Turgenev

This doesn't really give you numbers, but something to think about:

1. If you can get Power Boost, it'll double your flight rate. Nice way to get extra kick outta Hover for 15 seconds.
2. The JumpJet power also boosts Hover VERY nicely for 30 seconds.

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I would not recommend upgrading to the GVE goodies if you are inclined to think the Jump Jet Prestige power will be useful for a lowbie.. or in general.

The power is designed to augment travel powers and give them a little more speed while adding vertical ability. I wish I'd known just how "little more" it would add beforehand.

It's useless for lowbies (less than 14) unless you consider travelling at the speed of 3 slotted Hover for 30 seconds as useful.

I'm less than impressed using at higher levels too. I had anticipated more umph and less "is this thing on?" when using it. Lesson learned.

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Says you.. i love this thing.. its fantastic for PvP

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I agree with Sal on this. Turg uses Hover primarily as a stable aerial platform in PvP. With JumpJet, I get a very nice turbo boost to kick me around, while keeping the DEF up. And the recharge is fast enough to where I end up using it constantly.

I do wonder how much it boosts regular fly, however. I tried it on my Peacebringer using the lvl 1 flight, and it didn't seem to impact it in any noticeable way. Anyone test this thoroughly yet to run the numbers?

Posi: TELEPORT BUG. C'mon, 1/4 of your travel options are nerfed for range enhancers since 5/7.

Trams. The other travel power nerf.

These are QoL issues that should and need to be addressed as well, particularly since it seems like you've had at least the TP bug "in the bag" for months now.

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That's great if your system will render him.

Making us depend on something the engine cannot reliably support is not acceptable IMO. And my system is way, way, way beyond the recommended specs.

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Run in Safe Mode.

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That's not an answer. I have to run raids in safe mode (until I7...), and I still lose Hamidon regularly. I've always seen this a facet of packet stability, rather than an FX rendering issue.

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And more importantly, unless Azuria lied about her birthdate to MAGI, she's less than 10 in the book. So...um...what about that?

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Magic

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Oh my goodness, you nerfed her AGE??

Great work, Tiny. Someone in my gaming association posted a few weeks ago, asking if anything like this had been written. Now it has.

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IF we were to ever add a way to get Isolator post-Tutorial, it would most likely be incredibly hard to get. Annoyingly hard. Irritatingly hard. There-would-be-a-zillion-people-asking-to-make-it-easier hard.

But IF we were to add it, it would be available nonetheless.

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Ever get Zookeeper when it came out? We're grizzled veterans at this, Posi.

*stands tall*

...what? In my mind, I pwn!

Hey, Positron.

So, the Isolated badge. Only acquirable if you're generating a new toon as of Issue 2 onward. Most of the older heroes have been here long before that. You can only currently get it if you recreate your toon totally (delete, recreate), or if you got the bug when you'd die and you'd end up in the Outbreak hospital.

I always thought an elegant solution to this would be to have a Portal Corp. mission where you could go to a world where the Contaminated took over the city, and developed new powers, and still have it count. Or, a hero could "go" to City Hall, and when teamed with a neophyte player, "enter" Outbreak auto-exemp'd to 1 to assist them on a team.

This is more of an issue on how to acquire a badge, rather than a badge not being available, but it's something that the old timers would like to have done. How about it, Posi? Do it for the old timers.

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Personally, I'm a fan of shadows.

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What about City of Citizens? You can pick powersets like "Medical", "Legal", "Municipal", etc. They'd have powers like "Issue Copyright Litigation" which would be a MAG 10 Fear effect to any hero, or "Bribe Other", where you could get XP for convincing a player to take influence from you.

...just a thought. We mustn't forget the people! The PEOPLE!

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As we were fighting the player controlling Manticore in the end of beta event, he started letting loose some smack talk. Pretty funny. Asked who wanted the "enema arrow" and then plugged his Web of Arachnos book.


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Glad you enjoyed it. After all, what is a good super-powered battle without witty banter.
If you think I've got a smart mouth, you should spend some time with Sister Psyche.

~M

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You make an expansion pack for that, and I'll forget ED ever happened. (Sorry, but the way she's drawn recently in the comic book... mee-rowr.) (Actually, I'm not really sorry.)

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On September 21, Senior Times Correspondent Jackson Turner and Times photographer Juan Jimenez went on special assignment to Siren’s Call to report further on the district’s re-opening. On September 24, Juan Jimenez notified the Times that Jackson Turner went to meet with a confidential informant near the docks the day before. He never returned. On September 26, the Times recovered Turner’s laptop, containing the commentary above. Despite repeated inquiries, law enforcement officials have declined comment on this case. We at the Paragon Times will continue our own investigation into the matter. If anyone has information regarding Jackson Turner’s whereabouts, please contact the Paragon Times or your local law enforcement agency.

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This text block was found in an earlier print of the newspaper, but subsequently removed for the late day final editions.

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On September 26, the Times recovered Turner’s laptop, containing the commentary above. Also found near the laptop were branches and twigs tied coarsely into the shape of a human effigy on a crossbar, and more disturbingly a bloodied handkerchief, wrapped around three teeth. The local forensics team has verified the teeth to be human, but they do not match the dental records of Jackson Turner. Investigators link this to a similar disappearance of three local college students near Burkittsville, MD in October, 1994.

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Heya boss.

First, overall I5 was nice. I think Croatoa's "Dark Astoria" effect could be diminished a bit; it'd be nice to see all that geometry y'all did. At least make it something other than burlap brown... maybe a dim bluish-green, like when sunlight is trying to get through a very foggy morning.

Second: Please address the Teleport "double teleport animation" bug. It was reported as soon as I5 hit Test with various /bugs, but so far it's still an issue.

Third: Latency seems to be a greater concern in general. For instance, it used to be that you could Superspeed out of a tram at full tilt and not get rubberbanding in most maps. Now, it seems like you're destined to rubberband in the first 5 seconds of having loaded a map. Also related to this are the "smoothness" of map changes in general. In I4, the FX of a map change seemed very slick; in I5, they're very stuttered. Glossing stuff like that, which everyone sees constantly, would go a long way in calming the general public down about the other stuff.

Fourth: I noticed Positron posted a "my bad" on the Sally spawns. Can this spawn check be commented on, post-investigation, on the other unique monsters? Kraken's generally considered an urban legend on Freedom...

Fifth: There's still some metrics to be gathered by the gaming community, but can accuracy enhancements "not working" be investigated? It seems like, at least in the Controllers forum, that certain powers are missing uncommonly often - enough to warrant a doublecheck, I think. This is relatively low on the list, but it's something we only noticed after Issue 5, so wanted to see if there was anything we could correlate the accuracy issues with.

Lastly, and this is NOT Issue 5 related, but a general comment: Can the restrictions on # of global channels/occupants be loosened? Having only 5 channels is IMO a bit restrictive, and makes it hard to build community discussions in COH. 10 channels would be nice, etc. Is there a reason why Five as the limit was chosen, and can this be upped?

That's it. Thanks for listening.

Thank you, thank you. I perform every Tuesdays and Thursdays at Caesar's.

Well, the necro raising WAS pertinent to recent changes, right? It's a valid resurrection!

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There's no immediate deadline for changes Archetype wide, though individual power sets might need attention sooner. I just wanted to say that nothing at the moment is set in stone.

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And, six months later, welcome to the Blastroller. Funny, how things change.

Ok. Been there, and I didn't see the jump paths demarcated either, so I'm hoping this is just oversight for Test more than anything.

My Question:

One of the resounding complaints about the Shard is that it's highly inaccessible/undesirable/pain in the patookus to navigate. You address many of those concerns: Facilitating quick runs deeper into the Shard with teleporters (and why step away from the Molepoint approach? IMO this was a unique feature for the Shard), showing jump paths, and having enhancement contacts in there - all great ideas. However, can the maps be "opened up" with a wider "dent" on the fog-of-war approach, instead of the current default-for-all-maps setup?

Rationale: This map is fairly unique from other hazard zones, in that it's 3 (HUGE!) zones, and is eventually going to be (I hope ) the playground of 40-50's for end-game content. "Opening" the map with a larger footprint on the fog-of-war, so its still hiding features but allows you to open more up as you go along, would allow the user to get a feel for the immensity of the map, without making trips across it too burdensome. As it stands currently, trying to "open" this map up with trips is near impossible w/o a flyer, and even then you're just opening razor-sharp lines, because these maps are so humongous. Increasing the sphere of reveal as you fly/jump/leap/etc along is a subtle but helpful way of allowing users to see the pretty map you guys built a year ago.

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Forgive my laziness, for those who are passionate about this issue; but what exactly is the problem with stacked quicksands? I've done hordes of COT casters, and from a controller's perspective, they've never been an issue that led me to cry "nerf!"

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A single minion auto-casted 2 Quicksands and I honestly believe that one of the casts was, in actuality, Tar Patch with the -Res and Slow.

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Ok. What sort of builds did you have available on your team? For instance, did your controller pop in stealthed/inviso to AOE hold them, preventing most/all of them from throwing the QS at you? Did you try teleporting/hovering out, or throwing pets in their LOS so they absorbed the QS attacks?

What were your tactics at the time that were failing? Because the Devs as my witness, I've never had an issue taking these mobs out with a healthy application of tactics based on the team's build. I'm primarily a controller, but I've also done /NRG blaster and Warshade on these mobs, and each one has its own way of dealing with the situation - so that's 3 ATs that, AFAIK, can take these mobs on without realistic suffering.

Forgive my laziness, for those who are passionate about this issue; but what exactly is the problem with stacked quicksands? I've done hordes of COT casters, and from a controller's perspective, they've never been an issue that led me to cry "nerf!" (Death Mages weren't as much a problem either, although deadly if left unchecked) Did something change recently about them? My last foray with them on a regular basis was a month or two ago.

Not trying to rain on the nerf parade here, but what are the challenges in fighting these mobs? I find Manticore's ninjas far more difficult with stacked caltrops, and even that's a relatively minor nuisance unless my SG pulls too many groups at one time.

My two cents: Guild Wars is a nice "step away from the COH pipe" game, definitely. It's visually stunning - in that respect it blows COH outta the water.

Is it right to compare the two, though? Not really; their structure is inherently different. COH is an MMO style (12 servers, persistent environment), where instanced maps are done for particular missions but aren't de facto. GW, though, is 100% instanced - the towns are basically the old Diablo ][ lobbies, you just get the chance to trade items and equip while you're there. Exit the town, though, you're on your own.

Is this a bad thing? Hardly - it permits insanely gorgeous graphics with a minimum of server-side processing, since only 4-6 people are looking at that at any time. COH would definitely look better with a graphics facelift, but that's one of the weaknesses of having a MMO; Planetside, for instance, is the most barebones MMO FPS you can get. IIRC, they tried to do dynamic lighting, for instance, but even that for weapons fire made pitched battles awful. COH has very colorful effects, but unless you're kicking them off all once (Hami raid? ), you're just a simple avatar.

Again, in no ways a weakness, but it's a determinant of the engine. GW is built around small party entertainment; COH against large-party. COH is still my main game, but the Iron Phoenix crew toggles between them both now.

I do like their PVP implementation; avoids the whole powerleveling disease, and gives those bitheads instant gratification. The RP version is FAR more enjoyable, though (thus far - only lvl 13 Necro/Element here ). I think their design is innovative in how to give the "MMO" feel while keeping it micro, and saturating you with eye candy while doing it.

Kudos to NCSoft for getting their grubby fingers on ArenaNet. Another winner, for totally different reasons than COH.

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I used ST yesterday while catching up on badges in the Hollows, and for a mob at lvl 7, it makes all the minions, and a few lts cower in fear, while the bosses and some lts run away (one waving his hands, looking like a sissy) shoot at me, then cower.

Anyone else tried it on mobs their actual lvl or higher yet?

[/ QUOTE ]Yes, on lvl 50 Possessed scientists and death mages (minions, lt's and boss).

It's a matter of position. The cone effect is so wide that placing it off to the side of a group will cone Terrify the whole group, and they run off screaming - all of them. Place it dead center in a mob, and half the mob will run, while the other half cowers.. until the next Terrify, when it pivots to them and makes them run too. The run effect is 100% certain from my POV.

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You know what I think would be really neat? If ST had a fixed facing when you placed it and it emitted a fairly wide cone that would reliably force stuff away from the controller. While situational, I could envision it being a decent panic power to wall off additional groups of mobs.

[/ QUOTE ]Y'know, I like that idea. Fix the cone away from the caster at the time of casting, to allow for better aggro shaping (disperse a few, cower a few).

I JUST respec'd out of ST last night after not hearing a peep from the devs since the 18th, and go figger, all I had to do was read the forums when I got home and see it. ;( Great timing, Turg... well, can respec on test and live, so got plenty of playtime for experimentation. We'll see.

Geko, my main question for you: Was the Issue 3 rollout of ST "NOT" the vision the Devs had? If not, why was it released, then pulled back w/o comment on the why's? As yet, we've not heard why the I3 version of ST was rolled back, and yes, it's being left in the dark about it that's got a lot of us teed off. Respecs were wasted on this rollback.

I'd like to see ST become a power Illusionists would want to use. While I may not get it for myself (no build room right now), it's a class-specific power that could be a lot "cooler" than it actually appears to be. Give mobs the "run and scream like a little schoolgirl" animations like regular NPCs get (this SOMETIMES triggers, but mostly it doesn't). Throw a roar in with each Terrify blast. Make it something to make Bob Hellion soil himself.

I was going to say that this was more of a "Spectral Terrible", but that's not fair; the power just needs work. The Devs can make it happen. Just PLEASE, keep us in the loop for this, because a lot of us feel like you guys dropped the ball since the 18th.

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The steps:

1. Go.
2. Hunt.
3. Kill Skuls!

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Just a point of clarification. Steps one and two, known as the "Go" and "Hunt" maneuvers, are not completely necessary. You may find yourself idling in a safe zone while someone is powerleveling you, for instance, and Skuls may suddenly approach YOU. In this case, the "Go" maneuver is non-applicable to the situation at hand, and "Hunt" would be overkill to begin at that time. The "Kill Skuls" closing maneuver can be executed without penalty at this point.

What a brilliant frickin' thread.

Devs, you know why I like what you're doing? Because you implement after coming up with a concept, putting it out on the Test server, and actually EVALUATE FEEDBACK from the players before pushing the code live. You take the time to give INTERESTING STORYLINES - and for those who might've glazed over the text on their way to 50, there's a LOT OF STORY ARCS in this game. Detailed, unique ones that contribute to the back story and the ongoing story evolution of Paragon City. The writer in me applauds that.

Here's one reason why Planetside ultimately failed: Nice idea (planetwise FPS). So what did they do? They'd post the code for all to see, get feedback, and to date, have NEVER responded to player feedback from Test until it becomes a flame war on the SOE boards. They'd drop in code, and whack the nerf bat left and right, based on whoever was loudest in the forum. Storyline? There was none. The thin veneer of "purpose" they gave the game did little to add savor to the gameplay; it was all a big contest of King of the Hill. Bugs that were present during BETA are STILL THERE, without any concrete effort to patch or repair due to their "low" priority (and after 1.5 years, I'm sorry, but take a week to review old bugs and fix 'em?). The engine was cookie cutter, and had little beauty to it. Good fighting, but that was it - and Quake did it x years ago.

Playing COH is a pleasure to the eye, the mind and the throat of a story-thirsty soul. Devs, you got a good thing going here. If you screw up after I make this post though, I am SO going to kick your butts. XD

Te salutamus, Developers.

My apologies for lacking a clue, but...

What was the big deal with the 5th this weekend anyway? I saw none of it, although we did have one indoor mission where it was packed to the gills with warwolves (great for my WW badge ). What actually "happened", did I just completely miss it in the 5 pages of this thread?...

Thanks for the enlightenment,

-T.

*waves to anyone he knows* Just started playing this two weeks ago for the prescho- I mean PreStart program. Lots of fun, much easier to ride along for fun than other games.

I've been pondering some fiction to write up. I have one in mind definitely that I'm working on after my latest project (a Planetside fiction I'm writing a monster chapter for), but after that I'm all open, and I wanna whet people's interest in the game.

Let me know what you want to see, and who knows? You just may get it.

Cheers.

-T. of the IRON Brigade
Freedom Server: Cerulean Skie