Quicken

Having delayed xp for a bit is a minor pain - I remember when they first implemented prestige for SuperGroups... took them a bit of time to iron out the bugs (there was a delay for "applying prestige", and sometimes it would vanish for awhile) - but they *DID* iron out the bugs.

I'm patient, I can wait for the fix against delayed pact xp. I'd rather see them increase the pact limit first, that way I can get my son into the game .

-Q

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Right now we have a group of 6 that have all made toons ( a few of them veats) and have all pacted together. We have been leveling through strike forces and its been a blast.


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Could someone clarify - "Is it possible, at present, to have more than two in a leveling pact ?"

So in the quoted reply, is that 6 characters in a single pact, or is it three pacts of two characters each ?

(6 characters in the same leveling pact would be more of a "leveling pack" . I'd like to get a 3 way pact going so my family can play in sync. If it's possible now, I'll buy another copy of CoH/CoV and set up my son's character..... that would be fantastic !!)

-Quicken

I love the levelling pact - there are some times I get playtime when my spouse is busy (and visa versa), so this keeps us in sync.

Is there any ETA when the levelling pacts will be extended to handle more than just two characters ? I'd like to buy a 3rd account, then create a levelling pact with my spouse and son.... my son wants in on the action, too !

-Quicken

The Prisoner

Except it's a city instead of "The Villiage", and super hero/villians instead of spies. That would be an awesome environment, and the missions would be more like mysteries, real mind benders to figure out what's really happening....

Anyone else familiar with the old TV show "The Prisoner" ?

Looking at the old Stateman posts (I followed the clicky links given earlier in the thread....).

"City of Future Heros" - something like the "Legion of Super Heros" type idea, that would be cool. And having "time portals to the past" to link to the current cities would fit. But putting in new zones that are set in the 30th century could be done with patches, doesn't really warrent a whole expansion. After all, we'd still all wear costumes, all do missions.... the 'theme' really wouldn't be much of a change (at least CoV has a whole new theme to it, even if it is ultimately the same underlying game).

But it would be nice to see a "30th century Paragon city zone" added in someday.

"Pulp" - I loved "Doc Savage" books ! For those that don't know, Doc Savage is essentially a "natural" orgin character, although he is "genetically perfect". Trained in matrial arts, all sciences, hindu and indian techniques such as pain control (dull pain power, LOL !), and is extremely wealthy. Era is the early to mid 1900's - gansters, spies, etc (around 1930-1960 ? Can't remember the precise time, I think around WWII, though). He has 7 assistants - some extremely strong, some weaker but brilliant. Access to really high tech that the opponents don't have (ie, stealth aircraft for missions, etc).

I seem to remember a number of the books had to do with investigating genetic warfare attempts by the enemy (vague: not always soviets, sometimes just power hungry blackmailing madmen), enemies stirring up allies to revolt against each other, lost races causing trouble (ie, hidden tribe of whatever that had aquired tech and were trying to kidnap scientists, or something like that). Reminds me a lot of certain missions in CoH... like the Patient 0 arc, various conflicts between enemy group missions, the time travelling 5th Column fellow (now council, I suppose).

The "pulp" aspect would be amazing, I think. Fans of the old "pulp" would flock to the game - not that there are many out there that are computer literate, this goes back to a long time ago and is pretty much lost now (ever try and find a Doc Savage book ? Or ever see one in the bookstore while just browsing ?).

Now, if the "pulp" aspect was combined with something like 'The Prisoner' (wonder how many of you are familiar with that show....).....

Imagine the following (just for fun idea that I can envision) :
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Setting : A "villiage" somewhere in the world. You don't know where it is though. The perimeter is protected with war walls, patrolled by security. No one has a name - the NPCs just have numbers, and heros no longer have their "secret idenities".

You were not brought here by choice. You were either a hero or a villian, regardless of what you were in your "past life", you are now all on the same side here. But apparently you learned too much, or became a danger to someone too powerful, or perhaps just caught someones attention and curiosity.

No one knows who runs this place. Is it the Rikti ? Is it the government ? Is it someone you can't even imagine ? Is it a combination of people working together to maintain this place ?

Cameras are everywhere, everything you do or say is being watched or recorded.

There are many folks here - many of them are prisoners just like yourself, but some are watchers. Who is who ? You can't tell. But escape is your primary focus, the only purpose you have.

Choose your allies carefully. Some may intentionally or accidentally betray you, and some may betray you thinking you are one of the watchers.

Your missions: Sometimes you are taken for "interrogation" sessions (in the prisoner series, this happened often). Sometimes you are confronted with someone who looks like you, has the same powers as you, and claims that you're the impostor, brainwashed to believe you are someone else. Some missions you have to escape from various mad schemes to get information from you. You are thrust into dreamworlds, sometimes kidnapped, and sometimes "asked" to capture others. Sometimes you think you've escaped, only to find out that you're really still a captive and just in a mock up of home. Other times you do escape, but are re-captured.

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Combine it with the idea of "Doc Savage": You could go the route of a hero/villian place, or you could go the 'spy' route - I'd rather see the super-hero/villian concept maintained, to be honest. Make the city a place like gotham city (or gangland chicago). Add in some wilderness areas.

Give it an early to mid 1900's feel for archietecture, but with high tech items around.

PvP link zones to the hero / villian side, no idea how the storyline would justify this expansion being a 'third side', but I'm sure someone more creative than me could come up with something.

A city designed where the 'citizens' are really all either prisoners or watchers, where paranoia runs high. It gives the 'illusion' of a city where everyone is happy to be there, but everyone knows that is just an illusion, and no one is really sure of what the 'truth' is.

Occasionally the 'prisoners' may get let out of their guilded cage - but wearing 'recall' bracelts to bring them back (allows timed missions in CoH / CoV zones, but they are still really trapped).

You could work in the "spies" concept very very easily. For all you know, the city itself could be in a future time - remember the entire thing is a mock up, the purpose is psychological warfare to "break" their prisoners. The whole "Doc Savage" theme could be worked into the city landscaping, the idea of finding out who has you, why, and trying not to be broken as they search for information you don't even have.....

(Wow- longest post ever)

What do folks thing of the above idea ? Omg, I think a city expansion like that would be downright dangerous, you could lose track of reality playing that !

SS / Stone

My character is much more of a "concept character", though, than a max/min character.

I haven't got "rooted" yet, though. I'm worried that the slowdown from rooted will pretty much end this character. I'm willing to 2 or 3 slot swift to remain viable as a brute.

The "ugly look" of stone armour fits perfectly with my character, ugly thing that he is. Hopefully it'll get uglier when I get the higher level armours (I'm 14th right now).

"Granite" armour: If / when I reach the point where I've taken all my core concept powers, I might take this. I need to test it out on test server first, though... I don't want it to break the character concept.

Rooted : Does "rooted" slow attack speeds ? If it does, then my character concept is shot, and I'll switch to my dark/dark brute (another concept I built up nicely, but haven't played it very much).

Hi - I'm relatively new to the "Fire/Fire Tanker".

Instead of using "Combat Jumping", and then going for Acrobatics for the knockdown protection, I use "Hover" so I could get access to "Fly".

"Hover" doesn't give knockdown protection - but instead of being knocked down, you do a little "loop-de-loop" and can attack immediately. So you lose 1 second or so for that animation, instead of 5 to 7 for being knocked on your butt and having to get back up. I can live with that.

The killer question - Will "Burn" work with Hover running, or do you have to have both feet firmly on the ground ?

If Hover negates using Burn, I'll have to respec (once I do the mission) to using Combat Jumping / Super Leap / Acrobatics for knockdown protection. Which is a pity, since "Fly" fits my character concept, and super leap only vaguely fits it.

Anyone know if Hover negates using Burn ?

Thanks

I haven't got "Rage" on any of my characters (yet), but I have to agree with this fellow's suggestion:

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Maybe add an endurance drain similar to when hasten ends? (and lose the stun)?

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Having a "stun" affect after a power drops is a huge penalty - drops toggles. I find with my one hasten-dependent character the endurance penalty really balances things. If I'm not careful, I end up with 0 endurance and my toggles can drop, leaving me vulnerable.... . If I'm careful that doesn't happen - but I might have to leave the fight early.

That's the most fair - endurance penalty. Health penalty can leave you dead, and stun penalty drops toggles which is likely to leave you defenseless and dead. An endurance penalty is something you have to take effort to work around, but isn't unavoidably crippling.

-Q

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A +60% boss means that I CAN NOT even think to use the difficulty slider at all. Which is odd, because I think the bosses are too insane and make the fights *boring* while the minions are a waste of time.

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That's what I'm finding. At first, I was "neutral" on the boss changes. "Ok, so one thing is more difficult. Just a nuisence. No big deal, it's still fun.".

Now I'm finding that it really tosses balance out the window. If I can manage the boss - all the surrounding mobs are trivial. If I find the surrounding mobs a challenge, then the boss will clean my clock easily.

Outdoor missions - two blue bosses together are doable, but I burn most of my inspirations. Not very heroic. End result is that there is less viable hunting areas, and I feel the game world has gotten smaller.

I'm a scrapper - I can just imagine what this change means for controllers and defenders.....

In all honesty - I play solo about 50 percent of the time with my main. The boss change has a negative impact to both soloing and teaming - if I'm on a team of more than 2, we need a healer or bubbler now.

I'm not flaming on this - this is a calculated observation after several days with the new changes. It limits the amount of enjoyment I can get out of the game - either I have to set the slider down, making all other non-boss mobs trivial, or keep the slider high enough to make everything challenging and select non-boss mission only, or make sure there is a healer on the team.

So I can work around the changes to have fun - but a change that you have to work around to continue to have fun is probably not a good change.

A suggestion - reduce bosses back to where they were, and introduce a new class of mob as powerful as the buffed bosses (ie, call it "Hunter" or "Assassin"). Make it optional for players to have these on their missions somehow, either via mission description or checkbox at the guy that sets mission difficulties. Maybe even a new AI, so it roams throughout the waypoint seeking the heros..... . Now, that would be amazing !

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*laughs* Learn to play better than. I can solo my Force Field / Energy Blast defender and be successful. I beat the Electric Eel mission in the Hollows with only two deaths. One of them because I was stupid and got too close. The other because I was stupid again and stopped when I had 27 health and his attack was doing 33. I should've kept running.

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That's nice. Tell people that they aren't having fun because they aren't playing properly. Troll.

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Regardless of those two deaths, I loaded up on more inspirations and went back and kicked his butt. I even took a demo of it and a friend of mine is hosting it:

http://www.exileink.com/ElectricEel.zip



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That's nice. So heros should play like terroists - hit the mobs, run away and hide and restock, then run back and finish the job.

Troll.

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I love the new difficulty in the game now. The only problem is that the missions are spawning way too many villains for larger groups. Solo spawn is great. Group spawn over four is borked unless you've got a really good group together.


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I cannot wait ofr the difficulty slider and I will boot out anyone in any group I lead that doesn't want to do that hardest difficulty. I don't have time to deal with pansies and cowards. They can go street patrol green and blue cons for all I care. I want a game that challenges me. Not a game that I use my left hand to mash buttons on the keyboard while I read a book with my right hand. Snooze fest will equal cancelled accounts.

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An observation...

I think what you need is a real challenge, something for the hardcore gamer, and something that's full out and out non-consensual PvP.

You want things hardcore and intense that takes 100 percent focus. Well, CoH was meant to support the casual gamer as part of it's customer base. Without any tolerance for those fellow players, you'll probably never be happy as long as they are able to play.

You enjoy baiting other people by implying they should "play better". Like you do. Well, perhaps the playstyle that you enjoy would be completely boring for others. I like my challenges in the real world where there is a real reward - my game world is for me to have fun, escape from the stresses of the real world, and enjoy some play when I want, for as long as I want. Your playstyle would make me think : "Am I stupid, putting all this effort into a <bleep> game, when I could be putting it into something real ?".

Some folks want it hard and challenging in the game world, some folks would rather keep the game fun and casual.

I enjoy my playstyle, you enjoy yours. In no way is one the "right way" and the other the "wrong way". I will respect yours if you respect mine.

A mission difficulty slider would solve problems. If you insist on having groups that want it full - I suggest you announce it first before inviting people. There are lots that want it full, let them know you play hardcore up front. Otherwise people will think some pretty unkind things about your attitude.

Bottom line - people have a right to be unhappy when the game took a sudden change and their enjoyment stopped. Baiting them, calling them cowards that have to learn to play better - that's uncalled for. Unproductive. And unnecessary. You want to impose yourself on people, go play a non-consensual PvP game where that's part of the rules.

I think many folks have made some valid suggestions and complaints, and that many folks are patiently waiting for a fix. I sincerly believe that there are people that are taking advantage of the situation to make folks even more upset by saying that "they should learn to play better", and that folks wanting anything but the hardest are "cowards and pansies".

These are called "Trolls" and "Griefers".

Please don't feed the trolls. CoH was made for a broad spectrum of players - powergamers and casual. Respect each other. If you aren't happy, suggest something that can benifit both sides without hurting the other. The difficulty slider was a good example of a constructive suggestion.

I think people should start responding only to posters that post with respect for each other, without baiting each other, and that people should ignore the trolls.

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I like the IDEAS behind making missions stronger, but between the fact that there are alot more baddies in missions, that the low end mob got a great boos in powers (nothing like a lvl 8 baddy with lvl 18-36 powers, and crowd control befor you even get a defense for it) that minions are harder to hit now just makes lvls 1-20 feel like WORK not play. Things need to be looked at. With no pvp, no economy, litle to no items, no bases to build starting a new character was mostly my only way to escape the grind of my high lvl character. Now thats not fun either.

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Statesman, I'm glad that you've acknowledge the bugs for the lower end play and have assured us that a fix is coming.

I really enjoyed CoH up to Issue 2, and will again once the issues fixed. Like the quoted poster, myself and my friends frequently switch to lower level characters from time to time for a change of pace - and to try out new costumes / ATs / Powers .

But now the lower levels are simply frustration. So our playtime has gone from "all available times" (5 weeknights for at least 2-3 hours, plus most of the weekend) to about 2 nights of the week, and 4-8 hrs of the weekend. The upper levels are still fun, but the lower levels - we don't feel "heroic" anymore. (We tend to solo our characters to 10th, and start grouping around the 10th to 12th range. With different work schedules in real life, we've found this works pretty good - so we have a LOT of lower level characters each ).

My younger brother just started, and with his 6th character is wondering what we see in the game as fun... I've had to reassure him it wasn't always like this, there's a few major bugs right now, and if he tries again in a couple weeks it'll be fun.

Looking forward to all the fixes, and the game being fun and addictive. Meanwhile, catching up in real life and taking reduced playtime for awhile.

PS: With devs working hard at fixing the bugs - If the fans starting sending the devs pizza, would it speed up the fixes ? We could start a tab for cryptic at a local pizza place and you just order what you want/need as you work away....

I'm of mixed feelings about the +1 bug.

I'm glad that the devs recognize the bug and are addressing it - kudos !!

With my 30th level MA/Inv scrapper, it's made things more interesting. I was having fun before, still having fun plus the random element of uncertainty has made it more fun.

With my 12th level Tanker, it's a totally different story. Very very discouraging. A max/min powergamer would be in heaven, but others would just find it frustrating.

Those that are used to the game, and have built characters with the knowledge they've gained doing it before - well, they can "build characters around it" (which they already have, if they designed their character for powergaming rather than by a particular superhero design.

New players would probably quit, since they'd experience much frustration before reaching any real fun points.

A difficulty slider would be the ultimate solution. That would satisfy both camps, and those that have characters in each camp. Until that comes out, I think I'd prefer the bug removed. Boredom may result in people drifiting away from the game, but frustration will lose new customers immediately, and encourage existing ones to take a break for awhile.

My 2 influence worth