Stormfront_NA

I know its out of contst but lucky that is an awesome icon...

Stormy

Hi:

Maybe one of you can help me out, I been studying with greater detail what the various IO sets do, then notice from wiki and other places, that no descriptions of the new IO sets from I13 do, such as Obliteration, lockdown, etc. Can someone point me out to a thread or something that have the descriptions for each of the I13 and newer IO sets do?

Thank you

Stormy

Hi:

The main reason I support large maps, is to allow for a variety of tactics, instead of finding myself in a funnel and forced to fight in a limited manner with out being able to take advantage of my character's unique abilities and my play stile.

Stormy

There are few benefits to a button over a toggle, I believe, can't prove, that endurance cost for a button is less over time than a toggle; your handicap is that you must pay attention or find yourself status effected like the support classes.

The stronger MAG resistance or variety of resistances may tough to compare from one set to another, in general their is variance among the resistance values for each set, regardless of being toggle or button, making it hard to see if protection performance is any different between toggle or button.

As a whole, I just hate seing my scraper stop fighting and clowning around for several rounds, just to be able to continue meleeing with status protections. As I pointed out, its fine to clown around when first activated, but give the scraper a break from the clowning graphics during combat.

Stormy

Hi:

Often when a Scraper has to hit the button to retain their status effect protections, it results with the character in the middle of combat, simply stop fighting and posing instead. I call it the free round or two of attacks from the mobs on the Scraper.

I don't have an issue if the Scraper is clowning and posing when she first activates the status effect protection power, but in the middle of combat it is simply dumb to expect your favorite scraper to simply ignore the mass of enemies trying to pummel her to dirt, and start posing when she re-activates her status protections. I would be inclined to believe that the Scraper is totally focus in their task during combat and that continuing to be mentally and physically focused is a non-issue. While I don't object to the periodic endurance drain from the status effect protection, I do object to the silly graphic while in combat. Just imagine Captain America, is leaping and punching baddies, after five punches, he suddenly stops and does calistenics for a few rounds as machine gun bullets, knives, shurikens and tomatoes are flying all around him; dumb!

It would be nice, if the statu effect button, which I normally have set on auto (for obvious reasons), would engage instantaneously take its endurance toll and be done. It would make much more sense to me, that the scraper classes who have Status effect protection buttons be retrofitted to toggles instead, some scraper classes already has it as a toggle, why not be uniform?

Hugs

Stormy

Hi

I know that there is no true one to one relationship between hero and villain classes, at least that is what has been advertised. But truthfully, if you play red side, you see their classes being played in a manner much reminiscent of blue side.

Brute does the tanking, Dominators does the controlling, Corruptors does the defending, and Stalkers does the Scrapping.

What the villains lack is the "Blasting" piece to help with group based damage. They need their own Blaster knock-off, giggles.

The Mastermind is a class all to themselves, which has no mirror on the Blue side. Some may say the pet controllers are the blue answer; but they have to few pets and no control, despite their class name, over them. It would be acceptable, IMO, to buff up the Controller Pet classes (Fire, Illusion) to approach Mastermind like characteristics; but given the hold capacity of the controller which the mastermind can't match, perhaps a simple increase of creatured from 3 to 5 for the fire controllers, while the illusion's ghost army becomes permanent but the pets themselves are destructable, would make sense; yet still with out the direct control the mastermind has over its pets. I would advocate the controller pets' AI be relooked where if the controller is under attack, they would by default defend her, rather than ignore her need for defense; and also have them attack whatever she is attacking by default.

Hugs

Stormy

Do you have a link to your Nipponese adventure? I would love to read it

Hugs

Stormy

Hi:

I remember when Cimerora was introduced, it was wonderful, a full new look and feel to the place and it was a cooperative zone as well.

Why not make more such zones, and I would suggest no need to do needless thread missions to unlock them, and make all new zones cooperative zones.

I was thinking, why not make a medieval zone based on Arthurian Lore (loosely), with Arthur, Merlin, Morganna, Green Knight, faerie, Dragons and what not! Have a couple of Castle/Dungeon crawls, have traps in them which can be detected by Stalkers (they can shoot the trap and destroy it) or characters with very high perceptions.

A fun zone, would be a greek mythology zone, complete with Achilles, Olympian Gods, minotaurs and gorgon. Help Hercules prevent the evil ones from unlocking the gates of hades, etc.

A space station zone, where evil monsters have infiltrated the station and are eating people, while making a nest in reactor room and thus turning off the main power of the facility, and the facility threatening to loose orbit and crash land on Earth. The alien mosnters could be made to look creepy like the Aliens from the movie Alien, and be really fast, like perma super speeded and hasted, with toxic blood and mean claws and stingers...

Another zone, could be like an underwater city, with an Atlantis motiff, and we get to swim and buy water breath inspirations or temp powers.

Hugs

Stormy

A desert world scenario, kinda reminiscent of Dune, with giant sand worms (monsters), hidden catacombs, etc.

Penny, you have some very valid points, but lets talk about the controller a bit...

Yes, as you said "Once" the controller holds the mob down, its cake. You are absolutely right, and could not be more right. But the key word is "Once", thats the catch I been talking about all this time with regards the Controllers' use of hold as their means of protection, when compared to the tankers and scrappers protections that provides the benefit without condition. But what happens to the controllers, when they are trying to get to the "once" held situation? Sure a one shot hold on a minion is assured, as if they posed any serious threat to the Controller, but a Boss with MAG 6 status effect protection will require the controller, given she hits the boss 3 times in a row to finally affect the boss; what you call those 2 rounds of helpleness? I will give you this, its actually a bit exciting, wondering if you will live long enough to get the next hold attempt.

The melee classes protections are unconditionally present and working, and have in general no worries at all from status effects. The other classes' protections are all conditionals, and don't even have any status effect protections. These are huge differentials! No wonder Scrapers can say, the Freakshow's status effects are too weak, and thus both Tankers and Scrapers are calling these mobs weak and unchallenging. Often the players calling for tougher and more challenging content are usually melee classes, and they are right, perhaps these classes are too ubber and as a result the mobs are too weak, while other non-ubber classes experience a much greater risk and challenge, and may not be too crazy about making the mobs even tougher.

Penny its tough to balance things out, the ATs themselves have too many shades of grey, which is both a terrific strength (variety) and a horrid weakness (ability discrepancy). A poster said, its too much work for the devs to address each class power set at a time, probably true, the issue is more work for the devs to do, but I never thought of them as lazy, and perhaps the adjustments needed are not as devastating work wize as we may think. Yet the possibility of all classes soloing being able to roughly being able to complete missions in the same amount of time is possible, why not pursue it? Maybe leveling out the challenge may also be a good thing, won't you say?

Hugs

Stormy

Once more I seen some great posts, especially well backed up, not just a cheap shot.

If I ruffled some feathers, I extend to you my apologies...

Aett made a very strong case, in which there is a large variety of capabilities within each AT, the issue capability may not be present in certain AT combos, while others do have issues. Thus making an in-between ATs balancing more difficult to obtain, and in this case even to discuss.

It is an extremely valid point, that while trying to improve the weaker within an AT combo woes, the stronger within the AT combo would suddenly grow unbalanced. That is fixing the EMP to have more teeth, would truly unbalance say a Kin, Rad or Sonic who has plenty of teeth.

I hear the balance at the time to be "ok" in the game, status-quo, as a rule is always ok, especially for those used to it, in fact many of us go thru life accepting things as they are, simply because thats how its always been, and frankly does not occurs to us that there may be another better way.

When I hear balance, we all too easily agree that Scrapers, Blasters, Tankers, Controllers, and Defenders are more solo effective in this order. We are used to this, and we find it acceptable, but think of how quickly a Scraper can clear alone a mission, and the time it would take a Controller to do the same, also regard the level of difficulty they both can do it. A Controller's hold, is less likely to work, and remain (when it does work) as the mob level increases and rank of the mob as well (try holding an EB solo versus say a minion). I believe the time to do this, should be roughly the same, give or take say 15%, for both and truly any AT.

Another poster, wisely mentioned the word "Risk". Now that is truly a very good measure as well. A Scraper has excellent damage resistance, good defenses, and good status effect resistances; they can walk into any room and clear it out, with minimal risk (unless its a malta room full of zappers). Yet they can walk into a room, and go, oh my, there are more than I thought, and get out safely, break aggroe and re-address their approach. Now take the Controller, if they waltz into a room (big mistake for the AT), they are going to get pounded, status effect: held, immobilize, stun, etc). To survive the mistake, they may have enough time to click a break-free and maybe still live long enough to get out of the room and break aggroe, and then wisely re-look at their approach. Notice that for the Controller, they had to rely on an inspiration, something the Scraper did not. The Scraper's armor, defense, mag status effect resistance is always there for them and works against all comers; the Controllers holds, have in general to successfully hit the target, and the target has to fail to resist the hold. If the targt is a minion, hitting them is normally not much of an issue, and holding them is fairly reliable; as we go up the chain of command, the hitting becomes increasingly less reliable, and the chances of holding them also becomes much less reliable. Thus the Controller, unlike the Scraper, must really approach each room with a much higher degree of cautioness than the Scraper; thus it should be evident that the Controller is at a higher risk than the Scraper in my opinion. Once survivability is handled, so the AT can deal in damaging their opponents, the Scraper hits hard, very hard. Yet here is were the diveristy in Controllers make comparison difficult, a Fire/Kin will area abuse the mobs and deal with the room much faster than the Scraper will ever hope for, but take a Gravity/Storm Controller and now the Scraper is faster at it. Tough as AETT mentioned to balance this situation.

An issue that comes from this is simply: "Because there is an AT combo that works well, we don't dare to do anything for those that does not?"

Some have addressed this question, by simply stating "Yes". The rationale is somewhat acceptable, it goes to the trade off, I don't buy, they can't solo as well, but watch them group support!

If you think about it, what I am asking as a rebalance, is not really a total departure of the roles and functions of the class, just adjustments for the AT power sets, so the Solo mission completion times are roughly equivalent. It can be done, and not be game unbalancing. Its a matter of thinking each set through. For instance, the Defenders secondary, their damage dealing, does not need to be as good as the blaster, but really, does it need to be the weakest in the game? Why not let the Defedner be the back-up Blaster when no Blasters are available? I believe someone suggested Tanks needed the damage ability if there were no Blasters available, kinda like a stop gap thing (which is a good idea, incidentally, but the stop gap abilities needs to be given to other classes as well)

In the case of the defenders, nurfing their damage with a 0.6 modifier is too much, sure they should be weaker than a blaster, but must also be weaker than a tanker?

Blaster with the abusive use of status effects, became extremely weak, since practically all mobs basically had status effects at snipe range, so finally their Defiance was changed , so at least they could continue fighting at a reduced effectiveness level.

I believe the devs, know there are problems with the current balance, but as most of us, not sure how to address it without breaking the balance.

I doubt as a whole, that AT wide corrections would work, as AETT pointed out, ATs have too much performance disparities among them. So perhaps the answer is in the power sets themselves, that may need adjustments. For example the 0.6 damage penalty could be adjudicated to Rad, Kin, Sonic primary defenders, and a 0.8 to the other defender types, who don't have real means to boost their damage. Tankers have great variations, Fire Tankers have a lot of issues that really needs to be addressed for instance, issues that needs to be addressed at the fire primary and not as AT wide compensations.

Hugs

Stormy

I am seeing some good replies and others are just replying to be negative, regardless...

The fundamental disagreement is, some believe that some ATs should be made to be subservient to others in the form of a support class, and as a reward for that, they will be very good at being subservient/support, and very, very mediocre at solo. A paradigm I do not subscribe to, while correctly stated by others current developers do subscribe to (that does not make the practice automatically right, even the terrorists at 911 had a good reason in their minds for what they did; but we would be reluctant to agree with them, for it).

Incidentally, I believe a reason for forums, is because developers are not beyond making mistakes or having bad ideas, and thus forums are there for players to post recommendations for change, as I am doing here.

The game was not initially designed as a two class of hero, the real hero and the support character. It was designed were different styles of power sets would complement each other, so that the final effect would be an effect greater than the sum of the components. It did not had, the philosophy of "great Group AT, therefore mediocre Solo AT", it was originally an any AT can solo great, and team even better.

Many of the replies above, tells about the good reasons why different ATs should want to group, and all those reasons are very good. But not one, really justifies why should one or more ATs should be handicapped more than others, because their powers lend themselves for group support better than others.

I recall a poster saying tankers wants groups so they can be buffed to kill mobs faster, why? If we are a team, is it not the function of the Scraper and Blaster to do the fast killing and not the tank?


Another one, perhaps being a bit of a smart allec, used my statement that as a Defender I could solo, and thus shoot myself on the foot. If this was not malicious, then the statement was issued with out much thought behind it or shows a lack of willingness in trying to understand the other side of the argument; but then not all of us can be diplomats either, ha ha ha. Sure a Defender can solo, but most watch extra, extra, extra carefully how they approach a group and execute their battle at all times, a mistake and oversight on a dozen or so conditions will result with certain death, something a Tanker never has to worry about at all, not even 1 condition. When I fight EBs with a Tanker, sure it takes me a bit of time, to take them down, while a Blaster (if not held, stunned, etc) may defeat the EB quicker, yet with a Defender, which when I do engage an EB, my damage is so comically low (Dark/Storm) and the effects of my debuffs so marginal, that its simply boring to take him down, is kinda like the Defender's version of Reichman; but I do recognize I can take him down, but the time differentials are too great and simply not just.

Hugs

Stormy

I have read some very good replies, but...

I don't believe an AT should be punished for its superb team support abilities, at the expense of soloing.

1. I stand on the belief all ATs should be very good at both solo and team settings.

2. I also stand on the belief that being both good at solo and team are compatible.

Lets me address my first belief, while certain AT approaches can make it easier to solo than others, it should be cosmetic not drastic. I still point the amount of damage a tank can resist or avoid is consistent and reliable, the Controller and Defender's damage mitigation is not. The fact of having less reliable damage mitigation powers than a tanker, demands a balancing ability of some sort, that actually works, so they can both solo and group as well as the tank.

I saw a poster wisely noted: If a Blaster had all those protections, why would they need a group? Great observation; question: Why does a tanker need a group today? They don't.
Don't believe me? Wait till I16 comes out, and watch how many lonely tanks at group equivalents of 8 going at it, that should prove the point...Some solo to group balance, ah? If you want to farm, do you have a hard time deciding between a Defender and your Tanker? While the question is plainly sarcastic, no one in their right mind would solo farm with a Defender (there are some very special exceptions), the Tanker avenue is much more user friendly and reliable. In fact, I would contend that both the Tanker and Scraper are excellent examples of ATs that does both Solo and Team wonderfully well. I think its time, all the other ATs could do both Solo and Group just as wonderfully well, and I am now including corruptors, dominators, etc.

Now, if we are going to be so group minded, and say that should rule over solo ability, then use the solo nurf bat across the board then. Why should a Tank require MAG 12 status effect when solo? Why should a tank has such high soft cap damage resitance when solo?, why should a tank has such high defense soft caps when solo? How you justify these really nice level of abilities, why should a tank be able to self rez? self heal? where is the dependence here?

Lol half of the defenders primary powers does not even apply to them as is, while a tanker's primary powers are all fully useful in both solo and group settings, is this truly fair?

Just some food for thought...

Hugs

Stormy

There has been a lot of arguments over how over powered one AT is over each other, how some can solo very well, and others group better and what not. It seems commonly accepted to punish those ATs that group support well by making their solo experience less pleasant. Perhaps we should go back to basics, and really think this through a bit more...

In the beginning there was CoH and it was good....

Giggles, I wanted it to sound a bit Bibilical...

You have two, opposing ATs in overall characteristics: Blaster and Tanker; the rest were hybrids of these two opposits.

The Blaster was damage personified...
The Tanker was the immovable wall...

Both Ats had a balancing disadvantage to their godlike abilities; this were:

Blasters could hit like a Howitser, but had a glass jaw.
Tankers were nearly immune to damage, but hit like a wet noodle.

In time, many tanker players, complained at their lack of damage, and their damage was considerably increased, to the point that Tankers are a pleasure to play in either solo or group format. Tanker powers are in general a splendid mix of high damage resistance, great defenses, superb resistances to status effects, self healing, self rezzing, and often self buffing as well in the form of augmented accuracy and damage.

The Blaster, did not receive a lot of improvement, unlike the tanker, and became a very maligned AT, for while it hit somewhat harder than a tanker (20%), they had little damage resistance, little defense, no status effect protections, and like the tankers they did had a means to buff themselves in the form of augmented accuracy and damage.

I believe at this time, this is not right balance wise. Let me explain my thoughts...

A Tanker does 20% less damage than a Blaster, but a Blaster does not have 20% less protections than a Tanker. This simple lack of symetry is what I am talking about.

While Blasters can achieve some resistance to damage, mainly via auxiliary pools and epics, their overall spectrum damage resistance is maybe about 20% of what a Tank gets to enjoy across the board. So if we were to be fair in the trade off, damage versus resistance, should not the Blaster be afforded better damage resistance, defense, and status effect resistances? Shuld they not be 80% of the tankers? That would mean that if a Tanker is soft capped to 90% damage resistance, should not the Blaster be Softcapped to 80% of the Tanker's 90% soft cap? That would be like a 75% Damage resistance soft cap, and since a Tanker has MAG 12 status effect resistance, should not the blaster have like a 9 MAG resistance?

If we believe that Blasters should not have such formidable defenses, then should they not do much more damage than a tanker does than a mere 20%?

Same argument can be said for Controller and Defender allocations.

While Controllers have holds and Defenders have Debuffs to serve as Pseudo Armor or protection, they are not nearly quite as reliable an deffective as the real thing that Tanks get to enjoy. So neither side should do the same or less damage than a tanker, which unfortunatley Defenders are saddled with. While its true a Kin could debuff the target so its damage would appear to be better, remember that Kin is one build in many as Defendrs go, and that Kin has no resistances of any sort like the good ole Tank does. Also in the case of Controllers and Defenders, their powers work good against minions, but their effectiveness greatly decreases as the mob becomes tougher, such as nearly negleable when fighting say EBs or AVs, while a Tank's defenses are still as good regardless.

If we are going to have fairness in AT class balance, we need to ensure that all the classes have effectively, not paper, capabilities. A Defender's damage should always exceed the damage of a tank, regardless of buffs or debuffs beign present, too many Defenders 'buffs does not even apply to them! having their buffs apply to themselves would be a good thing to happen. Some may say its game unbalancing, I ask how? If a Defender can buff themselves to effectively do Blaster damage, and still hss the same lack of real protections than the Blaster has, where is the unbalance? In effect the only real difference between the Blaster and the Defender, is that the Blaster needs no gimmicks to get its damage, just like the Tanker needs no gimmicks to get its protections; while teh Defener and Controller needs its gimmicks to approach the damage (Defender) as a Blaster or Damage mitigation (Controller) as the Tanker does.

Scrapers are actually a hybrid as well, do more damage for melee range and more protections cause of melee range. I feel Scrapers as a whole are ok, but need to have their Defense abilities raised a bit more.

The table below shows some of the trades, between classes with a sort of symetry to it.
The table shows Resistance soft caps, defense soft cap, status effect MAG resitance, and base damage modifier.
.......................Resistance.....Defense..... MAG......Damage
Tank 90 50 12 0.6
Scraper 75 50 9 0.8
Controller 20 25 6 0.7
Blaster 20 25 6 1.0
Defender 20 25 6 0.8

Now the values are arguable, and really need to be discussed. For example some may question, why the Defedner have 80% damage effectiveness. One must consider their so called defenses, are not 100% reliable, their opposition does not start debuffed, the effects of debuffing takes several rounds to accumulate and be effective, and such debuffs are not as significant as mobs increase in toughness, Lts, Boss, EB, AV. Some may say, the Defender can buff, the reply, sure they buff everybody but themselves! and the number of buffs they can give themselves once more is not that much more effective or exciting.

Something that is worth mentioning, is there should be an overall capability measure, say 1. Each class regardless of AT, when the day is over, all should have a 1 effectiveness. It should not matter if they have 100% reliable defenses, 60% reliable defenses, 20% reliable defenses, 100% damaging capability or what not. What matters as you investigate each mix, that final result is 1.

The issue is how much weight you give the Tankers protections, they are there all the time, they protect the same versus AVs, EBs, etc.

How much weight you give to the Controllers' holds as an equivalent protection? The hold, has to hit, is not automatic hit, it has to affect the creature, unlike some ATs, MOBs have resistances to Status Effects. A Boss with MAG 3, can't be held by a Controller within one or 2 tries, will the Controller live long enough to hold the boss before being pummeled to death? Surely the weight of a Hold when compared to the Tanker's resistance can not be the same, and should be less, but how much more less?

In the same vein, the Defender Debuff, does not even have the stopping action of a hold, so it in itself is even weaker, so in the great scheme of things, what should the Defender's protection weight should be? Obviously less than the Tanker and Controller.

The Blaster don't really get Controller or Defender abilities, what si this lack of defenses worth in the grand scheme?

The above assortment of defensive abilities, need to be matched with damage so at the end of the day, the balance is there and fair.

If we were to say for instance that Tanker defense is 1, Controller Defense is 0.8, Defender Defense is 0.6 and Blaster Defense is 0.4, it could easily set the damage bvariations to be: Blaster damage 1, Defender Damage 0.8, Controller Damage 0.6 and Tanker 0.4.

Once more this are just cookie cutter numbers, there is likely other considerations to be taken.

Hugs

Stormy

I have read some wonderful posts and great ideas to build upon...

I believe the PvP population is low, for PvP simply is not fun.
I believe if you make PvP fun, eventully the PvP population will increase, the word will get around.
I believe we could have a series of PvP adventure zones of different sizes, while I would love a raid size adventure zone, that is 75 on 75, we could have an squirmish adventure zone say 16 on 16.
I would agree that a common PvP instance notion, so heroes and villains between all servers could allow to form a group sufficiently large to allow the big PvP raids, while the server PvP population increases. I have oberved that Champions have no difficulty putting Hami raids every Sunday night, I think with the right PvP adventure zone mechanics and inducements, this could possibly happen.

Hugs

Stormy

[QUOTE=Adeon_Hawkwood;2161711]

My suggestion has a huge difference from the traditional PvP zones.

1. It is an instance, where both sides have the same number of players
2. Both factions have offensive and defensive goals
3. There is strategy and tactics to my proposal
4. My proposal encourages teaming and raid like organizing
5. Victory provides temp powers to PvE zones on victorious side, note my 30 min +25% hit points reward.

I normally do not PvP because I feel PvP zones are normally gank zones, and thus not fun. But a truly mass on mass PvP zone, with all kinds of objectives and dynamics far beyond simple ganking, would be very appealing to me.

Incidentally, my suggestin has nothing to do with ease or difficulty to get PvP IOs in the game as is, I simply want CoX to have a fun PvP environment as the one I enjoyed at DAOC for instance, with some of the good traits of WoW.

Hugs

Stormy

[QUOTE=Aura_Familia;2160361]

[QUOTE=Prof_Backfire;2153818]You can't change player idiocy. There's no way to convince players en masse to use their tickets for salvage instead of whatever they use it on. Likewise, I don't see how they can stop marketeers from price gouging.

QUOTE]

Actually you can...

All the salvage and recipies have prices that vendors pay for them, usually very low, but is still some sort of benchmark.

Why not have the vendors sell the stuff they buy as well, and say the sell it for four times the price they would pay for it. Thus you could buy any salvage, any recipe from a vendor and know that the top price is fixed.

What does this mean at the market, well price gouging is done with; because if they try to make more than 4 times the value of the item, you just go to the vendor in the street instead.

By using a system as I have proposed, players can still get drops and sell for a reasonable profit at the market, after all by checking at the vendor we know the low and the high value of each item. In fact, the Devs could add a feature at the market that informs you what are the vendor buying and selling prices. Thus making it easy on players to set prices for items.

Hugs

Stormy

Hi:

Usually the PvP portion of this game seems to be lacking in interest, and often it is composed of mainly ganking.

But what if we could actually make it a true mass on mass event? Like say 75 Heroes against 75 Villains type of thing? Interested?

I propose a new instance zone be created, a large zone with different types of terrains, that is part city, part forest (Perez Park like), with caverns, and what not. Perhaps a zone as large as say "Nerva" but with a lot more features than empty water.

Entering this zone is limited, in essence to ensure fair game play, players go to a sign up at a representative, and get on queue. Depending on the size of the Adventure Zone, the wait may be short or longer. Adventure zones do have player limits, such as 75 players on each side, or 50, 30, 20, and even 8. As I originally mentioned, these adventure zones have both the heroes and villains at their own sign-up booth report for duty. Once an initial start-up concentration of players for both sides have been achieved, the players are materialized in the adventure zone; for instance a 75 on 75 zone, could get started when both sides have 35 players on each side signed up. As more players sign up, they could enter the adventure zone as players from the other side signs up as well, the concept is to keep the numbers of both sides even at all times. If a player leaves the adventure zone, by quiting (not DC), then a player on the stand by list is brought in.

To make sure there is relative fairness, all players are auto-sk to highest level of the adventure zone.

So now we have addressed how the adventure zone is populated, now lets discuss what they get to do in the adventure zone.

Obviously there has to be a number of missions or objectives both sides have to accomplish, and of course the idea is to have both sides not only try to accomplish their goals, but also prevent the other faction from accomplishing theirs.

I would suggest as a similar goal, is that each faction has a fully operational base, the Heroes have Statesman at the control room at the base, and is guarded by NPC Longbow, while the Villains have Lord Recluse, and he is guarded by NPC Arachnos. Players may choose to supplement these forces. So the obvious mission for both sides is to take out the others leader. Once this objective is completed, the instance zone comes to an end, and PvP merits are awarded for zone completion (other PvP merits are awarded as earned), I will talk about PvP merits later.

I would suggest that other facilities or mini bases be also placed in the zone, that have an impact on taking on the main base. For instance, say the main base is protected by an indestructible force field, thus the only way to get access to the main leaders inside their bases is to take the Force Field Generator out. Not only must the players take the force field generator out, they have to keep it out. Thus both factions must organize force field generator raid groups to attack the other faction's facility, while also forming repair partiest o fix their own facilities.

Another objective that each could have, is say a satellite communications center, which impacts the refresh rate of NPC guards, by simply radioing for re-enforcements. This means that as long as the satellite communications are working the guards are replenished every ten minutes (respawn), if the satellite communications is down, there is no re-spawning of NPC guards. Like the other facilities, players can come an repair the damage done to their facilities, thus the raiding group is going to want to prevent this from happening.

Another key facility is the Hospital, after all players are going to be defeated, and must have a place to respawn at. Also this prevents players from suiciding and getting a free teleport to their main base to defend their leader when attacked. Now the hospital will obviously be heavely guarded by bunkers, and NPC guards. But attacking this facility may have value, for players re-spawning will be weakened, and thus can be easily and quikly defeated, thus preventing the enemy faction from recovering. Sure there is a risk of players greiving players at the hospital, but this can be handled in several ways: A respawned character, if killed before regaining full hits and endurance, yields no PvP merits and can be graphically displayed by having a colored aura about them, also other players may move to protect the hospital to prevent this from occurring as well.

Another set of objectives are simply the destruction of automated defensive bunkers, which protect the facilities mentioned above. Like the other facilities, these can be repaired by players as well.

So thus far each faction has a main base, hospital, force field generator, satellite communications and defensive bunkers. Thus there is plenty for everybody to go after and do, with lots of tactical and strategic implications.

Lets talk about PvP merits.

Once your earn PvP merits, you going to want to invest them, so how could you spend them:

1. Buy recipes for IOs, they cost the same as TF based reward merits
2. Buy PvP IOs, they need to have their cost defined. I don't advocate to limit purchases to random rolls, have both choices.
3. Want to push for PvP action, sell Purple IOs here.
4. Buy Temporary powers
5. Buy Inspirations
6. Buy Salvage

Now lets address how you earn PvP merits:

1. Each Player you defeat (you get kill spam) is worth 2 PvP merit
2. Each player you participate in their defeat you get 1 PvP merit.
3. Each facility you defeat (you get kill spam) is worth 10 PvP merits
4. Each facility you participate in defeat is worth 5 PvP merits
5. Each facility defeated while you are in zone is worth 1 PvP merit *
6. Killing NPC Guards yields no PvP merits, but they yield inspiration, enhancements, and common recipe drops.
7. Defeating base Leader (Statesman/Lord Recluse) yields 20 PvP merits to the one who got the kill spam.
8. Defeating base Leader (Statesman/Lord Recluse) yields 10 PvP mertis for those who participated in the battle.
9. Defeat of base leader while in the zone is worth 5 PvP merits, after all someone had to keep the force fields down...
10. Winning and Adventure zone is worth 20 Merits
11. Loosing and Adventure zone is worth 10 Merits

* The reason you get 1 PvP merit is that you are likely with a team taking on one of the 5 facilities and doing your part strategecally, so when one objective is accomplished, indirectly you played a part of it.

Other PvP effects...

1. its easy to keep up with players with the most PvP merit scores, and they can be posted for bragging rights.
2. When a faction finally wins, the outcome is announced across all the zones in the server.
3. the victorious faction, gets a temporary 25% increase in hit points for 30 min. This increase is only valid in PvE zones, the reason being is to not put undue unbalance on other PvP adventure zones. This last part, is important to encourage players to want to PvP if anything to gain the hit point bonus for their PvE activities.

So what you all think?

Hugs

Stormy

I understand your problem, and my advice is as follows:

1. See if you can join server-wide channels, many servers have specialized chats that caters to specific teaming ventures suchs as threads, TFs, AEs, trade, etc. Since I am a player at Champions, BMT is an outstanding channel to seek PUGs for Badges, Monsters, & TFs. Usually thru BMT I can either form or join a team to accomplish any of the BMT enterprises, usually I am really big into doing TFs and I am constantly trying to join or form them.

2. Be picky about which SG/VG you join, frankly in your case, if they SG/VG is not in the top 5 spots in your server, as aweful as it may sound; they are not worth joining. You need a huge SG/VG to ensure there are enough players on-line when you play, so you have a chance on getting something started.

3. In either case, chat channel or SG/VG route, your initiative to form groups will make a huge difference.

4. Establish a good teaming reputation, so others will remember and look you up, and invite you into their teams as they form, we are always searching for good players; once you establish that reputation, life does get easier.

5. When you play with a good group, and encoutner good players or people you just like, be aggressive at adding their names to your friedns list, and get their globals if possible.


I hope this helps you

Hugs

Stormy

Aka Stormfront, Champions Server

The commentary above is very true...

Before you go to tears over it, as I do on occasion, make sure that the miss roll you are having an issue with, that your attack power was at 95% chance to hit. You need to ensure all of your attack powers are at 95% chance, and keep up with game variances such as your debuff, or the mobs getting a defense buff such as MOG, for instance. If you are having probability changes, it becomes much more difficult to determine if you are or not suffering from a deviated probability.

Hugs

Stormy

I hate that feeling, that sadly I experienced all to often...

I actually have my to hit rolls to print at the chat box, and I confess I smile when I see all of my attacks are pegged at the 95% chance to hit probability; after all I well go out of my way to ensure ultra high accuracy, for what good is to hit very hard, if you never hit?

What I have seen at times, is the game random number generator is much less than random, and seems to get easily stuck at certain number areas. I notice when I am missing like 75% of the time, despite I have a 95% chance, I immediately go to my chat box and scroll up to check on my rolls; only to find that I been getting rolls beween 90 and 99%, and thus I am missing about 75% of the time, since the game does not afford me the other 89 chances, for whatever reason. On other occassions, but much more less frequent thant the stuck high, it has been stuck low, and all I can do is crit anything that gets on my way, which I must confess is quite gratifying.

In the past, I have challenged the random number generator and had asked for ways a player could kick free the "stuck" random number generator, such as having the means to apply a seed, or something you could do to generate a new random seed.

Unfortunatley, too many players, simply say random is random, and your luck is simply bad, and therefore there are no problems, the game is perfect.

While I accept that ramdoness is inherently "random", still statistical principles and trends tend to be consistent, so if I have a mathematical chance to miss 5 times out of 100, I should only miss 5 times in a one hundred roll sample.

But when I miss 20 times out of 100, its indicative of a stastistical anomaly or a problem.

I would like to point to the statistical principle of Standard Deviation, in which the alledged grouping will fall about 80% of the time, that means that 80 sets out of 100 sets of 100 rolls; will yield only 5 misses per 100 roll. Of course the other 20 sets of 100s could have actually less misses or more misses.

At times, I do feel, I am operating at the 1 Sigma deviation; which I find acceptable. But at times, I do experience a swing beyond the 1 sigma, which is unacceptable, and can if held to it too long a game busting experience.

If you feel, like the game rolls as off, simply record several sets of 100 rolls, and then study it. If in the first 100 rolls, and if you have a 95% chance to hit, you should miss 5% of the time, give or take 17% of the time to remain in the 1 sigma stastical variation; that would place you in a range from only missing 2 to 7 times per hundred rolls; a 2 sigma standard variation would yield no to 9 misses per hundred; a 3 sigma would yield a no to 11 misses per hundred; and so on.

So if you think, your hits or miss is odd, make sure to have rolls reported in your chat, and colelct the data in sets of 100 and form an opinion.

Hugs

Stormy