Gothika

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Now, before the uproar starts, I have to say that unless we find a satisfactory solution for the last item on the list, these IO's have a high probability of being cut before reaching the live servers. Even if that problem is solved, it is still unlikely that you will be able to slot all 4 versions in a single character -- either that, or the stealth aspect will be reduced greatly.

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I will be extremely disappointed if the +Stealth IOs are dropped.

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Because then you might make uninformed decisions!

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In a way.....yes. The less you know numbers wise, the more you are likely to just pick powers that go for flavor, which is what this game was attemping to appeal to. I know personal friends that hate getting lots of numbers thrown at them, as they feel it is sometimes just a major distraction from fun at times. Whether they pulled it off or not is up to you to decide.

(I am neither defending nor condenming the Devs, just giving a proposal of a likely point of view)

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What you're describing is fine from a design standpoint (not one I agree with, but it's legitimate design if done deliberately), but it's based entirely on obfuscation and forcing people to make 'uninformed decisions'. It's annoying because of how Statesman keeps saying how he doesn't want players to make these 'uninformed decisions' yet the game is littered with design decisions that force players to do just that.

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Heck, if the maths in this game weren't so secretive and screwy, there wouldn't be any need for people like Arcana and myself on these forums.

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I've never understood why Statesman doesn't understand this.

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Because then you might make uninformed decisions!

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Ill bet Castle is wishing he had never said anything on this post at all.

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Not at all!

Samurai: It was a player, not an NPC. I know, since I was playing him! He is a Spines/Regen scrapper.

The power: What you are seeing is actually a graphics bug created by the demo-record/playback process we use to take screenshots.

And now you know!

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But see how much cooler Spines looks without giant bananas sticking out of you?

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It's like I said, we are looking into other options that keeps the mechanic of the four pool system. Our intention is to not make people feel "gimped" for previously completing all their story arcs.

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FLASHBACK

It's not a difficult problem.

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But could be difficult to code.


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Maybe, maybe not.

The tech already exists to reduce a character's level (exemplaring) so they could add a button that could toggle 'flashback mode' (similar to the button that toggles 'supergroup mode'). 'Flashback mode' allows you to get any mission from any contact you have and redo it, with the catch that as soon as that mission is active (the yellow marker turns into the red marker) the character with the mission is automatically exemped down to the maximum level of the mission, similar to the tech that already exists for TFs. This would only apply to the mission owner; anyone else invited to the missions is treated as if they're on a normal mission, so higher level teammates would need to be exemped down manually and so forth. The mission owner couldn't toggle out of flashback mode while actually in the mission. If the character toggles out of flashback mode while they still have a lower level mission(s), the flashback missions will just grey out.

Some safeguards would need to be put into place to discourage PLing using the system but otherwise, most of the tech is already in game. The major sticking point seems to be a philosophical one, not a technical one.

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just got a reply.
"It is NOT resisted. This is as intended."

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is it intended that it kicks ice/ in the teeth while the other sets get a poke with a stick?

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Invulnerability gets hammered pretty well. Most of that set's non-S/L mitigation comes from Invincibility. Slotted up and surrounded by enemies ( needs 10 to cap it ) gets you right around 30% Defense. When Rage drops it is a -20% to Defense. The Rage drop causes Invincibility to stop effecting mobs so it stops granting the Defense bonus. This takes you from 30% to -20% Defense. I'm not sure about Ice but if that set gives you 30% with your armors you would still have 10% Defense.

Rage can amount to up to about a -50% Defense Penalty for Invulnerability Tankers.

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Keep in mind that another part of the damage mitigation in the Ice set comes from the Chilling Embrace damage debuff, which also stops affecting enemies during the Rage crash.

Although it wasn't on the list, I'd say I like the gameplay and powers the most so if this poll is to give the Devs an idea of what new stuff they should work on, I'd say new powersets and power customization.

As for the choices on the list, costumes wins over the storyline. Custominzing my characters is one of my favorite parts of the game (add carnie costumes). Anything you could put in (carnie costumes) that'll add more diversity (carnie costumes) to the character creator would be great (carnie costumes).

Storyline would be third on my list. Some (but by no means all) of the missions from when the game was first released were somewhat bland, but ever since Striga the storytelling has really been a fun aspect of the game. Some of the 40+ villain mission stories especially are awesome. So that would be my top three choices in order of preference.

Thanks for all the great work in CoX and good luck on your new project!

Let's see... near and dear to your heart, eh? If it's a Deadlands game I'm so there!

Since Cryptic is already in bed with Microsoft for the Marvel game, maybe Statesman can wrest the Shadowrun license from Microsoft as well and do a Shadowrun MMO!

Awesome! Been wanting to do this for like, forever!

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We've got a nice tweak to the Domination ability coming down the pipe (it will crank up your Mez resistance while it is active), and are currently data-mining PvP to see what effect our last set of tweaks to the AT have had.

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On the one hand this makes me incredibly excited. I've posted before how I think since Doms are at least semi-melee they should get some kind of mez protection, at least part of the time. Only thing I'm a bit hesitent about is piling yet more abilities into Domination. Dominators with Domination running are already pretty awesome. It's the rest of the time I find them somewhat lackluster, personally.

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the issue stalkers have with claws is the design of the set for dps



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The problem is the design of the set is for dps, but an integral part of that design, Follow Up, is missing from the set. Is it really so much to ask that this difference between the Stalker and Scrapper sets be accounted for somehow, regardless of how it's done?

Intended or not, a 90 second recharge and 60' range makes LR a novelty power at best. I'll be passing on the set myself.

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Lag aside, I liked most of it. The jousting gets a bit old, but that's how the system works.

The only shocker - PLEASE tell me this is a bug - is when a Stalker hit my AR/Dev (I'm a glutton for punishment, I know) with a Confuse. I don't know if it was AoE or not, but I died very, very suddenly. Not because he hit me, but because my own trip mines detonated, my own Auto Turret lit me up, and my own Caltrops slowed me down.

Please - this IS a bug, right? Sheesh.

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Ninjitsu secondary has an AoE power that has a chance to confuse, so it's not a bug.

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But to address your concern about doms effectiveness on large teams in PvE I will agree that it's a challenge pre-SOs. Doms cannot take on large spawns until they have their AoE controls slotted with 3 or more SOs, which doesn't happen until your late 20s, early 30s. That's because AoE controls were nerfed a couple issues ago, and doms have only 80% hold time compared to controllers. Without SOs, that translates into literally 10 second hold times vs. large spawns that will aggro to you the instant they are freed.


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Not to go off too much with PvE, but the thought just hit me while reading this so I'll throw it out here. One of the most common comments about early level controls on both Doms and Controllers is how poor they are until SOs. What if the base durations on Mezzes where increased by 25% but the Enhancement bonus moved from the 33% schedule to the 20% schedule? That should make a mez 3 slotted with SOs have the same duration but the higher base would give low levels controls a bit of a boost. Example: base 10 duration mez slotted with 3 SOs currently gives a duration of 20 seconds, give or take a small fraction. My idea would give the same mez a base duration of 12.5 but 3 slotted with SOs would still end up with 20 seconds if my math is correct. Or would all this be more trouble than it's worth?

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Repost from Brute forum, but hadn't seen anyone mention this specifically, a problem I noticed with grounded....


Anyone else notice this problem with Grounded?

You need to be on FLAT ground for it to work, not just not in the air. It seems any little slope or bump makes the protections worthless. I accidently tested this by running around in The Gutter in grandville. A web grenades hit me when I was on a slope and I started to slide, when I hit bottom it instantly went away, I took one step up the slope and it came back, not from another throw, but from the same one. This happened for about 20 seconds straight, as soon as I stepped on the slope I was immob'd, as soon as I slide to flat ground, gone.

Bumpy areas are a nightmare. Running around the gutter its a mess, I was getting pummeled with web gernades and they'd hold for half a second, i'd hit "flat" ground instead of a small hill and gone, step onto the next bump, back. Magnitude seems high, I was shrugging off 4-5 greandes in a row if I was on flat ground, but one on uneven ground was enough to shut me down.

Seems Grounded really needs an increase to what is considered "near the ground". Perhapes a jump height above ground. At least enough so uneven ground doesnt count as "air" =/

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The problem with Grounded is worse than that. I stood on top of a pill box and repeatedly got knocked off of it. Standing flat ontop of an object does not count either. Secondly, standing flat on the ground where it DOES work (most of the time), I got hit with MA/Dragon's Tail and was thrown back 15 feet.

I've also been juggled while running Grounded which leads me to believe it only works when standing flat and not laying down either.

Also, neither the short nor the long text for the power mention the knockback/immob res. yet.

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It seems to use the same code that Earth Controller single target Holds/Immobilizes use which means you have to physically be standing on the ground for the protection, and the game doesn't seem to consider many odd bits of geometry as 'ground'. This will be especially apparent in the old cave maps where all kinds of slopes and ledges won't count as 'ground'. Since this has been an issue since CoH Beta, I'm guessing there can't really be an increase in what's considered 'near the ground' due to game engine limitations unfortunately. Hopefully I'm wrong about that.

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I still think a hitpoint boost would be good though - we are still far too vulnerable without very specific builds (leaping and medicine are essentially required for a Dom to be vaguely viable in PvP at the moment - I don't think that should be the case).

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I think this is one of my biggest issues with the state of Doms right now. Basically that anyone with any success to report had to have these to Power Pools in their build. Ideally PvP would be a place where a variety of ways to get the job done could meet, but for Doms its Leaping and healing or your toast.

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I actually found I had a much easier time with Fly instead of Leaping, but that's mostly because it seemed 90% of all the heroes were Leaping and/or SSing Scrappers so I was able to hover over the battlefield and do my thing with less fear of being jousted. Aid Self was absolutely 100% essential to have any chance whatsoever though.

Only versus Holds though, I believe. Disorients wouldn't be affected by Acrobatics and would detoggle it if you slap two of them on the Dom.

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I don't know if this has been mentioned but the 1 hp hospital trip just slows things down. Its a real annoyance. Can't we have full health or at least half?

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/not signed, that delay that annoys you, makes the zone one where tactics matter, past waiting for a regrouping. Right now, you kill someone, and he wont be back for at least a minute or two, allowing you to do something. remove that delay, and local area wins become unlikely.

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Fair enough, but then it needs to be implemented in a more equitable fashion, since /Regens and self healing types can get back into the action with nary a delay while poor stupid schmucks like Dominators nearly spend more time in the hospital than out in the zone. Give people who die a stackable two minute 'rez sickness' debuff or something.

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Power sink does not seem to miss at all. It cannot be slotted for accuracy.

In several hours of usage I did not see it miss.

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It's autohit, like Energy Absorbtion.

That's not the experience I had. I found that I died so fast to Blasters and Scrappers I couldn't get healed fast enough to stop it. Being completely buffed up to the max by multiple Corruptors helped, but that only brought me up to the level of unbuffed Heroes. Vs completely buffed Hereos I still felt completely outmatched. Now I have no doubt that in a coordinated group a Dom can be effective against groups of mostly uncoordinated opponents, but that's a function of a group that knows one another working well together far more than the power of the Dominator.

By far the biggest problem I had was constantly getting mezzed by everything. For an AT that has low Health, no heals, few buffs, few debuffs and is expected to be in melee range at least part of the time, it seems like a no brainer to me to have some kind of innate mez protection. The only other melee character that has no mez protection at all is the Blaster, and they have much, much higher damage and more Health. Dominators are the squishiest AT in the game.

If it were up to me to make a couple of adjustments to improve Dominators, I would offer two suggestions:

1) Give Doms an innate, low level mez resistance. Mag 3 or 4 seems about right to me as it would be very easy to overcome with any kind of stacking but would at least give a Dom a fighting chance against the innumerable low mag stuns and holds that everyone and their grandmothers get. The idea is Doms are treated as bosses instead of minions with regard to mezzes (which frankly, is how I think everyone should be treated but that's another thread).

2) In order to make Doms less dependent on Domination, I'd remove the damage buff portion of Domination but increase both ranged and melee base damage to around .90 level. Right now under ideal circumstances Domination could be up for 90 seconds, down for 200 seconds. The idea here isn't to increase damage over time, but to lessen the dependence a Dom has for Domination (which will still be great with all the other benefits it would still have).

A note on Breakfrees: Despite how often I was utterly slaughtered because of being mezzed, I thought the rarity of Breakfrees in the zone due to the way the characters were created for the event was an overall improvement for PvP in general. I don't think ATs should be balanced around inspirations and currently too many fights revolve around Breakfrees in particular. I think everyone should have boss level mez resistance, at least to the big three toggle dropping 'you-can't-do-anything' mezzes: Holds, Disoreints and Sleeps. Then, and only then, could Breakfrees be adjusted somewhat for PvP. That's just my opinion.

Exactly. 45 second recharge would have been acceptable.

I thought LR wasn't affected by Fury. Did that change or am I thinking of a different Electric Melee attack? Either way, if it goes live with a 3 minute recharge my interest in the set will disappear. 3 minutes isn't even a once-per-fight ability. No thanks.

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I don't know what the numbers on Dominators pets are - but controller pets have an accuracy of 300%. That is why sings can hold or hit almost anything in sight, and fire imps destroy all they go after.

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Sings might, I know mine rarely misses. But Phantasms, Phantom Army and Animate Stone sure don't have anything close to that much accuracy. They miss quite a bit. I think the accuracy bonus is inherent to the Sings, not the AT. I'd be surprised if Dom Sings didn't have the same accuracy.

My Stalker uses a bit less End (though to be honest End wan't much of a problem for me anyway) and has a tighter attack chain as well, especially if ditch Eviscerate completely (which I'm not really inclined to do since I like it for theme reasons). That's why I made a point in saying I liked the changes. That doesn't mean there aren't still Stalker issues though, and it's not all about 'big numbers'.

The reason Claws works so well as a damage over time set for Scrappers is very much because of Follow Up. Take it away and replace it with Build Up and the damage over time, the strength of the set, suffers. I'm not a math wiz so perhaps someone who is can either verify or disprove this mathmatically, but it seems to me that a quick, low damage set synergizes very well with a near constant 30% damage bonus, as opposed to a 10 second 80% (or is it 100%? I forget for Stalkers) damage bonus every 45 seconds or so. The issue is very much also one of damage over time for a Claws Stalker. That's certainly the way I feel on live, and while it's somewhat better on test I'm still feeling the lack of both a good out of hide spike to leverage my Build Up and a reasonable damage over time to compensate for the lack of a spike. Claws was never designed with Build Up in mind and it shows, in my opinion. I'd be very curious to see how the two sets compare mathmetically and if it would match how it feels to me in game.