Frozen_Northman

Thanks for starting this topic, Castle. Much good discussion to be had.

1) No buffs To Hit vs. No Defense - in other words, how one might start playing your typical game. I'd really want to have better than average chances of hitting, for the sheer psychology of wanting to feel like I'm not spinning my wheels. I'd like at least a 60% chance of hitting, unaided, or possibly a 70% chance. Conversely, if I'm a defender with no Defense whatsoever, I'm pretty much expecting to get hit.

2) Maximum To Hit vs. No Defense - this should pretty much be the maximum chance to hit. Most game mechanics I know of effectively set this at a 95% chance to hit, with a 5% chance of screwing something up royally. But if it were possible to change this ratio to something like 99% chance of hitting and 1% chance of missing, I would. If a sniper is aiming at me and I am completely oblivious to him, I would be seriously surprised if he missed on his opening shot.

3) Default To Hit versus Maximum Defense - I pretty much feel like this should be the exact opposite of scenario 2). Admittedly, this may be a gut reaction from being part of a D&D campaign, where a natural 1 on a d20 always misses, and a natural 20 always hits. There should always be a chance that someone can hit the target from sheer dumb luck, just as it makes sense that an overwhelming Defense should be able to avoid just about any conventional attack.

4) Maximum To Hit versus Maximum Defense - ouch. This one is really tricky. My gut reaction is to say, the exact converse of scenario 1) - below average chances of hitting. That is, a 30% - 40% chance of hitting the target. That allows the attacker to feel like he's making _some_ progress, but it's an uphill battle. Of course, the situation could be swayed dramatically if someone else tips the scales by reducing the attacker's Accuracy, or the defender's Defense. This also fits what I view as the comic book dynamic - battles are often decided by a key moment that deprives one side of its strength.

In City of Villains, the level of infamy necessary to obtain Bling (and thereby unlock Doc Buzzsaw) seems a little oppressively difficult to get prior to level 30. (At which point Doc Buzzsaw is outleveled.) Many of my friends only earned Bling at about level 31. I earned Bling by spending a prodigious amount of time either malefactoring to lower-level villains, or racking up debt to slow down my leveling.

I'm also curious as to the current levels of ghosts that spawn in Port Oakes around Fort Hades, and which are necessary to unlock Veluta Lunata as a contact. When I last ghost-hunted, the ordinary ghosts would spawn at levels 8-10 throughout the fort. However, ghost traps would sometimes "explode," spawning a bunch of ghosts in the 11-15 level range. (This would include one or two Elite Bosses.) By comparison, Veluta Lunata's missions cap out at level 10. This makes it hard to experience Veluta Lunata's mission content, unless one enlists the aid of a drastically over-leveled character to do the ghost-hunting.

Is there no badge for hunting Luddites? I haven't seen a progress marker for them, despite taking down both lieutenants and bosses.

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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!

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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?

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I remembered facing this guy back as a Stalker in Beta, at a time when I didn't have any available teammates to help take him down. This was profoundly frustrating. I beat him by deciding that debt no longer mattered, and that I would exploit the rez bug mercilessly.

My tactics essentially encompassed:

1) Hide and Assassin's Strike Ballista.
2) Placate and Crit Ballista.
3) Run like heck around a corner.
4) Let Ballista kill me so he would walk back to his spawn point.
5) Rez and repeat.

I can contribute my level 50 Ice/Axe Tanker for some testing. I also have a Dark/Dark Defender in the low 30's, and a MA/Regen Scrapper in the mid 30's.

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In addition, if a group completes a broker mission everyone on the team will get credit toward a heist that will lead to a new contact introduction.

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Here's how I'm reading this statement. (I welcome correction if I am wrong.) Presently, if a team does a "newspaper" mission, only the teammate that has that mission gets credit towards his broker. This unfortunately provides incentive to run newspaper missions solo. The proposed change means that if you help a villain with his own newspaper scheme, your broker still notes that you've been busy, and you'll be able to pull a heist that much sooner.

That said, it is insanely easy to outlevel the Port Oakes content, and the early Cap Au Diable content as well. I was constantly maximizing my debt to try to keep experiencing content from my various contacts.

One issue is that many contacts seem to only offer badge missions _after_ you have completed a story arc. Since story arcs include multiple missions, this contributes to leveling up quickly, which in turn means that you'll outlevel the contact before ever seeing the elusive badge missions. My suggestion on this issue would be to have these contacts offer badge missions _first_, and _then_ proceed to offer story arc missions.

I'll also note that getting Veluta Lunata as a contact seems really hard to do without outleveling her content. Her story arc seems to cap at level 10-11 enemies. To gain access to this contact, players need to capture 50 ghosts at the spirit traps of Fort Hades. The spawns of ghosts tend to be in large numbers, and often close to level 9.

Thus, in order to fully experience Veluta Lunata's content, this suggests that a player needs to put together a large team of around level 8-9 characters to go ghost hunting in Port Oakes. However, over-filling a ghost trap runs the risk of spawning a large group of _level 15_ ghosts, including Bosses and Elite Bosses. This little wrinkle then suggests that the best way to earn the badge is to get a high-level villain on the team, to round up a bunch of ghosts and defeat them, while also being able to handle any nasty level 15 ghosts that pop up. I would strongly suggest double-checking this dynamic to see if it is working as intended.

I'm getting pretty depressed by the proposed changes to Ice, too.

I dislike the proposal to let Wet Ice retain Defense slots for long-term players, but not for newcomers. I don't want my level 50 Ice/Axe Tanker to be treated differently from a fresh one out of the box.

I'm waiting for the next round of changes on Test before I comment on speculated changes to Hibernate or Chilling Embrace. I only wish I could say that I was waiting with cautious optimism. I feel that the changes reflected on Test, thus far, have shifted Tankers even further away from the concept of the comic book "brick."

In the spirit of brainstorming and feedback, I offer the following suggestion: Has anyone considered letting Ice deflect a flat amount of damage per attack? Even a small amount would be helpful without breaking the game. For example, an Ice Tanker could subtract a flat 10 points of damage from each hit. This would not provide appreciable help against the powerful attacks of high-level villains, but it would effectively let Ice shrug off Swarms and Caltrops as dealing no damage.

Statesman, thank you for your attention to these issues. My personal thanks also go out to Circeus for his tireless organization and summation of the difficulties that Ice Tankers face.

Like Statesman, I enjoy and appreciate a challenge. Triumph over a difficult-but-viable challenge makes me feel like I have skill, and that I can figure out how to overcome a problem with what I have at hand.

Facing off against an Archvillain or Monster as an Ice Tanker has rarely seemed like a difficult-but-viable challenge. This is because my success or failure is mostly due to factors beyond my control.

Ice Tankers have a much smaller margin for error than other Tankers. Some Archvillains can one-shot an Ice Tanker from full health, even with Hoarfrost. Plenty of Archvillains can one-shot an Ice Tanker that is mildly damaged. While other Tankers can gauge how long they'll last against an enemy, playing an Ice Tanker is very much a crapshoot.

Just looking at the numbers, one may perceive that an Ice Tanker takes a comparable amount of damage over time compared to other Tanker sets. The problem stems from not being able to mitigate massive damage over a small span of time. Realistically, Ice Tankers have fewer options and less time to react to a situation that starts going badly for the group.

If I successfully face off against a major enemy, I feel like it was because I was lucky, not skilled. That's not satisfying.

What I've enjoyed most about CoH has been the possibility for versatility. Limiting the number of viable solutions lessens the fun. I suspect this is why a lot of Ice Tankers chafe at the idea that they "need" to either take Tough or team with a Sonics Defender - they want to be viable with a broader range of options.

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All you need to know is that you can handle any AV just fine and dandy (with 6 slot Tough) except Mother Mayhem, Anti-Matter, and Infernal. Besides those 3, tank away my friend, tank away. My level 50 Ice Tanker had a blast in those 10 levels, an utter blast.

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I respectfully disagree with the suggestion that only 3 AVs would provide difficulty at that point.

Psychic Clockwork King, Vanessa DeVore, and Malaise all use hefty amounts of Psionic attacks. I also remember Nosferatu as being an auto-hit nightmare of an Archvillain, with psionic and dark energy damage.

In the event that you do _not_ have Tough (which was the case with my Ice Tanker), the list of troublesome AVs gets even longer. Shadowhunter and Bobcat both provided me with new definitions of pain, I assure you...

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Yup, the key to our issues here. However, I've never noticed Fire causing me issues. EA gives defense to Fire, yes?

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Yes, EA does provide much-needed defense against fire. However, the net defense against fire will still be less than Defense against the other damage types.

This becomes more of an issue against enemies with really high accuracy (Archvillains), or if Fire Damage is used in conjunction with powers that lower Defense. (Definitely a possibility in PvP.) Plus, there's the struggle that Ice Tankers face _before_ they get EA. Sky Raiders were quite the pain for me, prior to EA.

Fire may not be as great a weakness as Psi. But it's still a weakness.

Incidentally, Circeus, I would list "auto-hit attacks" as another weakness of the Ice Tanker. It's an advantage that Damage Resistance has over Defense.

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In the entire game, can anyone come up with one mission where you would do better to have an ice tank on your team?

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Any mission with Malta Sappers. Any other Tanker in my Supergroup gnashes his teeth on how much they hate them, whereas I just charge on in. I am their offical "go-to" Tanker for Malta missions.

However, I will grant you that Ice Tankers suffer the pain against Archvillains.

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So, if you have time, please throw me a bone in regards to the presence pool powers and to the effect of enhancements in chilling embrace. Thanks!

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I haven't tried using the Presence pool powers, so I can't help you there. I can answer the other question, though. Slow enhancements _only_ affect movement speed. You cannot enhance Chilling Embrace to further slow down an enemy's recharge rate.

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1. DA, Ice Armor, Stone Armor - the f/x are going throug a redo and the powers will be made stackable. I'll tell you when as soon as the schedule is solid.

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As regards Ice - does f/x refer purely to _visual_ f/x, or will there be any reworking of what the powers actually do?

Stacking Frozen Armor, Wet Ice, and Glacial Armor will give potentially great defense against Smashing, Lethal, Energy, and Negative attacks, and some Defense against Cold and Fire. Psionic and untyped attacks will punch right through (and be more of a pain if they carry Sleep). Likewise, Cold attacks will still have a decent chance of punching through and sleeping or slowing us, which just seems... wrong.

Whew - finally read through the whole list.

Though it's been mentioned already under a different name, I'd love to have the stance that I call "Milking the Giant Cow." The villain holds both of his clenched fists high above his head as he exalts in his villainous victory.

A pacing emote would be great, especially if it worked in hand gestures similar to the existing "persuade" emote. It would reflect the villain mentally going through his plans.

Contemptuous turning one's back on the heroes, with appropriate cape swirl.

Nervous glancing over the shoulder.

A "talk to the hand" gesture.

Statesman - You've got a winner, here. I had been hoping for improvements along these lines, but wasn't sure how exactly they could be implemented. Truly, you and your team know how to finesse an idea to make it workable.

I would be sure to rigorously plan and test for how this would affect Tanker melee Cone and AoE attacks. I can easily see Tankers landing a number of blows to get a huge group of enemies surrounding them, building up their damage rating, and then letting loose with their AoE attack.