Ultimo

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.

So I recreated my Illusion Controller as a Dominator (suits his character better), and sent the 4 million or so influence by mail from the old to the new... or so I thought. The email never went to my @handle, and I have no idea where it went. I assume I typoed the email, is there a way to find out where it went? Is there a way to get it back? 4 million is small potatoes to many, but it's a fair bit to me. Nothing crippling, but it stings a bit. It would be nice to get it back. In any case, I think there should be some way to find where our emails have gone, perhaps a recently sent tab?

I suspected as much, but figured I'd ask, thanks.

I'm thinking of things like Mutation (Radiation secondary), Vengeance (Leadership), etc. These powers are used when a teammate is defeated... but does that include the pets?

I've been trying to use it as a primary damage source on my Red Skull homage, but it's just not working for me. The character feels incapable of doing much of ANYTHING. His damage, and that of his mercs, is nearly nonexistent, and he seems to have little to debuff with, though the Radiation secondary does help some (though its heal is minimal and range is nonexistent, its debuffs are adequate).

Is there some way to transform an existing character to use new sets? I have a character based on Loki that I'd love to give this set as a Dominator; he's currently a Controller, but the Dominator secondaries suit him far better.

Brainstorm? Is that a test server? How do I access it?

Well, it's been a while (I decided to post in the original thread rather than starting a new one, since the point remains the same), and I'm still struggling with the character. Right now he's still Mercs/Radiation, but I'm still finding that underwhelming. I've added in the Experimentation pool, but I'm finding THAT underwhelming too. Really just struggling to get the character in a position where he's fun to play and seems capable. Poison has a really, REALLY weak single target heal with a moderate cooldown that the character can't use on himself. His debuffs seem really weak, and seem to be single target, with diminished effects on nearby targets. It doesn't seem to have anything that does any actual damage. Radiation has some reasonably debuffs that affect larger areas, and an area effect heal, but the character has to be next to the mercs, and the heal itself is also really weak. All this is exacerbated by the fact that the mercs are SO weak themselves. Almost any Warrior enemy will immediately oneshot them, and most other enemies will leave them nearly dead in one attack. If several foes attack at once, all the mercs could be instantly wiped out. I'm not sure what else to do with him. I've looked at Traps, but haven't really tried it much yet, because it lacks the conceptual connection, wherein the Skull uses poisons, toxins or corruptive effects.

Certainly Vigilance works on your Defender. When he's solo, he'll get a damage buff. Taunting enemies who can ONLY attack you isn't helping you. Increasing the size of an AOE you don't have isn't helping you. None of the other powers require you to take a specific power to get the benefit of the inherent (ie. the AOE). Honestly, I don't understand the resistance to this.

And again, that's highly situational. Which other class only gets a benefit from their inherent SOMETIMES? Does the Scrapper's critical hit ability only affect certain powers? Does the Defender's Vigilance only work after L20?

Only if you have AOE powers... which most Tankers don't get until MUCH later... and the benefit is very minor. It's a highly situational benefit at best.