Ultimo

Some good ideas here (and some in PMs too), thanks all. I'm still tinkering with it, and some of these names HAVE given me new directions to look.

Yes, I tried that name, but it's taken. I was a little surprised, actually. It's the basis of the character's power, actually. The fluid covers his skin and when struck, acts as armour. Pieces flake off, and are replaced with more fluid.

Well... I came up with Eyeflash. I'm not sure about either of them... what do you guys think? Ferroforce Eyeflash For Eyeflash, I just can't justify the blasts not coming from his eyes, so I went back to the Psionic Blast set. I paired it with Mental Assault, so right now he's Psi/Psi... I'll mix in Fighting and Leadership.

FINALLY got one I think I'm ok with. The strongman I've called "Ferroforce." It's not bad. Not ideal, but not bad. Still working on the other though.

I'm on Excelsior. Ya, I tried every variation of steel I could think of, plus variations of Titanium, Osmium, Molybdenum... I even tried Oobleck, but even that was unavailable. I tried variatons on the word Anvil, as well as various words describing a forge. I've tried literally hundreds of names, but it's just proving impossible to get anything that works in any kind of satisfying way.

So... I have a couple of characters I've been struggling to name. I thought I'd see if I could get some suggestions from the gallery. The first is a character based on Colossus of the X-Men. The premise of his power is that he can emit and coat his body with a non-Newtonian fluid that becomes rigid on impact, acting like armour. It also exists in his muscles and bones, making him very strong. He's a Tanker with Invulnerability and Super Strength. I made him Ukrainian, a former circus strongman before joining my mutant super-team. I've tried every variation of steel and iron I can think of, every variation on the word or concept of armour. I tried Dilatant, referring to the dilatant nature of the fluid, but it just isn't very satisfying as a name. So... help? The other is based on Cyclops of the X-Men. The premise of the character is that his body draws energy from the environment around him (light, radiation, etc.) and uses it to create unstable particles. Stored in the soft tissues of his body, they can only escape from his eyes. When they come in contact with air, they draw energy from the air molecules, creating waste photons (red light) as they draw themselves through the air. When the come in contact with a material too dense to draw energy from, they instead discharge all their stored energy against the target. He's Canadian, on the run since his powers destroyed a city block. Recruited into my mutant team, he's learning to control the power. Being based on Cyclops, I really wanted him to use eye beams, but there's just not any power sets that provide that in a satisfactory way. Radiation has X-Ray Beam, but it's ONE power, which just isn't enough. I tried using the Psionic Blast set, but the look and sound just doesn't work. So, I think I'm just going to make him a Blaster with Energy Blast and Martial Combat, and hope that someday they make alternate animations for eye blasts. As for his name, the one I had wanted originally was Hadron, but that wasn't available. Neither was any other particle in existence, and I tried them all. I've tried coming up with some kind of reference to supercolliders, but nothing quite fits. I tried variations on Shockwave and other kinds of waves, but nothing is available. Nothing I've tried is available... so, help? I've been trying name after name after name for about a week now, and can't get anything. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I tend to agree, I'm not one for gimmicks. My thinking for the Power Armour set is to make it less reliant on toggles. I mean, it's just armour, it would provide protection just by being there. Enhancing it in some way might require power, or some other resource, of course. Thus, things like a powered exoskeleton, or life support systems, or advanced sensors (or other gadgets) would need power... but the actual armour plating wouldn't. That was the "gimmick" I had in mind, but there's some really good ideas here already. They may not make use of any of the ideas here... but one never knows!

Think of it as a variation of Invulnerability. The idea is that it should provide defense much like Invulnerability, but with some variation here and there (ie. generally more passive). The idea of adding gadgets and such does appeal to me quite a bit... I'll tinker with the set using some of the suggestions here. As for the naming of it... you can really define any power set however you like. Currently, my armoured characters all have Invulnerability, which I'm characterizing as powered armour. I just thought it might be cool to have a power set specifically designed around the power armour concept, since it's a concept that's frequently used in comics. Of course, if you like the functionality, you could define it as whatever you like.

My thinking is that the armour itself should be mainly passive, but it should have some additional benefits that are toggles (eg. Life Support). I like some of the other ideas, though. I was basically starting from the standpoint of Invulnerability, which is a pretty decent defensive set, and turning it around here and there... I thought about adding things like sensors for targeting and such. Some armour based gadgetry would definitely fit the theme.

So... I have a number of characters whose concept includes powered armour (like Iron Man, or similar). Pretty well all of them just use Invulnerability, but it seems to me there might be a place for an actual power set depicting powered armour. Here's a quick rundown of some ideas, perhaps we can start a discussion and work out something they could consider making! 1. Armour Plate (Passive) Adds 20% resistance to Smashing/Lethal. 2. Ceramic Plate (Passive) Adds 20% Resistance to Fire/Energy/Cold. 3. Life Support (Toggle) Adds 10% Defense to Toxic/Radiation/Negative 4. Ablative Plate (Click) Adds a pool of Temporary Hit Points 5. Exoskeleton (Toggle) Resists Knock/Immobilize/Sleep/Immobilize/Hold/Disorient 6. Refractive Coating (Passive) +10% Defense vs Smashing/Lethal/Energy 7. Fusion Reactor (Passive) +20% Endurance Recovery Rate 8. Emergency Battery (Click) Immediate +50% Heal, +50% Endurance 9. Overcharger (Click) +40% Resistance to all, +50% Endurance discount Obviously it needs work, but this is the first notion off the top of my head.

Ya, that would be nice, but I'm trying to make a suggestion that's as little work as possible. If they can do more, great! Otherwise, just using existing animations would be fine.

So, I've been trying to make a character whose main power is blasts from his eyes, like Cyclops (or Homelander, or any other character whose powers emanate from their eyes). Unfortunately, there aren't many powers that come from the eyes. Many of the Psychic powers come from the head, at least, but they're all PSYCHIC damage, and have none of the effects of other types of power (knocks, debuffs, etc., depending on the power). My suggestion is to create alternate animations for other blast sets, so the blasts come from the head/eyes. Most of the animations are already in the game, I can't imagine it would be TOO hard to use the psychic blast animations (for example), but have the energy blasts come from higher up on the model.

Well, last night I spent 4 hours trying name after name after name for a new character, but couldn't get anything. Started trying again today, it's been 3 more hours. They really need to do something to free up some names.

So, I'm still struggling with my Magneto-based character, and I'm at the point where I'm trying to decide whether to make him a Corruptor or Defender. I posted about this before, here's a brief summary of my thinking. First, I made him a Controller, Grav/FF. The problem with this is, the critical gravity powers all teleport objects or enemies, which isn't quite right for a magnetic character. So, I next made him a Controller, Earth/FF. This didn't quite work because it was so ground based, and just didn't quite "feel" right. My next effort was a Corruptor, Seismic Blast/FF. This is what I'm using now. The seismic blast powers are... ok. They do kind of conjure rocks out of thin air, but that's easily rationalized as pulling debris together from the surroundings. Magneto used this trick a few times over the years, so it does kind of work. The problem with this character is how SQUISHY he is, and how utterly incapable he is. Damage seems really anemic, and he's out of endurance before he can defeat even one foe. So, I've been considering making him a Defender, FF/Seismic, but I'm not sure. Mids suggests the Defender's damage is even MORE anemic (Encase, for example, is listed at 70dps on the Corruptor and 30 on the Defender... quite a difference). His defenses would certainly be better, but even at that are kind of minimal (with Hover, Combat Jumping, Maneuvers and Weave he gets to around 36% Defense, compared to the Corruptor's 29%). So... I'm not sure. What do you guys think? I'm just not quite feeling the Corruptor, and I'm just not sure I'll feel any better about the Defender. Am I missing an option I'm not seeing?

Ah, that could be. Doesn't help me if I have more than one costume, though... unless they awarded one for each. Update: Went back in, no free tailoring at all. I guess I'm just out 600000 inf.

So, went in with a full tray of purples, and I even discovered there was an ally Fortunata in the mission I'd missed before. Every little bit helps, you know. Did manage to take her down, even though she was a L37 red EB. Unpleasant, to say the least. But, got my Mu Mastery, so that's good.

So, I just got my Mu Mastery set, and went to customize the powers. I found, to my consternation, that it was costing me more than 50k influence to alter all my War Mace powers, too. ALL of them... even though they can't BE customized. That might be a trivial cost to some, but it's a lot to me... especially repeated for EVERY costume. I can't imagine this is how it's supposed to be. Do I report this as a bug?

What about the adds... do the Fortunatas or other Arachnos debuff Psi resistance?

Well. FINALLY got past Silver Mantis. Kicked Barracuda's butt, and then rescued Wretch. Next mission, defeat Serafina. I go into the mission, fight my way through to the room she's in. She's showing up as a red EB, surrounded by about 12 Arachnos adds. I go in, attack with three purples, three reds and three yellows running. She attacks back and hits me for 1400 damage. I have 1300 health, so with the adds all doing damage too (since NONE of them ever miss, regardless of the purples), I'm instantly oneshotted. Seriously, how am I supposed to do anything with this, there's no way I can tank that kind of damage, and she just spams that over and over, every time I try to do it. On the one occasion she started with something else, she STILL did 800 damage with that attack, then followed up with another 400, then another 1400. I mean, seriously? This is me playing at -1 level, no less. Just stupidly overtuned.

The thing is... if something keeps being brought up, I'd consider it something worth doing, because there's a demand for it. As for being difficult... well, I'm no programmer, so I can't speak to that.

The main problem I have is that I've made many characters over the years (I used to make comics when I was a kid), and when I try to recreate them here, they need to have their correct name, as much as possible, or they're just not themselves. Some characters can get close. I have a character who was originally called Warpath, but had to be renamed. I finally settled on Warshell (he's an armoured character, so his armour is a "shell," which is still kind of thematic), but some characters just can't be renamed. A good example is the Canadian Shield. His name is a reference to the geographical formation in northern Ontario. There's not really any way to rename him. I still say they should alter the way characters are named, using a system like there is in Champions Online (and elsewhere). In that system, a character's name actually includes their HANDLE. So, my version of Canadian Shield would show that name, but as far as the server is concerned, he would be Canadian Shield@Ultimo1. That way, anyone could have a character using that name.

So, tonight I was trying to do the patron arc for my War Mace/Electric Armour Brute. He's L35. He also has Combat Jumping and Weave. So I get to the mission where I'm supposed to fight Silver Mantis, who spawns as an orange Elite Boss. Ok, fair enough. I've soloed AVs on this character before. I attack, and she hits back. We trade blows for a bit, I use a few inspirations to recover health, and get her to around 20% health. At this point she uses Unstoppable, and my attacks are doing essentially nothing. So, I retreat to let it wear off. By the time it does, she's back to nearly full health. I engage again, and she almost immediately uses it again. And again. And again. I run through ALL my inspirations, run around and around and around trying to let myself recover, since HER attacks do massive damage while mine do nearly nothing. AND she has a self heal on top of all that. I don't know what else I can do if she's just going to keep hitting the Unstoppable button every time I do any damage, then self heals. It's been a very frustrating night. So, I was chatting about this in game, and suddenly start taking damage from her. She's not even on the screen, I retreated. She's on some other level of the place. So, I went back to try again and got her to 50% health, at which point she just stopped taking damage at all. No Unstoppable, and my attacks were putting up numbers (around 100 damage per attack), but her health never moved. So, I don't know what else to do with her. Yes, I could get someone else to come in and beat her for me, but that's not any fun either. Kind of defeats the purpose. Any other suggestions?

I've posted a first draft, called The Dire Plan, if anyone wants to try it out. I welcome feedback. I should say, I've tried it myself on a few characters ranging from L9 to L38, and they all did ok, but had trouble with the final mission.

So, I've published the Dire Plan for testing. In particular, I need to know how HARD it is. The goal (as usual) is to make it accessible to everyone without being too easy for higher level characters. I've tried it a few times on a couple of different characters at different levels, and only the final mission proved difficult. I'm also open to some opinions of the enemy power sets. I'll not say any more about it until I've had some feedback. If you have any questions or comments, PLEASE post them or send me a PM so I can answer/consider feedback. Thanks!

Appreciate the input. So far, it's pretty stupid hard, but just later on, and I've populated those missions with NPCs to help out. It's still bare bones though, so I have work yet to do.