Oedipus_Tex

I didn't read the entire thread. A few comments of my own that are hopefully somewhat on topic and not too redundant.

Comfort zones are a hard to balance against game needs when groups of players have competing interests. Part of this is because what is included in "comfort zone" is not just the moment to moment gameplay, but the overall context of everything in the game.

For example, people who like to team do not just want to be able to team. They want problems to exist to which teaming is a practical solution. If there is nothing in the game for teams to fight then there is no reason to put up with the hassle of gathering eight people to overcome things. And if teammates do nothing but get in your way or can harm you in some way, there is active disincentive. I read once that in Diablo 2, over 60% of online games are played in single player mode, supposedly because in that game players are able to quit your team and attack you.

Evaluation of powersets are particular area where players tend to clash. Part of it comes from two competing camps of min/maxers: one that wants to identify the "best" sets in the game so they can play that and get the best mechanical leverage, and another that wants to prevent any set from being identified as the "best" because they would feel forced to play it over anything else. Balancing these competing factions is an art.

One of the weirder communities to emerge from the incarnate trials is the "level 54 enemies are unfair" group. While this viewpoint runs a gamut of specific opinions, a sub group of them essentially have vocalized a desire to run the same content teams do. That is, they want to be as powerful as a team of 8 (or 12, or 24, or whatever). The inherent problem should be obvious: if an individual character is as powerful as 24 individual characters, what happens when you put 24 individual characters as powerful as 24 individual characters together? If that question makes no sense, you followed it perfectly.

Knockback is ok. I think that its value varies considerably depending on the nature of the power it shows up in. For example:

In Bonfire: 100% chance for autohit knockback. Easy to position power, few slots required to make it work. Not attached to an effect that you would much need outside of the knockback itself. Excellent power.

In Repulsion Field: Again 100% chance for autohit knockback. Power moves with you and does not cause travel suppression. Somewhat circumstantial. Locked kb mag also means this power will always fling an enemy the same distance, even if they are flying or hovering.

In Handclap: Ugh. Knockback almost as a penalty to prevent the power from doing too much damage. NPC allies with this power cause enough problems that many teams speed past them to prevent them from using it.

In Energy Blast powers: Depends on the player. I personally find the attachment of KB to your main source of DPS extremely frustrating and limiting to my DPS function. Set would be much stronger to me with a 100% chance to KB in 1 or 2 blasts and 0% in the others. Particularly dislike the set on Defenders, who get extra KB mag and take even longer to kill things. Somewhat improved by the fact that some sets can now take AoE immobilizes to at least choose when they want to KB.

In Dual Pistols powers: Extremely good. Option to decide whether you want to KB or not by switching ammo types sells this set for me no matter the complaints about animation times. Knockback itself is not necessarily an issue; for me its knockback that you are forced to deal with because it is attached to some other action you are trying to perform, e.g. damage. On a spreadsheet, Energy Blast outperforms Dual Pistols (sort of--Hail of Bullets makes this a difficult contest to call), in practice I would play Pistols 10 times over Energy Blast. The presence of optional KB in this set also puts it in the top tier for me no matter what anyone says about its damage ratios, because knocback itself is good when you have some control over when it happens.

Here is an idea on how I would probably slot Elec/Rad for leveling up. Keep in mind the levels that I slotted each power aren't necessarily reflective of the order I'd do it all in, but I did try to at least put the things I'd slot first on the left and things I'd slot later to the right for each power.

I did use one IO: the Lockdown Chance for Mag 2 hold. It's basically a requirement. Choking Cloud as a whole is probably the power that nearly demands IOs, because it needs accuracy but can't actually slot it with ISOs or SOs. Rather than slot it as I have, you may want to purchase cheap IOs that stack Accuracy/Hold/Endurance. Essence of Curare is a good one if you're broke.

I took both Tesla Cage and Electric Fence so that you have a source of single target damage at low levels. Combat Jumping is in there to let you move if you get immobilized--a big headache for any of the PBAoE Controllers, and not covered by Indom Will. Changing the Defense slot there to a Karma: -KB would be a big help and not be very expensive.


Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.92
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Controller
Primary Power Set: Electric Control
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Emission
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Psionic Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Tesla Cage -- Acc-I:50(A), Dmg-I:50(3), Dmg-I:50(3), Hold-I:50(5), Hold-I:50(5), RechRdx-I:50(7)
Level 1: Radiant Aura -- Heal-I:50(A), Heal-I:50(7), RechRdx-I:50(9)
Level 2: Electric Fence -- Acc-I:50(A), Dmg-I:50(9), Dmg-I:50(11)
Level 4: Accelerate Metabolism -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(11), EndMod-I:50(13), EndMod-I:50(13)
Level 6: Jolting Chain -- Acc-I:50(A), Dmg-I:50(15), Dmg-I:50(15), EndRdx-I:50(19), Acc-I:50(23)
Level 8: Chain Fences -- Acc-I:50(A), EndRdx-I:50(17), EndMod-I:50(17), EndMod-I:50(19), Acc-I:50(25)
Level 10: Conductive Aura -- Acc-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(21), EndMod-I:50(21), Acc-I:50(23)
Level 12: Static Field -- Acc-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(27)
Level 14: Radiation Infection -- EndRdx-I:50(A), EndRdx-I:50(27), ToHitDeb-I:50(29), ToHitDeb-I:50(29)
Level 16: Enervating Field -- EndRdx-I:50(A), EndRdx-I:50(31)
Level 18: Paralyzing Blast -- Hold-I:50(A), Hold-I:50(31), Acc-I:50(31), Acc-I:50(33), RechRdx-I:50(33), RechRdx-I:50(33)
Level 20: Lingering Radiation -- Acc-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(34), RechRdx-I:50(36)
Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(34), RechRdx-I:50(34)
Level 24: Super Speed -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 26: Synaptic Overload -- Acc-I:50(A), Conf-I:50(36), RechRdx-I:50(36), Acc-I:50(37), Conf-I:50(37), RechRdx-I:50(37)
Level 28: Choking Cloud -- Hold-I:50(A), EndRdx-I:50(39), Lock-%Hold:50(39), EndRdx-I:50(39), Hold-I:50(40)
Level 30: Mutation -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 32: Gremlins -- Acc-I:50(A), Dmg-I:50(40), EndMod-I:50(40), Dmg-I:50(42), RechRdx-I:50(42), Acc-I:50(42)
Level 35: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff-I:50(A)
Level 38: EM Pulse -- RechRdx-I:50(A), Acc-I:50(43), Hold-I:50(43), RechRdx-I:50(43), Hold-I:50(45), Acc-I:50(45)
Level 41: Mental Blast -- Acc-I:50(A), Dmg-I:50(46), Dmg-I:50(46)
Level 44: Indomitable Will -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(45), RechRdx-I:50(46)
Level 47: Psionic Tornado -- Acc-I:50(A), Dmg-I:50(48), Dmg-I:50(48), Acc-I:50(48), EndRdx-I:50(50), RechRdx-I:50(50)
Level 49: Mind Over Body -- ResDam-I:50(A), EndRdx-I:50(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(25)

I used to be a volunteer developer for a text-based game. I don't know know how many lines of code the game had, but it had to be several thousands.

FYI the old Diku MUD codebases are still around and can be downloaded. if you obtain a server it is actually possible to build your own text based game. By complete coincidence, one of the codebases now widely available is "The Forest's Edge," which happens to be the MUD I played back in 1997 or 98.

I don't know what City of Heroes looks like under the hood. I can tell you that the game I worked for had a custom codebase. It was a very nice setup how they had it. The overarching engine was in C++ but the company had invented their own scripting language that compiled in real time without having to take the servers down. When we developed things, we would program it on a live development server and test it in real time, then "roll" the code over to live servers once everything was QAed and ready. The game rarely had downtime at all.

However, text based games have some huge advantages over graphical ones. For one thing, its probably obvious that you can make on the fly changes much faster in a text based game. But the other major advantage is that your code is not reliant on a game client. That means that while you may crash the server, you won't independantly crash the player's game client. Have you ever noticed that everytime CoH makes major changes under the server hood, they make us all update to a new client? That's part of why. They're making sure if they start getting tons of reports about us crashing that we're all on the same version.

In any case, the number of lines of code would be hard to guess because most games break code down into segments. Generally speaking, you have:
- an interface layer that governs loading and saving player data, and logins and logouts
- seperate server code that governs actual gameplay (e.g. resolves combat rolls)
- the player game client, which plays animations and sounds in accordance with what the server tells it is happening, and accepts user commands to pass to the server*
- lists of things: items, spells, etc. sometimes in scripting languages, sometimes xml, sometimes other formats. FYI it is rare for these things to be literally coded in C++ these days. in the old DIKU MUDs I believe they were however. I would have to go back and look.
- instance code, usually in a custom script language, that governs missions/instances

[*Have you ever wondered why when the game starts lagging you start "rubber banding?" It's because a portion of the movement code is faked. The client doesn't literally check up with the server every millisecond to see if you can move to a new location on the map, it just lets you move around based on what it knows about on your local computer. When you start lagging, the client is still letting you move around, but the server isn't getting the information fast enough to check up and make sure you can actually move you to where you're instructing it to go. When it finally does send information back to the client, the client is like "Oops, okay I got THAT one wrong" and warps you to where your character is standing on the server. One way to tell for sure you're lagging is to try clicking a power that should normally fire; powers always require a server okay before activating (in this and any game coded by anyone half competent). Movement, however, is different, because if it asked for a server okay literally the whole time you were pressing the keys, the game would stutter constantly.]

In City of Heroes specifically we can see how the AE code works by going into the CoH folders and reading the script language there. In fact I often edit this code directly because it is faster than using the interface (tho I do use the interface to generate the basic script first). You can also see what I suspect is similar to the script the server feeds the game client during the live game by reading demorecord files.

One thing to keep in mind about all this is that there are also probably code libraries being used by the client or servers our developers did not actually write. For example, mechanics that handle capes and ragdoll effects.

True story. Two years ago or so I was dating this guy who would sometimes play City of Heroes at my house. One day he joined a Posi Task Force, which I had told him not to do because it exemped you below Stamina. He did it anyway, and it turned out no one on the team had stealth.

Four hours later they were about 70% of the way through the TF. The bf looked miserable. I told him to quit the TF if he was that miserable. He stuck with it, and finally after about another hour and a half they were done. He logged out, left my house, and the next day broke up with me. I literally never saw him again after that. I have long wondered whether my advice to quit if he was that miserable wasn't at least partly behind how that one turned out.

One of the biggest challenges I think of building a very tough mission is dealing with the Illusion Controller players. They have two things that can turn your mission on its head:
- Invincible pets that can used from range
- Ability to benefit from the scary powers enemies have via Confusion

To counter the Illusion trollers, there are a few things you could consider:
- Give the enemies -Recharge, to limit perma armies. Also completely wrecks any perma-Doms. Countered by: /Cold Domination. Actually, because of this I'd call Cold Domination a "must have" set for the Player Team. It's just too easy to nail players to the wall with -Recharge otherwise.
- Give the enemies the ability to run quickly (via Kinetics most likely). When they run away, they may come back to an Illusionist whose pets dropped. Again partially countered by /Cold, but Sleet may just make the problem worse for the troller. /Rad would be very limited in its ability to use toggles or risk aggroing the whole map.
- Lots of ambushes, which is probably Illusion's biggest hole.

One enemy specifically that would drive me insane would be Ice Control/Storm. It could have two autohit -Recharge slows, one autohit -Speed that you can't jump or fly out of, Freezing Rain, Tornado (autohit like it is for players?), Lightning Storm, Arctic Air which is autohit with random chance for confuse, Glacier which nerfs Recharge even if you are protected from the hold, -Fly, and confusion protection and stealth from Steamy Mists. Just two or three of these enemies in a group backed by something that provides Hold and Immob protection (Force Field, to also provide the enemies endurance drain protection--but this leaves a sleep hole?) would be really difficult to deal with. Just thinking about it scares me. So naturally, I'd put Malta Snipers and Rikti drones in there as well.

I apologize, I completely misread what you were saying in this thread. I thought you were asking for advice on how to build a Water Earth Time themed character.

As for new sets: bring me Water, Air, or Insect.

This isn't an Ice/Thorn build, but here's my Ice/Fire/Fire one for reference. This is the "live" build and is much cheaper than my "dream" one.

On Ice Control I aim to slot for Range defense, with supportive Slash/Lethal resistance. That may sound backward, but I have much more trouble with ranged enemies than with things meleeing me. It's when enemies spread out outside Arctic Air that I start to worry. YMMV. FYI Cardiacs are absolutely a requirement for the stunt slotting in Arctic Air here. Lack of damage in Block of Ice is annoying and part of the fix of the more expensive goal build.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.92
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Solar Icecap: Level 50 Magic Dominator
Primary Power Set: Ice Control
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Assault
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Fire Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Block of Ice -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold:30(A), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold:30(3), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg:30(15), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold:30(17)
Level 1: Flares -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(5), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(48)
Level 2: Frostbite -- GravAnch-Immob/EndRdx:50(A), GravAnch-Hold%:50(5), GravAnch-Acc/Immob/Rchg:50(17), GravAnch-Acc/Rchg:50(21), GravAnch-Immob/Rchg:50(23)
Level 4: Fire Breath -- HO:Nucle(A), Dmg-I:50(25)
Level 6: Arctic Air -- CoPers-Conf:50(A), CoPers-Conf/EndRdx:50(7), CoPers-Conf%:50(7), CoPers-Conf/Rchg:50(9), CoPers-Acc/Conf/Rchg:50(9), CoPers-Acc/Rchg:50(11)
Level 8: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(19), RechRdx-I:50(36)
Level 10: Fire Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(11), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(13), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(13), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(15), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(23)
Level 12: Ice Slick -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Zephyr-ResKB:50(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx:50(19)
Level 16: Embrace of Fire -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 18: Flash Freeze -- FtnHyp-Sleep/Rchg:50(A), FtnHyp-Acc/Sleep/Rchg:50(21), FtnHyp-Acc/Rchg:50(31), FtnHyp-Sleep/EndRdx:50(46), FtnHyp-Plct%:50(48)
Level 20: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A)
Level 22: Boxing -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg:50(A), Stpfy-Stun/Rng:50(25), Stpfy-EndRdx/Stun:50(36), Stpfy-KB%:50(36), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg:50(37), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx:50(40)
Level 24: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(A)
Level 26: Glacier -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold:30(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg:30(27), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold:30(27), BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold:30(29), EoCur-Acc/Hold/Rchg:50(29)
Level 28: Consume -- Efficacy-EndMod/Acc:50(A)
Level 30: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(A), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(31), RedFtn-Def:50(31), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:50(34), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(37), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(50)
Level 32: Jack Frost -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg:50(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg:50(33), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx:50(33), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(33), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg:50(34), ExRmnt-+Res(Pets):50(34)
Level 35: Maneuvers -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(43), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(46), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(37), RedFtn-Def:50(43), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(50)
Level 38: Blaze -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(39), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(40), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(40)
Level 41: Fire Ball -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(42), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(42), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(42), Posi-Dam%:50(43)
Level 44: Rain of Fire -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(45), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(45), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(45), Posi-Dam%:50(46)
Level 47: Rise of the Phoenix -- Erad-Acc/Rchg:30(A), Erad-Dmg/Rchg:30(48), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(50)
Level 49: Fire Shield -- TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx:50(A)
Level 50: Cardiac Core Paragon
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Domination
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+:40(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(3)

Does Thorntrops stack on itself like Caltrops does? I'd be very tempted to slot the purple knockdown proc there if so, and throw it on top of Ice Slick.

There are some good suggestions in the thread already. Here are a few more ideas for you to think about.

Gravity Control is probably most straightforward as a "Time" concept, and has -Run Speed in some powers to illustrate this.

Earth Control has the interesting property of configurable skins on its powers. If you select the "earthy" look for some and a blue colored "gem" look for others, you can at mimic the look of having both "earth" and "ice" pretty well. But the power that you can really make look "watery" is Volcanic Gasses, which you can make blue, and it will shoot up little vents of "water."

The Sonic Resonance, Empathy, and Radiation secondaries can all pass reasonably well as water based.

If you go Dominator, Gravity/Earth/Ice would have most of the right look. Dark Miasma on sets that get it works decently well too. And Earth/Energy/Ice. And probably a few more.

Thanks guys.

I have two characters who started as Villains who are currently over level 20 (they are 50 and 39). One went Rogue, one went Hero. I logged the Rogue in and out and it looks like the issue fixed itself.

Almost anything could work.

/Empathy, /Kinetics, and /Radiation all have +Recharge that may boost your friend up to perma-dom levels if he doesn't have sufficient recharge (and he won't until around level 50 barring an extremely unusual early dedication to IOing).

If you've ever wanted an excuse to play an Ice Controller, this may be the time to do it. Your friends electric cages will set a up Containment that won't stop knockdown in Ice Slick. Ice/Kinetics would boost your damage up a lot. Ice/Rad is a walking cloud of mezzes.

But any of the Control sets works. Gravity is the only one I'm iffy about, but its not so bad as to be unplayable.