low_drag

My all-time favorite doom posts were on the Unstoppable threads. The threads basically stating with, "What! you're giving blasters unstoppable in the epics? They'll be tank-mages!" and ending with "You're nerfing unstoppable? Invul is now completely useless! It's now the gimpest set out there and completely unplayable!" This was way before anyone did any testing, of course.

The supression threads are running a close second, though...

Good stuff so far

I'd like to propose some cross-server global channels for monsters and TFs. There are a lot of people out there who are at the 5-channel limit, partially because they play on multiple servers.

How about somthing like:
Monster: Monster sightings on any server
TF: TFs forming on any server.

The difference in these channels is you would format with the servername like:

Infinity: Octo sighting near Brickstown gate.
Champion: Eden trial forming, 39 - 41 PST.

I had always assumed their sets were the same one used by their Praetorian counterparts.

Bobcat (evil Mynx), for example, is a claws/invul scrapper.
Black Swan (evil Swan) is a DM/DA scrapper.

I think part of the problem is that the Mob AI is just so predictable. You grab a mission and read the mission text. You travel there and walk into the mission. Groups of mobs stand there, may or may not say things, a few may wander a bit, and they aggro if you get too close.

Other groups of mobs wander around (in-mission ambushes) and have instant aggro on your group. These are a good step toward making them more exciting.

Eventually you get to the end of a mission where there usually some named boss of some kind, who says something clever, and battles like the boss type they are.

All mobs behave in a certain way. Once someone has aggro (player was spotted, got taunted, etc), they attack usually with a ranged attack, then may or may not close to melee range. If they lose sight of a player, their aggro level drops somewhat. If they have enough aggro remaining, they will close on a player by the shortest path possible to reestablish line of sight to attack. Like idiots, they bunch up and get tore apart by AoEs, group debuffs, mass holds, etc.

I've occasionally seen ones that will run a few steps to get back to ranged attacks (coucil boss robots tend to do this), but not very many and not very often.

How about this:
1) Make them a little smarter where they use tactics (hide around corners, run and get help if needed, things like this) -- especially at higher levels where mobs should be more experienced.
2) Make bosses more unique. Instead of using a named Madness Mage for a boss, try bosses that have different powersets. You really wouldn't know what a particular named boss uses unless you had fought them before. Tsoo bosses are somewhat like this already, they have a lot of varieties with varying powers, but are still somewhat predictable.

Maybe a pair of bosses or AVs that act as a team, like an empath AV buffing and healing a scrapper AV. Even an AV that can summon a number of bosses at some timed interval or health point. Trip wires that cause an ambush if you set them off (invisible unless you have a perception buff). A named council boss that suddenly and unexpectedly whips out radiation infection.

Basically give the villains and missions some personality. The last mission in Freakalympics is suddenly very popular, because the mission is unique now, and more things down that direction I think would help.

[ QUOTE ]
A more appropriate analogy might be that if you had that dark scrapper hit by fire/lethal attack, you now only get to use the highest resistance to the attack, not both. You'd get to use either lethal or fire resistance, whichever is higher, never both. This is what is happening to defense. Not very desirable.

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't the same scenario because a single attack either hits or misses. If you have 50% resistance to smash, and 25% resistance to energy and you get hit my a Crey Power tank's energy blast, you take 50% of the smash damage and 75% of the energy damage which is how it should be.

If you have 50% defense against smash, and 25% energy, under the previous system you'd have 75% defense against the attack which equates to 75% defense against smashing and 75% defense against energy since the entire attack either hits or misses.

In the current system, you get the higher of the two numbers (50%) against the entire attack so you effectively get 50% defense vs. Smash, and 50% defense vs. energy. It's not as desirable as before, but this seems to make a lot more sense.

If they were to consider the single attack as two separate attacks, then you'd get 50% defense against the smash component, and 25% defense against the energy component. This you definitely don't want to happen.

[ QUOTE ]
These were pre-I3 numbers. Defender primaries got a boost in I3 so if we account for the 25% boost at I3 we get 25% / 1.25 = 20% for deflection, and 18.75% / 1.25 = 15% for dispersion (These would be the numbers for controllers now). [ QUOTE ]
I don't remember reading anything in the issue 3 notes about a boost to defender primaries and nothing like that was on the test server as far as I know. Do you have a link for any of that info?

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Oops, it looks like you got me on this one. I was looking at the Updates link earlier and remembered the item about the increase of defender effectiveness to Transfusion, Kinetics, etc in there. I had remembered the 25% and defender primaries, but forgotten it was only for specific powers, lol.

And those are such nice round numbers, too...

[ QUOTE ]
Are those the real numbers for force field or just used as an example? A while ago a force field defender went on the test server and recorded the frequency of hits against even level minions. He collected data for around 1,000 attacks for each bubble and reported dispersion bubble to be +12.5% defense unslotted and insulation/deflection shield to be +20% defense unslotted. This is the first I've seen of a developer posting numbers for force field and I wanted to make sure that those were the real numbers and not being used as an example? I don't think the site still has his data but I can post the link if you want.


[/ QUOTE ]

These were pre-I3 numbers. Defender primaries got a boost in I3 so if we account for the 25% boost at I3 we get 25% / 1.25 = 20% for deflection, and 18.75% / 1.25 = 15% for dispersion (These would be the numbers for controllers now).

I believe the original numbers were wrong on dispersion bubble for some reason, or perhaps it was increased by a bit.

One feature request I have that hasn't been mentioned yet, is the ability to make channels that other people can read, but can't join and write to. This would be useful for large organized raids (Hami Raids, maybe an organized raid to clear monster isle or a hazard zone). The leaders would post on this channel and everyone else could read without having to wade through a lot of other spam on the channel.

It would help with the size limitations too, since everyone wouldn't need to be a member of the channel. You could have something like a TF channel where you'd normally monitor it and get into any TFs you see posted and would like to do. If you wanted to start one you could join the channel, post your proposed TF, get the team together, then leave and go back to monitoring.

It may help to cut down on some of the blind invite spams that people get as well.

[ QUOTE ]
And we're making a few changes to make Shadow Shard and Crash Site more accessible. For instance - putting a teleporter in Peregrine Island so that player 40's can get to and from easily.

[/ QUOTE ]

This would help the Rikti Crash Site, but there's already a porter for the shadow shard in PI right where most people are anyway.

The reason I don't hunt the RCS is because groups mobs that see through invisibility, mezz me, and have multiple bosses teleport right in on top of me with no warning (unavoidable death when visiting the zone).

I hunt the shadow shard, but I'm just crazy like that. I killed about 20 storm elementals the other day, and I'll probably be on the leader board the entire month for it.

I can usually find a group of people willing to hunt Firebase Zulu or Cascade (people don't like to go out beyond Cascade), but RCS is definitely a dead zone. The saucer looks cool, though.

I usually see PP referring to Paragon Protectors (PP in there).

Con: v. Determine (consider) the game's reported difficulty of an enemy (Let me con those guys... looks like yellows).
n. The difficulty the game has reported for an enemy (group of blue cons over there)

pills: Inspirations (got any purple pills?)

AV: Arch Villian.

CF: Crey's Folley

PI: Peregrine Island

Portal: A passage that can be used by enemies or players that either summons more enemies, or allows players to pass to another zone or mission

Inf: Influence

Nuke: A type of attack that does devestating AoE damage, but drains the player of all endurance when used

KS: Killsteal

Spam: 1) to use a click power rapidly and continuously (spamming holds).
2) excessive chatter, especially on broadcast or request channels.

wipeout: When an entire team of players is defeated.

YW: You're Welcome

blapper: A blaster that spends more time than the average blaster within melee range of mobs.

troll: A poster or player who attempts to incite others into arguing about some subject.

troller: A controller

WoW: World of Warcraft

Log: logoff from the server (gotta log, see ya tomorrow)

And there's a zillion ones for powers, but that would almost need a seperate thread.