EvilGeko

[ QUOTE ]
i need to start writing on more controversial topics. the most I've ever gotten in reply to a topic or guide I've made is when Castle replied and people flooded into ask him stuff.



[/ QUOTE ]

Never be afraid to be vilified my friend.

The EVILGEKO is loved, hated and feared...and that's just by me and Arcanaville. I don't know what the rest of you lot think!

[ QUOTE ]
PI mission. Solo. Rugged Left with 8:17 on the clock after clearing all 5 side missions. What a rush!. I ahd to chew all sorts of insps i wouldnt normally.

The mlat/Carnie combination is rough generally, (as has been commented before) - one issue I have is with the DRM's Mask of vitation. The -regen -recovery is nasty in an enclosed space where the squishier folks cannot trade space for time.

Maybe have a new boss type siimilar to a DRM that summons fluffy instead of the mask ?
3 slots in stamina 3 in Quick recovery and running only intergration (dropped my leadership pools) and I STILL had to to chew blues each time I fought one if they got the mask on me. (thank ranged knockdown for the ones that didn't)


Much harder than Mayhems, much more hectic, but very fun in adifferent way.

[/ QUOTE ]

/agree. I like the PI SG the way that it is honestly. So much end draining. It adds in the one thing my build never worried about. It's making me seriously consider Dark Mastery.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
meh to the above, i can't see Blizzard being an alpha to anything other than Rikti Monkies

[/ QUOTE ]

!!!

Good lord mate you have to be a hold over from the pre-rain-buff days.

Ice Storm and Blizzard are MONEY now that they are buffable! MONEY!

Heck you can take out whole spawns without even stepping into sight... that's just sick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nonsense, my friend, nonsense. Ashamed that a fellow Chicagoan would post such nonsense.

Blizzard is in firm need of a buff. It's gimp. Up the KD chance to 20% per .2 seconds. Admittedly, this is barely enough to make the power passable, but Ice Blasters are used to being the underdog.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And yes, Positron that means being able to solo on Invincible easily. If one AT can do it then they all should be able to.

[/ QUOTE ]
Key word 'if'. If a build can do that, though, then the build really needs to be nerfed in some way. Or the enemies need buffing. Some ATs should definitely be better at solo'ing than others but if some builds are so much better that max difficulty doesn't give much of a challenge then they are broken.

I really don't feel that Dominators are broken. I think they aren't that popular because some other builds make the game terribly easy. Those are what need fixing. Unfortunately, they needed fixing BEFORE going live. Now you've spoiled the players and many (probably most) will scream bloody murder if you nerf them back to sanity.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's the other way around. Doms are broken. If the mean of the game is X and Dominators are X-1, then what you do is not nerf everyone to X-1. You add 1 to Dominators and then you're done.

The game is fine for most ATs. Dominators are fine in Domination and weak outside of it.

The game has a nice progression where you get stronger and are able to deal with bigger threats as you progress. This is exactly what Statesman said in I5. That by the high levels you should be able to handle +2 and +3 where a low level is handling +0 and +1s. In other words, a skilled player should be able to handle Invincible.

Sure you can do that with Doms at high level. But it's so much more reasonable with other ATs.

I agree with Arcanaville. Blizzard needs a much higher chance of knockdown to ensure this as well. Something like a 20% chance per .2 seconds as opposed to the 8% now. That way, it's at least statistically likely that each mob that's in the storm for 1 second will get knocked down.

You need to be a bit more empirical with this post.

What's shooting at you? If it's snipers that's normally. They have extremely high perception. If it's normal mobs and you're a good distance away, then I'd bug it.

But the devs will need you to test it a bit more thoroughly.

[ QUOTE ]
The problem with doms that i will admit is that they are probably one of the better balanced ATs in the game. However its like 1 well balanced AT against 8 that are totally outta wack most of the time. And that isnt calling for a nerf, its calling for possibly a "lets try it and see" approach to fixing dominators.



[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with that. I think the devs really like how villains in general have periods of extreme power and normally are just OK.

I think they would make heroes like that if they could deal with the fallout. One of the reasons the PvPers complain so much about heroes being better than villains is that heroes are usually awesome all the time. Whereas, villains are sometimes even more awesome than heroes, but some of the time much worse.

I know some people like that. I don't. That's all I was saying. I hate being awesome sometimes and weak the rest of the time. And Dominators are weak to me most of the time. I'd much rather they be OK most of the time and better when in Domination.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Probably the best way to answer this is to refer to comics -- When The Human Torch 'goes nova' he puts everything he has into it and pretty much knocks himself out. That's the 'feel' these powers are meant to reflect.

As for MoG, no comment at this time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea but when the Human Torch goes nova, he can melt Ultron to slag.

When I go nova, there's still two remaining Devouring Earth bosses that chuckle and then proceed to introduce my hero's face to a radical pummeling and an opportunity to use my HMO copay on the teleport to the hospital.

[/ QUOTE ]

heh, heh.

Should have went Ice. I'm usually running the other way by the time the mobs realize who hit them with Blizzard.

[ QUOTE ]
Probably the best way to answer this is to refer to comics -- When The Human Torch 'goes nova' he puts everything he has into it and pretty much knocks himself out. That's the 'feel' these powers are meant to reflect.

[/ QUOTE ]

Makes sense. Sometimes balance has to give way to the comics. I can dig it.

[ QUOTE ]
As for MoG, no comment at this time.

[/ QUOTE ]

*Shaking and looking mean*

KKKKHHHHAAAAANNNN!!!!! KHAN!!!!!

Castle since you're lurking. What is the design intent behind the nukes draining power and stopping recovery? I know they are potent attacks, but it seems strange for them to have as many drawbacks as Elude.

(And a bonus question: What the thought behind MoG?)

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
...that means being able to solo on Invincible easily...

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that any AT should be able to solo on Invincible easily...it's Invincible, it's supposed to be difficult!

[/ QUOTE ]

But it's not. Not even with Dominators really. It's just slow. It's laughably easy with all melees, most controllers, corrupters, MMs and Defenders. Only Blasters and Dominators should have any problems AT wide and even then it's not so bad for Blasters who can put out some hurt.

[ QUOTE ]
I need to hear from EvilGeko on the changes to MoG or else my day will not be complete.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was a bug fix. Power still sucks... a lot. Happy to make your day!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
BTW - Can we use Wentworth's early?

[/ QUOTE ]
Please excuse my ignorance but what is a Wentworth? I am at work right now so I cant login to see for myself.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm at work too, but last we saw on test, they added these big buildings which claim to be consignment shops to Talos and a few other zones.

Nice buff. I still wouldn't touch this AT with a ten foot pole. I've tried. Seriously I've tried. But I don't understand this fixation with situational buffs like Domination. It's one of the things I despite about CoV.

Dominators need a buff so that they are always a viable AT. And yes, Positron that means being able to solo on Invincible easily. If one AT can do it then they all should be able to.

Devs, love me wings. Now bring on me LEWTZ.

BTW - Can we use Wentworth's early?

I love you guys.

[ QUOTE ]
I guess I look at it as the game goes and grows the complexity makes it harder and harder to add meaningful content.

Which got me thinking: If the game were frozen, never to change, how many would stay and play anyway? Besides me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would be in for a few more months, but then I will have seen what there is to see and move on. With no anger mind you, I'd just be done. MMOs simply cannot reach a point where they are stagnant or people can and will leave.

I do wish the devs had made their September launch of Issue 8. This makes me fear we won't see Issue 9 until at least May. I'm resigned to the fact that we will get our anniversary respec with Issue 9's launch.

Two things have kept me here through the nerfs:

1) Statesman's "You can log on for 30 min. and have fun." This part of the design goal is the one I feel they've done best with. The mission structure is such that I can always log on for a bit with a character and have something to do within minutes. And often it's something story based which is a big plus.

2) The storyline. It's Top notch.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

One of the things that PvPers say a lot is that there's no challenge in PvE. Well that's because you don't look for challenge. Can you solo a TF, including the AV at the end? Can you solo a Giant Monster? Those things can be done. And it's a hell of a lot harder than taking some pimped out build into PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really. I think most PvPers like to PvP because it is a challenge to face a thinking opponent.

AV's, Giant Monsters, etc are 'hard' not because they are 'challenging' but because they have huge amounts of HP or damage or regen. They are still scripted and will perform the same way each time. A human opponent on the other hand will not. Therein lies the challenge and fun and excitement of PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

In my experience, mindless fotm/nub-only PvPers are tediously predictable.

[/ QUOTE ]

In what way?

[/ QUOTE ]
His post makes sense now, I fixed it.

[/ QUOTE ]

/agreed. You did fix it. But let's not kid ourselves. That's a significant portion of the PvP population. I like to play with friends because then you're likely to get tactics you don't see all the time (even if they aren't the most effective).

As an aside, one of the most tense, challenging PvP games I've played is the Pokemon Colloseum games. One of the things I find EXTREMELY sad about CoX is that Pokemon, a game presumably for kids, has MUCH more balanced PvP than anything you find in CoX and strangely enough has just as many valid combinations.

That's why when you "hardcore" PvPers write those joke posts about Pokemon, I can't help but lol a bit. Snorlax is uber yo!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

One of the things that PvPers say a lot is that there's no challenge in PvE. Well that's because you don't look for challenge. Can you solo a TF, including the AV at the end? Can you solo a Giant Monster? Those things can be done. And it's a hell of a lot harder than taking some pimped out build into PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really. I think most PvPers like to PvP because it is a challenge to face a thinking opponent.

AV's, Giant Monsters, etc are 'hard' not because they are 'challenging' but because they have huge amounts of HP or damage or regen. They are still scripted and will perform the same way each time. A human opponent on the other hand will not. Therein lies the challenge and fun and excitement of PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

In my experience, PvPers are tediously predictable.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It makes me wonder why they are even doing the invention system if such a "small" portion of the community is even interested in pvp. You don't need the stuff we saw from the leaked invention system to be successful in pve. It would be like using a formula 1 race car to go to the market. The only people that are going to really care about putting the time and effort into getting an edge in this game through the invention system is pvpers.

[/ QUOTE ]

PvEers will be just as interested if not more than PvPers. Personally, I'm going to be looking for the most ridiculously broken combination of Inventions I can so that they can get nerfed and I can complain about it.

I think you believe this, because to you PvE is just a means to an end. It's not the game to you, it's a roadblock to PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. If you can't succeed in PvE easily at this point then somethings wrong. The supposed hardest thing in the game, as per Positron, is the Lord Recluse Strike Force, and now that is easily accomplished. Do you really need to add an element of psychic damage to your attacks to help with pve? It might give you more PvE things you need to do to get them, but their advantages will really not be that apparent until you use them in PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

See, succeeding in the meager tasks the devs have set out isn't necessarily our goal. Once upon a time, there were builds that could have stood against the final mission of the LRSF solo.

One of the things that PvPers say a lot is that there's no challenge in PvE. Well that's because you don't look for challenge. Can you solo a TF, including the AV at the end? Can you solo a Giant Monster? Those things can be done. And it's a hell of a lot harder than taking some pimped out build into PvP.

[ QUOTE ]
We have more to complain about than badgers do. We also have to come up wtih 100% more workarounds than badgers do.

Freedom also has less than 40% of the amount of posts the PvP forums have.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what you're saying is that the devs should spend the majority of their time fixing badges since those incompetents haven't been able to come up with more than half of the solutions that PvPers have using peer research and discussion.

Good idea, Manchuwook!!!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

PvP: PVPers make up 2-6% of the population and PvP changes would require a lot of resources from Cryptic.
I have done some random sampling on Protector and Virtue over the last few days and the results show between 1% and 4% (Average 2.54%) of online players are in the PvP zones at any given time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I did some random sampling as well:

At the time of this post:
There are exactly 596 threads in the "Badges" forum.
There are exactly 845 threads in the "PVP" forum.

This means that PVP is approximately 60% more popular than badges. Making badge hunters the minority.

So stop making new badges and fix PVP!

Seriously.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well one could interpret that to mean that PvPers love talking about PvP more than playing.

[ QUOTE ]
It makes me wonder why they are even doing the invention system if such a "small" portion of the community is even interested in pvp. You don't need the stuff we saw from the leaked invention system to be successful in pve. It would be like using a formula 1 race car to go to the market. The only people that are going to really care about putting the time and effort into getting an edge in this game through the invention system is pvpers.

[/ QUOTE ]

PvEers will be just as interested if not more than PvPers. Personally, I'm going to be looking for the most ridiculously broken combination of Inventions I can so that they can get nerfed and I can complain about it.

I think you believe this, because to you PvE is just a means to an end. It's not the game to you, it's a roadblock to PvP.

[ QUOTE ]
Emphasis mine. How 'big' an issue are the Arena bugs? How about functional base raids? Or the issues with RV that mean nobody uses the zone for what it's meant for (fighting to win the zone)?

New PvP stuff would be nice, but the priority is to get what we already have to WORK. Are you honestly saying we have to forego badly needed fixes to established features in order to free up time for new stuff?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think content and fixing bugs are necessarily in conflict. The coders are probably the ones who fix the bugs while the designers use the toolset to create the content. Now, of course, there is some overlap (e.g. Castle and the Fury fix).

So the real question, which I don't think anyone knows, are:

1) how hard is it to fix the bugs?
2) what PvE bugs also need fixing?
3) how should the devs prioritize the two?

Castle fixes some bugs and he also is the powers guy. So fixing the Fury PvP bug takes time away from Inventions, creating new power sets, designing villain power systems. Is that worth it? Well, I'd say yes but I don't think it is as easy a question as everyone suggests.

Castle could fix the Fury bug or balance sets that struggle in PvP. Which is more important? Brutes aren't the best in PvP, but they don't seem to be too bad based on my experience. So why does that get precedence?

Well it doesn't. Considering how long its taken to fix, I'd bet the devs are trying to deal with the low hanging fruit. Like giving Dominators and MMs some help first.

That's what seems to be missing in the arguments here. Everyone here is bickering about why THEIR pet issue should be fixed and NOW. But few are seriously considering whether their issue really should get primacy.

I've used the Arena probably about 50 times over the last year. Now that's not a lot at all, but still I've never seen any bugs. I'm quite sure they're there, but I haven't experienced them. I don't think I'm the only one. So perhaps this issue isn't the highest priority. That's just an example of how I think the issue could be analyzed differently. Some of these problems might need fixing, but they might not need fixing so badly that its worth holding back more critical fixes or content.

My 2 inf.