DarkLordTrilogy

As far a former President Bush is concerned, I do believe the BRIT Prime Minister had his nose stuck so far up our Pres. rear end that he couldn't see the light of day.

Wow, lots of information in this string of posts. However, I think what get's lost in alot of the number crunching for us laymen is how these numbers relate to each other.

What I mean is, like CB and DP said it's all relative to how many mob's you engage at a time. It would be more representative to have a line graph to illustrate this "curve" than just words. (I'm more visual what can I say) Or even pie graph representations of the different aspects of the powers as a whole (since we all agree that damage isn't the only reason for picking a power). But lastly, I think we can also all agree that although the numbers make a difference, it's the experience that takes the cake. If someone thinks a power is better it will be hard to make them see otherwise because "better" is a very ambiguous concept.

As far as the disagreements between CB and DP I think more could be done to come to an understanding if they first agreed on a common starting point. It's as if they want to argue on temperature differences outside but are living in two different places. Unless you two just wanted to argue with each other, in which case you could have saved the board some space and just sent personal messages back and forth.

Anywho, that's my 2 cents.

Another problem with that is the whole "goose vs gander" thing. If mobs get this "debuff" then so would players and I can't see that going over too well.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to access the MA from one's own base. Why you say. Because then you could feel more like you're planning your own evil scheme or foiling a villainous plot from your own command center. Functionality could be added so that only SG level missions could be crafted at ones base. Also, you could have other super groups join you in your adventure. There could be larger maps, more foes, complex puzzles, story lines crafted to fit the back story of particular groups, or even (with going rogue coming out) a side by side hero villain collaboration or an in mission confrontation between two different groups.

I think the framework is there to do this I just don't know if the support is there to push for it.

Anyway, that's my idea. Pick it apart as you will.

---------------------
Olubunmi (Level 32 MM Mercenary/Poison)

When it absolutely positively has to die tonight!

My reasoning for wanting control over what powers were used would be more to have my pets use ranged attacks against classes that have high melee attacks and melee attacks against those that have significant ranged attacks. I agree that keeping them from using all of their attacks lessons the DPS, but as the saying goes "all money aint good money." I'd like to play some pets close to the chest for protection for me or them, have some favor status attacks over straight up attacks for obvious reasons (unless the foe in question is immune then take that and turn it around).

Thanks for the info on messing with the target attack thing.

I appreciate the feedback on my position control as well.

just a lowly lvl 22 MM
merc/poison

Overpower eh? Ok, so then let's not mess with the powers if it would be the doom and cause the rise of the nerf. But, what about the position control? Making your pets scatter, cluster, or surround a target/area doesn't seem overpowering to me.

Just a lowly lvl 22 MM
Merc/Poison

I haven't found a suggestion for this yet and before posting it on the suggestions forum I'd rather see if I've either missed it in my searches or if I'm crazy for even suggesting it.

First, I'd like to say that I have no idea how to bind commands to ...... whatever it is you bind them to and unless I have to I have no intentions on learning. (woe is me / I'm sure the tech savvy laugh at the notion that I don't know nor want to learn something so "simple")

Ok so what's my problem. When I go into a fight with my pets, I have no idea what type of attacks they will attempt. I can't exclude any actions from their inventory, or make it so certain attacks are their priority over others. This makes fights pretty chaotic (don't get me wrong I like chaos, I just like to be the source not the recipient). There are times when I would like the medic say concentrate on heals, or the whoever on status attacks. Or maybe I want one to use a ranged attack in melee distance to keep the cluster together for a Targeted AOE attack I or another one of my pets has brewing or to just stay the hell away from that Elite boss or AV so they don't die when their AOE goes off, or even to stay away from each other so AOE attacks don't hit everybody. I think has a Master Mind, this level of flexibility should be afforded to us.

Now to the idea, I would like to have the option of exercising more control over my pets. As in, I'd like to be able to curtail which attacks I'd like them to favor and the distance at which I would like them to stay or weather to cluster or scatter. Whether it be range over melee, or status attack over dmg heavy, or heals over attacks, I think that the master mind should be able to come up with his/her/it's own strategy for how those attacks should be dished out.

Ok that's the what I want. Now to how I want it. I think either a slider bar going from one extreme to the other and preset in the middle would work nicely, or a menu where you see a list of powers and you can adjust them to be used more or less often or what order they should be used in, or something to that effect that I haven't thought of. The intent would be to have those values be preset on individual pet types (ie: knights or commandos, or medics, ect.) and have those pets act accordingly.

The payoff
Masterminds would be able to better control the flow of the battle and not only attack at the time and place of their choosing but also with the strategy of their choosing. And when you control the flow of the battle you control the outcome. No one would have to buy into this if they don't want to. They could leave everything set to the default values. However, those who want to try a different play style would have that option open to them.

Off topic:
Is their a way to have pets attack your target while keeping them in defense mode instead of attacking random enemies? I would like to mass my fires while keeping my pets near me for the dmg mitigation and +status for them. Just curious.

Just a lowly lvl 22 MM
Merc/Poison

How about just coding the "costume" to be an effect on the pet. That way it only affects the pets that are summoned and you don't have to make multiple copies of anything to do it. So you would just select a pet and use it's individual menu to select the action of activating the effect and presto change-o. I'm sure someone will tell me coding is still an issue and I know nothing of how the mechanics work, but hey, it's just an idea.

Edit:

Just a lowly lvl 20 MM so don't beat me up to much.

That's why I was wondering about the whole player review system and how it will be implemented. That way even if the creator doesn't want to warn the hapless solo'r about the upcoming AV smorgasbord being served up, at least we can warn each other.

13

For those so (un)inspired.....is there a way to use enemy groups created by other players in your own arc, is there a way to stop others from doing this if it is possible, is there going to be a "customer review" system so people can explain their ratings of certain missions on the COH website or in-game?

13

Is there a way for players to rate the difficulty of the mission separate from the overall rating?
and
Is there a way for the creator to post how long the mission is (should take to complete)

I think these are important factors to consider when thinking about playing an arc.

Oh, and once a mission is rated high enough and given the high sign by the dev's can it be given the mantle of needing a team of a certain size in order to play?

13

That is not enough, at least as far as squishes are concerned. Blasters need the extra dmg that we do in order to survive. We don't have the HP to duke it out longer and survive. So the extra 3 or 4 powers that we could get off wont help because we wont be alive to use them. Additionally, the spawns that we will have to fight to stay alive will be so small that the xp wont be worth it.

In teams, we will no longer be wanted as much as other AT's specifically, controllers that can boost the entire teams dmg. Who would want an AT that has high dmg, low survivability, and can not increase the teams anything unless that team has a warshade or peacebringer, over an AT that has dmg mitigation tools for themself and the team, can bring as much firepower to the table without having to heavily slot it through pets, and/or increasing the team members dmg output. Teams wanting to make fights shorter will certainly go for the second choice, especially in the mid to late game. The early game is too flexable to really count. Also, on ED there is no way that anyone is going to Diversify because of this. The people who don't diversify (most of CoH, I'm presuming) do so becuase dmg is the one thing that you need in order to lvl fast enough to keep things interesting, and something that there is no real workaround for except being a higher lvl or having more hp. Peoples minds work like this "If I kill faster, I level faster which means that I've made a successful 'toon'." Additionally, ED is killing electric blasters who focus on End drain. If end drain wasn't an all or nothing ordeal (ie if the entire mob could not still hit me at full force even with only a sliver of endurance left) than everything would still be ok. However, since it is all in or bust, it seems that bust is going to be the way to go. SC will no longer drain mobs effectively. Nor is it even a decent AoE dmg power especially considering the whole risk vs reward criteria. Lightning field falls into this category in spades. I now have to eliminate end drain from my attack strategy because it is no longer viable in the new world order. I don't even want to think about what this is doing to other AT's.

Aside from the opinion that defiance needs to start sooner (80 or 75% health) than it currently does, a large problem with defiance is that it is useless when teamed with defenders and controllers. Their buffs will automatically put a min max (or if there are enough of them even a regular "Joe Bagof Doughnuts" type) player so close to or at the dmg cap so IF and WHEN defiance kicks in it wont do anything to contribute to the battle. One way to work around this (my uneducated - meaning I'm not a developer) answer is to have defiance A) ignore the dmg cap or B) have defiance work around the dmg cap.

Going with A) defiance could just surpass the dmg cap making a blaster who is at the 500% dmg cap be able to get to 100% dmg. The problems I see with this is in the coding. How do you make it so that the dmg cap is only removed for the defiance percentage of the dmg increase and not have it effect any additional buffs (rages, def buffs, cntrlr buffs, ect) that are in the game.

Option B) seems more reasonable to me. If you have Defiance work it's way around the dmg cap it would become much more useable and useful. I figure defiance could be an additional tick of dmg (ala the additional tick of dmg done with elec powers at enemies that are weak against elec) When a blaster is not in defiance range this additional tick of dmg would equal 0 and this number could be hidden until it is greater than .5 (or whatever number you consider large enough to be considered 1 point of dmg) Even if this is done for all powers within the game it is not going to make a significant difference in the players understanding of what is going on in the game. Additionally, the addtional tick can be based off of unslotted dmg (aka base dmg) for whatever power the blaster is using or even have it's own brawl index. In this way the dmg would only be a maximum of 2x what regular slotted/buffed/inspired dmg could be. If it has it's own brawl index the dmg could be adjusted very easily if it is deamed to be to great at a later date. We wouldn't be the only AT that is able to potentially bypass our dmg cap, but we would be the only one's that could potentially do it on a regular basis. In order to circumvent this little (what I think you guys would view as an) inconvience, the scale could be such that it is back loaded or lessened. The majority of the boost could come after 40 or 30% health or the max boost could be lowered. Now, we would have to be living dangerously (risk = reward) in order to benifit from an extreamely large boost or we would not be able to double but only do 1.3, 1.5 or 1.75 or whatever of our dmg either way the dmg increase in minimalized (is that a word) to a manageable/realistic level. There should also be some way of eliminating the defiance boost given to blasters falling out of the sky in order to increase their dmg. But, I don't have an answer for this an come to think of it if they're stupid enough to WANT their health that low they deserve what they're gonna get. Any which way, there are so many ways to mitigate the dmg potential of defiance with this suggesetion there is no way that it would become overpowered AND I don't think that it would take that long to implement AND blasters (the one's who don't play with a pen pad and calculator on their desk) would be able to see the actual benifit from defiance instead of having to guess what it all means.

Will any more wars (ala the council v 5th column war) be included in the game?? (it was so fun)

Will there be any lvl 50 only zone's (of course with specific villains, missions, TF's and other various content for lvl 50 characters) with rewards suitable to lvl 50 characters?

Will events from CoV ever bleed over into CoH (an invasion in CoH or earthquake or rivalry) or vise versa?

Will any important figures from outside of paragon ever make an appearance or more importantly have an impact on gameplay (such as the "president" or other political figure or sports "Hero")?

Will events in real life (landing a spacecraft on a comet) ever have an impact on the game?

Will the 5th column ever return?

Will Statesman and "the gang" ever become contact-ish, a hero only being able to contact them near the end of a TF or some such thing?

Will other heroes ever need an escourt out of a mission (in the escourt missions)?

Will Statesman and the crew have their own base of operations and will we get to tour it?

Will an underwater zone ever be included? (in a dome of course)

Will any other mini games ever be introduced into the storyarcs? (the only one I can think of now is the firefighter mini game-ish content)

Will there ever be Power Set or at least AT specific story arcs?

Thanks for the look and thanks for all the hard work on the game.

Will the Arena ever include PvE type content (see how many bosses you can take down in a given time or see which team can kill an AV quicker, or with the least deaths, or races through complicated courses, could also be team races or at least a training mode so that one could practice their skills or test a build)?

Will any of the Zones get updated in the future (will the Rikti crash site or some other such Zone be renovated)

Any plans to have a TF story arc where the heroes end up splitting up because of different goals all towards the same end? Or a regular story arc where you have to team up with similar results?
-end rant

What I believe we need is either additional or more potent secondary effects for our attacks.

If more defense makes me a long range scrapper, I don't want it.

Instead let me reduce the amount of damage the villain can dish out. Let me be able to reduce the amount of damage the villian can take/avoid. Let me reduce the amount of damage the villian can connect with. In other words, don't make me more resiliant, give me more toys to limit or diminish my foe's capabilities. No, I don't want to be a controller, I don't want to hold a baddie for an hour. I don't want to totally manipulate the surroundings for my benifit. What I want is to be able to make my car different from the others while still making it as good as everyone elses if I know how.

Yes, we need perks. Perks like more immobalize effects. Having more Immob will keep trollers quiet about us becomming another controlling AT - as compared to giving us holds. AND if I've got Mr. Badass baddie in immob I can run around the corner and have a coke and a smile while I rethink my plan. It still keeps us in danger from the long range attacks. However, since range is defense (HAHA) we will be able to stay out of melee range. Unless we want to use ANY of our secondary powers - then we're screwed.

Well, I know I wasn't being very clear in my statement. Let me clarify my position for you.

A blaster should have better ranged attacks than melee attacks for the simple fact that he is suppossed to be an expert in the ranged area of the battlefield. Just like artillery units are not good a killing a squad of infantry that has made it inside of their perimeter because that is not their specialty. However, they can destroy a tank division at long range because, again, range is their specialty.

Now, that being said, if they could actually get that tube pointed at that pesky infantry platoon that has managed to out flank them, well you can say bye bye to that platoon. Additionally, the closer you are to the barrell of any weapon the more destructive that weapon should be.

Therefore, I conclude that since a blasters long ranged attacks should be more powerful than the melee (a shot from a 45 hurts more than being pistol whipped by one) a blaster should not have to use melee or even want to use melee.

However, I would like to change one statement that I made. ranged attacks made in melee range should get a -acc not a +acc but still recieve a +dmg. This will balance out how things should be and give the blaster more to think about in a fight.

"Should I go for the 1 hitter quitter, or be more conservitive and go for the melee."

If you read some of my other posts in the forum you would also see that I am an advocate of leaving the melee in the blaster's secondary, but adding additional secondaries that have ranged attacks in them to better give blasters who want to be a fully ranged monster more variey in the attacks that they can choose from.

I hope this clears up any miscommunication.

I know I stated that my rant was done earlier, but I just got back from drill and I'm on an emotional high :-)

If blasters are not going to get new powers - let's face it the dev's are never going to give it to us.
If blasters are not going to get more HP or Def - dev's might give it to us and I hope and pray that they do, but I'm not being very optomistic
If blasters are not going to get more damage - just don't wanna see us beat scrappers in the late game do they
We should get more secondary effects or enhanced secondary effects

Let me explain:
1) Elec (my favorite - and the only character I play regularly) should get a DoT effect to their end drain on all powers and increased end drain on all powers.
- The only set with elec as primary and secondary should be able to rule the end drain game.
2) Fire should deal an acc debuff to all enemies hit by all powers and I think that the effects should stack
- If my clothes are on fire and smoke is all up in my face I shouldn't be able to see very well now should I?
3) Ice should deal a -recharge rate to all enemies hit with all powers. Again I think the effect should stack
- Hypothermia anyone?
4) Devices (the ******* child of secondary effects - even though they never ever miss anything they shoot at) should give their targets a -resist damage debuff.
- Hey they're using armor piercing bullets and freakin grenades for goodness sake. If these projectiles are strong enough to hurt they must be strong enough to damage their armor. Call it shrapnel and give them a woody as their attacks start hitting progressively harder.
5)Energy should give a -dmg to enemies. Again with all powers and effects should stack. Or increase the amount of end required for each enemy attack.
- When I'm in the sun all day I can't fight to well. When they baddies are under the heat of their attacks they shouldn't either. (sidenote. I know they'll just love the fact that they would actually live after a Nova - considering that Nova has a large dmg debuff associated with it)

And there you have it boys and girls. Remember all of these changes are for PvE only. I have no idea how balance issues would work out for the arena. Now that kid in the classroom who could leave that ever present crack on the chalkboard with his spitwad would have a reason to continue the pursuit of blaster-hood. As well has giving people more to think about when selecting a blaster AT and giving the blaster more survivability in the late game. These changes would also make blaster's very valuable to teams IMO.

P.S.
I believe there should also be an additional type of enhancement. The enhancement should have to be hunted for and hard to acquire. AO's or Archetype enhancements. These enhancements do not affect everything, but rather the areas that each archetype is supposed to be good at. Blaster AO's would enhance range significantly as well as others to enhance damage, and one for each secondary effect for the blaster AT's. Tank AO's would concentrate on tank secondaries and defense. Scrapper AO's would be more about defense, attack and resist. Controller AO's would be more about holds and the like. Defender AO's of course would be about buffs. While Khelds would have an amalgamation of the above AO's.
AO Archetype Origin Enhancements

great post overall, however there is just one thing that needs to be said. All over the boards there seems to be a misconception of melee powers. I'll make this short. You do NOT need melee powers when baddies are in melee range. That's like saying I have to put my pistol down when the person I want to shot is close enough to kick me. It's called point blank range people, and I think we should get an acc and dmg bonus for using ranged powers close up. Well that's my rant for the day.

I agree. If I'm not going to ever be able to do more damage. Let me do max damage with less effort. That way I can see a use for those reduce animation time (for point blank snipes) or reduce end. (now I can roll from one fight to the next with, OMG, the rest of the team) or more acc (now I can even hit those elusive reds without them asking if I want to shine their shoes too) OR I can slot reduce recharge (issue for ranged elec not sure how much of an issue it is for other blaster builds) would make the game more fun for me anyway!

But, the damage cap is still insane.

"I thought my faceplants were clearing up my acne."

I like the xp for influence idea. One way to work it would be to not allow the switch to be possible if the character was in debt.

I don't have 2 cents ;-(

If they dont want us to have ranged damage and holds, then we could have ranged damage and Immobilizes. I don't mean the type that affects just 1 villian. I mean one that Immobilizes multiple villians at once and keep them that way even after an attack. That would allow us to keep range on our foes and actually use it and SEE if it (range) can be used as an effective defense (even though we all know it can't but it should become more apparent).