Frosticus

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I'm not sure I get this comment. Custom critters hit *much* harder than the standard NPCs. The problem many of us have had since beta is creating custom enemies that don't wipe us out quickly.

Most of the "farms" I've seen consist of hand-picked standard critters (Rikti, Freaks, etc.), not customs.


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That is what the Devs don't seem to get. These changes are going to do jack-[censored] to curb farming. Instead they're going to kill custom critter creation, which was one of the biggest draws of the Mission Architect. Which stuff like this in place you'll more likely have people avoiding missions that list "Custom Group" among the factions present.

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QFT

I've yet to see a popular farm that consisted of primarily customs. They have almost always been existing hand picked dev creations.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's tolerance threshold has been surpassed.

As Posi said "we love the way pvp is currently"

Pretty hard to interpret that any way but one. If you enjoyed i12 pvp and want it to shift back toward that design it isn't happening in this game.

I vote radiation blast and fire blast as my two top corr picks.

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not an expert using mid. I see where it says mode: pvp/pve, but I'm not sure i can readily tell the difference in mids. I'll keep looking.

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I'll help you out. They changed the way powers calculate damage in pvp, so now longer cast times generally equal more damage.

Ice for corrs is comprised of 3 st attacks that all have a ~1 second cast (defs and blasters have a different version of ice blast). So they all do pretty low damage. As it is, probably the lowest damage of all the corr sets.

It is still workable, if you already had the toon I'd say just go with it, but if you are just rolling I'd recommend considering non-ice options.

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Nope, I enjoy the new PvP more than the previous version.

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I'm honestly interested, what do you enjoy more?
Please compare and contrast the "old" system vs the "new" system. Be sure to show your work for full marks

Personally, everything I find improved could have been added to the old system like pvp rewards, the -range on taunt (as long as it rolls a tohit), and...well that's all I've got at this time, but I do know there are a few more details I personally like that were implemented.

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As I was reading over some of the issue 14 beta posts it occured to me that we may see some attitude shifts in regards to PvP in the not to distant future.

People will be building new arcs and many will be using their own characters as EBs/AVs in those arcs. I wonder if this will help people get over the mental hurdle that many have in regards to getting beat by an opponent that isn't just AI. Granted, it's still controlled by AI, but it will be their build, and is something they are familiar with.

I don't know, just a thought. With MA and the new PvP IOs, we might be seeing more RPers in PvP soon. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet.

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MA could have been a boon for pvp, but there are a bunch of disconnected cords in the dev's brains. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

MA could have eventually been a way to create custom pvp maps, or make real bank missions where rather than npc's trying to stop the villains - heroes actually show up. yada yada.

But in the exact same issue that MA was originally going to be launched they shut off their brains and decided to make pvp follow a completely different set of rules than the pve game. They have done a great job ensuring that no bridge between pve and pvp can ever be built now.

Generally you don't look for ways to alienate and drive systems apart, but they did.

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lol the systems for pvp and pve were already apart. Issues 13 and 14 just guaranteed they would be.

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They used almost the exact same set of rules in i12. The "systems" weren't far apart at all, but rather how they were used by the players. Bridging the gap would have been a realistic goal that could have been accomplished in a future version of MA. i13 ensured that building any bridge now would be about as easy as building one from California to Japan.

Probably not something a "smart" person would do, but then again some people really like challenging themselves.

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Do I have an approach that will get through to them? Obviously not.

But do I know that the approach you're quoting will not work?

Yes.

Yes I do.

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My post wasn't intended to be constructive or to inspire people to hope for things that will never be achieved. It was a post meant to actually disaude people from pouring their hearts into something only for it to fall on deaf ears.

The pvp community used to have people that pretty much did nothing but try to seek improvement through "sanctioned" means - compiling well thought out improvements and actually speaking directly to the pvp community reps.

In the end I felt really bad for those people and the steamy pile the devs plopped upon their chests. It's one thing to not take good advice, or use good ideas, but it is another thing to pretend to listen and even SAY you are going to use the ideas and then produce a body of work that is anything but what was being said.

My post is in no way meant to "encourage" people to try it all again. The opposite is true. I have a habit of discouraging people from laying down in the middle of the highway too. But if you are really set on doing it then much like the devs redesigning pvp you don't have to listen to anything you don't want if "you know best".

I'm sure if the pvp community could go back in time and do it all over again many would agree to sit quiet and not squeek the wheel, because when Castle showed up with the grease it turned out to be like one of those repair shops that you take your car in for an oil change and they scam you in to getting $5k bill. Pvp needed some grease and he rebuilt the engine. Unfortunately he was an incompetent mechanic and our car just got passed by a Lada .

Hit the pvp toggle on mids and you'll see why you don't want ice. Or just pull up the power info in game and hit the pvp button.

pve =! pvp.

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As I was reading over some of the issue 14 beta posts it occured to me that we may see some attitude shifts in regards to PvP in the not to distant future.

People will be building new arcs and many will be using their own characters as EBs/AVs in those arcs. I wonder if this will help people get over the mental hurdle that many have in regards to getting beat by an opponent that isn't just AI. Granted, it's still controlled by AI, but it will be their build, and is something they are familiar with.

I don't know, just a thought. With MA and the new PvP IOs, we might be seeing more RPers in PvP soon. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet.

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MA could have been a boon for pvp, but there are a bunch of disconnected cords in the dev's brains. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

MA could have eventually been a way to create custom pvp maps, or make real bank missions where rather than npc's trying to stop the villains - heroes actually show up. yada yada.

But in the exact same issue that MA was originally going to be launched they shut off their brains and decided to make pvp follow a completely different set of rules than the pve game. They have done a great job ensuring that no bridge between pve and pvp can ever be built now.

Generally you don't look for ways to alienate and drive systems apart, but they did.

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I just wonder if everyone who prefers i12 style pvp over this new pvp, if we all made a petition would castle change it back?. With hard numbers of player base disapproving of the new pvp?


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Wouldn't achieve anything, pvp'ers would need at least 150x the population to get him to even consider their opinion on the same level as his. And the vast majority would need to speak up then.
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Castle has to be a reasonable man, i just refuse to believe he's this stubborn on purpose.

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On purpose? no. I believe his ego is so powerful that even when completely wrong it protects him and recreates the history of events (or memories). In this case I believe that he believes i13 pvp is a success and was and is a good idea.

Ok, the fact that Southpark (if you haven't watched the Kanye West episode it is pretty interesting) fits perfectly aside:

Him being reasonable or stubborn has nothing to do with it. For them to admit what a massive mistake it was would be a huge black mark and could become a PR nightmare down the road (if not at the time). It would allow anyone questioning the devs to cite "i13 pvp" as precedent of them having no clue. And they would be right.

On top of that a lot of resources went into the rebuild. Yes any intelligent management team would take steps to ensure it was a good idea, but for w/e reason they took it upon themselves and went full speed ahead with a "we know best" attitude. The results speak for themselves. Hopefully in the future they will be more careful when handing out opportunities to people. Hopefully they will at least use a pvp consultant (doesn't have to be from cox) in the future (if another similar scenario ever arises in any of their careers) rather than putting game mechanic design decisions in the hands of a pve player lol and a pve dev(s). It has been a great example of why a race car driver doesn't automaticallyequate to being a great pilot. Pve =! pvp, so in them assuming pve experts knew what was needed was either ego, shortsightedness, or just plain stupidity acting.

Based on what I've seen of the pve'er(s) and the dev(s) involved in the process I'm confident in stating it was ego at work, which led to stupidity governing decisions and resulted in a package that can never be integrated with pve at all in the future (ie pvp MA missions, omg what a crazy idea!!!), so in other words shortsightedness.

Pulling the plug at this point likely isn't even a distant option. A smart management team would work as hard as possible within the budget and without compromising higher ranking projects to band-aid w/e they can. Which is exactly what they are doing, albiet at the speed of a tortoise.

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When i13 was in closed beta, we pointed out what wasnt really good about it and he just seemed to ignore us. Then that whole debacle with the "things you like positive about i13 pvp" (which was like 3 pages long) And "The things you don't like about i13 pvp" (which was like 100 or so pages long)

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There is practically no point doing anything other than pointing out bugs to them. Every idea they add it strongly supported by a large dose of "we know best". Of course that is one of the most prominent signs of mismanagement, but what are you going to do?

Those threads were put up for nothing more than a place to vent; let out your anger and get over it rather than internalizing it and probably quitting, and a place to pat them on the back. *If they read either of them it would be the one grovelling at their feet and if by some chance they read through the complaints one it all fell on ears already ringing with "we know best".

The sad thing is that as Arcanaville pointed out to me in a different thread it wasn't just Castle at work. I'm not sure if she said it to reassure me or not, but all it did was make me really sad because instead of one person with no clue, you are dealing with a pile of them. Or they are all just "yes men". Both are depressing.

So imagine first how hard it is to change someone's mind who's ego is so powerful it will completely alter his perceived reality to support his decisions. Pretty hard right?

Now add to that a group of coworkers that are either doing the same thing, or are just patting him on the back saying he is king of the world. Did it get easier or harder to change their mind?

Now add a gaggle of sycophantic pve'ers acting like he/they walk on water and crap out cinnamon fresh rolls saying the pvp changes are great and they will definitely pvp now (though they never did). At this point, inappropriate terrorism jokes aside, you are likely going to need a bomb to affect any change.

An "old rules" arena option is the best to hope for, but even that is unlikely as even that is an admission of error. Right now you can shut of DR for example, but that falls under things like "tactical start" in terms of user options. Allowing a full reversal to i12 probably isn't going to happen.

edit:
tl:dr version:
-everything the devs add is backed by a strong sense of "we know best"
-knowing pve =! knowing pvp and they were idiots to assume it did.
-it's hard to change minds when they don't listen
-hope for an "i12" arena option, but I doubt it will happen.

Rad, because everything in kin rolls a tohit and hitting things in pvp is important and harder. And cause rad has a mez built right in to the chian so that you'll be able to occassionally use transfusion to heal yourself because anyone good will prevent that from happening often.

Mostly I just wouldn't do a /kin as it was one of the hardest hit by Castle's f'd up pvp vision. The biggest draw of kin was the movement ability, but Castle just said screw it to that.

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QR

This whole game is farming. Doesn't matter what you are doing. AFK - farming for time logged on. Logged out - farming for dayjobs/patrol badge. Getting XP - FARMING!

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No, it's not. "Farming" is repeatedly doing the same mission/TF/"thingie" specifically because of some specific reward (whether it's good XP, certain badges, what have you). It's not "anything that gives you some kind of reward is farming". You're simply wrong here in your definition. There's nothing WRONG with doing it, but "everything" isn't farming.

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He might be of the persuasion that believes that practically every mission in this game is so similar that someone deliberately farming a handful of maps is pretty much the same as the person playing the slightly larger handful of maps generally seen while leveling on a pug.

I'm not saying he would be right or wrong, but if action is the determinant of farming he would sort of have a leg to stand on. Certainly enough to hobble across the room. If intent is the determinant of farming then he is wrong, but last time I checked the tinfoil on my head does a decent job of keeping my intentions private.

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Yes, because a perfectly legitimate use of the game is to create effortless kills that are unable to fight back against you so you can move your little blue bar without any risk whatsoever.

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Perfect? farm from it haha see what I did...besides since when does what other people do affect on how you play the game? Wait don't tell me your one of those others who complain because they can't find a team? or find a group who is doing what you want to do but because of MA they're not. Friends could solve that issue or maybe a decent SG. Oh maybe you solo? >_>;

We want to play the game how we want to play the game, if not then what was the point of i14? would of been better off just giving us a bunch of new mission arcs to do right?

Farming has it's ups and downs like in any game and I'm sure it's people like you who bombard the DEV's with..

"omg the tree is overlapping the rock!!!"
*Reports*
"I sure hope I get my bug badge *squels*"

That they get sick and tired of and just don't even wanna deal with it they just send you to the forums in hopes you would just shut up and complain there instead of directly to them.

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Well, basically, yes. As far as the infinite farm missions people keep making go, they do effect me in at least two ways, one immediate and one potential.

The immediate factor is that of mission bloat. I'm not sure what the ratio of farm-to-story arcs is, but since (A) everyone and their dog seems to be making farms, (B) farm arcs take much, much less effort to create than story arcs, and (C) I suspect the farm-makers publish the same arc multiple times, the actual story arcs quickly get lost off the first few pages. That makes it difficult to get your arc noticed, and it makes it difficult (even more than it already is, due to poor search capability) to find a good story arc among the throng.

The potential problem is this: with the new boxed version of CoH out and its availability on Steam, there will (hopefully) be many new players joining CoH. If these new players get drawn into farms and are PLed en masse to 50, many of them will look around for a minute, shrug, and cancel their accounts. Farms bypass existing content, rather than adding additional content (which, I firmly believe, was the whole point of I14), and that's not a good way to keep customers. And if the game has more customers, the game is healthier and the devs can do more.

That's not as much of an issue for current, long-time players, but it's still an issue.


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Conversely, your RP arcs are getting in the way of me finding farm arcs more efficiently and as a farmer efficiency is key.

Short of exploits farmers have just as much right to MA as you. And you may want to consider the idea that if you are seeing a lot more farms than rp arcs then maybe more people "want" to farm than rp?

A more powerful search function could easily solve the browsing issues that people are having, though that is just one of many complaints between the sides right now.

*I'm not a farmer, but just sayin'

from where I'm sitting farming is better than ever, so far i14 has been a farming utopia. Did I miss a recent change?

general teaming has taken a hit though, that I'd agree with.

i13/14 pvp is bad though, very much agree. Still fun at times, but just sad how good it "could" have been with someone who has a clue behind the wheel.

Elec thunderstrike hits for just shy of 200 base damage (same as total focus) it crits for +50% damage from hide and has another 50% chance of critting for another +50% base damage.

So about 300 base damage from hide with a 50% chance of doing 400 damage.

Total focus is about 250 damage from hide.

TS only has a 50% chance of a 2 sec stun and TF has 100% chance of it. I'm not sure but TS might apply the kd chance after the stun so it could work like KO blow, but the mag is very low and a single kb IO would protect against it.


TS seems a bit fishy as from hide it hits as hard as ET with a 50% chance of doing 33% more damage. TF is just left out in the cold.

Then again I haven't tested this stuff and am just relying on second and even third hand information.

Hey, if Tongo says it stops 1 in every 3 attacks then it does.

I'd say you do to

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Or you chould just put Flury on Auto fire and Pawnt all the FightKluberz

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ya but I use freeze ray for the "immobilize" that Tongo says pawns. I use it to stop 1 out of every 3 of their flurries.

It works remarkable well

My blaster only took freeze ray. I use freeze ray+flurry to wtfpwn everything.

I think it is closer to about 42% with slotted epic shield, maybe 41%, but not that it really matters much.

Whether adding 14% res is better than adding def is up to you, but consider this:
squishies cap out at ~20% def and 10% elusivity on the shields that apply it. That really isn't very difficult to blow through*

If we assume a blaster can do 1600 damage in 3 attacks before res would you rather be hit for:
1150 or 930

*some builds can get great mileage out of the def shields, they can be devastating on tohit debuffers and can assist them in keeping up their debuff toggles even in the face of mezzers.

The decision becomes even muddier if you are teaming as it is not hard to hit the res cap w/ minimal buffing and the epic sets with def shields have probably the best utility powers that are hard to ignore even on a solo build.

hibernoob, hoarfrost, pff, poison ray, FA, and powerboost are all pretty good reasons to forgo that bit of extra res.

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Sorry kids I dont have a 50 lvl Ice Blaster, but am working on it.

Again my argument is threefold, Slow, Immobilize, and alot of both. Fire does have impact damage, BUT if youre slowed or held the ice blaster will surpass whatever damage margin a fire blaster has. I.e. being hit 3 times to 2 times Id go with the one that connects more.

A Tank huh? You dont ever want to fight my future PvP Ice Blaster cause Ill never get close to you to hit me. Youd be sniper candy.

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This is the guy to watch out for. First round draft pick material.

Some people just got it, you can't bet that.

flurry

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Questions:

1. If dom pets don't have the mezz resistance instead of protection thing, does that mean that their mezz attacks work like zone NPCs? I see gravity controllers/doms proliferating.

2. Anybody ever use mass confusion on a gaggle of Long Bow Wardens?

3. Last I heard perma-dom in pvp requires something on the order of +200% global recharge, on the other hand both flurry and thunderstrike while in domination dish out more damage than Head Splitter.

But to your question. How will mind/psi perform in PvP? Well assuming you're talking about Super Heavy Weight Events, after you've pumped a truckload of infamy into IOs... don't know. It'll take you a while before you get there, and I gotta believe there's another smash the system, throw the pieces up against the wall and see if any of it sticks rethink in the "soon."

I just can't believe that people are really going to be satisfied with a PvP system as wonky as this one. But then again, I never would have guessed at least half of the things that they actually did to PvP.

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1. They get the worst of both worlds lol
2. It would have to be domination+MC, but no I haven't. Pve------>that way
3. something like that. Powerpools tend to be more effective than melee attacks found in prim/sec even when those melee attacks have longer cast times and longer rech, which is just weird cause so much of the damage forumula is based on cast time.

Mind/psi can still be very good. It's never been easier to land DP than it is now, but most of /psi's damage is generated in melee and w/ short mezzes and the kb suppression timer it can be tough to land enough melee hits to kill things. subdue and psw can both mess with mez suppression if you cast them at the wrong time too and you'll lose out on a good "long" mez from dominate.

definitely workable though.

/elec on the other hand is ok in melee cause it has zomg damage.

How are dom's doing now that elusivity has been cut and they can only stack 60% (rather than 110%) on top of ~20% def? Seems a lot of builds could easily hit through that now. Or are doms all moving over to Lev ppp?

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if you want any type of therm corr go rad. I have a Rad/therm corr on pinnacle that will take down any regen. with dominators in pvp...I tend to stay away for they do decent damage but dont have the HPs or staying power vs. a scrapper/tank/brute/stalker/blaster.

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OK, baddo. A well-built and well-played Dominator can beat just about anything.

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Well, baddo? Like I mentioned a dom has decent damage, but if you have spent any time in i13-i14 PvP you'll notice that doms can't hold their own against any half built toon. I honestly can say that any dom would get owned by my scrapper.

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ok

Something about a ~50% heal up all the time and thx to free pvp debuf resistance + winter's gift it is tough to slow that down now.