Stormfront_NA

Hi:

As of late, I decided to try my hand at base building, thus made my own SG and hence my base.

There are several things that struck me as odd, in particular storage. It seems that the base size has no real impact on your storage capacity limitations. I can have closet and can have18 storage devices, can have a county sized base and I am still limited to 18 storage devices. This does not seem like a logical thing to be happening, so perhaps as each base plot gets larger maybe increase the storage by 3?

Since Storage bin capacity is fixed, how about increasing what those bins could hold, the game has progressively been creating new materials, thus the demand for added base storage has grown, but the capacity to meet has remain constant. At my base I have 12 salvage, 3 inspiration, 3 crafted enhancement storage devices. With the 12 salvage bins, I am pretty much limited at storing 3 of each kind of salvage at the base, which frankly is too few. The storage bins at the base if dedicating 4 storage bin per type of salvage (white, yellow, red) should be sized to allow at least 10 of each type of salvage to be stored. Thus the salvage bin instead of being limited to 30 items, should be upsized to 100 items.

Also there are recipes that can not be constructed in advance, such as respec and costume parts, there need to be a place were recipes can be stored at.

Hugs

Stormy

Mmm...

Actually because there are so few threads and their sizes, the likelyhood a Dev may actually read the content of this section may be much better than you think.

frankly when I get to a thread with over 50,000 postings, I just disrgard and go to the next, since of the 50,000 about 49,995 are folks flaming each other with only like 5 posts that are actually worth reading; trying to find those 5 within the 50,000 is simply not worth it.

Stormy

I wish we could simply walk away from the "time" metric which seems to be the center and critical aspect for determining worth. As a result good tactics and teaming would by their own nature result with reduced times; which as a consequence is punished because it took less time.

I agree with the poster that a number of merits should be awarded based on the size of the group required to successfully do the mission, I am thinking of Hami for instance, its gonna take a lot of folks and leaders to manage the effort, and there is much pre-planning and discussion that can not be measured in the so called time metric; because its not happening within the mission itself.

I posted elsewhere a few go-bys to calculate merit rewards independent of time to accomplish the task. But I did not factor a player number required to do this. It may be a good thread to be started on what actions earn merits and by how much, in fact how to price missions in a non time based metric.

Stormy

Revamping, ah?

I think we better be careful with what we wish...

Take for instance the Positron revamp, it went from a single mission to two. The original version, you had a lot of stupid repetition to endure, but at least when you finished you had the badge towards the accolade. The new version, has mixed emotions, but being broken into 2 sections to get the one badge towards accolade, provides a certain uncertainty to players since some players may not participate in the second part of the TF, and depending the time of the day and server, that may be the kiss of death. Fortunately you don't have to the 2 in order, so that does reasonably mitigate the issue.

What I did not like about the new Positron, dramatically less merit earnings, like a third instead. The ambushes in the TF are a bit too over the top, especially when support classes have built in vulnerabilities that are shamelessly exploited during the numerous ambushes.

Before Tf content gets revised, I would like to see devs spend the time fixing the many bugs and defects that have been accumulating over the years with each new release.

Then when revising the old content, do away with idiotic hunts, and personal deliveries, no real use for them, it can be talked away in the dialogue, such as take this to Azuria, when you click on Positron he would say "Thank you for retrieving the item and taking it to Azuria for study; she found out..." and yo go to next mission.

Next, the maps of missions, please, please, stop using the same maps over and over!

Lets talk about complex rooms (pool room, quad, cake), they should as a rule only be used once per map, Also the defeat boss and all guards should not result in destroying everything in the complex room; should be limited to the boss and the spawn that comes with it.

I miss the old days, when we finally got to the complex room, we all knew we had made it to the boss and the final epic battle. Now these rooms can be found multiple times in the very same level! That is a let down!

Also missions need to be revised to allow for guile to be used, instead of being forced to brute force everything.

Hugs

Stormy

Thank you so much for the advise and help!

last night I upgraded my control room and added a new teleport room, then also upgraded my Arcane power generation device, and installed the Oracle (computer). Then I installed the raid porter.

I tested it out, and it all work great!

Thank, thank you, thank you!

Stormy

Question, during the test, I got the CoP mission, and went to the transporter and was send to a FBZ like zone, which was kinda neat. But being along and a defender, I decided not to tourist too much. So I clicked back on the cristal and returned to my base. But I could not figure out was how to drop the mission! Fortunately its a timed one, so it ran its course. I did notice that while the mission was active the game would not allow me to make base modifications.

Mmm..

I like the re-use of existing PvP maps, and likely it would work. My concern that geography in battle does have an impact, as a result I suggested new maps in which the three factions would have relative areas in such a way to not being more handicapped than the other. For instance imagine the Praetorians getting sandwhiched between blue and red, that would be quite harsh on the Praetorians.

I also would like to push for the battleground concept, where folks go to a place and level and numbers are strictly controlled to ensure sportsmanship. Oh yes I know, many a childish mind may find great honor on pounding a single opponent that is 40 levels below him while he himself is assisted with 20 or more of his high level buddies...

Stormy

Mmm...

Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand each power playable by a player in the game has its own base characteristics such as range, damage, endurace consumption, secondary effects etc. I will call these the power's base attributes.

Now, once again, correct me if I am mistaken, based on your AT, level and what you are attacking the actual base attributes are set. These actual power base attributes are now modified by how the power itself is slotted by the player. Inthe case of mimic, you would use the slotting characteristics of the generic version for this purpose.

So the way I see mimic work...

It does not matter if you were attacked by an AV, EB, Boss or what not, not does their level matter either with respect on how your mimic'ed power will operate. It will essentially be the game base attribute of the power, modified by your level, AT, and the slotting of the generic power it relates to (such as generic ranged with a ranged mimic'ed power).

So for example, Fireblast does light damage, has a range of 75', has endurance cost of blah, blah, etc.

If an AV attacks you with Fireblast, you will not be doing AV damage with it, you will be doing damage as if you had acquired normally that power.

Redrawing, now that is a good point, especially because your power set would be of that which attacked you last. Not sure how I would handle that, on the other hand, you would not be re-drawing until you actually use that power, despite that you may have it for some time, in fact you would only show graphics of powers as you activate them and thus they would remain until a new power is used and its graphic replaces it. Yet I can see a lot of redraing from turn to turn as you cycle through a lot of new powers, on other hand, it may be fun... Thinking of re-drawing, the only thing that would be constantly changing are your icons at your power bar as powers are being mimic'ed on and on.

You did made me think, that perhaps the mimic could choose to not mimic a new attack and retain the one she is currently using. On the other hand having a notification to say yes or no to a change, could get super annoying if you are being attacked by a boat load of different attacks...

Stormy

Hi:

I understand that soon Praetoria will be able to accomodate folks all the way to level 50, that would be awesome, for that would create a true third zone and make PvP a three way engagement, which also would be awesome to have.

If this is true, having new three way maps would be cool, but perhaps we can do as other games have done and have some battlegrounds made available with practical goals. Such all 3 factions have a base with a "lord" and a fixed number for each side are transported to this BG to try to conquer the other's fortresses by defeating the NPC Lord (AV class), could actually be Stateman, Lord Recluse and Cole.

What do you all think?

Stormy

Hi:

Last night I went into a mission with a group of friends into a mission filled with Devouring Earth, no sooner we get near them, the map is saturated with eminators. Before we can get a first hit at an eminator, our acc is nearly nullified and our defense is negated as well.

Now as a Super Reflex Scrapper, my protection is situational defense. Because my main protection is situational defense, the power set offers me no significant damage resistance nor means to heal damage either. After all if I'm supposed to seldom get hit, why would I need damage mitigation and healing?

Obviously when you get to an unbalanced situation where the eminators give 100% ACC boost and 100% Defense debuff, its going to really, really impact defense based protected ATs, far more tha other ATs that have good damage and debuff resistances.

So my suggestion is to give the various positional defense powers in SR, inherent defense debuff properties to mitigate the excessive impact suffered by this particular type of defense debuff attacks. Tankers who have great damage mitigation, gets defense debuff, and they do not need defense debuff protection nearly as much as a SR Scrapper would.

Also one may want to seriously consider down tuning the effectiveness of eminators, 100% ACC and DEF Debuff? Come on, lets get real! Out of curiosity, what is a Defender's ACC debuff when they strike you with a dark blast? Should the eminators do the same and not more?

Hugs

Stormy

Ps: Other positional defense powers for other power sets should also be considered to receive defense debuff protection

Hi:

I am slowly learning how to put bases together, and really starting to get into it...

Storage I have it pretty much under control, but... What can I buy to store recipes. One could say, just assemble the recipe and store the IO. Unfortunately there are recipes you can't do this such as respec recipes, and costume recipes I may saving to use on a later date or for a new character concept.

I hear much over Cathedral of Pain, an din order to do this TF, you have to have a special room and devices to do this. Can someone list for me what I need to buy so i can gain this capability for my base?

With regards to Cathedral of Pain, I stumbled last night upon an artical, saying yo can get items of power for your base, that can benefit members in SG mode. Are those objects still obtainable through CoP, and how does that work, and what preparations in advance with your base must you undertake to take advantage of Items of Power?


Hugs

Stormy

Giggles, been watchig to much Japanese SCI-FI...

I want a monster island, with Godsilla, and all the other monster friends of his...

Giggles

Stormy

Mmm...

Good questions, but this is how I see it working...

Say any mob, regrdless of their attributes and type, hits you with a ranged attack.

Remember I said, you have a generic ranged attack power, you can slot. Thus the power you have will have the ACC, DMG, RNG or what not attributes based on the enhancements you have placed on the generic power set.

If you were attacked by multiple mobs with ranged attacks, and then your turn to attack presents itself, you will have the last attack type to mimic. For instance yo are attacked with Fireblast, Mindblast, and finally with Energy Blast. Your icon tray, will show the icon energy blast. When you press on it, you will attack with an energy blast, which works as per the definitions of energy blast, yet it will be modified by the enhancements you have placed on the generic ranged attack power you have. So if the power enhancements gives you 80% ACC Bonus, 80% DMG Bonus, 40% Added Range and 40% reduced energy cost, the energy blast will have those attributes of 80% ACC/DMG, 40% RNG/RED ENG.

Obviously since I said the generic definition of the power, you would not get to mimic the cheating values devs use for AVs the similar ilk.

Remember you get as level as a mimic, generic slots for the different class of powers such as melee, melee cone, melee PBAOE, ranged, ranged cone, ranged target PBAO, snipe, etc.

I can see mimic being attributable to blasters, defenders, Scrapers, Tankers, Stalkers, Corruptors, Brutes, and Masterminds.

The only ones not to get this power set as a choice would be Controllers, Dominators and EPIC ATs, for obvious power set choice reasons.

One observation, many may fret over a tanker getting energy blast for instance. This should not be a problem, for the devs have deviced a damage nurf system based on class. So while a Blaster gets 100% of their damage potential, Tankers are limited to only 60% of such damage and Defenders to 40% (why are Defenders so excessively damage nurfed, defy's my imagination) for instance.

Hugs Stormy

Hi:

Essentially the mimic power set, allows the user to develop abilities that had been used against her. Thus she would have generic power slots such as:

1) Melee
2) Cone Melee
3) PBAOE Melee
4) Ranged
5) Cone Ranged
6) Targeted AOE Ranged

Thus one could actually IO the powers based on the generic power set infrastructure, such as using POsitrons for Target AOE for instance...

The way I see it working, is your power bar holds generic icons of the powers, when a power is used against you or one of your team mates ( a hit is not required) the generic icon is replaced with the attacking power's icon. From here on, until a different power of that type is used against you, you have use of that power. So say someone hits you with a MA Crane Kick, melee attack, you now have rane Kick, but later you are attacked with a Kick from the fighting pool, then the Crane Kick is replaced with kick, and so forth. The power types does store, so if you log out, when you return the last set of powers you had available are still available.

I have contemplated having this ability like a "Doppleganger" like effect, where if the player attacking fails a resistance roll, the power is actually disabled for 3 minut4s, in which the doppelganger would have the use of that power for 3 minutes. There are potential problems with this since opponents may ensure to use weak attacks on them...

Hugs Stormy

Mmm...

Useless, senseless travel has been a pet peeve of mine for years, I do believe a portion of the devs believe in using retarded travel as a simple time sink to make you play the game longer, and perhaps because down deep they are a sadistic bunch.

So I have little reason to believe they would be open to the ideas of placing new transportation stops that would alleviate the sensless cross map travel. For instance look at the missions at Independepence Port, the train, oro or base entries to IP are always on the opposite side of the map to were the missions normally are at, why? So we have to travel the entire length of the map! Notice that many TFs for instance really abuse the use of Steel, Sky and IP which are long rectangular maps and the mission entrances bounce you from opposite end to opposite end with a consistency that defy's the so call randomness of the door entrance.

Frankly if they were to revise the door mission entrances and make them closer to each other, and cut back on inter-zone travel, the need to create new lines would go away.
Even WoW, which has a lot of problems, once you start a thread, it may make you travel a long way to another zone, but once you make it to the zone all the missions of that thread are in that zone (there a few exceptions to this).

But at least, connecting the green and yellow line is a tremendous improvement or counter to the sadistic travel driven developers...

Stormy

Mmm

In general I agree SR is old school, and is suffering from it. I find that the protection effect by not being hit, while good in paper, is not nearly as good as it appeard in practice.

While I fight minions and lts, oh yes, SR is very nice; but get higher than that and stress cracks on the power set commence to become evident. Fight an AV and oh boy, you have no damage resistance to speak off, after all what for, you are not going to get hit. So when the AV hits, you feel it. But wait, some AVs have severe damaging powers that are "auto hit", how you like them crackers partner? And then you have the "super AVs or as I call them the "over the top" Avs whose abilities humiliate other so called Avs. For instance take on Ghost Widow one on one on the TF, and compare her to say Hopkins on the Manticore Tf, I bet you can tell Hopkins is a push over when compared to GW, yet they both are AVs and yield the same exp for their defeat, ironic huh?

But I notice the most, when I am feeling masochistic, and play my MA/SR Scrapper is during an ITF, my defense in the last mission is 100% pointless! Also Romans are good at debuffing defense, but why bother with damage resistance?

Frankly SR needs to be revamped, cottage rules or not, the universe around the power set changed.

Hugs

Stormy

Hi:

I often triple check to make sure when I do alignment tips, that they are for the specific alignment I am either pursuing or trying to maintain. Yet despite the effort, I somehow manage to get the wrong credit from time to time. Other ways that my alignment development plan can get messed up, is joining PUGs and doing missions, and not noticing that one happened to be a tip mission and it being of the wrong alignment, from my perspective.

So I thought, when we enter a mission, the mission block at the top of the screen gives a lot of information, begining with the name of the mission (Stop the Council Program) and then followed by the conspicuous steps one must folow to successfully complete the mission, such as: defeat Boss, upload virus on four computers...

As per my suggestion the infomration sequence would read:

1. Stop the Council Program
2. Vigilante Mission (In golden letters)
3. Defeat Boss, upload virus on four computers


As I said, its a quality of life suggestion, not a must have to play the game successfully, just a simple courtesy notification in the mission...

Hugs

Stormy

Rikti Homeworld!

I want to kick their bunns in their own homes! I want to demolish their fire-hydrants, parking meters, mail boxes, and rews stands....

I want a zone, were we take the fight to them!

Stormy

Mmm...

I can see the arguments getting a bit spirited...

For myself given a chance to Team or Solo, I would prefer to team; because I am a social person and I enjoy the interaction.

Said that, it does not mean I do not enjoy soloing, nor that I do not desire to be able to experience the same content from a Solo perspective that I had experienced within a team.

I would also, like to caution some of the posters above, lets not take true exceptions such as I have soloed and defeated a GM, AV, King Kong... Frankly what do you all think the percentage in the server can actually do that? I suspect an incredibly small number, not even one percent. So basing arguments on that 1% is simply inappropriate, and makes for very bad logics and its subsequent conclusions.

I did see a poster indicate, if people could solo more content, that teaming will be more difficult to accomplish. After some consideration, I find myself agreeing with that statement. On the other hand, how valid is that position? Because "I" want to team, "You" can not solo? It seems to me, in a game, where we are supossed to be free to play as we would like to, having players claiming the right to tell others how they should play, strikes me as wrong; it is also wrong, these very same players, demanding that the game be changed to enforce their way of playing preference.

Often too many posters, claim to have empathy with developers, and thru this empathy they can stand before us and tell us "how it is".

I can tell you, as a manager for a very large software development organization, that as software programs and codes are evolved, the law of un-intended consequences often comes into play.

I look at CoX as one who is experiencing such un-intended consequences and like many other respectable organizations are trying to deal with them as best as they can.

As I mentioned in previous post, originally the game was balanced for both solo and team play, and frankly it was awesome. As time transpired, like all other games, CoH became "blah" for lack of better words. So the organization had to evolve the game, not so much as a need to add challenge, but to make it newer. This evolution was successful, but un-intended consequences commenced to occur. From the very beginning, there was content that could only be done on teams, but it had no impact on the playability for those who wanted to solo. But I said the game evolved, the first of these evolutions was the introduction of badges. This introduced the first unintended consequence, now there were badges a soloist could not get; yet the impact was negligeable at this time. The next evolution, since getting badges, was loosing its luster, was the introduction of accolades, with some accolades giving additional powers and game applying benefits. Now the game had another newer direction, and it retained its level of fun. Unfortunately the law of un-intended consequences did decisively strike this time; There were accolades that forced teaming to get the badges required for the accolade. Now the Solo players were hurt by the evolution, yet I do not believe some developer on the background went "muahahaha I screwed the soloers, muahahah...What next can I device, muahahahah" This situation simplyhappened as a natural occurrence and not by device.

Now I could say there is proof, that the devs are addressing the "Solo" options and playability in this game, and are actually trying. Think of the threads in missions for this game, they scale to your level and number of players. Further think, you can "now" choose the difficulty of the mission! Folks, no other game offers this! In a way CoX is the most solo friendly game out there.

I truly believe, the developers knows they "lost the bubble" along the way, but I do strongly believe they are trying to get balance back.

From a balance perspective, it is needed to compensate for those items that are significant to "Soloers" that can now be only acquired through teams. Special heroic Threads given by Positron, etc that upon conclusion gives you the same badge have you done the Task Force would make sense, while also being able to gain merits; the other unintended consequence of evolution, where reasonable merits gained is done by teaming only. Frankly, I would think it would be easier to simply do as it was done with Positron and take the other 5 TFs and put them in Oro.

I must caution us all, as often I remind myself: I must respect other players' right to play as they wish; they are not my personal servants. So when I build my tanks, scrappers and brutes I make them fully self sufficient; thus I never demand the buffs, heals or what not as so many players all to often do. When I play these melee characters, I say the following as a rule "This AT is fully capable of effectively operating with out buffs, if you give me any at your discretion; you will have my gratitude" The same could be said for demanding folks to team with me, frankly while I am a solid player with lots of experience, I sincerely doubt I am God's gift to humanity or this game...

Hugs

Stormy

Mmmm....

I would dare say, that yes Purple drop rates have indeed been reduced. Not because they have been directly reduced, but they have been reduced for there are more things to have awarded as a drop; thus the odds of getting one has diminished.

Also one must consider, that random, is not quite random as one would think. The odds are weighted, so despite of random, the odds of getting a particular result are far from equal.

When they added the ability to get temp power recipes, a range of possible rolls had to be established so they could be awarded to the unlucky winner. As a result the other drops such as salvage, inspirations, common recipies, rare recipies, purples and what not had to be adjusted to make room for the new kid in town.

It seems rather obvious the odds are stackd in favor in getting inspirations, followed by salvage. When it gt to recipies, the next tier, the odds to get a temp power is actually pretty wide, the its followed by the white, yellow, red and purple recipe odds.

Since the introduction of those cursed temp powers, my rate of acquiring any other recipes have dramatically dropped.

Hugs

Stormy

Ps: I wish temp power recipes would go away, and be solely acquirable thru Arena vendors and the like.

Mmmm...

Some very interesting arguments indeed...

There has been much argument about the game being solo or group oriented. I can tell you at the beginning the game was meant to satisfy both styles to an extent; yet Task Forces were intended to be grandious enterprises; thus many challenging missions and of curse a large group of heroes to perform them.

All things considered to the soloer, that did not matter; TFs was just a good way to get experience and nothing else. But that changed as the game evolved, we began to get shiny badges and we just had to have those, then we could get accolade powers by doing them, so we had to get those, and then the TFs gave out merits, and we really wanted those!... Because of this evolution, the solo part has been kinda left behind, I had in the past suggested that special task like threads be developed for solo types to do and earn badges and merits equivalent to those that can be earned in a group format (I'm still smoking from the relentless flamming).

Given that the "classic" Positron was sent to Oro and can be done solo, we do have a presedent of this being doable and not a mortal sin. It seems only reasonable the other TFS/SFs could be done Oro style as well; perhaps one blue and red could be released with each new release, say starting with I20 and up...

There is another reason, based onthe above, that I wouldlike to solo TFs. I am avid collector of power giving or enhancing accolades. One of them, requiresme to have done the TFs beginning with Positron and ending with Numina. Because of the time I can play the game, server population, and what not. It is difficult to form or join a group that would want to do the TF I need for the set. I often have to wait days, before such an opportunity can be presented to get the coveted TF badge. THus it would be courteous, if I could simply go to Oro and do the TF I need.

The other issue with soloability, which has to an extent be resolved through the use of IOs, is the various AT soloability capabilities. I can play my tanker, and frankly there is no mission that would give me cause for concern at standard difficulty levels, higher ones are not that much more challenging. Play a Defender, and short of some very exceptional power combinations, the challenge is quite high even at low level of difficulty. Would be nice, if the soloability capability of each AT gap could be narrowed some. But as I said, IOs, have done much towards narrowing this gap, but it would b nice if the power sets were rebalanced to accomplish this as well, and within reason.

Hugs

Stormy