Ashlocke

I see the Devs decided to implement my idea for fixing the sound loop crash bug....

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This is my last outcry.

I won't likely post about this anymore as I am just sick and tired of these jerks. I no longer bother with using /ignore_spammer, I no longer bother filling out a petition, In short, I just no longer bother...

I just no longer want to take 10 minutes every time I log in each character to basically what amounts to "sweep for spyware" every time I want to play one of my characters. I've had it.

This may give the Devs a false sense that the problem is lessening, I want to emphatically say, IT IS NOT.

But, as I said, I am just so sick of this crap that I just dont give a rat's you-know-what. about this. They will either fix this problem before I leave, or after. They just need to decide how many people they are going to let get pissed off enough to quit before something is actually done about it.

That is my take on this, and like I said, I just don't care anymore.

Yours truly, a disgruntled and fed up player/paying customer.

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... but I would indeed like my characters' privacy to remain intact.


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If you do not wish to have your character information available in the future, please make use of the above described settings. This is why we are giving advance notification.

Please keep in mind that these settings are on a per-character basis. Also, know that characters who haven't logged in for over 90 days, such as an alt you haven't played in a while, will not be included.

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I just want to make a short comment on this.

Why can't the DEFAULT setting be set to private?

This way folks who would like to make their character info available can enable the web settings to their liking.

Why must the DEFAULT setting be to display your info?

I find that folks, especially new players, are overwhelmed with game settings etc, and to have their info posted without their approval simply because of being overwhelmed with the game's learning curve seems a tad much.

Also, even for those more experienced players, sometimes you make a new character and simply FORGET to toggle some settings on or off. I often spend weeks after creating a new character tweaking settings that I often forget to set when I first enter outbreak becuase I have so many QoL preferences that I change to make the game more enjoyable for me.

I would hate to think that now I have to constantly think about wether my info is set private or not on my many alts. I would rather just be content knowing that everything is private unless I make an active conscious choice to make it public.

This reminds me of the ruckus that the recipe drop caused back when everyone in the team would get notified of who recieved what recipe/salvage drop. That was changed back then because people wanted their privacy, I see this as a similar issue.

I would like to see the following for bases in the future:
[*] A Wentworth/Black market extention in base.
I.E. like having a home shopping network. This would aleviate lag for some, and the power spamming that disturbs some people because now they don't have to stand there and be subjected to it. QoL Item.
[*] Individual settings for storage items, by rank AND by specific player names.
[*] Allow placement of personal storage lockers similar to those at Wentworth/Black market.
Make sure it has a small storage capacity so as not to allow hording. Allow it to be expanded by the player through the use of prestige earned and/or invention system such as salvage and recipes.
Example: personal locker placed for John Doe starts with 3 slots. Can be upgraded to a total of say 8-10 slots.
[*] Create a way for SG members to transfer *any* item to other SG members.
Ideally, this would be something like a transfer station. Think of a storage item that works like Wentworth/Black Market slots, but only has 5 slots. It can't be used to hoarde items because it can't hold very much at all, but it's perfect for passing an item to a fellow SG mate.
Example: You get a recipe and ask in SG channel if anyone wants XYZ recipe, SG mate that is currently on a Task Force says they want it. He's in the middle of a Task Force and you need to log off, so you say, "ok I'll drop this off in the transfer station, pick it up after your Task Force is done in a couple of hours." This will also help reduce the need to pester friends to help you move one item from one alt to another. (providing both alts are in the same SG of course)
[*] Lasty and MOST IMPORTANT: Please create incentives for people to partake in the development of their Supergroup's Base.
(read: please give some reward/s for contributing prestige towards their Supergroup community) Currently, and I believe mostly due to the invention system, earning prestige carries with it a negative effect. People want to join a Super Group that has all the "cool toys" but they don't want to lift a finger to help earn prestige because they would rather (and rightly so) be earning influence for two reasons. One: there is an influence badge, and two: the invention system requires tons of influence.

And on a personal note, as a Super Group leader of an old SG with mostly old time veteran players above lv 35, I would feel like a complete jerk if I asked members to play in SG mode. So I never do. This should be about having fun and while doing just that, also contributing to your Super Group's community, and anything that works against that, to me, just seems counter productive and wrong. On one hand a person can earn prestige that doesn't "benefit" them (it's a matter of perception) or they can earn influence which has an immediate and perceptual benefit to them.

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I don't understand why there isn't a way to block tells as well as global and local messages.

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/ignore <name> blocks tells from the named character.

/gignore <@handle> Ignores a player. IIRC, it should ignore all server chat too, I think.

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/hide also works, not a permanent solution, but it works.

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I keep seeing this advice alot, and I wanted to comment on it.

/Ignore works, but only for a little while, that is, until said spammer gets banned and creates a new account and starts spamming you with a different name.

/Gignore = Don't even bother with this. Why? Because /gignore only blocks tells from GLOBAL tells from people sending you tells using the following command: (/t @Yourglobalname, message).
My point: These spammers don't send global tells, they seem to have a solicitation bind that starts like this: (/bind <key> /t $target, spamspamspam) which they open a /search window and go down the list clicking on each name and hitting their bind.

You could /gignore them all day long and it wont stop their spam tells. regular /ignore will only stop it for a little while. And folks suggesting that using /hide is a good temporary solution, well, I'm not on board with that, because when I'm on LFT for an hour, I sort of *HAVE* to be unhidden for LFT to work. Also I don't want to be hidden from my friends, and no, not all of them are on my global friend list. I actually use both lists differently and I like it that way.

Anyhow, I just hope the Devs impliment some sort of solution to this sometime soon, these wacky spammers are getting out of hand. I have actually stopped logging in alot lately simply because when I get home and feel like relaxing while pounding on some villains, the last thing I want is to be subjected to these spam tells.

Peace.

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Just remove the ability for TRIAL ACCOUNTS to send tells.

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Not even WoW is that stupid. It would totally alienate ANYONE trying the game.

They ban you from Broadcast or Trade, and you can't trade/use mail/use the auction house, and there is a limit on how many tells you can send in a given period, but they don't outright stop tells.

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Yes, banning tells is a tad overkill, but it's a quick and dirty fix until something better comes along, how about this: Remove the ability for trial accounts to use the /search window (I think thats how they are spamming us, creating a solicitation bind, and just going down the search window list clicking on each name). We didnt have the search window in this game for a long time when the game released, and we played just fine without it, trial accounts can too.

Am I missing something? Or has no one yet bothered to impliment the easiest solution to this problem?

Just remove the ability for TRIAL ACCOUNTS to send tells.

Sure, it might be a tad annoying for a legitimate newcomer, but it's a small price to pay.
You can go one step further if the RMT traders start spamming the global channels like Help and Arena (but really, who doesn't already have Arena off all of their chat tabs anyway ) and disallow tells sent to those channels as well.

It is more than possible to play the game without those two channels, since, hey, I did that for years when the game came out, those channels didn't exist back then.

I just wanted to poke my head in here and offer up a suggestion or two after having run several STFs recently (none of which were a success but meh).

Please consider allowing Kheldians the ability to use the the Temp power gotten from defeating the AV Tree.

I ran the STF the last time without a tank, so being that I am heavily slotted in Dwarf form, I volunteered to be the tank. Which to my amazement went alot better than I was expecting, we ran through each mission at a decent clip, and our support team mates were excellent and helped to further beef up my meat shield abilities to keep me alive to fight the good fight.

Then comes the Aeon mission. All hell breaks out because I can't use the temp power while in dwarf form. So, the moment I swap to human form Aeon's agro goes everywhere and team wipe after wipe.

Now, you might think, well, just have someone else grab the temp power.
And I would agree with you, had I known at that time that it wouldn't work for me I wouldn't have grabbed it. But please consider the logic on why *I* was the one that grabbed it to begin with.
My job was to taunt the heck out of everything, and in dwarf form I had few attacks, and those few attacks do a token amount of damage anyway. So I was a glorified meatshield.

Everyone else's time was better served using their powers instead of stopping to activate the temp power. So that left me, since I had plenty of time during my limited attack cycles to toss in a use of the temp power. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Nice, sound logic...

Anyhow, please consider allowing this temp power to be used in Kheldian forms just like accolades are usable in kheldian forms. If not, then at least when I9 goes live it won't be due to an oversight like I'm really hoping it is, but rather working as designed. Either way, at least now you guys know, DO NOT LET KHELDIANS GRAB THE TEMP POWER ! hehe.

We finally did manage to beat him, through dumb luck and fast timing I was able to swap forms, use the temp power, and dwarf back up, but it seemed like an unfun and unnecessary situation to have been stuck with.

The other issue we had was at the last mission, our team managed to work our way through all of the previous missions. Then our blaster using precision sniping skills, managed to pull Mako solo. We thought, GREAT, we only have to deal with one AV !

........45 minutes later, we all decided to quit the TF and call it a loss.

We had absolutely no way to hurt him. We were a good team, competant players, we just couldn't hit him enough or hurt him fast enough before his super defense cycled and he regained his full health. He couldn't kill us either, so basically it was a draw. We felt frustrated because there was litterally nothing that we could do, no changing of tactics, no insps, no power, nothing that we had at our disposal would have allowed us to beat him. We would have needed more yellows than our insp trays could hold to have been able to maintain a high enough accuracy for a long enough time in order to have beaten him.

So I'm really hoping that the STF doesn't become like the LRSF where you *have* to have the right formula of ATs/Power sets/specific powers, in order to get onto an STF team that has an actual chance of succeeding. I was sort of hoping that the lesson that the Devs learned about the LRSF was that folks wanted any "decent" team to at least have a chance at winning, without excluding any AT/Power Sets as a liability.

Heck, I was thrilled that we got as far as we did without an actual tanker !
I have nothing but Kudos for the Devs so far, just saying, I think some tweeks might be in order.

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Along this line... What can you tell us about the various +Stealth IOs from the Travel Sets?

Specifically, can they be slotted in passive powers? If so, how is this going to interact with NPC hostages and such that won't interact with a stealthed character?

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Currently:
<ul type="square">[*]They can be slotted into passive movement powers.[*]You can have one of each type on your character for some massive bonuses.[*]Escort NPCs will not follow you if these are slotted on your characters.[/list]
Now, before the uproar starts, I have to say that unless we find a satisfactory solution for the last item on the list, these IO's have a high probability of being cut before reaching the live servers. Even if that problem is solved, it is still unlikely that you will be able to slot all 4 versions in a single character -- either that, or the stealth aspect will be reduced greatly.

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There is a single, very simple solution to this issue, which also preserves some of the benefits of Hide for Stalkers (and "old fashioned" Stealth, for others).

Give Escort NPCs a whole bucketful of +Perception ...!

As for the RP side, simple - maybe a stealthy hero keeps saying *psst* ... over here! ... or your villain just casually clubs the poor sap over the head and CARRIES them out. Whatever works for each player.

But again, let me restate: just give the Escort NPCs a high +Perception value.

...

To add a twist, maybe unwilling Escort-NPCs actually radiate that +perception, revealing the stealthy character's location to their enemies!

((CC via PM))

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The interesting thing here is that since NPCs demonstrate the incanny ability to be able to see through geometry at times, imagine your surprise when the escort hostage you just freed latches onto not you, but a mob several rooms away, or even on another floor.

You then have to pretty much kill all the mobs on the map, and by doing that, why did you need to stealth in the first place?

I only have one comment.

I participate in a raid.
There are 50 players in said raid.
Everyone is having alot of fun.
Then at some point I get Mapserved. (cuz you know, mapserver happens)
...
I start Verifying files...
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Someone else heading to the Hive suddenly enters the hive.
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Still verifying files...
...
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I log in.
...
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I can't re-enter the Hive to my raid.
...
...
Now I'm pissed.

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Try the same exact thing with Stealth instead, the results should be identical. Why? Because the power hasn't been changed.

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In response to this thread I had noticed something unusual since I8 went live which might account for what you might percieve is a change to stealth powers.

I have been playing this game for a LONG time and after a while you just get a "feel" for certain things. I was running a safeguard mission with a friend and I had immediatly noticed that mobs were noticing me from much further away than I'm used to being noticed from.

Keep in mind that I DO NOT have stealth or invisibility or any sort of power like that. I was just a normal plainly visible blaster who has a good feel for the distance at which mobs can detect and agro on me.

If mobs had gotten an increase in their perception/agro range, this could account for why you are being spotted while under stealth/cloaking device at a further distance.

This increase might or might not be a planned change, as I saw no mention of changes like this in the patch notes, but I am not sure such changes would even be put into the patch notes even if they were planned. Perhaps their increase is a bug, who knows, but I am confident in my experience of the game to know that I was being spotted and attacked from a much further distance than ever before.

The specific group that I noticed this happening with were the Malta that were on the streets in the Perigrine map safeguard mission.

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The solution is simple. Personal player housing through SG bases.


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Great minds think alike. Posi and I have been talking about this for awhile.

Here's the not so simple bit: the tech. But it's an interesting idea that we're wrangling at the moment.

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This thread struck a cord with me as I perused it because I and a couple of SG mates were talking about this very thing recently, and I even posted some of my thoughts on this on our SG forums which go into more detail so I will just do a quick copy/paste from there and you can read it for yourself.

Relevant snippet of my original post:

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. . . However, I do agree that bases currently are not what people completely like, but not for the reason's he gave.

I also agree that SG members as a whole don't contribute much to the base other than the prestige in which to build it. And it's true that bases are primarily designed by one or two individual members of that SG.

But that's not the entire Super Group's fault, it is the way it is BECAUSE that's how bases were designed !!!

It would be utter chaos if every member had full ability to use the editor as well as what goes along with that is full access to being able to spend every penny of prestige saved on what might be silly whims.

The fact that their base design is limited to few trusted SG members is because of HOW the base design currently works. It is the least of all evils to choose from given the circumstances.

Me personally, I would LOVE if every member contributed equally in how the base evolves throughout the Super Group's life. But the base isnt designed to work that way. Ideally, I would have had bases be ***LESS*** customizable (yes, you read that correctly), but, shifted all that man power used to make it so customizable, instead to have a system that as each member in SG mode completed in game tasks, such as Story Arcs, Task Forces, Trials, etc, the base gained items, equipment, and attributes.

In this way you would build a basic base to start with, and through the course of playing in SG mode, your base would gain in function based on what members ACTUALLY DID in game play, as opposed to mindlessly farming prestige so that the one base designer got to actually dictate how the base looked.

I'd rather see a system where if the SG fights alot of Nemesis, then the base would start to show alot of nemesis functionality slowly creeping in, or CoT, or Malta, etc. Each faction would have their own distinct types of base features that certain SGs might want to get their hands on, thus this gives SGs incentive to fight certain enemies they would normally avoid, such as Malta and Carnies.

So, you want your base to be high tech, well then, that stuff doesn't fall from the sky, your SG needs to go out there and procure all that crap in order to build yourselves a high tech base !!

Fighting CoT isn't going to net you that photonic discombobulator zapotron that you want to build in your laboratory. Your SG needs to fight factions like Crey, Malta, Sky Raiders, etc. Once you've earned enough Tech Points, you can build a tech room. The way I see it, they need to do away with prestige altogether, instead you earn three types of base resources, Tech, Arcane, and generic. Each room you build requires the expenditure of one of said resources for EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING. That goes for the lamp you use, the decor items, even the freakin floor, walls, and ceiling.

As for allowing SG members to participate in SG building, I feel that like any large construction, if everyone was an architect, and no one was a builder, nothing would get done. That's just the simple bottom line to that.

But, having said that, I would like to see something like the following implimented which would give everyone a greater sense of base ownership than currently exists: I would like to see the Devs add a room type to the list of buildable rooms called "Living Quarters". Now, rather than trying to build a base that PHYSICALLY has up to 75 personal rooms (one for each SG member), I propose this room's basic function is simply to provide the base with a "doorway" into an instanced room.

Basically it would function like this: You enter your SG base, and immediately you are in the Portal Room of the main base where you first appear. Then you make your way to the "Living Quarters" room. Once you get there, you see a room decorated in whatever style the base designer came up with, since this room is part of the main base proper. But in this room is a FUNCTIONAL DOOR of some sort. It can be anything from a clickable elevator, to a clickable stairway, to a clickable manhole, or even a clickable hidden bookcase entrance, etc. The types of "clickable doors" are irrelavent and the Devs can create as many as they like for us to use in the base editor. The point is, that there is a clickable door inside this room for each member to use.

Once you click that door, you are then ZONED INTO your own personal quarters. Much how the Xmen mansion is HUGE and the majority of their mansion would be considered the "Main SG Base" but then off to one side you have individual private rooms that are pretty much off limits to everyone except for the person who's room it is.

So, you automatically appear inside your own personal quarters, and now a base editor window pops up just like if you were the base editor of a regular SG base. In essence, it is a mini-base within the main base. Your personal room can only be entered by you, and anyone on your team provided you are the leader of the team (just like how regular base access works).

Now, one last thing needs to be added to the base permissions screen for this to work properly. A new item needs to be created that allows the SG leaders to designate a MAXIMUM PERCENTAGE of resources allocated towards these personal rooms.

What does this mean? Simply put, the SG leaders set a percentage value that the individual SG members can have access to when editing their personal room. For example, say the leaders decide that 10% SG resources are allocated towards personal rooms, then that means that each member can spend up to 10% (divided by the number of members in the roster, so that each has an equal share) of the total value of the SG in designing their room. This means that the more TOTAL resources a Super Group has, the more resources each member has at their disposal for their room. Having the ability to set this cap (in our example it was set to 10%), guarantees the SG as a whole won't suddenly go bankrupt because one member went nuts with the base editor. The worst case scenareo that every single member goes nuts and spends their entire allotment means at most the SG will be down 10% of their total SG resources.

So, seen from this perspective, people will want to have more resources in order to add more stuff to their rooms, and the more resources they earn towards outfitting their rooms, the more they are earning for the SG as a whole. It's more of a win-win situation than we currently have now, it gives members more incentive to band together and help make the Super Group and the SG base better in the long run. Because they are doing it for a self serving need, but the side effects also help the SG as a whole.
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Now to add something more on this, It occured to me that this sort of leaves crafting on the worktables still largely unusable by SG members. So I think folks would LOVE to be able to personalize their rooms with cosmetic objects created relatively cheaply on the various crafting tables, especially since the items won't actually *DO* anything other than look good. Or, you might even squeeze in a couple of actually useful things like a small personal locker, say, instead of holding 100 enhancers like the industrial strength base version, the personal lockers could hold 10, and they are automatically set to only allow that character to use it, no extra fiddling with permissions are needed. Simply put: your room, your locker.

Anyhow, this was just a snippet of a conversation I was having with some SG mates and figured if it sparked some good ideas from the Devs then it would be worth posting.

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The devs really like KB and repel; they're extremely comic-booky. Remember when tanker attacks were larded with KB? The devs were surprised that tankers hated it.

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Thanks for the reply, appreciate it.

As for this this snippet I quote from you, I agree with knockback being "comic-booky". Notice that I didn't mention Force Bolt in my post about having redundant repel powers in the set. I love Force Bolt for it's ability to get a mob off me and on it's butt. But I think (correct me if im wrong) that knockback and repel are different. One is very comic-booky and flashy (knockback), and the other is not so flashy and alot less comic-booky (repel).

I have a difficult time elaborating my thoughts in type so I apologize if I was less than easy to read.

It just seems like it's possible that a set can have "too much" of the same effect throughout it and become redundant. Especially when the effect is situational admitted to by the Devs themselves.

Other than for concept reasons, why would someone take a second repel power that basically does the same thing as your first repel power (more or less) when they can take something completely different even if its from the pool powers to fill some gap that your Hero/Villain currently has?

I toyed around with my Force Field defender on the test server many times with a build that had both repel powers, while goofy, I found that in "most" situations when I could actually use one of those powers, the other one was just as useful, and I didnt need to have them both active on order to accomplish my goal.

One last thing I want to say about knockback and it's comic-bookish effects: Normally I am ALL FOR adding any element of comic book fighting to make me feel like im actually playing a Super Heroes game. I think knockback would be much better if you weren't just knocked back a couple feet, but rather half a city block. Yes thats right ! I never felt like I did a classic Super Hero punch until I took my level 50 energy blaster to Atlas Park one day, hit buildup-Vanguard Accolade-Power Boost, then smacked a Hellion with Power Thrust. I watched him sail into the sunset completely over a building. That was fantastic !

Now I realize that in PvP that would probably be VERY overpowered, but in PvE, I dont see how knocking a foe a good distance away and thus removing him from the fight for a brief time is any different than say, casting Black Hole, or Detention Field, or Sonic Cage. All these powers would essentially have the same effect, removing a foe from the fight for a brief time, neither would be able to attack the other for a short moment. In the case of knockback, it would be less reliable than the other three powers I mentioned since the foe might get stopped in mid knockback by a solid object like a wall, thus he won't have to spend as much time getting up and running the half a city block back to you to renew his fight with you.

Granted, I accept that there are two sides to this opinion, those that like comic-booky flashyness (which would be inclined to like knockback) and those that like efficiency and want to kill the mobs quickly and with the least amount of hassles (those like the tankers you mentioned who hate to chase mobs all over the place). I'm not sure there is an actual answer that will work for both camps, since knockback by it's very nature means that foes will be speeding away from you in a nice ballistic arc whenever it's used. The best compromise I can come up with is to make every power that has knockback default to knockDOWN, but when slotted for knockback, then they become knockBACK. This would allow each player to decide for themselves which effect they prefer to have when they play. Unfortunately it means spending (or wasting, depending on how you feel about it) some slots on knockback which could have gone to accuracy/damage/endurance redux/recharge etc.

EDIT: I just had a cooky thought, since it's pretty much up in the air as to whether knockback or knockdown is prefered and/or more useful than one or the other, why not add a double SO to the game which is Damage/Knockback. It would be the *ONLY* double SO in the game that is purchasable like regular SOs. This would essentially give everyone a magic "switch" that they could turn on knockback or turn off knockback, without all the work of coding in a way to do so for every power.

This would allow tankers who dont want knockBACK to just slot a regular damage SO, and squishy blasters to slot Damage/KnockBACK because they WANT the mobs away from them.

In the case of powers that have knockback but don't do damage, they could just add other double SOs that are end redux/knockback or accuracy/knockback or recharge/knockback, you get the idea.

Cheers.

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Wait a second! What are you planning with Force Bubble? It repels. That's all it does. Taking away repel means it creates a big bubble that does absolutely nothing.

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Right. That's why it's harder.

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I play a Force Field defender, and it seems to me that alot of folks dont take the earlier and seemingly inferior "Repulsion Field" because they know that they plan to get Force Bubble later on anyway. Unlike Attack powers where you can have more than one power that does damage and thats ok, it seems redundant to have two Toggle repel powers. How about giving folks a reason to take Repulsion Field by fixing Force Bubble and NOT have it also have repel as an effect.

Off the top of my head, tossing out an idea: Since Force Bubble is the final power in the Force Field set, it seems like it should be the ultimate expression of protection that the Force Fielder can muster. Hence, instead of it's current function, how about making it a PBAoE Personal Force Field effect on allies, with the same drawbacks as having PFF on. This wouldn't be overpowered (that I can see), but it would be something new and different and still be in keeping with the Force Field concept.

Basically, any ally within the radius of Force Bubble would have "Personal Force Field" affecting them, along with the nice +defense boost, they would also have all the drawbacks such as not being able to affect anything outside of yourself. It would now turn into more of an "oh crap" power than it currently is. If being able to maintain the power indefinitely is deemed "too good", then some ways to balance it would be to increase its base recharge like the Mastermind Version of Personal Force Field, or have it's endurance use ramp up over time like the Peace Bringer Quantum Flight, or just put a timer on it, etc. There are many ways to limit it without removing it's benefits completely. But like the previous poster commented, currently all it does is repel, which I just want to point out that Force Field power set already has a repel power, do we really need two? Who do you know that takes both? Although something occured to me, if they increase the time between repel ticks on each repel power, would running both simultaneously now create the same problem that the Devs tried to fix in the first place? Imagine running TWO repel powers at once and getting double the repel ticks.

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This just ignores reality. Positron stated that the choice is TRULY permanent

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Yes, I'm not saying otherwise. I'm saying that we don't know what it is we'd be permanently committing TO yet. A pool of four powers? Six? Eight? Preset, in a given order, or fluid? Like the hero ancillary powers, or not?

I've shifted my position a bit now, anyway. I'm pretty much convinced it's all about removing the incentive to PL.

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I truly hope your guess turns out to be wrong. Because if it turns out to be correct, their method for detering power leveling will also kill off people wanting to team. It is happening now, with certain elements of the game. Folks close to certain cutoff levels, declining teams for fear of outleveling certain contacts which provide certain desired missions (for accolades, badges, temp powers etc).

Imagine trying to build a team when all the responses to your requests for teaming are "I'm sorry, I am working on my patron missions, and am close to level 42, I don't want to miss my lv 41 power."

repeat previous canned response again and substitute lv 41 and 42 with 44/45, 47/48, and finally 49/50.

Assuming of course there are four patron powers gained at the same levels as the Heroic counterpart epic powers, but you get my drift.

As a side note, I find that I avoid teaming at certain times for this same reason, to not miss out on something I've been working towards for a while. Fortunately for me, I have alts that are 45+ which are free from the burden of the "I will outlevel XYZ content", so when a friend really wants me to hang out with them, I swap to an alt and exemp down, thereby not gaining any XP. (Which I don't mind doing, in fact I enjoy it.)

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I still think us pre Issue 2 Heroes should get our own special badge. Then we can all be special in a different way.

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Exactly.

I was talking about badges with a friend of mine who also likes to collect them.
The difference between him and I is that my Hero was made the week CoH came out, his was made right after Issue 2 when badges came out. I will always be one badge behind him through no fault of mine, or lack of want.

Then we had both agreed that pre-Issue 2 Heros should get a badge something along the lines of, "Golden Age Hero" or something that indicated you were a Hero that has been in the game since "the olden days".

Thus both groups of Heroes, new and old alike, would have one unique badge that neither can get, and thus keep the maximun number of badges attainable equal, and more importantly equal and fair.

This preserves the thought of those opposed to going back and earning the Isolator badge "just because". But it also preserves the equality that those who missed the Isolator badge want.

Anyhow, short version for me: I would like to be able to earn the same maximum number of badges as anyone created after Issue 2, for the most simplest of reasons is that some badges are determined by how many badges you have, like Trailblazer for example.

Here's something to think about: Imagine you are a Hero created long ago when CoH just came out. Also you happen to be a slow leveling player, and just recently you finally hit level 41, and to your amazement when you go to choose an Epic power, a popup states, "This Hero was created before the epic powers were added thus you do not have access to them".

Example 2: You reach level 50 with your first main Hero and when you go to create a Kheldian you read: "We are sorry but the Kheldian option wasn't available when you created this Hero, you will have to create a new Hero and attain level 50 in order to unlock the Kheldian Archetype".

Example 3: (In the near future hopefully) The university finally opens it's doors, but only Heroes created on that day forward are allowed to learn skills . . .

Same exact scenareo, but I bet alot more people wouldn't want a way to "earn" them.

My point is, that so far every time NEW content is added to the game, it has always been available to ALL characters, no matter when they were created. The only exception to this is this one Isolator badge. So I am of the same opinion as all of the other folks who have stated that this makes this badge very different than the other seasonal event badges, like the Holloween and Xmas badges.

No one was denied a holloween/xmas/valentines/etc. badge because their character was created before then, they were denied the badge because either they were subscribed to CoH and didnt bother to want to get them, or they hadn't yet started playing the game, or missed it due to real life obligations preventing them from logging on for the duration of the event, but NOT because they were in game ready willing and able, but their Heroes were created before XYZ date.

If you show up late to a broadway play, expect to be turned away and not seated, and you have to live with the fact that you were late. But show up to that same play a little early and then to be told that because you are too early you aren't allowed to enter once the rest of the audience shows up seems . . . comical.

I think for the most part, folks, even if they aren't aware of why exactly, they get it. We understand the concept of "if you come late to the party you don't get beer because the beer is all gone." And we can live with that, and move on. What this specific badge represents though is not that philosophy, which is why you see so many posts on, "please add a way to earn the Isolator badge", and why you hardly ever see posts on, "please add a way to earn missed seasonal badges". It's inherently understood that the seasonal/special event badges once missed are gone for good, where as the Isolator badge is unique for the reasons so many others have already stated.

On a final note, I am not for or against Devs spending time to add a way to earn the Isolator badge, that's up to the Devs to decided if they want to or not. But I am for symmetry within the game.

Thanks for reading my post, it got kind of longer than I had planned.

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Finally, is anybody else having problems getting the Bling badge before you hit level 30? Did you have to run with SG mode off from the moment you hit 25?


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Yes, I had the same issue you have. I formed my SG at lv 10, turned on SG mode, never switched out of it, and got Bling at lv 31-ish, and thats even with quite a bit of exemplaring down to play with lower level SG mates. This is of course before I found out about the requirements to unlock this contact. This seems like a really bad way to have this work, since anyone who just plays the game without any Forum knowledge will likely never get this contact in the course of normal gaming.

In regards to this and other contact requirements I've seen lately, color me unimpressed.

Cheers.

Contact: Golden Roller
I was level 19 when I started him, and was lv 19.5-ish when he stopped giving missions.
I never got the mission mentioning a "Sea Witch" nor did I get the badge mission for the "Privateer" badge.
Thats about it I think. if lv 19 outlevels that contact, it sure seems like an odd level to do so.

Cheers Mate !

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but what has been said is....if you started a story arch you cant outlvl it (i dotn think this is neccesarilly true, but...). Not all badge mishes are part of those archs, so while doing the arch you out lvld the contact, meaning he wouldnt offer his badge mish (or any other mish for that matter). This would explain my having missed certain badges even though i worked with a single contact till they were done with me.

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And I think people are missing the point of why I think there is an odd game behavior. I never leveled. Not once. I was fresh into my current level, and never once took a mission from the contact, then I approached the contact, so according to you folks if I had outleveled the contact, He shouldn't have offered me his very first mission. But he did, and about 4-6 bars into the SAME level, he stopped giving me missions. Now do you understand why I asked, and why it didn't make sense to me what had happened?

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You had probably already outleveled him, but had started on an arc at an earlier level. Once you start an arc you can finish it no matter what your level.

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I don't like to jump around contacts, so when I start a contact, I stick with it til I finish them off then I move on to another contact. I started this contact, never leveled once while working on this contact's missions, then about 6-7 bars into my level, missions suddenly stopped, I am very familiar with how contacts work, and story arcs, etc. Which is why I asked my original question since I found it odd how this contact just stopped dead cold like that. Oh well, perhaps I will /bug it, just to be thorough.

Cheers.

he stopped giving me missions half way into a level, so I didn't level, he just stopped giving missions and gave me the typical "scram, I got nothing more for you" response.

I did every one of the Golden Roller's missions, until he stopped giving them out, and I never got the privateer badge, nor did I have any mission involving a "Sea Witch" are you sure this is the correct contact? also, if you did get it from this contact, perhaps missions are not contact specific like they are in CoH, that could explain it.

Oh well, one more badge I need to pester people to find
(wishes for the flashback system so I can do all the missions for all my contacts and not outlevel half of them)

Alright, I had a previous post with an "out of the box" suggestion. Now let me try a simple in the box suggestion.

Currently the main issues that most SR players are concerned with (from what I can tell from reading the forums and talking to fellow SR players) is the ever present not-so-fun one shot death. Also the recent ED that reduces our defenses even lower. And Finally the new SR "fix" is viewed too much like scrapper defiance, and people aren't too happy about that.

On to my suggestion:

It's actually almost the same as what the Devs are giving us, only "slightly" modifed.

Instead of giving us resistance when we are near death, which incidentally doesn't do anything to save us from being one shotted. How about only giving us resistance to an attack that does more than 1/3 or 1/2 of our total health in one hit. This would help us against being one shotted, but would not be an "always on" resistance, and we would get it's benefit when we REALLY needed it.

Basically it would play out like so: minions will be pecking away at our health, like normal, and when the big bad AV takes his mighty swing on us, we aren't going to be paying a whole lot of attention to the minion's attacks, thus we don't get resistance to those, but we sure as heck are going to be twisting and turning ten ways to sunday to avoid taking that AV strike full on, hence we get damage resistance to that specific attack because if it hits it will one shot us, or at the very least do more than 1/2 our total health in one hit.

The percentage of damage I tossed out when the resistance kicks in is just an arbitrary number that I used. The Devs would need to come up with a satisfactory percentage at which point the resistance kicks in against a massive one shot attack.

This I feel won't overpower SR scrappers because against normal foes this power will likely NEVER kick in (minions and Leutenants), but against the foes that most SR scrappers seem to complain about the most, (I.E. the ones able to one shot us), then this power will make a difference.

Anyhow, I hope things work out for SR somehow.

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Instead of giving SR Damage Resistance, or even more defense, perhaps sticking to the theme of SR is where the answer lies.

I have seen countless situations where the agile and dexterous Hero deftly avoids multiple opponents with such skill and grace that often the opponents hit each other with their own attacks.

I'm not sure how you would translate that into this game, but I'll toss out a suggestion.

Each of the passives, (melee, range, and AoE) has a chance to redirect all or some of the incomming attack to a nearby enemy. To make it feasable, the positional aspect of each auto power determines what attack can be redirected, for example: Your melee auto power can only redirect melee attacks, your range auto power can only redirect range attacks, and finally your AoE auto power redirects AoE attacks.

Now, to illustrate how this would work in keeping with the SR theme: Imagine your some agile Kung Fu Hero facing off against 3 Freakshow. They all rush you and begin melee attacks upon you. Since your Defense is now significantly reduced due to the ED changes, you can't rely on Defense alone to keep them from beating the snot out of you. So, every attack that overcomes your defense and "would" land, your new ability kicks in and makes a check to see if none/some/all of the damage is taken, and what damage, if any, is redirected to one of your opponents.

Scenareo: Freak Slammer swings his sledgehammer at you, you duck behind his Freak Stunner pal and us him as a shield, thus Freak Stunner takes the damage you would have taken.

Again, I'm not sure how this can be implememnted, or even *IF* it can be implemented, but it's just an Idea, and if it sparks some creative mojo in a Dev's brain, then my job is done.

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I think the implementation issue is probably at the forefront, but ignoring that, how about this:

Instead of a change to redirect all damage, or some amount of the damage, have a (somewhat) random split. Currently, you get attacked, the enemy either hits or it doesnt. Make it a 3 part chance.

If the enemy misses, then the enemy misses, works like now.

If the enemy hits, and their "roll" or however its actually calculated is less than some redirect threshold(lets say 2x defense whose source is a SR power, capping out around 60ish), then you can redirect the damage to the closest enemy. I say closest enemy because a), it makes sense (redirecting a ranged attack is pretty difficult, redirecting an AoE? much more so I would think), and b), given the AoE limit explanation, theres obviously something that already determines the "closest" enemy/ally built in. So if you redirect the attack, you will take some percentage of the damage, and the enemy takes whatever you don't.

If the "roll" is above the redirect threshold, you take full damage, as it was an especially accurate attack.

Eh?

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Well, since I'm not any sort of programmer, admittedly I have no clue if this idea I tossed out is feasable, but anything that keeps the theme of SR and doesn't rely on stealing resistance or health regen from the other scrappers would make SR unique and not feel like a second rate scrapper.

Oh yeah, wanted to add this in too, since redirecting a heavy damage attack means that you suddenly gained a free attack for all intents and purposes, and that would likely be game breaking, perhaps the amount of damage that opponents take from your ability to redirect attacks should be a base amount (slottable with damage enhancers) similar to how a typical PBAoE damage aura power works. They don't usually do alot of damage, even when enhanced. So assume that even a heavy damage attack loses some potency in all the maneuvering required to redirect it to other foes. Or something along those lines, use your imagination.

Or (this occured to me just as I was about to hit submit)

If you want the easiest way to simulate this, just have the ability to burst forth an extremely short duration PBAoE confusion power (like 1-2 second duration) whenever you get hit by something, which adds a bit of tension especially if each burst costs endurance to activate.

It would look something like this: You jump into a pack of 4 Freakshow, several swing at you but don't connect due to your Defense, finally one hits you, and then your PBAoE confusion kicks in and hits 2 and misses 2, so the two affected are confused roughly long enough for one attack each to be made against their pals. Then they are back to normal, until another one lands a blow on you.

This method seems very do-able, but it doesn't really help with being one shotted, but it does add damage mitigation that increases the more you get hit, since you will pulse more confusions that way.

Wow, I really think this method can actually be implemented, since this power already exists in the game (Mind Controllers I think have it).

I don't think it will step on the toes of Heroes who's job it is to crowd control because it's an unreliable power that doesn't activate when you want it to, but randomly, also by making it have a less than 75% for base accuracy means that you now have several options in how to slot for it, Accuracy, Damage, Endurance, and whatever else the Devs feel like it should have, thus keeping in the theme of enhancement diversification.

This frees up the current SR damage resistance for Ice Tankers that way everyone wins and no one's "fix" is a copy of another, they are all different, and all are in keeping with the theme of the respective ATs.

I need to go lie down, my brain got a hernia thinking of this.

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I've alluded to this in a couple of places, but I wanted to describe something we'll be doing for Super Reflexes quite soon...

Super Reflexes Auto powers (Agile, Dodge, and Lucky) now add some minor damage resistance. This Damage resistance starts at 0%, but improves as the caster loses HP. The Resistance kicks in at 60% HP (when HP bar first changes color) and markedly increases at 40% and 20% (again, when the bar changes color). We have not yet determined the exact values.

This change is in addition to the recent modification that gave most Defense Primary and Secondary powers resistance to Defense Debuffs (self Defense powers).

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I figure I would toss another "out of the box" idea at the SR problem.

Instead of giving SR Damage Resistance, or even more defense, perhaps sticking to the theme of SR is where the answer lies.

I have seen countless situations where the agile and dexterous Hero deftly avoids multiple opponents with such skill and grace that often the opponents hit each other with their own attacks.

I'm not sure how you would translate that into this game, but I'll toss out a suggestion.

Each of the passives, (melee, range, and AoE) has a chance to redirect all or some of the incomming attack to a nearby enemy. To make it feasable, the positional aspect of each auto power determines what attack can be redirected, for example: Your melee auto power can only redirect melee attacks, your range auto power can only redirect range attacks, and finally your AoE auto power redirects AoE attacks.

Now, to illustrate how this would work in keeping with the SR theme: Imagine your some agile Kung Fu Hero facing off against 3 Freakshow. They all rush you and begin melee attacks upon you. Since your Defense is now significantly reduced due to the ED changes, you can't rely on Defense alone to keep them from beating the snot out of you. So, every attack that overcomes your defense and "would" land, your new ability kicks in and makes a check to see if none/some/all of the damage is taken, and what damage, if any, is redirected to one of your opponents.

Scenareo: Freak Slammer swings his sledgehammer at you, you duck behind his Freak Stunner pal and us him as a shield, thus Freak Stunner takes the damage you would have taken.

Again, I'm not sure how this can be implememnted, or even *IF* it can be implemented, but it's just an Idea, and if it sparks some creative mojo in a Dev's brain, then my job is done.