Ice_Wall

Hey guys and dolls.

So next to Dominators, Controllers are the AT I have the least experience with. I have a Grav\Storm at level 11 that I like, but despite having that character for over a year my alt-idos has kept me from really playing him.

However I recently started a new troller, an Ice\Kinetics that I could get some help with. I almost always try to get Health and Stamina, which means 3 powers in fitness pool and 2 more powers in a travel power pool. (Havent decided which Travel power to get yet.) With 5 powers gone to pools that usually means I can't quite get all my primary, secondary and Ancillary powers.

So I am wondering which powers for Ice Control and Kinetics are good. I have some thoughts so far, but I'd like other peoples opinions since others undoubtedly have more experience with controllers than I do.

Obviously I want speed boost. Word around here is that any time a controller skips speed boost in their build, god kills a kitten, and I don't want any of that on my hands.

Inertial Reduction, Fulcrum Shift and Transference, all look very useful. However Repel seems like it's kind of a waste of endurance. Though if there is a good use for Repel please let me know, I'd gladly reconsider.

Increased density seems like making my team mates resistant to holds and knockdowns etc is a good thing, but then I also slow them down, which is not good. I think this could be overcome with speed boost, but I have to wonder how many team mates I am going to meet without some sort of mezz\kb protection....

Also, how useful is siphon speed? I have never been huge on slow powers, and Ice control seems like it is going to have plenty of slow in it, so wouldn't this power just be redundant?

Siphon power I think I want , -damage on them and +damage for me and my team seems like a no brainer unless I am missing something.

For Ice Control I can't see a lot I don't want except for maybe Flash freeze. I'm not usually huge on sleep powers since as soon as they are attacked they wake up, and on larger teams no one goes un-assaulted for long. It seems like Ice control has more effective holds and Immobs. Plus Ice slick is great for keeping the enemy from attacking.

Also, with some of the Kinetics powers, I am wondering if I really need health or Stamina all that badly. Transfusion seems to provide some healing and Transference seems to provide End, though that won't be til level 38 or so. I am not looking at ancillary powers yet, I will look at those when I get closer to that point and have more of a feel for the build.

So is there anything I am missing, is my read on these powers more or less accurate or am I way off? Any feed back is appreciated, (aside from "lrn 2 play n00b.)

Actually, I don't really agree with most of the origin write ups, I kind of go with what ever story I want to spin for my char and ignore the whole origin thing other wise. I very rarely use anything but IOs anymore any way so it doesn't come into play much for me.

I've never had too many problems naming my characters.

I tried to name a night widow Wraith, and a lot of variations of Wraith. That was frustrating until I finally found one that was available.

Otherwise I usually get it on the second try if my first name is taken.

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I couldn't disagree more with Bill's cut and paste post.

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Except for this part...

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Gameplay
There are also two other things to consider.
1. The game is designed around alts.

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So I guess you do find something you agree with in that post since thats the whole thrust of yours.

The Cut and Paste is a COLLECTION of objections. You don't have to agree with all of them and if you have a totally new one I'm sure it will be added.

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I don't particularly agree with even that section of Bill's copy and paste post. Though I do mention alts, the point of my post is that if the Developers give people a full AT Resepec, they are shooting themselves in the foot business wise by letting users experience too much of the content too quickly.

While Bill mentions the game is designed around Alts, he doesn't really talk about the fact that many people would get done with this game much faster and the Developers would have a lot less in long term subscriptions.

I don't really think this is the same point, if other people do well then *shrug*. Don't know what to say about that.

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Well why not just... you know, delete them and remake em? I mean, that's ... what the slots are for... Or move them to another server to keep their name and badges, and then remake it again "the right way".

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Why not just find another game that offers the hope of not having your effort stomped into the ground doused in gasoline and set one fire ?

Not everyone is or wants to be an altaholic. Seeing a character you have spent hundreds of hours on destroyed is not pleasant.

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Sure, that will happen just as soon as a game is released that is perfectly balanced in every way at launch and nothing in the game that changes ever affects that balance.

It's not fun I'm sure, but it's the nature of the beast.

Why would they?

If you didn't use the last one by the time they gave out another one, why would you need another one? I mean, it's not like they give these out all that often. You usually have months between granted respecs, if you don't use one for that long, you probably won't need 2 before they give you another one.

They have been working on Going Rogue for a while. They still have to release other things before Going Rogue. They aren't going to stop development on I16 for Going Rogue. They will likely work on both simultaneously, having the people who need to be involved in I16 working on that, everyone else will be laying the ground work for GR, which is likely going to be I17 or I18 the way Villains was I6. ( I would be surprised if it wasn't I17 honestly.)

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True story: you can break all matter down to its component parts of SMASH.

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And can you further break down all those smashed components to cinders of BURN?

I couldn't disagree more with Bill's cut and paste post.

I still think a full respec is a bad idea, but not for those reasons.

I don't buy the whole, "You have to learn your char on the way to 50 or you won't know how to play" argument. I have never bought it and I never will.

1.) This game isn't that hard to learn.
2.) Plenty of people play this game for years and still make plenty of bad build\design\strategy\overall play choices.
2.5) Plenty of people pick up the nuances of this game very quickly.
3.) If some one on your team is really that bad, you can always ask him to leave or kick him.
4.) You learn to play a char by playing a character. You learn the powers by using the powers. Wether you get them at level 50 or 1 at a time from level 1, you get better with time. If you play the game long enough the learning curve for all of them gets much less steep.

I never here, "Ohh that guy just turned 32 and got nova, well we can't invite him to the team until he is level 33 or 34 and knows how to use it right."



That rant done with, full respecs are a bad idea.

I have sever Altitis. It's mainly because I want to try as many power sets and archetypes as I can to see how everthing works. A lot of other people are the same way. If I can get 1 char to 50 then simply do full respecs to change my AT, Primary, Secondary at will, then I could go through each Archetype and powerset in the game. Have tried all of the powers, (since I am level 50 I'd respec into a fully built character.) all of the ATs and see all the different play choices this game has to offer. I could do this all within a couple days or weeks or a month after getting to 50. (Depending on how long I toy witch each set.)

So then I have tried all the powers and ATs in the game, I got 1 50 to be able to do it. So what's to keep me playing here? Sure the missions are cool and some of the content is a neat experience, but that is going to lose it's flavor quick after having tried all the powers in the game and I'm going to stop spending money on the game and go to the next new thing.

I wouldn't be the only one, and the Developers would have just handed a giant short cut to anyone of the player base who has a level 50 character. (Probably the majority of the playerbase at this point, but I don't have numbers to back that up.) Now players get to experienece a ton of the game content in the form of various ATs and power sets in not a lot of time. That works against the game since, it's a subscription based game and the developers want people to hang around and pay them a monthly fee, which they won't do for very long if they can get through the bulk of the game's content in a month or two. (Yes it is very possible to get to level 50 in a month, then spend the next month trying out every power and AT etc if you can fully respec that character.)

I don't know if this is new, but It's something I noticed today I never noticed before.

The door from Talos into Dark Astoria. Now has "Dark Astoria" written on the very top where the stone is.

Did they clearly label all the hazard zones? Or have I really just been blind during my 3 years of playing? Time will tell.

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The title is a complete lie, just now I saw a group of Outcasts trying to break into a bus stop. They are still doing things that make absolutely no sense.

Of course I do wonder what happens when they successfully break into an open air buss stop.

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They get to sit on the bench without having to have walked around?

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Screw Hero Side Taskforce.

Im talking about the REDSIDE STRIKEFORCE.

Blueside gets it easy as usual, red does not & broken to boot!


JJ

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You whine a lot.

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Why is it any time some one expresses their frustration some smart [censored] on the forum has to call them a whiner?

I'm going to keep you in mind for next time you complain about something or express frustration.

Honestly, for all the talk about "Oh this SF isn't that bad." There are a lot of team struggling with this, this isn't the first thread on it. There is another thread in the 15 Open discussion area where lots of people have talked about having a very similar issue.

Too hard to damage, too quick to recharge, Unstoppable is a pain and the MM power doesn't work right.

Honestly, I get that SFs are supposed to be challenging, I know they aren't all perfect when they are released, but come on this is what Beta is for. I went into open beta the first one, (the last time I really had time to play this game.) And I tried this SF out and the first thing me and several of my team mates complained about was, this guy is too damned hard to fight. This was back before the temp powers worked and all that, which is fine, but now they supposedly work and he is just as bad if not worse.

From the other thread it seems that the MM power is just broken, so you need enough damage and enough -regen to over come his unstoppable.

However that means getting a very specialized team which really isn't what this game is supposed to be about. I'm sorry but it's gimmicky, and requiring a stalker to use the machines or an MM to get past the unstoppable isn't a great design choice.

What's worse is, if you don't have an MM, you need a truck load of damage. My team of 8 and many other teams have pounded on this guy for an hour or more and never got him past 50%.

Talk all you want about "Lrn 2 play n00b." Or "Wait for the strategy guides" but if you have that many teams who can't do enough damage to him, then it's just not done right.

Good job to all the people who managed to beat it. Just because it is beatable, doesn't mean its not rediculous.


To put this into context. I am not going to quit the game, I don't hate the Devs, in fact I am still a big red name fan boy, and I don't hate the game. All I am saying is this Strike Force needs serious work, and since this was an issue from the beginning , I feel like it really should have been better than this by now.

I love that the devs know us so well, easily grabbable snacks and calling in sick, I love it.

Happy birthday Ironblade!

Anyone ever notice how you never see Blue Steel and Chuck Norris in the same place at the same time?

Officer Bad Cop.

Madam Justice. (I picked this before I knew there was a Maiden Justice in CoH lore.)

General Anesthetic (My empathy Defender.)

Once you are moving past tinting power colors, and you move into changing power animation... Isn't that pretty much you being a developer at that point?

I guess it makes sense, we write our own missions now, we should go ahead and make all the animations too. Slowly the Developers will turn its subscriber base into its work force. We all have jobs at paragon studios, we only have to pay 15.00 a month plus tax for this part time job that won't do jack for us on our resume'. Awesome!

Honestly I don't want custom animations, even if they could implement the feature, seems like you would run into problems with people trying to shorten animation time, activation time etc, and even if it wasn't all that, sounds like it would be a lot of work to animate each of my characters by myself. Or I would have to select from pre existing animations and how is that different than what I have now?

Give me color tintable powers and I'm happy.

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While the PPPs are balanced for their ATs and serviceable, it doesn't make sense that after side switching, the villains, who are now heroes, are going to go back to the Arachnos patrons and be like, "Hey, teach me more cool powers with which I can use against you in the very near future."

Ancillary pools make a bit more sense, since in theory they are just newly learned powers, I could get a heroe in the isles learning additional powers. The patron pools, not so much.

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I'm actually kind of curious how they'll handle this issue. My money is on the devs simply removing the patron arc completion requirement from the PPPs, at which point they're simply using tricks they've learned from watching other villains and any patron pets they get are simply beaten into being good guys or have switched sides as well and decided to follow this villain.

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That would make sense.

I would bet on carbon copies of PPPs and APPs, for analogous characters.

IE, Blasters converts get access to the Corruptor PPPs, or slightly modified versions, and Corruptors get access to blaster APPs or slightly modified versions.

They could do the same for

Brutes:Tankers
Stalkers:Scrappers
Dominatorsefenders
MasterMinds:Controllers

The masterminds I know are supposed to be the villain version of Tankers, but they play closer to controllers or defenders with their powers so I think it's a little bit of a grey area. But I feel like the PPPs and APPs wouldn't have to be mofied to much to make it work for the similar AT of the other side.

They get off easy with Khelds, and I think VEATs just got the brute version of the PPPs anyway so they can get Tanker APPs and they'd be fine.

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Well another thing, not that this is really considered in the rating, but you do need to buy this pack in order to use it. So if you don't like that you can skip the "cross dressing" and "trans-gender" by just not buying the pack.

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The objection is to the idea of anyone in the game being able to do it. Not buying the pack won't stop other people from inflicting their vile, ambiguously-gendered ebil on Gender_Freaked_Out's poor, defenseless, sheltered children.

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I see, it's the whole "I find this immoral so you can't do it even though really it does nothing to affect me and if I never saw you do it I would never know or be harmed by it, argument. Makes total sense in an insane, over-bearingly controlling sort of way.

Well Babs has baby babs that was born not too long ago. Is the kid even a year old yet?

If I were him I'd spend every moment I could with that child, but I'm a sap like that.

Honestly, I never liked taking my work home with me, even when I really like my job. (If I worked at City of Heroes, I might make an exception. You hear that HR?)

So my guess is, they probably like to just leave work at work, I am sure they are swamped with this game and all the upcoming stuff they got going on. We already know they got I15 coming up, possible power customization in I16, Going Rogue with several new zones, and that's just what we know about. (Which appears more and more just to be the tip of the ice berg.) So I am sure they are putting in long hours and are done with it by the time they go home.

Plus, it may be similar to the reason they don't release new issues right before the weekend. They may want to limit red name posts on the weekends so that a Redname doesn't get on friday night drunk, tell everyone a bunch of stuff he isn't supposed to, and then everyone reads it all weekend until monday morning when a moderator logs in, finds the post and then has to delete it and tell everyone it was a lie.

It's easier to damage control anything that might potentially slip if they only post on weekdays etc. But that's just my personal theory and I have no way to back that up with anything solid.

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Villains get free Inf? Sweet.

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You know better than that. The Devs hate villains.

However the chance to boost infamy significantly due to the SF is a cool idea.

Honestly, I liked this interview, it gave me some new information, though obviously not a lot.

Good job from the interviewer to hang in their with the questions even though they couldn't really be answered, I do like the tenacity.

I am excited for Going Rogue though I would have liked to see some questions on the upcoming I16 especially with the recent announcement by Positron.

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That theory doesn't work so well for all the other pets.

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It doesn't work well for the VEATs either, but do you really think that they're going to completely change the name of the AT to account for those who change sides because they're no longer in Arachnos?

Honestly, I doubt there will be any change to the PPP/APP system. The pools are, in and of themselves, balanced around the ATs they belong too. Creating entirely new PPP/APPs to account for villains that switch sides would be an exercise in redundancy since there are already perfectly serviceable and presumably balanced PPPs to work with. The only problems that really exist are, potentially, the pets, though, it's not entirely out of the question that you brought along or found an individual of the kind that changed sides to work with you.

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While the PPPs are balanced for their ATs and serviceable, it doesn't make sense that after side switching, the villains, who are now heroes, are going to go back to the Arachnos patrons and be like, "Hey, teach me more cool powers with which I can use against you in the very near future."

Ancillary pools make a bit more sense, since in theory they are just newly learned powers, I could get a heroe in the isles learning additional powers. The patron pools, not so much.

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It's not crossdressing. Female costume options are not being ported to males, nor vice versa.

IBTD.

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But it is cross dressing. When ppl do drag they do there clothes and makeup to match. most men that cross dress actually look like females. They dont look like hairy men in a women's dress. Take the muary show, on numerous times they have brought ppl on the show that do drag and most the ppl in the audaince cant tell if they are really a male or female. Same thing you have here.

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Its not cross dressing. It's not a man in a skirt or a woman in a man's suit.

Its changing form from woman to man or man to woman. That is shape shifting not cross dressing. And it's not sexual in the slightest, no where in the game does it call this trans gendered, transsexual, cross dressing or anything else similar to it.

The only way it becomes sexual is if some people sexualize it and that is completely on them.

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To save other people the trouble,

<ul type="square">[*]2.) Characters that do not wish to change sides are rewarded by becoming exemplary heroes or villains, and earning rewards not available any other way - possibly different or cut[/list]

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I hope that's cut. I'd prefer that the choice of whether a character switches sides or not was done based on character-based reasons, not what rewards they might or might not get a shot at.

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I think the idea here is that if you have a hero character, who's never going to 'go rogue' and become a villain, you could instead continue to do heroic things and eventually become an exemplary hero...at which point, you'd have access to rewards not available in other ways.

Whereas exemplary villains would just get shafted cause we hate them.

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LAWLZ!!!!!!

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Every time some of us pointed out the detailed plans laid out in the August survey, many of you were quick to say "Hey that was just marketing folks regurgitating all our wish lists. No way all that stuff is planned!" Let's do a little review:

MA: Check.
Side switching in Going Rogue: Check.
Power customization in i16: Check.

But I'm sure we'll never see a Spy archetype or universal enhancement slots, right? If only they had put items on that survey that the devs were actually planning on implementing!

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It would be a big mistake to take that marketing survey as a roadmap for future content. I can think of at least 2 things that were on there that were either radically changed or outright cut, and a bunch of stuff that's not on there, but are being worked on right now.

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Like what BaBs? Pics or it didn't happen.

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I want to throw yellow snowballs during the winter event!

Wait, that means I touched them.
Never mind.



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That's what the mittens are for, or even better the rubber gloves in the upcoming super science pack.