Samuel_Tow

It's not two kicks, it's one kick. The first part is raising the leg so that you can deliver a downward "axe kick," as it were. It's no different from Parry having a single empty swing that's the actual parry, followed by a second swing that's the hit or Soaring Dragon having an empty motion of raising the sword which can be interpreted as a hit but isn't, before delivering a downward slash.

So Moderator_8 is the new SuperMod? And they thought they shamed Lighthouse into abandoning that concept, the silly posters

As for the player-made developer digest, THANK YOU! Lacking a digest really sucked and made me feel like the developers had simply stopped posting (I knew they hadn't, I just couldn't find their posts) and searching through their posting history sucked. This is very, very much appreciated. Thank you.

It does. The revenue is gross! We don't want it! Take it back!

Switch, as in select a different primary and different secondary, or switch, as in make the primary secondary and the secondary primary? Because the former is out of the question and the latter would accomplish precisely nothing.

What you suggested eliminated levels. This allows everyone to play at the level of the team leader. The capital difference is that it doesn't eliminate levels and you still require a person who is legitimately the level you are sidekicking to. Almost no-one is ever going to have a problem with one person being able to SK more than one other person. This eliminates nothing but the need for more mentors. Chiefly, it doesn't eliminate levels or the con system. It just gives you a way around it IF you want and IF you can find a mentor.

Existentialist nonsense. It's a problem because it's a problem. A white con minion does not go down from a single brawl delivered by a Mastermind. A -49 minion does, several times over. A white con minion can deal damage and land attacks. A -49 minion cannot land almost any attacks at all, and the attacks he does land do nothing. An even con boss is a meaningful obstacle even if he possesses NO powers at all.

Lower-level players not being able to engage in high-level content and fight high-level enemies without a genuinely high-level player present is a good thing, as is high-level players vastly outlevelling lower-level enemies. Multiple sidekicking changes nothing in this regard.

No, actually it DOES need to be repeated endlessly until people get it through their heads that this will never be a PvP game, nor will you ever get people who dislike PvP to engage in it, hence, any suggestions for bringing PvP to the PvE masses are bad by default.

And whether or not the rule of PvP not affecting PvE is valid (developers have said they strive for that), there has never been a rule stated or even implied that PvE will not affect PvP. That might be true now that powers have PvE and PvP stats, but any illusions that PvE content shouldn't exist in PvP encounters are quite unrealistic. In fact, PvP's quintessential failing is that it has almost no PvE components and what it does have is relies on AVOIDING PvP, rather than participating in it.

Stick to improving PvP without butting it into PvE zones.

I can work with that. Make them into special salvage that you can turn in at any Security Chief for a one-off mission. I like it

The question isn't whether or not it happened. It did. The question is whether or not it was because of the introduction of classes, or whether other factors had a role in it. I, myself, wouldn't feel confident to claim it was classes that caused it, and as such am not very confident in accepting the failure of SWG as evidence as to either that a classless system is good or that a class system is bad. I find its failure to be inconclusive on both counts.

Scrappers deal exactly 50% more base damage than Brutes, which with damage slotting makes them do close to double the damage of Brutes. This means Brutes need 100% Fury just to break even, and it also means that their damage buffs, smaller to begin with because of their lower self-buff modifiers, are smaller still due to their lower base damage. An ally-buffed Brute can indeed deal more damage than a Scrapper, but a lone Brute has to work really hard just to break even, let alone exceed a Scrapper's output. Brutes are still dedicated damage dealers, I'm not saying they aren't, but I don't believe they're held true to the same formula of damage vs. defence that makes Tankers what they are. Brutes have above-Scrapper mitigation, Tanker mitigation caps, and yet almost Scrapper damage, all things considered. That's not fair.

The reason Tanker powersets would be dangerous in the hands of Scrappers is not because Tankers as the final product of modifiers deal a lot of damage, but rather because these powersets are designed with scale damage values so high they make up for Tankers' low damage mod. Give these attacks to an AT with a truly high damage mod, and the results are absurd damage. This isn't evidence to the strength of Tankers, but rather to the gap in outgoing damage between Scrappers and Tankers. That powersets which, in the hands of Tankers are pretty good, but in the hands of Scrappers would be beyond broken suggests very much exactly this. The gap is huge.

In their own right, perhaps not, but the fact remains that the efficiency of their attacks is low and their output not very impressive in perspective. And that's WITH their powersets designed to be vastly superior to both Scrapper melee sets and Blaster blast sets. The presance of these lovely 3.56 scale damage attacks and large-scale AoEs is something that just about only Tankers and Brutes have. All the other ATs have to make do with 2.7 scale damage attacks and below. And, above all else, what I dislike is that the AT is designed to take damage and let other people actually do the damage, with their inherent helping them only with aggro control. So, their attacks, despite being some of the weaker ones in the game, are the most threatening when a Scrapper can cleave the same enemy in two swings? That, to me, is bad design.

Only in so much as you start an expression with "you can build a team." Yes, you can build a team and overcome any AT's built-in limitations. That's besides the point. The point is that certain ATs are built with ridiculous limitations such that they REQUIRE other ATs, or at least more of themselves, to be efficient. The fact of this game is that any character's strengths are multipled the more copies of them you have, to the point where you can trivialise the game, but ALONE, certain ATs are broken in my view.

And, also, I do believe that designing characters around the holy trinity, or indeed any "ideal" team structure, does leave characters incomplete. Designing an ideal team structure requires that you take way from everybody something that is vital to success, and place that in the hands of another, who in turn is missing something else vital that he can find in the hands of someone still else. This way, these characters are penalised for trying to play alone because they lack something vital (damage, survivability, etc.) and ever so subtly forced to find other people to help them either overcome their lack, or at least marginalise it. This isn't a question of everybody being proficient at everything, but rather about everybody being proficient alone, such that everybody levels up at roughly the same speed. If it takes one character twice as long to level up, and he often meets enemies he cannot defeat (be it because they kill him or because he can't overcome their regen), then to my eyes, it doesn't matter how proficient this character is at their speciality. I don't intend to sit down on the team seek tool every single time I launch the game, and for the times I'm not on a team, I like to feel I'm moving ever so slowly because my AT gives up a strength I need for more of a strength than I actually have any use for.

I'm not happy with the state of the Tanker AT, and I doubt I ever will be, because it's viewed as the AT that resists damage first and does anything only afterwards. I've accepted that and gave up on trying to play Tankers slowly and safely. My priority now is to gain access to all Tanker sets for other ATs that I actually enjoy playing, like Scrappers and Brutes, so I can leave the Tanker to the people who like that sort of playstyle. I'm not out to yank anybody's Tanker from under them. Keep 'em.

But I simply don't agree with the notion that a large, hard target can ever be perceived to be a threat without actually having anything more threatening to offer than just about EVERYBODY else. Tankers right now are threatening because the system gives their attacks a high threat rating. However, from a purely practical standpoint, they're the most harmless AT of them all. What does a boss or an AV stand to lose by completely ignoring a Tanker and focusing on the Blaster or the Controller? When we actually have an answer to that questions that's something other than "nothing" will I ever be able to accept that any Tanker is actually threatening.

Interestingly, it is Diablo 2 that made me buy City of Heroes back in 2004. I HATED HATED HATED Diablo 2 for its crappy, gimp-prone character building system, replete with useless or redundant skills which you had to take over and over and over again, as well as for its soul-suckingly complicated items system of normal, magical, unique, set, etc. items with eleventy billion random combinations of magical effects, slots, gems, runes and so forth. I spent probably a full year playing Diablo 2, and all I had to show for it was a crappy, gimped Barbarian with a bit in every skill and no elemental damage to take on the enemies immune to physical damage, and a gimped druid who focused on turning into a werewolf and ended up with... Yeah, no elemental damage to fight those things immune to physical damage.

What was really fun, though, was how unfair the game could become at times. For instance, a friend of mine had a screenshot of a unique skeleton, who was immune to physical damage, immune to cold damage, resistant to fire and ice damage, and strong against poison damage. What the [foul language] am I suppose to use to fight this [REALLY self-censored] thing with? Wishful thinking? And on top of that, the game was ugly. Uglier than the original Diablo, in fact.

I bought City of Heroes because it was advertised as a game without a reliance on items and where you didn't have to take the same skills over and over and over again, and could instead take NEW skills. Such revolutionary ideas that they have gone right over the heads of developers before and since.

I'm not against player actions making a difference, but I don't want them to make such a difference that it impacts OTHER people's gameplay. From the standpoint of the difference-making player, it's really cool to see other people remarking on things he did. From the standpoint of a difference-suffering player, on the other hand, it's often quite a bit less cool when you find someone else made a difference you don't like and now have to deal with. That actually extends to even basically just cosmetic differences.

Here's an interesting idea, though - why not make these differences personal? For the sake of retaining status quo, let's put in a toggle at the difficulty NPC that says something like "I'm interested in the long term/The here and now matters the most" that switches between these "consequences" appearing or not. Then, if you beat up enough on a gang, say, instances that feature them start having bigger spawns and occasionally people who talk about you. Maybe you occasionally get outdoor ambushes, maybe you even get special missions where you go to the door your waypoint is showing, but it isn't the mission your contact gave you but an ambush. I'm really not putting a lot of effort into coming up with examples because I'm more interested in the general idea of things that matter TO YOU.

I'm not sure if this doesn't defeat the purpose of making things matter if the only way other people can see them is if you invite them specifically, but that's honestly the only kind of "consequences" I'd be willing to accept, anyway. While I must admit it is interesting to play in a living world that is shaped by the actions of others as a general concept, the reality of such a world isn't nearly as glamorous, and by and large results in frustration and anger, because people will never make the world better, only worse. And I don't log into this game looking for a challenge.

Well, I never said you can't use Teleport in combat, but merely that it's no more useful than, say, Super Jump or Super Speed for it. Heck, you can do that even with Flight for a fraction of the cost. And while Warshades get Teleport for free and it doesn't make sense NOT to use it, they are an exception. Generally speaking, you can move in to initiate an alpha strike with any travel power. You can super-jump in, super-speed in, fly in and yes, even Sprint in. I do that a lot, and I don't eat nearly as much return fire as that. And while I do appreciate the ability to teleport past spawns, a variety of other powers allow you to do that and they don't have ridiculous costs. Heck, a properly executed Super Speed dash can allow you to run right through the centre of a spawn and not receive any aggro. Trust me, I used to run to the dam and back in the old, non-flooded Faultline and I had to pass clean through a lot of spawns in those narrow cracks.

My point isn't that Teleport doesn't have out-of-combat utility, but rather that, Stone Armour aside, it doesn't have THAT much more utility than all the other travel powers, yet they don't cost nearly as much as Teleport. I teleport as slowly as I can, waiting until I'm literally dropping out of the sky before initiating the next teleport, and I STILL run out of energy along the way, something that NEVER happens with any of the other travel powers even without Stamina and with a bunch of other toggles. It doesn't need to be this expensive, that's all I'm saying.

Congratulations for shooting any credibility you may have had in the foot. "Resistance to the idea expressed here boils down to wah wah wah." Great, if that's your way of forming an argument, expect people to disagree.

How's about this: I don't want PvP. I will not have it in a coat, on a boar or with a goat. You drive me nuts, that's really true. I've really had enough of you.
-Johnny Bravo, who likely ripped it off from somewhere else.

Believe it or not, some people simply DO NOT WANT THAT. Either respect their right to their opinion which differs from yours, or go to hell. I don't have to defend my opinion to you. I don't want PvP in PvE zones. Period. You're not going to change my mind by browbeating me with straw man arguments. I don't want it. It doesn't matter how good you try to make it sound or how little you claim it will affect me. I don't want it.

Either accept this and stop treating people who disagree like whining children, or give up on trying to argue for it if that's what your attitude is going to be.

It would be if the specifics of the change were the ONLY thing contributing. Any change at all is going to drive people away no matter how small or how beneficial. People will leave. You've been here long enough to know that. As an extension of that, a MASSIVE change to the status quo is very likely to upset a lot of people who quit based not on how better or worse things became, but simply based on the fact that things are DIFFERENT and they want the old status quo. Add to that the fact that such a change isn't just big, but also one that fundamentally alters the game in many, many ways, and you have a recipe for disaster before the merit of the actual change ever comes into consideration.

It would be open to debate if they launched SWG2 with these changes and it tanked, and even then it wouldn't be entirely based on the changes, themselves. Let's not indulge in tunnel vision and grasp at only one of a multitude of reasons for failure and proclaim it to be THE reason. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's more complicated than just that.

As for giving Tankers more damage, I'm well aware of the "damage to survivability" ratios and how they must be upheld. Interestingly, they aren't upheld very much in this game. Blasters have significantly less survivability than, say, Scrappers, yet they don't have a proportionally higher level of outgoing damage. They have more, just not as much as their defences are lacking. Brutes have more survivability than Scrappers, but their are much farther behind in damage than Scrappers are behind in survivability. In fact, Scrappers aren't very far behind survivability at all, yet they deal significantly more damage even WITH Fury taken into account. Masterminds have, all things considered, about as much survivability as your typical Scrapper. In fact, in certain instances, they may have even more, such as a Forcefields Mastermind defence-capping all his henchmen and nearly defence-capping himself. Their damage is less, obviously, but not by too much AND they have the benefit of providing team support on top of that.

The game isn't consistent when it comes to who has how much survivability to how much damage. Scrappers and, to a large extent, Masterminds get the most beneficial ratios while Tankers, with a few exception, get the short end of the stick, being regarded as taunt bots and sheep herders. Walk into any Taunt debate and you're likely to get at least a few people who believe it's not a Tanker's "job" to do damage but rather to run around slapping things so they don't attack his team-mates. Not doing damage, but applying threat. Forgive me for saying this, but for a big, hulking monster's greatest output to be imaginary threat rather than, you know, PUNCHES, is disappointing.

I wouldn't say Tankers need a straight-up damage increase. That'd turn them into Scrappers. Yet Brutes, with below-Tanker damage, still somehow manage to have their cake and eat it, too, yet not become Scrappers in the process. There ought to be some way to allow Tankers to hit REALLY hard without being Super Strength or Energy Melee (and even then that's only on a couple of attacks altogether) without making them vastly overpowered in terms of sustained damage. Right now, as balance is made based on endurance cost to SCALE DAMAGE and Tankers don't benefit as much from their scale damage as true damage dealers do, they feel like those damsels in distress you see in cartoons, where the girl is slung over the bad guy's shoulder and is banging her fists against his back while he doesn't even feel it. A lot of energy spent for not a lot of return.

Personally, I'd rather make Tankers into a REAL threat, rather than a pretend one. I saw an idea around the time this thread was posted about making Taunted enemies take more damage from your own attacks, but Castle said he didn't see a need for it. I guess as long as people are happy, I can just as well wait for Brutes to become available hero-side via Going Rogue and use them, instead, but that still leaves an AT that is designed more with the MMO trinity in mind than with making complete characters on the agenda.

Combat Jumping and Hover are not, nor have they ever been, "travel powers." They are combat powers in precisely the same way Jump Kick and Air Superiority are.

Also not true. Henchmen teleport to the Mastermind only if they fall behind a certain distance, which is several times more than the range of a single teleport. You can force this to happen even with simple Fly. Unless you're talking about Group Teleport, of course, and even then... Ugh!

It's only the fastest if you spam it, such that you queue the next teleport as soon as you pop into existence, as the power's recovery animation can be interrupted. Achieving this kind of speed is VERY expensive even with endurance slotting, and is decidedly NOT sustainable over long distances, say getting from place to place in Independence Port. As well, people keep clamouring about speed, when just using the power is one of the worst, most obnoxious mechanics in the entire game, just in itself more than making up for whatever speed the power may have over the others. Personally, I feel like I arrived faster via slow flight than via fast teleport, because I worked so much on teleporting around it felt like ages.

As well, Super Jump can just about catch up to Teleport, only default slot provided, and that power costs next to nothing, takes only token effort to use and is pretty much just as safe. It's not a case of Teleport being the fastest, it's a question of Fly being the slowest.

Super Speed's stealth buff is intended to assist with in-the-field movement. Being the only power that doesn't allow you to void enemy aggro radius, it's the only one that gives you the tools to avoid needing to. If they could, I guarantee you they would make the Stealth component active only when you're moving. It's also intended to simulate the way the Flash can't be seen well when he's running too fast.

Fly is a TERRIBLE power to use in combat. It suppresses down to stupid-slow speeds every time you so much as think about combat, costs far too much to be a reasonable toggle to run, and it drifts all over the place. The point of Hover is to replace Fly in combat, hence why it's a combat power where Fly isn't.

Super Jump is similarly not very useful in combat. It doesn't cost much, but it costs too much for what it does, suppressing as it does and being far outshined by Combat Jumping. While kiting IS possible, Sprint is a better tool to do so than Super Jump, and because of how air control works, Hurdle is actually better for it than Combat Jumping.

What's more, Teleport is even LESS useful in combat compared to all the others. Not only does it cost MUCH more than all the other powers combines, but it also takes around 2 seconds to animate, which is often longer than most of your actual attacks. And about the only time that getting out of an immobilizing situation is useful is if you're running. If you want to use Teleport to port around the battlefield, it's cheaper, easier and faster to just walk. Well, for anyone other than Stone Armour. Seriously - just use a break free. It's what they're for.

About the only people it's actually useful to mid-combat is PermaGranite Tankers and the occasional misguided Brute who thinks doing that has any point for his AT. I don't believe the power should be such a pain just because it has such use for Granite Armour.