Vae_Victis

That is something I can certainly agree with Arcanaville.

The original devs of CoH may have intended to add PvP all along but if the game was actually designed w/ PvP in mind there was a lot, and I mean a lot, of naivete in the process.

If the original devs designed CoH w/ PvP in mind they did a lot of things to impede their on progess that could have been implemented much more simply and/or smartly.

One could easily argue CoV was designed specifically w/ PvP in mind...but, no, not CoH I think. I've *always* viewed CoV as the devs taking all the mistakes they made in CoH and learning from them, both PvE and PvP.

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My longest running issue with CoH is that I would rather kill 100 tough villains that take minutes to kill and then level, than mow down eight thousand blades of grass.

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Though your opinion is somewhat more vocal I'd have to say, overall, it's in the minority as far as CoX is concerned.

The "eight thousand blades of grass," with a few tougher foes (AV/GM's) thrown in for good measure, is more akin to people's vision of what is typical of heroes and villains while "100 tough villains that take minutes to kill," I'm assuming one-at-a-time, is more typical of every other MMORPG (at least the others I have played).

Yes it makes for quick and dirty play at times, but it also gives CoX a unique voice among MMORPG's as far as I'm concerned.

Besides, b/f this change was implemented I'd want proof that the devs could design an encounter that would be interesting over several minutes, not just a bag of health where you cycle the same attacks until the health is no more. The "8000 blades of grass" does a good job of masking this shortcoming IMO.

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I have no problem missing, even missing most of the time, if I haven't chosen to focus on my hit chance.

Its when I've invested in hitting (ie: 2 slots dedicated to accuracy) that it bothers me to miss.

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Even if your opponent didn't have to invest in any Defense?

If I haven't invested any To-Hit and my opponent hasn't invested in Defense it should be 50/50.

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If you mean no tohit buffs and no accuracy slotted, I'd expect to miss basically my whole chain.

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Agreed except for this. No To-Hit and no Defense, on 4-5 attacks I would expect 2 to hit consistently w/ the 3rd being questionable, and the other 1 or 2 being lucky hits if they hit.

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slower fights

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Absolutely not. The speed is the #1 ingredient keeping me and the majority of PvP'ers I know in the game. When people talk about how innovative CoX PvP the speed is usually forming the core of that opinion.

If I wanted slow I wouldn't have quit WoW PvP. The day I find myself running across Siren's using Sprint and Fitness (as the norm, not b/c I'm debuffed) is the day I quit CoX as well.

Give an Arena option to completely turn off travel powers.

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You can't have gankers if people can't gank.

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And I guess that's assuming everyone in PvP has the same amount of knowledge and skill?

I gank plenty on my Mind/Psi Dom...and go out of my way to specifically target fotm elite builds on a build probably every elite PvP'er would consider underperforming.

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Well...the Devs gave the PvPers the Arena and the ability to PvP...

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what else do you need really

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How about that the Arena actually worked as advertised...or even remotely reliably at least.

Ever tried setting up an Arena match besides the basic 1-on-1...or, god forbid, a series of them?

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You're not a badger or you'd know how difficult and challenging that truly is.

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Sleeping while your computer runs overnight is "difficult and challenging"?

I think you meant "time-consuming and inane."

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I think Castle hates pvp.

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Guess what WOW had PVP from ground up day one DAOC which still has about the same subs as COX was built ground up with PVP
UO which is still going after like 10 years has PVP ground up.

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Good point. Never again will I invest in a MMORPG that doesn't have an implented plan for PvP from the get-go.

Otherwise I would have left CoH for Vanguard 2 months ago. A lot of Q3 MMORPG's are looking promising though.

Also otherwise looks like the two sides of the fence in this thread are going to have to agree to disagree. Too bad it's looking like the devs are going to have to pick one.

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In fact, PVE does the opposite of pay the bills. PVE only develops a core of players that burn through 3 month of development in a weekend. Does that make them happy? Not at all, they go on to cry on whatever forum board that another 3 months of development can't be done instantly to stop their boredom.

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Wow, that explains why almost all of the population is running PvE content, and the PvP zones are almost empty most of the time.

Wait...

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It also explains why every server is green except for two and the majority of PvE zones are empty "most of the time"...

Unless it's chocked full of articficial time-sinks or farming there is simply no way PvE content can keep up w/ players, there is an eventual terminal point. Some players just reach it faster than others.

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nobody else played horizons /e cry

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I beta'd and played release for a few months if that counts. :/

Still the greatest game soundtrack ever IMO. Beautiful, beautiful music. To bad the rest of the game was broken beyond belief.

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Steel Worker exploration badge (Invader)
Found in the Skyway City mayhem mission map (-648, -41, -4031).

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Just noticed this. Think you meant Steel Canyon, and what would be the correct coordinates for it?

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/loc -4599.9, 0.3, 1497.6

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I hate to poke holes in the work of others, but you should really qualify your guide somewhat. I see at least 1/2 of the powers you mentioned with not only fairly unpopular slotting choices, but no further explanations.

The lowest tier punks with only ONE ACC?? Tar patch with only one recharge? Almost every power you have I would have serious comments to make. Alas, I haven't the time right now.

At least do the readers a favour and qualify the slotting. I.e. with only one recharge tarpatch won't be available all the time, but you save the slots for ______ else... I don't know. I wouldn't recommend that for anyone.

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Agreed about the slotting. It's fairly wacky.

I wouldn't think of trying to solo an AV on my various */DM MM's w/o Howling Twilight. If your looking at that power and only seeing a rez your missing the point...I consider the rez almost a side effect to primary effects of the de-buffs.

It is also arguably the most valuable power (next to LR and Vengeance) in the Recluse Strike Force, where I don't give a damn how good your team is, against 8 lvl 54 AV's people are going to die.

My Twilight Grasp slotting suggestion is also 2 ACC, 3 Heal, 1 Recharge. That 1 Recharge allows you to stack the -Regen on AV's (I set TG to auto-cast when solo'ing AV's) to make sure it's always there.

Also if you want to be a true munchkin...take Magic as your Origin to get the Apprentice Charm...used properly you can stack 10-30% extra -Res on top of Tar Patch.

I recommend 3 ACC and 3 Rech for Gang War...they do pitiful damge (even slotted for Dam) and 3 ACC guarantees they maintain aggro (which what they are for...not damage).

And yeah...2 ACC in all henchies...3 in Thugs if not running Tactics.

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Ignite isn't autohit. It has a higher base accuracy than Flamethrower, but it isn't autohit. Say, about 5% higher or so.

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hmmm....if I remember right both Ignite and Burn are both +100% ACC.

So they do miss, just not very often, even against +Defense powers. My perma-Elude DM/SR Scrapper in PvP could stand in a patch and only take 3 or 4 ticks of damage back in the day though.

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As far as I've seen, the effects of Envenom do not stack - though I believe the effects of Weaken do.

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Correct. Like Benumb from the /Cold Domination Corruptor set this power wrecks AV's/Heros/Elite Bosses/etc and is very good in PvP.

Especially handy against Controllers, Fear users, and Energy Melee.

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I suspect that the difference to a hardcore anti-demon person is that in CoH all the demons, zombies and such are villains to be defeated. In many other RPGs you can play characters who either summon or are these types of characters.

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Except that fire controllers can summon fire imps, which are a kind of demon (or sound like they are. The primary meaning of "imp" is a small familiar type demon.)

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My Fire Imps aren't demons per se, merely the form I choose when psychically manipulating the fire that is a by-product of my mutation.

Just adding two things:

For Soul Drain to be perma w/ Hasten + Quickness + 5 SO's the SO's have to be above your lvl.

Also the difference (assuming even lvl SO's and Hasten + Quickness) in dowtime between 3 SO's in Soul Drain and 6 SO's is roughly 10 seconds. That's not much downtime reduction for a build that is very, very slot intensive.

But I went w/ 4 Recharges as well. The reason is, b/c of the diminishing returns, if the SO's are above your lvl the diminishing returns don't kick in heavily until the 4th Reducers. However, you spend a l

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take a look at this
"So 'sploit while you can. Attacks like FSC that do both Lethal and Fire are particularly effective. "

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I remember that post b/c it was mine. That was about Fire/Lethal doing 10x the damage to DE Bladegrass instead of double. It's been long deleted now b/c of either content or age.

I was being sarcastic in knowing how quickly and effectively exploits (I personally don't exploit/pwrlvl) are taken advantage of and are soon seen as part of the game.

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You can shrink/enlarge every part of your body via a cool little slider system. The face has (I think) 7 areas that can be adjusted. From eye size, to cheek bones, chin size, to over all head width and height. All 7 features can be sclaed in x, y, and/or z directions. I believe we'll not be seeing to heroes with the same face anymore.

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How about Eye/Eyebrow color?

*Goes back to lvling his Rad/Rad Defender*

I've already imagined the carnage a whole team of Rad heroes will cause.

If people couldn't pwrlvl their Controllers to 32 and actually had to grind them, I think that would help tremendously. (Yes I have a Fire/Rad Controller and yes he has every Contact available to a lvl 24 hero taken to Confidant lvl.)

Having said that, the non-Illusion/Fire Controllers need better post-32 rewards. The extreme difference between a pre-32 Fire/Illusion and a post-32 Fire/Illusion perfectly matches the description of Controllers from the character creation screen IMO.

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Bit of an odd one I know, but everyone deserves a forum avatar (ok, maybe almost everyone) and here is an easy way to do it.

You will need:
1) An image you like (screenshot of your CoH Toon maybe).
2) Image editing software (demo of Photoshop is easy to get).
3) An internet connection (you do have one don’t you?)
4) A place to host your image (I may have idea on this one).

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<.<

>.>

5) A NES Emulator
6) A Print Screen button

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Then run straight east (perpendicular to wall) to your mission, usually over Julius's bridge which further reduces chances of accidental aggro.

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And how do you propose getting past the level 15 Madness Mage that is sitting outside your mission door?

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Now this is a problem. I personally just hop on a higher lvl alt and wipe them out real quick.

The actual mission doors themselves should have a "safe area" around them.

But I still stand beside my point that running through hazard zones is a skill that players should develop. The name says it all they're *Hazard* zones after all.

Also, never underestimate the stealth component of SS alone. I've ghosted through several missions catching glowies and bosses w/o any accidental aggro at all w/ only SS.

I solo'd the Atta mission at an even lvl w/ my Rad/Rad Defender this way. SS + Stealth = too much if you know what your doing.

Getting to missions deep in the Hollows is easy as can be.

Instead of running diagnally to your mission, run along the wall the entrances to Atlas/Skyway are at. The mobs stay at lvl 7 and below nearly all the way to the Sky entrance where you'll meet 10+ CoT, which are easily avoided.

Then run straight east (perpendicular to wall) to your mission, usually over Julius's bridge which further reduces chances of accidental aggro.

The red zone (Grendel's Gulch) is full of lvl 13+ Igneous that usually catch people w/ thier boulders who try to run diagnally. Running along the wall then east straight to your missions avoids the Igneous, who are the only real threat in the Hollows.

And Tab between enemies to see them before they are drawn in. Enemies may not be registered on the client side visually yet but the Tab always knows.

After playing other MMORPG's CoH is child's play when it comes to avoiding accidental aggro.