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.

I have my art collection on a bookshelf. I kept the old guides that they made in notebook form for expandability that, to my knowledge, never happened (they made a CoV guide with its own notebook as well, but there were never any extra pages for either produced that I recall). I sold my CoH/V Heroclix. The ones that came in the collector set plus the old original capeless Statesman that was a "convention exclusive" piece. I kept one or more versions of a few of my favorite heroes and villains but the vast majority of my Heroclix collection I sold off. I am living rather far away from where I used to play, and when I got disabled the money just wasn't there any more. I am pretty sure that I did eventually throw away my CoH and CoV boxes and discs, though. It doesn't seem right considering what I still have, but I did not see them where I keep those other things at. They may turn up one day.

I know that Hot Feet, the T9 Fire Manipulation power for Blasters, requires that I be on the ground to activate it, but after I toggle it on I can deal some damage while merely being "close" to the ground. I can hover over the heads of enemies and deal damage. Not so high up that they can not reach me, but noticeably off the ground. If I am higher up I notice that enemies will drop down out of flight. No damage from the power but still a very useful effect. I think that "close enough" should be the standard. Nothing should require someone be completely grounded to use. Even characters with earth-based powers are shown in comics using them while flying (Terrax, Geo-Force, and Terra to name a few).

Last post before mine was Friday. I posted Monday. I didn't realize that two days made up a week, or that a two day gap was some sort of major necro.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I am not in favor of any individual memorials. Especially if it is someone that was pretty much only about in-game things. There are multiple servers. People over here probably never heard of people over there, yet there that hero (or villain, or Praetorian) is walking/standing around. And even if someone might have encountered that player, they may not have encountered whatever character is used as their "memorial avatar". Make a memorial plaza, Put it somewhere convenient; Somewhere visible. Don't stash it in some far corner of Talos Island. Either make a single monument and put it in Khalisti Wharf or make two monuments; One in AP and one in Port Oakes, I think it is? The main villain zone? I lean towards the latter as I think that Khalisti Wharf just doesn't have enough going for it right now. The entire zone feels like an "out of the way place" to me. My ideal would be three statues. Think like a triangular pillar with a hero standing with their back to each side, so they form a triangle themselves. One female, one male, one large male. Each body type represented. The female hero would be in tights with a cape and a "domino mask", and then one of the males would be in tights with a cowl-type mask covering his hair (or lack thereof) and the other would be in some sort of armor costume (or give someone else the cape, or give the female the armor. They could make it a player vote if they wanted to. Not the point here). They could make it three lined up in a row if they thought that one or two of the statues wouldn't get enough exposure because of the location or that everyone would just go to click on the plaque so that was the only statue people would see. They would all be standing, head down, arms down in front of them, clasped hands or possibly if one of them had a sword they could be resting their hands on that as it was point-down into the ground in front of them. Just going for somber, reflective, and/or respectful. If they felt that "Sword raised", "Fist in the air" and "hands on hips" would be good to remind people of the living heroes then that's their call. Then there would be a plaque in front of them with some kind words that memorialized ALL the fallen. Because some players will pass quietly. No one will know. Maybe one or two people might wonder where so-and-so disappeared to and go one about their business. But they matter, too.

You propse double-clicking each enhancement instead of dragging them. I propose a single button to not have to double-click every leftover enhancement. Of course there are other things that they could do, but there is nothing in your suggestion that would work where my suggestion would not. You = Double click an enhancement in the "holding area" to place it in your tray. Me = Click a single button to move as many of the enhancements in the "holding area" to your enhancement tray as possible. Whatever I can not scroll to see you can not scroll to see. If I have leftovers then I can now drag some enhancement(s) out and drag the other(s) in. I still saved myself a lot of clicking and dragging. If there are still some enhancements that I can not see (I do not recall how many enhancements are visible in the holding area) then you can not see them after double-clicking what you want. In either case a scroll function could come in handy, but I would rather stash 70 with one click and then sort through the remainder, clicking and dragging them in or out of the tray, than double-click 70.

I'd just go with a single button "add rest to tray" option for what I don't slot. If there isn't room then it would slot what it could and leave the rest and then you'd have to figure it out after that.

I don't see any harm in this, though I think that maybe rather than holograms they could just open up a full-screen image of the character in question, like clicking the I.D. option for your own character, and then rather than the personal information it could have the quote (possibly with a fair bit of room, like the character background) along with the character name, origin, and AT. The hologram angle, where players could project the character into the game, could create some very crowded spaces. Even if the holograms couldn't be clicked on, they could still create a lot of unnecessary visual clutter. And not to derail the topic, but I am opposed to any individual memorials going forward. Create a single memorial for fallen heroes and another for villains, or make a single memorial and put it in Kalisti Wharf. Let people that want to pay respects to a departed player gather there to pay respects. Like I said, I don't want to derail things, so that's all I am going to say about that. Oh, and rather than just giving the card to players I think that players should be able to click on a character and "request business card" so they could get one that way. In case they wanted to know more about some hero they teamed with or even just saw on the street. It wouldn't be a literal request. You click, you request the card, you get the card. I wouldn't want to actually bother people, but I might want their card for whatever reason. Hopefully it wouldn't be used for evil.

I have looked for some information, but a search brings back so many hits that the result is a great deal of searching and not finding the answer I am looking for. Basically... 1 - If I am level 40 and the enhancement is part of a 1-30 set, will it work at 40 or is it capped at 30? I mean the raw numbers (you know... +18.5% accuracy or whatever) of the enhancement. 2 - What about set bonuses for that 1-30 set? Is there a circumstance where I will lose them? 3 - If I am level 20 but the enhancement is part of a 30-50 set. Will the raw numbers of the enhancement(s) go down to level 20 quality or will they just not work at all because I went too low? 4 - And now for a level 30-50 set. Is there a circumstance, say exemping down to level 20, where I will lose the set bonuses? 5 - Am I correct in my understanding that level 50 only enhancements/sets will work no matter what level I exemp down to? I am just trying to figure out all the conditions where an enhancement / set might fail me. Thank you.

Maybe, but I am not familiar with setting up leagues. I'm sure it's no big deal, but I have just never done it. But yeah. Some people will always want to be the highest level, some may be fine with anything that is at least their current level, and a few might be fine with anything that is a "zone appropriate" level. For giant monsters and such, anyway. TFs are a different animal. But like I said, I don't really blame them. I just think that quitting without even checking on the plan is a bit of an overreaction.

A day or two ago I sent out the call to take down a Winter Lord in Independence Port. I was a 22 or something like that. Someone comes into the zone, asks to help fight the Winter Lord, I invite them, and they immediately quit, telling me that they were not going to fight at that loss of level. I would have passed the star, no problem, but since I had spotted the monster and sent out the call, I expected that I might get some tells asking for an invite and I couldn't invite anyone if I wasn't the team leader. People want their full power. Exemping down will cost them options and possibly some enhancements, and if they do not need to sacrifice those things then why push the issue? It isn't that anyone expects to instantly die, it's just that they do not see a need to limit themselves for no reason, and there is absolutely no reason beyond what some other player might think is "more fun". Not really a great selling point for most other players that just want to fight the monster and move on.