MaestroMavius

The thing I always found odd is the Possessed Scientists being level 50+ threats. You'd think the mere humans given powers of Thorn Casters wouldn't be as big a threat as the Mu descended Thorn Wielders but hey, go figure!

I see WarWitch got a new title. Or rather, is finally able to let us know what her 'real' title has been all along.

I find the level of excitement to be a very positive sign that this, despite my earlier fears, isn't something they are being forced to do but rather something they are genuinely enthusiastic about!

Congratulations Dev's you've done what I thought wasn't possible. I feel the excitement over a new Issue once again! Haven't been this excited about an issue since Ouroboros and Cim.

Hmmm, a Super Strength Blaster? intriguing.

Yeah, not liking or even understanding the need for this redesign. Far more groups in game were deserving of such.
Malta, Warriors, SkyRaiders...

The robes are better fitting for an ancient magical cabal than this warrior gear IMO. I wouldn't mind if it was a new member of the group that used Titan Weapons but for every single member? No thanks.

Wow, that actually works and looks really sweet! Like giant scissors of death!

Great....

Now I want giant death scissors as a set.

A SG I joined recently wanted to have some more variety in our play so we imposed 'limitations' on the toons. Since the theme was Deities pulled through time we RP'd that our chronal vibration was off by such a degree as to render the Medi-Port inoperative to us.

RP is RP.

We simply moved the box to the corner of the screen and if we died it required a rez on the spot. The Medi-port has to be manually activated by default anyways.

Aside from that, I've always appreciated that they took the time to explain it in the lore. Reminds me about the explanation of floating chocolate being all over the place in a great game about a squirrel.

As for how I think they will explain one of the 8 going down...
I think they will end up pulling a Hero-1 and like the poster said above, having them be absorbed by a Shivan and turned into an mutated version for us to fight down the road.

You want challenge?

Try rolling a petless MasterMind and solo some bank missions set with bosses!

Run the 'Stop 30 Fir Bolg from escaping' mission in Croatoa on any character with one rule, you can't let a single one escape, period.

Revive the 'Man Build' concept from years ago.

Attempt to mediate the arguement between Jack in Irons and Eochai.

Take on a Master Illusionist solo on a Blaster and win.

Defeat TrapDoor without killing the clones.

Defeat Protean without running from his special ability.

Run an iTrial and when Marauder appears tell the team "I've got this"

Personally I wouldn't mind if they removed the AE building in Atlas, I'd actually prefer it.

Like others have said, it's remarkably easy to go to any other zone for the building. Placing it within site of the new blood coming in might not be the best idea. Seeing as how the majority of the ones unfamiliar with COH will be coming from other MMO's that live under the 'Game starts at level cap' mindset. If the very 1st zone they enter is a hotbed of PLing they will be drawn to it like moths to a flame. Not knowing any better and going with the idea that this is just 'How it's done here' We could end up with another mass exodus of bored players after a month. Worst case and all.

I'd prefer they get their feet wet in Atlas at least before entering a zone with AE. Hopefully by then they would've experienced the wealth of play avail. and won't want to isolate themselves in AE for 50 levels.

Since the rewards have been adjusted I doubt it'll ever be as bad as the 1st few weeks after AE, when you could go 1-50 in 2 hours but it could still pose a problem. Though, with Incarnate content costing money the Dev's might actually want them to hit 50 asap so they hit the wall and end up buying access...

Time will tell.

Part of the problem comes from the fact that we now have to assign powersets individual worth, were as before when they came bundled with expansions we didn't. They were part of the package deal.

Trying to dissect the 2 expansions will get us nowhere. One can easily take away all the other content and reach a price of 7.50 for 4 sets.
Barring the fact that GR's price was all over the place, I personally bought it a week after launch at Best buy for $24. This really has nothing to do with how much sets should cost individually. Looking at it from that angle it does appear we are now paying nearly $3 more for powersets than we had to before but it's not that cut and dry sadly.

Lets try an analogy...

You buy a car for $5,000 that comes with 4 new tires. Using some sophisticated math you determine each tire cost you around $150.00.
Few years later you go to buy some new tires. Are you outraged that your being overcharged when you find out each tire cost $200.00?

When something is sold as part of a package the individual worth vanishes and it becomes part of the whole. When selling something individually the entire value is placed solely on it's individual merits. Or in other words, bulk discounts. Powersets cost $10 but if you buy this combo (expansion) you get a bulk discount kinda deal.

This discussion does have me curious now as to what the community feels is a good price point though.

From my point of view, it's impossible to say $10 is overcharging for powersets as we have no reference to use. If we'd been buying sets in the past we could look to that as a 'baseline' but we haven't.

The closest thing we can get to buying sets would be the expansions and as pointed out that just won't work. Expansions come with far too much content to try and determine what 0.0001% of the purchase = powers sets. All the fancy math at Arcana's disposal can't create a price point for Kinetic melee when taken apart from GR. Not yet anyways.

I agree that they need to reach a 'happy medium' when it comes to cost. Otherwise we'll end up losing more players than we retain. I'm just trying to take the emotional context out of the equation and look at it with an open mind.

The way I see it is simple.

Which would you (anyone) prefer?
1. The dev's say nevermind about F2P, we're gonna stay like we are.
Which results in us getting 2 new powersets this year.
OR.
2. The dev's charge $10 for new sets and by years end we have 8 new ones to choose from.

Naturally, this is all speculation at this point. Personally I feel $10 isn't bad. However if it ends up being something absurd like $30...


I must also admit that I'm coming at this from a semi-retired state of mind. I've spent 7 years with this game, plan on seeing it to the end. However my playtime the past year has been non-existant at best. If I was still really active and itching to get my hands on every single new set right away... Yeah I'd be a bit miffed. As it stands though, I can now use my PP to buy the one set I want 1st and then by the time I get done/bored with it I should have enough for another.

Since you seem to be more concerned with the monetary value of powersets in general as opposed to the issue of selling them I feel I should point something out.

The monetary value of powersets isn't something we can calculate as it isn't something we've ever seen before. Including expansions as they were far more than just powersets.

Quite bluntly, the $ value of powersets is whatever the Dev's feel like/can get away with charging. If they start releasing sets at $10 a pop and then a year from now release a set that took a bit more effort and charge $15 that's perfectly reasonable. They determine the price of the product. We determine it's 'Value' by choosing to purchase it or not.

As far as the sets being 'More than double' in cost? The tradeoff there is that these sets never would've made it past the drawing board otherwise.
If charging a bit more per set means we get 6 new ones this year as oppossed to 0 then it's worth it (to me).

Well...

I have sent a guy flying so hard he did kinda impregnate the wall.

Knockback has saved my life in this game more times than any other form of mitigation...

If you took the KB out of my Energy/Energy blaster he'd shrivel up and die.

I feel for ya though. There is no reasoning with the 'Haters' as you said, KB's teh devil.

Sadly, the stigma is such that, even if you use KB perfectly you are likely to still get flamed for it. Combined with the fact that most players experience with KB comes from it being used poorly by novices instead of when it helps and there ya go.

Back in the day, trying to level up my main became a real chore around level 38. For some reason at that point in the games life KB was really being slammed. It wasn't uncommon at the time for me to get insta kicked from a PUG the second I zoned into the mission and they saw I was energy. Wouldn't even give me a chance to use it properly. This eventually led to my main evolving into a soloer but I digress.

Back then I thought up a few options. We have a +KB enhancement, how bought a -KB enhancer? For instance, I'd love to be able to slot -KB into Torrent and Explosive Blast since they aren't that reliable.
Other ideas included creating an enhancement that turns KB into KD and vice versa.

Though in the interim I learned to love KB and these days I tend to lean towards powersets that have at least one KB power in them. I say it's fine as is. Let the haters hate and everyone else can just laugh at em!

My thoughts?

I find it laughable when anyone chimes in on the 'paying for powers' debate with the battlecry of "It's been done before with COV and GR!!!1@!!" For the exact reasons you listed above.

Yes, while it's technically correct that we're locked out of 4 sets if we don't have GR. I simply can't view that as paying for powersets. It's an expansion I'm paying for, that happens to include 4 power sets, among a plethora of other goodies. Trying to claim that it has precedent because we have to buy the expansion to play the sets is silly.
Unless I'm missing something and buying Beam Gun set also gets me 3 or more new zones and arcs ala CoV and GR it just doesn't equal out.

However, that's just a personal gripe. I dislike when people that have a legitimate case use barely thought out reasons to justify it, when all they need to do is let it stand on it's own merit. All it does it weaken the case instead of reinforcing it.

No, simply put, no matter how anyone wants to 'Spin' it. Our $15 a month has given us every powerset (bar expansions) for free. This will change with Freedom and...

That is a really good thing! Seriously.

I gave much thought to it when F2P was announced. I knew we'd see powersets being sold eventually. At 1st I really didn't like the idea. Feeling like my 7 years of loyalty wasn't being considered, since the longtime players will be the ones wanting new sets the most (having played all the others)

I also don't go for the "Just use you monthly PP stipend" excuses as that ignores the fact that spending the PP on powersets negates the ability to spend it on anything else... No, fact is ViP's will be expected to shell out extra cash on top of the Sub from here on out. That too, is a good thing.

What changed my mind on the issue? What got me to go from being upset over it to actually wishing it would launch sooner? I realized the potential.

We've gotten used to getting 1 or 2 new sets a year. Sometimes not even that. This new model has the potential to put numerous new sets in our hands. By taking in money for specific items/features they can then turn around and put more time into creation of more. I realized that this new model means we'll get sets we've been asking for that otherwise would've never been created. That makes me smile.

I have no problem with having to spend $10 for a single powerset since I'll get 10 times the use out of it then the equivalent $10 server transfer. If it means Blasters get Martial Arts secondary sooner rather than later! It means Staff fighting and Street Fighting and numerous other sets get to see the light of day when they otherwise wouldn't.

That is a very good thing indeed!

Technically this would be considered PLing and not Farming per se. Hopefully that'll prevent the pro-farming crowd from getting to upset...

That said. Recent changes in the game point to the Dev's being perfectly fine with it. Though I suspect that has more to do with being resigned to the fact that it's unavoidable as oppossed to openly supporting it.

See: AE Babies

That is the only real problem I see with it these days. Level 43 PB's that have never left the Atlas park AE building...
It was so bad a week after AE launched I had to step away from the game for a bit. A good friend of mine actually started a global channel on Infinity called AE annoynomous for those of us actually wanting to 'Play' the game. Channel is still going strong too.

We can laugh about it now but I really feel like it cost us quite a few players. AE was hyped up enough that it brought a wave of fresh players to us. Sadly those players had no clue AE was being abused and found themselves with 50's overnight, coming from the 'Game starts at the level cap' mindset present in other MMO's this initially felt like a great thing, til they realized the only thing to do was create a new alt...

Cost us quite a few players it did.

Sorry for the tangent. I'll admit I took advantage of some of the 'options' for fast leveling. Usually running a sewer team to level 8 then hopping in a AE farm to get to 20 quickly for Stamina. However, now that Stamina is inherrent I haven't bothered. Seeing as how I knew the AT I was playing though, I didn't see this as a bad thing. Though looking back, all the toons I sped to 20 ended up being shelved at 22 cause I just didn't have a connection to them.

Or if you dislike the iTrials I suggest waiting for Freedom to launch. You should be able to use PP to purchase them. At least that's my hope.

Indeed. Best OCR team we've ever had!
Now if we could just do something about the haphazard moderation we'd be all set.

My 1st 50? Think it was something like 700 hours. Spread out over 6 years... and that was my namesake main.

2nd 50 took about half that. Somewhere around 2 1/2 years.

3rd 50 went at lightspeed (my only MM) and hit 50 after a year and some change.

Hello, My name is Jason and I'm an altoholic...

I'm so gonna need a new graphics card...

The look of the underground, the epic scale of Hami's Avatar... Might actually get me to participate in a trial. If for no other reason than to experience that level of awesome!

I just now saw this and figured it'd be to late to grab one since it's going on 1am. I was about to check my FB page anyways so I went ahead and checked out the page.

I was quite shocked when I actually got a code and it worked!!

I wasn't that worried about it since I figured worst case scenario I'd be able to buy it down the road from the store but still, thanks for the perk!!