Statesman_NA

LOL. No stock options for me. I'm one of the founders here!

Yes. It's coming. Safeguard missions. Being worked on right now (outside my office, in fact).

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So, does this mean that Statesman is no longer associated with the game on a major scale? Because those messages sort of read like a baton passing.

And is that the "State of the Game" that I lobbied for, and that we were promised? - I hope not.

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In answer to your first question, I'm still involved with CoH/CoV.

As to your second, I don't remember a promise about a "state of the game", though I do remember saying it was a good idea. But yeah, I think this does classify as a state of the game address - where we're at, what we're doing in the future.

I did like chum. Recalled the great 7-Up commercial with a taste test...

There’s been a ton of discussion regarding Patron Power Pools, so I thought I’d at least give you a perspective from the design end.

When we release levels 41-50 in CoH, we quickly realized that these levels didn’t offer any new powers. Players would be choosing from powers that were already available. While extra powers are nice, it isn’t very interesting. So we asked ourselves what would players want? All Archetypes chafed under their limitations – Tankers had no range, Blasters no defense, etc. – so we thought we give each Archetype the ability to choose lesser versions of powers that would address their weaknesses. Unfortunately, new powers are incredibly art intensive. Instead of making new sets, we choose pre-existing powers and renamed them as Ancillary Power Pools.

During CoV development, I wanted to make sure that the game offered a different experience than CoH. One case of this was that CoV became far more focused on storyline and background than CoH was. We tried to create a vibrant villainous organization that players would want to be part of. For inspiration, I looked to the world of comic books, which are filled with cool, evil organizations. I also wanted our villain versions of “ancillary power pools” to be unique; with the emphasis on Arachnos, I decided to create the Patron system.

Many have complained that this hinders creativity and roleplaying. After all, not everyone wants to be a villain that works for Arachnos. Certainly, a large strength of the City franchise has always been its customizability. To a degree, the Patron powers somewhat inhibit this by compelling people into “working” for certain Arachnos agents. The powers also do not dovetail perfectly into current power sets.

What fascinates me is how new this discussion is to the MMP world. I’ve played lots of games over the years, and usually customization wasn’t that big of an issue. I won’t use any particular game as an example, but rather I’ll take D&D 1st edition to demonstrate a difference. Magic Users then couldn’t use swords. Just couldn’t. They couldn’t really wear armor, either. The major reason for this was balance: a sword wielding, armor wearing mage rendered any regular ole fighter pretty darn useless. There was certainly some grumbling – after all, didn’t Gandalf wield a sword? – but pretty much it’s been accepted. In fantasy games today (online and other), the same limitations continue to apply…When designing City of Heroes, I remember a lot of people telling me that it was just plain wrong to give people so many costume choices in the beginning. People wanted to earn individuality over time, not receive it. Yet, to this day, I think character creation is the single most praised element of the City.

If I were to wax philosophical for a moment – I wonder whether it’s the genre (super heroes), the medium (City of Heroes) or the nature of the internet which has led to a greater demand for individuality. MMP’s, for the most part, are simply direct descendants of D&D, as described above. The gameplay, the mechanics, have pretty much followed the same pattern for ALL computer RPG’s. There’s certainly some demand for customization in other games (as I read on their boards), but it’s never quite the same as it is here for CoH. Maybe it’s because super heroes, by definition, are unique; thus, to play a super hero game a player wants to have those choices. But then I look at the internet, where we demand customization even down to our e-mail address. No one wants to be given a particular address, we almost always choose our own “handles.” Heck, I use the same name in nearly every MMP game to this day, as if it were my own digital shadow. Hopefully, some academic will look for this in the future.

Positron and I will certainly keep this in mind for the future…oh, by the way, the reason that Electrical Power is reddish is so that it could mesh well with some Patron Powers. That was the intent, at least. And, unfortunately, Chum Spray has been renamed to Bile Spray. Our powers guys’ felt that Chum was just too campy.

Several posters have rightly pointed out that my calculations do NOT take into account combat mods. I'll edit my post to reflect the "real" numbers (because combat mobs apply in both cases, I stupidly didn't include them in my spreadsheet).

First: we are NOT changing Defense Debuff Enhancements at all. This was an error in the patch notes.

Let me clarify a few things about the To Hit Debuff Enhancement change (from Schedule “A“ or 8/16/33 to Schedule “ B“ or 5/10/20).

_Castle_ was right that the decision was affected by Hamidon Enhancements though this was not the primary reason for the change. We needed to change the way To Hit Debuff Enhancements worked because of the upcoming I7 change to the To Hit calculations. There have always been some issues with Defense and Resistance. The former was affected by level differences, while the latter was not. For example, an even con would have a base to hit value of %, while a Boss 2 levels higher than a player would have a %. But if a player had damage resistance, it would apply the same discount to damage regardless of the mob’s level.

In order to balance the playing field, we decided to give mobs the same base To Hit value instead (this was, in fact, brought up on the forums!). Now all mobs, regardless of level, have a base to hit of 50%. The only difference between ranks of mobs (boss, lieutenant and minion) and levels is the Accuracy.

In order to decipher this a little bit easier, let’s take a look at the to hit formula.

(Base To Hit + To Hit Buffs - (To Hit Debuffs * Combat Mod) – Defense) capped at 5% or 95% * Accuracy (capped at 5% or 95%, again)

In the case of the Base To Hit – Defense, the value is floored at ..05 or 5%. It can’t go below that. Similarly, the result after being multiplied by Accuracy can’t go higher than .95 or 95%

The To Hit chance also increased over level. A +1 level had a 1.05 modifier, +2 level 1.1 and +3 1.15. For example, the base to hit chance of a lieutenant +2 levels was .58*1.1 or 63.8%.

Now let’s take a look at the effect that the To Hit change has on the To Hit Debuff Enhancement change with Radiation Infection and a Defender.

Before

Radiation Infection has a base To Hit debuff of 2.5 * the Defender’s Archetype boost of 0.125 = 0.3125. With 2 SO’s under the Schedule “A“ (a 66% increase to the Debuff), the end result would be 0.5187.

Here’s a breakdown of how this would play out against various ranks and levels

Even Con
Minion .5 (Base to Hit) -0.5187 (Radiation Infection To Hit Debuff) = -0.0187 or 5% chance to hit (minimum before Accuracy modifications)
Lieutenant 5.66%
Boss 13.13%

+1 Level
Minion 8.32%
Lieutenant 15.85%
Boss 23.32%

+2 Levels
Minion 18.50%
Lieutenant 26.03%
Boss 33.50%

+3 Levels
Minion 31.28%
Lieutenant 38.81%
Boss 46.28%

After the I7 change

Instead of changing the base to hit chance, we instead are changing Accuracy. Take an even con boss: his To Hit is only .5, but his Accuracy is 1.3. The net effect is that a boss still hits someone 65% of the time against someone without Defense, but with Defense, the equation changes substantially.

Let’s take Radiation Infection again. It’s a Schedule “B” now; with 2 SO’s, the net result would be 0.3123 * 1.4 = 0.4372.

Every single mob has now been given Accuracy to make it so that their base To Hit value is only .5 rather than the values you see above. In addition, higher ranks have an inherent resistance to To Hit Debuffs (.1 for Lts., .2 for Bosses, .3 for AVs).

I’ll work it out a little more fully here with the To Hit Formula. Taking that boss mentioned above, his To Hit would work out like this…

(0.5 - (0.4375*.8)) * 1.3 = 0.1950 or 19.50%.

Whereas previously, the To Hit chance had a level modifier, now that applies to Accuracy. +1 level is 1.1, +2 1.2, and +3 1.3. A lt.'s base To Hit is then .5*1.15*1.2 or .69/69%.

I’ll apply it below so that you can see the changes in action.

Even Con
Minion 6.25%
Lieutenant 12.23%
Boss 19.50%

+1 Level
Minion 11.69%
Lieutenant 18.43%
Boss 26.46%

+2 Levels
Minion 18.00%
Lieutenant 25.54%
Boss 34.32%

+3 Levels
Minion 28.03%
Lieutenant 36.51%
Boss 46.05%

Ideally, the Enhancement change should’ve gone hand in hand with I7. To be honest, there was an error there. Unfortunately, we discovered that we couldn’t pull the change out without jeopardizing the I7 release schedule. Right now, QA (at NCSoft and Cryptic) is working away at I7 and shaking out bugs. If we were to roll back this change, our teams would need to put I7 aside and retest the current build. I made the decision to stay the course instead.

-that Dr. Vahzilok is named after George Vasilakos, owner of Eden Studios (for whom I co-wrote several RPG books).

-that the name Rikti came from a conversation where I said "Rikki Tikki Tavi is a cool name. How can we get that into the game?"

-that the name "Cryptic Studios" was inspired in part by the first RPG book I co-authored, "Cryptozoology."

-that Shane Hensely, a current designer, created Deadlands.

-that Thomas Foss created a minis game Pirates!

-that Statesman was a character created in several pen and paper super hero RPG's over a decade ago. Many former character names have found their way into the game.

First, Mayhem missions aren't generally at the Portal Corp.

Second, Longbow is one of the groups you might be fighting. There are others.

Skills are shelved.

Inventions? :-)

1. We're looking into the tweak to Endurance for mobs that's affected Endurance Drain abilities. Sorry about that!

2. We'll be putting in a check that prevents "one shotting"; if anything occurs within a fraction of second that brings a player from 100% Hit Points down to 0, we instead give the player 1% Hit Points.

That's all for now.

I am putting the requirements for Contacts - and their location - in the Prima Guide...

but here was our intent with these Contacts - reward Exploration. Reward people who poke around to find new things. Now, the down side is that once found, these Contacts don't inform the player about what it takes to unlock them.

Still on back order.

Two words. Awe. Some.

I'm playing it alongside VS and Dark Millennium.

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"...while CoV was still under pre-release development" is the bit that I (still) think everyone's missing. Don't misunderstand, I'm not exactly thrilled that CoH isn't getting more with the new issue. I'm not terribly disappointed either since I've personally yet to exhaust the existing game... but that's a whole 'nuther issue.

I just think the "seperate developer team" quote was a specific statement addressing a specific timeframe and that people have subsequently blown it way out of proportion.

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Yep...my comments fall exactly into line with what you've said.

It's Heroes vs. Villains.

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Also... we need more heroes to fight! I've taken out Back Alley Brawler, Infernal (Too much, actually), Aurora Borealis (Too much on that one as well), Mynx, and Sea Witch... where are the rest? I need to hurt Statesman, Manticore, Synapse, Positron, etc.

As far as villains... Just more cameos would be cool. I want to see them in-game - Mako somewhere on Sharkshead - even as just a contact somewhere hidden in a cave that when you talked to him, he sneers, "You're not ready. Now get out of here before some friends and I have you for dinner", and of course vicious sharks would be swimming around behind him.

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I think you'll like I7 then.

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A more boring and far more likely guess would be an enhancement store. If I'm wrong, I'll be happily surprised.

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Nope. Temp powers/buffs.

As several have noted, I7 features content mostly for City of Villains (levels 41 to 50, in fact). This is exactly what we did for CoH. City of Heroes will receive a cool graphics upgrade, new base items (Empowerment stations!) and access to Recluses’ Victory. It’s true that CoV received more attention, but that’s mainly because we needed to fill out the levels. I had the option of releasing I7 or waiting until we could fill out the City of Heroes content. Obviously, I chose the former. New content should get out there when it’s ready. We'll be focusing equally as much as possible on each product moving into the future...


For those who have speculated that Newspaper missions are coming to City of Heroes, they aren’t…yet. That’s coming a little later in the year. I’d like to add something different to the CoH system…

Only on Tuesday nights.

Neither are in I7 (fyi)...BUT Geko and I have talked a little about Shields. We're thinking that Shields would be a Primary AND a Secondary Power Set for Tankers - and a Primary Set for Scrappers...but this thinking might change. I'd imagine the set is mostly about Defense, but again, nothing has been designed yet.

Doublechecked Defiance - and its working for us (internally and on live). Can anyone give more details about this issue?

To be honest, almost all of these things have been in development WAY before New Year's. We started working on the Defense change back in October. But we really needed to test things and make sure our solution actually worked. That's pretty much the way of things.

We're tweaking with toggle dropping...mostly decreasing its overall effect.

We just received tech that will allow players to pass buffs onto certain powers (such as Blizzard).

Some more good news...

Ice Tankers and SR Scrappers have long lamented that Defense doesn't scale with level. Because mobs higher level than a player possess an inherent to hit bonus, Defense isn't as effective over levels as Resistance.

A while ago, peoople have requested something be done. Well, we've done a bunch of work and done this. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless of their rank or level. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. This change has no effect on a player who does not have any Defense.

This change is coming in I7