DrMike2000

I think Empathy's transition from healing to buffing works really well.

At the low levels, enemies dont do enough spike damage to nearly one-shot anyone, so reactive healing works very well. Defence and resistance based powers are weaker because they havent been slotted or stacked with higher order powers yet.

In the high levels, healing alone becomes too slow and reactive when a squishy teammate can be dropped from full to red by a single blow from a boss. But buffs are now well slotted and stacking, so they're more effective.

People who wnat a healer for a sewer run in Atlas are actually quite right. A Force Fielder (as an example of a non-healing defender) will be dropping incoming damage by 1/3 at that point.
By the 20's though, a healer is much less relevant, and a FF-er can drop incoming damage by 95%

Thats an awesome idea, Riverdusk.

Each proc adds 14 average damage at level 50.

In comparison, a damage IO adds around 12, 20 and 25 damage to Bolt, Blast and Burst.

Of course, the trade off is that each single target blast loses the sixth piece of Thunderstrike and thus 2.5% defence. With Manuvers you're probably still above the cap anyway if you lose one or two of these bonuses.
You'd also lose a little bit of Recharge or END cost if you dropped the Dam/End/Rech piece, but Im sure thats no big drama.

I'd say its very much justified in Power Bolt. Whether you add the proc to Blast and Burst is up to each player on how they want to balance defence vs offence.

I think you've got it to a T, Ultimo.

This build will make you feel like Iron Man.
Your damage isnt amazing, but on the other hand you do knock the enemy around, which makes it feel more powerful.

Hitting an enemy 6 times with Rad Blast (for example) feels like your blasts are weak. Hitting them and bouncing them off the walls six times makes you feel like youve just handled a very tough customer!

I'd suggest you get into IOs to boost your defence. The guide in my sigs a bit out of date in the following ways:

1) Thunderstrike sets now give 3.75% Ranged Defence instead of 2.5%

2) Blessing of the Zephyr fits into Hover, and provides Ranged Defence and KB resistance. Hover's base flight speed has been upped to the point where the 3 BotZ pieces provide excellent combat manouvrability.

3) If you're slept, Dispersion Bubble no longer goes down, so any holds sitting on you dont kick in too. This makes Mind Control enemies (eg Rikti Mentallists) much easier to handle.

3 Thunderstrikes (your blasts), 2 Red Fortunes (Weave and Dispersion) and a BotZ, even just the 2 cheaper pieces, adds up to +19.7% Ranged Defence. On top of Hover and slotted Weave and Dispersion, thats capped Ranged Defence. and you arent wasting any slots, all 5 powers are getting very good bang for their buck on the actual enhancement values, plus some other nice set bonuses.

Drop the slots in Flight (your speed will get close to capped with one SO) and Boxing (you'll never need it with Air Sup and your blasts) to six slot these powers.

I played a FF/Sonic to 50 and often soloed, and I had a lot of fun. If you want a Ranged Blaster who trades half their damage for Mez resistance and decent armour, this is the build for you.

I'm with Jack, in that I feel there's too much animation rooting in the game at present. The combination of rooting and power queueing can often leave me where I didnt intend to be when delivering a cone or PBAoE.

A lot of the negatives brought up already exist. On my Kinetics speedsters I'd routinely race past an enemy and then stop and root and deliver Sands of Mu from 20 or 30 feet away with the punches obviosuly failing to connect visually.

Martial Arts animations can already be performed while jumping in a way that doesnt look physically realistic.

I'd prefer an improvement in the fluidity of combat at the expense of animation realism and aesthetics.

You know, I've messed around with defence builds a fair bit (mostly on Defenders) and it never occurred to me to take Combat Jumping AND Hover before.

Thanks for that little gem, especially with I14 and Blessing of the Zephyr

Ozzie - thanks for taking time to say that. Its nice to hear a positive response

Adam Alpha - yeah it's just a game. Doesn't that apply to every post on this forum? Thats why I'm posting here rather than talking to my local MP (senator) about it :P
Deal with, or go, or suggest and alternative and then get on with something else. I'll take option C thanks.

I'd still say its open question as to whether this is THE most reasonable. Its close, sure.

Say we simplify it to 3 groups:

US: 100,000 players
Asia: 20,000 players
Australia: 10,000 players

These figures are probably off, the point is US is much greater than Asia, which is somewhat greater than Australia in terms of playerbase.

Both Asia and Australia peak during the US working day, so we're not inconveniencing the maintenance crew by making them come in at night.

I'll also assume that most people play at the same time each day. I've no idea how accurate this really is.

Now, it makes sense to inconvenience the smallest group when maintenance happens twice a week, and they do. Thats fine.
However, on the rare week when they have to perform extra two extra maintenances, like this one, is it more reasonable to inconvenience the same group again, or to spread it around a bit and inconvenience another somewhat larger group?

Is it better to mildly irritate 30,000 players (Asia + Aus get 2 evenings off each) or really annoy 10,000 players? (Aus gets 4 evenings off)

I dont think there's a definite answer to this one, and I am of course biased.

Does anyone else see this clear cut either way? Which is the lesser of two necessary evils here?

[ QUOTE ]
<QR>

As per the EULA

[ QUOTE ]
10. Interruption of Service



(a) NC Interactive reserves the right to interrupt the Service from time to time on a regularly scheduled basis or otherwise with or without prior notice in order to perform maintenance. You agree that NC Interactive will not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes whatsoever.



(b) You acknowledge that the Service may be interrupted for reasons beyond the control of NC Interactive, and NC Interactive cannot guarantee that you will be able to access the Service or your Account whenever you may wish to do so. NC Interactive shall not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes whatsoever.



(c) NC Interactive has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to change and/or eliminate any aspect(s) of the Service as it sees fit in its sole discretion.



(d) NC Interactive shall not be obligated to refund all or any portion of any Account fee or Additional Feature fee by reason of any interruption of the Service by reason of any of the circumstances described in paragraph (a) or (b).

[/ QUOTE ]


Everyone that plays this game agrees to this condition each and every time they log on to play.

Sorry if this sounds harsh but, deal with it or don't play.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do deal with it.

I'll repeat what I said before. I'm cool with having maintenance twice a week during my prime playing time. Thats business as usual, I'm in a minority time zone, and living in Australia does have its upside too
However, when we get extra midweek maintenances, it starts to stretch my patience a little, and I'd prefer it if this could happen in someone else's timeslot.

I'm not really expecting anything to change because of my posts here, to be honest. But there's nothing wrong with discussing reasonable alternatives here is there?

I respectfully disagree, Fahx.

I've checked your link and it says:

[ QUOTE ]
2007 to the present
By the Energy Policy Act of 2005, daylight saving time (DST) was extended in the United States in 2007. DST starts on the second Sunday of March, which is three weeks earlier than in the past, and it ends on the first Sunday of November, one week later than in years past. This change resulted in a new DST period that is four weeks (five in years when March has five Sundays) longer than in previous years.


[/ QUOTE ]

Could you confirm this is what you're talking about? Could you also confirm that daylight savings in the US alters the time by one hour, and not two. It has always done this, but the recent change is that the time shift occurs earlier than it used to.

This would have the effect of lengthening or shortening the period when maintenance starts at 11.30pm in Adelaide ie the period between US and Australian daylight savings kicking in.

It would NOT introduce a one hour shift in maintenance time the like of which have never been seen before.

Like I said, maintenance has occurred on a cycle of 10.30pm, 11.30pm and 12.30am for me throughout the year for three years now. 9.30pm maintenance earlier this month must mean it was carried out at a different US time. For this to be the result of daylight savings changes would mean that US daylight savings had suddenly started shifting the time by two hours instead of one!

Simple maths indeed!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Gotta love the idiot factor in here.

Maintenance fluctuates with Daylight savings changes on BOTH sides of the pond.

The complaint was that maintenance SHIFTED an extra hour ON TOP of the 'apparent' Daylight Savings move.

We're used to six months of the year being 11pm maintenance, and the other 6 months being 1am maintenance.

It was horrible to have a week of 10pm maintenance (and it was for more than a week -- it reverted back to 'normal'' 11pm maintenance yesterday).

As for this assertation that it's a US-centric game, that's not very cogent. How many people are put out by the current 6am/9am Eastern/Western time-zone maintenance windows, and would be 'adversely affected' by a 8am-11am window instead -- not many!

Japan is in the same timezone as us, and I know quite a few Japanese players, and there are the New Zealanders who are an hour ahead of us, who would be spitting chips at 9pm shutdowns.

My request was to move maintenance back to what it was, or perhaps a bit further, not to shift maintenance to 10pm USA TIMES.

Gotta love the 'someone elses problem' attitude a lot of unthinking people have.

Ex

[/ QUOTE ]Gotta love that you missed the part where US DST changed its start time two years ago. Maintenance wasn't moved, the US just goes into DST before Australia leaves Summer Time now. And the server maintenance times are based on the local time for the cluster (Pacific for west-coast, Eastern for east-coast), and neither of them are in states that do not do DST.

[/ QUOTE ]

For three years, maintenance has been 12.30am in summer, 10.30pm in winter, with a week or two in between at 11.30pm, due to the different changeover times for daylight savings.

Maintenance was recently starting at 9.30pm. This was the point in Troll's original post.

That cant be explained by US DST changing its start time, can it? Maintenance time was actually moved.


Aett - I cant say I agree with your reason against staggering maintenance times.
For the bulk of the playerbase, it doesnt matter whether maintenance happens at 9pm or 1am their time, because they aren't playing then anyway!

Im not suggesting staggering for different servers, Bill. Im sure there are plenty of good reasons against doing that, not least the auction house. All servers have to go down for that to go down fully. Im suggesting performing cross-server maintenance at different times of day on different days of the week.

Combat teleport would be fantastic! I'd definitely take that.

I understand that, Sharker.
I know that sometimes extra maintenance has to happen to fix bugs. And like I said Im cool with regular maintenance happening at the worse possible time for me because I understand the reasoning behind it.

Thats why I put forward an alternative suggestion rather than complain. Do you think staggering extra maintanances could work?

Just got home from another eleven hour day and find the games down for the remainder of my evening...

Might I suggest a staggered times for these extra maintenances? e.g. 9am NCSoft Time for the regular Monday/Friday maintenances (=Australian evening), but maybe 1pm NCSoft time for additional ones? This would interrupt the evening of India and parts of Asia (still not majority game population), whilst still occurring during the American workday.

I'm happy to put up with two evenings play time a week being interrupted, and philosphically reflect on what a great place Australia is to live, and all that. But three times a week is a little bit harsh.

Colour tinting and lighting effects in general would be very cool.
I had a lot of fun with them in Freedom Force and found you could transform some maps a lot that way.

Ive rated two arcs one star so far.
One had a bunch of random costumed villains and didn't make any sense, the other one featured all enemies including minions with Tactics running. I felt that one lacked a certain sense of game balance as my SR scrapper lay on the floor again.

In neither case did I have any desire to play through the rest of the stories, but did wish to leave my vote.

I do think it would be fine if my vote only counted as 1/5 or whatever, ie was weighted for completion.

[ QUOTE ]
exactly how long is this damned maintenance gonna take?
im from the Gold Coast, Australia.... and havent play CoH since issue 2... reactivating only 3 days ago, im get a server down almost every night at PRIME TIME!!!! reminding me why i quited this game 4 years ago...also...which server is somewhat oceanic? if theres such a thing

[/ QUOTE ]

Justice has a rep for being the Oceanic server, with a higher poluation in our time zone. I haven't seen it being busier than Virtue or Freedom during Australian prime time though.

For the past three years its been maintenance at 10.30pm during winter and 12.30pm during summer, when Aussie daylight savings and the US's shift in different directions.

Its now maintenance at 9.30pm, so there's definitely been an absolute time change outside of the usual seasonal cycle.

Ive been playing a hero duo recently, and like to play through story arcs so that both characters get reward merits at the end.

I didn't expect it to be so hard!

Zone story arcs are great, such as Croatoa or the Rikti War Zone - approach the contact and go. Apart from Stephanie Peebles, you get the missions in order and can run through them in synch.

However, the older arcs from regular contacts are an absolute nightmare! Typically the contact gives you a couple of test missions, then the story arc once you've completed one or two. These test missions are invariably different ones for the two characters, and sometimes the story arc never appears - it seems very hit and miss. You often end up playing as many pre-amble missions to get to the arc as there are in the arc itself.

I've been willing to put up with it, because its just me dual boxing, and I'm very patient with myself. One character gets the first story arc mission (indicated by the book), I'll then let the other one catch up, assuming they ever get the story arc or dont outlevel the contact in the process.

However, I can't see this level of cooperation existing between members of a small pickup group, or even some SG members.

It would be nice to be able to team up with a stranger or two, compare contacts, and do Ashwin Lannister or Colleen Nelson or whoever, and both get merits. The way these are currently set up, starting a task force would be much easier and quicker. Either that, or everyone just does the leader's mission and only the leader gets merits, which isnt ideal or fair.

My suggestions:

1) Get regular contacts to give out a fixed 1-3 missions (say the badge missions liek Spelunker or War Wall Defender) before the story arc rather than randomly deciding.
2) Define a fixed order for Stephanie Peebles arc while you're at it.

I've got to agree with the OP. Having the servers go down at 10.30pm was much better than the recent shift to 9.30pm.

Is there a reason why this has changed recently?

It works red-side. I've been pulling in a million or so daily without actually going out and committing any crimes.

Maybe its all a plot by a billionaire philanthropist to keep the streets safe on the Rogue Isles...

[ QUOTE ]
i understand your way of making influence and way to go and gratz on the fast money making. but the drawback to this is that by doing it..1 will take all recipies out of the market for those who need/want them , and 2 drive the prices up further with supply and demand in an unbalanced market that we already have with greedy sellers there. we know if everyone started doing this after reading that there will be nothing left. i know of some other ways of tricking the maket into making yourself rich and have done it to the sum of over 300 million and did it so much that it can't be done anymore

[/ QUOTE ]

Since we're talking about IO recipes rather than set recipes, people who want to actually use them can still buy them from the Invention tables at Universities.

This system works by exploiting laziness (and I dont mean for that to sound as negative as it does) - somewhere, people are dumping their recipe drops at Wentworths for less than the vendor price and anyoen can cream off thius money thats effectively sitting there in the market.

However, ANYONE can but not EVERYONE can, and thats a big distinction. The more people know about this trick, the less effective it becomes, so this guide is in many ways out of date the moment its written in terms of the numbers presented.
If 100 people read this and decide to try it out, then the prices for these "abandoned" recipes will go up, and the profits whilst still there will be thinner.

So, say a recipe can be sold to the vendor for 10,000, sells at crafting tables for 25,000 and is currently buyable in bulk for 5,000.
At worse we can expect it to become buyable in bulk for 9,500 maybe? (still 500 inf per recipe for doing this instead of 5,000) but it wont push prices above the 10,000 ceiling.
And no actual crimefighter is ever unable to buy the recipe from the crafting table, so this wont lead to rampant inflation or lack of availablity anywhere.

Now thats a cool idea!
I've never used the battlecry for anything so far.

Regarding binds for anchor powers, I think you're much better off placing the bind that tells your teammates your anchor on a separate key.

If you link it to a powexec_name, it will go off when you turn the toggle off, say if the anchor runs for the hills towards another spawn.

If the anchor dies, or you get held staright away it leads to confusion.

You may also get onto a team where everyone gets into a rhythm, and you dont want to be spamming the same text every spawn.

So make a macro that identifies your target by all means, but dont link it to the actual power,

You could use one of the slots in Temp Invulnerability, to house the Steadfast Resistance Unique. This increases your Resistance in the power and adds 3% Defence vs everything.

Maybe swap it for the Res/Rech Titanium Coating? You'd lose the set bonus of a small amount of Stun Resistance, big deal I say. The mez resistance bonuses are too small to make a real difference.
Not a huge amount, but every little bit helps.