Neuronia

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And I never understood the reasons for badge hunting after I got tired of it. Badges do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for you. At least in games with loot, the loot does something for you obviously. But the only "loot" or collectible things in this game are badges atm, until I9, and they do nothing for you. The only badges that actually benefit you are gladiators, but gladiator PvP is a joke. I can never understand why people badge hunt unless they are getting the accolades. The obvious is of course obsession, but do these hardcore badgers really ever step back and look at the uselessness of these badges?

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I might as well address this. Not everything has to be immediately useful or whatnot to bring pleasure to a person. Hell, some people in the real world might have their bottlecap or keychain collections...nothing incredible but there's something tied to each.

For me, I can remember exactly how each of my alts got their badges...who I was teamed with, how long it took, whether it was a farm or I faceplanted in a zone, whether they were annoying...they're something you can do in your downtime, some of them involve combat, and they're available without interfering on other player activities.

Badges are a big reason I'm still here to be honest.

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PVP isn't optional for COX's long term survival. The PVE is stale and most people in the anti pvp crowd turn to badge hunting just to keep themselves entertained.

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Heh.
If the PVE is stale as you claim, why am I perma-subscribed to this game until it shuts down? Every supergroup and villain group I am in is almost uniquely PVE. We make new costumes, new alts to see powers we haven't experienced and content we've skipped. The PvE in this game is awesome. So many different factions, each with its own agenda and each with a history.

I and the SGs I am in can literally rescue the Jewel of Hera or do the same newspaper missions over and over because we're here for that. We get together and pow the bad guys and do task forces and get new costumes and herd up Freaks and Ninjas and have a blast doing it.

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Most of the people I talked to had servers that went through a shock when the zone bugs effectively shut down pvp on most servers from november to february. Most people stopped logging in and serveral people quit, who are only now coming back. Since COX is a game of many alts, these people turned out to be a lot of toons people had known in other venues.

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Of the people I know that have left for WoW, most of them claim the high-end raid content and such as their reasons. None of them are PvPing at all. Now, I do have friends that DO PvP and such but generally there are such large queues (this speaks in your favour! ) that they end up PVEing in the meantime.


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While approaching 9 million paying subscribers, which is more than the Nelson rating of most tv shows, WOW has servers that are labeled PVE and Roleplaying, which have pvp zones and have pvp hot options. Eve Online, MXO, Guildwars, COX, Vanguard, and every other game have the pvp components. Warhammer, Age of Conan, Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, Star Trek Online, Marvel, DC, Firefly Online, and World of Darkness Online, are being pre built with PVP in mind and that's every major game being released from 2007-2009.

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Sure why not? You're obviously smarter if you try to appeal to a wider base. If you can get money out of PvPers then that's good business. Problem is the PvPers are more likely to hop to another game that, in their opinion, has better and more 'hardcore' PvP. Witness the exodus this game will experience when Fury or Warhammer Online go live.

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PVP pays the bills. PVE does not.

That's not me saying that. That's the entire video game industry saying that. They are saying that now. They are saying that through 2010 and quite possibly beyond.

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That...I'll have to argue with. Let's take this game, it has what, 140,000 active subs? Let's assume each player vs. player advocate has 3 accounts. For that statement to be accurate, there would have to be...30,000 - 40,000 player vs. player enthusiasts in this game (x3 accounts for 90,000-120,000 subs) for this to be accurate...That seems like a lot more than reality shows with all due respect. I'd expect the PvPers in this game number...5,000-10,000 subs, perhaps double.

I know I have an account, my friends have accounts they keep active for the PvE. Most of us have City of Villains and City of Heroes and go through the content in both.

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In fact, PVE does the opposite of pay the bills. PVE only develops a core of players that burn through 3 month of development in a weekend. Does that make them happy? Not at all, they go on to cry on whatever forum board that another 3 months of development can't be done instantly to stop their boredom.

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Ehhh...I don't see people crying for new content to be honest. This game has enough content on it that to experience it all, it would take close to a year or so (ok perhaps 4-5 months) to do each story arc, each task force, visit each zone and do each contact.

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As much as the anti pvp crowd might stalk these forums and scream endlessly in the throws of obsessive compulsive disorder that they don't like pvp in this game. This game will have to have it and balance it to survive.

If the developers of this game ever get silly enough to listen to the screams of the anti pvp crowd, this game will have its life support plug pulled much sooner. Right now, without the balance issues being fixed, this game is expected to only edge out a suvivable profit by the time Marvel and DC come out. Paradoxically, NCSoft is developing Marvel and I'll bet real money it's being required to be absolutely balanced from the beginning.

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I hate to break this to you but the Devs have been listening to "us" for quite some time now. Look at the new issue:

-Hamidon revised - PvE
-Statesman Task Force - PvE
-Inventions, Recipes - PvE based with an outlet to PvP
-Quality of Life additions are also PvEcentric for the most part.

Now, the Devs clearly want you to stay as well so they make changes to some powers (like the caging ones) and offer invention recipes (since they know PvPers will want these to get an edge) but, in my opinion, the City of Heroes PvP cannot sustain this game on its own. Not with games with reputedly better PvP focus from devs on the horizon.

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PVP creates long time rivalries. PVP creates player driven content. PVP communities are the group that stay with a game for years in the highest numbers.

You might believe in your heart pvp doesn't pay the bills. But all the industrial side market research for the past two years says that you are saying the world is flat.

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I'll concede the rivalries for sure. But I'll respectfully disagree on the latter content. Come on, how many pvpers has my own server lost to WoW, Fury and other games. PvPers tend to have the least brand loyalty in my opinion. They're likely to spend more and in that manner you are entirely correct. But they're unlikely to commit to a game for the long-haul since they burn through the content so quickly.


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Here is your proof from just one major developer, watch all 7:26 minutes: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZOTRjWGxmjI

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I watched about 2 minutes of that and got bored to be honest. But absolutely that proves your point as far as that game is concerned.

Hey, it's a great time for you PvPers in this game. There is more focused Dev attention, a Committee has been formed and events coming as we speak.

I hope you and your friends continue to build rivalries and such well into the end of this year.

Meanwhile, I have costumes to design, badges to hunt and alts to roll.



All the best!

I'd say 90% No.

The 10% is the few pvp experiences that have lasted a while and been very entertaining.

So sign me a:

No.

On a serious note I'm glad to see more content coming, but I hope there are some new Scrapper and Tanker powersets at least...sometime this year.

That should definitely be a dev goal, new powersets on a yearly basis.

Actually there's been quite a few teams street hunting in the RCS on test for recipes and salvage .

Could the level range be 1-7...sewers for Villains woot!

To be fair I've needed a Blaster a few times for AVs recently. Most recent is the Envoy of Shadows, our damage output just wasn't high enough. We had a Dark Defender, Empath and two tanks. Once we got two Blasters on the team the damage piled up much faster.

As for Controllers, essential at Hami Raids and never turned down.

If anything, I see Scrappers being the left out class here.

Back on topic, this Task Force seems miles better than the Recluse one, can't wait to try it out.

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We wanted there to be a reason to have Archetypes other than Blasters and Defenders on your team. Controllers will find themselves greatly desired in the final battle if the team wants to have any chance of winning.

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Do you really still think that Defenders do anything better than Controllers at the top level?

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Oh absolutely they do. The buff scales are higher than the Controller ones. The team our sgs were thinking of would have 2 Rad Defenders, an Emp or two...and a Kin with some muscle. Barring that you then go to the Fire/Kins, Ill/Rads, Mind/X and some muscle.

I was really disheartened too when I read that.

I feel better now that I've read what Jack has said.

I will be with CoH/X/whatever till it goes grey.

I have no interest in playing someone else's Wolverine or whatever else is in that universe.

I like playing my characters in their world.

States, if you are still lurking, could we have a State(sman) of the Union address sometime?

Great guide.

I have an Emp/Psy built for PvP on Pinnacle and she is a blast to play. It's really satisfying seeing how strong you can make your teammates and so on.

I did take a different approach, however.

At level 30, I had every Empath power save Regeneration Aurea, only one attack (Mental Blast) the entire leaping pool (Combat Jump, Super Jump, Acrobatics) Fitness Pool (Hurdle, Health, Stamina) and Concealment Pool (Stealth, Grant Invis, Phase Shift).

Since most of my PvP at the moment is in Siren's Call, the build has served me quite well. I will respec to a more optimal build if my supergroup takes to the Arena, or if I need to go to Warburg/Recluse's Victory.

I have put a few Range enhancers in Absorb Pain and Clear Mind myself, as I am constantly leaping in and out of combat and like tagging on the run with buffs.

Is the Speed pool necessary? My buffs cycle fairly rapidly and I can see the benefit of Superspeed, however. Does anyone ever take Whirlwind now that it roots?

Cheers and great guide again.

Your idea is fantastic Ultimus. I merely glanced through as busy now but really like where you are going with it.

Hope it can happen in game.

Doctor you made some great points but I'll have to respectfully disagree on a few.


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<snip...>
He turned cold. This is a job. He treats it as such. However, we don't want to be treated that way. I sent him a PM at one point, with much the same concerns the OP has. I will never make the mistake of sending him another PM again. His reply was cold, pointless, VERY politically correct, and quite honestly, I got the impression that he had taken classes on how to write form letters, or instructions on how to assemble furniture. For all I know this isn't how he actually FEELS, just how he came across, but the reply had no personality. Because it had no personality, it had no weight. No merit. I might as well have been talking to a machine.


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See I'll have to disagree here...this is fine for me. I'm not asking the community mods for humour or repartée or chit-chat. I basically have some questions I would like addressed; in a friendly manner is better of course!

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Some people may like this. Some people, like myself, clearly don't. I don't want to talk to a PR robot. I want to talk to a person. With personality, spirit, incentive, drive, dreams and goals. Someone with emotion. When I send a PM now, I send it to cricket. I don't think we need a dalek running the boards. We need an individual with personality.

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Doctor, I know I'm going to get myself trampled over this but I disagree. Look at our beloved CuppaJo. She had tons of chutzpah and it got to a point...there was some serious hero-worship going on, which to me, an outsider...seemed quite bizarre.

I understand she did tons for the boards and community but perhaps there is a perception or want for the new moderators to maintain a distance from the board users.

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He may indeed be a great guy, a lively individual capable of human emotion, compassion, and expression of these things. He just needs to learn how to do this.. how to deal with being THE MAN, and yet still being a person.

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He is both I think. I've seen him be humorous in some spots while still being efficient. He has his job and he is going to do it darnit! To be truthful I personally am not a big fan of being chummy with moderators. Having been co-mod on several websites you too often get into favoritisms, he-said-she-saids and so on.

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The bad news.. is that a lot of damage is already done. I can only speak for myself, but I'm not really reading a lot of the boards anymore. By the time I PMed cricket about this (and received a well worded response) I had already become so jaded and daunted that I am just finding myself not really caring much anymore. I don't want to make a post just to find that it gets deleted later for some unknown and obviously uncared about reason. Then, to add to that, the recent debacle with the costume contest being bungled up in apparantly four different seperate ways really just gave me a feeling of no confidence in NCSoft at this point. The future may be brighter, but the damage is done. The community, in many regards has been partially destroyed for me, and I'll be the first to admit that I probably won't hold my account much longer because of it. Some damage can't be undone.

Zeus - god of damage control

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Wow!

It certainly is your prerogative to cancel your account at your leisure Dr. I think you may be overstating the case a bit. In my eyes, logs of the previous forums have been kept and there were likely issues about the forums discussed internally. NcSoft wants its forum here moderated a certain way. We can still be wacky and so on every know and then (Glares at Tundara > _ > ) but I don't think we're going to see racy epistles and what not.

In the end though...this may benefit as the forums are, in the end, for discussing City of Heroes and City of Villains.

To paraphrase Samuel Jackson in Kill Bill 2:

"Lighthouse, he's the man."

Drreamteam

Leaders:
Neuronia
@Neuronia
It
@Lord of time

Colors: Dark Blue/Blackish

Rundown:
Small supergroup with functional base (Med circle, storage, teleporters to various hazard zones including Faultline, Tree of Wonders, etc)
Mostly PvE but occasional PvP preferably in zones.
Participants in Hamidon Raids for levels 45+
Friendly, tight-knit.

Taser I don't entirely disagree with you.

However, the malaise felt by some players stems from a restlessness in lack of variety.

Essentially in City of you can street sweep for experience and advancement or do missions for experience and advancement. Now...there are a wide variety of ways to accomplish these goals to be sure.

However, there are other games out there where you can do other things in your downtime like crafting and so on. Here, in your downtime, you can hunt badges and enter player vs. player combat.

Honestly, I think Inventions will make or break the long-term viability of City of Heroes/Villains. The system has the potential to offer limitless customization, tweaking, exploration, design that would keep a person like me, that loves the discovery aspect of the game, happy forever.

It will also appeal to the hardcore PvPer as they tweak their builds to the nth degree of perfection.

The casual player will also like going "Hey look I invented something!"

At its most basic, the game is a time sink from daily life; adding a variety of subsets of tasks to the time sink may well make things much more interesting.

Concerning the evil nature of the pets:

Historically, humans have always found some way of mocking, degrading or sending up those that have been threats to them or considered their political enemies.

A classic example would be the Bugs Bunny cartoons from the 40s such as "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips". These days that may seem over the top but we make fun of the various political leaders and our bogeyman in various ways still.

Consider that a small Mechman, a Red Cap hologram or a demon or Clockwork or Rikti Monkey that play and hop around you can put a hero's mind at ease and make for a few laughs prior to some tense task forces involving these factions.

If, as Castle described, they are all holos then we also have an explanation granted to us...one more year for me.

'Course, a Troy_Hickman pet, complete with bad attitude would top them all.

Voted for badges because they always give me something to look for in my downtime!

Costumes are a really close second....and the storylines are GREAT at the upper levels.

Absolutely Arena crashes and bugs should be fixed.

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I would really like to know the % of veteran players that do PvP compared to those that do not PvP at all and see if the PvE alone is able to retain people for so long in general.

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Hi!

I can only speak for myself and my various SGs...think about...30-40 people total that have been playing for 1-2 years or so.

I come for the PvE content, the zones the teaming with my friends and having fun in missions, badges and so on.

Every now and then we get curious how we would 'measure up' against each other and go to Warburg or Recluse's Victory to see what happens...then we rib each other and so on.

Now I am in an Arena event on Champ, it was a draft and it's fun...but outside of Caging someone on the other team I don't expect to contribute much.

To me...PvP would be more interesting for us if the Devs threw a wrech in the works every now and then so new strategies would be designed, or if more of our characters would stand a chance.

Hopefully Inventions will contribute to this.

Everything is too expensive.

Our small supergroup (about 7 active members, a year old) has a decent base with an empowerment station salvage and inspiration racks and teleportes to 8 zones. It took us FOREVER to get there as well as our rez circle. Our monthly upkeep is close to 90,000 prestige (!) and many of us can't even play long enough per month accumulate that much.

PLEASE raise the influence to prestige transfer ratios. It's silly that all that money sits on my alts because the conversion rate is so poor.

We're not interested in base raids at all either. Those are just more expensive.

We wanted a cool lair like Batman has, we have a fairly stark area with some functionality. It's more like an office than a home. :/

I'm very surprised at Statesman's comments on costumes as well. No functionality? They ARE our super heroes and villains. It's what makes people recognize us in the streets. They are our identity.

Bases should be, they are not.

Hmm when I started:

I didn't know how to respond to tells...I had a friend that kept sending me tells and I had no idea what to do...until he came on an instant messenger and explained.

I didn't know what a Respec was...only that I was in Independence Port next to Jane Hallaway and then we were fighting a LOT of Sky Raiders...

...also had NO idea how long Task Forces were, especially when I started the Positron one.

Stores weren't on the maps so I had a friend give me directions to the Science store

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Don't recall hearing of a Preatorian Nemisis.

And Nemisis fighting in the Rikti war sounds right. He wants to be the one ruling the world, after all. Not let other people do it.

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Recall that the history plaque in the Rikti Crash Site says that Statesman and Maiden Justice fought hundred of his steam-powered robots there.

It's likely that Nemesis had no interest in the Rikti taking over 'his' planet.

As for the Family backgrounder...well I will thank Arctic for it. The Family just aren't that interesting to me but you have to give to Caeasar

Yay!

Well enough time to get all the salvage we need!

Update!

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Global: @Neuronia
Champion


Heroes

Antarctic Inferno - Level 9 Fire/Ice Blaster
Cerebrum Fulmen - Level 32 Mutation Illusion/Storm Controller
Experiment Zero - Level 41 Science Warshade
Heart of It - Level 31 Natural Fire/Axe Tank
Neuronia - Level 50 Science Mind Controller /Forcefield
(Say Hi! Always willing to help lowbies!)
Purity Unveiled - Level 31 Natural Peacebringer
Sediment Sam - Level 15 Mutation Stone/Stone Tanker

Villains

Revenge - Level 50 Natual Ninja/Ninjutsu Stalker
Rapid Onyx 5 2 0 - Level 23 Technology Assault Rifle/Thermal Corrutor
Witch Hazel FM - Level 15 Natural Plant Control/Icy Assault Dominator

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I try PvP on many of my supers and villains, find my current powersets lacking for that environment and thus must respec into another power pool or choices.

In all honesty, would it really kill the developers to give us one free permanent respec to our level 30+ characters...so we can play around with things?

It would look like "Welcome to the City of Heroes, Neuronia! You have 1 free respec available." And that 1 free respec would always stay there. I think it would be wonderful to always be able to tweak myself...I hear in that "other game" you simply pay money for the ability to do so.

Here...you have to wait till level 24 if you've mistakenly taken a power or taken a power you regret later, then every 10 levels or when a new issue arises.

Not only should there be a Respec given with Issue 8, there must be a perma-spec among the veteran rewards; it will definitely fuel the creative and pvp desires amongs those of us who go: "I wonder how THIS works?" but never have a chance to find out until we backtrack.

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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?



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/signed.

I have Neverwinter Nights on a shelf somewhere in my room...and though I love the wide-spanning nature of CoH, that game had a lot of intricate quests and things you could do....even outside of combat.

I love love love the City of franchise, but adding some non-combat depth would be greatly appreciated guys.