Smurch

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I think if we can horrifically mangle someone's mind, body or soul, we're allowed to resurrect their corpse and send it against more minions of evil >.>

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John Constantine (Hellblazer) once raised a group of murder victims as zombies to attack their murderer.

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A Necro Mastermind turned hero could excuse himself by saying that he is raising people who have done wrong and are bound to servitude for their atrocities.

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This is exactly my character's case. He has bound some of the souls of the damned and uses them to do his bidding. He feels no one should mourn for them since they damned themselves through their own actions and therefore anything he does with them is not half as bad as whatever punishments await them in the netherworld. They may, in fact, actually do some good.

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If the public doesn't like Zombies (And I think it's clear they're not a HUGE fan of mindless undead running around) then having mindless undead puppets puts you in the same boat as Vahzilok and other villains in the minds and hearts of the people.

You can throw a thousand and one examples of 'it could be considered good if' and it would still have to be almost universally -accepted- as good before it would make sense from an in-character standpoint.

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There is no genre basis for "public opinion dictates hero status". As mentioned, Spawn, Ghost Rider, Damian Hellstrom all get their powers from evil sources. Spider-Man was considered a villain by the public more than once thanks to the machinations of Jonah Jameson and a few unfortunate wrong-place wrong-time situations. Comic books are RIFE with heroes who are considered villains by the public but are STILL heroes. In some of the extreme cases, they're anti-heroes, but they're still the good guy of their book.

There is a strong genre precedent for the anti-hero, whether he has public opinion behind him or not.

And this whole idea that legality should be governed by the whims of the masses is a rather scary one. I would hate to live in a world where the public's ever whim could dictate who can walk the streets and who gets locked up in jail. Such a system would be pure anarchy.

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Realize that in the expansion it's not under normal situations. If someone is using something that's morally questionable for good then he's still using it for good. The other side has a super powered army ready to march down into our world.

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And the precedent (or slippery slope that Longbow feared all along) has been set through Vanguard accepting heroes and villains both to fight the Rikti. Now with a greater foe to face, expanding their role into Paragon City itself is the next logical step (and indeed another slide down the slippery slope)

Once "normal" circumstances are back, will they then be able to tell those former villains to go home and criminalize them? Or will that genie have been let out of the bottle already?

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Dead people aren't decaying meat if you prep them for BBQ.

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This is inappropriate.
This isn't the cooking forum.

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I don't understand why some people claim that certain things can't ever be seen as good. A common complaint I see is the concept of a Necromancer mastermind doing good deeds but who is to say that all necromancers are evil or cannot be redeemed? What if the person is a scientist who has managed to learn the secret of bringing the dead back to life? This same scientist has decided to dedicate his research to reviving the dead in order to combat crime.

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Typically the -act- of raising the dead is considered evil. And if he's bringing people back to life: Why is he forcing them to help him, rather than letting them return to their grieving families? If he's -NOT- bringing them back to life and is in fact using zombies: He shows no respect for the dead, or their families. Again, generally considered an evil or at least extremely RUDE Act.

Like reaching into Grandma's casket at a funerl, stuffing your hand in a hole you cut into her back, and using her as a ventriloquist's puppet.

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Showing a lack of respect for the dead isn't inherently evil. It's perhaps a violation of some of our social mores, but dead people are just sacks of decaying meat. Someone with a certain moral flexibility might well see them as a resource that can be used for a greater good.

While his radical ethical ideas might well make him an outcast, there is no reason such a person could not be an anti-hero, and it's the anti-hero that Going Rogue seems perfect for capturing the spirit of.

My own necro/storm isn't a bad guy. He's actually very much a gentleman and quite charming. He's even compassionate and cares deeply about the plight of the ordinary people with more than a little sense of Noblesse Oblige. He is, however, largely amoral (which is not the same as immoral, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorality) and therefore does not feel constrained by normative ethics.

When Going Rogue comes out, he may well be a candidate for changing sides (quite possibly more than once).

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The OP is a genius. The only thing I could suggest that would improve his "one character per side" suggestion would be perma-death--eliminate all hospitals, awaken inspirations and rez powers. That would really get players fully engaged in the health of their characters.

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Even better... if you die in the game, you DIE IN REAL LIFE!

Talk about an intense gaming experience!

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I think this is a facinating idea, and I am behind it 100%!

I'd like to reserve "e" as my character.

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I call "?".

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The smart choice is ©

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Geocities is closing

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Wait, Geocities is still around?

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That was my reaction too.

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That's not true. If your team is inexperienced then it'll suck, but folks who know what they're doing are able to farm at very nice speeds. You won't hit 50 in a day, but you'll earn more than two levels a day.

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I got 5 levels in yesterday without farming at all, just running regular contacts. And I wasn't powering through either, just running them off and on casually, with frequent breaks.

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I vote for that kin power that flings dumpsters at enemies, thereby altering line of sight and blocking smaller hallways occasionally.

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Neither of these things actually happens. Physics objects have no effect on line of sight and can't block anything.

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i hate to argue, but it does happen. maybe the line of site thing doesn't, but you definitely have to push those large objects, and they can and do get wedged sometimes in the hallways.

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They don't block movement.

Me, I'd go with:

1 healing set Corruptor (*/pain dom would be my first choice)
1 */kinetics corruptor
1 debuffing MM (I'd go with */storm, personally)
1 dominator (any flavor, but I really like Mind/* for teaming. Lots of good group controls. Plant/* is really good too, and Fire/* has some great AoE soft controls)

For the * powers, pick ones that compliment each other so that your groups can do a mix of damage types. Beyond that it doesn't matter much.

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LOL not if you don't have a decent build. Farming is just one part of an overall strategy to get that build.

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You can get a good build without farming. I have never farmed and I've done most of what you've stated as being "extreme content". I always run on challenge level 4/5 with all my characters (and I have alot). I solo AVs on my 50s all the time.

Farming is an UNNECESSARY part of an overall strategy to get a decent build. You can get a decent build WITHOUT farming quite easily.

The statement that nothing in this game requires farming to accomplish is still absolutely true.

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I can't disagree with anything you said other than your definition of farming, but people will continue to farm the way that yields the most output. I do farm, but the way I farm has changed since AE came out, and I really don't consider what I've been doing farming since the change to Comm Officers. Now it's possible to make a mission where people have to fight 6 groups at once which makes the mission insanly hard and incredible fun for me. I guess it explains why I enjoy the ITF so much. The rewards are still there, but it's fun as well.

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Farming is by definition repetitive activity. It's called "farming" because of it's similarity to the seed/harvest cycle of a farm: you set a mission, harvest the minions, then leave the mission to reset/reseed it and start again. You are killing the same things over and over again to increase your rewards/hour. The MA made this insanely easy to do by allowing people to create custom groups of weak minions who are easily "harvested" for their rewards.

Just simply running the ITF for the fun of the big battles (a big draw for that taskforce for me) is not farming by itself. Going into an AE mission that's designed to spawn six challenging groups at once is not really farming by itself. Those things CAN be farmed but are not, themselves, farms.

The rikti comm officer maps WERE, however, both farms and, (at least before the patch), exploits.

Not all big spawns are farms, not all farms are exploits, and not all exploits are farms.

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I have often seen this said. But I have never seen anything to prove that it is so. It most often seems to be an article of faith "That there is nothing in the game that requires planning/optimization/special build to achieve"

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They didn't say that there is nothing in the game that requires planning. They said there is nothing in the game that requires FARMING to achieve. This statement still holds up to your objections.

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1. To be good at PVP requires a build and powerset choices made especially for it.

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But does not require farming to achieve.

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2. Speed TFs in general require a measure planning and team construction.

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But do not require farming to achieve.

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3. The Masters of (States, Recluce) not only require good team planning, they also require good builds in key positions or they don't happen.

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But do not require farming to achieve.

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4. The player challenges, soloing gms, soloing tfs, soloing pylons, soloing the mothership, soloing avs with nothing but small inspirations require good builds and usually accolade powers.

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Which do not require farming to achieve.

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So no if you want to run on heroic and avoid the extreme content the game has to offer you don't need X. In my case that would likely burn me out due to extreme boredom.

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You can run on challenge level 4/5 and enjoy the "extreme content" without farming.

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Yeah, I think the fact that shorter arcs get more plays is primarily due to time constraints

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This seems likely.

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I would say its the ticket nerf more than anything else. Why do a longer arc if you are going to max out on tickets? The benefit we had before with the extra ticket bonus that increased as the arc went on is basically worthless now.

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This is wrong. The ticket cap is per MISSION not per ARC. A longer arc will, by definition, net you more tickets on average than a shorter one.

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It's not always beneficial to us in the real world either unfortunately. It is inherent to nature, human or otherwise. That does not mean that it is always a good thing. Too rich of a reward for too little effort leads to corruption and corrosion.

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what do you mean by "corrosion?"

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I think he is referring to the effect where a reward loses it's value over time if it's received too freely. This causes what psychologists called "extinction" of a conditioned behavior because the reward no longer incentivises the behavior.

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in any case, it seems to me that the times where it's a bad thing are the rare exception rather than the rule. I don't have any data on that - it just seems logical, but correct me if I'm wrong.

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Any time rewards come too easily they lose their value as incentives. This can cause important conditioned behaviors to cease entirely (become "extinct") when the incentive vanishes.

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I could certainly do custom critters for the third mission. I've used them sparingly in the first two (only one per mission) so hopefully I'll have room for several of them in the third mission.

There's no way to use standard critter sins (i.e. Clockwork or Mechmen) on custom critters is there?


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What you can do is add standard critters to a custom group. So you could get regular mech men from the council, for example, and put them in your own "robots" custom group. This might allow you to narrow your level ranges considerably.

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and it has been shown that rewarding behavior can actually cause people to do less of it - because they stop doing it unless they are rewarded.

Once some behavior gets xp and others do not - players usually do the behavior that is rewarded. It may be less fun - but they automatically equate a reward with being valuable.

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For a time. However, if that reward is given too frequently it stops being seen as a reward and then LOSES all it's value. If you hand out millions of infamy or allow for ultra-fast leveling or whathave you, then those things being too easy to come by cease to have value as a reward and no longer reinforce behavior. Being too easy to get devalues them, the devaluing means that the behavior is no longer reinforced, and thus the person stops engaging in the behavior (in this case, stops paying for a subscription).

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Not to derail the topic, but it occurred to me reading that article that the drive that tends to improve quality of real life is the same drive that causes this to happen. We seek the most rewards for the least effort seemingly by instinct. That's beneficial to us in the real world, but makes for a poor game.

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It's not always beneficial to us in the real world either unfortunately. It is inherent to nature, human or otherwise. That does not mean that it is always a good thing. Too rich of a reward for too little effort leads to corruption and corrosion.

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Actually, it's worse than that. Too much reward given too frequently without effort ceases to be viewed as a reward. It actually creates a sense of entitlement as the person starts seeing the "reward" as something to be taken for granted and it then loses all value as a reward.

There is a reason why in games like this, rewards come quickly in the beginning (you can level from 1-5 doing normal game content in under an hour) but then come less frequent the longer you play. Psychological studies have shown that this kind of structure, frequent rewards at first that become increasingly less frequent, reinforce the reward generating behavior, where receiving rewards consistently fast has the opposite effect.

This is why having a leveling curve is vital to the survival of a game like this. If rewards come too quickly, they stop being rewards (in the psychological sense of the word), and thus cease reinforcing the game-playing behavior that encourages continued subscriptions.

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Yes but my perspective has a 1000 years of jurisprudence and cultural norms behind it.

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You really don't. This isn't a court of law or anything like it. This is you paying to "go over to someone else's house" to play with their toys. Their rules, whether you agree with them or not. Specifics are not given to avoid exactly the kind of "rules lawyering" you're thriving on.

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and you would be wrong. Just like letting some one spend the night at your house. Once money is exchanged, different rules apply. You must go through eviction proceedings before you can remove them, if you have accepted their money.

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I work in a hotel. You couldn't be more wrong.

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I worked for several ISPs. Users who abused our Terms of Service had their internet access shut off. No eviction proceedings, no nothing.

its just that people who make this arguement commit the logical fallacy of thinking "I pay my rent monthy. I pay CoH monthly. Therefore CoH is the same as paying Rent and the same rules apply". Seeing as they've already exhibited a lack of reading comprehension skills, critical thinking skills, common sense, and basic literacy, is it so surprising that they'd draw illogical conclusions as well?

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QFT You said it, and I hope more people see it. The funny thing about this RPer vs Farmer argument is that anyone playing the game, for any reason, agenda, or goal, is a "farmer". Rp'er's are just farming missions for a good story, how is that really any different than those farming it for something else?

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It's easy to be right if you can always redefine words to mean only what you want them to.

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Yes but my perspective has a 1000 years of jurisprudence and cultural norms behind it.

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You really don't. This isn't a court of law or anything like it. This is you paying to "go over to someone else's house" to play with their toys. Their rules, whether you agree with them or not. Specifics are not given to avoid exactly the kind of "rules lawyering" you're thriving on.

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and you would be wrong. Just like letting some one spend the night at your house. Once money is exchanged, different rules apply. You must go through eviction proceedings before you can remove them, if you have accepted their money.

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Unless of course you agreed to a legal contract before any money changes hands that say they can boost you for pretty much any reason they see fit if they feel you are violating their rules. Which you did.

Sorry we've been down this road before. Subscribing to a video game is NOT the same, in ANY legal sense, as renting a home. You do not have the same rights as a renter as a video game subscriber. They are entirely different branches of law that are so different that they don't even apply as an analogy.

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Nobody has offered any insight as to why farming should be done through PI portal missions or the Television, but not through AE. And, just to shore up a possible dead-end discussion, "because the Devs said so," isn't an explanation why one is ok, but not the other. It's just an observation that the Devs have targeted only the AE farms, and not PI/TV farms.

Is it because of exploits like Comm Officers and mobs with no ranged attacks?

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It's because the MA puts unprecedented power in the hands of the players to create content. The intent is for players to create story based content and not farms (source: Original Post, Original Post.)

Now because players have a great deal of power in creating missions, some feel the need to abuse that power to find ways to exploit it for powerleveling purposes. ( I do not say farming because powerleveling can be done through a number of different methods, farming being one),

Now the reality is if people farm the rest of the game, they are limited to the missions designed by the devs, so they presumably have the proper degree of risk/reward. But the problem with the MA isn't the Rikti Comm Officers, it's the ability to make missions LIKE the rikti comm officers... and the rikti dolls, and the melee boss farms... and whatever is the new trend. Because each time something like that happens, the devs have to try and play keep up with the MA and that leaves the rest of us in fear of what will happen to the MA if people continue to abuse it.

Case in point, several villain goups have been removed from the MA entirely because of exploiters (i.e Zig Prisoners). Those of us with arcs that used that group now have our missions invalidated by those changes.

In short, exploiters in the MA hurt EVERY user of the MA. We all get options removed, groups removed, maps removed, because of those exploiters. Farming in the rest of the game doesn't really impact us in nearly as a direct way as it does in the MA. If people abuse it enough, they may remove all rewards from the MA or remove the MA entirely and NONE of us want to see that.

So thats why we're much touchier about abuses in the MA as opposed to farming in the rest of the game. We don't want to see a great aspect of the game limited or removed because of some [censored] infantile jerkwads who can't play nice in the sandbox with the other kids.