Blagg

And of course, you realize that's the name of the theme song Josh wrote for the series? 8)

Yes, I'm a firefly nerd..

I almost hate to do it.. but please bear with me for a breif off topic..

Kali?

You gotta change that avatar.. lol

Im going crazy trying to figure out if it's River or Sarah Connors...

I'm betting River, though, based on your loc...

Thanks for reading. I'm going to get a group up tonight and try to do some testing to verify what's happening. I'll post the results.

B

The funny thing is, I got almost immediate read receipts from my pm's earlier today. But no responses, and I'm sure the last thing they want to deal with right now is a big bug right before their halloween event hits live.

Give them some time, one of us who've sent pm's will get a reply.

B

True, we could keep anyone's attention by just hitting them, but their friends would wipe our teams, so presto chango.. punchvoke (later dubbed gauntlet as more politically correct terminology).

The only reason I even get my main tank out now is for AV missions, and if this is a deliberate change, then I can park him permanently..


you know.. wow is looking better and better..

I figured we should get some straight answers on this, as it's quite a development if accurate, so I pm'd posi and castle..

Should hear something from them I'd think.

here's what I asked.

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Could you take a look at this thread and see if you're seeing similar issues on the internal testing system?
Gauntlet/Aggro not working on AVs and GMs
If this is the way things are supposed to work, what exactly are we supposed be doing versus AVs/GM on a tank character?

thanks
Blagg



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I really hope they get this worked out before the rewards go live..

after all.. mine says this..

1 Years, 4 Months
Account Created
Apr 04 2004

Granted a missed about 4 months or so.. but .....

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I just wanted to post this again. I think it was lost within one of the ED threads after a lot of people were rallying against ED and the GDN.

This was originally posted by Luminara and it just really put into words how I want to feel when I become my "Superhero". Honestly, I don't really feel that way on most toons, really only my stone tank. The nerfcalls for Granite have already started so who knows how long that will last. My very first serious toon started 18 months ago a Fire/Fire Tanker still wallows at 45 and will probably remain there, not even really a "hero" anymore...

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A young Dark Miasma/Dark Blast defender was patrolling Paragon City late one night when a call came in from another hero, asking if she would be willing to join a small party on a high security mission. Elated at the opportunity to prove her worth to the hero community, do deeds worthy of note, and experience something truly challenging, she streaked off through the darkness, risking certain death along the way through the perilous Founder's Falls zone, and walked into the building with her head lifted and determination bolstered. The sight that greeted her was something the likes of which she never witnessed again, and it left a mark so profound that she was forever changed.

There, in the midst of a score of steam-driven machines and soldiers in antiquated uniforms, stood a man, unlike any man she'd ever seen before. Bullets shattered on his skin, fire rolled off his muscled frame, and blow after blow rebounded from his body as he stood defiant amidst the enraged villains, his fists cracking jaws and sending his enemies to the floor in boneless heaps, spraying bits of shattered machinery across the room. His friend, a curious man with powers of great control, smirked as he watched the battle rage, occasionally lifting his hand to still an unruly enemy or steal away their strength and will to fight, all the while pointing out weaknesses and giving advice, and cracking wise, to another young woman who stood at his side, eyes so wide that they looked ready to leap from their sockets.

As she stared, dumbfounded, the smiling hero tossed the last of the crowd of now defeated soldiers to the floor, gave her a brilliant smile, and said, "Come on, sidekick, let's go have some fun."

Following along, the young woman slowly began to realize that her presence here wasn't necessary, it was a gift, a hand of kindness extended from a hero she'd never met before. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she realized that what he and his friend had done. She and the other girl were there not to assist, but to learn, to benefit from these great mens' knowledge and experience, and to see what awaited them in the future. Some would later suggest that their presence was simply to put the word out on the streets and force the enemies they were facing to send in additional troops, but had that been the case, there would've been no need for the young heroines to even attend this raid. No, this was something far more noble in intention and design, an opportunity for the girls to experience a taste of their future in Paragon City, and they relished every moment of it.

With the abandon that only the greatest, or most foolish, of heroes know, they four tore through the installation, laying out one group of enemies after another along the way, determination leading them onward. As they stepped into a room, a group of a dozen of these curious robots and soldiers descended upon them, then half again more, and the air grew thick with the sounds of violence. Caught unawares, the small team found themselves nearly overwhelmed, the tall man rapidly losing strength and the other three fiercely defending themselves. Desperate, knowing that the tide could turn at any second, the young defender reached out and made a final grasp at one of the soldiers, reaching not for his weapon, but his soul, and tore away enough of its essence to revive the failing group. The tall man suddenly straightened, his eyes clear and his wounds healed, and cocked her a flashing smile as he turned the tide of the battle, a quiet and simple gesture of appreciation, and acknowledgement of her act of heroism. Startled and still locked in combat with one of the soldiers, she stumbled back, and inadvertantly attracted the attention of another squad in the adjoining room.

Within the space of five heartbeats, the girl hit the floor, feeling the life bleeding out of her, and another score of brutal machines and uniformed thugs swooped down on the tall man. Struggling to keep her eyes open, she locked her gaze on him, and nearly slipped into the blackness when he threw his head back and let out a primal scream, suddenly seeming to grow even taller and more imposing, and stood like a rampart as the waves of villainy crashed over him. Single-handedly, he ripped apart the horde, destroyed every machine and felled every man, and it was at that moment, finally, the girl knew what it meant to be a hero. He had not been beaten, despite overwhelming odds, willing to fight the very darkest and most vile that the universe could throw at him to save his friends.

In the worst moment, the tall man had summoned up all of his strength, stood even taller, and ripped victory from the jaws of defeat, saving them all.

Two weeks later, a hero new to the city, a young girl by the name of Alice, but who called herself The Black Whip, heard a distress call. A team of heroes had gotten in over their heads and were facing certain destruction. Rushing across the Hollows, heedless of the dangers that surrounded her, the Black Whip went to aid these noble heroes. Upon her arrival, she had to stop for a moment to take in the situation. Deep in a cavern, dozens of Superadine-enraged trolls had gathered, guarding a case of the hideous drug and fighting amongst themselves. The troupe of heroes had gone there to confiscate the illicit substance, but soon realized that they were outmatched and outmanned by the horde they faced. But as she cast her gaze across the seething mass of Trolls, the Black Whip knew they were no match for her. She could withstand their assault, she was certain, and give this motley assortment of super-powered people a chance at victory, as a tall man had once done for her friend, a dark defender.

Courageously, the dominatrix leaped into the throng of Trolls, running from end to end in the cavern, until the entire lot of them were gathered around her, wildly swinging fists and shrieking in rage. The Black Whip, elated, encouraged them, hurling insults and epithets as she flung one blow after another... and the heroes stood at the entrance, stunned into silence at her fierce determination and astounding ability to withstand the brutality that engulfed her. One by one, they shook off their shock and joined the battle, until minutes later when they all stood, gathered around the young woman, shaking her hands and praising her for her bravery and remarkable resiliance, all save for the single coward who fled the moment she first dashed in, heedless of the danger.

And that evening, when each of those heroes departed for their secret homes, they carried within them an inspiration, a dream to one day be a great hero, a superhero, like the Black Whip, who had, herself, been inspired by another's greatness.

I relate this story not to bore the readers, or chastise Cryptic, but to remind everyone that there was a time when heroism abounded in Paragon City. There was a time when we could do great and amazing things, when playing this game truly felt like playing real heroes, and when we inspired others to rise to their ultimate heights. But after the changes in the name of "balance", those times have grown fewer and farther between. The tall man in the first part of the story was an invuln tank, one who I never will remember the name of, but who impressed and inspired me so greatly that I felt, for the first time, like I really was playing a game about superheroes, not just an RPG with a different face on it. I created The Black Whip as a tribute to that inspiration and wonderful, exciting chance to be a "real" superhero, and I got the opportunity to pass along that remarkable feeling to others many times afterward.

I implore you, Cryptic, give us back our heroes, our inspirations, our role models. The changes implimented in Issue 5, and the coming "Enhancement Diversification", serve only to turn those memories of profound wonder and awe into faint and fading remnants of something that was once good and pure. Repeal the taxes you've buried our characters under, restore the shining examples of heroism to Paragon City, because THAT is what the city truly needs. Not balance, especially not a broken balance that sacrifices regular gameplay to the god of PvP, but feelings of power and greatness, like we used to have.

The drive for "balance" is ofttimes a decent and noble goal, but heroes need to feel heroic, and "balancing" the game overall in favor of player versus player combat takes the heroism out of it. Player versus player combat is a specialized thing, different from regular gameplay, requiring a different kind of balance. When you weaken one power to "balance" it for PvP, you create a greater imbalance in one or multiple other powers in the regular game, and it only harms us as a whole.

Please, let the balancing act end. Let the heroes of Paragon City stand tall, proud once more, as they fight to preserve life and liberty for its citizens. Allow our tankers to feel like tankers again, our blasters and scrappers to shine gloriously, and our defenders and controllers to do battle with their heads held high again and not merely buffbots and control automatons. Let our heroes be heroes, not shadows of a bygone era.

We, the players, love this game not simply because it has some interesting powers, but because it allowed us to become great heroes, to share in the times of greatness in Paragon City and amongst our teammates, and to inspire others to those staggering heights. We understand your goal of letting each player feel "useful", but it detracts from the true underlying attraction of the game, that of feeling unique, special, and truly noteworthy. We, as players, don't select "weak" characters out of masochism or a desire to be "fixed", but for the opportunities to play as heroes and experience new things, to rise to greatness in different ways and along different paths, and because each of us has a different idea of what it means to be "super", and a hero. Weakening all heroes to create a baseline ultimately detracts from the glory and wonder that being a hero means to all of us.

We beg of you, end the balance, before it ends the game.

--------------------
Pinnacle
Black Whip - 50 Vulnerable/SS tank


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Gearth,

Thanks for bringing this up.

I for one had not read that post, but wish I had.

The emotions triggered in me by reading that story are exactly why I stayed with this game for so long, and the changes that took that feeling away were why I left for a while.

I wish We had that framed and hung on the wall by the developer's and could force them to read that every time they want to make a change for the sake of "balance"

I've seen this pattern emerge in previous MMOs amongst developers. The pattern is, create a non-stereotype MMO, develop wonderful pve content for the first 1/2 or 2/3 of the game, be totally overwhelmed that some people have used broken game mechanics to completely bypass the first 2/3 of the game or more, and are now complaining about the lack of content. Fix broken game mechanics, putting content development on a back burner, put out about a third of your planned content updates, push through development changes that are mandated by the sudden number of high level players, suddenly decide that PVP will save your game, then totally forgo any development for non pvp content except as an after thought, totally ruin what made the game fun so that your pvp system can work, and eventually, after all the " it's fun for now" pvp'ers have left, turn off the servers, as you've already driven off your pve subscribers.

I enjoy pvp from time to time, with friends, and under conditions I have control over. So don't think I'm totally anti-pvp, I'm not. BUT I do think, that in a game such as this one, you can't do pvp correctly without breaking the pve system, as has been demonstrated.

The real problems that drive these poor decisions on the part of developers too, should be placed squarely where they were sourced from , not the developers, but the business folks who are paying the bills, but understand NOTHING about games. Look at every successful MMO over the past few years, you'll see the symptoms.

wow, i really should have spell checked this..

And there's the real problem.

My friend with the fire troller can lock down a third of the spawn ( and the mobs are dying during the hold due to DoT damage), have a set of pets out working on another few mobs (also doing damage), use single target holds (ala char) that damage yet another mob or two.. so one controller could possible take out the whole spawn.. albeit slowly..

The tanker can occupy a third of the spawn.. meantime being attacked by that third.. try to aggro more of the spawn by attacking.. and really quickly get in over their head and faceplant.

If you want to take a good look at what tanks should have been .. go play a brute.. not quite a scrapper, but not quite an unkillable force.

I honestly don't think Jack and crew give a damn about tanks anymore..

Why?

Too many things. I'm not even going to start listing them.

But, keep hope dear reader for there are answers..

This setback in the game can be remedied without breaking something else.. but it would require some work, and that's where I'm not optimistic.

I have ideas, but I don't want to bore everyone with those.
The devs aren't stupid, but naivete isn't beyond them, and that at least one of the DEVs has no idea what the players want from their class, but glosses over any suggestions with the thought that folks want to be tankmages.

Surprise, we don't want to be tankmages, we want to have fun. One doesn't necessitate the other.

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His one posted test involved using the broken version of Invincibility. He also completely glosses over the fact that when buffed, any AT can Tank, so what then is so special about Tanks?


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The goal of the game is to make sure there isn't an ideal team composition. So, yes, a Scrapper, with buffs, can tank, but not as well as a Tanker. Why? Because 1) a Tanker starts with higher resistances/defenses and 2) he has Punchvoke and thus can manage the aggro better.

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Dang, now I know why I don't understand Developer's decisions.. I thought the point of the game was to have fun. Geez, now I feel stupid.

Cuppa, you really should consider taking this post and giving it to gamasutra, as the existing articles there aren't quite as plain talk.

Besides, we like our devs to noticed by others, and appreciated as we appreciate them.

As long as Marvel doesn't own the rights to Godzilla, a giant anything may be okay..

kicking back, waiting for I4 to hit live.. bay bee

[ QUOTE ]
The purpose of this thread is to provide a central list of global chat channels. If you know of a "permanent" chat channel please feel free to list it here and include its "focus" if it has one. Here is an example -

Channel name: Tankers
Purpose: For Tankers!

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WooT!! we got noticed.. 8)

/em Hands Cuppa some more imported beans..

Ross is good. Overrated? maybe.

Personally, I'd like to see a Larry Elmore of all the main women in the game.. Now THAT would be a good comic cover..

I've seen this happen in other games. MMOs specifically, and the trouble created is definately not worth it.

On one side you'll have the large guild/group/supergroup made up of primarily people with lots of time to play, they'll powerlevel each other's alts, and they'll have in the end a large number of characters that they can take to raids/events/etc and then they DECLARE that it's private.

Then on the other side, you have the casual/wannabe powergame who wants to get all the rewards, but doesn't want to / can't invest the next three days of their life camping a rare spawn, or farming something to get the most loot.

Who's right? They both are. Each is wanting to have fun in their own way, who am I to deny them that? But the problem is these two groups, with differing goals, and paths to those goals, are now forced to take the same path to the last goal, in this case the Arena.

The easy fix for this would have been for States to say that any HOs you have will become +3 SOs for your visit to the arena, and they will affect only one stat. Perhaps the programming involved would not have been easy, but certainly it would have been easier than to deal with what's to come under the current system.

Oh, and trust me on this.. if you think it's bad now? just wait, it's going to get much uglier...

Ninja looters, Large groups declaring that the public can only have access at certain times if at all, heck in one game I saw a really large guild basically declare one of the ultimate raids offlimits to nonmembers. Noone else had the means to deal with this, and the DEVS finally had to step in and say NO, you don't own anything. Public raids with designated looters...
ugh.. I don't even want to think about it anymore, I hated that crap..

Looks like to me that the easy solution for States and crew now is to program into the arena rules interface the ability to shutdown HOs, then noone need complain that they only lost because the other guy has all HOs installed..

I think they'll get it when the blaster nukes them and they still ignore him.

Curse you Jack Emmert.

Every time I feel justified in quitting this damn game, you come up with something that makes me want to resub.

I have to seriously say that I'm glad you found a way to offer some fixes to Tanks that makes the "Comic Book" feel even stronger. I just want to say thanks.

Okay, so when these changes come through, I'll have to add accuracy to my attacks, in addition to the Taunt enhancements I have to add so that I can once again get knockback.. hmmm... So my six slotted beheader will be slotted with one recharge, one accuracy, one endurance reduction, one taunt, and two damage.

Honestly, this seems like a perfect boost for tanks if you can pull off the coding.

Kudos to you

Statesman. can we make any AoE changes wait till issue 3 comes out? gotta go exploit.. scratch that .... PLAY my AoE characters now..... gotta hurry .. changes are coming.....

here's one of my toons..

Gerald Christopher Kringle, heir to the Kringle potato chips fortune, had every advantage in life. By the age of 17 he was already on the fast track to take over the corporation, and had been accepted to his choice of Ivy league school. But that wasn't enough.

Gerald was universally feared by his peers as an intolerably cruel person, and one who tired easily of everyone. He masked his loathing for his father only when in his presence, and was the epitome of a spoiled rich kid.

During the last Rikti attack, while travelling across town with his father, their limo was hit by shrapnel from an exploding drone. The impressive vehicle careemed off the main street, into a warehouse parking lot. The driver believing the impact to be an attack on the elder Kringle, immediately went into defensive mode, screaming through the side streets, attempting to find a safe place for his wards.

While attempting to dodge a group of young skulls standing in the street, the driver slipped the behemoth off the edge of an overpass and into a warehouse owned by Crey Industries.

The driver, and sadly, the philanthropist Mr Kringle were killed instantly. Gerald it appeared would live, if he could gain adequate medical help. His crushed legs trailing behind him, he attempted to drag himself from the wreckage.

Gerald, floating in and out of consciousness, felt the presence of many people. Children, everywhere he turned, children. Apparently the seemingly abandoned warehouse was inhabited by a group of homeless children. It appeared that they had been living off whatever they could scrounge, and whatever was in the moldering crates of the warehouse.

The children, amused by the fact that the overly large Gerald was incapacitated, decided to nurse him back to health. Unfortunately, one of the "healing potions" they applied to him had come from a failed experiemental substance stored here. The effects on Gerald were dramatic, and indeed lifechanging.

Gerald's previously behemothly obese body began to shed fat. Muscles grew where previously only double chins, or cellulite were thought to breed. Gerald's mind had altered also, though. And somehow he knew that this change would be the most profound.

His every thought became clear, almost too-clear. And as time wound on, his body mended, but his mutated mind had only given him a hint of what might lay in store..

Over and Over Gerald was haunted by an image from his unconscious dreams.. The image of a charity worker with a bell, in a red suit..

As time passed, Gerald was eventually able to make his way out of the warehouse. On his first foray into the real world, he was accosted by children from every direction... "I wanta Johnny Two Count".. "I want the new Ms Liberty Barbie".. and they kept coming..

The taunts triggered the memory in Gerald's mind. Who do they think I am ? he asked himself...

Eloise, the young girl who had overseen his care, stepped forward, looking him squarely in the eyes..
"Why they think you're Santa of course. Because you are"
She turned and merged again with the crowd.

"Santa???" he amusingly asked himself..Right..
Seeing his refusal to accept a truth so obvious, a small child steps up and Gerald is forced to face a person he's seen only in holiday ads as his own reflection.

The glasses, the rosy cheeks, The full snow white beard and hair. they were all too familiar, yet at once completely alien.

Gerald, having made such a radical transformation in appearance, and personality, struggled to be recognized as himself, eventually weeks later convincing one of his former associates.

Gerald, unaccepted into the high-society that had spawned him, and transformed into the icon of every child's fantasies, decided to become that person. He could rarely be seen that he wasn't actively doing some type of charity work, or seeking it.

Within a year, Gerald had stopped referring to himself, or answering to the name that had served him so well in his past life, and had truly become Kris Kringle. With the aid of a few key associates, he began to do anonymous good will acts, and further developed his mental and physical abilities.

3 years later, he discovered that his mental abilities were still increasing, and after finding Dr. Marcia Winstead, a former Crey research scientist, he began a regimen under the supervision of the scientist that fully transformed him into his new self.

Gerald C Kringle, now known as Kris Kringle, is often seen thwarting evildoers, and righting wrongs, and bounding away calling out HoHoHo..

[image]http://rdmoi.com/images/kringles_lg.jpg[/image]