Ironik
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Posts
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Joined
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A small additional discount would be good, as well as things non-VIPs can't buy. Mostly thinking things like weapon customization and such. I have zero idea how one gets the Tech Knight stuff, for instance, but I'm under the vague impression it's gated behind "time played" as well as VIP status, which is a bit *too* gated in my opinion.
If they add something truly cool that only VIPs can earn, then that would entice more people to become VIPs... as well as making VIPs feel more "very."
The single biggest thing is something I've been asking after for years: Sidekicks. Give VIPs the ability to make their very own customizable sidekick, a combat pet who can be the Robin to our Batman, the Bucky to our Captain America, the Twillinger to our Arbiter Hawk. Give it to VIPs at, say, level 14 or something lowish like that. Give it to every AT -- who cares what it does to MMs and Controllers? I can come up with 10 concepts between pouring my cereal into the bowl and kicking my first Hellion off a bridge in the morning. -
Quote:Because all of DC's ideas are being cribbed from Marvel these days. It's becoming increasing evident there are too many cooks in the kitchen, which is just as bad as having a single someone with complete control.Originally Posted by Nethergoat
WTH is 'Justice League Dark'?
And if you're going to have that, why not the obvious companion title 'Justice League EXtreme!!1' -
Quote:That was funny.Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Wait, so a capitalist enterprise is engaging in profit seeking behavior & utilizeing MARKETING PLOYS to promote their offerings?!?
Quick, Captain Socialist, to the fainting couch! -
Sleep is for sissies! Do eet!
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Give it a few days.
She also might not be that into you. -
Oh yeah, here's one: when I re-watched Mars Attacks after seeing High Fidelity, I realized the soldier was Jack Black.
When I saw Tron: legacy and Country Strong (almost) back-to-back, I had a moment of cognitive dissonance when at some point I realized those parts were being played by the same guy. Garrett Hedlund really deserves to work more, because he's like the modern Brian Cox -- he simply becomes the character. (The fact that Hedlund played Brad Pitt's cousin in Troy alongside Brian Cox just underscores that.)
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Surf's up at Spanky's.
Captain Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters are back-backing.
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Quote:Way, way stranger. That thing was all over the place, design-wise.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
If you were in the beta, you'd know its a lot more complicated, and stranger, than that.
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Hmm, no... wasn't those guys. I just recall random Arnolds showing up in Fantasy paintings from about '85 to '95 or so.
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The man who saved the Eagle with ice-water calm demonstrated he was only human with the greatest blown line reading in history. Which made me admire him even more.
Rest in Peace, spaceman.
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Looks like a solid start to me.
It's reminiscent of John Rauch's coloring style on books like Invincible. Rauch does a lot of cool subtle things with color, while keeping it bright and comic book-y.
http://johnrauch.deviantart.com/?rnrd=15641 -
Quote:So if I'm reading this correctly, basically you want the ability to choose any power when you reach that specific level? Leaving it up to the player if they want to be Offense, Defense, Control or Support?Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
This is what I propose:
Take the existing epic pools/patron pools. Rather than treat them as 'epic powers' that we can only take in the 40s they become essentially a tertiary power set for the character. We expand on the number of powers in them. Maybe not a full 9 powers but maybe 6 in each, one more than they have now. We re-order the powers as needed and allow players to take them as early as is reasonable. What's reasonable? Ice Storm for a Brute with Arctic Mastery for example, wouldn't be available before level 20 because ATs that get that power in their Secondary power set don't get it until 20. But ranged ATs get the attack Ice Blast in their secondary at level 2, so on a Brute it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to be able to get it at level 8 or 10.
Take Blaze Mastery for Scrappers for example.
Fire Blast around level 10
Ring of Fire or Char around level 14
Fire Ball and some new power for 22
Melt Armor at level 41
Again, I'm just pulling numbers here that don't (off the top of my head) conflict or come before the level other ATs get those powers in their Primary or Secondary. You get the idea.
After that's done, we make more of these pools that cover other concepts. We have Firearm Mastery for Scrappers that contains Dual Pistols attacks and related powers. Water Mastery for Controllers. Etc.
It's not a freeform system, but it would have more freedom than we have currently and allow people to realize their concept without waiting until the mid 30's for a flavour power that isn't even that great. A Tanker isn't going to be breaking the game with Laser Beam Eyes at level 10.
And the patron pools and patron arcs: Would people really complain if they separated the two and made the patron pools just regular epic pools and had the patron arcs award a temp power or something? I mean, complain more than anyone complains about any other change around here, even if its a huge QoL improvement.
Are you assuming some sort of tweaking to power stats? Because otherwise you're looking at City of Heroes Who Are Identical. There are plenty of number crunchers out there who can tell you precisely which power is best at any given level, and when you come right down to it Damage is the benchmark for everything in this game. After that it's Defense and Self-Heal running neck-and-neck.
Even if you did smooth out the powers per level, you could have people gimping themselves accidentally. But if you could have Blazing Bolt (L26 -- Sniper, Extreme DMG(Fire)) AND Lightning Rod (L32 -- PBAoE, Superior DMG(Energy), Foe Knockdown, Self Teleport, Taunt) AND Strength of Will (L38 -- Self +Res(All, Disorient, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Knockback), +Recovery)... damn,those three powers alone would make you a walking kill machine. Throw in Siphon Power(L2), Build Up (L4), Freezing Rain (L10) and Burn and a couple self-heals and you're SuperKillerDude.
...and so is everyone else.
Why not just go to Perez and smash a couple thousand grays to get the same feeling? Because that's how fun that would be. Otherwise you have to go up against mad gods and giant space spiders to have any sort of challenge. Fun a few times, maybe, but not much challenge. -
Quote:It's weird that you've never seen any version of Captain Marvel dodge the lightning bolt and use it as a weapon that way. He doesn't need an extra ranged attack because he IS a ranged attack. He's faster than light, he steps out of the way of lightning bolts. In some stories, the lightning strike doesn't depower him, it merely replenishes him. Author fiat, of course, but he's used that a few times to kick major butt.Originally Posted by Thunder Knight
Captain Marvel will always be Captain Marvel to me. He's had that name for over seventy years, while he's been called "Shazam" in exactly zero issues of any current comic book (and Marvel keeps making new Captain Marvels just to keep a strangehold on the trademark, not because they actually give a crap about who they give the name to). If Cap is still called "Shazam" in 2082, then I'll start calling him that. (But what they've done to my favorite comics character is a separate rant on its own)
Anyway, Cap's still not a tank mage. His transformation lightning is meant for just that - transformation. It's a Nova, a self-heal... and it immediately strips him of all powers, offensive and defensive. It's the ultimate crash. It's not his primary attack, let alone his only attack.
No, I get it. Shazam isn't the perfect example, not the way Superman, Thor or Iron Man are, but he's right in there. I'm all for splitting hairs and if you don't want to call Billy a Tank-Mage because he doesn't have a specific ranged attack, that's fine by me.Quote:A Tank-Mage is, by definition, a character who is primarily a ranged character, but with tank-like defenses. Not just someone who has a ranged attack or two that they use if punching doesn't work. Certainly not someone who has a ranged attack that can be used only once, and then takes away all his other attacks.
They have to be just as good at ranged attacks as the ranged attack specialists, and just as good at surviving and drawing aggro as the defensive specialists. That's clearly unbalanced, and that's the problem with Tank-Mages. -
Quote:Is Elmore the guy who put Schwarzenegger into every third painting for about 10 years? Or am I thinking of another guy?Originally Posted by Tenzhi
I think the only pictures of Elmore's I've seen over the years that I liked were from The Complete Dwarves Handbook. Other than that, I've found his work to be bland, not remarkably well-painted, and often oddly-proportioned. I'd say he's not nearly as bad as Liefeld, but he comes up in fantasy art discussions about as often as Liefeld comes up in comic book art discussions and thus I've been similarly critical of him by dint of opportunity.
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Quote:I don't think you do. The problem is that the writing team actually *narrowed* the backstory and boxed themselves in (although Sam can speak to that better than I can). The really huge mistake was baked-in early, though, by trying to explain game mechanic changes (intro of capes) via story. Since then this has just been compounded with things like the Origin Of Power Storyline (OOPS) which shuts down entire backstories and alternate avenues.Originally Posted by Cende
It's a little worse than that.
Direct quote from Matt Miller's professional blog, entry dated September 19 of last year:
I spoke out against the practice at his blog, and I am still against it. Anyone who cannot write within an established lore that is as flexible as the CoH background story, expand on it, and enrich it is, quite frankly, a hack who needs more education and practice in writing before they attempt to do it on an amateur level, much less professionally.Quote:I was Lead Designer at the time, and I let the writers be creative. I let them "bend" the established lore to fit the stories they were interested in telling. I let them "retcon" certain aspects if it made for a more dynamic and fun experience.
But I might possibly have strict standards.
The bizarre shoe-horning of every NPC origin into the Well of Souls thing is awkward, because a lot of them just don't fit there. And the reality is there's no reason for that sort of clumsiness when a perfectly good backstory hinting at multiple sources of power was already in place. -
Quote:I guess you're replying to me. As an aside, I use "Shazam" because everyone knows who that is. "Captain Marvel" is too many characters, and the original is branded as Shazam.Originally Posted by Thunder Knight
Really, I think the actual definition of Tank-Mage has gotten lost in this discussion. It's someone who fights as well as a mage but has defenses like a tank. They're problematic because they're as durable as the most durable defensive class and as offensively capable as the most powerful ranged class, which makes everyone else obsolete.
It's not just a Tanker with one or two ranged attacks. It's not just a Blaster with Tough. They have to have the best of both worlds, or they're not the Tank-Mage that is so troublesome.
For example...
Thor is not a Tank-Mage. He can shoot lightning, but it's not his primary attack. He saves it for big moments. In CoH terms, he's a War Mace/Invulnerability Brute (possibly Tank, possibly even Scrapper, but definitely WM/Inv) with Ion Judgement for when he gets in trouble.
Hulk... He's a pure SS/Invulnerability Brute. His only ranged attacks are throwing things. If that's all it took to be a Tank-Mage, then every SS/ Brute or /SS Tanker would already be a Tank-Mage, and they're clearly not.
Black Widow is a Dual Pistols/Martial Combat Blaster with the Fighting Pool. Hawkeye is an Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor with the Fighting Pool. Captain America is a MA or SJ/Shield Scrapper with Body Mastery . None of them are Tank-Mages.
The only one of the Avengers I'd consider an actual Tank-Mage is Iron Man. He's also the only one you can't accurately make in-game. (I'd say he'd be something like Energy Blast/Invulnerability)
Outside of the Avengers, "Shazam" (by which I assume you mean Captain Marvel) is a straight-up Invulnerability/Super Strength Tanker. His only ranged "attack" is one that is aimed squarely at him (and will cause him to lose all of his powers if it hits), so he only uses it as the most final of final last-ditch attacks, not as the main part of his arsenal.
Superman... primarily Inv/SS Tanker, with Energy Mastery (including Laser Beam Eyes) and perhaps Gale from Storm Summoning (in the form of super-breath). Only that last part can't be currently done in-game. But, again, two or three ranged attacks (including Hurl) does not a Tank-Mage make.
The closest the game has is Arachnos Soldiers (particularly Crab Soldiers), but their numbers are lower for both their defense and offense than Tanks and Blasters respectively, so they're still not an actual "Tank-Mage".
Shazam has ludicrous powers, second only to Superman in the comics, but they're really superior. With a good writer, Shazam should win every time, because he's smarter than Kal-El. He has access to all the world's knowledge from the Solomon part of the spell. He heals immediately, and when he uses that lightning bolt it is a devastating weapon. In CoH terms, it's a Nova *and* an insta-heal. The Z-for-Zeus makes him invulnerable to magic and the A-for-Atlas makes him resistant to physical damage. His ability to travel faster than light makes him unstoppable and un-targetable.
Thor is absolutely a Tank-Mage. He is ridiculously durable and has a massive ranged attack with his hammer. Mjolnir is also a powerful melee weapon. He's also a Controller, commanding wind, rain and lightning.
Superman has more than Hurl in his bag of ranged tricks. Super-breath acts as a freezing force on top of being a knock-down and knock-back, while heat vision is essentially a powerful twin laser. X-ray vision allows him to spot weaknesses and see weapons. Super-speed and -strength allow him to solve any punchable problem with a punch. He's also a handy gadgeteer. Maybe not Tony Stark-level of techno-wizardry, but he's made some pretty incredible stuff over the years.
I agree that Hulk is a Brute of the SS variety, but more probably Willpower than Invulnerability, since "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets."
But this is all an aside from the fact that playing Tank-Mages would get old real quick. I'm all for being a Tank-Mage at the end of the game and moving on to punching Giant Monsters in the face and upwards to taking on cosmic bad guys, but that wouldn't be terribly interesting for very long, because it devolves in Mortal Kombat. -
Quote:That's not true. There's no expression Land can't trace.Originally Posted by Zortel
I wonder what Greg Land's expression was when he heard the news.
Wait, he only has one. -
Quote:It's like a movie reviewer I used to work with hating Jumanji because of the "plastic-looking spiders." To which i replied, "But the motorcycle-riding monkeys were okay?"Originally Posted by Cowman
How is it any different from the "mental gymnastics" it takes to explain how he simply gets through the day without crushing or destroying something?
I mean, THAT'S where yer playin' the unbelievability card?
(Which has become shorthand around my house for silly nitpicking. "I thought that bat-copter was ridiculous... but the motorcycle-riding monkeys are okay.") -
Quote:Mostly because they aren't terribly interesting characters.Originally Posted by DarkGob
They're just not an interesting couple.
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Quote:Hey, I'm just saying. I had one thread nuked for talking about how a comic book character lit another comic book character on fire and we do that in-game all the time, too.Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
Whereas the rampant references to drug use in-game are perfectly acceptable.
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Quote:I should have been clearer -- these are from my L50 namesake, Ironik, and he has run the Aura mission. I ran it years ago to get a "Vegas Elvis" look for a Halloween costume. When I went to use the Smoke effect for damaged battle armor, it showed up locked.Originally Posted by Nethergoat
if you're too cheap to drop a few points on the level 1 unlock, you can access them the old fashioned way and run the aura mission.
As someone who often didn't bother with auras because unlocking them was a boring annoyance, I spent the points. -
Quote:Seems to me they should make the Marrow brothers ethnic and everyone else just regular folks. Or maybe the various Bosses are all related to the Petrovics, while the soldiers are recruits from Paragon City. Because black people clearly aren't going to be Slavic. Well, not modern black people. ("I'll take obscure etymology joke for 300, Alex.")Originally Posted by SlickRiptide
Oddly enough, I sort of believe that this current question about the Skulls is a case of the studio trying to make good on the lore. Someone said "Hey, these Petrovic guys are kind of under-developed story-wise. If we are dressing up King's Row and giving the Skulls a real story, then we should acknowledge that we have them written up as having ethnic roots."
The problem is that the "in your face" way they were going about it changed the character of the gang so drastically (in my opinion, anyway) that it became a different gang with the same name. That bothers some people and bothers others not at all. Your mileage may vary.
Is a level 7-20 gang that most people will skip through in a day really worth spending time and effort on making them subtly ethnic? I dunno. For my gameplay and immersion it is, but for the financial bottom line of the studio, it might not be.
I'll be happy in the end if they can swing it to acknowledge that they started life as an ethnic gang but became something bigger and possibly even better/stronger than they would have been if the War had not forced them to grow beyond their ethnic roots. -
Quote:I'm with E-K on this one.Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
Anyway, I would love to see them just add the Skulls symbol onto their jacket backs.
As far as I know, this would need to be done as a new texture for the whole jacket (actually, each and every jacket/vest they now use) that includes the symbol, as they don't have the tech to add a decal onto jacket backs (like a chest detail symbol)... still, I don't think that's out of the question, as far as time and difficulty... unless their budget/schedule just do not allow for it. However, in my opinion, if they scheduled the time to revamp the Skulls, they should have scheduled the time to do it right and include such an iconic aspect of the gang. Yes, the skull masks are more iconic and I like what they did with those! The symbol on the back covers their iconic image from behind (when you can't see their masks).
To me, not having those symbols makes this revamp feel like a cheap player-recreation job. Some new textures put it beyond what any of us could have done with the character creator tools at hand (minus the new mask).
Also, after running around and checking them out, I'd say that the occurrence of females showing up in spawns seems a little too frequent. I encountered several female only spawns and usually at least one female in every spawn on the streets. I like the addition, but it just feels out of place to have them so equally represented.
Just my opinions.
I am not against this revamp at all. And I don't think they've swung and missed in the slightest. I don't care for the club hair and I don't care for the club jeans, but the previous changes seem more important to me.
I think I encountered about 80% female Skulls. That ratio is weirdly high. (Unless there's a story reason for it that I didn't encounter.)
I don't know why the Skulls are getting revamped other than to modernize their look, but they are lacking that certain something which makes them stand out visually. -
Quote:But neither Black Widow nor Hawkeye were Tank-Mages. (Captain America wasn't, either.) Sure, they won some fights because of their superior abilities, but that was against what we would call minions in-game. The reason there's a fight between Widow and Hawkeye is because a fight between either of them and ANY of the other Avengers ends with Widow or Hawkeye in the hospital one minute later. When Hulk gets mad, Widow merely runs.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
I disagree. Most are.Quote:Originally Posted by Ironik
Also, not all superheroes are Tank-Mages. Most of the best ones aren't, in fact.
Every single character in the Avengers movie for example.
There was nobody on the team in that movie that wasn't good at fighting, surviving and every single one was a DPSer. Neither of the two baddass normal ranged attack users, Mr. Arrow and Ms. Dual Pistols, fell on their face or were unable to to stand on their own in the battle. They were not glass cannons by any means. Indeed she is clearly as good a fighter as any Scrapper and even 'tanked' for Mr. Shield at one point, IIRC. Neither of the team's bricks were poor fighters. Tony Snark, in the most egregious example of flouting the restrictions this game was built around, is both a ranged attacker and is explicitly armoured. They don't have the same crippling deficiencies that were designed into the AT and powers system originally (that I have to again point out the current developers are slowly getting away from, thankfully) and obviously most people didn't find them boring.
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Trying to equate Plot Contrivance with what is generally accepted as a Tank-Mage does your argument a disservice.
Superman is a Tank-Mage. So is Thor, Shazam, Iron Man and a whole host of others mentioned earlier. Making a game that gives us that level of power against 99% of everything would be tremendously dull. When even battleships and tanks can be destroyed by your character, there's not much left to do. If you invoke the Equally-Powered Adversary clause, what you've created is an endless punch-fest.
So you might as well play Mortal Kombat and be done with it.