Adam7

but pos, these badges do NOTHING to satisfy us who actually like to read the story behind the TFs. The fact of the matter is, we are losing out on a lot of content now that the TF souvenirs are gone, and there has been practially ZERO dev response to it. Cuppa is the only one who even seemed to remotely CARE that all this content got gutted. As it stands now, just about the only peron on the team who gets the whole story behind a TF is the leader.
And that just sucks.
Is there any way to add the souvenir to the badge? or is there any way, short of asking the entire TF to hold up whilst i read my clues, to remedy this?
I love the TFs, but have little desire to do them at this point short of the exp they give, and as someone who plays this game for its story and its community, that should tell you something.

25 year old Law Student / Law Clerk out of New York (1/2 hour from the city). Graduated from Fordham University as a computer science major but couldnt find long term gainful employment.
Have been with my current girlfriend for 3 years now, and she is teh roxxorz.
Been playing coh for quite a while (started a few days after issue 1 hit) and continue to love the game while still being shocked (in both good and bad ways) by some of the people on these boards and in the game.
In my non-coh spare time I play guitar, read, go to the gym, shoot pool, play non-fps games on my computer or home consoles, and go to the movie quite frequently. I also used to compete in mixed martial arts, and was a Gracie Jiu Jutsu student before I injured my knee, and I have not gone back to it since.

Additionally I often find myself wondering:
1) when did common courtesy became uncommon?
b) why do some people demand respect when they give none of their own?
iii) why bert the viking continues to wear thongs even though he knows the armor makes him chafe?
IV) how much wood could ranma chuck if ranma could chuck wood?

Finally, I'd like to thank jesus christ, jahova god almighty, for my number one hit single, its called suck yo momma.
Thank You.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Please datamine all the other TFs, particularly Calvin Scott which can't be redone.


[/ QUOTE ]

There is no badge for Calvin Scott.

[/ QUOTE ]

so no badge for calvin and no souvanir.
No way of remembering the tf for those of us who did it.
that is... to say the least, disappointing.

Hey pos, are we ever getting our TF souvanirs reinstated? I feel bad for manticore, whose team worked on them, and all the player base who (like me) play the game for the storylines. I feel jobbed that I can no longer get a souvanir from a TF and I honestly feel little motivation to do any now. C'mon man, work that bug out and give us back the story! There is very little downtime when running TFs (for an efficient team) for us to view the story as it progresses. (I know the only reason I can remember the manticore TF is because of my souvanir). Of all the things removed and changed in this game since I started, the TF souvanir removal upset me the most...

thanks for the heads up on everything DB, the guide is great!

I had a question re: force of nature...

Wwith force of nature: if you FoN and then drop your 32 nuke (in my case inferno) does the FoN end recovery fill back up your blue bar quickly?

Happy Anniversary City of Heroes!

...aaaaand maaaaannnyyyyy moooorrrree!

(Make mine Cryptic!)

yea there is a dual pistol scrapper in there... but also of note: look at manticore's new avy.

look like any other powerset that we've been informed is on the way?

[ QUOTE ]
It looks to me, reading the posts, that the biggest users of Rage are SS tanks. That seems to be because we don't do enough damage without it.

[/ QUOTE ]

correct me if i'm wrong, but the ONLY users of rage are SS tanks...

[ QUOTE ]
My two cents-rages 10 sec downtime is a fine penalty. In order to allow a tank to do his or her job, the expiration of rage should culminate with a massive PBAE taunt. following the train all of the "logic" thread in here, if I was a SS tanker raging right smack in the midst of a group of foes doing greatly increased damage, then I would think when they saw me slump down tired at the end of my rage and put my hands on my kness (metaphorically), they might preferentially choose to gang attack me! Woudlnt that solve the issue here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Now THAT idea is frikkin' key.
Hope a dev gets a chance to see that idea. Being that the biggest complaint thusfar has been that the 10 sec downtime is enough to loose aggro in a team situation, having the rage expire with a large PBAoE taunt would (presumably) solve that problem.
great idea.

gotta agree that its a shame that most the the questions asked were answered in some way or another on the boards, but hey, we get our own "ask statesman" thread every so often where we ask the questions that WE want to know. So thats ok by me i guess.

though maybe next time stratics can do something better than a boring old chat.. like:

Real World: City of Heroes!
Find out what happens when statesman stops being polite, and starts being real...
Statesman: "My Collegues? MAN, first of let me say sumfin'... There aint NO one who is my equal... I'm the freakin' STATESMAN! Why? Whats they say to you? Who said it? The back alley brawler? Yea well screw him! Lets just say that name's a double entandre... y'know what I'm sayin'? And dont even get me started on sister psyche! She's such a ho!"

in canadian:
1) Go.
2) Hunt.
3) Kill Skuls, eh?

I once tried to be a prominant superhero following the kill skuls guide... after carefully considering the 3 steps: "Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls." I did my best... but my duo of a storm/psi defender & ice/ice tanker were defeated. There were so many skuls that we were gone to the americans!

but there is some good news...

This guide saved me a bunch of money on my car insurance!

Thanks, Go.Hunt.KillSkuls. guide!

just watch out or this guide well be gone to the americans!!!11!

[ QUOTE ]
Whereupon Marvel would amend the complaint to mention X-23 (the 'female Wolverine', a character with double instead of triple claw blades) instead.

[/ QUOTE ]

Point: Red.
Was unaware of this particular character.
I'd say 4 claws but then you tell me about ultimate sabertooth (though he really has 3 1/2)... so how do we approach claws to make them non-marvel? I know rob leifield when he made youngblood had a COMPLETE ripoff of wolverine (costume included) and I cant for the life of me remember how he had his claws...
Perhaps having the claws come out of the fingertips?
(though to be honest I still dont think marvel is going to win this lawsuit and claws will probably stay as-is in game)

[ QUOTE ]
Am I the only one who sees possible problems with the magnetism line of controllers?

There is ONE hero in all of comics that has claws similar to the claws set in CoH. Therefore there can arguably be a copyright violation there. I see the same problem with a magnetism set for conrollers. I mean... there are other options for controllers... nature control - make grass and what not entangle and ensnare your enemies. body control - specialize in posessing the bodies (but not the minds) of your enemies.... etc.

I guess I don't see a need to delve into the dangerous waters that are magneto.

Zeus - god of magnetism

[/ QUOTE ]

there is more than one comic character with retractable claws that come out of their hands... but only ONE with three claws that come out the top and go snikt... hence the obvious similarity between CoH's claws and Marvels. (I maintain that if cryptic would only increase or decrease the number of claws on the hand by 1, there would be no more problems.)

There are also numerous characters who can manipulate magnitism or magnetic fields, so as long as the magnatism AT does not come prepackaged as part of a SG called the brotherhood of evil... people and with a lacky named toad, i think we're OK on that one.

And as per your line of reasoning, wouldn't plant control be out of the picture, what with poison ivy cornering the market on that one?

what I'd like to see: (and this has been said before in this thread)

The ability to promote / demote members who are offline
The abililty to demote inactive leaders (have the SG creator set the ammount of days before they can be kicked. and have that info displayed when you first join the SG that way you cant whine if the person kicked is YOU.)
An officers only channel
A SG Costume option. (3 costumes chosen by SG leaders: Huge, Male & Female.)
SG MISSION CONTENT!!! have there be instanced SG only "raid" type content, or mini trials or such. Maybe make them like 2-3 hours in length and requiring a team of 4+, or 2 teams, ect... like mini-hamidons - but for different lvls)
Finally: A SG "Vault" to deposit Inf & Enhs. Give the leaders the ability to assign the following privledges to the SG members: View, Deposit (ammount), Withdraw (ammount). I loved that aspect of DAoC.

[ QUOTE ]
The new bosses are still soloable by almost every power set of every AT with the correct power selection and tactics. The only real concern is the lucky one hit that can put many AT’s in the hospital..

[/ QUOTE ]

ummm... I call [censored]?
again.

in case you missed it, this is why i called [censored] on that statement the first time.

there is no way you can seriously think your statement holds water. it is so patently and completely wrong that I dont think I can sit here and argue it without getting a headache.

facts: most powersets/ats (other than SOME tankers, SOME controllers, FEW defenders, FEW blasters and MOST scrappers) lack the DPS/ HPs/ or Holds to effectively overcome the HPs and DPS of a "new and improved" boss.
for every 1 powerset /AT combo you can name that CAN solo the boss, i'm sure the community will come up with 2 that can't. Or at least dont want to spend 15 minutes whittling away the boss' HP incrimentally. Thats not fun. Thats what killed EQ, and killed DAoC. No BOSS should take that much time. (AVs & monsters & "raid" content nonwithstanding)

[ QUOTE ]
Even with the new bosses almost every single combination of power sets can solo a boss, they are simply no longer pushovers that anyone can take with no real skill or effort.

[/ QUOTE ]

thats bull-[self-censored] and you know it.
there are MANY builds out there, played by INTELLIGENT people who do use strategy and tactics that cannot solo one of the new bosses.

Don't spread this fallacy that anyone who can't solo one of the new bosses is a lame-brain who can't use tactics or only wants to press buttons in succession until the boss is dead all while watching a re-run of dawson's creek and singing "I don't wanna wait, till this boss fight is oh-ver".

The new bosses can be solo'd by a few builds & ATs, but they cannot by everyone else. There are those of us out there who used to see a boss in our solo mish (pre I3) and had to actually stop and think how to handle it, so they wouldn't kill us outright. What are they to do now? Other than wet their pants and call for backup?

And don't pull the "well you should team more then!" arguement... I team as much as possible. I keep my LFT flag on almost anytime i'm not already in a team, heck I'm always bugging my SG mates to team, but there are times when you just wanna solo.

When you want to savor your mission. Revel in the flavor of the world CoH has. When you want to be the ONLY hero in YOUR comic, and not be a cameo in anyone elses. I was in the middle of the organ grinders before I3, and was going from mission to mission quickly, like a hero in a comic would. Id finish 1 mish and move to the next, not going to other contacts for their missions. I saw a boss? I'd pause and start laying trip mines all over the place to make sure he's dead. Then I'd unload an alpha strike and take off through my minefield and hope he died. Then I3 hit. Now those bosses laugh at my futile squishy attempts to solo them before sending me to the hospital. And now I'm stuck. Fun. Yaaaaay.

I said in a previous post: what made CoH different from DAoC, or EQ or any other MMO is that you could solo MOST of YOUR content IF YOU WANTED TO! it was your CHOICE. You wanted to make your punnisher, lone wolf hero, who grits his teeth and fights anything in his way until he's defeated and maybe, just maybe calls for backup if he's in over his head? Bang. There you go. Enjoy your missions till AVs or Elite Bosses run in your way.
You wanna be your moonlighter? you team half the time and solo the rest? bang. roll up your wolverine-esque character and go to town after joining a SG.
Wanna team exclusively? Go make your Storm / Elec defender and have fun! Name her OROROxxoR or some such and have a ball.
But no matter which type of char. you made, you knew you would be giving up some content by going to either extreme, and the only way to experience it all was to team AND solo. Thats what made this game so dang fun. And as it stands now, only some scrappers, tanks, and post 32 'trollers can still play that way. So please keep the self serving over generalizations or assuptions baised on the most solo-friendly builds out of a rational and logical discussion regarding these recent changes. (and the wheel of time books)

C'mon, you know if your char. could solo an AV before, that now he can still handle bosses... do we really need your opinion about how much cooler the game now is with the difficulty slider cranked to mecha-striesand levels alongside the new boss changes? No. We KNOW you are having more fun. Its a given. You can HANDLE the new challange. But i bet if the devs added a new feature that the bosses could 1 shot tanks and scrappers and regularly shrug off any attempts at a hold, you might be changing your tune and "whining" about the changes as well.

I do also wonder about all those poor controllers stuck in the hell between unchanged bosses and the golden land of milk, honey and pets...

nothing I am going to say hasn't been said already, but sometimes it takes a large voice to bring change, or an additional perspective to focus the eyes...


Statesman, the issue here, as I see it, is that the majority of people here LOVE your game. We love it because (most of us) read the stories, and the arcs, and really feel immersed. We love to unearth the history of paragon, and glimpse its (potential) futures. We loved being able to team with others and have our powers compliment theirs. But most of all, we love it because there wasn’t any PENALTY to soloing. It was a breath of fresh air to the MMO world... no sitting around for half an hour spamming "lvl 38 dark/bubble runemaster LFG!!!" praying someone let you into a group. We understood certain things were unsoloable, or group only. It was great! We could solo or team at our discretion... We could FEEL like a comic superhero. We felt like playing the game was living in our OWN comic book! Thousands of people playing, and each one felt they were in their own book, having their own experiences, and shaping the way they played by doing different things! and like in the comics there was a ton of variety in all our heroes.

I'm going to use comic book & in game examples for what made the game pre-I3 a marvel (pun intended).

you had your solo heroes: characters with little to no team affiliation. They sometimes made a cameo in other people's comic books, but for the most part stayed in their own comics. people playing their spidermen, their daredevils, their punnishers. They could solo their missions, and only call for help when they really needed it. Spiderman solo'd most of his bosses, sometimes winning sometimes losing, but when someone like juggernaut was rampaging through the city he called on some aid, ect... (in game you had people able to solo most of their arcs, but then things like the envoy of shadows showed up...)

you had your solo & team characters... those with team affiliations, but who also went solo. Wolverine, Captain America, batman, superman, namor. They were part of team books, but had their own books as well. In game they were your tertiary supergroup mates. Yea they were there when you needed them, but they were also more than happy to do their own thing solo. They had their own experiences, but also shared the experience with their group. Namor had his own private nemesis, but also helped the avengers against their villains. Batman might fight the joker in Gotham, but when the JLA needed him, there he was! Wolverine fought sabertooth on his own, but when magneto shows up, Wolvie has X-men backing him.

then you had your team oriented heroes: your jean greys, your Storms, your ant-men. Characters without their own books, who were there to be in a team. People who played their characters exclusively to group. They nearly ALWAYS shared their experiences with a group. Prominent SG members, SG leaders, people who always had their LFT flag on.

This was GOOD! Variety. Loved it. This variety made this game OUTSTANDING! We all had different ways of doing things, and they were each equally viable. No one was penalized for their play style. Everyone realized the way they played opened some content and closed of others. Your soloers knew they wouldn’t be doing TFs or Trials that often. Your teamers always knew their story continuity would be a little shuffled, as they did their and everyone else’s missions. And your mixed players (your half and halves) had plenty of access to both.

Why, oh why, would you change this paradigm??? It was nigh perfect! If you wanted to challenge people who said things were too easy: they now had a difficulty slider! If they wanted a tougher challenge they could ramp it up. If it was still too easy, you could have added more notches to the slider.

If you wanted to encourage more grouping, you could increase the xp bonus to teams. You could add more trials. You could add mini-TF’s, mini-trials, or group only contacts. you could add more group only missions to existing contacts, which ONLY open up if you talked to them while grouped.

But to add the extra boss difficulty to EVERYONE is a little steep. You are removing the enjoyment from those people who like to solo their Story Arcs. Yea, we all knew there were some arcs that were un-soloable. They had monsters or Avs. We found that to be acceptable, as every superhero will sooner or later encounter a challenge he could not face on his own. But what is happening now if we are finding that normal bosses are too tough to solo. Unfortunately, these “normal” bosses appear all the time in solo missions and especially story arcs. Now, some of us can no longer solo our stories. We need to seek aid. We feel less super. We loose the “hot chase” continuity we had when banging out story arc missions one after the other, racing to the end. We loose that because now, those of us who are not solo machines have to team to fight bosses. It’s a jarring experience and I for one don’t like it.

I’m not going to quit or any such nonsense because of one thing marring my gaming experience, but I beg you Statesman, please realize what made CoH so entirely different from all the other MMOs out there: The ability, nay the CHOICE to solo when you wanted to, or team when you wanted to. And by that statement, I mean that you could solo through a LOT of content on your own. See a MAJORITY of the story CoH had to offer. But to experience it all you had to team. That ability is slowly being taken away. Those of us who like to solo don’t want to street sweep, we want to solo actual game content! You have said before, you only want to make the game more fun, and remove things that make the game un-fun. Please understand that taking away the choice we have had since release, that is to solo our hero through much of the game’s content, is extremely un-fun.

I know you are a comic and RPG buff States, and I know how proud you are of this game, an that all the Dev team looks at CoH like a labor of love. You guys must love seeing all the players who make concept characters and get to play them out, and play our their adventures. But you are now severely hampering the ability of lone wolf character concepts unless they fit the tank or scrapper role. You are hurting the casual gamer who just wants to spend an hour or so doing his missions. And you are changing the very nature of what we loved so much about this game.

I’m not speaking for everybody, I’m just speaking as a concerned fan. and trust me, I would not have spent this much time, at work, typing something like this unless I was truly passionate about this game and the direction it was heading in. I know the post was long, an you probably wont read it due to length, but it was something I really felt had to be, once again, reiterated.

unless the words coming out of statesman's mouth are: "we're rolling back the hp & xp increase on bosses" I doubt you are going to hear any more on this issue.

[ QUOTE ]
There is no need to nerf scrapper damg resist. We only get the same damg resist as tankers if we SLOT THE HELL out of the powers like RPD/TI/Tough so that we do get it. Which means we have to neglect other stuff for it. It's a give and take. We sacrifice needed slots for more damg resist. Theres no need to nerf Scrappers.

[/ QUOTE ]

sorry chum, your arguement holds no water due to the simple fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE for a tanker to reach the same kind of DPS that you, as a scrapper, can do yet it is ENTIRELY possible to reach the level of resistance as a tank.
is it tough to do? yep
do you need to sacrifice a little offense to do it? yuppers again.
However how can you justify that when NOTHING a tank can do can bring them into the ballpark with you damage-wise?

scrappers and tankers are supposed to be flip sides of the same coin, equal, but opposite.
Scrappers major in damage and minor in resistance, Tanks major in resistance and minor in damage.
Essentially, their abailities in the primaries and secondaries should be roughly equal. They should be as good at resisting damage as you are at dealing it, and conversly as good at dealing damage as you are at resisting it. that being said, can't you at least admit to the discrepency here?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
One of the big assets to City of Heroes is that players LOVE to roll up and play tons of characters.

[/ QUOTE ]
What?!
I HATE that all of my old characters are constantly suffering from new content being given to lowbie players without any way for my high level characters to access it.
Wait, I do have a way, but it involves 10x the effort of making a new character, it's bugged, you get almost nothing for a reward despite the same risk as always. It's called Exemplaring.
Thank you Statesman, for giving me the last reason I needed to cancel my account.


[/ QUOTE ]

I Agree wholeheartedly!
I mean what did high lvl guys ever get from issue 1?
wait never mind, the protal Corp...
But then they got shafted if inssue 2!
oh, shadow shard, i forgot...

Damn you statesman for providing more high lvl content for free with each update and then having the nerve, nay, the GALL to provide new content for lower lvl charecters who have yet to experience all the content in the game!
But what is this you say? Some high lvl players make alts and dont want to be bored? And so you add new content that benefits both the alts and the new low lvls? UNACCEPTABLE!

psh

on a serious note, now that youre leaving: can i have your stuff?

p.s. I'm new to this whole internet thingy... does sarcam translate properly through text?



Edit had to edit as i did just a little research rather than spout off the top of my head:
issue 1 gave high lvls:
Rikti crash Site
Peragrine Island (portal Corp)
Sewer Trial
Issue 2 you got:
the shadow shard
and the Eden Trial

so in the span of 2 free expansions you got like 4-5 new villian groups, 3 new zones, and 2 new trials with another new issue and a whole new gaming experience (COV) on the horizon...

you are seriously needy. I'm glad your not MY girlfriend.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My only suggestion: Make it so that when you are in the mission as an exemplar, you cannot unexemplar. It's too tempting and too easy to /unex when the Schmidt hits the fan so you and your buddy(s) don't die.

[/ QUOTE ]

/disagree

For me, that's the real benefit for trading off forward advancement and access to powers: When the mentoring session takes an ugly turn you can unleash your real potential on your foes to protect your student. Especially with the ability to get deeper into debt mentioned further down the thread from your post, forcing characters to be stuck at a low level is basically like punishing them for helping their friends. That nobody really gets any exp for the mobs that drop once you unexemplar is penalty enough for doing so, there's no need to make some arbitrary level lock during missions.


[/ QUOTE ]

i agree with this reply... seriously, as an exemplar, you are voluntarily limiting yourself and your powers in order to better teach a younger hero and set an example... however, that being said, if things take a serious wrong turn, what mentor wouldnt unleash his full fury to save himself and his ward from certain defeat?
I can see it now...

Robin: Thanks for helping me out tonight batman. I'm having trouble with that crazy wombat kick you taught me last night.
Batman: Not a problem robin, now, lets run some wombat training on those muggers over there.
Robin: O-K!
(dynamic duo leaps into action)
(things start to go horribly wrong)
Robin: Holy Horrific Butt-Whupping Batman! these guys are wiping the floor with us!
Batman: Just keep at it chum!
Robin: But maybe you should stop showing me the right way to throw a punch, and just beat them down?
Batman: But Robin, I'm setting an EXAMPLE here... dont you get it? WOMBAT KICK!
Robin: But, but but but we are getting murdered over here! Throw a batarang or something!
Batman: Maybe so robin, but us being sent to the hospital full of broken bones is a learning experience!
Robin: This is bull$#!^.
Batman: (WHAM!) Oh that one hurt! You just wait mugger, when we get out of the hospital we'll try this one more time!
Robin: (muttering) maybe captain america is hiring? i bet bucky never had to deal with this crap...



oh and as a side note: you are NOT allowed to unex during a TF... the option is greyed out.
and RSKing seems to be working appropriately as well.

oh, and by the way:
pre-"disturbance": work productivity = 85-90%
now: 5-10% as I constantly f5 the thread to see new info.
thanks cryptic!

DAMNIT!
And i'm at work until 9!!!
Arrrrrrrrrgh!
Fight the good fight heroes of Paragon, I'm with you in spirit!

i gotta say, one of the biggest things that has made me love this game is the personality of the red names on this board, and THEIR passion for the game. Gaf's funny/irreverent comments always bring a smile to my face. Poz & Geko are always around to address game mechanic #'s / Broken Tasks ect., Joe keeps the boards in line and is ALWAYS considerate and nice to the populace (save the "whiner" comment, but hey: truth, it hurts sometimes) and states, the lead freaking dev on this game posts on these boards on a daily basis, on his free time no less! does he always let us know what the dev team is up to? Does he always give us sage advice or positive input on our complaints? No. But he DOES do it sometimes. He does go out of his way to address SOME of our complaints. and sometimes he just has nothing to say but wants to talk, othertimes its just to tease us about upcoming ideas... but Jeebus people, I know we've all become spoiled with this degree of interactivity, but have you EVER played a MMO before this where you could expect a dev to answer a question that YOU had about their game, let alone the daily barrage of downright rude criticism they get on a daily basis?
I know no one expected this in EQ, DAoC, SWG or AC among others...

I think the OP said it best, we absolutely have a right to complain to the devs about issues we feel need balancing (in a way, i'd say its our DUTY to them and the game to try to make it better) but no one deserves to be personally insulted or to be subject to the rudeness that some people around here spew on a regular basis. I know the anonymity of the internet makes some forget the idea of manners, respect, or personal courtesy that most of us have in real life (you can go to Penny arcade and read gabe's internet ****wad theory), but damn. Here's a good benchmark for all of you:
next time you post something, read it aloud to yourself and then say: "if someone said this to me in person, would I punch them in the face?" if the answer is yes, then maybe you should rephrase...

ps all the red names kick it hard, even if i didnt mention ya.

this thread was rediculously well done, easy to understand, and very helpfull. Thank You!
/e clap