Nicetry

You are of course free to believe whatever you like, but I've solo'd just shy of 100 AV's (92 irrc) and every GM (thx to AE) with my fire/traps corruptor. AV's and GM's are the ideal scenario for scourge to be fully maximized. My recorded scourge rates over those many many battles always fell well below 30%.

The exact figure was largely irrelevant to me because I had made the discovery at the same time that traps was negatively bugged to the point the toon would never reach the performance marks I had established for it, so I don't recall exactly. I also don't have the logs anymore that I examined. However, over those many fights I don't recall it exceeding 23%, and I'd be much more inclined to say it was closer to 20%. It also tends to drop off dramatically as foe class goes down. Even most bosses (which often get lumped in with AV's for a high scourge rate) are actually much lower because you typically 'burst' them down quite close to death with your short duration damage buffs such as aim/soul drain. I'm sure if all you fought were bosses to average out your damage buffs they would fall more closely in with AV's though.

Anyway, if you want to assign 30% as the value that is fine, it just isn't based off of what actually happens in the game, so I'm not sure how representative you will find any calculations you make turning out to be. Even if you were specifically talking about an AV solo'ing spec, your figures are very generous ime and while player power potential is certainly high enough for many corr builds to breach that threshold, I don't think that is an acceptable baseline (not that you are necessarily suggesting it is, but discounting minions, or 95%+ of the foes we face doesn't inspire confidence).

Unfortunately, not so much... I've been bugging powers for years, the only one(s) that have actually gotten fixed in that time are the traps powers that use the tripmine animation. But rather than actually fixing them to be what they were supposed to be they just changed the listed cast time to the much longer cast they were actually taking while bugged.

That's only a 'fix' in the sense that I go to the store to buy a product, get up to the till and it rings in at $50 and I say, "wait on the shelf it says $30" and the clerk walks over with his price gun and changes the shelf price to $50 and then askes, "does that fix your concern?".

I'm not sure if traps is the best example to prove a running problem with Nos explicitly. IME mobs NOT fleeing from acid mortar are the exception. I know I needed powerpool taunt for every single GM I solo'd with my fire/traps/mace and of the nearly 100 AVs that toon has taken out the vast majority either had to be immob'd via webnade or taunted or they too would flee all over the map due to acid mortar.

The 'fix' will result in a significant decrease in the power of the "defender" version. Is that something everyone really wants? IME the 240 version is utter garbage and not worth the power pick and the 120 version is great and nearly a 'must have' power.

The increased radius plays a factor in that assessment.
The higher target cap allowing a higher total buff when saturated of the defender version plays a factor.
The fact that when used on a defender it gave a much better damage buff per target than the corr version (AT modifiers) plays a factor.
But ultimately it is the recharge that plays the biggest factor.

Asking for a correction is of course legitimate, it is just going to definitely result in a major decrease to the 'good' version of the power for corrs and defs. But that said, many epic powers have out to lunch numbers when compared to ppp powers and have since day 1. It has also been brought to the dev's attention since day one and nothing has changed. But then again, there are sooooo many bugged powers in this game when you start to look closely that it is overwhelming. Though I suppose someone needs to start somewhere correcting values.

Your position isn't as irrational as some people are trying to make it seem. I get why they are doing it, but it is unwarranted.

Many players (especially in the rpg segment) like to feel that their character starts weak and grows to be very strong over the course of leveling and training. There is nothing wrong with that system and it has proved very very successful for many games.

CoX isn't abandoning that design principle, but this is indeed a step away from it and further makes playing a lvl 10 much more similar to playing a level 40 (I purposefully left out both extremes of leveling) than it was before this change.

Good or bad it is a change, so that will inherently cause some people to be apprehensive. I think it is a mostly positive change, but I can also understand where other people are coming from that aren't that exited by it. The only people I can't understand are those that are eagerly getting down on their knees over this change. It is hardly something that is worthy of that level of worship unless such people are similarly over-dramatic about all the changes in their lives.

He's entirely right. None of the additions have added any significant lasting subs.

In today's MMO market you are indeed what you are at launch. There is too much competition and too much communication between people to get away with things like CoH did when it launched. Which on that note, this game would have tanked as hard as any we've seen in the last couple years if it were to launch now as it originally did. Something to think about for some people...maybe.

That isn't to say you shouldn't add features, you just shouldn't expect them to bring in many lasting new players beyond the normal churn. Marketing brings in new players in excess of the expected flow, not new features. New features can help marketing do their job, but isn't a necessity.

Good thing that never happened. I think you need to expand your vocabulary. Ad homenim is not the term you were looking for.

Also playing 'hurt' like you just did is often a sign of being a poor competitor or even a poor sport.
Given the position of expertise you tend to take, I'm a bit surprised how little you actually know about this game. I'm not surprised about your knowledge base of things outside this game, I never expected that to be robust.

The latter is also not an ad hominen attack just fyi, so you can save your 'go to' defense (does it ever work for you? just seems like being purposefully pathetic to pick up girls via sympathy to me, but if it works go for it) for some other time. I have no expectations of someones knowledge base outside of the matter being discussed.

I already provided the very simple math in an earlier post. I can't be bothered to reference your post now, but I think you said something to the effect of subtract 4 of the additional slots devoted to stam/health still leaves you with 63 additional slots whether fitness is a pool or inherent.

It does. However, that is 63 additional slots over 21 power picks+health and sprint = 23 available powers.
Now it is an additional 63 slots over 24 power picks+health+sprint = 26 available powers.

I get what you are saying. 7x13 = 28 . Would you possibly understand the other side of what is being said if the example was more extreme? Like take a look at khelds and you might start to understand what others are saying. Which again isn't necessarily negative, but rather just an observation about the change. One I'm personally fine with, but am not unable to see.

edit: imagine if you have 23 people to feed with $63. Now imagine you have 26 people to feed with $63. Someone(s) aren't going to get as good of a lunch.

Anyway, take care guys. All my best and enjoy City Of. I will hopefully be back for i20 if that incarnate system ever gets into full swing.

Actually the ill/cold feel quite short of what I thought it would do, but still crushes anything else that has actually been made.

Basically bugged phatasm that usually dies well before it is recharged and the sleet bug that prevents stacking (that is huge) of the -res debuff means a major detraction of damage output.

My projections for the ill/cold (if the powers actually worked) was to be taking out AV's/pylons in around 100 seconds.

But that said, there is no reason for builds not to match what they can do on paper as long as you create the paper with accuracy. After all the game is essentially just electronic paper...

P.S. I had some pretty crazy expectation of my bots/storm, but low and behold key powers being bugged (plasma blast doesn't properly apply the -regen, and the sleet/freezing rain bug) really put a damper on that project. IIRC it his 325 dps (inc the mostly non-functional -regen) on a very lightly IO'd build. If I took my personal attacks and the powers actually worked it would be crazy. Sadly though, almost every toon I've pursued heavily I've uncovered large powers bugs. Either I'm just unlucky in my selection of power sets, or there are still a ton of bugs.

Really? I thought it was very relevant. You didn't make the exact same error as he did, but you conclusion was in the same realm of obscurity.

Flawed math...why isn't it as funny as it used to be?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo4NC...eature=related

60% of the time it works every time.

Well there was almost nothing actually announced for i19 to discuss. What it says is that with a powerful enough topic you can mask just about anything including an issue with almost nothing in it. This isn't a new revelation, but rather an entire industry.
Again claiming something that I certainly never stated. The only claim with any assertion that I've made is that it will probably make the game a lot more fun for anyone that uses the knowledge to their advantage.

I'm not going to counter the rest because it is mostly just you looking at things in a very limited scope, which is fine because IMO and IYO don't need to match.

There you go again proclaiming victory over something that was never said. You are awesome NG. Please directly quote where I said anything remotely like what you are claiming. Please demonstrate your infallible degree of understanding. I won't hold my breath in the hopes you manage to pull the hoof out of your mouth before the end of this year.

You should probably just stick to your market domain. I mean you believe using the market is as easy as clicking a single power while playing and if you believe it enough others might too! I believe in you.

I think you care more about Jack than Jack cares about this game. I just have a hard time imagining Jack breaking down and weeping about CoX like some people wish he would. Do you give a rat's *** about the job you were at several years ago?

Perhaps, but I bet if he did a review where he just said "cox is great, cox is great" and it had large innacurracies the responses in this thread would be very different. Of course stepping in to the bear's den coated in BBQ sauce just as it wakes up from hibernation is generally only going to lead to one result.

That said, I don't see these colossal inaccuracies that people are proclaiming in his review. I may and do disagree with many of the fixes he proposes to the problems that he identified, but that is not what most people are on him about.

Yes he did not include GR and all of its awesomeness. GR is at most 16.7% of the game*
50 hero levels
50 vill levels
20 GR levels
Yes there are some GR features smattered elsewhere, I'm not discounting those because the percentage I stated doesn't weight the time spent in the level ranges. If it did the number would be much much lower and probably not exceed 7-10% of the entire game that is available. So I guess to be fair he should have done 1.4-2 min on GR in his 20 min review.

I have watched it now. My statement stands. His negative stance has got many of your hackles up and you are on full aggressive mode.

I have also watched the "runner" review that Mod8 posted. It was a fairly cordial discussion, but it also led to Castle effectively telling us that runners are a player perception issue followed by several pages of people citing instances and arguing about that mechanic.

If your point is that a red name posting a primarily neutral review leads to a neutral discussion compared to a player posting a largely negative review and actively engaging those that counter him leads to a largely aggressive discussion then I don't think you are going to win any awards for that observation.

Simply put, the SO system is pointless since the introduction of IO's. Everything that SO/DO/TO's do and their purpose is better represented by the IO system on every level of design and implementation.
SO's
- have superfluous and outright outlandish names that are neither intuitive, logical, or fun in any way
- the combining system is clunky, slow, and largely serves no purpose
- system that is gated by specific contacts and zones that serves no purpose other than to sink time. There is no reason for a mutation contact and a magic seller, when it could just be the same person like is seen in GR/Peregrine Island. Additionally there is no reason for them to sell only a narrow level range of enhancements
IO's
- function and intuitive naming system
-logical progression of linear power gain. Whereas old style enhancements are actually plotted on an inverse power slope, that spikes up every 5 levels.
- encourages players to partake in a large game system

Mainly though, there is no reason for both systems to exist because they do the exact same thing (just IO's do it better).

I did build the ill/cold and it is in the pylon thread. iirc it dropped one in like 112 (just under 2 min at any rate). But there are certain aspects that make that time not necessarily representative of its actual damage, or even its effective damage in comparison to other toons vs the pylon. Namely it does a lot of psy damage, which is unresisted in that test.

I did kill Jurrasik in under 4 min though and most AV's hover around 2-2.5 min with that toon. Heck I think I killed statesman as an even con AV in around 3 min.

The bane and fire dom would be pointless to test against a pylon because of its aoe attack that would wipe the pets. It is one of only a few tough foes out there that spams aoe attacks as most will happily focus on you alone while your pets go to town. The bane was nearly done when I unsubbed though. So hopefully one day it will be complete. Of course by the time a large portion of the incarnate system is in place and I'm willing to support this product (yay for it being pushed back and spread over many issues) again that very system may well present some other extreme damage options.

Frosticus

I'm not assuming anything. What you're depicting just isn't nearly as common as people on the boards pretend it is. If fact it is a mighty large assumption in and of itself to claim that teams are softcapped with any kind of frequency.

I will say that I've never seen anyone with veng at lvl 20. I'm sure they are out there, but it is pretty rare. I don't see it popping up until the main TF range kicks in which is generally around 35+. And I hardly ever see it on freedom pugs.

I will state definitively that any team I've been on that does have a veng caster has been extraordinarily fast at completing the content with almost complete disregard for the intended difficulty.

It's also not like veng only buffs defense now is it? No it turns your team into nearly unstoppable demi gods. The great thing is though if your team is already softcapped and no one is dying then you don't need to use veng. Of course that team probably has no use for you using flurry or w/e else you might pick up in unslotted form with this change. At the very least you'll still benefit from the lotg you can put in it. Heck if someone does die on a softcapped team the other benefits of veng could very well prevent that from happening again. Perhaps more than any other power pool could.

Finally I've never seen a grantable def buff that also includes DDR. That Forcefield team that is comfortably sitting at the softcap is a mere quicksand away from getting trounced. Veng to the rescue!
.....

To the thread in general this is a silly tangent. Of course there is almost nothing else to talk about in this announcement because it is almost all "it's coming...hold on", but I'm satisfied with the explanation I've given regarding the possibilities of this change. Which quite frankly in case anyone is still having issues understanding, are almost entirely positive provided you enjoy killing things faster.

I'm am however, still seeing a lot of people countering an argument that was never made and proclaiming victory. I haven't seen anyone claim this is a negative change and yet people keep jumping up and down decrying this imaginary position.

The last thing I want to say with regard to tightness is that if you inherently think it is automatically a negative thing then you my friend need to get out of the computer room and get out meeting people! have fun guys.

goat mode. Try reading the thread.

I didn't think you would be the type of person that would fail to see the difference between learning and utilizing the market and clicking a single power while playing. It is what it is though. Especially when you consider that this game is almost entirely combat focused. Many people don't want to take any time away from that to earn stuff, no matter how 'easy' it is.

I haven't insisted otherwise, this again is you making an argument against something that wasn't said, just like earlier where you guys were attacking imaginary people that said this change was negative.

I'm saying random distribution of people choosing new power pools is almost enough to satisfy my statement. Add to that people that seek to improve their gameplay by a large amount with minimal investment and voila.


The thing is while we both believe the average player isn't very intelligent, I don't believe they are quite as stupid as you depict.

The notion of tackling +3's with the ease of +1's is tantalizing enough where I think even the most - as you describe them - 'stupid' players can be convinced. Luckily they don't have to be though to satisfy what I said.

Also, people die in this game...all the time. If they aren't dying then guess what you don't need to click vengeance. But you can turn around and suggest you tackle arachnos next mission for fun and when they gripe you say 'don't worry' it will be fine. And it will be. Fun.

ok. I'm not going to explain it again or go over why the simple math supports what I'm saying, or why simply rationality supports what I'm saying. You have made the decision to go into the infamous 'goat mode' where nothing is going to get through. That's fine.

It's both. Tighter on slots and looser on power picks. It is a good thing though for the most part. I mean the respec process is pretty bad, so there is that headache that will affect different people in varying amounts.

I'd like to lend my support to the idea of a dynamic mode respec. Also I'd like a quick respec mode where it opens your hold build as it is and you can work backwords where if you take away a slot it sticks the enhancement down into the storage tray. So it is more like when you open up mids and tweak with an already complete build.

Your absolutely right, but knowledgeable players getting the word out that people looking for 3 filler powers that cost no slots and benefit you solo* and especially teamed will improve penetration.
*solo benefit comes from either sticking in 2 lotg's and/or activating tactics when perception/tohit debuffed.

Veng makes everyone within a country mile flash bright red for 2 min. The 'wow' factor of veng is just fine. It's not inferno, but it is better than most powers.
That isn't a fault of vengeance it is a fault of assault/manuev/tactics being 'boring'. The stats on veng are eye popping and the description is easily enticing enough to be desirable. Much more so than many other powers and probably more so than any other power pool pick.

"The loss of a comrade enrages the team. When a teammate is defeated in combat, activate this power to grant you and your teammates a bonus to chance to hit, Damage and Defense to all attacks. A Vengeful team has no fear, and Vengeance protects you and your Teammates from Fear effects. It also gives you and your team great resistance to Sleep, Hold, Disorient, Immobilize, Confuse, Taunt, Placate and Knockback. You must be at least level 20 and have two other Leadership Powers before selecting Vengeance. This power does not stack with multiple castings."

Maybe. Veng, much like stamina is the jewel of the set that requires 2 'boring' powers to unlock. Hardly anyone takes it because common conception is that you need stamina and most people pick 1-2 addition travel related power pools (ie leaping+hasten), or flight, or whatever. The simple fact is that many builds lack the room for 3 leadership powers and just picking 1 or 2 out of the pool isn't a great return for most AT's.

What is a 'meaningful amount' though? after this change there will be 9 power pools to choose from. If I'm saying you really only need 1/8 players on a team to get this improvement (though more is always better) and you have a 1/9 shot of picking leadership as a power pool... Random distribution of players amongst the existing power pools supports what I'm saying. People looking for 3 powers that require no additional slots supports what I'm saying in favor of some of the other more demanding power pools. And even people looking to min/max solo supports what I'm saying as you gain 2 lotg slots and a perception buff that supports one's toon in situations that might otherwise defeat you (though admittedly concealment probably gives the best solo return for no slots).

Like I said, I wouldn't have said what I did if it wasn't so easy to back up