Stormfront_NA

Mmm...

Perma soft cap ATs may not necesseraly be broken, I guess its all a matter of vantage point.

One of the original attractions of the game was the ability to feel "super", were we could go into a crowd of baddies and powerful creatures and dispense justice as we saw our favorite comic book heroes do. The fact that some ATs with very particular builds and IO sets allows you to feel "super" and not merely "common" allows the players who want that form of escape from the brutal treatment we receive from real life, all that much more appealing.

If we think of it, in the beginning, we were truly super; just about all ATs and builds were super, but then the game commenced to evolve and gradually the number of ATs that could make you feel truly "super" decreased and eventually there were none left. I will refer that time as the dark days (post ED, etc). I would be inclined to believe the devs realized what had occurred and the impact on the community as players left the game to try others and check from time to time on changes in the game. With the invention system, the developers provided us with a means to approximate the golden days when we were super, and I will admit a very fine job they did.

Now some may have an issue with players being able to actually have a truly super character, and I am sure they have valid reasons for hating it, but it all comes down to vantage points again. For me if I want to go into a battle field and feel like queen of the universe, I log on with my tankerette and open a can of whoop-***. If I want to be challenged and struggle and experience success despite the stacked handicaps, I log on my Defender and go to it. In fact the developers were wise enough to give us those choices, that is truly ubber AT or challenged AT, both being quite able to give us fun an enterteinment in our terms.

Of course, I am bringing a whole different perspective on these game postings, not one so mathematical as most other posters so cleverly analyse and describe, but one more from the game experience sense.

Hugs

Stormy

Mmm...

I really did not have a great issue with the introduction of AE, in some ways I enjoyed leveling all the way to 50 there, for it was convenient with regards to dumb, retarded and suicidal intra and inter zone travel. No need to be sent to enter a mission in an area of the zone several levels higher than me, no need to spend the next ten minutes switching zones and go to the farthest point in the new zone to enter the mission, no ambushes while trying to get to the zone and then mission entrance, no dying from someone else's higher level ambush, no more contact in zone one giving you exclusively missions on all zones but the zone they are in...

What I seen as a problem with AE, is the truly new player not knowing the zones and then trying to do TFs and being totally disfunctional.

I love the new side-kicking rules, awesome, no more being exploited by lowbies in TFs in order for them to get power leveled, while higher leveled players have to do the TF in order to get merits to get recipies they need because of broken, over-priced market system and they simply don't drop for them. Also the lowbies have no excuse for not earning their way as well...

Giggles

Stormy

Mmm... While agree that Defense is awesome, after all you got to get hit to get hurt...

Currently my main Blaster has nearly 60% ranged defense, which allows me to take on EBs with a nice margin of safety; AVs varies from one AV to another, some are way over the top, and you never will have sufficient defense to prevent them from pounding you into nothing in 1.5 hits. Resistance on the other hand, is a constant, a very dependable protection not subject to luck. The point I was trying to make, can you imagine a Blaster with 60% defense and 50% resistance? Scary ah?

I am working on my Fire/Rad Controller and through MIDS I am quickly finding the near 60% ranged defense power and IO set mix, so far I am at 56% trying to squeese that last 4% more, giggles, but can you imagine all that defense on her and also 50% resistance to damage? At this time, in MIDS she is at 56% Ranged, 46% AOE, and about 25% Resistance to lethal and smash.

All I am saying is I wonder how higher resistances could mess with inter AT balance, especially in PvP. From a group perspective, the more powerful each component of the team is, the better the team will be, and I don't see any need for childish comparisons of what AT is better than another in a team.

As far as I concerned, since I want to see all ATs and their plausible builds be superb solo performers, having better Resistances and Status Effect resistances is a good thing, but only from a solo ability perspective, which often conflicsts PvP and Group dynamics.

Hugs

Stormy

Hi...

While i would love for more ways to effectively bring up resistances, the problem would be that "support" class ATs could benefit from those powers and thus become less dependent on the Melee in groups, and heavens forbid not need a melee at all. Just imagine the balance implications if a Blaster could achieve 50% resistance? or even more scary imagine a Controller with 50% resistance?

Hugs

Stormy

Mmm, loyalty?

Interesting concept, but there is such a thing as game burn-out and a gal wants to have fun after all, so it should be natural for me to look at other activities once I commence to tire of the one I been doing for years.

In the case of a company wide subscription, that is a great idea; for as I feel that CoX is loosing its edge, I can switch and play AION or any other of their games to get a little variety. What is good about this, is that I continue supporting the franchise, and that part of that money can be invested in common research and development that benefits all games for instance; and then in time, I can return to my sweetheart CoH full time, ready to dispense justice on all evil doers!

Hugs

Stormy

Thank you so much for your advise!

Hugs

Stormy

Hi:

I suspect I am doing something wrong, but can't put my finger on it, perhaps one of you sweeties can point me out in the right direction...

I have a gorgeous Mace/Shield Tanker and she is nicely equipped with IO sets to be fairly tough and capable to dish out quite a bit of damage.

I settled on a nice council map, rescue Dr. Sam or something like that from Unai Kamen.

My settings is treat me as if I was a group of 8, have mobs spawn as +2 from me, and force Bosses to spawn.

Thus I am fighting very large groups of minions, lts and bosses at level 52 versus my humble level 50.

After I clear the map, I check my bag of loot goodies and see what I earned: 4 white salvage, 2 Yellow salvage and every other run I get an Orange salvage drop. Besides the salavage I get about 4 level 50-52 single enhancements, and about 4 recipies; the recipies are always jumps, runs, and what not; but never an invention.

I have by now under the same settings cleared the map 4 times, and had the results shown above as an average, sometimes I get a few more drops, others I just get less; but in all cases, I get no Invention drops; so what am I doing wrong?

Hugs

Stormy

Sweetie:

There is nothing wrong with not having Speed Boost and other player only boosters. You play the game to enjot yourself, not to be someone else's bot.

I have a tank, and if I get an SB I am grateful; do I need SB: Absolutely not! I select sufficient attacks to always have something, I also choose wisely those IO sets that boost power recharge and I try to get all 5 Luck of The Gambler 7.5s. So effectively I am not dependent on SB to be functional; I believe having to demand other players to continually serve me with SBs a mark of a poor build.

I also hear the granite form, complaint of too slow movement. If the build would slot a couple of run IOs into swift fromm health pool, one would find the movement issue not so bad, also once again the careful choice of IO sets can go a long way in mitigating this issue as well.

There really is no excuse for a melee player to have to blackmail another kin for personal servitutde and act as a personal buff-bot.

Hugs

Stormy

Giggles...


TFs/SFs, how to make them more fun... uhmmm

I would start with making missions more sensible, that is if the mission is "get information", it should be a glowie click, not a kill all. If you are supposed to defeat boss and guards; it should only require to defeat the boss and the mobs spawned with the boss, and not the entire pseudo room the boss happened to be. I mean pseudo room, because now all too often, that room has multiple levels, large closets, and what not, so at the end you feel you are in a Verizon situation, where you defeat boss, guards and then forced to defeat family and friends as well.

Kill all missions, need to be all together eliminated or at least made really exceptional in its use; they need to really make sense, such as a bunch of infected people are in a warehouse, take them all down before the plague spreads out... As oppose go to another zone from the one you are in, and defeat all the mobs in a building, for the heck of it.

Hunts need to be deleted, they really serve no purpose besides pointless inter-zone travel, and killing grey mobs that have no reward for their defeat, sheer waste of time; kinda insulting in my opinion.

I understand that Task Force, has to be group, after all it is kinda arrogant to consider oneself a force of one. But there should be adventures which yields merits, task force like for players who like to solo, no need to make excuses for one's liking to solo from time to time; after all I tought grouping was optional.

We need more level 50 TFs/SFs, use other baddies besides malta, freaks, nemesis, longbow and Rikti. Design these challenges to be one to two hours long, and do not punish good teaming, leadership, practices by awarding low merits for it.

Which reminds me, I feel TFs/SFs would be much more fun, if intelligent play is rewarded as opposed to punished, the time metric to award merits is simply not appropriate. Play smart do it quicker, get punished, play stupid take forever be rewarded; surely we can do better than this!

I do think, that having some of the contacts actually participating in the TF with you, would be very cool, love the idea of a previous poster.

Contacting contacts during a TF/SF, if you already in the past have gained their confidence to get their number, let the phone work during the TF/SF, after all its not like we are strangers anymore.

Hugs

Stormy

Hi:

At this time, the main purpose of the test server is for players to go try "beta" developer changes to be implemented inthe future. You also try in a limited way concepts you would want to try out.

But could it be possible to have another test server. meant for player testing in itself. For instance say I am comtemplating re-speccing my alt based in a new set of IOs, and I am wondering on how the various new IOs effects will interplay with each other. While I can get an engineer's view of that through Mids Hero Planner, the actual feel can not be simulated, its something you actually have to go out and try. Some would say, you still could do it in the normal server, and that would be true if the copied character had a billion influence and everything you wanted could be obtained through the market. Which we know, that will be rarely the case.

So why not make a test server, where you can copy a character too, have infinite respeccs and all recipies and materials can be acquired at the market at no cost. This way you can test your concepts and get a feel. If you want to experience a group like feel, one could create an AE mission, with folks you rescue that will help you as you rescue them and have powers similar to those of players, so you can approximate a group feel.

As I said, the main function of this second test servr is more of a QLI type thing.

What you all think?

Stormy

Heck yeah! Great idea

Stormy

Hi:

I seen many good posts, and yet I see many post having difficulty de-coupling group performance versus solo performance. I am really not addressing group performance, for the AT mix of abilities do work well. That it could be imrpoved, obviously, is it really needed? Not really.

When solo, the performance of each AT and their variations are all over the map. Some use the explanation that an AT is better than other for group support of the other AT, nevr themselves, and thus it only makes sense for that supporting AT to be less effective than the group supported AT. While the reasoning is not with out merit, its not entirely fair to the AT doing the support when Solo.

What I seek is a little bit more perfromance uniformity between the ATs and withn the ATs themselves. It can be done, with a little thought, and not by having the well working AT or AT mix nurfed. It can also be done, without unbalancing the game as well; if done cautiously.

At the moment, I have all kinds of ATs fully developerd and many different intra AT builds as well. If I feel like soloing, and just have plain fun, I pull either my Tanker or Scrappers, their natural defenses and attacks are very forgiving if I play in a relax and care free manner. But at times, I want the variety, the do the same ole thing, but a bit differently, so here comes out the other ATs and the perceived performance variations depending on the particular build I am employing. Recently I respecced and re-Od set my Emp/Psi Defender. I have no problems going through a mission at level 5 difficulty, and mopping bosses away; eventually. I do a lot of blasting and eventually I win, I am tough enough and nimble enough that my one and only self heal happens to be sufficient for the task, now that I can hover and remain elevated despite being mezzed, has done much for my survival as well. But still I would like to be able to kill as quickly as I can with Rad defender, and I know it can be done code wise with a little ingenuity. In fact it would be nice, if you all could suggest what does code changes could be, or perhaps what methods are available to an EMP primary defender to increase her DPS ability.

Hugs

Stormy

Hi:

I used the bank PvP as a sample, and a really fun thing to do, but I am also looking for other manifestations of instanced PvP opportunities.

I was thinking a variation of capture the flag would be a woot!

If you all can think of other things to do, please post them!


Hugs

Stormy

What is this vault you all are talking about, any descriptions of what it is and how to get to it?

Thank you

Stormy

Monkey Lord, love your picture in your message, when I was a little girl in Germany we used to watch a TV show named Lancelot Link, that monkey was so adorable...

Stormy

Wow, those are some deep thoughts from many of you guys!

But it would be cool, if you could have a server, and then have variations stored based on release. Say a post beta server, I1 server, i10 server, etc. In general I feel as a whole, each release has made the game better, not worse. So I am not sure if having the choices, I would end up not using them, an donly use the latest release.

Giggles, a cool stand alone "neutral" server could be created by CoX, so we could play while the main servers are being maintained :<)

Hugs

Stormy

Hi!

I saw some posters critiquing some of the potential AT primary and secondary power choices being less than optimum for that particular AT; and concluding that those pairings should not be. While the "in game" experience will bear truth to that, it is possible that players, such as me, tend to want to role play and go the step beyond and make concept characters. A situation that often occurs with concept characters is that they do not lend themselves to be maximized in their abilities, but to the player who did conceive the concept is very enterteining and rewarding; despite the potential handicap.

With I16 a lot of my concept characters are really getting to lok and feel like I inended, for instance I made a Super Reflexes and Martial Arts Scrapper. My intent for her, was that she was not really super-powered but actuall incredibly skilled and her apparent powers were the effect of her martial arts training and focus. Yet for all these years, I could not feel just right, for many of the powers had glowie effects and what not. Thanks to I16, I can remove many of those glowie effects and be more normal.

Hugs

Stormy

I just want to hug you guys!!!

A few days ago I was red reputation, and I asked in this thread to help me out. Now I am in the green, giggles, I wub you all, giggles

Stormy

Oh Swellguy, giggles

You are so right, if the recipe is really valuabel and horribly priced at market, I go the merit rout, that is why I do 1 to 2 TFs a night, so this way I acquire those ultra-expensive recipies that cost in excess of 150 million.

I must confess, that when I get a concept for my alts, I am one of those must do it now, and have difficulties waiting a week or two for the price to come down. You don't know, how tempted I been to buy influence at Gagora! Shame on me...Giggles

Still, I would like to see a ceiling on prices, so casual players and compulsive buyers like me don't get spanked too hard :<) After all, I am a woman and there is a market, how can I possibly resist to go out an shop at the WW or Icons?

Hugs

Stormy

Hi!

I have advocated, and been flamed much for it, for vendors selling salvage and recipies as a market price control. For example, you can buy IO recipes (not inventions) at the university right now, therefore the prices players may ask for an accuracy 50 will be limited by how much a player could simply buy it at the university. Frankly I would like to see the same practice with inventions, of course the prices at the university need to really make sense and be appropriate for the rarity and uselfuness of the invention recipe. It would also be so cool, if you could buy the recipe and its ingredients at the same time from the university as well, kinda like a package deal.

It is true, that the glitter of the market may be noticeably reduced for the exhorbitant profits to be made there will essentially go away. But good money can still be made, just not exhorbitant.

Hugs

Stormy

Hi:

I do support the idea of an increased audio enhancments to help with inmersion into the game. But after having 14 level 50 Lady Heroes and 14 Level 50 lady Villains, I sometimes find myself asking, what next?

When I played CoV, it was fun for awhile for it had new maps, new power sets, new ways to address things, and the missions given by contacts tended to be in the same zone. But in general many of the missions i was doing, made me feel more heroic than villanous; there are a few exceptions like the ones you go destroying children's books and their food :<)

I would like to see a new series of threads, that can be done solo or grouped, that starts at level 1 and goes on to level 50. The one adventure thread you keep uncovering stuff, defeating stuff, till the final climatic event where you discover who the bad/good guy is and bring his/her ultimate plans down. This way, you feel you are in pursuit of something, call it a mistery story along your career.

Despite of my idea above, it helps immersion in the game as you progress, but does little once you reach 50.

I would like to see SG/VG game sponsored activities, where the SG/VG can gain reputation and have it posted, for brqgging rights :<) What these activities may be, I really am not sure. For those of you who have played Dark Age of Camelot, the Frontier (their PvP Zone) had a number of keeps (bases) which could be invaded by the baddies (opposing factions); these keeps being significant for exclusive PvE zones (Darkness Falls) would be available based on who had the greatest number of keeps under their control. As a result many of the DAOC guilds would adopt a keep and accept responsibility to keep it safe. This in itself did much for immersion. I am not quite sure, how to implement this in CoX. I could see for example, each of our PvP zones having a generic base, which could be occuppied by either a hero or villain group, basically they get to flag it. CoX could create a new zone, with cool stuff and great rewards, which can only be accessed by the side with the most PvP bases under their control (flagged). The zone remains closed to both, if they both has as many bases under control. This suggestion may help with immersion and perhaps boost PvP action some. I can see SG/VG get reputation based on how man bases they have under control and how long, also they can gain reputation for their members completing TFs as well.

Somehow I would like to see somekind of wandering monster, that if left alone or ignored gets increasingly powerful and in fact more disruptive on player activities; thus forcing the SG/VGs to want to do something, and gain some reputation as well as mentioned above. To be fair to the low leveled players, death by wandering monster does not result with penalties, just the inconvenient run from the hospital to the mission.

Hugs

Stormy

While, I can agree with several of the postings about the lack of clarity on the suggestions, I definetely have an issue with the flaming and lack of civility.

Before we go judging so readily, for all we know the poster is a 9 year old and has a rather naive view of the world.

Also we should encourage people to post ideas, not the opposite. Sure the majority of the posted suggestions will be bad, but there will be good ones among them.

It is possible to work with a poor idea and evolve it into something really cool, despite that by the time the community is done with the concept, it may look nothing like the original post.

So lets try to be nice to each other, and avoid trying to just mouth off, it is a sign of a greater mind to encourage and norture than just flame.

Hugs

Stormy