McBoo

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As much as that'd be great to see, there's no way I'd expect to see systems like that in a 5 year old MMO engine. And considering how damage oriented the new hero-based MMOs are, apparently they still think the same.


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While I see your point about the game engine I still believe that it's definitely the right step to take. If the other hero based MMOs are going to stick with the old model than CoX needs to once again blaze the trail and try something new.

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How does that fancy gibberish make tankers do more damage than anything else in the game? If it doesn't, then you're part of the problem.

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Fancy gibberish? Aw $#|+! I only meant to use my normal gibberish! Now what do I do about this weekend?

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And how should a super strong hero or a guy with a huge mace "subdue" a giant robot?

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Press the 'off' switch. Pull the battery. Give it an unsolvable riddle. Dump it in liquid nitrogen. Suspend it in the air with an electromagnet.

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Oooo! How very Batman-esque! You made a fabulous point! Btaman, a hero trained in several different styles of martial arts who frequently carries around any number of small explosives and sharp pointy things often uses his intellect to outsmart opponents. Spider-Man is the same way, undoubtedly possessing super strength, he chooses to use his mind to defeat villains rather than his muscles.

Very interesting....

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And again, more damage is not the answer. As I have said before, what you have successfully done Johnny is point out a problem with the current "damage is king" state of the game. Allowing subdual and sapping to be as effective as damage in gaining experience will level the playing field for all archetypes across the game.

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And how should a super strong hero or a guy with a huge mace "subdue" a giant robot?

By smashing the crap out of it. And that would be damage.

The second you have holds, mezzes and debuffs defeat enemies, that's damage.



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As far as tankers go they would use a combination of damage, sudual and sapping to take down their foes. The latter supporting the former in order to bring their combat effectiveness and leveling speed in line with an archetype that relies mostly on damage.

I disagree that defeating an enemy through holds, mezzes and debuffs equates to damage done. Let's say you use something like fossilize (without damage) to hold a mob. If you can hold said mob long enough to get a teleport beacon on him then he's defeated without a scratch on him. Similarly if a kinetics defender weakens them to the point that they can't fight back effectively while you package them up for the PPD they are defeated with no bloodshed. Finally if you use some form of fear inducing power to force them into a fetal position crying for their mommy it's simplicity in itself to apprehend them at your leisure without violence.

Damage is all well and good but, IMO, it represents a narrowness of vision in a world full of super humans.

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Geez, another drama thread in the tankers forum? C'mon guys/gals...not even the defenders forum is made up of such drama llamas.

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The Tanker forum aggros the trolls to protect the other forums.

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That's right! All tankers, all the time!

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There's no irony there.

You're using the word incorrectly.

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

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How is that any different than my Tanker inherent proposal suggesting Tankers could hit harder than they do now some of the time? It's not.
Few argued my proposal was stright up over powered or unreasonable and I don't think ANYONE thought it was going to turn Tankers into tank-mages. But it allowed them to be heavy hitters.

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Most have argued that your suggested system isn't necessary. Giving tankers more damage still leaves them trailing behind brutes and scrappers in that department. So how does your "Tank-omination" scheme make tankers more attractive?

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1. Tankers (and indeed all AT's) have fewer options or options of poor quality, past selection of primary and secondary power selections for increasing damage. I suggested a while back giving tankers the same level of benefit from leadership pool as Defenders or Controllers. Other suggestions have been made including but not limited to a stacking damage resistance debuff inherent, a Domination style inherent (JB's idea) that would multiply damage and aggro radius when active. Also suggested a battle stance system allowing tankers to lower mitigation to increase damage.


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I also want to add to this that the problem above isn't something you can fix at the power pool or IO sets level. The simple fact is the ability to get more damage is easier to balance on some ATs more than others. It's got to be done at the AT level from what I see, and since the Tanker is the AT that's affected the most by the problem, they are what needs changing. With respect to this, the system works fine for all the other ATs.


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And again, more damage is not the answer. As I have said before, what you have successfully done Johnny is point out a problem with the current "damage is king" state of the game. Allowing subdual and sapping to be as effective as damage in gaining experience will level the playing field for all archetypes across the game.

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I need to know what TheOcho's shirt says....NOA!

"I am the..."


I AM THE WHAT!

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It says "I am TheOcho", obviously.

[/ QUOTE ]Looks like it starts with M. Maybe "I am the Mod"?

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Actually it says "I am the Marmoset" which if said at a low octave with a lot of phlegm in the back of your throat sounds very much like a Yiddish phrase which loosely translates to "Gone to the Americans"

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This forum played a big part in directing Tanker changes

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Yes, for good or ill it has in the past. And now it enforces a status quo and gangs up to attack and suppress people suggesting changes that don't agree with that status quo.

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Attack and suppress in this case can be read as disagreeing with Johnny's stance that tankers need yet another damage buff to make them complete.

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*chuckle*

This couldn't possibly be a ploy on the part of the devs to get more people to send goodies...

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As if being across the street from McDonalds and Krispy Kreme isn't enough of a temptation, you guys have to keep shipping delicious food directly to us.

As always, we greatly appreciate these types of gestures. Thanks.

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Remember..... escrima = cookies

They have plenty in common, both can be hypnotic and make you swell up unattractively.

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We're sitting in a meeting and our Development Director said "We've contracted some Type R programmers".

I had never heard this term before, so I jotted it down on my notepad, so I could inquire about it later.

Just then our Lead Engineer asks "What is Type R?"

Our Dev Director looked stumped. "What do you mean?"

"You said 'Type R Programmers'" said the Lead Engineer.

"No, I said 'High Powered'." said the Dev Director.

"No you didn't. You said 'Type R.' See I wrote it down." I said, and showed him my notepad that said "Type R?".

So now, everything high powered and awesome in the office is "Type R".

I am now on a crusade to get it used outside our offices. I should add it to urban dictionary or something.

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What's a 'High Powered' programmer?

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We have a network security guy here that's hooked on caffeine. Does that count?

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I only ask for SB in certain situations:
A) I'm having endurance problems
B) We're fighing an AV and I want a faster attack chain
C) I happen to not have a travel power yet and have to go a long way. (I don't feel the need to take travel powers as soon as they're available anymore)

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Define "endurance problems" because your reasons for asking for Speed Boost all sound an awful lot like things that could be addressed within your own build and\or play style.

In my mind, if you have purposely built out or play your character with the caveat that he or she requires a buff by another character then you need to rethink your character.

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I don't know if it's a symptom of MA but lately all the MA teams I have made have have lazy kins (kins that never SB anyone). Why play a kin if you don't wanna SB people?

I have now started kicking lazy kins!

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Wow! That's a fairly draconian attitude. What other powersets fall under the "Use X power when teamed with me or get kicked!" rule?

Not insistent enough....

Escrima! That's the ticket!

The whole side-switching effect on tankers question has me thinking of Sesame Street.

"One of these things is not like the others" etc....

Tankers are built for teaming. Like most of the other blue side archetypes, save for the scrapper, they were designed with weaknesses that could be shored up by teaming with the other archetypes. Scrappers were designed to fill the solo role from day one. The red side archetypes were also designed with solo play in mind, especially the brute and the stalker. So what we have is a comparison of one team oriented archetype to three solo oriented archetypes. The tanker is the odd man out, not because he is inherently weaker but just because he is designed to do a different job than the others.

Based on this I think that people will continue to play the archetypes that they want to play after side switching becomes a reality. Those that concentrate on DPS will likely give up their 'scrankers' for brutes but those that enjoy playing tankers will continue to do so. As Thrunk pointed out, player performance will have more of an effect on tanker popularity than anything else. That being said I think that the aforementioned 'scranker' to brute conversion will ultimately improve the quality of tanking experiences in PUGs. This alone should assure tanker popularity.

Now should tanker popularity start to wane I can see the developers tweaking tankers but I'm with Vox_Populi in hoping it's something other than a simple damage buff. Tanker damage was buffed once before and it's still supposed to be "sub-standard" so I can't see another buff helping. Actually, based on track record, they may just lower scrapper and brute defenses in the name of balance.

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O.k. I really didn't want the "Political" answers. Excuse me for being unclear. Let me put it this way, when you respond, what would you pick for your UBERMAN, comic book hero? So far, the 2 top dog answers I'm seeing for Survivabilty are WP and INV. These seem to be going back and forth. So, with out giving an answer predicated upon the fact that there are many variables to survivablity. Give your best educated assuption on what YOU think is the best, and what YOU would choose as an overall DEF set for your UBERMAN, for say, [insert brand] comics. Would you take INV, but be succeptible to weaknesses such as: fear, confuse, and psi damage? Or take WP and have those protections but not as much resistance and Def as INV? Choose your top 3 then give reasons for your pick. Please, no more politically correct answers.

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Political? I don't think that word means what you think it does.

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Inconceivable!

Honestly, I think that you will just receive the same answers over again. Jakke and Aett make good points about the subjective nature of your question. What you are basically asking for now is opinions and those have been given.

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The current Pretora story arc is extremely loose (like most content from those days.) We visit certain zones, cities and the such, but we never really see anything outside of isolated outdoors. I never seen an arc that mentions what I said, I was guessing that based on the trailer where Tyrant's empire seems like a paradise. Being who he is, I would not be shocked of him going through any means necessary to achieve that perfection.

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Nothing in the past content presents Praetorian Earth as being, or seeming, a utopia.

In fact the CoH comics presented it as being a burnt out world, dark, war torn and dilapidated.

I consider the utopian angle very much a retcon, geing against what we've seen before.

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Actually most alternate reality totalitarian worlds have one shining city amidst the wreckage. I direct your attention to Apocalypse's citadel standing amid the ruins of Manhattan Island in the Age of Apocolypse crossover, the city-state of Libria in Equilibrium, Bregna in Aeon Flux. All are examples of the promise that is made to those who willingly live under their respective tyrant's thumb.

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Now, here's where it gets interesting.

When they first showed the utpoian Praetoria in the trailer, I thought it looked a lot like Millenium City from the Champions Online concept artwork and videos.

Now, given that Tyrant "made" Praetoria, and Tyrant is the evil alternate version of Statesman, and Statesman is the alter ego of Jack Emmert, I think the devs maybe attemping a very meta kind of bash against Jack and CO.
YMMV


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Nothing to see here, just more conspiracy theories.

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I'd hope at least that it would be, because its an expantion, that you could select red side, blue side, and "purple side" at the character creation screen, so that in Praetoria one could have open options of archtypes and alignment.

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I like this set up. It allows more freedom with your character development. What would also be interesting is to set up kind of a moral barometer for the zone(s) based on choices made by players in the zone(s). Something along the lines of the sphere of control meter in Siren's Call.

This way becoming evil or good will also be subject to the socially accepted definitions as decided by the players. If the zone is particularly evil then heroes will have to work harder to continue their fight for justice. If the zone is a utopia of justice then things will be harder for those that choose the path of villainy.

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you guys are all missing the obvious bonus if JB's idiotic predictions come true.


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The real bonus is he will roll a hero brute.

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Then he'll be Johnny_Brutane, the oft maligned champion of all brutes everywhere because no one, including the developers, really knows the score except Johnny.

I'd have to give the first place nod to Invulnerability as well. Any time anyone mentions Stone as the top dog it comes with the Speed Boost caveat. Reliance on outside buffs is a weakness in my mind which puts stone behind Invulnerability and Willpower which are both "fire and forget" sets. Ultimately though Willpower winds up taking a back seat to Invulnerability due to the lack of a natural self heal.

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I don't trust anything coming from these devs. Period.

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Only those things that support your paranoid view of the game.

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I'm surprised they don't lazy out and do something like 'dual mace.'

Just lethal > smashing, use same animation but with batons, and there you go!



(Actually, come to think of it... that WOULD be kinda neat...)

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If we were going to do some sort of dual smashing weapon powerset, I'd definitely go with more Escrima flavored animations.

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Yes, please!

I actually suggested this a while back and suggested changing Dual Blades to Dual Wield or Dual Weapons or something, so that we could choose between lethal and non-lethal.

Seriously, heroes need some non-lethal weapons. Not every hero likes to arrest-to-death their opponents.

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I think I would rather see an escrima set be it's own separate set. The Dual Blades set is flashy but it's too slow for escrima.