Ultimo

What I find with all those pieces is that: 1. They don't match the walls. Unavoidable, nothing does. 2. They don't reach the ceiling, which means putting additional ones ON the ceiling, which results in... 3. The clipping pieces cause a peculiar kind of distortion where each piece seems to be trying to be the visible piece. It's not really the solution I'm hoping for, but there may not BE any such solution.

So, I've been designing a base that's meant to be something like the X-Mansion, or Avengers Mansion, or what have you. I'm kind of happy with how it's working so far, but there is an issue. There are many alcoves that are meant to be ROOMS. Ideally, there would be wall segments I could fill the opening with, that have normal sized DOORS in them. Obviously there's no such thing in the game... so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions? The base entry code is "MetaMansion-30895" if anyone wants to look around... I'm delighted to get some feedback.

Energy Aura is too flashy... can't abide the effects. I do have it on a different character though, and I've found it... somewhat lacking. That character is in his 20s now, he might need to be reslotted.

So, I've been leveling a Ninjas Mastermind for the first time, and I'm finding the experience... underwelming. I paired them with Kinetics, since the Kin heal is best with melee pets. What I'm finding is that they're really squishy, dying in the time it takes my heal to recharge. They also don't act like Ninjas, and neither does the Mastermind. I know other MM pets got slight revamps recently (Mercs are awesome now), so I think Ninjas could use a bit of love too. Some ideas: For the Mastermind himself... perhaps something other than just a bow? Perhaps have one bow attack, one sword attack, one blinding powder? For the Ninjas... they should ALL have the capacity to be invisible. The Oni could turn into wisps of smoke, perhaps? The Ninjas need to do more damage if they're going to be so squishy. One thing that seems common with Ninjas in the comics (eg. Wolverine, Daredevil, etc.), they tend to use attacks and things that bind or hamper their enemy. Wolverine is constantly filled with arrows on ropes and the like. They also seem to be really NUMEROUS. Perhaps there should be something like Gang War for the Ninjas? In any case, I think that Ninjas could use some love. What do you all think? What would you do to improve them? Not just performance, but presentation?

I should probably say, the character is (loosely) based on Saitama. The objective is to create a character who has a minimal set of attacks that do substantial damage, while being more or less unassailable himself. I'm not terribly familiar with Saitama though, so I'm going by what little I have actually seen. He's fast, of course, as most of the time, enemies can't even hit him... but also durable (I've seen him take attacks, and his head just bobbles around with him barely noticing). This says to me he needs to have some Resistance, as well as substantial Defense. Ninjitsu does provide some Resistance... The resistance to debuffs is something I hadn't noted... Certainly something to consider. Given that his arch-nemesis is mosquitoes, who might be considered a debuff, perhaps less defense against debuffs is in character...!? 😛

So, tonight I was tinkering with a SR Scrapper character, and got into a conversation with someone who suggested that Ninjitsu might be a preferable set. Opening up Mids, I found that Super Reflexes provides around 30% Defense to Melee, Ranged and AOE (SOs only, and no pools, for the sake of comparison). This requires the use of SEVEN powers (21 enhancement slots, total). Ninjitsu provides just shy of 22%, using only TWO powers (4 slots total). It also provides 11% Resistance to EVERYTHING (another 3 slots, taking the total to 7). Looking at this, I'm beginning to wonder why I would take Super Reflexes? Is there something I'm missing? I mean, the 22% Defense is lower, but with Combat Jumping and Weave, and possibly Maneuvers, it goes up to more than 30%. Plus, it has a stealth power that takes it up to 27% while he's not attacking, as well as a heal and an endurance heal. What I mean is, one or two additional powers, and Ninjitsu leaves SR kind of in the dust. Or am I misinterpreting things? Any thoughts?

So, I'm working on an AE arc, and I wanted to have the final mission happen in an ancient ruined city something like HP Lovecraft's Elder City in Antarctica (think, dark, dusty corridors of smooth black stone). I've been trying to find a map that has that kind of look, and haven't come across one. Does anyone have any suggestions? Also, I wondered if there was a way to make an objective spawn only after a series of boss objectives has been completed (ie. there are 7 bosses you have to defeat in order for the final boss to appear)? At present, I seem able to link the final boss to only ONE other boss objective, which would mean he spawns before the OTHER bosses are defeated, if you happen to fight the linked boss first, which is not appropriate for the story. I need him to spawn after ALL the others are defeated.

While true, I'm more concerned with the NPCs than other players. The issue is that so many of the higher rank enemies do so much damage, just with basic attacks. For example, one enemy I created is an AV. That meant he spawned in my mission as an Elite Boss. I gave the player several NPC allies to help fight him. He attacked my test character (a L32 Tanker, Super Strength/Invulnerability) with a relatively medium attack and did enough damage to oneshot him (since it was a DOT, it gets around the no-oneshot system in the game). That's against a TANKER, the most durable class possible. He's going to just oneshot every player he attacks. To me, there's no fun being had unless you have some kind of chance to fight back. That means reducing the rank of the character to reduce the excessive damage, or using only the lowest power attacks. Doing the former means making the character a Boss, since EBs and AVs both do excessive damage, which means the enemy is too squishy. Doing the latter means they're dull to fight against because he has no variety in his attacks. This is the problem I keep butting up against. I just thought perhaps there was an option I hadn't thought of.

Part of the issue is the disparity between the ATs. For example, an enemy that will oneshot a Controller might be fine for a Tanker. My thinking is always to make enemies that are soloable by ANY class... so I build for the Controller. Yes, the Tanker will be more survivable, but he's SUPPOSED to be. No enemy should be oneshotting any character intended to be durable. So... a-tinkering I will go. I'm working on a story arc now, keep your eyes peeled for The End of Days.

So... in my seemingly endless quest to make enemies that are fun and balanced to fight against, I've decided to come and ask what other designers do. Basically, the issue I have is that if I make an enemy that is supposed to be kind of equal to the hero, so they can have a good one on one fight (like Spiderman vs Kraven, for example), I have to make them either Elite Bosses or Bosses... but I can't find a balance point. If I make them Elite Bosses, they have the durability to be a good fight, but they do WAY too much damage. If I make them Bosses, they do reasonable damage, but they're just too squishy to put up a decent fight. The result is that I'm kind of stuck deciding which way to go. In the past, I've made them Elite Bosses, and then only given them lower damage powers. This results in enemies that lack many important or dynamic abilities, making them kind of dull to fight against. Even as Bosses, sometimes these kinds of powers are too strong to make for a reasonable fight. This brings me to the forums, to see how other designers make their custom bad guys. What do you recommend? (And yes, I've asked about this kind of thing before. I'm not complaining that enemies are doing too much damage (even though they are), I'm asking how other designers work around the issue. Try to keep flames to a minimum. Better still, to yourself.)

Why are you lying? I've posted builds in the past. I've taken advice in the past. This is exactly the kind of thing the OTHER thread is about.

Messi! He's a good kitty.

My thinking is that the animations are already in the game, so surely it can't be all that difficult to make them available to Dual Pistols. Agreed, the timing might need to be adjusted, but that also can't be too difficult. Of course, as I mentioned elsewhere, it's not really for me to say what is or isn't easy to do. I'm just putting the idea out there (again, it seems).

I've tried to make dual pistol characters, but I just can't. The animations are SO ridiculous and unnecessary (and Bullet Rain is such an absurd power... bullets falling from the sky? What? PLEASE.), that I just can't stand it. However, there IS a pistols set that looks fine. Masterminds have dual pistols but don't go through the ridiculous acrobatics when firing. Perhaps we can get the animations from Mastermind Pistols (from the Thugs set) added to Dual Pistols (for Blasters and others) as alternate animations?

This sort of thing is exactly what this has been about. This post is completely worthless. If you don't like what's being discussed, don't read the thread.

My point is, we can only guess at their time and resources, and at how much time any given suggestion might take, so there's not much point in concerning ourselves with that. Make a suggestion. It's up to the Devs to decide if it's worth using what time they have to make it happen. For example, I might suggest making the Pistols animations from the Mastermind Thugs set available to Dual Pistols for Blasters and the like, as alternate animations (for those who dislike the silly, flippy regular animations). It LOOKS like it should be easy to do... but I really don't KNOW. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Maybe they could do it in an hour. Maybe it would take a week. Or a month. I don't KNOW. Only the Devs know, and only they can decide if the time needed is worth spending.

To me, Dev time is a non-argument. WE don't know how much time they have or how much time it would take to implement an idea, so it's pointless making an argument about it. I'll make a suggestion, and if they have the time, maybe they'll do something with it. If they don't, they won't. The only thing I have any control over is the suggestion itself. If someone likes an idea, great! They should post about it. It shows that it might be something worth looking at if more than one person likes it. They could even build on the idea, adding other ideas that could make further use of the idea. The Devs are human, they can't think of EVERYTHING. Someone could easily post something that makes them say, "Hey, why didn't we think of that?" If someone dislikes an idea, great! They should post about it... but they should also explain WHY they don't like the idea. That might let the person who HAD the idea (or indeed, anyone else posting in the thread) address the concern, and thereby remove the objection. I call this DISCUSSION. What I don't consider to be discussion are personal comments; attacks on a person's intelligence, experience or what have you. Mockery and insults are not productive. Unfortunately, many posters use such tactics to distract, and derail threads, so ideas don't get discussed. THOSE kinds of posts should be moderated. Of course, this is just my opinion.

Ah, that would explain why it hasn't been fixed

Ya, that was me. I thought it would have been fixed when it was updated, but it doesn't appear to have been. That's why I'm posting, to let them know.

So, I gather there was a recent revamp of Dark Armour. Today, I logged onto my Dark Armour Brute, and I found that he's STILL pulsing darkness all the time, despite the minimal FX setting his powers are using. The powers in question are Murky Cloud and Obsidian Shield. I can set them to minimal FX, but they pulse. If I set them to colour tintable, they're sparkly and obtrusive. Neither option is really minimally FX. I don't know if it's the same for other Dark Armour ATs, I gather the various ATs had different effects. If the revamp was meant to fix this, it hasn't done so, and I thought I'd post here to let the powers that be know about it.

As one who has frequently been the object of attacks for daring to speak my mind, I will agree that there needs to be some better moderation on some of the stuff that goes on here. Having said that, disagreement is part of discussion. If you disagree with an idea, explaining WHY you disagree can lead to a discussion that fixes whatever it was you disagreed with. So, I don't agree that disagreement has no place (you see what I did there :P). Personal attacks have no place in any discussions. All I ever ask of anyone is that they be reasonable, thoughtful and civil. Sadly, it seems it's sometimes a lot to ask.

Champions Online did this in a way. If you rescued a civilian being mugged or what have you, occasionally they would give you a mission to do. I kind of liked it, gave us a reason to do some street sweeping.

I have a mercs MM too (a couple of them, actually). They would melt things without ANY secondary, they're pretty awesome now. The thing I struggle with is that I don't see Traps being as capable as the other sets. I have Masterminds with many of the other sets available (Empathy, Dark Miasma, Poison, Radiation, Electrical Affinity, Force Field, Nature Affinity and now Traps). The MM currently using Poison USED to use Traps, which I got to around L20 or 25. The current guy is only around L10. So far, every set has been very effective at all levels. Force Fields is outstanding, as is Radiation. Dark Miasma is very good. The only one that seems mediocre is Poison, but I'm told it's actually rather good. I'm not seeing it, but Poison lacks any obvious visible effects to let me know it's actually doing something... so it's hard to tell. That leaves the Traps. Maybe it's good later on, as some have said here. Maybe I'm forced to slot for recharge to get some actual use out of it, but that strikes me as a poor design. Still, I'm new to the set, so I just don't know it well enough to say (again, it's why I posted). The last thing is the question of the CHARACTER. In retrospect, the old Big Jim figure depicted a guy who was an adventurer with his own abilities (like the karate chop and the bulging bicep! Remember that?). Perhaps the Mastermind doesn't suit him anyway. I'll ponder, I think I need to decide what the character should actually be at this point. Thanks all for the input.

I grant, I've not played the set to any significant level, so my view of it is limited. But then, that's why I made this thread. I still say the cooldowns are unnecessarily long, though... Perhaps that alone would be a sufficient change to the set? I mean, if I drop a triage beacon, and the team has moved on, I can't do it again, possibly for the rest of the mission. That's a bit prohibitive. I had planned on skipping the Detonator power, it seems out of character for a heroic character to explode one of his henchmen. This also might be something to change...

So, I was tinkering with another new character idea. The origin of the idea came from an old, OLD ad I saw online for the Big Jim action figure. If you're old enough, you might remember the Big Jim action figures (with other related characters, like Dr. Steel, Torpedo Fist and Bulletman). It made me want to create an AE story that included characters based loosely on the old Big Jim characters. Some were easy enough, but Big Jim himself is proving a bit tough. My first thought was to make him a Mastermind. Thugs (mainly so he can have pistols) would represent the "kids" that were part of the P.A.C.K. (kind of like Mouseketeers, Howdy Doody kids and the like... kind of a kids club devoted to their hero, Big Jim). The secondary I chose was Traps. I've tried to use this set in the past, and I keep coming back to it, because it's the only sort of gadgety set available to a Normal origin Mastermind. The problem is, it STINKS. Holy old crap, it stinks. The powers take forever to set up, and because they're almost all immobile, they are of extremely limited use, especially on a fast moving team. More, they take FOREVER to recharge, meaning that even if they WOULD be useful, they're liable to be unavailable because they're still recharging. My point here is, this set is awful and really needs to be revamped. I'm curious to know what others think of this set, and what might be done to fix it. Not having used it extensively, I'll hold off on my ideas for fixing it for now, I'm more interested in what the community might suggest.