The_Germ

How sad. I recently had cause to PM Cuppa. Received a prompt response of a single word.

That single word now has a special meaning -- that word which hitherto was like any other series of letters now has been plucked from the multitude and been raised to a position of honor.

Similarly, the name "CuppaJo" will be retired and raised to a position of honor in the COX community. And with this sendoff, I will with fear and trembling break down the forum walls and say:

April, you were truly the soul (and conscience) of the forums. May you continue to be the "thin blue line" wherever you find yourself.

Okay, these are a few suggestions for those of us with "non-optimal" systems. PLEASE DON'T rant about how COX is messed up in this way or that way. PLEASE DO post your ideas on maximizing performance.

On another note, BillZBubba's guide on performance is useful for just about everybody -- check it out first. Basically I am assuming you have updated your driver and turned off backgroud programs and whatnot; I am just talking about COX settings here.

My system, if you care to know, has an Athlon XP 2000+, an ATI Radeon 9200SE (128MB), and 512MB of RAM. Maybe sometime I will get more RAM, maybe not. Now I KNOW that many of you play on systems that are even less sophisticated than mine, but I have a computer that meets the minimum specs of the game.

What do I consider playable? Well, since I have a pretty weak system I have pretty low expectations. Even FPS of 15 is OK if it STAYS at 15. The worst thing is when it drops below 5 FPS regularly. My settings enable me to have only sporadic occasions of FPS bottoming out.

Obvious Performance Hogs

World Detail Slider. Okay, no surprise here. One of the biggest, easiest things to change and test. In COH I can put it at 70 or 80% -- in COV it stays at 50%.

FSAA: Full Screen Anti-Aliasing. This one was a heartbreak to give up on, because it helps tons with the jaggies. However, I can't have it on in Grandville -- no way. If I am going to be playing in COH for a while, though, I will put this to 2x (through my driver -- not through the game).

World Texure Quality. Another big one. I put this one on Medium.

Shader Quality. Another one that hurt me to turn down. I like the new surfaces but I can't hack it. Mine is on Low (No World Bumpmaps).

Lesser Performance Hits

One setting that I was surprised about was Max Particle Count. I found that turning this waaaaay down to like 300 or 600 (yes, I didn't skip a zero there) had a pretty noticable effect on framerate. Zoomed in on my Warshade, with his stealth power activated, even having it at 1000 noticably slowed down my FPS.

Character Texure Quality. I have this on Medium most of the time, but again I can put it on High while playing COH.

Shadows. Yeah, turning this one off will give a bump to FPS, with only a minimal visual degradation.

Vertical Synch. Since my framerate is generally pretty low, disabling this didn't produce much "tearing" of the image. Keep in mind that if you have a LCD screen you may not be able to disable this one.

Questionable Performance Hits

Screen Resolution. This one is weird -- it doesn't have nearly the performance hit that I expected. When I turned off FSAA I increased the resolution of my screen. I am trying out 1280x1024 right now, even on my 17 inch CRT monitor. Remember that you can increase the size of the chat font if it is too hard to read.

Particle Physics. This one was hard to test. I have had it on Low and seem to do alright. Even on Low I like the extra "flavor" that it gives to the eye.

Geometry Buffers. Impossible for me to test. Grandville locks up my system with this enabled (common problem for ATI 9200 and 9250 cards).

Character Detail Slider. Hard to notice much of a difference. I left mine on 100%.

AF (Anistropic Filtering). Tough one... I've had it off, on 2x, on 4x -- without FSAA it seems to exaggerate the jaggies sometimes. No recommendation, stand on a highway and look at the lines on the road while you change it.

Sound. I have heard that turning this off helps a bit, especially in a big team with tons of powers going off. I have been trying it turned off. Not that much to hear, anyway.

Water Effects, Bloom, Depth of Field. Not supported with the card I have.

Well, there you have it. I know some of you are wincing as you read this (poor BillZBubba). Does it surprise you that my favorite elements of the game are badges, story arcs, and souveniers? In other words, non-visual elements? Anyway, try out a few of these and see how far it takes you. Good luck!

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, I did post a link both in the Kheldian Guides and in the Guide to Guides. For some reason it just never got picked up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh... than I retract my statement. Anyway, I'm glad I inquired about it. The Warshade community is small but needs good guides like yours.

[ QUOTE ]
The guide I wrote is Issue 6 compliant. Nothing much changed for Kheldians in Issue 7, so if you're playing a Warshade you might check that one out. The link is in this very thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

And now it's listed in the Kheldian Guides! "Ask and ye shall receive." Next time please put it on the "Guide to Guides" thread! <grumble grumble>... Your guide is too useful and too cool to have been in forum limbo for 5 months.

[ QUOTE ]

I don't disagree that Bodyguard is effective in PvE, however it is completely unnecessary. The MM does not get agro in PvE therefor the MM does not need the protection in PvE because the pets are doing all the killing and dying.

[/ QUOTE ]

See, that's the point! The MM with Bodyguard has many more options in PVE now, including deliberately taking the alpha strike! I can jump into a group of +1 or +2 Longbow and lead off with Neurotoxic Breath -- it debuffs the enemies AND prevents the alpha from wiping out a couple of pets.

[ QUOTE ]
Bodyguard is specifically for PvP to prevent the MM from being 1-shotted without the pets even comming into play.

[/ QUOTE ]

DVP111, I cordially but firmly disagree with this point. Bodyguard was also in response to the PVE'ers who complained about ambushes targetting the MM and ignoring the pets. Also, in larger groups the MM's (especially debuffers) were always in danger of being wasted by a couple of random shots from a leut or boss in the thick of battle. Bodyguard helps solo'ers and 8-man-team'ers.

[ QUOTE ]
Also, Yes, if you set 1 pet to agressive, the defensive ones will follow suit and attack, but setting 1 to agressive removes 1 of your bodyguards, meaning you and your bodyguards take more damage, and mainly it is a player solution for something the devs need to fix.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, I see your point, but in my experience having only the 3 tier-1 pets on Bodyguard means I can still easily lead my ninjas into battle -- remember that with only 3 pets on Bodyguard you are only receiving 40% of the damage you would otherwise. 60% damage resistance with your 3 weakest pets on Bodyguard? Incredible! Also a minor quibble: your minions do not receive "more damage" if fewer of them are on Bodyguard; only the MM receives more damage.

[ QUOTE ]
Also, cycling Defensive to passive and back won't work because Bodyguard takes 5 seconds to activate after the pets are set to Def-Follow. In those 5 seconds it takes you to deal with an AI bug, you have NO protection.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh... good point here. In PVP this can be pretty deadly. Usually in PVE you can do something to protect yourself, but in general I agree that clicking on "Follow" should totally reset the "target memory" of your minions for at least a couple of seconds -- long enough for them to disengage from all enemies and hug the MM.

Also, I am NOT trying to dismiss the genuine concerns in this thread -- yeah, the AI of the pets could use some work, PVP can be dicey, Bodyguard can be circumvented -- but I'm just saying that it is a big buff for PVE and an OK buff for PVP. Keep in mind that MM's basically have 2 inherent powers now: Supremacy and Bodyguard. My COH characters are looking pretty unloved in comparison. My emp defender in PVP? Can you say stalker-fodder?

I guess I should also say that this is very much my own limited experience with my ninja/poison MM. Sometimes, though, I run into other MM's who are like, "Whoa, how did you get only 2 pets to attack that guy?" or "How did you make your Oni stay in one place?".

Also, I know that this is for a VERY small minority of people but -- in the close quarters of a SG base raid, a ninja/poison MM can do incredibly well. Good times.

OK, I understand the problems with Bodyguard in PVP, but in PVE it's very powerful. For example, how many other archetypes can absorb the alpha from an AV or Hero? What archetype can pull with less personal risk? Several of the complaints here for PVE have pretty easy solutions for me.

The pets won't "Follow"? Use "Heel" (that is, follow and passive) momentarily, then switch back to Bodyguard. This seems to clear the "target memory" of the minions most of the time.

The pets won't attack in Bodyguard until you take damage? Put some of your pets on "Aggressive" and the rest on Bodyguard. That way, when the enemies attack your "Aggressive" pets, the rest will start attacking too. Along this same lines, I directly control only my high-damage pets (if I am directly controlling ANY) while keeping my low-damage ones on Bodyguard. This even helps in PVP some of the time, though I still have the common problems for MM's in PVP.

In other words, I believe that Bodyguard makes the MM the best solo PVE archetype in the game. It's actually kind of similar to playing a WS or PB in PVP, because neither MM's nor Khelds have the hugely powerful attacks that often characterize PVP play (<cough>stalkers<cough&gt. But both are probably unsurpassed in most PVE situations.

You might include OTHER ways of defeating AV's, also. What about the Warburg nukes? Plopping down a biological and chemical nuke will severely lower AV resistance and buff up your damage enough to take out almost anybody.

However, probably the EASIEST way, though, are by getting the Shivans in Bloody Bay. You can get them in relatively little time and risk (which is NOT necessarily true in Warburg). This reminds me: you CAN take your team to BB and get the Shivans even while in a TF. Nice to know.

--you have seen the Muppet Show when it aired in a weekly evening prime-time slot.

--arcade games were HARD! Like Defender, and Star Castle, and Qix (nobody's mentioned Qix yet? Great game!) By the way, what was that maze game with the walls that killed you, and the bouncing ball of death if you took too long to clear a screen?

--Aahhh... Intellivision. Remeber the "voice module"? That thing ROCKED! Especially with Space Spartans...

--you watched those awesome Pippi Longstocking movies -- dubbed from Dutch or whatever.

--your greatest memory was getting the HUMONGOUS "Jetfire" Transformer for Christmas, and you remember when the Transformers started getting silly with "Dino-bots" (but they were still sooo cool to have!).

--you remember "Conjunction Junction... what's your function?"

--and OF COURSE having the computer with the tape drive, and waiting for that game to load.

By the way, I HATED that stupid Wumpus. "Your arrow has missed the Wumpus, and has ricocheted off the wall and killed you. The End" dogGONNIT!

I guess this is for the ~30 age group. I know this is ancient history to some "ancient people" here on the forums. I'm not old if there's someone older I can make fun of! <ahem>