GlaziusF

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It's not that it's difficult to farm. It's that it's STUPID.

I mean, isn't the kill badge (Untouchable) for normal family bosses just a 100-count? Why is Gangbuster TWICE that?

At what point did someone decide "You know what would make CoV perfect? Grinding. Let's put some grinding in."

Whoever came up with the Gangbuster requirement should have to grind that badge out every morning before being allowed to start work.

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Yeah, because unless you do the slot machine's missions you won't be allowed to go past level 40 when Issue 7/1 comes out.

--GF

And now that I've put it in perspective for you...

I dunno if it counts as an NPC phrase or not, but Marshall Brass's entire after-action report is amusing, but only so long as you remember what you _actually_ did.

The man makes deniable obfuscation into an _art form_.

--GF

"And then I killed the Freelancer to preserve security. The files have been sealed."

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Problem is, if you make hurricane into a knockback power, you'll be knocking targets out of the to-hit debuff.

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You know, this could be just me misremembering, but I thought Hurricane did pulse with a weak knockback/knockdown once in a blue moon.

Dragon Flys and Storm Shamans certainly seem to enjoy flinging me around with theirs.

--GF

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He says something like "I'm going to burn you, Villain_name." Then after you defeat him, he says a simple "Oh".

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Sadly, somewhere between beta and retail they _broke_ multiple-line statements from NPCs.

"Duke" Mordragor rants "You will burn! You will ALL burn!" and then as he slumps to the ground, "Oh. Ow. Okay, you got me."

Similarly, the Herald of Bat-Zul croaks out "There is no mercy. There is only... ashes..." as he collapses.

DEVS FIX THIS!

--GF

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Now, its perfectly valid to look at enhancements from the perspective you mention above. But if you do, two things happen:

1. *Everything* now has diminishing returns, so stating that something has diminishing returns is now a meaningless statement.

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Exactly my point.

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2. Recharge will still have *more* diminishing returns than damage.

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Hmm, really?

Okay, let's take that attack which does 100 damage and say it recharges in 20 seconds, meaning it'll take 200 seconds to break down the door.

So as you add more recharge enhancements it takes:

20, 15, 12, 10, 8.571, 7.5, 6.667

seconds for the attack to recharge.

Meaning it takes

200, 150, 120, 100, 85.71, 75, 66.67

seconds to break down the door.

...and dividing this by 20 to put the first number in the series at the same point, we get

10, 7.5, 6, 5, 4.286, 3.75, 3.333

But I thought recharge had 'more diminishing returns', whatever that means!

--GF

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Taking your suggestions into account, I've added Defense to the Power Pools to EVERY single damage type EXCEPT Psi. In other words, the Pools are no longer limited to Smashing and Lethal.

Frankly, my original idea didn't account for the fact that some pools would have been situationally more useful to certain Tanker and Scrapper builds...This change addresses the inequality.

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Why not just have pool defenses (and buffs with incidental defense, like Steamy Mist and Shadow Fall) add to base DEF and be done with it? The only exception to this is Weave which makes thematic sense to stay melee/ranged/smashing/lethal - also, it's more defense than any other forms of pool defense, being a fourth-tier power without any upside such as stealth or manuverability.

--GF

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Recharge enhancements, and recharge buff/debuffs, are the only true "diminishing returns" effects in the game, because they don't actually affect the entire activation/recharge cycle.

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Really?

Okay, let's say I'm trying to break down a door with 1000 HP! So how many attacks will it take, with that 100 damage attack, and various levels of enhancers?

Just to review, that's doing:

100, 133, 166, 200, 233, 266, 300

damage per attack.

So it takes...

10, 7.5, 6, 5, 4.286, 3.75, 3.333

attacks to break down the door.

What's going on? I thought damage enhancements didn't have diminishing returns!

--GF

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Funny... all this logical thought about CoH and Statesman cant reply to any of it because it's correct.

Community = Logic
Statesman's Vision = Insanity

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So let me get this straight.

If I said "Hey guys! I6 is going to raise the level cap to 100 and you get there 1 experience point at a time from level 53 Storm Elementals!" and no dev called me on it, it would automatically become true?

--GF

In that case, I have ten million dollars and five supermodels vying for my affection.

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Archery has the highest Accuracy in the game. All powers have an accuracy of 1.16. Ranged shot, the sniper attack, has an accuracy of 1.39.

So that like getting 1 free ACC DO in all Archery powers. Against a target with no defense, thats a 87% chance ToHit.


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And when you put 1 Acc SO in your Archery attacks, any benefit gained from that "free DO" vanishes.

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Not really.

SOs take effect _after_ things like defense and to-hit debuffs come into play, but base accuracy kicks in before that.

So against something that's trying to dodge, or when you've been hit with a -tohit, archery will hit more often than any other blaster set...

Still, if there's a fundamental damage/end and end/time imbalance that's not much consolation.

--GF

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Erm, I am a bit confused by this so maybe someone can explain. This is how I am reading this:

If I exemplar down, my SO's will lose power as long as I exemplared correct? I would of sworn that I once exemplared to level 2 or 3 before and my Hasten was still perma. If SO's lost their power, wouldn't Hasten no longer be perma?

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...wow, this might be evidence of a nasty bug with auto-execution. Either that or you're misremembering.

In theory, you wouldn't be able to activate Hasten unless you were exemplared to level 6, since that's the first level you can get it at.

--GF

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It should.
At 22nd level I can have all SO's...in the Power 10.
From 22 to 32 all my stepchild powers will still be DO's.

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I would also like to mention (since this thread is like a year old) that in the intervening time anybody who gets to 'friend' with a contact of their origin that they get at level 20 will have access to level 25 Oddball 18 SOs.

--GF

Thread necroing a year later, because this is important for everyone to know. Since there are posts from over a year there's bound to be some inaccurate information, but as far as I know the basic mechanic hasn't changed.

A couple little clarifications. Fear and sleep break on damage. This means that, for example, being in the center of a roaring snowstorm won't wake anybody up or give them a burst of desparation out of their fear, but as soon as the freezing rain starts stinging all bets are off.

--GF

Defiance is nice, but it doesn't go far enough.

Open it up to all archetypes.

Here's how it goes.

Increasing and Decreasing the Defiance Bar
<ul type="square">[*]Keep the defiance meter as it is, but don't tie it to hitpoints, tie it to incoming damage.[*]An attack increases the defiance meter based on how much of the hero's health it does.[*]When a hero starts to get low on hitpoints, every attack boosts the bar more. A chaingun assault that wears down 30% HP doesn't boost defiance by much if a hero's at full health (as compared to one 30% hp attack, which boosts a lot), but if it happens when the hero's at half health each tick boosts defiance more, so it offers more overall defiance gain than a 30% HP attack would at that point.[*]An attack that lands while a hero is crowd-controlled also boosts defiance more. Attacks that knockdown or knockback also boost defiance.[*]Falling and other forms of environmental damage e.g. lava or acid don't boost defiance.[*]Damage dealt to you by your own powers boosts defiance.[*]Endurance crashes from your own powers drop defiance.[*]After you haven't gained defiance for a few seconds it starts to deplete.[*]Some high-end villain powers such as Mask of Weakness accelerate the rate at which defiance drops. They can drain defiance even while you take damage. DE Swarms will eat away at defiance instead of attack rate.[*]Some powers whose sole purpose it is to suck endurance, e.g. Carnie death and Sapper Sticks will drain less endurance than before but in exchange drain defiance. Defiance drain may be added to some other high-end powers such as Knives of Artemis sleep darts.[*]Powers that protect against endurance drain also protect against defiance drain and defiance drain boosters. The leadership toggles will offer protection against defiance drain. In addition to or instead of its current effects, Vengeance will boost all teammates defiance - this boost is enhanced as normal by low HP or crowd control powers. Defiance losses as a result of your own endurance crashes, however, are unresistable.[*]Death does not reduce defiance. Hospitaling will probably drain a significant portion of defiance before a hero gets back outside, but a hero dropped with significant enough defiance may be able to pop an Awaken and keep on truckin'.[*]Inspirations that temporarily increase defiance may be introduced. These inspirations would only be dropped, never bought. (May I suggest reintroducing the old Resolve line?) In addition, higher-end resurrection inspirations may slow the rate of defiance loss for some period of time.[*]There'd be another kiosk in the tutorial zone explaining defiance. Perhaps instead of the enrage/respite the sergeant could give out a Sheer Willpower?[/list]Effects of High Defiance
<ul type="square">[*]When the defiance bar hits certain levels a hero acquires an effect. This effect remains as long as the bar remains at that level and for a few seconds afterward, somewhere around the duration of a buildup. This may be represented graphically as the defiance bar's background level flashing at the higher defiance level as the bar drains.[*]All archetypes gain certain constant effects as the defiance bar builds. Base magnitude increases, health regeneration and endurance regeneration are boosted, and power recharge rate increases. (Note that this may come to step on Hasten's toes, especially since Hasten's endurance crash sucks out some defiance. This can only be a good thing.)[*]Blasters gain increased accuracy, damage, and defence.[*]Controllers gain increased mez duration. They may also gain extra "while crowd-controlled" damage which spills over to any pets, if this is possible.[*]Defenders see increases in the power of their buffs, debuffs, and heals.[*]Scrappers see increases in their accuracy and critical rate, and boosts in their ability with resistance and defense.[*]Tanks gain increased taunt duration, and increase their damage and base defense and resistance - how much this last happens may vary based on tanker primary. Invuln tankers may gain significant resistance and defense as defiance builds, while fire tankers may gain damage but not so much defense or resistance.[*]Kheldians magnify the effects of their interspatial link; controllers provide some small all-round boost as defiance builds, and non-Kheldian special archetypes may also provide some unique benefit at higher defiance. Getting nicti-blasted also sucks Kheldian defiance, but because the blast first damages, then drains defiance, Kheldians may see a defiance spike that gives them temporary defiance effects (in addition to a smaller gain in net defiance). The stun effect may or may not need to be increased in magnitude - one blast may only detoggle a Kheldian but because of the defiance boost break the Kheldian immediately out of the stun.[*]Optionally, at certain defiance levels archetypes may gain some special particle effect based on their primaries.[/list]Now that defiance exists in the game it's opening up all kinds of possibilities. ...well, inside my head, anyway. PvP with defiance on both sides may be very interesting indeed.

--GF

Post mirrored here. Don't waste your one reply commenting!

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I thought "North Dakota" was a make-believe place like "Scotland" and "North Carolina".

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I know Wyoming is an old indian word for "No state here"

(Cookies AND pie to the person that can identify that reference))

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Well, _I_ know that fire hydrants aren't actually connected to anything but instead filled with thousands of gallons of compressed water.

--GF

Garfield &amp; Friends FTW!

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Maybe Jackson could dig up a bit of dirt on whether Azuria's consistent loss of key artifacts is incompetence or design.

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Or if there's a giant hole in the back that no one has noticed yet. I keep expecting some 'Find the junk Azuria las lost" TF. Mountain ranges of ball point pens...Lakes of socks...piles of her magical items...

Very nice article. I'll definately be waving to her the next time I pass through city hall on my way to find more of Azuria's lost junk.

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I think at some point in the game you should go to Azuira and ask for some artifact, you desperately need it, but she won't give it to you because of the danger involved. So you have to acctualy go to a MAGI safe house and steal the artifact. The entrance bar should say, "Steal an artifact from Azuira? This should only take about 5 minutes."

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Actually, there _is_ a mission where Nemesis is after some artifact that can be used in a ceremony of immortality. Once you get it you get directed to give it to Azuria. And she says, "what, are you nuts? This is the first place he'd look. Go to this safehouse."

--GF

Of course, Nemesis has the resources to look in multiple places at the same time...

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Nothing has happened that would keep me from participating in PvP (I doubt anything would), also nothing has happened that would make me stop playing my alts and continually farm one monster over and over repeatedly (nothing is going to make that happen, heh.)

I am not worried that the top rungs of the ladder would be dominated by a small group of hardcore players, that is already a foregone conclusion on any online game. The people willing to put in the huge amounts of time and do anything to win will win, it's the nature of the genre.

Now, this doesn't mean that PvP in general or the arena in particular can't be loads of fun, I'm quite certain it will be for many (if not most) people for at least a while.

What I am worried about is creating such an obvious line between the haves and havenots, something prevalent in lots of MMOGs but conspicuously absent so far from CoH. What I do fear this will lead to is loads of PvP fights ending in numerous complaints about who had the most HOs, demands of screenshots of enhancement pages, and whining from well known Hami raiders of "I would be higher on the ladder but everyone is afraid of fighting me."

Some complaining is bound to come with any PvP, okay, lots of complaining is bound to come with any PvP but the whole HO vs. SO situation seems like it's going to magnify it massively. I really don't want every friendly matchup to end with accusations that I only won because I had more HOs and I also don't want to turn down matches because I'm challenged by people that have twice as many HOs as I do and know I have no prayer against.

My solution is pretty simple, uses existing code, and should annoy everyone enough to probably be reasonable fair. Add a new merchant/contact like Ghost Falcon. He gives a mission to kill one Hamidon. After you finish the mission he'll sell you HOs. (I wish there was some easy way to make them "No-Drop" but this shouldn't be too big a deal living with them being tradable.) Make them alot more than SOs so they'll act as a nice money sink, but not insane amounts, that'll just cause farming again. (I'm thinking a couple of 100K each, maybe as much as a million).

This way every level 47-50 can be equalized pretty well, virtually all griefing of buds will stop, and you'll get something for defeating Hami without requiring endless farming.

Anyway, just a thought.

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No, then people are just going to grind for influence. You said it yourself - the people at the top will do anything to be at the top.

This is human nature.

If HOs didn't exist, people who wanted to be at the top of the ladder in PvP would mathematically analyze the best powersets in the game and grind the respec TF for max-level SOs.

They'd look at CoH's netcode and try to find ways of cheating in the arena, praying nobody would catch on, because if they can find something than someone else will find something, and God forbid someone else has an advantage they don't.

If they're losing a match they're going to kick the cord out of the machine and whine about disconnects, and if somebody brings up their low ranking they're going to blame it all on network problems.

They might even launch a DoS attack against another player's IP address to lag them down in the Arena.

Heck, I'm sure there are people out there who are right now planning to do many of these things. After they go on enough Hamidon raids to outfit themselves completely with HOs.

PVPing random strangers will always carry this element of risk.

I can't raid Hammy. Not don't want to, not don't have the time, CAN'T. I'm on dialup, and my Hamidon experience is 30 seconds of slideshow followed by LCTMS.

That said, I'm going to have to agree with an earlier 1600-posts-casual poster. PvP hasn't gone live yet. It hasn't even gone TEST yet. Accuracy issues, HO issues, and a frooglepoopillion things that somebody is concerned about are probably being thought about.

I mean, I hear in Issue 6 they're going to introduce teh PWNXXX0R archetype which has innate boosts of +200 percent to accurage, damage, endurance and health regen, and recharge rate, and you can only unlock it as part of a double-secret accolade that will involve Isolator. Shouldn't you be getting worked up over that?

I mean, it's just as real as all these PVP issues everybody seems to have.

--GF

Okay, but aren't there also defense powers that give you bonuses to melee or ranged defense? Like the super reflex toggles?

So if an SR scrapper with a deflection shield on him gets swung at by a guy with a bat (melee smashing) does he add both the melee defense and smashing defense together, or does he use only whichever is best?

--GF

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In Firebase Zulu, there is a Doctor Quaterfield who gives you a TF.

This *may* be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Doctor Quatermass of early BBC science fiction fame.

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And on that task force?

Paging Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine? Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine.

Old 3 Stooges bit.

--GF

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Is he immune to Burn or just amazingly resistant?

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Yup, Immune to burn and pretty much most fire attacks. Greater fire sword seems to work on him for minor dmg though. I'm pretty much immune to his fire attacks as well, so it's a standoff while the other heroes pound on him

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so my fire tank would be semi useful in an infernal fight? because ive been politely declining as id heard he was immune to fire

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...well, as a fire tank, _you're_ mostly immune to fire. He can pound on you with his fire axe until the cows come home and everybody else can mop up the altar and then come after him.

--GF

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Greetings All.

I am following up on my previous post regarding the game being more difficult in grouped missions.

My husband and I and a good friend have playing City of Heroes since May 2004. We all started at the same time and have grouped the same 3 characters together: a blaster, a defender, and a controller.

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Well, that's your problem right there. You didn't post your defender primary/controller secondary but my guess is they don't mitigate it sufficiently, at least not anymore. I imagine at least one of them is Empathy.

You haven't got anybody who can stand up in melee, who has the capacity to either dodge or resist the attacks of, say, a Tank Swiper or an Underboss. If you've managed to get up to 23 as it is, you can probably grab and SK a tank from 15 or so on upward. Even a scrapper in your level range would probably be able to handle things.

If you don't know how to use seek team to pick out anybody in the game, some helpful soul has recently updated a guide in the player questions forum.

The fact of the matter is that, as nice as your group has worked so far, you're missing a crucial element, to the point that if any one of you was somehow able to insta-swap in a scrapper or tanker of the same level you'd find yourself not having this problem anymore.

Very few trios would have this problem - I think scrapper/tanker/blaster is the only other one, but that might show up a smidge earlier.

--GF

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I thought all the comments were well thought out and well stated. I, on the other hand, did not see something addressed that is currently ruing my gaming experience on COH. Just made lvl 38, my contacts are finished with me, and I am informed by more "experienced" players that I will not recieve any additional contacts until I hit lvl 40, over 2 million xp away. So basically I am forced to team up, or go do the sewer trial, or lumina tf, the former being one I can attempt to do on my own, but have no chance in hell of completing, the latter one where I have to team up. I would really love to see the "contact void" filled. Unless you feel like dropping the xp climb to something resembling other games on the market, where it doesn't take 700 hours to reach lvl 50. 446 hours logged with this lvl 38 hero, doing missions, along with tf's, not sitting around having contests or dancing in clubs. Alot of work that now seems like wasted effort.

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How much of 35-38 did you spend under the new difficulty slider, and what was it set on?

There are people looking for teams to do all sorts of things, though, from trials down to basic missions, because it gets interesting when a lot of people face down a lot of villains. (I pulled together a pickup task force for RULADAK THE FRIGGIN' STRONG over the weekend with nary a drop over the 8 hours it took us. Crazy good fun.)

My tank has had to ninja her way through entire storyarcs in vain attempts to get contacts dry before she outleveled them utterly. This has happened at 35, 40, and 45, and the only reason it's not going to happen at 50 is because you can't get beyond 50.

Seriously, put seek team on, ask what's getting done when somebody invites you, or throw your own team together and look at what people have to offer. You'll be out of No Mission Hell before you know it.

--GF

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This Boss thing is seriously becoming a major pain. I played my L34 Blaster on a mission. No warning about a Boss, was to find 3 Blinkies, and the enemy was suggested as being DE.

Lo and behold...CoT was also in the mission...guess what so was a CoT boss. Knowing that most of the CoT Boss were controlers..I poped two mental deffense, two normal deffense, one ACC, poped my Aim and Buildup..and went to work. Lost big time. Got the Boss down to 1/4 and ran out of healing inspers. The boss had no problems putting me to sleep and on hold even with the added deffeses.

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Disciplines don't stack. If they were just disciplines, even a normal CC power has a chance to bust through them, the same way a player controller can penetrate a boss's resistance occasionally.

Also, and I know this sounds rather picky, did you try just snagging the blinkies without fighting the boss? I've ninjaed my way through many a mission in a vain attempt to finish them all before I outlevel the contacts. Yeah, even at level 46.

--GF

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Just a note, for regular missions, the difficulty slider does not seem to be able to increase the levlel of certain villain groups beyond their normal regular level cap. That is, it doesnt seem to be able to make Sky Raider or Banished Pantheon missions spawn anything higher than 29, since that is their max level. I imagine the same results will occur with Tsoo, who cap at 29, and with Clockwork (cap at 18-20 aprox?)

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I can confirm this. Crey minions only scale to 45, Crey lieutenants and bosses to 44 (with some subsets having a lower cap). Occasionally with the mission on 44/Unyielding I'll see a group of three Crey agents who are still just 45 - they should be 46, but there aren't any stats for them that high.

--GF

Also, villain group plays a role. If you can drop a purple Carnie boss due to Invincible, more power to you.

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We already know that all powers won't work the same in PvP, so why do you think the devs would be stupid enough to not do the same with this inspiration?...

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Alright, Revolver, I'll be your huckleberry...

Please show me one reference by any CoH Dev anywhere stating that Inspirations will function differently in PvP.

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Inpirations aren't going to work at all in PvP, silly.

Because if they did, people would be going out and fighting mindlessly until their trays were packed nice and full with tier 3s, and THEN AND ONLY THEN would they dare to engage in PvP with other players who, presumably, have also hunted down tier 3s. And they would complain at length about the huge tedious process to become competitive.

Either inspirations won't figure at all in hero/villain PvP, or each side is going to get a predetermined number and kind of inspirations instead of the ones they're currently carrying.

--GF

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I am more apt to believe he found what you said funny for the misconception it implies.

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And that's just what he likes. Good little players who pay their $15 and don't ask questions about where the missing half of the game is or why it takes so long to do such simple things.

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But you know better, because of the plutonium atom that is a universe inside your brain, right?

Or are you the only person in America the CIA isn't mind-controlling with x-ray laser Sputniks?

Ooh, I know, I know, it's all a conspiracy by the Rockefeller Right-Wing Rich Man's Mafia!

--GF

So when are you going to get around to ripping off Statesman's mask to reveal that he's really James Cameron, the favored son of the Masonic Illuminati?