Miuramir

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More like Banished Pantheon, as this is a necrothread. Check the date on the original post: 4/15/09.

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I believe the point the OP was trying to make was that the main Training Room server *is* down right now, and we don't seem to have gotten any warning or idea of when it will be back. TR02 is up, but there's no way for us to get characters onto it (unless you happened to have had one on Freedom before the copy) since the copy tool only copies to the main TR, and you can't move them unless you can get onto it.

My hope is that they're substantially beefing up the test servers in expectation of the likely heavy load from the upcoming "clopen" beta. But keeping us informed would have been nice.

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And do the same with the Good v. Evil Edition and the Mac Edition (usable by PC owners). Each comes with a free month worth $15, a goodie package worth $10 if sold separately; and each cost only $20.

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Note that the standard list price for the Good vs. Evil Edition at Gamestop seems to be $9.99 now, so it's an even better deal. Just got one yesterday for a friend from a local Gamestop that still had a few on the shelf, but you can also order from their website.

Note that you can only ever add one of these to any given account. Any version considered "retail" can only apply once per account; so you can have (e.g.) a MA edition, a GvE edition, and a CoV Collector's Edition all applied for full credit; but couldn't apply a second of any of them.

We just had a series of weird network glitches at work that may have some relevance to the problems some folks are having. New systems were seemingly fine, except they would have erratic stuttering in the audio, or weird domain authentication errors and other network oddities.

On a new Dell OptiPlex 960 I've confirmed that disabling the "C State" setting in the BIOS resolves the problem; I've also set the sleep mode to S1 from S3. Apparently the new greener aggressive micro-sleep settings are not handled properly and cause glitches with real-time devices such as sound and network cards. Anecdotal reports are that this is also an issue on a Dell OptiPlex 760.

It's not yet clear whether this is a problem with Dell's BIOS, the motherboard, the CPU implementation, or what. However, anyone looking to do performance gaming probably wants these off anyway. The symptoms certainly *looked* like a number of the trouble reports I've seen here, with mysterious network micro-hangs.

Disclaimer: I've not played your arc, so this is a more general response.

Part of the problem is likely to be that the toons that need the ally are likely to be the ones that don't have any way of protecting or aiding them.

You can't drop a green on them or even get them to rest, so the only way for most toons to have them back to full health between encounters is to wait around staring at the walls for minutes at a time, which many find annoying enough that they're not going to do it.

Allys are aggro magnets. Even aside from the marginal AI, solo players may be more likely to be accustomed to using stealth, or to have tactics that depend on it. This leads to the ally taking the alpha unintentionally.

Allys don't use insps. If a player toon sees a problematic encounter, they can chug an insp or few to even up things; but the ally can't.

Allys are not a renewable resource. If a player gets surprised by a difficult encounter (especially with odd custom mobs) and goes down, they can get back up or hospital, restock insps, and come back in. But if the ally goes down, there's no way to bring them back. If the "big fight" was balanced with the assumption that the ally(s) was necessary, it may not be winnable.

A significant fraction of the arcs I've played that had allies were less well designed. Adding an ally should be nearly a last resort in balancing the arc; too many people seem to chuck one in to try and cover for poorly-crafted and poorly-tested encounters. (There are some arcs where the ally is a major part of the plot; the risk there is all to often Mary Sue-ism.)

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One final step to facilitate delivery to your inbox is adding newsletter@ncsoft.com to your address book. This should ensure that the newsletter doesn't end up in your spam folder.

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The above bit is only relevant on a limited subset of mail readers under certain limited circumstances.

Many more sophisticated spam filters are based on the actual address (typically by domain) the email is coming from, not the forged "From:" field, as, well, it's trivial to forge.

Currently the email is coming from:
newsletter.newzyouwant.com
which is *actually*:
rs1.netatlantic.com

Putting "newzyouwant.com" and/or "netatlantic.com" as permitted / trusted domains may be required. I'd strongly recommend the original post / instructions add this info, or a lot of people will be missing the mail.

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I used to be with you, however now that CoX is on the Mac Platform, there is no reason, other than extreme lack of funds, to buy a Windows PC over a Mac if you don't want to study your butt off learning about PC/Network security.

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Not strictly true. As of right now, the Mac port underperforms the PC version. This is *literally* on the identical hardware; using Boot Camp to run Windows on the same laptop gives better CoH performance than running it "natively" in Mac OS. There are also a number of outstanding bugs apparently connected to memory leaks in the Mac version; a significantly higher percentage of Mac users need to use /unloadgfx regularly and/or exit and restart frequently.

The extra bugs are hopefully going to be fixed. The performance may or may not be fixable given how the Transgaming platform works. Add to that the general trend of Mac hardware being more expensive on a clock-for-clock basis, and you're taking a double performance hit per dollar.

There are some hints that Going Rogue will include a new or at least significantly redesigned graphics engine. Little is known at this point; unless you've got a lot of money to spend or an urgent need, now may not be the best time to be buying hardware.

If the new engine is much prettier but more demanding, a currently acceptable machine might not cut it. If the new engine is substantially streamlined, in combination with dropping hardware prices you may be able to get something acceptable for a lot less in a few months.

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does that mean that any character you have on live freedom is going to be on test 2 as well?

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Yes. The snapshot will presumably be during the Monday morning maintenance, and odds are high that it'll come up as a complete copy; characters, SGs / VGs, bases, everything. AFAIK it's actually *easier* to copy an entire server than be specific about it.

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Does anybody remember what they were testing the last time they copied a server to one of the Training Rooms? I can't recall.

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I believe it was base-related.

Background: They've announced that I15 will be no closed beta, simply wide-open open beta. Load is likely to be heavy.

Also, Training Room 02 has a very small number of "natives"; it was most recently a copy of Training Room (copied for the Mac Beta, I believe; and then revived but not recopied for the I14 Beta). With the possible exception of a few characters created for the Mac Beta, and some of us who played a bit on 02 because the main TR filled up during I14 Open Beta, nothing is there that isn't already on the main Training Room.

There are a few obvious reasons why they might be doing this connected to all that, with the first two being most significant:

A) The character copy tool is notoriously slow and flaky. They may be figuring that the most efficient way to handle things is to simply copy in its entirety the server with the most people on it, to minimize the number of people who need to use the tool.

B) The main thing you can't copy is bases. This might simply mean that they want as many people as practical to have access to a functioning base for convenience (teleporters, etc.) while testing other stuff . It also might mean they want to test some change that affects the bases themselves, and they wanted a large installed base ready to hit the ground running. Note that this may not be a "base construction" change per se; for instance, if they rebalanced enhancement table buffs, they'd want people to be able to test them.

C) The other main thing you can't copy is SGs / VGs. It's remotely possible they want to test some sort of change that may affect large, existing SGs / VGs. While TR has a fair number of them (especially after the prestige grant some months ago, and the copy to TR02 was after that), most are fairly small.

D) TR02 was originally kind of odd, due to the Mac Beta it was on a different code stream / patch base than everything else. (For instance, the Mac Beta folks had the AE buildings long before anyone had an idea of what it was.) They may want to make sure that it's "clean" of any remaining irregularities, and figured they might as well copy a large live server for one of the other reasons above while they're at it.

Personally, I'm a bit sad, as the people I hang out with have infrastructure on TR and therefore on TR02; I spent a fair amount of time setting up four fully functional bases (TR & TR02, blueside and redside) to aid in testing. We don't really have anything on Freedom, so we'll be limited to one server. But in a "greatest good for the greatest number" sense, it's for the best.

ETA: One can hope that this is signaling hardware improvements for TR02. It's been weaker than TR, which is weaker or equal to a standard server, which is weaker than the beefed-up hardware live Freedom runs on.

If they copy all of live Freedom to the TR02 hardware in the state it was during I14 Open Beta, the only thing they're going to be testing is how frustrated people get when they see gray dots

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Just a "by the way", you can get another wand simply by being on the team when somebody else turns in the salvage for theirs (unless that's fixed),...

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The last time we had that happen, people who had had the wand before only got one shot, with it disappearing from their tray after. If it's checking against "has finished mission" that should still be OK for the OP, but it might be something else.

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... there are all sorts of potential balance issues throughout the entire game that 1-50 co-op might cause...

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What would those be?

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Part of the problem is *we don't know*. The game wasn't designed for it, there could be a wide variety of hidden issues that didn't come out except in detailed testing.

One of the obvious ones is AT roles. The ATs were not designed or balanced to compete for team slots with ATs of the other side, and it's usually more pronounced at lower levels. That could lead to some being left out in the cold.

For instance, there's a persistent meme that lower-level and/or non-perma Dominators are already less useful than they could be. Once given the ability to pick a Controller for that team slot instead, many people have said they'd never pick the Dom. Castle is in the process of a major rebalancing of Doms right now partly to make them more competitively viable in the early game; given the time that's going to be needed to test and tune that properly, no way it was going live with I14.

Another example that comes up is that for "ordinary" content, a number people have said they'd take a Brute over a Tanker without question, and at lower levels where you can get by with less mitigation for more damage, this may be more pronounced.

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EDIT: Looking at another thread, it may be intentional, but its kinda stupid. Apparently the code is applying the difficulty setting on both the top end and the bottom end. The foes will be 1 level over 50 on unyielding, but it also makes the player level 45 - 1, or level 44. It must be a coding defect, since ideally someone sidekicked to 45 would be 5 levels off a foe on difficulty 1 or 2, and 6 levels off on unyielding and 7 levels off on invincible. However, they end up being 5, 9, or 11 levels off. Definitely borked.

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Only kind of borked. If you go in with a group that's all lower or equal to the bottom end, it works. If you go in with a group that's all higher or equal to the top end, it works. It kind of fails if you've got some of each, especially if the level range is substantial and the difficulty levels are turned up.

For a clearer example, let's look at a mission with a valid range of 30-45. Assuming difficulty 1, anyone less than 30 will be brought up to 30, and anyone over 45 will be brought down to 45. The mission will probably spawn at 45, although that may depend on who has the star. This isn't going to work well (ie, some folks will not get exp and/or not be contributing) w/o some "traditional" SK or EX in the mix. Adding difficulty affects both the bottom and the top players, and therefore ranges.

This is one of several reasons why single-level enemies (42-42, 54-54, etc.) seem to have been favored for farms; everyone is auto-smooshed into the same level barring difficulty settings.

For more normal play, you're probably wanting to either rely on traditional SKing, or pick missions that are equal to or just slightly higher than the highest person on the team, so everyone is being raised up and the difficulty is being applied uniformly. (Doing it the other way also works, but people generally dislike loosing powers.)

For example, if you've got a group of friends ranging evenly from 29 to 42 and are depending only on the MA scaling, you are probably going to get a better experience if you play missions locked to 45-50 (and hope the 28s are well slotted). You may get better results by having the 42 SK the 29 up to 41 traditionally, though, making sure the 29 is on the lowest difficulty, and picking a somewhat lower ranged mission.

tl;dr: try to either only raise or only lower people's levels, and the lowest level character may need to keep their difficulty turned down.

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Correct. No vote counts as no vote and doesn't impact ratings. You have to click 1 star twice to vote zero and torpedo someone's arc (deservedly or not).

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So as long as I don't click on any of the stars AT ALL, I'm not unintentionally 0-starring?

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Correct.

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If I've clicked on a rating, then decide I don't want to give any rating at all, is there a way at that point to do that?

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Nope, if you click on a rating and then decide you don't want to give any rating at all and so you remove that star, you will be giving it zero stars.

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What if you just close the window without clicking the big button?

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Rating a mission takes place *immediately* upon clicking a star. The big button doesn't even enter into it. You can verify this if you've got the right channels in your chat window; the instant you first click a star, you'll see the "You have rated ..." message.

Given the confusion this has caused, I'm not sure the interface is as well designed or explained as it could be.

As others have said, Assault Rifle / Devices isn't the best synergy. / Devices itself is fairly unique; like Trick Arrow on Defenders, it's arranged and plays fundamentally differently than other sets.

My opinion (from an Archery / Devices perspective) is that Devices allows you to do a lot of things that other people have problems with, partly by operating differently and partly by having some odd powers. This is great for soloing, OK to good in ordinary teams, and not so helpful in random PuGs.

For instance, the 30%-55% To-Hit Debuff Resistance in Targeting Drone helps *significantly* against Dark attackers, such as undead. 60% Perception Debuff Resistance also makes mobs with Smoke Grenade a lot less irritating. Before the MA, most non-Devices players simply avoided those sorts of enemies, so being one of the few sets that didn't have problems wasn't helpful except soloing.

I find also that / Devices helps a lot more in difficult situations. If you're mainly planning on mowing through a lot of fairly easy content, you may not be happy with it. If you want to have a lot of interesting and useful tools to deal with difficult situations given some thought and time, it's a good choice. It seems particularly useful in these times of far less predictable custom MA enemies.

I do believe that it's a bit underpowered in certain situations; the long interrupt time of Gun Drone makes it very difficult to use in 360 degree combat situations such as Rikti ship raids, for instance, and the recent removal of recharge reduction follow-through from the ranged damage sets it takes was a significant nerf, far less justified than some of the other powers that were hit.

Devices is not the "Easy Button". It's rarely the "Awesome Button" in what most people consider everyday group play. However, if you're the sort of player that rather than giving up on an unusual / tough problem, figure that if you're smart enough, determined enough, and have the right tools you should be able to win, it's the set for you.

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thinking about it, you know what makes sense is the lower level you are, the easier it is to switch.

since your 'reputation' isn't secure yet.

The higher level, the harder and the longer it would take.

maybe you have to earn 'reputation' equal to your career exp to switch sides?

that would certainly be a time sink, heh.

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Is this Nethergoat applying Role Playing reasons to game functionality?

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There's at least one similar in-game example; higher level characters have to pay *considerably* more inf for a costume change at the tailor / facemaker. Note particularly that in-game this is frequently posed as an "image makeover", something more than just a change of pants.

Given that from a public perception standpoint, changing sides is a serious image makeover, it's not out of the question that the "cost" involved will be higher for higher-level characters.

The underlying question is probably whether the "moral compass" is a simple meter (and therefore influenced more strongly by recent actions), or has weighting and possibly level scaling underneath it. There are implications of both, not all of them obvious.

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My issue is the what happens to those that dont chose to change what is there "special" for staying one side. also badges if you do switch what happens

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We don't know for sure, but based on info from the survey which has been largely correct so far, there will be special advantages to *not* crossing over:
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2.) Characters that do not wish to change sides are rewarded by becoming exemplary heroes or villains, and earning rewards not available any other way


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One of the underlying themes is "choice". You will get to *choose* the path your character walks to a greater degree than ever before, and ultimately reap the rewards of the seeds you have sown.

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Then there is the down right discust of the though of heroic MMs or stalkers or VEATS or villainous scrappers or blasters or worse kelds.

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You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but the above puzzles me. For example, what is it about being a mechanical and programming genius who has designed and built a variety of robots that is fundamentally evil? In the real world, a significant fraction of the development work done on advanced robotics is for rescue work, which most people would consider "good"; and the other large category is as weapons, which like any other weapon have no inherent moral value but are tools of the wielder. "Disgust" implies a pretty strong emotional reaction, and I genuinely don't understand why.

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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.

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I believe one of the Devs (probably BaB) said in a previous discussion on weapon customization that *at the time* they explicitly didn't want to mix damage types or even damage styles via weapon customization. This seems reasonable, as some of the existing Dual Blades moves don't make nearly as much sense without a point or edge.

Having a dual-wield Smashing set would be a logical and cool expansion; I'd personally rate it lower priority than two-handed Smashing (ie, staff) but perhaps we'll see them someday.

It's also possible that if we get Character Creator 2.0 with Going Rogue, that it'll be more reasonable to have advanced customization that covers that; it looks like we're getting a number of things that were previously impractical.

Please post your CoH Helper info here. The first thing to try is to start the game in Safe Mode (checkbox when you start the game), and see if it runs.

You should probably also look over the stickied threads on Vista problems. The game is not officially supported under Vista; many people can run it fine, but it may require a bit more work.

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The point was not that there should be an AE terminal in Pocket-D because it is thematically appropriate - the point is that since they've already demonstrated that heroes and villains teaming to do AE missions is something they like, why not allow it to happen pre-35?

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Realistic answer: there are all sorts of potential balance issues throughout the entire game that 1-50 co-op might cause, and there was *no way* to get that beta tested in the time allotted. There really wasn't even time to get the MA properly tested; we were told pretty much directly "we're going to fix the remaining bad crash bugs and then push this live ASAP warts, exploits, and all".

There's the additional problem that Pocket D is already jam-packed on some servers, and it was important to have the MA load spread out among multiple zones for the first few mad days/weeks.

Given that there were already two major zones / activities that were 35+ co-op, they could reasonably assume that the ripple effects from adding another would be small enough to not worry about too much; this seems to have been valid.

Once they go through the additional testing and balancing for low-level co-op needed for Going Rogue, there's a more reasonable chance we'll get lower level MA co-op at some point.

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However, I don't think a reasonable person would argue against the fact that since the custom critters are indeed tougher than PvE critters, It does indeed take more time to kill them mob for mob.

This is not because customs have more hit points, but because of the amount of additional damage you take and the adaptive tactics to deal with same.

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Remember that the original intent was that this was to be the custom *boss* generator. Extending the system to allow you to create custom lieutenants and even minions was a great stretch goal, but it wasn't originally intended to be balanced for this, and still really isn't.

The expected standard is a short series of missions with mostly stock enemies, and a custom boss as the "big finish". If you're *choosing* to play (design) missions that use entirely custom creatures, presumably that's because you feel the non-tangible reward of getting to fight something out of the ordinary is worth the added difficulty. If you don't like the tradeoff, pick different missions: it tells you what enemies are featured in the chooser for a reason.

Mind you, I'd certainly appreciate more control over difficulty as they develop the MA going forward. My Easter-themed mission had entirely custom enemies with color-themed attacks, and it's very hard to create a "green" minion that's not dangerous in quantity for instance. I just hope that the humor value makes the added difficulty worth it for at least some people.

It appears that the "TheOcho" ID is being tracked by the Community Digest, and that the "Moderator 08" ID will probably continue to not be tracked. This makes sense... if Mod08 is trying to close out threads, the last thing they need is more attention from being highlighted. Presumably the thought is that the person behind the IDs will now need to occasionally make community announcements that *should* be tracked.

Either that, or TheOcho is what happens when Mod08 "goes rogue"

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Everyones claiming to create these really villanious arcs, but they still seem to evade me.

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You may want to try searching using the player-created tag system. In particular, putting both SFMA (Story Focused Mission Arc) and VSMA (Villainous Self-Motivated Arc) in your search box should get you a high mix of what you're looking for. Not everyone is using these yet, but it's the best option at the moment.

As to the larger question, there seems to be two fairly different sets of viewpoints as to what "really bad / really villainous" means. Neither is inherently right or wrong, but people with differing viewpoints will react to missions differently.

One viewpoint, let's call it Type A, is that it's acting to directly increase the level of suffering of the world, preferably in a way that flaunts societal conventions. Westin Phipps is the classic dev-created example here, although he's pretty small potatoes. This is appropriate for characters who are directly or indirectly working for some sort of inimical metaphysical agenda (demons, spirits of misery, etc.) and/or for characters who want to personally feel the suffering they're causing.

The other main viewpoint, let's call it Type B, is that true villainy lies in being a world-conquering megalomaniac, or at least working in that direction. They want the nations to bow down to their superior intellect / might / hairdo, and have *all* the loot there is to have.

Ultimately, the Type A villain is concerned with making sure other people have less foo, while the Type B villain is concerned with making sure they personally have more foo. What "foo" means varies (money, happiness, personal freedom, control over their destiny, cookies, etc.) but the underlying categories hold up pretty well.

As a quick test with a stereotypical phrase: Your villain takes candy from a baby.

If this mostly makes them smile because the baby doesn't have candy, is crying, and making other people miserable; villain is Type A.

If this mostly makes them smile because hey, they've got candy now, candy is great stuff and they didn't even have to work to get it; villain is Type B.

Note that there are other sorts of motivation categories that would be classed as villains by CoH that aren't concerned with being "really bad" as the OP was asking about.

The biggest one is probably the "overthrow some level of current society to reforge it in a manner they feel is an improvement" class; we'll call that Type C.

Note that Type B and Type C may both want to take over the world, or some significant chunk of it at least. The difference is that the Type B wants to take it because it'll then be theirs to do with as they please, and possibly as a stepping stone for the next level up; the Type C wants to take it over so they can reshape it into the ideological paradise they envision.

Whether they've got what at least some might consider nominally altruistic or even "good" goals (e.g. destroy all world governments and rearrange economies so no one goes hungry; overthrow Rhode Island and turn it into a mellow pot-farming hippie commune), "neutral" or just weird goals (e.g. force all snack food companies to produce only delicious cookies; make misuse of the apostrophe a capital offense), or malicious / "evil" goals (e.g. the sooner we implant thorns into the entire population, the closer we'll be to bringing Oranbega back; lava is fun, and there should be plenty for kids to play with - soon enough the pathetic non-fireproof ones won't be an issue), the Type C villain isn't primarily in it for themselves, but for some greater goal that they believe is worthwhile or even noble. Many would therefore exclude them from being "really bad".

With the above quick test, the Type C might encompass villains who took the candy from the baby because they believe that joyless puritanism should be enforced as the law in New England, because they're a vigilante crusader for dental hygiene who doesn't care about the collateral damage, or some other "larger cause" that's not really focused on the fact that you've got more candy and the baby has less.

Shameless plug: My #4031 Casino Extortion is carefully designed to have logical motivation for both quite evil villains of several types (you are well paid by a shadowy syndicate to kill people so that their parasitic vice palaces can run unopposed) and by quite good heroes of several types (you are defending the citizenry against bombs planted in public places by a globe-spanning neo-Nazi terrorist organization, and then tracking down the mastermind behind the plot to prevent him from committing further atrocities). I went to some trouble to write a "True Neutral" arc that I think does a far better job than most of the Dev-created "co-op" content about motivations, and has a tense plot flow.

I believe it's Forest 02 that has a more open feel and the chirping birds and waterfall background noises. Despite the "forest" in the name it's more of a rocky meadow with scattered trees and a shoreline. It's the most "peaceful" map I've found so far.

You could also experiment with the various Croatoa spirit world maps; the golden haze could be part of the otherworldly setting.

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So, if you are toe to toe with a martial arts foe, will he do more damage with Thunder Kick>Crane Kick>Daragon's Tail> Eagle Claw (or whatever) than with Shuriken ... shuriken ... shuriken?

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That's an important and interesting question. I haven't gotten a chance to test it yet. The flip side is that there's a risk of Immobilize having been nullified... if repeating their ranged attack consistently gives them *more* damage than cycling through their melee attacks, you've not only made a major class of mitigation worthless, but rendered a level of tactics irrelevant.

In the normal game, if Big Honkin Rikti Sword Lost Guy is coming down the hall at my blaster, I can fire an Immob at him, and take less damage by engaging him at range where he's only got a pistol. If the ranged attack *in practice* is a higher fraction of everyone's damage output, that's a reduction in effectiveness of Immobs. If it's as good or even better than their melee, that's made a major class of powers drastically less relevant.

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So here's my driver-related question. What do the rest of you think about downloading a driver directly for a laptop? Still not a good idea in general? Or is that now old advice?

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"It depends." Frequently it's the best way for knowledgeable people to get the best performance, but you can also screw things up.

LaptopVideo2Go has a pretty good reputation on the NVIDIA side, I'm not sure if there's a similar ATI-focused current site. (I used to use the Omega Drivers myself, but that's not been updated in quite a while I believe.)

Go ahead and post your CoH Helper output here as a start; odds are someone may be able to give you some more specific recommendations.

One of the most common cause of problems of this sort is the confusion between US and EU versions. Make sure that the version you're installing, the version you've signed up for, the trial code, and your actual location match up properly.