Archimedes

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It is my sad duty to inform everyone that August will be my last month with City of Heroes and City of Villains.

I am taking over community management of Tabula Rasa full-time as of Sept. 1st. Cricket will be your primary community person when Sept. 1 rolls around and I will no longer accept PMs as of that date.

I just wanted to take a second and thank everyone for all their support and kind words over the last two years. Even in the darkest hours I could always count on there being a few bright posts, emails or PMs in my inbox. These kept me going more than coffee ever could and they always brought a smile to my face.

I also want to thank everyone who has ever created well thought out, constructive post/PM. I know bugs or other game issues can be frustrating at times, but a community person's best friend is the player who takes that little extra step to research and document their issue while keeping it about the issue, and not about Statesman's momma.

Special thank you's to all the staff both here at NCsoft and at Cryptic for all your hard work, for answering questions and for listening to community concerns. Staff may not always agree - but they [u]always[u] listen.

Finally, thanks to you - the community. This has been a great community to work for and be a part of for the last two years and it's very hard leaving such a wonderful group of people. You are so intelligent, passionate, creative, funny and charming that it amazes me every day. And despite how it may appear on the surface sometimes - you all care for each other deeply and are always ready to lend a helping hand to those less fortunate. You are true heroes and there is no Paragon City without you. It has been my honor to serve you.

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As one of the long time players of this game, and more vocal members of the community, this news saddens me. As many have stated before, you've provided this community with a strong, fair and friendly presense for the last two years. You were always courteous and friendly, and even took time to visit some of the player-run events. I'll always remember your appearance on Virtue for Dr. Toxic's Golden Giza event fondly.

Be well in all that you do from this point forward, and may goodness follow you in whatever you do. Good luck and God speed.

Screenshot says it all:

Ow. Ooh. That... ow.

I'm sure she'll dig it a lot, Jugg. My only mild critique? It's a little hard to tell where her right side begins and her right leg begins, it all kinda meshes together a little too much. Perhaps you could darken up the lines on her side to help differentiate that a little better?

This is what happens when you tick off a demon-possessed sorceress.

Bloody Tears brings the heat to the Family.

*eyebrow twitch*

/zombie voice "Arr... rrr... ttt..."

*shambles away*

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Aww, don't sweat it Archimedes. Yours is coming along very nicely! You'll see

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Oh, I'm sure that it is, Lush.

But the anticipation...

(dies from anticipation)

*refreshes MMOART's homepage*

*sighs*

*goes back to pacing*

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I saw some of the same things in Victory's raid today, that the OP reported. I also noticed something else. Attacking defenders and controllers were dropping like flies. Not your normal drop rate, I talking about dead in 5-10 seconds. Repeatedly. Out of my team, the only support to survive was a controller who only used heal during the raid. Once we got 1/2 the mitos cleared, the death rate dropped off, but was still pretty heavy on support (almost like they ignore the massive damage done by scrappers/blasters and concentrated on trollers/def). I hit debt cap in about 5 minutes and was never up for more than 10 seconds unless I ran for the rock. I finally switched toons to help heal.

Victory got to through the mitos, through the hold phase, or what we thought was hold phase, then got hami to 25% health before he broke and mass death was had. Although it's hard to tell when he's held now so I don't know. It was a very long time before the attack phase was called.

Over 80 in the zone, there were over 16 AMs up, and probably around 30 controllers. With the AMs I would say that should have been more then enough to hold him. Unless... his mez resistance goes up significantly at 25%? Hmmmm.....

I was on a team with 2 scrappers and 2 blasters (who never stopped attacking mitos) and no one got any SO drops. I doubt anyone in the hive got any SO drops.

I would venture to say the raid is brokes right now.

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Virtue managed to pull off a successful raid this evening. Due to unforeseen events, I ended up being the taunter on Hami about a quarter of the way into the mito clearing phase, so I can maybe offer a few tips: <ul type="square">[*]Air drop the Phantom Armies: This helped to disburse the initial aggro of Hamidon and the Mitos, to the point where the Mito teams could take on their designated targets.[*]Fly and Group Fly: Nearly everyone was in the air for this, except for a few stragglers. With the Mito teams all airborne, it made the attacking of them much easier.[*]Holding: The way we were able to tell that Hami was truly held was to watch for the ice/stone hold on him. Since I was taunter, I helped to cooridnate this with the raid leaders. Once there was a consensus that Hami seemed held, a 4 minute countdown was held. At that point, the attack phase commenced.[/list]
I hope this gives you a few hints that'll help you take down the Hami.

Page crash, go boom!

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Woohooo Flame thug is being done!!! And it looks just sooooooo cool already.

Damn full queue. I want one of my heroes in a duo.

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I feel your pain. Every day I check the queue and the main page... at least 4-5 times a day.

Could I have one done of my main, please? Links are in my sig (the pertinent shots are the ones labeled 'New', since I changed her look for I7). Thanks very much!

Yeah, been watching that develop for a while now. Really nice piece!

*checks list, goes back to pacing*

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Thank you for the warm welcome, Encharger, SepTa, Sorah, Archimedes. :-)

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/chrisclaremont

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I have to ask....what does this mean/why did you put this? The reason I'm asking....is because I am a *huge* Chris Claremont fan.

Should I put Shrapn'l's intro in Virtue, and her origin story in Role-playing? Would that work?

And, oh, my, yes, and a wastepaper basket, too, she has a story arc ahead of her.....she has, not one, but two conflicted personalities, and both of them are going to have some big changes ahead of them....

Is there an rp-oriented SG she might fit into?

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During Chris Claremont's run on X-Men/Excaliber, it sort of became a tradition that whenever a character was introduced to the team, there would be a cover that said something to that effect on it.

The one I always remember is when Kitty Pride first joined Excaliber.

Hi! And welcome to the Virtue forums.

Hope you survive the experience. /chrisclaremont

I'll echo Sorah's suggestion of going to the D and looking for RP there. It'll probably be a little light right now (since I7 is live, many people are either working on their villains or trying out RV). But, if you happen to see my main there, come up and say hi to her. I'm very RP-friendly.

Perhaps it's not charitable of me. But given the fact that I rarely even got that much during the first 1.5 years of the game, do you really blame me for being bitter and uninterested in bringing that style of gameplay back?

Furthermore, while that style of gameplay may have been fun, was it really good for the health of the game? If people could do as was described in that posting by Black Whip's character to this day, I really don't think the game would be in the same state as it is now. Would it be better, or worse? I'm not sure, really. That's a matter of perspective.

I will fully grant that many people (as evidenced in this thread) enjoyed the way this game played back then. But I was not one of them, and would rather the devs work from where they are now, than try and go back to I4's settings and rebalance the game again.

Y'know, I've been reading this thread ever since it was resurrected from the last page, and the same thought keeps occuring to me.

Man, I'm so glad those days are long buried.

See, as an Ice Tanker, I never got into those groups where people were blowing up 'hundreds' of minions or stuff like this. See, if you were an Ice Tanker without Tough, or a defender on your hip, or had friends that didn't mind the fact that you couldn't tank like the other three sets, you were either not invited to groups, or got kicked as soon as the rest of the team realized what primary you were playing. I still remember one team, where after the first spawn (where HC nearly died from all of the fire/smashing/lethal damage being dealt by the 5th Columns), one of the blasters started asking on the team channel if we couldn't find a real tanker.

So when I read how people miss being able to do this kind of stuff, I just shrug my shoulders. I never did it before, I can't do it now, and while my main is a little tougher on test, she still gets one-shotted by AVs and GMs.

So I'll guess I'll be one of the lone voices of dissension, and say that things are better now then they were back then.

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PvP.... It needs another leter so I can say it's a four letter word...

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PvsP.

There ya go.

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My first problem was, the longer I played, the worse my framerate got. After about 45 minutes, I'd have to restart the game. Nobody else claimed to have the problem, but I have it every time. The same actually happens on the live servers, but it takes 3-4 hours in Siren's before I get to the point I must restart.

Second, occasionally when taking the teleporter from the lower level of the base to the upper, I would appear on my screen visually stealthed or invis (a couple of times, I was totally absent from my own view). I wasn't actually stealthed or invis; it was just a visual error (Radeon 9k w/Catalyst 6.5).

Third, after playing for a while, my MM started getting a pop-up when I tried to take control of a heavy telling me you can only control one at a time. But I had none. I had successfully used heavies a number of times before. /release_pets didn't clear the problem. Nor did logging out and back in, or changing instances of RV, or even switching characters then switching back.

Next, I was really disappointed at the so-called "pillboxes" themselves. Technically, pillboxes are small fortifications designed to provide cover for defending forces. I had this wonderful dream that zone PvP was being opened up for the many hero/villain builds that aren't well-suited for City of Grasshoppers. Now, invaders would have to enter small enclosed structures to root out defenders, where getting away if you made things rough for 'em would require more than simply hitting the space bar.

Instead, the "pillboxes" turn out to simply be small frames with a few perceptionless turrets and an itsy bitsy forcefield. Structures, I might add, my henchmen had trouble navigating around. I even found Mako running back and forth a 4' path, over and over and over. The -teleport of the forcefield is nice, but it offers no protection from disorient or hold as people have come to expect from aoe fields. I'm actually fine with that, but if I am required to stay in the itsy bitsy bubble for defense, it needs to also provide protection from knockback and repel. I shouldn't need a pocket kinetic to keep from being ejected from a fully-functional fortification.

Also, while I agree you shouldn't be able to heal turrets, there needs to be some mechanism for them to be repaired. More than once I saw a pillbox taken from a superior group of defenders because the attackers simply ignored the players and attacked the turrets. Yes, they were killed many times while doing it. But they didn't care about debt, and neither will the level 50s on the live servers. As is, the game mechanics allow the attackers to win, but not the defenders.

Perhaps the turrets could regenerate slowly while in passive stance. Or the heavies could have a power to repair the turrets. This would force people to choose between using their heavies for offense or defense. Though the heavies would probably need to be resistant to +speed buffs.

And neighborhoods are named "Zone 1", "Zone 2", etc. Why not Sector Alpha, Sector Echo, and such to correspond with the pillbox located in them?

And now, with Atlas Park being relatively flat, it's become apparent on day 2 of the Rv event that people have recognized the wonders of taking Superspeed along with the Leaping pool. So now, when hit with an Entangling Arrow or Web Grenade, they don't just Sprint away, they can run like The Flash.

Also, I noticed you can't view the builds of opposing players. I don't like that change at all. But if it is going to stay, it should not happen until after the lackluster combat log is upgraded. Too often I look at the log to see how I was killed, but all I see is something along the lines of, "You were smashed for 500 points of damage." By whom? And with what power? And I don't believe powers that do no damage will show up in the log at all. And many powers with a secondary effect show no indication of it in the log. E.g., the sonic attack's disorient power records the damage, but nowhere does it tell you it disorented you.

PvP in CoX has always had the feel of being added as an afterthought. Unlike the PvE experience where you can assemble a team of whomever's available and find a way to make it work. In PvP, success is predicated upon having the "right build"; and moreover, having the "right team" of the right builds.

I don't think RV "breaks" anything new with PvP in CoX. I just think it exposes even more of what I feel are the core problems in the system (such as the overwhelming utility of the Leaping Pool) that prevent so many builds from feeling like they bring anything to the table in a zone PvP fight.

And unless changes are made to close the gap between the few good "PvP builds" and everything else, I think the PvP experience will continue to be like a cheap whiskey... You drink it because you have it in your cabinet, but you know it's not very good.

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While I am getting more and more into PvP, I have to say this really hits the nail on the head.

What's more, there isn't any need to create new artwork for a better pillbow. Use the ones in Bloody Bay. They're much better than the ugly looking bull's eyes that we have now.

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Hrmm.. &gt;&lt; darnit; I don't have any people in the right range to bash Tsoo &lt;&gt;.&lt;&gt; gonna have to get cracking I guess &lt;pops knuckles&gt;

Heeeeere little ninjas! Come out and plaaaaaaay &lt;^_^&gt;/)

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Who says anything about being in level range? Just take your favorite character and find some Tsoo, and squash them! Nothing in the contest rules says you have to be earning XP.

3 of my characters still have them. I look at the icon in my power window from time to time, but I never use them.

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The invisible skirt line of recluse is very annoying.

[/ QUOTE ]I'd like to second that.

We know where the entrances/exits are. Just show them permanently closed... sealed up by combat and rubble. Give us more room to run in with the extra space.

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I think he was talking about the section of Lord Recluse's statue that is invisible when the zone is neutral/hero.

Just some quick and dirty numbers; wondering if someone with better number-crunch foo could check these out, to make sure that they jive, please.

Me: Halley's Comet, L45 ice/ss tanker
Frozen Armor: +56.6% over base defense (S/L)
Glacial Armor: +56.4% over base defense (E/N)
Wet Ice: base defense (All but Psi)

Opponent: L45 Jaeger minion (white conn)
Attack: Jaeger Mace, smashing damage (117/98 damage, with/without chilling embrace)

With FA, GA, WI, CE running:
100 attacks, 26 hits.

With FA, WI, CE running:
100 attacks, 24 hits.

With FA, CE running:
100 attacks, 28 hits.

With FA running:
100 attacks, 32 hits.

With no armor:
100 attacks, 51 hits.

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Currently, the exit to Atlas Park is broken. Once you get into the zone, you can't leave (the option isn't there). While this is only a minor inconvienence on Test, this would be crippling on the live servers. Can we please see a fix for this ASAP? Thanks.

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Okay, I found the real exit. This is still messed up, but it's not a bug so much as it is poor map and location setup.

I'd suggest putting up signs on the walls showing which way will take you to the portal out, just to clear up confusion, and to fix the map so that the way out is properly indicated (call the portal 'Portal to Present', and give the base portal its proper name).

Currently, the exit to Atlas Park is broken. Once you get into the zone, you can't leave (the option isn't there). While this is only a minor inconvienence on Test, this would be crippling on the live servers. Can we please see a fix for this ASAP? Thanks.

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Except those two lucks lasted 1 minute and only affected things slightly (-25% base accuracy.) 25*1.5*1.3=48.75% accuracy. The AV will most likely only have to swing three times and you are dead (and AVs generally attack pretty fast, so that the healing over time is not as good.)

Saying that MoG is only as good as a few lucks is a disservice.

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Two lucks simultaneously is identical to the effective defense bonus of MoG with none of the downside. Of course they only last 1/3 of the time. Howerver, for a fight where I have a choice between no healing for 3 minutes and expending six lucks, I'll prefer the lucks.

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No, you are going by the "100%" value of Lucks which is 25%/35%/50% defense.

They are actually 1/2 of that value against the base accuracy. So 12.5%/16.5%/25%.

It would actually take two *large* lucks. Two little lucks would only affect things slightly, as I understand it.

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Can you quote a red name? I've spent a lot of time testing this and I see no evidence that they are "1/2 of that value against the base accuracy."

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It was when Castle was explaining that Darkest Night was 18.75% debuff, which through us all for a loop until we realized that it was a -18.75% from the base 50%.

Anything pre-i4 that was stipulated at "percentage" of a defense or accuracy was always against the 1-100% scale, but they have switched over to affecting the base 50% accuracy now.

So Lucks at +25% were against the 1-100% scale. But now with the way math is working out, it's actually a -12.5% against the base.

It's still 25%, but 25% of *50*, the default base.

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How long ago was this? I tried doing a search through all of _Castle_'s posts, and didn't find any reference to this. If we had the related posts, it might clear up the confusion.