Cpt_Head_Xplody

Jules, nice interview. I listened from beginning to end, and don't worry if you sounded nervous while interviewing Positron and Castle, I would have been too.

Sweet, I look forward to this! I love bashin' me some Rikti.

Whoa, nice! A very excellent compromise it would seem.

I look forward to this, I have a lot of friends who got stuck in the 30s and early 40s and just gave up and started a new character, got stuck again, rise repeat until they got so frustrated they quit.

Great post so far, I haven't finished reading it in its entirety, but it deserves a thorough read. I just want to say you have brought up a lot of good points.

I used to HATE pvp. I mean loathe it. Then some games created objective based pvp with rewards: Dark Age of Camelot and World of Warcraft come to mind. Now it's not some mindless kill fest it's now a game, a sort of blood sport if you will. I would like to see pvp encounters balanced somehow, I think WoW had a very good approach here. However, I think the brilliant devs on the CoX team will come up with an alternate solution that maintains the same goals, but makes it a unique experience.

Personally, I love Safeguard missions. They're the perfect hero counterpart to Mayhem missions. They require you to be all over the place and are really fun solo. They tend to be really confusing in groups though, teams get split up and lots of people die.

My other complaint is with the villain Shock Treatment. Is she supposed to sap your endurance to nothing every couple of seconds? She seemed incredibly over powered. Also the lower level martial arts villain, his name escapes me, but his Cobra Strike power disoriented me for over an entire minute through my Integration as a lieutenant. Is this by design? Again, seems way too powerful. Oh, as a side note, both of these bosses were equal level. I'm all about a challenge, but these last two bosses were a bit over the top.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

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- It's a superhero game
- The combat engine
- The ability to solo when I want
- The costume creator hey that's on the list! I can stop here.

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Took the words right out of my mouth. To me no game allows me to kick as much butt in such a short period of time, while looking awesome doing so. That's why I still play this game. I have no idea what I9 will bring, but Posi's got me jonesin' for whatever it is!

Hey Castle, is there any chance we could also get an animation speed enhancement made to Regen/Reconstruction? PWEEEEZ?

Beautiful, thanks Castle. So, now this set is the "Has protection against anything and everything, but can't heal you" set. Hey, I'm okay with that. It's a hell of alot better than the "doesn't do anything really remarkable" resistance set.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

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As far as magnitude goes, expect it to be exactly the same as Tanker APPs such as Block of Ice, Stone Prison, etc..

Those have a hold magnitude that is able to work on LTs but not Bosses, making it Mag2 I believe. Recharge will likely be 30+ seconds, and duration will be around 8-10 seconds.

Ranged holds are possibly the most nerfed APP crossover skill, and I think that it will be the same for PPPs.

If I'm wrong about mag and recharge/durtation then GW's hold will indeed be an amazing skill for stalkers. Otherwise, the holds are a bit of a let down.

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Sounds about right, actually.

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Anyone know if I attempt to stack GW's hold with Petrifying Gaze will it hold a boss as long as both hold effects are in place? If not, no big deal. I love holds, I'll be able to shut down long bow spec ops even better (god I hate those...)

Man, even if it isn't that super of a hold...it sure is awesome looking. Very rarely will I look at a power and say "Meh, it's not all that powerful, but look at the pretty effect! OOH! AAH!" This one had me from the word go.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

The big problem with this power set, as I have stated earlier is that you cannot cover the self heal hole. Aid Self is an interruptable power, and /elec is a +res power set, therefore you can't rely on using it when you really need it. You can get by without stamina, you can take acrobatics and combat jumping....but if you're a +res set you need a self heal, plain and simple. This set lacks it, and in the end it will not really allow for a very reliable long term damage dealer. Very disappointing power set.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

I like this Bodyguard idea, but people are bringing up some good points. Some minions play support like medics and the shield robots. I might be useful to make a button specifically for Bodyguard. I think that would smooth out any little bumps.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

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Great... Good for MM's...
BUT WHAT ARE DOMINATORS GETTING?

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Doms get a free mocking snicker every time a Hero breaks out a BreakFree to cancel all of their powers. Grrrr.

As for the bodyguard function, I guess I am going to have to start some keybinds. One of the things I liked about MM was being able to use just the commands they give you and be pretty darn effective. I have a feeling though that finding the sweet spot of how many henchmen to use as guards will become the new MM forum question.

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Poor Dominators. They could use a bit of love too.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

Bodyguard! What a creative idea, I think I can hear masterminds rejoicing all over the place. Nicely done Cryptic.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

My hat is off to you Pilcrow! Good stuff. I would like to contribute one thing in regards to lethal/smashing damage.

Too many enemies have resistance against this type of damage, it makes things extremely rough for AR/DEV blasters at the higher levels. I bring up DEV because it lacks build up, which when 3 slotted will give a significant boost in power. Straight Lethal and Smashing damage dealers need some love.

The survivability of blasters gets really questionable at higher levels when soloing, at least it has for my AR/DEV blaster. When you compare blasters to corruptors there's a HUGE difference in survivability. The difference I've noticed between an equal level AR/DEV blaster and a Sonic/Dark corruptor is absolutely staggering!

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

I have come back from a brief hiatus from CoH/V and I started reading the backgrounder info. I love the new stuff, it's great. Arctic Sun gets bonus points for getting "Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls." in there. Awesome stuff!

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

Someone had to! Hee hee.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!

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Ballistae are rediculous. You can't close on them because of repulsion bubble, and if it's off he shuts down your toggles. As a melee character these guys are an absolute nightmare and totally negate my function on a team, as I am constantly sent 30 feet in the air instead of trying to keep my party alive. When I fight these guys, I usually just leave my toggles off and pop lucks like there's no tomorrow, there's no point even having them on.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

I think my favorite so far (other than the PSP one) has got to be said by a Rikti hostage you liberate from the Longbow (weenies.)

"Situation Assessment: Lame"

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

Nice work Arctic_Sun, looks like we'll have more fluff soon. Keep it coming, and happy birthday

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

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Well, as I recall, the I5 release coincided with a 'free trial' promotion too; and because of that, for a week, I was seeing 1800+ on line right after I5 on Guardian. BUT, even then the numbers soon dropped back to 'normal' meaning (I assume) plenty of people tried the game but not a lot stayed.

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I guess I'm feeling masochistic today.

SirBruce's numbers are PAYING customers. NOT FREE TRIALS. You can e-mail him about how he gets his numbers and what not, but as far as I know, his source records ONLY paying accounts.

So, sorry, the free trial routine doesn't really hold water (not the first time I've read that either).

Also - another comment on discounted games - currently, City of Heroes is $29.99. Certain stores can run sales - like Lineage 2 is free with a Guild Wars purchase at a local chain.

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RED SERVER = BAD! I'm glad for this, however....I'm really not seeing these players online States. I can LFG for days and never get a response. Cap Au Diable and Sharkhead Isle on Infinity were freaking empty. It was me, my lackey and I kid you not....2 other people. That's all I saw in Sharkhead. There was a few more people in Cap Au Diable, but not many. Yes I know people might be in missions....but still....zero broadcast traffic all day except for someone to say "OH #$&* I GOT KILLED BY SCRAPYARD'S GHOST!" And that was my lackey....

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

One thing I heard mentioned numerous times is the whole "glancing blows" thing added to SR as a killer suggestion. Sometimes the scrapper evades the attack, sometimes the scrapper gets hit, but sometimes these hits are just glancing and wouldn't do much damage. I don't think having resistance scale with HP is a great way of doing this though.

It's really dangerous playing a /SR scrapper as it is. I think I may shelf my /SR character until defense is worth using again simply because of how unfun he is to play now compared to either my /invuln and /regen scrappers. I've even had groups turn down my /SR scrapper in a group because they thought he wouldn't be able to effectively deal with red caps. Lame.

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

Meh, why can't this resistance buff be put on all SR powers toggle and otherwise? Make it minimal but enhanceable, this might make SR a more viable option as a scrapper secondary. Or if that's too much just put it on auto powers and make it always on, these low health dependant powers really stink guys. For example, i've played my blaster every day since I5 and *NEVER* benefited from defiance once. As a blaster you're either alive and shooting (30% HP or more), alive and running (29% HP or less), or dead (uh...yeah 0%). And...and...what about Ice Tankers? Poor little blue guys...

Regards,
Captain Head Explody

I've been playing a blaster since beta and I'm really not impressed with Defiance. We're the squishiest archetype because we can't slap down holds or have pets hold aggro for us. So, why is it that we're at our best when we're one or two hits from death? It just doesn't seem like a worth while archetype power.

What I would like to see is the defiance bar increase each time we take/deal damage and have our damage ramp up as this fills. When we stop taking or dealing damage it will decay. I think the decay would have to be pretty quick though so that we aren't able to hit that 500% damage cap very quickly. Just my thoughts..

Oh, as a blaster I can say I definately notice the additional HP! Yay!

Regards,
Captain Head Explody