Helmkat

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It would certainly be interesting if they removed stacking from both +Stealth and +Perception powers - instead of being additive, make them overlap, so only the best one applies. It seems like that would solve a number of issues.


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Exactly, if it were not for Stealth/Hide the whole perception war would be basically neutralized except for Superior invis(I think) and you don't see Controllers one shotting anyone

I say peel back this combo on test and see what happens.

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So if they take hide/stealth away any fool with tactics will see us. What's the point of being a stalker in the first place if the 80% of players can see through your hide and avoid the AS? Ahh...let me guess, that way you can easily kill them.


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Hmm so you are saying Stalkers are only good if they have one power from a power pool that has -zero- pve application?
That is a very weak argument.

To my way of thinking Stalkers have all the tools right at hand to do their job, they have AS, they have build up, they have placate, they have hide, they have critical hits from hide. What stalkers don't need is nearly perfect camoflage and it is that one aspect of Stalkers that has caused a great deal of the problems. Other players can't see you unless they have two layers of perception, thus they have no chance to defend themselves. Your average player with an average build should not be expected to have two layers of perception just to have a chance to avoid a Stalker with hide/stealth.

I've been around coh two years prior to the launch of coh beta, I have a pretty good instinct for this kinda thing, I have to say stealth/hide is the best candidate for modification, it just solves nearly all the issues if it goes away.

Take away the "Stealth/Hide" combo and you are fine. Near perfect camoflage combined with a one shot attack and break target lock power is over the top.

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Essentially, you're saying it's good to have a guaranteed, 100% effective way to negate the defining ability of another AT... Stealthing is what they do. They have to be able to do it, and do so without a 100% effective counter.


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There are many examples of single powers that destroy what other players can do. Is it right that build up or aim can punch through SR's defence without elude? that this negates multiple powers that have been slotted over many levels? Is it right that a Breakfree negates a controllers primaries?

Some of you are acting like Stalkers are cripples in PVP or something, the truth is exactly the opposite, Stalkers kill all out of proportion to their numbers and are now probably-the- most feared AT in PVP zones.

IMHO stalkers do not need anymore help in pvp.

My personal opinion is they overestimated the amount of people who want to be villians.

Just like they overestimated that amount of people who wanted to pvp.

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Yep - this is the AI change to "fix" herding...



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You have only defined the size of the herd. Cowboys will now just round up their 17 cows and then move onto the next 17. LOL I bet herders will just come back and say...

"Thanks for making herding safer now States, sometimes my eyes got to big for my powers and I rounded up to many."

note to development team: Make the bad guys smarter, not dumber.

Villian one: Hey man, that hero just smacked you on the side of the head. You just going to take that?!

Villian two: You obviously did'nt get them memo from lord Recluse "No more then 17 villians on a hero at one time." and I count 17 over there. I will just wait till one is defeated, then I go in, you can come in after I am defeated.

Villian one: But we could both be shotting him with our guns from here!

Villian two: Have you seen Recluse? he's a scarey [censored] and I am going to follow the memo! Besides one more demerit and they take away my cafe privileges.

Villian one: You are an idiot and I quit.

In the Bloody bay event the other night I rolled a Storm Elec Defender just to buzz the villians with Hurricane on. If you saw a Hero by the name of "Divine intervention" running up and down the villian line with Cane on, its was me

Ninjas, robots and other assorted bad guys flying all over the place. I'm only sorry we were not high enough for tornado

Name: The Celestial Guardians

Motto: "Your destiny awaits"

Leader(s): Marcus Agama/Helmkat/Shining Dark

Player Type: Casual, mature

RolePlay?: Yep this a rp SG at heart

Membership levels:Any

SuperGroup Colours: Blue and White

Normal time of Gameplay: Evenings, and weekends

Other information: A small but close knit SG. We hold role play events most Fridays. Come along and see what we are about.

Recruiting?: We don't actively recruit but our door is always open.

Website: See my sig.

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Again I am not trying to be sarcastic or asking rhetorical questions. I think if the devs are going to do this right, in terms of balancing powers, ED, and mob strengths, we need to get at what exactly makes people feel "more powerful" at level 46 than at level 9. Because you're right, my higher level characters feel that way too... but why? I'm not sure myself.

I think we need to answer that question.



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I understand exactly what you mean and it is an excellent question. I understand like the definition of "fun", feeling "heroic" will br different as well.

I will try my best to define this.

As my heroes progress there is an increase in their power curve. Makes sense of course. When my heroes are faceing bosses and challenges say in the 1-21 there is a feeling of well "noobiness" but I expect that, hes the new kid on the block and he is learning what it means to be a hero.

The noob feeling though is offset by the quick leveling.

Then 22 hits with single origins. Honestly to me its like a breath of fresh air. I go from noob hero to seasoned hero. My damage, holds, heals whatever suddenly "feel" like they have weight compared to their training/DO incarnations. I feel like I have graduated.

This feeling continues to grow but changes flavor slightly at about 40. Your contacts seem more well 'serious", your mission seem to take on a "weighty" feel compared what came before. Additionally depending on your contacts and the missions you have to team and I like the concept of having challenges so large that only a team can handle them.

So right now my level 46 ma/sr plays on unyielding. He performs well both solo and on a team. I role play and have a lot of fun with my SG. I love the power level I am at now after I5. I will admit to being shocked that my performance got better after I5. Well let me be honest, my primary got better and my secondary got worse but the net result was toward better.

I also like(d, no longer, I5 moved more to min/max) to slot differently and take powers that some don't like. Like I had a couple slots in CJ and Stealth, I put them there knowing I would get better numbers from my say my toggles but my hero is a concept and I like to think that his combat and his stealth were a little better then some others.

I5 took that from me. They hit cj and Stealth so hard in defence that I could no longer keep those slots there. They had to go places to me make me survivable.

Now I look at ED and well you would have to look at my build but there is'nt really any good places to move more then a slot or two.

The cumlative effect of ED and what does it mean? Less defence and less damage. The two critical things I need to function as a scrapper.

And if ED' net nerf makes me feel like a "noob" instead of a veteran (as I think a lvl 46 should feel), then I leave. Its almost like say watching the super friends and then watching Justice league. Right now I feel Justice league, I don't want to feel like Super friends.

I know I rambled but thats it.

thanks for asking.

/e bow

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But everyone gets hit by ED.

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True, everyone gets hit but some MUCH harder then others. My storm/elec defender, my dark/rad defender, my ill/rad controller, they laugh in the face of ED, they are divisified already and were so since day one of their builds.

But my scrappers, my tank and my FF defender? they are getting tarred and feathered by ED.

Certain subsets of each AT are naturals for "focused enhancement slotting" and why? becuase the powers that are in those ATs are naturals for one or two types of enhancments.

Buff or no Buff SR(or should I say any SR with more then two Def res SO's in any Def power) is in a world of hurt come ED becuase here is the simple truth of it for SR.

You are going to be hit more then you are today. Minions will hit you more, Officers will hit you more, bosses will hit you more, Archvillians will hit you more and Monsters will hit you more (but then they were hitting through elude anyway). More damage=more defeats.

When this goes live I will test it of course. I fully expect that I will have to lower my difficulty a notch or two as I5 put me just about on the edge of where I wanted to be difficulty wise. What is more important to me is wether I will feel like a hero anymore. If my lvl 46 feels like hes lvl 9 again, I will walk away from this game and never look back.

Well lets see.

Hmm.

I5 guts my defences.

ED slams them again.

I5+ED+=SR scrappers in a world of hurt.


Now you add in some damage resistance for when our "defence" falls down on the job and l know that is going to be very, very often.

My guess is that unlike defiance, this damage resistance is going to get a huge workout.

I seriously doubt this is enhanceable.

Normally when someone gives me something I say "Thank you" but after gutting my defence and making this game feel like its been a year long beta I will view all changes with extreme scepticism.

So why am I supposed to slot endurance reduction then?

How does this helps my defence?

Oh wait I don't have slot for endux!

Oh wait I don't do that already!

Guess I lose.

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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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But States, seriously this doesnt help becuase of what you are doing with...

oh wait.

NDA.

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From what I've see already nerfs continue to punish people that have toons that are near unkillable by making the powers much less useful.

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Umm that was the point of the nerfs, yes? Nobody should be "near unkillable" but for all the "near unkillables" out there there seems to be an equal number of "rendered useless" heroes running around. Defence sets in PVP are one. Everyone has a magic bullet of some sort that says "Sorry no defence for you! POW!". This resistance to debuffs and the resistance inspirations go in some direction to correct the pvp inbalance and I am glad to see them.

Personally I don't understand the necessity of these changes. Are stealth powers breaking the game? No.

Are stealth powers encouraging powerleveling, kill stealing, herding and the rotting of fruit on the vine. No.

Are stealth powers providing players an alternative to the constant "gotta wade through more orcs then helms deep" mentality that can happen in this game? yes.

Are stealth powers well costed for the benefits?Yes.

The changes you are proposing are just simply thematic. The dungeon master has decided he was tired of people avoiding the monsters and or fighting the monsters and not attracting the attention of the wandering monsters.

Please reconsider the changes in their entirety. All you are doing is stripping away a tool to "play smarter not harder."

Actually its pretty funny because sometimes stealth right now in its current incarnation can bring more aggro on me then I would like! So my poor blaster (whoes concept you are ruining) suddenly will have to always team.

oh wait thats what you want.

There is more then one way to achieve stealth in the city of paragon and you want to turn stealth into a "natural origin" power. What about the players of magic, tech or science origin? I bet those players are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to explain this.

The vision meets the realworld.

The F-117 stealth fighter drops its bombs, suppression automatically opens the airbrakes to slow the fighter to the speed of a Sopwith Camel and a large spot light from god blares down on the F-117 as Ethel Merman blares out from the crack in heaven "god bless America."

F-117 pilot thinks as every gun and missile in 100 miles is fired at him "I hate nerfs."

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I did say one other thing - that dropped Enhancements are useful only for what you can sell them for - because everyone purchases their Enhancements at the store (or at least most of them).


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I hope thats not an excuse to not fix the drop rate because it currently is aweful. Lvl 40 and my foes still drop training enhances? come on! this aspect of the game could use work. Oh but wait that would make the game more fun and take away from nerf work.

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Hold on to your seats folks, he HATES the stores in Talos and IP. As soon as he is able he will get rid of them. I don’t know the man, I didn’t even meet him but through the whole con I never saw a look of utter disgust on his face except when he was talking about the stores.

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LOL thats pretty funny, as if the stores are a real issue. People going to the stores is more like a symptom of

-Poor drop rates: If my heroes had to rely on drop rates they would mostly be running around with trainings. The drop rate and type does not support how the players want to play the game. I suppose that is part of the problem, players not in line with the "vision" Shame on us.

-Contacts only: Well that would force people to do missions lol! or at least the ones for their AT and watch how quick people would get bored with that

Hello Super Boys and Girls, this is Serge, yes uh huh, -The Serge- You all know me well from the Icon store in the Canyon. Well when I heard about this little contest I just HAD to talk about a little girl I met this past winter. This little dynamo of pent up magical energy goes by the handle “ Reality Check ”. Well let me tell you I took one look at her proposed costume and she got the wagging finger of disapproval. Tsk, Tsk. I was like “Girl friend, your body can stop a Freak Swiper in his tracks but you can’t run around the city in pasties and a thong, at least not until summertime!”. She resisted at first but a quick fitting session and she was ready for winter in Paragon! Now mind you what you see here is geared toward the fledgling heroine. This little number is vomit resistant and totally machine washable and since R.C. is a teleporter I could go wild on the boots, after all she isn’t running anywhere now is she!

Winter style

Now as you can well imagine when the weather started getting warmer and R.C.’s patrols took her into Talos and its fantastic beaches and The Falls with the to die for outdoor cafes she wanted something that was a little cooler on that perfect body and also wanted me to recommend a hair style that kept those luxurious purple locks off that pretty neck. Well we sat down and looked over what was all the rage for super heroines in Paris and Milan, add a few of my own touches and Wa la! another masterpiece! I just can’t say enough good things about how much fun it was to see this girl in my outfit for the first time. It is so totally functional and versatile.

Perfect for the beach.

Tsoo beach party

Or those wild summer parties in the Hollows.

Troll party!

Who will be wearing my next piece de la resistance? Could be you darling!

Toodles.

/e hanky wave

(Server: Guardian)

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CONTROLLER HOLDS ARE THE BEST FORM OF DAMAGE MITIGATION! If a defender can't surpass the protective abilities of controller holds, he cannot contribute as much to the team as a controller.


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This is just to good, it hits the nail on the head (imho). A held foe is the ultimate defence. A debuffed foe still has a chance to hit. My defenders when not in the presence of a tank can draw so much aggro its almost instant death, by comparison my controller can drop in a phantom army, flash and throw down an enveration field and wave bye bye to her targets. The strength and "absolutness" of controller primaries more then makes up for the fact that their secondaries are supposed to be weaker then defenders.

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BUT....I'm extremely concerned about the perception that Defenders "aren't needed" and thus "can't find a team" at high levels.

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There is a difference to me between not needed and not wanted and I think the real issue is asking what defenders bring to the table at higher levels and why what they have might not be needed/wanted.

#1: Progression: As each AT advances they become more not less self sufficent. You the developers did this by design, I mean afterall look at the epic power pools. If any AT can have their cake and eat it to then all AT's become meaningless.

#2 Someone does it better: Ok Now lets talk about defender sec. Well its obvious that they come in second to blasters in most regards. Now look at the primaries, well Controllers have these functions as well, maybe not as good AND bring a whole kit of controlling functions and pets that will make the defenders secondary offence look like nothing, especially when combined with the slightly weaker secondary.

So a team will always chose to take someone onto the team who brings the most to the team. To me that looks like a controller and if you really want the firepower you want a blaster.

Defender primaries just are'nt good enough in many cases in the high end world with heroes with epics to warrent them being needed/wanted.

Well I have made a few demos since and the info is no longer there! go figure. Very strange.

Quick question video master. All my demo file are not loading. Each demo file begins with something like the following.

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1 2843 POS -32748.074219 -32738.949219 -32753.925781
31880959 2843 POS -65495.75 -65477.5 -65508.25
31880959 2843 POS -98241.476563 -98217.203125 -98262.875
31316894 0 Version 2

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removing this to look like this.

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1 0 Version 2

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corrects the problem and the video is playable. Any suggestions as to why my files are starting this way?


thanks

/e bow

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Force Field Defenders: I don't know if they're all a**holes but every one I've encountered so far at some point activates that shield thing that basically makes them impossible to hit and then type "lol" and "lmao", or read a newspaper as you try to hit them. Not fun. All I gotta say is be wary of being unsportsmanlike to a tanker with a broken taunt power and a short temper...

Terrorize: Basically the same thing as a perma-hold. Not fun and yet people still insist on using it even after being told of its rediculousness. I started having a rule, if you use terrorize, I use taunt. Then no one will have fun.

Holds in general: any time you are stuck for a length of time unable to do ANYTHING it is not fun. And in the arena, this is true far too often. Running from one held character and pounding them down to another held character just isn't fun. It's also not fun being on the receiving end sitting there looking at your held character for minutes on end.


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I agree with the overall flavor of your post, I just want to add a few points.

FF defenders: If the defender/controller has on his PFF, he isnt doing anything else, he is in essence an observer. Let him have his jollies, if he wants to fight he's going to have to bring that force field down. My lvl 16 ff/rad defender is a pointless hero in pvp so far, I still get smacked around with a well slotted dispersion bubble and combat jumping.

Fear: I agree fear is the achilles heel of many builds, my dark/rad defender just took the aoe fear and the first battle I used it the other team got royally po'ed at me, one of them continued to attack me even after the match was over he was so mad. However that being said the clerk behind the counter does sell break frees...

which also applied to holds. Lets face it controllers, defenders and blasters without some sort of control (holds,fear etc) are taunt bait and shredded to bits before they can blink. All of my scrappers basically two shot any squishy without some way to keep me at bay.

This coming Friday at 8pm central time (9pm eastern, 6pm Pacific) the Celestial Guardians are holding another of our open role-play events. We will begin with stopping the Tsoo from stealing some important artwork and then try and prevent the Circle of thorns from stealing more pieces of the Wheel of Destruction!

Where the evening goes from there is up to the team.

In previous weeks we have had a lot of fun and made many new friends.

the details

Server: Guardian
Time :8pm central
where: Steel canyon yellow tram
level: mission should be 23-24
note: all AT and levels are welcome, SK and Ex will be used as needed.

Look for Marcus Agama in game or email me via this forum.

Be well.

/e bow

The Celestial Guardians, a role play super group on Guardian still has places open for new membership. We group as a standard and sidekick/exemplar without issue. Our role play is as light or a deep as you like.

Here are the requirements

LvL: All levels welcome
AT: All archtypes welcome
Age limit: 18+
Particpation: Must be willing to group. Hero and site must be logged onto at least once every 30 days.
New hero needed? Nope our background exisits to enhance yours.

More details available on our site, see my signature.

Great people behind great heroes and having fun!