GraspingVileTerror

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Loading_Screen_Tips So, doing a little wikidiving, and came across this page. Does anyone have a means of diving in to the Homecoming files and collecting the current list of LSTs? Or may we poke someone like @Faultline and request a copy be shared to update the page with?

I've had the opposite experience; getting as many Purples as I expect to, but rarely seeing PvP Recipes.

So, yesterday a bunch of teasers were dropped saying the "full trailer" for The Matrix 4 would be released in two days. The teeny tiny clips in the teasers showed what appear to be recreations of some iconic scenes from the previous films in the series, but also some distinctly new stuff. The last time I ever felt the concept of a "spoiler" was real was when I saw the original Matrix movie. Since then, no "spoiler" has ever really robbed me of being able to find enjoyable in a movie. If a movie is good, then no amount of "spoilers" can actually spoil it for me. But this time? I almost feel like I should avoid the trailer, and go in to the movie completely blind. Just like I did for The Matrix. Just for old time's sake, right? What about you folks?

Hey hey! Now now! I'm undead too, thank you very kindly. Immortal may also be defined as "exempt from oblivion." I think that's a fair term to use for certain kinds of undead, no?

Not to knock the wind out of @Cobalt Arachne or @Piecemeal's sails, but I think the sentiment expressed in the latter half of https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/31268-trollers-fenders-and-the-useless-abilities-could-get-a-once-or-twice-over/?tab=comments#comment-396430 is the direction I'd like too see the majority of the focus on in this. Emphasis on it being experimental, and that this experiment will inform future decision-making. And really putting it to the point that things like this be used to learn from. But I do hope there's room for other experiments too. There's more than one way to skin a Hydra Protean, as the saying goes.

It's absolutely fair and reasonable to NOT want to associate with players who you feel cross lines that ruin your personal enjoyment of the game. But short of harassment, we don't really need to police anyone here (and even then, handling harassment is best left to the GMs. Remember to report, and then do your best to move on in those cases). I tend to like to cavort around in the space which the ludonarrative dissonance generates in City when it comes to power levels. I have virtually no interest in playing as Incarnate characters, and in fact tend to go in the extreme opposite direction; playing as mundane characters by-and-large. The circumstances of the setting are geared toward the exceptional, but the gameplay explicitly demonstrates that individuals with no super powers can and DO thrive. I know a lot of people don't like to "over"think these sorts of things, and would rather just pretend this game is as bereft of nuance and depth as four-colour comics**; but it seems fairly evident to me that is not what the gameplay or the narrative actually present. So, sure. There are players with ridiculously overpowered concepts for their personal headcanons and they bring those to the table for roleplay with other players. But so what? If I find myself interacting with them, I'll just as easily assign them an unreliable narrator identity, and move on from that point. And yeah; a player-character can boast that they're Statesman's son. My characters would treat them with as much credulence as I would if I met someone in real life claiming to be the offspring of Satan. That may well be their lived experience and their personal truth, but it doesn't need to affect me. And really, we're ALL playing immortal characters frankly. Unless we choose to actively kill them* then each of our characters can (and DO, according to the gameplay and narrative) survive events which should be undeniably fatal. *(or a GM deletes them out from under our noses, but I very much doubt that would ever happen. And even then, it could easily be argued that without fully informed consent, such an act should not hold any kind of weight in a roleplay.) All that being said . . . We can politely encourage other players to consider our own points of view, and see if they would be willing to play the game by our own personal standards; but it's something that should happen with mutually informed consent instead of shame tactics, as far as I'm concerned. So, to that end . . . why not take a collectivistic and cooperative approach, rather than an accusatory one? Rather than telling someone "your character is bad and you should feel bad," why not say "I'm not comfortable playing with you on that character, but maybe we can explore something else some time instead?" If the other player shows interest, try to discuss things in a personable way, using constructive rather than destructive conversational tactics. Ask questions. Leaving openings. Offer suggestions. Don't assume that the other player is incapable of depth and nuance in their characters, and be prepared for the possibility that they see things from a very different point of view. It's true that you just might have irreconcilable differences, but there's also a chance that maybe their "godmod" character isn't the only character in their roster, and maybe you can find common ground on someone else.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/18442-that-was-great-gushing-about-being-a-villain/ It's been a long, long while since I've gotten to indulge my villainous tendencies and flex my narrative antagonist tentacles, but to follow-up with my post in the linked thread, I did have another encounter where someone invited me to be a villain in their group's roleplay. Regrettably, that one did not go so well as the other. While I had a very solid rapport with the one player who invited me, and they coached me on how they wanted the scene to play out, no OOC introductions were made before the scene with the other players involved. There were fundamentally different approaches to elements of the roleplay (specifically related to the mechanisms of magic), and things were fairly bumpy. Since then, I've declined a few invites when OOC preamble discussions weren't forthcoming. Playing an antagonist for other players to interact with is something I take rather seriously, and I'd like to make sure I'm on the same page with other players (and reading the same playbook, at that). As we've recently been discussing in some other threads here, there is a call for improved player interpersonal networking options. I'll make a note to include elements of "heroes seeking villain" and vice-versa to the Roleplay Connections thread, when I get to working on it. Similarly, we'll hopefully see some improvements or additions of in-game tools for creating meaningful player-Villain versus player-Hero(es) content. But there hasn't even been a breath of a hint to any of the existing Devs actually being willing to tackle that particular pipedream. Also, the recent thread about "godmodding" and @CrystalDragon's roleplay seminars draw attention to one of the issues which creates a potential barrier for these sorts of narratives: How do you balance the individual strength of a player-Villain in a roleplay context against the collective strength of player-Heroes to make an engaging experience for all parties? My personal solution is to talk it through OOC beforehand, but as alluded to at the start of this post, I've not recently found any groups where we've come to consensus on the matter. A further complication is that I've discovered so many players are Incarnated out the ass, and looking for a compelling villain at that level of power . . . and I'm fairly disinterested in Incarnates in general, so that's typically a non-starter for me. Conversely, there are plenty of close-knit groups who do this sort of thing. They tend to be fairly insular, though; finding a collection of players who mesh well and then playing amongst themselves predominantly. If you befriend such a player outside of the clique, they may attempt to introduce you to their fellows and induct you if they feel you're their kind of people.

Since someone dug up the other thread that dipped in to the thematic expansion of gambling motifs in City of Villains, I'mma cross-link the two threads for future reference: https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/12781-gambling-suggestion/

Well, this this one got dug up too, I'mma cross-link these two threads so if we have this conversation again in another two years, we'll remember to check the other thread. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/17370-gambling/

Poor tentacle dragon.

Could have been worse, @TraumaTrain. Those rings could have been on either side of the open mouth and made to look like fingers.

I think that would have a bigger effect on the ESRB than the PEGI, @wjrasmussen.

There are too many factors at play to say if it would improve my overall experience, I think. The realism factor for the structure of the maps alone aren't the be-all and end-all of the equation. If the maps were changed without an eye for game design and were strictly changed for realism, I might be more satisfied on the roleplay/narrative side of things, but I think the gameplay pacing would suffer.

I've often wished that maps were built with more of an eye toward the holistic and diegetically appropriate, rather than the hodge-podge of building blocks taped together at (seemingly) random that we have. But that would also necessitate a change to the pacing and the gameplay that we have. Maps right now are more like gauntlets or snipe-hunts, depending on their design. If the maps were more "realistic" then I think we would also need to adjust how they played out. Especially with the likes of the Travel Powers. As usual, this is also probably one of those situations where "leave the old stuff untouched" is the smart move. If the current or future Devs want to make maps that fit in time and space more appropriately, then I recommend they do so with future content, and leave the Escheresque monstrousities of past content in tact.

I'd sooner prefer a "dump to Market" command, so I can just shove all those annoying skittles where they belong. Bonus points for Recipe, Salvage, and Enhancement commands in that vein as well. But I'm certainly not against P2W things becoming more accessible.

A flipside to that flipside is that it can be incredibly difficult for someone new to step up without an old leader making room for it. It's incredibly self-destructive of a burnout leader doesn't provide support to those who are looking to alleviate that stress by providing relief. It happens with startling frequency.

Did it pop out of a Rikti portal?

I'm fairly sure that PEGI is concerned with glamourization of real world gambling. So game mechanics which revolve around random chance aren't going to trigger their anti-gambling sensors. But the fact that City of Villains has a Slot Machine Contact -might- be argued in that capacity. Granted, the story context of the Slot Machine actually places the player at a narrative disadvantage. It isn't glamourized, but rather presents the story in the context that your character got manipulated and exploited by the Slot Machine to further the Slot Machine's own ends (spoilers, blah blah). I just don't know how much hair-splitting the PEGI board would actually engage in related to that. I mean, it's an undead game, so they'll probably not even give a flying crap . . . unless the Homecoming Team have to recertify City with PEGI and the ESRB as part of their theoretical deal with NC. If that's the case, then . . . yeaaaaah. I can see why they wouldn't even send a GM to monitor the Rikti Monkey Fight Club Events. While none of the GMs have explicitly stated -why- they won't ever attend RMFC, they have at least sent me messages saying "Nope, can't" (paraphrased). Basically: I believe it's likely that Homecoming LLC doesn't want to step anywhere near the line which might result in some real world authority (government, rating board, news outlet, et cetera) to assume that this game would be lumped in with the likes of the latest fifa games. I just think it might be helpful to the community to have that explicitly stated with no uncertain terms, if it's the case.

There have been attempts by players, with various levels of success and support from Game Moderators, to organize and run structured roleplay narratives. One of the major challenges is also one of the best parts of City of Heroes: There's no one correct way to play it. So these events end up being quite exclusive by no other reason but they focus on a stylistic choice that is a turn-off for various players. But that would not inherently be a problem if we had a larger population to fill in the gaps and give all walks of life in the roleplay community consistent access. Now, if a new Dev could come along with some know-how to implement better roleplay tools; content that operates in a modular fashion but is quicker than AE, or Game Mastering tools particularly for Bases, or bringing AE stories out in to the world, or more robust and interactive emotes, or a bloody danged dice roll command (not the puny diceroll emote or the cumbersome Snowball roll trick) ,... any combination of these. That could really help increase the number of those players who step up and lead these roleplay events, or save time for those who already do and allow them to reach wider audiences. But ultimately, it would still be on the shoulders of the players to step up to take on that role. It would be nice to have Roleplay Community Representatives, like how PvP has some. However, we still fall in to the issue that there are far more ways to roleplay than there are to PvP, and to get solid representation we would need a LOT of Roleplay CRs. And more than anything, there needs to be a consistent and internal way to connect the roleplayers with one another and these Roleplay Leaders or theoretical CRs. As stated by others in this thread, third-party stuff like discord isn't good. It creates exclusion and even elitism in some cases, and it can't be monitored to meet the Code of Conduct. Additionally, the owners of the third-party software could pull any amount of fuckery to interfere with or shut down such external spaces (see the recent scare with discord planning to sell to microsoft. Don't expect that to be the last you hear of something of that nature). The ideal would definitely be in-game tools, like a more comprehensive LFG system or an agreed shorthand by the community which allows players looking for similar things to rapidly identify one another and form up. The former requires some Dev(s) to actively step up for the roleplay community, while the latter requires serious efforts by the community to unify, at least long enough to work things out. Since these forums are a required step in every players' registration to play the game, it's a good place to make a concerted effort. While not truly internal to the game itself, it still operates on the same server hardware and under the same rules as the game itself. We just need to make it as simple and accessible as possible to cast that net wide. And, of course, a -little- help from the Homecoming Team to nudge people here with some kind of in-game direction or hotlinking would be very encouraging. But looping back around to the creation of a Roleplay Personals / Connections thread . . . I'll be going on vacation next week, and hopefully that means finding myself with some free time (really depends on the spouse and if I'm going to get dragged out for "vacationy stuff" every day). I should be able to get a draft written up for the community to weigh in on, and hopefully have something solid done by the middle of September.

Latest Power Set was Sonic Manipulation, and upcoming is something rock related (sources suggest a Rock Blast Set . . . which I rather hope isn't the case, because Blasters just seem to be getting all kinds of attention). Sentinels haven't been revamped yet, but discussions continue to occasionally prompt Dev responses of the nature of "we're looking at it."

I'm working on a "little" project and wanted to do some calculations on the average number of enemies needed to be defeated to progress through City of Heroes, giving a calculation of roughly where the halfway points would be in terms of work (rather than just halfway point of total experience). So, I got the numbers for Experience per Class of enemies (Minion, Lieutenant, Boss) at each level and divided those in to the number of experience points to get to the next level. I then also tallied up the total experience at each level (verified against the chart on the Wiki), and applied the same divisions for the Classes of Enemies to determine the total number of enemies necessary per level. Did anyone catch my mistake in all that? Took me a whole day to realize what I did wrong. I was getting a total number of Bosses as like 2,500’ish. It seemed a bit low, but I didn’t think it was a huge deal, and I trudged along doing the rest of my calculations. But then I thought “hold on. If it takes over 300 enemies to get from 49 to 50, AND over 300 enemies for 48 to 49, AND . . . I’m seeing a pattern here.” In dividing the Experience per Enemy PER LEVEL, I was introducing an error where I was dividing Total Experience to Level only against a specific level’s Experience Rewards. That ain’t right. So, I had to just use the same summing function that I did for total Experience on the Total Enemies per Class instead. 5993+ Bosses to reach level 50. THAT makes much more sense. Naturally this chart doesn’t take in to account things like Teaming or upping the Notoriety Settings, but I just wanted a loose model to get an idea of roughly how long each “phase” of levelling would take for a default character. I’ll chart out something more detailed if my peer review determines the duration of progress is really skewed. With all that context out of the way . . . would anyone else care to share with the community a recitation of a time they realized they were making a little mistake that had a big impact on something they were working on? Bonus points for it being in the context of City.

I feel like this thread got pruned. Did it get pruned? Weren't we up to three pages before? Anyway, got some news that might affect things specifically here: https://www.thegamer.com/pegi-18-rating-games-with-gambling/ So, technically, City of Villains might now be considered PEGI 18 in Europe due to St. Martial. Not likely, but there's a chance. Of course, if we were to introduce any game mechanics which were "glorifying gambling" then we'd DEFINITELY see the game bumped up to a PEGI 18, and I don't think NC would appreciate that. Shame. But I understand where the PEGI board is coming from with this decision. We can all blame actiblizz and steam, and thank ea for this one!

I have a terrible memory. If not for my habitual compulsion to play this game, I'd probably forget ALL my characters in a day or two. As it stands, I have a spreadsheet to help me remember, and logging in periodically certainly helps too. But I can't even count the number of times someone has said "Hey! Let's roleplay a scene of X and Y!" and I'm like "Awesome! . . . which account is X on again?"

Can confirm, as of time of posting: "Mr Superspeed" is available on Everlasting. As is "Mr. Superspeed" and "Mrs. Superspeed" and "Mrs Superspeed" and "Mister Superspeed" and "Miss Superspeed" and "Monseiur Superspeed" . . . The question is: For how long?