je_saist

video of BaB's as a ghoul has been removed by user.

DANGIT.

I'm going through and trying different modes as I can get back into servers.

I had one of the special AA modes forced through Catalyst Control center (wide tent) when I first logged in and got a corrupted and ghosted screen.

Heads up: Anti-Alaising + Ambient Occlusion seems to be borked again on ATi RadeonHD cards, at least the 5x00 series, with the live client update.

Don't know if this is an issue specific to Catalyst 10.7 or the game itself yet.

*looks up from the ebil plottings notebook with shifty eyes*

lesse... now if I take Neko Ali on the first day with the yarn-mines... and Becky on the second day with the yarn-cannon... and VexXxa in the afternoon with a quick pounce during afternoon milk... and Fey with the yarn missile... and avoid Detra... I can has my own snuggle harem!

What? Can't a Rogue Kitty dream?!?!?

I even bought a completely new outfit to wear for the abductions!

Now I just need to figure out what to do with all of the scientists that were working for Sack'n'Pup labs... I guess i could just leave them on Cien's and Fedor's doorsteps as little gifts...

Mewhew... mewhewhew... MEWHEWHEWHEWHEWHEW!

you aren't the only one that dislikes vent, but my reasons tend to be largely related from what Ventrilo does NOT do more than what it can make you think of your team-mates. I do agree that teams that organize almost everything on a voice server can really limit the playability of the game for other players.

Specific case in point for me, I use sound cards with Via Envy or C-Media's 8788 / 8787 chips, and many of them just won't run surround sound AND microphone input at the same time under Windows 7.

Analog Output, Digital Output, and Analog Input? Works fine under ALSA on *nix. Broken as all get out on Windows.

okay. Design 101.

First of all, bringing up secondary effects in any conversation over pool powers, such as the +defense on combat jumping or hover, is a mugs game. These secondary effects are mere decorations and can change between the different archtypes that leverage the effects.

If you are depending on the +def in Hover or Combat jumping to put you at the defense softcap, you are likely not playing a defense oriented avatar. I also have some bad news for you. The developers have stated that the number of defense buffs added into the IO pool sets was a mistake and that they had not intended for so many different archtypes to be able to reach a consistent defensive soft-cap under solo conditions. It also been intimated that avatars at defensive softcaps will likely not find themselves still soft-capped against Incarnate content under Solo conditions.

*head tilts*

um.

Okay. uninstall the Nvidia drivers. run driver sweeper.

then re-install.

This is sounding like some kind of data corruption.

Is this crash only occurring in CoH? or is it occurring in any other games that you are aware of?

are you running RivaTuner or any derivative tool such as EVGA Precision?

the only program that I'm aware of that will monitor Nvidia card attributes at the same time an OpenGL 3.x + application is running without interruption is GPUZ. I am aware of similar crashes against Heaven 2.x and Tropics 1.3 running in OpenGL modes under NT6.



However, I think you'll find that GPUZ doesn't monitor as many attributes as RivaTuner derived applications, nor does it allow control over the attributes of the gpu's through Coolbits. In addition, you have to run CoH in Windowed mode.

I think this is actually a combined issue with the way Coolbits attributes are exposed when running through OpenGL, and the method by which Microsoft implements OpenGL support under NT6, given that I've not heard of anybody encountering this issue under NT5.

It is likely you will be waiting on Nvidia to issue a driver level fix.

you'll probably have to wait on Manga to give you a good answer.

As far as I'm aware, Apple doesn't use AMD's fglrx driver, rather preferring to write their own driver using the X.org documentation.

Also, as far as I'm aware, the new Imac's are the first time Apple has used the RadeonHD 5x00 series cards in a production system. It's quite possible that there is a memory leak or other error in the relatively new Apple graphics driver.

The only things I could really tell you to do are:

File a support ticket to NCSoft: http://us.ncsoft.com/en/support/
File a bug report with Apple: http://bugreport.apple.com/
pop transgaming on the nose with a cider enablement issue: http://www.transgaming.com/contact-us

My suspicion is that it's probably a memory leak or buffer error with Apple's drivers. I have not experienced this particular problem with either X.org ATi or Fglrx under Cedega.

After an exchange in private messages, I decided to put these musings out into the open. Recently Castle started a thread asking what powers players would like to see alternate animations for, and almost immediately somebody jumped forward with the alternate animations for Dual Pistols request.

For the new players who are just now looking at the game because of Going Rogue might not understand what the big deal is over the Dual Pistols power-set, or why there is a relatively violent argument over the implementation of the Dual Pistols set. I'll do a quick summarization for the benefit of those new players. I'll also go over power-set design 101 to frame the problem.

Character animations using two pistols at once were first introduced I believe with the Malta. The Malta Gunslingers have around 5 attacks that can be launched from their pistols, but the attacks are not uniquely animated. Or at least they weren't. I didn't exactly go seek out a gun-slinger and let them just fire on me before writing this to check all of their animations. If my memory is correct the Malta had maybe 3 distinct animations for each of their attacks.

I say three because the next implementation of Dual Pistols was the Mastermind Set Thugs. Mastermind sets have a limited number of attacks, so a rig complex set like Dual Pistols is relatively easy to implement. The Mastermind Set brought 3 distinct animations to match each of their Dual Pistols attack.

What I don't know, and cannot find any particular notes on, is whether or not the Malta Gunslinger animations were updated with the Mastermind animations, or if the Mastermind animations were borrowed from the gunslinger animations.

Either way, the animations on these power sets is rather dull and flat, with a basic point, aim, and shoot.

Enter in the Going Rogue Dual Pistols power set for Blasters, Defenders, and Corruptors. Unlike the previous attack limited implementations which featured little to no active animations, the expanded Dual Pistols set is influenced heavily by the likes of animes like Trigun and live action John Woo films.

Immediately players began requesting alternate animations for the expanded dual-pistols set to match such role-playing concepts as "old-time western cowboys," or an "18th Century aristocrats having a flintlock duel." Many of these original... requests... were phrased as demands with many a declaration that the dual-pistols power set "sucked" because it was too fancy and there wasn't an option for something that wasn't as flowery.

Now, I'll go ahead and make this clear. I do have a biased opinion in this matter. My own take is similar to that expressed by Sexy Jay in the first video documentary, Prelude to Going Rogue. In the film Sexy Jay talks about how City of Heroes is not a game where you go and make a lumberjack. City if Heroes is a game where you make a SUPERPOWERED Lumberjack. In the same way, City of Heroes is not a game where you make an "old-time western cowboys," or an "18th Century aristocrats having a flintlock duel." It's a game where you make "Cowboy with More Firepower than Obviously Compensating for Something Man," and "dashing 18th Century aristocrats kicking in doors."

There actually is a larger mechanical issue at hand other than just the theme or concepts of the game itself. This mechanical issue can actually be witnessed in some of the classic power sets. By classic power sets I mean powers that were available when the game launched way back in 2004. Many of the powers shared the same animation riggings, and there wasn't much difference between several powers other than the names. For the most part the currently available weapon powers have largely been separated so that no power within a single power set shares the same animation by default.

There are some power-sets, such as Fire Melee or Ice Melee, where the player can specify that the animation utilize the same basic animation as another power. For example Fire Sword or Greater Firesword can be animated with either the large or small elemental fire swords, and same for the Ice Sword and Greater Ice Sword powers.

The basic design goal, as expressed by the developers, is that all powers have unique visual effects by default. Player's should be able to witness a power's default animation and know exactly what power was cast. In the case of dual pistols, the developers have to fit at least 8 powers into the set with a unique visual associated with each power.

On top of each power having a unique visual identifier, each power has to have a certain level of expected damage or mitigation affect.

On top of each power having to have a certain level of expected damage or mitigation affect the set has to be balanced within itself as the set relates to other power sets.

What this means is that Dual Pistols cannot have a higher total damage output compared to other sets. The total damage output is a combination of not just the actual damage per attack, but damage per activation time, damage per endurance consumption, damage per recharge time, and damage as expected before and after accuracy modifiers. Basically, if Dual Pistols drastically delivers more damage on a regular basis than other power-sets the powers need to be adjusted to deliver less damage. If Dual Pistols drastically delivers less power than other power sets, the powers need to be adjusted to deliver more damage.

One of the key problems with alternate animations for the Dual-Pistols set is maintaining the current animation timings. For many of the power sets where the physical object can be manipulated, such as in the Fire Melee and the Ice Melee sets, the actual animation itself is not changing, just the object used in the animation. The effect is similar to being able to choose a baseball bat or a shovel for the mace melee set. The power itself does not change.

For a set like Dual Pistols where players are requesting new actions, not just new objects, the parameters change.

Yes, it would be possible to implement completely new animations with new timings for the Dual Pistols set. Doing so would be the equivalent of making a completely new power set. Each aspect of the power, from the base damage, to the damage modifier, to the base endurance, to the endurance modifier, to the base accuracy, to the base accuracy modifier, to *insert factor on spreadsheet here* would need to be adjusted to maintain the balance of the set with a new animation set. In addition, each animation change would require the developers also change every other power in the set. So if a player took one power with a western-style point-aim-shoot and another power with the twirl the gun-BLAM animation, the entire set would have to be rebalanced to account for the differences each power would deliver.

The only way the developers could get around the balancing problems with either designing a "new" set from scratch, or by having to rebalance the set on the fly for differently timed animations, is if new Dual Pistols animations used the exact same animation timings. Only by using the exact same animation times would the animations on the powers be directly interchangeable.

This leads to the problem of how many unique animations that would be accurate to the afore-mentioned "old-time western cowboys" and "18th Century aristocrats having a flintlock duel." Well, between the two... maybe two animations? Maybe three? I'm not saying a John Wayne buff or anything, but I've pretty much seen every western he's ever made and I'm pretty confident that they only shot pistols maybe one of two ways. Most of these filmed events rely on the actors themselves to make dodging the incoming bullets, or getting hit by the incoming bullets, the interesting parts of the scene. Old time western shoot-outs where, and are, visually boring from the aspect of pointing a gun and shooting. Same thing with duels to the death. There's not a whole lot of visual animation between holding a gun out as steady as possible and praying it actually hits your target.

This is the crux of the problem of developing new animations for Dual Pistols: The existing power animations are visually distinctive for each power.

As far as I'm aware the developers have never admitted out-loud that they were not able to come up with 8 visually distinctive animations based on the animation styling as used by the Malta and the Masterminds Thugs. The implication from the expanded Dual Pistols set that the developers were not able to come up with visually distinctive animations, hence pursuing the Gun-Fu look that did allow lots of flexibility to design unique visual effects.

Now, I'm not going to say it not possible to implement visually unique and distinctive powers based on the sedated and deliberate point and shoot actions carried out in old westerns or period pictures depicting pistol duels. I am going to say that I highly doubt that such animations could be implemented using the existing timings on the existing Gun-Fu animations.

Hopefully this frames the issue for incoming players and will help explain the background behind the various arguments new players will witness on the forum over this power set.

I see it's already been mentioned that Castle has looked at it.

As I understand the situation, there was no agreeable "fix" for the Gravity Power set by the developers. Rather than implementing a half-rumped change to the power just to "do something" it seems Castle has chosen to hold off on a revamp for the time-being. The set is functional, albeit underwhelming.

Remember: there's only so many hours in the day, and fixing sets or powers that are legitimately broken, such as Shield Charge, is more important than revamping existing power-sets.

massive aoe damage and massive defense?

spines / super reflexes scrapper
spines / shield scrapper

That's about it.

No "Range" archtype is going to give you meaningful Defense Debuff Resistance. What that means is that all it's going to take is one -def attack, and you won't have any defense. So if you want to dish out the aoe damage and shrug off the attacks, start looking at the scrappers.