Arcanaville
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Quote:The policy committee is not prepared to answer those questions at this time, although we have taken them into consideration. At the present time we feel that it would be better to provide a more holistic answer to the questions related to threat mitigation. To that end the Syndicate is pleased to announce that a special department to handle enterprise policy and risk management is being formed. We've decided to locate it in the heart of Nova Praetoria and transfer all paper and computer records involving Syndicate operations to that location to allow for better data mining and analysis of all Syndicate operations. By consolidating all our operational improvement efforts into this new department, we feel greater efficiencies will result in an overall better managed operations.Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
We've gone over the policies with our staff, and have a few questions. Given the recent issues, we'd prefer not to make assumptions.
Recently, we've seen a few people encased in ice. Should these be added to the list, or are they part of the fire prevention team undergoing training?
Also, one individual was seen with what appeared to be a rainbow circling them. We'd assumed at the time they were part of one of the manager's retirement parties. Should this assumption not be made?
What about pets? Is one OK? We have seen people coming in with five or more - and given the size of one of the dogs seen at the time, it seemed better to let them through.
Followup to that last one - who do we contact for bee removal?
For the purposes of all future Syndicate communications regarding this department, it has been code-named "The Basket" and all Enterprise General Guideline and Security documents should be forwarded to that location. -
On April 11, 2012, a Syndicate operations center was breached at 1:42am eastern. The extent of the breach is still classified, however an internal audit uncovered key problems at this location which may be symptomatic of a more widespread problem regarding the proper implementation of enterprise security policy at all Syndicate locations. This memorandum is intended to highlight key areas of the security policy which may require refresher training programs to be established.
This image was taken by internal surveillance cameras approximately three minutes prior to the security breach:
It is important to note the following:
1. Food and beverages are not allowed in secure areas. They must be consumed off the premises or in designated break areas.
2. Our security staff is expected to execute and promote the highest levels of professional behavior. Reading the newspaper while on duty is considered a serious distraction and can also be a fire hazard (see below).
3. Per directive S-2010-11-5 security personnel are required to stand or patrol at all times. Section 3C explicitly declares "meditation to locate the enemy on the astral plane" as an invalid exception to the rule.
Security footage from other security events also shows Syndicate members making unauthorized cell phone calls, texting, eating snacks, tossing their weapons in the air and in one case there is evidence that a Syndicate member was disabled while logged into Facebook. These are all not conducive to the primary objective of protecting the integrity and security of the facility and new network AUPs and code of conduct policies will be forthcoming to address these issues specifically.
Until the employee handbook is updated, management would like to stress that a heightened awareness of the threats confronting the organization will do much to mitigate our risk posture. In particular, it should be stressed that the following individuals require special permission to enter any Syndicate facility and must be escorted at all times:
* Naked or half-naked females
* Individuals who appear to be on fire
* Anyone carrying a sword or swords
* The undead
* Persons dressed in more than twelve colors
* Anyone accompanied by two or more robots
As a special reminder, anyone seen killing or disabling Syndicate members on Syndicate controlled sites should be considered a high priority threat. They are not, repeat not from human resources.
Thank you for your attention. -
Quote:1. Mass Hypnosis has 45s recharge, not 90s.Originally Posted by Laevateinn
Mind Control - Lacking in hard and soft control and damage. The 90s aoe mez inflicts sleep rather than the more conventional stun. Both of Mind's TAoE hard controls combined have less uptime than Flashfire; in exchange for this disadvantage you pay twice the power choices, slots and IOs. It doesn't have either an ST or AoE immobilize, so it lacks persistent containment, benefits less from proc/interface damage, and cannot lock AVs in place for Lore pets to chew on. So not only does it have craptacular damage, it can't use many of the best tools that players have to fix craptacular damage.
2. MH definitely has higher uptime than Flashfire.
3. It has a moderate damage cone (Terrify) which is uncommon.
4. A significant amount of the effective damage from the set comes from confuse.
5. Since AV purple triangles usually do not protect against sleep, Mind control can generally set up containment on them by repeatedly applying sleep. And while that's less efficient at setting up containment as immobilize, its far more efficient at damage mitigation than immobilize.
6. Not sure what you mean by "twice the power choices" since I don't know many controllers that take only four primary powers. -
Quote:This appears to be a rather self-contradictory set of observations.Originally Posted by PunkRolex
The other side to that is that almost nothing lives long enough for most control to be useful. On any trial, you can reasonably expect any group that contains minions and LTs to be nuked out of existence long before they get to attack. I think Confusion might be the only widely useful control mechanic outside of the prisoners phase of the BAF, and that's actually because there's still some utility to confusing a boss into nuking an otherwise un-aggroed group before the wall of Judgments hits it.
Defenders also sort of lose their place in the high level game. At some point, the extra value from defender heals or debuffs just isn't as interesting to anybody as the fact that there are (de)buffs to be had, and at least Controllers have controls and containment and at least Corrupters have Scourge to use on hard targets. Whenever I play on a level 50 Defender I find myself wishing I had rolled a Controller or Corrupter instead. When I'm on a Controller or Corrupter I never find myself thinking that I wish I had 10% better buffs. -
Quote:Anyone with Spiderman's danger sense could practically stroll out of the path of a bullet fired from a mile away. Even supersonic sniper bullets take about two seconds to traverse a mile of distance. Stephen Hawking could dodge that.Originally Posted by BrandX
I'd say Spidey could dodge it for sure.
You can't *hear* the bullet or the initial firing of the bullet before a supersonic bullet arrives, but anything with actual warning as the shot is fired would have lots of time to get out of the path of an extreme range sniper bullet. -
This is what my MA/SR looks like with Attuned (non-catalyzed) ATIOs:
Code:The build you post is a perfectly good build, and it has slightly higher defenses than mine, but if you want to steal ideas from mine, mine has higher net recovery, significantly higher regeneration, and somewhat higher resistances. I also slot Winter's Gift which gives me 60% total resistance to recharge and run speed debuffs when stacked with quickness. I also didn't have to resort to things like full sets of Makos or Maneuvers because I slot the Gladiator +3% defense proc which used to be really expensive, and now with converters they are relatively speaking quite cheap on the markets. They don't cost much more than the Hecatombs do now. Worth thinking about.| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1529;704;1408;HEX;| |78DA65936B4F1A41148667D9451445A15E5011C13B1759A197A4696D9B56ABD18A4| |551BF3574855137D902014C34E9CDBFD026DAA4EDB7D6B65FFACF7AF905A5C73DAF| |48C226E49979CF758633E9A3C5AE9FCB270F84D2BD6019D56A2E9BAF18E5B2ACB8D| |68DDA61C5B0047D9E1DB364C95A78F3F0C5AE255DA4042EDD72696949A9A78D4ACD| |34ACDCC34AAD1A6AD816E59E2C56A59E3DBCD86DCA3D4B1EC9AA6FA578202BB258D| |32F175D9952C9D2D7A451368BFB1E7BB364EE1FD41ABBB42C9879B328DDF62E5B96| |B2E07B5C36F3FAA352E1389736AA3559391EA4BEA2F43BBD68D0FEEA9A98760891D| |2842302C6985A148C33D317310A6296545B6B5B657A9799032BCCC127CC33174228| |46792E38A6C06CDF05F34CB764AE538CCA75541575DCC83F88FCC3A8FB817C9D9CD| |FE9FCC27D767D05CF99DDDFC0EF4CEF0FE6538A75711D87CB418B194D4CD685CDE9| |7FCC0CF974707ED111E7FE0648EBE438A5F3164153C568BF62DB14B279E0EF9967D| |B06693DA8D3D3CE75A63510711FC9C78773F85EF2D9AEBD025F33FBDE806F71D727| |4C95627B715FBD03B4086A2236C7B6981FFBEBBCDF24DF7EF615FD093E8F469A1FF| |17EF435ECE5BE46DA783F823E3F91EF10FECFA1BB7C8FA3B7C13BCCB179E6E43D66| |966202387FA08FF34C22DF0CEAF8C927887B0B06B8D7CFA485502B84D9096366C29| |8993066690CB3B34531E338CB38724FF482A83D81DA41F29DE2FCCAD436FAC93243| |648BB04D8DC0361BE01AB35BD8C3374BEDC6D17B1C33B24D9A8E787D8EEF614E079| |3E02CF39C0626899E93A89542EED40678C6BE235AE3DD0A81F95A6BD6F09F66B4C6| |BB130A7A0A698DF75BCFB86D6F7BFDAC696D34AD779BD61D5E7A9358FF225DC10C2| |9A8F7BB598BB0F6E74A732A2B3C47519C2B8A7326EEF37C2656D99ED861FDEF55AC| |AA9C62AE700733EF99D177CC64F3F9EBF489588B926A516EB628375A94FF57CFDB4| |7| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
Net recovery in particular might become increasingly important, given the fact that at the moment the Hybrid incarnate slot is planned to be an endurance burning toggle, if you intend to incarnate-out the build eventually.
Here's something that is numerically pretty unambiguous. Compare your slotting of Stamina to mine. You use three performance shifters and an endurance IO, while I use four shifters - the three you use including the proc, and End/Acc from shifter. You end up with Stamina slotted to 96.7% recovery, and mine gets to 91.78% recovery. However, mine gets an additional set bonus of +2.5% recovery. That's 2.5% more *base* recovery. Your slotting gets about 5% more of stamina's boost. Stamina buffs recovery by 25%, and 5% more slotting equals +1.25% net recovery. The set bonus is better than the higher recovery slotting in Stamina.
Either way, the difference is small (0.02 eps), but its something to watch for when comparing slotting options. -
Quote:The math says nothing about what your specific experience will be with Blasters, or what your perception of that experience will be.Originally Posted by Issen
Sorry, I was speaking of Blasters when I said 'me', since I'm referring to my experience with Blasters. My apologies.
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Quote:Some tier 3 powers trade high DPA for low range. Blaze, for example, has huge DPA even if you ignore the DoT: 2.12 scale damage with a cast time of 1.0. With Arcanatime factored in, that's a DPA of 1.78 DS/sec. Most Blaster tier 1 and tier 2 attacks have something closer to 0.9 DS/sec: a 1.0 scale damage attack with 1.0 cast time has an arcanatime-adjusted DPA of 0.84 DS/sec and a 1.64 damage 1.67s cast time attack has a similarly adjusted 0.89 DS/sec. Blaze has twice the DPA of the average blaster attack.Originally Posted by Gorgar
Why? I haven't analyzed the numbers on it, but on my main, I use it whenever it's up and there's something in range of it, which is fairly often with all the extra range that character has.
Having tried VS, it's a neat idea and all, but in practice I tend to find it not that useful to me. If I'm already in the fight, I'm busy draining mobs. If not, I can summon it, but it will take a while to catch up to me, and half the duration on it goes to waste. At least, that's how I remember it; I don't play the elec/elec very often.
But Power Burst's cast time is 2.0 seconds. Its adjusted DPA is only 0.94 DS/sec, only marginally higher than normal tier 1/2 attacks. That very small increase in DPA is not a good trade for halving the range of the attack.
Energy Torrent's DPA is 0.73, and its a cone with the same range as Power Burst. It also has the same chance for knockback as burst does, per target. For Energy Torrent to do better than Power Burst requires ET hitting on average 1.3 targets or more, which is hard to avoid doing even on purpose for a solo player on x1 difficulty.
To beat Blaze even without Blaze's DoT, torrent would have to average hitting more than 2.4 targets per cast, which is at least something that can legitimately fail to happen in soloing circumstances.
I would take it if I had the free power choices and the slots to devote to it, but it was an easy power to ditch when making build choices. An energy-equivalent pet like the Voltaic Sentinel would be something I might think about more. Especially because in a high recharge build with a full attack chain anything the sentinel does is effectively free damage. Incorporating burst into an already full energy chain might add a few percent damage: I think the sentinel can beat a couple of percent.
If nothing else, it would add options for set mules. -
Quote:It does not say that. It says Blasters underperform comparatively.Originally Posted by Issen
But I feel there's a serious disconnect. The math tells me that I underperform comparatively.
If I were to hypothetically say women on average make only eighty cents for every dollar men make at the same jobs, that doesn't mean all women are poor. It means there's a statistical skew there that probably shouldn't be there. Individual experiences can vary wildly, which is why its so important to look at very large numbers of people when trying to determine if the playing field is actually level.
Observing the experiences of one man and one woman in the workplace can't tell you if there is a problem or not. But it might give you insight into where the problems might be, if you can otherwise prove there is a problem. -
Quote:Well, given #3, #2 seems like its actually a good thing. #1 is more of a technical trivia issue: I doubt you'd be any happier if it was somehow compiled into the launcher.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
What I am objecting to:
- The program as it does run outside of the launcher.
- That my ISP does monitor P2P traffic (and actually throttles it).
- That I get billed for overages beyond my Internet service plan.
- That some manager at NCsoft will likely impose this garbage on me, despite the fact that I'm already a paying customer.
Also, the software appears to have its own rate limiter built into it. You can set that from the control panel and limit its maximum bandwidth to something low if bandwidth usage is an issue. -
Quote:Actually, I think he was deliberately echoing this discussion. His answer, boiled down, is basically of course Buffy would win in an actual fight, but Black Widow would have known that and probably try to kill Buffy in some other way. That doesn't mean that other way would necessarily work, though.Originally Posted by Aneko
He did open this can of worms by bringing in the poisoned salad, though.
Its important to note as well that Whedon resolved the fight in a way that kept both combatants alive. If Black Widow is an assassin, she's willing to kill. Buffy is normally not willing to kill humans. So the only likely way they both end up alive is if Buffy ultimately wins the fight, barely. -
Quote:Also, the question was "in a fight between Buffy and Black Widow, who do you think would win?" The question is premised on the assumption there was an actual physical fight. The question was not "who has the best chance of assassinating the other between Buffy and Black Widow?" Whedon's answer was obviously playful, but its also a completely reasonable assumption that Buffy would win an actual fight against a non-supernaturally powerful foe most of the time.Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Buffy's just would just pop up behind Widow as she's peering through the scope and quip something Buffyish. As for not hearing a sniper shot, she has better danger sense than Spiderman.
The way Whedon envisioned the fight, Buffy had the huge physical advantage, able to overcome any situational tactical advantage Black Widow might attempt to gain. Black Widow had more of the killer instinct, and would have sought to terminate Buffy when she wasn't on her guard. But what finally undoes Widow is that she's unfamiliar with the supernatural physique of Buffy, and gets unlucky with that. -
Quote:No, but Pando was pretty blatantly highlighted by the NCSoft installer: it wasn't stealth installed. And it only seems to run with the installer when updating applications by default unless you give it permission to run at boot time, so it doesn't seem to be running stealthily at the moment either.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
It isn't incoming traffic that I'm worried about. Additionally the problem is between my cable modem and the NAT. As far as I know, my traffic limits my ISP is monitoring goes in both directions, and by the time it gets to my router, it already counts as "usage".
Is it wrong not to want to know what is running on my computer and what those programs are up to?
If you want to actually see what's using network bandwidth on your system at any particular moment, one thing I happen to run on my system is Netlimiter. There are others, but I just happen to own the commercial version. The free version shows all running processes and the net bytes transferred and bandwidth being used by all of them. I think the free version can also set rate limits per process. -
Quote:When I tested it, by default it did not seem to do that. It can be configured to do that, but on my system that option was off by default. It ran only when I attempted an update on Aion on my system.Originally Posted by Snow Globe
Worse, the NCsoft installer doesn't turn off said program when not in use. Instead it allows the P2P client start up with the OS loading.
Also, the notion of an "incoming port" is not quite so problematic if you happen to be behind a firewall or filtering internet router with NAT. That just won't work at all unless you actually configure your firewall for the proper port mapping. Which gosh darn it no one sent me any instructions for. -
Quote:Why would you assume Buffy would be stupid enough to give a sniper any chance at a long-range shot?Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Why do you assume Widow is going to be stupid enough to engage in hand-to-hand with someone who's demonstrating superhuman strength and speed by fighting things with superhuman strength and speed?
A few weeks of patience and one bullet. That's all that's required. -
Quote:That depends on which one. I would trade Power Burst for Voltaic Sentinel.Originally Posted by Laevateinn
It isn't; it isn't.
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Quote:Could have be worse: someone could have combined your numbers with THB's and mine.Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
Oh for @#$% sake. Will fix.
First person to recognize the relevance of this wins a no-prize. -
Quote:To Serve ManOriginally Posted by Schismatrix
Turns out that it's a misspelling of Saucery. The Battalion are a cuisine-based species of chefs and we'll need to learn how to use Saucery powers to nullify and subvert their abilities in addition to making our own powers spicier and more delicious to use.
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Quote:Probably too subtle.Originally Posted by Schismatrix
And so it was.
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Quote:Kewl.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Arcana, the answer to a question nobody asked
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Quote:About the basic properties of new powersets? Not since Issue 10.Originally Posted by Energizing_Ion
Meh, no one/nothing is fool-proof. You've been wrong before and so have I.
As in: when Iakona left. -
Quote:By your definition no one does, but I've been posting about Tankers since before you probably heard about the game. I care a lot more about the Tankers we actually have than you do; you only care about remaking Tankers in your image. You don't, by your own admission, care about anyone who thinks of Tankers as defensive aggro control specialists. Everyone who cares or has ever cared about Tankers in this game is, as you put it, part of the problem.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
You also wrongly assume that Arcana gives a damn about Tankers or my efforts beyond self-amusement.
I'd rather be in their company. -
Quote:That sounds like you're saying the City of Heroes world no longer supports invention: that anything anyone is doing lots of people should be doing, because everything that can be discovered already has been multiple times.Originally Posted by Neuronia
I don't mind the idea of Dream Doctor as a whole, I just dislike the whole hand-waving aspect that surrounds him.
If you are going to talk about "Dreamspace", then a good parallel is H.P. Lovecraft's "Dreamlands" and its associated access to it in the Call of Cthulhhu role-playing game. In that aspect, you were able to go to the Moon and other areas of the Dreamlands through drug use, magical spells and so on...but it wasn't really limited to one person doing so. The problem with dream or astral travel or planar travel is that...other beings clue on it and exploit it. Again, if Dream Doctor is going into Dreamspace, it begs the question as to why others are not doing so. Where are the Illithids of this game? Or the Gugs and Ghasts? Or the Freddie Kruegers? If Dream Doctor is the only one that can do this...that's veering dangerously close to making him a deity or a Well in and of his own right.
We are never given a sufficient explanation of the whole Dreamwalking thing. Even Michael Moorcock, when he explored this in The Fortress of the Pearl, allowed for dreams to be tied to foci and the main protagonist could be kidnapped or killed for her abilities. It's fairly lazy for the devs to use hand-waving this late in the game when event the Circle of Thorns and Mu have SOME explanation to their motives and origins.
Maybe he's not the only one that traverses Dreamspace. Maybe he's just the only one we know of so far. Maybe he's just the best one. Maybe he's the *last* one, and something bad happened to the others. There's no specific reason why its even a good thing to force the devs to reveal that entire backstory instantly. -
Quote:That's because you aren't thinking far enough ahead. What do you suppose the developers do when the signal to noise ratio drops far enough? Sleep less and try to read everything posted? Or be more selective about what they read?Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
While I obviously don't expect the developers to listen or even read what feedback I have, I can't really say I'm sad the same small group of people are no longer dominating the direction of feedback.
And do you think what they read is chosen by lottery?
Closed betas were not just the same people constantly. They included a significant number of people chosen somewhat randomly (with some selection criteria) to represent the playerbase. Those people had an opportunity to have their voices and feedback heard in an environment where they actually could be heard. In open betas, those same people's voices were about fifty times less likely to be noticed.
The people who are always heard will always be heard. Do you think there's any difference between a closed beta and an open beta in terms of me getting my point across? But in closed betas, the people who normally *aren't* heard can be represented. They don't have to fight for mindshare or attention. At any other time they are operating under enormous disadvantages, but in a closed beta they are automatically a high-value voice, being one of the few.
Closed betas were ironically some of the best opportunities for the masses to be heard as individuals, if they chose to be.
Which is not to say that in any group of people, there aren't going to be ***-hats.Quote:As a person who has never been invited to a closed beta, it certainly felt like an entitlement mentality to me when some closed beta testers took to the "normal" boards to tell the rest of us not to bother commenting because it was already discussed in closed beta and a decision was made. There are some players whose opinion I generally respect, but "entitlement" is definitely the word that comes to mind when I have to characterize my interactions with several closed beta testers that I, the paid customer who didn't get to voice an opinion, was forced to deal with. -
Quote:Actually, experiments show that stacking debuffs and defensive cascade failure tend to occur very early in fights above a certain scale, because critter AI tends to deploy such effects early, which then tends to escalate them on a timescale short enough for them to be considered effectively frontloaded most of the time.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
What if the damage rate increases as the fight goes on, like from say cascade failure and other stacking debuffs.
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Things aren't as cut and dry in practice as they are looking at numbers.
Which is why I mentioned the part about melee farming. Its one practical example of the principle in action, but certainly not the only one. The only reason I haven't written this theory up as a separate article quite yet is because I'm still conducting experiments on it to fully characterize it.
Also, I'm quite certain that over large enough cross sections of experience, the actual game supports the quantitative analysis. Its not like I'm lacking in the former just because I happen to be able to add without using my toes.
Damage equals mitigation is one of the few remaining myths that goes back a very long way, and is generally accepted even though there are obvious problems with the theory, like the fact that high damage rarely actually makes things more survivable. Its actually the case where the theory itself is a case of numbers trumping experience. Most players seem to see that higher damage doesn't automatically make them more survivable outside of alpha strike burst damage, but the numerical argument seems so compelling they just assume the effect is difficult to see.
Its actually the reverse that's true: its difficult to see because its almost not there, and the numerical argument supporting it is flawed. Because things are not as cut and dried in practice as they are when looking at numbers, especially when you're looking at them wrong. The critical error is that the amount of damage you take is not directly relevant to survival, what is directly relevant is the damage *rate* you take, which is a function of damage taken and the duration of the fight. Increasing offense decreases both, so it should not be presumed to be true that survivability always goes up.