Rooftop_Raider

I wanted to go, but I work that day - and I am not sure I'll be able to listen to it at work, so I am a little bummed out. Is there a way to listen to a rebroadcast (or download a mp3 recording of it) later so I can listen to it at home?

Swift and Quickness both increase your base run speed by 25%. However it's your base run speed which increases every level, not the effectiveness of Swift or Quickness, which remain at a constant 25% at all levels.

edit: I did testing on this with my MA/SR on Test months ago. If there has been a chance since then, I'd love to read about it, or see some testing which proves that today.

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Give me the doooooom posts anyday. These bootlicking marathons just make me ill.

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I hate doom posts faaaaaaar more than praise posts, so even though I don't agree with the current AV change, I much prefer a happier community than a bunch of doomsayers.

Most of the changes the devs have made I actually like. Exceptions are ED and the current AV change, offhand. I'm in the majority with the former and the minority in the latter.

BTW can someone fill me in on the stealth nerf revoked bit? I've been away from the game for over a month (due to work and personal reasons) so I don't know if this is regarding some recent change that was revoked, or the way stealth has worked for the last few months suddenly changed.

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And he's also admitted that anyone can Tank. So if Tanking is supposed to be the realm of Tankers, and anyone can Tank, then what again is so special about Tanks? (possible answers that have been disproven by these conversations: agro management, and higher health)

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I'm like deleriously tired after an all night LAN party with copious amounts of alcohol so if I'm like all over the place - sorry.

But it's more than just anyone can be buffed, but Tankers usually have more than just a head start, they have higher resist caps, insane levels of status protection, aggro-generation tools (better than what any other AT gets).

Also the same arguement for saying multiple tankers being redundant is the same for defenders. Either way it's going to be an extremely safe experience.

I also agree with Statesman that no one AT is a requirement. I've grouped in practically every combination out there - and even on Invincible I'd be surprised if there was one specific combination that's needed. Maybe desired, but not needed.

Not knocking any AT here, but I don't think any are a requirement as a rule. There are exceptions such as specific AV's, but that tends to vary with each AV, and I think it's more power-set specific.

I mean, I used to play in blaster-only AoE groups and we'd take turn nuking groups or try different combinations. And lord knows we've heard about how useless Blasters are supposed to be on teams, right? Even in the lower levels, there were pure AoE attacks (non-nuke) and we'd just wipe mobs away. All it took was teamwork and timing.

The anyone can tank arguement also applies to blasters and scrappers, as anybody can do damage. But blasters and scrappers not only have a head start in that department, they do more damage after buffs. Anyone can mitigate damage, like Controllers, Defenders and Tankers. But offense is a good way of doing that, too.

That's about all I can muster.

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...a Scrapper, with buffs, can tank, but not as well as a Tanker. Why? Because...

1) a Tanker starts with higher resistances/defenses and

2) he has Punchvoke and thus can manage the aggro better.

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3) Tanker Taunt is a target AoE while Scrapper Confront is single target.

4) Tankers has the highest resistance cap.

5) Tankers get their defense powers much earlier.

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EverQuest, which I detest, is severely outdated and only barely beats out an Etch-A-Sketch on graphics still has incredibly high subscription rates. Of course, that dev team learned to actually LISTEN to their players and not FORCE those players to play how they (the EQ devs) thought the game should be played.

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You've never played Everquest I take it. In all the years I played it there was constant griping about Verant's "vision" all the time. It got so bad they had to shut down their official forums and players gravitated to 3rd party forums. You couldn't have played the game and visited any EQ forum without being aware of the Verant "Vision" debates. What's funny is, anytime someone mentions "Vision" I automatically think of EQ and Verant.

The reason why EQ still has an active fanbase is because it has practically the deepest online world of any MMO, drawing on six years of additional game content since release. What they lack in graphics they make up in relative depth. Having played DAOC and WoW I can say they pale in comparison in that area, for obvious reasons, they haven't been out as long.

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I quickly learned SOE's policy toward casual gamers was severely lacking.

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A policy Verant shared as a SOE company. EQ is a harder game to get into than CoH. Heck, let's be straightfoward here, most MMO's are. CoH is just super easy to get into.

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Of course, when Blizzard releases the first WoW expansion, I suspect it and DDO's release will likely be the true killing blow for CoH.

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I suspect DDO's release will take far more people from WoW, DAOC, EQ and EQ2, etc. I don't feel threatened by another EQ clone. If another superhero game comes out, I'd be more concerned.

Regarding the nerf situation, I can't think of a major MMO that hasn't delivered it's own fair share of nerfs. Every MMO I've played has had tons of nerfs. CoH is no different from them in that respect, and no doubt each of those MMO's had consequences for each nerf, etc. But right now we're having more players on our servers now than we've had since CoH's launch and doomsaying won't change that.

I also don't feel any less relaxed or casual about this game than before. I think a lot of these subjective experiences are based on pre-determined biases or intellectual criteria more than anything else.

Is that anything like Jabberwocky?

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I wouldn't say that.

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You're right, I should say "expansion." I wasn't meaning to overlook the content upgrades of 6 issues.

I've sorta lost track of where the conversation went here in this thread, but he's a quick look at where we are standing compared to the big guns of the industry:

World of Warcraft
Lineage 2
Lineage
Final Fantasy XI
Everquest
Runescape
Everquest 2
Star Wars Galaxies
Dark Age of Camelot
Ultima Online
City of Heroes

We're still holding at 11th place worldwide for MMORPG's (we have for about a year) and some of those like UO, DAOC and SWG are on a steep decline downward.

With the exception of EQ2, WoW and Lineage 2, all the other titles have been around for 6 months to a few years longer than CoH, and have built fanbases over longer time, as well has having multiple expansions to add content. We're just having our first content upgrade and it's about the size of the original CoH when it came out.

All I know is that we've had a steady increase in active subscribers every month for a year. We started out with a certain amount, lost a chunk of them a few months later, and since that time we've gained active subscribers every month without fail.

Right now by population we're (IIRC) about 11th place in terms of most subscibers in an MMO, and the MMO's doing better than us are the heavyweights like Lineage 1 and 2, WoW, etc.

Armsman has a problem with our steady growth for 10 months? That's his problem, not ours.

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So, if we were lying to you, it was an error of omission, rather than an act of malice.

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I just want to point out the difference between a lie and a mistake is deliberance. Too many people say others "deliberately lied" as if there is any other form of lying. You can't accidentally lie. You either purposefully mislead someone, or accidentally mislead, but lying is always deliberate.

Well, I like this change ... sorta. But mainly I wish it was more of a constant resistance increase, maybe with level, instead of how much damage you take. I like that it targets the passives, giving them more value.

However my disappointment with the ED thing just makes me not care, really. Defense is all we have as SR Scrappers, and we're having that one thing curtailed.

Regen gets fast HP regeneration, self-heals, a little resistance, greater HP, plus a final power that provides high defense as an alternative. Invulnerability has resistance, defense, a self-heal, more HP, and still the best final power of the Scrapper sets. Dark Armor has a mix of PBAoE damage, resistance, defense, stealth, a self-heal, and 2 really cool control powers. SR just does defense and if it's at really low levels it just doesn't do much beyond even-con minions.

I think ED is just making the enhancement process too complicated, and I don't want to have to break out a calculator every time I build a character. I think it also hurts the one-trick power sets even more.

Anyhow, I'm dabbling in the CoV beta right now, and I'll see how things go, but I am taking a break from the forums in the meantime because I think the ED thing is counter-intuitive and makes things harder to figure out. I hope this never sees Live, and we can fix the remaining issues with power sets such as improving SR and Ice's lot compared to the other defense sets.

I've always argued for resistance helping out SR a little, because it makes sense as helping to minimize the damage through partially-dodging attacks, and I think this new SR buff is in the right direction, particularly by targetting unpopular (and expensive) powers like the SR passives.

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Yup. I think we just need Havok/Thornkiller and the Confessor and then we could have it out I2 style.

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I tried being a peacemaker in those debates. What was I thinking?

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I think Electric melee has scrapper written all over it.

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I think Electric melee has ME written all over it. Scrapper. Tanker. You name it. Whatever melee AT it comes out for, I'll instantly make a character for it. Imagine that, as I burn endurance on enemies, I'll wear them out, too. I'll have battles seeing who runs out of endurance first. Me, or my foes.

There were something like 9 servers that are being merged to 3 servers. I don't know much more than that but the playerbase of MxO is dwindling noticably. Though it's possibly SoE might straighten things out.

To Statesman or the Devs, while other tanker defense sets combine resistance and defense at the same time - at least in some areas, whereas Ice seems limited to resistance or defense but never both in any situation. Exception being Fiery Aura but the damage it does is impressive and it still can reach capped resistance levels to 3 damage types.

1) Ice gets great rare cold resistance, and weak fire resistance, but no defense to supplement that.

2) Ice gets decent defense to lethal/smashing/energy/negative attacks in two armors, but no resistance to those damage types to compliment each other.

3) Other defense sets can actually exceed defense levels available to Ice with powers like Invincibility and Rock and Crystal Armor.

4) Lastly, the added defense from EA is minimal and doesn't offer a dramatic increase in protection in the way that Invincibility does. I just have a hard time understanding why a defense-heavy set like Ice can be outdone by one INV power, and has nowhere the amount of resists to the most common damage types in the game, lethal and smashing. Ice is actually the worst defense set BY FAR in mitigating physical damage.

I am not knocking the defense debuff in Chilling Embrace, but I just don't quite see it as enough. Are the recharge and speed reductions from Chilling Embrace (and now damage debuff), as well as the added HP from Hoarfrost supposed to be in lieu of resistance?

Is the design goal of defense sets supposed to be a balance of several factors like:
1) Resistance (Temp Invuln, Stone Skin)
2) Defense (Invincibility, Rock Armor)
3) Damage (Icicles, Burn)
4) Control (Chilling Embrace, Mudpots)

It seems to me the most effective types of damage mitigation are in that order, and you have sets like Invulnerability being the best at defense because it uses the two most effective types of protection, while sets like Ice are at the bottom because it has meager amounts of the worst combination. I also don't think the damage done by Icicles makes up enough for that.

Is Ice supposed to be less effective than everything else? How does that remotely become equivalent to a set like Invulnerability, overall?

Lastly, I am requesting that, in the very least, Permafrost be _looked at_ for adding lethal/smashing resistance, to a) give more value to that power and b) take the edge off of physical attacks at least. I realize INV is the king of physical protection but Ice is the jester, and he's not terribly funny.

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The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire....

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What?!

I love the set. I wish there was a Sonic secondary for Blasters.

I think the "Blaster Fix" is more the raised damage cap, not Defiance. Personally I see Defiance as more of a freebie. Something else that helps us out, but not meant as a great cureall for Blaster woes.

I'm in support of Defiance, and most Blaster changes. (the exceptions being AoE, and I've commented in the other thread on it)

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Yeah and jack the ripper was in 1977.

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No that was Jack Tripper. Three's Company? Hello? (taps on microphone)

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This is already the case for the Possessed Scientists in PI. You can jump into a group of lieutenants with no idea if they're Madness Mages, Ruin Mages, Agony Mages, or...uh, whatever the other one is. And the minions can be Earth, Fire, Air, or Ice Thorn Casters.

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And actually, I kind of like that.

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Well, that's my opinion of hasten. Personally, I think the game SHOULD be redone where STAMINA/REGEN/RUN/JUMP are inherient.....same with Hasten. Eating 2 outta 4 of our power pools for no brainer powers....it's just stupid (i know, people go without...I was on that train too, til I respeced on test when respecs came out....and played thru the respec trail...testing it.....over 15 some times. When I saw what Hasten did, got it on live...didn't look back.)

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I have made the same suggestion. Make the Fitness line inherent, and increase the recharge times of all powers by a set amount, almost as good as Hasten, if not just as good, and turn Hasten into a temporary run-speed click power that's a little better than Sprint and gives a 5% DEF advantage ala Hover and Combat Jump.

I basically ran into the same delimma you did with my earlier characters, before I instituted Perma-Elude and Stamina into practically every build I've had since before Issue 2 came out. But I feel obligated if not required to get Hasten and Stamina because I just don't feel like I am performing well without them.

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As with most things Controller, I'm on Red's side in this. I was looking forward to the sets being Defender-only, and still want to see elemental secondaries for controllers (Fire/ice/earth).

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I haven't given much thought about what would be good as more unique Controller sets, but I personally view the addition of Trick Arrow and Sonic Debuff to Controllers is nice because otherwise, they wouldn't be getting new power sets right now.

Nobody _has_ to take these power sets, but it's another option for those that want to. That's how I look at it.

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It's sad when they add cool stuff that we lobby against it because it makes the game more difficult...

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Forgive me, I literally just woke up, so I don't understand where you are coming from here. Are you for or against these power sets? Do you think they will make the game harder or easier? And for whom?

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while it may take some time, I'd much rather for a harder game with more powerful characters than an easier game with no depth...

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I have come to this conclusion, too. Though I am not a fan of nerfs, or at least some that have come down the pike, I admit the disparity in power bothers me sometimes, even between power sets in the same AT, but ultimately I trust the Devs to do what is right for the game.