UberGuy

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Of course, him matter-of-factly confirming that side switching will eventually happen is pretty sweet too.

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I think you should be careful. That's not what he said. He said they knew "it would someday be possible". That doesn't mean they'll for sure do it. Just that it's possibly they will, and they wanted to plan for it. This isn't new news - when the badges got different names for different sides, they essentially told us the same thing.

Interesting stuff. I see lots of potential for doom-calling, but my initial reaction is "that sounds cool".

Posi,

Thanks. I think that's a really fair approach you took there, and I promise you that I'm not just saying that out of easy magnanimity because I got the outcome I hoped for. I really feel like you looked at the big picture and made the decision I think I would have.

And I say that as someone who doesn't have the badge and wasn't even worried about getting it.

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My big problem with Purples is more something strange I see going on with my 50 toons,
Drops in general seem a whole lot sparcer than earlier level ranges, in that its not unknown for me to run through an entire cycle of newspaper missions( that is 5 or so before your asked to visit Wiggy), and get only maybe 2-3 recipes( any recipes), out of it. Contrast this my lower level alts, where I can get maybe 2-3 recipes per mission at least.

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This is totally not happening to me. I have Herostats data to support that fact.

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They are not, however, in the mission complete pool or available from merits.

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You can earn them from merits, I recieved a Apoc Chance for dmg (lethal IIRC) from the 46-50 Random Trial Reward.

Nothing like a cool 100mil to beef up my NW

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Everything about that is off-base.

You can't get it from merits at all.

It's not lethal damage.

No one would have bought the chance for damage from you for 100M.

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Kindly read the rest of my post. The rest of your post completely fails to address any argument I made.

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I did. your arguments don't have any logic behind them.

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I'm sorry, but I have no respect for anyone who can read what I posted and declare it to have "no logic". That's beyond disagreement and into sheer stupidity.

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You talk about buildup on autofire - that's a poor comparison since buildup itself has an activation time that would disrupt your attack timing if on its own schedule.

Now if buildup fired for free... kinda like how tactics continually produces a buff without you having to reactivate it, and sometimes it's a better buff...

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That you think that even a zero-activation-time Build Up on auto would be a good idea is indicative of your failure to either accept or understand the argument against the wastefullness of such an approach. Is it better than nothing? Yes. Is it the best approach? Absolutely not.

Edit: It seems likely that arguing this further is fruitless.

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...and since if you've slotted it in Build Up, it probably will NOT be available unless its been 45 seconds since your last fight and/or you have saved up your activation of BU for this key moment. You are not taking into account the 90 second base recharge time of aim/buildup.

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That is simply not true. We're comparing the deterministic timing of Build Up with the non-deterministic timing of a toggle.

You can't simply go on about how much more often it can fire in a toggle while ignoring that you can't maximize how fully you can benefit from it in a click. I assert that you will gain more benefit from it by knowing exactly when it fires than you will by having it fire randomly.

Also, its average proc rate in a toggle is once per about 3 minutes.

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It doesnt give you a BU animation, so you dont know if its active or not.

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Hello, /togglecombatnumbers ... select 'monitor' on damage bonus. Also handy for determining if your Siphon Power is still stacked.

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My damage bonus monitor is always green and usually variable, especially on a team. It is abolutely useless as a visual indicatior that I should begin an effective burst damage chain at any given moment.

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Slotting it in a click power which you naturally use before firing your best offensive attacks virtually guarantees that when it doees fire you are getting its maximum benefit. Slotting it your way ruins any chance of that. Having my one out of 10 chance proc when Im speed boosting someone seems pretty useless.

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Again, false logic.

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Your unwilliness to accept it does not make it false.

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Though you have a 1/10 chance of the proc firing during the 10 second period when you are speed boosting, you have another 1/10 chance in the NEXT ten seconds and the ten after that if it's in Tactics. Your way you're rolling the die when you start your attack chain, and then only if you haven't just been in a fight for the previous 45 seconds. My way you're rolling the die when your attack begins, and 10 seconds later, and 10 seconds later.

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So what? On any given 10 second interval you have no idea if it will go off. If it does, you have no way of controlling the relative timing of that event with your attacks. You can only ever say that you will benefit the average effect over the long haul. You can never depend on the effect in any short-term window. While putting it in a click doesn't make it any more likely to occur per activation, it does always mean you have the opportunity to benefit fully any time it activates.

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In a situation like the Imperious Task Force, you are really going to be fighting constantly unless something Stops you.

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That's a radical overgeneralization. It depends completely on how you play the TF. It might shock you to know that not everyone fights every mob every time.

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*sigh*. Toggle slotting is still irrelevant.

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Kindly read the rest of my post. The rest of your post completely fails to address any argument I made. You have simply reiterated your earlier argument in more detail. And I have explained why this earlier argument is, bluntly, wrong. It is based on an inaccurate and impractical model of how we play the game. Viewing the benefit of something averaged over infinite time is pointless. This is not a mathematical excercise. It is about practical benefit realized in real play.

Your model for analyzing the proc's benefits requires one to average its behavior over all play over all time. Yes, analyzed in that way, eventually the proc will activate for every attack we have, and eventually proc just in time for a full attack chain. Other times it won't. Realizing its average benefit is not going to happen in one game session and isn't even likely in several dozen. That's an impractical and unrealistic approach to take, given better alternatives. Lack a BU-type power? Knock yourself out slotting it in a toggle. I tried it, I payed attention to it, and I decided I had better things to do with my slots.

Agreed with Follow Up. FU is something of a middle ground. It's clearly not a toggle, but it's something a Claws user would normally slip in their attack chain whenever possible. However, but virtue of the power's very nature, you're almost certain to actually be attacking when you get the extra buff from the proc. Somewhat like having the proc in a toggle a Claws user may not be planning to execute any particular sequence of attacks after laning Follow Up, especially if they are used to its effects being "perma", but they're certainly likely to actually end up spending attaks immediately afterwards.

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you may view this as a loss of control, but really it's irrelevant to the proc effect.

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While it's irrelevant to the functioning of the proc, it is not irrelevant to gaining maximal benefit from it. Given a 10-second window, one cannot conclude that the proc will simply increase ones average damage by the buff increase times the average percentage uptime of the buff.

This is because part of the 10-second window is virtually always lost. Even on deterministically triggered effects of this sort, such as Build Up or Follow Up, it is difficult with many powersets to fit an optimal set of attacks in that window. Time is lost to the animation of each attack, plus time spend doing things like closing to an enemy (if a meleer), switching targets when you defeat one, etc. And that's when you know you're about to get a buff, and can plan accordingly.

This is the primary objection to claims about how useful this proc is in a toggle. The likelyhood of being able to take best advantage of its effect is tiny when you have no way to predict its timing. If everyone spent all their time laying smack down on EBs, AVs and other "hard targets" where you stand there and sustain DPS for extended periods this effect would have little meaning. However, that's a radically oversimplified view of how we spend most of our time in the game, even when we are inolved in ongoing combat.

This is all avoided by choosing to slot the proc in a deterministic trigger power. Especially one which many players already plan to use in an optimized way (even if not maximally so). Indeed, if can you plan accordingly, you can potentially get better than simple average[/i] increase in your DPS by planning to use your highest DPSA attacks during the buff's duration.

This is no different than putting a power like Build Up on auto. I would simply never recommend that anyone do that, because they are likely continuously wasting the opporunity to use the power to best effect. But at least when they do that, it's not on a random activation timer.

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Everyone here does realize that if you just have a little patience the running enemies will come back, right? Use the time to Rest or whatnot until they return. That's what I do. I'm not anxious to follow them to my imminent doom. I realize that I have more patience than most these days, but really, it doesn't take much.

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It depends on what you're fighting. Some things will come back significantly if not fully healed.

Some of them will simply run off again when you re-engage them, making waiting on them to return pretty pointless.

And it's still frustrating. It doesn't add challenge in the general sense. It just adds delay. And for some situations, it is radically immersion breaking. Having to chase Scrapyard all over kingdom come while he goes on about how cowardly you are is ludicrous. Having him then run into a drone or just disappear because his spawn timer expired is absolutely asinine.

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As to being able to delete buffs from the powers window, that is prone to accidentally deleting something by mistake.

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Heh, OK. Sorry if I don't find that terribly compelling. Bear this in mind - I never even knew you could delete them from the buff bar. I never tried it, and not being able to never bothered me.

I'm not saying a useful feature should be removed. I'm saying it probably isn't a good complaint in the context of the threat at the moment, because the reality is that you can still delete them. Worried about deleting the wrong one? Pad yourself with 2-3 of a type you won't be deleting, then craft delete a different one, which will always be at the bottom of the list. The padding will last an hour.

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The restored ability to delete empowerment buffs.

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You can still delete these.

Edit: I'm seeing multiple reports of this, but I just tested it and can delete them with no problem.

How are people trying to delete them?

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I assume you mean the Midnight Club.

I just checked and am (fortunately) able to still TP around in Cim. I can breathe now. I'd have a very... strong reaction if they ever disabled TP in a large zone like that.

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Ah, good. That is ... less nonsensical. Still don't get it, though.

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- Teleport dampening field added to Cimerora.

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Are you freaking kidding me?

Way to show the love to the few people who actually take TP as a travel power. Also to the people stuck with it. * Waves to other Warshade players.

What the bloody hell happened to the patch note process this patch? This patch feels like it came from the Cryptic days.

It's telling you that it's cheaper to buy it with merits. The market price of the item is above its cost in merits times the average price of a merit.

I approve. Seriously, I have this big stupid grin on my face after watching that.

The voice actors are very win, and whoever is scripting the "emote-acting" is doing a great job.

Good stuff.

OK, when that ad started I really expected it to be kind of dumb. And, well, it probably was, but it was dumb in a way that really amused me. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Happy New Year, and thanks for expanding and maintaining this for so long. It really is appreciated.

In no particular order.
[*] The ITF / Cimerora / the foes in them.[*] Villain epic ATs, including the seeming shift in perspective for that bled over to Kheldians[*] Ongoing improvements in the interface, such as additional trays, increased context menus and (along with the expansion of this) access to players/characters via clicking on their chat names.

Overall favorite? That's hard, but I will pick Cimerora.

If I could have cheated the start date on this back 33 days into 2007, I would have had Purple IOs and Real Numbers on that list. Cimerora still probably would have won.

I understand, but I'm saying I haven't hit it, and I've run all kinds of different stuff on the same characters in succession and not had that happen.

Is this thing of diminishing returns being applied accross different TFs intermittent or only applies to certain levels or other kinds of characters? I haven't run into it.

I don't really have much objective feedback.

Subjectively, I have lots to say, but I think I'll focus on something not many people have discussed.

Merits as presented in the game feel horribly "artificial". A "reward merit" is an awful, generic-feeling name in my opinion. I could stand that, indeed it might not even have dawned on me, except for "Merit Vendors". That is a really deeply immersion-breaking name and concept.

Whatever people think of merits functionally, I think there was a missed opportunity here to integrate them better into the ongoing theme of the game. For example, when Inventions were presented, there was a significant "roleplay" presentation by Dr. Brainstorm, describing the system in terms related to the powers origins system, and indeed to the AT/powerset system. Not everyone may have thought this was the best fictional effort, but at least it was an effort made. In contrast merits feel "cold".

Perhaps ironically, I think "brainstorms" would have been a great name for merits. Instead of being some bling that you get for doing stuff, they could have been presented as a sudden inspiration in figuring out how to create a recipie from scratch instead of just seemingly finding it on a foe or at the end of an adventure (mission/TF/SF/Trial).

Finally, I will touch subjectively on something mechanical about the system. I think the implementation you guys are using for figuring out how many merits content should be worth is terrible. Ultimately it focuses overly on how your powergamers are running the content and leaves the less-frequent players and less power-gaming-oriented with reduced reward. There are going to be flaws in any system of flat reward per content, because you're never going to be able to tweak it right for all comers. I'll just say that I think you need to come up with something more dynamic on how you reward content completion.

Objective feedback.

I'll echo the comments about wall placement of items.

Also, I have a split chat window (basically the default) which mysteriously has the horizontal divider dragged down from the middle mysteriously about 25% of the time after I exit the base editor. It's a strange and mostly harmless bug, but I'm really ... anal about my GUI layout and so it gets under my skin.

As for my subjective feedback, I think GadgetDon summed up my thoughts on rent very well. I don't mean to seem ungrateful and I too think that "treadmill" type goals have a meaningful place in games like this, but I do question the current rent level.

I love the new more free rules for placing items, and I'm not even much of a base builder. Please make sure you keep this as you move forward with your work on bases.

Do please look into more formal support for stacking of especially decorative items. It seems nonsensical to me that I can't place a collection of books, a phone or some glass bottles on, say, a SG computer or SG meeting table without playing games with desks. Ideally, any solid object should be a valid surface for other (decorative) items to be placed on.

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Incredible. This is like watching a really expensive train wreck.

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Perhaps a gold reserve train?

No, wait. How about just a gold train.