Positron

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I can't think of a reason why the devs would want to "avoid" having level 50's generate extra prestige. It sounds like a perfect reward for maxing out your character, to me.

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Why would you want anything other than level 50's in your SG then?

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I see that while in SG mode you get Prestige instead of influence. However, if you go to the lady in Atlas Park (who you setup the SG and base with) she will sell you prestige for 2000 every 100000 influence. Note thats 50 influence to 1 prestige.

However, at level 40, I get like 17 prestige or 1200 influence. But I can 'buy' 24 prestige for 1200 influence. So, even if I want prestige, I'll do better staying out of SG mode since I can buy more prestige with the influence I get out of SG mode than I get as pure prestige in SG mode per defeat.

Of course this is based on like 2 hours of play, so there may be lots of details I'm not aware of (yet)...

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Check your decimal places.

It's 2000p for 1,000,000 inf. (1 per 500, not 1 per 50).

There is NO badge for defeating enemies in the tutorial. The ONLY badge attainable in the tutorial map is the exploration badge.

Now that being said, I rolled up my character last night, got him to level 6 and saw someone with the Tutorial badge and went "Doh! I forgot to get it!"

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They had to do this, otherwise the exploit for it is REALLY obvious.


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Oh definitely. It makes perfect sense, I just wasn't thinking about it when I deleted the alt and therefore put it out as a warning.

I do disagree with going into the negatives if you spend the Prestige and then someone leaves. Perhaps if they leave in less than X amount of time, I could see it. (To prevent THAT exploit)...but leaving in general causing loss of Prestige is silly. If they earned the Prestige while in the SG, and the Prestige was spent while they were in the SG, then I don't see a problem... (As long as they were a member for say, a minimum of 30 days.)

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Any Prestige they EARN while fighting in SG Mode stays. The -only- thing lost is 20,000 when your group loses a member that drops them below 15, or are already below 15.

Right.

You do NOT need to reform your SG. We have the bug fixed here internally, and in the patch after the next one your SG will get it's 20,000p per member, up to 15. You need to do nothing in order for this to happen, it will be automagic.

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New SGs are still granted the 36,000,000 prestige. I've tried on 2 seperate characters, with the last one just being a few minutes ago and both SGs started with 36,020,000 prestige.

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This is a BUG.

New Supergroups are only supposed to get the 20,000 Prestige for having 1 member.

Supergroups who took advantage of the bug (either on purpose or accidentally) will have the 36,000,000 Prestige removed. You can't spend any of it until CoV goes live anyway.

Yes

With Enhancement Diversification comes a benefit for ALL City of Heroes powers.

Every power, across the board, is getting a 13.33% reduction in its Endurance cost.

If you do (or are on a team that does) 25% or more of the Giant Monster's HP in damage, then you (your team) will receive the badge for defeating the Giant Monster.

So up to 4 teams can get the badge off a single Giant Monster, if each did EXACTLY 25% of the Giant Monster's hit points (not likely).

Ok, we screwed up.

We knew that Sally was going to be rare. We knew that with 1 HP she was going to dive under the water before most people ever saw her. This was going to lead to her being "mythical" and rarely seen on a server. We had a spawn rate in mind when we designed everything, including the lowering the requirements down to 2 Sally Defeats for the Believer badge.

Then I noticed someone asking that the spawn rate be "lowered to 2 1/2 to 3 hours". I said to myself, "Self, that doesn't sound right, she should already be spawning at a better rate than that." So me and one of the programmers went in and looked at the spawn rate.

Yikes.

A minimum of 10 hours between spawns was NEVER our intention. This means Sally would spawn once or twice a DAY. Defeating her twice at this crazy rate is a task I would never wish upon CoH players.

We have fixed it today (I don't know when it will make it to the Training Room server) so there is a maximum of 1 hour between spawns. This still makes her "rare", but it's now within the realm of possibility that casual players will get to defeat her twice within their time in Croatoa, and thus earn the badge.

Again, we are very sorry about this.

(Nip in the bud time: The spawn was set up in a way that we intended to have her spawn at a much faster rate than she was, but the fact that the spawn was ALSO set up to make sure that only 1 Sally was active at a time prevented her from being spawned at the faster rate. This was not obvious until we investigated claims that it was taking over 4 hours for her to Spawn. In our original thinking, it was just "someone else got to her before you did", but comments from you guys had me go in and investigate it further).

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I would like to point out something I strongly believe.

IMO, they will not datamine and award pestige for being in SG mode before CoV.

I believe as the badges were too much of an undertaking for this staff, this would be also.

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It's already been confirmed that they have been actively recording SG mode usage and prestige aquisitions, since probably Issue 4.

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No. We have NOT been recording SG mode since ANY issue. I will also confirm that NO datamining will be happening (for exactly the reasons given above).

Just to clear some stuff up:

The fact that you did the Task Force is NOT stored on your character anywhere. There is (well, there WAS) no reason to store this, since you could do them over and over again.

Suggestions like "just datamine ME" or "just datamine the level 44+ characters" don't narrow down the database query at all. We still need to look at ALL the data for the specific bits of Task Force related goodness that says "yes, this guy did the Task Force".

As for assigning the badges to those with the souvenirs. That -might- (in the biggest sense of the word) be possible, but it will have to wait until some of the engineers get their heads up from City of Villains to take a look at this. Rest assured that I am looking into this option (which I know doesn't satisfy everyone).

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I do have one question: why were only the Freedom Phalanx Task Forces given badges in Issue 2, and not the new Task Forces that had been added? This is just a question, not some kind of slam. If it was because you didn't think badges would be so well received, that's understandable. If it's because of the difficulty of adding a badge to a Task Force, I'm hoping you might explain that difficulty so that more of us might understand.

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Ok, here's some insight into the design process.

When badges were created for Issue 2, an Accolade was ordered that required several pieces outside of Design in order to happen. That Accolade was called the Task Force Commander badge. It was to grant you a costume piece as it's "special thing", much like the Croatoa Witches' Hat.

The requirements for this Accolade were to be the Freedom Phalanx Task Force Badges. Other Task Forces would not be required, even though they were being released parallel to the badge system. So as not to confuse the players, the other TF's were intentionally not given badges.

So we got the Freedom Phalanx Task Force badges, but the Accolade needed Tech (rewarding costume piece) and 3D Art (the new costume piece itself). It didn't get either so the Accolade never happened.

Time moves forward. We eventually get the abilit to reward costume pieces, but when it came time to revisit the badge it just seemed like a bad idea in retrospect (especially with all the badge-giving TF's now), so the 3D art was never ordered.

Hope that clears that up.

Sorry. No new Hollows badge. My bad.

New badges are for Moonfire, Dr. Quaterfield, Sara Moore, and Faathim the Kind.

Back in the day, we had Souvenir clues being issued when you completed certain Task Forces in City of Heroes. These caused a lot of problems, mostly because the way the game worked, these could not be awarded reliably to people who actually completed the Task Force.

We did, however, have a type of reward that could be given reliably: Badges. Everyone who did the Task Force could be given a Badge upon completion. Unfortunately Task Forces before Issue 4 didn't have any badge associated with them. With Issue 5, we have remedied that situation, and now have badges for the Task Forces that lacked them before.

When the badges came in issue 2, three months after launch, we datamined players so we could retroactively give them their Freedom Phalanx Task Force badges that they earned. What seemed like a simple query actually turned into a huge process that took months to complete, and still not everyone who was due a badge was given one. This was our only option, however, because we had no way for players to "go back" and do Task Forces that they levelled past.

We find ourselves in a similar situation today. We have new badges for Task Forces that didn't have them before (Hollows, Striga, Shadow Shard), but the possiblity of datamining presents the same challenges today as it did over a year ago. We now have 1 year, plus, of data to sift through, and we just don't have the resources available to do a datamine on that scale. The datamine would take 1 year, at least, to complete. Faced with this we fast tracked something the players have asked for: Auto-exemplaring on Task Forces.

We never gave up on a datamine solution, even though we were allowing ALL players, regardless of level, to easily go back and join Task Forces to repeat the content. In the end, however, there just was no way for us to do the datamine of that size. This is why we were silent for so long. We wanted to find a solution that made everyone happy. Unfortunately that solution doesn't exist.

We are going forward with the situation as it is. If you would like one of the new Task Force badges, you will need to re-do the content. We made it as easy as possible for you to re-do the content with the Auto-exemplar feature. We're sorry, and apologize to players who feel they have to re-do content that they don't want to, just to earn a reward they feel they should already have.

Customer Service is NOT able to grant you these badges for any reason. Petitioning to get the new badges will not get you the new badges, only a polite reply that it is not possible to do so.

Now the biggest pain in the butt Task Forces are most resoundedly the Shadow Shard ones. I talked with Manticore this morning about this and he agreed to rework these into shorter, more engaging, Task Forces in an upcoming issue (possibly 7 or 8, maybe sooner though). The badges for these "new" Task Forces will be the same as the old ones, so characters that get the Shadow Shard TF badges between now and when the new SSTFs come out won't have to re-do them again.

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Second...why are there never resources for things the players want, but always enough to nerf them? It had to take some serious hacking of the system to add clicks that automatically shut off after 30 seconds, but that was worth the effort.

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Geko and I were both surprised to find out that the powers system already DID this, so no extra coding was involved. Trust me. If it involved engineering, we would have found a different solution.


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So, I was wondering how the DAmage taken/Health Healed/Mezed/Influence badges work? DO they work the same as the TF badges? or is that work in a diffrent way, because I dont want to waste time trying to get a head start and then find out I have to statr all over in i5.

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When a new badge goes into the game it begins to start tracking it's requirements for the player. Say we add a "100 Sky Raider Shield Generator" badge in an upcoming issue. Since we never tracked Shield Generators before, it begins tracking it as soon as the update goes up. Previous Sheild Generators are not counted.

But if we, in a later issue, add a "500 Sky Raider Shield Generator" badge, then we would have already been counting the Shield Generators, even beyond 100. So if, when the issue goes live, you had killed 501 Shield Generators, you would be issued the badge upon logging in.

So healing, damage taken, influence earn, debt, etc.... all that stuff is currently being tracked on your characters, so when the new badges go in, you will have a head start on them. No datamine required.

I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.

The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.

We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.

We're making some tweaks with Defiance in the upcoming patch.

It is not getting a major overhaul though. Just tweaking the defiance so it starts to kick in earlier. The overall buffs posted earlier are staying about the same (getting only slightly better), but you will be recieving a damage buff earlier in your health bar now.

This will be reflected in the Defiance meter as well. We've made some tweaks to that as well.

I want to stress that you actually can end up being buffed over 500% with Defiance. (500% is the max buff for Blasters) This actually does nothing except protect you from damage debuffs.

This is one of the rare instances in Issue 5 where a solo character is able to reach a cap without help (or inspirations).

We are continuing to look at the set. Being one of the new sets in the game, it is going to be scrutinized beyond just the Training Room server.

If the set continues to prove itself sub-par on the Live servers, then some adjustments will be made.

This was one of the hardest sets to define. It falls out of line with the "normal" Defender sets. It isn't a buff set, its a debuff set. Its really a different playstyle than Defenders have had before.

For those who complain that the Archetypes who have the fewest sets were overlooked... the next planned powersets are melee based.

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Please datamine all the other TFs, particularly Calvin Scott which can't be redone.


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There is no badge for Calvin Scott.

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Since the number of monkeys has been reduced on test, will there be epic defeat badges?

So, those that have the 10K for Zookeeper would have 2 badges (1K and 10K)


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There was talk of adding one... but it would be beyond reason for anyone to attain the 10,000 Monkey badge at this point. The reason the badge was lowered in the first place was to compensate for the increased difficulty in getting to 10,000.

If we made a 10,000 badge now, we'd have the same problem all over again.

I want to make sure that you guys know that Ice-based powers work on the fires as well. That is why you are able to target the fires with any power.

Ok, this set is currently undergoing a revision.

The fact was that it was too "Controllery" for a Defender power. There were also a lot of redundant debuffs that made the set VERY powerful.

Here are a list of changes that are currently being made. They are not in a patch yet, so I don't know when they will make it to the Training Room server:

<ul type="square">
Net Arrow: Removed Recharge debuff from Net arrow (Set already has many recharge debuffs)

Ice Arrow: Ice Arrow is now available later (swapped availability of Ice arrow and flash arrow). Increased recharge and decreased duration of Ice Arrow. Reduced Slow debuff. (To bring it in line with similar hold powers like Petrifying Gaze). Reduced base Accuracy of Ice Arrow. It was 120% of normal and should not have been.

Poison Gas Arrow: Increased Recharge of Poison Gas Arrow to 60 seconds from 24 seconds to prevent multiple stacking. Removed Recharge debuff from Poison Gas Arrow. Reduced its duration/lifetime. Reduced its chance to sleep. Fixed Poison Gas Arrow visual f/x.

Acid Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Acid Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack)

Disruption Arrow: Reduced Damage Resistance debuff of Disruption Arrow. (Set has 2 damage resistance debuffs that could stack). Increased Recharge rate of Disruption Arrow to 120 for Defender and Controller to prevent multiple stacking

Glue Arrow: Reduced Duration of Glue Arrow from 45 seconds to 30 second and Increased Recharge time from 20 seconds to 120 seconds to prevent multiple stacking. Fixed Glue Arrow visual f/x.

Flash Arrow: Added the ability to add Accuracy Enhancements to Flash Arrow. Fixed Controller version so it no longer AutoHits.[/list]

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And yes we had no travel powers, we had the... Mynxmobile. Please don't ask, I was trying not to fall over laughing the whole time

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BWHAHAHAHA! omg I'm dying here!! mynxmobile &lt;snickers&gt; How about the Statesman scooter? The Positronplane? or would that be the Posiplane? Thanks Luna for the laugh.

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That's Positron-Glider.

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Yeah, we really do...

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...

BAD DEV. NO COOKIE.

Edit: Oh, I just BET there's a 'witch hat' temporary power. That would so rock.

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I'll take that bet.