BasiliskXVIII

For future reference you really want to stay out of the argument, then the best way to do that is by not commenting in the thread. See, when you present a suggestion that's super obvious and has been made in every one of those threads that you claim to be tired of, then what you're actually doing is making a passive-aggressive swipe, thereby starting the argument. No. Stripping the visuals takes away what makes their theme to you. But the limits of your imagination are not a fair restriction to impose on others. If the manifestation of Stone Armour on my character were something like that the rock armour shows up, then about 5-10 seconds later fades away with a persistent "crumble" effect to let you know it's still running that's more than sufficient to indicate, to me, that you have empowered yourself with rocky armour and that either it has incorporated itself into your body in such a way as it is not obtrusive, or that it's just accepted as present without needing to be visible. Energy Aura mostly behaves in this way, where activating the armour initially shows big spinning whorls of energy, but eventually fades down to a subtle glow. Plus, if you actually like one of the armours, such as, let's say, Crystal Armour, but find that the misshapen lumps of the crystal form of rock armour are a detraction, this would also empower you to display the armours that you like without needing everything on at all times.

Ah, the post directly above yours was talking Triage beacon, so I thought that's what you were talking about. For Dark Regen specifically, if it worked the way OP was probably hoping, it would theoretically proc on multiple targets every time the power fired, giving you a big chunk of +HP and +End for each target hit whenever the power was used, much in the way that it works with Theft of Essence.

Dropping it in Triage Beacon means it can proc on anyone hit by the Triage Beacon, making it quite a bit more useful, especially for MMs.

You're the one who inserted yourself into the argument. But the only reason that the set has a distinct set of strong visuals is that it has been decided that they do. The whole premise of power customization is that you're not forced to be bound to what the developer decided was the best way to represent their idea of the power was. Until it came along, invulnerability also had strong visuals, making you look like a walking light show. Or worse, if you were a villain, some kind of weird negative-light show. It isn't as though what the game chooses to depict as "stone" actually looks like stone—it's a representative abstraction. It's a low-poly blob with some gritty textures on it which kinda reads as stone because we've been primed to accept it as such by seeing the name "rock armor." They have already given the option to do away with Ice Armour's big clunky visuals by replacing it with auras that give the impression of frost forming on your body. Even if the "baby's first 3d modeling practice" rocks are considered an *absolutely essential* way of representing the powers in Stone Armor, there are so many ways that they could made less obtrusive. Have them appear and then fade them out after a few seconds and give the character the "crumbling" aura so it's clear that the rocks are there, but you're not being forced to see them. Or even have them pop up for combat only, like how they do it for spines-not my favourite option, but still an improvement.

Aspiring to be good, working to try to better yourself, and maintaining a moral code is not a Mary-Sue.

This ignores the fact that mechanically, Stone Armour is extremely different to Invuln. If your objective is that you want to try the set and not necessarily that you simply "have a stone armour concept" but you don't like the visuals there's not a lot you can do. For a game where the ability to express how your character looks is such a well-developed aspect, the idea that "you'll have a strong armor set, but you'll look like someone glued poop to you" feels wrongheaded. If Ice Armour can get a variant without ice, I don't see why Stone and Bio can't do the same. Especially when, as you point out, the armour can very easily be represented by the costume.

Honestly, all of the Hazard Zones from launch are like this. Even Boomtown, which is probably the easiest to get around, has these absurdly impossible megalithic retaining walls dozens of stories tall. Meaning that if you want to get to a mission in the Powderkeg or Cannonade districts without flying or teleporting, you need to memorize a labyrinth of ramps to reach the summit. This was Super Speed's supposed balancing factor - it was faster than any of the other travel powers except possibly Teleport (which was a massive End drain), but its lack of vertical movement made it substantially slower in a lot of places.

I've been thinking about this some more and I'm not sure I can agree with this premise. Every group is obviously going to be only as strong as their weakest link, so in the real world we have to make some allowance for the fact that there may be some failures in the lower branches. But there's plenty of groups who've been around forever and who provide an aggregate good. Think about your municipal humane society or homeless welfare groups. At larger scales there's organizations like Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and the Red Cross/Red Crescent. Habitat for Humanity. The thing is that the news doesn't report on "Group does nothing controversial, continues to make world a better place", and even if they did, let's face it, people wouldn't read it.

Starfleet, at least as depicted up until TNG era. Yes, there's some asterisks where badmirals go rogue, but for the most part, the organization is shown as being a morally good, stabilizing force whose purview is intended as primarily diplomatic and peace-keeping, which follows the rule of law and upholds and enables self-determination among its citizenship. The knights of the round table might be another in their original form. The inevitable problem with this kind of question, though, is that any long-standing organization which stands for good in media, inevitably gets some cynic behind the reins and goes "well, this isn't realistic, we need more drama. So let's smear crap all over this." Sure, but I'm also not playing City of Murky Real World Bullshit. If we can accept that anyone would live in Paragon City at all with all of its constant alien, zombie and Nemesis invasions, where crime is so overwhelmingly prevalent that you can stand on any street corner in the city and see at least three active assaults, attempted murders, or extortion attempts, and yet still accept that there's a functioning municipal government and police infrastructure then it really feels like we're already conceding that the way things work in the real world is not how they work in Paragon City. And that doesn't even account for the superpowers. I can acknowledge that in the real world, someone who got godlike powers like Superman would basically inevitably turn into a despot. Or they would give up on all the crap and go to live as a hermit somewhere. Best case scenario, Paragon City should turn into The Boys, worst case, Kingdom Come. Because there's just no way that someone with that much power is gonna happily look out for the public good indefinitely without eventually reaching a breaking point and deciding that they're done with humanity's crap. Even if they started with the best intentions, that's gonna get worn down real quick. Look at any bureaucrat. Give the average person the authority to say "no" to things, and overwhelmingly they will use that power at any time. And yet no one is jumping up to say "well, superheroes are unrealistic!" They are. We all know they are. That's the fantasy, that bad people are held accountable and that good people are so inexhaustibly good that they can't be stopped. I just want to be able to suspend that disbelief to a hero group too.

A bit of a different type of AI generation, I asked Suno.com to create for me a '90s-era cartoon theme song for my SJ/Energy brute speedster, Neon Fist. It took a couple of tries, but I like the result I got: https://suno.com/song/12cd365d-4da4-4e7b-b3ce-d928d8977618?sh=vxQ5NZ6ujhDQyoKU

I think a "gang war" among Longbow isn't necessary, and the Homecoming Devs have already said with the Warriors overhaul that they don't really want to retread that ground. But it might make a decent future story arc or something, where the tensions within the group brings you into a position where you're forced to bring a reckoning against them. Ms. Liberty might be hubristic, and maybe that could be played up as being made worse with the death of Statesman, feeling the weight of the legacy heavy on her shoulders, but I don't think she's so far gone as to be irrecoverable. And it might be a good chance to give her some more character development, where she gets to admit she's been blinded and resolves to do better. Yeah, but that's why it's fiction, right? The whole premise of superheroes is "what if someone with power was actually a decent human being, too?" Which, as reality shows us, is clearly fantasy. Maybe the problems with (insert virtually any group intended to be responsible for the public good here) are not resolvable. But so long as City of Heroes is supposed to be leaning into wish fulfillment, can't it give us that too?

The various Devouring Earth emanator pets each seem purpose-built to counter a specific type of build. Fungi grant heavy control resistance, shutting down dominators and controllers. Quartz hand out massive +ToHit, ruining the day of defense-based tanks and scrappers. Cairns pump up resistance, blunting DPS builds. While they rarely stop or even significantly slow a well-balanced team that's already steamrolling, they do tend to have a measurable effect in smaller teams and solo content. Each of these creates a meaningful interaction that forces players to account for them—either by working around them or prioritizing them as a threat. And then there’s the Tree of Life. Sure, it gives a hefty +500% regeneration rate, and can stack but realistically, that’s only a real problem for low-damage builds, and even then, it's rarely the kind of thing that swings a fight. By the time the tree’s effect is noticeable, the Devouring Earth enemy benefiting from it is usually at death’s door already. Compared to the fungi, quartz, and cairns, the tree feels more like an afterthought—something that exists, but rarely changes the equation the way the others do. So why not give those poor, hapless Herders and their trees something more impactful? If every other Devouring Earth emanator can directly counter a major AT category, it makes sense for the Tree of Life to do something similar against debuffers. While a -Special effect affecting heroes would be neat, giving a chance to mess with heals and buffs as well as debuffs, it wouldn't much affect PCs outside of melee range—where the defenders and corruptors usually hang out, making it much more of another way to ruin melee's day. However, a bank of debuff resists like what are offered by FF's Damping bubble? Even if it's not 100% counterplay against everything a support character brings to the table, it would at least give corruptors, defenders, MMs, and controllers something to keep an eye out for, in the same way that the DE offer something for most other ATs. The Devouring Earth is among the most mechanically interactive groups in the game, with plenty of built-in "handle this or suffer" elements across different builds. It only seems fair that debuffers get the same kind of counterplay that control, defense, and DPS builds already deal with. Right now, the Tree of Life is the least impactful of their pets—giving it some proper teeth would make encounters with the Devouring Earth feel even more dynamic, rather than just being another regenerating speed bump on the way to victory.

Longbow's entry to the game with City of Villains was intended as a way to deliver a heroic group for villains to fight in lieu of tearing through hordes of colourful caped heroes. From the start there were missions that showed some indications of some not-very-nice people within Longbow, (Lt. Harris obviously comes foremost to mind) but for the most part they were "the good guys" alongside groups like Wyvern and the Legacy Chain. Enough so that when the RWZ was revamped, the intro to Vanguard missions made a point of showing that Longbow doesn't like their policy of "we'll do anything it takes, including working with villains, to push the Rikti back," as a way of contrasting the "shades of grey" morality of the new Vanguard group over the "pure white" heroics of Longbow. Now, player interpretation isn't necessarily in lockstep with the game's portrayal. They are, after all, an American-based paramilitary organization operating within the boundaries of a sovereign nation. In the heat of the Iraq War and some uncomfortable parallels to acts which were seen as not entirely legitimate, this obviously coloured perception of the group, but at least on paper and in intent, they were supposed to be good people attempting to do good things — to the point where Ms. Liberty is positioned as a figurehead of the organization. With Going Rogue, though, there was an increasing turn towards portraying Longbow as much more vigilante-aligned. I've been running a lot of tip missions, and there are an awful lot which depict Longbow "taking the law into their own hands", many with paper-thin justifications. Now, the Doylian explanation for this is that they're already established as a 1-50 level group, making them easy to slip into content in any level range, and it's an opportunity to give hero characters more opportunities to deal with them for badge progress and such without needing to go villainside. But I do feel like there's something disappointing about this. I think Longbow are pretty boring to fight in the game, and I don't actually love their concept that much, but as one of the few groups that we have that are supposed to be unabashedly good, it would be nice to see a bit more of that from them as well. I suppose what disappoints me most is that it feels like there aren’t any truly untarnished NPC factions of "good guys" left in City of Heroes. Nearly every faction, even those that were once positioned as paragons of heroism, has been shaded with moral ambiguity, corruption, or outright villainous tendencies over time. And while complexity in storytelling is valuable, there’s also something to be said for having at least one group that represents the ideal of unwavering, incorruptible heroism. Longbow, for all their flaws, could have filled that role—but instead, their increasing drift into overreach and self-righteous vigilantism has made them feel indistinguishable from many of the other factions operating in the game. It would be nice to see a storyline where Longbow actually acknowledges and addresses the problem elements within their ranks, not just as a convenient excuse for more combat missions, but as a genuine reckoning that allows them to come out stronger, more principled, and ultimately better. Heroes should be allowed to stumble, but they should also be allowed to rise again, and I think City of Heroes could use a few more groups that remind us what that looks like.

I try to stay away from the direct references to comics, but I don't deny that there's a few which are inspired by some of my favourites. Sherd, for instance, my Psi/Shield scrapper found a magical potsherd and gained the ability to make psionic constructs with them. Replace "potsherd" with "ring" and "psionic" with "hard light" that's just Green Lantern. But, his costume looks nothing like GL's, he's a Scottish archaeologist, and in every aspect other than the most simplistic breakdown of the character, there's very little tying the two together. In general, that's where my personal line is - a kind of Watchmen-like reintepretation of the character is fine, but much beyond that I would feel is cheesy. Even a case like Deadpool vs. Deathstroke I feel would be too close, even though they've developed into very different characters since.

batlh Dajatlhta' ta' qol!

You also said, in the big title there at the top, that you wanted is made so that players couldn't buff a player not on their team, so there's more than a little understandable confusion. Wow... There is a hell of a lot of vitriol there for something that the majority of players consider a nice gesture of assistance to others. For one: No, it often isn't possible to not buff you and buff the person next to you if you're in a crowded area. Almost all buffs are AoE now. Second, with the exception of the original Sonic buff graphics and SB, people tend to overwhelmingly appreciate buffs. If you're driven this far into apoplexy by someone trying to help, there's plenty of low pop servers you can go to where you generally don't even need to worry about running into anyone.

And well it should, as a Greek word that's pluralised with Latin rules. (Though I will point out that "octopuses" is an entirely valid way of pluralizing "octopus") So, in honour of the octopus, let's take a completely random-ass language, utterly divorced from any context or origin, and pluralize "Kronos" with that, then. I'm suggesting Amharic. Multiple Kronos Titans are now Kronosoch.

If you speak to the S.T.A.R.T. Vendor either in Atlas/Mercy or Pocket D, there's several options to reject inspirations of certain kinds, whether by type (yellow, red, blue...) or by size (small, med, large) You also get a few badges for rejecting insps. (Unconcerned/Apathetic/Couldn't Care Less). Note that this only cancels drops of other kinds, so if you would get a light purple insp, and you've set to reject it, then you just get nothing.

I'll give you this: I absolutely hate being turned into a monkey. It's the stupidest f'kin thing ever, it takes me out of combat and keeps me from playing the game. It was worth a few laughs the first two or three times it happened on live, and then became nothing more than a "you do nothing for a minute" button. So I don't go get the Secondary Mutation power. I have it on exactly zero of my characters, and I'm fine with that. I have never, and I mean not even once, felt I was missing out on anything valuable by not using it.

In this context, Kronos is being used as an English proper noun and title, not a loanword from Greek. Because of this, it should follow English pluralization rules, even when shortened. Thus, "Kronoses" is the correct plural form—just as multiple Zeus Titans would be "Zeuses" rather than "Zēnoi", and multiple Hercules Titans (from the Latinized form) would be "Herculeses" rather than "Herculēs." English doesn't retroactively apply foreign grammar rules to proper names used in English, and Kronos is no exception.

And everyone always complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!

It's a well-known Easter egg that most of the detectives in the game are references to famous and law enforcement in media: Freitags and Becktrees are Friday and Streebeck from Dragnet (1987) Martins and Rogers and Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon series Sluggitt and Westbrush are Frank Bullitt (Bullitt) and Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry) Kowaccio and Frasenbacker are Vecchio/Kowalski and Fraser/Diefenbaker from Due South Basinns and Coquette are Tubbs and Crockett from Miami Vice Davids and Hutchinson are David Starsky and Ken Hutchinson from "Starsky and Hutch" Junkers and Murwell are Rick Deckard (Blade Runner) Alex Murphy (RoboCop) McLord and Selnum are Steve McGarret (played by Jack Lord in Hawaii 5-0) and Thomas Magnum (Played by Tom Selleck in Magnum PI) (Detectives Fish and Miller are named for Sean Fish and Matt Miller, former devs for City of Heroes) I like to believe that somewhere in Kallisti Wharf there isn't a police station, but just a little detective's office. And there, if you could get inside, you'd find two men, eager for work. An older, rumpled-looking man, slumped lazily in his chair, beige trench coat hanging loose over his shoulders like he has been wearing it for decades. His expression is casual, even absentminded, as he stirs sugar into a chipped coffee mug. Beside him, another man sits, perfectly poised—immaculate three-piece suit, gloves still on, a glass of bourbon untouched at his desk. He leans back in his chair, watching you enter with an amused glint in his eye. You see, you've found the office of Detective Falk and Detective Craig. Their methods might be unorthodox, but the streets of Kallisti are kept clear, because they know what's going to happen before it even starts.

My point is if you are a new player (or even a returning player with a fuzzy memory of how the game works) and follow the breadcrumbs that the game lays out for you on how to play, it's very possible for you never to receive an introduction to any of the contacts with story arcs which were in the game at launch. You start with Habashy, who sends you through an intermediary to Thiery. At 5, you also get pointed at Twinshot. Neither introduce you to anyone, but you get Shauna Stockwell as a popup at 7 or when you enter King's Row as part of Twinshot's arc. So you run Stockwell and then Eagle Eye, as well as the Shining Stars Arcs. Finally you stop Veles and let's suppose you finish Eagle Eye at level 15. You're out of Vic Johansson's range, so Eagle Eye doesn't introduce you to him, and Twinshot's arc finishes up, and you're not introduced to anything here either. So you "Find Contact" - you get Jim Temblor, and you do that arc up to 25. Agent G doesn't introduce you to anything, so you're stuck. And in this whole time, nothing is introducing you to the older contacts, so you don't even know they exist. As far as you're concerned, there are two levelling paths through the early game - this one contact chain, and the TFs. (Three if you include farms.) So what I'm saying is that having people calling out in LFG "Hey, I'm running the Mind of a King arc as a TF Lv. 15+, LFM" is potentially beneficial as a way to direct peoples' attention to the fact that those arcs and contacts exist at all. This isn't "I want everybody to do all the content", this is "hey, did you even know this was here?" Because the way that the game is laid out right now, I am quite certain that there's players out there who have absolutely no idea that there's hours and hours of content in the game that the game almost hides from them. And yes, it is possible for players to form TFs through Ouro to do these task forces now. I just think people would be more likely to advertise to do it, if the option to do so was presented naturally to them as they played. Right now, the Ouroboros flashbacks arcs are kind of out of sight out of mind.

No, I mean at higher level. Eagle Eye doesn't pass you on to anyone if you outlevel Vic Johansson before completing his arc, so unless you specifically know to go contact hunting, even if you don't accidentally outlevel them, you will very easily miss out on contacts like Wyatt Anderson (Mind of a King Arc), Kong Bao (Tsoo Shenanigans arc), and the various contacts that were in the game at launch unless you know to do radio missions. The only contacts that the "Find Contact" button actually finds for you are the ones that are open for anyone to start at any time, like Montague Castanella or Jim Temblor.

I'm thinking more as a separate option - you get the mission arc offered to you, and then when you click it to select the mission, there's an option to run their arc as a task force. You can choose to accept the arc as normal, or you can put together a TF to run the arc together. I'm primarily a soloer, so I wouldn't want the option to run the mission in non-TF mode removed, but for the times where I do have a mission arc and a lot of free time, I might put out a call to do it as a group. Obviously, the biggest challenge to this implementation is that it becomes necessary to have a sort of interim state where you've accepted the mission, but it hasn't started yet, like the alignment tip missions have, which is why I say there would probably need to be new systems added to contacts as part of this. Which, admittedly, is potentially more effort than the Devs would find worthwhile. I do think, however, that having the option to run the arcs as TFs on-the-fly, and especially having the merit rewards shared, would make them more appealing to players, and would offer a bunch of content to teams that is currently kind of "out of sight, out of mind." Especially since it's actually really hard to get access to some of those arcs as you level now, with the "old" contacts not being offered unless you either don't follow the Matthew Habashy>Shauna Stockwell>Eagle Eye chain or you make an effort to do enough radios to get a safeguard mission if you do.