Tipop

Well, I've gone through six email exchanges with what I assume is a real person. He is having me submit my DxDiag now, as if it might be my drivers or something. I'm guessing he doesn't read the forums.

*edit* Sure enough, he's saying my graphics driver is out of date and won't help me any further until I download and install it. *sigh* As if my graphics driver could possibly have any effect on a failed tracerout.

Oh, and to top it off, I'm getting worse and worse connection to the PlayNC site now. It's taking me 5-6 minutes to load the page just to reply each time. Yeah, it's definitely my graphics driver.

Thanks, FatherXmas. I tried that, and none of the tracerouts to those IPs could reach the destination.

*Edit* I went ahead and submitted the tracerouts.

*Edit again*

Well, I got a form-letter reply, saying:

"Thank you for contacting PlayNC Technical Support.

Unfortunately, your request is either incomplete or unclear please update this ticket with the detailed description of the issue you are facing. Also, let us know the exact error message you are getting there."

What a load of ****. My ticket said "I am unable to connect to the game. Lighthouse suggested I send the tracerouts to the PlayNC servers to help resolve the problem, so here they are:" followed by the text from all of the failed tracerouts.

How much clearer do I have to be? Did I use big words? Should I draw a diagram? Should I use finger-puppets?

Well, I can't connect to the FTP site to get the Network Information Tool. I get the same kind of error message as when I try to log into the game.

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I had 3 parts Perfect Zinger in Chilling Embrace and it was working awesome... I want it back

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If you already have it slotted, then you won't lose it. You simply can't slot it from now on. Just don't do a respec.

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I would agree if something was broke, but since nothing was broke, nothing needed fixing

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You are either being disingenuous or else are very clueless. There was a massive exploit there, and I'm really glad it's fixed now.

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I tought taunt IO sets were MADE for taunt powers. Taunt toggles being THE ONLY powers that could justify 6 slotting a taunt IO set. I mean, who is going to 6 slot taunt?!

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Well, my tank has his taunt four-slotted with an IO set, but yeah, I don't think many people will go all the way with six slots.

The reason they removed the ability to slot special IOs (as opposed to generic ones) into taunt auras was because of a bug... certain procs were affecting the user rather than the targets when slotted in an aura. You can still slot generic taunt IO enhancments in your aura, I believe.

Presumably there's a very good programming reason why they couldn't just fix the bug to allow those IOs to work in auras.

Will you two PLEASE stop agreeing with each other? I'm getting a headache!

Here's a suggestion for a unique and useful secondary effect; Have all the blaster Archery powers include a very short disorient effect. The target(s) are stunned for a moment from the impact.

This would give Archery blasters the ability to start a fight with an AE power (usually death for a blaster on a team), minimizing the return alpha strike. In addition, it would help drop toggles on troubesome lieutenants like Storm Shamans, Tsoo Sorcerers, etcetera, and act as fairly effective damage mitigation if they slot for disorient duration.

It might be too powerful in PvP, though, since it would drop toggles on all squishies. What do you all think?

Thanks Strix. By the way, your avatar is creepy as heck. It makes me want to go out and buy a handgun.

Can someone clue me in on the "Kill skuls" reference? I've been playing CoH since the initial release, but apparently I missed this bit.

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A few folks have no problem with them.

I imagine they will when they are 40, and every group having a longbow spec ops who can drain your entire endurance bar wiht a single grenade that doesn't miss often.

Oh, I think they won't like it much anymore.

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I guess you missed the part where I mentioned that I'm fighting level 40-41 Longbow, and I'm 38. So I'm fighting the same enemies at 38 that you are at 40 and not having the same troubles.

Yes, they are tough. I don't want the game to be easy.

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I believe that missions ought to be challenging. And definately part of the progblem is that people do silly things on teams, like playing the same way they do solo. Maybe if pickup groups were better, I'd feel differently. But the Longbow missions are, overall, too hard for the average pickpu group. I don't solo as much as some of you, but some of my longbow missions have turned me into a soloist, simply because they are too hard for the types of groups I've been getting. So I largely agree with those that think that Longbow ought to be nerfed.

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They should be nerfed because pickup groups do stupid things? That's rediculous. I don't want the game made easier so that idiots won't get debt.

Train your pickup groups. When I invite people, I take the time to give everyone instructions on tactics, and I listen to other players if they have good suggestions too. I generally have very good luck with pickup groups, for the above reasons.

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For my level 34 merc/poison mastermind, Longbow Flamethrowers are the only remaining reason why I keep the difficulty setting at Villainous or at most one above it.

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While I won't argue that Longbow aren't pretty dangerous, I feel that I should point out that I have the same powersets as you (Merc/Poison, level 38) and I solo all my missions on the highest difficulty. My longbow missions are level 40-41, and I never have a problem, except with the occasional boss.

If you can't do the same, then the problem is either your playstyle or power selections/slotting. Take out flamers fast, debuff bosses and lieutenants, slow them and make 'em run to you, etcetera.

For me, Longbow are a nice challenge on the Merciless difficulty setting, when solo. On a team, of course, they can be killer if you don't use any strategy.

Personally, I would like it if ALL enemies were like this.

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But even at Villainous difficulty, if I run into a spawn with three Longbow Flamethrowers, I lose every single minion in the first 10 seconds of the fight. With two of them, if I miss with Paralyzing Poison or if I don't see the second flamethrower in time and they both get their attacks off, I still lose every minion in the first 10 seconds of the fight ... even the Commando, who supposedly has damage resistance to fire!

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You lose everything in 10 seconds? Maybe you should try pulling a few instead of charging in. Put your minions around a corner (with the goto command) and pull the baddies to them. Debuff on the pull, maybe taking a flamethrower hit yourself to keep it from hitting the minions. There are lots of techniques for fighting Longbow with your build.

I play on Justice, and my character's name is Queen Bich (no "t"). Feel free to add me to your friends list and I'll let you tag along with me (Longbow mission, merciless difficulty) and see how I do it.

On all my characters, the very first thing I do as soon as I've entered the game as a level 1 character is type:

/bind button4 "target_enemy_near"

(No, that's not the same thing as tab, because tab will cycle through all enemies, while this button will always target the nearest one.)

Button 4 is the mouse button on the left side of the mouse, next to the thumb.

To be honest, I haven't noticed any difference. My Mercs/Poison Mastermind has been soloing on Relentless since level 5 (now 24). I was doing fine before the stealth-buff, and I've noticed no real change after.

Note that the ONLY power I have from my Poison secondary is the single-target heal.

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Rooted : Does "rooted" slow attack speeds ? If it does, then my character concept is shot, and I'll switch to my dark/dark brute (another concept I built up nicely, but haven't played it very much).

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No, Rooted only slows movement speed. Also single-slotted Swift brings you up to a bearable movement speed for a Tank, but a Brute will definitely want to slot it in order to move from enemy to enemy.

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Not to cry foul to much but doesn't that make the much weaker inherent power that tanks get already even more pathetic when compaired to everyone else's?

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lol. Someone's forgetting the FURY meter... THAT is the Brute's inherent, not the single-target taunt effect of their attacks.

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However, imop, once I buy something, it is no longer THEIRS. It becomes MINE. The consumer. You don't go out and buy a sofa and say "this is Rooms-To-Go's sofa," you say. "this is my sofa." Period.

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Bit of a side issue, but you don't own software. Ever. You own the disc it came on, and the box it was in, and the manuals... but the software, never. What you bought is a license allowing you to use it, and perhaps make an archival backup. Hence the End User License Agreement, which restricts how you can use it.

I imagine that once they had the code to allow multiple teams to fight (rather than just two teams), then free-for-all was already included for no additional effort. A lone hero would just be considered a team with one member.

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You're probably talking about The Hollows. In fact all you have to do is go there to talk with that guy at soon as you reach lvl 5, that way your lvl 5 is not even going to mention The Hollows.

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If you do that, however, you'll miss out on the "Go talk to Wincott" mission, which is easy xp. You just go into the Hollows, click on him, then return. *poof* Mission complete xp bonus.

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if it isn't posted by a redname or dev , then it is either speculation, rumor or a lie.

Is there an official thread from where this gospel was taken?

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The OP drew that information from dozens of dev posts over the past couple of months. If you followed the dev tracker then none of the above would come as a suprise.

I would like to see the the reasoning for the 75-person limit revisited.

The only explanation I've heard for this limit was because the game engine can't handle having too many people on-screen at once, so the size of SGs was limited. That just doesn't make sense to me.

City of Heroes is a game about playing alts. More than any other mmorpg, virtually everyone other than new players makes a lot of alts. Due to the social nature of supergroups, when you make an alt it is perfectly natural to want to continue chatting with your SG-mates and carry the familiar SG-name over your head.

Three solutions have been suggested:

1) Limit the SG to 75 *players*, but up to 8 characters per player. That way you could never have more than 75 online at once.

The arguement against this is that the game would have to keep track of account information, which then might be open to hacking.

My answer... put an option in the login screen, where you are looking at your eight character slots, to "Merge SG members". In other words, from the login server you could click this button and any of your characters who are currently in the same SG will be henceforth recognised as a single player, taking up only one slot and being grouped together in the list with a little marker showing that they are alts of one another. If you later join the SG with another alt, you would have to go back to the login screen and click the Merge button again.

This solves the problem of the account information being bandied about on the live servers. It would only be used on the login server, which is presumably secure, since that's where we type in our passwords already. It allows you to keep the 75-person limit while allowing us to have all of our alts together with our friends.

2) Remove the 75-character limit entirely. I fail to see how limiting the size of a SG realistically prevents large in-game gatherings.

3) Allow SGs to be "linked", so that SG-chat from one is displayed in the chat of all linked SGs. This allows for one main SG and several others for alts as needed. For most intents and purposes, this is the same as #2 above, since the linked SGs are basically one large meta-SG.

One situation where linked SGs are NOT the same as one large SG is in situations where an entire SG is marked for something special, such as an SG-only event, SG-vs-SG PvP wars, that sort of thing. Because of those situations, it should be possible to switch a character from one linked SG to another without undue hassle. (This would also be good for when an "alt" turns into your "main" and you'd like to move your characters around a bit within the meta-SG organization.)

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Pretty long-winded, but I wanted to cover all the bases, no pun intended.

I did it solo with an earth controller, an illusion controller, and a spines scrapper, all before I3. However, I'm a pretty competent and knowledgable player. Not everyone is.

*shrug* I've never had a problem soloing with any of my characters, at any level, be they scrappers, defenders, controllers, or tanks. (I never played a blaster past level 14, so I can't really comment on them.) Your uncle who gave up because he can't solo and can't stand pickup groups must be a very poor player, that's all I can figure.

As for the nerfage of the cape mission... I'm going to guess that it was done for the soloing defenders mostly. Any other archetype could solo that mission easily, in my opinion.

... hm... thinking as I write... Ok, maybe I'm wrong. I'm judging the power of the ATs based on how I play. I recently introduced a friend to CoH, and despite everything I've tried to teach her, she's still amazingly inept. I can easily see her having trouble with the cape mission no matter what character she played, no matter how well-built - and we all know that many people gimp their characters with bad power and slot choices.

I'm sure there will be more than *just* Arenas in Issue 4. Maybe some new ATs, new artwork, whatever. Look back at issues 1, 2, and 3... have they let us down yet? The new issues are what keeps us playing, really.

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No matter how you slice it, flying is ultimately safer than super speed

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Not indoors. In an indoor mission, Superspeed is by far safer due to the stealth component.

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If flyspeed had the same max as runspeed, why would anyone ever take superspeed?

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Why would anyone take Superspeed if Fly could be slotted up to the same speed...

1) SS gives stealth, which makes a big difference in indoor missions.

2) SS doesn't affect your accuracy.

3) SS has Hasten as a prerequisite, making it very attractive because, in effect, that's no prerequisite at all. (Most people take it anyway.)

I think that if six-slotted Fly was the same speed as Superspeed, plenty of people would still take SS for the above reasons.

Remember, that's five slots you'd have to spend to get to that speed. That's not something most people would be willing to do.

Hold on, folks. I speak gibberish. Let me see if I can establish communication here...

Hibbity trump, tarnation of fiend pretty! Juniper slang *POP*... of tearing drip, oh my drop. Grabbed my ran out itching, sorry wept. Twisting cat squeeze *POP AGAIN*, in blue pajamas. Tell eighties in Australia, before it's too late. Play quarter *bing* then wakka-wakka, GONE TO THE AMERICANS!!!!!!!