ICF_Zombra

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I'm just thinking of how a non-PvP group could ignore the base raid all together and hand over an IoP if they really don't want to fight (or even listen to) "L33T-Boi" and Co.

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In beta, we were allowed for a brief time to put IoPs in our bases for free, just to test out their existence, I guess. They were placed, moved, and removed like any other base item. Unless something has changed, you will be able to simply delete your IoP like anything else if you don't want it for whatever reason. Better yet, just don't place it in your base in the first place. No IoP in the base, no raid. Simple.

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The original intent described in Beta was that the Items of Power will still be reclaimed when the CoP trial period comes 'round again AND they can be taken in raids.

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Hmmm, I guess that makes sense, otherwise the "IoP economy" would get all weird. Every faucet needs a drain.

I still hold out hope that some option will be extended to the PvP hatas even after scheduled raids go live. It can still work!!

<-- hysterically trying to remain optimistic

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what exactly will the items of power be does anyone know and what will they do that make them worth the effort being put in to them?

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I don't remember what they are. Just goofy stuff like swirling black spheres and cosmic glowing whatevers.

They give very small bonuses to your whole SG, such as a 2% increase to all damage, or 1% bonus to all earned xp, for as long as you have them in your base. It is possible that these figures will be boosted later to incentivize Items, but the devs decided to start small and boost later rather than start big and have to nerf.

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What's changed is that for a limited time only, you'll be able to get IoPs without worrying about people raiding you.

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And no where does Cricket say that.

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Yes she does.

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Scheduled Base Raids are currently non-functional, but we wanted you to at least participate in the Cathedral of Pain and Item of Power portions while we address the Raid functionality internally.

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As for the main debate:

From what I gather (I could be wrong), the 21 day timer will only be in effect until raiding is live. IoPs were designed with the fact that you can lose them (in PvP) in mind. It was never intended for you to get them and keep them forever. Without PvP in place, the loss of your IoP is now guaranteed ... after three weeks. Once PvP is running, I imagine that you'll get to keep your Items for as long as you can hang on to them.

If I'm right about all this, the solution to appease everybody once PvP goes live seems pathetically obvious: allow Cathedral victors to choose whether they want a permanent (and raidable) Item of Power, or a temporary (but non-raidable) one. PvP enthusiasts, including the pro-PvP Asian market, can pick the former. The PvP-shy Americans/Europeans/whatevers can pick the latter. The PvP minority in City of Heroes can still duke it out with the like-minded; a theoretical PvE minority in City of Hero could earn and enjoy a temporary reward. Cryptic would get their trillion dollars and world peace would finally be achieved.

Next problem.

Having only skimmed part of the thread, let me just throw in that I love Gauntlet. Love, love, love it to death. To use it you just have to, like, move around. Do stuff, you know. Don't just walk in and say, "The Tanker is here," and expect every mob in sight to fall in love with you and only you.

Gauntlet is a neat little boost to my aggro drawing abilities. I don't care that it's not the uberest inherent. I find it very helpful.

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So, you may see why at times it can be confusing for someone who's proud of his Maltese Heritage to see the Country used for a villain group.

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The main thing to remember is that they're not the country; they're a group that uses the country's name in their name. There could be a terrorist group called America Eternal whose mission was to destroy the economies of all other powerful nations - that wouldn't make it official US policy. Though that would be an understandable assumption.

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Ahem, we can -SO- use a couple history badges on these sort of things in-game.

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Yeah, I like the idea of a bunch of plaques around Paragon City talking about all the deepest details of this incredibly security-minded secret society that has powerful friends everywhere.

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So what do you think? Too vindictive?

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Personally, I think it's kind of extreme to deliberately aggro extra stuff to kill the team. (Though I'm sure it gets the point across. )

Me, I simply keep one rule foremost at all times: manage your own aggro. You don't have to be a Tanker to do this. Even as a Blaster, you should always know what's attacking you at any given time, and what will attack you if you perform any given action. If your melee guys are drawing the aggro, great, you can open up on those targets. If control powers are rendering guys helpless, great, open up on them. If the enemies are debuffed to heck and gone, open up. If they're wounded and you can finish them, open up. If your tanks aren't tanking, your control guys aren't controlling, etc., but the bad guys are coming after your team, just pick one easy target and take it out without drawing aggro from anything else. Once the dork who screwed up the pull is about to die, retreat before all the loose aggro starts flying around. It's really not hard to survive even on the dumbest team. And after everyone but you wipes a few times, you'll find they'll really listen to you when you say, "Hey guys, want some advice?"

Of course, it can be a lot easier to just dump a bad team and find a better one, but I find surviving, earning respect, and educating to be pretty rewarding.

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Had another PUG, made of new players, in which everyone BUT the team leader was willing to listen about pulling. Everytime I was able to get one mob close to the group, the team "leader" ran up and engaged the mob before it was even close to the group. I guess he needed to show off how mighty his Controller was... with Flurry from the power pools while he didn't try to hold anything.

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I love situations like that - where I can conscientiously stand back and let someone face plant because they refuse to listen to reason or use teamwork. Tough love ftw.

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After that.. why are Mayhem missions timed at all?

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To give a reason to break stuff - how else are they going to incentivize destruction? By giving xp for cardboard boxes? In an un-timed environment?? Maybe there doesn't need to be incentive to break stuff, but I think the timed model is fun. It engenders an important sense of urgency - after all, you are storming the streets of Paragon City itself. You shouldn't feel like you can take it easy and just stroll on through.

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... This isn't important enough to me (again, I see this like recycling cans or getting bottle deposits) or to the SG.

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Save the world! Recycle cans and bottles!!

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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.

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"Farm or die." No thanks.

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Psi-Cops....it's been done *coughBabylon5cough*

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That post....it's been done *coughBolverkcough*

Two things:

1) Reading the article, I can't help but wonder where the PPD suddenly got all this funding. From scaredy cats who don't even have GUNS to highly trained agents and man-sized robot drones?? Please let there be some kind of justification for this.

2) I love Blue Steel just as he is. Sure, I'd like to see him in a mission or something, but anyone who makes fun of him will have to answer to me. Actually I kind of like the fact that he quietly hangs out and watches over King's Row without ever making any headlines. He's not even subtle in a kewl Manticore kind of way - he's the real thing, a guy doing a tough job without caring about recognition.

Sign me up to take Blue Steel as my Patron when CoH Patron Pools are implemented.

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The days when I continue to pay for this stupidity are numbered...and the numbers are running out.

[/ QUOTE ]Ah, we've come down to this, have we? Can I have your stuff?

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For whatever it's worth, Sam, I got the joke.

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You guys either take stuff for granted or work around the constraints of the medium daily.

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Your implication that we have to accept every stupid decision in the present and the future because we've accepted stupid decisions in the past doesn't hold water.

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Really, if you're so concerned about your villain's character being "tainted" by Patron Pools, you're just too uncreative to deal with it.

Not all of the Ancillary Pools fit my heroes. But you know what? I thought of ways that they could. Everyone complaining here isn't limited by the game—they're limiting themselves.

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There is a huge dissimilarity between lack of imagination and the lack of tools to realize your imaginings.

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You beat me to it, O_D. I was going to suggest locking SpacemanBill in his coat closet with nothing but a can opener and a deflated soccer ball to keep him company, and sealing the door closed with concrete, and dripping protein fluid in through the ceiling to keep him alive. If he was truly creative then he could go on to lead a rich, interesting life in such an environment. Some of us would prefer an environment that is a tad more dynamic.

Extreme example, but I hope it makes my point.

Also, Chum Spray 4tw.

Gotcha!

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Its to late at this stage to have ... the color of electric melee for villains changed.

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Oh, please. They just need to change that one spot in the code where it says 255 0 0 to 224 255 255. kthx

Will someone please mask Cricket's account so that her posts on admin only boards don't show up in the Dev Digest?

Somebody is sooo busted.

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Cricket Re: Statesman reminds me of Towelie.

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And as for the assault rifle model, ... I probably won't mourn the loss of the model if it were chaged

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Oh man, I would. I love that thing.

Just thought I'd weigh in a bit re: costume options. Samuel, while I am in complete agreement with you about character direction and creative control (let me repeat that: I am in complete agreement with you about character direction and creative control), I have to say that you're being a little unfair by praising CoH's costume options and decrying CoV's. Is there a disproportionate amount of "whips & chains" goth gear in CoV? Sure. But look at the big CoH update where they gave us a bunch of different "anime" style ... shirts. And ... pants. Did we really need 5 new kinds of generic shirts? I don't really think so. You see those Korean style pants used much? Me either.

CoV has some great non-goth additions to costume options - pinstripe overlays, top hats, werewolf hair, 1001 face mask patterns, military uniforms, a couple new pairs of goggles, etc. I've been very happy with the villains I've been able to design. And Issue 7 will have new robot parts and plant limbs, I've read, and who knows what else. (Probably not more barbed wire, though you never know.) Yes, there is a huge, even ridiculous amount of goth stuff, but I don't take this to mean that CoV is destroying character diversity any more than a bunch of stupid looking pants destroyed character diversity in CoH. And let's not forget that CoV had 90% or more of the CoH options available out of the box - making your cute little pyro girl or a thousand other "subtle" designs very doable.

Red lightning. Am I crazy about it? No. It does make me look forward to my planned E/E Brute a little less. I'll try it out, and if I can't stand how it looks, I'll trash the character. But CoH is not thoroughly un-guilty of alienating people with power set graphics. Take a poll of AR Blasters, see how many say they think the Assault Rifle looks "impressive and cool" and how many say it looks "stupid as hell, but I like the powers so whatever".

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I think that pretty much everyone can agree that choosing not to play the game is not a winning move (except in the case of global thermonuclear war).

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Darth friggin' Vader had a Patron.

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That is both a very good example and a not so good example.

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Episodes 1 to 3 never happened.

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Oooh, sorry to even make you think of those! I never saw em, I don't know nothin' about em, that wasn't what I was referring to. I was thinking of one person picking up another person bodily and throwing that other person into a very deep well. If we can choose to finish our patron arcs by doing stuff like that (bust open Mako's aquarium and watch him flip around on the floor for a while, hire some high-level clerics to nail Ghost Widow with a massive Turn Undead, or even sneak some industrial strength itching powder into Black Scorpion's suit), I'll be very happy with the patron arc treatment of authority and submission. Then we'll just be back to the problem of my skill-based ninja swordsman learning to summon waterspouts indoors, my hard-headed evil scientist learning to travel through the netherworld to eat souls, and my giant robot eschewing his built-in weaponry in favor of a big bronze mace.

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Darth friggin' Vader had a Patron.

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That is both a very good example and a not so good example.