Ultimus

By the way, I find it hillarious this post is at 121 rates

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I was playing my Fire/fire brute today and couldn't help but think of the threads Ultimus starts about his. I always get a kick out of them, because it seems that the guy is really proud of his character and how it can perform, and not his own gaming skills. This makes the posts trying to sandbag Ultimus's good time all the more enjoyable to read. They're completely missing the point!

Any global xp changes, good or bad, are not the fault of Ultimus soloing Ghost Widow, or soloing anything.

Good job, Ultimus. Keep it up!

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Thanks

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Can you top this single bonus in double exp weekend? I soloed Ghost Widow and nearly got 1.5 bubbles in a single kill.

Check out the combat log

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You do realize that if your build recieves the next rounds of nerfs, you will probably be the scapegoat for why it happened because of this post.

Just thought you might want this bit of information.

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You do realize I've done this so far with Stone Armor/Super Strength (Tanker) and Fire/Fire Brute? Next is probably going to be a Corruptor. If they start nerfing, they may as well do another global nerf cause I can do this with any character.

Or they could buff AV's.

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By the way, whoever keeps going around one-starring every thread I create I developed a program as you can see to fix that

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Enjoy the upcoming ban

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Yeah they will ban me because I starred my own thread. They might as well ban the people that go around 1 or 5 starring every topic in a forum on a given day.

By the way, whoever keeps going around one-starring every thread I create I developed a program as you can see to fix that

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WHY the HELL don't you have sg mode on?

Punk.

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Currently listening to Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights

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Because I'm not in a SG.

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Nice. Reminds me of the 'ol kraken hatchlings.

But how long did it take you to kill her?

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About 2 minutes maybe 3 max.

Can you top this single bonus in double exp weekend? I soloed Ghost Widow and nearly got 1.5 bubbles in a single kill.

Check out the combat log

Hey guys thanks again for all your support. Maybe we can try and get a developer response in this thread or a community representative. Lighthouse does a weekly report that he sends to the developers or presents to them. (I saw him talking about it in a recent post)

Perhaps we could try and get him (PMing him?) to mention this thread in his report. Maybe he could or a developer could reply. Even if it is just a "hi I've seen it" type of thing.

Thanks for your support and keeping this thread alive!

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Guys.

I had an interview with Ghost Widow yesterday... I asked her to tell Castle about this topic. She said she would.

Rejoice!

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Wow cool thanks. I really hope a developer or a community representative could reply to this thread. Even if it is just a we'll look into it

Thanks guys for adding this to your signatures and your support

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ULTIMUUUUUUS!!!!!!

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*Goes into Granite Form*

Edit: And AFKs /tease

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Sounds fun but when you really consider it it will be exploited so badly it will completely alter the game. And as for the "sharing" of powers, if I have 80 different powers that all do damage and a hold in PvP people would be screwed. Interesting concept but needing much change.

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Think you should reread the post. I clearly state under the sharing part how your concern is addressed.

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I read to page 2 and would like to say this: I would so very much love this to happen ^^.

*drools over the possibilities*

I'm tempted to pm this to the devs...

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PM it -- The more people that do the more they see people like it.

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I like MOSt of this idea, although I do have an idea I'd like to tag on. First off, I don't like the idea on making your signature power something you can make a temp power for another player. I understand the reasoning behind it...showing off all your hard work and all...but I'm just uncomfortable with the idea. I'm afraid someone will find an exploit and be able to pass it along to everyone. Besides, it's supposed to be YOUR signature power - your trademark. Why give that to anyone? Just my thought on the matter.

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Not really, you could just treat it like the patron powers villains get, I mean Robin uses a lot of stuff the Batman comes up with.

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Well the way I saw it was loaning an invention or device, sharing a secret training technique, imparting some magical power, etc. on another person.

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What about for people already level 50? Do they lose out on all the fun because they cant get anymore points? Or will they automatically have every point from lvl 33-50? And how will they make their power? Will there be an NPC that allows them to make it? There should be, because it means current level 50s won't be able to get one of its a "level only" thing

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Of course not they wouldn't miss out. Think of the game currently works, if you don't train for a few levels, you don't lose the powers. Basically, it would be as if they never spent the points.

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A guide to Hero Reputation and Task Forces, by Excession (Part_Troll).

What is this guide about?

How Reputation (Heroic, Unyielding, Invincible etc, changed at Hero Analysts throughout Paragon City) affects the difficulty of Task Force missions.

This post was originally offered in response to someone asking "does everyone have to set their reputation to Heroic before task forces begin, or just the Team Leader". After spending some time on it, I figured it was a good candidate for my First Guide. I hope you like it.

This guide was written from a Hero perspective. Here's a table of the CoH and CoV reputations

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Hero Villain Effect

Heroic Villainous Base. Critters generally spawn at level, minions should con WHITE
Tenacious Malicious Double the number of critters per spawn
Rugged Vicious Same as Heroic, but spawns are one level higher than base
Unyielding Relentless Same as Tenacious, but spawns are one level higher than base
Invincible Ruthless Same as Unyielding but all spawns are TWO levels higher than base.
</pre><hr />

What to do if you disagree with something stated here

Private Message to me with details, and I'll investigate.

And so to the guide.

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Dear Forum

I have been asked on multiple occasions to set MY reputation to Heroic when we are forming a task force, even though I am not the leader. It is my understanding that only the Leader's reputation matters in Task Forces, and that my changing difficulty will have no positive benefit to me or the team in question.


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It makes sense for everyone to set their difficulty to Heroic.

Mission difficulty for normal Task Forces (Positron, Sister Psyche, etc) is determined by a number of factors.

Generally missions are at a set level, the MAX level for the TF, so for Positron thats L15, for Synapse it's L20, for Sister Psyche it's L25. This can be bumped up by having more people in the TF, so a 7 or 8 person team will probably run into L16's or even L17's on Positron.

The LEADER's difficulty will determine how much more difficult a TF will be, here's a little table as a guide.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>

TF Difficulty

Heroic Tenacious Rugged Unyielding Invincible

Positron 10-15 15 2x critters 16 16 2x critters 17 2x critters
Synapse 15-20 20 2x critters 21 21 2x critters 22 2x critters
Sister Psyche 20-25 25 2x critters 26 26 2x critters 27 2x critters
Moonfire 23-28 28 2x critters 29 29 2x critters 30 2x critters
Citadel 25-30 30 2x critters 31 31 2x critters 32 2x critters
Manticore 30-35 35 2x critters 36 36 2x critters 37 2x critters
Numina 35-38 38 2x critters 39 39 2x critters 40 2x critters
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So according to the above table, Positron is for Level 10 to Level 15 heros, the base (heroic) difficulty will be Level 15, at Tenacious there will be double the number of Level 15 critters per spawn, at Rugged there will be the normal number of critters in each spawn, but they will be from a Level 16 base. Unyielding will be Lever 16 base, with two times the normal number of critters, and Invincible will be Level 17 with two times the normal number of critters.

Please be aware that these numbers aren't rock solid, there are slight wavering of critter levels and numbers within TF missions.

To put it into a practical example, a full team of eight Level 10 heroes, doing a Positron Task force on Invincible reputation, would be facing level 17 critters. They would not survive unscathed.

Here's a con chart: "con" means what colour a particular critter's name is when you target it.

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Off-white = -4 levels or below your substantive level
Grey = -3
Green = -2
Blue = -1
White = even
Yellow = +1
Orange = +2
Red = +3
Purple = +4 levels or more above your substantive level
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And how lieutenants and bosses con different colours to players, even though they are the same -level- as you are:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Cogs/spiderlings/et @ level con blue
Minions @ level con white
Lieutenants @ level con yellow
bosses @ level con orange
elite bosses @ level con red
AV @ level con purple
Giant Monsters @ any level always con Purple
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A great article on difficult sliders and mission rewards is Mission Diffuculty &amp; Reputation for Solo Play , and another nice article on XP and difficulty sliders is Maximising Mission XP. Paragon wiki has a good page for all the CoH taskforces Paragon Wiki: Trials and Task Forces

The LEADER on a TF is a set position, determined by who is team leader when the TF is formed. It cannot be voluntarily changed in the game. Only if the leader disconnects/quits the TF will the Leader position change. Once that happens, the NEXT person who joined the -team- will become leader, and mission difficulty will now depend upon their current Hero Analyst rating.

So if you have

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Player Difficulty

Joe Heroic
Mary Invincible
Annabel Rugged
Peter Heroic[*] LEADER
Zachary Tenacious
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Then the TF will start on base level, and everything will be sweet.

If Peter Disconnects or otherwise leaves the server, then the next person in line is the first person to join the team -- Joe. Since he's Heroic, nothing will change.

If Joe disconnects, or otherwise leaves the TF, then Mary becomes team leader. Suddenly all new spawns(*) will be at Invincible level of difficulty. I don't believe that this difficulty level -ever- ramps -down- only -up-. So even if Mary disconnected and Annabel was leader, the critters would still spawn at Invincible level, but spawn sizes (rather than level) are still based on the NUMBER of people in the team at the time the spawn is triggered.

THAT is why it is important for ALL of the team-members to go and change down to Heroic before a Task Force is formed, so that you don't get unpleasant surprises later. Of course, if you're a Superteam and can do it on invincible, well you don't care.

note well The calculation for RESPEC TRIALS is based on the HIGHEST PERSON in the team PLUS 2, up to and including max-level for the respec trial. That means a team doing the first respec trial with all people at L24 (24,24,24,24,24,24) will be facing L26 critters. A team of 24,27,24,24,24,24 will be facing L29 critters. A team of 50,27,24,24,24,24 will be facing max level critters for the TF, which is L33 (the 50 will be autoexemplared down to max level for the trial). As you can imagine, Level 24 people up against L33 critters would NOT be conducive to a pleasant event. Mission Difficulty ADDS to these base levels, and again, the LEADER's difficulty determines the difficulty modifier. If the LEADER changes, the DIFFICULTY may change, and it only ever changes -up-.

Extra Special Note When on a TF/TRIAL, the Mission drop down in the Nav Bar will only ever show the difficulty that YOU are set to. So if you're on Heroic, and the leader is on Invincible, when you look at the mission in the Nav drop down, it will say 'Task Force (Heroic)' but if the LEADER looks it will say 'Task Force (Invincible)' and it is the LEADER that determines the level, not you. So even if you check and it says the TF is on Heroic, unless you're the leader or sorted this out before the TF started, you can't be sure. Similarly if you are on Invincible, but the Leader is on Tenacious, the actual level of the TF will be Tenacious.

(*) Spawns -- mission spawns are calculated at some relatively-large distance from whatever person 'triggers' the spawn within an instance of a map. Whatever the difficulty rating of the mission is AND the number of people in the team, WHEN THE CRITTERS SPAWN determines what will spawn and how many of 'em.

This is why you get those people who was to buff up a mission's team size, they will get 8 player team, and then 'stealth' run, or otherwise trigger every spawn on a map. Once triggered, a spawn is "set" for the duration of that instance, and no more (or fewer) critters will spawn. Similarly you can do it the other way -- start off a mission with only 1 person in the mission, the rest are logged off or not in the team. The 1 person zips through the mission triggering all the spawns to be 'one person' spawns at their difficulty level. Then they go back to the start, and invite the rest of the team in, and proceed to have a tailored cake-walk mission. Useful for doing AV's (as long as you can pull off the 'triggering' alone without dying in the process.)

Some special missions don't follow these rules, notable the AV ones and 'one off' special missions.

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Resetting the mission

I know for a fact that this one is no longer true. Missions are now dynamically loaded, so if you add a significant number of members during a mission, there is no need to have the mission reset. The next spawn will be sized appropriately.


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You're partially correct. If you get more or fewer people in a team and spawns have not been triggered, then the game engine will dynamically increase/decrease the number of critters, depending on team size. A map that has had its spawns triggered will NOT ramp up in difficulty -- so those teams that have some stealthy guy race through looking for glowies, and then invite a heap more people to the team, may find that the mission is way too easy, and WILL need to reset the mission in order ot generate 'normal' spawn sizes.

So sometimes you DO need to reset, but in 95% of cases, it's not required, and only 5% are specialist cases where the team is doing something different from a normal PuG.

Hope that clears some of this up.

This was my first attempt at a guide. Please be gentle.

Ex
[edit: add con table(s)]


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Numina TF goes up to 40. Not 38. I know I just did it the other day.

Thanks for moving this if that was you Lighthouse.

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Hmm... just a thought, but wouldn't this easily tie into Inventions?

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Yeah it could -- I also had a special idea in how it could tie in too. It is in the post.

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I like this idea, needs fleshing out a bit the the basics are sound, send it off to Statesman and Positron!

[/ QUOTE ] I mean hey, I posted to States when I first registired about vet rewards and look now. (I like to think I helped )

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A lot of ideas come from players. I believe Statesman said ED (Although many disliked it) was created by a player. Ironically, there is a post dating April 2005 Or March 2005 by Pilcrow that is very similar to the idea of ED. Wonder if that was it?

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There were a fair number of posts suggesting some sort of scaling mechanism for enhancements, where the bonus for subsequent enhancements of the same type would decrease. IIRC, virtually all of them were set up so that a power six-slotted with one enhancement type would have the same bonus that it did pre-ED, with the enhancement effect being higher than normal for the first enhancements of a type and sliding off until the sixth one gave the lowest benefit. I don't recall ever seeing a post advocating a mechanic for reduced effect where the fourth and subsequent SOs of a type in a power would be virtually useless.

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Yeah I didn't mean one idea thought up the whole entire thing. It was a collaboration. Anyways so what do you think of this idea?

Thanks all for the replies so far

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I like this idea, needs fleshing out a bit the the basics are sound, send it off to Statesman and Positron!

[/ QUOTE ] I mean hey, I posted to States when I first registired about vet rewards and look now. (I like to think I helped )

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A lot of ideas come from players. I believe Statesman said ED (Although many disliked it) was created by a player. Ironically, there is a post dating April 2005 Or March 2005 by Pilcrow that is very similar to the idea of ED. Wonder if that was it?

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Hmmmm...

You know...This is actually a good idea...

A VERY good idea...

The only problems I can see with it being that...

A: This means squishies not MEANT to do insane amounts of damage now WILL be able to do so.

Example...

Petless masterminds will now be elevated from mostly cute and harmless to MODERATELY annoying.

And what about energy melee users?

Their damage potential will now be god-like. They will be able to go down from killing bosses in 5 seconds to killing bosses in 3 seconds.

PvP will become even more of a nightmare then it is now.

NPCs will start having their own signature powers, (more then they already have, I mean.)

But overall, I'd say this is an interesting idea...

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Actually, I forgot to mention but they are more suppose to be a "fun-factor" rather then something that becomes part of an attack chain. They have long recharges (Similar to how Accolade powers are)

Make sense?

Edit: I updated the original post. They are suppose to be "fun" like costumes are fun. You can share them with other players and make them flashy if you wanted too. Maybe there would be signature powers contests?

So I had this idea pop into my mind today. I was thinking about how for some players the 32+ game starts to die down because you aren't getting powers as often and leveling is slower. I was looking at Arch Villains and Heroes and remembered each of them had their own signature power. I thought to myself, wouldn't it be cool if Heroes (And villains) could create their own signature powers? Well, here was my idea:

The Basics

Starting at level 33, you earn "points" toward your signature power. You basically get one point per level all the way up to 50. Each point is spent in a tree that modifies the ability of the power. There is a special "lock" system in place so you cannot just focus all your points into one category. (IE, focusing all points into "Hold" so that the power is like mag 20)

Players could choose from various attributes

Teleport Self
Damage
Hold
Heal Self
Heal Other
Accuracy
Speed
AOE
Etc.

A player could spread his points out creating a jack of all trades power master of none. They could chose to focus on certain categories but only to an extent. The various categories will work in a tree like system. The bottom of the tree would be:

Damage -- Heal Other -- Heal Self -- Buff (Speed, Recharge, +Damage, etc... only one of these) -- Hold -- Disorient -- Teleport

Focusing more points into a given category would enhance the effect. However, after X amount of points the category becomes maxed. Spending points in a certain category would unlock the next set.

IE

AOE -- Range (5 is starting range or melee, more points enhances the range) -- Recharge Timer -- Etc

All signature powers start out very generic. They all just about have the same recharge (Which would be very long to begin with until points are spent), and have the same statistics. (Assuming players invested in the same area, IE, Heal vs Heal, Damage Vs Damage, etc)

The Initial Pick, Target Foe, Self Buff, or Target Player

This is the player's very first pick at level 33. They will chose what their signature power targets. Perhaps your defender's special power is a heal on a player. Maybe your Corruptor wants to decimate his foe with an attack. Perhaps your Tanker uses a special shield. Etc.

All signature powers start out with the same animation.

New Unlockable, Level 35

At level 40, players will unlock the animations. Here is where players can customize the animation of their signature power. There would be various animations to chose from. The animation would have an impact on what the power does. Basically, the animations would be split up into:

1 Second Animations
2 Second Animations
3 Second Animations
4 Second Animations
Interruptable

Basically, the shorter the animation time, the less effect the power does, and the longer (all the way to interruptable) the greater effect it does. Thus, a 1 second power receives no bonus but perhaps a 4 second animation power receives a 60% bonus. (Just an example)

By this point too, you are earning more points (One per level) to further customize your power.

Level 40 New Unlockable -- Effect

Here is the next custom option available. You are able to change the effect of what the power looks like. A player would have various choices from:

Explosion (Fire for instance)
Energy (Various range energy attacks)
Buff Effect (Maybe a shield)
Lightning
Etc

Basically, a player is chosing the particle effects associated with the power. Up until this point, all signature powers used the same particle effect. (Something generic)

Level 45 New Unlockable -- Colors

At this level, you can now chose various colors for the power. You can customize the look and change various aspects of it. This will give it a more unique feel.

New Unlockable Level 50 -- Sharing your power with others!

Using the invention system, a player can share his signature power with other players. He is able to create a one use temporary power. There are limitations though:

1) A character can only have one "gifted" signature power at a time.

2) A character can only receive a "gifted" signature power once every 30 minutes.

Basically, this would be a cool way to show your friends "Hey look what I made, try it and tell me what you think"

The requirements to make the temporary power would be the same for all signature powers.

Naming your signature power

A player can name their signature power at level 33. (When they first get them) This name can be changed at anytime.

How enhancements work in signature powers

Signature Powers will not be effected by any kind of enhancement. Their accuracy, damage, heal, duration, etc is all determined by how a player spends their points. They also cannot be buffed or debuffed similar to how Veteran Rewards work. Thus, no outside powers can effect them.

How will they not be imbalanced?

My main balancing factor for these powers will be giving them long recharge times similar to accolades. Basically, these powers are not meant to be part of an attack chain or turn a Brute into a healer. They would mostly be used for tough fights (Such as an Arch Villain). There is a place to spend points to lower the recharge time.

What if I wanted to modify my power?

There would be a place to edit them similar to the way you can edit costumes. It would cost a infamy, influence, or maybe some salvage pieces.

The place would be like a training room or something in the university. The idea is you "train" into modifying your skill.

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What the heck is Wacky Races?

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Old Hanna Barbera cartoon. Visit the various links in Zombie_Man's post for more info.

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Too bad Barbera recently died too I saw.

What the heck is Wacky Races?