Stormfront_NA

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
    you know what's easier than all that?

    buying low and selling high.

    not that the OP cares, he was discussing inflation not earning power.
    Ha ha ha

    That is funny, buy low sell high...

    The reason I interpreted the OP had a problem with lack of influence, was simply because he "is" having a problem due to inflation.

    Now you may be wondering how I am making such an assertion that the OP has an influence issue?

    Think of elementary physics, for every cause there is an effect. The problem the OP has with inflation is an "effect", the "cause" is easily deduced to be the lack of influence.

    If you have a tight budget, and the prices of what you want sky-rocket, as they had; you experience anguish. Now if the anguish is great enough, it is a natural reflex to post in forums seeking a way to relieve the pain. The fact the OP posted, is also indicative of how intense the pain is as well. "Elementary my Dear Watson"

    If you are rich, and have influence coming out of your ears, you think you would notice inflation? Doubtfully, and extremely unlikely you would open a forum thread to seek relief over the inflation.

    So my post, was advice on how to get rich. Even you, in your sarcastic filled posting, down deep in your mind; you knew it was lack of influence the actual problem and as a result you also gave advice as well on how to become rich, ha ha ha, "buy low, sell high"; I swear I heard that in some comedy movie...

    Stormy
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by PennyPA View Post
    Wow Stormy, you make it sound like a chore. I just bid low, log off and go play an alt. Or more likely, just plan ahead and place bids for what I will pay, then go have fun playing.

    If you have a system that can generate a billion inf every 4 days, what are you worried about?
    As you remarked, I do have a system that actually works very well, despite my attrocious luck. Many of my alts are maxed in influence and all 36 of my level 50 alts are fully IO set to the max, they are in short the best they can be in their own niches, at least for PvE.

    Was it a chore, tedius, or what not? I will confess, yes it was in the beginning. Today I only do tips with one of my alts, so I can keep the influence flowing in, more than out. I produce and sell 1 LoTG 7.5 every 4 days, and took me slightly under 2 hours over the week to get, and you know how much those suckers are selling for? Ha ha ha, inflation has become my friend...

    The main reason I posted my process was to simply share with the OP a way to be less impacted with the current prices at WW for just about anything, an overcome his present difficulties. In short I was trying to help him.

    Stormy
  3. Mmm...

    Inflation is going to happen when demand is high. With the new batch of respecs to take advantage of the inherent firness pool, the respeccing of characters got to be at an all time high. Subsequently the demand for all kind of recipes has to be just as high.

    In basic economics, you have the laws of "Supply and Demand", obviously demand is very high and supply has diminished for a number of reasons, mainly the hunt for Shards.

    If you feel the influence pinch and can't get what you need, welcome to the my club. I have been normally cursed in this game with bad luck with regards to drops. So hoping to get a purple which can sell for a zillion then afford the rest of my build, is simply not going to happen for me. There are folks telling me, I am having a bad luck streak and one day my luck will turn, the random number generator is fair. It's been over a year, I am still waiting for my lucky one day out of the 365 unlucky ones. So you may ask, how do I get the influence to afford things?

    Before I19, I did TF after TF to get merits. Lots of Merits got traded first for what I needed. I did AE to get the expensive materials thru ticket redemption, and horded white salvage since I could not redeem thru tickets and they get abused price wise. That significantly dropped the cost of enhancing my alts.

    I also took the time to make one of my alts a master crafter, I can even summon a table. By being a Master Crafter, I get discount coupons. These are very important, so when I make the rare Miracle, or LoTG 7.5, or Numina, I can cash my discount and even make them cheaper. This ability is important in the profit margin area.

    Once I got my build's enhancements down path, I may need odd end stuff andn eed raw influence for that, how did I made that?

    In the old days, I made lots of merits and trade them for the most WW expensive IOs such as LoTG 7.5 for instance, crafted them, using my discount, redeming my AE tickets for materials, and sold them at WW for a huge profit. Sell 4 or 5 of the LoTG 7.5s and you got a fortune in your hands.

    After I10 the Alignment system came around, that was even better, I no longer had to TF! I separated 5 of my heroes for A-Merit earning purposes, and did 5 tips a day for each, for a total of 25 tips a day. I carefully selected my heroes for stealth and firepower so I could do the tip mission in about 5 min tops. Those retarded missions that forces you to escort or kill all, I just dismiss the contact and go get me another tip. So 25 tips at 5 min each takes me about 125 min or just over 2 hours. Don't forget you can auto-complete one mission every three days too. so after 4 days, all 5 of your heroes have collected 2 Alignment merits each, the most expensive recipe only cost 2 A-Merits, not counting purples which are not worth getting this way to sell later). So in 4 days you can get 5 LoTG 7.5 to craft with you crafter who should have been hoarding and receiving the white salvage you need (I hoard the salvage for LoTG 7.5, Numira Regen/Recov and Miracle Recov). Craft them and place them for sale. in roughly 8 hours of work over 4 days, you made over a billion influence.

    If you respec and need a full set of 6 IOs, well after * hours and 4 days, you should have all 6 of them since many of the IOs of a set are worth 1 Alignment Merit.

    If more of us where to do this, slowly inflation would drop, because if you notice I am not using WW to outfit myself as my primary tool.

    If AE could also sell white salvage, that would help a lot. Also if A-Merits could give you a dual pack recipe for one A-Merit for those recipes not available at the A-Merit vendor because they are common would be good as well. Thus you get two common recipes for one A-merit would be unusually useful too.

    Hugs

    Stormy
  4. Mmm...

    I find this an interesting proposal and not with out merit.

    Going against it, was that an MMs damage is in my opinion originally envisioned to be done thru their pets, thus the Master really did not need powerful personal attacks.

    Also going against it are the secondary power sets. Granted some have no damage properties such as pain for instance and the self buffs from it are nothing to get excited about. But you can go the dark side as a secondary and it does provide some reasonable firepower and very good holds.

    So one may ask, why is there a need for more powerful personal attacks?

    From the evolution of the various new TFs and missions, the role of pets and their survivability is highly questionable. Also considering that the controlling of them is not very effective. I often tell my pets attack this guy, he is beating the day-lights out of me, and some will come and others will just go wondering around. It seems pets do not understand the command "stay" or at least they stay while you are watching them, but as soon as you move away or attack, they abandon their position. In the case of Romulus, it would be great if I could tell my pets, please stay here, outside of the healing nicti range, and range attack Rommie, but we know that will never happen. Go to Kahn, and Reichman quikly PBAOEs all your pets to nothingness since they will not range fight. Apex, another pointless situation for pets. Frankly when I go to many of the new content the use of my pets is totally counter-productive to the team, so as I result I don't summon them at all, and try to support the team the best I can with the little I got.

    So from the situation to being in a team, doing new content, and pets being mostly a pest to the team than a benefit; it does make great sense that a Master Mind's own personal powers really need to be upgraded to fit the new evolving role of the Master Mind in a team during new content enterprises.

    Hugs

    Stormy
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ironblade View Post
    There is an epic flaw in your basic assumption here. The fact that the enemies have similar abilities to your own, and ability to harm you, is NOT A PROBLEM. It's a REQUIREMENT for a challenging game.
    Can't see the forest for the trees, ah?
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Grouchybeast View Post
    Out of curiosity, what percentage of minions in the game have mezzing abilities?

    I can't say that I have all that much problem getting mezzed on my rad/rad Defender, and I play her solo a lot to get Hero merits. Now, I solo her on +0x1, because I'm trying to get through the missions quickly, but I don't think that's unreasonable for a Defender. She's a support AT, and she's an extremely valuable asset on teams, so it would be very unfair to expect her to solo like a scrapper, or even a blaster. However, between her primary, secondary and APP, she has plenty enough mitigation to get done what she needs to do solo.

    In teams, the mez mitigation comes from the other team members, so I have even fewer problems there.

    Sadly by now, the great majority of them have secondary mez effects built into their attacks, the main saving grace is that minions do not have very good accuracy, so if a player builds in a bit of range and aoe defense and remains airborne the minion threat is really not that bad. But because it can be mitigated to an extent, it does not mean there is not a problem.

    Now I am not against minions, lts, and the rest having mez abilities; I am against ATs not having some true unconditional protections, that is resistances. I am also not saying that ranged ATs should have comparable MAG resistances as melee, but zero is not right either.

    I favor minions and all mobs having both melee and ranged attacks, to include secondary status effects; this does make the game more realistic and colorful. I remember this games evolutionary path, at one time you had mobs that were either ranged or melee; this of course lend itself to abuze mostly on the part of Blasters. And it was under the premise that since ranged could not be attacked by the majority of the mobs, ranged was an exceptionally good form of protection. Further more, since the so called support ATs were essentially ranged, then they had no real need to have status effect protections. All extremely logical and adequate deductions. Good, bad or indifferent, the devs fixed the shooting fish in a bicket situation, and gave all mobs the ability to have ranged attacks as well as melee; it is also observable that ranged attacks are usually not as hard hitting as melle; a good thing since ranged ATs are weak in the damage resistance arena nad have reduced hit points when compared to their melee counterparts. At the time, mobs evolved ranged attacks, the mez craze the devs eventually institutionalized had not occurred. So mobs with modest ranged attacks could provide the ranged ATs with a degree of challenge. Thus at this time, the need for ranged ATs to have better protections were not relevant; also at this time the actual ranges of mob attacks were not that good and could be easily outranged if slotted properly. So the players kinda brought back the shooting at fish in the bucket issue back again. The devs not being one to be outsmarted, responded by giving all the mobs near sniper range to all of the mob's ranged attacks. Thus the Blaster would get the first shot, but then the linked mobs would charge at the Blaster and shortly attain range with their own attacks, which had better range than the Blaster's normal non-snipe ranged attacks, and since snipe can be interrupted, it was now the Blaster that had to move to get in ranged of their primary ranged attacks. By any definition a good and interesting balance had been struck. And still at this time, the need for ranged ATs for better damage and mez mitigation was not really needed. But then things dramatically changed when the devs introduced mez among the mobs across the board and not limited to bosses or better. This was indeed a game changer event! At first about 25% of the minions had mez effects and could be easily detected which ones were equipped with mez and those not after a few engagements. It became kinda like the Melee's experience and practices when Zappers are around. By now the need for unconditional mez protections, more so than damage mitigation started to become much less irrelevant. About this time also, the ranged damages for LTs and Bosses was increased, after all the devs correctly wanted the ranged ATs to feel respect when they got struck by a boss after all. That also was a game changer. The ffect of these changes was that the game lost balance, and support Ats were dropping like flies all the time, that it became a joke. The devs re-adjusted this situation by making "Break Free" inspirations to mitigate the very harsh repecusions of being mob mezzed, and later through the Epic power sets damage resistance was introduced to the ranged ATs.

    So far so good, the evolution of the game was in general a good one and challenge was being introduced mostly at the expense of the support ATs. Then somehow the developers determined that there was not enough game challenge (mostly by the complaints of the melee playing players, which were correctly stating a fact), and concluded that the best way to do so was to increase the use of mez in the game. Thus by now about 80% of all mobs across all types (Minion, LT, Boss) are now Mez equipped with near snipe ranged abilities. I must admit the challenge level in the game significantly increased, sadly 100% at the expense of the ranged ATs, since they by design have no unconditional means to resist the tidal wave coming at them.

    Since now mez is so prevalent, very well ranged, and essentially spammed; I contend that the balance factors used to determine if ranged Ats needed unconditional protections against mez is needed has dramatically changed. I understand that good play and practices can let players "work around" the problem; but because you can work around it, it does not mean it does not exist. You can have a good sized pot-hole in your street, since you can drive around it, does it cease to be a problem?

    I believe that some Mez resistance could be given to Support Ats thru their EPIC damage resistance power, and through some of the innate powers such as Steamy Mist for instance.

    It also occurres to me, that not all ranged ATs are really support, I really do not see Blasters as support, that is like looking at Scrappers as support too. Defenders are also not quite all support either, take a Dark/Dark Defender or a Storm Defender, they don't buff the team, and while they debuff the enemy that is really a different form of attack that happens to allow other players to benefit from. I would in fact break Defenders into two classes the true "Support" Defender, and the "Combat" Defender often regarded as an Offender :<). Controllers is a mix bag, but in general they are Support; I do find it extremely ironic that the master of mez is totally enable to resist their own form of attack; its like a Tanker not having armor.

    Hugs

    Stormy
  7. Mmm....

    Someone correct me if I am wrong...

    But I believe the alpha slot can be unlocked by trading 75 merits at the merit vendor. Thus you can by-pass the entire sequence if so inclined.

    Incidentally, the hero-1 portion of the unlock thread is auto-completetable, you just need to go to Lady Grey to start the mission, then go to the Mender to auto-complete, return to Lady Grey for the blah blah part, and then you are on your way to the next mission. The ability to auto-complete this portion is a God-send for most of my support types.

    Stormy
  8. Mmm...

    My crusade with regards to Mez protection has much more to do with the binary treatment of it.

    Melee gets resistances, an unconditional form of protection
    Support gets mez, and debuff, a conditional form of protection

    Since conditional, is by definition "conditional" it implies that the support alt has to do something successfully in order to achieve the desired level of protection. It also implies the support alt has to do that something successfully and first.

    My argument as of late has been with the odds of "successfully" and being "first".

    Since I18 the use of Ambushes by the devs have remarkably increased, during these ambushes, by definition the support AT is "ambushed", in short they do not get to go first! This would not be bad, if the ambushing mobs did not open up with area mez and their continued spamming of it. Since the support AT has no unconditional protections, and was by game design caught flat-footed, they have no protections.

    Addressing successfully with regards ok, we get to go first, it varies from AT support class to another, and then within AT types, and the variation is quite great.

    Controllers, they have lot of neat holds and what not. Lets think about the requirements for success. If you do not keep them from taking an action, you are toast, for in their turn you will be mezz attacked and since you have no protections, the outcome is pretty much automatic. Arcanville did a wonderful job describing what it takes to mez a Minion, LT and Boss and also described what the Controller's mez MAG arsenal consist of. Now correct me if I am wrong, but the normal area mez has at best a MAG 2 potency, right? Sufficient to deal with Minions and have a chance at LTs, but definetely uncapable against anything at a boss or better level. Thus, one should be able to conclude that in the normal scenario, the Controller the odds are nicely stacked against them.

    Defenders, they have neat debuffs, but they take time to accumulate, something they really do not have if trying to survive being mezzed. So they have to depend on Mez as well, but they are not mez especialists. The typical mez I see with Defenders are some rather nice "single target" effects, but as a whole they lack area coverage. I a way this shortfall makes sense, after all the Controllers' nitch should be respected. Now just like a Controller their MAG 3 mez is only effective versus minions, and potentially effective versus LTs, while ineffective against Boss or higher. Since most groups one would encounter are combos of minions, lts, and bosses the odds for success for a Defender are quite stacked against them as well.

    So as a poster kinda observed, Melee has real protection and support has none. This is the binary effect I have been against for years.

    Think of the great divide in protections, a melee can face-off with an EB and their protection against the EBs mez attacks are there for them to enjoy, where are the protections for the support types? We all know, but don't talk much about the EBs essentially being pretty much immune to a Controller or Defender's effects since their MAG resistance is set so high. Do note I mean single Controller for this purpose. Melee do not need groups of melee for their personal resistance to operate.

    The above is the reason I have often asked for support to get some MAG Mez resistances, they clearly do not be as strong as a scrapper or tanker, but they clearly should not be at zip as is now either. In General terms, should we all not be at a minimum as tough as a boss?

    In my opinion, it is less than heroic for a support character continuously rendered helpless by any mere minions; that just seems so wrong.

    Stormy
  9. Mmm...

    I must admit Trapdoor's difficulty as "is" to be just fine. I was able to defeat him with my Psi/Emp Defender, it took a long time and it was very annoying, but he was defeatable.

    As long as we are alowed to lure him into the lava pool, so the damage can stack-up with the laughable damage my Emp Defender does, he can be defeated.

    I have have observed after the third summoning of "little helpers", he tends to summon them within line of sight of himself and you. So you can stop attacking him, and take the next 8 rounds or more defeating his minions, after all you are a Defender and have a wet noodle for an attack. Yet they do go down, and you can continue to attack Trapdoor who did not heal because he remained in the lava pool and after the minion is destroyed after summoning, you can continue to whittle him down.

    If the devs remove the use of the lava pool, then I sincerely doubt as a run of the mill Defender I could possibly solo him, a wet noodle is not much of an attack.

    Stormy
  10. Hi!

    I am back, but not quite all recovered...

    As some of you may know, I am suffering Bell's Palsy and I been experiencing some "unique" quirks to go with it.

    When my son posted my farewell for me, I really thought that my gaming days were behind me. One of the many problems that comes with Bell's Palsy was my inability to focus with my right side's eye, and as a result I been wearing an eye patch for the past 5 months. Two weeks ago, I began to note that my left eye's vision would blurr for a moment or two and then clear up; but then the blurring became more frequent and would last longer till it finally became permanent; also accompanied with my blindness of sorts were mighty painful headaches.

    Last Saturday morning, after consuming all kinds of medicine, my left side eye finally was able to focus and remain focused; TV never looked so good!

    Odly with my eye recovering, a very tiny portion of my right side's cheek is commencing to work again and not just hanging limply as it has been the norm; a clear sign that recovery is finally begining! I can not tell you how devastated I was a few months ago when one of my Doctors told me, he believed my situation was going to be permanent...

    Never the less, I am back, but not sure how long I can stay at a time playing since fatigue has become an issue, apparently my body needs to sleep a lot as part of the healing process, and as a result when I try to do things; I can only do them for a few hours at best and then I need to go take a nap...

    Hugs

    Stormy
  11. This final note is to inform you all that Stormy Wed will not be conducted any more, unles NV's picks it up.

    In the past few days, my health has greatly deteriorated, and I no longer can play this game in a sustained fashion as I once used to.

    Thank you very, very much for those who suported me by attending the few events we had.

    Hugs

    Stormy

    Farewell and best wishes
  12. My favorite enemy groups...

    Carnivale of Shadows, they are truly enigmatic as to their roots and have a certain class to themselves.

    Malta, I really like their evil corporate background, also they have a nice variety of specialist classes. After all this is the group that make melee think twice and groan at the mere presence of a Zapper.

    Snakemen red side, really wish CoV would do much more with them, they do have a great theme and source, be nice if they had an island to themselves. Perhaps the Goddess Medusa could be thier ultimate hidden sponsor? TF built around this would be awesome!
  13. Mmm...

    Would like to understand some players' meaning of challenge...

    It seems to me, that limiting players to simply exchange DPS with a mob under the mob's conditions to be the only acceptable source of challenge.

    Players wanting to use cunning, such as goating the baddie to walk away from his power base, oh that can not be acceptable, we are not supposed to use our brains! That would be an exploit! (Ha ha ha)

    Love the attitude of some posters, well some of the ATs don't have a problem, therefore "there is no problem" (I am glad I don't play the Ats that don't, so its not a problem! frame of mind)

    As I said often, the challenge for developers is to set a situation that challenges fairly all ATs. Since Support ATs tend to have weak DPS and resistances, making a mission where they are reasonably challenged, would result with an easy mission for the so well designed melee ATs.

    While I was eventually able to defeat Trapdoor with my Emp/Psi Defennder solo, it was long and tedius, its really hard to kill folks with a wet noodle... I think at the end, Trapdoor got so bored of my attacking him, that he Kavorkian himself by diving into the lava pool...

    Stormy
  14. Mmm...

    AE I used sporadically, the value of AE if I am not teaming with SG mates to assist me level from level 2 to 14 (main travel power level), is to be able to do mission after mission with out the abusive travel the contact threads put you through, also many of the mission entrances are placed in areas very far (seems by design) and surrounded by very high level mobs when compared to you, thus ensuring many useless trips to the hospital, while trying to get to the mission entrance. AE by-passes this altogether.

    With the advent of Oro, the low level badge needed threads can be selected, thus using AE as a low level "safe" training and level ground a good place.

    Now lets look at AE at the mid-levels (14-32), the experience you get there is poor as a rule, too many mobs have been exp nurfed; there are no drops, and tickets' random rolls are usually trash. Also doing TFs are a much better source of experience, influence, drops and you get Merits!

    AE at high levels (33-49), as the mid-levels, is effectively worthless, the only use I had for AE was the ability to make benchmark AE missions to train on my alts and decide how to better enhance them and subsequently play them.

    AE at level 50, pretty much pointless with one exception. Often prices at WW for materials can be terribly stupidly high! I often acquire over-priced salvage by trading them for tickets. If I am strapped for influence, I look at the worst over-priced salvage offenders, go to AE, trade tickets for that kind of salvage, and then sell it for lots of influence!

    What would make me use AE more?

    Being able to buy white salvage with tickets would increase my use of AE.
    Being able to select my recipe and acquire it with tickets would very definetely increase my use of AE. (The amount of tickets storable would have to be raised to allow for very much higher ticket prices to select recipes)

    Hugs

    Stormy
  15. Mmm...

    DPS Meter good, bad or indifferent?

    I beleive it is really a case of it depends...

    Since I enjoy benchmarking my alts' performance, would love to be able how their DPS stacks against each other against a variety of foes.

    Long I seen the contention by many a Tanker that they do poor damage, which I disagree with, I think my Tankers can keep up with Blasters quite well, while I really think Defender's damage is especially too low.

    Having the means to measure "Solo" DPS would be an excellent way to benchmark and actually dispell many myths by replacing them with documented fact.

    Group DPS, not sure there is value in that, outside of ego stroking the melee class mainly. Also not sure if it could potentially boomerang among players by creating friction... "You stupid Defender, buff me now! I demand it! its your fault my DPS dropped! You are a support AT, your job is to keep me buffed, so "I" can defeat the mobs!"

    We already have plenty of the above, not sure a team "eye on the sky" dps monitor would make things much worse.

    With regards to my melee and buffs, I have the common sense to make my ATs self sufficient (and this is extremely easy to do with melee ATs), thus I do not have to demand other players to "serve me", my attitude is one "if you buff me, you have my gratitude" but I never demand any buff or even heal (thats why green inpirations were created for, also there is a pool power to aid in this case, and IOs which increase regen as well).

    I support a personal DPS so we can data mine our own performance, since I solo as much as I team, I really would like to impartially benchmark my Alt's DPS, after all, it is the kill that completes the mission.

    Stormy
  16. Mmm...

    One is a suggestion and another perhaps a question...

    Trees, the current trees are in planters, such planters are difficult to hide or cover up. The other day as I traveled by the tram in Talos, I saw trees with low bases, perhaps this model of trees could be offered for bases as well.

    The question or suggestion, do we need to have so many transporters? Why not a single transporter to handle all the locations? The tram pretty much is doing it now, so why not our base transporter? I still agree we need to get the beacons, but should only need one transporter station.

    Hugs

    Stormy
  17. Hi!

    Next Wed 15 Dec we will be doing Moonfire TF!

    It is at Striga and its a level 23+ Task Force. Besides being lots of fun to do, it is great towards acquiring the Badges for defeating Warwolves (Silver Bullet) and Vampirs (Slayer), it so happens these two badges are needed towards the atlas Medallion Accolade!

    Hugs

    Stormy
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
    So, in all this discussion about how unfair it is that support ATs have to depend on melee ATs, your suggestion to alleviate my frustration playing melee characters in support-heavy teams is to behave exactly like every bad scrapper anyone has ever complained about on a team? I mean, the most common complaint about bad scrappers is that they constantly run ahead of the team and agro stuff the team is not ready to fight yet. But you're saying that that is exactly what I should do.

    That doesn't seem very fair to those support ATs that are so dependent on my melee character, does it?

    Oh wait, I already covered that, they're NOT dependent on me. If your support characters can handle that spawn just fine without me, it kind of shoots the whole "they need melee to survive" argument in the foot, doesn't it?

    Support ATs have been given multiple tools to deal with mez, between preventing it, removing it, and avoiding it. But that isn't good enough. In order for you to feel it is balanced, support ATs need to have passive protection from it.

    I look at it this way: Melee ATs, for the most part, cannot mez their opponents reliably, and definitely not at range. Thus they cannot be mezzed. Support ATs, for the most part, CAN mez their opponents reliably, and at range. Thus they can be mezzed in return.

    Anything our ATs can do to their opponents, their opponents can do right back. I'd call that both fair and balanced. But what you're asking for is to not only be able to reliably mez your opponents, but to be protected from any mez that might slip through. That is still like saying that because melee ATs can attack in melee range, their opponents should not be able to attack them back in melee range.

    And if you want to say "But, we're superheroes!", flip through a comic book sometime, I'm sure you'll see a number of instances where a superhero gets mezzed. They aren't a hero because they can ignore mez effects, they are a hero because they succeed in spite of them.

    Ok, enough of the BS factor here!

    You keep saying support has tools, I been telling you over and over, yeah they got tools but they are questionably effective, shown you the numbers, can't you read? Or playing coy in a very self-serving manner?

    You say Melee can not mez mobs reliably, ding, ding, nor can Support! But your protections are 100% reliable! And Melee do have ranged mez ability thru their epic choices, in fact just as strong as those owned by Support; the problem they have "is the same" problem support has with theirs, duh: "Its not reliable"

    Love your comic book note, that is great, can you tell me any names of any hero that is automatically succumbed to the weakest foe in the field consitently? What is his name? Captain wooz?

    Stormy
  19. Mmm, this is sucha great thread...

    I been planting trees inside my base, and use the dirt mounds to cover their bases to give the illusion they are actually growing out of the ground and not in planters. Unfortunately many of the planters are very tall and very difficult to cover with the 2 choices for dirt mounds. While I was traveling in front of the train in Talos I saw trees with very short skirts, these would be ideal to cover with mounds and not have to over do the mound laying as I had. So my suggetion is to add base trees with bases as such are found in Talos by the train station.

    Incidentally, if you ever log in Champions and want to see my base, give me a yell @Stormfront, I gave my base a very distintive ancient druid like feel...

    Stormy
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Megajoule View Post
    With regard to the Apex TF in particular:
    You zone in at the top of the building, in the helicopter, not the bottom. When you take the stairs, you are already in the zone that the mission takes place in. If you look down the side of the building, you can actually see the exit, and whether it has an aura around it - a clear indication that it is all one zone. Your ignorance of this is unfortunate and weakens your argument for the general case.

    A good player would be aware of the possibility of a damage aura at the door in that mission and take prudent steps to avoid it, rather than charging in like a n00b - or, if they insist on doing so, have the wisdom and courage to accept that it's their decision and their fault and not whine about it or demand that the game be changed to allow them to act carelessly.
    You may say its one zone, because you can see it thru the window and see what is going on at the BM map, I can see Atlas thru the force field from KR, I don't think that makes Atlas and KR one zone.

    The proof of pudding, if it was one zone as you claim, right? Would be like when you exit portal corp's door to enter the Peregrine big map, the change of views is pretty quick, thus demosntrating the inside of the various portal corp building are within the effective zone, and thus you do not have to zone proper, other samples is when you leave the hospital to enter the zone they are in.

    My challenge to your assertion, is that, granted, you zone to a helicopter back door. You would think you have been fully zoned. You hop a few low walls and click on the door. Do you immediately appear in the map area with BM, and can interact with environmet as quickly as if you have left the Portal Corp door or hospital? My experience, is that is not the case, its a pretty lengthy you are stuck "zoning/transitioning" or whatever you want to call it; the bottom line is you are paralyzed and unable to react or interact with the environment for a long period of time, while the environment may be going to town with you! And that is my objection!

    Now, I believe, I mentioned that good pactices could be taken to work around the problem, maybe you failed to read that in your need to show-off your peculiar wisdom. I also believe, I did say it was ok bobbie-trapping the door too and no need to change the mission, but I guess once more you had to show-off your smarts...

    Stormy
  21. I think some of you are missing the point, I am trying to make...

    I don't believe luck should play such a large roll in personal rewards for conducting an operation, its like you are saying, work this week, then you got unlucky; so you are "not" getting a paycheck this week, you see its random, but eventually you are going to get a double check, and it will work out in the long run, but go on working today and tomorrow, really, its gonna work out...

    When folks do TFs nowdays is for Shards, I seriously doubt the concept that maybe several weeks from now, they are going to finally get all of them to be acceptable.

    And even though that allegedly all have the same chance to get an award, thus its fair an equal; is not really quite right. How many times in paper we go "it should work" and in reality we get a catastrophe?

    If the so call random number generator is working so good, how come it has such a bias? I don't believe it "eventually" working out, if ever, in a few weeks is proof the randomness is working right. The proof-of-the-pudding if its truly random, a fair distribution should be the norm not the exception over a relatively nominal amount of time. While not possible in one draw to establish a track, it better have a reasonable distribution within say ten minutes? If one can not have an even distribution reached randomly in a reasonable amount of time, then truthfully the random generator is broken.

    Frankly, there should be no cases, where a player, in an hours time, gains 14 drops and another in the same team gets none, no matter how you color it, that is simply "wrong"; and needs fixing. I frankly challenge the randomness in such a process, while such an event could statistically happen, it should be incredibly rare, which many of us can agree this is happening more often than not. The norm should be all get the same number of rewards, with a few deviations with some getting a bit more, but really 5 or 6 to none?

    With regards to the enventually you get lucky, that is simple hog-wash, it does not happen either. Just like a poster above, I seldom if ever get purple drops, in my entire time playing CoX, and I play daily for at least 4 hours each day, I have only gotten 7 Purples total, and I mean total! I have friends who gets that as matter of course in a week! And don't play any longer than I do, and the real kicker is he has done it with me in his team in 3 two hour sessions! Just to prove to me he can! How is that for pleasant equity?

    All I am asking is for a leveling of the so called luck, frankly it is not needed to have some players hoarding the loot because they are "lucky" while others experience famine because they are "unlucky", if we are a team, should we not be getting drops as a team?

    Hugs

    Stormy
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    Maybe they could add the immunity that you get when you first enter a PvP zone only with a much shorter timer.
    That would be a great solution!

    Hugs

    Stormy
  23. Hi:

    I am sure with the advent of shards, all of us are becoming increasingly more observant on how drops are being handed out. With the so called, random number generator at times we are very lucky and other times luck seems to have missed our address all together.

    Last night I did a Tin-Mage TF, all I got was 1 shard drop for the entire thing, plus the end of mission rewards. That was a dismal drop rate for such a mission!

    As I did in other TFs such as LGTF, ITF, etc. The group's players announced when they got a shard. Quickly it became obvious the RNG was wack, for certain players continued getting the drops at a rate that made the rest of us sick. I recall in one ITF a player walked away with 14 shards, very lucky indeed, but in the very same group a player received none, while most others only got one or two as well for the entire TF.

    It seems to me, random is nice, but to an extent it is not quite fair either; especially when a player gets 14 drops and another who worked just as hard got nothing.

    So perhaps this thread can be used to explore other ways the game could appoint drops or loot to players in a more equitable manner.

    To start things off, I am going to describe a way Dark Age of Camelot does it:

    DAOC has two set ways the Group Leader can actually set it up, and the other players see the setting the GL took.

    1st setting: GL gets all loot/drops. This takes a lot of trust in GL, but if you are in an SG and its an SG event, then it should be the very best way to go. Essentially the GL gets all the loot and after the mission or at break points, the GL distributes the loot. In the case of shards, at the end of the mission if the total drop was 16 shards and you had 8 players, then the GL could distribute 2 shards to each player. Equitable, but highly dependent on GL honesty. One thing DAOC does that CoH does not do, is the game does tell other players what other players received; if this was to be implemented, it may be a very good thing to know what the GL is picking up as the team goes.

    2nd setting: Random. This random is not totally random in the full sense of the word. The way it works the game randomly selects who gets the drop from say the 8 players, once that player has been awarded a prize, that player can not receive a second one until the other 7 has received a prize as well. Once all 8 have received their price, it is random once more who gets the next prize across all 8. This method, does not require trust in GL and does evenly distribute drops across players.

    If you all have any ideas on how CoX can be more even handed in distributing drops, please post them here.

    Thank you

    Stormy
  24. Hi:

    From time to time as I am zoning into a mission, even when coming out of an elevator, there is a period of time that my character is disabled, that is I am not able to interact with the environment, yet the environment "is" interacting with me.

    As a whole, when I play a melee, that is not much of an issue; but as a support its an entirely different story. You enter the mission from outside map, the mobs happen to be there during a patrol, and as you are zoning in, you can't even see the room but you can hear the mobs mez and zapping you as you "phase in", normally you can survive this at great consequence to your health and force to quickly gulp inspirations as if you were in drugs.

    The other night, I participated in an Apex, and notice that while I could not interact with the environment, the environment had no diffuclty interacting with me. Even my tanker was zoned dead before I could even pop an inspiration!

    I know some of you will say, ask a team member if the lighning bolt of death is at the door before zoning in, but working around a game mechanic issue: Is not fixing the issue!

    My central statement is thus: "If one can not interact with the environment; then the environment can not interact with us either"

    I understand that zoning is a needed, can't be helped, game software execution mechanic; I have no issue with that. I do have an issue, where the software is programed to allow an exploit against the players based on that.

    With regards to the blue lightning of death in Apex, I am ok with it being at the door, but I suffer no damage from it while I am software transitioning-in, the moment that I can interact with the environment, transitioned-in completely, that very instant I commence to take damage; that is appropriate.

    Stormy
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint View Post
    You can go back to finish them. It would be like taking a hot knife through melted butter. If you don't feel like runnign them, use the drop mission button.
    Not so easy there hun, my uncompleted arcs are red side, from missions with alts over several years old. Those Alts are blue side now, so they can not get rid of those worthless arcs, with out having to re-align so those worthless arcs can be cleared.

    With regard to change, at one time there was "no" limit on how many arcs you could have opened, all you had was how many missions you could have opened. The concept of now counting the open arcs towards your limit is frankly wrong!

    Stormy