Goldbrick

[ QUOTE ]
In my opinion its cause there is no economic system. I feel like this detracts from the sense of community in some way.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does CoX need an economic system, or just more depth of some sort, something extra to do with our characters, both as they develop and especially at 50? Bases are perhaps the beginning of that something extra. I think eventually our characters might be able to create temp powers also, although I'm not sure. Issue 8 may have lots of endgame surprises, who knows.

I am happy that there's very little economy in the game, although I was pretty unhappy to discover that bases were going to be financed by "prestige" instead of all that influence we've been accumulating. That was a nasty devaluation of the influence currency, imho.

[ QUOTE ]
There isnt a good PvP rewards system (PvP items/xp) ... if you are in there for a while you can get an SO... doesnt really seem like a big deal.

[/ QUOTE ]

PvP is also an attempt to provide depth, although it's done more harm than good to the feeling of immersion, and caused and may cause a host of nerfs. I don't think PvP will generate more of the right kind of subscriber -- the loyal, long-term kind, that is.

[ QUOTE ]
Also CoX has this 3 minions==1 Hero thing... thats cool, very true to the genre, i think that this is good because it emphasizes the only thing that CoX offers that other MMORPGs dont (other than its unique theme)...

Beating up on a metric crap ton of badies at once... and then doing it again and again...

[/ QUOTE ]

The 3 minions = 1 hero idea is not "true to the genre", it's vanilla MMO design, and represents a betrayal of the comic book theme. Comics heroes do indeed plow thru dozens of minions without much trouble.

[ QUOTE ]
Three minions vs one hero is just plain wrong for a superhero genre MMO. Minions should be the waves upon waves of disposable pawns that just bogs the hero(es) down in their march towards the true villains.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, the comics are full of examples (particularly in the Silver Age Marvel Comics) of a single hero wading thru the minions on the way to the Real Fight. I remember old issues of the Fantastic Four where the Thing booted the Mole Man's minions away like grains of sand...

[ QUOTE ]
And that's a shame... since by Level 50, you should have earned the right to be up there with the big names.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I slightly disagree here. Yes, by level 50 our heroes should be "cosmic", more interested in thwarting world menaces than street crime, but there has to be a standard of superhero that our characters cannot reach, or the game is over.

I don't want my inv/ss tank to reach Statesman levels. I want to approach that level of power, sure, but the idea of "completing" my character turns me off. I should either be able to build my alts or build my level 50; currently the game only lets us build alts while the level 50s rot on Hive duty.

PvP is not about character development, and while it might be about skill development, mostly it's about nerfing the PvE game.

I scratch my head in puzzlement about the so-called "veterans" or "legends" system(s). How in the world are the devs going to implement these without ratcheting up the nerfcalls on the forums because of perceived PvP imbalance?

If it were up to me, I would have implemented all PvP in this game as a "don't expect to find it balanced" minigame. Cope with PvP as best you can, the PvE game is the primary concern. That would have eliminated nerfs to a host of powers, like Phase Shift, which wrecked for everyone a well-known subset of comic book superhero (e.g., Phantom Girl/Kitty Pryde/Red Ghost/Vision).

There are enough missing superhero types (shape-shifter/size-shifter/elastic/aquatic/animal control/mind-transfer/vehicle-based) that nerfs should not essentially eliminate any of the available concepts just to satisfy PvP.

Now I'm reading nerfcalling threads about granite armor, just as I expected to see. Hopefully the devs can show some restraint on this issue, even if they are following the very flawed "EQ in tights" playbook.

EQ was most emphatically not a great success story. It was just the first of the modern 3-D MMOs to arrive so it had a "captive audience". EQ had plenty of features that players didn't like and those features weren't really addressed in any meaningful way until competition started arriving. I was glad to get out of that game and come to CoH, which has more fun in its little finger than EQ had in its first seven expansions.

CoH should ignore advice from game developers who push the mean old EQ doctrine that an annoyed and frustrated customer is a long-paying customer. That fallacy was only true when there was only one MMO on the block.

[ QUOTE ]
But there needs to be something put in place that gives those archtypes that had to rely on it some of their teeth back.

[/ QUOTE ]

I5 and ED gave them all the teeth they need. Thanks to those huge nerfs invuln tanks can achieve a maximum of 27.5% resistance to non-s/l damage. So 72.5% damage comes right thru, and blasters (for example) still get that 30% unresistable damage thing.

How much more teeth do you want? Some sort of massive inherent AoE debuff field that affects all ATs within 100 yards of a blaster so that blaster damage is effectively doubled?

Defenders could get a boost to their inherent so that all they have to do is wave their hand and other ATs shatter like glass when touched.

Controllers can just have 6x their normal damage in PvP, why not?

ED and I5 nerfed the daylights out of tanks, and PvP bonuses were left in (such as unresistable crits), so no compensation needs to be made for the elimination of toggle dropping. Compensation = I5 and ED and PvP bonuses (tanks get no PvP bonus).

[ QUOTE ]
Well, see, every time I have had a 1 on 1 with my Brute/Tanker/Scrapper vs. another tanker/scrapper (brutes generally being easy to kill) it has always ended in a stalemate, unless I try to drop their toggles for a victory, the fight generally doesn't go anywhere.



[/ QUOTE ]

Dunno how many times I've pointed this out on these forums, but the devs have said that the PvP game is not balanced for 1 on 1 fights, so if you find the 1 on 1 PvP experience unbalanced, that's because it is.

Lobbying for toggle dropping because otherwise 1 on 1 PvP is unbalanced (2 tanks getting nowhere, for instance) will have no traction, nor should it.

If you are having trouble in a 1 on 1 PvP fight, get help. Toggle dropping is not required, and was only included for Arena battles because Issue 5 and ED had not yet arrived.

Toggle dropping is an old arena kludge that was left in too long, and will probably entirely disappear in an issue or two..

[ QUOTE ]
After taking some time to observe, test, and play in RV, I think the toggle dropping change is a mixed blessing.

My conclusion is that it was necessary but went too far. High damage ATs (Blasters, Stalkers) are able to kill without dropping toggles, so their toggle drop nerf made sense.

However, nerfing the toggle dropping of the low damage classes (Force Bolt, Thunder Clap, all the Dominator Assault sets) went too far. Toggle Dropping was the only chance these classes had against melee characters. Force Bolt is a manditory power for Controllers and MMs, and is now useless in PVP thanks to Acrobatics and inability to drop toggles.

Never in my experience did the low damage ATs with toggle dropping seem overpowered. This nerf to ATs that were already struggling is too much. I would like the toggle drop %s for Defs, Controllers, and Doms increased back to their I6 values or at least close.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some facts for you to ignore (again):

The game is not balanced for 1-on-1 PvP combat. Some ATs you will be able to beat, some you won't. With a well-coordinated team, you should be able to defeat any AT.

Arguments that talk about any single AT being unable to defeat a single other AT without toggle dropping are invalid arguments, plain and simple.

Tanks are supposed to be tough, that means hard to defeat. Tanks cannot deal the damage that blasters can, nor should they. Blasters do not equal tanks in toughness, nor should they. If you want tanker toughness, play a tank.

Blasters still have 30% unresistable damage in PvP, so invuln tanker resistances (27.5% max against non-s/l) pretty much mean nothing anyway.

Toggle dropping was a bad kludge left over from the arena. With ED and I5 nerfs, toggle dropping is no longer necessary.

Get a team.

[ QUOTE ]
But the melee can run away until his toggles come back up.

[/ QUOTE ]

1) Run away every few seconds? No thanks, not fun. The toggles on my tank were dropped constantly. Not occasionally, c o n s t a n t l y. So often I wondered why I bothered switching them on. Or bothered going into a PvP zone. Finally I stopped going there.

2) Oops, can't run away I'm perma-feared. Oh well, guess I'm being defeated again by a bad arena kludge called toggle dropping. Bleh, never mind this PvP stuff, it's no fun as a tank.

[ QUOTE ]
And melee players have learned to run lots of toggles in PvP zones as a defense against blasters and controllers. So I dropped three toggles?

[/ QUOTE ]

Total nonsense. I only run four toggles on my tank. Five with sprint. I'm not gimping my build just so I have more toggles running. Three toggles is practically shutting me down, and that's just ONE attack. As a tank I'm hit repeatedly by many attackers, it's impossible to keep toggles going at all. The corrections to toggle dropping in Issue 7 helps that, and will get you weaned from the toggle dropping crutch so that when it is removed entirely it won't be too big a blow.

[ QUOTE ]
Hmmmm… And what happened to me, the squishy blaster, who just closed to zero range against a scrapper or brute?

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait until other teammates have engaged the melee. The game is not balanced for 1-vs-1 battles.

[ QUOTE ]
...or his teammates will save him and slaughter me.

[/ QUOTE ]

What are YOUR teammates doing? Aren't they supporting you?

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that some adjustment was indeed necessary, but this is just draconian.

[/ QUOTE ]

Allowing toggle dropping to continue after ED and I5 at all was draconian. Use your powers, coordinate with your team, don't rely on an old, obsolete kludge that is counter-immersive and has nothing to do with comic book battles (and renders useless tanker primary powersets).

[ QUOTE ]
Detoggling is a kludge. Its another one of those strange mechanics that becomes more important in and of itself than the powers we use to create our characters.

It should be difficult but not impossible to overcome toggles using our powers, not strange mechanics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Precisely. Exactly. QFE.

[ QUOTE ]
Detoggling isn't going away. But, it is being reigned in by a large margin.

[/ QUOTE ]

Darn good news. Not as good as getting rid of toggle dropping altogether, but still very good news. Non-granite tanks might give PvP another try...

Too many people talk about how they need toggle dropping to survive in PvP and then give examples of one-on-one battles, as if all anyone does is solo in the PvP zones. The devs have said that PvP is not balanced for one-on-one, and toggle dropping is way too powerful for team vs team, it overshadows the team's super-powers and probably keeps people from developing good team super-power synergies.

Now maybe PvP battles will really be about super powers, rather than just lazy toggle drop fests.

[ QUOTE ]
Detoggling=Rule Applies For Everyone

[/ QUOTE ]

Detoggling impacts the ATs differently. Detoggling removes a tanker's PRIMARY powerset, making them not a tanker anymore, except for hps. Brawl does not remove the archetype-ness from any other archetype but tankers.

I will spell it out. A blaster still blasts after detoggling. A controller still controls after detoggling. A scrapper still scraps after detoggling. A defender still defends after detoggling. Sure, a power or two in each of these ATs might be shut off, but they still possess their identity.

Also, many powers detoggle, not just brawl. Some powers detoggle multiple toggles at a time.

[ QUOTE ]
Having 2 Level 50 Tanks and a Level 42 Tank, I say detoggling is just fine. Its part of the game, deal with it

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, sure, a granite armor tank who cannot be detoggled is fine with it.

The PvP game is not supposed to be balanced one-vs-one, and tanks are supposed to be tough, that's what they do, and in your words tanker toughness is part of the game, deal with it.

Detoggling is a bad kludge from the Arena, a cheat code that should have been dropped when the Issue 5 and ED nerfs occurred which substantially weakened tanks; invuln tanks after the nerfs could only achieve 27.5% resistance to elements/energies; that's plenty of weakness all by itself, and in PvP the other ATs still get special advantages like unresistable crits, while tanks do not.

[ QUOTE ]
Of course you already know I7 includes 40-50 content for CoV, and as with every update more art updates, missions, and quality of life features. The other items in I7 will be revealed when we get the Feature Update.

[/ QUOTE ]

When will there be post-50 character development? Some way to continue to improve our shelved characters? Non-accolade badges and PvP aren't character development.

Character development includes but is not limited to:

1) more levels
2) "sideways" development like the Alternate Advancement abilities in EQ (e.g., inherent shortening of recharge times, inherent increases in secondary effects, inherent lowering of endurance costs, increased travel speed, etc.)
3) the "skills" system
4) the "legends" system
5) some sort of crafting system
6) more Hamidon-level monsters and rewards

Is PvP holding you back? Worried about balance issues? Well, WoW doesn't worry about the imbalances in PvP caused by differences in equipment/crafting skills/power development choices, why should you?

What is being planned, and when will it be implemented? Issue 20? 30?

[ QUOTE ]
ASSASSIN STRIKE PISSES PEOPLE OFF IN PVP AND THE IMMATURE AND THE WHINERS COMPLAIN ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME

[/ QUOTE ]

As a former invuln tanker, I know all about this. And I know that the immature and the whiners are perfectly capable of getting an AT nerfed.

Rational discussions of an AT's strengths and weaknesses simply don't matter. The devs want the monthly dues of the immature and the whiners just as much as they want yours, and the immature and the whiners outnumber you.

[ QUOTE ]
This thread is going to operate under the assumption that the changes will not be rescinded, and will explore methods of dealing with the reality of the situation as it is now.

[/ QUOTE ]

And hand that information over the nerf-devs? I pass. Tanks should be 20% or at worst 18% of the online hero (not CoV) playerbase, but it's more like 5% whenever I check.

I expect that percentage to drop to 1% or 2% once realm vs realm PvP really gets going. The devs won't care. Mission accomplished as far as they're concerned.

[ QUOTE ]
Ok imagine if you have a full sg of 50's, and they all contribute 10 mill USELESS influence to the base fund.

10 mill inf= 200k prestige
200k prestige times 75 members= 15 mill prestige......not bad to start, but can get better.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are off by a decimal. Wouldn't it only be 1.5 million.

[ QUOTE ]
I just recently started reading through some of this post. While Geko's commandments sound noble, it's hard to keep believing them since he hasn't made a reply or post to the thread in over a year. I was disheartened to read he has the same mindset as Statesman.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed, Geko may want the game to move toward "EQ in tights". If so, perhaps he will get reassigned someday to another project.

[ QUOTE ]
I would say the majority of players are not that interested in PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

Current subscriber base only. They hope for more robust subscriber numbers with realm vs realm PvP. It seems to have been a factor in the more popular games like WoW.

[ QUOTE ]
Come on devs, please prove me wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are not wrong. The game since I4 has been moving steadily toward an emphasis on PvP. The current playerbase will be ignored on this issue because they know the current playerbase has a bias for PvE. They want bigger subscriber numbers, it's not more complicated than that.

Well, okay, it may be about more than money. I think there's some ego concerns driving the game. Notice how they've altered things to steer people into doing the mission content. They work hard on the missions and they want people to experience them, even if a fair number of subscribers find it fun to level up as fast as possible and start another toon.

This is a subtle devs vs the players issue that appears to be behind some of the changes (half debt in missions, increased xp earned in missions, stuff like that).

A lot of the changes since the game went live hint to me that the devs want to cram us into a narrow, "proper" way to play the game from 1 to 50. It seems to gall them that people skip content or find unexpected, "less challenging" ways to complete missions.

I would rather that the devs learn not to be offended by the playerbase and stop nerfing.

[ QUOTE ]
I can see the fans of Kheldians saying 6 months later they are just too cool.

[/ QUOTE ]

Once you get into them, they are pretty epic. I got a pb up to level 16 initially and shelved it, it was too loaded with drawbacks. But with Issue 4 the drawbacks were removed, so I revisited my lvl 16.

A world of difference. Now my pb is 34 and my lvl 50 is storing up HOs for him.

Really, these kheldians are quite epic. Instant phase shift, innate travel powers, solid resistance powers, lots of damage powers to choose from, bonuses to damage/resistance from party members, and the ability to change shape to powerful specialized forms. (Technically, peacebringers get an extra form with Light Form at level 38.)

And another reason why I returned to my peacebringer was because dwarf tankers can't be detoggled in the arena.

Peacebringers and warshades are sub-ATs at worst. I mean, you have enough extra powers to choose from so that almost no two Kheldians are likely to be exactly the same. Sure, some powers are must-haves like quantum flight, but your peacebringer could emphasize human form resistances/damage with healing and controlling, or go for non-human-form play as dwarf/squid (tank/mage), or with the warshade stay human and be a pet-controller/debuffer with good resistances and innate teleporting and blaster-type powers, or go dwarf/squid.

[ QUOTE ]
The short answer is that I do not have to make a Kheldian if I choose not to. The long awaited anticipation will be that the next release of ATs is a true reward for my time invested and loyalty. That is will be a wider array of generic-type categorical ATs that allow for obvious difference to the beginning player.

If I want to say he or she is an alien or even a plant, that should be my choice alone.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I have a little warshade too, and I chose to go all human and claim that the alien energy was captured in a device.

There's a lot of alien-energy-powered heroes in the comics, not the least of which is Green Lantern (a peacebringer if ever I saw one).

[ QUOTE ]
I also Like Hurl but the Damage is poor and the range is so short you may as well go up to the bad guy and use Haymaker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hurl is the exact same damage as Haymaker. The range is 40, which isn't that bad.

The only thing that's kind of poor about Hurl is the long animation, and that you can only throw a rock.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Positron, I did the ENTIRE Alexander mission as an exemplar with a friend last night. I was exemplared 30 minutes before he got his badge. I did not receive the badge upon completion.

Here are a few things I noticed that were unusual:

1. The badge was awarded upon returning to the contact after mission complete. I exemplared one other mission with the same guy and we both our badges upon objective completion (he didn't have to return to his contact). Maybe there is some issue with a badge that is awarded by the contact.

2. I was zoning at the time he talked to the contact and got the badge. Maybe that was somehow related to me not getting the badge.

I petitioned but have still got no real human response other than email that says "we are working on your issue", which is frustrating because I am becoming a real badge fiend and I have no more friends left in that level range. Even if I did, I am not remotely confident that I would receive the badge, at this point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent post.

This helped me find a bug in Alexander's mission where only the Mission Owner gets the reward. I have fixed this... it will be a while before the fix makes it to Live however.

[/ QUOTE ]

It appears that the Field Marshal Ruladak Task Force in the Shadow Shard is similarly bugged. A week or so ago I was on a team that did the whole thing, I was there thru the whole TF, and was close to Ruladak when he finally dropped, took us 8 hours, and only the fellow (the great tanker named Impact) who started the TF got the badge.

The entire team got a lvl 53 SO, I did too, it's on my character. But no badge for completing the TF. Is there any hope that I won't have to repeat this long TF someday to get the badge?

[ QUOTE ]
The tanker pulls a car out of his butt and chucks it at the bad guy? Makes no sense to me. To have hurl worl porperly, the entire environment would have to be reworked so that it it's fully interactive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand why it makes no sense to you. Don't controllers pull a forklift outta thin air?

My first impression on hearing about the gradually escalating damage of the tanker is...

...at high level, group fights are over fast, probably way too fast for the tanker to throw more than a Knockout Blow (as it has been fixed on test) and/or a Foot Stomp/AoE. I suppose the quick Jab power will be more valuable, especially if Jab provides a way to quickly boost the damage of all the other attack powers.

It depends on the group makeup, of course, but a couple of blasters in the mix means things are gonna be dropping fast.

Where the gradually escalating damage will make a difference is in soloing, particularly against boss mobs, and in longer battles vs. Archvillains. A welcome change there.

In fact, I suspect that after the change goes thru, I might be able to tackle lvl 49 AVs on my own (Shadowhunter comes to mind) to harvest lvl 51 SOs, depending, of course, on the upper limit of this damage escalation.

It would be cool if the upper limit was really high, of course, even if it took a while to get there.

I am not by any means complaining about these ideas. The AoE taunt effect from throwing a punch sounds good, although it will be best for tankers who don't already have Invincibility.

[ QUOTE ]
Why didn't they just tone down on Invincibility? I mean, isn't that obvious?

[/ QUOTE ]

Invincibility is a power that provides damage avoidance, a to-hit debuff for enemies that ramps up based on how many mobs are surrounding the tank.

Properly slotted with SOs, it generally takes only two or three mobs in close proximity to give a tanker maximum protection against getting hit by same level mobs.

Mobs that are higher level than the tanker will have increasingly greater relative accuracy vs. this power.

As far as nerfing this power, I believe there's a 95% cap on total damage avoidance, so even level 1 gangs could score a 1 point hit occasionally against a level 40 tank. But why name a power Invincibility if that's not what is meant?

This is a toggle power and can be shut off by stuns etc.

Damage avoidance powers also include Hover, Stealth, Tough Hide, and Combat Jumping.

Finally, everyone please choose a new target for nerfing. The tankers are looking pretty beat up now.