je_saist

As you are about to find out, yes.

Yes.

And here you've gone off the deep-end.

Timing how long something takes in City of Heroes is pretty much impossible as every player plays at their own level, and some players can affect teams more than others.

Some teams can rock out a Citadel Task Force in under an hour. Other teams will struggle to finish Citadel in 3 hours. How long does a Citadel take to complete? It takes as long as your team takes.

Saying that any given avatar takes any given amount of time to reach any given objective requires massive assumptions about the capabilities of that avatar, massive assumptions about the capabilities of the player, and massive assumptions about the capabilities of any team-mate that player may interact with.

In what manner? Single Origin Enhancements? Crafted origin enhancements? Invention Set Enhancements?

A level 45 stone tank can be built radically different from an equal level Willpower just based on IO sets alone, never-minding the player themselves. A few years back a group of people I played with always knew when I would start (real) Dual-Boxing (two computers) to cover for a friend who had crashed out of the game. Although I'd be using the exact same avatar as my friend with the exact same power-sets with the exact same IO slotting, my play-style would be completely different.

That's the problem. You don't see the vast difference possible between a player's avatar.

Since you didn't read a point I made in earlier in this thread, I'm going to repeat it and bold it so hopefully it sinks in.

Whether or not the argument is any good is an immaterial observation.

The argument of "comparing early level glaring powerset disparities (if they even exist)" is, to quote the Borg, Irrelevant.

The reality of the game is that not all power-sets within archtypes are created equally. Not all archtypes are created equally.

The game is roughly balanced around the idea that each class compliments another class. This means that some classes have intentional weakness, which means that some power-sets have intentional weaknesses. This also means that some classes have intentional strengths, which results in some powersets having intentional strengths.

No.

It is not.

Let me put it this another way. What you are suggesting here is that every single character needs to be equal to another character.

You are stating that somebody who uses a Mace should have the exact same single target, pbaoe, ranged, and ranged targeted aoe damage, as somebody who uses a different weapon.

Even if that is not what you meant, that is the logical extension of the argument you are not making here. It's also as ludicrous as it sounds.

To put this in another context. Imagine the first Doom Multiplayer. Imagine everybody starting out with just a pistol. Now lock the game to just pistols.

What happens now? What separates one player from another player? What makes each player different? What happens if somebody is really good with a pistol, but another player was really good with the shotgun they no longer have?

Is that really the uniform experience you want this game to deliver?

Wow, you typed something that is not worthy of an Epic Facepalm picture.

What. Part. Of. No. Do. You. Not. UnderStand? The. N. or. the. O?

Okay Socorro, I'll be a little blunt than I probably should be here.

I really could just replace all the text I just wrote with that infinity picture of Picard and Riker doing facepalms and it would be just as effective.

The whole point of the game is the experience of playing an avatar.

A Dual Pistols blaster should NOT play like a Dual Pistols Defender or Corruptor.

A Mace Tank should NOT play like a Mace Brute.

One of the aspects of the game that power-set / archetype respecs completely ignore is that experience.

All power-set / archetype respecs do is basically render 95% of the game completely invalid. So you got to level 50 and now you want a Katana instead of a broadsword? What the hey, you'll just ignore the game completely and make one.

If that's really what you want... if you really just want to skip the game entirely?

You need to go find a different game to play.

Jolting chain is not knockback.

It's knockdown.

It keeps mobs SITTING in your end-drain aoe.

As to your build.

No. Just. No.

Mud pots? Really?

Okay, when the developers were testing Electrical Control the Conductive Aura power would awaken enemies that had been slept by static field. Conductive Aura was changed to it's present state where it can be used without waking enemies up.

Mud Pots basically renders one of your most powerful combinations, Conductive Aura + Statif Field, useless.

Then there is Tremor. Same thing, it's a knockback power. It renders two of your major powers, Static Field and Conductive aura... pointless.

Then there is boxing, tough, and weave.

Drop them.

You aren't even getting close to a soft cap, so the little bit of defense from Weave is doing you nothing, and the resist from Tough isn't very helpful either.

Dump those powers and pick the stealth pool with Stealth and Grant Invisibility. . these give you two places to shove LoTG procs and opens up another slot for a more useful power.

Now, as far as your epic powers go... I normally don't pick on people for their epic power picks.

With Elec / Stone... you do have to realize some facts of the powers. Power for power, stone and electric don't really mix. Stone is heavy on the knockback capability and the melee damage. Electric is really light on hard-controls... so the two sets are often at odds with each other.

With the epic powers you really want to invest in a set that expands your capability to attack multiple opponents at once. When you get to higher levels and you have Synaptic Overload, you'll be better equipped to short out a mob for some AOE goodness. Personally I went with the Ice Mastery power as it gave me a Debuff in Sleet, a mass AOE attack in Ice Storm, a panic button / recovery endurance option in Hibernate, and Decent Defense.

Mu Mastery... doesn't give you anything of that.

Power Sink really isn't going to give you anything that you don't already have.

While Charged Armor and Power Surge together do give you a bit of meaningful resistance... the problem is this: If you are getting hit as a dominator... you are not Dominating. The point of a dominator is to control your opponents.

Now, I'm not saying the build I made is the only way to go...

I am saying that the build you have proposed probably isn't is NOT going to work given how the powers interact with each other.

Stuff him into a pokeball and take a walk?

More seriously, I would rethink the raids and the zones, and if possible, deprecate the old raids into Ouroborus.

To an extent the Hive and Abyss were built around the concept of the Jelly Bean Hamidon. Evolving the Hamidon into something new that retains the existing raid mechanics would likely be difficult to accomplish.

Removing the raid mechanics would open up possible design opportunities for the Primal Hamidon.

A conceptual idea in my head is this: After all of the defeats in these zones the Hamidon has decided to pull back from Paragon City and form out away from the reach of the Heros and Villains. The zones have been emptied of Devouring Earth Presence.

The Longbow move into the Hive setting up a scientific research post to investigate where the Hamidon has gone to. The Arachnos have done the same in the Abyss.

Both groups, independently, locate the new Hamidon's location. He's taken up residence in a wrecked City far from Paragon.

Much like Praetoria's first ward screen shots the new City the Hamidon has taken over completely. However, there things go in a different way. The Primal Earth Hamidon has been weakened from his continuous attempts to break through the hive, and he's unable to hold Cohesion. In order to hold himself together the Hamidon has used giant statues in the zone to hold his form, and the mito's are everywhere. Players must defeat the Statue monsters simultaneously in order to force Hamidon to relapse into himself.

Conceptual yes, and I realize this is a Zwillinger-class tangent

You do realize that the real advertising companies have people to put advertisements on their bodies... right...

or that some companies have ran promotions for people to name their babies after a product?

Seriously, TPN having a billboard in Primal Earth ain't exactly hitting the sheer... depths... that real-life advertising agencies have hit.

Wow, I don't think I've seen an entitlement issue this bad for... well... a while at least.

Are you seriously going to argue that The developers have to give the long-time subscribers a gameplay option that the developers do not want to give any players because the developers say it goes completely contrary to the design of their game?

You don't handle being told NO very well do you?

What? You're surprised that TPN bought advertisement space in Primal Earth?

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=3779431

All I have to say on this subject.

* * *
Alright, now that the guide is over, time for a semi F.A.Q.

• Why isn't Mono-Project an option?

Mono-Project is a reimplementation of the published .NET specifications. As such it always lags behind the main .NET development branch. It also is generally not binary compatible with .NET applications. Mono-project can create programs that can read and use information that is created by .NET, such as the case with Silverlight / Moonlight.

As an additional note, Mono-project was legally allowed to exist due to a pact between Microsoft and Novell, a pact that is no longer in effect with the sale of Novell Assets to Attachmate, and the subsequent termination of the Mono-project developers by Attachmate.

The legal and patent issues surrounding .NET are one of the reasons you will likely never see .NET implemented under a W.I.N.E. base.

• Wasn't there a virtualization option discussed a while back?

Yes, there were discussion about installing an Apple OSX or Microsoft Windows operating system to a virtual machine, and using the disk sharing features to run the installer inside the virtual machine and install City of Heroes to a folder on the disc itself.

Yes, this method does work, but it still does not negate the requirement of having a valid installation of a Microsoft Windows Operating System or Apple OSX.

It's also unlikely that many desktop Linux users are running Virtual Machines. It's far more likely that they'll either be dual-booting, or have a computer with just a single Linux installed and another computer with either a Microsoft Windows Operating System or Apple OSX. This guide is built to the more common user.

• Kubuntu? Really?

While major distributions like Mepis abandoned Ubuntu a long time ago (and if you want, have I got horror stories for you), and while newer distributions like Linux Mint are stepping away as well, there are still a large number of Linux users with Ubuntu installations, so I had a Ubuntu based install to make sure everything worked on that train-wreck.

To go ahead and squash the requests, no, I am not going to redo this guide for Gnome, Unity, XFCE, or insert your Window Manager of choice here.

If you want to do a guide on a desktop other than KDE, feel free to do so.

• Do you think it's possible to get a native Linux client going?

At this point I do not think NCSoft sees the marketing value or the opportunity to grow it's subscriber base with a Linux client.

Given the behavior over shoving the crapware launcher down their Microsoft Windows subscribers throats, never-minding creating more work internally for their developers by having to maintain two completely different launchers (OSX and Microsoft Windows), I just don't see NCSoft being receptive to actually trying to grow their subscriber base.

Random drop is random.

Sometimes I've logged in and gone through 7 or 8 story missions before getting a tip drop.

Other times I've logged in, accidentally defeated a minion with a toggle damage aura, and gotten a tip drop.

I'm sorry that you had an experience where you had to go through mob after mob of enemies, but... Random IS Random.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott

In that case, save the image to your hard-drive, and upload it to a photo-sharing site like or Photobucket.

Picasa will let you automatically select size for embedding the image in another web-page.

For other photo-linking services you'll likely have to create your own smaller sized image with an image editor like G.I.M.P.

Doesn't matter if you buy it or not.

What matters is whether or not the developers buy it.

And the reality is, the developers allow some of the existing archetypes to stand based on exchanging performance now for performance later.

You... never actually have played City of Heroes have you?

Well, let me tell you about some of the archtypes, such as the defender.

It's possible when making a defender to create a character that has no debuffs, but several strong buffs, such as taking the Empathy or Force Field Primary Set. It's also possible to couple these primary sets with a secondary set that offers no debuffs, such as Archery. Ergo, it is possible to create a character that won't put out as much Damage on a target as another power-set combination in the same archetype.

For such players their leveling experience, if played solo without a team, will inevitably be slower than say a Defender that picked a primary set with Debuffs and a secondary set that has damage, such as Storm Summoning.

The game itself destroys whatever point you thought you had Shadow State. Leveling experiences can differ wildly between archetypes. Some are better suited to racking up levels while soloing. Some are better suited to racking up levels with teams.

That is how the game was designed.

Which would be a problem if the majority of the game power-leveled.

Slight problem, Power Leveling is not as common as you seem to think it is.

Believe it or not, there are several players who actually get out of the AE buildings in Atlas Park / Port Oakes / RWZ and go do story arcs and task forces / strike forces.

Maybe you should join them sometime.

Yeah, I'm sure the company who released drivers that caused graphics cards to overheat and laptops to explode, as well as who deliberately lied about the physical build problems with their chips to every single ODM and OEM, is really the best company to be buying a new graphics card from.

Anyways, to repeat: AMD can't do anything about fixing the OpenGL rendering problems if they don't have feedback from users actually having those problems. If you are having problems with getting an AMD chip to work, you need to let AMD know about the problem.

Honestly, none of them.

The signature character costume I like the most is not even from the US version. It's from the Korean version:



Faathim the Kind. Can't get much cooler than floating Deity.

Mother Mayhem. I'd give anything to know how she wears that costume without poking holes in herself.

If Captain Mako ever rendered up to his artwork... it'd be him...

but for practical purposes, it's a toss-up between Silver Mantis and her dialogue versus Positron with his helmet off (PUT THE HELMET BACK ON PLEASE)

While I don't particularly care most of the NPC costumes in the game, I think for the most part they fit the characters. Most of the Freedom Phalanx dresses like Classic Superheroes in Tights, but that's the generation they came from.

Most of the Arachnos fit their costumes as well. Yeah, Lord Recluse is a bit over the top with those spiderlegs... but... oh well.

The why is the hardest part to answer.

My attention isn't really captured by the NPC's largely because I'm just not interested in what they wear. I am not a big comic book fan and I have never really gone for the whole spandex tights thing. I'm much more an anime / manga fan... which is why I get a little grumpy over Foreshadow's costume redesign which was not needed.

Thematically, I think the various art teams behind all of the enemy groups featured in City of Heroes have done a phenomenal job of designing costumes that fit something the enemy group in question would wear. To make a point of it, the proposed C.O.T. revamp is probably the first time that I've ever seen an art direction taken for a known group where the costumes just did NOT match the group's known history. And no Nobel Savage, Positron didn't address that what that revamp needed was a complete redesign, not subtle adjustments.

Visually, it's never just one single costume. It's the entire... package... as the term might be used.

What ends up mattering to me is whether or not the costumes fit the story. Whether or not I personally like the costumes becomes an immaterial concern.

Case in point, I really don't like the Malta costumes. They really do not look that threatening until you add in their mechs, which are very threatening. However, the costumes, such as they are, fit the group. They are a para-military organization who works in the shadows to accomplish their objectives.

Now, would a real black-ops paramilitary group wear their midnight assault gear everywhere? Of course not... but the constant appearance of the Malta in their Shadow-Warfare outfits even in broad daylight is an accepted breakage of game immersion.

I did have a snarky comment here about the developers being very explicit that all knew players would need to start in Praetoria as the developers wanted to put their best foot forward.

However, I can't actually find any forum posts from 2010 where this was spelled out... nor anything on the main site where this was spelled out. It's not even spelled out clearly on the available trial web-page, nor was I able to find a link on Paragon Wiki explaining the lockout.

So no, I guess I can't fault new players for not knowing about the requirement that their first avatar has to be a Praetorian.

Extremely hard.

The best phrase to use here is context sensitive. Currently there is no context sensitive data passed between players and characters.

This references back to the lack of shadow-maps in indoor maps and to why Power Customization was so hard as posted by C.Bruce.

Power and Costume definitions were never linked to the players environment. Even the global lighting source for the players is static, something that can be witnessed in the costume creator by toggling between the day and night backgrounds. While the ambient light changes, the lighting on the player... does not.

In order for the power-set to be aware of the tile-set, there would need to be a data-base lookup where the power-set queries the tile-set for type, then sets a random listing from another table with the listed animations.

On it's own this isn't such a big deal.

When considering the amount of information that now has to be transfered, it becomes a big deal, which is why the aformentioned propel uses a randomized client-side lookup for the items it throws.

Could the client-side look-up solution be implemented for Super-Strength?

Probably.

Would it be a short and easy task?

Probably Not.

There's no reason you cannot have both the Pets AND Jolting chain.

For reference, here's my own Elec / Stone dom build:

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...47F90F7D76EA83

Now, as to your specific question...

It really depends on what you do.

If you are running a tricked out IO build with Perma-Dom... you can very easily forget the gremlins unless you are going after a hardened target.

Would I skip them entirely?

No, I would not.

They provide quite a bit of functional mitigation, such as taking Alpha-Strikes, as well as the aforementioned aggro dispersion.

Well, just a rainbow pop-tart. The Kitten part can be supplied by the player on top of the pop-tart.

translation: Television and Pohsyb are more than slightly crazy by now, and I'm not too keen on volunteering myself as hostage-bait for an armed standoff by mentioning power-pool customization to them again.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...&postcount=213

Fast forward to: http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/new..._power_se.html


With Dark Blast / Dark Manip on the way for blasters, this means that Dark Control for Dominators, Dark Assault for Dominators, and Dark Control for Controllers have been power-mapped out.

The requirement that this round of power-set proliferation require no new animations or art assets means that powers in those sets require new animations, and will not be using animations that are already available in the game.

So yes, Dark Control / Dark Assault is on the way, when the art team has time for it.

My suspicion is that because it hasn't been announced yet, Dark Control / Dark Assault will likely be the feature(s) punted to a later work schedule in order to fix the collective disaster with the proposed C.O.T. revamp.

I'm sorry... I truly am... but I cannot let this opportunity pass!

off the top of my head, side-saddle.

There are already some costumes in game, such as the female skirts, that would present animation problems with between the legs.

Maybe you could sell them on the idea by pitching it as War Witch's new mode of Transport!

No. It is not a missed opportunity.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...0&postcount=28

Important part bolded.

Implementing Power set respecs, even as a Purchase option, would immediately, and irrevocably, remove one of the MAJOR INCENTIVES of a subscribers account over a F2P account.

*summons Sapphic to fight Mynx!*