HurlyBurly

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Champions online is open Archtype.

As was SWG before they destroyed it by closing the classes

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And even then both of those systems are/were NOT 100% open.

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And, given the combat system, SWG's "professions" were nearly impossible to balance in any meaningful way. My Teras Kasi Master/Fencer build could fight and kill anything in the game with little danger. With my disability, that is saying something.

That is the problem with skill-based systems. Either you hard cap certain attributes, which pushes the game toward a class or class-like structure, or players will gravitate toward overloading the most optimal skills, which trivializes play.

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Oh, hello there! I didn't see you come in. If you've made it this far past Liquid's post, I guess I should let you know that NCSoft is not at E3 this year. What? Yes, I'm afraid that trickster Liquidx has pulled the wool over your eyes once again, that lovable rogue.

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You nailed it in one...except LiquidX is a scamp not a rogue. :P

Just a word of warning to players who are returning since I12. All the new stuff Positron mentions will have to be played on ~10 new missions (on either side). To paraphrase Obi Wan, "Nothing else new to see here."

Positron, you really need to redirect developer resources to expanding CoX's story-based content. Paragon City and the Rogue Islands are stagnant. July 2007 was the last time there was any change to Paragon. The Rogue Isles have never had any noticeable story update to any of the core zones. Adding new zones or granting access to co-op zones does nothing to the core of the game.

You may be adding some interesting (and some not so interesting) branches to the CoX tree, but meanwhile, the trunk is dying for lack of attention. Please, give the core of the game some developer time. Maybe have one zone or hero/villain group get some mission developer time each Issue. Not a lot. One story arc, maybe two. Just enough that we can once again believe our game lives.

Brad, as much as I enjoy the chaos of invaded zones, I have to agree that function (invasions) is washing out form (story or epic feel). Personally, I wish these events could be tied to a mechanic similar to what we see in Recluse's Victory. Each invasion that is "successfully" (however that success is determined) fought off adds to a counter. Failed invasions subtract from the counter, but at a lower rate. Events are triggered at certain thresholds and ultimately the invasions end altogether (with a suitable server-wide event) and invasions go away altogether.

A system like that would give an epic scope to the event, something these invasions have lost.

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I'll PM Ex to sticky this list.

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Stickying the list isn't going to do much good when most, if not all, of those links will be dead in a few months. Unlike "real" guides, none of those posts have deletion resistance. Best to copy the proposed primaries directly into this guide and then sticky it.

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The merchants will flock to where there is a market.

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Excellent supposition, but not a case in fact.

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And right now, that market is in two places: Freedom, and Virtue.

I don't get RMT spam on Liberty, much. Freedom, on the few times I've created characters there... CONSTANT. Virtue seems to be more player-policed, but it's still a problem.

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These are personal observations. Generalizing from personal experience will almost always get you in trouble. My own experience with RMT spam on Freedom and Virtue is mixed. Characters with names closer to the front of the alphabet seem to get more spam than characters nearer the back. Were I to base my estimate of the number of RMT farmers/selling on those latter characters, I'd underestimate my guess and vice versa.

Still not proof, though.

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And with double XP/rewards for three days... hey, the devs just gave their profit margins a MAJOR boost. If I were into RMT farming, you'd be damn skippy I'd be logged into the high-pop servers. Lock or no lock, I'd find a way for entire crews to be on.

It's a freaking gold rush for that business model, is what it is.

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Yet, at the same time, double XP weekends do more to undermine the RMT market than expand it -- at least in the short term. The players who would usually buy Inf/Imf from RMT sources are earning it at a far faster rate, making any RMT purchase more expensive from a relative standpoint.

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as for playstyle "rights"... I'd have to look, but I don't believe the EULA gives the 'right' to claim anything, other than access when access is available. I DO believe there's something in there AGAINST reselling NCSoft's resources/intellectual property... which means anyone PL'ing or farming for PROFIT should get booted whenever they're discovered.

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No argument there. I was referring to regular players. Like all of us, we have only the rights and obligations in the contract (EULA and TOS) we agree to every time we log in.

And we are still no closer to proof that there are enough RMT farming accounts logged in to be causing server population spikes.

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The thread list for Freedom Server's forum section is rather interesting to read right about now.

My response to the ones complaining? stop encouraging the PL'ers and the farmers, because the ones doing it for money are clogging up your server, using high-speed internet pipes from overseas to log in people ten, twenty, maybe even a hundred at a time.

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Just curious. Do you have any credible evidence the RMT PLers and farmers are on in any numbers? Many people have made your claim, and frankly, I'm pretty skeptical. Now, genuine players who are PLing and/or farming have just as much a "right" to play as you do, whether or not you agree with their play style choices.

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Its not one weekend. It's everytime they do something special freedom bogs down from lag. I have played almost a year, just 2 weeks shy. The only way for me to fix this problem is pay them more money to move my characters. Then who says that will fix it? Whos says the server I goto will not get "full." Then I pay MORE money to move again. NO!

Even Wow allows you to move from over populated servers for free!

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Hyperbole much? NCNC spends a pretty penny to upgrade hardware so that the lag you complain so bitterly about does not occur, and by all accounts -- and from my own experience -- play on Freedom and Virtue is nearly normal. That normal play is happening with a reported record high concurrent number, by the way. So when performance starts to degrade, they lock the cap down to ensure quality, and you still complain. Damned if they do; damed if they don't.

So you are two weeks shy of a year, which means you have experienced three, four server-dragging events -- and only other double XP events come anywhere close to what we are seeing tonight. By any other standard you are receiving pretty darn good service, and easily as good or better service than other MMOs, including WoW. WoW allows those free transfers only when a server's population is so heavy that both queues are constant and long and when even with queues many of the heavy pop server's "choke points" are nearly unplayable. Queues all the time < "queues" (server caps) once in the history of the game and so far only during a peak time and which were quickly lifted.

What tonight really tells us is that event weekends (like Valentines, Halloween and the like) and Issue launches are going to be flawless. After all, no other event draws people to the game like double XP weekend.

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if this is how the weekend is gonna go, I want 3 days added to my account. Otherwise I will cancel on Monday. There is no reason to lock paying customers. It's not our fault you supposedly upgraded servers. It seems your upgrade was someone coding in a player cap.

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So long. If you find that the game does not bring you enough pleasure to overcome the inconvenience of one weekend where your most preferred server is unavailable at times of most heavy load, then you absolutely should cancel.

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Some arrogant mouthbreathers in here. We know its an stroke for you to spend 12 hours soloing an AV, with almost perma phantom army (you have such skill!), but you guys talk yourselves up in about every forum.

Lots of people do this kind of stuff, and have for a long, long time (like back since beta), but don't see the need to make a fuss about it on the boards for their own personal strokefest or to be a showoff.

Move out of moms basement, get some sun maybe, it does wonders.

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Wow, only four posts (at the time of this response) to come across as a complete and utter tool. Can someone confirm that this is a new forum record? Stunningly well played, my good troll. Well played indeed.

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Of course, for many AVs, beating their regen isn't enough. Envoy will heal, Nosferatu lifetaps, Nemesis will phase out which gives him time to regen, etc.

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Sky, are you factoring in AV defenses/resistances or are they diverse enough across the set of AVs that generalities like 120 DPS are broadly applicable? For example, I just smoked the Hero version of Indigo (Take that for sending me all over the damn city, biotch!). She did not even seem to have resistances, but Marauder is a S/L nightmare, even without his Unstoppable.

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you know what, just stop reading my posts, you obviously can't see the point and are too focused on a minor detail. just stop.

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How about you just tell me your point since I cannot find it.

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lets say for example that no other AT other than MM can solo an AV even with inspirations, that just further emphasizes the initial point. You aren't seeing the forest because of that one small-insignificant-not-really-a-tree-more-like-a-shrub that you are so insanely focused on.

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Why use as an example something that is nowhere near the truth? There are a number of Blue side combos out there that can solo specific AVs and a smaller number that can do the same with a wide range of AVs. Then you throw in the two readily available Elite Boss pets and "soloing" AVs/Heroes is pretty much open to 90% of the game's AT combos. The game has moved far beyond where soloing AVs was a taboo to be nerfed to oblivion.

I assume the following is the forest I'm missing for the trees:

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This reminds me of the posts we used to make for scrappers and controllers. Crap, here comes the nerf for MM's.

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You are so caught up in your perceived past injustices that you cannot see that the dev team have an entirely different emphasis than they did back when the AV-killer inspired nerfs (if there ever really were any) dropped. What history we have with the "new" NCNC dev team strongly suggests that performance is no longer measured by single accomplishments (Statesman, "Oh noes, the players are beating our hardest content. Geko, make it not so by the most painful, illogical nerfs possible."), but are instead being determined by aggregate data analysis, specifically (and probably overly simplified) inter-AT comparison of experience gain rates (i.e. the Blaster changes and hints of what may be done to Stalkers).

The devs play the game. They know as well as us what each AT is capable of. Threads like this are not going to surprise them or somehow shock them into wielding the nerf bat.

Ultimus, keep us up to date on your progress. I, for one, like to see the peak of what we can do.

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Scrappers cannot do it due to their DPS. The best Scrapper builds top off at around 160 DPS also due to animation limitations. This also factors in criticals. This is another reason why people say sets like SS/SM/EM are overpowered because it allows tankers to meet the standards of Scrappers.

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I cannot find the many threads, but I believe Catwhoorg would beg to differ. He has soloed most of the game's AVs and the weakened Hami from the LGTF.

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Just as a note, I'm sure that there ARE Defender and Tanker builds that CAN solo many AVs without the use of inspirations. And a lot more with the reasonably fair caveat that the Defender may use Break Frees (only) since unlike MMs, Scrappers, and Tankers, they don't have both offense and status protection available.

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I still think it is build and AV specific. I looked over the Tanker forums and found no mention of soloing AVs. (Didn't even try the Defender forums.) Both suffer from the same problem: lack of enough sustained damage to overcome AV's defenses/resistances and regen. Certain Defender combinations can overcome both defenses/resistances and regen with debuffs, but I don't think they do so in sufficient fashion to bring the AV down. I've heard of lots of Defender duos taking down AVs, but never doing them solo.

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Any Fire/x Tank who takes either the Ice or the Fire epic pools can Immob an AV in their Burn patch, for starters. With IO set bonuses you can get a Burn patch down permanently, and you get Healing Flames up every 15 seconds or so for a huge heal. Perma-Burn will allow the Tank to trivially beat the AV's regen rate (easier if it's a Fire/SS tank so that Burn gets the Rage bonus). Granted, all that's assuming some nice IO bonuses, but that's a reasonable assumption when we're talking high-difficulty tasks.

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Are you sure that Burn alone can beat an AV's regen rates after accounting for defenses/resistances? Tankers can put out some mean damage but without debuffs a lot of that damage is going to be lost.

Also, can a single Immobilized from the epic pools really lock down an AV? That is a lot of loss damage if you are continually spamming the power, which is the only way it's going to work. Working on my experience with Web Grenade, which has the same magnitude and duration as the Fire epic Char, very few AVs are immobilized with less than three or four applications and that is with a fully slotted power.

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Oh, and a well-IO'd Ice Tank or SR Scrapper can have the AV permanently floored at their To-Hit floor.

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The problem is not survivability, the problem is sustained damage output. Even with a full Inspiration payload, I am not sure Defenders and Tankers, in general, are able to his solo a wide variety of AVs, but I'd also say that about most Scrapper combinations and quite a few Mastermind combinations.

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MMs are not alone. They're probably among the easier AV soloers, but they're not alone.

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I was never making the argument that Masterminds were alone, but of all the combinations that can consistently solo a range of AVs, I think that /Traps, /Poison, and /Dark create the most viable AV/Hero killer combos than any other AT. Again, I am talking about the ability to defeat a range of different AVs/Heroes, not any specific AV/Hero - Primary/Secondary combination.

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So, what's the strategy here? Web Grenades to keep the AV in your Poison Trap and Caltrops, Robots with the Assault Bot's -Regen just spamming their attacks from outside of melee range, and veteran attacks? With purple insps to try to keep you alive during this?

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I tend to go kamikaze to open the fight by targeting the enemy and hitting my follow key. Even a big hitter like BABs isn't going to hurt you too bad in Bodyguard mode. Once I am in tight, I drop Poison Trap, Acid Mortar, and Triage Beacon, in that order. Then I cycle through Web Grenade, Web Envelope, and Web Cocoon, replacing bots as needed. Not many AVs/Heroes are much of a threat at that point.

I am going to have to try Ultimus's stacked Poison Traps on some of the harder AVs/Heroes (Posi, I'm looking at you) sometime. The debuff does not last too long but completely floored regen would be pretty awesome.

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still leads me to believe that what you are saying is oppinion, am i right?

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Yes, what I am saying about the other ATs is opinion. Specifically, what I am saying is informed opinion based on an understanding of the game, including the ATs in question, AVs/Heroes, defense and resistance, and all the other mechanics involved in such a challenge. Indeed, informed opinion is generally the foundation of most arguments where the facts are unavailable. Since we are in a position where the evidence is virtually unattainable, opinion is all we have.

From your tone, I'm going to assume that you disagree with my opinion. I am not quite the expert on rhetoric that Circuit_Boy is, but I believe that the burden of proof is on you to refute my position. That should be easy enough. All you need to do is show me evidence that one of the ATs in my "not able to solo" set is indeed able solo AVs/Heroes and I will be forced to change my assumptions.

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still you are arguing something that is not important to the point what so ever. but by all means keep arguing.

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Really, I wasn't arguing anything. I just disagreed with your comment that Inspirations somehow diminished the accomplishment of soloing an AV/Hero. Simple as that.

This also leaves me wondering what the point of your original post was altogether. You believe that people posting their success soloing AVs is somehow going to bring the Nerf hammer down on Mastermind? Is that it? Nothing more?

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I don't know why you brought up personal information of which has no relevance at all to this discussion. but you proved my point, we can take on AV's without inspirations, which is what other AT's were able to do... before getting nerfed.

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I included the personal information because you asked me a question: " Now can you tell me that you can't solo an AV without an inspiration with a well built MM?" I see now that you intended the question to be rhetorical, but I did not read it that way the first time. I did use Inspirations, but at a much lower rate than many of the other ATs would be forced to. My current build is pretty Endurance heavy, so I have to eat blues to keep my debuffs running.

Feel free to be concerned. Nothing I'm going to tell you is going to change that. However, I stand by my assertion that this development team seems to be looking at the game much differently than they were when they were under the Cryptic banner. Evidence is all over the boards, not the least of which is the fact that the Red Names on the development team are posting at a higher rate than the Red Names on the community team.

I think Arcanaville was who I first saw take the position that the development team is defining "performance" by using experience/debt and leveling speed as metrics. Those were the reason given for why Blasters receive their most recent buffs. Measuring performance like this was certainly not the case under Cryptic, where all the nerfs you seem to be concerned about occurred. If Masterminds end up getting knocked back a bit, the speed and ease at which they level through the game will be the reason, not an arbitrary measure like being able to solo AVs/Heroes.

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Insps are fair game in the AV world.

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any AT could solo an AV with enough inspirations, I'm talking about Soloing them without inspirations, which is what was possible with controllers and scrappers.

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I'm not sure Blasters, Defenders, or Tankers on the Blue side or everything but MMs on the Red side could solo AVs with the 20 Inspirations you can bring to a given fight. I know you said "with enough" Inspirations, but given the fact that a solo character is capped at 20, that is what we should consider. There is no "I win - Infinite Inspirations" button, after all.

Given the difficulty of soloing AVs, I have zero problems with Inspiration use. Using Inspirations to defeat AVs takes nothing away from the MM even if Trollers and Scrappers can do it without them.

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You aren't sure, so you have nothing concrete to base that statement on. The point is that inspiratiosn take you beyond what your powersets can do, which is why so many people had problems with scrappers and controllers being able to solo AV's without inspirations. Now can you tell me that you can't solo an AV without an inspiration with a well built MM? I know I can. I don't want MM's nerfed, which is why I don't post threads about AV's being solo'ed.

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Okay, how about I rephrase things so that they are not quite so passive, since the passive voice seems to have lost you. Unless they use temporary powers (i.e. Shivans and/or HVASes), no Blaster, Defender, or Tanker can solo AVs/Hs with or without the use of Inspirations. Blasters do not have the defenses to survive an AV/H long enough to do the damage necessary to bring one down, and Defenders and Tankers do not have the damage output to overcome an AV's/H's regeneration and defenses. (Caveat: There may be particular Defender or Tanker builds that could achieve a particular solo AV/H kill, but that is the exception, not the norm.)

I am not as familiar with the Red side ATs as I am with the Blue side, but I am fairly confident, not 100% so, but confident enough to say Brutes, Corrupters, Dominators, and Stalkers are incapable of soloing an AV/H. (Same caveat above applies here.)

We have inconvertible proof that Masterminds are fully capable of soloing AVs/Hs, with and without Inspirations. The point I was trying to make is that there is nothing inherently wrong, unfair, or accomplishment-negating about using Inspirations when you take down an AV. Most of the Scrapper videos I have seen make liberal use of Inspirations, especially purples and reds. Use of temporary powers (again Shivans and HVASes) has always been the defining factor, not Inspiration use.

Now, do I think it is dangerous for players to post tales of soloing AVs/Hs for fear that it will lead to developer attention? In the old days, probably. But experience with the recent Blaster changes leads me to believe that the developers are looking at other metrics than the simple ability to solo the hardest content in the game. If Masterminds are gaining experience at a far faster rate with far less debt than the rest of the ATs, then I think we will be in trouble. If the performance gap is too large, the Nerf bat likely will be coming our way. Threads like this will not be the determining factor, however.

I have not tried, but I am unsure whether I could solo an AV/H. That has more to do with the fact that I play with a physical disability (paralysis from the chest down from a spinal cord injury) than from skill or build design competence. I basically play with the index finger on one hand. Your tone suggest you believe yourself to be an expert ("I know I can [solo an AV without an inspiration]."). Try taking on an AV/H with the constraints I play under and let me know how you do.

I'm running the 45+ content on my Thugs/Poison right now. I always run on the fourth difficulty level (spacing on the name). I have Indigo in my queue right now. Perhaps I'll bump it up to Relentless and give it a try. I will let you know how things turn out.

Addendum: I was able to defeat Indigo as a Hero. Indeed, she was easier than may EBs I have fought recently. Now I am going to have to try more AV/Heroes. Fun stuff.

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Insps are fair game in the AV world.

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any AT could solo an AV with enough inspirations, I'm talking about Soloing them without inspirations, which is what was possible with controllers and scrappers.

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I'm not sure Blasters, Defenders, or Tankers on the Blue side or everything but MMs on the Red side could solo AVs with the 20 Inspirations you can bring to a given fight. I know you said "with enough" Inspirations, but given the fact that a solo character is capped at 20, that is what we should consider. There is no "I win - Infinite Inspirations" button, after all.

Given the difficulty of soloing AVs, I have zero problems with Inspiration use. Using Inspirations to defeat AVs takes nothing away from the MM even if Trollers and Scrappers can do it without them.

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Remember: programmers work best when deprived of sunlight, so none of them should be allowed offices with windows. Or even above ground.

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And should only be fed liquids involving copious amounts of caffeineL Mountain Dew, Jolt, Red Bull (gives you programing wings), etc.

Hey SP, I'm getting a 404 error from your Forgot Password link. Just thought you should know.

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I can't get any of it to load or play. I'm going to keep trying, but there's an error with the mwv, and I only load halfway through the quicktime.

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Zek, try right-clicking and saving the file to your computer. You should be able to play it then.

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Video is up on my YouTube channel! Click on my sig below for instant viewing!

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I'm not trying to be a jerk, but did you even ask if you could post NCSoft's copyrighted material on your YouTube channel? You do realize the video is copyrighted and your posting it without permission is likely a violation of that copyright. I can understand your exuberance, but at least try to have a modicum of respect for the rights holders. Jumpin Jiminy.