MindmasterZero

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Unlike Fearsome Stare (which unlike a lot of you, I've actually used), it was difficult to target the fear effect, adn the fear effect got reapplied every 6 seconds. Which meant you got shot every 6 seconds. By a lot of mobs. The only way to avoid that was . . . to control the mobs w/ Flash or Phantom Army.

IOW, yeah, ST was a great control power, if you were already controlling the mobs.

*rolls eyes*

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Ive used fearsome stare a lot, and dont get attacked when I reapply it (I can spam it, and they dont counterattack), hence my suggestion that ST casts a version of fearsome stare every X seconds. If the accuracy debuff stacking is the problem, make it not stack with itself, or just remove it altogether.

Any form of mob running is unacceptable after all the work put into making fear powers NOT make mobs run....

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Just a reminder, still no answer to my question. What a power costs and what an effect is has no bearing on anything. I contend that "bad side effects" are valid balancers in the game, and can be made to balance against the benefits of a power.

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If spectral terror was better than ahnold, you might have a point. However, its not, and you dont. Why argue with someone who enjoys playing ina counterproductive fashion (ie, tossing freezing rains on a fire tank, galing to ruin AE damage). You play a mediocre set to cause frustration. You like to gimp yourself, and play inefficiently. Good for you, continue to enjoy playing poorly. Most CoH players dont, and want their powers to be good.

[/ QUOTE ] I'm not sure if its true that most CoH players play efficiently, but I do know that most CoH players are not crazy about teaming with players who throw insults around.

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I owe you an apology. I went back and reread, and you werent the storm defender who was purposefully screwing up their team because they thought it was funny. So I detract anything I said about your playing abilities, and am sorry for mistaking you for someone else. Id edit them, but unfortunately cant.

I dont have a problem with people playing poorly, if they are trying to learn. I'll suggest ways that might help the team out (ie, the green cloud makes your attacks do more damage. If you wait to unload inferno until after you see it, you'll hit harder) or increase their survivability (ie, the black stuff on your feet from shadowfall generally marks my healing radius for twilight grasp. If you dont see it, I cant heal you). People's builds are their own issue, unless they complain about not being effective, then I can offer some assistance, if they want it.

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As for your mediocre powers comment, Empathy can be called one (since if you don't take damage you don't need to be healed or buffed if you got the "right" build), or bubbles (if you have a healer you don't need "protection"), or the entire scrapper powers or tank powers(if you can hold the mobs so they can't attack or you can range defeat them), it depends on PLAY style, NOT powers.

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Except Spectral Terror is an inferior hold. We have a hold. So the power needs to offer some comparative reason to take it.

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I figure your a XP/min type player judging by your statements of playing gimped to Arcanaville, if so more power to you, just hope not to team up with you ever; if not my apology for misconstrueing your statement.

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I'm your average player. I'm not going to intentionally do counterproductive actions in order to amuse myself (ie, dumping freezing rain on a tank, to force them to chase mobs) like Arcanaville does, which me, and the majority of players would consider a stupid play choice. I'm going to pick powers that are useful, and fun. But the are going to be useful. I wont take taunt on a blaster "because he likes to mouth off to enemies" and taunt them. I save my roleplaying for tabletop, I see little value in a computer game. Spectral terror was more useful post I3 and pre 1/18 patch, where it worked like all other fear powers in the game. I would like to know why it was downgraded to its inferior form.

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My uses for ST that I have found.
With ST you can use it in a team WITHOUT scattering mobs. You stay at the back, pop ST at max range BEHIND YOU away from the group you are fighting. Then there is a safe haven for any squishy on the team that needs to retreat since the mobs will get ST'd and lose aggro.

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Again, inferior to how it was working. If they are cowering, you can pick them off one by one, use rest, go afk, cyber or whatever. This "safe zone" is pure BS compared to actual control, whcih is what ST offered. Its what fearsome stare, offers, its what terrify offers, etc. If a mob would have run, they would have been cowering (ie not attacking). There is no advantage to scattering. Single target? Pick thgem off one at a time, no advantage to scattering (its easier to maintain fear/hold lockdown as well). AE damage/debuff? DEFINATELY no advantage to scattering.

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Also when ya have to protect something from getting destroyed pop one on top of whatever it is and the mobs will have other things to think of than destroying it. This is so far in groups since I don't have stamina or my RA yet to be able to pop pets, heal, hold and have a ST out yet also. I also don't team much since most of the time I spend healing cause the "real" healer is too busy being a offender instead healing.

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Again, INFERIOR, in every possible way, to how fear works for other powers. I have a 43 ill/rad, and a 32 dark defender, so I'm going to play the experience and level card here man. I solod my cape mission and the war walls mission as the defender using primarily fearsome stare. The mobs wont attack the object, they stand there cowering. When you attack them, they attack you, again... NOT the object. So theres no benefit to scattering them. If you could damage the object, that would be sone thing. Before 1/18, ST basically worked like fearsome stare, where it left mobs cowering, but clumped up if you wanteed to AE them or debuff, or fulcrum shift, or whatever, but still offered the same level of protection as this zone of safety garbage everyone is talking about.

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Just a reminder, still no answer to my question. What a power costs and what an effect is has no bearing on anything. I contend that "bad side effects" are valid balancers in the game, and can be made to balance against the benefits of a power.

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If spectral terror was better than ahnold, you might have a point. However, its not, and you dont. Why argue with someone who enjoys playing ina counterproductive fashion (ie, tossing freezing rains on a fire tank, galing to ruin AE damage). You play a mediocre set to cause frustration. You like to gimp yourself, and play inefficiently. Good for you, continue to enjoy playing poorly. Most CoH players dont, and want their powers to be good.

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I make it on the simplest basis possible; of what is fun and what isn't. When one's powers hinder play, it is not fun, and is therefore an undesirable play element. As I wrote in an earlier post, an alternate solution for tempering Spectral Terror would be to reduce its fear duration.

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Hurm. Interjecting here, but putting my vocabulary primer on the shelf. "The simplest basis possible: of what is fun and what isn't." Blue is good and red is bad. Typewriter is wrong, oven mitt is right. Fun, like so many other things is primarily subjective and therefore not an empirical measure.

I know, you're referring to your own fun in the matter, but for me, regardless of how the powers work, the "fun" is all about working with your weaknesses as well as your strengths. It's not heroic if it's easy. Superman doesn't run away if there's kryptonite involved - he finds a way to win. And if his powers suddenly go away or behave erratically (which they have done on numerous occasions) he still finds a way. So nerfed, renerfed, unnerfed, "as designed". They're your powers. Use them to the best of your ability.

Because the hero doesn't reside in the powers...it resides in you.

Cheers!
Max

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Yes, another vote from someone without spectral terror, telling us to accept a power that was working, and was broken on 1/18. Thanks! Lets leave powers broken and sub par, because its fun! Lets roll back twilight grasp to its previously stupid 4 second animation.. dead teammates are cool! Lets get rid of stacking armors. Bye bye punchvoke!

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Grouping with Melee: Immob = good, Scatter = bad.
Grouping with Ranged: Immob = bad, Scatter = good.

Blasters will fight running-mobs more happily than shooting-mobs.

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Single target blasters, maybe. AoE blasters no.


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there is zero benefit for a single target blaster. They are only shooting one guy at a time, so only one can retaliate (which he woudl do if he was running). Except the single target blaster might have to follow him, and possibly aggro other groups/get away from heals/buffs etc. in no way does scatterig help.

Devs, if it was considered too good before, just say so, admit its nerfed, and we can move on. But theres only a disadvantage to the new form.

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Grouping with Melee: Immob = good, Scatter = bad.
Grouping with Ranged: Immob = bad, Scatter = good.

Blasters will fight running-mobs more happily than shooting-mobs.


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And only stupid blasters want to fight scattered mobs when they could instead be fighting clumped mobs.

Go make a dark defender. Get to the lofty level fo 8 or whenever you get fearsome stare. Give it a go. Its MUCH better than spectral terror is. The things stand still, and cower. Its an immobilize coupled with a recurring sleep. Terrify does the same thing. Why, when we went througha bunch of teasting on fear to make them not run, are things running?!

If you want to protect an item... the cowering thing works great. If they would have run, they instead stand around and dont attack, so you can pick them off one by one. Or you can AE them, and they sometimes retaliate, then go back to cowering. Theres no real advantage to sending something running a little bit, or at all, compared to a recurring sleep/immob. Ive solod hazard zones with fearsome stare.

I say make the ghost thorw that out every 15 seconds or whatever.

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I know you're trying to make a power that's both fun and balanced. Chasing down mobs is not fun though, ever.

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I just wanted to put in that not everyone feels this way. In fact, if it was as easy to clump up mobs consistently in every fight, the combat would be kind of a snoozefest. I have a storm/energy blast defender and both powersets have inherent (and often unpredictable) knockback. I regularly duo with a fire tanker. If you go with conventional wisdom, the fire tanker should be driven insane anytime I fire off a power and there's some knockback or scatter. But he doesn't because knockback and scatter is part of the game. I don't want the villains lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery. If some flee, I chase them down. It's part of the challenge. Chasing an errant bad guy blindly around a corner and into a previously unseen group of villains is one of the things that can make a mission exciting. Then again, having Steamy Mist prevents a few "Oops" moments, too.

Now, excessive and deliberate scatter can be a bit much, but what Geko is describing for spectral terror sounds reasonable to me. On the other hand, watching mobs run/skate and superjump after being disoriented is too much, in my view.

In the end, it's different strokes for different folks, I guess. You really can't please everyone.

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Cool, you like a power that makes the game more difficult. Lets change taunt to where it DUMPS aggro! That'll be cool too.

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If this works like I hope it'll work there shouldn't be any major issues with runners. Just summon ST and blind the guy it hits. ST will continue to attack that target and he's not going anywhere. Albeit, this depends on how significantly the cone area has been narrowed.

'Tis true, we'd like the running to be nixed all together; but I feel this sounds like a fair compromise.

Will have to see once it goes onto test...

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I think the problem is the difference between some people here wanting it to be a hold power while Geko seems to be aiming it to be used as more of a defensive power (by getting things out of melee range).

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I'm not sure why this power has to be worse than a dark defender power. Fearsome Stare scares things, and they stand still, cowering, and retaliate when attacked. Terrify does the same thing. The presence pool fears as well... dark armor cloak of fear iirc... so why does ST have a run component? Is it to make the power weaker than the other versions?

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I like those changes. Don't have a character with ST but they sound good.

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No, its pretty much garbage. Can people with no experience with a power stop saying something is good? Did I come in on the rage threads and say "hey, cool, thanks for getting rid of the disorient, the end drop sounds good"?

Why not make it so it just pulses an AE cone of fear like petrifying gaze or something? That can hit mobs multiple times, and they dont run.

We dont want the things to run at all. That spreads them out for debuffs, for AE damage, for ae control, etc. The entire point of the fear changes was to stop scattering. Why was the power changed from I3 release to how it is now on 1/18 in the first place? It was working right when you sent it out the door. It may have not been working as the description, but the description is that of a mediocre power.

Was it considered TOO good then?

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Uh...im not a noob cause ive been playing since beta. Thats how I know.

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You've been playing since beta and you haven't yet come up with a strategy for handling a teammate who plays poorly?

Maybe you should be a little less concerned with other people's learning curves and a little more concerned with your own.

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That makes no sense. Im sorry but deaths by n00bs doesnt reflect a persons skills whatsoever.

If n00b goes into my group, aggroes a bunch 5 levels above the rest of us and gets us all killed...im a bad player?

Maybe you should be a little less concerned with this post and more concerned with making an insightfull comment

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Im kind of curious why someone with such mad skills such as yourself hasnt leveled beyond level 24...

Either you've been in max debt the entire time, rarely play, or you dont really care about leveling quickly (in which case, why are you griping about getting debt again).

1) A note section next to the person's name in the SG. They had this in EQ, the officers ocould say "so-and-so's alt", or "needs help getting key for X". Let either the player or the officer update it. It would be ncie to be able to tell everyone when you are out of town, when youd like to organize an event, etc.

2) Ability for someone other than the highest ranking officer to change the MOTD.

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Quick update:

I've been discussing things with various team members and I've got an "official" meeting today to kick around some ideas about this issue. With luck, I'll post later today - otherwise early next week.

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Thank you! Please look into how many bosses are spawning on some maps/trials/task forces if you want a boss to be greater than a hero. We did an outdoor mission with 4 people... every other spawn had 3 bosses in it, with a slew of minions/lts. Its not just about solo play.

THANK YOU for considering the one shotting thing. That was my biggest (really only) gripe vs them. And thtas not just solo, mainly on teams, where lots of bosses spawn in trials and task forces. Is the amount of bosses spawning in trials going to be looked at? The freak trial in particular is bad, because they rez. Go in with 8 people, and see how many bosses spawn per wave... its not 5 (going by your 1.5 scale).

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This isn't "game balance", otherwise this would have been done MONTHS ago.


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No, no, this is the VISIONtm, according to Statesman.

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Silly me. I thought I bought a game, rather than someones philosophy to be crammed down my throat. And the game I got was pretty damn fun at release, and has been for the last 7 months or so. Plenty of people go in to have their "vision" checked... this one might need glasses.

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AMEN ANGUS!!!
Don't forget to mention that casual players pay the same amount of money as any power-gamer. THREE AT's suffer so ONE can feel challenged. You hit the nail on the head my friend. I have been posting this for 5 weeks on test.

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So if you want to play casually, but not have much of a problems soloing, don't pick a low dmg or low hp AT.

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Then create an AT where its officially OK to solo, in an interesting fashion other than mashing claw as soon as it recycles. Or just ditch this BS "solo AT" concept, and make all heroes have a pair. Yes... even the ladies.

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Except for the fact that Statesman has said that ALL ATs should be able to solo, that's almost a good point.

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Statesman has made it quite explicit that while all ATs should be able to solo, that does not mean they will be able to solo all their own missions.

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Greys in perez are exciting to solo! But not as exciting as uninstalling.

The boss changes are crap. The difficulty slider should have been enough. Expand the slider, to allow -1 to +4 mobs. Problem solved, letting people play at their own pace and skill and build level. Got a concept character who sint min maxed? Go nuts at -1. Got a hardcore tricked out AV soloing but kicker? Try +4, using training enhancers. Problem solved.

One shots should be avoided in a MMOG. The damage given was too great. The NUMBER of bosses appearing int rials and task forces is too great, given these changes. Looking at 10 +2 freak tanks around a reactor, each of which can one shot me, and take 2 holds to lock down... Did I mention that even if held, they still get to complete their qued attack? And someone thought this was a good idea? Oh wait... I should get a tanker for every big group mission. Hello required classes AND required grouping. EQ in tights, here we come baby!

If they wanted to challenge 90% resistance, armor piercing shells would ahve imflicted the same damage on tankers as I3 bosses, and not one shotted the rest of us. Enjoy being useless empaths, since people are dead before your heal animation finishes...

Is being unable to outdamage somethings regen rate "hard"? No, its just more dps at a bigger blob of HP. Oh my, I think I got hard thinking of all the strategy it takes now. Oh wait, thats called adding more blasters. Madame of Mystery is super fun now, with her vastly increased regen as a FYI. Considering my party of 4 could barely beat it before she was buffed, and how theres under 20 people on my server post 40 when I play (11pm-2am... go go dead servers!), what % of the server in my level range am I expected to wrangle into beating an AV given in a personal mission?

Maybe Hero Corps should hire themseves out as mercs to help people finish their missions...

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Lets see....when we have people who claim they enjoy soloing because other people dont "roleplay" enough -or- all their "pickup" groups suck, then yes they are anti-social people. They are making a prejediced judgement about other people they do not know in order to justify their beliefs on why its best to not play with them.

If that isnt anti-social behavior, then what is?

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Torturing animals. Lack of remorse or guilt. Inability to see others as individuals vs objects to be manipulated. Learn what anti-social personality and behavior is... its not simply being non social.

Sorry you dont have any real friends to play with in real life, so are forced to make Cyprtic arrange a play date in make believe land.... Maybe they should just randomly assign us to a group when we log in...

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Boss hit points went up 40%

Boss regen went up, presumably 40%

Boss damage went up 40%. Why? Apparantly, hit points tie directly into mob damage.

This is bad for soloers and large groups. Why do this? Has anyone seen a Red Name explain the reasoning? Perhaps that will occur in their new dev section.

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Because I'm sure it's intended that I solo 2 or more purple con bosses...

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Whats great is how I'm expected to hold a room with multiple bosses that can all one hit me. Move over controllers, and make way for the tanks, the true CC of CoH... I dont grudge tanks the increased capability to do their role. I do grudge the devs making things a hell of a lot riskier for me. Limit the number of bosses spawning for teams then... honestly, HOW many "bosses" should be running around?

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The game is clearly not "group-only" gameplay. What I'm "sick of seeing" is an army of whiners every time there is content added which requires cooperation.


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I'm sick of existing content being moved from soloable to group, and being labeled as "new". Robbing from Peter to pay Paul...

Adding new missions with eleite bosses, required people ot beat bombs, etc? Good! Heck, giving those a bigger completion bonus is ALSO good, since they require coordination of tactics and skills. More effort, more reward. Id love to see them adding a third mission option to contacts. A kill X, a solo, and a group. Now thats actual NEW content.
New task forces? New trials? Cool! Great for when I have time!

Changing, say, the PWNZ mission from soloable to unsoloable isnt good. What did that add? Groups could ALREADY do that mission, if they chose.

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Statesman on forced grouping/solo'ing

Statesman on solo'ing, solo'ing missoins, and the difference of various AT's ability to solo.

Statesman on making the game harder, and why.

Statesman saying he still wants people to be able to solo, and other stuff.

Statesman explains again about making the game harder.

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Darn that pesky research proving your conspiracy theory wrong!

Forced grouping would mean I was back in EQ, where it could take 1min to 3hrs to find a group. Having to find a group, or 1 or 2 other people out of every couple missions to help take down a boss isn't forced grouping. Besides, go to your local contact, stock up on lucks and you shouldn't have much problem anyway.

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Too bad they dont appropriately adjust exp. If the change was intended to lengthen the grind, grats. Corporate office will be pleased.

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I call it just part of the game - and a good thing I have friends in it.

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And if you dont, its not like its hard to get help or to find friends.

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Actually, it is. Infinity... down to 500 players or so when I'm on, under 50 post 40.... Makes AV fights fun fun fun. Guess I should go to perez and recruit a tank to get one shotted....

They should merge the servers, since their numebrs are dwindling. Their player base may be constant, but people certainly arent logging on as frequently.

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This is something I've had numerous discussions about before. Here we go again...

Something is seriously messed up with the difficulty in this game. My tanker doesn't fight his way through missions anymore, he just herds everything into a room and slowly whittles it down. That's not fun, that's plain boring. No risk, no fun. Only reason I do my missions is because I'm a big fan of the stories and the game world setting. There's never any sense of danger. Only time I died in recent times, is when I ran into my first Rikti mezzer and he chain-stunned me while on soldier whittled away my health. Not the epitome of excitement.

BUT, make a new character. Solo the missions through the first 10-20 levels. That can get challanging. That gets downright near-impossible at times. The first time you run into a Bonedaddy and he shadowmauls you to death? The first time you run into one of the Damned and he fries your a**? That can be frikking hard.
My hardest and most memorable fight, was with a Fire/Dev blaster I made for Issue 2. He ran the Hollow arc missions solo. Fighting Bedrock (boss in the second Outcast Base) was frikking intense! I was chucking web grenades at him, running around, eating Inspirations, raining fire down on him, getting held, allmost dying, running out of end. I won with a sliver of life left and knew I was pretty damn Hardcore for doing it.

THAT is what is missing in later levels. And it's what they are trying to achieve. At level30, if you run a solo mission, it's going to be hard. You'll need your wits about you to survive. If you meet a boss, you better have some Inspirations to to use, or he will very probably have your [censored]. That's challange. That's fun.

See, you can take on big groups of enemies and totally dominate them and know you're way superior to them. They are known as GREY cons. How much exp do you think Wolverine gets for fighting a bunch of thugs with baseball bats?

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I agree. The beginning is more difficult, and you progress faster. Wanna make it harder? Fine, up the exp appropriately. The changes on test just slow down exp and force grouping. Oh wait. We can make scrappers. ZZZZZZ... Could someone please let me know when the drinking bird thats tapping the claw button runs out of water?

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Yep, I kill the bad children. Stand outside the prison in Brickstown, you have murderers in a minimum security prision, the arrests are in vain.

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The prison's on the honor system! Unfortunately a few bad prisoners ruinit for the rest of us