Memphis_Bill

I had a supergroup (villain group, really) do that as well. Had absolutely nothing to do with ED. Had to do with SG politics, going from a nice, social group to "My word is GOD, you WILL do this!" And a lot of people there turned atheist, and formed or joined other groups (including me.)

And yes, States looked at subs- he had the numbers TO look at. And if you look at it historically - since we have a few *years* worth of numbers - overall, he was right. We had a spike as people tried out the "new" game, and then it went to about the same population and stayed reasonably steady, with only a slow bleed of subs and a yearly cycle of population.

Also, we've seen a fair number of those people (no, I don't have exact numbers) come back - it's not unusual to hear "I played this game before, been away a few years, what's new?"

Tanstaafl makes another point, too - it's hard to see immediate impact on sub numbers, good or bad, with people who have multi-month subs. For instance, if I said right now "I quit, I'm not coming back," my two accounts wouldn't show as inactive for a few months yet. We'd have to see - looking at ED:
- Total subs, for the overall number.
- Existing subscriptions and their server access.
- New subs.
- Subs not renewed - and we couldn't attribute this solely to ED, either, as people leave for other reasons.

Except (a) the content's starting to get geared toward them, (b) they're designed FOR teams of 12-48 and (c) the very problems mentioned occur with them. You can't skip someone in range who - as mentioned before - has a problem with the buff graphics (or other reason.) You can't skip around a buff order. One shot and you have to wait for it to recharge (and hope you get everyone you meant to the next time.)

And "Except to give teams a reason to dislike the buffers?" Weekly task force is that supposed to mean, exactly?

Right. Because that's so incredibly easy to do while you enter the mission, check your toggles and whatnot - know the precise position of every player.

There's also the flipside of someone missing the buff thanks to JUST being out of range when it's cast, and having no buff whatsoever for the next several minutes. Right now? I can just buff them out of order. And no, I am NOT going to break up a mission flow to repeatedly yell "OK, everyone, stop running and huddle up for buffs!" I don't do that NOW, and that sort of change to buffs I currently apply individually would make me shelve those characters.

/bind left "powexecname bubble1"
/bind right "powexecname bubble2"

Takes a few seconds to go down the list, left-right-next-left-right, and then you're off.

Last but not least (and another reason I'm *strongly* against AOE-ing shields) is that I remember the old Sonic shields. And they're being brought to mind again because one of the Incarnate team buffs (no, I don't recall the one, likely the defense one) has... ready? Giant AOE with flashy effects that are causing a good friend to start getting headaches.

I figured the devs would have learned LAST time to avoid those effects. But, nope - and now we have people firing them off in the RWZ, firing them off in Pocket D, firing them off in missions, and with a big enough AOE it's damn hard to avoid.

I seem to recall that being a dev, possibly Statesman, statement at the time.

...

Actually did a bit of searching (keyword "Subscription," user "Statesman_NA") and found this, which I think (entire-thread wise) is the key - Statesman mentioned we'd kept gaining customers after ED, and referred to sub numbers on another site.

Your memory is faulty. Post-releases, there tend to be a lot of little patches and, on occasion, sudden "GAH! Servers going down in TEN MINUTES! DIVE!DIVE!DIVE!" patches. Within a month, it's back to normal.

Right. Because BAB could have animated the bugs away.

Oh, and as far as the last time? COV release. Y'know, the LAST time they finished a major project.

/these.

Downtime - unless it's a sudden "That server's about to explode! Red alert!" maintenance - is scheduled to affect the least amount of players. Note the phrase "least amount," not "zero." Somebody gets impacted. The Australian contingent complained for a while because it hit them pretty regularly for a while (and I think it still does.)

And yes, I work afternoon/evenings, so my playtime gets hit by this as well. Down until 9-10-11-12? Well, that's usually my free time (or "try to stay awake at 1-2 AM.")

Also, adding to Aett's comment - when it hits live, more people are playing, which means more people to do unexpected things that require dev attention and patches.

Your choice, basically, is to let things be broken (and complain about crashes/bugs/etc) between weekly maintenances, or get smaller patches and maintenance a bit more often just after release. And this isn't new to I20.

Played multiple FF, Sonic, Thermal and Cold characters.

Not particularly "tedious" to me. I'll take the flexibility of applying them individually, thanks.

You mean... like the ones you unlock during the raids?

Use those.

Otherwise, /disagree, like every OTHER time this is brought up on buffing sets.

Please see, oh, every other thread dealing with this.

Soloing in an online game is not "weird." COH has been very friendly to this playstyle. Getting things locked away (and ridiculous conversion times/prices is not "keeping it available) that are more than cosmetic goes against that, and has rubbed MANY people the wrong way.

He sounds a LOT like me, frankly (down to multiple accounts and artwork.)

I've been grinding through these because, well, that's where I'm finding people. It's where my friends are, "finishing up" their characters. Honestly, I'm not finding it particularly fun. I'm doing it - and sitting back and watching - because after this is the "Coming storm" that's been hinted, pointed, etc. at since issue 6... and my big worry is that THAT, which should be a major event, is going to be locked behind more of this incarnate nonsense and require giant multi-team leagues to do anything with.

If so - and no, throwing tiny crumbs of non-giant-raid content is not "avoiding" this - well, the jump to TOR won't be as hard.

You'll excuse me if I LMAO at this. A team in this game normally needs nothing except people who want to do more than stand by the door and pick various orifices.

"Extreme specialties?" Puh-lease. Or are you one of the sort who refuses to start anything without a tank and "healer?"

Better safe than suspendy.

Double checked with mod05, who pretty much said "yeah, two click on that."

How about you and everyone else telling him his friend's wrong go pretend you're superman and take a flying leap.

These aren't exactly right.

It uses all END if it hits a significant number of targets. If you nuke a single target? Nope. You'll end up with END still. It pretty much won't use *any.* Your *recovery* is still dropped, but you still have END. (Exceptions being Blizzard, which is placed and will drop END to 0, and Electric, which needs a target but will still not drop you to 0 if you don't hit enough.)

It also does not preclude using other powers - you can still take a blue, use END recovery powers, or have other buffs or ally powers return your END and continue fighting. (Elec/Elec, for instance - Nuke, blue, powersink, rock.)

Side note, part of the perception here is going to depend on where you spend your time. I don't run a blaster/defender to 35, then ITF my way to 50 in a weekend. I don't spend a lot of time on my 50s at all - they're part of a rotation. Sometimes I feel like playing them, sometimes I don't. So I have much *more* time, even on a Defender getting this at 38, to play with the Nukes. Someone who rushes to 50 and concentrates just on that character is going to see it much differently.

No laser beams on their heads.

Thuderous Blast, Blizzard, Rain of Arrows and Full Auto asked me to mention that not all nukes are PBAOE.

Yes, I take them, and will continue to take and use them, even if they don't change, but some degree of change should definitely be on the table. (I'm not *as* big on taking them on a defender, short of Rad - where it really has to be either "After stuff has been damaged a bit" or "After purples" as part of a 2-3 attack chain. Otherwise, they just *can't* do enough damage on their own. Though I still do. *shrug*)

I "Get" the crash (and the lack of one in FA and ROA) - it's a build up and "ultimate" release of power - versus Judgement being borrowed from the Well, so it's not "your" power you're using. I'd expect to be "drained" and hit with something just after it. I do think it needs to be rebalanced, though - more damage (especially in Defender hands, as you're paying *even more* by losing the ability to buff/debuff while down without being able to wipe out an even level spawn,) and if they have to keep the crash, slightly shorter duration with a faster recharge. Or something.

(While we're at it, rebuild Sparky in Electric so its attacks chain.)

*nod*

Probably as a subforum of Archetypes and Powers. I'd expect GR to go the way of GVE and become the "de facto" version of COH, which means it'd be nearly universal for GR items to be of concern for everyone.