Fade
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Posts posted by Fade
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A few people here have had opinions along the lines of "I don't want to be incentivized to do content I don't like". I can understand the desire to have the most optimal play also be the most enjoyable one.
However, the game already incentivizes doing unpopular content. Players aren't (often) doing Dr. Quarterfield TFs for the sheer joy of it - they're doing it for the tall stack of merits at the end. A lot of players choose not to participate in that TF except for during its time in the weekly rotation, and many also don't touch it at all. All of those choices are completely valid, and each individual has to make that calculation for themselves. But the entire Weekly Strike Target system is based around the idea of getting players to explore the less commonly played content, and the easiest way to do so is through rewards.
And more rewards means more people giving the content a chance when they otherwise wouldn't have. And more people redside means that people who would like to play redside but can never find a team can finally have one. And so on and so forth.
I also dig the idea of more rewarding redside content for a thematic reason: Villains do their villainy for selfish personal gain. It makes sense that the most efficient way to gain resources would be to take them from others. More rewards on the redside lets bad guys be bad guys, and lets blueside-only players actually make the choice to be a "good" guy for selfless reasons.
Now, the exact method of reward might be tricky - 2 merits per mission seems like a lot, but does 1 merit per mission feel like enough of a reward to get people interested? The specifics might need some tweaking, but the idea is good enough to consider.
Also, let's do this for goldside as well. A lot of missions on goldside have interesting stories that feel like they're meant to be experienced solo, but punishing mechanics that feel like you're supposed to bring a full team.
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Here's my two cents: Spanky's Boardwalk is a very cool but very underutilized area of Talos Island. It's always been one of my favorite areas of the city - not for the reality of what it is, but for the possibility of what it could be. I would really love to see it get a bit of a touch-up alongside the Warriors, with a bit of added detail to bring it in line with some great zones added after the game's release like the Faultline revamp. It seems like an ideal base of operations for them, and could be the location of any new contacts, new mission maps, or both. Plus, as Supertanker added:
22 hours ago, Supertanker said:Probably too much work, but a Coney Island-inspired outdoor mission map.
Thematically it fits with the The Warriors movie.-
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21 hours ago, Bopper said:
You can set it up to TP a max direction. Something like this:
/bind numpadenter powexec_location forward:max Combat Teleport
4 hours ago, Blackfeather said:It's also possible to use Shift + Click to teleport to a specific location, if you don't mind the whole clicking aspect, not sure if that's something you'd like though:
/bind LSHIFT+LBUTTON powexec_name Teleport
Of course, if you're looking for something completely click free, /powexec_location is definitely your best choice at the moment.
Both of these would work pretty well, and I definitely have no problem using the camera:max option for that, but a cursor-targeted bind would be ideal for that and also ground-targeted attacks in some situations where I don't want to click on somebody.
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I came to the forums today to try to find this very same functionality. I'd find it very useful for a teleport bind - I use "T" or "Shift+T" for activating my travel powers, and it would be great to be able to just tap T, T, T to teleport long distances instead of needing to press T, Click, T, Click, T, Click. I couldn't think of a more first-world problem to have, but it would be convenient if it was possible.
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19 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:
I had no idea the Clockwork King was a psychic brain in a jar thing!
I didn't think I was spoiling anything, sorry about that! But evidently the Clockwork King is weak enough that you can miss him even when you play through the TF.
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Here are some of the qualities that make a task force "good" (in my opinion, of course):
- Unique content: The best TFs offer something you can't see in the game anywhere else, be it mechanics, maps, enemies, temp powers, or what have you. They don't even have to be super fancy, like the Duray fight mechanics at the end of Admiral Sutter's TF with the air support creating zones of death, but something that sticks in your mind as "the TF that has [X]". For me, Admiral Sutter's TF isn't the Duray fight TF, but the "broken highway map" TF, with special appearances by the "all of those ships out in the middle of the ocean" and "running through the tunnel in Talos that leads down to the ferry" maps.
- Tell the story with mission mechanics: On a team - which is either strictly required or expected of a task force - most players don't have access to the contact's dialog window. Those that do are expected to keep the team moving and don't want to hold up the other players so they can read some text that nobody else can. A lot of that text can be seen by looking at the "More info" of the mission, but nobody has time for that while beating down hordes of ne'er-do-wells. The best TFs tell their stories not through that text, which is usually missed, but through the mission structure themselves: all that unique content I mentioned in the previous bullet, along with (preferably short) cutscenes and NPC dialog.
- Climactic AV battle: The reason we all showed up together was to take out one tough baddie, and many of the TFs that I remember fondly have an archvillain in that sweet spot of tough-but-not-too-tough.
- Length: Brevity is the soul of wit or whatever.
Most of the best TFs in the game were released as development continued over the 8 years of the game's life cycle, and a lot of them show up at higher levels, such as the Statesman TF (Miss Liberty TF nowadays), Lady Grey TF, and Dr Kahn TF, but the one that I do more than any other and doesn't seem to get old is the Imperious Task Force. Here's how the ITF stacks up to those bullet points I listed:
- Unique content: Nowhere else in the game do you fight Romulus Augustus, and there aren't too many other places where you fight the Cimerorans or even the Nictus anymore. I believe the shadow cysts are unique to the ITF these days too, along with the Cyclops and Minotaur Elite Bosses and 3 of the 4 mission maps.
- Tell the story with mission mechanics: Without looking at the mission text, I know that our first mission involves saving the seers, culminating with a Sister Psyche look-alike in a cool temple on a hill. This leads us to breaking a bunch of shadow cysts that seem to spawn unbound Nictuses (Nicti?) and are protected by the Cimerorans. From there we head to a gigantic battle with Cimerorans that are hiding a very cool giant robot they clearly shouldn't have, along with the 5th Column (their return after years of hiatus in the original game). We break a computer that controls multiple waves of robot minions and fight Romulus for the first time and Requiem for the first time in a long time. Finally, we head to what looks like Romulus's fortress to find him fused with the power of a Nictus and we give him the ol' one-two for justice, saving the day.
- Climactic AV battle: Very much so. Romulus is powerful and has unique abilities, but doesn't take a year and a half to beat him like Reichsman can with the wrong team comp.
- Length: 4 reasonably short missions means I haven't gotten to the point of exhaustion yet.
And now let's take a look at Synapse, a frequent candidate for revamping that comes directly after the very successful revamp of Positron's TF(s) in the level order:
- Unique content: There's quite a bit of salvageable unique content in this TF. The Clockwork King and his unique Clockwork-filled warehouse map might show up elsewhere in the game, particularly at high levels, but for most of a character's career they will only see those features here. Plus, only the Synapse TF spawns the giant monster Babbage, which is a fun community-building exercise when you shout it out on global channels and get some people from outside the team to help you out and wish you luck on the final mission.
- Tell the story with mission mechanics: We fight some Clockwork, and then we fight some Clockwork, and then... I think someone on the team runs around a little bit? And then we go to Boomtown and fight some Clockwork, and then to Skyway where we fight some Clockwork, and then the cool Babbage fight leading into the final mission with the Clockwork Court. All that stuff at the beginning is a bit of a miss on this one.
- Climactic AV battle: We do the Clockwork King dirty on this one. He melts so fast that most of the time I miss him, and he doesn't even spawn in a special spot on the map if I recall correctly.
- Length: We have a lot of very similar repetitive very similar repetitive missions here at the beginning. Plus a lot of very similar repetitive missions at the beginning.
But overall I think Synapse is very salvageable. What could we improve in it to get it closer to ITF quality? I'm glad you asked! A lot of people advocate for trimming down those early missions (which, did I mention, are very similar and repetitive?) and I don't disagree. Most of the end stuff is good, especially that Babbage spawn, and I wouldn't even necessarily reduce the number of zones you have to go to (though maybe we should make sure the Boomtown mission door is always near the entrance to the zone).
I think the most important thing to look at is the Clockwork King, though. He should be the most memorable part of this TF: we see for the first time here that he's not just a robot, or a guy building robots, but a psychic brain in a jar*! That's cool as heck! Aaaand he's down. I didn't even get to see him because my team ran ahead. Let's give him more of a spotlight: at least a cutscene where he says some sinister stuff, like Dr. Vahzilok gets in the Posi 2 revamp, and I'd buff him in combat a bit as well. He needs a bit more HP so you don't miss him entirely, maybe a psychic attack or two to hammer home that part of his story, and I'd personally throw in a Clockwork minion ambush that he summons when he gets to 50% HP - nothing too serious, as this is still a level 20 TF, but a little bit of a surprise kicker. And let's give him his own room to stand in, at least!
*I don't recall if we learn he's a psychic here, but the brain-in-a-jar bit was news to me the first time I ran this TF.
I picked Synapse here for the breakdown because I think it has the most obvious potential, but I think every TF in this game has something of value to show after a bit of polish. With these values in mind, looking at Citadel and the Shadow Shard TFs would make them more popular and less chore-like when their turn in the Weekly Strike Target rotation comes up.
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I also experience this with my electric controller, two simultaneous hits of jolting chain (from me and one of my Gremlins or just from both of my Gremlins at the same time, which happens quite often) toss enemies around the map.
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This might not be a bug, so apologies if this is working as intended. The Spiked Shield shoulder piece on Huge characters seems to have some geometry weirdness - it's very stretched and goes beyond the top of the shoulder quite a bit. This is true for both the symmetrical Shoulders slot and the separated Left Shoulder and Right Shoulder slots. I remember it being different before the i27 update, but unfortunately don't have any screenshots to compare to. I did take a screenshot of the Male character model with the same costume part to show approximately what I remember the piece looking like before, but it is also possible that my memory is faulty on this one.
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I had the same problem a few weeks ago, so the good news is you're not insane (about this, at least).
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I found that to be true with just having Prestige Power Slide toggled on as well.
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A quick update: I closed the game and restarted it, logged back in and tried some more customizations, and after turning it off and back on again, not only did the customizations work fine, but I was also refunded the influence charged in the faulty attempts.
It seems my bug report might have been a bit premature, but I was getting frustrated here and wanted to commiserate with someone!
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I'm having an issue with customizing my powers (specifically my non-primary or secondary set powers, such as Hasten, Prestige Power Slide, and my Incarnate powers) in Icon. It seems that I can go through the process of loading a customization set saved from another costume and finish the editing, but my effects will not be changed, but I will still be charged the influence cost.
The screenshots provided will show the following (assuming they're large enough to be legible - I had to resize them to fit the upload requirements, sorry!):
The first image is me selecting the powers to be changed, and Icon confirming that I will pay ~3 Million influence for the changes.
The second image shows me with unedited power effects (Hasten).The third shows the unintentionally reverted power customizations and that I was charged the influence for the previous attempt.
The customization options were working for my first few costume changes, but now I've tried with multiple costume slots and the changes won't go through.
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I've noticed something similar on my /dark Dominator. It seems to be an issue with the alt animation paired with quicksnipe. Activating Moon Beam with the alt animation somehow sets many of my other attack animations to their "alt" variants, despite the fact that I didn't select those variants for those powers. Also, when I'm experiencing the bug with those attacks, sometimes flying (with Mystic Flight, but I imagine it would be true of other methods of flight too) keeps looping the beginning of /em flypose1, the transition from normal flying to the flypose. The animation errors persist for awhile after I use the snipe, but I couldn't say exactly how long.
"Historian" mission contacts
in Suggestions & Feedback
Posted · Edited by Fade
Formatting these fancy-schmancy new-fangled hyperlinks
Of all the new content that the Homecoming team have added to the game, I find that the most ingenious are the exploration tip missions- guides to getting difficult-to-find badges that are integrated into both the game systems and the narrative of the world. Theoretically, you can now get all of the exploration badges in the game without needing to use an outside reference like the wiki or an addon like Vidiotmaps.
What I realized last night, as I worked on receiving the Atlas Medallion on another alt for the umpteenth time, is that the same convenience of exploration tip missions isn't also present in the history badges. The history badges illuminate a lot of Paragon City's... well, history, and a few are prerequisites for actual mechanical advantages, so I think they should get a similar treatment to the often hard-to-find exploration badges.
The tip missions are great for exploration badges - beat up some local bad guys, receive a little contextual reason to visit a location and get an exploration badge for your trouble. I don't think that same format works as well as a reason to visit and read the history plaques, but I have another solution in mind.
What I'd like to see implemented are a series of mission-giving contacts, one for each history badge, stationed in the various universities throughout the city (and Rogue Isles, and even the Praetorian zones for badges like Headjuiced and The Last Word). Each one could give missions to go to the various plaques, just like the exploration tips, but instead of plucking a history lesson from the clutches of a bad guy you just arrested, you'd talk to a thematically appropriate citizen. For example, a professor teaching Civics found in the library of the Founders Falls university could give missions that talk about the Might for Right Act, and direct players towards all of the plaques for the Expert badge.
Ideally, these contacts wouldn't have any prerequisites, may or may not show up in the "Find a Contact" feature (I'm interested in hearing opinions about this part), and importantly wouldn't be required to get the history badges - someone running Vidiotmaps or using the wiki should have an unaffected experience if they don't want to use any new features.
I think writing some missions that direct players to the history badges would be a nice way to experience some of the lore of the game. Perhaps even more importantly, they'd give players an in-game way to engage with those badges, rather than practically requiring the use of a third party resource. But how do *you* feel about this "historian contacts" idea? Would you use a feature like this? And should the contacts give one mission per plaque, or should they give one single mission that asks you to go to each plaque sequentially?
Tangentially related: I'm not the first to ask for the following, but I don't remember where I saw the following suggestion before - otherwise I'd link to it directly. I'd like to see the requirements for the accolades (both history plaques and exploration badges) taken out of the Echo maps and moved to other spots around the city. The actual locations for these plaques are sort of arbitrary, so even plaques that say "On this spot..." could be placed in other zones and the story stays intact. Perhaps the old spots could become new history badges, and a historian contact could be placed in Ouroboros to guide players to any time-travel-required spots? It would sort of be a meta-history badge in that regard.