WumpusRat

I was doing a flashback to one of the lower-level arcs this morning, and ran into an issue that really frustrates the hell out of me. It's a mission where you have to go in and save 7 hostages. The problem is, it's in a massive 6-floor office building, with tons of little offices, nooks, and other places for the hostage to be "hiding", which requires you to carefully search every tiny nook and cranny of the entire building. After 30 minutes of slogging around and still being unable to find the last hostage, I gave up and aborted the mission (and the story arc). It wasn't worth the frustration. Can we please make it so that hostages have some sort of indicator of their presence like other objectives do? Make them ping, or give them the same noise that glowies have, or hell, just have them say "help me!" when a player gets near them. Because there are far too many times both solo and in groups where people are stumbling around going "where the hell is the last hostage?"

Exactly. That's why even silly little suggestions can sometimes make people look at something and see if maybe there is something so stupidly simply it'd work. Like adding a zero to the range, I sincerely doubt it's that simple. But, you never know!

I remember the original devs saying that REMOVING brawl kind of broke the pets, just like fiddling with recharge on them tended to goof with their AI. It does leave quite a few "what ifs", however, that we won't know without looking through it. I'm not saying just adding a zero the brawl range is the obvious and perfect fix, but given what the original devs would dig in their heels about sometimes, it could be that there IS a very simple fix for it, just not one that they were willing to do. For the 'ranged brawl 'example. they might have considered the pet just swinging at the air and hitting something 60 feet away an "absolutely not" solution, because they didn't want the pets to do that. It would be a kludge, to be sure, but it might work. But then again, there could be all sorts of nested what-ifs that cause the pets to have numerous issues no matter what you change. Without digging into the code, we just don't know.

Given that none of us know how the code actually works, speculating that "it wouldn't work, because it might have X" is kind of pointless. Sure, IF there are a bunch of other if/then's at work, then it might not be an easy fix. However, it might BE as simple as adding a zero to the range of the melee attacks. We won't know until one of the coders digs into it and takes a look. Hence the suggestion.

How about just changing the ranged pets so that their "melee" attack has the same range as their ranged attacks? All melee attacks have a "range" stat, so just adding a zero to that should be something the game would allow, shouldn't it? Sure, it might look a little silly to have a robot swing its arm and "slap" someone 70 ft away, but I think the vast majority of masterminds would be fine with their pets occasionally seeming to "twitch" instead of stupidly charging into melee like a drunken scrapper who forgot his toggles.

If it's only happened once, it may be that you were clicking on something else and the game registered the click elsewhere. I have that happen fairly often when I'm shift-moving objects up and down. Or it may simply be that you moved it at some point and forgot about it. I had that happen to me the other day as well, I moved some tables around, lowered the stuff on them, and came back later to find one object was hovering. I realized a few moments later that I couldn't remember having lowered that object to the table; I'd just forgotten to do so.

Well, I wouldn't say the ONLY thing. Inspirations can let you survive pretty well too. But yes, I would be quite displeased to lose bodyguard mode. I've survived way too many things I probably shouldn't have due to aggro juggling and being able to spread the damage out.

If you opt for the superior versions of the ATOs, you can get your pets up to +35% resist, +10% defense, and +15% aoe defense (which stacks with the other +10, so +25 total). If you have a set that offers +def or +res to your pets, you can generally softcap them pretty easily. They can still die if the enemy gets a lucky shot with a massive attack, but that's what the insta-kill protection would be for.

Supremacy is the equivalent of a 10th level IO in accuracy, and a 20th level IO in damage. Yes, that would mean that popping an inspiration would make the pets tougher. That's kind of the point. A blaster popping 3 defense inspirations becomes a nearly untouchable juggernaut of destruction. Those 3 inspirations are protecting him defensively and keeping his offense from suffering any reduction due to getting hit by cc, etc. In order achieve that same effect, a mastermind would have to pop 3 defense inspirations PER PET, as well as for themselves, or 21 inspirations total. That's...excessive. I think allowing pets to gain the benefits of inspirations while in supremacy range probably wouldn't be gamebreaking, especially since pets have a lower damage cap than players.

What about instead of trying to dig into the pet code, just look at the Group Fly code, and see if it could be adjusted to increase the radius when it comes to pets. Or even just give it infinite range when it interacts with pets. That way you wouldn't constantly run into the issue of the follow code causing the pets to lag behind and drop out of the GF radius and falling.

I tend to agree with this. Or like a half-second of float time. I know I'm always mildly annoyed when I'm on my teleporters and port right near a mission door or other place, but not quite close enough to touch it, and hover there helplessly for a second or two, then finally drop to the ground. I feel like a cartoon character that hasn't realized they've walked off a cliff yet because they haven't looked down.

I, and I suspect a lot of other masterminds, would be quite irked if they removed bodyguard mode, even if it meant making the pets invincible. Bodyguard mode is one of the things that makes tankerminding viable. It's also one of the tools that can keep a mastermind alive in dicey situations when cc is being hurled around willy nilly by some enemy groups (I'm glaring in your direction, Malta). I'd be fine with them giving pets some sort of instant-kill protection, or even some basic resistance/defense to aoe attacks in general. But they don't need to be literally unkillable, nor should bodyguard mode get axed.

If the pets couldn't be destroyed in PvE, it would make masterminds nearly invincible in bodyguard mode. They'd have the equivalent of nearly 8000hp. It would be more than a bit overpowered.

Yeah, a lot of objects tend to flicker badly when they overlap something else, especially surface-type objects. I usually set the grid to 2x2 when I'm laying down large areas of floor, that way there's much less chance of it overlapping at all, since you can line edges up more easily.

That game is actually where half my username comes from. 🙂

If you look under the "surfaces" tab you'll see square sections of grass that you can place down as floor plates. You can use them to cover the ground and then put the grassy hills and such down wherever you like, and it'll blend together. Not perfectly, as the edges aren't really that smooth transitions, but close enough.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

So if the slightly greater defense and protections are balanced by the fact that it a) can be destroyed and b) tends to lag behind, why would it also have a further limitation that it times out and self destructs after four minutes? I'd see nothing wrong with making it a permanent summon.

If you want to be "just as protected as a SR scrapper" as a FF character, then yes, you need to give up utility. It's about balance. It seems as though what you want is for a FF character to have more utility than a SR character AND be just as much defense. Which would be imbalanced. Really? Because a couple comments above Jeuraud asked for that very thing: My point is this, and after this I'm done with this thread, because I've said my piece, even if people seem to vehemently disagree with a plea for balance. If you want support sets (yes, they're "support" sets, get over it Jeuraud) to have tons of utility AND be just as protected as a set tht has NO utility, then just be honest and admit that what you're asking for is for your character to be made overpowered, and that you don't care about game balance. The more flexibility and utility a set has, the weaker it should be at doing all those various things. Jack of all trades, master of none, as the saying goes. SR, for instance, is THE self-defense set. If you want FF to be on par with it for defending yourself, you can't also have it be just as powerful for defending other people AND have a ton of extra utility, because it ends up overshadowing everything else that has similar functionality. Simnilarly, if you allow support sets to ramp up the user to the level of a tank, you're giving a middle finger to the Sentinel AT, and proclaiming that it should simply be deleted from the game, because at that point it becomes POINTLESS to create one. Just make a Corruptor or a Defender, since you'd have just as much (if not more) defenses AND have a ton of team utility. It's about balance. And with that, I'm done.

If you want to be "equal to <insert armor set>", then you'll have to sacrifice some things. Are you really asking what would be wrong with giving a FF character the same defenses as a SR character AND all the other stuff as well? You can't see how that might be, you know, maybe a TINY bit imbalanced? How it might completely crap all over the Sentinel AT in the process?

"Support" defines a powerset that has multiple buffs that affect other people. That's all. Okay, so like I said above, we'll make FF "just as protected as SR solo". You'll just have to give up force bolt, personal force field, repulsion field, repulsion bomb, detention field and force bubble. The values for insulation shield and deflection shield will be lowered, and bulked back up with some auto powers you can purchase for extra defense. And you'll also lose all ability to affect other players with your powers, it will be purely personal powers at that point. To balance it out, we'll replace one of the powers that you gave up with a +rech power as well. Now you're just as protected as a SR character. Sound good?

It's interesting to note that you completely ignore all the other things that Force Field has other than just defense. Force bolt, detention field, repulsion field, force bubble, repulsion bomb, personal force field. If you want Force Field to have the same values as Super Reflex, then all those powers will have to go. In return, you can have the values on insulation shield and deflection shield lowered, and little +def auto powers to be put in their place, to bring you up to par, so you'll have to take at least 5-6 of the powers in the set to bring your defense up. You'll also lose the ability to cast the buffs on other people. We'll even toss in a +recharge passive to make it even closer. There, parity. Sound good?

"Support" is a definition of a powerset, not a playstyle. My "brutes" aren't all mindless rage-monsters who flip out and punch things while screaming like the Hulk. My "corruptors" aren't going around constantly trying to despoil and ruin things. You're getting hung up on the name of something. Defense sets focus on protecting the user. Support sets have buffs, debuffs, and often attacks as well. Should a set that focuses on self-defense not do that thing better than a set that has a wide variety of abilities and functionality?

Are you building above/below the actual base area?

Neat. ididn't know that, thanks. :) And here I thought my little rat avatar was so distinctive... *sniff*