequence means every time I zone in, she stands there panting. I can even run... well, slide, because her legs don't move, at least 25' before the panting stops. I know she's small and somewhat runty, but come on, she can't be so frail that opening a mission door leaves her exhausted.

Ah, no. Verizon treats pre-paid data customers second class citizens, giving preference to people who say they'll pay later (great business model), so my play time is extremely limited (my data service is only usable for gaming between 2 a.m. and 8 a.m. Eastern time. even now, it's barely sufficient to open Google's home page. my average throughput during the day drops to less than 10Kbps, sometimes as low as 3Kbps). I try not to waste any of that time. That's actually what prompted me to start this thread, though. What might've been an admittedly minor irritation in the "grand scheme of things" carried so much more significance when it became a sizeable part of my play time trampled, urinated on and ground into the dirt. I could've taken out half a dozen pairs of bosses in that time, easily, or run two regular missions, helping me push this character closer to 50. Instead, I had to stare at the screen and mutter imprecations, which I have no doubt would lead to a lengthy discussion with several federal agents and a very uncomfortable (and notably lacking in feline company) stay in a small room while they tore apart my cabin in search of "evidence" if I were to repeat them here.

The Calvin and Hobbes influence just oozes from this. Absolutely wonderful. 🙂

I love writing. Even if it's just posting, even if I'm making a silly comment, I love writing. I love words. I love being able to communicate, something I can't do well in person due to my mental illness. So I'm delighted to know that you appreciate how I say something, regardless of what I'm saying. It matters to me. Thank you.

In the 30 Firbolg mission, though, one can sidestep the issue by going into the map and defeating spawns. You can stand at the henge and wait for them to try to escape, but it's not mandatory, you're not trapped in that one spot, waiting for the waves to approach, and the waves are so broadly spaced that it's very easy to finish the mission in a comparatively short time. You can pro-actively work within the mission parameters to end it sooner, essentially bypassing the hidden wave timer. That's an example of good design. Not the timer, but the option to ignore the timer and force a successful mission completion. It gives players at least one option beyond parking their character in one spot and taking a nap. The 30 Firbolg mission isn't much fun, but I don't find myself wanting to check LinkedIn for former developers to stalk and beat with a rubber hose when it's on my mission list.

I like Croatoa. It's a really nice break from the monotony of Hellions, Outcast, Freakshow, Family, Council, Circle of GODDAMN GHOSTS NOT DYING WHEN I SHOOT THEM AND FLYING OFF AND DISAPPEARING... *cough* As I was saying, levels 25 and 30 are always something I look forward to because I can go to Croatoa and pick up some relaxing story arcs. Croatoa's well designed, the missions are, if not entirely entertaining, at least consistent within the framework of the narrative devised for the zone and with each other, the story arcs flow well and the zone critter chatter has some amusing moments. But there's one mission which so egregiously violates every principle of good design that I can't help but to despise it. I kept the image quality low for various reasons (forum breakage, Verizon's deprioritization being comparable to a denial of service attack, etc.). But it really doesn't need to be high quality for our purposes. One look and you know which mission it is. There are so many things wrong with this one. It begins as a triple hostage rescue and escort. Escorts are bad mission design in general. Yes, they occasionally serve a purpose, such as escorting someone to an interactive object, but the escort itself is unnecessary, and ultimately, both pointless and a waste of the player's time. For those who rely on stealth, like stalkers or widows, escorts can even be detrimental to their ability to participate in and experience content. The whole idea of escorts is a design flaw. Anything you can do with escorts, you can do without, faster, easier and less annoyingly. Once those hostages are rescued, escorting them to the objective presents it's own obstacle. I can't imagine how or why, but the developers apparently failed to notice that there's no opening in the fence surrounding the objective. The gate is on the other side of the mission barrier wall. So you have to escort the NPCs to a fence, and pray that the pathing AI doesn't shit itself when it gets to that point, running around in circles instead of jumping over the fence (it happens). Then you have to pray, again, that the NPCs won't jump onto the fence, rather than over it, because it's one of those fences which doesn't have a properly defined geometry, so you (or the unlucky NPC) just slide until it finally kicks you off... or you get stuck and have to use /stuck (which NPCs can't do). But, hey, they don't usually turn into shish-kebabs, so this part of the mission isn't as bad as it could be. It's still a rotten design, another one of those things which never should be used in any game, enhanced by atrocious pathing and a monumentally huge oversight in the layout of the map, but it's not the end of the world. It's tolerable. If the mission ended at this point, it would be memorable only in the sense that it represented the end of the arc, and be little more than a barely remembered example of bad design in a long list of missions with design problems. Oh, no, though, it doesn't end there. It becomes so much worse that it's almost impossible to figure out how or why the team in charge at this point could have conceived of something so incredibly bad that the very existence of it is offensive. You see that timer in the compass? Yeah. We're playing a fast-paced action-oriented game... and we're locked into a 15 minute wait. 15 minutes of being stuck in this mission. There's no way to end the timer early, short of the destruction of the objective, and even if you allow the objective to be destroyed, it takes nearly the entire 15 minutes. That's just a huge dick move. A bigger dick move than large outdoor maps with clear all objectives. And it actually gets worse. The initiation of the timer begins a series of waves of enemies... but you have to defeat a wave before the next one spawns. And they don't spawn rapidly, it's a laconic, lackadaisical series of waves. You can make a Thanksgiving turkey dinner between these waves. It's like the development team got together and asked how to create a torture device. This isn't a mission, it's Hell in video game format. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if defeating a set number of waves ended the timer and completed the mission. It would at least be interesting if the waves came at set (preferably short) intervals, regardless of the status of previous waves. It wouldn't be such a pain in the genitalia if the developers hadn't done everything in their power to guarantee that you were not setting foot out of that mission for the full duration of the timer, and you were absolutely not going to be entertained in any way, either. But they did, and this is what we ended up with. The really sad fact is, this mission is so poorly designed that the best ways to complete it are to auto-complete it, or to take a character with any decent amount of +Defense, +Resistance, +Regeneration or -ToHit, or even an uninterruptible self heal, stand in the path of the first wave and Alt-Tab out for 15 minutes. The mission was designed in such a way that not playing is the best approach. That is... just fucking pathetic. I know we like to have it easy here, but this is just too much. I hated this mission every time I played it on the original servers, I've reached the point of loathing it's very existence now. This glaring insult to gaming should never have gone live in this state, much less remained completely untouched in the years afterward. Here we are, fifteen years later, with the fetid corpse of this failed abortion still polluting the entirety of Croatoa. There are always uninspiring missions, boring missions, even tedious or frustrating missions, but this is one of a kind in Co*. This mission is a complete break from good design, in every way possible. It can't even be failed quickly, unlike some of those "Protect X while X runs headlong into slavering hordes of NPCs who can kill with a single attack" missions, or "Prevent X from escaping but be aware that X spawns in a random location and starts running for the door as soon as you enter the mission". It's a failure in every sense of the word and in every possible way. As much as I dislike surprise AVs/EBs, bosses which don't scale down to lieutenants and other mistakes and oversights in mission design, this mission makes all of the other design flaws seem like perfectly wonderful choices by comparison, because at least with other bad missions, we can ask for help to speed them up, we can scale down the difficulty if the critters are obnoxiously strong, we can do something to finish the mission and move on. With this one, we're just stuck. Waiting. Endlessly. Even with a full team, there's no challenge or enjoyment to be had. It's just shit. I don't expect every mission to be a festival of laughter, or a well written drama, or have great design. There are enough good ones to skip most of the noticeably bad ones, and enough mediocre ones to skate through the majority of the game without feeling cramped. No-one bats 1.000, and I never expected Cryptic or Paragon to do so, either. But they just gave up on this one, threw everything that went into every well-designed mission into the trash and shoveled a steaming load of crap right on the game in this case. So if you're reading this, and you happen to be a game developer, here's your example of how NOT to make a mission/quest/whatever. Learn from others' mistakes. Don't make unnecessary escorts a requirement, don't fuck up your map and risk forcing players to abandon and restart missions, and don't ever leave players stuck with a timer that can't be ended early, especially in a mission with lazy, slow waves of critters which pose about as much threat as a mayfly, unless you're encouraging your players to not play your game (why make the game at all, if that's the case?). We now return you to your regularly scheduled Saturday.

😁

I'd take the Mook-in-a-cement-bucket animation and move it over to every rescue mission in the game, replacing the bucket with ropes. No more cowering, no more standing there clapping, just that one animation so we could all laugh as the hostage hops away from the action when combat begins. Except Fusionette. She can be tangled up in yarn instead.

He's going to take one look at the kids, say, "Chocolate Nips or Cheese Nips?", and Halloween will be cancelled. Forever. MARK MY WORDS. ... I can throw 50,000,000 in the pot if my safety, and that of my nips, is guaranteed. >.>

I didn't say it didn't function in the same manner. I pointed out that the numbers were reversed from D&D. Semantics? Yes. But if you're going to skim a post and respond to the opening line(s) instead of reading the content, you're not really asking for any other kind of response. I suppose I could say, "Read the post." instead. No, better yet, I'll include the relevant section right here. Can we move it along, now? I know I'm starting to sound like a monumental prick, so it's probably best if we just stop and find something else to talk about.

The D20 standard. I apologize for not being more precise.

I'm aware of how the hit check mechanic functions. It was one of the things I covered in my guides on the original forums. My post wasn't a request to have the nature of hit rolls explained, but to point out how poor they are at creating or enforcing balance, regardless of which balance is in question. Also, we miss on 20 in this game, when our hit checks are 95.01-100, not on 1. The hit check mechanic is numerically reversed from the tabletop standard.

A petless mastermind slotted with SOs can face-roll through the game without a backup plan. Critters are going to be defeated, regardless of missed hit checks, and debt is such a meaningless penalty that it's become nothing more than another badge to acquire (when debt is even applied). Having a mechanic enforcing an arbitrarily assigned failure rate doesn't change any of that, or lead to sudden shifts in the flow of the battle which put the player on the defensive, it just makes us wait for the queued power to finish animating so we can queue up another power and hope we're not forced to sit through another long animation with no reward for the time we're investing.

I'm going to have to check the "Disagree" box and circle "Emphatic". It's a mechanic that makes sense and is practical in tabletop games, where a human mind can create tension, drama or comedy to make a failed hit check worthwhile in some manner. In a video game, as a control and balance mechanic, it's bad. It might be better if it were, in some way, similar to tabletop implementation, creating unusual and interesting situations, but the version we have is contrary to good game design. It discourages the use of powers with longer animations and/or recharge times, it's not evenly applied to all powers (because some powers can't be reasonably believed to miss, like AoEs with persistent effects) and it punishes players more than it helps them. It doesn't even really improve balance or developer control over power design, it merely gives a false sense of security when creating powers or trying to balance effects. If we had a better implementation of missed hit checks, if we actually had some kind of fumble mechanic, it would be less inappropriate for a video game. If, for example, failing the hit roll meant a second roll was made, and an effect determined from a table (10% damage dealt due to a glancing blow, nearby enemy hit instead, complete reversal resulting in the damage/effect affecting the player character, etc.), it wouldn't be such an objectionable mechanic. But missing with an attack, followed by a forced hit by the streak breaker, and having the next attack miss again? That's not dramatic or comedic, and the only tension it creates is that resulting from annoyance. Missing when one is using mixed single-target and AoE attacks is even worse because it can lead to a series of misses (AoEs aren't affected by the streak breaker), and it's not merely annoying, it's completely ludicrous and beyond maddening. Missing would even be tolerable if it were only applicable to foes with Defense buffs or ToHit debuffs. It would be acceptable if it had some additional impact beyond simply causing us to grit our teeth and press the next key in our attack chain. It wouldn't be nearly as frustrating if it, at least, allowed the overwhelming additional Accuracy many of us are sporting to scale that 5% down to 3%. or 2.5%, or it scaled hit chance with animation and recharge times so using those powers with slow animations and recharge times didn't feel like a waste. There are numerous ways to balance attacks without any of them involving a 5% chance to miss, or a streaky streak breaker, or players beating their heads on their keyboards in frustration. Slapping a 5% guarantee miss rate on the majority of powers, though, is unimaginative, and, I'm sorry to say this because I have boundless respect for what Cryptic accomplished when they designed the engine (really, a lot of what they created for the game is just mind blowing when you consider it, things like gravity, momentum and friction mechanics which mimic real world physics), lazy. If I had my way, I'd rip the hit check mechanic out and rebuild it from the ground up so there was no guarantee of failure, only a guarantee of something occurring, for good or ill. And with that, I've got to get back to missing with Blazing Arrow, then Fistful of Arrows, then Stunning Shot (this, with a set designed to be "more accurate" than any other set, is so unbalanced, it makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa look straight), so I can finish this mission and sweep up the hair I've pulled out.

That was neither what I said, nor what I implied. I said include some animations from Staff Fighting, pull other animations from the Cimerorans. The animations from Guarded Spin and Innocuous Strikes could be comparatively easily modified to use one hand, and would fit the concept well. Other animations, such as holding and throwing the spear, as well as the basic combat stance, already exist and can be imported from within the game (the Cimerorans). I'm not suggesting Staff Fighting with a reskin. I never was.

People throughout the entirety of human history have used spears with shields. Using a spear with a shield allowed Rome to build one of the most successful empires, ever. Using a spear in conjunction with a shield allowed a handful of Spartans to hold off an entire army of Persians. The Egyptians, the Mayans, military units all over the world used spears and shields, from the dawn of civilization, to conquer and defend, and were remarkably effective. If it worked for several tens of thousands of years in real life, it can work in a video game focused on superheroes. If we have a twirly attack or two, no-one's going to complain about realism because we might give ourselves a rap on the noggin if we tried to replicate the attacks in reality. You can thrust, lunge, sweep, vault and spin, and throw the spear. There's six of nine powers in the set, without limiting motion. In a superhero video game, I think we can dispense with the argument that there have to be realistic limitations on the remainder, or even on the six already possible.

He used dual shields in Infinity War.

Use some of the staff animations, pull some animations from the Cimerorans, BAM! Spear Fighting. I'd do unwholesome things for a spear.