Rodion

Depending on how the "random" number is generated, it may not be a coincidence at all that you got more rares on Thursday. If the dev who wrote the random number generator took the system clock value and did some "random" arithmetic on it, it could very well generate a value that depended on the day of the week.

That's the problem with generating pseudo-random numbers. You have to be extremely careful to avoid building some kind of bias into the generator. Using the system clock to seed a random number generator might be okay, but actually using the clock to generate "random" values would be a colossal error.

Add to that the fact that bugs can happen (like the uninitialized variable from years back that caused the purple drop rate to underperform), it's very difficult for us to tell from an end-user perspective whether the system is behaving as it should. We just don't have access to the basic probabilities, the inner workings of the algorithm or enough data to adequately judge the performance.

It's ironic, but the only thing that would convince the majority of players that they were getting "random" rewards would be if they got exactly the expected number of each item. That is, if they always got 30 commons, 40 uncommons, 20 rares and 10 very rares in 100 trials, they would be convinced the "random" reward system was working perfectly. That, of course, would be the furthest thing from random.

Which just goes to show that humans have absolutely no intuitive understanding of probability and statistics. We are purpose-built to detect patterns, and we find them wherever we look whether they're there or not.

It depends on what bonuses matter to you. If you can get five of the Panacea bonus that is important to you from some other set that is cheaper, then it is most definitely not worth it. You don't say what AT or power set you're playing, so it's hard to be concrete here.

Depending on what bonuses your character needs, purples and PvP IOs may not be what you need at all. For example, rare IOs like Kinetic Combat do more to help you softcap defense than most purple or PvP IOs. On the other hand, purples do help characters that need a lot of recharge, such as dominators trying to perma-dom.

I don't have a single PvP IO in any build, and I don't miss them. The only one that I would consider is the Gladiator's Armor: +3 Def, but I've been able to softcap my characters without it so far.

And if you're mostly running PvE on teams at level 50+ your incarnate slots are arguably better than any PvP IO set you get.

I've actually found Doctored Wounds to be preferable in active powers for most of my builds, though I have the Numina's proc on a few characters in Health.

Actually, there's a better way to defeat Paragon Protectors. They're just regular bosses, which means that if you exceed their mez protection they can be held or stunned just like any other normal boss.

To take them out with a minimum of difficulty, hit them with two stun attacks (Total Focus and Stun) when they're under 40% health or so. The two Mag 3 stuns will stack and usually stun them long enough for you to finish them off, and they'll be unable to activate MoG. Bone Smasher and Energy Punch only have a percentage chance to stun, and can't be relied upon to mez PPs.

I only have the one slot in Stun with an Accuracy IO, and it generally gives me enough time to take PPs down, especially when I'm using Bone Smasher and its 60% stun chance kicks in.

After a while you get the timing down and you can almost always avoid having the PPs activate MoG. The same tactics apply to Fake Nemesis and their Personal Force Field.

Many players devalue mez attacks, but they are real life savers for people who like to solo. I always get at least one (if I can) for my melee characters to handle things like Sappers, and two (if I can) for my squishies so that I can stack them on bosses.

I have a Fire/Fire/Pyre tanker that has a decent AoE attack chain, a decent single-target attack chain, soft-capped S/L defense, 75% S/L resistance (with the Alpha slot), and so on. Those numbers make for a tanker that can handle most content pretty well. With the Alpha slot there are no endurance problems; without it, endurance problems are minimal. The build below may give you a few ideas.

I'm not sure that trying to max out psionic resistance will help; you'll never get it very high. In this game it usually pays off building to your strengths. As your build is now, you've got rather low resistance to the most common damage types (Smash/Lethal), and in high level content you'll have trouble staying alive long enough for your regeneration to make any difference. You're also using a lot of slots on Health and Stamina that could get you a lot more bang for your buck elsewhere.

My build is a little pricey with the Kinetic Combats and Obliterations, but if you do tip missions for Hero Merits you can cash those in at Fort Trident and it's not so bad. By the time you hit level 50 you could have a very nice pile of merits.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Fiery Wrath: Level 50 Mutation Tanker
Primary Power Set: Fiery Aura
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Pyre Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Fire Shield -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(3), RctvArm-EndRdx(3), RctvArm-ResDam(5), S'fstPrt-ResKB(5)
Level 1: Scorch -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(7), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(7), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9)
Level 2: Healing Flames -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(11), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Dct'dW-Heal(13), Dct'dW-Rchg(13)
Level 4: Combustion -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(15), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(15), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17), Oblit-%Dam(19)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- Krma-ResKB(A)
Level 8: Fire Sword -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(19), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(21), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23)
Level 10: Temperature Protection -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 12: Plasma Shield -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(23), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(25), RctvArm-ResDam(25), S'fstPrt-ResKB(27)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Winter-ResSlow(A)
Level 16: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Blazing Aura -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(27), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(29), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(29), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Oblit-%Dam(31)
Level 20: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(31), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(33), RctvArm-ResDam(33)
Level 22: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(33), LkGmblr-Def(34), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(34)
Level 24: Consume -- Mocking-Acc/Rchg(A), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(34), Mocking-Rchg(36), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg(36)
Level 26: Fiery Embrace -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(36)
Level 28: Fire Sword Circle -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(37), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(37), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Oblit-%Dam(39)
Level 30: Taunt -- Mocking-Taunt(A), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg(40), Mocking-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(40), Mocking-Taunt/Rng(40)
Level 32: Build Up -- Rec'dRet-Pcptn(A), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg(42)
Level 35: Incinerate -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(42), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(42), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), F'dSmite-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43)
Level 38: Greater Fire Sword -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(43), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(45), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45), F'dSmite-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45)
Level 41: Ring of Fire -- Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(A), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(46), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(46), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(46)
Level 44: Char -- HO:Endo(A)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(48), Posi-Dmg/Rng(48), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(50)
Level 49: Burn -- Dmg-I(A), Dmg-I(50)
Level 0: The Atlas Medallion
Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve
Level 0: Portal Jockey
Level 0: Task Force Commander
Level 50: Cardiac Core Paragon
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), P'Shift-End%(37), EndMod-I(50)

Twice in the last couple of days I've tried to exit to character selection, but my system just hangs. The game freezes, and when I press CTRL+ALT+DEL and bring up the Task Manager it refuses to end the game, and eventually Windows hangs completely. The only solution is to power off the computer. Once I had been running trials, the other time I had run and edited AE missions.

I'm running Windows XP Home with an nVidia GTX 460 SE, latest drivers.

I've noticed that some League leaders will queue an open league before they fill it to the max, then announce that the league is queued and anyone who wants to join should just queue themselves.

This has the advantage of getting the extra astral for an open league, and still allows others to join.

I have two characters with two different Lore pets in each. I like Vicky for my controller most of the time, but the Seer is useful in certain cases (like the Lambda). I swap them out as needed before a trial.

It seems like this would be a great idea, but I don't think it would help much. People will enter the queue and then start doing tip missions, and after 30 minutes they'll forget they're even queued. Then at the least opportune moment the trial will be ready to start and the dialog will pop up while you're in the middle of a big fight.

With the announced reduction to 90 seconds of the waiting time after the minimum team size is reached, it's probable that most trials would be started with the minimum team size. If even one person in queue cancels out because they're this close to finishing the mission and don't want to lose the credit toward the tip mission, the trial will fail to start because not enough people actually joined. Aborted trial starts would be the next thing that we're all carping bitterly about.

But I think your point about seeing the number of players in the queue is dead on. I would go further, and say that we need to see the names of those in the queue, what trial they're waiting for, what ATs they are, and so on. Basically, there should be a team search window for people who are in the LFG queue.

Finally, there should be a global channel for everyone who's in the LFG queue to talk to each other on to facilitate the whole process of forming leagues.

I found Ctrl+Tab to be too clumsy. Instead I use the V key to select the nearest enemy.

I also mapped as many functions as possible to keys around the AWSDX cluster. Basically, all powers and movement can performed with the left hand on the keyboard and the right hand on the mouse. I do have to use the number and function keys to do this, but all my keyboards work the same way.

Due to the busy nature of graphics on the screen, it's often difficult to even find the cursor, much less use the mouse to click on a power. Pressing keys is much faster and more reliable. Similarly, I avoid using shift and control for the most commonly used functions to avoid errors.

Trying to use the mouse to click a green, for example, has gotten me killed several times, whereas quickly pressing F1 (which is mapped to the column of inspirations where I keep greens) has saved my life countless times.

I understand how painful the wait can be, but in this case the excess waiting was due to a bug. Bugs will be fixed, so it's not a knock against trials per se.

By contrast, I went to RWZ where there were two trials forming. One was a BAF that had 11 members and would start when it had 12, the other was a lambda that only had three members.

After 10 minutes the BAF found its 12th member and the leader queued us. But one of the members never pressed the button, and the trial failed to start.

Impatient, I asked the leader of the incipient Lambda why they just didn't join with us, because doing a BAF would certainly beat standing around doing nothing. He was apologetic about it, but explained that he refused to team with the leader of the BAF. At that point I just gave up and logged into a different server.

As a programmer, I've often had to write code to avoid deadlock in programs. But this was the first time that I'd had a problem with human deadlock.

My question is: when are the devs going to fix childish behavior in players?

Right on, Strato. People are treating trials like TFs, and that's not how they're intended to work. We should form leagues by creating balanced teams that can pull their weight in a trial. Then we should communicate with other teams who are interested in a trial over global channels. Then when the teams are all ready the two or three team leaders should queue for the trial, potentially picking up a couple stragglers who are also queued.

Distributing the league building over two or three teams will make forming the league faster, and won't force everyone to run to RWZ or Pocket D. The team leaders should negotiate the league structure while the team members chill out in the Black Market or Wentworths, instead of standing around doing nothing in RWZ.

The timer is there not to punish anyone, but to make open leagues feasible. We currently all stand around in one zone and invite each other to leagues. We do it this way because we're used to it, not because it's the best way of doing it.

Another way of forming leagues would be to use a global channel. Someone could shout out on a global channel, "BAF starting up. Everyone queue for BAF." Then everyone could queue themselves separately or in teams.

The devs sold trials with the idea that you could stand around wherever you happen to be (in the market, knocking off Rikti in RWZ, chilling in Pocket D) and wait for it to start.

Nobody does it that way. We all think we have to pack into the same zone to start a trial. This is old thinking, a holdover from the TF/SF model. We all stand around for 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes doing nothing while one person frantically searches for league members. And to top it off, several times I've been in a league and the zone fills. The leader says, "Okay, everyone move to RWZ 2." So we waste another five or 10 minutes moving everyone to another zone.

This is not necessary. We can all just queue wherever we are. Now that there's a five-minute timer, it's actually possible to start leagues this way without leaving someone behind.

The problem is that most leagues can't succeed unless they have a minimum number of role-players (you usually needs tanks/brutes, control for BAF, area heals for Keyes, etc.). Since we can't see into the queue, we don't know whether the trial will have those role-players. This is the biggest deficiency in the LFG queue: you have no idea how many people are queued, whether there are actually enough to start a trial, who they are, or what ATs they are, what powers they have (including Incarnate powers so you can tell if they're level 50, 50+1, 50+2 or 50+3, etc.).

To allow us to use the LFG queue properly, the devs need to give us all that information, plus the actual time remaining until the trial starts once the minimum league size is met.

In the meantime, if we formed leagues by putting together teams that do have the necessary role-players for success, each team could form and queue themselves, rather than having one league leader doing all the invites. A hero team could form up in Talos at the market. A villain team could form up in Cap at the Black Market. No need to fill RWZ or Pocket D with dozens of people.

People currently think of a league as one giant team, when they should be thinking of it as two to six separate teams. Team leaders should work together to form a coherent league from two or three teams, instead of making everyone come to one zone and one person do all the invites.

Many people in the same SG play together as teams. Leagues and the LFG queue are explicitly designed to support that, so we should take advantage of it.

I watched my wife's grandmother in her last years (she lived past 90). People who live a long time don't get "tired of living" or get "bored to death." They are tired of life because it is so painful -- they can't see or hear because their eyesight and hearing are gone, they can't walk because the cartilage in their knees is gone and it's bone grinding on bone. They lose control of their bladder and bowels. They can't remember because plaques in their brains build up and they come down with Alzheimer's. All their friends and family die, they're all alone and see no reason to stay alive.

If the advances in geriatric medicine work as this guy predicts, all those problems will be resolved. People won't be tired of life because they'll feel young, they'll feel great, more friends and family will live as long as they do, and they'll be very rich -- if they invest their money wisely. There will always be something new to do, and after 50 years you'll have forgotten what the things you used to do were like, and you'll find them interesting again.

Few people commit suicide out of boredom. They do it because of physical illness, the depredations of aging, or problems like depression, despair, anguish, fear, shame, loneliness, a sense of loss for loved ones, or mental disease or defect.

Sure, there will be some some number of people who do get bored or fed up and commit suicide. But that number will be very small if the aging population still feels 30 years old.

But mass immortality is unsustainable -- in short order we'll have to do something about overpopulation: everyone who wants to reproduce or live forever will have to do so on another planet or in space colonies. Cause we're running out of room and raw materials rather quickly, especially if we all live 150+ years.

I suppose that's how a lot of people do it. But I don't think the devs want us to play that way. You're "supposed" to use the trials to see how other people play, and use that as a basis for inviting them to supergroups, or private global channels that have superseded supergroups (because of hero/villain teaming).

People in those supergroups and private channels do natter on after the trial is over. They help each other out with missions and set up things like TFs, hami and mothership raids, etc. You might not have discussions with players in the game, but you obviously have a sense of community with players in the forums. A lot of people don't even know about the forums, and just play the game. The devs want to get them engaged with each other in the game, to help keep players around longer.

I'm not saying you're doing it wrong. I'm saying that I think the devs believe things should work a certain way, and arrange things to encourage that model. It's pretty obvious what they want us to do, because they reward us so much more handsomely when we do certain things. The profusion of rewards for trials and WSTs indicates they really, really want us to do them.

But a lot of people who game aren't really into making social groups. They're used to playing single-player games, and don't mind spending a lot of time online alone. The problem is that if the devs were to make an easy solo track for getting these rewards, everyone would take that track because it will almost certainly be more efficient than running trials because of their immense startup overhead.

Personally, I don't like doing trials because getting a group of 16-24 players together has that overhead (often 30-40 minutes on some servers at some times of the day), and with that many players server performance during the trial is often very poor.

I used to dislike doing TFs for similar reasons, but since I was invited to a private channel where people run a lot of TFs/SFs, running TFs is basically as painless as running regular missions, only you get a big pile of reward merits or incarnate salvage.

To paraphrase the big-headed aliens in The Cage: "Wrong playing is punishable. Right playing will be as quickly rewarded."

It's didactic and overbearing, I agree. But it really is more fun to have a bunch of people who are willing to help you out at any juncture.

Here's my take on why they're doing this.

There's a common perception that City of Heroes is "dead" because there aren't hordes of people roaming the streets hacking wolves to pieces.

We play almost exclusively in instances. And frankly, it's a whole lot easier to play in those instances with just a couple of people. People you already know. Even with TFs, where you need 4-8 players, you can almost always fill the team with acquaintances.

That means you don't really need to meet other people. When I started out I was in a SG with 20-30 other people. Over time all but three of us quit the game. And we never really needed to meet other people to do the content we wanted to do.

By having large trials the devs are forcing us to be more sociable. They're creating spaces where people congregate to form trials. (That isn't strictly necessary, but that's how we're choosing to do it.) We're forced to meet new people, and expand the number of acquaintances we have so that we can fill trials with people who have similar goals.

The other aspect of this is that by giving better rewards for certain content, they are gating lots of people through the same content (trials and weekly strike targets). The devs are creating more opportunities for large team content to be done.

Games like this are social experiences. The more people you know, the greater the sense of camaraderie, and the more likely it is you'll stick around. If all your friends up and leave, and you've only got a few friends, you'll probably follow them.

I played a Rad/Kin corruptor to 50 and never really liked it. It just didn't seem to have enough damage. Then I played a Fire/Dark corruptor and liked it a lot. I was eventually able to make the Rad/Kin playable by respeccing to have high S/L/Energy defense, and it's not bad. But it still isn't as much fun as the Fire/Dark.

I've got an Energy/Energy blaster that was my first character, and while I like it, it's just a lot more work to play it right. And you have to use single-target attacks a lot.

My recommendation is to go with a corruptor that doesn't have Energy. It seems Fire/Kin would be more fun for you, as you can get massive AoE damage without displacing the mobs.

The fact that people are doing trials does not prove that they want to do trials. It only proves that they want the things that doing trials provide, and are willing to put up with trials in order to get those things.

Trials are the only viable option for getting enough threads and Astral and Empyrean merits.

Personally, I've never longed to be one of two dozen players hammering away on a single AV like a small army of woodpeckers trying to take down a polar bear. Where there are so many simultaneous graphics effects that the screen is essentially blank and I cannot see any of the targets I'm attacking, except via the targeting reticle.

I've never longed to chase down fleeing mobs that don't even bother to defend themselves, while the server is so overloaded that my powers all recharge two or three times more slowly, making me waste half my time trying to activate powers that the client thinks are recharged but the server does not.

I've never longed to lead an AV around by the nose while being automatically zapped for half my hit points twice a minute.

I realize that games have to stretch the suspension of disbelief here and there, but Antimatter in Keyes is just too colossally stupid. The entire conceit for this trial is preposterous. There's nothing about the trial that I find likable, interesting, or fun. It is simply tedious, repetitive, silly, and annoying.

"The players" don't want any one particular thing. They don't want to do just trials, or just solo play, or just TFs, or Hamidon, or mothership raids, or just tip missions. They want a variety of things, but most of all they want things to improve their character's abilities and costumes. They will do the things that will most efficiently get them those things. And the only serious option for incarnate content we have now is trials.

I do sympathize with the devs' goals with trials. If they provide a solo or small team path that's just as efficient for incarnate rewards, no one will want to do big trials. Because, no matter how you slice it, it always takes longer to get 8 or 16 or 24 people to do something than it does to get 1 or 2 or 4 people to do something. And startup times for TFs and trials are often as long as doing the content itself, depending on server and time of day.

Why do the devs want to force people to run trials and TFs? I'm guessing because they want us to interact with each other more. Large trials require that we seek each other out. I'm guessing they want to counter the idea that CoH is a ghost town, where everyone is running solo in instances.

I wouldn't find trials so onerous if they ran with 8-12 players. I've done BAFs with just 12 and they're much more fun. But people almost always run with full leagues. Which makes them take much longer to form and much more painful to run with all the server-side lag.

People can turn off all personal effects on themselves by creating a keybinds file with the command below and loading with /bindloadfile.

CTRL+O "suppressCloseFxDist 300"
SHIFT+O "suppressCloseFxDist 4"

If you don't want your costume or character to be obscured by effects, for whatever reason, you can turn them off and on at will by pressing CTRL+O and SHIFT+O. This suppresses nearly all effects.

I know it ain't perfect, and it won't stop you from seeing effects on other players. But I've found those to be less problematic than the effects on my character anyway, because I can get away from the effects on other characters if I have to.

Just because you don't crash doesn't mean that there's not a bug in the game. You may have a graphics card with a different set of features, and the bug may be related to how the game deals with a different feature set. Or you could have more memory. Or the bug might be in one of the powers that the OP has on his character that you don't use. Or any of a thousand other possibilities that are completely beyond the control of a user.

I've updated to the lastest drivers and I get crashes regularly. They appear to be due to memory leaks. The last one was actually reported as such: the game said it ran out of memory reading a pigg file when I tried to exit the Keyes trial. I've got 4GB of memory, which should be more than enough. The NCsoft system requirements page says the game runs in 512MB, and recommends 2GB, and 4GB or more for Ultra Mode.

It seems pretty obvious that this crash is a bug in the game. I can run fine before the trial, I can run fine during the trial, but when I exit the trial I get an out of memory error. It looks like a clear-cut case of memory allocated during the trial not getting freed.

As a programmer I know how hard memory leaks can be to track down, so I groan and bear it. But laying into a user for not doing enough to "correct" crashes that are almost certainly due to a bug in the game is not reasonable.

I crashed when I clicked the Exit button to exit the trial. It was an out of memory error reading a pigg file.

There appears to be a memory leak that has been there since i20 launched, which manifests itself most swiftly during trials. I was hoping against hope that the devs would address it with i20.5, but apparently that was in vain.

This is a common misconception. You get one Empyrean merit a day for each unique trial you run (the timer is actually something like 20 hours, but essentially once a day for most people). Empyrean merits can be cashed in for wonderful stuff, including PvP and purple recipes.

If all you ever do is run BAFs over and over, you will only be able to get one Empyrean merit each day. If you run all three trials in a day, you'll get three Empyrean merits.

That means if you want to get a Gladiator's Armor: +Def PvP IO from Empyrean Michael in Ouroboros, it will take you 60 days if all you do is grind BAFs, or 20 days if you do each trial once a day.

No doubt Keyes will become easier once people figure out the optimal way to do it.

I noticed the same thing, but it seemed to be linked to cut scenes. I zone all the time and don't notice anything weird, but occasionally Domination will be messed up if there's a cut scene. It happened to me most recently on the LRSF during the cut scene in the first mission.