FredrikSvanberg

Why is this thread stickied anyway? It doesn't offer anything new that hasn't been suggested dozens if not 100s of times before. And all the whining and complaining is the same too. Is this a sign that the devs are looking for forum reactions to the possibilities of opening up all zones, or is it something more sinister? Only time will tell...

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"smooth out the leveling curve" ??? possible hint at upping the max lvl and adding new end game content?? PWEEZ!!!!

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What was that possible hint? I see nothing to indicate any increased level cap.

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Started with Superman being a dick.

Yeah that would work. I know this because when I picked the usual long hair available to male characters along with one of the half-width capes available as a veteran reward, it really looked like his hair was down to his knees and flowing. From the front the illusion was almost perfect, and from the back it was only a little off. If the half-cape could have been centered on the character's back it would have been perfect. A different hairstyle could also be created to better cover the gap between the hair and the cape. And of course a new cape pattern which looked even more like hair could be created, in different lengths. Braids and tails would also be a possibility. I will have to make some screen shots of this later.

Please please pleeease tell me that this is a test run for an upcoming feature involving disguises and costumes such as these as craftable temporary powers. They are awesome for roleplaying but since we know they are just temporary (and we will all be too busy finding them to actually have any time using them socially) we won' be able to use them for that purpose. So make sure the temp costume powers come back as recipes in a future issue for those of us who want to be able to roleplay npcs properly. Thanks!

Oh and the event is a lot more fun this year thanks to the costumes as well - so many different kind of treats is awesome.

I guess all the people that never liked the comic just can't be bothered to post in this thread. So I will! I thought that the comic was a waste of time and paper from the beginning. It rarely had any resemblance to what the game was about, and when it turned from original characters to focus on signature characters I really lost interest. I don't usually ask for much from my comic books but even when I read it for free as a pdf I felt like I had wasted money. If the money for making this came out of our subscription fees and that money now becomes available to pay for something I can enjoy, like more game content, then I'm happy.

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First off, this post is *NOT* a precursor of any particular impending change. The topic is strictly informative and for discussion.

I'd like to know about breakpoints for To Hit and Defense and how you, the players, think it should work. I'm not talking about mechanics -- I'm talking about the expectations you have in a fight.

1) You have the default To Hit value (ie no buffs), your target has no Defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?


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50% hit ratio, 50% miss ratio
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2) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has no defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?


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95% hit ratio, 5% miss ratio

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3) You have the default To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?


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5% hit ratio, 95% miss ratio

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4) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?

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50% hit ratio, 50% miss ratio

The problem as I see it is that it's impossible to tell how much defense or tohit you've got. If there was a way to display the pre-calculated chance to hit when targeting an enemy it would be easier to see how good certain buffs/debuffs was.

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Has anyone brought up the fact that a team can destroy all the turrets defending a pillbox, then have a stealthed/Elude/MoG'd character come in and capture it without doing any work?

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How about teleporting the turrets of a captured pillbox inside your own base, making it impossible for the opposing side to "defeat all defenders" and recapture the pillbox? That's a rather bad exploit, I think. And if those turrets I saw inside the base weren't teleported there then the bug where the turrets follow a defeated hero to the hospital is still around.

I want to play a cop. Can we get a couple of cop archetypes and powersets, as soon as possible? Or at least PPD costume parts...

If PvP is balanced for teams to the degree that it's so completely broken for 1v1 that it can never be fixed, should not teaming be a requirement for pvp? What this would mean is that unless you're on a team, you can't attack another player, and you can't be attacked by another player. You simply can't be targeted when you're solo, and you can't target anyone either. It would be like if you were in a safe zone. When you team up there is a 15 second countdown and then you're in pvp mode, and when you drop from the team there is a 60 second countdown before you drop out of pvp mode.

Another idea might be to make pvp zone gaming more like a TF. You have to form a team of a certain size and go to a contact to get started before you can enter the pvp zone. Once on a pvp team you can log out without breaking up the team, and you will remain on the pvp team until you quit it. Note that even if you're on a team there is nothing that says that you can't fight on your own, you don't have to stay within 10 feet of your teammates all the time if you don't want to. 8 stalkers could team up and then never see each other again until they head back to the base to compare kill counts.

This would force people to team up in pvp which would possibly remove this argument from people who can't seem to understand that teams aren't always available. I played (or tried to play) in SC for several hours last night without being able to find a team, until I found a friendly scrapper. That evened out the odds a little but since we were two scrappers who never worked together before we were still just dog meat when facing a well-tuned corruptor/stalker duo. This isn't a unique event: whenever I go to SC it will take a couple of hours for me to find a team. I don't know why but my guess is that there aren't that many people around when I'm playing, or their teams are already full, or they just want to play with people they know. In any case it's not uncommon for me to be forced to play solo if I want to play at all.

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The thing I don't understand is that Longbow were created to go to the Rogue Isles and intervene there. What are they doing in Paragon City? Are there not enough superheroes there already? What about using Freedom Corps (which, I know, are basically the same thing), Hero Corps, the army, or even some new made-up SGs.

Longbow are boring enough on their own. They all look the same and don't appear to have very diverse powers. Arachnos is a much more fleshed out group. You have robots, soldiers, mages, armored people, etc. They should really spice up Longbow if they're going to use them so often, but I really think they should add some new groups.

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Wow, the army... I never thought about that but it's obvious now. The Hulk fought the army all the time, smashing tanks and stuff (always with the crew leaping from the wreck just in time before it exploded). Real villains obviously fight the army. We can hope that with the updated Paragon police force we will see some more of those in CoV as well, and eventually maybe we'll face the army.

The models are already there, all it takes is to slap the standard Council attacks on them: assault, rifle, flamethrower and rocket, with grenades and martial arts for the officers. Throw in a couple of tanks as mechanized bosses and they would be golden. I'm speaking now as someone who thinks he knows how much work this really entails, but who is indeed completely wrong, but it would sure be nice to see the army fight back against the Rikti in the crash site, or try to stop my villain on a rampage. Real nice...

Total Focus doesn't have an interrupt time or x6 crit damage. The "interruptability" of the AS is supposed to provide a way to defend against the AS but in reality it doesn't since Stalkers have so much defense that the only way to hit them is by the lucky 5% to hit floor. At least that's how it usually works. When a stalker can't put up its defense powers to reach the cap, it runs away until Elude or MoG or whatever Ninjas get has recharged. Sound tactics but boring for everyone who's depending on those powers to drop in order to be able to defeat the Stalker.

The question might be whether Stalkers should have powers that make them practically impossible to hit, or if they should perhaps get something else in their defensive sets.

Unfortunately that's not possible since the AS won't activate unless the target is in range.

I'd be willing to make the AS interruption time shorter if there was a way to "sidestep" it by moving out of range. On the other hand this might make it impossible to have time to avoid it. I guess I'm just annoyed and frustrated by the game engine which allows stupid things like this...

Really? That's great, now I have a way to survive. Thanks!

Since AS is practically a melee snipe, shouldn't it follow the rules for snipe attacks and have it's range and line of sight checked twice? Once when the attack is initiated and once when it is resolved. Not like now, when people can start up AS and kill someone 100 feet away because the target moved.

If not, can someone tell me how to interrupt a stalker running Elude or similar powers? It's impossible to hit them even if I can see them perfectly fine.

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Personally, I'm a fan of shadows.

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City of Shadows?

Sounds all a bit Pulp/Film Noir to me...

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Sounds perfect to include all kinds of shady gray-scale heroes/villains and everything in between. Agents, spies, pulp, it would all fit under that name.

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This is a game of superheroes. If it was merely a game of heroes doctors, firefighters, and my grandpa would be in it. I didn't buy this game to be a boat commander in World War II, no matter how heroic that is. I bought it to throw on a costume and fly through the air and fight bad guys just like in the comic books that inspired the game.


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In the comic books you can't tell the difference between heroes and villains from their appearances.

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Jason Voorhies or He-man could be a tanker and Freddy a scrapper. Ash could be a blaster. Yet are those people we wanna see in this game? And while some might actually say yes, I vote an astounding no.


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Fortunately this isn't a democracy and the all-mighty dollah has decided that I can get the costume options I pay for.

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And to ask what will it bother if someone is wearing a stupid costume. What will it bother if someone wants to called their hero Streetwalker69 or SatanicSchoolSux? Does it physically impede our gameplay? No. But is it something we want to see in the game? No. Will most people send a petition? Yes. Same thing goes for costumes as it does for names. You are welcomed to make whatever look you want, and the rest of us are still free to ridicule and put our votes in against things like giant skull monsters for heroes.


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Are you suddenly speaking for all of us? I didn't give you the right to speak for me. I'm pretty sure "most of us" won't bother to send a petition. If I see a name I don't like or a costume I don't care for, I move on and forget about them.

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And it's mainstream majority of comic readers that want the ideal look for their heroes. Otherwise Superman would be fat, Wonder Woman a guy in drag, and Spider-man would have a nubbin.


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I believe it was the creators of the heroes, and the artists, who decided what the characters should look like. They sure didn't put the decision up to a majority vote.

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And Deathlok(at least the Luthor Manning version) wasn't interesting because he was ugly. He was interesting because he was a pacifist trapped in the ultimate weapon. The dichotomy there made him interesting. If being fugly was all it took, Beak would have his own comic.

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Wolverine has his own comic and he's not exactly handsome. Short, hairy, bowlegged, smokes too much... and what a temper! Well, I guess he can't be a hero, after all.

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Wait, you want your Hero to look like a 60 mile long interdimensional space ship?! I don't think the extra options are going to help you. Did you mean to say The Doctor?



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I meant the Carrier, but that was just a joke. The Doctor is already almost possible to build, except the psychedelic pattern on the coat.

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My 2 cents? More options are good, but it's also nice to be able to tell the good from the bad at a glance. Yes, there are "evil looking" heroes in the literature, but if you open the floodgates, you might as well change the name of the game to City of Skull-Headed Demons (Be They Heroes OR Villains).

Incidently, I think you could do all of The Authority under the current CoH costume options.

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No Union Jack chest symbol. No dress shirt without a jacket. No trench coat, leather or otherwise. No batman-lookalike hoods. No wings. I'm just nitpicking.

You can tell the good from the bad at a glance? You'll need to be within striking distance to make out the details anyway, and by then it's too late. I'm judging from the draw distance on normal PVE villains and I can't tell the difference between a Tsoo or a Family goon from 100 yards. Seriously, there is no need to limit ourselves for this reason. When I make a costume it's because it's what I plan to look at for the next 500 hours of playing, or so. It's got to look good to me, and I don't care what other people thiink, whether they can "tell at a glance" if I'm good or evil, as if that was ever that easy even in comic books.

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Bottom line is if to this point heroes all looked like the Superman, Shazzam and the Flash a lot more people would feel “Villainous” when playing CoV with big ol’ devil horns and monstorous legs.

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Bottom line is if the heroes all looked like Superman, Shazam, and the Flash, a lot fewer people would be playing City of Heroes.

J

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Exactly. I want heroes to look like Midnighter, Jenny Sparks, The Engineer, The Carrier and Swift. Unpossible!

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Real answer: back away from the keyboard, now! Don't type another thing!

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That's fairly uncalled for. People who don't support this are allowed to voice their opinions as well.

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Fair enough. I thought it was obvious that even my so called "real answer" was still pretty silly. I just can't wrap my brain around why people would ever want less options.

Real answer: What?! No way, that would be totally irresponsible. The clinically insane should not be allowed to access the internet, they might escape by uploading their minds to the servers, and then where would we be? THE MATRIX! That's right!

Real real answer: Notice how my real answer doesn't make any sense? That's how you tell if it's meant in jest.

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OK - here's the most likely outcome...

If you own both games, you get all options - the new CoV sets will be accessible for your heroes.

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Lame, heroes should look different than villains.

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Yes! The difference between a hero and a villain is only ever skin deep. Evil is always obvious and good is never flawed.

Real answer: back away from the keyboard, now! Don't type another thing!

Both the new emotes and all the costume pieces?

I'm... I'm so happy...

I can't get this game soon enough.

Land Locked

The image through the glass was blurred by the droplets of condensation forming on the outside of the tank. She was barely able to make out the two uniformed men standing outside, looking in. Their voices were equally garbled by the thick armored glass which separated the bubble of water from the surrounding air, but her sensitive ears were still able to understand them.

"Is it ready for another bomb run yet, corporal?", gargled the elderly voice of a tanned blur with a gray mustasche.

"Not yet, captain. There is some strange feedback in the left manipulator, it might go out of control if we don't correct it.", a somewhat younger and less commandeering voice replied.

"Just make sure it's ready for deployment as soon as we have the target within range. If I have to report another failure, you'll be following the damn thing on the next mission, understood?"

"Understood, sir. It will be ready."

As the captain climbed a steel-runged ladder out of the engineering bay the younger man wiped off the condensation from the glass and looked the dolphin in her big black eye.

"Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit."

The dolphin's left arm was grabbed and pulled up over the surface, instantly torn apart by various tools and almost as quickly re-assembled. Her face didn't reveal any emotions but her song of pain filled the small aquarium. The arms were robotic but they were still connected to her nerve system. The repairs were not a pleasant sensation. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, anything to escape.


It had been so different with the professor. He was gentle and kind, although he could be stern and get angry when she didn't learn quick enough. He would never get angry at her though, only himself, and then he would pour over his notes until he could figure out what he did wrong. Usually he would get back in a good mood if she sang to him. She loved to sing, even in the air, but she didn't think the translation device he had built for her was very accurate, or at least not very poetic. It forced her beautifully rhymed lyrics into clumsy technical jargon and usually made a mess of the subtle poetry she would weave. The professor had promised to improve her translator, some day, but...


Why did she always return to that day when she dreamed about her early life? The day she was taken away. The uniformed men came and they wanted the goods they had paid for. The professor tried to win more time, he said she wasn't ready, that her arms didn't work very well out of the water and her intelligence enhancements still wasn't completely developed. The men didn't care. They said she didn't need to be smart where she was going, and besides the project had taken too long already. They loaded her into a dark waterfilled tube and took her away, and she never saw the professor again. If she could cry she would but now all she could do was to force herself awake, to get away from a whole different kind of pain.


When she woke up she was alone in the bay. Her only friend in this prison, the young corporal, had finished working on her robot arm and left her sleeping. She tried out the limb, flexing it slowly. It didn't hurt much, and seemed to move easier. She scratched her dorsal fin with a rubber-tipped steel claw, then just floated for a while. She was bored. The TV was off, and the room was too dark to read. Her remote control for the TV was just outside the aquarium - the corporal must have forgotten to put it in. No worries, she thought, and nimbly raised herself out of the water on her powerful tail. Before she could fall back, she grabbed the edge of the tank with her mechanical hands, then slowly eased herself down until she could reach the remote with her left claw. It almost slipped out of her grip, but she dropped herself back down in the tank and grabbed it with both hands, before clicking the "on" button.


Besides the disturbing report of yet another ship lost at sea near Striga Island, the news were as usual dealing mostly with Paragon City, where heroes performed miracles every day. It seemed like such a distant place, far from her life in this secret underwater facility. In her sleeping brain she dreamed of herself wearing a cape and flying between the tall buildings, singing to the people songs about hope and peace and life under the sea. The image made her laugh, waking up the part of her brain which was currently sleeping, ending her dream.


It was just as well, because mere seconds later a siren went off and red warning lights started flashing. The corporal rushed into the bay and started pushing buttons on a control panel near her. He was trying to say something but the siren made it impossible to hear. The tank swung around and emptied into a long waterfilled tube. She started swimming along the tube until she came to a lock. From above a package was attached to her back with magnetic clasps and another lock closed behind her. Then the lock before her opened up and the colder water of the ocean depths chilled her to the bone.


She left the base and started circling, keeping quiet as she had been trained to. They didn't want enemy vessels to pick up her sonar. Then she heard a mechanical song in the water, her orders translated into stiff and clumsy dolphin song. They were simple, as always. Locate the vessel, attach the package to the weakest spot, return to base. She started swimming in wider circles, looking for a ship of some kind. Her orders had not included sonar silence, so she quickly filled the ocean with screams and listened for their echoes. They told her that something large rested on the surface not far from her, still in the water. Since she couldn't hear any engines running she was in no hurry when she approached the ship. A few minutes later she had attached the package to the hull just below the waterline and was already on her way back to the base.

[to be continued...]

I'm looking forward to use this set when I reroll my defender (currently using forcefield/psionic blast).

Looks: Ok, although I had hoped for more "beams" of circles instead of weird cloud formations. Cones look good, if only the single target powers were more like extremely narrow cones I'd be happy.

oooooooo <-- something like this is what I mean. Now imagine all the circles lined up at a 90 degree angle, parallell to each other.

Sounds: Not good. My suggestion is really pure waveforms of varying lengths. The psionic set has nice sound effects. Something similar to those, but faster and higher pitched might work for many powers. Someone said they didn't want 50's sci-fi noises, but that's exactly what might work for a generic, non-gender-specific set of sounds. Find some nice theremin sounds and get inspiration from that.

What I would hate is for the sonic set to sound like cheap laser beams, burps, gargles and dog-howls, like it does today. Sonar pings, deep bass, echoes, lots of vibrations, that is what I want. Since the powers (that I have seen) are all very similar visually the sounds should be what sets them apart.

Function: No complaints here. I like the high-damage and resistance debuff. To prevent insane stacking of debuffs you might consider part of the debuff "non-stackable" so that each extra debuff only reduces the target's resistance by an additional 5% instead of the full effect, or something like that. The first debuff takes away about 20% resist, the second drops it to 25%, the third to 30%, etc. I don't actually know if this limitation is necessary though, since I haven't been able to get up to higher than level 8. Maybe the smashing resists of 99% of all villains over level 10 is enough to make the set balanced. (Numbers are merely perceived approximations and may not be accurate.)

All in all I'm looking forward to using this set on Live.