Erydanus

Nice work, I am always trying to tell people these things and they don't listen! : ) It's particularly annoying when I am, in fact, trying to give them my extra blues.

This issue has caused me so much personal stress and anxiety I've basically stopped playing my Dark/Dark/Dark defender--at level 41. I'm just dying to get Archmagus so I can actually use it. Previously I got my first character to 50 and then collected about 5 accolades. And, as mentioned, it leaves a bit of a sour taste that I can't use my Elusive Mind power if I'm exemped at ALL. Accolades should be like inherent powers, I firmly believe.

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, if you follow up with a petition where you can add details about what happened, it will greatly help Customer Support to address the situation properly. While the /ignore_spammer command is helpful in letting CS know there is an issue, without additional input, they can be blind as to the extent of your complaint about the spamming or the nature of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

The thing about the petition command, though, is that it really doesn't support details. The input limits are about long enough to express only the basics, such as being stuck or something like that. It's really wholly inadequate for a situation that needs extended details, like a bug report. So what you have to do is file the petition, then after getting the email with the petition #, go to the support website, open your ticket, and append the details. Honestly, I'd much rather be able to give good information in the first place.

Increasing the character input limit by 3 or 4 times for petitions would be very helpful.

People are telling me they haven't seen any invasions at all today. So does Lighthouse's comment that "The Invasion will be ending Tuesday 8.7.07 as a daily event." actually mean that the the invasion switch was flipped off at the end of the day 8/6 and not that it will end after the evening of 8/7? If so, I find this wording inaccurate and the lack of 1 day's last notice extremely deficient customer service.

[ QUOTE ]
Ummm, they said before Issue even hit live that it would only be 2 weeks.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, they did not say exactly 2 weeks.

Honestly I didn't think the voice was that bad. Not pro-grade delivery but a good try.

My suspicion is that the issues are in development more like 9 months to a year out, or more. So if they picked some new power sets from a recent poll, look for them in about Issue 13.

Did you know that... many of the changes between the Paragon Dance Party and Pocket D were outlined in a long-lived, stickied suggestion thread? This included graphic elements, music, placement of explore badges, special missions being given out, having bartenders sell inspirations, placement of DJ Zero, and use as a cross-faction social bridge. (The devs, however, completely thought up the Shadow Shard location and floating space station look all by themselves.)

While you are on a task force you can't talk to your normal contacts to buy inspirations, but you're supposed to be able to buy them from the TF contact. This was also part of the reason the bartenders were made public inspiration stores.

Really good work and a really GOOD CONCEPT! It would be so true to comics for her to "come back" now all powered up with her own limited series... excellent!

[ QUOTE ]
I tried converting some of the binds into Macros and ran into a weird problem, they would work after creation, but would drop whenever I zoned. The button would still be there with a scrap of code but the rest of the bind would disappear.


[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you, I've had this problem too (I tacked on a powexec_name Combat Flight to my nova -> human macro and it kept dropping) and will try your solution.

Just wanted to let you know that Kismet Defense/Endurance/Recharge is in pool C; my friend got it as a reward for Katie Hannon's TF tonight.

I agree the defense and resistance sets are kinda weird for personal shields where you really want something like 1 endurance reducer and 3x resistance... but you know where they shine? In area shield powers like Shadowfall and Steamy Mist. Those powers take about 15 seconds to come back up if you're detoggled, being able to sneak an SO's worth of recharge in along with 2-3 protective enhancements and 2-3 endurance reducers is a really noticeable help.

I keep seeing things like this in sets, like "hey this set is terrible in the single target version but WOW it's great in the equivalent AoE power."

So, in regard to this item:

"Woodsman’s Task Force (the “Eden Trial”) and the Maren MacGregor Task Force (aka the “Sewer Trial”) now have choice tables upon completion. Choice can be a Task Force recipe (i.e. a recipe from the Task Force pool)..."

Is this the official announcement that the Eden Trial and Sewer Trial have been reclassified as Task Forces, or is this imprecise language? And if they are now Task Forces, is the formula that picks the levels of the foes involved going to be adjusted to switch them from the Trial approach to the Task Force approach? (I've been told that one goes off the highest teammate level and the other is fixed; not that I can ever remember which is which since people contradict each other on this point frequently).

Nice work! I still am waffling about the whole fighting pool for my guy (see icon). I had tactics for a while and it wasn't much help soloing pve, picked up fighting, didn't really care much for that either.

What about getting Weave just so you have another defense power you can try to cram set IOs into?

Djeanie, I think the point DouglasA is trying to make is: if you rely on those temp powers until 30 and then take a travel power, it's likely you WILL have exhausted the temp powers so that any exemping leaves you with no transport. I do agree though, I wouldn't lock them in at 14. I'd use the flexibility from the temp powers to take them when it was convenient.

I completely disagree with the suggestion that if you are using 2 colors only, they should be direct opposite complementary colors. In fact, in society in general, such color pairings are generally reserved for very special occasions. For instance, red & green are thought of as "Christmas" colors, while purple and yellow are associated with Easter (or with green thrown in, Mardi Gras). Though they can be a very powerful pairing, they are just not appropriate choices for every possible use, or hero. Some of the examples cited - such as sports team uniforms - are the ONLY place you would see such pairings, and it is in part because they are unusually vibrant pairings and are thus high visibility on a sports field.

Besides the suggestions Zombie_Man's already given, I want to point out it's quite possible to pick two colors that are fairly close together on the wheel and still achieve a nice effect. Exact shade is key to this, of course, and we are limited to a specific palette of choices in the game. But you can often pick a pair that works well: for instance, you could have a dark purplish blue color like indigo, and a light blue color, and perhaps a contrast color of silver or white. Such a set of colors would evoke a cool feel and could be used for a character with a theme of electricity, ice, or night. This is the way color is used in most stylistic decorating.

Another good way to pick a pair of colors is to go two-tone, for instance a dark green and a light green. (Green Arrow has had some costumes like that). It's again, more of an art style from another era but it may work in-game. There are a lot of different art styles in comics, and they've changed over the eras of publication. Take the original post as a nice starting point and keep in mind what kind of character you want and what comic era you want him to look like.

A final suggestion: don't be afraid to try slightly different choices on various costume parts, particularly on accessory pieces like belts, gloves, boots, etc. A lot of the costume pieces in this game have very different textures and respond differently to being colored and sometimes you will end up with a situation where you have a certain red that's on your boots/gloves/belt and your belt looks pink compared to the boots. In that case, try the next darker shade, etc. If your character is supposed to be wearing a leather tactical belt or gold-rimmed glasses, I find that usually picking realistic colors will look good even if they're color #4 or 5 on that character. They key there is that the extra colors are being used for specific details and are not really competing with the rest of the look.

I have played an Elec/Elec brute along with up to 4 others (some hybrids) in the same team, and I've noticed a real tendency for people to run out of endurance at low levels.... and I did not. So I have this advice:

1. At low levels, slot for accuracy first. Missed attacks mean more attacks which mean more endurance burned. At least put 2 accuracies in while you're using DOs. Let Fury take care of damage for a while.

2. After you have accuracy, go ahead and slot for end reduction. At pre-stamina levels I had 1 endurance reducer in every primary and secondary power that could take one. After a while I did take them out of a couple of my cheap attacks like Charged Brawl and Air Superiority.

3. Micromanage your shields. It's a hassle but it's so much help. It's absolutely necessary at very low levels.

4. Don't horde your inspirations. Leave a slot or two open at all times, have a few you save specifically (say a few blues and greens for emergencies) otherwise burn them and let the new drops fall.

Good job, Raye.

I've played with Raye in a team, she uses her Short Circuit very effectively. The point about there being more end drain powers out there than you might appreciate is very salient.

I'm generallly ok with the idea of Story Arcs being a source of one type of drop, as long as some consideration to the characters at 50 already is given. Since it's been stated there will be, I'm fine with that particular concern. There's a fair number of arcs in the game, and I usually complete most of them up to 40. However, arcs in CoV seem a lot shorter and more numerous than in CoH, and are often in 2 parts. According to a site I just looked at, there's about 70 arcs in CoV up to 40th level, and 39 in City of Heroes (Kheldian arcs excluded) up to that point. CoH's arcs post 40 are SUPER long and very tough (and I know CoV goes into Patron arcs at that point and you can't run all of them, and I can't compare them to the due to lack of personal experience). I think you should consider going back to some of those old arcs and breaking the longer ones in half (simply Part I and Part II) so that you can drop an invention prize after the first part is done and another invention reward and the standard SO & full arc bonus after the second part is done. There are also quite a few missions that run in series either before or after our current formal arcs, and some of them might as well be another arc but just aren't actually flagged that way. I know that not all sequential missions will really make sense as an arc, and I know you can't redo the whole system, but I think that if you just spend a little time looking at the lists of missions and arcs, some will jump out as needing a break or to be grouped into an arc. Now that we have the book icon to mark being on an arc, I think it would work out really well. As much as Inventions are such a big new facet of the game, I think this is a really good time to invest some effort and do some adjusting.

I also think you should flag some missions as having an arc-type IO drop, or at least a chance of it. There are quite a few missions in the form, "get item of power X back from group Y" that are lacking in real flavor because "item of power X" isn't even a temp power, just some generic clue text. For instance, the infamous Jewel of Hera mission, which is a huge pain, against Circle of Thorns, and almost always uses the "layer cake" room of the cave map mission. I don't know if that mission has higher xp than normal, but if it does, it isn't noticeably enough to make it seem worthwhile; If I knew I had a decent chance of getting a recipe out of that mission, I'd feel a lot better about running it. On a similar note, even if story arcs aren’t adjusted, some series of missions may actually be a mini-arc already, and if there isn't a badge at the end or something like that, well, this is a great place to spread the love a bit and also add a reward.

I hope you take this new system as a way to even out some of the rewards throughout the game; carefully used, I think this could be a great tactic. But I really think flagging some missions as potential salvage reward missions will give people extra opportunities to get recipes and relieve some of the stress caused by a fear of limited opportunity. You could even assign an arc-type reward to certain side missions in safeguards/mayhems. It wouldn't make them common, and you would have to do a number of missions to earn that window of opportunity, but it would be there.

I'm so glad I was able to dig up this thread. I recently realized that when my blaster uses Air Superiority to knock something down, Power Thrust wouldn't knock it away. I'm grateful you guys are already on top of this!

War Witch, you're so cool I'm shocked you didn't list Kingdom of Loathing!

I just noticed a mistake in the main guide: Darkest Night is referred to as an accuracy debuff valued in the mid 30s. Actually, it's a ToHit Debuff with a base value of about 18%. With 3 SOs it'll be a 30% ToHitDebuff.

[ QUOTE ]
I usually see this happen when players are out of LoS but still within the mobs agro range. When someone agros the mob, some mob will for some reason "see" the person who is out of LoS and if not agrod by someone else, will head for the person around the corner.

[/ QUOTE ]

This totally happened to my warshade. There was a quantum up ahead so I stayed way back and my teammates went after him. He started shooting me through rows of boxes in the warehouse room.

A Micro would work in sprint; it wouldn't reduce end but it would give a buff to both run and fly. However, it'd be a small one because sprint doesn't give a very big boost in the first place.

I went on test and removed a recharge SO from Lingering Radiation. Currently, the recharge amount lists itself as a Slow %. I put in the microfilament and the old Slow % went down, but new entries that also listed Slow 33% appeared.

I then did the same thing with Crushing Field; I had 2 accuracy and 1 endurance reduction SO. I replaced an accuracy with a Micro and the new screen indicated that it would get another +33% end reduction; -33% accuracy; and +33% Slow and +33% Slow and +33% Slow (maybe 3 entries for run/fly/jump?).

Doing some simple observations - basically kiting a Warhulk around the parking lot next to the PI ferry - it looked like it did increase the slow effect of those two powers by a noticeable amount. Someone else should do some testing to be sure but ... based on this, I think a Microfilament is usable in all 4 of Gravity Control's holds and immobilizes; Radiation's Lingering Radiation and probably accelerate metabolism (though again, a run/fly speed buff there is pretty minimal); and Dark Miasma's Tar Patch.

There are quite a few powers that display a slow boost in error; I can't remember off the top of my head if the accuracy or the recharge enhancement value gets copied into slow as well. That aside though, if Microfilament DID affect speed debuffs (and following this logic it should) you could put it in powers like Lingering Radiation, Tar Patch; or almost any gravity hold as they all have a slow effect -- Crushing Field would benefit from it especially. I've got a micro I haven't slotted. If I have time, I'll copy to test and experiment.