Greyhawke

I understand where you are coming from. If Rad had been a blaster choice I would have a completely different blaster. If dark had been a blaster choice I wouldn't be playing a dark/dark defender just to get moonbeam either. Of course the real blaster power I want is Bows. I've had my archers name since Beta too. I also know several who would really love to see pistols in the game.

From the scrapper point of view I looked hard for a punching powerset because I wanted a speedster. I wound up with Dark Melee (SR secondary) using only Shadow Punch, Shadow Maul, and Taunt from the primary. Adding in Flurry and hasten, my speedster can punch non-stop at lvl 20 while hasten is up. Add in brawl and there is little downtime even when hasten is down. With the SR secondary, and very little in the primary to spend slots on, its a very effective build so far.

Of course I had to develop an RP reason behind the little shadow bursts that appear once in a while, but I think it has made the character better to have the background.

Anyway, I hope it does come somewhat soon, but in the meantime, I just wanted you to know you /can/ get close.

[ QUOTE ]
Ack! I can't solo two +4 bosses anymore?" True - but they'll have fun battling 3 white minions - which is something you can say at level 15, but not at level 35.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with the philosophy here, but please keep a couple of things in mind. First, I need a place where I can find those three white minions to fight. I like your comments on the differences between the city, hazard, and trial zones. I just hope the city zones will be balanced so that I can solo or duo the average group I find there. But if you balance the white minions so 3 of them are an appropriate challenge then spawn 6 of them in the city zones with 2 LTs and a boss...

Second, I'm a hero. Eventually lackeys and minions get a little mundane, no matter how challenging they actually are. In the Archvillain thread someone mentioned (and I added to) the thoughts of a class of villain somewhere between a boss and and AV. A single one of these waiting for at the end of a mission could be a great challenge.

[ QUOTE ]
One thing that I would like to see addressed at some point is the inclusion of mission types designed to highlight the strengths of these "support" classes. Where are the "rescue civilians from a burning building" (Defender) missions, the "detain without damaging" (Controller) missions, the "destroy the runaway reactor core, up close and personal" (Tanker) situations?

[/ QUOTE ]

Good ideas, hope the devs are taking notes

[ QUOTE ]
And I don't see Statesman thinking enough of you to give you one of his face plates if you grow a yellow streak every time a Praetorian pops up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh, yes I know what you mean. It takes real bravery to call up 7 of your friends to beat up one villain.

[ QUOTE ]
I'd have to disagree with that. Doc Ock is a Boss. Almost all of Batman's nemeses are Bosses. Just about any nemesis of solo heroes are Bosses. Galactus is an Arch Villain, Doctor Doom -- on his good days -- is an Arch Villain and it takes the entire Fantastic Four to defeat them. Thanos and Kang/Immortus/Rama Tut are Arch Villains and takes the whole Avengers to defeat them. Magneto is an Arch Villain when he's not a good guy and takes on the entire X-Men.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'll buy that, in principle. Basically it means (to me, at least) that Arch Villains are way too plentiful in the game and should be replaced (as suggested above) with Supervillains. Something tougher than a boss, but not quite of a Doctor Doom stature. Something that a hero with a full tray of inspirations and a good deal of strategy may have a chance of defeating alone, very challenging but not impossible.

Arch Villains would only be taken on in Epic Arcs, which would require a group from the beginning. Somewhere between the story arcs of now and the massive time commitments (MTC)required by a TF. MTC being a relative term I am sure, your mileage may vary.

[ QUOTE ]
"The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about." -

-Robert Anson Heinlein

[/ QUOTE ]

Now that /I/ grok

I'll just add that I think AVs should be considered just like the Group Only missions where you have to hit more than one switch. Keep them out of my story arc missions. That's my preference, at any rate.

As far as AVs themselves, I don't think they should be soloable. Sure Spidey fights Doc Ock alone, heck Batman fights several AVs at the same time when he is solo, but the AVs in this game are the pinnacle and should not be soloable...

Perhaps by Epic Archetypes though...

[ QUOTE ]
I mean it is a Massively MULTIPLAYER Online RPG. If you bought this expecting to never have to socialize or not wanting to socialize with another human being then go get Freedom Force an stop whinning.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, actually you're missing the Massive part of the multiplayer. Perhaps they should make story arc content that could only be completed by 75 people at once. Or maybe 250. Hmm what is massive again?

I do expect to be able to group. When I chose to. I don't expect to be forced to. No one is forcing you to solo. Providing the option for me to solo does not stop you from grouping.

I checked the stats on my main the other day. About 350 hours played on that character. Realistically less than 50 solo. And he's a blaster. My other characters likely have much less solo time. Even when I am solo I am doing plenty of socializing. If 85% or greater of my time grouping isn't good enough for you, then not sure I can help you.

Also, I just have to point this out. Some of you really need to open your minds and drop the whole 'anti-social' argument altogether. Grouping does not equal socializing. I can't tell you how many pick up groups I have been on in EQ where hardly a word was spoken.

Also There are many reasons why people want or need to solo. I have a couple of friends who group rarely because of frequent disconnects, they don't want to be a burden on a team that might be counting on them. One of these friends is among the most social people I know, constantly chatting and often RPing.

Other freinds are like me and they have kids, and finding a pick up group that understands when you need to go afk at a moment's notice isn't all that easy.

Why alienate the person who prefers to play solo? The broader the market the better chance you and I both have of still having the opportunity to play this game five years from now. If they can make the game more enjoyable for me, while not making it any less enjoyable for you, what are you complaining about?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No one is asking to make it impossible to group. Why anyone would ask to make it impossible to solo is beyond me.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is an absolute misstatement of the issue in an attempt to gain sympathy for your position.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. I don't think I stated it incorrectly. You want to make it so that I absolutely must group to move forward with my missions. I want to be able to choose not to do a mission that requires a group without taking away your choice to choose a mission that does require a group.

I would love to see more missions that require group interaction. This is something I would choose regularly. But the point is that I would choose that type of play rather than having it forced on me.

Also these missions need to go beyond the simple 'click two switches at the same time' premise if they want to encourage grouping. I can get around this easily by clearing the mission all by myself and having some friends join the team just long enough to flip the switches, or having my son log into his account to do so.

[ QUOTE ]
Statesman has said ad naseum that this board represents less than .5% of the active player base. And of those posting against the "forced group" missions what are we talking about, .01% of the active player base?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why is it that people always assume the 99.5% of the player population that does not post on these boards is going to agree with them?

Cryptic does use the boards entirely to judge player desires. They do a lot of datamining to determine how people play.

No one is asking to make it impossible to group. Why anyone would ask to make it impossible to solo is beyond me.

If I am at a restaurant and I want the lasagna and you want the chicken, what's the big deal? Why do you complain about me wanting the lasagna? Your chicken is still being served, as a matter of fact its at the table long before my lasagna.

Ok gotta go, suddenly have a pasta craving and heartburn...

First off let me add to the chorus of praise for not making soloing completely impossible.

I would like to see a couple of items to make soloing a little more friendly. For reference I probably group 80% of the time, however I typically prefer to solo my story arc missions because I like to enjoy them at a pace often to leisurely for most groups.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I feel it should be possible to solo /my/ missions. If I can't solo effectively or efficiently while hunting, that is fine. It is also fine to have optional multiplayer missions as stated by Positron above. However, the missions that my contact assign to me should be possible to complete solo. Even if I have to come back a level or two later to do it. (In the case of a story arc mission with an AV, for example).

The problem with this is that you don't often have room to leave missions until later. I read somewhere that playtesting indicated that heroes tended to lose focus with more than three missions. For the new player, this may indeed be true. However, as you get more familiar with the game this becomes less of an issue.

My suggestion would be to add 1 mission slot every 10 levels. For example at levels 11-20 you would have 4 slots, 21-30 5 slots, etc. This would make the 'wait and do it later' strategy a real possiility.

Also there are a couple of spots that you can outlevel all of the missions you have, at least in the early levels. Perhaps this will be different now that mission XP has been increased. Still it is something that needs to be looked into.

I also feel you should be able to forfeit a mission. There should be an influence penalty for doing so, perhaps. I can understand something may need to be done to keep everyone from skipping that CoT hunt mission in Perez at level 7

Anyway thanks for trying to keep the solo play in mind.

[ QUOTE ]

Just a thought - it looks to me like you pressed SPACE instead of typing the word "SPACE" when asked what key to use for up. The line without a keybind is the "move up" line.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ok this seems to be the case although I would have said that I hit enter to accept the default, I guess I did not. I re-ran the speed on demand program and made sure to accept the default and I no longer have the issue.

As far as superspeed, it works great. For my primary ground power I entered

SUPER SPEED

just like that. All caps, with the space not an underscore.

Good luck, and thanks again Gnarly this seems to be doing the job quite well!

Well this part...

[ QUOTE ]

Usage:
bind takes 2 args, you gave 1.


[/ QUOTE ]
along with its explainations, seems to come from the first line in every bind file, which has a command not bound to any key (that's why it says you only have one argument). I am not sure if this was intentional, or something caused by the initial setup program. It also may have been an entry I put in to the initial setup program.

Here's the bind file for R_.txt as an example (I use wasd for movement and v for down):

[ QUOTE ]

lctrl+m "tell $name, C:\CoH\R\R_.txt"
"+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 0$$down 0$$forward 0$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 0$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R.txt"
v "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 1$$forward 0$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 0$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_b.txt"
w "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 1$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 0$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_e.txt"
s "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 0$$backward 1$$left 0$$right 0$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_d.txt"
a "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 0$$backward 0$$left 1$$right 0$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_s.txt"
d "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 0$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 1$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_f.txt"
T "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_name hover$$powexec_name hover$$powexec_name fly$$powexec_name fly$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\BO\BO_.txt"
G "powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_unqueue$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 0$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 0$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_.txt"
R "++forward$$backward 0$$up 1$$down 0$$left 0$$right 0$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\AR\AR_.txt"
TILDE "follow$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$powexec_name SPRINT$$powexec_name SUPER SPEED$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\FR\FR_.txt"


[/ QUOTE ]

I just randomly sampled files in each directory and the first line was not bound to a key in each file.

Again, not a major problem. It works great.

Hey there.

Didn't disappear Gnarly I have been testing your binds but the latest I had was 1.2 which gave me some problems and I had to do a complete reset because I was in TFs all week. I see version 2.3 is up so I will reload and test with them today.

Edit: Played for quite a while with my superspeedster with no problems so far. Everything worked great and very smooth. it does take some getting used to when setting powers to queue up, and I did finally have to reset my move keys )using your interface program) to wasd. As much as I like the concept of esdf, years of training my fingers different have proved impossible to overcome

Just as an aside, I use the arrow keys for moverment also, especially turnleft and turnright. I have found that this combines very well with Speed On Demand, giving me an option for more precise movement than superspeed will allow me. I also added strafeleft and straferight commands to numpap 4 and numpad6 respectively for quick access.

I will try version 2.3 on my blaster tonight (he has flight).

Edit AGAIN: Also, to clarify, I do get the responses in the text window as indicated above by other posters when using Speed on Demand. Here's a sample:

[ QUOTE ]


Usage:
bind takes 2 args, you gave 1.
binds a key to a command - 'bind k ++forward' will set k to toggle runningforward.
bind <string> <string>
bind "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 1$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 0$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_e.txt"

Now readying Super Speed instead of Sprint.
Now readying Sprint instead of Super Speed.
Now readying Super Speed instead of Sprint.
Usage:
bind takes 2 args, you gave 1.
binds a key to a command - 'bind k ++forward' will set k to toggle runningforward.
bind <string> <string>
bind "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 0$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 0$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_.txt"

Shutting off Super Speed.
Usage:
bind takes 2 args, you gave 1.
binds a key to a command - 'bind k ++forward' will set k to toggle runningforward.
bind <string> <string>
bind "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 1$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 0$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_e.txt"

Now readying Super Speed instead of Sprint.
Now readying Sprint instead of Super Speed.
Now readying Super Speed instead of Sprint.
Shadow Maul is recharged.
Usage:
bind takes 2 args, you gave 1.
binds a key to a command - 'bind k ++forward' will set k to toggle runningforward.
bind <string> <string>
bind "+zoomin$$-zoomin$$up 1$$down 0$$forward 0$$backward 0$$left 0$$right 0$$bind_load_file C:\CoH\R\R_.txt"

Shutting off Super Speed.


[/ QUOTE ]

Also, as mentioned, it all actually seems to work fine, this just spams the top window, not a major problem.

Very cool Gnarly, and thanks for making it simple to use. I will try these out tonight!

I suppose my poor little scrapper can suffer through one more day

Thanks Gnarly!

This is such fun to read about and use. Watching the development process as all of you continue to springboard off one another is great fun.

Ok a minor request

I would like to see a 3rd toggle key added for superspeed as well as the G & T for ground and flight, then I don't have to worry about modifying all the files for superspeed just for one character . For the esdf setup is fine, as I have almost convinced myself to go to this setup. I will likely fall many times before I get used to it, but I can see the benefits.