Primal

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Sigh... do you hate this game so, that you want it to end up in the same trouble that Oblivion currently got?

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Bah, this is the second or third time someone has mentioned Oblivion getting in trouble, apparently for some sort of ratings issue, and nobody's bothered to explain it. Do I HAVE to Google for it?

I have Oblivion, have in fact been playing it and CoV most every night. What juicy, scandalous material am I missing?

I must agree, that the Thug "feel" is really pretty cool. I can't precisely put my finger on why, but the pistols have a nice, SOLID sound to 'em, especially when your shots knock somebody down. Mercs come close, but machine guns just don't have the same punch...in a game anyway. Yeah yeah, in real life they-. Pshh, whatever. It's really awesome when your henches knock somebody down, then you pull both guns out, and drill the cabron while he's laying on the floor.

Like I said, there's a feel to the Thugs set that I just really like. They feel more, I dunno...realistic. They aren't coldly efficient like the Ninja and Mercs, nor are they quite as out there as the Undead. It's like the difference between a disciplined martial arts match, and a drunken pit-fight.

Can't wait for it to go live.

You don't rename your henches? Mine so far are named Chico and Ray-ray. Gonna name my Bruiser (er, the third-tier anyway) Little-bit.

Lots of people complain about the changing appearance, but I think they'd complain about a set appearance too...what if you don't like the look they get? Reroll?

EDIT: I was thinking Enforcer was the third-tier. Duh.

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Kind of gave me the idea that perhaps if you create a female Thug MM then you might offer female Pets. I know other setslike Merc's, Zombies, and Ninja's don't have that but it would fit this particular AT a little better than the others. An all chick gang... I kind of like that idea.

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My MM is female, and in fact was originally visualized as the impromptu "leader" of a female gang. I adapted a little bit when it turned out the Thugs were all going to be male, again. At any rate, I certainly would not have any problem with some female henches, and they've been asked for since at least beta.

There's an ongoing rumor about a Carnie MM, but frankly I doubt that's gonna happen. We're not that lucky.

Btw, I personally have no problem with the "N-Sync-ness" of the first-tier Thugs, and in fact I like the idea. Gang members in fact can be normal-looking people; it's only obvious who's in your average gang in the movies. My MM will take whoever she can get, and if they're suburbanite wannabes, then whatever, as long as they can shoot and brawl.

I'm honestly curious just what people were expecting Thugs to look like. Sure, a small minority were looking to make a Family-type character, and I can dig their disappointment, but what about the rest of ya?

Hmm, destructible objects in everyday missions? JOYGASM! That'd be SO nice!

Ooh, I have an idea too. I wonder how feasible it'd be, to have objects that can be destroyed by knockback? Sure, an AoE would tear things up too, but imagine Crane Kicking some Minion, and sending them into a stack of crates, all of which are smashed to smithereens!

Heck, in some missions, I'd think such wanton destruction would get you extra xp or inf...how many times are we sent to blow up some drug lab or Longbow/Arachnos nest or something? Heroes could get into the act too! Forget just heisting a few tattoo-ink crates from the Tsoo, for example; if you can shut that parlor down by smashing the place up, that works too! Leave the Buddha statue, because, well, you know. Everything else, rest in pieces.

I believe Mayhem Missions are, or should be, a testing ground for the future. A future of SMASHing, no matter your AT or moral center.

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The attacks are missing some sounds. Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch have the electrical sounds, but lack a actually punch sound when you hit your foe. It just doesn't sound right.

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I totally agree with this. The Elec Brute's attacks lack that certain *THUD!* that makes a Brute feel like a Brute. These guys feel more like Scrappers to me. Give their hits some impact.

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Heh, they don't even feel like Scrappers to me...but my Scrapper is MA, and whatever its other downsides, one cannot deny the POW involved.

Seriously though, my biggest complaint with the set is the lack of anything meaty in the sounds. My other Brute is a Stone Melee, and perhaps she's spoiled me by shaking the whole screen, but dangit, I want to HEAR those attacks connect. Not just "brzzip". Bah, if they're gonna stick with that, we need electricity with a little more oomph and gusto...perhaps they could steal some of the sounds from Lightning Storm? ZAPPPOWW! (Granted, Lightning Rod might be the "unholy voice of a wrathful god" one expects from lightning powers....)

Some other issues, petty and non:

- I finally, after much maneuvering, got Jacob's Ladder to hit more than one. Either the cone is weird, I was just really unlucky and missed the other times I had them lined up right, or the lag was messing everything up and I actually WASN'T lining anything up. I'm leaning toward the latter, as lag was horrible today (which is why I'm here and not playing).

- JL seems to have a really long animation. Is that just me? I mean, it's not Shadow Maul long, but it seems noticeably lengthy. Argh, especially if it misses.

- Man, I know (or hope) it's just perception, but the accuracy on the attacks (especially JL) really seems slack. And before anyone says I'm "used to" SOs, I'll note that the grand majority of my characters are still working with Trainings. However, I'll bow to HeroStats view of this.

- I don't mind the red, from a theoretical viewpoint. However, I am going to have to color my costumes around it, as I really prefer colors to KINDA match. Hmm, black and red...you think those colors might catch on in Mercy? But let me tell any dev that's listening, we'd better get regular old white or blue lightning for our Electric Corruptors, or have color customization (which I'm beginning to doubt the potential existence). Red lightning makes me think "Sith", especially if you're using it from range.

- Chain Induction reducing xp would really irritate me on a purely intellectual level. Yeah, yeah, xp/time ratio and percentages, blah blah. What most people see is lost xp, and if the devs are going to extend the misconceptions about Confuse into OTHER sets, then they really should make a nice official page explaining the numbers involved, rather than leaving it up to the player-base. Perception of loss = loss to most, no matter what's actually going on behind the scenes. It's kinda like a UFC match I saw once, which went on for over 30 minutes. Sure, the announcers kept talking about the skill involved in the grappling, and how it was a real contest of endurance and stamina, and that's all true...but what most people saw, was two guys hugging each other while lying on the floor and barely moving. Perception.

Er, first of all, hello new (to the forums) poster.

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4. The lack of a secondary powerset that really corresponds to the Thug MM. None of the existing ones really suits the Thug powerset, which, let's face it, lends itself to a natural origin. Perhaps a Street Triage idea or Street Doc.....or heck, let's face it...drugs. Have the secondary be healing/buffing via mediactions/stimulants etc.

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Like, say...Poison? Quite a few people in the MM forum said they were going Poison, for the drug-dealer aspect. I'd think about it myself, if I didn't already HAVE a drug dealer, albeit one with an army rather than street toughs, in my Mercs/Poison. Poison is an awesome set, even if it's not "as good" as Dark; Dark is such an excellent secondary that ANY MM secondary comparison would be slack. Especially the Poison power that is practically tailor-made to be slapped on the third-tier Thug...Noxious Gas, is that it? Bah, I forget.

I'm taking Dark, myself, for concept reasons mainly and because I like it in general.

Frankly though, you can make practically ANY secondary fit if you think about it. If you think of the Thugs as hirelings, it essentially doesn't matter what your character's story is or what they look like.

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Anyway, as long as we are flaming amongst ourselves over minor details, the devs aren't likely to pay us any heed -- and rightly so.

FivefifteenA

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Oh, I think the devs ARE paying heed, and have every intention of tweaking things.

It will just be a little longer though. Say...about as long as it took them to even think about upwardly-tweaking Archery and Trick Arrow. Er, sorry, make that just Trick Arrow. Kinda.

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Saddens me to read that people are going to abandon their dom's because they are unhappy with the changes.
Ironically ? Noone whohas posted that sentiment has a dom over lvl 37.

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Personally, I don't think I should have to play a toon to level 38 before it starts getting good

FivefifteenA

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Yeah, but don't you get it, we're a support AT! Um, I'm not sure how we do that either, other than holding a single Lt out of 30 in a spawn, or occasionally drawing aggo from ALL of them after our big AoE hold wears off (i.e. c. 10 seconds later). But still, we're a support AT! Somehow.

Oh wait...I see what s/he means now. We support the team by contributing a little bit of damage, quite unlike every other AT in the Isles. Heh. Well, I guess too we get to finish off that last running minion, while the rest of the team is down the hall. A very important job, that.

(Myself, I've always enjoyed how the people that say Doms are just fine, tend to be things like Plant/Fire, or Fire/*.)

Frankly, when I'm on a big team at my level of 36, I don't even bother attacking most of the time. I pick a Boss and stack holds, or a troublesome Lt. It's about all I can do.

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This does not match my experience in I6, nor does it match the early I7 reports coming from Fishw0rk.

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It sure as hell matches mine. If I go on to the field as a Dom, I'm a target. I'm an EASY target. I can only hope to build up Domination if I am to stand a chance of not sucking for a few minutes; but the Domination bar drops to zero on death, so a simple two-shot from any of the plentiful scrapp0rz in RV is enough to scotch that.

Doms are the only AT to have a qualifying round in PvP. Survive long enough and attack often enough to build up Domination, and you might have a chance.

They are the only AT to have a mediocre primary and a mediocre secondary. Other ATs have inherent powers as a bonus; Dominators are the only AT to DEPEND on their Inherent power.

We need some serious fixing, and this was sadly not it.

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I readily admit to having a bad case of diarrhea of the keyboard, so rather than ramble on and on, I'll just quote L_S here. She's summed up my feelings about it nicely, as usual. The key word in that is "mediocre", which is what Doms by and large are, no matter their level.

It's sad. Doms should strike fear into the heart of the biggest badassest Scrapper or Tank (or Brute) on the field.

Interesting, you got DE in the mission? Huh, that seems kinda random. My non-PD, non-Longbow faction was Crey. Got a few Riot Guards and Power Tanks sprinkled around.

Anyone else getting random other factions?

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Out of curiousity, how's yours slotted? I have 3x42+ SO acc's, 1 42 SO recharge and 2 42 Hold Durations (one 41+ the other 40++)

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Hmm, my main single-target hold (whose name I forget...Gravity Distortion?) has 2 acc, 2 holds, 2 recharge. My AoE hold has 2 acc, 1 hold, 2 recharge (only 5 slots so far). I'm level 36, and most of my enhancements are 35s. Yeah, I know, I'm slack.

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I was running on Villainous, and the end named Hero I got was a joke.

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I just ran a mayhem mission solo on villainous and my end boss was Malaise at Elite Boss level!

How much property damage did you do on the way to the bank? I'm starting to think that if you get over 20-25 minutes of time before the bank you get a big Hero



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that's a good thought... I seem to remember one of the previews mentioning that if you cause enough trouble, a heavy hitter will show up to deal with you, so maybe that's it...

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Hmm. Well, the mission said I had 20 minutes, but I actually had 15. I cleared almost the whole level of destructible objects, and broke that AR/Traps guy out of jail, before I went in the bank. At one point I had over 25 minutes on the clock. I finally went in the bank with 8 minutes left, because I wasn't getting any more time bonuses and I figured I needed to hurry.

Who will show up to stop you looks random, at least while it's on test or until the next patch. Either it's wacky, or there's a system in place I can't see. Maybe the number of sidequests? I only did one (due to no more time bonuses).

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So: This question goes out mostly to other Doms, Corrs and MM's but has anyone else noticed that the damned PPD Psi Corps LT's are taking 2 holds to get held as if they were bosses? This is a total departure from the rest of the game, I have NEVER had a LT take 2 Dominates to hold but ever last one of the Psi Corps bastards did. [...]So why do the LT's take 2 holds to hold? This has to be a bug... right?

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Some Lost lts and Arachnos lts AND minions, also take two holds to, uh, hold. Yeah, it kinda sucks at times, but what can you do but stack 'em. However, I myself (Gravity/Ice Dom) didn't have any trouble holding anything in the mission in one shot.

I was running on Villainous, and the end named Hero I got was a joke. He was the Lt version of Blast Furnace, and he got held and dead. The only thing tough about him, was that he came with about 12 psi-cops and Longbow and security guards, which would've been nasty if they hadn't all been trying to come through the same little door. I simply installed my Singularity in the doorway, and anyone approaching the door got unceremoniously dumped on their face at the far wall. I just picked them all off with ranged attacks.

Yeah, it seems the difficulty of the final boss, as it were, is a bit too random. I'll check it out again tonight, and see if I can't get an Elite. I hope it's not BAB...last time that punk took all my inspirations and two Sings.

I wouldn't argue at all, with the upgrade involving tossing them a can. We can pretend it's beer or Red Bull or Ginger Ale or something, in order to stave off any moralistic or censor issues (i.e. "Rated T for Teen, Animated Violence, Drugs and Alcohol") so it'd be okay to be just a generic unlabeled can. It'd be unique, it'd make sense, and it doesn't seem it'd be a lot of trouble to stick a can model in there with the same animation.

What, don't look at me like that...if you made me drink Ginger Ale, I'd wanna shoot somebody too. If it was a Yoohoo can, the Thugs would shoot themselves.

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-My pistols are freakin huge. I am a female, with the default height and athletic build. The guns are rediculously gigantic. The handle is way larger then my hand could hold, and it penetrates the geometry of my character. The top part of the gun is no better. It also has a bland white texture, which does not look very gun like.

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Your guns look "bland white"? On my MM, they're grey/silver. I'd check your grpahics settings or driver... I've had issues in the past where metallic objects don't render properly...

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Pistols close-up. They look pretty silvery and gun-ish to me. And yes, they are rather oversized. However, my character is only 5'4" or so and is rather petite, so it's hard to say whether they'd look as huge in the hands of an "average" (i.e. 6')-sized character.

They don't even look that bad from a distance. I don't see any clipping issues either. Actually, such oversized guns fit my character concept perfectly. YMMV

I can see where a character at minimum height and build might cause a problem....

So...did she use her spear, or what?!

Yeah, that kinda sucks about Valkyrie cheesing you. Back Alley Brawler has a similar Cheeseball Bullcensored Ha-Ha I-Cheat Neener-Neener aura he throws on, that practically makes him immune to damage. Cheap crap, is what it is. That's the kind of stuff "Heroes" like to pull.

Oh yes, definitely. My Dom got an automatic HP bonus...though I don't know how much as I didn't check my hp beforehand and no numbers are given.

It only lasts 24 hours, but no complaints there.

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With the physics effects turned on they come alive so much, and was it my imagination or was debris actually being sucked towards my Singularity?

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I don't think it was your imagination, actually, because my Singularity also wound up a big swirling comet of debris after a little while. I think the Sing is probably one of the better pets to have in that mission, if you're into trashing the place and throwing civillians and do-gooders around.

Yeah, overall, they're very cool. The only issue I saw was that, as others have noted, the time rewards are a bit wonky. I got 3 minutes to the clock for destroying some random car, yet nothing before for all the other cars and nothing thereafter. I also wish, again echoing others, that pets and the NPC Villains you break out aren't so interested in targeting civillians. Hollow Point was awesome outside the bank, but inside, he decided to hang around the door firing his gun and throwing down Ignite patches, and my Sing wanted to stay there too. I had to resummon it down the hall, where the guard were busy doing chain-knockdown on me. ([censored] guards, they're even more annoying at 36.)

Anyway, I don't wanna sound like I'm griping, because those were relatively minor issues, compared to how cool the rest of the mission was. I have to say, I'm VERY impressed with how the devs handled these missions. I was fully expecting everything to have too much hp, but practically everything exploded at the slightest touch. I'm a Gravity/Ice Dominator, without a whole lot of offensive ability, and I had ZERO issues destroying everything. I think the healthiest environmental object was a big truck, and I think it would've gone down in a single Propel.

Well at any rate, here's a couple of screenshots:

A car goes boom.

And another car. The pool table is what I summoned during Propel. Did you know those summons actually STAY in the world now? And you can actually move them around? Sweet.

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it might also be abusive against mobs.

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Heh, this struck me as amusing. You know, I'm sure there are plenty of complaints over at the Enemy Forums about all kinds of things, but I'm not so sure we should start listening to them. They're naturally prejudiced.

Besides, whatever sick [censored] of a dev decided to give them KO Blow, cancels out all their allegations of abuse.

(Yes, I know what you meant, but it does sound funny to ask us to consider how the mobs feel.)

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Fortunately, I do want you to post your concerns how you see fit. I haven't tried to dictate how anyone posts (though I do encourage "niceness" in posts, as it causes other people respond better to a post). Though when you get paid to moderate the forums as well, you may come back and tell me how to post, and get paid for doing it, as opposed to free, as you are now.

If you find a post of mine to be Trollish, off topic, or wrong, I encourage you to do everything in your power to let the moderators know.

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Now, now, let's remember the REAL badguys around here.

Those dirty PvPers are the problem.

*ducks and runs*

Super_Villain, I wasn't actually talking about you, you know.

What I was SAYING, is that I for one would like some actual communication from the devs. We're not entitled to it, it'd just be nice. The alternative to actually knowing the truth, is wild speculation. That's what I was saying.

And btw, I meant exactly what I said about stuff like "god-mode" and "tank-mage" and whatever else people like to say whenever they either a) never liked a power, b) never USED a power to begin with, or (to the point here) c) can't be bothered to figure out a way around it in PvP. Anytime I see people saying that when it's entirely unwarranted, I consider them a troll or an idiot and ignore them. Yeah, Hurricane is god mode. Sure it is. A Stormy never dies in PvP or PvE when they have that.

Don't take things personally.

Besides, I've been wanting to use the word "jackhole" all day.

EDIT: And damnit, just so it's clear, I'm not the slightest whit concerned with PvP. Change whatever you want, and debate that amongst yourselves. When it starts affecting my PvE game is when I have an issue. Geez.

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sure but, as of right now, it's the only factor the devs have mentioned.

i'd be curious to hear more from them on this matter.

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Truly. When the devs don't say anything, that leaves us to infer things. Inferring is BAD.

Just look at this thread as proof. Hell, look at any thread about a nerf (real or perceived). All kinds of folks come out of the woodwork, some to smugly say that the power was "always overpowered and bugged" and that it got what it deserved, which is pure trolling crap most of the time. Others will look for OTHER reasons for the nerf, and PvP is a friggin' enormous target, since I daresay quite a few of the players have seen its effects on other games.

Basically, when the devs say ONLY that Hurricane was changed for PvP reasons, and don't give any other (PvE-related) reasons...what else are we to think? Most of us are wary of PvP and see it as a threat to PvE. I know damn well I do, and I admit it. After all, such a change as this justifies that wariness.

If Hurricane was changed because of PvP, AND because it was overpowered in PvE, then we really deserve to be told such by an official source. Some jackhole spouting their smug opinions about what was "always overpowered" and using infantile buzzwords like "god mode" and "tank mage" and "herding" is not a reputable source. Likewise, neither are the people like me, who saw no issues at all. None of those two are devs.

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Was Hurricane for NPC mobs (Sorcerors/Tsoo bosses/Witches) also correctly reduced/"fixed" as it was 'broken'?

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All NPC versions of Hurricane remain unchanged. They tick every 0.5 seconds for 0.35 endurance.

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Color me completely unsurprised.

...If that's true.

You know, our problem really isn't with PvP per se, nor is it with those who enjoy PvP. The problem comes when PvP starts to dictate what goes on in PvE. I and others were encouraged at the beginning, when it really looked like PvP and PvE were really going to be separate entities. Looks like that philosophy has gone the way of the dodo.

It's not really the "nerf", you know. The reduction is minor to the point where most could just shrug it off. It's the principle of the thing. The game's not doomed by any means.

Whatever. We said it was gonna happen, and we were right. I do wonder if this is where it will stop.