UberGuy

Every one of my 45+ characters has over 20 million influence. This includes the level 47+ heroes after paying 6 million for a full suite of level 50 enhancements (AND shelling out decently big bucks for my ED respec reorgs).

Always sell at the right store (I never sell to Ghost Falcon unless time is an issue, for example) and you too can rake it in.

Buying costumes in the 40+ range is a huge expense. If you do this much at all you will go broke.

The Beard lives!

Long time no post.

[ QUOTE ]
So we'll be using 13% less end per second, but we'll be regening about 25%(ish) less end per second (going from six-slotted stamina to 3-slotted stamina). Net 12%(ish) nerf.

And while it helps a little, the Defense & Recharge nerfs are the biggest issues here. Try fixing those first.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget the whole doing about 25%(ish) less damage per attack, meaning fights take 33%(ish) longer, requiring that much more endurance to finish.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The accuracy, as said before isn't JUST there for the draw. Think about it, 1 Acc and 5 dmg is a common slotting right? Well now you don't need that accuracy, that's 33% more damage. Maybe if people would learn how to slot they wouldn't feel their Blasters are nerfed and demand that all setts play exactly the same(see ask Geko).

By the way, I play an archer. No problems so far...

[/ QUOTE ]

Except that you do need the accuracy since the accuracy bonus alone is not enough to help you in most team play situations. So, maybe if people realized that a large majority of players fight +2 to +3 mobs all the time they would realize that this accuracy bonus isn't all it is cracked up to be. It doesn't make up for the lack of damage in the set.

[/ QUOTE ]

To back this up, Martial Arts has a +10% accuracy modifier over "normal" attacks. My MA/DA scrapper is the second character I took into the 30s and higher that didn't have an acuracy boosting power of some kind (the first was my Regen, who, at the time labored under Dark Melee's vs DEF bug). It's been fairly agonizing, and I whiff incessantly against foes with any +DEF, or +3 foes. Two accuracies helped, but ate into my DPE which used to be really painful with DA.

Sure, it would have been even worse with no bonus, but DO-style accuracy bonuses just don't do that much for you.

[ QUOTE ]
I am wondering if running assault and tactics on my archer will allow him to remove the acc SO in each of his attacks, and add another damage SO, and be brought in line with other blasters.

I figure with tactics 4 slotted (1 end, 3 tohit), and whatever slots I can spare in assault (not many probably) that should help me out some. With no hasten, I may not notice the end problem as much. Sad that I have to take 2 pool powers and 3 slots to maybe make up for archery's lack of power.

PS. Good thing my secondary is fire, I have the power picks and slots to spare. I am the gimp of the gimp.

[/ QUOTE ]

Five-slotting Tactics is (on a Defender only) equivalent to a single SO, except it's a toHitBuff instead. Since I am one of those players not comfortable with just an SO's worth of accuracy (especially since accuracy enhancments take effect after foe Defense is subtracted from your base toHit) I prefer to add this to a single SO accuracy in all my powers.

If yor Archer is a blaster, forget it. You can't get enough bonus out of Tactics to add up to a single SO accuracy.

Oh, and you can't slot Assault for damage. There's no such thing as a "toDamageBuff". Since Assault doesn't do damage you can't slot it with +damage enhanements.

Edit: On further thought I realized that, with 5-slotted Tactics and Archery's inherent bonus, you can get to the same levels (for yourself) as about a single SO accuracy enhancement. If you only fight +0/+1 foes, you could go 6-damage. +2 and higher foes and, IMO, you're goinf to whiff enough to be really painful with Archery's attack rate.

[ QUOTE ]
Rain of Arrows seems to have a random number of 1-3 ticks, however the ticks seem VERY inconsistent. Against even level mobs standing side by side, one will take 1 hit, while the others take 2 or 3. Slotting Accuracy directly in the power doesn't seem to change this. The strange thing is, in the combat log no damage numbers are displayed. It's almost as if this power is being treated like a locational pet. That is the damage happens, but it's not YOUR damage.

[/ QUOTE ]

All "Rain of X" powers are, in fact, locational pets. They do not benefit from Aim, Buildup, inspirations, or much of anything. Welcome to the life of an Ice Blaster.

[ QUOTE ]
Twilight grasp's animation time doesn't bug me. It's AoE is pretty big and it heals for a lot. It's also a very, VERY powerful debuff. To me, it's a debuff with a healing component.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. It's actually comparable in magnitude with Empathy's AoE heal, and it does debuff toHit and health recovery significantly. I don't find the animation very annoying. Maybe I just remember the way it used to be.

[ QUOTE ]
Additionally, I think these "place effects" are "owned" by the targeted victim. So if I use Transfusion, Transference, or Blind on the Blood Brother Slammer, the Blood Brother Slammer becomes the proud owner of a nasty AoE that heals heroes, refills their endurance, or mezzes his nearby Hellion buddies. Since effects in general fizzle if their owners have been defeated, this theory, if true, would explain why these powers behave the way they do when their target is defeated. The target "owns" the secondary effect.

Consequently, I think there's a technical limitation preventing Transfusion from getting "fixed:" specifically, I didn't think the code allows for a hero to "own" a secondary effect centered on someone other than himself. Yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, Twilight Grasp never fizzles. If you activate the power, it works, even if the target dies 0.001 seconds after you activate it. I suspect that, like ranged location AoE damage effects (Burn, Rain of Fire, etc.) Twilight Grasp is owned by the hero.

[ QUOTE ]
Unless I am mistaken, even dead mobs have an acc score, while dead mobs are automattically at 0 end. Kinetics drains end to heal, thus no end means no heal - twiglight grasp mearly gives an acc penalty. So that would be the reason why the "Kinetics Death casting bug" exists, and no such issue is there for the Dark defender.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I believe it relates to the fact that Twilight Grasp is a "place effect". Its existance is resolved at activation time, and its effect is created later by the placed entity. In comparison "attack effects" resolve their effect at animation completion time.

[ QUOTE ]

Kinetics
<ul type="square">[*]Bug: When Transfusion is fired off on an enemy that is defeated before the power activates, there is no heal, though the animation fires. However, if Twilight Grasp goes off on a dying enemy, it heals the recipients. (Rigel_Kent adds: To be more technical, this seems to be a problem with all AoE effects generated around the single target of a power. Illusion Control-&gt;Blind's AoE mez effect also has this problem; if the Blind damage defeats the target, the AoE mez will not happen. AoE's generated around the user don't have this problem.)[/list]
[/ QUOTE ]

Related to this is the effect of Power Build Up. It does not enhance the effectiveness of powers such as Twilight Grasp (an obvious example since it is a heal and PBU specifically enhances heal effects). This is known to the devs, and described as similar to the problems making Aim/BuildUp work for "place" powers like Rain of Fire and Ice Storm. However, in all cases this sort of behavior is totally unclear to the players unless they read it here or learn it the hard way.

[ QUOTE ]
Okay. I can't figure out why in the hell anybody would want to make or play an Authority RPG. That's kinda like making or playing a Batman RPG or a LOTR RPG isn't it? The best spots in the world are kinda taken (at least in Batman and/or the Authority) and unless everyone wants to play existing characters -which means they'll never be fully your characters- you'll always be in their shadow.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, aside from playing those main characters, which appeals to a lot of people, you can always just play in that world. GM's often mutate settings to make there be an improved reason for the heroes to exist.

The world of the Authority is wonderfully gritty. I would get a kick out of playing in it even if set in some time or alternate universe where the Authority hadn't come along yet (or never would). The Bleed and all that make such settings work even if you assume the comic setting is canon. Your heroes could be their dimension's equivalent to the Authority, or maybe they just don't have an equivalent there.

Or you could have a GM that runs a lower power level. It can be a real challenge to run characters who could wipe life off the planet in about 5 minutes, and some GMs don't want to deal with that. In this case having the Authority out there forms a backdrop and occasional adventure hook.

Agreed for the vast majority of cases.

For the record, I think the idea behind the changes in I5 was totally workable. Nerfing everyone at once (mostly) to bring down the power level of all characters is not a flawed approach. IMO, not a step in a direction that improved the game, but it's not inherently unworkable. But (again IMO) the implemention was lacking. It wasn't an even scaling for everyone (or even one that brought weak sets up relative to strong ones), plus we got oddities like Regen/IH.

[ QUOTE ]
Hi all,

Over the past 2+ years, I developed The Authority RPG (adapting the DC/WildStorm Comic)

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, lordy.

Wanna get married?

[ QUOTE ]
I do believe that Ever toon should be able to Solo if the player so chooses. I know I solo alot and I hate feeling that I Must team to advance my toon at all (Good example is my fire troller he was horrid to level to 32) However I dont believe all toons are ever gonna be equal nor should they be. But I think thats where PVP hurt this game because people dont like getting the snot kicked out of them by a different type of toon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that all ATs need to kick equal [censored] in combat. There are basically defense ATs and offense ATs, and I have no problem with them performing differently in battle, or being more or less able to solo along those distinctions.

I do have a problem with wide variations of effectiveness within an AT, and the powersets are rife with those. Examples that come to mind: Defense vs the other armors/buffs and attack sets like Tanker/Mace vs something like Energy Melee. There are others.

Finally, I do think variations are allowed as long as they are made up in some way. While I think Rad Emission and Dark Miasma are great sets, I don't think they can really pump up their team as well as Empathy. On the flip side, they solo way, way better, and where empathy buffs and heals, RE debuffs and buffs and DM debuffs, controls and heals. They're good at different things, and that's OK.

But it's not like an SR Scrapper is more team-oriented somehow (if anything, Invul and DA have this distinction). Dark Miasma and Rad Emission are sets in an AT that says it will probably need a team, but they can break the mold and solo. What's SR's deal? Or Ice's? What does Mace do better to make it equitable for it to have mediocre damage and low stun chance?

Those things are the things I hate to see left unaddressed with I5.

[ QUOTE ]
I dont get into the game mechanics that much as I just like to play the game

[/ QUOTE ]

Trust me, I'd much rather just play the game. I'm a big thinker though, and at some point, when contemplating a respec or what power to take next, I dive off into a spreadsheet or something. I start comparing what the numbers tell me to how the game "feels", and I start thinking about how the feel of different but similar Heroes compare.

I can tell you that for the longest time I thought my SR Scrapper "felt" fine. I argued with people about it here on the boards. If SR was so gimp, why did I enjoy mine so?

Then, altitis took hold, and I made an Invul Scrapper, and mine eyes were opened. And then I made a Regen, and they were opened some more. It wasn't that SR was unplayable (not usually, anyway), but that compared to the other sets it had a fraction of the relative potential in the 30+ game. Even Dark Armor, so long lamented as being awful, saw a vast improvement when it finally got stacking armors, and was right up there in durability with my Invuln. +2, +3 foes for lunch, breakfast and dinner. My SR? Not so much.

And I5 didn't fix it at all. I5 changed the pecking order from (IMO):

Regen == Invul &gt; DA &gt; SR
(Regen for the win vs. single big foes, Invul for the win vs. lots of moderate ones)

to

DA &gt; Regen &gt;= Invul &gt; SR

[ QUOTE ]
I actually believe some toons should be stronger then others. Super heros in comics are not by any strech of the means equal at all. They all however have a nitch or something that makes them worth while.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand where you're coming from, but I think, in a game like this, that that's not fair to the players. No one would pick up the a game and expect that, except maybe based on AT. After all, the AT descriptions say that this or that AT needs a team, not the powersets within ATs. I played my SR to 30 before I shelved him (I'm too sentimental to delete my first MMO toon) because I got spoiled by all my other toons in comparison. I'm just not into the idea of playing a character who just generally can't achieve comparably to others in his "class".

[ QUOTE ]
Did the developers say, "Whups, these are busted and will bend several scrappers over a hard wooden chair. Hrm. Well... too bad, so sad, push 'em live anyhow." I very much doubt it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I doubt it too. But it gets old asking and asking and asking and having the answer be completely unquantified salve like "X was unparallelled" or "Y was boring". Or even worse, "Z could take on 20 foes and win" when so could A through Y.

I don't speak for everyone, but when you look back at my posts, I am very interested in powerset and AT parity within role. For example you won't see me saying that Defenders need to kill foes as fast as Blasters, but I will say they need to defend their team about as well as one another. Blasters and Scrappers both kill things, but in very different ways. So I'll go after a metric they can share, like XP/hour. Scrappers and Tankers are all built to slap things and take a slapping. Within their ATs they should all do that about as well in the majority of cases.

So I don't stand on Regen or Invuln alone and preach "woe unto them". I preach the brokenness I see in any AT/Powerset combo. I put the most time and analysis into the ones I play, but that doesn't mean I don't experience the problems with others by playing with them, or just plain being able to translate the analysis. Many of the problems for SR Scrappers translate directly to Force Field; I can see that without playing one.

I feel exceptionally strongly that I5 should have improved balance of the sort I'm talking about. Instead, it just juggled it. I can live with the global changes, but they weren't applied consistently. Instant Healing did not need to become a click-power to be I5 compliant. Invulnerability's non L/S resists did not need to be made 40% lower than direct I5 standards would suggest. Defense (as in the thing used by FF bubbles, Ice Tankers and SR Scrappers) was unduely gutted when they already were the least scalable and most nullified abilities in the game.

I reiterate. I would pay to have these issues fixed rather than half-[censored] band-aides applied. The game has real broken-ness in it that has nothing to do with boredom or god-mode. There are whole power lines in the game that will never, ever be able to perform as well as others unless some basic game mechanics change. Some two years after release I want to see that done with preference to what we got in I5. Because I hate to tell you, but I5 did not meet its goal. "Easy mode" is totally relative. If powerset X can take on 10 +2 foes and powerset Y can only take on 4 +1s, then powerset X is on easy mode. Powerset X will level faster, will be more popular with players in the know, and will be up for nerfing. But all the analysis I have seen tells me such nerfing will always be an endless cycle, because the powersets are broken in relative performance. The current mechanics dissallow them to scale equally with foe level.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
you have a link to that because last I hcecked states was prety set on the rule of 3when it comes to soloing (3 white con mobs to a hero*

[/ QUOTE ]

Last I checked, States retracted that, largely because of SOs. Now it's "more like" three red minions to a hero at higher levels when soloing.

I have to add "more like" because I remember that's what he said, and I know that some people will point out all the various combinations that are not exactly three minions.

[/ QUOTE ]

well in either case that is still a far cry from "plowing through a dozen +8 bosses" I don't think ANY AT should be capable of that

[/ QUOTE ]

Sigh.

The devs posted an internal balance testing video where they were one-shotting super purple foes. This was literally used as defense of recent balance changes to Scrappers. People were like "uh, no player anywhere can ever do that." The devs were like "oh, yeah, you're right. Turns out our testbed was a code branch with a huge damage bug in it." No more was mentioned of it as defense of the "balance" changes but they went live.

THAT is what Noizy's talking about.

[ QUOTE ]
Also consider that your personal sample size may be self-selecting. That is, you have a L50, you play with other players with L50s. It may be less likely that you play with players with only lower level toons or players who log in very infrequently.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget that this works both ways. I could easily have had 4 50s by now, but I intentionally left my higher characters alone and built up alts so that I would not hit 50. Why? Because I knew there was nothing to do there yet. (Kheldians got a big 'meh' from me on concept from the day we first got details.) My toons hit the mid 40s in order of interest in the toons. I did not paralell them, by and large. I played one at a time until I needed to stop (close to 50, AVs, etc), then switched.

Certainly I don't think everyone does this. But it is out there.

[ QUOTE ]
I hate to sound like a fanboy here, but the kind of access we have to the devs in this game has spoiled many people. No, I'm not naming any names, so no-one need feel I'm talking about them personally.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's a difference in being spoiled and taking things to their logical extension. Yes, good things happen because we have devs that read our posts and actually act on the information.

My complaint is that this is done so in an obviously selective way without forthright explanation. Sure, the forums are a source of info about honest mistakes the Devs made, and they react and fix those things. They're a source of info about things the Devs never thought of, and they react to those things, if they're important.

But they're also a source of huge volumes of feedback that gets no response. And I'm sorry, I don't buy that no one has time to respond to them. Every month you could extract from these forums two to three hotbutton issues and put up one long post addressing them.

And when I say address them I don't mean "cave in to the masses". I mean address people's concerns and questions, and that can mean "No, and here's why." There are so many things done in I5 that appear broken balance-wise that have never gotten one moment of dev airtime despite being brought up constantly by posters. If there is some intended balance behind the changes why can't it simply be explained? Balance is partially art but there's science behind it too. Telling me how bored I was doesn't constitute proof of balance. Show us numbers. Give us examples of things they saw people doing they shouldn't have, and apply some consistent rules about what we should and shouldn't be doing.

If the issues were really addressed fully, formally and as conclusively as possible, I believe it would still the vast majority of posters who spend lots of time (like me) constantly re-airing these long-running issues. I may not like a particular answer, but if I understand it I can let it go.

If the devs are going to communicate with us at all about issues, that sets an expectation that the communication should, eventually, get around to all the issues. That would be incredibly useful. For the past two years post-beta, it's been conditionally useful; it's useful to us when it matches the Dev's goals, but if we're a voice of dissent about something they've done we largely go unanswered. It's fairly natural to wonder if there's a really a good reason for something when it doesn't make any sense you can see and the people who did it won't give you an explanation. I don't think there's anything "spoiled" about becoming annoyed with the consistency with which that happens.

[ QUOTE ]
Thus - just for some extreme cases - a scrapper might not be able to tank as well as a true tanker, but there were very few actual situations that existed where the difference between that scrapper and that tank was discernable. A distinction without a difference, as it were.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now it's neccesary to split hairs about the term "tanking". Once Tanker Taunt was fixed so that Tankers did not have to depend on Provoke, no Scrapper could compare to the aggro holding capability of a Tanker. Not even an Invulnerability Scrapper. My Inv Scrapper was the first character I took into the 40s, and I can say with confidence that in a big battle relying on Invincibility alone for aggro control was pathetic compared to anything a Tanker with Taunt could achieve.

90% DR was decently broken all around, let alone for Scrappers. With the 75% DR cap for Scrappers and the changes to Taunt, no Scrapper could hold a candle to a Tanker for keeping mobs on themselves over their teammates.

But I'll grant that, back when Tankers needed Provoke and Scrappers could hit 90% DR, you could easily plug a properly built Invul Scrapper in for a Tanker and get about the same aggro control with more damage.

[ QUOTE ]
Erm. No. PvP will be an optional part of gameplay. Always.

The changes in I5 had very little to do with PvP and a lot to do with boring PvE. It's that simple. No conspiracy there - I think I've stated this several times.

[/ QUOTE ]

Boring to who? To you? Did you ask the playerbase? How did you determine that? Exactly. I know you love short answers but I think the large numbers of people who were enjoying this game just fine deserve an answer.

I played 6 toons into the 40s. I played this game every night I could, and easily averaged four hours a night. Given that I have a day job that easily hits 50 hour weeks, do you think I would have played CoH like that if I was bored? Do you think I would buy other games and leave them in the boxes, unplayed, if I thought CoH was boring?

I don't think it was boring. I don't think my SG thought that. You know ... the guys who were all online every night with me. Now there's only one of them on, and she's basically playing because she bought a year's subscription.

So why am I here? I think I summed it up above. I didn't just not think CoH was boring, I thought it was the damned coolest thing since sliced bread. I don't want to let go of that. I want to rail against you making the game even less like it was before I have to give in and just admit I plain don't like the game anymore.

People get damm tired of dreading the free updates. News flash: I would pay for content updates if you would stop screwing with my characters. Stop whittling away at the things that actually make me enjoy this game when I'd never, ever dreamed I would touch an MMO.

So who was bored? Tell us. Tell us the hard data telling you the players were bored and it was not that the devs thought we should be bored. Because based on the people I know and what I see in game, I don't buy it without that.

Boo.

Good luck Gilgamesh. Have fun wherever you are off to.

[ QUOTE ]
You can also view the tag info by using the freeware IrfanView image viewer. Go to the Image menu, select Information and click on the IPTC info button.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aww, you beat me to it. IrfanView is extremely win for freeware. It's only a viewer for the most part, (not an editor) but I slap it in as the default image viewer for every computer I work on.

[ QUOTE ]
Statesman lined up a million chainsaws and said
"Though shall smoketh"
And thus the chainsaws were turned on, put out much exhaust into the air, and destroyed the enviroment.


[/ QUOTE ]

But then it was realized that the smoke provided 10x the effect intended, and it was removed. Also the smoke now aggros Hamidon whenever it is used, causing it to spawn and attack the user with its footstomp. (Do not presume to guess whence it came by feet).

And it was good.

[ QUOTE ]
Not to be a bubble buster but.... how can anyone get giddy when we are still suffering with the I5 bugs?! Yeah they may get MOST of them fixed by then... but then just another wave of the same in I6? I5 was promised to be "ready when it's ready" and it has been the most bugged yet! AHHHHHHH (runs screaming into the night)

[/ QUOTE ]

Most bugged yet? Wow. Surely you were not here for release or perhaps I2?

I5 has plenty of issues IMO, but I don't think most of them are bugs.