chriz_NA

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Ill answer that by saying that numbers are even more important now with PvP because there is a real competition with players now ( I will do some fights in PvP ) and it is obvious that the "optimal" build will get an edge and that victory or defeat "could" in the end depend upon the slotting of single little Single Origin Enh . It really is that simple . You may not agree with all that but for someone who think his rating is important , it is important . Numbers indeed are important .

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Agreed. In a RPG, no matter how good my reaction time or aim is, I'm never any better than my character (unlike a game like UT or Quake). So an optimal build is a way of minimizing that RPG "interference."

IMHO, obsession with an optimized build means you're playing the wrong kind of game.

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So, if they changes really *WERE* only for PvP, or even 90% PvP only reasons, then why didn't they make them PvP only? It's pretty darn obvious they can make changes to a power in PvP without effecting it in PvE play (Such as the fact that Brawl can knock out a toggle only in PvP play). It would have made a helluva lot more sense then just simply making a change they new would pi$$ off a portion of the playerbase.

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I have a theory about this, which I've pontificated on in various threads. Short version: In the end, there can't be a significant difference in power functionality between PvP and PvE. The notion of two sets of functionality will only work in the short term, and PvP functionality will eventually replace PvE functionality.

And in the end...

...the pie you take...

...is equal to...

...the pie-e-e-e...

...you make!

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Feh. Best way to 'mitigate' debt? Fighting Crime. People spend so much time obsessing about what debt they have that they often forget to just Play the Game.

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Oh, don't get me wrong. Debt does not need to be mitigated, and I'm one of the few who thinks this new change (no debt until after level 10) is a bad one.

Debt is a joke as it is. It should scale with difficulty, IMHO. Now that I'm in SO-land, I can run around at Invincible and I clean up 70k debt in 2 or 3 missions. The mission bonuses alone drop 12k (this is after being split for debt/exp).

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3) If you are rezzed you have 50% less debt from that death, if you use an awaken you have 25% less debt from that death versus going to a hospital. It encourages players to actually stock up on supplies and bring healers on missions.

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This creates a situation where people lie face down for hours screaming over broadcast for a rez. Empathy (and other) Defenders start getting harassing /tells and get told that they suck (or worse) if they refuse to travel all the way across the map to rez who's just gonna be face down again in 10 minutes.

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If anything is to be used for debt-mitigation, it should be going to the hospital. It's the least-convenient and using that for debt-mitigation will eliminate spams for rezzing.

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what bothers me is there was a statement by states a few months back that they could alter powers seperately for pvp and pve, at this point in time this appears not to be possible anymore or is no longer viable..the question is WHY?

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Because PvP will be an integral part of CoV. When they make CoV, the PvE powers in that game will likely be the PvP-variants we're seeing now. But if they do that, then they'll have two different basic rule sets for powers, between CoH and CoV. That's messy. Better to have one set.

And they never literally said they wouldn't alter PvE powers for PvP, only that they would strive not to.

I don't mind the nerfs so much in general. Not sure the SJ -ACC thing is going to work, but overall I understand why they're doing them. But the ATs in CoH weren't designed to be equally effective. Some ATs were explicitly designed to be better soloists than others. But since PvP is supposed to be balanced, they have to alter the ATs so that they're "equal" in the arena.

The end result of this, I predict, is that Defenders, Controllers, Blasters, Tankers, and Scrappers will become equally effective solo ATs. Scrappers will lose their status as "boss killers" (which is basically gone now anyway), and you'll be able to tank with any AT. The concept of an AT, which right now is used to define the character's role in a team, will change. An AT will just be a collection of powersets with no additional baggage of being the meatshield, glass cannon, healer, boss killer, and so forth.

Interestingly, this will bring CoH closer to its original AT-less concept than it is now. But it's going to be a painful transition for many.

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4) Scrappers should get less debt from dying (they do it a lot they are used to it).

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Oh yeah, that'd go over well...

I'm seeing the basic contradiction as this:

<ul type="square">[*]Not all ATs are equally effective (for example, for soloing).[*]PvP must be balanced for all ATs[/list]
Am I the only one who sees these two statements as mutually-exclusive? At some point, for the greater glory of PvP, all ATs are going to be nerfed down to the lowest level of effectiveness.

Howabout mixing the two ideas?

No debt until after level 5. Half debt until after level 10.

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Just a thought, reading some of the concepts, maybe you're dealing with debt from the wrong end?

Maybe debt should be accumulated as normal, but missions should burn it off twice as fast? (I.E....an enemy is defeated that gives 100 XP. On live you gain 50 XP and burn off 50XP. I'm prpoposing that you gain 50 XP and burn off 100XP.)

It also gives you more "tweaking points". When doing something particularly heroic, you burn off faster. When doing something borderline, you burn off slower.

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I agree with this.

Actually, what I'd like is to accumulate 2x EXP on missions and apply that to debt as the math plays out, but that's never going to happen...

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Perhaps the thing that is not true is the statement that one of those things is not true.

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Reminds me of how Penn &amp; Teller used to open their routines...

"Everything I'm going to tell you from this point on will be a lie... But before we get to the lies, let me explain some truths..."

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"Oh you just haven't seen good anime."

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The last good anime was Star Blazers.

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i hope thats a joke

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Somewhat. Technically, there is no good anime. Star Blazers was "japanimation."

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"Oh you just haven't seen good anime."

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The last good anime was Star Blazers.

I'd like to reiterate the suggestion for a distinct supergroup costume. I'd guess this would be designed by the SG creator and perhaps changeable by the SG leader. I imagine the SG creator/leader would be able to design three variants, one for female, male, and huge.

The ability to change SG colors (again, only the SG leader can do this).

When creating the SG costume, perhaps we get costume elements that aren't available to players normally.

EXP bonuses for teams that consist entirely of SG-mates. Doesn't have to be a huge bonus, just a reason to be a SG aside from having an extended friends list.

EXP bonuses for SGs that go thematic. All-mutant SGs, or all-Scrapper SGs, or something. Not sure how that would work.

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Nice change.
Personally I'd like the AV's at high level missions changed to bosses. I'm now stuck with 3 AV missions that I can't complete, even with my SG mates because we are too few active. We almost never streetsweep because we find missions fun to do. I guess I'll have to wait one or two levels more until I can clear those missions, but damn it will take time.
AV's should in my opinions instead be limited to TFs.

Of course I realize that many will disagree with me.

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I have a similar issue, but...

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A system will allow players to drop unwanted missions or do old missions that have been passed over.

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So that helps.

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the scrapper in me is going to miss the hard bosses, but the blaster in me is rejoicing... and jumping up and down like a schoolgirl... wait! no!

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Just crank the difficulty for your scrapper.

I'd post a "thank you," too, but this has inspired me to go fire up CoH and play all night.

I'm not even going to ask, I'm having Statesman's baby. And I'm a guy. Look for me on Weekly World News (next to Batboy).

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"There's something almost disgusting about this business of letting the audience tell you what they want, and then you go out and make it. The audience doesn't know what it wants."
--John Cleese

Sorry. Totally off topic. But when someone reminds me of a great quote, I just have to post the quote.

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The reality is, the best successes come with a realtime adaptive approach to balancing customer want and developer vision. There's no simple playbook ("mix 1 part want with 2 parts vision, set and forget"), otherwise we'd all have wildly successful products.

Regardless of CoH's developer vision, there's a clear customer want that's not being addressed. Well, perhaps it is now. But it's true that the devs shouldn't let customer want dictate all their decisions, all the time. That's as unhealthy as ignoring customer want to begin with.

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It is becoming more and more apparent that the real source of much of the discontent is coming from solo players who have appropriated 99% of the games content as their own despite the consistent position of the dev team that this was a team game first and foremost. These people then become outraged when told that not all the content in the game was aimed at them.

Clearly given very consistent message from cryptic and the dev team this is a misconception on the part of these solo players, nothing more.

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Yes, because God forbid they give the players what we, the paying cutomers want. No, we've "appropriated" the game. We must be whipped back into the Vision(tm).

Yeah, that's a viable busines model.

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I get a kick out of these "teaming was always the way" posts. I've played pretty much every day since release. Despite what manual, players, devs, or anyone says, the game has always been very solo-friendly, at least for the first 80% of the game.

Forgive us if we pay attention to what the devs do, rather than what they say.

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I'd like to see a scrapper with superspeed and hurdle in the pvp arena vs. a blaster with hover and fly before I fully agree that fly is the weakest travel power.

[/ QUOTE ]If the scrapper had fly and the blaster had super speed, who do you think would win?

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It seems to me that the Blaster has the advantage in both situations.

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Yeah, fly really should be as fast as Superspeed.

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*looks for the word "speed" in Fly*

*doesn't see it*

*looks for the word "speed" in Superspeed*

Aha!

It's not Speed Fly, it's Fly. What we really need is a better 4th Flight power that rockets you around at SS speeds, but limits maneuverability (like Cannonball). Who uses Group Fly, anyway?

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I've never, ever been aggroed by mobs I didn't wish it with SS running.

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Don't go to Founder's Falls much, do you? As a SSer, I get nailed by snipers constantly (until I outleveled them). I still get picked off by snipers in Peregrine. All while Superspeeding.

My brother plays a flight character. He got hit by a sniper in FF and then just learned to fly higher.

Cuppa, you might want to consider locking down this thread so we don't get post after post of people asking questions. You gave us a link to a thread that was specifically created for asking questions and you said other questions will be pulled from the general boards. Let this thread remain the place where we get our answers.

Just a thought.

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See? Now THAT I don't mind. I got an AV and after realizing that I couldn't solo the mission because of it, I called in the SG. I called in the SG on Terra, too. I don't MIND those. I expect those.

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Once in a while is fine. But when your post-40 mission path gets clogged with AV after AV, it becomes the same kind of problem the post-I3 boss is. You've been prevented from soloing your own missions at all.

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I think if we all do this, the devs will get the message.

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No, they won't. I think Statesman's reply to that PM makes it clear that he simply will not admit he was wrong. Ever. Period.

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But he has. He admitted error in the I2 difficulty increase. He admitted error in the initial regen changes.

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Actually States is mostly right about this. With the exception of the Clockwork King, the missions mention the boss (watch the contacts description carefully before you accept) by Name, which you hopefully recognize as a AV or it tells you to bring friends along for a tough fight ( ex. Envoy) or simultaneous blinking bombs. The only mish that didn't do that (at least pre U 3) is Clockwork King AV, which tells you neither his name nor to bring friends.

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That's very incorrect. As I mentioned earlier, I've been specifically looking for missions that have bosses and AVs that don't mention them in any way in the initial description, the short description in your nav window, or the long description when you click on the little star next to the short description. I've been bugging them as I encounter them.

More than half of my missions have must-defeat bosses that I haven't been warned about. These include non-named bosses as well as (more rarely) named bosses. I've also gotten two missions with must-defeat AVs that have had no warning, not including the Psychic Clockwork King (three if you include the first Envoy mission, but he's not must-defeat in that one).