je_saist

how about we wait and see what the developers plans are for Issue 19 before trying to make the plans for them?

therefor: /unsigned to an extent I'm not sure can be communicated in any known language.

Please don't use beta times for previous releases as a basis for beta times current releases. Also, don't use Forum closings as a metric for when new beta's will come out. There really is no relation between the two events. If the moderators on the forums had felt like it it, they could have closed the Dual Pistol Open Beta forums the day the pistols hit the live server.

One of the other factors to keep in mind about I17 is that it's scope is significantly larger than previous expansions. This is the first time since CoV that the actual in-game graphics engine is getting new rendering modes, and testing all of the possible different hardware configurations is going to take some work. It's often been discussed that Ultra Mode is being beta'd and scheduled for release this month in order to make sure the mode is ready for a July release.

Also, keep in mind that at PAX it was announced that Going Rogue's Closed Beta would start quote "next week" by Positron. The test server itself is already hosting what appears to be an early server version of Going Rogue. Again, that release isn't scheduled until July.

Also, if I was a betting man, I wouldn't count on an Open Beta for Issue 17 until late-mid April, and a launch of the expansion at the end of April.

are we also getting the Fashion Show costume pieces?? (*hope* *hope* *hope*)

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...&postcount=192

According to what the GM said on the live forums, open beta is still a way off.

Also, we know that a new wave of beta invites went out as somebody posted on the live forums that they had gained access to the test server yesterday. In general, each wave of invites is followed by a subsequent patch which is then placed in the players hands to test.

As one other little factor, the Dual Pistols forums being closed was announced on 03-23-2010 at 12:29 AM. Bringing it up a week later as "proof" that an Open-Beta is close is specious at best.

I have to agree with the foes are too quick to run

I have a max level fire/fire tank. Been max level since I7-ish or there-abouts. I'm quite used to being an aggro magnet, and have been complimented by various avatars throughout the years with keeping their tails out of trouble, even after they did stupid things... like accidentally target a mob in the next room and bring in a horde of new enemies before the current mob was taken care of. I've gotten quite used to being complimented as the best fire tank some have ever played with, and being referred to as the best fire tank on the server. I've also gotten quite used to be referred to as the bloody debt magnet.

Ergo, it freaking TORQUES ME OFF when enemies run the other way. Seriously, a fire/fire tanker shouldn't be whining that enemies won't hang around. Yet, I've actually submitted /bug reports in game for enemies taking off and running away.... and no. My fire/fire does not have Burn... so no, it's not Burn sending them running.

It's even more annoying during task forces like ITF, where the elite bosses in the canyon will suddenly, for no reason, run the other way... no matter how much my tanks lay on the taunt and attacks.

Now, I really don't know what the conditions are for enemies to take off running and completely ignore taunt / gauntlet values... I am in agreement that these values should be examined... and changed.

I'm not entirely sure "marketing" is to blame.

I brought this up in another thread. While talking with Television about "proper widescreen support", he advanced the offer that if enough players had Eyefinity / TripleHead setups, or would be obtaining Eyefinity / TripleHead setups, then the programmers would push back another feature scheduled for Going Rogue / I18 in order to get Eyefinity / Triplehead support out in time for the retail package launch.

The key point here is that with 4 months to retail launch the development staff was willing to consider the possibility of shifting resources around and dropping features. This indicates that the actual development of Going Rogue is still very much in a changing state. We also know, thanks to a closed beta leak, that Castle finally got around to dealing with some other "longstanding" game issues, specifically the BoTZ IO enhancements. This as well indicates that the development staff has been busy at other tasks, and only now are resources becoming available to work on content / features outside the scope of Going Rogue.

Given the announcement of Issue 17, and the release of Dual Pistols, Demon Summoning, and Ultra Mode before the retail launch of Going Rogue, it's very likely that the development staff is pushing out features, and telling players about those features, as soon as they can. Everything so far fits in with what I've been saying for months now: too many players are shifting the development of Going Rogue too far ahead of it's actual state.

Ergo, it's very possible that Castle can't say anything else about SuperGroup features because there are no concrete plans about SuperGroups. There's been a lot of cool ideas tossed around these forums that involve SuperGroup computers. I should know, I've made quite a few of them.

While I wouldn't be so quick to blame marketing for not doing / saying anything right now, as their hands may be tied by the lack of concrete development plans... I would be very quick to look for concrete plans after Going Rogue launches.

Lord Recluse is "supposed" to be designed so that no "single" tanker can solo tank him. If my memory serves correctly, you'd need a defense percent rating of about 75% or higher to have a "soft cap" against him, and with the Red Tower active, he's supposed to hit hard enough to over-power even capped Smash / lethal defenses. Another factor to consider is that the Blue Tower boosts Lord Recluse's To-Hit by 30%, ontop of the AV and Level Bonus, so defense based tanks really benefit from taking the blue tower down.

Basically, the design of the TF is supposed to be so that it does not matter what tank you take, so much as it matters what buffs / debuffs you have available for the tank to take advantage of. If you don't have any debuffs with -to-hit or -damage sitting on Recluse, and you don't have anything to buff the tank with, chances are you will go splat.

I do have to be careful on my verbiage here because there are techniques for buff / debuff light teams to work around Lord Recluse's punch, such as the Tank taking a load of purple inspirations in, and using inspirations to maintain a high enough level of defense.

actually the devs have said something about it.

Not. Happening.

The last time I said something about this subject was just last month: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...8&postcount=22

exactly.

I've been over this before in multiple locations; here in the forums; on Gamenikki.com (still down as RawServe will not respond to emails or phone calls and the situation is turning ugly); and zerias.blogspot.com

The basic problem is that the PvE game is based on inherent imbalance. Each of the archtypes in the game is deliberately weak in some areas, and deliberately strong in other areas, which is to say they are inherently imbalanced. The imbalances drive the team-based combat of the PvE system where players should work together in order to over-come each other's weak spots. The need to balance the majority of the game content against a teaming experience is why the developers sometimes have to take drastic measures to halt a particular play-style or holy-grail goal that a segment of the player base pursues.

An inherently imbalanced game makes for a incredibly imbalanced PvP enviroment. If you look at all of the good multiplayer games, they are based on two basic design principles: At Some Level the players are equal :: Skill matters

The concept is most visible in first person shooters such Unreal Tournament, Quake, Prey, Doom, Far Cry / Crysis, and so on. All players start out with a basic weapon, and while they can gain over-powering weapons or armors, skill is still a factor. A player with a sniper rifle or a rail gun is dangerous at a distance... but enough armor or good enough use of cover, and that range advantage can disappear in a heartbeat.

Even when looking at the kings of mixed-combat play; Monolith's Aliens Versus Predator 2 and Verant's Planetside; the concept still held up.

AvP2 with only two players could be a decidedly unfair fight depending on what avatars the players controlled, whether or not class based weapons were in play, and whether or not alien life-cycle was on. However, AvP2 allowed players to adjust the scoring for each defeat... so that a face hugger dropping a marine with access to the smart gun awarded more points than the marine with the smart gun dropping the face hugger. The result was a multiplayer experience that could account for whether or not the actual combat was balanced.

In Planetside, there was a spot for everybody. Even if you weren't in the league of VT-Grumpy-Bunny or Fatal1ty when it came to FPS combat, you could still find something to do in Planetside, be it a medic, a driver, a pilot, an engineer, or a combat strategist calling out which targets to hit and planning the battles. Even then, the actual FPS combat was still balanced against each Empire having similar weapon classes, even though those weapon classes behaved in different manners. The Vanu were terrors in water-bound and vertical combat situations. The Terrans ruled in open-field combat and more traditional FPS combat. In close quarters combat though, it was the New Conglomerate that held the advantage. Despite all of the different combat factors, Planetside's core combat still came down to who had the better aim. Skill mattered. A cloaker could take out a max armor. A skeeter pilot could down a BRF.

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So, in order for City of Heroes to work in a PvP enviroment, in order for it to provide good PvP, things have to be balanced. The PvE combat is not conducive to PvP play... and if the developers want to retain the aspect of City of Heroes were each archtype is supposed to give a different play experience, the PvE combat is never going to be conducive to PvP play.

The design goals are diametrically opposed.

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This is complicated by the fact that the majority of players who participated in CoH PvP were not interested in good PvP play. They weren't interested in a balanced enviroment, and there stands a stark disconnect between the likes of Macskull and Conflict, and the actual development staff.

The PvPer's largely want OMGWTFBBQ, I GANKED U HARD IN THE @$$ IM AWSUM YU SUK MAH... I'm sure you can fill in the rest. Ergo, the PvPer's, or rather the vocal PvPer's on the forums, want an imbalanced enviroment similar to Ultima Online.

Well, thankfully, Castle and the rest of the development staff is smarter than that. Castle seems to have a handle on good PvP requiring that the PvP game be different from the PvE game. Issue 13 was a step in the right direction for where PvP play needs to go.

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That being said, there are other over-riding factors. My own personal opinion is that PvP play would be best served by it's own separate game with it's own separate development staff. That's my opinion.

That also isn't likely. NCSoft got burned badly by Tabula Rasa, an Inherently Imbalanced PvE game like City of Heroes. Tabula Rasa quite literally blew up, putting a smoldering crater into NCSoft's financial reports, as it chased after a very vocal PvP minority. NCSoft and Destination Games found out the hardway that the available market of gamers willing to PAY for PvP content in a PvE game was a lot lower than the vocal minority had indicated.

The fallout from Tabula Rasa will probably continue to have a large impact on the future of City of Heroes. NCSoft is likely not going to authorize funds for developing any further PvP content in City of Heroes. Basically, that means that NCSoft isn't going to pay Paragon Studios to work on PvP content, not that Paragon Studios can't work on PvP content.

Rather, NCSoft's reported desire is that they drive the players willing to pay for PvP content to AION and the Guild Wars series, driving players to games that were created and built with PvP play in mind... not added as an afterthought to appease a vocal minority.

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So no, you are not wrong that CoX PvE and CoX PvP are two different games. They have to be two different games in order to achieve their design goals. Unfortunately, those competing design goals mean that future PvP development just isn't likely.

who made your graphics card and what driver are you using?