Marut

I'm figuring approx 2.5 hours, including EoE farming immediately beforehand if needed.

Bluntly, Hamidon is not particularly "open raid" friendly anymore. He's more a task for prepared and very coordinated crews. The method we used to take him on Test effectively dealt with the inherent "Pug" nature of the raid crew by dumping the majority of the responsibility on the heads of a small percentage, and then using twists on more familiar methods to pull the rest down. In short, it was a very rough application of the strategy.

An SG/Coalition/Group of friends that took this on, using the same method, and say, voice chat or the like, could pound through it very rapidly. In fact, with the exception of perhaps Hami himself, I am pretty certain that the encounter could be done with 8 players, each with three alts. And it wouldn't take any longer, if they already had EoE. Beating Hami's regen would be an issue though.

-M

ZM is dead right. The raid that lasted so long and eventually worked suffered terribly from lack of raider preparation AND working with then-still unknown factors. With those out of the way, a prepared raid group should be able to take down Hamidon in no more than 2 hours, and probably quite a bit less if they're coordinated well.

-M

I imagine Lighthouse is a tad busy at the moment... AS, while a very busy man, is about the friendliest guy around here, and is more likely to pay attention in the pre-I9 dooooooom stuff going around.

That, and the man designed Silver Age Sentinels, so I feel he should get extra attention for a kickass job

-M

PMing Arctic Sun... Thinking this should be added to the OP of the important links thread... Right?

-M

Pretty sure she was referring to a negative comment being made about Cricket and CJ, or to anyone for that matter. Talking to yourself with two accounts to further your own drama doesn't make it any more believable.

And what any of that has to do with this thread, I don't know. can we please keep posts in here on topic?

-M

Would like to toss my hat in the ring here. Based on the TF contents, the stated fact that all Portals from Portal Corp lead to alternate versions of our reality, not different planets, etc., the descriptions of some of the Items of Power, and the generic Aspect of Rularru that guards them(which looks just like the other three), I think that the Shard is a version of Paragon City that was invaded and conquered by a godlike, multidimensional being about 20 years ago by our standards.

Being a godlike being who peers into multiple dimensions and keeps a record of all of them(see the One Book of Rularru), I believe Rularru enslaved the human race in that world, and then took off for other dimensions, leaving three shards of his own deific power behind to fulfill certain roles. Specifically, they represented aspects of his own personality: Purpose(Ruladak), Wrath(Lanarru), and Love(Faathim). One to oversee the new slave populace and keep them in line, with the help of the other Rularru slave races(Wisps, Overseers, Brutes, Natterlings), one to care for and nurture that slave race to prevent them from being too damaged by the work or growing so miserable that they revolted, and one to serve as an enforcer for all the others.

I think, however, that the one responsible for caring for his charges did his job too well, and became so sympathetic to them that he felt the need to help them escape bondage. Being a semi-autonomous aspect of a god, he tricked the aspect that effectively "ruled" the world by embodying the wrath of a God into believing that eventually, their master would return, and he would either no longer be in charge, or else would cease to exist by being absorbed back into Rularru. Fearful of losing what it had, that aspect shattered the world, cutting off the aspects from the god itself, or at least making him lose sight of it... for a while. Considering what Akarist says, Lanarru might have actually ripped Paragon City out of wherever it was, and placed it in a pocket dimension, shattering it in the process, and creating a tiny kingdom of his own, and thereby removing the sun, moon, and seasons in the process.

Ruladak, still loyal to Rularru, attempted to overthrow Lanarru with the help of the client races, but failed and was imprisoned. Faathim, having achieved freedom for his charges, realizes too late that he just trapped those charges in a world where they would be under constant attack from the loyal armies of Rularru that remained there. World degrades into barbarism without technology and without the guiding hand previously in place.

Enter our reality not only punching a hole into the Shard, but also repeatedly punching a hole to Rularru's trophy house and taking his stuff, and chances are, he's going to start paying more attention to both our reality, and his wayward children.

Might also check out the Prima Guide; in it, it mentions several new Rularru AVs that the game doesn't have in yet, all of which serve a specific role in the grand scheme of things. Add that to the above, and something wicked this way comes, for sure

-M

I think the idea would be more along the lines of the proposed "Global" SG list Posi has hinted at, where a person can put all of their toons into one SG if they choose, but only actually occupy one "slot" as far as the game is concerned, seeing as how only one of those characters can be on at a time. You could still belong to multiple SGs if you wanted, but you could also have all of your characters contributing to the same sg at the same time as well. This would benefit pretty much everyone - the small sgs would be able to maintain all their characters in one place, and larger sgs would be able to allow all their members in the same sg without having to branch out in 8 directions and do more clerical work to keep things focused than a lot of RL jobs. It's true that smaller sgs shouldn't be punished for preferring a tightly knit, small group, but larger sgs shouldn't be punished for having a large, active playerbase either.

-M

[ QUOTE ]
Wish we kept this going.... very cool tie in for the server and great addition to add to each guilds own calendar to bring the players together from abroad.

[/ QUOTE ]

See post above yours; can't do much with it without events

-M

When it lost it's sticky, it became a lot less useful. People stopped submitting events to be put up. I've offered several times to update and get it moving again, but no one has sent me any info on events to put back on, they've just posted their own threads on it, and trying to hunt down every stray event thread just doesn't make sense.

As stated before, I'd love to get the calendar updated and in use again; just need folks to PM me with their event info, and it'll get done

-M

I'm honestly confused by something here, and that is that, from what I'm understanding, there's a large, mixed group of heroes and villains attending a regular event, in which a general "truce" is called for the sake of dueling in an open zone. Into this event, some people are deliberately taking actions that some view as harassment, and others view as fair play in the zone.

So what I don't understand is, if there are a bunch of heroes and villains around, why does no one take it upon themselves to police their event? What I mean by that is this: I understand the argument about the Arena being too far, too annoying to set up, etc. Much easier to be in the zone, and just jump to a building. Whether or not it's accurate, I don't know, but I understand the point. What I don't get is how that many people can carve out something like Fight Club, which is not the "Vision" of the zone, and yet no one stands up specifically to say "Hey, I'll keep an eye out for those guys while the rest of you duke it out."

I can't help but see Fight Club as akin to frontier work: you're carving out a niche for yourselves in a place where that niche doesn't naturally exist. Problem seems like the attitude is that once it's been carved out, it should be left alone, and not doing so is wrong. That just seems... unreasonable, really, considering the obvious contention over the activity. I have no problems with Fight Club, but if it's a situation where it's the Fight Club community that feels that it's griefing, and not the designers, then it's the Fight Club community that needs to take steps to cope with it. Grab a Mind Dom, and peg em with a sleep, or a Brute with Hurl, and knock them out of the sky. If there are that many people just standing around waiting their turn, why not have some of them take up the responsibility of making sure no one charges the ring, so to speak? Maybe there's some reason this hasn't been done yet, and I'm just missing it...

There's clear disagreement with regards to Fight Club, and both sides are allowed their perspectives. That being the case, the only thing one can really do is to shore up your position. Make it more of a hassle to attack Fight Club than it is to not attack them. There's no way to convince non-FC goers that they are in the wrong to attack the group, or even just behave like morons towards them, just as there's no way that childish behavior can convince FCers to stop holding FC. The designers seem to hold the opinion that PvP in the zone is take it as it comes, and therefore there's nothing wrong with FC being disrupted.

So if FC needs this to stop, why not own it? You guys have come as far as to have it happen with enough regularity that it's a known factor in Champion's Siren's Call. Why not take it a step further? Get say, 3-4 people on a side, team em up with Tactics and keep the eyes peeled. I know in raiding, there used to be some that enjoyed guarding the raid group from monster-pulling griefers and the like even more than they enjoyed the raid. Maybe there are more of those in SC, willing to help keep something they think is special from being disrupted.

Just a suggestion, anyway

-M

[ QUOTE ]
Empowerment stations are instant buffs. You are bathed in radiation/magic/etc. on the spot and get a bonus to your travel speed/lethal resistance/attack speed/endurance recovery/knockback protection/whatever you need at the time, right then and there.


[/ QUOTE ]

God help us... is it possible that we can get mez protection beyond knockback from these stations? Dare I dream?

-M

Don't you dare apologize, Castle. You signed on the forums as the Stalker rep, and have since then become perhaps the most up front, honest, and community-friendly developer we have. If the worst that can be said is that your responses don't include apologizing all over yourself for not paying close attention to a problem that people other than yourself made in the first place, then I'll take that, and a second helping please.

For those reading this thread that don't remember when Castle started on this, the man did this research into Defender issues while on his lunch break at work. LUNCH BREAK, PEOPLE! Not only is he up front, but the guy produced more results for the community while eating a sandwich than others had with hours of paid time! And while no, the developers don't owe us explanations far various things, not while they're doing their job, the fact that one would take his free time to do it for us anyway is truly kind and generous.

No apologies, man. We owe you, not the other way around.

-M

Many thanks for the post, Castle. Just had one quick question. Based on your responses, it looks like you just confirmed that FF Controllers get equal to more effectiveness from 5 out of the 9 powers in the set. Is the development team honestly happy with that as is? I understand your statement about how the whole set would need to be reworked, but if there's ever been a reason for it, shouldn't it be that the set as a secondary is only demonstrably different from the primary in less than half of it's powers?

I know that it's not your job, but you seem to be the only one on the staff willing to comment on this, other than a couple that have tried to tell us that knockback is a wonderful thing and we just don't appreciate it enough...

-M

To my knowledge, Whirlwind doesn't speed up the animation time; it just unroots the caster. So while you wouldn't be stuck in the same spot casting it for the whole time, you also wouldn't be able to do anything else while moving and activating the power.

The Power Boost/Power Build Up/Vanguard aspect is true, but as noted, it further restricts the ATs and powerset choices viable for such a strategy. If one is going to go the route of customized toons for a raid, might as well go the route of TA and stick to the blitzkrieg and hold method, which can still take him out in 20 minutes or less, start to finish. It just takes 45+ controllers/Defenders with the psi epic pool.

Sort of a diminishing returns situation. More specific the plan gets, the harder it actually becomes to pull it off

-M

The raid uniforms were introduced when raids first started on Champion, because the majority of people that knew how one ran were forum-goers who'd read the strat, and they were, of course, a minority at actual raids. The idea was that if ATs and roles were organized by color, rather than having to give a rundown to new folks every time, one could just point them at the other folks dressed the same, and say "do what they're doing, and listen to request for changes". Also helped identify who was leading the raid, who everyone was following, etc. This worked nicely... for a bit

Eventually, raiding became nightly, and people stopped bothering with the costumes. Then, the next generation of heroes hit 50ish, and wanted to raid, and the confusion started all over again, except this time, there was no real reconciliation: many older raiders wanted the costumes reinstituted, others didn't want to bother, and new raiders were split as well between those that didn't want to lose a costume slot, and those who were happy to help in any way they could to make it easier. The end result was that people were asked to wear costumes again... and maybe 10% did, which just added to the confusion more, since all of the sudden we had SOME people dressed alike, and a lot of people looking at em and saying "What in the..."

Short version: Costumes are a good idea, and should be encouraged. They help new people learn, and help organization in a massive group tremendously. When a new method is found that will almost certainly require people to learn new behaviors, it will probably be invaluable. Convincing people to wear them, when the majority already assume they know the drill and don't need to change their pants to do it, is another matter entirely...

-M

For that three second burst, we had about 10-12 trollers working on it, and I'm assuming that that meant that with those numbers we breached his protection just the once, and then the resistance kicked in to shorten the duration significantly.

Also bear in mind that this occured back prior to the Hamidon enhancement reduction, I5 and ED, so most of these folks were running permahasten, AM'd to the gills by the rads around them(I had this group test while in the middle of the mito clearing phase of a normal raid, since we were raiding nightly at the time), and had one or more Hamidon origin enhancements each jacking their Confuse duration by 50% In other words, unless they've reduced his protection and resistance, it would take significantly more people to pull off the same trick now. Which is entirely possible, since I don't think anyone's tried confuse since then; I certainly don't know. I have a hunch they haven't though, since his other mez resists appear to have stayed the same, while we've gotten weaker.

-M

Both assume that Hami's confuse resistance isn't as high as the other mezz resistances he has. If that's true, and you can stack enough to get past his protection, then that's dead on. If his resistance is even close to as high as his others, then there's a decent possibility that the confuse duration itself would last less time per casting than the animation takes(in testing, we managed to confuse Hamidon for all of three seconds. He fired once at a mito, and was back to shooting at us). Slot it up, and it might last a bit longer, but historically Hamidon has had significantly shorter durations for mezzes that affect him.

Pet dropping team can be avoided with an invul/stone/ice tanker, a handful of kinetics, and a dark def. Or, an invul tank and two empaths, if they're feeling brave Set up the tank on one side of Hamidon, with the kins and dark on the other side, and while the tank taunts, the kins use Transfusion. Keeps the aggro on the tank, keeps the tank alive, keeps the kins alive. If this were the only group in Hamidon, mito fire would make death much more common, and you'd need more people, but with a raid group in the mix, mito fire gets nicely dispersed.

-M

If one has the trollers to hold him, that would probably work well. Bear in mind that the confuse animation is a long one, so whichever controllers are on confuse duty would be unable to assist with holds. Also could be risky since you can't tell a mito to stop firing if you lose holds. Might be six of one, half dozen of the other, though if for some reason one is overburdened with trollers but light on damage, that could be handy.

All this is based on the "standard" raid model. All bets are off if something else is intended

-M

Tried that. Problem is that confused mitos don't target the same mito consistently, just like confused mobs tend to whack a target, then run around and hit another one at random. Might have merit if the number of mitos was significantly decreased first, and therefore have only a limited number of targets to attack, but you gotta wonder at that point if it wouldn't just be faster to kill the rest the same way you thinned out the first bunch.

The Confuse idea with regards to Hami spawning pre-confused mitos has been around since I3-I4, and if I remember correctly, one guy from Infinity insisted that he led a raid on Test where it worked, or at least something similar. The main issues with it were that a) no one believed him, I think because he was sort of a troll, and he had no evidence, b) the number of illusion/mind trollers that he claimed to have had on test was not really representative of the numbers generally found on a live server at any given time, somewhere around 40 of just those sets, and c) the idea was met with a lot of resistance because even were it to work, it pushed non-controlling ATs even further into the backseat than many already were. Overall, there didn't seem to be a lot of interest in trying it because it appeared to amount to a novelty.

However, just because it's a novelty doesn't mean it won't work, or that someone can't use it

-M

If you kill Hamidon without killing the mitos first, the mitos die with him. This has been confirmed by two successful raids on Champion pre-I6, and several others on other servers. I think TA still raids him daily like this, with their specially built raid toons.

-M

[ QUOTE ]
May I propose a change to the conventional thinking on Raids?

I understand the need for 1 Bubble so its easier to follow ppl without having "follow" on, but I suggest that all Bubblers have dispersion bubble up and they all use auto-follow to stay with the 1 bubbler lead. This way all the bubbles will be in one place and there wont be confusion on who to follow.

The reason is as follows: Bubbles stack. and that defense is AoE. I have heard the arguement that Hami dmg is untyped and therefore indefensible, but Positron's explanation of defense indicates that the AoE portion should be kicking in - REGARDLESS OF TYPE. It is AoE all.

I know for a fact that I personally have had PFF up and when Hami started hitting the group and it protected me. Everyone around me went down.

At the very least, it is worth a test.

[/ QUOTE ]

The reason why multiple bubbles weren't used for a long time was less about redundancy, but for two other issues:

1) It was hard to make out who the bubbler that was supposed to anchor the blanket was, and people got confused and spread out.

2) Lag, plain and simple. Disp Bubbles stack, and buff everyone in the area, which is one that has people moving in and out of it constantly. One bubble isn't too bad, but 3+ used to get very ugly, which is why when it became clear that they weren't helping anyway, they were requested to be turned off. The new safe mode feature might make it more feasible, especially since bubbles should protect now, but I'm unsure that safe mode would help with the server lag caused by keeping track of that many buffs on that many people constantly. Might want to try getting a team of 8 bubblers together and sending them into the Hive and see if there's a noticeable difference in how often they get shot by anything in there. That would give a good sample by itself, since that many bubblers could protect a whole raid as well as they could protect just their team.

-M

Bump!

For the moment, if people have events that need scheduling for the rest of this month or next, please send me a PM with the details, and it'll get put in ASAP.

Need to get this thread stickyed again... that thread directory ain't cutting it.

-M

For reference: Last night, an SG with 14 players online at the time managed to accrue approximately 150,000 prestige in just around 2 hours. No exploits, no manipulations of missions, just working together as an SG at common goal. It IS possible to rake the stuff in pretty fast.

Couple things, if it helps: a split team of mentors and sidekicks will yield dramatically more prestige than a team of even levels. I'm guessing this is by design too, since mentoring also yields SG badges. The SK will get a bigger bonus than the mentor for all kills and completions, so it pays to have both high levels and low levels working together. Secondly, two seperate teams of the same sg are spilling into the same coffers, so using supergroup chat as giant team chat now has a real utility.

So far, it looks like the prestige and base system is intended to reward an SG not based at all on size, but rather based on how well and frequently that SG works together. If your group is composed mainly of people who solo or pickup a lot, it's not going to matter how big they are, prestige accumulation will probably be lower.

Anyway, these are just observations; I'm not intending to flame anyone. Just felt that the discussion deserved some honest counterpoint.

-M

Isn't this akin to offering a free toaster with every gunshot wound? It doesn't really take the sting out of something being forced on you against any illusion of free will you might have...

Dispersion Bubble needs this. Bad. It's the only power in our primary set that gives us any defense at all, and with it running at a 22% defbuff maximum, it means that -def powers make it more or less nonexistant in a heartbeat.

Have no issue with no -def resistance in the targetted bubbles, as those are supposed to be extra defense in the first place. Disp Bubble is our lifeline though. Please consider adding this to the Defense based set that seems to be overlooked in the grouping.

-M