Cantatus

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Wait, so you think that one of Medusa's sister is also Recluse sister?

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Not having gotten Issue 3 yet, I'm not exactly sure what way the "sister" thing was used. My guess, however, would be that Recluse isn't talking about his actual blood sister, but the sister to whomever he's an incarnate of.

Good luck to your brother!

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I think, though I could be wrong, that the majority of you would prefer my honest thoughts, rather than sales talk. It's probably pretty different than the game developer norm, but it's what feels right for me to say. I'm not going to always write the best responses, but you'll at least have truthful ones.

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Which is one of the things I've always liked about Cryptic. Coming from EQ, it's very refreshing.

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What in the nine hells are you talking about?
Build up comes in Blaster secondaries.
Fire Blast- Aim
Ice Blast - Aim
Energy Blast - Aim
Elec Blast- Aim

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You're right. I was looking at Assault Rifle when I made this opinion. I hadn't looked into it as closely as I should've.

Please, please datamine for previous TF accomplishments. I really don't want to have to go through Quatermain's TF again.

Also, now that you added a badge for all four TFs of the Shadow Shard, any chance that maybe obtaining those four badges could grant an accolade? Completing all four is definitely something that'd warrant it.

I've been playing a Sonic/Energy Blaster on Test and really enjoying it.

A few notes:
- Sonic Blast seems mainly to have cone attacks and no AoEs aside from the final power. While I understand these power are coming from the hero's mouth, I don't see why they should all have to be cone attacks. When I speak, people can hear me even if they aren't directly in front of me. It should be the same way for Sonic attacks. Maybe not all of them have to change, but I think it'd be good to have at least one AOE before 32.

- One thing you might've overlooked: Defenders get Aim powers in their secondary, Blasters get them in their primary. Because the Sonic Blast set for Blasters seems to be a direct copy of the set the Defenders get, a Sonic Blaster can get two forms of Aim. For example, my Sonic/Energy Blaster has Build Up *and* Amplify. I'd suggest replacing Amplify with a Snipe, since Sonic Blasters don't have one.

- Also, I agree on the sounds. While sound doesn't play as big of a part in other powersets, Sonic is one that should be designed with it as a significant importance. Don't just reuse old sounds please. I especially don't like Shriek.

The venders in the Shadow Shard don't sell. I think the programmers might have inadvertantly set these up as contacts instead of venders. They all have a backstory (which venders don't.) I'm hoping this wasn't a mistake, and the missions for these guys just weren't added.

Personally, any changes to the Shadow Shard I see as a good thing. This is one of the most amazing places I've seen in any MMOG to date, and it's sad that it's so ignored. It makes it so level 40+ lacks diversity since RCS is the only "connected" Hazard Zone (ie You never have to go to the SS if you don't want to.)

However, I'm hoping you guys aren't assuming that the only reason people don't go to these zones is because it's hard to get around and there aren't enough venders. A big reason is because there is little point to play there. You go through 40 levels of doing missions with storylines to end up with having four zones with nothing aside from task forces? It makes the end game feel a little pointless and sloppy. It almost feels as if you guys ran out of time with doing the zone and implemented it anyways. For example, the Reflections serve no purpose whatsoever. You don't encounter them in any of the missions (maybe in the TFs, not sure.) Considering the fact you guys have previously said that you don't like to implement anything until it's perfect, it's sad to see it's taken three issues to get anything done with it. Hopefully we won't have to wait another three for more changes.

Please, please add story arcs and normal missions to these zones. I implore you. These have the potential to be some of the best zones any MMOG has had.

Oh, and add my vote for more mole points and not portals.

Lastly, please, please, please datamine the badges. Quatermain's TF is one of the (if not the) longest and most boring TF in the game. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I really don't want to redo it.

Actually, while Roanoke is in modern-day North Carolina, at the time of the disappeareances, it was considered to be part of Virginia:

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It was July 2nd. (O. S.) 1584, when the first expedisent out by Walter Raleigh. anchored in Orakoke Inlet, off the coast of that part of Florida, later given the name of Virginia, and now within the confines of North Carolina.

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Also:
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Furthermore, "Roanoke in Virginia" was how Raleigh and his contemporaries referred to Roanoke Island.

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The Roanoke Colony was the second English colony in the New World, after St. John's in Newfoundland. It was founded at Roanoke Island in what was then Virginia (now North Carolina, United States).

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So, technically you're both correct. It was in Virginia, but is currently in North Carolina.

However, many of the sites I checked, do say it was "Croatoan" (and also "C R O"), although some do, instead, say it was "Croatan." So, I suppose that's a victory for you... The shame Gilgamesh must face for missing one letter!


On a seperate note, why does every release of the Paragon Times have to be met with critizism and nit-picking? Honestly, would you rather Gilgamesh not bother at all? Even if Gilgamesh was wrong, he is human. Mistakes happen. Hell, even real newspapers make mistakes. There's really no reason to get all worked up about it.

I think one thing Statesman is really going to have to consider if he goes to an all contact enhancement system is that there will be some balancing required. Take the 40+ game, for example: You get 5 contacts at 40, one for each group of villains you fight - Rikti, Malta, Carnies, Crey, and Portals/Random. If each of these represents a different origin, it's not entirely balanced. Malta are much more powerful than Crey, and probably one of the toughest groups to fight. If this contact becomes the ones that gives Natural enhancemens, you will see people start to say, "Don't pick Natural origin. It's a pain at later levels!" We already see this at early levels where one group is assigned Vahzilok, the toughest low level gang.

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Second, the "nerfs". My main, a 43 earth/storm/ice controller, solos invincible with little effort, but that is mainly because INV still spawns tiny groups. I can't tell you the number of times I've sat there looking at a group of 2 mobs, one orange and one red, wondering where the challenge would come from. I'd fix invincible by upping the spawn count (as of now the number of mobs is set at heroic level, just higher cons) and increasing the number of lts. and bosses.

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I'm one of those players that loves a challenge. The whole reason I do Unyielding missions over Invincible ones is because there are more mobs, and to me, that makes it more difficult (and more fun from a Controller's standpoint.)

Statesman seems to be very intent on making it so one hero equals three minions. Perhaps this works from 1 to 30, but maybe he needs to look at a different model when heroes start getting SOs and three minions are a minor annoyance. As it is, it would take a hell of a lot to make certain archetypes only as "powerful" as three minions.

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Statesman said that they can not remove Stamina in its current form from the game.

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Well, it seems to me everyone believes that the endurance regen rate, as it stands, is far too slow. Why not increase the overall regen rate of endurance while decreasing the effectiveness from Stamina?

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The post 50’s blues: Mr. Emmert mentioned several different possibilities for post the 50’s game. Going back and doing missions with a sidekick so that the sidekick gets more xp. Another idea was new power sets and missions attached to these power sets that would require the new power sets to complete them.

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Eh... That already exists with Kheldians. In my opinion, replayability in any game is nice, but Statesman needs to realize that there are some of us that really like focusing on one character.

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Hold on to your seats folks, he HATES the stores in Talos and IP. As soon as he is able he will get rid of them.

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I'd like to see the reason behind this. Personally, I think Cryptic needs to look for more ways to let us go into buildings in the city, not less. As it is, most of the doors in the city are locked off to us. If they're going to go to an all contact system, at least put these contacts indoors, instead of sitting them out on the streets with every other contact. It doesn't even have to be in an existing store. We could go visit the contact's dingy apartment, for all I care.

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Mr. Emmert through out the lecture constantly said that arising to challenges =fun.

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While I'm likely one of the few that views this as good news, I'm not holding my breath. It seems everytime Cryptic increases the difficulty of something in the name of balancing the 30+ game, it is deemed too difficult for the soloers and removed. Case in point: boss changes. I had a lot of fun with those difficult bosses, but they removed because they were too hard for some soloers - which I can completely understand.

Way back in beta when I started my first character, I choose to start in Galaxy City because "Back Alley Brawler" sounded much more interesting than "Ms. Liberty." Nowadays, I try to alternate where I start, but I don't get nearly the same feeling of nostalgia in Atlas Park than I do in Galaxy City.

From what I hear, all base entrances will be through some sort of portal. From my interpretation of that, that basically means that a bunch of villains could be sitting right outside of your base, but setting up to raid someone completely different. There'd be no way to tell if someone was setting up to raid you or not, so if you had a 3 hour open window, players would have to sit in their base to ensure their items didn't get stolen. How fun is that?

The one question I have in all of this, though, is what happens if I get an item of power, and I just refuse to schedual raids on my base?

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I think the Spartan/Greek helmets pretty much looked the same: according to Google this is Spartan, whereas this one's Greek (Corinthian, according to the web site).

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Sparta was a city in ancient Greece. So, any helmets that are Spartan are automatically also Greek.

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They would be fighting each other alot cause Zues and Hades never were on good terms with each other and Hades was kinda evil.

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Aside from the whole Persephone thing, Hades wasn't really evil.

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Good and bad went to Hades, hell is probably where Zeus' father ended up (forget the name, starts with a Tar...heck I'm prob wrong there, it's been awhile).

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Cronus The "Tar" you might be thinking of is "Tartarus," which was the bad side of the underworld, where Cronus and his fellow Titans were cast after Zeus defeated them.

I've been waiting for one of Freedom Phalanx to turn to the evil side, not including Malaise. Perhaps Synapse will be captured and turned evil, and Foreshadow will take his place in Skyway City.

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True, but your:

A) Not paying 15 bucks a month for it.

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True, but you're also definitely never getting any new content for it. Their model is to release new expansions every quarter of the year to keep earning money. So, depending on how much these expansions cost, you might actually end up paying more than a MMOG if you try to keep up with all the expansions.

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but what the hell is the point of nerfing it in the first place then?


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Actually, I would like to know that myself.

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That's definitely something that would be helpful for us to know. There are a lot of assumptions flying around about why the changes were made, and a lot of people are probably entirely off base, but we have no way of knowing that. And once we do know that, we can begin to give feedback that's actually useful.

I'm a little mixed on this.

Doesn't half the exp on mission maps just discourage people from playing in Hazard Zones even more? Yes, you'll be getting half as much debt indoors, but that's just semantics. It'll mean you're getting twice as much debt anytime you're not in a mission. Essentially you'll be doing a lot more risky fighting (because of the bigger groups in these zones), but you'll be getting punished twice as hard? That seems completely out of whack for risk vs reward to me.

This especially puts more strain on the 40-50 crowd when you consider just how difficult places like Shadow Shard and the Rikti Crash Site are, and barely anyone goes there as it is. Shouldn't you be looking for more ways to encourage people to go to Hazard Zones?

*sob* City of Villains is out and they're already hinting about stuff that'll come after that. My head's going to explode!


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I'd like to take this oppurtunity to challenge States to a duel in the Arena, any lvl 6 of his choice, versus any lvl 6 of my choice.

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No, we need a Cryptic vs. players event!

Bleh, I guess that's why Issue 4 will be out "sooner than we think." I just hope they start leaking stuff about the Skill System out soon. We've been patiently waiting for a long time.

The mid-term solutions sound good. As someone who loves the challenge Issue 3 has added, I hope it doesn't take too long to get this in.

As a suggestion for another alternative: Is it possible bosses could just scale up in difficulty for groups? Having them appear as LTs makes some mobs appear trivial (namely named story arc mobs) since you encounter LTs on a regular basis. Couldn't they still appear as Bosses (with the former difficulty) and, in groups, they'd appear with the current difficulty as Elite Bosses?

Hollows - The only problem I really see with the Hollows is being level 8 and getting a mission in the hills with all the level 14 mobs. At that level, you have no travel powers nor stealth and can't avoid being pounded. My friends and I died several times getting to a mission and then just had to give up when we died within the mission since we didn't want to trek back.

Peregrine Island - The zone is crowded, but I think it's more problematic of just how the spawns are in the zone. Probably 75% of the main island is made up of Rikti and Nemesis spawns. Getting Carnies, Malta, and even Devouring Earth can be a pain in the [censored] in your lower 40s. They need vary the mob spawns better.

I also don't understand why they don't understand why they don't use the rooftops more. Why not stick some Malta up on the roofs to create more spawn points?

Shadow Shard - Shadow Shard is probably one of the biggest areas I read complaints about, and it's sad to see such a creative area going to waste, especially since it makes up four hazard zones. The biggest complaint is probably how difficult it is to get around. My biggest complaint, however, is that there is no real story to the zone unless you do one of the task forces. Of course, the task forces require 8 people, and since it's difficult to find anyone in the zone, it's hard to get one going. Personally, I wish they'd turn two of the task forces into story arcs instead.

If anyone is interested, I've compiled a FAQ based on what Bridger has told us here.

Thanks for starting the thread, Statesman. It's things like this that give me alot of confidence in the game.

First off, I'm curious if anything is going to be added to give higher level players something to do with influence. It drops at such a high rate once you reach 30+, that you constantly have way more than you'll ever need. I currently have 13million at level 41, for example.

Secondly, any chance of Phantasm being looked at and having the knockback removed or changed to knockdown? Having a Phantasm makes it much more difficult for me to do my job and a lot of the groups I've been in have requested that I not use my pet because he makes things difficult for everyone. It's not like having an Energy Blaster who can control when he uses his knockbacks and what direction he pushes the mobs in, we have no control over it whatsoever.

Lastly, is a way to get around easier in the Shadow Shard going to be looked into (eg jetpacks) or the vents looked into? I'd love to be able to get groups in this zone.

Thanks again, Statesman. I really appreciate what you guys do.

*gets out his Statesman decoder ring*

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No one wants to go to shadow shard or the crash site and I cant say I blame them.


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And that's why those zones will get some attention...

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If they're going to get some attention please, please change the Shadow Shard missions. After playing in the Hollows and seeing the cohesive storyline with all those missions, I've realized just how mundane Shadow Shard's missions are. It's "save him," "look at a monument," "get me fruit" over and over again. There's no story arc at all. You can't learn anything about the Shadow Shard unless you do the Task Forces. There's no point to doing the mission aside from the exp you get (and most of these missions are pretty small.)

As far as other things, I think Shadow Shard would highly benefit from giving players jet packs or something easier to get around. Those vents often don't get you to the next island. Thankfully, I have teleport and can avoid them. I've tried several times using the vents while I explore, and inevitably, and up having to teleport anyways.

The Rikti Crash Site would benefit a lot from there being an easier way to get there.

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Speculation: Warshades have two forms. Peacebringer could, but the name 'shade' fits more with the shifting. Perhaps they both have it, one could be a physical form, the other could be an energy form. Each form may have their own abilities (which could explain the number of powers). A thought has also formed in my head that these Epic ATs may not have the option of the non-Epic Power Pools, which could also explain the large number of powers.

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That's an interesting theory, and it really fits with what we've heard.

The one thing that's stuck out in my mind is when epic ATs were first announced, Statesman said they'd be more powerful than other archetypes, but have "a weakness that could be exploited by other players." Perhaps it's something like someone else suggested. Kheldians require the power of heroes to live, so the more heroes they have around, the more powerful they are. Thus, more people in the group makes the Kheldian more powerful.

I'm not exactly sure how that's exploiting the power though. Maybe it's a little more than that. Maybe group members can siphon some of your energy off, making them more powerful while weakening you.

The Nictus aren't necessarily evil. The only thing we've heard about them, so far, is from a Kheldian. If there is a civil war between the Nictus and the Kheldian, a Kheldian is likely to villify a Nictus, but it doesn't make all Nictus evil. Perhaps there are good Nictus and bad Nictus. Since we don't know what their civil war is over, it's hard for us to say all Nictus are bad. Right now, knowing that Requiem is a Nictus, does make it look like they are evil though.