Darrien

I may be wrong about this, but it's been my experience that the amount of damage had an impact on the alarm. My snipe will sometimes get a whole group, even when I hit a guy that's a fair distance away from his friends, while I've been able to use Charged Bolt get a guy that was nearly hugging something else.

But to be fair... I used to be really good at pulling, but I haven't had opportunity to exercise that skill lately. So, I could be completely wrong about the damage thing.

Wow, long thread. I'll try to be brief (and fail), because I already complained about the performance in a different thread. I didn't know this one existed.

Without Double XP, I can see the experience bar move when I do normal missions on Heroic, with characters that are in the mid 30s or below. Above the mid 30s, the experience bar just doesn't move much. I documented playing my blaster at 42, doing three missions, and not getting a full bar. And that's without debt.

Without Double XP, I have a couple of choices for changing that speed. The first is that I can join large teams, fighting stuff that is +3 or +4. On the positive side, this increases my opportunity to roleplay, and I can sometimes meet some neat people, which is great. Also on the positive side, this is more in line with the way in which the designers envisioned the game being played. On the down side, I usually don't get to read any of the mission text. Also, I notice game performance degrade when there are lots and lots of powers and effects going off (I think it's more sound related on my system than video related). Also, since many of my friends don't play CoH/CoV anymore, I have to rely on pick-up groups, so sometimes I run into people that aren't so cool. I'm always struck by the irony of being chastised for roleplaying on a roleplaying game.

Another choice is some flavor of "power leveling." I try to avoid this. I don't think I need to go into the reasons for it.

The whole point of this is that, I think a number of people are in the same boat I am with the rate of XP tapering off to the point where it's hard to see without doing something drastic. Double XP was an opportunity for me to have my cake and eat it too. With the talk about making Double XP permanent, I'd say that it might be a good idea at the 35+ range, but a bad idea below 35.

Unfortunately, the performance of the game impacted my enjoyment of it. I would have to give the event a C-.

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Ace McKnight had one of the best at the end of his cutscene:
"Hey, it's <villainname>! How's it going buddy? Let me introduce you to my friends in Longbow."

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I think the best part of that for me was that when he turned and said that, he gave you a nod and a thumbsup. I laughed outloud, it was so perfect.

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Inf has been in overabundance for quite some time, so simply using inf for the currency with bases would have been disastrous.


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Lets not get carried away now. Disastrous? Hardly. Would it have allowed people to actually be able to afford to build bases and pay the rent? Sure, but letting people actually get a chance to experience bases is hardly disastrous. It seems more like a lame attempt to create an end game type activity. Go, Hunt, Farm Prestige.

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In their eyes, it'd be disastrous, in the same way that everyone slotting their powers the same was "disastrous".

Also, some people don't have access to level 50s, either their own character's or their SGs, so for many players, it'd be another variation of the haves versus the have-nots. We still might be in that boat, but having a whole new currency (prestige) is a step towards having everyone start at the same level.

I don't really have a problem with bases maturing over time. I actually think that it will make it more interesting than having maxed out bases the day after bases become available.

If anything, I'm concerned that players have to choose whether or not to maintain their characters or maintain their bases. What I'm afraid of is that someday in the future, we'll see some restrictions put on trading influence, and that will make the late 30/40+ game unnecessarily more difficult.

Looking back over this thread, and putting the prestige and inf* acquisition under the microscope, I wonder if this is a hamfisted attempt to introduce economy into the game.

Inf has been in overabundance for quite some time, so simply using inf for the currency with bases would have been disastrous.

But bases aren't quite the only commodity. Enhancements and costume options have been, up until bases, the only thing of any substantial inf cost in the game.

So now you have a choice when you're level 35+. You can continue to try and earn inf, so you can maintain your enhancements, OR, you can gain prestige, so that you can work on bases. The ludicrous exchange rate between inf and prestige ensures that you won't do both at the same time.

Basically, level 50s are really the only ones not hurt by gaining prestige over influence, so the system is already in place to have 50s run in SG mode exclusively. Level 35+, on the other hand, could find themselves in the precarious position of having shiny base objects, but not enough inf to upgrade their enhancements when they reach certain levels.

For now, the solution is to continue to farm inf off of level 50s. I wonder how long that will last?

* I'm going to refer to influence and infamy as just inf throughout the message.

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I can't think of a reason why the devs would want to "avoid" having level 50's generate extra prestige. It sounds like a perfect reward for maxing out your character, to me.

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Why would you want anything other than level 50's in your SG then?

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Why would you want to have any level 50s in your SG if they don't generate much prestige? (5 per mob isn't very much)

Why would you want to play a level 50 in SG mode when their is no tangible reward? (It'd be better to get the influence, then turn that in for prestige)

Madam Liberty

Server: Virtue

I guess I'm the only one that uses Ctrl-# to change trays.

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I wonder if all the lumber and rebar used in the building of the arena is going to be carried onsite on the shoulders of the constructions workers.

"Why bother loading up a truck when we can just get Brent here to haul it in on his back?"

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Not only will it be carried on the shoulders of the workers, it will be transported across the city on the Elevated Train. "Just take that rebar on the Yellow line from Skyway to Steel Canyon, walk over to the Green line and take the train to Talos."

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Construction Worker Bob: "You know, I was thinking... the Hospital has these cool transporter things. And the prison. Don't you think we could get one of those and move all this construction material with it?"

Construction Foreman: "Bob, you're not paid to think. You're paid to haul materials! Now pick up that pile of I-Beams and start walking around aimlessly like you were told!"

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The problem with off-line characters being present in the base is what happens if the base is raided (by players or possibly PvE, who knows)? Do you really want to come back on and find out your hero was defeated while you were away?

Servants on the other hand is an interesting idea.

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Well, the offline heroes could run off to man the base defenses.
Or, they could get into the fight in the same way we see villains currently "fighting". In other words, they could go through the motions of fighting without actually dishing or receiving damage. You could even have offline heroes standing back and cheering like we see in some gang fights, though that would look really silly.
I would imagine the flavor could still be there, without introducing the technical or balancing issues of heroes fighting while offline.