Kitsune9tails

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Sorry guys, just learning to survive with one 19 month old and one two week old! Hard to get free time...

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With one 19 month old and one two week old, we KNOW what you do with your free time.

I thought 'scenery' civilians did not create lag and 'active' critters (with powers and so forth) did?

Maybe 50 scenery civvies only create as much lag as 3 or 4 combat spawns?

As far as the Heavies go, maybe there were complaints from players about the Heavies that the Devs are addressing? Haven't been on the PvP forums lately, just asking.

You show up on her doorstep with your computer, a toothbrush, and a ring.

War...war never changes...

Lady_Ath, if his girl sees you on here, she'll never allow him online again! Shoo! Hide!

Ghosty and most GMs have a spawn timer. A certain amount of time after they spawn, they despawn, effectively suiciding so no one gets credit.

This was put in at player request after complaints about long battles that took forever when the team(s) assembled didn't have enough power to take the baddy down, but were too stubborn to give up.

Except that the Devs aren't specifically building for buffer overrun, per their own words. Buffer Overrun is currently considered an 'outlier', like those people who don't feel challenges soloing on Invincible.

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You both have good ideas and presentation, but I think I'm going to have to side with Arcanaville on this one. IF the current situation is a problem (I would cast it as a 'sleeper' problem. It could explode into a full blown issue at any moment, but right now, too few regular players exploit it for it to be an issue) then having each buff have the same effect would be the best solution.

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read how people do STF and you will see the problem. Get 8 /rad controllers and the tf takes 45 minutes. Get a team with no controllers and defenders and you probably can't do the tf at all.

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You may be right, but first you have to assemble a team that will even TRY it with no Controllers or Defenders.

Is it possible for such a team to win the STF? Probably, especially with heavy use of Inspirations, Nukes and Shivans, and with a cavalier attitude about debt and plenty of playtime.

I agree that it's a problem. Is it a big enough problem that the Devs need to anger a lot of Defenders/Controllers (and the other players who count on them to make TFs easy/fast)?

...maybe.

Let's get Defense fixed first

You both have good ideas and presentation, but I think I'm going to have to side with Arcanaville on this one. IF the current situation is a problem (I would cast it as a 'sleeper' problem. It could explode into a full blown issue at any moment, but right now, too few regular players exploit it for it to be an issue) then having each buff have the same effect would be the best solution.

I feel that our community coordinators are, and always have been doing an AWESOME job.

...doesn't mean we can't help out.

Here's a call out to every poster who ever slammed the comics on these boards, saying, "I could do better". TIME TO PUT UP!

Publishing a paper comic is a huge expense, and I totally understand it being discontinued if it's not showing as profitable (how that can be gauged, I have no guess...), but literally anybody can make a .pdf.

And I hear David Nakayama might have some free time now that a project of his has ended...

1: We have people on this forum that are awesome writers, including some professionals. We as fans already have 'permission' to do fanfic.

2: We have talented artists here, including some professionals. We as fans already have permission to do fan art.

3: We have Ex-Libris, who has already shown initiative and ability to turn fan organizations (such as the PvPEC) into staff-supported offerings.

4: Sean Fish may be moving on to more internal writing projects, but he still may be able to act as editor and prevent egregious gameworld errors from entering the books.

5: The City Scoop is already a fan-created forum-downloadable pdf.

6: What are we waiting for? Looks like all we need now are for comics to start getting submitted.

AWESOME job! Great info, well presented. Yes, it's a word chunk, but I appreciate insight into how that beautiful mind of yours works

And now, some requests: how hard would it be to do a 'mezzability/debuffability' comparision? Many people often contend (as you well know) that SR makes up for lagging behind in damage mitigation by being more resistant (er, that is to say better Defended) to mezzes and debuffs.

Based on your many and frequent conversations with the Devs, what proportion of powers design decisions were made with an eye toward 'comic-bookyness' as opposed to math balance? The game seems to be an interesting amalgam of the two to me. That's not necessarily a bad thing, IMHO...

Finally: I'd like to catch more of your thoughts about the 'good enoughyness' of the various sets compared to what you fight at level 50. It might not matter (as much) that they are 'unbalanced' if they are all demonstrably in the right spot compared to what you fight in a Heroic mission (from a design perspective). Should everyone be below, but very close to, the '3 +3 minions' line in order for the game to be properly challenging in your opinion, or should everyone be there or above?

And yet more finally: what should SR be better at than everyone else if it lags in damage mitigation? Should it an Invulnerability be 'brought even' with DM in some category? Or all they already there, all things considered (end burn, mez avoidance, etc). I'm thinking that the '3 minute/30 second/ chunks is what concerns us here.

It seems like we might be building a profile of what kind of playtyle the game was designed around, which would be useful info. It's possible the game may be 'too easy' simply because it was designed for dumber players

Only the Devs have the metrics to support either side in such a debate.

However, they have a vested interest in pleasing BOTH camps, hence the present design.

I can defeat about 100 foes per hour that are theoretically my equals or better in this game. Hour after hour. Day in an day out. And I'm a casual player.

Spider-Man, eat your heart out!

But more seriously, I'd much rather hear you guys whine over cheating npcs than to hear the whines we'd get if the npcs had both power AND AI to match the players.

*shudders*

And if you can take on 6 even-level foes all at once in WoW and win consistently, well, I'm impressed.

Nice radio coverage! But Statesman sounded a bit too like Darth Vader for my tastes...wasn't Patrick Warburton available? Or was that Jack Emmert's voice!?

Sister Psyche's voice, on the other hand, sounded great!

All in all, W00t! And thanks for a new article! Hope it's the first of many, Arctic Sun. I missed you.

I guess you've never had that happen in Live, only with Tsoo Sorcerers?

A few questions:

- Do we dress as though our 'secret identity' (or as close as we may have) was invited to a party, or dress as if we got teleported to Pocket D on our 'day off'? Or dress as if our super identities were invited to Pocket D and told "dress casual, no spandex'.

- Should we RP as if we are in our 'secret identity', i.e. avoid using powers or 'revealing' in conversation that we are super/fight crime/are criminals (unless your character doesn't care), or is everyone wearing a lapel tag with their 'floaty name' written on it?

- Do we need to be able to transform at a moments notice? Or can someone make a level one 'Billy Batson' version of their character (different model, different 'floaty name' but conceptually the same person)?

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Whew!

Thanks for taking care of this hideous abuse!

Naturally you'll be eliminating the same abhorrent situation for the Nemesis on PvE right?????

Because otherwise, your motives would be highly questionable. I mean if stacked vengeance is wrong, it's wrong both for players and the AI of Nemesis. Feel free to announce that stacked veng has been wiped out for them and you'll be a hero for sure.

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Just so everyone knows, the version of Vengeance that NPCs have is a completely different power than the one players have.

Players used to have that version (Casting Vengeance on yourself while defeated), but they didn't like it, and asked for it to be changed to what we have now.

So even if our version gets changed, it would be a whole nother pass (and probably not worth the time) to do it for Nemesis. Besides, theirs is probably Working As Intended and not bugged like ours.

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Phaseshift while mezzed is BS. There is no justification for that. Otherwise a HOLD is not rendering a baddy helpless like the power description says. Good AI or not. Natural intelligence (*Devs) letting this happen is the only reason and with all respect, that is unacceptable. It goes against what the power should be. It should be fixed.

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Yeah if the npcs are going to do this, at least have them pop the BreakFree animation

I don't think it was ever part of the design for absolutely every build to be able to solo absolutely every mission. Sometimes your rock meets paper.

The vast majority? Yes.

Are Nukes and Shivans supposed to make things easier? Yes. Are they going to be removed? I doubt it, and I don't think they should be.

Nerfed, likely. Made more difficult/risky to obtain (in line with how powerful they are), I can see. Instanced/Limited? Would make sense.

But I don't think the game will or should ever be designed so that every possible build can beat every mission solo. To do that, you'd have to remove damage/defense typing (for instance), at least at Heroic.

I suspect it might please more people if Heroic were even easier than it is now, and Invincible were far tougher. Personally, I'd rather have that than have people whipping out Shivans every time they have a tough fight.

This is a VERY VERY important issue. Not Vengeance per se, but in the levels of difficulty that the Devs are allowed to design into the game.

Over and over, players want content that 'any PuG can have a reasonable chance to defeat'.

They also want 'truly challenging content that is worth the bragging rights and not a boring grind'.

One way of doing this is to have content that is truly challenging, but also have some 'kryptonite' for it in the game: in this case, Nukes and Shivans. A PuG can do this with Nukes and Shivans, or by stacking Vengeance...can you do it without?

But then these tactics developed for extreme situations become the easy fix for every bump of difficulty in the game. See a Brute? Nukes and Shivans! Why not, it isn't like you don't go farm for Nukes and Shivans first thing after logging on anyway...

This cripples our future content. If it's tough to do with Nukes and Shivans, it's impossible without. If it's tough without, it's easy with.

This is further complicated by the fact that the Nukes and Shivans are in PvP zones. If more people PvP'd, the Nukes and Shivans would be as tough to get as they are 'supposed' to be.

You could take the Nukes and Shivans out....but not until after new replacement content is designed.

It's an interesting puzzle. How tough should tough be?

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First off, this post is *NOT* a precursor of any particular impending change. The topic is strictly informative and for discussion.

I'd like to know about breakpoints for To Hit and Defense and how you, the players, think it should work. I'm not talking about mechanics -- I'm talking about the expectations you have in a fight.

1) You have the default To Hit value (ie no buffs), your target has no Defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?
2) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has no defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?
3) You have the default To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?
4) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?

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1) No bonuses to hit or defense: Hit defender 75% of the time

2) Max to hit vs no defense: Hit defender 95% of the time.

3) No to hit vs max defense: Hit defender 5% of the time.

4) Max to hit vs Max defense: Hit defender 25% of the time.

At the extremes, it should be possible to reliably hit, otherwise battles could go on forever.

But that chance must be below 50%, or Defense means nothing at those levels (and conversely, it would take a huge amount of defense to get below the to hit cap).

I think bases are/were a step toward that Pandora's Box.

It was never really necessary to run all your armors, it was just 'more fun'. The players demanded it, and they got it, and it broke the system to a degree.

It's like the endless posts about removing the tiny self debuff built into Unyielding.

Players might react better to a slider of some sort, but they seem to hate 'disadvantages' built into powers as a means of balancing offense with defense tactically. They see it as a nerf or a gimped power.

Nice writeup. I like it!