Alexio_DeAmore

Ok, first off I heard you only see the percentages of how effective enhancements are when you try to slot them, rather than how effective enhancement types are while in the attack.

The problem is; with a respec it means that the only way we can figure out effectiveness is to delete enhancements that are already in the powers. This is costly, especially on test, when we don't know if we need to.

Any help would be appreicated.

Vamplord stands infront of a small group of Paragon City News Reporters, standing without a pedastool out infront of the Altas Park City Hall.

"Ladies and Gentlemen your attention please. I have called forth this press confrence as leader of the new order called the Grey Hand. We have important information to disclose to all of the inhabitants of the city."

Turning to face the camera Vamplord stares directly into it, looking deadly serious, with hardly blinking.

"Some of you may have noticed lately that many heroes are being infected with a brand new disease, targeted at weakening the powers of heroes within Paragon City. From our research this virus was created by the Remaining Eight to keep the superhero community unable to stand up to them. This is unacceptable. It has been released in secret, and without opposition from the city. So my brothers and I have decided to make a stand."

"Currently in our possession are three hundred and fifty Archanos Scientists as well as four hundred Paragon City Hero Specialist Scientists. Many of these are believed to have worked on the disease that affects so many of my brothers and I. We will stop this threat and defend this city....no matter the cost."

"Our demands are quite simple. We order the immediate release of a cure to the disease, as well as the unconditional surrender of the remaining eight to my brothers. The remaining eight are to be publicly exiled to the Storm Palace, sealed forever. If our demands are not met within the next sixty days, the scientists in our possession will be tortured and pieces of them will be sent to their family until they are all dead."

Looking somberly and unflinchingly at the camera.

"We have made certain precautions to stop the remaining eight or archanos from interfering in our plans. If I or the leaders of the Grey Hand are captured, or killed the remotes we have implanted within our chests will stop functioning."

Vamplord tears open his shirt showing the large bandage across his chest and anger in his eyes.

"If these remotes stop functioning, certain scientists in the group will die. If we are all captured or killed, then all of the scientists will die. The remotes release a special chemical into our blood stream. This chemical mixed with our genetic sequences provide a delay for a incurable painful brain cancer each of the scientists has been infected with. If the scientists do not recieve this treatment every day, they will die in a matter of hours. Do not under-estimate us. The research for the disease was constructed using Nemesis, Rularuu, Circle of Thorns, and Malta technology."

Vamplord looks down low at the ground.

"I wish I was not forced to take such drastic actions. I wish there could have been a better way. The remaining eight have forced our hands however. With Arachnos threatening a full scale invasion, something must be done to protect this city. So I have decided to do it, even if I and my brothers become hunted and hated by the city. We will make our stand here today. The fates of those lives and others are in the hands of the remaining eight and archanos. I trust they will make the correct descisions to ensure the safety of their mortal associates."

Looking right at the camera, anger once again showing in his eyes.

"I blame you for this Statesman, and the others. Prove your a hero and care for human life. Do not make me become a villian. Do not force me to take the lives of hundreds merely to protect your ego. You will face the concequences of your decisions, one way...or another."

Smirkingly Vamplord floats up above the reporters while shouting out.

"I look forward to your answer Statesman. If you agree to the terms I expect you to be delivered to the Storm Palace with the others in chains, and unarmed. The cure along with yourselves to wait at the Gate. If the eight do not come alone and with the cure to the disease, the deaths of many will be on your hands."

Vamplord flies off at rapid speed towards Peregrine Island to await an answer.

Vamplord's Diary for September 28th.

Things are very mundane for it being my birthday and all. Not much going on in Paragon City from what I've heard. On the plus note I recieved a wonderful gift of a head in a box. It's something I had always wanted. It'll go great on my wall, one down nine to go....then my collection will be complete.

Wouldn't it be simplier than that and just check who completed the last taskforce mission? As you mentioned you can't add people to a taskforce.

Maybe the issue of ghosting through missions is an issue but if there are specific objectives to meet. Kill all the enemies in one room, activate 4 glowies at once, defeat the boss, or other things. Given issue 5 I doubt anyone is going to be ghosting, or even if they do adding defeat enemies takes care of it.

Maybe there's other exploits, I'm sure people will think them up. That's probably our problem, is that we're forced to try and fool those creative enough to exploit the system, while everyone else is left suffering.

Let's make it real easy. Last mission of any taskforce is a kill all. Have it end with an AV in a final seperate room. Badges are not rewarded to teams of 1 and if all the other people have quit the taskforce only leaving 1 person left it kicks them from the taskforce after twenty minutes.

Anyway, I think the one thing these post really show is we need a lot of work, a lot of communication on both sides to work it all out so both sides are comfortable with the result. Both the developers and the players. Many in game issues require this, unfortunately, we seem to be doomed to never have this happen.

Heh, and people said I was silly for saying there wasn't enough staff. HA! Anyway, so much for two seperate groups of staff.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.

The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.

We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay...
I wish to say something about the mass hysteria going on about this.

Look at how Positron opened up his message. He opened it up with a blantant way of how he feels about all this complaining.
To give you a new target ... OMG.. I'm sure that everyone has had something happen in the game that they are not happy with.

When that happens, what you do about it shows what kind of person you are!

Do you whine about it endlessly? Ordering people around like some poor animal? Demanding that they must do whatever you want in order to satisfy you?

Or do you accept their explanation (regardless of whether you like or believe their explanation). Because this isn't about them, it is about how you are. It is about the person you are.

Positron gave you his reason. Accept the reason and either choose to redo the task forces or choose not to. Choose to stay or choose to leave.

If you are the type of person to yell and scream and demand things all the time, expecting since you pay a measly 15 dollars a month that you can command things. You are very sadly mistaken.
I can tell you that no business will go beyond a certain limit to satisfy any single person who represents such a small amount of income to the company. If you have a 1000 accounts, then perhaps you would be worthy of their attention. But at anything less than that, your number value is too small for them to concern themselves with.

I know that you would get better results without whining and complaining and demanding then EVER with it.
Operating a company you are more than likely to 'try' for the nicer people than the complainers.

There is no 'the customer is always right'. That does not exist.

You don't know the technical side of things, even if you are in the industry, you don't know how Cryptic is set up. If they tell you it can't/won't be done. Then that is it.

Why would Crytipc/NCSoft want to let you deluge their GM staff with constant requests to datamine on an individual basis.
It detracts from their main job of helping players with situations. It also opens up to people abusing the system.

It is time for people would rise above what they only wish to see and accept what has been said to them.

Above all, stop harrassing the Development Team. Even they must have their limits to what they will 'take' from the complainers. Hopefully everyone can see by how Positron opened up his post that he is someone who is not amused by all the complaining.
They made a business decision and it is up to us to strive to accept that decision and not whine and complain about it.

Walk away if you must, stay if you will, but accept what Positron has said already.

[/ QUOTE ]

It really not about the descision, it's about the lack of planning. As some people have mentioned these taskforces were not released with badges, they should have at least given Souveiners but they stopped. They stopped because the developers knew people would start complaining that they have these trinkets but not the badge (As some are already claiming).

More than anything I think the post brings up the issue that badges are already problematic with simple ways of improving them. Given the choice of fixing them to make them easier, they went with harder. Rather than discuss with the playerbase they sent out a scapegoat. Rather than ask us how we feel about a particular issue they told us.

Tyrants? That's something you have to decide. My personal opinion is that anytime a person in charge has the option of at least polling the people they're trying to reach and don't, well that sort of speaks for itself.

I wish I had more clout, as this post will more than likely be passed over by everyone. I'm resigned to my fate however. I have tried to ask why and get interaction on so many things that it doesn't seem I ever will. We could have polls, we could have server town forums, we could have email responses, we could have a lot of things, we don't.

It has been made crystal clear that by not asking us what we want, that the developers believe we are not important. Act accordingly.

Look. As I said. I don't really care about most badges. I'm not going to be around long enough to try and get anyone to give a frill about me.

What I'm objecting to, is both that some badges are directed at only taking up mass amounts of time to get, and that they are designed for only spawn campers to actually enjoy.

We could have a system where as I said, you complete a list of tasks and your group, your sg, get exclusive access to a indoor mission where you can kill the monster for the badge. It's an easy fix where everyone gets to experience the content, but no one is charge thinks this is worthy.

Look the simple point is this; I collect badges because I play my level 50 main. I don't want to play anything new. I can't get into a new character. I'm not interested in the old storylines because I've logged thousands of hours on my main. Somedays playing as much as 16 hours a day. That's me. I want to play for the storyline. There's no storyline though. There may be but I haven't seen it in the 11 months I've been here. Nothing on the grand city-wide scale that I dreamt of playing. So I collect badges. I collect a lot of badges.

To the point where I have collected every badge I can. No Halloween Badges, no Winterlord Badges, no Healing Badge, and missing the last sidekick badge.

I want to play with my friends. I wanted to make a difference. Yeah I even wanted to show off. Badges help do that. I can't use powers to have players look up to me (being broadsword/dark armor scrapper - least visible powerset) so badges at least let people see what I've accomplished.

Citizens don't remember my accomplishments. I'm not powerful enough to do missions on invincible (still stuck on heroic), my defense just got worse, my broadsword looks ugly, uses abnormally high energy, has a pathetically slow recharge, and attacks with the most resisted damage in the game. I don't want to be a burden for groups but if I play I don't have any choice if I keep playing.

So what does all this have to do with badges? It makes me feel a little better about what I've accomplished, and lets me show off just a little bit. Is that really so wrong? Am I wrong in thinking that everyone should have equal chance to earn every badge, including gaining by killing a rare monster on a taskforce/mission? I just feel more depressed. I could have understood if we were told the reasons why in the beginning. I could understand if we had an actual discussion. I could understand if we were asked even occasionally what we want and get it implimented.

Throw us a bone now and then. Tell us what was discussed specifically. I'd like to feel somewhat important once in awhile. I don't pay to be abused like many of us are. As I said, if I want to be abused I'll dial a S&M phone sex line and pay $4.95 per minute.

Except they're nerfing stealth, phase shift, and defense....

You know, as hurt as I have been over the performance and command level descisions as of late, this really takes the cake.

Most badges are nothing but time takers, and serve no purpose other than to make players wait. Taskforces take several hours for no other purpose than to make them longer so more people cannot complete them.

Monster Badges - Could have a designated spawn, where you complete a set of tasks for a zone, and your team gets the monster spawn - Inside of a door mission. Couldn't do that though, that's too easy. That lets too many people get badges.

Monsters spawning regularly to give people badges? Oh can't be that catering to the public. You can't give us what WE want now can you?

Character Badges - Your expectations exclude all but the most rabid fanboys. Let me give you a few examples.

Immortal - Take 1,000,000,000 Damage You are truly Immortal. You have survived one billion points of damage.

Jailed Guess: 100 hours of being held Enemies no longer regard you as a threat.

Now is there any reason for both of those to be as high as they are? No. The only reason is to get people to play a few months longer to get 2 badges with no practical purpose.

You want us to work hard for badges? You want to make us work for badges? Fine, give the badges rewards attached to them. How about every 10 Exploration badges you get you recieve +100 health? How about every 3 Mission Badges you get you get +100 endurance? How about for each Taskforce given by a Hero; Numina, Positron, Synapse, Sister Psyche, etc, you are give +1 power or 2 enhancement slots. No?

How about you make Accolades worth the effort? How about the Crey Pistol actually be effective in combat with equal enemies, worth using. Couldn't do that apparently.

You don't want people to be unhappy with badges? Then quit taking the fun out of them. Stop taking the fun out of everything. I didn't start playing to get the Carrot and the Stick treatment. Stop telling people what they should consider fun and start asking them what they want as fun.

Just so you know, I hate Tyrants...we have enough of them in our world telling us what we should do. Did we start this game for us to have fun? I guess not. We have no one in our corner, we have no voice, we make no desicisions and I'm getting really really fed up with it.

At this rate you might as well take away all the badges, make the level cap level 35, remove stamina as a power, and set the defense cap for everyone at 2%. As far as I'm concerned the developers can take their idea of fun and....

[Censored for the decency of minors, senior citizens, pregnant women, small people, minor household kitchen gadgets, and anyone else with a pulse. Please ignore this flaming volley of profanities and continue with your normally scheduled program]

....grrr...I get so sick of this. I didn't pay for this abuse. If I want to pay for abuse I'll join something like Matrix Online, or call somewhere I can pay $4.95 per minute.

No offense to any City of Heroes fans, only to the Tyrants establishing policy in the name of 'Fun'.

[Somewhere in a bar in Paragon City]

The bar is mostly empty except for the bartender and three heroes taking a break. Hero #1 is a Fire/Fire Tank, Hero #2 is a Gravity/Mind Controller, Hero #3 is a Spines/Super Reflexes Scrapper. They're sitting, sipping drinks and laughing it up.

Hero #4 walks into the bar, dripping with sweat, beat up pretty bad, and looking exhausted. A Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper.

All the heroes look at him and smile.

<Hero #2>"You look pretty messed up. Something up?"
<Hero #4>"Yeah, was testing out issue #7."
<Heroes #3>"So how's it looking?"
<Hero #4>"Oh man it's brutal, I can barely keep up."
<Hero #1>"Really? Shame you don't have the defense tanks do, we burn right through whole armies."
<Hero #4>"Yep, but I think it's going to take more than just fire to burn through that mess..." taking a hard shot of wiskey.
<Hero #1>"Pfft, We'll see...nothing stands in my way." finishes his drink and stomps out into the street.
<Hero #2>"What an idiot. Risking fighting enemies on the streets or missions when we get the same experience in the arena without the risk."
<Hero #4>"Yep, I've never done well in the arena. Though from what I've seen, no one is going to be doing well in arena."
<Hero #2>"There's no reason for me to fail in the arena. I'll prove it." finishes his drink and steps outside.
<Hero #3>"Wow, that's two for two. You're good, I never expected those two to fall for that."
<Hero #4>"Fall for what?"
<Hero #3>"That things are so tough no one stands a chance. I imagine you're posting a lot on the boards about the results. Not that it matters, I'm racking up kills versus villians and bases for my sg. We've got six items of power. We're the only sg where all of our members have HO's."
<Hero #4>"Well the difficulty is just from my perspective. I post on the boards, but as dark armor we don't talk about it."
<Hero #3>"You should join our sg, we're the best on the server."
<Hero #4>"Nah that's ok. I'm busy enough these days. It's almost a full time job."
<Hero #3>"Yeah, right. Well it looks like my sg needs me, time to defend our base. See you later." finishes his drink and walks out.
<Hero #4>sips his drink quietly recovering health and energy.
<Bartender>"Hmmm, so mind telling me why things are so difficult?"
<Hero #4>"Eh, sure. I wanted to tell everyone, but nobody listens to dark armor."
<Bartender>"Not exactly the most popular set."
<Hero #4>"Nope. Anyway, seems they increased the damage of all enemies and changed the types. Seems that people were complaining that there were too many different types of damage to defend against. So now there's one type of damage all npc and villian attacks have now."
<Bartender>"Which is?"
<Hero #4>"Psychic damage."
<Bartender>"Well then at least the arena people will stand a chance."
<Hero #4>"Not likely. Seems now all arena matches will contain a random amount of enemies."
<Bartender>"Owww, not good."
<Hero #4>"Nope."
<Bartender>"Well then we'll all just wait in our superbases, hopefully things will change in time."
<Hero #4>"Doubt even superbases will be safe. Villians will now be staging random attacks."
<Bartender>"Wow, and I thought my life was interesting."
<Hero #4>"Yep, and things are probably going to get worse."
<Bartender>"So what will you do now?"
<Hero #4>finishing drink, standing up and walking towards the door."Well I'll probably have to go rescue all three of those people from babbage waiting at the end of the block. And then move back to training the rest of my sg to be dark armor scrappers. We'll need all the help we can get."
<Bartender>"You be safe out there."
<Hero #4>"Oh I'm not worried about me. We dark armor scrappers evolve, and adapt. It's everyone else that keeps me busy." smiles, waves, and walks outside.

A few moments later psychic babbage's screams are heard before smashing into the bar head first.
<Bartender>"I knew I should have asked them to pay their tabs before leaving."sigh

The point of the story? Never think you're the worst set, you could always be made weaker. A developers creativity in sadism is endless. Almost as endless as debt from such creative developments. Never laugh at another set, they may be the ones to save your life. Always look for ways to improve each other, it may save your life. No one should be weakned to make another stronger. And lastly take a lesson from Dark Armor scrappers, never say how wonderful your set is. Even if you love it, let others discover the joys, bragging leads to nerfing.

I'm a civilized myself. Mainly though, that's because I'm a broadsword/dark armor scrapper. I pretty much always have been (with very violent twisted wild tendancies). A mob of about 50 carnies last night killed me and a scrapper, pissed me off (not the debt, the being unprepared). So I came back, turned EVERYTHING on at once with conserve power and the martial artist couldn't speak as I tore through them with reckless abandon.

I go through energy like a kid who's hungry in a candy factory. So I always had the habit of sticking close to the person with my RA fix. Now...that's not to say I haven't tanked, ninjaed, or terrorifyed my team mates to the point that they're speachless.

When you get oppressive gloom, fear, and cloak of shadows...almost anything becomes fair game....almost anything. When you add in psychic protection against psychic AV's, I laugh at invulnerability tanks trying to keep up (most of which are cursing my name because they can't keep up with me).

Living Blender? I'm a living chainsaw at a butter convention. And my favorite quote is "Oh! There's one! Just one more! No just one more! There's one!"

One thing to mention though, a very special breed of scrapper which I am, sort of a character flaw I guess. I'm loaded with 6 second breaths, 6 dramatic improvements, 4 bounce backs, and 4 empty trays at the top. Even in AV fights mostly I tend to avoid using my inspirations, because mostly I think they're not worth it, a lot of times I'm right. Mainly because I'm protective of them (they look so pretty sitting in my tray), and two I figure if I'm ever in a fight with about 6 AV's someone's gotta be prepared. ^-~