Rhysem
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Posts
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Quote:I have a hard time buying you really hit 7 minute runs given the amount of travel you could encounter going cross cap even with good mission locations. Maybe if you sent people to be teleport-pulls to likely mission doors, but other than that I'm having a hard time buying it. It isn't like we stopped to kill, the brutes blitzed through missions, beat the boss, exit and dash to the next one.Originally Posted by Roderick
These are times to be proud of?
Back in the Black Market Liberation Front days, a friend of mine used to PUG Quick Tarikoss SFs. We'd be a bit slower overall, because we'd have to form the teams first, but we were doing 6 to 8 man runs with a total time ranging from 7 to 12 minutes, with 8-9 being average. After the first one, most people would swap toons and rejoin, so we didn't lose much time to reforming.
Four or five runs, often with full teams, were generating 30-40 recipes per hour. And we weren't jumping through weird hoops trying to coordinate multiple simultaneous SFs, we were just pounding them out in rapid succession.
We maybe could have gotten our times down some if we'd had higher levels doing it with custom low level builds (overslotting <20 powers) but didn't generally want to tie our 50s up in a TF if we didn't have to. Time advantage too small to justify the 50 being tied to a TF.
You vastly overestimate how hard coordinating multiple SFs was with vent and a consistent team of players. I think you also vastly underestimate the time you wasted finding a team. Take it from over on the DDOers doing their completionist projects -- they estimate 25% to 50% of your time can be wasted by travel and team forming for pugging it, which is why you see them run dedicated groups of completionists who skip all that junk.
And yes, they're still times to be proud of. When we got 6 players at the keyboard (no my math isn't bad: 2 were dual-boxing) we were pulling 48 recipes in 50 minutes (every single time -- having multiple simultanious runners means we never got everyone stuck with bad travel/bad maps), which is a good bit better than 30-40/hr. Side bonus: if we did a double header (don't take the completion reward window when it pops up -- wait a day), our per-run time asymptotically approached the last BZ mission+log cycles, something around what, 3-5 minutes? We did it a couple times, but we really needed one more person at the keyboard than we usually had to really make it work. (oh, and more character slots -- I only wanted to dedicate so much to the project ya know?)
All those recipes went to a group of friends, so if I got something a buddy needed, it was his no questions asked. Good luck with that with puggers. Not to mention its more fun to speed race the first parts through vs friends doing the same thing. :-) -
So yeah, everyone remember the "no ghosting" TF/SF change that came down the pipe years ago -- after IOs, but still early on in that world? If the devs were data mining, you may have me and my crew to at least partially thank for that over on pinnacle redside.
Heroes bosted about their 20 or 15 minute Katie runs. We were doing 10 minute BZ runs and laughing at blue side. Here's how --
First, we built our groups. We actually rolled and leveled characters specifically to do this. They got to the min level for the trial (15? Pretty quick to do so, especially on double xp weekend) then leveled to a little over 20 doing BZ runs. Many were custom builds -- I ran a EM/Fire brute for a bit before flipping to a SM/Fire brute was mine. Everybody had a rad for the debuffs. Others were filler, but each group had a core of 1 each tank, heals, debuffs.
Grids were established where each of us (3-6 players, 2 of us with 2 accounts) had a "runner" brute(/stalker?) in each group. All the groups would be pre-formed from the last time we ran.
Brutes all headed out and ghosted the pre-BZ missions as fast as possible. Base buffs were used extensively. Good times for us were in the 20 to 25 minute range.
First to BZ's door called it on vent. They'd start beating stuff down. Everyone else finished their mission and then came in on that team, beat BZ down, took their rewards. Runner finished the TF, then someone else rebuilt the group (often with a macro) while the runner ran off to re-start the TF.
Then whoever had then gotten to BZ's door second took themselves and the person who just completed their BZ final mission and started clearing, while any slow mission runners went back to pushing missions.
Our most common case was 4 players and usually 20 min to the first BZ door. 5 min for each BZ run and we were in and out within 40 minutes with 4 hits each from the TF IO pool, including miracle6, numina6, gambler6 and a bunch of junk (trap of the hunter6). As soon as you complete, the runner re-invites and reforms the team for tomorrow's run.
We pulled a ... LOT ... of IOs that way. I thought we had a google doc I was recording our pulls in to help with drop rates, but I can't find it now. I think it was past the 1000 drops count (pulling 20 a night wasn't uncommon for us though -- only 40 min work -- so...)
It should be noted that the "min team size = 4" changes slowed it down some, but not a whole lot, and didn't kill it for us like the changes to Katie did for blue side. Just meant we had to work a little harder on our builds (thus builds specifically for this task, like SM where you get a bit of control/stuns to help out with a few bad spots in the pre-BZ missions).
Good fun seeing who could blitz to BZ faster. Hopefully the gang can get together for one last fully-staffed BZ run. (Gotta be fully staffed, most of us are F2P weenies with no functional IOs anymore) -
Quote:You know, a friend who also plays CoH and I (usually) run an amber throne war over labor day weekend. We aren't this year becuase he's busy planning his wedding, but when we pick it back up we'd welcome new victims... I mean players. ;-)Originally Posted by Positron
Derek Amberson (old Galaxy City contact): Sean Fish's Amber character
Gregor Richardson (old Galaxy City contact): My Amber character
The Amber game lived on in City of Heroes... until Dr. Aeon dropped Shivan meteors on Galaxy City anyway.
Correction: Two friends. Yes, we do run a game with 3 GMs, 14-18 players, over 2 days and make it work. Last time was our best yet: 13 dead, 1 king. TBH, king should have been dead too if the second to last death had been smart not dumb with their blood curse.
Too bad Paragon Studios is CA and we're IL. -
I'd always been on the lookout for a great bug to report for the bug hunter badge, but never found one. I did remember one I had meant to file just before my son was born, and then somehow I was distracted and never actually got around to filing it. :-)
I've verified it is still in game today:
Put CoH in windowed mode
/stopinactivedisplay 1
Start logging a character out (to character select screen)
Mouse down to start menu, swap to another application
Wait 5 seconds
Swap back to CoH: bypass 30-second logout window, you're now sitting at the character select screen!
Don't think there is any way to really exploit it, but I did find it interesting that the logout timer was on client side. It made me wonder what other timers might have been implemented client-side and if I could have found something bug hunter worthy (infinite-length tier-9 invulnerability powers? ability to run/fly/etc at arbitrary speeds irrelevant of enhancements?), but I never dug into it since I had a kid and drifted off to other games anyway. Now when I was contemplating coming back, its all over soon anyway, and my characters I loved are useless (IO'd to the 9s, but IOs aren't unlocked for me, and I can't sub or buy PP to unlock them, so... yeah... defense cap to 20% defense. Boo.). But I did find the note I made about it, which reminded me, so here it is.
This is, of course, likely to work in other games driven by the same engine. Just sayin'. /em muahahaha.
I suppose you could try to build some sort of flash-log hack for PvP or similar. Not relly stellar as far as exploits go.
When the servers are idle, you can sometimes see your other character still logged in to the world (saw it in my base once on highly-off-peak-hours), but I didn't get a chance to try to trade or drop an insp on them before they vanished (saw the world, couldn't interact before they vanished). -
Guess what makes it worse? More AI (its vastly more computationally intensive than in-range checks for buffs unless your buff code is idiotic). Guess what the new "summon some praetorean poo pets" powers do? Yep, more AIs. 2 per player, in fact. 1/3rd to 1/4th your average mastermind (since some MM set pairings are > 6 pets).
I'd been watching ship raids on Lib during I19 and you can predict how bad the powers lag will be by how many MMs/multi-pet Controllers and Spiders there are. More pets = more lag.
I was kinda hoping there'd be an all-MM trial run on test, just to watch the agony. Preferably with the new pets unlocked too, so each MM is fielding 8+ minions. -
Quote:The very short version: You're wrong. There's no nice way to put it. Sorry.Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
Ticks do not take longer just because there's more to do. A tick is a tick and always takes the same about of time. However, having to send MORE packets than it used too (remember, the netcode is still 56k friendly, so the packetsize is unchanged, there are just more packets), will take more ticks to do the "same" thing.
The client handles the UI aspect of when powers are recharged, so that doesn't slow down at all, but as the server just hasn't sent you the recharged packet yet, you get the "ooom" when you fire it.
Your initial assumption is wrong: ticks don't take the same amount of time. The short version is a graphics demo analogy: to achieve a framerate of 60 FPS in a demo, each frame must render in 1/60th of a second. When frames miss that window, the framerate drops -- it doesn't matter if half of them render in 1.5/60th and the others render in 0.0001/60th, you're still going to be going at well under 60 FPS (in particular: 40 FPS, or 2 frames rendered for every 3 shown).
Map that concept to the servers running ticks, realizing that the servers actually simulate time in tiny discrete chunks. (side note: the chunks simulated time length are directly related to arcanatime.)
Note also that buffs and debuffs don't drop when they should. In extreme instances of power lag you'll find that your average hasten buff is lasting well more than 2 minutes. That isn't a client error -- the server hasn't told the client it is gone since the server hasn't simulated anywhere near 2 minutes of game time. This alone tells you that the server is 'simulating' time and that its running 'a bit behind.' -
If your'e 5-slotting CI, drop the acc/dam and slot the rest. That should get you to damage and recharge cap (or nearly so) and let you slot up a nice proc in place of UndDef (-res proc) in Hack.
You might pay for it with slightly more misses, but I suspect the benefit of a proc will outweigh that. -
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...90,2879-7.html
The 460 is probably the better card, it is certainly quite a bit newer than the 5750. If they'd sent you a 5770, then it might be more room for debate.
Also, FWIW, Nvidia's drivers tend to be better. There's still lots of people in here complaining about ATI's terrible drivers. -
I've got cardiac on my BS/SD and it is nice to shore up the +res you get a bit too.
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I want and end-game that isn't a boring grindfest.
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Quote:Er, whoops. That's indeed what I meant to say.Originally Posted by Hopeling
Ack! No! Hack is the best attack in the set after Headsplitter. Skip Slash instead.
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Quote:to-hit. The distinction is important.Originally Posted by Rikis
I can't respond to all of your questions, so here is what I know:
Defense doesn't have a cap per se, it can go up to 100%, 200%. What they mean with the soft cap though, is that once you hit 45% you've floored the accuracy (or tohit, not entirely sure) of even con enemies.
Note: it'd be more accurate to say "brutes take at least 10% of the damage of an attack." More than 90% resistance can benefit you if someone dumps a -res power on you. But no matter how much res you have, you take 10%.Quote:Resistance on the other hand, does have a hard cap. It varies from AT to AT, but for Brutes, it's 90%. Generally speaking, people only hit the resist cap to a single specific damage type depending on their armor set (a Brute can hit 90% resist to Energy Damage if he's Electric Armor). Buffs from other people (Corruptors, Defenders, MMs, etc) will allow them to hit the resist cap to other damage types.
Second note: I'm not sure that's true when you're running under the effects of Eye of the Magus. -
Ya gotta find somewhere to host the images. I stuck mine up on google docs, made them "public to anyone with the link." Then I looked at the public pages for them and copied the image URL, and stuck that in the bracket-img-bracket tag.
It should be noted I don't use the WYSIWYG editor. -
Arm's proc is the better proc, so I'd keep it in whatever power you activate more (likely FSC since it has a shorter recharge). Unless you FSC and SC exactly once per spawn, in which case move Arm over to SC because of the bigger radius and higher(?) target cap.
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Quote:There is a solution to that: get the MMs to keep their pets in rather than out.Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord
I just had to cancel the weekly Rikti mothership raids that I've been running on the Champion server for the past two years because of this. The zone is almost always full before we start. The lag has just become worse and worse to the point where it is no longer bearable for me. And yes, it is exponentially worse when pets are present, which is just about always.
Unlikely, I know. -
I like the touch of red. I should take one of Shining's other costumes and kick around some ideas again.
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I'm attempting to be lazy with sharing the images by dumping them on google docs... We'll see if it works (yes) and for how long (that's the rub I guess?). His first costume, a post-modern angel:
And the classic angel:
Current build is something like this which if you load it you see is still classic pool fitness. I hadn't settled down on what I'm doing to fix that. Nor what I'm going to do to pull slice/whirling (depending on the circumstance) from the attack chain. I'd like to get some self healing and parry. That's easy enough with 3 fitness powers but then I'm slot-poor and hadn't decided yet what to do about it. I wouldn't mind picking up maneuvers and tactics too, but that requires power picks I don't have free.
Largely at this point I'm waiting for the further incarnate slots. If they're easy enough to get and the heal one is good enough I could ignore medicine, that'd help my goals a lot. -
Not to rain on your parade, but it'd be nice to see a non-"no kill" alternate for animals. Them being "no kill" just dumps the problem of putting down cases on non-"no kill" groups/shelters.
No, I don't have a non-"no kill" link handy.
Sorry, its a big thing for a vet former-roomate of mine and our local humane soceity who we're foster parents for kitties for. -
Super simple version: the server is built to run at 60 FPS but is so busy it is actually running 40 FPS. Your power needs 240 frames to recharge... you (and your client, which times powers independent of the server) think that should take 4 seconds, but the server says it needs 6.
Details:
Its the price for bad code on the developers part. Its just like at large ship raids (particularly when there's lots of pets out) or hamidon. The server isn't running things in real time, it is instead simulating the game in discreet time-steps. The problem is when it takes longer on the wall-clock to process a time-step than a time-step is long. (example: if it takes 2 real-life seconds to process 1 second of game time... you can see how things get messed up)
This is compounded by your powers recharge being monitored by your client, not the server. So while the server is a few seconds behind, the client is clueless about it and tells you your power is ready. Unfortunately the server doesn't agree, so when the client says "fire X" the server says "action queued" aka the red ring.
It is a real pity the server doesn't return to the client any sort of time-step information so that the client could run a similar simulation and at least give you accurate power recharge times, even if the server itself can't be fixed to manage to run things within the allocated step-time.
The plus side of this failure mode is that things fail "gracefully" in that regeneration ticks process on that same simulation process, so even though your DPreallifeS is falling, so is the target's regen/power recycle/etc per reallifeS.
Its actually the price you pay for "too many mobs or player pets active at once." If you watch ship raids, lag will be much, much, much worse when a raid has a bunch of MMs and other player summoned pets.
Let me tell you, I'm not looking forward to ship raids with full-incarnate players and everyone summoning two minions. -
As with everything /SD, its good. Fire has nothing in particular that says "I'm meant to go with /SD!" to me -- I suppose the AoE supplements shield charge nicely but...
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Slotting Phalanx is a waste of slots. Move elsewhere.
You're probably overenhanced for defense. Particular with parry. Parry doesn't need +def boosting, just slot it up for damage.
Hack can go. You don't need it in your attack chain.
You didn't take grant cover -- you'll be wanting that for the debuff resistances it gives you. The team bonuses it grants are gravy. 1x end redux IO, or a gambler6 as you prefer. -
From a BS/SD "angel"-type I have to say, very nice work on the costumes.
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Hack > Slash. Take it first. Just sayin'.
Also you probably don't need both -- especially not with parry too. If you don't plan to parry regularly, having both may have value. If you do plan on parry in your regular attack chain, there's no reason to have slash.
If you're just doing parry for the elude crash (that's the T9 right?)... I'm not sure that's worth it, but hey, to each their own. -
Quote:Not strictly true: Parry recharges a lot faster than slash. So by swapping those you may end up breaking your attack chain. When you're only talking a 7.5 dpsa gain from the switch and doing something around 71 dpsa base, if it introduces (slightly less than) a tenth of a second gap you've gained no ground (actually, lost ground: slash costs more end and doesn't grant you defense -- even if in 99% of the cases the def would be wasted).Originally Posted by DoctorWhat
Also if you have melee defense at 45% you can drop Parry for Slash and it's higher damage and defense debuff. It only works, however, if your melee is softcapped. Otherwise forget it, keep Parry.
Note: didn't do the math to see if I could get slash recharging fast enough to be equal to parry. You might be able to, but you might compromise set bonuses to do it. -
You realize that you're most likely asking for lowering merits -- at least on 50 TFs (with 50+1s and the alpha slot) and anything that's the WTF as people farm it for the incarnate bits/badges, right?
