Quinch

Just throwing out some ideas - the current difficulty settings are okay, but there's still room for improvement. With that out of the way, a couple of suggestions;

Patrolling:
A setting which allows for a player-set chance {in, say, 25% increments} of "filler" enemies {i.e. not marked as mission objectives} spawning in a patrol mode, rather than simply standing around. Adds extra tension to even run-of-the-mill missions since there's no way to tell whether a group or two will suddenly round the corner.
Downside: Might cause trouble with kill-all missions. Possibly rectified with tweaks to the objective marker criteria {one random spawn is always marked on map, for example}.

Perceptive:
All enemies have an increased perception range, identical to mobs in safeguards. Reduces the suspension of disbelief when a group twenty meters away placidly watches the heroes fight their allies with mild disinterest.


SCR aside, these sound simple enough to implement - if you have any other suggestions, feel free to throw them in.

Back on topic {and in case nobody mentioned already}, I'd suggest an auto-reply along the lines of {this character is using a trial account and cannot reply to private messages. Thank you for understanding.}

I don't know about cloaking fields, but a tank set based around personal bubbles would be cool - we need a tank set that caters to the scrawny crowd.

A quick suggestion for the nonexistant UI team - a command that will, after X seconds of inactivity of a given chat window automatically scroll all the text save the last line up and out of sight. That would make it easier for the player to tell at a glance if the chat window has new stuff in it, as well as automatically clearing out obsolete chatter or tells received while away.

Speaking as a frequent squishy, it's criminal not to take it.

{unless you're soloing, in which case nobody is relying on you to get the aggro}

For the gold badge, try Wincott's arc - it's one hunt and two small kill-alls.

Okay, an update; and thanks for all the advice so far.

Yes, I am running the case with the side open {because having it closed caused overheating before that}, so that might have been adding to the problem. I've put a desk fan opposite it to circulate air, and that actually seems to help.

Still, it doesn't explain the fluctuating readings, or why, on the occasions when it supposedly went into 90°ish degrees I could comfortably put my fingers on the heatsink and go "hm, yeah, it's pretty warm but not too much". Still, it looks like I'll need to buy a case fan - another component with moving parts prone to breaking down. Yay.

I'm pretty sure the thermal paste is properly applied too - I took the heatsink off again just to check and yeah - it's a nice thin layer across the back of the CPU, made even more even by the fact that I smeared it up and down because the heatsink just wouldn't let go {and I didn't feel like ripping the CPU out of the socket}, so unless I somehow got defective paste, conductivity shouldn't be an issue. It's also been pretty warm these past few days, with the temperatures going into the thirties, but that hasn't caused any problems last summer, let alone to this degree.

So, as things stand, with a fifty-centimeter fan blowing air at the case innards, temperature hovers around 60°-65° while playing CoH. I'll try to get a hold of a case fan and see how it'll handle with the case closed {no pun regretted}.

PS: You never need to "reinstall". If you run the file verification procedure {you can see the button in the launcher} it will check all game files and only download and reapply the ones that don't match what they're supposed to be.

Okay, quick check then - after a person gets dropped from a channel due to timeout, do they automatically rejoin it {assuming there is room} once they log back in?

Are you saying it works now? Because there's nothing in the patch notes, and it's still filed under "known issues"...

The past few days I've been having some odd issues. Namely, the CPU* has started reporting higher and higher temperatures {some going into nineties}, but the thing is, the cooling assembly is working perfectly.

First time it happened, I disassembled the whole thing, vacuumed the fan and the ribs, reapplied the thermal paste just in case and slapped it back together, but no go.

What makes it odder is the sudden oscillations between temperature - I've been running SpeedFan since it started, and I've noticed that the temperature will sometimes go into seventies or higher, then jump back to midfifties - literally jump between refreshes, and so on. Is it possible that the heat sensor in the CPU itself is shot? And if so, are there any ways to stop the PC from unceremoniously shutting down when the "temperature" reaches 95°? {I've already disabled the warning in BIOS}



* Athlon x64 dual core, 4MHz

Do we get X-ray vision as well?

Jokes aside, I have no idea how feasible it would be code-wise, but it's a definite plus to the cool factor.

The Other Player wants to read your fortune: Do you accept?

[Yes] [No]
O Don't show again

So yeah, /signed.

Yep, that's pretty much the gist of it. Also, you have a point about the merit rewards, but those {for the leader} would only work if one wouldn't be able to pass the leadership from one player to another under any circumstances. So, under AE mode, a player could solo stealth most of a difficult arc and. At the last mission, invite a friend to the team and then quits - since the leader quit, the star passes on to the next person in team, making them the leader and therefore eligible for the merit rewards, essentially feeding merits from one player to another. Unless a system could be designed to prevent that, it might be a tolerable sacrifice to just remove the merit rewards from arc flashbacks entirely.

In an average gaming week:
1) How often do you PuG instead of grouping within your SG or friends?
Every time, literally. I don't have a SG and don't make attachments to other players, so puggery is my only option, though one I thoroughly enjoy.
2) How often do you group with friends and fill the rest of the group with PuGs?
As implied by #1, never.
3) How often do your PuG members do what you feel needs to be done without being told to do so?
Almost always, although there are exceptions. In most cases, everyone pretty much naturally falls into their role, or comfort zone. I've noticed that, although I'm almost always the team leader, I don't so much "lead" as "point the other seven players in the rough direction of the enemy and let everyone sort it out their way."
4) How often do you find yourself telling PuG members what you feel they should be doing (for the good of the current team/session)?
From time to time, usually with new players who still don't have a solid grasp on their powers or game mechanics. A little encouragement in the right direction tends to go a long way.
5) How often do you find yourself adding PuG members to your friends/global friends, and if those lists are full, using other methods of remembering them?
Never, and I always decline global invites as well. I don't habitually remember people outside of the current group {and often not even then}, and the only people who end up sticking in my mind {even temporarily} are those with interesting names or RP personalities.
6) How often do you group with complete jerks in a PuG?
Rarely, but it happens. I've kicked my share, too, after a friendly and not-so-friendly warning or two.

Recall friend. I never leave Lv6 without it, whether or not I end up taking teleport.

The Doppelganger arcs gave me an idea - we now have a new passive channel that's used to simulate the communications you're getting through your earpiece, but it's not by default readable in chat {though you can add it manually - it's the one with the blank label}.

So, an offhand suggestion - add another channel, with the Local-ish range or lower, that shows up in chat bubbles, but not {by default} in the chat, and adjust the battle cries and other flavor text to show up there instead of local.

That way players would be able to spam inane {though entertaining} combat banter without clogging up the possibly important stuff in chat windows with it.

I never understood the pont of repurposing the /help command for passive help. Even worse, in well over a year since the /hc command was implemented, the interface hasn't been updated to support it. But even with the assumption of new players that /help pulls up passive help, the fact that it doesn't works even better, because the odds are someone in the help channel will send them a tell not only explaining what the /help command does, but also information on whatever they were trying to find.

So, to reiterate - given the fact that the track record of the /hc command has shown that it's not likely to be soon integrated into the UI and the blase attitude toward switching out /help for /hc implies it wasn't that hard to do {and thus reverse}, then please do the latter - if at all possible, before Going Rogue. If it attracts as large a number of new and returning players as predicted, the newcomers' first impressions are likely to be more favorable if their requests for /help are answered by helpful veterans than an indifferent {and possibly outdated} info window.

Revisiting the topic from another angle, my old gripe - for a team-oriented archetype the Peacebringers happen to be, they are completely locked out of one of the most team-useful utility powers available. If we're to assume that for reasons unknown it's impossible to simply unlock the teleportation pool, would it be less of a pain to implement a squid-flavored version for the actual Luminous sets instead?

Pros and cons, ignoring SCR:
Human pickable: If available at low levels, extra useful for ferrying teammates around before permanent or temporary travel powers become available. Counterbalanced by the fact that you'd need to use up a power to do so anyway.

Human inherent: See above for pros, but having it for free might seem unfair toward all other archetypes which, again, have to use up a power slot to take it.

Nova inherent: Available at Lv6, but might be thematically inconsistent, as novaform seems to be more focused on flying than teleportation.

Dwarf inherent: More thematically consistent, but also less useful, as by Lv20 most everyone will have chosen a travel power of their own, thus having the power be a bit late to the party.

Any thoughts?