Justaris

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Great thread, with one major drawback.

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I would pay for a lifetime subscription to this thread.

I know everyone agrees with me.

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Win. /thread

I'd get rid of Group Energy Flight and put in an Air Superiority clone in its place.

There's no Warshade power that I'd touch. And keep your hands off my Nebulous Form.

While other MMOs have successfully had lifetime subscriptions in addition to their monthly subscription plans, very few bona fide MMOs have lifetime subscriptions in place of monthly subscription plans, and for good reason.

As for Guild Wars, people have already pointed out why it can get away with this - firstly it is far less of an MMO than most with a 'world' that consists entirely of towns and secondly it offsets the lack of income from subscriptions with regular for-pay updates.

All other MMOs I'm aware of have a monthly subscription plan and that's the bulk of their income. I doubt any MMO is going to do away with that, as it would make no sense. As for "not getting anything" for your monthly sub, you get plenty. You get free updates every few months or so: you get a constantly evolving and improving game. If you're one of those people who just wants to 'own' a game then perhaps MMOs simply aren't for you.

The chances of NCSoft doing away with monthly subscriptions is virtually nil (not to mention unwise). If they were to implement a lifetime subscription program, I'd expect it to cost more than a year of play at the monthly rate (i.e. at least $180, probably significantly more).

No, I'm afraid Aggelakis is correct. There are three tiers of Tech control items (not counting the Oversight). Those are Mainframe (which is available by default), Supercomputer (badge unlocked) and the Autonomous Expert System (badge unlocked, ceiling mounted).

Likewise, there are three tiers of Arcane control items and they have the same unlock requirements. The Orbits of Control, like the Supercomputer, sits on the floor and is unlocked by the SG sidekicking badge. The Mystic Orrery, like the AES, is unlocked by the SG damage-dealt badge and is ceiling mounted.

The item pictured is not upside down. It is a ceiling mounted item. At a guess, people are getting the Mystic Orrery confused with the Orbits of Control.

The 'meow' nonsense was a "code word" of sorts for a blatant exploit in the MA system that has since been fixed. People would include the word meow to facilitate searches so others could make use of the exploit and gain ridiculous amounts of experience.

The Devs are now in the process of punishing those who abused the system most grievously in this respect, up to and including the banning of accounts. Despite this, there are still people actively on the lookout for "the next meow farm". This is, as you might expect, something of an inflammatory issue.

Actually, I included the Patron pets, it was the second bullet point under villain-side pets. I did omit the SoA pets and the various pseudopets, however.

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i went thru took all the big outer turrents down to almost nothing then went and killed all the machine guns which ate up all 10 of my inspirations then killed all the outer turrents went inside and it said i must completely destroy them. which i did then all the machine guns had respawned with no insps i was just s o l so the info i got really had some holes in it somewhere sry guys didnt work!

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Based on what you just posted, it sounds like you only weakened the outer guns, then took on all four small guns and then tried to wipe out the outer guns. It doesn't look like you even bothered to try time the respawn at all. Since this wasn't the tactic we suggested, I'm not surprised that it failed.

The info you got didn't have any holes in it, you simply failed to read it carefully. I'm sorry you failed to get your Shivan, but the method given here does work if you do it correctly. You need to weaken every gun, then kill one [u]and only one gun[u], then wait for that gun to respawn. Then and only then do you go around killing all the other guns.

I use this method on my Defenders all the time, there's no reason a PB shouldn't be able to do it. You may have to duck inside the firebase itself and rest a few times while you're weakening the four small guns as all of them will shoot at you, but this method does work if you do it correctly.

Here's a redux version, maybe it'll help you to follow it if I break it down into each step:<ul type="square">[*] Attack and weaken all the turrets. This means all four small turrets on the firebase and all the larger outlying turrets connected to that base. Weaken [u]all[u] of them. Do [u]not[u] destroy any of them.

This may take some time and you may need to retreat and rest several times while doing this, especially when weakening the four small turrets on top of the firebase. Going inside the firebase is an easy way to rest up when you need to before going back out to keep working on weakening the turrets[*] Choose one weakened turret and destroy it.[*] WAIT[*] When the one turret you destroyed respawns, destroy it again.[*] After you've destroyed it the second time, quickly run around and finish off the other weakened turrets[*] Once all the turrets are down, go inside the firebase and refine your ore. You should have plenty of time to do this if you've followed the directions above.[*] Return to the Scientist near the entrance to the zone to get your Shivan temp power.[/list]

Well, on the hero side of the game:<ul type="square">[*] Controllers get a pet at level 32, except for Fire Controllers who get three weaker pets instead and Mind Controllers, who do not get pets.[*] Peacebringers get Photon Seekers, pseudo-pets who explode on contact with the enemy. [*] Warshades get Extracted Essences, pets which fire blasts of negative energy which supplement the Warshade's own damage output[*] Dark Miasma Defenders get a Dark Servant pet at level 32[/list]On the villainside of the game:
<ul type="square">[*] Masterminds get six pets each, seven if Necromancy.[*] All other non-Mastermind villains get access to a pet power in their Patron powers if they choose to take them[*] Dominators get pets at level 32, again except for Fire which gets three weaker pets and Mind which does not get pets[*] Dark Miasma Corruptors and Masterminds also get access to Dark Servant, at level 38[/list]
As for what pets do for you, in general pets provide an ally that follows you around and helps you in some way. Some pets are tough and can serve to take some of the heat off of you. Some pets provide good control and/or debuffs. Some pets provide good damage. It really depends on which specific pet you're talking about. Masterminds can control their henchmen directly - all other pets simply follow the caster and use their powers according to their own AI independent of player control.

You'll want to watch out for the eyeballs, yeah, they'll heavily cripple your defense.

Neither is hyberbole. You were having difficulty getting Shivans because you were not using good tactics - this doesn't make getting Shivans "impossible".

At any rate, you should be able to get Shivans in short order using these tactics. As for your missions, unless you have your difficulty up very high you shouldn't need Shivans except for certain EBs that might be rough for a level 16 (like Arbiter Sands or Dr. V)

If you use the tactics described above, you should not have any trouble getting Shivans. If I can get them on my Empath, you should certainly be able to get them on a PB.

As for not being able to complete missions without Shivans, I'd suggest turning down your difficulty.

Edit: Actually, Aett told you how to solve your problem. He said essentially the same thing I did in regards to the proper tactics for approaching firebase turrets.

It's far from impossible. First off, I recommend you use the respawn trick that most lower-damage ATs use. Damage all the turrets down to a sliver, then destroy one. All the turrets respawn on the same timer - once you see the one destroyed turret respawn, attack and destroy it again. You'll then have plenty of time to sweep around and finish off the rest of the damaged turrets and get your Shivan.

As for debuffs, only the boss-class turrets have them IIRC. Choose a firebase that has no boss-class turrets.

I'm always amazed whenever there's a farming/PL craze at how many people assume exactly that - and even get hostile if other players don't want to farm/PL/meow/whatever.

Thanks for sharing this, it's refreshing to see things go the other way for a change.

This should absolutely be in S&amp;I, surprised it hasn't been moved yet.

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As stated, there's already a system to update ahead of time. If someone chooses not to make use of it, I don't see why a second system should be implemented for their benefit.

[/ QUOTE ]For the people who forget and don't want to sit around and wait for it to update.

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Which doesn't address the point I raised in the slightest. Why should Dev time be spent to offer an alternative method when the one we have works just fine? "For people who forget and don't want to sit around" doesn't really fly for several reasons, not least of which is that your propsed alternatives calls for other players to support these lazy people by seeding full torrents of an update to them (meaning they'd have to be running something in the background while playing or doing whatever).

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Also, as previously stated, the longer portion of the time comes from applying, not downloading. Torrents do not address applying in the least.

[/ QUOTE ]With city of heroes already previously updated to the most recent version at NC Soft, all you would need to do is get the torrent, download it.. and a file manifest would verify you have the correct files. I've done this multiple times to update to new versions. I don't know why I have to repeat myself, twice.

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Repeating yourself doesn't somehow make your arguments stronger or more correct. Again, you've failed to address the problems with your idea. It's not as simple as "all you need to do is get the torrent, download it, and a file manifest" etc etc. The torrent only works if there's already a pool of seeders, otherwise it's basically just downloading, slowly, from the official NCSoft publish of the update. That certainly wouldn't be faster than the updater and would probably be slower.

The only ones who might benefit, in theory, would be those who came a few days late to the party and found a bunch of player seeders with complete updates who were actively seeding. Without those player seeders, this torrent alternative is going to be far slower than the regular way - and frankly, I don't see why anyone would choose this method when the updater is easier and likely safer. If enough people don't choose to use your alternative, it doesn't work for anyone.

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The only way that this would possibly address the Applying portion of the update were if the entire update were available ahead of time in torrent form and were downloaded directly to the appropriate directories. This seems, underneath it all, to be what you want. There are, however, two major problems with this.

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Umm, shoot and miss. The aim is for NCSoft to offer an ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVE (Just to make this clear) to using the CoH updater. You download all of the files, and replace only the appropriate ones with copy and paste. It's simple stuff, download, copy, paste.

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Wow, Caps Lock shouting. That certainly makes your arguments more convincing and not at all juvenile. You completely failed to address the points I raised which are problems with your alternative. If the alternative works out to be inferior to the existing method, there's no point to creating it at all. And so far, this is shaping up to be just such an inferior alternative. I honestly don't see a significant portion of the player base seeding copies of the new update just so other players who for whatever reason can't be bothered to use the updater can make use of this alternate method. And you can't use other websites because of the malware problem - meaning that it's NCSoft's publish and then other players.

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First, it requires reworking the way the CoH Updater currently functions, changing it from the current download &amp; apply system to a torrent model. Extra design time for a problem that really doesn't exist except for those who choose to make it a problem by not updating in advance.

[/ QUOTE ]- You they wouldn't need to rework it. This is meant to be an alternative for people that either have bad connections, don't want to wait.. etc etc. It would simply be a link on the official CoH site that would let you torrent the new update.

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Fair enough. So the regular updater stands unaltered. I'll drop that point.

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Second, it's very likely that hosting torrents in this way would actually slow the updating process or even set up a queue which would mean some players might be forced to wait before they could even begin to update. So it's kind of counterproductive in that way. On the other hand, if the update were available as a torrent from sites not hosted by NCSoft, now you've opened yourself up for crackers to repackage your torrent with all sorts of lovely malware.

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The only official link (which would be stated with a few lines of ext both in the updater and online) would be as follows.

Hai! This is the new update, in torrent form! If you want to torrent the new update for fastliness, then click the link above. It is the only, and guaranteed safe link to do torrentz!

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Hopefully they wouldn't phrase it quite like that. Again, problems with this alternative being craptastically slow without a large population of seeders. In order to create those seeders a reasonably large number of people have to download direct from the NCSoft link (sloooooow) or update the regular way and then somehow function as a seeder after that. I don't see players doing this. I know I wouldn't.

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But of course, people are pessimistic... so let the pointless debate continue!

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If you don't want to address the problems in your idea, I suggest you either PM it directly to the Devs or keep it to yourself. If you post it on the forums, you're going to get criticism. You can dismiss that as "pessimism" and "pointless debate" if you wish, but that handwaving doesn't make the flaws in the idea disappear.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The amount of people who quit because the AE farms were fixed is absolutely minuscule compared to the amount who would have quit if the exploits were not fixed. When the game becomes a mindless, effortless grindfest and nobody has any idea how to do the high-level content, the game just isn't any fun anymore. The devs don't want that to happen, and neither do I.

And anyone who quit because they were afraid of being caught cheating is probably someone who wouldn't be fun to have around anyway.

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QFT/E

Terrible suggestion. I can't decide if this is a thinly veiled attack on the badging mini-game or if the OP really thinks that badges 'need' a 'point'. They don't, plenty of people love collecting badges as-is and there's no need to change that mini-game just because the OP doesn't enjoy it.

Either way, a huge no to this terrible and extremely unbalancing suggestion. I'd suggest the OP look into how recovery works and realize how incredibly powerful this would be if implemented. /unsigned

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*Facepalm* Seems it really is gonna take the wrath of the devs to get it through people's heads rather than just threats.

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I don't envy their position. They can either allow MA to be abused horrendously or bring down the wrath of heaven on its misuse, progressively alienating more and more players with each exploitative loophole they close. I suppose I'd go with "stop the abuse and suffer the consequences" myself, and I think the devs will do the same, but that combined with all the other angst and threats to the game out there means the servers may be pretty quiet places a year from now.

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The amount of people who quit because exploits were closed is minuscule compared to the amount of people who would have quit if the exploits remained open.

Also, DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

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Pretty much this. I can't help but find a prediction that "the servers will be pretty quiet a year from now" because the Devs are closing exploits laughable. The servers would be extremely quiet indeed if the Devs ignored such exploits. Anyone who quits because their favorite cheat got fixed I have little sympathy for.

It has less to do with what he did and far more to do with how he went about doing it. To a certain extent you had to be here (and by 'here' I mean actively involved in the game's forum community, at least the Dev threads) to really understand, but the crux of it is that he was not good at talking to players, either in posted addresses or here on the forums.

This combined with the way in which the GDN/ED issue was handled (which could easily be viewed as an outright lie to the playerbase - Emmert explained his reasoning and I can kind of see what he meant, but he had to have known or should have known how the players would take his statement) just made it seem like Jack cared nothing at all for what anyone playing the game thought and was determined to remake the game to suit his vision almost at a whim.

In retrospect, it really wasn't like that, but when the Lead Developer is creating that impression in what he's saying, it's an issue. If Statesman is going to outright lie on the forums (and that is indeed the impression many were left with, despite Jack's later clarification), then nothing he said could be trusted and any change (read: nerf) might come at any time. Not exactly fostering an atmosphere of support and adoration among the players.

That's probably the single biggest thing people point to, but there were others. He was part of bringing this game to fruition and therefore part of why it is the great game it is today. I don't hate him. But I do think he was an idiot at times, especially when it came to dealing with his subscribers.

You don't have to like someone or agree with their policies to recognize that they're influential. I don't think Jack Emmert handled PR or interaction with players at all well when Cryptic was in charge, but I recognize the influence he's had on this game and give credit where credit is due for that.

I think many of his comments concerning CoX since NCSoft took over, especially vis a vis Champions Online, are pretty much a continuation of his poor approach to PR. I expect this will have the result of fermenting discord with the hardcore CO playerbase in much the same way it did here. To some extent, it already has.

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That's the nice thing about facts, they're not debatable.

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A philosophical quibble: facts are indeed debatable, and mutable over time. Might I comment that it was once an accepted fact that the Earth was flat.

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Touche. Fair enough, I suppose I should amend that to say that facts can only be debated using other facts. Theories are disproved with evidence. In this case, the fact that preemptive healing is not possible could only debated if the underlying framework of combat and HP in this game were reasonably called into question as being other than we as players understand and observe it to be.

I don't expect that will occur, however.

Plenty of people are playing their Khelds just fine. Sure, this change is annoying, but it in no way "borks" Kheldians as an AT for me or apparently for many other players.

Given that it's obvious you just want to rant about how you believe Kheldians are unplayable until your free time runs out rather than discuss this in any fashion, I'm not sure what's left except off-topic derailings of the thread and posts about your lack of mastery of the English language.

There is one way to avoid the so-called "Internet Neo-Maxi-zoom-dweebies" - use proper spelling and grammar. Or go away, that works too.

IBTL

This is the main benefit of memorizing. If you have memorized a recipe, not only do you no longer need to have that recipe to craft it, but the crafting cost itself is lower.

Generally (depending on how cheaply you can get the Salvage materials, which you do still need), this means that you can craft a memorized IO for significantly less than the non-memorized crafting cost for the same IO. Price the IO at more than your cost but less than the non-memorized cost and it's a win/win for both sides. Bargain for the guy without badges, profit for you.

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I'm sorry, but you are in fact wrong.

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Again, I'm more than happy for people to disagree with me. It's statements like this that make me not feel like discussing it. Thanks for reminding me why to avoid the forums.

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It semes like people disagreeing with you is precisely why you don't want to discuss it. On matters of opinion, I'll make relative statements. On matters of fact, I'll feel free to make stronger declarative statements about what is and isn't so. That's the nice thing about facts, they're not debatable. Unless you're working from a definition of "preemptive" I'm not aware of, healing in this game cannot be preemptive. It just can't. We can't have a discussion about it because it's a matter of fact.

Now, on subjects like "do you need an empath do anything remotely difficult?" or "what is a healer and do I need one?", we can have a back-and-forth discussion that goes on functionally forever. This, no.

As stated, there's already a system to update ahead of time. If someone chooses not to make use of it, I don't see why a second system should be implemented for their benefit.

Also, as previously stated, the longer portion of the time comes from applying, not downloading. Torrents do not address applying in the least.

The only way that this would possibly address the Applying portion of the update were if the entire update were available ahead of time in torrent form and were downloaded directly to the appropriate directories. This seems, underneath it all, to be what you want. There are, however, two major problems with this.

First, it requires reworking the way the CoH Updater currently functions, changing it from the current download &amp; apply system to a torrent model. Extra design time for a problem that really doesn't exist except for those who choose to make it a problem by not updating in advance.

Second, it's very likely that hosting torrents in this way would actually slow the updating process or even set up a queue which would mean some players might be forced to wait before they could even begin to update. So it's kind of counterproductive in that way. On the other hand, if the update were available as a torrent from sites not hosted by NCSoft, now you've opened yourself up for crackers to repackage your torrent with all sorts of lovely malware.

In short - it's not broke, so let's not fix it.

Just to expound on the (correct) replies you've received as to the differences between Fire Control and Ice Control, Fire Control in many ways trades good control for damage output.

Rather than having mitigation powers like Arctic Air or Shiver, it has damage powers like Hot Feet. Rather than applying slow effects with its control, it applies extra damage. Fire Control gets three weak, high-damage pets who also deal extra fire damage rather than one stronger, control-spamming pet. Ice Control makes for a very safe soloist but not a very fast one. Like most Controller primaries, it's designed for control rather than damage. Fire is the exception in this respect.

This isn't to say that soloing or damage-dealing is impossible with an Ice Controller. You don't have to be Fire to do damage. But no other controller will do damage as well, all other things being equal, because damage is Fire's thing, its area of specialty.

I'd join with others in recommending you try various things, starting with a Scrapper, as that probably comes close to the laundry list of things you originally posted that you wanted.