Ultimo

Well, I'm not a coder, so I've no idea how feasible the idea is. I just wanted to put it out there.

The problem with using AE (and I've done so), is that these enemies never appear except when doing THAT mission. I feel like it would be cool to have my nemesis (or a teammate's) appear in a mission at any time might be kind of nifty. Imagine rolling confidently through a mission, and suddenly you find yourself face to face with an Arch Villain. That cakewalk might suddenly get very interesting. I'm not suggesting having a whole story built around each nemesis (and you're right, CO's system was a bit limited), but it would be cool to have a nemesis that could just show up. I hadn't thought about the Kheldian thing, that might be a way of introducing these characters into missions... the code is already in the game for that. Anyway, it's just a thought.

Over at Champions Online, they had a fantastic option to create a Nemesis for your character. This is definitely thematic, most significant heroes have a nemesis (some have several... Batman has Joker, but Superman has Luthor, Darkseid and Brainiac). It was kind of nifty when that nemesis would show up in a mission here or there. I don't know if it's even feasible, but it would be AWESOME if we could devise a way to incorporate this idea into THIS game. How awesome would it be if you were to find your Nemesis has randomly appeared in a mission you're on. Imagine if you were on a mission with several players and SEVERAL of these nemeses turned up! Any thoughts?

I don't want to be the only one seeing it. I want my character to look like my character to anyone looking at him.

As a fan of Darwyn Cooke (RIP), I always loved the way his renditions of Superman, Batman and others wore longer shorts instead of briefs. I'd love it if there was a legs pattern representing longer shorts. I quickly banged out the kind of thing I'd like to see...

Well, I don't do anything sorcery, I'm sticking to classic Doom for inspiration. All tech. Group Fly is kind of a must, it's just SO good with the bots. I do like having a personal attack, but I could easily rely on Air Superiority for that. I even have a bind for those rare occasions when someone does try to melee with me: "Fool! Dire does not engage in petty fisticuffs!" followed by an Air Superiority and Force Bolt. Sorry, "Repulsion Bolt." What was the point of renaming that? I find the new name kind of... repulsive.

My MM is based on Dr. Doom, he's Bots/Force Fields. He uses several pools, including Flight, Leadership, and Fighting. My intention is to get into the Field Mastery pool, but he's not at that level yet. I'm sure I could drop the Fighting pool, I don't use it much, except for Tough and Weave. It just feels like a bit of a nerf.

I haven't been able to redesign the character in Mids, it's still using the old power setup.

Well, it used to be that my Protector Bots could cast a heal periodically. Now, they don't have that ability, it's been assigned to the Maintenance bot, which means instead of taking one power (Protector Bots), I have to take two in order to get the same effect. My build was pretty tight as it was, it's meant leaving out ALL my personal attacks... which is discouraging. I mean, MM personal attacks are pretty trivial anyway, but even so, it's a loss.

I'm feeling conflicted about this fellow. I have lost a power slot, since I now need to take this power to replace an ability my Protector Bots used to have. More, the drone itself just looks like a cannibalized torso floating around (indeed, when dismissing the pets, it transforms into a Battle Drone). Anyone else feel like this is actually a bit of a nerf? I mean, the bots are still pretty strong, it's just cut into my ability to take other powers a bit.

I'd even settle for being able to use specific existing enemy groups. One of my Masterminds would most likely be working closely with the Council, for example. I'd also like to be able to adjust the look of certain specific minions. For example, I really dislike the look of the Commando (3rd tier Merc). My Mercs are supposed to be elite, disciplined soldiers, the sleeveless guy just doesn't fit the aesthetic I'd like.

Does that hide the effects for everyone or just me?

So... the mission is the first of a 5 parter. A local store is being shaken down for protection money. The contact asks you to go talk to the owners, who will describe what happened, and who was involved (and the son will rant about it, setting up a rescue later). After the interviews, thugs will appear and be easily defeated. The contact will explain the implications of the testimony of the two owners. I think they do have to get this information from the owners, but it doesn't have to appear as a dialog. I had thought to have the information appear as clues. I'd RATHER they be dialogs, but I don't know if that's possible. Part of the point of all this is to create missions that aren't just "Go in, fight bad guys, repeat over and over."

So, I wanted to build a series of missions. The first one has the players visiting a shop (I planned to use a jewelry or pawn shop), where they would interview the two owners and their son. There would be NO villains present until after the interviews, at which point there would be an ambush. Ideally, the ambush characters would arrive, the player would have an opportunity to talk to them, and then the fight would happen. But, I'm having problems. To begin with, I can't figure out how to make a scenario with no enemies in it. Then, I can't figure out how to put the NPC owners in the shop for the player to interact with. I had thought to make them collectibles, or some such, and add their testimony as Clues. Finally, I don't know how to make the ambush happen only after all three interviews have been done. Does anyone know how to make this work?

Thanks for the thoughts, all. I suppose I'll stick with the power sets I'm using. However, this still leaves the question, Tanker or Brute? I solo 90% of the time, so perhaps I'd be better off Tankering... but I do enjoy the durability... Well, I won't be deleting anything yet. Oh, and I should say, I'm not using any sets or IOs, my characters are all using SOs, since they're all around L30. Seemed a waste to make IOs I'd outlevel fairly quickly. My endurance related ones (ie. Performance Shifter, etc.) are all... infused(? don't have a level, I'm not sure this is the term), so the level doesn't matter. Once they get to 50, I'll worry about more elaborate slotting.

So... I'm wrestling with a quandry. I've always played Tankers. I just like the durability. However, I've recently had an eye-opening experience. My main tanker, the Canadian Shield (though he still can't get his NAME), is Invulnerability and Super Strength. I recently finished the Freaklympics arc, and it took me FOREVER. The final mission took around 3 hours, because it took SO long to defeat every foe, who would heal before defeat, then ressurect, then heal again before defeat, then finally be defeated. Add to that the nonstop endurance drains making the horrendous endurance management of the game even WORSE... and it was just no fun at all. Then I went to my Submariner homage character. He's a Brute, using Street Justice and Willpower. Now, he wasn't doing the same story arc, but absolutely everything he did just felt FAR easier. He was still PLENTY durable, and just never seemed to have any endurance woes. On top of that, he was doing 2-3 TIMES as much damage as the Canadian Shield was doing. It left me questioning why I would play a tanker at all... and left me questioning several of my characters. The Canadian Shield uses Super Strength, which I always found underwhelming, and Invulnerability, which seems GREATLY inferior to Willpower. The Stalwart Star is a Shield Defense/Martial Arts tanker, who runs out of endurance in seconds, despite having two endurance reduction in ALL his attacks and toggles, PLUS Performance Shifter, Panacea and Numina's in Stamina and Health. Marshal Mantic is a tanker using Dark Armour (though, I'm not decided on this, I'd rather have less obvious effects) and Radiation Melee... but I'm really debating whether to stick with the tanker. A large part of my problems on most of my characters is that they're nearly impossible to play without them running out of endurance in seconds. I abandoned my Electric Control/Force Field controller, my Storm/Electric Blast defender, and many other characters ENTIRELY because they couldn't use their powers without being out of endurance after defeating EVERY foe. That controller would defeat one minion, then PFF until his endurance came back, then defeat one more minion... then run away because PFF hadn't recharged yet, and he couldn't fight anymore. Honestly, it was THIS problem that made me quit playing CoH back when the game was live. In any case, the issue I'm working through now is whether to remake my tankers as brutes... whether to abandon sets like Super Strength, Martial Arts and Invulnerability (which are just too endurance heavy) for other sets, like Street Justice? I'm feeling quite torn.

So, I decided Bio Armour has too many effects that can't be suppressed. I've revamped him with Dark Armour, but I'm having the same kind of problem, so many of the toggles have effects that are too obvious. It's a shame, I feel like Dark Armour would be perfect, what with its invisibility and mental controls. I might have to just go back to Willpower. A shame, I have so many characters with that as it is.

I know... I just found it strange they would allow all the other powers to have no effect... but not Dark Embrace. Be nice if they made that change.

So... I was looking at creating a character (based loosely on Martian Manhunter). I thought I'd give him Dark Armour (partly because it's a set I've never used), because it offers the invisibility Manhunter has, and has some defenses that seem to affect the minds of his enemies (stuns, fear, etc.). However, I found that even though I selected Minimal FX, there are still powers that generate the cloudy schmutz around the character (starting with Dark Embrace), which more or less have to stay on at all times. Were they planning on making it so the minimal FX setting actually neutralizes all the effects?

Yep... but that's why I put this in suggestions!

That's correct. For example, I have a head boss called Malephar, Lord of the Brass Men (he's kind of based on Darkseid). I created a villain group called Brass Men, which includes his minions, called Brass Men), and so far, just one Lieutenant, but a NAMED Lieutenant (based loosely on Brola). He's supposed to be unique, but not as powerful as his other unique henchmen (who all appear as Bosses, with one Elite Boss). The problem is that if I put the Brass Men in the mission as the base group, the Lieutenant will spawn in several groups. I realize I could start separate groups for all the special characters, but I kind of wanted them all in one group. Also, I have a couple of missions where I have groups of Supervillains patrolling (a couple of the missions are set in Mercy Island, and I wanted to simulate the PC villains that might be wandering around). To accomplish this, I have a group of supervillains... but all of them are supposed to be unique... and they aren't. There will frequently be several of Baron Muerte accompanied by several of Armoron, and several of Red Blight... or what have you. If they were marked as unique, the game could have different characters in each spawn, instead of repeating one or more of them.

So... a problem I've been having with the Architect is that it keeps spawning multiples of characters that are supposed to be unique. For example, suppose I create a specific named character who is ranked as a Lieutenant. There's a good chance he'll appear in several groups of enemies, all over the map. My suggestion is that there be a way to designate unique characters AS unique, so there can only ever be one of that character on any given map at any given time (ie. he can respawn, but only if he's not already somewhere on the map). Not sure if that's easy or impossible, but I wanted to put the suggestion out there.

I did figure out a fix. Select the Options tab and select Configuration. On the window that opens, kind of in the middle, increase the font size for Power Selections to 9.25 (one click of the up arrow). That fixes it.

I'm now using version 3.4.6 On the left side of the interface, where the primary and secondary powers are listed for selection, the first tier powers are underneath the dropdown menus, and can't be selected. Is there a fix for this?

I've sent inf to myself many times, so I know the email works. I expect I just typoed when I filled in the recipient field on this occasion.