PumBumbler

Is this patch going live with the rest of i14? Then it may be a foregone conclusion and no amount of prodding to find a better solution will matter.

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24000+ views and 780 replies and still waiting for a redname post addressing the balance concerns.

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You have a point but luckily I have the answer.

Clouded: you balance concerns aren't warranted.

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Heh, touché.

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Seriously, you really think tapping your foot and looking at your watch is going to get a redname hustling in here?

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Not really, but you sure did.

24000+ views and 780 replies and still waiting for a redname post addressing the balance concerns.

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My only worry is why they felt they had to do this right now, rather than just leaving it how it is. Hopefully "soon" we'll get a better update. But in the meantime, we're exchanging one undesirable system for another undesirable system. We're taking out a nonsensical system to replace it with another nonsensical system. I figure "if it ain't broke" doesn't apply, but if I have to use a system that doesn't quite make sense, I'd rather it be one that I'm already used to.

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Would love to hear the reason why this needs to be put in _right now_

Whether this is a buff or a nerf depends on the situation, but it is 'game breaking' in the sense that pets are a distinct and innate part of certain ATs and powersets.

Many people posting here feel that keeping pets from having any recharge +/- will change the balance of the game. Is it a buff when my MM faces down Ice Mistral now? Sure. But does it make it fun to ignore certain aspects of the game now? Probably not...Ice Mistral was fun to fight because you needed to avoid her slow and -recharge powers, position your pets appropriately and take her down.

Buffs work the same way. It sure was nice to see smart kinetics players who speed boosted your most powerful henchman instead of just the MM. Now it doesn't really matter whether the pets are boosted or not. No need to team with smart kinetics, any kinetics will do, so somehow the great kinetics players were 'nerfed' as much as the MM's pets.

I believe this simplification of the game takes something away from the richness and complexities of the game that makes CoX fun.

For the most part, it doesn't matter one way or the other that the recharge buffs/debuffs affect the pet or not. The player will most likely win in 99.9% of the cases where they would have won before, or lost, for that matter. But the simplification of the game is a worrying trend that makes this double plus ungood.

For such a drastic (yet subtle) change to be implemented without much forewarning calls into question where the game is headed. Unlike the devs, we have no roadmap or vision about what or where this change is to be implemented for. And many people when confronted with change without information, will fear the worst.

I was informed of this discussion on live and I've just read the entire thread.

I'm pretty much aligned with Frosticus on most of what he/she has said. Having an ice/storm as my primary badge toon, the nerf to LS pretty much feels like a slap in the face*, especially since there has been no mention of a rebalance to address concerns of what happens to these already non-overpowered pets. Macskull's suggestions aren't bad for suggested 'fixes'.

As to suggestions for making the the activation time long and the recharge nil, that would cause more problems than its worth, since most targets would be defeated by the time any attack went off, especially in a team situation. Look at /psi defenders to see what that's like.

While I am heavily invested in my ice/storm, my bots/dark MM will get nerfed even harder.

MMs are pretty much easily capped in the damage they do already since there is only so much you can slot to enhance your pets, and any further buffs to damage generally are via personal attack powers. Using personal attack powers are the antithesis of a Mastermind's raison d'etre, so taking away the +recharge ability of MM pets really hurts the AT hard.

FWIW I have FF +rchg proc in my assault bot, so now that will be toast, but I specifically team with good kinetics to extract the most out of my pets as well. So now you are basically stating that the damage output of Masterminds cannot be increased through recharge, yet all other ATs can.

I suppose I should be grateful that pacing of the turtle procs won't affect my pets.

However, I don't understand what the logic is behind the 'fix'.
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This change was made to allow pets to correctly cycle through their attacks instead of getting locked on using the same attack over and over and neglecting to use other available powers.

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Further down:
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Powers like Lightning Storm, Voltaic Sentinel and Auto Turret are precisely the powers that were targeted by this fix. Making exemptions for them would defeat the purpose, don't you think?

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So the original problem stated was to avoid the cycling powers lock, yet the powers so precisely targeted do NOT have any powers to cycle through. And it is implicit in the response that there is the ability to exempt powers from this patch. As to forgoing exemptions, why not extend such rigidity of thought to say that all powers from any AT cannot have their attack rate increased?

I really don't understand why this AI problem needs to be addressed now, and in this fashion. If it is for AI issues because of Mission Architect pets having issues, it is obvious that those strictures can be placed for NPCs only, since defenders are currently 'exempt' from the patch. I have no idea what amount of work would be required to create such exceptions versus an 'across the board' change.

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There is no other solution that we are currently able to implement at this time.

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There is another solution to this problem. Leave the current state as it is on live. Take your time to find a better solution or compensate the nerfed powers so you don't leave people hanging. There has been some discussion over whether ED was good or bad for the game over the long term. Sure it was compensated by IOs and set bonuses, but that took so long to implement that the ill will generated by ED has never gone away. From what I can see as a player, this fix seems like using a shotgun to kill a fly.

Personally this has sucked all the excitement out of the pending i14 release for me. This feels more like the pending i5 ED and troller nerf to me that made me leave for a good 20 months.

*Frosticus' point on what role storm really brings (especially wrt to endgame content) is something that I'm feeling as well, but that's not germane to this discussion.

You can use the /bind command to make it less tedious.

Off the top of my head you can type

/bind u reloadgfx

in order to fix the u key as the reloadgfx command.

Excellent job. I hope I don't come off as nit picking, but I just have a couple of comments about the maps.

1. Ouroboros should only have 1 way arrows coming out of the zones since you can only enter by using the temp power. Entry for the zone should have a similar marking that the VIP Tiki lounge does (circle with arrow incoming)?

2. Is there a specific reason on why ouros has a pink box in yellow? You may want to call the zone ouros (hero) since there is a ouros (villains) that looks identical but they are not cross faction.

3. Ski Chalet is not always available, if you want to note that.

4. PVP zones are denoted by a red border. Would it be worthwhile to border Co-op zones with a green border? This would mean Pocket D (and attached), RWZ and Cim would get green borders. This convention would free up the inside colours to show level restrictions only. Ski Chalet box colour is different from Pocket D/VIP for some reason.

5. Check box for SG base portal is nice. Is it possible to change them to an icon? This would allow the addition of other icons (although this might clutter things up) that represent University, Icon, Arenas and Auction Houses as well as other amenities. The icons can be a representation or Bolded Letters (SG=supergroup base, U = University, etc.). Perhaps using same icons from the villains map would work too.

6. Certain zones have base teleporters but not base entry. Boomtown and Dark Astoria come to mind. Entry from base but not exit to base in those zones are not possible via map features.

7. Extra Arrow from FBZ to Cascade via Mole Key can be added, if you want to denote multiple ways of accessing a zone.

8. RWZ should state 35-54, instead of 35-50, if you are indicating the level of enemies within the zone. I think Storm Palace may have higher level foes as well. If you're indicating the level of players that the zone is intended for, then Storm Palace should be changed to 44-50 instead of 44-51. Unless you're privy to something else...

9. Pocket D and Midniter Club could be potentially be further subdivided into the Main area and the Hero and Villain subfoyers if you wanted to be thorough (and pedantic).

10. Outbreak and Breakout zones are not depicted.

Thanks for putting the hard work into making it easier for everyone to figure out how it all comes together.

Funny... -39 Farenheit is the same in celsius. Which is what it was last night with the wind chill here.

Name: Selene
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Yes, there is. Be patient.

That is if the transgaming cider API supports multiple processors. The game will still run if it 'sees' a single core processor as exposed by the transgaming/WINE interface.

Just looking for a confirmation, that's all.

Does the Mac client support two cores like the PC version (ie is renderthread 1 enabled)?

We did an "all" squishy ITF last night and it was done around 38 minutes. No scrappers tanks or brutes, one widow but level 38 sk'd. My ice/storm 'tanked' it with a sonic buffer.

Shouldn't you put the 4th Performance Shifter into Stamina instead of the standard IO? I'm getting 3.74/s EndRec from Mids versus 3.72/s from the set bonus. Just a minor quibble.

Also shouldn't combat training have a LotG defense vs the regular IO for the extra regen bonus?

Nice guide. The way we do it is pretty similar, except our optimum teams tend to be tanker/brute heavy and kin/rad/dark, and sometimes son. The rest are filled with damage types, AoE preferred. Vengeance is usually a big help. With 2 or 3 tanks/brutes and a kin or two, the non AV stuff is pretty simple. Rads make the AVs melt. Lots of herding fun and lag.

With more tanks and buffers we can split up on the 2nd mish and clear the cysts with ease and pretty much ignore the rest of the mobs and ambushes. If you get the linear map then it's even easier. Liberal use of Fulcrum shift tends to keep the tanks at damage caps to clear the cysts fast. Buffs help to minimize the -rchg effect the cyst mobs throw out.

A really good stoner is good to have in case the worst happens and you mostly wipe, as they can pretty much solo the mish or keep going while the rest of the team comes back from the hospital. Awakens can be pretty sketchy since everyone is moving so quickly that there are plenty of mobs and ambushes that will give you a love tap as soon as you pop that insp, so your best bet is not to die and use the other inspirations before that to keep you going.

The third mish we work backwards by taking out the computer first. Someone goes up and pulls both AVs down at the same time and gets Rommie close while Requiem tends to stay ranged. Darks and storms do well here with the nice acc debuffs. The goal is to destroy the computer while hitting Rommie and sometimes Requiem with splash damage (AoE/DoT). If the team doesn't look very confident we won't risk a team wipe by getting the AVs during the compfest, and pull them down afterwards.

After that we like to rush to the closest general or the EB general mob, depending on if the the big EB mob is too far for a quick kill (we note where the EB mob is when you first enter the mish and head to the computer). Someone pulls the closest generals to the EB mob while the rest of the team takes down the EBs. Aggro caps help here to separate the Generals to jog out to the team. Note that this work particularly well with the General surrounded by the crowd of surgeons, since they aggro the least, if at all when you are aggro capped. If you must defeat the General within range of his many surgeons you're going to have to take care of the surgeons first, whether by mez or defeat or forcing separation. Note that the EBs with the General Mob is the only one that you must defeat totally, the other mobs you can defeat the General only and move on.

If there any generals left to defeat after that we just rush them and cherry pick them. Usually we are within 20 traitors left so we just knock off a few minions and we're out. The biggest thing that seems to lag out the game is when someone uses their nova with knockback. Since it seems unavoidable we just live with it and try not to shy away from powers that will cause lag.

The last mish we work backwards again. Team 1 of at least 5, including a tank or brute will assemble on the roof of Rommie's house. From there we aggro Rommie and he will jump up onto the corner of the house. At that point it's good to immobilize him. It is also good to aggro one of the nictus AVs to ensure that the Nicti will be within line of sight to Rommie for his rez trick. The roof serves to protect squishies from most of the Nictus aggro/damage. When Rommie gets defeated, all the squishies move to the opposite corner of the roof. The peak of the roof is enough to prevent the stun from hitting you, as it blocks the line of sight (as long as Rommie is on the opposite corner).

The rooftop also forces the ambushes to work their way well across the top of the map and jump down during the AV encounter, which bottlenecks and slows them down. Note that this tends to be on the opposite corner of the roof from Rommie so squishies hiding out should be cautious of Traitor bosses coming down and pretty much one shotting them. Good use of repel/ice slick/tornado/spectral terror or force bolt will keep them occupied enough for the team to finish the AVs. Also to note is that Rommie is vulnerable to knockdown/knockback (and holds) when he rezzes, so turning off/avoid use of knockback powers like hurricane or force bubble, repulsion field etc. so that will keep him on the rooftop until he has time to activate his -kb (anti-mez) power (pushing him off the rooftop is counterproductive).

After Rommie is down we herd up the courtyard for more traitors and then work the rooftops.

Team 2, if it exists, consists of a tough tank, a kin and a storm or some decently equipped AoE machine. Their purpose is to herd and defeat as much as they can so the traitor count goes down faster while the first team is getting the AVs.

Doing it this way means that everyone needs to know what their roles are beforehand and when to break off without needing a lot of guidance from team leads, but we've done the ITF in 25-26 minutes without the need for shivans or nukes. Common times are 28-33 minutes but most are under 40 minutes. SK/LKs do show up but they know that they tend to be veng bait if they're not fast at disengaging when it's time to move. The biggest AT with a disadvantage tends to be MMs for this since the setup takes long (relatively) and the mob skipping isn't conducive to the pets' survival.

Apologies for the long reply. Once I started I kept finding things I felt were important to note.

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Can we fix Hurricane so that it ticks every .25 seconds again then, please?

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I've run it successfully without a rad. We had an ill/emp, an emp/? a kin/? and my ice/storm with 3 blasters and a inv/ss and we routed the whole STF. There were 2 deaths in the first 4 mishes that were kind of 'oops' I wasn't thinking deaths, and 2 deaths in the last mish. Very smooth and not difficult at all. I believe we had 3 or 4 leaderships with us and vengeance so the deaths at the end worked out well.

It seems like the more defs/trollers you have works well, provided you have enough damage with you. Another time went well with 2 tanks (2 inv), 1 blaster (ice/ice) and 4 trollers (ill/kin, ice/storm, grav/kin, earth/rad) and one emp def (who dropped after the first of the inner circle was defeated, black scorp).

One time I failed it because we had a tank that didn't have unstoppable was our only way to keep LR busy while we took down the towers. No one noticed his poor build since the rest of the team was so strong otherwise that we steamrolled through everything else.

In theory it would have been as good as the other teams. 1 'tank', 2 scrappers, 1 blaster, 4 trollers/defs including 2 kins an emp and my stormy.