jadedcritic2004

At the risk of being cynical. What difference does it make what they call it? Corporate america has this bizzarre disease where they think they can couch things in creative language to make them "right-sized", "happy-sized"; well, not literally. Frankly, I would have more respect for Posi if he would just call a spade, a spade.

I'll admit, I regularly search on him and States. I'm kinda hoping for some announcements of change; and I was more then a little bit surprised he matched on this thread. I didn't think the devs would touch this with a ten-foot pole.

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The simple fact of the matter is that in CoH - buffs are king. Frankly, buffs are overpowerd. People don't invite controllers to their group for control - they invite for the buffs.

Dominators are inevitably compared against controllers and without the buffs people are left thinking "and what do they do for us again...?"


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Yeah, I've felt like that a couple of times. The fact of the matter is most of my dominator experience is based on one toon. My Ice/Ice dom is 32. I can safely say it's been an odd ride. Some people like me, some don't. I haven't been playing her much lately simply because it's inordinately difficult to get a team these days; and even harder to get an effective one, and she doesn't solo well. I've noticed a few comments that dominators have a high learning curve; and I'd agree with that, I'm still learning. I've also noticed a few comments that we're worthless against AVs/Heroes. I'm not completely certain of that. It is true I've had virtually no luck mezzing/locking people down under those circumstances (sometimes even with dom up); But I'm beginning to believe it's more effective to slow them then lock them down. I was screwing around in SC once to pass the time between groups, and ended up in a group trying to pull a scrapper down. We weren't having allot of luck until I changed tacks and intentionally went for the slowing effect instead of the mezzing one. Two deaths later the scrapper started trying to ambush/kill me first

(Safe to say, I would have had NO CHANCE against her unassisted; but that doesn't mean I wasn't able to serve a purpose).

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Ice Patch?
Greatness, but I'v never had the fortune to team with and Ice Dominator before the twenties

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Yea, there aren't many of us. I feel like I can safely say that. I can also say, generally, speaking, of the doms I do meet, most are Plant or Psi; although I have met some other iceys. I meet few to no other Gravs/Fires. Especially once you get beyond Cap. The real weeding out seems to occur mostly once you hit Sharkshead and Nerva. I can also safely say opinions are mixed. Generalizing, Stalkers love me. Simply because I've gotten my tail shot off more then once (I'm most times willing to drop ice patch to open combat); meaning (usually) that they can survive their first assasinate, and I've seen stalkers assist-target on me as much as they can for the extra criticals. Sometimes corruptors like me, in the sense that I've seen them deliberately hold off on mass AoE's until I get some form of root or immobilize down. Which, frankly, is only good sense.

Personally, I'm inclined to think if the AT has any real problems; It's just not a whole lot of fun to play. Safe to say I've gotten to 32 because I'm stubborn; sortof an act of sheer will. Frankly, I was dissapointed when I got there, mainly because of mixed results with Jack Frost. He's saved my hind a couple of times. Other times he's dumber then a sack of oranges; and certainly slower then one.

For the most part, I don't really have any solutions. I imagine my view is colored. My main perspective problem is that my first 50 was an old school controller. Pre-I5. Largely, because of that, controllers in their current form will pretty much always strike me as lame and watered-down; and this stuff the devs keep spewing about how they "worked" to make sure "villain AT's aren't like Hero AT's" strikes me as lame, delusional hooey. Controllers are pale shadows of their former selves, and dominators are watered down controllers. Bland as heck. Really the only reason I believe in them AT-ALL, is they're the closest thing CoV has to a defensive class. Plus, as much as I'd like to be a charge and smash player, I'm just not. As I said, my first 50 was an old school troller, like it or not, I'm just not satisfied unless I'm strategizing, and dominators are definitely one of the classes you have to use your head if you ever want to get out of mercy. So they do have appeal for me, but I'm one of those people who has some sort of innate masochistic need to take the hard road.

Ironically, it's still not a subject they've managed to resolve.

I really have to disagree, granted, I can't read 27 pages of thread to get caught up on this - so it's possible someone may have already voiced the opinion - but I'll do it anyway

Making the endgame more like the opening game is a horrible idea, because it furthers the erosion of power. If the endgame plays like the early game there's even less motivation to level, and even less sense that by levelling, you can become powerful.

I'm inclined to think the solution is not to force adherence to some sort of odd difficulty curve which he began this game with, and he even admits it was a supposition. The solution is to adjust the curve.

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I also agree with an earlier statement that you can be fairly sure they are good when they look good. Costumes such as a huge character in rainbow colors, a Cyclops rip-off with an inappropriate bio, are nearly always going to be a problem...

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Not sure what to think about that. On one hand, I can kind of understand where you're coming from; for example, I'm immediately leary of anyone uses l33t speak in their name or anyone who is Xxx (name) xxX. Basically, if I have to concentrate to type /invite (your name) then you've already made a bad first impression on me.

On the other hand it wouldn't surprise me if I would have scared you off! Took me quite a few attempts to get to be any good at all with the costume generator. I had made four toons before I even realized you could unlink the colors. My first was a horrible hellboy knockoff. Even now I find I'm somewhat fashion-challenged. When I try to do elaborate things it usually has a mixed degree of success; I've often found that getting fancy just doesn't work for me all that well. More often then not, the toons I make that stick around have a relative degree of simplicity in how they dress. I literally had a hero get into her late 40's before I even created a second costume for her. She's been 50 for some time now, and I still haven't filled the 3rd or 4th slots. Although in my defense, I would point out that many of the classic superhero characters aren't dressed all that elaborately either; Sometimes simplicity does look good.

And you know, I find knockoffs aren't always losers. Just last night we ran into a Red Skull knockoff. He was quite pleasant. I only ran one mission with him, but I'd certainly reinvite him again. He comported himself fine.

Not entirely sure what the rules are here, but I humbly submit Everything I wish I'd known about Kheldians. I don't have a problem with date-stamping it. The last rev was 1/2/06

God, I hope there isn't a 500. I had a hard enough time just getting motivated to get Toy Collector with my 50's. (that's TWO toons).

So far as I know, it's 200 presents - and the presents are glowies, so I guess I don't really understand the distinction.

The playing for years thing really isn't important. I know that exchange hurt my credibility; but what's worse, to be thought a liar or somone who can't admit when he's wrong?

Regardless, in my mind, it's really more important that people think about and discuss the significance of the star; then get wrapped up in questioning the validity of my resume. Though it is inevitable, some will do both. Oh well, better to be hated for what you are, then loved for what you're not.

Pardon, then, point conceded and won. I used the the term improperly.

I shall endeavor not to use it again for six months or so. I started playing a month or so before the launch of issue 2. Give or take a cpl weeks.

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Uh huh... years... which is the plural of year, which means by definition two years or more. Since the game hasn't been out for more than two years, that comment is impossibly false.

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I really must dispute that, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but didn't we even get a badge for playing during the second anniversary of launch? Think it was celebrant? I never liked people making false claims, I'm not in the habit of making them myself. But it's fine - I understand some folks will be skeptical.

Sorry it took me a while to get back to this - I'm actually a little bit flattered that this thread didn't die off into the depths of forum history as I'd orginally imagined

The major trend of disagreement as I percieve it, is the school of thought that disagrees with directive 2, for reasons like, an adequately played defender can enhance the amount of damage the part does. Not disagreeing with that, but the intent of directive 2 was to state my belief in the importance of archtetype/class balance. I cannot abandon that belief. I have seen TOO MANY teams wipe that pay no attention to it, because they think they can stick any old combination of people together who are available at the time.

The most recent example of this was a cobbled together attempt to do the transcendence trial that I could tell was going to fail before it ever began. 5 blasters, 2 scrappers, and me (an empathy defender). I tried to express myself, but they went forward with it anyway. Most memorably was a blaster who somehow managed to make it into his late 40's clinging to the belief that he was not squishy, and took exception to it, when I said, "I cannot keep up with this many squishies". After enough deaths and wipes they tried to convince me that deaths don't matter to high level players because they think it's funny. In his defense, he never wavered from the belief that he was not now, nor had he ever been squishy. Personally, all I saw was a team display full of wildly gyrating health bars.

Someone said somewhere that the devs intended for no class to be essential. That's a nice/optimistic thought, but IMHO, they failed miserably. I've been playing for YEARS, I base my opinions on my observations. Among those observations are the following. The odds of success in a mission increase dramatically if some care is used with regard to class balance. The odds of success in an extended campaign or task force increase exponentially if attention is paid to certain basics. The first of which is class balance. The second of which are the madatory classes. I've never participated in a TF or extended campaign that went WELL that didn't have a 1) solid tank, and 2) solid empath. Period. No exceptions. Sometimes they succeed lacking those elements - but they almost always struggle. In my experience, the secret to a successfull task force, whether it be numina, positron, or anything inbetween is solid class balance, a solid tank, and a solid empath.

I find, it's beneficial - whether you're a beginner, or experienced, to mind the group as it forms around you. If the leader is filling up on running backs with no linebackers - expect you're going to get sacked.

Oh, I did want to take a second to shout out to some of my regulars. At least one of the tanks I pick on on a semi-regular basis found this thread - I didn't notice if he's lurking or posted to it. Hey, Criogenus!

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"We need more damage" is simply not a good reason to reject Defenders and Controllers en masse from your LFT searches.

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People are so sensitive - I have never had much of anything against defenders, defenders are beautiful people. BUT - when I hire a defender to come on board my teams, it is not for their damage. I could give a heck less what flavor of defender they are, they all taste great and are less filling. But the purpose of a defender is to defend. If they increase our damage in the process, bonus. If I need damage, I hire blasters, scrappers, or khelds. Used to include fire tanks in that, but not so much more since Burn got nerfed into obsolence.

I was just on a nearly-all defender/controller team the other day. Drove me nuts - We were doing OK considering, and we were making headway, but it was just fundamentally wrong. We were all linebacker and no running back.

For the life of me, I have difficulty understand why people chaff so much against the archetype stereotypes. I think defenders resent it more because all the narrow minded simpletons out there hassle them with R u h34l3r?

Well, I'm not going to deny - I may not have commuicated my intentions well. But I still stand by my intent.

Please allow me to rephrase.

It is a rookie mistake to assume that party balance and class balance mean nothing. It is very, very common, in teams that are consistently wiping, to spam invites to anyone who happens to be flagged lft at the time regardless of archetype.

OK, here comes the part where I potentially get myself in trouble by saying something potentially controversial. It is true that intelligent members of any type can show some ability to adapt. When you have the star, it is incumbent upon you to realize the people you're spamming invites to, may well not be intelligent.

(Encountered this phenomna the other day. Met a controller, not even out of his teens, wanted to know if the team wanted him to HERD)

Conversely, if you're talking to someone who knows what they're doing; by all means, consider an invite.

(Encountered an example of that as well. I know an Earth/Storm controller; when I first invited her, it was only at the request of a mutual blaster friend. See directive 1 - You want people to want to team with you. Psychology. At first, I thought she was relatively unmemorable. However, lately I've noticed she's been learning quite well. Her situational awareness is improving to such a degree that she's on top of problems I didn't know I had. I'm not shy about inviting her anymore, even if I already know I have some controllers.)

Thus the following is an attempt to rewrite directive 2

directive 2 - Know your team. If the team is wiping, don't keep piling on members in the vain hopes of overwhelming the opposition. Archetype and party balance is important, and there is an old expression that is something to the effect of, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Invites are not like spam. You don't get credit for spewing as many of them as possible in any random direction. Accept that the solution to many problems may not be to keep piling on heroes like tinder on a campfire.

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but imho the BEST teams are those in which the team meshes in such a way that the entire idea of a leader seems irrelevant. yeah, there may be a call "pull here" or gimme a "snipe on this guy" but they are more like the free flow you mentioned, and not comming only from one source. on a team like that, the /e dancing between some missions isnt much of a problem, because you're using that time just to chat with the people you have been kicking butt with all night, and thats just as enjoyable as the fighting.

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Oh yeah, the other day I had the rare pleasure of meeting an earth/kinetics controller in her late 40's. We teased her allot. At first I only teased her because I don't get the pleasure of meeting many old kinetics. Lots of empaths, some rads, some force, some storms, but not many kinetics. It changed. We stopped teasing her because of that and started teasing her because she had fulcrum and knew how to use it. Even I got a little slap happy. POWER OVERWHELMING It's all good though, seems like she can take a joke, cause she's ran more missions with us since. Similar scenario just last night. The bunch of us met a new tank. I admit, I fired on the wrong mob that contained a Nictus crystal. I blew it. I caused a party wipe, that killed everything but the tank. That's not the funny part. The funny part was the tank somehow managed to survive a proverbial sea of unbound nictus. We couldn't even see him, in that cloud of Nictus whaling on him. At first the party was trying to tell him to run until we realized he wasn't dying. Eventually the seven of us just sat their gaping at this sea of nictus. And damned if he didn't win. He got the crystal like 30 seconds before unstoppable dropped, unfortunately, he flew right into another mob and got killed. He later admitted he thought it was worth it because he hates crystals. So yeah, there was allot of teasing and joking - but damned if that boy didn't find himself on 7 more people's friend lists that day.

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but imho the BEST teams are those in which the team meshes in such a way that the entire idea of a leader seems irrelevant. yeah, there may be a call "pull here" or gimme a "snipe on this guy" but they are more like the free flow you mentioned, and not comming only from one source.

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Yep. If things are flowing well, sometimes it's best to shut the heck up. Most people want to do well, and some teams respond to Micromanagement more then others. As I said, leadership isn't that different in here then real life. Sometimes the best thing a leader can do is stay the hell out of the way until they're needed.

I was wondering how long before I'd get caught by someone who'd met me in game. I don't remember the other alts, but I do remember Miss Apprehension!

I put together another PUG this evening. One of my regulars started telling me we should organize an SG. I find that somewhat flattering

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And yet apparently it never occured to you to practice what you preach. E.g., get everyone the <bleep> out and reset on a lower difficulty setting. Especially after some people had left and the team was under the number it was instanced for. (Please, please, please, don't tell me that ridiculous outcome was on "Heroic".)...You preach doing your own missions as a way of knowing what risks the team takes. Did you even stop to think that at that point it's obviously too high, and maybe doing someone else's mission instead can't possibly be any worse than that?

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It isn't my intention to pretend to be perfect anymore then it is my intention to how did people put it, a selfish smacktard? I freely admit - The Malta smackdown was not my finest hour, but I have my reasons. To illustrate, I will even quote what I said.

Fact - I tried to convince the Malta group that this wasn't worth it, and we needed to pull out and cut our losses. They didn't want to do it. Some of the guys were having fun, our tank was actually enjoying the challenge, and others just plain didn't want to admit defeat.

Theorhetically, I suppose I could have kicked them all for their own benefit, but that's walking the line dangerously close to smacktard in my own personal opinion.

Quote from directive 5"
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Most people want to do well, if your team is flowing well, shut the heck up and let them keep going. If there's open discussion of tactics, listen and try to follow their ideas. If not, ASK. What if we did it this way? Most people are willing try it the leader's way at least once, and if the leader's way works. BONUS. Some teams respond to micro. If you've ran with a team for a while - and they're like that, don't make excuses, just do it. Keep your instructions precise and EZ to follow.

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The Malta team - despite the fact that they were getting pounded, were trying to use their heads; there was open discussion of tactics - people using their heads, and we were making progress even though it was at some cost. Better then 2/3's of these guys were people I'd run with before. I knew that most of them didn't need me riding them. See directive 1:

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You want people to want to team with you, not accept the invite because they feel they have to.

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and finally, directive 6:
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Accept the wipe. Nobody's perfect - and even if everyone does everything right - sometimes people will die. No plan ever surivives initial contact with the enemy completely intact. People are gonna die, but most people are willing to accept the occasional bloody nose as long as the XP outweighs the risk.

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The Malta team did the best they could with what we had at the time.

People will think what they will of me, that's fine - I accept that; But I humbly submit that 200k debt at level 43 isn't that bad. I paid mine off in a day, probably wouldn't have taken that long if I hadn't stumbled as much as I did trying to solo some things. As I said, directive 6. Everyone has good days and bad days - and the hospital system is there for a reason. People who want to be completely safe all the time ought to stay in Atlas Park.

As for the whole - selfish/not selfish, do the leader's missions debate. I accept that there's some value on both sides, what's important is not "hey you <bleep> do all my missions!". What's important is consistent payoff, and that you don't have people running halfway across the map to hollows to find grey mobs, waiting another 10 minutes while the mission owner finds out that grey mobs set to invincible usually just means more grey mobs with the occasional blue boss. I never liked monkeying with the difficulty slider. Most people have no real conception of how to use it effectively anyway. As I said in the original post, everything does not always have to be set to invincibility. Consistency is the most important thing. Set a realistic bar that is at least somewhat ambitious, then do everything you can to meet it.

I'll concede. It's potentially selfish - but consider, it's the only way to make sure the team will face appropriate challenges. Especially since they patched in different difficulty levels for different players. If I had a buck for everyone who maxed their difficulty even though they knew they can't handle it.

Consider this possibility - why is it so few people actually want to lead? If you don't believe me, put together a team - run a few missions, and make up some reason to leave, then ask if anyone wants the star. I promise you people will disband and hot potato left and right rather then take over.

Why is that? What's so awful about the star? It's a pain in the tail. I don't know about you, but I can honestly say; I don't mind if the leader gets some bonus XP, simply because leading, at least, leading well, is work. Consider it compensation for extra time and effort.

I'm not completely against spreading out the mission load among people's missions. But it's a dangerous path - this person's missions are too easy - this person's missions are too hard. Psychology is important, consistency is important. People respond to productivity.

I'm not gonna lie, it gets exhausting from time to time. Sometimes people respond better then you do. We tried to to do a Malta mission the other day and got BEAT DOWN HARD. Honestly, I would have [censored] at my people a bit more to try and get them to leave, we thinned out down to 4 because the 5th had to go pick up his roommate. But the remaining group wanted to stay, so I tend to think it was one of those situations I needed to shut the heck up and let things unfold as they will. On the bright side, I educated some people who'd never encountered Malta on the dangers of Sappers. On the downside - we really did get smacked down pretty bad - I don't think anybody left their with less then 200 grand debt.

In retrospect the only thing I would change to this since I wrote it is to add a directive that emphasizes the value of patience. On freedom, at least, it's damn hard to get a decent defender/controller/tank - I'm constantly popping up the lft-search window, but it's something leaders just need to accept. See directive 2 - the archtypes are important, you're not going to get defense by wishing you had it.

We put together a (mostly) pick-up group 40-43 this evening that did a particularly nasty 43 carnie mission. I'm not going to lie. We wiped. Once we even wiped because the group listened to me and tried out one of my strategies. (In my defense, it kinda worked - we wiped, but we took most of them with us )

And you know, maybe some of the group members would disagree with me, but I think it was worth it. There are seven toons on freedom server that truly earned their night's XP tonight!

(yes, I'm aware that my hyphens are excessive and in some cases inappropriate. Bah. it's 2AM what do you want from me )

What I'm learning on how to lead a group

directive 1 - NO BLIND INVITES. Ask, always ask. It won't kill you. No conjunctions, no leet speak, no canned macros. FORM A COMPLETE SENTENCE. Do not ask people who are not flagged lft. Psychology is important, most people will respond that you took the time to ask them, if they ask reasonable questions, answer them. You want people to want to team with you, not accept the invite because they feel they have to. Try to acknowledge them in some form after they accept. Nothing says welcome like five minutes of complete silence after being added to a team.

directive 2 - Know your team. If the team is wiping, don't keep piling on members in the vain hopes of overwhelming the opposition. The archetypes exist for a reason. USE THEM. More blasters won't help you if you're being overwhelmed too quickly, and more controllers and defenders won't help you damage that AV faster then he regens.

directive 3 - Set a reasonable task. Everything does not always have to be set to invincible - Everything does not always have to be purple and every team does not have to be maxed at 8 before you start. Most people will respond to white to orange con minions, and most people don't even mind occasional spurts of blue (as long as it does not become a sea of blue). Don't be afraid to be selfish and concentrate on your own missions. Simply because you know what to expect from them, and as long as you are doing your own missions, you can be sure the mission levels will be a reasonable challenge/reward level for your group. Keep your people moving. Everyone hates downtime. There's nothing wrong with occasional five minute breaks, but not after every mission. Everyone needs to sell, train, bio from time to time. So for pity's sake, certainly don't kick someone if they're AFK or absent for short periods - but KEEP THE GROUP MOVING. Know the map, if people are having a good experience and not having to travel far inbetween missions, they're less likely to drop inbetween missions. Contrary to popular belief, most people don't like standing around /e dancing with nothing to do for long periods. If 4/5th's of the group is present, and waiting on someone else who is overdue, start the mission, they will catch up.

directive 4 - Keep the level spread tight. It might be tempting to add lower level people to drive the group total up because you know your high level people can handle it, but don't do it. Know their levels, keep the delta tight. There shouldn't be a diffference of more then 4 levels between your lowest level person and your highest level person (after sidekicks). EVERYONE FIGHTS - EVERYONE PROFITS.

directive 5 - psychology is important! You want people to want to team with you. The star is not a party pipe - don't pass it around so everyone can have a smoke. It is not necessary to pass it around just to avoid having to spell people's names who want invites. Be decisive, sometimes you need to start the attack. If you're a blaster, pull, if you're a tank. Charge. Talk to your team - You don't have to write essays. Sometimes "ready" is fine - as long as you're sure that at least a few of them of them respond in the affirmative. Tell them what you're doing. "pulling the tank on the right". Ask! "Can someone lock down that void please?" "Adds on the right". Most people want to do well, if your team is flowing well, shut the heck up and let them keep going. If there's open discussion of tactics, listen and try to follow their ideas. If not, ASK. What if we did it this way? Most people are willing try it the leader's way at least once, and if the leader's way works. BONUS. Some teams respond to micro. If you've ran with a team for a while - and they're like that, don't make excuses, just do it. Keep your instructions precise and EZ to follow.

directive 6 - Accept the wipe. Nobody's perfect - and even if everyone does everything right - sometimes people will die. No plan ever surivives initial contact with the enemy completely intact. People are gonna die, but most people are willing to accept the occasional bloody nose as long as the XP outweighs the risk. Accept erosion - It may be frustrating to keep looking for new people constantly, but it cannot be helped. It is a fact. Take consolation in that you can do some to mitigate it. Do not underestimate the psychology of an effective leader. I have often found that groups have a tendency to collapse when the leader leaves. ESPECIALLY when an effective leader leads. I have often found that I am sometimes able to keep groups from collapsing completely for long periods simply by remaining myself. See directive 5, psychology is important. Some death is inevitable - but excessive death leads to frustration - frustration leads to more death. Learn to recognize the signs - if your group is becoming frustrated they will get themselves killed. They are inappropriate to the task. You either need to adjust the group accordingly, or set a different task.

Finally - you can't be afraid to tick people off. Some people are going to think you're a idiot, others will think you don't know what you're talking about. In fact, you can't be afraid to let the majority of the people on the server think you're crazy. CoH is a microcosm of life, if you're lucky - you might make friends with an extremely small percentage of people and the rest will tolerate you. If you're fortunate enough to lead some effective groups, folks might start to send you the "so what are you up to?" tells. THOSE ARE A COMPLIMENT. You want people to want to team with you. Always reinvite those people!

Leadership principles in CoH aren't that different then they are in real life. If you don't think you're comfortable leading, THEN DON'T. If you don't feel like you know the game well enough to lead, THEN DON'T. "But I won't get a group if I don't!" Bah Humbug. If you collapse into a little puddle of unproductivity without a group, then you probably shouldn't be leading. It's true, sometimes XP is easy - sometimes it practically falls in your lap. Regardless, the people that ought to leading are the ones who aren't afraid to leave the cave, kill something and drag some XP home for themselves when it doesn't.

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Members of my SG are leaving in droves. I've received 4 farewell emails in the last month, including the SG founder. Three of the four left "forwarding addresses" on Guild Wars.

As near as I can tell my SG only has 3 active players now, myself included (used to be around 25). It's hard to tell now since the SG window is still bugged and shows everyone as being on "today".

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Yeah, I ran into that problem myself; Having a hard time getting motivated to play CoV simply because it's the same game with red lettering. But I'd be curious to see a snapshot of how the numbers divide. Like for example, take a snapshot of the most heavily populated server you've got at peak hours. How many people are playing CoV? How many people are playing CoH?

Does it surprise anyone that the dev experience is not the same as ours? ED established they're not even playing the same build. I told myself I would stick around for the CoV launch, but since Lord Recluse basically turned out to be Statesman with a snively-whiplash mustache, I'm not so sure; my subscription is up next month.

IMHO - Their fatal mistake is letting too much of the issues revolve around nerfs. What we need are some silly server events. Remember the Winter Lords? That was ridiculously fun for a little while, it just went on MUCH TOO LONG for it's own good. What about the halloween before last? All those trick or treat teams - that was really cute.

My point is, the game is thoroughly charted down to 6 decimal places. I don't think there would be nearly so many bad posts around here, and if they would give us something positive to talk about besides nerfs.

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With Enhancement Diversification comes a benefit for ALL City of Heroes powers.

Every power, across the board, is getting a 13.33% reduction in its Endurance cost.

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So, this in no waychanges anything. This just seems like a, "throw the unwashed masses a bone" response. Good try though.

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Look at the bright side, at least he didn't make some paltry attempt to rationalize it. I give him credit for that, and for at least making an effort to speak to us about it.

I give him credit, at least he tried - I was wondering how they were going to sugar coat it.

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As for the universal I5 complaints, does anyone remember the Winter Lord? (There is some relevance here, I'll get to it) Remember how for weeks, people did nothing but lvl up sometimes even multiple times in no time? Once the Winter Lord left, the city was vacant of most heroes. Know why? People were dissapointed that they couldn't level that fast anymore and had to go back to *gasps* playing the game normally. Many got bored and left... but you know what? The only ones left were the ones you really wanted to team with. They actually knew what they were doing, they weren't being PLd, they weren't complaining. They were having fun and adapting to the situation. Those are the people that are worth playing with, and if you hate or don't understand I5 enough to leave, the people that are worth playing with and make the game fun will still be here.

I've heard mention that the people who love I5 are PLing now while they still can. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, you were serious? Well, I'll have you know that I have never known anyone on my 3 servers with any of my 17 characters on any of my friends lists, global or otherwise, who has helped someone or has been helped by someone with a PL, and the ones that I see are terrible at the game because they never played with their characters to learn their moves, strategies, other characters' moves, or anything else about the game really. They are TERRIBLE on teams and with the new nerfs that make teams desirable instead constant soloing, they are kind of out of luck, and I say good ridance. That statement I heard about I5 lovers PLing while they still can is baseless and is just some kid trying to find someone else to point the finger at to say the update is making everyone mad, when it is not. The PLers are most likely people who have PLd before and now want to finish all their characters before it's too late.

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Dude, dude, which servers do you play on? I'm on Justice and Freedom and people are herding/PL'ing/farming like I5 is the end of the world. And this notion that the departure of the winter lord killed off all the wanna-be's is....problematic. I'm not arguing you with you, the amercian buffalo wasn't hunted with so much zeal as the winter lord, but I remember a heck of allot of other PL'ing going on. Remember all the kraken farms? That door in the abandoned sewer entrance used to be more heavily populated then a night club. Now it might just as well have tumbleweeds blowing through it. I just recently started a warshade, and as I muddle through my pre-teens and twenties, I find an astonishing number of freaks still around. There was that fellow in hollows who broadcast that he was looking for a mission team, then I invited him, he disconnected before I could say, hi, mission is set, and re-broadcast that he was looking for FROSTFIRE OR ATTA. OH, well, excuse me There was the character in her low 20's "dancing for influence" in atlas park, because she "couldn't afford her enhancements". I would very much love to play on this server where I am graded on my skills and teamwork and there is no herding/lame tactics/griefing since the winter lord left. If I had a buck for every time I see one loser looking for farms at under level 5 in PI for cripes sake. It's not that hard, when you're under five you can fall off a log and level for it! Way back in the day, it was kracken farms, then they nerfed those, then it was PI farms....etc....etc....

It actually wasn't my intention to highjack the thread. Honestly, my main concern about nerfing Burn isn't so much about the magical developer enhanted place of perfect play balance. I've played fire tanks, I've played with fire tanks. Mixed feelings.

On the pro side, let's face it. Fire tanks main appeal was that they were a non squishable AE/DOT master. Burn was a big part of that. You didn't see a whole lot of fire tanks intentionally seeking out big teams. Two reasons, knockback and inconsiderate teammates. Not saying that all fire tanks were afraid of groups. Sometimes people would play fire tanks for their increased damage output/easier soloing time when they can't find a group. Hey, that's cool.

Intellectually, I think I understand the need to nerf burn, it's being abused more times then peer to peer file sharing. But I can't help but wonder if in our enthusiasm in the war on PL'ing, we're forgetting about a little thing called FUN

Burn was FUN. 20 guys trying to punch your head in until they die was just plain cool. Back in the day, I met a fire tanker who took it open himself to teach me "a better way". (He thought I wasn't playing my fire tank well.) He then demonstrated by racing around a freak populated area of terra volta, picking up like five or six freak mobs of 7 or 8 so each, and jumping into the nearest dumpster. I'll admit it, the "burning dumpster of doom"; was hysterical. I laughed my butt into tears at 30 or 40 plus freakshow actually jockeying for position to try and cram themselves into a burning dumpster. It was an enormous-freaky popcorn popper.

Granted, in the end, as funny as they are, stunts like that should not be allowed long term. But it seems to me that the real solution to something like that, wouldn't be to nerf burn. Would be to fix the enemy AI. Imagine how quickly that gag would have ended if the freaks had been smart enough to toss a belt of grenades into the dumpster with him.

And hear I thought the only good thing on the internet was porn (My, my, the things you can learn by tooling around the forums when I should be working )

What a funny thread!

Overall, I wouldn't call it an exploit other then I would call recycling the same mission over and over again to get that badge an exploit. Cheesy, yes, lame, yes, harmful, not really... So who cares?

Besides, I didn't see anyone pointing a gun at my head. I talked a couple tot groups I was in, into letting me train badguys back to the group to spice things up inbetween tricks. After 2 or 3 tot groups I got bored and put together a group, we went out to the hollows and knocked out 3 people's missions. Matter of fact, at least one of the scrappers said he was only interested in coming along if it wasn't for ToT! It's been fairly thoroughly beaten to death, so I'm not gonna take more then a couple swings at it.

My thoughts on Halloween experience overall:

the BAD: within two minutes of logging in, I (a lvl4 travel-power-less) controller got TP'ed to the top of a very high skyscraper by someone who apparently thought it was funny to do that to people all night. I did eventually get myself down without getting killed with some forethought and a few Jet Lee style ledge drops (ala Cradle 2 the Grave). Rumor has it he was banned from the server for it. But last I heard there were already people planning on protesting the ban. (Sigh) Some people are just not happy until they ruin everyone else's good time

the GOOD: let's face it. The idea's cute, and clever. And BELCHING WEREWOLVES! How can you go wrong with that?? If I were going to complain to the devs, I'd say they didn't take it far enough. Not thinking large enough scale! I'd say riddle the streets with em. It was pretty fun nearly getting stepped on by a three story pumpkin creature.

I always thought that was one of CoH's shortcomings. Has some really good ideas, but they stop short of making them really satisfying. really EPIC. People will be talking about this for a week, and then it'll be forgotten. If that long. More likely people will just forget about it after the election.