Backstab_NA

I've read up on this.

I've disabled my firewall (which wasn't an issue at all yesterday), flushed my DNS with IPconfig, and reset my router. It just doesn't want to connect.

I've also tried adding the command line -project coh and -project "coh" (saw both at 2 different sites) and neither of them actually bypass the patcher. Does anyone have a suggestion? I'm really regretting paying $40 for an expansion to a game I cannot play.

I'm waiting for the game to finish updating (another returning player) and I had 3 questions about arenas:

1. Do they now auto-fill teams or must you still hunt for a match manually?

2. Are they still not rewarded with xp & inf?

3. Do they have any match types that aren't simply deathmatch (CTF, Domination, etc.)?

4. Are the "PvP" zones (not an arena question but someone answering these could answer this) still about completing PvP tasks while being PvP-able? Also, are they still only rewarded with special limited use powers rather than xp and inf?

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I'm guessing the numbers behind the Psi/Mind powers will be tweaked downward to balance this set.

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Fixed that for you.

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Please don't do this. Misquoting people even playfully requires people who are reading your post to click back to the original to find out what you changed, and it is often regarded as disrespectful. I moderate another forum and warn and have even kicked people for engaging in this internet meme. Please do not help popularize it.

I like the idea of playing a Storm/MM but I don't see what is so dominating about Kinetic MM's. Yes, they'd deal a lot of damage, but the trade off is that your heal is awful, and Masterminds have no real use for all the +stamina options. We'd all be using it to simply make our guys hit a bit harder. At level 38, with Fulcrum Shift, this could be impressive, but earlier on simply stealing power isn't that big of a deal.

I guess making attack speed faster is a big deal too. . . I'm looking forward to making an electric/kinetics corrupter and actually trying to work the "stamina drain" angle.

States - Can you assure us that we won't have escort missions in Orenbega or other huge instance missions?? I'm scared of taking them now because I don't want to have to plod back through them unsticking 20 different hostages from all the strange architecture within them.

Also, is there going to be any reward for the extra work of taking hostages to safety. . . Killing a few extra mob groups while having to walk through a mostly empty map is not fun in my opinion. . . and it's also dreadfully slow xp.

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Unlike most blasters, I think Defiance may be... Overpowered. We'll have to see. That's a heck of a lot of buffing, there. And you're making it even MORE worthwhile?


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I'm just wondering, have you played on Test?

Here is the way it works.

Once your health gets really low (like 40% I think is the number the devs say, but it's been more like 30-35% from the looks of my health bar), you start earning defiance for EACH time you are hit. That means that you have to take a bunch of hits to move the meter up to that 500%. . . AFTER you are at 33% or lower.

Any sort of heal (inspiration or power of any rank) kills the Defiance meter completely. . . back to 0.

So it really doesn't get used often, and in the higher level game it really isn't used. Blasters that take damage that low are reaching for health inspirations immediately because not doing so would equal xp debt.

In a game with experience debt, this kind of archetypal power isn't that useful in PvE. .. However, I think the idea is to use it in PvP and I can see it working dramatically well for a blaster that is grouped with a Sonic Defender (sonic defenders can buff damage resistance. . . this means the blaster might be able to take as many as 5 to 10 hits after getting that low in health before dying and could conceivably fill their meter).

However, for those NOT playing with a Sonic Defender, it means getting an occassional slight buff to damage when your health is really low.

I can totally see every blaster respeccing into any and every damage resistance pool power though. If we could survive 5 hits after getting low enough that the meter starts working, then we could probably get at least one attack off that has like a 100% damage buff.

Oh, btw, forgot to mention. Each power you cast ALSO drains a point on the Defiance meter, so you have to KEEP getting hit while at low health over and over for it to go up. The highest I've seen my Defiance meter get filled (with a lowbie character that can take more hits even) is 1/3.

I'd really love this power AS IS if the game didn't have xp debt. I think it will be a fun edition to PvP too. However, I'm really glad they are moving up the time when it starts going up because that means we might actually get use out of it when we aren't lucky enough to group with a Sonic defender.

Manticore - City of Villains is introducing cut scenes. Are you excited about how these can enhance the designer's ability to tell the story? Any other neat features you can share and/or a particularly fun example of a great story-telling cut-scene?

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Is it me or does sonic do way to much damage.

Maybe it's different in the higher lvls.

Voltaic Shock.

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Y'know, I was thinking about this too. My friend and I were testing a archery/dev blaster and a sonic/sonic defender on test, and the defenders very first attack power (which is minor damage if I recall correctly) was doing as much as the blasters aimed shot (which is moderate damage). This seems a little strange to me, as defenders are supposed to do 66% the damage of blasters, and yet, he was doing just as much damage as my blaster with a minor damage attack.

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Comapre it to another blaster set than the archery one and you'll see that it sonics is in-line with the other blaster sets, but not nearly as damaging as damage intensive sets like fire or assault (accept in groups maybe. . . if you count the added damage from their damage debuff).

Archery is an odd set. The damage is crap for each power use because they have such a SUPER fast recharge time on their powers. It's like playing a defender with hasten on from level 1.

This is kind of neat because you can go archery and choose not to get Hasten, but it is kind of cruddy too because the other blaster sets WITH Hasten will be doing more DPS later in the game than archery.

Archery (w/o Hasten): Low damage for each shot/Super fast shots. Good DPS.

Other Blaster Sets (w/o Hasten): Medium damage for each shot/Moderate Recharge. Good DPS.

Archery (w/Hasten): Low damage per shot/INCREDIBLY fast skill recharge. Good DPS but limited by the speed of attack animations and player button presses.

Other Blaster Sets (w/Hasten): Moderate damage per shot/Super Fast Skill Recharge. Great DPS. Always powers to hit and more damage per shot than Archery.

Waves - There is nothing heroic about walking at a slow pace back to the entrance of a dungeon.

In comic books, Superman picks up hostages and flies them away from danger. Spiderman swings them out of danger. In City of Heroes, you walk slowly at the hostage's pace to the entrance. . .

If you made this so that our heroes carried them in some fashion like comic book heroes (and thus encumbered our heroes with them so their hands/powers weren't free) then this would feel like a comic book. As the system currently stands, it just isn't a fun game dynamic. . .

Also, I'm already scared of playing Orenbega and/or Cave missions that contain hostages. . . I can only imagine that the boredom will be 5 times the size with a much larger map.

While this is a huge timesink, the rewards for completion are also not increased. It is horrible xp/time and I think it will increase people wanting to street sweep instead of doing missions. For groupers, it will mean having to spend time on their own "clearing up" hostage missions so that they have "good" missions for the group to enjoy together.

Anyway, 2 really cool new things and one poorly envisioned one. I think you could make hostages LESS boring if you upped hostages run speed significantly, but they would still be very boring and I can only imagine that they will lead to a huge number of support tickets in maps that have a ton of obstacles like caves and Orenbega.

Cut hostage rescue, invent something to make it more exciting and less tedious (can't think of anything myself), and/or give incredible xp for it. I'll do something boring if it means better than average xp/time, but it would take like multiplying the current mission xp by 10 to make it worth escorting hostages out of Caves or Orenbega.

I'm really happy with this set and how if fits with the other blaster powers. It doesn't have the mad AOE's that fire has or the damage and control of assault, but it is has good (if not spectacular) DPS that is even better in groups where the damage resistance debuff works for more than just one player.

The effects of the powers I have so far (just the first 3 in the set) are fun to watch, but the Howl sound seems weird to me. It isn't grating on the nerves like some looping powers I won't mention, but it just seems odd that the werewolf sound is reused. Also, it doesn't seem impactful. . . Howl would be a fine sound for a buff or a summons, but it doesn't sound like it would hurt anything.

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Who exactly ARE the surviving eight, and why are they CALLED the surviving eight?

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Greetings,
The Surviving Eight are: Statesman, Positron, Synapse, Sister Psyche, Citadel, Manticore, Numina and Back Alley Brawler. They all agreed to remain in Paragon City after the Rikti War, to coordinate the efforts of the new heroes arriving every day.
Ms. Liberty is in fact Statesman's Sidekick but she leads a group of heroes herself. They are called the Vindicators: Minx, Valkyrie, Swan, Infernal, Luminary and most recently Aurora Borealis.

Cheers.

~M

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Oooh. Nice information. I really wish this stuff permeated into the game. I know the story is geared to be stories for our heroes, but I think world characters and their backstory should be in the CoH bible somewhere and be heavily alluded to in future content if possible.

Blasters seem to get less attention because they are really popular and some of the powersets are excellent. Any primary/devices can kill just about any group in the game incredibly fast and with very little risk due to being able to take out a ton of the foes with the initial trip mine and an aoe.

But the other secondaries don't fair nearly as well, and some of the primaries are pretty bad too. The problems for blasters seem to be more powerset detailed.

Primaries:

Fire, Assault - Both deal superior damage and are good at aoe damage.

Ice - Good damage, fewer aoes, best status effects in the game (for blasters) as the set contains 2 single target holds that work well in normal play. This is more of a defender set than a blaster set in some ways. Really fairly well balanced as they deal very good damage and lower a group's risk. I'd always team with one.

Blizzard - their level 32 power (final primary set power) does excellent damage. . . but over a long period. It is a long-term DoT and just doesn't compare to Inferno (uber damage pbAoE) or the level 32 assault power (superior damage cone with a fast recharge - best level 32 power in the game IMO). I'd suggest changing this power to be a pB Hold power (freezes everything). The hold has a short duration compared to controller holds, but it would make the power much more of a great "Oh, no! I'll save us!" power instead of the current "Decent damage (but everything will be dead or run away by the time it deals it)" power.

Electricity - Not very good at PvE, but with a very nice PvP status effect in that they drain endurance. I'd like to see this set do more damage in PvE and PvP. The secondary effect is nice, but the set only has one aoe and the damage is altogether much too much lower than it's counterparts. Beef it up a bit and I think people will be happy.

Secondaries:

Devices - Very cool and very fun set. The devices all mesh with the way a blaster plays very well and combined use of them allows for some great gameplay. Most fun set for blasters IMO.

Every other set - Faaar too many melee powers and powers that are fairly mundane or do not compliment a blaster's style of play well at all. Having a fire sword is not blasting. Consider giving blasters some weak sauce defender and controller powers in these sets to make them able to be more versatile and still maintain their role as RANGED attackers.

2 primaries could use minor adjustments, but the secondaries are all kind of meh except for Devices.

I pretty much only die getting to mission doors placed in Hazard zones that force my group or me solo to run through packs of mobs. This probably wont' have much of an impact on me, but I welcome the change to help more casual players.

I hate you Perez Park!!!

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Course, now that that's hammered out... *nudges him towards Kheldians*

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Done! Just playtested today!

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Sweet! Very glad that you are playing them. I think they are an AT that looks great on paper, but is not fun to play (in their current build).

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Just as long as you don't take a page from Statesman's book and say "Soon" all the time.

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You and I aren't reading the same book. Statesman knows the "soon" word well and I can only recall him saying it in an obviously joking manner.

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And thank you all.

It's our great fans that make this game the success that it is. Nothing is more satisfying than reading these posts - and going on the live servers and hearing the chat.

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This is a very fun game, and while I'm very dissappointed with EAT's, you can be sure I am looking forward to future Issues and will probably eternally return for each update because the game is very good and the support of the game is very good. I'm just super dissappointed because I don't want to play NOW. I would love to be playing CoH again and having all that fun, but the Kheldians aren't fun.

Anyway, I just want you to know that I LOVE this game and think that you all do a good job overall. If the complaints have come very heavy it is because I'm simply just so dissappointed not to get to play it again.

For whatever reason you feel that the Kheldians are fun to play. I don't understand this, but I still have faith that you will eventually create something that will draw me back in again.

Thanks for your overall good job and any customer loss Cryptic gets as the result of this issue will be mitigated by the overall good work you do.

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Colisseum.

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I REALLY think you need to reconsider...

Issue 4: Salsa and Two Burritos, has a very festive ring to it

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Well, with Kheldians being bleh, I really don't want to wait until Cinco de Mayo before resubscribing.

Please reconsider Kheldians. I came back to your game to play these and I am incredibly disappointed for them. The reasons for this have been posted constructively numerous times in various threads, but if you don't know them, please just play a Kheldian from level 1 to 10 one afternoon.

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So in terms of strategy/tactics a bad group says "No, we already have a Kinetics Defender" and a good group adds a 2nd or a thrid. Same with Bubbly Defenders. A group of 3 Kintetic Defends, 1 tank, 3 Blasters/Scrappers and a Controller is probably one of the better groups.

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Not really. . . the best defense in the game is still just killing everything uber fast and defenders and tanks work against that. Plus, one controller does all the support jobs better than a tank or a defender combined and with pets they do better damage output. So your "best" groups are still one good controller and as many blasters as you can find.

But that is from a min/max stand point for maximum xp/time. You can do quite well with any group mix as long as the players behind the heroes are intelligent and work well together and exactly for the reasons you just gave.

For examples:

Debuffs:

You can use Smoke Grenade and debuff an enemy's accuracy, then use it again. If the first debuff's timer is not out by the time you cast the second one, you will have two accuracy debuffs running until the first one runs out.

If 2 heroes use smoke grenade on the same mob, then the mob will be debuffed twice. If 8 heroes use the same debuff, then it will get 8 stacking debuffs, etc.

Buffs:

If you use accelerated metabolism and buff your group and another hero uses accelerated metabolism to buff your group, then they will stack.

If you use accelerated metabolism and then (by using hasten and acc metabolism in conjunction) recast it before the first one wears off, it will restart the timer for the buff (so it lasts the full buff length) but you cannot have the two buffs overlap for those few seconds.

The devs should get together with a few electric blasters (2 or 3 as a larger number is unrealistic) and make a go at some AV's.

I think that you will find that the drain on AVs could be adjusted if this is supposed to be a viable strategy.

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I think this is the only date I will comment on, because it is unfair to raise your hopes that much.

No, it's not true.

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Just so long as Cryptic and NCSoft aren't suing each other and delaying the game for legal leverage. . . (Half-Life 2 reference - DAMN YOU VIVENDI!!)

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I am not saying you need to test things on Test server before bugging them, what I am saying is that if you are going to post something as a bug on the Training Room forums, please make sure that it is something that is a bug on the Training Room Server. These forums are to report things that are on the Training Room and being tested on the Training room.

Posting bugs that have only been seen on the Live servers in the Training Room forums, makes it very hard for us to see if the fixes being tested on the Training Room are working or not.

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This is a pretty big deal.

Have the devs discussed a separate site for the TR forums? Or maybe just have them "hidden" lower in the forum listing?

Thing is guys, Cryptic has 2 months to get stuff made for update 2 if they want to get it on test by late November in order to make a competitive showing during the holiday season by then hopefully going Live with Update 3 while the kids are home from school and college.

So they don't know what they will get done in time.

Statesman has mentioned a lot of the stuff that is on the plate, but a lot of it is for CoV. Some of it is in the works, but they aren't making promises for Update 3. My guess is that it will be a substantially smaller update than 1 or 2 in order to get it on test in mid-to-late November.

Really, they only have a month before it needs to be "done" and being tested and fixed internally. That doesn't give them a lot of time for a humungo update.

My guess is that they'll play it safe and put it on the green in 2.

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Explorers want to see/do everything.


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Please remove the level gates from content that I've missed!