je_saist

I'm sorry...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CX4sYylS9Q

Congrats on your promotion.

What I'm interested in is whether or not Dark Armor for tanks, and Fire Aura for Tanks and Scrappers are on the list of power-sets to re-examine and rebalance. While I think that the problems with these sets have been well documented in the forums beforehand, the quick run down is that power-sets have counter-intuitive powers.

I've mentioned some of these problems on the forums here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...75&postcount=5

and gone into greater detail outside of the forums: http://zerias.blogspot.com/2009/09/c...-and-fire.html

Are there any plans to rebalance these sets into something that actually makes sense?

Ack! Blue Monster! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!

*dives into the weapons closet looking for the flamethrower*

On one hand, I like the conceptual idea. One of the common misconceptions about the economy of City of Heroes is that it is not a quote, "zero-sum-game" where theres no reason why you can have something that I can't have. In many aspects, City of Heroes does have a zero-sum-game system behind it.

Okay, to frame the perspective on this, lets make an assumption. That assumption is that putting IO's on your character is an intended part of the end-game, and that the developers intent is that all players should be in a position where they can completely IO a character with Rare sets in less than a year. Okay, with that framing set...

Now, the method of how in-game currency enters the game has already been addressed. Players earn rewards for defeating enemies and completing missions. To the developers credit they have come up with new ways of providing a supply of various items into the in-game economy. Players can use Vanguard Merits, Architecture Entertainment Tickets, Candy Cane Salvage, Task Force Merits, and just plain influence to supplement some types of in-game currency.

However, not all rewards can be achieved from an outside method. As hard as you might try otherwise, the only way to get a purple recipie is to defeat enemies within a specific level range... and the drop rate is incredibly low... and like other drops, seems to be weighted to drop not-very-useful purple sets... I've lost count of the number of sleep and confuse purples I've gotten, where as I can count the number of Melee and TAOE purples on one hand.

Another issue arrises in the merit cost of items that can be purchased by random rolls, either with Architecture Tickets or by Task Force Merits. Well, sorry. I've done the whole random rolls are the way to go... and I'm very confident in saying, no, its not. If you have a particular enhancement in mind that's available from a merit vendor... get it from the merit vendor directly. Now while this is fine if you are only buying a single Luck of the Gambler Proc, or a Single Numina Proc, or a Single Miracle proc... it's not so fine if you want to outfit... say a stone tank. If you have bouquet hours to play each week, yes, you might be able to farm enough task-forces to get the items you want in a reasonable amount of time for one avatar.... Reasonable amount of time defined as... say, in the amount of time it takes for a new issue to come out.

Which really links into the real problem. Players who have purple recipies, and the bouquet amounts of influence to be trading billions back and forth... generally have time to farm. Most of these players generally have dedicated farming avatars, as can be evidenced by the posts announcing somebody else has joined the billion influence in the bank club.

The reality is that players who are already in the billions influence club generally have the means to farm and get influence very easily. They already have the purpled out avatars and the right builds. Ergo, an influence sink isn't going to do anything to lower prices or raise supply of items. The players who already can afford the high(er) prices in wentworths will simply be able to keep affording them, and whichever new influence sink comes along.

The casual player is thus locked out. Somebody who only plays for maybe 6 hours total over a weekend hasn't got a prayer of ever running enough content to generate enough drops to get a full purple set. Even hardcore players that put in 20 hours a week or more that aren't doing repetitive farming, have problems running enough content to generate enough drops to get a full purple set.

So it really does become a situation of nah nah, I can have this, and you can't. Sorry, that is the game reality.

***

Okay, so City of Heroes is to some extent a zero-sum-game where some players are in a position due to time in game and free-time-to-play where they can pretty much afford anything that goes up on the market, because they are (mostly) the ones putting the currency items up on the market.

How to fix this problem?

We do know that the developers are aware of the problems. It's already been stated that Going Rogue will have a method by which level 50 players can make themselves more powerful. We don't know what that method is yet, but I'd expect a task force or event that garentees a purple drop. This would help increase the supply of purples coming into the game, and much like the old Hamidon Raids, players would have a shot at getting IO's they could use.

Another solution is to readjust the drop rate on current common and rare invention sets. The more recipies being dropped, the better chance a casual player has of getting a recipie they can use, or somebody else can use. Some recipies, like Pacing of the Turtle and Trap of the Hunter need to be scaled back.

While these may not be perfect solutions, or desirable solutions, I'm pretty sure that creating new stuff to sink influence into isn't going to solve the root of the supply problem.

so unsigned. I'd rather see the game go serverless and adopt idiotic global naming handles like a competitor before seeing transfers go completely free.

... ... ... I do believe I have been insulted.

*Sprays Cien with the water-hose* Bad Puppeh! Bad!

*dips Cien in blue fur dye*

Papa Smurf! Papa Smurf! Puppeh Smurf is cooking breakfast!

don't use OSX, but I can tell you that I can run Cedega and Virtual Box atop both AMD and Intel platforms using the VT-x and AMD-V hook-ins and OpenGL / DX pass through with Virtual Box and experience no problems booting NT5 or NT6 .VDI images.

As a side note, I only have done this against systems running with the 2.6.27 kernel, rather than a more modern underlying base operating system.