Atilla_The_Pun

Ability to place doorways side by side to join rooms together. (from your list above)

And please remove the 18 storage container limit. I mean seriously. A large or active SG can fill this stuff up quickly and, if it's not being cycled out quickly enough, leave members with no place to put more stuff.

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Back on topic, I think Ex/Mal should remain a separate game mechanic. If a 50 wants to join a crossfaction team then they can choose to Ex/Mal once they get there.

Don't get me wrong, RP reasons deserve consideration but ultimately more flexibility in game play means the feature is more useful to more players. And on top of that, if they devs don't have to tie in an existing piece of code with a new piece then that's that much less work they have to do.

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On the other hand, having a "heroic" team with one hero and seven villains would seem... imprudent. I really like the idea that there needs to be a sponsor, so that at most the teams would be 4 and 4.

Does it have to be in the LK/Exemplar slot? I don't know. I should think if it were in the slot, it should be independent of whether or not there is LK/Exemplaring going on -- though I would suggest that whatever LK/Exemplaring happens happen specifically between the sponsor and the character on probation/under duress.

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Interesting point, and well taken.

Perhaps just a simple message "You only have 3 heroes on this team, you need to add an additional hero before you can add another villain." if you try to create an "unbalanced" team. I wouldn't care if the additional hero needed to be SKd.

I suppose a similar mechanic would be added redside as well. It makes sense on both sides for the genre, I'd just hate to see it limit game play too much.

Woah! Sticky! Very nice!

Back on topic, I think Ex/Mal should remain a separate game mechanic. If a 50 wants to join a crossfaction team then they can choose to Ex/Mal once they get there.

Don't get me wrong, RP reasons deserve consideration but ultimately more flexibility in game play means the feature is more useful to more players. And on top of that, if they devs don't have to tie in an existing piece of code with a new piece then that's that much less work they have to do.

I guess my question is what should someone with that flag set be doing? Just cooling their heels waiting for a team? Or can they streetsweep, or maybe even run missions?

Howabout this? You have to go to the Probation/Duress contact to set the crossfaction flag, but after that you can run missions or whatever on your own side, and you are /hide from your own side.

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Meh, I find that there is enough co-op missions as it is, and having all missions as possibly cooperative just seems to kill a lot of flavor. A hero helping Arachnos to capture a school teacher so that she can be tortured, and then going back to Paragon to save lives? There's a difference between the dark, brooding hero and a fake.

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That's why it's called "Duress".

"Ok Spidey, you help us rob this bank or you'll never see Mary Jane again!"

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Frankly, I would handle it a bit differently: instead of going automatically into the Sponsor's team, he would go into the Sponsor's supergroup at the lowest level. A Duress or Probation character must not already be in a Supergroup, and cannot be promoted above the lowest rank.


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So all SG Leaders or other high ranked charcters (e.g. base designers) are banned from these type of missions? What about those who like to keep track of how much Inf they have earned for the SG? Are they forbidden as well?

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Yes, and for good reason. Allowing access to hero-side chat channels while still a member of villain-side opens up a number of potential problems.

Join Supergroup. Get recruited for the opposing faction; enter PVP zone. Use supergroup chat to instantly tell all your SG buddies where the villains are hiding. That's the first thing that occurs to my mind — and there may be other abuses which would come to light.

You could bar the /recruited person from PVP, of course, but that just presents your same dilemma from a different camp: "so all PVPers are banned from these type of missions?"

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The number of actual PvPers is small enough that this would actually have a negligible impact. However I'm ok with locking the probationary/duressed character out of comms from their native side. In fact, I'd even agree to going one step further and /Hide them when probationary/duressed.

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Also, allowing any team leader to sponsor a person from the opposing side leads to spam and abuse. "Hey, look, an Empath! /recruit, /recruit, /recruit the unwilling Defender!" Making it part of a Supergroup function raises the bar — if only slightly — while giving the /recruited player a villain-side chat channel (VG) and access to base teleporters.

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/Ignore solves the first problem, and base permissions set to allow team leader's team mates solves the second.

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Temporary induction into an opposite-side SG or VG makes the transition more stable as well. If you're only on the opposite faction because of a single person who sponsors you, what if they lose connection, if they have to change a diaper, if they have to answer the phone, if there's a storm? What if your Internet goes flooie? You'd have to do the reconnect-re-recruit dance all over again.

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I remember before TFs autoexempted the player, this was an issue. I feel that if this is implemented that as long as you are on a team with members of the opposing faction you should be allowed into the opposing zones, much like the auto exemp function works for TF/SF now. IOW it's a technical problem, let's use a technical solution rather than place artificial restrictions on the players.

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Frankly, I would handle it a bit differently: instead of going automatically into the Sponsor's team, he would go into the Sponsor's supergroup at the lowest level. A Duress or Probation character must not already be in a Supergroup, and cannot be promoted above the lowest rank.


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So all SG Leaders or other high ranked charcters (e.g. base designers) are banned from these type of missions? What about those who like to keep track of how much Inf they have earned for the SG? Are they forbidden as well?

These are problems that the network of SGs I'm in would encounter almost immediately. With over 30 SGs on 3 servers, and our most active players are typically (but not always) SG Leaders your addition to this suggesion would greatly limit our most active players.

Just for the record, I am GREATLY in favor of the proposed Probation/Duress system. I think this would be a wonderful addition to the game, even if Redemption/Fall from Grace becomes available later. Some may want to switch sides permanently, others only for a mission or an evening.

As for badges, I say let the badges be available to the opposing faction, but they are not granted the accolade even if they get all the associated badges. If a permenant side switch becomes available then I would strip opposite side accolades and immediatly grant the new side's accolades (if the character qualifies).

Very nice, very good idea! I agree that the LK/SK is not needed, other than that, simply wonderful! Hope we see this by Issue 14!

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It'd be awesome if some updated data for EndMod/ToHit/Taunt/DefDebuff/ToHitDebuff sets could be put in.

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I was going to mention that as well.

Also, the "slang" term for what you describe is Frankenslotting. You might want to include that in the title on the off chance that someone tries to search on it.

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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the only Co-op specifically mentioned is the TF.

Please tell me the entire ZONE is going to be Co-op so my 40+ Villains will not be sentenced to Lagville.

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From the Announcement (emphasis mine):
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Rikti War Zone (Levels 35 – 50)
... This zone is open to both Heroes and Villains, in their combined, desperate struggle...


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Could be read slightly ambiguously, but I missed it on my first pass through the announcement.

Ok, YippEEEEEEE! Unlimited Co-op and no Lagville!

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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the only Co-op specifically mentioned is the TF.

Please tell me the entire ZONE is going to be Co-op so my 40+ Villains will not be sentenced to Lagville.

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The AoE in Blind is a Sleep, not a Stun.

After level 35 you can dump the Fitness pool, Transference will take care of most (if not all) of your Endurance needs. There are way too many good powers in both Illusion and Kinetics to waste (and in this case I DO mean waste) three power picks on Stamina.

I'm in the camp of heavily slot SiphSpd and set it on auto for any /Kin Controller. Slotting Hasten w/ 3 RchgRdx and SiphSpd w/ 2 Acc + 3 RchRdx means PA has a 10 sec downtime, might be less.

Deceive is priceless when used well (e.g. Tsoo Sorcs and Sky Raider FFGs), and worthless (literally) when used without assistance from the owner. However there are times when you will be willing to make that trade off. Case in point, I ran Positron TF (my gawd that thing sucks rocks) and we were getting creamed by all the Ruin Mages. Until I Deceived them that is. When groups are close together Deceive can "thin the herd" a bit before you jump in. So there are times when you may be willing to accept the loss of XP as being preferable to the accumulation of debt while still allowing you to finish the mission.

One other thing of note on this build is that Illusion "suffers" from a lack of hard control. (Suffers in quotes because Illusion is still one of the highest damage primaries available to a Controller.) It only has two powers that set up Containment (Flash and Blind) and two powers that take advantage of Containment (Spectral Wounds and Blind). Your pets get no Containment bonus. You will want to consider this when picking your Epic. If you stack Siphon Speed and Hasten (as described above) will Flash be up often enough to justify taking the Fire Epic for Fireball? I don't know, my level 44 Ill/Kin didn't take Fire, although I may respec into it.

One last thought here. Many Kinetic powers depend on you being near melee range with the target, however PA and Phantasm both have a lot of knockback and Spectral Terror can make the target run away. Yet another reason to keep SiphSpd ready often, slow those runners down.

Having said all that, ILL/Kin is a very fun character to play. I've been on Invincible since I got PA or shortly after, and I have a ton of fun soloing (esp due to near parma PA) or on teams. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I enjoy mine.

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- you can finish the quote: "I will gladly pay you Tuesday..."

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"...for a hamburger today."

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- you are used to playing computer games with a pad of paper, a pencil, an eraser, and a straight-edge next to the keyboard.


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Or graph paper to map the areas.

- you remember Fireball XL5

- if you never questioned why Superman stood there, arms akimbo, while being shot at point blank range, only to duck when the villain threw the empty pistol at him.

- if you remeber Jose Humanez, Charo, and Lamb Chops from their debut appearances and can name they show they were on.

I'm 50.

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I believe the "mob can't die during the activation" issue is well known, but was determined to be very difficult to fix given the limitations of the game engine. In other words, I think it's been looked at, and was given a "ouch, sorry, can't help ya"

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Huh... Twilight Grasp works while the target is Dying.

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Twilight Grasp is not foe-centered. And Kinetics is not the only set with a foe-centered AoE that has this problem. I suspect that all foe-centered AoE's have this problem, but I won't say that I have a complete list.

I do know that ILL>Blind (small cone "sleep" in addition to ST hold) suffers from it. It's much harder to catch because of the faster animation of Blind, and the far more subtle effect of sleep (as well as the fact that it's easily broken by an AoE'ing team mate). But it is there, I've seen it.

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I actually agree with Jeffrey. It would have been a nice opportunity to actually make good in a substantial manner on the concept of veteran rewards. Of course from a marketing standpoint it makes more sense to try to sell it, but I don't understand why we as consumers should be cheering them on for charging us for that which we'd have certainly appreciated receiving for free.

I seriously do not understand the MMO-community mentality that companies are entitled to or at least deserve customers cheerleading their efforts to maximise profits and defend them with great vigour when another customer expresses displeasure.

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Have you taken into account what would happen if they DID use the veteran rewards system to give out things from special editions? What would the people who already have them say? "Oh boy, this month I get prestige power slide... again!"

It would be the cheap way out on the veteran rewards. They should be unique things, not just a means for people to get things for free that others paid for.

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I've seen several people comment that the Veteran Rewards are free. They aren't. I've paid for mine, and you've paid for yours.

Do not take the above as a negative, Dev-slamming statement. It's not. Cryptic is bringing us more bang for our buck and I'm looking foward to it. But it's not free. If I hadn't given them the $400-$500 I have, I wouldn't get the Veteran Rewards.

Thanks man, I apprecaite the info. Yeah, it's not something you'd unless you had ALL your supers fully HO'd out.

Can Hami-O's be combined? IOW if I have 2 Membranes can I combine them to be a 50+ ? Or again to be a 50++?

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The first pic of my character seems to have 3 costume auras, but only on my client. I have asked other players and all they see is the aura I have chosen.

The 2nd pic shows the only aura I have chosen.

As I noted in the pics, this seems to be affecting my client only. Other players see the Electrical Hands aura I have selected.

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I have installed CoX on a 2nd computer with an nVidia card (the other one has an ATI) and am getting the same problem. Therefore I have to conclude that the issue is with the character on the server, not my client.

However, as I said in my original post, other people see my costume correctly, so I don't envy you tracking this bug down.

Edit:

Just noticed that my wife's character on a different account has the exact same auras, and she didn't put them there either. Character name is Liquid Fire on Freedom.

So far this seems to be affecting one character on each of our accounts.

The first pic of my character seems to have 3 costume auras, but only on my client. I have asked other players and all they see is the aura I have chosen.

The 2nd pic shows the only aura I have chosen.

As I noted in the pics, this seems to be affecting my client only. Other players see the Electrical Hands aura I have selected.

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Hey, Attila, noticed you're trying to link an image in your sig. We can't do that here. You can put the code in (as you have), but they've disabled the functionality of the image tag for the forums.

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Yeah, I noticed. Too bad. Well I'll fix it later, thanks.

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If Stormers are so overpowered why don't you play one instead of coming in here with your flamebait?

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Cause I really don't want to be overpowered. If I did, I would have taken the Tough/Weave route with my toon, suped up MoG, etc. I wanted to have some identity to my toon and not be a cookie cutter build.

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How would taking a Stormer (Either Cont or Def) with Hurricane make you a cookie cutter build? My point is try it, find out what the weaknesses are (and you will!), and then go back to your scrapper and try to exploit them.

There's a nice Sun Tzu quote floating in someone's sig around here that goes roughly "Know yourself and your opponent and and you will win 100 percent of your battles. Know yourself and you will win half your battles, know neither yourself nor your opponent and you will lose all your battles."

If Stormers are so overpowered why don't you play one instead of coming in here with your flamebait?

Replying to various comments in this thread:

1) Sewer team from level 2 to level 8, you'll be done before you know it. And when you're done, if you're not by the Kings Row exit just charge a group of purples solo. No debt so you take the Coffin Express back to Atlas Park.

2) Leveling in the Hollows means you will miss the (later very expensive) Fortune Teller Mission and accompanying Spelunker badge. This is part of the Atlas Accolade.

3) You can never have too many Defenders (and to a lesser extent Controllers) on a team. The stacked buffs/debuffs more than make up for any loss in raw (i.e. unbuffed) damage. Don't get me wrong, the "Perfect Pentad" is an excellent team (given that all members are decent players) but Defenders and Controllers are force multipliers who improve the damage output of every other team member.

4) Almost every respec I have done (with one exception) has been with a pick up team. They are not horrible players just because they need a respec. There are numerous valid reasons for respecing, including planning a respec when initially designing the character.

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Of course, if you've taken Propel, you've already shot yourself in the foot honestly.

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Alas! You and I feel very differently about Propel. Let's take a look at it from a different angle.

What is Gravity? A control set, right? So why would I look for damage in a control set? The obvious question here is "If Propel isn't damage then what is it?" I say it's control. Noting the hideous animation time (and it is horrifically long) brings up the next question, "What can you control with a power that the effect lasts shorter than the animation time?" Well Propel by itself isn't so hot, but combined with Lift I can keep a Boss or some Elite Bosses on their back and out of the fight. The animation for Propel takes just about as long as it takes for the target to stand up from Lift, making cycling between these two a beautiful single target control, I consider this pair of powers to be one of the gems of the Gravity set. The damage is just gravy.

Nice guide, very thorough.

I would just like to point out that Gravity's strength is it's single target "soft control", if you consider knockback/down to be soft control. Since a combo of Lift and Propel can keep an Anathema or other hold resistant boss on his back until you miss I don't think this is an ability that should be completely ignored. Granted my Grav/Eng Dominator is only level 19 at this point, but that been my experience so far.

Having said that, I'm going to go review and possibly revise my new Plant/Fire Dom in light of your power pool comments.