temnix

That info tells the opposite story, that groups drop Es to match the player. That is the reverse of my idea here - that Es need to be specifically NOT matched for convenience. And if there is a group origin connection in drops, it must be very weak. I fought a whole slew of Skulls in Kings Row, an enormous number, when I turned off XP accumulation and ground for Enhancements to sell, and I don't remember them dropping any consistently distinct Es. It should be something with magic in their case.

The Radio offers stashing drugs in some locations in Paragon City - an imitation zone, that is, big and crawling with Longbow. Access is through the submarine. Well, I didn't get markers on it to tell me where the stash points are, and it was not fun to look in the back of every alley there. In fact, the experience sucked. Only for the fourth stash did I get a star marker. When Dollface in Port Oakes gives the mission to go talk to the university professor in Cap Au Diable, the assignment is too specific: use the ferry. I, on the other hand, reached Cap Au Diable by a roundabout way indeed, through Pocket D and TUNNEL, and the quest did not register my arrival. I had to leave for Port Oakes again, take the ferry back and only then was the quest advanced to talking to the professor. Please do pay more attention to this sort of thing, Homecoming, because it is a major waste of time when something like this happens.

I think attunement should involve specific toggles that relate to particular elements for both attack and defense.

This is a question, because I don't know the answer. But if they don't, and it looks that way, then they should incline to dropping Enhancements of certain origins more than others: Relic, Focusing Device and Dimensional Entity (for brevity the Magical triad) for the Circle of Thorns, Hellions, Skulls, the Science range for the Fifth Column and the Council on account of their super serum, or perhaps equal chances of Science and Natural in their case, because they pay so much attention to physical training. The Lost are 100% Mutation. And so on. There is enough of a spread for all origins at all levels (and if not quite, then that is an indication for a new villain group to fill the niche), and this would let players focus on hunting down the groups that give them the advancements they need and with the greatest pertinence to their origin and character story. I mean, didn't the Iron Man oversee technological affairs on Earth, the X-Men deal with the mutant situation and Doctor Strange with occult threats? They got around and crossed over (see my topic on the super power of money), but they did have their interests, more than that - vocations. And we don't. We indiscriminately and indifferently punch people of all stripes. Also this consideration would give more direction to choosing missions on the Police Radio and in the Newspaper.

Expand its functions to switch dual and single-origin enhancements between origins, between types, to combine two dual-origin Es into a single-origin E if one of the origins is shared and the type is the same (e.g. a Relic and a Focusing Device for the same function give a Dimensional Entity, shaving off Natural and Mutation). It would be even more interesting to rig dual-origin Es together, whether for the same functions or a different function, especially if they didn't share an origin. For instance, in Knockback Distance combine the Vambrace (Magic/Natural) with the Kinetic Accelerator (Science/Technology) and get an Accelerator Vambrace with a slightly higher bonus than either used to give. I know that "Special" Es already cover more than one aspect of a power, but this is much more engaging than finding anything premade, even if it's powerful.

First, please make the kick a bit more energetic. You kick a snowman like that, not someone you fight. Second, why does my character have to put away the mace to execute this move? He can kick with the mace in hand, can't he? In fact, I know there is no technical limitation: dual blades characters deliver a kick while the blades are out when Brawl is used.

Some villains' main power is their enormous riches and the influence derived from them. Take Kingpin in Marvel's comics. He had super strength, I think, but mostly he was just flush with cash. So let's represent that as a secondary power set - or something main for Controllers. The set would include direct handouts to pacify enemies, bigger wads of greenbacks to make them turn on each other, throwing up cash or better firing a rocket that explodes and showers the place with money to confuse a crowd, a reduced threat radius as a "look the other way" bribe plus mobsters as pets. Another possibility is a power for leaving behind a trail of banknotes to attract all villains that already stand or will spawn where those banknotes lie, make them follow the character as if a trail of bread crumbs. That way one could gather a large crowd to oneself and dispatch them or just make life easier for teammates. The Banished Pantheon is so underpaid in their underworlds and mountain tops, they would trip over themselves for a minimum wage. The final power could bribe a whole gang of enemies to accompany the character and fight for him. Psionic-type effects.

How about revisiting them to actually write up a story behind them? I was very interested in the Lost and recently decided to read up on their background in the wiki, because it looked like I had outleveled their missions. I was prepared to regret being spoiled for it, but I wanted to know. It turned out the Lost had no story at all! None!

It turns out I'm an erudite.

I propose a megalomaniacal and flexible set made up of doomsday ambitions: the zombie algorithm, immortality, the synthetic army (pets), the mutant jungle, the pandemic (locks enemies down), the death ray, the apocalypse clock (with twelve chimes), the continuum disruptor, the Wunderwaffe, the Fhtagn, godhood. Many of these would be standing turret-type devices that engage enemies or emanate auras.

New features and adjustments to old ones are one thing, but there are some details in this game that are like cobwebs in the corners, no, more like in your face. They have been around since the beginning, annoying to no end, and I don't know why no one has taken a mop and swept all these cobwebs out. I will mention three obvious irritants: 1. Having to type in the freaking password blindly every time at login. The experience of being rebuffed a couple of times while typing it before getting into the warm and cozy world of CoH puts a remarkable chill on my desire for escapism. It is like having to pass a physical examination by a girl's parents before being allowed to her room. 2. Wherever he goes, my tanker automatically taunts everybody, including microbes, and I have to fight them off while trying to read an NPC's text with my other eye. 3. Missions that are by nature about infiltration, to obtain some item, often still require slaying everyone in the zone. You may think yourself very smart when you sneak past the patrols to the coveted crate and click on it, but only until you realize you have to appear and kill them all anyway, including oranges and reds that may be beyond your ability. Mirabile dictu, some people may not be interested in beating down endless goons in this game. Missions about rescuing an NPC and taking him to the exit really should be impossible while invisible; currently the NPC still sees the character within a few steps and it is possible to run, stop, run, stop and lead him to the exit inch by inch past his captors who stand and don't look at all surprised that their victim is escaping. The NPC ought to freeze and not move until enemies in sight are cleared away. Still, even here, if the character can manage to get to the NPC quietly and lead him out by an unguarded route, he ought to be able to complete the mission. And there should be ways for all characters to create distractions and send villains away. To these I can add the annoyance of all melee weapons making the same two-three ripping sounds on hit. After the first 10 000 times you hear them this starts to grate. The game is nearly mute already, and players should at least be able to choose from a few voice sets for the grunts that their characters make when jumping or blown back, and the same basic selection ought to be decided on for villains, but this doesn't file the nerves nearly as much as that ripping. It's suitable for claws, feral swipes and spines, given a few new noises for variety, but broadswords, katanas and dual blade attacks should make slicing sounds, maces and staves some satisfying, meaty thwacks, and axes probably get their own set. Hand-to-hand attacks ditto. This is a mental health issue.

Twenty years ago, you whippersnappers, I used to fight around Paragon City and get Training drops. Dual-origin drops started at much later levels, and I never got as far as Single-origin. And Training Enhancements were crappy, so there was still the same striving to fill the slots with something better than what income allows without long grinding, in other words, a PROBLEM, but there was one good thing about Training drops: I could use a lot of them myself. No matter what the origin of my character was, I could slot a Training Enhancement to improve one of my own or in a new slot. Even many of the ones not really important for my main powers found some use: I could and did fill the slots for Sprint, Health, all of the smaller powers with status effects I didn't care much about. If I got a power with a minor Knockback or Slow chance, I could fill the slots with stuff from my random drops without spending money I reserved for Accuracy or Damage. Now these days eight out of ten types of DOs that drop are useless to me from the get-go, no matter what. I can only sell them, and that for a fraction of the buying price. In different terms, almost no found treasure is usable except to exchange for store products at a great discount. It's like as if the One Ring was usable only by Sauron.

Specializing in circle attacks, this set includes powers that disorient and do damage over time along with some exotic whirligigs, like the EMP Poi. The littlest attack power is Morning Star on a chain. All right, you can call it Flails.

I won't tell you why I think so, but it is the Paragon Dance Party.

My tanker isn't using a shield, so his left arm is exposed.

As I embark on this game with yet another character who at level 5 can't cobble together enough Influence for even one single-origin Enhancement, I feel like coming to the board and loudly begging that someone please send 100,000 Inf my way to get me going. The price of Enhancements is completely out of order. But this would not do, which is why I came up with two systems for helping out beginning charaters and letting old Rockefellers play the role of public benefactors: patronage and mutual assistance funds. Here they are in outline and in keeping with the game's idiom. Like in Roman days, patronage is a relationship between a more powerful person, patron for villains, and a dependent, client in their case. The same bond is called sponsortship among heroes: a would-be protégé petitions someone to become his sponsor. Any arbiter or trainer and perhaps other superpowered contacts can be taken as one's patron or sponsor, spreading the cloak of their influence over their charge and uplifting him for a while, enjoying payback in the form of recognition. This translates into a loan of Inf. Good amounts are offered, at three terms: for instance, 100,000, 500,000, 1,000,000. Each "package" has an interest rate, let's say, 0.1, that is deducted from the client/protégé's Influence earnings, including sales in stores and auctions. These deductions do count towards repaying the loan, and the character can pay back the remainder directly when he has the means. The "packages" also have level limits before which they must be repaid. It might be level 10 for the 100,000 loan. The character cannot level up to that number until he returns what he is due and comes out of the shadow of the patron. Influence must also be repaid to a patron who has been outleveled and left behind by the character - a different threshold for each. Lesser patrons might offer better rates than the greats like Kalinda or Back Alley Brawler, so a character might change patrons over the course of his career, as long as he needs support. All the time that a villain or hero is somebody's client or protégé, the corresponding subtitle "... of ..." is displayed under his name. Besides striking up these relationships with NPC, players can make arrangements with other players to the same effect. A character advertising himself as a patron sets the sum, the level limit and the deduction rate, but interest-free loans are only available within supergroups. Also the PC patron/sponsor must be of a higher level than his would-be client/protégé. Badges, special titles and other usual perks can be given to characters who have supported others for the largest amounts, and they can enjoy high ranks in a dedicated listing. The mutual assistance system is a way for players to chip in for benefits. On the villain side they can join the Family-run Omerta Club (best cocktail olives in America, symbolic contribution - a finger), on the hero side - Firm Elbow (doubles up as a gym). Both systems involve regular contributions of Influence to a common pool from which member services are automatically provided. This is to be an affair strictly between players, no NPC flush. If there are no dues coming in, no services will be available. The fees should take a percentile form to be equally fair to starting and veteran characters and can take the form of deductions from earned Influence, as before, or explicit payments to cover membership for a certain term. It is also possible to give directly at any time. The regular fee may be as low as 1% of the character's Influence, but richer characters can put more in the common chest. Their names will again be displayed somewhere, badges, titles etc. their reward. What services will this system provide while there is money in the chest? There might be several, but bail can be one of them. Well, it would be called bail for villains, but for heroes - atonement. This would erase a considerable amount of debt when activated. Another is emergency teleportation: when a member of either society is defeated and if there is money in the chest, an extra button appears. Instead of going to the hospital he can be revived and teleported just outside the current mission, or put at the base portal or entrance zone in an open area. Other services are possible. There are no punishments for abusing this system, but richer players are encouraged to donate to keep it going. Every teleport, for example, will be followed by a message: "Rescued by the grace of ..."

First let me tell you about an incident I had a week ago. I'm a Prime Earth scrapper, and I went to Praetoria by TUNNEL. There it turned out that the local missions are limited to Praetorian natives. Bummer. Still, I explored in the Imperial City, fought a few Syndicate troops along the way. Somewhere near their Studio 55 something unexpected happened: I was thrown into a quest I hadn't taken. I was suddenly told to lure the Syndicate out of a building I had never seen in my life by fighting them, and some police arrived on the scene to help me, after which the spot was flooded with Syndicate mobsters. They kept running out of nowhere in droves and hurling themselves at me, making circle kicks, sunglasses shining, trenchcoat tails flying. It was hectic. I felt like agent Smith fighting all those Neos in "Matrix Reloaded." Finally, after a few close shaves, I beat them all. I could have continued to the next stage of that quest, but it wasn't my fight, so I quietly floated away, smiling to myself. Now this was a bug, of course, some global was missing, but I have that experience notched in my memory, no, decorated with a beautiful bowtie, as an Adventure. What is an adventure? Something unexpected and uncontrolled. Challenging. Maybe funny. In that case the Syndicate was new to me - their looks, their powers, their intentions were almost completely a mystery. There was something to learn, fast, and there was challenge not of a predictable type. Now my idea for all those house doors and warehouse doors and sewer grates and ground holes and cave entrances and manholes is that instead of rebuffing us adventurers when there is no mission assigned to them they would invite us to a random mission from Architect. When clicked, the door would say "This is not the place you were sent to, but there is something going on inside. Do you want to intervene?" Architect missions, but to happen there and then, dangerously, with all of the surprises and unknown objectives their creators put in. Why have something in a virtual space when you can have it in reality? (He asked.) Start from three-star ratings and above. For optimists, the entrance's script can contain the information about which hospital to send you to. Teammates might get an invite to follow and a marker, these details can all be worked out. The mission would not be explained or described in any way, nor its villains stated upfront. The difficulty would be tweaked for the character's level, but otherwise he would plunge into the unknown. Missions of appropriate tilesets would be chosen: a warehouse door would lead... to a warehouse (we really need a "normal house" or "hotel" tileset, preferably both), a sewer grate to a sewers mission, a ground hole might connect to the sandy cave tileset, the crystal cave tileset, even an Arachnos base. Here is the kicker, though: these door offers would not be available everywhere at all times, nor reliably. Rather every door might cycle through a 50-50 chance (for example) of offering a mission once every hour. If the character decides not to involve himself, the door sets a local variable blocking further offers for that cycle. The character can try next door - literally. He might choose to investigate that manhole instead of the warehouse. If a character goes in but leaves, there is no coming back, the villains have fled. Upon completing the mission and exiting the victor(s) would find a clue - a message from the mission's author with explanations, any curious facts, advertising on Architect or anything else he wants to communicate, or just a "Hope you enjoyed it!" note.

A. The color black in powers is supposed to be black, not invisible. If you want that, make a separate color. It is possible to have real black in powers - in the Fiery Melee set, for example. There you can have a black scrimitar and breathe a cone of blackness, so transparency instead is some problem with interpreting it elsewhere. And why are powers set to all-black or Dark wine-red instead? B. Playing with tall characters is inconvenient, because they block most of the view. One has to scroll the camera out constantly. I have a wonderful character grown out to the maximum eight feet, but he is more or less unplayable. The default camera distance should be configurable.

In a world where everyone flies, jumps over buildings, outruns trains and teleports getting from one point to another quicker than everyone else is pointless - except by walking. Slow is the new fast in Walkathon, a new social event and competition where the only power the contestants may use is Walk. The type of walking is up to the athletes, whether glamorous, casual, tough or original (which is plenty glamorous), but they win by being the first to walk from the start to the finish lines - on a track in the beginning of which they are all randomly seeded, into cells. The shortest time wins. Every position other than the first row on the track receives a headstart time deduction bonus in seconds to compensate, increasing with back rows. Other characters may also participate by using helpful hasting and buffing powers or harmful slowing and debuffing powers on the athletes from the sidelines, and bets can be placed. Betting rates depend on the chosen character's position on the track, from excellent in the beginning to poor in the final stages, when the outcome is almost certain. A contestant who congests the traffic or obstructs others by staying in place for more than a second is disqualified. Only constant motion, no matter what happens, gets one to the end of the mile or so of the track. Heroes and villains compete in a mix. The first few characters to reach the finish receive winner's T-shirts, other participants more modest T-shirts for participation, and all learn the sporty walk. Heroes compete under the banner of the outgoing Fuji the Snail, villains under that of the inscrutable Phalangita the Trilobite, and prize T-shirts also feature these mascots. The competition takes place in turn on three tracks within Pocket D: the bright track, the dark track and the baseline. The baseline is a belt of tarmac on an empty, gray plain, and powers may not be used to help or hinder the contestants. Here only slotting Walk and smarts will determine the winner. The purpose of this track is to measure relative strength of athletes, but money can still be won. The other two tracks not only allow others to intervene with some powers but feature obstacles and hindrances that strike from the sides in the manner of River Raid. Nobody can die on a walkathon, but walkers can become slowed, pushed back in the crowd or distracted. The bright track is a lush, bucolic meadow with rolling hills and blue skies. At some points and intervals here attractive shepherdesses insist on leading flocks across the track. In other places contestants may be disoriented by a fluttering butterfly or mesmerized by a feather-tucking yodeler. The dark track is a walk through a Boschian underworld, among volcanoes, gibbets, wheels and dismal rivers. Here demons blow gales from the sides, earthquakes threaten to knock down the fastest champion and black ships lob flying medusa that splatter and glue feet to the ground. This is a regular event, maybe biweekly. And, of course, this will produce players who make characters slotted out just to compete, superteams and rivalries of superteams, cries of foul, all the orbiting systems of sports since at least the Blues and the Greens of emperor Justinian. Well, may that be! That's how I envision this anyway.

It took me awfully long recently to find the one I remembered was near Atlas City Hall so that I might change the difficulty setting.

The claws are not tintable either. And what is that about the costume file format? Homecoming has access to every last file and byte of the code. Let them change the costume file format. What is that going to take, a TED talk?

It's not easy. All new parts and details have to be drawn first, you know, and then models made for the textures. The devs are adding new costume pieces all the time, but some aspects don't get noticed - where textures end, for example, and how. But inventing costumes for this game made me more aware of fashion and colors. Look at this dress and hairstyle I found online!

I suspect I missed many interesting stories because my level is now too high. I have risen by some levels fighting villains on sidewalks, and on Indomitable in particular leveling-up is quick. Many of my contacts, even new faces, have no leads for me, probably because I am supposed to have moved on to other areas. But I like Kings Row and Steel Canyon more than, say, Talos Island or Faultline. Why should I fight the Tsoo there when I don't care about the Tsoo? As if every hero is indifferent to who he spends his time opposing. Just because those places' street thugs are not a challenge for me anymore is no reason I couldn't help the residents in need when they are kidnapped, threatened, raided and so on. I could get some random missions on police radio, but there are no stories there - no writing. So, instead of contacts keeping mum they should explain, and each in his own idiom, that there is only small-time work left, but that the character is free to lend a hand. This fair warning will take care of the problem where the villain group in question doesn't have lieutenants and bosses powerful enough to challenge the player - if this really is a factor. Besides, the level of the mission depends on chosen difficulty. Crank it up high, and basic creeps will make your hair stand on end.

A costume option for arms that makes them thicker. The only option for muscles right now is to boost Physique, and that makes me grossly rotund. The babes are just scary. Oh, and if you can throw in a booty pack, that would be appreciated. Either as a Back Detail or better as a separate category.

There is not much we can have with Monstrous Legs at all. Not even a shiny skin option to blend with the thigh pants.