OEM61

As stated... They can do a whole lot of stuff, but the powers are the powers and to make certain visual changes only to those powers if used by certain ATs, or worse yet only giving the options to certain ATs, would be out of line. The work, certainly the vast amount of work, is in adding the visual changes to the sets. There is much less, if any, work involved in letting every AT that uses the sets have access to these changes. If they are going to add FX options they should be added for every AT that has access to the set. Whether one power or every power within a set. If they want to add a new-look animation to Cobra Strike then there is no good reason not to add it as an option for Brutes, Scrappers, Stalkers, and Tankers. If they want to add new look animations to the Energy Blast set, then there is no good reason not to add them as options for Blasters, Corrupters, Defenders, and Sentinels. Don't get rid of what they already have unless there is some real problem with it. Just add more choices for the players. Every player of every AT that uses the power(s) in question. If they wanted to add exclusive FX to an AT then they should add them to every AT, and then many players, maybe even yourself, will find themselves looking at ATs that they do not like mechanically doing things that they find more visually appealing than their otherwise favorite AT. That does not make for happier players.

The idea was touched upon here. I am sure that there are other threads as well. My stance on this sort of thing is generally going to be "Sure. More information and options are better", but resources are finite so ultimately the amount of work involved has to be weighed against the benefit of the result. I would like to see every bit of useful information about a character available from the character select screen in some way, shape, or fashion, but how many hours of work would be involved and what else could be done with those work hours? But in the meantime? I still, to this day, have a notebook full of whatever information I thought would be useful to me from when I played back in the day. Keeping a small tablet of paper handy and jotting down where you stashed some influence can save you from searching later if you have so many toons as to make going through them one by one feel impractical (but if you want the influence badly enough...).

If a toon is my #1 favorite, is my most played toon, but has been saddled with a second or third choice name then how is it not my favorite? Your prior assertion that having to make a new toon to snag a released name would increase the game's active population made no sense. Your assertion here that someone's #1 favorite toon is somehow not that players favorite toon because that player couldn't get their first name choice also makes no sense. Level cap does not mean retirement. Not in any game I have ever played, but certainly not here. Maybe for you it does, Maybe for you once a toon hits the cap it's time to sit them on the sideline and only dust them off once in a while before moving back to whatever latest thing has your attention right now, if you dust them off at all, but for some people playing that old favorite is reason #1 for logging in. They will run and re-run TFs and missions. They can collect any badges that they may have yet to acquire. They can just go someplace and fight enemies for the fun of it. Maybe they just want to hang out and chat or RP with some in-game friends. And if they want a name that they may not have been able to get back when they made that toon then I wish them luck. But if you think that level cap is retirement then feel free to follow your convictions and delete every such toon that you have so that their names are freed up for people wanting it later. The game doesn't have to make a system. You can look at your roster and delete freely, and good for you if you already do so, and for anyone else that feels the same way. But I would never assume that a level 50 toon is semi-retired just because they are capped, and back to the earlier point again, no one said that any existing toon taking a name that gets released was anywhere near cap to begin with.

Who said that a character being renamed would be one that was seldom played? Someone's #1 favorite and most-played toon may have been given a second or third-choice name. I make a new toon with a freed-up name but play them less than some existing toon, how did that help the "active population go up"? Anyway, it's been pointed out that you just make a new toon with the name, getting the release that you wanted, then delete that toon and rename the old character that you wanted to have the name in the first place. And while I won't be trying to catch any freshly-released names for myself, anyone that does so with the intent of renaming an existing toon will be releasing another name back into the wild. That is a much better result in my mind than them just making a new toon and still sitting on their old toons and their names with little or no play time for that character in the forseeable future.

I have my 5 toons right now. I can't level them all at once so I am going to just keep on keeping on, right? I have picked a "main" (for now) and am working on them and once I get them to 50 and feel like I have finished up whatever I had going on at the time then they will become a lot less active as I start working on one of the others. And maybe as I go along some other concept may crystallize enough that I decide to roll a new toon. I have one more toon specifically in mind (a new take on my main villain from "back in the day") and ideas come and go, but right now the 5 feel like enough. If I keep with it then one day they will all be 50 and I won't have any more ideas that I find compelling enough to bother with, so then I will figure out my "real" main and log the others in when I feel like changing things up. Anyway, I don't think that I am "hoarding" because I am "only" keeping four names back. Of course, if there is someone out there that came after me that was wanting one of those four names then they may see things differently. So that's the point of all this. Hoarding is going to be seen differently by different people. I think that everyone is entitled to a few names. Like I said, I am 'hoarding' four while I play one. But what is an "okay" number? What even do different people define as "hoarding"? If I had to put a number on it I would say that anything more than 15 sub-50 toons is hoarding. That's how many archetypes there are, so someone could have one of every type of toon. But the rules are set. "The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote". If someone wants to keep 1,000 names then they can keep 1.000 names as long as they log them in once per year (I would assume that anyone trying this would level the toons up to level 6 at minimum to save the trouble of having to log in 1.000 toons every month). Doesn't matter what I or anyone else thinks about it. They estimate that 1.6 million names will be freed up, hat will be spread over all of the servers (still a whole lot of names) and will almost certainly include names that no one has even tried to claim after they were first taken. There may well still be some level 50 toons that will not lose their names despite their owners not having played in years. I am really curious as to exactly how many freed-up names will be claimed by another player within the first day/week/month of this policy being in effect.

To be clear, I was only looking at the side list. I was not paying a bit of attention to the bottom of the screen. It's one of those "been away too long" things where I probably should have remembered that but didn't. Maybe they can't really change the way the layout is, but if they could have a window pop-up when I mouseover the character name in the list that shows more information that players might want then that would still be good. Even without any better sorting options.

A fantasy name generator has the "luxury" of being able to play a mix-and-match game with one or two syllable sounds if the game wants to go that way. Sounds are sounds and who is to say that a "fantasy name" makes sense or not? Brizendak, Brizentel, Casodak, Casotel... Add a first or second syllable and you keep growing exponentially. But superheroes use very different naming conventions*. I suppose they could install a bunch of colors, then add a handful of names with an eye towards certain power sets, and end up with "Red Flame", "Blue Flame", "Green Flame", "Chartreuse Flame", then repeat for ice, lightning, gun, fist, arrow, etc. But then there are single name heroes, too. And heroes that combine two words into one word. And heroes that do not use a codename at all. I'd like to think that intentional misspellings could be added by the player, but if they struggle so mightily to come up with a name on their own, either because of a lack of imagination or they just can't bring themselves to care enough to bother, then I am not sure that I would bet on that. I could go on, but it all seems such a waste of time. It all adds up to a lot more work for fewer useful names. And then the inevitable happens. You click and you click and you click and then you finally find a name that you like and... It's already taken. I guess the devs could put in even more work to allow players to guide the name generator towards something more useful to them; A box that you could check for "no codename", for example. Now that gunslinger of yours won't have to filter through all the useless "Shadow Fist" or "Mauve Lightning" or whatever and will instead go through a hundred combinations of common names before deciding what they like. And they could maybe set it up to where when a name is taken it will not show up anymore, but that is even more work. So if there are generators out there? Great. Let someone sticky a thread with "miscellaneous resources" in it and link the various name-generating sites. I already mentioned an encyclopedia or thesaurus as a way to find names, partially or in full. Checking synonyms for 'hero' in a thesaurus shows me 12 matches for "person noted for acts of courage or good", 12 more for "role model or idol", and 8 for "godlike being". Some better than others, in my mind, and I could add a color to any of those. I could maybe work a power into a combination with one of those names. "Vermillion Knight" or "Ice Knight" for a couple of examples. And then I could check synonyms for any of the synonyms to go deeper. Checking "knight" gives me 14 more strong matches and two weak matches. Another 16 possibilities as a name or name-starter. If someone wants a no-codename hero? Try a phone book. Go to any number of sites and just look at people's names. Walk around a bookstore and look at author names. The world is full of 'normal' names. Do your own mixing and matching. Just a little imagination goes a long way. But to put the work in to do it here? There are better things to do with that time, I think.

I'd be all in favor of more sorting options and info on the character select screen. (logs back in to double-check things) Right now we have name, level, AT, primary power set, and how many days offline. Maybe when you select the character they could add SG, influence, and which zone they are in by the character image somewhere or in a pop-up window upon mouseover. And, of course, being able to select the order that the characters appear in would be nice as well, so if you have a lot of toons and want to move the one that you are spending the most time with to the top you could do so, or arrange them alphabetically so that as you make more toons you can slot them into position or whatever. At minimum a few presorts. Let me pick to organize alphabetically, by "first appearance" order, by level, alphabetical or by level within an alphabetical SG order (So alphabetically Alphaman in the Alpha Squad SG would be first, followed by Beta Boy, also in Alpha Squad, then Gamma Guy who is a member of Club Chaos, then Delta Dude from the SG Family Ties would be listed etc), maybe "last played,, and so on. Even better if you could reverse the order for all of that as well. Just a little "reverse order" button for whatever order you chose so you could easily go back and forth.

Others have said a lot of what I would, but I really want to focus on these. 1 - Any such generator would have to include only generic names to be of use to everyone, and thus would be of questionable use to many if not most players. Putting "The Human Icicle" in as a name would be a bad option since it would only (reasonably) apply to characters with ice powers of some sort. At the same time, though, a great many heroes base their name on their powers. Then you have "costume" names. Ratman has a costume styled after a rat because as a child he fell into a cave full of rats and thought that the imagery would be frightening to criminals. It is also a name that is only useful if the character looks somewhat rat-ish. And colors as well. Can't have the "Red This" or "Black That" because the game has no idea what colors you used on your costume. So if you can't think of a name on your own (with or without the assistance of a thesaurus amd/or encyclopedia) that would be better than the generic junk that such a generator would produce I don't know what to say. 2 - So you just want to park your Mastermind in a mission and go on vacation? Something like that? 3 - I don't think that my real-life friends list would have 200 names in it, and that would be including friends that I have long-since lost contact with but would keep in the list anyway for old-time's sake. But the limit is the limit. It won't be increasing. 4 - If you want to play the game then play the game. If you expect to be gone for a bit and really don't want to get logged out then go to a SG HQ or something, but it takes seconds to log back in if you are even auto-logged in the first place. Again, assuming this isn't a "park my mastermind here and come back in three hours to see if my minions killed enough <whatever> for the badge" situation, which I suspect it may be. 5 - Some semblance of balance is an important part of the game. I get that you want infinite AFK enemy farming, but that is not where I would wager most players are. I suspect that they want a game that is fun, at least a little bit challenging (a big part of the fun), and that doesn't make them feel like they are being punished if they choose certain powers or combinations, or certain ATs, over others. If you are unhappy that some power set or AT that was over-powered is no longer so, well, other people are probably happier that the game offers more of a challenge or that some people are no longer only looking for a certain set or combination of powers on certain ATs.

I have little to no interest in playing redside. I spent a little time there back in the day to see what was what, but I never really enjoyed playing a villain. That said, the idea of being able to toggle civvy targeting seems fair. As far as badges for not killing civvies go, I would say that after making the choice to not target civvies and then undertaking one mission you could get a badge for it, but just one, and if you end up killing a civvy later then you would lose it. I don't know if the game could take away a badge, though. Maybe if it could flip them it might work... Once you get the "I don't kill civvies" badge you get to keep it until such a time as you kill enough civvies to earn that badge so the old one transforms into the new one.

I see where such a thing would be useful, but is it so useful that the work would be worth it? If I was so taken with a name that I wanted to check it right now then I'll log my toon out and check the name right now. If I log out, check the name, and then log right back in because the name is taken, I will have missed out on what? A minute of play? How much dev work should go in to something that can sometimes keep a player from "wasting" a minute of play time?

Easy enough to make a new toon (reserving the name), then when you are ready you can just delete the new toon and rename the existing character that you wanted to have the name. Edit: Guess I could have read the other replies before chiming in, but oh well. Oh, and one more thing. "Obscure" is probably not quite as obscure as you may think. "F4N74571C M4N" might not have a line of people waiting for the name, but a lot of people that have read comics and/or played comic-inspired games have probably thought of a lot of names for a lot of heroes and villains of their own making over the years, not to mention so many indy comics and lesser-known major-label chaarcters that may be out there.

Just a little quick math shows me that there are 225 different Blaster combinations and 286 Brute combinations. And those do not include ancillary sets or pools. Since either of those archetypes offer more than the number of different toons that you have then you apparently aren't looking too hard for new combinations. Keep a record. Back in the day I kept a notebook with every character, every power I took at every level, slotting, the whole thing. Just to track primary/secondary combinations for different ATs would be simple enough. Now maybe you don't think that there is sufficient difference in playing an Archery/Devices Blaster or an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster no matter what pools or ancillary powers you can change up to go with those. That's yours to decide. But whatever. If the game doesn't keep your interest move along. Come back later or don't. But to me this game is about the voyage and the destination. It's about getting to 50 and then enjoying the game as a 50. If you think it's only about getting to 50 then naturally you will "finish" at some point if you only want to level a combination of powers that you find sufficiently different and then move to the next combination of sufficiently different powers.

Unless you set the rules in advance, why not leave? That same button appears for everyone. As stated earlier, there will be another mission. For me, the fun isn't trying to find that last enemy to steamroll, it's fighting to clear mission objectives. Mission finished? Leave and start another. Whatever XP is to be gained by clearing the last mission map can be gained fighting to achieve new mission objectives and there is more to be had by finishing more missions than whatever is to be had by clearing scraps after the objectives are done. I do believe in waiting for people before starting the next mission, but clearing every map just because? I mean, sure, if that's what the team wants, but I feel like it is a team decision to make, not one individual. If I like the team enough, it's not an intolerable burden to bear. If not? I can always leave. And I am very casual. I am not about speed-running missions. I don't have issues with the team if they want to have the stealth-porter scout the next objective, bring the team in, blitzkrieg the objective, and repeat. I am much less a fan of just running through everything and ignoring attacks to reach a goal, however. Toons get caught up and I don't like letting people get killed, or dying, because people can't be bothered to work through to an objective or wait for some slower players to catch up.

I'd be all for an opt-out option on rare salvage. Anything, really. Want to opt out of selling IOs? SOs? Rare recipes? Large inspirations? Check those boxes. And then un-check them when you really, really do mean to sell them to a vendor. And if checking the box is too much work? You don't have to do it. And if they want to create a warning that you are sending mail to someone not on your friend list or that is not on the current character's account? Well, let them do that, too. Make it another thing that you can check off to get those warnings. People that think it's unnatural can send influence to the wrong people if they want to. No one will stop them. Mistakes will happen, but if the game can create systems to try and cut down on some of them I do not think that the development time spent on such things would be a waste. I know that it would be impractical to have permissions and warnings for everything, but for the rarer things and the mail system where truly expensive mistakes can happen, a little mistake-proofing wouldn't hurt. Or maybe some sort of buyback option at the vendor. Even if it is just for the current session (from the moment you open the vendor window to the time that you close it) it would be better than nothing. If you accidentally double-clicked and sold something that you didn't mean to you could just buy it back as long as you did so before you closed the vendor window.

If the sounds are inextricably tied to the powers then maybe they could just create dual pistols as a new visual option for the energy rifle set , and, conversely, create a set of rifle visuals for dual pistols.

Best? "Best" is what I like most. I don't crunch numbers too hard. Back in the day I had a fire/fire/fire and energy/energy/force blaster. Now I am working on my fire/fire/fire blaster and considering other options for my energy blaster, so best? Fire across the board. For now.

I think that the Skulls and the Hellions have a lot of upward mobility. The Skulls are drug dealers, sure, but they also worship death and some members have actual powers. Where does that come from? Are the leaders some sort of Death Priests given powers by some death god? Is there some demi-god leading the gang and granting powers to those that it favors? The Hellions are in a similar place. They are "just" a street gang, but one that happens to be made up of devil worhippers. Do the people looking to join the Hellions even know that their gang leaders are performing ritual sacrifice to bargain with fiendish powers? Could it be that every member is, in reality, possessed? That the whole gang is just a front for devils of varying degrees of power to wreak havoc upon the world? There could be a lot of layers to them yet to be discovered. The Hellions opening a portal that allows Hell itself to empty into our world could certainly qualify as "high level content". The problem would be that I think they would need to improve the diversity of the villains. Every dark powerset needs to be in play for the Skulls and every fire set for the Hellions, mixed and matched in multiple ways, and maybe even cheat a little with some other sets re-colored to keep heroes on their toes.

That was what I was saying. The Merit and AE ticket vendors already allow for "gambling" in what I think is a very reasonable way; A random pull from a small subset of items. Want rare salvage? Z many Merits. Want a large inspiration? Y many AE tickets. That sort of thing. I have ideas for what I might do with "real" gambling elements in the game, and I have no issues with people gambling if that's something that they want to (and can afford to) do, but I think that there are many better ways to spend dev time than in adding such things here. If they really need an influence/infamy sink I think that there are easier ways to add them then creating gambling interfaces. They could just add a new random item vendor, for example. Still gambling, but far less likely to cause a stir than adding a poker interface to the game and easier as well.

They may be common, but it doesn't mean that you will get what you want from a random drop. I usually, at lower levels, try to start with a heal and then I get what I get. I use them if I need to, but I won't just pop things that I might need later for no reason. Boss coming up? Why burn the to-hit and/or damage to clear trash slightly faster? But then if I am in a group and the boss is melting anyway, I still might not use them. I'd rather vendor them or save them for later than waste them. Down the road I'll have room for a lot more and might want to load up some bigs before starting some TF or whatever. And I, and the three other people I used to play with semi-regularly back in the day called them candy but that was it. No individual names, just a collective term. "I need to eat some candy" or "Boss time. Eat your candy". Stuff like that. Edit: And sometimes "Chiclets".

Eh... They may have been inviting/communicating with the other people that joined and then trying to get to where they were all no doubt racing off to, then saw your message and invited you because hey, maybe you just wanted to join up with a running buddy or two to knock out some missions. Heck, maybe *they* were thinking that a running buddy might not be the worst thing in the world and were hoping that at least one of the people that volunteered to help might stick around. And, of course, they may have quickly gotten what they needed, stepped away from their keyboard for a moment to pour a celebratory mug of beer or whatever and then came back and saw your message. Sure, they could have tried to send a quick "problem solved:" message out there, but how long is "too long" to get around to something like that? Is 3 minutes really too long? It might take that long to say hello and thank the people that showed up early, then thank them again and say goodbye once they got done. And no, it doesn't take 3 minutes to just type "hello, thanks for coming", and "thanks again for helping. Take care" or whatever, but maybe there was some more conversation happening.

I wonder... Would there have been any thought of a CoH comic if the signature heroes would have all been retired? Would a comic telling the stories of a bunch of retired heroes from their glory days have been as appealing? I do think, though, that there is a middle-ground if they wanted to "protect" the signature heroes (and villains). They could leave the IP heroes in the game for special endgame missions where they could accompany our heroes. Single-player and/or small group missions with one of them accompanying us against some big threat. Same way some other heroes join us on missions. When they shut down Galaxy City a lot of early-game contacts from over there were placed in City Hall. Every room down there has at least one person that serves either no or a very limited function. They could make all of them trainers. Not the actual contacts, but one of the 'extra' people. I know there is at least a fair stretch where three different contacts all offer the same mission set. Cut that down to a pair of contacts (to keep one contact from being swamped, but currently I do not even think that that is a real problem) and turn the third into a trainer. Or just make every contact a trainer. Just don't ask why a reporter is "teaching" your hero a new power. In fairness, it's really no worse than Back Alley Brawler teaching a Mystic hero a new Ice Blast power.

We already have slot machines of a sort, though. Merit Vendors and AE Ticket Vendors accept their respective currencies for random rolls. No spinny wheels, so it may feel different, and you can not "lose" so that's different, but it's still a gamble, right? I mean, maybe you can call getting a piece of 'less desirable' salvage or an inspiration that isn't worth as much as some other "losing", but you are getting what you were told you would get. I am not against them putting in slot machines or even a poker table if they can, but it should be weighted to be a sink if there is influence to be made. In the end, though, I think that it's probably more work than it's worth.

I have never really given Mastermind a serious go. Dabbled with it a time or two back in the day but it was a villain AT. The little time I played red side I usually spent it with a Corruptor, sometimes a Stalker and a little time with a Brute. I do wonder where the power levels would be for this. Just curiosity since I would be more inclined to play a Mastermind, I think. Anyway, if you are just talking about what attacks to group with what minions, then just to throw something out there... Beast Mastery -> Savage Melee (they are animals, you fight like one). Other options: Claws. Demon Summoning -> Fiery Melee (they come from Hell, so does your weaponry). Other options: Claws, Dark Melee, Energy Melee, Psionic Melee, Spines(?) Mercenaries -> Martial Arts (Mercenaries are skilled, fighters, so are you). Other options: Dual Blades. Necromancy -> Dark Melee (The darkness sets all have some 'necromantic' elements of life draining and such). Other options: Psionic Melee. Ninjas -> Katana (Japanese-themed minions, Japanese-themed weapon). Other Options: Martial Arts, Staff Fighting. Robotic -> Electrical Melee, Energy Melee., Radiation Melee. (I don't really have a front-runner here. Any of them seem viable/logical) Thugs -> Street Justice. Other options: Martial Arts, Super Strength. I think that I would look at overall proliferation of certain sets and lean towards some lesser-used ones just to even things out a little, within reason, of course. If Energy Melee, for example, is notably less-used then Electric or Radiation Melee then I would lean more towards giving that to the Robot Captain set. I would not consider Spines there even if it was the rarest of all melee sets because Spines do not connect in any way with using Robot minions. Not to me, anyway. Just my thoughts. Edit: As far as defenses, there would be no automatic assignments. A Beast Captain using Savage Melee would no more be stuck with Super Reflexes than Fiery Aura Tankers are stuck with Fiery Melee. Also, there would be adjustments within the set. It's not like a Captain taking Invulnerability would get those powers at full strength for himself and each and every minion at the same time. They could have powers that only affect the Captain, only affect the minions, or work for both to varying degrees. A Captain's Invulnerability set might include 4 powers that affect only himself, 3 that only work for the minions (and possibly those on a scale where the Bruiser gets more benefit than the Enforcers who get more benefit than the Punks), and 2 that work to some degree for both. The defenses would have to be given as much work as the offenses for this AT.

But they could. Fusionette and Doc Delilah join us, Different Shining Stars help us during those arcs. There are a lot of examples of NPC heroes showing up in our missions, so Ms. Liberty or Positron or whoever could do the same. Granted, it should be high-level/endgame content since those are the top heroes in the game world, but it could be done. As far as hatred? I think that there are 3 main reasons. Verious people may have outsized problems with someone's costume or something, but for the most part, I think it comes down to one of these: 1 - The actions of the devs associated with the characters. This won't apply to every one of them, certainly not equally, but neither is the hate. 2 - The way that the game, or possibly novels or comics, treats the characters. Simple as. If a player/reader doesn't like the character then they don't like them. This could be things like Manticore's actions during the "Shining Stars" arc(s), Positron finding a cure for his condition so he could take the helmet off, and much more. 3 - The comparison to a player's own character. People may have some resentment that their favorite toon can never have the accolades that Positron or Synapse or whoever have in the game universe, but in the game itself they are just standing around while your toon is out there getting things done.