Kitsune9tails

Sorry, right, should have said Warburg, not Siren's Call.

I used a Stalker as an example because whetther or not it is covered in PvP design, the 'AS from nowhere' is a common PvP concern.

Would it really take 4 AS in a row on the MM to drop a Tier 1 Pet? Wow...

As a default example for future reference, we should probably use a pair of Bots/FF MMs versus a pair of Ice/Electric Blappers.

This doesn't help specifically with /FF, but any chance that Bodyguard will allow MMs to chain-summon pets in the face of damage (but not mezzing)? Is summoning Henchmen Interruptible?

To wit: You are slowly trundling around SC with a full Bodyguard and suddenly an AS hits you from nowhere. Thanks to Bodyguard, your Tier 1 henchmen drop and you survive. Recast Tier 1 henchmen.

You get Placated, henchmen begin to attack the Stalker, but the Stalker sticks around for a second AS. The henchmen drop again, but you survive and recast them while re-placated.

Stalker gets the idea and runs away...

So Bodyguard provides a bonus to all MMs, but a somewhat smaller bonus to /FF MMs.

So does this leave /FF MMs gimped, or does it bring them in line with other MMs?

And I mean in a team environment, not solo-versus-the-Zone play.

The issue with FF MMs seems less huge if you (as the Devs likely are) assume that the PvPer has teammates.

Granted, that doesn't make Bodyguard itself any more useful to you, but not all abilities are equally useful to all builds/playstyles.

It's almost pure bonus, it seems to me.

If you don't want to use it or don't see a benefit, stay away from defensive+follow. Play normally.

Otherwise, have at.

Not every ability fits with every playstyle.

Information that may or may not be a side point.

Originally, in Beta, Blasters were supposed to have Melee as their Secondary. This changed after they were determined to be too squishy for melee.

Irony?

In any case, Blaster melee attacks should be stronger than Tanker melee attacks because they are in their secondaries (like Tankers') but are also based upon Blaster 'high' damage rather than Tanker 'medium' damage.

However, Blaster melee damage should be no more than 80% of Scrapper melee due to the Primary > Secondary rule.

That being the case, Blaster secondaries should be strong enough to balance the fact that they do not have Scrapper defenses or hit points.

Since Blasters have less defenses, balance suggests they should do more damage in melee.

But...

Blaster's melee damage is part of their Secondary, and therefore should do less damage than a Scrapper's Primary.

Hmmm...

If the two factors balance out, maybe they should do roughly equal damage to Scrappers in melee

Hey!

That's how it works now!

Maybe the Devs are ahead of us on this one...

This may sound silly, but...

...PvP is balanced for teams, not duels, right?

So isn't the real question whether 2 random Blasters will own 2 random Scrappers?

Once you factor in what damage sets versus what defense sets, whether it's a last man standing Arena battle or hit and run Warburg battle, and other factors, the outcome may not be so unbalanced overall.

Of course, if you cherry pick the best Blapper versus the worst Scrapper (or vice versa) standing toe-to-toe and each not using tactics to maximize effectiveness, you are going to get skewed results.

The Devs are looking at this from the big picture, not the singular case of an Energy/Energy Blaster versus a Claws/SR Scrapper in a duel.

Did you know that if a post is modsmacked, all replies to that post go with it?

Did you know that personal arguments with another poster are best kept to PMs?

Did you know that the boards used to allow you to give 'star ratings' to other posters until it was abused and used to grief sensitive posters?

Journal away, my friend. Entertaining and good info.

Don't stop bugging the typos. Er, typoes. Typo's? Whatever. I'm sure there are many there will never find if they are not pointed out.

You mentioned alts, but have you really decided not to have one "High speed, high fun" alt and another 'badge hunter' alt? Seems like a natural idea to me, to avoid the quandary...

Did you know...

...that it used to be possible to color your character's skin and costume identically, leading to a few people making 'naked' characters. After complaints by concerned citizens, this was changed so that costumes use a slightly different palette than skin tones.

Chests and breasts used to have nipple geometry, too.

For similar reasons, for a long time, characters were not allowed letters or numbers as chest emblems.

In Beta, there was a huge thread of screenshots of 'homage' character designs. Gone now, for obvious reasons.

In CoV Beta, there were a couple of scantily-clad npcs near Mercy (I think) called Tart and Vixen that would make 'suggestive offers' to passers-by.

Did you know that an 'open, unbalanced' (any character could choose any power) system was designed and completed (to the point of in-game movies being released) for CoH in it's alpha state? And that, at great expense and the cost of years of production, it was declared unworkable and turned into the Archetype System?

For proof, check out the 'Initial Gamplay Demo' here.

Note the Villain groups that flash by that we haven't seen yet:

Revelation, Seraphim, Twilight Men, Killing Crew, Fear Factor

Did you know that I think we ought to have CuppaJo move this thread to the Player Guides section, where it won't get deleted if there is a gap in updates?

My vote?

Get rid of Empowerment Stations entirely. Just dump them, and say, "You know, not a good idea after all. Never mind. Wait for the Invention System."

Of course, I'm looking forward to seeing them on Test anyway.

But first: Base-based Empowerment is not Comic-Booky. Running to your Base to get a buff to take down an AV is not something I recall seeing often. On the other hand, running to your base to get a gadget (temp power) that can target an AV's weakness happens ALL THE TIME.

Besides, If you said, "Thanks to the feedback of the loyal fans in this thread, we have decided to remove Empowerment from I7 and incorporate it into Invention", I'd love to see the looks on everybody's 'faces'.

Of course, then I'd have to go share the small hole that Galactiman is probably hiding in about now

Besides, if the Empowerment stations give you Temp Powers, you can simply have the powers 'confiscated' (with the appropriate text warning...please remember immersion) by PvP Zone guards (or have the devices work differently in a PvP zone due to radiation, enemy interference, etc).

Being able to Craft a one-use, powerful spell with a 3 minute duration that I can activate once I'm back in front of the AV thatI want to take down? Cool. Crafting a 15-minute buff that is useless if I don't have a good travel power and so uber it's going to be nerfed if I have allies with teleport friend stationed and waiting? Not as cool.

Whoa! Anybody check out the mouth on this gift horse?

On th subject of costs and requirements for these items, here's another way of looking at it: How long should it take YOUR SG (whoever you are ) to afford one?

If you went back to the past and killed your own grandfather, the past where he died becomes an alternate timeline. The timeline that led to your own existence obviously still exists.

I'd say cap was Martial Arts/Super Reflexes. There are shield powersets coming eventually, though.

Cap probably has the pools Concealment, Fighting, Fitness and Leadership.

Here's my Statesman build:

Exported from version 1.5B of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh

Archetype: Tanker
Primary Powers - Ranged : Invulnerability
Secondary Powers - Support : Super Strength

01 : Jab acc(01) endred(19) recred(13) dam(13) dam(17) dam(17)
01 : Temp Invulnerability endred(01) damres(5) damres(5) damres(11)
02 : Dull Pain hel(02) hel(3) hel(3) recred(34) recred(34) recred(37)
04 : Taunt tntdur(04)
06 : Air Superiority acc(06) endred(7) dam(7) dam(9) dam(9) acc(11)
08 : Unyielding endred(08) damres(48)
10 : Maneuvers endred(10)
12 : Swift runspd(12)
14 : Fly endred(14) fltspd(15) fltspd(15) fltspd(46)
16 : Assault endred(16)
18 : Invincibility endred(18) thtbuf(19) thtbuf(43)
20 : Tactics Empty(20) endred(21) thtbuf(21) thtbuf(43) thtbuf(43)
22 : Health hel(22) hel(23) hel(23)
24 : Stamina endrec(24) endrec(25) endrec(25)
26 : Boxing acc(26) endred(27) recred(27) dam(31) dam(33) dam(34)
28 : Tough Hide defbuf(28) defbuf(29) defbuf(29)
30 : Rage endred(30) thtbuf(31) thtbuf(31) recred(42) recred(42) recred(42)
32 : Unstoppable recred(32) recred(33) recred(33) endrec(39) endrec(39) endrec(39)
35 : Haymaker acc(35) endred(36) recred(36) dam(36) dam(37) dam(37)
38 : Tough endred(38) damres(40) damres(40) damres(40)
41 : Weave endred(41)
44 : Conserve Power endred(44) recred(45) recred(45) recred(45) endred(46) endred(46)
47 : Focused Accuracy endred(47) endred(48) endred(48)
49 : Energy Torrent Empty(49) acc(50) conrng(50) conrng(50)

-------------------------------------------

01 : Brawl acc(01)
01 : Sprint runspd(01)
02 : Rest recred(02)

I gave him powers in a funky order because of what I have read about his origins (he had the Leadership Pool before he had powers) and on the rendered videos. He had Swift or Super Speed early in his career, for instance.

This build has very little offense for a long time, and is probably overly accurate. Energy Torrent stands in for the Lightning of Zeus.

Have fun!

Alexa, you are awesome. Fare well in your new space, and know you will be missed.

Arctic Sun, you were great, I'll miss the both of you a great deal.

Also, Recluse is too smart to put all of his eggs in one basket. He has multiple plans for world conquest, and the Destined Ones are only one thread of his sprawling web.

At least that's what I figure.

I look forward to testing this solution to one shotting.

For those of you who dislike it, I suggest that a lot could be one with tweaking the numbers once the code is in place and working.

Don't like the fact that the fix only kicks in at 100% hp? Well what about 80% or above? 50% or above? 10% or above?

Don't like the fact that you are left with 1% hp? What about 5%? 10%?

Don't like being one-shotted or two shotted? Fine. What is the minimum number of shots it should take to take down a player? Remember that this applies to teleporting someone into trip mines, aim+bu+snipe, headsplitter crits and all other near one-shots.

By making this announcement and then monitoring the thread, they are effectively asking us for a solution to the problem here. If it is a problem.

And don't forget one of the most important aspects: What is fair to the Stalkers? And Blasters. And Buffer Overrun. And Brutes. And...

Some people like to explore. There should be game content that rewards you for Exploring, just like there should be content that rewards Socializing, Killing, Acheiving, and whatever other types of players there are out there.

Except the Griefers. No badge for you.

However it's calculated, Night Widows probably just have +90% Defense and Smoke Grenade.

What's the big deal?

I take Night Widows down solo all the time with my Level 22 Psi/Mind Corruptor.

Granted, I usually faceplant about 3 times in the process.

Revolver_Law, I'm not asking you to be happy. But pardon me if I fail to see how your being hostile will benefit anyone.

And I apologize for failing to take your private communications with the Devs into consideration. I cite my lack of knowledge of their existence, which you pointed out.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With regard to the 'promise' of a Blaster Rep, with the news that has come out of late, I would consider ourselves lucky indeed that we have an overworked man such as Castle having the time to even look at some of these issues that the community has raised.

Perhaps it is too much to ask that a different 'Rep' be assigned to the 11 different AT's in CoX. Perhaps we could be slightly less snide, snarky and rude to the guy who is actually doing some good work for us ....

[/ QUOTE ]

Nothing personal against Castle, but he hasn't done anything yet. This is not something that hasn't happened before. A Dev makes a post, saying he's going to look into our issues and get some resolutions going. It's happened over and over. Already we're seeing posts from him saying why this or that can't get fixed.

The cycle just continues on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hasn't done anything yet!?

He has fixed bugs and tweaked the properties of powers in response to player input. He has personally researched errors and bugs we have alerted him to. He's revealed numbers and Dev thinking even when the Devs have decided to stand firm on an issue.

If by 'nothing new', you are pointing out that Geko, Poz, Positron, and Statesman have also been this responsive to players in the past, then I guess you're right.

Statesman and the others have gotten more reticent over time, probably due in part to attitudes like yours (but probably most due their workload).

This is a semi-serious Guide, intended to help curb some of the rampant impatience on the Forums. These figures are based on 'since-CoH-Beta' experience in watching Dev Posts. Also, I am teasing the Devs a bit.

"It's fixed."= 2 Weeks.

"It's being fixed now."= 1 month.

"being worked on"= 1 to 4 months

"Very Soon."= 3 days to 2 months

"Soon"= 2 to 4 months

"In the immediate future"= Next Issue, or 4-6 Months

"At some point"= 6 - 12 months

"Good idea"= 1 - 6 months

"Not for the forseeable future"= 1 to 2 years.

"Never/Shelved"= 6 - 12 months

"would be a lot of work"= 6 - 12 months

"requires new code"= 6 - 12 months

"requires art/animation time"= 6 - 18 months

You see it in the patch notes= In, but will be buggy for 2 weeks to a month.

You don't see it in the patch notes= Who knows?

Obviously, the times above are not exact. I'll leave that to the Number Crunchers.

I love the Devs, I'm sure they are doing the best they can, please cut them some slack, these things take time.

The name M-1 is probably due to Matthew Barnes being a member of the 1st Hero Brigade. Was Hero-1 a hero at that time?

Just a thought.