Mystic_Cross

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[I'm definitely NOT in favor of giving stamina earlier if it means reducing the benefit.

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stamina has a base 25% end recovery as a tier 3 pool selection requiring 2 other power selections before you can get it. my suggestion made it 20% as a tier 2 power available at 14 with 1 other power selection... you also have the additional option of taking the tier 3 power, which grants a global 10% end reduction to all your powers...

wouldn't this be just as effective as stamina is now, with the exception that you'd be able to get a majority of the benefit at level 14 to help through those levels, and the (effective) remainder at 20?

you would still be taking 3 powers total from a pool, only now you would have options of increasing your regen with Health, or increasing your max HP with Durability, instead of swift and hurdle.

you could even forsake the tier 3 alltogether if you didn't feel you needed that extra bit, and maybe grab swift or hurdle if you really like 'em... this is what it's all about, different possibilites.

Post deleted by Mystic_Cross

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I would like to see something done about the pre-20 endurance situation. I don't find those levels fun because of it. However, I'm realistic enough to realize that it'll probably never happen. The devs (and a significant fraction of the players it seems as well) disagree with me that it's a problem.

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The fact is, it CAN be a problem. the problem is mostly dependant on power selection and slotting. it is not an absolute problem because some players know through experience or even luck, what works and what doesn't, in addition to knowing how to slot.

The problem is that not everyone has that luxury, and especially new players have difficulties learning how to slot and build characters.

some builds have the clout to be somewhat exceptional nearly regardless of slotting, provided you take a few key powers and everyone is made aware of those powers through some means. Stamina is one of those powers, it makes learning to slot more of an issue because people think if they take it then end problems will be solved and there's no reason to slot a power for end unless it's particularly heavy in use.

The fact is, granting stamina at an earlier level will help with the low game for newer players, and possibly even vets... who seemingly just want to get past the "boring" 1st 20 or so levels before stamina. I can't count the number of times i've heard people say they farm or PL to the 20s for the post-stamina game where it starts to be "fun".

the first 10 levels are nothing, i can do that in an hour or so just running regular missions, so the main problem seems to be the 10-20ish range. i don't see a problem putting stamina almost dead in the middle of that range with a lesser recovery rate to help ease those levels.

reducing it's buff slightly will make it somewhat less effective in higher levels, thereby prompting people to lrn2slot and find another means to manage endurance. all the while helping the low-end game. the mid to end game already has many powers that restore endurance, making stamina less of a necessity at those levels. nearly every set or Patron/APP has an option for an end restoring power at some point.

wow, a surprisingly large amount of negative feedback. perhaps i shouldn't have used stamina as a "catch phrase" to draw in attention to the actual suggestion, which in fact IS NOT BASED AROUND STAMINA...

I made stamina a bit of a centerpoint with my references and title, so i suppose thats what i get. guess it's a more touchy subject than i thought.

the main reason for this idea is to provide more build options. some people go for +dam builds, some for +recovery or +recharge and even +health. some go for more than one or even all those things.

some people would like to have the option of getting 2 LotG's worth of recharge by sacrificing a couple powers instead of spending 200-300 million they dont have at the market, and then finding a defense power they don't have just to slot them in. tell me, how many people take extra powers they dont need (or in some cases even want) in order to accomplish those +recharge builds, or any build for that matter?

let's put up a vague example build here using a bit of combiniation with these powers. normally i go with superspeed because i like the +recharge from hasten and i don't care for wasting extra powers that pull me out of the main power selections unless it's a planned part of my build or will help me acheive something i want in the build.

for this build i don't want to use stamina, i want +recharge and +damage bonuses so i can focus my slotting more on end reduction and secondary effects without feeling completely gimped.

now along with super speed, i normally take hurdle (or in some cases combat jumping) because it makes for getting around easier. now that i have hurdle, i can take "Power" from the changed pool listed above and buff my damage output a little, at some point i'll most likely grab Assault from the leadership pool also.

now i already have hurdle and power, so "Speed" is available and i can stack that with hasten to increase my DPA a bit more. now as i level i can focus on sets that give +dam and +recharge (without going into LotG's), and basically forego those type of enhancements in favor of one's that offer end reduction, buff the secondary effects of my powers, and accuracy. for example, i could prioritize the use of an enhancement that is Acc/End/Stun instead of Acc/Dam/Rech.

Alternately, something like a tanker may be building for something like +health bonuses, but still need end control and doesn't want to take stamina for whatever reason. The health pool can give the regen bonus from health, and the +5% health increase from Durability, then perhaps instead of stamina they'll take Vigor, offering a 10% reduction in end cost in order to help their endurance slotting.

alternately, someone with say Dark Armor, which is a very end heavy set, would have the option of getting stamina at 14, albeit with slightly reduced performance, it would make managing endurance less of a chore given the relatively low bonuses from enhancements at those levels.


most builds that run without stamina (that i've seen) try to make up that loss in set bonuses and end reductions. this is just adding another venue to accomplish similar goals in different ways. often you need to make large sacrifices in other set bonuses to get +Endurance and +Recovery bonuses out of the sets, and the main reason people will do that is so they can slot more damage etc. into a power rather than more end reductions. This could give the option to make power sacrifices instead of set bonuses and still accomplish the same goal...


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That would just mean more power pool powers I'd have to squeeze in. Probably in lieu of travel powers.

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possibly if you WANT all these different powers, but you certainly wouldn't NEED to choose any, power pools are completely OPTIONAL.

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And in other news, boxers do a lot of running and other fitness training to give them the stamina to fight for more rounds without tiring as fast.

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that may be true, and there are also other boxers who do strength training in order to take out their opponent as fast as possibly without using a great deal of stamina... see Mike Tyson for more info.

again, this is to offer more options for building and discussion as to what people think would be fair to increase our options.

as i stated in the original post, THESE SUGGESTIONS WERE NOT SET IN STONE. it was an idea off the top of my head and IT DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND GETTING STAMINA EARLIER. so for all the stamina "haters" out there, please don't flame my thread on the basis that it's a suggestion that INVOLVES stamina, because that seems to be the general consensus so far.

for those who said it would be overpowered, what would you feel to be acceptable in terms of bonuses from these powers? do you have any suggestions on improvement, or were your rebuttals simply to disregard the idea in it's entirety?

for those who don't know, health normally gives 40% regen unslotted and stamina is 25% end recovery unslotted. I reduced those numbers to 35% and 20% respectively, given the nature of the additional powers and the fact that they are (health and stamina) available earlier on. if this seems to be too much of a buff still, please make a suggestion on what you think would be acceptable at these levels?

Thanks for your input!

EDIT: Originally i was going for splitting the current fitness pool and adding in new powers to subsidize and add more options for different builds...

as a last minute consideration, i realize now that actually splitting the fitness pool would be unfeasable due to the fact there are so many builds with stamina and those builds needed to take swift or hurdle first, so what would happen to them? ... i really can't believe i didn't think of this before, (furthermore i can't beleive no one else said it).

but as i said in the original (unedited) post.. it was an off the top of my head idea. (with minimal sleep i might add)


Alternate to the original idea, which seems to have people up in arms so far in another "stamina this... stamina that... lrn2slot" debate...

another pool could be added consisting of something similar to the new powers mentioned, thereby leaving the Fitness pool as is...

powers would go something as follows:

Power -Increased Global Damage 5% (auto power) available at level 6

Durability - Hitpoints +5%, Mez Resist: Stun 20% -available level 6

Vigor - Self Endurance Discount 10% (auto), Debuff Resistance: Endurance 20% - available level 14 {note- this power's effects would not be stackable with powers like Conserve Power}

Speed - Increased Global Recharge 15% (auto power) available at level 20

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Untargettable seems like a good idea.

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This seems on the right track. perhaps able to be clicked and highlighted like a teammate would be, but not attackable and not able to be "tabbed" onto. also as it's been mentioned before numerous times... a stronger graphical effect so you can really see which enemies are phased would be nice.

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Hmm, the new 9.4 drivers include this little tidbit in the patch notes:

"City of Villains: Display now redraws correctly after changing graphics settings"

It's not much, but possibly a start?

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that tidbit is also only listed under Windows 7, and has no bearing on XP or Vista. I wouldn't recommend updating to 9.4 solely for this.

I started testing 9.4shortly after i made the post above..
they seemingly just "tweaked" the CCC overclock utility for the 4000 series cards, making it specific to them. and the "screen freeze" bug when vista Aero is enabled seems to be gone.

other than that, it seems about equivalent to catalyst 9.3,

i don't care for the "improved" OC utility in 9.4, it doesn't seem to work as smoothly as previous versions, and it only OC'd the video RAM, didn't do the GPU at all.

Not normally one to fuel negativity but, I give up... 6 hours is far too much time to spend just trying to spend money...

i don't even want to play the game now... soooooo disappointing (and that's a HUGE understatement)

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I had few problems with 9.2 myself but 9.3 seems to have fixed alot of issues.
I run my pc with a 4870x2 and I'm asking for an advice about the settings I should keep to play, especially if I better use the CCC AA and Anisotropic filtering or use the ingame ones
Thanks!

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Yea, the 9.3 made quite an improvement for me also, 9.2 was definately bugged or it didn't like my system, i couldnt get the game to run properly no matter what settings were changed.

Since i updated to 9.3 the game runs stable (for me) with the following setup and the CCC/In-Game settings i'm using:

Hardware:
Samsung Syncmaster 226BW (flat panel, DVI connection)
AMD Phenom X4 9950
MSI K9A2 Platinum
2x Sapphire Radeon HD4870 Toxic Edition (in crossfire)
4GB Supertalent DDR2
2x Western Digital Hard Drives (RAID 0 Array)

Software:
Vista 64 Ultimate Edition
Catalyst Control Center 9.3

CCC Settings:
under "Display Options":
Use manual detection only
Force TV detect: No
Force Component Video detect : No

Under "Digital Panel":
Attributes:
Enable GPU scaling: No
Maintain Aspect Ratio: Yes
Reduce DVI Frequency: No
Alternate DVI Operation Mode: No

Under "3D":
Standard Settings: Use application settings
Anti-Aliasing : use application settings
Smoothvision HD AF: use application settings
Catalyst AI: Enabled (standard)
Mipmap detail level: Quality
Wait for Vertical Refresh: On, unless application specifies
Adaptive AA: Enabled, Quality
OpenGL settings: Triple Buffering disabled

Any settings not listed are set to default in the CCC.

My In-Game settings as follows (note: I always run in full screen mode):
Screen/UI Resolution: 1680x1050
Refresh Rate: 60
Advanced Graphics Settings: Enabled (as follows)
Suppress extra FX: Disabled
Supress FX when close: Disabled
AGEIA: N/A
Particle Physics: High
World Texture Quality: Very High
Character Texture Quality: Very High
World Detail: 100%
Character Detail: 200%
Max Particle Count: 50000
Vertical Sync: Enabled
FSAA: Off
Shadows: enabled
use Geometry Buffers: Enabled
Anisotropic Filtering: 8x
Texture Crispness: Smooth
Shader Quality: High
Water Effects: Low Quality
Depth of Field Effects: Disabled
Bloom: Regular (have used all settings here without issue)
Bloom amount: 100%
Desaturation Effects: Enabled

Above are settings i've had no issues with at all, and should be fine. I've also run particle physics on "very High" and Depth of field/water effects with FSAA disabled and vice versa with no issues... hope this helps

*edit to note: Vista 64's Aero "eye candy", when enabled, can cause the game to seemingly "freeze" when doing certain things.

Example: using the Mission Architect... occasionally when clicking the mission "edit" button, or clicking "next" after editing a character costume in the Custom Enemy creator... makes a stationary screen image appear (like your character standing in front of the MA computer for example) and the game appears to be frozen (you can't do anything within the image) ... hitting the "windows" button on your keyboard pops up the start menu and immediately makes the stationary image disappear and shows the game or UI screen you should have been on before the image appeared.

Quick Fix: Simply changing your desktop "theme" to "windows classic" should eliminate this issue. you can do this by going to:
Start> Control Panel> Appearance and Personalization> and click "change the theme" under "personalization". Click the dropdown menu in the window that pops up and select "windows classic", then "OK"

just for reference in case it hasn't been posted yet, ati recently released catalyst 9.3

i'm using Vista 64-bit with dual radeon 4870s in crossfire mode, i originally had the catalyst 9.2 installed and was getting game crashes left and right.

since i updated to catalyst 9.3 yesterday the crashes have stopped altogether due to driver and graphics issues.

it does however still crash due to the amount of people apparently. i was on all night long with no issues, and when more and more people began logging into the MA i got a single crash ... went to a diff zone and everything was all good.

i'm psyched about this new issue. new content is always great, but even better ... it's FREE new content, so what's there to complain about?

it seems the dev's are slowly working toward a lot of the requests from the players, people have been asking for VEAT's forever, and now customized power trays, more additions to real numbers, zone improvements, the list goes on ... and there is more coming in the future!

so i for one am very pleased with the new content.

*3 cheers for the devs*

just figured i'd post up and see if anyone else is having issues i'm having. first off ... system spec so you know what i'm working with here:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
MSI K9A Platinum Motherboard
2GB Supertalent DDR2 1066 Memory
(2) MSI/ATI Radeon HD2600XT 512MB (x-fire mode)
Currently running Catalyst 7.11 Drivers

i have 2 ATI radeon HD2600XT cards running in crossfire mode (yeah, overkill i know). i got them shortly after Catalyst 7.9 was released, so i installed 7.9 before i even started playing CoX again. the game ran flawlessly, with no issues or lockups for about 2 months. Then i updated to Catalyst 7.10 which is when i started having issues. i only ran the update because it said that a bug was fixed that involved CoX, and i didn't wanna run into any problems considering everything was going smoothly.

once 7.10 was installed, upon starting the game, i get an error that tells me my drivers are old and outdated, to upgrade to a new version (WTF, THIS IS THE NEW VERSION!) ok so moving on... i played, no issues for a couple days, then all of a sudden i get screen blackouts, enemies AND teammates disappearing from the map, freaky stuff. i adjusted some of the graphic settings, turning off bloom, water effects, FSAA and Aniso ... which i had run full with Catalyst 7.9 and no issues btw.

so i exit and restart game, things are fine, for about a week, then similar stuff begins to happen and i even got a couple game crashes.... oookay. well

now Catalyst 7.11 is out... so i upgrade to that. still get outdated driver message when i start the game, seems the blacked screens increase in occasion, or my menu's disappear. i say screw it, 7.9 worked flawlessly ... so i uninstall all the ati stuff, re-install Catalyst 7.9 ... STILL get the error that my drivers are outdated, and now i cant change bump map settings in graphics options higher than "low-with bumpmaps" and i can't even access bloom, depth of field, and 2 other options i forget which ones atm...

i changed back to Catalyst 7.11 to see if i got my graphics options back, and they're not.

i'm fairly certain the issue lies on the game (CoX) side of things, because i have other games that are non-issues including WoW, Lineage 2, NFS: Carbon, NWN 1 & 2

thinking back i realize that most everything began after issue 10 was released, i updated the catalyst's around the same time, shortly after, and i dont have issues with other games. i guess there is no way to be certain.

i guess i'd like to know if anything similar happened to anyone else, and if the dev's looking into these issues in the game software? or just chalking it up to bad ATI drivers?