__Goldie__

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If you set it to Relentless assume you're going to get a hero instead of a boss...

...I don't understand why people are flipping out. If you wanna solo or duo a mayhem mission kick the difficulty down some...

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The problem is that you can't assume that you're going to get a Hero at that difficulty. The missions randomly spawn Boss class "heroes".

It's a matter of expectation setting and consistency. Relentless difficulty has nothing to do with it since the terminology has been obscured. The cape mission also says you're going after a "hero" and the best I've ever seen in that mission is a Boss level mob.

If the devs would guarantee something along the lines of "Solo Relentless missions will spawn a Hero class mob that must be defeated to finish the mission", then so be it. I'll downgrade the difficulty and fight the EB solo. But until then, I don't want to have to change my difficulty and be bored the whole mission ripping through yellow minions on a lower setting just to end up being faced with some "also ran" Boss at the end. Talk about a let down.

And by the way, I don't know that I've read anything to indicate anyone is "flipping out" about this. The thread was created for feedback if I'm not mistaken. Nobody's crying doom or threatening to quit the game over this.

Did some additional testing with 2 solo Lvl 40 Brutes both set to Relentless.

1st mission, rob Brickstown Bank. SS/EA brute. Went right to the bank, took out all security and got the loot. Malaise showed up and kicked the crap out of me. Mission Failed.

2nd mission, rob Brickstown Bank. EM/FA brute. Went right to the bank, took out all security and got the loot. Overdrive showed up and proceeded to get her butt kicked hard. The Crey Power Tank outside was more difficult than her.

Deleted the SS/EA from test and recopied. Same result as the first try. Malaise showed up again and kicked the crap out of me.

I guess my problem is that there's no way to tell going into one of these missions whether I'm going to end up facing off against a +2 Boss or an even con Hero. Facing a +2 boss is no big deal...facing a Hero solo = mission auto-fail. I'm completely okay with the boss being a random spawn, but c'mon, the disparity there is ridiculous.

In the end, it's just un-fun to be forced into a no-win situation without some kind of warning.

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This one? Sorry, not the best picture. Pulsewave? Blastwave? Something like that. Yeah, she showed as a Lt in my mission, and got held and pwnt.

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That's the one, yep. She was a decent fight for my Corruptor who was out of purples and kept getting knocked back out of my own heal radius, but she went down after some effort.

That's the kind of "boss fight" I'd expect in a mayhem mission...tough, but do-able. Not getting stuck with a purposefully unsoloable mob with no time to even think about putting a team together to take them down.

Mayhem missions are great fun, but I think they seriously need to work on how the boss fight goes down. It's going to be really annoying to have to change my difficulty every time I run into one of these things solo.

I've only done two Mayhem Missions so far. The first was with my Corruptor set to Vicious and I got the mission in St. Martial. The "Hero" showed up as a red conning boss class mob. I forget her name but it was a flying, energy blaster type with a goofy helmet and the big robotic forearm gloves. She wasn't too terribly difficult.

The second one I did was with my EM/FA brute set to Relentless (did this one in Grandville) and based on the last one I figured the "hero" would just be some purple con boss level scrub like the cape mission and previous mayhem mission. Obviously, I was caught a little off guard when a purple conning full Hero class Numina showed up to throw me in the slammer...and try as I might, in the slammer I went over and over again until I failed the mission.

I know that the AV/Hero to Elite Boss thing does not apply on Relentless, but I think that it's a little weird that a "hero" in one mission is a full fledged, un-soloable, thus mission ending in failure type mob, and in another it's just a plain old boss...not even an elite boss, just a boss.

I have yet to test any further mayhem missions with that brute, but it makes me wonder if I'm not going to have to change my difficulty every time one presents itself or if I should just leave it at relentless and beat up the scrub "heroes" when I can and just accept failing the mission whan an actual signature hero decides to show up randomly and beat me to a pulp.

Running to your base is a legitimate tactic and it happens on both sides. What else are you going to do when you're getting beaten down with no hope of fighting back right at that moment? If you're not paying attention and get yourself droned, so be it.

I was in RV the other night when LotD was on and we were chasing heroes all the way back to their base...and guess what...villains were getting droned left and right because they weren't paying attention and got too close.

It was a nice change of pace.

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And i find that funny that i haven't even tped someone OUT of the base into a group of +8 of heroes since the first day i7 went live, and even that it was the people that were tping.. --Boost range will forever be better then drones :P--

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If you say so. I may just be remembering you from that one day because you're the only one I've seen that uses Boost Range to TP gank.

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Oh.. and take a better look at my powers next time.. only one respec'd version of my blaster has tp foe and boost range, the one thats always in RV.. in PFF is my good PvP build WITHOUT tp foe.

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As wook said, I can't see your powers. But now that you mention it, I don't normally see you TPing when using PFF. I guess by "good PvP build", you meant the build you use to stand around for hours being obnoxious and not actually engaging in any type of combat.

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(and even tping into a group of heroes is not as bad as drone teleporting... you walk what? 10 feet click a teleporter and you are outside villains base again? but heroes have to ss/sj/fly/teleport all the way to the base again just to get tped into another drone!)

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Unless Rest hasn't even had time to recharge from the last TPgank induced trip to the hospital.

If you're trying to claim the moral high ground because you have to use a travel power to cross a subsection of Atlas Park...well...can we at least get a rim shot, because that's comedy gold.

I have one version of my 50 hero with no travel power at all (specced for Arena), just sprint, swift, and hurdle slotted to move fast in enclosed areas...and even she can get across AP in less than 15 seconds.

I guess it's okay that you get a kick out of being a camper, to each his own. I just think it's ironic that you don't hesitate to whine when someone chomps a few yellows and drones you through PFF when you could have just as easily gone away on your own.

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... there was a time when goin to the hollows was terrifying. You had debt at level 5 and you had to bust your rump to get rid ot it...

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Up hill, in the snow, both ways?

No offense, the tone just brought back memories of my grandfather's "Back in my day..." speeches.

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Yep, well once the children that Drone teleport for 2 hours straight leave the zone it actually becomes fun..

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As opposed to folks like you who TP villains out of the base and into the 15 hero strong gank squad waiting just outside drone range? Funny how every night I log into RV I can expect to see some version of Sal's character huddled nice and tight in his PFF until it's time to TP gank some villain who's just trying to get into the zone. Hypocrites make the best whiners.

As I said before, I give all the props in the world to LotD. The times I've played with them (and with just them being around) have been great fun. But I don't think it really proves anything about overall hero vs. villain balance. The fact of the matter is, it still took a full team from a dedicated PvP VG to beat back a bunch of soloists, PuGs, and scrubs.

A group of dedicated yet underpowered characters should be able to do that...especially if they can catch their opponent by surprise. And let's face it, putting up any kind of resistance at all as a villain in RV right now is bound to take many of the folks on the hero side by surprise.

Again, granted, LotD kicks much [censored], but I don't think it really proves anything. I'd imagine that had there been a dedicated hero PvP SG in the zone at the same time with 50s and APPs, they would have had little trouble beating LotD right back inside the villain base.

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Also, until last night the zone has usually been dominated by stalkers and brutes on the villain side, without too much success. The swarm of corrupters, dominators, and a few MM's that showed up late night nearly succeeded in winning the zone against a higher zone population of heroes.

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I was on at the same time you were last night. The only reason the villains were winning the zone was because the heroes were letting them in order to see the signature heroes that spawn. That's the only time the villains ever take the zone right now. Don't be fooled into thinking the disparities are not as bad as they are for that reason.

You'll notice (and you should have because I saw you hovering nearby) that while the villains were supposedly "winning" there was also a huge mass of heroes once again standing outside the villain base ganking anything that moved. I had 6 heroes all chase me as soon as I left the safe zone and due to some unfortunately timed lag, couldn't run fast enough to get away from them. By the time my client caught up to what was happening, I was face down on the ground and had only made it about 300 yards out. So yeah...we we're really kickin' some butt there.

The Rikti guy does sell inspirations, but his loadout is in the original CoH style where he only has Blues, Reds, and I think Yellows (maybe purps, I can't remember atm), but it's the 3 default insps that CoH contacts offer until you do more of their missions.

I'm thinking they did this on purpose though, because although you can buy insps from the contacts in Atlas...you only get the three defaults unless you did their missions as a lowbie. I know my 50 never did any of their missions and now all I can get in Atlas, even as a hero, are the default 3 insps.

What I'd love to see is CoH contacts changed so that they offer all the insps immediately just like the CoV ones do...because, yeah, I find I'd rather just fight and die without insps in RV than make the trek all the way back to Nerva to get them (especially Break Frees).

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Glad to see i7 downloading on live. Might stop this thread from getting increasingly far-fetched and self-serving.

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I don't see how the majority of the people in this thread are looking to screw one side over the other as you seem to be implying. I'd hazard to guess that most of us have both heroes and villains of high enough level to be on both sides of the debate here. Aside from the occasional nerf call on FA (which I totally disagree with) all I've really seen in this thread is an overwhelming request on the part of the villain side to have the PPPs re-evaluated. I don't think that's completely out of bounds, do you? The simple fact is that the villain side simply does not have any kind of general access to certain balance changing utility powers like FA, PFF, IW, or FoN...and many of us don't think that a part time pet and a web grenade on steroids makes up for it.

The defenses around the villain base have been significantly bolstered as of today. It used to be just the two drones on either side of the door, then a pair of turrets, a pair of rocket launchers, and finally two more drones at the end.

That setup allowed for flyers to drop right in and start beating on villains in the middle of the "safe zone", it also allowed some superspeeders with very good timing to do the same thing. The turrets and launchers have virtually no effect on a regen or a tank in untstoppable so they could just stand there all day and do whatever they pleased until you either kited or TPed them closer to a drone.

Today there are two more drones right up the middle of the safe zone, two or three perched above the entrance to the base and at least one that hovers overhead to catch the fliers.

Aside from the range boosted TPs out, the safe zone is actually somewhat safe now.

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We (LotD) don't have a problem, but the reason other villains can't get organized is because they're toast as soon as they set foot outside the base front door. They've got no place to setup, and the lack of a staging area that is relatively safe (no zone lines like warburg!) is hurting them.

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I can attest to this. I played with a group from LotD on Sunday and it was one of the few times the villains were able to mount an offensive...but LotD is not your average PuG. From what I understand, they are a pretty dedicated PvP group who all run Vent and run a very coordinated team with lots of buffers. Unfiortunately, with all the current disparities between heros and villains, a well oiled machine like LotD is necessary to even make a dent in the hero side which is usually just a bunch of PuGs and soloists. I've been on plenty of villain PuGs in RV and like Hades said, there's just nowhere to setup unless you all hide inside the base, and even then, the villains are so outnumbered that even a team of 8 can't fully deal with the 10-20 heroes camping the base...let alone the other 20-30 out in the rest of the zone.

btw...Hades, if you were one of the ones in RV on Sunday, thanks for letting me tag along with you guys. That was some of the best fun I've had in RV since it came out. After you all left, it want right back into base camping and TP ganking.

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Also, the base camping phenomenon is not entirely based on camping to get people that just rezzed, most of the people camping the base are there because someone they were fighting fled there.

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That's not even remotely true in RV right now. There are 10-15 habitual campers that just sit there...for hours...at the edge of the Villain base and actively try to TP people OUT of the base and into their mob complete with preset Ice Patches, Trip Mines, and Illusion pets out the wazoo.

When I logged my SS/EA in yesterday (which is pretty much immune to TP Foe) I was hit with 3 failed attempts to TP me out of the safe zone before I got halfway up the "runway". 3 ATTEMPTS! I hadn't even gotten into the zone yet! Try to justify that. Hell...there's a Blaster out there with 3x range in TP Foe and Boost Range who can TP a villain from inside the villain base...he got me after an Overload crash when my TP protection was down and I was around the corner...apparenty there's enough of a gap in the position of the walls where you can target someone inside the base from the right angle. Because of this kind of garbage, I respecced a version of that toon to act specifically as a TP bot. Is it cheap? Sure, okay. But nobody is making those campers stand there. And I only bring that guy out when the ganking is really bad.

What I find most ironic about these people is that they are the biggest whiners when they get Droned. Isn't TPing a single player out of the base and into an group that out levels, out powers, and outnumbers the rest of the villains in the zone combined essentially the same thing? There's no hope of survival in either case for the one getting TPed. The Villains in RV resort to droning because they don't have the powers, or the numbers, to fight back against the gank squad at the front door. The easiest way to stop the droning is to go out into the zone and play the friggin game. Nobody requires those "heroes" to stand there and do nothing all day. There are uncaptured pillboxes out there, and if you actually moved away from the entrance...gasp...you might even find some villains out there in the zone to beat up legitimately.

[edit]After all the ranting, I forgot to add this...[/edit]

As for the rest of your post Gerswin, I couldn't agree more. Your setup sounds much more entertaining than the one currently in use

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I have to say that I totally agree with you. It will not matter if we are at lvl 41-43-47-49, or even 50. Another low-level attack is not going to do squat against someone. I already have an attack chain, so for me, adding another attack isn't going to fill any holes me Cor. already has. The armor, yeah, its nice, but thats only one power. I just really feel sorry for those MM's. All they are getting is a re-hash of powers they already have access to, and being a MM, I know I wouldn't want another attack. The job of a MM isn't supposed involve throwing out LL attacks, its about De-Buffing, Buffing, and Healing. Has anyone actually seen any hard data on the Armors that Cor.'s get?? The only one I have seen is a 20-something resist. Thats a resist, not a defense. So we are still going to get hit the same, just for not as much. My problem was actually getting hit, So I would like some defense. Do any of the Patrons offer a "DEFENSE" armor?? I would kill to get the Blaster version of PFF. Its like having Elude on, yet you can't fight. It would be a nice escape power if things started to get rough. But no, I'm just not seeing it.

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Black Scorpion's armor is +Def. No number is given as to how much, but if you're PvPing in RV, you're better off with +Res anyway. Whatever the defense number is on BS' armor will be made irrelevant with all the ToHit buffs running on the Hero side and if you're gonna get hit anyway, you might as well shrug off a little damage. Plus the +Res armors will stack with Tough if you choose to go that route and will give you a pretty "okay" amount of resistance for a squishy. Just no panic button like PFF or FoN. I'll probably grab Scirocco's armor for my Corruptor.

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If you read what I said closely, I said you're flat out wrong.

You are.

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Who can argue with that reasoning?

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I'm not suprised you have that experience with a DM scrapper. No Build Up. And if you read what I said closely, I said it's 'possible' not that every AT with every Powerset could do it. But any of the ones out there that have a combo of Build Up, Focused Accuracy and HO's CAN.

All I'm trying to do is call attention to a disparity that will be hurtful to this game. It NEEDS to be addressed or the PvP in this zone will go stale and die. If you don't want to belive me then I suggest you roll a defence based villian like an Ninja, SR or EA Stalker or EA Brute. If all I wanted to do was win whatever I'd just go join all the heros with one of my tanks listed in my Sig. But I'd rather do that when the villians pose a challenge. I don't want stale PvP because I was given an 'I win' button.

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I have to second this. I was duking it out with a Kat or BS/DA (I forget which) scrapper yesterday with my SS/EA Brute during one of the few times there weren't 20 heroes standing in front of the base and while I had Overload running along with the rest of my toggles he was pretty much hitting me every time. He only went down after a 2nd brute joined the fight and he decided to stick it out 2 on 1...and even then it was still very close.

He asked me afterward if I had even popped Overload because he couldn't tell. I asked him what he was running. FA, Tactics, and BU all slotted with 3x ToHit. He didn't mention any HOs at all. That's a pretty standard PvP spec and it was punching through my lvl38 power like I didn't even have it on.

On that note, let me just say that I DO NOT support nerfing FA at all. But I'd really like to have access to it with my Brutes. With 3x ToHit in Rage and 2x Acc in attacks, I still can't touch a Scrapper in Elude. Even with PPPs what can I do to make up for that disparity? Pull out my pet and hope he has better accuracy than me? Everything else I have requires I hit something to be effective. Giving utility powers like FA to only one side is quite unbalancing in my opinion.

And just briefly on the base camping vs. drone TP thing? Gankers will be gankers. When I play my hero, I stay away from the villain base specifically because I don't want to be lumped into that crowd. I guess if that's how you have fun, there will be people on the other side who will stand inside the base and pick you off into the drones. It's really all rather idiotic and easily avoidable.

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Right, INSTEAD of gutting our powers! And you wonder why you are so reviled?


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Riiight. Sadam Hussein is reviled. GWB is reviled. The CoH Devs are guys and gals who type on keyboards to make a video game. Nothing to revile here, move along!

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reviled

adj : assailed with contemptuous language

Sounds pretty accurate to me. There's evidence enough in this very thread. The term doesn't appear to be restricted to public figures. So, as you say, "move along!"

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You think that was the real Statesman? On all three servers?

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Way to miss the point there slick. Thanks for playing.

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Yep - this is the AI change to "fix" herding...

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Great. Thanks for taking yet another suggestion from the tanker community that we were offering as a solution to stop mass herding INSTEAD of taking away our +DEF and +RES...not IN ADDITION to it!

This is the same crap you pulled with ED. "But as many pointed out on these boards, Enhancements were also a significant problem. In fact, many people suggested on the boards and in PM’s that we look into some form of diminishing return." Right, INSTEAD of gutting our powers! And you wonder why you are so reviled?

Incidentally, since holding massive amounts of aggro and being nigh unkillable is such a freaking drag in your mind, last nights COV End of Beta event must have been absolute drudgery for you. You seemed to stand up WAY too long against the 50-100 villains beating on you. I'll bet you didn't have a LICK of fun while doing it. Did ya'?

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Learn a bit of english while your at it.

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Quoted because I'm a fan of irony.

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Quoted because I am also a fan of irony.

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LOL, you may be a fan of irony, but "your" certainly no fan of the english you suggest others learn.

Spelling and grammar nazis should really be more careful with their homophones. Give this a whirl...

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LOL, it does not look like you are either.

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Okay, I really hate to drag this out, but the perfectionist in me must know...what exactly are you referring to?

And just for the record, I'm no habitual forum spell checker. I just think it's hilarious when someone tries to correct someone else's english and gets it wrong themselves. Hence, the irony. But I'm more than willing to accept that I've made an error myself. Please point it out. I don't see it.

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Learn a bit of english while your at it.

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Quoted because I'm a fan of irony.

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Quoted because I am also a fan of irony.

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LOL, you may be a fan of irony, but "your" certainly no fan of the english you suggest others learn.

Spelling and grammar nazis should really be more careful with their homophones. Give this a whirl...

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Learn a bit of english while your at it.

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Quoted because I'm a fan of irony.

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When people start comparing alterations to their character to having their eyes poked out they need to step away from the computer.

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My apologies Xero. I assumed everyone here was familiar with the use of analogy. I'll attempt to be more direct so as not to confuse you in the future.

...damn public schools.