Player2

Absolutely terrible.

Not unless... it's for every powerset and looks different for each and every one. Otherwise I reject your bandaid "fix."

As always, you are just wrong and your words to be dismissed and ignored. I'd ignore you outright, but that would deprive me of giving you the occasional thumbs down.

What good are support characters if they get killed by the autohit powers?

Super Strength got a couple of new animations added before the shutdown, but I feel like LightningDrone has a good point... except for calling Rage a good ability. Personally, Rage feels out of place in the set... unless you want to call the set Hulk Strength, because the various Hulks are really the only super strength characters of note that are known for powering up with their rage. I'm not going to say it's exclusive to them because I'm sure someone will hit me with a couple of obscure references, but the Hulk characters are the only big name ones in a sea of super strength heroes and villains that rage and get more powerful. I dislike Rage and would rather see the whole set's damage re-balanced around having Rage replaced with a standard Build Up. You want rage power, just play a brute. Aside from that, I do like the idea of making Super Strength a little more AoE friendly or anything to highlight the character actually being super strong. Because yeah, we have martial artists and street justice fighters that punch and kick just as effectively, making Super Strength seem very lackluster overall.

Saying all the existing powersets CAN be magical because you take the Magic origin is fine. Fiction is filled with characters who have magical equipment, innate magical power, or even specialized magical spellcasting. But fiction also has examples of magic users having more flexibility and/or just utilizing raw magic itself as an attack. What we need is an Arcane powerset (or powersets) that not only have that thematic flair like the Sorcery pool, but also its own unique mechanics. This is why I'll never NOT support this idea... because you can slap all the alternate animations you want on those other powersets, but they aren't inherently more magical... they're still the same old same old with a new coat of paint. Fire blast will still be fire blast, water blast will still be water blast. Why did we get Dual Pistols when we already had gun attacks with Assault Rifle? Because Dual Pistols is not the same thing even though it's still just a lethal damage blast powerset. It has effects that set it apart from Assault Rifle even though both can also do Fire damage as well as Lethal, they accomplish it differently. Why do we have multiple weapon sets with so much crossover? Battle Axe and War Mace were practically the same set all along until recently, with the only thing differentiating them being one does Smashing damage and has mostly blunt weapon models and the other does Lethal damage and has edged weapons. Did we ever need more than one sword powerset? Why was Katana different? For the different sword and animations? Because it mostly functioned like Broad Sword mechanically. When we got COV, why did they create Ninja Blade as a powerset instead of Katana with Assassin Strike and Placate? There's always been room for powersets that differ only slightly but have a different look. But suggest a powerset that highlights Magic rather than just have Magic tacked on as an afterthought, and a small vocal crowd shows up to denounce it and/or suggest the fix of alternate animations for everything else. Tell you what: I'll accept the alternate animations argument but ONLY if EVERY single powerset gets their own versions with their own unique alternate effects. So you can't just slap the Arcane Blast animation on everything. I want to see different magical rune for every type of damage and different effects on the target. That sounds like it would be a whole lot more work than one powerset, though... doesn't it?

You know, we don't NEED guns. No Assault Rifle, no Beam Rifle, no Dual Pistols... just take those models and animations away and make them generic so that anyone can use the mechanics of the set. Beam Rifle? Nah, just use energy blast and assume the object's presence. Does it matter if it's tech or magic or whatever? Nah, just leave it up to the players to fill in the blanks on how their power is manifesting and why. We don't need obvious tech/gadget pieces to explain why the powers exist... and then you can play all the powersets as whatever guns you want. I think we should do the same for the melee weapon options, too. You don't NEED a war mace to bludgeon someone... just use super strength and pretend you have a mace. Why do we need Broadsword, Katana/Ninja Blade, AND Dual Blades? Maybe combine all the weapon sets into one generic smashing/lethal damage powerset and everyone gets the same generic gray shaft that they can pretend is whatever weapon they want. What? Only one indistinct weapon? How does that solve for dual blades? Well, just pretend you have a second one.

The idea is that all the existing powersets can be viewed as magic... just like they can be viewed as mutation, science, tech, or natural. Which is fine. But there are indeed powersets that are Tech specific (Arsenal, Assault Rifle, Devices, Traps, etc) but could be enhanced by persons with other origins... and things like Martial Arts and Street Justice can be viewed as Natural specific with other origins enhancing a character beyond normal "limits." Some people rail against the very idea of Magic specific powersets because of the idea that they would only be good for that one origin, but this is narrowminded nonsense. All that needs to be done is not call a set specifically "Magic" (like use the term Arcane, which implies magic but does not implicitly mean magic) and offer options in power customization that allow for magic themed animations/effects and generic effects. This means the set and whatever mechanics go along with it could be utilized by anyone under any theme, but it could also grant those who want the specific magical feel something unique to them. For example, if there were an Arcane Blast set, you could animate the powers and effects based on the Sorcery pool but also supplement it with animations from Kinetic Melee which have a castery-feel to them. Let there be magical effects on these as the default, but then offer options that use different animations and generic effects for the people that want something different. As shown by some of the Dark sets, it is entirely possible to offer more than one power effect (standard and Noir) along with animation options. Also... if someone WANTS to make a Technology character that uses Magic-themed animations/effects... or Mutation or Science or Natural... that is also perfectly fine because it's on them to explain why their character fits together the way it does.

Would it be possible to organize the AE contact categories lists a little better? Under Contact Type we have Default, Standard Contacts, Enemy Groups, Objects, and Custom Character... and under that there's Category option, which has All, Arachnos, Cimerora, Heroes, Icon & Facemaker, Law Enforcement, Longbow, Magic, Midnighter, Mutation, Natural, Notoriety, Objects, Other, Ouroboros, P2719657162, Pocket D, Prisoners, Science, Stores, Technology, University, and Vanguard. I was looking for Tobias Hansen from Striga Isle, and the only way to find him was to select Standard Contacts and the All category, then scroll all the way down a very long list. My suggestion is to add an additional Contact Type of Zone, and that type would have an option for each zone that has contacts as the Category options. So if you know where your contact is in the game, you can find them on a much shorter list.

Are Council getting their power from the Faultline Dam? If so, I think that's a terrible misuse of taxpayer resources. Imagine all the influence that went into rebuilding Faultline just to get it to the point where it's SORT of habitable on the edges... And those schmucks are out there draining power to make fake vamps? Also, 100% agree with you on them not being vampires. Council Vampyri should not be considered vampires, which are specifically defined as "a corpse supposed, in European folklore, to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living by biting their necks with long pointed canine teeth." Wikipedia elaborates on the matter with "A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive." As creatures of science, there is nothing mythical about 5th & Council vamps. It's obviously a branding issue upon which they're attempting to capitalize to strike fear in the hearts of people that believe in the myth and lore of true vampires. But then, they ARE villains, so they don't care who they offend. But since we know that true vamps do exist (but only come out one month a year), I'm surprised that there's never a true vampire attack on the Council to punish them for their arrogance in claiming the vampire title for their science project, which leads to heroes hunting vampires. Sure, most of it targets the Council vamps, but imagine being a real vamp and waking up in your coffin as some hero is there ready to rain down fire upon you and shouts "Die, spacenaziscum!!" And you're like, "Where is that coming from??"

According to https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/The_Slayer_Badge, 5th Column vamps should count...

I find that I have favorites, sometimes these shift over time... but there is a core group of favorites that are mostly recreations from the old Live servers... but there are a handful of new ones here and now that are original and I'm just as fond of. If any were to be my signature characters, I'd say its the new ones I'm as fond of as my mainstay recreations. Big Girl - my Willpower/non-raging SS tanker... starts off tiny but grows as big as can be. Melody Monsoon - Symphony/Storm controller... I made her a cousin of one of my old mains. Disco Girl - a Kinetics/Fire defender... she's super groovy! Flood - Water/BioArmor sentinel... water water everywhere. Lucky Girl - Staff/SR scrapper... gifted with arts of this one. 😎 Finna McCool - Broadsword/Shield scrapper... an authentic-looking Irish super, not one draped head to toe in green. Thunderblade - Electric/Ninja blaster... she's a storm ninja! Beat - Symphony/Martial Assault dominator... she will beat you down while grooving to her beats. Hex Factor - a Kinetic Melee/Energy Stalker... spellcaster themed melee fighter, kind of like a very short-ranged blaster.

Let's not forget all the pandas out there. There's a lot more of them now than there used to be on the old Live servers.

I'm not blaming the current team at all. They do what they can with what they've got. I'm suggesting, however, that maybe something could be done to help with the issue that the original devs caused with giving different textures to some costume pieces.

Sometimes the texture of one piece does not mix well with another in the same category... most especially sleeves in the Jackets, Shirts, and Robes section... but also some of the pieces in tights. It's infuriating that they gave us the option to mix and match different sleeve options for creative fashion but then gave us a huge middle finger on those pieces not meshing together correctly because the textures throw off the colors.

Dear creative players: I do not want to read the novel of your character's biography. Description means describe your hero, maybe some background info if you think it's relevant. If you simply must inform everyone of the whole life story of your character, why not try the FBSA Wiki which also allows you to include screenshots and other art, and categorize as you see fit. https://fbsa.homecoming.wiki/wiki/Main_Page

I would just rather they work on further incarnate powers. How hard could it be? 🤪

Whenever the complaints about all the "good" names (being defined usually as simple one-word descriptive names) are taken, I'm always never surprised when stuff like this pops up.

We could have had macros for the others that were added to Teleportation. If I have to macro something, then it's not worth my time.

Red Tool is a hilarious illustration of parody.

Homage noun noun: homage; plural noun: homages special honor or respect shown publicly. There is nothing in the definition of the word that indicates being a copy of something. An homage character should invoke characteristics that make you think of a specific character without being a duplicate. For example, Moon Knight as a Batman homage. Both rich secret identity heroes with no powers (at first), relying on gadgets and raw fighting talents. But that's the similarities. Moon Knight isn't really Wayne Bruce and doesn't dress in a dark costume suitable for stealth like Batman. There are numerous Superman homages out there, several of them from Marvel. While they all invoke the flying invulnerable super strong caped hero, they always look distinctly different while still giving that Superman feel. Creating a duplicate and trying to pass it off as an homage seems actually disrespectful of the source material and comes from a place of selfishness. "I want that character to be mine, so I will copy it even though it is protected under copyright and trademark laws." As for the characters of this game, yes there can be some grey area. On the old Live servers, you weren't allowed to copy signature heroes --especially the ones that specific developers or staff identified with since other players could mistake those copies for people of authority within the game and opens up a potential for abuse and or misinformation. However, they were all too happy to let people make their own versions of NPC group members... although I'm not sure how that applied to specific named individuals. Recently, as stated above, HC has included in their Code of Conduct that one cannot have Supergroups named specifically as the NPC groups... affiliates, for sure, as long as it's obvious that it's a player creation and not intended to be the originals. I would say that you could probably copy costumes of specific individuals as the game allows, but it probably won't go over well if you also try to use a name that looks like a specific named entity. Representing as a branch of an NPC group is fine, so trying to match uniforms should be fine. Saying you are Vandal, Requiem, or Nosferatu of the 5th Column is likely to gain you the attentions of the generic bat. But what about a character named Requiem's Clone? **shakes Magic 8 Ball** [Answer Hazy. Ask Again Later.]

Alternative storage mediums: Filing Cabinets (relatively small and mundane looking) Where did I keep that enhancement filed under? Computer (the laptop from the emote... but placeable on surfaces without the tall stand) "Let me just pull up some inspirational memes..." Treasure Chest (fairly small object, easily tucked into corners) "It's not gold, it's better... it's junk I looted from me enemies! ARRR!!! Also some actual gold."

Let's hope.

As an additional suggestion, I would like to add that I was severely disappointed that one of the teleportation options wasn't the big lightning bolt strike in the costume change emotes... another that would be cool... as would Rainbow and Light Magic.

For pools, I think we need Gadgetry and Utility Belt to be finally realized. Also, would love something equivalent to Patron Powers on the hero side... but instead of specific patrons it should be more group specific. PPD, Longbow, maybe even let Hero Corps represent. As a fourth option (since villains have four), I would suggest Legacy Chain. Like the patron pools, these would have to be unlocked by completing a mission on the blue side. Bonus: set up a fifth option with a Vanguard arc for a Vanguard pool that's available to both heroes and villains.