MadScientist

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You really just can't seem to grasp the concept can you?

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I grasp exactly what's being said about Defiance....
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Defiance is supposed to start kicking in at 50% but it does not do so. You sit here and saying that the code could not cause it to kick in because of buffs from accolades.

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It's entirely possible accolades could be affecting Defiance either intentionally or unintentionally. Intentionally being that Defiance is coded as 50% base and not 50% boosted. In which case this is perhaps a documentation issue, or becomes a discussion of whether this design was the best way to go. I don't know. and really, I don't see what Defiance has to do with a badge bug, this is an issue for Blaster forums, I think.

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Why? Because the HP from the accolades is not actually yours. The code reads your base HP for whatever AT you are. Anything more then that is not counting because it is not actually yours.

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and what you describe makes perfect sense as a possible explanation for Defiance.
But why would the code be reading what HP is your or not yours when it comes to damage? I don't see these as being the same situation and you've yet to give an example where the damage code would want to check your base or boosted max HP at all.

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You ever gonna answer the question on whether you tested out taking damage only inside the boosted HP range in order to get badges?

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(thought I had way back when, may have been the other thread where this came up.)
From my limited experience iwth damage farming, which I admit isn't very scientific, it seems to progress my badge meter as expected. I've sat in a damage crystal quite some time to farm the heal badge (with a MM next to me, obviously) and I've seen my damage bar move.
Other players have done more extensive testing. I invite you to look for their posts. (as I often say, I'm just trying to keep this list organized, I rely on a lot of info from others.)


What testing have you done to determine it's the accolades? Have you done this with and without Rest? Have you done it with and without other HP Regeneration? Have you set up a situation exactly the same except for the accolades? (Easy to do, take a character with all but 1 Mayhem badge, copy to test twice, grab the badge on one and not the other, you have 2 almost identical characters to test.)

Back on the original point....
a number of people are reporting problems farming damage badges. that is a known.
a number of people are assuming it's accolades. that is an assumption.
I'm going to focus on the known and not the assumed because I think that's far more productive. It certainly seems to be a better way to raise issues with Positron, who often answers the exact question asked.
eg, sometimes it feels like 20 questions, "Are accolades causing a problem?" "No." "Is it not counting falling damage?" "No." when we really WANT to know "what's wrong here". Let's let Positron worry about HOW it's bugged. Unless, of course, someone can PROVE it's Accolades, which no one has done.

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Lets say you have a base hp of 100 and an accolade which gives a 10% hp boost giving you an effective hp of 110. Now lets say that Defiance kicks in when your hp is at 50%. So it should kick in when your hp is at 55 pts but is instead kicking in when your hp is at 50 because of the way accolades are currently calculating. If anyone has hard numbers to back this up I would love to see them.

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That explains it nicely.
However, it could be intentional. Defiance kicks in when you are 50 HP from death. That is a constant level, not dependent on your boosted HP. Whether it's 50% or 45% current HP is irrelevant, it's still 50 HP from death. This could be the design. (in which case perhaps the power explanation text should account for HP boosts.)

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This also explains the damage taken badges as you have to take damage above and beyond the bonus given by accolades for the damage to count towards the badge.

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No it doesn't. Let's examine 70 points of incoming damage when you're at 110. You are now 40 from death. What's more likely?
Method 1 - The system sees the 70 incoming and tracks that.
Method 2 - The system sees you now at 40, does some math based (incorrectly) off your 100 total, and comes up with a calculation of 60 for the badge.
Why would the system be using the more complex method? Why would the damage badge stop to care what your max HP is? And furthermore, what if you're partly damaged and are at 90 when hit, how would it know to subtract the 70 from your previous 90 and not the base 100 or max 110?
THAT is why I'm seeing a difference, and in general doubt an accolade affects damage at all. This is with no knowledge of the code, and I have doubts. Positron, *with* knowledge of the code, seems to have serious doubts it could be an accolade issue. (I'd love to know he's checking for other possible causes.)

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How the hell can you sit here and say that the code can be misreading with defiance and not damage badges?

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Because Defiance is based on your current life total, possibly in relation to your (base or boosted, take your pick) maximum HP total.
I don't see how incoming damage cares at all how many HP you have and what your maximum is. If something smacks me for 200, I take 200, where does it stop to ask what my max HP is? 1-shot code may care, but I'll point out that 1-shot code seems to be working correctly - I'm never left at 1 from a hit below my maximum (triggering 1-shot from base max not boosted max), nor am I left with 10% from an accolade instead of my 1 HP.


and I'm not actually saying I know the code. and I'm not denying there may be trouble with damage badges. but like Positron said, it's highly unlikely this is accolade related.
I'm worried that the Devs are dropping the discussion at the accolade issue and not seeing the overall damage badge issue. As a result, and because I'm simply repeating my doubts, I'm not going to address this accolade situation any longer. You have problems with the damage badge, that's fine, they'll be in the next update to the issues list. But there's very little logic in blaming it on accolades, and doing so seems to be making this bug chase lose its focus.

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I would like to see an answer to this also because I have a sneaking suspicion that this is also the reason that Defiance doesn't work correctly.

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Never even considered that because I know on my blaster which has them all, he doesn't get defiance until below 40%.

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now that's interesting.
Defiance *is* something that could be caring about your maximum HP. It could be taking a measure every so often if your current HP is below some level. If that's miscalculating your Max because of buffs, then you're on to something. (Unless it's intentional that Defiance kicks in at some level of HP and not some percentage, so it's unaffected by buffs. In which case I would question if it's affected by debuffs.)
HOWEVER, I still don't see how incomming damage would care about your max HP any more than it would care if you're buffed with Insight, or carrying a full tray of enhancements, or wearing a cape.

This all comes down to cases of people failing to farm damage. I suspect the Devs may be thinking it's better to let people fail farming than to look into fixing it. Unfortunately, non-farming progresses the damage meter so slowly that we can't tell if it's broken in other situations, and certainly can't make a reproducable case to study.

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Except player testing has shown that you have to take more damage then the accolades boost give you in order to get progress on the damage badges.

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and yet other player testing has shown that you can get the badge that way.
it's very hard to prove a negative. can you really prove it's not working? what's your setup? can you get a setup where you can do the exact same thing with and without accolades to prove it's not some other factor? (as an example, what if self-regeneration is offsetting incomming damage before it tracks on the badge? in that case, someone with 20% accolades likely has Health, too, and the +Regen from health is more than 20%.)

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By what you are saying the healing badges saying you heal so and so for 250 hp even though they were only missing 125 hp then I should get credit for 250 hp for healing badges which is not the case because it is for how much is actually healed and not how much your power heals.

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Not the same case. The healing badge depends on someone else receiving the healing, so you already know about the target. a check against that target's HP is then easy to code. eg, you do "Maximum(Healing, X's max HP - X's current HP)". That is not a great deal of additional code and fits into the most likely setup of the triggering code that starts the counting.
If you could propose a logic for the damage badge that would be a reasonable coding method using your own max HP, then you may have a case. But not even knowing the system, I can easily see Postiron having a point when he says there's no reasonable explanation for your HP affecting damage tracking.
Maybe putting it simpler: they went out of their way to make healing check the target's HP to get that limit. Why would they ever have gone out of their way in the first place to worry about your HP for damage?

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"Cathedral of who? what? oooooooh that thing we removed 8 months ago and didnt intend to bring back"

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what's the last day this was up? and what's 60 days from then?

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I dont' see why there would even be such a check on incomming damage. Is the badge watching the damage that comes in, or is it watching for when your HP dips down below some level? I'd bet it's just watching the damage itself.

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Nope, You have to take more damage then the bonus the accolades provide. For instance if base hp is 1000 and you have all 3 accolades that provide a 20% boost to hp then any damage taken below 200 hp does not count since you then would have 1200 hp total. The code only sees the base amount for the AT and does not see the added hp as your actual health.

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Let me repeat what I said and expand upon it to explain why your example is very unlikely.

Your example says you need to dip below 1000 HP to get credit, so there's a check "if your current HP is less than your max HP" where, accoding to the supposed bug, max HP is being calculated incorrectly with accolades. So what's making this check? Every so often some process is saying "what's my current HP? oh, I'm below, better do some damage badge progress." In fact, and here's where this example falls completely apart - how would you then track NEW damage and not repeat progress on OLD damage?

Compare that to this: we know there's a system message that says "Button Man Gunner shoots you for 100 points of damage". It's far, far simpler to have coded "oh, and that means 100 points on the damage badge, too". This is more likely the coding setup.

So, what is there about the incomming damage message and the damage badge that should even care what your max HP is?



Yes, we have reports of some certain cases causing trouble for getting damage badges. Either...
1. there's some other bug, not accolade related, and a Dev needs to check on it, or
2. the people trying to figure out these other sitations are not looking past accolades to other potential causes. Having trouble resting in Lava? Maybe it's that all Fire damage stopped counting for the badge. or all damage not from critters. or all damage while resting. any number of ideas would strike me as far more likely than anything based on max HP.

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- Elite Energy Cannon (same as the Sapper.)



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Um, Is this just for Heroes? Cause my Villain Group HAS an elite energy cannon in the base. I built it, and its got several aux items hanging off it too.

Yes, it is elite, not improved or normal.

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As stated many times in this thread, the Energy one exists. It's the Flamethrower that should have been on the original list, not Energy.

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Positron, can we please get a clarification on whether the plus hp from accolades is counted towards the damage badges?

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I don't know the exact mechanics of the code, but from what I do know there is no reason why it shouldn't be.

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Maybe because the code is only reading the base hit points for that specific AT and anything else above that does not count?

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I dont' see why there would even be such a check on incomming damage. Is the badge watching the damage that comes in, or is it watching for when your HP dips down below some level? I'd bet it's just watching the damage itself.

There are a number of reasons besides accolades that could affect the badge earning. It would seem one way or another something should be examined to be sure it's working.

HOWEVER, given they amazingly popular insistance that it HAS to be accolades despite some people earning damage badges with accolades... I think perhaps a Dev needs to check the code just to settle this. (Sounds like the zone event spawning discussion all over again.)

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What about bowbreaker that is listed in the Prima guide?

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Bow Breaker does not exist from what I have seen, and it is not required for the Force of Nature accolade.

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yes, but did they type Bow Breaker on the Prima guide meaning to type something else (such as Villain)? or are there only 6 requirements for Force of Nature? The Guide is obviously in error, but we're not sure how.
Basically... has anyone out there actualy analyzed the requirements for that accolade? (or, could a Dev give a quick answer to save everyone the trouble?)

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Btw, please don't put Beacons in the PvP zones. I can just see some SG using a few characters to lure a larger group to the center of the map, where suddenly 10+ reinforcements Telepad right into the combat.

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They still have the 30 seconds countdown.


I hope this all means we get a Pocket D beacon. Our coalition occasionally rents it out for meetings.

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It could be a simple case of the devs not wanting to leave open a doorway for people to camp the reactor for hundreds of hours to get the healing badges on a non-healing toon.

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Don't the temp powers have a finite number of shots to them?

A different solution would be to "adjust" the temp power so it doesn't look like healing. Make sure the power doesn't convey something that's not it's intent. For example, maybe use orange numbers. Put a "Repaired" word above the Reator when you use the power. (Maybe use this as the basis for building in Repair powers for during base raids?)

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Positron, another question... in this situation:

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[*]Many meters move so slowly that you can't tell if you've made any progress on a badge. Can we get multi-line meters for large achievements? (eg, Healing, any Epic badges, anything over 500 kills.)



[/ QUOTE ]Probably not. The bar has 100 ticks on it, so moving it 1 tick is 1% of progress.

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Could we maybe get a number indicator that shows when you mouse over the bar, similar to our HP/End bars? So that we can see (25/50,000) or even the percentage so that when it moves 1%, we can see the number go up since it's not easy to tell that the bar moved?

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That would be extremely helpful. Even if it was just listing the percentage as opposed to the actual amount, it would be quite nice. I second this suggestion.

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I third this suggestion. (And I realize that I've heard it before and I appologize to the original suggestor for not mentioning it in the main post.)

For the really epic meters, you could maybe use a decimal place in the percent to be able to see progress after a shorter time.

This would also end a lot of discussion about how many it takes to get a badge, as you could more clearly see the badge move for each kill. Or could spot a buggy badge after very few kills.

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Can you re-faction the Marcones & Mooks away from the current "Family"? I'm thinking specifically of the Gangbuster badge. This question comes up way too often. From what I see it would require a few text edits, mainly the Slot Machine contact's hint texts would have to changed to Marcones from Family.

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When were Mooks ever factioned as part of the Family? They have nothing on them that says "Family", why would anyone think they count for a Family badge? This is like Wolves faction wolves and a badge that refers to Council Warwolves - they're obviously not the badge requirement.
I agree with your other two points... improve the Gangbuster badge meter (and perhaps the other meter), and change the Slot Machine to say "Marcone are to blame" not "Family are to blame".

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As far as Disruptor (and longbow gladiator) without Reinforcement, not everyone agrees that it is a bug, but rather that we fullfilled the requirements as they were at the time from Issue 6 release to the end of January 2006.

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If that was truely the requirement (and not a bug that awarded it for that action) then shouldn't the credit for what you did apply to the new badge? (What is it? Vigilante?)
That is to say, what you did was COMPLETE THIS MISSION, then you should currently have the badge for COMPETE THIS MISSION, whichever it is. The Mantis SF gave Scorpion Clan to people, at the time that was what the system did, but it was corrected. That removed the first badge and gave the proper Air Pirate badge - I don't think anyone still has Scorpion Clan. So instead of having the incorrect Disruptor, you would have the correct Vigilante badge.

Wow! on a Saturday, no less!

Couple things...
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# Villain Respec badges have Explore badge artwork.

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Yeah, I know

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That made me laugh out loud. I think I know where you're coming from as a programmer here.



On the Terra Volta reactor healing - Why? I realize it's not a player-heal. But since the power completely looks like a heal, with the little green numbers. So what's the harm?

Similary, I understand your explanation of why Multidimensional appeared and then got removed, but I don't see why you'd bother removing it.

No meters possible for Gladiators. OK. I guess if we know they're finally counting bug-free it should be OK.

The mentoring question was more about the badge community wanting to understand how the mentor badge accumulates credit, and not about chasing a bug for us. Sorry if that wasn't clear.



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Just cause enough mayhem throughout your gameplay and you should get this badge by 50.

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I find that to be a curious comment. It's good that you can reassure us we'll get a particular accolade requirement by 50, and yet I see another accolade requirement - Unbreakable - pretty much NOT earnable by 50. (My 50 Corr needs over 12 hours resting near a damage source to finish it.) It sounds like you're revealing a bit of your design philosophy, which is good, but I just have some questions about that. So perhaps a direct question: What could you say in general about the ability to earn any badge thru the course of normal play for 50 levels?


I look forward to hearing what you discover about all the stuff you're checking on. Before you confuse the programmers: the Energy Cannon is OK, it's the Elite Flamer that's missing. (along with the Sapper.)


Any comments on the other stuff? Particularly the team-unfriendly badges (Firebug and the RV ones) and Zone Event clarifications?

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Why has Posi repeatedly said "There are NO player spawnable monsters in CoH"?

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When was the last time Posi said that? Which issue did it apply to? Lots of design elements from each side have crossed over to the other.

Look, the POINT of the item in the bug list is this: everyone seems to have different ideas about what's spawnable and what isn't. No one seems able to point to a Dev comment and say "here, see, this one is on a timer, this is not". The Prima Guide only mentions the Flier, there's no mention of Scrapyard one way or another.

The point of the item in the list is to end these repeated debates by getting the information we need.

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That design philosophy was when there was only CoH, and still applies to CoH. However, in keeping with the "proactive vs reactive" design philosophy, all CoV zone events are player initiated.

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First off, CoH and CoV are the same game. Different boxes, yes, but CoV is an issue of CoH.

Do you have any basis for claiming that the proactive design began to impact zone events in Issue 7 and not in Issue 5? The insanely frequent spawn rate for Lusca always makes me think there's some trigger event being hit far too often.

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You should add to the FAQ the fact that only one character in the history of the game has gotten this badge legitimately, and it should not really be considered a generally obtainable badge at this time.

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There are now 2. We believe the second player (whom I have confirmed, but has asked me not to publisize) obtained it by reporting the duping bug associated with base storage.

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Which REALLY sucks for the many of us who reported the EXACT SAME BUG only we were losing items from storage instead of having them double. Not only did we lose stuff, but we don't get the badge. :-/

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Where, exactly, does this idea that the Accolades are supposed to be obtained through 'normal play' come from?

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IMHO, the difference is the sheer magnitude of this damage badge. my level 50 Corr is about half way to the badge. He has the other HP Accolades, and with Rest slotted with 1 Health and auto-fire on my self-heal, I can soak a 400 damage hit from an even-level carnie minion every 4 seconds. That means I need over 12 hours of taking that damage to get the badge finished. That is at my absolute fastest healing rate - if I try to acquire this badge while running missions, it will certainly take longer.
Half of the progress on the Illusionist badge would not take anywhere near 12 hours.
Illusionist is also something you can work on as a team.
Illusionist is not something you're inclined to do while AFK.
Those are the differences I see.


and, if you find some of my other posts, I'm not too happy about grinding 200 of anything for a badge, either. Take the Toxic Tarantulas as an example. If you can kill 100 in time to get the badge for the contact - that is, 100 when they actually require effort from you because they're yellow-con or worse - then what does another 100 prove? If you can kill 100 orange-cons, doesn't that prove your point? Or, you go find a level 50 to kill 100 grey cons for you, what does that prove? Either way, it seems 100 would be fine and the rest is just overkill. so most of this badge isn't "normal play" either, or it's just mindess grind.

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Regardless if it's a shortcut or not, it's still something I did ...

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and for your efforts, you have the Nigh Indestructable badge and most other people don't.
Sounds like you've already been rewarded.

Story Time...

let's look at an example from a villain using Empowerment.
The Riddler goes to rob a bank. Batman shows up and wraps him up with a batarrang line.
Riddler escapes, plans his next heist. Goes to rob a bank. Batman shows up, Riddler says "haHA!!! This time... I'm wearing TENNIS SHOES!" and bolts. Batman casually throws another batarrang. end of scene.
Riddler regroups... next bank... "oh, yeah... I'm wearing glasses this time! you wouldn't hit a guy with *SMASH!!!* ugh..."
Riddler regroups... "this time I'm buffed with *SMASH!!!* ... "
Regroup. *SMASH!!!*
This is a typical commedic routine. This is also the empowerment buff. You get a little more powerful in hopes of winning a rematch. 5% probably won't make a difference, and you may even get a buff that's irrelevant (eg, they still overcome the Knockback protection, or they do a second type of damage that still manages to take you out.)

Now compare it to this scene...
Joker is robbing a bank. Batman drops in. Joker whips out something completely unexpected and almost out-of-character, such as Mr Freeze's Freeze Gun. He freezes the ground, Batman slips and falls, and the Joker got away. Good use of a Temp Power there.
Now it's Batman's turn to try to regroup. So he goes to the Batcave. What does he do? Bat Thermal Underwear or something. Maybe something as simple as Bat Ice Skates.
Round 2, Joker pulls out the freeze ray, uses its knockdown attack, Batman is unaffected and easily wins the fight. In this case, the empowerment buff came thru.
But there's a big difference here from what we get in-game. When the hero buffs up in comics, they WIN THE FIGHT because of the buff. The buff doesn't give them a slight edge, or keep them in it 2 seconds longer. They regroup and equip with something PERFECT. Superman doesn't buff up with just a 5% Energy Resistance lead belt buckle to fight kryptonite-powered Metallo, he wears a full radiation suit, 100% Energy Resistance end of problem. Iron Man didn't end the Armor Wars by being slightly faster or stronger or more armored, he ended them by building a gizmo that turn off his foe's armor in one shot. These are not 5% buffs. These are 100% buffs.
ok, maybe 100 is game imbalancing (though Demonic seems OK and that doesn't cost permanent resources to activate). but you get the idea. These need to be... well... gamebreaking in a PvE fight.

Considering the 2 sitations above, if I were the villain, I'd much prefer the Temp Power over the constant re-buffing.

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IMO it seems they were more worried about how these would be used in PvP. So rather than listen to people complain about how powerful the buffs were, they hit it with a pre-emptive nerf. This is sad because they have the potential to help the PvE side or the game.

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I wonder why they didn't just turn these off in PvP zones.
Think about it: this was given specifically for a small PvE group to have a use for bases and Salvage. (Partly under the belief, I think, that a PvP players tend to gather together in gangs.)
Why aren't these just completely dedicated PvE powers?

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I'd bet that in the course of 5 News missions and one Mayhem you won't even pick up enough Salvage to use the buff station once. It's easier to keep gathering Raid side-missions.

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Having made the above comment, I figured I'd test it out.

Short version: 25 minutes of effort got me a Raid side mission and nowhere near an Empowerment Buff.

My narrative...
I did this with a level 27 Dark/Fire Brute on Viscious. He needed a new contact anyways, his broker bar was empty. This was all done in Nerva.
I started by emptying my Salvage into the SG Bins, so I would know what dropped.
First Newspaper mission... hmm, I'll go with Lost. Having 2 Stealth temp powers from patrolling the 2 PvP zones, I figure it's not an unusual tactic to stealth to the last room and kill the boss. and 4 of his friends. ok. No salvage for that.
On to the second one. No Lost this time out, I'll go with some Council. Stealth to the end, whack him, 7 of his friends. Got 1 Body Armor somewhere in that fight.
OK, mission 3, let me try to stick with Council so when I do have a lot of salvage I can go with "Make this by combining Council Salvage" and not worry about having to swap with Storage. But wait... no Council missions. Still no Lost, either, had they dropped something. OK... Sky Raiders. Have to kill 12 in the last room of the Warehouse, not counting some ForceField Generators. Zero salvage drops.
News Mission 4. No Council this time, either. No Lost, no Raiders. I go with Warriors. Only need to kill 3, no salvage.
News Mission 5. Council finally available again, but I gave up on trying to match salvage, so I grab another Warrior hoping it may be the same door. It is. 2 more dead, mission done, zero salvage.
So far: 20 minutes. 2 Bubbles of XP. 1 piece of salvage.
Long run to the Winston. Long run to the Mayhem right next to the other Broker in the zone. *sigh*.
Superjump to the Arson location, snag my badge progress (another rant entirely), SJ to the Raid location. This makes 4 Council, 7 Longbow, 3 PPD in this mission. No salvage.
I stealth my way thru the warehouse and find a crate with no one guarding it. I get Electromagnetic Grenades.
I'll stop the narrative here, as I then wandered around killing while inviting badge chasers to get the explore badge.

Final tally: under 30 minutes, 2.25 Bubbles of XP, 1 new contact, 1 piece of salvage, and 30 Electromagnetic Grenades, and I can't wait to see what they might do against Luminary. They do seem much better than the 1/12th of a 15 minute buff I've acquired in that time.

So, the problems....
It's very hard to even get the right pieces of salvage to make components. Even when trying to focus on one group of enemies, you can't choose all Council missions in a row.
Salvage would seem to drop far too rarely to make this station worth it. I'm looking at 1 buff per level, if I'm lucky. Considering the amount of grinding to pick up levels above L25, I'm looking at 5 Mayhems every 5 levels. Sure, maybe they bunch up 3 at 30 and 2 at 34, but the powers I get can be stored for later use, so what does it matter?
I can't pick my buff power. That's OK with me. Like with the recent AV improvements, no one's complaining about a random, powerful SO. It's better than the cash to buy a Training of your choice.
and last, just to stress the initial thought that start this, the temp power from the Raid is MUCH more useful, powerful, fun, and even has better graphics than the buff station.


any suggestions on how to get Positron to read this?


one addition: after all that, I ran 4 more missions for another bubble and a half of XP, then exemplared for the Cap Strikeforce. Total 2.5 hours of playing that character (sure, a bit of it standing around Cap organizing the SF, but this is a social multiplayer game) and I currently have this for salvage: 1 Alien Tech (from Infernal), 1 Spells of Power (from Bat'Zul), 1 Amulet, 2 Body Armor, 1 E-chip. I may be able to make one Tech Material from that. and as for the Alien Tech, it's as useless as the other 232 our SG has sitting in the storage bin.

I'd bet that in the course of 5 News missions and one Mayhem you won't even pick up enough Salvage to use the buff station once. It's easier to keep gathering Raid side-missions.