Heart Attack

I like the idea and we do have somethings already in the game along these lines.

Kronos Titan attacking in Founders
Babage attacking in Skyway

Oddly with those two no one seems to mind other people joining in to help them.

If it was normal Bosses or glowies I think we'd need t have things set up so that only the team can interact with them. While that might look odd for none team members it would need to be done to avoid kill stealing.

The best thing in my opinion is that it's not something that can be done in AE and while I like AE, I think having some things that can't be experienced in it is a good thing.

I like Seldoms Ideas too. Though they'd have to be strictly optional.

I have undead Alts, when they walk or run it just looks to wrong.

We have various types of run, sprint etc, we could do with one that looks like you are shambling.

What holiday do the US have in September?

The Problem (as I see it)
Merits are rewarded on a fixed basis for completing a task no matter how long it takes to do that task. This leads people to find faster ways of completing the task. Eventually the Reward merits get reduced, but the team has already had their Merits so they don’t care. An example is the 22 minute LGTF in the fun section.

In the end some tasks stop being done (Eden Trial for example) because the rewards are too low for an average team to bother with.

Solutions
In my opinion the problem is the fixed nature of the reward and the solutions I’m proposing change the reward to variable. I can see issue with all three and I’ve no idea if they are technically possible, that’s for the Devs to work out.

I have three ideas for fixing this as follows

#1 – Reduced Reward if done too quick
This is the simplest of the three, I don’t really like it and I’ll explain later why.

Data Mining could be used to determine the average time taken by 90% of teams. If a team finishes faster than this their reward is reduced.

So if 90% of LGTFs finish in 44 minutes and you did it in 22 minutes you’d get 22/44th = ½ of the merits normally awarded. If you finished in 44 or more minutes you’d get the full merit reward.

I don’t like this one because the 90% times will become know and the 22 minute team will just wait 22 minutes extra before completing the mission.

#2 - % of enemies cleared method
To get the full merits you’d have to defeat at least X% of enemies on each map. If you don’t defeat enough you’d merits are reduced. Possibly if you defeat more than the limit you’d get more merits.

The drawback is its more complex as the game would have to track a statistic throughout a story arc or TF.

#3 – Merits based on XP value of Mobs Defeated
The game would keep track in the total XP value of all mobs defeated and aware merits based on that and the player levels at the end of the task.

This has similar problems to #2.

Conclusion
I’m not sure any of these are the right answer and I suspect that with a little effort they can be abused, but I feel something needs to be done or we’ll end up with none of the TFs having reasonable rewards for the effort required to do them.

I await the traditional, “I’ve already suggested this” and the traditional “You’re talking rubbish, there’s no problem” replies with baited breath.

Back Ground
I often find myself needed just a little bit more Accuracy, but not a full IOs worth. Normally I buy a set piece with Accuracy and something else often Damage to give me the boost I need to my Accuracy.

At rare other times I find myself needed some whacky combination like To Hit Debuff / Interrupt which just isn’t available in the game.

Thus the following idea.

The Idea
What if you could combine two or perhaps three different IOs of the same level in your enhancement tray at an invention table into a combined IO. It would cost Inf to do the combine and the final Combined IO would give the same effect as a combined set IO.

Example
In my Enhancement tray I have an Accuracy 30 IO and a Damage 30 IO. I go to an invention table and choose the combine IOs option and select the 2 IOs. I pay the Inf price and end up with a shiny new Combined Accuracy / Damage IO.

The accuracy and damage IOs would have given me +34.8% in Accuracy and Damage if I’d slotted both, but requires 2 slots.

The combined IO gives me +21.8% of each, but only requires the one slot.

Limits
Only 1 combined IO of a type could be used in any given power. Thus you could have an Acc/Dam combined IO and a Dam/End IO in the same power, but you couldn’t have 2 Acc/Dam IOs in a power.

The limit is to avoid making normal IOs redundant.

Summary
The idea is to make IOs more flexible. You could now end up with just the combos you want. Of course buying set pieces will still give you bonuses that combined ones won’t.

I'm still amazed that I can't get yellow snow in i#16.

This doesn't sound like an issue with respecs. It sound like what you really want is something else, something that allows you to remove Enhancements direct from an alt after they've been slotted.

To be honest I can't see this happening as the game tells you they are locked in.

BUT

If you could just remove enhancements from slots it might reduce the prices of enhancements on the market. Chances are though the cheaper ones would get cheaper as there would be more available and the expensive ones would get more expensive as people tried to buy them to replace the ones they've unslotted.

/Not Signed

Very early on in my life playing CoH I decided to have a look around the city. At the time my highest level alt was Heart Attack as per my forum name. He was just a baby level 9 with stealth, no travel power and I had no idea what I was doing really. It was before any of the TPs, bases didn't exist, oub wasn't there (not that I could have used it at lvl 9) and vet powers didn't exist.

I started in Atlas and decided to head into Steel, I used my stealth to sneak through the area aiming for a shop in the northern part of the map. As I got close I realised it was Icon (in those days shops showed only as shops whatever their type). Had a look inside and came out. I then headed for the nearby Paragon Dance club (now long gone and replaced by Pocket D) all the while dodging high level mobs (high to a lvl 9 thats it).

I passed through The dance club for the first ond only time, it was empty and exited into IP (the exit was to the east of TV). Then I stealthed my way to the Kings door and passed through Kings into Skyway.

Once in skyway a aimed for a shop in the middle and once there was thrilled to find they sold higher TOs than I'd ever seen before. From that shop I headed south aiming for the Talos door.

Once in Talos I headed for the nearest shop and found even higher level TO's wow. I stealthed my way around the corned and found a shop which sold DO's amd SO's, the first time I'd see or even heared of either of them (no auction house in those days).

I left myself in that shop. 4 hours of stealthing high level zones, earning nothing, killing nothing and not having done a single mission left me really happy from the joy of exploring. The only thing I got was a badge I stumbled on behind a shop in Skyway and in those days you didn't get XP for badges.

So I agree we need more exploration.

Whats the inf cap people are mentioning?

I'm disappointed in issue 16, I wanted Yellow Snow

Well a quick check of my 50s, 3 Human Males + 1 Male Imp. 8 Human Females + 1 Female Robot.

I have 6 active toons, but this is more complex since the scence pack came in.
2 are female only
2 are male only
1 started with a female cossie and now has a mix of male and female ones.
1 Started with a male cossie and now has a mix of male and female ones.

My Wife also has a mix of males and females, but I couldn't tell you the numbers and she too has alts with both Genders since the science pack came out.

My Search-fu is failing me , can someone point me to a list of approximately how long each TF/SF and Trial takes. I'm sure I've found one before but I can't see in now.