Samuel_Tow

All's I'm saying is that every time someone posts a thread complaining about someone else, people will inevitably drop and say "Well, what if he was <something or other>?" Years ago I posted an Excession-style rant about a person whom I could NOT understand in the slightest because his Internet leet speek was just too thick. Of course I got people suggesting that maybe that wasn't his first language, or maybe he had a mental problem, or maybe he was an 8-year-old kid, or maybe he was Santa Claus. Or maybe he was a lazy *** who couldn't be bothered to spell.

I've been giving that exact "snob" reason since the day exemplaring was implemented. I don't like losing access to my powers, because it sucks more to have had a power and lost it than to have never had it at all. So people like me existed, and gave out exactly these explanations.

One likely reason you're seeing more of it now is that a lot of people who wouldn't have exemplared before at all, will now not exemplar more than five levels, and where before they could just refuse to exemplar altogether, they now feel they should explain why they are willing to exemplar, just not that far down.

Far as I'm concerned, I'm not doing anything more than 5 levels below me unless it's a favour for someone.

That's a buff to any fire damage you do, regardless of where it comes from, so yes, Patron fire attacks would be buffed. Except... What Patron gives you attacks that do fire damage?

Fiery Embrace gives you a 30-second, 100% damage buff to Fire damage, and a 10-second, 80% damage buff to all other types of damage, with the possible exception of Toxic (they had to add it when porting the power to Scrappers). This includes Smashing. It's pretty much a copy of Build Up on a longer recharge, without a to-hit buff, but with a much stronger and longer buff to fire damage.

I say again - you do NOT have to switch sides to make use of Going Rogue. What is your problem?

That's as far as it needs to go. No, something does NOT NEED to replace debt. The penalty we get is already good enough. I don't want nor need a harsher penalty, and it will take a LOT to convince me such is needed. You know, especially since you're suggesting that I get penalised more.

They're actually hiring someone specifically for that? Sweet! I guess Jay's aversion to anthropomorphic costume pieces wasn't just a myth. I mean, I love the guy's work, but I'd really, really like some more animalistic costume pieces. It takes all kinds to give variety to the game

Right, I don't know what I saw that said it was a cone. So that's an 80 feet range, 15 feet radius AoE, then? Interesting. I'm not sure I actually want to go with that, though. It's AoE damage is rather low, and its recharge is an entire 32 seconds. I hadn't actually looked at those numbers when I originally posted, but Mace Blast recharges in 9 seconds. But on the other hand, it only has barely more damage than Disruptor Blast - 41.7 to 55.1, according to the new Mids'.

Hmm...

Lightning doesn't mesh with my concept design, be it red or otherwise. I did consider it, mind you, I really did, but it just doesn't fit. Nothing from the Patrons fits, in fact, but Mace Blast comes the closest because it's overt technology and so is easier to sell than the others.

Well, let's have a look. Let's leave Fire Blast aside for the moment, as Blaze is an outlier in terms of DPA (admitted to by Castle) and the set's damage is actually variable depending on the extra damage component. Let's take what has to be THE average set - Energy Blast - and have a look. Let's take a cross-section of the set and examine Power Blast, Power Burst and Sniper Blast. I'll go by damage scale, because I want to examine the merits of taking Snipes up to 3.56 scale damage, as per the Dominator change.

Power Blast DPA: 0.982
Power Burst DPA: 1.060
Sniper Blast DPA: 0.637

Now, evidently (or obviously), Sniper Blast is significantly less efficient in terms of time Energy Blast's quite basic attacks. The only time its damage is actually worth it is if you're not pressed for time, which essentially only happens at the start of a battle. At every other point during that battle, you're better off using other attacks, yet Sniper Blast is balanced around a fairly short recharge timer - 12 seconds. That's less than something like Knockout Blow, for Pete's Sake! But what if we up its damage to 3.56? Well, then we'll have.

Sniper Blast DPA: 0.822

Honestly, I am still not impressed, but here's the difference - this time when you DO open a fight with it, they WILL feel it. It may not be the most damage you can pump out, but it is still SERIOUS damage. To me, that would be about enough. But I want to be arrogant and keep pushing. Most Snipes activate in 4.33 seconds, with a 3 second interrupt time. There is one, however, which activates in 3.67 seconds - Assault Rifle's Sniper Rifle. So let's look at what would happen if Sniper Rifle were upped to 3.56 and retained its current animation time:

Sniper Rifle DPA: 0.970

Hmm... Now THAT looks quite good. With these numbers, using a Snipe is actually NOT a waste of time, damage and buff duration. In fact, it's about on part with everything else, outliers notwithstanding. Yes, it's slow and yes, it's interruptible, but when it does fire and when it does hit, it not only hits HARD, but it actually hits EFFICIENTLY hard. This, then, becomes a power I WANT to use every time I can, not a power I have to look for excuses not to use.

Granted, that's a big change, but I feel it's warranted.

This is one of those things I'll remember forever and smile every time it crosses my mind. Thank you, Kelenar And I actually do agree with your basic premise.

In my opinion, punishment sucks. Period. I understand the need for some kind of balancing mechanic such that you can't just keep flinging your body at a problem until it eventually topples over under the weight of random chance, believe me. To me, the problem stems from the fact that we have a REALLY persistent world. You can die in a mission, ship off to the hospital, come back, and everything will be as you left it. Under such a system, OF COURSE people will likely just keep on trying and keep on chipping away and win in much the same way as the grunts in Quake try to defeat the player - rush in and try to do as much damage as possible before you die, then let the next one pick up where you left off.

However, I am still not a fan of a system that punishes. Really, when you get down to it, the idea of such a system is to make you feel lousy for losing, so that you're not going to want to lose. To me, any game that's designed to motivate the player by making them feel bad is simply flawed in its inception. Well, unless it's some kind of survival horror or heart-wrenching drama, but that's more for dramatic effect. In an MMO, this is simply a result of a design philosophy which dictates that games are serious business, and sucking in a game should, therefore, seriously suck in real life, too. Most games take the route of slapping you across the face by yanking hours upon hours of honest-to-God work from right under you over the smallest mistake. And that SUCKS!

Frankly, about the best "death penalty" I've ever seen has been in games with a quick-save feature and a permanent "Game Over" end when you die. For instance, in Half-Life, every time you died, that was it. The game was over and there were no continues, no extra lives, no respawning. Nothing. The only thing you could do is reload an older save and try again. But here's the thing - you can't just bum-rush Nihilath, do a bit of damage, die, respawn, do a bit of damage, die, respawn, repeat. Simply put, every time you died, the encounter restarted.

Now, of course, this isn't really possible in a multi-player game, and in fact it's a problem that is CLEARLY evident in the old Windows 3.11 Load Runner game. A single-player Load Runner played just like Load Runner always has - if you got killed, the stage restarted and you had to do it all over again. In a Two player game, however, the stage never reset, because even if one Load Runner died, the other was typically still alive and running around, so it didn't make sense to yank HIS life and restart. This led to a game that was VASTLY easier in two-player mode than it was in single-player mode. Battle Toads, on the other hand, took the opposite approach - when one player dies, BOTH players die, and they both have to restart.

So what does any of this have to do with City of Heroes? Well, to be honest, I'd actually like to see at the very least the spawn you died to respawn entirely as soon as you ship out to the hospital. None of that nonsense of beating an Elite Boss down to half health, then returning to beat him down to nothing. I would hesitate to go as far as to suggest restarting MISSIONS, but I would honestly prefer a save point style system of encouraging good play over a feel-bad system of punishment for discouraging bad play. I suspect such a thing might actually make people appreciate self-rez powers more. If being able to resurrect yourself making the difference between having a tough fight restart or being able to continue fighting, that might make these powers a lot more appealing. I've always seen them as an extra life, but of course you still get debt when you die, and you need to be dead to use them, so many regard them as unnecessary.

Generally, I'm a fan of encouraging good play over discouraging bad play. By far the WORST thing that could happen to this game is for players to be skittish and afraid for their lives all the time, always playing safe and never taking chances, throwing hissy fits when they die. We're heroes! We're supposed to be brave and fearless and ready to leap into battle even against enormous odds. We should NOT be afraid of losing.

I want a game where I feel like I could take chances and live the adventure. I don't want one where I'm afraid of the dark.

The one time I used DPE in my previous post was actually a type. It should have been DPA, as well. My bad.

That answers my question, actually. Well, sort of. I'd be interested to see the formula, but without it I can just resort to figuring things out in general. That's not a bad thing, mind you, but I'd prefer it if there were an unambiguous, or at the very least clear method of determining this.

So, essentially what you're saying is start from the powers with the highest DPA and add more from there until I have enough for them to loop, do I have that correct? I suppose that could be modelled, but is this assuming enough so much recharge that powers can always be used in order every time? The reason I ask is that, while the attach chain you suggest looks good, it seems to assume an almost equal recharge time for all three powers - Flares, Fire Blast and Blaze. I don't believe that's the case, or indeed could be the case if they were slotted or enhanced equally.

I will freely admit that haven't worked on recharge-sped-up player powers, but I did spend a significant amount of time (read: one full day, so you be the judge) fiddling around with trying to figure out a consistent attack chain for stock NPCs. I think I worked with the soldiers of the Nemesis Army. What I found, by and large, was that their longer-recharge powers were being used, on average, less often than their shorter recharge powers if I wanted to formulate a seamless attack chain. For Werfer Jaegers, I believe I worked with three powers, at 2, 4 and 6 second recharges, and for the most part, the 2-second recharge power fired off a lot more often than the 6-second recharge one, simply because it was available to launch more often.

This is what I actually don't get - I can draw a highest DPA estimate and even predict an ideal attack chain, but I have never, for the life of me, seen an attack chain that was ever as linear as Attack 1 -> Attack 2 -> Attack 3 -> Repeat. They typically go 1 2 3 2 - 2 1 2 3 2 - 2 repeat, with the smallest attack occurring rather more frequently than the biggest attacks. What I'm saying is that I can plot a theoretical best attack chain, but I have both no guarantee that that'll fit, that powers won't wait while recharge while still leaving gaps open and, above all, I cannot predict if such a chain will even mesh.

Let me give you an example: We have two powers. Power 1 animates in 1 second and recharges in 1 second, and Power 2 animates in 1 second and recharges in 2 seconds. There is simply no way for those to mesh without stepping on each other's toes and having one power wait while recharged and STILL leaving a gap anyway. And even then, it won't go like 1 2 1 2 repeat, but more like 1 2 - 2 1 2 - 1 etc. or 1 - 2 1 2 - 1 2 - 1 and so on. There is no way to avoid the gaps AND keep the powers from overlapping AND have them alternate.

As others have said, I'm not sure this is even relevant to Snipes as, by virtue of their design, they have no place in attack chains, the same way things like nukes or mines don't. Snipes are somewhere in-between situational utility and impractical exotic powers. Their performance in stand-and-fight combat is markedly inferior to just about everything else in the game short of Brawl, and that's so easy to prove as to be self-evident. The question is whether their utility and/or output in the right situation, as well as the frequency of their need is balanced against the opportunity cost of these powers. I define "opportunity cost" as a decision made when an opportunity to choose presents itself. So, are Snipes worth taking, are Snipes worth slotting and are Snipes worth using instead of other powers? My answers would be "no," "no" and "rarely," respectively.

I'm not sure what they were intended to do back at Launch, but right now Snipes are a gimmick. You can pull with them, or you could open with them provided you don't have buffs counting down (say, when Aim and Build Up are still recharging and you don't want to wait for them), but beyond that, they actually exact a higher cost for less damage over a longer time. I'm aware there are instances in battle when a Blaster can Snipe and not be interrupted, but short of having "just another attack," it's typically better to just fire off one or two conventional attacks, rather than waste time and energy on a Snipe that may not even fire.

This actually reminds me to the jokes of old, like Nukes which, in addition to draining you, also STUNNED you for 10 seconds when you used them, or Elude as a power which turned off your offence but boosted your defence so you could literally elude your opponents. Interesting items in terms of concept, but badly unworkable, bordering on useless in actual execution, especially in a game before Break Frees existed. Snipes seem to be a similar awkward concept that appears to have simply been forgotten by evolution. They are simply not very useful, a point with which Castle seems to agree, since he boosted Dominator Snipes to 3.56 scale damage, which is comparable to the game's actual big hitters like Seismic Smash, Knockout Blow and Total Focus. In fact, Dominator Snipes now outdamge Blaster Snipes, albeit by not very much, given the difference in ranged damage mods.

In my eyes, Snipes don't deliver anything. They don't deliver sufficient damage over time, they don't deliver sufficient shock damage for how long they take to fire, they don't deliver heavy-hitters in combat and they deliver only ignorable utility which can be replicated by other powers, anyway. About the only thing they're good for - shooting at extreme range - is actually a BAD tactic to play with if you want to actually KILL stuff, like a Blaster should. Giving Snipes enough damage to at least be worth the cost of admission would really fix them in my eyes. These are supposed to be the big hitters. I don't mind aiming a long time, but let the payoff be worth it. If they're gonna' be as slow and fiddly as they are, then let them at least deliver. Again, these powers should be something we WANT to use.

The first time it was done up to level 36. The results suggested that most names claimed were 5 and below by far, thus the border was lowered. Not enough gain for the return of removing names from potentially returning customers.

I remember Dr. Zeus was in the process of making a rather elaborate movie about the game at some point, and he cast me as Captain Mako. I don't remember who he cast as the rest of his characters, though I do know he collected us from the forums. It's a pity he seems to have stopped playing before finishing it. From some of the pics he showed me, it looked REALLY cool. At least I think he didn't finish it. He was making it for one of the user movie contests and I didn't see his entry in there. Plus I haven't seen him on the forums for probably a couple of years.

It seems a lot of people have trouble listening to their own voice in recordings. In my opinion, it has a lot to do with the acoustics of our own heads and how your own voice sounds differently reverberating through your own skull than it does when played back from a distance. I used to HATE hearing my own voice when I was a kid, but I went through a stage where I was playing with a cassette recorder, recording myself being a kid, and I think I've gotten over that. That, and actually learning to speak a foreign language (English) fluently enough kind of loosens up those inhibitions.

Plus, no reservations about making fool of one's self certainly helps

Nothing of the sort, for me. The moment I saw them, I knew exactly what they were doing, and it was as simple as checking their info where their names are written in all caps. I should just go ahead and user-mod my font to avoid that STUPID problem of similar-looking letters. Honestly, substituting I for l is just low. I'd give more props to the guy called IP II IIVII IP, lame as that may be.

As far as lifting name restrictions goes, no, thank you very much. I saw what that necessitated in Champions Online and I am quite honestly not interested in having all my chat come out as:

[Team]Xanta@Samuel Tow: Why does my global name always come attached?

It looks ugly, it's immersion-breaking, it's aggravating and I plain don't want to see it. Names are not that hard to come by if you're not too hung up on using the EXACT name you've decided to use. Come on, folks - you can check names before making a character. Use it.

And again, DPA is speed. It's like saying you're travelling at 60mph. That's a lot, granted, but it gives you no concept of how far you need to travel or how long the journey would take. You cite an attack chain of Flares -> Fire Blast -> Blaze, which I don't really know would be possible and what it would take. Calculating the DPA values of Flares, Fire Blast and Blaze is easy. Adding them together is even easier. That, however, will still not tell me if they form a consistent attack chain, or indeed if an attack chain of then cycled in this order is even possible. After all, Flares is a fast attack on a short recharge, Blaze is a fast attack on a long recharge and Fire Blast is a moderate attack on a moderate recharge. I still suspect I'll be firing Flares much more often than Blaze, something like Blaze -> Flares -> Fire Blast -> Flares -> Fire Blast -> Flares -> Blaze or some such.

Of course, I don't know either way. I'm not too well-versed in what recharge does to powers and how to predict it, but I DO know I can't glean an idea from just DPA. Like I said, a high DPE chain may actually be very, very slow, running out of Build Up buff duration or plain old exposing the Blaster to too much risk while executing it.

I'm not criticising the use of the metric or even the people who use it, but I keep failing to see the step between knowing DPA and forming a solid attack chain. Even if I go for the highest DPA I can find, it's quite easy to add more powers to the equation than I can consistently use, and I won't really know it.