Weekend_Avenger

Drop the quotes if your converting to a macro. Failing to do so prevents it working with the unknown command failure.

The event was extremely fun, but I still feel the need to throw in a few comments.

First up is the signature Villains/Hero's... They are unstoppable, on several of the instances I was in the entire side tried them and got stomped. If it's your intention that when we see them entering the fight that we are just supposed to get out of the way that's fine, but if your expecting us to fight back, that's just not going to happen currently.

The level 54 turrets on the uncaptured pillboxes were about right in my opinion. My MM could "very slowly" take them down one at a time though they were about all I could handle alone. I doubt a "non tank" type class could take them by themselves and any of the tank types need quite a lot of time to do it alone so it's about the right challenge level.

I was dissapointed in the auto level to only 40. I want to test versus level 50's on both sides with all thier powers in play so everyone can see if the APP's/PPP's stack up fairly or if it's completely unbalanced.

In short, the zone is fun, the opportunity to test was also well appreciated, so I'd say it's a big success.

Ok, I know it's semi pointless but.

I have a level 40 MM, it takes me a minute and a half to be "ready enough" to start a mission. That's all Tiers spawned, and two with the second upgrade on them. If I'm still waiting I keep upgradeing if not, I roll with the rest of the team and finish upgrades on the fly.

As to the comparisons between the Hero and Villain AT's, it comes down to the Villains being more flexible due to them being more "hybrid" and the Hero's being stronger in highly defined roles.

I will have to disagree some with Pax_Arcana on the Defender / Linchpin thing however. Controllers have Defender primaries as thier secondary powers, I know I surely use them on my Trollers.

If there is one thing you learn playing as a Villain, it's the fact that you have to learn to be flexible and work with what you have. Brutes and MM's can both tank. Niether can match a "real" Tank but it's the same for the Hero's, in a pinch a Scrapper can fill that role if you have enough debuffers/healers around. My MM has filled in for a Corruptor on more occasions than I'd like, and while not as good as a Controller is at stepping into a Defender role, it does work. Same thing for Dominators, in a pinch Corruptors and MM's can take that role. As always on the other side, an extra Tank or Defender can cover for a missing Troller.

On either side you'll also see the "one type" teams that just steamroll things. A team of Brutes or MM's on the Villain side is pretty much unstoppable, same can be said of all Troller or Defender teams.

My point is, that no one is irreplacable even if the group is a lot less "optimal" than it could be. Villains by their nature are better at this, since they are all focused on damage and there is really never an "optimal" team for them anyhow.

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Yes ... giving us the formulas would help us. It would also give any competition they might have invaluable assistance in building their games, and may even void any patents or potential patents the game might get.

Priorities... letting people design the ultimate toon ... or tossing all their corporate copyrighted information out there for free... decisions... decisions... decisions...

Everytime I hear people discuss "planning their AT and needing the numbers" I cringe.

Here's a concept. Build a toon. Play it. See if it sucks. Learn how to get around said suckage.

Wash-rinse-repeat until you have one you really like. My favorite toons - were never built using a numbers template - I just played them and enjoyed them. I never thought about the numbers and 90% of the people in the game don't either.

They were hard - and I had to learn a lot through trial and error and eventually they're all awesome toons. Needing the numbers to build a good toon is like - - needing to know the specs on a cars engine to enjoy a drive on a sunday.

Sure it might help - but it's hardly necessary - and in general gets in the way of enjoying the scenery if you have to stop and monkey with the mechanics every 10 miles to make sure it's in top performance. If for some weird reason - they change the road on you - or the car suddenly isn't able to out run that sporty new job ... you're spending waaay too much time mechanics - and not enough on enjoying the drive.

No matter how much they nerf something - it will not change anything. You will still have to play - and it will suddenly become harder. Now... half the posts in these forums scream that new content needs to be added... something has to change.

Okay - it just changed. Is your toon unplayable? Or is it just harder than ever? If it's one - then guess what, game rules changed and it's time to start the process over.

If it's just harder than ever... over come it. Haven't seen anyone on these forums yet that isn't capable of rising to that occasion. We got great players in this game... if the game gets harder - we just gotta get smarter... and we will.

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Ok, while I utterly disagree with your position I feel I owe it to you after that long a post to tell you why I feel that way.

First thing is even if we had the exact formula's used, they would be fairly close to worthless for any other company to try and use simply due to the fact of balance.

The calculations are also not rocket science here. If I was building a game, and wanted a base ACC of 50% versus something of the same level, combined with min / max values of 30% and 90% to hit adding in buffs/debuffs, while also considering that I wanted anything ten levels below you to hit the max cap while anything ten levels above hit the min cap... This sort of formula might take me a half hour to work out, but it would take any semi competent game designer a few minutes tops to do the same.

The real reason that developers don't put out such info easily is not to keep the competition from finding out (they know, or can find out easily by testing), it's to prevent the players from actually realizing how over/under performing some of the AT/Powers/whatever are, and complaining about it. It also prevents them from having to "fess up" when they botch some coding and players can point out their errors and whine for fixes.

There are games that have a lot more hard numbers published than this one, WoW, Anarchy Online, and many more. In some games like AO you really do have to plan exactly which buffs/implants/items you'll need to have available just to equip a weapon as well as knowing the ramifications of how that weapon will perform if all those buffs/implants/items are not present while your useing it.

None of those things makes games less enjoyable, you don't HAVE to know them to be able to play and succeed but for those of us who make decisions based on what things actually do, lack of hard numbers is very annoying.

Some of us don't build computers without knowing how big the power supply must be to add the parts we want. Some of us won't buy cars without knowing how many people fit in it, and what kind of mileage it gets. Some of us won't buy houses, without knowing how much utilities and taxes are going to cost us per year.

For some of us, makeing INFORMED decisions matters, even if it just a game.

Just putting in my plea as so many others in this thread have already done...

Please Dev's, just give us the ACCURATE FORMULA'S that you use in game for powers.

This would help all of us to make decisions, and would allow the player base to inform you when something is not working AS PUBLISHED.

It is utterly pointless to attempt to "plan" a AT in game without hard numbers. I can add a enhancement to my powers which may give it a 33/20/whatever amount of "boost" but without knowing what the base actually is, it is an uninformed decision at best. While the Hero Planners help in this regard, there is still a dark cloud of mystery around making decisions in game about our AT's and this needs to end.