Greyhame

[ QUOTE ]
You can't have it both ways. Needing an AT to get past a section of the TF is preferable to that AT not being able to do the TF at all because no one wants to invite them.


[/ QUOTE ]

I somehow missed this argument earlier. If I understand correctly, you are arguing that
A) The STF must *require* all ATs
or inevitably
B) Most players will deliberately exclude some ATs from their teams (like the RSF).

I was all set to disagree with you, but after thinking it through I believe you are right. Mind you, I stand by my argument that creating contrived circumstances that require specific ATs would not be fun. The problem is, if you create a TF that is so insanely difficult to complete, players will use extreme min/maxing in order to succeed. This will lead to excluding ATs/powersets. Logically, there are only two ways I see to prevent this kind of AT exclusion:

(1) Create contrived mission goals that require specific ATs so that teams must have X AT to succeed. This option would not (imo) be fun, and ultimately will fail (see below).
(2) Make the damn TF easier so less min/maxed teams have a reasonable chance of success. This option the devs aren't likely to do.

About (1) failing: Even with created situations that require specific ATs there will still be exclusions occuring. For example: I have a 50 brute that has trouble finding RSF teams. Why? I'm the right AT... but I'm not /Stone. There will be specific powersets that are more favored, and some powersets will still face exclusions.

The Devs have really dug themselves into a hole here. Hamidon is a similarly difficult encounter, but there is no limit to the number of people that can attack him, so there is no reason to exclude people. By creating a small scale encounter (max 8 people) that is Hamidon level difficult they have created a situation that will, by design, need min/max teams to have a reasonable chance of success, and thus, AT/powerset exclusion is inevitable.

No one likes this. The devs are against min/maxing, and the players have made it clear that the RSF final encounter is universally hated. The only remaining solution is (2), make the damn things easy enough that a less min/maxed team has a reasonable chance of success in a reasonable length of time. Bring some fun back to the endgame. I'll wait on pronouncing total doOo0oOmage until we see how it turns out, but I'm not really looking forward to the STF now.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This I disagree with. Having different parts of the TF be much easier if you have at least 1 of all the ATs is a good thing - it will be incentive for people to build balanced teams. Having X AT be required for success isn't cool. I *like* that TF's can be accomplished by varied groups, and the variety of playstyles/tactics that evolve from that make this game continually different, even if I've done the TF already.

What you are advocating is just the same kind of cookie cutter teams we have on the RSF now, just on a larger scale.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry you like not having classes being required to finish a TF (And really, it's not required so much as things get /much/ harder that you'd be foolish not to bring said class, because you always gravitate toward setting up a team for easy mission completion.), but when you don't go this route you end up with the problem with the LRSF. You can't have it both ways. Needing an AT to get past a section of the TF is preferable to that AT not being able to do the TF at all because no one wants to invite them.

[/ QUOTE ]

The fact remains that you are advocating a TF design that requires cookie-cutter teams, and cookie-cutter = blah boring. They would be more balanced than the current cookie-cutter brute+corr RSF teams, but still cookie-cutter. That's not a good thing. Design the STF so all ATs have a very useful role, such that having the AT present makes the TF much easier, sure that's a good thing. But design the STF so that all AT's are required? (or so difficult w/out them that it is insanely frustrating) not a good thing.

Some flexability is needed to keep it from becoming what the RSF has: min/max team = boring, non-ideal = severely frustrating. That's too polarized, and just not fun.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Controllers will find themselves greatly desired in the final battle if the team wants to have any chance of winning

[/ QUOTE ]

Please tell me he didn't just say that you don't have any chance of winning without a Controller?

- Jock Tamson, Who lacks active Controllers in his SG.

[/ QUOTE ]

He didn't say that. "Greatly Desired" is not automatically "Cannot Win Without".

[/ QUOTE ]

"if the team wants to have any chance of winning"

Could just be poor phrasing, but that looks ominous to me.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't like it.

Not because of the AT balance, that's nice.

Not because of Oranbega, I like that place.

But because the Statesman Task Force, the grand be-all-end-all of missions, is against Arachnos.

Arachnos, who, if you don't set foot in Faultline or PvP zones, and you ignore the mindless repetition of band missions, you NEVER SEE.

Personally, I thought the final fight in the STF should be against enemies you've definitley seen, and couldn't avoid, like Arachnos or Longbow on CoV. Personally, I always liked the idea of a mass jailbreak, headed by Baron Zoria and Nemesis. Fill the other points with villain group leaders everyone knows like Doc Vahz, Crey and Requiem, and you've got a solid epic fight against people who've been your enemies the whole game.

As it stands? Foes you barely know the backstory of if you didn't play CoV. And last I checked, parts of the STF were constructed to show hero-only players things only CoV got beforehand. Why spoil it by filling it with enemies that if you only play CoH you only know exist and run the Rogue Isles?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hehe. While I don't object to fighting Arachnos (new content is sorta the point, after all). I would love to see some of the nasty Kheldian AVs or a sneaky surprise plot twist by "Nemesis?", etc.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't quite see how they can say they learned something and then say this. Having a certain AT be required, which is basically what this says, is no better than having one or more be marginalized.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, having certain abilities be /required/ to beat something is /good/. We /need/ more of this. In old school RPG's you had to have all your bases covered with classes. Every class has specific roles that had to accomplish that only they could accomplish. Now everything is really homogenized because, "Oh no we don't want them to be stuck if they can't find /blank/." Well dammit, this is a big [censored] mission. I say put stuff in the missions at are /impossible/ to say, hit with melee. Or things that need to be controlled to advance, make things that you /need/ a tank there to taunt away otherwise they'll waste everyone. And of course you'll need defenders to keep the party going and scrappers to deal with the hordes of things that /are/ in melee range. Do it, I want teams to die and team wipe because they thought they could run it without X AT because "dey are squishy". I want people to cry and wail in misery and gnash their teeth for building unbalanced teams and neglecting ATs. Maybe it's a bit harsh, but /not/ doing this is what leads to people running teams through LRSF with only certain classes. Because if you don't /need/ an AT for the job and another AT is /easier/ to run it with, then people are going to go with the AT that is /easier/. No question.

Oh yes, and thank you for putting mayhem mission action into this. I agree with others when I say that I don't think anyone wanted to bust up civie things, but we certainly wanted to put a hurting on recluse's engine of destruction. Now you've done it and put it into the kind of epic TF that's going to make it cool and makes more sense. (Because really, how often do the heros bust into the evil lair to cause some havoc?)

[/ QUOTE ]

This I disagree with. Having different parts of the TF be much easier if you have at least 1 of all the ATs is a good thing - it will be incentive for people to build balanced teams. Having X AT be required for success isn't cool. I *like* that TF's can be accomplished by varied groups, and the variety of playstyles/tactics that evolve from that make this game continually different, even if I've done the TF already.

What you are advocating is just the same kind of cookie cutter teams we have on the RSF now, just on a larger scale.

[ QUOTE ]
And for those of you who worry about lag... it's time to upgrade. I'm sorry. It's only going to get worse from here on in. 7900GT cards running on PCI-E will run this game quite well on a 2.2GHZ processor.

[/ QUOTE ]

In case you haven't noticed, most of the lag issues in this game are due to inefficient coding/graphics. I don't object to newer, nicer graphics, but when they are proveably coded in a highly inefficient manner, the problem isn't the client systems.

[ QUOTE ]
Look everyone its this plan and this simple... Ok so u got to fight all them at once and the flier ... And if u figure it that is still only 6 .. The RSF is 8 heroes ... And some of us did it when they was 54's like me .... So dont cry about it just deal with it.. And i hope they are 54's starting to b/c are at least 53's like it was for longest on us .... So u need to stop crying about everything suck it up and find away around it like we have had to do ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Like an exploit?

Positron:
[ QUOTE ]
We wanted there to be a reason to have Archetypes other than Blasters and Defenders on your team. Controllers will find themselves greatly desired in the final battle if the team wants to have any chance of winning. Our goal was to make sure that all the Archetypes had something to do that could mean the difference between success and defeat.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm glad you learned that, but your statement leaves me doubting your understanding of the problem, and therefore, your solution.

Min/max teams are most likely to be Tank/Scrapper + Defender/Controller. Melee has mez protection, defenses and good damage (especially w/ buff/debuffs running). Controllers contribute plenty of buff/debuff/heals, and are unlikely to be left out because their secondaries are 15% less effective than a defender's primary.

Blasters are *most* likely to be left behind for the same reason some /search for blasters last on other TFs: squishy aggro magnets with no mez protection can't contribute to the team if they are dead. It's much easier to just perma-buff the damage of a tank/scrapper than it is to continually buff the defense, resistance and mez protection of a blaster.

Blaster + Defender teams *may* technically be the best possible for min/maxing, but the amount of buff spaming required for that sort of team makes Tank/Scrappers a more likely choice.

[ QUOTE ]

* Framerate drop when exiting a mission


[/ QUOTE ]

Corruptor /Cold shields and post mission fps drop thread.

I'd like to point out that secondary makes a difference in what attacks are 'best'. My claws/invuln no longer has Shockwave, and I picked up Spin again. Since Invuln gets so much of it's mitigation from Invinc (which requires enemies in melee) Shockwave is often counterproductive while Spin fits my secondary perfectly.

[ QUOTE ]
Except for three of the powers, this build in a Solo-dream that can aid a team in damage and slight healing/buffing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Out of curiosity, at what level difficulty do you solo? I ask because from just looking over the build, I honestly thought it was designed for teaming on low-mid level difficulty. Not insulting your build - just that I'd at least expect KB protection (Hover/Accro) and 2 acc or 1 acc + Tactics for high difficulty soloing.

My WS shows lots of slow enhancement in the tool tips that should be recharge. Since it does not display recharge at all, I'm assuming this is a text error, not an actual enhancement of slows. It could be though, I haven't tested.

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

/signed. While a potential problem does exist (with some other games), there were so many logical gaps, inconsistancies and outright untruths in that video I am appalled.

[ QUOTE ]
arggg...no.

XX/Devs is FOTM but great guide... basically you are a droning master - as you lay down caltrops and 20 mines and sit there cloaked waiting to tp foe a villain into it...this annoys me to no end as most devs blasters will KS in PVP (unless you are on their team).

P.S. - little secret - mines are pets - a confused blaster in the middle of mines goes BOOM!

a couple of suggestions = - on most of your examples you have tripmines past 30 - essential for SC is Cloaking,caltrops,webnades,targeting and the lovely tripdrones...er mines...all need to be take before or at 30.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds to me like you missed the whole point. Forget everything you know about Tripmines. In fact, forget Tripmines altogether for Sirens - /Dev scores far more kills without them.

Its all about mobility with stacked perception and Webgrenade. Pin 'em with a web'nade and blast till they die while hopping around like a crack monkey.



[Edit: About Taser's range - it does not accept range enhancements, and did not on Test. This is intended according to Castle.]

[ QUOTE ]
EDIT: There was also a slight change to Cloaking Device which should help with the SG breaking Stealth a bit. Experiment with it some and let me know what you think.

[/ QUOTE ]

AAAAAAAAAARRRGGG!! What change, the suspense is killing meeeee!!

Anyone figured it out?

<QR>

The mob Perception needs to be lowered to match mob perception elsewhere in the game. Superspeeders in particular are getting hammered by this.

Cool, thanks to everyone who added additional info to make this easier. Glad it's helping.

This is a guide to making your trenchcoat tail interior any color that you want.

I stumbled across the solution purely by accident, and I'm not sure if anyone else has posted it, so I will try to explain. The key is this: the color must be set before the trenchcoat is initialized.

First: this will only work on a costume that does *not* already have a trenchcoat, and it will only work if you have not already used the costume editor with a trenchcoat in your current game session. If you have, change to a non-trenchcoat costume, close the game and restart. This will reset the costume editor.

Now, with a fresh start in the editor on a non-trenchcoat costume: select the 'Copy Current Colors Across Entire Body' option. Then for both costume color options, select the color that you want on the interior of your trenchcoat tail. Then (and only then) give yourself a trenchcoat. The trenchcoat will be forced to initialize with the color you chose. Now you can unselect the 'Copy Current Colors Across Entire Body', go back and fix the colors on the rest of your costume.

If you already have a trenchcoat: go to the tailor and edit your costume. Remove the trenchcoat. Close the game, and restart it, then follow the instructions above. I haven't tested this part, but it should work.

After all the work in balancing out the various powersets/AT's the devs have done, they created a major repeatable end-game experience that effectively requires specialized AT's, powersets and builds. Don't know about anyone else but I gave up on the RSF months ago. I play for fun, and the RSF wasn't. Yes, I'm bitter.

Very amusing guide, though.

The guide itself contains some good pointers, but the AT roles are straight-jacketed. You describe one possible way a team can work, with some powersets (TA defenders aren't going to heal, after all). This is not unexpected from a one sentence description, but "Commandments" is not an accurate title for such a guide. 'Telltales', 'Suggestions', or 'Guidelines' would be far more appropriate.

Most impressive.

Hahahahaha!! Best guide ever! I hope it's been added to the guide to guides somewhere.

[ QUOTE ]
In the case of AoE not being useful to a stalker: you have at least an arguable point when it comes to AoE damage but not when it comes to AoE slow, which is tactically significant to stalkers. Slow is an excellent debuff for a class that can utilize hide to enable criticals.

[/ QUOTE ]

I *know* that's theorycraft, because if you had actually tried it, you wouldn't be making the suggestion. The debuff (even stacked up some) just isn't strong enough for this to be practical.

[ QUOTE ]

Spines has impale and nothing else? It has the highest AoE output of any scrapper set. Its competitive with the AoE output of the fire blast set.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're going to make an argument, use the right AT. Stalkers aren't Scrappers.


[ QUOTE ]
Lets see: ripper sucks compared to those "MA high end attacks" like I suppose Eagle's Claw. Well lets see here: ripper does 75% of the damage of Eagles Claw even if none of the toxic DoT lands and it does it to multiple targets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Valid... for a scrapper. Ripper won't guarantee a crit, and Eagles Claw will. For a stalker, that makes all the difference. Stalker damage is balanced around the ability to control criticals (read: stalker damage sucks without crits). Spines for stalkers really does revolve around Impale because it has *no* other serious (non-AS) attacks that will guarantee a crit from hide. The AoE potential of the set means very little to an AT designed around controlled criticals and *single* target threat elimination.

[ QUOTE ]
After numerous PMs, I figure I should address this.

First, we know about this. It was noted as happening during Beta. At that time, we decided to watch the PvP data and see if it proved a problem. Stalkers are not doing poorly in PvP at any level range.

Second, I discussed this with our QA and programmer and have filed it as a bug. It is low priority, however, since Stalkers are still the best in PvP according to our data. As such, there is no ETA for a fix.

Third, there is a workaround for this issue. I'm certain you all can figure out what it is, if you don't already know.

Just to reiterate on Placates mechanics:
Placate, the power has two portions: Placate (the effect) and a Hide equivalent.
Any attack or effect on the original target will break the Placate, but not the hide -- only a new attack on any target breaks that.
In PvE, we've made the AI ignore Effects when placated, so the AI still ignores you (most of the time.)

Placate is a tool. It is a powerful tool, but it has limitations. Learning those limitations and how to work around them is a large part of gameplay for Stalkers.

[/ QUOTE ]

1. I appreciate the prompt response on this, and the fact that you are keeping the lines of communication open.

2. I'm glad this is recognized as a bug, rather than being told that it is working as intended.

3. The fact that this bug, which has very serious PvP functionality implications, has no ETA for a fix has me really, truly pissed about the game for the first time since I4. Perhaps I should reroll as EM so I can kill squishies outside of hide...

4. Workarounds... a) Reroll as Claws. b) Wait for any effects to wear off before Placating. This is impractical, since those effects last quite a few seconds - my target would be gone. c) Placate my target's buddy, who is also trying to attack me. This seems like the best option if there are multiple enemies around. Placate won't work on the enemy I've attacked already, so I might as well use it on someone else. If I'm fast enough, I can still get a crit on the next attack against my target.

This bug does not affect PvE, probably because aggro works differently there. I would guess the bug is present, but it just has no effect because of the way the AI/aggro controls are designed.