Twilight_Snow

The 4th option is that energy aura for scrappers and tankers can be different from the brute's version. Actually, fire melee gets a similar treatment. As mentioned before, this might make the brutes mad.

The marksmen are pretty annoying. My opinion is that most of the challenges in the game don't really defeat you, but simply slow you down in some way. What I think the dev can do is to buff the councils, such that when the marksman slows you down, the rest of the councils can actually defeat you.

It depends on why you think it is necessary to avoid two CP. If you just think that it doesn't look good to have two powers that are exactly the same, then we can simply change it to something slightly different, like what you have suggested.

If the underlying reason of avoiding two CP is that there might be too many endurance management powers for EA (on top of energy drain), then a substitute power with +end or +recovery will potentially have a similar issue. On the other hand, to port the substitute power back to brute's EA, the substitute needs to have end/recovery component in it.

But anyway, it's just some thought on this issue. In principle, things can be tuned such that everything is right without offending most people. We'll see how firm the dev will stand on this so-called cottage rule.

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This is also when I'd expect /EA to get it's final buff, to modify CP in some way.


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For heroes, if the reason of modifying CP is because of the ancillary power pool, then the CP in the proliferated EA will need to be changed such that it is no longer performing a similar function as the original CP. But then such a change will be problematic to be ported back to brute's EA, because it is essentially removing CP from the set.

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So basicly instead of using the travel power... i should fly? hrm.


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I guess they mean you can superspeed, and when you bump into a wall, turn on the raptor pack to get over it, then continue to superspeed. Actually, I used to do that for some of my toons, I pick superspeed and then hover, which is quite a good combo if your character build is not tight.

I think it's a good idea to walk on the wall. Let's just put it in the wish list, rather than always no and no to suggestions. *hugs*

I agree that most team members don't know the story when the team is doing a story arc. However, missions from story arcs are usually less monotonic, there can be ambushes, AV, different maps and different mobs. For newspaper, people pick the same mob types, nearly the same map, and actually even the same mission door for a good laugh.

I also agree that if you're playing with friends and there are substantial level difference among the team mates, hazard zones will be a problem. That's why all the threads that suggest putting level restriction to PI are all vetoed. I think the issue here is that when the team doesn't have such level difference, and the decision is still to do newspaper most of the time, then it is quite annoying.

EA for brutes might be done though. EA for proliferation is different. For brutes, the improvements made were minor, the dev probably don't think EA has much problem to start with. The buff were made probably just because we are annoying. I don't know if they will spend the time to look at it the second time.

Edit: Maybe they will look at the brute EA set the second time, but a couple years later. *giggle*

I published my arc 10 days ago. I don't think anybody play it except myself.

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You can argue if you want, but I rather get back to the original topic, how to deter farming and to improve missions overall.


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It's really hard. In the forum, there are people who like to farm, or think that farming is not a problem and not against any rules. Most discussions will be off topic and what you want to discuss will be drowned.

For the dev, the baseline is to make money. They make things that people will pay the subscription to continue to pay their salary.

Back to farming, farming just means repeating something. If you want to discourage farming, there are two basic ways. One is to make repeating impossible. The other is to make new game content to provide alternatives for players.

You can refer to my previous post. There are a couple tricks that players use to repeat a mission, for example resetting a mission. I think something along this line can be done. In general, there are no way to completely stop players from repeating game content. We can do a tf again and again for example.

The other is to make various things for players to do. I think this is where risk vs reward or time vs reward come in. Because now, players have options. Ideally, the options should be equal such that there shouldn't be any bias towards certain content. But practically, this is not the case. As mentioned, players choose to do the same mission over and over again, rather than doing various kinds of missions.

Actually, I don't really know what can be done about it. If the purpose of playing the game is to have some fun without getting bored, then non-farming should be the obvious choice. But some players have "fun" by earning a lot of inf, xp, or purpling their builds, then you can't blame these people for farming.

Sometimes, I think that the only way to get out of all these things is to have no xp, no inf, no items in the game. Then there is no need to farm. In some way, I kinda like the old CoH as there were no items, and inf was just used for buying new costumes. The only farms were xp farms. Now, the game is completely different.

I believe the dev is probably done with EA for brutes. Nobody bother to unsticky the thread. I guess when we move to the new forum, the thread will be gone.

My suggestions to reduce non-AE farming:

1. Don't allow players to reset missions.

2. For radio/newspaper, when a player gets freakshow a couple times, the random mission generator will give you something else, for example CoT. Players can get around this by zoning in and out. The random mission generator should not forget the history even the player zones. (I guess the star can be passed around the team, but still the team can only do freakshows a finite number of times consecutively)

3. Certain high-level mobs need an upgrade, for example Freakshows and Councils. They are too easy for a high-level team.

4. Need more new content, and/or revamp some old content. The dev team is always working on it, I believe.

For AE farming, I don't want to say anything yet. The OP suggestion
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4) Eliminate all exp gained from AEs and instead replace it with a form of 'build-up' experience bonus.
---> When you log out now, you gain a bonus to your exp gain. Have this bonus also be gained by doing AEs. There is a max cap you can hit for this, so while doing AEs can give you some good stuff via tickets and faster exp when you level, it makes it so people aren't creating missions for the sole reason to farm.
---> Even if you do farm, it will only help you through one level. So farms will still exist but theyre magnitude will be limited.


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may make people unhappy. Probably we can come up with something less radical than that.

The game is repetitive in essense. So, of coz, there can't be any rules against farming, because farming just means repeating something. The dev trys to avoid the feeling of repetitiveness by providing context to the gameplay like story arcs, and create a great variety of stories such that players can pick. Many stories are pretty deep and interconnected with each other. However, it is still up to the players about what they pick. All the dev can do is to provide options. Players can choose to do the same thing everytime and ignore the options.

To the OP:
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Now we have to deal with it in all the zones with an AE building in it!! I was looking for a team in Talos. I was picked up & he said we doing a MA farm. I quit. Got picked up again for the same thing & again, I quit. So I started my own team. Got a few & they all quit since I was doing regular missions & not MA farm ones. I would like to know if there is anything the Devs can do to stop these farmers?


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Sorry to hear that, in particular it doesn't work even you put together a team. As I explained above, it's not exactly the fault of AE, but it's what players choose to do.

This topic can be discussed in the sticky EA thread in the brute forum. It's ok to be discussed here as well. But the sticky won't die for a while and you don't need to bump it. Although EA has been "fixed" by the dev, a lot of the ideas there are actually more suitable for proliferation.

There is no cottage rule for proliferation. The idea behind the cottage rule is that the dev don't want to substantially change a power that a player has already picked. Since no tankers or scrappers can pick any power from energy aura yet, there will be no cottage rule here. But of coz, replacing a power by something else will make energy aura a different power set technically.

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There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Devices. it doesn't appeal to a large percentage of players, but, there is another sizable percentage that loves the set (myself included) who would be extremely upset if drastic changes were made to it because the other half of the population wanted more burst damage.


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I think so as well. But there is a good reason why players want more burst damage. This is just a consequence of the overall design of the game. The game is probably a bit easy, so most of the teams are about killing faster. And a lot of the strategies, tactics and character building are centered on killing faster or help to kill faster. There are tough content in the game, but once players figure it out, it's also about killing faster.

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True story. I have a Stealth IO in Hover (my sonic/devices hasn't walked anywhere in close to a year, his legs will atrophy soon) Nothing except Rikti Drones and snipers ever sees me.


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After introduction of IO, some of the characteristics of device can be acquired through IO, for example targeting drone and cloaking device. Blasters don't need to go to device for such features. One can argue that IO bonus can add on top of device abilities. But I think it's true to a certain extent that device lost some of its attractiveness now.

Finally, I just want to make a couple comments on device, and not replying to anybody in particular. I think device can be made very fun. For example, gun drone can be made a mastermind-type pet that blasters can send to somewhere and control its attacks. I guess most people will say no, but I think such bot fits the theme of the powerset. And I think it's probably better just to let us time the timed bomb. Rather than automatically detonating after 15 sec, let us decide when to detonate (of coz, the bomb has to be nerfed in some way such that we can't get a cheap nuke, for example make it low accuracy, or make it a debuff bomb rather than damage bomb). This will keep its original flavor but will be more useful in a general situation as well.

I know this suggestion has been brought up numerous times in the past, and it was vetoed everytime. However, the motivation of the suggestion:
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I personally hate standing in one area looking for a team or trying to create one when everyone around my level is in PI or Grandville asking to be farmed. I know I can play the game alone but this is a MMORPG, I would like to play along side other heros/villians. I just think the farm thing has gotten a little too out of control.


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does has a point.

I don't know what can be done. I think the dev does a pretty good job in publishing new game contents. New players need to play at least several toons to exhaust the content. If players choose to farm (not only PI/GV farm, also other forms of farming like doing newspaper over and over) for whatever reason, what can you do? They pay their subscription to do the things they want.

For JadeWarrior, the only thing that I can think of is if you can find somebody with a similar mind as yours, then you can form a little fun group to play with them regularly.

Sounds like a good idea. I want bees and fire ants.

To the OP: Good idea. I doubt that the suggestion will happen soon. There is no right or wrong about design. It would be great if interested players can look into the design notes such that we can understand what the dev think. On the other hand, the dev might not want us to know what they think sometimes. You know, there are always some nasty things behind. And design principles change with time as well. But I believe in the (far) future, the interaction between players and dev can be at a higher level, and things can be more transparent.

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So what's so wrong with the set now?


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As you mentioned, the changes are some small tweaks that help in large teams, and a little toxic resistance that I'm not sure a lot of people care. For those people who think that EA is seriously broken in the past, I don't think the improvements can change their mind. For those who were ok with EA, I believe the small tweaks improve their quality of life.

I don't think there is really something wrong with the powerset. For those people who don't like the set, they just don't like the overall design, and nothing can fix it unless the powerset is re-designed. Personally, I just wish that some thematic things can be incorporated into powerset. For example higher energy def/res, -end/recovery res, higher defense debuff res. These don't have much to do with survival, so it's not a big deal. They are things that I think EA should have and the dev probably needs to give us a reason why EA lacks these things.

For the future, it would be interesting to know how EA will be proliferated to other ATs. While some of the suggestions in this thread don't seem to be realistic, for example merging passives and removing conserve power, the ideas are ok for proliferation.

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POINT:

There are certain advantages to increasing the ease with which players can transfer inf and items between characters on their accounts. The biggest is probably that players that want to do transfers would be able to avoid the complication of finding someone to help them, and the ensuing risk associated with such transactions. It would also mean that the Consignment House would not be used for such transfers, and the possibility of having those transactions intercepted by others is avoided. Since players already go through the process even with such complications, removing those complications seems like a positive change. With the addition of inventions, many players will find that the salvage they need for a recipe on character X exists in storage on character Y. Being able to trade between these two characters avoids the need to use the Consignment House, which does not provide a sure way to get a recipe or salvage from one character to another. If you view all your characters as a collective time investment, then what one character does should not be limited to just that character. Popular suggestions are the ability to send items via an “e-mail” system, or using the CH to send items, or a bank which contains the total inf earned by account, from which any character on the account may draw for use in purchases.


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This sums up the argument pretty nicely. The counterpoints are a little weak though.

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COUNTERPOINT:

In addition, the ability to circumvent the CH may not be intended by the devs. Indeed, a warning when the CH first launched suggested players should not try to use the CH for transfers. Allowing players to utilize the items they obtain on any character may significantly reduce the use of the CH, which may also not be desirable.


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If players were allowed to transfer items directly between characters, I doubt that it would hurt the CH a lot. I don't think there are enough recipe and salvage space that one can store enough stuffs to allow the person avoiding the CH completely. A more efficient way to encourage players using CH is to lower the storage space. Transfer between characters plays a relatively minor role.

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Most importantly, transferring items to other characters on your account might allow those characters to outperform characters of an equal level but who have not received transfers. If that happens, it would become more difficult to generate content for players that is both challenging for assisted characters, while still beatable for those characters that have not been assisted. Game changes have already been done to limit the ability of characters that were outperforming dev expectations.


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I think I can ask someone to help me transfer 10 mil to my low-level character. I don't think this point matters at all.

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Who the hell doesn't run with IOs anyway? Is there some CoX equivilant of the Amish running around?


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It depends on how IO is used. If it is optimizing set bonus, then not everyone will do it. In particular, optimizing set bonus may involve rare recipes and even purple sets. In addition, it involves planning and good knowledge of the game mechanics. However, having a couple unique recipes or rare sets is within the reach of most people.

Franken-slotting a toon with IO set recipes should be ok for all players. Basically, you just pick a recipe that is cheap and don't care about set bonus. The budget can be as low as a few mil. Such kind of slotting can enhance a power in multiple ways that require less slots than using SO. In my opinion, there isn't much reason not to use IO this way, as it is cheap, effective and great QoL improvement. For those who don't use IO at all, it's actually not a big deal, that's their choice.

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Actually, considering what Positron has said about Shields, I'm guessing Castle's response would be more than unsatisfactory for me. I disagree strongly right now with what you and FW consider the 'exchange rate' for utility powers. I don't understand why almost every other defensive set is set within one range of power (some higher) and then you make another set (3 now) that are significantly worse and give them utility powers whose utility needs to be used to buy back into the standard level of performance.


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In fact, I agree with you. However, there is a concern to avoid "building cottages." It is pretty unlikely to delete a power and replace it by something completely different. Practical suggestions would be adding and tweaking existing powers. Quite a few suggestions in this thread are more suitable for modifying EA during proliferation as they are more radical. But there are still plenty of room to improve EA without building cottages, and I would like to see more thematic improvements than what is in the beta patch notes.

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I'm just going to shut up about this from now on. I'm going to wait till i13 is live and then PM Castle just asking how he sees EA and just continue playing. I'm tired of this topic honestly, particularly in light of the Shield set.


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If Castle ever replies you in detail, he might as well post his opinion in this thread, as his answers are of interest to all of us here.

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Point of the matter is I can get very good mitigation out of EA on my brute, AND have limitless endurance. Helps to keep the fury going, and NEVER have to sacrifice attacks to "manage" it better.


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I think what people complain is that EA has 2 endurance management powers. Energy drain is already good enough for endurance. Conserve power looks a bit redundant, but it is nice for handling tier 9 crash. If you look at the suggestion list, there are suggestions to replace conserve power with something else.

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So yeah, no scaling resists, no recharge bonus(to help use your non endless endurance up faster, yay), and a psi hole.

Seems like a good trade to me.


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It's quite subjective whether it is a good tradeoff. Endurance management is indirectly related to survival. At high levels, people can manage their endurance usage pretty nicely in general without endurance management powers.

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Castle, tell us what the hell this set was designed to do!

Is it supposed to be super strong to Energy like Electric is?
Is it supposed to be mediocre mitigation and have to buy more from pools with its End Recovery?
Why no Taunt in ED?
Why the same ED/CP combo?
Does the presence of Stealth and lower mitigation mean that EA isn't designed to be as tough as the other defensive sets on purpose?
What is EA supposed to be good at and what is the designed for average playstyle?

I'm sick of arguing. I want answers.

Red name response is critical on this issue. And even then, honestly, I'll continue to argue if I don't like it.


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I'm not Castle, but the answers to your questions are implicitly written in the design of EA and the coming changes. You just have to accept what it is.

SR only has defense, so there are various things to help it out, including good defense debuff resistance such that SR won't be so easily defeated.

For EA, the set is not a one-trick pony to start with. And the dev decided to put in some healing now, so EA starts to look more like a real multi-faceted power set now. Personally, I would like all the little suggestions that we made (for example higher defense debuff resistance) to be labeled as thematic change and put them all in beta. Right now, I think it's kinda hard to argue from a balance point of view that EA needs more than some healing.

In my opinion, the request to increase energy defense is just for thematic reasons. Practically, we don't need it self-capped, and we can cap it easily if we want to. So, the discussion of self-capping energy defense beyond thematic reason is really not necessary, as the request is solely for thematic reason. If capping energy defense is overpowering, I believe EA's energy defense needs to be nerfed, because we're already capping it too easily.

There are in fact quite a lot of suggestions that match the theme of energy aura, but currently not included in the set, increasing energy defense and resistance is just one of them. Please see Section B in the first post for details. Personally, I would like to see more of those suggestions incorporated into EA. Most of them just add some flavor to the set.