je_saist

somehow I forgot about the I13 revisit. Thanks.

Because the powers aren't equal overall.

Brute's get 12.75 smash / lethal def from the primary shield and an additional 3.75% to all from Energy Cloak. Brute's also get a base 7.5% resistance to smash / lethal damage.

Stalkers only get 1.88% def from their hide, 16.25 from kinetic shield, but no smash / lethal resistance.

In the developers minds (circa City of Villains) that really low smash / lethal resistance was supposed to make up for the 1.63% overall difference between smash / lethal defense between the two archtypes.

The idea was that the Brute could last a little bit longer in direct combat, thus fulfilling the objective of aggro-gainer, while the stalker version would have more incentive to get out of the fight earlier, thus focusing on hit and run tactics.

On SO's... the concept never has really worked. The Brute set is just awful and really could use a revamp on some powers.. e.g. turning Conserve Power into Energzie.

The stalker set tends to work better because of it's low endurance usage, and the repulse ability helps with the whole get out of the mob mentality good stalkers learn to play by.

Now, I don't know WHY the developers haven't looked at the Energy Aura set. My suspicion is that back during the Cryptic Studio days there just wasn't enough staff, and the staff that was available had other things to work on. In the current Paragon Studio days, the resources might be available and some of the older design concepts can be revisited.

I know, I know. The whole "The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Oil" routine. Part of me is actually astounded at the amount of effort that goes into coming up with ways to convert existing avatars into new avatars. Really, aside from the Master Of badges, is there really anything in the game that is just impossibly hard to get on new avatars?

gonna echo what Camper said.

City of Heroes is a heavily instanced game. Most players are actually inside of missions, and not concentrated in any one zone or open area, so simply typing /search in a zone will only show you a few players.

There also is another factor that needs to be accounted for when teaming. Several issues back the /hide function was given a revamp and now allows players to not appear in searches, although they will remain visible to SG-mates, Coalies, or Global Channels.

Most mission teaming occurs through SG and Coaly chat, or through Global Channels. Many servers have a public (and largely populated) global channel, and probably several less populated private channels. Some global channels are based off of in-game or forum communities.

If you can tell us what server you are on, we can point you in the right direction of which global channels to check out. However, you might need to keep in mind that you could need to switch servers depending on your hours of play.

E.G. : servers like Victory, Triumph, and Virtue are pretty much dead from 1am till server Reboot Easter Time. You might find one or two teams running, but good luck putting together a task force or something.

I really have no opinion about whether or not Ice Melee should become a scrapper power. I, can, however, explain why ice armor is not going to become a scrapper power. To set the stage for this explanation, we have to make a couple of assumptions.

1. Each Archtype is built for the purpose as outlined here: http://www.cityofheroes.com/game_inf..._overview.html
2. We are only using Single Origin Enhancements to determine balance.

The job of a tank is described as follows:
The Job of a scrapper is described as follows:
So, the job of the Tank is to take damage for the team. The job of the scrapper is to dish damage out. Many of the early game sets were built around these simplistic concepts. For example, Dark Armor. On a scrapper, Dark Armor's collection of mez effects and ultra-strong heal enabled a dark scrapper to get into a middle of a mob, hit hard, and then get out, basically a proto-stalker. When the set got ported to tanks, the set really didn't work. The mez effects that bought scrappers time to launch attacks would break aggro trains and make mob control difficult on tanks.

Ice Armor was balanced around the idea of being an aggro holder, and as such, has the largest amount of native non-mez pbaoe taunts. While all other tank sets only get one aura with a taunt component, Ice Armor gets a Taunt on Chilling Embrace, a taunt on Icicles, and yet another taunt on the PbAOE Energy Absorbtion. Only Dark comes close with taunt effects on Death Shroud, Dark Regeneration, Cloak of Fear, and Oppressive Gloom. Although, as mentioned, Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear's mez effects tend to work against Taunt.

To compensate for this massive amount of aggro holding power, Ice Armor is one of the only sets that can reach soft-cap to smashing lethal on it's own: http://zerias.blogspot.com/2008/04/c...ace-build.html



Now bring this over to the scrapper side. Knock 30% off the Ice Armors defense values. Is the problem clear now?

There's a very good reason why the Defense Only Scrapper / Brute Set, Super Reflexes, gets elude, scaling resists as HP drops, and no taunt aura. The Brute Defense Only set Energy Aura also lacks any taunt aura, although Energy Drain contains a taunt component.

***

Okay, I know what the next response is: but the developers tested Ice on brutes?!?!

Well, okay. Yes. Brutes also get a much higher HP cap, something the Hoarfrost power really helped towards. Villains also started out with the defense sets Cold Domination and ForceField, which would have helped boost defense only brutes to soft-cap levels.

It's also generally accepted by the Brute Players that I talk to that the defense only sets Energy Aura and Super Reflexes need IO help.

***

Getting back to the main point. You won't see Ice on Scrappers because of what makes Ice Work. As a set, it works against Tanks because of the defense scaling and the hp levels. The power set would need a complete overhaul to handle the addition of damage auras on a scrapper frame against SO's.

My head now hurts in ways that I never thought possible.

That's probably correct.

I did some tests with a regen / willpower AV set, and they do not appear to carry Archvillain esoteric resistances.

I think you can get around this class limitation by giving custom AV's powers with resistances to fear / terror, such as the Dark Armor set.

***

I did also uncover another interesting bug that I filed. It can be seen at the end of Transverse Experiences: 404018. If the ending Ebby is stunned when the flee signal is given, the Ebby promptly runs for the door at full speed, still displaying the stun animation.

Ergo, there is also another possibility that certain triggers in the system will over-ride existing enemy status effects.

the ego in me loves having my posts linked to

The practical side of me panics that maybe something in them isn't accurate and I must edit, re-edit, and re-edit, and re-edit.

joof...

wow, she really does look like she got her fashion tips from Laura in IP.

well, just about anything you do could break your system.

One of the factors that is not often addressed in mobility setups is said sort of plainly on the AMD / ATi page:

Many vendors will link hot buttons or function key assignments to the graphics driver input settings, so that you can do things like adjust the brightness of the display. These advanced features may, or may not function with the reference driver provided by the manufacturer.

Now, I'm not entirely familiar with what Toshiba does with their drivers, I don't know if they make any specific modifications, but maybe this will help explain why they say "don't change the drivers."

This is often the case with Mobile drivers. Both Nvidia and ATi offer limited support for laptops running WinNT6: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...b_win7-32.aspx :: http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce...9.48_beta.html

As far as I'm aware, there's no Mobility Modder equivalent for the Intel Graphics Accelerator platform...

That might not mean you are out of luck entirely.

In theory, you should be able to use the Windows Device Manager to force install a later driver.

The intel executable file extracts (under WinNT6) to C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Local\Temp

In my case, I got the folders: pft80D8~tmp / pft1BDF~tmp / pft2ED2~tmp

The easiest way to get the right folder is to sort the Temp folder by date-modified:

Launch the Intel driver installer and wait for the this system does not meet the requirements pop-up

Copy the temp file folder to a permanent folder (I went with C:\Intel)

Close the pop-up out.

Now you should be able to use the Device Manager to force install the extracted driver file.

I do need to stress: this may or may not work for your platform... and could actually bork your system over.


***

XHacker: Win7 is Win Vista. Same operating system: WinNT6.

I think you meant to type: Windows Xp. Windows Xp and WinNT6 do not share the same driver structure.

Well, I just grabbed my PB and zipped around my Kitten-Test map. No voids, quants, cysts, novas, or dwarfs tabbed.

I got it by opening up CoH in console mode, logging in, and pulling the last address from the console box.

Ouch.

Okay, for reference: the Geforce4 Go was retired and placed on the old Legacy Driver list a long while back. SMXI should have installed the legacy driver by default. It's not why you got the black screen.

You got the black screen because: http://www.google.com/search?q=black...episguides.com

http://www.mepislovers.org/showthrea...hlight=GTS+250

The Nvidia driver is trying to set a higher refresh rate / resolution than the one your monitor actually supported. Before Debian got rid of dpgk-reconfigure xserver-xorg, we used to use that command to hard set the resolution and refresh rate for Nvidia drivers.

Now... since Debian got rid of one of the most useful tools ever made for any operating system... It's a bit more complex when Nvidia pulls the black screen trick.

On many distributions of Linux, if you run into the black-screen effect, you can get into the command prompt by hitting control alt F1 after the computer has reached it's normal log-in point.

The run the dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg command, which will more than likely reset your driver back to the vesa or NV driver on nvidia cards.

Some Live-CD distributions, such as Mepis, contain a tool on the Live CD to copy the Live-CD's x.org configuration to the installed operating system, which can make this step easier.

***

Once you have reclaimed your desktop and can log in, you can run nvidia-xconfig to enabled the Nvidia driver, and hopefully retain your resolution / refresh rate.

(So, please, try Mepis before you go back to WinXp).

Really. You know, there's this thing called flame-baiting. You actually are really good at it. You've already decided that I'm rude and use that an excuse to just ignore or discredit anything I type into the forums.

Well, here's a little suggestion. Under user profiles there's a section called . Under statistics, there's a link called Find all posts by (user_name).

How about you do that on my profile, and see just how often I'm "rude" as you phrase it, how often I'm right, and how often I go out of my way to help people who don't power-level their reputation, don't flame-bait the forums, don't get cocky attitudes, don't flood the forums with whiny posts, and are actually willing to learn how the game works, and why the game work that way.

Actually I'm fairly sure players would just be happy with being able to change the color on their khelds.

One of the big tech issues though is that the Kheldians and other currently non-customizable powers, like Stone Armor's Granite, are exposed to the player as an overlay costume. Exposing costume overlays to the costume editor would require significant amount of additional engine work and User Interface work... Development resources that just weren't available after Power Customization launched.

I think the voiced suspicion that the developers won't do Villain Epic Archtype customization until they can also do Hero Epic Archtype Customization is probably correct.

I would like to see some of those additional crab back-packs made available... but I'd change how I would do it. Rather than just making them costume options, I'd make them additional available careers in the Arachnos army.

Of course, expanding the career choices would have further implications on other sets. The Widows, for example, would be rather torqued if they didn't get other high level careers.

For Khelds, I could see power customization extended in additional forms. We know that the Nova and Drawf forms the khelds use are taken from creatures the Kheldians met on other planets. So, it stands to reason that further forms (and abilities) could be conferred through different shapes.

Yeah, I know. You have to go pose as a non-arachnos for a mission.

I'm trying to come up with a better way of phrasing the chances of backpack customization.

As of right now, backpacks are largely limited to Crab Arachnos. Yes, if you install the City of Heroes DVD Collectors Edition, there's a clear shot of a TANK with a backpack, so somebody at some point did some work to make backpacks costume options... Anyways, the Crab backpack is one of the signature costume parts, and the developers have shied away from doing customization on the Epic Story Archtypes.

I wouldn't mind seeing backpacks being added to costume parts, but my suspicion is that when / if they arrive, they'll be for the 10 base Archtypes, and not for the Story Epics.

Well, no. Because then toggles wouldn't end.

In the past the developers have indicated they "want" a complete crash. They do want to make the ranged avatar that launched a full nuke to be "completely helpless."

One of the... problems... with your solution... is that it makes the sets play more like one another. One of the objectives, design goals, desired for objective... of the different power sets... is that they are DIFFERENT.

You shouldn't have the same experience playing an Archery Defender that you would have playing an Archery Corruptor. A Dark Corruptor should play differently than a /Dark Defender.

The full-nukes / half-nukes are one of the tools the developers use to separate sets from each other. Yes, half nukes like Rain of Arrows, Full Auto, and Hail of Bullets are "safer" to pull off... but... you get a much more visceral feeling when triggering Nova, Blackstar, or Thunderous Blast. There's a real sense that you, the player, are vulnerable.

Take that risk away, and you'll actually remove or damage the experience of playing several different sets.

So. It's not going to happen.

That's a very good possibility. When I was working for Cox Communications, one of our first troubleshooting steps was to try and disable the Windows Firewall.

We need to find out if this is that issue though.

Click on the start menu please, and then click on the button that says run (windows xp). If you are running Windows 7, click into the search bar.

Type in cmd

Then hit enter.

This SHOULD bring up the command terminal.

If it does not bring up the command terminal, go back to the run / search bar and type out: command

***

With the command prompt up, type in the following: tracert 206.127.152.87

Hit enter.

This will attempt to access one of the login servers. Now, Paragon Studios / NCSoft seems to only have one port open, so trace routes and pings will time out / not respond.

What we are interested in is whether or not you get to your ISP.

If you get request-time out-with an IP address of 127.x.x.x or 192.x.x.x, and no further ip address's, then the problem is within your computer / home network.

If you get a request-time-out and then further IP addresses, the problem is going to be on your ISP's side, or your ISP's connection to the Internet Back Bone.

won't ever happen.

The nuke crash is intentional for the amount of damage the nuke can do over the number of targets the nuke can affect. While our developers are not known to say Never very often, changing Full-Nuke debuffs for Blasters / Corruptors / Defenders is one of the few things that has made the list in the past.

On the servers I play on, several SG's and Global channels have AE nights. There's also an active contingent of people actually creating stories in the AE system. The implication of #3 is well, factually wrong. The implication you try to make is that nobody uses AE, which simply isn't true.

What is true is that the exploiters, those who used the AE system, knowingly used the AE system, to bypass risk / reward ratios and achieve high levels with little to no actual gameplay experience... have gone back to the older farms. Some of them still work the system, trying to figure out the next big exploit, the next big enemy group or combination that the developers overlooked, or the right combination of IO buffs, damage, recharge time, and powers to get the most out of a mission.

It's those players who are directly responsible for the changes being made to AE, but each change better fulfills the goal of AE to be a way for players to share stories with each other. Too many players, and from your post you are one of them, get hung up on the phrase alternate Level Path. The developers have been over that phrase more times than I care to count: Alternate does not mean equivalent or superior.

It's not really that hard a concept to comprehend. Yes. You can use AE to level from 1 to 50. No, it was never supposed to be as fast as playing Developer Created content. It was never supposed to be used for farming. It was never supposed to be used to bypass risk reward. Everybody who actually cared, and paid attention, knew anvils would be dropping from "Day-1."

Now, I know this is going to go straight over your head. I know that you don't care one bit about playing the game or having fun. I know that all you care about is getting maximum xp's for littlest time spent.

I do have to ask these questions: Why? What's the goal? Why the rush to get to 50? What's the point of rushing through the game and not doing anything?

No, I'm not exactly expecting an intelligent response except maybe another "lolwhut" since these questions require elementary school comprehension skills... but maybe it will serve as food for thought for new players researching the history of AE, or looking into using AE to tell their own stories.