Powerhelm

I'm an FF defender...I need a team even for bosses/elite bosses

So all this means is now I gotta do the same amount of work getting a team for less XP unless I wanna work to gather a large enough team or I wanna jack up my difficulty (thereby making the rest of the mission even harder too)

And now people can get those badges an accolade w/o ever having to team and probably without much risk to those ATs that are typically "soloers" anyway since those are Scrapper/Tanker and they can usually take on an even level AV without much fear of death.

Not sure what this change accomplishes other than to shut up the soloers by making one of the very few non-soloable aspects of the game softer for them.

Mid-Feb just for the Features Update?

Jeez....everyone must be on Vacation til then I can't imagine its a manpower time sink to post 2 or 3 screenies and a few lines of text...

Hey that'll make it 3+ months since the last Update...I think that'll be the longest we've gone w/o an update.

One step closer to once every 6-8 months and having to buy them

Also why do people continue to blame the winter event for these bugs? Most if not all the bug we've currently got we got with CoV/I6 (or before). How did creating a pair of missions a temp power and 3 badges cause all these bugs? Maybe changes they had planned on making anyway and just threw into the Winter Event patch are what caused these bugs people are blaming on the event.

Still not seeing an abundance of bugs that weren't already bugging us before the Winter Event though.

We have 6 updates, game has been out 18 months. That averages one update per 3 months on live. This will be 3 and a half and it'll just be going to the feature page.

This means close to 4 and a half months til onto test and another month or more (depending on content) We could be looking at April/May before we get another update, including expanding level range for villains many of which are already into the mid/late 30s.

Just wondering...


"miami's Bloody Mary"

Whats that about? Never heard of it...

Its all relative. When I did this to Night Before Xmas a few weeks (maybe a month by now) ago with Defenders of Paragon I thought it was funny

Anyway be Careful He_ beacuse I'll take you to court an Marvel yuo for doing a parody of the same song I parodied!

I'd like to be able to go back and do missions myself. It sucks that in order to experience evrything with a character I really like I must first wait a month or so after release so that everyone can find all the unlockable missions and badge missions so that I can experience all the content.

Just make missions scale to us no matter what level we are, save perhaps the first contact. Hell, don't make them scale and just let us wipe out missions full of greys! Then that solves the "We don't feel super" thing. Those people would still have other missions an street hunting for XP but they wouldn't miss out on content that, barring you know about it ahead of time and then go far out of your way to get the stuff to access it, you'll probably never see with your favorite character.

Especially if we get apartments or hideouts for just a single character. I have a feeling if those are ever made they'll finally apply graphics to souvenirs and let us use ours to decorate the place. If thats the case then we need flashback or the ability to go back to old contacts and do missions.

There are alot of storylines I missed out on because I didn't know about them both in CoV and CoH. It sucks we get punished for not buying a strategy guide.

I say small groups should keep whining!

If they don't keep dev attention then these changes that are coming "soon" won't happen ever...look at Skills...or so many of the tweaks an changes that have been "soon" 'd

Castle rocks!

Cuppa, rocks!

Of course Cuppa wants AT reps...we'd all go to our AT reps with problems instead of her and she'd be able to finish her 12" subs at lunch time w/o having to stop for PMs

I volunteer to be the Defender AT rep! ...atleast a subrep for Forcefield Defenders :-p

Oooh maybe Kheldian rep!


yeah...just gimme a free subscription an thats all ya need to pay me

Really love the entrance room CaptA very greek/roman

Jagged Force (? the group whose pics are on their news page) had the nicest looking over all though the one long room layout is something I don't like at all.

Several others had some nice looking individual rooms couple arcane libraries an such looked good.

I'm just a stickler for design. If we could place doors or have it drop down then I'd have a tech base with a heavy metal door that leads to a cave tunnel that opens into an arcane area but I really don't like combining the tilesets for both in the same base.

It just looks too mish-mashed when your walcing and suddenly is switches from titanium plates on the floors an walls to stone. If maybe there were intermediate tiles that had the look of torn up/peeled back steel panels revealing stone that existed there or something like that then it wouldn't be so ugly.

But seeing like an arcane base with a plasma tv in it...not a big fan. Just odd to have this mystical base and a corporate conference table headed by a 50" plasma tv...maybe if there were some arcane looking versions of these everyday items like chairs an such then it wouldn't be so bad, arcane meeting stone (aka conference table), etc etc

But nice work none the less its no ones fault except the devs that we don't have more selections or more complimentary stuff. But I'd like to think that stuff is coming sooner than "soon" (aka less than a year)

Did Arctic just get hired? It seems like there were almost no changes since CoH launched (aside from the most basic of temporary updates, PT articles, new fan art, Issue Updates) now there have been two villain group additions in the past month (aside from the new site itself of course) and can we expect more stuff about the poewrs and everything?

I did steal chemicals mission for Dr. Shelley for Mask Maker badge and didn't get a badge. only mission I didn't complete of hers was the protect her lab mission which failed when I stepped onto the third floor for the first time...which is a bug.

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These missions work alomst the same as every mission, if you leave the game for any reason, the mission needs to be redone, from the start. This should not be a suprise, since all the CoH missions have worked this way from day One.

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Yeah and all the CoH missions are instanced so you don't have to worry about being delayed by PvPers. Also in instanced missions your teammates remain in their and the mission progress is saved as long as the mission isn't reset. The Shivan power isn't really that good anyway so on top of everything else after actually getting the power I found that it almost wasn't worth the trouble.

Honestly you're better off doin the Croatoa TF and getting Amy's Ward, She's badass by herself let alone in comparison to the Shivan temp pet.

Personally not a fan of this. This just makes it annoying and un-fun to do these two missions. I coul see if say you logged that character out for 3 or 4 hours or weren't in the PvP zone for that amount of time.

But its just lame to get 5 out of 6 meteorites then hit a lag D/C or mapserver and come back just to have to do it all over again. Same with Warburg.

This is just another horribly planned thing involving the PvP zones. But since it's working "as intended" theres a good chance they'll never change it because for the most part we go on yelling while they ignore us

I'll become a couple that plays CoH together if any cute ladies want

But yeah there are several couples in my SG.

I think the big point here isn't even that its the servers that are dead.

Its Paragon City.

between 400-600 seems to be the average I'm seeing for numbre of heroes logged into most servers while villains are 900+

CoV and all the new hotness therein has cooled off CoH considerably.

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From December onwards you could pretty much argue a trend line up down or static. Id call it flat with fluctuation, but make of it what you will.

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Actually that line looks like its going down with a brief up turn before going down again.

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Really, what we as players note isn't the subscriber number per se, but how busy the server is. Now only the peak rate is released, but Peak rate divided over the servers shows essentially a flat line since December.

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Its showing the servers dieing after WoW release and having yet to recover.

Also lets not forget the numbre of people who play more than one box. I think your access numbers are most accurate. I'd still like to see solid numbers. Like how many different accounts accessed the game in the last month's time? Month before that? And before that one?

Looking at Catwhoorg's Chart you see that the number of subscribers dipped.

BUT

The number of US only subscribers isn't listed beyond that dip. The US AND Euro numbers combined are what has brought them back up to launch area numbers.

For all we know the European servers could be very busy (and in being popular in europe would be considered CoH subscribers worldwide but not ones on OUR US servers) and the US servers could be dead:

US launch 180,000

US now could be 50,000 and Euro could be 130,000 and so even though the subscription numbers are around the same as launch, the number of people on the american servers could not be as much.

Also if your methods of searching in game are good for finding EVERYONE on the server then thats not just CoH thats also CoV.

And you can't guarantee that everyone who is in CoV also plays CoH or has ever played it.

Basically it is entirely possible that the US servers aren't nearly as populated in CoH as they want us to believe.

US server numbers in CoH combined with Euro servers still doesn't add up to the numbers we had at the american launch.

Since we can't play with people on the Euro servers I'd like to see numbers from just the US servers charted as Catwhoorg did.

So why is it that around launch we heard "Official" numbers in the 100k+ as high as 180K at one point that I recall. Since the third month after launch and forward you guys have been very mum about those numbers.

Pre CoV as in say Friday before launch, and not counting free trials or any kind...

How Many Subscribers Were There?

And I'm talking active accounts.

Accounts that were paid for by the year and have sat unused for 5 months don't count, nor do accounts still active but whose billing was canceled or NCSoft account was deactivated (This would be to get the most accurate number while still weeding out those who cancelled/deactivated as a result of ED or other changes)

How Many? Official Numbers. From The Jack's mouth How many subscribers with active accounts with billing still active and that have been accessed in the last 90 days as of Friday before CoV. Again not counting free trials.

Hey if possible can you figure out how many accounts have more than one active in use CoH account and just mark that account as counting as one? Weed out dual+ boxers.

I rarely see yellow servers even before the upgrades and I play anywhere from 9-5pm ET and 9pm-2am ET

CoV launch day saw a couple yellow servers, Virtue and one other.

But I think it's more CoH is a ghost town than the servers.

CoV isn't a bussleing metropolis but its pretty active. CoH's community is probably either in PvP zones (as evidenced by the ten heroes casually standing in the middle of the villain base for a couple hours nailing everyone) or in CoV.

I wish you guys had done this a month or two ago

Played M:TG recently sold my entire collection for a hella good price considering some of the cards I had.

Anyway I will say one thing. Sometimes even if your already having fun a victory or defeat can get to you.

I know more than once I survived a big fight with a sliver an literally cused in joy.

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There is no debt as a result of PVP. There's debt, as a result of PVE in a PVP zone. Two different things. While you and I know he said that training mobs is a valid tactic, you still don't get the debt from PVP itself. Besides... if the situation is that bad, don't stick around.

"Only a fool mocks a tactical retreat."

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There is debt as a result of PvP. If a player hits me for 99% damage. Then they sleep me or otherwise hold me and a mob taps me for that last 1% I get debt. And Mobs have ranged attack. If a player trains a high level group or large enough group theres a good chance I won't even have a chance to get away especially if the player injures or holds me so that the mobs can finish me. Would these mobs have attacked me or been able to KO me without that player training them or injuring/holding me? If yes then its PvE debt. If no then its PvP debt.

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If video game victories mean nothing to you, then why play video games?

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This is what I was addressing in regards to bragging rights.

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Who said anything about bragging rights or trophies? Winning is winning. Losing is losing. That's it.

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You can play a game and not get a "victory" and still enjoy it. Hell, some of the most enjoyable moments are when you know you've done your absolute best. Win OR Lose. Seeing Oil Slick light on fire after a fire blaster attacked. We got wiped after that. Lost the battle. But it was still wicked fun seeing that power cooperation working and to hear reactions from people that didn't know you could do that :-p

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That's it. Competition is about knowing where you stand amongst your peers.

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In real-life yeah. In a game not as much. In a PvP game like this its a matter of die rolls and who read the better guide on how to make a good PvP */* build. So someone who could never beat you at any other game could concievably beat you if the computer rolls the dice in a way that you miss twice in a row with a big attack or they hit twice in a row with a big hold, etc. Yeah there is some skill involved in MMORPG PvP in the traditional design but not so much that anyone is inherently better at the game than anyone else. It just means one build isn't built for PvP or one build is always gonna be outmatched (Invuln Tank vs FF Defender for example). Getting "better" isn't so much a matter of practice ( though that does help some) as it is a matter of going online, looking up "the PvP" build and respecing into that.

As long as we keep this civil I'm happy to argue my point and look at your point! Maybe eventually one of us will word our argument in a way that clicks with the other one :-p

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Seriously? Take some responsibility for yourself. No one's forcing you to do anything. Decide what's more important to you: a badge and the possibility that an accolade is linked to it (which none are so far), or your fear of the risk of debt.

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The thing is there's not supposed to be debt as a result of PvP. But its extremely easy to get it from PvP in those zones and Jack has even condoned training mobs on a team to kill/weaken them as a valid tactic. So he's saying causing people debt is a valid PvP tactic.

I don't mind PvP its just one more group that will beat the tar out of my defenseless bubble defender. I'm used to that.

I'm saying in order to collect all the badges and possibly get a good accolade that will aid you in the game (there are accolades in CoV just none have been found atm) and to enjoy every story you MUST enter a PvP zone and in doing so consent to possibly being PK'd and even given forced debt (fly high over mobs, someone spots you, roots you, you drop, land an have 1 hp, mob KOs you an you get debt, or some other similar example)

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I mean, really. You're an adult, right? If I offer you a gold star badge, a candybar and a lottery ticket, and all you have to do is let an ape bugger you, will you do it? Probably not.

YOU decide. "Do I *need* this badge? Am I willing to take the risk of being killed, and possible getting debt?"

If you are, then have at it. If not, then stop complaining. There's no crime here.

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I'm just saying in atleast one sense PvP is mandatory and entering PvP zones will be mandatory for badge hounds and possibly people that want Accolade goodness.

Yeah its my choice whether I get the badges or not, but to some people its not a choice at all they HAVE to have them all.

I don't recall screaming that this must be changed (though the debt issues in PvP need to be looked at before people start debt griefing. I've mentioned on the CoV Beta forums that perhaps if a player does 50% or their attack causes 50% or more (root up high and drop for heavy damage) then mob KOs the victim it maybe could be debt free). Nor did I say move the badges out of PvP. All I said was that, in fact, PvP is mandatory to get everything out of the game.

Why this is a subject that requires questioning of my maturity or age or intelligence or whatever baffles me.

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Those folks who consider themselves "competitive", like to believe their video game victories have meaning.

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That doesn't just go for competetive or PVP people, really. If video game victories mean nothing to you, then why play video games? A gamer, of any preference, should believe their game victories have meaning to them (not to others).

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Well I dunno if he meant "meaningless" but maybe that at the end of the day you really have gained nothing. You beat someone of unknown age/skill in a game where its just as much about the random die roll as it is game knowledge or skill.

Oh, and I dunno about some people but most people I know play games for fun, not trophies or bragging rights. Victory means nothing to them if they had fun. Well no, victory is more like the icing on the "fun cake".

fun cake......funnel cake......mmmmm

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While you did say "if you want to get everything out of the game," you went another direction with that last statement. So which is it?

Are they only mandatory, because you want them, resulting in a semi-masochistic habit? Or do you feel they're mandatory, period, making the statement false?

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They are both necessary to get everything out of the game (story, etc) and to be the best you can be (HP/End buff, etc. whose to say the CoV buffs won't be as good or better than current CoH ones?)


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Okay people PVP is NOT I repeat NOT required in CoH/CoV. Yes there are badges in PVP zones, if you want them, sneak in there and get them, no debt from a PVP death. As far as accolades from those badges/plaques no one is certain of that yet, even so NO DEBT FROM PVP.

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Not everyone will be a double stealthed Stalker.

In PvP yes no debt, but In the PvP zones theres debt. Example:

I go in stealth/invis'd

I find plaque. I click it. Boom suddenly I get hit with an attack from Robo MMs w/ tactics running. Blap! I get Force Bolted with a sliver of life right into a group of 5 white/yellow/orange mobs.

I die.

I get debt.

People have and will do this. And often. Why? They're excuses will be: "Its a PvP zone, duh!" "I'm a villain. Its villainous to give you debt."

I'm not worried about PvP I'm worried about the jerks that will hit me for 70% HP then train mobs on me or push me into mobs to finish me off for debt.

All because, in order to aquire a full set of badges, just for the sake of collecting them, I was forced to enter a PvP zone.

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It is NOT mandatory to have some extra exploration badges, badges showing that you killed a certain number of bad guys, or any of the helpful (but not necessary) accolades.

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5. Badges and Accolades are NOT, by any means, necessary.

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Well I didn't realize I said Badges were necessary...I did say PvP was necessary to get everything out of the game. There are stories and badges in the PvP zones that cannot be seen or aquired anywhere else.

And also I'd say +15% HP and +10% End is darn near required...thats what I have right now from two accolades in CoH and I imagine it'll be similar in CoV.

If people didn't feel those accolades and having that boost to HP and END were needed then they wouldn't bother getting them. I've seen people with barely any badges save those required for the HP/END accolades.

I imagine 15% more HP is alot. Especially to a tank or Scrapper. That can mean a few more punches they can take. And anything that improves your HP and/or END I believe is required...especially post ED.

I assume none of you "Badges/Accolades aren't necessary" guys actually have those HP/END accolades. I mean after all no point in wasting time getting them if they aren't necessary.

If none of the PvP zone badges are related to accolades of any quality worthy of use (ie HP/END perma-buff) then fine let them be there. But as it is...if you want all the badges/accolades in CoV then you are forced into PvP.