OEM61

If Dan, when controlled by a random player, had just as much chance to win in a fight against another character controlled by a player of similar skill, then Dan was not "bad". Simple does not equal bad. In CoH though, we already have "simpler" and "more complex" in the form of ATs overall. Blasters are "simpler" to play than Defenders, for example. A blaster doesn't have to consider where to apply debuffs for best effect, and group play for Blaster is much the same as solo play, where a Defender in a group is expected to monitor their teammates. But in the event that Dan was "bad", and that any decent player using any other character would beat a similarly, or even more-skilled player using "Dan", then just because someone created a character in that game to 'steal' quarters* from some poor suckers that didn't know any better doesn't make it a good idea. But hey, as long as we all know the deal what's the harm, right? Well, first that assumes that everyone will "know the deal". It sort of assumes zero-growth. That the community is the community and no new people will ever show up. That everyone is fully aware that set X is a "bad" set. Additionally, it would only have limited appeal. Any set is only going to appeal to so many people anyway, so to make a set that is worse than others, and that is what "bad" means unless we are redefining words here, would give it less appeal than any number of "average" sets they could create. And, finally, it would only take a bit more work to produce an "average" set. To create a "bad" set is a waste of developer time and energy. Goodness knows there are sets out there now that players think are "bad", and definitely when it comes to using them with certain ATs. No one seems to celebrate those. To the contrary. The people that talk about them either do so dismissively or they are advocating for change, to improve those sets. * I have no idea if "Dan" existed in the old arcade game or if he came along later, but it doesn't really matter.

And in the meanwhile people that didn't know any better when they made their toon will have a miserable time. Not great game design.

That one is horrible for soloers. The wait at the portal can seem very long with no action at all between monsters showing up, but then if you go out to hunt the mobs you risk failure. This is a mission I would like to see them redesign. Set it up on a smallish map with the portal at the center and every 45-60 seconds a group spawns in. Might be a boss, might be a Lieutenant and a Minion, might be 3 x Minions. They want to go through the gate, we want to stop them. There would be 59 total mobs in the pool, and once we defeat 30 of them then we win.

The discussion might be fun, but I don't think that they should take the time to develop intentionally "bad" sets. A Clown MM set might threaten to overrun the game and possibly destroy verisimilitude for some players, but if they are going to make it then they should make it comparable to other MM sets. Pie in the face as a power within such a set? Fine, but it has to be a decent ranged attack, stacking up with a Photon Grenade or Pulse Rifle Burst, for examples from Robotics. It would make sense to slot such "gag" attacks into the Clown MM set. "Telescoping Boxing Glove", "Squirting Flower", "'Bang' Flag Gun", "Anvil that Drops from the Sky", "Pie Attack", whatever. Just figure out three attacks and boosts that work with whatever they decide upon for their clowns (looks like MMs get 3 attacks, 3 minion summons, and 3 minion 'boosters' of some sort in their primaries) and make it a set. One that works on par with any other set.

Temporary fixes are just that. A bunch of heroes crossing over in order to run missions to get an accolade before they go back to blue side is not a "fix". It gives red side players that want to participate in those same specific things a larger pool of players to work with for however long players are crossing over to do so, but I don't see it doing much to help with other things. ============= Having "undercover contacts" for heroes means that some players will send their heroes over to red side to run the "undercover" missions and nothing else. ============= Giving more money to players on red side means that a whole lot of people won't care because they have enough money for about anything and if they decide they want to start raising some more they log in a 50, make a lot of money, and mail it to the alt that needs money. Because a 50 can make a lot of money fast. I know that I am not offering much in the way of ideas, but I struggle to think of how you can make someone WANT to play a side that they may have already tried and didn't enjoy. I only played red side back on live when an in-game friend wanted to play red side. If that friend and/or his son are still out there I do not know about it. I have a toon sitting in red side right now, but I am only running Ouroboros missions for badges outside of, so far, the Efficiency Expert missions which I had to run live and mayhem missions which I ran for the exploration badges (and Lord Schweinzer for everything except PI). I should have a time-sensitive badge tomorrow when I log on and then I will begin the process of turning them back to the blue. Down the line I know that I will dip back to red side for some more badging, but for now I have had my fill. And all of these 'solutions' feel like more of the that Offering players something that they can dip over to red side to get, and then they go back to blue, or something that they can just ignore with no great loss. I like to play blue side. I do not like to play red side. There are things that can make me switch over temporarily, but I have not yet seen the thing that makes me enjoy playing the villain more than the hero, so I will always switch back to that side.

Yeah. Flambeaux not so much, but the other two, along with Holo Man, are public enemies 1, 2, and 3 when I am fighting the heroes. Edit: And I have begun to target whichever of those is furthest from the villain army, because the closer they are to the villains the more likely they are to be severely damaged, if not KOed, after the first volley. So if Ether is hiding towards the far side of the hero formation then I might target her. If it's Holo Man then he gets it. Usually one of those two is far enough away to make them my first target, but if they both end up close then Dr. Advance gets it. And for my hero, I usually target one of Misadventure, Mongle, or Savage Siren.

I know that when I play my "villain " (I'll be turning them back hero in a week or so. Just waiting out a badge right now), I make sure to set my sights on Holo Man right after I open the chat window with Positron but before I make a selection so as soon as the cutscene finishes I can open up on him.

Absolutely. And I would support them at least considering giving the offending player a week off to think about their life choices.

Re: The OP - Sure. I can see where that could be useful for a lot of RPing. Always the question about whether it is at all an effective use of dev time, of course, but the idea is one I could get behind. It's not just some ERP thing or a super-niche case. A lot of players might find it helpful as an RP tool. As far as comics phasing goes... It's phasing. It's a comic. I really don't think that people should think too much about it. My all-time favorite phasing character is Vision. I am old, I do not read comics these days, but "my Vision" could, among other things, stick his intangible hand inside a villain's chest and start to solidify it, causing the villain great pain. It could quickly incapacitate minions and help turn a battle against a major threat or even be used to destroy some machinery. But it would kill anyone. It would block and sever the cardiovascular system and generally destroy tissue and bone and whatever organs that might be in the way. It should also damage Vision's hand/arm. His 'synthezoid' body would be affected by having outside tissue, blood, and bone inside of his body when he began to solidify, to say nothing of metal or other such material. But it's a comic book. Vision is (pr at least was) one of my favorite characters. I do (did) not care that his powers "shouldn't" work like they do. I just want them to "work right" inside of the narrative. They established how they work, so just roll with that.

I was just about to go to bed and thought I would check before I did so. I was just coming here to report that it was working for me. Thanks again for taking care of the site.

Still down for me, too.

Thank you for the effort and the update.

Come on. How much XP something gives is not part of "immersion". It is an outside element. It is a player thing, not a character thing. Has nothing to do with "immersion". A character, RP-wise, obviously knows that practice will improve their skills and combat will hone their combat abilities, but they do not have a concept of how much XP an opponent or mission gives them, or how many XP they need to get to the "next level". But in-game? That character could just stand inside the entrance to a mission while other players do all the work and gain XP all the same. XP and immersion are on entirely different planets. And not awarding XP for Surgeons doesn't "interfere with the actual game". Play. Have fun. But if the only fun you have is measured by how many XP you got out of it, then don't fight Surgeons. No one makes you play that content.

How would you measure "Most popular zone"? Would that be "Most player-hours spent there"? "Most distinct characters that visited that zone during the year"? "Most players in the zone concurrently at any point in the year"? I can't help but think that AP would be the winner of most player-hours spent, and it seems all but impossible that it wouldn't win criteria 2. Criteria 3 might be more in doubt as, though AP is still going to be a contender, some raids may bring enough people to another zone to offer up some competition. But maybe I would be surprised. ============= I notice that over half of every Mastermind created this past year has one of three primaries. MM has never been my favorite, but I started thinking of a Mastermind idea and it was also one of those three. I'll probably make it later this year. Might not get too much play, but I'll at least try and get it made. I would like to see the complete list of ATs, though. I know that some of these lists could get too long if you included everything. Primaries and secondaries add up fast when you consider all of the ATs, and then possible combinations are multiplicatively larger still, but there are "only" 15 ATs, so a full list wouldn't be too long. I notice that there are some Stalker sets that made least popular primary and secondary, and it makes me curious where Stalkers fall on the AT popularity list for the year. Were these just particularly unpopular sets, or were Stalkers as a whole relatively unpopular? EDIT: Obviously Stone Melee for Stalkers is specifically unpopular, since only 377 out of at least 8,117 chose it, and if the total number of new Stalkers was 8,117 with 18 primaries to choose, the average would be just under 451 but I am still curious as to how many Stalkers there were total. Anyway... Also? I am curious as to what Power Pools, Ancillary Pools, and Patron power sets were most popular. I guess I would measure that as characters that had one or more powers from that set. Whether someone had one power from the flight pool or all five, they would count as 1.

It's all a matter of personal opinion. There are a lot of mixtures that are possible, and "plus tech" is a very common crossover. Each player just has to decide if they think that the "natural" aspects of the character are more central than the "technology" aspects of the character, or whatever mixture they think is there. Consider that the game defines the Science origin as "You earned your powers through the benefits of modern science, either through experimentation or by accident". Meanwhile, Mutation is defined as "Your powers are derived through genetic manipulation or evolutionary alteration". I may be wrong here, but purposeful genetic manipulation certainly seems like scientific experimentation to me, and evolutionary alteration could come from scientific experimentation or an accident. So just make the call using whatever criteria you think matters most. I am sure that some people pick an origin because the inherent attack is their favorite, they just picked at random, they think that one origin is "cooler" than the others, or that they wanted to fight or avoid a specific group of enemies that one starting contact will steer you to.