UberGuy

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I fail to see how it is a 'bad idea'. You may not like it, but that really doesn't make it bad - especially since you go into no details.

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It's a 'bad idea' because it introduces debt where, to many of our experiences, there was none before. In other words it punishes those of us who spend most of our time in PvE for even bothering to PvP. You will take mob-sourced damage in PvP zones like Siren's Call and RV, and you will be defeated.

I have a problem with changes that are bad in principle. It doesn't matter to me that the debt may be "small". The debt should not be there when it's a PvP defeat. Plain and simple.

I point (again) at the fact that the rewards for PvP are not proportional. I can spend 5 minutes beating a Tanker down to a sliver and someone else can come along, deal the death blow, and get the full reputation (and in SC, bounty).

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To all you people being upset: you DO know this is an improvement over the original system, right? Were you not aware that a single point of NPC damage meant debt when a player took away the rest of your health?

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No it didn't.

That was a myth or a bug. Being killed by a player never got you debt, ever. That's why Cuppa mentions being 'saved from debt' by a player blow at the last moment after you'd been fighting NPCs. I have been saved from debt in that manner several times, though the attacker obviously didn't know that they were saving me.

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Correct. More than once I have been mezzed on Corruptors in Siren's Call and dropped out of the sky into mobs who proceeded to attack me. "Kind" opponents regularly would defeat me as quickly as they could. When they got the last blow I never got debt. Ever.

I accept that there may have been an intermittent bug where sometimes you did get debt in that scenario. However, it was not the norm.

Based on my experience, I believe this change is a steaming pile of dung.

What you're asking doesn't make sense. Stamina does not increase how much endurance you have. It increases the rate at which you regain spent endurance.

If you are not being fully drained and teammates are, it's because of something else. For example, it can be because you are higher level (the drain will be stronger Sappers who are more levels above you), or you have endurance drain resistance.

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Just added this patch note to PvP section:

Being defeated in a PvP zone will carry debt if any of the damage to you was caused by NPCs. The amount of debt is directly proportional to the amount of damage you took from NPCs vs. how much was done by opposing Player Characters. The more damage dealt to you by NPCs means more debt when you are defeated.

* This means that you can no longer “escape debt” by being defeated by a PC after taking massive damage from NPCs, nor will you be penalized with a massive amount of debt if you are defeated by an NPC after taking a huge amount of damage from a PC.

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Are people actually spending development time on this, or is this an accident? Because if this is intentional, I really don't know what the hell to think.

Reward from defeating people in PvP is completely unproportional (q.v. the oort cloud of Stalkers near any fight waiting for the death blow and the full reputation reward), but someone is out there making sure that the penalty is "proportional"?

I know with zero doubt that the "proportion" systems do not work the way intuitive reading of the "rules" implies. I if I can deal raw damage equal to 10% of a GM's HP by myself, I get the reward for that 10% - even if my 10% damage was dealt so slowly that it doesn't move their HP bar. If this debt system works the same way, it's total garbage.

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Supposedly, killing Deathsurge attributes 5 - 10? "points" worth compared to killing one gremlin which gives you one "point".

Haven't seen it myself since I haven't seeen Deathsurge since Beta :-/

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Heh, that sounds completely ... useless. In the time it takes to find, organize and defeat Deathsurge you could probably find and kill 30 gremlins.

And it's 200 Shivans.

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You've let the 'reward' from basically farming the giant monster turn you from a superhero into a grinder.

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Every raid in existence in every game ever made that is against the AI and not human players is formulaic. Once a working formula is discovered, it can be disseminated to others. They can replay the formula and also succeed, barring poor luck with random number generators.

When you combine this with a reward that any number of people consider worth obtaining, you create a grind. Repeatable actions that produce reward.

Every mission, mob, task force, AV and action in this game boils down to that. But most of the game is based on medium to large scale battles, where there is sufficient randomization in the behavior of a sufficient number of game entities to make the battles feel random.

Even though Hamidon is "composed" of an encounter with a large number of mobs, the do very little. And, in fact, even if they did more, the raid strategy is based around minimizing the effect of their vaguely random actions. When you throw enough players at the problem, the danger that they will double-tap any one becomes small.

Nothing will ever make Hamidon not a grind. Even if they change him dramatically, we will learn the next formula and he will become a grind again. And if they make him completely random, people will stop raiding him, because the investment in time and people is too large to make regular failure a viable option.

So don't judge people because Hamidon is a grind. The players did not make him that way, and the devs cannot effectively change him. He is a grind because he exists and we want the reward of defeating him.

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They have always stated that Hamidon will continue to change to be a challenge.

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Thats fine. Problem is:

*) This did absolutely zero to make Hamidon more challenging or threatening. He fires at the Tanekr brigade for a full hour. Making him fire at them for another 20 minutes is utterly and completely meaningless.

*) This is a raid that, unique in all of the "City" gamedom, requires several dozen people and specific, organized tactics. If they want to change the formula for victory, that's cool. Not at least telling us it changed is not cool. If they don't tell us we don't know if it's just (another) bug or what. And that is a huge, huge potential waste of time.

You really need to lay off the dev apologist track and think about whether how they're doing things (if not what) are really better. Because I really do not see this as better in any way.

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Is this separate from Gauntlet/punchvoke, or just the implementation of that inherent power?

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Yes, this has nothing to do with taunt or Tankers in general.

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Or, here's a fun idea : Pay attention to your combat log.

If you're only getting hit by one of his attacks (let's say, the Head-mounted Laser), instead of say, all of them, he's probably held.

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What other attacks?

Hamidon has one attack.

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I think we really need a redname to offer an explanation of that one. I've paid close attention to gaming mechanics, and this pecking order stuff is news to me.

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A redname explanation would rule, but what I do know is very old information. I may have the info I do know from Beta, I don't recall (I wasn't in Beta, but knew 5 people who were). In particular I knew from very, very early on that PA drew more mob "hate" than most PC heroes did.

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How did you know he was held at all if you where still taking damage? I thought the way you tell if he's held is because he stops attacking

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Look for the animation of a hold effect on Hamidon. Tesla Cage is convenient because it's up off the ground, but the stone controller hold is usually visible too.

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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.

Cuppa,

One, I shouldn't even have to ask this, but please flog the snot out of whoever decided this wasn't worthy of a patch note. I'm incredibly, incredibly tired of the community causing patch notes to appear.

Two, whoever decided that making it so we can't tell how we're doiing in the raid needs an atomic wedgie with hot sauce. This does nothing to make the raid "harder". Now we just can't tell if we're actually succeeding or not. Confusion != challenge or fun.

Congratulations to the appropriate parties on making something already widely considered tedious even longer.

Longer != more fun.
Longer != more challenge.

I'm not making a case for it being left the same. I'm pointing out that someone responsible for "challenge control" has their head somewhere dark and stinky.

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Allegedly, there was a patch note that may have had some indication of impact with regard to Aggro rules but I haven't been able to locate it.

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I believe you are looking for this:

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Powers - Critters

* AVs/Heroes and Giant Monsters now ignore threat level damage multipliers for different Archetypes. They are still affected by Taunt as before.

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Thanks.
So now I have to ask is: What the hell does that mean besides now I need to use taunt frequently? "Threat Level Damage Multipliers" is not good layman speak. Non-developer translation required. What is the reasoning?

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"Threat rating" is apparently a scale factor applied by AT and/or mob type to determine how much hostile mobs "hate" a given target. It seems to apply to their innate nature to target you out of a crowd as well as how they reprioritize things when attacked. For example, controller pets have long posessed a high threat rating, meaning foes will choose them over the controller until the controller does something that makes them really, really want to kill him instead. Apparently there is a pecking order among the ATs as well, with Tankers and the offensive ATs marked as "higher threat" than the other "supporting" ones.

When I saw this patch note on test (and thought I understood it) Hami raid PA drops was the very first thing that came to mind. Mitos target the PAs because they have a high threat rating. If Mitos are now ignoring threat rating, they will probably prioritize what appears to be randomly, until attacked. Then they will go after what hurt them most (or possibly most recently), without regard to what other targets happen to be in range.

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Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall are sure ways to get a ton of attention, even with melee characters in the middle of the foes. Only AoE taunts are likely to prevent a reaction.

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Did you mean to make this as hilarious as I find it?

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Heh. No, but I'll take the credit anyway.

Given that my DDD is a female and named Nightfall, the implicatons are extra wrong.

AoE attacks of any sort create huge aggro, and have forever. Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall are sure ways to get a ton of attention, even with melee characters in the middle of the foes. Only AoE taunts are likely to prevent a reaction.

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Allegedly, there was a patch note that may have had some indication of impact with regard to Aggro rules but I haven't been able to locate it.

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I believe you are looking for this:

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Powers - Critters

* AVs/Heroes and Giant Monsters now ignore threat level damage multipliers for different Archetypes. They are still affected by Taunt as before.

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You can count on it. There are no out-of-set powers like this that do not cause redraw. Brawl is the only exception.

It does make sense that the "baseline" number is 15%. Defenders have a boost to this (18.75%), being the game's best Leadership users. Controllers, Corruptors and Kheldians get the baseline, and everyone else gets about 70% of it (10.5%). I have a planner sitting here telling me that Masterminds get a unique AT mod of 80%, for 12%. I don't have an MM, so I can't say.

If you can afford to run it, Assault is an nice boost to a Defender's own damage, let alone the damage of their teammates. In the pre-ED days, it was pretty pointless, but these days it's like having another damage DO in all your attacks (or like having six damage slots in a power instead of three).

I don't mean "high" in the way it's used in the game. I just mean an attack with a decent kick to it.

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what builder do you work on? the only one i've seen is sherk's, and he doesnt update it too much

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You can update the powers yourself in his planner.

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I'd hate to get Rage nerfed, but when build up was thought to be a 100% buff, and a higher to hit buff, it made some sense. Now it doesn't.

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We've known that BU was not 100% for Tankers and Brutes for ages and ages.

SS has 3 "large" attacks - KoB, Footstomp, and Hurl Boulder. The rest are rather small potatoes by Tanker/Brute standards. It also deals Smashing Damage. Compare this to Energy Melee, that has a mix of small and huge damages, big percentage energy damange, and standard BU. Compare it to Stone Melee, which has a laundry list of large damage powers, smashing damage, and BU.

Given the way the sets work overall I don't see a problem with Rage. You can't just look at Rage and think "omg, it's 120 seconds of Build Up!" You have to look at what the rest of the set does for you as well.

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To be brutally honest, my friend was killing enemies faster than me. Even though I maintained a higher Fury level at all times than he could. Why? Because of the differences of him having that Heavy Mallet, and his Seismic hitting an enemy and finishing it while my Knockout Blow is still animating.

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I'm not sure the math bears that out. If you had Rage and higher fury, you simply should have been doing at least as much damage as him. If you both have high fury or he has higher fury than you, then he will do more damage. He will also spend a metric ton of endurance per second.

Super Strength with Rage has a higer baseline damage and a lower peak sustained damage. Stone Melee has a lower baseline damage (because of no Rage) but a higher peak sustained damage because fury multiplies a larger true base damage.

SS allows less accuracy slotting, which is not a small benefit, especially in PvP but I am very fond of it in PvE as well.

Not a specific reply to the poster above.

I do enjoy these. Now, this is with a brute, and a fast moving one too. I can definitely see where other builds would not do nearly so well.

As it is, I will never go in one of these missions without a rez inspiration. Jail is very, very bad. I actually went in the jail to rescue my lackey, and literally 20+ mobs followed me in there. It seemed to be some sort of AI malfunction, because they mostly did not aggro on me, which was the only thing that let me win (I released the jailed boss on them).

The debuffs from the PPD are stupid. I have two accuracies in my attacks, and I popped a large Insight and I simply could not hit anything after I had two -toHit debuffs slapped on me - some sort of flash grenade - by +1 mobs. Too many of the debuffers spawn in groups and proceed to use AoE debuffs. Being debuffed is interesting and challenging. Having debuffs slathered on you until you cannot move, use powers, or hit anything is ridiculous. These guys need the same treatment that's been given to Sappers and Spec Ops - one per spawn. Either that or give them single-target debuffs - not AoE ones that they can layer on the party.

Oh, and my only partner in the mission was a LK'd Stalker. He was repeatedly targetted by ambushes to the exclusion of me. As in, if I allowed it, the entire ambush would bypass me to attack him. It was my freaking mission. That was just stupid. It was also stupid that they could apparently see him no matter what. Such a core power to the Stalker powerset should not be nullified in this way. It's part of how they survive.

Beyond that I liked it. I was able to extend the mission timer with the side missions enough to succeed, the pace was furious, and I did have fun. It's definitely over the top though. Fixing the "over-the-topness" would not detract significantly from the fun, and, IMO would probably improve it.

I don't understand your response. It's because it is so much longer that interrupt reducers are effective. It will still be longer than a Corruptor snipe - that's clearly by design.

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"If you look over to the left, in the Forest of Data, you'll see a lovely discontinuity. . . meanwhile, in the Land of Overlapping Slopes, you can look up at the majestic face of Regen. . ."

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I actually laughed out loud at work at this post.