DougGraves
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Posts posted by DougGraves
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18 hours ago, TemporalVileTerror said:
Emergency Medical Hologram? Why yes. Yes. Robert Picardo IS fantastic.
You mean Bob?
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On 4/10/2021 at 11:34 AM, BjorJlen said:
I totally agree with you @Techwright, but unfortunately these are the times we live in.
Conan Doyle received death threats in the 1890's for killing off Sherlock Holmes. This is not a modern phenomenon.
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Well of course EMH is the best. Avenger's Assembled isn't bad, it is just far inferior to EMH.
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Knockback/kd works on many bosses that hold does not work on. I like Jolting Chain for the same reason - it gives you some control on bosses.
If FB took 1 second to cast and did one knockdown, it would probably be worth it on low level characters against bosses (fighting Trolls in the Hollows). On a FF defender it would be better because they lack other controls. On a FF controller it would not be worth it in general.
If you want to make Force Bolt better, make it a knockdown with a mag 3 stun for 6 seconds. You get some control for bosses and decent control for minions and lts.
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I finished the arc, defeating Lord Richter. I did some of the missions one day and then finished this morning. I remember the general plot but not the twists and turns. Partly it is so long and there are so many twists and turns, and partly I played it over a week or so.
I really like the details and how the missions play. I enjoy them even though I am at this point basically ignoring the larger plot that ties all of the arcs together. I wish you just had each arc as its own story, but I understand you have a story you want to tell.
I have never done the Seraph map before. It was great. It took me awhile to find Kip outside, but it wasn't hard once I started looking for him instead of clearing.
In the Seraph building, I loved seeing things through the windows. I saw a longbow agent fighting arachnos and had to search through doors to get to him. It had a cool story feel to it as reinforcements arrived.
You really do great missions.
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1 hour ago, TemporalVileTerror said:
The way you build each of those Defenders can radically redefine their niche.
It looks like from your response you missed the part about powerset and just read AT.
Why should I choose a defender FF powerset instead of a cold domination powerset?
Both have defense shields you can put on your allies. Why should I choose FF and why should I choose cold domination?
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I played GW2. They had a lost of classes and powersets plus pools (using CoH terms). It was hard to understand why a lot of the pools existed. Then I learned that some things were designed for pvp and were not intended to be good for pve. Other things were good for teaming but bad for soloing, etc. While it was sad to learn that a set that I though would be cool to play for style reasons was going to suck for me because I don't pvp, it was nice to understand why a set I thought sucked was designed that way.
With so many AT's in CoH it can be hard to tell what each is for. Brute vs scrapper vs tanker is an obvious example.
But a bigger challenge is probably figure out the powersets. Are some good for soloing and some better for teaming? Are some good for a different playstyle? There is no way to make all AT's both interesting and balanced if the only thing they are designed for is aoe damage.
So player generated or dev generated, it would be great to have a description for each of them that both helps us select powersets that should suit what we want and determine if a powerset is actually good at what it is supposed to be good at.
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I had not know this existed. I am assuming it is from the 90's. A one season, 13 episode cartoon.
I like that the show has the lesser known Avengers. Wonder Man, Tigra, Hawkeye, Falcon, Vision, Ant Man, Wasp, Scarlet Witch. Some are now much more famous of course. It does have Ultron as a villain - created by Ant Man. But the main villain group is Zodiac which is rarely seen. So if you are an Avengers fan from the comics it has a lot that is missing from the MCU.
The episodes and story are pretty good. They feel like the comics. The only oddity is that the heroes wear their normal costumes walking around but have techy-armored costumes when they go on missions.
Sadly it does not exactly end. They resolve the immediate problem but it is clear that the story is not over when the show ends. If you like the Avengers it won't spoil it. The ending is somewhat satisfying, but not neatly wrapped up.
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I finished 1-3 with the wrap up of Mirror Master. It was a bit hard to watch because of the large gap. I could tell things were supposed to be dramatic but since I was just jumping in it was hard to remember what was going on and why certain things or people were important.
That said, it was generally good and classic Flash tv. Cisco getting a new supersuit was nice. They did a lot with all of the characters in general.
The episode where they try to take down Flash made no sense. They did a whole lot of stuff to end up teleporting him back to where they started. That seemed to be the plan, but it did not seem to even try to accomplish anything. My wife and I were baffled.
The ending with love being the solution and talking the villain down felt like a let down. In particular, Barry talking her down did not feel earned. It just felt like a cheap solution. Nothing built up to it. Had Iris done it after spending weeks with her in the mirror zone it would have felt earned.
Also, Mirror Master just massacred her creations. All of the DC shows seem to have this anti-killing attitude until they decide that some group is different enough that killing them doesn't matter. White martians, mirror clones, or whatever. Mirror Master had just spend weeks planning for helping her children and then she kills them all. That felt very strange.
The solution to the Dibny actor problem was reasonably well done. I am disappointed that the actor is gone and that the storyline was just abruptly ended, but at least they wrapped it up.
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2 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:
It's not really a complaint. I just wish I could turn on the ability to see it in chat. Looking people up isn't something I do.
Agreed. I have no idea if I run into the same player again. Looking up everyone I play with is not feasible. If I saw the player name I might recognize them.
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38 minutes ago, Twisted Toon said:
Isn't that already available with (free) server transfers?
Granted, it isn't as convenient as, "Let me activate my cloak of shard passage" or anything...
The big thing is LFG. I want a shared LFG across all players. We could then teleport to another server, shard, or whatever once we join the team.
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1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:
That couldn't have been tailored on Earth, since the clothes are invulnerable(?).
He also shaves. The trick is he uses heat vision to shave himself (using a mirror) and also to make the cuts and holes in his clothes for tailoring them.
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4 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:
My biggest pet peeve... I'm supposed to talk to an NPC before the end of the mission, they better be screaming bloody murder for me to come talk to them.
I never find the body on the floor I'm supposed to talk to. I've called a GM for help and had them point out I was standing right next to the NPC I was trying to find.
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Funny you just posted this. I just ran the first mission of Dark Deeds Part Three. Kip shows up. I liked having Kip show up but was confused as to whether he was supposed to be part of my mission or had just happened to be there. I think the end mission briefing clarified that he just happened to be there.
I do like having named people show up. It feels like more of a world. But it also does make me wonder why, so it adds confusion.
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One of the big things I notice is formatting of the contact's text. Sometimes it is just a wall of text and hard to read. Sometimes it is nicely formatted. And the best is when it uses some highlighting colors to call out description versus dialog.
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Go into AE and see everything you can fiddle with. What parts matter when you play a mission?
Clues? Text when you talk to a contact while a mission is active? Descriptions of NPCs when you click on them and select Info? Souvenirs? Random NPC chatter in the missions (patrols and such)? Boss text as you are fighting them?
What parts do you totally ignore? What parts do you notice if they are there but not if they are missing? What parts really add to your enjoyment of a mission?
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that should help. It gives the Family tie.
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Okay - I definitely did not get why I went to Warburg and then Burgh was not there. This might help.
Is Burgh said to be friendly with the Family earlier on? They mention Crey, I don't recall the Family.
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29 minutes ago, Darmian said:
You free someone that the rogue faction vitally needs, and then track them down because they'll be taken in by the faction, and those are the ones you are actually hunting. Any suggestions on how I can clarify that further? Looks like I failed in finding a balance between "this is the plot!" and "let the players discover the plot".
Level 19? Ah, they are labelled not suitable for lower level. Dark Deeds in Galaxy City: Part One doesn't have that though, because I can't edit it since it is Dev/HOF status.
I don't actually have any characters in the 40's. I stop leveling at 34, but I can pull one of those out.
I would be more explicit in the dialog. I think it is GW who says something like "our rogue scientist is..." I was not sure who she meant by the rogue scientist. If DeBurgh is doing what we want him to do the dialog should sound like that. But it came off as he was not following the plan and we had to hunt him down because of that.
Something as basic as "Now that DeBurgh has made contact with the faction you can track them through him." I think something like that was said for the trip to Warburg, but I think it was about tracking him and did not make clear to me that this was going as planned. I'm not saying it isn't in the text - but I didn't get it.
Also Crey gets mentioned a few times but never shows up. Every time they got mentioned I was confused as to what their role was.
I did like all of the missions. The detail is great.
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I finished the arc. The plot made no sense to me by the 3rd mission. I free somebody and then hunt them down? I just basically seemed to do whatever GW wanted me to do without understanding why or there being a reason I should do it.
I did get defeated several times. It is too much for a level 19 blaster. So many enemies have knockback and other CC. I will have to try the next ones with a higher level character with mezz protection.
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On the second arc. Have to stop to walk the dog.
I don't like the story. The name of the arc is clear - Dark Deeds. I just normally wouldn't play an arc like this where I am committing crimes. Although it is ironic that this is very close to the Falcon and White Wolf plot line.
I like the first mission content. Good map. Nice details. I am running this at lower level so the enemies are a bit overpowered but I can generally handle them. The boss beat me and then I came back in to find him beaten up by other NPCs.
The second mission map is great - I've never been on it. But the end is super hard. I was defeated multiple times. Then I had one last task to complete and it gave me an ally. The end would have been much easier with the ally. Maybe the rest could be gated on finding the ally as it was very hard on a blaster without him.
Again, I like the individual missions but they don't feel all that connected to the storyline and I'm not excited by the storyline. I just feel like a stooge being used.
I'll get to the other missions later.
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12 minutes ago, Sakai said:
Floating?
You can have your tabs in the lower left where chat normally is, or you can have tabs by themselves that you can put anywhere on your screen
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7 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:
City of Heroes IS an MMO.
I get that you think this is a compelling argument. That if you label something and define that label that means the thing cannot change. But it is not compelling.
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I have a tab just for NPC dialog. I don't have it floating though
For player understanding and balancing, can each AT and powerset be described with its niche?
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by DougGraves
In character creation. It says choose type of character - ranged damage, support, etc. Then each category gives you a list of AT's. Then each AT gives you a list of powersets.
Imagine if you said "I want buff/debuff abilities and I want control." Then you might get recommended controllers, dark defenders, dark masterminds, and fortunata widows.
You could require someone to read all of the powers including the numbers to figure out how much defense FF provides or how much -Res sonic provides. But it would be much easier if there were a description:
Force Field:
The description can include what matters to players when choosing powersets besides them - since the theme is in the name. So for Dark Armor it would say it uses a lot of END. But electric attacks saying they can return some END for you would be left out if players decide that is a useless ability.
The discussion over the description would help highlight how devs and players view the powers. Maybe players say the END drain is useful for pvp but not useful for pve. The set could be flagged as recommended for pvp not pve, or the pve powers could be made better separate from the pvp versions.
And if players all say that Force Field having knockback is a negative not a positive, maybe the devs will change it to knockdown.