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Quote:Just about any primary works in that example. With the possible exception of Ice.How is this really a fair comparison? You can put up any blaster Primary in front of Fire Blast and declare that it has inferior DPS because Fire Blast primarily excels in that regard. It's also weird that you mention AR having too many AOE's in comparison to ST, and then throw it up against Fire Blast, which only has one more ST attack than AR, and that's Blaze which requires you to be on top of the enemy to utilize. Which is not to say that the argument is wrong, just that your example is wonky.
Quote:Any AR/Dev worth his salt isn't waiting around to clean up the mob after his volley of AOE's. He should be leaving for the next spawn to set up a bomb to maximize his damage potential.
Quote:If you really wanted to calculate the time elapsed fairly, the AR/Dev should be starting *after* he has blown everyone to pieces, not after.
Quote:Furthermore, why do we just assume that the Fire Blaster is already in optimal range for everything, but count the amount of time it takes for the AR/Dev to move around? Such a calculation is obviously going to become one-sided when done in this method.
If you actually read the second example it used nothing but attacks that didn't require the AR/Dev to reposition. If you want to use any of the AOEs except M30 as a follow up for you would need to reposition or wait, and that makes things worse for the AR/Dev
Quote:I also find it strange that you mention Full Auto rooting you being a concern for damage while leaving out the fact that the second you start this AOE Dervish your Fire Blaster is going to be receiving hell from the spawn.
Quote:Meanwhile your second example of AR is disingenuous by assuming that it needs to throw out protection abilities such as caltrops while Fire Blast doesn't have to do anything. Again, you've tilted the results in Fire Blasts favor.
Quote:AR/Dev doesn't really have this problem as he begins combat by knocking everyone on their ***.
Quote:If you then joust Full Auto or Flamethrower you are going to be far away from any retaliatory fire.
Quote:Even if you don't you can then fire off buckshot or m30 grenade to again put everyone on their butts
Quote:Finally, while Build Up + Aim is a very nice combo, it has a 90 second recharge. Without throwing IO's into the mix, the lowest you can get this down is 30 seconds with Hasten, which also isn't going to be up 100% of the time. Unless you're willing to wait 30-45 seconds between spawns, AR/Dev is going to pull ahead by being able to make alpha strikes all over the map in relative safety.
Quote:*EDIT* Also, Rain of Fire's damage potential is greatly wasted at the end of the chain, but you'd have to set up some sort of control ability if you wanted to use it at the start of the battle which would probably cut into your DPS. I only mention it because after running the numbers the DPS for fire in comparison to AR is very close because of when RoF is used. -
Quote:Its a 9 second cast with 8 seconds where it can be interrupted. Then after it is cast it has a 15 second countdown.Without any relevant technical data, I like to believe that Time Bomb has a place at the feet of an AV or GM.
The Reichsmann fight comes to mind. Where it takes a while. ~10 minutes, iirc. Longer if things don't go well.
I could see using it for soloing except that it would be far more effective and less nerve wracking to just place 3 or 4 trip mines in the same time -
AR/Dev A combo I really want to like, its a shame that it just underperforms.
To the OP, you hit the nail on the head with the big failing of the combination. No Aim, No Buildup gimps you. There is very little you can do to work around this and unfortunately its just the beginning.
After you get past the lack of Aim and Buildup, you then hit weapon redraw, after you get past weapon redraw, you hit the fact that AR has too many AOEs that you don't need and no ST chain to speak of. After you get past that you hit the fact that everything in devices is slowing you down.
If you look at the time lines its just ugly and if you look at where things are dieing it shows just how irrelevant the extra AOE and powers from devices are
Fire/Ice blaster
Aim
1s
Buildup
2s
Fire breath
5s
Fire Ball
6s --- Minions gone Lts almost gone
Rain Of fire
8s --- Lts in the rain soon dead
Or Blaze --- boss nearly dead
AR/DEV
Runup to toe bomb
2s
Plant Trip Mine
7s
Run back to position for Full Auto (weapon redraw during run)
8s
Full Auto Minions gone if they were hit by both the FA and Mine
12 s Some minions gone Lts if skillfully done badly hurt.
You wind up much better off simply avoiding the entire trip mine/time bomb/Gun Drone
AR
Caltrops
1s
Full Auto (Weapon Redraw inc)
6S -Minions not yet dead but damn likely to be targeting you
M30
8S Minions Gone if you got them with both the full auto and the M30
At this point you need to either run in for the short range AOEs or use ST attacks. If yo
The other elephant in the room here, is that Full auto is DOT that aggros from the moment you pull the trigger and the targets can and will respond while you are stuck in the animation. -
Quote:I've heard of slippery slopes, but I think you just plunged off a slippery cliff.
All I'm looking for is for the crash on Rage to be fair to both resistance and defense-based sets.
How much more fair do you want ? You can bypass the defense crash completely with IOs or drop it to a once every four minutes or so crash with hasten and just SOs. -
Quote:Or how about the developers just (re)design things intelligently instead so that players can't do "stupid things" in the first place?
And the fact that you can skip over the defense debuff sounds like another design flaw.
To be completely honest I have no understanding how anyone could ask that as a serious question. You rule out so much and so many options to achieve a mind numbing blandness that isn't even particularly desirable as a goal.
If you want to go that route, why not just have one set of numbers for each ATs primary and secondary and have everything else be pick the animation.( You would need all the animations to be the same length as well) -
Quote:Well, IIRC, Castle did say back when the crash was changed a rather lengthy time ago that he'd look at it again, mostly to finally get rid of the Defense Debuff so that Rage stopped unfairly penalizing defense builds.
Some things will just never go with others. You are never going to see a great craze for Lutefisk with Neapolitan icecream. Instead of trying to fix things so people can't do stupid things, (Like take sets that just don't go together) It would be nice to just have maybe an advisory when you go to roll a character.
It could consist of rankings maybe something like this.
Quote:AT
PVP :***
PVE :*****
Solo:*****
Team:***
Primary:
PVP :****
PVE :****
Solo:****
Team:****
Secondary:
PVP :**
PVE :*****
Solo:****
Team:***
Warning: Combining Super Strength with Super Reflexes is not recommended -
Quote:You really want to make the game fascists get a taste of their own medicine don't you ? What is hilarious is they seem to be lining up to drink the Kool AidThis.
Kill the xp and be done with it.
I'm constantly hearing that the AE was meant for rpers and anyone who cares about story, should care if their story (or any) gives xp equivalent to a regular mission.
Let's put our money where our mouths are.
Take out the xp.
You know what, how about we take out inf AND tickets also.
I mean the MA is only supposed to be about STORY.
/signed. Take out ALL rewards from the MA. -
Well the smartest and simplest way to make people happier with the market would be to show the top 5 asks and offers for items. So you can be pretty certain that won't happen.
Another thing that other MMOs have done with good success is to allow people to specialize in particular aspects of production. That won't happen here either as our loot is divided into total crap and acceptable,
Another sane possibility would be to revamp the costs of items in terms of rare materials and crafting costs so it wasn't such a no brainer on deciding on what was worth having in your build and what wasn't.
Another possibility would be the introduction of new sets that allow you to take a different approach to building up your character rather than the common routes to uber. Given we just had the botz nerf I wouldnt hold my breath on that one -
Quote:25 mil for a karma knockback
50 mil for a steath (running) ?????
am I to assume getting I/O's involves farming drops and merits>? Too expensive to buy with influence?Quote:That's all you'll get in the market section. Sorry, move on.
My advice, create a farm toon and farm, farm, farm. I have about 7 purpled toons across 2 accounts and over 4 bil in cash and a bin full of purples and other stuff like Miracles Recovs and i don't buy much from the market. I keep the orange salvage in bins also.
You have people that don't do anything but sit in WW flipping recipes or buying stuff up just to inflate the market. This section of the forums is mainly just to beat people down that don't want to participate in their way of thinking. If you want to post in here and not get flamed, just post a pic of the billions you've made or ask them how to make uber inf so they can say, "find a niche" or "learn to flip" and make them feel special. lol.Quote:ive found that most flippers are people with bad toons or bad builds...the farmers do their part by keeping what they can in stock for the market.the issue is the flippers.
if posi knew what he was doing he would place a time limit on the resale of items just obtained from the market.
that way the dorks flipping wouldnt be able to flip it every 2 seconds.sure they still would be able to flip but not as fast as they like and it would bite into the money they make.wouldnt be able to stop them just like farmers but it would slow them down
Could the three of you come back with legitimate complaints about the market ? There are plenty of legitimate things that you could be upset about but you have completely missed them all. Whats more you have deprived me of opportunities to mock this forum.
Please try to do better. -
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Quote:Lets make it real simple. You have a restaurant, they offer a combination meal and ala carte selections. The combination meals offer a variety of things at an over all lower price, the ala carte selections offer single things at a lower total price but more in actual cost.But you're not slotting it for Acc/Rech/Health/Regen/Damage/Recovery.
You're slotting for defense. Outside of the -KB IO, that's really about the only reason anyone slotted them in the first place. Cheap (slot-count-wise) defense.
Arguing botz is too much is like arguing ala carte is underpriced Actually its considerably worse than that. but that is the drift. -
Quote:Botz gives no accuracy, no recharge, no health, no regen, no + damage, no recovery, /slot my god its underpowered.That much defense to two positions from three slots is totally out of order and the fact that it took the devs a long time to correct doesn't mean the fix isn't necessary. Someone posted elsewhere that it takes eleven slots from two separate sets to match the bonuses from three slots worth of BotZ. How anyone can say that isn't out of whack is beyond me.
When you have 11 slots that give you a bunch of things, you cant compare that legitimately to 6 slots that give you 2 things, on the basis of those 2 things alone.
You also have to consider where those slots go and what the underlying enhancement is doing.
Do you really really think that improving the jump speed of combat jumping is comparable to enhancing the damage a blast does, or a melee attack ?
You might be able to make an argument that BotZ is overpowered by coming up with some quantification of the contribution that bonuses contribute to combat effectiveness and survivability then showing that set is out of line. But I doubt it. Just by looking at the other defense sets and the uniques zephyr is somewere between the two. -
Quote:You realize, that statement is at worst weakly supporting my position that many people will be affected ?You mean Castle, one of the group of people, that has direct access to the metrics (i.e. datamining) to back that statement up? That Castle? Seems a fairly strong tangible statement to me, TBH. And obviously one he based the decision on to make the change.
--Rad
And please don't call it datamining. Executing a query on a database is not datamining. Its like someone squinting at a photograph saying they are doing image processing. -
Quote:We will have to agree to disagree about the number of builds that can use Botz five times. The only tangible evidence on that is Castle's statement that it was becoming too heavily used and stacked.Very, VERY few builds have enough powers to use BotZ 5 times. Most can only fit it in twice. That's 6 IOs that need to be swapped out, IF you don't want the bonus that it will still be providing. Even if you can use it three times, that's still enough that one respec will cover you.
BotZ's benefits could be achieved by other means, that's true. However, to get there required a much more substantial investment in slots. THAT was the problem. Not that you couldn't get there, but that it was so much cheaper to do with BotZ. As someone else pointed out, to get there using other sets, you needed a 6-slotted power and a 5-slotted power. That was 9 additional slots on powers, as compared to the 2 that you needed for BotZ. That doesn't seem a little imbalanced to you?
The Devs aren't being unreasonable here, and I'm sorry that you feel that way, but it's not going to likely change their opinion that a respec is the only thing you're going to get.
Its illustrative and mocking of the position taken. It would only be insulting to someone in proportion to its accuracy. -
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Quote:I am not really affected by the change personally but I know plenty of people that have shown me their builds and will be. Going from a botz oriented build to a differently oriented build is not a minor thing.Why is a free respec not fair?
It lets you take them out of your build and sell them on the market for whatever you can get if you so choose. At no cost to yourself aside from market fees.
What, you want them to give you free influence for the "inconvenience" of it?
What about someone who got all 3 pieces as drops and already had the salvage for them? (Yes, they exist) They get money to replace what they didn't spend on it?
A respec to pull them out o your build and do a you please with them is perfectly fair, asking for more than that is pretty silly.
If you have the max slotting of it, you have 5 sets at three pieces each. Thats 15 IOs that need to be pulled. Then you have to get your character where you want them to be. You have to remove or dump other sets that you have slotted, and then build to what you actually want.
Your mileage may very on what you want to take out or keep for your new concept.
Just for example if you want to go from botz to smash lethal defense, your build completely changes. If you are going from defense to high recharge, high regen, or high damage, its equally big.
My own feeling is that Botz wasn't overpowered. The level of performance it provided could and still can be achieved by other means. It just provided a different way to get there. -
Quote:Are you auditioning to play a Vogon in the next remake of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ?It's fair and equal - the point you seem to want to ignore - and is a great practice.
Apparently players put all their eggs in one basket like this IO set and/or didn't consider that this set was OP'd or that MMO games change. There is no way to consider all the possibilities to make a fair compensation for this kind of behavior. The devs have stated the game is balanced around SOs. IOs, let alone sets, are optional. I don't believe in free handouts to players claiming they spent hundreds of hours of play time to make these builds and in reality just copied some build in the forum and took the IOs out their SG bins.
The players that slotted these got their monies worth since these IOs have existed and giving them the bonus. Why would anyone expect this to remain forever in the game?
Lastly, since I like to read the forums, after the initial clamor, a number of players have been posting new builds not dependent on this set. The general response is that little has changed - a few % drops or changes in HP, regen, rech, etc. But nothing drastic. In other words, not a big deal.
"What your species has only one planet ?"
"What you couldnt get to your local planning office on Alpha Centauri ? its only 4 lightyears away, well if you cant take that little trouble to be aware of whats going on around you, its no concern of mine"
Edit: And its a shame Douglas Adams can't do an AE arc. I remember his game Bureaucracy it was AE before there was AE. -
Concur with triumph dead quiet there.
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Quote:You answered yourself right hereCare to explain what this 'practice' is? The Devs aren't omniscient, after all. They don't always know the full extent of everything that they implement in the game. As such, balance changes need to happen. That's how this is SUPPOSED to work.
Quote:About the same with or without the Zephyrs. About the same as before Zephyrs were even in the game. About the same after this change to them.
Does it stink that people put a lot of effort into builds with Zephyrs in them? Yes. Does that mean the Devs should leave something in that is fairly clearly broken in terms of slots and rewards? No.
Giving a single respec with this and saying "there you go" is a crappy practice.
As to being fairly clearly broken not so much.
Quote:That sounds reasonable until you think about it and realize that people weren't stacking Zephyrs to make an AT functional, they were stacking Zephyrs to push ATs with zero defense all the way up to softcapped. By that logic, everyone in Paragon City should be softcapped.
Imagine you're Daredevil. You live or die solely by your super reflexes; you're hard to hit. Now imagine that Stan Lee makes every other character in his Universe just as hard to hit and agile as you are. Except that most of the rest of them are ALSO armored, or made of steel, or regenerate, or have force fields, etc.
You're now the weakest possible superhero in the Stan Lee Universe. everyone else gets what you get AND a pony.
But to put your analogy in COH terms, The SR scrapper doesn't have to build for just defense, they can build for recharge, plus hitpoints, plus damage, plus regeneration, etc. The SR scrappers build is also the best defense. If you want to see just how bad not having, ddr is on real builds, make an ae mission with overseers and bright novas. Then watch your defense disappear.
The point where these analogies fall apart is they compare a maxed out build of one particular type against a minimum build of another type. The SR scrapper can easily cap his defense do so to all positions, have immense DDR, and then build for other things. He also starts with 20% recharge bonus for 1 pick in his build and 0 slots.
@Fulmens, if you want your game to be more difficult don't slot IOs. It always seems that the people who complain about things being too easy mean its too easy for other people. The means to increase their own challenge is always at hand -
Quote:Got to love these kind of post with no purpose...
1. MMO games change over time. This is not the same game as I1 or I10. So expect changes and plan ahead.
2. Care to prove what someone put in to get these IOs? How are the devs to know how someone didn't some gift from a player that quit and thus getting for free? Or that they got their IOs other ways I pointed out? How do you refund to make fair?
EDIT - Aett, you are the fastest!!!
Yes because incorrect things were done in the past that is ample justification for continuing the practice.
Nice strawman on asking for the unproveable . Just how long does it take you to design a build, buy the IOs slot them and then tune the build ? -
Quote:Agreeing with TCS - didn't the OP get the bonuses when slotted in currently?
And refund what exactly? What do you refund someone who bought an IO with merits vs. someone who got as random drop/roll vs. someone who paid "WANT IT NOW" prices on the market vs. someone who placed a bid and waited 3 months and got very cheaply on market?Quote:Yes. You get a respec.
IOs not slotted will be refunded the inf(luence/amy) it cost to craft.
Salvage and market fees will not.
You have to love these kinds of replies.
1. It is still powerful
LOL if someone came in and replaced your 120 volt power lines with 60 volt lines would you be saying that while none of your electrical equipment still worked.
Zephyr did a job, it no longer does
2. Why should he get a refund ? Well he spent time and effort building a character that would use the IOs in good faith.
Not giving a reasonable refund on this and no a respec and the crafting price isn't reasonable compensation its just taking a crap on the work someone put in on their character.
As to it being too powerful ? Well if you have a character that can take 5 movement powers you can trade 4 powers that are redundant and 8 or 12 slots for some defense. If you can do that, it isn't Zypher that is overpowered but your primary or secondary or AT that is badly designed. -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricing_strategies
And
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction
bottom lining it I would have held out for the big bucks till at least next week, and maybe bumped the thread once or twice to see if somebody came looking to negotiate -
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Quote:ROFLMAO, who do you think plays this game ? Just a word to the wise here, most of the real "Exploits" were done by hand editing the mission files.
I think the devs biggest mistake was making an easy-to-use interface. If the system had been complicated (think spreadsheets), that would have been a good enough barrier for entry that would have prevented a lot of potential exploiters from even trying in the first place. Yeah, then people would gripe and moan about it being too complicated, BUT, i think the honesty intelligent and creative members of the community would have been able to wrap their heads around it and produce exactly what they wanted. In addition, more complexity may have yielded more creative control, which would have resulted in better arcs.