TehHippeh

I'd love to get some feedback on my arcs, but I would have to also post a warning:

1. They are all at least 4 missions
2. They are for lowbies
3. I am trying something where there is an integrated story for all 3. I'm not sure how well I am pulling it off.

I wanted to try something where a significant part of a character's leveling was based on one story. I have 3 done now, but plan to purchase more slots.

I am at work so I cannot look up arc IDs. My global is tehHippeh, same as here. The phase "power of magic" is also in all three titles.

Thanks to any and all who offer feedback

I have a ton of Steadfast and Karma at level 10, but no Zephyr

Do you know what drop pool those are in?

Edit: Nevermind. Instead of being stupid I went and looked it up. Both are rare rolls. 200 or 240 merits and 3000 tickets. :/

Check out those newest changes to the XP for the Crazed and the Freaks. Looks like the devs put on their big boy boots to kick the farmers in the nuts this time.

Well, them and anyone else encountering Freaks in normal missions. And TFs. And MA missions.

The only way to make this game challenging for those who form teams with synergies in mind - e.g. including +res and +def buffs, adding debuffs, using control - is to apply DR to the PVE game. Yes, the same DR used in PVP zones. Then it does not matter how well you put your team together, and the devs know the exact numbers to balance around. What, you brought 2 FFs and 2 Sonics? Does not matter, each one adds +2%. Oh, that kin you brought? Sorry, recharge and recovery can only be boosted so much.

I actually hope they do this, mostly for selfish reasons. The tears of the anti-PVP crowd who insist that the PVPer complaints are not justified would sustain me for years

It would also make team build not matter as much, and would hopefully increase the willingness to PUG/take any AT.

This is a long post, so I didn't want to quote the whole thing, but throw some questions out there. Would not mind hearing anyone's opinions on them.

It certainly was a major complaint that it was too easy to run away from combat in zones. Some toons did not have access to a lot of -movement powers outside of temps, and it was easy to build for maximum escape. Probably something had to be done, but do we need both the mez changes AND all this travel suppression?

With the mez changes, I think every AT has access to some kind of mez - immob, stun, hold, whatever. With Epics, I think everyone even has access to a ranged mez. With that, everyone has a way to slow a runner down. As long as they do not get too far away, you have at least one tool to force the other player to re-engage.

Except, using those mezzes suppresses you. IIRC, the suppression times for attacking are still longer than the suppression times for being attacked. So, even if you slow them down, chances are you can't follow up before they get full movement back.

There was a very good idea posted in I13 closed that would have eliminated all travel suppression except when you are the target of a melee attack. Castle even mentioned that this system or something close to it would be implemented. *cough*

Removal of attacking suppression would have allowed people to keep up the pressure and force continued engagement. If the target started to run, you could mez them to slow them down. If they were in the mez suppression period, you could still pursue because you were not suppressed for attacking. If you were melee, or someone melee hit them, this would also slow them down. Melee solo would have an easier time, and melee on teams could initiate spikes and further use taunt to disrput attackers.

What was lost in the whole "too easy to run" debate was the fact that attackers were suppressed longer than the target. In my experiences, this meant you got one attack to try to do something before the target ran. If the target had mez protection or TP protection, it was pretty hard to stop them in that one attack. The fix to this was to add all sorts of new suppression - or say that the target being able to move was the problem. I think that is wrong. I think the attacker not being able to move was the problem.

There are many who argued that these changes were too much, too soon. And I have to agree. If this were done incrementally, you could have implemented, say, the mez changes without additional suppression. See if that helps. If not, make melee attacks cause suppression. Does that help? And so on and so on. When everything has to make it into one issue, you get what we had - so many new game mechanics at once that there is no chance for fine tuning or no way to separate what worked from what did not. And really, if you know that you will not be able to do much for several issues after a major change like this, the best decision is probably not to do anything at all. More proliferation or additional changes to the AE critter powers would have been time better-spent. Those would not be worked on then dropped.

Are more toons PVP viable now? Probably. If they take phase or Hibernoob. Minus those oh **** powers? Yeah, not so much.

As long as we're talking the arena and we can turn off most/all of the gimp options, I am game. We could even try pentads or something similar where people could try to achieve the precious badgez without just rolling over and dying for each other.

I play on Victory. I may have a coronary if I find anyone in zone who is not a VEAT or scrapper, let alone another defender

I am curious. What was detoggling? The only thing that should be affected is offensive toggles. Anything that does damage or applies a debuff to the target. Travel powers and self-buff powers stay up the whole time.

I agree. It takes me a long time to get enough end drain on someone to drop their toggles or otherwise allow my pitiful damage to come into play. In the new PVP it can be hard to live long enough to apply all of the necessary end drain, especially if you are outnumbered. I still use my Kin/Elec a lot, but it is not based on effectiveness. I am just too cheap to purple out another toon given the sorry state of zone PVP. :/

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I think it's a bit of a leap to say "buffers still do just fine" simply because an empath can do okay and make a difference. Of course you can "make a difference" if one side has an empath and the other side doesn't have any healers. Empathy buffs are +damage, +regen, and +recovery, along with their heals. The impact of DR on those buffs isn't as noticeable. The only thing that's really impacted is their healing, but if you're using absorb pain, you can still hit people with big heals a couple times. However, what about all the other sets, who DON'T have access to something like AP?

Now try the same thing with a thermal. Or a cold dom. Or a FF character.

Then say "oh, it's just fine, my buffs made a big difference".

One set doing okay does NOT make up for all the others being crushed under DR. If every OFFENSIVE set except for one were sucking wind in PvP, would it be just fine, because everyone could just use that one set and still be effective? Would you say "damage-dealers are just fine, look at this one set"? I don't think so.

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The only "buff set" that I think was somewhat seriously hurt/crippled in the new pvp system is Sonic. Simply because, now Sonic Resonance brings very very little to a team, outside of a dependable single target -res debuff.


All other sets, to include FF, are fine. Sure, some of their toys aren't as useful anymore, but they have other VERY useful toys that they can still fall back on, so it's not a wash at all.

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Kinetics? Suppression overriding Inertial Reduction and Speed Boost, DR hitting recharge rate, ID not providing mez protection and ID's damage resist giving just a tiny percentage.

Yeah, kin is doing JUST FINE out there in the zones and arenas.

Posi actually went on record to say they deliberately removed good rewards so people would not feel they "needed" to do it, based on their difficulty. I was on the raid on test where we beat about 50 of them and were subsequently buffed. After that buff, I think the devs had thought they would not be taken down and people would lose interest.