Charles_Prime

I took Maneuvers and Tactics on my Kin. I figured that the damage buff from FS couldn't be used to its full potential if people were missing.

I'm FAR too lazy to read through the 40 pages of discussion in the super sidekicking thread...so I'm hoping that one of you that has read through it can answer my question.

Is there any news on how SFs and TFs will work with the new system? Will all players actually have to be in the level range for the TF/SF or will the autoSK level count?

This may sound a little out there, but why not make an all scrapper server? That way nobody has to worry about closed betas or borked character copy tools.

Just sayin.

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In any case, I think you lost your credibility with masterminds already. In fact your suggestion of not using the drones is the worst solution for reducing knockback. The drones, are likely three or more levels below, reducing the effectiveness of knockback.


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I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that a Robot MM shouldn't summon his bots because they might do knockback. I'm saying that MMs shouldn't summon their first tier pets in large groups because they get in the way of the other players. I should have added out that this advice really only applies in cramped quarter (like the old style cave maps). In outdoor zones or office buildings the extra pets don't really get in the way.

There are some really fine guides over in the MM forum. There's also a bunch of keybinds you can download that will greatly simplify your life.

The most important thing is that the default set of commands that MMs get are not sufficient to adequately control their pets. Read the guides and either remap those macros or use the numpad keybindings.

Here's my crack at your questionaire:
1 - the MMs basic job is to use their pets to do whoppin gobs of damage. and to use their secondary to support their pets and their teammates.

2 - Basic MM tactics are to select a mob and to hit their pet_attack button. By default that will put the pets in Offensive mode and force them to attack the specified target. After that target is down they run around shooting everything that moves until it stops moving. Basic tactics are vastly inferior to advanced tactics and really should never be used. For advanced tactics, see the guides in the MM forum. Volumes have been written there about pet tactics.

3 - The number one rule for MMs is control your pets. They are how you do damage to the world. Every MM primary has a few direct damage attacks in it. There is some disagreement in the MM community about the utility of those attacks. As an MM increases in level, the attacks in his primary do relatively less and less damage compared to the pets. I fall on the side of avoiding these attacks. In my opinion those attacks have the same effect as pushing the gun to make the bullet go faster. I feel you'd get far more utility out of picking up Air Superiority and Assault than any of the Primary attacks powers.

4 - Stunts. I'm not sure what you mean. Closest thing I have to a stunt is telling my ninjas to run right up on a guy before having them attack (thats really more of a standard tactic than a stunt)

5 - The MM pet command system. Seriously, volumes have been written about this in the MM forum guides.

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Well, I'm pretty much done with this thread since NO ONE seems to understand why almost the entire group getting scattered out of AoE range is a problem.

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Preach it, brother! I have a Fire/Rad corrupter. By the time I land a Enervating Field and hit Aim most of the mobs are scattered all around the room.

Note: It isn't always knockback that causes it either. The mere fact that some of the pets stop and make ranged attacks and some rush in to h2h scatters the pod. as well. A skilled MM could eliminate that with pet_goto before a pet_attack, but that is lost on many of MMs I group with.

Whoa!!!! Hold on there. Calm down... I must admit that while I expected a passionate response to that post, I didn't expect to end up banned from teaming with Arcticfaux.

At no time did I claim I was attempting to describe how to play a l33t MM or even a good MM. My advice was on how to play a MM without alienating or marginalizing other players. I simply described steps a MM can take to help mitigate the unpleasantness that results from the presence of their rampaging minions.

No need to be whipping out the ignore stick

I gotta go with the OP. I dislike grouping with MMs. (especially Thugs MMs). That said, having a top quality player at the helm makes a huge difference.

Here's a few things you can do that will make you less reviled.

- in a full group, don't bother summoning your tier one pets - they are probably just going to get in the way. When the inevitable SHTF (stuff hits the fan) moment occurs, pull them out. They will arrive in defensive mode and save your hiney.

- Keep your pets on Ignore. That way, when the Corrupter who can't sit still snipes some guy and he responds with an AOE attack, your pets don't go tearing off across the room and screw up the pull.

- During the fight, keep your guys on Ignore. This allows YOU to control who they are damging.

- You know those attack powers you have in your primary. Save those powers for soloing. They do next to no damage. Using them will only result in some enraged mob punching you in the face. Since your guys are not in Defensive mode, you can't afford to be punched in the face.

- Do not assist the Brute. He does not want (or need) your help.

- Focus on the mobs that are standing off and using ranged attacks. See that guy off to the side healing mobs. Kill him. Let the Brute deal with the scrum.

- When the Brute bites off more than he can chew and goes down in a hail of gunfire. That is your moment to shine. Forget everything I just said and save the day. Then heap scorn on the brute. Mock him as he begs you for a 'green or an orange' so he can make a wakie. Then give him the green, and rez him before he can combine them. Then mock him some more.

I loved the old ignite. Pair it up with a Hold or Immob from a patron powerset and let the burning commence. Two cycles were enough to burn down most bosses.

Good times.


Ignite is still worth taking. A Hold/Immmob and an appication of Ignite will still take most bosses down by more than half. Also, don't forget about the fear affect not working on AVs. You don't even need to immob them, just let the Brute wade in first to grab agro and then just start laying on Ignite.

I've noticed this a couple of times, but never reliably. It only seems to happen when things get laggy and is accompanied by a glitch in the animation.

Here's how it works for me: I click Mind Probe. There is no animation. The guy takes the Mind Probe damage (his health bar drops, but no orange numbers shoot out of his head). The graphics 'jump'. The animation for Mind Probe starts and the guy takes the damage again and dies.

NOTE: I play on a fairly laggy connection on a computer that doesn't quite meet the games min specs.

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So Galactor... if you were being a normal punk who spray paints on houses and whatever and I called the cops on you, even though you being the punk doing wrong, I call the cops on you... I'm a rat? Or you rob a bank and I see or know you and call a cop... I'm a rat? hrmmm...


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The situaitions are different. This whole name reporting thing is more like this:

You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you. You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.....wait a second. sorry, scratch that. Thats the test to see if you are a replicant.

OK, its like this. You're in a nightclub. People are dancing. Loud music is playing. Its poorly lit. Strobes are flashing. There is a smoke machine. Across the room you see Galactor speaking with your ex-girlfriend Rebecca. They smile and laugh together, she leans in close and whispers something into his ear. She grabs him by the hand an pulls him onto the dance floor. Their bodies move in sync with the music. As they dance, their bodies move closer together. Flesh touches flesh and within you the rage begins to boil. She should be yours. Unbidden, you hand plunges into your jacket pocket and folds comfortably around the grip of your .50 caliber desert eagle... NO! Sorry, that would be if you were a psycho ex boyfriend.

OK this is it.
You're sitting at the bar in a diner eating a delicious slice of pie. At the end of the bar you notice a group of people playing cards in a booth. You don't know any of them. They aren't playing for money. They are just having fun. One of the guys at the table drops his napkin on the floor and leans over to pick it up. When he does so, he inadvertently exposes the contents of his hand to Galactor. Galactor may have seen the contents of the exposed hand, or he may not - it is impossible to tell for sure. Your sense of propriety is offended and you immediately stand up, march to the booth where the card game is occurring and proclaim in a loud voice, "PARDON ME, but I could not help but notice that when a moment ago you looked down to retrieve your napkin the VILLAIN sitting to your right was able to see the contents of you hand!" Your work complete you return to your seat only to find that the waitress has cleared away the plate containing the last bite of the delicious apple pie ala mode that you had been enjoying. You ask to speak to the manager to demand that it be taken off your bill. The manager is a balding middle aged man with a limp. He apologizes for the waitress's mistake He calls her over and 'corrects' her behavior with a backhand across her face. She takes in in stride. It has happened many times before. He takes the pie off your bill and asks if there is anything else he can do for you..... sorry, I got off on a tangent again. I guess I've forgotten the point I was trying to make.

Cheerio!

This thread is epic.

It should be required reading before being allowed to post on these forums.

I play on an inferior system. Athalon XP1900 with 1 GB of RAM.

You should be fine.

Here's a Link to the ParagonWiki guides for the cut/paste impaired

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Ehm.... Some people give Missions that brags about being a farming mission an 0 before goin inside (along with Reporting it).


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Shouldn't the farmers want a low rating? They are using the mission for FARMING. They get far more xp and tickets by doing the mission than they do from the mission itself.

The last thing they should want is to get a high rating that exposes their farm mission to a curious public. The more people doing that mission outside of their circle of 'field hands' the greater chance there is that some busybody is going to report their farm.

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Here's a sample of data I took from May 18th:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
arcs VS S M L VL
5 3 486 446 941 1107
4 1006 6305 2620 2766 2677
3 1383 3040 1005 667 649
2 385 876 301 151 128
1 193 692 199 92 77
</pre><hr />

This is a breakdown of rating by size. This is all freely available information, by the way, if you're crazy enough to collect it: the devs are not generous with their datamining information, even with (maybe especially with) me. Note the interesting pattern that if you exclude 5-star arcs, most of the ratings regardless of rating-stars are for small arcs: this suggests that small arcs are played more often than any other size arc (they are at least rated more often). My guess is that VS arcs are much less likely to be good stories *or* good farms, and players are realizing that.

However, 5-star arcs don't fit that pattern. Since there is a clear skew towards Small sized (by flag) arcs, the fact that most 5-star arcs are VL (and the longer the arc the more 5-star arcs it has) implies that there is a very strong bias away from giving smaller arcs a 5-star rating. In fact, VS arcs have trouble getting even a 4-star rating.

There's a lot of data points I'm trying to keep track of as often as I can remember to. But given the various sources of uncertainty in the data (in terms of trying to extrapolate to information I don't have access to) I'm still gathering as much information as I can before I draw any conclusions, as suggestive as the data I have currently seems to be (also, I'm collecting more data now than when I first started, as some of the early data began to show signs of patterns I didn't expect - for instance, there's just the slightest hint that the day of the week you first publish can influence your rating, but the signal is not strong enough with my current data to conclude its statistically significant).

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I took your numbers and did an analysis by percentage.

The data converted to percentage:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
VS S M L VL
5 0.10% 4.26% 9.76% 20.38% 23.87%
4 33.87% 55.31% 57.32% 59.91% 57.72%
3 46.57% 26.67% 21.99% 14.45% 13.99%
2 12.96% 7.68% 6.58% 3.27% 2.76%
1 6.50% 6.07% 4.35% 1.99% 1.66%
</pre><hr />

I graphed the data and noticed a few things:

VL and L arcs share similar distributions

M and S arcs share similar distributions

Among 5, 3, 2, and 1 star arcs, length seems to be an important factor. VL arcs do better than L arcs, which do better than M arcs, which do better than S arcs, which do better than VS arcs.

Note: 'better' means different things for different stars. For 5 start arcs 'better' means a higher percentage of - you want your arc to receive this rating. For 1,2 and 3 star ratings, 'better' means a lower percentage - you do not want you arc to receive this rating.

Among 4 star arcs, length doesn't seem to matter as much. The ratings for VL, L, M, and S all cluster around the 55-60% range.

VS arcs look underrepresented at the 4 and 5 star ratings.


Here's some possible conclusions:
<ul type="square"> [*]people like to reward effort. They recognize that it takes more effort to craft a longer story arc, so they grade you slightly better based on that.
[*]since the longer arcs take longer to make, the authors are putting more work into them - and that results in a better story.
[*]a longer arc gives the author more time to tell their story, and thus a better story results.
[*] VS arcs may involve someone experimenting with the MA and not an actual attempt at a story.
[*] is may be more difficult to put together a high quality Very Short arc because there just aren't that many story elements to work with.
[/list]

Something that i didn't consider is that the longer the arc is, the greater the chance that the players will bail out of it before finishing it. This may cause longer arcs to be underrepresented at the lower end of the rating scale.

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Uhm, can someone explain to me what is this "tower defense" you speak of? The thing James_Joyce described sounds sort of interesting.

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The basic idea is this:


1 - You have an object that you need to defend
2 - A wave of bad guys spawns and rushes forward to attack the object.
3 - Shortly after you defeat the wave, another wave attacks, but this wave is slightly stringer
4 - Repeat steps 2 and 3 until the object is destroyed.

This is pretty much how the Terra Volta respec trial works hero side. There is a reactor in the middle. Waves of freaks spawn and attack it. You have to defend it. At first the waves come in one at a time, then two at a time, I can't remember if they ever come in three at a time. After about 10 iterations of attacking waves, the trial is over. It's a good time.


I assert that the Mission Architect needs to be able to accommodate this behavior. The three or four waves we are currently limited to just aren't enough.

The only way I can think to simulate the increasing power of each wave would be to use destructible objects across multiple small maps. Set up the first encounter to be easy, the next to be a bit harder, etc. once you have used up all of a maps spawn/ambush points, go to the next map and continue.

The problem I've hit is that I can't figure out how to make the waves progressively harder in such a way that you creep across the line from 'hard' to 'impossible'. All my efforts so far have gone from 'medium' directly to 'impossible' - and that's no fun.

I'll keep plugging away at it. Once I have something that isn't crap, I'll publish it.

Wash and Warehouse : 1-10 ish

Old Man Morgensol wants you to clear the bums out of an old warehouse he just bought.

No custom mobs

Infected, Vaz, Arachnos, even some Skulls. All the stuff that makes life grand from level 1-10.

Do I really need to say more?

Come-on! Would this not be the coolest? Like the Terra-volta reactor, but with UNLIMITED and INCREASING waves!

It would be AWESOME!

I'm not talking normal 'awesome' I'm talking "SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY MMMMMONSTER TRUCKS AT THE ARENA!!!" awesome.

Am I right or what?

I ran through the Mosh Pit too.

...I didn't make it.

It was AWESOME. I have never had so much fun getting my teeth kicked in before.

I hope it comes back.

Lotta people 'round these parts been complaining about "nerfs". One good way to take the sting out is to give em something in return...so how about this?

I'd like to see a new test mode added to the mission architect.

The purpose of it is to allow the designer to zip around his/her map checking glowie placement, activating ambushes, etc. without having to fight through the entire mission.

The mode would have the following features.
<ul type="square"> [*]allow the map to be spawned for a user selectable number of players.[*]player flies through the map -- even if they don't have fly. [*]mobs don't agro. [*]any attack on a mob or destructable object moves it through its trigger. First hit does one point of damage. Next hit takes it to 3/4 Next Hit takes it to 1/2. Next hit takes it to 1/4. Last hit kills it.[*]glowies are clickable[*]all spawns have an extra field above their head telling the designer the part of the map he is in (front, middle, back)[*]no experience, influence, prestige, tickets, or badges earned in this mode.[*]a spell checker[/list]
You guys can have that coded up and in production by next week, right?

So, do you mind answering a few questions on this auspicious occasion?

What was the badge that put you over the top?

What badge was the hardest to get?

What's you next badge going go be?

once you hit 35 and pick up transferrance, you can respec out of the fitness pool. You don't need stamina any more.

I just thought I'd log in to add that if you Google for "Coh Mog" you get this thread.