Judgement_Dave

Be good if you could merge SGs.

/signed

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But that'd take ages and you'd need to find the people/make the alts, so most people wouldn't bother I'd imagine.

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But you can use the same people - and it wouldn't even take 20 minutes to do 1 round using 2 accounts (character on account #1 forms SG, then log in 15 characters on 2nd account inviting each).

I'd imagine that you could happily look at accounting for this by letting SGs merge and they get the total of merged prestige minus any duplicated 'first 15 members intro bonus'.

so something like merged prestige = Sum(SG prestige) - intro_bonus * max((min(population(SG#1),15) + min(population(SG#2),15)-15),0)

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Its the amount of attacks not the amount of hits that matter. Fury builds whether they hit you or miss you so long as they try

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I'm always making that mistake... think it's because it feels counterintuitive to me.

If anyone wants me I'll be sat in the corner wearing the hat with the big 'D' on it.

EDIT: Only just realised that when doing missions in low zones it'd make sense for my brute to turn on his aura and sit in the middle of a big spawn of greys (near the mission entrance) in order to start the mission with full fury, health and end.

Like I said, seems counterintuitive to me. I'd laugh at people trying to hit me and failing, but get really mad when they do actually hit me.

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Probably worried about the -def in Unyealding. I doubt they where an experienced player.

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When I first started playing, I didn't take Unyielding, because the description said I'd get hit more.

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Though the OP talks about a brute skipping unyielding. Getting hit more isn't always a bad thing for brutes...

Doing TFs whilst in xp range can help jump past sticking points.

I think I'm right in saying that CoH has more TFs/trials than CoV has SFs/trials - so there's usually 1 or 2 that you're in xp range for.

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Umm.. some empaths (also read in word defender here) can't fight their way out of a wet papertissue. True. (

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That's why many of us have heals - it's to stop the rest of the team catching colds and so leading to fewer soggy tissues for us to get caught in.

I think force fielders just place an impenetrable shield around the cold-ridden nose. Not sure what pointy stick defenders do, though I wouldn't annoy them with soggy tissues lest they subject me to the healing arrow.

OOh! I play this every now and then with Mrs JD.

Certainly don't send them to recycling as I'd give them a good home - though as I've got several starters and boosters already I wouldn't want to stop someone else from discovering the game.

Six it is then.

Hope that the time doesn't keep getting pushed back... it was originally 4pm. Push it back much further and it may be difficult to make.

Is this illusion troller joining from now on or just for Sister P? And so how many 'regulars' do we have now?
Just I notice that, after a couple of weeks absent from the boards, Damz has posted a few times recently... And (at level 20) we're still not that far ahead of where Debt of Damz must be.

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The basic tack we took was "if the power is not being taken by the players, replace it with something that is." So, a number of formerly heroside only powers are now available on villainside, and a number of powers have been replaced by something we feel will be more useful in general.[/b]


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Be nice if that extends past the APPs - could mean that things like team tp/fly and whirlwind get looked at...

I lost connectivity for about 7 or 8 minutes... then it came back with no changes made at my end.

Most odd.

Just lost the login servers on entering last part of sewer trial... all other connectivity appears fine.

Anyone else got problems?

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Now if it was within 5 levels of each other it would have more use and be better IMO.

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Agree - though the problem may be that they've decided that to start the pact both parties are reset to the lower of the 2 characters.

Would a level 35 really want to be dropped to a level 30 to form a pact?

Most wouldn't.

And no matter how many warnings were put up before joining a pact, someone at a high level would join one and lose 3 or 4 levels and then try to complain like mad... I'd guess that they don't need the grief.

It wouldn't help your 30+ characters, but I'd have thought that letting pacts form between characters within 4 levels of each other up to somewhere between 10 and 15 wouldn't cause too much worry for players. Nor would allowing higher levels if they start at the same level - would anyone really get upset at losing <1 level of high level xp when joining a pact?

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Wanting to advance characters is fine, but is it really a good use of dev time to build a tool so that people can stick as many of one type of mob in a space and farm them? It'd be easier to just create a set of farm missions and let people do them when they want...

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Yes that would be good that way everyone is a winner, why not let people do what they want with a tool that has so called been asked for by the player base?

Why give to one section only is that fair?

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tbh I don't think the devs have said yet what criteria need to be met to get promoted to full xp/rewards - so it's still possible that farming missions will be perfectly acceptable at full xp.

I'd have thought that the first absolute minimum criteria would be something like:
* No impossible to finish missions
* No canon-breaking text
* A possible limit on expletives/adult language/content

Past that is anyones guess. I wouldn't mind farmers getting a chance to farm their own PCC missions, but I wouldn't want to try finding a PCC mission to play and repeatedly stumble upon farming maps/arcs with no real interesting design/story.

i.e. I don't mind peopl efarming - you play how you want. But I don't want the mission creator to become a farm creator with the odd non-farm mission being hidden away and nigh on impossible to find.

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It could certainly stop any new sets being overused by 1000 little johnnies creating there behemoth farms...

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Whats wrong with little johnies? There are more people playing this that want to advance chars than become creative genious's.

That came across as really condescending Dave.

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Wanting to advance characters is fine, but is it really a good use of dev time to build a tool so that people can stick as many of one type of mob in a space and farm them? It'd be easier to just create a set of farm missions and let people do them when they want...

I know that more people will want to play missions than will want to create missions. I don't think I'll be a good mission creator - and it may even strike me as too much hard work when I'm meant to be having fun.

I do know that some people will be good. Some very good. And if new maps/tilesets are produced for use in architect then I'd much rather experience them first in missions/arcs that the creator tried to do a good job of designing.

I don't even care if they don't quite hit the mark (imo). I don't care if the typos make me cringe. I do care that they cared. You'll pick up on that. You'll be able to tell that the designer wanted to do something interesting. You'll enjoy the mission more.

If that's condescending then guilty as charged and happy to be that way.

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Xp is what everyone playing the game is after if not your a RP-er and tbh im sick of this RP content THIS IS NOT A RP GAME it was never launch to be one so why should it be turned into one if you want to RP go play D&D in a book, yes i know i will be hated by the RP community now but tbh i just dont care

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Actually I'm usually after something that I enjoy that lets me forget about my day job.

The best times come when I forget about xp and have a laugh with a good team.

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Well - its cleared up now:
Pohsyb's Post

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Here is the gist of how this works, when players enter the leveling pact (level 5 and below) their experience is all flattened to whoever was the lowest. Any incoming experience to any member is effectively split by the member count of the pact (which we are limiting to 2 initially). From that point foward, all members will have the exact same experience and always be the exact same level. If player A logs out and lets player B do all the work, it will take player B twice as long.


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If thats how it works it'll be possible for 2 players to create 2 new characters each in 2 pacts and then log to the odd characters and get XP to 4 characters at once, but at half speed.

Sounds reasonably robust, but the proof will be in the pudding.

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Neat and simple. I like that.

Presumably either party can break the pact at any time, else if your mate leaves the game you're stuck with effectively perma-debt (i.e. 50% xp).

Can't immediately think how this could be abused. Even if one half of a pact is PL'd the usual way I think it'd take as long to get both characters to level X as doing them one after the other.

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Anyone who's claiming (complaining almost?) that they've done all the missions ought to show some optimistic happiness at the potential the architect will bring... we just have to hope that at least some of the potential is realised and that the players aren't all relying on my riting skilz.

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I might be wrong here but were the bulk of player created missions gonna be light on xp etc?


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It remains to be seen just how light on xp they'll be or how hard it is to get promoted to full xp. This is actually one of the bits I'm most optimistic about, as making it too hard to get promoted to full xp is one of the ways to kill stonecold-dead an otherwise good system.

I'd certainly hope that any half decently written missions can be promoted to full rewards PDQ.


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And i dont care how creative people are a caves a cave and a freaks a freak.

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Essentially yes. And I bet even War Witch gets a bit miffed with the lack of customisation available to her.. but if she can make enjoyable missions/arcs within the limits imposed then I'm sure that some of the players can as well.

Since architect was announced, I've actually been thinking that it could be an added incentive to the devs to add some new maps or at least skins...

After all, up until now, if the devs created new maps/graphics they would also have to create some interesting missions to utilise them. People probably wouldn't like only seeing new, interesting tilesets/maps in paper/radio missions...

That means tying up more devs to write the content. That ups the workload and makes making new maps/tilesets more difficult to do.

When architect goes live they could create new maps/tilesets and then rely on the army of mission architects to create the missions for free...

Heck this is one where I could even be persuaded that having new maps/tilesets initially available to only the better/more accomplished mission creators wouldn't neccesarily be a bad thing.

It could certainly stop any new sets being overused by 1000 little johnnies creating there behemoth farms...

Note that if something like this was done, then I'd expect many maps/tilesets to be opened up to everyone (not just the better writers) after an introductory period...

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It gives me some comfort that they're going to release this new I13 very soon, but it's still a long wait since I12 for such a small issue. If they get it on the test server within a week or two, I'll be happy.

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Which is something else I keep forgetting to point out:

I13 in Autumn (or Fall in the colonies ) i.e. soon
I14 in Q1 2009

If the devs can keep to this we could be seeing 2 issues in 2 or 3 months. We might be looking at I15 6 months from now.

It's maybe better to think of I13 and I14 as I13a and I13b...

Especially if the devs still run 2 teams working upon alternate issues (as has been mentioned before). Then I'd guess that I14 is a continuation of work by the peopl ewho were working upon architect for I13, an dthe people who were working on the old I14 (now I15 presumably) have still been beavering away on the post-architect content.

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I welcome all these additions, people seem to forget that all this IS free and any addition is always a good thing. Devs workin very hard to keep the game new, up to date and interesting. GRATZ

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Free is always good but are we getting anything to give the game life, i now have one of every AT at 50 plus many more at 50 of the same AT with different powers i have done EVERY mission on both coh and cov more than once infact loads more than once so waht more is there to gain from starting at lvl 1 again, so for me there is little left to do. A paid for update like WoW gets would imo be worth it if we got the same kind of NEW content that they do

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I find this slightly odd given the earlier post about the mission creator meaning absolutely nothing to you...

I'm looking forward to the mission creator:

* not because I'm a RP'er (I'm not - it doesn't compare to pen and paper RP'ing imo)

* not because I think I'll be a mission-writer extraordinaire... Whilst it'd be nice for NCNC to hire me as a mission creator soon after architect launches it is much more likely that I'll play with it but suck at mission writing!

* But because some people out there will be good at writing missions. Some will be brilliant. And they'll be creating new arcs and content just for me to play!

Ok -

It's not quite the same as a new zone.

It's not the same as a new enemy group (though who knows.. it's possible that the mob customisation may allow group creation.. eventually)

It's not the same as a new powerset, new AT, new moon on monday, gary numan, etc

But it has the potential to be so much more than a whole yearsworth of official missions and arcs.

Anyone who's claiming (complaining almost?) that they've done all the missions ought to show some optimistic happiness at the potential the architect will bring... we just have to hope that at least some of the potential is realised and that the players aren't all relying on my riting skilz.

Oh - and in case we forget, past issues have often been touted (early on) as single-issue issues (e.g. I9 - Inventions) but then have had a few 'small' bits (e.g. STF) that weren't initially mentioned that were well met by the playerbase. There's still more to come for I14...

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First of all - apologies if I caused any offense, I was writing in response to the many replies on the US forum

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I thought it a bit odd.. must admit that I didn't consider looking at the US forums on this yet. Even with pure speculation the signal to noise ratio is normally better in the EU...

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I'd imagine that practical consideration has been put into the system before they built it. The thought of an account being modified or updated when not logged in seems an absurdity to me. Perhaps my viewpoint differs greatly from the norm - in which case I can only apologise.


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I wonder if the characters will be updated whilst you're offline, or whether the character accrues xp and is actually awarded it when you log in (much as vets rewards are received when you log the character in, even if the reward was actually 'earnt' weeks ago)

I'd guess that some system must have been worked out for the similar awarding of job-time.

And I'm trying to remember if an offline xp-boost was talked about by devs or merely speculated on by players...

Either way I'd guess that it'll be the same system in place for awarding the job time and xp gains (through level pacts) to characters.

There's been a few times in the past that people have spotted doom in a proposed system, and generally it's all come good in the end. Inventions comes to mind as the last biggy. That even showed ED to have been a reasonable idea, just implemented in a cart before horse manner...

I still think that the devs generally try to do the best for the game and know that a couple of its big strengths are the ease of teaming and casual-friendliness. However they implement the level pact I can't see them doing anything to seriously upset those strengths - and if they inadvertently do then I'd guess we'd see a patch PDQ.

The reason the level pact got an initial 'hhhhmmm...' from me is that I fully expect some sort of conditions to apply. The devil may be in the details with this one.

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The problem i have with this system is i cant start a lvl pact with my 50 and a new toon, as to me it would seem you have to make TWO new toons to start a pact and thats just not PL, shame to as it would have made my life a wee bit better if i didnt have to have the toon on i was PL-ing ah well maybe next update

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I've never PL'd, but if you do I'd guess that the fast way to level 2 characters is:
- create the two characters
- create the level pact asap
- and then only ever play one of the characters and play them in a conventional PL team (so get SK'd to your bridge for farms)

Two people could even do this for each other, so:
- player A and B both have 2 characters (A1,A2 and B1,B2).
- A1 has a pact with B2; and A2 has a pact with B1
- both players play there 1st or 2nd characters together (possibly in farm teams) - so A1 and B1 or A2 and B2 play at any one time.


btw I'd have thought it possible that the devs put some form of limit on this, maybe something like breaking the pact if one character doesn't log whilst the other gains 10 levels. But I dare say that even if they do, there will be low pain ways to avoid the limit.

But then... what does anyone really care if it can be abused?

The people who would abuse it (in some people's eyes) are the same people who'd PL anyway. Players who actually enjoy playing/levelling their characters aren't going to suddenly stop and become level-pact PL'ers.

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I assume the level pact means that you can only earn XP when your friend is online and then only at the same rate. I'd suggest you might have to be in the same team for this to work too.

The people crying about someone being power leveled to 50 without logging on is frankly stupid.

Common sense isn't as common as it used to be I guess.

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Funny post. I laughed. I cried. I laughed again.

I believe that I may be the person you describe as 'crying about someone being power leveled to 50'.. I actually posed the question would it be possible..?

No crying involved.

The announcement about the Level Pact states have your XP be permanently in sync, whether both characters are online or not. You will always be the same level, even if your buddy plays ten times more often than you do!
So you do not need both characters online to take advantage of it. And my common sense seems to suggest that it wouldn't be implemented by penalising the player who can play more often...

So that seems to leave open the possibility of levelling a character whilst not playing them.

I know that common sense is anything but common. It would appear that comprehension isn't as widespread as I'd once hoped.

Good job that even though I'm 'frankly stupid' I'm still not stupid enough to get wound up by imbecillic trolls...

Ah - only just seen this... maybe you weren't replying to me in the melee thread!

/Signed

Hope that replying to me was a result of using quick reply...

Melee within RPGs (and various related games) has often referred to the short range attacks/combat irregardless of whether they are armed or unarmed. So the weapons are entirely fine (as I think you're pointing out).

I am far more intrigued by your suggestion of a Christmas Shopping melee set... would the tier 9 be some sort of first 2 minutes of the January Sales power?? Is gift wrap viable as a complementary armour set??

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It's slipping because the devs realised that the players love this idea and want to get it in by launch... and no doubt a few other smaller improvements will make it in.

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Have to say here NOT all players love this idea, im thinking more of the RP lot like it more as tbh i could careless about it, and making a whole issue for it to me is abit much

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Never imagined that all players universally love or hate any one thing about CoX.

But Posi states that It became apparent that you guys really want this feature.

The official statement can be paraphrased as: This was done because enough of the playerbase seemed to really want the mission architect so we decided we had to do it correct and full featured from launch, rather than make an early, feature-poorer release and then polish it in later issues.

Now whether you want it or not, I'd rather have a dev team that do this sort of schedule rejigging based upon playerbase feedback than the kind of devs who stick to their initial plan no matter what.

Of course, I don't expect all players to agree with me on that...

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I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the slip of the mission creator, it was the main thing I was looking forward to.

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I'd be disappointed if it was just slipping.

I take it you read Posi's note:
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The ability to create “customised” characters to fight with or against in your missions. Adding custom characters has always been on our Mission Architect feature list, but we had considered it a “stretch goal.” That is, we could launch the system without this feature because our confidence was high that the rest of the system was incredibly robust.

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It's slipping because the devs realised that the players love this idea and want to get it in by launch... and no doubt a few other smaller improvements will make it in.

This is good, surely.

In a years time no-one will recall that the mission creator was released later than initially planned, just that it was good. But if it released before Christmas but was a little disappointing or buggy we'd remember it as being poor forever... and how many people would look at it eagerly then decide it was overhyped rubbish and maybe never retry it when it's improved??

I'd much rather have a fully-featured mission creator that arrives <=6 months later than planned.