UberGuy

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That very good way to see things from a myopic non-defender viewpoint.

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Helooo. Read sigs much? Level 45 Defender? Level 20 Defender?

Yeah. Rad and Dark. You know why? Because I built them explicitly to try and solo them and anchor debuffs equate to self defense. I soloed my DDD to 43 before I got a -DR power in Tar Patch (which I liked just fine before, thanks).

That said I damn well know how the powers in those sets work in a team setting. I know how hard it can be to get the right foes debuffed and keep them that way. I know that my anchors can be dragged off into foes we didn't want to aggro. I know if I am stunned or killed I do NOTHING for my team.

On the flip side I know what it's like to be a Blaster or a Scrapper (especially) with bubbles on. It really is god mode like 95% of the time. It ups the level of foes you can battle about +2 just by increasing your survivability. And it requires little planning or forethought.

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However keep in mind the force field defender actually has to, you know.... actually play their character at some point rather then run behind a real hero and cheer them on to victory.

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You have this ludicrous idea that passive benefit is not a benefit. That because force fields are "fire and forget" that they mean nothing. That is so far from the truth it's funny. They mean increased XP from fighting more and more dangerous foes in safety. They mean lower down time due to less damage taken. They mean you don't even need a "healer" because you rarely take damage.

Yeah, I acknowledge that being a FF Defender looks boring. You don't do that much that often. But what you do do is incredible.

In exchange for that the devs saw fit to use the same model they did for Invul. You kick [censored] against nearly everything all the time, so here's something you are absolutely useless against. Yes, I hate this too and have clamored loudly for a long time that it needs to go. I'm not holding my breath, though.

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Every powerset does not need to be as good as every other powerset at every possible task in order to be "balanced". Learning and accepting this will do wonders for your blood pressure.

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An interesting statement that does not really make sense. Someone has to play the other "weaker" powerset. Which then begs the question why would someone bother when they could play the better poweret.

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What? Did you read what you quoted? "Every powerset does not need to be as good as every other powerset at every possible task." In other words some sets are better at some things. Dark/Rad excel at neutralizing one foe. They both require intense attention on the flow of battle to be done well. Force Field is, in may ways, "fire and forget". But if you do forget and don't refresh those bubbles, trust me - your team will notice.

Yes, Rad and Dark do work in a team mission setting. I hotly contest any assertion that they are "better" than FF. FF may be less entertaining to play. That's an incredibly subjective assertion and I'm not going to debate it with anyone. But don't tell me that they have lower utility to the team. It's not true.

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Again and again I point out it is not perfect balance that must be achived but rather perfect domination that must be avoided. If two defender sets are vastly better than the rest then their is an issue. The exact same issue that occurs when two AT are better than the rest.

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Once again, this is simply untrue. I do not accept it. I play these supposedly godlike Defenders and I call bunk.

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Yes, because grouping foes is ever so difficult.

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If this is the sum total of your answer to this then I simply can't debate it with you. The idea that you can reliably get all threatening foes in the effect of DN/RI is garbage. I can't even guarantee it will happen when I solo and I assure you I know full well how to do it. You get things like knockback, the new AI running logic (when badly hurt) foes who phase and any number of other effects and I guarantee you that foes you wanted in those anchors WILL leave them.

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Unless they do Toxic, Untyped or Psi damage. Then your bubbles, they do nothing.
Unlike RI and DN, which completely ignore damage type

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Welcome to the world of Kheldians and Invul Tankers/Scrappers the world over. The problem here is that the implementation of god mode with specific kryptonite is a completely suck mechanic. This is not a FF-only problem.

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No, I don;t want the set to be copies of eachother. I want Force Fields to have a purpose; FF is all about not getting hit. That is the whole point of the set.

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You have a purpose. You and ignorant players may not want to accept it but the fact is that in the vast majority situations I would vastly prefer a Force Field defender than a Rad OR a Dark. Yeah, those two can end the fight faster. If they get their anchors off. If the foes are gathered together. If they aren't stunned so all their toggles drop.

Bubbles work all the time no matter what happens to the Defender. They're a click and not a toggle. They have no requirement for set up time before a fight. No need to divert aggro. Nothing. In exchange for that there are two damage types the bubbles don't work against. (I can't begin to explain why Toxic isn't defended against.)

If there is anything wrong with the set it's that the FF Defender needs something interesting to do while everyone runs around untouchable in the bubbles.

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Or I could keep my Dark and Rad for the Freak mission. They can handel 8 man missions just as well as the bubble defender, keep your team just a safe, and speed up the whole process. Plus they aren't weak blasters when you run that 8 man Psi CLockwork mission

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I've addressed this. If you think this is true you have to have such an incredibly more conservative, Tank-oriented play style than the people I play with that I'm not sure why it matters what Defender is along.

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I aggree 100%. However, when certain sets are good in all areas, then they do need to be balanced. Where is Dark's weak area? Rad?

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This outlook disgusts me.

First, I've explained in excruciating detail why Dark and Rad are not perfect for all situations. You have this idea and it is simply NOT true. Can they make do? Sure. They are not better than FF for all things in all cases. I maintain that FF is more useful more of the time.

And let's see... What sets can clear mez effects or give mez resistance? Storm, Empathy... and FF. Nothing in there for Rad or Dark.

Second, ask for FF to be improved, not others to be made less useful.

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[Let me ask, what is balanced about them?
That 3 of the primaries (Rad, Dark and Kin) can be built to solo AVs while 2 (Emp, FF) have no chance in hell?
That individual powers (RI, Darkest Night) are as effective if not better than entire primaries (FF)?
That (apparently) many defenders do not feel needed in higher levels (presumably due to Controllers being just as good/better)?

So how are they balanced?

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What a bunch of malarky.

Look. It's simple.

Force Fields - go on the user or a target. Protect that target from everything that can't exceed the defense.

RI and Darkest Night - go on an enemy. Protect everyone from that enemy so long as the debuff is sufficent to ruin his base toHit.

The idea that these two powers are in imbalance is ludicrous. They do two totally different things. DN/RI protect the team from one foe and those foes who happen to be near them. FF bubbles protect one person from any foe no matter where that foe is in relation to anyone else.

The ONLY WAY to get the parity you seem to want is to give every Defender a targetted foe debuff and to also to give every defender a targetted friend +ACC power.

Yeah, you want to beat on an AV? Go get a Rad or Dark Defender. You want to take on 8-man Freak missions? CoT? Crey? Go get a bubble defender and let everyone have their own god mode.

Every powerset does not need to be as good as every other powerset at every possible task in order to be "balanced". Learning and accepting this will do wonders for your blood pressure.

I really want to see the cool stuff too. But I am really, really apprehensive about the swath of nerfage I fear will accompany the content.

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I'm somewhere between Feral and Civilized.

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Ditto.

All four of them.

Yeah, from a Poser perspective the morph targets are external decoration on the OBJ data - the OBJ format has no intrinsic support for such things.

One can, of course, export a morphed object as another OBJ file and then load that back as a morph target. This means you could export each morph and apply the same external transformations on it, but that can get really painful if there are many morphs (like on a morph-based face mesh).

I can get some time on a workstation with Lightwave, so I might look into how one would do this there. The little I did fool with LW I never really got into it, since I don't do this professionally and I found the Xwindows-ish interface somewhat foreign. But if The Tailer doesn't fit my bill it's good to know I might have a way to do what I want with Lightwave.

Yeah, I'd considered The Tailor. It's not clear it does exactly what I was thinking, but it's obviously close.

It dawns on me I may actually have bought it a while back and stuffed the download somewhere. I guess I'll have to go check when I get home.

I dabble in this stuff, and found you guys' discussion quite interesting. The linkage to some of the products is really useful.

Maybe one of you could point me in a direction for a tool/preceedure for something I'm trying to do. I have two open meshes, and I'd like to essentially morph one to "fit" the other - taking the existing verticies and mapping them to the second object's contour, as though the second one were a mold.

The reason I'm thinking of that approach is that it would let me get the 1st object in the shape I'm looking for but (hopefully) preserve the base object's edges (already set up to join with another mating object) and not lose its existing UV maps and morph targets (it's an OBJ format object for use in a Poser scene). Many of the things I've tried end up re-ordering the verticies, which loses the morph delta assignments.

Thought I'd throw that out there in case there's a simpler alternative to what I'm thinking.

Thanks, and good stuff.

Just get killed "outdoors". That's what I do anyway. "Oh look, a +5 mob near my mission contact. That's handy!" *splat* "Ahh, much better!"

Well, I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I sure don't see the need for these. The misson debt halving is, I suppose, a good way to get people in missions. Assuming they get defeated much at all. Personally I both do missions and don't get defeated much, so it's sort of a wash to me.

I actually kind of dislike the level 10 thing. It seems like it will promote dumb play for longer. But I don't dislike it enough to actually say I oppose it. I just kind of don't see the point.

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Powerleveling requires minimal actual effort and you are constantly gaining xp without having to do much yourself. Following a person around while mooching off his kills is quite different from progressing through enemy-infested territory to perform a critical task.

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You do realize that about four months ago Statesman himself posted on these forums that he didn't have a problem with that?

His logic - the person doing the arresting is facing more challeng for the XP gained. This was in direct reference to people doing bridge-based levelling in trams and near trainers (Brickston was rife with this at the time).

He said he wasn't nuts about it, but that it was not "exploitive".

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Pretty much stopped reading when I realized that you think I want this system in. This is the worst idea they've come up with in a long time. This system makes it easier for the PL crowd and makes everyone else suffer. I am COMPLETELY AGAINST THIS.

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Heh. Well, uh... good!

Sorry, too much interweaving of the response threads for my sleep-deprived brain, I guess.

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Far as the street sweeping bit goes, you're foolish if you still do that.

With missions set on Invincible you will make more running them with a good team than you EVER will in the streets.

Streets are for newbs!

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Tell me about that next time you hit 400,000 XP an hour in a mission. At level 37.

Thanks.

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Explaining TWICE why I don't want to be PL'ed is too often IMO. PLers need to understand that unlike some other MMOG's, CoH has some GOOD content, IN DEPTH storylines, and tons of history that's actually WORTH READING.

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Yeah, so lets break out the system that mildly punishes everyone for the sake of the few who are missing out. Especially when not all of us care.

What happens when you next join a team and their shocked you don't want to street sweep? Or... hunt for badges? Will your annoyance at those things drive you to seek some sort of limitation on everyone's ability to do those things?

I don't think PL-ing is a good thing, but I simply cannot care about it to the level where I want any imposition on the good things in this game. I could give a damn about other people's interpretation of how the game should be, how teaming should work, or how XP should be distributed, and I'm not going to argue them other than to say I was happy with how they were. And now, because of something I did not care about, a "problem" I do not think needed to be fixed with any urgency, I lose out on the game working how I liked. Well that's dandy.

For all that I think PL as a "way of life" is lame, I think this is far more lame even with the latest improvements. And I'll gladly say I don't feel it was the PLers who brought it on.

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Powerleveling effects me because its widespread practice means that higher-level characters' players simply PRESUME that I want to powerlevel if I'm on a team with them unless told otherwise, and when I do say otherwise, they're surprised--or even insulted that I'd not want their "generousity" and wish to actually be USEFUL as a sidekick.

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That's like asserting that the existance of left handed people causes you, being right handed, to have to explain to people why you want to sit on a certain side of the table every time you eat. If you have to explain that you don't want to PL every time you team (or even more than 1/4 of the time) you have the worst luck in the game world.

Dwimble,

Yes, I was trying to remember what change it was that cleared the trains, and that was definitely it. And I really think most of those people were simply AFK. There was definitely more PL going on then, but also more just plain parked heroes. And together, they definitely were a problem.

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This is not necessarily true. This also causes lag issues at the trams.

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This is preposterously improbable.

I play this game far too much to not have noticed this if it were true on a scale that caused this.

I do not see low-level heroes parked near the train or other "safe" area more than once every couple of days. And I play 2-4 hours every day, at least. Unless this mass parking of PL toons occurs only during off peak hours, in which case I fail to see it as a justification.

Note that I'm including toons I've found in some rather novel areas, such as standing in adjacent chimneys on roofs midtown.

Qualitatively, the percentage of such PL-engaged toons is clearly vastly smaller than the number simply running around, passing through, or chatting in those places.

At least us arguments that common sense experience backs up.

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How the bleepity bleep is this thread still alive, what is this 5 MONTHS after the last post?

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A redname posted in it. That does wonders for thread longevity.

Statesman is the secret to eternal youth!

(And pie.)

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For the record, set combinations that I think are "un-fun" now include, invul/*, */invul. Reason - end drain.

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Well, my Broadsword/Invul Scrapper is probably more fun to play now that he was pre-nerf, and since I payed better attention to the numbers game he's actually tougher (I wasn't perma Unstoppable) and got to drop the tele-combat style, which I hated. Has always been and remains my favorite toon.

My Invul/EM tank is an absolute blast. I designed him with the heretical intention of making him a Scrank, and I've succeeded wonderfully. While I by no means dish out the DPS or DPE of a true Scrapper I am a heluva a lot tougher than one and repeatedly draw notice for my ability to take down big foes one-on-one.

12 +4 minions? Yeah, I'll need to meter my endurance on the tank. 6 +4 minions? No problem. +4 boss? Breeze.

So while I can't speak for Inv/SS, it seems very overgeneralizing to say */Inv/* is "un-fun".

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have to get your damage up to at least +220%. Even if Rage was +100% like Build Up it still wouldn't get you to the cap with five SOs.

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Tanker Build Up (at least the Energy Melee version) is +80%, not +100. I determined this accidentally when testing the damage of Energy Transfer when I first got the power. I had only an accuracy enhancement in ET.

Unless there is something special about ET, EM Build Up is only 80%.

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Really frentic, hard and exciting ways to gain even boatloads of XP are fine. Risk and reward.

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I'm guessing you never ran the wolf mission did you? This is the only mission I've been on that actually was a challange and has caused me to die . These missions are one hell of a rush

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This is a reply to an ancient part of this thread, but ... did you do the mission? Were you the resident tank? I wasn't. It was boring as hell. I hovered around and gained XP.

In case you don't know the vogue version of this included exclusively a Tanker and maybe some buffers for him, one or more Devices Blasters laying boatloads of mines in garbage hods, and then XP leeches. Unless maybe you're the tank, that was as exciting as watching paint dry.

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I have to ask this question also.

Since we are the ones paying to play this game and you, hypothetically speaking, work for us, please give us a better reason for changing something like this.

You telling us what's "fun" and what content we should see just doesn't sit right in my stomach.

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Uhhh. You know, he has the longevity of the game to worry about. Uninteresting ways to gain boatloads of XP are bad for the game. Especially with PvP elements on the way.

Really frentic, hard and exciting ways to gain even boatloads of XP are fine. Risk and reward.

I could care less if people did wolf herding, and I feel for people that this change will be a pain for (glowies + AV in 1 hour sounds painful to me). I feel for the people who actually enjoyed running this sort of thing, though, having done it a couple of times I cannot imagine it being enjoyable in a million years.

But I don't have no sympathy for anyone complaining that they lost their easy way to PL an alt for PvP.

It's just not that hard to level alts.

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Thats funny....Regen pretty much undermines the Scrapper Primaries and Makes a scrapper a tank......

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If you think a regen scrapper can substute for a tank... especially in a thread full of invul tankers... then I am sorry. I am sorry because you have no idea how to play a tank. You have no idea of your limits and how massively you can overshadow any Scrapper at doing what a Tanker is good at.

Can someone substitute a Scrapper in where a Tanker does and have it work? Sure. That doesn't make it as good. I play Scrappers. I play an invulnerable Tanker. I play with some rocking Tankers.

Don't spread misinformation.

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Jesterman, unless you didn't slot your bubbles they work fine. Trust me - I was playing bubbled last night. Bubbles are still basically god mode against everything but Psionics.