Gravitos_EU

Fear not!

I will make everyone look good, by being so late, it could be next year's happy wishes. ;-)

I have crossed paths with thee, here and there, Master Z. May you have as many bold adventures ahead of you, as in the past. Even more if possible. :-)

Thanks for the initiative guys. Even though I stumbled upon the event with Astrum, by accident. Everyone left happy, to my knowledge. :-D

I am pleased you can take out MM's, that means a reduced chance for "adjustments" to the AT. ;-)

Had some positive experiences with Bodyguard myself, PvP was kind of depressing after SC on live. But things looks much better now, on test.

I have tried to be negative about it, but so far Cryptic has not let the MM AT down. I am quite impressed so far. :-)

I saw you a little in Siren's. A rather catchy name that was. Congratulations on 40. With the foothills done, here comes the mountain. ;-)

Very nice initiative Master Zap. Just the kind of VG I would have joined, if not busy elsewhere. We all know that if you can't beat them, make something that can. Haha-Haha!


Max Verstummelung. ( Mercenaries/Traps, technological MM )

So, are you Ob or Max?

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Max. Both me and Oberst got the reputation badge now, so it's time to move on to the final battlefield I guess. That is, when I7 arrives.

Hope to see you there. Well, not up close actually, that hurts. I should not say this, but after SC, Scrappers become much more difficult to fight. ;-)

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You know its not too late to turn away from your evil ways. Dont worry, im not going to sing an inspiring song at you to a scrolling Paragon City flag background, but still, think it over. We have benefits even the villains dont get.

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Sorry, but that would seriously affect my plans for World Domination. Besides, I like my uniform too much. I do however admit a failure in proper etiquette, as a participant in the little rave party. ;-)

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Umm...

The situation for the Heroes was far from optimal that evening. But there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, on broadcast that is.

Maybe you should have pulled out before, if you don't like the base camping. The Heroes ganked us at the base at the end, and that's how it goes. Back and forth, back and forth. When it gets bad, pull out and return later. That is what most do.

The chat was not that bad, even though some of it may not have been instant classics. But "Extremely Bad Behaviour"? Hello? Come back when it gets nasty, or perhaps not. ;-)

My only advice: Dont take everything so serious!

And for the Hero dancing on MY corpse, that was funny. :-)

P.S.

Golden Girl is the most Heroic in spirit. Perhaps the only person that makes me regret my evil ways. ;-)

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Excellent. Will now get two enhancement slots to use elsewhere. Not bad. Not bad at all. Soon the World shall fall under the footsteps of our countless minions! Muahaha! Muahaha! Muaha... *Takes a pill* Well then. Nice job. Carry on. *Falls asleep*

Things in SC might be a bit extreme, with all the specialised characters running around. At artificial levels, and optimised PvP builds.

My level 40 MM had some limited success there, but that was last stop.

After SC the Traps Set is all but useless in a dynamic battlefield, as indicated. In Warburg it is best to run when the Scrapper arrives. If you see him, that is. :-)

Without the Poison Trap, Scrappers would have killed me 100% of the time instead of 80% of the time, in SC. And my only chance of getting reputation from Scrappers, would be to steal the kill from someone else. That's fair... ;-)

Without the Poison Trap, there is no way to get enough damage through Scrapper defenses. Not with Mercenaries at least.

The Scrapper need only be near the MM once or in some cases twice, to get his rep. The MM must avoid him like crazy, or be cut down in seconds.

In Warburg it will not even start to work, before I am dead. I have survived one Scrapper attack in Warburg, using the Poison Trap, Trip Mines, and 16 Health Inspirations. And I had help!

I am sure Scrappers would like to kill MM's without any danger or second thought. And I am sure they will nerf my only chance getting back at them. But just don't give me any speech about fairness. I have seen enough of that.

It's called "Kill the MM in 3 seconds". That's YOUR kind of fairness, The_Private. ;-)

Heh. This means the Triage Beacon may come in handy. Respec'ed it out because it hardly gave enough bang for the buck. But with damage distributed this way, maybe it is time to reconsider.

When you take increased damage, this will not save your Gluteus Maximus, but it could make it harder for Blasters to one-shot you. That would be great...

Not very inspiring powers, they should have used more time on developing something better than the current "copy to all" approach.

Sure, I could use a shield personally. Provided the effect is subtle and lag free. ( Yeah right. Haha. )

The rest of the powers just feels a bit generic, and not tailored for MM's at all. :-)

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The pets tend to go down fast if you don't stand close to them and direct their actions, as well as heal/buff them. Treating them as an extension of your squishy self, not as a replacement, works quite well for me at least- But I must confess both my MM's are ranged.

Some suspect melee type pets go down faster than ranged ones, this must be investigated. Perhaps close combat pets actually should be made more resistant? Oh heresy! Nerf the ranged ones!

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But is the reason MMs is the most popular AT that they are the most powerful or because they are more fun and completetly diffrent from CoH ATs?

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I would say a combination. But the reason is not terribly important, if an AT is in majority, there will be nerfs to support *other aspects* of the game. No matter how old and boring they might seem.

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All the other CoV ATs is just a sligthly diffrent version of an CoH AT. Corruptor/Blaster is shoty, Tank/brute is punchy etc. So isn't it possible that many old CoH players choose MM because they were new.

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It is tempting to believe that controllers that had their pets seriously nerfed, now go the MM way. Why was the controller pets nerfed you think? This is a big warning sign, if you ask me.

Sure old players want something new. But perhaps this new AT was made too interesting compared to the old recycled ones. Maybe someone believe the MM must be made less interesting, so that the other AT's can be better represented. That's what they call balance. Even though it's a weakness in the design. Making the other AT's more interesting instead, would be pretty unique and goes against that famous statement regarding power changes.

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Besides MMs is really funny to play. You can give your pets wierd emotes and make them talk.
IMHO that's the main reason why MMs is so poular not that they are a more powerfull AT than others.

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It's interesting to note that we are not supposed to have *fun* in certain ways. Sometimes *fun* are defined by some developer, despite what the players say.

Additionally, not all the players find pets amusing, and some might even launch campaigns against them. Some find anything besides mechanical experience collecting, a waste of time. ;-)

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Besides it seems like ppl think that MM level faster. If that's so how come all the players that started out at the same time as me has kept up to my level pace? Not to mention that not matter AT it allways take me about the same time to get it to lvl 14.

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When players team, they will level at the same speed. The first levels can be navigated solo by most builds quite fast as well. The MM has it's own team, and can take on more enemies than most solo players, this will be more pronounced as we progress in levels. This make the MM a target for nerfs, because of the famous 3 minions vs. 1 Hero/Villain rule, that is so incredibly important, for some reason.

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The problem is that you can do more things faster than average, as an MM, because of all the tools. That, and developers love to hand out shiny toys like these, only to decide they shine too much later. Typical fresh release syndrome. :-)

Besides, if a majority should gravitate towards one AT, that AT will be nerfed by default. Directly or indirectly. Does not matter how consistent it may be. Or any argument for that matter. Balance issues. Easier to cut the tallest tree in the forest. Because it stands out. ;-)

Finally, it's a gut feeling after going through a lot of MMORPG's. You just look at gameplay, and can see that this is too good to be true.

Boltmeister: Yes you are absolutely right, we don't need more lag. I was furious when those new AoE calculations was found to cause lag. That's the last thing we need. *sigh*

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I think had they made the 2 Heal powers moveable it would be a lot more useful. Spirit Tree , like a Triffid could amble along behind you and the Triage could move on suspender field or something. Given it's relativly low output that at least would have been a bit of a compromise.

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The idea of placing something static in one location is incredibly out of touch with normal gameplay.

How obvious must it be, ah yes you have to play to notice. :-)

[ The original design is clearly flawed. These two healing sources should obviously not be static. The indicated solution is brilliant. This was inserted for clarity. Have a nice day. ]

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Yes LostNinja. I am also afraid they will remove something fun, or just turn it into some kind of micro-management hell. I would rather have the fun gameplay intact, and level slightly slower. I am afraid some in-bred *vision* will be forced down our throats yet again.

But if they want slow leveling, perhaps they should look at the game for a change, and not the player characters. Looks to me you just generally level faster after ED... MM or no MM. :-)

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Multiple rocket launchers firing at the same time, can be a very satisfying experience. That's music to me.

( Teaming with another MM regularily, that's why the "multiple" was used. Only got one Assault bot. :-P )

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Believe me, I don't want any nerfs to the MM ever. And yes that initial Q & A was a satire. Don't read it as the truth in any shape or form.

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Your taking things WAY too far over the edge... if any changes are gonna be made, they wouldn't stretch that far!

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Really hope so. I played pet user in AO and SWG, and the pet user started strong there as well. *Started* is the keyword. ;-)

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Perhaps the team balance is off. But perhaps the stalker has been made *too* slow, and some styles made incompatible for other reasons than the MM. Maybe the sheer number of pet users create bad blood in itself. Perhaps the other AT's was weakened too much by ED. :-)

Axing the most popular AT, will always be faster than changing the environment. Looking at team dynamics, and tweak powers positively, in orther to create synergy, that takes much longer time. :-)

If people was made irrelevant by pet users, they most likely was at a lower level, or the team had mostly MM's. It is a logical assumption to avoid heavy MM teams, if you like more varied styles.

I say the MM works. Now fix the rest of the game. ;-)

Ok, I am feeling generous so here comes the quick and dirty MM fix:

Q: What would you do to fix the MM for now, if you had no other choice Gravitos?

A: Reduce the experience gained by pet kills. Enough to scare away some, but not enough to make the MM obsolete. That way gameplay is preserved, at a slower pace, but yet at the same speed.

The MM must however not slow team experience gaining in any way, because then nobody would like to team with them. So the loss must be personal. This create a whole new set of issues. ;-)

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Different people have different ideas of what "fun" is. A stalker is slow by nature, and compliment a unique playstyle. Just as the MM is fast by nature, and compliment a unique playstyle. Should one be nerfed, because the other is different? Do one have more fun than the other?

Should not the goal be to make sure all playstyles can be fun in their own way? But of course, that would require a more complex game, and more varied missions. Easier to nerf that which stands out!

Nerfs will come because fast gameplay let players beat the game, thus they will leave sooner. What the player actually like, is important only as long as they stay. ;-)

The sad part is, that the MM provide the efficiency and speed of pre-I5 gameplay, and the feeling of achievement is notable. As such it must "deservedly be nerfed", in order to be downgraded to the current sub-hero/villain standard. :-)

As for not liking pets, that is a personal problem, rather than a game mechanical issue. There must be a real choice left, not a crude mockery of an AT, when the dust settles.

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Projected interview with a developer regarding the changes to the Mastermind, in the near future.

Q: So what was your vision regarding the Mastermind, why these changes?
A: Well, the initial group of three minions felt alright. Especially when they operated a level below the player. That's fine. The next group was slightly overpowered we thought, so we had to put them on a timer, and reduced their numbers. You can only have one from the second group now. But it will last for 3 minutes, and only be down for 6 minutes. That should be good enough.

Q: And the last pet?
A: Uh, yeah, that was not in the vision. Clearly granting the player superior advantages. We removed it and gave the Mastermind 5 percent more damage to compensate for it. Not that the MM truly needs any compensation, mind you. The last pet power will now resurrect a fallen villain, and boost his powers for a limited time.

Q: And the pet upgrades, they were changed too?
A: Yeah, we were kinda happy about the first upgrade you could get, but we felt that it came too early, so your first upgrade is now your last upgrade. But you CAN still use inspirations on the MM pets, we like to see more use of inspirations. They are fun! Besides, in the future we believe we can give the MM some kind of aura, to compensate for the pets. You see, we don't really believe pets should be a large part of this game. Oh yes, we will put in a good temporary pet buff that lasts for a grand total of 20 seconds, in the place of the upgrade power we removed. Just to show how nice we are.

Q: Thank you!

I am now writing my darkest thoughts.

MM's level fast, and you get to absorb damage. Absorbing damage is the exact opposite of every nerf philosophy of late.

Why was the MM introduced, because it is nothing but a big tease, ready to be removed. Is it a trick to get people to play, and then axed in all but name, because such tricks never can outlast hard MMORPG reality?

Fast and furious leveling, that actually is fun, represents a big no-no for the developers. I am tired of great concepts, that ultimately was destined to be taken away. Why must this cycle repeat itself? It causes great frustration.

When those robots launch their rockets, you just shake your head and wonder how long it will last. I find it quite deceptive to tease people like this. Just like the regeneration, this is a doomed concept, that could have made this the best MMORPG ever. But it will be another blip on the radar, nothing more...

There are some great assumptions here, but I have every right to believe they are true. :-)

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