Starsman

Jade is right, the most skilled ever scourger would indeed get the results from the .6 table, and then again that is if he is a rad or is willing to waste endurance from AoE, but that second option would be highly counterproductive. After all, using your lowest damage attacks tend to also mean your slowest ones, at that point you are not optimizing for damage but for endurance efficiency.

The 1.0 table is the most realistic one to look at because that’s the weakest attacks most blast sets have.

Again, do note that if you want to maximize scourge for kill speed, you may desire to spam that damage even if overkill (everyone does overkill after all, that is unavoidable so you won't be on a true disadvantage.)

Trying to maximize for scourge usage only results in better endurance/damage ratios, not faster damage.

As for adding a true attack chain calculator to the mix (right now i just test spamming one attack without recharge or cast time or regeneration) may help to compare how scourge may benefit some sets more than others but also would require a much more complex combat simulator code that would take a lot of time to develop.

Scourge Quantified

Scourge will do damage based on how much HP the foe has left. This makes quantifying the benefit of scourge very difficult, but I was determined to quantify it, as I needed that quantification for future projects. This guide lists the methodology I followed to arrive at this quantification.

The Formula

The formula to calculate scourge is the following:
MINMAX[(Health% - 10) * 100 / (50 - 10), 0, 100] < rand() * 100

In simple terms: once the foe hits 50% hp, he starts to gain a 2.5% chance to scourge for every additional percentage of hp lost until it reaches 100% chance at 10% HP.

Expectations

I browsed the forums to be prepared with a bit of experienced player perception. One thing I gathered from many posts was that everyone agrees that a high HP foe will have more chances for scourge, while low HP ones, like minions, may rarely see a useful application of scourge due to how little time they spend on that HP rate.

So, whatever I do should reflect that minion combat benefits less from scourge and higher level combat also should benefit more, and finally, usage of high DS attacks should see less benefit from scourge.

Although this is an expectation it’s not a goal, I’m not attempting my process to achieve this, but if it does, it will be a good thing.

The Methodology

At first I figured I’d come up with some super smart formulae that would allow me to see how much, in average, Scourge would grant. There are so many variables though that even if I came up with the formula, I’d have little way of testing it. So instead of coming up with a formula I decided to start another way, I went through a procedural approach. This means I wrote code with logic that would simulate a player using one attack against a specified critter until it died, all the wile collecting overkill and scourge proc information.

This application takes various parameters and runs automatically for various level ranges. The parameters are:

• Rank: This modifies if I’m fighting a minion, boss, AV, or even a GM.
• Damage Scale: For simplicity I don’t simulate an attack chain, instead I just use one attack that has a fixed damage scale, and no recharge or cast time. The idea is just to quantify attacks, not time. This also means that regeneration is not accounted for, although if anything, I theorize it will just smooth things and reduce overkill rate.
• Enhancement: I can change this but by default I use 95% damage enhancement. The code automatically will convert this to DOs and TOs depending on the level range, and entirely ignore enhancements from level 1 to 9.

I wont go too deep into the code other than say the program will attempt to kill 100000 foes of the specified rank for each level and then accumulate the following stats:

• Total Damage: This is how much damage was tossed, includes what you attempted to do, overkill, scourge, anything that came out of you before the foe hit zero.
• Damage Applied: This is how much damage you activated, this basically ignores scourge.
• Overkill Damage: This is the total damage that went past zero. Scourge is accounted in it, as is overkill caused by regular attacks.
• Scourge Overkill: This is the total overkill caused by scourge. This one is tricky. If the foe has 2 HP, and the attack is for 3 points of damage, and you scourge, you do a total of 6 points of damage, but it won’t consider Scourge to have done overkill because the base damage overkilled first.
• Attacks used: This is the count of attacks that were used the whole fight.
• Scourges: This is the amount of scourges that took place during the fights.
• Scourges Wasted: These are scourges that did nothing; the base damage killed the foe.

With these numbers I then go to Google Docs and do some comparison to get some averages and try to guess, in average, how much scourge helps you after all wasted scourge is eliminated from the equation.


Run Results

As noted I pushed the data into Google Docs. The resulting document can be seen here.

I setup 5 tabs, the first one simply summarizes everything on a compact, easy to analyze, way.

On this tab you will see 4 blocks of data, each summarize one of the tabs on 5 rows. Each row represents a 10 level range: 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50 with columns for each foe type faced: Minion, Lt, Boss, EB, AV and Boss.

The other 4 tabs contain this information in more detail with every single level range being displayed plus additional stats like scourge rate, wasted scourge percentage and overkill due to scourge.

Looking at the data, all expectations seem to have been met. In many situations minions don’t even get to see any benefit out of scourge at all, while huge HP bags get to see, especially at high levels, around 20% damage boost.

Normal chains of tier 1 and Tier 2 attacks on minions may yield between 8% to 13% boosts, but using 12 second recharge powers with 2.12 or higher DS may result in absolutely no boosts.

With similar rules, the lt yields between +13% to +15% against lts with only +6% if using the 2.12 ds attacks.

Bosses are between +18% and +19% with +16% if you use 2.12 ds attacks near the end of the fight.

EBs seem to start to show resistance to attack selection keeping everyone between +19% and +20% despite attacks.

AVs and GM seem to always be at +20% and +21% respectively.


Conclusion

If forced to say a simple number, I’d be forced to still split it between ranks but say:

• Minions average +7% damage.
• Lts average +11% damage
• Bosses average +17.7% damage
• EB average +19.7% damage
• AV average +20.3% damage
• GM average +20.7% damage

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Arcanaville for helping me with the formula for corruptor scourge damage.

I also want to thank Supernumiphone for pointing me in the direction of an existing thread discussing player perception on the benefit's of Scourge.

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(PS, you also mention the 5 original TFs as those you think would need changing and then list 6)

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I thought i edited that before submitting... but it's 6.

As for street hunts, I really think they SHOULD go, you can mimic them in outdoor maps if you have to, though.

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The original 5 TFs, though, were horribly built because they were meant to be just huge long story arcs with the same tech the old story arcs had.

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*nitpick* Posi was actually meant to be two, designed for a SG. They got combined into the long one we have now.

The more you know... *star*

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nitpick nitpick, i was aware of it and actually thought to note it but figured it was too little of a trivia detail to bother noting.

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That would be cool on my account but they would have to let the teams have more to plant in the MA mish like the Babage they would let you make a thing to include GMs.

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I think they have noted that GMs will be eventually part of the MA, only they needed more time to be able to do something that would restrict them only to outdoor maps.

Note the only TFs i suggest updating this way are the old classic ones, I consider Striga's TF to be a solid TF that although not as cool as the recent ones, was well design.

The original 5 TFs, though, were horribly built because they were meant to be just huge long story arcs with the same tech the old story arcs had.

The only event (that i really can recall off the top of my head) in these 6 TFs that could not be literally replicated would be Babbage, but even that can be done with an outdoor map.

As for the length, you can be more flexible for the purpose of this, allowing users to make longer arcs if needed only for this, or submit multiple arcs as one submission. Besides, one of the things that trully has to change with some of those TFs is precisely length.

And finally: door location, can remain the same once the TF was adopted as a replacement. IF (again, i don't propose changing that one at all) the Striga TF was replaced, you would keep the trip to the Volcano just as it is now. I can't think of any such memorable situation in the first 6 TFs

BTW I am talking about: Positron, Synapse, Sister Psyche, Citadel, Manticore and Numina.

Last night I was doing the Synapse task force. While doing it I remembered how bad these old task force were and in how much need of a remake they are in. However, we also know the time it would take the devs to remake these would be well spent in making just new task/strike forces instead.

And then I remembered a MA mission Catwhoorg where he attempted to remake the final mission in the Positron TF, it occurred to me… A CONTEST!!!!!

Make the developers make an open contest for players to use the MA to remake the old Task Forces! They can either pick themselves (it can be left to the community team so the devs don’t have to waste time on it unless they so wish to) or it could have player voting, or a little bit of both!

They can make the contest team based (multiple players making an arc and publishing under one account) and as rewards:

<ul type="square">[*]The winner replaces the Task Force for the contest in question (each TF should have it’s own separate contest)[*]The winning team can get in game rewards but no badges (there is enough hell about exclusive badges as it is) like extra character slots or even IOs (a full set of Luck of the Gambler would be a reward any player would enjoy) or the obvious: extra MA arc slots.[*]Free game time (a couple of months for each player in the winning team perhaps)[*]Real Goodies, autograph game boxes, poster, all that stuff.[/list]
I would leave the specific for the devs, off course, should they go for it, but one rule I can think off would be: no plugging. Your characters can’t be added to the arcs, as this would lead to quite a few issues.

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go see what positron has to say about the MA. It will certainly be enlightening... threats to ban players, destroy their toons, force them to speak to CS just because someone didn't like their arc... gotta love it.

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wow... just wow... seem some cowgirl is upset they closed her farm.

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though, one of the things I might do if I were going to use my own hero as the contact is to have him be running missions parallel to your own

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The contact's inability to be in two places at once is a very good excuse, as long as you also explain why he cant just do one thing first and the other one later. Although not exactly original, it is nice to see objectives intercept at some point, so you can actually feel the other guy has been doing something.

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Even the more serious scenario would not require the contact hero to be there in the final mission. In fact, in a lot of ways it's better if he isn't.

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It would be actually nice to have him show up sometime in the arc, though, as a testament of he actually doing something.

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Personaly I never understood why you would want to use your hero as a contact. I think of BT as a hero that can do any task. Why would she ever need to ask someone else to do something for her when she could do it herself. Making your hero a contact just makes them less heroic in my eyes.

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Because they are watching you and that makes you shy to act!

Now seriously, i have not tried the poster's act, I'd have to check it out first, but there is nothing inherently wrong with having your hero as the contact. Now, there IS something inherently lame with a hero contact handing you a task and doing nothing himself due to a lame excuse, may as well ask for help for you to go with him, not just hand you his laundry list.

That being told, I personally think you can achieve a Mary Sue in the contact itself. It does not have to go in and show how better than anyone she/he is in combat than you by making it an AV, a contact that takes the center spot and deducts the unimaginable or acts as if you were an idiot, making you feel as the only think you are contributing is muscle power, also can be considered a Mary Sue. And all Mary Sues are more offensive when they are a played character of the creator.

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As far as Allies being optional, that is true. The reason for using them is that they are provided by the Author and thus it may be concluded that the Author has intended for them to accompany the Player as part of the story experience. To simply sideline an Ally may be like skipping a chapter in a book.

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I agree with this. I know Laz is not found of "called out" allies, when I get the ally I do feel like I'm kipping pages when I super speed or fly away to loose them.

I do what I think is an interesting way of getting an ally in an unpublished arc of mine, you are told she may be there and to look for her if you need help. If you find the glowie in the floor you get a clue that tells you there may be a spy that likely stealthed right by you on your way in, you walk back to the entrance and you find her there with a broken cloaking device. That, I think, feels more intuitive as far as "optional content" it goes.

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The ranged attack bit only stops the "flying blaster" farmer. Were that many people doing this particular technique?!?

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The flying blaster farmer was an actual exploit.

I don't agree with the OP in many points, I really hope his post does not become a sticky, but he is right in one thing: farming is not an issue.

Exploiting MA "features" for unfair advantage is. I consider being able to create missions that contain pure XP bonus foes such a situation. I am not sure if its possible off the bat, but no critter should give xp bonuses IF they are used in custom groups. Their XP bonuses should remain only within their original groups.

I am not sure if i consider missions that are pure bosses to be an issue as long as these bosses are not being farmed by some one within pure safety (like a flying blaster vs pure meleers, or purely passive allies with buffing toggles abuses)

Farming in and onto itself is ok as long as the system does not allows the farmer to do ridiculous things that end up messing up the market.

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The ae is fine, the exp is fine. If they would just give all custom mobs a generic pistol/pistolwhip ranged/melee attack so they would be able to hit anyone from any position, I would be perfectly happy and I am a farmer

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They just did.

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All melee power sets have an additional ranged power added. Any ranged attack normally in a melee set will now be available at all levels, difficulties and ranks.

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As for the curious:

Claws/Spines/Super Strenght/Stone Melee already had a ranged attack.

Elemental sets got a blast from their blast equivalent.

Martial Arts/Katana got a shrunken.

Battle Axe/Broad Sword/Dual Blades/War Mace all got throwing Knives.

Almost all of these are on 8s timers. The gaze I gave on test seems not all are doing the same damage despite recharge. throwing knives do have a DOT but other attacks may be bugged and not looking at the right modifiers.

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Aaand... as awesome as those are, they still ought to be free.

No more microtransactions.

Either that or get rid of the monthly fee. Both is unacceptable.

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You and I must have very different definitions of "unacceptable". I my definition, if this was unacceptable, I would not accept it and keep playing, I would had canceled due to me not being able to accept it.

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..... all this effort to make some really intricate and gorgeous magic costumes, and no sign of a simple Wizard Robe variation of the Trenchcoat? Comeon devs, people have been asking for a basic Wiz's Robe for ages!

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SexyJ has said that with the current engine, player robes are an impossibility, IIRC. Seems he's tried it several times, but could never get the to work.

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Yeah, it basically comes down to the fact that there are certain powersets (coughmartialartscough) that make true "wizard robes" impossible to animate. Jay explained this as much in the Q&amp;A at HeroCon.

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If thats the big issue why not just prevent MA (and incompatible sets) from using robes? You have the tech to do this, you use it to determine if a weapon costume item will be available based on the selected power set.

It even makes sense to do so and I don't think there are any pool powers that would cause this issue.

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One of the problems I have is that my notebook is rather weak so I really can't play while traveling. Besides getting a powerful notebook, it would be awesome if I could play it on a cheap netbook or even an iphone.

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The more recent netbooks might be powerful enough. I helped a friend of mine get WoW to run on a Lenovo netbook, and it ran fairly decently without significant tweaking (because that's what his son plays: I wasn't specificially shilling for the competition).

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You got to keep in mind WoW's recommended (not minimum) system requirements is to have a GeForce 4600. City of Heroes recommends a GeForce 6200.

WoW is one of the most light games out there as far as requirements go, its a very low bar to benchmark against.

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City of Retro, the Text Adventure!

You are in Atlas Park. In front of you, you see steps leading up to a pavillion. On that pavillion is Ms. Liberty. Behind her is a giant statue, and City Hall.

&lt;snip&gt;

&gt;Take all

As you rummage through the belongings, a woman comes up and yells "What are you doing? He's robbing that man! Help! Police! Hero!"

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Yeah, how DID a villain start in AP?

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CoV Text Adventure Beta bug allowing villains to spawn in Atlas Park.

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I have one question I have not seen an answer to. I know we can save the arc with all details. It looks lilke you can save the costumes created as we do for our characters. My question is if we create a custom villain and a custom villain group, is there a way to save the NPC charcter data as a separate file. I would dislike creating a custom group, but would have to edit a previously created arc to use that group in another arc.

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My guess is that this is not going to be a problem.

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Everyone knows you're in beta Arcana.

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Although I would not rule it out, I would not take it for granted either. Arcana does not get a free pass at the first wave of betas just because she is Arcana. There is actually a high chance that she does not get into certain stages of certain betas precisely because she is Arcanaville.

Sometimes developers need a less knowledgeable yet dedicated mind to go through things so they get a real idea of how the general population will react.

Pohsyb, some foes (like lost bosses) yield experience bonuses due to the danger they pose. Some of these are quite large bonuses at it.

Will these bonuses still apply inside of the MA?

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Just so you know, because knowledge is power. Robes, skirts, and other shoot that goes beyond the knee looks like trash. I have tried to make a long skirt but it just doesn’t work out to my high standards of fine quality. If I think it looks bad that means you; the players, will loathe it even more.

What I have going on for the magic set; that is done and complete, is a compromise. I wouldn’t call it a robe per say, it’s more like a cloak of sorts. I don’t know when marketing is going to release pics and crap, but I think that you guys will like what I did.

Magic is a pretty broad theme and trying to wrap it up in a single costume set was a bit of a task. I ended up breaking what I had in mind in to male and female sets. I try to please the masses but I know somebody out there is going to say “oh man, why didn’t he include this, or that?” and to that I say tough nutz.

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Any chance of including custom weapons for all these sets ever? Not just towards one set like with Valkyrie and swords. And yes I mean retroactively.

Dude you are behind! That is like some one saying windows sucks because it runs on top of DOS.

Macs had two buttons for a while. The mouse that comes with macs these days seems like a single piece but has two pressure points that work as left and right clicks. You cans see that here: link

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You’ll Really Click

Touch-sensitive technology under Mighty Mouse’s seamless top shell detect where you’re clicking, transforming your sleek, one-button mouse into a two-button wonder. But the innovation doesn’t end there. Apple engineers added force-sensing buttons on either side of Mighty Mouse that let you squeeze the mouse, activating Mac OS X Dashboard, Exposé or a whole host of other, customizable features — instantly.

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What level are the 3 speed enhancements? What type? SO? DO? TO?

Regardless, the one with 3 enhancements ask for TP first because obviously he is impatient enough that he NEEDS 3 enhancements therefore he also will be the one who's willpower to run will break first.

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I never said anything about forcing people to buy anything, where the hell do you see me suggesting that? Please I want to know.


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When people start arguing the value of an offering, they think they are in a bartering position, when they complain ardently about the deal they tend to think the other party is doing everything short of putting a gun to their head to sell it to them.

NCSoft is not bartering and therefore you are not in a bartering position. They set an item out there and stamped a price. Anyone interested can come by, pick it and pay. Stationing how little value the feature for them is as meaningful as driving through McDonalds only to tell them "if you want me to buy those 1.10 Jr Cheese Burgers, you better add double meet to them" and drive off.

Sure, you are free to do it, but it still makes you look like the vendor first attempted to force the burger into your mouth and charge you for it.

Note I myself have found some of the deals not a bit lame. I don't think the Jet Pack rent pack is worth it, for instance. And I did say just that. But I didn't go saying "if they want me to buy it, they better make it permanent one time purchase!" because I know there is no bartering chance on the matter.


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My reference to the Shard has nothing to do with speed runs, that is happening now, I'm doing them now as well. The power is more of a convenience to the player who do not have the desire to team or run the TFs, there are still contacts out there that offer mission. So this power would be nice to have for those who don't have flight or hate using the geysers.


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You can buy a flight temp power on the shard now. And my speedrun note was just a note.

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You know, I was just thinking. If this power's recharge was a lot less than what it is now. We would probably see a lot more people in the Shadow Shard.

Just a thought, cuz I know how the devs like us to play the "content" they make. This power would entice more people to use the zone.

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Organized and Veteran (enough) players may be able to teleport every 25 minutes making the shard TFs actually interesting.

You just got to alternate the teleport to missions and make sure everyone in the team has the vet team teleport power, if not Teleport Friend or Teleport Team. Could drastically cut on completion time of those Shard TFs, and you bet your @#$ you will see optimizing teams running perma teams (groups of people always teaming together) doing this.

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And I would assume quite a few others won't either. The timer needs to be shortened to get me to pay for it.

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Then don't pay for it. Nobody is putting a gun in your head and demanding you do so.

As for the entire costume thing, I got the cyborg pack and didnt use the full set on any one character. I used pieces on many many characters, though. And I already have in mind certain of those pieces for some of my characters too. I'm getting it because for 5 bucks, even if the teleport is 2 hours, its darn only 5 bucks and I also get costume pieces I want. Heck, I'd do it only for the wings!