GadgetDon

I like the strategy. A few notes:

We've managed to hold aggro with just 4 masterminds. More is good, but they may be better used elsewhere. However, the MMs won't be able to hold aggro once we attack Hami, and they may even lose aggro once people are attacking Greens. AOEs must be avoided against the greens, and the targetter must be careful not to mistarget for a moment. Once yellows are down, we should have the brutes be ready to taunt Hami. I know they're not tanks, but they're the best we've got.

/Poison MMs can provide support for the brutes, with their antidote and alkaloid powers. That's what I've done in two of these raids. The poison MM must have antidote, and ideally have it three-slotted with recharge (and perhaps an endurance reduction or two).

The six brutes holding aggro can probably do that with just taunt, rather than actually attacking. This lets Stone brutes use their inherent mez and knockback protections from the ground.

With six brutes and stalkers simultaneously attacking a yellow mito (then seven on the next, then eight on the next) we may not need to have the assult team in there attacking greens. Just a thought.

The EoE counts work if everything works perfectly (though I doubt that the melee assault team will find them optional). But we'll need more in case there are problems, as well as brutes taunting hami. I don't think we can assume we'll get enough EoEs from spawning Hami. Isn't there a monster isle for villains where we can farm first?

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Yeesh Gadget Don - tell us about it! You've been around forever and a day...I'd love to see your Task Force ideas.

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A new posi? :P

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Actually, my thought for the hellions, skulls, and outcast was to replace Positron, and then take the storyline of the Positron TF and create a Faultline TF out of it.

Well, there's one with Sebastian Frost returning to the US from Europe, rumored to be picking a successor.

Then there's one where the Circle are trying to acquire certain highly questionable technology from Crey--and the question will be why, and whether or not they should be stopped.

And then there's a low-level one with the Hellions, the Skulls, and the Outcasts, all after something.

And interestingly enough...there's something in common between all three of them.

The solution that has been suggested is making player crated submissions "What if" missions, maybe on their own server. Unless they are at some point moved over to the main servers, there's no rewards, no xp, etc., so a Monty Haul mission is impossible

And I would kill to get my hands on such a tool. I've got three task forces already written in the back of my mind.

Please create an RSS feed for the City Scoop.

Just saw this from the phone call thread I got from the Why I Love Virtue Thread. It's GREAT.

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So I was curious as to what made this different.

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Because it was fun?

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Apparently so, but why? That's what I was getting at - what made this fun when the same behavior in the same place under different circumstances is a suspending offense? That's been answered to my satisfaction now. I get it. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I acknowledge that that has more to do with my own baggage. I have this unsporting hang-up about advertised rules being enforced.

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Don't be so silly about rules - there was no debt, and it was on Test - so no change to your PvP rep or anything - and they weren't showboating either - there was no way they could have won a fight against so many Heroes - they came, they fought, they died, they entertained us

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If there's no debt, so no harm was done, then all in fun. If there was debt, even though it was on test, I would have been unhappy as well.

I hope your confidence in I9 is justifed. For myself...there isn't that much that is fun to me, and a number of things I dislike.

The moving of the content forward DOES excite me though. However, when you say:

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New costumes, new temp powers and new inventions.

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PLEASE don't make the new costumes "inventable". I created the look of my characters when I create them. Unlockable items, that I know when I can unlock them (cape, aura, witch's hat) can be planned for if they fit. But random drops, maybe you'll get it maybe you won't, might as well not exist.

I'm really looking forward to I10. I wish I shared your enthusiasm for I9.

I've been reading and made it to one raid so far, so I accept that what I say is not definitive, but here goes.

Mito clearing is designed so that everyone has a role, but the problem is that the roles have to be done in sequence. First the meleers have to get organized and take down the yellows, in several coordinated processes. Buffers have a role of "stand there and buff" but if you're not a meleer and you don't have buffs, get out of the way. Unless the meleers are exceptionally skilled, that's going to be a lot of waiting.

The blues make the meleers useless, but they go down in short order, so that's not bad. Greens also go down fast, and here everyone gets to be involved. The problem is the yellow phase that takes the longest and has many people sitting around with their fingers up their rears.

Then we get to hami. And it's three spawns. That are completely unavoidable, and so far appears to be no way to make happen without wiping most of the raiding part in the process. And, IMHO, that is what is going to kill hami raiding. Beyond the fact that I wonder how many people will enjoy knowing "OK, here's the part where everybody dies again", but it's three more mito phases with getting everyone organized AGAIN and getting the yellow mitos cleared AGAIN while the non-meleers wait.

Question...how many monsters are in the hive that need to be cleared? Is it the same huge number there were before, spawns with half a dozen or more giant monsters clustered together, or have the spawns been redone.

I dunno. From what I've heard, the devs have done the impossible. Make the Hami encounter even more unfun.

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You do realize I've done this so far with Stone Armor/Super Strength (Tanker) and Fire/Fire Brute? Next is probably going to be a Corruptor. If they start nerfing, they may as well do another global nerf cause I can do this with any character.

Or they could buff AV's.

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Or we could reduce the effectiveness of a suite of Temp Powers. Shivans and the Nuke's are pretty dang good.

And before more people jump on Optimus, we've known those powers were over the top since they were created.

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If you do so, please look at what has been buffed because of that.

For example, I was recently in a good balanced team doing the Eden trial. We got to the Quarry, the Giant Monster designed for 2-3 teams in our single team instanced mission. Couldn't even nick it. A few shivans, and we could have dealt with them handily. We shouldn't have had to do that.

Also, for the Lord Recluse Strike Force...those are now considered necessary by most teams I've tried to enter.

If you reduce the effectiveness of the nukes and shivans, that would be great, IF you also adjust the encounters that appear to make them mandatory.

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Positron,

Just wondering if there will be a point in time where non-anniversary log-in badges will be awarded again (Longbow Reservist/Jet Setter, Heart of Light/Darkness etc.)

Thank you

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It would be particularly great if those could be on a per-account rather than per-character basis. I've got some characters in mind that would be great with the patrician robe from last year's Valentine's day event...but it's not available.

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I've been a fan of Senator Lieberman for a long time, but this is one issue we've never agreed upon. For those that think he takes this stand for votes, I don't. I believe he truly does believe in the effect the media has on our children. The problem is, he's gone to taking government action rather then focusing on the real issue - the parents.

I was very disappointed to see this video and to see Sen. Lieberman involved. I'll be sure to let him know that whenever I next see him. The intellectual leap that the video takes is beyond the bounds that anyone can take seriously. Putting Statesman into the same scene as Columbine? Seriously? And Flight Simulator is to blame for 9/11? So any educational software that could be used for destruction must be dumbed down to the point where it is no longer educational? Wrong approach, and I can only hope that these videos show how wrong it is rather then accomplishing their goals.

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To be fair to Senator Lieberman, they may well have just used news footage of him.

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I'm extremely disappointed that an image of Statesman would be used in such a way. I know that we designed City of Heroes to appeal to "children of all ages." My proudest accomplishment with the game is that many parents (including my brother) play with their children...sharing, I hope, the same joy for the comic book world that I've had ever since I was 8. I cannot express the shock that I felt seeing that a character created by Cryptic would be used in the same sentence as Columbine.

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While I appreciate the shock of seeing that picture included with the other game footage--none of those games should be used in the same sentence as Columbine. Connecting any of those games to real life violence is insane. It's just more insane in the case of CoH/CoV.

You've created a great here, and illegitimi non carborundum.

One thing that would add the personal level would be a "Member suites" option. It shows up as a wall item, that looks like an elevator door. Clicking it, a menu appears with all members of the group. You can visit other people's suite, or in your own edit it.

Member suites are a 2x2 room, with their own prestige allowance (say, 20K) which they can spend on purely ornamental items. Additional items that would be great: display cases with souveniers you have received, maniquines with your various costumes, etc. While it has the same issue of being hidden, it at least is personal.

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I want to stess this:

We are NOT working on a Greek mythology game. Or an ancient history game. Just want to kill that rumour!

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Pity. My favorite game, pre-CoH, was Zeus, a citybuilder game.

I find MoG useful in two situations.

The big use is sappers. If I could get another power with the same endurance recover, I'd say goodbye to MoG happily. I get petrifying gaze and stealth. If for some reason petrifying gaze isn't enough to deal with sappers, I hit MoG

The other use I put it to is, am I going about to go down--all my recovery powers are in a recharge, no green inspirations, and I'm fighing someone that's doing big damage and isn't going down fast enough, I hit MoG. I get a win then about half the time, the other half I am defeated anyway. Since I'm not often in that situation, it's not worth the increased fragility.

Cuppa, thank you for everything you've done for us. You will be greatly missed. Good luck with Tabula Rasa.

And it goes without saying that if you ever have the urge to put on the cowl and capes for a bit, we'd all be proud to fight the forces of evil with you.

There's an event with a Ballista in St. Martiel. He's still an elite boss, with a set level...but it's an event.

Also, Eochai is the pumpkin king.

Unfortunately, all the pictures of giant monsters I have include players

Saw your later comment. This post is now irrelevant, obsolete, and generally speaking a big oopsy

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I can't think of a reason why the devs would want to "avoid" having level 50's generate extra prestige. It sounds like a perfect reward for maxing out your character, to me.

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Why would you want anything other than level 50's in your SG then?

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Why would you want level 50s in your SG then? If a SG in the group is getting shafted by no xp and yet nothing to compensate, and they can getdouble influence/infamy, why not kick them out for players that will be have a reason to be active?

OK, double-prestige may be too much. But, instead, how about "when earning no xp, you additionally earn as much influence/infamy as if you weren't in SG mode. So, instead of XP + Prestige, it's influence + Prestige.

It'll stop ripping off the 50s, and those who exempler. Right now, having a 35+ character exemplering is a double rip-off. Not only no xp and no influence, no enhancement drops to sell for influence.

I was in the Virtue successful raid, and while yeah, we won yipee wahoo...it wasn't much fun.

I was in the previously named ISS (Illusionist Suicide Squad, but other than some deaths in figuring out how low we could go, how to get there, and some illusionists falling out of group fly...we were safe. Stay in our spots, drop the pas, fire off AM, Hasten, any speed boosts when we have them, boring.

Meanwhile, the mito squad had several near wipes. The system is now set up that instead of a significant risk of defeat and debt, it's a certainty. If a gamemaster when I was doing paper and pencil was saying "OK, in this event you will die, nope, no way around it, there will be people dying here" I wouldn't play with him any more. The issue is the change in aggro. The strategy throughout the whole game is, non-squishies draw off aggro from squishies. This change that strategy completely. It needs to be changed back.

And for the holding...fortunately the taunter never lost visibility. But given how often it happens...having to rely upon visibility is unacceptable, due to the limitations of the programming of the game. If they want to keep this, they need to give a clear clue. Since there's a new power being used when held, that power needs a different description, so the taunter can look at the combat log and realize when hami is held (because he's only getting hit by the fricking laser beam mounted on Hami's head).

And, we had no griefers. That doesn't change the fact that it is trivial to grief now. Changes needed to reduce griefing:

(1) Make the power used while held single-target. So if someone steals aggro while held, they can't bring an aoe blast into the holders.

(2) Either make the DE monsters simple monsters (not giant monsters) or set them so they don't won't enter the goo (Yeah, Hami loves them like children, but hami's made it clear he doesn't like them wandering within him).

(3) Make the Hub a no-ambush zone. No Kronos spawning.

Plus, now with the aoe power that's fired even when held...all you need to grief is a couple of tanks in with the attackers, using taunt and attacking. They steal aggro away from the taunter, all the squishies near the griefer take a few strikes and die, hold is broken. And it's a lot harder to identify a tanker taunting.

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Brutes have a single target taunt effect in their Primary.

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Brutes have a 5-target AoE taunt in their primary.

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Is this confirmed by a redname anywhere?

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Not a red name, but I play a brute periodically, and use the taunt to draw attention of a group to me.

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Here's a suggestion.

If you don't like Hamidon as he's currently implemented?

Don't raid him. Don't go there. Play a lower level alt. Watch a movie. Make out with your SO. Avoid the un-fun, making it clear that it IS un-fun and that you will do other things instead.

You've let the 'reward' from basically farming the giant monster turn you from a superhero into a grinder.

If the post-50 content is unpalatable, or unplayable, just ... don't play it!

And they will notice, and they will either add something new, or fix the Hamidon in some significantly dramatic way. But at this time, there's actually a counter-impetus to changing it to anything better - the whining and howling of the masses when their HO farm gets taken away.

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We were all expecting some changes (well, I was, as were others) and figured we'd have to rework the strategy. This though kills any enjoyment from it. They take the two current major risks for a failed raid and make them far worse, rather changing the problems to be solved. The changes they've made do nothing to change the strategy to take them down. They just ensure that controllers and defenders will end up with max debt and the odds of failure are very high. It's still...distract hami and the mitos, take out the mitos one by one, hold hami, take hami down.

I keep hearing from people who are saying "raids weren't any fun". If they weren't fun, they shouldn't be raiding. For many of us, it is fun. It's fun seeing large groups of heroes working in concert, and it's a social event. It's not what I want for end game PVE content, I would love to try to take on a task force similar to the CoV task force, but it's not there.

This is the CoH PvE end game. These changes are no fun. I'd rather have fun.