Ultimo

Ok, since I need to clarify. I'm not upset about anything. I just encountered a mechanic I thought was new, that NPCs get the benefit of the streakbreaker. I thought that was a bad idea, because it nullifies the defense of not getting hit, no matter how much you do to prevent it (I kind of still do). However, it was pointed out that this mechanic has been in place all along. Since I didn't notice any problem before, that suggests there IS no problem. I just never noticed it in the combat log before. So, it's NOT an issue. My original complaint is founded on a misconception, so it can be ignored.

What the heck are you all still raging about? I said I thought the streakbreaker for npcs was something new. It was pointed out that this is not the case, so I said, OK, THERE'S NO ISSUE THEN. And yet there's FIFTEEN more posts. It's fine, I got the answer I needed, if you guys want to go on about it, knock yourselves out, just leave me out of it.

Yes, I'm aware of this. Every attack has a CHANCE to hit you. What bothers me is that when streak breaker engages, it's GUARANTEED to hit you. It was my understanding that means every sixth attack is guaranteed to hit you. Again though, I thought this discussion had reached its logical conclusion. The streakbreaker has been in place all along, and I never even noticed it... so there's not really an issue. I still think it probably shouldn't be there, but if I've never noticed it before, how much of a problem can it really be?

Good lord, some of you people will argue and fight over ANYTHING. The character suffered a defeat. I'm not comparing it to actual physical suffering or anything like that. If you don't like that word, substitute the word "endured."

I'm afraid I'm going to disagree with you. If I take steps to defend myself by making it impossible to hit me, then a mechanic that makes it guaranteed that I'm going to get hit is rendering my defense irrelevant. If I lose a fight because of that (as I did tonight), then I've suffered from it. You can play with the semantics as much as you like. In any case, if it's been there from the beginning and I've never noticed it until now, it's not actually a problem.

Fair enough. I suppose I've just never suffered from it before.

Ok, I wasn't actually aware this was a thing, but apparently NPCs get the benefit of streakbreaker now? I'm not sure when this started, but it can't be allowed, it renders characters depending on not getting hit completely defenseless. I was running a mission this afternoon, a low level Super Reflexes Scrapper. He doesn't have his status protection yet, but his defense is as good as can be at low level. An enemy hit him with a hold, which was FORCED to hit by streakbreaker... and that was it. The character couldn't break free, couldn't fight back, he just stood there and got attacked again and again and again, with no way to do anything. He would have been FINE, but the hold was FORCED to hit him. His defense, not getting hit, was rendered completely irrelevant by the streakbreaker. Of course, that was a hold. However, if it was just a normal damaging attack, it would have been much the same... NPC damage (Bosses and higher, anyway) is SO much higher than ours, one hit can essentially end the fight, if you don't have other defenses. Now, it's fine for US, because we're the players. We need to be able to fight back. The enemy doesn't need to have that freedom, they're MEANT to be defeated. We should get the benefit of streakbreaker, but NPCs should not.

Ya, you can do collections of several things... however, we can't make a set of objectives that are independent, but all together trigger a single event. For example: In one of my missions, I had several bosses the player has to defeat, each representing the generals of the enemy force. Once they're all defeated, the big boss would appear. However, I couldn't put them all in place and then have the boss appear only once ALL were defeated. I was forced to daisy chain them together, where you defeat boss A, which spawns boss B, which spawns boss C, which spawns boss D, which spawns the big boss. It made the mission a bit of a chore, as you had to go looking for each boss each time, covering the whole map each time. What I'd like is to have a set of objectives which are essentially independent, but that once all are complete, it spawns a single new objective.

So, I expect some of these may have been suggested before, but I'm going to present my little list anyway, just in case they've not been. I'd love to see these things done with the AE! 1. Balance the custom NPC powers. Make them consistent with regular NPC enemies. At present, they're doing as much as 3 times as much damage. It's too high, and makes it difficult to balance characters for use as enemies or especially as allies. Melee powers are especially problematic. 2. Have allied EBs and AVs scale down in the same way as enemies, to prevent them trivializing content. Right now, allies don't scale down as enemies do. 3. Custom power colours, and stances for NPCs. Notable: Phantom Army should default to make duplicates of the NPC, not generic featureless characters. 4. Make pool powers available (eg. Sorcery, Super Speed, etc.) 5. Allow custom characters to be marked as unique, so no more than ONE can spawn at any time (ie. if I have a group that includes all EBs and one Boss; the game will spawn several duplicates of that boss, even though it's supposed to be a unique character). 6. New maps, in particular, more from Mercy and St Martial, and something with a beach (for use as Omaha Beach in WW2 arcs, as well as other things). 7. Allow several objectives to spawn at once (eg. Completing an objective to activate something causes several Boss objectives to spawn at once - right now, you can only spawn the bosses one at a time). 8. Allow collective objectives (in the example above, a third objective spawns once all the boss objectives are completed). 9. Allow enemies to surrender instead of requiring defeat (ie. they become untargetable). 10. Allow interactions with NPCs (ie. go to a character and talk to them, a dialog window opens with the conversation, as happens in regular game content). 11. Allow the creation of custom Underling and Giant Monster rank characters. 12. Higher rank Dopplegangers. Right now, they're Lieutenants only. 13. Make Mastermind pets available as enemies independently of the Masterminds themselves. I'll probably add more as I think of them! If you have any suggestions of your own, mention them below, and I'll add them to my list!

I've posted a couple of times about this stuff.

Plus, the discussion might come up with something they can use. One never knows.

No, but I only see the aura being the issue. The costume choices would simply depend on the effect (eg. the giant fist) being the same colour as the costume for the gloves. The effect would overlap the actual arm of the character, so it would look like it was extending. The aura... well, that's a different story. If you have a suggestion, that's the point of this thread... to get some discussion going and see how we can tweak the idea until it's something feasible.

Ya, I mentioned that in the original post... I'm not sure if new animations are something the current devs can do. If not, perhaps there are existing animations that can be repurposed... Most of the powers I suggested are likely able to use existing animations. For instance, 1- Snap Punch - Thrust animation from Neutrino Blast 2- Hammer Blow - Punch animation from Super Strength 3- Two Hand Blow - Energy Blast animation (2 arms) from Energy Blast. 4- Taunt - Normal animation 5- Iron Grip - Energy Blast animation again. 6- Rubber Banding - Buff animation. 7- Rebound - Buff animation. 8- Looping - Cross animation from Fighting. 9- Pinwheel - Whirlwind animation from Super Speed. Again, that's the character animations... the power animations are a different story.

Ya, I kind of envision it acting like ranged attacks. As someone else mentioned above, the animation might have the character thrust his arm forward (as with Neutrino Bolt), but instead of the green beam, it would project a "beam" that looks like the arm and fist. The beam would reach out then come back. It would overlap the actual arm enough that it would conceal the hand, and make it LOOK like the model was stretching out. You'd have to customize the colour to match your gloves, which shouldn't be difficult to do.

I'm not envisioning this effect stretching the model, but applying an overlapping limb. Imagine it like a beam effect (like X-Ray Beam, for example). At the front of the beam is a fist, and the beam itself would just be an arm. Colour customization would let you match it to your character's glove colour.

A very common power set is missing from the game. We've seen many characters in the comics who have this set: Mr. Fantastic. Plastic Man. Ms. Marvel. Elastigirl. Of course, I'm talking about STRETCHING. The usual explanation for why this set has never been introduced is that the engine doesn't support it, but I've seen effects in the game that are reminiscent of this set. For example, the Circle of Thorns Hordelings have an attack with a stretched out tongue. If they can do an attack that looks like a stretched limb, surely the players could too...? It would mean creating new animations, so I'm not sure that's feasible. If it is, though... how would we make the powers work? What would the set DO? Let's consider what we see the characters in the comics using the powers for. They throw punches at a distance. They often alter the size of their fists and use them like flails. They often alter the shape of their bodies to act as walls, or wheels, or other shapes. They use their limbs or bodies to restrain enemies. They allow their bodies to warp and distend, allowing them to reduce damage to themselves, even reflecting attacks back at the attackers. It seems to me the powers in this set would be essentially ranged, though likely somewhat shorter ranged. So, I see the following as an example: 1- Snap Punch - A quick, one arm attack at long range. Low damage, fast recharge. 2- Hammer Blow - Make a big hammer with the fist at close range. Moderate damage, AOE. 3- Two Hand Blow - A quick two fist attack at long range. Moderate damage, moderate recharge. 4- Taunt 5- Iron Grip - Toggle! Wrap body around a target and hold them. Target can still attack YOU, but no one else. Moderate DOT, long recharge. 6- Rubber Banding - Click, adding extra snap to attacks, increases tohit and damage. 7- Rebound - Click, while active, S/L damage reduced by 90%, reflecting such damage at the attacker 8- Looping - Sweep out with an arm and trip foes. Cone light damage, knockdown, moderate recharge. 9- Pinwheel - Spin body and arms, extreme damage PBAOE. Long recharge. Now, this is just off the top of my head. Some animations might need to be created, but some might already be in the game, at least partially. For example, the Snap Punch animation might be based on the same animation used for Neutrino Bolt from Radiation Blast, where the character thrusts his arm out at the enemy. The stretching version would replace the radiation blast with an arm and fist that moves out and back the way the Hordelings' tongues do. I don't know how much the current developers can do with animations. What say you? Does this have some merit? What would you change? Let us discuss how this might be implemented, and perhaps the developers can get some inspiration from the discussion!

Just so.

L23 Street Justice Scrapper... Spinning Strike (I had to look it up). They're Council Marksmen, same level as me, radio mission. As I say, the number says 54 seconds, but it doesn't actually take that long, as the debuff only lasts 10 seconds... so it's a bit deceptive.

Not necessarily. Because he won't frequent the forums doesn't mean he won't play the game.

As I've said, I can only say what I've seen with my own eyes, and you'll be hard pressed to convince me I didn't see what I saw. Such as this. The second slot on the second bar is Spinning Kick, from a screen I took tonight. I was fighting Council, this was after I was tagged by several Marksmen.

So, right now, there's two animations for stealth. First, you're translucent when stealthed, but appear in a slightly less translucent state when engaging in battle. Second, you're completely invisible, but appear in a translucent state when engaging in battle. My suggestion/request is, can we change how the engaged in battle state looks? Either add additional animations, or just change the existing ones, so that once we engage in battle, we lose ALL translucency? As it is, in the first state, you're translucent, or you're translucent. It's really hard to know when your stealth has reengaged, and it's kind of out of character for stealthiness (in truth, I much prefer the way other games represent stealth, by making the character appear to be in deep shadow). Another minor issue is knowing where your character IS when invisible. Perhaps a slight glowing outline around the character when invisible, just so we know where we're positioned?

Ah, I see what you're referring to. Ya, that was a different encounter. That was a higher level boss, and I was playing a much lower level character, so he had no resistances or anything. In any case, we're drifting off topic here. The thread was asking if something was changed, and that question has been answered. Apparently, nothing has been, it's just a matter of perception.

Look, I'm not disputing what you're saying. I can only tell you what happened. Three cogs took their shots, and my endurance all but bottomed out. It's what happened. If there's some other explanation, I'm happy to hear it, but that's what happened. As with the other guy, I'm not disputing your numbers, I'm only telling you what happened. The number on my Spinning Strike power said 44. I assume that's the cooldown time. Of course, it didn't TAKE that long because the effect wore off before that, but the number said 44.

It didn't change, this is the post from a bit higher on the page. Ya, as I said, it was a while ago, perhaps I'm misremembering it. I have a lot of characters, perhaps it wasn't the one I thought it was. I also tried something tonight to see what was going on. I was doing a radio mission with one of my newer characters, a Scrapper with Street Justice and Willpower. I was doing a radio mission, and took a hit from a Council Marksman with a cryo round, or whatever it's called. It's the beam attack that hits you for a slow. I right clicked the little debuff icon and checked the information. It said it was a 16% slow with a 10 second duration. My Spinning Kick power cooldown counter went up to 44 seconds, but then dropped back down to normal a few moments later (combined with the time it took to check the info, it was probably that 10 seconds). I'm not sure offhand what the normal cooldown on Spinning Kick is, but I know the counter jumped up to 44. The point is, it didn't stay there, because the debuff wore off, and the power recharged normally after that.

As I said earlier, I'm not sure the debuff lasted 40 seconds, I'm saying the number on my power (I have it displaying the time to cooldown) said 40 seconds. I don't know, it might have lasted that long, it might have slowed it to that point, but the buff expired before that. I left the battle because I couldn't fight back, and wasn't counting the seconds. The endurance thing is something I've seen in a few cases. I have a Dark Melee/Willpower Brute who, being around L17 at the time, tried to take on 3 Cogs on a rooftop. All three shot at him, and his endurance dropped to perhaps 10%. I made one attack, and everything detoggled, and I was out of endurance. From that point, they just drained any endurance I had with every attack, and I was unable to fight back... so again I had to run away. Just doesn't feel very heroic, let me tell you. I'm not sure what level the foes in Steel were, I thought they conned grey, but I could be wrong. The thing was, that group was largely ice bad guys, Outcasts, I believe... Freezers, Chillers, and the like. With a bunch of them hitting me, my recharge (which is somewhat long anyway, on a War Mace character) was floored. Again though, I don't know if the debuff lasted as long as that, I'm just telling you what the number said on the power button.