Messages

16

General Suggestions and Feedback / Gender Diversification

« on: October 19, 2021, 01:46:03 pm »

Are there any opportunities for additional gender diversification (i.e., adding female members) in enemy groups, at different tiers? For example, the old days saw the introduction of female minions, lieutenants, and bosses for the Skulls, while the Hellions only added Girlfriends From Hell - could Blood Sister Slicers and female Fallen Gunners be added?

Between the previous enemy groups that included (if not entirely consisted of) female members and then the groups that were diversified later on, I think the concerns that defeating (through shooting, slicing, burning, etc.) female NPCs would be too much to allow, balanced against (I'm totally assuming) the more limited liability this private server has versus a commercial endeavor, should be fairly small at this point. If there are any enemy groups that make no sense to include female members (just as there would be those where male participation wouldn't make sense), then by all means leave those as is.

On a related note: I'm sure that there are costume assets held by enemy groups (or even civilians) that have not previously been made available to player-characters because they haven't been tested for clipping, etc., against the full range of player-character costume options. However, there are a number of costume options that already have those issues depending on what they're paired up with, and it might be good to further flesh out the costume options, using mostly existing assets.

17

General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Environmental focus

« on: October 19, 2021, 01:28:20 pm »

i always say these things, but when it comes to me making models people are usually silent in response probably because of file format conversion issues, I mean there really aren't many programs which can convert to .geo or .pigg.

This, I imagine, is the first and likely primary limiting factor for making updates. If this isn't a real issue, then by all means update away!

I'd like to see some of the zones that are very "same-y" get updated, like King's Row - that needs some added construction material/architectural choices. Swap out some buildings for new styles.  Have some buildings (small ones) that get destroyed and have enemy groups pick over the rubble.

18

General / Re: Illusion control for dominators?

« on: October 13, 2021, 11:56:49 am »

I'm trying to think my way through a Nightmare powerset, and I'm running into a few issues:

• It's going to necessarily step on the toes of Darkness Control, Illusion Control, and Mind Control. It can't be a villainous version of Illusion, because I guess too many powers wouldn't build/take advantage of Domination - I'm thinking Spectral Wounds, Superior Invisibility, and Group Invisibility, plus maybe too many pet powers. And thematically it's smack in the middle of Darkness and Mind.
• My main idea for Nightmare Control's shtick would be to utilize the Sleep mezz to supercharge all of its other powers - anytime a target is currently Sleeping (probably from any source), they take more damage and/or stronger mezzes from the character's Nightmare Control powers. This might work fine (if not fantastic) in a solo setting, but group play has tons of damage waking up Sleeping mobs all the time. I might be able to balance that with a Sleep PB/AoE effect (probably toggle), but I'm just concerned I'm heading down a dead-end.
• Another option would be if a proc-Sleep effect can be put on a target, to have them have to resist Sleep several times over the duration of the effect. That might let them be affected by the power, be damaged by something else, and then get hit with Sleep in time to have the Nightmare Control powers take advantage. The target would be able to still get off a response attack or action immediately after getting damaged, basically a kind of Immobilization effect while still being vulnerable to the Sleep shtick.
• With a Sleep-based shtick already, I'm not sure how much to actually crib off of Illusion Control. Probably the only thing that makes sense would be the Illusory damage heal-back (with higher initial damage), but I might tie that to the Sleep vulnerability.

So if you have 9 powers, I'm thinking a single target damaging Sleep (Mind's Mesmerize), a ST damage Hold (maybe Illusion's Blind with the AoE c/f Sleep), a ST Confuse, a ranged cone/AoE Hold (proc-Sleep on fail), a toggle PBAoE Sleep, a targeted Disorient with pseudo-pet AoE Fear/damage (a dream creature centered on/above a wandering target), and then I run out of (good) ideas.

19

General / Re: Ranged

« on: October 07, 2021, 11:59:43 am »

I'd be in favor of moving the origin short-range powers changed from permanent "temporary" powers (i.e., without slotting opportunities) into ranged Brawls (i.e., automatic or selectable "Inherent Fitness" powers/power pools with at least one slot). Because I'm a shameless alt-aholic, I play a lot of lowbie characters and regularly use the origin renged powers to fill gaps in my attack sequences. Even if I could only slot for Accuracy, Damage, EndDisc, and Recharge (i.e., not for secondary effects), that would help with the early game.

Might there be other minor powers (e.g., Ninja Run) that could see the same treatment?

20

General / Re: Illusion control for dominators?

« on: October 05, 2021, 11:07:23 am »

I'm not necessarily familiar with the arguments made (back in the day or more recently) regarding whether Illusion Control was a viable proliferation candidate. I'm assuming it has something to do with how the set integrates with Domination, but I don't know for certain.

Could a Nightmare Control set (or something similar) be created, a la Pain Domination vs. Empathy or Darkness Affinity vs. Dark Miasma?

21

General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Origin and AT Specific Temp Powers

« on: October 05, 2021, 10:47:26 am »

Not sure about the "just keep pumping inf and salvage into it" aspect - I would think that the "costs" of having to periodically re-craft the power and having it run out of charges mid-mission would be part of the balancing. Those costs would still be there even for Incarnate characters, while even substantial inf and salvage costs could easily be pittances. As a compromise, I could see being able to craft longer lasting/more charges versions for premium increases (e.g., a x2 length/number version costs x4 of the basic version, a x3 version costs x9).

How many of these temp powers could any given character have simultaneously?

Would AT-specific powers be more like Ancillary or Patron PPs, where the powers tend to expand the options for a character, rather than reinforcing existing abilities?

22

General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Power Proliferation: Red Defenders/Controllers

« on: September 27, 2021, 09:16:21 am »

Fair point on Empath/Pain Dom - is there a similar concern regarding Poison going blue, or the four others going red?

23

General Suggestions and Feedback / Power Proliferation: Red Defenders/Controllers

« on: September 24, 2021, 10:04:18 am »

I'm working through an assessment of gaps in Support Sets, and got through all of the primaries for Defenders, loading all of the details of the powers so that I could get a thorough and accurate assessment. I was running some sorts and such and referring back to archived Paragon Wiki, when I just happened to look at the archetype entry for Masterminds and noticed that two of the secondary sets there hadn't been viewed yet: Pain Domination and Poison. As I'm running the assessment on all Support Sets, I'll be adding those in to the list, but seeing as they're currently only for Corruptors and Masterminds, they'll be going in as secondary sets only.

This brings up the question: with both Praetoria and the chooseable Galaxy City tutorial allowing for Corruptors and Masterminds to start as "good" characters, even with PD and Poison (never mind Demon Summoning and Necromancy), should Defenders and Controllers also have access to these previously red-side-only powersets? In a similar vein, should Cold Dom (MM), Empathy (both), FF (Cor), Kinetics (MM), and Rad Em (MM) be proliferated as well? The choices of appropriateness should maybe be left to players' role playing, not limitations of archetype.

24

General / Reading Power Descriptions on Wiki

« on: September 20, 2021, 10:02:55 am »

Back in the Old Days, I had done up a series of assessments of the various powersets used by each archetype, to find where there were gaps in coverage and opportunities in coming up with new sets. One area in particular that I didn't cover was the support powersets (primary for Defenders, secondary for Controllers, Corruptors, Masterminds). As I've been loading the individual effects from the archived Paragon Wiki into an Excel spreadsheet to get everything organized to run the assessment, I've been dealing with some oddness in how powers and power effects are described:

• Some powers are said to affect Allies and some Team-only - I disagreed with some of the interpretations given, based on my decade-old memories, but I'm quite likely wrong. What powers are legitimately Team-only versus affecting any Allies? Never mind, I got it straight: Team is intended for effects on both Allies and Self (although there are powers that make sense as Team that are marked Ally).
• Slow shows up in the Wiki as a status effect in and of itself, but also has component effects of -Speed and -Recharge - some powers only have one or the other effect, but many (Infrigidate, Snow Storm (both ColdDom and Storm), Sleet, Howling Twilight, Lingering Radiation, Freezing Rain, Time Crawl, Distortion Field, Web Grenade, Entangling Arrow, Glue Arrow, Ice Arrow) have both without it being called Slow. I see that there are four powers (Arctic Fog, Adrenaline Boost, Speed Boost, Thaw) that offer +Resist (Slow), but none that offer +Resist for Speed or Recharge debuffs - is this working as intended?
• Some Ally/Team individual shields/buffs are listed as "Targeted AoE" (e.g., Deflection Shield), while others are listed without that designation (e.g., Ice Shield). Again, my memory is that those were always individual buffs, but those might have been changed before the Old Days' demise.

I'll probably have more questions like this - stay tuned.

25

General Suggestions and Feedback / Power Customization: Flamethrowers and Cold Guns

« on: September 13, 2021, 01:23:33 pm »

Way back when Paragon Studios first announced power customization, I was hoping that we would get an alternate set of animations for many ranged powers, to have them come not from our characters' hands, eyes, etc., but from some type of gun or such (e.g., magic wand or staff).

Everything kept in mind regarding time and capabilities of our team, is this something that could be done? Would the same or similar animations work across a number of powersets?

26

General Suggestions and Feedback / Re: Bring over suggestions from the discord and old forums

« on: September 13, 2021, 11:38:46 am »

New to the forums - just got onto the server over this past weekend.  Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen!

I was fairly active over on the old Suggestions forums and a series of posts I made in the old Lady-Jade's Powerset Suggestion Box was for assessing the powersets that were in play back when I started my work (late October 2008!). Basically I looked at what damage types (outgoing and incoming) were represented by any particular AT's options. For example, the first one I posted covered just Blaster primaries, which at the time included only 8: Archery, Assault Rifle, Electrical Blast, Energy Blast, Fire Blast, Ice Blast, Psychic Blast, and Sonic Blast. My assessment at the time said that Lethal, Smashing, and Energy were all fairly well represented; Fire just a little less so; Ice and Psychic had one set each; and Negative and Toxic were without sets. I called for Dark Blast to be ported over from Defenders/Corruptors (done), along with Radiation Blast (done), and then new sets for Earth Blast and possibly a Gadget Gun/Magic Wand (neither added). We did get Beam Rifle, Dual Pistols, and Water Blast, all good choices.

When I've got more time, I'd like to re-run those assessments for the current configuration and then look at what is still out there as gaps needing to be filled (by whom? IDK).