NotDoc

In a world where a single Emp can stack Clear Minds 4 deep, toggle dropping does have its place. It may have been an I4 kludge, but notice how they didn't remove it from the game entirely? As long as toggle-dropping exists in any form, even reduced, it's part of the balance equation.

Blasters getting 30% unresistable damage doesn't exactly help villains take down the three toughest melee ATs in the game: Tankers, Scrappers, and Dwarfs. Dominator toggle dropping used to (against the first two at least). But now? Tanker or Scrapper + Clear Mind = God Mode.

Nope, I have no sympathy for melee toons that can't deal with wimpy-damage ATs dropping 1 toggle here and there. I've dealt with it myself on plenty of toons. Make a powexectoggleon bind and buy a couple of BFs, BFD. It's not a kludge, it's an equalizer between squishy little mezzable low damage classes and unstoppable high damage classes.

In case anyone missed it earlier, I completely support the Blaster and Stalker changes, but NOT the Dominator and Force Bolt changes.

My main hero is a 50 Tanker, and my main villain is a 40 Dominator, so I am looking at this from both sides of the issue. I have no delusions that melee characters should all play like Superman and kill squishies in droves.

After taking some time to observe, test, and play in RV, I think the toggle dropping change is a mixed blessing.

My conclusion is that it was necessary but went too far. High damage ATs (Blasters, Stalkers) are able to kill without dropping toggles, so their toggle drop nerf made sense.

However, nerfing the toggle dropping of the low damage classes (Force Bolt, Thunder Clap, all the Dominator Assault sets) went too far. Toggle Dropping was the only chance these classes had against melee characters. Force Bolt is a manditory power for MMs, and is now useless in PVP thanks to Acrobatics and inability to drop toggles. Dominator melee attacks used to be useful and scary despite their extremely low damage, and worth the risk of taking a squishy into melee. Now the toggle drop % is so low on them it's suicidal to enter into melee.

Never in my experience did the low damage ATs with toggle dropping seem overpowered. This nerf to ATs that were already struggling is too much. I would like the toggle drop %s for Defs, Controllers, and Doms increased back to their I6 values or at least close.

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Please make the citizens non-targettable, since they can't be harmed. The tab-target spam in these missions is already at an ungodly level.

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Civilians can be hit with various knockbacks, mez effects, etc. It's fun.

Targeting enemies with a good old-fashioned mouse click is easier in crowds.

Devs, please no change to civilians, other than giving us more bonus time for harassing them.

Mayhem Missions are my favorite part of I7 so far. I had tons of fun on the few I've tried.

They do have some balance issues though, caused by the frequency and stubbornness of the ambushes. Multiple ambushes showing up at the same time as the hero is overkill. Multiple ambushes showing up while you are trying to break out of jail is even worse!

My team last night got pasted thanks to Longbow Spec Ops sappers. We went to jail, and after breaking down my cell door I was greeted by 2 PPD bosses and 12 other mobs! All in a tiny little jail room so moving to the exit wasn't possible. We all died 4 or 5 times.

Also, mobs were attacking me through the cell door. I thought we fixed that bug back when the 5th Column got jails?

Now all that aside, I had a crazy fun time with the challenge and pace of it all. I didn't mind dying a few times. If this were live, though, I would probably want to avoid Mayhem Missions like the plague because of the crazy debt. I think that if their difficulty cannot be easily balanced because of the randomness of ambushes arriving etc., you should get reduced debt from dying inside Mayhem Missions. More reduced than inside normal missions, so that going to jail a few times doesn't break your spirit and scare people away from doing these awesome missions altogether.

Another fanciful idea I had is to reward a bunch of free inspirations when you land in jail. Honestly, jailbreaks are tough, so we need them! And what would inspire a villain to greatness more than the prospect of going back to the Zig? I would love getting a bunch of insps when I rez in jail to give me a chance of getting out alive.

Zone looks great but horrible lag.

Mob spawns really lack variety. Everywhere I go, all over the city, on the beach, in the power plant, Bane Spiders everywhere. Not just some Bane Spiders, but ALL Bane Spiders. Argh, talk about overusing a new mob. How about more Council, CoT (Possessed Scientists would be perfect!), Longbow, Coralax Hybrids, and other types of Arachnos?

No badge at the very very top of the main tower. Nothing exciting up there to reward exploration. Lame. Striga volcano is better.

I haven't been able to zone into a single mission from GV without CTD.

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Dominator: Bone Smasher: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Total Focus: 64% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Incinerate: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Blaze: 64% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Ice Sword: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Greater Ice Sword: 64% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Mind Probe: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Psychic Shockwave: 64% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Skewer: 5% for 1 Toggle
Dominator: Ripper: 64% for 1 Toggle

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Instead of 5% and 64%, it should be 50% and 95%.

Let Dominators be the one scary AT that can drop toggles reliably! Maybe it will give our opponents a reason to, I don't know, pay attention to us when we're not in Domination mode.

I've been PVPing with my Dom since November, and never once did I think 100% to drop 1 toggle was overpowered considering how painfully long it takes to actually kill someone. (If my blue bar doesn't run out or they don't get bored and log first that is.)

My Mind/TA Controller can blow people to smithereens with just Levitate and Mesmerize as attacks though, thanks to 3x Containment.

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Frankly I think that the domination boost should be lowered by 50% and have the standard attacks boosted in damage to compensate. The domination bonus of increased duration, mag and endurance refill is enough without making it the sole way for a dominator to deal damage. Give it a minor damage boost rather than a major one and tip the scales for the more attacks.

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I've never agreed with Tal-N more.

Faster Domination in PVP = good
Removal of Dominator toggle dropping = bad

You took a patently underpowered archetype, buffed it with one hand and nerfed it with the other. Underpowered +1 -1 = Underpowered.

Dominators, of ALL the ATs in the game, needed toggle dropping in PVP. Their damage is horrendous and their holds are 80% Controller strength. Toggle dropping was not only one of the only things they brought to a PVP team, it was fun. Removing toggle drops on Blasters who can 2 shot people is smart, removing toggle drops on Dominators who can 30 shot people on a good day is not.

Yes, sorry, not trying to address H vs. V balance at all. Villain side is underdeveloped on Test right now so of course they're gimpy. I still feel that things move too fast for this to qualify as "epic" in any way... even if one side's PCs outnumber the other side by 2-to-1 it should take more than 10 minutes to rinse and repeat the cycle of the zone.

Winning the entire zone comes off as hardly more important than winning a single hotspot in SC. If the battles are that short there won't be any long-term appeal for me at least. I need my timesink zones to at least give the illusion of doing something important... winning RV for the 18th time will hardly seem significant and will make me want to go do something else.

Alright, I played in there for a couple of hours last night.

Overall impression: the whole cycle of the zone happens WAY TOO FAST. Something needs to be done to slow down the turnaround time and force the side that takes pillboxes to actually defend them. Right now gray pillboxes are just being zerged hard and fast for the quick win, and I bet that will continue to be the pattern later.

Here's my example that repeated dozens of times in just 2 hours. Zone resets (Dimensional Reversion or whatever), everything goes gray. Heroes bum rush every gray dot on the map. 1 character can wipe all 4 turrets and grab the glowie in < 60 seconds. Before 2 minutes has passed since the Dimensional Reversion, half the map is owned by the hero side. Before 3 minutes has passed, the "Heroes Win" message pops up, and we go back to "defeat extra villains for bonus prestige." The timer in this part lasts longer than the entire battle over the pillboxes. When the zone finally reverts, less than 10 minutes has passed since the last reversion.

Having the "epic battle" repeat every 10 minutes sure makes it feel unimportant. Compare this to Siren's Call, where even under the best conditions it takes an hour or two to win the zone for your faction, since that bar moves slowly. The breakneck speed at which the RV cycle resets and repeats will make it very monotonous to me.

The Elite Boss pet robots are unimpressive graphically and utility-wise. (Sorry. ) I mean, the new Cataphracts look great but both they and the spiders are too small. Their powers made me yawn and didn't affect the battle much if any. Compared to a Blaster, Scrapper, or some Tankers, they are just slow, dumb AI distractions. (Sorry again. ) They really need to be AV class to be worthwhile.

Speaking of AVs, I saw a few show up and they were also unimpressive. A few heroes working together decimated Lord Recluse in short order. What's worse, I rushed to fight Black Scorpion at a pillbox where "Arachnos reinforcements have arrived" and after I got him targeted, he despawned! Please, don't have them despawn if the battle is over, just let them roam around. Give them preprogrammed aggro on every pillbox in the zone if you have to.

Compliments to the Devs:
- Graphically morphing zone = awesome
- Fighting in Atlas Park is actually very cool
- Cataphracts look good
- Whole presentation hero-side rules, hero base is cool as hell! Love that tactical floor map! Mynx posters are cool too.
- Pillboxes seem well-designed (but are still too easy to win)

Shadow Maul is critting out of Hide 50% of the time, with an extra chunk of damage added on the very last punch in the DoT.

That said, it's silly to me that these tiny melee cones have such a small chance to crit.

Shadow Maul is not the same type of AE as Spine Burst or Shockwave. You're not going to hit a whole spawn with it without a whole lot of herding and wrangling. Shadow Maul is essentially a single target attack with the added bonus of a tiny cone, but that bonus actually hurts it for Stalkers. Having only a 50% chance to crit drags it down for PVP also (as if the 5 second root animation wasn't bad enough ).

Tiny melee cones should either have regular single target chance to crit or darn close. 50% is bogus.

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OK... now can we see the devs adding the nighborhood invasions they mentioned in beta since the world can be dynamically changed with this new technology?

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Hehe. Trollified Skyway would be funny.

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Following me into battle are Manticore, Positron, Sister Psyche, Synapse, and Back Alley Brawler.

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No Infernal? No Infernal!

Victory is ours, villains!!!

(By the way, Back Alley Brawler is about the most active retired guy I've ever seen...)

Yay! I always liked Positron. He seems very smart and in-touch. And he is willing to communicate and even admit mistakes now and then.

Veterans' Rewards FTW!

Hmm, not sure how I feel about a retail box expansion for CoH and CoV... seems like they are bowing to $ pressure and converging with the pay expansion model set by EQ and all those other games. But, it's too early to start griping before we know more.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. It's a gamble for a dev to reveal their thoughts and design process, and could open you up to a whole new line of criticisms, but I appreciate that you try.

Onward! While it does irk me that my Ice/Ice Dominator must take shark/lightning/soul/mace powers instead of more Ice powers, that's not my biggest concern.

The lack of ability to respec out of a Patron throws up major red flags. City is an ever-changing experience, with powers especially undergoing constant revision. I for one don't mind this, and actually enjoy it, as long as I have the ability to adapt via a respec.

This Patron thing treads on dangerous new ground, though. Tweaks that may seem minor to a dev can permanently change my gameplay experience, since I have no ability to choose a different Patron. What if Bile Spray is deemed too high damage for toxic type and it gets nerfed after I choose Mako (we all know it could happen )? Suddenly I am left wanting the area blast from Scirocco instead, but... I am stuck with Mako. I know the lack of technology to remove a Contact prevents respecing out of a patron, but I think this is a major problem that needs to be addressed.

Finally, while new art on PPPs is great and all, they lack the variety and utility of the APPs. It's fairly obvious to most folks who've played CoH 40-50. Between Patrons the powers are very close to each other (1 armor, 1 AE blast, 1 end drain, etc...). Plus they don't have the great powers like Focused Acc, Power Build Up, Mind Over Body, Telekinesis, Earth's Embrace, etc. that we see in APPs.

While it's too late to do anything about that aspect thanks to the art being finished, I humbly suggest that the powers team make the PPP powers not just slightly better than hero side, but vastly better. If a Dominator is stuck with just toggle armors and a couple of blasts, make those armors and blasts awesome, better than values found in Primary/Secondary even. High values would balance themselves build-wise. Say a Stalker's Patron blasts are stronger than his melee attacks. While he can min-max into primarily Patron attacks and neglect his Primary, he will be effectively gimping himself for 3 of the 4 PVP zones and for any time he Malefactors down. Thus, it's a trade-off.

I truly feel that unless the powers themselves are obscenely strong, these PPPs will come off as a lot of eye candy without much substance to them, and highly skippable.

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...we'll have to have a pow wow around here (complete with Tee Pee's and Peace Pipes, hopefully) to figure out what to do.

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Ahh. Peace Pipes.

Finally, the question "what were they smoking when they designed X?" has been answered!!!

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Overall I do think Hurricane needed a nerf for PvP, but not the nerf that we just got. IMHO the worst thing about hurricane was not the repel but the debuff duration. It lasts WAY TOO LONG after you've got away from the radius. In addition it doesn't suppress your travel powers so a Stormy can SS/SJ through a group of toons, debuff them all, and get away with safety. The repel effects were the least of my concerns. :/

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/agree

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy to see that overpowered horror nerfed (for PVP). But I would have left it very powerful to those INSIDE the effect and just removed the stickiness to prevent jousting.

Help, I can't see, I got water in my eyes! It stings!

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"OMG! He's nerfing EM!" -- Nope, at least not for I7.

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Not nerfing EM, BUT maybe they're giving ALL of the sets 10 BI attacks with Mag3 stuns!

...

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3) Datamining -- I looked at Blaster/Scrapper a few minutes ago. In terms of raw kills, Blasters are the better PvP killers, but only if they have Energy Manipulation. Without EM, they are roughly 60% of scrappers numbers. In terms of kills to death ratio, Blasters are slightly behind scrappers with EM, but competing with Defenders and Dominators for lowest value Note, that these are solo values! Things are very different in team play.

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First I think _Castle_ is super cool for responding, even in a thread where we were probably not being as respectful as we could.

On the K-to-D thing, again, I think looking at K-to-D is pointless. If you think about it from a tactical standpoint, it always makes sense to target the most threatening character first. My VG is heavily PVP oriented. When we are in a PVP zone, if an infamous /EM Blapper bounces into the fight, we nearly always switch targets to them to dispatch them before they can 2 shot us. So if you blow up the actual numbers, that Scrapper might have 5 kills to 3 deaths, but that Blapper might have 20 kills to 18 deaths. The Blapper's ratio appears worse in such a case, but it's pretty clear he's better at melee damage than the poor Scrapper.

Since we are picking on the uber power sets, how about datamining Spines/ Scrappers versus all of the other kinds. I imagine Broadsword might be close but I would bet the numbers for Claws, MA, DM, and Katana are pretty far behind.

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3/5 of the secondaries will not wreck a scrapper. The main culprit for this is /em. And being that we see them so much, it feels like more of a problem then it really is. Do we want to nerf all blaster secondaries because of /em? I should hope not.

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Well said!

I will be sure to remember this next time I say "nerf Blappers." There may be some /Ice and /Fire Blasters out there who also consider themselves 'Blappers'.

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Scrappers out damage blasters in melee. Blasters AT mod is 1, while scrappers is 1.125. Scrappers also get unresistable criticals of 2x damage 5% of the time, which can be compared to Blasters 33% unresistable damage.

Energy Melee's Stuns coupled with toggle dropping pretty much make the damage a secondary effect. While the blasters (who have little or no mez protections) are used to functioning with break frees active, most scrappers are not, as they rely on their inherent protection powers to keep them safe.

In other words, despite your toggle powers protections, pretend you don't have them and prepare based on that -- because those protections will be knocked down at some point.

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Personally I was floored by this _Castle_ post. He has shown a real understanding of balance problems in the past, but on this one he seems completely ignorant of the nuts and bolts of the issue.

Blaster AT damage mod vs. Scrapper AT damage mod means nothing. The base damage of the actual attacks is what matters. How about we compare a non-crit Tier 9 Scrapper attack to a Blapper's Total Focus? The Scrapper will not come out on top by 12.5% on that test, I assure you.

PVP is burst damage. An unreliable 5% chance for crits, versus 33% guaranteed unresistable damage is not equitable. Advantage to the Blaster again.

And the statement that Energy Melee's damage is a secondary effect?? If a dev considers the absolute highest damage in the game to be a secondary effect then I am scared for the future of PVP.

Like Thorizdin said, they need to datamine kill rates or something. And it's pointless to look at the kills-to-deaths ratio. Kills-to-deaths ratio is subject to social considerations. If a Blaster's melee is a much bigger threat than a Scrapper's melee, guess who we're going to kill first? Just because Blasters are squishier than Scrappers doesn't mean they should be better at melee than Scrappers.

Blaster melee > Scrapper melee. It looks like the devs can't see that on paper, though it's fairly obvious in practice. I have never seen whirlwinding Scrappers bouncing around 2-shotting people with melee attacks before their healer can even react... can't say the same for Blasters.

Controllers get mez protection, Hibernate, Conserve Power, and Earth's Embrace. Any of which I would trade my entire Patron set for.

Controllers > Dominators, as if that wasn't abundantly obvious to begin with.

The box should have been labeled CoU instead of CoV. City of Underdogs.

What up with giving Doms the boss pet in all sets except Mako's? (Corrupters get the Red Coralax boss, Doms get the Blue lieutenant.)

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Patron Powers are truly permanent. This powerset, once chosen, is as much a part of your character as your Name, Primary Powerset, Secondary Powerset, Body Type, and Origin.

There is currently no way for us to let you re-spec out of them and into a different one. This is because it is tied to specific content for that Patron.

Because of this, hard numbers are given, in-game, about the powers and what they do before you even choose which arc you wish to partake (and will most likely be available on the website as well).

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Color me very disappointed.

And how exactly are we supposed to plan on future power changes, like ED?

Let's say my Energy Melee Brute does plenty of damage, so I go with Ghost Widow for some particular defensive powers. Then Energy Melee gets hit with the nerf bat, and suddenly I wish I had taken Black Scorpion for added offense.

Posi, I don't know about you, but my CoX radar is already telling me you guys will have to change this mechanic down the line. In fact, I predict that by March 2007, a way to change your patron will be in development, on Test, or live.

Grammatical error:

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I cannot counsel you as to who your patron should be,

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Should be "...as to whom..."