Lemur Lad
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Tin Mage as a name is no longer available on Pinnacle. If they want it back, they can take it from me!Originally Posted by Leese
Beautiful, just beautiful.
Count me in as someone who would love to see Tin Mage rebuilt.
I'll post the costume I came up with a little later.
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I like Tin Mage's letter the best. He seems the cleverest and most aware of them. I like his idea of self destruction to prevent the Rikti gaining access to his tech, and storing his plans in the Time Capsule.
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Sorry OP, but it really really sounds like you forgot to hit the reset button on your attitude when you started playing this game. The AT/powerset system is a lot different than other games, and the necessity for heals is always going to be trumped by the power of buffs and debuffs.
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Quote:Agreed. Hami raids were the biggest waste of 1-2 hours I could think of, and I only tended to go when I was otherwise completely bored and everyone I knew was there and not interested in doing anything else.Originally Posted by UberGuy
Popular and high volume are not the same thing. I contest that old Hamidon was actually popular. It was simply there, it was easy if you rode on the backs of the core leaders, and people socialized while they did it. I knew big chunks of the raiding attendees at old Hamidon raids who hated the raid intensely, but came because it was easy to get a HO.
Just like running AE farms isn't particularly fun but tons of people went because that was the best way to get the shiny, old Hami wasn't much fun as an actual activity, but it had a nice shiny. -
Quote:It's less about giving it better rewards just to get people to go than it is giving it upgraded rewards to put it back at the proper spot on the spectrum, in comparision to other, easier content that has been added since.Originally Posted by Lord Mayhem
You know, I really hate the idea of improving rewards to get players to use content. I've spent years in various MMOs following slightly more appetising carrots hanging from long sticks through boring content and it's not the brilliant fix some of you think it is.
The Mothership Raid has a non-uber reward and plenty of people do that because its a fun little community gathering. It follows that if Hami was fun then people would also be turning up to wade through his jelly and pop his little glowing balls on a regular basis.
Revamped raid should have gotten revamped rewards. Especially in light of all the rewards that were already in the pipeline when the revamp went through. All we're doing is reminding the devs that rectifying that mistake wouldn't be a horrible idea and wouldn't be as hard as coming up with Hami mk. 3 -
Quote:Fraudulent is a loaded term, and I'd be willing to say you wouldn't stand a chance trying to claim it was in a court of law, for example. Misleading? Sure. Erroneous? Yup. But fraud implies intent, and I have a hard time believing for a moment anyone there is intending to get more of your money than they deserve. The simple fact you were offered a refund is more than ample proof of that.Originally Posted by TonyV
Plus, this is another thing that I think is stupid. If you look at the store items page (example: Magic booster), it explicitly states, "Includes: A serial code for account upgrade." There is nothing on that page or at the point of sale indicating that you cannot transfer it to someone else. If you actually order it, though, you will in fact not receive a serial code. If you press the issue, you will be told that your choices are either a refund or to apply your purchase to your own account. I have escalated this to both support and to community reps that what is listed in the NCsoft online store could be considered fraudulent. I was pointed to the support article linked above. My problem is that the limitation on the serial code is not indicated anywhere during the purchase process. This smacks of a classic bait-and-switch, where what they're offering is not what you get. Even if they don't change their policy, they need to make it clear on the NCsoft store pages that purchased items can only be applied to your own account, not directing people to a support article after the purchase is made.
Implying it's fraud or a bait and switch is unnecessarily antagonistic. You may not like the system (for the record I don't either), but that doesn't make it illegal. -
Quote:Just because I'm willing to accept a reliable and useful set of secondary effects as a change to the set, doesn't mean I'm wavering on the issue of whether I think MA is ok.Originally Posted by Leo_G
Most of the suggestions here for MA's effect don't increase dmg or even dmg/end ratios so sort of confused at where we all stand on the subject.
(has the thread come full circle yet? I've already been on the 'leave MA alone' opposition and now I'm approaching that side)
An increase to raw damage output might make the set ok, but it would be the most boring alternative. Other solutions that don't just try to band-aid a couple powers, or markedly change the way the set functions would be ideal.
If Castle came in and said, MA is never going to be the king of damage, but I am willing to look at some ideas that would decrease the hodgepodge nature of the set, and increase the survivability of the MA user and their teammates, I'd be satisfied.
I love the set. I'd continue to love it if it never changed. However if they did look at it and revitalize it, I'm sure they couldn't possibly make it worse, and so I'm here discussing ideas, opinions and alternatives. -
Quote:Translation: I'll admit it's silly to look at two things in isolation and make a judgement call, but I'm going to do it anyway because that way I get to be right.Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
"They replaced this with something that actually requires more active participation, and you think it's a failure because less people showed up?"
Yeah, if they create something in-game that rarely ever gets used, I'd definitely call that a failure. Especially if it replaces something that got used a lot more than the new creation.
Granted, other factors may be in play in terms of the massive drop off in hami-raids, like merits for example, and obviously there will be some who prefer the new raid style to the old one. And the devs might put the two versions out and they both might get equally low usage.
But again, if you put the two styles next to eachother, and more people play the old style, then it would benefit the game to provide what more players want, even if you don't prefer the old style. Why? Because the more players that play this game, the better for everyone. -
Quote:As for tactics, I usually do the opposite of what you suggested. I do put it on the hardest target, but then I take out several minions or Lts to bring the damage output down below the tipping point.Originally Posted by Black_Marrow
I figure I can keep Darkest Night up long enough in a fight to keep me alive (IE Put it on the most dangerous target, and once it's dead the rest of the group shouldnt be a problem). 40% Defense and Good Resists (im rolling Dark Melee/Invul) should would fine with the info you guys gave me, especially with Darkest Night to top it off and my Dark Melee attacks for a little extra Icing. Thanks guys!
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Quote:Because as a set, Energy Blast isn't lacking for damage when we're talking about two ATs that have:Originally Posted by SonicBang
So, why shouldn't this change be applied to blasters and corruptors? It only seems fair
A) a higher damage modifier than Dominators
B) the damage set as their primary. -
Quote:If you're using it to pull and herd, activation doesn't matter so much. If you're soloing, chances the anchor goes down are slimmer. Once the alpha is dealt with and a few guys have died you're less in need of softcapped defense.Originally Posted by Hopeling
The biggest problem I see with using Darkest Night to effectively softcap yourself is that you have to activate it all the time. It has a slow cast (3.17 seconds), and if the anchor dies you'll be without the debuff for at least a few seconds until you get through the recharge time + cast time to reapply it.
I have it on my brute for pretty much the exact application the OP describes, and it works out well for me. -
Quote:Sets aren't balanced around what secondaries are available to them. If they were, Superstrength/Shield wouldn't be allowed.Originally Posted by Shard_Warrior
It may be problematic for MA to carry -DMG since SD comes with a -DMG toggle that would stack with the secondary -DMG from MA. I can't say for sure, of course, but I would imagine this is something the devs would take into account.
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Quote:As I said above being unique isn't as important as being effective. We're trying to make the set more effective in this discussion, and adding -rec simply for the sake of "it hasn't been added anywhere else yet" does nothing for survivability or combat effectiveness.Originally Posted by Shard_Warrior
Yes, I am aware. I had said I was thinking of doing a variant of -Recovery to make it unique among scrapper primaries.
If END mechanics for NPCs were vastly different than what they are, and they ended up actually using up their END, then maybe you'd be onto something. As it is, you're advocating a noneffective change. -
I just want to add a comment for all the "new raid killed all interest on X server" people:
Please look at the bigger picture before you specifically blame the changes for killing interest. When old Hami became popular, it was largely because that was one of the only interesting and valuable things to do. This inflates the perceived "importance" of the old raid.
However by the time of I9 and the revision, there was more to do, and a lot more coming soon after, that began to sap people's attention. LRSF, STF, and the simple fact that ANY tf could now get your a recipe roll. That means every other piece of content got value added in the eyes of any 50 looking for something to do.
I beg you all to be completely honest with yourselves. I know on Pinnacle even before the change, we were raiding Hami less often. If you think about it hard, I expect you'll realize it was getting that way everywhere (not counting the surge of nostalgia raids right before the new issue).
Once inventions hit and people could do 2-4 Quick Katies, or a few Speeden runs in the same amount of time, can you really blame them for not wanting to spend 3hours on learning the new raid, in the hopes that in the times after that they'd get it down to an hour? Are you really going to keep blaming the raid for that?
Water runs downhill, and players are fickle. We as a playerbase have shown time and time again that when two options are put in front of us, we'll gorge on the one we see as easiest and most rewarding.
Yes, the raid has flaws. It requires attention and learning the first few times. With practice it's just as easy as anything else in the game. However the fact of that doesn't change that on the whole, people are lazy, and almost all the people who were good at organizing and motivating the general population to raid have moved on to games where that is rewarded with lots of different raids.
I'll always believe the flaws in the attitude of the community were a bigger contributor to the unpopularity of the new raid than any of the technical flaws of the raid itself. -
Quote:Originally Posted by UberGuy
I don't think having Hamidon raids drop purples is reasonable. There's a huge jump in power between HOs and purples, because HOs don't grant set bonuses, and the set bonuses are the reason the overwhelming majority of people who want purples want them. The only time someone would not think purples were a big deal compared to HOs is that they wouldn't benefit meaningfully from the bonuses people look to purples for, such as +recharge.
I don't disagree that HOs languish in a very niche place that causes very few people to seek them out (which in turn is making the ones with consistent demand very expensive). I do think this could use improvement. I don't think purples are the fix for that. (Indeed, it would make it worse - who would choose an HO over a purple?) I am not fond of the idea that purples need to be "easy" or even just "easier" to obtain. There is a category of gamer who likes to have hard to obtain things to chase after, and I think purples are for them. I say leave that be.Quote:Originally Posted by EvilGeko
I think your reasoning is sound here, but the reward for Hamidon needs a buff. Personally, I would do so by giving HOs themselves attributes that are different than purples but still very good.
I would rescind the ancient nerf to HOs that lowered their 1.5x bonus (i.e. 1.5 x what an equivalent SO gives) to 1.0. I would also allow HOs to keep their bonus at all levels. Finally, I would allow some level of choice over HOs. Probably via making the drop from Hami some kind of token that you trade in for the HO you want.
The reason for the nerf to HOs (that the raid was considered too easy) relates to a raid that no longer exists. And it also doesn't take into account ED or Inventions which would minimize the impact of such a change.To be truthful, I agree with you guys about Purples. I was just tossing out alternatives. I'm much more in favor of boosting HOs back to their old levels, or as I said above, give them a different scaling table, so they're more useful at lower levels. Ideally, I'd like to see all varieties of Special-O's made fixed value and non-fading as well. Titan-O's and Hydra-O's should be of more than just historical interest, and if they were non-fading, you'd be able to make use of them for longer without feeling like you were gimping yourself.Quote:Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
I'd agree with this, and here's a thought. Leave the Synthetic HO's from STF/RSF at the current levels and only boost the "genuine article" HO's back to the issue 4 levels. That gives incentive for running Hami instead of the STF/RSF.
I'd much prefer increasing the zone cap to get back some of the feel of the old raids but a HO change would aid the fairly moribund event in gaining popularity. -
Quote:If they're going to add something like that, I am less worried about it being unique, and more worried about it being effective. I had the same idea you did. I thought about it. I discarded it. Why? because -rec is useless without -end effects, and both of them are useless unless present in mass quantities.Originally Posted by Shard_Warrior
I wouldn't mind seeing a -Recovery effect added to the set. Thematically, you are hitting something hard enough to knock the wind out of them (except Machines). -Recovery would be unique among the Scrapper primaries as well.
End draining just isn't a meaningful difference maker in this game unless you work for it, and even then it's not terribly useful. To see it added as a token gesture to a melee set would just disappoint me.
Knockups, Blinding, Placate, these are varying degrees of unusual and would provide more use to me in practical terms than garden variety mezzes or debuffs that I wouldn't see consistently. -
I think my issue with procs is that the chanciness of a raw % to occur would end up being frustrating to a lot of people.
CoV inherents moved away from % to happen procs specifically to address a lot of player complaints over their hit or miss nature (thinking specifically of Fury and Domination).
I know I opened the can of worms by mentioning Criticals in the first place, but my intent was to make them more reliable by increasing the overall chance for them.
In the end, I think procs would be ok, if there were a way to make them more reliable and controllable, above and beyond changing Focus Chi to increase the chance of them happening. -
Quote:And I feel that it's not appropriate for this section at all in the first place. This isn't Player Rhetorical Questions, nor is that a question that can be answered in an objective fashion. It's a Discussion topic.Originally Posted by Profanation
And OP, I am NOTcalling you a doom-sayer for asking this question in the "Player's Questions" forum. I think it should be off limits to flame any question here because of the nature of the category in the forum: either answer or stay silent, but don't criticize the question. I think it is legitimate to call into question the longevity of the game before spending more time and money developing characters in it.
This section is specifically for Players to help Players, and preferably for questions with concrete factual answers. If you really want to get down to brass tacks on how this topic should be handled in this section of the forums, you should accept that it's not really appropriate for this section in the first place, regardless of how people responded to it. -
Quote:That's something I never knew, and functionally speaking, I'd have to say that is one of the killers right there. It may be taking as long as you'd intended, but having to do the same thing 4 times running (along with repeatedly lowering Hamidon's health bar to trigger the spawns) is probably the most disappointing aspect technically.Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
[*]More blooms than asked for. Technically, it's the maximum (I wrote down "2-3", they scripted 3 plus the starting bloom...so 4 total). Total time-wise, 4 blooms ended up being about where we wanted it to be but in a much more repetitive way.[/LIST]
If Hami were ever to be revisited, I'd say cut out one wave, or make 2 of the waves somehow different whether it be mito configuration or a Giant Monster ambush, or something.
This is something that has been brought up a lot. HOs were already being marginalized by the fact that sHOs had a much lower barrier to entry. The LRSF and STF were easier to set up and run. The population as a whole just wasn't willing to listen no matter how much the Pro Raid folks told them that a Hami Raid could take the same amount of time and net HOs for a lot more people. Inventions just pushed the raid even farther into the shadows. The drop table was the same as the STF/LRSF, or the merits were "not enough" to a lot of people.Quote:Also, one big thing that never gets enough credit for the change in perception, all of this happened at the same time that Invention Origin enhancements were added to the game. So it's difficult to say how the new raids would be perceived if they were still giving out the end-all, be-all, best enhancements in the game.
If the reward for the raid was somehow special enough, I feel people would come back and raid on all servers. (maybe make HOs, Hydra-Os, and Titan-Os into nonfading and nonscaling enhancers or guarantee a Purple drop for completing Hami or something). -
Quote:Truly folks. We laugh at people who make a big deal about people with high post counts, saying it's irrelevant. If you must know, I do the same to people who make a big deal about low post counts or recent join dates. It's ridiculous.Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
Recent join date: Check
Low post count: Check
'OMG! The game is dying!' doom post: Check
Conclusion:??
Shoot someone down for the words they use, but don't shoot them down because they have or haven't been part of the club. That's grade school. -
Quote:Unless you're an ardent soloist, there's no need to keep them deprived.Originally Posted by Mirai
My older characters missed out on that temp power.
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I'm just going to say that 100k-150k for a game that follows this subscription model is a decent number, the people saying so aren't pulling your leg on that.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Westley
So... Jack is only worth one half of one percent of our dev team? That makes me feel all warm and tingly inside for some reason.I was accounting for Geko, but I was also accounting for the re-addition of Manticore and (I think) Pohsyb, both of whom were primarily on other projects and only brought in for special cases.Quote:Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Don't forget Geko. So considering the size of the CHV team at that point, it's probably closer to NCSoft got 90% of the CHV team in the deal.
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I can see what you're saying. I don't disagree. I think my thinking had to do with somehow making up for the lack of AoE, by increasing the 1shot single target potential with increased crits.
When my Mace/Shield Brute can pop Crowd control or Shield Charge and wipe out several minions, there's a disparity there, and there's got to be a way to get MA closer to that (we ought to get as many sets as we can to that standard and I think the devs are doing that incrementally, but the topic here is MA).
I like the idea of Critical Effects. I will reiterate the point we agreed on before, the effects need to be useful to the player such that they improve the quality of playing.
Knock- Up/Back/Down needs to be examined when applied to the set.
Debuffs for anything need to be handled such that they have an effect above and beyond any other effects of the power. Does Zero good for a damage debuff if it only lasts as long as a potential Stun the power lays on. Movement debuff is irrelevant if it's paired with Immobilize and doesn't last longer than the Immob (as you said above).
The more I think about it, the more I think if they do decide to do anything about MA, they ought to go All In. Maybe rebalance the whole thing, and implement a Combo Structure like DB.
However if they go that route, there are sets that need the treatment more (Spines- any set that makes Castle to think about balancing it needs help).
Part of me even feels a lot could be solved with a purely aesthetic facelift on the set. Lock BaB in a room with a bunch of Bruce Lee DVDs, and don't let him out until he's absorbed enough to put something together that does the moniker "Martial Arts" better justice. -
Quote:How much is riding on GR?Originally Posted by JadeTora
My question is.. How much is actually riding on the release of Going Rogue being successful? If it's unsuccessful, is that it? Are we looking at dealing with another Dungeon Runner or Tabula Rasa?
No single expansion is going to make or break this game in the eyes of the Powers that Be. It's a much bigger decision than that, and smart businesspeople do NOT draw a line in the sand like that.
Are we looking at another Dungeon Runner, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, what have you?
Most assuredly not. It's a completely different situation. Back when CoH was owned by Cryptic and published by NCSoft, we were in the same potential boat. Because of the performance of the game and it's dev team, NCSoft renegotiated the contract at least once in the first 5 years, and possible more. If the game wasn't a solid performer, they would have taken their option to end it at that time. Instead, they bought out the property, they bought out 99.5% of the dev team, and they've at least tripled the size of the staff since then. Not to mention setting them up in new offices, and not to mention greenlighting the expansion for a 5 year old game. All of that should say something to you. NCSoft believes in this game. It makes them money. They have faith that the team can keep making them money.
Losing a small percentage of the subscriber base during a stretch leading up to a new expansion isn't going to change that.