BlackJaguar

Good times! I don't know if Galaxy-Gal is still around, but she definitely deserves a lot of credit for helping me start and lead the group in the beginning.

But really, other than a few instances of drama, it didn't require much work or leadership at all. Great group of creative, independent players, which really worked for the "lost boys" theme of the team. One of the better examples of "open RP" hero side, I would say. I was proud to be a part of it.

This thread is pure nostalgia for me.

o_x

Zomg too cool. You rock, can't wait to see how it progresses!

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are there changes to it? no post on it other than this one

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That's because the player base is almost as blind to TA as the devs.

There are two additions to powers and two other powers had their recharge rate reduced. Based on the fact that TA needs a whole lot of help, I think it deserves an official thread.

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'Quick' animations -- You guys are right, in the comics, Archery is seen as very fast and accurate. Fortunately, they don't have to animate them...they just draw as many arrows flying as the story warrants (see Manticore in our comic, for an example.) In the game, having all the animations be as quick as snap shot would definitely decrease the visual appeal of the set. If any of you have ever seen a movie called "Hawk, the Slayer" you'll remember how absolutely silly the archer in that looked. A similar effect would happen in CoX if we animated all the shots that quickly.

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Aimed Shot looks very cool and the animation time isn't bad at all. Why can't you replace Blazing Arrow and Ice Arrow's animations with that?

It's all well and good to say "these animations look better," but you're missing the point: no one is playing these powersets. Who cares how good they look if they're nearly unplayable?

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I7 changes:

1) Working on Oil Slick. I think I have the 'oil doesn't always light' bug fixed (hard to tell - it never failed on my box, but it was replicatable here.) I refered the 'wrong team in PvP zones' issue to programming.
2) Poison Gas Arrow -- this should work the same for all AT's now.
3) Archery: Fistful of Arrows, Rain of Arrows and Ranged Shot animations shortened.

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There are still a few more problems

1. Glue arrows recharge is too long for an early dependant on power

2. Flash arrows effect is too small for an early dependant on power.

3. Net arrow, single target immob's are still considered mostly useless except for controllers trying to initiate containment. Animation too long also.

4. acid arrows area is too small.

5. Disruption arrow is 3 times longer recharge and 2/3 the debuff of tar patch.

6. The rest of archery's animations are too long also.

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QFT.

This all comes off as "too little, too late." Positron said if Trick Arrow was underperforming on Live, it would be fixed. The fixes listed are either very minor, or bug fixes. When is TA going to get a significant buff?

And the Archery fixes are kind of "meh." Rain of Arrows will be a lot better, but I never had a problem with Fistful of Arrows' animation. Blazing Arrow is my biggest animation problem.

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* Bug: Flash Arrow's -accuracy does not stack with itself. (Concern)

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Correct, it does not. It is functionally the same power as Controller/Smoke and works identically to that power in terms of effect.


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Sorry if this has been mentioned many times, but if controller are better with the control power secondaries then defenders are with their primaries why is it that a debuff in a defender primary isn't stronger then the one in a controller primary even though debuff is one of the main focuses of the defender class.

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I'd like to know this, too.

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Archery has long animations so that it looksas good as possible while trying to keep the set playable.

I did a pass on all the End Costs of the Archery Powers and reduced the cost of Snap Shot, Aimed Shot, Fistful of Arrows and Blazing Arrow.

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This doesn't address the fact that Archery is a terrible powerset. Sure, we won't use as much endurance as we do now, but we still have a horrible damage type, and very little to make up for it.

Between this and the general apathy and procrastination towards Trick Arrow, it looks like my Defender's going to remain on the shelf for a long time.

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_Castle_, weren't you the one to ask for "new" Stalker sets? (i.e. the psychic-dagger set)

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The most popular requests seemed to be:
- Dual Daggers
- Psychic Melee
- Bo/Staffs
- Sais

Even though those last two are horrendously NOT Stalker-like.

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I'd rather see a Dual Pistols set than any of those.

Great post, Arcanaville.

One of the major points of the OP seems to be that Stalkers can survive battles by running away from them, but this ability is hardly exclusive to Stalkers. EVERYONE can run. It just so happens that the central strategy of the Stalker is hit-and-run tactics, but everyone is capable of using this strategy.

Stalkers are definitely the natural selection process of CoH. I spend a lot of time in Siren's Call. Last night, I saw a Defender just standing out in the open, all alone, so I AS'd him to death. A few minutes later, I spot the exact same Defender, standing all by himself. Once again, I AS him. A few minutes later, I see the same Defender again. This time he's keeping moving and running Repel.

Because of my repeated killing, this guy learned the basics of how to survive in a PvP zone. Needless to say, I was very proud.

How about lowering the recharge time of all powers, too? Trick Arrow, which is already a mediocre powerset, is going to be completely useless once Enhancement Diversification takes effect.

These changes do seem a little extreme, particularly the changes to Glue Arrow.

Plus, giving Poison Gas Arrow and Glue Arrow both -recharge debuffs gave Trick Arrow something of a specialty. Now it seems like the debuffs might be too varied to be very effective. I think I'd rather Poison Gas Arrow lost the damage debuff than the recharge debuff.

But the really weird thing is nerfing Entangling Arrow. It was already a bad power, why make it worse?

EDIT: Also, in the past it seems like the devs don't like that Hasten is considered a "must have" power. Well, right now, Trick Arrow doesn't really "need" Hasten, but with the change to Glue Arrow, I think it's going to become pretty necessary.

Love the powerset.

Entangling Arrow - Seems pretty useless. A single target immoblization just isn't that valuable in a set with a hold and a slow. However, not every power in a powerset has to be a great power. I'm sure some people will find a use for this one.

Ice Arrow - Very cool. Some people seem to think it's overpowered, but I don't. When you consider that we have no heals or buffs, it doesn't seem to extreme to give us a good single target hold. If this does need to be toned down, though, just up the recharge duration so that it's not a perma-hold without enhancements.

Flash Arrow - I respecced out of this. The ACC debuff sounds pretty good, but the -Visibility doesn't seem worthwhile if we can't put Accuracy enhancements in this power. If you miss one enemy in a group, then the entire group can still be aggrod pretty easily.

Glue Arrow - Pretty good power, though (as many have mentioned) the graphics seem to be swapped with Poison Gas Arrow.

Poison Gas Arrow - Pretty good, especially with Glue Arrow, since the -recharge debuff stacks, and the slow effect from Glue Arrow keeps foes from running out of PGA area of effect. As mentioned above, the graphics seem to be swapped with Glue Arrow.

Haven't tried out the rest of the powers yet, but I'm looking forward to it, especially Oil Slick Arrow!

All in all, I think this is a really, really good set. It's nice to have a very active Defender primary.

I love the new comics. It's great to get to know members of the Freedom Phalanx. And so what if they don't all have squeaky clean personalities? Flawed characters are far more interesting, in my opinion.

The old comic completely bored me. Occasionally I would skim it, but I never really read a full issue since I gave the first one a try. With the new comic, I actually look forward to getting it each month, and read it from beginning to end as soon as I do.

The new comic gets a big thumbs up from me.

I think the new comic is MUCH better than the old one. It might not be perfect, but it's interesting, at least. The old comic was just boring, in my opinion.

It did a good job of making a comic out of the game we play every day, but I don't want to read a comic that just features the game I play every day. This game isn't fun because it's got a deep story or narrative, it's just fun to play, and that doesn't translate well into a comic.

The art in the new one might be slightly generic, but I still think it's much better than the old one, which came off as cheap and juvenile.

I love that we're getting to know the Freedom Phalanx. They're the most interesting thing in the game, in my opinion, and it's nice to learn more about them.

I remember when everyone used HeroMachine to design their characters before open beta started. In the end, none of the characters I created pre-beta got passed level 11.

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It's sure sounding like this expansion has some nice stuff - if you're over level 40. Am i the only one who seems to see that at least 2/3 of all the new content introduced into the game has been aimed at high level players? It's looking more and more like the developers don't care about anyone under level 20 that plays.

Issue 1 - Game is finished as intended by initial release design
Issue 2 - Screwed over low level players with design errors in the hollows, added lots of nice effects and another extra zone for high level players, effects and capes if you were not under level 20.
Issue 3 - More high level stuff and no mention of stuff for low levels (yet). It's like the percentage of players who aret 38+ don't matter in terms of content for them - oh sure...we get the odd revisited and updated mission, but when it comes to anything else we are just expected to patiently wait through the 2-3 month publish cycles so they can add more for the high levels and tell us to wait again.

I'm not even going to bother about the obligatory anti flaming request of my post, you guys will flame me, but just go back and look at the listing for each new publish and you will see what i mean. Oh, don't bother with the just play and not complain thing either, i do play. I have a 26 blaster and other characters - that's why i got the game...to play it after all...just be nice if of all the new content being added, it was evenly distributed amongst the level ranges.

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You act like when it came to new zones in Issue 2, the lower-levels got the short end of the stick. In my opinion, the Hollows is much, much better than the Shadow Shard. If you don't have Teleport or Fly, getting around the Shard is one of the most frustrating things in the game.

Plus, once you get to the late 40's you start to realize that there's not much left to do, whereas pre-20 you haven't even seen half the content, and definitely haven't seen the most interesting stuff, like Portal Corp. missions or Archvillains. Low levels don't need as much new content; they have the whole rest of the game to look forward to.