Sapphire7

Thank you for the location correction, I didn't know they weren't in the same building.

And I definitely didn't file a bug report, I know that would be futile (not to mention barking up the wrong tree). I opened a ticket on the support site, and all I've received so far is the automated response. At least they haven't taken the money out of my account yet, but I'm sure that will come sooner than the transfer at this point.

I'm just disappointed, all the free transfers worked nearly instantaneously, and here I am actually spending what I consider to be a lot of money for a transfer, and now it stops working? :[

I don't have Mids in front of me right now, but is the -Res and -Def from MM's Tar Patch really equivalent to what Defender Radiation Emission can do? (I'm guessing no, but again I don't have the numbers right now.) There was plenty of -ToHit and +Def, but that doesn't seem to matter too much to the Cysts, or at least didn't at the time. I should also point out that five (or six?) of the team members were Repeat Offenders, and only the remainder were a PuG, so it's not like we were playing with inexperienced people. I would be happy to run this more scientifically, though getting an all-MM ITF together is fairly difficult for some reason. (On Freedom, even.) At least it has been for me.

It may have also just been that group and that day, who knows? Maybe I'm totally wrong. I've played on all-MM teams (not always eight, but always five or more) probably half a dozen times. I can't really guess at how often I've played on all (/most) DefTroller teams, but it certainly feels (again, in my experience) that the DefTroller teams are more capable of steamrolling. Not that the MMs have a lot of trouble, and I'm guessing an all-MM team is going to have an easier go than, for instance, an all-Blaster or all-Stalker team, but it just doesn't seem to go *as* fast as the DefTroller team.

Again I'm totally up for a more scientific look. Maybe I'll try to organize a triple-all-MM-ITF followed by a triple-all-DefTrolCorr ITF to get a better average.

Err, sorry to nitpick, but no it wasn't.

There are either too many percentage signs or too many decimal points. The boost gives an additional 1.25%, or an additional .0125 boost. "Percent" already means "move the decimal to the left by two", so saying it's "point-zero-one-percent" is not true. ".01%" equals ".0001" boost by the numbers. Darkspeed got it (closer to) correct.

I have to disagree, here. A Perez Perk sized spawn of Hellions is going to utterly wipe the floor with my little level 10-14 bubble-fender. A level 10-14 scrapper might be okay with that kind of spawn, but (especially) low level defenders and controllers are not. So then you have to start adjusting spawn size based on archetype. And then you have to start accounting for force-multiplier effects of high level defenders. Pretty soon you're adding adjustments on top of adjustments on top of adjustments, and it gets complicated and crazy and something breaks. Instead we have the difficulty system. If you feel that the guys you're fighting are too weak, go adjust your difficulty. You have every opportunity to fight large spawns if you want to, but suggesting that the each spawn should adjust based on each player's AT and powerset choices is the wrong direction.

In my experience, an 8-MM team is not nearly as effective (at breaking the game) as an 8-Defender (or 8-Def/Trol/Corr) team. I've run 8-MM teams and while it generally runs smoothly, there's not the massive devastation that you see on the aforementioned def/trol/cor teams. Probably because of the lack of Kinetics, Radiation, and Sonic to be honest; a team of 8 bubblers wouldn't see the massive devastation either. I don't have numbers to back this up, other than a recent all-MM ITF (2 bots, 2 ninja, 1 necro & 3 mercs // 2 dark, 2 FF, 1 pain, 1 storm, 1 TA, 1 Traps) took about three hours, and we did quite a bit of face-planting in the final fight. Granted we were playing a bit sporadically (the way MMs are wont to do), but a team of 8 Defenders would have eaten that fight alive. At that point the force multiplication (I know, sorry I have to keep using that term) of eight Defenders overrides the damage output of 8 MMs without the massive -Res and -Def. I'm not making any judgment on the balance of MMs versus Defenders, I thoroughly enjoy both ATs.

It seems that the goal of the new Vigilance was to allow Defenders to solo more effectively. That was the stated goal, and this is supported by my testing between the live servers and the training room. My bubbler took over a half hour to solo a L14 mission on live, my tank took about 20 minutes: only two thirds the time. On test, the same defender took about 20 minutes to solo the same mission. This is a noticeable difference to me, and will allow me to hop on for 15-20 minutes in the morning to play a mission, whereas before I knew I couldn't even commit to one whole mission with a Defender.

Even with my TA/Arch, I see a difference. She doesn't have the self defense that my bubbler does, and yet it was often a case of "whichever one of us gets the next hit in, the bad guy or me, is gonna win this fight." And because Defenders do so little damage on live, the bad guys would win the fight. Doing just a little more damage makes up for the lack of self defense here, because I can kill the guys with enough additional speed that it keeps me alive.

I realize this solution doesn't make everyone happy, but it works for me, so I have no complaints at all. I'm sorry not everyone sees it that way, but that's what makes it so hard: the Devs can't please everybody.

This is why I have one, and exactly one, badge toon. If I allowed myself even "a hero and a villain" I would end up driving myself insane!

While I understand the idea of telling the player-base that these venues exist (so they can be "friended" and therefore gain more visibility), I very much agree with the sentiment above. Please don't release things on twitter and facebook that I can't find here - I don't have an account on either facebook or twitter and I don't want to. I know I'm missing out on the latest gossip from the Devs, and that really makes me sad, but I am not going to sign up for every social networking site that springs into existence just so I can stay updated on this game. I expect the info to be HERE.

I like the fact that it is opt-in (NOT opt-out), so people who don't want to see the ads aren't bothered. That being said I feel like many people here: Anything that gives CoX more money makes me happy, so I opted in. Once I opted in I saw plenty of the same (non)ads that had always been in the game. I saw one actual ad on a billboard half-buried in the ground in Eden.

While I don't want to see ads for Viagra or diapers, I'm totally fine with mainstream products (soft drinks, snacks), computer products/websites, and anything that pertains to the game. And I'd be more inclined to buy products who spent their advertising dollars in City, because then I'd know I was helping to support the game.

I'm not sure about copyright issues using that format (I would guess Apple would probably be pretty .. uh.. controllery on that issue) but a short, awesome TV commercial could do wonders. But that's the tricky part, it really has to be awesome to be worth the money. People who have never played the game have to look at it and say "... Wow. THAT is COOL." I think we have prettier graphics than WoW (especially now with Ultra Mode), and character customization is HUGE, so those could be good starting points. The character creator is what got *me* sucked in the game on my friend's account back in May 04, twelve days later I was at the store buying my own box. City is definitely a game for people who like to customize.

Like I said above, a TV commercial would have to be MADE OF AWESOME. However, ads in comic books or, as someone pointed out, before comic-book movies would be VERY effective.

OH MY GOD. SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE! (Thank you Paragon Studios!! <3 <3 <3)

As I understand it, the character in the game becomes the property of Paragon Studios. I think if you then tried to publish something with your character (outside of the game), you could potentially get sued. Not that I think Paragon would take such action, but in other words, don't put your original characters into the game. On other hand, if you've already published a character and own the copyright, you would probably still be reported and generic'd, and would then have to prove that you're the copyright holder, at which point they may or may not let you use the likeness again, but at which point you would also probably face repeating the incident if someone else reported you. I'm no expert, but that's how I understand it to work.

Seconded. How about the fact that anyone who isn't already online has no idea what CoH is? How about the fact that the only reason *I* play this game is because my roommate had it, and he got me hooked? (And likely the only reason he knew about it is because he preorders and plays just about every online game that comes out.) And the fact that if he hadn't, I still would NEVER have heard about this game from ANYWHERE I EVER GO. I have never seen ads for City on any website, never seen a commercial for it on TV, and in fact would have no idea this game exists except for one person having shown it to me.

*That* is marketing fail.

(And I love this game. I am SO HAPPY to have found this game, slim as the chances were!)

Having re-read your description, I am convinced that neither a team of Blasters nor a team of Scrappers would be able to defeat your AV, regardless of the number and type of inspirations they happen to have on them at the time. While the AV is spamming a massive-damage AoE, the scrappers will take turns running up to the AV and... face-planting, perhaps having been lucky enough to get one or two hits in. Insp trays are only so large, how can one carry enough to fill all the niches required by this specific AV?

Let's examine an AV I think they did right: Rommy. He has three "pets" which have various functions. The pets are very hard to kill on their own, nearly impossible to mez, and if you really want to drag them away from Rommy you need two serious taunters. However, killing the nicti individually is *possible*, which is good since sometimes Rommy gets out of Line of Sight at the last minute, and then you're stuck with these really hard-to-kill things. Ideally though, a group kills Rommy four times, trying to mitigate the nasty effects from his pets, and then lets Rommy take out his pets one at a time each time he himself is killed. While it's still a hack-and-slash fight, there's room to fiddle with the idea. I haven't done the 5th Column TF red-side yet, but I take it that the Reichsman fight over there has something of a technique to it too.

I'm not arguing the point that we could use more interesting fights, but I don't think the one you described would be interesting - at least not to me: it would merely be frustrating. It's not the death or debt.. I've been playing this game since live launch, my first toon was a blaster, and she spent her entire career until the mid-30s either at or near the debt cap (which was five bars at the time, and there was no debt suppression for any reason what so ever). It's not because she had debt that I hung the character in the dark recesses of my closet with no intent to return - it's because she could do NOTHING ELSE besides die. She wasn't an effective Blaster. I have since learned enough to make her much more effective (THANK YOU MIDS, AND LIZ!) but at the time I would get *so angry* because she couldn't kill even kill green- and blue- con minions, because she was too busy eating floor. That's what your fight sounds like to me: unless you have a meat shield, someone with an anti-mez power, some ranged damage, and an otherwise perfectly calibrated team, you're just not going to win that fight.

Anyway, we're in agreement that more interesting AV fights could only improve the game, it just boils down to how it's implemented.

Are you suggesting that there aren't enough logical floor plans in existence to make entering a mission more random/unpredictable? So you could walk into any single-family home in the country and know exactly where the bathroom (glowie) is, and exactly where to find the homeowner (boss)?

I love designing floor plans, I can think of plenty of creative layouts for office buildings that provide a realistic environment, while still producing a challenge to anyone who wants to find an object or boss.

I whole heartedly agree (and RedLetterMedia is hilarious, for anyone who has time to kill you can spend hours laughing your butt off to his stuff!) The buildings make no sense what so ever. (How many labs/warehouses have long hallways that lead to nothing but a dead end with nothing in it? *boggle*) Does that detract from my enjoyment of the game? I dunno, I haven't played an MMO that had realistic floor plans, but I do know that it affects my behavior. I don't search the teeny side-rooms because I know there's nothing and no one important in there. I know I can skip certain areas because they never hold an objective.

Honestly I don't understand why we can't have more realistic maps. I've worked at several locations that would make fine (and interesting, and challenging) mission maps. I think using more realistic maps would also help prevent people from getting lost, and would be easier to "mix it up" as far as glowie/boss placement. The only "restriction" is that each floor would have to be roughly the same shape, and elevators would be able to access all floors. But since the main boss could be on the middle floor, you'd still actually have to search!

I'll add that to my list of "nice to have"s ;]

Yes thank you, exactly. Draxion's idea not only requires a specific team build (something the Devs have tried to avoid), it would also have one specific strategy that a team of 8 people would need to either look up online, or face frustration until they solved it. At least with the Hamidon encounter you have up to 50 people (some of whom have probably done it before, and will take the lead), and the "requirements" are that you have both melee and ranged damage - not specific powers, power sets, or ATs. And Hamidon is the single largest encounter in the game, to which an 8-person AV fight cannot be compared.

I'd like to see more complex AV fights (rather than the "bag of HP" fights, as others have described), but I don't think Draxion's idea as described would be anything other than frustrating, and would result in the exclusion of specific ATs/power-set choices.

Someone once told me to turn off the display of other players' names, this helps a lot in laggy situations. I also sometimes turn my graphics down to minimum for the last two ITF maps - the game isn't pretty, but everything looks like it's moving in fast-forward. At those times I *only* get power-click lag, and get no loss of frame-rate at all. It's wonderful, if terrible to behold.

I'm seeing excellent ideas for puzzle and non-combat options here. And of course the general consensus is "Some people like the idea of puzzle games, and some people hate it." So let me ask - did everyone (or even a majority) of people have to pipe up and say they wanted PvP for it to be introduced into the game? No, it was introduced because as an MMO, I guess PvP is expected to be in the game. And given the number of examples of other games, I think it's fair to say that having non-combat XP options is a reasonable request. Obviously it would need to be done in a way that is optional - they didn't force PvP on everyone, and only people who want to participate need to. And so, there could be puzzle missions that are turn-down-able, or avoidable (maybe only specific contacts give out only puzzle missions), or what have you. I agree that people who merely want to hack and slash should be able to do so, but there should also be an option for those who want a different approach to heroing/villaining.

Exactly. Look at it this way: How often do you go look up spoilers for a movie before you watch it? Unless you're going to an advanced screening, it's entirely possible to know the entire movie without having ever seen it. But do you do that? No, you want to experience the movie for yourself, so you avoid spoilers. Puzzle games would be the same way - I'm sure some people looked up how to solve the Midnighter puzzle without trying to figure it out, but I quite enjoyed the task myself.

And by "an XP reward" I meant like 10 or 50 XP (the same you get from exploration badges). Not enough to make it worth farming, but enough that players have a reason to do the puzzle again, should they so desire.

(EDIT) And I prefer that Page Down only reset yaw, and not pitch. Or if they change it, I'd like to retain the ability to have a key that only resets yaw. I tend to view the game from a slightly top-down angle, and use Page Down a lot ... if that functionality totally went away, I'd be rather miffed. :P