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I dunno, I wasn't playing a Kheld very long before the toggle change came, but given the way I play, knowing that there's a mezzer in the area and the frequency with which he can be expected to attack me effects me what form I choose to be in at that time. Okay, I CAN break the mez, but that doesn't mean I want to have to.
Honestly, the character for which I was happiest to hear of this change was my Force Field Defender. It meant I no longer had to worry about the TOTALLY UNFAIR Sleep->Hold sequence most mezzers in the game (especially Rikti) seem to use. -
I think it would just be funny if the option for Thugs were for us to have Hellion Girlfriends, which would actually never fight, but only stand around and gossip and comment on how great it is to be a Hellion Girlfriend.
And I definately loved the egg shaped chair comment. -
You're essentially on Tenacious with no bosses or AVs. It should not be any harder for you than it was before, but if it is, it's likely due to random chance. (Because the levels vary through the mission as the previous poster said)
You might try -1 levels, and a team size of 3 or 4. That should make the foes weaker, but give you more of them to deal with at a time. Your problem doesn't seem to be level, because you were fine on Heroic, but that there was more of them on Tenacious. So reducing their level should give you back the challenge without overwhelming you.
Alternately, try +1 levels, and stay with a team size of 1. Tenacious was not always easier than Rugged, it depended on the AT. (Controllers and Doms especially do better against smaller spawns because you can only hold a fixed number of foes at a given time) -
Quote:True, and also for a Radiation Control set.Several of the powers from Poison would be thematically appropriate.
Be careful, though, because we do not want to turn a Blaster Secondary into a Defender Primary. That's how we got Trick Arrow.Seriously, Blaster Secondaries are more about damage and control. Devices has a few weak debuff powers (Smoke Grenade) but it's not intended to be a team support set. It's really more support for the Blaster himself.
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Yeah, but they look like SS.
I would like to see a Rad Melee and Defense set. (Pardon me, I'm going off on a tangent here) Based on how Rad Emission works, it could be based more on debuffs and status effects, kind of like Dark Armor. Instead of making your foes unable to see (hit) you, though, it makes them sick and weak. And Rad's innate -Def means you (and your teammates) would be able to hit them more easily. It would almost be "defendery" for the benefits it gives your team.
As for Sonic, when the devs gave us a choice of different Melee and Defense sets in a poll way back when, one of them was "Vibration". My guess is that this was a Defense version of Sonic. In addition to boosting your own Resistance and debuffing the foes' resistance to damage, it might include the ability to "phase" or vibrate so that attacks pass through you, like the Flash. That's just wild speculation, though.
I'm guessing rather than shouting at foes right next to you,there will be some sort of vibrating or sonic weapon for the Melee set. Interestingly, the psychic Melee set was called "Psi Knives" or some such. Which isn't the way Psychic Assault or Manipulation turned out, but who knows, they could still have a sort of blade weapon formed of psi energy or sound, similar to the Ice and Fire Sword, and Stone Mallet.
And of course the aforementioned Martial Arts set for Blasters could be combined with Archery or Dual Pistols for a Dominator Secondary. The Blaster secondary could have some other gadgets or gizmos, while a Control Set using gadgets would give us a possiblity for Natural Controllers and Dominators.
Is there anything I missed? -
Seriously.
Rad and Sonic would be a problem, as neither have Melee sets yet. Although that would be a good reason to come up with Rad and Sonic Melee sets. I suppose they could go the Devices route, but that's already a bit too Defender-like, plus it has attacks, they are just bombs. Then again, maybe a Rad Manipulation set with a couple of variations of Fallout? (You defeat a foe, and make him explode to take out a few more foes.)
This is the problem with Proliferation, though. It's easy enough to Proliferate a set to an AT that already has that same type of set. But Blasters and Doms are unique, their Secondaries are hybrids of other types, and in general when you change from one type of set to another you have to make up a whole new set of powers. Going from Melee to Ranged or Buff/Debuff to Control isn't considered Proliferation. Manipulation and Assault are called Proliferation, but technically they're not. It takes making up a whole new set, sometimes whole new powers.
Quote:I was just asking if they are going to address it. It's fine to turn the colours green and so on, but it would also be nice to have secondaries to match. I think there is an opportunity for not just blasters, but it seems the least fleshed out.
And then there's Masterminds.Oh, it's an issue, definately, and I do hope they address it. Eventually, they're going to run out of existing Power Sets, which means they'll run out of Proliferations. They've got to make more.
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Not really a way around the fluffball, but you yourself will be visible, under the "fluff". I really like the possibility that you might be a black silhouette instead of transparent. (A third option)
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I have the same character on multiple servers. It's hard enough coming up with different names when I have the same character on the SAME server.
I got a great idea from another player, though, and so for the Stalker version of my Scrapper Blood Wolf his name is Blood Wolf? with a question mark, like "Is this is the same guy? Maybe it's not..." -
Ah, all the people are coming out of the AE buildings.
I think that if you score a hit on a MOB, you will get credit for it for a hunting mission. If not, then just try to find some out of the way place where you can hunt on your own. Fortunately they don't last long, you can be done with the "Kill X" missions and back to instanced missions quickly enough in the low levels. Don't forget you usually also have a choice of missions, you can do all the instanced ones first, and save the "Kill X" for hours when there aren't a lot of other folks on.
If all else fails, try one shotting greys. Just don't kill steal from the lowbies who validly need to kill them themselves.
If there is someone following you around and constantly killing your foes, then /petition him. "Kill stealing" is not against the TOS, but harassment IS, and if someone is repeatedly kill stealing you in order to make you mad, then they are harassing you. Normally I find that if I and someone else both run into a MOB at the same time, I shoot back a quick, "Sorry, didn't see you" and head in another direction. 9 times out of 10 the other guy will go the other way, and we won't run into each other again. If he follows you, then he's probably looking for trouble. (Or maybe a team. Honestly, though, I've almost never run into this. Folks putting together a team use the search feature, they don't run around looking for other players) -
Old Difficulty to new Difficulty conversion chart:
Difficulty 1 (default) = +0 levels, team size 1, No Bosses, no AVs
Difficulty 2 = +0 levels, team size 2, Bosses, no AVs
Difficulty 3 = +1 levels, team size 1, Bosses, no AVs
Difficulty 4 = +1 levels, team size 2, Bosses, no AVs
Difficulty 5 = +2 levels, team size 1, Bosses, AVs
That's if you're solo. If you're on a team, Difficulties 2 and 4 added 1 to your team size, while you got AVs at 6 players minus the difficulty level (so 5 players or more at Difficulty 1, 2 players or more at Difficulty 4)
The only real difference is that now you have to compute the +1 to your team size yourself. I'm not really sure how the "No AVs" setting works, I believe it still adds AVs for a team of five or more. But I'm not sure if that's counting your set team size or the real team size. -
Quote:It seems to me that if NCSoft does not pay you for your intellectual property, then they don't own anything.See this makes much more sense and is how I initially understood it when I read it. Perhaps I misunderstood what TonyV was saying, but it appeared he was stating once a character is created in CoH that NCSoft owned the IP for that character, period.
And I would imagine that guest authors aren't bound by the EULA that we are. They are brought in for the purpose of writing a story, so any copyright involved in that process is probably worked out between the guest author and NCSoft.
Again, the idea that you are agreeing that you won't sue THEM for use of your intellectual property, that makes sense. They have the right, granted by you for free, to use your character in their game. But you would need a much more legally binding contract to transfer the whole of the copyright. Even the use of a well known character, like those of the guest authors you're talking about, probably requires a more explicit contract. (Since those characters are part of some sort of commertial venture that makes money)
As for the NDA on the Beta server not being enforcable, that may be true, but they can still ban your account and prevent you from ever logging on to their servers again. -
I wouldn't say they're done. I'd say they're getting started. There's a thread for Customizable Weapon Suggestions. I'm guessing that soon there will be a thread for Customizable Power Theme Suggestions. Like the new No FX that only shows effects in PvP zones, or the addition of partial transparency and "shadowing" themes for Cloak of Shadows. (And hopefully other stealth powers as well) And the ideas for making Granite Armor customizable.
I want to see multiple themes for all Power Sets, and imagine how much work THAT is going to be. -
I agree, I have a shapeshifter concept who is supposed to be able to form metal as well as stone. I implemented him as Stone because it was closest, but I was going to try the Lava theme to see if I put a white or silver color as the lava, if it would look like ore bearing rock.
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Quote:I think people are missing something very very important here.How about a unique player-only granite form, or half a dozen from which to choose?
BaBs is saying "I can't do this." It's not because he hates Granite Armor or he thinks it's a laugh to make everyone go, "Why can't I customize Granite!" It's not because of an oversight or they didn't have time to do it. It's because he can't do it. He has tried every concievable method he can come up with to change allow the Granite model to be changed, and while he's come up with some ideas that have come close, not a one of them has ever worked.
So you have two choices:
1) Change Granite to blocks of stone that appear on the character's body, which can be customized for different colors and themes.
2) Leave Granite the way it is now, unable to be customized, forever.
There is no "Don't do that, I want to have a different model that makes me bigger, but make it so I can customize it." And there is no "Make it so I can customize it, but I want to be able to select the original model if I want." BaBs said that was impossible in his first post.
Personally, I think there are three choices:
1) Leave it as it is. Try to come up with a better solution, but if you can't, leave it so it can't be customized. We'd rather not be able to customize it than lose the change in costume.
2) Go ahead and change it. Try and make it as much like the original option as possible, make sure you get the same sound effects and effect on movement speed.
3) Keep trying to come up with a better solution. If you can't come up with a better solution within a given amount of time, say by Going Rogue, use this one.
Personally, I think that if they do implement this solution, and some method can be come up with to let you change your costume when you activate a power, then you've got the best solution. Just give us the ability to assign a costume to Granite. Let us set the base costume however we want, as a person or rock creature, and then select what additional bits we want to add as unique power effects. This could work the same way for Kheldians, and would work the same as the SoA starting costumes.
The only part of this idea that's currently missing is the tying the costume change to the power. And if this is developed as a QoL thing for Granite, I think it'll be useful to other powers as well, and can be forced for Kheldians, or any other form that isn't the normal human model. I personally would rather wait and see if my idea could be made to work by the time of Going Rogue, instead of using the interim solution and adding the ability to set costume later, but that's just me. My thought is that you can keep the Granite model as a unique costume, again like the SoA. But heck, I suppose that could be added later and just using your normal form as the "frame" for now would work. -
Quote:I'm unimaginative, so I run essentially the same difficulty settings on all my characters. Until I get to level 10, I stick with the default settings. At 11, I bump up the team size to one more than me, and turn off replacing Bosses with Lts. This is mainly a holdover from the old system, the main thing is having Bosses after level 10. I usually have to use Inspirations to defeat them, but I don't like downgrading the challenge of having to overcome them to finish the mission.Second, I need to ask a question. To wit, without slotting IOs (common or sets) at all, what diff settings would people think one should expect to be able to run on at the various level stages without feeling like they're doing something obviously wrong? I'd use this as a bench-mark for deciding if I really need to come back here to ask more questions or to start teaching (yeah right) others...
After 22, when I get SOs, under the old system I would either go to Difficulty 3, 4, or 5. So increase the team size by one and/or increase the levels to +1 or +2. For Warshades I typically go team size +1 and level +1, for PBs probably just levels +1. Of course, there have been posts in here about increasing team size to +8 and setting level to -1, to get full benefit of the WS's foe draining powers. I haven't tried that yet, so I don't know how that would work out for me.
Using that rule of thumb, I really haven't had any problems with either PBs or WSs. As for a guide, I've posted some basic overviews, but I only really have experience with Human Form and Tri Form. I haven't tried a Dual Form, or tried to weigh Nova vs Dwarf. I would guess a Human/Dwarf build would play similar to my Human Form for blasts, with Dwarf for tanking, since I pretty much play my Human Form at range. -
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Well, one additional advantage is that as a Temporary Power, its damage is the same for all Archetypes. It might not be doing all that much damage compared to a Scrapper or a Brute with full Fury, but for a Controller or Defender, that have a lower base damage, it would be worth more.
Of course, you were talking about Fallout, so I'm assuming you're talking about a Controller or Defender. Or a Corruptor.
Another thing to consider is that the foes you tested it on might have been resistant to that type of damage. According to that CoD page, Self Destruct's damage is half Smashing, half Fire, while Fallout is entirely Energy damage.
According to CoD, Fallout should be doing half the damage of Self Destruct. Fallout does 222.44 Energy damage at level 50 (oddly, it does the same damage for all ATs, even though Controllers summon it as a different psuedo-pet) while Self Destruct should be doing 535.44 total.
If you say you're only doing about 100 points damage, the only thing I can think of is Resistances. -
VEATs and Kheldians cannot be currently customized. It may be that since they are so closely tied to the game universe they're not intended to be customized, however, I don't believe I've ever seen a post from a redname that explicitly states that.
Because of the issue that prevents Granite Armor from being customized in Stone Armor, Nova and Dwarf forms would not be customizable for the same reason. I consider this a likely reason why Kheldians as a whole cannot be customized. While the other powers in Stone Armor can be customized, it only makes it all the more obvious that Granite is an exception.
As for VEATs, the Wolf Spider machine gun, the Bane Spider mace, the Crab backpack and the Widow claws are all customizable. So their effects could NOT be customizable. (You get one or the other, both is impossible, so says Babs) Fortunatas are the only VEATs that have a non-weapon attack, and thus really they're the only ones who could be customized. (I suppose the Secondaries could be customized)
Personally, I'd allow it, but that's me. -
Jade Dragon - Rad blasts and Force Fields are the same shade of green, and the same green as his aura.
Blue Diamond - Now has blue flashes when he punches someone. Dull Pain, Rage and Unstoppable Auras are pale blue, all other effects set to Minimal.
Genie Gold - Her Illusions and Rad Emission powers are gold. This really looks cool, as her powers look like a cross between clouds and rays of sunlight. (A teammate described her Phantasm as "He looks like a sparkly sunset")
Bloodwolf - Now punches as well as kicks. His effects are a very subtle grey, with just a hint of red flash in his attacks. Most SR effects (or Ninjitsu, for the Stalker version) set to Minimal.
Sandy - Sandy's Fire Sword is now a blue-white plasma encased in a purple-white magnetic field. Many of her Fire Secondary attacks are purple-white, to match her lightning Primary, but the flames are still red. An exception is Consume, which now creates a burst of blue to match the "increase Endurance" theme.
Silver Bolt - Haven't finished messing with him yet, but his lightning attacks will be white, with a slight tint of red, instead of purple. For the Dominator version, his attacks will be the normal deep red outside of Domination, becoming white when he "powers up". (This matches his aura) His Gravity effects will match. (And Singy and Sparky will be the same colors) My Electric/Sonic Corruptor version will have reddish-white shields instead of golden ones. (I think they already look somewhat electrical so just the color change should be fine)
Joe Everyman - I will probably try to make his Ill/Kin effects as subtle grey as possible. His Phantom Army, however, will be a generic (literally) black and white combo.
I have an Earth/FF Controller I may remake as an Earth/Cold, and try to make a dirt and crystal theme. I'll probably keep the original and make his force fields brown.
I'm not sure if Dark Armor has the option to make your character black instead of transparent yet, but as soon as it does, I will be setting that for my Dark/Dual Blades Tanker. I may change some of his other effects as well, although for the most part his power is darkness. (I role play some of his taunting effects as attacks by his pet ferrets, though)
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Well, I think from your post that you probably already prefer WSs to PBs. However, the WS requires more tactics and adapting on the fly. As Memphis_Bill said, it has higher highs and lower lows. It's not that PBs aren't balanced, it's that "balanced", for a Kheldian, means being a little weaker than everything around you. You are balanced around form shifting and that bonus you get for being on a team.
Honestly, after playing a a PB for about 35-odd levels total, I think the "Peacebringers are like Defenders" comparison is way off the mark. I have ONE power to support my team, Glowing Touch, and that's it. With all my bubbles on me, and my powers to heal myself, I feel like it's myself that I'm supporting, not the team. I think the comparison came about because Kheldian damage used to be low, like Defenders. But that's not really the case any more.
I do feel that keybinds are essential, because I don't think I could manage form shifting without also automatically shifting my tray arrangement as well. Being able to form shift and queue up another power for activation after shift saves a great deal of time as well. In most cases it is the shift to human form that works best with a keybind, it enables you to spend minimal time in human form, so you don't have to retoggle all your sheilds. It isn't absolutely necessary, a Human Form build shouldn't really need keybinds, but as I feel proper use of forms means adapting quickly and often, I personally wouldn't play a Dual or Tri-Form without them.
On a team, you probably don't need to form shift as often. But I've found it the best way to play for me, when I'm soloing. And honestly, as you say in your last point, Kheldians are more than any other AT dependent on the playstyle of the player. You really need to experiment to find out what works for you, because so much is built around what you as the player feel is comfortable and intuitive. -
Back when I was in school, I read a story about a shy kid who wrote some stories to express himself. I thought "I could do that". Coincidentally, around the same time my 7th grade teacher gave an assignment for everyone in the class to write one page a day on any subject. So I decided to write a sort of episodic "movie of the week" kind of thing rotating different characters in different storylines from day to day.
One of the storylines was about a group of superheroes, two of them based on Green Lantern and Superman. Although they were originally a more obvious rip-off, over time I realized I should make them my own characters, and they evolved into Jade Dragon and Blue Diamond. Although I kept Green Lantern's basic color scheme with Jade Dragon, I changed his powers to be similar to a character called Mayhem from the comic Cloak and Dagger, who could summon a green, poisonous mist which she could fly on and direct for various effects.
I dropped the poison effect, but instead made it able to form more solid constructs, like Green Lantern's power. Blue Diamond had already been somewhat redesigned, by a friend of mine who had come up with the basic concept. I came up with a backstory that united the two, though, as well as a third character named Element Dog, and a villain Silver Bolt, who was inspired by Electro. Together they became the Crime Fighters, and I continued to write stories about them all through high school. I also got involved in playing D&D, and played the characters in the Marvel Comics RPG a couple of times.
When I heard about CoH, I knew I would have to create the Crime Fighters there. And since Jade Dragon is the leader (and GL has always been my personal favorite hero) I used that as my forum name. -
The problem with /Sonic and Sonic/ is that the former provides way more Res debuff than the latter. In fact, in terms of Res debuff, Sonic/ only beats Rad/ in its application of -Res to a single target. And it beats Trick Arrow by only 20% for a single target, and 10% in an area.
Plus there is the fact that Disruption Field can't be used solo. (Unless you put it on a Vet Reward buff pet, shhhh, don't let the devs know about that) -
Actually, Blasters have a 1.125 damage modifier. With Defenders having a 0.65 damage modifier, that means the actual ratio of Blaster to Defender damage is 1 to 0.58.
On the other hand, Defenders usually have a means of boosting damage in their Primary. A Rad Defender, for instance, can get 30% more damage by debuffing the Resistance of his foes with Enervating Field. Depending on the set, you may be able to get a 25% or greater boost to base damage with a power like Accelerate Metabolism or Siphon Power. (But since this is a boost to base damage, it will really only be about a 13% boost to damage once you're fully slotted, while a Res debuff will always be the same no matter what your slotting or other buffs)
Traps, which is the conceptual pairing with Assault Rifle, has a nice Res debuff power in Acid Mortar. Rad and Kin are always going to be good choices as well. Trick Arrow might be an interesting choice, but I would think the constant redraws as you switch between bow and machine gun would get tedious. Plus, why use the machine gun at all when you could choose the bow for both Primary and Secondary?
Dark is not going to give you a lot of damage, but it's an extremely defensive set. Honestly, beyond just the basics, I can't give you any advice about potential compatibilities. I haven't actually tried AR with anything, so I can't really say for sure what would work best with it. Maybe someone else will have more advice, though.
The best comparison, really, would be someone who's played an AR Corruptor and see what Secondary seems to work best there. -
My main Controller, Joe Everyman, I haven't had a chance to play with yet. Since he's a Natural, using gadgets and slight of hand to distract his foes, I was thinking of trying to choose really dark, saturated colors with him, and try to make his powers very subtle, almost like a No FX look. He's got to wait until I finish with some other characters, though.
I have a new Controller, though, Genie Gold, who is supposed to be the teammate of my two mains Jade Dragon and Blue Diamond. I rarely played her before, but recently I got her into an SG, and she's leveled to 32 really fast. She's Illusion/Rad, and like the other two characters I mentioned, her powers are supposed to be tied to her color, yellow-orange. Her costume is very distinctively that color as well, so I definately wanted to tie her costume and powers all together in a single theme.
Plus, concept-wise, she controls the air around her to create effects. So I figured a gold glow effect, combined with Rad's gaseous look would be perfect, and in fact it looks great.
For the Primary, I went for a very deep golden color, more orange than yellow, and her Spectral Terror and Phantasm (which I got last night and got to test out) both look incredible. I had other teammates commenting on it too.Spectral Wounds also made a very bright golden halo around my targets, from the "skull faces". Between that and my Secondary, it was very obvious who I was targetting. I also found it interesting that although I took Invisibility from the Pool and not my Secondary, because I wanted Phase Shift, both that and Phase Shift really matched the color scheme. I don't know whether it was because when the animation first started it was somehow tinted by my aura (when I had Accellerate Metabolism going) or Invisibility is naturally yellowish before it turns whiter once the transparency effect kicks in.
As for my Secondary, since I had already discovered Radiation can be very bright from playing with another character, I used some more saturated tones. Sure enough, it cut down on the brightness, and made it look more like clouds. Enervating Field and Choking Cloud really look like clouds now, they're bright enough to be visible, but except for the aura around the anchor (which is REALLY obvious now) they don't glow. My Accelerate Metabolism and Radiant Aura, though, really glow, and look very much like the Illusion effects. It really ties the whole thing together.
Anyway, I've very satisfied with the look. It definately makes her a lot more fun to play, as she doesn't look like she's just cobbled together from unrelated abilities, it all fits the same theme. And she really does look like she has some sort of genie powers, which I suppose is the point.
The new /Cold set I have not tried, however, I have an Earth/FF Controller that I may decide to recreate as an Earth/Cold, and then recolor the shields and other powers to make it look more like the Earth Primary. I'm not sure how well it would work, I'd have to try it out. (Plus, he's in a level pact, and I'm not sure if he's over level 5 yet, if he is, I'd have to break it, or recreate the character he's pacted with) -
Quote:That's exactly it. Electric makes your character model invisible, and then adds an aura that outlines where the character used to be. Granite REPLACES your character. You aren't invisible, you transform into a totally different costume with a totally different underlying model. It is almost unique in that, the only other two powers that work the same are Kheldian Nova and Dwarf forms.Maybe Electric's tier 9 is actually an invisible character model with a dancing lightshow around them. That's fine - use that concept and create an aeefect that looks like the rock monster in the Galaxy Quest movie - not a distinct physical form but instead more of a pile of loosely-connected orbiting bits of rock with a vaugely-defined head and limbs.
This suggestion by BaBs is just what you said, he throws out the old method, and adds bits onto your character to cover him with rock. I like your version of the idea (with effects as well as bits of rock) but one thing to keep in mind is if you make your character invisible, you will ONLY have the one customization option for your power. You can't make the wispy smoke, the bits of rock, and the animated crystal spikes different colors or themes, they would all have to be the theme and two colors that you select for that power.
Of course, that would be true if BaBs were able to overcome the Granite problem and make it customizable. It would still be only two colors and a theme, and hide (or replace) your costume. At least it would be that much customization, though, when right now you have one choice and one choice only.
Honestly, I think that what needs to be done is that some way needs to be found to tie a costume to a power. I use a costume change for Domination, and I have other powers that I often use a change in costume to represent the character getting stronger or gaining tougher defenses. As it is, if your costume is visible under the Granite, then you could use a costume change to change into a stone form, with, well, stone bits on top of it. You could then customize your own form however you want. If you can somehow tie that costume to a power, then you don't have to worry about switching the costume manually. (And of course there's also the time limit on costume changes, which gets very annoying if you try to use them with powers)