PirateCrew

You don't need me to tell you - the world you created is unique and wonderful.

It was worth every penny I spent on it and every moment I spent in it.

Thank you.

Since I last posted:
23 common
4 uncommon
0 rare
1 very rare

17 more arcs completed:
14 C
3 UC

Side note: The random drop has not been kind to me recently...nothing better than uncommon since March 19th (out of 32 drops). Ouch. Hope you're all having better luck.

Same issue happened to me yesterday.

-On Ouro flashback for Heather Townshend's arc
-Queued up for Lambda trial while in DA
-Entered mission 3
-Nearly completed mission 3 when the window popped up asking me to join (#15 of 16)
-I clicked the final glowie to complete the mission, and it completed
-While still in the completed mission, I clicked Yes to join the Lambda
-I was immediately ejected from the mission
-Out in the DA zone, the LFG window now said that the event was waiting to start (I waited for about 2 minutes, but nothing changed)
-I relogged, hoping that it was a temporary problem and that I could rejoin last event
-I did get the option to rejoin, but it failed, saying that the event could not be found
-I was no longer in the Ouro flashback, all progress had been lost

Over a week ago, I was able to successfully join a trial while on a flashback of the same arc. Unfortunately I don't recall the exact circumstances, to see what might have allowed it to work that time but not this one. During that previous and apparently successful "Flashback mission 1 -> Mission 2 -> iTrial -> Mission 2 -> 3 -> 4" attempt, I was drawn into the trial from within the incomplete mission 2. My progress on the mission was lost (as expected - WAI), but I remained in flashback mode after the trial ended and I was able to finish the remaining missions.

So far this morning, my version of this problem seems to have disappeared, at least temporarily. After zoning multiple times on 2 characters, I haven't been mapserved. Wish there was something I could point to as a fix for others, but in my case the cause and resolution(?) remains a mystery.

I am experiencing mapserver issues (only when zoning) and login failures that only began today and have been occurring for over 8 hours. So far cannot trace it to anything that I'm doing in-game or anything with my computers, network, modem, or isp...

Symptom #1:
Frequent mapserver problem while zoning; 25% to 50% of the time. At other times, the zones load quickly as usual. I've seen this with a variety of zoning methods such as clicking on a mission door, clicking on an Ouro portal, a tram door, or the exit button for a completed mission. The general CoH loading screen appears, with a progress bar at the bottom, but no progress is made and eventually the client sends me back to the login screen with a dialog box saying "No mapServer connection. Try again." Netgraph looks normal (low to medium green) before this happens. Sometimes the loading screen does not appear at all - my character walks through the door, I wait a while, and the message appears over the UI. At this point the client is mostly unresponsive but it will let me quit to desktop though the in-game menu.

A similar problem occurs when logging in, though perhaps only 10 to 20% of the time.
I choose a character and click the Next arrow, but no loading screen appears, it just stops animating the character selection screen. After a while, the client returns to the login screen with the same message.

Symptom #2:
Apparent connection failures between my game client and the login server with the message "The game client was unable to connect to the login server...", 50 to 75% of the time when I try to log in. This may happen one, five, or ten times in a row, no pattern that I can see. Restarting the client, verifying files, and other tricks seem to work no better than simply waiting and attempting to log in after each error message.

If Symptom #1 has been seen recently and with no intervening "good" logout, then eventually I get the message that the account is already logged in. My next attempt to log in may (or may not) work...when it fails, I get the feeling like the login server opened a window for a moment to say "Oh. It's you." before slamming it shut again.

Symptom #3:
A brief problem that the NC updater had when connecting and trying to start the game after one of my (many) client restarts today; it may be unrelated.


Submitted a bug report in game, but will open a support ticket tomorrow if it doesn't clear up overnight.

Tracert and ping to 64.25.35.107 are not indicating a problem for me during these times.

I am seeing some similar symptoms... 2 characters on Infinity and 1 on Virtue lost mapserver connection while zoning (one into Cim, then the other two as I tried to log in). Then I wasn't able to log in for at least ten minutes, while I tried restarting the client.

After I was able to log in, the problem was gone for about 30 minutes...and I joined a task force on Virtue with a fourth character. First two missions of the Katie Hannon TF went well...but on the third mission, mapserver connection was lost (with a long blackscreen) while entering the map. It gave me a small dialog window to "try again" but ultimately I had to restart the client. Second try, same result. The team had moved on the the fourth and final mission. Same thing happened when I tried to enter that map. Restarted yet again.

As of now, I'm getting the "game client unable to connect..." message again when I attempt to log in.

History shows that pirates are always ready to pay high prices for low-quality goods from monopolies.
...oh wait.

In honor of the marketing wizards who came up with this one, today's regularly scheduled ITLAPD has been replaced by International Talk Like An East India Company Merchant Day.

A cautionary tale... hope this was an exception, but this week's strike target may not be working correctly yet.

I was on a team of 8 on Virtue, we completed the heroside WST at about 10am central time. I got the 20 merit award, but did not receive the bonus of 20 merits and the notice. Other team members said they had the same issue. Most of us sent petitions.

This power disappearance has happened to me twice over the last month, once on a trial, and for the other time I don't recall the team/mission setup. In both cases, I used /netgraph and noticed a large red spike at the moment the powers disappeared. When I was on the trial, the powers did come back after a short time. In the other case, I zoned and the problem was resolved.

In another possibly related case, I was on a Lambda trial about 3 days ago, and my league and team windows lost all their contents, displaying only the large quit button. League and team member names also changed to the colors I'd expect if I had left my team/league. I continued to play as if nothing had happened; no one else seemed to notice or have this problem. After a few minutes, the window appeared normal again and the character names returned to the correct teammate/leaguemate coloring. Netgraph showed a red spike at the start of this issue as well.

I do encourage you to hang on to your ideas and not get mired in the odd debate over how many threads a solo/team option can give without causing a mass exodus from the trials. There are a number of advantages I see to your plan:

1) From a story-driven perspective, it's very enticing to me. "Incarnate difficulty" settings for existing TFs, or Prometheus sending me back in time, are fine ideas - just not as interesting or focused on free-choice for the individual. I (or my characters) would love the ability to decide, at any moment, to raid Praetorian military or scientific targets. Even though I'm all heroside, the "must bring friends" league/trial design leaves me feeling less significant. As Incarnate heroes, my characters would like the freedom to use their powers and to make decisions to push the war toward a Primal-Earth victory. That would feel...significant. I can see even stronger reasons for many players who have villains and rogues to prefer this concept over the other proposals.

2) I've done over two hundred trials. They are my only reasonable advancement path above alpha. I'll put it as gently as I can - variety would be wonderful, and if variety isn't provided then I will seek it elsewhere. The desire for variety will not be satisfied with a third trial or even 100 trials. Variety = multiple paths, each one reasonably rewarding according to my definition of reasonable, for different playstyles. Your idea goes far toward satisfying the requests for soloing and small teaming options, and even helps many (like me) who would like to mix it with the trials; for times when a trial is not running, or when a player cannot commit to a structured encounter for any number of reasons (family, connection issues, medical, being on call...).

3) Unlike storyarcs through Ouro, tip missions could be abandoned mid-mission without major loss or simply alternated with other storyarc/TF content on a per-mission basis. This flexibility is valuable and can help reduce the "starting to feel grindy" or "standing around waiting for Trial/TF to start" factors. If the storyarc idea is designed well, instead of locking characters into Ouro mode, it could overcome the problem I mentioned. However, anything storyarc-based must still deal fairly with people who join/leave a team partway through, especially if the biggest rewards are only granted at the end. Incarnate tips could avoid this problem by simply reusing the alignment tips tech, where each mission earns credit on a personal progress bar rather than on the mission holder's contact progress bar.

4) If a further enhancement to the LFG queue allows queuing from within missions, even if only from inside Incarnate tip missions...the story makes complete sense. My character could notice (or be notified of) a major conflict (the trial starting up) while in Praetoria already, and choose to assist or not.

5) Strong potential for players to create tip-style missions in the AE, which the developers could tweak to fit the requirements (difficulty, time, and story) and copy-paste into an expanding list of valid missions. I think a number of AE mission-makers would enjoy the chance to contribute to the incarnate storyline, even if only "at the edges" through repeatable tip-style missions that strike a variety of Praetorian targets, assist Resistance members, or even rescue innocent Praetorian citizens from the crossfire. If the developers have some spare time and wish to add in-mission choices, that would be even more impressive. Such choices could be along the loyalist/resistance spectrum, the slow vs fast path to power from the well, or hero/rogue/villain/vigilante (though perhaps not affecting alignment due to being minor choices or not being known to Primal Earth).

6) It can be adapted to future incarnate content as well, to continue to provide soloing and small-to-large teaming options against The Coming Storm. A poorly-designed solo option might get sidelined by that transition, but yours seems flexible enough. Choosing an inflexible system now might force us back into "only leagues and trials" mode with The Coming Storm as we may go through another content bottleneck. I fully understand that the developers have limited resources with which to create content, so a solo/team option that has the potential to survive (and thrive?) under that strain gets five stars from me.


Hopefully this is useful feedback, and feel free to take any ideas...they are open source!
I will of course look at the ideas in the linked thread, hopefully they have much in common.

The window that pops up when doing a trial component downgrade (or sidegrade, I assume, but haven't checked) counts as a "reward window" and will overwrite another reward window (from completing a trial, for example). The previous reward is lost.

There isn't any in-game warning or confirmation for this, that I could find. It's also not obvious to a first-time user of the down/sidegrade option that it would use the same "reward" window that the TFs and trials do.

Please add some safety measure to prevent accidental loss of reward windows when using the (wonderful!) new features in the incarnate window to convert components. It could take many forms - maybe:
"Are you sure? This will overwrite the open reward window." popup when a downgrade is attempted while a reward window is open, or
"Cannot downgrade component while a reward window is open" error message in chat.

Marauder's Nova Fist message seems to have a range limit.

If he has recently jumped to a new location, and I arrive soon after he lands but not immediately, then I can be out of range of the warning at the time it is given, but in range by the time he uses Nova Fist.

Another possibility is packet loss...the /netgraph command can reveal whether this is happening. In order for your game client to display the red warning text, it must have received a message from the server telling it to do so. While lost packets of game info might ordinarily make it appear that enemies or friends are "rubberbanding" around, or that several enemy powers stack (hitting you all once), in this case it may lose an important warning.

I've also occasionally gone from having 1 seq warning to 3 (sequestered) despite only having aggro from 1 AV and seeing no second warning or ring. As of yet I am unsure of the reason or the circumstances that lead to this.

Really well done! The "photography" style is excellent and the combination of tips and background stories to set up the whole issue had me laughing and getting costume ideas at the same time.

Brought a smile to my face, thank you!

So to summarize:

1) Actual mez protection, from...

a) Perma Indomitable Will through very high recharge (this is quite nice ^_^). Use any combination of hasten, siphon speed, AM, IOs, set bonuses, Spiritual Alpha, and Ageless Destiny (new in Issue 20) to make this happen and it will help all your other controls and buffs/debuffs too. Watch out for enemies with recharge debuffs, either mez them or have enough recharge and recharge debuff resistance (from Ageless Destiny) to counteract them.

b) the new issue 20 Destiny slot has a "Clarion" option which lasts 120 seconds and recharges in 120 seconds once upgraded to Partial Core Invocation (third tier) or Core Epiphany (fourth tier). Due to the way this works, the protection is much lower than Indomitable Will's for part of the time, and there may be a gap where your attack toggles will drop if Clarion wears off while you have a mez effect on you. You'd have to retoggle hot feet after you hit the (now recharged) Clarion power - though it does act as a breakfree.

c) Acrobatics (minor hold protection only). Personally I didn't find this to be worth the power choice and endurance, since stuns and sleeps and double-stacked holds broke through it.

2) Mez them before they mez you. Learn which enemies have mezzes and control them first. Bosses, EBs, and AVs can still give you trouble though, or large groups where your 5% or higher chance to miss will often allow minion or lieutenant mezzers to take shots at you.

3) High defense against whatever mezzing enemies you tend to face. This is often ranged or AoE defense, but if you're in melee range of some enemies (Tsoo, Freaks, etc) then melee defense or smashing defense may be needed too. Unfortunately this is not always effective against Psi-type mezzes since they may bypass your ranged/AoE defense, such as Carnies and Council Vampyri. Indomitable Will has Psi Defense built-in though, so see #1a!

4) Mez resistance from special IOs and AM, to reduce the duration of mezzes. Not effective by itself, but it does make low levels of mez protection (such as Clarion as it degrades) feel stronger by reducing the chance that mezzes will stack on you and overcome your protection.

5) a couple of Breakfrees, for when the above fails.

From my experience, this is roughly in order of effectiveness for what you're asking to do. I currently use 1a, 2, 3, 4 and 5 together on a fire/kin and ill/rad, and to a lesser extent on a plant/storm. It's not cheap or simple, but it works and I never buy breakfrees.

You also have the option to try a dominator...with enough recharge to have perma domination, you'll get a similar (better?) un-mezzable controllery experience from the primary powerset, but of course the secondary powerset choices are very different.

Good luck.

Yes, sounds like the same trouble I'm having. I get that at the launcher, or if I bypass the launcher, I get the "unable to connect to login server" message when I try to log in with the game client.

It happened to me twice this morning while on an ITF... first time, I mapserved and couldn't get back in for almost 10 minutes (tried various things, just randomly let me back in)...then about 5 minutes later, mapserved a second time and have not been able to log in since about 6am Eastern.

A bit late, since I think I already saw you in the list for our channels...hope you find them to be as helpful and active as the Freedom one that you found. In case others are interested, there are two very active public channels for recruiting for TFs, SFs, Trials, Raids, and Events:

Virtue TFs
The original channel, now used as overflow for the one below. Growing rapidly.

Virtue TFs 2010
This often has the highest # of online players of all channels in CoH. Usually full but we've got the 30-day inactive kick command running, so you can get in if you're lucky.

On the topic of ATI drivers,
I use Windows Vista and the HD5770 card. After updating drivers beyond 10.9, I saw an increased number of crashes per day with the game client - the screen stopped updating while trying to start an Ouro arc (almost always) and opening detailed info (occasionally). This caused Windows to reset the drivers and crash the game. Also, any "still photos" of contacts sometimes appeared glitchy or pixelated. I put up with the problem for about a month, trying several things to fix it. I finally reverted the drivers to 10.9 and have had no further trouble for over a week. ^_^

My experience with settings is similar to newchemicals'. I do not use bloom or ambient occulusion, since both have a more negative effect on framerate and gameplay than any graphical benefit they provide for me.

Everyone, insert your keys...

Turn your keys in 3...2...1...

*flips clear plastic cover off of AWESOME button*

LAUNCH!!!! ^_^

Certainly it's fine for some enemies to have exceptions to the 50% base To-Hit and/or accuracy bonuses beyond the standard values, or the ability to self buff above 50%. As noted above, the list is quite long already:

> Rularuu eyes
> Many gun-based enemies including snipers for Nemesis and Crey, some Malta, and Turrets
> Longbow, CoT, RIP (probably others) with buffs such as Fortitude and Tactics
> Devouring Earth when quartz pet is summoned, and Crystal Titan inherent
> Pets (all? some? summoned vs pseudopets? inherited accuracy may convolute this)
> Certain attacks by normal enemies which are designed for autohit or elevated acc / to-hit, such as Nemesis death explosions, gasseous AoEs by Nem and Crey, Freak super stunner boss rez, several Longbow AoE debuffs, CoT earth controls, KoA caltrops, etc.
> AE enemies with self-buffs such as build up
> Dopplegangers (tip missions & maybe elsewhere) with self-buffs such as build up
> Probably more I'm forgetting.

These can at least "make sense" to the player (with the possible exception of pets) because they are story-driven based on enemy abilities and are consistent in all zones/instances. The right amount of def-breaking powers in game is a different matter and I'm not going to touch that topic.

However, I am left confused and suspect a bug since Devouring Earth already have a means to buff their to-hit via the quartz pet, DE in zones were unchanged, and an inconsistent list of DE in tip missions have the elevated to-hit without any in-game reason or patch notes.

That list of other new enemies with 64% to-hit could be revealing. Since I'm only aware of this one new oddity with the tip mission DE, it looked more like a bug than a pattern of intent.

It wasn't just the Greater Devoured. Several weeks ago I noticed that all enemies in those L50 hero tip DE cave missions (there's a "save the scientists" one too) had 64% tohit. I checked the combat logs and used the power analyzer temp power (same results as in pics above) on the other DE such as herders, deathblossoms, etc.

Normal non-boss DE in city zones (I believe I checked in Founders Falls) had the expected 50% tohit. I did not at the time check Greater Devoured in a city zone, since I was more surprised by the "buffed" minions in the caves, and couldn't find a story-driven reason for the buff... and therefore submitted it as a bug.

GR originally included UltraMode graphics, at the time the Loyalty Program was announced. That's why some people are questioning whether access to test/explore this feature remains as a benefit of the Loyalty Program, or not.

As you stated, Demon Summoning's inclusion on test server is speculation.