Shred_Monkey
-
Posts
1021 -
Joined
-
Quote:Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
The fact these at's can take down GM's was stated not only to point out how they can do things scrappers and brutes flat out cannot do, but also to show how powerful buffs/debuffs, and stacking buff/debuffs, are in this game.
If you want to focus on how ats can contribute equally to rate of completion of reward granting content, NOTHING comes even close to shifting the balance of how fast and easily something can be completed in this game as a good buffer/debuffer does, and with stacking buffs and debuffs, even more so.
Have a race to complete say the RSF, one team gets 3 scrappers, the other team gets 3 buff/debuffers, and the scrapper team will lose by a mile, if they could even complete it. And that would be true with just about any content in this game.
You're comparing all scrapper teams vs all buffer/debuffer teams. That's not the right question.
A team of 7 scrappers and 1 defender is better then a team of 8 scrappers.... AND... a team of 7 defenders and 1 scrapper is also better then a team of 8 defenders. That is a form of balance. (note: there's going to be some room for argument as to the definition of "better").
Granted, All-rad superteams, for example, are impressive and they destroy content with very little effort... HOWEVER, that's not the ultimate best team for running a record time ITF or STF, or for running regular team missions with maximum reward/minute. A mixed team is better. And that's the balance we want the game to have.
The ultimate question we're discussing here is... "is a blaster desired at all in that mix?" Some people are saying "no." -
Quote:I agree with this. The problem is the AI, not the lack of taunt. Taunt aura's should be an advantage tanks and brutes bring to a team because it helps them draw attention off of the squishies. Scrappers are supposed to lack that ability. The fact that taunt prevents runners is only an advantage because the AI as implemented is so annoying (broken or not, it's annoying).Originally Posted by UberGuy
This is my stance. I don't want more taunt auras. Taunt in something like that should serve a specific purpose either in a powerset (such as Invincibility, AOO, or RTTC's buffs that depend on nearby enemies) or an AT (such as Brutes and Tankers having aggro sponge roles). It should not be requested specifically to solve an issue with AI.
And I do contend it's an issue at some level. I'm not like some folks around here who refuse to play something that lacks such an aura, but I feel that something is wrong that anyone feels significantly compelled to make that choice on the grounds that it affects the AI behavior the degree that it does.
There are flight behaviors I have little problem with, even though they technically affect my reward rates. Mobs that run away when at low health, or after they fail to hit me for some time that's meaningful relative to their rank makes sense to me. Mobs that run away so far they lose aggro the instant I happen to damage them with a DoT effect is preposterous and should not happen. Same with Giant Monsters who run from me when I am alone and not actually successfully affecting their health.
Castle maintained that he could not see an issue with fleeing NPCs. I can't reconcile that with the number of people I know who comment on it. Here's hoping that perhaps the new guard are more open to the idea that the game is actually doing something noticeable. -
Quote:The majority of players of the game desire a balance of reward vs time, and the Dev's also seem to follow that direction most of the time. Since soloing GMs and soloing/duoing high level TFs and GMs gives practically no reward and takes many times longer then the normal method for the same reward, asking for the Dev's to make changes and balance shifts in order to allow all (or no) ATs to complete those tasks is "laughable and ridiculous."Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
Forget about comparative effectiveness, these classes and powersets can't even do some of the things these other ats and their powersets can do. I can solo gm's on one of my defenders and one of my corruptors. You've got corruptor/defender/controller/dominator duos taking down the stf and recluse sf. The only things that is truly overpowered (relatively speaking) in this game are buffs/debuffs, and more importantly, stacking buffs and debuffs. Nerfing ANYTHING while leaving that situation intact is simply laughable and ridiculous.
Dev's should be concerned about making sure different ATs can contribute equally to the rate of completion of reward granting content. That's what 99.9% of the players really mean when they talk about balance. -
I'd play a (de)buff/melee toon. I'd also like to see dominators with melee weapon options. I doubt there's a new "AT" coming anytime soon, but this sounds like a pretty good next option.
-
Quote:Blasters bring 1 thing to the table that they do better then others. And it's something that's highly valued in this game, too. The radius of their AoE damage combined with the amount of damage they do allows them to blanket spawns with big orange numbers in ways nobody else can.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
More true than you probably intended.
The problem with that statement is this:
1. It's not really true for all blast sets... it's just true for the AT in general.
2. Footstomp. It really needs to have it's radius dialed down to 10'. This 1 power makes the unique property of blasters I described obsolete.
3. Blaster AoE damage isn't all that high relative to other ATs... it needs to be turned up just a bit.
When a team is looking for more "DPS" to round out their task force, their first choice should be blaster because they SHOULD bring the most damage to a team. Right now, I'd take a scrapper over a blaster every time. (odds are, most high level teams of 8 have at least 1 if not 2 or 3 footstompers before filling that last position anyway) -
Quote:But wait... they need blasters to be the way they are so that the crowd control and taunting ATs are important.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
As an archetype, Blasters do.
-
I've always felt scrapper survivability was a little too good in this game. We're more vulnerable then tanks, but honestly, when you're jumping into full +4 spawns ahead of the tank anyway, isn't that good enough? Granted the tank is needed to keep the squishies alive, and the squishies are needed to... um... well... I think their primary role is also to help keep the squishies alive.
Let me explain my point a different way. If I had a choice between getting more surviablity or more damage, I'm going to vote for more damage 95% of the time because frankly I don't need to survive anymore then I already am. I honeslty don't mind dieing 1-2 times per play session. But damage? More damage is always a good thing. If they're going to mess with scrappers, It wouldn't bother me all that much if they took away a little survivabilty at the highest levels of gameplay. I'm a primary damage dealer and I'm extremely well equiped to fill that role. Taking away a little survivabilty that was already overkill to begin with isn't going prevent me from filling that role at all.
That said... This whole discussion is just based on false rumor anyway, isn't it? -
1. Find a target and then kick it in the head.
2. Repeat number 1 as rapidly as possible.
3. Make occasional jokes with the team about the joys of kicking things in the head.
I find this works for 99.9% of the game and generally makes everyone around me happy. -
Quote:In the real world, when someone runs away from you that generally means you win... granted if you're arresting them you have to chase them down, but if you're saving granny from getting mugged, once the mugger turns tail, granny is saved.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
In all seriousness, yes, as a game mechanic, enemies fleeing under most circumstances is incredibly annoying.
It would be funny if it were to only happen when it made sense, i.e. you land in the middle of a spawn, hit your aoe, most of the minions and lts die, all that's left is the boss and two minions that you missed... the minions bolt leaving the boss to fight you solo. That I would enjoy.
But when something is supposed to be a powerhouse of a foe runs away as soon as my reactive kicks in, I get annoyed every single time.
Furthermore... if someone whacks your leg off with a sword... even if you're not "defeated" you're not running very fast... reducing the "speed" that these guys run by 75% may be sufficient for eliminating the annoyance factor. -
Quote:A scroll that summons a CoH staff member would be pretty sweet though.Originally Posted by Tenjoy
The easiest way to summon a GM is to file a /petition. Note, however, that if customer service catches on that you're calling them in order to defeat them, they might start responding to your petitions while staying invisible.
Oh, so you weren't talking about Game Masters?
10joy -
hey... look mom... my picture is on the internet!... that blueish faded collection of 5-6 pixels to the left side... that's me!
thanks for the run.... good team... good fun. -
I'd like to sign up Gadget Monkey (Traps/DP defender).
-
Quote:But... But... we're heroes! Doing good is it's own reward.Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
That is a good suggestion Dumbleberry. Unfortunately due to my style of play (character development) I tend to be short on cash despite huge amounts of playing. Playing on Beta would only exacerbate this problem, by eating up weeks/months a year playtesting. And you get nothing back. Take a look at Arcana. I mean, wow, completely reworked the way top players look at the entire game. Nothing. There are not even nominal rewards for doing this huge amount of work. *off soapbox.
to OP: yeah... TPN feels like a bizzarre grind. I've done it once. And like a lot of trials... I'm really not sure what I was doing or if it helped or not. I'm not sure there is a solution to the problem that as a member of a 20 person team, it's pretty easy to completely miss the plotline and strategy of a trial without jepordizing the success of the trial. I find with a lot of the shorter TF's and trials, the real fun comes after doing them enough time that you're looking for strategies and techniques to complete them most efficiently and quickly. This is something that takes running them repeatedly until enough people "get it" and know what to do without lengthy instructions. Thus learning the plot and strategy generally come from finishing the trial 5-10 times... not 1-2 times.
Maybe that's not the kind of game you (we) want to play, but it does seem to be the kind of game we are playing. -
Quote:I was 11 when it came out... so I think of it as just me remembering my adolecent years... Had to look up the title, but "Greedy" with Michael J Fox was certainly one of her finer roles. I find it odd that someone who looks like that has done so much voice work.Originally Posted by houtex
Shut up you. It had Olivia d'Abo in it, and she was teh hawt... underaged at 15, yes, I admit that, but teh hawt nonetheless.
/She's not 15 now, so that makes it ok right?
//Why do you dress a 15 year old like that if you don't want men staring is beyond me...
///I'm goin' to jail, aren't I? Dangit...
-
I went to the movies Friday night... unsure of whether I wanted ot see Underworld or Haywire. I ended up deciding to go with Haywire because the theatre I was at only had Underworld in 3D and I just knew it was going to look like crap.
And I'm not just 100% opposed to 3D. 3D done well, is awsome... done bad it's terrible. Unfortunately 95% of what I've seen is bad. I think Avatar is the only movie I've seen with live action that 3D looked good (well, that's not really much live action was it?). Animated films, however, I've found often are quite good. How to Train Your Dragon, for example, was was literly breathtaking. -
How is it possible that it took mankind until 2012 to come up with something so obviously perfect.
-
I just clicked on this thinking... gee.. Isn't April 8 is a long way off to plan an outage?
-
You do realize that the badguys lose, right? I mean, the world never really gets taken over by evil, or destroyed by an evil plot.
It's just the way of the universe. There's always a quick witted ex-cop that walks across glass in his bare feet to save the chick. Frodo and Samwise manage to walk across middle earth barefoot past thousands of badguys to make it to Mt Doom and the ring gets destroyed. And after 5.9 movies of Anakin sliding toward evil and becoming Darth Vader, in the last 10 minutes of the final chapter he restores "balance" to the force, sacrifices himself to kill 1 badguy, and skippy-do-da he gets to hang out in the afterlife with his old buddies (i think he has his shoes on). There's always a happy ending. Get used to it. -
Quote:Hello 1987 =)Originally Posted by Daemodand
rocking the hell out of Poison = Stryper concert
edit: my mistake, "To Hell with the Devil" came out in 86. -
Quote:I was going to say, "bubbles... i haven't seen those in a long time." And you'd notice too, since they put a pretty obvious graphic on your toon. It's Ironic too, since all incarnate content has enemies with boosted tohit... 1 bubbler would make a very noticable difference to a lot of the squishier toons on itrial runs.Originally Posted by Kurrent
Force Field is the set that I never see anymore, other than my FF/pistols defender. Whenever I join a team with her, I nearly always get something along the lines of, "Bubbles! Wow, I haven't seen those in a long time."
Soldiers of Arachnos aren't very common, but I see one every now and then, usually on the high-end TFs or trials. Warshades and Peacebringers are much the same, scarce but out there. War Mace tanks have been very scarce, but I expect the Carnival costume pack and its new mace skins will trigger a surge in their numbers. -
Just to throw another opinion in the mix. I believe /shield toons are being more vulnerable to defense debuffs, is good thing ...working as intended. Having boosted damage, boosted hitpoints, boosted resists, AND unbeatable defenses is too much good with no risk to counterbalance it.
-
Quote:Originally Posted by Amygdala
I think I understand why you're confused.
If you've just completed a trial, you're already a part of a league, in which case if the league is going to do another trial directly afterward, the leader goes into the LFG and queues up the trial. You don't have to do anything until a window pops up with the Enter button. If there are available spots on your league and it's an open league, there will be a 90 second wait time until the pop up window appears. After everyone has clicked Enter (or time runs out) everyone is automatically teleported into the next instance. My guess is when the leader asked if you were coming, they probably meant coming to the zone. If you try to queue a trial with people out of zone it'll give you an error message saying that all players must be in zone to start.
I can't say for sure if that's what they meant but that's my best guess.
IMHO, the fact that to get into an ITrial you generally need to go to the zone where the leader is forming up pretty much negates the whole purpose of the LFG system. I didn't expect this with my first experience with the queue and the league system, so I didn't bother going to the zone where the leader was either and nobody said anything to me, just assuming I knew to do so. Then the leader said to come to PD... and finally I had to ask what PD was because Pocket D never occured to me and the location of leaguemates doesn't display so I didn't even know everyone else was in the same zone but me. -
Quote:Is it odd that the first body part that popped in my head was a female only one that happens to be spelled the same way backward and forward?Originally Posted by Schismatrix
Aluvu?
Mutpes?
Neelps?
Skcottub?
Arhteru?
Xivrec?
Lirtson? -
Quote:Just to clerify for anyone following along at home. /SR has 3 powers that can slot enzymes that would benifit from the additional defense. The teir 9 power already soft caps you so there's no need for more defense. The passives cannot slot enzymes as they don't use endurance. Quickness can't slot it.... Practiced brawler uses endurance so it can slot it, but it doesn't give defense.Originally Posted by Combat
Note, that SR actually had the most potential of ANY class to use enzymes, as virtually every power in the set could have used the enzyme side of the exploit, so it is also negatively affected.
In my building experience, /SR gets to the soft cap so easily that I have the spare slots to use 4-6 slots in defense powers and get some of the other wonderful set bonuses that come from the defense sets. Where I really use/abuse the enzymes is when working with a non-defense based set and I'm tight on slots because I'm trying to get everything I can out of my defense and resistance powers. I do frequently find myself 2 slotting defense powers or 3 slotting with 2 LoTGs and an enzyme.
I see this as similar (but less drastic) then the change to the BoTZ set. /SR isn't all that affected because the top teir /SR builds (mine at least) didn't use/abuse the enhancement. Whereas other sets were using/abusing the enhancement as part of their ability achieve what /SR does and more. -
I actually usually use the default lethal ammo so I get the -resist effect from peircing rounds (the other ammo types don't do -resist from that power). In most teams I'm on that's going to add more damage then my weak little fire attacks.