UberGuy

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Anyone knows where we can find the "I disagree" post Pax made that was like one mile long of PC red tape? I think that version of saying "No" will once again be required lol

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I'm not sure why anyone thinks this should be acceptable.

Do you really think that the correct distinction should be how many words you use to say "no"?

I think they've stated pretty clearly that simply saying "yes" or "no" isn't enough. They don't want people to post such things. They want people to post "yes, because..." and "no, because..."

A show of support or dissent isn't sufficient - they don't want people just showing support or dissent. They're saying the process isn't a vote or a poll.

You may not like that. It rankles me to an extent, but I recognize that as an irrational reaction because I want to feel that it's a democratic process. The reality is that it's not. If the devs want to poll for opinion, they actually have the tools to do that - they're called polls.

Using radically flowery verbiage to say nothing more than "yes" or "no" should be slapped just as hard as saying "yes" or "no". Especially when you consider that it's specifically a smart-alec attempt to skirt the rules and look cool doing it.

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This doesn't not apply when my posts are deleted by themselves, or the beginning of the chain.

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If you delete your own posts after they are part of a chain, you don't actually delete them. You leave an empty post that says "Post deleted by <yourname>." Any followups are left intact.

When the mods "hard" delete a post, it takes all threaded responses with it. Presumably the makers of the forum software offered this so you could kill any traces of something you want to make sure wasn't quoted downstream, along with any flaming that resulted. It makes sense to me, because the mods would want to do exactly that without having to spend time reading every threaded post decended from the one they want to kill.

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Of course, I've recently PM'ed about a thread that was a clear rules violation which went unlocked, so my faith in the efficacy of even using the report button is pretty low.

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It sounds like one of two things, or possibly both need to happen.

1) The moderators need to step up consistency. I'm giving the respondants in this thread the benefit of the doubt that their reporting of threads has been on what the the community would generally agree were reasonable grounds for moderator action.
2) If, for some reason, moderator action is deemed not required but the reporting simultaneously seemed earnest, some sort of reply, possibly in the thread in question (to cut down on PMs), may be in order.

I have to say I find the conditions for bullet (2) to be almost too narrow to imagine, but I wanted to allow for the possibility. However, I would suggest that someone notifying moderators about a thread should always PM an explanation either to Koschej himself or to an appointed general moderator PM box which all moderators can monitor in a rotating fashion. This might help ensure that the mods clearly understand why you think a thread needs moderation. Perhaps what seems really obvious isn't always, so sending a PM is a way to help be sure.

BTW, what is up with the "you can't reply here" thing?

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These capping issues would be null and void if they came up with a way to have trial accounts bumped off servers or not able to access servers on double xp weekends. Its not right that paying customers have to compete with non paying customers who during the dxp weekend tend to be the spammers.

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Where have we gotten the idea that there were large numbers of trial accounts logged in for this? Is this based on something or is it just a conspiracy theory that's sprung up? I mean, really, do we find it hard to believe that Freedom could fill up to its capacity just based on normal accounts?

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I also think the popularity of these events is cause enough to review the time for normal levelling a character from 1-50.

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They already did that.

Moreover, they have a line to walk. They do this to entice people. It sounds somehow dishonest when said this way, but they have a goal of making it take time to level. If it's too easily achievable, people will play though alts, get bored and leave.

They do this to keep people hooked.

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does it end at midnight or tommorws patch?

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I'm sure you already discovered the answer, but all DXP weekends so far, including this one, have lasted till the next maintenance.

To all the people asking for retroactive reward because you bought the other game... what are you smoking?

Do you go to McDonalds and demand a free happy meal when they start a promotion a month after you bought one? Do you go to your local Ford dealership and demand money back when they put your new year-model car on sale in November? Do you demand that AT&T give you back the $100 extra you payed for the newest phone when it came when they give it away with calling plans two years later?

What you're asking for / being angry about makes no bloody sense at all.

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I saw a mention of this as a pending vampiric powerset? Can anyone shed some light (or shadow) on this?

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Yes, this is the new AT for villains and heroes.

-it will be based off of bram stoker's dracula
-it will have amazing necromantic powers

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Necroooomania.

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The only NPCs that will sell you inspirations in a co-op zone are the are mission contacts. The only reason you can buy them from a non mission contact in Ouroboros (which isn't a Co-op zone) is because of how the flashback system locks you out of all your other contacts.

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The other co-op zone in the game is the RWZ, and there, all the mission contacts sell inspirations, even Borea, who gives nothing but random timed missions. Her counterpart in Cimerora, Marcus Valerius, does not have inspirations however.

So, if only mission contacts will sell inspirations, why doesn't Marcus Valerius do the same?

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I agree. I don't see the above quoted a good explanation for why this is intentional.

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Nothing was said about loosing a slot later if you deleted a toon. At least nothing by the devs. This is rampant player speculation/panicking at its best.

You Sir, are indeed in a panic about nothing.

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I disagree. This is exactly what happens now when the system goes offline. We are asking because we want to make sure that what we are seeing when the system is offline is not a precurser of behavior for when slots are "rescinded". Given the Dev's recent track record for QoL bugs that seem hard to have missed in QA, I don't think making assumptions that things will be OK is prudent.

However, I see this has been clarified, and I'm plenty happy with the clarification. Asked and answered.

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Actually, the two free slots that were launched with the Character Slot service / Issue 12 *will* end at some point in the future.

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What, exactly, happens if you use them, then later delete a character?

The way things work now, it seems that they will be lost. If that's the case, they're not a very effective reward.

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Seems hover/flight needs re-re-tweaking. Flew into the train and upon exiting the train in a new zone Cerebrawl is vibrating like he's having siezures.

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Flight or Hover on?

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Either, or (it seems) anything else that grants flight. It happens on my system without fail whenever I perform any zone crossing. I just transit to another zone and then don't move. I'll fly/hover there in a pose that looks like the start of the falling animation, but oscillating like an 80's VCR's pause feature.

It stops if I land or fly forward about 10'.

FYI, I have never seen a Surgeon use Clear Mind. There is a very similar buff visual for Shout of Command, which you might have mistaken for the Surgeon using CM.

The Clarity-like effect of SoC is an AoE. It lasts something like 15-30 seconds.

Cimerorans do not have protection from Fear unless Shout of Command is used (see below).

Immunes Engineers seem to have an AI preference for "squishies". This is hard to quantify, but I repeatedly find them going after Doms, Controllers and the like, even when everything else is focused on something like a Brute. Their description mentions them going after weaknesses in their enemy's armor. This could be purely a matter of perception, but I found it interesting.

I don't notice any Leadership like effect from Praefectus bosses. I do notice that Cimerorans with their shields out seem to have good +defense. This defense seems to be damage typed and not positional, because they appear comparatively easy to hit with Psi damage attacks. Prafectii also use Shout of Command when low on health.

Praefectus bosses seem to lack immobilize protection in their shields, as they can be immobilized with two applications even after their shield is out. It also takes two immobilizes to affect minions and LTs if their shield is out, showing that their version does add immob protection.

Shout of Command is notable for being a PBAoE buff that does not affect its caster. Cimeroran mobs can cross buff one another with it, but they do not affect themselves.

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Did they at least change the color on them? It wasnt the salvage found message that made players angry but more so the orange color making them think they really got rare salvage. If they are still going to be orange then this change essentially did nothing for us players.

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They're still orange, and I'm afraid I disagree with you. The change to the word merit works just fine for me. Even though a different color altogether would allow me to relegate processing this input to an even smaller part of my brain, what they did here works fine for me.

Personally, I want them to color code the recipie drop messages.

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I like the rest but this I would have to disagree with. Once you get to 20 you are (or should be) much more survivable and should be bumping up the difficulty of the mobs you are facing. 20+ on Heroic starts to slow. 20+ on Sturdy (that is the 3rd level right?) and you go up quite fast. 20+ on Invincible and you shoot straight through the levels incredibly fast.

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I disagree with your disagreement.

I played on Vicous (the middle setting) from level 1 to 25.

I slowed down at 20. Read my post. I didn't make a judgement about how fast 20 was in absolute terms. I said it was noticably slower than the levels before it.

Anything more than Vicious difficulty (the middle setting) is, IMO, a poor choice at level 20 unless you invest early in Tactics. The reason? You miss too much. +2 foes in particular are very hard to hit for a low-level character, and they hit very hard in return. I also consider Stamina require in order to be able to sustain fights against foes in spawns of the size you find on the "even" difficulty settings, or of the tougher foes on the highest settings

These are soloing concerns. If you are on a team where you can obtain toHit and/or +recovery buffs then these concerns are absent.

Note that the toHit concern is ameliorated at low levels thanks to the new "beginner's luck" bonus we get. This is why I was able to run on Vicious at level 1. However, at level 20, this bonus is gone. In my opinion, it's too small to be really effective starting at level 15.

TLDR version: Swap Tactical Training: Leadership and Foresight so that Foresight is at level 18.

Note: This is feedback posted yesterday on test. It was transplanted to the SoA forum in a guide, but I'd like to repost it here, as it's intended as feedback. I don't believe anything relevant changed since yesterday before this went live.

I think the early progression of the Widows would be a lot smoother if Foresight came even a bit sooner. My reccomendation would be somthing like level 18. There are a number of factors that contribute to this suggestion.

The transition from lacking Foresight to having it is night and day in terms of survivability. Your ability to stand in melee absolutely transforms, and your abilitiy to fend off ranged attacks improves noticably. The latter is especially important because so many foes in the 15-29 level range use defense debuffing bullets, which can contribute to cascade failure of all your positional defenses.

Moreover, the new "hump" in XP progression after the recent XP "smoothing" feels like it's right around level 20. Now, I'm not complaining. I didn't check the numbers but I'm guessing we're still leveling faster than we did before. However, everything of course becomes relative, and the gains felt noticably slower than at earlier levels right around 20. This combines with the relative weakness of early Widow defenses, the ramp up of foe HP around 20 and having to wait till 22 for Foresight and all makes for a few slogging levels that could probably be eased by moving that power a couple of slots.

My recommendation would be to swap Tactical Training: Leadership with Foresight. One reason is that you already have the +ACC/resToHitDebuff power at available level 2. The +toHit/+perception is certainly nice, but I wouldn't think people would really pine for it at 18 vs. 22. The defense of Foresight, though, was something I definitely pined for.

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The PlayNC launcher only streams updates in the background if you let it. You can configure various download options in its settings -- everything from auto-updates to no updates at all. You can also have the launcher set to exit after you launch a game so it doesn't tie up any resources when you're playing. It's not invasive at all (I used it for Tabula Rasa when I played).

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That sounds pretty reasonable then. I wouldn't have a problem with that as described.

I still wouldn't have a used for the voice comms. I don't PuG in general, so I wouldn't care much about expectations that I'd chat there. I understand that concern, though.

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When Tabula Rasa was released, it looked like NCsoft was going for a "universal" launcher for all of their games, a launcher that would display news and info like the current one, but that would be used to launch any of their games that a user had installed, and that ran in the background and would download and install updates even if the player wasn't at their computer. It looked pretty neat, and I think they even had it working with City of Heroes, but they never pushed it out as the replacement launcher.

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I will be inordinately unhappy if that's what the launcher turns out to be. I do not play Valve games, and Steam factors significantly into why. The CoH launcher is lightweight and, frankly, easy to skip. I want nothing to do with the downloading of patches or other data "streaming" in the background at times anything other than of my choosing.

There are ways they might do this right, but I do not like what I imagined after reading what you have described.

Edit: I am unlikely to use this in any case, not because I don't talk to people, but because I don't just talk to people in NCSoft games. I'm not interested in a 3rd or 4th chat tool when I have a couple that already do what I want and let me communicate with people in other games/environments.

I hate to say it but I think this is a bad business decision. I know too many people like me who aren't going to be interested in a niche tool like this. I'll be happy to be wrong.

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I think this would be a very good idea. I'm sure it would upset some people who really had to go through hoops to make their builds work at particular levels, but as it is, it is just a roadblock that keeps people from wanting to use the IO system as well as creating a mismatch in the marketplace for IO's themselves.

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Bear in mind, they did this intentionally. Arcanaville reported that during beta they revealed that they specifically intended the market to be a mechanism by which high-level characters enriched low-level ones by buying their stuff. In light of that, and the IO/exemplar interaction is the only way I see that in play, I think removing that would remove the vast majorty of the pricing we see. I don't think badging alone could sustain the levels we see now.

Basically, if you want lowbies to be able to afford the market at "native lowbie" prices, you need to either flatten the earning curve or make the high-end earners disinterested in lowbie goods. But when you do that, you remove the abilitiy for lowbies to so easily benefit from highby wealth that we have now.

Of the options, I actually prefer what we have now. I'm happy to wait till higher levels to really dip into powerful IOs. Or, alternatively, to twink myself out with a more powerful earner.

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It's part of the Arc in base too, I had the little notebook on wheeler when I completed the mission two days ago [not Ouro]. I think a big part of the problem is it seems that Tomax's [and I guess the Paragon Wiki] are only showing the last 3 missions of the arc.

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I am not basing my statements on websites. I am basing my statements on in-game experience, repeated multiple times. I mentioned the websites because they reinforce my statements.

It is impossible for this mission to be part of his arc (outside of Ouro) when I have done it as Willy's very first mission.

Trust me, I'm only using PW as back up. It's not the basis for why I believe (non-Ouro) PoV is standalone.

As just one example, about two weeks ago I did that mission with a good buddy of mine, and then we started Willy's arc on the next mission.

And like I said, I checked with other badge hunters in global channels I hang in before I replied to you.

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Well, you're right that I snagged the wrong mission info. However, it's still not part of his arc.

I've done this mission 8 times, Silver. Don't tell me it's part of an arc. It's not. I've verified it with multiple players, just on the off chance I was under the influence all eight times I've done it.

[/ QUOTE ]Then I suggest you log in with me now, cause I will take you on that arc and show you it's apart of the arc set up. Cause I got the badge by doing flashback on my current brute.

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Then it's different in Flashback than it is in standard play. It's not part of the arc outside of Ouro.

Look carefully at the Wiki. It's not part of the arc there.

I'll take your word that it's part of the arc in Ouro. I've never bothered to do the arc there because I knew that's not where it was normally.

Well, you're right that I snagged the wrong mission info. However, it's still not part of his arc.

I've done this mission 8 times, Silver. Don't tell me it's part of an arc. It's not. I've verified it with multiple players, just on the off chance I was under the influence all eight times I've done it.

Defeat all Arachnos Personnel
Briefing

My source has been having Arachnos problems, and he wants a hurt put on 'em to show he means business. He found an Arachnos base in Paragon City. Go into the Arachnos base an take down everyone.

There's a ship at the docks in the Devil's Coat Tails here on Cap au Diable which is heading to Paragon City soon. Once you get to the mainland, head over to the building housing the hidden Arachnos base and lay waste!

Arachnos hideout in Paragon CityThis Arachnos base is well hidden in Paragon City's warehouse district

Mission Objective(s)
Defeat all Arachnos Personnel

Enemies
Arachnos

Notable NPCs
Wolf Spider Hunstman (Boss)
High Tech Machinery (Object)

Hitech Surveillance Device
It looks like this surveillance device was used by Arachnos for spying on hero activity within Paragon City.

Badge
Completion of this mission earns a villain the Paragon of Vice Badge.

Debriefing
Nice work! We better keep this quiet tho' - we don't want Arachnos huntin' us down for this.

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Willy Wheeler's Badge mission is missing from Ouroboros.


[/ QUOTE ]No it isn't. You have to do his arc, because it's apart of the story arc.

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This is false. It is a standalone mission, and not part of an arc.

Plant bombs in Arachnos base

Briefing
Hey! got a hot job for ya! Seems as though someone in Arachnos crossed this guy I know, and he wants revenge! What I need you to do is plant these bombs within the Arachnos base. It'll send 'em a message they won't forget.

Here's the explosives that you need. They're a bit primitive, but they'll get the job done!

Mission Objective(s)
Plant bombs in Arachnos base
5 bombs to set

Enemies
Arachnos

Notable NPCs
Wolf Spider Huntsman (Boss)

Debriefing
Wow, that blew up good! Hehe! Stick with Willy Wheeler and we'll go far!

[*] Willy Wheeler's Badge mission is missing from Ouroboros.[*] The Force of Nature Accolade (villain equivalent of Geas) is still level bound such that you lose it if you exemplar below the level at which you obtained it.

Edit: Willy's badge is not missing. It is organized differently in Ouro. In standard mission play it is not part of a story arc.