Ultimo

Ya, a lot of my characters are based initially on existing characters... but I always try to move them somewhat away from them. I'm sure sometimes I'm more successful than other times. Captain America, for example, is hard to make an homage to, because there's only so many ways you can do a character in red, white and blue. In any case, I did consider making Mr. FF a bots Mastermind (he's called Mister Mech, after all), but it didn't quite feel like Mr. FF, who tends to personally use gadgets rather than sending bot minions into battle. As I think about it, in a fight, Mr. FF gets personally stuck into melee, and uses his gadgets as support and as finishers... He's hard to simulate.

So, I've posted about this before, and I'm still kind of struggling with a character. He's meant to be based on Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards... but of course, there's no stretching in the game, so I'm having to fudge a bit to reflect what he DOES with the stretching. Looking at Reed, in the comics he has two powersets, his stretching (which provides durability, melee and control feats) and his inventions. My current version is a Blaster, Beam Rifle (representing his invention... we often see Reed produce a giant weapon of one sort or another) and Atomic Manipulation (which has some melee and some controls). I like it... but he's just so flimsy, and Reed should be better able to stick in melee. So once again, I'm wondering how people might build a character to reflect Mr. Fantastic and his abilities. Any thoughts?

I don't think I'll be making him, alas. The name he had (and has had for nearly 30 years since I first created him) was Mythos, but that name isn't available. I could try renaming him something else, but it wouldn't be HIM anymore, if you see what I mean. I'd thought to make him a Willpower/War Mace Tanker. This would suit both Thor and Hercules (Thor with his hammer and Hercules with his club). Pools would include Medicine and Leadership for Holmes, Fighting, which would suit both Hercules and Holmes, Flight, so I can give Hercules Air Superiority, and Flight for Horus, then the Flame-based Epic pool for Horus' stellar powers. I couldn't come up with anything for Robin Hood, but there are other mythological characters he could become... Medusa, or something from some other pantheon. Anyway, I appreciate the ideas, and I hope it posed a fun problem for everyone.

I did create the character for Champions Online, but there was better power selection flexibility. My plan was to do something like Biostem suggests, to take a "base" powerset, then supplement with pools for all the other characters. Naturally, the costumes would reflect the various characters. Is there a bow attack temp power? I could do Robin Hood with that. Anyway, some good thoughts here.

So, many moons ago, I created a character for the old Champions pen and paper game. The concept of the character is this: He's a child, perhaps 10 years old, with a mutant power that allows him to alter his physical form and powers; a shape-changer of sorts. However, he has no real control over this power, which causes him to change form when he shifts to one of his multiple personalities. When he changes form, he takes on the attributes and personality of the character he's turned into, believing himself to BE that character. He has several personalities. Hercules. Greek demi-god, possessed of great strength and durability. Horus. Egyptian god of the sun, possesed of the power of flight and the power to project light and heat effects. Thor. Norse god of thunder, possessed of the hammer Mjolnir, and the power of the storm. Sherlock Holmes. Victorian detective, gifted with great powers of observation and deduction. Robin Hood. Medieval archer and rogue, the greatest archer in England, and a fine swordsman. In theory, he could transform into other characters... all fictional, except to him, when he BECOMES them. The difficulty is in trying to create a character that kind of emulates these abilities. Some things can be captured by pools (eg. Hercules' super strength might be simulated with Air Superiority and the Fighting Pool), but other things, like Thor's hammer or Horus' light powers... I'm not sure about. So, as a challenge to the community, how would YOU go about creating this character for City of Heroes?

I have no problem with that. In fact, I kind of like it. I'm reminded of how Thor is frequently utilized in the Avengers comics, back in the day. Very often, he wouldn't be part of the main attack. He'd be hanging back, building a storm to a massive crescendo while the rest of the team keep the enemy busy until he's ready... then he would unleash the full fury of the storm in one titanic attack, to finish off the enemy.

So, even way back in live days, I made a Defender character based on the Chinese storm god, Ch'ih Sung Tsu. I made him Storm/Electric Blast, with Teleport Other and Sorcery powers (for flight and Translocation). But, they've brought out this Storm Blast power set, and I'm considering recreating the character again as Storm/Storm. However, I'm not sure about it, I don't know how effective this new set is... and I've got him (rather painfully, what with trying to resolve the horrendous endurance issues of Defenders) to L35. I'm not sure I want to go through another 35 levels of leveling a Defender again. So, my question is: What's the new set like? What are its strengths? Weaknesses?

Ya, I tried reducing the font, but it became unreadable before it all became visible. What's needed is a means to adjust the size of the "windows" the pools appear in. Is there such a thing?

Ok... another question now that I have it working. The power pools as listed are only showing three of the powers. Trying to scroll through them is awkward... and I don't remember needing to do that before. Is this a change? Is there a way to alter the presentation of the powers so the pools can all be visible?

I'm... not sure. I don't think it asked me to select anything. Let me reinstall and see if I missed something. EDIT Aha! I didn't notice there was a selection on the page where you choose the destination folder. That solved the problem! Well spotted, thanks!

I don't have discord or github, so I'm posting here. I downloaded what I thought was the most current version of Mids, from the website https://midsreborn.com/ I uninstalled the older version I had, and deleted everything from the destination folder, then installed the new version to that folder. I ran the program, and went to start a new build for my Mercs/Radiation Mastermind. However, I found that several power sets were completely missing, including the Radiation secondary and Experimentation pool. I tried to update from the dropdown Help menu, but it produced an "Unhandled Exception" error. It says it's Mids Reborn v3.5.5. It did let me continue, but the power sets were still missing. So, I downloaded the zip file from the website, uninstalled the version I'd just installed, deleted the folder and unzipped the new version. The zip file says it's v3.5.7. However, when I ran it, it was exactly the same as before, and when the error occurred, it said it was v3.5.5. So, I'm baffled. Am I downloading the wrong thing? How do I fix this?

Actually, I made my Speedster a Tanker as well. When you look at these kinds of characters in the comics, they tend to be the ones getting the attention of the enemy on THEM, creating openings for the team... I'm reminded of the Angel, WAAAAY back in X-Men #4, where they were assaulting Magneto's fortress. Angel flew nearby to draw fire while the other X-Men approached and attacked. Or the Battle between the Avengers and the Exemplars where Quicksilver was dashing around distracting all the enemies while the other Avengers took advantage of the distraction. Spiderman is this kind of hero too, jumping around taunting bad guys while fighting them... and even Captain America is a Tanker, his colourful costume and shield intended to make HIM the focus of enemy attention while Bucky would operate more freely. I know, Cap and Spidey aren't speedsters, I'm just pointing out characters sometimes fill roles you might not expect.

Well, not quite 50/50%... at least 10% needs to be sharks.

While true, presentation is half the battle. Maybe MORE than half.

Ya, that's a result of the retcon into the "speed force." I grew up with a guy who was just fast, and that was plenty... so I'm trying to stay consistent with the speedsters I grew up with.

Ya, I always cherry pick the powers I want them to have, but even at that it's nearly impossible to properly balance them. For example, the NPC version of Canadian Shield was doing more than 200 damage with Punch, compared to the 40 damage the actual character was doing... and that's when I made him as a BOSS. Making him an EB or AV would only make things worse. But, beyond that, there's the discrepancy between the types. Canadian Shield as a Boss is an almost indestructible juggernaut capable of obliterating any PC in seconds, while Dr. Solomon the Controller is defeated in seconds himself, without being able to do much of ANYTHING to a PC. I understand, it's likely difficult to balance things when you can have combinations not possible for players, but I still feel like a balancing pass is needed.

As I'm trying to recreate some characters, I'm finding a problem exists that I remember having even back in live days. The issue is it's impossible to get some kind of consistent balance for my custom NPC enemies. Basically, it amounts to this. If I want to make an epic enemy, that the heroes need to pull out all the stops against, they're SO ridiculously powerful that they're practically oneshotting the player characters. Then, if I make them lower rank, to reduce their absurd damage output, they become absurdly flimsy, and offer no real challenge at all. For example, I created a version of my Tank character, the Canadian Shield. I had originally planned on making all my NPC actual heroes and supervillains Elite Bosses, the logic being that WE are stronger than bosses, but weaker than Arch Villains. However, I knew ahead of time that making Tanker type characters as EBs makes them too strong, so I started as a Boss and figured I could upgrade him as necessary. As a boss, his attacks were doing 200-800 damage, on average. This is enough to nearly oneshot my L35 Mastermind. Considering he's got to face absorbing dozens of such attacks, there's basically no way for him to survive an encounter with the Canadian Shield as a Boss, let alone as an Elite Boss... and even thinking about making an Arch Villain... there's just no way. Meanwhile, my NPC character based on my Electric/Traps Controller was obliterated almost immediately when created as a Boss. The discrepancy between the power sets is pretty extreme, and the discrepancy between the ranks (ie. Minion through AV) is also pretty extreme. I feel like a balance pass is desperately needed.

I did consider suggesting an attack in Super Speed similar to the Shield Charge attack... It blitzes in at high speed and creates a powerful shockwave at the destination. Seems to be in character for the set, what do you think? As for the other suggestions, I'll work towards that. Unfortunately, it means he won't actually play like an actual speedster for some time. Have to make do, I suppose.

So, my project of creating characters based on the JLA goes on. Now, I'm working on making a character representing the Flash... but I'm finding it kind of daunting. Initially, I made him a Scrapper, Street Justice (for the multiple strike attacks, since they look faster than other similar attacks) and Super Reflexes, with the Super Speed pool. I considered making him a Tanker, since it seems to me the job of the speedster on many teams is to draw the fire of the enemy and avoid getting hit... but it didn't seem quite... right. Anyway, the problem I've been having is that there seems not to be any really mobile power sets. Even Super Speed doesn't have any powers or effects that you can use WHILE moving. Even if I fight with Super Speed toggled on, it suppresses the speed boost, so he no longer runs fast. My question is, how would you design a pure speedster, like the Flash or Quicksilver? As an aside, perhaps they could do something to revamp the Super Speed set? Perhaps swap out something for a toggle power that causes damage in an arc in front of the character, or perhaps in a wake around him, relative to how fast he's moving? Some kind of mobile attack.

I have a great imagination. Heck, I don't need to play the game at all, I can imagine everything about my character and his adventures.

The more detail we are able to give a custom nemesis, the better, but honestly, I'd be content to see them just appear at random in missions. That is, you design the nemesis (similar to how they're designed in AE), and the game just attaches that character's attributes to your character's file. Then when a boss is needed on a mission, the game could randomly pick a nemesis from one of the characters in the mission. Instead of a generic Council Galaxy Adjutant, you're taking on an actual unique villain. It would just give missions a bit of variety, a surprise here and there, and some extra enjoyment for the person whose nemesis appears. They might even just restrict them to tip and radio missions. Clearly, missions that have specific enemies already should not have any possibility of a nemesis appearing. Again, AE is fine if all I want is to fight the same foe in the same way all the time. There's nothing terribly engaging about it if you know what's going on, because you WROTE the story. Plus, there's no chance I'll bump into someone ELSE'S nemesis in an AE mission. Sometimes the most fun had in the shows and films is when a hero finds himself facing off with an ALLY'S enemy.

Most of my characters are based initially on existing characters, but over time, I try to move them away from the initial design. Some of them remain closer than others, but I try to get some distance from it. Sometimes, it's just their powers that are the same. Other times, I use the same costume colours in a very different costume. In every case, I do try to make them more unique as I go. Wolverine is just the starting concept. I plan to work out something more unique when I play him a bit.

So, I'm working on a character I want to base on Wolverine. My initial question is, Scrapper or Brute? I initially thought Scrapper, but with Wolverine's tendency to go berzerk, the Brute's Fury might actually be more in character. What do you think?

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.