Teux_

I'll be sad to see you go Cuppa, but good luck with the Tabula Rasta crew.

I hope they know what kind of gift they are receiving by having you there.

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I cannot confirm or deny these rumors.

<.<
>.>

*whispers*

However, if you have a villain over 45 on test you might want to stay up late watching the boards Friday night.

*walks away whistling*

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I know my damn job is killing my brain.

Every time I see those symbols, all I can think is... "that'll never complile..."

At least I got out of the habit of using semi-colons to end every sentence...

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Hehe... if the arena actually had a good user interface you'd know this is available now. Heroes and villains can use the arena together.


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Actually, I don't use the arena much because I'm not looking for a fair fight most of the time. I want to sneak up on people unawares, or hunt single villians with groups. I only use the arena when I want to battle it out with my friends or test powers.

I agree that the interface is a bit clunky, but therein lies the choice. Put up with a little bit of clunkyness in the arena interface, or police greifers in an open PvP zone. I think I would choose the former if it were my decision.

Thanks for the information though. I've been wanting to see how my brute stacks up against my wife's scrapper for a while now...

I have to admit, I'm pretty suprised that there is such an uproar over this topic.

The PvP policy has been the same since CoV beta. People asked about it back then, and when Issue 6 hit, and the answer hasn't changed.

I'm a casual PvP guy. I've been TPed into mobs, and off buildings. All it means to me is that someone attacked me, and I have to attack them back. It's just another tactic. And not a great one at that...

As far as someone griefing your player event, your best bet is to police it yourself. That or, as another poster mentioned, use the arena instead. The arena has a much nicer setup for 1v1 battles, and we should be getting hero vs. villian functionality in Issue 7.

All's fair in love and war. Watch your back and have fun out there...

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Valdermic - NCSoft (?)


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Val's still working with NCSoft. He's on the AutoAssault team, I was happy to see him pop up over there when checking out the beta boards...

Sorry, I'm anti-bandwagon. The old man stays...

If nothing else, please please lower the endurance cost.

There is really no reason for fliers to have to stop and rest halfway across a zone.

While your at it, take a look at teleport's cost also? Both have been out of proportion with super speed and super jump since release, and it just doesn't make much sense...

In regards to crafting...

The thing that always seems to go wrong with crafting in MMOs isn't inherent in the system of crafting, but in the balance of making crafting useful without making it necessary.

You have people who want to craft in MMOs, and those who do not like it. So you have to balance the items that can be crafted in such a way as to make them useful for those who want to craft, otherwise they will complain that crafting is pointless. But not overly powerful, because then those who dislike crafting will complain that they are being forced into it.

That, and of course, the inevitable economy that springs up from crafting. Some players are born merchants. I know a few people who enjoyed crafting and selling to the exclusion of all other activities in SWG and EQ. They would collect things from hunters, make expensive items, and sell them for a profit. Never setting foot out of the city where they had established their trade. While I cannot understand how this is fun, I accept that this is the way that some people enjoy playing.

When these obsessive personalities become involved, even items that are supposed to be rarely crafted start showing up regularly in the market. Prices start bouncing up and down, and players who do not craft may again feel cheated or at least left out.

Personally, I enjoy CoH for its combat and fast paced action. I have no need for a crafting system to make the game more fun. Others might disagree, but I'd rather avoid the hassle that implementing such a system and balancing it would inevitably bring...

My wife and I have played since release... (though I did get into beta first, so I can hold that over her whenever she questions my judgement)

Honestly we both seem to play together, including some of our RL friends on the occation, almost exclusively. I've sorta given up on soloing since the devs hate me (well, maybe not me exclusively, apparently some other people were affected by ED and various other nerfs as well)

Anyway... She usually plays some kind of tiny but insanely tough chick (melee type) while I stand in the back and try do deal with the insane things she does quickly enough to keep us alive... Fun for the whole family...

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Step 3: Profit

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In Soviet Russia, Mastermind is more powerful than You!

First, thanks to Circeus for his amazing dedication to Ice Tanks. Without him, we would probably not have gotten the attention we desperately need.

I am happy to see these accuracy changes to most villians that haven't already been affected. It will help Ice Tanks feel more powerful since we won't be hit as much. These across the board changes will help everyone, especially FF defender and SR scrappers.

The next step is to realize that Defense is worse than resistance in most situations in this game. Simply because defense is less useful against higher level foes, foes with defense debuffs, villians that can boost accuracy, and other situations that come up very frequently as a higher level (30+) player. Honestly, I think the only way to help defense based sets right now is to increase the base defense of their powers. Maybe not back up to current live levels, but definately to a level higher than what we are currently seeing. Defense of 33% is nearly useless against +1 and +2 level villians, simply because of the way that their accuracy scales.

Ice Tanks need a boost to their defense as it is on test, but they also need some of their older issues looked at. The first and probably the most common complaint of an Ice Tank is the one/two shot death from AVs. Ice Armor needs a way to mitigate huge amounts of incoming damage in a short period of time in order to deal with this. I won't recap, but I've seen many excellent suggestions to deal with this issue.

Ice tanks also suffer more from endurance problems than other sets that run fewer toggles. Please consider lowering the cost on these toggles, especially Icicles. It is somewhat depressing to go into combat and lose endurance by standing still with all my armors and Icicles running. Not fun at all.

Lastly, please confirm Circeus' data (and that of other testers) and let us know if Wet Ice and Energy Absorbtion are bugged, or if the defense is just too low to be measured. This should apply to all powers for all sets from all ATs. Just let us know if there is a bug when it is discovered by your players. It will make us all sleep easier and cut down on many many posts complaining about specific changes...

Expediter

Virtue

Happy Anniversary CoH, and here's to many more.

Cheers!

Hmm, I wonder if maybe changing EA to buff resistance instead of defense could be the answer?

It seems like it would be a good solution on paper. Maybe give it a cap of 50% res to all but Psy with 6 slotted resistance buffs. Leave it with the 5 mob cap and same endurance debuff. This would help Ice tanks survive being one shotted, and make EA less redundent with the other armors in the set.

After reading many posts in this thread and others... I think the main question we have to ask the devs here is this.

Why nerf Ice tanks, when they were already dealing with the worst primary for the archtype?

It wasn't like EA made ice tankers invincible gods, able to tank anything without any chance of harm. With the inherent 5% chance to hit against a purely defense based powerset, ice will always be worse than invunerablity, and yes, even less effective than stone armor in most situations because of the advantage resistance has over defense.

It just seems to me that this was an unnecessary change. One that hurts ice tanks best ability without giving back anything to compensate. If EA was so incredibly powerful, why then is it nearly impossible to find an ice tanker over level 30? Why does my character get completely owned by any villian that is +2 or higher?

Please reconsider this change. Ice tankers need help to reach parity with other tanker powersets, not a reduction to the best power in the set.

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"Oh you just haven't seen good anime."

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The last good anime was Star Blazers.

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i hope thats a joke

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Even if it was a joke, it is hard to argue with.. in some repecs.

DERAILMENT: Neon Genesis Evangelion..... mmmm mmmm.. Yay original ending, not the new endings made for people yelling about not feeling closure.., A definite competitor with old faves of my like Starblazers.

RAILMENT: And to weigh in. I'm fine with Anime costume additives and I have a feeling for those wo do not like Anime theme there will be a good numbers of items that you can use to compliment your non-Anime design. If there is anyone on the dev team that I trust, its the design department (as in the art and object and model design).

This is certainly not a game buster issue like major power changes. It should still be enjoyable. Beside, they are releasing this internationally, and perhaps this kind of thing will keep it popular on a lot of markets... Larger Market, more stuff, more bulk, lower prices?????? we can hope, or at least more stuff for your buck which is fine too.

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It's difficult to argue with only if your taste doesn't run that way. People are awfully subjective about what is and isn't good.

Personally, I find this annoying since my opinion should be the only one that matters. Once I conquer the world and you are all my slaves, I will cancel all of the crappy network TV out there and replace it all with 24/7 anime and Battlestar Galactica.

MUAHAHAHA...*cough**cough**gasp*

I just wanted to revive this excellent DDD guide with a few updates.

Twilight Grasp - Animation time reduced to about ~2 seconds from it's previous time, and the healing was bumped up at the same time as Transfusion from the Kinetics powerset. Result? A decent heal/debuff turned into an excellent combat power.

Tar Patch - I do not have this power, but I believe that the slow pulse has been slightly sped up so it can catch villians running through after the patch has been laid down.

Darkest Night - No change since guide published, excellent power.

Howling Twilight - Increased range for debuff and res, with an additional bonus of increased health benifit for your teammates for each mob. Three or four villians is all you need to bring a teammate back to full health. Result is a very good disorient power that is now also a good combat res.

Shadow Fall - No change since guide published, excellent power.

Fearsome Stare - With the fear changes in Issue 3, Fearsome Stare can now be a powerful additional to the DDD's arsenal. It's only drawback at this time is that any debuff or damage power will temporarily "break" it's hold, allowing the feared villian to attack. This makes it less useful when combined with other debuffs or our DOT attacks, but overall still a good crowd control power.

Petrifying Gaze - No change since guide published, excellent power.

Black Hole - No change since guide published. Situational power, but still useful at times. Good for seperating out bosses from groups.

Dark Servant - Core power, excellent pet. Mobility was added with Issue 2 as mentioned in the guide, but otherwise no real changes.

All defender and tanker powers were given a slight upgrade to damage and a reduction in endurance costs sometime around the release of Issue 2. Accordingly, the original numbers may be off a bit.

Dark Blast - No changes, quick attack with no drawbacks.

Gloom - No changes since guide published. Good damage but somewhat less useful in groups as DOT damage may be wasted.

Moonbeam - Moonbeam was given the same inherent accuracy bonus as other sniper attacks. Other than that, no change.

Dark Pit - No change since guide published.

Tenebrous Tetacles - No change since guide published.

Nightfall - No change since guide published.

Torrent - No change since guide published.

Life Drain - No change since guide published.

Darkstar - No change since guide published.

Just wanted to update and bump this excellent guide. If anyone has any corrections or suggestion, please feel free to add to this thread. I will try to monitor it and edit accordingly.

Definately include my vote of thanks and appreciation for this game. It's great entertainment, and has allowed me to get revenge on all of my friends who suckered me into playing Everquest :P (They all play CoH now, after I suckered them into it)

Best of all, thanks to the developers for being good people. How they can read these boards and still keep their sanity is beyond me. Keep it up guys, the only thing worse than people complaining is when nobody even shows up to complain.

CoV was NEVER slated for Jan/Feb of 2005. The firmest guestimation I ever heard was 3rd/4th quarter of 2005. 4th Quarter being much more likely.

Any firm date you have heard up to this point is a guess or a lie. Sorry if you thought otherwise...

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Forecast for tomorrow...a few sprinkles of genius with a CHANCE OF DOOM!

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So... should I bring an umbrella then?

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soon?!

SOON!

what kind of answer is that?


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A vague one...

And probably the best we're gonna get for now.

If Cryptic keeps to their 2/3 month schedule, we should see Issue 3 on test within 2 weeks, and probably released (pending any major bugs, hopefully) in mid December.

I think the OP's point can be summed up pretty neatly in one sentence.

The devs are real human beings who actually care about this game.

No fooling. Really. They aren't out to sacrifice your first born, steal your lunch money or even stealth nerf accuracy. They do listen to what people tell them. They do care about making CoH and CoV great games that people want to play.

Not all of their decisions are going to be popular. Not everything they do will be the right choice. But they do try hard and mean well. They haven't been afraid to fess up to mistakes in the past, and that trend will continue into the future.

It's very tiring to see the attacks by some folks on these boards against the developers. It's unnecessary, and it's innacurate as hell. Attack the product, fine. Attack the people? Not cool.

I seem to remember either Statesman or Positron posting about this a few months ago. Basically, CoV is going to be sold as a seperate game. You can go buy CoV and start a new account with a $15 a month fee.

BUT, if you have an existing CoH account, all you need is a code from the CoV box. The existing account fee will cover both game subscriptions.

This is from memory, as this post would have dropped off the boards quite a while ago. But IIRC, this is the model they are planning on using...