Muon_Neutrino

Nice job lopping off the last line of my first paragraph, which contains the *reason* for what I was saying. And, yes, if you think that only the obvious stuff you can point to counts, you're wrong. There's no nicer way to put it. There is more to the world than what is obvious to your two eyes.

And the *only* thing we have been referring to in regards to buff/debuff stacking are the ones that crabs, in general, don't have in comparison to huntsmen. The huntsman is stacking *more* buffs and debuffs than the crab, which partially counterbalances his lower direct damage. The crab can't stack the same buffs/debuffs as the huntsman because they don't *have* the same amount of buffs and debuffs that the huntsman does. Even counting that, crabs still do more personal damage, yes. But they aren't providing the same benefit to the team, which more or less cancels it out.

And misrepresent the argument all you like, it's not going to make your version true. First off, I just went back and looked over the whole thread, and I can find exactly one person who actually claimed that huntsmen are 'better'; sudz, on the first page, who hasn't been back. Alysnia and I are both stating that huntsmen and crabs are roughly equivalent, with different focuses. So, first off, you can stop harping on about how we're all arguing that huntsmen are 'better'.

And second, I'd suggest you go back and actually *read* the last paragraph of my previous post, rather than quoting it and then saying the exact same thing you said before. I am saying that, *IF* you have a crab go back and take the extra leadership powers, you will then lose some of the other shinies that make the crab different - if you drop, say, serum and fortification as Devian mentions, you sacrifice the greater personal toughness that is one of the selling points of the crab. You can't just take the exact same powers with the same values and gain the same benefits because you'd have to sacrifice in your abilities elsewhere. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have all the team benefits of the huntsman and at the same time all the solo and personal benefits of the crab. And the team benefits of the huntsman *do* exist. They don't make him unambiguously 'better', but they are there.

All we are saying in regards to this is that, while the powers available to a huntsman from just primaries and secondaries aren't as comprehensive, he has the chance to make up for it by taking pool powers which the crab doesn't have room for. And despite your apparent distaste for them, there is nothing wrong with taking pool powers or the contributions they can bring.

And, of course, that's totally ignoring the things a huntsman can get which a crab doesn't have access to at *all* - namely, surveillance and build up. Crabs have aim, which is mostly as good, but build up is still better. And crabs have no equivalent to surveillance at all - a crab can't single-handedly add an extra 20% to the entire team's DPS against a single tough target.

Oh, and what ever happened to this?
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An no offense, Ragnar, but rarely do threads like this do well in the SoA forums.

I'mma say I prefer Crabspiders over Huntsmen and that's it.

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Yes, we get it. You like crabspiders. Any particular reason you decided to bless us with your reasoning after all?

Permaing spiderlings requires about 55% global recharge. If you think that qualifies as 'easily perma'd', especially with today's market, I don't think you live in the same world as the rest of us. And, if you'll notice, I'm not suggesting that you take a second copy of tactics (and neither is Aisynia if you read her guide) - it *is* redundant.

I'm not sure how the contributions of an extra assault is 'ambiguous' - 15% extra damage is 15% extra damage is 15% extra damage (and for that matter, 5.5% extra defense is hardly ambiguous either). Sure, it's not something you can point to during a fight and say 'there - that's what I'm doing' like you can for omega maneuver, but the contribution is still there. Just because you understand the benefit through math rather than your eyes doesn't make it ambiguous.

It does rely on a 'defender style leadership power', sure, but what is wrong with that? Given how absurdly powerful stacking buffs/debuffs has been proven to be over the lifetime of this game, I'd think that was a complement - it seems to have been purged, but the link in Linea's sig refers to a post by Castle where he says basically that. That's why Aisynia is likening Huntsmen to corruptors - they make their contribution more through buffs and debuffs than a crab does.

And the argument is not 'crabs cannot take leadership powers', it is 'crabs cannot take leadership powers without sacrificing some of the benefits that you'd go crab for in the first place'. There's a difference.

You know what's hilarious? Aside from your contemptuous attitude, you just echoed everything Aisynia said.

Nobody is disputing that crabs have better damage and survivability than huntsmen. The idea of the huntsman is to have *good enough* damage and survivability while bringing team-friendly buff and debuff powers. They don't have personal survivability and killspeed powers like serum or suppression, instead they bring team survivability and killspeed powers like surveillance, extra assault, and extra maneuvers (which despite your dismissive attitude, do have noticeable effects). Your crab will dish out more personal damage. On a large team, though, I'd bet that the extra 15% from the second assault, plus surveillance's contribution on bosses, will outweigh the difference in personal damage. Similarly, your crab will personally be tougher. On a large team, though, how much additional damage will the extra maneuvers allow the team as a whole to take? It's probably at least comparable.

Well, blaze has 109 DPA, but blaze is rather an outlier. Bitter ice blast has 77 DPA, which might be more reasonable. Charged brawl has 98 DPA, havok punch has 72. The current DPA of bone smasher 46, and Power burst's is 38.

To get bonesmasher's DPA on par with havok punch's, it'd have to have its damage bumped from 1.64 to 2.6 - turned into a clone of havok punch, in other words. That would bump the recharge from 8 to 14 seconds. To get power burst equal to bitter ice blast, it'd have to be nearly doubled in damage, which seems a bit unreasonable - it would then do 50% more damage than blaze. I'd rather lower the animation time somewhat on this power, although bumping it up to also have damage scale 2.6 and 14 second recharge would leave it at 46 and might be an acceptable start.

I'd also swap power blast with the 8s recharge blaster version, and give power push scale 1.32 damage (the damage appropriate for a 6s recharge blast). That would raise the DPA of power blast from 29 to 35, and make power push a credible damage power with a DPA of 43. I know I'd abuse the heck out of power push at that point, it'd be fun as heck. It would also be pretty unique among dominator secondaries as a control-esque power that is also a decent damage power. Whether we like it or not, that does seem to be energy's niche.

Plus, to be honest I'd kinda miss the knockback if it were removed. While it may not be the most useful effect (especially on an AT with a control primary), there's very little that makes me feel as superpowered as sending an enemy flying. I chuckle every time I hit/shoot someone and send their rear smacking into a wall or the floor. If I ever make an energy assault dom, I'd definitely be sad if I couldn't knock stuff over with anything but power push.

Honestly, just upping the damage and recharge on stuff would go a long way. With the multiplicity of abilities we use continuously making dpa the most important attribute of an attack, just sending bonesmasher and power blast to the blaster version would make a difference. Give power push the damage of a typical 6s blast too, maybe? Just give the set some more damage, that's all it needs IMO.

Well, by my reckoning it's a 5 second shot and a 4 second one, but who's counting? And it's not insane - it's an extremely eye-catching effect and really a highlight of the video. Totally worth it IMO. It's effort like that that really sets good work apart, I think.

Wow. They're *really* gonna have to give us a way to get more than 3 arc slots per account. Sounds like you're going to need at least 6 times that many! Maybe some of the architect badges could unlock more slots, hmm...

Hey, how about this: you post em, and we all mod em up so they end up in the hall of fame and you get the slots back. How's that sound? I already know they're gonna be good, and I want to get to play them all, darnit!

And I have to know, how the heck did you pull off that blueprint environment? It really does look like an ingame environment, so unless you went in and manually colored it you've got me stumped. It's a really neat effect.

Jeez, you're good at that. The scenes are so deceptively simple, but you manage to pack so much anticipation into them. You have a positive gift for finding extremely appropriate music, too. And I assume those phrases floating by in the background are titles of storyarcs you've got planned (aside from the last two which were issue titles)?

Frankly, ncsoft is insane for not hiring you.

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You are give the same opportunity as everyone else including other players who started on April 29, 2004, pay and play for 60 months.

The rest of your post is attempting to justify your position which is flawed by the fact I stated above.

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I really don't know why people continue to miss my point. Either you're being obtuse, or you're intentionally dodging the issue. "Play or don't play" is a non-choice; it totally defeats the purpose of the question. If someone is interested enough in the game to want the reward, they're also probably interested enough in the game to be playing it regardless of the specific reward. That's the case for me, at least.

In that case, my options are narrowed to exactly one: do absolutely nothing. How is that an 'opportunity'? What 'opportunity' did I have to get in on the ground floor when I didn't even know this game EXISTED for the first four years of its lifespan? If I want anything else in this game, I can go out and do something to get it. Want to play khelds/veats? Go out and level a 50. Want purples? Go out and make the inf to buy them. Want a respec? Go out and run a trial. That's an 'opportunity'. 'Sit on your duff for 60 months' isn't. And if I was going to be subscribed *anyway*, that's exactly what your 'opportunity' boils down to.

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But THIS world is under the complete control of a relatively small number of people who can change anything about it they like.

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You are kidding yourself if you think real life isn't just like that, in all of its hierarchical structures and organizations.

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Of course real life is like this as well. However, I specifically mentioned *right below that* the crucial *difference* between this game and real life:

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...THIS world is under the complete control of a relatively small number of people who can change anything about it they like. [u]They've proved in the past that they listen to their customers.[u]

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In addition to their track record of actually giving a darn (in general) what their customers think, I'm a voice in a lot smaller crowd here than in the rest of the world. Out there, it'd be ludicrous to think that I could even make myself *heard* by those who control things, totally apart from their willingness to listen. Here, though, it's not nearly so impossible.

BABs Back Alley Brawler BAB Castle Posi Positron Sunstorm Blue Steel Pohsyb Ghost Widow War Witch

There, I just made nearly certain that at least one dev will likely see this post. There's no way I could pull that off in real life.

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Ok, a lot of people seems to be missing my point, still. I don't object to having to earn the reward. What I object to is that I'm not being GIVEN the opportunity to earn this reward. Consider how it works for EVERYTHING else in this game EXCEPT the veteran rewards:

I can play my character to 22, fill her with 25 generic IOs, and then not touch IOs again until 50, at which point I can use the accumulated money to get sets. Or, I can put some extra effort into making money on the market and IO out at 30, therefore EARNING what I want sooner. If I don't want to wait for a freespec or vetspec to be awarded, I can run a trial or buy one on the market, putting in some extra effort to EARN what I want. If my main server is full and I don't want to wait for a vet character slot to be awarded, I can buy one, earning what I want sooner. I want to play khelds, but don't have a 50. Either I can continue playing as I do and trust that I'll get there eventually, or I can suspend my altaholic ways and concentrate on one character to get to 50 quickly, thus EARNING what I want sooner. If I decide I'm not happy with my (hypothetical) 50's performance, I can choose to expend effort on him to make money to buy purples, thus EARNING the level of performance I want.

With EVERYTHING ELSE in this game, if I want something, I can put effort into it and work towards getting what I want sooner. But for this, I CANNOT. There is literally not a darn thing I can do to get this reward any sooner than 4 years from now. Even leaving aside the distinct possibility that the game won't even exist in 4 years, I resent this. If this was a minor thing, a convenience or small perk (like almost every vet award to date has been) I wouldn't mind. But for an actual tangible benefit, which cannot be duplicated and which I would put effort or resources towards acquiring in a heartbeat if it was possible, this is infuriating. Again, let me repeat:

I wrote:
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...*that's* why I resent things which are actually game-changing (rather than simply conveniences or perks) being doled out [u]based on the one distinction I can do absolutely nothing about.[u]

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Again, I DO NOT OBJECT to earning rewards. All I ask is that I be ALLOWED to earn them, instead of having them dangled in front of me at someone else's whim, saying "We'll let you have this, eventually, assuming it's still around, and there's nothing you can do about it".

And to whoever said, "life's not fair", to be brutally frank, [censored] off. This isn't life. This is a fantasy universe to which I (and I highly doubt I'm alone) can retreat to occasionally ESCAPE the idiocies and unfairness of life. Life's unfairnesses can't really be changed. But THIS world is under the complete control of a relatively small number of people who can change anything about it they like. They've proved in the past that they listen to their customers, and so I offer my opinion. Castle, BABs, Posi, etc have the full power to remedy this unfair arrangement, and so to say "life's unfair, deal with it" is not only totally useless but WRONG. I don't have no recourse but to simply 'deal with it'. I can voice my opinion and wishes in the reasonable hope that it will at least be heard by those who matter. I don't accept 'deal with it' as an answer.

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But this is a "game changing" deal! Are you saying it should not have a downside? By doing this, you save TWO power choices and ONE pool choice. You will have a HUGE advantage over everyone else...right? From reading this thread, we've seen that the ability to save ONE power choice will be a big advantage....so saving TWO power choices and a power pool pick must border on "game breaking"...yes? That's just too much to fathom!

Surely something so BIG is worth having something not fit your costume, right? You just know those who want such a monumental advantage are going to be willing to forgo SS, teleport, or SJ.

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You're missing my point. I *AM* saying such a thing as being able to skip a prereq should have downsides. As it currently stands, though, there is absolutely no penalty whatsoever if you weren't using the prereq for anything. Those with this reward can get the benefit without paying any cost, unlike everyone else.

And, second, my complaint is that this is being doled out to only *some* of the population. Skipping travel powers entirely by relying on temps is not a "HUGE advantage over everyone else" because said everyone else has the option to do the *exact same thing*. But only those with this reward even have the *option* to skip a travel prereq while still getting a real travel power. And, again, only those with the reward have the option to save a power choice while using anything but fly.

Really, this is about the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. Unlike almost every single other division in this game (rich/poor, high level/low level, uber PvPer/newb PvPer, etc), the vet/newbie division *cannot* be erased by any effort on the part of the newbie. No matter what he does, the vet will *always* be X months ahead of him in the endless vet reward treadmill. And *that's* why I resent things which are actually game-changing (rather than simply conveniences or perks) being doled out based on the one distinction I can do absolutely nothing about. (And, yes, this is game changing. It would drastically change how I build many of my characters, and so, *at least for me*, this is a game changing ability - one that I have *no possibility* of getting any other way.) Look at the veteran rewards: respecs you can get other ways. Costume sessions you can get other ways. The temp powers are mostly conveniences to let you do faster something that you can already do (kill stuff, get places, etc) or are almost totally fluff (pets). But this, this is something you can't mimic any other way. (And, yes, I have almost the same complaint about the costume parts, but it's more of an intellectual concern for me since I'm not focused so much on looks.)

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Yes...do it now. Use the temp fly powers....save TWO power picks and ONE pool pick. Downside is that you have to renew it every so often in the Shard and it's slower. ...But if it is truly "game changing" that is a small price to pay, right? You'll have a "big advantage" over the 5 year vets...who will have to waste a pool pick AND a power pick to get their travel power. Will the game survive this "imbalance"? Who knows...but you heard it here first.

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Temp travel powers are a pain in the butt. They're slow, come with funky FX that may or may not work with your costume/concept (of all my characters who have problems fitting in travel powers, I have exactly *one* for which relying solely on temp fly jetpacks is a conceptual fit), you have to manage the time carefully, and they're sharply limited in variety. They're useful to have either early on, or as an adjunct to something vertically challenged like SS, but don't pretend they're remotely equal to a REAL travel power. And what if you want to SS, teleport, or superjump instead of fly (the only endlessly renewable temp)? "Sorry, you're SOL"? The ability to use temp travels (which *everyone*, vet and non-vet alike, has access to) does not remotely compare to the ability to get a REAL travel power for half price.

Re: Crawler
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For those who are saying "We'll never get it" then obviously this game may not be for you. When I started playing this game it was different enough that it could keep my attention and I knew I would be playing for a long time. Every other MMORPG I have tried lost my interest within 6 months. COH is still has my interest, game-time, and monthly fee after nearly 5 years.

The Vet rewards are achievable by everyone who subscribes. The devs did not put a limit on these saying only people who subscribed to the game in 2004 get the rewards. If they did that I would agree that it would be unfair. However, what they did was say look what you can get if you stay with is three more months, 6 more months, 2 years, etc.

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Unless something extremely drastic happens, I fully plan to be around for a long time. However, I still don't expect that I'll ever see this reward. You know why? Because it's still 4 years off for me, and I am skeptical that this game will still be around by then. It's not just a question of perseverance. By 2012, the game will be almost 10 years old! That's a long time, and we all know that the long term trend in subscribers is not up. My *hope* is that CoH will have been supplanted by a sequel instead of simply shut down, but either way I don't expect to ever get access to this reward.

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....but who's really going to do that? What happens when you "skip" these pre-req powers? Lets take a look shall we?

The Speed power pool requires that you "take" Hasten before SS. Last I checked, Hasten was still a very necessary and helpful power for any pvp build. So no advantage there with this vet reward. Even Flurry has become a pretty amazing power there lol (<---not sure for how long...but yea lol).

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What if you don't PvP? Hasten is useful, yes. In PvE, at least, it being necessary went away with ED. What if you don't want it because of the orange/yellow glow it sticks on your hands? What if you just don't see the need - i.e. a melee who already has a complete attack chain, and something non-clicky like wp or sr for a defense set?

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The Leaping Pool requires that you take Combat Jumping before SJ. Again, no huge advantage there, as MANY people still opt to take CJ for both the combat manueverability and the ability to cheaply slot a couple uniques into it with no fuss.

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Many do make some use out of CJ. But is it really *more* useful than whatever you could put in its place? Super jump is the only travel power that fits her concept, but my controller has absolutely no use whatsoever for CJ - I already have enough maneuverability with stamina prereqs, and she doesn't have the money to buy uniques to stick in it. I would kill for the ability to drop that power and take something more useful. Being able to find some use for the prereq you are forced to take doesn't mean that there isn't something better you could replace it with, given the option.

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The Teleport Pool requires that you take TP-Foe before accessing TP. Again, no "huge" help there either. Many people who are going the TP route find TP-Foe a VERY useful tool for them and couldn't imagine dropping it. In zones, barring cheap droners, it can be quite a handy and amazing tool. Furthermore, TP-Friend is both a substantial help in and out of pvp no matter what your preference. So no help there from this vet reward. I will state however, that the Teleport travel pool will probably benifit the "most" from this reward, but not hugely, especially not in pvp. We all remember just how "useful" TP is in pvp now with the new suppression...right?

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Again, what if you don't PvP? In PvE, tp foe is more or less a toy - you can use it, but it doesn't really give you any significant advantage most of the time. Recall friend, again, is undoubtedly useful - but is it more useful than what you could get in its place? My grav/storm is absolutely jam packed on his power choices - I have to overflow a power from my primary/secondary into the 40s to make it all fit (and that means I can't take the epics I want). Again, his concept basically demands TP. Would I drop recall friend? In a heartbeat. If I didn't simply use that to get all the primary/secondary powers I want before the 40s, I'd replace it with hover. Ever try using TP on a laggy computer? Falling out of the air is depressingly common. Hover is a wonderful tool to stop that, but *normally* it's an unjustifiably expensive choice in terms of power slots. Getting hover+TP in two power picks is a huge advantage.

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The Flight Pool requires that you take Hover before taking Fly. Once again, no problem here, even in pvp as Hover proves some decent mitigation from -fly powers. If you happen to be a flyboy(there aren't many) in pvp, Hover is a staple platform and must have power for you. Heck, even AirSup is a decent power to many, both for it's decent damage and -fly component. So no help from the vet rewards there either.

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And, yet one more time, what if you don't PvP? Air sup is good, yes. Hover is useful, yes. They're not universally so, though. I have a controller who must be on the ground to use some powers, so I don't need hover even though I have it. But I don't particularly care to engage in melee either on that character, so I don't need air sup. So, would I drop hover? You bet. What about a weapon meleer, who wants to avoid redraw but doesn't want to deal with hover's slow speed and extra end cost in combat? What use do they have for the fly prereqs?

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Soooooo.....uhm....I'm realy not seeing this huge "advantage" that some people are claiming that 60 month vet players will have in pvp.....odd. Why am I not seeing it? Because it's not there...that's why. There really is very very little advantage in pvp with this reward.

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And, again, not everyone PvPs. I'm not sure where this is coming from. I, at least, was referring to the advantage of flexibility it'll give them in power choice, whatever game mode we're looking at. I plan out builds as a sort of idle hobby, when I'm not actually in a position to play. I've seen, again and again and again and again, builds where I just can't make everything fit. So many times, I'm sitting there staring at a junk prereq, unslotted and totally useless to the character, wishing I could drop it. What overriding need does my teleporting ninja scrapper have for recall friend? What use does my blapper have for CJ when he already has the stamina prereqs? It's the flexibility not to be limited by such things that I'm seeing here.

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Now, if it was a "free" power gift, and slottable, sure, I'd see the advantage in it, however, this is not the case. In fact, I really don't see it being all that helpful or useful in pve either, at least not for Speed or Leaping Pool users, and even Fly users to a lesser extent. The pre-req's for these pools are very very helpful to any toon, be them low level or not, so skipping them early on really doesn't do much, I'd rather have them earlier than my travel powers in some cases....

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If you actually have a use for the prereqs, then no, it's not really a free power. However, saying that the prereqs are so useful that all characters would want to take them anyway seems rather... unsupported. And, again, even if they're useful, who's to say that they would be *more* useful than something you could put in their place. It *is* "a 'free' power gift, and slottable" in at least a significant percentage of situations. And that's what I'm crying foul on.

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Massive, epic FAIL. Something so profoundly, massively balance altering as being able to skip a travel prereq being doled out as a veteran reward? I thought these were supposed to be perks and conveniences, not ways for vets to ignore the power rules the rest of us have to follow.

Seriously, this is an absolutely insane change to give to just a small segment of the population. Given that this reward kicks in at 5 years, it's frankly unlikely that most will *ever* get to this reward during the lifetime of the game.

And, yes, I'm mostly annoyed that I doubt I'll ever get to use this. I have about 8 billion builds that would benefit immensely from being able to drop the travel prereq. But, seriously, this is by far the biggest thing they've ever given out in a vet reward, and frankly I think it's way *too* big to give out as a vet reward. I obviously can't say for sure how I'd react if I *was* in line to get this - I know I'd be quite interested in the options it would open up - but I'd like to think that I'd find this a bit iffy even then. Allowing just a small portion of the population to ignore such a fundamental rule seems more than a bit unfair.

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I let my updater go overnight and it finally connected, but was downloading ridiculously slow. These two tips let me get right into the action:

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If you happen to have a Mac which you've been Bootcamping to run COH, you should be able to cheat a bit on the size of the download.

First you download the Mac client from the site above. Don't run it yet, just put it in your applications folder. Then right (or ctrl) click it and show package contents.
Drill down to :
contents/Resources/transgaming/c_drive/coh/

Then go onto your Bootcamp partition and go into:
/Programs/City of Heroes
There will be a folder called piggs
This folder contains most of the bulky downloaded stuff such as graphics and sounds.

If you copy this file across from the partition to the Mac application location indicated above, it should speed up the launch appreciably as you will be spared downloading 2.7 GB of stuff.

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Remove CoH.checksum

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With the caveats, though, that:
The file seemed to be called CohTest.checksum, not CoH.checksum and
All the .piggs came through 'locked' - a small lock icon, and 'locked' checked in the info.

Once I unlocked all the .piggs so that the updater could overwrite the couple that needed changing, everything worked just fine. I spent some time bouncing around the deserted streets of RV, checking out the performance. I discovered that, while booted into XP on this computer I have to set the graphics to the second lowest setting ('performance', I think?) to get acceptable framerates, on the OSX side I can get away with 'recommended' as long as I go into the advanced options and turn off water effects, which was a nice surprise. I suppose it's because there are no updated drivers available for the windows side, so the graphics card there is running off 2+ year old drivers (2+ year old macbook pro, X1600 graphics, 1 gig ram).

And, guess what I found running around RV?
What's this?
No way!

First purple ever for me, and it just *has* to be on the test server where it's totally worthless. I don't suppose this proc is worth very much even on live, but even so it's annoying. And, yet, still pretty cool.

[edit] Also, it is just me, or are the AVs/Heroes in RV ridiculously powerful? Even after I managed to get posi to drone himself, manticore chewed straight through a shivan, a heavy, jack frost, and some random other temp pets I had all at the same time and then two-shotted me as I jumped away, losing at most 40% of his health. There are people who solo these things? He doesn't list a level, is it because he's level 54, like the heavies/turrets?

I'm happy to see that this is finally ready for the public. Now for the inevitable question... I am one of those people for who the updater never seems to work right. Under windows it hangs at 'Connecting...', counting through 30 or 40 attempts before it finally finds the server - if it ever finds the server at all. Unfortunately, it's doing the exact same thing here on my mac (#27 and counting...). On the windows side, I get around this in 2 ways: having a version of the shortcut with the '-project coh' flag to bypass the updater for general play, and opening 361764761276347 copies of the updater in hopes that one actually connects whenever I need to download an update. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be allowed to open multiple copies of the updater on my mac, which means that even if I leave it on all night there's no guarantee that it'll ever connect (if it follows the same pattern as my windows machine). Does anyone know of any workarounds for this on the mac version? (Oh, how I wish I could just download patches manually...) If there's no way to work around this, I may have to give up the idea of playing on my mac, which would make me very sad.

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soon(tm)

you bad builder.

[/ QUOTE ]Congratulations. You are now the second person on my ignore list.

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Ditto. Except for me it's the first. This is the first time I've felt compelled to put someone on ignore in order to prevent myself from being provoked into saying something I'd later regret.

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How will this affect people who have macs and already have accounts? (I dont have a Mac, I'm just wondering)

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Your game account will work no matter which client you are using.

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So, to be absolutely clear: I currently have a game account (obviously). I own a intel macbook pro laptop, which I would love to be able to play CoH on. If I buy the mac client I can apply the code to my existing account, get the 1 free month of game time, have the right to download the mac client onto my laptop, and play my existing account - with the teleporter power and costume bits - on both machines? If so, SWEET! I can't wait for the ability to play COH without all the fuss and bother of dealing with bootcamp and dual-booting my laptop into windows.

Well, they may not be co-op arcs, but on the bright side, that means that two of them are examples of that mythical species known as 'villain-only content'. I don't really much care which way the do it, as I can see arguments for both (and I play both sides anyway) - on the one hand, co-op opens up more total content for any given character, hero or villain, but on the other hand faction-locked means that each arc can be more tightly written to correspond with the usually differing outlooks of the two factions. But doing it this way is at least a bone to those who want more villain exclusives.

Um, regarding the most recent version - is there any way to get to the old 'list of powers/powersets' type display based around the categories like 'pool', 'pet', or 'inherent'? I was trying to figure out something regarding my low level stalker's attack chain, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to get info on brawl. Or, for that matter, anything that's not directly associated with an AT's primary/secondary/pool/epic powersets, like temporary powers. If I go into a specific powerset's/power's page like this one the pulldown menus still exist at the top, but if I try and select the 'inherent' category, it boots me back out to the default 'select an AT' page. I tried guessing various URL formats to try and stumble onto the page for brawl, but I couldn't figure out the proper syntax.

The AT-centric layout is really nice for general build work, linking you as it does to all the epics and pools with the proper AT already selected, but I don't think it's a good idea to totally do away with the ability to just browse the categories for the power you want. Some powers don't fall neatly into this AT-centric system.

I worked around this by getting the info in-game, but that's generally not the most convienent source if you're not already in the middle of playing (can't do it at all if I'm booted into the mac side of the computer, for example). Hopefully there's still a way to get to this sort of thing.

Oh, Arcanaville, why do we love you again? Oh, yes. This sort of thing.

The only thing I can add is that perhaps anti-accuracy should remain an internal name. Can you imagine a typical pug's confusion when he clicks on an icon in his buff bar and reads '25% anti-accuracy'? "OMGZ WHY IS MY POWER DEBUFF MY ACCURACY!?!?!?!? NERF!!!! THE DEVZ HATES ME!!!!" (with appropriate l33t and misspellings, of course ) Even if it's vague, 'elusivity' or 'evasion' would probably be a better 'public' name for the mechanic. 'Resistant defence' if we want to be verbose.

Nevertheless, that's a minor quibble. Really, ncsoft ought to hire you. Of course, then they'd have to pay you for all the awesome stuff you currently do for free.

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From the perspective of a lowbie FF player who's just speculating about the higher level powers...

Big 3 bubbles: No changes. I personally oppose lowering their defensive values, in order to keep the forcefield bubbles distinct from the sonic ones in mitigation strength. One of the defining differences between the sets is that FF's bubbles are better mititgation than sonic's are. I know that one is resist and one is defence, but in the end, they both prevent damage, and FF's in general do it better.

Force bolt: Please, don't touch it. The idea of a disorient is attractive, damage would be cool, but I'm scared that the devs would take something away from the power to make up for it, and it's really perfect as is. I don't want to see it lose its outstanding ability at juggling mobs, its core purpose, for some minor damage or a short disorient that would probably wear off before the mob even stands up.

Repulsion field: No experience with this, but I'm a bit leery of increasing an endurance cost which already seems to me to be quite high. Also, isn't PFF supposed to be the ultimate personal defence power?

Detention field: Again, no experience, but I plan to take it and I don't see anything wrong with it on paper. Making the graphics more obvious is an obvious thing to do if they are too easily missed.

Repulsion bomb: Up the damage to be roughly that of a 1st tier blast - about 36 at level 50, by cityofdata's system. Decrease activation time to about 1-1.5 seconds to allow more precise control of the knockback. Make the stun chance 100%. Increase the recharge to 150 seconds, and up the endurance cost to ~20. Basically, make it actually hit with some noticable oomph when you use it, at a greater cost and longer recharge. This also forces some slotting choices, since you might want to slot for stun, damage, recharge, accuracy, end reduction, or even knockback. This allows people to customize their power towards their own preferences, which I think is good. Also, if it doesn't already, allow slotting for damage, knockback, and stun with all appropriate sets.

Force bubble: Given the aggro this power draws, add some personal defence - ~10% ranged/aoe defence, unenhanceable. Right now, this power has only a 1% chance for mag .1 knockback (knockdown) checked every .25 seconds - the chance probably needs to be increased some. Also, increase the knockback magnitude to about .8, and add a ~25% movement (not recharge) slow to the power. Finally, make the power slottable for both knockback and slow (and the appropriate sets) and increase the endurance cost to about ~1.2 per second. Basically, make it useful in a wider variety of situations, allow a wider variety of slotting - end reduction, slow, even knockback if you want them flying instead of falling - but increase the cost so you have to pick your moments.

Personal force field: Perhaps allow slotting for resist, although I could easily see this being broken - +3% defence and even more knockback resist along with capped res *and* defence?

Obviously most of these are speculation, and probably shouldn't all be implemented at the same time. But I'm interested in seeing what people think of these changes.

Hey all,

I'm a non-computer-savvy user, and I'm wondering if I can get some help configuring my graphics settings. I'm often getting bad frame rates, even with the basic graphics slider at the second lowest setting (the lowest setting helps, but is really ugly. I can get better than that, right?). I've looked at the advanced settings options, but I really don't have any idea what any of that stuff is. Couple with that the fact that I have a somewhat older card in my laptop and I really don't know what to set.

Some info: I have a intel macbook pro, bought last summer, running XP home with bootcamp. 2 GHz dual core processor, 1 gig of memory, radeon x1600 card with 128 megs of ram. I'm consistently getting bad frame rates whenever any significant number of characters, powers, or mobs are on screen at once, or if I'm in a large and busy area like the RWZ, and huge loading stutter anytime I first enter visual range of a lot of character/mob models (think atlas' statue area) or the aforementioned large/busy areas.

I've looked at the settings in the first post, but I don't seem to have a 'catalyst control center' anywhere on my computer (I've looked - isn't it supposed to be next to the clock?). Also, some people have mentioned a 'renderthread 1' flag in the context of dual core processors. What is that, and is it something I should have? Again, I really am not very familiar with the nuts & bolts of computer settings, and I'm reluctant to futz with something that I don't understand. I understand that with my older card, I probably won't be able to run with as high of options as most people here seem to, but I have a feeling I ought to be able to get better performance than this. Can anyone give me a hand?