LivingHellfire

What exactly does Lord Arachnos mean when he says...

"Now, Statesman, let us see who is truly cursed!"

I'm thinking it will be explained in that book coming out soon...

*cue Manticore*

WTH is a Mindrider?!

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He has a book, you know.

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Yes? So do I...

-Gil

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PFFT!
I have whole BOOKCASES full of'em!

He never promised, he just said he wanted one and that it would realistically happen this summer.

But you probably know that and used it as a pretext for your funny post. Which it was. Funny, that is.

/wanders off

<explosion of hatred and cynisism designed to make the poster bumping this thread look dumb>

<muttered apology for behaving like a posterior headgarment in the first pargraph>

Soooo.... am I the only one wondering if there's going to be a private /tell Cyber-Session goin' on to consumate the marriage?

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Lightning Zap & Princess Fairy ( in Hero Dusk)... there will be a in game wedding when issue 4 comes out.... The ceromony is to be held in PP in the amplatheater and all of COH is welcome to join us in that one the reseption is to be held in a train mission and will be reserved for Hero Dawn and Family.... As the details play out as far as the date ect...goes we will keep everyone informed... We are officaly inviting everyone to our wedding hope to see you there

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... ooookaaaayyyy.....

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Given the date, I thought I should post something. However, one of these things is not true.

<ul type="square"> Icon doesn't operate in CoV territory. If you want a costume change, you go to the Facemaker.

Killer mimes.

There are 5 new archetypes in CoV.[/list]
I love being evil!

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BAD ZEB!! BAD!! No Halfling for you!!

*waves his lighter*

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I'm guessing that Accuracy will be nerfed.

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Didn't you already do that?

It's my suspicion that you've become confused by my repeated use of myself as the subject when discussing why I don't pick Khelds as team mates. I've done so so as not to imply intimate knowledge of the decisions of others, be that or be that not the case. Make no mistake, my eye is on the ball and this thread is about what the role of a Kheld is in a team.

The answer to that final question is "To fill in the gaps where other AT's are missing" and my final assessment is that if the proper AT is not present to fill that role, then a Kheld will have to "suffice". This represents an issue, in my mind, that detracts from the appeal of having that AT in the team. If you want a role filled, you want the right AT to fill it. Khelds will do in a pinch, but we all know that if this was a stand alone, single player game where you had to assemble a team that the average person would drop the kheld the second the right team member became available to round out the team properly and that the only reason you'd want to keep one around is if the team was already balanced.

So what role does a Kheldian fill? Again, I say, they may fill the hole, but they don't fit the role.

As I've stated, if others like the AT, more power to 'em, but from a team point of view, they serve no real purpose. That's not to say that I personally won't team with them, as some have told me that they won't.

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Wouldn't it suck if everyone played cimmerian fist version 1,2,3,4,5.......


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Y'mean like some people who play the same character over and over and over and over in different incarnations but they're really all the same character? Yah, that would kinda suck, I find it hard to imagine how that could be fun or what kind of imaginative sink hole that person may be.


EDITED FOR SPEELING.

I don't need to, the attitude is a reflection of the inherent design of the AT.

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Which server is this? I'm curious which one always has one of every AT in every level range available when you need to put a team together.

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Smart guy.

And to think I actually thought I was on a thread where people were applying brain power when they read the thread.

For the learning disabled; If I'm looking for a team member to fill a role and the only thing available is a Kheld then it's "better than nothing" so I'll take it. If I need a role filled and the right AT is on, why would I take a Kheld?

That's the point. Kheldians fill the role of the absent AT. They are the AT equivalent of a substitute teacher. I find it interesting that with your flippant remark you've managed to further my point by suggesting that Khelds are in fact "fallback" AT's.

"If you can't find the right AT, get a kheld" and that's a poor attitude to have about a superhero's function in a team.

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Speaking only for myself of course, I always feel like a superhero with my Kheldian. I can ALWAYS save the day, no matter what needs doing, I can do it.

Going to 50 with a controller, there were times when I felt redundant or useless against certain spawns or in certain teams (With a good tank, controllers aren't all that necessary for instance, and vice versa). With my kheldian, I can't imagine a situation where I can't contribute meaningfully to the team during every second of the mission.

What you're suggesting - creating a new problem in the combat system and empowering Kheldians to be the best at solving it? What problem is more prevalent than not having the right tool for the job? Why create a new problem when there's already this one?

But even so, can you imagine what kind of problem would suit your needs and give Kheldians a simpler role to fill without unbalancing the game and making them must-haves in every team? I'd like to hear what idea you've come up with for this "new problem."

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Being that it's fairly subjective, I can't comment on how you feel when you play your toon. I'm pleased that you enjoy yourself and all that yadda yadda...

All AT's feel redundant at one time or another. Blasters when they're chain mezzed, scrappers when the blaster takes out all the mobs with an AoE, tankers when the controller mass holds and on and on...

My point is that Kheldians serve no purpose other than to plug a hole. If you're happy with that role, then more power to you, but as an epic AT I think Kheldians are ill concieved at best.

I don't have a suggestion about what they could do to add an element to the game that would provide a gap into which a truly epic AT would slide, I was just thinking off the top of my head. But any role that would be would have to be over and above anything the Kheldian could do. I'm not claiming to have any answers, but I do feel that it's valid to say that from the point of view of someone who's put together his fair share of teams that there is nothing whatsoever desirable about having a Kheldian on my team over another AT when there is a specific job to do. The only time I would ever consciously pick a Kheld over another AT is if I already have a balanced team.

And I'm not in the minority on this one, in my experience. So based on that, don't you see this as a problem? If I already have a balanced team then what exactly is a Kheld contributing? I see this as a pretty serious problem.

You've missed the point.

There's a difference between enjoying a character in a comic and wanting to play one. And are those characters in the comic books considered "Epic"? I think not.

You can res because you chose to take a power pool as opposed to choosing to play an AT thats entire purpose is be second rate to everything else. Yes, they're both choices, but I can play a blaster/scrapper/tanker/defender/controller and choose not to take that power pool power that places me in the position of doing the thing that the other AT does "better".

A Kheldian is forever doomed to being a bard in the truest sense of the word, "Jack of all trades, master of none". That's all well and good, but in a team scenario, especially in a game that allows for a full 8 member team, the only time I can ever actually see anyone consciously choosing to pick a kheld as a team member over another AT is if they already have a balanced team and are just looking to up the mission exp bonus.

Why?

Well.... why would they? It makes no sense. If I have an unbalanced team, I'm going to choose the AT for the role that's missing. If I already have a balanced team, why would I choose to unbalance it? So, if the only time I'm picking a Kheld over another AT is because I want to increase the size of the team without unbalancing it, then that precludes the idea that the only role that Kheld is filling is as a plug.

All this tells me is that Khelds are there as filler.

"Man, he doesn't really do anything that we can't do ourselves, but he sure is pretty!"

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Or how about this... your chronically alt-aholic friend logs on and wants to play with you, and today, she's playing her tanker. Yesterday it was her defender, and tomorrow she's wanting to run her scrapper through the respec trial with you. No problem. Whatever she brings out, you can make an effective duo with her.

In a perfect world, you'd always have the perfect archetype for the job, but in reality, that's not how the game is played.

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I only quoted part because to quote it all seems excessive.

What you're saying may be true, but you're missing someting crucial. A kheld only hits baseline with the other AT's when there's three other non khelds in the group. That means that for you to be equally effective as any other AT you have to be a member of a team of four. So, right away, duoing is going to go less favourably with a kheld than with the proper AT because he's less effective by about 20%.

Secondly, you've only shined the light from the other direction on my point. The real meat of the matter is that for all the examples that you've given, the kheld is still the fallback guy. He's the "yah, well, it'll have to do" guy. Even in the examples you're giving the khelds become the less effective, red-haired stepchild of the AT's that is replacing the AT that up and vanished.

My point in all of this, in this post and in my other posts on this thread is the following;

Jack has said, on multiple occasions, everytime there's an opportunity to do so that he wants the players to feel like a superhero. He's made changes to the game to further enforce that (re: The Orenbaga Portal Missions with the ever continuing Behemoth spawns).

And yet, with Kheldians, the best you can hope for is a second rate replacement for the AT that the team is missing... and even then! Only if there are three or more non khelds in the team. So... how is this superhero?

As I said before, seems to me that a Kheldian is nothign more than the superhero equivalent of a substitute teacher.

I really feel there's a larger issue here, folks. We keep talking about "adaptability" and "versatility" but the bottom line is that for whatever role it is that we're filling in a team, there's an AT out there that can do it better.

IMO, it would have been much more conducive to gameplay to try to come up with creating a new role to be filled within a team and THEN creating an EAT that would best fill that role. Instead, what they've done is create an AT that's supposed to fill in the blanks.

Again, this is not "best person for the job" it's a plug designed to fit a hole in an unbalanced team, and even then does it in a sub-par fashion when compared to the actual AT that's supposed to be in that role.

I want to be a superhero, not a 3rd string alternate. I want my toon to be wanted in a team because there is a job that he/she does better than anyone else.

For all the decent arguments for Khelds on this thread, and even considering States' statement, there is no indication to me what the Kheldian's role in a team is.

Blasters; They blast. They do damage.
Tankers; Meat shield, they tank and take aggro
Controller; Control and keep the mobs busy and/or not doing damage and/or distracted
Defenders; Defend, prevent the mobs from doing damage to the team and/or heal said damage
Scrappers; Mid range damage to take out individual mobs and aggro control to a certain extent. Clean up crew and often the linch-pin of a successful team.
Kheldians; Getting shot by quantum guys.

There are no jobs left, they're all taken by the real AT's. The mistake, I feel, isn't that the dev's didn't follow through, they tried to add to an existing system instead of expanding the system and then adding an EAT to fill in the new gap.

What would have worked better, I feel, is if they ignored the roles of the other AT's and added something to the game itself that created a NEW role within a team. Then add an AT or EAT that fills that role.

Dude, I'm sure you're a nice guy, but I gotta tell ya, you need to let this go. This is the second post I've seen from you on this topic, and you haven't gotten anywhere except to start a flame war.

There are larger issues in this game than this one, especially considering that it was a temporary event in a video game of all things. If you don't want to play with the WL kiddies, then play a different level toon for a couple weeks and then go back to your 20 something toon.

The devs aren't going to apologize, they aren't going to "mea culpa". If someone hands you a tool and you misuse it, it's not that person's fault. The devs did something cool, the n00bs took advantage of it and now a very specific level range is going to suck for a very short period of time.

Move on.

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The Kheldian role is that they can do a little of everything - and, on a full team, have a combination of defense and ranged offense that's second to none.

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I don't have a problem with this, Jack, it seems like an excellent goal. From my perspective, though, it seems to me that Kheldians are the "fallback" guys. I stopped playing mine because I didn't feel like a superhero, I felt like a plug.

I think that's my problem with the AT. I feel like the guy that the team goes to when they can't get the right AT for the job, so they call the Kheld 'cause, while he's not the best for the job "Meh... he'll do."

To me, that's not "superhero" that's "substitute teacher".

Hmm... I wonder if I can go from 47 to 50 in three days....

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Yeah, that would really fly well with new customers. Could you imagine the posts from new players on these forums? That wouldn't be a wise marketing idea. A company can't show favorites when dealing with real money, that would put your customers on unequal ground. To succeed a company has to show that they care about every customer new and old or else they start to lose one base as a customer.

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Alright, well, based on this does that mean that everyone who starts after the 31st of October should automatically get all the Halloween badges? How about the offer to provide long term players with beta slots for CoV? These are all things that offer older subscribers the chance for something special.

What about the store on your corner that you've been to every week for years that offers you credit because they know you, or a minor discount when they charge everyone else full price for everything? Repeat business is repeat business.

I'm not saying that long term subscribers should NECESSARILY get it free no matter what, although I think that's what my suggestion was, but I don't see anything wrong with giving the long terms players of CoH a break on CoV when it comes out, even if they do plan on charging full price for both to new players.

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You're idea is just not smart business.

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May I see your MBA please?

What if they grandfathered everyone who's been playing CoH all this time and allow them to play both at no additional cost, but for anyone who starts playing after CoV comes out they pay an additional rate of $5-$7 to play both?

That way they don't lose any customers because of additional billing, but they can make up the cost of developement and additional staffing for the new release. It both covers their cost and rewards long time players.

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But since nothing is finite, this might chance (and I'm with you guys; if they start charging double, they'll probably lose half their subscribers anyways)

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They know this already, I'm sure. They have to know this. Please God, I hope they know this.

There are still companies out there that are interested in the long term dollar as opposed to the bare faced money grab. The first rule of having a succesful long term business can be summed up in a line from Glengarry Glen Ross.

"You don't sell a man one car, you sell him 5 cars over 15 years" (or something to that effect)

Actually, States said that he was going to TRY to make sure there was no charge but that the decision was ultimately up to NCSoft and he had very little real say in how the publisher bills for their games.

So what After Shock is saying is correct.

Shockie, baby;

Have faith in the Jack
Trust in the Jack
He knows, he'll do his best for us.

No matter what happens though, I just hope that people on this board remember that if we DO end up paying for both it won't be because the dev's and Jack Emert decided to, it'll be because NCSoft, the publisher, is grabbing at more cash from an already existing client base.