temnix

I like that one, @Vic Raiden.

Excellent combination with that sash-wearing character, @Erratic1. I would have picked a less-saturated blue, but that might have been difficult. And @biostem as usual, with the Wrought Wrecker. In particular the pants-thighs-boots. Five more from me, and that will be enough. The Wreck of War The Smithsonian The Tender Dirge The Merry Hell Company The Gypsy Kign

Fluoride Jackets: Mini Vest, Chest: Leather Straps, Bottoms with Skin, High Ponytail... wielding a new War Mace option Homecoming is alpha-testing. This RNG setup is stuck on a pony model, but for color palette it is second to none.

I remember requests and ideas around the concept that draining an enemy of Endurance should be an alternative way to win a fight. But I am concerned about something different: Controllers and other Archetypes half-similar to Controllers. The problem with them all, but especially Controllers, is that they are potentially the most interesting character types, with the most possibilities, but they just can't win a fight. Because they can barely put a scratch on the enemies, especially after the freebie Prestige attacks (that were paid cheats to begin with) peter out. I have tried playing Controllers solo and other types with a half of their powers in the controlling basket, and to the extent they use control, their fights never end. Control is only useful when the actual means of defeating enemies is from a damage-dealing power set, as for Defenders or Corruptors. Then it is convenient to be able to hold down enemies while you shoot them. But control itself, with a few exceptional powers like Propel does little to completely nothing to end a fight, give experience or drops. That is wrong. I am not buying the excuse that "some Archetypes are inherently more suited to group play." All that means is that the original designers could not find a mechanic that would express the ability of gravity-benders, terror-mongers, psychic dominators et cetera to come up on top. Perhaps Cryptic was still too locked into the buffer/tanker/etc. role division so that one was supposed to resolve to play second fiddle forever, help out and derive satisfaction from that. But Magneto didn't need Sabertooth to smash those who stood in his way and Professor X only brought Cyclops along for backup. It isn't difficult to imagine how such diverse powers over the environment, bodies and minds as the controlling types possess would let them scare away, stop, deceive, frighten, seduce, displace everyone and everything that at the moment represented opposition. And CoH features plenty of such interesting powers in the sets. They just don't win fights. For me the purpose of a new mechanic in this case is to enable Controllers (et al) to overcome enemies solo at the same rate as their damage-dealing counterparts without diminishing their role as helpers in groups. That is the only standard: the only thing we are competing with or comparing to here is not some theoretical "balance" but the amount of fun others get. To make this possible the mechanic of winning only needs to be parallel to damage-dealing (instead of going on top of damage-dealing, as with the Endurance drain). That way a Controller in a group would not bring down the enemies by this mechanic sooner than the damage specialists by damage and steal their spotlight, because damage is dispensed in groups so much faster than solo: few fights in a mission room take longer than a few seconds when Scrappers, Tankers and Blasters are involved. Yet on their own Controllers would be adequate and progress at the same pace as the others. A Controller should be able to dispose of a few whites very quickly, of yellows in a half-minute, of oranges in a minute and so on, at the same speed as the others, but if not by damage, then by what? Morale break. The way I see it, any sane enemy should be able to take only so much gluing down to the spot, freezing in place, mind terrors and slamming down and about before he hoists the white flag. You can interpret that in psychological terms or in functional ones. Even zombies can only take so much before their binding magic gives in. Give mobs a third bar, Morale, below Health and Endurance. Let it replenish slowly but receive boosts every time the critter manages to land a blow on a player. And make the Mez states depress Morale by the magnitude of their effect for its duration. Those depressions should be cumulative. For the sake of an example, suppose that a typical minion has 10 points of Morale. Let's say that Crush from Gravity Control applies a 3.0-magnitude hold for 20 seconds. (I don't remember the exact numbers.) Morale would be depressed by 3 for the same 20 seconds. If the player had added an Extend Hold Duration Enhancement to Crush and boosted duration of the hold to, say, 25 seconds, the Morale depression would also extend.(Enhancements don't, of course, increase magnitude.) During this time the player can add other powers that also hold, or put to sleep, or immobilize, or confuse - everything to represent his overall dominance of the situation. He could add the same power, Crush again, on top of the first Crush, if he had sped up its recharge enough to take advantage of the accumulation. Primary and secondary-set powers, side effects of temporary powers, Pool powers that had to be taken in order to get to the higher tier and wouldn't be used otherwise, such as some mild debuff, that toxic dart - all can find a use here. If the overlay of these powers brings Morale to zero, the enemy collapses or runs away, the player gets experience and drops. Holds and immobilizes (for instance) are generally of the 2-3 point magnitude, it is more or less the same with the rest of mainstays. If the standard Morale is 10 points, it means an application of 4-5 powers in succession to defeat an enemy: in line with the number of attacks it usually takes a damage-dealing Archetype to do a job. Debuffs could be converted as 10% equal to 1 magnitude, and instant effects like Knockdown, Knockout and Teleport only apply quick, second-long depressions, because their magnitude can in some cases be increased. That lieutenants, bosses and archvillains should have longer morale bars and that level difference is going to apply is obvious. Notice also that the needs of morale-breaking when using control powers may vary from the needs of helping teammates, which should keep this mechanic from being too applicable and give players some choices to make. And also notice that when a player focuses on damage, morale break is going to be largely irrelevant and vice versa. When enemies have been made to miss all the time with Negative Energy debuffs, it is not going to matter to a Blaster or a Scrapper that they may now be brought safely to a morale break after a time. The damage-dealer is going to want them dead ASAP and move on. Likewise, for someone with an eye on morale break harmless control-set powers with quicker recharge may be preferable to the ones that are slower but do some damage. By and large these are going to be parallel systems. The resulting picture is something like this: the Controller puts on a Gravity Distortion Field on an encountered group, made to last longer with extra slots, and proceeds to Crush them individually. He could also speed up the recharging of the GDF and recast it several times, but that probably won't be quick enough to accumulate and is certain to be dull. He uses other powers behind his belt to strike the fear of god into them. For effect, he slams the last one into the ground with a high-boosted Lift, quickly destroying the tatters of this enemy's morale. This is all still dangerous enough, because the Controller's hit points are low, somebody may still get to him or fire at him from away, but he can do it! And he feels good about himself. P. S. If breaking morale of held etc. enemies turns out to be too safe, morale depression durations can be halved from effect durations. In that case the Controller will have to concentrate on select enemies and quickly string along his Mez, debuff and knock/teleport powers to take advantage of this way of winning.

...Why am I posting it here and not in the Suggestions forum? Because that place is where doom reigns. It is an idea ghetto cum death camp, organized to keep all those bright creative sorts who think they have something to contribute to the game bashing their heads on invisible walls. Of course, Homecoming doesn't care about player suggestions here either, but somebody may stumble across this thread, whereas Suggestions is the forum they have been specifically ordered not to read. That is the only explanation why they... well, why they haven't fixed the typos right in the character generation. For more of what they haven't done, feel the nose on my face. So what is my idea? I have been and still am irked by having to switch off and on aura-type powers that taunt, debuff or do damage just to walk by some enemies. It's a real chore. Whether the enemies are grey already and you simply don't want to fight them, and even cities are full of them, or you are using stealth, it is such a drag to keep those auras now on, now off, especially with the tray buttons not being particularly responsive to the mouse. They take some pushing, as everyone knows. Plus it is impossible to make a macro for activating/deactivating more than one power. The result is tedious, sometimes unsuccessful clicking just to move from point A to point B unmolested. Many if not most power sets have one or two of these auras that are essential. Regeneration, for example, is not viable without its regeneration-increasing aura, which also happens to taunt. What a gift to players! Imagine if I'm not a Tanker? On the other hand, imagine if I am a Tanker? There should be some solution that makes these auras controllable, because somebody who is gushing fire in every direction or jibing in a circle would still, I think, have sufficient control over where he sends his stuff. My original proposal, now buried with the galleons of the Spanish Main in the benthic silts of Suggestions, was to keep the auras from affecting grays. I was thinking about taunting powers then. But that's not a perfect solution for a few reasons. A much better thought is to let the auras only taunt, debuff and damage enemies who have already been aggroed, be that by seeing the character or by an attack. This would keep Stealth in place, prevent unfair situations where the player rushes into a group and fries them with a few ticks before they go "Uh-wha?" as well as make Tankers in particular play an active, conscious role on teams, living up to their promise as enemy magnets. Let them move their big fat butts. If they want to draw all the mobs to themselves, let them first run in and make an attack or run in, expose themselves and be noticed, at which point their auras will start taunting, hurting, drawing bits of extra regeneration and damage resistance for themselves per enemy and so on with the rest of what auras do. The rest of the team should hang back for a moment and watch the Tanker start putting it on before they join in. That will increase the clarity of situations, reward Tankers with respect and make fights more dramatic instead of just hectic, "my auras first," brawls. Repel should also be included.

As protein supplements declare, it is time to get Huge. Bob Raccoon Eyes USSR Space Magister Kakhran

To whosoever may be running these forums as well as to the participants therein: if you want more intelligent and meaningful conversations here, about CoH and not about CoH, disable these "reactions" below posts. What the heck does a like or dislike mean? Or a piece of pizza? Is that pizza for me or am I required to treat others to a slice thereby? Even a laughing face: is that mockery, sympathy, appreciation... what, words getting too long? Let's not encourage moronism. Disable "reactions" and let people actually state what they want to say, if anything. And if they don't feel strongly enough about a post to click and write below at least "I agree" or "Bad idea, because...", let them write nothing at all. Raise the bar here a little, all right? Make people do a little jump, as a proof of stake. Because people have gotten too fat, on their brains.

The Veterans

Well, you feel it, I feel it, but what does that change? The game was made at a time when the idea of online role-playing was to grind by beating up on identical digital monsters in instance missions. Like in World of Warcraft and all the rest of them. They all thought it was a normal use of time. Cryptic's people believed it too, hence this game. But at least Cryptic had a lot of talent. Now Homecoming is adding time sinks of their own, which is plain immoral, and celebrating veterans, badge collectors and other life-wasting, humdrum crap. Only Homecoming is mediocrities. They have no interest whatsoever in new features, large or small, that would take the mechanics and the universe to a new place, only in pushing their tiny nerd agenda. And most players think that's just dandy. They love that interminable repetition. I don't even want to ask rhetorically why, I know why.

Hope Ends For Many

From making things likely that were unlikely and the other way around to having a tank roll up from around the corner, this power set would involve luck in different ways. One power, for example, could be called Coin Toss: it would give the target enemy either +100% to Accuracy or -100% to Accuracy. This could make an enemy very easy or impossible, and it would be random. Slips and falls for no reason, as a 1% chance of Knockdown per second. A variation called Probability Armor is also possible: Defense bonuses, Accuracy debuffs and things like a chance that every enemy in range will be smashed by a flyby object, after the manner of Propel. For the ultimate power, Deus Ex Machina: one of the signature heroes or villains from the Rogues Gallery shows up just then to help the character for a while or resurrects him if dead.

After any changes that you end up making, are you going to feel that you are playing the same character? That is the question.

Jana Staforova Cold Turkey Schmo Valdis

Bacchus, who else?

The Masterminds