Hercules

On Freedom, for my Fire/Inv Brute:
"Rocket Science"

This was a long time ago, but for my AR/Fire Blaster:
"Safari"

Still holding this one in reserve, until I come up with a concept I like:
"Sterling Silver"

- Primal Clockwork.

- Cabal

- Firbolg

- Redcaps

- Malta

- Croatoa Ghosts/Spirits

Hmmm, have they knocked down the price for powersets from 1600 to 800 recently? I cancelled sometime ago due to what I consider an exhorbitant amount of time to have to wait for a powerset ( 4 months ).

edit: why is it showing "PERC Representative" under my sig now? Very odd.

I really dont see the point of this - Marty is supposed to already cap rewards at their desired level.

If they're attempting to make AE a barren wasteland, they're definitely going down the right path.

The best thing to do is to make her an invulnerable non-participant in battles.
Keeping an npc alive in missions is one of the most annoying features in this game.

It's not just MA. I tried rerolling one of my characters the other day from a Dark/Dark corrupter to a Dark/Dark blaster. It wouldnt allow me to have the name, even though I've had this toon for quite a while.

"Customer Service" refused to do anything. Pretty much told me I'm SOL.
Needless to say, I'm pretty POed at losing the name, and their general attitude.

Hmm, can a board moderator please move this over to the MA forum? Appears to have been given the big "meh" over here.

Yeah, they've overdone it with the ambushes lately. The ones I hate/despise/loath are the cascading ambushes where you're continually hit for the duration of the mission. I can take it with a melee type, but playing with a squishy - it just doesnt work.

I've /bugged it, complained about it on the forums, but the devs us usual turn a deaf ear. I think their mindset is "everyone else calls this game too easy, we gotta make it hard like all the other MMORPGs." That's supposed to be what the difficulty slider is for, but they seem to have forgotten that.

One of the things I most dislike about MA is that everything you've created is considered a simulation. It doesnt really happen out there in the CoH universe. Considering the recent changes they've made to allow for instanced contacts....

1. Allow creation of MA missions where the contact appears outside.
If the contact is an existing person in the city, then that contact shows only your mission dialog text for the duration of the arc.
If the contact is custom then he/she will only appear for you and the people on your team.
Allow the builder to pick a contact spawn point from a predefined list of locations provided for that zone. ( for custom contacts,
or for existing contacts if you want him/her to be in another location )

2. Allow missions entrances to appear in specific zones, instead of in the MA building. The mission creator could specify the zone, and the entrance could be randomly selected from all doors in the zone, just like a regular mission.

I WOULD like cave maps to be mapped to cave entrances, office maps to to be mapped to building entrances, etc.

3. Allow everyone to popup the MA interface anywhere, instead of tieing it to a badge.

4. Change the search interface to allow you to filter for these types of arcs.

5. Allow random ambushes to occur just like in regular arcs.

6. Allow the main contact to send you to secondary contacts between missions.

I am not proposing eliminating the usage of the portal in the MA buildings. Farmers can continue doing what they're doing. Builders can continue to make "In-AE" arcs just as they're currently doing if they so choose.

This will allow story focused arc builders to differentiate their arcs from most of the farm arcs. It would also allow more of a sense of immersion in the arc story, vs the "simulation" aspect that it has now.

Interesting.

Then optimally, the sort order should be:

Primary) Last access date
Secondary) Current Server Load

This allows for the purpose of directing new players to lower population servers, while allowing existing players to have thier "home" servers listed at the top.

Currently, there are only a handful of servers that I visit. Primarily Freedom, but occasionally others. What I've noticed is that when I return from another server, Freedom will be placed in a totally random spot in the list, usually near the bottom where I have to scroll for it. Somewhat annoying.

This should be a fairly simple change:
- Sort servers by time of last access instead of the current random placement.

This is what I've come up with for a ranged Huntsman build. The defense numbers are pretty nice, however I haven't been overly impressed with the dps up to this point. Should I swap out for some Bane attacks or switch to Crab?


Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Natural Arachnos Soldier
Primary Power Set: Bane Spider Soldier
Secondary Power Set: Bane Spider Training
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Single Shot -- Decim-Acc/Dmg:40(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx:40(3), Decim-Dmg/Rchg:40(3), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:40(5), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:40(5), LdyGrey-%Dam:50(7)
Level 1: Wolf Spider Armor -- RctvArm-ResDam:40(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(7), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:40(9), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(9)
Level 2: Burst -- Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:40(A), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:40(11), Decim-Dmg/Rchg:40(11), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx:40(13), Decim-Acc/Dmg:40(13), LdyGrey-%Dam:50(15)
Level 4: Combat Training: Defensive -- LkGmblr-Def:50(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:50(15), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(17), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(17)
Level 6: Fly -- Zephyr-ResKB:50(A)
Level 8: Heavy Burst -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(19), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(19), Posi-Dam%:50(21), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(21)
Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Def:50(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:50(23), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(23), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(25)
Level 12: Venom Grenade -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(25), Posi-Dam%:50(27), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(27), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(29), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(46)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Zephyr-ResKB:50(A)
Level 16: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(29)
Level 18: Frag Grenade -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(31), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(31), Posi-Dam%:50(31), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(33)
Level 20: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 22: Tactical Training: Leadership -- GSFC-ToHit:50(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg:50(33), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx:50(33), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx:50(34), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx:50(34), GSFC-Build%:50(34)
Level 24: Mental Training -- Flight-I:50(A)
Level 26: Wide Area Web Grenade -- GravAnch-Immob:50(A), GravAnch-Immob/Rchg:50(36), GravAnch-Acc/Immob/Rchg:50(36), GravAnch-Immob/EndRdx:50(36), GravAnch-Hold%:50(37)
Level 28: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Def:50(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:50(37), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(37), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(39)
Level 30: Cloaking Device -- LkGmblr-Def:50(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:50(40), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(40), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(42)
Level 32: Surveillance -- Achilles-DefDeb:20(A), Achilles-DefDeb/Rchg:20(43), Achilles-ResDeb%:20(43)
Level 35: Assault -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 38: Tactics -- Rec'dRet-ToHit:20(A), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg:20(42), Rec'dRet-Pcptn:20(42)
Level 41: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Call Reinforcements -- BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg:50(A), BldM'dt-Dmg:50(45), BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx:50(45), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(45), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx:50(46), BldM'dt-Acc:50(46)
Level 47: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam:40(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(48), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg:40(48), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:40(48)
Level 49: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A), LkGmblr-Def:50(50), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx:50(50), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Flight-I:50(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+:40(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+:50(43)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I:50(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(39), P'Shift-EndMod:50(39), P'Shift-End%:50(40)
Level 4: Ninja Run
------------

I recently leveled my SoA to lev 24 and respecced into a Bane build.

I ended up with a mixture of Ranged/Melee attacks that didn't appear to work very well together. It's hard to keep an attack chain going when half are ranged and half are melee, and a number of the ranged attacks feature knockback.

Questions:

- Is it viable to go completely with ranged attacks or completely melee?
I'd prefer range, but then I'd probably have to switch to Crab to get max dps.

- Should I forego taking attacks from the base SoA attack set? Seems to slow me down quite a bit when I switch between the mace and rifle...

I'd have to agree with some of your points, but I'm afraid it's going to fall on deaf ears.

The arguments you're going to hear from many forum posters is that they need additional revenue to add new content to the game. My rebuttal is that I pay $15 a month, which should be sufficient for incremental content added to the game. If it takes every cent from subscriptions just to keep the servers running, then something is seriously wrong.

I'm quite willing to shell out money for new expansion packs, considering the major amount of content you get in most expansion packs. However, the prices they're charging for small items would jack the price of said expansion pack 10 fold.

In short, the prices are way too high. The prices should be considerably less than what they're currently charging.

That's a crying shame about not storing the creation date. I know some dbs will store audit info for rows, but you have to explicitly turn it on.

I wonder if they keep timestamps on ANY data? If so, they could potentially extrapolate a create date ( or something very close ). For example, if they stored a timestamp on badges, you could get the earliest date.

Then, once you have a rough date for legacy data, you could add an actual creation timestamp for new characters.

Just a couple suggestions regarding character anniversaries:

1. On the character list screen, I'd like to be able to see character creation date AND the issue number/name that character was created on. I have a rough idea of when i created most of my characters, but it would be nice to have a concrete date to look at.

2. I've seen they've added anniversary badges at the account level... however:
- I'd like character specific anniversary badges.
- Another NCSoft property actually sends Birthday presents to each character on their anniversary date. Something like a random orange recipe, costume piece, hero token, respec, etc. would be great.

/signed

I've wanted this for a long time. I usually have to go by the color - because the names are total nonsense most of the time.

The optimal solution would be to eliminate custom power selections.
Give the arc creater a selection of "power sets" that are taken from standard mobs. I'd also require that all custom mobs have their power sets be taken from the same villain group ( i.e. all of them have to be taken from Nemesis, for example ).

While the PLers will still find the optimal combination of powersets to utilize, it wouldnt be anywhere near what you see in AE farms atm.

I've yet to find a way to so totally screw up a character while leveling that he's unplayable. So, the need to "respec at any time" - I dont see it.

The game has respec trials, not that hard to do, and you'll usually find a full group of people willing to do one.

And I've yet to see any other game that doesnt have some cost associated with respeccing - it's never free.

I'm sure many will find it amusing making a 4 foot dwarf with a 10 foot long weapon, but personally I'd like a character who looks like he/she can realistically handle the weapon.

My suggestions:
1) Addition of another foot in height to the male Huge model.

2) Creation of a female huge model or addition of another foot to the female model.

The concepts that I have in mind are:
- A huge "Shrek" type ogre.

- A rather large female barbarian wielding a huge broadsword or Axe.

I sincerely hope they dont intend to scale the weapon size to the character height. It was done like that in DAOC, with some rather disappointing results.

Well, lots of disagreement here.

Personally, I think if you took the voice-over out of Starcraft 2, it would lose a lot of appeal.

"General Raynor, the Zerg are closing on your position" as a voice-over is superior to a text message at the bottom.
The corresponding text in the UG trial - "The IDF are closing on your position. Prepare for an ambush!". Just text doesnt cut it for me.

I also think other MMORPGs feel more polished where you can actually hear feedback from the Bosses you're fighting vs just text. Granted, they usually need a greater number of lines than what they currently get. It would drive me nuts to actually hear Marauder say over and over "On the ground again?".
I would think 20 to 30 lines would be sufficient.

Feedback from NPC vendors would be a nice touch as well. You usually hear something like "Can I help you?" or "How are you doing?". Again, it's just fluff - but fluff makes a game feel more polished.

IMO, after this many years, this stuff should have already been implemented.

I really liked the female tutorial voice - kind of reminded me of the voice in Star Craft 2. Nice touch that made the game feel a bit more modern.

Now for my suggesion. Lets expand the use of this technology to other areas of the game.

Example:

In the UG trial, you get popup messages like "Desdemona has been freed" or "Advance to the next level". How about adding that same voice to accompany the text?

Example 2:

You get clues during TFs or certain arcs. How about a shortened version of
the clue using voice? Come to think of , it doesnt necessarily have to be the same voice...

Example 3:
You get popups for certain events like:
- Exploration/Other badges
- Mission Completion/Failure

The voice could accompany these accomplishments.

And yes, I know there will be some who don't like it - so add an option to turn it on or off.

My impressions from running through it once:
1. The dialog seemed a bit ... stilted. Definitely could use some polishing.

2. Theoden didnt sound much like a member of the lost - and the writer of the story didnt seem to be aware of the link between the Lost and Rikti.
Could have sworn there were Rikti "Mages", so I fail to see why the
Lost would be opposed to the use of magic.

3. I like the new maps. Cool use of lava.

4. I do not like timed missions. Period. I was not able to complete anything
before the timer ran out.

5. Too many ambushes. The use of unending triggered ambushes needs to stop.