Cyber_naut

I was pretty excited about dual builds until I saw how it was implemented, and what a debacle pvp has become. The worst disappointment is that you have to buy enhancements all over again for the second build, because apparently spending untold amounts of time io'ing out the first build wasn't enough. This has made dual builds useless to me.

Badges and temp powers earned for where you log out, and for staying logged out simply does nothing for me. I think dev time would have been better spent getting mission architect into i13 or creating a new powerset or making more new content like a new tf.

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Subjective:

Merits feel like a grind.

Let me emphasize that, A GRIND.

Before Issue 13, even before it went live, when the Merit System was revealed for what it was, my interest in playing the game dwindled. I lost heart.

Under the old system: Finish Task Force: Oooh, I get a shiny! Maybe it would be something good or useful to that character or that could be shared, or maybe it wouldn’t, but there was instant gratification to this.

Under the new system: Finish Task Force: Oh, gee, um, merits. Kind of dry, tastes like cardboard. Gee, how many more TFs do I have to do to get my shiny? No instant gratification. Even if the task force was long enough to meet the 20 merit goal of being ‘worthy’ of a random roll, the player still has to make a trip to turn them in. There’s no excitement to this.

I understand the goals, both stated and unstated, behind the Merit System. I like the OPTION to save merits to purchase a desired item, to no longer be reliant on market flippers.

What I don’t like is that the zest of doing Task Forces is gone. The excitement of a reward at the end is gone. Comparing and trading rewards with your teammates is gone. I think you have underestimated the importance of this.

My experience:

I just don’t feel like doing Task Forces anymore, where I used to do 5 or 6 a week. Why bother? Where I had a chance at the end of each for something great (or maybe useful to my SG or vendor fodder) I now can save up box tops for the eventual day I can buy ONE enhancement. Just ONE. Or I can invest considerably more time than I used to have to in order to obtain a random roll that I have to visit a vendor to get, also not inspiring.

I also don’t like that 10 or so of the people I did Task Forces with regularly have quit the game. If I actually wanted to Task Force, most of the people I did so with on my main server Liberty are gone. The only suggestion I have for that is to have another Reactivation Weekend soon and hope some of them come back.

I haven't given up on this game, I still play, I still love my friends and family whom I play with here. I have played COH/V for 4 1/2 years and I very much disagree with the attitude that "people that leave are accounts you would have lost anyway". That is simply not true.

Look at my signature. It’s there for a reason. I bought a Lifetime Account on LOTRO a month ago. Issue 13 swept me off to Middle Earth. I play both games now.

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Nailed it.

It's still FAR too difficult to IO out toons, which is a shame because the IO system is one of the best things you've added to the game recently. You should be trying to make that more accessible to the masses, not less.

First of all, the current merit system discourages regular teaming. You need to work something out where each mission rewards a merit, or even a fraction of a merit, to each team-member.

Secondly, either the pools need to be reworked so that random rolls guaranteed a decent recipe reward, or the amount of merits being awarded for each task should be increased.

And finally, as other posters have noted, merits should be exchangeable between characters. Why discourage players from playing multiple toons? This leads to players using the same toon over and over again to gather merits which leads to boredom and frustration.

Since the i13 changes, I feel my ability to IO out my toons has become more difficult, and that definitely is not a good thing.

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You should read my post again. I agree that Tanks and scrappers "aren't" broken. I never said Tanks and Scrappers were. If anything they are the Uber class for PvP. My point is that the other classes "ARE" broken. If the tanks and scrapps were broken, no one would use them. As it stands, the majority of PvP players are the Tank/Brute or Scrap/Stalk class.

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Mmmmmm no. Quite the opposite actually, in regards to pvp.

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One thing I'd suggest is rejiggering the pools.

First, all the recipes that make most people go "Damn, I got a...", put those in Pool A or Pool B. Trap of the Hunter, etc.

Then, break up all the rest into three groups...useful to most, very useful to most, highly prized. Random rolls for useful to most stays at 20, very useful to most at 40, highly prized to 80.

That way, the not useful to most players stuff goes back to random drops and the market gets them, and there's a real incentve to take a random roll.

As an alternative...add some more random rolls, by type. No level breakout, but you can choose a melee damage roll, ranged damage, heal, etc. That way, while you may or may not be getting something highly valuable...you are guaranteed getting something you can use.

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GREAT suggestions.

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People are saying that it's a reduction in rewards, because it is. Return the random roll as a choice to all TFs and watch people magically stop saying that.

[/ QUOTE ]It's only a reduction in rewards for Tarkoss, Katie, and Eden. All other non-Ouro TFs/SFs are worth at least the cost of a random roll...and in most cases, more. Thus, an increase in rewards.

If random rolls *were* for some reason returned, I can imagine it would be these three that they wouldn't be returned to.

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You ignore the reality of the situation, in that katies are a HUGE source of supply to the market right now. Take that away, and the market will be weakened, at the very least. The direction the devs seem to be taking in making it harder to IO up toons and in some cases making IO bonuses less useful (diminishing returns) is a very bad direction to go, imo.

"A: The reasoning behind not initially having group members, that are not the mission owner, receiving Merit Rewards is that the original reward system didn’t give mission helpers rewards either. However, we understand how some players might perceive this as a penalty for not being the mission owner and we will consider our options on how to best address this issue."

This is really going to mess up teaming, so I would strongly suggest not going live with a system where only the mission holder gets a reward.

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The changes to PvP are being made "because" so few people engage in it. The vast "Majority" avoids PvP. They Devs are listening to people, just not the ones that think things are working properly.

BTW. The "Masses" dont post in the Forums. The "Masses" are PLing and farming because they dont want to get ganked by another over powered brute or scrap. If the system worked there would be a much larger PvP community.

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If you think tanks and scrappers were what was broken with pvp, then I'm guessing you didn't pvp much...

And if you were getting 'ganked' by them, maybe that is as it should be...

"Here's where things begin to disconnect in my view. In I13, Positron is looking forward to see how his dominator can compete. Doesn't he realize that this is already one of the most powerful builds?"

I was wondering the same thing. It seems like they didn't even have a grasp of how pvp WAS, maybe that is the problem.

"Matt Miller: Our goal is that all powers are used an equal amount. Of course, this goal is impossible, as everyone has their favorite, and certain powers are specifically flavored to certain play styles. But if we see that there is a power or powerset that is constantly being ignored by the population, then we know where we can concentrate our efforts. The reverse is also true. There is no better indicator that power is TOO powerful than the fact that a higher than normal amount of characters take it."

People taking a power or powerset more often than others does not necessarily mean it's overpowered, just that people enjoy it. The devs should focus on fixing the broken powers and sets nobody plays rather than nerfing the powers and sets that their customers enjoy. This should be common sense.

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You can only buy it if your faction has control of the zone in sirens - and you only get 5. In the arena, having perma webnades is a huge advantace.

I would personally drop Trops or Shuriken instead of webnade

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Would having Web Grenade and a Focused Accuracy clone in the same Epic set be a good idea?
Wouldn't that become an extremely potent set for PvP?

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No it would be ridiculously overpowered, as melee and scrappers dominate pvp in this game. But if they really wanted to help out the underpowered and disadvantaged squishies and ranged at's, they'd nerf the uber shuriken powers. Maybe with 'thrown boot' and 'hurl insult'.

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it's like they saw lolmelee, but want it to be LOLMELEE.

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/e *ROFLCOPTERS in teh air where scrappers won't git meh anymore*

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I hear the WM targeting drone actually targets the scrapper and grants the to hit bonus to his/her opponents.

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3) Web Grenade is the power that is being replaced in Weapon Mastery

That's the only power in the set worth keeping. It grounds fliers, stops or slows runners and slows recharge.

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Yeah, it's like they saw lolmelee, but want it to be LOLMELEE.

Scrappers, speak up, this is a horrible change to weapons mastery. I could live with replacing one of the redundant and weak shuriken powers, but not one of the two truly useful powers.

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(QR)
3) Web Grenade is the power that is being replaced in Weapon Mastery.


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This is makes it even harder for scrappers to force melee combat. Why would you want to nerf scrappers in this regard? One of the few means scrappers have to hit from range and slow/immobilize an opponent. This is a terrible choice. I'd love to hear your full thought process behind this move.

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Let me specify with my opinion on changes and the fear of changes. As most know, I LOVE Force Fields. In a very unhealthy way, some might say.

However, if the devs changed one of the powers completely and/or replaced it with another... let's say they changed my FAVORITE power in the set, Repulsion Field into a power that "built a small cottage at your chosen location"... then how would I react?

Well, I would look at it as a challenge, as a new interesting mechanic. I would look for ways to make use of the change. I would see if I could summon the cottage around corners to see if it could aggro enemies for me in safety. I would see if it could be targeted and used for Howling Twilight...

There are a thousand possibilities... but the moral of the story is this: change happens. It just does. You can either complain about it endlessly or you can embrace it. One will lead you to being upset and will affect the way you face the rest of the world in a negative way, the other attitude will let you face the world in a positive way.

I TRY to never let anything bother me too much in a negative way. (TRY being the operative word here) Why? Because it only ends up hurting me in the end. And why allow something that I can control within myself to harm me when I can choose to NOT allow it to cause me grief?

How do I benefit from being upset? I don't, so I try not to let things upset me. Because it doesn't benefit me.

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Or, if a larger chunk of players didn't like the change, they could say so, strongly, and the devs, in a bizarre effort to please their clients and continue to make money, might listen to them.

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The Weapons Pool is one of my favorites, I sure hope I don't lose any powers from it due to the addition of Focused Accuracy. It would kinda ruin the gadgety quality of the set. I'm not a fan of FA at all.

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At least it fits in under weapon mastery... oh, wait...

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[u]Topic: PvE Power Changes.[u]


[u]Patron Pools and APP[u]

1. They all got looked at by Posi, Castle, and minion. Datamined which ones were taken and which were ignored. Buffs, nerfs, and power replacements!

2. If powers are replaced, when you log in, you'll have the new power. No grandfathering.

3. About 20% of the A/EPPs were replaced.

4. As one example of the Epic/Patron changes, Castle mentions that Weapon Mastery for Scrappers will now include Focused Accuracy. If his memory is correct.



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Hmmm. No 'grandfathering'? I remember hearing that term, but I'll need a quick refresher course.

I wonder if this'll mean that if we don't like the replacements, we'll have to 'respec' them. Would be nice if this means we'll get a free 'spec with this update.

[/ QUOTE ]This means they are getting rid of caltrops and possibly conserver power just so they can sanitize ninjutsu and energy aura before being ported to scrappers.

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Great, the squishy/melee divide just keeps getting bigger. I'll be pretty pissed off if they remove caltops. Why weaken the one set scrappers can use to force melee?

Here we go again... why not just post the changes so we can start discussing them now? Or are we going to have another 3-5 day 'test' nerf then rush them to live like the em 'pruning'?

So the update is that i13 is coming. Great.

In other news, i14 will come after i13. Maybe.

I'd look into breaking up the issues a bit and having new releases be a bit more frequent.

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What you want is the equivalent of a free lottery ticket every time you deposit money in the bank. That may sound great to you, but it creates a system that's skewed in such a way that the rich (the people who can run TFs all the time) continue to get even richer, while the poor find themselves even further disadvantaged.

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This is simply untrue. While such a system would indeed make the rich even richer, the poor would also be richer as they too would be getting more from each task force they play.

I would prefer the random drop AND credit system. Would those who farm tf's and play coh all day become ridiculously wealthy under such a system? Yes. But as of now, the io/recipe part of the game is not as accessable to the casual player as it should be imo. I play almost every day and I find it frustrating to be able to io out my characters without grinding or farming, and thats not a good thing. If I were a casual gamer, I probably wouldn't play this game at all.

Making features more easily accessable to the casual gamer will increase this games attractiveness to everyone. Making tf's more rewarding is a start. Next, I would suggest improving drops on teams and creating rewards for pvp play while reworking pvp to make it more accessable to all at's.

...ok, boobs?

Mission Creator - SCORE x10
Pain Domination - SCORE
Tokens from tf's so you can buy the recipes you want (assuming the rare ones are available...) - SCORE

Only one word can match the possibilities this issue offers - [censored].

Offer a respec for real cash that allows the toon to rechoose primary and secondary sets and watch the money roll in.

Might explain the ridiculously low drop rate of respec recipes. I've yet to see one.