Red_Zero

Thank You Cuppa!

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Beyond that, we are looking to release another Issue building up the story towards our next retail box, due in 2007. This will include going back and revamping some of the zones from City of Heroes, using everything we've learned from making City of Villains and Issue 7, plus a bunch of other cool stuff including new powersets and an epic archetype. Of course for the retail box we will be creating all-new zones and content based on the results of the forum poll we posted last month. The retail box will be an expansion to both City of Heroes and City of Villains.

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One question, will the next retail box be an Stand-a-lone Expansion or an Expansion pack that one has to have either City of Heroes or City of Villains to use, or has that been determined as of yet?

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This isn't JUST about bodyguard, it is about the interaction of bodyguard WITH the FF secondary, and how it bypasses the purpose of the secondary. You seem to refuse to admit that powers in FF are being made worthless in PvP by the implementation of bodyguard. I am not arguing the fact that bodyguard will allow any MM, even FF secondaries, to live longer. I am trying to make the developers, and the rest of you, understand that bodyguard is making key powers in the FF set worthless in PvP situations. No other secondary is having important powers in the set completely negated.

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Ok, Bodyguard has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this. PvP is what is making those two /Forcefeild powers irrelevant. That is the way it is now, before Bodyguard is implemented, and that is the way it will be after Bodyguard is implemented. Nothing really changes does it?

So what does this have to do with Bodyguard at all? And why is is such a detriment to /Forcefeild? Are you even happy with /Forcefeild as it is now without Bodyguard? Because that seems to be the real issue your trying to take.

I know what Bubbles your talking about and I think your overreacting and just not getting it either. Bodyguard is about the Mastermind, who is the boss, and not the Henchmen. If the bubbles are doing the job of protecting the Henchmen from attacks then they have some extra capacity to absorb damage being directed at the Mastermind that they would not otherwise have. All that damage being directed at the Mastermind is spit into shares and distributed, its like an ablative form of damage resistance, not defense.

And if the Henchmen are not being attacked at all and only the Mastermind, then what good is bubbling the Henchmen in the first place?

Living Henchmen have no use for Dead Masterminds no matter how well the Henchmen are bubbled.

And your being way to quick to disregard the effectiveness of Interupt Reduction Enhancements in Aid Other and Aid Self.

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Keep in mind, we can't bubble ourselves!!!! Thats what people who don't have the secondary always seem to forget.

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You mean Personal Forcefield, Dispersion Bubble, Repulsion Field, and Force Bubble DON'T bubble the Mastermind??? Who knew?!

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I am not championing the FF complaint I just understand what their complaint is, and tried to summarize it cause someone asked.

BTW I do have a FF MM, but I dont plan to PvP, so it doesnt bother me so much.

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Fair Enough. If it seemed harsh, I didn't mean is as so, but I just see it as a false complaint.

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The problem with FF MM's is that the bodyguard function will by pass the defense of their bubbles. Any damage taken by the MM is shared to the pets without defense applied. FF has no heal to fix pets (Unless the dip into medicine, which wont help since they are interruptable). Since people ignore the pets in PvP and go directly for the MM, FF'ers are slightly gimped. Bodyguard may extend the life or a FF'er but other secondaries can do more proactively to compensate for pet damage where FF can not, all FF can do is bubble and the bodyguard damage bypasses that.


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Damage bypassing the pets forcefeild defense is a NON-ISSUE if they are not being attacked in the first place! Not only that, but such damage is severly reduced because its only a share of the damage. You, the Mastermind, will be long dead before your Henchmen will while in Bodyguard mode, unless your being hammered by AoE attacks (the bane of the Mastermind's existance) or multiple attackers, in which case your out numbered to begin with.

Take Aid Other from the Medicene Pool and put and Interupt Reduction Enhancement in it, it helps tremendously in using it, and I should note that Forcefield is not the only Mastermind secondary with out a direct heal power.

I should also point out that */Forcefeild is not unique in getting defenses bypassed by Bodyguard directly to the the Henchmen. Shadowfall, Forcefeild Drone, Protector Bot Bubbles, and Manuevers all get bypassed in the same way. In fact, */Forcefield is superior to all this in that it can grant the best defense available to the Mastermind Archtype for the Mastermind, meaning fewer attacks will actually get through to hit the Mastermind and then have damaged shared to the Henchmen in Bodyguard mode.

Ok, I am having some trouble here trying to grasp the concept of why */Forcefeild supposively doesn't work with Bodyguard, especially in PvP. Given the */Forcefield is a mostly defensively based set to begin with, Bodyguard would only compound this defensive capacity, something that would be exceptionally valuable in a PvP enviroment where other players are smart enough to look for and directly target the Mastermind. Also, given the reduced accuracy against other player characters in PvP, I would wonder what it is that */Forcefield mastermind is afraid of at that point, given their ability to really compound their defensive capabilities.

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Wow I'm suprised that all the MM forgot about the biggest problem with this power. Follow/def
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Currently as the games stands now, if your teamed(as most MM do) Your pets will leave you if a teamate gets attacked. So if you die in a mish , get rezzed, the minute you summon your minions, they will leave you automatically to join the fight.Why you asked? Cause the AI is still borked.
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And so when pets are in Follow/def, they defend the entire team. I can see a bug where the pets take all the damage from everyone when the pets are within supremacy, thus killing them faster as well as possible the MM since in body guard mode, if a pet takes damage, Posi didn't say, does the MM still take some damage.
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Everyone can talk about oooh how powerful MM are with this power, when all they have to do is attack one of their teamates to get the MM by themselves and kill. Anyone else see this problem. If the AI isn't fixed before or during I7 then bodyguard will be still bugged up power when it hits I7.
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Don't get me wrong, itll be useful on the PVE side with ambushes and what not, but unless ur playing solo alot, its not a fun power to really have.
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In short the AI will still need to be overhauled so MM don't have to always have Passive/follow when someone snipes or pulls enemy npc. I hope someone could address the potential problems this power can have, I'm glad they decided to give MM something for free, but its like giving a little boy a dress, sure its free but does he really want to wear it.

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Your point is mote, as the Mastermind must issue a command to break out of Bodyguard mode. While in Follow/Defensive, the default state all henchmen are summoned in, any actions the henchmen perform independently does not, infact, break Bodyguard. You must issue a command first before the Bodyguard mode is canceled other than Follow/Defensive. The only bug that might mess with this is the Social Aggro bug, where they run off to help another Mastermind's minions because they will leave Supremacy range.

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As long as the Henchman is in Defensive Follow and within Supremacy range, he is in Bodyguard mode.

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I am assuming that by "within Supremacy range" that means that:

A) Your henchmen on bodyguard duty will have to have a valid line-of-sight to you, the Mastermind

B) Effects that cancel Supremacy like Phase Shift, Personal Forcefield, and Invisiblity (self) also cancel Bodyguard even if Line-of-Sight is present.

C) That the Henchmen must be under the effect of Supremacy - i.e. have the Supremacy icon beside there name with all the other active power effects, and not just within Supremacy's range of 65 feet.

This also brings me to another question: Since Supremacy is line-of-sight dependant, does -Perception powers, when they affect henchmen, reduce the effective range of Supremacy?

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Aw man.... I'm sure you have heard the phrase "Hip hop...hippy to the hippity hip hip hop you don't stop rockin' to the bang bang boogie to up jump tha boogie to the rhythm of the boogity beat!" Suger Hill Gang, also an old lady in "The Wedding Singer"

"Don't Push me cuz I'm close to the edge...I'm trying not to lose my head.....huh huh huh huh" Grandmaster Flash

" Friends.....How many of us have them....friends.....the ones we can depend on....friends!" Houdini

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Nope, I am very sure our local pop radio station were under some kind of censorship nutcase back then because there was a lot of stuff I never heard till I moved.

But this is all getting off topic.

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That MTV showed music videos 24/7, and rap and hip hop had not been invented.

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What about the Suger Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Houdini. Rap was around before MTV was even thought of.


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Never heard about them in the town I lived in, at that time (I am soooo glad to be out of that town, let me tell you!) As a result I can't name anything they did or what time frame they came on the scene.

You know your an old gamer when..

You've actually worked on teletype machines.

You though the mainframe in your dad's office was cool because it had 4 dumb terminals and two 8 inch floppy drives with a highspeed line printer and would dial out at night to the HQ Data base.

That Core Wars was a very interesting game idea at the time.

You could network several computers together using serial or parallel cables.

You actually knew how to tweek the interupt settings in your bios so you could max out your serial ports and card peripherals.

The Internet was dial-up only BBS's. 2400 baud with text compression was the bomb. That sometimes you had to switch the modem to function as a rotary dial phone and needed a handset adapter. Color ASCII graphics was gee-wiz. And Call Waiting was the work of the evil one.

That all Roleplaying Games were denounce as evil by all major religious institutions in the U.S.A. and that you were considered anti-social for playing them even though you meet with a half dozen friends to do so.

You wrote the hack in BASIC for the Racing Construction Set game from EA Games on the Commodore 64, because you wanted to beat your brother with the moon buggy.

Two Floppy Drives was better than one and a hole puncher was a computer accessory tool.

That MTV showed music videos 24/7, and rap and hip hop had not been invented.

That your parents wouldn't allow you to watch MTV, so you never got to see them anyway because it was too deplorable back then.

You watched old black and white shows on a black and white TV but for some reason remember them being in color.

You were shocked when they actually killed Roy Fokker and he stayed dead for the rest of the series.

Video Arcade games were everywhere. And you broke at least three of their fire buttons.

You know what THAC0 stands for.

Vector graphics technology.

You know what the trackball for missile command feels like and could spin it and stop where you wanted to on a dime.

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Videos of every power being used so we can see the animations before choosing, because frankly, some people wanna look good while being bad.

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Quoted for truth.

Love that avatar BTW, that guy in Port Oaks just cracks me up.

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... by which point you've outlevelled the relevant arcs. Or at least the 41-45 part.

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Who said it would be limited to 45? I don't recall any mention of a level limitation other than the fact that you won't be able to talk to them until after 40?

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Oh no. You're not forced to do the patron content. This won't prevent anyone from PLing to 50. It'll just remove any incentive to do so. They finally came up with something that doing the content can offer, but PLing can't (other than the story, of course). The reward from doing the storyarcs won't just be XP any more, it'll be patron powers.

I'm sure people will still PL through the odd level here and there, but zooming straight to 50 will be seen as idiotic.

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I don't think that's going to be true. Since you won't be able to change the Patron once you have one, it would make sense to go straight to Level 50 without taking any Patron, then switch over to the test server and try out each Patron and thier powers and find which one works for you. Then once you find the one you want, write it in stone on live.

Typically, I've made good power choices for my characters in the past, but every now and then I've screwed up and having that respec option available has always been a comfort even if it would be many levels before being able to fix it.

Then let us not forget the respec nightmares of the Global Defense Adjustment and Enhancement Diversification. If it wasn't for respec availablity many people would have outright quit from the damage done to thier characters and the inablilty to change them to compensate or rebalance.

I suppose in the end, I do not have to take a patron. However, so many of the few details that have been released about Patron Powers have not been favorable in my veiw. Non-Respec'able, I don't want a Mace for my main character which some if not all patron powers are to be "imbued in", and for roleplay purposes, I my main character would never join Arachnos or tie himself to them as he is a free agent or rogue operative to begin with.

The question is, is their an alternative to all this, or would I be missing out? Supposively, each Patron offers a different type of power sets to each Archtype. Other than that, details have been scarse, and that lack of knowledge combined with what few facts have been handed out so far I think makes people very leary about all of it, like we are about to be handed a giant bombshell of an idea that just isn't going to go over well when push comes to shove.

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Patron Powers are truly permanent. This powerset, once chosen, is as much a part of your character as your Name, Primary Powerset, Secondary Powerset, Body Type, and Origin.

There is currently no way for us to let you re-spec out of them and into a different one. This is because it is tied to specific content for that Patron.

Because of this, hard numbers are given, in-game, about the powers and what they do before you even choose which arc you wish to partake (and will most likely be available on the website as well).

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The Patron is un-respec'able? Or is it both the Patron and the specific powers choosen? I.E. you can or can not respec the choosen powers with in the Patron's available power choices?

If powers get changed or "adjusted" from their original description, which is hopefully well documented (any flaws in the documentation will NOT go over well at all in this case and it will be more that just a "Text Error") and players are not allowed to retune for that, its gonna make people upset.

I predict much future use of the Test Server.

And why such deviation from the Ancillary (Epic) Power Pools of the heroes? Or is that going to be and available option as well?

I tell ya, its like Blasters have the Black Plague or are something wholely unnatural in a game. I am just burned out from this abusive neglect for the archtype to be angry about it any more. Everytime we get promised a fix or looking into by a Red Name, it's like that is that last we hear about it, and all we get after that is excuses to push back the deal with long wordless pauses inbetween while we patiently wait, and that just doesn't cut it. I want to see some concrete results and not some stupid gimic like Defiance, that was a joke, and a very bad, poor, humorless one at that.

Now don't get me wrong about _Castle_, I think he does a great job, but either he's got too much on his plate, or the issues of Blaster's are just beyond anything he is capable of without changing the archtype as a whole, and its most likely both.

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More to the point, I grabbed Red Zero's list and Revolver Laws list and will be going over them. Thanks for reposting them (both here, and in the other thead.)

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May we have an update on what ever progress your making with Blaster issues and questions. Please.

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Base Entry Room: Free
Workshop Room (2x2): 100,000p
Lowest Power Empowerment Station (requires 0 Energy, 0 Control): 15,000p
Salvage Rack (requires 0 Energy, 0 Control): 15,000p


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Awesome.
Looks like I'll really be able to fill out the workshop now with equipment. Very cool too that no extra rooms will be needed.

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Our SG has 6-8 regular players and we have near 3 million prestige since the launch of COV. If we are their target audience AND they want a SG to have to work several weeks before they can afford these new toys (if they were starting fresh) then the total cost to deploy would be in the neighborhood of $400K.

The truth is you only value those things that have a significant (subjective term) cost to you. They have to try to balance cost with value (perceived worth). Looking at the bases now I'd say they value ANY upgrade at X10 the baseline version. This is a ridiculous scaling. If they put too much value on these new toys then their "reasonable cost" will once again be higher than the masses can stomach.

Our group is STILL saving for the 8x12 base. Problem is that we won't be able to make use of it once we get it because we are maxed out on control and power thus needing at least another 2 million (above the cost of the plot) to add the inspiration/enhancement storage device(s). So, that's another 4 months playing every night JUST to add storage. Reasonable?

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You sound about just where my SG is. At best we have enough space for 1 extra room, then that is it until we can scrounge up enough for the 8x12. That means we are gonna lose out on not being able to place some of this new stuff unless it can be put in existing rooms and does not require rooms of their own (highly doubtful.) Not happy about that prospect.

Sure, all this stuff is great for small SG's, because now you don't need power or control to just gets started. But what about those SGs who have achieved power and control, equipted rooms, but are now encountering a price wall because space is limited and plot values are very high. These things only address the very bottom rung, and do nothing about the rest of the ladder. You could buy an entire basic SG and fully equip it for the cost of anything over the most basic and starting equipment.

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And the Devs won't have thought of this because.....?

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Because they have not given any indications otherwise, and in fact, by posting those picture, have proven the very opposite by advertizing large rooms.

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It's entirely possible for a design to fail in implementation, and this is one of the potential failures we might see show up in play. If the empowerment stations are really only useful if you have minimal travel time (ie, a fully set up base w/ telepads), then it's entirely on topic to wonder if maybe they're not really such a big buff for small SGs after all. That's before you even get into the question of fitting everything on the basic plot.


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That's it entirely.
Even if the cost of the equipment is cheap, even if the Room type that you are required to put it in is cheap, what about the support equipment and cost of the real estate?

If the room itself is too big to work with inside a basic plot in conjunction with other features that do require control and support, that means that an plot upgrade will be required and that IS very expensive and cost prohibitive even to a successful small SG.

So even if the cost of the Room, Equipment, Power, and Control are all free, the space required could kill the whole thing.

The cost of empty space is quite high.

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OH FFS. CAN WE PLEASE BE SO RECKLESS AS TO ASSUME THAT WHEN THE DEVS SAY THEY ARE DOING THIS FOR SMALL SGS, THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

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No Can Do.

I am seeing way too much glossy packaging and no substantive, objective information on Issue 7. Some concrete facts would be good at this point to be assured that its all gonna fit together.