TheMightyStorm

Odin's beard was Skadi's nickname, wasn't it?

Who's a good moderator? You are! You are! Yes you are! *scratches ears*

It's just like how they read different parts of the torah all year, until it starts over again!

TradiiiiiTIIIIIIOOOOOONNNNNN!!! Tradition!

Nobody can 'win' when the response to 'you're not presenting original work--you're presenting someone else's work that you modified and implying it's yours' is 'RAaaaraghalghalglhflarbl ur troll hatessss it hatessssss filthy stormssssss preciouss'.

And yeah, I'm extremely bitter. I can't believe dressing up someone else's mesh to imitate a 3rd person's drawings is considered 'art', let alone the rants that followed about how what he did is more effort than drawing fan art. I'm so glad what I and other artists try to do for a living is considered so much easier than modifying someone else's model.

The OP played this 'you hurt my feelings' thing and then started talking about how rude I am. Meanwhile, he's ripping off work, not doing anything remotely resembling art, and showing pretty clearly that he has no respect for art or artists. And then, to make it absolutely *perfect*, WW comes in and says 'I like it anyway'.

If he'd put up the fact that he started with someone else's model in his original post, then, at least, I wouldn't have had the energy to criticize yet another poser picture, standing in for the costume creator.

heh. Amazing. At least he eventually attributed the work correctly.

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Good grief. It's bad enough trying to find any information or discussion on the defender's forum, was it really necessary to spill this over to another forum?

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When I wrote this, the *point* was to have all those threads finally die out, because there would be a place you could point, whenever the argument started, that said all the obvious redundant endless stuff that was said every time the debate started.

The fact that, despite so much positive reaction, this hasn't made a difference in how much complaining goes on in the defender forum, just says to me that the 'debate' is that important. It should go wherever people want it to go. There should be an ruhelar thread in every forum. General discussion should be *nothing* But this argument.

When that happens, I hope you'll be there, with your emoticon.

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the way i read it, the OP has pertinent and helpful info, yours: not so much.

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Please list five (5) pertinent and helpful things the OP said. 'Cause all I saw was a jaded rant, inflated with straw-man arguments and too many adverbs.

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Agreed. The OP is a self important [censored] with nothing better to do than [censored] all over anything that smacks of goodness, out of sheer self-possession.

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I'd like to know about breakpoints for To Hit and Defense and how you, the players, think it should work. I'm not talking about mechanics -- I'm talking about the expectations you have in a fight.

4) You have the maximum possible To Hit value, and your target has the maximum possible defense value. How often do you WANT to hit him? Conversely, as the defender, how often do you expect to be missed?

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See? This is the problem! Who *cares*. This is a situation doomed to be no-fun to someone, just like holds in pvp. If it's a single player game, then I am the hero, and my to hit should count more than their defense, and their tohit should count less against mine. In pvp, you can't have dice rolls determine every interaction and expect it to be fun or fair.

Model the damn projectiles and attacks.

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How? City of Heroes was literally the new kid on the block. The name wasn’t very known, the developer was new to the scene (for many), and the only thing the title had going for it was the premise of being a unique hero in a city full of heroes! Every player was a new player. Every experience fresh and unlike anything before. Three years later, the game is still strong, with a nice consistent player base, and a community to set the standard to any industry. I have never before seen such a game or online community that works so integrated. I have seen amazing progress in the game and it is because of this community. Yea there will be those that complain and gripe (remember the explosion when ED was introduced...a necessary evil) but think of this. We have had 8 issues of enhancements, progress, and proof of commitment in these 3 years and about to get the 9th. We have also seen the introduction of the villain side of the coin. WoW in these years has had, count with me, one. (chirp chirp) and you had to pay for it to boot. If some of you may remember, CoH planned an expansion that we had to pay for as well, but nixed the idea and decided to give us those goodies for free in intervals through upcoming issues.


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Disclaimer: I hate wow. I only played it because my stupid stupid friends wouldn't do anything else with their times.

This isn't quite right, I don't think. Wow has had numerous free 'issue' updates, including cross-server pvp matching, the pvp battlegrounds introduction, additions of major new zones and dungeons, as well as content. The latest Burning crusade we paid for is comparable to the release of city of villains, except, frankly, the amount of content for that release was greater in some ways than the content for CoV.

This is emblematic of how WoW stays on top, too--they make sure their updates are massive. While the CoH team works hard to implement the kinds of improvements we see; seemingly focused on specific tasks every issue, the WoW team appears to have several sub groups that can add a dungeon, new equipment, new monsters, new quests, and a new coded feature all at once. It's their advantage in being part of blizzard. Beyond even this is the fact that WoW is a grind-only game, and CoH is a partial-grind game. Wow lives on content, and slowly doling that content out. CoH has no options but to 'grind', but that process is more entertaining--as far as the CoH devs are concerned, capping out on levels and still having something to do isn't the gameplay focus--for WoW, since it is very truly a treadmill, plowing to max level and then still having more plowing to do is key.

For this reason, the numerous Issue releases that WoW has had have added a great deal to end-game content. In terms of novelty quality, there's alot there, and if CoH had the same kind of team, they could probably do the same kind of thing with elaborate trials and environments that exist nowhere else. However, since this game doesn't do loot at all, they do avoid that time sink.

Regardless, the point to make here isn't that Wow is better, it's not. It's horrible and immoral to do to people what that thing does--for no reward other than a painfully slow IV drip of prettier swords. But they know exactly what they're doing to their playerbase when they make new content, and the playerbase is meant to go through all new content together, with some staggering due to the advantage that the unemployed or obsessive compulsive have.

CoH has a variety of content that's been added in the middle of the game, so for devs, it's harder to hit the population with new content all at once--since the pop has a choice, and may not even be in the necessary level range any more.

In general I *do* favor a system in which people can enjoy content updates all together, even if it is somewhat of a nightmare in WoW's case. But what CoH really seems to prefer is the comic book 'pan-universe' approach, where some plotline affects every aspect of the game at once. Some of the great examles have been the holiday events, the shadow shard thing, and splitting of the 5th column into the council.

I think this is the strength of CoH. A new zone with a new pan-world event. And the greater extent to which these events are developed (so that they include, perhaps, the new wandering monster fights, or zone based objectives), the more positive differentiation you'll see between WoW's shiny treadmill, and CoH's variety of aerobic exercise options, which include treadmills, eliptical machines, rowing machines, exercise bikes, and an indoor track.

If this game had intramural lacrosse, this would be perfect.

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First part of your post isn't worth replying to.

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and yet...

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For the parts that are worth responding to. Yes, this is a bit of PR. Should I hold it against them that they want to get good publicity for having the game that many consider to be different and a welcome change from the other MMOs available? If it makes me a fan boy to say that, fine.

Look I agree with you, there are issues with the game. I wish the devs were as responsive as they were when the game launched, I wish there were less nerfs and more buffs when it came to balancing, I wish there was more focus on some of the issues that will directly effect my play style rather then PvP and crafting. Thing is I've lived through worse in other games. I recognize in a MMO not everything will benefit me. I'll make my observations in the appropriate threads so my opinion is known. However, I do like to occasionally offer up the fact that I do enjoy the game. Sorry if that sets you off. I'll go make a R U Healer thread to make sure you have something to keep you busy for the next few weeks.

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If genuine motivation is all it takes to be pristine, then why isn't mine equal to his? All I want to do is play a fun game--one which, at first, was a substantially different experience than what it's become--with an investment of time and effort in between. I've remained subscribed to this game, even when I didn't play it, precisely because I want it to succeed--but States gets constant pats on the back *anyway*.

The flippant comment about ruhelar is precisely the point--it's an imperfect universe, and saying the obvious might make me look bad, when there are so many innocent kittens out there just trying to live their kitten lives--but this is how the world works. In the grand scheme everybody has their innocent motivations. In the actual course of events, there's a negotiation that happens between conflicting parties. You call my legitimate grievance a tantrum, I call you fan boy, and then you bring up one of my fixations, and now I'm being pedantic. Etc etc. When we're done bouncing around, the final product is his impression of whether this game needs more substantial work or not--as far as I'm concerned, there's alot that needs to be done, at a basic level, to make this a great game. As far as he seems to be concerned, it's mission accomplished, and pass me some Marvel.

Leave the tantrum comment by the wayside next time, and we might have a worthwhile conversation, instead of mutual recrimination bracketing summaries.

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And yet you are back here on the boards and playing this game. I realize you enjoy throwing fits, but to be honest if the game bothers you that much take another break from it.

Sure, there are things I don't like about CoH, but having tried many MMOs, including recently trying the beta of the one mentioned by the OP, I don't see myself leaving here. For my playstyle and tastes, CoH is still the best I've found.

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BIOYA. I realize it's easier to give a full-mouth kiss to statesman's crimson star-spangled cheeks, than to notice that you're being shined on, but you might want to consider taking a break from mindlessly adoring someone's PR nonsense, and try something else, like vigorous butter churning.

Bother me that much? I didn't mention the game bothering me that much. What bothers me is that for every step forward, we get two steps backward for reasons which are ambiguous.

This 'we wrote a word somewhere' thing isn't real; it's pandering. Fine. Fun. Great. As opposed to so many other franchises which put the word 'hideous boils' up on their white boards first. You don't get an award for knowing that games should be fun.

So CoH is the best you've found so far. Same here. But, that's among a very small crowd. The number of MMOs currently available is still small compared to the overall game market, especially when you group them by broad similarities. There's at least a dozen which are basically Everquest with minor adjustments.

My problems with this game are very specific; How is it fun to do that same damn thing 100 times, when it's an automated process overlaying rolling dice? It's not. It's something I, and most people, can certainly be sucked into doing, but that's not why we play this game. Nobody, I think, would argue that pressing the same 2-5 buttons repeatedly when soloing or playing on a small team, is really what they're looking for in a game. It's not a game at all, it's a cash register with pretty lights. The innovative parts of this game have been consistently hemmed in; like freedom of movement, truely heroic battles against masses of enemies, and treadmill shortening methods. Games with gameplay that people *like* don't need to railroad people into long, slow, upgrade processes. Leveling up is not a journey, or a game. The *game* is the game. And the designers consistently screw with the game for the sake of keeping the mindless leveling up in place.

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When we sat down to design CoH, we wrote on the white board: "fun." Seems obvious, but many games seemed to miss the mark. That's OK; some games don't need to be fun in order to be successful (I won't name them, but they're out there). We wanted to make a game that had fun moment to moment gameplay. Hard to quantify, but easy to identify when you find it.

Cool posts, BTW.

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Goddamnit. Please don't be so damned smug about that fun thing, when you've missed the mark in so many ways yourself. When you wrote that word up on the board you should have written 'caution: may be subjective' next to it, and used it to remind yourself not to judge your players for pursuing behaviors that you arbitrarily deem not to be fun. You put kill X tasks in the game, and then act surprised when people camp spawners.

UGh. I find it so frustrating when he trots out this 'we're so great' mentality. This game could have been the first *real* game MMO, instead it's become more canned, and more treadmill-like as time goes by.

Why can't I have monster feet on a girl with tucked-in pants!?!

It's a match made in heaven! I demand tucked in+monstrous.

Comply or I will use tornado while you're herding IK bones.

I think, and I say this as the final authority on this, or any other, topic, that the chief feature mising from bases is presence in the world.

A base may be expensive, or it may be tedious, or any number of other words which mean things. But fundamentally, if there is incentive, people will put in the time and try to find gropus which allow them to participate in a functioning base. The bases are just shortcuts--teleporters and hospitals, and don't have the kind of substantial player presence that a costume has.

A costume is a constant form of communication both to others and yourself which is realistically somewhat unique. The fact that you pick the thong bikini and the smallest top lets me know enough about you to make some pertinent decisions (like running far far away). If I see a kitten schoolgirl, then that lets me know what kind of game that person is playing.

The bases, on the other hand, are not only more expensive, and less unique, they're disconnected from the world. Furthermore, they are not worlds in themselves, but, typically, instead, tiny subsections of the indoor missions we regularly explore. We have no say about the landscape around our base, because the base is an anonymous box carved out of an infinite nothing. The devs have tried to offer a variety of objects to put in the base, it's nice of them to do so, but it doesn't have the same mix and match power of the costume creator, where the choice of color can help bring disparate elements together. The recent addition of banners helps, but doesn't solve the problem of the bases remoteness and anonymity.

If you take something like pocket D as an example. The VIP room isn't very popular, in my experience. Not because there aren't enough people to fill it, but because it's remote from the larger Pocket D environment. Even pocket D itself is less populated than Atlas, typically. Atlas is popular because it is pure lowest common denominator. Everyone has access, there is plenty of room, and plenty of social visibility. Galaxy city, which is only somewhat less open in its arrangement has drastically fewer people wandering around with their heads flapping all over the place like South Parkean Canadiians.

Now, Atlas is a cess pool of iniquity, but it's also alot of fun, and it's because of its hublike qualities. With supergroups, there can be no hub, because the bases are closed, somewhat generic, and floating in the void. It's the chief failure, I think, of most games with generic property. The EQ/FF approach to housing, where you have an apartment to yourself that you can get to from a door that everybody else uses to get to *their* apartment, is similar to the SG base approach, and its anonymity is in conflict with an MMO. You don't accumulate stuff in your cubby hole for your own satisfaction, you do it to share your perversion with as many strangers as possible. If you weren't interested in that premise, you'd stick to the cheaper Solitaire.

I think at the very least, in order to get bases implemented in CoH properly, you need to created outdoor instances which contain sort of commercial parks where SG bases are located near to one another. Either with those from an alliance, or failing that, with other generic ones. I think people who aren't in the same SG need to be able to rent space together to share costs, in a manner similar to an actual building. The outdoor environment needs to have the entrance to a few of these buildings, which is itself, customizable. And it needs to be something which, itself, can be customized, but contains features that are part of the world, like criminals doing various nefarious things. Perhaps the type of zone the SG can live in is a function of cost. Or maybe it's a function of the levels of th epeople in the SG. Regardless, the final step is to make these outdoor instances have tram hookups so that they're involved in foot traffic.

Obviously, while I *am* the last word in all things, I'm not entirely sure how to implement this so that you get all the key parts done and don't impose an undue burden on the coders. Or whatever. Insert placate here.

Another approach might be to rethink SG bases, and instead offer SGs the chance to have SG related things show up in city zones. For instance you might implement a customized SG vehicle which occasionally shows up in the traffic patterns of the city at random. Perhaps there's a king of the hill kind of situation that could go on where an SG's base gets to be a random hub. In other words, after a mission, you get deposited in a appropriately large SG base by default.

UO had the best sort of player housing--continuous in-world housing that everyone ostensibly had access to. In that environment, there were frustrating elements, like fraud and theft and so forth, but in the item-free environment of City of Heroes, that would be a nonissue. Ultimately, I think the development has to go in the direction of making new zones to fill with player property, like SGs, and making scenarios that bring people into contact with those SGs. Or else, consolidating the SG base concept into some kind of monolithic building, like the structures in Grandville, with rooms given over to SGs that can afford to rent one and remodel it. I don't think it's trivial, and I'm not sure, based on how much time you guys say you have to work on stuff, that it's doable in this game.

But as long as property exists in a little space outside the world, you can lower the price, incentivize until you pass out, and add feature after feature, but it won't have the characteristics which attract people to the game in the first place. Costumes are popular because they're social. Bases are insular.

I've got to say I disagree with every thing this guide has to say. All of it. comprehensively.

I hoped I had everything covered, but I guess to be fair I should address some points.

Rad_Hot is absolutely right. The best way to improve the experience for defenders is to start a team, invite some defs/controllers and then treat them like the valuable team members they are, regardless of their powerset. That includes empathy. Obviously you wouldn't tell a bad player they're doing well-that's beside the point.

However, what I find can be frustrating is that a team will disintegrate if people don't believe they have adequate support/damage. I've had some really fun all-def/troll teams, and people started flaking out because there wasn't enough blaster or scrapper dps. By the same token, balanced teams have fallen apart because of the perceived need for healers. Keep in mind, I'm not obstinant 24 hours a day--I do look for empaths when it seems like the team demands that we have one. But sometimes you can't find one, and the team disappears because they don't believe that the dark and rad can possibly keep them alive. This is frustrating for anybody.

I'm of the attitude that people are smart but life is complicated. You can be Einstein and still make silly little mistakes. In fact, Einstein sucked at math--did you know that? And why? Because math is hard. People who like math are psychotic and dangerous--they need to be kept away from the general population. I'm not claiming I'm smarter. I think absolutely, what I'm saying is that you can play this game and get the wrong impression about the importance of a single powerset as compared to others, and that the best way to deal with this is to say something so that people have a chance to change that impression.

And yes, I hate tankers, scrappers and blaster. In fact, I hate them *so* much, I think I have about 12 of each on various servers. I actually have a claws/regen scrapper called The Defender, which I consider to be poking fun at myself, and and nobody else.

Remember kids, there's no such thing as an antihealer. There are only people who want to have fun. And hug.

and also, there are plush sea turtles.
http://www.thisplaceisazoo.com/produ...le.html#J98101

The AntiRUHelar FAQ v.002
*blasts thread*... it was a boring conversation anyway, Kali, we're gonna have company!

1. That's no Moon...

The RUHelar is a subset of player who will claim, honestly and sincerely, that without healing, the team falls apart and is utterly doomed. They do not mean, by this, that one should *have* access to *some* healing, or, necessarily, that someone who heals must do only that, but, rather, that there must be enough healing on the team to compensate for incoming damage. All or most incoming damage.

On the surface, no doubt this seems completely reasonable or sensible, or some other set of words that people use to indicate that they will not be moved to action. Yay them.

However, what it more commonly results in is several behaviors which are, at best pesky (Pesci), and at worst a deliterious force which is destined to ruin the game experience for all players, sending us into a spiral of depression which rapidly overtakes the earth, causing mass suicides, and leaving a lone weeping figure sitting atop a pile of former CoH/CoV servers, clutching at his scalp and muttering about 'The Vision'.

First behavior, most common, and the way we get the name are looking-for-team messages (not blind invites--talking is half the battle towards me giving a [censored] about your missions!), where the laborious process of asking 'are you a healer' has been updated and modernized, using the assembly, and no doubt some evil left over from the Holocaust, to be the far more efficient 'ruhelar?'.

Some people don't understand this problem. They either think nothing is wrong with this, or they think that the fact that 'leetspeak' is involved is the invalidating part.

Etiquette is all about not making other people feel uncomfortable. That's why it's not necessarily polite to say 'that phat [censored] is so fly, I'd like to break sommin off in her, *so* big, that after, she'll think childbirth is a heavy [censored]'. Oh snap. No, this is precisely the sort of thing you don't say unless you know your audience will not be uncomfortable with the idea. Similarly, when you ask someone to join your team, since it's not like you're interviewing for a job, it's more polite to ask them to join, and then work with what they have, rather than condition their acceptance into the group on having certain powers. After all, who the hell are you? If you want to audition people to join your team, why don't you just buy some extra accounts and play the game yourself, jerkface.

If someone joins your team, they're doing you a favor. Ask them their powerset afterwards. Have the decency to tailor the missions or activities of the group to the powersets that join, instead of trying to force the group to do a particular thing. *IF* the group is supposed to be doing a particular thing, then advertise that you're looking for teammembers in broadcast, for some particular thing. Try not to be too insistent or repetitive, and when people talk to you, warn them about any complications you forsee which might dissuade them.

If for some reason you get saddled with a mentally defective case who has no concept of how to use their powers (the claims that most ruhelars make to suggest that asking for healers is somehow a necessary evil), then the 'kick team member' button is there, ready and waiting.

Which brings us to the Second behavior. Kicking people from a team when you don't understand their contribution.

There are alot of folks out there who will boot when they don't see enough healing. Or merely because somebody keeps dying (usually themselves). Poor playing is dying just as much as it's poor use of powers. I'm not saying that every death has to be your fault, but if you can't charge head-long into the 8-man team spawns yourself and live through it, maybe you shouldn't. Yet the alleged support classes are the ones who bear the brunt of displeasure for the reckless behavior of team--because they are not utilizing enough of that glorious fix-all; healing.

There is a lot of wiggle room to argue here, like with semantics or over the details of a story. But rest assured (and here I do not fulfill my duties as a FAQqer...), on any given week, there will be a thread or dozen about bad episodes of teaming on the defender and corruptor boards, revolving around the ruhelar zeitgeist. Over time, its been proven to me, at least, that this happens to people who are a) not me, and b) not doing anything wrong. Believe me, I was skeptical at first too. I assumed it was because *I* was inadequate--in fact, this may very well still be true. But when I found out that <insert respected forum goer here> was booted from a team for <doing something which helps to support my point>, I knew it had to be true.

The 3rd behavior is to have a dimmer understanding of what 'defender' and 'corruptor' actually mean. The assumption becomes that some subset of defenders are healers, and that of that subset, empathy or thermal are the best. This is damaging to players who try other powersets, since they then contend with a lack of player knowledge which is partially due to a lack of motivation to learn; by simplifying the nature of a team to involve support as simply healing, there is no impetus to notice the difference between a kinetic and a radiation or whatever else.

2.1 Origin of Species

I once posted this In response to this person. who seemed nice.

He/She wanted to know why it was that 'defenders and corruptors hated healers'.

I am not aware of anyone who hates healers. However, the concept does not fit into this game.

It's because this game isn't (or at least wasn't) Everquest 1. And this is very specific, because people from UO do not [censored] and moan about healers.

In Everquest the healer was *absolutely* vital to the team, because there were encounters which *could not even be attempted* without some incredibaly beefy tank to hold aggro and a bunch of people chain healing him. The game was simply not designed for normal healthy gameplay; it was a triad of healers, tanks, and damage dealers of various kinds. The concept of buffing was secnodary, and debuffing? WTH is a debuf?!

They infected Dark Age of Camelot with this attitude. In Dark Age, the best way to level is to get a pet to wander out into a field of things that are waaay too high level to fight, put a damage-done-returned shield on them, and get several people chain healing. That's how I got from level 39 to 40.5

it was the dumbest thing I've ever done.

Healing is this game-breaking mechanism in these other games, because the systems are so incredibly simple. City of heroes is somewhat more interesting (not to say that it's AMAZING--but it *is* lightyears ahead of other mmos in terms of gameplay... maybe someone in Eve would argue with me, but in any case...). City of heroes is about comic books, adn in comic books, the only people who heal are the people who heal *themselves* for deus ex machina, or for fun or whatever. The typical healer role takes place in between comic book fights while heroes recuperate from being poked by a badger. A Mutant badger.

So these people with previous MMO experience come here,a nd they do what *anybody* does; they reduce their learning curve by finding analogies with what they've already done. That includes healers.

Keep in mind one of the biggest differences with this game is that there aren't any 'rest' cycles really. The rest button serves the same function as 'sprint' does in most games (a quick respite from a bad situation so you can come back rested and finish the fight--or a way to get across a difficult zone after being hit by potshots from high level enemies). Whereas this sprint button...there's no allegory really. To just let people run faster?! MADNESS!!

But anyway. They show up here and get into the groove. Since their way of doing things affects so many aspects of the game, such as lingo and expectations in team environments, new people who join the game learn a kind of hybrid-concept for the game. They don't just learn how to play *this* game. They learn how to play this game from the perspective of people who played a totally different game. People who are using metaphors and allegories to make this game easier for them to understand. There isn't a term like 'healer' in this game. There is the term heal, and there's the empath set which has some *excellent* buffs in it, and is more about providing buffs than it is about healing. But these aren't the 'healer' role. The guy who stands there and does NOTHING but heal--which is what the everquesting zeitgeist is all about. In this game, combat is supposed to be more fluid (and I don't mean kiting), and people are supposed ot have 2 or more different things they could be doing at a time. When they balanced CoV ATs, they did a much better job of making this clear. But even CoH ATs are unique in that *all* of them have interesting stuff they could be doing. A blaster *can* grab aggro and draw an overwhelming force off the tank while he takes care of business. I know, because I've done it (as a defender... not as a blaster... hehe).

This game really *deserves* the lingo it comes with. Words like defender and offender have waaay more meaning. Blastfender. Scraptroller. They help you understand the aspects of *these* mechanisms which are being emphasized. The old words like meatshield and healer are from a different system. They work here only as useful allegories.

But they're not useful allegories anymore. They're defining people's understanding of play. If you die, it's because someone didn't heal you, not because you didn't figure out how to take advantage of the defender buffs, or not because youw eren't in range to be healed by the transfusion. A buff is this weird deal. People don't notice buffs because, in Dark Age, or Everquest, the only time you *really* noticed a buff was when 3 druids spooged all over your face filling your entire buffbuffer, or when someone 20 levels higher than yuo wandered by and gave you enough power to take down oranges solo.

In this game, give someone Fortitude and it's a *big* deal. Even if it came from a *lower* level empath. Who has not loved the speed boost? Yet people are not familiar with the concept. Perhaps worse, the metaphor that defines the everuest playstyle involves healing and 'crack' or mana and endurance regeneration. Well in *this* game that all comes from one powerset, coincidentally. So instead of it being a quirky powerset, the defender's version of scrapper regen, it's *the* defining powerset that other ATs are comfortable working with. Early on that was how it was recognized, how it was billed, and how it's been perceived since.

This is the crux of our discomfort.

2.2 The response from EQ players

There were buffs and debuffs in EQ. Shamans and Enchanters.

Yes that's true. Enchanters, when they weren't dealing damage, were usually giving out 'crack', which is mana-regen. Shamans trafficked in the stamina version of crack which was needed by the non-magic oriented classes. The debuffs, while fairly potent, were largely irrelevant *or* an absolute requirement. They did not share the variety or spontanaeity of CoH or CoV debuffs. Buffs were either meaningless or hour-long 'equipment' that is part of the expecation of inviting a given class to the team.

In any case, you're talking about the end game and raid content.

That's also somewhat true, though a healer was still pretty important in the earlier game. But EQ was all about the high-end content anyway. Not to mention the fact that being exposed to high-end content gives one the sense of being experienced and having valid experiences to draw upon. So it's more likely that someone who spent a great deal of time in the end-game would bring the 'lessons' it imparted with them to other games. Which is particularly confusing in *this* environment, since virtually no buffs are fire-and-forget. They're all very short term, and a lot of people will consider them useless on that basis 'pentagram?, you have to rebuff every few seconds?'. That's exactly the sort of thing they'd say. Including the pentagram.

2.3 The impartation process (spam!)

Spam teaches people how to play the game. 'LFT 4 FF', if seen in the Hollows cries out to be understood. So the intrepid player will eventually discover, not just what this *means*, but also, what it implies. It *implies* that you need a team to defeat Frostfire. It *implies* that it's easier for some people to type '4' instead of 'for' which is weird, because it took me years to get comfortable hitting the number keys.

Now, assuming they level from 6-18 without seeing any of the content in King's Row (likely!), they wander out to Steel Canyon and see that people are looking for healers for Positron. They see that people are looking for healers for missions. Does it mean that healers aren't particularly useful? Or that they are *merely* one way to approach the game? No, of course not, in the information vacuum that exists inside the head of the new player, each question points to mysterious answers; dark secrets weilded by the masters of the domain--the obnoxious more experienced players.

Now, I'm not saying we're all obnoxious. In fact, on occassion, I strive to be helpful. This FAQ is not one of those times, but *still*, if it *were*, you'd know it. You'd *love* me. You sick sick person. But we, the established player base, by which I of course mean, the people who agree with me, and not anybody else--we aren't always in the mood to teach people about DOs and give enough advice for someone to actually find the infromation useful. Them's the breaks! You play the game to relax (probably), and teaching people how to stroke the mink in just that certain way that irritates the fur-is-murder crowd the most isn't relaxing. It's very stressful. I mean, for crying out loud, these people probably aren't even aware of what kind of hat most accentuates your snotty self-satisfied expression.

So, *actual* education of new players is in high demand and short supply (nobody's fault! Especially not mine), and secondary sources of information about the game are in high-supply. The first thing I had to ask about in *months* has been what QFT stands for (in the past I thought it meant 'Quit [censored] Talking', but it turns out it means 'Quoted for Truth', and it radically changes my opinion of like... 2 dozen posters), everything else, I just watch and assume. Like everyone does; after all, it's embarrassing to ask questions alot of the time, especially when you can just remain quiet for like 5 minutes, and *figure it out*. It's what we do in School. It's what we do at work. It's what we do in a marraige (oh? OH... Our anniversary. He's talking about our anniversary. That was like.. 2 months ago, though. *sigh* my children will all be stupid. ).

So the RUHelar thing, even without a specific educational process, is corrossive in and of itself.

2.4 Abused children

Of course this environment has had a long-lasting effect. New Defenders have come to believe that the most 'support' oriented defender was the Empath. The most 'support' oriented Corruptor was the Thermal. Players who've been scrappers (Pftang! HIsssssss) or blasters, or even tankers, have believed that 'healers' were the bee knees of defenders. So *they've* started these defenders with this in mind.

Empaths are the most numerous kind of defender. Also the most straight-forwardly acceptible to an 'ruhelar' request, and so the empathy set has become emblamatic of the defender class in general. It's become a class unto itself. This confuses the issue, certainly, but moreso, it deprives good people of a play experience they might enjoy. They see the concept of support as already decided; that *if* they want to *really* be helpful, and receive heart emoticons in abundance for their contribution, there's precisely one avenue to it. Doesn't help that Empathy sounds so fricking girly (Empath was the first defender *I* tried. I had visions of hugging). These people *might* enjoy themselves more as a support oriented Rad defender or support oriented Kinetic. But they've been unwittingly driven into a very specific role.

Furthermore, once there, they reinforce the stereotype. They are, in fact, enabling.

2.5 How to avoid Enabling as an Empath or Thermal

The issue that seems to continuously carry the day in these debates over the veracity of 'omg [censored]' and 'bbq', is what precisely it means to be a healer in this caustic environment in which infant forcefielders are abandoned on hillsides to dodge government quotas, and the kids who are turning trick arrows on the streets at night are reporting to the character tool in the morning for a deletion. So what does it mean, eh? What is it that you've unleashed on the world, Mildred, in your singleminded pursuit of the truth? Was it worth it, Mildred? Is this what you wanted?!

The tearful response is nearly always 'noooooooo *waah*', and so we come to the part of the guide in which I presume to suggest how others might play their characters--in what is clearly not only an overstepping of my bounds, but a bullying tactic which makes puppies weep. Am I abusive and evil? I can offer an uncomplicated 'yes' in reply.

But seriously, your powerset, lets call it 'sympathy', is one that contains alot of hitpoint buffs. What the kids these days, in fact call 'heals'. So what do do? Ignore all 3 of the powers to which you have access that are heals? Of course not! You *have* to take at least one of them, after all. I recommend the radial heal, since it also heals *you* (see the ruhelar faq). But you may notice, if you look slightly to the *right*... no... no farther... yeah yeah... no that's too far. It's in the middle. Yeah that's it. That's a powerset filled with direct damage powers. Don't be afraid to take some of those; believe me... you *can't* accidentally shoot your teammates. No matter how hard you try. Believe me. You can't trick the engine by targeting an enemy and then really quickly targeting a teammate and shooting. It won't work. If anyone finds out how, let me know, but until that day, the defender who wants to take their blasts is assured of never accidentally cooking the tanks brain with enough radiation to reduce it from a walnut to a peanut.

But lets assume, for the sake of arguement, that you have your heals, you have your blasts. You took some power pool powers, and you enjoy jogging and the opera. You're a well rounded individual, who I'm sure any girl would be proud to date; especially if they're a lesbian (if you're a girl). Happiness will be yours *some* day, but in the meantime, be content with this knowledge: You're not part of the problem.

"But, filthy anti-healer Jezebel, I don't have many blasts, I prefer to focus on the team."

That's wonderful, dear! I think people like you are rare gems of squirrely emotional turmoil who spread joy and happiness and are, in a way which confuses me somewhat, very defensive about it. Having you on a team is probably a great joy. Just be cautious in your role as savior of all teamkind that you do not operate under the illusion that, if you chose empathy, it was necessarily the best and only choice for team support; and, that, if the team is having a difficult time, and there are more deaths than we might perhaps want, the solution is not necessarily to bring in another empath. But to find another defender or even controller (*spits*) to assist in providing other forms of damage mitigation, crowd control, and safety for the waifish damage ATs in your charge.

The Mighty Scourge's Quick checklist of RuHelar enabling;
[ ] Do you use powers such that, occasionally, you are not healing, but helping in another way?

[ ] Are you accepting of other ATs regardless of powerset, so long as they're not a goddamned filthy [censored] scrapper?

[ ] Do you acknowledge that, even for the role of 'pure' support, empathy and thermal are perhaps not the best choices for all occasions? That other powersets out perform them in many cases?

[ ] Have you ever teamed with a Brute who took the medicine pool?

If you can check at least 3 of those boxes, then you're not enabling the ruhelar. Furthermore, you are pretty, and I would like to brush your hair.

3. Tetanus shots v. surgeon fish

One point which is brought up by people who find this to be a non-issue is the idea that most defenders can be 'healers'. That a dark with Twilight Grope (teehee!) can keep everyone molested (I mean healed! teehee) in a team, and therefore, be a healer. That's possible. Sure. We might even define someone as a healer if they have a 'heal'. Then we can include anyone with the medicine pool. Brutes and Scrappers. Positively everybody!

And, if we adopted this position, rather than a 'healer' being someone who single-handedly compensates for incoming damage, we'd probably be better off. But it's still somewhat indicative of a problem. After all, are we talking about the same thing? Is this 'healer' still required equipment in a game that drops green inspirations like water? Should *someone* always have a heal on the team? Because if *that's* the attitude, we might still be talking past each other.

4. Antihealers

There are no such things as antihealers.

Conclusions

Obviously someone who's healing is doing nothing wrong. Supporting a team is an act of love; like spanking a child. But *like* spanking a child, you have to do it in moderation, or various negative outcomes might occur (accrue).

What we're looking for here is a more DiabloII-like outlook on the situation. Damage mitigation is equivalent to healing. Increased damage output, means less damage over-time returned, which is equivalent to healing. Absorbing an alphastrike with a pet or something is equivalent to healing. After all, these are all hitpoints you wouldn't have otherwise. Diablo II has a similar setup to Coh and Cov; 'potions' are in great supply, and drop fairly frequently. Self heals are available to everyone as powers. You are always highly mobile (except for when you're suppressed... DAMN YOU STATESMAN!!! *shakes fist*), so you shouldn't *have* to stay in a hopeless situation (unless you're held, but then you have breakfrees and resists and colorful pants), and therefore the game dynamic is very different from something like everquest, DAOC, or Wow, where there are severe disengagement penalties.

A paradigm shift if you will!

and that explains why people refuse to heal or correct people in broadcast for asking for healers or whatever else. Nobody should torture puppies. But, we *should* encourage a more well-rounded view of team support.

sorry I'm not patrolling the forums here anymore on any kind of regular basis. I just noticed your build. My only nit is, if you're really going diso queen, then take those damage slots out of tornado and put them in thunderclap as recred and diso length.

What I think is suspicious is that he supposedly froze the clerk and the robber when

1) We know for a *fact* that it is impossible to use superpowers on a civilian, much less stop them from walking down the sidewalk.

2) Frostfire's ability to freeze someone is based entirely on single-target attacks. He could not have frozen the clerk on accident, even if the clerk were targetable.

What clearly happened was that the clerk was an out-of-work ice tank who hibernated to protect himself. Because of this, it is impossible for him to have been killed by the fire. All we need to do is *find* this clerk to verify these facts, but he is no doubt in hiding.

just to be devil's advocate...it's kind of a relief that metahumans are so normal they're boring in the paragon world. I mean not actually boring, but there isn't this X-men like turmoil constantly and fear and nonsense. It's just you know.. some people dress extravagantly, and some people just wander around and push giant robots out of the way.

It's a relief in alot of ways. I always ultimately got sick of the silly attitude that people would hate superheros and so forth. I mean, if anything superheros would be like Wrestlers. Some adored, some reviled, but all kind of half-heartedly. It would be more about popularity than actual social problems.

in fact, paragon is even less irritating than the DC comics world, where there aren't these huge political problems between superhumans and normal people, but there's still roughly 1 person an issue who has to get grumpy because supervillains broke their nail, and then superman saves them and they're still pretty grumpy.

No grump, damnit! This is an epic setting, and we don't have time for whiny civvies. In fact, you shouldn't be allowed to play sports unless you have super powers! Faultline should be a basketball court, with a hoop at either end of the canyon.

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The semicolon means that they are two separate effects. They stack.

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Correct.

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Man, I was soooo close to getting red-named.

RagManX

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It's not a very exciting red name though. All it means is that Prima's poor writing has caused confusion, and Castle has to clear it up.

At first I thought shadow was a little off, but only because I know that there's a 2-part def bonus. If you actually read the punctuation as is, it reads as (here is a def bonus); (concerning that def bonus). Semicolons are only used to separate comma delimited items when you're already using commas among the items (red,white, and blue; green, yellow, and turqoise). Usually when you use a semicolon it's to tack on something closely related to your current statement. If they wanted to be clearer then they should have said (suppressed)/(unsuppressed) 2.5/5.0.

This is another reason I hate suppression. It needlessly complicates a game that was very straightforward.

also, people don't seem to know how to write clearly anymore...darn kids... society ---> hell etc etc. uphill both ways in the snow naked.

Tornado build is a silly build. Psy tornado and tornado are two very different powers. Psy tornado is just Psy's targeted aoe. Tornado is a pet designed to cause chaos.

If you have a -knockback aoe hold/immobilize as a controller, then tornado can be a great dot. But you're talking about a controller. You don't get ot pick psy blast so psy tornado isn't part of your routine. Unless it's an EPP pick for you or something. I don't know... I don't really do that whole quote 'controller thing' unquote. Semi quote. period. Ellipses.

But regardless, one's aoe damage adn the other is a berserker pet. So you do whatever you want to do. If you're trying to contain, then a berserker pet probably isn't going to help.

Lol. I'm kind of impressed with how crazy people can get over virtually nothing.

Ah well. Dev threads. Those great bastions of psychosis.

There's this rule of the internet that I think people are forgetting or never learned. It's that if something is too rediculous to be real, then it isn't. And if it *is* it *still* isn't.

Apply it liberally, and enjoy the feeling of relaxation and good humor it fosters!

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Just a heads up:

I have several devs reading this thread, and are working on the bugs you guys are finding, and on ways to improve the Mayhem Missions (such as making the end Hero non-random; currently the end Hero you get is totally random, and has nothing to do with anything you did in the mission, we are looking into changing that).

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THANK YOU! for answering that little problem. Now we can quit wracking our brains about the 'why' of it and concentrate on other stuff.

I have a raelly bad bug for you... when I use my gravity powers on LOWLY 5hp Civilians... they don't get crushed into little balls of bloody fleshy goo.

Nor do they burst into screaming flames when my dedicated partner a flame/flame brute attacks or gets near them.

Nor do they collapse into a pile of shattered bones when my singularity lifts them...



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Nor do they change the rating of the game by allowing players to kill helpless civilians.

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Nor does anybody *die* remember?! They all get teleported away when injured. So don't come at us with this 'reasonable objection based on real world factors beyond our control'. I mean, you guys managed to come up with the spin in ED, didn't you? You managed to spin *that* as the complete opposite of what it was (fewer possibilities for slotting rather than more).

You guys have a powerful grasp of PR, and we both know that if you wanted to, those civilians could be teleported away by the Paragon Emergency Hospital Evacuee Teleportation Service Or Whatever The Expletive Deleted We're Calling It This Week, Anyway Bob Over Here Has This Button And He'll Totally Press It (P.E.H.E.T.S.O.W.T.E.D.W.C.I.T.W.A.B.O.H.H.T.B.A.H .T.P.I.).

Surely. SURELY! the emergency hospital equipment can be diverted from heroes griefing hamidon, or villains being 'defeated' (do you notice the ambiguous language there?! DO YOU!? IT'S PRETTY AMBIGUOUS I THINK. I seem to remember that ambiguity having some kind of special attention called to it!

Those new fancy particle effects certain don't include blood!
They don't! Do they!

of course, blowing up some of those classic car designs is a crime FAR worse than damaging a human being. I mean... sheesh. They only made... log(N) of those.

No, I'm sorry Positron. I realize, trapped inside that suit, you may feel that you've been somehow wronged by society, and after all, if you've been so wronged, how can you possibly extend the live-saving apparatus of this city in which paragons are often seen, paragoning, to the regular citizenry, who, after all, do nothing to help you in your predicament.

Well... Suck it up buster! Tell those guys to apply the same logic to civilians you apply to heroes so that you are not saddled with the nearly insurmountable stigma of having civilians 'gasp' get killed in a video game!

This whole thing smacks of a double standard. Perhaps a triple standard.

Yes, it *is*, and *I* for one would appreciate it, if you did not sully my belief structure by assuming I'm joking. I am dead serious when I say that Castle does not have the force of will, or the *desire* to improve the game by feedings the hamsters more. He is working in an antiquarian view of lean economics, hoping to squeeze every ounce of computing power out of starving hamsters. It's immoral, inhamstrane, and ultimately obstructive to the People's Revolution.

I think this Mr. Taser (if that is his real name) is simply willing to allow varmints to suffer, as long as it does nothing to disrupt his strange Darwinian vision of the marketplace. Of course, it wouldn't *hurt* him at all to feed these hamsters more, but idealogically, he cannot suffer a system in which all hamsters are well fed. He no doubt believes they eat their young because they *enjoy* it, rather than out of a desperate parental need to save their offspring from a life spent in servitude to Cryptic Studios; Graveyard of Hamsters.