Chaos Creator

Originally Posted by starphoenix

Mangastream seems to be doing it now.

Originally Posted by DarkGob

So you can put them on the market and rake in all the inf that people have been storing in bids for nonexistent items?

Originally Posted by Ice_Wall

I hate when the devs have things showing up in the market screen that we can't haz.


I want nao!

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill

Illusion.

Someone comes in to ask what type of controller they should try, there'll be a chorus of "Illusion!" Blah. Give me Mind, Earth, Plant, Ice, Fire... Give me an Ice blaster. Give me a /Dev blaster. Anything but Illusion.

Originally Posted by Seldom

Slight adjustment on my part.

Hm. There are some skews I see...a lot of the suport types are female, the frontliners skew male. Not a rule of thumb, but it happens. Strangely enough, I tend to be a bit contrary on that, with my female knight tank, pipe-wrench wielding lady brute, and female frankenstein brute. Likewise, my support types skew male.

Hm. I can count on my hand the number of stone tanks I've seen that are female.

Originally Posted by Kobold_Commander

Well, I'm pretty sure most people think of Arachnos Widow characters as mostly female.

Originally Posted by Tenzhi

I just reactivated my account and haven't even started in on it and I'm frustrated with the accumulation of stuff to make/upgrade the Alpha Slot nonsense. This frustration stems from my past experience with the annoying crafting system and marketplace. I figure I may as well be frustrated in advance.

Originally Posted by galadiman

Yup, It is awesome. And you should totally buy all of my stacks of Regenerating Flesh for 50, and sign each bid with your sig so I'll know it was you.

Originally Posted by Melancton

It seems to me that there are basically two overarching questions here:

1) Is the new content too hard to solo?

2) Should we be "forced" to team if we cannot solo?

There are variations on these themes, such as whether IOs are now actually "mandatory" to have the power to solo.

I like to team. I solo when I must, and some content is tough to very tough to impossible for some of my heroes to solo, but such is life in general. I like the variety. I like figuring out how a PUG with its random mix of powers can solve problems, like Nemesis snipers or pulling Ghost Widow. Sometimes the team does not work out, but most often, we figure out a way to do things. I enjoy solving the same sorts of problems with my different heroes. There are some challenges I cannot easily surmount with some of my heroes, which is interesting to me.

For myself, what is really still lacking in this game are mechanics to make teaming speedier. This is not "Nobody ever invites me" or "I can't get a team;" it can be done, but it could be faster and easier to do it. The mechanics, such as a "Team looking for more" flag and the like, have been discussed in great detail, so I will not rehash it here. If you could pretty much get on a team when you wanted to, or "needed" to, a lot of problems would not be problems.

At least for me, the Epic Fails I have run into upon occasion keep the game a challenge. I have still not figured out why some teams I have been on kicked Reichman's Nazi heinie very efficiently, and on other teams, we never could beat him down after over an hour of whaling away on him. Some times the TF fails. Oh Well.

I am not fast nor flashy. I am three months shy of being in the game 6 years. I have 10 lvl 50s and a few in the high 40s. Some weeks I can play a good deal, some weeks only a few hours. None of my heroes is "purpled out," but I am an excellent team player and I communicate pretty well. I still enjoy the game.

I also died multiple times taking out Holtz and the Honoree solo, but I figured it out. I got chopped by the Minotaur when I got careless, but I did a field rez, popping Break-Free, Defense, Respite, Breather and smoked him right back. For me, that was fun. It would have caused other folks to have an aneurysm. And due to Patrol XP, I had no debt when I logged back in, which certainly is not how it was Back in the Day. Debt is not a big deal any longer.

I like the challenges and tough missions. I just wish it did not take so long to get a team together.

Originally Posted by Vanden

I gotcha beat, Leandro.

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill

Now, where'd that copypasta go...

Why a full respec is not a good idea for COH.

So, you've played your Apathy/Dual Wet Noodle Tank to 50 and decided you don't like him. You've come to the forums and said "Why not let me completely respec the character!"

Well, people consider a "full respec" to be different things. I'm going to cover a complete and total character respec. If some of them don't apply, well, this comes up enough for this to be a copy and paste reply.

There are four things that the developers and game see as defining your character:
1. Archetype
2. Origin
3. Primary powerset
4. Secondary powerset

When people talk about a full respec, they're either talking about the powersets or the whole enchilada.

A Respec is short for respecification - altering what your character can do. This can be through reordering the levels you took powers, reassigning slots, and/or changing power pools. You'll note that none of this touches on changing the four listed items. The reason being that if any of those change, it's not the same character. A respec is not recreation or reimagining. It's tweaking your character a bit.

Now, let's go through some of these "full respecs."

Primary/Secondary

You're sure to hear this repeated a good bit - Just because you've played one set, doesn't mean you know how to play them all.

For instance, my namesake tank is a Fire/Superstrength tank. I know how he plays. The most similar powerset to him at the time of writing is Dark Armor. It's resistance based, it has no knockback protection, it has a damage aura, a self heal that does damage - it even has a self rez as its tier9.

They don't play anything alike. (I can say this, because I also have a version that's DA/SS.) Fire has no Psi protection. It has no stealth. Burn has a far different effect than Oppressive Gloom, and nothing similar to Cloak of Fear. It calls for a thoroughly different style of play. With Fire, I can leave my toggles on and go to town. With Dark Armor, I have to be selective, or the times I have to herd stragglers (for instance) won't work exceptionally well. Dark Armor also does not have anything like Consume to help out with Endurance - that's in Dark Melee.

With "similar" sets being that different - try Fire vs Stone. Or Invulnerability. You now have a set at or near 50 (when most people seem to mention wanting this - "I have a 50 that...") that you don't know how to slot effectively (which means you'll be doing *at least* one more respec) and don't know how to play effectively.

That's just changing *one* side of the equation. Now add in, say, going from Stone Melee to Dark Melee. Different effects, with *very* different affects on your survivability. And you won't know how to slot that, either, or how well they synergize.

Similarly, a Stormie plays vastly differently from an Empath, or a Dark, or a Rad. Earth Control is nothing like Illusion. Combo-chasing with Dual Blades won't help you with Martial Arts.

How do I know that this ends up being a mess?

Beta testing. The devs have, on rare occasion, bumped up characters to specific levels. The most notable was when Recluse's Victory came out for testing. Everyone was made level 40 - and it was a *mess.* Sure, people made copies of their own characters, and those worked out. Then there were those (many, many of those) who said "Hey, I've never had a X/Y before, I'll make one of those!"

Like I said, it was a mess. You could very easily tell who had done that versus making copies of characters they knew.

Now, yes, over time you'll learn your powerset - but in the meantime, you're not going to be very effective, or very happy.

Archetype

Now, given what I just said about powersets, imagine a *whole different AT.* Your tank is now an Empath? Really? You know how to survive as a Blaster because you played a Scrapper? And don't even get me started on epics.

If *sets* are that different, Archetype is that times ten.

Impact on enhancements

IOs are a big part of the game right now. Think about IO'ing out your character. You get your KB protection, sets and the like, potentially spending millions (or more) on finishing up these sets, or working on merits or whatnot.

Now, you change your primary - again, we'll take a tank - from a resistance based one to a defense based one.

Guess what is now useless to you. You *may* have a power to stick that resist set in, somewhere, but now you're defense based - and those resist sets dont' work for you any more. That Knockback set isn't taken any more. It's even worse when you say you want to switch AT - what is a Blaster going to do with a resist set? What is a Scrapper going to do with Sting of the Manticore or Malaise's Illusions?

This isn't even touching on the fact that *you could only retain ten enhancements.* That's 1 2/3 six-slotted powers.

And you'd have nobody to blame for all that lost time and INF but yourself...

Origin

Origin holds a strange place in this list. I'm just going to touch on it briefly.

Origin used to matter *vastly,* back in pre-beta. It determined how many powers you could learn and how skilled you could get with them. The system was scrapped, and for a long time it was mostly an RP item, as well as determining which enhancements you could use.

It now has *some* impact in the game with some temp powers - the "helper" power you get at level 1 (throwing knives, taser, mutagen, etc.) as well as some of the vet powers. The main impact, though, would be if you'd equipped with DOs or SOs, with the lost INF. That said, you would be able to get some of it back. Origin's probably the least of the problems with a full respec. Though some would, of course, complain that they no longer get a damage bonus or what have you - and who knows what the devs may do with this in the future.

Gameplay

There are also three other things to consider.

1. The game is designed around alts.

Seriously. If this were Guild Wars, for instance, with severely limited slots, I could see wanting to do a complete respec. But by default, you can make over 100 characters before feeling a pinch - and can purchase up to 24 additional slots per server, if you so choose. Don't like one set, make some others and try them out.

2. It's just not that hard to level.

Seriously... it's not. With half debt inside missions, patrol XP, double XP weekends, XP smoothing, XP adjustments (typically up,) debt reduction everywhere... it just *isnt'* hard to level. And levelling "honestly" means you're learning your powersets, how they work with each other and others and hopefully how to use them best - which will only make you a stronger player.

3. The devs say "no."

The devs have said no. They devs will continue to say no. The most recent "no" being the 4/2010 Q&A. So this is not just player opinion.

In closing, let me just say "No. Roll an alt."

Originally Posted by Terror1

Nope.avi