macskull

If it becomes easier for players to build knockback protection into their builds, surely you can figure out a way to work around that. Regardless, this is really about zone PvP, since just about everyone who PvPs in the arena will have enough KB protection to stop anything, and knockback is completely imbalanced in zone PvP with travel suppression and heal decay in their current implementation. It's bad enough that I can't get away and I can't heal, and now I'm knocked on my ***. No thanks.

History of that:

* I13 (December 2, 2008): Everyone with toggle mez/KB prot gets KB'd when mezzed, which leaves 90% of melee characters and anyone with Acro who doesn't have extra KB protection essentially broken. Bug reports filed.

* I16 (September 15, 2009 - 9 months later): Toggle mez/KB prot bug is fixed... except for Kheld Dwarf forms and Widows/Forts.

* I18 (August 16, 2010 - 11 months after I16 and 20 months after I13): Patch note published about fixing Widow/Fort mez/KB bug. Kheld Dwarf forms still broken. Issue goes live and it's discovered the bug isn't actually fixed.

* Now (Feb 25, 2011 - 6 months after I18 and 26+ months after I13): Both ATs are still broken.

If anything this should be an example of the rather poor track record when it comes to fixing PvP bugs, even though those bugs are game-breaking for entire archetypes. But of course, if there's an exploit related to PvP or rewards are dropping "too much," you can be damn sure something like that will be fixed quickly and quietly.

giggle

I remember the first DXP weekend after I14 when it did work in AE. Soooo many 50s...

While it is true that some of the specifics don't necessarily apply, the fundamentals of economics (particularly supply and demand) certainly apply. If that weren't the case, we wouldn't be able to predict what might happen to prices on certain items when certain events occur (i.e. the merger, double XP weekend, holiday events).

Obviously "play and sell" doesn't work for most people, or we wouldn't get the constant whining that things are too expensive. The "play and sell" method is based on luck and luck only, while actually getting your hands dirty and doing flipping/crafting/arbitrage only takes a bit of extra work but ends up paying out quite a bit more than simply selling drops could ever do.

*watches eryq's conspiracy theories fall out of the sky in flames*

I think the mindset of the market-ignorant can be summed up as "I don't know how this works, so I'm going to blame the people who do."

Thing is, though, that really only happened (happens?) at the beginning of a match. You hung back a bit, got some buffs tossed out, and maybe if one of your Blasters was feeling ambitious they'd try and run in and get a nuke off on the other team right away, hoping for a quick first kill. Once the match actually got under way there was no gathering for buffs - buffers needed to be able to be all over the place making sure their teammates stayed buffed all the while often becoming targets themselves.

The post-I14 buff period instituted before each match means there's not even an opportunity to get a quick kill off anymore, because each team has a full 30 seconds to make sure everyone's good to go.

this is gold

The DR defense cap for squishies sits at about 20% - you can add as much defense as you want, but you'll never really go much above that point. For example, PB'd Veng takes my MM from 15% S/L defense up to 19.5% when PB'd Veng on its own is something closer to 45%.

Unfortunately you can't really say how much defense (or any other attribute) a power will give you once you factor in DR. DR starts working at just your slotted enhancements - as Arcana said 95% enhancement will get cut down to around 80% and that's before you add in set bonuses or buffs. Since DR isn't a per-power curve but rather a curve based on totals, you can't say "this power will always provide this much defense/damage/tohit" because it depends on what buffs you've already got. My Therm shields might provide 15% resistance to one target but only 4% to another, for example.

The sad thing is there's really no easy way to figure out the numbers behind DR since it requires some knowledge of calculus. When a game requires players to do calculus to figure out how their character is going to function, there's something wrong.

Find me a redname quote that says Alchemical Silvers are not worth 4k or I call bull. The only time a redname's ever commented on market pricing being an issue was when Castle said there was something wrong with items selling at the inf cap on the market and well above it off-market (though it's amusing to note that nothing's been done to remedy that "problem"). Also it's "devs" and not "DEVS." Next you're going to be telling us that a purple is only worth 10k because that's what a vendor will pay for it.

"Bid low" in this context assumes competence on the part of the bidder - I could bid 1 inf on a purple and complain that the "bid low" advice doesn't work, when the inferred definition of "bid low" should be "bid reasonably low." If your bids haven't filled in two months, they're obviously too low. Now, of course, you'll complain that the price you'll re-bid at is too high, when in reality it's closer to the value that the majority of buyers are paying.

Let's compare this to negotiating for a car. A savvy car buyer knows they can negotiate with a dealership, because that dealership wants their sale and are willing to take less than sticker price if it means a sale is made. Now, if I walked into a dealership and said "I'll give you $100 for that Camry, and that's final," I'd be asked to leave. Rather I'm going to do some research before I even go to the dealership and find out what the dealership actually paid for the car (in other words, the very lowest amount they'll be willing to sell it for) and negotiate up from there (a parallel to bid creeping in CoX). Eventually we'll settle at some price between the dealer invoice price and the retail price, and both parties will come away more or less happy. That's exactly how buying an item off the market in this game works.

Bring them back, yes, but if base raids used zone rules they'd be a gigantic mess with the way travel suppression works.

What I'd like are arena options for all the I13 changes - travel suppression, heal decay, and diminishing returns are already available for change, but we're still missing the damage changes, mez changes, base resists, and the odd unresisted damage/effect/whatever. (Standard code rant) Damage changes wouldn't be too bad (set a toggle for "use PvE numbers"), base resists would likely be just as simple since they're essentially an always-on power. Mez changes would probably take the most work, but again there could be a "use PvE rules" button for those as well. Or, in its simplest form, tell the game that you're in a PvE zone and every target is a critter instead of a player. Unresisted damage or debuffs would be more difficult to implement I think, but it'd be nice to have an option for those as well.

I've been saying it for the last two years, but there is absolutely no reason that players should be forced to adapt to a system that doesn't make sense when it's likely trivial (or at worst a few weeks' worth of work for an underling or two) to give them the option of using 90% of the old system.

too much reddit, i went to go upvote you but couldn't find the button