Hellguard
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Posts
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Joined
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Especially so now -- as I'm getting married next Spring
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Yay, gratz, Red. =^_^=b
Now update your site with Willpower and Dual Blades.
*sigh* Would be nice to get really detailed information about the powers again, what with two new sets, and a lot of alterations to how powers work (change to root times for clicks and toggles, new Defiance, different times on Trick Arrow, etc.). Oh wells, still use the site for both making new characters, as well as checking out storyarc info (for making informed decisions on how gimpy I can make my Flashback arcs for badges).
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City of Data :: Powerset Quantification now updated for Issue 11
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Cool. Now what about an i11-updated Inventions page?
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they were so wrong!
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None of the information in the OP is "wrong" exactly, coming as it did not from anyone's speculation (as so many other threads on the subject had) but directly from Dev statements. The Devs merely changed their minds, so I'd consider the original information to be more "outdated" than anything else. :P -
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Might want to rewrite this. Hehe. *points at Blood Widows*
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No point. The only reason I put this together in the first place was to compile the available information that we had on villain EATs, which was all accurate *at the time this was first posted.* The initial plan, in the Devs' own words, was to have villain Kheldians as the first villain epic AT. Obviously, plans change, and I posted here saying so. -
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*goes to rush my 40 MM to 50*
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And why can't they have a contract company working on this issue?
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If it can be done in the way you describe, it would be nice to hear an official comment about the possibility and whether it's something they would even consider. I'd like to see P.C., don't get me wrong. I just don't think it's the savior of the game that some people are trying to make it out to be, and I really think that BaB's post here was meant to say "it's not going to happen" without coming out and saying those words. -
They can't work on Power Customization in isolation, though. It's not like they can just have a group of dedicated programmers doing nothing but rewriting the powers system while another group works on whatever other new stuff they're planning for the next year or two. If they dedicate work on P.C., that's pretty much going to be the only thing they'll be working on for that timeframe.
Sacrificing new content for the next year or more would lose more players than choosing not to do Power Customization. If people leave CoH for CO, P.C. is only going to be one small part of why; CoH will be a five-year-old game (or older) by the time CO comes out, and it's being made by people who've had firsthand experience with all the mistakes that have been made here. If there aren't tons of areas in which CO is better or more developed than CoH then Cryptic would have to be staffed with nothing but complete and utter morons. I don't understand this focus on P.C. as if that would be the only thing to keep CoH players from going to CO.
NCSoft *does* have to step up their game to be able to compete with CO. But if they spend all their time focusing on this one area, they're bound to let all the other areas in which CO will (potentially) be better slide. -
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Well, I been reading the forums on this topic for a while and it's a cool idea. I think it got hatched from the new Champions Online coming out next year.
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CoH players have been wanting and asking for Power Customization since CoH was in beta, long before Champions Online was even dreamed up. In fact, it's likely that the main reason CO will have P.C. is because it's one of the "lessons learned" by Jack Emmert that should have been implemented in CoH from the beginning.
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For the membership to stay I think Power Customization should be incorporated in City of Heroes/Villains to keep up with new game developments coming to other online games. Champions Online
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And I think that Power Customization, while it would be very nice, is too shallow a thing to make a huge difference in retaining the playerbase. Should our Devs implement it if it wouldn't take too much time away from actual content? Sure thing. But if the only way to implement it is to rewrite the entire powers system (and right now, that's the only way to do it -- barring some miracle presenting itself), it would mean a year or more of no other new content. *That* would lead to a larger playerbase loss than simply not having Power Customization. With no new content, many players *would* leave by the time P.C. could be implemented here. Then, by the time we have P.C., Champions Online would be out (or nearly out) and at that point many of the players who had already cut ties to this game would have even more incentive to try out CO instead of renewing their subscription to CoX. -
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Weapon customization did open up some avenues of exploration and got us thinking more outside the box, but ultimately we found that specific pathway to be a dead end.
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If what i read here is correct, then every time its said that "we are nowhere closer to power cusomization than we were 3 years ago" is not true. In theory, you are closer, still not able to go far, but you can "just" (by just i mean not as bad as a full blown system) go ahead and make those code monkeys do some tools the continuing FX in the target know who actually generating that FX and inherit properties from there.
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How in the world are you reading "we found that specific pathway to be a dead end" to mean that Weapon Customization has brought them closer?
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To quote Edison :
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"After we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project
without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had
conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure,
expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed to find
out anything. I cheerily assured him that we had learned something.
For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn't be done
that way, and that we would have to try some other way."
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Sure, I could see that eliminating possible avenues of exploration might be seen as getting "closer."
Good quote there.
Bottom line is, BaB *knows* they can implement power customization. But unless a much, much easier way of doing so than they currently could presents itself to them, they're not going to be doing it. People who think that they're actively working towards P.C. given the only current real method (i.e., a rewrite of the entire powers system) are just fooling themselves.
Some might say, well, they can work on it in bits and pieces over time while working on other things, and I guess they could. But what Lighthouse says here about the CoP and IoPs could apply to P.C. too:
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I'm sure that others who actually code can elaborate, but generally trying to work on something piece meal (aka gradually) is not the best way to go about implementing a new system, especially one that touches a number of other sub systems (and has the real potential to break them, etc.)
It's not that we haven't wanted to, it's again that there are features with broader appeal that we have pursued. Hopefully you can understand that (and if not, you can remain constructive in your feedback).
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I'm sure they'd love to give us P.C. and if they could do so without a complete rewrite of the powers system I have no doubt they would. But if anyone can read BaB's OP here and think that they're actively working on anything P.C.-related *other than searching for a miracle that will allow them to do it in a way that won't take away from a year or more's other content* then I think they're just grasping at straws. -
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Weapon customization did open up some avenues of exploration and got us thinking more outside the box, but ultimately we found that specific pathway to be a dead end.
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If what i read here is correct, then every time its said that "we are nowhere closer to power cusomization than we were 3 years ago" is not true. In theory, you are closer, still not able to go far, but you can "just" (by just i mean not as bad as a full blown system) go ahead and make those code monkeys do some tools the continuing FX in the target know who actually generating that FX and inherit properties from there.
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How in the world are you reading "we found that specific pathway to be a dead end" to mean that Weapon Customization has brought them closer? -
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Why not devote an entire issue to power customization and let the new content be pushed back? Then it's done.
Just my 2 cents.
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If it would only take one new issue to do, then I'm sure most people could live with that. However, in the past they've indicated that it would take much more time than it would take for one new issue, so much that three or four (or more!) issues of content would have to be set aside to work on Power Customization.
One issue would be worth it. A year or more's worth of issues is not. -
Saving link to this thread so I can refer to it in all the future "Power customization shouldn't be that hard," "If we have weapons customization then we should also have power customization" and "Champions Online will destroy CoH if we don't get power customization too!" threads.
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Let's compare the original TF system to this new proposed Test system. The Test system says this:
TF spawns will no longer reduce in size if players log out.
Taken in THOSE TERMS, I would hope the issue is clear. This system is terribly unforgiving of a normal non-exploitive disconnect. THAT by itself is a Bad Idea - the "experiment" they put on Live last week that they're rolling back is irrelevant to that evaluation.
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You're absolutely correct in this, but I think you've gotta compare it to the current Live version. If this new version doesn't work out, or creates more complaints than the Live version, I highly doubt they'll revert it back to the way it used to be. It's either gonna be this new version or leave it the way it is on Live now, or maybe they'll try something else.
Comparing the new version to the way it used to be is pointless. Is this new version better than the way it used to be? Absolutely not -- the way it used to be penalized no one, casual players or exploiters (unless you count the farmers getting a lot more Pool C recipes than the casual players). Both the Live version and the Test version can penalize both casual players and exploiters/farmers. In some situations, the Test version is better, and in other situations, the Live version is better. The question that's important is which version (the current Live one or the Test one) impacts the non-exploiters/casual players the least.
It doesn't matter how it used to be, unless you think there's a chance that the Devs can be convinced to go back to it, at least until they can work out a solution that's better than they've got so far. -
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In general this setup is too damaging to non-exploitive teams. Find a way to fix the exploit without making normal teams have problems!
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I can see that I've been a bit too narrow-minded about this change. I think it comes from the fact that I don't do as many TFs as a lot of people and when I do one I tend to favor starting with the minimum number or less with people I generally know already. So in my specific case, the new version is better, but I don't think I'm the norm.
I'm for scrapping both versions (the Live and Test one), reducing minimum starting requirements for most TFs (especially hero side, where most of them take 6 or more to start but rarely actually need that many), and implementing your idea on truly rewarding folks for being active throughout the entire TF (or at least the majority of it). No idea how possible that last one is, but the more I think about it the more I like it. -
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For example, continue to count logged out players for only 5 minutes, that makes it really annoying to soft-load, but will shortly correct itself for a normal team that loses a member. Also, for people farming multiple rewards from a small active team, alter the reward system so that you don't get a reward if a player was logged out for all but the last mission - count the number of rewards they miss and deny them a recipe if they were offline too much of the TF.
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Despite the fact that I think the new version is better (in most cases) than the current one, I think I like this idea even more. Especially the part about rewarding people who are active for most of the TF. It always kind of bothered me that you really only had to be in the last mission of an hours-long TF to get the badge and other rewards. Even just that part of what you're proposing would go a long way towards stopping people from easily farming recipes.
Of course, you'd need the first part of your idea there to discourage people from just softloading maps by spawning them while people are logged off, but I really really like the second part of your idea. It balances the risk/reward (or effort/reward) equation pretty nicely. -
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I'm for how it is on Live. I'm not for this setup under test.
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I still don't understand why people are so opposed to this change. With either the Live version or the current one in testing, you have the problem with people logging off but not quitting the TF. The new version at least gives you some allowance for team attrition in lots of situations. And for the situations that it won't (someone logs off without quitting), well, it's *already* like that on Live. The things that people are worried about already happen under the current system.
I can see the new system being a problem for TFs that require fewer people but get started with a full team. The current version is obviously better there (Live version of Positron with 3 online teammates and 5 offline ones = mobs for 3; Test version of Posi with the same setup = mobs for 8). So I think that the new change will encourage people to run more TFs with just the minimum number necessary, or to recruit players to just make the minimum and then quit shortly thereafter.
But again, running TFs with the minimum required number, this new version is clearly better than the Live version. The problems that exist with the new version are already inherent in the Live version, where there's absolutely nothing you can do about team attrition.
To repeat what many others have asked for, the minimum requirements for starting TFs needs to be looked at. Most of the 8-person TFs don't really require 8 people. Lower the minimum required to start most TFs (even Positron said it was something that needed looked at) and either version of this would be much better. -
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Do we know that the Ouroboros Task Forces and Flashback weren't affected by the old change, and thus aren't affected by the new change?
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Good point on the minimum team size of 1 thing. I guess I was going off the fact that we actually got a "preview" of the current Live version on Test via Flashback when Flashback missions would spawn for large teams even while solo. Looking back, it seemed that the TF changes had accidentally spilled over to Flashback. They fixed that bug before the patch went Live (which makes it even more remarkable that the change missed the patch notes, really... having to fix a bug that spawned a few threads on the Training Room forum might have made them think about the underlying change that caused it, but I digress).
Since they took steps to exclude Flashback missions from exhibiting the behavior of the "real" TF change, I guess I assumed they wouldn't exhibit the behavior of the current one in testing. It'd be easy enough to check, though. -
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This probably doesn't need to be asked but might as well be through,
LH, do these TF changes also apply to the Oroborous Taskforces and the Flashback Taskforces themselves? I hope so.
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The Ouroboros and Flashback "Task Forces" weren't affected by the original change (the one that's currently on Live) so I can't imagine they'd be affected by this change, since it's just an alteration of the previous TF change. It's not like the Ouroboros "Task Forces" are *really* Task Forces... -
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Whoa, nice! A very excellent compromise it would seem.
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Yep. I don't understand why people think the way it is on Live right now could be better in any way. If four people log off without quitting an 8-man TF, you're going to be hurting with *either* version. At least with this new version, it'll allow for team attrition in many circumstances. The current Live version doesn't allow for *any.* -
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Hmm, this won't help much with the Shadow Shard TFs, since on some of those you could knock out some of the missions without the team there. It's tough to get 8 people on at one time for the duration of a few of those.
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Please can the minimum team size of the Shard TF's in particular be examined.
An adjustment to 6 should be at least seriously considered.
Manticore should also be tweaked down from 7 to 6.
All in all I did see this coming. Softloading was becoming far too commonly used as a shortcut.
Of course now I am going to have to solo a load of them again just for the heck of it
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Agreed. Softloading was HIGHLY annoying IMO and I'm glad it won't work anymore. It just... felt like cheating to me.
Now if they'll just fix the Sewer Trial to have an upper level limit so it can't be cheated, i'll be a happy camper!
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Or they could just fix soft loading.
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?? I think they just DID... which is cool with meh!
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A much better way to do it would have been for missions to spawn based on how many people are on the team -- whether logged into the game or not. No idea how possible that is, although I'd wager to say that it wouldn't be impossible for the game to know how many people are on the team, even if some of those people aren't actually online.
Making missions spawn for a static number of team members is just dumb, especially for the longer TFs. Do they really expect that teams won't ever drop below the number required to start? -
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I would generally assume that anything that is listed in a public forum such as this as a great way to make inf, will quickly become a mediocre/poor way to make inf, simply because so many people will jump on the opportunity.
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This is exactly right. I discovered this guide a couple months after it was first posted, and some of the buy-recipe-craft-IO-for-profit tactics worked reasonably well for me, although not as well as stated in the OP. I did it for awhile, then stopped and checked back a month or so later and the IOs I was actually using weren't nearly as profitable as they had been.
I'm a little too lazy to spend too much time researching the market, but I would assume it's just a matter of taking the time to find a new niche, or at least wait until the formerly hot IOs become hot again. -
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I know this is an old post, but I just found it and I think it's wonderful. I'm definately going to play with the SG stuff on the test server now, I didn't know it gave you the extra prestige to play with there.
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They don't give the big prestige boost on the Test Server anymore whenever you create a sg/base. That was removed quite a while back. -
Well, despite all the info up to this point, it appears that villains will *not* be getting Kheldians as Epic ATs. During the recent Bay Area Meet & Greet, Positron is reported to have said that villain EATs will be something *other* than Kheldians. In a response to a PM from me, Posi confirmed that the plans for villain EATs do *not* include Kheldians.
This is a complete about-face from their former plans, of course, but that's to be expected sometimes. It'll be interesting to see if we ever get comments as to why they changed their minds (whether it was because of problems porting Khelds over to the red-side, lack of interest from players, or something else entirely). -
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I'll second the motion to make friends lists non viewable by default, it's no one else's business who is friends with who unless said person offers that information.
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Again.
Friends list IS non viewable by default.
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You might want to actually look at it in-game, because yoru claim is not accurate. Maybe it's SUPPOSED to be "not shown" by default, but the settings currently are defaulting to "shown".
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In my options, "Hide Friends from web page" is indeed "Enabled," meaning the friends list would be hidden, just as Lighthouse and the poster you're replying to said it would be. Have you checked several of your characters to see if they're all showing the "Hide friends" line as disabled? -
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Question: Does this free time count towards veteran time. I know the free days you get from buying the game don't count. So do these?
Because if it doesn't I would rather just send them a personal email to get them back and pay for my time so I can get my goodies sooner.
Thanks
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Does this free time count toward veteran time? The answer is yes.
Ex
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To further clarify for the person you're responding to here, Ex, yes, the free month that you get from purchasing the game does indeed count towards Veteran Reward time. Not sure where he'd get the idea that it doesn't.
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Well like I said in my original post. Time you get from buying a retail box of the game doesn't count. So I was under the impression that any time given for free wouldn't count as well. But thanks for the explanation. I appreciate it!
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Since there have been several people point out that you're incorrect in your assumption that free months from retail boxes doesn't count towards vet time, I won't do that (unless I just did), but I would like to ask why you think that. It was discussed at length when Veteran Rewards were first announced, and several people in this thread have pointed out that the free time *does* count. Why do you still think it doesn't?