Inquizitor

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As a very design, I HATE the Tanker concept.


[/ QUOTE ]

Mind if I take a snapshot of that?

[ QUOTE ]

It is incredibly stupid to expect a character with little offence but much defence to provide any sort of protection to his team-mates, short of them crouching behind him or him standing in a narrow doorway. In a stand-up fight such as what you will see in a comic book, the "tank" isn't standing between himself and his team-mates, taking punches on the face, he is actively fighting because the only way the bad guys can get past him is if they can pin him down. If he is not pinned down, then woe betide anyone who is not actively fighting the big strong tank.

There's a reason that in fiction and in games (when enemies are concerned) the "tanks" are the ones both dealing the damage and surviving the damage.

[/ QUOTE ]

Except here, where the true heroic "tanks" are the weakest melee damage of all the melee classes and are even surpassed by the melee damage of a couple ranged ATs. This is, paradoxically so if we look at your assertion, the price they pay for doing their job for teams.

.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think of the Thing when I think of the Tank AT. He isn't really goldy strong like Superman but he was relentless. Especialyl when his teammates were in danger. I think If they had a system like Vigilence for tanks it would help. Instead of end reduction though have the tank gain damage strength as his team takes damage. pair that with the brute version of gauntlet.

[ QUOTE ]

This entire post is a series of logical fallacies.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the warning.


[ QUOTE ]
Tankers are not all about damage dealing. They're all about taking hits constantly. Just because you happen to think "Superman" when you think of a Tanker doesn't make him a tank. Superman is a Super-strength Scrapper with SR, Invulnerability, Fly, Superspeed, Superjump, The Body Mastery Epic Pool, and a buttload of useless pool-powers (Super Ventriloquism, anyone?)

[/ QUOTE ]

I can agree that Tankers are not all about damage but Superman as a Scrapper? Not hardly.

[ QUOTE ]
To expect a game to let you create and play the "Perfect" character is silly. You'd get bored within the hour and give up on the game. This is why every "Superman" game that's ever been released has sucked. They try to avoid "God Mode" but with superman there really isn't another mode.

[/ QUOTE ]

And yet CoH, Champions Online, and a few other MMO's out there sure let you try to play the perfect character. CoH has made leaps and bounds towards that goal.

[ QUOTE ]
You've spent two and a half years trying to force your philosophy on others.

Please, by all means, enlighten me as to a method to ensure all archetypes are well-played if a single archetype has as much or more damage than a scrapper and all the survivability of a tanker. How much of a buff would you have to give the other archetypes AND the villains to keep the game both fair and challenging? You can't? How shocking!

[/ QUOTE ]
Brute defined. Next question.


[ QUOTE ]
As for the Villains not teaming well, or being a "Break" from the trinity? You're just being silly, now.

[/ QUOTE ]
Since the only relic in this game that even hints at the holy trinity is the acctual tanker class Villain side pretty effectivly destroys the holy trinity.

[ QUOTE ]
Villains aren't team-oriented, generally speaking. those who -do- work on teams together have obvious and exploitable weak-points so that a hero or team of heroes can defeat them. However in a one-on-one fight a villain should have an almost equal chance of success against a hero.

[/ QUOTE ] Are you referencing PvP? Classes are most certainly not balanced against each other in PvP 1 on 1 fights.

[ QUOTE ]

Scrapper versus stalker. If the stalker doesn't flee after the AS then the match -should- be fairly even. The scrapper took a LOT of damage, but their overall damage output -is- comparable (especially with placate and a second assassin strike) And the Stalker has only slightly weaker defenses than the Scrapper. Functionally they fill the same role (Melee burst damage and possible off-tank)

Brutes and Tanks follow a similar axiom. Tankers have better defenses and more hit-points with, initially, a similar damage output. So in the beginning of a tank/brute standoff the tank would be winning. As the fight progressed, however, the brute's fury would come into play more, balancing the fight out again.

You can do this with -every- class, excepts Dominators. (Corruptor/Defender, Blaster/Mastermind) Dominators and Controllers have a Binary system of "I Win" in their ability to hold their foe. Which makes it a "Who strikes first" victory.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try Scrapper vs Brute. Stalker is not the scrapper equivilent. A Blaster is a stalker equivilent. Controlers vs Domiantors. Defenders vs Corruptors. Tanks match up to Masterminds only by process of elimination and Elimination is the only end a Tank will meet at the hands of a mastermind while playing solo. or at most a stalemate.

[ QUOTE ]

And finally, your assertation that "Open" archetypes will be the ultimate saving grace of MMOs.

Having worked on the core systems of an MMO, myself, it's difficult to balance enemies versus each of the archetypes to make the fights challenging without being one-sided in either direction. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to try and develop challenging (but not one-sided) encounters in a system wherein the most important variables (The player character's abilities) are unknowable?

How do you balance X versus N when you've no idea what X -or- N are? You don't. You make N a random number or an educated guess and you hope for the best.

Class systems are a strong way to balance and define abilities. Avoiding the Holy Trinity has nothing to do with getting rid of classes. And you're just deluding yourself if you think it will.

-Rachel-

[/ QUOTE ]

Classes are a way of pigeonholing your players into a specific style of play. They can also guide a player into what you, the programmer, expect him to do. It is far from teh only way to do things and it isn't the best way to do things. Closed archtypes is a developers way of putting training wheels on games anymore.

City of Heroes, unwittingly, broke that mold. We had the attempt in CoH. WE had the welcome acceptance of a new system with Villains. This is why the Tank is a relic. Largely forgotten and unneeded. Its nice to have one from time to time but When given the opportunity to have any other AT you pick those other AT's.

Tanks in this game need help. I don't think Upping their damage to ungodly levels is the answer. I don't really subscribe to Johnny Butanes fixes per se but I do agree with his philosophy that Tanks in this game need help.

the Holy trinity is an old concept. City of Heroes is the first MMO I've seen that has departed from it. This desire to cling to old concepts is...sad.

I look forward to seeing your steampunk themed MMO but if it contains rigid classes...I'll never play a game like that again. Any game that REQUIRES me to have a specific class to run anything is a game I have no interest in running. Every class should be able to fill most functions both solo and on a team. When it comes to a Tank they are just a one trick pony.

Champions online is open Archtype.

As was SWG before they destroyed it by closing the classes

Villain team...I don't know that saying the don't mesh well is the right way to say it exacly. Overkill is more the word. The Villain AT's are all focused around damage. This makes them very effective in solo play and team play.

On blue side you are stuck with AT's thats origional design tried to emulate the holy trinity when it was completely unnesicerry. We have the glass cannons, the "healers" The Tanks. Nothing in CoH does teh stupid amount of damage you see in other MMO's though. You don't NEED the holy trinity here. You can play that way if you want but this is the promary problem with the tank. Whene the glass canon can be buffed to the point he can off tgank you don't reallty need a Tank at all. He becomes dead weight on the team since his only other option is to do subpar damage and subpar control.

I don't mind starting teams. I generally ask for an existing team first for teh sake of efficiency but failing that I'll start looking for a gorup. usually the hardest part of that process is getting the first person. People may be lft but they don't want to be the first person required to get a team going.

There is a similar problem when recruiting for SG's. People want the SG completely formed they don't want to be part of the bedrock on which more people will join. *shrug*

I've never really had trouble keeping a full team. I never worry too much abou balance. sometimes I may go loooking for a specific AT but if it isn't there I find someone else. I don't have a big problem with lackeying players either althouh I try to keep it to a minimum. I alwas start on Heroic difficulty and only increase it after I see if the team is capable of working together. Not every random team can handle +5 missions on invincible. I prefer quicker easier more frequent missions to slow slugfests where the team has to stop after every mob to recoup.

*****

1. What is your favorite word? pickles

2. What is your least favorite word? Mucus

3. What turns you on? Conception

4. What turns you off? Death

5. What sound or noise do you love? A steady rain

6. What sound or noise do you hate? Someone chewing in a silent room

7. What is your favorite curse word? pickles

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Astronaught

9. What profession would you not like to participate in? Telemarketer

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? "Welcome home."

*****

[QR]

I don't think they see it as a cop out no. What it does do is raise the bar for any content they release from here on out. If they release stuff that could just as easily been made in the MA then why should we bother with the hassle of running all over creation to do it?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

"Worthwhile" is purely subjective. I've found your arguments to not be "worthwhile". There's a ton of content in the game that you can partake in solo, just because you want to do something doesn't make it a good reason to be implemented.

[/ QUOTE ]

and vice versa.

Bill makes a much better case for opening up TFs than others do for keeping them gated.

[/ QUOTE ]
I feel my argument carries quite a bit of weight. TFs and SFs, with the exception of Rikti Mothership Raids and Hamidon (which nobody does anymore), are the only special content in the game. Degrade them so that they're on par with radio missions means you have no special content anymore nor anything that stands out. Everything is just basic missions. If you get rid of size requirements, why not get rid of level requirements too? Why shouldn't a level 10 be able to run the STF or LRSF? I bet a lot of people would like that too! Just slide the difficulty level down so that a level 10 could solo it. Tons of happy people.

"Hey, I just solo'd the STF!"
"Big deal. Everyone solos it. I solo'd it twice today with my level 11 Empathy/Radiation defender."

Ooooooh. The feeling of achievement will be staggering!

[/ QUOTE ]

Nobody is talking about debgrading any of the TF's. They are talking about lifting the Minimum team gates. If it was possible to easily solo a STF then that is a flaw with the TF itself. It has nothing to do with the gates.

Most of the time people aren't wanting to solo it. People just want the ability to go ahead and run the TF when they can't get all 8 people together. If that also means they can try to solo it i they want to then more power to them. Some characters might enjoy that challenge. Some characters would find it impossible.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How exactly is Mind Control not synergestic with Empathy?

[/ QUOTE ]
How does being able to affect the thoughts and actions of others translate to the ability to close and heal wounds and restore the recently dead to life?

[/ QUOTE ]

Mind Control is a Psychic-based control set. Empathy is a Psychic-based buff/healing set. Thematically, they work for all intents and purposes. I don't see why you feel the need to include something that will, functionally, end up replicating similar, if not the exact same effects, to Empathy when it already exists. Infact, they've done that already - it's called 'Pain Domination'.

[/ QUOTE ]
There's nothing "psychic" about Empathy or Pain Domination, you're actually physically healing your targets, not just making them think they're better.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pain Domination is entirely based on mental control. You don't actually 'heal' anyone, you just make them ignore any pain they might be feeling.

Kind of like how someone hopped up on PcP can demonstrate feats of 'invulnerability'.

Which is why it's a villainous powerset.

[/ QUOTE ]

Kinda like the Pain Editor from Shadowrun....


Too bad you couldn't give them a power where they only take hidden damage but are practically invulnerable. Then once the power wears off IT applies all the damage it had been tracking

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's easy mode. Especially in Zone PvP. but when you can guarantee equal numbers as with an Arena then It definitely tilts the odds in your favor. Especially against Melee.

Masterminds are kinda OPed against a Melee user anyway. It's kinda hard to hurt a mastermind all teh while you are getting bounded. Heck with bots/traps you are getting shot at range and if you get close you start springing traps.

Very ugly. I laughed when you finally mentioned what he was. You would almost have to try and lose that fight. He actually did a smart thing by attacking the robots first but... That just wasnt going to end well regardless.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Therein lies the issue of the solo mindset.

They don't care. They don't care if there's nothing in the game that can't be soloed. They -want- to solo it. They don't want teams so they don't want team oriented content. Appealing to the side that accept there's stuff in a game which encourages teaming is a waste of time. It's not their playstyle so why should they care?

[/ QUOTE ]
Why should they?

Why should they care when the average team's approach to this 'special' team content is "how quick can we speed through this TF for the merits?"

If Task Force storylines were more accessible to everyone, rather than solely to the team leader, and if more teams actually played them the way they were meant to be, there would be less calls for them to be made soloable.

I've teamed on regular missions which I could have solo'd, but felt like teaming with others. I've teamed for invasions (a lot - getting Heavies to spawn is definately 'team' content') Making TFs soloable would not kill teams. All it would do is open them up to those who either find it difficult to put teams together, or find the experience at some level less satisfying than it ought to be.

[/ QUOTE ]
My displeasure with making them soloable is NOT that it would kill teams, but that it would take the only special content in the game, and make it commonplace and bland. Like you said, they suffered enough with merits applied to them so that people are speed-running them as fast as they can, they don't need to get hit again by turning them into something like you'd get from any old contact in the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Allowing people to small team or solo TF's is not going to kill the team content in this game. Heck there are examples in this thread of people ALREADY DOING IT. The only difference between that and allowing people to virtually pad for TF is that the later allows us to bug less people.

I'm all for missions that require teams. Ever heard of the Mothership or Hamidon? Heck, even in TF's there are some seriously rough fights I can't imagine soloing. MY main problem with most of the TF's is you have to wade through like 5-10 missions you could solo just to get to the one mission you kinda need help with.

I personally am not wanting to solo any TF. I just want to try to duo or small team it. One of the few times I got people together for just a simple 3 man Poitron run we had to split into 3 nights over the course of a week. Positron wasn't that bad when played like that. I want that option for the other TF's. It is much easier coordinating 2-4 people then tryign to get 8 random people to take their times and meet back up a few days from now.

At the same time I know there are some TF's out there I could easily solo. This whole TF thing is actually a throwback to the way games used to do things. It's the reason we ahve a bunch of missions on Heroside that has us killing X number of people or Deliver this item to Azuria or heaven knows who else. It's all part of the status Quo. City of Heroes has long ago discovered and proved that it can break that mold rather easily. It's done it numerous times. TF's is one of the last remaining remnants of that. Hazard zones are another.

Heck. the minimums are backwards anyway. Why in the heck do we need 8 people for the later TF's when we are extremely powerful and yet we can do Synapse with as few as 4 without most of our powers or even SO's? This isn't about protecting newer players. Heck you used to throw them at Dr Vahzilok with little preamble back when AV's didn't demote to EB's. I also remember it was one of the coolest things I ever did in this game when I duoed him as an AV with a friend. The same friend I am wanting to duo this other content with.

I sometimes do variants of the same costume. Coppertop for instance has his basic costume, A Costume without his helmet on, and a Costume that makes him look scruffed up.

A friend of mine is reporting it happening to him whenever he is in a city zone. If he can get to a mission he is fine.

EDIT: Just doing some random SJing around Cap Au Diable I am seeing spikes of 10k input. That is way too much. MY connection can handle it but slower connections will get chocked and LCtM. This is what the Velentines bug was doing but worse.

[ QUOTE ]
It wasn't the argument of the mission being a farm or not being a farm that triggered me. It was the "I pay my subscription so the devs have to do it the way I want it." attitude.

Let's say you have a subscription to a magazine. Game Informer as an example. Then somebody goes of on a rant in the online forums saying that all FPS articles should be put at the front of the magazine since they are the most important and that all sports game coverage be eliminated because sports are stupid.

Some people argue against the post, some argue for. But then the OP drags out their big guns and states that the magazine should do things the way the OP prefers because his subscription money is paying for the magazine to even be put out.

That would be an pretty silly attitude wouldn't it? There are very few people in this world who seem to believe that since they buy food at McDonalds, the company better jump to obey when that person demands the return of the McRib. There are very few people who think that they can demand content be tailored to them because they pay a magazine subscription or cable bill. And those who do demand such things generally wind up in the news as a "Look at the looney" story. But for some reason the MMO players who think that their subscription entitles them to control of game policy seem to be legion.

[/ QUOTE ]

Apples and Oranges.

To use your analogy...

It isn't an Issue of someone looking on the forums to change the way Game Informer does things. It's an issue of a subscriber not recieving last months issue because some random person told Game Informer that he gives his magazines to his brother to read when he finishes it. A) It is not against any rules B) It was not verified.

You have a ton of people farming the AE right now and people want to pick apart an honestly made AE mission just because he had the audacity to use the word Farm. Farm is not a curse word. Where I live a Farmer is someone you respect. I have Farms all around me. My high school was built on the corner of a corn field. For some people the word Farm equals honest hard work and an honest American way of life. Yes I am familiar with the interent use for the word but the word farm makes me think of my Uncle Joe before it makes me think of some Korean kid in a sweat shop.

[ QUOTE ]
Look on the bright side: If your appeal succeeds and your mission is unbanned, it'll be immune from further warnings and mod action for as long as it remains unchanged.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also, As i recall, The person reporting a mission as a farm mission when it obviously isn't is at risk of disciplinary action as well.

That depends. the whole reason Parry seems unacceptable is because it does buff Defense. Brutes and Tanks generally are already doing alright in those areas which is why we are talking about changing it.

For a tank their damage is subpar anyway. An attack like this which would allow you do bypass their defense and damage wouldn't be unreasonable to me. With Brutes Their whole spiel is adding to damage.

Besides. a debuff makes more sense for concept reasons. A Feint is tricking someone into lowering their guard in one exposed area by making them think the attack is coming from somewhere else.

The -def already has some precident in the Broadsword set anyway. Parry might even have it. I don't remmber. So basically we are just talking about a -res damage for a Lethal damage powerset. It wouldn't be exacly like Followup though. More utility. Maybe make the -res weaker than the +dam would be since everyone on the team would benefit from the effect.

Captain Kirk fighting Spock on Vulcan. Amok Time?

Pigs in Space!!!

Feint. You wouldn't nesicerraly even have to change the animation. Minor Damage on Par with Parry's damage. Lowers Targets -def -res

Double posting is also against the rules. I could have created a new thread but people would just [censored] and moan about that. I figured that after 4 days of waiting I could bump this one up to the top so all the information and attempts at fixing the problem is there.

Anywho. A land line is not an option at this point. I kinda find it difficult to believe that is the problem anyway. I've been using it for 6 months without this problem. I'll take a look at an alternative way to check Core temps when I get home.


As for the other stuff. I can't really get rid of Hdeck and Ipoint as that is my audio and Mouse respectivly. The other stuff I could get rid of although I use Trillian constantly. If I don't have it pop up on startup I would just manually start it up.

[ QUOTE ]
<.<
>.>

I'll be building a new rig for the new mechwarrior game anyway. I won't notice.

[/ QUOTE ]

What new Mechwarrior game? I thought they gave up on that IP.

At this point....


The ability to "try" and do any TF with a team of 2-4. Perhaps add in the ability to add team members to a TF in progress.

As it currently stands I don't want to Team with a bunch of strangers who has no interest in taking their time to do a TF because they just want the reward at the end of it. It's impossible to really enjoy an Arc when you are being pushed through it and everyone is telling you before hand what to expect. The system right now forces us to group with people like that.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My First thought was why weren't they giving this to Brutes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably because of Parry. Same with Tankers, to a larger degree.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is why I ask questions. I don't think in terms of the specific powers in a set. I think a Sword wielding Tank would be cool.

You bring up an interesting point I hadn't really considered. Of course this raises a new question. They had to come up with a new power for the Stalker set while they could have just redone parry or added something different for Tanks and Brutes.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm gonna roll one. Wonder what the animation for AS is.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wondered that too. That was why I thought Conan the Librarian Pulls a sword out of nowhere and hacks a guy in two