MHertz

What? No, I’m not saying that Sentinels have a problem with only having one damage-oriented set. I’m saying that the anemic damage they do does not justify the amount of self-defense they are designed with. I’m also saying that upping the damage alone won’t solve the problem without also simultaneously breaking Blasters. That’s why I want to run some missions and gather combat log data. Are Sentinels generating enough aggro to justify their armor? If not, then how do we justify it?

Making the Sentinel’s armor even more overkill is not a good design direction. If you have to tune up Sentinel damage (with a single damage primary) to compete with a Blaster (who has damage primary and secondary), you’re not really fixing the design flaw. You’re just turning up the radio real loud so you can’t hear the rattle in the engine. Sentinel armor will be redundant unless they can generate aggro sufficient to draw some fire. And you can’t go so far with damage buffs as to eliminate the utility of Blasters, so more direct damage is not the solution.

But are they? Sentinels don’t have any way to hold aggro if the Tanker or Brute or Mastermind pets go down. I’m serious. We should gather up some groups and run an AE mission a few times over with different configurations, and calculate what % of team aggro the Sentinels get. I’d go with 8-person team, level 20-25 or so: 2 Sent, 1 Tanker, 1 Scrapper, 1 Defender, 1 Controller, 2 Blasters 2 Sent, 1 Brute, 1 Stalker, 1 MM, 1 Dominator, 2 Corruptors 2 Sent, 6 Cont/Dom/Def 2 Sent (armor turned off), 6 Tanker/Brute/Scrapper/Stalker 8 Sentinels (control group) Should be interesting to see how much damage is directed their way.

Given how often Scrappers and Stalkers die on teams compared to Sentinels, no. (At least in my experience.) Scrappers and Stalkers have armor and they need it to withstand the aggro they generate. When I play an Empath, I throw Clear Mind on the squishies, Fortitude on the melee artists, and leave the Sentinels alone — they’re rarely in serious danger. I almost never have to run over and heal a Sentinel. Tanks, Brutes, Stalkers, Scrappers? Heals. Blasters, Dominators, Controllers? Big time heals. Masterminds, Defenders? Sure, sometimes. Sentinels? Meh, they’re okay most of the time. To me, this is an indicator of bad design, not of an AT that is clearly contributing and working as intended.

This wasn’t directed at me, but I’ll go on record saying it’s not okay for players to be able to play any way they want. Playing by the rules of the engine? Sure. Adhering to the code of conduct (eg, no spamming, no griefing, etc)? Fine. But that’s not the same as saving “the devs should create mechanisms that enable any behavior that a player asks to do.” What players want isn’t always a good idea, or is disallowed by the game for a reason. I’m sure some players would enjoy being able to disrupt costume contests with a team of Stalkers stabbing everyone in Atlas Park, or steal other people’s influence, or mind-control other PCs, or whatever. In another game these might be possible or even encouraged, but not here. Just because a player wants it isn’t a good reason to make it possible. Nobody is entitled to that.

Sentinels are banana hats. It’s a bad and confusing design with no purpose. Giving them more damage is just giving the banana a bigger hat. It might look better but it doesn’t fix anything. My intuition says the problem is the armor set. It’s useless except while solo. If the Sentinel’s damage (a principal factor in aggro generation) doesn’t compete with that of teammates, he doesn’t need armor at all because he’ll rarely get any meaningful aggro. If his damage is on par with a Blaster or Scrapper, such that the armor set becomes meaningful, then you don’t need those guys. The solution to Sentinels, I feel, is to give them a reason to have that armor without just making them a bigger banana hat. I propose we gather some data on team dynamics: how much damage is directed at a sentinel on a team with other archetypes. Probably at around level 20-25, before teams are running +4/x8 with impunity. This might shed light on what’s going wrong.

And that’s why it’s hard to know why one should take a Sentinel; nobody knows what they’re for. They’re not especially good at anything. Heck, with their weaker damage they couldn’t pull aggro off a Blaster if they wanted to. A Sentinel is basically a guy with tons of protection he’ll never need because his attacks are too weak to get much notice. Even with extra debuffs, that’s not much of a role. i play a Pistols/Dark Sentinel whose RP shtick is that it’s a pair of cursed magic pistols. Every time the wearer dies, I change costumes as if somebody new picked up the guns. I only do this on teams, lest I burn through a ton of pre-made costumes. But it’s hard to die on teams. He doesn’t do enough damage to peel away any aggro from a Brute or a Blaster. The armor … isn’t much use, most of the time. And I play him with reckless disregard for danger. I agree with you on the Taunt thing, but it is the chosen mechanism to attract aggro when granting yuuuge damage numbers would upset the balance of things. Also, calling it a Taunt makes use of existing IO sets. Making it unique would give Sentinels a purpose to their being on a team and incentivize the kind of play they would be designed for (more orangey numbers if you help your teammates!). It would make use of their armor set by actually drawing aggro instead of being used “maybe in case there’s splash damage.” Again, I’m not saying your idea is bad or wrong. It would certainly help. I’m just not sure it redefines the role. I agree that ally-targeted Aggro Redirect would be easiest to play, versus finding the specific guy wailing on that poor Dominator in the heat of battle. I don’t think the original devs knew when they made it. They knew what it wouldn’t do — it wouldn’t overshadow anything that existed. They did less well at deciding what it would do. I think what this idea does best is define why I would take a Sentinel. I have a lot of squishies on my team and no Defender, and the Mastermind is too busy managing pets to protect the team — but this Sentinel can tear some part of that aggro away and give my team some breathing space.

The proposed idea isn’t bad. It answers the question of how to play a Sentinel. What it doesn’t do, at least for me, is answer the question of why I should take one over any other AT. What does a Sentinel do better at? If I wanted someone to be a meatshield I would take a Tanker or a Mastermind first; a Brute second; or a Scrapper last. If I wanted someone to defend the team, a Defender, Controller or Corruptor. When would I want a Sentinel? I feel the best way to leverage the damage and personal defenses of the Sentinel is to make them a team bodyguard. Their attacks do not have an all-purpose Taunt, but they should redirect aggro from a single target: if someone is beating up on that Blaster, the Sentinel should target one of those guys and zap him. It would produce an AOE Taunt for all targets aggro’d to that Blaster. Peel away those attackers and redirect them onto the Sentinel. It’s the “why don’t you pick on someone else?” effect. You could even give the Sentinel a damage bonus on every target not already aggro’d on the Sentinel. This would give a Sentinel a clear team role (and benefit) without making them a ranged Tanker or a boss-killer or a bargain-basement Defender. It would truly be a hybrid role: protect your teammates through blasting. It’d also give them preference for delivering alpha strikes, while not changing their gameplay solo.

Named costume slots would help a lot. It would also help if we could tell which costumes had auras, especially path auras. Sometimes I just need to pick a costume that doesn’t visually distract.

Taking the idea seriously for a moment: a level 50 ticket would greatly increase the rate at which characters could be created with bulletproof names — that is, never targeted by the culling of idle names. Any cost for this idea would have to offset the cost of filling up server space and taking up name space. Proposal 1: a level 50 ticket will cost you the deletion of two level 50 characters. Deleting a level 50 will produce a token that is emailed to your account; it takes 2 to buy a ticket. Proposal 2: a level 50 ticket will cost 100 million … on all your characters. The more characters you have, the more it costs. If your character doesn’t have 100 mil, you go into the red — you earn nothing, not even through trades or the auction house, until the debt is paid.

There are some good ideas here. One thing that I feel should be addressed is that FF has so many ways of drawing aggro without a proportional way to mitigate it. Force Bubble, Repulsion Field and Repulsion Bomb draw considerable aggro to the defenseless bubbler when compared to, say, a Rad defender throwing down Enervating Field or a Dark defender using Tar Patch — and both can heal themselves. Maybe I’m using it “wrong,” but I only ever use Repulsion Field as a last resort because I know it’s likely to get my defender face-planted on the floor. Edit: Also, RES does not scale unfavorably by level. If the bad guy is +0 and does 100 damage, a 20% resistance mitigates 20 points. If the bad guy is +4 and does 160 damage, the same resistance mitigates 32 points of damage. By contrast, the entire level-scaling algorithm is based on neutralizing DEF by modifying to-hit scores. If they made FF’s defenses somehow immune to the enemy’s to-hit buffs, that’d help a lot.

I’m pretty sure the alignment changes could only be allowed from a co-op zone. I doubt there’s a provision in the code for letting villains wander around the city. The other bits, it might be like an Ouro portal: on a timer, summon one for everyone to use.

There's no way around that. A shapeshifter with dozens or scores of potential forms would be very hard to code and balance, as different shapes would have different effects on the enemy — making the enemy frightened, making them angry, making them trusting, etc. I tried to limit this powerset to "infiltration, become the enemy and take the group by surprise." I built it for that effect — stealth and PBAOE debuffs and limited self-defense. A different kind of shapeshifter would be more like a protean battle being: always changing to a form that is most advantageous. That would arguably be a very different style of play, possibly on a different power set in a Changeling AT. Become beasts, demons, monsters, etc., and fight with different powers. How you'd arrange the combat buttons, I don't know — maybe deploy a pop-up window like Masterminds get, with Attack 1, Attack 2, and Attack 3? It probably wouldn't get stealth, because you're not using those powers to weasel your way into a group's confidence. This also feels more like a damage-dealing set, rather than a defensive set. A third kind of shapeshifter would be the "imitation" type, where you siphon the specific powers from certain enemies. I have no idea what role that would be — scrapper, blaster, stalker, tanker, defender? What if the enemy's attack is ... a gun? Can you imitate that?

I expect that these would be NPC forms which have the right animations available, as it would have to be compatible with whatever damage secondary the AT had. For instance, the spectral demons of the COT have no legs, so wouldn’t pair well with a lot of martial arts-style moves; those would probably be out. This set would be less Shapeshifter, perhaps, than Doppelgänger. If there were non-humanoid forms (wolves, for instance), it would be a different style of set. Wolves have no animation for throwing fireballs or swinging swords. There are also no enemy groups that use wolves, so you wouldn’t expect a stealth/infiltration benefit by becoming one.

I’ve had some characters work well in RP, and some that didn’t; I’ve seen others that tried and failed to get traction. I thought I would share what works for me when creating a character that plays nicely with (or against) others. 1. Be realistic about your power level. This is a game, not a narrative, so you have to keep in mind that, unless you avoid other players entirely (in which case, why RP?) you will be spending a certain amount of time in combat, subject to the whims of the RNG. It’s almost impossible to RP a character like Batman, who is almost supernaturally prepared and aware of all his enemies — you’re going to have a harder time being that guy. Ditto Superman, who is virtually indestructible compared to his teammates. Your character may be on a journey to that kind of power, but you don’t start there at level one. If you try to RP as a goddess or a super-being or master psionic at level 1, the interaction you can expect is the same as you’d get from Nelson Muntz: “HA ha!” 2. Build bridges, not walls. In comics you might find a character with many layers of mystery, or with a tragic past that must be unlocked. If you go this route in a game, you’ll have to introduce that tragic story to every new person you meet — and if your origin is a mystery, then you’ll have to either volunteer your own story or hope someone else asks. They may not! So instead, remember to build a character that has handles — nice, easy to understand ways for others to join in and connect. “I’m super dark and mysterious, nobody knows anything about me” is a poor starting point. Also “my character has amnesia and doesn’t know who she is.” But if you drop a few clues in your bio and your dialogue (eg, injured veteran turned hero, always using military squad lingo, call people “sir”) you’ll give people a way to participate. The more broadly you build this bridge (eg, my character Ty Flare is always commenting on how flammable things are and talking about fire codes) the easier it will be for others to infer things about your character. 3. React to what’s before you. As I said, you’ll be spending a certain amount of time on teams, earning XP. You may spend some time chatting between missions in one venue or another. So figure out how to react to things your character will be exposed to, rather than rare things that will never come up. Every time Stickbonker is in the sewers, he’s looking for his lost boot. Every time Winterdove rescues a hostage, it’s personal (she was once captured by the COT). Every time Colt Soulwalker dies in battle and there’s no rez handy, I change costumes at the hospital and pretend like somebody new just found the cursed Colt pistols and became possessed by them. Or your character could hold strong opinions about other power sets (Stickbonker loves sticks), other origins (Akita loves her technology devices), or ATs. 4. Find a voice. It can be an accent, or a speech habit, or a way of treating others. Skywatcher (Beast MM) treats other people like her animals and talks to them in that talk-to-dogs voice people use. Moongold gushes over supers she meets because she’s a huge fangirl. Mistress Hertz is always intimidating and unabashed about her day job as a dominatrix. 5. Find a thing to obsess about, preferably one other people can understand. It may make your character a little one-noted at first, but it also makes them distinct. Mr Crunch is a mascot for Mr Crunch brand cereal. Winterdove used to deliver pizza to various villain groups. Moongold has a jealous roommate. Zephyr Lily became a hero in order to train for a reality TV show. Skyvixen is all about her social media branding. Stickbonker is always complaining about the bureaucrats at City Hall making his job harder. 6. It’s not always about you. You’ll have to interact with other characters sooner or later, so it’s important to know how to take a back seat — to observe, question, interrogate, doubt, explain, console, or sympathize with others. If people would rather talk about you, and you’re okay with that, then fine; but you should have a way to speak to others in a way that invites them to do the same about themselves. That may mean you’ll have to think about what your character likes and dislikes, and why. (I am not an experienced RPer in an MMO setting, which has rules and protocols of its own, but I’ve done a lot of tabletop RP as well as stage and voice acting. This is just my advice on making a character. Others may disagree.)

I know what you’re thinking; this is a complicated idea. And it is. But it’s a combination of powers that already exists in the game, and it doesn’t require a lot of new art resources. This set would work like a hybrid of armor + debuffs, on the basis that you are misleading the enemy and providing a surprise advantage. This set would probably work well as a Stalker armor, or maybe a Sentinel secondary. The AT could gradually unlock (or have the ability to unlock) various forms as decided by the devs, based on which have compatible animations and so forth. They might unlock after X defeats, or at certain levels. Whatever works. Tier 1. Impersonation (toggle). +Def (all except psionic), +Stealth (only works for the enemy group you’re impersonating). Breaking stealth also suppresses most of the defense bonus. So it’s like Stalker Hide, but less good. Attacking breaks stealth. Tier 2. Homogenous (toggle). +Res (smashing, lethal). As a shapeshifter, physical attacks don’t worry you. Tier 3. Rearrange Matter (click). Self-heal. Tier 4. Pacify (similar to Stalker Placate, works to re-establish stealth). Could also provide a -Dmg debuff, on the basis that you’re encouraging the enemy to think of you as an ally. Tier 5. Solidify (toggle). +Res (energy, negative energy, fire, cold). Resist KB. Tier 6. Amorphous (click). Mez protection, some Res (toxic). Tier 7. Seeds of Doubt (click). PBAOE Confusion. Being in Stealth provides a bonus to magnitude. Tier 8. Lure (click). Targeted AOE, like Taunt. Enemies will focus on you. If you are in Stealth mode, they will also not attack unless attacked (so this is basically a Sleep effect). Tier 9. Betrayal. PBAOE -Def debuff. When in Stealth mode, 30% chance of Slow, 20% chance of Fear, 30% chance of -ToHit debuff. The armor values don’t have to be overpowered here, as the basic idea is to not get attacked in the first place.

What I generally do not do is create a character with a tragic backstory. Those are usually singular events (like the murder of Uncle Ben or Bruce Wayne’s parents) or prolonged periods of life lessons or suffering (no examples leap to mind) that motivate the character with specifics, but do not always lead to a perspective that is unique. “Sure, sure, you’re an orphan; in this world, who isn’t?” or “Yeah, you hate criminals. Join the club.” There’s nothing wrong with those backstories, but at least for myself, I would rather something that stands out as a unique perspective or strange take on something that comes up often, rather than a more generic reaction (“down with this bad guy group!”) based on specifics that don’t usually come up.

I usually write my characters’ backstories in some way that highlights something absurd or unlikely about life in a superhero city, and then reverse-engineer a personality out of that. This method gives characters a unique way to react to things in the world that are happening. Moongold discovered her powers because she had a roommate, Jeffrey, that bought a “test your DNA” kit online to see if either of them had latent mutant abilities. Jeffrey struck out, but Moon actually had hero DNA. From that, I decided that Jeffrey and Moongold were both hero fanboys — collectors, autograph hounds, action figure nuts, that kind of thing. They were so excited about heroes they had to see if they were heroes. Also, Jeffrey aspires to be Moongold’s arch-villain, but his plans are small and petty (he hasn’t even moved out). Mostly, all Jeff does is stay home and eat cereal, and wage wars over who gets what food from the shared fridge. Moon gets to gush about heroes that she meets and trivia about being a hero that she picked up from magazines. My inspiration for Stickbonker was the name, initially. It was an impulse name choice before I wrote the bio. So I thought, “What kind of person would be daft enough to think ‘Stickbonker’ was a suitable name for a hero?” I reasoned he’d be thick, kind of foolish, but supremely confident in his own physical and mental prowess. The bio became a dumbed-down version of a cop from an 80s TV show (always bucking orders, trouble with the captain, doesn’t follow rules). I had to go back and revised the costume to look more like a police uniform. I hid his face because playing someone that dumb just seemed funnier when you couldn’t see his eyes and if he looked serious. Also, I gave him bandoliers, a police belt with a baton, and a quiver — all useless for a staff fighter, but suitably impressive to look at. Everything else came out of that realization. He likes enforcing rules but hates following them; he thinks he’s an action movie star; he always gets words wrong and never notices.

Oh, I agree with that part. Clearly it was a design choice to allow such travel destinations to be reached by that portal. It should work consistently unless there is a clear reason. Instant travel was probably justified as a way to let door missions compete with the AE XP faucet; or maybe it was to allow 1 server map load instead of 2. I don’t agree with that design choice, but that’s not a reason to apply it even-handedly.

I feel it would be much simpler to just cancel all travel powers and give players a button to teleport to the end objective of the next mission. Hit it once, gain a whole level, train remotely from the ashes of the last mission, then push a button to go to the next mission. What is the need to teleport instantly to the next mission anyway? When did jumping or flying become so boring? Because you’re not at MAXXX XXPPS!!? Don’t get me wrong. It should be consistent. But is the current model of instapoof transport an ideal play model which we should design everything after? Hardly. The assumption that all Level 1s are getting the mad Orouboros Portals right out of the gate is also suspect. Maybe you do that. Maybe a lot of impatient people also do that. It’s not the whole player base, I suspect.

It would be really cool (and good for RP purposes) to be able to make a custom follower. A lot of times I’d like to have some NPC interact in some way, but a) it’s not a character I can create, because it’s a civilian and b) I can’t play that character at the same time anyway. What should it be able to do? It can show up when you call, speak lines that you feed it, go where you tell it, do emotes, and go away when dismissed. Like a puppet, I guess. The follower would have a name and costume you design, travel powers you designate, and would be invisible to enemies. It has no attacks or defenses, cannot be targeted for buffs or debuffs, cannot tank, cannot take aggro, and perhaps cannot even enter instanced missions or super bases. This way you could create your own Lois Lane, Commissioner Gordon, or Happy Hogan, for a one-off RP cameo.

1. Choose an emote for the contact. Checking clipboard, eating hot dog, etc. It would be lovely if this could change on a per-mission basis, or even pre-mission and post-mission. 2. Choose a different contact for a various missions in the arc. This would enable “go talk to Azuria” or similar. 3. Let other players read the contact text! There’s only so much storytelling you can accomplish through boss dialogue and pop-up windows. 4. Events that trigger after a delay. Someone runs off and says they’ll call for help, but help is already here. 5. Ally Reacts To X Plot Point. Upon completion of (or start of) an objective, the Ally says something. 6. Set flag to X. If the player failed mission 1, or if the ally was defeated, the dialogue for subsequent missions could reflect that. Then allow IF/THEN detection in the dialogue. 7. Villain group checkboxes for the “random” pick. Council, but no robots. Circle of Thorns, ghosts only. Tsoo, no Ancestor Spirits. Yes, you could technically build this out painstakingly by hand, but I suspect it throws off the randomization weighting.

Name: The Georgeworth T. Bonkspoon Academy of Bonkin’ Colors: red and dark blue with gold trim Team: blue or red Founder: Stickbonker (@Hertz in game) Details: RP friendly but not required A word from the founder: Hey dere, dis is Stickbonker. If you on Everblasting, you know dat I am a top-quality guy and also the mayor, prob’ly. I wrote dis mission about hot dogs, an’ I arrested Ghost Ship when it went fru Underpants Port. I got to da highest level ever (50) by only leveling up 49 times. I bet dat never been done before! Anyway, it time to pass on all dis cunning an’ skill an’ cunning dat I got, so I startin’ dis academy. I made up a fancy name so it fit in wIf all dese fancy Ivy Leek schools dey got. We study art of bonkin’ in all various forms: stickbonkin’, rockbonkin’, techbonkin’, an’ all dat. I gonna build dis great base like a big fancy school, we gonna have grill in da back yard an’ a pool, it gonna be great. Dere’s a couple rules we got about joinin’ dis academy. Your name gotta have BONK in it, an’ stickbonkin’ ain’t a metaphor for nuffin’ nasty. (Dat a common phallacy.) It also gonna be much funnier if it all one word, wif first part ending in K sound. Here some ideas to get you started: Quarkbonker could be atomic guy. Darkbonker could be somet’ing too. Sharkbonker sound totally cool. Hackbonker could be sword guy. Mechbonker could be dis killer robot guy, I dunno. Maybe he got rocket boots. Thinkbonker could be a psionic guy an’ shoot mind farts at people. You get da basic ordeal. Dere ain’t no requirement dat you as smart as me, or dat you talk all fancy an’ dat, or if you red or blue or male or female or what. Bonkin’ academy welcome all kinds. Only thing is, we don’t allow nobody to join if dey one of dose beercats down at City Hall dat always pushin’ people around wif pencils. Dey always makin’ up so many rules! All dis red tape dat dey do is makin’ life hard for da people on da street. At da Academy we don’t mind givin’ out rules, but we draw da line at people tellin’ us what time of day to do. If you wanna know official Stickbonker uniform I can tell you dat too. Anyway, send a message to @Hertz in game to join up on da ground flop of dis new supergroup.

I can think of a few things. COSTUME PIECES Caveman / Tarzan top, ragged edges, hanging over one shoulder, with animal print patterns. Caveman / Tarzan micromini skirt, ragged edges, with animal print patterns. French-cut bikini bottoms (possibly as a "belt" item) that arch up and over the hips, not flat across. Beret + bald. Beret + long hair. Butt capes. Cigar + beard. Gloves and boots with Smooth / Mesh pattern. I keep running into problems putting mesh across the whole figure. Flower(s) in hair detail. Straitjacket, complete with buckle sleeves — not fastened, obviously. New pattern for face, body, feet, etc: dirty. More shoulder pieces that don't look like manufactured bits of tech armor: tortoise shell, bark, boiled leather, branches, etc. COSTUME EDITOR More pale colors. Find a way to allow Tops w/ Skin + Pattern.

I considered that, but I don't think that's a good idea. Two things would be true: you still have the knowledge and ability to make more money, and other people might come along in 2 years and have even more than you did. So you spent 100 billion, but that Nouveau Riche guy comes along with 101 billion and wants to change your branding to theirs. But they can't, because you got there first? That's it? First come, first served? Even supposing some newer, richer guy never turns up, you're still making money. What happens when you've bought every vanity thing that's for sale? Nothing? Too bad, so sad, it's all sold? And now we need a new distraction for the super-rich? Permanent sales in perpetuity limits the size of the money sink to, what, a hundred IO set names? That would only extract a certain amount of cash from the game, and when that money sink is used up, it's done. It's a hard-limited amount of content. My suggestion would either be to rename all of that set on a monthly basis, or to essentially manufacture 1000 units of a vanity duplicate version with your name on it, which will drop in the normal course of the game. (Maybe you get an author's copy for one of your toons.) If you want another thousand units pumped into the economy, pay again. That keeps the money sink alive and collecting for as long as people are earning. It's the same as buying a megayacht or an luxury jet as a vanity possession. It's not a one-time purchase; it must be maintained, harbored, licensed, staffed, fueled, and so on.