The_Alt_oholic

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btw, i think issue 16 should just be fixes. i know its not a real issue then, but it would be a massive download if you consider all that needs to be fixed. maby call it issue "15.5 the Fix"

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I'd love that.

And you are right, there are a huge number of bugs that need to be fixed. Sadly enough, many of them aren't bugs in regards to new content - they are bugs that happened to existing (and working) systems when new content has been added over the last several issue releases.

I'm not holding by breath, but I still wish those bugs would get fixed.

At least, the out-of-sync bug was finally fixed.

Nice.
I've wanted bubble helmets for a long time.
Your extras are great additions!

I can only hope that this will come to be.

Yeah, sure dark one. Tanks aren't already the pet archetype! Make them more powerful.

Tankers get the Gauntlet inherent because many players deny the fact that Tanks were meant to Taunt. Taunt is a very important power in the pool for archetypal reasons. Since many Tanks decided that they did not need this key power, the DEVs were forced to make Tanks do their job as part of a team.
One of them was the punch-provoke. The other is Gauntlet.

Tanks are meant to protect teams and not be damage machines.

If you want a power that hurts people that attack you in melee range, there are tanker sets with damage fields.

EDIT :: There are already other threads on this - use your search-fu!

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I might be the last person to notice that sign in the AE building. I was stunned to find that there is a separate AE area with power suppression. Very cool. Can we get one for the markets?

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I wish.
I think that power suppression in the markets have been suggested quite a while.

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. I also thought the level 35 limit would help moderate any "upheavals", but you're right, that's not much of an actual limit.

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I'm not really seeing how keeping lower level characters out of the merger market (which I'm against) would have any "positive" effect - especially since a large share of the marketing abuse/manipulation behavior comes from level 50's.

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Personally, I think that the perfect solution lies in Cimerora.

Have a merchant set up shop near Julia Pria. He'll work with ANYONEm because he has no concept of modern "heroes" and "villains" - these are just the guys working for Imperius.

He functions just like WW or the Black market, with the following exceptions:

1> He uses a third database, separate from WW or the BM. Like those two, it crosses all servers.
2> He talks to heroes and villains, giving both access to the same database.
3> He charges twice the fee of the regular markets.


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I'm against this idea.
The "going Rogue" zone would be much better suited for this.
I'm against market mergers.
See my other posts in this thread in regards to my ideas and discussion with the OP.

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One thing that comes up in this forum fairly often is the disparity between red and blue side markets, and the idea of merging them into a single market to "fix" the villain supply problem. While this is a worthy goal, it's often shot down on the grounds that such a merge would be a more or less cataclysmic event, and people who have a lot of expensive things listed stand to lose, big time.

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I guess it might cause losses to a few players on the villain side. (What is this blue and red? Do they wear those colors? They aren't two sides of indeterminate alignment.)

The Hero side shouldn't be effected at all if such occurred. And the villain market would rise quickly rise to fit the hero market.

I am, however, against a merger of this type based on any grounds.

Influence was originally a reward for doing good things and gaining notability as a good character. It is still related to that.
Infamy was originally a reward for doing evil things and gaining a reputation as a evil character. It is still related to that.

Why should a currency based on alignment be usable by both sides in this kind of relation?
It shouldn't be.

The situation is black-and-white. There is no gray.

There is no physicality related to anything involved with infl/infa in any real game mechanic sense.
You can't steal someone's raptor pack in PvP. You can't even sell your raptor pack to someone of the same alignment. Same goes for wings, costume parts, etc.
It is not currency to exchange for physical things. It is currency to exchange for augmentation of good or evil.

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Thus, I would like to propose a free market solution to the problem, one that is both simple and elegant. All we really need is some method for moving items (recipes, salvage, possibly inf but not strictly necessary) across faction lines.

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No. We don't. I've already stated that I'm against this. Multiple times in other threads.

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This could be the form of a third, neutral market, some form of in-game mail that works by account,

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How is this any different from combining the markets? (which I'm against).

It gives an incentive to exploit the side-switching mechanic. It helps exploiters and cheaters to prosper. I'm vehemently against this.

This is solo-account-inter-character trade and is something completely different from market merger. I'm against solo-account-inter-character trade without a middle man and/or the markets. -- especially across alignments.

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or even side switching with Going Rogue if it's not too painful to go back and forth.

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It should be very hard and time consuming to switch sides, and your character should be punished for doing so.
I still believe characters should be stripped of all infl/infa as they change sides. Also they should loose any gear that they are not carrying at the time - at least - I'm for stripping characters of everything - enhancements, salvage, insps, everything if they switch sides.
[NOTE:: we still don't know if you will start off as level one on the other side if you switch sides. This is not an impossibility. This would really limit what you could carry with you across to the other side with you.]
Jumping back and forth between good and evil should not be a frequent event.
If the point is just to allow characters to flip sides with the push-of-a-button - and I have no doubt that some exploiters will try to find a way to do this - then the whole concept of "Going Rogue" and "switching sides" because the idea of good and evil becomes a sham.
[We also don't know if "Going Rogue" involves making new characters in the "Going Rogue" zone and then the course of play makes the character a hero or a villain. This is also a possibility.]

While we are on "Going Rogue", I obviously don't like inter faction trade going on. Obviously the Wentworths of Paragon City would not be connected to any Wentworths that exists in the "Going Rogue" dimension; like-wise the Black Markets.
Why would the trading be inter-dimensional?

That being said, I am against a common market in the "Going Rogue" zone as well. Even separate markets are kind of a sham if you can take things out of the "Going Rogue" markets and move them to the markets of the good and evil worlds and vice-versa.
There is no reason to leave the "Going Rogue" zone if the markets are connected to both sides - even if it is hard to flip sides.
I can agree with the concept of a third grey zone market that exists in the Rogue zone only, but I think that any thing that has been "tainted" by this market should be removed from the character if they move out of the "Rogue" zone - to either side.

I think you are right that the market needs to be separate - but I'm for it being completely separate from both sides. One where the goods are coded to be removed if you exit to either Paragon City or the Rogue Isles.

This would ::
<ul type="square">[*]Give players that want an alignment-merged market what they want in a way that won't effect the current markets.[*]Tend to keep players that are trying to work the inter-alignment markets away from either-side of the current market structures.[*] Implements an incentive not to side flip quickly (because "side flipping" is really about moving between Paragon City and the Rogue Isles for some advantage[*] does not give an advantage to exploiters[/list]
In order to do this in a functional manner ::
<ul type="square">[*]Items gained on the hero side or villain side cold not be sold or exchanged in the "Rogue" market.[*]A new gray "alignment" of gear would have to be developed for exchange among characters that are in the Rogue zone only.[*] A new gray inf would have to be developed - and named -- inf-gray, IGs, Stateman's dollars (that cursed traitor), or some such - that could only be used in the Rogue market and only traded among characters in the Rogue zone.[/list]
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The reason this would work is that opening an channel between factions creates a lot of opportunities for market arbitrage. If recipe A is cheap blue side and expensive red side, it becomes profitable to move them from the hero to villain markets. So-called Ebil marketeers are sure to take advantage of this.

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Another reason that the markets should not be merged.

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Over time, the market that is over-supplied will begin to dry up, resulting in rising prices. The formerly supply-starved market will have more seller competition and undercutting, leading to falling prices.

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Using your thinking, Purple items will be moved to the villains and posted for blue side pricing. Obviously the villains have fewer of these.
The Purples (and to lesser extent all invention sets) are the primary reason that many want markets merged.

The transfer of Purples across the lines is the worst possible reason for market merger.

Prices won't fall. It will prompt cheating players to buy more infa from RMT spammers. Leading to more RMT spams and gain for players that cheat.
The RMT's would have a hayday moving stuff back and forth across the sides in order to manipulate the markets - and they do it as a full time job. Could players compete with that? Who do you think drives up the prices of Purples so high?

I certainly hope that your goal is not to promote cheating or to help cheaters, but that is in fact what will occur if an open third market or cross alignment trades are allowed.

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While there would still be some disparity between the two markets, the most egregious cases would eventually balance out. It would be a slow process, meaning that people wouldn't instantly get burned by a merge -- they have time to adjust and adapt.

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Well, you are either talking about two markets or three markets. I thought your point was about a third market, but you are back to how it would influence the two.
That's why I think that if there is a third -- and I can see why there probably should be at this point -- then the third should be separate from teh other two and the goods from the Rogue zone should not be allowed in either the hero or villain sides of the game.

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A neutral third party handling the exchanges is also a lot less lore-breaking than the idea of WW and the BM cooperating.

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I agree with this...except for the middle-man position of the third market. Rogue goods should be specific for use/effect and trade in the Rogue zone only.

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Thoughts?

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I'm getting a bit redundant here, but this is the closing argument section.

1) I can see the reasoning for needing a third market that is specific to the Rogue gray-zone.
<ul type="square">[*]I think this calls for it's own currency that is seperate from the currencies of either side.[*]It should have it's own market that is separate from either side.[*]Characters should not be able to trade gray goods outside of the gray-zone.[*]Gray goods should not effect characters if they are outside of the gray-zone.[*]I feel that Rogue/gray goods should be stripped from characters as they exit into Paragon City or the Rogue Isles[/list]This reduces the ability to exploit the Rogue/Gray market and/or market merging, while still allowing both sides to trade in the same market while in the Rogue/Gray area.
2) Merging market by any means is a boon to exploiters and RMT's - don't reward the cheaters.
We already know they are working to exploit the system, don't make it easy for them.
3) The primary reason to merge markets is due to Purple and on a lesser level IO-sets in general. This is the major disparity between the two markets and the avenue that the exploiters will take to abuse the merger and/or middle-man market.
Biggest gain the fastest for the exploiters - right? What do you think that they will be "taking the time" to "side-switch" to move. If the market is not separate in the Rogue/Gray zone, exploiters will start smuggling across the line immediately.
This does not help the average player. It helps exploiters.
4) Allowing a gateway-market will benefit exploiters of the side-switching mechanism more than anyone else.
It was even brought up in this thread that "some" players are already looking to side-jump frequently for no other reason that abusing the markets. (another reason for no market merger at all).

I am against market mergers on any level for any reason. <ul type="square">[*]Keep the markets separate at all costs - this means separate goods and a separate currency.[*]Don't allow goods to be transferred across "sides".[*] Strip goods from characters when they switch from hero-to-gray, gray-to-hero, gray-to-villain, and from villain-to-gray. - or - at the very least, make gray and villain goods unusable in the hero zones and make gray and hero goods unusable in villain zones.[/list]

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On the last point, It made me think that possibility a way to give some flexibility to the "other side" of this discussion is to allow goods to go into the Rogue/grey Market (third market) structure, but not allow them to come out again (aka they items get [tagged] gray). That is to say, you can sell hero or villain items to the Rogue/Gray market, but once they are [tagged] gray, you can't sell them on on the blue or red markets.
This would mean that the Third World market would have some of the flavor of what some players are looking for without damaging either market. It would still be exploitable, but less so.
But remember this is all based on the fact that you can't utilize the Grey Items outside of the Rogue/gray zone.
As far as I'm concerned, Rogue/Gray items should be stripped form a character when the character enters the hero or villain side - and that goes for villain goods being stripped from characters going into the hero side and vice-versa.

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I'm really not that sure that much "skills" are required for this game. Since this game is balanced around SOs, often a well-geared party can just bulldoze through TFs without any consideration for strategy. Things just die so fast, even at the max difficulty setting, that it doesn't matter who's in what position. Also, since XP debt means absolutely nothing once you hit 50, there's really no significant punishment for dying.

You would almost have to specifically set up certain situations just to be challenged.

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Well, you are talking about players not using skill.
That doesn't mean that others can't be using skills.
It just means that you are admitting that the bull-in-the-china-shop method of play is not skillful --- and I agree with that entirely.

Not everyone is running a level 50....at least they weren't tonight when I was running a team.

Try playing on invincible in a police mission in King Row at level 5 and get back to me about how easy you plow through content on the lowest level - and, no, you can't have level 50's along with you. Solo it or run it with a team of level 5s or lower.

There is a punishment for debt at level 50 -- your inf is cut in half until you work off the xp debt.
Considering the way players farm at that level, maybe there should be harsher punishments for xp Debt at level 50. No drops until you work of your debt would be a good start - maybe even doubling or tripling the debt you get for falling at level 50...hmmm....say, maybe that is actually going in the right direction due to multiple reasons...

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Locking higher level characters out of the AE missions in lower level zones so that they can't lure lower level characters into content based on their jaded point-of-view.

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While I am all in favor of kicking 50s out of Cap and Atlas, all this would do would turn the high-level zones into MA farm central. Lowbies looking for Portal Corp farms made it to PI, they could make it there for MA farms as well. Then high-level characters who wish to play and create legitimate AE content would be stuck sharing the buildings in high-level zones with swarms of farmers, instead of having the option to go to a low-traffic zone.

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So I guess you understand what a pain all that spam is.

Who could deal with the spam situation better?
A new player?
Or - a player that has a level 50?

Grandville and Peregrine Island were "farm central" before the MA/AE was introduced. I'm just trying to force it back there.

If you want to do something to help the MA/AE then do something about stopping the abuse.

I see you aren't posting an idea to help solve it.

Please. I want to hear what your idea is to keep this behavior out of the lower level zones so that people can play zone appropriate content with out all the higher level team spams.
I'm sure you have a better idea.
I would like to see it.

In my experience, if you want to run a good two-char team, you should figure out how the team is going to run before you make characters.

I have done a good deal of two-char teaming; both PuGing and with a friend that I have known for years outside of the game.

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I think it works best with a point-man character and a support character.
The first thing to do is to consider who is more likely to be willing to support the other player.
Then have the first player make the point character.
Look at their sets and then built a support character best suited to support the "point man".

I had very good success running as a support ice/empathy controller to support an ?/storm defender.
Our damage tended to be kind of low, but we had no problem finding a blaster to add damage to the team. I would usually recruit one or two blasters that were of a lower level and we would sk them.

I also had a lot of success supporting a ss/willpower tanker with an energy/energy blaster.

Support play mainly consists of targeting through the "point man" player and aiding them directly in damaging/debuffing the enemy that they are attacking and/or buffing/healing the "point man".

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If neither of you can play a support role, then I would suggest two scrappers or two Brutes that were either regen or willpower.

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today, I reallly want to buy set of Purples for my Scrapper but the prices on the melee set cost like lil over 160mil, I wish they can lower the cost of thoses purple set like 80-40 mil but I guess I have to farm the hell out my toon then :P

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They = players that are posting the item that is for sale.
They set the price at which these sell for in order to make an inf profit on selling these items.

have to = must, am required to, have no choice but to
No, you don't have to "farm the hell" out of your toon. That is a something you decide on doing. No one is forcing you to do it. It is not required content.


You are not required to have "purple" IO sets. Those are something that you "want" not something that you "need".

You don't "need to" or have to "catch'em all!"

Purple sets are "Unique" sets - aka extremely rare. They aren't very rare - let alone extremely rare, if every 50 has them.

Or am I missing the point of them being Uniques/extremely-rares?

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Have any of you had a power combination that you just found to be so exciting, you didnt want to stop playing it?

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No, not really. I really like alt/server jumping too much.

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Something that was just so powerful, or maybe just so all around fun that you loved playing as it?

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I really like the Plant set for Dominators or Controllers.

My problem is that practically everything is fun to play as far as I'm concerned.

I think I find Stalkers to be the least enjoyable AT.

If you come up with a character conception that you are really into and pick powers based on that then you will probably be more likely to like "playing" the character than if you just pick a power set and mini-max a character and "run" it to 50.

But then I like to "play" the game. I'm not trying to "work" the game.

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Hi,

I am struggling to find the best discussions on the ways we might extend or improve MA so that it works as a storytelling and RP mechanism. I know there has been a lot of discussion about farming, but it seems to me that AE is one of the best implemented features in CoH, but missing a few key features to make it actually work for the more story and socially inclined players.

Any suggestions for threads that I should check out?

Cheers,

Sib

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lol
Looks l like you started one!

My quick list would be ::
<ul type="square">[*]Allowing players that aren't the leader to read the contact text (Yeah, sure they can do this by clicking on the info/red explosion, but not many player seem to know about that).[*]A contact like logic-tree for taking with allies.[*]More text space in dialog areas. 100 characters is kind of low in a lot of situations.[*]RP Players understanding that if they really want players to have time to read everything in a mission they should not be making timed missions unless they are setting to the maximum amount of time. Players aren't going to have time to read if they are in a rush to get things done.[*]RP players understanding that the missions should be about the player running the mission and not the characters they put in the mission. That is to say that the allies, etc. should not run the show. The players should be the focal point and the players should be doing most of the fighting, etc. Allies that rob xp, etc. from players are not appreciated (at least by me).[*]RP players understanding that some (if not many) players don't take time to read the dialog or care about the RP element of the missions.[*]More mechanisms to stop farming.[*]DEVs standing by their word to punish players for using the MA for farming and power-leveling.[*]More players caring about stories rather than quick xp in general.[*]More Players understanding that "playing" CoX does not "start" at level 50.[*] Moving the AE trainer contact out of the lower level zones.[*] Locking higher level characters out of the AE missions in lower level zones so that they can't lure lower level characters into content based on their jaded point-of-view.[/list]
[...and, yes, I have 3 50's, 4 more level 40+, 11 between 30-39, 8 between 25-29, 25 between 20-24, 27 between 15-19, 44 between 10-14, 13 between 5-9, and 3 level 4 or less...the lower level zones are for lower leveled characters. Higher-level characters are hogging the broadcast in the lower level zones and that is not a good thing for any game.]

I thought that this was a potential as well, but the OP said that they weren't getting mez, stunned, etc.

I would think that there is a high potential that they were getting mez, stunned, etc. and didn't realize it for one reason or another.

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i dont seem how that question matters but the damage doing one.blazing aura

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List all your powers. That might help us to determine what is happening.

Is it happening versus all enemies or certain enemies?
Which zone(s) have you been in when this has occurred?

Yet another bug caught by players in beta and reported that was allowed to go live - and still is a bug.

This is another example of why I don't bother testing and reporting on Beta because I feel that my work does not yield the desired result of catching bugs in beta testing - is there another reason for reporting bug in beta other than the DEVS fixing them before they go live?
Are we really supposed to feel excited about playing a beta and reporting bugs if they go live and continue to be issues long after going live?

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A successful pull drags one or two enemies that are on a fringe of a group away from the rest of the "mob" to another location where the team can ambush them.

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Slight terminology pet peeve:

1 single foe = Mob (short for "Mobile". This term comes from early MUD games)
a group of foes = Spawn

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Maybe elsewhere. This is CoX.

Mob = a gang of PvE enemies - an entire grouping of enemies. (ie. "I think we were fighting more than one mob." - I can't count how many times that I've seen this in chat.)

Spawn = A character created by Todd McFarlane - http://www.spawn.com/comics/series.aspx?series_id=35

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6) Many long story arcs are simply plain bad, too challenging, have too many objectives, are using annoying maps and annoying mobs, have too much text , too many ambushes, too many AVs, finally just too much of everything and that makes them pure PITA to run. They get an auto 1 star from me.

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If I understand this correctly, you "grief" rate long missions simply based on the length of the mission?

I certainly hope you don't go out of your way to run longer missions in order to "grief" rate them.

I always wanted to see instanced missions on the train during travel where you fight enemies on the train as you travel from stop to stop..but oh well...

Why does the tailor cost inf?
Do you know how much it cost to make those fancy duds?
The boots alone!

Once you are all purply all over does that mean that you've won?
...oh, wait..that's that other game...

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(Forget the traction issue, have you ever used Super Jump? You can't move around like that while you're jumping)

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That's why you're *super*jumping.

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...and exactly why you should be able to run up walls with super speed....

Tankers historically never "taunted" as much as the DEVs intended.
As you may have learned by now, many Tanks don't think that they need to take Taunt and that it is a useless power because it doesn't benefit them.

Tankers were meant to be "bricks" and "defenders" of the other members of a team. It was intended for them to "hog the agro" so AT's that did more damage, healed-buffed-debuffed, and/or controlled could do so without worrying about being attacked ---&gt; because they tend to be squishy.

Since tanks weren't taking Taunt, the provoke-punch in their attacks were added.
When the inherent powers were added, the Tanks were still not "hogging" the agro enough so they were stuck with an inherent that made them do their "job" better.

As it is, Taunt is a far superior agro controlling tool than gauntlet or provoke-punch.
Enemies that are agroed by TAUNT can not be pulled away by someone that can generate more damage than the tank. The other agro/taunt that a tank can generate can be dismissed by superior fire power.

If all tankers thought that Taunt was useful, then the AT would not have been stuck with that inherent.
The Tanker AT gets what it deserves based on player usage of the AT.

That is to say DEV data-mining determined how Tanks were operating. They weren't acting as designed, so steps had to be taken to make them operate more closely to the intended specs.

I think you are looking for a way to exploit the system

Yeah, that pretty much covers it.

If it is an AoE, instead of targeting in the center of a group, target a foe on the edge of the group and diametrically opposed to a wall or corner.

You can also wait for a controller to "lock down" foes before using your attacks with knockback as most immobilizes and holds negate knockback.


You do have a right to use your powers.
Some players just complain if things don't go the way that want.

If you are a leader, you can't get kicked off a team.
On the other hand, if someone complains too much about your power usage - give them a couple of warnings to stop complaining about it and learn to work with it - if that doesn't work, kick them from the team.

The players that are going to complain a lot about knockback are a minority.
A majority of them are tanks, scrappers, brutes. They complain because enemies are getting knocked away from them, so try to place your aoe's to knock foes toward them. That includes the ones that get past them - use knock back to knock the enemy back away from the squishes in the back line.

I have an level 50 Energy/Energy blaster and I was never kicked from a team because of knockback issues. I don't even think anyone complained about the knockback at all more than a couple of times, and that was because I was targeting through the tank because they didn't have Taunt - and then it was just a matter of angling myself to "corner" the foe.
You can play in such a way to minimize the effects so that people don't even realize you have powers with knockback.

Besides, foes that are knocked back can't attack again until they stand back up.

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If you really want a "skill" challenge make a hero and keep it level 1 - with no xp. Use Sprint only to get from Atlas to Portal Corps Peregrine Island without using the trains, pocket d teleporter, mission tp'r, sk'ing, any team mates, etc.
It can be done, I've done it several times. I know other players that have done it. I was in a race that was based on this premise.
If you are able to do that and don't think it takes skill to accomplish it, I applaud your skill in evasion.


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The Blaster Marathon! That was fun, I have to say.

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I ran it by myself solo a couple of times.

Then I was in one of the "Naked Noob" races ...I think it was on Pinnacle or Protector. I can't remember. I remember forking out loot for the winner on another server where they had a character because the event runner didn't have any loot on the other server. It was over a year ago, maybe even two.

These things come and go from time to time. I think there was another one recently somewhere. Was that perhaps "the Blaster Marathon" of which you speak?