UberGuy

I wonder where you learned what they're like?

1. Where do PVP IOs appear in that sentence?
2. If you add PVP IOs to that sentence it references two ways to get them:
   1. Hero/Villain Merits
   2. Drops

I have to say, I won't miss players like him.

Heh.

I think the game has to end now just because Hyperstrike posted in defense of something GG said. I'm pretty sure that's the Seventh Sign of the Apocalpyse.

It should not have been subjective at all in the context I gave for how Warburg Scientists behave. Combat AI were "well-behaved" in the sense that they exhibited basically none of those behaviors.

Can you name the last time a swarm of, say, 5th Column had a hard time running up a ramp to chase you? The last time they fell off a ledge trying to get you you? Compared to Warburg Scientists, how often did they get stuck on railings or curbs? On rough terrain?

Bane Spider Commandos (minion), Bane Spider Scout (LT), Wolf Spider Tac Ops (LT), Wolf Spider Huntsmen (boss), Crab Spider Webmasters (boss) and Bane Spider Executioners (boss) all have Web Grenade, and the boss versions actually have an AoE version.

Arachnos Tarantulas, just the mundane minion guys, have enough -fly in their basic spit attack (Venom Bolt) to overcome the fly provided by Hover, which is quite significant. Toxic Tarantulas have a variation on Web Grenade.

Neither Fortunatas/Widows, various non-Tarantula drones, nor any of the Mu have any -fly effects that I recall. Overall, though, the presence of basic minion types and several boss types with -fly (Tarantulas and Bane Spider Commandos) does make it pretty noticeable.

No worries. Thanks for even answering it to that effect.

Edit: FPAUG sounds like it ought to be a Tolkien dragon.

What's more likely? That I had a cabal of posters come and lie on the forums for every reader to see to defend my position, or that the one person everyone was disagreeing with was the victim of his own spectacular inability to comprehend what was being said?

Why don't I provide a link to another thread where that same thing happened. Here's a thread where you piled in and promptly started driving the discussion down narrower and more convoluted arguments about the semantics of the words used in order to defend positions that felt tangential to the original debate. Watching you in this thread is amazing - every 10 posts or so you're involved in an almost completely different argument.

Here are a few fine quotes in response to your posts (none of which were responses to me). These are just samples; there are more like this in the thread.

But yeah, it totally makes sense that in a thread where you and I argued, everyone on my side of the argument was "my fan club". Yeah, you caught me, man.

I actually did post a lot in that thread (which is why I have a link to it), but most of my interaction was actually with another poster, and not with A_F. I should add that, for as much as that other poster and I disagreed, I actually rather enjoyed most of the debate with him, I learned new things by engaging in it, and was never angry about having had the discussion.

For what its worth, there was a segment of the existing player base asking for further end-game progression. I'm not claiming that the system we got was what those players wanted, or that the amount of focus that system got relative to other "stuff to do" had the right balance. (Especially since judgement of those things is going to be highly subjective.) But the devs didn't come up and "impose" the Incarnate system without input from players.

Personally, I wasn't looking for them to add this, but was excited when they said they were going to. I actually liked the idea behind the Incarnate system, but wish some of the specifics regarding how they went about it were different. I didn't particularly like how grindy it was, even though I did "grind it" extensively. (I liked the results, so I tolerated the grind.) I also didn't particularly like the focus on leagues (oversized teams), though I again believe that's something that some parts of the player base did want more of. (A-la Hamidon and RWZ raids.) And finally I disliked the imbalance in progress options between league and non-leagues (including soloists).

Just to try and put in perspective why I liked the idea of the system, while I liked CoH's alt-friendly nature, I always favored a subset of my characters, and played them more than the others. The ability to continue to progress those favored characters was highly attractive to me. In varying degrees, I'm pretty sure there were a fair number of other CoH players who shared that with me, and we probably made up a core of the folks who did like (or at least tolerate) iTrials.

Naturally, there were alt-o-holics who had only a small fraction of their characters at 50, let alone getting something beyond 50. And naturally, the Incarnate system didn't appeal to them so much, implementation details aside.

Ooh, look out, he broke out "son".

Beating up someone? Did you see the part where he thanked me for the tone my posts took once I really understood what he was saying? Hm. Makes me wonder if you actually read the thread.

And if you think that thread shows I don't know what I was talking about, you're either a colossal moron, or (I think more likely), you didn't read the thread. You know, because there are screenshots proving what said.

You're ignorant. Literally. You don't know me, clearly. The vast majority of my posts on these forums over the years have been to help people with game mechanical information. I have a particular enmity with A_F, (which sprung largely from that thread) and I find it instructive that you judge everything based on my interactions with him.

Is this one of those things where you expect that you're "blowing my mind"?

My best RL friend plays this game, and has been farming like that for ... ever. These days he uses, I kid you not, 12 accounts to do it with. (Well, he did, he stopped after the announcement.) So yeah, I know how that works, and have all along. Guess what? That ability of players like him to farm them has always been baked into the market prices. Do you know when the prices on the high-end ones crashed, and finally dipped under the 1-2B mark? When converters came out, and allowed the massive stockpiles of low-value PvPOs those farmers all had created to be converted into the valuable ones.

"You're wrong when I argue something that isn't what you said.""

I genuinely feel sorry for anyone that you teach.

My tactics have never changed, but they never had anything to do with what you seem to claim. I state things, and when they're challenged, I defend them.

Here's my statement that you latched onto with all the same pedantic asininity that you used to break out the forth and fifth dictionary definitions of "failure" above.

Readers should bear in mind that this discussion was posted during I18, so the only way to get purples was as drops or with Hero/Villain Merits.

Days later, after the main thread discussion had actually died down, you wandered into the thread and start arguing with the quote above because you were able to show that some Stealth IOs had been bought at prices that exceeded the price of some of the cheapest purples.

As I seem to recall, you are some sort of teacher of literature, and yet you cannot understand how indescribably, pointlessly pedantic this was. For someone with such a background (if I remember correctly) you suck at communication. Everyone in that thread, even the person with whom I was debating when I posted it, understood exactly what I meant and did not object to it. You came in after the debate was over and started a new one strictly based on semantics. In the resulting debate, you threw up Venn diagrams that proved nothing and you quoted market facts that ultimately blew up in your face. You were wrong, everyone there knew you were wrong, and you still couldn't let it go.

No, you couldn't possibly be wrong. The other people in that thread disagreed with you because they were my "fan club". Yeah, because I've always had such a big following.

Anyone who wants can read the thread from the link in the quote above. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether or not you live in your own little world of logic and meaning. I will say that this post summarizes the whole thing rather nicely, though.

And I must say I did very much enjoy making this post.

I seem to recall that most of what they were doing was generally enjoying the beatdown of your royal insufferableness.

I think the best part of that thread was that you honestly think you won any of the argument in it. Your reality distortion bubble could compete with that of the late Steve Jobs any day.

LOL, not even close. I saved that thread, dude. We really shouldn't pollute this thread further with our crap, but I'd love an excuse to quote it here.

Spiffy, so you're using the word in a way not recognized as a dictionary definition?

"Most" was the operative word. "Combatant AI" includes most enemies you face - helper NPCs are a tiny minority of the cmbat AIs we encounter. And enemy AI was pretty well-behaved.

In context, given the position implied by the post in question, I believe there is no reasonable debate that the definition number one is the one intended.

I find your pedantic desire to even debate such a wildly obvius conclusion a refreshing reminder of why I had you on ignore for a very long time.

Because the game's failure is not something you or anyone else can clearly lay at the feet of the implementation. We cannot point to how the game worked, or its lore, and say "that's why it 'failed'." We can point out things we consider flaws, but that's not the same thing as a list of reasons why the game "failed". And among the things that might be considered mistakes, is your assumption that they would immediately repeat all of them?

Whatever mistakes they may have made, these same devs have been responsible for either early creation or later work on a game that many of us here loved to play even today. At this time of closure I think we were on the verge of some of the best things ever added to the game. We want these same people to work on the game because we trust them to create something we would love to play - they proved they can do that.

Remember, when consider mistakes and paths not taken, we also have to include what we know about corporate support from NCSoft. That includes includes, among other things, shooting down an actual sequel. What "mistakes" might have been corrected there?

In any case, I think it's a bit ludicrous that you frame that question around an assumption of failure. An eight year run is hardly a failure in this context. The game being shut down at this point does not mean it "failed".