Lancelot_Strong

I'm really taken aback by how weak DP is overall, at least as a Blaster powerset. No sniper attack and weak damage. If taken with what would be a "natural" pairing, Devices, the weak damage and truly horrible low level Device powers make soloing a nightmare.

If I didn't have the Nemesis Staff and the Demon-Slaying Axe from Veteran Rewards, I know I would've given up on the toon before reaching level 10. Empty Clips as an animation is meh, and even worse as a power, the cone effect is way too narrow and its damage is extremely weak. Bullet Rain is nice, and can save your butt every now and again, but overall, if not for the Gun Fu aesthetic, it's just not worth playing.

I need a better fix for the Black Screen issue. Since the last patch, I have to delete my COH Preferences folder, start in safe mode, switch my graphics settings, quit and restart the game, Every Time I Start The Game. Every. Single. Time.

I'm on the verge of uninstalling.

Help!

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And, while Jack says now that PvP will always be optional, a little over a year ago he was saying no PvP.

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FYI - I never, never, never said that there would be "no PvP." Never.

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GenCon 2004. Listening to the spiel at the Cryptic/NCsoft booth. "No PvP." I thought it was you saying it there during one of the trivia games. But, even if it wasn't. Someone was, and they represented you and the developers in doing so. Or do sales pitches not count?

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And, while Jack says now that PvP will always be optional, a little over a year ago he was saying no PvP.

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They've never said no PvP, or at least, not since well before launch. I remember Cryptic talking about wanting an arena when I was in beta, but it was something they didn't have time to finish implementing. If they did ever say "no PvP," it was far longer ago than a year ago.

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Just remembering the discussions at the Cryptic/NCsoft booth at GenCon '04. Something got misrepresented. One way or another.

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are you getting CoV? it's really, really easy to avoid the pvp if you want.

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I'm testing in Beta. If you want to call it that. The game goes live in 6 days, and really isn't ready. Lots of bugs. While I can avoid the PvP, it's really obvious that PvP is the direction the game is going. And, while Jack says now that PvP will always be optional, a little over a year ago he was saying no PvP. I'd much rather see better mob AI, more content, a lot more quality of life type of additions (colorization of powersets, ability to turn off special effects, etc...) than the relentless pursuit of something I had no interest in before tonight, and less after.

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I hated it, no fun for me, as I suspected. Possibly if it wasn't a slide show it might have been ok. Was real apprehensive going in. Ganked over and over by unseen enemies, hospital trips, and running back to the hotspot, but suddenly held..dead in seconds, almnost always I never had a chance to fight back. Since the toons are being wiped anyway, it wasn't so bad, But I am more anti-PvP than ever.

I really hope it can be avoided altogether after CoV launches, while still allowing me to have my PvE experience.

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Agree with a lot here. I'm more anti-PvP now than before. Single worst experience I've had in the game. In another thread I said I've had more fun at a Dentist's office, and I'm not a Dentist.

I had so little fun, I wonder if I'm going to continue playing. I really love this genre, and right now the genre alone is why I'm staying.

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With Enhancement Diversification comes a benefit for ALL City of Heroes powers.

Every power, across the board, is getting a 13.33% reduction in its Endurance cost.

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What Im reading between the lines of this is: Yes, those of you who thought of this as the Stamina nerf are correct. You are not meant to 6-slot Stamina. Now, you don't have to.

So, ED, which among many things includes that second mulekick to the groin for invul tankers, was to "encourage" people not to 6-slot Stamina?

Way to think outside the box!

Now if we can just get y'all to stop thinking of penalization and reduction of capabilities as Primary methodologies of play management, this game might get back on track!

And, if you think this is going to mollify those of us who've already cancelled our CoV pre-orders... think again.

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Erm. No. PvP will be an optional part of gameplay. Always.

The changes in I5 had very little to do with PvP and a lot to do with boring PvE. It's that simple. No conspiracy there - I think I've stated this several times.

As for the supposed "emphasis" on PvP - I think you'll see that it's just ONE part of City of Villains. It has PvE content levels 1 to 50.

We'll continue to add new PvE content (which I5 did exclusively, I might add) in the future.

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First, I have to wonder if the statement about PvP/PvE is like Soloing/Teaming. Anymore when I log on, I either team exclusively, or solo exclusively. After I've left a team, if I try to solo a mission, I get mission spawns that reflect the size of the team that I just left. I shouldn't get 5 +1 minions as a spawn in a heroic mission. But, I do. I'm not sure if it's a bug, or part of the new encouragement towards teaming.

Secondly, I (like many others who play this game) could not care less about PvP. As far as I'm concerned, it's a waste of time, effort and money. Frankly, I don't care how much content is put in for PvP. I won't see it. I won't try it. I've had too many bad experiences with PvP in other games. My fervent hope is that the CoV/CoH PvP zone(s) see less use than the arenas do now.

Thirdly, about the "boring" PvE, some of us were having fun. That said, I should point out that fun is now (courtesy of Statesman) an absolute value, instead of a subjective one. What could I have been thinking?

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I'm imagining...

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Stop imagining. You haven't played a Tanker in the post-40 game. You don't know what you're talking about. I'll respect anything you have to say about Defenders, but your Tanker posts come across to me as: "blah blah blah I don't have a clue. blah blah blah"

Stick to what you know. Please.

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And for tanks... this is something of a strange one for me. I've always seen them as overpowered. They were the only class in the game in which there was never really any desire to have more than one on the team. One tank could usually handle the agro for multiple 8-man spawns. Any more than one tank and things were usually so easy that the rest of the team could toss the occasional buff and let the blasters and tanks and scrappers mop everything up.

Any class that has a 90% resistance to the most common forms of damage *and* a way to avoid getting hit at all is quite simply overpowered. Yeah, you may have felt super. This is all well and good... but it was far too easy. It's like playing on cheat mode.

Any class that can herd and take down an entire 8-man spawn at the level cap and on the highest difficulty setting needs serious looking at and rebalancing. Sometimes it's hard to objectively look at something you have such an emotional investment in. And it is quite hard to see your character brought down to the level where they're only *sometimes* the star of the show instead of being the star and sole actor, for the most part.

Now we're at a point when the tank can't hold agro with ease for the entire team. When the team has to support the tank and the tank has to support the team. So far all the tanks I've regularly grouped with have adapted to the new situation. They're thriving. The basic difference is that they simply looked at the new environment, adopted new tactics that were more appropriate to the situations, and are now thriving like ever before. Just not quite as show-stopping.

The tanks I've grouped with that have been having trouble are universally attempting to force their old tactics to work in new situations. These are also the ones that I've noticed complained more about I5 than anyone else. Lots of people are now using multiple tactics instead of the simple (and boring for me) tactic of buff tank, tank goes in, wait for mission complete.

One change that I'd like to see for tanks that would likely make their jobs a whole lot easier would be to allow Gauntlet to be slotted for Taunt Duration.

As it stands, though, people are still able to do their jobs. In group environments, though, they just need to adopt different tactics and actually work together. You know, be a group.

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Have you considered what it is to be a post-40 Invul tank who wants to solo?

Have you read the plethora of posts in the Tanker forum agreeing that Invul needed to be toned down, but not [censored]?

Are you aware that Fire and Stone both have better non Smash/Lethal resistances than Invul?

Invulnerablility was designed originally as a Resistance based powerset. Now, once you get Invincibility, it becomes a Defense based powerset. This isn't a change of tactics. This is a destruction of concept. You cannot build a playable Invulnerability Tanker whose concept is to stand there and take damage for a team. Not after lvl 20. What's more, is that in order to maximize the defense bonus for Invincibility, you have to herd. Have to herd. Believe it or not, there are Tankers who don't like to herd!

I don't like to herd. I don't like PvP. I loved playing Tankers. I5 screwed me. I got the impression that you don't play Tanks. If you don't, then don't bother to tell me what you think my favorite AT needs. I get enough of that from Jack Emmert.

Mr. Emmert, reading this self-congratulatory piece, I wonder if you're mentally dysfunctional due to disease, nature or chemical abuse.

Subscriptions seem to be down. The majority of servers aren't busy. I see few Tankers online. I've seen people form TFs, specifically excluding Tankers and Controllers. Why? Because there is a fairly wide impression that the ATs are "gimped." I'm not talking about a forum opinion; I'm talking about what I read in the Broadcast channels on Triumph and Virtue. So, now I'm waiting for the mandatory 5-man minimum for every TF. One of each AT. From recent Developer behavior that would fit the mold.

I read somewhere that you spent a lot of time at GenCon with the people publishing the CoH RPG. I sincerely hope that you didn't mention your Balance Vision to them. No one deserves to be laughed at by their peers. Although, I know some of the people at Eden Studios, and I'm quite sure that they're polite enough not to do it to your face.

No RPG designer would dare use that amount of condescension when speaking to customers. I do not believe this has occurred to you, but you should not have to tell someone else how to have fun. That you have to, should be an obvious sign that something is wrong. It's my opinion that (as far as software companies go) only Microsoft rivals Cryptic Studios' arrogance towards their customers.

I subscribe because of a small group of friends that I've made in the game. I continually try to convince them to move to WoW. However, we don't all like fantasy. So, if another MMORPG in the superheroic genre starts up, I know where several subscriptions will be going. No threat, simple fact.

There's no reason to go into numbers concerning changes to powers, it's all about attitude and vision. I bought the game last year after GenCon when I was told that there would be no PvP. Now, not only is there PvP, but now the game's design is based upon it. Speaking of GenCon, I got the distinct impression this year wasn't as successful as last year. It must have been the lack of large crowds that I remember from '04.

The worst part is that this post, and all the others like it, mean nothing. I don't know why the attitude of the developers has taken such a drastic turn from what I remember last year. Frankly, at this point, I don't care. My favorite character is forcibly retired due to unplayability. I don't care about a respec. That isn't going to give me back Lancelot Strong. I didn't herd, and I didn't powerlevel people. Not that it matters. My supergroup thought I was "the Man." I won't spoil that legend with the gimped version your new issue would allow. The only reason I haven't deleted him, is fear that I would lose my Kheldians if I did.

I play to enjoy the game with my friends. I don't care about new content. I don't care about new powersets. In my opinion, the game is dying, and the faster the better. I really used to love this game. But, your arrogance and disrespect towards your customer base has killed that.

I need to put an end to this rambling rant. So I'll end it here.

Journal Entry: Day 7

I've spent the last week running errands for this clod Sunstorm. I can't believe he actually tells people who he really is. Just stands there next to Fat Boy's statue trying to look important. I think he does it to get attention, despite the city's assigning him as a liaison for PeaceBringers. Still, he's useful in gaining influence within the city. I made the acquaintance of a few Heroes. Together we fought the Council and Vahzilok for several days.

The Council. Good Idea. Very good idea. Excellent resources. Poor execution. They simply don't follow through. They're just as stupid as the 6th Column was back home.

The Vahzilok intrigue me. Although their smell leaves much to be desired. Undead troops.... Hmmmm, a multitude of ideas....


I moved into this apartment building in Steel Canyon. One of the other residents through a welcoming party. I attended of course. It is good to feel, even falsely at this point that they are beginning to pay homage to me. Strange gathering. Drinks were shared, and many openly admitted that they were paranormal in nature. I of course did my best, "Gosh! Golly! Wow!" impression and admitted no such thing.

Later, after a few hours, the party started winding down. Hernando, the host, was sitting in a chair looking at a picture of a girl with green and black hair and sighing about Clarissa. I assume that's the girl's name.

That may be the key. They care so much for each other here, and so easily. Heh. That's how to strike at them.

I must make note of the Hollows. Wonderful Name. Of course here it was accomplished by a bunch of drugged, mutated fools, not to stop an Anti-Praetorian rally with emphasis.

I keep hearing about the Rikti War. They came to invade Earth here, evidently. Sad really. I actually miss Kiicha, my houseservant. They had come to bring peace and enlightenment, little did they know they'd end up slaves. Nothing quite like listening to Battle Maiden screaming about where her Rikti pet was.

I'm still getting used to this world. So familiar and so alien.

Crescent Hawk's Journal: Day 1

Today everything changed.

We knew these so-called Heroes were coming. Our spies in their world alerted us. "Paragon City," what a joke. Weak-hearted fools! But still they came. There were eight of them. And, with their fire and ice, summoned minions and weaponry, they brought us down. We were His last defenders. The mighty Tyrant. And one of them, the tall one in blue and white, actually dared to lay his hands upon the Emperor, himself. Dared him to strike him down, time and again. And I watched my lord fail.

I watched him fall.

I watched these fools dance about, and take pictures of themselves standing next to the fallen body of the Great Tyrant, or standing on his throne. It still fills me with rage at the memory of it. I was so angry, I didn't mind dying. I was lying by a pillar, within sight of my lord's throne. The invaders had beaten me nearly to death and moved on. I wasn't important enough to finish off. Oh, wait. They don't do that. But if medical attention doesn't arrive in time.... Well, they don't worry about that either. None of them seemed interested in taking the throne for themselves. I don't blame them. This world is dying. Just like me.

As I watched them dance and laugh and joke at the demise of the Emperor, that's when I heard the voice in my head, whispering.

It whispered: "You show potential, human. You will suffice." Then pain, infinitely worse than that which had broken and burned my body filled me. The PeaceBringer known as ShadowArc entered me, and shredded my soul, welding it to his own. Forcing us to become one. A Kheldian.

Healing, still hurting, I rose from the floor of the throne room just as the last of the so-called heroes who had brought the Emperor down fled back through their dimensional gateway to their "beloved" Paragon City, and I followed. And, as I leapt through the gateway, I heard the whisper in my mind: "No! The merging is not complete!"

I made it through right after the last of them. I readied myself, knowing that they could destroy me yet again, and I didn't care.

But they didn't. They simply talked amongst themselves, ignoring me. Until one of them, the one who had burned half the flesh from my body only minutes ago, asked me what happened to my Mentor. That confused me, which he must have interpreted as the equivalent of a shrug. He then offered to escort me back to where it was "safe."

Somehow, with the merging incomplete, when I came out in this dimension, they saw me as one of them. One of their PeaceBringers.

When I saw the statue of that fat fool Atlas I sat at his foot and laughed.

Then the pain returned, tenfold. And the merging finally was completed. I wasn't Chase Simpson anymore, and I wasn't ShadowArc either.

I was a wolf standing amidst the sheep. No. A Hawk, over a field of prey; ready to stoop.

So, I registered as a new "Hero" and chose the name Crescent Hawk. The helpful people at the City Hall helped me with putting a costume together, and asked me if I would be interested in helping with some plague victims.

Plague? A chance to get a sample of a bio-weapon? "Of course I'll help!" Ha! I got a sample of both the plague and the cure.

From what I understand of this world. The Dr. Vahzilok here hasn't made his cure for cancer, regeneration drugs, or recombinant gene therapies. Sounds like someone worth getting to know...

Then Mastiff... I mean Coyote sent me to see Ms. Liberty. Ms. Liberty? It was all I could do not to ask her where the see-through outfit was, or if she was wearing her usual strawberry edibles....

The amusing parts aside, it will be hard. There are so many of them, arrogant, weak fools. But, I see potential allies.

In the end, it doesn't matter. This world shall be Mine.

Question for Statesman: Exactly how are Tankers and Scrappers with Super Jump supposed to fight flying enemies? Taunt and then run behind something to draw them close? The epitome of heroic behavior.

And thanks for making my lvl 50 SJ tanker completely useless in a Hami raid. Can't even fight the mitos now.

Flight needs the acc penalty because of the hover/snipe bit. Which of course is still possible with Hover. I can see adding the acc penalty to Super Speed due to its Stealth effect in addition to the in-out combat tactics it allows. I just don't see how Super Jump gives a tactical advantage which warrants a similar penalty. Can someone explain the datamining which led to this conclusion?

Not that it matters. Let's face it, the vast majority of power tweaks are down. The bar never gets raised, only lowered. And frankly, that paradigm is getting very very old, in my opinion.

Council File: 4164x192-MHT* (Eyes Only: Archon Clearance Required)

Hero ID:* Lancelot Strong
Classification:* Tanker
Origin: Science
Real Name:* Morgan Fleming
Occupation:* Professor of English, Crey University, Paragon City, RI, USA

Threat Assessment:* Extreme/Immediate

Background:* Born Lance Armstrong, son of Arthur & Elaine Armstrong, 3.11.80.* Mother died during childbirth.* Father never remarried.* Father was employee of CIA's Scientific Intelligence branch (See Council File: 912d349).* On 4.3.83, child was diagnosed as severely retarded (See Appendix G).*

*** Father was part of temporal incursion event 1.2.85* (See Council File: 1214w351-TIE).* Within months, the father began to show signs of questionable behavior. Was approached for possible recruitment, judged to be too Unstable for use.* Over next 3 years, Arthur Fleming commited a series of thefts from various Government facilities.* Thefts were of highly advanced and/or alien technology (See Appendix L).* 18.6.88, Father picks son up from school, and disappears.* Federal Arrest Warrants for Arthur Armstrong issued same day.

*** On 24.7.90, Deputy Sheriff Roger Fleming investigated a call about strange noises and lights at a farmhouse in rural Pendleton County, West Virginia.* Fleming found the farmhouse's interior completely wrecked, and the dead body of Arthur Armstrong in the debris.* Following unidentifiable sounds, Fleming discovered a laboratory had been constructed in the farmhouse's storm cellar.* Lying strapped to a table was a ten year old boy.* Various unidentifiable pieces of equipment were connected via electrodes to the boy.* There were two probes firing arcs of bluish-white energy into the boy's head.* By dumb luck, Deputy Fleming got the power turned off.* As he was freeing the boy, a high pitched whine became audible.* Fleming threw the boy over his shoulder and headed out of the storm cellar.* Within seconds of leaving the farmhouse, it collapsed down and inward in an explosion of blue light.* (See Appendix C for Fleming's report.)* Federal investigators probed the two-meter ball which was all that remained of the farmhouse after the implosion.* DNA testing revealed that the identity of the dead body was that of Arthur Armstrong. (See Appendix O)

Important: Fleming never notified the FBI of the Armstrong child's presence.

*** On 22.1.91, Roger and Marie Fleming file formal adoption papers for a ten year old boy (See Appendix H).* Morgan Fleming is quickly determined to be extremely intelligent (See Appendix G), and at the age of fifteen, attends Stanford University.* After receiving advanced degrees at Princeton and Columbia, Fleming moved to Paragon City, and accepted employment at Crey University, teaching English and Philosophy.

Theories:* From extensive scans made during base intrusions by Lancelot Strong (See Appendix R), and covert studies done of Morgan Fleming (See Appendix T), we believe that Lancelot Strong does not actually exist.* The hero, Lancelot Strong is a quantum energy construct created by the amplified mind of Morgan Fleming, within which he places a copy of his consciousness.* When Strong is no longer needed, he literally fades from reality (See Appendix Q).* The twinned consciousness returns to Fleming, and we assume he has both sets of memories for the time period in question.

Disposition:* At this time, observation of Fleming and Strong is highly recommended.* If the technique for mental amplification can be duplicated, so might the ability to create virtually indestructible soldiers.* This would be invaluable to the Council.

Authorization for Termination: Revoked

So far, I'm fairly negative about the changes to Bosses. Yesterday, my main (lvl 32 D3) and 2 friends (lvl 47 Fire/Dev Blaster-Exemplared and a lvl 27 AR/Dev Blaster) were doing a mission of mine. "Save Crey lab from Freaks"

The mission spawned 10 no-named bosses. Ten. For a 3 character team. No, I wasn't counting Tanks that rezzed twice. 5 at even con, 5 at +1. I was trying to help a friend lose some debt, and get another friend some serious xp. What happened? Debt-Fest '05. The mission didn't even have a boss at the end. Just a named Lieutenant.

I wonder if with the changes to bosses as is, if there shouldn't be changes to how bosses spawn.

I realize that we weren't the ideal team. But, the other two are good friends and members of my SG. Am I supposed to ditch them for pick-up teams now?