Judgement_Dave

Hope this is still on... I've taken JD to Sara ready, but need to do some RL stuff - will be back on at about 11:50-11:55 (i.e. in 20 min or so).

Hope to see you all there!

Sounds good... Judgement Dave should be there.

Had a great time in Electro-Cute's team today - so thanks to everyone in the team & hope it all went well for Noir & company!

BTW - for the people who couldn't make it to the end, I'll be more than hapy to help you get the badge some time. Drop me a PM on forum or @Judgement Dave.

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To be honest, although I agree PvP zones are for PvP, the instances where some posters have responded by insulting the PvEr's intelligence or have simply cried out 'It's a PvP zone, deal with it' are simply making the problem worse.

If people actually tried thinking about ways to solve the problem, on both sides of the fence, rather than going 'Get over it', there wouldn't be people complaining all the time. Both side's complainers need to stop acting like spoilt brats, and actually try working towards a solution, rather than the endless "My way's the way it should be" arguments.

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Agree - and partly why I applauded Blind Monotaur's thread in suggestions. His idea may be flawed (as he himself has stated), but at least he's trying to think of a solution rather than just shouting out that he's right!

I think that Amellie's thread on Respect in RV may have received such a bad reception though as I'm sure it's the 3rd or 4th similar thread in the past 2 or 3 months. My first thought upon seeing her OP was that a search might have dissuaded her from posting as all the responses were in the last month of threads anyway.

Must admit I hate PvP usually, since I can go from a total paranoid on full health to a fast-cooling corpse faster than a high performance sports car can do 0-60.

When I experience the faceplant if I comment at all it's normally been a friendly 'yup you got me... knew I couldn't PvP' or some such.

After these I've occasionally had friendly responses and sometimes the opposing players have said they'll more or less leave me alone (at least for a while).

That's never expected, and a nice surprise when it happens. Coming back after me is what I'd expect a lot of players to do (after all - I was probably an easy kill, so I'm just ready for farming). If they did that, they're perfectly within their rights and I knew the risks - they're playing the zone how it's meant to be played and it would be silly of me to assume that they show a lack of respect.

Maybe rather than attacking players for a perceived lack of respect, it'd be better if everyone realises that some players give the pleasant bonus of being 'nice' when there is no obligation to.

It's also good to see people offering support (as bodyguards) earlier in the thread - again, something nice that they'd have no need to offer.

I think it's in most PvPers interests to show some understanding/niceness to other players - after all, they can't PvP without other players to play against. If most PvPers showed a real lack of respect, it just puts others off trying PvP and possibly becoming regular allies/foes. Luckily I think most PvPers are ready to assist and will avoid you if asked (and they see the message) - but you'll never get everyone with the same attitude.



Also it's worth remembering that not all players have enemy chat on (I often make that mistake with characters first few trips to PvP) - so unless it's acknowledged it's possible that the opposing players never heard any pleas for clemency that you might make!

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Kheldian shmeldian.
I'd rather see coralax as an epic AT

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Seem to recall that this is rumoured to be coming... just that the villainous khelds are the 1st step to:
* even up the number of ATs/EATs between CoH and CoV
* then expand with 2 or 3 new ATs/variants for each side (good and evil)

Seem to recall seeing some of this around the US Positron woot radio transcript thread. (although I can't be bothered to check for sure right now... lazy JD)

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Acording to the lore the nova/dwarf powers depend upon what previous hosts the keldian has had, and repersent different species, dispuite thier similar apearance. So a nictus could easily be a bright nova.

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And in just the same way it's possible that the new villainous khelds may have different forms to our heroic squiddies and lobsters.

Big Gratz to you Hailstorm!

Must admit I've not gone through the whole thread (again) checking for this....

The info given about the Time Capsule in the cape mish is as follows:
This time capsule contains mementos of Hero 1 and his teammates on Omega Team. Protect it from the invaders!"

The quotation marks at the end of the description are unmatched, and would appear to exist in error.

I've sent in a bug report re: this.

we haven't yet started - if you want to join the moonfire TF - plz send tell to @Judgement Dave or @Density Man (with a space!)

hi DensityMan - got myself and another interested in joining the TF on Friday... but ingame it's telling me that @DensityMan does not exist.... If you get this before the TF, can you send me a tell at @JudgementDave plz.

If I don't get you in time for the TF, best of luck!

Since my ill/emp troller hit 25 last night I'll try and get him there (RL allowing).

May try to get my PB his last 2 bars to 25 to give some flexibility as well.

Enjoy your sabbatical, Mother.

Hope it restores the magic for you.

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They should just bin hammy as its no fun. (...) give players some thing better than a no fun lag fest of about 4 hours where the only thing your sure to come away with is a bitter tast in you mouth.

The Devs need to pull there fingers out of there collective [censored]'s and give the players a fun challenge.

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Damn straight. I would LOVE to talk to some of the devs involved, just so I could demolish their arguments and call them a bunch of imberciles to their faces. Having worked in the field of games development, the more I read and learn of Hami, the more I realise it is a cluster-fewk that they don't know how the hell to fix. It is textbook "how to ruin an RPG" stuff. I remember reading this guy's website ages ago on "how to build the perfect RPG" and at the time a scoffed and said "pshaw, that's so old and geeky." I find it sad that a modern RPG demonstrates all the text-book faults he listed.

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Which to me indicates that there probably is an elegant solution... it's the brute force approach that carries the faults/problems!

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Please note that I have slightly edited some of the following and so any grammatical or spelling errors are almost certainly min!

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Oh the irony to mispell mine at the end of that sentence....

Yesterday I had a fair old email conversation going with Dod Kalm, discussing old Hami... and so I present here an edited partial transcipt.

Hopefully some of this may provide new ideas or we will get feedback on tested deadends!

Please note that I have slightly edited some of the following and so any grammatical or spelling errors are almost certainly min!

---------------------CONVERSATION STARTS--------------------

Dod Kalm:
I think raz's suggestion of a team s probably correct although could a team of scrappers get that damage done before Mito spawn?


Judgement Dave:
Raz’s suggestion is reasonable, but it’s still brute force needing massive emphasis on 2 A/Ts (and indeed subsets of the ATs as specific powersets are called for)
As I stated I do not believe that the devs would have designed a task (with a special award) that had success requirements that almost preclude many toons from getting the award. Look at Raz’s squad build, no place for blasters or khelds or non-rad or kin defenders other than a solitary healer.
That doesn’t feel right to me.

It’s almost a scaled down version of the big raids - which possibly only work because of overwhelming numbers.
The developer in me believes that there is a more elegant solution.

And yes some may argue that we need lots of rad and kin, and that the developers aren’t nice - see what they did with the regen rates on GMs/AVs which needed rad/kin to stand a reasonable chance.

BUT...

The AV regen rate adjustment was (as I see it) a quick fix to make AVs tough again - it hadn’t been tested/planned half as well as Hami was (hell - they planned a whole new map just for him!)

They realised that they had overdone it and soon scaled back the regen rates. Now rad makes it easier, but I’ve been on a couple of teams that have taken down AVs without them and done it reasonably quickly.


Flying hearts may not be the answer (but they might be!) but there is an answer and I do not believe it relies upon any one specific power or powerset - although it may be down to a strategy that is greatly enhanced if 1 of 3-4 certain powers are used as well as the overall strategy.

BTW - you ever been on one of the warwolf AV mish (may be praetorian wolves) where the AVs regen/attack rates are lowered if you can get them into the water? They have put some things like that in elsewhere in the game - why not with Hami? Something like this wouldn’t show up on any map, and may not even be noticed if the effect was triggered, as people may just assume that the holds are working really well. As Hami doesn’t have a mission, there’s no mission text to drop hints. It may be that he’s weaker to aerial assaults, or nightime assaults or that the toggle dropping effect of the simple Brawl affects him big time! somethings there, we just have no idea what it is or even if we’ll know it when we see it!

(Actually that made me think - was I really about the last hero standing?? OK - I wasn’t attacking, but I was also in the air (at just over head height))


Dod Kalm:
You were indeed... just had a thought.. what about confusing mitos? Surely an internal attack from it's own defences would yield results.. mass confusion.. rather than distracting his defence using it against him?


Judgement Dave:
Confusing mitos sounds good... there are human diseases that turn the body immune system against itself - usually quite devastating and fatal. Confusing swarms also sounds good to me... any slow effect on mitos or Hami wouldn’t hurt!

Only problem is... that feels like just part of a solution or a bonus to aid things. Like I’ve said I can’t see the answer being critically reliant upon just 1 or 2 specific powers. If it is then they will be temp or pool powers that anyone could get.

Is Hami particularly weak to Shrivans? Does Katy Hannon’s spirit have power over him? Is the Crey pistol an uber weapon against mitos? Is the answer simply to get non-stop vengeance running? Does the maligned whirlwind clear away the mitos? Who knows... but the truth is out there!

As regards ATs - missing blasters seems very odd. I could forgive the devs for making Khelds surplus to req’s, as khelds are an award in themselves... so wanting khelds with HOs might just be greedy! Although you still need to put the work in to get a kheld with a HO!!


Dod Kalm:
I don't know.. the whole turning it's system against itself seems so deliciously ironic and simple that people may miss it.... A simple answer to a complicated question if you ask me... hmmmm

I think either that or you may be right.. a simple discardable seemingly useless power may hold the key...

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Such an association would not have been disastrous for the host species if it were able to multiply more quickly with the parasite than without it, and if the parasite did not lyse a cell of its host too frequently. The great gain in metabolic efficiency conferred by the oxidative respiration of the primitive mitochondrion would have helped the host cell to grow more quickly and multiply more quickly, and therefore a single-celled host species could survive the occasional lysing of some of its cells.

Nonetheless, the host would gain a further advantage if it could stop the primitive mitochondrion from lysing the cell of its host. As the primitive single-celled eucaryotic cell evolved into separate species each species might have developed its own ways of 'disarming' its parasite. One way would have been to 'confiscate' those genes of the parasite that were involved in the lysing of the host and place them in the nucleus under the control of the host. Another way might have been for the host cell to interfere in the expression of the genes that remained functional in the mitochondrion by sending host-derived control proteins or RNA into the mitochondrion.

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Sounds like confuse to me??? Or AB Hammi if its pos

Just an Idea.. been looking at RL mitochondrial deformations. And radiation is one


Judgement Dave:
AB Hami? The only AB I can think of is adrenalin boost... do we really want to boost Hami?????

On the subject of mitos... when teams have done mito-clearing have they cleared all of them?? As your email states mitochondria are used for respiration... if ALL mitochondria were either killed or acting against Hami then surely his respiration ceases. No respiration = suffocation/death. Maybe the clue is there - the developers named the mito’s after a biological entity because they do serve the same purpose.

You mentioned radiation affecting mito’s in biology... hmmm... Can Warburg nukes be used against Hami?? Whilst I've never had a Warburg Nuke, and don't know limits upon where they can be deployed, they meet the criteria of a temp 'power' that anyone can earn!


Dod Kalm:
Well apparently an overbalance in the metabolism effects the mitochondria in a bad way.. hmm I think looking at hami in this way is a good idea... "the developers named the mito's after a biological entity because they do serve the same purpose." That's exactly what I was thinking..

---------------------CONVERSATION ENDS----------------------

As this was just the 2 of us, I'd love to see what views others have on any of the ideas discussed/raised/revisited. Thanks.

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If that tactic works, I will give you all of my Influence and Prestige I ever earn until server shutdown.

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Thanks!!! fingers crossed then....

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It'd be darn nice for kindly Bridger or someone to comment on really stupid ideas... save troops of 50s spending hours on Monkey island chasing a wild goose!

Not suggesting that they help blow Hami away... but the really, really wrong ideas (outside of the Hive) could just lead to a lot of frustrated players (i.e. customers) who've effectively wasted hours of their life!

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Just testing if they are that nice...

What if the key is that all 24 players have flight (or use team flight) and line up in the sky in the following heart formation (heroes shown as asterisks, underscores for layout only...):

___***___***___
__*___*_*___*__
__*____*____*__
__*_________*__
___*_______*___
____*_____*____
_____*___*_____
______*_*______
_______*_______


Maybe if you get the plane right (so Hami can 'see' it) he becomes overcome with love to his new found heroic friends and just surrenders?

Hey - this idea is only as whacky as some of the others... and I really can't keep deadly serious for more than 2 posts! Would be fun to see though...

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I'm inclined to believe it is possible to defeat Hamidon with less than a hundred heroes but I feel that if the devs did do it with twenty-four, it must have been so long ago that with all the changes made to the game since, it is probably irrelevant.

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That's the other question, aside from team makeup, when did they do it?

One would hope that either they redo it after changes that would affect their strategy or that no changes have been made that substantially affect it.

Software testing is always a case of retesting after changes are made, even if the changes should not affect the part tested (there's always the chance of unexpected knock-on effects - ask Microsoft).

As we don't know all the details of raid24, it is possible that whatever changes have occured (since the raid) have zero or minimal affect on Hami's demise.

Heck - everyone's probably done at least 1 AV with no -regen now, it is possible just takes longer... this may be the case with Hami.

Whilst it's possible that Dreamshadow is correct, and raid24 took place so long ago that it's irrelevant, it also strikes me that I've not even heard of 48 heroes taking down Hami... which suggests to me that an undiscovered strategy is the key. As I see it, regen rates and enhancement diversification just don't have THAT big an effect. If it could be done with 24 toons at one time, pull in an extra 8/16 heroes and you have more than enough extra power to counteract nerfs.

Addendum:

It'd be darn nice for kindly Bridger or someone to comment on really stupid ideas... save troops of 50s spending hours on Monkey island chasing a wild goose!

Not suggesting that they help blow Hami away... but the really, really wrong ideas (outside of the Hive) could just lead to a lot of frustrated players (i.e. customers) who've effectively wasted hours of their life!

First off - big thanks to Babel and all the team leaders for organising Monday nights raid. No small amount of planning had gone into it and I appreciate it.

It was a valiant effort, which I feel was definitely working well until Hami's secret ability of 'Hami Lag' (-move -power activation +frustration) kicked in big time!

This was my 1st Hami raid and, whilst eventually frustrating, was enjoyable for the 1st 90%!

I was there with Exengel, a dedicated healer, and believe that the big turning point was when lag got to the point that powers were not triggering... It's frustrating to spend 20min trying to fire off a single ressurect (and still not succeeding)... knowing that if you can't rez then slowly but surely everyone is going down and not getting up again!

Thoughts on Hami Raids...

1 Lag
The Hive exists purely for Hami. The devs know that 70/80+ heroes normally turn up for Hami - heard figures saying 100+ heroes are usually needed. So why do I keep reading that zones are designed to cope with up to 75 heroes?

It really would be nice to see them up the server capacity, or find a way to give The Hive some preferential processing time!

Quick aside: How many heroes do the US usually employ? Do they have the same lag issues as we in the EU? Are there servers specced the same?

But having said that...

2 The Devs 24 man Hami raid (raid24)
Ok, hands up, I'll admit I've not seen the original info regarding this...

However, given the 75 hero in zone server spec, it seems likely that Hami was designed to be beatable with 24. Why?

The devs knew the ****** in Hamis armour so should have tested taking him down with a minimal team. They know that normal players do not know these ******, and so imagining that normal players will take a up to a 3:1 ratio strikes me as a resonable assumption. the 3:1 ratio would still comfortably fit in the server limits, and so, to the Devs, Hami probably seems a reasonable challenge, doable without uberlag.

Also 24 fits nicely as 3 full teams... Anyone have any idea what the dev team AT makeup was for the 24-man raid?? btw - I would hope that the makeup included all available ATs... can't see them having designed a challenge with a great reward (the HOs) knowing that a specific AT is almost surplus to requirements and so will never get invited on raids nor get the chance to earn the reward!

3 Womble Spoons
I believe that there probably is a simple, but unfound (by players), technique to make the whole raid go smoother - heck raid24 (if true) proves this.

I'm intrigued by the swarms description.. it may refer to their SNAFUing of travel powers, but confuse 'em and what effect do they have (if any) on Hami and the mitos?

I suspect that this may be the sort of thing we are looking for, rather than a true womble spoon.

It also strikes me that analysing the map may not reveal any server-side delights that exist in The Hive...

Thinking of RV here... are there set spawn points for the supehero/villain AVs that can appear? If so, do they appear on the map?

As far as I'm aware the server could happily spawn the freedom phalanx under certain conditions whilst facing Hami, and no client-side map would give any clue to it!

Not saying that this happens, but if there is some special condition to seriously weaken Hami or boost the heroes, I'd keep it off the maps if I developed CoH... From the start the Devs knew that someone would analyse the maps, and I'm sure they'd want the secrets to their uber-baddy to be invisible!



Work now calls... so I'll leave my ramblings there.

Thanks again to Babel & co for organising the raid, and thanks to everyone who took part - quite amazing to see so many 50s in one place for the first time!

We'll get Hami next time....

Big Gratz on Evo. mate - been great teaming with you and look forward to your next one!

Big Gratz Globey!

Had some great fun teaming with you & glad I could be there to see you ding the big one!

All the best, mate ;-)

The team spirit is still there... just not in every team.

I can see how new players may not get the tank... "what the hell's he doing? Running forward like a scrapper and then just (apparently) standing there doing nothing??!!??"

If this was the case, then they may just need a little education - and in the right tone. If you explained but in an angry tone (including calling them noobs) then maybe that is why you were kicked...

not saying that you did this... but as I wasn't there it's possible.

I find that most players are ok if you patiently explain things that they don't understand and in a pleasant tone (heck - we were all new once). The team then works better and they become better players for understanding the tanks place in a balanced team.

Of course.. they may just have been idiots - in which case you may be better off without them!

BTW - you get more problems with low level teams partly because anyone can create a low level toon - it takes some patience and dedication to hit the 40s or 50, idiot players tend to lack both qualities!

Gratz on Kinetix. - didn't realise you'd not long dinged when we teamed on Saturday!