Stormfront_NA

Wow:

Awesome advice and education, I have a lot of digesting to do :<)

Never tried the hovering, which all my tanks have by default, but seldom use. When you hover, my take is you float at a height just beyond melee range from Lord Recluse?

I don't think keeping aggroe would be an issue for me, since all my Tanks are equipped with fully slotted Taunts with Perfect Zingers.

I see now, where my weakness are in most of my tanks with regards to LR, for I seldom defense cap beyond 50%. So that is something I must work on to get to 75%. If I get my melee positional to 75% would that work? How about S/L to 75% iis that sufficient? Or am I missing something?

Hugs

Sue

Mmm...

At the moment I am extremely angry with this whole mess, while I remember my secret word, I am not sure howyou fill the date of birth and of course NCSOFT gives you no samples. if your day of birthday is a single number, do you put the single number or you preceed it with a 0? How about year, do you put the last 2 numbers or all 4?

And I totally hate entering those unreadable 60's drug induced psychodelic words, I simply can't read that! I have a medical condition, which has left me with the use of a single eye, and trying to read those blaster words is essentially impossible.

Stormy

I have a question on the security stuff, since NCSOFT's web page is totally useless...

How you enter your birth date, they do not give an example

The month is easy, its a pull down.

the day, in my case is a single number, do you enter the number say 1 or enter 01

the year same story, you enter the last to characters or all 4?

Stormy

Ps: I am getting really angry at this

Hi:

I am looking to build a tanker specifically built to take on Lord Recluse with out the support of a healer and the use of inspirations. To make things more sporting, it can not be an Earth tank, they are ugly, and looks are important to me.

I don't have an issue with regards to cost, to IO the tank, but would prefer not to slot PvP or Purple IOs.

So the challenge, can you please post builds that can survive Lord Recluse in an STF, and not require the use of PvP/Purple IOs; do not require buffage or healing; no use of inspirations. and no earth tanks!

Hugs

Stormy

Joyous day!

With lots of trepidation, since my hubby is out of town and he does all the computer stuff, I followed the instructions at the front of this thread.

To my great relief, the wizard took over and did all the work, and the updates loaded with out grief or issue on windows XP system.

I clicked on the new icon, and it all worked!

Now I need to reload Guild Wars since I have an active account, and not played in a long time and try out the launcher for some other game

Stormy

After reading this stuff...

I am scared

Stormy

Hi:

I have suggested these before, but seen no action over it, so I am asking again:

The chat menu, often on our bottom left side, has nice sized tabs to choose from general, combat and other specialized data information choices. At the bottom a third area, has a series of very tiny tabs to click on for "local", "Team", "Super" etc. Please note how tiny they are in contrast to the other two tabs above.

I am still requesting to please make these bottom tabs larger, I am presently handicapped and lost use of my right eye (temporarely) so depth perception is an issue for me. Having larger tabs would be a great assistance to me, while playing the game.

I know, I could spend more time typing the codes prior to typing what I want to say, but I am looking for a quality of life improvement, and a courtesy not only to me but to other handicapped persons that may be playing this game as well.

Thank you

Stormy

Mmm...

I think this whole thing has been poorly announced or described, and I mean poorly is using kind words. I am not an avid forums reader, and often have difficulty finding what new updates or things are added to the game for they appear to be distributed all over the forums in an apparent chaotic manner, at least to me, but I am a senior citizen, so I confuse easily...

I have no idea about this so called "new launcher" is, all I know is that my original shortcuts at my desktop on my PC still works, I have all the "EULA" non-sense that I never read and just click, yeah, yeah, whatever you say... The game loads up, and now I have another dumb EULA to automatically click "yeah whatever".

Can someone please post a link on this so called new launcher? how you get it or install it?

When this new "pest" thing was introduced, there was a brief description of how it would work, but as usual it did not include the how to load or install instructions, assuming one would miraculously know where to go in the forums for it, and the forums search feature is essentially useless, no matter what I try to find in it, I just don't find; I often do better going to Titan Wiki for my on-game questions, which frankly is a shame, for I much rather have an official statement to work from.

With regards to customer service and the polite or professional courtesy treatment, sadly it has been a mixed bag. I am not sure having developers exchanging thoughts with customers to be a good idea, frankly that is a terrible idea. Software developers are usually very good at developing software, but often they lack social skills; thus is a horrid risk to potentially have folks with poor social skills being a spokesperson of a company. I would suggest the forums be moderated thru a professional spokesperson that introduces all the changes or updates to the game, and field the questions thereoff. This professional, can then go back to the developers for the answer to questions or issues and present the best company's face to customers. That will go a long way in rumor control and even damage control, also these professionals can actually influence development for they are better qualified to understand what the customer is experiencing and thus be a better advocate.

Stormy

Ps: want to help me use the forums as an information source?

Why not weekly have a single place that says: "This is new for this week" and then list all the new changes to the game, one at a time, with a forum link for greater detail for each item. As opposed to have announcements all over, with no links to detail.

Mmm...

I try to live a simple life, and this being the Capitalistic system, I vote with my dollar: No Service, No sale. Plain and simple.

If I try to get something, from anyone, and they give me a hard time, I simply desist trying to get that item from them and go somewhere else for that item or look for "the next best substitute", these procedures are basic economics 101 subjects.

So far, the latest set of booster packs, in my opinion, are not worth buying at this time: They provide too little for the cost they are charging for them. So I have not experienced an issue with the current system.

On the other hand, we must be appreciative that CoH is actively trying to protect our personal information and transactions, that is always good, especially these days!

So we may be experiencing a bit of give and take...


Stormy

Mmm...

Terrific idea, I really support in differentiated the Council and 5th column. If I look at council/5th column types of mobs, besides your standard soldeir with rifles, flamers, and MGs, I see two distinct factions of mobs as well:

1. Dark side faction where they have Warwolves and Vampir
2. Tech no side where they have all these robot type mobs

Since Requiem is 5th Column, I can see them retaining the Warwolves and Vampir; while the council go hightech robots.

Frankly I never did like to see werewolves and robots mixed, it was just too contrasting for me.

Stormy

Mmm...

There are a lot of things we must consider with this request, the one that comes into mind is that mob size and nature of mobs are dependent on group size. I would imagine devs prefer full groups of 8 so the full content and variety of mob abilities will be present during the execution of a mission.

Take for instance Hess TF, a council centric TF. If you do it at 5 or more you will have bosses and thus the presence of heavy mez usage becomes a center part on the mob threat to the player. IF you were to do Hess solo, there would be no bosses, only a sprinkling of LTs and as a result no mez either; a very refreshing situation for non-melee who has no unconditional mez protection and makes for a very casual play experience.

While I concur getting team mates to fill a TF can be at times very difficult, depending on time of the day, and now with the Task Force of the week, doing something else is pretty hard now, at least for two or three days after the new weekly TF is opened.

I fear that if the devs do remake the TFs so they can be done solo as well, I fear their heavy handed use of mez as the standard form of challenge incorporated in such a manner that it will no longer could be avoided and the opportunity for casual players to play their ranged alts in a relaxed manner would go poof.

Sometimes, we need to be careful what we wish for...

Stormy

Mmm...

The usual answer is depends :<)

Also what your definition of farming is, after all some folks may consider it illegal.

But since the devs have given us a difficulty slidder, with a four different options to set it upon. The question of Tanker versus Scrapper can get very interesting.

Today's Tanker, through the use of IOs, their damage can be very respectable. I contend my Elec/Shield Tank can out perform a Blaster in the DPS department when solo anyday, anytime. So trying to say Tankers can't "farm" because of low dps is simply a fasehood. (high aoe dps is not limited to em/shield tankers by any means, other sets such as fire, axe, and mace have excellent area DPS as well)

Today's Scrapper, through the use of IOs, are now very survivable alone in large groups. Thus they can decimate their opposition before they are themselves bested. Obviously the Scrapper's damage is superior to that of the Tanker and even more of a Blaster.

Very important, please note, I am talking in "solo" mode, not group.

So that brings us back to the choice of Tanker vs Scrapper, once more.

If you set your difficulty slider to +4/x8/Y/Y, you may find that the Scrapper is not consistently or reliably able to survive the damage by the mobs she ahd aggroed before demolishing them, it can get iffy. This as a whole not a problem for the Tanker. Thus you trade off some DPS (not that significantly) for sturdiness and the reliability to goes with it.

If you set your slider to +0/x8/Y/y, you will the Scrapper is tough enough to take on all comers, and dispatch them very expeditiously. So can the Tanker, but not as fast as the Scrapper.

So the real item to consider, is what is your prefered difficulty setting?

For shards, there is no appreciable benefit to get them to drop from a level 50 or 54, still same odds or just about. So given you are an incarnate, obviously, yu want to set the difficulty to +0 and go to town, mowing down baddies so fast, that you will be laughing histerically.

If you are trying to complete a purple set, there is a markable benefit for defeating higher leveled mobs; thus you want the +4, and as a result you want the Tanker, unless your Scrapper can take the heat. You may want to note, that shield melee types are hard to hit, but not too tough when taking damage when compared to other classes of melee builds.

Now there is a different school of thought and great argument with regards to having bosses or none in your harvesting enterprise. Bosses have greater percentage to give you a drop than a minion or LT, but takes longer to defeat. So the question arises: Is the time I take too defeat a boss more productive than the time had I defeated a handfull of minions?

My take, but that is my opinion, is that killing bosses are not worth the effort. Since I mainly PBAOE for the kill, in 2 attacks I can kill the 8 to 12 minions, and possibly the 4 lts too. It may easily take me 6 pulses to defeat the boss. That means in those 6 seconds, I could attacked 3 mob groups and defeated 8 x 3 = 24 minions, that is 1 boss or 24 minions. A boss chance to drop anything is about 8%, a LT is 4% and a minion is 2% as best I recall. Do you prefer a single 8% chance or 24 chances at 2% for minions plus 8 chances at 4% for LTs?

I hope this helps you some.

My definition of farming, or at least what I do, is I find a mission that I am comfortable with, that is I avoid tunnels ( my head always get stuck with pipes and roots), mobs are adequately spaced to ease aggroe management, and I have ample room to maneuver around and control the battle. Once I have that mission, I do most of it, reset it, and do it again. I normally set it to +0/x8/N/N since lately I am after shards, and do this when teaming for TFs are unavailable. I find farming very boring, and prefer to team if given a choice.

Stormy

Mmm...

I see aggroe stollen all the time, and I seen healers stealing it. In fact, there is a TF, want to say STF, were several experienced leaders had adviced Emps to not use their max heals or they will steal aggroe.

And yes I was playing my Psi/Emp Defender and was providing my weak heals to the tanker holding LR enterteined, a spider crawled over my keyboard, which I immediately rproceded to freak out and scream, but my son valiantly ran to me and disposed of the hairy yucky critter. Unfortunately by then, my charge, the tanker was about to die, barely alive by a hair's width, and I went pow with my strongest heal and taking damage to myself in the process, next thing I know I am dead. LR took insult of my denying his impending kill and took it out on me, with the all too common one-shot-kill.

While I keep being told, there is no anti-healer code, I keep seeing healers getting aggroe and getting of course auto-killed since they are overly-fraggile. If there is no code, there must be instead a combination of events or circumstances, that does a great impression of such an imaginary code.

Hugs

Stormy

Mmm...

I don't hate the game, while I do complain about certain mechanics of it, it does not mean I hate the game, what it does mean is that I accept a certain amount of responsibility in helping to improve the game.

Now I will confess, my remarks on the PB were rather harsh, but I still do stand behind them.

The PB concept when it first came out, lets face it, it was the first "epic" AT. That in itself is very significant. I can yield to the desire from the developers to craft a truly unique AT for this special reward for players who had attained the game's goal of level 50!

So the developers really had set the stakes quite high for themselves. That in itself is a great thing; nothing like a sense of challenge to be compelled to excell!

Now what was the Earth Shattering concept the developers came up, for such an "epic" new AT?

The simple truth, in paper, the concept was actually very awesome:

Lets create a truly versatile AT that could cover several AT roles in a pinch! So it could go into a Tanker mode if mob management was needed, or into a Blaster mode if the team needed more DPS.

If we stop for a moment and consider the above, there is only one word that could possibly describe the concept: "Wow" (and I don't mean the ultra-boring other in-line game)

So when the epic finally game out, I was like I could not wait to try it! This new alt, would certainly become my new main, after all think of how versatile it has been promised to be.

But as President Clinton once said: "The devil is in the detail"

The PB is truly a victim of: "Great idea, horrid execution"

While the developers did give the class some real beanies at the time such as free transportation powers and available at the get go, that was epic, a bit over the top, but ok.

So what went wrong?

The first disappointment was that in order to be a tanker, I had to convert to a tanker mode and my other powers, to include pool powers, would no longer be available.

The second disappointment was that in order to be a blaster, I had to convert to a blaster mode and my powers, to include pool powers, would no longer be available.

In human mode, I had no mez resistance, but I could turn to tank mode to break mez. Not elegant or impressive, but ok. This could have been done better.

But since this "epic" AT was an alien, a very cheesy background story about them had been made, the developers then handicapped the class by having them create and attract new mobs above and beyond those of the normal mission. These mobs, where equipped with a damage means that the player AT was scripted to be vulnerable, you know for flavor. As a result PBs were not always that welcomed into teams, specially lowbie teams where the various player ATs were not that strong and the struggle thru the mobs was challenging enough. I remember many a time, being refused a team, because I was a PB and often asked to bring other of my more traditional alts instead.

So these simple limitations went a long ways in limiting how good the epic AT could be, but the misery did not end there...

Because the developers wanted the PB to be a "team" player, for at the time the developers were nurfing many ATs' ability to solo to force group play, and the PB was not exempt of this doctrine and fell prey to it, and fell hard.

What the developers did was to weaken the damage of the PB, and then have the damage increase in proportion of how large a team. The effect was when soloing, the PB made a Defender look like a DPS monster, and when in a team of 8, with its DPS increased, it still was not comparable to a blaster, at best it was mediocre blaster. Same can be said of the tanker mode of a PB, sure its tougher than a Defender, what isn't? But its no where close to a Tanker or Brute potentials, I often consider a Scrapper tougher than most PBs.

So if we consider this for a moment, what do we conclude?

That the PB fits the saying: "Jack of all trades, master of none"

Still, the concept of being a "Jack of all trades" is still alluring, but! The real question is how less masterful were you?

Today, CoH has lijkely the very best teaming ability in the industry, and I played many games. So the odds of a team being tankerless or blasterless so a PB happens to come around and save the day, are essentially negleable.

Since I played and leveled up a PB, I feel sorry for many players trying to level a PB, and try very hard to avoid not letting them join my teams by fighting my own instincts to min/max my team to do a mission; because I frankly believe the PB is mediocre at anything it does, despite that it can do a lot of different things at an ok level of performance.

The problem with PBs in my opinion, is they are way too weak to Solo effectively, and in a team, regardless of what mode they are on, there are several other ATs within the team that does those functions much better.

Now if a PB's performance would not be group dependent, and be able to provide a buffage value to the team, such as the red side epics does, I am very likely to change my mind over the AT. Since red gives ACC buffage, maybe PBs give resistances to damage for instance or extra damage buffs.

I would also like to see the PB feel truly epic, let them have mez protection gained from any of their protection powers, but are redundant and not cummulative if more of their protection powers are on. I would also allow for pool powers to continue providing benefits and be usable regardless of mode.

Stormy

Mmm...

Thinking a bit onthe wild side...

In a game also produced by Cryptic, Guild Wars, they did address this situation by letting you hire mercenaries. This way not only you could complete your group numbr wise, you could also provide for the variety of expertise that you would be lacking otherwise.

So in the same tone as Guild Wars does this, why not have the basic set of ATs represented: Generic Tankers, Gneric Blasters, Generic Controllers, Generic Buff Defenders, Generic Healing Defenders, etc.

So if the TF requires you to have 8 folks, and you lacking a Rad for the TF, then instead of asking players to switch alts or wait for another hour for a Rad to volunteer, just pick-up the mercenary that fits your group needs.

If you are alone, then hire 7 mercenaries and go have a ball!

Now I could see the need to develop a MM like control GUI for the mercenaries for the leader to control, it would be best if the leader could share the mercenary control among otehr players for ease of play and efficiency. For example 4 players hire 4 mercenaries, the leader could then set it where each player is responsibble for a mercenary as well as their own alt.

Any thoughts?

Stormy