When do YOU give up on a character?

[Sovera]

36 minutes ago, Six Six said:

I don't mind slow animations, although some animations I like better than others (like Fire Breath alternative from the hand) even when the power is one of the weaker ones -- it's all about making it look good to the adoring public 😃

What bothers me is the sound and other effects like Water Blast's screen shake, absolutely disorients me when I play it. Unfortunate because it's one of my best costumes and themes as well as one of the stronger Sentinels in my roster. It's also strange because Earth Dom's shake don't bother me as much. Thankfully for the audio, I've found some SFX mods (by @Solarverse) that have really made the toon better... stronger even.

You can turn off the shake. I had to once I got to Dark Astoria and the Sirens made my screen non stop vibrate.

[Carnifax]

As a concept on Live I had the idea and costume for a crime fighting sea urchin. Issue was getting the sets right. Originally started out as an Ice/Thorns domi with recoloured ice powers. 

 

It both didnt quite fit and was horribly squishy. So he lingered as a 20-something for ages. 

 

On Homecoming I still had the cossie file so I rerolled him as a Plant/Thorns. That time he made it mid teens.

 

Finally one day while doing my "One of every AT to 50" thing I'd gotten to Tank and realized that Bio/Spines fitted the concept (in fact the ugliness of Bio was ideal) so he was rerolled to that and was immense fun all the way to 50 and incarnated. 

 

So mid teens / 20s usually for me but the concept never dies.

 

I'm in a similiar boat with a Sentinel at the moment. Have a nice costume but just not enjoying it. Feels like Defender level damage coupled with a secondary I dont really need most of the time, and when I do need it it's not good enough to deal with sustained incoming aggro. So they are languishing mid20s too. 

[Six-Six]

39 minutes ago, Sovera said:

You can turn off the shake. I had to once I got to Dark Astoria and the Sirens made my screen non stop vibrate.

How do I do that?

 

[Sovera]

4 hours ago, Six Six said:

How do I do that?

 

For some idiotic reason Camera Shake is under Controls, Mouse 🙂

Edited September 13, 2020 by Sovera

[Hew]

For me, it has to do with how well they do on generic IOs. I guess the exception might be my ma/shield/mu scrapper at the moment, but im kinda close to giving up on him too. I found that when I do level 20 exemp content (so up to what, 24 powers?) I only have 3 attacks. It was sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooow, especially without set bonuses, and frankly I don't generally have time to marketeer and play at the same time. Oh, and incarnate. 😐

 

[Luminara]

At 5 a.m. EST, Antianeira breathed her last.  As an Archery/Ninjitsu sentinel.  A moment of silence for our dearly departed, please.

 

...

 

At 5:04 a.m. EST, Antianeira was reborn.  Archery/Energy Aura.  Let us celebrate the birth.

 

🎂

 

I also started her as a hero this time.  Was a villain, just to mix it up a bit, but there's only so much of that experience I can tolerate, and 26 levels on a deleted character was about it for now.

 

/Invulnerability wasn't going to give me everything I needed.  I squeezed, wiggled and jostled every power and IO until MIds' was bleeding, but it never came together.  Ultimately, I put together five builds with different secondaries before settling on /EA.  59 mph Jump speed before the Alpha slot (63.3 mph after), soft capped Defense to every type but Psi post-Alpha, ~130% +Recharge... that's a winner.  I was tempted to use /Willpower, as it would've created a more thematic match with Legionette, but I didn't feel that the quantities of +Regen, +Defense and +Resistance I could acquire would be sufficient for how I plan to play this one in the 45+ game.  On Legionette, it works because she can cruise up past 1000% +Regen.  On Antianeira, I suspect it would've had me searching the floor for quarters a lot more frequently than I could tolerate.  So Defense seemed the way to go.

 

Even /EA is barely cutting the mustard, from my perspective.  I'm going to have to two-slot Sprint and three of the prestige Sprints to break the flight speed cap.  Not enough slots to go around for both +Defense and +Jump speed unless I do it this way.  But the end result is what matters, and she'll only be ~0.5 mph slower than Legionette, so I know it'll be more than fast enough.  I can live with a few wasted slots, especially when I note that the critical powers are already five- and six-slotted, and even where I had to short slots, boosted frankenslotted IOs easily make up any difference.  A smidgen more +Defense would also be nice, but overkill after the Alpha, so I'm not quibbling over it.

 

Not terribly enthused about looking like a Christmas tree light all of the time, even with "Energy Glow" selected, but I've already cobbled together an explanation which ties in with Legionette (who only faintly glistens), so I'm good to go with the glaring lack of subtlety or rationalization for why a native Earth human Natural character would be doing an impression of Chernobyl (a no-FX option would be smashing, HC team).  It does the job and it doesn't interfere with my ongoing attempts to crash the servers by filling the screen with all things sharp and pointy.

 

2 a.m. can't come soon enough.  I'm as excited about this character as I was when I was playing Legionette.  Really want level her up and see if she's going to be everything I envisioned, especially the Ninja Tools Mastery stuff.  Pew pew and slash slash.  Amazon.  Yeah.

 

Oh, and @Heraclea, I know it was you who reserved EVERY FREAKING AMAZON NAME FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY.  I hate you for that.  I also love you for that.  🙂

[Luminara]

12 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Strip, nuke and move on.

 

That will get you escorted out of the grocery store surprisingly quickly.  And introduced to people who want your opinion of their smudgy ink blot art.

[MrAxe]

The first 10ish levels are key for me. If the first few powers dont grab me and over that length of time the descriptions of future powers don't, bye, bye alt. I'm fickle like that. Not many alts survived.

Edited September 14, 2020 by MrAxe

[Luminara]

10 hours ago, Six Six said:

I don't mind slow animations, although some animations I like better than others (like Fire Breath alternative from the hand) even when the power is one of the weaker ones -- it's all about making it look good to the adoring public

 

I share this perspective.  The animations in this game have beaten anything I've seen in any comparable game.  The artists who created the animations put an astonishing amount of dedication into making them right.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I was staring at the screen, fuming because Verizon was shoving their depioritization watermelon so far up my forbidden zone that I was spitting seeds.  I couldn't even move my character, the lag was so bad.  But I could /em, so I was poking around in the list, looking for just the right idle animation.  As soon as I tried /em kata, I knew I had it, but while I was watching it, I noticed something.  I didn't know what I noticed, I couldn't put my finger on it, until I'd been watching for several minutes.

 

Recoil.  Every time my character moved to a new kata position, she recoiled slightly.  It was exactly what the animation needed to feel natural, to look... completely lifelike.  And that attention to detail went into so many of the animations!  Any other game, they'd animate a transition and call it a day.  Our developers weren't satisfied with that.  They took it to the limit.  They created the most realistic movements they could, some of which are still better and more believable than we see in games 10-15 years newer.

 

This is one of the primary reasons for my obsession with Archery and TA.  The animations are so right.  I didn't expect to like Staff Fighting, and I could definitely do without Eye of the Storm (also known as Toe of the Camel, because it shows the entire world my character's peach-colored panties, from the most shameless angle possible), but overall, the animations are just fantastic.  I love using those powers.  Even Sky Splitter doesn't annoy me, and my tolerance for 3+ second animations tends to be low.

 

It is all about looking good.  Fingers and toes be damned, give me these animations any day of the week.

[MunkiLord]

I give up on a character when it bores me. That could be 60 hours or 60 minutes. 

Edited September 13, 2020 by MunkiLord

[Sovera]

52 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Even /EA is barely cutting the mustard, from my perspective.  I'm going to have to two-slot Sprint and three of the prestige Sprints to break the flight speed cap.  Not enough slots to go around for both +Defense and +Jump speed unless I do it this way.  But the end result is what matters, and she'll only be ~0.5 mph slower than Legionette, so I know it'll be more than fast enough.  I can live with a few wasted slots, especially when I note that the critical powers are already five- and six-slotted, and even where I had to short slots, boosted frankenslotted IOs easily make up any difference.  A smidgen more +Defense would also be nice, but overkill after the Alpha, so I'm not quibbling over it.

If it does not bother you to toggle it on and off you can use both jump packs from the P2W to achieve hardcap maximum Hover/Afterburner speeds. Use one for 30 seconds. When it wears off use the other. For all purposes it's perma. If the aesthetics bother you detoggle the pack once done moving.

 

Spoiler

Hover

 

Hover + one of jump packs

 

Fly + Afterburner

 

Fly + Afterburner + one of the jump packs

 

Information obtained from Booper's guide.

[Heraclea]

58 minutes ago, Luminara said:

🎂

Oh, and @Heraclea, I know it was you who reserved EVERY FREAKING AMAZON NAME FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY.  I hate you for that.  I also love you for that.  🙂

Actually, the only mythological names I have in my roster  on Torchbearer are Heraclea, Penthesilea, Medeia, Omphale, Nereis, Belphoebe, Antiope, and Lampito (Indomitable). 

 

Here's a handy resource for naming Greek Amazon characters.  Can't vouch for the fact that they may already have been taken, but except for the ones I listed, wasn't me.  😉

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

This is one of the primary reasons for my obsession with Archery and TA.  The animations are so right.  I didn't expect to like Staff Fighting, and I could definitely do without Eye of the Storm (also known as Toe of the Camel, because it shows the entire world my character's peach-colored panties, from the most shameless angle possible), but overall, the animations are just fantastic.  I love using those powers.  Even Sky Splitter doesn't annoy me, and my tolerance for 3+ second animations tends to be low.

If you Hover while using Eye of the Storm, you omit the wacky breakdancing, and do more spinning in place with your head remaining well above your feet.

Even if you're only "hovering" at ground level.

 

For this reason, my Staff / Willpower scrapper permantly flies.

Edited September 13, 2020 by MTeague

[TygerDarkstorm]

12 hours ago, Six Six said:

I don't mind slow animations, although some animations I like better than others (like Fire Breath alternative from the hand) even when the power is one of the weaker ones -- it's all about making it look good to the adoring public 😃

What bothers me is the sound and other effects like Water Blast's screen shake, absolutely disorients me when I play it. Unfortunate because it's one of my best costumes and themes as well as one of the stronger Sentinels in my roster. It's also strange because Earth Dom's shake don't bother me as much. Thankfully for the audio, I've found some SFX mods (by @Solarverse) that have really made the toon better... stronger even.

Go to Options -> Controls -> Camera Shake and change it from enable to disable. Should solve your problem. We have to remind people to do this during MSR's to help with lag/disconnect issues. 😛

 

Apologies; I didn't read through the thread before replying to see someone had beat me to it.

Edited September 13, 2020 by TygerDarkstorm
i'm a derp

[Lusiphur Malache]

I give up quick, delete and move on.  If my toon dies twice before lvl 10 and it wasn't my fault by picking a too tough fight.  Even if it is a struggle I'll find a way to 50

[Luminara]

49 minutes ago, MTeague said:

If you Hover while using Eye of the Storm, you omit the wacky breakdancing, and do more spinning in place with your head remaining well above your feet.

Even if you're only "hovering" at ground level.

 

2 hours ago, Sovera said:

If it does not bother you to toggle it on and off you can use both jump packs from the P2W to achieve hardcap maximum Hover/Afterburner speeds. Use one for 30 seconds. When it wears off use the other. For all purposes it's perma. If the aesthetics bother you detoggle the pack once done moving.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Hover

 

Hover + one of jump packs

 

Fly + Afterburner

 

Fly + Afterburner + one of the jump packs

 

Information obtained from Booper's guide.

 

Hurdle and Combat Jumping on these characters, not Hover.  I mentioned the flight speed cap because it's a target when I play without a travel power (almost all of my characters have no travel power).  If I can't build up enough +Movement to reach or surpass 58.64 mph, the build never makes it beyond Mids'.

 

I do have an Ice/Rad corruptor I'll take to the flight speed cap with Hover, though (eventually... i tend to focus my play on Greco-Roman characters), so thanks for the tips!

[Lockpick]

On 9/12/2020 at 9:36 AM, Luminara said:

Last week, I started a sentinel.  I was really excited, because the archetype is giving me the opportunity to create the one character I never could on the original servers, a classic Amazonian fitting with mythology.  Not just a punchy-punchy or stabby-stabby Amazon, but a ferocious warrior woman armed with a bow and a sword and not hesitant to use either. 

 

I couldn't do this with a blaster.  The survivability was too low. 

 

You should really try as an Archery / Ninja Tools blaster.  If you haven't played blasters much you will find the survivability much greater than Live.  I can usually get blasters with soft-cap Ranged and S/L which make them pretty survivable.  Add Clarion incarnate and you will have few issues.  Mez issues are not bad while leveling as long as you take your first 2 primaries because with your first secondary power you can continue to attack while mezzed.

 

[Mirai]

I'm also having issues with Ninjitsu for a sentinel. I have a Water/Ninjitsu as an experiment, and the experiment isn't working out all that well. Among other things, I'm really not wild about having to wait until level 28 for some knock protection. I'm having a better time with Willpower, which does everything I need a sentinel secondary to do. With status effect protection at level 10, I might add. (Why... Why does Regeneration have to wait until level 20 for status effect protection??)

 

I think I'll give up on my Electric/Electric sentinel too, just because the FX for the toggles bother me. I used to put up with all kinds of toggle FX, but I've developed a low tolerance for it, I'm afraid.

[Twisted Toon]

1 hour ago, Lockpick said:

 

You should really try as an Archery / Ninja Tools blaster.  If you haven't played blasters much you will find the survivability much greater than Live.  I can usually get blasters with soft-cap Ranged and S/L which make them pretty survivable.  Add Clarion incarnate and you will have few issues.  Mez issues are not bad while leveling as long as you take your first 2 primaries because with your first secondary power you can continue to attack while mezzed.

 

And Ninja Training for Blasters has a few(At least one) Sword attacks as well.

[srmalloy]

16 hours ago, Luminara said:

I share this perspective.  The animations in this game have beaten anything I've seen in any comparable game.  The artists who created the animations put an astonishing amount of dedication into making them right.

What struck me about the work that was put into the little details was something that I noticed a couple of months into live. All of my characters to that point had taken Fly for their travel power, and I suddenly noticed that each and every costume piece for boots had a different sole pattern.

[ForeverLaxx]

I've never given up on a character as I find more enjoyment in the concept than the numbers, though the closest I ever got was my Elec/Dev Blaster on Infinity. Though that had nothing to do with the character herself and everything to do with the playgroup she ran with. Apparently they all thought I was a girl and when it became clear I wasn't, everyone bailed and I had no one to talk to there anymore. Every time I'd get on that character, I'd just get depressed and play something else. These days that wouldn't bother me anymore since I solo 99% of the time anyhow and have the global channels to satiate the few times I crave being social.

 

But still, I kept her around and still played her from time to time, just not for very long. I level so slowly anyway that I don't delete anyone and haven't felt the urge to.

[Heraclea]

I tend not to give up on characters, but I will put some away for a while.  I spent a shedload of merits and inf getting a Dom to level 50 and getting enough recharge for perma-dom, only to discover that permadom was yet another demand on my attention as I played and that I really wasn't enjoying it.  There's a super reflex tanker that I gave up on when learning of the weak taunt aura; now that it's apparently the equal of other sets, I may pick that one back up.  

 

The only character I really partially stripped down to give stuff to another is a Titan Weapon/WP scrapper.  I found the attack set jerky and clumsy, and it does not exemp down well at all.   The handwriting is apparently on the wall for Titan Weapons, and as such I am reluctant to invest time and effort in improving the character.  Exile from Torchbearer to another server is her likely fate, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Heraclea

[Luminara]

15 hours ago, Lockpick said:

You should really try as an Archery / Ninja Tools blaster.

 

Blaster Shinobi doesn't have the +Jump speed buff.  That was what attracted me to the set.  That was, in fact, the entire purpose of selecting /Ninjitsu in the first place, having the opportunity to hit the Jump speed cap with only a power in the secondary and set bonuses.  The damage buff is also highly restricted, and ultimately less than any copy of Build Up would have been.  And it would apply the translucent effect (really surprised they never added an option to disable that), which was one of my two primary disgruntlements with the sentinel version.

 

There is one more sword attack in blaster Ninjitsu than the Ninja Tool Mastery APP, which I would definitely prefer to have, but the sword attacks are also the only aspect of Ninja Training that appeal to me.  None of the rest of the powers fit the bill for this character, so I'd end up with a lot of mules and not as much of the character I was hoping to create.

 

I'm sure the set fits the right character concept, but it doesn't fit mine.  If it did have the +Jump component, I'd probably try to find a way to make it work for me, but without that, there isn't enough to interest me in it.  It's actually amusing, because every blaster I've ever made, I've avoided the melee attacks.  They've never felt like a good fit for Archery.  Now I'm planning around having and using melee attacks on an Archery character, but it's the rest of the set I don't want.  Cest la'vie.

[MTeague]

4 minutes ago, Luminara said:

 

Blaster Shinobi doesn't have the +Jump speed buff.  That was what attracted me to the set.  That was, in fact, the entire purpose of selecting /Ninjitsu in the first place, having the opportunity to hit the Jump speed cap with only a power in the secondary and set bonuses.  The damage buff is also highly restricted, and ultimately less than any copy of Build Up would have been.  And it would apply the translucent effect (really surprised they never added an option to disable that), which was one of my two primary disgruntlements with the sentinel version.

 

There is one more sword attack in blaster Ninjitsu than the Ninja Tool Mastery APP, which I would definitely prefer to have, but the sword attacks are also the only aspect of Ninja Training that appeal to me.  None of the rest of the powers fit the bill for this character, so I'd end up with a lot of mules and not as much of the character I was hoping to create.

 

I'm sure the set fits the right character concept, but it doesn't fit mine.  If it did have the +Jump component, I'd probably try to find a way to make it work for me, but without that, there isn't enough to interest me in it.  It's actually amusing, because every blaster I've ever made, I've avoided the melee attacks.  They've never felt like a good fit for Archery.  Now I'm planning around having and using melee attacks on an Archery character, but it's the rest of the set I don't want.  Cest la'vie.

Have you tried /Martial Combat blaster secondary?  (I always want to say Martial Kombat....)

Admittedly, that's Kicks, not sword strikes, but an Archer with a side of Martial Arts seems like it could be plausible for your concepts.

[Luminara]

1 minute ago, MTeague said:

Have you tried /Martial Combat blaster secondary?  (I always want to say Martial Kombat....)

Admittedly, that's Kicks, not sword strikes, but an Archer with a side of Martial Arts seems like it could be plausible for your concepts.

I considered it.  The sword is necessary for the character, though.  No sword, no Antianeira.  Sentinel with Ninja Tools Mastery is the only way this one is going to work.  And /EA looks like it'll be satisfactory.