Binary

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Charged Bolt: 100%
Lightning Bolt: 100%
Ball Lightning: 100%
Short Circuit: 130%
Zapp: 120%
Tesla Cage: 100%
Thunderous Blast: 140%

Shriek: 100%
Scream: 100%
Howl: 100%
Shockwave: 90%
Shout: 100%
Sirens Song: 90%
Screech: 100%
Dreadful Wail: 140%

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That's great information. Can we have this table for ALL the powersets?

A section of this website devoted to power stats (End Cost, Base Damage, Base Range, etc.) would be very useful, and easier to keep up to date than a print book.

Yes I know that people have been asking for this from Day One, but I'm asking again, because we still want it, and I still think it's a reasonable request.

BB

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Nope. That's why I said "Can't." Well, actually, we could ask for new code to do that, but it isn't really something we want currently.

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How about changing Flight Speed enhancements from Schedule-A to Schedule C or D?

That would enable Flight and Hover to be closer to their pre-ED speeds without requiring completely new code.

BB

Click here for what enhancement "schedules" are.

I'd love to see some new zones that touch the more epic four-color comics in scope, and a habitable zone on the Moon (ala the Blue Area) would be brilliant.

Additionally, I would also really enjoy seeing the Fifth Column return and challenge the Council. If getting rid of the Fifth Column wasn't just political correctness (as the Devs claim), then let's see a few of them try to make a comeback.

You hear that, Cryptic? I double-dog dare you! :-)

BB

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With the release of Issue 7 you can strategize in the great hall around your new table...

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Can we sit at this table? :-)

BB

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Yay!

and In Jacks abscence ... about them heart boxers

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That'd be just about the coolest Valentine's Day item EVAR. :-)

BB

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I can't think of a reason why the devs would want to "avoid" having level 50's generate extra prestige. It sounds like a perfect reward for maxing out your character, to me.

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Why would you want anything other than level 50's in your SG then?

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Indeed. It's wonderful that characters of all levels can contribute to the growth of the SG in this manner. It means that the SG isn't "gimping" itself by recruiting low-level members.

Well done.

BB

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Fortitude is typed.

See Stargazer's post here

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So, it seems pretty clear that FF and Fort do not stack, and since FF is Positional def... Well, that'd mean that Fortitude gives damage-Typed defense...

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Holy cats! Is this still the case?

If there's a FF Defender on the team with me, am I wasting my time trying to keep people under Fortitude?

Honestly, I do not see sufficient benefit to this overzealous micro-compartmentalization of defense.

DEFENSE should be simply ranged or melee. Period.

RESISTANCE should be typed by category (energy, smashing, etc.)

BB

I'll have to bug this 36 Million thing -- my SG, which has been around since Day One of CoH head start, has 300k Prestige.

BB

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The reason, and I'll bet money on it, that they are doing it is that you need to buy CoV to get access to the pieces. And this will get people who normally wouldn't buy CoV to buy it just to add costume options in CoH.

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*raises hand*

I'm happy to pay for it, too. I have not had to pay for any new content since the game launched, so I don't feel at all ripped off.

And I want fishnets, darnit!
(and biker jacket, and lab coat, and top hat, and new capes, and military uniforms, and new faces, and lots of other totally heroic costume options)

-BB

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Just last night I saw a villain that looked like...well, Statesman. Big star on his chest, red, white, and blue costume.
Does it bother me? Yeah, a little.

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He's a Statesbot, made by Lord Recluse to go do evil and ruin Statesman's good name ;-)

BB

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PLEASE add some or all of the great new options that Villains are receiving to Heroes' costume creator, at least for those players who own both CoV and CoH.

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Noted. We'll see what we can do...

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Are you just being coy here, Jack? "We'll see what we can do..." nudge nudge, wink wink, cause of course all those options are coming over to City of Heroes, right? After all, people have been asking for some of these specific options (biker jackets, top hats, fishnets, etc.) for their heroes since CoH Beta.

You wouldn't make those things and then give them only to the bad guys? You wouldn't do that to us. Would you? Would you?

I don't want to play a villain. I'm not in a big hero SG that's going to have a base. I don't care about PvP. I'm only buying CoV for all the new costumes, because they look fantastic, and I've been waiting over a year for some of those pieces.

You guys have given us a ton of new content over the year+ since launch, so I don't mind dropping $50 for just the new costumes and faces.

But if that stuff isn't going to be accessible to me when playing CoH, I really don't have any reason to buy CoV :-(

BB

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With nearly everyone is in a SG but hardly anyone actually using the SG mode, I can fully understand why the Devs would wish to encourage people to use it.

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I think you're off the mark here. The more appropriate response in my opinion is:

"With nearly everyone is in a SG but hardly anyone actually using the SG mode, I can fully understand why the Devs would wish to determine why people don't like it, and implement changes to make SG mode more desirable to players."

BB

If they implement this, I hope they give us a "Do Not Display SG Symbol" option in the SG Mode Settings, so we can accumulate Prestige without sacrificing the appearance we spent so much time and energy on creating for our characters.

I can set the colors for my costume to remain the same in SG Mode, but the damned chest symbol change cannot be overridden, and it makes no sense for most of my characters to have the SG symbol on their chests.

I've never liked it anyway. There are very few comic book superteams that have standardized colors and chest symbols. It's a nice option, but it's bad as a requirement for SGs in CoH.

BB

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Been rereading dev responses to the fear effect and having it pointed out the mobs running from burn is not a bug, that they should run because no one would willingly stand around in fire.

But then why are they dumb enough to stand around and get shot?

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The more pointed question is this:

Why do they dislike standing in a Tanker's fire, and not mind so much standing in my Blaster's Lightning Field, or Blazing Aura?

I think it would be helpful for me as a player to have a more consistent standard of MoB reaction to AoE damage.

BB

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Shriek – Damage: Minor Recharge: Fast
Howl – Damage: High , Recharge: Slow

But from playing my sonic blaster and defender, they did (prior to last patch) EXACTLY the same damage.

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It's a typo. The Howl also does minor damage. It'll be fixed as a bug.

BB

I normally play a lvl 40 Empath.

Statesman Sez:
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A grouped Blaster can use Defiance even more effectively. If you have a healing Defender in your group, you should ask them to not heal you unless you are in imminent danger of being defeated.

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Okay, Jack, I'm going to take this opportunity to point out that one of the reasons you wanted to change the old portal missions was because it was anti-genre for heroes to stand by and let demons spawn on purpose so they could get more XP.

I *totally* agreed.

But lets picture how Defiance would go in a comic book...


Human Torch: "Wow, I really feel hurt, Reed. Can you use that device to heal me please?"

Mr. Fantastic: "Sorry, Johnny, you're more effective when you're hurt and desperate. You've got a little blood on the corner of your mouth there, by the way."


Or how about this exchange...


Dr. Strange: "Well, that was almost too close, Dazzler. I thought you were going to be defeated there for a second. I'm glad I was able to cast a healing spell in time. Now you are in perfect health again."

Dazzler: "You stupid idiot! I need to stay injured to fully use my powers!"

Very heroic.

Statesman Sez:
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Stay out of range of the Area Heals once you are in Defiance range to ensure your damage buff stays around.

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Arg! Do you have any idea how much time and effort I spend trying to get the blasters to stay inside area heals?

If there are 2 or more blasters, each requiring their own single-target heal "in the nick of time," because I don't heal them "unless [they] are in imminent danger of being defeated," then one or more of them is kissing pavement.

Stay outside the healing on purpose? Ask the Defender not to heal you?

Regardless of whether you think the power works well mechanically, please take a step back and think about that in context of the genre.

It simply does not work AT ALL.

Blasters need something to help them survive and stay in the fight, but I don't think this is it. Surely it's wrong if a hero does something as backwards as asking not to be healed by their teammate.

Thanks,
BB

Playing my new Sonic Blaster from level 1 to level 10, doing missions almost exclusively (to see how the increased missions XP looks), I have only seen two missions where I noticed the mission upgrades (one of them was the tutorial).

1. Ally heroes. Since the tutorial I have never again seen a hero ally in a mission. I think that the ally should either:
* begin fighting along with you as soon as you engage the enemy, rather than waiting until you defeat the enemy.
* better yet, be tied up or otherwise shown to be restrained or incapacitated. After you defeat the bad guys you can click on them to free tham.

2. Villain waves. I had one mission in the sewers with waves in it. Although it sounds good on paper, my experience was very frustrating. I felt like I was just getting randomly attacked from behind, with no way to mitigate the situation.

It got to the point where I would wait for a long time before engaging the next enemy, because I kept getting defeated when new enemies would pour in behind me just as I was in the middle of a draining battle. This made for unnecessary boredom , downtime, and defeat. I was defeated only one other time between 1st and 10th, but went down three times in that mission.

At one point, enemies literally appeared out of thin air right around me in a tunnel and started attacking me. I feel like I should be able to play smart, use good tactics, and not get bushwhacked, but if enemies can just materialize on top of me even after I have taken care to make sure I have cleared out an area, that's frustrating.

Additionally, this will, I think, lead to more TPKs, as the team has nowhere to retreat to anymore. Pulling back into the tunnel or the previous chamber just means piling into fresh new villains when you're already hurt.

Gonna call for lots of revisions to the way people play missions.

3. Hostage Escort. My hostages followed me pretty well. I was unsure if they could be attacked by the villains, but they survived running through the guys that spawned in behind me.

After being defeated in that wave-spawning mission several times, I finally kept my distance from the first 2 hostages as I defeated their captors, so they would not pick up on me and begin following. I picked them up on the way back after I found the 3rd hostage. This seemed to cut down on the spawning of villain waves, but it might have just been random timing.

On the whole I'm glad to see an effort to add new mission types and variety to missions. Yay!

BB

To see this same review with inline pictures of the animation poses, go here.

SONIC BLAST

Here's an illustrated review of the Sonic Blast set, up to the fifth power, with evaluations of the animations, sounds, and special effects. More to come as I gain levels.

Overall, the animations need to be tweaked so that the power emanates from the character's mouth. That applies to all of them. OTher comments below.


Shriek (PICTURE)

Animation: Below Average. The Shriek animation should be reminiscent of the Scream animation, but not exactly the same, since they are the weak and strong of the same attack. Currently both are identical, and although they convey the projection of force, they are too much like (exactly like) the animations for Mind Control.
SPFX: : Great. I love the "heat seeking cheerio of DOOOOOM."
Sound: Very Good. The "sonar ping" quality of this power works very well for characters of both genders, and is not unpleasant to listen to. It also has a kinetic quality that imparts the feeling of force, probably because of the low-to-high pitch change in the sound which makes it sound like a "bounce".


Scream (PICTURE)

Animation: Below Average. This animation is unsuitable for the same reasons as the Shriek. It's not that it's a bad animation, it's simply below average as an attempt to differentiate Sonics from the other powers in the game. Specifically, Shriek and Scream should use the "hands cupped around the mouth" emote that we all do in real life when we want to channel sound in a long straight line (as in when you are calling for someone over a great distance). Shriek should have one hand up to the side of the mouth, and scream should have both.
SPFX: Excellent. The concentric circles homing in on the target are very effective at portraying a sonic blast.
Sound: Poor. This distinctly male "Rrrrah!" sound is simply inappropriate for female characters and is irritating to listen to over and over. This set could benefit from a set of sounds that do not sound like a human voice specifically, so that they will be appropriate for all characters.


Howl (PICTURE)

Animation: Good. The use of the arms helps convey the feeling that the character is letting more force flow from her, but is channeling the force into a cone. The open face-up palms (instead of clenched fists seen in Shriek and Scream), specifically help this impression of guiding the force into a cone.
SPFX: Good. The one larger "pulse" ripple is great at showing the sonic shock washing over the enemies.
Sound: Poor. We are not wolves. Really. That's not what I meant when I said "not like human voices." I do like having a distinct "TONG" that coincides with the emanation of the larger "ripple," though. That feels very nice.


Shockwave (PICTURE)

Animation: Good. The raised arms give the feeling of projecting force in a wide area, but different than the Howl animation. Just letting it go, so it can permeate everything and shake the rafters.
SPFX: Good.
Sound: Good. The sonic-ey warble is good, but this power could benefit from a low bass rumble in it. Don't remove what's there, but add a track below the current sound which evokes "rumbling ground" (perhaps borrowed from an earth power).


Shout (PICTURE)

Animation: Average. The same as Shriek and Scream, but for this level 8 power that does way more damage, I expected something new. Oddly, if the ones for Shriek and Scream were changed, I think this one would be fine.
SPFX: Good. There's a sort of "spray effect" when the attack strikes the target, which reminds me very much of the vaporous blast surrounding an aircraft when it breaks the sound barrier. It's a nice touch.
Sound: Good. The bass line in this power makes it feel more powerful than Shriek or Scream. The ping echo at the end goes on a little too long, though - it starts to feel like a sound effect from a 1950s sci-fi movie.

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If a player is in a zone, did NO damage in a combat and has dead for more than a minute, he receives no XP.

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That's not a reasonable set of limitations to place on Defenders and Controllers (or even Tankers).

A Mind Controller might put the whole crowd of MoBs to sleep (doing no damage), and then get killed by the Boss who she failed to affect. By the time the team kills the boss a minute has elapsed and she gets no XP, even though she neutralized all of the minions for most of the fight.


As an Empathy Defender I might help my team survive for most of a long battle, then fall in combat withouit ever doing any damage. If I am down more than a minute I get no XP for the team's final success, even though my efforts kept them alive long enough to achieve it.

The damage requirement is very slanted toward the attack-oriented classes and insults the contributions of support classes.

I would be very irritated to see this set of parameters go live.

BB

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I remember being the only person in Atlas Park

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That happened to me late one night on the test server. Things seemed awfully empty in Atlas Park, so I did a /whoall and came up with...

Just me!

Very weird feeling.

/autoreply does not appear to work. The command does nothing. Has it been disabled?

I desperately want a "I am too busy to respond to your Tell right now." autoreply macro.

Anyone get this to work?

I know some other folks are using blogs for their CoH characters. Anyone care to share?

My magic defender has one at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/lyndacrighton/

-B