Missing Hair (No, not baldness)

I just noticed. In costume creation, there's no hair option for something like a buzz cut. You can either be bald or have the hair combed back. Correct oversight please? Thanks.

Lamest. Mission. Evar.

"The Clockworks have been getting tougher recently. We think it might be the springs they're using. Can you get us a sample of the Clockworks' springs?"

Wow. I'm overwhelmed with excitement and intrigue.

Really.

"I'm Feeling MUCH Better Now!"

Since all of my slots on Protector are full, I hopped onto the Champion server last night to play around with character building, which I enjoy. I had a few realizations.

1. You can't use the word "god" in your character name. Understandable, I suppose, given the mentality of many players ...on either end of the poking stick. In my case, however, I wanted to make a fire tanker named "Kiln God." It's an actual expression in ceramics, and I was disappointed to have to settle for "Kiln Lord" ...which to me deviates too much from the original intent to remain effective. I wish I'd had presence of mind to try "Ghod" or "Gohd" or somesuch before settling. Oh well.

2. In costume designing, the "blend" option really doesn't capture the look of glowing hot metal. Pity. May I suggest a variation on the blend option be created called "glowing edges" which provides a short blend from a costume segment's seams.

3. A power came to mind which doesn't currently exist in CoH but I think could be built fairly easily. Absorption. I see it working like this.
-Tanker: Fire, Ice, and Energy power sets; power available around level 8. Whenever the hero is hit by an attack from the same source as his own particular "element" (fire, ice, or energy), he gains Health instead of losing it. The amount would be roughly the same as if being healed by a Defender of the same level as his attacker.
-Blaster: Electrical, Energy, Fire, Ice, and Sonic power sets; power available around level 8. Whenever the hero is hit by an attack from the same source as his own particular "element" (electricity, energy, fire, ice, or sonics), he gains Endurance. The amount would be roughly the same as if it were Health being healed by a Defender of the same level as his attacker.

I realize just dropping these into the current power sets is unbalancing, numbers-wise. I'm not trying to balance things at this stage, just get the idea out there. I think the in-game implications sound fun.

The Psychic Friends Network

You know what might be interesting? Psychic contacts. Instead of having a fairly clear idea of what the hero is getting into, the psychic contact will give a series of vague, mysterious "impressions." Things like: "Someone is being held against their will!" or "Machines are being used to threaten the city!" or "A terrible, evil presence is amassing an army!" The vagueries would, of course, lead to a mission with a twist on the obvious interpretation of the clues. The mission status window would show nothing more than "investigate psychic's visions." Once at whatever location the mission is in, the heroes would have to find clues to discover what the nature of the mission is. The psychic contact should not be "specialized" with any particular villian group, and their missions should be more or less random. ...Let the min/max'ers just deal with not knowing what Enhancements will likely be dropped by villains when they select the psychic as a contact.

A little mystery could help break the routine.

What the....?!?!

"Ho-hum... Another mission... sneaking through the abandoned mines... beating up Circle of Thorn thugs. I wonder what..... . . . . Holy crap! What's that?? A monster?? ...down here???"

Suddenly sounds more interesting, doesn't it? I'd really like to see a few random surprises during missions. Even roaming Madness Mages don't quite fit the bill. Sure, they're annoying, but they're really not a surprise... not during a CoT mission. I'm talking about giant insects! Huge moles!! Mind flayers!!! Even an unexpected cave-in on top of a character would be interesting. (It would do AoE damage, push everyone away from the space it lands in, and block the passage until enough damage was done to clear it.) Seriously.... Surprises = excitement. Give it some thought.

Card Coolness

AEG, makers of the (honestly, quite forgettable) CoH collectable card game, has a fun little support web site. Upload a pic of your CoH character, input a few stats, click a button, and ...voila!... You've got a card of your character! Being obcessive ...and a Photoshop user... I, of course, had to do all my characters. Click the lil'ens to see the big'ens.

Perez Pain

Jeezus H. Tapdancing Christ, Perez Park is a pain in the ass to work in! ...especially at lower levels, when you not only have to find your way among the forest maze, but you also have to stay alive while doing it. I spent an entire hour last night just trying to get a level 10 character in to the his mission door and finally gave up in frustration and logged off. It seems to me that this isn't exactly productive (from a commercial game production standpoint) nor precisely what the designers intended. And I believe I have a feel for what they intended with Perez Park ...I really do. After carefully considering what was going on while I raced in panicked flight through the winding paths, I think I've realized what it is that makes it so intolerable to try to navigate. The problem is the proximity of the villain mobs to each other. Obviously you have to pass by a number of mobs to get where you're going in PP. However, you don't have a chance to outrun one pursuing mob before you find yourself in the middle of another one. And with no precise knowledge of the paths nor maps to guide you through them [grumble], you end up fleeing the woods entirely to escape the dozens of villains you've picked up along the way who would surely kick your ass if you stopped. If you had the necessary space between mobs to get each one to give up their pursuit before hitting the next, groping your way through the maze would be managable.

Cleaning Up the Streets

Let's all admit it... Once we've attained those first few levels, we tend to ignore the rampant crime taking place on the streets of Paragon City. Come on, fess up... You know you do it too. After all, there's no "mission bonus" for tackling street thugs. Maybe it's superfluous, maybe not, but it occurred to me last night that heroes might be more encouraged to not just bypass all the innocent citizens being robbed if there was a badge for it. To this end, I'd like to propose the Garbage Collector badge.


The Garbage Collector badge is given to a hero who defeats 300 "robberies in progress" on the streets of Paragon City. ("Robberies in progress" is defined as those stationary spawned street crimes where the victim runs up to you and thanks you after you've defeated their assailant.)

-As a side note, while searching for graphics to use in the above image, I realized that someone has stolen all the trash can lids in the entire city! I think it would be appropriate if Prankenstein dedicated himself to tracking down the nefarious (and highly unsanitary) fiend who's been perloining these quiet defenders of Paragon's cleanliness and bring them to justice!

Maybe I have ADD

"Hi. I'm Doug, and I'm a toonoholic."

I hate to say this because I feel like it shows a certain lack of commitment on my part.... But I want more character slots per server. I've filled up all my available slots on my server of choice (Protector). Now if I want to experiment with a new concept or make a character just to take some picks of for this blog, I have to do it on another server. Heaven forbid I make something that I want to continue playing, as I have to delete an existing character to do it. Sadly, that's just happened. The Atomic Kennedy was laid to rest this week in favor of a new character which I tried out on another server and liked well enough to move to Protector. C'mon guys, I need more.

It's Dallas all over again.

Sport Some Ink

Short and sweet, because I'm tired tonight...

How about some tattoos for characters? I'm not talking about the assortment of spots, lines, and symbols already available that many people use as tattoos. I'm talking about more traditional tattoos, like flowers and dragons and anchors and such. A wide variety could be available in the costume creation area, applicable to different locations... arms, legs, back, etc.

OK, Everybody out of the Pools!

OK, here's my biggie for the day, brace yourselves.

I think it would be a very good idea to do away with Pool Power sets. I've got several reasons for thinking this would be a good thing, and can't think of a one to support keeping the current PP structure. (First, let me clarify, I'm talking about the "Pool Power" sets, not the basic archetype power sets.)

My first and best reason for doing this is an infinate increase in character flexibility. (More on this in a minute.) But the strongest support for "why not!" is that the game already has controls in place to handle it. Yep. All pool powers beyond the first already require prerequisit powers or a minimum level. That already is all you need to dictate buying PP powers.

How many of you wanted to take Flight but not Hover or Air Superiority? Or Super Jump but not Combat Jumping or Jump Kick? Or Stamina but not Swift or Hurdle? How often do you really use the "lesser" pool powers once you've got the one you wanted in the first place? What would be so wrong with just being able to take Flight at level 14 or Stamina at level 20? I say nothing. You don't get it any sooner than you would have before, which keeps it at exactly the same game-balance level it already has. And you can still buy the lesser powers at earlier levels if they're ones you want.

Now for the "flexibility" portion of our show. I ask you this: WHERE THE HELL IS MY GIANT GROWTH? ....MY CLINGING? ....MY SHAPE CHANGE? While I haven't heard anything from Cryptic, and I'm sure each provides programming hurdles of their own, I suspect the first and most progress-ending reason is because they don't fit neatly into the current power/archetype structure. Things like this really aren't archetype-specific nor do they build easily into a cohesive Pool Power grouping.

Therefore, I propose we throw off the shackles of our tightly pre-pooled powers and let the powers roam freely where they will! Continue setting each Pool power a minimum level requirement and let 'em go. Now power creation becomes much less restrained.

Clinging: Available at level 6. Toggle power. Gives the character the ability to stand on vertical and inverted surfaces and to move on those surfaces at his normal movement rate.

Tadaa. Wasn't that easy? Don't have to be worried about it being tied to anything else.... no "designer's guilt" about creating the power. It's just there for those who want it. I've had a lot of powers pop into my head, but I've always gotten tangled up in the "how"s and "why"s and "with what"s of utilizing them as part of a larger pool or set. Now I don't have to. Having taken this hypothetical step in altering the game, I'm probably going to be writing up and posting a lot of potential powers here now that would be great in the larger, free-range Power Pool.

Power Specializing Revisited

Rob replied to a post I made a couple months back basically asking, "what's wrong with taking the same power multiple times?" and I think it's worth reposting. My rationale was why not let a character take a power again upon the opening of the next power in that set. He's essentially taking a "lesser" power than the one that just opened up, so game balance -theoretically- wouldn't be compromised. Rob answered with this:

"Actually I think I know this one. Sol has his AOE blast that does about 45 [damage] on average to a large number of villians, [with a] recharge time of 5 sec. If I took it 3 times i could just cycle through it doing huge damage al the time to a giant area, needless to say i have crocked my end recovery to the point that I never lose end anymore. But hey if they let me take it 3 times then let me respec."

But I think my logic still holds. I'll assume he's talking about the "Rain of Fire" blaster power. You can't take this power initially until level 6. You would have had to buy powers normally up to that point, not just start out with RoF and begin taking multiples after that. Theoretically, you wouldn't be able to take it a 2nd time until level 8, a 3rd time until level 12, or a 4th time until level 18. In the meantime, you're chosing to pass up supposedly more powerful powers to take RoF again, and the things still have to be slotted to be particularly useful vs equivelant level villains. Personally, I think efficient slotting would be rough, and specializing in anything, while it makes you superior in some aspects, makes you weaker and/or more vulnerable in others. It should be a significant trade-off. Maybe it would have to work so that you can only take a power a 2nd time that is 2 steps "weaker" ... or 3. My initial thought, too, was "that's unbalancing," but thinking beyond the first kneejerk reaction, I'm just not sure it is. Again, I haven't tried to balance this beyond the initial thinking, but I'll bet someone at Cryptic has. This is one of those times I wish I had a designer's ear.

....no, not like that.

The Art of Self-Sacrifice

How many times have you seen the Blaster snipe an enemy to pull him out of the mob only to have half the mob kick the Blaster's ass... all just because he was doing his job and pulling? There's sure an awful lot of variations on Taunt out there. I can understand... It's a useful power. But one of the variations I think would be most useful, particularly in situations like this, is "interposing" ...using your own body to protect an ally from incoming fire. But CoH doesn't really have this ability. Here's how I'd work it:
Interpose (a Presence pool power taking the place of "Challenge" and bumping "Provoke" to the lowest spot on the list): By selecting another hero (or perhaps only another team mate) and clicking this power, all enemies that that are currently targetting that hero are now targetting you. Dangerous, sure, but it pretty much defines the Tank's job in CoH. Making it a pool power also allows scrappers or any other hero of self-sacrificing bent to take the fire for others.

I really like how this sounds.

Money Money Money Moneeey.... MONEY!

Yaknow, there should be a simple, game-balanced way for characters i nCoH to be "wealthy." I'm think that during character creation, the player can choose whether or not his 'toon is wealthy. Number would have to be carefully balanced and tested, but my initial throughts are that wealthy characters get a +50% bonus on their earned Influence in exchange for earning 25% less experience than normal characters. It's a serious tradeoff for a serious decision, especially at higher levels where characters generally have more Influence than they know what to do with but have a hard time accruing experience.

Yes, I see how this can be crocked, especially by groups, and I'm ok with that. It encourages alliances and supergroup interaction, which is seldom a bad thing, but it's an obvious character-to-character trade off... The wealthy character gets all the best Enhancements, but his team mates will advance faster. To compensate, his team mates will have to support their wealthy man by teaming with him more often. The wealthy character can also aford to "buy" himself a team to run with for the added experience.

Notable Abcenses #2: Aliens

This has bugged me since day 1. Your character can have his origin based on mutation, magic, science, technology, or have "natural" abilities.... but you can't be an alien. And I'm not talking about that sillyass "Kheldian" nonsense either. That's not really an origin, it's a reward archetype, given to players who make it to level 50. I'm talking about an origin that's just as viable as "mutation" or "technology" (and, to my mind, much more viable than a character who developes a "natural" ability to teleport). I've always wondered why Cryptic excluded this catagory. If it's supposed to be in keeping with some City of Heroes "mythos," that states there are no aliens in the CoH universe or that their nature is very limited, I think it's a terrible idea. CoH should be as generic a "comic book" setting as possible to allow players to work with as few restrictions as possible. Aliens are very comic booky [*cough*Superman *cough*SilverSurfer *cough*Starfire *cough*CaptainMarvel *cough*LegeonofSuperheroes *cough*GuardiansoftheGalaxy*cough*]. ...But I could cough all day.

C'mon guys... I want my aliens.

Notable Abcenses #1: Trench Coats

I'm just full of opinions and ideas today, both big and small. Prepare for a deluge.

Many players want trench coats. Many players used to want capes. Crypic eventually fixed the cape situation, overcoming graphics and practicality issues. I think it was a good fix ("earning" your cape at level 20, a nice ornamental facade for the need to keep the servers from being swamped, graphically, by too many capes flying in the breeze). It's time to apply the same fix to trench coats. It should work pretty much the same, graphically speaking. The "fixed points" on capes are at the shoulders. The fixed points on trenches would be the same, with additional fixed points at the underarms. And I see no reason not to stick with the level 20 reward rule for trenches too.

Remember Kids... Super Jump and Water Don't Mix.

I love Super Jump (SuperLeap to us old school Champions players), but it's the only movement power that bugs me when it comes to traveling across water. Leaping off of water, landing on water, and leaping again? Nah.... ain't buyin' it. And there's a simple fix. Stands to reason that someone who can leap from building to building would be a mighty swimmer. When a super jumper hits the water, change his animation to the normal swimming animation, but have each stroke carry him much much farther than normal swimming (just like jumping carries them farther than normal jumping). See? All logical-like.