Umbral

Question 1: How are they supposed to know how long a TF should take? As far as I have ever known, the devs can only make educated guesses that are largely inaccurate. This is why the new TFs they've released has had to have some pretty significant merit reward tweaking even after the beta testing.

Question 2: You do realize that there is a difference between what should happen and what does happen? Players should have used AE as a way to create new and interesting stories as a way to generate new content for themselves and others to enjoy, however, as we all know, instead players used it largely for farming and exploits.

It's not a question of a single run taking the any specific amount of time. Because the merit reward is determined based off of a median, it doesn't matter if it takes 5 minutes longer than the existing median or 12 hours longer than the existing median: the median only cares that it took longer and factors that in.

You're also, once again, assuming that any individual run is a good example of what the reward should be. The number they use to determine merit awards is a composite value: it's not based off of any single specific time you can think of. It's based off of all of the times that they have access to. If 90% of the groups that run a TF take 20 minutes to complete it, even if the other 10% take 5 hours, the TF is going to reward 7 merits because an overwhelming majority take 20 minutes. If 70% of the groups that run a TF take 6 hours to complete a TF and the other 30% can somehow complete it in half the time, it's going to reward 120 merits.

Please try to comprehend this because I'm not entirely sure you do. You can't bring up any single instance and try to use it to refute a value that is based upon looking at every instance that occurs. There are people that have survived cancer but that doesn't mean we assume that any specific person will survive cancer for any specific period of time. However, because some people have survived cancer, we can roughly gauge the length of time that they will survive. Merit awards are the equivalent of finding the average period of time that anyone will survive any specific type of cancer.

If we're talking IO builds, it's incredibly easy to build to 27.8% melee defense, especially if you're aiming for decent levels for the other defenses and recharge. Slotting DA for more than just a pittance of defense is pretty much unneeded.

So, you simply call something a discrepancy (this is how the word is actually spelled, if you're curious), and it becomes one? The entire point behind merit awards is that the speed of the TF is the determining factor in the reward. You can't simply dismiss that.

Similarly, keep in mind that just saying that you gave me evidence doesn't make it true. I asked for evidence that was actually appropriate and capable of drawing conclusions from. You gave a single set of data points that provide pretty much no information from which a decent conclusion can be drawn concerning the entire state of merit awards. That doesn't even remotely fulfill the conditions I asked for.

So the only way there won't ever be a discrepancy unless absolutely everything is absolutely equal on each side? So, as long as CoV and CoH aren't exactly the same then the devs can't win?

It's not an issue of "no one touches those merits". I brought up the those specifically to point out why the Virgil Tarikoss SF has such small rewards.

The only brick wall that exists is the one in your head that seems to be keeping you from realizing that the rewards for TFs are standardized based on averaged time to complete rather than on some other random variable that you apparently believe that they should be based on.

I keep forgetting that the only thing that people look at is how many merits they can earn if they only run each TF in each level range a single time while completely ignoring the amount of time it would take to complete said task. Oh, why do I never remember these things?

Actually, that's due to players not liking the overly long task forces that formed the baseline of CoH's task force play. The reason that the SFs are so short is because players wanted them short.

The difference in content levels is due to CoV being out for a substantially smaller period of time. The difference in task/strike force length (and thereby magnitude of individual merit awards) is directly due to player complaints. There isn't, however, a difference in average merits/minute, so there isn't a discrepancy in task force rewards because if an average team from both sides puts forth the same amount of time on a task they receive the same reward.

This is how I slot it as well. As far as I'm concerned, the only things that DA needs enhancement for are damage and endurance. Acc is pretty much impossible not to get and the global bonuses for it are a dime a dozen. It's a foregone conclusion that a decent IO build is going to have 95% chance to hit with attacks. Recharge isn't really needed because DA has a laughably low recharge time already. Defense isn't really needed because of how stupidly easy it is to stack DA. I only tangentially care about endurance slotting, but it's pretty secondary when you consider that DA has better end consumption than any of your other attacks by a fair margin. Damage is pretty much the only thing that matter because it helps mitigate the exchange of DPS for survivability that the power encompasses.

Because it's so easy to get the enhancement values you need with DA, my primary concern for DA is generally the set bonuses. 5 piece CI + LotG +rech gives you 12.5, 7% acc, and 1.12% hp, and, while it would be numerically better for the power individually, I wouldn't dream of putting 5 piece Hecatomb in there because it will do a lot more in GC.

So you're argument is that because optimized teams can run the blueside TFs substantially faster than the median time that the redside TFs need to be given an arbitrary bonus? You might make more ground by arguing for the reward to factor in failure rate rather than simply claiming that just because some can do it faster that the reward should be lower.

Considering that the devs actually arrived at those numbers by datamining the completion times, I'm going to have to agree with the devs rather than you. Those numbers are a wholesale comparison of all completion times.

So, you just make the argument that I should ignore optimized runs in favor of normal and casual players and then immediately attempt to support this claim by bringing up optimized runs? Really?

I asked you for evidence that was "anything but anecdotal or based upon abstract correlation". I wasn't asking for anecdotal evidence. I was asking for you to provide actual substantive and enough data points to ensure rigor that would actually be able to legitimately prove that there is a substantive discrepancy between the villain and hero merit awards that demonstrates a deliberate bias against villains or for heroes. All that you have ever thrown out is outlier data points and anecdotal evidence.

I've seen Positron TFs completed in less than an hour. I've also seen Docter Quaterfield TFs completed in 12 hours. Do either of those individual data points get to be the decider with how the developers have assigned merit awards? Good thing they're not because then Posi would get a mere 20 merits for its median completion time of 3 hours and 18 minutes and Doc Q would receive a whopping 240 merits for its median completion time of 6 hours and 10 minutes. A single data point means nothing on its own.

The developers don't use a single data point to assign merit awards. They datamine for a huge quantity of completion times and then use the median value of that collection (which is substantially more accurate than mean as a measure of average for reasons you will learn if you ever take any Statistics class ever). If a TF is run almost exclusively as a speed run, then merit awards go down to reflect that. There are actually a number of blueside TFs that were run all the time that almost no one ever touches because they were run insanely quickly and incredibly often before merits were added, which caused their merit awards to be assigned an incredibly low value because of it. The exact same thing happened to the Virgil Tarikoss SF.

The way the developers have assigned merit awards ensures that, if you go faster than average, you're going to get more for your time. If you go slower than average, you're going to get less. If everyone starts going faster than average, the reward goes down because it's obviously too easy to do better than average.

Yeah, when describing it to people, I've taken to calling it Tai Chi melee.

I really doubt the devs are going to put in anything even approaching Siphon Speed. +Rech is one of the strongest effects in the game and there isn't any existing precedent for +rech to be an effect found in an attack set. We only saw a single siphon power in that video, and, while there might be more, I'm not entirely certain that it would happen. Something that I think might be interesting as a possibility is a Siphon Endurance power: Just like Siphon Life only for your blue bar.

I doubt it. The devs stated that each basic AT is getting one set, not one or more, and, besides, there's already a defense set that pretty much fulfills the "kinetic armor" theme. It's called Energy Aura.

First off, it's anecdotal evidence, not opinion. There is a difference. I'd similarly challenge you to actually start asking players of each side why they don't play on the other side. I've met players on both sides of the aisle and, of those I've met and talked to, a vast number didn't play redside after an initial incursion or two because of reasons that had nothing to do with the content, or supposed lack thereof. It had to do with the overall

Secondly, please point out where I have ever said that I don't want red side content. I have no problem with red side development. I have never had a problem with red side development. I have always, however, had a problem with red side development at the expense of blue side development.

Actually there are a number of very good reasons why the devs should not add villain content without providing blueside content, and I've gone over them repeatedly. Arguing that, for some arbitrary reason, villains deserve more content doesn't make it true. Arguing that fewer people play villains just because there is less content because the game hasn't been around as long is similarly false. Arguing that just because something is based upon anecdotal evidence is false that it is untrue is similarly flawed reasoning. Like I said, in my personal experience, the reason there are fewer villside players has very little to do with the content.

I challenge you to actually come up with something that is anything but anecdotal or based upon abstract correlation in order to prove that villains are in dire need of preferential content rather than simply baldly stating that they need it for whatever reason and that any reason that refutes this claim is false simply for disagreeing. Maybe if you actually attempted to enter into debate rather than trying to prove yourself correct via screaming and repetition, you might actually start making sense or change some minds.

How have the existing updates done anything to expand the disparity? Proportionately, the disparity has shrunk because villains are getting pretty much the same amount of content as heroes have. If you don't believe me, just look at the content updates since I6 and count up the number of new redside features compared to new blueside features. The disparity is almost nonexistent, and, if anything, villains have actually gotten a bit more content thanks to villains getting things that were already in blueside when CoV was released (EATs are a big one; and, yes, VEATs count as villain preferential development rather than equivalent development because HEATs existed before CoV was even in development).

Honestly, yes. MMOs live based off of additions to the game. Just look at all of the rage that happened when we only got 3 Issues in a year when they said they were working towards 4. If the devs provide an issue that is based almost exclusively around villains, then they're going to be forcing blueside to remain stagnant for however long it takes them to get the next issue out.

Arguing that villains should receive any issue that is preferential simply because the game has less, even though it stands to logic that it would have less because the game is younger, is about as fair as asking for blueside to receive preferential development simply because there are more players on that side. The developers have chosen to walk the path of neutrality by providing content for each side as equally as possible. They haven't shown any development preference for good reason: they're working to keep both games active and trying to prevent stagnation for both sides.

Hell, if you want to see what happens when one side receives preferential development, just look at Issues 7 & 8: villains got an issue devoted almost exclusively to them, but the devs had to provide a balancing issue almost exclusively devoted to heroes to make up for the rather abundant hate that cropped up soon after Heroes got an issue that didn't do anything for them. Preferential development for a side is simply a bad idea. I simply causes a great deal of reactive hate from the side that didn't get the commensurate development and that's bad for the game.

You're forgetting all of the years that CoH was being developed before it was first released. CoH didn't just magically pop into existence when it was published. Design for it had begun as early as 2000-2001, especially from a content perspective.

Keep in mind that you're also assuming that blueside has more players simply because it has more content. Hell, if modern teams are any reliable indicator, AE is a bigger draw than the existing dev content so it doesn't matter what the devs have put out in the past. Considering the numbers of players I've personally met that are blueside exclusive to redside exclusive, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the population disparity has to do with a majority of people simply preferring to escape reality as super powered good guys saving the world rather than super powered bad guys trying to exploit it.

Considering that all of the attacks were KU/KB, and the word "kinetic" has a strong connotation of bowling things over, I'm pretty sure that the secondary effect is going to be almost universally KU.

The one thing I'm interested in figuring out is that one that looked like a kinetics Siphon power. Is that gonna be something like FU meets a control power? Doesn't deal damage but provides you with an easily stackable +dam/+acc?

Agreed.

So, if it's supposed to be a melee set, it's not so much Ken and Ryu, but Dan?

Well, if it's purely Kinetic, then it would be all smash/lethal damage. It might be something like the oft-requested Psi Melee except that it's not going to be psychic. I really wanna see the video they referenced in that live podcast.

I'm curious as to what "Kinetic Melee" would be specifically defined as. I have a disturbing feeling that it is gonna turn into something like a tweaked Dark Melee if they're making it something like a melee attack variant of Kinetics (Soul Drain:Fulcrum Shift; Dark Consumption:Transference; Siphon Life:Transfusion).

I really don't like this idea because it takes away a lot of the "specialness" of HOs. They can only be obtained from a few specific tasks as a reward specific to those tasks, and it stands to reason that those tasks should retain the uniqueness of those rewards. The only way I could logically see making HOs purchasable would be with VG merits (on the order to 1000 VG merits) or, possibly, as a purchasable recipe from a DE contact of some kind that allowed you to create them from salvage. The best/fastest method of acquiring HOs should always be running Hami raids followed by running STFs and LRSFs for SHOs, otherwise they lose all of their flavor and uniqueness.

Now, if something like this were implemented, I'd also ask that the devs make sure to include Crystal Titan Enhancements and Hydra Enhancements, for both completeness and accessibility's sake.

I used a vague phrase on purpose because the actual time period of the offending individuals' suggestions vary significantly. Assuming that the time periods should be equal to the time from the initial release of CoH to the initial release of CoV, it would necessitate a period of 17-18 months. Assuming that the time periods should be based off of actual development time rather than simply release time, you'd probably need to extend that to a number of years because CoH had been a twinkling in Jack Emmert's eye for a while (I recall a video that dated back to 2000/1 for a proto-CoH).

I believe the actual line (and I believe it was actually a War Witch one) was that it's almost as much work to revamp a zone as it is to simply create a new zone outright. How this applies to existing zones is pretty simple: why put forth 95% of the work to revamp a zone when you could just put forth 100% of the work and simply design an entirely new one? We can be pretty sure where Posi's opinion lies (or, at least, used to).

Now, while I don't know about all of the inner workings concerning all of this, I believe it has to do with a full revamp (i.e. Faultline) mostly involving a massive amount of manipulation of zone geometry, new arcs, and rework of spawn locations. If any individual portion of that could be reduced, then the design work would, feasibly, be reduced, though that's assuming that there would be no problem with simply transferring it over. The oft asked for Shadow Shard revamp could probably include very little manipulation of the geometry (just adding an island for villains without having to change all of the other islands), and minimal rework of spawns (switching out normal soldiers for Arachnos soldiers in regions physically close to the vill base). A vast majority of the development would, hopefully, be focused upon writing the story and placing new contacts (which, if the Cimerora update can be any gauge of, isn't nearly as resource consumptive as manipulating the zone itself).

When did you start working at Paragon Studios? Are you the new powers guy they haven't told us they hired some time ago?

Because we all know how fun a set is when all of the attacks look the same and the only difference is the effects. I highly doubt that set would ever get past BABs.

Because people are stupid? The vill market sucks because the proportion of marketeers is larger villside than heroside, and, as I've already stated, the vill merits don't suck specifically because merits are applied on a time basis. Hell, if you look at villside, it's actually a great place to be on the supply side of things because of all of the price inflation.

There is a difference between lack of content and a TF/SF disparity, especially when most of the "disparity" can also be reversed when you start looking at quality and quantity holistically.

And I would have no problem with this. Go ahead and give redside some new content while revamping the bad blueside content. I've never had a problem with anything along that lines. The only problem I've ever had in these discussions is with people that either scream that the villains deserve to get exclusive development for a period of time for whatever reason or those that claim that CoV should get a free pass to account for whatever problem they believe exists because of this refusal to provide exclusive development time (keep in mind, exclusive or preferential development time != exclusive content; the Barracuda and Khan TFs were equal development but exclusive content).

Unless you actually intend for the entire set to use the same 3-4 animations, I think you should learn more about the game (especially when you're similarly asking for a Shotgun and a Heavy Weapon powerset as well) rather than simply assuming because a few animations exist that there wouldn't be much workload.

I'm pretty much going to have to agree with Liberty. While I'm not a PvP person, I do know some basic stuff about what you should aim for and you're definitely going all over the place without much direction.

First off, +rech and +hp should be pretty much the only thing you care about after you deal with making sure that the powers you've got are decently slotted. Don't underslot a power just because you want to get a decent set bonus out of it. I mean, just look at what you did to Gambler's Cut: what were you thinking? The same thing applies to MoG (which is incredibly powerful in PvP because it makes you virtually unkillable for 15 seconds). On a similar note, you should only overslot a power when you're getting viable benefits that you couldn't get using those slots elsewhere. Look at what you did with Integration: it's got nearly 60% heal enhancement that's eaten by ED.

For Kat/Regen in PvP, it comes down to this: DA is useless, all of your click powers should be fully enhanced, and you should focus on GD, GC, and SD in that order (GC and SD have virtually identical DPAs, but you're going to be using GC more often so it needs more slotting). Confront (i.e. Call of the Wolf) is pretty much required because it simply stops ranged characters from simply being able to kite you to win. For APPs, I believe that the only one worth getting for PvP is Weapon Mastery: Web Grenade lets you lock targets down from range and Targeting Drone provides you with tohit, acc, perception, and tohit debuff resistance (which, combined with the natural 30% tohit debuff resist you get from your mez toggle, makes you virtually immune to tohit debuffs). Conserve Power and Physical Perfection are both largely unneeded in PvP because long term endurance costs are rarely an issue.

While I don't really consider myself a PvP expert (much less an arena PvP person), I would probably do something closer to this. A much heavier emphasis on bonus hp and resistance coupled with as much debuff resistance as I could muster. Offense is focused on burst damage rather than sustained DPS.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.621
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Katana
Secondary Power Set: Regeneration
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Weapon Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Gambler's Cut -- Hectmb-Dmg(A), Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(3), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(3), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(5), Hectmb-Dam%(5), Mako-Dam%(7)
Level 1: Fast Healing -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Numna-Heal(23), Panac-Heal/+End(25), Panac-Heal(25)
Level 2: Reconstruction -- Panac-Heal/EndRedux(A), Panac-EndRdx/Rchg(7), Panac-Heal/Rchg(9), Panac-Heal/EndRedux/Rchg(9), Panac-Heal(11)
Level 4: Quick Recovery -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(11), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(13), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(13)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Winter-ResSlow(17)
Level 8: Build Up -- AdjTgt-Rchg(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(15), RechRdx-I(15), GSFC-Build%(40)
Level 10: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(17), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(19), Dct'dW-Heal(19), Dct'dW-Rchg(21)
Level 12: Calling the Wolf -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(48)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Integration -- Numna-Heal(A), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(21), Mrcl-Heal(23), Mrcl-Rcvry+(27)
Level 18: Boxing -- Amaze-Stun(A), Amaze-Stun/Rchg(43), Amaze-Acc/Stun/Rchg(46), Amaze-Acc/Rchg(48), Amaze-EndRdx/Stun(48)
Level 20: Resilience -- ResDam-I(A)
Level 22: Tough -- GA-ResDam(A), GA-Res/Rech/End(27), GA-End/Res(29), GA-RechEnd(29), GA-RechRes(31)
Level 24: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), SW-ResDam/Re TP(42), SW-Def/EndRdx(42), SW-Def(42), SW-EndRdx/Rchg(43), SW-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 26: Soaring Dragon -- GS-Acc/Dmg(A), GS-Dam/Rech(31), GS-Dam/End/Rech(31), GS-Acc/Dmg/End/Rech(33), GS-%Dam(33), Mako-Dam%(33)
Level 28: Instant Healing -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(34), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Dct'dW-Heal(34), Dct'dW-Rchg(36)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(36), RechRdx-I(36)
Level 32: Golden Dragonfly -- Armgdn-Dmg(A), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(37), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(37), Armgdn-Dam%(39), Oblit-%Dam(39)
Level 35: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 38: Moment of Glory -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(39), RechRdx-I(40), RechRdx-I(40)
Level 41: Web Grenade -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Targeting Drone -- AdjTgt-ToHit(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(45), AdjTgt-EndRdx/Rchg(45), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(45), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(46), Rec'dRet-Pcptn(46)
Level 47: Health -- RgnTis-Regen+(A)
Level 49: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(50), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(50), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 4: Ninja Run

Actually there is a reason that the devs shouldn't give red side love without providing blue side with some as well. Hell, there are more reasons why they shouldn't than they should. There are more players blueside. It would be counterintuitive for the devs to provide more development time to the side that has fewer payers, unless you assume that the reason that the only/biggest reason that more players don't play redside is because of a lack of content, rather than dislike for the player base, villain aesthetic, villain roleplaying, or any one of the reasons that players choose one side over the other.

The given reason why both sides have gotten roughly equal content since CoV was released is pretty simple: they're supporting both games equally. The devs probably already know that development for redside is going to be less effective per dollar or minute spent than blueside because there are fewer players. If anything, dividing it equally between heroes and villains penalizes heroes because they're getting less development per capita so villains are already getting more than heroes on that basis alone.

What you're doing here is assuming that there is a merit discrepancy. Just because there are fewer SFs, you assume that there are fewer merits earned per capita. This makes no sense whatsoever. Merit earning is determined exclusively by the average time it takes to complete an task. SFs and TFs have the exact same metric applied to their merit rewards. The only way there could possibly be a disparity is if you assumed that players will try to saturate every 18 hour play period with content runs.

As long as you assume that players on both ends spend the exact same amount of time running TFs, they're going to earn the exact same amount of merits. 1 hour running a TF is going to give the same reward as running 1 hour running an SF. That's not a discrepancy. That's equality. As has been stated earlier in this very thread, it's only when you begin assuming that players are going to run more than 13 hours in a single 18 hour period that there is anything resembling a discrepancy. The fact that there is less variety isn't a problem with the merit awards; it's a problem with the amount of time that the gave have been out and therefore the amount of development times that the games have been given. Since CoV has been released, CoH and CoV have received virtually identical amounts of additional content. Assuming that just because it came after that it should have the exact same amount of content is asinine.

CoV has been out less than CoH so it logically stands that it's going to have less content. That disparity in content is pretty much going to always exist unless the developers all suddenly have aneurysms and decide that it's a good idea to drop CoH until CoV gets 2+ years of development time to make up for that disparity. Assuming that there is any reason to drop the more older, more populated, more developed side just because the newer side is simply newer even though it's the same game is ludicrous and belligerent. That's like suggesting that you pay attention to your older child less just because the younger child wasn't born while the older child was getting all of the attention.