Mazey

Legend
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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Leo_G View Post
    That only rhymes if you read it with a brit accent
    Surely pronouncing "again" as "a-gain" is the only way to pronounce it that doesn't have an accent?
    While pronouncing it other than as it's spelt such as "a-gen" or "a-gin" would be accents?

    Obviously it's still possible to say "a-gain" with an accent, but if anything such as an 'accent-less' way of saying something exists then saying "a-gain" is surely it?
  2. I agree, an option to add EBs to newspaper missions would be awesome. I'd turn that on in a flash.
    Good idea PRAF.

    Thank goodness we're all in favour of adding more options for people.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU View Post
    I remember when you had to defeat actual AVs* in story arcs. And we did it. Because that was the only way to progress through the game. So we persevered. It wasn't "hardcore", it was "normal" difficulty.
    Yeah, and you know what happened to that?
    They changed it.

    The devs have reassessed the game's difficulty before, so why shouldn't they again?
  4. The solution to the biggest parts of the problem is easy really, what we need is an option to turn Elite Bosses down to normal Bosses, like we have for AVs and Bosses already, and NPC allies in missions need to never have their rank lowered by the difficulty.

    Sure, that wouldn't solve everything, like too many ambushes or spawns purposely increased in difficulty, but it would solve the worst parts of the issue while still maintaining a difficulty increase where desired.
    Where a player on "normal" would fight Bosses at the ends of missions then then an Elite Boss at the end of an arc, a player on "easy" would fight Lieutenants at the ends of mission and then a Boss at the end of the arc. The player on "easy" would both have an easier time of it and have a more difficult final boss than what they normally fight.

    Of course, technical implication might be an issue, they might not have the tech for the latter, but given Malaise seems to spawn as a boss regardless of difficulty, that would suggest they do have the tech.
    As for the former, they clearly do have the tech for that, as they do it with AVs and Bosses already. The only issue I can see is that they might have a cascade effect where AVs get downgraded to Lieutenants when the mission is soloed. Which obviously is not a desired outcome.

    Of course, there is the question of if First Ward's and Night Ward's EBs are native EBs or already downgraded AVs. Anyone know?
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. DJ View Post
    Once again, this game is not hard
    The game is not hard for you.
    Nor is it hard for me. I have had no problems soloing Sister Solaris's last mission, without the helpers, on any AT I've tried so far.

    But, there are people who aren't you and who aren't me.
    Some of those people are not as competent at the game as you are, and never will be.
    Constantly telling them "lrn2play" in various forms is more likely to make them quit than magically get better.
    They aren't new players who've yet to learn the game, they're veteran players who might simply have lesser reaction times than others. Reciting the same tactics they've heard a hundred times before is in absolutely no way helpful.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
    It's actually an attempt to get him to look back, compare with my experience, and possibly consider what it was that he might have been doing differently.
    And?
    That's still completely beside the point.

    Even if, magically, your experience makes everyone who reads it a 100% better player and they never make a mistake ever again, what about all the people who don't read it?

    The discussion at hand is not "I suck, recount how great you are in the hopes I improve." its "Could we have more consistent difficulty settings please?"

    As for pulling the entire group each time, I has very little to do with luck. As pointed out, his only ranged attack was the Nemesis Staff, which has knockback, and any attack with knockback (or, I believe, any kind of control effect) is significantly more likely to pull the entire group than an attack without that effect.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
    It actually didn't take very long. The groups filled with minions and lieutenants I just rushed in and mashed (Dream Doctor and the Cimerorans were more than enough to slaughter those). The bosses were what I simply pulled.



    No it wouldn't. I did it under an hour.



    It's because they work, often in conjunction sometimes.



    I'm sorry you had such difficulty, but it still sounds to me that you were doing something wrong.



    No it isn't. I did very well with pulling enemies. Maybe you were just standing too close.



    Whose fault is that? APPs exist for a reason.



    Or, as I suggested, maybe you were standing too close.



    Well, I know from my experience that I didn't have Imperious bumrushing the groups of Cyclopses and Minotaurs. In fact, I found him to be much more reserved. It was Dream Doctor that was the twitchy one.



    I found it rather enjoyable, I actually had to think about my tactics for once.
    I have to ask what the point of this post is? Is it an attempt at bragging, at "being right", or what?
    I can't be an attempt at help, as every point you've said their has already been said, you're just adding "well you were doing it wrong" to the end of them.

    Regardless, you seem to have completely missed the point.
    Great, you're able to complete that mission without difficulty, you obviously have a reasonable skill level at the game.
    Not everyone has a skill level as high as yours however and, as such, those people would like an option to turn the difficulty of those missions down in a meaningful way.
    No recollection of your fabulous exploits will suddenly change that.
  8. Edit: Forget this, I forgot to check how long the thread was before posting.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    Yes, there is - NOT HAVING three licks and a break free. It's always the same story in these threads. Eventually we get to the subject of inspirations and someone goes on a self-righteous tirade about how the people complaining must not be using all of their tools and so on.

    OK, so what's your advice when I'm staring down a spawn of 12 bosses, a neat mix of Cyclops and Minotaurs plus Nictus Romulus Plus a Keres, and all of my NPC helpers are dead and my inspiration tray is completely empty? Go buy more? OK, so I go by more and go through pretty much all of them in the next two spawns. Now what? Go buy more? Right, how many times per mission do you envision me zoning out of the instance and trekking half-way across a zone to do this? My machine loads fast, but it doesn't load that fast.

    Then the argument inevitably turns around to what I'm doing with all these inspirations and how I can possibly be using them all despite me often having to blow through four lucks AND some greens to get through one large spawn out of, say, the seven I need to get out of Mot's belly after the bank (incidentally, there's no leaving this mission before it's done unless I die). Then it turns from a problem of me not using enough inspiration to me using too many inspirations and the argument loops back to "learn to play."

    As long as people continue to ignore the actual complaints made by the people complaining in these threads and instead chastise them for complaints no-one ever made, then I will continue to dismiss "learn to play" arguments out of hand.
    It seems to me the answer should be obvious.
    Out of inspirations mid mission? Don't want to have the game turn into a "run in, run out" mission over and over?

    Then what you need to do is click that nice little shopping basket icon in the top right of your screen then go Buffs and Boosts -> Inspirations -> Dual, and get yourself one set of each type, only 150 points. Quick and easy inspirations, delivered instantly!

    Or, to put it another way, lrn2buy.
  10. Good to know, I just assumed it was repeatable as it was detached.
    And yeah, I think the writing is mostly intentional.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    I'm the next person after that and I don't like tough fights forced on me. Isn't that what the difficulty slider is for?
    The difficulty options are actually part of the problem here.
    For most of the really difficult fights in Night Ward you get NPC allies. Unfortunately the allies are Boss level while the enemies are Elite Boss level.

    What this means is that, if you're fighting on the lowest difficulty, and solo, your allies are downgraded to Lieutenants while the enemies remain as Elite Bosses. Leaving you with a significantly harder fight than if you'd had your difficulty set higher.

    In other words, make sure to turn on bosses while doing Night Ward, you'll be better off for it.
  12. Trilogy is one of the repeatable contacts of Night Ward and the mission are really good, they take the form of chapters of a trilogy of books (hence the name) and are definitely worth a look.

    I thought I'd mention this as repeatable contacts are very often over looked for various reasons, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you just skipped over this one. A lot of work has clearly gone into them.

    The contact is in the back of the Midnighter Mansion for those who want to take a look.
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Roderick View Post
    Every time your total VIP time reaches an amount evenly divisible by 30 days, you get a token.

    If you started your account after the launch af Freedom (which I know you didn't), then it's at the end of each billing period.

    If you started your account before the launch of Freedom, there's a few things that can skew it:
    -If you were on a trial account before subscribing, then you'll have 7 or 10 days of VIP time added.
    -If you used the OLD Invite a Friend Back program, both accounts got 15 days of VIP time.
    -There may have been other ways to get free time in less than 1-month blocks.

    I started on a trial, so I get my token about a week before the end on my billing cycle. Since you say you get yours in the middle of the cycle, I'm going to guess you used an Invite A Friend Back code (either as a giver or as a receiver) at some point.
    Actually, it's simpler than that.
    Freedom officially started on the 24th of September, as such, anyone who has been subscribed since Freedom started has had their Token count start from that date rather than the date of their subscription.

    As such, the vast majority of pre-Freedom subscribers get their token on the 24th.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    If the person I quoted didn't mean to imply that then he should have worded his post more carefully.
    Communication isn't only on the shoulders of the person making the statement, it's also on the shoulders of the people interpreting the statement.
    If you read a statement and find it to be absurd, rather than just take it based on your original interpretation, it's a good idea to see if it's possible to reinterpret the statement in a way that makes more sense.

    Yes, it's certainly true that sometimes people make statements that are truly ambiguous but, considering no-one else seemed to have problems understanding the statement in question, it doesn't seem like one of those times to me.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by SoyLeyenda View Post
    Beware, though: don't use Grant Invisibility if you're soloing "rescue the hostage" missions (which show up in radio/newspaper a lot). You'll need to find a buddy to help or wait out the hour for it to expire.
    Actually, you can delete temporary powers that are effecting your character (such as empowerment station buffs) by right clicking on them in the powers menu. So if that stealth has become inconvenient, just delete it.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Agent White View Post
    Quote:
    Name one dimension in any part of the lore where there are ONLY heroes and NO villains!
    The pacifist Circle of Thorns world. Whole planet at peace.
    I bet that, in that dimension, Akarist is a complete *******.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU View Post
    The Combat method: If the model fails to agree with observation, there must be something wrong with reality.
    That's a little unfair, it's more like:
    The Combat method: If the model fails to agree with observation, then everyone else is just looking at it wrongly! Because they do agree they do!
  18. Your analysis puts Staff at 4th from the bottom as single target and 5th from the top for non-tanks at AoE (as anyone in their right mind can see kinetic isn't better at AoE than staff).

    That's sounds like an almost exact balance to me.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tetsuko_NA View Post
    Either the Super Packs would have sold well without the exclusive items - in which case, why make them exclusive? - or they wouldn't have - which would suggest that people didn't like the way they were structured, and further Super Pack-exclusive content will continue to be unpopular.
    Except people aren't robots who follow simple logical rules.

    There are many many people who enjoy obtaining things randomly but, if presented with both the random way and a deterministic way, feel obliged to take the deterministic way out of principle, even though it ultimately results in less enjoyment for them.

    To apply this to the super packs, there are people who enjoyed getting the costume set randomly, but would have bought it as a pack on its own if it was available that way and, then, because the super packs no longer contained the costume they wanted, wouldn't have bought as many, or possibly none at all, even though they might well have still enjoyed them.
    Those people would have then both spent less points and had less fun. A lose-lose situation for NCSoft and the customer.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Under optimal conditions, maximum number of Black Wolf pets that are statistically likely: 1428 (approximately one in 420 packs)
    I thought that, once the costume pieces had been gotten, the chance of getting a wolf was about 1 in 250 packs?
  21. Mazey

    Mutant issue....

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BrandX View Post
    That last part would not go well for lots of RPers and non-RPers that are concept/story-driven players.

    "Wait, what? My character who is currently pregnant has to give birth to a mutant?!"

    "Wait, what? My character from the future who was in utero during that time has to be a mutant?!"
    So, replace the word "all" with the word "many", simple.
  22. Mazey

    Player's Summit

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mystic_Fortune View Post
    I think you are confusing Symbiotic with Symbiote
    I don't think so. His analysis seems quite right to me.
    In biology, a symbiotic relationship is a relationship where two different species work together to mutual benefit.

    An example being flowers and bees.

    By calling it "Symbiotic Armor" the implication is that it is the product of two organisms working together, rather than just one. While "Biotic Armor", as suggested, allows for any biological concept.

    That said, I doubt many players would let the name of the set get in the way of their concept.
  23. The problem is that there isn't a good metric for AoEs, at least, not one that can be found through deduction from the base numbers.

    There are just to many variables involved, and the act of actual fighting with AoEs devolves into something akin to chaos. A thorough statistical analysis might be able to produce a metric that accurately weights things like area vs. target cap and how much knockback reduces AoE effectiveness for the average player, but such things are impossible to simply deduce and, as such, any deduced metric is inherently flawed.
  24. Here's my criticism:
    Your metric puts Kinetic as better AoE than staff. Yet Kinetic only has 2 AoEs, longer recharge times, less damage and knockback.