Aett_Thorn

[ QUOTE ]
Again, it would be an optional choice -- personally I delete all my level 50 toons anyway. I'm a 51 month vet myself, and I feel that once a character attains level 50, there's no point in running additional missions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good for you. Not everybody plays like that. I rarely use my level 50s. But I do like knowing that if I want to pull them out, I can do so, and run missions with them.

[ QUOTE ]
If you wanted to roll around the city, exemplaring down to help others, street sweep, you could do that. The only thing you'd be unable to do is to run farms.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, that is NOT all that it would stop. You'd also stop characters from running missions normally on a level 50 character. How do you not see that?

If the Devs come out with new level 50 content, you'd be unable to use any of your current level 50 characters to play through it, since they couldn't get access to the new content.

Take, for example, the new TF coming in I15. It's level 45-50 content. I can only play a few hours a week. If my level 50s were deleted, it would take me months before I was able to run this new content, because I'd have to get a character in range. And then if more content comes out in the future, it would take me months again.

That would not prevent me from PLing. It would actually ENCOURAGE me to do it with each issue release, and not play in between issues.

The point of the game is to advance through the content. However, if you remove the end goal, then to a lot of people, you remove the incentive to advance through the content, since at the end is nothing.

The content is good, put if there's no carrot, or even perceived carrot, at the end of the stick, then you do remove a lot of motivation for trying to get the character there.

And yes, people have various ways of playing this game. For you, it might be content on the way up. For others, it's the (even limited) content at the end, or the ability to go back and do the content that they missed. Using your suggestion, I feel that we'd lose a lot more people than we'd retain, which is why I think it would be a bad idea to implement.

I know of no game that urges you to delete your character in such a way as this, and there's probably a reason for that.

Hell no.

People should be allowed to play their characters, at level 1 or at level 50. This would not just hurt farmers or PLers. It would harm normal players who happen to like using their level 50s to play normal missions. It would hurt normal players who like to take their level 50 and exemp and help friends, go back and play content that character hasn't done yet, or use Ouroborus.

If you get rid of the level 50 characters, then there's no incentive to get to level 50, sure. But that basically takes away the point of the game. Sure, there is content to do along the way, but if upon doing all of that content my hard work just disappears, I'm not likely to keep playing the game.

Edit -> Even more reasons not to do this:

1) There are certain enhancements to your character that can't be gotten until the late game. Hami-Os and Purple IO sets, specifically. You would be breaking the functionality of things that were put in specifically to help out high-level characters to keep progressing in a way not dependent on levels.

2) You put more pressure on people to twink out alts, creating even more situations where people feel that they need to get the 'uber stuff' before level 50.

3) You create a situation where it is more advantageous to NOT level up to level 50, and instead stay at level 49 with the little green arrow in the top corner of your screen.

4) You get enhancement slots at level 50. Not being able to really functionally use those would be a big PITA.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
They have been around so long they should be paying US to eat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Jay and I were actually paid by Taco Bell to eat one day. They were doing some marketing research on a new product and gave us some "taco bell bucks" for sampling it and filling out a little form.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, what was it that you got paid to eat from there? Inquiring minds want to know.

Okay, first things first: your attacks go through MUCH more endurance than your defensive toggles. If you're looking to save some endurance, slot your attacks for EndRed, not your defensive armors. This is especially true if you need to attack more and more because your attacks aren't slotted for damage either.

Now, onto more specific recommendations:

1) Put another Resistance enhancement into Murky Cloud. No sense shorting yourself some resistance value on this power.

2) Oppressive Gloom doesn't even take EndRed, I didn't think, since it powered itself off of your health. Even if it does allow you to slot them, I wouldn't put many in there.

3) Tough is like your other resistance toggles, except that it costs a bit more to run. Swap out one RecRed with a Resistance enhancement, and the other RecRed with an EndRed.

4) Dark Regeneration should be slotted for EndRed and RecRed. As long as you hit about three enemies, you're filling your health all the way back up anyways. If you're in the middle of a large group, unless you're very unlucky or fighting MObs well above your level, you'll hit three. So you don't really need Acc slotting in that power.

5) Flurry is a really bad attack. The animation time is pretty horrible for what the power does. Hasten, on the other hand, could be a real boon for you, speeding up your AoEs AND Dark Regeneration.

That's all I've got, but some others will likely be by with their own suggestions.

Just to add, that is not to say that Shield/Fire is a bad combo. It's actually probably pretty good at taking out large spawns pretty quickly. Those were just the reasons why you probably see more about SD/SS than SS/Fire. I'm sure that there are just as many reasons to make an SD/Fire.

Nope.

A few things:

1) /Fire deals Fire damage, while /SS deals Smashing damage

2) /SS has more mitigation in it's attacks than /Fire does. /Fire has as it's mitigation causing death faster, which, while it works, can be somewhat slower for mitigating damage

3) /SS has Rage, which can significantly boost damage output, especially on AoEs when you can leverage having more people to hit with them.

4) /SS tends to be more smashy and fun for some

5) Since Shield Defense has it's own AoE (even on a long recharge timer), it adds another AoE to /SS, which can help it out a decent amount.

6) The combination of Rage and Against All Odds can vastly increase the Tanker's damage ability.

I doubt that we'll get those sets in GR, for the same reason that we haven't seen them yet (except Shapeshifting in the form of Khelds): it requires them to make new skeletons, and that takes time. More time than it would take to make another powerset that doesn't involve creating new skeletons.


We know that they will be using GR to bring us two new powersets: Dual Pistols and Demon Summoning. Beyond that, I wouldn't expect much in the way of powersets being limited to the GR.

Going Rogue looks like it will be part of the world that CoH and V share. It is about going between the two sides, to some extent. I'd imagine that even if people have Going Rogue, that they can use the AE just as easily as they can now.

I don't think that Going Rogue will have much of an impact on that. People who like the stories will play through the new content, and the people who like to farm will continue to farm.

You can set the supergroup auto-demotion timeframe, in the SG information window. However, if you founded the SG, the character that founded it will stay at the super-leader level, no matter how much time passes.

See Energy Blast for their first try at Water-based powers.

But hey, I'm always up for new, well-thought out powerset ideas. So, maybe you could put together a full powerset of what you'd like to see?

Not gonna happen. The Devs admitted that having the requirement for Kheldians being level 50 was a bad idea, because it promoted PLing. Having the VEATs have the same requirement for unlocking was done for parity, and parity alone. No new ATs or powersets are likely to be done by getting one thing to level 50, let alone 5 of them, of the same AT.

It promotes PLing, to a vast degree.

Hey, as long as I can still play Hello Kitty: Island Adventures, I'm fine.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There will be so many Dante clones/ripoffs out there, it won't even be funny.

[/ QUOTE ]



I'm not even supposed to be here today...

[/ QUOTE ]

Just so you know, somebody here got that reference.

[ QUOTE ]
OK. In the course of a mission, solo on heroic, my lowbies could defeat - let's see, 2-3 NPCs per spawn, a good 50 spawns or so - several hundred bad guys?

So I'd finish a mission, and spend the next three weeks in court just IDing them. >.<

[/ QUOTE ]

Now, tell me, Mr. Bill, how do you know that it was THIS Hellion Brawler that was trying to break into the car, and not one of the other thousand Hellion Brawlers that look just like him?! Can you tell me, with absolute conviction, that you're sure that it was this particular Hellion?


I rest my case. Move to dismiss, your Honor!

Well, I wasn't really thinking of putting together a list of possible nominees, but thanks for that. Maybe Arcanaville would be another good pick. I'd probably warn about having it just be about post count, though. I'd want it to reflect a decent variety of posters to try to get a wide basis for 'judgments.'


Was more just looking at this as a theory of how an alternate CS system might work.

Okay, I can definitely see about the faceless vs. known member issue. I was just more worried about how regular players would know how to bring up their case. Of course, decisions would be anonymous (such as "The committee has voted 5-4 in favor of your case, and will recommend to the CS staff to take X action"). As such, you'd never know which member voted which way. Of course, if there was a unanimous decision, you'd know exactly who voted which way, and could blame them, but I'd imagine that would be a fairly clear cut case anyways.


And I guess I was just thinking of L_H's issue, where you've either run up against the CS top-tier, and have nowhere else to go, or you've dealt with the CS staff in the past, and haven't gotten very good results. This would be an alternate means of taking the case, but should never be the primary means.


I'm not sure how I feel about rotating membership. Obviously, if a member decides to quit, there should be some sort of replacement system or the whole thing could shut down. However, if you have a rotating membership, then you might run into duplicate cases where the new committee goes the opposite way of the older committee, and you can get a new decision on your case every three months. It would add another layer of arbitrariness to the system. (Of course, this whole suggestion is for a whole new layer of arbitrariness, so I can't complain too much)

Of course, I should have stated, but this committee would have NO ability to directly overrule a CS/GM decision. They would just make recommendations to the CS team, and could try to get them to look more specifically at various actions.

Maybe this would put a bit too much power into a few forum-goers hands. I certainly accept that as a valid criticism (and one that I don't really have a rebuttal for). The rules that they would operate by would have to be clearly spelled out ahead of time.

Okay, this may not be the best of ideas, and this is really just a preliminary test balloon on the subject, but upon participating in another recent thread, it got me thinking.

How about a Player Judiciary Committee. 5-9 chosen community members (chosen by the Dev team or community team, most likely) who are an alternative means of having a case looked at.

Seeing recent threads, it looks like people just aren't getting the best of feedback from the Customer Service section of the game in regards to bans and character deletions. I'm not sure exactly how bad it is, but players might react more favorably if there was an alternative system of support that they could take their case to, after CS has had a look at the case. Kind of a player-based appeals system.

Now, how I imagine this working out:

The Player Judiciary Committee would have it's own forum (like the closed beta forums which are hidden to everyone else) within the main forum. The 5-9 members would be chosen by the Devs based on their expected ability to be impartial and look at the merits of a case. We'd need an odd number of players on the committee, to prevent ties.

The members of this committee would be known to the public, and cases could be PMed to members of the committee. If a case warrants even some attention (obviously things like "OMG, they generic'd my Wulverine character, that's not right at all!" would not need to be discussed, but things like character deletions due to farming would be), those members can post it on their boards.

The committee members could then discuss it amongst themselves, and a vote would determine their recommendation to the CS team. The committee members would be given guidelines from the Devs, of course, to help guide their decisions.


Basically, this would be a way to get a bit more of a subjective ruling on a particular issue. The CS team has probably been given rules that they need to follow when it comes to the MA, and probably get told that if it looks like farming, it probably is, and it should be dealt with. The PJC could then review some of the cases and determine if the activity actually did break the rules, or if it was just well-organized play that yielded the results.


Obviously, this probably needs to be fleshed out a little bit more, but like I said, I just wanted to throw up a test balloon and see what people felt about it.

[ QUOTE ]
Thorn, I see your are being the hero and defending the devs well but nothing I have said was meant to be dev bashing. I have actually been impressed lately with in game gm response and I understand that I am part of the minority. 2 am is not as good a time as say 5 am to 9 am but once again. That is because im a morning player. Some group of people are gonna suffer during the server maintenance, we don't have to like it but we have to deal with it because we are the minority.

[/ QUOTE ]

A few things:

1) I'm not defending the Devs just because they are the Devs, but because I have seen literally no evidence that their course of action wasn't the right one. If someone can get evidence saying that noon-2 pm EST is a period where less people are on, I would strongly urge the Devs to move maintenance. But, seeing as there has been no evidence that the Devs are wrong on this account, I see no reason not to defend their action.

2) Yes, as part of the minority, you can try to get things changed. But, in this case, you need to show that by changing it, the Devs would be affecting less people, and not more. Because otherwise, you're showing that you're not looking out for the players as a whole, but for yourself. That's all I'm trying to say.

3) Yes, some group of people is going to suffer during maintenance periods. It's going to happen, and always will happen. The plan is to cause the least amount of people to suffer as you can reasonably get. As of now, the evidence is that they are doing this.

[ QUOTE ]
It is just dissappointing to want to jump on and play when the servers are down and luckily, the forums is a place to voice that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, and welcome you to continue doing so if you are displeased. Please don't take my comments as trying to get you to shut up, or anything like that. I disagree with your position, but you are welcome to keep saying it.

[ QUOTE ]
Hi,
Well, all is right with the world eh!

So I log into the Forum only to read the "Dessimation of MA badges" message which means that I will lose approx 83 badges earned the hard way over the last weeks with no valid rational for the decision and despite that then go to log into game only to find the Servers down yet again.
This is the fourth day this week and yes that sucks!
Does it make me feel that we are valued by the suits at CoX? No.
If the servers at Ncsoft need to go down then why not syncronise the game server maintenance for the odd occasions it happens?
Can we not have some good old fashioned "Joined up thinking" from the corporate planning end of this service.
Cheers.

[/ QUOTE ]

1) They gave a very specific reason for why they removed those badges. Just because you don't like the reason doesn't make it a valid reason. I am sorry that you are losing those badges though.

2) They are performing maintenance so that the servers are stable for the U.S. holiday weekend. Makes sense to me.

3) Seeing that you are from the U.K., you know that there were servers set up in Europe, that have maintenance times better for people on that continent, right? This isn't meant to be insulting, just saying that the Devs are aiming to use the U.S. servers to support a mainly U.S. population, and that yes, that may impact people on other continents more.

4) The maintenance window has been well-published for over three years now. It's not like this information is new or that the times recently changed.

[ QUOTE ]
2 am on week nights would be better.

[/ QUOTE ]

For you. No offense, but other people might play at other times. Until I see data confirming otherwise, I'm going to assume that the Devs were right with their datamining, and determined when the ACTUAL lowest population numbers are.

Edit -> I understand that the maintenance interrupts your prime playing time. I understand, and do feel bad that it cuts into your time. My point was just that if they moved it to 2 am (and 2 am in what time zone, exactly?), it would likely impact MORE people. The point of having maintenance is to put it when it impacts the least amount of people.

[ QUOTE ]
What ever the reason, The downtime has always hurt CoX. Lots of people leave to other games because they are up more. Not to mention most game companies perform normal service routines at the time the largest player base isn't online. I have a had time believing Europe has more players then U.S. 8am CST is just the wrong time to bring this stuff down. suck it up like every other IT based company and do your service at 2am

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like you to back up every statement you make here.

The Devs did datamining, and discovered that the time that they do the maintenance at is the time when the least amount of players are online and they'd normally have staff in the office. Maybe this has changed, but I bet that the Devs have more accurate numbers than you do.

WoW, IIRC, does maintenance on Tuesdays, but has the servers down for most of the day, instead of just during the low population times.

At 8 am CST, most people in the U.S. are either asleep, at work, or at school. It's a decent time to do the maintenance.

Europe has their own servers, so don't blame them for our maintenance time.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Also, if an attack is two different types of damage, say smashing/energy, and you have 20% smashing defense but only 15% energy defense, it will use the lower number.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is wrong. It will ALWAYS...always sometimes always use the higher number.

[/ QUOTE ]

This.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please show us when it will ever choose the lower number.