ExidorTheQuick

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With Enhancement Diversification comes a benefit for ALL City of Heroes powers.
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Every power, across the board, is getting a 13.33% reduction in its Endurance cost.

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Let the bone-tossing begin! How bad could ED be? We got a BONE!

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The current incarnation of Q-Fly needs to be changed. Rather than run you out of End, it should just shut off the phase aspect after 60 seconds leaving the max speed Fly aspect. Similarly, Neb. Form's phase should shut off after 60 seconds but leave the jump aspect operational. This would make both powers much more attractive, IMO.

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Yes, this is an excellent suggestion.

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When I'm soloing, I'm pretty cautious, I move forward slowly. As such, I don't get that much debt on mission maps while soloing.
Where I do get debt is outside. Not from random street hunting, but the killer ambushes (2 lieutenants plus six minions) or from force hunting missions. I got two bubbles of debt from clearing the maw in striga, and (after waiting to hit 22 and getting influence from a high level character so I was completely fitted with SOs) three bubbles of debt from clearing the bog.

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Soloing in a Hazzard Zone is a great way to replentish a failing debt bar.

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According to Jack Emmert, you should be able to solo your own missions at heroic.
Striga has many hunting missions that are required to progress to the next part of the story.

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He has also said that Hazard and Trial zones are intended for groups.

The missions he's talking about are instanced missions, which are affected by your difficulty setting. The difficulty level of a Hazard zone (like Striga Isle) is not affected by your difficulty setting. The villain groups you will find there are typically larger than those in a mission set on Heroic difficulty. Some Heroes may be able to do their own hunting missions there (using appropriate tactics) without being defeated. Most will find that the safest way is to group.

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When I'm soloing, I'm pretty cautious, I move forward slowly. As such, I don't get that much debt on mission maps while soloing.

Where I do get debt is outside. Not from random street hunting, but the killer ambushes (2 lieutenants plus six minions) or from force hunting missions. I got two bubbles of debt from clearing the maw in striga, and (after waiting to hit 22 and getting influence from a high level character so I was completely fitted with SOs) three bubbles of debt from clearing the bog.

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Soloing in a Hazzard Zone is a great way to replentish a failing debt bar.

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Anyone can get into debt quickly if they can't play (although now they won't realize it until lvl 10!) but the very make up of a blaster makes it easier for them to accumulate debt, because poor play feeds on the weaknesses of the toon.

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Yeah, I can agree with that. Especially vulnerable (imo) are those people who had gotten used to playing a more durable archetype and then switched over to a Blaster.


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A few of you are too (mathmatically and otherwise) literal-minded.

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Yeah, sorry about that. The hypocrite in me often applies incisive standards of accuracy to the words of others which my own words could not themselves withstand.

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The majority of Blasters are not careful or skilled (very in the minority). In my blurb I alluded to this.

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Well, that's a good point.


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My point was merely to demonstrate that blasters work amid a habitat of debt, moreso than the other archetypes. And I wasn't making 'amazing generalizations'--I sited specific circumstances on how most blasters get into debt,

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It's the terms like "most" and "majority" that are making me think "generalizations". However, it's probably not fair to nitpick your word choices.

My point is that earning debt is directly influenced by our playstyle choices. If the majority of Blasters are not careful or skilled enough to avoid living in debt, then I don't see that as a problem with the Blaster archetype. It is possible to play a Blaster who doesn't rack up much debt at all. You seem to be expressing that debt is automatically a feature of playing a Blaster. I disagree and say that Blasters who are constantly in debt are making choices that are earning that debt. A Tanker or Scrapper who constantly takes on too much can be in the same situation.

Knowing and staying within your limitations is an important part of this game, and debt is how the game encourages you to do so (in the future). People who don't learn from that debt will continue to get more of it frequently. If those type of people are gravitating toward playing Blasters, then, maybe that would explain why so many Blasters feel like they are always in debt.


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as well as illustrating the clear nature of acquiring aggro as blaster: Blasters generate far more aggro because they out-damage controllers and defenders and are in highly-offensive postures (e.g. rapidly activating offensive powers agumented with build-up, hasten, aim).

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All true. Blasters trying to solo a group appropriate for a Tanker or a Scrapper of their level are looking for pain (more true the higher the level in question). Grouping is the same, or even worse, since Blasters often have powers with the potential to shift all the villains spawned for the entire group directly onto themselves. That's a good reason to group with a Tanker or two, and make sure they have agro firmly in their grasp before tossing down agro-robbing AoE's.


I have two Blasters that I play. Each of them is defeated from time to time. Neither of them live in constant debt; in fact, I'd say that most of their play time is spent out of debt. I'm not trying to be difficult or annoying, I just disagree with what some of what you're saying because my experience is different.

Synchronicity:
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Ya know, being a blaster = being in perpetual debt.

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Adron:
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Uh, no.

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Synchronicity:
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Umm, Yes.

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When you put your statement into the form of an equation you may have given the impression that you were saying "All blasters are in perpetual debt.".

If you did mean that, then you're wrong. Even before the I5 debt changes there was no reason that a careful and skilled blaster couldn't avoid permadebt. Yes, you'll be defeated from time to time. Probably more than most Tankers or Scrappers (which should come as no surprise, since those archetypes have more health and better defenses). Having a lot of debt isn't the same as being in perpetual debt, however.

If you didn't mean that, then you might want to avoid using absolutes (in this case, an equation) to express non-absolute concepts. If you do, then people will be more likely to understand what you say.


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The *vast* majority of blasters (blasters who play other ATs, mind you) feel that they manage debt far longer through each level than your corresponding tank, scrapper, controller and defender. They are the primary squishy. Why? Because they aggro like no controller does (since controllers lock-down the baddies) or any defender (blasters easily outstrip defenders in damage, if you're about to make the offensive defender example--mobs go attack the one that inflicts the highest damage per attack). After all, who do you see on the ground the most? It's the blaster who has tanker-itis, or the fire-blaster that opens with the AoE salvo that ticks off every last minion...bonehead moves, to be sure, but there are plenty of boneheaded blasters. I know I started off that way, too.

The only time you see defenders and controllers hit the deck is from AoE damage, or some uber-dumb move like going toe-to-toe with a lieut or a boss.

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Those are some amazing generalizations. What exactly are you trying to say? Just that Blasters are the squishiest archetype, and are able to draw the most agro when they want? Or also that we should feel sorry for the poor Blasters because of this? Are you advocating a change, or opposing one? I've gone back and read your posts in this thread and I'm at a loss to understand what your position is.

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Heck, how about limiting Task Force Commander to the Shadow Shard TFs (complete all four to get it), and it gives you something like Requiem's epualets for a Shoulders option? Or maybe some other knick-knack that screams "Shard".

That way, you can actually give some coherence to the zone by encouraging people to follow the only storylines it offers.

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Nice suggestion. Have some stars: *****

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Now the biggest pain in the butt Task Forces are most resoundedly the Shadow Shard ones. I talked with Manticore this morning about this and he agreed to rework these into shorter, more engaging, Task Forces in an upcoming issue (possibly 7 or 8, maybe sooner though).

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Hopefully I'll have done them all before that time, but still awesome. Thanks Manticore, and you too Positron.

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The fact remains that you should never have spent a significant amount of time on something that was not fun just so you can get a BADGE, especially knowing it's a badge that doesn't even exist yet.

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That's the problem. Many of us didn't know. There was no effort to make this information public, and even when asked to make an official announcement to that effect NCSoft's representatives declined to do so.

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Trust me. If it involved engineering, we would have found a different solution.

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*nod* I imagine that's the same reason an mob limit was hastily slapped onto all AoE powers rather than engineering a solution to the problem of mob stacking.

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Sounds about right to me, Quason.

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Once again, as before, I'm up against you and your monkeyboy Foo007.

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I'll stop laughing any minute now, honest.


As for the rest of your post, I'd toss you stars if they still existed...

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I have looked up Accolades, and all of them combined will probably effect your gameplay slightly moreso than a badge. That is, not much at all. Unless you wanna tell me that having 15% more HP will let you survive that fight that you couldn't before.

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It can. I've had numerous battles that ended with me out of useful inspirations and with less than 5% of my health left - so even the 5% from one of the accolades has made a difference to me. In fact, at least once I've ended a battle with 1 heath remaining. If you play long enough it could happen to you, too. Unless you don't challenge yourself, that is.


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Or that extra 10 endurance will let you fire off one last attack that allows you to kill that AV that you never could before.

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No, that extra 10 endurance means that your rate of endurance recovery is increased (since endurance is recovered as a set % of your total endurance recovered per tick). I'm not going to take this thread totally off target by explaining why increased endurance recovery is good; you can look elsewhere in the forums for that information if you were genuinely unaware of that fact.


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Or those powers that you can use once every 25 minutes will let you bump your difficulty up to Invincible, which was heretofore impossible.

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There, I think you're right. They kick in too infrequently to be very useful. I fire off my crey pistol when fighting an AV, but I don't believe that even 8 crey pistol shots have ever affected the eventual outcome of any of the AV fights in which I've personally participated. I have used Vanguard to avoid what I felt was certain death, but I've also activated it and been defeated anyway. They're not end-all game-breaking must-have powers, but they can be handy at times.

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I don't earn my badges for you. Not to impress you, not to be better than you, not to have something you don't. Same goes for every other player. My badges are not for you.

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Then why exactly do you desire badges? And why are you upset that you will have to do some things over to get a badge? You were fine without the badge up until you realized that they would be giving the badge out in the future.

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Wrong. I was fine without the badge until I tried to earn it and found out the hard way that there was no badge.

I'm upset that I'll have to repeat the task force to get the badge because I don't like redoing anything. As I stated elsewhere, I've accepted that I'll have to redo the task force to get the badge. No, I'm not happy about it. I'm not crying about it, either. I'm not posting here because I think if I complain enough they will datamine for the badge; I'm posting here because I want to see that this sort of customer service breakdown is avoided in the future.

I get the badges because they are something to do. That's also why I do missions, and make characters, and play the game to begin with. It's something to do that I enjoy. Why is that difficult to grasp? I don't have a problem with you not wanting badges, why do you have a problem with me wanting them?


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So now, the only difference is that some people will have the badge and you will not, even though you have done the same task. But that shouldn't matter to you, since you don't care about such things.

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As soon as they fix the task forces so that they properly award a badge, I'll be doing the task forces, and so I will also have the badge. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.


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Again, why do you desire badges? For the self-satisfaction of knowing you did a certain thing? Don't you have that already from actually doing the thing and having memories of it? Why does a little graphic with some text somehow enhance your satisfaction of the experience? Please, I would like to know these things.

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I see the badges as a checklist of sorts. The character that I collect badges with (only one, because I don't see the point of going out of my way to earn the badges for every character) is also the character that I've tried to have experience all of the available content. I don't want to miss out on any of CoH, so with that character I've done virtually every mission (missed a few on one contact plus I'd outleveled the Hollows and Striga content before it arrived, sadly, but I've got my fingers crossed for flashback).

There's plenty of badges I can't get on that character. Isolator. The healing badges (I did respec into 6-slotted Heal Other and try, but even the first healing badge was beyond me). I5 is bringing 3 more levels of badges, with higher thresholds, so many of those I won't be able to get (or they will take quite a long time). That's okay, though. I'm not an "I must have every badge" freak, like those people who protested the additional I5 badges. I love new content, even if it's not content that focused at me.

Sure, I could just checklist the stuff mentally, but why should I when the badge system is in place? After almost 1200 hours logged on that character I welcome the badge system for giving me continued incentive to play the character from time to time.

As for the little graphic, actually my memory needs a kick-start to work properly. A badge does just that (even with the characters with which I don't engage in outright badge collecting). I can look through my badge list and the visual que triggers my memory of earning that badge, and the events surrounding it. It's that aspect that I prize most about the badge system. Were I a more dilligent person I could just keep a journal and the result would be the same. Unfortunately, I know from experience that I won't be able to maintain a journal, and naturally a partial journal is of dubious worth at best.

So that's why I like badges. I'm sure there are plenty of other valid reasons for liking badges, as well as valid reasons not to like them. This reply is not intended to change anyone's mind about them. It is intended to explain why I desire them, as you requested.

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1) Since the TFs in question were added after the badge system was in place, why weren't they already being tracked? Isn't it trivial to assume there will eventually be a badge for it?

We only wanted to do badges for the "Freedom Phalanx" Task Forces, not the Trials and other Task Forces. Only because of the Souvenir Clue fiasco did we put in badges for the other TFs.

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I'm not sure that I believe that what Positron is saying here is factual. Badges were (and still are) awarded for the sewer trial and the eden trial, as well as for all three of the respec task forces.

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do the TFs that have badges already associated with them

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I'd already done them all with that character.


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and don't bother with the rest

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I wouldn't have, had I known that "the rest" didn't award badges.

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No worries and personally I don't. Are there really that many active players with SS TF Souvenirs?

I find it hard to believe.

I also don't understand why they are unwilling to make this simple concession on a QoL issue to appease an already frustrated fanbase.

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Believe me, I'm 100% behind awarding the badge for people who got a souvenir. It won't help those of us who didn't get a souvenir either, but it's way better than leaving everyone out hanging.

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Thanks for telling me what I already know.

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Sorry, I meant to be helpful. When you said "Personally, I don't see the reasoning behind it." I thought that meant that you didn't know the reasoning behind it.

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Synapse couldn't tank his way through a wet paper bag.

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Thus, the humor. It's a reference to a CoV trailer.

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But Cryptic says they won't go through it and based on the information they provided, it is a smart decision on their part.
Who wants to wait such a long time to have a badge awarded?

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I agree. If the task forces actually award badges in issue 5 then it won't take me 2 years to get them, so for me the datamining would be a waste. Kinda sucks for the people who have said that they aren't up to doing them again, though.

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Per a PM reply from Cuppa, there is a blanket policy in place instructing GM's to not award ANY Badges by Petition after I5 goes live. This includes those who have a Souvenir for a SS TF.

Personally, I don't see the reasoning behind it.

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The reason for this is to prevent the GM's from being swamped by requests to add the badges. They'll be plenty busy handling all the I5 bugs that make it over to live when the issue is released.

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I don't get you people. If the only reason you are spending 12+ hours of your life doing something that you don't find entertaining in the least is to have a silly little icon show up in your toon info that might, on occasion, impress some noob, but that most people will not give a flip about, then you have greater problems than can be solved with datamining. I don't care what kind of honking great "badge" you get at the end of something, if it's not fun, don't do it. If it's fun, then you shouldn't mind doing it again. If you are saying "well it was fun the first time, but it would be boring to do again," then nah, it wasn't as fun as you say it was.

NOBODY CARES HOW MANY BADGES YOU HAVE AND YOU DON'T NEED A BADGE TO KNOW THAT YOU DID SOMETHING!!! Sheesh, you people whine about everything around here.

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I don't earn my badges for you. Not to impress you, not to be better than you, not to have something you don't. Same goes for every other player. My badges are not for you.

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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.

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STAY BACK, YOU FOOL! YOU'RE A DEFENDER! SURELY YOU CAN'T HOPE TO TANK THIS THREAD!

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Yeah, that's Synapse's job...

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I can tell you that no business will go beyond a certain limit to satisfy any single person who represents such a small amount of income to the company. If you have a 1000 accounts, then perhaps you would be worthy of their attention. But at anything less than that, your number value is too small for them to concern themselves with.

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Thank you for your description of what is wrong with Corporations, CosmicHerald.


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It is time for people would rise above what they only wish to see and accept what has been said to them.

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When you say "rise above" it sounds like you're saying "bend over".


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Above all, stop harrassing the Development Team.

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I don't feel that insisting on good customer service is harrassment. Someone dropped the ball by allowing this task force situation to develop, and both NCSoft and Cryptic need to understand our feelings about their failure.


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They made a business decision and it is up to us to strive to accept that decision and not whine and complain about it.

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I'd say rather that it's up to us to voice our objections to business decisions that adversely affect us, their customers. If we don't tell them that we don't like one of their decisions, how will they factor that dislike into their future decisions?

City of Heroes (imo) is the best mmo currently on the market, and I reserve the right to provide whatever feedback I belive will help the publisher and development team to keep it that way. If they make a business decision that I don't agree with, then I'm going to say as much.

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You devs are constantly going to have to fight this battle UNLESS you do something about tracking ALL TFs (especially new ones that don't get badges right off the bat.)

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Yeah, do something like have all new task forces award a badge right off the bat...