FrostyBot

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We have had Giant Monsters Attack Paragon City Already.

Giant Pumpkins, Winter Lords etc.

Now you may see something "kindof" like Godzilla or Rodan, someday in the future, but it has to be something different enough, or we have the "Marvel" situation all over again.

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Anyone recall the American "Godzilla" movie? Toho holds the reins on Godzilla, etc. pretty tightly. Of course a few changes here and there and a reasonable non-actionable fascimile could be made.

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Don't ever bring GINO into my CoH. Kaiju-class monsters, please please please- I'd love to have to stop some mutated monster tall enough to stomp Rhode Island flat in three shots. But no Godzilla In Name Only. Have a TF in one of those areas between city zones, where you have to stop a new incarnation of the Mega Zenith Bot from destroying the war wall, or have the Devouring Earth spawn some giant flowering thing to try and destroy civilization, spitting out little pod people to harass the heroes while they try to defeat it.

I want something so big I have to go back a half-mile to screen shot the whole beast.

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There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea, people have already posted why (me included). You will not stop PLers this way. The potental to harm normal players far out weigh the risk of curbing PLers.

The only way I can see to stop PLing is to put a cap on XP per hour. Find out the average XP a player makes per level per hour and make that the cap.

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Doesn't even have to be the average. Allow players to absorb experience at a rate that tops out at what a -good- player can do. Increase this rate when they're on a team. Gauge it at an exp gain rate that don't involve chain-killing purples 24/7 to get your experience. Give players the influence for anything done while the exp bar is choked full, if they keep at it.

Powerleveling is only possible because unlimited exp gain is written into the code. It is the keystone.

Exp absorption, once written into the game, is death to PLing-because the "optimal gain" no longer is one that's boosted past what one can get through exceptional play -at your own level- ,or at least the level you'd get participating actively in a team. Exploits have a barrier that fends off racking up 5 levels off the Hydra Trial in hours.

You want to mindlessly farm a mission for phat exp? Go for it. Once you hit the max, no more benefit. It'll be darn near impossible to do in normal play if you're setting the bar properly high enough.

Exp ranges are bandaiding the problem and causing normal play flow to be interfered with.

Heck, if totally choking off exp at the bar is too painful, make it a diminishing reward- like 10% normal exp if you're topped off. But the "gravy train" is what's the core of the problem here- you can get as much exp as you want, as long as people boost you to get past the normal level range by leaps and bounds.

It's a bug fix- but maybe a bit too limited. As it stands, it really does do some damage to the regular teleporters not being able to zoom back far enough to get a full-distance teleport off.

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SWG and FFXI are simply too grindy to attract new players easily and the only people even playing them are the ones who have already dedicated hours to them. Boy, are they wishing they had their time back.

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I wouldn't play SWG much if you paid me to, but FFXI? Sure. Different kind of satisfaction there, sorta what I got out of EQ only with devs that actually work on the game and work well.

If it's anything you can give FFXI, it's their ability to code tight and adjust the game as needed.

Which is actually a good time for an example of how to fix an abuse in a game and make it fun at the same time. A big problem in FFXI was "fish botting"- automated 3rd party scripts that took a simple action (fishing) and used it essentially as a money generating script.

So what'd S-E do? They turned fishing into an actual minigame. The scripters got hosed, the real fishers got entertained and fishing got to be more interactive than "wait for line to twitch, hit space bar".

XP code changes as they stand? It's like fishing up nothin' but rusty buckets that keep breaking your pole. A change is needed, but it's a tough one to do- you have to make a change that improves the game for everyone while stopping the PLing. Personally, I think that lies in adjusting the ability to gain unlimited exp per hour, not in yanking people around with ranges.

I still think at this point any anti-PL code that goads people to not only evade it but to take advantage of it would be sorta silly to implement.

Scrap it and start over. PLing is a poison, but this antidote is worse than the poison is.

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The first one is false. He's called the Faceripper, not Facemaker.

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Deeeevious. He didn't say -how- much of the statement was untrue.

Of course, this means killer mimes will be in CoV. Heroes will battle them.

Mime and Punishment will ensue. In fact, it already has.

Bonus if Lord Recluse manages to shoehorn any PS238 in-jokes into CoV, though.

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I like the suggestion that holds do 1 pt of damage. Or 0.01 pt. I don't care. As a scrapper and tank enthusiast, I like my targets still. The hold that stopped them is as valuable as my hit.

Make debuffs do 0.01 pt of damage per tick of time. See above.

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And every single sleep power in the game gets instantly nerfed. Right now, a Rad/Psi Defender can hit a target with Will Domination, put them to sleep, drop Radiation Infection and Enervating Field on them, and then they can take the time to fire off Psionic Lance. Make debuffs do damage, and the moment you set one on a sleeping target, they wake up.

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You'd have to build a "flag for exp like damage, but not" flag into every power instead. Same idea, just doesn't do the Sleep-breaking.

Big twofer here. Non-rant, non-whine. Just what I think is a good idea, and a better option than what's been proposed by Statesman as is.

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At this point, any changes to experience gain go on Test. I hope it -stays- on Test. And never hits Live.

Right now, it's about as effective a PL-stopper as wet toilet paper. It is complex, kludgy, and encourages workarounders to act like a pixie-stick-seeking ferret on a sugar binge. You want to stop PLing? Keep it simple.

Exp absorption over time. Simple as that. If you can't data-mine the average rate of exp gain per level and generate a rate from that, I'd be surprised. Set the bar at the high end. Good players shouldn't be punished. Debt, regardless of how much of the exp can actually be used -is still paid off-. I may have stuffed my skull and can only benefit from 100exp, but if I earn 1000 exp, I still pay back 500xp in debt if I had any.

Want to make a PLer ganking +5/+6 bosses solo every 20 seconds slow down? Oops, your PLed friend's exp bar is at "fried". Grats. PL Boy will have a gain rate that's spikes followed by trickles.

People won't feel that smacking purples/mega-herding is the only way to go-a build that can consume large numbers of lower mobs (Fire Tankage, AE Blaster builds) will be as good an option as big-game killers (Ice Blasters, Scrappers) or even safer paced AT's like Controllers or Defenders, or builds that focus on *gasp* taking on plenty of whites to yellows! Risky builds can still be risky and get the big exp arrests, and afterwards still work off the debt from faceplanting during X-Treme Controller Melee Mash.

To me, the problem is that PLing = player gains exp at a rate that far exceeds their ability to produce exp in a team or solo. Remove the ability to benefit from that excess experience, and you kick PLing squarely in the junk. It will go down for GOOD. Unlimited exp gain is the cheese diet of PLing. Remove it, and PLers stop bloating up to obese levels. Let them eat pie. It'll help them lose some of that nasty cheese-whiz weight gain.

Want to make Controllers/Defenders desired in group play 1-50 with this? Give them abilities that improve exp absorption rate- just build them into the current powers. O2 Boost means I absorb exp better? Get me that Storm guy please! Empathy would no longer feel less needed at higher levels, too...especially if absorption buffs stacked by powerset.

Leashes are for pets, not Superman. Exp absorption doesn't slow down anybody who's not being powerleveled, and stopping that is the idea. Not making the game less fun, which is what this idea of "ranged exp" has become.

Thank you Statesman for putting forward the idea. As part of the playerbase, I'd ask to please put it back on the shelf. There are better alternatives.

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And a good way to give L50 players a way past the initial grind? Give them a single slot that starts at L14 (travel powers) or L20....with -debt-. Their choice which level. LOTS of debt. Capped debt. They get their levels, they get powers early...but the balance is reduced exp gain until that debt gets paid off. Two level 50 characters? Two of the remaining slots can start at the higher level. Three? Four? Three or four slots worth. After all, is it really needed to force someone who's gotten multiple 50th level characters to grind out the newbie levels when they've done them...if they don't want to? Combined with exp absorption, you've got yourself a winner.

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Or you could fall off a walkway (or get KNOCKED OFF it- via the new villian Knockback abilities) in one of those very difficult maps, like the Oranbegan ones so many players love to hate for their uncanny ability to defy all attempts at sane navigation (lovely art, BTW, but then again so are hedge mazes).

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You do realize there's no range exp "leash" on mission maps, right? So those mad cave mazes = no exp problem. Elevators, portals, whatever. You're in the mission, you'll get exp.

Any plans on an update to this, post APP's?

What, sucking up a bunch of mobs through a wormhole and spitting them out somewhere else isn't textbook suckage? :P

And, to add life to this thread...

As of now on Test, I4 will have a Kill Skuls badge.

So it will soon be:

Go. Hunt. Kill Skulls. Badge.

Eep! Dammit, and just when I'd stopped making reflexive cheering noises every time Crabs won a storyline tournament.

Excellent choice, though. Any company that has created such a, well creative organized play system and spawned such loyal legions of fans (Drunken Master L5R, anyone?) is a good home for a CoH CCG. And this is from a guy who's last gaming job was as a minion of WotC, pre-Hasbro-borgification.

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For anyone interested there is a press release floating around here: http://www.gamingreport.com/article....e=&order=0
announcing that Alderac has acquired the rights to do a CoH CCG.

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Oh.. my.. god.. What is next? CoH ring tones? A breackfast ceral? Statesman underwear?

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Do you think we could get Todd McFarlene to make figures of Statesman and the rest of the Freedom Phalnax?

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I still want more than Statesman as Heroclix. Give me the whole Phalanx and all the minions/lt's/bosses/AV's you can muster, please!

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Stop the presses! "From the wonderfully playful schoolgirl look, complete with school shoes, knee socks, and stuffed shoulder kitten ; to the ultra cool motorcycle jacket; to dynamic jumpsuits and the traditional Asian student jacket…"

Cat-Girls^2?

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Shoulder mounted kitten launcher. It's a new AR power for Blasters.

(I seem to remember seeing at least one other shoulder sitter mentioned elsewhere, too.)

A vote for kilts here, too. Forget Hulkamania. We need a certain fat fella from Austin Powers....at least before CoV.

We have a number of options available. For example, "No Travel Powers".

Can "No Hamidon Enhancements" be one? Will Hydra Enhancements and such be negative factors to PvP players as well?

Psi attackers like that have the anti-kryptonite of Dark Miasma or /DA Scrappers.

Slotted for resists, a Dark defender can muzzle that wail to the point where the tanker won't faceplant like a Blaster does if looked at crosseyed.

Anyone have a good shipping address for the Cryptic dev offices?

I need to send someone enough sugar that he cracks silly and spills his guts on the boards. I hear he has a red name but likes to read the boards without logging in. Somethingman or something.

How much pie do you think it'll take? :P

Nah. Random chance to do an 8 vs. 8 with the surviving heroes (Including States, of course) in the Arena. :P

Now THAT would be fun. Given, I'd go splat in seconds...

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Still here...been busy with visitors this week. Plus - we've got E3 around the corner and, of course, City of Villains (though I'm not saying anything other than "this year" for a time estimate).

And I've been working some on the Arena (playtesting) and even Issue 5 stuff. Oh - and whatever comes AFTER City of Villains. Wouldn't you like to know that?

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Playtesting....yeah...right. You're enjoying all the power tweaks we'll figure out when I4 comes out. :P

And you must be Stateman's evil dimensional twin. Teasing us with talk of post-CoV content. EVIL! EVIL, I SAY!

We do realize this is ONLY if you set "No Travel Powers" rule for the match, right?

If you're a Hover Blaster (like me), just don't fight in matches that don't allow Hover. Cake.

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I sure am glad you are the official "valid way to play" liason, next time i'm unsure if i'm playing correctly or not i'll be sure to send you a tell.

As many other people have said in this post, i pay 15 bucks just like the rest of you people and i'll play the game how i want to play it. The herding WON'T stop and neither will powerleveling so you might as well go back in your hole.

As you can see there are many reasons why people want to gain levels faster and that's their perogative. By them doing this, it has no effect on me whatsoever, so they play how they want and i'll play how i want....there is NO "correct" way to play.

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It certainly does have an effect. Namely, it skews the player population. Powerleveling, by it's nature, shoves the player community into the higher level range. Eventualy, that is poison to new players, as player demand forces the dev team to focus on top-level content to meet that demand, and neglects the rest of the game.

You can certainly play as you like. Statesman and company can change the game to allow or disallow it as they like as well. And if that's a bit of bitter in your candy, that will be sad perhaps. But it's better than killing the lower-end part of the game from neglect, which in the end is the reason people fall in love and play the game to begin with.

Levels, in the end are not the point. Being able to play as much of the game as possible and have fun is the point. And if content that does this is spread more evenly across the game, you get the joy of playing it -all- instead of driving yourself all the way up by mobsterbation.

As it stands, I think the real reason for PLing is that it's a young game with zero expansions (though certainly added content) and you really don't have enough content to not end up hitting the same parts at times...which equals grind if done too many repeats. Therefore, you want to explore new AT's and such...and there's no way to do something new while leveling up.

Ergo, herding. And I think that a good answer to herding would be figuring a way to change mob stacking codes, or simply limiting the number of mobs one gains xp from KOing by use of a single power. It's just not common sense to be able to drop 60+ mobs into a dumpster and Nova them to hades or burn patch them to flambe. In the short run, though- expect bandaids while the dev team figures out the root of the method and how to recode.

In that way, PLing is good. It points out weak spots in the game, and motivates non-lazy ones to improve them. Keep up the good work- and that's not sarcasm.

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All i want is to try the new archtypes. Powerleveling is the best way to get there, i don't care about beeing 50.

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Only the Kheldian Epic AT is a "be level 50, unlock this AT". Other ones have been noted as being "Finish a TF" or story arc sorts of requirements.

So hitting 50th will let you be a Kheldian alone. If it levels you past doing a TF properly, that might well be an argument against PLing right there.

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If you want people to go through your content instead of PLing, then you should add some more. I've already done all of it (save FBZ) once, most twice, and don't really care to do it again. I thought the Kheldian was gonna have some unique content, but so far it was just my first contact... rather skimpy.

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I4 is going to have addons to the Kheldian missions/story arc. Bet the people who PLed Kheldians are gonna LOVE that. :P

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I just came back from the third day of this awesome event.

Highlights for me:

Best Moment of the Whole Damn Thing:
-Right before I left today, I realized that I'd dropped a set of blueprints from Mallrats that I'd bought earlier in the day. Obviously, somebody made off with them and I never saw them again. In desperation, I returned to the View Askew booth to see if by some far off chance I could get replacements. The guy who played Steve-Dave in Mallrats was working the counter, and reeeallly didn't seem enthusiastic about the giving [censored] away for free idea. Then, who should walk around the corner but Kevin Smith. As I'm trying to remain dignified and NOT turn into a drooling fanboy, he says "We have the display blueprints, but they're a little ripped, you want 'em?" He gives me the stuff for free. AWESOME guy.

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The man's cool. And they've got the Secret Stash shop in Red Bank, NJ (yes, his own comic shop). Which is also cool. The man is 100% geek+++ in the best way.

(Besides, having people film in your birthplace is pretty cool, they used my old church for some of the external shots in Dogma. )

Now if only they'd do something this cool with the Cryptic Crew in DC! Come to Katsucon next year! /beg