GM_GooglyMoogly

People want weaponless weapons? Oh! Beam rifle powers but shooting through my hands or eyes, for eg. And no deal. People are free to recommend stuff and you are free to disagree with them (as you are wont to do). Assuming, of course, that everyone is being excellent to each other. Besides, I can't make promises about other peoples' actions.

Only you can restrict your imagination. Your lizard is merely wearing his birthday suit! Problem solved through the Power of Imagination!

How about using the Power! What power, you ask?

How about this: Don't call it "Power Armor" just call it "Suit of Armor." Then your costume defines your suit: You can look like Iron Man, or a Gundam, or a Knight, or wear a business suit.

That sounds like something I say: "Expectation is the main ingredient of disappointment." Sorry to disappoint, but you shouldn't expect to post in here anymore. Let's talk about something else and be excellent to each other while doing so.

In game, I find people are very friendly and helpful, especially to new players. Occasionally arguments pop up but that will happen anywhere people are. On the forums and Discord arguments can get a little more heated. Everyone here is really passionate about the game and can sometimes get carried away. But that's part of the job of GMs. If you see toxic behavior in game, forums, or Discord file a petition or otherwise notify the GM team.

Let's not go blowing each other's heads off consensually, virtually, or otherwise. B.E.T.E.O.

Woah! That was going off the rails. Let's try to stay on topic and not insult each other, please.

Blue side or red side? Can confirm that PPD and Nemesis on the blue-side Who Will Die part 6 are friendly to each other and antagonistic to players. But I don't remember if it was always that way or something new. You can also pull the Nemesis apart from the PPD. Shooting one team does not aggro the other.

I hid a few posts that seemed unnecessarily aggressive. We don't have to agree, but we have to do so respectfully. Personally, I have skipped Shoal Rush on all of my Marines so far but have taken the heal. It's one of the weaker heals in the game, in my opinion as a player, probably because it also has the enemy debuff. I did use it leveling up but I didn't use it very much once I hit 50.

Wait a second . . . Is everyone* in agreement here? Including . . . *checks list of names* OMG! I must notify the devs immediately! * Everyone except Snarky is still everyone. The only undead that counts is THE Count!

I'm watching you back!

1) Not sure precisely why folks do the thumbs down, but generally it's an indication of disagreement. It's not personal . . . usually. 2) Ok. Noted. 3) Those that gave you the thumbs down would have to answer that, if they wanted to. You can certainly ask them or the devs for an explanation. But the devs are busy coding, testing, and living real lives. If they started responding to every request they'd have little time to do anything else. 4) Cheers to you too!

Trooly a titillating topic!

I think the original question has been answered, positions explained, and grievances aired. We seems to be spiraling, so let's talk about something else. B.E.T.E.O!

Since I have now inserted myself in the middle of this debate (*sigh*), I have one more insight as to why Kronos might cause lag and another Babbage might not. Kronos Titans fight against players AND Babbages. Other Babbages just look at each other. And Kronos Titans do several things that can mess up a scrum of aligned Babbages: 1) huge damage, 2) DoT damage, 3) debuffs (-regen), 4) a Burn patch with "Afraid" tag. https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=malta.malta_kronos While it is an open zone for all players, you should also be courteous and considerate to each other. GMs have taken actions against players who drag critters into PI courtyard, into a costume contest, and who disrupt Hammy and MSR raids.

Calculating: where a=the lifetime of Snarky - the time he will spend waiting:

A) I am not a trained monkey to be summoned to answer daily questions. 😛 B) With my standard not-a-dev disclaimer, it's close to impossible to determine why any particular critter does something after the fact. There are aggro mechanics at play, which include not just taunt but damage and debuffing too. There's also "Afraid" effects that make critters run, like caltrops. Then I think there is also a "frustration" effect, which may be separate or may be part of the other two (I don't know), but critters will run if they take a lot of damage and can't do damage back. High defense characters can probably attest to that. It also seems to me anecdotally that DoT damage seems to cause runners more, but that may just be an issue of timing. One big alpha strike and there is no time to decide to run. Lots of smaller strikes gives the critter time to calculate if running is warranted. So could Kronos have caused a particular Babbage to run? Sure, it's possible. Did this particular Kronos make that particular Babbage run away from a scrum of Babbages fighting a league? We may never know.

Compared to the ATOs procs for Scrappers (+criticals), Stalkers (hide for more crits and BU recharge), and Tanks (stacking +res and +absorb), the Brute ones just don't stack up.* https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Archetype_Enhancements * In my opinion, not an official HC statement.

Tanks vs Brutes! Brutes vs Scrappers! Men vs Women! Wait . . . Please settle down, restless natives.

While a single giant monster will cause no more lag than a single Hellion, each additional player and critter adds variables that have to be tracked. I also remember Faultline mentioning that ambushes use a lot of resources to path critters to the correct place. And Kronos has quite a suite of AoEs powers. (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=malta.malta_kronos) Babbage is not an AoE slouch either (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=clockwork.babbage_ranged_powers) Again, lowly GM here who is not a programmer so take this for what it's worth. From experience we know that the game does not lag under most ordinary conditions with a handful of players battling a handful of critters but can lag when we have several dozen players battling large numbers of critters. So presumably there is a continuum of data traffic from light to extreme. I don't know where the needle tips from one to the other but, again presumably, there exists such a tipping point. At some point, I think, adding one more player or one more critter will tip the scale. It's also possible that each player has their own unique scale depending on hardware, distance from the server, etc. I don't think that it makes a difference whether it's Kronos Titan or Babbage. But once the numbers get there, one additional robot may be the straw that breaks the server's back.

Personally, I like making alternate Alphas. It's come in handy a few times.

Obligatory disclaimer that I am a lowly GM and have limited information. First, you have to define what you mean by lag, as folks use lag to describe any kind of slowdown or glitch. When your game starts looking more like a slideshow than smooth animations, that is usually a client's (player's) computer not being able to keep up with everything going on around him or her. When your powers aren't recharging when they should then that is the server-side that is having trouble keeping up. Server-side slowdowns might also manifest as critters (not players) rubber-banding. When players rubber-band, that's a data packet loss between the server and the client. Server packet loss can occur anywhere in the chain between the player's computer and the server, starting from the player's wifi and router, to all the hubs in between you and the server and then back again. Having a lot of players and a lot of critters together and using powers generates HUGE amounts of data that needs to be shuttled back and forth between the client and server. And that can cause problems with the client, the server, and the packet exchange. All those powers hitting multiple critters have to be calculated and shuttled back and forth while at the same time updating all the player stats from being hit, or buffed, etc. That's why things that have a lot of players and a lot of critters can make things seem laggy. MSR raids in RWZ, Hammy raids, and league-sized trick-or-treating does this by having big groups of players and critters. A single giant monster shouldn't cause much lag. But that's not to say that some individuals might notice some delay due to their hardware or the stability of the signal between them and the server. Especially if you have a league full of players in an open zone. You have to remember that in an open zone the server is also managing all the critters just walking around, cars, etc. So yeah, a dozen Babbages a few Kronos Titan's, and a few leagues worth of player should be a perfect storm of lagginess. But it's not any single thing, it's everything, right there, all at once. If you are referring to events occurring recently, you also have to keep in mind the damage caused by two hurricanes knocking down wires and power for large portions of the USA.

No. I do not cause lag . . . usually . . . unintentionally . . .