MisterD

I hate to start a new issue off with moaning, but seriously.

A 2.5 gig update. Fair enough..lotsa changes.

But WHY was there no pre-loading of an update this size? I remember another issue of around 800 mb, and I happily let the old launcher update a bit every night for a week, secure in the knowledge that when the issue hit, all those files would be ready to go.

Maybe someone can quote the download size of the incremental patch updates to Test for this issue, but I doubt it was a fresh 2.5 gb each time. And even if there was an 11th hour update to the issue, requiring major changes and additions, then the issue should NOT have gone LIVE today!

So again, why was it possible to pre load on the old launcher and for previous issues, but a biiiig update like this, none at all. It just makes me wonder if people just don’t think at all. Yes, it is an MMO..yes..we are required to have a decent connection. Is everyone going to have 8mb cable (as some lucky guy quoted)..no!

Update: I typed and posted this directly from the forums, only to get the following error. Must be their method of stopping people even getting onto the forums to moan about download times.

This site is temporarily unavailable due to scheduled maintenance.
Please check back again soon.

Update Mk2: Finally done. It really IS awesome to spend the entire first day of a new issue downloading said new issue. But on the other hand, I did get most of the second season of Twin Peaks watched. Can only hope BoB finds the people whose job it should have been to figure out preloading might have been a good idea. Even Mr Cable would have saved himself 30 minutes.

You know what is kinda (not really) a sad thing about Mids? The fact it is so totally awesome, and yet it was made by players, not the game company itself. Has it even got any kind of 'official' approved stamp from NC? It so should.

Is it WAI that only one branch contains 4 moral choices, while the others all have 3? Is the 5th choice when we leave Prae? Or are we 'meant' to be switching sides at some point in order to get all 5?

Yay, thank you Zombie.

Is this guide kicking around somewhere? I have taken over 5 toons through prea and cant seem to get more than 3 moral choices done.

I see your problem Sir..you went through Atlas on Freedom. As others here have said, since AE came along, that is basically all AP has become. I have seen sewer team leaders get abused, for trying to recruit 'proper' teams.
Pretty much, the population of AP puts the DUMB slap bang into FreeDUMB. ON another note though, seeing PI awash with people actually teaming (think I saw only one guy lff when I was there earlier) is certainly an improvement. To bad the refuse just moved closer to the toon creation location.

After chatting with a friend recently, I decided that I wanted to see how defence worked (sort of) in pvp, specifically, if attacks would 'choose' a typed def value over a positional value.

I had heard from somewhere, that when faced with a target with say..30% ranged defence, and 15% fire defence, an attack fulfilling both, would always go for the lowest value. This could naturally make a huge difference in defence builds, especially for pvp.

So I set out to test it. To do that, I had a friends blaster, with only basic IOs (so no huge +acc values) attack 2 of my scrappers with Ice Bolt (slotted to 1.12 accuracy).

Also Grrr at it squashing the columns of data so close together..makes it annoying to read. No doubt theres a way around that. I only noticed it after I posted, sorry.

The first scrapper..a regen with ZERO defence to everything. Not even tiny bonus values. The results are..



Ranged def Typed def

0.00% 0.00%
58% to hit 58 to hit

29 29 def
25 25 to hit

45 45 def
6 6 to hit

The extra defence in the bottom two examples was achieved by using small lucks. I am not sure what the base to hit value is meant to be in pvp, but my friend had a To Hit of 75, a 1.12 acc attack, and only reached a max of 58 to hit chance.

In addition, giving that defence basically translates to a hit debuff of corresponding value of the attacker (at least, that is how I understood it to work) the values in the bottom two tests both add to around 50% to hit chance. That is...50% to hit - 45% def equals a 6% to hit chance.

I have no idea if that is right..and very likely I pulled something out of thin air, but it looks to me that my friend was starting at a less than 55% to hit on the lower tests, compared to the 58% value she got when there was no defence at all.

The second test, was using my shield scrapper. The typed def is my smashing and cold.



Ranged def Typed def

17.3 10 and 8 def (no toggles on)
38 38 to hit

29 10 and 8 def (ranged toggle on)
21 21 to hit

33 16 and 12 def (ranged + weave + cj on)
17 17 to hit

Again, values seem to add to around 50%. It also shows that attacks are checking on the highest defence value, covered by said attack, not the lowest. Also, there is a strange anomaly in the 2nd test. Both tests have instances where the defence was around 29%. However, the corresponding to hit chance on the shield toon was a full 4$ lower than for the exact same value, on the regen.
Is the above an example of elustivity at work? Wondering that, I turned on my second toggle, which provides another 10 or 20% elustivity. Testing again, it gave the exact same to hit value. Therefore..assuming that that 4% drop was in fact from Elus, it would seem that having two or more toggles providing elustivity does not provide addition benefit.
In other words..the elustivity doesn’t stack on itself...or maybe it only helps versus attacks of the type that toggle is defending against. That would make sense giving that my 2nd toggle, melee def, has no value vs an ice blast at range.

No idea if that is the case, and maybe all my workings are not accurate..but I found it to be interesting

I can’t agree with any of the OP's points about Praetoria. Not getting into the rest of GR...but I love the zones there. They all are recognisable as 'earthish' yet have their own flavour, while being sufficiently different to one another. Neutropolis at night time..how can you say that doesn’t look awesome with the lights and stuff?

The content there I also really enjoyed. I won’t even get into the maps apparently being similar. If you are going to make that argument, as a reason why GR fails, you may as well say CoV fails, since it also has the same maps as CoH. Hell, you may as well say all content hero side beyond level 10 fails, because, you know..it is largely the same maps.

I liked the cosmetic updates to the Prae mission maps. To me, it provides a link with our primal earth locations, while being different enough to be interesting. On a lot of the maps, I caught myself standing around looking, thinking, geee that’s cool!

The content itself? Also fun. Nearly every arc there (since I haven’t done them all) is far and away superior to most of the content blue side. Missions were hardly, if at all, of repeat types (multiple kill alls, multiple bosses ganks etc) and always kept my interest.

My biggest complaint is that the zones only went to 20. I would have happily stayed there to level if I could. Also, the badge requiring 5 moral choices seemed very hard to get. Having played 6 toons through Prae, and doing just about all contacts as I go, I still have not managed to get a toon with more than 3 moral choices done.

As to reasons why Prae never really took off like a rocket..I would say..the lag and performance issues. Yes, it is a pretty place, but just about everyone I knew lagged or had dc issues there. Also, the fact that once you made your toon..there was NO way to run off to ae/pi/gv and zap past lowbieville would be a big factor in a lot of peoples descision to play (or not play) there.

I was messing about in the arena with a friend earlier, and used my Ion Core judgement on her..and checking the combat logs, saw this:
HIT Nyte Skye! Your Ion Core Judgement power is autohit.

She used her pyro total core on me and got:
Nyte Skye MISSES! Pyronic Core Final Judgement power had a 51.95% chance to hit, but rolled a 54.99.

Is this a known bug? Are all Ions auto hit in pvp?

To echo the other people is this thread..yes, EM is really that bad. I also had an energy melee toon, em/da brute, that I loved to bits. It would easily have been my most played toon.

I went with EM in the first place for the damage, and cause it was good in pvp (this was before i13). Prior to the em changes..the set was good, and I didnt feel it was OP in the least. Frequently, I would duo with a friends SS brute, and while I could down a boss faster with an et, tf, et combo, his aoe was miles better. In fact, I respec'd out of whirling hands.

When they announced the changes (et was the 891320132 week animation, tf with a lower mag stun) it just killed the set for me. Nerfing the two best powers, while giving nothing back, is just retarded. Not to mention that the Total Focus change was not needed (since seismic smash from Stone also does a mag 4 mez, similar damage AND animations in a quarter of the time).

After the changes, I still played with the toon a fair bit, since I had enjoyed it so much. But like others here are saying..you end up spending most of a fight locked in your stupidly long animations, while your team mates kill everything with aoe and faster attacks. About the best thing I found was on Cysts during the ITF..since they wouldnt die so fast.

To answer your question..just consider that EM used to easily be the most popular set for brutes and tanks when I started playing, and now theres a good chance that any brute/tank you see, will be SS.

I do pvp on an EM stalker, and there I dont mind the slow attacks so much, but for pve, where aoe and fast powers are king (think fire blast) it sucks. All in all, take the idiots who thought up the changes, and Energy Transfer them in the nuts, the OLD way.

Why is it an unsubstantiated claim? I have an ill troller..I can confirm that killing single 'easier' targets is very fast, like Local Man states. Not that I have done any DPS calculations or anything, but he makes a fair point. And the fact you dont acknowlege it, just because you feel it does not fit in with your testing, while fair enough, doesnt make his post any less true.

Using incarnate pets totally invalidates the claim to have 'solo'd' these AVs. My emp/psi fender can 'solo' a rikti pylon..just by forting and abing my Vicky incarnate pet. Is that me soloing the pylon? Of course it isnt.
The incarnate pets do insane damage, utterly insane. What's more..they have a recharge value, meaning you cant have them out all the time. Sounds a lot like a temp power to me. Of course you can get technical, and call them Incarnate Powers.
Videos are cool though.

Some good suggestions, I like the ideas.
I have never played a PB due to the huge amount of KB they have, and I usually shudder when any khled joins a team. That said knockback does have a place in the game. And not just a place in the deepest darkest cavern, buried under rocks. Of course a lot of kb is misused..but it can be very handy. One time on Virtue, I played with a storm/energy defender...sounds ghastly right? But she never seemed to kb anything into a bad position.

One thing with making all KB mags on powers 0 Bill..seems a bit unfair that then, in order to get back your mitigation through kb, you would need to slot for kb, which you normally wouldnt have to. So maybe let people turn KB off via Null as a compramise.

Can see the points of some of your issues. Thankfully we can at least email things to ourselves now. Back before we could, it was a real pain having items stored on different servers and sg bases. Agree that item stacking in inventories would be nice..as well as some kind of account based bank.

Not really on the topic..but waaay back when I started to play, around i8 I think, one thing about the in game enhancements really got me annoyed. This way back when we just had SO's, and had to upgrade them every 5 levels. The money made in that five level period was NOT enough to actually finance they new SO's you had to get. Just seemed like shoddy design to me..you should have earned enough to kit out your toon for the next few levels.

So going by that system..the crafting at least works. Mostly.

Union also dead here...was going fine then Mapserver error. Now if I try to log back in, game boots me back to the login menu.

Why do you need perma Howling Twilight to solo an AV?? Lets look at what powers in the demon dark sets actually benefit from stupid amounts of Rech..
Hell on Earth. Yeah, ok, so it does help, but since the main point of HoE is as a mule for the rech pet uniques, it isnt a big deal.
No other power in Demons needs crazy levels of recharge.
Onto dark...Tar patch is easily stackable (assuming it does stack) with moderate rech. The fear is stackable also, Dark servant is perma with basic slotting. The heal is fast enough as is.
really strugglnig to see the point of getting huge recharge, and making HT perma..when it just isnt needed.

Either build could and would be able to solo Av/Gms, but the /dark will be much much easier. Demons have very little defence and the extra from shadow fall, and the dark debuffs, helps a huge amount. Of course, it wont be huge amounts vs an av, but still be a lot more than therm can ever get. Also, the therm debuffs, unless you have uber rech, are not perma..the dark ones are.
As for being a tankermind with provoke..you dont need to do that either. A well built /dark wont have many problems keeping themselves and the pets alive. Whenever I have gone in BG mode vs an av.....either the av has a break in its attack chain, causing the pets to just STOP attacking...or the av will hit you with a big single attack, doing a big chuck of damage to all the pets, then an AoE will come along and kill them all at once.
Not sure where the idea that a dark MM must be expensive in order to solo AVs is coming from. I know people who used to do it on SO's. My demons dark build wouldnt have even cost me 200 million, and I can pretty much solo anything. Building well beats expensive shinies.

Do you seriously read the verbal diarrhea coming from your lips Sammy? I do not need to insult your intelligence at all..you do a damn fine job of that. Let us talk stupid allegations shall we? (Quotes from Sam are in '')

'People play hero-side because it's a better game that has more people in it which makes them feel good. People avoid City of Villains because it's the game the development team forgot, which ends up making people feel dirty for playing it.'


Yes, ok Sam..dead on the money there. Not. Its why this thread is full of people saying they LIKE redside. Basically it is why your post and Bill's are just wrong..your making all these claims that just are not true. Granted, it is YOUR opinion that redside makes you feel dirty (oh mommy, help, I got a speck on my white polo shirt, please help). Sure does not make a ton of people I know feel dirty.

'City of Villains needs more zones and it needs much bigger zones, or at the very least it needs zones that are only a portion of an island.’

Ok, obviously you enjoy those missions hero side where you have to run across 2 miles in IP..but I don’t. You can keep them. I am totally happy with my small villain zones. Why don’t you go play WoW if you are after a game that features massive zones you can walk across for days.

‘But City of Villains doesn't have seven zones because the development team thought fewer zones were "better." It has fewer zones because they couldn't afford to make more.’

So hang on..the devs thought less zones were better..but then, in your next sentence..you go on and claim it is because the can’t afford to make more? Is there any logic at all in that? Either they thought less were better, which in my opinion, is better, or they can’t afford it, because, apparently the number of zones had some direct correlation to the amount of funds they have?

‘No, it's not right for a "lesser" villain to be me, because I don't want to be a lesser villain. I'm never a lesser hero snubbed for being weak and ineffectual hero-side, so I shouldn't suffer fools villain-side.’

Never a lesser hero? Tell me..do you JOIN the freedom phalanx blueside? And no..I don’t mean just a shiny badge that changes and adds no story at all to the play. I mean, do you get an invite into the phalanx, get missions of that same calibre? No, you sure don’t(Besides Marias arc, where half the missions have you babysat by a NPC who can solo the map by themselves). But redside..you work for your patron..helping them while advancing your own goals, eventually basically become too powerful for even Recluse to pick on. Clearly, being too tough for Recluse = lesser.

‘Every contact in City of Villains treats us like low-life scum only worthy of contempt, but they are forced to lower themselves to dealing with bottom-feeders like us anyway.’

I can totally see why this is such a problem. Because redside, we are DESTINED ones. You know Sammy..destined? As in..not actually THERE yet? Obviously you feel that as a DO, we should begin the game doing super extreme hardcore villain schemes like trying to take over PC with the web device or something?

‘ I want at least one new zone villain-side that doesn't look so obviously evil and horrible, reality be damned.’

I see what you did there..apparently it is ok to stray outside the bounds of reality (neglecting the fact it is a GAME in the first place) but then you go on to complain that the island in the RI are not as big as the ‘real’ islands in the Pacific. Ah..what the? Are cities in paragon as big as ones in real life? Can you run across say..New York and only cover two miles? I guess that the in game world only has to follow, or not follow, reality, when you wish it. Not because maybe it was easier NOT to make cities and islands on a 1:1 scale with the real world.

And my favourite quote from you Sammy Boy..

‘Always a convincing argument practice, insulting your opposition.’

Then you go on to insult my arguments, that were not even directed at you, but rather Bill’s claims. And again, pay attention, I don’t care that YOU like blueside. I care that you claim to like it for a bunch of reasons that make zero sense and don’t stand up to any logic. Did you notice my arguments, or did some goats walk over your bridge? My arguments are my opinions..I like redside because..in my opinion, there is more variety in lvl 40+ content redside. Which, there IS. When you can show me that the 3 main contacts (5 if you count Harvey and crimson) in PI give more variety than the EIGTHTEEN contacts in GV, then maybe you will have something worth arguing about.

While some of the contacts are still easy to out level, Dr Buzzsaw is better, now. Since they changed the infamy badge reqs, you tend to get that badge at around 29ish, meaning you still have time to actually do her arc.
The best unlockable contact I think, is hands down, Viridian in grandville. This is one of the coolest arcs in the game, and contains just about the single BEST mission all round. Sure, the kills needed for the badge are a little rough, but it is great fun.
Also, if you bring a hero toon redside, odds are you will have some of the badges (like sorcerers) already done.

Ohh..I see. Clearly it is tips, for tools. So turning it off makes me more of a tool I guess. Thank you!

In the enhancement window (that is, clicking enhancement from your tray)...usually, when I hover my mouse over a power, a little box will show up, with the specific slotted stats for that power and their %'s. But..for some reason, on one of my alts it has vanished! Anyone know how to turn it back on? Looking over and over at the options..and nothing seems to fit.