5th_Player

I wish I would have demorecorded it.

The power is mainly there so they can follow you vertically.
However, I've seen them use the horizontal component when I was jumping around myself. However, AI-wise they don't prefer it. The power itself simulates every aspect of SJ though.
I've even noticed that the forward speed when they do use horizontal component adjusts for distance.
In other words, when they do jump forward, they make it to their destination in a fixed time... they speed up for more distant jumps.

If only they'd prefer this method over running...

I'd like to regretfully inform you that superleap auto power that henchmen have does have a horizontal component to it like super jump. The reason you don't see it isn't because it isn't there... but it's because of the pathing AI that henchmen have. They'd rather fall off one surface, walk to the next and jump up.

One place to test this really easy is the last room in a cargo ship.
Get on the last crate and jump between it and the second to last crate, (do it with one slotted combat jumping and hurdle, or superjump)
Several times my henchmen made the jump between the two without hitting bottom.

The difference between the two powers seems to be height and vertical speed. Superleap seems to have a crazy fast vertical speed, but can't jump as high as superjump.
Their horizontal speeds seem to match mine (when they decide to use the horizontal component)

This may of course be either a bug in the power, or like I said a result of simplicity in pathing AI. In other words, they don't THINK to jump between the two objects when they can just fall down one and jump back up onto the other.

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Can anyone confirm or deny that Cloak of Fear, and Oppressive Gloom break Hide?

It was my understanding that only when you activate an attack does Stealth/Travel supression come into play (Such as Radiation "Anchor" Debuffs, they used to suppress the entire time, but no longer. Only for the activation).

I suppose OG might break Hide due to the damage taking, but I hope they don't break hide (maybe they just don't effect enemies until after leaving Hide?).

Otherwise, really enjoying the DA set for Stalkers. As much as I want to make a Defense based toon, I just have so much trouble playing them. DM/DA has been really fun for me so far, especially the surprise of Assassin's, but that's a little offtopic I 'spose.

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According to stealth supression it should. I don't have proof, but I can tell you that any offensive power breaks hide and that includes secondary effects.

Now. Here's why the toggle will always suppress continuously. Targeted AoE maintained debuffs are target local and thus it is considered a drop power or a pet power just as mortars won't suppress when they fire cause they are seperate from you.

However oppression and cloak are considered player local and thus they work by ticking effects every second or so. Whereas the area debuffs are applied to target when they enter and not applied when they exit, they don't tick but force a -res or whatever.

Oppression and cloak don't force a debuff but they tick holds. It's the same thing as a damage aura without damage and only secondary effects.

So the source of effect over time is different between the two sets of powers.

PPPs and EPPs aren't supposed to be powers worth having in your main lineup. They aren't supposed to the be the "I WIN" button fo choice. They are there so that your toon can have types of powers he wouldn't normally have. So, yes, they do suck in comparison with their counterparts. Last time I checked though, they were there for fun. And while you can max your toon by skipping it. I'm really looking for a reason to have any of four more powers through those final lvls, other than end saving powers of course.

However, it's absolutely priceless to have my tank lob a fireball into a group of villains as it is unexpected at best. And having my tank cast the hold that sticks on a villain... is priceless too.

It's just there for added enjoyment, nothing else. At least for #$# sake, applaud them for giving us epic powers that have DIFFERENT animations from already existing powers... nothing like the beauty of soul storm I say.

The override folder is a testing tool.

You forget that even though they still have 22% chance to hit you, one minor purple can cancel that.

Two minor purples can cancel minion even con from hitting you unless under that 5% margin.

It's easy to cap with inspirations. And if you don't like that, then take weave.

Really... the better solution would be to change the def scaling down... it should really change by half as much as it does per lvl.

The game is designed right now so that you should be able to handle +2s to +4s in later game. This may not be intended, but it is. Now players are used to this and it ticks them off that only certain builds can do it and only people good at building them.

Really there should be some ground rules established.

Controllers don't do damage, but hold. If it takes two scrappers to kill a certain boss, no reason why it shouldn't take two controllers to stack holds.

Etc.

Really Statesman, don't buy into people's complaints that an SR can't handle a +4 boss. The game should be balanced around handling even con to +2s. All combos of power sets should perform near the same in these lvls, with slight comprimises for lethal based sets damaging lethal resistant mobs.

The game almost always allows you to choose your foes, if you can't damage a clockie as much, don't complain... just use your head and avoid that foe.

If you can't resist damage, don't fight +3-4s

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For those who are interested, I made a little spreadsheet using the HP numbers listed for robots upthread to show survivability.
For a stalker to drop tier one pets on an initial AS (or a blaster snipe for that matter), they'd have to do between 1400-1500 points of damage.

Click here.


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I don't know how you got the AoE numbers...

If I understand Bodyguard right... you have 6 pets out... that means 6 shares for pets plus 2 shares for you.
AoE means that each pet would get one share of the 100 damage plus the whole 100 damage.
Now... there are 8 shares = 6+2
100/8 = 12.5
so one pet would get 100+12.5 = 112.5
for the tier one pets that would be 480 - 112.5 = 367.5

but you have their health at 347.5. Am I missing something?

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This doesn't help specifically with /FF, but any chance that Bodyguard will allow MMs to chain-summon pets in the face of damage (but not mezzing)? Is summoning Henchmen Interruptible?

To wit: You are slowly trundling around SC with a full Bodyguard and suddenly an AS hits you from nowhere. Thanks to Bodyguard, your Tier 1 henchmen drop and you survive. Recast Tier 1 henchmen.

You get Placated, henchmen begin to attack the Stalker, but the Stalker sticks around for a second AS. The henchmen drop again, but you survive and recast them while re-placated.

Stalker gets the idea and runs away...

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OK except this isn't likely.... with all buffs up and running + the fact that you have all six minions out.

Let's see, that's six pets...

six + two for you = 8 parts...


100 / 8 = 12.5 %

If 12.5% of AS damage can drop the tier one pets, plus the fact that they have +RES to lethal, I'll be shocked. Not only that, they could have more RES and DEF depending on the secondary.

Not only that, placate is single target, which means only the MM can't affect the stalker....

So even if tier 1 pets die. 3 pets will still be attacking the stalker, pop a couple of +acc and +def into the tier 3 pet and he won't be able to do another AS.

Also, do they have to be in follow mode.... or can they be defensive + in range of mm

Will this also affect positive things. Buffs and heals?

Let's say AoE heal... I only get healed for 60% of the health, and my three minions get healed for 20%+100%? If all of them are in the AoE?

I know what happened. The head dev told the intern to test the ice tank and see if there was something wrong with it.

The intern thought, "50 lvls of ice tanking." Heck with that, that's boring soloing for 50 lvls, plus ice tank is so broken, I'd have so much debt it would take me 3 years to lvl him. So he told the dev ice tank is fine.

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Just as an FYI Cuppa Jo, people are generally adding NEW files in a separate folder

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modify, adapt, reverse engineer or decompile the Software, or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Software;

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In the process of modding you DO open up and extract textures

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Just in case he didn't clarify this.

Extracting textures is reverse engineering.

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7.5% base * (1+ (6 Enhancements * .2 Enhancement increase)) * 1.15 for +3 Enhancements = 18.975.

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Wait... the extra .15 affects the base too. No I think that, according to rhetoric, the equation would be

7.5% base * (1+ (6 Enhancements * (.2 Enhancement increase * 1.15 for +3 Enhancements))) = 17.85

Insignificant difference might I add

17.85/18.975

Only a 6% difference

Hey. I'm up for it. I wouldn't mind making a Sonic/Sonic defender once I5 goes live.
I'll give you guys a /t once it goes live.

I mean, I already played the game normally (Flaming Coal lvl 50 tanker Champion)

I've already pooled into the scrappers controllers and blasters just to get a feel for the differences in damage. I like it already.

But all defender team, that's amazing, I'll admit that I saw the potential. I'll also admit that I was quite frustrated on teams that would accept only a Empath defender, when I knew that post lvl 25 buffing was way more efficient than healing. I saw that a bubbler would migitate damage so well (just one really) that a healer wasn't needed. Yet noobs would prefer to spam emp defenders

We need another healer they'd always say. I'd be thinking kick the emp we have, pick up a kinetics and a bubbler and we'd be doing way better off. Of course as a tanker I already had one heal and was doing quite well on bubbler and kinetics teammate WITHOUT shields running.

I don't really go for a full defender team because I like to get teams as diverse as possible, since a well diverse team really creates a really strong team. IE two defenders, two tankers, two blasters, two scrappers. Way good damage, good defense (with two tankers defense is enough and cappable by the sonic and bubbler easy), Scrappers and tanks now have capped defense and resistance, blasters are pretty well off (matter of fact buff their resist allow their health to drop slowly so they can get in defiance safely, then buff defense, and they have capped damage with the highest base damage on team, huge damage output) Both defenders have tactics. blasters are four slotted for damage with six slots going only into favorite attacks. Tanks can have a few more slots in their attacks. Scraps can get in and out of melee easy. I personally would subsitute one scrap for a kinetics defender to get speed boost in (since speed boost has -spd res, oh holy crap earth thorns aren't a problem).

That always amused me, people who found out that they couldn't find an emp, picked up a kinetics defender, and all of the sudden the very much hated Earth Thorn casters weren't slowing them down. I just wanted to say no duh you freakin bias pig.

However, I could see a full defender team working, but the coordination would be so intense. Nah, I could see it working.

Again, when I5 goes live, I intend to find someone and send a tell... maybe you need to spot some recruiters in atlas or something.

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Hmm not happy about this.. but here's what I'm thinking...

I'm thinking this might be Cryptic's way of saying. "We don't support/condone mods and as such we delete all threads about this, but we're not disabling the override feature." Limiting liability. If it's seen here it could be considered "official" and cause problems. By deleting the threads and not disabling the ability to use mods they could still leave it in that "gray area." I only guesstimate that because of the way CuppaJo is only talking about deleting threads.

I'd think if Cryptic was taking a hard line on this, they'd blatantly says stop, and we'd see a patch very quickly to disable the override. I can't see as to why they wouldn't anounce it, if people are going to quit over this, they'll do it when it's anounced or when it's "fixed." They're still going to lose customers over this.

I will not be happy, however, if they disable the override without updating the in game maps with store locations and at the very least cutting the volume of looping sounds in half. (disable would be nice too)

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Here's the problem. They don't like modding, heck I wouldn't if I was working my butt off on a good game. There's certain ways to control modding. Since the modded files are named the same as the original, it would be harder or unpleasant to inforce.

There would have to be some way to check to see if any files are changed. One way of doing this is to incorporate a while loading file scan, which would take way long on one gig of data.
Another way would be to actually download and replace all files when loading, a very long process.

So really any method of taking mods out, would be very annoying to customers, and why should they suffer over very trivial client changes that don't affect the global gameplay.

So, No, they don't like them, but there's no real way to control them.

And anyway, continual modding leads to some really interesting results. Incorporation is what I'm thinking of. For example, CS started as just a mod to halflife (if I'm remembering correctly, it's been ages) And then valve basically took the idea, since it was not protected and it was partly theirs to begin with.

Also, the way a lot of game incorporate Gui mods into ingame Gui customizing. (which I would like to see)
Kinda tired of the old Gui, it needs some tuning circles and squares get old after a while.

Keep adding zone events please. Minigames stuff like that. Once you get to 50 once, you start to look at all the content to do. I don't wanna run out of stuff to do.

Hmm... wierd crap... I hate it when they leak stuff slowly. Gets me thinking too much.

Kudos to you guys for doing a good job at keeping things interesting and for keeping me on my toes. I'm liking most of the changes that you've come up for I5. AoE, burn, and controller double nerf are the only ones that seem a little too far still. However, I've known that these changes are what you have intended all this time.

Let your brother know that we are proud of him and his fellow soldiers. To him, "Godspeed.", and a safe return.
/em salute


I want to say that if I ever sound hateful by any of my frustration I don't mean it. Change is always difficult and in the end, it's just a game. Good luck with CoV.

And of course I understand your other responsibilities. As a matter of fact, I am completely surprised at how available you are, and at how much you get involved. I've never had this kind of support and customer care in any online game ever, much less any game.

Taking As much an unbiased view as I can take, you really have done a good job making comprises between your vision and the customer's vision, and at the same time keeping the best balance you can between all the ATs.

Again, kudos to the staff of CoH.

I don't get it.

1 Fire tankers have no damage potential

What offense potential does a fire tanker have.
Is it Blazing Aura??? Is that our offensive potential.
Well guys, six slot BA for damage, its the only damage your primary will be doing.

2 Def + Res is the only true defense

Res alone is NOT a good defense, neither is Def alone. Both HAVE to be together for it to work effectively.
That's why Ice tankers and QR scrappers took tough, and fire tankers took weave.

3 Realizing your dream kills ours
You can freaking realize your dream if you want, straight into a trashcan.

I can see I6 right now. I6 changes:

We've decided to replace all powers with sprint, hover, teleport foe, hurdle, and brawl. Also all of these powers will be inherent and active at all times.

I7 changes:

We've decided to reduce the effectiveness of our service. We've shut down the servers and sent paper and dice versions to each player. To form parties you'll communicate by email. Note: you will still be charged a monthly fee unless you return the dice.
For customer support, the Devs can be contacted at your local McDonalds or Taco bell.

4 Player Scarcity
Haven't you even noticed that on live you can hardly find a team anymore. Maybe it's just me, but my sg cut in half already. Controllers are rare as gold, and all we have are a bunch of lvl 50 fire tankers that are trying to avoid I5 by pling each other. As it stands, no one is playing the actual game anymore. Everyone is pling to avoid the nerf bat. And khelds are freakin everywhere. All to avoid I5. Man, I put my trust in this game. I waded through the constant nerfs to Regen, the constant Across the Board nerfing. IMO, if you nerf anymore there's gonna be no way to play the game. You know what. You need to just scrap the ATs and rework the whole thing, because the vision you have CANNOT be reached by the current powersets, just can't happen.

5 Team needs doesn't determine equality

Teams have to have tanks, they have to have blaster/scrapper, and have to have either a controller or defender. You can't balance the ATs, no way. It's like rock paper scissors, one AT should be able to beat another AT, but be beaten by another. They're NEVER gonna be equal. People are always going to complain, you can't keep sucking up to the people that don't build optimal builds. You cannot rework a powerset because person A over here chose something other than optimal, and realised it wasn't optimal. Certain things will just NOT work together, there's going to be some below par builds, and there's going to be some favorites. That's always going to be that way. Look at any other MMO, you can't make a munchkin a tank. and you can't make a giant a magician. There are reasons for this. There are reasons for optimization. Part of skill is know what the best combination is. You can't expect someone to pick random powers and be on the same level as someone who plans out their character. That's the same thing as telling a college student to pick random classes and expect to come out with 70k a year starting wage, much less end up with a degree.

For example. Dark Melee / Super Reflexes is not an optimal build. It doesn't have the same damage potential because it's a plain out endurance hog. Six slotted stamina and RAs just to keep going. That doesn't mean it's not fun. Ice tankers are hard to play and not optimal. That doesn't mean it's not fun, or not doable. Ice blast / electric melee is not optimal, that doesn't mean it's not fun. Kheld tri-form is not optimal, that does not mean it.. is.. not.. fun.

You're destroying my fun because I happen to like an optimal build.




6 Build up, not tear down

There's no sense in nerfing anymore. If you want an across the board nerf. Make the baddies slightly stronger. DO NOT make it impossible to have the function that you describe. Offensive tanking is impossible with a nerfed burn. You just can't kill quick enough to make up for your lower defense.


And isn't that the tradeoff, kill quick for less defense, kill slow for greater defense. Why is there this common tradeoff, because then ALL TOONS are EQUALLY SURVIVABLE.


7 Equal survivability
That's balance

When all toons are equally survivable, THEN you have balance.

Controllers prevent foes from attacking.
Blasters kill before be killed.
Tankers absorb the damage.
Scrappers and defenders deal and take damage equally.

8 Teammates fill in weak spots

If this is what the game was like, then it wouldn't matter who you invited next to a team, and together in a variety of ATs for a team, you're power would be multiplied not added. Each of you would fill a weak spot of the other ATs.
TEAM DEFENSE
Defenders would lessen damage, controller would prevent damage, tankers would take damage, and blasters would prevent futher damage.
TEAM OFFENSE
Defenders would increase attack, controllers would divert stop foes from escape allow more attacks, blasters would attack fiercely, and tankers would divert foes to allow more team attacks.