Solarverse

Hey there folks. First I just want to say, thank you all for your appreciation for the mods I have put together. It means a lot to me, as sounds are a huge part of why I have enjoyed this game for so many years. When I first started playing this game about mid ways through issue 1, the sound effects in this game just blew my mind. They were so masterfully put together and left me deeply impressed. Sadly, over the years more and more of some of those iconic sound effects have diminished, which completely goes against the grain of one of the primary reasons that hooked me to this game to begin with. I am a sound guy, I always have been. At the ripe age of 7, I started learning to play the guitar. By the time I was 17, I had joined my first metal band called Jester. By 23, I had put together my own band called Skrewed and it grew pretty popular in the Louisville area. We had some issues with our singer and fired him, replaced him, then renamed the band Sounds Fatal. Our new singer was a genius and he fit our hard hitting heavy sound perfectly. Sadly, his daughter ended up having her feet cut off at kentucky Kingdom (you may have heard about this incident) and after that, he was just done. I couldn't blame him, what happened to her hit everyone hard, it could not have happened to a better kid. She was a really sweet and innocent kid, she brightened everyone's day she came in to contact with. So when our singer said that he couldn't do it anymore and that he was moving back to Florida, we gave him our blessing and wished him the best. Eventually we called it quits when we realized we weren't going to find another singer like him and I moved on to write Symphony Orchestra music. I have some of this music on Youtube under the name Ecliptic Comics if you are interested in hearing it, but my point is, as you can see, I have always been heavily involved in sounds, as I also produced sound effects for some of the songs in our song list. As you can see, sounds have always been a huge part of my life, and this game is no exception. At 18 I got in to a bit of trouble with the law and was convicted of a crime that I did not commit. Truth be told, it was the so called friend who I was with who actually committed the crime, I opted out and chose to stay in the car. To make a long story short, I was 18, he was 17, so they pinned it all on me. So I have been living as a convicted felon for ALL of my adult life. I am now 47 years old. I was literally still in High School when this happened and had only been 18 for two months. Recently, I found out that the Burglary 2nd conviction that was given to me, was completely bogus and should have never been handed out to me, since even in the statements, the guy who actually committed the crime wrote that I had never entered the home, nor did I want any part of the crime. So recently, I have been preparing to get my day in court for a new trial to prove my innocence...all these years later, in an attempt to free me of an undeserved felony. This weights heavy on my mind and has me very stressed out. I can't expect most people to understand what it is like living life as a convicted felon in the United States...it completely changes your life and limits your abilities drastically. Most people just end back up in prison, because trying to make it through life as a felon is just too difficult for them. Me, I found a way to stay out of the system and make an honest living; but it took a lot of dedication and a lot of hard work to get where I am today, to say the least, it hasn't been easy, especially because initially, before the conviction, I had plans to become a History teacher...well, no school is ever going to hire a felon, so I ended up as a carpenter instead. Eventually I moved on from that and got educated with RF technology, so living as a felon is possible, it just takes a hell of a lot of chin-ups to overcome the statistics. Recently I have also been involved in a divorce after I discovered that my wife of 5 years, was secretly using Meth. Drugs are rampant these days and I never thought I would find myself in such a situation, but here I am, recently divorced because my ex wife was tempted in to doing drugs with her friends and it destroyed our marriage. I have also recently went through a career change. I was an RF Specialist for Spectrum Communications, I have been in the industry for 15 years, but after a car accident that almost took my life, it was discovered that it was too dangerous for me to be climbing telephone poles and walking on ceiling joists due to the hardware that is in my right ankle, so I was given an opportunity to either switch careers or stay within the company but transfer to a different department. I chose to leave the company, with pay, while I worked on getting my class A CDL. Yes, I am fine and I walk fine, but my days of being an acrobat are pretty much over, heh. Now I am working for PAM Transportation and have moved on from my previous career. I have always worked alone, no bosses to breath down my neck and nobody micro managing me, so moving to a different department wasn't exactly my cup of tea because that would have been my new reality if I had, not to mention it would have put me in a position to have to deal with other humans working in my general area...ewwww...humans! No thanks! haha. So as I am sure that you can see, my plate is pretty damn full and it won't take much to just make me say to hell with it when it comes to this game that I have loved since the beginning of its creation. Sadly, there was a change to the game that was recently made that I have been saying for years if ever was implemented, it would mean the last of my days as a City of Heroes player. Well, it happened and I am just at my wits end. This change combined with my current life situation, kind of put the final nail in the coffin for me. So hence forth from this day, this will be the last day Solarverse plays City of Heroes and the last post I will be making. No, I won't say which change it was, I think I made enough stink of it as is, no need to get anyone else involved, it wouldn't do any good anyway. Simply put, my journey with this game as come to an end and it is time for me to head down a different path in life. I will however periodically check this forum to see if any changes are made that affect the mods, and I will keep the mods updated for as long as I live or as long as the game exists. So if there are ever any changes to the game that negatively impacts any of my mods, just let me know here and I will fix them when it becomes possible to do so and reply when that fix is implemented. Farewell Heroes, it's been an honor. I'll see you all in the next lifetime. Cheers!

Yeah, so hope your happy. Not sure what is so different from your eardrums from mine, but your team has successfully got yet another enjoyable aspect of the game nerfed. Grtz on that. Guess your team has truly super hearing, because not once have I ever thought it was hurting my eardrums. Makes me think you guys just play the game at super volumes or something. And I even wear headphones when I play...but I digress.

Yeah, I miss when the game was still in its first couple of years, before they nerfed everything to hell and back while simultaneously making the game easier. i also miss the times before they added an aggro cap and and before ED. IMO the game was just a much better game in those days.

@Astralock and @Max Firepower I used to ask the team for such things, but I have been in some insanely heated arguments on these boards with proponents of the Knock Back style of game play. For them, being able to knock back and scatter is just as important as me wishing to keep targets stacked on me as a Tank. Just the simple asking them nicely not to do so tends to enrage them, or cause them to do it even more in spite. So I have learned just to not say anything at all and either deal with it, or excuse myself from the team. When I was younger, I wouldn't have given a damn if they got mad or not and would have kicked them, but, I'm getting older and my tolerance is a hell of a lot more now than it was then, heh. So I just deal with it and try to find other options that won't require anyone else to change how they play, hence my realization that playing an AoE Tank may not fit the current meta of the PUG game.

Perhaps examples of the character you lost would help us understand what it is you are referring to?

Recently found a little bit of time to comeback to the game. I decided to roll the classic Fire/Fire Tank for that AoE goodness and nostalgia. I'm beginning to think that was a huge mistake. What I am finding is that my AoE honestly doesn't matter much. Even if I try to pull ahead a bit early to try and stack a group on me before releasing burn, players will both knock back and lock down targets which scatters them all over the place and far away from my AoE range. At this point, I'm thinking to myself, why bother? I can't bring myself to do it anymore. I think at this point in game, the only real viable Tank is a single target focused Tank...and if you are going to focus on just being single target, hell, why play a Tank, might as well just play a Brute, Scrapper or Stalker. I don't know, people...I think the Knock Back and lock them down where ever they stand players won that battle. The fight between the two play styles has been an ongoing things since the very day this game was released, I think that battle has been lost and we might as well just give up playing with stack and burn. It just makes AoEs pretty useless on a Melee Tank, IMO. I primarily play PUGs these days, so I know that has something to do with it, but at the end of the day, I just honestly don't see much reason to pick up AoEs on a Tank anymore. And this isn't a "nerf knock back" thread. I don't have the energy to make that fight, I am just saying that fight has been lost, so why bother using AoE at all when I could just focus on hitting harder with single target abilities instead?

haha, the cowbell stands out in that one pretty well, lol

Yes, it's the SNL More Cowbell skit, hahaha.

It needs more cowbell...

Heya, @The Philotic Knight, I got word from somebody trying to download my mods that the website is down. I checked it out for myself and it was down for me as well. Just a heads up there.

I have no issues with Minimum VFX options, I am more speaking on other people who chimed in wanting things completely removed, visually and SFX.

Graphics and sounds have already been nerfed to death...I wonder, at what point will people finally be happy...really...where does it finally end? This game is a husk of what it once was graphically and sound, yet we keep chipping away at it every time somebody has a complaint. This is the one thing I hate about MMO's...players who want it custom fit just for them, get it nerfed to hell and back. What a beautiful and sound appealing game this once was, now...it is a shadow of what it used to be...

I'm almost certain it works for both. I would have to roll a TA to know for absolute sure though.

That is actually a great analysis and logic. It seems you found the absolute most proficient way to create a build, test it to see if you will like it and have greatly lowered your chances of ending up with a bunch of characters that you will never enjoy playing. You almost have it down to a philosophy. Very nice, my man.

I put little credence in to the claim by the original Devs about the Technical issues to be honest. Jack Emmert has shown me that he is VERY capable of lying in order to avoid backlash or to hype a game pre-sales. If these devs confirmed it, I would be far more willing to believe these guys and gals here. As far as herding a zone in to a dumpster being ridiculous, I find plenty of aspects of this game to be ridiculous, but as players on these forums have had to remind me time and time again, everybody plays for different reasons and it is about our enjoyment of the game. With aggro caps removed, you don't have to herd unless you want to. In order to avoid herding teams, people would simply start specifying herding teams vs regular teams when advertising in LFG chat much like they advertise speed runs vs kill all teams. So as ridiculous as it may seem to some, it's a lot of fun for others. And since fun is what this game is supposed to be about, I still see no reason (unless the technical issues turns out to be true) to continue this game with an aggro cap or the removal of the ambush mobs that once existed.

Here is what I don't understand. We allow AE to PL players. So why are we still running with aggro caps and still running all these missions that used to have ambush spawns, but no longer have them? Chemera and his Guards in one such mission that used to have a LOT of ambush mobs. I just think it is silly to allow PLing in AE, but the game still has aggro caps and a huge ambush mob nerf. It makes no sense. And before anyone say that it will negatively impact teams...not really. You will have herding teams and regular teams. It won't hurt the game any more or less than AE does. So we might as well get rid of those horrid nerfs, IMO. As far as AE goes, to be honest, I am kind of in agreement with most here, but only because it helps the market. I'm not a big fan of PLing random players...but that is my personal choice. I just think it's dumb for this game to still have aggro caps and removed ambush mobs if we have AE PLing people like crazy anyway. It's like putting out the grease fire, but then igniting a gasoline fire. Makes no damn sense to me.

I have actually seen this happen, back on live...and just once. I happened to exit the train and seen him running toward the team he was going to attack, just to get droned. Like I said though, this was back on live and have only seen this happen one time.

One weakness you can expose is his regen toggle. It drops extremely easy upon any stun/hold/sleep. It becomes a pain in the rear to keep that toggle up, in which the WP Brute is constantly having to retoggle it.

I have to agree. I almost always form my own teams and I almost always run kill all missions/TF's and I almost always put the team together based on first come first serve basis. If I am not in the mood to form a team and I decide to join one, then I go with the flow of what the team leader wants to do, be it kill all or speedy. For me, it's a lot simpler to just follow team leader's lead than it is to worry about the small stuff. There are no rules for teaming, but there is a courtesy etiquette that I personally follow. If I don't like how a team is playing, I am free to leave at any time. If I form a team and a member of my team is rushing to the end even though I clearly state that we will be running kill most missions, I am free to kick said player from the team. That is the extent to any drama as far as I am concerned.

I'm fairly certain it's the one I created. It's a working mod for everyone else. I have not updated that mod since the Devs shortened the time the AoE took, so I shortened the sound bite to match. But hell, that was a long time ago.

The files are already there and don't need to be altered unless the timing is different from the animation. Some animations cast longer than others or has a hesitation before the animation sequence. So you may have to take the sound bite, trim it, or add silence to the front, or what not at the worst case scenario. As far as hit files, no, multiple hits use the same file, they are simply played multiple times to give the sound effect of your attack being amplified by hitting multiple targets. So the hit files will be pretty east and the timing is almost never an issue.

Same, I uninstalled and reinstalled with no issues, just tested. So I have no idea what could be causing the issue, unless he is using a current mod that is clashing with this one where they both use the same file name?

Star Wars Blaster SFX Mod (v3)

My suggestion for the time being, something that I myself practice, is that I only turn on the Lightsaber mod if you plan to play characters that have "lightsabers" and turn them off when not playing said characters. They are easily turned on and off using the COH Modder Tool. As far as extending these mods, I may consider it, but it will be a long while before I could do that since honestly, I just don't have the time any longer. I had chaos that took place in my life that changed a lot of things for me, divorce...fun stuff, law enforcement, EPO (against the wife, not me) and just utter chaos, and it all happened all at once. I could write a movie about it. I won't get in to details, all I can say is be VERY careful who you chose to let in to your life, you never know who that person truly is a lot of times until it is too late. Only people closest to me know the details of this, but suffice it to say, it changed a lot in my life so I just don't have the time right now to sit at the computer for long enough periods of time to create the mods that I used to have time to create. Life circumstances has changed, therefor life priorities have also changed. I even changed careers, but not due to the divorce, it was a choice made for better money with the ability to retire VERY early and live comfortable. However, this new job requires a LOT of my time sacrificed now, in order to live like a king in 9 years from now, at which point I will retire at 56 years of age. Although this new job was not due to the divorce, the job did become available right around the same time as the divorce. So the hours put in for that job plus the chaos of dealing with the divorce has simply put me in a small box as to how much time I can spend sitting at the computer, and what I do with that time. Now, if somebody else wants to take the sound files that I put together to make the Lightsaber mods and use those files to create a new mod for Claws and Broadsword, they absolutely have my blessing to do so. People you may ask to do this are some of the other Sound Modders that I have seen and respect would be @Lithobraker, @AboveTheChemist and @Zed. They produce some quality custom mods and I have full confidence that they could do a good job. Hope this info helps, if not, I will try and make the mods, but like I said, it's going to take a long while to get around to doing them.

@The Philotic Knight ?