StabBot
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Posts
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Quote:I got probably 8 or 9 purple drops before this patch. Not a single one was from an AV, GM, or even an EB. There was nothing difficult about getting them; I just got lucky.Originally Posted by all_hell
I am among those who have been clamoring for greater challenges. I think too many things have been made easier already.
That's my opinion.
Also I find the timing of complaining about the game getting easier kind of off in that we finally got some more difficult TFs this patch. -
I really like the idea of it being power based. That players are encouraged to use weaker enhancements over level-appropriate ones seems like either an oversight or just a problem that would require a really complicated solution.
Like you said, the biggest problem is inertia. A ton of players would feel slighted on the investments they made both in low level and purple enhancements. Even if we could all agree on a perfect solution just changing anything at all about a system that's been around so long would aggravate people.
Second would probably be that it would mix up AT effectiveness in weird ways. Different powersets would be able to slot the good non-damage sets in earlier than others and that might limit the number of competitive ATs further.
Then lastly it might throw off the merit balance of the lower level content. Players blasting through that content with their full set bonuses might decrease the average run-times and result in merit reductions. That would probably also anger the playerbase.
So really I have no idea how you'd fix it. I would probably just determine what set bonuses persist based on the minimum level of the set itself. If your level is above the lowest level at which you could have that bonus, it's fair game. It'd cause a ton of problems, but I feel it'd be a net gain. That's just me though. -
Quote:What a ridiculous thing to say.Originally Posted by all_hell
I hope it hasnt increased.
Too many things are being made easier imho -
I have a 50 kin/elec/power that's collecting dust as we speak. I always felt that I was able to sap well, especially after I got power build up, but generally speaking it seemed like a very under appreciated talent and I got bored with the lack of damage the set offered.
If i were fully IO'd on that character with a focus on defense it might be different, but overall I just felt the character was slow when solo and just a SB/FS bot on teams. Outide of a PBU'd Thunder Blast, the sapping on a defender is a very back-loaded form of mitigation, and the low defense of Kinetics is very frustrating with it. Plus in groups the AVs never seemed to stay completely dry and lose attacks, and the bosses were usually held/annihilated quickly enough for my sapping to be of little consequence.
I just couldn't justify playing that character over a controller, but that's kind of the problem with kinetics. It's such a busy set that it overshadows every other aspect of most of the characters who pick it until they get so sick of the set that the just give up on SB and SP completely. -
Thanks guys.
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In all fairness it really is a major damage boost, and I don't have Embrace of Fire perma by any means, so really I do notice a significant increase on any character that can safely get into range. Rereading my post, I think I was too hard on FS, especially considering the 50% recharge on SB will suffer the same relative effect reduction (I'm at about 220-260% recharge on the particular character I was talking about, depending on the power).
It's all just kind of an interesting combination. So many groups can wipe out spawns in a heartbeat without FS or SB that the run speed carrying people from spawn to spawn faster is probably having as much an impact on the speed of the TF/mission as the other combat specific benefits a kin brings.
Kinetics is such a busy set... Between spamming Siphon Speed to keep your own recharge up, trying to keep SB active the majority of time, casting FS 1-2 times every pull, spamming siphon power on AVs/EBs, trying to figure out where exactly the low HP person who's desperate for a heal ran off to, keeping ID active on weaker tanks or an overly adventurous scrapper or two, and then trying to actually use your primary that it's really understandable why someone would slack on the SB. It really is one of the most frantic power sets and it's easy to get burnt out on. -
It's certainly not amazing, but I think Spirit Tree is very underrated in-game. The regen is quite noticeable, and if you're fighting a stationary battle you can have two out simultaneously and surpass the regen you get from emp's healing aura.
It won't ever make you a primary healer, but on a defense/buff&debuff based team it can help smooth out the times the RNG goes against you. -
How much does it end up healing you guys for? I'm plant/fire/ice atm and I figured the radial recharge alpha would improve the heals on the pet and push it closer to perma if I got tired of ice. Also I have Spirit Tree, so I can get some more mileage out of the healing on it as well.
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I personally don't thank people for using FS simply because most players roll /kin specifically to use that power and buff their own damage. Not that I don't appreciate it, but to me it's like thanking a Bane for debuffing resists when it's part of their normal attack chain.
SB, however, is annoying to recast and takes special attention from the /kin, so I'll thank them for using it. It also makes me happy when I see ID used well.
Plus it's pretty rare that you'll do 300% more damage from FS... On my dom the damage cap is at 400%, and I'm generally around 280% with my own buffs, so at most I'm getting 120%, and that's assuming I don't have any buffs from anywhere else.
Don't get me wrong, I love doing 40% more damage, but my own sleet buffs everyone's by 30% when it's up (ignoring resists) and rad/ta/cold/etc. can raise the damage levels pretty comparably to a kin. It's hard to compare though because a lot of ranged classes won't be getting full FS benefit, and a lot of times -res debuffs won't be added before your first attack lands.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that I think a lot of people value FS over SB to an unreasonable extent. SB is great. I only value FS more than SB when I'm on my brute. -
A bit off topic, but if you like plant control and aren't married to the defender secondaries, you might really enjoy a plant dom. Domination allows you to confuse just about anything, including nemesis and bosses. It just really alleviates that feeling of "okay, I cast seeds, now what?"
Also I feel Vines is a pretty awesome panic button, there's not very many ranged AoE holds. Even the sleep is quite good when it comes down to it. It's a bit of a hassle to try to get it to work on a lot of ambushes since they tend to run in single file, but what powers other than Earthquake or the like are really good at stopping that kind of group? I certainly feel more capable of stopping it than I did on my Ill/TA controller (though to be fair laying an Oil slick in front of an ambush is pretty effective). -
Hiya. I've been thinking about giving Mu Mastery a try because I have enough recharge to finally get a patron pet really close to perma.
Anyway, I've read a handful of descriptions of the Mu pet, but they've all had very mixed takes on it, and are spread across several years, so it's hard to tell what feedback is accurate/current.
I hear that it doesn't actually cast a heal, but instead summons a pet which casts the heal for it. Last I read the AI was bugged and it wasn't summoning its pet routinely, if at all? Is that true, or has the AI been fixed? Does the heal end up being cast a noticeable amount?
Also some people have said it has an AoE attack, and I didn't see that listed anywhere. Does it actually have one?
Lastly, what are your overall impressions of the pet? Is it fun, useful, better left alone?
Thanks! -
Healer is kind of an out of place concept in CoH, but if you're like me and you wanted to make your first character focus on keeping people alive, I suggest going Controller instead of Defender..
I find "Defender" to be a bit of a misnomer. When you have several buffing characters on a team, I think you'll find that the small % lead Defender buffs have is hardly noticeable, and pretty much all endurance restoration powers are overkill anyway. It's the offensive debuffs that really distinguish the Defender powersets on Defenders.
Defenders' blast secondaries generally don't help a team stay alive (well, ignoring that dead enemies do very little damage), whereas the Controller primaries are very much focused on keeping teams alive. Also Controllers do pretty respectable damage, especially compared to Defenders.
Heck, you could even go with Plant primary and get Spirit Tree and then stack it with a +regen power from your secondary for stationary boss fights, if you wanted.
Anyway, I tried a few Defenders early on, and I always end up with a serious case of Controller envy. If blasting enemies isn't your #1 priority, and you want to keep teams alive, definitely consider a Controller. -
Kinetics is a frustrating set. You have to beg people to enable you to use your powers well (how many times have you gotten a Blaster to stay in range for a Transferrence after their blast instead of running away from the half-dead boss they hit?), the single target buffs themselves are tedious, and people don't necessarily even appreciate them (I've had so many people use a Break Free a few seconds after I've hit them with ID even though the mez is broken, not to mention they don't realize it's actually a solid resist power).
In spite of how frustrating it can be, I think it's safe to say that Speed Boost is generally a more powerful buff than Fulcrum Shift on all but the most melee heavy of teams, and it's not unreasonable for people to get upset if you refuse to use it. Expecting 100% uptime is completely outrageous, but I really do feel that a kin who refuses to use SB should probably roll a powerset they're not so sick of that they won't play it well. -
It's not perfect, but Creepers will down low flyers, so indoors even without a grounder in your secondary you can usually still get Roots off.
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Even just a four slot Expedient Reinforcement is pretty decent really.
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I'm curious about how much damage imps really do. I know I ought to just play a fire/ myself, but I haven't gotten around to it.
Anyway, just looking at the values on the Flytrap, it seems like it does about double the single target damage of a single imp while in melee range, assuming it's using everything on cooldown (so maybe 33-50% less single target damage overall?). I'm in sure in practice that's lower, but it also does some AoE damage.
Has anyone used both? I know I'm asking for subjective feedback, but how did you feel about Flytrap's damage vs. Imps? I have a 50 plant/fire dom and I've been pretty happy with the former, is that just because I haven't seen the latter in action? -
I realized that after a bit after I posted, but the end result is still essentially the same; using Hibernate interferes with Sleet's cooldown.
I posted because I've been playing off and on for a few years and I still didn't understand what the post was trying to say, so I figured most other players also wouldn't. The only phase power I'd used before was on my Warshade. -
Jargon translation:
Sleet's cooldown is tied to Hibernate (and probably other invuln/phase shift powers). If you use Hibernate, you'e to wait several minutes instead of 90 seconds to use Sleet again. -
Quote:No, I actually almost went back and deleted that line. To get decently enhanced you're right. The ability to get LotGs pretty easily off of merits is a pretty major equalizer.Originally Posted by all_hell
Casual play is what I told mine.
I s'pose you're going to tell I am wrong -
Quote:Fair enough. That being said though, it seems like 90% of the players who make the effort to actually post on the forums of these games are not casual players, so I do think there's a pretty major case of confirmation bias here and all the similar forums, as was mentioned earlier.Originally Posted by UberGuy
The strawman in question is appeal to the unprovable "casual player" and their implied inability to compete with hard-core marketeers. It's an easy target, and which you certainly invoked in your reference to casual folk not wanting to reference the existing history.
You may have made limited reference to it, but folks in these parts are sensitive to its use, as it is frequently found hanging from the lance tips of many a windmill-tilting poster in these parts.
Have you ever tried to explain to a friend you wanted to get started on the game what it would take to get a character geared out? -
Quote:Well I don't know him personally and I've only ever ready that one line of his, so I didn't have much to work with.Originally Posted by Jetpack
Fanboy? Is that the best you can do?
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Quote:The devs can do no wrong, right fanboy? Also, look up strawman. I haven't used one. There's an ad hominem attack for you though.Originally Posted by Camper
Another white knight, riding in to defend the mythical "casual player". If you've seen one, you've seen them all. Funny how these paladins of the market and protectors of the weak are never actually "casual players" themselves. They just feel the need to roll out the "casual player" strawman to make their (highly predictable) points.
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Quote:I don't know how much harder I can quote the dictionary. I'm ignoring you.Originally Posted by Nethergoat
You really, really need a new dictionary, dude.
Try using the one everybody else has, you'll get better results.
Also, the market is working precisely, exactly as intended.
The malfunction is on your end. -
Quote:That's a bit harsh. I think a fair amount of people just play this game very casually, and the idea of bidding on an item and then checking back several days later is way more effort than they want to put into the part of this game most removed from its theme (superheroes/villains fighting stuff).Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Why do people think putting more information in the hands of people who aren't willing to understand the information they already have is going to help? Market information benefit the informed and the engaged. More information is going to benefit the ebil and leave the poor casual players pouting 'screwed again.'
The claims of ways to 'fix' the market is all just another excuse thrown over the hideous deformity that is willing ignorance.
I'm about to log on to check on 30 auctions. I'll probably have make 60 million or so, so while I don't benefit nearly as much as people in this thread, it's not that I don't understand the concepts of it. I just think it's a ridiculous trend in these online games that the way to in-game prosperity is so far removed from actual gameplay.
I never thought I'd miss bind on pickup items. -
Quote:Please keep direct quotes in context. I was presented with several things to attempt to disprove. Within the scope of the post to which I replied, I succeeded. Reread the post if you like.Originally Posted by FourSpeed
How exactly is this proven? Please show me the dev publication that says
"thou shalt only obtain X items per hour". What the devs have set is the
rate at which items drop ---> for mob kills
I'm not sure if you're being facetious, but I think that the answer to it might be helpful. The difference is that when trading in Atlas Park you have to spam the starting zone for many players with trade chat, which makes it very difficult for them to get help, and even if it weren't a starting zone, there's still a pretty limited number of people who can communicate simultaneously before it all turns into static.Quote:Much earlier in this thread I asked a question which nobody answered. I'll
re-iterate it here.
How, exactly, is *any* transaction on the market fundamentally different
than a simple trade in Atlas Park using broadcast and the in-game trade
screen?
Next, it has a much more convenient inventory management feature, and it allows you to bid on rare items without tracking down the individual player who found them. Also you can sell your own rare items for which a seller might be hard to find, especially if they're useful for a limited number of builds. Also even if it's possible to sell, a seller might not be paying a reasonable price at the time.
Furthermore, the record of previous sales and the centralized location regulates prices, with or without speculators. Whether the natural regulation of said prices is sufficient is, of course, what we've all been talking about.
I could go on and on. The reason why I would type all of that out is because many people here have taken the angle of "well if it's not working how the devs want, why don't they just change it?"
The AH has far more benefits in its current state than it does drawbacks. It could get way worse and still be way better than trading in Atlas Park. If you wanted to reduce the number of people skimming tens of billions off the top of all these transactions, it would take a very insightful and likely complicated series of changes.
I get the feeling that you guys haven't played many other competitive online games... The smallest of changes tend to have massive ripple effects. I view adding merits and alignment merits as a massive changes, so clearly, right or wrong, I view devs' efforts at manipulating the market as much more dramatic than you guys do, and thus infer a different intent.
No. I'm saying it would be absolutely impossible for you affect the market in a way remotely comparable to the impact a marketeer who has 40 auctions running simultaneously has. A single player who who filled up their WW bid slots across multiple characters could easily affect more people than a dozen people spamming in Atlas Park, even ignoring that auctions are cross-server actions.Quote:So, back to my Atlas Park question - If I talk to enough folks and trade for enough items, your position is that is contrary to the dev's intent, and a GM should come and punish me because I got too much stuff too quickly?
Really???
Furthermore, I don't think you would even get more money spamming in Atlas than you would running TFs and alignment missions.
People have said multiple times in this thread that the AE issues are exploits. The only benefit AE had over playing 'normally' is that you could get rewards maybe 10x as fast with AE. I would honestly say that I think I could make a hundred times more on WW than I could spamming in Atlas. The difference in magnitude is tremendous, and that's not a bad thing. I'm just saying that the "only difference" you mention is a pretty f'ing huge difference.Quote:The ONLY difference is that I can interact with more players (across all servers and factions) more quickly and effectively than I could by simply shouting out in broadcast, and for that service, there will be a 10% fee on each transaction I make... That IS facilitating the trade you say is the market's designed purpose.