artic1337

OK, new suggestion.

Status Effect RESISTANCE power pool.

Toggles or clicks that reduce the duration of effects.

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If attacking a single member of a group brings the wrath of the whole group in every single case, then your ATs are all going to have to be good enough at dispatching mobs with enough speed that they are not overwhelmed and killed by the first alpha from the group. A forcefield defender would find that pretty hard to do...as would an empathy defender and controllers early on.

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This is how mobs behaved at launch, and we got by.

This is how street mobs and bank mission mobs behave today, and we get by.

But mission mobs have been reduced to a level of extreme retardation so all ATs can solo?

If an AT/powerset can't solo a level appropriate spawn of 3 or 4 mobs then the devs need to put the new costume creation pipe down and give some attention to basic game play issues. Dealing with additional aggro from perceptive nearby mob is not an AT issue . . . that should be all on the player and his or her skill.

I can't believe I have to spell this out.

This isn't the Player Questions board. I'm not here asking for ways to deal with status effects. I know all the options available. Everyone who reads this thread knows the options available.

This is the Suggestions board. This is where players come when they find something in the game unejoyable or not robust enough and have an idea they think would be fun.

I enjoy inspirations. I find it challenging to use, to the utmost efficiency, the inspirations that randomly appear im my tray. I even enjoy making the decision whether to transform three of 1 kind of inspiration into, say, a break free that I may have need of. I do not enjoy constantly resetting my difficulty level, not becuase I can't handle the level of the mobs, but only becuase the nature of status protection is totally on/off in PvE. I don't enjoy restocking my inspiration tray with specific types (like I said, i enjoy the challenge of making use of inspirations as a purely random factor in my game play). I don't enjoy not soloing characters I like becuase I'm given 2 unappealing options (boring, base level mobs . . . or chain locking bosses).

I'm not suggesting something outrageous here. There's nothing about Naval Battles or Jedi Mind Tricks. Break Frees exist, power pools exist, combining the two ideas and giving players more build options (above more and more and more costumes) is something I wish to see.

CoX is showing a disturbing lack of growth in anything but fluff lately. It's starting to feel a lot like Sim City to me.

"The devs have stated some ATs are not meant to solo on invicible"

Why? That might require some creativity on their part?

"Calling all heroes!!! Master Mezzmo has blown up the Downtown Sports Arena and has taken hostages . . . COME QUICK!!!"

OK, hold on, I need to go shopping first. Wait, Master Mezzmo? I'm gonna have to go see my PR agent beforehand . . . ya know, keep my rep on the down low.

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ATs that don't have status protection were designed to not have status protection. The devs have stated that the game was designed so that any AT could solo on Heroic. They never said that any AT should be able to solo on Invincible.

Higher level enemies are only a threat because they can mez you. If you remove that ability everything becomes a cakewalk.

And in my opinion, cakewalk = boring.

I like having to think about what I'm doing whan I play squishies. If I could be immune to status effects I would just be sitting at the keyboard pressing buttons, with no thought or planning involved. Sorry, but that would bore me into a coma and I'd want to do something else before too long.

This game is already REALLY easy, why do people keep asking for things to make it easier?

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Then why are break frees available to all ATs?

And the two lowest tier blaster attacks were changed so they could be fired while status affected? Why?

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It's like talking to a brick wall... One-star the thread and move on.

-Rachel-

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Bye

While I'm the subject I'd also like an Elemental Damage Resist power pool. 4 toggles (similar to Tough . . . higher than the average toggle end cost and basic resist amount) for Fire, Cold, Energy, and Negetive Energy. I'd like an optinon other than IOs to allow me to create, for instance, a fire blaster that is tougher than the average man to fire!

This isn't about what IS available right now. It's about what could be available to create cool character concepts (something other than more costume options).

So options for dealing with this kind of situation is good?

OK, lets have options . . . many options.

So you agree Break Free type ability is useful?

OK, I will raise you and say allow me to use a power pick to have access to it in power form.

I don't enjoy constantly changing my mission slider or refilling my inspiration tray at vendors . . .

I would love to see, maybe, a new power pool created that had long recharge (5 minutes or so) status protection CLICK powers that worked like break frees but for only 1 or 2 types of status effect per power (so you'd have 4 powers in the pool).

The only thing that keeps me interested in playing my characters is being able to up my mission difficulty slider as they get higher level. This is very frustrating for characters that have no status protection because you're guaranteed to run into a boss that chain locks you to death . . . meaning I either spend half my time running back and forth to the Field Analyst every mission to get it set just right or just end up saying, "screw it", and just fighting at base (yawnfest) difficulty until I just lose all interest in characters that I would otherwise like.

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The problem is that making those changes to each and every group in the game will make some groups very difficult to deal with for several of the game's ATs.

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Then address the problems those ATs have by boosting those specific ATs/power sets . . . not taking the lazy way out of nerfing mobs to the level of strawman dummies who are basically exp ATMs.

Nerfs are bad mmkay, even for mobs.

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And patrols not guarding and ambushes not ambushing are things I LIKE.

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This is the reason we can't have nice things.

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When you eviscerate four out of five people, is it such a surprise when the fifth person decides it's smart to run? No duh he's not trying to win. He's trying to SURVIVE.

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That's why he doesn't get help from his buddies he just ran by, or why he will just come casually strolling back as if nothing happened in the first place?

Like my other criticisms . . . why add a Runaway behaviour if it doesn't actually do anything?

Patrols dont' do much in the guarding the hideout department . . . they're parades.

Ambushes don't ambush . . .

There is no incentive to deal with Runners because nothing detrimental will happen if you ignore them . . .

See the pattern? What's the point to all this coded AI behaviour? It's just fluff.

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i'm rather hoping that Going Rogue features an extensive revamp of the AI code. Arcanaville's post some time back regarding the game's AI system made it (sort of ) clear why it's such a pain to tweak and upgrade mob AI with the current implementation.

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Why do people keep bringing up how hard it would be to tweak the AI? The whole thing with mobs having Positional Perception, for example, was added long after the game launched. Before this tweak (which was easy to add apparently) mobs simply had a perception radius. Enter that radius and it reacts to you. Then someone got the "bright" idea to make the perception work positionally so that mobs typically only react to things in their front arcs (and btw, all mobs will have their backs towards the front door of their hideout . . . yawn). Now you can stand behind a mob, rest behind a mob, kill a mobs buddy behind a mob, and it will just stand there till YOU decide to initiate the encounter. Poor design if ya ask me.

All my criticisms are about perception rules . . . THE most basic level of mob AI in the book.

This "its too hard" stuff is crap. This dev team is more than qualified at improving game play . . . they just dont seem too motivated about anything other than costumes and power prolif/normalizations (meat grinder work).

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Mobs in this game need a serious AI overhaul.

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"Good" AI is a double-edged sword. Sometimes "good" AI can just be really, really annoying. Guild Wars had much more intelligent enemies, but generally speaking, it just made them really frustrating.

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In my opinion, this argument doesn't apply to CoX. CoX mobs are 1 step above straw dummies, if you ask me, they have strayed too far below the Mendoza Line in terms of passivity.

You get a mission from a contact and you head off to the villian's hideout ... not your hideout, not that little old lady on the corner's hideout, THEIR hideout ... you're in their house now.

Except . . .

Patrols: What's the point of having patrolling mobs that aren't aggressive enough to engage close by targets. Their perception rules are way out of whack. A patrol should be aware of things like intruders and straight up combat occuring in the same room or hallway they are in. Otherwise, what's the point of introducing them to the game (oh yeah, exp . . . strawman exp).

Ambushes: Once they reach the point they "think" their target is in they should enter Patrol mode (at run speed) and hunt down the target until it is found. Not stand there and wait to be ambushed themselves. Once again, why introduce ambush mobs that aren't capable of performing an ambush (oh yeah, exp . . . strawman exp).

Positional Perception: 5 feet behind you is still just 5 feet away. Mobs completely oblivious to players and combat directly behind them is unaccetable in my opinion (especially when this behaviour was explicitly introduced into game long after launch).

Seems to me the devs are on autopilot and asleep at the wheel lately. All I see is fluff coming from them. Booster Packs and power proliferation, no serious looks at basic game mechanics or improvements.

Now that we have AE, allowing players to make their own little snoozefest exp farm missions to speed to 50, how about working on making contact missions a little more challenging (rewarding) for the rest of us?

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Mobs in this game need a serious AI overhaul.

Positional Perception needs to go. There are times when you can literally be beating up a mob's buddy right behind him and it will not react.

Patrols need to be more aggressive. Or rather just BE AGGRESSIVE. Often they will walk right by you unless you're directly in the line of their pathing, even if you're fighting.

Amubushes not only call out there approach, but don't search for their target once they reach the spot that target was at when the ambush was triggered.

Runners! God, nothing says "I'm not really trying to win this fight" than the Runaway Code.

The mob AI in this game has bothered me for awhile. I just don't understand how anyone in charge could witness the AI coding in action and give it a pass.

This, IS NOT challenging ---> yawn

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Writing good AI code is probably the most difficult thing to do for gaming. Your statement that it is not challenging is just revealing your ignorance. You don't have a clue about how to design such a thing, do you?

As a software developer, I'd LOVE to have a crack at gaming AI. I think that would be a very fun challenge.

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You are the one showing your ignorance. The mobs in this game did not always behave the way they do today. Positional Perception was not in at launch, mob AI was altered with new AI rules to make mobs less reactive to things behind them. At some point in the game the devs decided to make mobs more passive. The game had good AI code at launch, it has been systematically made more passive over time.

Did you even look at my link? There is no justification for mobs that pathetic.

Mobs in this game need a serious AI overhaul.

Positional Perception needs to go. There are times when you can literally be beating up a mob's buddy right behind him and it will not react.

Patrols need to be more aggressive. Or rather just BE AGGRESSIVE. Often they will walk right by you unless you're directly in the line of their pathing, even if you're fighting.

Amubushes not only call out there approach, but don't search for their target once they reach the spot that target was at when the ambush was triggered.

Runners! God, nothing says "I'm not really trying to win this fight" than the Runaway Code.

The mob AI in this game has bothered me for awhile. I just don't understand how anyone in charge could witness the AI coding in action and give it a pass.

This, IS NOT challenging ---> yawn

I've noticed some new combat AI upgrades, too.

The Run Away code: looks like the run away coding has been enhanced. In some instances, would be runners will, instead, draw a knife from their pocket and slit their own wrists . . . this results in triple the normal experience for defeating the mob.

Patrols: patrols will no longer ignore combat they pass by. Patrollers will now help players defeat mobs they are fighting before once again ignoring players and trucking on down the hall.

Costumes and Accessories: since most mobs behave as if they don't have any balls whatsoever, many of paragon's so called scariest scroundels will be sporting pink polo shirts, pink socks, and other pink things!

Ambushes: triggered Ambush mobs now send a /tell to the player they will be ambushing to insure that the player doesn't miss the fact that a surprise attack is on the way! Additionally, when the ambushing mob reaches the spot that the ambushee was at 1 minute ago, they will not only stop as before, but will also set up a lemonade stand for all your refreshment needs.

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Each name can have 3-20 characters. The first must be a number or letter, the remainder can b a number, letter, space, or one of the four special characters: - . ' or ?

That gives just over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible name combinations.


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i just made a new hero named 2t9j6%$^hif;g5-4]62\

his friends call him Face Roll

Am I too late?

The Atomic Pickle
Rad/Electric Defender

Adam Pikes was helping his son, Bobby, with his school science project. Just as he stuck the electrodes into the pickle a bolt of lightning hit the garage (OH NOOES!!!). Adam Pikes body was infused with the atomic power of the pickle! Armed with his new powers and his favorite tank top (which his wife hates), Adam Pikes now battles evil as The Atomic Pickle . . . and remember, when little Bobby Pikes says his dad can beat up your dad he means it!

Action Shot

how do you keep the UI in the screeny?

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WM + EA = GOD

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WMEA = Worship Me Eeee Aiaiaiaiaiai!!!!

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Maybe I'm missing something here... but isn't 5% pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things?

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yes, it is . . . but the pickings are currently slim for the DOOOOOOOOOM Patrol.

over 7800 views, less than 30 replies.

that's gotta be a record.

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For how long have people begged for this change? Now a bunch of new CoV players are complaining about their brutes and it's finnaly getting fixed? I guess we all know who the red-headed step child is here...

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so wait . . . theyre changing dark armor cause i posted about it?

i rule!