ajackson

Re: Well, I have my Defeated Grond perk now

I wonder if Teliosaurus can still be soloed...

Teliosaurus has never been soloable as far as I know. It's possible to build a char who can tank him, but he triggers regeneration when he gets to 2/3 health and heals faster than one tank-build character can damage him.

Re: Well, I have my Defeated Grond perk now

So what was the trick for taking down Grond?

Have a map of his jump destinations and 10+ people beating on him.

I think the only major I still haven't defeated is Teliosaurus.

Re: Disappointment

Nobody has explained WHY using an RPG system as the basis for an MMORPG system is bad.

Typically because RPG systems are dependent on GM interaction to actually work, and MMOs lack a GM. In the case of the Hero system, one of the essential roles of the GM is to weed out horribly broken builds.

Re: Is "ether" real?

Well' date=' it's mainly because experiments can be conducted which quite clearly demonstrate that light is a wave, and which quite clearly demonstrate that light is a particle.[/quote']

No, experiments can be done that demonstrate that light has properties associated with waves, and properties associated with particles. The same experiment can easily do both.

Re: Is "ether" real?

You could in principle decide to call 'dark matter' ether, but doing so has no useful function and is likely to confuse people. Having finally read the article, the first sentence tells me enough to know that JP has no idea what he's talking about: The major evidence for the special theory of relativity is the Michaelson-Morely (sic) experiment, which demonstrated that there was no "ether wind" due to the movement of the earth through it. This is simply not true. Michelson-Morley was one of the experiments that led up to SR (and was resolved, initially, via the Lorenz Contraction), but it's hardly either the only evidence, or the major evidence.

Re: I have faced, the Destroyer....

The Super Destroyer isn't actually harder than the Retribution Devices you get in stage 3 of the open mission; he has more powerful individual attacks, but being swarmed by twenty destroids will make you face-plant right quick too.

Re: 'Hero System' online

I would imagine that enemy models don't have the full set of player animations. "Bystander" NPCs might not even have combat animations.

The vast majority of NPCs in the game could be produced with the costume editor, and probably have exactly the same animations available as PCs. The exception is things like grondlings (4 arms) and various animals.

Re: 'Hero System' online

There are two factors making it difficult to do anything resembling a direct port of the HERO rules to a MMO.

 

First off - technical issues. The following powers would be impossible or insanely difficult to implement in a computer game:

Shapechange - Pretty much impossible, unless you restrict it to looking like player character models.

Nah, shapechange is actually fairly easy as long as you're willing to ignore some graphics problems that occur even for player character models; you're limited to models with full animation, but that's not just PC models. It's tricky to make it do anything worthwhile (tweak aggro code?), but not hard to make it have a cosmetic effect.

Duplication - Would need impractical AI to control the duplicates.

Summon - Would only work with a predefined summoning list, otherwise it would need impractical AI to control the summons.

Generally true.

N-Ray Vision - Because there literally isn't an inside to the buildings you can't go into.

You can still let it see through objects where an other side actually exists. Same applies to tunneling, desolid, teleport, though you'd be adding a lot of special-casing to your movement code for a pretty marginal benefit.

Telepathy - NPCs aren't actually thinking anything.

So? It usually winds up as 'click to bypass plot point X', but that's not totally worthless. Again, though, requires a lot of special-casing, here in quest design.

Mind Control - Every NPC and creature would need the animations for every possible action. And Mind Control that wasn't possession-type would have the same AI issues as Duplication.

Hardly. You just use the standard lazy method of mind control -- you adjust the mob's internal faction definition and it uses its normal AI.

Mental Illusions - No way to specify what the illusion is' date=' no way to tell how a given NPC would react to it.[/quote']

Doing specific effect illusions is doable. In practice, most mental illusions will boil down to a stun, hold, blind, or DoT effect.

Really Fast Movement (Megascale' date=' or even high NCM) - Breaks any system where content is loaded as needed based on where the character is - which is every MMO, AFAIK.[/quote']

In practice, it's just an ability to do zoning in situations where you aren't normally able to do zoning -- i.e. rather than take a plane to go from zone Canada to zone Desert, you just pop your movement power.

Transform' date=' Precognition, EDM - These are pretty much impossible.[/quote']

Limited target set transform is doable; it's about the same as summon. EDM is like long-distance movement, it's a specialized ability to change zones in a nonstandard way.

Re: Ultraviolet vision- What the heck would it do?

Realistically, UV vision has very few applications that would be relevant in fantasy -- there's less natural UV light than there is visible light. However, there's a tradition in RPGs, dating back to D&D, of thinking that UV vision allows seeing by starlight.

Re: 'Hero System' online

I don't agree with that. Any arbitrary system of adjudication can be coded for; the "human touch" just allows for more wiggle room and "organic" solutions.

Have you ever actually attempted to work on an online game? I have (old-school MUD), and I assure you, creating balanced rules is exponentially harder without a GM. Certainly, the Hero System as written would not work, though you could certainly come closer than CO does.

Re: 'Hero System' online

I guess the best way I can say this' date=' and with no hauteur intended, is that the online gaming community at large is still a couple decades behind the pen n paper community as to the level of sophistication / complexity they are able or willing to adapt to.[/quote']

It has less to do with that than with the fact that online games don't have a GM, and GMs have an essential role in balancing PnP games. "Buy anything you want, as long as it's within the point budget" doesn't work very well in a tabletop game unless the character creation system is considerably more rigid than Hero, but it's the only method available to MMOs.

Re: List Your CO Nemeses!

Steve's already at 40' date=' some event might trigger it.[/quote']

I was able to make a new one immediately on defeating the old one. Just go to the police officer, he'll give you a quest to update the crime computer, and you can create your nemesis.

Re: Cool, possibly vapor-ware, new capacitor tech

As for capacitors it was my understanding that without a resistor' date=' they discharged all their energy at once, unlike a battery which does it over a greater period of time.[/quote']

Energy storage technologies vary in both energy density (how much energy they contain) and power density (how fast they can dump that energy); on average, technologies that are better at the first are worse at the second (in part because technologies are only used if they have some advantage).

 

However, any battery capable of powering a car will be able to kill a human, no problem, because it takes far more power to run a car than it takes to kill a human.

Re: Cool, possibly vapor-ware, new capacitor tech

Hey, I recognize that name! They've been making wild claims about ultracapacitors for a while.

Re: Anybody else having problems?

It seems to be patching slowly today for some reason. Perhaps due to the Blood Moon event?

Probably. It only started a few hours ago, so the server is likely a bit loaded down.

Re: Abilities Discussion

Does anyone know if there is a way to tell if Accelerated Metabolism is working?

Go to your combat log and look for the messages about gaining energy. The 'energy recovery mode for 15 seconds' means 'Your AM won't give you any energy until this mode terminates', which is why AM generally sucks (In most fights, it's basically going to go off once, for about as much energy as a single energy builder attack). If you have a point lying around and your build has energy issues it may be worth dropping it on a power you use regularly which has a high rate of fire, but certainly don't put it on multiple powers, or expect very much out of it.

Re: CHAMPIONS 6E -- What Do *You* Want To See?

In any case, Mega-Crossovers have been a feature of the genre during a period that's clearly Iron Age, unless you think Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars don't count.

Re: Respecing Might based on Test Server notes

Even if I started with a straight up Might build? Just want to be sure about that.

Well, if you take invuln you're no longer a pure might built (as invuln is a PA power), but yes, it's a tier 1 power so you can take it as your 4th power.

It's probably possible to design a build where defiance is really good, but you'll have trouble -- for most of the chaff fights you deal with in the game, you'll be able to get about two stacks of might before it ends, and since it takes 20 seconds for your resting heal to start ticking up, your defiance expires before the next fight. I'd consider it for the new Celestial builds, actually; you probably want a heal power if you're taking Defiance.

Re: Technical: Game Controller

Unless you're using an Xbox360 controller, there's no vanilla way to do so, though there are various key binding systems that will let you emulate keyboard/mouse control with your controller.

Re: Abilities Discussion

Nekrull is one of the weaker legendaries, but I'm not sure how practical he is to solo.

Re: LFG - Saturday Night 10-17-2009

Access VIPER Serpentine Network is a timed mission that gives you 10 minute to find and access the network.

Actually, it's a staged timed mission, which gives you 10 minutes per stage. I think only the last stage (which may not be doable before the end anyway) has serious time pressure.

Re: Abilities Discussion

The underlying issue is I don't know which. I hope its the text that is wrong' date=' of course [/quote']

No, it's pretty clearly not intended to be all attacks; permanent blocking would be ridiculously OP. Given that I haven't actually heard of this bug before, I suspect it applies when you use an attack classified as 'melee' and someone applied that tag to some powers it didn't really belong on.

Re: Abilities Discussion

If the power doesn't act in a way that corresponds to the power text, it's a bug somewhere -- either the power is wrong, or the description is wrong. In this case, it's probably a bug with the power, though it may be an issue with power classification.

Re: List Your CO Heroes!

Forgive me if I missed it in the earlier posts... but has anyone formed a Super Team for the HERO Boards regulars? Or does anyone here already have a team looking for new members?

See this sticky thread.