je_saist

I'd say you don't have a good handle on just what electric does.

Let's go over that again.

#1: Sleep Patch

It has a sleep patch.

A targeted AOE sleep patch.

That you can put around corners.

That you can stand in with your regeneration / recovery aura running.

That also drains your enemies endurance

And gives your team-mates endurance.

Whether or not your enemies are sleeping.

So it's a Sleep Patch + End Drain + End Recovery.

#2: It has a jumping Knockdown power

Okay, fine. If you slot it with knockback IO's, yes, it will do knockback.

Slot it with damage IO's... and it does knockdown.

So you've got a power that will knock opponents over keeping them in place.

And you've got a sleep patch that also drains endurance and gives your teammates and yourself endurance back.

And you've got a method to keep enemies on that sleep + end drain + end recovery.

You've also got something that will arc to enemies that aren't necessarily in target-aoe range.

Who cares if the enemies are strung out all over the place.

You are STILL going to hit them.

#3: It has a jumping confuse power

Let me get this straight.

A confuse power that jumps from target to target...

does not confuse the whole mob at once...

thus allowing confuse aggro to spread through-out a mob...

is somehow a Bad Thing?


It's pretty obvious that the powers you somehow see as being "weak" or "underwhelming" are simply anything but weak or underwhelming. All of those powers bring a unique experience to playing a Control Set. Those powers you wrote off.. Are Exactly Why You Would Play the Power Set to Begin With.

well, you can always drop your subscription and go away.

Maybe that would help you feel better.

this is pretty much how I feel.

As is MM's are getting a pretty serious buff since their shield types also are getting upgraded... so now players with Therm-Rad or Force Field sets can more easily protect their bots.

em.

Two completely different things here.

Soft-cap refers to the point at which a player has an effective 95% chance to dodge an attack.

Back before Invention Origin Enhancements few armor types could sustain a solo soft-cap defensive level. As far as I am aware this was an ability limited to the Ice Armor set which could hit 45% defense ratings with no external buffs, and without using a crash bringing Tier 9 power.

Invention Origin Enhancements brought with them the ability to add defensive parameters. Initially people used these buffs to take armor types with already-high defenses to the 45% limit, such as Super-Reflexes and Stone Armor, and to the buff power set Force Field.

Over time players began to work out set and power combinations that would give high defenses to non-defensive armor types, such as resistance based sets like Fire-Armor and Dark-Armor. Several builds focus on giving 45% ranged defense to blasters, corruptors, controllers, and defenders, allowing these archtypes to safely fire with little fear of reprisal.


Some time ago the developers admitted that they hadn't really forseen the use of defensive IO buffs. However, the developers decided to not pursue an overall "nerf" to enhancement bonus levels. According to the developers a small percentage of the games player-base actually had non-defense based archtypes with 45% defensive ratings, and it wasn't worth lowing IO defensive buff levels.


Starting with "incarnate" content the developers boosted the average to-hit of the enemy NPC.

Currently players need somewhere north of 60% defense to achieve defensive soft-cap against Incarnate opponents.

For the most part this defensive change means that most archtypes should not be able to gain a sustainable solo defensive rating against Incarnate Opponents.

As such, power-sets that had been marginalized with IO buffs, such as Force Field or even Cold Domination, are once again valuable as they offer sustainable and consistent defensive buffs.

The developers rarely tell players reasons for why they proliferate some power sets and not others.

As far as I am aware the only power-sets that have received developer comment on are:

• Ice Armor for Brutes: commented on back during CoV beta. Ice Armor's slows didn't work as expected. Players argue that the methods of playing Brutes have changed with IO's alone, never-minding the change to Fury generation in I18.
• Illusion Control for Dominators: I believe this has been shot down multiple times in the closed beta forums when power-proliferation are tested and somebody makes the inevitable request. Not going to go into the reasons here since this is a pretty-sore point for many players.
• Energy Aura for Scrappers / Tanks: The developers have admitted that Energy Aura is an Under-performing set and have explicitly stated it never worked like they thought it would. Rumor has it that the devs are developing a "kinetic armor" set using the same effect-generation tech used in Electric-Control that will supersede Energy Aura. No official comment has been made.

Sorry we don't have more information for you, but we can only tell you what the devs tell us.

It's always been to-hit.

The accuracy is a mis-nomer that has never been addressed.

you'll run into a processor limitation long before you run into a motherboard limitation. In such cases, knowing what processor he is using is more useful.

E.G. if he's got a Pentium 4 on there, he's not going to see much difference between a GTS 440 and a GTX 480.

If he's got a Core 2 Duo @ 2.4ghz or better, he'll see a performance difference.

* * *

Basically, what you need to do is ask the guy how much he wants to spend, go to Newegg.com, sort by price, then pick a card.

Wait.

Let me get this straight.

You gained new abilities.

You gained new levels.

You gained more buffs.

You gained more debuffs.

Then you ran...OLDER content...

And you think that makes you overpowered?

Okay, let me hit you with a little a clue-hammer here.

Well not so much a little one. It's a big one.

Exactly... what... happened in the past... when you got a mission at level 10, then went back and did it at level 15?

What exactly happened when you got a mission at level 15 and went back and did it at level 20?

Was it possible, however unlikely, that maybe because you advanced in power, that the enemies were easier to defeat?

Was it possible, however unlikely, that you were able to somehow complete that mission in much less time than you did before?

Maybe I just need to do that whole larger-text with different color thing.

THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE INCARNATE SYSTEM IS TO MAKE YOU MORE POWERFUL.

Forbin has a pretty good response as is.

The push for a gratis-client and gratis-server-access has been around... well... just as long as the MMO itself. "Players" of MMO's have been demanding that the game's binary-client, content-assets, and server access come at no charge since, well, Meridian 59. As I favor explicit terminology, the practice of offering the game client and server access for no charge is hear-after referred to as gratis-access.

The push for City of Heroes to move to a gratis-access model has intensified in recent years as events change the computer industry. Many "players" look at the rise of the Korean gratis-access market as evidence that a gratis-access model is somehow a good thing. Too many "players" mis-understand the benefits and issues that come with a gratis-access model. As Forbin so eloquently puts it, such "players" want something for free and expect other "players" to pick up the tab.

What many "players" seem to fail to realize is that the vast majority of gratis-access games are coupled with a per-item-purchase model that nets razor-thin profits. Mega-hits like Zynga's Farmville are the exception, not the rule.

One standout example of a total mis-understanding is how players view Turbine's "successful" conversion to a gratis-access model with Lord of the Rings Online. Many "players" fail to realize just how much money Turbine lost, or the catastrophic damage to the studio's size. Factors such how much money Turbine lost, and how many employees lost their jobs just do not matter to the vast majority of arm-chair analysts. The fact is, Turbine's gratis-access model is only profitable due to the drastically decreased costs associated with running the existing studio.

NCSoft also demonstrates problems with trying to leverage a gratis-access and per-item-purchase model. A few years back NCSoft had a large portfolio of such such games. Proponents of gratis access + per-item-purchase model games seem to ignore the fact that both eXteel and Dungeon Runners are shut down after costing NCSoft quite a few pretty pennies.

As of right now there is only one development studio, that I am aware of, that has successfully moved to a gratis-access business model, remained profitable at their current studio size, and was able to start work on additional projects. That studio is High-Rez which runs Global Agenda.

Whether or not "players" want to admit it, all other development studios that have played around with gratis-access models, have inevitably lost money. I've seen references in this thread to them, but come on, lets be honest here for a moment, They've been loosing money for a while. They specifically dropped several projects to focus on specific games.


Now, if push came to shove and NCSoft was faced with the choice of having to shut-off City of Heroes, I do think I can give them a better option than the method they took with Lineage.

I'd advise NCSoft to dump the source-code for the existing binary client and server to Sourceforge under a GPL2 or GPL3 license and assign themselves the copyright. The result of this is that players would be able to build their own private servers and maintain their own game-clients, but any updates would be fed back to NCSoft. Yes, this does mean that a down-stream "user" would be in the position where they could make the compiled binary client available under non-gratis terms.

To combat the possibility of a down-stream user "reselling the game", I'd release the art and content assets under a Creative-Commons license. I'd go for Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 since it would allow content creators to modify the existing content without enabling a downstream contributer to resell that content, while still assigning credit for the creation to Paragon Studios.

The result would be that while the player-base would be able to continue playing City of Heroes on their terms without direct support from NCSoft. I would also note that this particular method is proven to work. Other studios have been doing it for literal decades.

I'd also advise NCSoft to allow players to export the data-configuration files for their existing characters, effectively allowing existing subscribers to import their existing characters to private servers.

This method may also open up avenues for NCSoft and players to derive a financial gain from City of Heroes, such as offering a central "store" for players to make their created content items available for sale. This method of user-generated-non-gratis cnotent has been proven to work by other companies

Would NCSoft be open to examining such a strategy if they felt it was time to close City of Heroes down?

I don't know.

I do know they have my phone number.

The question presented is this:

Unfortunately for you, the best advice to this question is:

Thing is American_Knight, you can dream all day long about making a game free-to-play. You can hide behind trying to make logical and factual arguments and decry anything that goes against "your dream" as being based in emotion.

The ice-cold truth is that conversions to Free-To-Play business models... Do. Not. Work.

There are several very good reasons why the vast majority of "free-to-play" MMO's on the market have lackluster graphics, repetitive gameplay, and are essentially clones of existing subscription games. I'm not going to go into those reasons mostly because it would give Mod_05 and Mod_13 a headache.

Per-Item-Purchase refers to a business model where the access to the server is made available gratis, and possible the game-client as well. The publisher and developer design their game around the concept that low-cost upgrades or amenities are made available to the player.

Case in point, Global Agenda. The game offers Booster-Packs that provide short term gains to in-game rewards, as well as an Elite-Agent Pack that gives players permanent in-game reward bonus.

* * *

The central, Factual, problem with City of Heroes is that the game has very little that could be turned into a per-item-purchasable business model. As is the forums, which only represent a small portion of the player-base, go into an uproar everytime a new CoH booster-pack is released which contains costume parts or temporary powers that players have to pay for. Why do the forums go into an uproar? Well, many players somehow have this belief that at some point in the games past there was a magical period where costume parts were added for free on a regular basis. A quick look at the CoH issue update page quickly dispells that notion, but for the most part, the player-base isn't exactly willing to pay per costume-part.

That's the reality of CoH's situation. The Player-base has been very vocal that they don't mind paying for Booster Packs to help cover development costs, but they have no interest in everything being gated behind a booster-pack.

As it stands right now, City of Heroes is not in a position where a move to a per-item-purchase model would retain the existing player-base.

At the same time a per-item-purchase model would not bring any substantial new players in.

Now, if you are, for some reason or another, interested in learning the exact business reasons for why a conversion to a per-item-purchase model is an inherently bad idea for a game not designed for a per-item-purchase model, I'd be happy to discuss it outside of the game.

At the end of the day though, the reality is this:

If NCSoft decided to take City of Heroes to a Per-Item-Purchase model, regardless of any player input, plans, ideas, or whatever... The game would no longer be profitable and would be shut down.

you'll just get the normal response:

The Engine Does Not Work Like That.

The Granite costume part is exposed to the player as a Costume Overlay. Currently there is no schedule for when customization options for Costume Overlays will be presented to the player.

Even if the Granite Armor power does receive similar "armor settings" as the other stone powers get, it is still unknown if costume scaling would be included in those changes. The gut reaction is: probably not

Not really a question for Television. He's a programmer, so you need to ask him engine-related questions. Stuff like "Is the game physics engine going to be ported to OpenCL now that Intel also has an OpenCL SKD out?" and "are we going to see any improvements to the compression algorithms used to minimize network data transmission?"

Your question would best be suited for developer behind Dr. Aeon, although I can go-ahead and answer it.

AE content expansion is generally done on a cyclic basis, allowing 2 or 3 issues to pass with "new" content limited to developer use. Assuming the issue-exclusive policy hasn't change, we won't be seeing the new enemies introduced in the incarnate trials in Architect Entertainment till Issue 22 or 23.

most of the game isn't.

We've never gotten an official figure on player-base to forum involvement, but comparing what information we have on subscriptions versus the number of posters and total posts, as well as date of posts, indicates that less than 10% (more like 5%-7%) of the paying player-base interacts with the forums.

Likely because Nvidia no longer supports AGEIA PhysX. You will need to use a really old driver set, probably from 2007 or 2008, in order for the PhysX card to work.

However, it wouldn't actually give you any benefit. Back in 2005 when CoV launched the Ageia PhysX card did indeed give a performance advantage on single-CPU systems. That was a pretty big deal 6 years ago when most computers sold only had one processing core. That's not such a big deal today where you can get quad-core's for under $100 from AMD.

Turn SLI off and don't run Ultra Mode.

For a list of cards known to work within Ultra Mode, check this sticky post: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251721

You might notice that the Geforce 7000 series is NOT listed. While these cards do support OpenGL 3.x rendering calls, they simply don't have the texture or shader performance to deliver the Ultra-Mode rendering mode.

As far as SLI goes, Nvidia "finally" introduced SLI support for City of Heroes last year. Support for SLI on OpenGL 3.x targets really starts at the Geforce GTX / GTS line though, and as kind of indicated by the GTX 295 card, Nvidia's not too terribly interested in bug-fixing older architectures they aren't selling.

The short answer is: We can not answer that question

The developers have multiple ways of communicating with the players, ranging from posting on the forums, chatting in the game, giving out interviews on 3rd party websites, talking at conventions, to more recently talking on camera during Ustream events. There are also dedicated threads for suggestions and ideas relating to desired costume parts, desired booster-packs, and even desired animations.

Sometimes the developers use these methods of communication to give players hints about what development plans. Sometimes the developers use these methods of communication to deliberately mislead players about development plans. Sometimes the developers give out development information to players under Non-disclosure agreements when testing new content. Sometimes developers have posted about future content or plans on closed beta forums.

Then there are modification factors, such as the policy of the developers to not explicitly comment on suggestions and ideas. Then there is the modification factor of player interpretation of what developers say. Case in point being the excessive amount of work needed to implement two-handed weapons. While the developers have not said whether or not two-handed weapons are in development, the player-base is able to extrapolate that the development of two-handed weapons would likely be locked behind another game expansion based on previous public developer comments regarding the production of Demon-Summoning and the policies of NCSoft.

The ultimate result is that nobody can answer your question.

There has been no public disclosure of new power-set development through any of the channels of communications Paragon Studios uses. On the other hand there has been no denial of any new power-set development through any of the channels of communication Paragon Studios uses.

I think this is the problem.

According to a spec sheet on Newegg your monitor has a maximum refresh rate of 75hz. What I "believe" is happening is that the game is trying to run 1680*1050 at a higher refresh rate than your monitor actually supports. VGA connections were basically designed for Cathode Ray Tube monitors and carry a frequency generation: e.g. 60hz, 70hz, 75hz, 85hz.

What you would need to do at this point is determine what frequency your monitor is refreshing at. You should be able to obtain this information in the Nvidia-Control panel.

The next step is to set the game to match this refresh rate. There is a manual refresh rate entry in the game's GUI options just underneath the resolution setting in the game's options.

Make sure the refresh rate of the game matches the refresh rate of your monitor, and then you "should" be able to set the game to the res you want... assuming that is the problem at hand.

Alternatively, JUNK that VGA cable and get a DVI or HDMI cable instead... That monitor says it support both, and a Geforce 8x00 card should at least have a DVI output.