Sardan

I was struck by the fact that people tend to request teams in broadcast while inside the AE. I mean, these folks are standing 20 feet away from each other and spamming broadcast. I think that the broadcast channel should not be selectable for sending when you're inside an AE building. Local works just fine and would have the benefit of reducing the annoyance factor for folks outside AE.

Of course, if this was done, people would probably start spamming the Request channel instead of Local. *grumble*

[ QUOTE ]
There is no way of knowing how direct competition will affect the subscriber base. It's entirely possible that with not one but two upcoming major titles targeted at CoH/V's niche demographic, we could start to see significant population dropoffs.

[/ QUOTE ]
At the risk of sounding like the Pollyanna "I'll never admit the game can die" player that you mention elsewhere in your post, I think another possibility is that the competition will establish the niche and attract more players in aggregate. A few years from now I don't know if COH will be thriving or on life support, but I feel confident that there will be more than the current 150K-ish players playing superhero games in total.

[ QUOTE ]
What's a 'High Powered' programmer?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's hard to explain. It's easier just to see:

A young high-powered programmer in mid thought.

High-powered programmer's cubicle.

What high-powered programmers drive.

I know that this thread is focused on survivability, but the one thing that annoys me about Willpower is either that set has a taunt aura that most WP tankers dont take, or its taunt aura is somehow weaker or pulses less often or something. With my Ice tanker running his taunt aura plus his damage aura, I can run through a couple of groups and reliably hold aggro. When I'm on teams as a squishy along with a WP tanker it's common for them to not grab aggro well unless they Taunt.

Can anyone chime in to say if this is a real phenomenon? Or am I imagining it?

[ QUOTE ]
AI Revamp. Make enemies smarter.

•No more of this silly, Blow up mob 1 with mob 2 standing 20 feet away and doesn’t notice you.

•AVs make decisions based on more factors. For example, AVs should be smart enough to know to take out the debuffer first. (If implemented, AV’s might have to be made weaker though.)

•More chasers. i.e. they chase you if you are hurt.

[/ QUOTE ]

Revamped AI is very, very tricky. How much more challenge is too much? For example, it'd be most effective for mobs to always concentrate all firepower on a single player. Knock him out, then switch to a second player. Wash, rinse repeat. How would you feel if you were the Emp on a team and every single group tried to kill you straight away? Or if the AI had a rule that said "always target the most damaged player". Again, quite sensible if you're rooting for the AI but I guarantee players would hate that. Less drastic changes could work, like have a 10% chance that an LT in a group will try to run to an adjacent group for help (i.e. chain aggro).

I could see having more sophisticated AI in the often-discussed future space zone that's intended to be a place for level 50s only. If they combine that with the Universal Enhancement Slots concept that was outlined in last August's leaked player survey, it would make sense to have enemies that are more challenging than what you faced earlier in your career.


[ QUOTE ]
Make environment a tool for players.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's a neat idea but a complete revamp of the combat system. I could see that for a COH2, but not as part of an expansion.

[ QUOTE ]
Make clothing and armor matter.

[/ QUOTE ]
No way. This isn't WOW. I don't want the game to have +5 Helmet of Awesomeness. In those other games, powers come from equipment. Here powers are completely separate. I'd like to keep it that way.

I would like to see more prestige costumes. Like the ability to unlock costume parts that could have built in glow like the glow points in Arachnos soldier costumes. But that's eye candy, not buffs.

[ QUOTE ]
Tradable powers. i.e. I could trade Time Bomb for a power from a list of developer pre-tested / pre-approved powers.

[/ QUOTE ]
Again, that's a completely new power system. COH2 maybe.

[ QUOTE ]
Craft-able specialty inspirations. Imagine being able to craft a single inspiration that gives you +dmg AND +acc.

[/ QUOTE ]
As long as they're rare, fine. Much like the often-suggested +Recharge insp, they have the ability to make all content too easy if they're easy to get.

[ QUOTE ]
More drama within new content

[/ QUOTE ]
I think that the Praetorian story lines and the fact that they have to come up with stories that justify switching from good to evil or vice versa pretty much guarantee that Going Rogue is going to have plenty in the way of drama.

Very interesting thread. I was dimly aware that Invuln had been reworked but I didn't realize it was now so strong. Good to know.

It appears to me that it's hard to rank what's best overall. Yes, Granite is toughest but it comes with some pretty severe restrictions. For any sort of objective ranking you'd really have to set up particular scenarios (and we can really do that now via the AE, instead of just waving our arms) and then any restrictions, if any, with regard to slotting. A build that someone has spent a billion inf on just can't be compared to an SO build. To further complicate matters, primary can have a big affect on how effectively you tank. An Energy Melee tanker hits hard but doesn't have the mitigation tools of Stone Melee.

I have very limited experience with tanks. I had a burn tanker back in the Dreck days. I know that when I ran normal missions with him he had a hard time tanking on 8 man teams until I respec'd him into Tough. He's retired now so I don't know how much stronger he'd be with IOs.

The only tank I've created since then was an Ice/Stone. Stone is an End hog, but Energy Absorption cured that. I invested in soft capping him, and he's incredibly fun. No self heal in the conventional sense but he has Hibernate and he can pop that, heal up all the way and emerge without ever having lost aggro.

I guess we can chalk this up to a lack of imagination on my part, but I just don't see why a personal nemesis system is so wonderful. OK, you get to design a custom bad guy and give him a backstory that works with your character. I get that.

But then, what, he pops up once in a while? Like instead of defeating some random boss the game slots in your custom nemesis. Anything else? We face bosses at the end of every single mission. So once in a while it's your very own boss, and by the way you know his powersets so he's even less of a surprise than any NPC boss. I just don't see what the excitement is, unless it's just a way to show off to your teammates, "Ohhh, look everyone the boss at the end of this mission is MY nemesis! Isn't he cool!"

I'm not saying the system can't work, I'm just saying it appears to be unexciting.

Besides side switching, Praetoria should be a ton of new zones, not just one, if we go by the experience of our only previous expansion. In the leaked August survey (which is now looking pretty damn accurate) it also mentioned a new costume creator that will allow power color customization, and a ton of new missions that will be used when characters want to change their moral compass. May involve a new Spy class, too.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Try as I might, I can't come up with anything but 46 each time I count.

[/ QUOTE ]

The cameraman perhaps.

[/ QUOTE ]

The cameraman actually is Nemesis who opted to remain anonymous and unseen. So there's another +1

[/ QUOTE ]
Fixed.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't think so.
I'm still from the school that "influence is from doing heroic things and infamy is from doing bad things."

I think when you take a character across the line, you should loose all the inf you have.

[/ QUOTE ]

If that's how it works, it guarantees that I will never, ever move a character over, unless it's a level one.

I believe there are lots of people like me. Not a majority, I think, but I believe a large minority, and many of them aren't wildly rich marketeers. Pulling that stunt would be the devs cutting their own noses off in the name of RP considerations. I think it would be a wildly dumb mobe.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think they're doing it out of RP considerations. I believe Posi made a comment during one of the anniversary get-togethers that he still thinks the influence-infamy imbalance justifies keeping the markets separate.

But even if they don't merge the markets there will be a lot of folks doing the crossover thing, so it should be very easy to find people willing to do inf exchanges. So never say never!

[ QUOTE ]
In the last interview I read, Posi said that they have over 50 employees now and were getting ready to take a new company pic. I haven't seen the new pic yet.

[/ QUOTE ]
They also still have 12 openings.

Suggestions from the thread from about a month ago:

[ QUOTE ]


Lachlin - player is in "sound" range of the glowie, an icon appears on the map

Me - have an icon appear in the health bar window like the proximity icons used for day job locations

AkuTenshiiZero - a small window with a sort of pseudo-radar, which pulses with increasing intensity the closer you get

Jack_NoMind - I think a UI element with an increasing/decreasing glow would be good; it's less distracting (and less easy to immediately 'read') than a pulsing light, and so serves the same function as the increasing/decreasing volume.

CorolinaR - Remember last years April Fools joke? Replacing sound with comic sound effects? Put that in the game as a 'Hearing Impaired' option. The glowie detector could operate when that mode is in effect, but not when it isn't.

Neuronia - making glowies brighter somehow might help...

NewJerseyDevil - possibly it would be some sort of buff aura coming off the glowie to show up in the buff tray, and could stack and show multiple symbols as you get closer to it

FriendlyHelper - I enable the Doppler effects to help me find the glowies. Years ago, the glowie sounder was changed and I couldn't hear them for weeks.

DarkSideLeague - I had an Idea of an inherent power that would allow you to see through walls (the outline of the glowies would appear).

CatAtomic - I think a little mark in the navigation compass would do the trick nicely, kind of like the "how to get out of here" beacon when leading a hostage to the entrance.

DakotaSunrise - Maybe a sonar-like "blip" in the Navigation window or as a status icon?

Arcanaville - use a console graphic to visually notify when you are within a certain range of an audible blinkie to support people with limited hearing is an excellent idea. There are, of course, minor quibbles over the details (blinking, size-variable, absolute range, etc) but the principle is sound game design.

Feihung - How about the cursor changing when near enough to "hear" it. Make it change it glow or pulse a little.

Hertz - They could just make the glowies shout "Woo woo woo!" every few minutes.

Or they could make the character say "It's got to be around here somewhere!" to himself (in the same way he says, "I'm getting too far away from my mentor!"). And when he gets out of range of the glowie, he can say, "I'd better keep looking."

ClawsAndEffect - I kinda like Hertz's idea about having the character think something to themselves when near it, and think something else when they start getting farther away. It would serve the same purpose as the other ideas and probably be easier to implement so they could possibly do it between issues.

Also would be open to customiziation so you could have you character think "It's got to be around here somewhere" or (like what I'm usually saying IRL) "Where the hell is the &#%!*& thing?!?"

Rachelthulu - How about making glowies act as friendlies with a series of point blank area of effect buffs that ignore line of effect, each with a progressively smaller radius?

Have the buffs do nothing, but they stack with each other. So as you get closer and closer to the center more icons appear as 'effecting' you.

Boxxy - I for one would love to have something on the map pop up or some notification that there is a glowie/blinky/object near by.


[/ QUOTE ]

Macskull, I only very occasionally PvP so I can't comment on the details of your proposed changes. I just gotta say I applaud the detailed suggestions, the reasoning, the examples, and the calm tone of your post. I sure hope a redname posts or PMs you to ackknowledge that they've read it. You might want to PM a link to your post to Posi or Castle if their mailboxes aren't full.

The OP's suggestion would've been a perfectly legit direction to take MA when they first unveiled it. However, that ship has sailed. No way they're going to change it now. Pointless suggestion at this stage.

[ QUOTE ]
-I would probably use English for the power names. I would do this because of how popular Harry Potter is. I know the Harry Potter characters aren't the only ones to use wands or pseuolatin, but it was the first thing to spring to mind.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think the latin adds flavor to the set. Of course I am probably being swayed by the fact that I'm feverishly working my way through the insanely addictive Dresden Files books, and he uses pseudo-Latin for his magic too. (The character also readily admits it isn't real Latin, and has an amusing but internally consistent explanation for it.)

Rather than a Delete All button, I'd rather see them add better controls to email. Like an option to shut it off entirely, and an option (on by default) that would allow email to only be received from friends, those in your SG, and those in coalition with your SG.

I'd certainly like cross-faction trading; dunno if they can allow insps without also allowing influence/infamy (which they don't want to do). It'd be very nice if they added insp gifting/trading though. Add the ability to search for the other faction when in a co-op zone.

Here's a list of search window enhancements I've been keeping:
<ul type="square">[*] Searches should never include players already on teams and solo players in TF mode (e.g. Ouroboros flashbacks).[*] Level range increments should be by 5's, not 10's. [*] Player ratings (stars) should show up in the search window.[*] GIgnored players should not show up in searches.[*] The Origin filter should be removed.[*] The window should be resizable.[*] The list should never be truncated.[*] When in a co-op zone, allow me to search for characters of the opposite faction.[*] When searching by name, match against any part of the name, not just the start of the name. [*] Remember my settings from my last search. If someone drops from the team, it'd be convenient to do a new /search and have the options already set for me from last time. It doesn't have to persist after I log off, but make it persist during a game session. [*] Make comments searchable. About to do the Nightstar Praetorian AV? Search for people needing her for the Portal Jockey accolade.[*] Add a "Looking for AE missons" flag. [/list]And here's the most radical request: a "team looking for more" capability. Several games already have something like this, for example WAR's "open party" system. I see so many people who don't want to own the star to build a team themselves, but they
aggressively try to get onto existing teams. Those folks are the ones broadcasting "lvl 30 scrapper lft" and even sending tells asking to join teams. With a Team LFM function, they could browse teams that had openings.

The team lead would use radio buttons like the normal search window to set allowable opt-inparameters; anyone outside the limits he set wouldn't see his team listed when they searched for teams. For example, if the team lead was OK with anyone joining he'd click the "All" radio button under AT, but perhaps he wants more support, he could click "Tank, Controller, Defender". If he did that, only those 3 ATs would see his team listed when they searched. Similarly he could set an acceptable level range; if the team had mentors he might pick a wide range but more often he'd want to filter to a narrow level range.

Lastly the team lead could type in a short comment so folks looking for teams could see that the team was doing; some people would like to avoid teams just grinding scanner missions so the comments would avoid unpleasant surprises. And just like some people reject blind invites, people would learn to be wary of teams that filled in nothing in that comment field!

A related suggestion: add $Difficulty and $Zone variables to compliment the existing $Level variable, to enable invite macros like this:
/macro Inv, "t $target, Want to join us running a level $Level $Difficulty mission in $Zone?"

As others have noted, the devs have dropped repeated hints that power customization is on the way. The problem is there's no telling how far away or how deep the customizations will be. Like, would it allow only tinting the colors of f/x? If it allowed things like beams emanating from your chest instead of your hands, that's a *bunch* of new animations. Would it allow things like a trail of ice particles for super speed rather than just a different color glow? I know it's pretty much pointless to speculate but it's comforting knowing (well, okay not knowing but believing) that they're working on it.

EDIT: one other thing I'd like is an updating of zone graphics. Posi mentioned that he'd rather do new zones than revamp old ones, but he was talking about Faultline-type revamps. I'm talking strictly about things like putting new skins on existing buildings to give them more detail. I would guess this type of thing could be done en masse to the various textures and bitmap files so the zones would look crisper.

[ QUOTE ]
thats not a bug. thats what is known as a hex editor. a third party program if you will.

[/ QUOTE ]
I doubt they're using a hex editor. You could only do that on the files on your local machine, but I would imagine the server is what keeps track of your global. That's why you can't use any sort of an editor to "dup rares" or do travel power hacks, because these aren't client-based data.

[ QUOTE ]
I stayed for a while, just standing near the lvl 1 plain looking spammer and watched as he spammed, changed name and @global 4 more times!

[/ QUOTE ]
That's a heck of a bug. Good catch! And I concur -- I'd PM a dev or two for sure.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And the Holographic Decoys would be cool if they used a copy of the player's skeleton &amp; costume, but with ultra desaturated colors so teammates wouldn't be confused.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that's possible.

[/ QUOTE ]
Do not incur my wrath by pointing out limitations in the game engine! I'll pull this forum over and smite you!

Sounds like fun. It would be neat to see some different animations for a new blaster set, like missiles fired from the shoulder or a beam emanating from the chest instead of the normal "stuff coming out of the hands" animations. And the Holographic Decoys would be cool if they used a copy of the player's skeleton &amp; costume, but with ultra desaturated colors so teammates wouldn't be confused.

[ QUOTE ]
I decided to make a post of what players would like to see in a City Of Heroes 2 If NC Soft actually got their heads out their collective.....

[/ QUOTE ]
That's really a sad way to start a post. The devs have enough brains to keep many players subscribing for multiple years in a row, and have introduced several industry firsts in this game.

How about you go and design and produce a profitable MMO that makes this game look like rubbish. After that, I'll absolutely join you in denigrating this dev team. Lotsa luck with that.

I'd like to see rooting removed from toggles where it was kept because of a seemingly arbitrary decision to have defensive toggles not root but offensive toggles like Hot Feet root.

But the amount of coding and animation required to remove ALL rooting just boggles the mind. Maybe they could do it in a COH2, but even then they'd have to have a breakthrough engine that handled the tweening on attack postures to an unprecedented degree, e.g. it could handle starting from any pose and pull off a punch or kick by dynamically deciding how to move the character skeleton.

I'm sure we'll eventually see this in a game engine, given that CPU/GPU/physics processing power keeps scaling up.

One nice thing they can easily do with Pocket D is adjust the threshold of how many characters are allowed in before creating a new instance. That makes them better able to control lag compared to an outdoor zone like Atlas. An outdoor zone can be well under its max character threshold yet still have enough players clumped up to trigger slideshow-mode. So I'd say if lag is a concern, that's all the more reason to have it in Pocket D instead of in normal zones. It also lets people more easily ignore it if they don't want to participate.