Arcanaville
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Quote:From: Facilities MaintenanceOriginally Posted by FourSpeed
From: Operational Security Team 42
To: Facilities & Maintenance
Due to recent policy updates, and a few "displaced" security personnel, we have
increased our vigilance with regard to unauthorized wildlife, glowing or actively
burning visitors, person or persons exuding noxious vapors, and have also briefed
the team regarding possible actions to take towards potential visitors encased in ice.
As a result of this increased awareness, it has come to our attention that many
of the automatic doors within our facility appear to be opening and closing
intermittently at seemingly random intervals.
Closer investigation has not detected any intrusions by any of the above-mentioned
unauthorized visitors, or tampering of any kind.
As you can imagine, repeatedly checking these doors is a time-intensive and
counter-productive use of team member's duty time.
We are formally requesting maintenance personnel to verify and certify the
functioning of all automatic doors within the facility as the frequent openings
and closings are distracting the security team from performing their designated
patrols with appropriate levels of efficiency.
Regards,
Team Lead,
OpSec Team 42
To: Operational Security Team 42
Cc: Director of Security
The 2012-2013 fiscal budget does not allow us to conduct a complete overhaul of all of the automatic door mechanisms in use at all Syndicate locations. Until budget can be allocated for this maintenance work, we will be sending teams to all locations to identify the most problematic doorways and seal them by temporarily plasma welding them shut. We will indicate that a door has been so sealed by setting the red alarm indicator normally used to indicate that an NBCPH threat has been detected on the far side (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, Primal, Hamidonian). We will post maintenance schedules to provide ample time to relocate personnel and equipment from affected areas.
Heightened patrols should be focused on the remaining doorways regardless of door functioning, due to the fact that maintenance request to apply their temporary maintenance fix to all doorways was rejected by management. -
Quote:About the same amount that Adobe has when Flash or Acrobat have vulnerabilities used in a zero-day exploit that uploads a million people's banking information into the wild, which is something that has happened before several times.Originally Posted by Brillig
This is absolutely true that at the current time, Pando doesn't do anything bad.
However, guess how much liability Pando or NCSoft have if they release a buggy update of PMB that uploads all your banking information to the wild?
Pando appears to have less potential for accidental upload as torrent clients do. Torrent clients are designed to be able to initiate seeding, but Pando is explicitly designed not to do that, because the file node generation process is handled centrally. Most torrent clients have to be able to respond to my request to seed a file and allow it to be uploaded, but Pando doesn't seem to have that capability, so it can't be accidentally triggered either.
That's not to say that Pando is perfectly safe, but then again the City of Heroes game client is not 100% safe either. -
Quote:The why comes mostly from the fact they've been historically screwed, because:Originally Posted by William_Valence
Which is why your goal, from what I can tell, is to get the devs to review the design and intent of Blasters.
Which is not a good archetype combination in general: Damage/SuicideQuote:The thing is, with Blasters it's a design issue. Everything is designed with the ability to deal damage and something else. Blaster's something else just happens to be vulnerability.
But it begs the larger question across all the damage dealers. With five things vying for some form of damage dealing specialty, are there even five different ways to specialize in damage that are meaningful? If there aren't, no amount of shuffling will ever really resolve that issue.
Its important to note this is argument existed prior to City of Villains: in the opposite corner back then were Controllers. The notion was that if Tankers were intended to draw the aggro from the spawn and the Controller was intended to control the spawn's ability to attack, wasn't that mutually exclusive benefits as well? Meanwhile, Controllers still had buff/debuff in their pockets.Quote:With Tankers, its an implementation issue. The design was fine when Brutes and Tanks were segregated, but the crossover didn't properly consider the Brute's abilities compared to Tankers when they are both available in all content. Aggro is a yes or no, that damage isn't. A character has the attention of a critter or not. If something deals comprable damage to a Blaster; then there's a balance issue. However the Blaster still does damage. If the Brute holds aggro, then the tank doesn't. If a brute is demonstrably capable of tanking for a team, filling the exact role, and doing more damage? That's not overlap that's replacement.
The eventual notion was that Controllers and Tankers could share that responsibility, a perspective that hasn't yet evolved between Tankers and Brutes to the same degree.
I think its more that Brutes have issues than Tankers do. Tankers are just one among many victims of the design of Brutes. They damage cap higher than Blasters (even on an adjusted basis), they resistance cap as high as Tankers, they average higher damage and DPE numbers than just about everyone, they have the best low level acceleration (Fury's net benefit is enormous at lower levels). They hit the rails in too many directions simultaneously. They directly conflict with Scrappers, Tankers, and Stalkers, and are directly significant to the archetype balance of Dominators and Blasters. Taking Brutes off the table eliminates a lot of problems in many directions that no amount of effort placed into any of those other archetypes would resolve. Not that I'm advocating the removal of Brutes from the game, but that clearly indicates to me what the central problem in this areas is.Quote:That being said. Tanks have issues, but they are not a real priority. I'd put them at #4 in order of ATs needing attention. -
Quote:Which you are going to, most of the time. The important thing is that once you do, you will tend to hit more often. We tend to ignore accuracy slotting and tohit buffs except in extreme conditions most of the time because most of the time we have enough to hit the tohit ceiling where it no longer matters how much more we have. But at lower levels when slotting is poor, there's a substantial difference between hitting 80% of the time and 90% of the time, say. That's 12.5% more damage. At low levels, that's a significant improvement both in DPS and almost as important DPE.Originally Posted by vernichterhelge
for the defense debuff you have to hit your target
And because it stacks, in effect you tend to get casade effects on the targets: your hit rate keeps going up until you hit the 95% ceiling or it dies.
Once you hit SOs, that advantage mostly vanishes. But it exists, and is noticable, at earlier levels. The -def in the swords is lower than the -def in radiation blast, and they are also quite noticeable at early levels. -
Quote:Five different archetypes are not just anecdotally, but by explicit intent and design intended to fill the role of damage dealer in teams: Scrappers, Blasters, Brutes, Stalkers, and Dominators. If the four melee archetypes are crowded into overlapping roles, and the three generally considered to be capable of tanking are specifically, aren't the five damage dealers likely to be experiencing an even larger version of the same problem?Originally Posted by William_Valence
You can feel the difference when you play, yes, but the ability fill the role just as well and get some extras means there's an issue.
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Quote:The radius of the gauntlet effect is variable, and generally increases with the tier/damage of the attack. You're probably looking at a couple tier 1 attacks.Originally Posted by William_Valence
Also, how many targets can gauntlet actually effect? Looking at City of data it looks like 5 targets in a 3' radius. The radius of a player capsule is 1.5', which takes up space in PBAoEs, is there a similar issue for critters? What determines a hit? (asking, does the radius of the power need to just touch the capsule, or does it require covering a certain percentage of the capsule?)
A target can be hit by an AoE if the radius of the AoE intersects with the target volume. Any intersection will do for the purposes of range or radius. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Dammit. It was a typo! How long is that incident going to be held against me?
Nobody faults the manufacturer of the spellchecker... which, incidentally, I use on all my communications use. Nobody blames the IT department for not responding to my ticket requesting a new keybooard when things started sticking WEEKS before the incident. Heck, what about the boys at the print shop that handled the request for that "Happy Birthday" banner! Shouldn't they have doublechecked the proof?Quote:Originally Posted by Rangle M. Down
Memo to all:
Policy: 72.69-16b; paragraph 142.79y zed.2, is no longer being enforced. From now on those wearing yellow galoshes on rainy days will no longer be shot on sight, nor brought to security for "questioning".
Red Galoshes are still prohibited.Executive memorandumQuote:Originally Posted by Rangle M. Down
Memo to all: There was a typo in yesterday's memo.
Policy: 72.69-16b; paragraph 142.79y zed.2, is still being enforced. However Policy: 72.69-16b; paragraph 142.79y zed.3 is no longer being enforced.From now on those wearing red galoshes on rainy days will no longer be shot on sight, nor brought to security for "questioning". Medical care for those effected by this will still not be covered per clause 67.123564-b in everyone's employment agreement.
We'd like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused during yesterday's stormy weather, but that's prohibited by current HR policy.
Yellow Galoshes are still prohibited.
For general distribution
Internal audit has concluded that typographical errors have been a frequent source of improperly expended ammunition, increased workload for the medical facilities, and Praetorian decolletage-related incidents. As such, typographical errors are now listed as a prohibited activity under the Employee code of conduct, Appendix C. As a reminder, anyone found performing any of the listed activities are subject to disciplinary action described under Appendix D: Table of Human Torsional Limits. -
Quote:That compares the threat generated by Gauntlet to the threat generated by something else with taunt. Given the nature of taunt, its possible for something else to override a taunt-boosted level of hate with their own taunt-boosted hate. But Gauntlet hits multiple targets with single target attacks, while brutes only taunt the target, and not all brutes and scrappers have taunt auras that would factor into that equation. Nothing else tends to taunt. Without taunt, you would have to wait for the taunt to expire or deal enough damage to kill most targets to override it. So as long as the tanker is taunting more actual targets, you can't simply state that a brute has identical aggro generating capacity to a tanker. What you're saying is that a brute can override the taunt of a tanker on targets the brute is taunting. That's not saying the same thing.Originally Posted by Sarrate
I feel really guilty about writing this post. It's a reply to Arcanaville from another thread... but I have no alternative to, at the very least, getting the message to her. My account is premium, so I can't reply in that forum and I can't write PMs. I attempted to write an in game email, but it turns out that the character limit there was way too low for what I was trying to convey (it complained at me to remove ~2100 characters when the entire message was ~2700).
So, yeah, really sorry about this. (I cannot describe how annoying the limited forum access is.)
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I believe the aoe portion of Gauntlet is overrated. All it does is generate an AoE taunt pulse that deals no damage, has a variable radius, and can miss. While this is extra AoE threat a Brute does not have, it is insignificant next to the extra damage output a Brute deals.
Rationale:
Threat = DMG * (TauntDurationRemaining*1000) * ThreatMod * AI Preferences * RangeMod * Debuffs
I'll assume that AI Preferences, RangeMod, and Debuffs will be static, which reduces the fomula to:
Threat = DMG * (TauntDurationRemaining*1000) * ThreatMod
We also know that a taunt effect applied that deals no damage functions as if it did one damage. That further simplifies the equation to:
Threat = (TauntDurationRemaining*1000) * ThreatMod
So a Tanker, with a ThreadMod of 4, would deal 4*TauntDurationRemaining with Gauntlet's aoe. That would be anywhere from 54,000 (13.5*1000*4) to 320,000 (80*1000*4, slotted Taunt) threat per application. If the player attacked once every 1.25 sec, that would be 43,200 to 256,000 threat per second. Over the course of 10 seconds, that would be 432,000 to 2,560,000 threat (note the high end would never be met since TauntDurationRemaining would be decreasing each second).
That sounds like a lot... except that is is the equivalent to dealing 8 extra damage. I'm serious.
Threat = 8 * (13.5*1000) * 4 = 432,000
Threat = 8 * (80*1000) * 4 = 2,560,000
Assuming a modest 60% Fury, that equates to roughly a 51.4% dmg edge over Tankers (no Bruising, aoe is the key here, and Bruising would boost Brute damage equally anyways). That's guaranteed to generate more than 8 damage for this example. Further, Gauntlet is limited by the number of activations performed - more power activations, more Gauntlet threat. Brute's aoe threat is dependent upon their damage, which can be increased far more significantly than activations/sec.
So, yeah.... Gauntlet sucks. I have never, never seen Gauntlet effect my threat. I can never remember it once turning a mob away from a Brute or Scrapper due to it.
[edit: Gauntlet's best case 10s threat generation of 2,560,000 is the equivalent of ~47.4 damage against a target with 13.5s duration (ie: a target the Brute hasn't Taunted).]
As to Gauntlet directing taunt away from a Scrapper, the last time I tested taunt was during discussions about what taunt/gauntlet does to targets that aren't damaged, because I wasn't sure myself. If I set up a situation where a tanker cycles a single target attack on one thing only, and then attack another thing nearby with a scrapper, it generally takes a lot of damage generated to override that aggro, often more than enough to kill the target, unless the Scrapper has a taunt aura. This is true even if the tanker is not using the taunt power itself, and not using a damage or taunt aura. That's just the effects of gauntlet with no damage. It usually seems to work as the equations suggest, which is that in most cases only taunt can override taunt.
Also, in the future you could always shoot a short global or email to me in-game and I could find a way to see what you want to send. -
Quote:Only when they are encased in Arnold Schwarzenegger.Originally Posted by FlashToo
Why restrict it to beam rifle? Does time travel not work on ordinary bullets or arrows?
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Quote:Invisible?
I want pants like hers -
Quote:Pthhthh. Those are easy. CAK and Eagle's Claw, now those would be hard.Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
Complain about weapons all you like, I have at least two characters who would be happier as cats-- but I have no idea what their attacks would look like if they were cats instead of bipedal cat-like beasts.
I'm just trying, and failing, to imagine Energy Transfer or Thunder Strike animating on a cat. -
Quote:As far as I can tell, Pando is neither spyware nor malware in the security sense. The main complaint I've discovered researching the app is that some people have complained about the bandwidth it uses, because the companies that use it do not always explicitly inform its customers how to configure a reduced bandwidth usage limit for it or otherwise shut it down when not in use updating files.Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Search for pando media booster spyware in Google... and this thread is on the first page (I don't have personalized search/history enabled, so it won't be biased towards things like CoH). None of the links I checked gave any sort of evidence that Pando was spyware (I saw some assertions that it was, but it was never in an instance where the person making that claim seemed to have any idea what they were talking about).
Those suggestions are based primarily on how often people search for things... so a lot of people might be seeing it on their control panel, and wonder "wtf is this?", and searching for "<this> spyware" or "<this> malware".
It's looking like to me that there is absolutely zero evidence that Pando does anything malicious. Even crappy evidence. NCSoft should just the first time ask you if you'd like to enable it, probably saying some crap about "speeding up downloads" while mentioning that it will upload data at the same time. -
Quote:Which would be relevant in the context of the statement "Brutes hold aggro against a single target as well as Tankers do." Against the more general statement, its lack of relevance without extremely strong evidence to support it makes the assertion lack foundation, which is the definition of a weak statement.Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
Against a single target, it does nothing.
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Quote:Not to mention being intelligent enough to know when they were being offensive in a way that mainstream society publicly frowns upon.Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
Your jocular attempts at pedantic banter have become tiresome. You ought to have realized by now that we're talking about animals that would be intelligent enough to know what weapons are, how to properly use them and how to train themselves to use them as well as possible.
Withdrawn.Quote:Originally Posted by Leo_G
Perhaps you didn't read the title: PC Animals.
That's 'Player Controlled Animals'. -
Quote:Because it would imply gauntlet does nothing.Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
A scrapper not using confront can steal aggro from a tank not using taunt.
Even using taunt, I've had scrappers steal aggro if I didn't taunt frequently enough. Never in less than the recharge of taunt, but definitely less than the duration.
Brutes will typically do more damage than tanks (as well they should), and they have the same threat modifier and same taunt magnitude in taunt auras and attacks.
I don't see why the assertion is weak. -
Quote:Re: Reminder to Keep All Areas CleanOriginally Posted by Zwillinger
Re: Reminder to Keep All Areas Clean
To: Syndicate All
From: Human Resources
CC: Facilities Maintenance
Team,
It has come to our attention through numerous anonymous complaints, filed by the third floor janitorial staff, that there has been a rapid increase in random debris found throughout the campus. This has proved problematic, as facilities and maintenance is not equipped to dispose of a 1985 Crown Victoria, let alone 3 of them, several rusted out dumpsters, lamps of varying makes and models and what appears to be a replica of something called the "Maltese Falcon". Also, we are not sure where the wireframed, 20 ft. globe came from, however we please ask that you return it to it's point of origin immediately.
Please kindly remember that you share this workspace with everyone around you. Your assistance in keeping our facilities beautiful (and sterile) is much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Human Resources
To: Syndicate All
From: Internal Audit
CC: Operations, Security
An internal investigation has determined that the incidents involving the scattering of random decrepitude correlates to a high degree with reported incidents of security break-ins at Syndicate facilities. Based on the physical evidence available, our behavior analysis division has created a composite profile on the attacker which has led to an identity match in our dossier database. Accordingly, we have placed the following person on our security watch lists:
Anyone detecting this individual within or around Syndicate premises should contact the Security Desk immediately. Do not approach or attempt to apprehend. -
Quote:That's because dog is a ranged set:Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Dogs and melee weapons, to my mind at least, don't really mix
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And here I thought a retroactive weapon was something that you could shoot today and it would kill its target yesterday.
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Quote:The first time we see "Batman" in Batman Begins, he looked like this:Originally Posted by Chrome_Family
I can't get passed this.. he looks totally stupid.
I'm willing to cut Nolan some slack in terms of seeing how it looks when its all put together. -
Quote:The assertion that Brutes hold aggro as well as Tankers is also weak.Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
The highlighted is a false premise, or at the very least, a premise that cites no evidence to support it.
Therefore the conclusion is not supported by the argument being made.
Also, I'd like to note that your third premise is worded in such a way as to bring about a conclusion. That is to say, it uses the "begging the question" logical fallacy. It should be worded "Tankers mitigate damage better than Brutes."
I think it is fair to say that when you have four archetypes with a similar combination of powersets - melee offense and self damage mitigation - you're going to have a significant amount of functionality overlap and archetype collisions. That was a problem when there were only Tankers and Scrappers, much less Brutes and Stalkers. Comparisons are likely to blur the distinctions between them.
To the extent that ideally there should be as much functional distance between those four archetypes, there's every reason to believe that adding features to tankers that distinguish them from brutes would generally be a good thing from a gameplay design perspective. But any argument that attempts to highlight the strengths of one of them (say, Brute damage) while dismissing the strengths of the other (say, Tanker damage mitigation or aggro generation ability) is not going to be convincing. It probably also misses the point to gameplay differentiation in the first place. -
Quote:Is Site 13b in Japan?Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
Site 13b is reporting unusual activity. Given new guidelines, they're wondering if translucent beings of indeterminate gender fall under the "male," "female" or "on fire" guidelines, and where tentacles fit into the guidelines.
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Quote:Radiation's defense debuff can partially compensate for its lower damage, particularly before high accuracy slotting and full attack chains. But I would tend to agree that its single target damage is suspect, and I'm not convinced an extra PBAoE attack compensates for that.Originally Posted by vernichterhelge
I find radblast is underpowered as you two lame lvl 1 blasts that recharge fast but do almost no damage, you aoes are either pb or have a slow travelspeed
If the cast times of neutrino bolt, x-ray beam, and cosmic burst were reduced to 0.83s, 1.0s, and 1.67s then I think radiation's single target damage would be just about where it ought to be. -
Quote:See: Acceptable Workplace Conditions Document section 4 regarding pets in the workplace. Also note that both furry animals and furry people are excluded from static-free laboratory areas.Originally Posted by Dr_MechanoEU
Ok...
The guy just turned into some kind of small Dog (smaller than the Dog he had with him) and scampered down the hall, thankfully the Dog, Bees and Hawk accompanying him left as well, I think he was heading for the lunch room, I'd suggest sending a notice to the guys there with allergies to fur and Bees.
We have had sporadic reports of Syndicate locations being threatened by menageries, however risk management considers these reports to be unconfirmed at the present time. -
Quote:Section 5A limits the number of escorts to six.Originally Posted by UberGuy
By the way, has there actually been a problem getting guards to escort naked or half-naked females who appear on premises?
Addendum 2 banned naked and half naked males when it was discovered there was a lack of personnel at most Syndicate sites who claimed to be qualified for that particular escort duty. -
Quote:Praetor Sinclair is not currently a member of the executive steering committee for the Syndicate and does not set equipment policy for the Syndicate. You may be incorrectly interpreting S-2011-3-92 which states that archery weapons should not be displayed at functions involving Praetor Sinclair after the incident at Site 47 required major changes to our workers compensation insurance policy.Originally Posted by Winterminal
Bill brings up some excellent, and prudent, points.
Further, people clothed in similar garb to the Syndicate have been seen unescorted in the facility as well, yet their weaponry was clearly not used by other Syndicate members. I was under the impression that archery weapons were forbidden by Praetor Sinclair, and energy weapons were forbidden given their association with the Resistance. Is this no longer the case, or should these individuals be stopped and escorted from the premises?