NancY

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Of course, the thing that has always stuck out to me the most is that the most fun aspect of bases is limited to a very small portion of the playerbase: building the base. It's a lot of fun to design and put together a base, but unless I'm a leader of a SG or appointed architect, I'm never going to get to experience this. Between the way it's currently set up and Cryptic's refusal to add individual bases, they've essentially spent a ton of time putting together an excellent feature that few get to play with.

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QFT.

If you have 100 SGs with 75 players per, that's 7500 players in SGs. However, more than likely only one person in each SG is the base builder/decorator. That's 100 out of 7500 players. That means 7400 people are just the financial backers. It's kind of frightening when you look at it that way. And he wonders why they aren't popular?

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Emmert’s hypothesis is that “people don’t like contributing money to a group to express individuality.

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What individuality is a financial backer expressing?

It's very coherent, and I agree. I don't even have a level 50 and I'm bored.

I want something more from this game. I want something that makes me think. Sure, we have to think up strategies to take down certain mobs but that's not enough. Once you know how to defeat a certain type of mob there's not much strategy left. I don't know, maybe I'm just playing the wrong game.

I want to have to think. I want to figure out puzzles. I don't want to be told to go to place X and defeat all Y. Over, and over, and over again. I want to have to figure out what a contact wants, or piece together a solution on my own. Like the quests in other games. y'know?

Didn't they 'dumb down' the whole powers/skills system? Wasn't it supposed to be more like the skill branches in other games? Or am I wrong on that, it was so long ago I forget. I'm pretty sure combat was more involved, wasn't there a little body icon where you could attack body parts? Whatever got changed, maybe it wasn't such a good change. Someone posted that CoX is a breath of fresh air by virtue of it's simplicity, and it is. But sometimes I think it's too simple.

I'm rambling here because I can't point to any one thing and say, "There! That's the problem!" I don't have any solution or great suggestions. All I know is that I've been feeling restless here for a long time now. I don't feel there's enough to hold my interest these days. Would an apartment help? Or RP items, or some of the other things that have been suggested here? I don't know.

I've been here from the beginning, and because of that I feel a certain loyalty to the game, but it's getting harder and harder.

Now I'm depressed.

Yes and no.

The way you describe loot in other games is correct to a point, you can jump in and play but you need uber items for the end game. However, just because we don't bend down and "loot" a corpse or have those "items" doesn't mean we don't have loot.

Any time you get something from defeating a critter, over and above XP that is, it's loot. We get salvage and enhancements. They're random as in other games, and not always guaranteed, as in other games.

But the only way your statement that we don't have loot would be true is if enhancements didn't matter at all. We know that enhancements do matter, just as we know that slotting certain powers certain ways matters.

Ah hell. I don't really know you CJ, but I will miss reading your posts here. It's not going to be the same without you.

Hopefully TR will be good and I'll see your posts there. You know I am so trying that out. Maybe you leaving at the end of the month means TR is coming out soon...(hint, hint)?

If you can manage to have a beta invite fall into my mailbox I'll be your best friend forever.

Good luck, I hope you'll be working with nice people!

Female costumes:

Jackets>Suit

with

Sleeves>Uniform rolled

Has bad holes at the shoulder seams and under the arms. They can't always be seen, it depends how the characters arms are moving, but since characters are always in motion the holes play peek-a-boo.

Jay is sexy!

Boy, can I relate to that. I made a plant/thorn dom to see how it played at 40 (I have a lvl 10 atm). I figured I'd concentrate on my primary powers of debuffing, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get any attacks in. There was a tanker TPing to me, hitting me, and TPing away. Every primary power I tried to use on him was deflected, except sometimes I was able to get an AE on him, carrion creepers I believe it was. I didn't even bother trying to attack because by then I was out of endurance. If I got the AE on him I jumped away to rest at a pillbox.

Now maybe my build wasn't the best for PvP, but if I need to decide on a PvP vs. PvE build then PvP is just pointless to me. I'm not a big fan to begin with, and that certainly didn't change my mind.

Edited: Went back in as a fire/fire brute and had a lot more survivability, as well as having the ability to actually do some damage. I can at least say that was fun. But they should change the name to Scrapper City or something, I swear for every villain there were 4 scrappers.

I know nothing.

I still haven't gotten issue 10. Support told me they were having issues or something getting it out. But c'mon, I got 11, and then 12 I dunno how long ago.

I am formally on strike, as far as reading the comic goes, until I get Issue 10!!

/mutter

Ok, I conducted a test. I logged on live on my 40 merc MM, test on my 40 merc MM, and test on my 5 thug/traps MM. I only used the first merc that I got, to better compare it to the single thug. None had buffs. Defensive turned on/left on.

They all performed pretty much the same behaviorally.

If told to attack and then told to follow after they were engaged, they all stopped fighting and turned to me. If they were still being attacked they did not attack back until after the 2nd hit (mercs) or 3rd (thug sometimes waited for the 3rd).

If again told to follow, they all stopped fighting and turned to me. If I immediately attacked, they joined in.

If again told to follow, they all stopped fighting and turned to me. If I was attacked, they immediately returned the attack.

On test, both merc and thug would turn and fire once then resume no attacking, if after told to follow and stopping their attacks the mob repeatedly missed them, or me. I didn't see this on live. Maybe something with bodyguard, I don't know.

I also noticed that if the thug was told to follow (and stop attacking), and we were within melee range of the mob, as soon as the mob swapped to me instead of the thug as his target, the thug would attack before I was even hit. Not sure if that's all pet behavior, thugs, or BG. I didn't get in melee range on my merc MM, and the thug didn't do that if the mob was immobilized and kept at range.

It was not the most scientific testing, but it showed me that they do perform basically the same. I think what made me feel there was something wrong was twofold. The first being that the thug seems a lot slower than the merc. Slower to run, slower to begin his attacks. Even when directly told to attack he doesn't do it as fast as the merc.

The second problem is more...problematic, but not related to MMs, I don't think.

I couldn't understand why my mercs on test kept going into aggressive mode when I had them in defensive and was issuing follow commands. They don't do that on live. I think my thug the other night was doing the same, but that was actually a different thug MM than the one I tested tonight (different secondary). I noticed with my merc MM that there's a problem with the power tray which may be related to the problem I ran into when creating both new MMs on test.

Upon entering Breakout, I moved brawl out of the first slot, but I couldn't slot any other powers into it's place, not without great difficulty. I also had powers leave my tray upon zoning, and ran into the same problem when trying to place a power in slot 1, tray 1. I could put brawl back no problem, everything else didn't work on the first try, or the second, or the third, etc., you get the point. This happened with both new MMs, but began with the one I was playing up until last night and didn't use for the test tonight. (Thug/TA)

While testing my copied over MM, whose powers were already set in slots in this layout, (a layout I use for all my MMs as far as basic pet controls go), tonight my follow button poofed off the tray during a fight. Notice it's in slot 1, tray 1. I have a suspicion that for some reason some commands are not being read from the proper tray. That would explain why when I told my mercs to follow they often went into aggressive mode. It's in the slot right above 'follow'. And what gave me that idea was this:

On test, I moved brawl (or whatever that first power in tray 3 is in my pic) when I got a temp power to summon a rikti drone. During my testing tonight, when follow poofed out of my tray, I decided to replace it in a different slot to see if it would stay. I swapped from tray 3 to 4, slotted follow in the first slot and clicked it...and summoned a rikti drone. I have since moved all my powers which were in slot one to another location. Something is wacky with the power tray in I7, particularly the first power slot on each tray. I do know others had the same problem trying to place powers, where the icon when dropped on the empty slot just disappears, but as to whether they are also having icons disappear for no reason, or setting off the wrong power, I don't know.

But that would explain why I could never seemed to get into BG mode with my mercs. They were probably swapping to aggressive and I wasn't aware at first that they were doing it. I remember being annoyed that I had to keep clicking defensive after each fight, but I thought that might have been part of the BG thing. I thought aggressive was the new default or something. This may be a bug, or just a corrupted file on my end, dunno. I'll leave this reported here, I'm not going to post it in another thread.

Sorry this was so long.

Ah, ok. I wasn't explaining myself clearly. You posted as I was editing my post above to try to clarify.

Yes, my experience has been that IF I am in BG, and I can only assume I am as I have no icon buff to show I am, my pets are behaving differently. I don't think my mercs did what my thug is doing. I'll check them tonight.

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The trick in PvE on test, as it stands now, is to put them into bodyguard right when and only when you're taking a direct attack. With some practice, you can keep them in attack most of the time, recall to bodyguard for a second or so to absorb an incoming attack, then resume beating on your target.

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If I'm opening the fight and my henchman are on def/follow, and bodyguard kicks in, that's all well and good. But to assume that ALL MM players are going to be able to command 6 pets, watch their own plus 6 pet's health, attack, debuff, heal, whatever, AND be able to predict which attacks are aimed at the MM or that an aoe attack is incoming, so that the MM can quickly toggle to bodyguard is a little ridiculous.

Now, that might even be okay if what I was seeing was that my pets actually were in bodyguard mode when set to def/follow, because I'm not seeing it. That's always been my default setting for pets. On test, when my thug is in that mode he doesn't attack back when I take the first shot. Or he doesn't always do that. He may do it sometimes and I'm missing it because he likes to stay behind me for the most part, and he doesn't begin attacking immediately even when I tell him to. However, last night I made sure to get right next to him during a fight and then issue the follow command (while he was in defensive mode) and he stopped attacking and just stood there. While he was getting beat on, and while I was getting beat on. So I wind up issuing an attack command to him which guess what, takes me out of bodyguard mode.

On live, after I'd complete a solo mission, occasionally I get the remains of an ambush if I hang around in the mission. With my pets on def/follow, as soon as the ambush catches up to me and attacks me my pets turn to the attacker(s) and fight back. They are defending me in that instance. Now let's take that example and say...during the return fire by my pets I tell them to follow me. Normally they break off attacking and turn their attention to me. But, if I just stand there, as soon as I'm attacked again my pets turn back to the attacker and return fire. They are after all, still on defensive, they're doing their job.

That isn't what I'm seeing on test.

Since no red name has come in here to say they're looking at it, or it's working as intended, or it's a bug in one type of pet, the only conclusion I can reach about bodyguard is that it sucks.

*edited to add: What I'm saying is that if I am in fact in bodyguard mode , my pet really isn't defensive any more. He's just a damage sponge. If this is what the devs had in mind with BG, I'll pass, thanks. I won't even attempt to use it, provoded that not using it means I can still play my MM as before (in PvE), with the same success.

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Just my thought: Instead of tossing your thugs a clip of ammo, how about tossing them a can of spraypaint? I think it fits pretty well with the "gangster" feel of the set.

AnubisXy

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How about if the mm pulled a pistol out of the back of her belt and tossed that to them? Since.. they end up with a second pistol from the equip, it seems to make sense that she could give it to them.

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I like that idea a lot better than a tattoo artist, or a can of spraypaint. How the heck would paint make you stronger? Mace maybe, not paint.

If not a gun, then what about you just shake your fist at them and they stand more erect. Put the fear of...well, you into them. Sort of a 'shape up or ship out' kind of thing.

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In PvE, defensive/follow does not seem to work as well in that the pets will often just stand there next to me doing nothing as the ambush beats on me. Bodguard also doesn't work quite as well from an offensive standpoint when multiple targets are beating on you (it's more difficult to encourage the pets to attack a single target.)

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So true. Last night while playing a new character with one thug, I took notice. In every fight, the second I put my pet on follow he stopped fighting. But that's been the case pre-I7. I expected them with this bodygaurd change to continue to fight. At least until I was far enough away from them that they'd have no choice but to follow, or until I swapped them to passive.

I tried different versions of editing the pet commands. Attack defensive works, he stays in defensive. It's the darned follow command that messes everything up. There has to be a separate command to allow for defensive attacking with bodyguard on without having to issue a follow command, or it will be pretty much useless in PvE. For me, anyway.

Why is it that some players are saying how great this is and it works fine for them, but others can't seem to get it to work?

I'll trade ya this Jail Bird for that Witch's Hat. Heroes also wanted the villain costume options, and are getting them with I7.

I think the hat would work better for villains. Villains need Witch Hats! We need to organize a protest. We want hat! We want hat! Down with the oppressive regime! We want hat!

Heaven forbid there should be anything special in one game or the other.

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Lesson of the day? Numeric keypad binds are your best friend as an MM.

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Can't, they're already all in use with movement directions, strafing, turning, jumping, running, following, targeting near and next, camera distance, camera directions. Might be more, I forget. I don't have to think about it in the game, I just do it.

Point is, left hand is all attacks/pet commands, right is...that other stuff. F keys are binds...I'm not sure what's left other than letters, but I am sure if I stick them in some obscure place I'll forget where they are.

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Gonna take a chance that no one has posted this yet (yeah right...).

THere's a typo in the general Thugs description. "But their lieutenants possess good leadership shills..."

Not sure if that's of any consequence.

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shill
Function: intransitive verb

1 : to act as a shill
2 : to act as a spokesperson or promoter

Maybe they just...promote good leadership? That or they take the lead in swindling people? Nah.

jar_of_clay73 wrote:

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After 3 short levels of Thugs, the only thing I noticed is the henchman AI is a bit dodgy.

I was near the Jailbird badge in Breakout and I summoned a Thug. I put him on follow. I proceeded to go down to my contact and my Thug got stuck on the 2nd floor. I have a level 40 Ninja MM and a level 26 Necro MM and usually calling them with "Follow" usually works but it didn't this time. I had to dismiss my Thug and summon him again.

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I've had 2 bots stuck in the middle of a 12 foot wide hallway where it met a large room. They kept running in place, bumping into each other. My mercs sometimes get stuck at a railing, unable to jump over and I've seen them get stuck in the lower portion of a ramp, such as in the warehouse missions. The first 2 examples, while not solved with just the follow command were easy enough to fix by me moving back to them and 'showing' them where to walk, the ramp situation was unfixable. I also had to dismiss and resummon.

With that in mind, I was going to ask the devs if it's possible that MMs come with an inherent teleport henchman power, even if it could only teleport them as a group. But in thinking about that, I can see it possibly being abused. Target a mob, run around a corner, send in henchmen and watch their health, teleport back for heals, send in again, etc. Eventually the target may make it to the MM, but maybe not. So that might not work.

Would it be at all possible then, to code in a command something like: "petcom_target stuck"? Like the player /stuck it will unstick a pet, but using a target, not all, or name? This way all we'd have to do is click the name in the pet window, hit that bind and get them back in business. I know I can dismiss and resummon, and rebuff, but when teamed it could slow down the pace if it's a fast moving team. Why not...unstuck them?

I made a Thugs/TA MM last night. Logged into Breakout and had no pet controls on my tray. Pre-I7 there were default controls. I summon thug, use advanced options for controls, and attempt to drag commands to my 2 tier tray. I cannot at all drag the pet all follow command to my #1 tray. I thought maybe I'd had on the setting to not drag pet controls, checked, no it's off (I think that only applies to once they're in the tray, but I wasn't sure). After numerous attempts I tried to drag the stances down to the 2nd tier, those worked. Thinking it must be lag, I go back to trying to drag down Follow. I can place it anywhere but in the first slot on tier 1. Eventually I get it there, I don't know how. I wasn't doing anything differently.

I did the missions up to the Jenkins mission with no trouble. Dismiss pet, enter door mission, lag loading (to be expected), get in and...no more pet controls. Poof. I summon thug, start all over with the dragging and placing. I run into a little of the same problem but it wasn't as bad the second time. For the heck of it, I scrolled through the #2 tray to 3, 4, 5, etc. And on one of those was my pet controls. Hmm. Dupe of the ones I just set, or did the poofed ones warp to another #? Deleted those. Finished the mission, dismissed thug, exited expecting the powers to poof again, thankfully they didn't.

I never had the powers disappear after that. I did a few door missions without incident. I only made it to level 4 before I had to turn in, but so far thugs seems pretty powerful. I took on missions easily that I'd had difficulty with on other ATs, even other MMs. But it's too early to tell yet how this will play out.

Other slight problems: When first summoned in Breakout, the thug runs all over the place even when told to follow. I could only make him stand still by using stay.

The first thug seems a bit slow on the uptake. When I'm attacked he sometimes does nothing for a more than adequate amount of time before he begins to attack back. (In defensive). When telling him directly to attack my target, he also doesn't always respond a.s.a.p. I'm not sure if this is due to server issues or he's just dense.

I got a kick out of his, "Rock a bye baby" just before he delivered the coup de grace.

Well, after 40 levels of playing a MM I suddenly feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I used to have a method, now I hesitate before each fight. Do I attack first and draw agro so my pets defend me?
-OR-
If I tell them to attack first, then I have to hit the follow key? Another step in a long bunch of steps when trying to debuff/hold 3 or more mobs and swap targets back and forth. Great.

Jade_Dragon said:

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1) Select your target or targets and send your henchmen to attack it. Then, after combat is engaged, switch all henchmen back to follow defensive. Since they are already taking fire, defensive mode will not stop them from firing.

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Is them not stopping their attacks new with I7? Because I almost never played in anything but defensive mode. I know defensive mode doesn't stop them from attacking, but telling them to follow me does, always has. Unless I get hit again. I don't really want to play decoy, and I don't want to leave the choice of target up to them. I'm a mastermind, I want to tell them what to do.

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2) Place a subset of your henchmen in aggressive mode and direct them to attack while another subset remain behind in follow defensive. When the henchmen set to aggressive mode draw fire (because they are attacking) the henchmen in defensive mode will open fire to support them.

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On the few occasions I would play in aggressive mode, my henchman would sometimes run off to the next group of mobs if they were kind of close. I never split up their status because of that, though I did sometimes send them to different locations before I gave the attack command. However, aggressive mode was for an oh crap moment, not used often.

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The first suggestion will maximize your opening salvo as all henchmen will fire on the foe or foes. However, you are sacrificing Bodyguard for that, and will have no protection until you switch them back to follow defensive during the fight. Of course, since you are likely not going to attack first you should not draw aggro yourself until the battle is well underway.

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Ok, I don't know how other MM sets play, but I play merc/poison and it was always pretty fast and furious because I have single target debuffs/heal/hold, one cone. I always attacked first with a debuff and immediately ordered my mercs to attack, then I'd toss on the 2nd debuff. I'd swap to the next mob, debuff, the third, debuff. By then the first was usually down or close to. While my mercs took on the next, I swapped debuffs on the other targets. I always tried to get 2 on each, used cone as needed. Even though I'd open the attack my mercs quickly took agro because I wasn't doing damage. I don't really need bodyguard.

When my medic healed, which he isn't right now, I rarely had any health issues. After debuffing I healed my henchies or pulled out my gun and attacked too. We had a nice system going. Now, I feel like I don't know what I'm doing and I don't really need another pet command in my /debuff/heal/attack chain. Can I just continue to play as I have been? Will my MM play worse if I do that?

Also, I gave up tonight trying to test that MM. If I don't have a medic I'm not going to last long. The first red boss we fought nearly took us all out at once. That was not a usual occurance when I had heal help. Not to mention none of us had his buffs. Those don't work either. Without my mercs I'm easy pickings, so I'd rather do everything I can to keep them alive, not share my healthloss with them. And I wish they'd stop running right up to the mobs I sic them on. We're all ranged, they used to stand right by my side. Argh!

I rolled up a baby MM, I'll post about those issues later in the day.

Oh, man. I love the sense of humor at Cryptic.

Dr. Forrester

True, true. And erm..I'm sure you're not a tosser...whatever that is.

You..uh, he does have a point. If someone bought CoV new and never played CoH they might need a little help with the MM set because it is a little more involved than some other sets.

Sometimes we forget that other people don't know what we know about the game.

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The monitors of Recluse and his speech are my favorite part

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Mine too. It dawned on me last night: Anyone else remember the old commercial, I think it first aired during a superbowl, of a room of drone like people watching a Big Brother type guy on a large screen. This woman runs in, a jogger, with a big hammer and she smashes the screen. It made me think of that. Don't ask me what the product was, could have been sneakers or a computer (Apple?), I can't remember everything.

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Mastermind's Dark Servant isn't permanent

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Because it's a Miasma powerset pet. MM pets are the primary power pets. IE: Zombies, Robots, Mercs, Ninja, and now Thugs. I know a MM can be */dark, but that doesn't really make a /dark pet a MM pet.

I have no knowledge of Controllers or their pets, no comment.

I'm confused.

• Mastermind Bodyguards – a new defensive feature

• Setting to Bodyguard - You can set any Mastermind pet to Bodyguard by selecting the Defensive Stance and the Follow Orders. Your pets must be within Supremacy range for this function to work.

Those are the default settings. Defensive/Follow. Unless you change that they will always be in Bodyguard setting. Is there a need for a button? Besides, I keep those commands in my power tray already.

Now, the confusion comes in with the way that's worded. Follow. Do they leave bodyguard mode if I tell them to attack my target? Do they leave bodyguard mode if I send them to a location? (Still within Supremacy range, I mean)

If that's the case, it would only be good for travel and getting shot at when you don't expect it. I almost never travel with my henchman outside of a mission. And I usually see the mobs in a mission before they see me so I rarely get jumped in that case except for the rare times that there are mobs waiting for me at the door when I enter a mission. During boss fights there are times when I have to fall back, and tell my henchman to follow me, bodyguard would be good for that. But...is that all it's good for? Not for regular combat?

I want to clarify this so I know what to look for in Test and see if it's working as intended.

(Since this will be read by a red name I want to put in a plug for the broken pet chat. It shows up in the combat window through 'Damage Inflicted', the only way to get rid of it is to remove DI from your combat window. It's also so light that it's impossible to read. Can we get a fix for that?)

Holy crap. I love the video screens with Lord Recluse. Nothing like a little brainwashing to help the isles.

Seriously. That's as far as I've gotten. I can't move away. Whoever came up with that one, 5 stars for you.

Agreed.

My 2 cents, for what it's worth:

When I first read about the Patron Powers I have to say I wasn't happy with them. I knew right away there would be characters of mine that wouldn't take any of them. But I also have characters that would never wear a cape, or take hasten because I don't want them to have flaming hands, or take certain powers just because without them I'm gimped (by someone else's standards, not my own). However, it's my choice. No one is saying I have to take PPPs.

I also don't have a problem with being locked into the PPPs with any characters of mine that take them. I'm not a respec ho. I take my powers and live with my choices. I think the only respecs I've used were the freebies, and only then to sell back enhancements on characters I was deleting, so that I could pass the inf on to another character. I don't min/max, I don't follow the FoTM. But that's me. So being locked in doesn't concern me at all at this point. With the power sets being so similar, does it really matter if you're locked in?

I don't have a problem with power colors. Sam might be upset that brute electric is red, I wonder why GW's powers are purple. Is it Gothic? I'm told purple and black are Goth colors, maybe so. In the end though it doesn't really matter to me. At the risk of sounding simple, I like all the pretty colors. I could make an argument that electricity should be white, or yellow-white as it appears in nature, but this is a game set in a comic book world and nature doesn't always apply. I'm not going to lose my enthusiasm for CoV because of a power's color. I don't mean to belittle your disappointment, Sam. I guess if I couldn't make a power's colors work with my character I'd make my character work with the power's colors. I'd sort of tackle it from the opposite direction.

Case in point: I wanted to try out a Ice/Cold corruptor. I'd played around with an ice controller and a storm defender in CoH, so I knew what the powers looked like. Just because I'm a villain doesn't mean I have to look dark, some of the most villainous people of our times looked harmless. So I came up with this costume: Link . She looks like she could be a hero. (I actually like her costume and will probably bring her to the anniversary party because she looks sort of silver age comic-style, though maybe I'll shorten the boots.)

The thing with the PPPs that disappoints me is that MMs are losing their uniqueness by the PPPs offering pets to every other AT. Even that isn't going to dampen my enthusiasm though, I love CoV. I liked CoH.

Oh, and as to the PPPs being locked in, why is no one addressing Positron's statement in an interview here: MMORPG.com

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The Patron Powers are stronger and more powerful than the “equivalent” powers in City of Heroes (the Ancillary Power Pools), because there is less diversification and the fact that Patron choices are permanent alterations to your character.

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With all the complaints about being locked into PPPs, my fear is that if TPTB decide to change that aspect the powers will have to be weakened. There is going to be a trade-off, as there already was with the powers being locked in. I don't want to wind up with villain epic powers that are on par with the regular power pools. That would greatly disappoint me.