Ineffable_Bob

This is all good, but what I want to know is - how does this help the Ice tanker survive AV one-shots when that 5% hit ratio comes up? Or even getting nailed by a couple of bosses that both get lucky at once? I still don't see any resistances anywhere.

Defiance is a nice thematic ability for a superhero. For any superhero, not just the 'blaster' superhero. But it completely fails at addressing the problems that the blaster AT faces:
<ul type="square">[*]Defiance actually increases aggro, by doing more damage, at the time when the blaster can least afford to be the target of additional attacks.[*]Defiance offers no damage reduction or defense, so mobs that one- or two-shot a blaster at 40% health still do so. This is nearly every mob past L30.[*]Defiance offers no status protection, so being chain-mezzed until death is still an issue. Nearly every boss (and some minions, such as Malta with Tasers) can do this past L30.[*]Defiance offers no accuracy boost. If you miss the mob, increased damage is useless.[/list]My thoughts on a solution are this. First, keep Defiance as it is mechanically, but give it to every AT. Just like other offense powers, the amount of damage increase should be greatest for blasters, then scrappers, then defenders, etc. Defiance is a great power conceptually. (But remove the icon from the buff bar except when Defiance is actually active, it's not needed and is distracting.)

Second, add a new blaster ability that actually addresses the issues that exist with the AT at higher levels. My suggestions (in order of desirability):
<ul type="square">[*]When a blaster drops below 50% health, give her enough status resistance to resist one mez effect from a boss (not sure exactly what magnitude that is). When she drops below 25% health, double that resistance.[*]When a blaster drops below 50% health, reduce her aggro by half. By this I mean reduce the count of damage dealt that the mob AI is using to decide which hero to attack. If the blaster has done 500 damage, count it as only 250 in the mob AI aggro formula, so that other heroes (such as a tank or scrapper) are more likely to get the aggro from that mob. At 25% health, same but reduce by 3/4 instead of 1/2.[*]Give blasters an inherent ability that gives mez resistance of one boss-hold per two teammates (of any AT). This would require teaming to work, obviously, but allows the blaster to team with any AT instead of needing to look specifically for a teammate with mez protection.[*]Same tie to teammates as above, but give defense and accuracy instead of mez resistance.[/list]Note that the most desirable suggestion would be useful in both solo and group play. The others would only be useful in teams. Also note that I did not suggest changing Defiance to either do more damage at higher health % or to raise the amount of health at which it kicks in. That change would only lead to people attempting to exploit it.

[ QUOTE ]
The axiom goes, writers write.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hard to over-emphasize this point. If you don't enjoy creating games (or components of games, such as short fiction) so much that you're doing it already on your own time, you probably won't think much of it as a job.

[ QUOTE ]
&lt;snip example of dying and getting nothing&gt;
How can you defend me getting nothing for this? I am staying to help the team. If I hosptial the tank dies. If he dies the rest are in grave danger. So I stay and get rooked. Help me understand how this stops pling in anyway?

[/ QUOTE ]
Excellent question. My alternative solution would resolve this, since death plays no part in whether you get credit for the kill, but the current XP Range option does not address this issue.

Statesman's original post on the XP Range change said:
[ QUOTE ]
The reasoning behind this change was that the typical “power-leveling” tactic was to park the low-level heroes in the Safe Areas of zones, while the rest of the group hunts in the most dangerous places brings a lot of XP to the safe low-level guy. Forcing the low-level guy to actually move WITH the group (staying within 200’) prevents the most common power-levelling tactic in the game. It's OK if the low level guy is in the zone and contributing - but that player needs to have some risk to go along with the reward.

[/ QUOTE ]
Fair enough, the idea here is to balance risk with reward by forcing the player to actually be somewhat involved with the group, even if that involvement is nothing more than staying near the others.

However, there are holes in this approach, as has been stated many times on the two official threads. I won't repeat it all here, but I will link to my favorite post summarizing some of the arguments against the range approach.

I offer a different solution. Forget range entirely as a criteria for XP/drops/etc. Instead, give credit to anyone on the team that has targetted an enemy in the same spawn group, including assisting. In missions, there would be no time limit on the targetting - in normal zones, you'd need to have targetted within the last 15 minutes (or whatever time limit you like) to get credit. Let me explain how this would work.

If you target any enemy in a spawn group, you get credit for all the defeated enemies by your team in that spawn group. If you assist someone who does the targetting, you also get credit. By 'spawn group' I mean the group of enemies who will aggro on you if you disturb one of their leaders - anyone familiar with pulling will understand how this works in great detail. I'm sure spawn group is already accessible in the code somewhere, since it appears to be the basis for the AI aggro behavior.

An example: Players A, B, and C are on a team. Player A is doing most of the actual damage, so he will target just about every enemy in the process - he's covered. Player B is a healer/buffer, targetting Player A most of the time - he is also covered due to assisting. Player C is attempting to sit safely halfway across the zone and PL - he gets nothing because he is out of range to target anything. Even if he selects Player A, he gets nothing, because assisting doesn't work unless you're close enough to actually target the enemy (try it sometime with the /assist command, new in I3).

The only hole I can see in this solution is that you could take Player C around the zone using Group Invis/Group Fly/Recall Friend/etc. and let him target each group, then park him and defeat them all. I don't see this as a major issue, though: 1) in normal zones you have a time limit, limiting the effectiveness of this tactic; and 2) there's a decent amount of work in targetting all those groups.

This has the side benefit of hurting herding techniques, since if you herd 20 groups together, chances are pretty good that everyone but the tank will fail to target some of the spawn groups. Herding won't be nearly as effective a method for quick XP any more.

So how does this affect normal play? In most cases, not at all. Everyone in the group will be targetting either an enemy or another member of the team. The only case I can see where this might hurt is if you use a big blast of some kind (say, Inferno) and you manage to hit two groups at once but have only targetted the first group. In practice I think this would be an extremely rare case, and in my opinion can safely be ignore as long as everyone knows about the targetting rule - people will just have to make sure they look at the enemies before they blow up the world.

I welcome thoughts, concerns, criticisms, etc. Get the feedback going to solidify this idea. Let's give the Devs an alternative that works, instead of the XP Range 'fix' that doesn't solve the problem.

I remember taking my lunch hour to drive to the nearest Best Buy with the game so I could get into the Head Start, since my copy didn't arrive until release day.

I remember six-slotting Rest on my first toon, an Invuln/Ice tanker.

I remember my first attempt at the Tsoo Rage lab mission - first time I hit the debt cap.

I remember when my post count was less than 4 digits.

I remember the first time I flew over Faultline.

I remember my first pet.

I remember 20-hour Hamidon raid marathons, before we knew he could be held.

I remember when my Fire blaster first demolished a group of red-con mobs with Inferno.

I remember my SG mates being amazed at the power of EM Pulse.

I remember Rikti in the hospital in Kings Row during the beta invasion.

I remember why I play this game - to feel like a comic-book hero.

Alliances. Mostly Chat, but also for other things (being allowed to enter other team's bases, for example).

The ability to change colors and chest symbols.

The ability to truly edit the MOTD text (not just delete or add to the end).

An auto-remove feature for toons that haven't been logged in for X amount of time. I suggest defaulting to "forever" and having options for 30, 60, and 90 days.

A way to email all members of the SG, all members of a certain level (all leaders, for example), and (when alliances come) all members of the alliance.

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, could I get your opinion of my choice for a Fire / Ice tanker? I took those pools because I like the look of the power sets. I think they are awesome. I noted your comment on Fire and Ice tanks being weaker thaan their counterparts. How much does this effect my ability to tank? Have I made a good choice with my power sets?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think the "weaker" comment was in terms of pure defense, and was only meant to apply to primary pools. Invulnerability tanks are (currently) the king of defense, with huge resistance and defense. Stone is next best, with some resistance and huge defense. Ice tanks get good defense, though not as good as stone, but very little in the way of resistance. Fire gets decent resistance, though not anywhere near Invuln, but little defense.

Offensive capabilities run pretty much the opposite. Fire gets Burn, hands down the best tanker primary damage power, plus Blazing Aura, with minor damage. Ice gets Icicles and Stone gets Mud Pots, both minor damage powers. And Invuln gets - no damage at all.

So as a Fire tanker, you're going to be spending a lot of time getting mobs near you, then Burning them into submission. You won't be herding huge mobs all by yourself, because your defenses won't stand up to it. But you can get smaller mobs and beat them down all by yourself, while an Invuln tank would probably need some help from a damage dealer.

[ QUOTE ]
At launch, the European version of City of Heroes will be up to date with the US one. Moving forward, there will be little or no delay between updates (and when I say 'little', I mean a matter of days at most - and we're working hard to ensure that even that doesn't happen).

[/ QUOTE ]
As a US player, this frightens me a bit. That's more coding/testing/QA that has to be done for the localized versions, right? So in order to make the releases sync up, you're going to end up having to delay the base release. I'm afraid we'll end up with delayed US releases because they're trying to get the Euro versions out at the same time. We already have enough delays just because of the huge number of changes that Cryptic insists on putting in every patch.

Well done. I second the suggestion for a sticky.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There aren't status bars for the Halloween badges. I would imagine that this is because you would be stuck with them if you don't finish before the event is over.

[/ QUOTE ]
Bingo

[/ QUOTE ]
IMHO, this is poor implementation. We already know that there is code somewhere to filter out any badges that have zero progress, even if they're set up to have a status bar. Why can't that same code be modified to check a flag that is set only if the badge should be displayed? Then all Cryptic has to do is set that flag to false when the Halloween event is over. Same for Isolator, just set the flag to false as soon as you exit Outbreak.

Got a pick-up group invite last night on my newly L18 tanker. First thing on a chat channel: "Tanker! W00t we hit the jackpot!" That is never a good sign. Not surprisingly, everyone but me died when the blasters aggroed two other groups while I was tanking a third.

5th column will randomly spawn in all city zones for about a week. They will be horribly overpowered for their level, try to only fight -4s or below. Make sure you have status resistance since many of the bosses seem to auto-hit on holds. Nothing of real import will happen and they'll all disappear with no explanation one day.

Oh wait, I'm getting this confused with the "invasion event"...

Geko posted some good info on how this works (quoted here so that it sticks around when that link gets deleted):

[ QUOTE ]
No change to Integration. NO Nerf. No bug. No change to CoTs.

You have a base value to each Mez/status effects of -1. If that number goes over 0, you are mezed (Hold, Sleep, whatever). Integration and similar powers give you -15 protection to each of these effects. A typical single target mez power (like fossilize, a Hold) adds 3 points to your base value. So Integration will protect you from 5 such attacks. A 6th will Hold you.

The higher level you are, the more protection Integration and similar powers offers you (they get better with level) you have. If the foes are higher level than you, they add more points and can mez you more easily (lower level foes will have a harder time mezzing you). Each type of mez effect (disorient, sleep, hold, etc) is calculated separately… that is, a Sleep will not stack with a Hold, but all Holds stack. So, a Hold from a Block of Ice is the same as a hold from a Fossilize, so both stack towards Holding.

This works the same for villains vs heroes or heroes vs villains.

Check this out. This is a hypothetical example of what might happen (not the exact numbers at all, just an example). The numbers on the left is a time scale starting from 0 seconds:

0s : Hero Base Value for Hold is -1
1s : Hero turns on Integration. Base Hold value is now -16
2s : Hero is hit with a Block of Ice power for a Magnitude of 3. Hold lasts 10 seconds. Hero's base value is now -13 and is not held.
3s : Hero is hit with a Fossilize for a Magnitude of 3. Hold lasts 10 seconds. Hero's base value is now -10 and is not held.
4s : Hero is hit with a 2nd Fossilize for a Magnitude of 3. Hold lasts 10 seconds. Hero's base value is now -7 and is not held.
5s : Hero is hit with a 3rd Fossilize for a Magnitude of 3. Hold lasts 10 seconds. Hero's base value is now -4 and is not held.
6s : Hero is hit with a 4th Fossilize for a Magnitude of 3. Hold lasts 10 seconds. Hero's base value is now -1 and is not held.
7s : Hero is hit with a 5th Fossilize for a Magnitude of 3. Hold lasts 10 seconds. Hero's base value is now 2. The Hero is Held and Integration turns off.
8s : Hero still Held
9s : Hero still Held
10s: Hero still Held
11s: Hero still Held
12s: Hero still Held
13s: Block of Ice where off. Hero’s base value is now. Hero is still held.
14s: The first Fossilize wares off. Hero’s base value is now. Hero is still held.
15s: The 2nd Fossilize wares off. Hero’s base value is now. Hero is still held.
16s: The 3rd Fossilize wares off. Hero’s base value is now. Hero is still held.
17s: The 4th Fossilize wares off. Hero’s base value is now. Hero is still held.
18s: The 5th Fossilize wares off. Hero’s base value is now. Hero is free.

The above is also actually more complex because Integration also offers Resistance as well as Protection. While Protection reduces your Base value and make it harder for you to get Held, Resistance reduces the duration of a stacking Mez attack. So if you have 50% resistance to a Mez, Mez effects ware off in half the time. So while Integration is Active, all Hold Durations are at half. The initial Fossilize powers in the above example will actually ware off in 5 seconds instead of 10 until you are brought above 0, then you are Held, Integration is disables, and the remaining durations of the Holds return to normal. So the math does get a little more complex than in the example above, but the basic principal remains the same.


One last thing. If you have a question about a power, or think it is not working properly, please feel free to ask. We always do our best to address them. If not us, we have a great community that can often answer your question. But please do me a favor and don’t title your post as “So and so power was Nerfed”. It’s never a good assumption as we always do our very best to let you know when we change anything. It also just starts rumors, upsets people. In the end, it just makes it harder for us to sort through the boards to find any real problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

I assume the last few numbers should be:

7s: After integration turns off, Hero base value is 17
13s: base value 14
14s: base value 11
15s: base value 8
16s: base value 5
17s: base value 2
18s: base value -1

Well written. Now if there was just a list of what magnitude all the powers the cause status effects use....

[ QUOTE ]
i think more testing needs to be done, but i also think it is also the fault of the players who decide NOT to go onto test to help find the problems that are the reason there are so many.

[/ QUOTE ]
Um, no. Those of us who were on test weren't able to get through to the devs, I doubt that adding more people would have made a difference. It might have just made things worse - too many people on one server causes it to lag, and then nothing gets tested.

[ QUOTE ]
I cannot stress enough - the +1 mobs everywhere are a BUG. We did NOT notice them on the Training Room server. It happens. I made a mistake. We're fixing it (though it isn't live yet).

[/ QUOTE ]
I appreciate that you're admitting a mistake, Statesman. But you're admitting the wrong mistake.

Consider my post about pre-L25 difficulty, which clearly states that there are +1 mobs in missions. I know you read this thread since you responded not just once, but twice, both times claiming that +1 mobs did not appear except as replacements to front-loaded missions. In between those two posts of yours were posts saying that the +1 mobs were more widespread, so I know the problem was clearly laid out. Not to mention the hard numbers I posted from a comparison of playing on Live and Test. Note that all of these are dated from before the Issue 2 patch went live, in the first case nearly a week before.

Please don't insult our intelligence by saying you guys didn't know about the problem. I appreciate the admission of mistakes, but unless you're admitting the correct mistake, it won't help you to correct it in the future.

[ QUOTE ]
In addition to dropping missions, what's wrong with allowing missions to be traded between players?

[/ QUOTE ]
I like. Might be hard to code, and you'd have to figure out some things related to how story arcs work. But if they could make it happen, I'd love it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I bugged a ton of stuck mob/bad geometry things on Test two weeks ago and I'm still seeing it on Live. Cryptic, get a move on fixing this stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]
ROFL, if your so damn good. You do it. These guys have a ton of stuff to work on.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't argue with that - they do have tons of stuff going on.

[ QUOTE ]
Everything in the CoH devs past have shown them working hard to put out a good product.

[/ QUOTE ]
This I disagree with. Until Issue 2 went live, I might agree with you. But Issue 2 went live way too early. I personally bugged 4 stuck mob missions the weekend before it went live, and those bugs are still happening. Imagine how many bugs must be in the test database - if just one person got 4, then all the testers must have bugged hundreds, maybe thousands. And yet Issue 2 went live? Maybe the devs were working hard to meet a deadline, but they weren't working hard to put out a good product.

[ QUOTE ]
a) only limited to 3 active missions

[/ QUOTE ]
Positron answered this once - they don't want people to get too confused by having lots of open missions. Some people would be able to keep dozens of missions straight, but they're going for the lowest common denominator, and they don't want to confuse the people that can't handle it.

Personally, I don't agree with that argument, but that's what he said. I think you should scale it to level - 3 available until L10, 4 until L15, 5 until L20, 10 thereafter. The numbers are just examples, you could tweak those, but you get the idea. This would prevent complete newbs at low levels from getting all confused by the multiple missions, but still allow experienced players to handle missions how they like.

[ QUOTE ]
b) can't 'abandon' them if we choose so we can move on to others

[/ QUOTE ]
No idea why this is true. I've posted on this every once in a while since my beta days, never seen an answer that made sense.

[ QUOTE ]
The bugs moreso than the level of the villians.

[/ QUOTE ]
Vehement agreement. I bugged a ton of stuck mob/bad geometry things on Test two weeks ago and I'm still seeing it on Live. Cryptic, get a move on fixing this stuff.

We've been asking for this since beta. Good luck getting someone to listen to you.

This was seen on the Test server. Apparently it wasn't important enough to fix.

First, let me say that I loved the Ubelmann story as well. I loved the fact that I had to shut down a time machine, and it was pretty upsetting when the bug stopped me from finding out what happened. Once that bug was fixed, the letter souvenir was freakin' great.

OK, now that the good stuff is out of the way, on to the complaining....

[ QUOTE ]
...but on one alternate earth he did make it through the portal. You'll find out all about Axis America when you hit 40...

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've pretty much done all the arcs in the game and I have to say it's the best souvenir. There are a lot of other cool arcs later in the game too though, between 40 and 45 you get to find out what Hero 1 did to stop the Rikti war.

[/ QUOTE ]
Once you hit 40, cool stuff happens. I hear this all over the place. How come I can't do those neat things earlier? Yeah, I understand that there should be some things that are saved for the high level content. But would it be so bad if one or two portal missions showed up in the 20s?

And how about some archvillians in the story arcs? We get exactly one archvillian prior to level 20 (I'm not counting task forces, this is missions), zero through level 34 (my highest toon, I assume it's really through 39), and (based on reading the boards) a ton of them post-40. Couldn't one or two get moved into the lower levels?

[ QUOTE ]
Do things like Burn count as landing more and more blows?

[/ QUOTE ]
I really hope not. From a gameplay perspective, having Burn count would just be making the one tanker build that doesn't have damage problems even more powerful. From a theme perspective, I can't see how watching a mob sit and fry is supposed to get you involved in the fight more.