Starhammer

Ever noticed if you try to follow someone while flying, you never quite get close enough? Even worse when you're trying to follow your team leader during a Hami raid (because not everybody's computers will allow casually looking around and choosing where you want to go), only to never get close enough to melee attack the yellow mitos? Even just in normal combat, trying to chase a runner as a flying melee character will never get you into attack range unless you switch to manual control, which isn't always as functional for some as it is for others. Follow could work better. Instead on having Follow take the argument 1/0 for do it or don't, having it take an argument of desired range (say 1-240) in feet to close to would create much better usefulness (still using 0 for unfollow). Aside from melee issues, this could be very helpful for ranged attackers who want to get close enough, but no closer than they need to, but aren't always great at eyeballing it, or have dexterity problems in real life making fine control impossible. Anyway, I don't know if this is even within the developers capability to alter in the old code. Just saying I think the ability to bind more fine control on the player end would be an improvement.

It's awfully hard not to take it that way. Yeah, not my post, but it's something I believe at least as passionately as the OP would be the best (maybe 2nd best) overall change that could be made to the game. But, until a dev decides they want to do it, it's just a bad idea that nobody wants because it isn't what they've always done. In every MMO I've played, the switch to level-neutral enemies has been a tremendous improvement to the game experience. Sadly, it's usually a last ditch effort to get the last remaining players not to leave and see the game die... (CoH is a bit more unique in that it has already died). Tatooine isn't a useless venue for a level 50 smuggler who can casually wipe a whole tribe of Tuskens with their Brawl equivalent (even a high level Jedi can't do it in time to save Mom). What it does is open up options. Why shouldn't a new hero be able to Go to Independence Port, and fight organized crime? Why must an ancient Roman Gladiator begin their training outside modern City Hall, fighting through the parks and suburbs (or PLing in virtual reality) before they do anything significant in their "home zone"? As for the argument that it preserves the existing narrative, I got bad news for ya, that narrative is broken the first time you "arrest" a street thug by incinerating them, only to see them respawn shortly, stealing the same purse, from the same indestructible NPC. We don't make progress cleaning up a zone, be give up on it and move on to someplace more novel, only to do the same there. Any "suspension of disbelief" is already warped by bad decisions made in early game development because nobody thought they could do something better than replicate Gygax's original pattern of "Begin nearly helpless and get better at everything by killing stuff" even though some of the best old school MMOs allowed you do largely ignore that paradigm... even though the game that predominantly inspired City of Heroes worked nothing like that. Neutral Level enemies don't impair game progression, story progression, or character progression. What they impair is a thoroughly unrealistic and unreasonable game structure that we don't need and are better off without. What they impair is Level 10 heroes getting annihilated by level 50 Nazis that spawn as an ambush next to the level 12 Nazis in Steel Canyon because a level 50 just finished a mission there. What they impair is the "You must play the way we believe you should want to play" mindset. Kallisti Wharf shouldn't be developed with neutral level enemies, the entire game should be converted to them. Now, Sorry for wasting everyone's time. PS: Taking Rikti Invasions out of Atlas and Mercy has doesn't make much difference for what level the most of the characters in the zone are. A level 50 will always be more powerful than a level 1, because the 50 has more powers to choose from, that are modded with superior enhancements... but a bunch of level 1s can still hold up quite well. What the real problem is, is that there may be 20-30 newbies in the zone (because that's where they get shunted after character creation, because there isn't content they can really take part in most other places without a high level benefactor) and they're dealing with the administrative side of getting their characters up and running, but that many of them still draws a huge crowd of spawns... Dog forbid there's a costume contest running when it happens. At least that's why it's actually important for Atlas. Mercy has to follow suit just to be fair, even though there's rarely more than a handful of players there.

I agree that I find it tremendously difficult to justify expending a slot on Acrobatics, even for a fire or dark tank that lacks KB Protection. I would love to see it made into something at least consistently useful. Unfortunately I just don't see a lot of other things "jumping" can do that the pool doesn't already. As a balance issue, I'd love to see Acrobatics folded into Combat Jumping (or vice versa, Acrobatics is a better name). The benefits of both at around .32/sec. Combat Jumping is the other end of the spectrum from Acrobatics... Too good not to take unless you really need the slot for something else. With Double Jump, SJ has all the mobility you can ever need, so I don't see anything extra there that could take it's place. And a modest buff to run speed really isn't worth just not clicking on Ninja Run instead. There's already two decent attacks. Maybe a -defense/-tohit toggle aura, or 15 sec duration click aoe to represent bewildering your opponents with your movements? That would at least be interesting, and fill a niche that isn't everywhere else. Be a good place to use the Hamis nobody wants too.

I have been playing for about an hour. Was switching characters and crashed. Found this error on restart. EDIT (5:50 am PAC): so after a few minutes (the time it took to make backups of all my settings, binds, costumes, etc...) it seems to be working again.

First off, I can't than you enough for the Disruption Arrow graphics change. Its triggered seizures for me before. I like the power effects though, and look forward to actually being able to use it 🙂 Secondly, I'm disappointed in the change to Rest allowing it to activate while airborne. Personally, I play with an XBOX pad, and use extensive keybinds, in this case having powexectoggleon Rest in a bind combined with +down. It allows me normal movement while flying, and turns on Rest when I'm not (and can't move down anyway). If I need rest, I just have to deactivate Flight. With this change, I have to find another place for Rest, since it just can't coexist peacefully on the same button anymore, and there's aren't enough buttons to begin with. I will end up just going without easy access to Rest as a result (keyboard usage is just not physically convenient, I really don't need replies with ideas of where I can bind it to). I get it, and doubt my inconvenience of this issue will outweigh the convenience of those who want this change. I'm just letting you know it doesn't work well for me and why. Everything else looks great. Looking forward to seeing how I can benefit from these changes.

I like that better myself. Want some annoyance and frustration though? -------------------------- About 5,200,000 results (0.84 seconds) Showing results for Cacophonies Search instead for Cacophoties Dictionaryca·coph·o·ny /kəˈkäfənē/ Learn to pronounce noun plural noun: cacophonies a harsh discordant mixture of sounds. "a cacophony of deafening alarm bells"

It's not like the writing of laws that will be enforced by armed soldiers is on the line here. It's a forum discussing ideas on a pirated game that died. The stakes of the conversation are not such that correcting someone you feel is "wrong" are worth the unkindness often shown in doing so. On these forums, if it can't be done kindly, maybe it shouldn't be done at all, unless reinforcing the "letter of the law" internet incivility is acceptable or desired. If it's that important to fight logical fallacies, there are vastly more important arenas in our world in which to do so.

In my case I most often notice it during Hami raids, though other visual cacophonies bring it to the fore as well. While I might occasionally catch a glimpse of the ally's target in their target box outline or healthbar, it's not consistent or dependable in the heat of combat. Having a window that I can place in a preferred position on my graphic interface would allow me to see what is being targeted and what it's condition is more dependably. As to why it's worth Dev time to do? well, worth is a rather subjective idea. And reading these forums makes me often wonder if anything can be worth a developer's time, according to the self-important idea gatekeepers 😞

edited

So, you know this goes both ways, right? What is your desired outcome? Do you want to beat the OP until they give up and go away? Accusations of strawman and ad hominem are only relevant if the person you're accusing has agreed to not use them, as if in a formalized debate. There's no "unspoken social contract" demanding all of us use the same rule and techniques to communicate... and to me at least, these accusations come across as trying to bully someone out of the conversation. Maybe that's what you want. Maybe you don't care, and just want to show off how much better you are at communicating by your rules than those who don't. Ultimately, it only seems to make the forums a more unwelcoming and unpleasant place.

I apologize if this sounds pedantic, but in my understanding of the terminology (at least from a non-professional point of view), what you're describing are the *power effects* where *animations* are the movements/poses the character's body makes during the attack. I only mention this to reduce potential confusion in the conversation. So yes, you could, in theory, use a Beam Rifle power effect, for instance Cutting Beam, as an alternate for a different power... Energy Torrent comes to mind as they're both cones, though outside of taste and timing, there's no reason you couldn't also apply it to something like Broadsword's Slice or Force Field's Insulation Shield. Where animation comes into play in this topic, is that even with an invisible rifle or a different power effect, if you don't change the animation to a different pose, it still looks like the character is pantomiming the firing of a rifle. Not necessarily a deal breaker, and again, much less of an issue for something like Dual Pistols, Claws, or Mace, but still suboptimal as a final outcome. EDIT: Unless of course when you cay Cyclpos animations, you're referring to him lifting his hand to his visor to trigger the effect, in which case I apologize for being presumptuous as well.

Real Men (1987) with John Ritter & James Belushi 🙂

"use case" ?

So, some questions that come to mind... If you have Extended Magazine, should the recharge timers on Pistol Shot be increased proportionally to the new ammo count? Essentially, each shot adding 2.5 seconds to the recharge timer, 1 second of which is immune to -recharge. Should this also affect the 15 second time to clear shots fired timer? My initial thought is no, extra ammo should not increase the time it takes to change a magazine, which a trained professional should be able to accomplish in well under 15 seconds whether dealing with a 7 round magazine for a 1911A1, or a 60 round banana clip in an AK-47. That said, I can also see the value of such an increase from a balance perspective, which is not crippling to the power since the increased time intrinsically accompanies increased attacks. Both perspectives have merit. Should Pistol Shot accept Fear sets? I'm not sure about the coding complexity behind it, but optimally, I would allow Pistol Shot to accept Fear sets, but disable associated set bonuses if Covering Fire has not been taken or is not available. That seems like a lot of work on a potentially finicky subsystem for minimal reward however. The alternative would be to either ad a small fear effect to Pistol Shot even without Covering Fire... maybe a 10% chance to trigger, comparing to the 10% chance to do damage in CF... or to just not allow Fear enh/sets at all. Hmm, the more I think about it, the more I think I enjoy adding a 10% chance for a Mag 1 terrify to the basic functionality, increased to 100% using Covering Fire. It may not be consistent with other firearms powers in game, but I like the idea that "Hey, someone is shooting at me, maybe I'll panic and hide a little." It's a street level kind of reaction, but this is a street level kind of power pool. Not a question, but yes, Dive for Cover could actually be used to close with a target to set up a melee attack. This is not the described purpose, but that's fine, I'm sure John Woo would approve, and that's more important anyway. Underpowered as Boxing is on it's own, having two of them could get obnoxious quickly. Maybe Pistol Whip and Boxing should share a cooldown if you have both? Their cooldown is pretty fast, so this doesn't seem like much of a drawback, but might head off potentially freakish combo behavior... Or is that sort of combo exploitation something we'd rather encourage? It *probably* wouldn't actually break anything...

I was just talking to someone the other night about something like this as a PEAT (Praetorian Epic ArchType). Thematically, something dedicated to, or at least engineered for (before the resistance got ahold of it) fighting Hamidon/DE stuff. Build a War Walker/War Hulk hybrid, put some big ol oversized D.U.S.T. cannons on the shoulders, a rotary cannon on one arm, and a claw on the other. There should be an area where the character's head is visible through a hatch/viewport/whatever and enough room to justify a max size Huge body fitting inside, yet still be able to see the head of a 4ft male/female. Now optimally, for the flyer version, use a lot, if not all of the same components, so one transforms into the other, ala giant robots we all love. Human form is just normal costuming, though perhaps an *optional* backpack that looks like it transforms into the other forms. Primary set is Command and is reminiscent of Wolf Spider secondary, with some passive armor, leadership, and Mech form in place of summon. Secondary is Control, a single pistol (with a scaled down D.U.S.T. cannon as an option) based on mostly beams and cones causing toxic, fire, and slow/immob effects to hunt down those nasties, lock them down, and kill em deader than Hell. Also containing the Flyer form. These fine folks are all graduates of the Praetorian Imperial Academy (or PIA for short), and their inherent power is all about using small unit tactics to take down greater foes. As such, for every ally within range (40ft) (max 8, including self) gains a small buff to ToHit(+1%) and Mez Mag(+1), along with a +1 Protection against Terrify and Confusion per each. Mech & Flyer Forms maintain the same attacks, but change the animations and emission points to be suitable to the form. Any melee attacks performed by the Flyer will be changed to a small lunge animation, smacking the target with the front of the hull, which probably has a nasty pipe bumper or something. Flyer gains Fly, Hover, and Afterburner powers, along with some enhanced passive defense & resist (against all but Psi) and an Absorb toggle (shields) which also incorporates a small (+2) mag protection to move-related status effects (Immob/KB/Hold). Its ranged attacks gain a significant boost to damage, range, tohit, and endredux. Mecha form gains jump jets (a hybrid of Combat and Super Jump... performance based on whether you're "in combat") and significant (not quite Stone Armor, but close) bonuses to Defense and Resist (all except Psi), Brute-ish passive status protection to KB/Stun/Immob/Hold, and again, a toggle Absorb, with beefier shields, but no extra status protection. Mech form gains a less impressive buff to damage/range/tohit/endredux. It also gains a Stomp attack (pbaoe, 20ft, Knockdown, Stun, minor damage). Stomp does significantly extra damage if queued while airborn & out of combat, but doesn't trigger until landing. (Death from Above mode)

@Tyrannical posted Sidearm You possess a small caliber sidearm that you can use as a backup weapon, allowing you to fire on enemies at range. - Single Shot: A single target ranged attack that deals moderate lethal damage. - Covering Fire: A single target ranged attack that deals light lethal damage and reduces the target's recharge and speed. - Ricochet: A chaining power that ricochets a bullet between multiple foes dealing moderate lethal damage. - Point Blank Shot: A close range power that deals high lethal damage and knocks the target back. - Rapid Reload: A click power that instantly recharges all of your Sidearm powers, and grants them an endurance discount for a short duration. The inclusion of a dedicated mini-blast set seemed apt, since we have Fighting as a mini-melee set. Ranged damage is key, and just like Fighting, an abundant damage type was chosen; Lethal. Who doesn't want a handgun? Okay, maybe a few people, but for characters that have few options to attack at range, a sidearm like this is perfect, it works for a nice thematic piece for edgy broody types, or for those who want a simple option for defending themselves. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- So this was in the Discord posts on making power pools. It's awesome, and I wanted to acknowledge it, though I had some different (not necessarily better) ideas. T1 - Pistol Whip - a Boxing clone, with a handgun T2 - Pistol Shot - this power is basically the core of the pool. It's a little experimental, based on the new Combat Teleport functionality. This is a medium ranged (50ft) rapid ranged attack. It has a very quick activation (not "I'll go grab some coffee while I wait for Project Will to activate"), minimal endurance (maybe 1 end/shot), no/insignificant recharge time... until it's been used a few times in quick succession, we'll say 6 times, and does light damage. Once it's been used 6 times, it has a 15 second recharge, with 6 seconds of that being immune to -recharge. If 15 seconds passes with out firing a shot (all 15 immune to -recharge), the count resets to 0. Otherwise, it's basically the Pistols power from DP, slightly lower damage, and only fired from a single pistol in the right hand (thereby usable with Shield defense). T3 - Extended Magazine - Extended Magazine increases the number of times you may use Pistol Shot without/before recharge. It takes Damage enhancements, but instead of modifying damage of the power, these enhancements (and if you've taken this power, other +damage effects, which add to this instead of altering Pistol Shot damage) increase your ammo count by that percentage, rounded up to a minimum of +1. (Maybe there should be a "Remaining Ammo" counter under the health bar kinda like where "Hidden" and similar effects are noted, showing if ammo is anything less than max.) T3b - Covering Fire - If you have Extended Magazine, you get Covering Fire for free. Covering Fire is a toggle that alters the effect of Pistol Shot. While active, Pistol Shot still activates/recharges the same way but instead of basic damage/-def it applies -tohit and a stacking mag1 terrify effect, and a mild taunt. Then it has a small (10%) chance to do normal damage/-def. Covering Fire takes no enhancements, costs no endurance, has no (appreciable) recharge. T4 - Gun Kata - Gun Kata is a toggle that gives you increased Defense (against all but Psionics) and ToHit. Say about 2.5% Defense and 10% tohit, at significant end cost, like .52/sec. It takes ToHit and Defense sets. (Amounts modified by AT to whatever you'd see from Combat Jumping and Tactics) T5 - Dive For Cover - Dive For Cover is a lunge (Teleport) to a location within 25 feet. It also gives you a 3 mag break free effect and +10% defense for 10 seconds (Modified by AT... basically 2x whatever you get from Weave). It has a 2 minute recharge. It accepts defense and movement sets. So my set is basically completely different in function from what Tyrannical offered... enough so they could probably coexist as options. But like I said, given the similarity of theme, I wanted to acknowledge it. Like it, the point is basically a backup ranged attack that is compatible with Shields. With the speed of Pistol Shot attacks, the attack animation needs to be very simple and quick, though a standard redraw seems reasonable. I also wanted to create a more tactically realistic version of Suppressive Fire with Covering Fire. Some of the numbers may need to be massaged a bit to keep it appropriate It would be interesting to see what kind of "Bullet Hell" could be created by Brutes and Kins, though I wouldn't want the effectiveness to be so great that they could just skip other attacks without taking some cut in overall effectiveness. I'm also not opposed to making it an energy blast pistol instead of a bullet pistol, just to further separate it from Dual Pistols (and compliment Beam Rifle), though optimally it would allow the player to choose between them... just hesitant to add a second "free" power to the set, though code withstanding I don't suppose it would be a problem to add such a freebie to Pistol Shot as a T2b. -------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT: Sorry, my BBCode Fu is not strong tonight, kinda failed at trying to post a quote from a different thread...

Probably more work than it's worth, but something I often find myself wishing for is a second target window for the Target of my Target, perhaps attached by default to the main target window. An actions menu for it would be nice I suppose, but would be much lower priority than just being able to see relevant info in a dependable location, and maybe be able to click on the healthbar in the window to select. On a related matter, I don't know how feasible it would be, but "target_of_target" would be a nice parameter for custom target binds... I don't think that's currently an option, right?

I love the Overwatch idea. For me, the idea of a Sentinel is a "watcher on the wall" a guard at post or on patrol, or to be fair, that old TV show. Giving them a bonus to perception, to hit, and to hit resistance feels thematically appropriate.

Well, you see it that way. I have received criticism showing not everyone recognizes the same merit in my efforts. It's for those who don't understand that I point out the process and reasoning behind it. Where our viewpoints differ here is that I'm not going to assume their reasoning. For many people, moving the cursor and clicking on the power tray is perfectly sufficient as a way to play this game. For me it isn't. For them, there might be something unrelated to the game that is affecting what works and doesn't. If someone wants for something to be different, they aren't wrong for wanting it, no matter why they want it. We don't need to commit to making it happen, or agree with them. But the conversation is worth having... or if it isn't, it's on us to not take part in it rather than expect them discard views and desires not in line with our own.

Just want to say how much I appreciate the turn this thread has taken. It's wonderful to see such thoughtful responses from members of development. @TemporalVileTerror, never let anyone convince you to stop asking us to be better. It may be because it's so often overly optimistic and unrealistic in this culture that we need that the most. I'll be the first to admit I'm often critical, all to often harshly so, of the developers. Maybe fortunately, I just don't post a lot of it, just bottling it up inside until it settles into the mesh of emotional substrate that makes up my general distrust of authority. But it's rarely anything personal, and more often an impatience derived from ignorance. Please keep up the great work that you do, even (especially) in spite of any dissatisfaction I may share. I'm a buffet of ideas. Take what you like and pass on the rest (just don't try to ruin something you don't like, it might be just what someone back in the line was looking for). FWIW, there's a lot of talk about "feeling powerful" which, I get, is part of superhero RP, and generally fits most other genres as well... However, for me at least, "feeling powerful" is really just a subsection of "feeling useful." Is what I can do contributing significantly to the efforts of those around me? For instance, sometimes my FF Defender feels like a benevolent god, shielding everyone from attacks, and other times, feels like a useless afterthought along for the ride as most enemies just punch through defenses. One of my favorite builds is a 2xLeadership VEAT, because even when they don't do amazing damage on their own, they make everyone better at almost everything. More important than being able to just tank multiple GMs or one shot enemies, while those are of course very useful, but specific ways of contributing, is anything that makes my presence and active/skilled/inspired participation make others feel like "Hey, this is more fun (or less frustrating) because that guy showed up and took part." Sure, that's a little vague and subjective, but there's a lot of that going on here, huh? Anyway, priorities for me in what development of this game entails are less about raw power, and more about the facilitation and accommodation of my creativity and contributions. That backend stuff @Number Six talks about is really important of course, and certainly nothing I would ever want to deprioritize, but it's not subject matter I can speak to with any reasonable competence either. So for me, what I want more of, is presentation options... costumes, animations, power effects, and the ability to customize them. Also Interface stuff that makes it easier to make my character do what I want them to do (Controls and Keybinds) and know what's going on with what I'm doing (Graphic interface) with the capacity to customize to accommodate physical impairments I and others may have to deal with (in my case, it's poor reflexes and attention focus issues from a mild stroke, others have other issues of course). I still have more to master of course, but I take great satisfaction in being able to use binds/macros to offset that I can't move the cursor around and click stuff with anywhere near the expediency of most gamers, and greater satisfaction in helping others to learn how to make their gaming experience better through binds/macros as well. I should cut this off before my rambling gets anymore off-topic. I love that Spiderbot for Arachnos, and melee Defenders are something I've wanted since I realized a lot of support powers work best when I'm in the middle of the action.

I think the balance problems caused by making it an Inspiration require more work to offset than would be justifiable. In my opinion, a better overall way to get some of this effectiveness with less collateral damage to balance and coding efforts would be to add a significant (+100%?) +recharge to Rest. The powers that it's really important to have long cooldowns on generally already have immunity to +recharge, and it won't affect Rest itself because the cooldown doesn't start until it turns off.

I enthusiastically support any and all additions to costume and power customization options! That said, I think the easiest implementation is the addition of "invisible" weapons. It's not perfect, but in the right combinations, it's pretty awesome. Not long before shutdown, devs were showing something that involved a dual pistols character firing, but had no pistol models in his hands (something they insisted previously just "couldn't" be done) and it actually looked amazing... and depending on which gloves are worn, still looks perfectly feasible... those chuncky vented IDF gauntlets would be perfect, if they'd let us have them. I'm not sure this would work as well with rifle powersets because of the firing poses, but it's a step in the right direction until someone is able/willing to dig in and add alternative animations.

I enthusiastically support any and all additions to costuming options 😄

Heh, I hit one button for most of my combos. Press the A button on the controller and it triggers a power and sets another power to auto. Release it and it triggers a 3rd power (or activates Combat jumping if it's not already on) and sets a different auto. To some people I may be autoing the game, to me, I'm making use of the keybind infrastructure to offset physical impairments resulting from a mild stroke. It's not always about finding a way to leave the game on and farm to 50 while you go to bed. Oh, also, if my Dark/Rad tank were to log in in the midst of enemies, they'd fall over and despawn to The Zig 😛 So, done that. -------------------------------- I'm not interested in implementing the OP's ideas for some of the reasons already mentioned. There are ways that, *for me* are easy enough to accomplish this. My toggles turn on as I jump (queue House of Pain earwig... you're welcome). But others may have found a shortcoming, and it may have nothing to do with how any of us insist others are *supposed* to play. Let the conversation happen. The initial negative responses to this suggestion just came across as snide and condescending. That makes me not want to take part in the conversation, or post my own ideas, knowing somebody's bound to come into the thread not only to disagree, but try and derail the whole concept. There are almost certainly people potentially much more useful to this community than me who have thinner skin, and should be made to feel welcome and valued, even - perhaps especially - when we don't like their ideas. The whole argument that making a change to code is enough reason to discourage an idea should be a non-starter, of course it will require changes to code. The idea that developer time is a limited resource and only so many changes can be made may be true, but using it as an argument to avoid changes that don't appeal directly to what we want smacks of selfishness. And "Strawman" dismissals have no place in these conversations, this isn't the debate team. If someone can't handle being disagreed with, maybe they shouldn't be posting, but at the same time, but if we can't disagree without trying to drive people out of the community by disagreeing with them in a way that is dismissive and harsh, maybe we shouldn't be here either.

So first off, yeah, this will probably never happen, and maybe even shouldn't happen because if too many people did it it would ruin it... But for the sake of "what if?" ... I'd like a costume power that makes your character appear as whomever is viewing you. It would be awesome for some circumstances. Maybe a power effect variation of a stealth effect instead of fading, selectable in power customization for specific powers, so you could turn it on or off with a costume change and choose which powers it affects without affecting other stealth powers. I could see it being especially appropriate as a theme for Superior Invisibility or Hide, or really bizarre on Grant Invisibility.