Scorus

Others have spoken to the question of whether a game can go gold before it is ready. MMOs always patch, so the standard of when it can go gold is completely different from a non-networked game.

That said, I don't think it will be ready for release on Oct. 31. It will be released then, however.

Scorus

Okay, I'm looking at the list of moderators at the bottom of this (and every) thread, and I can't help but wonder: What happened to Moderator5?

And, more to the point, who already reserved Moderator5 on Virtue?

Scorus

S/L are important but if you really want to make it work the same for everybody then that isn't enough. If a power currently gives protection to melee, ranged, and AoE then it needs to give protection against smashing, lethal, fire, cold, etc. All of the damage types. Otherwise it is not working the same.

If it gives a bonus to a ranged fire attack for people that already have ranged protection then it needs to give it to people that already have fire protection.

Scorus

[ QUOTE ]
The CCG will intially be all hero-vs-hero.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let me be the first to say that I believe all the I6 nerfs are because of CCG balance issues.

Scorus

You should have stayed with the graphic effect like CoH had. That was great because I can use it with all my characters (except the Naturals). With this helmet I can only use it if I want all my characters to look alike, at least in one aspect. Can't say that idea appeals much. Maybe if it was something that could be integrated into outfits easier, like a bracer or necklace, but not a helmet.

Scorus

[ QUOTE ]
I find it strange that we have toxic resistance in Hoarfrost, a very slow recharging power that is usually slotted for heal and recharge.

[/ QUOTE ]

They did something similar in Stone and it doesn't make sense there either. They put it in Earth's Embrace instead of in one of the Armors where it would make sense (like Brimstone, which is underused anyway). We've asked why a lot but they have never commented on it.

They did add the resistance (or is it defense?) enhancement option to Earth's Embrace but nobody uses it.

Scorus

[ QUOTE ]
This is one of the rare instances in Issue 5 where a solo character is able to reach a cap without help (or inspirations).

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, I think you can say that they received help, just perhaps not the kind of help they wanted...

Scorus

[ QUOTE ]
Wet Ice
0.5% base
1.265% Defence from Wet Ice with ++ SO's.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to agree with everyone that this needs to be eliminated from the power, description and slotting. Players who do not read these boards are not given the information they need to make an 'informed decision' about whether this is worth it.

If there is anything else with numbers below 5%, don't include that information in the description since it is really misleading.

Scorus

You should actually think about taking the defense buff from Wet Ice. Given your policy to not share numbers unless absolutely necessary, most players will never know they are slotting up for almost no defense. It is, at best, misleading to claim that people using this power will gain a real defense bonus.

I'm not sure why you bothered with a .5% when you gave pool powers like Hasten 5%.

Scorus

[ QUOTE ]
One shotting by AV's. In a word, you are ALL correct. It's not a good thing for an Ice Tanker to be leveled by a single blow. So we're going back and changing the damage done by AV's so that it's no longer possible for a Tanker to be one shotted.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless you can make this change just for when they target Ice Tankers, this is only going to create other problems. Granite Armor already allows you to tank all but psychic AVs with only a little risk, this will eliminate that risk altogether. And, if the Tanker is experienced enough to know how to keep aggro despite being slow as molasses, that would mean eliminating the risk to the entire party unless excessive AoE/Cone attacks were in use.

Now I realize and very appreciate the fact that this is what Granite Armor was made to do, to stand in one place against one foe and take a truly exceptional amount of damage. But I don't think you want to make a change that will sap the risk out of AV combat (though at the moment I can't remember the last time a decent team I was on lost a member to an AV).

Since most of these alpha shots happen to be ranged, could you add a Damage Resistance to ranged attacks for Ice Tankers? Or perhaps an uber, short duration, very long recharge hit point buff?

And this continues to ignore the defense vs. accuracy PvP problem. A capped defense is absolutely useless when your opponent's enhancements and buffs pump him over 200%.

Scorus

Am I missing something, what do these changes have to do with Ice Tankers? My Stone Tanker appreciates the reductions, mind you, but I thought you were going to talk about how you were going to talk about the weakest Tanker power set?

A number of Ice Tanker powers have also been bugged for quite a long time, any chance that those will get fixed?

Scorus

Any interest in making this a controller set instead of defender? Seems like the easiest solution.

Scorus

Review the new badge texts and see if someone has to go to the forums to find out why they got them. Some are straight forward (you have taken x many points of damage) but I got the Deathless badge when I logged on, read it and still had no clue what it was for. I gather it means I have gone unconscious a lot (which doesn't seem to be true from where I'm sitting but okay) but the text didn't tell me that.

Scorus

Nice concept, nice implementation.

The only thing is that it is SO controller heavy. Was this an attempt to create a controller/defender hybrid (like Ice/Ice Blasters are something of a blaster/controller hybrid)? So many of the powers don't even seem to have a buff/debuff aspect to them (unless you could -spd, which is really more crowd control than debuff).

Scorus

Wave mission instructions are very unclear and people end up trying to figure out what they are supposed to do next.

Hostage pathing, as with all pet pathing, has issues. Pet commands would be very useful (in this AND with pets!).

Scorus

I like it, though I agree that at the higher levels the precipitous drop from 50% to 0% hit points happens too fast to make this worthwhile.

We had a blast (no pun intended) with it doing mid-20s missions, though. I had a friend who kept seeing how close he could get it, I'd try and taunt them off him after he got very close to 0. He died a couple of times, but the new debt rules helped there. Had my bacon saved twice when Blasters unleashed at very low hit points (though one died in the exchange).

Scorus

First, the name. If it was Sonic Blast, that would be fine. Not original, but at least in line with the other similar sets. Unfortunately the name is Sonic Attacks and that just won't do. Sonic Blast is okay, using one of the many good synonyms for Sonic/Sound would be even better.

Howl is described incorrectly in different places, in fact it is described incorrectly in different ways in different places.

I would have liked to have seen a new damage type: Sonic. Smashing is so universally defended and resisted, that will make this set less popular in the long run.

Scorus

Melpomene

Born into a large, peasant, Mexican mining family, Adrian Rodriguez buried his family one by one as a result of atrocities and mining accidents. Melpomene, Muse of Tragedy, inspired him to funnel his aggression into art and he began writing proletarian tragedies and developed a following among the mining communities.

When the Rikti attacked the Muses collectively decided to intervene in a more direct fashion on behalf of mankind. As they had done before in the face of threats to civilization of this scale, they came down from Olympus and possessed individuals that they had inspired in the past. Melpomene chose Rodriguez whose decades of mining had built him into a massive, muscular man. The Muse embued him with the power to take strength, energy and protection from the stone that he had spent his life shaping and cutting and reshaped his physical form to reflect both his life of tragedy and his relationship with the earth.

The two exist now as one entity with the Muse generally allowing Rodriguez the freedom to make his own decisions (something that cannot be said of all the Muses). As they continue to fight as one, the relationship between the two strengthens and the line between their personalities softens.

Scorus

The problem with it that I have is that they are telling a new hero story with heroes that are now old heroes. If this team had just now formed and they were learning about Statesman's origin and hidden powers, okay. But these guys have been together forever, have been in perilous situations again and again and Statesman never thought he should use his hidden, god-like powers?

All the 'gosh, this portal has always been here and we never knew or used it' type stuff just gets to me. I'm hoping it gets better but thusfar has just been one deus ex machina after another.

Scorus

Of course he is not. Statesman is leaning over to rez him when attacked by Scirocco.

Scorus

[ QUOTE ]
Keep watching the fiction section of the new City of Villains website for further details on all the Signature Villains, from the perspective of the beautiful but deadly Ghost Widow.

[/ QUOTE ]

But who profiles the profiler?

Scorus

Hmmm, wonder if they are using the henchmen system for CoV?

I'd pay good money to be able to get a Kinetic Defender to accompany me on my missions.

Scorus

My background: I've played in a number of MMOs for many years (though never EQ or UO, so I'm an unusual case in that way). I've generally been very active on boards, especially beta and testing boards. I have 15 years of experience in customer service and so I'm especially hard on the customer service people. I feel too many MMO people see players as the enemy instead of the customer and I'm glad that I don't count CoH devs among those numbers. A number of MMO CS people grew to dislike me, but I really think in most every case I helped make their game and their CS better. Anyway...

[ QUOTE ]
I produce several status reports and participate in conference calls with the team in California twice every week.

[/ QUOTE ]

This sends up all sorts of red flags for me. I've known other instances where the CS people were in different cities (and even different continents) than the devs that actually have all the answers to the questions and it is very, very problematic. A much better situation is where you can walk around a corner to someone's cubicle and say "I'm seeing this bug talked about a lot, do we know about it and what is the status of the fix?" I know this is something that you probably can't do anything about, but it is a tough situation to provide high quality CS in.

[ QUOTE ]
Many times, if you do not see a response from the dev team about an issue then either investigation is ongoing and no conclusions have been made yet or the dev team is satisfied with the issue as it is.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure this is true, but I'm not sure it is good enough. Let's say that someone whose job it is is to monitor the boards alerts Positron about a thread they think he should read (I believe that is how your system works?). He then reads it, finds the issue in question and (hopefully) the evidence presented and goes off to investigate. In that case it would have taken him just another minute to reply that he has seen it and is looking into it. Then, after he has looked into it, he could come back and either say that they looked into it and are happy with it or that they looked into it and are going to be working on a fix/adjustment. Or, even better, you could have someone whose time is perhaps not quite as valuable as Positron's (read: intern) come to give that information.

That would take just an extra few minutes and provide exactly the kind of feedback that paying customers deserve and expect. I'm not saying you could do that with every thread on the board, but at least on the bigger issues.

Check 1/3 down this page for a list of over 40 bugs logged, many of which have been discussed at length on the test center forums for a month without responses from devs: What still needs to be fixed/addressed?

It is great that someone came yesterday and addressed a few of the earlier ones and said they are looking into the rest. But I really believe that could have been done weeks ago for most of the issues.

And this thread has been more deserving of a response than any I have seen in a long time. It is well thought out and provides solutions instead of just problems. The lack of a response has really been demoralizing to testers that want to believe we are making a difference: Accuracy, defense balancing suggestion

Scorus

These changes are being made because powers were too powerful or weak in both PvP, not just PvE. The problem is that AI mobs don't complain when they are facing unanswerable powers or combinations of powers, but players do and PvP gave them the chance to be on the receiving end of some of these things. Thus their strength was brought to light and changes were made.

They were not changed because of PvP, they were just discovered in PvP.

Scorus

[ QUOTE ]

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, just when I thought I had put all those I Dream of Jeannie fantasies behind me...

Scorus