ChaosExMachina

What's this matrix that some mentioned?

I would say that it is actually one of the most hero oriented sets.

Many of the poisons you get are beneficial and none are lethal.

Best feature of the whole issue!

I sent this in the beta with /bug and got no reply. In fact I have gotten no replies to my many uses of /bug since May.

Who do they have screening these?

The #1 candidates other than gravity are the various elec sets.

Those could be done in one swoop by fixing the binary nature of endurance drains. Like adding an attack debuff.

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MMOs are about balance and even if you take farming out of the equation, AE is not balanced.

-Regular missions have contacts you have to earn/find, then continually travel to until you get their cell. AE puts the contact right next to you.

-Regular missions have doors that can be on the other end of the zone or even in another zone entirely. AE always has the door right next to you.

-If you want to go to the hospital in a regular mission it could put you hundreds of yards away from the mission door, the AE hospital always puts you right next to the mission door.

-Random missions give you random salvage and recipe drops. AE tickets allow you to more selectively choose your drops.

-If you're having to buy enhancements with influence you will have to find a vendor selling your Origin, then you'll have to wade through the sometimes oddly named inventory list (curse you Magic Origin). If you use AE tickets you travel a few feet to a single person who offers not only every type of regular enhancement, they even have a nifty menu that lets you select the type of enhancement you're looking for.

These are just a few of the examples of how convenient AE is compared to regular content. Why does AE not have ANY downfalls to balance all of its amazing features that dwarf the regular content?

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This person asked "why does it not have any of these disadvantages?"

I suggest that it would be better for everybody if the regular content were made more convenient. The hero SO stores are pointlessly inconvenient, and before AE the tendecy of doors to be locataed at distant locations in other zones already led many teams to use scanners as their primary content.

I've attempted to run the basic hero content before and it seriously is not an asset to the game as is. Not only that but it is just about solo exclusive beause it's hard to find people willing to do that rather than scanners or whatever.

And seriously, what was Atlas Park before? Sewer teams. Trying to get a PUG that will do the super inconvenient level 5 maps is hard to start with. The team is of little use to those who aren't the person getting the maps, and rarely are any of the team willing to stay long.

I think it would be worthwhile for the devs to go through those, some of which are pretty neat and would make cool team content, and bring gameplay up to villain standards. In any situation that makes sense to the story, move the doors to the same zone as the NPC. Most importantly, set them to give out phone numbers after 1 job.

I'd also give the newbies some sort of 1-hour charge self-rez that they can use until level 10.

That inconvenience was intended to keep people playing longer, but I think that most everyone would agree that removal of such annoyances, and opening content that many would not do otherwise, would do more for subscription times.

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Agreed. Annoyance as a game-balancing factor is a bad idea. I routinely auto-skip arcs that I've done at least once till I get the contacts cell and some of them don't give you their number till you have done a lot of missions for them. CoV handles this much better.

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You said it yourself, you skip arcs that youve done at least once.

You've already done them, so of course that inconvience bugs ya.

But I think if you did it for the first time and it was easy and uber convienant, you would have not enjoyed it as much and possibly not stuck with the game.
Of course this is speculation but there is the fact that you skip it AFTER you've done it at least once.

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An arc I am doing for the first time just sent nme to a cave at Perez which was a tech base with sky raiders, and then sent me to a door at Boomtown that is supposed to be an office.

No, I do not consider that enjoyable. There is a reason nearly every hero PUG I find is doing scanner spam before level 30.

Also running back to the NPC 8 times to get a phone number.

Obviously the devs do not consider it an asset since any content introduced since like issue 5 is not like that. Somebody needs to go through those, grant cell phones faster, and regulate the door spawns.

2 more reasons

* Huge numbers of enemies
* Interesting AV fight

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For me, currently the ITF is the pinnacle of TFs in the same way the Faultline arcs hold the title of best zone content for story and gameplay in the game.


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Agreed as to both. Can you imagine how often Posi would be run if it were shortened to 4 well designed missions?

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I just want to add more concensus to encourage more TFs like the ITF and stories like the Faultline arcs.

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MMOs are about balance and even if you take farming out of the equation, AE is not balanced.

-Regular missions have contacts you have to earn/find, then continually travel to until you get their cell. AE puts the contact right next to you.

-Regular missions have doors that can be on the other end of the zone or even in another zone entirely. AE always has the door right next to you.

-If you want to go to the hospital in a regular mission it could put you hundreds of yards away from the mission door, the AE hospital always puts you right next to the mission door.

-Random missions give you random salvage and recipe drops. AE tickets allow you to more selectively choose your drops.

-If you're having to buy enhancements with influence you will have to find a vendor selling your Origin, then you'll have to wade through the sometimes oddly named inventory list (curse you Magic Origin). If you use AE tickets you travel a few feet to a single person who offers not only every type of regular enhancement, they even have a nifty menu that lets you select the type of enhancement you're looking for.

These are just a few of the examples of how convenient AE is compared to regular content. Why does AE not have ANY downfalls to balance all of its amazing features that dwarf the regular content?

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This person asked "why does it not have any of these disadvantages?"

I suggest that it would be better for everybody if the regular content were made more convenient. The hero SO stores are pointlessly inconvenient, and before AE the tendecy of doors to be locataed at distant locations in other zones already led many teams to use scanners as their primary content.

I've attempted to run the basic hero content before and it seriously is not an asset to the game as is. Not only that but it is just about solo exclusive beause it's hard to find people willing to do that rather than scanners or whatever.

And seriously, what was Atlas Park before? Sewer teams. Trying to get a PUG that will do the super inconvenient level 5 maps is hard to start with. The team is of little use to those who aren't the person getting the maps, and rarely are any of the team willing to stay long.

I think it would be worthwhile for the devs to go through those, some of which are pretty neat and would make cool team content, and bring gameplay up to villain standards. In any situation that makes sense to the story, move the doors to the same zone as the NPC. Most importantly, set them to give out phone numbers after 1 job.

I'd also give the newbies some sort of 1-hour charge self-rez that they can use until level 10.

That inconvenience was intended to keep people playing longer, but I think that most everyone would agree that removal of such annoyances, and opening content that many would not do otherwise, would do more for subscription times.

Here's what I think a sequel should do:

* Import characters and zones from CoH
* Greater variety of zones, not just graphically, but in purpose (for example, more zones where the player can influence what happens in the zone, some combinded PVP/PVE zones)
* World of Heroes is a good idea, to get beyond Rhode Island
* Non-combat uses for powers
* Support both an open power system and archetypes (perhaps there could be an AT that is simply the open power system AT)
* Interactive scenery
* More interesting AI
* Completely get away from the villains=Arachnos nonsense, and minimize the role of Statesman and Recluse in new content. NPCs that are dramatically stronger than a player can be should be monsters and non-humanoids like Rularuu, not unbalanced versions of player-style toons like Statesman

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I would imagine that any actual ethical scientist wouldn't NEED to ask a board. They wouldn't have DONE it this way.

He's not a scientist.

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Untrue, absolutely untrue. Sometimes a scientist NEEDS to experiment on subjects that DON'T KNOW they are the subject of an experiment. The very moment a subject signs a waiver their reactions to stimulus will change. They know they are a part of an experiment and, even if they don't intend to change, they invariably do. Even if there's a handful of people who don't change they are outliers and aren't representative of 'normal' people (the subject of most papers).

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This. Sociological and psychological experiments, especially of the type this is supposed to be (but isn't), often require uninformed subjects.

Please go away from the ethical complaints, because the bigger point is that he simply did not conduct the research well.

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I'm pretty busy here right now with Issue 16

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So, does this mean that there is no "Issue" 15.5? Or that it's already done, and waiting approval to go to Test?

Or for that matter, was there ever supposed to be an "Issue" 15.5? I don't recall any Dev saying that there would be, just players saying that the Devs said there would be...

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BABs is the head of animation, so it is quite likely he is needed more with that, while there may still be minor updates that others are working with.

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You expect that a community of 150,000 would accomodate a guy who went out of his way to harass others

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Here lies one of the fundamental problem with most of you here. Please write down exactly what PvP methods Twixt used to "harass" people in the game that would be considered against the game zone mechanics or rules. Anybody?

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then trash talked them in an attempt to get a sexy response for his paper

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Here is the second fundamental problem. The majority of the time after Twixt would attack or TP someone into critters or drones, the players on the recieving end would complain in broadcast then Twixt would respond. Yes Twixt would use broadcast PvP as a method but many of you are making it sound like others were merely innocent, respectful and honorable players who ran around saying GF, GG and nothing else.

I have a few more things to add but I'll hold off until I get some responses to these areas.

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"Harass" has nothing to do with whether it is within the rules.

I am not a party to any of these events so I can only go by what is written here, but there is apparently quite the log of evidence that "he" (and come on, what are the chances that it's not "you?") made a point in reveling in this business on the boards, which can not be a mere response if he was the OP.

Your defensiveness about it being "within the rules" as a response to my use of the word harassment is telling. Since you obviously are not particularly open minded, I'll spell it out plainly: harassment, as a word, is completely unrelated to the subject of rules. There is no rule against going up to random strangers and singing or putting your mouth on them until they give you food, and doing so works to your advantage as a biological animal, yet it is also harassment.

I do not have any personal involvement in this, and will mention that I did not hear of Twixt until this, because I expect you are probably thinking at this point of the post of dismissing me as somebody who got pwned by Twixt. No, I am a fan of sociology, and this is a piss-poor attempt at the subject, which I will say to head off the inevitable claim that I just don't get it.

This is about as much of a breaching experiment as going into an amazon village, dumping your hut's sewage on everybody else's houses, and then saying that their response demonstrates the intolerance of their culture at creative ways to get ahead.

If he were actually interested in doing a breaching experiment, he would do things that would be most distinguished as going against the society's norms, such as strange ways of playing, talking, or participating. I HAVE done those kinds of things, for reasons other than experimenting, and I have not received a "medieval" response.

Instead, what he did is primarily an act that costs others exp and time. That it is against the micro society's norms is only a result of its primary nature.

The progress of the response as told in the essay also makes it clear that when he first started this supposedly deviant begavior, the response was not as extreme as it became later, as a result of his reputaton, not the act itself. The conclusions he reaches completely ignore that.

The essay is also loaded with clues of what is actually going on. Come on, it reads like PVP bragging disguised as research, because that is what it is. It makes a point of how awesome Twixt is at PVP and completely omits any of his participation in trash talk. His posts at this board prove that he was emotionally involved, and rather than passively respondng, instigated at least some of the trash talk himself. That he quit the whole thing, by his own admission, because his technique was stopped by dev action, just makes it even more obvious that his primary goal was to get his jollies by annoying people.

This is just some troll who came up with a BS paper to excuse his actions and probably to further annoy his targets. And do you seriously expect us to believe that you are not him? It's possible you're just a person who agrees with him, but how likely is it that you would have transcripts of the battles in question, and use some of the same phrases here that he uses at his blog, if that were the case?

To make this as obvious as possible and immune to his favorite rationalizations: No, I do not claim that what his was doing was against rules, or that consent was necessary, or the flamers are right, or that it was unethical. I DO claim that his conclusions are not supported by his evidence, that he is cherry picking, and that he compromised his objectivity or didn't have any to start with.

TROLLING WIN
SOCIOLOGY FAIL

I've been wondering since i15 came out if the devs are aware of this.

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Help Channel and Help Chat Tab

Theoretically, when you chose the Help Tab as the Active Tab, then typing in the chat window should broadcast that line of text into the Help Chat Channel. However, this is now broken. When the Devs gave the /help command (which opens the Help Window) the alias of /h, it replaced the Chat Tab's own use of the /h command. And so, if you try to use either the /h command or the Active Help Tab in order to chat in the Help Channel, the UI will interpret both of those as /help and your text as the arguments for the /help command. But, since the /help command takes no arguments, you'll get a system error message telling you /help takes 0 arguments.

The only way to type in the Help Channel now is to use the /hc command.

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To most that is just an annoyance, but to newbies, and especially trial accounts for whom it is the only way to communicate to a large number of people, it's game-breaking, and is almost certainly costing potential customers.

It's clear what is causing it, so I'm thinking that if it was not fixed with i15 the most likely explanation is that the devs who can do this are not aware of it.

Way ahead of you. I've got purples, steadfast, etc. I don't use a lot of def set bonuses because they often require 6-slotting and grant less enhancement or set bonuses. One thing I don't use is PVP sets, because at this time their prices are ridiculous, but I did make some potential builds that use them.

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the only thing that really bothered me is that some idiots had to go and threaten him. way to stand up and be counted guys, can there ever be a community that isnt that blinkerdly stupid as to be lead down that route?

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You expect that a community of 150,000 would accomodate a guy who went out of his way to harass others, and then trash talked them in an attempt to get a sexy response for his paper, and not have at least 1 person make an obviously faux comment like that? I think you should take it as admirable that his trolling was not more effective.

I read the whole essay and it sounds borderline legitimate if you take him at his word. Then I read here how he combined it with verbal harassment, cherry picked his data, complained when PVP was changed so he couldn't do it as effectively, and made obvious references to that EQ bard (go go good team, poems). Obviously what we have here is a wannabe Fansy who got his kicks by harassing, then quit and wrote an unflattering article after he got dealt with.

No, just not as a brute. Which I have not, but I don't need to to do the math.

A double-rage brute gets only a 12.5% bonus from painbringer even BEFORE fury.

Higher levels do not get resistance unless they are AVs, then?

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(generally Brutes LAST, as they get so much +Damage from Fury and have such a low base damage that it's really wasted on them... I prefer going with SoA -> AoE offensive Corruptors, AoE Stalkers, or Dominators -> non-AoE Stalkers -> ST offensive Corruptors -> Brutes -> and don't cast it on Masterminds/buff-only Corruptors).

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Wow! Somebody gets it. A lot of corrs like to nonsensically target the brute with powers like that.

Reminds me of a convo with a certain brute player, responding to my saying that adrenaline boost would be preferable to painbringer, especially to a SS brute.

Brute: What! Painbringer boots your power. It's way better for brutes.

Me: *explains base modifiers and basic math and how rage works*

Brute: You don't know what you're talking about. I've been playing brutes for years, and you aren't even level 50.

Is there some list of how ranks and levels resist tohit?

I've been thinking I would go mace, and hit the def cap with scorpion shield.

However, I just did an ITF with capped def from VEAT buffs, and occasionally some bosses can get lucky in a row. So I'm considering more of a def and res hybrid.

Base def: 13 with shadow fall, maneuvers, and IOs, or 25 with protector bot shields.

With scorpion shield:

46% S/L/E def
25% C/F/N def
13% P def
20ish% energy, negative, psi, toxic res

Advantage: I would not need external buffs to hit the cap. The vast majority of attacks have some S/L/E in them, so I would be maxed against just about everything. Most enemies that are not such use psi, which shadow fall resists. With toxic res, I deal with just about everything but the rare fire thrower. Dodges mez.

Disadvantages: My tohit debuffs and vengeance are more of a team specialty since I am capped even before using them. And purple insp do not do a lot either. Lucky bosses.

With charged armor:

25% def to any but psi
43% s/l res
62% energy res
20%ish negative, psi res

Advantages: More powerful if there is a VEAT who makes self def superfluous. Not as much of a gamble. Takes advantage of the tohit debuffs of dark. Resists res debuffs.

Disadvantages: Only works against the s/l/e portions of attacks, so it does not deal with 90% of enemies like def does. Not as strong against toxic and cold (which almost always is also with s/l). Even against the basic types, mathematically less powerful:

Def cap: 5% chance to hit

Def/Res: 25% chance to hit at 60% effectiveness

Def/Res with 15% tohit debuffs: 10% chance to hit, at 60% effectiveness

This may be a case of solo vs. teaming. What say you, especially those who have tried such builds?

One question that may be the key is: how much do various ranks and levels of enemues resist tohit debuffs?

There should be an alternate ending if you do this.

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2) the all Bosses as mobs is an exploit still. Was invited to one where 7 of us doorsat while an invuln tanker did the whole map. didn't stay, but it did happen.

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Which is not in any way related to an exploit, or custom maps. The idea of lowbies who doorsit is not unusual.

If they tell you that in a TF does that make the TF an exploit?

Here's another:

I can understand why you have to choose one of each set of attacks.

But why can't we just get every summon, the way we get every prestige sprint?

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Just make it like the AE Accolade. Make it a macro that lets you bring up the arena terminal screen from anywhere. Call it an Arena Commlink. That way, there's no worrying about it blowing up while you're trying to set up a match and having to wait for it to recharge or travel to the arena itself.

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This.

Why is it hard to access PVP? I would think they would want to make it as convenient as possible.

There were a lot of major rewrites to the SF due to subjective opinions.