HissyFit

Been getting a bunch of use mixing the new'ish emblem patterns with old chest icons: Bomb on the upside-down star (makes a boom!), ribcage on the heart, hammer and sickle on a red star. Bunch of combos to play with and gets me rethinking the too-bland (or complicated) icons.

Are Pool A sets weaker?

Are TF / Trials required to get the better loot?

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Now you can out and beat up the other cops, cars, mailboxes, hydrants,etc.

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Cars, mailboxes, hydrants, etc do not give time bonuses after the bank (at least not reliably, i've heard some folks claim 'yes' but i have yet to see an item bonus). Cops and side-jobs yes, items no.

Many groups fail because they destroy half the number of each item, spending effort for no time bonus. If you lower the diff to Villianous, strong-arm the group into destroying items until you actually get time bonuses and then enter the bank -- much easier. If you haven't seen a bunch of bonuses when you get to the bank clear the area around it -- a string of time bonuses!

Someone mentioned not doing the kidnap before the bank -- I'd add the grab'n'run if you're with a group -- too easy to get overwhelmed.

I think this guide was just suppose to be about building a 'natural' concept (not origin) based on what natural means in our world, not the CoX world.

So no flight packs because flight packs in our world are still very high-tech (and still fairly impracticle).

That said, I do kinda wonder how useful this is, given CoX characters live in the CoX world and are therefore confronted with a whole bunch of concept-breaking temptations. If you took a 'natural' hero from our world, ran them through a CoX mission that resulted in a flight pack - how do you explain not using it?

In the CoX world, this guide would have you building a Luddite (who, it is worth noting, can breath fire *smiles*).

I've got a system where I use some found TOs and DOs and buy some DOs. My villians go all-SO in the early 30s.

Its a fairly smooth transition - at certain levels I may have a red or 2 to start (my recent stalker started 24 with 2 red recycles, 25 with 1). But I avoid long stretches of empty slots.

Maybe I should make a guide for the happy middle-ground -- Get SOs a tiny bit slower but enjoy the stuff you find from the start (i've got SG mates who do this sell-it-all-forever stuff to compare against, i'm not too far behind).

If you try to upgrade all your TOs to DOs at 12, and all your DOs to SOs at 22 -- those are the folks who have cash-flow issues.

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There are just a few that beleive that only plant/ does any good as a dominator.

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Certainly nothing wrong with my fire/fire dominator once he got into the 30s.

Plant has the easiest trip to 30. Fire and gravity are not so easy.

That's why a few of us keep pushing this suggestion: make the other powersets as fun / strong / less-prone-to-bad-build-choices as plant in the early / mid game.

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Part of the game is figuring out how to make things work for you, and part of being new to something is screwing that up.

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It's one thing to have folks figure out how to play - you can correct play mistakes as you go.

It's another to figure out how to build - build mistakes are harder to correct. The AT system is suppose to push you toward a playable and enjoyable build (barring intentional stupidity).

I've found only a few ways to play dominators in the low to mid levels - certain powers you really need (single target hold) and others that won't perform alone (immobilize) or without heavy slotting (area control).

Unfortunately there are many ways to build dominators. Some of those builds just don't support decent play (like my first dominator - ouch!).

Brutes, corruptors, masterminds - you can be fairly sloppy with these and still function okay. Not so with Dominators (stalkers can be tricky too, if only cause there are so many must-haves to shove in early).

I expect Devs probably play every AT. Perhaps they should try random builds based on real-player choices. Playing average and poorly built ATs might provide useful insight.

What I'd really like to hear a Dev talk about: AVs and there bang-head-against-wall triangles. It may be a workable solution, but it has zero entertainment value.

There's a big difference between a 1-31 dominator and a 32+ dominator.

With 3 fire imps in tow my dominator is a damage monster. Without the imps - decent damage and ehh control. Certainly nothing special.

From my experience the AT is: Slower to start, fussier about build choices, less forgiving about play mistakes. This is where the Devs should spend their effort (i'm ignoring PvP issues since i don't PvP).

It's all overcomable, but it's really easy to become frustrated and quit before you get there.

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Can anyone ID the rest of the villains?

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You mean which is which?

We've got the names - I bet we can figure them out.

The one I know for sure: Honeypot is the bee girl!

Not sure which thread is the right one for this, but...

When the PPPs were first listed we noticed a high level of overlap with existing dominator sets (pet, AoE damage, end drain).

Now we have numbers and find these repeats are weaker than our originals - much longer recharges.

This seems unbalanced - either there should be no repeats or the repeats should be balanced against our existing powers. Bile Spray (for instance) should have numbers similar to Fire Breath. The pets should be perma.

As it is now we wait until our 40s to get worse versions of powers we picked up earlier (much earlier in some cases). This makes no sense.

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All Archetypes chafed under their limitations – Tankers had no range, Blasters no defense, etc

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So what happened to this idea?

My Fire/Fire dominator has pets, has AoE damage, has an endurance drain - A large chunk of his patron power choices mimic powers already available in his primary and secondary sets. They lack excitement since they don't feel like new abilities.

Shouldn't he chaff? *smiles*

It does seem kinda backwards. Rather than give us powers to fit with our own themes we're being shoehorned to fit into the game's themes.

Some of us make Stone/Stone brutes not because of the powers but because it follows a concept. I don't wanna give my Stone/Stone brute an arachnos mace or shark powers or Mu lightning - I wanna give him epic stone powers.

You know, that makes a bunch of sense - I've had a heap of Longbow, Legacy Chain and Wyvern missions lately - and that's when I started noticing all these misses *smiles*

Thanks!

It's suppose to work like this:

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Smoke now has slightly different functionality. In PvE, the power is unchanged and automatically hits foes. In PvP, however, the power requires a To Hit check

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Nope, right now it seems to require To-Hit checks in PvE too. I certainly see misses (plenty of them!)

So, what's the story?

If you pro-HO folks are thinking an MMO cannot have good PvP participation you are wrong. DAoC had it but then lost it.

What changed? They added raiding for uber loot and raiding for uber abilities. It became too much work for most players to become PvP ready, and the idea of bringing up an alt (and going through it again) turned your stomach.

Deja Vu...

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If anyone can explain why the 45-50 door in the Arena should have a big blob of jello in front of it while no other door does, I'll be very impressed.

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Well, 40+ Blobs to be precise. If it was just 1 blob I could live with it.

When Mythic shipped Trials of Atlantis they had this idea that people would enjoy the raids and artifacts *while* still enjoying Camelot's PvP. But, players farmed the raids and farmed the artifacts and PvP basically died while this was going on. No one wanted to enter PvP without the goods cause you *might* run into someone who had farmed the goods.

Players who couldn't/wouldn't farm mostly quit the game. Or limited themselved to the Battleground (a smaller, fixed lower level arena). The battleground became viewed as the only 'pure' PvP because there were very few ways to farm an advantage at those levels - sound familiar?

Reminds me of an explanation I heard about why trees are tall. It's to get sunlight, but if they could all agree to stay shrubs then everyone would get light and no one would have to waste all that energy growing a trunk. But its too risky trusting your neighbor - you don't want to discover you are the only shrub in a forest of trees...

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I don't agree you need items to sustain an end game. PVP alone is a fine albeit highly volatile to the community sustainable end game. Items just muck it up by giving it the timesink/scale problems beaten to death pretty well before in this thread.

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I think this is a very important point. The Arena and CoV make for a much better endgame then a single raid repeated over and over. But, the Hami Raid, left as-is, is gonna have a huge (for many negative) impact on PvP.

We're throwing out the Baby (PvP) out with the bathwater (Hami).

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I just want to say though, that just because You think the raid isn't fun doesn't mean that its not fun.

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Right, what you think is fun and what I think is fun ain't the same. Thats what we've been trying to point out.

Once you admit (40+!) Raids are fun for some but not everyone how do you justify tying PvP achievement to it? Why do you bank CoV's success on it?

HOs are gonna be "killer" in PvP (statesman said so). Doing lots of raids to get lots HOs is fun for some but not for everyone (if i believe you find them fun you should be able to believe i don't).

Put it together and what do you get: A bunch of folks forced into doing something they don't find fun so they can be "killer" in PvP.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem. Same old MMO problem.

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This is an MMO. At some point, it can only be so fair to those who can only play in small chunks.


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So, it's okay to get to 50 (which is quite doable in "small chunks") but it's asking too much to move much past 50?

Don't buy it. Just because older MMOs restricted endgame content to pre-scheduled raids doesn't mean *this* MMO (which is quite different) has to too.

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Really someone with the play time you indicate won't be in competition with the hardcore much.

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Remove HOs from the equation and why not?

Mr Hardcore gets to 50 in a month. Mr Casual gets to 50 in a year. A reasonable level-cap allows Mr Casual to compete against Mr Hardcore on equal footing. An unreasonable level-cap means Mr Casual *never* catches up.

Sure, Mr Hardcore will probably still beat Mr Casual given the 11 months of PvP practice, but that's about skill (which Mr Casual will start acquiring), not farming (which Mr Casual can't/won't do).

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All we can do is ensure that most gamers have a reasonalbe chance. We can't ensure that everyone does.

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Doing 40+ Hami Raids until all my slots are HOs - that doesn't sound like a reasonable chance. Worse, it doesn't sound fun.

Left as-is we are insuring that a handful of uber SGs always get to PvP with a distinct advantage. And our only recourse will be to avoid them or farm a raid over and over and over.

That is an endgame I'd rather avoid.

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You missed my point. I don't have a lot of free time (outside of work, things are slow at work right now). I have responsibilities to my family and my profession. I only get to play about two-three times a week except when I'm on vacation. I still managed to get some HOs.

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Actually, you missed his point.

He indicated that those with restricted schedules are at a *disadvantage* if PvP is tied to a raid. He didn't say it was *impossible* to get HOs on a restricted schedule.

Raids (even 2 hour raids) can be difficult to swing if you are scheduling the game around work. What about the folks who log in at goofy off-hours? What about the folks who've made it to 50 in 1 hour chunks? And remember, we're talking about doing a whole bunch of raids, not just one or two.

You can make it to 50 in large groups or solo, in 12 hours chunks or 1 hour chunks, doing TFs or not, doing Missions or not, Farming or not, and so on - this is about as 'doable' as a casual player can hope for.

After 50 its large groups only, 2+ hour chunks only, raid only - how can that *not* restrict who gets to easily advance past 50? And, if HOs are freely allowed in PvP, it will also restrict who can easily gain an advantage in the Arena.

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The whole point is to increase Arena participation by increasing the number of options. I want you to have the choice of facing me with or without your loot. Simple. If you don't want to fight me without your loot, then *walk away*.


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This is the point they miss - one way or another the no-HO heroes will avoid the full-HO heroes. Either by using an Option (if added) or by limiting/skipping PvP (if an option isn't added).

What we're really arguing over is the PvP participation of the players who can't/won't farm Hami. Will we be given in-game tools to avoid the Cleens out there, or will we avoid *everyone* because that was the only *good* option left.

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it would negate all the hard work that several people have done in order to get those enhancements

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True, but it will save the rest of us from doing "hard work" instead of "fun stuff". I can see a positive here.

I know other MMOs have fallen in love with this hard-work = uber-rewards formula. I will point out that we are not playing those other MMOs.

CoH mostly avoided farming/uber-loot insanity (yes, HOs have been around forever, but they were kinda pointless). I am not alone in saying: "This is fundamental to why I love CoH!"

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There's always a way to rig a fight in your favor in MMOG's, and the people who have HO's slotted in all of their powers are generally the type of people who will try to find that way.

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This would seem to be a variant of the "if we cannot make it perfect then why try at all" argument. Applied to all aspects of the game nothing would change - someone will find a way to 'rig' PvE content so why bother correcting Burn or Smoke Grenade or Wolf Farming?

Easy answer - any move towards the elusive state of 'balanced' is a good move.

We cannot have anything approaching balance if zero-HOs and 12-HOs and 40-HOs are all thrown into the same arena - so something has to be done.

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While we can't really know until it's released, this honestly doesn't look good for us.

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I suspect we'll see some sort of option, as this steps on the least toes. Allowing HOS without constraints will annoy (and potentially scare off) chunks of their loyal casual player base. I don't think they will risk CoV (many of us will be using the Arena as a preview to CoV) just to please the (I suspect) relatively small population of dozens-of-HO holders.

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I am not stoping you from having fun. If you want to compete in a PVP match you have to accept that others will be better than you for a variety of reasons.
If you want to do PvP and not face HamiOs you have the choice of playing with your friends, SGs or people you trust.

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This is where your logic is failing.

You state you have no impact on me.

But you follow it up by describing a *large* impact - rather than join in on any random Arena match I must limit myself to well known adversaries - friends or SG members. You (as the owner of HOs) do not have this limitation.

If you have no impact on me then your choices cannot be limiting mine. But it is obviously all your HOs that would push me to limit who I fight against.

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Otherwise don't join PVP, just play the game the way you were and have fun.

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Flip this around: Say we ban HO owners from PvP. If you acquire HOs then "don't join PvP, just play the game the way you were and have fun."

Sound like a good option to you? Would you want to take your own advice? Nope - then why do you think it's gonna sound good to me?

And, of course, if I skip PvP because of your HOs -- does that sound like no impact?

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Anyone complaning about how they don't like it, don't have to do it. But then thay shouldn't complain about others who receive the awards for doing it.

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So, even if your playstyle will ruin or limit our PvP enjoyment -- we shouldn't complain?

That's basically what your choices boil down to -- fight from a severe disadvantage, farm a raid I don't enjoy, skip or limit my PvP experience (and probably skip CoV).

I don't care if you want to spend "extreme amounts of time" on a game until it starts to impact my fun. From everything you've said I have no reason to think it won't impact my fun -- just look at your 4 choices.