TwoHeadedBoy

No biggie. Let us know ASAP though obviously.. Can we expect an update tomorrow?

Thanks!

Nah, I run CO on max settings and have yet to have an object actually be in my hands when I attempt to throw it.

...That wouldn't have been amusing to me or debate inspiring at all.

Haha. I mean, I'm all for other sets being buffed to be as good as Mental. I mean I suggested it, adamantly and frequently. I think game balance is great and theoretically all sets for a given AT should be equally good. But given that they aren't, and now never will be, what I have a problem with people saying an AT as a WHOLE is bad. /Mental is fine. Fire and Archery are fine. The problem isn't with the AT, it's with granted, a fairly large multitude of powersets, within the AT. It doesn't mean that Blasters are unequivocally bad though. Since some Blasters are awesome.

Huh?? I built my TW/FA the same way, 32.5% to all positions. And he needs DS to hit 32.5% to melee. Dechs made it pretty popular to build 32.5% s/l/e/n for Dark Armor Brutes. Are his brutes gimpy too? o.o

This was what spawned the whole conversation we're having. Context is important.
Now, let's look at where that came from.

So now we have context. We were strictly discussing build performance. Hopeling intentionally diverted the conversation onto subjective ground, and so here we are. The entire conversation was about game mechanics, and I made the statement about 'fun' because I was addressing the angle that subjective fun had anything to do with what we were talking about at ALL.

I felt that the whole idea of fun was silly and illogical because it was brought up in the context of a conversation about build mechanics.

If you showed me your costume in game, or we teamed together and enjoyed each other's company, it'd be a completely different story. But this part of the forums, and the part of the conversation I intended to engage in, was about game mechanics, which are the most important and enjoyable part of this game to me.

See, when you say 'playstyle' I immediately think the way that someone goes about playing their character in an active game environment. Everything will inevitably play differently, and some things that are intended for the same purpose will play better than others.

Look, I can't sit here and tell someone how to be awesome at hanging out in Pocket D. I can't export the formula to be awesome at costume making. It's just not possible. No one can, because there's no measurable way to be good at those things. They are a means to their own end, and completely subjective by nature.

What I can do is point out that certain powerset combos are glaringly deficient when compared to others. I can tell you what I play, and why I play it. I can communicate to you why what I play is top tier with indisputable evidence.

You cannot communicate to me why your costume is good, and why your story rules. Sure, you can explain why you like it. But no matter how many people agree with you, or how right you think you are, I can still think it sucks. And you can't prove to me that I'm wrong in a logical, unbiased way. That's where we differ.

I also said that not making sense was ok if it was fun for you. But this part of the forums is for things that make sense. We have a roleplaying section too, ya know.

*If you complain, I'll kill you.

Wait a minute... Do you think I like, fly around Atlas Park on my decked out characters, jumping on DFB runs and then going, "ERROR: YOUR BUILD APPROACH IS ILLOGICAL?"

No. When I play the game I pal around with my friends, talk to people about their characters and my characters, and do otherwise completely normal COH stuff.

The AT boards are here for the purposes of discussing AT's. That's a part of the game that I happen to find the most interesting (I've already explained why it's the most important part of the game to me, earlier in the thread.) This is where people come to talk about builds, to talk about max performance, that kind of stuff.

I just don't see anything condescending or out of line about talking about using max possible character performance as the strongest and ultimately most important point of reference on a subsidiary of the forums that's designated for discussion of character performance.

And being good at making builds goes hand in hand with being good at the game. Iron Man wouldn't be a good super hero if he couldn't even put his suit together.

And to elaborate:

The good thing about being awesome at COH is that anyone can do it, as long as they pay their sub fee and play the game... Which I think everyone should've done anyways, but that's besides the point.

When people say to me, "Oh THB, your builds are great, but they're so expensive! I don't have that much inf!" What I do is link them to the market forums. Seriously. This isn't the US economy in game. It's ridiculously easy to make money for builds in COH. I can cite examples if you'd like, but in the meantime let's assume the "expensive" point is ticked off. If you're not willing to put the work into collecting the resources for your build, how is it fair for your character to be as good as someone else's, when they worked for a month on their character getting the best stuff and you spent two days?

The next thing people say is, "Oh THB, not everyone plays the same sets as you do! Not everyone picks the best possible combinations that you lay out for them!"

The response to this is pretty easy. If you know that there's a best combination, that you could not possibly, in any way perform at the same level as on a different combination, and you willingly and voluntarily play a known underperforming character, that's your fault. It's like saying, "Help me! I knew the beach was wet, but I built my house here anyways!" Maybe you have fun living on the beach, and you have a right to have fun. Your fun is your choice. But when the tide knocks your house over, don't start blaming the inland houses for it.

Now, you might find under performing fun, and that's your prerogative.

But when it can be empirically proven to you that, for example, Mental Manipulation achieves the highest possible performance of any Blaster secondary, but you still play sets besides mental Manipulation, that's on you.

Now, the Devs attempted to buff the other sets in order to vaguely mirror Mental's performance. That's fine. The dev's chose to reward you for playing suboptimal sets, probably under the pretense that other people didn't know any better.

And you can still have fun with your alts. I know I do. The difference is that I don't expect AT's or sets that I know for a fact will under perform to be as good as my mains, who I know for a fact will perform to the highest possible standard.

Hey buddy, I was actually just about to update this and tell everyone to plan on next weekend. Is there any specific day/time that would be best for you?

The only problem is that in COH, there's no rule saying that guns aren't allowed. So if I'm the only one who brought a gun, I didn't do anything wrong. Everyone else is just retarded.

Sorry. I get testy when people call me factually incorrect.

The difference is that whereas your approach to finding enjoyment in the game is entirely subjective and unprovable by logic and reason, thus making it unreasonable and pointless by nature, my approach to the game can be understood and explained in a sensible fashion. I think logic is fun, you think it's fun to be illogical. I have to say that if we're attempting to establish which of our approaches makes sense and which doesn't, it has to be advantage: me. But then you have fun by making no sense, as we've demonstrated, so I won't hold it against you.

Those things cannot be quantified. Character performance can be logically understood and right or wrong, best and worst, can be determined in a logical fashion. I can't import the quality of your costume vs mine into excel nor the amount of fun that you're having vs me. The only thing that we can reasonably understand and compare is character performance.

Calling advantageous investment a handicap is a logical fallacy. If we were discussing another means of investing money and time for personal gain (which, make no mistake about it, is exactly what MMO's are.) Say, the stock market for example- Would I have a handicap because I intentionally invested my research (time) and money (money) into the most advantageous stocks I could find? Or would I just be demonstrating that I can make logical decisions that I am able to profit from?
So choosing to handicap yourself and obtaining similar, while not optimal results (because the results won't be optimal in comparison) makes you superior? I'm sorry, but I'm just not able to follow your train of thought to a logical conclusion.

Also, just to clarify, because this isn't a point that I don't make often enough...

I do believe that there is a place for playing suboptimal characters. I do it on a fairly regular basis, in fact; I have a well build but unpurpled Peacebringer that I am very fond of playing, for example. He is just enjoyable to play for me. I have other alts too- And that's how I make the distinction. I have my serious, well-built and heavily invested in characters who I expect to perform at the highest possible standard. These are the ones that I put the most emphasis on and spend the most time playing- Hopefully for good reason. But I also have my "casual" characters, or my alts, that I play for purely lighthearted and often sentimental or investigatory purposes, or, because I'm bored or curious.

The moral of the story is that I put quite a bit more time and inf. into my mains than I do my alts, and for good reason- Because they perform at a higher level. When I knowingly play my Peacebringer, or my Energy Blast Corruptor, I know for a fact that they will not perform as well as my mains. I don't whine or gripe about their level of performance, and I don't expect them to be as good as serious characters. That's where the disconnect seems to be occurring here, when people expect sets that are known to perform at suboptimal levels to be as good as sets that function at and reach the highest levels of performance.