Ultimo

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.

I do think Rage should be adjusted, because the set it altogether TOO reliant on it... but that really wasn't the point of the thread. I was more interested in giving Super Strength a couple of AOEs, a bit earlier in the set. Putting an AOE on Hurl, and moving to an earlier point in the progression would accomodate that, I think. I'll post what I like. If you don't like what I post, you're welcome to not read it.

You know, I've always said that Gauntlet is of EXTREMELY limited use when solo. Most other classes get some significant benefit from their inherent, but not Tankers. Perhaps something can be done with Gauntlet to accomodate the issues?

Thank you, we don't have pennies in Canada anymore. Though, I suppose the US doesn't have pennies either, they have cents. The US never used the British pence.

I always find it interesting that people offer "all due respect" before making comments with very little respect. I don't imagine you meant it that way, but that's the way it reads. I have played the game for a long time, so I do have some sense of the power sets. I never said Super Strength was underpowered, I said I thought it was kind of middle of the pack, and deserves a little buff. Adding a bit of AOE to a set with almost none strikes me as a relatively minor buff. It's not going to greatly increase damage, it's just going to add a bit of utility. But, as I say, I don't really anticipate any changes will happen. I'm just putting the idea out there. If by some miracle they decided to make a change to knockback, or to Hurl, or what have you, I'd be as surprised as anyone.

I'm not trying to restart that particular argument, considering how antagonistic it was at times. I only reported what happened. Same thing with my example in this thread. The Shield/Broadsword guy WAS forever out of endurance. If you're going to tell me the Clockwork guys weren't contributing to that problem, then it must be a problem with the endurance system in general.

There's an interesting thing, and I know we're drifting off topic here, but is it an appeal to the bandwagon? I mean, if there's a lot of people playing it, doesn't that suggest there is some quality in it? I mean, if it was a bad game, wouldn't there be fewer players? Certainly the retention of so many subscribers suggests the addictiveness?

Ya, that's the one, I believe.