Frosticus

I will. Online worlds have a lot in common with real societies. I don't think people that live in the country are inherently harder working or better people. Not in the least.

Nor do I think it is right that if you pay to live in a city you end up with services better fit for the remote areas of the world.

This game is an MMO, we have all subscribed to be part of a city. It is great that you can find quiet corners, but it is not to be expected.

If I thought this particular comment you just made had any merit I'd just counter it by saying CoX = marketed as a casual friendly experience. Having to work != not casual friendly experience.

Edit: they have added elements to cater to people that want to put in more efforts: pvp, IO's, TF's. Teaming and finding copious amounts of people in an MMO should not be one of those aspects. I'll never agree otherwise.

Anyway, if you can't handle seeing a handful of people at the market, or training at the same time as you then imo MMO's are the wrong genre for you. These are hub/congregation points. The fact that the game is 95% instanced gives us all our own virtual world to play in. Asking for it to extend to the open world aspect just seems greedy to me. But agree to disagree.

Take care everyone, thanks for the discussion and have fun out there.

1. I play on a 6 year old comp, if you can't run this game I'm not sure what to say. A steam powered comp can handle all but the busiest spots baring actual bugs.

2. No it doesn't, this is flat out wrong. There ARE options to make it quiet at the drop of a hat no matter how busy simply by moving to one of the 30 other zones, or a more secluded corner and hitting the /hide switch. There is no similar analog for increasing players other than paying or re rolling on a new server. I originally started on Infinity because I like the name, I had no idea about population counts, nor should I have. So I either would have two options, pay $10 a toon (had 5 at the time) or reroll. Finding quiet and finding population aren't even in the same category of ease of use. You know that is true, I'm not sure why you are suggesting otherwise.

3. Already addressed in two, except if we make the assumption that freedom/virtue is a high population target are you honestly telling me you couldn't find quiet space or utilize the options that are free and instant that the programmers have put in place to achieve that. I get that you guys are pretty set about this, that is understandable, but making up things isn't necessary.

Look there is obviously a sense of entitlement on both sides. One fits into the business model, the genre, and the advertising that has been put out. The other is just an anomaly.

I find it frustrating that you guys honestly think that finding population in an MMO should be anything other than extremely easy. It is an elitist attitude, which isn't necessarily bad, but it is clouding your judgment. This game has been marketed as the casual friendly game experience from day 1. If someone has to work harder than throwing up their lft flag and a few quick BC's then something is wrong with the core of the game design. The second M in MMO indicates that team construction should be well facilitated and effortless add that in with the approach this game has taken and it should be really really really easy.

By definition the second I have to join a non-default communication channel to participate in default activities something is out of line.

-Suggesting that someone learn what the extra community channels are and then join them, or actively send tells hoping to get invited is straying pretty far from casual. Like I said earlier I'm a member of all those channels, but I'm trying to not let my 39 months get in the way of logic.

Hey if I get called out for inappropriateness when using the term "entitlement" displayed by people saying they have a right to play in sparse populations then I'm going to call you out on this comment.

Keep the conversation civil or don't bother with it. Thanks

Edit: you are right that there isn't an MMO out there making that promise, but CoH used to be about as close as you could get to fulfilling it.

by definition more people choose to play where players exist. Hence population.

ah your are using the tank SC as your basis ok. It looks like they used the brute version of L-rod as the base point.

I'm not sure they would arbitrarily decide that tank SC is the base point, that would mean the brute version gets lowered a bit. They would probably pick the lowest version as that of brutes again which would put the scrapper version up to 200 with l-rod. Then you run into the position of whether or not SC should be as good as L-rod. I dunno, I don't have an answer for you.

I certainly never said or suggested that the psuedo-pets shouldn't be AT specific, in fact I've ******* at the devs to do it for a long time across various different AT's. All I said was that SC is pretty far down the list if they start actually doing their jobs at some point.

That said with the way L-rod was been redone we now run into the valid complaint that the brute version should respect their damage caps rather than +300%. It makes the brute version decidedly worse off that it should be relative to the scrapper version.

Shield Charge all do 133 damage across all AT's, there is a difference in taunt between the AT's that is all. I also really don't think l-rod crits for scrappers, though I'd like to find out otherwise in a handful of levels.

Where are you getting 187 damage for the scrapper version from? I'm just curious.

While I agree that each AT should have their own version of psuedo pets, SC is pretty far down the list of ones needing to be rectified if you were to start tackling them in chronological order.

Shark Jaws hit real hard, harder than shout, but with more range and a faster cast. Just DoT. It holds too meaning you can stick more procs in it.

Procs are your friend because enhancements get DR'd, procs don't.

Coralax pet does some things, some things are better than nothing. I'm not a large fan of the ppp pets, but some people seem pretty good at leveraging them. Very big hp bonus for only 3 slots too.

You can stick mag 8 kb protection in each sheild, so they are worthwhile just for that. The buffs they provide aren't useless as most people aim for resistance these days. Hitting through them isn't hard, but the occassional miss is better than otherwise.

1. Just because YOU like living in New York City doesn't mean I can't like Kansas.
2. Kansas, part 2.
3. "I only saw one other person. World of Conancraft has eleventy billion!" So What?
8. I will play where I damn well want to. And you can too. And that should be blunt enough. If I want a crowded server...

"just join some of the (often private) non-default channels to find people"

I apologize if I'm misinterpreting the sentiment behind this "anthem". But I'm not sorry that I personally believe that in a Massively Multiplayer Online game that populations should be high unless you deliberately look for remote areas (ie zones like boomtown or the shard).

Put another way, even on the busiest server it is very easy to find a quiet place because the zones are huge and there are way too many of them (blueside). I think it is important to be able to escape for some quiet time and I will even go into /hide a couple of times a week. The desire for quiet can be satisfied on any server at any time with minimal effort, but the desire for population can't be. That is my issue, take it as you will.

I'm not intending it to be that way. I apologize if it came across as overly aggressive. I withdraw the question.

This is tried and true advice. I know I'm a member of pretty much every major channel on freedom.

Of course all these private/hidden communications do absolutely nothing for people not "in the know". And I'm actually still looking for some better ones redside as everything negative I've been experiencing is redside.

If after I completed the tutorial, or reached level 5 a list of 10 major global channels popped up I'd agree with everything you have said. But I don't think it is ideal that the workload falls on the player to facilitate teaming beyond throwing up their lf team tag and using the default zone-wide communication channel. It seems exclusive by design.

I know I keep waiting for the corporate side of Paragon to come on and ask our opinions. I'm baffled that it hasn't happened

I'm really curious what has generated the sense of entitlement that you get to play on what effectively equates to a private server in an MMO. The first two letters really lean the other way. I'm not trying to be hostile, I'm actually quite curious because each time I see it posted that is exactly what is being stated. It is strangely similar to the posts that indicate people were paying their $15 and could use AE however they want and similar.

If I were making and subsequently running an MMO I don't think my goal would be for any low population servers. I'm very confident paragon would love it if every server was full up every day. I think it is kind of strange the sense of entitlement that is displayed when people say they have a "right" to play on low population servers.

I fully understand why you guys might enjoy the peace and quiet, but what will you do if GR reinvents the wheel and this game booms (not gonna happen, but...) Would you demand that Paragon keep your servers underpopulated?

And for the record I haven't said once that it needs to happen, but for those "unsolvable naming issues" I don't think anything better would need to be done than adding a new tag. If something is then great, but the simplest solution is usually the best. KISS (keep it simple stupid ).

You are absolutely right you can't market a server merger, but EVERY image and commercial I see for this game always has a heap of players and action going on. Other than the occassional solo shot to highlight a power they don't really show off the lone-wolf nature of the MMO.

Just to clarify again, my whole position this entire time is that it doesn't need to happen, but probably will at some point down the road. My second point is that said list of "canned responses" is a joke. It has some substance, but is primarily propaganda.

Can scrapper LR crit? If so only 7 more levels for me!

I think it is hard to compare the tele-nukes to traditional aoes as we don't know how much value they attribute to the "tele" part and they provide so much burst damage that we may be getting into a range where normal rules cease to exist.

I'm not opposed to the 133 damage version of shield charge being the brute one and having scrapper/tanks raise proportionally, I just don't know what the devs are thinking as they already do use different pseudo-pets. I know I wasn't going to roll an elec scrapper until they actually boosted LR to be AT specific. I've always though it is pretty lame for the same strength powers to be shared across AT's that are decidedly different in strength.

Valid concern over names, absolutely. Which I've said repeatedly. Very vital that it be addressed. Saying no solution has ever been presented and sticking your head in the sand and also saying kiss your name goodbye is a scare tactic. I'm pretty sure that canned response has been worded with that intent. It is designed to overwhelm any opposition and to make anyone remotely concerned over such issues jump on board immediately because it plucks the strings close to our hearts.

All I'm saying is that it takes a lot of weight out of the argument when it is reduced to what it actually is. There are enough valid reasons that you shouldn't need to resort to that particular underhanded sales strategy.

This is the first time I've responded to said canned response as I usually just chuckle to myself each time I see that propaganda spread around, but I've been feeling the server blues for a few issues now so it bugged me enough this time to point out just what it is.

What if none of these had to change, because they don't. Scare tactics have put this notion in people's heads, but it is inaccurate.

I don't want to come across like I'm being insensitive, to be frank I'd loath the idea of losing my names too.

I'd imagine that if they merged servers they'd use a new name rather than keep one of the old ones or combine them. Think survivor

I know it would bother plenty of people, people inherently dislike and fear change, that is why utilizing a fear mongering tactic is so effective in situations like this.

Of course you don't want to lose your name, or your sg name or have to merge with another supergroup, no one does. So if someone tells you that will happen of course you'll latch onto that because it supports your basic fears. It really doesn't matter if it isn't true, they've got you locked in. Like I said earlier, it is an extremely effective tactic used in a wide variety of scenarios. It is pretty cheap and is one of the more common tools used in scam marketing. All we need now is someone creating a high pressure situation where you need to sign away your life in the next 30 mins or the deal is gone forever

I realize the addition of another title under your name is scary for some people, but I think that one is going to happen relatively soon regardless of server merges. Castle has stated he is no where near finished with the pvp revamp and despite the horrid job done so far I'm confident he realizes how important cross-server pvp will be if that area of the game ever hopes to grow.

The question is: if I told you that you don't have to lose your name, your sg name, or anything else that you've grown accustom to would you still be afraid? It is just as true as saying you would because neither is known with absolute certainty and that is why putting those things on the list is imo in pretty poor taste.

They are absolutely valid concerns that I think everyone shares, but stating them like they would actually happen is a scare tactic and cheapens the whole server merger rebuttal. That's why it should really just stick to number 7 on the list:
The rest is just smoke, but maybe that is the point of it.

Anyway, server merges are not happening any time soon, not with GR on the horizon. So lets think positive and hope for the necessity of server enlargments due to the influx of new players it and CO sends our way!

Take care guys.

It's not a dream, it was more a nightmare. It was about 8pm PST on Friday night (ya I have no life right now ). It was bleak and made me sad.

It is my understanding from having successfully used the search function for years now that grey equates to them being teamed, so they were definitely on the list. The only thing that could reasonably push the numbers up would be people in hide. And no, people changing zones wouldn't because it wasn't a single search that evening .

That was 29 people spread between lvl 11 and 20 occupying Cap, Shark, and PO primarily. I don't mind duo'ing on many of my toons, my elec/kin is not one of them. 5 or more is what I consider a solid team to be. I logged onto hero side after sending tells to each and every single person on that list. Not like it took long though haha.

So like I said, maybe they were all in hide and there was actually way more people online. But I'm not basing my personal opinion on one evening, my opinion has formed over 3.5 years now. That specific comment was with regard to suggesting that anyone that desires more people can pay to move or reroll onto freedom/virtue. In case you haven't read very far I'm of the opinion that we probably don't need to merge at this time. All I have been talking about is how weak the "canned response" is.

Subs are up, subs are up, what are they up to? up from what? You realize I could literally always say subs are up and be telling the truth until the day the game is shut down right?

Please take your passive aggressive attitude somewhere else, I think everyone is being quite calm, so really just don't go down that road it is embarrassing. Thanks

Just to clarify, I only meant elec for scrappers, not for brutes or tanks. Stalker version is sweet, but they have no way to supplement the aoe via secondary (either sheilds or damage aura) and their epics are kinda lame.

SS is my main pick for brutes as it is better than their version of elec...way better. If scrappers ever get SS (unnerfed) it would become my main pick for them too. Footstomp + rage+ high rech is just that good. I'd harbor a guess that ss brute is better than any scrapper, so I just listed my blue side pick and my redside pick.

I have a 50 fire/ss/pyre tank, it has always felt like a super-scrapper to me in st and aoe, but I think a large part of that is because of being able to effectively leverage burn. If/when I play without burn the aoe damage drops a lot. While I haven't actively compared it to any spine/fire scrappers for instance I don't see me keeping up. And in situations where the tiny radius of burn doesn't get the job done I'm not sure how the toon would fair.

I'd pick fire for brutes or scraps if it had combustion, but just FSC and epic aoe alone aren't quite enough imo. The tank version is a really amazing aoe set, but probably doesn't touch a brute or scrapper aoe build. I dunno though, maybe it does? I've always wanted an ice armor/fire tank.

Why do I think scrapper elec is pretty dang good? cause their L-rod does 200 base damage and a good build will have it up every 30 seconds (same timer as build up). So it is good for at least 600 burst damage every 30 seconds.

(just using one target for simplicity sake)

Conversely, quills is good for about 360 damage over that same time (accounting for bu and crits). That of course assumes you have fuel in your aura the whole time and doesn't factor in the 20ft radius of L-rod compared to the 8ft radius of quills. Spineburst, ripper and throw spines are all-around better powers than t-strike, chain, and jacobs for delivering additional aoe damage, but they have a lot of ground to make up. Like I said earlier I wouldn't be surprised if spines pulls ahead over time, but having a "you all die now" button is just so nice.

Thanks for the info Sarrate, it explains why the FFgen hitting tactic works pretty well.

Soulscorch, I agree with your final assessment of the power, there have been times I've missed my initial target with it and it has bothered me. By and large when I initially hit I've been happy with its performance.

I wouldn't be opposed to a re balancing that treats it a bit more like shadow maul, which is to say, more like a single target attack with bonus aoe potential.

I never suggested the onus was on anyone other than people suggesting a change, but the "status quo" is not a solid arguement. Don't rock the boat has held practically no water in terms of changes that have occured in this game. All I said was that those particular points are subjective opionion, one held by many, but also not held by many. I'm glad we agree on that and aren't trying to pass off 1-4 as actually carrying any real weight.

If the argument was only relying on personal opinion I'd shoot holes through it too.

What if Paragon said that by shutting down 2 servers they would free up the capital to reinvest and end up producing an additional free issue each year? Just hypothetically speaking of course, but just imagine.
These are valid points, but these aren't what points 1-4 were about as these issues fall under points 5, 6, (which I'll address) and 7 (7 as mentioned is reason enough not to proceed) aside from the misplaced assumption that everything would turn into a freedom clone. Why not a virtue clone? Or for that matter we have 2 highish population servers in the game, each with a very unique dynamic, why wouldn't an additional high population server also emerge with its own dynamic? Because it would. Saying it would emerge as a freedom clone is called "fear mongering". Its a very effective tactic, well played, but it holds no water especially when what little evidence we have points in a totally different direction.

Standard code rant is just that, we don't know. They could maybe move bases, maybe not, who knows how hard it would be? Probably no one until they tried. I made the same assumption that Bill makes and just says lets pretend it could happen. In all fairness unless they outright state it is impossible (not just difficult) it can happen.

You are right that Cap Amazing from Pinnacle can't coexist with Cap Amazing from Triumph on the same server. But Cap Amazing with a sub/superscript Pinnacle above/below their name can coexist with Cap Amazing with a sub/superscript Triumph above/below their name. We already have a ton of text that can go in those areas such as badge titles, sg name, other titles, one more isn't going to break the camel's back. Not with all the options to only show such things on mouseover and whatnot.

On search all it has to do is Cap Amazing (Pin) vs Cap Amazing (Tri). I'm sorry but I just can't see that as an issue worth more than a few seconds of complaining.

For SG names Justice 4 All (Pin) and Justice for All (Tri) works just fine for grandfathering.

If populations on some of these small servers are as low as might be suggested such grandfathering would be a pretty small issue actually. It would probably come with another name purge too, so the benefits outweigh the minor inconvenience of having a small tag above/below your name. They really do.

Nope, like I said 7 is reason enough to full-stop any merge discussion until a satisfactory solution could be developed. #7 is all that the canned response should consist of because the rest of the points just make the whole thing look like a whiny "you can't have my toys" rant that has holes a semi can drive through.

Like I said, I have no solution for 7, and I've never heard one, thus the idea of merges is out for now.


Again this is just opinion and again I never said the onus was on anyone other than those advocating change. If done well this alienation of players and mass exodus is again nothing more than fear mongering.

Simply put we have no idea what the opportunity cost is of continuing to run underutilized servers actually is. Maybe no one does.

If they cut the server list in half, how much faster would server maintenance be performed, how much faster would the game update, how much additional capital would they have to reallocate? And the list goes on and on. We simply don't know and probably can't even venture a guess.

My response to 9 is what I meant it to be. It doesn't need to free up hardware, the existing hardware is more than ample to merge 2-3 of the low population servers together if that was what was deemed to be the course of action, or to merge 1-2 of the low pops into one of the higher pop servers. Freedom/Virtue don't hit red anymore, so no upgrade would be necessary, the upgrades that have occurred have been satisfactory.

It does free up all the costs associated with owning, operating, and maintaining those extra servers though.

9 is an antiquated reply from when the servers used to grey out every event.
Sorry you lost me here. If I have 2 factories and each can produce 100k units, but factory A produces 57k and factory b produces 19k I am grossly under-utilizing my assets, my costs are going to be considerably higher than they could otherwise be because I'm operating two factories rather than one and my efficiency is going to be lower because I have to ship to/from two factories rather than one and I am failing to take advantage of economies of scale and labor force multiplication.

The only logical reason to keep the two factories is if I plan on expansion, or if I have another way of generating revenue from the under-utilized assets.

I doubt Paragon is renting out the servers to other companies and while hopeful I kind of doubt the game is going to go through a large expansion phase.

The most important thing you guys need to remember above all else is that Paragon is running a business. They aren't hosting a game to cater to your personal wants and needs. Virtually everything they do has to make sense to the business before it can proceed. Rest assured that if it makes financially viable sense for them to merge the servers at some point your protest of "they took err jerbs" is going to fall on deaf ears.


Agreed. I feel CO is only helping this game in the long run. Had they actually delivered the product they envisioned I'd say otherwise, but that isn't the case.
reread the last thing I initially said: (server merge) hasn't been necessary to date.

If and when the business determines it is necessary (and it probably will eventually come up) then it will happen. At which point people that like solo'ing all the time and playing like it is a LAN based game can urge them to release a single player w/ co-op version of the box like is currently being requested in one of the forums.

I already play on freedom. I don't consider 29 players between the levels of 11-20 while I'm trying to level my elec/kin corruptor to fit the definition of "high population", but ymmv.

Maybe they were all in hide?