Retrogression

I haven't really minded any nerfage yet (that stayed nerfed). My worst was the suppression on Snowstorm or Radiation Infection, and it's been reversed.

And I think the PvP will be kinda fun when I bother with it, which I suspect will be seldom. But I do think they should've just spent that time making more fun into the PvE and forget PvP altogether. I think in the long run they would've sold more games, and I think kept more players playing longer if they'd done that. They dont have infinite resources to implement content, and PvP has taken far too much of their work compared to the value of the result to the game.

But, that's a lesson to be learned or not, and maybe someone will learn it if not Cryptic

I do think it's important to balance every powerset for PvE. Even if a powerset is UBAH-EST OF ALL in pvp, if it is subpar in PvE, it needs a PvE boost.

wasn't the # of targets enough of a reduction of the power of debuffs?

ok, maybe this is just too girly of a question from me but here goes: Most of the trainer/taskforce pairups (Manticore and Swan, Positron and Valkyrie, Synapse and Mynx, Numina and Infernal, etc) are one male one female. Even Citadel-formerly-Bastion and Luminary are nominally male and female looking androids. Is there romance going on? And most particularly was there ever any romantic anything going on between Sister Psyche and Malaise? Or is it just a sort of PC "boy girl boy girl" thing like a dinner seating arrangement or a quota system?

Please address whether it is a good idea for non agro powers to count as attacks for this purpose (especially stealth like powers with -perception on them, like smoke).

Please explain the difference, if any, between "critters" and "all enemies". How long do they see you for, is it still 10 seconds? How many of them see you?

What if you are attacked but did not attack? Is stealth suppressed then?

percentage wise, it's hard to keep up with when its constantly changing and you don't know which build is at test vs which one is in development and which one is in QA - but if you could run the percentages by the person actually coding that percentage it'd probably help with accuracy.

It's certainly Possible that ice tankers are getting .5 percent defense from an unslotted wet ice AND 3 percent from a 6 slotted for defense one... because it's Possible that they have changed Defense SO's to 33% increases. But have they? Shouldn't that be stated explicitly as a change?

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It's fun to kill Frostfire 15 times while doing your main character, then starting over again with BRAND NEW powers and killing Frostfire another random 17 times.


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This amuses me because I think in terms of killing Dr. Vahzilok 17 times, and Frostfire is a new thing to do.

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Same here -- I spent the past 2 or 3 weeks leveling 3 characters (scrapper on Virtue, dark defender on Infinity, controller on Champion) up to 15 or so doing Hollows missions, after avoiding the Hollows completely for all of Issue 2 and 3 because of the bugs and the guys stuck under the stairs who killed me SO many times when the zone debuted.

Defeated Frostfire at least 15 times, yep. Defeated Atta almost as many. Did the Igneous defeat all three or four times. Lots of freeing of slaves from Trolls and hunting of Outcasts. One successful smooth Cavern of Transcendence trial. Met tons of new players and returning-for-the-free-two-weeks-after-getting-tired-of-WOW players. Made many friends!

I think it's the first contact you go to after you get to security level 6 (not necessarily trained up.. but leveled up) who sends you to the Hollows if you don't already have Wincott on your list of contacts.

You have two choices when he sends you to wincott -- stay in the hollows and do wincott's series of missions, or talk to Wincott, say no thanks to the missions, and head back to the contact.

I used to always do the latter because I didn't like the hollows missions. But lately I have been enjoying the missions in the Hollows more on teams so I am going 50/50 now for variety.

If you level past 10 in the Hollows without doing your other contacts' missions you miss out on some chances for badges.

I can't find Forest of Dread as a chapter title yet, but there's a Forest of Dread in "The Black Cauldron" which is also set in a fantasy realm based on the same Celtic mythos that gives you Firbolg and Tuatha de Dannan.

So it's gotta be some book of that type. Maybe the Evangeline Walton series? Gotta go digging through my bookshelves!

Not sure if anyone already mentioned it or not, but Aurora Borealis, the other personality that's in there with Shalice/Sister Psyche's head, is black. At least she looks it, and her husband is, so probably, though they could always say otherwise at some point. (wonders if that counts for diversity)

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I suspect that the difference to a hardcore anti-demon person is that in CoH all the demons, zombies and such are villains to be defeated. In many other RPGs you can play characters who either summon or are these types of characters.

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Except that fire controllers can summon fire imps, which are a kind of demon (or sound like they are. The primary meaning of "imp" is a small familiar type demon.)

It's not listed, so it's probably a bug. /bug it and send a PM to positron or someone like that.

I really think it would be helpful if instead of saying "there were PvE concerns this change is addressing" that Statesman could summarize what those concerns were. Also if they could acknowledge the issues people have with the change and address how they expect them to be solved?

Given that he went as far as to list the results from the test on scrapper secondaries, I'd also like to see the conclusions drawn from that test and how it altered the decisions as to what changes to make.

And beyond that, a full summary of analysis done on each problem before a change is scheduled to be made. I suspect that there'd be some good suggestions from players as to useful fixes for each thing. If the problem is tantamount to an exploit, this might be a bad idea, but if it's merely an issue with #bad guys killable solo by build A, that would be reasonable to discuss.

It's also possible that they've discovered some SS/SJ exploits that need fixing with the Accuracy debuff and don't wish to tell everyone so that unscrupulous readers might use it before the change goes live. I truly hope this is not the case because I really like leaving superspeed on so I can keep up with my groups!

(could the devs consider please making speed boost's default run speed buff less, or making sprint faster? it's just too darn hard for the kineticist to keep up!)

Right now, scrappers and blasters have the powersets that best fit the natural origin: swords for scrappers (katana/broadsword)/ super reflexes, and the assault rifle/devices sets for blasters. Tankers get some very natural secondaries (axe and mace) but their primaries, all defender primaries and secondaries, and all controller primaries and secondaries seem kinda non-natural.

You can (and I have) stretch natural origins to cover every AT, by going beyond the normal human concept of natural and saying that some humans naturally have psychic powers (which gives you mind control, empathy, psychic blast, and possibly also illusion control and force fields and invulnerability); you can get it to cover every powerset by saying natural applies to natural mythical or natural alien creatures. For example I saw a natural origin yeti ice/storm controller; the same concept would work for an ice blaster or ice tank.

So maybe archery is going to defenders to give them a more purely natural alternative. Course they could've just made a defender version of AR. What about a controller version of devices? (web grenade, sticky web grenade, massive web grenade, stun grenade, group cloaking device, decoy chaff, group targeting drone, independent battle drone - kinda like illusion control really but with one invis instead of 2, 2 immobilizes like all the other controller sets, and a tactics-like insta buff instead of a toggle. decoy chaff is kinda like a single decoy, looks more like a dark fluffy, but acts like a phase shifted agro getter, shorter duration and recharge, just the one, doesn't attack. Battle drone would be kinda like a phantom/singularity cross - not healable but buffable, a couple of knockback-y blasts with decent damage, and a hold (sticky web grenade) that it throws randomly, and maybe a repel. Should look like a robotic thing (maybe auto turret graphic?) Sticky web grenade is a single target hold, stun grenade is a targeted aoe disorient. (so you'd have that one two aoe hold like combo of stun grenade and massive web grenade which is an aoe immobilize, like fire controllers combining fire cages with flashfire.) No regular aoe hold.

This proposed controller primary should work well with trick arrows secondary for the extreme natural controller

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Ghost Falcon is the Praetorian version of Invisible Falcon from our world. (SPOILERS) In our world Invisible Falcon investigated Crey and wound up dead. In the Praetorian Dimension, the evil Ghost Falcon was kidnapped by the alternate reality Countess (who's a freedom fighter) and turned to good)

Serafina is the contact in Bricks. She's a powerful Genie who can help you.

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... can help you and wears a really skimpy costume. just saying.

As for Countess and Ghost Falcon, cool. That makes two couples where the woman converts the bad guy into a good guy (Malaise & Sister Psyche)... too bad we can't ever do that in real life!

How about a task force where the Praetorian Count stands around talking you into defeating Ghost Falcon cause he went bad again while Praetorian Countess was in a coma?

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I think folks are ... all too fixated on the whole "It doesn't sound like it's a sports article"; "It's too OOG"; "It needs box scores and quotes"; and all that. The thing has one simple job--explain the functions of the Battle Terminals. That's it. It doesn't have to entertain you.

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If it wasn't supposed to be entertaining, why pretend it's a column by a nonexistent guy in a nonexistent paper about arenas made out of bits not bricks for heroes who also don't really exist? There had to be a reason. It was not the readers who invented, sans evidence, the idea that this article was supposed to be something beyond an explanation of the arena.

OOG vs IG is a shorthand for something that is intrinsic to role playing games as a whole genre, from the pen and paper type to the roleplaying servers of online games. People like to come up with an imaginary space in which their character could be real, to create a fictional existence. The viewpoint of this fictional existence is known usually as IC, for "in character." Actually this notion predates the RPG, and comes from drama where it is known as the "fourth wall."

References outside of that break a certain implicit contract between players, or between author or actor and audience. There are times where this can be done to excellent effect -- but it should not be done accidentally or out of lack of comprehension, which is what you are implying is the case here.

but, I'm sure I recall we were told that Back Alley Brawler wasn't part of the Freedom Phalanx, but was the leader of his own group, the Regulators!

Another thing to please keep in mind is that some defenders have powers whose effect is to amplify damage (siphon power, fulcrum shift, fortitude, accelerate metabolism) - and many blasters can increase their damage to 400% of base without recourse to these buffs. This makes those powers far less desirable... It would be great if there could be room left to buff! That's why the 500% limit is so nice for scrappers.

Having "everywhere in missions" means this will be pointless of a change to implement, as powerleveling in missions will simply continue. Well, unless the goal is to remove powerleveling from open zones, which might be nice in its own self.

Why not go to the "if you used any power that affected the npc, or took damage from the npc, or used a power on someone who had done damage to the npc, or did damage to the npc, and your team did the preponderance of damage to the npc" concept? or is it too hard to code it that way?

As it stands the "doing damage" requirement is not equitable between PCs, some of who have AE damage powers and some don't. This was already a problem with how xp is allocated between unteamed players fighting the same NPC; it doesn't need to be propagated onto teamed characters getting or not getting XP. If a PC contributed to the defeat, they should get XP, whether or not their contribution was in the form of damage.

So to sum up:

- everywhere in missions - exploitable and too much of a back down
- damage only - unfair
- death penalty - still too short. should be 4 mins minimum.

Dying once every 4 mins is enough to slow down powerleveling quite sufficiently if someone was trying the corpse-dragging exploit idea. or alternatively -

How about having all xp go to debt only if the person is getting xp while dead? that would prevent powerleveling but still be fair to those who legitimately died for the team. No timeout, just a change - dead get xp as if exemplared? (would change to inf when no debt just as exemplared)

Then make it that + the distance and no exceptions for having done damage, unless you also have exceptions for debuffing, holding, healing damage dealers, taunting, etc.

What have I seen so far? (from the gamespot pics and the ones in the fashion preview)

"Tied" gloves and boots - kinda like wrapped, but more like the ones the redhead in green next to statesman on the opening screen has on her wrists.

Tight pants lower legs that tuck into shoes. Right now if you pick tight pants, you get one option for lower legs - straight leg pants and shoes. New options seem to include cuffs as well as the tucked in/legging look one.

Sneakers, short boots. Other new shoe options promised like sandals and slippers, but those were all I saw so far.

Plaid skirts. Also, pleated skirts. Appears to be in three lengths, the current supermini, a regular mini, and an above-knee skirt length. Also, the ability to wear patterned stockings on the upper legs under the skirt. (5th element pattern stockings below plaid skirt is shown)

A split skirt that goes down to mid-calf (loose 3/4 pants look).

A long "robe" that goes down to just above the knee, a shorter "robe" that hangs only a little way down the hips, a vest, a closed jacket, an open jacket, and a little bolero jacket. Each jacket seems to mix-n-match with various sleeves - none, raggedy super-short, short cuffed, elbow length, 3/4 length, long cuffed... notice the separate robe/sleeve selection bars. I did not spot any robes over robotic arms - we'll have to wait to see if that is possible.

A few new patterns other than the above - a few new hairstyles - looks like a lot! I can't wait to play with it

The intangibility can't be put on a toggle problem --

What about solving it like this - have make-intangible be able to affect otherwise unaffectable opponents? This would make sense because the power is just doing to them what they've done to themselves anyway. Then you could have toggle black holes and you could put them on phase-shifted enemies too.

There are a lot of level ranges where in particular ATs it would make a huge difference. For example, how are 31 pet Controllers going to compete with 33s who have slotted pets? Would a 31 fire/kinetic have *any* chance against a 33 fire/kinetic?

The whole concept of weight classes is odd, to say the least. The original idea of straight exemplar-ed down to the lower level would be much better. (IE if a 23 fights a 21, exemplared to 21. if a 33 fights a 31, exemplared to 31.)

In teams, everyone can be exemplared down to the lowest in either team.

The weight class plan just adds complexity and creates imbalances where none are necessary. Can you explain why it was created, and why the original idea explained at the Stratics chat, where the higher level simply exemplared down to the lower, was dissatisfactory?

It should be simple to create an IM client that did not execute code sent through it, did not allow opportunities for buffer overflows, etc. The security holes that have been relating to IM clients have to do with links to browsers, sending files, and so forth. Merely opening a chat interface so lines of text can be sent from within CoH to outside CoH and back would not be a security risk if done with reasonable care.

Everquest has had an IM client for a long time (EQIM). It's an unstable, crashing-all-the-time piece of junkware, but I have yet to hear of a security problem it created for the EQ servers or clients running it.

In the workplace, IM clients can allow a lot of productivity gain as people can discuss their plans in a group setting without leaving their offices and computers. It also creates its own record. In many ways superior to frequent meetings.

Stop the IM hate

Couple years old pic of me

I was born in 1967 and am currently married, the mother of an 8 year old, and for work I do object oriented computer programming. I drink a lot of coffee and I read a lot of books, that's my main hobbies besides the obvious (online computer games and message boards). I'm musically un-inclined and you could say illiterate in that art, so I have no favorite music.

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What other reason is there to adjust the mission?
You don't think it is a bit hypocritical to say "No two people find the same thing fun" and then say "I'm changing this because it's not fun"? I think he is trying to sugar coat the real reason behind it (people leveling too fast for his taste).


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Though some people did find herding this one mission fun (specifically some of the tankers doing the herding, though many were bored with it), *many* people were doing it exclusively and finding it un-fun, but a *faster* way to level so they were doing it anyway. Whether out of a sense of racing to be first or keeping up with friends... or whatever.

Since more people were doing it and finding it un-fun, and there are plenty other things tankers can herd and have fun with (as people keep posting), they made it timed. Not only that, too many people were constantly being nagged "do you have the wolf mission" over and over - this is decidedly not fun.

I do think an hour is too short. A reasonable amount of time that the mission would take should be taken into consideration. But as for getting a group together - get the group ready *then* take the mission, doesn't everyone do that on timed missions? It's not a surprise timed mission now is it? I should hope not.

As to what another poster said, there *are* specific really cool things you can only do at certain levels. Special missions at every level with new graphics or badges, story arcs that you actually get exp for, task forces, trials, temporary powers. There are scads of these. Just off the top of my head - EMP glove mission with clockwork, flashbang grenade mission, Pwnz mission, superadine lab mission, sands of mu CoT mission, Synapse taskforce, Lou's Garage, Manticore taskforce, Sister Psyche taskforce, Moonfire taskforce, Ernesto Hess taskforce, Transcendence trial, 3 respec trials, Striga missions, Frostfire mission in the hollows, Bastion taskforce, Positron taskforce, wheel of destruction mission with scary tsoo idols, Tobias Hansen one-way vampire mission, sewer trials, Plague Stopper mission, ice armor mission, freakshow disguise chameleon suit mission... ok you get the idea. If you want to solo those of the above that are soloable, missions or storylines mentioned above, you have to do it at the given level. Also task forces are MUCH more fun if you aren't exemplared... being exemplared into a task force is a frustrating thing, as mostly you or your lower level helper will be disconnected at some point and you'll be out of the task force before its conclusion.

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I apologize if this has already been covered...
Is it possible to use a keybind to automate the /send <channel name> part and leave the cursor ready to type a message?

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I apologize also if this has alraedy been covered.

if the channel is one name (no spaces) you can do it like this for a channel named 'Watchguard':

/bind w "beginchat /send Watchguard "

if the channel is multiple word name (has a space) you can do it like this for a channel named 'Safe Harbor':

/bind h beginchat /send "Safe Harbor"

these exact binds work for me. you could also make Macros for them this way I would think.