DarthMord

SF, I'm amazed at the folks who actually argue with you when you are right. I mean, I've followed (for the most part) along all the thigns you've said about claws (good, bad, & ugly) in order to help my wife with her claws/regen scrapper. It's helped her to make a better scrapper, one that she really enjoys playing.

Based on prior experience and seeing your words proven true time and again, I'm utterly amazed that some people will argue with you and say you're wrong.

Ah well... Keep up the good work of helping us other scrappers out. This one and his wife appreciate it.

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Nor do they change the rating of the game by allowing players to kill helpless civilians.

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Then why don't they disappear nice and clean, like when mobs get hit by a police drone? That would be much better than having a bunch of invincible civilians running around.

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Can't subject the citizens of Paragon City to the (still in Beta Test) powers of the Police Drones.

However, it's been determined that Heroes and villains suffer no ill effects so it's okay to use them on those folks...

Hey now, I just saw that we had a Regen Lounge channel. If I can remember when I get home, I'll join it.

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Since this is now the standard for getting missed badges, whether you missed them because you were unavailable, not in game or it was offered somewhere not accessable to your character, then I hope the standard is upheld. We've already seen the return of the winter minions, were they stuck only in a PvP zone? No. So for now on, sure there can be returns of other rare spawns, but based on the same rules of the RV Isolater. There will be 1 winter lord spawn per year on christmas day, time unknown, but in a PvP zone. If you miss it, wait til next year. On halloween and halloween only, there will be single spawns of each type in Siren's call on a 2 hour timer, if you don't get enough for the badge, there is always next year. It is the perfect reward to your long time playerbase.

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Incorrect context... the Isolator mob in RV does not spawn once a year. It apparently spawns regularly. A better context for your snarky rant/retort would have been a single winter that only would spawn in a single PvP location.

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Yep, I don't mind at all paying for expansions.

Use the money to pay for some art/animation time and give us the ability to customize our powers!

Hell, use the money for just time - gimme more powersets, EATs, whatever.

I like this game and I will definitely be buying any expansion they put out.

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That's why I'm in the middle of the road on this... On one side, I understand why they are pursuing a paid expansion and support that... On the other side, a legitimate case can be made that we're getting far less than we used to and are paying more for it.

The paid expansion will sit well with some due to what it'll bring... while it'll sit very poorly with others due to getting less, paying more, and seeing much slower overall Issue Content (when compared to the past).

I'm taking a wait and see position personally. If they go the route of paid expansion after paid expansion and Issues become bleh, I'll be one of the first to go.

BTW, to a previous poster... Asheron's Call came out in 1998 I thought... or was that beta? I played from Jan 01 until Nov 05.

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This is a disturbing trend to start... if they're going to have additional content that you have to pay for, I will become worried. I can write-off buying CoV since it's essentially a new game, but to pay for a new powerset, or a new AT, just bothers me. I mean, should we expect such "premium" ATs to be better than the regular ones? I'd also be worried if pay-per-content expansions became the norm, and the free content took a backseat...

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I think its inevitable that you're going to see regular paid expansions over the life of the CoX universe. New retail box expansions give the game presence on store-shelves that it would not otherwise get, which brings in more cash for Cryptic, and helps attract new players to the game. I think the game needs semi-regular injections of new and shiny above and beyond the regular Issue Updates to stay healthy, and to grow (and I think we should all want the game to grow, as more growth could mean more staff to work on things)

It would be unfortunate if the paid expansions come at the expense of the regular Issue updates that are partially funded by our monthly fees (as per the Knowledge Base), but in some respects this is a horse that fled the barn six months ago.

I think we should remember that you wouldn't just be paying for one new powerset, or a new EAT. I suspect that a new expansion may very well feature a new group of zones in an area that is neither Pargon or the Rouge Isles. Space and Underwater themes quite handily lead themselves to this sort of thing in my opinion.

I'd pay for a Galaxy of Heroes, or Ocean of Heroes expansion with a new, optional group of zones and a related EAT(Coralax for Ocean obviously) assuming a reasonable price and some other packaged benefits (free month of play, an extra four slots per server like CoV gave us). Also, given that this paid expansion is not going to be a stand-alone game, the cost is going to be lower than a full game I would assume. Well, at least lower than the official Cryptic price. Best Buy has CoV on for $9.99 right now.

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Paid expansions also let them do such things as get more people, design more tech, etc to do things that are normally not allowable / take excessive amounts of time based on the income from monthly subscriptions.

Want new animations? Either wait forever and a day via the monthly subscription angle or put out a new expansion (which comes with funding) and hire some to take care of the animation needs. This also allows them to get more writers, designers, etc to add more to the game that the normal crew simply can't create in the normal amount of time per publish cycle allotted to current Issues.

In a nutshell, a paid expansion lets them bring in more content above and beyond the amount that we can get via monthly subscriptions.

I do have to admit though... it is somewhat distressing in that we've gone from 4 updates/year to 2/year and we are looking at Issue 9 possibly being the paid expansion. Looking at that, one could legitimately say that we are getting less and paying more for it.

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Setting to Bodyguard
You can set any Mastermind Henchman to Bodyguard by selecting the Defensive Stance and the Follow Order. Your Henchmen must be within Supremacy range for this function to work.


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So, weird question:

I've got the pets out on bodyguard, and one of the various foes does some version of Nova. Does the damage mitigation from Bodyguard apply BEFORE the damage to pets, AFTER the damage to pets, or "undetermined"?

Before you think it sounds like a stupid question, imagine I've several battle damaged pets (with, say one hit point) and I'm low myself. ANY damage would kill them, and I need them as my "meat shield" - so, do they throw themselves on the grenade, or "other"?

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The Bodyguard functions at the time of attack. Say that Nova did 100 damage and you have all 6 pets in Defense/Follow mode.

You take 25 damage. (2 parts of 8)

Each pet takes 12.5 Damage from Bodyguard (6 parts of 8 since each minion gets a part)
Each pet also takes 100 damage (minus resistances) from being in the AoE of the Nova attack.

The end result would be you took 25 damage and your henchmen all took 112.5 damage (not counting resistances).

(Fairly certain this is how it would work based on what Pos has stated so far)

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Kinda doesn't answer the question - if they pets only have 1 point left and they take their damage BEFORE I do, they then die and don't take a percentage of my damage. If -I- take the damage first, then they die from MY damage and don't take it on their own.

It's not a "Doooom!" question, I was just curious if they too OUR damage first, THEIR damage first, or "undetermined"


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I believe (unsubstantiated so take that how you will) that the damage will be calculated together. You and the henchmen are taking the damage at the same time due to it being an AoE attack. So you are taking your damage and parcelling it out at the same time your henchmen are taking the damage from the attack.

If it's done in pulses, that could really bite as the henchmen could be dead before the pulse of BG damage goes out. That is of course assuming that the effect stops the moment the henchman died. We've already seen that the system still lets an attack's damage go even though LOS is broken or the mob that delivered it was taken out before the attack hit.

But for a specific answer, your best bet would be to PM Positron.

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Setting to Bodyguard
You can set any Mastermind Henchman to Bodyguard by selecting the Defensive Stance and the Follow Order. Your Henchmen must be within Supremacy range for this function to work.


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So, weird question:

I've got the pets out on bodyguard, and one of the various foes does some version of Nova. Does the damage mitigation from Bodyguard apply BEFORE the damage to pets, AFTER the damage to pets, or "undetermined"?

Before you think it sounds like a stupid question, imagine I've several battle damaged pets (with, say one hit point) and I'm low myself. ANY damage would kill them, and I need them as my "meat shield" - so, do they throw themselves on the grenade, or "other"?

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The Bodyguard functions at the time of attack. Say that Nova did 100 damage and you have all 6 pets in Defense/Follow mode.

You take 25 damage. (2 parts of 8)

Each pet takes 12.5 Damage from Bodyguard (6 parts of 8 since each minion gets a part)
Each pet also takes 100 damage (minus resistances) from being in the AoE of the Nova attack.

The end result would be you took 25 damage and your henchmen all took 112.5 damage (not counting resistances).

(Fairly certain this is how it would work based on what Pos has stated so far)

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I really would like to know how the numbers work out for PvP, Statesman. That's where the hardest edge of things is. After all, no AI will ever be as hard a fight as a good human, and we want to be the best we can be.

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Should be the same as Even level minions. All PvP Base ToHit is 50%. Everyone is the same "level" in PvP. So you'd be fighting even level opponents, in this case minions since that is where our ToHit & Defense sit (at base levels).

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First: we are NOT changing Defense Debuff Enhancements at all. This was an error in the patch notes.

Let me clarify a few things about the To Hit Debuff Enhancement change (from Schedule “A“ or 8/16/33 to Schedule “ B“ or 5/10/20).

_Castle_ was right that the decision was affected by Hamidon Enhancements though this was not the primary reason for the change. We needed to change the way To Hit Debuff Enhancements worked because of the upcoming I7 change to the To Hit calculations. There have always been some issues with Defense and Resistance. The former was affected by level differences, while the latter was not. For example, an even con would have a base to hit value of %, while a Boss 2 levels higher than a player would have a %. But if a player had damage resistance, it would apply the same discount to damage regardless of the mob’s level.

In order to balance the playing field, we decided to give mobs the same base To Hit value instead (this was, in fact, brought up on the forums!). Now all mobs, regardless of level, have a base to hit of 50%. The only difference between ranks of mobs (boss, lieutenant and minion) and levels is the Accuracy.

In order to decipher this a little bit easier, let’s take a look at the to hit formula.

(Base To Hit + To Hit Buffs - (To Hit Debuffs * Combat Mod) – Defense) capped at 5% or 95% * Accuracy (capped at 5% or 95%, again)

In the case of the Base To Hit – Defense, the value is floored at ..05 or 5%. It can’t go below that. Similarly, the result after being multiplied by Accuracy can’t go higher than .95 or 95%

The To Hit chance also increased over level. A +1 level had a 1.05 modifier, +2 level 1.1 and +3 1.15. For example, the base to hit chance of a lieutenant +2 levels was .58*1.1 or 63.8%.

Now let’s take a look at the effect that the To Hit change has on the To Hit Debuff Enhancement change with Radiation Infection and a Defender.

Before

Radiation Infection has a base To Hit debuff of 2.5 * the Defender’s Archetype boost of 0.125 = 0.3125. With 2 SO’s under the Schedule “A“ (a 66% increase to the Debuff), the end result would be 0.5187.

Here’s a breakdown of how this would play out against various ranks and levels

Even Con
Minion .5 (Base to Hit) -0.5187 (Radiation Infection To Hit Debuff) = -0.0187 or 5% chance to hit (minimum before Accuracy modifications)
Lieutenant 5.66%
Boss 13.13%

+1 Level
Minion 8.32%
Lieutenant 15.85%
Boss 23.32%

+2 Levels
Minion 18.50%
Lieutenant 26.03%
Boss 33.50%

+3 Levels
Minion 31.28%
Lieutenant 38.81%
Boss 46.28%

After the I7 change

Instead of changing the base to hit chance, we instead are changing Accuracy. Take an even con boss: his To Hit is only .5, but his Accuracy is 1.3. The net effect is that a boss still hits someone 65% of the time against someone without Defense, but with Defense, the equation changes substantially.

Let’s take Radiation Infection again. It’s a Schedule “B” now; with 2 SO’s, the net result would be 0.3123 * 1.4 = 0.4372.

Every single mob has now been given Accuracy to make it so that their base To Hit value is only .5 rather than the values you see above. In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

I’ll work it out a little more fully here with the To Hit Formula. Taking that boss mentioned above, his To Hit would work out like this…

(0.5 - (0.4375*.8)) * 1.3 = 0.1950 or 19.50%.

Whereas previously, the To Hit chance had a level modifier, now that applies to Accuracy. +1 level is 1.1, +2 1.2, and +3 1.3. A lt.'s base To Hit is then .5*1.15*1.2 or .69/69%.

I’ll apply it below so that you can see the changes in action.

Even Con
Minion 6.25%
Lieutenant 12.23%
Boss 19.50%

+1 Level
Minion 11.69%
Lieutenant 18.43%
Boss 26.46%

+2 Levels
Minion 18.00%
Lieutenant 25.54%
Boss 34.32%

+3 Levels
Minion 28.03%
Lieutenant 36.51%
Boss 46.05%

Ideally, the Enhancement change should’ve gone hand in hand with I7. To be honest, there was an error there. Unfortunately, we discovered that we couldn’t pull the change out without jeopardizing the I7 release schedule. Right now, QA (at NCSoft and Cryptic) is working away at I7 and shaking out bugs. If we were to roll back this change, our teams would need to put I7 aside and retest the current build. I made the decision to stay the course instead.

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So if I'm understanding this correctly...

According to you rnumbers...

The Debuff Enhancement change wasn't so much a nerf as a tweak/rebalance/adjustment to keep it on relative parity with how Defense & ToHit work under I7.

If this is true (and I believe it is), this makes sense and I do apologize for being opposed to this change.

This sort of explanation / example giving is a great thing. I do wholeheartedly wish for it to continue into the future. This helps to dispel many questions and hazy areas of the patchnotes.

Thank you.

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Then why do I have such bad accuracy problems on my electricity blaster and defender?? More than any other powersets.

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It's all a matter of perception.

(No, not the Perception ingame.)

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I will admist it SEEMS as if my electric blaster and my storm/electric defender miss more than my other blasters but I tie that in a little bit to visual power effect.. When my NRG hits he often knocks back ( or down cause I hover alot ), Fire I see the DoT working when i hit. Elec really doesnt have an effect like that which reinforces the fact I am hitting.

I would like Castle to answer THIS question though. Why is it when Elec misses it LOOKS like I hit ?? this INFURIATES me to no end at times because it SEEMS like I am hitting a target when I am not. When other targets miss its blatantly obvious that you miss.. Why is Elec different in this aspect and can it be fixed ??

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Part of the problem is that Electric has NO miss animation. Hits and misses both connect as though the attack hit. The only way you can tell that a Miss occurred is that you did no damage and you see MISS on the screen.

He's an ambush towards the end of the World Wide Red story arc from Crimson in PI.

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Castle, you know now that you've posted in two threads with this title, it's going to appear in every AT forum on the board right?

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Actually, you're right. I think it's also against board policy to 'call out' a dev in your post title. I think that means I've been bad by actually responding. I'll have to stop doing that.

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I don't think this was so much calling you out as asking if you had the chance/time/opportunity to answer a question.

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What happened to Geko, swinger of the nerf bat? I mean, he doesn't answer PMs or actually post, but I think he's still around.

*em glances over shoulder*

AH! REGEN NERF!

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Geko remains isolated in his arcane cave o' nerf. Jonyu and Castle feed him a Regen or Invul every once in awhile to sate his thirst.

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Should only need to feed him one regen ever... for obvious reasons unless his eating rate is greater than the regen rate.

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Ahh, it seems only like Issue Three when all the good little Heroes gathered around their web browsers chatting about what might be. Now, as we gear up for Issue Seven, I wonder what has become of the off-again, on-again Skill system. Is it still on the 'Short List' of game improvements? Will it be something that Heroes and Villains both get? Or has it been completely scrapped due to lack of gaming ideas?

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Yes, we remember it. Getting it 'right' has proven difficult, though, which is why you folks haven't seen it. It's still something we are working on, though.

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You do realize that you have a huge playerbase from which you can pull ideas from to expand and possibly fill in the holes you guys keep running into...

Why not start up a thread where you can detail what game/content problems you are having with skills (with as much detail as you can legally give) and then let us tear it apart and fix it for you? We already do this very thing with the various AT forums.

Even for those of us who don't see eye to eye with you guys still love the game or else we'd not be here giving you grief over it

To be fair, Arachnos really needs an EB boss type that works for Lord Recluse's LTs and sub-LTs.

Though in retrospect, that might not be a good idea... and besides, Arachnos also has a lot more named people of substantial power as compared to Longbow. I seriously doubt a Ballista could compete with Wretch, Ghost Widow, or Silver Mantis.

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1. We're looking into the tweak to Endurance for mobs that's affected Endurance Drain abilities. Sorry about that!


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Dude... you can't tell us that you didn't see everyone screaming about it when it was on test. You either didn't read the forums, you didn't listen to _Castle_ or you didn't care. And if it was becuase you weren't here (congratulations, by the way *hands cigar* ) it still doesn't matter 'cause you're the boss and the buck stops with you.

Let's not forget that it was on test for like, 6 minutes before it was jammed through to live.

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He didn't say he didn't see it. He said they're looking into it. And he even apologized.

Jeez.

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There's a maxim that applies here...

Tis easier to beg forgiveness rather than get permission.

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Placate (the power) has a couple of effects.

First, it applies Placate (the effect) to a single target. Any target that has the Placate effect on it cannot target the person who used the Placate.

Second, it applies a 'Hide Like' state, which is neither Hide, nor Stealth. It does allow for Stalker powers critical's, however.

It does not give any Defense bonus at all.

Other powers which can Placate (Smoke Flash) only apply the First part. The Hide like stat is not granted at all -- in other words, it is 100% defensive, not a Set Up power.

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Then call the Placate effect Distraction. That's what it is doing... distracting the Mob from attacking the player.

!!! Dang... I wish my grav/ff and my grav/psi dom could get things like that... I'm definitely working for the wrong sides with those two.

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Thanks Positron. I have one question.

Since CoH and CoV badges are the same, why doesn't CoV have a version of the Transmogrified badge from CoH? You get that badge after completing the respec trial once (no matter which of the three incarnations you do), and it doesn't change no matter if you've used a respec or not. Why can't that badge be awarded to Villains and then have Arbiter Leery key off of Transmogrified?

It makes sense to me, but there must be a reason this isn't the way it's set up.

If I have to waste a respec just so I can do a couple missions to help pad out the empty 35-40 range, I'm going to be a sad brute

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Actually, on CoH you do have two badges. The title and graphic is the same, but the text changes--before respec it says "your powers are changing", after respec it says "your powers have changed"

But I agree that you should not have to waste a respec just to unlock a contact. I'd say don't bother, just do newspaper missions. If I'd known that clearing the mission would require wasting the respec, I'd never have taken his missions.

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I'm glad I completed Leery before this change went in. I certainly won't touch him now unless I have a character that NEEDS a respec.

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As for Accolades and Exemplaring, it might seem unfair that you lose Accolade powers when you Exemplar, but to others it seems unfair that you HAVE Accolade powers when you Exemplar. Since Exemplar is you "playing yourself at a lower level" it makes sense to take away your Accolades. I don't see this changing.

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If you want to keep some level of restriction yet open up the accolades a bit... make it such that when you exemplar, you can't have the accolade effect at a level lower than the lowest level req badge. Some of the accolades requires badges that are in SL 40+ zones. So those accolades would be restricted to level 40+ characters. exemplar down to 39 and poof, it goes away.

But at the same time, a level 50 who got his accolade at 50 wouldn't lose it if he exemplared down to level 42. It evens the playing field for characters of that accolade range.

I can't see someone wanting to have all their accolades working at level 1. That's just plain wrong. But making them be available (during exemplar) all the way down to their minimum possible level obtainable, that's not so bad.

Would this be a difficult thing?

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Since when? Unless I'm mistaken, AS is like any other attack - once the attack is begun, the target could be superspeeding away and will still get hit...

...as long as the target is in LOS. I have to be honest and add the conditional modifier.

There is enough total BS on the topic of stalkers - let's not add any, folks. A more accurate version of your statement would be that never staying in an area long enough for anyone to queue an attack on you is a good defense against AS. This is true.

It is also not particularly useful advice.

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Whenever I hear "Build Up" go off, I immediately start running BACKWARDS. It's pavlovian, at this point. It's been a long time since anyone AS'd me successfully.

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The last time something tried anything like that, I simly zoomed my view out and rotated around to keep them in LoS. Run behind me, that just gives me time to set you up.

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Eventually the devs/_Castle_ may make a pronouncement on -speed. What do you think -fly, -jump, and -tp qualify as? Are they controls or debuffs?

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I'm of the mind that a...

Control power is something that prevents you from doing something.

Debuff power is something that inhibits the results of your actions without preventing those actions.

A Hold is control. A -Dmg power is a Debuff. The Hold prevents you from "doing". The -Dmg reduces the results of your actions.

Some power effects are both. Slows for instance (-Speed & -Recharge) actually do both. -Speed prevents you from running up and smacking your target. -Recharge also stops your ability to attack, cimilar to but not exactly like a hold.

At the same time, -Speed still allows for movement. It's not preventing you from attacking, just making it more difficult. Sounds like DeBuff to me. -Recharge is a DeBuff. It quite clearly prevents you from attacking as fast but in no way prevents you from attacking if you have an attack ready.

The problem I see is that some effects are both Control and DeBuff while the two main users of those sets do NOT have equal modifiers for usage of those effects.

In a nutshell, the effects that are both Control & DeBuff need to be used at the same effectiveness modifier for BOTH Controllers and Defenders.

On top of this, I would posit that if I was a Storm/, that my primary powers would be 20% more powerful across the board than they would be if I was /Storm instead. I used to believe it was this way. What I'm seeing in this thread is that this belief is grossly incorrect. My primary purpose / powerset should be more powerful than the SAME powerset used as a secondary.

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... don't know if the game could support this...

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I'm almost 100% sure gravity powers' secondary effect is -speed, but no -recharge.

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I was thinking of things like lingering radiation, and other slows shared between controllers and defenders, but if gravity's slows are all -speed and no -recharge, that would reinforce the notion that controller slows should (in general) be weighted more towards -speed and less towards -recharge, while defenders should get the reverse, rather than having the full combination of -speed/-rech be stronger for controllers than defenders (which doesn't seem to make sense to me regardless of where the powers are located).

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Gravity does have -Slow component as a secondary effect for those mobs who are resistant to our holds or require multiple holds to fully mez. Ie: I cast Gravity Distortion on Ye Olde Fake Nemesis. This scares said Fake. He starts to run away.... at a really SLOW speed... until I stack another hold on him at which point he does the floaty nemesis baloon dance.

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Statesman.. carefull.. if you keep up all this posting people might think you READ the boards in your free time rather than sitting in a dark room polishing your nerfbat malciously.



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Who is to say that he isn't doing just that in-between his posts?