kasterbal

i16 is NOT Going Rogue. I thought that had been made clear. Going Rogue is a separate, not-free, expansion. It doesn't have an issue number.

i16 beta in July? Have we learned nothing from past bug fests? I would be perfectly happy to get one update a year relatively bug free, unlike the last three which were not given enough time in beta. I'm still suffering i13 and i14 bugs on a daily basis, and now we have to contend with the breakage to be caused by i15, and you want i16 in beta in less than a month? You're nuts. I do not want to see three issues in a six month span. We need to be seeing different content, not "more of the same-old but fortified with extra bugs". I appreciate that the devs are at least appearing to make the extra effort this time, but it's too soon. If we have to have i15 already, PLEASE do not have i16 on any foreseeable horizon.

(1) Not sure if this is related to a specific power activation, but I have a fire/fire blaster with demon wings. Since the last patch, I occasionally hear a "swoop swoop" noise like a Rikti sword wielded by the Lost or...well, Rikti...when no one near me if wielding such a weapon. It's obvious enough that I have several times jumped and run or toggled Fly and took off to a "safe" distance, only to turn and see that there isn't anything attacking me. I think this is only happening when Hover is activated, but I have never noticed sound effects associated with Hover or Fly in the past (other than a sort of whispery hiss like compressed air). The wings are new, but I have experience with angel and insect wings and can't recall ever having heard this noise before unless Lost or Rikti were attacking with big swords.

(2) Spectral Knights, unlike other ghostly Circle foes, do not dissipate when defeated, but freeze like a transparent shell ( like an ice sculpture). This isn't new, but I thought it had been fixed in i14; it was happening again over the weekend.

(3) When the target of an electrical or dark energy attack is defeated after the attack is launched but before it connects, the attack turns into a ball of sputtering electricity or a mass of writhing shadow hovering over the spot where the target fell. This isn't new either, but I thought I'd mention it. It happens everytime, and persists until the "corpse" vaporizes. If it's intentional, no matter, but it looks like an error.

(4) Soapbox moment: this is not a problem per se, but a suggestion. If line of sight is broken before an attack animation completes, the attack misses. I think this would go a long way toward making combat seem less abstract and would benefit players who use tactics rather than luck to get through a fight. I'm tired of having massive boulders follow me around corners, up and down stairs, and through elevators, it really destroys any sense of realism. This goes for both sides, all powers. I'm not overly fond of having fireballs pass through solid rock to chase a fleeing opponent or having a target mezzed or held after they've rounded a corner. If it makes some of these high damage attacks like Hurl Boulder hit less often, perhaps this can be offset by making them do more damage when they do hit. Just a suggestion.

Just wanted to reiterate a few things said early in this thread:
1) It's too late for i15. If they haven't announced it yet, it's not going to be in i15, which is already in closed beta (or very close to it). You can still hope for i16...
2) Going Rogue is not i16. Issues (i numbers) are free expansions; Going Rogue is a commercial expansion like CoV. If the rumoured powersets (dual pistols and "demon summoning", whatever that is) are "real" and part of GR, they may not appear in the rest of the game (w/o the expansion, of course) until much later.

That said, staff weapons/polearms sounds very interesting.I have no idea what demon summoning would even be (mastermindy pets for controllers?), but i suspect it's one of these impossible signature hero/villain sets, not a real one available to players. Some of the other suggestions sounds like you're missing the point: defensive for archery (it's called trick arrow) and offensive for shield (there are several offensive weapon sets you can couple with shield). New flavours of existing weapon sets seem extravagant when there is still much in the game that is not working as it should.

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Hasten
Anyone without hasten as a blaster should not be a blaster. This skill is essential to being a viable player in a team or soloing. The only way I see possible to be able to solo rugged or higher missions is with hasten.-- Skill needs 6 slots ASAP! All recharge reduction. Completely needed for any blaster in general.

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My main is a Controller. She solos on Rugged. She does not have Hasten. I also have two Blasters that solo on Rugged who also do not have Hasten. Hasten can be very useful, but it is not essential to any build. Six slotting anything with the same enhancement is a complete waste of time, slots and enhancements. Why you think you are getting any real benefit after the second or third slot escapes me. But then you've made a lot of uninformed statements here.

Ex. Ring of Fire: two slots, max, both Immobilize. The only way you are going to kill anything with it after level 7 or 8 is as a coup de grace. Its purpose as far as a Blaster is concerned is to keep one foe from reaching melee range, and it doesn't work on Bosses over a certain level; the DoT is icing on that cake, not an end in and of itself. Your Blaster is not a Controller, who can chain it with other mezzes/holds/slows for maximum effect. Damage enhancements are a complete waste here, and the recharge is not really so long that enhancing it provides real benefit. Again, a Blaster is not a Controller.

Ex. your frequent iterations of "ungodly" or "unearthly" in reference to the amount of damage outputted by fire/fire: actually, electric/electric puts out more damage per hit; the value of fire/fire is the DoT done in addition and the larger number of cone/AoE attacks, but if you're recommending skipping some of the latter then you are actually making the build less viable, not more.

As someone else said, either label this as your inexperienced opinion, or wait until you have enough experience of the subject to write a real guide.

Feeling FelineFury's rage a bit here. I was starting the Posi TF yesterday and several people were at the U broadcasting for help because they couldn't buy recipes from the workbenches. When I try it, I have no probs. Why is is happening for some people (and a LOT of them) and not others?

I'm sure someone has complained about the base editing mess already; I myself have already sent three petitions about various issues. This is what I am seeing:

* If you move or add a wall item, it snaps to the ceiling or floor. If you have raised floors or lowered ceilings, the object may no longer even be visible.

* If you move a room and change your mind, the editor will not let you move it back.

* If you rotate a room, all of its contents will be scrambled.

* If you move or place a larger object (one that fills a grid square, like a telepad or an insp collector), it will snap to the level of the highest floor elevation in the room, regardless of where you are trying to place it (I now have three Tpads that are levitating four feet off the floor).

* If you move or place a Personal Storage Vault, it no longer adheres to the wall but floats in space about two feet from the wall.

* Whereas it used to be difficult or impossible to place some items in close proximity, it is now possible to place two objects in the exact same location. Stairs can be submerged in raised floors, an object can be left standing in the middle of an altar, and pillars can now occupy exactly the same spacetime coordinates. Why you would actually want this functionality completely escapes me.

In addition the chat system has picked up a new bug (like it needed any more). Apparently if you exceed an unstated number of characters, the window discards everything preceeding the point where you exceeded the limit. Yes, it throws away the first part of your message. Was on a team yesterday where the communication consisted only of the ends of sentences. Nobody could figure out what anyone else was saying unless we kept it to two or three words at a time. Eventually we gave up and disbanded.

The thing with the toggles not dropping in PvE has created a larger problem. Twice I've been flying, not in combat, and am attacked by something on the street (not a stun or hold or sleep, it's always a direct damage attack like a shotgun or automatic weapon fire), only to have Fly toggle OFF and I fall for tremendous damage because I CAN'T TOGGLE IT (or Hover) ON.

Day Job temp powers? Did we really need these? Was anybody asking for them? A prestige bonus that only lasts five minutes from the moment you log on? Really? It will take me longer than that to find a team. A Wents TP that only exists for 40 minutes game time that can only be used once every 15 minutes? What possible use is that? A five minute speed boost so small I can't tell the difference?

And to top it all off, they still didn't fix the mini skirts.

I don't understand why they feel the need to tinker with things no one thinks is broken, when there are plenty of things that still actually need fixing. How many petitions do we have to send before they do something about the bugged storyline in Faultline? I now have five toons that were cut off at the end of Jim Temblor's arc without getting either Penelope Yin or Doc Delilah as contacts. How many times do I have to whine about the mini skirts that they broke with i12 before they actually fix them (answer: they aren't going to do it, because they figure if they wait long enough everyone affected will have reached a new costume point and will have fixed it themselves)?

Are they not sufficiently testing this stuff? Was there ANY reason that i13 (or i12 for that matter) had to be rushed out without thorough testing? The game itself is no longer beta, why are the patches released in a beta state?

I am really looking forward to seeing the development of Champions Online. If NCSoft keeps messing up CoX like this and CO holds any promise, I will be moving there.

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Dark Horizon
Global Contact: @Dark Horizon
Level of Classification: 40
Origin: Science
Super Rank & Super Group: Duchess, League of Extraordinary Ladies

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Yes I have a kinectics and everytime I get invited to teams,they all seem to be set on invincible and we are fighting +4's.Then I get HEAL ME HEAL ME,and I remind them I missed 7 times in a row because we are way in over our head.Then comes the, your just a NOOB.

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OMG yes. So here are two more of mine.

When recruiting for a team, make it CLEAR the level of the mish. My tells are usually something like, "Are you interested in lvl xx mish in [zone]?" If the player accepts, please warn them if the diff is something outrageous, and offer them the option of leaving if they aren't up to it. Don't lowball recruit and expect your Controllers two levels below the team average to be able to do anything against the +4's you're fighting because you forgot to mench that your diff is invincible.

Someone else suggested that you should never assume that a Def is a healer. I'd like to add that you should never, ever, ever, recruit a Controller in the expectation that she/he has heals or can act as the team's solo healer. Example: my ice/storm troller was recruited to a team of jokers who got off on incurring debt. Natch, she was two levels behind everyone else and the diff was invincible. After getting killed 6 times in less than 10 minutes, I quit. The leader then sent a tell demanding to know why I did. "Because you don't have enough heal support," I answered, to which he replied that I was the healer. Which leads to my next one:

Never recruit someone as a healer without knowing what their heals are. My example: An ice/storm troller CAN'T HEAL THEMSELVES, and once that toon goes down, you got no healer at all.

Don't call people "noob" when they can't do what you are expecting or demanding them to do. Chances are you are being an ignorant jerk and expecting/demanding something that isn't possible. Know the capabilities of the people you recruit. Don't expect them to be able to do something that can't be done with their build. Don't criticise ATs that you have never played.

This started out well but quickly became a list of pet peeves instead of useful behavioral suggestions, some of which don't make a lot of sense.

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Say your piece once, twice tops; if nobody answers, the answer is NO.

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If recruiting, announcing a contest, etc., at a time when the server is lightly populated, it makes perfect sense to repeat your message several times as additional players may have logged on that didn't see the earlier messages. It's not necessarily spamming.

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A lot of people are like me and pass right over people that are bitter to blind invites. To me and my friends if the comment says "no blind invites" what it really means is "I don't want to team with anyone". I also noticed something else strange... if you say "no blind invites" you tend to get spammed with team invites a lot, lol. That should tell you something...

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You're kidding, right? If you refuse to send a tell first, we WANT you to pass us over. Stating up front that we don't welcome blinds does NOT say we don't want to team, it says we find the popup dialog annoying when we are working at Wents, at the workbench, or in a fight. It's common courtesy to see if we are interested before inviting. You're not into following the prevailing view of the proper way to invite people, fine. Don't want to team with you either. Stating your blinds preference doesn't increase the number of spam blinds you receive, it decreases it. Of course, since you don't prohibit blinds, you are hardly in a position to have accurate data.

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Send tells to people on the otherside of the law without turning on your See Hero/Villian chat.

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This is pretty much a hidden setting, you can hardly fault someone who doesn't know how to change it. The polite response instead of getting peeved would be to inform the person, "Hey did you know your hero/villain chat is turned off," and offer to tell them how to fix it. There is also an intermittent bug that causes this to revert to disabled, so many players who have changed the setting may not know that the bug has changed it back.

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Six slot Brawl or Rest.

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Getting a bit ridic here. How does it affect YOU if someone else chooses to six slot Brawl or Rest? IT DOESN'T. If they want to waste their hard-earned slots, that's their prerogative. I know, this is supposed to be a list of "what not to do", but the rest of this person's post was obviously a list of personal peeves rather than advice, so I responded accordingly.

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Send tells to four different people all on the same team asking for invites.

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Except that there isn't any way to tell who is teamed together, unless you're on the same team. Sending tells to multiple people on the same team is still nicer than trying to blind them (although or course they would never see the blinds because they are already on a team). You're still the better person for having asked first.

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Send mistells to the person that you were complaining about with a friend.

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I guarantee you this is never done intentionally. Isn't their embarrassment enough punishment for their bad behaviour? Wouldn't a more useful statement of this be that it's uncool to badmouth your fellow players behind their backs?

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Assume that everyone on the team is of the same sexual orientation or that they have the gender of their toon.

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Spoken like a crossdresser, sir. What difference does it make what the rl gender or sexual preference of your fellow player is? Are you one of those who feels compelled to drool over your virtual female companions? Or do you like making comments that people of another gender or preference might find offensive? How about instead we just agree to use the same decorum with a group that we would in real life?

And here's one of mine: don't continuously make lascivious comments to your apparently female teammates. Some of us are actually female, and that's sexual harassment. I can't image male players enjoy it much either. Plus, you're getting woody over a CARTOON, stalker boy. Get a life.

And because that post was older and the wiki has moved (although the links are still good), here is a page at the new wiki location with links to all unlockable things, including contacts and stores (if you're interested in those). There is also a page here that shows screenshots of the various weapons.

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Character slots in the character selection screen can now be reorganized by dragging and dropping. The sort order is stored in a file on the client, but only if "Remember Account Name” is checked on the Log-in Screen

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The information is NOT stored on the client. It is stored on your local hard drive, as a file named playerslot.txt. While it remembers the character order, it STILL ignores the first character on your list, and automatically selects the character that was ORIGINALLY at the top of the list, pre-I12.

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I am finding that it is not stored AT ALL. "Remember Account Name" checked or unchecked, nothing I do will force the client to remember the new character order. The thing is bugged and not working. The new order will remain until you quit the client or log any character, but then reverts to the pre-patch default order. And I also am seeing that, for the brief time that the list remains rearranged, the oldest character on the server is still the highlighted one when you choose that server, regardless of where you've dragged it.

It's a minor point I suppose, but the whole drag and drop to reorganize characters on the login screen is not working. Oh, you can drag them alright, but the new arrangement is NOT retained regardless of whether the "Remember Account Name" box is checked or not. I just wasted an hour trying to rearrange the lists on the three servers I play, and no combination of logging in/launching character/logging off/quit client/reboot will force the client to retain the new order. Also, there is insufficient documentation to explain what this "redeemable slot" thing is all about. Are they time limited? How much time? Are there three total, or three per server? If an enhancement category for a power was nerfed, why are the nerfed enhancements still in those slots? Why can't we get them back, or at least get their trade value ala a respec (without actually having to burn a respec...I'm not wasting one just to get one enhancement back, no matter how expensive it was)? If this is any indication of how the rest of this is going (and I'm not happy that you've nerfed my main regarding PvP), you should have kept it in beta a while longer. Three weeks obviously wasn't long enough.