Fernandes

Numina. I want that tunic costume piece of hers, dammit!

Also, I find Silver Mantis' exagerated masochistic fetish more creepy than anything else. I often joke that every time I fight her I leave feeling as if I should be paying her by the hour.

Ahh, good old Jib Jab! I have to visit their site more often.

I keep meaning to run the Faathim the Kind task force one of these days, but then, thats not redside. I don't know. There aren't really a great diversity of task-forces to DO in CoV are there?

Remember to include in your calcualaitons that fulcrum shift cannot buff your decoys. Enervating field effectively will.

I suspect that for the majority solo play wiht no IOs /kin will be slightly better. Either will be a good choice though.

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But honestly if this power scaling thing is so acceptable, why not reverse it? Have a mission or two where you fight the entire freedom phalanx and they're all lieutenants, because in this issue of City of Heroes you're the star? Obviously that'd be ridiculous and not exceptionally fun, but that's pretty much how some people such as myself see the current AV mechanic.

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Actually, that would ROCK for a level 50 mission.

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Honestly if they *want* to give story reasons why the Freedom Phalanx is so much better than everyone else so be it, but as I have asked several times already: What does that accomplish?

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What does it accomplish for Superman to be (presumably) on a higher tier of power than anyone else can reach in DCUO? It's just a byproduct of his concept and his history (DCUO will go on to make me eat my words by making Kandorians and Daxamites player races).

Manticore likely conceived of this universe (along with Rick Dakan and Jack Emmert, I think) to feel like a long-established hero universe just like DC and Marvel. As such there are powerful established icons like Captain Marvel/Statesman or Recluse/Doom. They are conceptually team content from the ground up.

Now I agree that not everyone who is an icon in this world needs that status. I can easily see Manticore and Back Alley Brawler for instance, being EBs or even topping out before level 50. Heck, if Batman were in this game, he should be outclassed by a Gaardvord in terms of physical combat: I'm sure any of them could take Killer Croc.

But in any case, I'm sure there are people in the game (out of 150k, pprobably every conceivable opinion is reflected) whose experience would be diminished if they felt like the signature hero of the universe were just some chump they could easily take down solo. That's actually beside the point, kind of.

The point is YOU don't like it. Even if every one of the other 150,000 people were united in one voice against you, you'd still not like the fact that you are overshadowed by Statesman. That's fine.

MY point is:
1) There is always going to be a critter that has bigger numbers than you; they are NEEDED.

2) Since those are going to exist, there is no reason to exclude the Signature Heroes from that status UNLESS doing so would improve the game significantly. I have yet to be convinced that this is the case.

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Something else that occurs to me on this line: not everyone can be the best. That is to say, 150 thousand subcribers cannot all be the absolute top tier of cosmic-powered badasses in the setting at once. It simply doens't make sense. As Kitsune says, Someone has to be the Justice League/Avengers of the setting, and not everyone can make the list. In some games (games with open PvP and dynamic environments) who gets to claim their palce at the top of the pyramid has a lot more to do with player interaction, I grant you, and I for one would love to see a superhero game like that. But in a static-world, linear type game in the WoW model, such as City of Heroes, the only practical solution si for those people to be NPCs.

I think perhaps we're using two differnet definitions of "hard work" so let me clarify. Something is not "hard work" because its difficult. Most real jobs that people really get paid for that are hard work are not terribly difficult. YOu dont need to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to stack boxes in a warehouse or type 200 page documents as a clerical secretary. But that doesn't meen those things aren't hard work. What makes them hard work si the amount of time and energy they consume. In this sense gearing up a top tier character in an MMO is also hard work - it requires a large investment of time and effort. I happen to think there's more skill involved than you give credit for, but you're right in that the same internet that makes such games possible ensures that, as with the dockworker or the secretary, its not rocket science, at least for somoene willing to do the research. But how much skill it requires is almost competly beside the point.

Although for teh record, I have observed in my long gaming carrear that while following an online guide can make a good player great, and while testing and fine tuning that advice can make a great one truly superlative; no amount of fake virtual cash or time spent in research can make a mediocre player good. That takes practice and the ability to learn. If you need proof of this you need only turn to the plethora of fire/kin controlelrs with 2 billion dollar builds who nonetheless manage to suck out loud.

Also, I'm sorry that disagreement upsets you so. I've enjoyed the entire conversation myself. That said, I am glad, ironicaly, that we agree on one thing at least: that nothing is likely to come of it.

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Granted, but as Butane notes above, using a McGuffin for every single boss fight would fast approach the point of rediculousness. Comic writters have long since realized this and dispensed with any need for consistency in the power level, and even gross capabilities of characters (any long time Doctor Strange fans such as myself will be familiar with the phenominon where something which is done easilly in one issue will later be described as theoretically impossible and visa-versa; magical time travel is a good example). Instead the comi writters use whatever works best for the narrative. the AV/EB scaledown is essentially the 'writters' of CoH doing the same thing.

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Which is why I've suggested turning some AV fights into multi-EB fights (any team that would mow through multiple EBs would also mow through a single AV, most AVs are easy already).

But honestly if this power scaling thing is so acceptable, why not reverse it? Have a mission or two where you fight the entire freedom phalanx and they're all lieutenants, because in this issue of City of Heroes you're the star? Obviously that'd be ridiculous and not exceptionally fun, but that's pretty much how some people such as myself see the current AV mechanic. It's ridiculous and silly in the majority of places its used. A team shows up and all of the sudden Mr. Natural Manticore can take freight trains to the chest?

I can and do beat these jokers into the pavement, but it doesn't change the fact that they're numerically superior for no reason whatsoever. It's hard to find any sense of accomplishment in winning over adversity that conceptually has no reason to be there, and makes me feel less super given the time and effort overcoming said adversity took.

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Many archvillains are easy for a tema to steam-roll but not all. Very powerful archvillains, such as those found in the end-game task-forces, or possible through the AE, can confound poorly put together teams. Downgrade them to EBs and those same teams would flatten them.

I would argue that drawing extra EBs depending on how many characters are in the party, aside from all practicla consdierations, is an even bigger and less believable mcguffin than givign every single archvillain uber-duper power boost of some kind. It might work reasonably well for "teams", but what about the lone bad guys? If you went to take on Nemesis, and found him having a beer with his friends Tyrant, Countess Crey, Doctor Vazilhok, and Vanessa DeVore, in teh middle of his secret pbacse while implimenting his plan for world domination, do you honestly think your first reaction would be "that is a highly likely sequence of events and I see nothing out of place here at all; lets kick some [censored]?" Even for teams of archvillains like the Praetorians or the Arachnos head haunchos, it would quickly begin to stretch credulity if they are hanging out with half of their team-mates every single time you and your friends show up to grease them.

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1: and 2: Again, why should the developers cater to (referring back to my anecdote) the guy who chooses to leverage an advantage the developers didn't intend to give him to gain a reward higher than everyone else just because he made that choice?

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I do not think the developers should reward exploiting (small e), which is what this would be.

But I do think that someone who went out and collected SOs should be rewarded with better performance, and consequently be able to solo content, that someone who doesn't bother should. I am a casual player myself, and If I don't take time to collect IOs or HOs or SHOEs, I should not be able to complete 100% of the content in this game on the hardest difficulty.

It's one thing to say, "I don't want to feel outclassed and disrespected by the game content" and another to say, "no one should be able to face any challenge I cannot face, despite any disparities in our builds, playstyles, or skill".

The same principle applies to reading the forums for build advice, learning by trial and error, or even calling for help from total strangers.

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Your ill/rad Controller that you put hundreds of hours into and spent 3 billion inf on for rare IOs, doesn't deserve to be able to tackle an AV that my WP/SS Tanker, who I've put hundreds of hours into and spent 3 billion inf on rare IOs for can't defeat, just becuase developers like to crap on S/L damage and because debuffs are way more potent than they really should be.


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Your Tanker may not be able to take on THAT Archvillain, but there should be some Archvillains she can take IF SHE SPECIFICALLY BUILDS FOR FIGHTING ARCHVILLAINS. The freedom you have to build to be able to take an Arch foe also means that you can build to NOT be able to take on big hard targets because you chose to specialize elsewhere, like aggro management and meat shieldery.

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If min/maxers are just seeking a challenge, why don't they challenge themselves with running arcs with the added difficulty settings like being debuffed and having the enemies buffed? Or having their enhancers deactivated? I'm sure with those settings, EBs would become as challenging as AVs.

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Some do. But some want to face something that challenges even their best stuff.

I beleive there should be content in the game that challenges the very best AT their very best, even though that means I personally will never be able to solo that content.

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Recluse and States have no reason to dwarf players in power levels.


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Why not? Or more precisely, should there be ANY inidividual foes in the game that are even conceptually team content, even if they happen to normally possess a human form? If there are any, then why not States and Recluse?

Thanos, Doom, and Magneto are often portrayed as being 'team content' for the best of the best, including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Avengers. I don't see that being out of place here.

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Either every AT and combo gets a fair shot at soloing an AV, or no one should.

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I beleive every AT and powerset combo should have a fair shot at soloiing an even-level Archfoe. I do NOT beleive they should all have a fair shot at soloing EVERY even level Archfoe.

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Just for the record, I am bout 2 inches away from falling in love with you right now.

On another note, I missed the comment about challenge ratings. Its true that content is harder if you debuff yourself or negate your enhancements, or so on. Its eqaully true that content would be harder if I intentionally designed a gimped build and then played with it. But part of the challenge (a big part) is specifically in designing the best built you can and using it to take on the biggest challenge you can find. Now and then it can be novel to run without enhancements just to make yourself think outside the box, but as a modus operandi, it defeats the point.

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I think it would be funny if vendors were added to the random pedestrian pool so you see them just wandering around (even funnier if you could use them).

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And even funnier if they made some insulting wisecrack about being off-duty when you tried! XD

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Truly high end perma-doms would double and rarely triple stack domination allowing them to do more damage than they will in I15


I can't wait to see you do this Smurphy

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Even with the increased damage scale on Fire Blast and Blaze in addition to the higher AT modifier?

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I believe so.

Feel free to prove me wrong

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Hm... just some quick numbers showed that was true; without FE a perma-double-stacked Dom had around 3% more DPS than a post-i15 Dom on test. Of course, perma-double-stacked Domination is roughly 355% global recharge to get the base 200 second Domination recharge down to under 45 seconds...

I didn't bother to run the numbers for FE but they'd be behind by a significant amount while Fiery Embrace is up, though - they'd hit the cap while the i15 Dom would have plenty of room. The question then becomes is FE going to be up frequently enough to make a difference, and at those levels of recharge it'd be up well over half the time.

You'd definately be running through endurance faster, though.

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Thank you Siolfir. Its been hashed over to death on the dom boards, and overwhelming conclusion is that the changes are a straight to buff to all dom builds except for those that cna sobule-stack domination and do not have a damage boosting click power (are not /fire or /electric). And to those that do meet those criteria the extent of the nerf is almost insignificant; so small that you will easilly make up the lost performance by altering your build to remove some of the highly sub-optimal power and slotting choices you will have had to make to reach that insane level of +rech.

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Confusion resistance is part of the purple triangles.

+50 Mag when up.

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Yes... it is. But confusion powers have a singifcnalty longer duration thatn hold powers. WHile the +3 levels scaling might make it impossible to perma hold them through their mezz protection (meaning you must stack 51 magnitude worht of mezz effects), confuse might still last long enough.

Note (becuase there's invaraibly someone who says it) that it IS possible to perma-hold archvillains through their triangles at even or +1 levels, and we know this because people have done it.

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At my trustworthy mark I just got hit with 33 month rewards instead of just 3. I know this is recurring and I've petitioned it and am waiting a response, I'm just wondering how and why this is even happening. I was hoping it wouldn't hit me so I wouldn't have to deal with it, but meh... thats the luck of the draw.

I really don't like getting credit for things I don't earn.

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thats very noble of you, though IM not sure anyone 'earns' veteran rewards any more than one 'earns' birthday gifts. Unless you consider that you achieved teh difficult and painstaking labour of succesfully giving the company your money for 3 months in a row, . Still, I aplaud your honesty. If it were me, I probaby would ahve kept the reward and not told anyone.

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Instead of thinking of AVs as munchkins, look at it from a comic book angle. Lord Recluse isn't an AV because he's better than you, he's an AV because this issue he's appearing in a team title rather than a solo title. One issue it takes the entire Avengers to take down Doctor Doom, another Spider-Man punks him by himself. AVs are the game's mechanical version of writer's fiat.

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Even in that situation, what is better writing? The entire Avengers being needed because Doctor Doom is suddenly abnormally badass for no reason what so ever, or the entire Avengers being needed because Doctor Doom has gotten his hands on the Magical McGuffin which makes him ten times as powerful?

As I said earlier in this thread, I'm fine with signature characters temporarily becoming AVs when the story gives reasons for it, but not when it is totally arbitrary.

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Granted, but as Butane notes above, using a McGuffin for every single boss fight would fast approach the point of rediculousness. Comic writters have long since realized this and dispensed with any need for consistency in the power level, and even gross capabilities of characters (any long time Doctor Strange fans such as myself will be familiar with the phenominon where something which is done easilly in one issue will later be described as theoretically impossible and visa-versa; magical time travel is a good example). Instead the comi writters use whatever works best for the narrative. the AV/EB scaledown is essentially the 'writters' of CoH doing the same thing.

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Can we all agree that:

1: Encounters intended to be challenges for OCD minmaxers should be labelled as such.

2: Such encounters should exist.

3: It's okay for at least Statesman and Recluse, if not their sidekicks and pals, to be above the level that PCs can reach, and on the same level as P.L.O.T device characters like Superman or Thanos.

4: Casual players should be able to solo 80%+ of content their Contacts give them on heroic without faceplanting 5 times per mission if they at least stay awake at the keyboard.

5: The game should have more time invested in making challenging content more chjallenging in variety of ways other than the 'bag of hit points' method.

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No, "we" can't agree. Not on all points.


1: and 2: Again, why should the developers cater to (referring back to my anecdote) the guy who chooses to leverage an advantage the developers didn't intend to give him to gain a reward higher than everyone else just because he made that choice?

I strongly doubt the developers sat down at a meeting table and said: "Ok, we're rolling out this ED thing soon because player characters are over powered. We're going to knock all them down a couple pegs in the interest of game balance. BUT these combos here, they get to solo AVs just because.

Your ill/rad Controller that you put hundreds of hours into and spent 3 billion inf on for rare IOs, doesn't deserve to be able to tackle an AV that my WP/SS Tanker, who I've put hundreds of hours into and spent 3 billion inf on rare IOs for can't defeat, just becuase developers like to crap on S/L damage and because debuffs are way more potent than they really should be.

If min/maxers are just seeking a challenge, why don't they challenge themselves with running arcs with the added difficulty settings like being debuffed and having the enemies buffed? Or having their enhancers deactivated? I'm sure with those settings, EBs would become as challenging as AVs.

The reason is because it's not about challenge. It's about e-peen. And at this point it's not even about saying your the first to solo an AV with X build.

So I would not hesitate to "diminish" the accomplishment(pressing buttons iz hard) of defeating an AV by allowing the majorty of players to be able to, or by changing what an AV is so more players could defeat them.

You can't hide behind "lack of challenge" to oppose that because I'm willing to bet if the extreme min/maxers used those challenge settings pointed out above, or *GASP* used a less than optimal build, AT or combo, they would have more than enough challenge.

3: No, it's not. That's exactly what this thread is about. A good number of people here feel the signature characters, especially the flagship characters, are over shadowing. Recluse and States have no reason to dwarf players in power levels.

I'm likely a better boxer than the president. There are smarter people than him. But he's the president and we're not. There's no reason for Recluse and Statesman to need to be on a power tier above everyone else in order for States to be the premier hero of the city or for Recluse to have established his web of power as ruler of the Isles.

If anything, the game should be about the next generation of upstart heroes and villains who come in and upset the status quo of States' and Recluse's little 75 year old family feud because they're no longer the towers of power they once were.

4: I'm under the impression we're at this point. I don't object to the dev's bare minimum level, but the spread of low end to high end has always been very large. Larger than it really should be. I'm about empowering players, but rewarding the outliers isn't part of that philosophy. Either every AT and combo gets a fair shot at soloing an AV, or no one should. Capping your damage and recharge and surviving the damage being dealt against you and still not being able to succeed isn't a fair shot, IMO.

5: That, I will agree with 100%




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See, I fundamentally disagree with your number 4 assumption. Not all builds are eqallyt good at soloing. ANd frankly not all builds are equally good, period. IF you didnt do the research and/or analysis to figure out which ones were better (or if you chose to build a sub-optimal character anyway) then you do not get the same performance as someone who did. If you want that performance, roll a better character. I dont see a cosmic injustice in that; all I see is lazy or incompetant people who want the game to be made easier for them rather than rising to meet its challenge. I knwo blasters, and defenders, for that matter, who have soloed archvillains. For the love of pitty there are DOMINATORS who have soloed archvillains, and they have been widely derided as the most utterly useless architype in the game in an archvillain fight. Don't tell me only scrappers, masterminds and illusionists can pull it off because thats flatly untrue.

And thats without even getting into temp powers. Drop a shivan and pop some inspirations for survival, and you really don't even need a partiularly tricked out build for AVs.

In my opinion every single class should be capable of reaching the absolute highest tier of performance. Thats botha realisticaly attainable goal in terms fo game design, and also a goal that is fair to all players, since all play-styles (in so far as the architypes available to us represent all players) will be represented.

But trying to create a game where every single build possible for every single class will reach the top tier of play is not only impossible, its highly undesirable. Not only would it obviate any need to every put any work into designing your character, but it would mean that there would be no variety in play-style. Earth/Storm is a very high end controller build. It will never solo archvillains. It doesn't ahve the damage. But it is still very high end. There are thigns that a well-build Earth/Storm controller cna do - impressive, seamingly impossible, feats of crowd control - that my illusion/radiation controller will never, ever be able to duplicate no matter how much time or influence I put into her. Similarly, I will never be able to mow down spawns with the awe-inspiring speed of a fire/kinetic controller, but I can survive extremelly difficult encounters that would leave a fire/kinetics controller laid out on the pavement. These are not bad things, they are good things. I wouldn't want there to be one controller build that was literally better than every other build in every single situation. And similarly, if anyone who just chose two randomly selected priamry/secondaries and slapped them together, and picked whichever powers sounded cool were capable of doing all the exact same things as somone who carefuly researched his build; painstakingly tested it; and spent hundreds of hours assemblin the necessary loot to make it sing, then what would be the point of doing any of those things? The cynic might say "none, and you're a looser, Fernandes"... and he might be right, but MMOs thrive on people who keep playing because they're constantly seeking to acquire the next step in the leet-gear ladder, and defeat the next impossible challenge, and you can't blame me if, as one of those people, IM not keen to see my hard work rendered irrelevent.

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If that is true, then it begs the obvious question: why is it possible to spawn them solo? If the developers were not only certain it was impossible to defeat them solo, but specifically WANTED to ensure that no one ever defeated thems solo, thenit seems to me that the unbelievably simply


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If my memory is correct...
Originally the AV->EB system was such that AVs never spawned solo. However, players with builds capable of, and desired to, solo AVs, complained that they had to get additional teammates to pad their missions in order to spawn an AV. So it was changed such that AVs will appear on the highest difficulty setting.

This doesn't indicate that the devs intended for people to defeat AVs solo, but that they were willing to allow people who to make a choice whether they want an AV or an EB in a solo mission.

But it doesn't mean that they don't intend people to defeat AVs solo, either. dev intention has changed over time and I think the current state is acceptance that IOs and powerset selection can create AV-killers.

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It may not mean that its a specificly intended feature, but it certainly seems like a clear indication that they have no particularly fundamental objection to the concept, as Butane claims.


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I think most AV fights are stupid and boring. My main gripe is stupid AI and lack of challenging fights. Instead we have the brute force "bag of hp with big damage". The same "bag of hp with big damage" is what causes people to dislike AVs for making player characters feel third rate, because no matter what, you know your tanker's handclap isn't going to be hitting for hundreds of hp damage...and your defender isn't going to be hitting like 10 blasters combined...

If we have better AI and better designed fights, we can do away with the whole AV mechanism. It'd be probably more difficult to fight a bunch of smart EBs with different powers, than one dumb AV. Win-win for everyone. People who can't solo don't feel outclassed because they were outnumbered, and people who can, get a higher sense of satisfaction at beating a more difficult challenge.

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I agree. Its simply that designing a smarter AI is hard. YOu cna tell by how no one seems to be able to do it. I've played games with "advanced" AIs - most recently Darkfall Online (GREAT PvP game if you dont mind the FPS-style targetting... and if you can actually manage to buy it); if there was any difference between their AI and the one here, I couldn't tell. The "advanced" AI was so bright it would even walk through lava flows and other damaging environment features to reach someone who agroed it. I would like to see a smarter AI, buit it seems to be a tough thing for programming teams to actually accomplish. Raising the amount of damage something does, however, is eays. I dont know enough about programming (that is to say: anything at all) to undertand why that is exactly, but experience tells me it is so.

As we discuss above you an simulate a smarter AI by changing certain basic assumptions, as in the immune to taunt powers example. Of course, as we also discussed, if you did that for every battle it would mean that all taunt powers were literally useless. The game is built around certain assumptions in how encounters work, and while changing those assumptions for a particular fight would lead to an awesome and unique challenge, changing them for every fight would quickly make vast numbers of builds, and even whole classes in danger of being obselete.

I would prefer that myself. the fact that daylight lasts muich, much longer than ngiht has alwas rubbed me the wrong way. Of couirse, since aabout 99.99% of all content in the game is instanced, its really depressingly irrelevent when you think about it, but it would be a nice touch.

I suspect you will have trouble perma-holding a level 53 archvillain. Thats a lot of scale-to-relative-level. But you mgiht be able to perma confuse one. The question would be whether you would deal enough damage.

Fortunately this is easy to test since there are many level 53 heroes you can drop in an AE mission and practice on.

This is by far the coolest project i have seen in a long time. I wish you luck!

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Does a Xenophobic(Racist against everything that isn't white, including aliens, demons, and especially catgirls) Anarchist, Neo-Nazi superhero, make sense at all?

And yes I realize this is incredibly racist and might be controversial, but I'm not any of these things in real life, and just think it'd be an interesting concept?

(Mainly 'superhero' because he has a powerset I want, and plan to move him vill side once Going Rogue comes out.)

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No. Not at all. In fact, its pretty offensive to... well, almsot eveyrone I can think of except neo-nazis.

But as a villain he makes perfect sense, and I see no problem with getting a jump start on him for the expansion.

To answer your questions in order...

THe fact that it is knowna nd intended to be possible does not mean that it is known and intended to be easy! I would conted that the fact that AVs spawn on invincible is meant to give players the option to face them solo (which obviously contradicts your contention that they 'should' be unsoloable). It does not meen that it was meant that every single character should be able to do it.

And you've missed my point on the second part. I wasn't saying that its easy to balance architypes. I was saying that if archvillains were an unintended obstacle to soloing on invicnible then it would e easy to remove thema nd have them ALWAYS spawn as EBs for a solo player.

You are right that the scaling system was created before enhanement diversification, however that only reinforces the point that when it was created the develoeprs must have known it would be possible for people to solo the encounter (otherwise why put it in).

If your argument is that it should be scaled back now that EB has made that impossible, I would say that I might have agread with you before IOs. IOs have raised the bar back up again, and made many things possible that were not previously possible since the advent of ED. The differnece, of course, is cost - IOs are a lot more expensive than SOs (its sort of arguable whether they're harder or easier to get than HOs since there was no market back then). Accounting for the effects of the great controller nerf, which was a differnt thing than ED, I'd say I have about the same levle of power now as I did then. It just took a lot more time and hard work to acquire.

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QR

Again, I'm simply tired of building a "super-hero" who, regardless of how much care and time I put into him, is in no way comparable to any of the villains he fights. I'm tired of it.

Are we building superhumans or not? Seriously... 'cause it strikes me that, given everyone we interact with in the game, we're average at best.

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I agree, believe it or not. But I find this problem is best exmeplified by minions, lieutenants and boses rahter than archvillains. While archvillains should represent the absolute cream of the crop - the most skilled and dangerous beings on the planet - minions should be, well, exactly what it says on the tin. Superman, and the Silver Surfer do NOT quake wiht fear and choose a different story arc because some guys with special forces training show up, no matter how tricked out their hand guns are. I remember there wa a sugestion some time ago that, while it has obvious logistical prolems, was quite interesting in principal, to add a significant number of underling class mobs to any given encounter to allow the player that feeling of fighting their way through whole armies of mooks, casualy obliterating them,a nd/or laughing off their puny attacks.

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Actually it didn't.

While yes they were immune to taunt they weren't immune to the various aggro management abilites.

Warriors had to use sunder, which reduces armor but gives out a lot of aggro with each application. Hunters could use Misdirection which caused the aggro generated from the next three shots to be dumped onto the team mate they cast it on.

While we lack the aggro management skills in City of Heroes we do have an aggro system, so while tankers would be unable to use taunt on some encounters (I don't mean to say ALL encounters should be like this otherwise the uniquess of the mechanic is wasted) they could still go in and build threat using their AoEs and smacking the hardest hitting target out of a group (and with the fact Tankers attacks generate more threat than other ATs) before the rest of the team begins blasting away at their respective targets. The tanker would tie up that mob for the duration of the fight so it wasn't wandering around beating the hell out of the squish team members.

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So just have actual taunt powers not work, but leave effects with high agro modifiers (including anything launched by a tank under the effects of Gauntlet) still do their thing normally? That'd be interesting. Im starting to like this idea a lot!

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You seem to have tremendous knowledge of what the developers do and do not intend.


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I don't have to dig up a quote. Likely one has been said long ago and lost to the dozens of board purges since.

It's safe to assume that AVs were, and still are, intended for teams, which is why they spawn for them. Their high regeneration/ressitance to injury seems designed to act as a gate for ATs with lower damage and high defenses from defeating them. Conversely, their high damage output and purple triangles seem intended as a gate for ATs with high damage/holds and lower defenses.

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If that is true, then it begs the obvious question: why is it possible to spawn them solo? If the developers were not only certain it was impossible to defeat them solo, but specifically WANTED to ensure that no one ever defeated thems solo, thenit seems to me that the unbelievably simply solution would have been to have them spawn as Elite Bosses for any solo player, even on invincible. The fact that it is possible for a single player to spawn them, and that, in fact, it was specifcally coded that way when EBs were invented, seems to me strong evidence that the developers know full well that while difficult it is not impossible.

You go on to saythat its not fair that you can solo on invincible but not solo th archvillains that spawn on invincible, and that this is an oversight on the developers part, but once again I am forced to consider that this would be an easy problem to fix. The most likely explination is that archvillains are meant to be part and parcel of the extreme challenge invincible is, theoretically, supposed to entail.

And saying "I read it somewhere but I can't remember the link, and it may not exist anymore" is not evidence. In the words of some internet jerk somewhere: pics (links, in this case) or it didn't happen.

That actually sounds like fun, Mechano. I must no resist the violent temtpation to reactivate my WoW account (I succeed only by reminding myself that no matter what the merits or flaws of its game-play, the hidiousness of my character's model will surely ruin the experience).

You must admit though that making every fight (or even every boss-fight) like that owuld sort of make it pointless to have a tank in your party.

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Regarding what the devs consider acceptable for outliers, and what they should and shouldn't be able to do, go back and read the developer commentary during the Energy Melee nerf.

As for:
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The question, as you point out, is what the developers consider acceptable, and I don't know that any more than you do. I do know that it has been possible to solo archvillains since the day the game hit retail and that no change made in all the years since has altered that. The fact that nothing has been done about it in all that time leads me to suspect that the developers dont have quite such a problem with people recieving that particular reward as you seem to want to believe.

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Head to the current test server and I15 Beta forums and read developer comments about the recent nerf to Psychic Shockwave, where, in response to your exact argument, Castle directly states it was a well known bug that they just didn't feel needed to be changed until they were ready to address the rest of the problems with the AT.

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Perhaps you're right then, and they will eventually nerf high performance builds tha can solo archvillains. But I haven't seen statements to that effect, and as I say, I certainly havent seen evidence of it in their actions.

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Have you ever had the experience of falling in love with one of your characters. Of just wanting to play them all the time you're on? Of wanting them to have all the accolades and best stuff, because the character is a little bit of awesome with a chaser of win.

I created a Fire/Shield Scrapper and it all just "clicks". Her backstory is she's from an exiled sect of Efreet who worship the Sun Gods and have rejected the evil and deceit of the Elemental Plane of Fire. She's become a Paladin and come to the "Shining City of the Mortals" to join the fight against evil.

I always liked the character, but after getting FSC and her cape, it all came together. The costume, the feel and pace of play, everything. I just had my main spend 75 million to outfit her with four full sets of Touch of Deaths. AND I LUB HER MOAR!!! She's making my other alts jealous.

Sorry had to share. But I would love to hear if others have had the same experience or am I the only weirdo. (Yes, I'm a weirdo.)

EDIT: Since there were demands for pictures: The Solar Paladin!

Best to view as a slideshow.

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Damn good looking character. I am quite fond of my own main. This is only to be expected; if it weren't more fun, at least in certain limited ways to be her than it is to be me, then why would I spend so much of my free time pretending to do so? I would spend that time doing whatever activities in my offline life were more fun.

Not sure Id say love though. Im not one to form terribly strong emotioanla attachments to objects (or people, for that matter). I like her a lot and enjoy playing her, but at the end of teh day she's just another character; if I somehow were unable to ever play her again, I would be sad, but I'd get over it.