Category: Resources & Rules

Interview with Jay Doherty, CoX costume/character artist, on the new wing sets.  Okay, that is in fact one thing I want — dragon wings for Torchielle.  🙂

It’s safe to say that wings are one of the most difficult player costume pieces to make for the game. There are two basic “rigs” for the wings which we call internally “Bat” and “Eagle.” Depending on the wing; the proper rig will be used. When designing our new wings, I had to make sure that every wing looks good both in its flying state and resting state (You will not understand the giant pain in the butt it is to do that). The hardest wing to make was the Angel, just because it was the first one I made (we introduced Angel and Demon wings first as part of our Veteran Rewards program). One of the coolest things about being a character artist is making sure everything looks tight and I wanted to make sure that every wing looked different from far away and close up; so to achieve that I tried giving every wing a distinctive Silhouette.

So as I mentioned already, the first two wings that I designed were the Angel and Demon wings. The higher-ups really liked how I and the animation team implemented them so they beat me until they got some more. So to date we have created ten wing sets: Angel, Demon, Dragon, Burned, Bone, Bat, Cherub, Insect, Tech, and Fairy.

Not only is the Green Line being extended to Skyway (down south, by the Faultline gate, making Skyway the equivalent of Steel), but the hoi-polloi will soon be tramming their way over to Founders Falls (south of the Pocket D entrance).  Woot!

Interview with “Producer” Serdar Copur.  Some fun stuff.

arthurh3535: What is the hardest ‘programming’ thing that you want to eventually add to the game?

Serdar Copur: Blue-sky questions are so much fun. The most difficult thing to develop that I would like to add to our game is a completely new database architecture which allows every single player who plays CoH & CoV to be able to play on the same game server. This means no more server selection screens, no more re-rolling because your real life friends are not on the same server as you, and no more trouble finding a group at 3:00 AM because everyone else is sleeping. It’s not an impossible endeavor but my programming team assures me that there is nothing more time consuming and complicated that we could develop for our game at this point. I guess we can always dream.

That would be kind of cool.  On a related note:

LadyMage: Positron mentioned back in an interview last year about looking into changing SG membership from 75 characters to 75 accounts. Could we get an update on that? Is it feasible, is it coming, is it backburnered or scrapped, and why? It’s a feature I know a lot of SGs, preticularily larger ones are looking forward to.

Serdar Copur: Something along the lines of this is definitely coming. In fact, I will go so far as to say that both Supergroups and Bases will be getting some much needed love over the next few updates. We are fully aware that MMOG’s are all about the social element and we want to support that as much as possible.

Not as big a concern of mine any more, but still a good thing.  And:

Cronic-X: On the last ask a dev they hinted that issue 10 was going to add a lot more to the story line of the game. is there a possibility that new AT’s for villains and or heroes could be on the way seeing as adding a new AT or villain group would be a big addition to the games story line.

Serdar Copur: Issue 10 is going to be fantastic. It’s true that it will be advancing the story-line. You will probably not see any new archetypes in Issue 10; however there will be a great deal of other fun content to enjoy. I really shouldn’t tell you anything right now because it’s just way too early. Then again….a small hint can’t hurt. Right?
So here it is:

“Issue 10 will focus on a level range that you guys have been clamoring about for a while.”

Let the speculation begin!

I assume it’s for post-50 bits. 

Between the trip and other stuff, my CoX play (and CoX board reading) has been pretty limited.  Rectified both today.

First off, it appears the wraps are off on I9 in Test.  Which means I can reveal that Margie was (huzzah!) one of the closed beta testers.   She seemed to enjoy it.  Yay.

Two QoL enhancements, one she showed me and one that I just read on the boards:  To wit, a store in Kings Row and a trainer in PI.  Nice.  Never made any sense not to have them there.

No more ice-skating hunchback roving patrols!  Now they (presumably) just run along like normal.  People are already complaining as bitterly as they did when the bug appeared Way Back When.

Because there’s a new Stealth IO, escort hostages will now follow you while you are Stealthed (yay).  The presence of a hostage will debuff the Stealth however (boo).

Lots of stuff about Salvage and Drops and Inventions (Oh My!).  I am possessed by terrific yawning.Note: The purpose of this change is to allow players to not be penalized by new Stealth Invented Enhancement.

• The perception bonus has been affected, however any defense buff associated with a stealth power is still maintained.
• You can now pick up escort hostages while stealthed or when you have a Stealth Invention Origin Enhancement slotted.  Everyone around the hostage will receive a stealth debuff when it is acquired. The debuff to stealth powers will remove when you exit the mission map.
• Note: The purpose of this change is to allow players to not be penalized by new Stealth Invented Enhancement.
• The perception bonus has been affected, however any defense buff associated with a stealth power is still maintained.

Lengthy developer post on the design decisions behind the revamped I9 Hamidon raid.

Most of the players we talked with in game generally said the same things about Hamidon raids. We used those common gripes about Hamidon to compile a list of top issues we wanted to address.

• Hamidon raids are repetitive and tedious
• Hamidon raids are laggy and very taxing on systems (low FPS)
• Hamidon and Mitos often disappear during the end phase of a raid
• Hamidon raids are a hotspot for griefing
• Hamidon raids reward Leeching
• Certain AT/Powerset combinations were viewed as critical while others felt they had no real purpose
• Hamidon raids take too long and the reward is often viewed as not being worth the time/effort
• There’s no ability to choose reward
• There’s no way to recover from a mito spawn (if it happens, it’s game over!)
• Hamidon raids are only available to heroes

The basic solutions (read the article for full details):

1. Hammy can’t be held to the point of powerlessness.
2. Mito spawns have been changed so that they’re not the disaster they have been.
3. Villains have a special zone (the Abyss) to find Hammy in.
4. The three Mito types have been redesigned both to synergize and to have special vulnerabilities to certain ATs, so that everyone has a role to lay.
5. Have to defeat the various DE in the zone around Hammy — but that’s the only limit, so Hammy can respawn any time (freeing up schedules).
6. New “Essense of Earth” inspirations will provide some special protection.
7. Capped the number fo folks in the Hive and Abyss to 50 — which will help with lag and which will spawn extra instances as need be.
8. HO reward table at the end — it’s not just a random pick.  Plus a rare Recipe.  Only one of each can be gotten in a 24 hour period.

Sounds possibly interesting enough to try out …

Without a doubt, one of the most annoying villain types in CoX (high perception + caltrops = fun!), the Knives now have their own Villain Profile on the CoH site. And it has an upsetting number of Void/Quantum photos …

A while back, I stumbled up a site that had a bunch of MP3s for CoH music. Downloaded them, then lost it, and always wondered where I could find the CoV music to go with it.

Then ran across this CoH LJ post, and discovered that the MP3s for both sides of CoX are up at the FTP site. Sweet!

Interesting post by poz in response to complaints that the “Suppress Extra Player FX” is currently broken:

The intention of “Suppress Extra Player FX” was to reduce the number of “unimportant” FX displayed. This was targeting city zones, mainly near trainers.

With the Suppress FX options turned on, here are the heuristics used to determine if a continuing FX will be shown.
1. If it’s not a continuing FX then show it.
2. If it’s on you show it.
3. If it’s on a critter show it.
4. If it’s from a villain and you’re a hero (or vice versa) show it.
5. If it’s from you or to you, show it. (So you see all bubbles you cast.)
6. If the target or source is on you team show it.

[…] We decided that anything that happened to a teammate or that you triggered was important. This feature was never meant to help on mission maps; it was meant to help spammed group heals at Ms. Liberty and sundry running around town.

Which makes sense, though it may still mean (on some highly-buffy teams or vs. certain opponents) that things get kind of super-saturated.

Poz thinks the thought it’s broken is due to a year-old fix that got rid of teammate’s buff visuals being suppressed if they were debuffed by opponents. But I thought it was an interesting list.

Everyone thought the prospect of individual flight animations was the bee’s knees (or wings). It was tested for a bit, and everyone bitched about not being able to choose an alternative — at which point it was pulled …

… and may not be back. Castle quotes the Animators:

HereÂ’s the deal. Originally we wanted to put alternate flight poses in purely as additional flavor. Nothing more really than the alternate idle cycles that are already in game, like crossing your arms, putting your hands on your hips, etc. This is why there were random to begin with. When we put them up on the training room, it became clear very quickly that you guys saw them as more than just random variations. For a lot of you, these poses defined your character’s attitude and style in a way that was outside
of your control. In reaction to that we tried to make them selectable in the only method that we had, which was to make them sequential rather than random. We weren’t really happy with that solution, and a lot of you guys weren’t either. So we took a step back and re-examined it from a broader perspective.

Here was the opportunity to give another layer of character customization to everyone. Rather than implement the quick and easy solution, we wanted to hold off on it until we could implement the right solution. It wasn’t because of people whining about them on the forums, those people had legitimate concerns. There were issues that we couldn’t resolve in time before Issue 8 was going live. Instead of holding back Issue 8 to resolve them or just leaving them in the state they were in and impacting a good number
of players in a very negative way, we pulled them out of Issue 8. We haven’t completely shelved the idea of a custom animation system, but in lieu of the Inventions system, Task Forces, and other things that we’ve been working on for Issue 9 and Issue 10, a custom animation system has a much smaller impact on the game as a whole. Because of this, it’s gotten pushed back in the list of priorities. I can’t say when we’ll do it at this point. I can’t even say that it’s something even possible or feasible to do at
this point. I can pretty comfortably say that there are things coming in Issue 9, 10, and beyond that are much more exciting and will impact everyone who plays the game.

Or maybe they will …

However, there is some good news here. We didn’t think it would be possible to create these alternate flight animations as an emote. Emote animations have to be limited in what they can interrupt as well as be interruptible by core animations, such as movement or attack powers. I had a flash of insight the other day about this though, and I believe I have figured out a way to set these up so they can be triggered via an emote but still function in the way they need to. I’ve tested this internally
and it seems to work fine, but I can’t test all of the permutations. We’re treading into somewhat risky waters by allowing an animation to trump a core movement animation. The way this will work is if you turn on flight and start flying forward (using autorun works best in this case), you can enter the emote name and your character will transition in the alternate fly forward animation. I think this resolves all of the issues we had with it originally. It won’t interrupt hover, what you see on your system is
what everyone will see on their system, and it’s completely optional and selectable by the player. You will be able to use the one you like or not use it at all.

We won’t be re-adding the banking animations which were basically an attempt to do a flying strafe. We also won’t be introducing the no-strafe movement on player characters. This is only the alternate fly forward animations.

Which would still be cool …

Jack Emmert fields questions from the studio audience. Not a lot of them, mind you, but a good number. A few highlights:

1. The Invention system is Really Keen, especially the non-aging enhancements.
2. Biggest regret in CoX is how Hamidon turned out — the “new” Hamidon encounter should fix some of that.
3. After the major mechanic introduction in I9, I10 is going to be a significant story-based release.

Plus some interesting insights into the original “prestige class” ideas for post-50 heroes. Power suits?

Cool stuff.

Big MMORPG.com interview with Positron.

From the outset of creating the Invention System we wanted to make sure that players desired these new, craftable items. If they didn’t actually make your character better then the players wouldn’t be motivated to use the system. We tried to think of new, exciting things that Enhancements could bring to the game. We determined that adding mini-powers to your existing ones had a lot of potential, as the sky would nearly be the limit on what we could accomplish with these new Enhancements. In addition we wanted
Enhancements that never expired, because nothing was worse than leveling up in a mission to a point where the majority of your Enhancements turned red (useless), and instead of that level-up making you more powerful, it actually made you less.

Interestingly, they are going to a closed Beta test of the system prior to opening it to everyone on the Test server, including NDAs and the whole ball of wax.

New info on the upcoming Statesman’s Taskforce. I am definitely looking forward to cracking out Psi-clone for this.

Positron says:

The Lord Recluse Strike Force, which made it into Issue 7, was our way of getting Hamidon-level Enhancements into the hands of the Villains for City of Villains. We needed something that was difficult, and Hamidon-level difficult, but we didn’t want to just regurgitate Hamidon…we wanted something cool. We wanted something where you fought the signature Heroes of the City of Heroes franchise.

I can’t say I like the imagery that “regurgitating Hamidon” provides.

We accomplished that goal, but in the end some of the Archetypes felt left out, since they didn’t have the build to contribute to the huge Archvillain fights that the Lord Recluse Strike Force was built around (we took our learnings forward from this).

I’m glad they’re not just, um, “regurgitating” LASF.

Fighting the signature characters was cool, but it was also something that was exclusively in the hands of the Villains. We really wanted something where the Heroes could have a chance at taking down the signature characters from the Rogue Isles. We wanted Heroes to see some of the cool things we did for the Villains since not every player is into playing ‘the dark side’.

Yay!

[…] The mission starts out with Statesman telling you that Arachnos is up to something, something big. They are building something in Grandville of unknown power and use, but it is obvious that it’s more than a simple broadcast antenna that Lord Recluse claims it to be. Your orders are simple. Get to the factory near Grandville and shut it down.

Here we had a chance to have some ‘mayhem mission’ type action, with your team of Heroes causing havoc in the WebFac, destroying vital pieces to the array in Grandville. This was something that players asked for when we introduced Safeguard missions. They wanted to go to the Rogue Isle and bust stuff up. Now they get to bust stuff up, but with a purpose.

Oh, joy! Mayhem for heroes! Next up — Safeguard for villains! (Yes, you could rationalize it.)

I don’t want to spoil too many of the surprises, suffice it to say that players will be encountering, and engaging, many of the more powerful NPCs that Arachnos has to offer. Dr. Aeon plays a key role (several, actually), as does the Arachnos Flier. We also chose some prime locations for the mission maps, a lot of stuff that your average City of Heroes player wouldn’t normally get to see.

Also nice. Not only does that give a bit of advert space for CoV, it makes it all the more fresh for CoHers.

Oh, and the final battle isn’t simply ‘smash your most powerful attacks until Lord Recluse goes down’. We wanted there to be a reason to have Archetypes other than Blasters and Defenders on your team. Controllers will find themselves greatly desired in the final battle if the team wants to have any chance of winning. Our goal was to make sure that all the Archetypes had something to do that could mean the difference between success and defeat.

And that sounds truly kick-ass (speaking as a Controller likely to be involved …)

‘Being a Hero’ is the driving force behind Statesman’s Task Force. Every mission leads up to the ultimate confrontation where, upon success, players will be able to stand in Atlas Park and proudly display to all onlookers that they have Saved the World. Isn’t that what being a hero is all about?

I am quite jazzed over this.

There’s some changes in the “rooting” effects of some of the rezzes listed in the patch notes below (that’s for the Test instance, mind you), and immobilize effects have been put in. Castle explains …

When we use the term rooting, it refers to a flag set in the actual animation sequence that prevents any player action. This includes moving and using any powers or inspirations, even breakfrees. Rooting is always something that’s set in an animation, not the power itself and since a lot of powers share animations, this has led to a bit of flip flopping between powers rooting or not rooting.

While we were looking at click powers for normalizing which ones should root or not we came across self-rez powers, most of which are sharing two animations. The first is the spiraling up and then floating back down to the ground that Rise of the Phoenix, Restore Essence, and a few other powers use. The other is the basic ‘get up from belly’ animation that Revive and most inspirations use. The first was not rooted, so you could start acting as soon as the power fired off. Unfortunately, this animation is on a
higher priority than every other possible animation. This allows you to move and/or attack and avoid being rooted while the self-rez animation continues to play. The second animation was rooted for the entire 4 second animation. This meant if you used an awaken in combat there was 4 seconds when you were pretty much a sitting duck. You couldn’t even use a breakfree to recover from the disorient of an awaken until the animation was completely finished.

Neither one of these was really where we wanted self rez powers to be. So instead of rooting all self-rez power animations, Castle added an immbolize effect to the powers themselves and the root was removed from both animations. This solved the issues with both animations. There will still be a period of time after rezing yourself where you won’t be able to move, but you will be able to use inspirations, turn on toggles, etc. The first animation was also shortened a bit to make the immobilization period consistent
between both animations.

Makes sense. Not that I rez all that often …

On a related, broader note about actions and rooting …

We’re looking into these inconsistencies in powers rooting and not rooting. This whole process has been a jumble because so many power share animations and “rooting” is something that’s set in the animation itself, not the power definition. So I’m often undoing things I’ve fixed before by fixing things further down the road, not realizing they’re both using the same animation … and then later unfixing the original fix by re-fixing the unfixed fix.

This is why some click powers that should have been rooted were briefly un-rooted as they were sharing animations with toggle powers that were un-rooted. This is also why some toggle powers that should be un-rooted are once again rooting. Your incredible diligence in testing these changes and reporting them here on the forums has been an immeasurable help in getting everything working the way it should be. We can’t thank you enough for that. Please continue to report powers that don’t follow the rules for rooting.

Toggle Powers:

• Any toggle that damages or debuffs an enemy in any way is considered an attack and will root the player while activating.
• Any toggle that affects yourself and/or allies will not root you while activating.
• Any toggle that only affects yourself will not cause you to be rooted while activating.

Click Powers:[list]

• Any click power that damages or debuffs an enemy in any way is considered an attack and will root the player while activating.
• Any click power that is a PBAOE ally buff, single target ally buff, or single target ally heal will root the player while activating.
• Any click power that is an PBAOE ally heal will not root.
• Any click power that is a self only buff or self only heal will not root.
• Any click power that is a ‘tier 9’ power (Unstoppable, Moment of Glory, Elude, etc) will root the player while activating.

There can be exceptions to any of the above rules as deemed necessary.

Attacks have priority over any of the other rules. So if a power is a PBAOE ally heal and debuffs an enemy’s to-hit for example, it’s going to root.

We tried to come up with a set that made sense to us and generally followed how things already worked in game, so only a few things needed to be changed. There were actually a lot fewer click power animations that changed because of these rules than toggle animations. Also, toggle animations that root will do so for 1.5 seconds after which point the animation is interruptible by other animations or player actions. Click power rooting durations are not consistent and probably never will be, however we are willing
to more closely examine any powers that you feel root for too long of a duration.

And a note on Inertial Reduction for all you kineticists out there:

We’re also hearing your concerns about some AOE click buffs, like Inertial Reduction, being left as rooted animations. In that particular case we contend that Inertial Reduction is not a travel power. It’s literally an Ally buff and thus should follow the same rules as all PBAOE Ally buffs. However we understand that this is often used as a replacement for travel power and we’re looking into ways to make it less cumbersome to use in that method. No promises that it will change, just that we’re looking at it.

New patch notes (i.e., expect much of this to go Live real soon now unless there are serious glitches):

---

Now Testing in the Training Room: Version 13.20070215.0 – Feb. 20th, 2007

Estimated time of arrival: 3 PM Pacific / 5 PM Central / 6 PM Eastern.

HIGHLIGHTS

The bulk of this update includes changes to the address stability and performance issues, including:

• Correcting a problem that could cause the game’s framerate to drop substantially when exiting a Mission.

• Special textures and objects in missions should no longer be invisible. This addresses a problem with special missions like Frostfire, PWNZ, etc. [Yay!]

• Altered some power’s graphical effects to reduce framerate impact and standardize click power rooting.

• Added fixes to address a problem that could cause the client to crash when viewing trenchcoats and custom capes in certain situations. While we believe that this issue should be corrected in this version of the game if you do experience a client crash that brings up a dialog to send the report in, please do so. These reports will be very helpful to determine if we have indeed squashed this bug.

Game

• Corrected a server issue that could lead to instability.

• Added text to distinguish different slow effects on power enhancement tooltips.

Animations and Power Effects

All click power activation rooting has been normalized to follow the below rules:
• All powers that damage or debuff enemies will root.
• All ally buffs (AOE and single target) will root.
• AOE Heals will not root.
• Self Buffs/Heals will not root.
• Tier 9 powers such as Unstoppable, Moment of Glory, and Force of Nature will root you for 1.5 seconds while activating.

• Self-Rez powers are a special case. They will not root you while activating but they have had a 4 second immobilize effect added to them. You will still be able to use powers/inspirations, turn on toggles, or attack. For powers like Rise of the Phoenix which have a secondary damage component and should be rooted, this prevents them from being less effective. Rez powers like Revive and inspiration rezes will now only be immobilized instead of a root. Consequently, the animation for Rise of the Phoenix, Shadow
Maw, and the Kheldian self-rez have been slightly sped up to account for this change.

• The following powers will now transition into a more appropriate standing animation cycle when they finish. This does not change how the power functions, but only the animations it switches to after it’s done playing the power’s graphical effect and animation.

Wedding Band, Instant Healing, Inertial Reduction, Hurricane, Murky Cloud, Obsidian Shield, Invincibility

• Soul Storm will once again transition to it’s unique animation cycle after casting.

• Toggle power that now roots: Inky Aspect

• The following powers now root the character in place while the animation and graphical effects play:

Shadow Fall, Adrenaline Boost, Steamy Mist, Group Invisibility

• Added run animation for females with left handed weapons (bow, katana, etc)

Changes to toggle activation rooting:

• Personal Force Field will no longer root during activation

• Force Bubble will now root during activation

• Quills will now root during activation

• Whirlwind will now root during activation. Whirlwind has also been changed so that the spinning animation will restart after using other powers.

• Empathy/Regeneration Aura – Changed animation so that it is not identical to Recovery Aura

• Aid Other/Stimulate/Aid Self – changed animations so they are more properly interrupted by movement and have less “skating”

• Elude’s activation animation will no longer play unless the power is actually recharged and activates.

• Peacebringer/Warshade transform animation will no longer root the player while flying.

• Darkest Night – Added secondary graphical effects to help identify the anchor.

• The graphical effects for all Warshade powers has gone through an optimization pass.

• Ice Armor/Energy Absorption will use its correct animation again.

Powers

• All Self Rez powers now immobilize the player for a set duration.

• All Self Rez powers debt protection period are now set to 60 seconds. Most were set to 20 seconds previously, though a few were at 90 seconds. This is being done to normalize the effect. [Interesting.]

CITY OF HEROES

Powers

• Tanker Invulnerability Invincibility: Fixed a visual error with the graphic tell for the increased To Hit chance. It was being applied to the Tankers enemies, rather than to the Tanker. The actual To Hit value was being applied correctly; this was simply correcting the visual effects.

CITY OF VILLAINS

Powers

• Thermal Radiation – Melt Armor: Graphics optimizations.

Zones

• Reports of the Arachnos Flier have been heard from Grandville.

More from Doctor Brainstorm:

So here are some clarifications:

* The majority of sets are available exclusively through defeating enemies. This means that all the pieces of the set are attainable by beating up things.

* Some of the sets (the rarer ones), have parts of them that are only attainable by completing a Story Arc.

* These same sets also might have a part of them that require you to finish a Task Force.

* These same sets also might have a part of them that requires you to complete a Trial.

* This makes 4 pools from which recipe rewards can come from. Pool A is enemies, Pool B is Story Arcs, Pool C is Task Forces, and Pool D is Trials.

* There are different pools every 5 levels, to conicide with the recipes that are available at those levels.

* Not every level has all four pools (early levels don’t have Pool D, the Trial pool)

* No specific anything is tied to doing anything specific. This means that completing ANY story arc in the level 20 to 25 range can get you a random rare recipe from Pool B. Defeating ANY entity (no matter if its a minion or a boss) can get you a random recipe from Pool A. This is done this way to ensure a more even distribution of recipes from that Pool. If defeating Archvillains always dropped a Rare, then someone would pull the old “farming AV” trick and suddenly that Rare is more common than Generic Damage
Enhancements.

* Giant Monsters don’t drop recipes so they are not farmed for recipes, causing camping issues we are actively trying to avoid. As for reasons to fight Giant Monsters… well the Hive and the Abyss now contain very good reasons to defeat these guys.

Now I hear you guys… you all seem to dislike the Story Arc aspect of this system. I’ve had some discussions with the team yesterday about what we could do instead, and still keep the flavor of the four pool system, because having the extra three pools allows us to not only reward risk/reward, but time/reward as well. Takes longer to do a Task Force? Here’s a nice bonus you can’t get anywhere else. Finish the Respec trial, but already have all your Respecs? Here’s a nice reward that carries with it some good
inherent value.

Now again, I must stress, the majority of sets, including entire complete sets come from simply defeating enemies. All the costume piece and temp power recipes come from defeating enemies. There are Rare recipes (ones that have a worse chance to drop than others) in Pool A (the defeating enemies pool) as well.

We also will be actively monitoring datamining on every aspect of this system through all of Training Room and into Live.

After having looked at my comments on the previous post on the subject — I realize that my initial reaction has been directly addressed by this. I have no problem with a few, select sets (or elements thereof) being rewarded for special actions. If someone couldn’t hit 50, or couldn’t … something … without doing that One, Big Set, that would be wrong.

But otherwise, what we’re talking about is no different form Accolades, which provide a nice little boost, but require certain story arcs and activities. You can survive without them, but they provide a small QoL boost. If there are a minority of Sets that require a bit of other activity, i can live with that — especially since, as noted, the recipes can be sold in the auction houses to those who really want them.

The official I9 pre-announcement announcement is up.

From Doctor Brainstorm [with my comments]:

* There are no recipes that are exclusive to a side. Mako’s Bite has just as good a chance of showing up for Heroes as it does for Villains. [That hurts the “RPness” of it, but that’s not that big a deal.]


* Individual enemies will NOT have specific recipes or salvage that you can only get from them. Defeating Captain Mako will not get you a piece from the Mako’s Bite set. Every enemy you defeat (within the right level range) can possibly drop a Mako’s Bite enhancement. [Again, that hurts the RPness a little bit, but not that big. And there are ties to Story Arcs, so that makes sense.]

* An enemy defeat that produces a Recipe will only produce ONE Recipe, not one for everyone on the team. (Yes, this was why we put in the much maligned Loot Message, which was since removed). [Still cool. And I think chat is a better way to deal with that.]

* Giant Monsters do not drop recipes. They drop Salvage, but not recipes. This is by design.

* Some parts of the sets are only available as Story Arc rewards, Task Force rewards, or Trial rewards (Respec missions and Hamidon are Trials). So players looking to collect a full set are going to want to do all of the above, not just defeat enemies. [I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand it makes sense, it does encourage that sort of activity, etc. On the other hand, it requires that activity to get something that actually can help you in-game — that’s been true for the accolades
and for the XP for badges, but this is significantly more impacting. On the gripping hand, nobody is forcing anyone to get IOs.]

* We fully expect the Consignment House (and Black Market) to become a good place to look for Enhancements to complete your set if you can’t find teams for TFs or Trials. [Which makes up for the above. Best reason for these places to exist I’ve heard.]

* The Influence/Infamy trading limit is being raised. [Huzzah! Now, will they improve the interface even more?]

Doctor Brainstorm is actually kind of an interesting guy — did you know he invented the Level Bar for heroes and villains?

An example of Enhancements from the Invention system (from the same MMORPG.com article):

Well, all the recipes you find while playing the game are multi-purpose Enhancements, or something equally as cool.

Here’s an example:

Sting of the Manticore (a set of 6) – Slots into any Sniper power

• Accuracy/Damage
• Damage/Endurance Reduction
• Accuracy/Interrupt/Range
• Damage/Interrupt/Recharge
• Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• Toxic DoT Proc

If you have 2 Enhancements in the set slotted: Bonus to your Regeneration rate

If you have 3 Enhancements in the set slotted: The above plus Energy/Negative Energy resistance

If you have 4 Enhancements in the set slotted: The above plus Overall Damage Boost

If you have 5 Enhancements in the set slotted: The above plus Overall Recharge Rate Boost

If you have all 6 Enhancements in the set slotted: The above plus Toxic damage resistance

I’ll talk about the Enhancements. The last one in the list is a Proc, meaning a procedure that has a chance of happening. Every time you fire your sniper power with the Toxic DoT Proc Enhancement slotted in it, there is a chance your target gets hit with a Toxic Damage over Time effect as well as the normal damage and effect of your Sniper attack.

The other Enhancements are all multi-purpose. This means that their overall bonuses are lower than a single-purpose Enhancement, but they fill multiple rolls for only a single slot.

Next we have the set bonuses. The numbers are not set in stone what the bonuses are going to be, but as you can see, you get a lot of little advantages out of your Sniper power that you normally wouldn’t have. These bonuses make collecting sets highly desirable, as they can shore up holes in your character that you didn’t have any other way of shoring up before.

Okay, so that actually looks pretty cool. You can do any, some, or all of the Enhancement slots in the set, and get a variety of bonuses on the power (and let’s hope this means they’ve cleaned up the Power Slotting interface) plus some synergistic effects.

One big downside — everyone’s going to have to modify their Guides …

One thing to keep in mind is that while the new crafted Enhancements have some nice bonuses and set improvements, the design intent is such that they do not completely overshadow the performance of currently available Enhancements. That way, someone who isn’t all that interested in collecting and crafting can play the game as they always have and still have a strong hero or villain. We don’t want this new system to reinvent the game and how people play it, but rather add a new dimension and avenue
for fun.

Which is the big threat, of course — “I can’t have an Uber Chararacter unless I get X, Y, and Z.” If the “design intent” is met, faboo, because while these things would be nice, I don’t see spending all my time with my characters collecting the bits and pieces necessary for them.

And on a related note …

Well out the gate we have some new costume pieces that you can find the recipes for. We’ve got a bunch more wings for characters to make. The wings we introduced in Issue 8 with Veteran Rewards were really well received and having more wings that are available to everyone has been a popular request. We hope these new wings will make a lot of players happy. And since recipes are tradable, you can give the wing recipe and the salvage needed to make it to a 1st level character so they can have their
super-special wings at the start of their careers.

Here’s where you lose me. I understand the player side of this, but the contextual setup eludes me. Aside from the cool tech wings, why would you need/get “inventions” to get fairy wings, or dragon wings, or butterfly wings, etc.? (Or, conversely, why should a new player be able tog et dragon wings, but not get demon wings, which are a Vet reward?) Other costume bits, sure, but having broached the whole wings thing with Vet Rewards, I they should have left
it all there.

That said, the ability to hand off recipes/salvage to 1st level characters is a nice touch.

And the last bit, on actually doing the inventions thing:

First off you need access to an Invention Worktable. These are inside the Universities in Paragon City and Rogue Isles. For players with a Supergroup base, they can add an Invention Worktable to their base. Built into the table are “Invention Origin” recipes of the 28 standard Enhancements. These “IO’s” act just like normal Enhancements except they do not expire, and their bonus stays static no matter what level you are. Lower level IO’s are strengthened around that of Training Enhancements,
mid level IO’s are about the power of Dual Origin Enhancements, and IO’s level 25 and above have about the same punch as current Single Origin Enhancements. Of course the power of the Enhancement is better with level, so high level invented Enhancements are slightly more powerful than the equivalent SO.

You go to the worktable and open up the interface. Here you see what Enhancements you can make with the salvage you currently have. Higher level Enhancements take higher level salvage (i.e., salvage that comes from higher level enemies), so you should always have salvage appropriate to the level of Enhancements you want to build. These “built-in” recipes also have an Influence/Infamy cost to build, but they only take common-level salvage. Uncommon and rare salvage is reserved for use by the one-use recipes you
find in the world.

Again, once we actually start being able to use this, it will be interesting to see how straightforward, or how tactical-logistical (see complaints about WoW) this actually is. But this article definitely makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing.

Now, further clarifications from the forums:

Will IOed characters be no better than non-IOed?

What I meant was that normal SO specced characters will not be signifigantly underpowered in the new Invention based (PvE) world. We’re making NO changes to enemies to make them tougher, so SO slotted characters will still be able to play the game as they always have. IO slotted characters who stack their bonuses well are probably going to have an easier go in PvE, and have an advantage in PvP (where every little advantage is an edge your opponent doesn’t have).

Basically if you and your group want the (PvE) game to remain “the same”, it will. You’ll just be getting Invention oriented rewards that you never use, but the difficulty of the (PvE) missions you are doing are not going to increase forcing you into a system you didn’t want to partake in.

One of our goals with new systems is to make sure that players who don’t want to use it are not punished for playing the game like they always have. The game is totally playable and enjoyable without badges, bases, trials, task forces, new zones… but we add them to give players more options if they want them.

Which makes sense — but it does mean that IOed characters will be able to shorten the “grind,” ratchet up to higher difficulties, etc. Is that “unfair?” I’m sure some will argue that, but I won’t — yet.

Now, whether new zones and enemies will be designed around non-IOed characters … will be a real test.

How powerful will IOs be?

We tried to make it so that if you had a full set of Set-based IOs, then your overall bonuses were similar in power to straight up SO slotting.

I should also point out that because of this, you will only be able to slot in ONE of a particular Set IO into a particular power. So in the Sting of the Manticore example, you can’t slot in 6 SotM: Damage/Accuracy IOs into your Sniper power.

Later …

You will be able to mix and match different sets into a single power.

So you could have 1 enhancement from 6 different sets in one 6 slotted power, or 2 enh from 3 sets, or 5 from one set and 1 from another… or whatever combo you can think of.

The rule is simply you can’t have more than one of a particular Enhancement in a power. Of course multiple Enh from the same set start to unlock the Set Bonus abilities, making them more attractive.

Okay, that’s becoming complicated. Though, again, this throws all the Guides out the window, it seems …

Are there different sets for the same thing?

Sure, there are 5 different Sniper sets: Exploit Weakness, Calibrated Accuacy, Executioner’s Contract, Extreme Measures, and Sting of the Manticore. All of them exist all the way to level 53, but some “start” later than others. The earliest starts at level 10 (slottable at level 7). Sting of the Manticore starts at level 35 (so slottable at level 32).

Are there sets with less than 6 slots?

Yes. In the above sets, Exploit Weakness is a 4 Enhancement set.

Are sets level-specific?

Enhancements have a level. This (minus 3) is the minimum level you can slot it at. Since Sting of the Manticore starts at level 35, you can start slotting the set at level 32… that is if you actually have a level 35 Enhancement, not a 36 or higher one.

And recipes (other than the “Table 28”) are use-once (after which they’re consumed).

More info as it’s unveiled by the Devs …

Big interview at MMORPG.com:

Well, first off we have the Invention system, which adds a whole new dynamic to the game. Heroes and Villains will collect salvage and recipes by defeating enemies. In keeping with City of Heroes “casual friendly” game design, the collecting of these items adds extra spice to the gameplay of defeating foes, rather than becoming a hardcore task of “grinding,” “camping” or hours of “raiding.” With this salvage, players can use the recipes to assemble an all new class of Power Enhancements or costume pieces (depending
on the recipe), which they can then use. Unused recipes and salvage can be sold at the new Consignment Houses (for Heroes) or the new Black Market (for Villains).

Next we have a revamp to the Hamidon encounter. For those not familiar with the Hamidon, it currently is one of the big “raid” encounters in the game, requiring a large group of heroes to overcome. We’ve changed the way Hamidon plays to improve the experience and also made an attempt to make the encounter better for smaller groups of characters. In addition, the Villains get their very own “Hamidon zone” in the Abyss.

Finally we have Statesman’s Task Force, which allows Heroes to take the fight to Arachnos. This is on par with the Lord Recluse Strike Force and has the same reward pool to choose from at the end.

I’m still witholding judgment on the Invention system, but certainly the philosophical approach sounds good.

Glad to hear Hammy’s being tweaked. Might actually even be fun.

And — yeah, the STF sounds fun.

More on Inventions:

Since the “City of” games never had a crafting system or hard “loot” of any kind, we are kind of easing our playerbase into the concept. What you won’t find is a hard core crafting system that you must min-max numbers in for weeks to make the best “product”. What you will find is a fun new way to gain Enhancements, and Enhancements you actually desire. In addition, you can collect various “sets” of Enhancements which slot into specific powers. When you collect multiple pieces of the same set and slot them into
the same power, you start to unlock new bonuses for your character that they didn’t have previously. This includes stuff like overall Damage bonuses or Defense bonuses versus specific attacks. Number crunchers will love the challenge of stacking these set bonuses, whereas more casual players will simply be happier that their character gets more powerful with each set they collect.

Lots of examples given and so forth. I need to read it in detail later …

From the site …

HEADLINES

• Pocket D Jubilee! One year ago at Valentine’s Day, DJ Zero reopened Pocket D to great success! To celebrate the One Year Anniversary of Pocket D, DJ Zero presents more of the same fun from yesteryear!
• Graphical effects changes to improve game performance.
• Power revisions.

COMBINED NOTES

Powers

Burn: Normalized all versions of ‘Burn’ to now have a recharge time of 25 seconds. This is a reduction for Tankers, and an increase for Brutes and Blasters.

Performance: Made changes to the following graphics effects for performance improvements:

• Psychic Shockwave
• Drain Psyche
• Oppressive Gloom
• Death Shroud
• Whirling Hands
• Foot Stomp
• Stalagmite
• Circle of Thorn Crystals
• Devouring Earth Eminators
• Poison Gas Arrow

Other Power Changes:

• Invincibility: Brute and Scrapper versions of Invincibility taunt effect should now work properly.
• Animate Stone’s attack powers now use knock down, not knock back. Really. We mean it this time!
• Power Thrust: Corrected an issue with PvP Knockback suppression.
• Assault Rifle Sniper Rifle animation: Fixed the ‘hitch’ that happened if used in conjunction with Targeting Drone.
• Assault Rifle will no longer root the player while being drawn.
• Assault Rifle/Sniper Rifle power animation will no longer interrupt itself, which will prevent the power from appearing to be interrupted when it’s really not. This was specifically reported as happening with Targeting Drone active.
• Will Domination and Dominate rooting time while flying is now the same as standing.
• Drain Psyche’s rooting time has been reduced and changed to work more consistently.
• Added priority values to help correct Mastermind Thug pets from wearing the incorrect costumes and Kheldian from slipping back into “human” mode.

UI

• Base Salvage is now all categorized under “Base”. This is done to clean up the lists for when Invention Salvage is added.

Game

• The storm that had blown over Founders Falls and Croatoa has moved on and the more appropriate sky should now be seen there.
• The sky in Steel Canyon has been reset to display the correct “bright” sky for the area and correct an issue that could allow players to fly outside of the zone area. Hey, it’s not safe out there, even for the super powered!
• Corrected a server issue that could lead to instability.
• Improved Game Stability, including correcting a possible issue with capes that could lead to a client crash. We are still evaluating this issue, so if you do experience an issue that brings up a client crash report, as always it will be helpful if you choose to submit them.

Shamus (of DM of the Rings fame) talks about “doors” (metaphorical and literal) in computer RPGs and how ludicrous they sometimes are.

Most videogames in the RPG genre have plot-driven doors. You know, a locked door which may be made of wood and 100 years old, but which is indestructable, un-pickable, and un-openable until some plotpoint takes place. […] Some games are better about this than others, but it’s a necessity of the medium.

Players tolerate plot-doors to different degrees, mostly depending on the strength of the writing. Some games are really eager to abuse this, and use plot-doors in lieu of strong writing. Let me bring up the most foul example of a plot-driven door.

This is true in table-top games, too, at least with some GMs — no matter how well the players can argue that something makes absolutely no sense, plot-wise, the GM will railroad the characters through the pre-planned plot. It’s a challenge that every GM faces, as well — no matter how smart you are in coming up with barriers, having 3-6 highly intelligent and motivated people across the table from you (they must be, otherwise why would you invite them?) will soon demonstrate why you are not, in fact, smarter
than they are.

The good answer is to either (a) rely on a gaming system that’s character-driven, that doesn’t require the dungeon be stepped through in a particular sequence, but that gives the players the intrinsic power to affect the course of events and the GM the ability to keep up with them, or (b) provide really good distractions so that they’re willing to go on the quest to open the door rather than simply pick the lock.

From a CoH perspective (why we’re here, of course), this isn’t too much of a problem — or to the extent that it’s a problem, it’s just an accepted part of the Contact system. The players rely on the Contacts to feed and interpret the info gathered from either mysterious sources or each individual mission to direct them to the next spot. Rarely have I ever said, “Hey, I can figure out from this Clue what to do next — I’m on my way to the next mish without checking in with my Contact.” Instead,
we are kept in the dark and just sent from place to place. Rarely is there enough obvious information to provoke the sort of counter-reaction that Shamus describes.

(And, for that matter, if you choose, you can completely bypass Contacts and just street hunt. What you can’t do is actually figure out and track down the big Crey plot or Rikti invasion or Council headquarters by yourself.)

The only not-quite-metaphorical aspect of this which plagues the “suspension of disbelief” factor in CoX is that we’re talking about character who can blast through vault doors, trash cars, and go toe-to-toe with giant monsters and archvillains/superheroes, right? Why, then, are we stymied by simple warehouse doors that require a key? Why do we spend so much time wandering through warehouses via the front door, rather than ripping our way in from the side? Or (to use a genre-specific meme)
crashing through a skylight onto the villain, so bypassing the hordes of mooks? Heck, why do we get pushed around by civilians (though they are, of course, strong enough to keep super-villains from stealing their purses)?