Rigel_Kent

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I dunno. Shields just don't match sneaky ninja types.

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I think it's a possibility shield proliferation to stalkers might somehow resemble last issue's empathy proliferation to corruptors and masterminds.

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I completely disagree, in most cases Standard is TOO easy.

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Maybe at level 50 Standard minions are okay, but I write primarily low level arcs. I got complaints about how the custom minion allies were doing too much damage thus taking away too much XP from low level soloists. Had to get creative to nerf them -- an Easy setting would be much more appealing.

TL;DR version: Don't forget that not all arcs are run at level 50, and that some custom critters can be overpowered allies.

My gut feeling, based on overall custom critter power levels and the wording of the Customizer badge, is that STANDARD difficulty is what a BOSS is supposed to have. The system feels designed around custom bosses, not custom minions.

I would therefore humbly suggest adding at least one difficulty easier than standard for each and every set, which may be more appropriate for underlings, minions, and LTs.

If it were just about equalization, that could've also been accomplished by raising the merit rewards on all other arcs. So it wasn't just about equalization, it was about reduction as well.

I'm getting sick of people low-starring my arc for dumb reasons: "oh, your arc is a little short," "oh, your critter's AI is strange." Until the devs scrap the UBB rating system in favor of something that isn't utterly retarded -- see Youtube, eBay, or just about any successful site on the Internet for ideas -- I'm going to say swapping 5-stars is fair game.

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I am a casual solo player, have to go afk a lot and don't like to inconvenience other players.

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If you can commit to the keyboard for 5 to 10 minutes at a time, a pick-up radio or newspaper team is OK for frequent afkers. Missions aren't long, and it's acceptable to be afk outside missions for extended periods of time (as long as you're not the team leader.)

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Looking for a an at/set that can solo from 1 to 50. Was wondering which sets work well for solo play. I'm currently looking at plant/storm, any one have experience with that combo as a solo player?

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Storm Summoning in combination with any AT or other powerset is a strong soloer. You get off to a weak start, as Gale is hard to use and provides rather incomplete defense, and Snow Storm depends on enemies being close together and costs a lot of endurance. Freezing Rain is where Storm begins to pick up steam.

(EDIT: Personal Force Field is nice for stealthing through missions, but Storm has Steamy Mist to accomplish the same thing.)

I've gotten the speed of a computational loop from "will be done in half a week" to "will be done in half a minute," but it took about twenty optimization tweaks, and a lot of sticking to it when I thought I couldn't improve any more.

So I'm of the opinion a good code solution will be found. It's just a matter of how bad the programmers want it.

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Tech Telepads are much taller than 22 ft., otherwise they'd fit nicely in the 24 ft. Middle of a room.

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I can confirm this. I intentionally "squeeze" tech telepads between a high floor and a low ceiling. This results in the top of the telepad being cut off, creating a built-in look, physically attached to both floor and ceiling.

Where laws restrict expression you also have to look for chilling effects.

For example, the display of certain areas of skin of certain people in certain contexts on certain media is prohibited in virtually all jurisdictions--some jurisdictions allow more than others!--but you can bet a lot of people cover up more than they specifically need to, just to make sure they don't have to go through the hassle of an arrest and trial. Sure, it's probably legal to sell Gray's Anatomy to med students in Dubai, but do you really want to take the chance?

In other words, if a law doesn't specifically prohibit an expression, it still might be having a chilling effect if it's prohibiting a related type of expression.

I'll admit, since I'm not even 32 yet, I don't know how much I'll be in danger, or (more to the point) how much Audrey will be in danger. If somehow Audrey's getting more aggro than Fort and RA can handle, maybe that regen will save me an Absorb Pain now and then. Though I suspect the Roots spam will be directing most of the aggro my way.

In most solo controller situations? The "gee, this game is kind of easy, I just wish I were doing damage faster" situations? Yes, I'm saying precisely that. If I don't need to give Audrey regeneration, recovery, or movement debuff protection, then ABing her is equivalent to CMing her on a demon farm. Not worth the keystroke.

In team situations, you're absolutely right, I'd be ABing a teammate anyway, but it's the solo situations I'm concerned about.

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Why in the world would you not use Adrenaline Boost on your Fly Trap? It will heal faster, it will recover End faster, and it will be resistant to Slows.

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Because held, confused, knocked enemies won't deal damage or slow my Forted Fly Trap's movement. And Fly Trap won't need protection from recharge debuffs anyway.

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Once again, I'm going to suggest that the most useful possible feedback -- from players' persepective as much as the devs -- would be to hop on the test server and actually test the changes, preferably in a quantitative fashion.

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Testing feedback is useful, sure. But do I really need to log in to test to know that, someday, when my Plant/Emp hits level 38, I'm going to have to constantly remember to not bother AB'ing my Fly Trap (or any other pet for that matter) because of this hack? It's clearly a QoL issue in the making. Buffs should work in an intuitive way, not have intricate partial conditional exceptions carved out all over the place.

Also, there's no way to test whether Bruiser AI would still work if the recharge change were rolled back, unless the recharge change actually were rolled back. Theorycraft and zero-recharge data from live is all we've got on that end. That's unfortunate, since it's a question that's been brought up by multiple posters.

Finally, the vast majority of summoned entities either had no problem in need of fixing, or otherwise weren't improved by this hack. There's no testing that needs to be done on that. The only real discussion there is whether the purpose of this hack is to fix AI, to prohibit recharge enhancements, or (my interpretation) prohibit recharge enhancement in a way that can be passed off superficially as an AI fix. That's just a trip to flamesville that testing can't help -- I probably shouldn't have even brought it up.

Why do I get the feeling we're getting set up for an especially cruel April Fools Day prank?

Yeah, facial is a "profane" word unfortunately. The game CoH borrowed its "bad word" list from apparently had a much larger pottymouth problem than CoH does.

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For example, if Castle says the PvE damage levels on Flares and Blaze are going to be switched because the game bible says Flares is intended to do more damage than Blaze, would you just accept the fact that they're "broken?"

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The argument is illogical. The "Game Bible" as you describe it doesn't exist. If you mean the one I outlined above. Well, that one wouldn't encounter a situation like this. For the most part, the Devs have provided adequate explanation and reasoning behind all of the changes I've questioned. The change you've suggest above doesn't follow any logic.

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Swapping the damage on Flares and Blaze is just as "logical," whatever that means, as making Animate Stone immune to +/- recharge.

Also, the reason I used that as my specific example is because a similar thing was implemented in PvP (Bitter Ice Blast does less damage than Ice Blast, etc.). Not so farfetched after all.

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Again, this wasn't done because they were over preforming. It was done because they were broken.

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Please explain to me how casting Speed Boost on Animate Stone was "broken," and how making Speed Boost do nothing for Animate Stone but raise run speed is "fixed." Because I'm not getting it.

Or, we could agree that this is a sledgehammer "fix" that impacts things far beyond the one or two nails that maybe needed to be hammered.

Also, insert standard rant about using "broken" as a rationale for game changes, since it's purely subjective and unverifiable, logically equivalent to "because the game bible says so." For example, if Castle says the PvE damage levels on Flares and Blaze are going to be switched because the game bible says Flares is intended to do more damage than Blaze, would you just accept the fact that they're "broken?"

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Again: they are not doing this because they think these powers are overpowered. They're doing this because those powers currently are broken. Strength has nothing to do with it.

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I'm not sure "contrary to our vision" is the best definition for "broken."

Shortly after Issue 6, heroes discovered they could add villain costume parts at the tailor, contrary to intended design, by using a certain slashcommand. Had the devs simply treated that as being "broken" and stripped the functionality, the game would undoubtedly be worse off. Instead, the unintended functionality was used as the basis for a new and better design.

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The word "god" is also censored in the editor. So that's why you'll be reading about "göds" instead.

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Any particular reason why you just didn't say 'deities'? I mean, "Gambit" is a cool sounding word, but 'God' is just a boring one-syllable honk. 'Deity' at least sounds cool.

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In-game dialect uses the word "entities" a lot. That's what I plan on using. Unless that word's blocked because there was some one-shot villain of the month from a 1977 issue of Captain America by that name I don't know about, grumble grumble.

P.S. DoctorFear is correct about names being possibly trademarked but not copyrighted.

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Now, you combine the two things...and suddenly, pet powers which were never meant to have recharge be altered (Lightning Storm is a great example here) are firing off much faster than intended.

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What happens when developers let intent dominate design? "Vision."

In City of Heroes, among all MMOs, too much customizability isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the game is working differently than intended (or envisioned), that's worth looking into, but departures from intent can't be safely assumed to be bad. The fact that this change impacts unpopular sets likes Electric Blast while leaving the standard Fire Control/Kinetics farming build nearly untouched might be an indication of something.

Anyway, fewer slotting options, so my pet slotting is probably going to be necessarily identical to everyone else's from now on. As I pride myself on uniqueness, one chunk of this game (pet builds) is going to be less interesting to me -- time I spend playing my stormy might turn into time I spend playing virtual mayor on a certain classic simulation game instead. At least until 14 goes live and I get myself readdicted to the art of interactive storytelling.

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How about just removing all superhero names and rely on players to report actual offenses?

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Because people who think fandom is a crime are dimwits.

I'm 100% with you on taking the trademarked name filter out. I disagree only that there's a need to replace it with something similar. It's simply unnecessary. Just get rid of it.

There were a variety of reasons, sure, but the actual stated reason for dismissing the indirect trademark infringement charges was (citations omitted, emphasis is the court's own):
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Plaintiffs allege that users of Defendants' game create character names that infringe upon Plaintiffs' registered trademarks. However, Plaintiff has not alleged that the game users are using these names in commerce in connection with any sale or advertising of goods or services.... Therefore, Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim for contributory infringement of a registered trademark.

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This isn't a big surprise, because use in commerce in connection with sale or advertising is an absolutely required element of a trademark infringement claim. We as players don't typically use our in-game names to sell or advertise anything. And that'll be true of our Mission Architect content, too.

Exactly. Copyright and trademark rights are often confused in exactly that way. Which is bad, because they're very broad in opposite ways, and very limited in opposite ways.

Copyright: Broad rights to restrict almost any conceivable use of a work, even non-commercial uses. Limitation: Only whole artistic works can be copyrighted.

Trademark: Can claim rights to any piece of information no matter how minute: a word, name, letter, number, shape, design, color, sound, smell, etc. Limitation: Can only restrict use of your mark within the scope of your own business, and cannot restrict non-commercial use of your mark. (See also Marvel vs. NCSoft, in which the charges that CoH players infringed Marvel's trademarks by using Marvel names and/or likenesses were dismissed because Marvel did not -- and likely could not -- plead the players used them commercially.)

Simplification, yes, but good enough for this thread.

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Be thankful this wasn't the PSO system of banning words. XD
Let's ban three words that are used as names of items in the game XD.

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I won't have time today to run the ruins.
Can we try again on Sa****ay?

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Not a whole lot of people name their kid "God". At least I wouldn't think so.

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According to my testing, "God" is blocked due to a flaw in CoH's implementation of Lineage's "profane text" list. "Damn" is unblocked due to the same flaw.