je_saist

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  1. yeah. the fact that it's basically energy manip means it's already fallen short. The developers have flat out stated that Energy Manipulation is not actually a manipulation set, it is an abnormality in the Blaster Manip line-up, and that no more powersets will be based on it's model.

    Okay, to the first poster: holy toledo, somebody actually understands what a manipulation set is for....

    Okay, Wav, you actually are on the right track for a TA set that might actually be considered by the devs, but some of the stuff needs to be re-arranged. Melee stuff comes early in the set.
    • Entangling Arrow
    • Facesmash (you smack your opponent in the face with the middle of your bow; a somewhat slow attack doing a lot of Smashing damage and a strong stun, think a little better than Bone Smasher)
    • Bow Sweep (sweep your bow in a circle hitting all opponents in a circle)
    • Fire Arrow
    • Glue Arrow
    • Build Up
    • Boost Range
    • Flash Arrow
    • Oil Patch
    There we go, melee attacks come early, and the final power tiers are built around getting out of melee, and Fire Arrow has been swapped in over Ice Arrow. Little bit less control, a bit more ranged damage, and allows the lighting of the Oil Patch even if the player didn't take archery primary. Also, swaps out the arrow stab with another Bow based melee attack. Keeping the bow in the hand during animations should help with redraw.

    Winterminal: sets based on melee are not going to happen short of the entire development staff getting clubbed over the head repeatedly.

    The only way the devs might consider a MANIPULATION SET with elements of Kinetic Melee or Martial arts is if the sets were extremely limited, such as this proposal: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...21&postcount=5

    Remember, Energy Manipulation is largely considered to have been bad design, and I believe it has been directly stated by a red-name that the only reason the set has not been changed to be a manipulation set is because of the developer's own rules of not altering a power if that power alteration results in the power requiring completely different enhancement sets.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by beyeajus View Post
    what bug? I completed the whole thing with several toons. strange...
    basic bug is that missions are not completing when completion conditions are met. It seems to be something on the back end as there is no determinable repetitive cause in any single mission to cause the hang up.
  3. also this bug seems to be tied to the Arc itself, not any specific mission.

    I just started running Ghost Widow's arc on my Dark / Cold corr, and completed the first couple of story arc missions successfully. I received a hang-up on the mission facing off against Numina, with all enemies cleared from the map, and the mission refusing to end.
  4. .... okay. here's something you should do.

    click on the search button.

    click on advanced search.

    in the Keyword(s) box type the phrase: darkest night

    in the User Name box type the name: Bill Z Bubba

    Click: Search Now

    Your question will be answered.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BenRGamer View Post
    Er... they said nothing about that. It's not about starting the timer at the start the mission at all.

    It's for those people who finish the mission and just quit instead of exitting.
    not how it read, but fair enough, probably a better way of saying it.

    Thing is, argument remains the same. Tying the counter into exiting the mission allows the developers to leverage existing tech, rather than having to develop new tech.
  6. don't know what to tell you. I'm unable to replicate this issue on any Nvidia equipment I have.
  7. the problem is, if they did that, some players would simply start missions to start the timer, then not actually complete the mission.

    Starting the timer at the start of the mission on the condition of mission completing is not an option either. Doing so would require creating an additional database entry everytime a tip-mission is started, then keeping track of that entry to the point of the mission completion. This would also require additional database work to handle whether or not players exit a tip mission, whether or not they invite team-mates to the tip mission, as well as whether or not players do not complete the mission and come back to it at a later time.

    Tying the timer to the completion of the mission assures that the players will actually complete the mission, and allows the developers to leverage the reward calculation systems already in the game, rather than having to create brand new systems.

    Also: if this is what you consider a buzz kill, you really need to learn what a buzz kill is. I suggest listening to Nightwish's Ghost Love Score and then have somebody switch the track to anything by the Black Eyed Peas / Fergi.

    That is a Buzz Kill.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dz131 View Post
    what happened to terry?
    I'm not sure if he's referencing the games or the 1994 movie.

    Fatal Fury: Legend of the Hungry Wolf and 1993's Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle follow the plot of the Fatal Fury games, featuring a love interest for Terry that was killed by Geese.

    In the 1994 Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture the love interest sacrifices herself for Terry towards the end of the movie.

    Kyle should talk to Terry because both of them have their love interests killed by the villains.
  9. I know how to make this thread funny!

    *calls up George Lucas and requests a tactical nuke strike on the Fridge!*
  10. *snickers*

    Anyways, the loading-tip line was one of those marketing lines that was said more as a spread-sheet point than as something that was thought all the way through.

    Given that there are no limitations to the amount of exp you can earn in Architecture Entertainment, it is technically possible to level from level one to level fifty doing AE missions alone. Just because it is technically possible does not mean is it technically feasible.

    AE was never intended to be a replacement for developer created content, and anybody who at least bothered to look at either the CoH loader or the CoH web-page in the runup to Issue 13 knew that AE was designed as a way for players to tell their own stories in the game, not as a way in which to gain levels. Only players who did not read anything about AE during the I13 beta, the I13 release, the I14 beta, the I14 release, the I15 beta, the I15 release, and so on and so forth, thought that AE was "forz Expz"

    I think what is funny to me is that the tag-line that a player can level to 50 in the AE system is still in the player hints. I suspect marketing ordered it be put in as a trade-off for something else.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by BBQ_Pork View Post
    I like this post a lot. Seriously.
    I very much want Anniversary Badges to be Account-Wide.

    I would like for the unlocks to be account-wide, whether or not the badges themselves are, for the badges that unlock costume pieces. Example: The Tommy Gun for the "Untouchable" badge.
    hmm. There's really only two costume unlocks, and one emote unlock, that I wouldn't want to see globalized, at least not in their current forums.
    • Costume Unlock 1: Standard cape unlock.
      Probably the most requested unlock of all time, having the standard capes at level 1. I'm not sure where I side on this unlock since the tradition of getting to level 20 and earning a cape is still pretty much a big lore point with me. That being said that the precedent has been set that players can have capes before level 20, such as the veteran reward shoulder-capes, the Magic High Collar Cape, and to some extent the Magic Bolero.

      I think a possible proposal here would be to set Hero 1, Statesman, and Lord Recluse Capes as the level 20 unlock capes, and unlock the rest of the capes at level 1.
    • Katie Hannon Cabal Hat
      The Cabal hat is pretty much a symbol that somebody helped out the cabal. As far as the Wiki indicates, the hat is only awarded through completing the Hero KHTF: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Unlockable_Costume_Pieces

      I think it would be interesting if there was an equivalent Villain Story that unlocked the hat for villains. That's just me wanting more content though...
    • Loaded Dice
      Getting the 7 spot dice from the Hess Task-Force. I like the idea of Hess giving out these loaded dice as a secret symbol of those who plotted against Burkholder. While the wiki doesn't mention it, I thought this emote had already been made available to the villain faction from something else...

    As far as all the other costume parts go, yes, I'd have no problem seeing them going Global Unlock as well.
  12. http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Issue_18

    Quote:
    New Inherent: Bruising -- When a Tanker uses a Secondary Tier 1 power, a Bruising effect occurs which is a 20% resistible damage resistance debuff which lasts for 10 seconds. Note: only one application of this effect on a given target is possible at a time.
    While Bruising does not stack with itself, it does stack with other -resist powers. So yes, you read that right.

    The downside to the Bruising is that it is single target only. High Single target damage sets like Super Strength or Energy Melee, as well as Fire Melee's DoT components, really benefit from the change.
  13. Okay, this thread is, as some probably already suspect, driven by the incessant whining for "Ultimate Re-Archtyping". Given that, I'll give a quick background synopsis:
    The Paragon Studios developers have flatly come down against implementing any system that allows players to change their power set within an archtype, or to change the archtype itself. The developers stated reasoning is that any such implementation counters the design philosophy of City Of Heroes.

    In other MMOs players often have limited character slots on any given server, and it makes sense for the developers to allow the players to change their power choices. In MMO's where the level-cap is continuously raised players are generally forced to play only a few select avatars in order to keep pace with the level increases, and the game design makes having multiple avatars with multiple classes largely unfeasible. In such games the ability to change how any one class performs, or the ability to change classes themselves, is one way to give players a sense of variation within the few avatars any given player is able to field.

    The design of City of Heroes largely counters the trends of other MMOs, with a focus on limited levels and large numbers of character slots across multiple servers. CoH has pioneered gameplay designs like Sidekicking and Super-Sidekicking, as well as rewarding character experience while exemplared, removing the level-difference limitation from large portions of the game's existing content. There is, however, one aspect of City Of Heroes that is still has roots in the World of Dark Ages MMO design: the Badge Collection.
    One of the often-cited reasons players don't want to "re-roll" an existing character is that the re-rolled character will lose certain badges. While many badges can be awarded multiple times by completing in-game events, some badges are one-time only, largely based upon whether or not a player physically logged an avatar in during a specific period of time.

    Ergo, I would like to propose that the following badges be applied to a players global account, rather than to the player's avatar.
    • All Anniversary Login Badges
      There are various badges awarded for players having logged in during a specific number of days surrounding the anniversary of the game. For players with multiple avatars across multiple servers, they'll easily spend more time logging characters in and out... than they'll spend playing the game. Making these badges apply to a player's global account solves the issue of logging multiple characters in for a single badge, and gives those who want to re-roll / re-create a character proof that they were indeed around for that anniversary event.
    • All Holiday Login Badges
      there are also various badges awarded for players having logged in during the holiday events. Same reason as Anniversary badges, they should be tied to global accounts, not character accounts
    For all of the other badges that are not currently account wide, I'd have a hard-time making the argument to make them account wide.
    • For things like the exploration badges, they are now tied to a merit reward for trekking all over a map.
    • For things like the Holiday Mission Event badges, such as Father Christmas's Snaptooth mission, or the Zombie Raid from Halloween, these events are largely repeatable.
  14. well, there's a couple different ways you could go.

    The flavor of the month strategy is Defensive.
    EM is heavy on the single target attacks, so there's loads of powers to slot in Touch of Death or Kinetic Combat and work towards a defensive soft-cap.

    Reaching a defensive soft-cap on a resist based armor is kinda... I don't want to say pointless since I've got a Dark Armor / Energy Melee that is soft-capped... but enemies such as the Rularuu, Arachnos, Rikti, and Devouring Earth can quickly make that soft-cap rather pointless. Without some defense debuff resistance, you either need to be way over the soft-cap to retain soft-cap, or you won't be retaining soft-cap in a fight.
    The other strategy is HP Cap / Recharge.
    Sets like Titanium Coating will give you a +hp buff with only 3 IO's each.

    Sets like Crushing Impact have 5% +recharges and 1.13% +HP, as well as an accuracy boost, so you can slot out Barrage, Bone Smasher, Energy Transfer, and Total Focus with those.

    Doctored Wounds also has a 5% recharge component, so slotting that out puts you at the 5% recharge cap.

    If you take the travel power set combat jumping, fighting pool's weave, leaderships maneuvers, and vengeance, you'll also have a number of powers you can put the LoTG 7.5% recharge proc on, two of which you could do without using up any additional slots (Combat Jumping and Vengeance). Luck of the Gambler's 3 slot boost is 1.13% HP, while you'll already be close to capped on with Crushing Impact.

    For your two PBAOE powers, Whirling Hands and Lighting Field, run with the Eradication set for the HP boost.

    The Stupify Set includes a 6.25% recharge and a 1.88% hp boost, so that takes care of your melee Stun attack.

    For Power Sink, go with Performance Shifter for it's 1.88% hp boost.

    For the epics, take a turn to the Villain side and unlock Ghost Widows Patron Power set: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Soul_Mas...ute_.2F_Tanker

    Personally I would say take Soul Tentacles and Slot it with Positron's blast for the 6.25% recharge, as well as to make up some of the lack of AOE damage energy melee has..

    then pick up Darkest Night and slot it with Cloud Senses for another 6.25% recharge. Darkest Night also works well with Resist sets because it has a -damage component.

    The HP / Recharge method will make your build more predictable and less reliant on the sheer luck of the random number generator. It will also drive Energize to recharge more often, and the more HP you have, the larger benefit Energize will return back to you when it's up and running.
  15. je_saist

    Ultimate Respecs

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
    Oh, not arguing with that, true enough.

    But we all know that the only 'restraint' Saist has ever had used is the god old 'strapped to the table' one. Just long enough to get the wounded medical staff outta the room

    I kid, don't kill me
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cEPydnb0Ns
  16. ...

    okay. You seriously need to read some my posts on the subject of Multi-Monitor / 3D Vision Surround Support:

    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...t=stereoscopic
    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ic#post3010830
    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ic#post2723058
    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ic#post2721555
    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ic#post2688126
    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ic#post2520954
    http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ic#post2453139

    As you can see, the subject comes up on a regular basis. You are not the first poster to think that Stereoscopic 3D is something that has to be enabled by the developer.

    Stereoscopic 3D is handled by the graphics driver, not by the game. In a nut-shell, Stereoscopic 3D is simply taking the camera position given by the game, then separating that camera position into two different frames of reference, then feeding back the off-center angles to the monitors.

    As mentioned many of the times this subject has come up before, various 3rd parties have been doing this angle separation outside of original developers support for years, such as IZ3D and Nvidia. In most (95%+) of the games Nvidia offers Stereoscopic support for there has been absolutely zero input or work done on the game to support Stereoscopic viewing on the part of the game developer. All of the work to support the stereoscopic rendering is done in the Nvidia driver.

    So if you want Stereoscopic 3D support, you need to go talk to Nvidia. Not Paragon Studios.

    Let me repeat that.

    You need to talk to Nvidia. Not Paragon Studios.

    * * *
    Now, since I am sure some jerk is going to bring up multi-monitor support, aka Matrox Triple Vision, AMD Eyefinity, and the deliberately confusingly named Nvidia 3D Surround Vision, these types of technologies are not entirely handled by the graphics driver.

    In the case of City Of Heroes, the game essentially includes it's own internal window manger, allowing the positioning and in many cases, resizing of the internal dialog windows. The window manager seems to be one of the technical reasons City of Heroes breaks when trying to run in triple-monitor configurations. It's not the only one, but it is one example where the game developers do need to do some internal work to account for how the game will perform on a 3rd party feature.

    Multi-GPU support is another such situations. CoH famously doesn't support Multi-GPU modes, mostly because neither AMD nor Nvidia have fully matured OpenGL 3.x / 4.x drivers and CoH Ultra Mode was the first commercial OpenGL 3.x fast-pass oriented rendering system they had to work with. In many cases Multi-GPU support can be forced at a driver level, but there are some code-optimizations the developers can perform on graphics engine to leverage the presence of multiple GPU's.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mandu View Post
    Yeah, you have plenty of ram so I'm going back to the Win 7. If you just do a google search on constant hard drive access you will see that there are plenty of message board threads all over the place wondering why Win 7 constantly uses the drive. I've got the same issue and have learned to ignore it. Some days it will access the drive constantly and others it's just not happening. Every once in a while I surf around to see if anybody has come up with a reason but so far most the threads end with "That didn't fix it."
    actually it's not really a mystery why Windows 7 keeps accessing the drive.

    Since basically DOS Microsoft has used the same hard-drive partition for user data that it uses for Virtual Memory: http://www.computing.net/answers/dos...dos/14987.html

    Since the introduction of the NT kernel Microsoft has been on a quest to optimize the performance of the NT system in anyway possible in order to keep up with the Unix and Linux rivals. The NT6 kernel used in Vista / Win7 implements some aggressive memory technologies to boost perceived performance. Some examples of these changes can be found in knowledge base articles like this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

    Back in 2006 Jeff Atwood looked at the changes the NT6 kernel was bringing to memory management: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/200...my-memory.html Microsoft touted the memory changes as a feature under the name of SuperFetch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...O_technologies :: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/wi...windows/?p=735

    In most cases simply disabling what Microsoft calls the page file will help with NT6's continuous hard-drive access. However, doing so could lead to system instability, as indicated by this thread on Overclock.net : http://www.overclock.net/windows/448...-you-even.html
  18. I'm unable to duplicate this on either Virtue or Guardian.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by PowerStream View Post
    I notice this mostly in game but it seems like my hard drive is constantly reading. I don't remember my old comps doing this but I'm thinking it could just be that the new hard drive is louder so I notice it more. Is this common? Should I be concerned at all? I would ask if I have a virus or something but I run Malwarebytes, Avast and Spy Bot about once a month 2 at the most. Plus I have this on a firewalled gateway. Though I set it up so who knows how reliable that is.

    Anyway if you need COH Helper or HiJack This let me know I have them saved.
    General computer lesson: firewalls only block information traveling on closed ports. They don't do anything to stop traffic on open ports, so if some malicious software is using Port 80 or Port 25, a firewall that allows you HTTP and SMTP access isn't going to do anything to stop the malicious software.

    Anyways, my guess is the same as Mandu's, probably an NT6 OS coupled with a low memory count.

    Should you be worried about it?

    Depends.

    I'd run a checkdsk /f /r and make sure the disk is okay. If you don't know how to run this, the instructions really haven't changed since the first release of NT5: http://www.mepisguides.com/Windows/c...heck-disk.html
  20. since I didn't see it mentioned...

    The developers have investigated using IO's to convert the behavior of knockback. I'm pretty sure Castle made the post in one of the closed beta forums since I can no longer find it. The indication was that whichever developer was assigned to the task kept breaking the engine, and there was no reliable way to get the modification working.

    That does not mean that the possibility of a real-time knockback modification isn't entirely out of the cards.

    One of the aspects of the current engine is that Knockback, knockdown, and knockup are all derivatives of the same effect at different orders of magnitude. The desire has been expressed for an engine revision that treats each power as it's own separate effect, rather than magnitudes of the same effect.

    It might be a safe assumption that an underlying change to how the engine processes the knock effects might make it possible for the developers to revisit allowing players to mod the effects.
  21. je_saist

    Ultimate Respecs

    ... Powerset or archtype respecs have already been repeatedly shut down by the developers. Now, I've honestly been over the I want an ultimate respec request more times than I count, such as this post: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...95&postcount=3

    or this post: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...55&postcount=7

    or this post: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...10&postcount=6

    or this post: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...9&postcount=13

    or these posts:
    The developers have given a flat no to any type of archtype respec or powerset change within an archtype.

    Not a we don't have the time

    Not a it's too complicated

    Not a the engine doesn't support it

    They have given a flat no we are not going to do that ever.

    So this little opening line?

    Quote:
    Unfortunately they seem to break down into hostile arguments pretty quickly with people thinking that any such respec is equivalent to "just creating characters from scratch at level 50 and not knowing the first thing about how to play".
    It's complete hogwash. The threads do not break down into this. The threads terminate with this is a topic that is not up for discussion, and there is no way you can gussy it up for the developers to think it is in any way a good idea.

    Please. Learn. The. Difference.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by sevenshade View Post
    im sorry, ive spend the last 15 minutes trying to post small sections at a time, part of the dxdiag has symbols that the forum does not like.

    i don't know how else to do this but than having the logs in a zipped folder on mega upload
    http://docs.google.com
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forefinger_ View Post
    Mainly I'm trying to find a card that will run on 250 - 300 watts. Yeah, I'm trying to be a bit cheap, but I'm willing to go to $ 100 or so to get my comp running well again, but I'm limited by that power supply for the new card.

    And the reason I was shopping Bestbuy.com was so I could just go to the store and pick one up and not have to wait on the new card to be shipped to me.
    BestBuy normally overcharges on everything...

    Case in point, a Geforce 8400 GS has a street price of $30. Best Buy is basically charging you $20 to drive to the store.

    In some cases, yes, paying the brick and mortar price might be worth it.

    I'm... not entirely convinced on that when it comes to computer components.

    Now, I'm going to be doing my best to try and convince you to buy a card with and AMD/ATi chipset. This thread pretty much explains why: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...01#post3237001

    BestBuy online does carry RadeonHD 5670's.

    Problem I have is that the cheapest does weigh in at $100, neverminding the one that's nearly twice the street value at $150.

    Okay, in all fairness, if you were able to find one of the Sapphire 5670's in Best Buy, you actually would be paying about the same price to have one shipped UPS-Next Day from newegg.com.

    I guess the problem I have is that buying stuff like this from Best Buy just reeks of I've got money to burn. That doesn't really sound like the situation you are in. It sounds like you are stuck to a really tight budget. So I'll give you the question I'm asking: Is it really worth it to pay Best Buy's inflated price when I could just wait a couple days and save some money?

    Now, as to the actual card? Would I get anything under the 5670?

    That's a kind of hard question to answer. There's not a lot of price / performance difference difference in the sub $75 market. Generally for these markets vendors tend to be limited on the amount of power the graphics card can draw, which puts a pretty hard limit on the amount of rendering power they can manage:

    ATi Theoretical performance: http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&pgno=3
    Nvidia Theoretical performance: http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&pgno=7

    With a throughput of 6,200 megapixels, the 5670 isn't that far off from the 4670 (600 megapixels), or the 9600 GSO (8,800 or 4,800 megapixels). It's still significantly more powerful than that 8400 GS you looked at (3,600 megapixels), but the 8400 GS isn't that far off from a modern 5450 (2,600 megapixels) or 5550 (4,400 megapixels).

    Now, I wouldn't buy any Nvidia card that wasn't branded BFG, EVGA, or XFX, and I seriously doubt you'll find any Nvidia card at a Best Buy from one of those brands (given that one is dead and Best Buy no longer carries them) at a price that isn't ripping you off.

    Hopefully that's enough information for you to make a choice about what to buy.
  24. je_saist

    I19 Changes

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AquaJAWS View Post
    My guess is no, you'll still have to choose hero or villain, but you'll still be able to go back there.

    There currently isn't any content after level 20 over there so it would be kinda boring. From what I understand, if there is any new content in praetoria coming in issue 19, it'll be for 50+ characters for the incarnate stuff.

    I wouldn't expect to be able to stay praetorian any time soon unless they flesh out content from level 20-50 over there.
    War Witch had an interesting comment to make on this subject on the 8/16 Razer Dev Q&A

    Quote:
    Will there be more zones added to Praetoria as time goes on, or is this the scope of what you wanted for it and that's it?

    War Witch:
    If I have any say in the matter, which I do, yes. We will add to Praetoria. It's too amazing and rich a universe to introduce it and forget about it. We've just scratched the surface on what's going on there, so I'd like players to see what else is going on.
    So yes, there is more content due for Praetoria.

    No. It is not landing with Issue 19.

    No. It is probably not landing with Issue 20 either.

    There has been no evidence to date to suggest that the developers have any intention of expanding the roles of the Resistance and Loyalists. All evidence so far pretty much indicates that the developers will enforce players having to choose between Hero or Villain. All evidence so far indicates that there are no plans to allow Resistance or Loyalists to choose Vigilante or Rogue classes directly.

    What will likely happen is that any new content added to Praetoria outside the scope of Going Rogue will likely follow the tourist model currently set for the Vigilante and Rogue classes. It has already been flat out stated that Primal Earth avatars, in relation to the existing Praetorian content, will be treated as tourists. Heroes, Villains, Vigilantes, and Rogues will be able to participate in the existing Praetorian content, but will not be able to start missions on their own.

    New content designed for the Primal Earth story arc will likely have similar limitations. Content that is not level locked by Incarnate, or level locked by Task Force, will likely be locked to the Resistance and Loyalist factions.

    The result will be that if you want to start and run your own missions, or participate in the Incarnate content, you will need to leave Praetorian and become a Hero or Villain. You will, at some point, have to get off that fence.