Circeus_NA

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The only way to avoid gimpness is to force powers into the player that are granted automaticaly at levelups, and even then, the gimp may still not even use them :P

All in all, i ponder what SOE is planning to do with their DC comics MMO...

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Yeah, it'll be interesting. I've already learned that it appears that Ravensoft (X-Men Legends, etc.) is the development house doing the Marvel MMO. Well actually the problem is, that unless they change their gaming paradigm it's likely to only be MO dropping the "Massively". My guess is that "Marvel Ulmitate Alliance" is a logical step toward an online version of that game, which may be all the MO version turns out to be. After all that game will have 140 signature heroes available for teaming at release (MUA, not the MO).

Look at the development history of CoH. Originally an open ended design system. Jack touts the greatness of freeform system as an MMO milestone. Gets NCsoft as publisher. Garriott says "my way or the highway". ATs get added. Jack touts the greatness of the AT system as making the game a true MMO, and that it will help prevent gimps. Did the system really prevent gimps? No. As easy to gimp yourself in CoH than any freeform system. All it really prevents is making true-to-form comic book superheroes - where everyone is a tank mage.

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*Bricks comes from some Marvel Comics pen and paper RPG btw

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*Bzzzzt* wrong answer. Here's our lovely parting gift.

Champions is the origin, like most of the terms people use to describe superheroes from an RPG perspective.

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the problem is the inherents for heros were an afterthought the villians are built around them

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Yes, they were also built to circumvent ED.

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Between this and what Circeus has posted, I think I understand what Gauntlet is, but doesn't it seem a little more complicated design than it needs to be?

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Isn't 90% of the game more complicated design than it needs to be?

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Wait, then this means the tanker is the only AT that actually had a true inherent from day one, and it just got bumped up a bit with issue 3? (was that issue 3?)!!

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Tanker attacks didn't Taunt at release (at least I don't think they did), but it was added early on.

According to Zloth's history it happened for Issue 3:

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The Taunting powers were changed. Before, tanks and some scrappers had a taunt power that would taunt one and only one enemy. The tanks' version auto-hit. To really do any crowd control, however, they needed to get the Provoke power from the Presence power pool. Tanks noted that it was pretty silly to make them take a power pool to be able to do their crowd control. The devs agreed and changed the powers around. Tanks' Taunt power was made AoE and was still auto-hit. Scrapper's Taunt was changed to Confront, a single target taunt and I think it's auto-hit. Also, every single tank attack power was given a minor AoE taunting effect (commonly called punchvoke now).

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I was only talking about AoEs. I'm pretty sure he's talking about all of them there. Man I'm being so misunderstood today. I'm not talking about single target just AoEs. The way he states it is that AoEs taunt what they hit and single taunts 5 if it hits. To me that means if an AoE only hits 2 enemies then the single target was more effective. Which why in the first post I made I asked if there no less than 5 taunted on AoEs. Y'all understand me now?

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Sure. But why is this a surprise to you? Prior to the AoE change for single target Tanker Secondaries, attacks that Taunt have always only Taunted what they hit. The change never did anything to affect this.

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No he said up to 10. He also daid the number of critters that take damage...meaning if you miss there's no taunt.

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Yes, for Whirling Mace since its a Melee AoE. Go back and read his post.

For future reference (source Castle):

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Gauntlet is a generic name for a variety of powers which all include an inherent 'Taunt' effect. The text says "Each time the Tanker attacks, he enrages the target, and those around him, enticing them to attack the Tanker."

So, what is an attack?
* Any of your Melee Powers which damage a target, and many that simply apply a Status Effect. Single Target attacks are limited to 5 critters effected per attack. PBAoE's such as Whirling Mace are limited to the number of critters that take damage -- in this case, up to 10 critters.
* Any 'Aura' powers you may have, such as Icicles or Invincibility.

Note that there is no distinction between Primary and Secondary powersets, Epic Powersets or Pool Powers? These all have Gauntlet on them, to one extent or another (Pool Powers version is limited to 1 target, and only the direct attacks have it.)

If you are dealing with +3's or higher, it may be worthwhile to slot a Taunt enhancer or two into the powers you are using. They *do* help.

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Nice Guide. So wrong in the sense that the taunt the attack power puts on the directly attacked target is part of the Gauntlet system? Seems like a little bit of semantics since AOE powers, without Gauntlet, taunt the targets they hit.

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Wrong in you're thinking on Gauntlet. And it's not semantics, its lack of using terms the way the devs do. We need to learn to refer to things the way the devs do, not in our own special way. Half of understanding this game revolves around spending the time to do that.

The devs consider Gauntlet to be the Taunting ability.

This is separate and distinct from whether or not that Taunting ability is AoE.

From there if a power is single target then it's Taunt from Gauntlet is assigned an AoE.

And if that power is already AoE, then it's Taunt from Gauntlet is left alone.

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Is the Gauntlet bubble taunt still working? I can't seem to notice it.

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What is a Gauntlet bubble? And if it's what I think it is, then there was an entire thread devoted to there being an agro issue since I7, that may or may not be related to Taunting working properly, which would include Gauntlet.

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Part of the problem is there is a lot of confusion on what Gauntlet is. My understanding is that the AOE powers mentioned above, Auras, the Taunt Power, temp powers are *not* using Gauntlet at all. Only some single target attacks use gauntlet. Gauntlet is a *small* aoe taunt bubble around a single target when you hit the target and your power is one that makes use of it.

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You're half wrong. Allow me to introduce you to the guide for Taunt.

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Y'all are cute, really.

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Thanks. I get that all the time. Really.

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But my point - as i'm sure you all know - is that the def debuff was not instituted to balance out the wholeset against the huge buffage that could be attained pre-ED and global defense nerfs. It was instituted as a matter of powerset balance.

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And yet powersets aren't balanced. So I fail to see your point.

The reason the devs don't really want to lay down the numbers to us in a reasonable in-game fashion is simple: "In a land of blind men, a one eyed man would be king." They want to be that king, and keep us all in the dark. Sort of like politicians.

One thing I've learned as software engineer, and a product manager, and someone who's worked in the video game industry: an informed clientele is a happy clientele.

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Wait. So you're saying the Q for "Quality" in QA is meant to be taken seriously!?!?!?!/111!??!retraintheQAdepartment!1?!/!?

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I'm saying that QA without the "Quality" lacks "Assurance".

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The reason the global defense nerfs don't warrant a removal of the DEF penalty is, because, um... they were global nerfs. They had relatively minor effects on power balance.


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Saying that global nerfs have minor effects on specific powers balance is incredible BS.

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Well actually, I think even calling it BS is an insult to BS everywhere.

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You realize that pretty much anything that makes a decision over at Cryptic is human right?

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Sure. But I also understand what a QA department is responsible for. They are the gateway between development and release. They are solely responsible for deciding if something warrants release. And they are responsible for the overall quality of their product. If the product has problems when it goes out the door, then they missed it in their testing. This is true for any product.

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And that they are not held to Telecommunication market standards because they are not part of the information relay to emergency sytems, right?

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CoX is a service. People pay for that service. The people who pay for that service have a right to quality of service. That is the responsibility of the QA dept for the service. If they're not up to the task and don't understand their product enough to perform the task then they should find something else to do with their time.

However, and let me state, I'm not saying the QA dept can't do their job. I'm saying that it is their job. And that I believe that if they are as properly dedicated to their product as a QA person needs to be successful at their job, then they can perform their job.

The people saying they can't do their job are the ones who are saying every little change needs a week or three on test for the players to vet before it hits the live servers.

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And that is what a QA department is for


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QA catches major bugs. Not piddling decimal errors.

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No a crappy QA dept doesn't catch "piddling decimal errors". And are not qualified to catch major bugs.

A great QA department takes ownership of the product, understand it inside out, has a test plan, understands what regression testing is, and spends the time at the testing because they invest themselves in the product. "piddling decimal errors" never get past a great QA department. They feast on major bugs.

Your response tells me you have no idea what a QA dept even does.

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Not excusing their QA. I just feel the devs feel test server is their 'free QA', along with the players on the boards.

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And that sort of model is doomed to failure. Sure we may find bugs, and people like me might report the more serious ones, but clearly, as we've seen from these forums, other people will sit and exploit something that is clearly a bug for the benefit of it supporting their own playstyle. And then tout it as a "valid" mode of play because its how the game works.

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My biggest problem (back to unyielding) is the ever changing answers. I remember a brute asked why do we have 5% penalty, if we have less resistances? dev answer was, working as expected.

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I think there's a story in there that we're not being told. "Working as expected", from a developer in any field, generally means "according to what I'm seeing the code and data tables that would indeed be what is supposed to happen". It doesn't make what is happening "right" because "right" is subjective. It just means its doing what it should be according to what it is.

My overall guess is that the field in the data tables that supported the -5% on Unyielding could not take advantage of scaling by AT, and so it was -5% no matter what. And now the field scales by AT - which is the actual change.

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But the question that gets me is still why not remove the -def penalty and Tough Hide, and not come up with an interesting new power. ...

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I think it'd be a good idea to do this. I think that part of the problem is the corner of their rigid box of post-ED design that Tankers sit in.

Now, on the flip side, if they absolutely have to keep the penalty in Unyielding, then maybe its high time they seriously considered swapping Resist Physical and Tough in the powerset.

Because right now, when people get Unyielding they get hit more, if they had the opportunity to take Tough beforehand then they're equalized sooner rather than halfway through the game.

Age of a QA dept shouldn't be an excuse.

Poor employment choices would be the only excuse.

And neither is really an acceptable excuse.

BTW, I'm the one who found the Invincibility bug, so believe me I don't have high expectations of their QA, but either they're doing they're job and keep it, or they're not and get let go and replaced. That is how you run a business.

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Okay... here's what bugs me the most about this change.

Why does it need to spend a week on test before it makes it live?


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Remember when the Unyielding debuff first was -50%, instead of -5% ?
Thats why.

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And that means that the QA dept screwed the pooch on their testing. Again its not for us, the players to catch bugs like this on the test server. This is the job of a QA department - something they claim to have.

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It needs to spend time on test to make sure that, oh, they didn't make it a 35 percent debuff. Or a 35 percent buff, for that matter. I mean, they've tested double XP twice now. Any change can go wrong.

Nothing should ever go live without testing, really, you don't want that. At least I sure don't.

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And that is what a QA department is for. They're the ones who should catch that 37.5% is wrong, not us. The test server is supposed to be there for us to provide feedback, but not for us to actually be the ones who test changes.

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Its bad idea to rush anything to live and make it skip testing just because. Remember updates in CoH go trough a queue, and unless its an emergency hot fix it wont skip ahead of anything. That being told there are other fixes on this patch that may require the extensive testing.

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But we're not their QA department.

Supposedly this has been vetted and unit tested by geko, Positron, and Castle, and then it went through a QA cycle. And its at that time that QA is supposed to go "this makes X too strong, or leaves Y too weak", etc. And its up to the QA dept to poke holes and find bugs with it before it gets to the test server.

So again, if its vetted, if its QA'd, and its gonna go live and is a much needed and must requested quality of life sort of thing, why does it have to go to the test server for a week?

Okay... here's what bugs me the most about this change.

Why does it need to spend a week on test before it makes it live?

The devs push out patches like the House pushes out bills. There are all these extra things that hold back something that was needed yesterday.

Just release the one small bit, let the stuff that needs to actually be tested go to the test server. But things that are common sense changes, and that are mostly server side (I can't see as how this change is anything but server side) get out now, and bypass the test server.

Okay, there's something that indicates that your installtion of "Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0" might be corrupt or non-existent.

And to put the reason into context... using the latest VS.NET the MSM files (merge modules) provided by Microsoft (in the case of my app MFC and CRT) are WinSxS ("side-by-side") modules and require .NET Framework to operate/install properly.