Demonac

Oh PLEASE GOD make it an improvement to AI!

Here is a solution which would make my minions 30 times more intelligent: EVERY time an MM issues a command to a minion, CLEAR ALL THAT MINION'S AGGRO!!!!

That way, they would do what I TELL them to! When I say "goto here", they would NOT run right back to melee whatever was killing them. When I say STAY, they would STAY, without me having to change them to passive mode. I'm still not sure if cycling to passive and back to aggressive clears their aggro...

But regardless, the point of being a "mastermind", as opposed to "a loud guy with some minions" is that you use your superior intellect and/or tactics to coordinate your minions... which implies they should DO what you TELL them to. All the time... not just when they have not taken damage.

I like Trick Arrow; fun set, stacks well with some controller primaries. Other than that:

-Ice Arrow, as has oft been pointed out, is an un-nerfed hold. It should have its duration reduced appropriately, except PLEASE! PLEASE! reduce the animation time. It's giving me flashbacks of the old-style MA graphics power-rangers. If I aggro enemies from long range with another power and immediately hit ice arrow, a melee enemy invariably runs all the way up and hits me with a melee attack before getting frozen. Compare that to controller single-target hold (which do damage) and are instant cast. So, half duration, but preferably 1/3 of the animation. [Even if the bow is already drawn, it takes almost as long].

-I don't think that Net Arrow is all that great a power, and OBVIOUSLY it isn't as good as Ice Arrow, but I recognize that having two single-target controls is better than one. However, after you equalize Ice Arrow's hold duration with controller holds, and whether you add damage to IA or just remove that part from the description (it may be too strong with the damage), please increase the ACC bonus of Net Arrow to equalize the two powers at least a little.

-Also, Ice Arrow and Net arrow SFX: let me explain this by example (its easier). If I Fire Cages some vahz zombies, they are hit, but not immobilized (because they are immob resistant). I then fire a Net Arrow into one - because the result of the stacking will immobilize the zombie, both the net and the fire ring appear - so far so good. Only, under this circumstance, the net and fire graphics appear the instant I trigger the Net Arrow - even before the bow is pulled out or the arrow is drawn, and certainly long before I should even know if I hit or not. The same situation can be replicated with another hold (resisted) followed by Ice Arrow (the instant I hit the power the Ice appears to take hold, assuming that the to hit roll was going to succeed and the magnitude would overcome the resistance).

-As a Fire/TA controller, the new controller damage bonus was great for the low levels I was playing through, but I noticed (many times) that a successful Net Arrow immobilization does NOT trigger the double-damage from Controller-Primary-Attacks. However, Ice Arrow's hold DOES trigger the double-damage from CPAs. I don't know which way is right, but it is at best inconsistent.

-If you use an insp with the bow out, but remain motionless after ward, after a couple seconds you move back to your "combat stance" animation, except instead of your bow-stance, you wield it like the katana (except the bow sticks out further than the sword handle so that it looks like you are riding it).

-Of course, the BEST thing you could do would be if you could allow weapon characters to keep the weapon out while using powers of their other power set. I know that you can't waste the time to add a second set of animations (w/ and w/out wpn) for every possible powerset conflict, and the wanton collision problems would likely drive everybody nuts, but if you could find some solution is would be great. The different brawl animations for bow and katana are cool.

ed: I think that the composite bow appearance is a very good compromise between the various technology and/or fantasy elements of different characters' origin/concepts

[ QUOTE ]
New Task Force – Perform missions for contacts in Croatoa to unlock the exclusive task force.

Now what if we have passed the contacts for this, will we be able to go back and do these contacts to unlock the TF?

[/ QUOTE ]

In Striga, I found that the contacts just bounced me from one another as though completed until I reached the final one (who gives out the TF).

What I really want to hear about IS the AT rebalancing. Although, if they'd do something to make AVs more interesting (less stats, more interactive powers so that they are challenging and exciting instead of long and boring), and to make the rest of the game harder. Here's an idea: introduce a small asymetricality into the level differential system, vis-a-vis lower level villains attacking higher level heroes without penalty.

You'd still be able to annihilate swarms of blues and greens (because you still have bonuses to hit and damage), but if they had no penalty to hit and damage, so they could attack you as if they were white-cons, then it might make travelling, and outlevelled missions a little more interesting.

Nothing comes from nothing.

Creativity, in its most basic form, is the ability to combine old ideas to form something new. However, there is obviously a marked difference in the degree of creativity exhibited by different people at different times.

Any idiot can take two TV shows, and say "I want to make a show that is a combination of these two". That alone does not make for the trait that we normally recognize as creativity. "Real", or at the very least, deeper constructive creativity is arrived at by combining ideas from more different sources - preferably from a huge archive of those concepts and feelings that you have experienced over your lifespan, and often without being able to pinpoint the source of individual elements and quirks - and, equally important, the ability to extrapolate upon the combinations you have created based on alternating logic with intentional counter-logic.

Hmm. That came off more pretentious than intended. Short version: First, when we create something, it is derived in large part from other things in our mind, usually including a variety of creative works we have read/heard/seen. Visions we would classify as "more creative" are those that are further divorced from their respective sources, preferably by combining small parts of so many things that we would truly call it something new. Second, combining alone is not creation. To complete a creative concept requires you to extrapolate upon your core concepts - move forward the conflicts and deal with them. This requires you to use a mix of logic (self explanatory) and intentional avoidance of logic - because humans do not always do what is logical, and if your characters or fictional histories always progress in a 100% logical fashion, your audience will reject your work automatically, without necessarily knowing why.

Let us know when these people drive you insane from their utter lack of reading comprehension. The previous XP Range thread had you responding left and right to MORONIC misinterpretations of your very clear description. To the point that I can only think the ridiculous accusations were deliberate misreadings by people who didn't like the changes.

Keep slogging Statesman. I'm hoping your infinite justice will rebalance Hasten next. Follow the numbers... see what percentage of level 40+ characters have it, have it six-slotted, and compare their DPS relative to the ones who don't have it...

... I think you can round up two or three who don't have it... just for a control group...

I want to see how close it comes to beating Stamina for the best power nomination.

I've started a new CoH webcomic (screenshot cut-n-paste style). Tales of an antisocial testserver supergroup, their quest to exploit bugs, and their struggle against other socially-challenged guilds in a no-PVP environment.

Their guild bears the lamentably ill-thought-out name:
Flaming Quasars

One City. Two games.

My concern is that tankers and scrappers are in many ways playing a whole different ball-game than defenders, blasters and controllers.

3 classes find the new boss change makes them far too lethal; instantly fatal.

For the other 2, post 24 or so soloing missions becomes a joke. I have 4 different scrappers and tankers levels 25-26 who solo red bosses, and come out of it with attitudes ranging from: "That was a fun challenge" to "That was pathetic".

In short, I think you should use the last two options on the difficulty slider to make missions DIFFICULT. If necessary, and I know you won't like it put this way, but if necessary, set the highest difficulty TOO HARD for non-melee ATs to solo. Because as it stands, those of us who DO solo with competently designed scrappers and tankers can still breeze through. I would love to fight multiple simultaneous even-level bosses, and will gladly take out a +1 or +2 boss if the group only has 2 or 3 minions/lts. Solo. In every mission. SOMETHING to make it feel more like heroic combat and less like beating up squeegee-kids.

The most fun missions I've had in a while were Freaklympics missions... the outdoor one with 4 bosses, and the awards ceremony with Mistah Static. All those bosses were red to me, and the vast majority of the stuff in the missions were +2 level minions. That was not bad... but ever since it went live, I've found that the difficulty slider still gives me a lot of junk missions that are nearly all +1 level from start to finish, often with sub-par spawn size. That just makes me want to ignore them all, grab the glowies, and hope the next mission rolls up as a "real" one.

The slider is the perfect mechanism to implement ACTAULY DIFFICULT content, because it is totally optional, so any whiners can just stick to the lower gradations on the slider. So please, make the top 1 or two levels generate CONSISTENT +2/+3 level spawns, preferably with MORE bosses.

My characters relevant to this discussion include:
Dustblood 25 Claw/Regen, Justice
Steam Golem 26 Fire/Axe, Justice
Rugal 25 MA/Invuln, Protector
Elemental Armor 26 Ice/Ice, Protector

A few thoughts:

-Pulp would be pretty sweet, but it would be best served by the addition of a new villain group, and a new level-limited city zone (Firebase Zulu style) that leads to a number of instanced zones (so that people can meet up and talk to pulp-style contacts in the city zone, but then diverge into less populated instances to maintain the more solitary/small group feel as they fight massice art-deco robots and aerodynamically unsound prop-fighters).

-PLEASE add aerial combat. The quick fix would be to remove Fly's accuracy penalty for MELEE ATTACKS ONLY, while retaining the penalty on ranged attacks. There is very little potential for abuse with flyby melee attacks, since the enemy will trigger and attack as you pass by anyway. Yes, the ranged attack penalty is needed - a no-brainer to reduce the advantage of sniping foes from beyond their range.

-Later on, when you add more powers to each power Pool (preferably a new 14+ power to choose from in each pool), you could add a "charge" attack to fly, one which required you to start a certain distance from the target (with minimum and maximum ranges) and which, when triggered, would launch you towards then with a major speed boost to hit them at the end. That would give a very kinetic feel to the combat, and also look and feel tremendously heroic. Barring that, adding another power to each pool would still be a very good addition.

-But then, I want to see an extra Lvl 1 power (to choose from) added to each primary and secondary pool. The ability to CHOOSE your first secondary power might contribute to altitis, but it would also add more diversity to characters with the same AT/powerset selections. Particularly if the new powers were very distinctive. Imagine giving Reflexes the option of a unique movement power - a click power that would leap you forward and up a moderate distance, but at very high speed. Give it a cooldown (probably about 20 seconds), and it could be used as an escape power, or slotted up to serve as a movement power (not quite as good as the big movement powers, but costing slots instead of a pool selection). Other powersets could get things they don't normally get, such as giving empathy an "empathic backlash" debuff that would cause a villain to suffer damage whenever they dealt damage. They'll need something to compensate when the devs realize that giving an entire group unlimited mana all the time (RA) is begging for a nerf. But that's beside the point...

-Now, I'm not knocking the wild west - the setting has a great mystique. But Captain Obvious and NakedGal running around would disrupt Lee Van Cleef's villainous aura. Plus, you would have crossed the line from "multidimensional epic" into "Original Star Trek", and that's not good...
"Captain, it would appear that these aliens have perfectly mimicked another period of Earth history. This is only the 47th such occurance ever detected by the Federation. This year."

-It will be very hard to meet the expectations for City of Villains. For one thing, you'll need major changes to the combat system to make PvP viable at all. But hopefully you'll learn that from playtesting I4: Colosseum. Unfortunately, I'm thinking that when you see how much combat needs to be changed for fun PvP, CoV will get pushed back 4 months in much the way that CoH went through the majormajormajor redesign before hitting the shelves.

Oh, and yes, I have a character that, while not a traditional pulp hero, would fit in just fine with their world...

Okay, Statesman. Question:

When are you guys going to re-examine Hasten, and the ease of engineering "duration" click powers to be always on? Surely you can see a problem when people run around with perma-RecoveryAura, since it more or less completely circumvents the Endurance game mechanic for entire groups.

Have you ever considered changing click powers with durations so that the recharge times are MUCH shorter, but don't "start the clock" until AFTER the duration ends?

a Current Hasten thread

I'm with Ariel about Hasten...

Anytime such a HUGE percentage of players make the same choice, it is time to take another look at that choice...

What I don't get is why all tankers don't already have it... mine do!