BitterCupOJoe

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How could it be a huge undertaking? Its not like your changing the physics of the game rather just the look of the sword/axe/mace/broadsword/katana/rifle. It should be no different than a costume change. If everything but the model design stays the same, it should be just a code string. If its that complicated perhaps I should quit my job in NDT (where intrepretation is everything) and go into programming.

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I always love it when non-programmers say, "It can't be that hard!" I particularly like when they say that since one system kind of acts like another system that they're practically the same system. A good, hard laugh always peps up the day.

I think an AT that had blaster hit points, maybe 80-90% of blaster damage, Assault primaries from Dominators and the some of the various defenses as secondaries would do what's being asked for without being overpowering, particularly since there's no build up in any of the Assault sets, so no major self-buffing of damage.

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The point of this post is that Super Heroes DON'T kill people

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Golden age supers, maybe. These days? Killing is far more efficient than bothering with our broken judicial system.

Super heroes do, and should, kill. It's not like the villains are going to play fair.

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Golden Age supers were almost as likely to kill as modern age ones, but less likely to than Dark Age (1980-1995 roughly) ones. Hell, Superman killed a few folks, and Batman used to carry a gun. It's during the Silver Age that the code against killing became widespread, the Bronze Age where it became a little relaxed, and now, during the Modern Age, where it's sort of back to Golden Age levels: kill if you absolutely have to, but given your powers, you probably don't have to.

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Changing the power to match it's description

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I fear for Temporary Invulnerability.

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Wasn't TI a click back in CoH Beta?

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Yup. 30 second duration, 2 minute recharge, IIRC. Gave a 32.5% buff to S/L resistance. Was changed (along with a bunch of other tanker stuff) 2 weeks before the game went live.

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Looks like someone needs to read the guide before nerf whining.

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Speaking of semantics, the use of the word "guide" is quite liberal here. But if the intent is to have your opinion seem to carry more weight, then you're right in line with all the nerf-criers.

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Don't make me link to the Mudwimping guide.

The forum was done for 4 hours last time someone did that.

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Man, I hate that mudwhimping guide. Not so much for what it has to say, because a few things in it are valuable, but more because of it's unbelieveably whiny/authoritative tone, and the fact that when people have been argued into a corner about the need for a given change, that's their last recourse. There should be a subset of Godwin's Law just for the mudwhimping guide.

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I remember Cuppa saying we were going to get a free respec after I-7 hits. Did anyone remember or see anything specific as to when they were going to grant this? Same day as I-7 hits, the next week, the next month? Just curious if I need to find a Villian spec team before then.

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Less than a week after I7 goes to live - but not right as it goes to live. I will let you know for sure when I7 actually releases.

I hate to burst everyone's bubble here - but I7 is not going up before the end of May. We have a few more things left to fix/tweak.

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I understand that and agree that a bugged i7 is not good, but ya'll need got get your stuff together we had i7 coming soon on the log on screen for 2 months, Posi said that it would be out by the end od the month ( if i remember right), ppl are already leaving the came for lack of content (add another 1 to that list) I'm in the navy and i had to take leave so i took in now in the hopes of getting a few weeks of live i7 my leave ends june 13th and now it looks like i won't get any..... I don't understand programing nor so i pretend to but this is getting out of hand. I know I'll get alot of flack from ppl on this post becaue alot of the ppl on the forums are willing to wait as long as they have to but i'm a guy on a time line i have to go back to Sea IE a big grey boat with no computers to play any games in a few months but this is my opnion and thats that.

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That's not why you're going to get a lot of flack. Can I get some correct punctuation in here, please? It's like trying to read the e e cummings of CoH.

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The single-target Taunt is not supposed to work in PvP. If it is, it will be fixed in the next build.

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Psst, Jonyu, could you have a word with the others about doing something to make Tanks work in PvP, too? I don't think any AT's entire PvP worth should be based upon a single power, in this case Taunt, do you?

Yes, I've just elected you the Tanker rep, too.

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I dunno, I beat the living crap out of some poor scrapper this weekend with my Inv/SS in Warburg. But he started it!

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At higher levels Brutes get the power to summon Synapse and throw him at enemies as a range attack.

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No one gives us electric blasters a fair shake. Come on guys!

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If you want, we can shake Synapse like a ragdoll before we throw him.

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pattern so far is most blaster primarys are defender secondaries... you may yet get your wish

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At Wizard World last year, Statesman said that it would probably be both a defender secondary and a blaster primary.

Still, the fact that they A) separated out trick arrows from archery and B) put the trick arrows in defender surprised the hell out of me. That gives some nice options for Natural and Tech bowmen, tho. You can go Archery/Devices or Trick Arrow/Archery. Decisions, decisions...

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Quoted For Truth.

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Does your casual player base mean so little to you?

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Does arrogance mean something to you?

This game is trying to give casual people a fun game while at the same time hardcore people a fun game. Hardcore people have Hamidon enhancements while casual people enjoy the story arcs and other things.

Your argument is just like what the Hardcore crowd says..."Does the hardcore player base mean so little to you?"

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Clearing a story arc, or even all of them, doesn't give me uber loot that I can use in PvP. Why should clearing HAmidon do so for you?

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Why not cap accuracy? Or even reduce the effect of accuracy enhancements against heroes. My guess is that they're going to play with this a lot before they release it on live. Anything that happens on test is going to be used by the devs to try and clean it up and make it a little more even. So I say, bring your SR scrappers and Ice tankers to test, get your butt whooped (with only a 5% chance of getting missed)

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I would, but my main's a Fire/Ice tanker. I'm sure he'll have enough of his own little handicaps, being built as a PvE monster, not PvP. Should still be fun to play, tho. I've pretty much avoided the defense based powersets like the plague.

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Like I said, bring on the additional means to acquire Hami O's. Yes, I have quite a few, but not nearly as many as the bastards who KSed buds before the reward system was changed. If I were more like you I would be screaming to have those people nerfed somehow, because they are going to beat me every time in the arena. But I really don't care about that, I'm doing my best to cope with the impact that Hami O's *could* have on PvP. I suggest you do the same because they aren't going anywhere. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best, that's all any of us can do until I4 hits.

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Giving people the opportunity to get HOs from other avenues sounds like a great idea, until you actually do the math on them. If nothing else, defense based defenses (SR, Ice Armor, Force Fields, Fortitude, Weave, some of the others) become worthless in a "everybody has HOs" arena. SR isn't entirely so, but a fully six slotted defense HO SR scrapper can only get to the point where going up against a fully slotted Dmg/Acc blaster has an effective 25% defense (IIRC, the numbers are further up the thread) and the Ice Armor tanker is only going to be able to get the defense he needs if he can get about 30 enemies to stand right next to each other and hits Energy Absorption plus runs six slotted toggles. IF that discrepancy was fixed, then HOs from alternate sources might make for an interesting idea, albeit a massive time sink. But, hey, there's nothing else to do with the 50s but play PvP or go raid Hami, as has been pointed out.

I don't know what the balancing point would be then, tho. Resistance based defenses become a LOT better with HOs, as there's an artificial cap. Until sonics go in, there's no point in adding extra resistance past that, so you can get away with a lot fewer slots in your powers, and/or a couple fewer powers. The current favorite for Invuln tankers (6 slot Unyielding, 1 slot TI, 1 slot RPD, 6 slot REl, 6 slot REn for 90% across the board) could easily turn into (6 slot Unyielding, 3 slot REl, 3 slot REn, 6 slot RP) means a savings of one slot AND one less toggle to run. Another option would be to remove RPD and run TI, which means higher energy consumption but 6 total saved slots. So do you crank up defenses, so that you have to slot less? Or make defensive enhancements be more powerful, meaning that everything but 6 slotted Acc/Dmg becomes a cakewalk with the current number of slots in a power? Or do you add some arcane math that makes it so that once you're above the amount of defense that would be required to take an unenhanced attack to 5%, your defense amount is doubled? That's confusing just writing it, the math or actually doing it would be doubly so, and still might not address the inequality. Or how about an accuracy cap of 2 times the unenhanced ability?

Until the defense issue is addressed, adding more HOs to the arena doesn't seem the way to go.

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People will very quickly figure it out for them selves. Someone can lie about not having HamiOs. But he can only do it once or twice before everyone knows who he is. Especialy now that we can all see his global handle, (he wont be able to try with different toons.)
For the most part, people will be honest about it and we'll be able to solve these issues easily I think.

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That's not entirely true. It's quite possible to build a very subtle all-HO character that will beat the crap out of other characters and mostly look like skill when doing it, either build skill or energy management/buff management skill.

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I'm 31, an attorney, a parent and I have ten HOs, mostly earned at Justice's 9 pm public raid.

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And apparently missed my point, which is that restricting the ranking lists to fights with HOs enabled will give a huge advantage to those people that have the free time to farm Hamidon again and again.

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You missed my point. I don't have a lot of free time (outside of work, things are slow at work right now). I have responsibilities to my family and my profession. I only get to play about two-three times a week except when I'm on vacation. I still managed to get some HOs. It's really not that hard. I choose not to make excuses for why I can't get HOs and just get them. It's just not that hard. I don't understand why people keep acting like Hami raids are like other MMOs where you have to be in a raiding guild where you have to have a perfect build and devote 12 hours to a raid.

In CoH you have to devote 2 hours to a raid, are all but assured of getting a reward if you contribute (sometimes even if you don't), and it's open to everyone. If you can't do that, where are you going to find time to do much PvPing anyway?

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No, it's just, well... boring. I mean, the first time, maybe even the fifth time, it's fun! You're there, you're helping half the 50s on the server take down the jello mold of doom, you're hearing your computer groan under the strain, and when it's all over, you get a shiny new HO. I don't really have a huge issue with the guys that have enough HOs to slot out a power. So, they get one truly nasty first shot with their power. That's painful, but not overwhelming.

It's the guys with a whole screen of them that are a major porblem. Someone who slots all of their powers with dam/acc means that an Ice tanker or force field def/controller is completely useless against them. Even SR scrappers are left out in the cold, unless they've six slotted all their defenses AND they have HOs in all of them. One of the rarest HOs, I might add. Someone that goes half dam/acc and half dam/range can sit almost out of visual range and plink a close-in character to death while still being at 400% damage constantly. If they're fighting an ice tanker, it's not a plinking, either, it's a full out assault.

A few HOs for a character are a badge of pride, and something that good tactics can get around. A screen full is like playing on a whole other plane. Not only are your attacks more effective, but you can afford more slots for the attacks you might not have slotted, because powers like hasten, resistance defense, etc. can be capped out early. Any defense-based characters are toast against you, and that's even IF they're slotted up with HOs. Tell me again, how is it balanced if a full set of enhancements renders a character's primary or secondary worthless, even if they also have a full set?

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Fair point, but honestly getting a full set of HOs, especially dmg/acc * 6 takes a LONG time. (former bud griefers excluded) Someone willing to put up with that level of farming should have an edge. Just my opinion.

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There's a difference between having an edge and having the only knife. There are already guys out there that have 40+ HOs because they did the raid several times pre-bud fix. Beyond that, time is only a temporary stay of execution. It takes a minimum of 40 days to get the HOs that a player needs to fully spec out their character, and there are folks willing to do it.

I still have not heard a reason that all PvE rewards should have full effect in a PvP arena, other than personal preference on the part of the posters and (arguably) the devs. And, frankly, as much as I appreciate the devs' hard work, they've made egregious balance errors before. Some would argue we're still dealing with ones they made in beta.

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I'm 31, an attorney, a parent and I have ten HOs, mostly earned at Justice's 9 pm public raid.

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And apparently missed my point, which is that restricting the ranking lists to fights with HOs enabled will give a huge advantage to those people that have the free time to farm Hamidon again and again.

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You missed my point. I don't have a lot of free time (outside of work, things are slow at work right now). I have responsibilities to my family and my profession. I only get to play about two-three times a week except when I'm on vacation. I still managed to get some HOs. It's really not that hard. I choose not to make excuses for why I can't get HOs and just get them. It's just not that hard. I don't understand why people keep acting like Hami raids are like other MMOs where you have to be in a raiding guild where you have to have a perfect build and devote 12 hours to a raid.

In CoH you have to devote 2 hours to a raid, are all but assured of getting a reward if you contribute (sometimes even if you don't), and it's open to everyone. If you can't do that, where are you going to find time to do much PvPing anyway?

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No, it's just, well... boring. I mean, the first time, maybe even the fifth time, it's fun! You're there, you're helping half the 50s on the server take down the jello mold of doom, you're hearing your computer groan under the strain, and when it's all over, you get a shiny new HO. I don't really have a huge issue with the guys that have enough HOs to slot out a power. So, they get one truly nasty first shot with their power. That's painful, but not overwhelming.

It's the guys with a whole screen of them that are a major porblem. Someone who slots all of their powers with dam/acc means that an Ice tanker or force field def/controller is completely useless against them. Even SR scrappers are left out in the cold, unless they've six slotted all their defenses AND they have HOs in all of them. One of the rarest HOs, I might add. Someone that goes half dam/acc and half dam/range can sit almost out of visual range and plink a close-in character to death while still being at 400% damage constantly. If they're fighting an ice tanker, it's not a plinking, either, it's a full out assault.

A few HOs for a character are a badge of pride, and something that good tactics can get around. A screen full is like playing on a whole other plane. Not only are your attacks more effective, but you can afford more slots for the attacks you might not have slotted, because powers like hasten, resistance defense, etc. can be capped out early. Any defense-based characters are toast against you, and that's even IF they're slotted up with HOs. Tell me again, how is it balanced if a full set of enhancements renders a character's primary or secondary worthless, even if they also have a full set?

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Anyone complaning about how they don't like it, don't have to do it. But then thay shouldn't complain about others who receive the awards for doing it.

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So, even if your playstyle will ruin or limit our PvP enjoyment -- we shouldn't complain?

That's basically what your choices boil down to -- fight from a severe disadvantage, farm a raid I don't enjoy, skip or limit my PvP experience (and probably skip CoV).

I don't care if you want to spend "extreme amounts of time" on a game until it starts to impact my fun. From everything you've said I have no reason to think it won't impact my fun -- just look at your 4 choices.

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I know I said I wouldn't reply but this is a new thought.

Have you been having fun playing CoH so far? Do you like your toons? The TF's? The cool plot lines and missions? Am I stoping you from doing any of those things by having HamiOs?.......No I am not.

I am not stoping you from having fun. If you want to compete in a PVP match you have to accept that others will be better than you for a variety of reasons.
If you want to do PvP and not face HamiOs you have the choice of playing with your friends, SGs or people you trust.

Otherwise don't join PVP, just play the game the way you were and have fun.

See my play style = zero impact on you.

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If I wanted to play that way, I'd be playing on a password-proected UT server, not a MMORPG. I want to play with parameters that both players can agree are fair for the duration of the match AND have them programmatically enforced. Otherwise we're back on blizzard.net with matches titled "1v1 Match, no Zerg Rush" that end 2 minutes later with "HAHAH! N00B! I zerg rushed j00! I r l33t!!"

Your play style != zero impact on me if your playstyle = only truly viable playstyle. All we want is a toggle to turn off HOs. That playstyle = zero impact on you.

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at best they will improve an existing enh by 15% thats enough for flavor but thats it.

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O_O


sir, with respect - please check your facts!

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I was just looking at individual Dam and not taking into accout the 12 slotting issue. But even including that and all the numbers I've seen, I dont think it warrants this much panic. However, I have fully sloted (almost) and non slotted toons on test, and my opinion of this whole situation may change depending on how bad/good the results are.

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That's not the guy I'd be worried about, honestly. If someone slots entirely for damage, that's a very showy win, but extremely obvious. I'll know to avoid the guy again, since I just cannot keep up the damage output he can. If a blaster hits me from somewhere in Nebraska, I'll know he went with 6 slotted Dmg/Range HOs, and, again, I'll know it almost immediately. But what about something more clever? What about a very smartly and subtly built Inv/EM flying tanker?

Rather than six slot Dmg/Acc, 4 slot Dmg/Acc, 1 slot HO Rch reducer and 1 slot HO End reducer. Then 4 slot Hasten with Rch Reducer and 3 slot Build Up with it, along with 6 slotted Conserve Power (Rch) and only 4 slots in Unyielding (End/DamRes) and one each in TI and RPD, plus 4 each in REl and REn. That's an 8 slot savings while still more effective than the character was previously. This, of course, translates into more six-slotted attacks. Pretty much at will, the character can fire off Build Up to almost reach the damage cap, but if they use the ability sparing, it won't be noticeable. Their attacks, normally, will come up a little faster and use a little less end, but not so most players would notice in the middle of a match.

At the end of the match, the "beaten" opponent might have a hunch that they lost because of something besides fighting skill, but nothing they can really put their finger on, and certainly nothing they can call the person reliably on. An ice tanker, because they are so defense based, might be able to figure it out after a match or two where they were almost never missed, but another tanker, a scrapper (even SR) or just about any other class, might never catch on. And the ganker will continue to get away with it, claiming no HOs at all, and even losing to more spectacularly-slotted players so that they can show that they aren't HO slotted. Thus they can continue to grief players repeatedly, and the other players will even thnak them for a good game as they blatantly cheat, assuming they lie about their slotting to their opponents, which is the whole point of this build.

[quoteI'm not going to dissagree with anything you wrote (though in answer to your question, no I dont see anything wrong with profesionals playing amateur sports, but you will notice that very few do because of the lack of challenge) But I will make this comment: Do you realy think you as a self proclaimed amateur, who has spent less than 1/4 of the amount of time I've spent playing, are on equal footing? wouldn't someone who practices something everyday, out match someone who doesn't?
I have an unenhanced toon on test named Markus V8.3 and I would love to test your "equal footing" theory.

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Great, I'll see you on there as Thermion. when you say unenhanced, do you mean no enhancements or SOs?

Oh, and, don't get me wrong. I fully expect to get stomped into the ground. I do hope to put up a good fight, but A) it's a fire tanker and therefore built for AoE PvE, and B) as you've pointed out, you have far more game time than I do. I don't mind losing to someone who's a better player. I mind losing to someone's equipment.

Also, I thought some more about the "I've spent a lot of time making my character the best he can be argument," and I'd like to say that's not entirely true. None of us have worked hard to make our characters the best they can be in the PvP arenas yet. We've been getting stuff that until very soon could only be used in a PvE setting. While some of the skills are similar, there's enough different there that I can see an argument that HOs should not perform in the fundamentally same manner. A similar analogy would be: I know how to drive very well. I have also built the very best NASCAR race car that I could, given the rules, time and money that I had available to me. I would like to compete in Formula One racing. I can take my skills, which will need to be modified a pretty fair amount based on the equipment I'm going to be using and the different rules involved in that style of racing, but I can't take my NASCAR car along. I'll have to use the Formula One cars provided instead.

As with all analogies, it's not entirely 1:1. If it were, it wouldn't be an analogy. But here's the thing: all the time that you've spent in PvE, past mastering the controls of your character, does not necessarily have to count towards your PvP skill or equipment. We're only assuming it does/should because that seems simplest. But the truth of it is that even the hardest PvE player, with 8 slots filled with level 50 characters, has already gotten out of the game something for the time they've put into it: massive PvE skills and HOs that work in PvE as far as the eye can see. Why should across-the-board uberness in one gamestyle automatically mean across-the-board uberness in another? Why should the amount of time you've put into the PvE content automatically mean your domination in the PvP arenas?

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The true spirit of competition also demands that fights are held between people of similar 'weight'. That's why we have weight classes instead of skill classes.


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Lastly. No one is making you compete against me or anyone else with Hami-os. So if you dont want to have the chalenge, don't fight against them.

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That is indeed an equally viable solution, but it does mean introducing some way of TELLING that a prospective opponent has Hami-Os. As you are no doubt aware, you can't currently do that.

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By pulling out small quotes of my statement you missed what I was saying overall. The Aikido example is perfect because in Akido we often have to fight against people whao are better armed, more skilled or just more than one opponent. These are all things that test you and your abilities. Is it "fair"? No. But nothing in life is. I would rather true variety in strength and skill to test myself against, rather than some homoginized version.
I also hope you can have 2, 3, + vs 1 in the arena. Can you imagine the bragging rights of someone who manages to beat 3 opponents at once?

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Nice way to sidestep the last question she put to you. I'll ask it again, since you seem to have missed it: How would I know whether an opponent has HOs or not? I can't see their enhancement screen. I could ask them, but they could lie. Sure, after fighting them once and never seeing their damage drop below 400%, I might have some indication. But what if they use their HOs more subtly? For example, a tanker or scrapper can get a good bit of extra juice out of their character by 4 slotting hasten and several of their defensive powers, then reapplying those slots to other powers.Done right, you could six slot 1-2 additional attack powers with the other player being none the wiser.

Regardless of whether you want HOs in the arena unaltered or you want a switch to turn them on and off (turning them into SOs) or you want to have them always turned off, can you honestly deny a need for full, or at least useful partial disclosure? I don't need to know what you've got slotted where, but I should be able to glance at your info screen and see "X HOs/Y SOs/Z DOs/W Trainings" before I choose to fight you or not. It gives me both knowledge of your true weight class and some insight into your skill level.

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Sry dude I didn't "avoid" the question, I just didn't see how it is relevant.
If I go to fight you I have no way of knowing what martial arts you know or whether you have a hiden weapon or not. It's a risk. Personaly if I lost I would want another shot at you, but others can choose to never fight you again. It's up to them. Surprise is just as much of an advantage as enhancements. If anything I would argue that we shouldn't be allowed to see what powers our opponents have so that we are forced to compete blindly, be forced to adapt to new situaitions and can learn from our experiences.

I think there is a missconception here. When I go to get slotted with hamio's It's not to be better than others so that I can breeze through them. I get them to make my toon as good as he can possibly be, to strive for the perfect weapon. Then I can use my tactics to the best of my ability, and hopefuly the environment as well. This way I know I'm giving it my all agaisnt everyone else. I want everyone to try there best and use every edge they can get. But I want them to have to earn those advantages the same way I did, otherwise it was wasted effort on my part.

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So you would be okay with someone coming into a sporting competition and entering themselves in the amateur events even tho he had competed professionally before? Because, largely, that's what having opponents compete without either the ability to turn off HOs (which you seem in favor of) or the ability to see the number of HOs a given player has (not their slot placement, just the number) would turn into.

I have a level 50 and several other lowbies. I've watched a Hami raid, briefly, and decided that I wanted to do something more fun (to me) with my limited time in the game. I've got full-time work and school, so spending two hours a night in a slideshow just doesn't do it for me. I don't, therefore, have HOs. That's fine. Until the devs either allow them to be sold by vendors or dropped from high end task forces, I probably won't ever have more than 1 or 2 in any of my characters. I would easily fall into the "amateur" class in the example above. You, having spent hundreds of hours developing the Hamidon strategy and raiding night after night, would fall into the "pro" class. If you have been sincere about your wish to compete against challenging opponents, you'd never fight me: I might have the skills to take you on, but I don't have the enhancements. As I'm sure you're aware, when two equally skilled opponents come up against each other, the better conditioned one almost always wins. That's fine, too. But there are folks out there, especially folks that have enough free time to both raid Hami and gank amateurs, that would be perfectly happy to take their fully slotted HO characters and blatantly lie when asked the question, "Are you HO specced? At all?"

When the arenas come, I don't see myself having any more time to spend on PvP than I do on PvE. In fact, I'll probably have less, since I'll be splitting my time between both aspects of the game. And without a way to determine whether a match is going to be a waste of my time before I start playing, that's even more of it down the drain. THAT's why I want to know how many HOs an opponent has.

You may take this whole arena competition as some Bushido warrior thing, but it's just a game to me. I want to play a game, and I want it to be as completely grief-free as possible. I don't know what's necessary to make that happen. there have been several suggestions, including a way to turn off/tone down HOs as an option and the ability to see the number of HOs a given player has. I think perhaps the best way to do it might be to make the disclosure voluntary. If a player doesn't want to show how many they've got, as you don't, they can turn it off for themselves. That would act as a signifier to many players: either you take the game very seriously, in which case you're probably not worth fighting on the skill side alone, except for other extremely serious players, or you're a griefer and not worth fighting for the obvious reasons.

You said yourself, more options are always good. This would be a good option for the vast bulk of players in a game that was advertised as a game for casual players, yet which has phat lewt obtainable only through raids at the high end.

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The true spirit of competition also demands that fights are held between people of similar 'weight'. That's why we have weight classes instead of skill classes.

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Lastly. No one is making you compete against me or anyone else with Hami-os. So if you dont want to have the chalenge, don't fight against them.

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That is indeed an equally viable solution, but it does mean introducing some way of TELLING that a prospective opponent has Hami-Os. As you are no doubt aware, you can't currently do that.

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By pulling out small quotes of my statement you missed what I was saying overall. The Aikido example is perfect because in Akido we often have to fight against people whao are better armed, more skilled or just more than one opponent. These are all things that test you and your abilities. Is it "fair"? No. But nothing in life is. I would rather true variety in strength and skill to test myself against, rather than some homoginized version.
I also hope you can have 2, 3, + vs 1 in the arena. Can you imagine the bragging rights of someone who manages to beat 3 opponents at once?

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Nice way to sidestep the last question she put to you. I'll ask it again, since you seem to have missed it: How would I know whether an opponent has HOs or not? I can't see their enhancement screen. I could ask them, but they could lie. Sure, after fighting them once and never seeing their damage drop below 400%, I might have some indication. But what if they use their HOs more subtly? For example, a tanker or scrapper can get a good bit of extra juice out of their character by 4 slotting hasten and several of their defensive powers, then reapplying those slots to other powers.Done right, you could six slot 1-2 additional attack powers with the other player being none the wiser.

Regardless of whether you want HOs in the arena unaltered or you want a switch to turn them on and off (turning them into SOs) or you want to have them always turned off, can you honestly deny a need for full, or at least useful partial disclosure? I don't need to know what you've got slotted where, but I should be able to glance at your info screen and see "X HOs/Y SOs/Z DOs/W Trainings" before I choose to fight you or not. It gives me both knowledge of your true weight class and some insight into your skill level.

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Well, the real problem isn’t HO’s. Some players won’t/can’t put in the effort or the time (for whatever reason) into the game but still want PvP to be fair against those that do. I’m sorry but ‘fair’ doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist in real life and it doesn’t exist in this game.

To be ‘fair’ you’d have to only PvP against someone with the exact same build, same connection speed, same game knowledge, same experiences, same computer speed, etc. Not going to happen is it? Just looking at builds alone I’d like you to find 2 EXACTLY the same, you’d be hard pressed and I doubt you could. Even min/max builds have player preference differences.

From reading all these threads it seems to me that the players that don’t have HO’s have expressed their self perceived inadequacy into some type of ‘lack of fun’ versus those players that do. Instead of doing something in-game about this they have decided to reach out to the dev’s and cry 'nerf' for a false notion of fairness. “They earned it, it’s not fair that I won’t/can’t, take it way from them!”

So being ‘fair’ isn’t about HO’s, it’s about making other players, that can put the time and effort into their build, as miserable as them. No thanks.

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Riiiight. There's never artificial constraints placed on players in sporting/game events to make for a more interesting competition. Or even, god forbid, a more "fair" one.

Tell you what, how about we start letting Olympic athletes use steroids as much as they want? Why not let football players carry tasers onto the field? It's not hurting anyone, it's just improving their ability to play the game, and hey, they can afford them, right? Oh, I've got it! Let's remove all of the constraints on stock car building! Use the lightest materials you want, drop a nitrous tank in your car, use whatever tools you can afford! Hey, why don't we let the men compete in women's wrestling in the Olympics? It's not their fault they've naturally got the better upper body strength (on average). Preventing them from playing for fairness sake is just... communist!

There is a certain sense of fairness in competitons, regardless of whether you like it or not. Without constraints put in place to prevent people from dominating a contest by using means that others are unwilling or unable to do, you end up with a contest that people stop wanting to compete in and that they stop wanting to watch.

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Instead of pushing for no HO's and what not why not push for more ways to get muti-O's.

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People have asked for this.

Only problem I see is heavy HO heroes making PvP too fast.

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I can see that being an issue, too. There's been several suggestions for an option to tone down HOs in PvP (including my own humble suggestion, heh), and without one of those, I think HO combat is going to be fast and pretty boring. It's possible for people to hit enemies out of sighting distance with Dam/Range slotted attacks, and to ignore immense amounts of defense with Acc/Damage. In both cases, it's possible to set a power to hit for 400% damage pretty much 95% of the time, regardless of defenses. I think the most fun fights, tactically, are going to be down in the 25-40 range, where everyone's got enough powers and slots (with SOs) to make the fight entertaining, but not too fast. The high end ones are going to be more akin to cruise missile bombardment.

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here here!

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Yeah. That would be acceptable, too, and give me a reason besides just story to finish up my missions and do the Zulu task forces.

Honestly, I think A) making HOs (or an equivalent) available outside the Hami raid, B) giving an option to turn off HOs in the arena (turning them into SOs for the first applicable type) and C) possibly making the HOs (or equivalent) buyable would go a long way towards quieting the whole debate down. Doing any one of those would irritate some segment of the playerbase, but doing all three would turn the game back into a more egalitarian one. And when I mention "equivalent," I mean things that do the same stuff as HOs, but not HOs. That still leaves open the bragging rights inherent in "I raided Hami this many times and have the HOs to prove it," while still giving others who don't have the opportunity to raid a chance to catch up. If HEOs (Hami Equivalent) were expensive enough, it would also mean there would be something to actually do with influence other than accrue it toward when we'll have to pay rents on SG buildings.

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well now all those players have to do is leech. i guess now everyones happy.

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The raids happen for two hours at a time on days when a large enough group can get together to raid. If you're at work, or school, or taking care of a kid, you can't get there, even to leech. Making the raids drop fewer enhancements fixes nothing but post-raid griefing. Try again.

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all enhancements are loot. the whole game already is loot based. this player paradigm that its not has been flawed from the start. The point is the only loot thats relatively difficult to get (i.e. you cant just purchase it) is HOs and 51+ SOs.

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There's a difference between loot and phat lewt, and you know that. HOs are phat lewt. THAT is what they've always touted, but they've sometimes been lazy and said "loot" instead. SOs over 51 can be gotten through normal play, either soloing or teamed. Task Force special enhancements can be done with small teams at any time. Hamidon requires massive raids that have to be preplanned and by their nature mean that fairly large segments of the playerbase will not have time/resources to do. In addition, there are less favored ATs on Hamidon raids that regularly don't get invited. Stop trying to derail the discussion by splitting hairs.