Nowaki

Hmmm might go the Penny Arcade Expo. It's just a 2 hour drive from where I am.....

Welcome to Blue Steel and Mynx!

On principle, I don't have a problem with the change, but it does create an issue.

Sometimes, for reasons beyond anyone's control, a TF team will lose a key member, or even several key members (sometimes it's real-life issues, sometimes it's internet connection wonkiness, etc).

If this happens at a bad time (like just before the final AV at the end of the last mission), the TF may very well be impossible to complete.

I would suggest that if a team's membership falls below the "minimum" for the TF because a player quit the TF (for any reason), the team leader *should* be able to add enough new team members to bring it back up to the TF minimum.

W00t, I have that day off from work!

Real Numbers....finally. Thank you, NCNC!

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Will one of the weapon graphic options be the Arachnos Mace (either version)?

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Tankers, as a whole, do better than average, and this includes Ice Melee. My focus is on those AT's who, as a group, underperform.

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Sooooo, according to your data mining, which ATs underperform?

Hehe, I was quietly having a good chuckle at our persistant little griefer when his attempts to drawn mito blasts on the group were failing. Looks like we've beaten him for now.

Until the players can get the hang of the new hamidon, we might need to farm DE giant monsters to build up a stock pile of EoE inspirations.

Perhaps we should schedule a pre-raid EoE farming phase, say the day before, for half an hour or so.

Ooooo, let me at em!!

I have a 50th MM that's been sitting idle for a long time.

General Scourge at your service!

I like the implementation of most of the new features, I'm not thrilled with the in-game evolution resulting from the new features.

1) I have no problem with in-game economies on principle. But I'm annoyed with the extraordinary distortion of the market because of problems in the supply of certain salvage and recipe drops. Please address the drop rates for costume recipes, soon!

2) I have a problem with Statesman Task Force. It's too unforgiving. Unless you carefully pre-select the team's composition before the TF starts, you have a tough time finishing the TF. If you lose one member during the TF, you have a tough time finishing the TF. If your team loads up on Shivans and Warbug nukes, the TF becomes easy, so from the player's perspective, collecting these temp powers is almost considered a requirement before starting....

3) I've yet to try the villain Hamidon, because frankly, the Rogue Islands are pretty vacant these days. Hard to get 50 players together for a Hamidon event when the population is so low.

On the positive side, I like the inventions, and I like the principle of the auction houses. And thank you for the additions to the green line train, and the stores in KR.

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I see that wednesday's public raid is scheduled for 8 pm eastern.

Any chance that future weekday raids could start just a little later? Say 8:30 or 9:00 eastern?

Us west coast folks need a little time to get home from work!

So, has Virtue attempted a Hamidon event since I9 came out? Either hero side, or villain side?

Who's interested?

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I can say that open beta for Exteel has not yet begun nor have the invites been sent out for it yet. We're going to post something for the public (on the website) as soon as we have some specifics to provide.

Exteel is currently under an NDA (which has nothing to do with the OB delay, btw) so please remember that is all I can say to those who were not Exteel closed beta testers.

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Thank you.
I wish I had gotten involved in that beta. Looks promising.

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Cricket (These days, Crickette, but call me whatever. I ain't picky!)
Community Manager
Lineage 1/Auto Assault/Dungeon Runners/Exteel
Former COH/COV Community Coordinator
Former COH/COV GM Senior


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Hey, Cricket, I notice that you were involved with Exteel as well.

What's happening with that product? The closed beta tested ended in January, and it was *supposed* to go to open beta a few weeks later. But there's not been any new information since, at least not that I can find.

Wings were a Loooong time coming, but, I'll give credit where it's due. The cryptic animators did a great job on the look and animations of wings.

If I have to give a yes/no answer, then no.

If I can qualify it............. no with strangers, but I don't mind PvP against friends.

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<sarcasm>

Why not, hey, next lets make damage diminish returns too. After the 2nd blaster, each additional blaster's damage should be cut in half.

3rd does 1/2 damage
4th does 1/4 damage
5th does 1/8 damage

Oh! Oh! Then we should make mezz effects diminish too. After the 2nd controller, each additional hold should drop in magnitude by 1. So the 5th and subsequent hold attack has no effect except to generate aggro.

Brilliant!

</sarcasm>

Overall, I think the changes are pretty positive.

50 player limit on the hamidon-zone. Yay!

The lag really ramps up at about 140 heroes, so capping at 50 is good. Especially if this is the Abyss, and those 50 villains have alot of masterminds.

Hamidon powers revamp. Yay!

Hamidon spawnable by player actions instead of timed self spawn. Yay!

Rewards Selection screen. Yay!

More involved play by all ATs. Yay!

Essence of the Earth inspirations. Yay!

Once per 24 hours....... meh

Evolving Hamidon......yay (no capitalization, no exclamation). Yay to less repetitive. Leary about excessive re-balancing.

Well what's left?

If it's not a new power, and it's not a re-do of an existing power... it's a temp power?

As a ratio, it's simple. Defender ranged blasts cause 65% of the damage of Blaster Ranged Blasts (assuming the same slotting)

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Okay, maybe I'm a newb or something but can someone explain to me the "hate" thing and pecking order of damage, I read that patch note about it and just didnt get it.

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The amount of aggro ("hate") you cause to a mob is determined by the amount of damage you cause, multiplied by your AT modifier.

For heroes
Tankers have the largest aggro multiplier.
Kheldians and Scrappers are close (kheldians might be a little higher)
I think Blasters are third, but since they cause alot of damage, it tends to bring their net aggro up.
controllers and defenders round out the bottom.

For villains
Brutes have the highest aggro multiplier

Not sure about Corruptors, Masterminds, Stalkers and Dominators.... I think Stalkers have the lowest, but because their Assassin Strike causes so much damage at once, they can get alot of aggro.

Did you know that the last contact you get in the Outbreak tutorial, Coyote is a tribute to the first member of the City of Heroes pre-beta community.

His forum handle was Kiyotee, his real name was Matt Bragg. He was an active contributing member of the pre-beta community for 2 years, one of the nicest guys around, but died tragically around the time the game was released.

The tutorial character Coyote, bear's Matt's name and character's identity.

I get the feeling my mastermind will hate Grandville. Vertical zones + pets = pets falling to their doom because of wonky pathing AI.

I read Castle's comments:

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3) We tried to plug as many exploitive behaviors as we could prior to PvP going live. However, the ingenuity of 100,000+ people trying to find ways to kill one another is much greater than a small group. For instance, Hurricane. We knew it was problematic in PvP. Our tests showed how it could be abused, but we deemed it an acceptable issue. I'm sure all the PvP folks are either quite happy or really annoyed by that decision. I do recall "inventing" the game of PC Bowling during one of the CoV Beta PVP tests.

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and I don't see anything that looks like pending changes to Hurricane.

Looks to me like they've long since looked at Hurricane, and consider it acceptable.