Umbral

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There's a power ingame already called Contaminated Strike, though. (Least I think that's what it's called.) It's one of the attacks the Shivans have, and it most certainly is not a cone

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True. The Contaminated also use the same attack. Maybe call it Contaminated Maul then.



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Contaminated Blows

And another secondary effect to consider that wouldn't completely destroy the base damage the attacks would deal could be -regen. Having the entire set sustain ~100% -regen with an attack string could be a feasible work through. It's probably about as useful to most Scrappers as -def is (except for the ability to slot the Achilles' Heel proc).

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Risk v Reward. This is a common formula in every mmo that a player looks at.

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I'm gonna have to call "citation needed." What makes you think that?

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He misuses the word "formula". It's more akin to a general consideration. The reward should be equivalent of the risk. Less risk, less reward. More risk, more reward.

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Secondly, it could go faster since Teleport is faster than SS is.

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Actually, no. Teleport operates completely differently than SS. SS is actually movement. You traverse the entire distance between 2 points. Teleport is simply changing your location.

The reason that SS is capped at such a speed is because of load time. If you move faster than that, the devs are pretty sure that the server would not be able to feed your computer the relevant information about what is going to be near you as you travel to it. You would start running into areas that you can't register the occupants of.

Teleport gets around this by simply reloading you in the new location. This is also why it's not instantaneous and there is that bit of lag at the end point of the jump that angers many Teleporters. Part of the jump is that it tells the server "give me all of the loading information for this point and then put me there".

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Very good. Carry on.

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Necropost much?

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Radiation is pretty much an "armor peircer" powerset. I think that we might already have a melee that does that (don't quote me on it though)

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Katana and Broadsword already debuff defense. You're right on that account.

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and in any case, resistance ignorance is more a long-range quality.

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The problem with damage that ignores resistance is that it's too strong. When an enemy uses its mega-move that caps its resistance (re: generally 90-100%), any damage that ignored resistance would immediately penetrate. Imagine if this was used on the AVs/Heroes that are supposed to be invulnerable while their mega-move is active (re: Stateman!). It wouldn't work out well.

Honestly, the best idea I can think of for a secondary effect would be for Radiation Melee to be the Sonic Blast of melee (re: -resistance). Radiation Emission already does hefty amounts of -res, so it wouldn't be completely out of the question, and is already precedence for a blast set and a melee set with the same name and damage type to have disparate secondary effects (Energy Melee and Energy Blast). The damage would need to be low, as well as the -res, but it could work out well. Plus, Radiation Melee makes more sense as a -res melee set than Sonic Melee.

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Ok. You would like to see vehicles added to the game, I give you a challenge.

Come up with a VALID reason as to WHY vehicles should be added by following these rules:

(1) Refrain from using OTHER MMOs as a source of reference.

(2) The reason(s) MUST be in paragraph form. None of the following will be allowed:
(a) Because it would be cool.
(b) Because we need it.
(c) Because I'm bored.
(Invalid reasons)

(3)Spell check and sentence structure is important. (Remember you're trying to convince the majority of players WHY this lvl cap is needed. Please, sound out the word(s) before you type them.)

(4) Your statements MUST be based on FACT and NOT the rantings of a 5 year old that just wants and wants and wants.

(5) Your reason(s) must FIX the issues rather than create new ones

So, there you have it. Lets see what you've got.

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you forgot

(6) The implementation should, feasibly, fulfill the quality requirements that the devs insist upon having. No half-[censored] implementations.

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This would be pretty cool! I find myself attached to one powerset for an AT and want to branch into other powers but not abandon my character concept.

The progression aspect may be a little wonky to implement, though. Plus there may be some conflict with the epic sets.. but still variety is a good thing!

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Variety is the reason we've got multiple character slots. There's no reason why you can't roleplay that the new character is simply you main character learning to use the newly acquired powers.

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I had an idea that I think could be pretty cool from a character concept/roleplaying angle. I love the idea of the alternate builds, so I can have ‘solo’ me and ‘team’ me. But it’d be cool to expand on that. Maybe do like the Capes and Auras where when you hit 20,30,40,50 you can unlock further alternate builds, but rather than just re-choosing the powers from the power sets you already have (which is what the current alt build allows) you can pick a DIFFERENT powerset within your same AT.

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At which point, there is no game play reason to have an alt of the same AT. Plus, leveling up one powerset combination has no real similarity to leveling up a different powerset combination.

Most definitely /unsigned.

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If there was a platinum random roll for purples at 9,999 it would make me rich for a short time as I'm sure sooner or later purples value would drop dramatically.

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Considering that gold rolls are only 4k, I doubt that any purple roll would be that cheap, especially considering the exponential growth in cost based upon rarity.

Might work better just to have it check once per day/week/whatever period at a specific time. Anything that meets the requirements is marked as Hall of Fame until the check rolls around again.

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If it really is impossible, they're not going to (hence, impossible), which means they can't inflate their rating.

[/ QUOTE ]Republish story to easy as hell.... let them complete.... put it back to normal. Done and done.

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At which point I ask you, if a single account can only rate an individual arc once, how much work would it be for a player to do this to the degree that you suggest would occur? To get 75 ratings, they would have to, on 75 different occasions, republish easy, wait for friendly raters, and then republish hard, of course assuming that the person in question has 75 people who are willing to help them out with this. And that still wouldn't award the most basic of the account wide ratings badges.

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So how is that any better than a player who has only seen a portion of the arc being able to rate the arc in its entirety?

The other point that I have been consistently making and many people have been ignoring is that there would be a second factor that players would be able to incorporate. The number of attempts would be listed right next to the number of ratings. If the numbers are incredibly disparate, that's a warning right there.

If that's too complicated for you, think of it this way: there would be a second rating that simply records how many people who attempted the arc completed it. Looking at that gives you a pretty good estimate on how hard the arc is supposed to be.

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And thats not griefable at all? Oh wait. You just don't give a [censored] and would rather question my intelligence... which by the way is a great way to go about an argument. Really does wonders for your point.

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If I wanted to question your intelligence, I wouldn't do it in a roundabout way. I would be straightforward about it and simply accuse you of being obtuse and accusatory, though I think that the fact that I'm engaging you in this debate shows that I really do "give a [censored]," as you so eloquently put it. I'm very curious as to where, in any point of this discussion, you've been able to garner the observation that I don't care.

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And for all your talk of missing the point... you missed this.... arcs would STILL be highly rated and get the hall of fame and the goodies... even though they suck! But you just simply don't seem to care as long as your genius is protected....

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Actually, I believe I appropriately addressed that point. Anyone who wants to hyper inflate their rating can do it quite easily just by bringing in people who up rate their arcs. Of course, this is harder to do when you get to the upper echelons of ratings. It's also easier to lower the ranking as it stands now. If completion was forced in order to rank an arc, it would make it so that the ratings themselves are more stable and, therefore, more trustworthy. I never said anything about forced completion completely doing away with exploitation of all kinds. I readily accept that there will be some, but, I heartily believe that there would be significantly less than there is now.

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If its too complicated for you: YES THEY STILL COULD! Your "solution" would only make things worse. If I want to lower your rating... now I just gotta stealth through the arc and zero-star it! Very short stories? zero starred in minutes. Short? A little Longer with everything else taking a bit more time.... but hey!

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Once again, you prove my point. That is still a significantly larger investment of both effort and time than is required to grief or inflate ratings at this time. A vast majority of the time, griefing takes place on a large scale because it is fast, effective and easy. Whenever a player has to navigate and complete the arc in question before rating it, that player is investing significantly more time. That's nowhere near a bad thing whenever a player is playing for the content, because that's already what they're doing. It's a horrible thing for ratings griefers and exploiters because it's no longer a simple issue of join and quit. They have to actually commit some time and effort.

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And would that not be a form of griefing against legit arcs? Oh wait. It isn't. Because you said it wasn't. The way I'm seeing it is that you believe the attempts will stop griefers... but won't infringe on legit arcs..... which is funny because I'm pretty sure thats what the rating system is supposed to do.

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There is a vast difference that needs to be brought up here. I haven't said "will stop the griefers". I have made sure to remain solely on the side of "inhibit the griefers and exploiters". No rating system will ever stop griefers because it is an honor system and, when an honor system is used, all you can do is make it as difficult, uncomfortable, or annoying as possible for people who have ill intentions to act upon them and hope you did enough.

The other issue is that the current system isn't performing this all important function. Uprating and downrating are running rampant. Excellently written, well constructed arcs are being downrated out of spite. Poorly written, imbalanced arcs are being uprated for no good reason. That's a failure of the system which indicates, to me at least, that the system needs to be changed fundamentally to account for certain traits and habits that weren't properly accounted for.

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Pre-selection. Players shouldn't have to suffer through the works of someone who thinks they are awesome soley to protect their ego.

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You and I agree here. It's an issue of how we would see this accomplished.

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I don't need to see more then 10 minutes of an Uwe Boll film to know it is going to suck..... even though Boll feels that he is a genius and no-one "Understands where he is coming from" nor do I feel the need to sit through a whole movie of crap to give my proper opinion.

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So, you're judging the movie based purely off of the director than any of the other variables that affect the movie? That's great whenever you've already watched enough of a director's movies to be able to determine a starting point for that director's movies, but I don't really see how that applies? Are 90% of the arcs done by the same person (or even 1%)?

It also questions as to what you would think of the (hypothetical) 1 good movie that Uwe Boll puts out. You, apparently, would immediately rate it horribly simply because of the director, not bothering that it might be a wonderful flick that breaks his traditional mold.

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And while the whole "walking out" idea may work in real life... I can assure you that it doesn't online.

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What you are suggesting is walking out. You go in, think it's bad, and, by decree of walking out and telling your friends never to watch it, rate it poorly.

But here's a question that I'd like to pose you, what would you consider of a movie critic who only watched the first 10 minutes of a movie and then immediately gave it a thumbs-down? It's the responsibility of the critic to partake entirely in order to give a rating that is as accurately as possible.

(Also, on the topic of modern colloquial use of expletives, especially considering the language of the specific statement and the vagueness of the point you were trying to make, it's quite easy to be confused as to whether the expletive in question is being used in a positive or negative manner, especially when the expletive is censored so it's impossible to know the exact wording used and there are no clarifying adjectives afterward. It's a use of ambiguous language that, even if you think it may have some basic connotation, should still be specified, especially when in a debate such as this one, describing a specific situation.)

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You want to have custom critters able to shoot me at their targets? That's about as crazy as Sword Blast...

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What if it worked like the Redcap power and you got to beat on people's heads?

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Only if people have to ask my permission to use me as munitions first.

You want to have custom critters able to shoot me at their targets? That's about as crazy as Sword Blast...

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Now, you could have the powers (not unlike PB's/WS's) scale/change as your size changes... I don't know what would be so difficult about that. The machanics are already there for it.

... then again, I don't know!

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Actually, all powers already change scale as size changes. That's how they get away with having so many different options for models. The kheldian issue is also a bit less effective than you'd think because it's completely altering the model of the target (re: player) and having it adopt a different, specific skeleton (which changes the size).

The only real "size changing" that I can imagine as being useful/wanted and still be capable of being implemented (though I'm not sure about it, because I'm not sure how they have it coded) is having size be manipulable when changing your costume at Icon. If a player wants to change size, they can simply have costumes at different sizes and change the costume (outside of the 30 sec lockout) when it would be appropriate. We can already change all of the other sliders, so I'm not sure how hard it would be to simply relocate the height slider.

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Asking, because one of mine at 85 ratings and a 4* average should have netted ~340 stars, but I haven't had the 250* badge, so there's obviously something odd going on.

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Maybe that's because those badges aren't awarding properly right now.

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I wonder how Talsorian wings are supposed to generate lift. They're monomolecular, nearly weightless and can't form enclosed spaces. That's not good wing material. It's happily use them if they were added, though. Glowing energy wings are cool!

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I figured that the explanation would be something like this, though, the similar explanation used for the Talsorian shield could be used (re: 2 or more Talsorian fields woven together to create a mesh that can withstand concentrated force by having the individual fields break and reconstitute while the other is active). Depending on the specific construction of the wings and whether they are mobile, the Talsorian fields could quite easily be a very good wing material. If the wings were based on insect wing patterns, the Talsorian fields would work quite well...

Actually, that would look pretty kewl... Have a pair of sockets in the back that the Talsorian wing generators are connected to and have them move in a semi ovoid pattern...

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Yes to the idea... but It's doubtful that they would be "flowing" in any way. The (Admittedly comic book) science behind Talsorian items wouldn't support that.

I would expect something much closer to the projection mechanism of the Talsorian Shield, likely just a small tech styled backpack while not flying, the using a telescoping cross bar to support a fixed wing more like that of an Aircraft.

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I really want Babs to post on the "scientific" explanation of this. It would be epic and entertaining.

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There was one a while back explaining in all it's geeky glory why a Talsorian Mace wouldn't work...

Alas I can't find it now, so I can only assume it's met with a forum purge.

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I remember that one. It was great. I'd love to see what he'd say to explain why or why not Talsorian wings are possible. I can imagine a few reasons, but it's just not the same as hearing a dev go about it in such a comically serious manner.

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Yes to the idea... but It's doubtful that they would be "flowing" in any way. The (Admittedly comic book) science behind Talsorian items wouldn't support that.

I would expect something much closer to the projection mechanism of the Talsorian Shield, likely just a small tech styled backpack while not flying, the using a telescoping cross bar to support a fixed wing more like that of an Aircraft.

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I really want Babs to post on the "scientific" explanation of this. It would be epic and entertaining.

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...the reward for doing a mission was the fun of having experienced the story? Completion bonuses were on the order of 20xp/inf, and the devs were afraid even that might somehow be too much. Missions also gave full debt. Despite the innovations that CoH introduced, at launch the devs were still very much convinced that the Everquest "lots of mobs standing around waiting to be killed" model was what players really wanted, and that rewarding missions would somehow be encouraging a kind of exploit. Somewhere along the way they realized that they had written all of these cool stories and nobody was playing them because the game essentially penalized you for doing so.

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This was me. I still treasure all of my old school souvenirs.

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...The Hamidon went down for the first time and the devs said "Huh, that wasn't how we expected it to happen..."?

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Were you/did you ever hear of the 30 sec Hami kill? We've still got no idea how it happened but, somehow, as soon as we dropped all of the mitos, Hamidon dropped from full health to nothing in 30 seconds. At least half of the raid missed out on their HO because they never got their attack in. It was epic.

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...Sister Psyche was wearing Aurora Borealis' body and Calvin Scott was standing nearby plotting to evict her?

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I still can't wait for Posi to bring that TF back (and to figure out if Malaise is a hero or villain atm... the arc says that he's back to being a villain; villainside content says he's a good guy...)

... */regen scrappers could go afk in full 8 man spawns with an AV and come back 10 minutes later still at full health.

... I thought Jack Emmert wasn't the anti-christ?

... it was actually possible to form up a Hamidon raid at midnight on a Tuesday on Freedom

... the devs stole my name and gave it to the HEAT's powersets

... once you reached level 30, influence had no meaning because the only thing to spend it on was SOs and you already earned more than enough money just from leveling to buy them again.

... FBZ actually got attention from the player base because it was new and visually stunning

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Now lets look at the flip side of you guys griefing sg argument. Lets say that someone's sg gives their arc 5 stars each when it is at said levels of impossibility (extreme av's, extreme ambushes, etc.) with a [censored] story to boot....

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First off, I'm not sure if whatever term you're using that is censored is supposed to mean that it has a good or a bad story. I'm going to assume now that you mean it's got a bad story, because that assumes the absolute worst case. What that situation requires is for said SG to actually finish the arc on multiple occasions. If it really is impossible, they're not going to (hence, impossible), which means they can't inflate their rating.

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Unless the player finishes it by your idea there would be no way to lower the rating to what it rightly deserves. So the flip side of your argument is that it would still have high ratings.... but it would suck and people would think it would be good.

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So how is that any better than a player who has only seen a portion of the arc being able to rate the arc in its entirety?

The other point that I have been consistently making and many people have been ignoring is that there would be a second factor that players would be able to incorporate. The number of attempts would be listed right next to the number of ratings. If the numbers are incredibly disparate, that's a warning right there.

If that's too complicated for you, think of it this way: there would be a second rating that simply records how many people who attempted the arc completed it. Looking at that gives you a pretty good estimate on how hard the arc is supposed to be.

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Except that now they could lower the rating justly while you seem to be against that.

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And just like I said, I realize that it's going to impede people down rating because of difficulty. I readily admit that. Which is why the attempts number is there. You're already voting that this one is too hard and I don't want to complete it by leaving.

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The suggestion also allows me to essentially reedit my idea to w/e I want without literally any repercussions whatsoever short of people actually finishing it (and I'm sure I can make it pretty damn impossible) and rating it lowly or it getting taken down by the mods. But again you seem to be allright with that.

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Once again, how is that any different than how it is now, aside from the fact that you can't uprate and then make it more difficult or downrate and then make it easier? If someone sees that their arc isn't getting any ratings, they're going to change it so they can. You're acting as if the system I'm suggesting would create these new situations.

They won't because the problems you mention already exist.

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And no I don't want to protect the exploiters (what interpreted you of suggesting) rather I think that for the sake of most (ie: the non-griefers and the people playing the arcs) should have precedence over the few (the people who create the arcs).

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That's my entire point. By making it so that ratings are exclusive to those who have completed the arc, people who artificially manipulate the ratings can't do so, which is good for the players. It's also good for the player because there is, functionally, a difficulty voting system (albeit binary). If you finish it, you're voting "can be finished, difficulty bearable". If you don't, you're voting "can't be finished, difficulty unbearable".

How is that not universally good for players? It's preventing bad arcs from getting wrongly uprated. That's great for players. It more properly ensures that only the arcs that actually deserve 5 stars get them. It's also great for players because now there is an obvious marker that gives them a general notion of how hard the rest of the player base believes the arc is, which is infinitely better than any arbitrary difficulty assignment that the creator might give it.

What you seem to be arguing for is post-selection rights. The person who selects the arc should have the unobstructed right to rate that arc however they feel no matter how much they have actually done with said arc.

I take the opposite view. I believe in pre-selection rights. The player who is currently looking for an arc to play should have the right to know that the rating is as trustworthy as can be. By making it harder to give the quality rating (0-5 stars), it ensures that the player can expect the rating to be more worthwhile. By allowing the player to see how many players have failed to complete the arc, it ensures that the player has a general knowledge of the overall success rate of the arc.

So, here I pose a question to you:

Is it more important to protect the rights of the player pre-selection or post-selection? Answer that definitively.

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And if the arc proves to be impossible for me?

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Which is why they would add a separate enumerator for "attempts". If, when selecting the arc, you see a very bad ratio of attempts to ratings (~1:10), you'd be able to figure that, hey, this is a really hard arc. It also forces/encourages designers to make sure that the challenges are appropriate. If the arc is too hard, they won't get ratings. If it's bad, they won't get good ratings. That means that, in order to get a large number of good ratings (which is currently really easy), you've got to write a good arc that strike an appropriate balance of difficulty (which is part of what I consider when rating anyways).

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WAAAh! BUT THEN PEOPLE CAN JUST CLICK MY ARC AND QUIT AND THEY WOULD GRIEF ME THAT WAY!!!!!1111!!!! NOBODY WOULD PLAY AN ARC WITH 20000 ATTEMPTS AND 20 SUCESSES!

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Unless it's got a high rating. If you saw 20000 attempts and 20 ratings, but it's still got a 5. That's a pretty good earmark that, hey, it might be a tough arc, but it's obviously a good one. It's still significantly better than the current system because now it's possible just to join and rate, which skews the system pretty heavily. There is no system involving ratings that is completely immune to griefing or exploitation.

Personally, I'm significantly more in favor of mitigating the exploitation than I am the griefing. Exploitation creates a glut of incredibly low quality but highly rated arcs. Griefing creates a glut of quality arcs that are lower than they should be. Really, the entire debate focuses on who you would rather protect. Players are negatively affected by exploitation because it makes it nearly impossible to find good arcs except by word of mouth. Creators are negatively affected by griefing because it prevents their work from being seen by a larger populous (not that it's going to be visible thanks to all of the exploitation).

Making it harder to rate at all makes the ratings matter all that much more. Yes, it's going to make it harder for you to hire someone/beg a friend to get your 5 star train going, but it's also going to make it one hell of a lot harder for griefers to go on 1 starring sprees. At least with a complete-before-rating system, you get the chance to address any immediate concerns that the player might have before they metaphorically castrate your work.

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the other one featured all enemies including minions with Tactics running

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Last I checked, the custom critters couldn't get access to pool powers or the VEAT powers. It was probably a different +tohit buff, so I'm not doubting that it was pretty much impossible to dodge anything.

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And if the arc proves to be impossible for me?

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Which is why they would add a separate enumerator for "attempts". If, when selecting the arc, you see a very bad ratio of attempts to ratings (~1:10), you'd be able to figure that, hey, this is a really hard arc. It also forces/encourages designers to make sure that the challenges are appropriate. If the arc is too hard, they won't get ratings. If it's bad, they won't get good ratings. That means that, in order to get a large number of good ratings (which is currently really easy), you've got to write a good arc that strike an appropriate balance of difficulty (which is part of what I consider when rating anyways).

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How about not letting people submit ratings 'til the arc is done?

They could leave, submit comments, or report the arc to Devs. But you can't Rate it 'til you beat it.

-Rachel-

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If they did this, they would probably also need to put in an "attempts" tally alongside the "ratings" tally". That way, if you see 1 rating and 108 attempts, you know it's obviously doing something to turn people away (be it difficulty or something else).