BlueWrecker

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Hey Castle, crazy idea:

Let's take away -ATTACK- rooting on both players -and- A.I. mobs!

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that would make pve, and pvp unfun

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How, by making it more challenging and dynamic?

Hey Castle, crazy idea:

Let's take away -ATTACK- rooting on both players -and- A.I. mobs!

Golden Age Heroes is three classic Golden Aged (and Silver!) themed supergroups on the Virtue server that are actively recruiting players! We are three SGs that operate under one banner: Gods of the Golden Age, Young Gods of the Golden Age, and New Gods of the Golden Age (our new spin off!). The main SG is as of 12/28/06 #37 out of all SGs on Virtue for Prestige and size. We have well over 100 players in our groups, and approximately 150-160 characters across all levels! Our coalition is also incredibly strong and robust, with easily another 150+ players actively on in various SGs during the day. Our overall community is fun, and active!

Do you have or want to play a "classic" hero? Someone inspired by the greats of old? Check us out:

http://www.goldenageheroes.com

Do you have what it takes? Hop over to the site, and drop an application in the Application Folder! Or, send a Global tell to:

@Mr. Virtuous
@Mandamus
@Zephyr Starr
@Blue Wrecker

Gods protect!

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Teleport reticle and Patron-granted Respecs are two I should have mentioned, but since our guys have already fixed those internally here, they fell off my list. Sorry.

As for players who think they will just be albe to drop every mission they get to PL off a contact... think again; we're crazy. Not that crazy.

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For the TP one--any ballpark ETA? Please? Pwetty please? I love my sonic/sonic SO much but the TP bug drives me bonkers...

Oh God, I can't stop laughing at the mental image of a windup clockwork holding his head under his arm, with a bandana on it, throwing gang signs with his two fingers now... "zzzzk! Yo-yo-yo! zzzzk! This is PIMP MY zzzzzk RIDE!"

I want to see Troll League Arena Football.

"You am go deep!"
"Me am going to Disneyworld!"

Or... how about REAL WORLD: Paragon City? Think Real World Metropolis! A ring mistress (always hogging the bathroom), Synapse (eats all the food, he can be our "Puck"), Statesman (Hellllooo Kitty!), a Gardvord ("You no change channel! Leave on Sweet Sixteen birthday show!"), Sister Psyche ("Marcus, stop thinking about that Carny like that..."), Terra the Devoured (Synapse: "How about I run out and get some deodorant for you?" "RRRRRRARGH")...

Or Pimp My Superhuman Ride? We can have a rapper Clockwork host it, and every so often the Clockwork can steal the car. Bit by bit.

Good work guys!

Can we get a play by play for a guide?

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I seriously can't believe there were that many (if any) players actively helping others to "escape debt" in the manner implied in Cuppa's post - were there?

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No, there weren't. It was a happy accident when it happened at all.

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OK, you know what. This just occurred to me. How often do bugs/situations exist like this which MIGHT positively affect players? This--BORDERLINE--and the *chance* that Storage Bins can double up what you put in them are the only things that come to mind. And these require immediate patching--even pulling the servers midday??!--to do it?

Was this PVP change put through public Testing, Devs? Was it put through the same level of QA that the Mastermind fix has to see? We were told it has to both a Cryptic *AND* an NCSoft "pass". Was all of this put through that? Or do we only rush out patches to issues that might in a sense 'benefit' players?

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Yes. Also no XP or Prestige in PvP zones.

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HA.. hahahhaha ... *sniff* ahh anyways.

No thanks. I'm not goin to dig some scientest out of The Web in Warburg for zero xp given for all the junk I must clear out of the way.

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The trade off is the ton of Inf you'd pick up, plus getting one of the best temp powers in the entire game. And, it's honestly not *that* time consuming. My wife had never done it before and got her first nuke ever in 15 minutes yesterday.

15 minutes for a one-usage "I WIN" button, plus a ton of Inf? This is bad?

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Also... not to be a jerk... but couldn't they have addressed some of the bigger bugs before going after this? Masterminds, broken badges, the Boss Knockback bug?

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The Mastermind bug, at least, has a fix in the pipeline as of a few days ago - we just have to wait for it to make Test, then Live. I don't know about the others.

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I know. Just was curious why some changes can pushed through such as Hami and PVP zone debt without testing, but something that is a clear "fix" has to be testing. Seems... backwards? Everything should go to Test before coming within 100 yards of Live unless it's a massive exploit/emergency.

See: the fact that unless they snuck in a patch with the emergency storage bin lockdown, Confused characters can still grief in PVE zones.

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Its their general policy not to include patch notes about fixing what they consider exploits, because it alerts people who didn't know about the exploit to its existance, and gives them chance to exploit it until the change goes live.

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But such things *after* patching have historically been detailed is what I'm saying. Too much stuff is getting excluded, by accident I hope. Hami changes for example, and these PVP changes--were they new for the last live patch? Were they on test when i7 was on Test? How long was i7 on test? Weeks? A month+?

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Also... not to be a jerk... but couldn't they have addressed some of the bigger bugs before going after this? Masterminds, broken badges, the Boss Knockback bug?

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The Mastermind bug, at least, has a fix in the pipeline as of a few days ago - we just have to wait for it to make Test, then Live. I don't know about the others.

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I know. Just was curious why some changes can pushed through such as Hami and PVP zone debt without testing, but something that is a clear "fix" has to be testing. Seems... backwards? Everything should go to Test before coming within 100 yards of Live unless it's a massive exploit/emergency.

See: the fact that unless they snuck in a patch with the emergency storage bin lockdown, Confused characters can still grief in PVE zones.

Also, just in case anyone thinks I "hate" PVP, I don't. Just a big fan of keeping it's effects strictly isolated from the PVE game, for the people that *don't* want to deal with fighting other players.

Anything that ensures the success and longevity of the game overall I'm a fan of.

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As it's clear from the time of Arenas (yeah, how populated are THOSE?) that the overwhelming majority of the player base doesn't care about PVP content

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Of course, you say this as Pinnacle has two instances of Recluse's Victory open...

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Arenas were super busy when they first launched as well. Look at them now. Just sayin'.

As it's clear from the time of Arenas (yeah, how populated are THOSE?) that the overwhelming majority of the player base doesn't care about PVP content, why not throw the non-PVPers a carrot or bone to get them into the PVP zones? See my no-debt/inf* idea above.

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Well, to be fair, the monkey badge is easy now with the lower limit, by hunting a few hours with a full team in Crey's Folly.


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Still, Crey's Folley is a hazard zone and, if you go in and try to get it at the assigned level, you will get debt just like in PvP.

So the question becomes is it unfair to villains that they have to get a badge that can be easily obtained by a level 15 villain simply by farming a mission with a team of 8 with only 1 reset at most as compared to heroes needing to kill 1000 monkeys in a hazard zone that they can't enter until level 30+?

If anything, I think this badge is out of balance for heroes. Killing 1000 monkeys is not fun and can easily take you all day. Doing one mission twice to get Man in Black is a walk in the park and you get the accolade by level 40.

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You're right, actually. That *is* imbalanced.

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IDEA:

1. Remove *ALL* XP gains from PVP zones. All debt incurred in PVP zones nullifies gains of PVP zone prestige or inf until it's cleared naturally....

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This is so constructive it's awing.

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Heh, thanks.

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Were PvP going to change, your suggestions would make a great and likely a very busy PvP enviro. Sweet.

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That's what I was thinking. Those three changes came in, I'd have my high level guys in PVP a *LOT* more instead of just basically farting in there "before dinner" or something like I do now.

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I agree re the debt burn off, however, doubling the rewards could be risky. Would anyone even bother to play PvE anymore? lol. Sorry.. I'm still lost at the problem with playing in an "at your own risk area".... your ideas are fantastic though.

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Thanks again. And yeah, people would still have to PVE to advance in the game. You can't level off of Infamy or Influence.

I suspect you'd also see a lot more Level 23, 28, 33, 43rd, etc. level people doing PVP, to hoard money for Enhancement upgrades, if such a change went through someday.


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And as a side note: with all the kvetching about the I7 bugs, can you even begin to imagine the whining and crying about the bugs that would happen if your changes were actually implemented? lol! Whhheeeee!!

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Eh. Bugs happen, fact of life. It's just the implied priority on many of them, for fixes, that leaves us scratching our heads...

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PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

You dont' NEED all the badges in the game, some are optional or gained through happenstance, as far as I know, the ones gained in PvP are optional or happenstance. (I KNOW I'll be corrected on this! lol)

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For villains, PvP badges are less optional then they are for heroes. Several villain accolades require badges that can only be gained in PvP zones. True, the accolades aren't required to play the game, but some of them do provide significant benefits. Also, it seems a bit unfair for villains considering that heroes can get the same thing without PvP badges.

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/seconded, /thirded, whatever we're up to. We were told that Accolades would be "equivalent" on both sides, and also that PVP would never be a requirement to advance in the game. Players SHOULD be able to do things like this on both sides--hero/villain--without *having* to touch a PVP zone if they don't want to.

They need to move all accolade requirements out of PVP zones or else move the hero side going forward, ASAP, to be matching in a PVP zone.

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You tell me how it's fair or balanced for villains to HAVE to go to a PvP zone in order to get a power equivalent to that which a hero can get from PvE alone.


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Villains can farm that mission in Diable that's nothing BUT Shivans for the badge. And they can do that as early as level 15 if they wanted to.

Compared to heroes having to farm 1000 monkeys to get their Vanguard.

Uh, I think I'll stick with Megalomaniac. I got it at level 40, compared to the waaaay past level 50 I was able to get Vanguard on my hero.

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Well, to be fair, the monkey badge is easy now with the lower limit, by hunting a few hours with a full team in Crey's Folly.

Also... not to be a jerk... but couldn't they have addressed some of the bigger bugs before going after this? Masterminds, broken badges, the Boss Knockback bug?

It's appreciated, but priorities seem wildy backwards. Some of the bugs I mentioned have been going for some time and the last we heard on some is they're waiting to clear QA.

And not to sound paranoid, but the first bug in some time that *might* have had the equivalent of a postive gain for players, rather than negative--storage bins--results in pulling the servers for an emergency patch and update yesterday?

IDEA:

1. Remove *ALL* XP gains from PVP zones. All debt incurred in PVP zones nullifies gains of PVP zone prestige or inf until it's cleared naturally. BUT! PVP zone debt does not apply vs. regular XP gains. All debt gained in PVP zones automatically "erases" at a rate of 1/60th of the debt cap per minute of game play. That way, even if you get max debt in the PVP zone, an hour later it's gone. Debt thus in PVP zones will only function to penalize defeats via inhibiting the gains of prestige/inf. PVP zone debt can still be "paid off" normally via defeating critters or completeing missions, etc., to speed up the recovery.

By this model, no matter how bad you get trashed in the PVP zone, all effects will be gone in under one hour (1/60th = 60 minutes of game time). The "countdown" would not apply to debt gained outside the PVP zone.

ANCILLARY IDEAS TO GET PEOPLE INTO PVP ZONES:

2. "Regular" traditional debt is paid off at 1.5x or 2.0x the normal rate vs. critters in PVP zones. Massively in debt characters may go into PVP zones thus to pay off their normal debt by "helping the cause". This could be very popular.

3. Increase influence/infamy for critter defeats in open PVP zones. A straight doubling. A kill worth 250 inf in a PVE zone now nets you 500 inf in the PVP zone. Not a doubling of Prestige however. Due to how cash strapped many players can be now due to the Prestige system, this can encourage players to spend time in PVP zones for personal (non-SG/VG) gains. The risk-reward balance on this reflects the risk from other Players taking you out while doing these hunts. The more players that come into PVP zones for this benefit will increase the risk of Player kills exponentially. If used in conjunction with #1 and #2, we could get many more players into PVP zones for personal gain. In turn, it populates up the PVP zones, and increases the fun of the PVP 'games', in control of Recluse's Victory and Siren's Call especially.

Notes:

#1: Will restructure PVP to be more of a game. Sub-50th players often seem to avoid it to avoid perception of debt/griefing. Now, death there is long-term irrelevant (especially from a PVE perspective).

#2: Who doesn't hate debt? This will get people into PVP zones to pay it off faster.

#3: Who doesn't know a hard luck villain with financial problems? For that matter, with Prestige, many heroes are now more hard luck financially. #3 will get people to want to enter PVP zones for the financial benefits. The longer you stay *in* the PVP zone fighting it out, the more money and influence and infamy you stand to gain--even moreso than in PVE zones, and rightly so. Heroes and villains would gain more reputation/street cred from slugging it out with their equals, not loser gangs or common thieves. Anyone can fight Hellions, or Tsoo, or Goldbrickers. Not everyone can fight people that hang out with Scirocco or Synapse.

Oh, snap, Kheldian cops!

I am aghast with glee hero side, horrified villain side.

"Stop that purse snatcher!"

*Incandescent Strike!*

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Of course, I tend to have the odd idea that SG members should work with each other, and cooperate, and even share resources. I'm sure not everyone would agree with this. I'm sure there's people out there that insist that *every* member of their SG be in SG mode at ALL times, regardless of whether or not their members have anything resembling enough infamy to purchase their Enhancements. And I'm sure that there are many SGs where there are no entry requirements other than having a character, and some members are cordially disliked by half the other members.

All I can say is this...I'd rather rely on my higher level members, or BE the higher level member, to enable the lower level members to both earn Prestige *and* purchase enhancements. I'd rather have SGs where I actually care about the members, and don't mind donating infamy to them. The whole SG functions better.

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My VG's policy is that we ask that people be in VG-mode pre-24, when the penalty hits, but that thereafter, only so long as they wish. Most of my crew seem to prefer VG mode, simply because they can afford their enhancements themselves just by selling off whatever they find on missions. The problem is, the math doesn't work when these people are trying to earn infamy for the badges that tier eventually into an accolade, and the math especially fails with regards to my VG given that we don't have very many members, despite our efforts to the contrary. The prestige is also not the only issue to consider - for the larger groups, better gear for the base can only be earned by recovering rare salvage drops that only happen in late game.

The importance of prestige v. infamy isn't being overstated, IMO. It's being stated as precisely what it is: a confusing choice by the devs to push players towards personal goals over group ones. This is all the odder given that the devs themselves have acknowledged that bases are needing to get looked at again.

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I'm not going to snip here, I don't want to lose the sense of what Silas said.

Out of curiousity for the prestige vs influence arguement at lower levels, I ran some very rough numbers. Please bear in mind that these numbers are *only* for even-con minions, and do not take into account Lts, bosses, or mission bonuses, nor does it account for leveling up or for high-conning enemies.

A level 32 earns approximately 162 infamy per even-con minion. When solo, they earn 10 prestige per even-con minion.

A level 50 earns approximately 1297 infamy per even-con minion. When solo, they earn 10 prestige per even-con minion.

At level 32, you must defeat 123,457 even-con minions to get Midas Touch. You would, when soloing, earn 1,234,570 prestige by defeating that many minions. If on an 8-man team during that entire time, you would earn 246,914 prestige.

At level 50, you must defeat 15,420 minions to get Midas Touch. You would, when soloing, earn 154,200 prestige by defeating that many minions. If in an 8-man team during that entire time, you would only earn 30,840 prestige.

Now, let's look at the 10 level 32s you could supply with enough infamy to purchase full sets of SOs simply with the amount you've earned from getting the Midas Touch badge. Solo, these 10 level 32 characters will earn 12,345,700 prestige for your supergroup during the time it would have taken them to get Midas Touch at their current level. Teamed, assuming that they're the *only* ones from their SG on the team, they'll have earned 2,469,140 cumulative in that same time.

These numbers assume that you fight nothing but even-con minions and don't get mission bonuses, and don't level, and as such, they are very, very conservative. A worst-case scenario, so to speak. Any actively played character will likely earn much more infamy or prestige than these numbers represent.

I'm really not seeing how dropping out of SG Mode at 45+ long enough to earn 20 million infamy is going to hurt an SG that works together at all, since it allows lower level characters to remain in SG mode longer. I'm going to have to say that I really can't complain with the requirements for this particular badge. And I say this as the leader of an active, moderate-sized SG with a base that still needs quite a few things. (50+ members.)

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/2nded on SithRose's numbers.

For the Midas Touch I'm honestly not sure if I understand what the big deal is (yes, outleveling lower contacts with money requirements IS an issue). But 20,000,000 *earned* is nothing. I think people have just forgotten how easy it is to earn money at 48-50 by not being in SG mode.

I mean, I did 50th pre-Prestige, and I made money hand over fist. I primarily did big teams with my scrapper. When I dinged 50th, I had 17,000,000 influence or so "in the bank", not counting LOTS of influence that I had given out along the way. Plus my incessant and needless costume changes and tweaks. Plus my constantly at that point wanting to keep stuff "green" for enhancements.

As anyone with a 45+ knows, around 44th/45th is when your earnings REALLY go through the roof, relatively. 20 million is paltry, if you just decide to get it. And your VG really won't be hurting much. Just for concept, I was planning on my main villain being "wealthy". Part of that is having literal tons of infamy.

I've contributed at 40th approximately 150k-160k prestige to my VG. We have a huge plot, *all* the PVE extras currently available, and a ton of Prestige banked. Why? Everyone has to stay in pre-25th, but most at the least alternate post 25th level by level or stay in VG mode all the time to help out. But not all.

And you know what? Even if I alternate level by level through 45th, and then drop out completely for 45th-50th, I'll easily have put up 200k prestige. I already I believe have 1 mill done for infamy earned. I have no doubt that with a modicum of planning on my brute that I can hit 20 million around mid 49th at the earliest.

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My point is that the complaints on this aren't worth merit...

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Well it's not just that but Doc Buzzsaw and her ilk as well. I didn't get the bling badge til I was past her level range...

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You what might be a good idea for the Devs to consider investing the time in, for "tech"?

1. What about simply removing level caps on contacts? 2. Why not have all missions simply scale to the level of the mission holder?

What could be unbalanced or bad with this?

Also: boom, instant flash-back.

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...on my 50th I can EASILY earn about a million influence by selling at the right stores and not playing in SG mode in an evening/day, by not playing solo. Without even pushing myself.

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I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that infamy gained from selling enhancements etc. doesn't count towards those badges at all - only infamy gained from actual mob defeats / mission completion etc. does.

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You guys are right on that point--but still, it's really not a big deal. If someone puts in the effort to honestly play a toon to 50 (i.e. no powerleveling), why would you stop playing them post-50th?

Further, what's so bad about content you have to work to open?

All the Devs are doing with this is saying: "Play your character post 50th".

We can't run missions if they're not our own? We can't exemp? We can't catch up on SFs we missed? The TV is a non-issue, and in the course of normal play it eventually opens.

(/rant not aimed at you specifically)

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Actually...

...on my 50th I can EASILY earn about a million influence by selling at the right stores and not playing in SG mode in an evening/day, by not playing solo. Without even pushing myself.

I know, because I used to do it whenever I'd drop below 10 million influence.

Assuming a character will earn about a million or two naturally before the Prestige/Inf cutoff, that means that with a little work you can earn the needed 20 million in under a month of playtime.

As the content will never expire--it's a 50th contact--whats bad with this?

On my main 40th villain I alternated VG/out of VG mode every other level after the cutoff and will continue to do so. I'll probably be able to open the TV not too far after I ding 50th.

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selling enhancements does not count toward influence badges. you only recieve the badge for influence earned, which is significantly less than what you can get from selling (one mission complete bonus is equal to selling one even-level SO).

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OK, so I open the TV after like 30-40 days instead of 15-20. I've been 50th on my main for nearly or longer than a year, and still play him.

My point is that the complaints on this aren't worth merit...