Lightning_Rod

Thank you CuppaJo. You will be dearly missed.

;salute

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The Supergroup mode bugs are back.
Exemple:
I have a character with Monster legs, Insectoid pattern, green/red Blend patterned.

When i it SG mode, my legs become Green/WHITE. But i can't edit it because the SG settings show my characters has having monster FURY legs, without any option to change the color. Help?

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Yeah, SG mode color editor is still showing random bodyparts, costume parts, etc. I have a different head (probably because the glowing eyes head is gone, instead being now called Supernatural face 13), and the lightning pattern has vanished from my costume in the SG color mode editor.

In a semi-related note, is Supernatural face 13 the same as the old "head with glowing eyes" we had before? They seem.....different. I may just be imagining it, but I swear they aren't exactly the same graphic.

Stay sexy Jay.

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I also have issues when going to the Costume shoppe and finding random pieces missing/changed on my costumes.. I also end up with missing (i.e ghostly) body parts on occasion. Seems pretty random. Different faces, accessories, hair..

Doesn't seem to matter much which Character I'm using I get costume randomness which I have to look through the options and 'rebuild' the 'Current' costume before altering it.

-Dragons

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Beat me to it. :-)

But yes, in both the SG color editor and in the Icons costume editor, all four of my costume slots will have randomly "wrong" pieces displayed. My face may change, or I may have pants instead of armor, etc.

I'm guessing that the re-naming of pieces and the merging of the CoH/CoV enabled costume pieces (for those with both games on their account), may be causing any editor that dynamically creates your costume to become "confused" over which pieces it should be showing you, giving you whatever new piece is located in that part of the database/spreadsheet/whateever, instead of what you actually are wearing.

While I suppose a few trips to Icons (one per costume slot) would fix this, some of the items I currently wear don't seem to still be available, so I can't exactly use the "free trips to Icons to rebuild your costume" workaround.

Still, all in all, good work, and thank you for putting so much effort and attention into fixing things up. Rumor has it that Jay is sexy.

:-)

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And Lightning Rod gets my vote for Coolest Use of the Power System.

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WOOT!!!! Thanks Positron! I apprec-
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Aw dammit, I fell for it AGAIN!!!!

;-)

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Numbers aside, Defiance simply lacks synergy.

The risk simply outweighs the reward.

It is counter-intuitive for a no-defense based Archtype and benifical to work against it.

It is undependable in a time of need.

Unlike other Inherents, it is less useful as level progresses and threat levels increase, further exaggerating the damage scaling problem of the Archtype from 1st to 50th level.

Good tactics and playing style render the Inherent power inert and inactive, thus granting no benifit or functionality.

It does not mesh well with the kind of attacks that could help garrentee elimination of the immediate threat. High end attacks like nukes (that apparently can be interupted if the blaster dies during the animation), or snipe attacks (same deal), or melee attacks which propel the blaster further into risk and danger than away from it.

And finally, The Kings of the Face-Plant need no further encouragement to promote such a bad habit.

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QFT

The problem is with the very concept of the inherent, so no amount of bug fixing will ever make this inherent acceptable.

No matter how "happy" you are with it, no matter how many times you go over the code to make it less buggy, many (more likely, most) Blasters aren't going to like a power that only exists when our HP are low. We do everything we can to avoid a state of low HP.

Let me say that again.

We do everything we can to avoid a state of low HP.

The goal is not to die. Dying = bad. Therefore we avoid getting anywhere near that state if we can help it. By extension, you've given us an inherent power that we're actively working to avoid having. Instead of a power we look forward to using, or that we work toward using while doing what we do naturally, or that randomly activates with no downside, we have an inherent that (like our Defender allies) we work at all costs to avoid. THAT is what we don't like about it, and that is what needs to be fixed.

Why can we not simply have our PvP inherent ability (30% of our damage is unresistable, always), in PvE as well, instead of Defiance? Would that be gamebreaking? Would it be impossible to code? I guarentee that it would help us a LOT more, make a lot more of us happy with our inherent, and is far more thematically compatible with our concept ("we burn through enemy defenses better than anyone" makes more sense than "my damage output is based on my damage intake").

Defiance is simply not a good idea. I'm sorry if that hurts, but I'm being honest because I do care. Whatever is causing you to cling to this bad idea, please, let go of it. Swallow your pride, if that's what it takes. Stop trying to force us to like something that's completely counter-intuitive and counter-productive to the way we play.

I say the above with all due respect, and hope that it will not fall on deaf ears.

Respectfully,

My wife and I have been playing CoH since Beta (and CoV now), and her parents both play as well.

Yes, I play CoH/CoV with my in-laws. This is, at times, a bit disconcerting.....

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so...
Mr.States + Mrs.States................... Mr.Recluse + Mrs.Recluse
...............||................................. ...................||
...............||................................. ...................||
.........Statesman........................Maiden Justice & Lord R.
......................\\.......................//
.......................\\.....................//
.........................=====||=====
................................Miss. Lib + Mr. X
.............................................||
..........................................Ms. Lib




so...Lord R. is Statesmans Brother in law? and also Ms. Lib's Great Uncle?
oh wow....i need to lay down now...

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Nicely done.

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I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate...

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So what does that make us?

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Big damn heroes, sir.

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Ain't we just?

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Combat Flight

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Whoa, did Hover get a new name while I wasn't looking? ;-)

Letting the power pool defenses stack with more of the primary/secondary defenses does give the pool powers more flexibility, rather than added power, which I think was their goal here.

Gil,

Thank you!

And best of luck in whatever you do next. You will be missed.

Please, get rid of Defiance.

Don't "tweak" it, don't "adjust" it. Just get rid of it.

In PvP (Arena) we have a very nice inherent ability that lets a certain percentage of our damage go un-resisted. Against someone with no resistance, it does nothing. Against someone with high resistance, it is a nice bonus, but not overpowering. Best of all: it's always on, and doesn't require us to be damaged to use it.

Why not simply give us this inherent ability in PvE too? You could tweak the percentage, of course, but it's already something we have in PvP, and it makes far more sense than Defiance does (you should never, imo, link a Blaster buff to the Blaster being at near-death/low hitpoints....that's more of a Scrapper/Tanker thematic thing, not a Blaster).

Please, this has caused massive uproar among Blasters, and is driving a further wedge between us and other AT's who now think we should be "happy we got Defiance", when in truth we don't want Defiance, didn't ask for it, and immediately starting posting how much we didn't want it as soon as word leaked out that it was being forced upon us. Seriously, before I5 hit Test, someone reported news about it from a Statesman public appearance, and we immediately started posting about how wrong such a power would be. Had you asked us ahead of time, we could have saved your team a lot of programming time and effort.

Please. Don't make us take this power. At least give us an option. I'd prefer "nothing at all" over "Defiance", and that's saying a lot. Critical hits ("bullseyes") would be nice, provided they were random, yet always available.

But please, don't force me to take Defiance, or any other buff that's linked to my HP bar. That's just wrong on many levels. Punch-voke is "always on". Scrapper crits are random, yet always available. Controller "bonus damage vs. held opponents" is always on. Please don't have our inherent ability be conditional on us taking damage, considering that most of us have worked our builds and our tactics around the goal of not taking damage at all (or minimizing the damage we take). It's just counter-intuitive.

I don't want this power.

I don't.

Take it away, give it to Scrappers, or Tankers, or heck, even Defenders, or just toss it in the garbage can, because I'd rather have nothing at all than to have this power.

Think about that for a second.

I'd rather have nothing....than this power. Why? Here we go:

If we're only going to get one inherent ability, I'd like it to be something that is actually useful to me, at every level, and is always available. Tankers don't just get punch-voke when they're low on HP. Scrappers don't get get their chance to crit when they're low on HP. Controllers don't just get their chance to crit-hold when they're low on HP. Even a random chance to get your inherent ability (as is the case with crits), at least has the virtue that it can happen any time, not just when you're hanging by a thread.

Defiance is a bad idea. I could understand a Scrapper or Tanker becoming more powerful as they get closer to death (Wolvie, Hulk), but rarely have I seen a Blaster that increases his power output as a direct result of taking damage. Sure, Cyke would sometimes "whip off the visor" and cut loose....but he can do that anytime (as can I, once I hit level 32). He doesn't have to be nearly dead to do so.

I don't want to see this tweaked or the numbers adjusted, I want it tossed and replaced with something that's always on (even if only on a randomly activated chance), that isn't linked to my HP bar.

I consider it bad design to link any bonus to someone's HP bar. You should never encourage players to seek out a state of low HP. You should never incentivize a healer not to heal. You should never reward stupid tactics.

If I'm on a team, and I'm below 40% HP, something has gone wrong. My tactics should never include "And then I'll let them shoot me". My team-tactics should never include "Don't heal me". Both of those tactics are unwise (IMHO) and shouldn't be rewarded or incentivized.

Yes, there will be times when I'm low on HP. I'm certainly not saying it doesn't happen (it happens a lot, actually). I am, after all, a Blaster. I've seen more floors than I care to count. Being near death does happen, quite a lot. I'm saying that when that near-death state does happen, attacking is no longer my first choice of tactics, and that when it does happen, that I need to heal/retreat first, then attack. If I'm unable to do so, I'm dead.

At the higher levels of the game (and even sometimes at lower levels) no amount of damage buff is going to save me once I'm down to 40% of my HP. If I'm solo, and I'm that low on HP, I need to be clicking on healing inspirations and/or disengaging, because I've bitten off more than I can chew. If I'm on a team, I need to stop attacking because I've obviously drawn agro away from the Tankers/Scrappers, and I need to let them re-acquire agro. Likewise, if I'm on a team and my HP drops that low, the healer wisely knows that they need to heal me soon, or whatever shot me is about to kill me with the next salvo. And I'm still clicking healing inspirations just in case. Because even with the HP buff, if I'm below 40% HP, odds are, I'm seconds away from being faceplanted. At that point, attacking isn't an option, unless there is no other recourse (out of healing inspirations, healer dead, I'm immobilized-but-not-mezzed/held/stunned/slept, tankers/scrappers down....and even then, I doubt my next shot will make a huge difference, unless we're down to one nearly dead mob).

So no, I don't want this. In any form. I don't want a damage buff linked to my health bar. I'd rather have nothing at all, because this just causes people to use unwise tactics (healers not healing us, Blasters trying intentionally be at low HP), and it will cause people to see us as "lucky" that we got this, so they'll not want to see us getting anything actually useful in the future. I'd rather hold off until something useful can come our way.

And, because I believe in offering suggestions, not just complaints.....

Give us Critical Hits. Play with those numbers, and see what you think is balanced. Let us have them only with single-target, ranged attacks, if necessary, but make them always have a random chance of activating, not just when we're low on HP. Call it a "Bullseye", and have that word flash over our heads instead of the world "Critical". Sure, it's random, but it's always there, and would be better than Defiance, because it's something that doesn't cause you to play unwisely, nor does it require you to be in dire straights for you to even notice it.

or....

Just give us our PvP perk (a percentage of our damage is unresistable) in PvE too. You already gave us this very nice ability inside the Arena, so just add that to us outside the Arena as well. It would give us more effective damage against resistant opponents, without actually raising our base damage at all. Again, play with those numbers and find balance, but it would at least be always on, it would help us the most against highly resistant foes (where we need it the most) and wouldn't need to raise our base damage at all. It would just make our existing damage more effective.

As others have said, at high levels, a Blaster is fine...or dead. We're either at "green" HP, or we're a single volley (and sometimes even a single shot) away from kissing the floor. If we're getting shot, then by the time Defiance kicks in, we're one shot, one volley, one mez, one anything away from being potentially dead. So Defiance is only "on" when we're in a state where the stupidest thing we can do.....is attack. That's just not right, in my opinion.

If I'm below half-health:

I'm never going to ask a healer not to heal me. That is stupid.

Given a choice between healing myself and attacking (if I'm not mezzed), I am never going choose "one more attack, I might kill them.....unless I miss.....or I'm mezzed/stunned/slept....or they fire before my animation finishes....." over "let me heal up so I can continue fighting them".

Please don't give us Defiance. Give Defiance to another AT. One that makes sense. Give us Crits or x% Unresistable Damage. Something that's always there (even randomly) and not just there when I'm almost dead.

Please.

And thank you for the HP increase, the damage cap increase, and the Electrical APP. Those are wonderful things, for which I am very grateful. See, I don't just complain about the bad stuff, I point out the good stuff too! ;-)

Believe it or not, I love the game, love the Dev's, and wouldn't be this blunt (and long-winded) with my critiques if I didn't think that CoH was worth working hard to make great. It is. It's the best game out there, and I want to see it get better and better. I was this way in Beta too. ;-)

All of this is, of course, in my humble opinon. Others' mileage may vary. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Thank you, and Happy Anniversary!

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This... isn't good... Robin... If I'm correct... and I always am... this spells trouble for Gotham City... er, Paragon City...



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Ladies and Gentlemen, William Shatner IS Batman!

;-)