newchemicals

Here are mine:

1. EU and US servers should be merged. EU players should be able to play on US servers and US players should be able to play on EU servers.

2. Enemy AI or should I say lack of it. Pac-Man had smarter AI and that was oh 30 years ago. How about enemies who are a little smarter? Like tough "tanks" who taunt tanks/scrappers to beat on them. Snipers who pick off squishes. How about enemy types who beat on certain characters, like an all girl villain group who prefer to beat on male characters.

3. A better search function so I can find people for my team. Like a filter to skip people already in a team for starters.

4. A server chat channel for teaming that doesn't have a limit on number of members.

I like this as long as it does not lead to spawn camping.

I am expecting the "great blue exodus" when GR comes out.

That would be my bet. Of course only real numbers from NCsoft would tell the tale. Of course they don't release those numbers so my own /search will have to do.

A more interesting AI would be nice.

The mobs in the game are dumber than the monsters from Pac-Man. The big deal about Pac-Man was the lack of REGs.

Giving mobs in CoX a little more IQ would help keep the game fresh.

I'd rather NCsoft spend resources so EU and NA can all play together.

Actually, I think Lighthouse being stricter has actually improved the forums. I agree, things were pretty out of hand. I have to give Lighthouse a for cleaning things up.

Now, can Lighthouse drag a few of the Cryptic folks out here for some PR work. We forum people have some questions to ask the devs about recent changes.......

Please Lighthouse? Be stricter about dev PR work?


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Hi LadyExxotica,

Thanks for taking the time to post your feelings and concerns. I have also received feedback on this same topic since I started. This is home for a good number of people and they've let me know (and some of the Dev's too!) how they feel it is being handled. Some people have expressed they like the change of pace and felt that the forums had grown a bit unruly. Some others let me know they felt I was being overly prohibitive and stifling. I respect the fact that I'm the newcomer here and do my best to keep the feelings of our posters in mind.

I do lament that I don't have as much time as I'd like to just involve myself in discussions on the forums. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of times when I post into a thread, it is as you said, to address some concern with how the topic is progressing or to shut something down. So, that is to say, I can understand your feelings about my presence on the forums. It is something I'm aware of and working to address.

We do have good reason for the Message Forum Rules and Guidelines that govern conduct on these forums. This place is not an open soapbox for anyone who wants to stand up and rant and bash the game or to talk about topics not on the game. We have these forums to help players get the most out of the game and those rules are a good part of keeping that experience a positive one.

I welcome any input and feelings about how we run things around here. If you don't want to voice that here, please feel free to write me a private message.

Respectfully yours,
Lighthouse

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I'm sure this is what we will see for */fire

Blazing Aura - Increased damage 5%
Burn - Reduced endurance costs slightly

Improvements to Fire/*

Rain of Fire - increased damage slightly, Reduced recharge time.

*/Devices

Time Bomb - Reduced recharge time slightly.
Taser - Reduced endurance cost slightly

/joke

Ok States. All I care about now is the delivery of the goods

How about removing that tax on SG mode for levels 25+

How about removing that constant tax on our prestige!

Just fix it!

Statesman. I really feel bad for you buddy. I don't know if I should laugh or cry. I think the playerbase has been more than patient about bases and the lack of attention to them by the devs haven't helped much. Yes, there have been some postive changes. However, for the most part, the more wanted requests have been pretty much ignored.

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Now, let's take a look at bases. Take away the teleporters, take away anything game related.


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Gasp, and watch how fast people over the level of 25 stop running in SG mode.

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As just a resource for expressing something unique, base creation is on par tech wise with costume creation. Admittedly, there's not quite the same amount of textures, colors, etc., but there's still a lot of versatility. And the layout possibilities are endless.


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Costumes and bases are apples and oranges. There is a LOT of cost to bases.

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But what's clear from this thread - and from many, many posts - is that bases are "too expensive". To me, that's interesting (as it is to the Serious Games crowd). Costume changes come with a minimal cost that no one really complains about, but we complain about the costs of bases. Evidently, the costs exceed the perceived value of creating one's own HQ (btw, I confess that many other games have the notion of personal property, but aside from Second Life, I don't think they offer as much customizability as our bases).


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They ARE too costly given the benefit of them. How about this as an idea, eliminate base rent! How about no more "tax" in SG mode for level 25+ characters?

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That's what the point of the talk was. I completely agree with many of the suggestions raised in the Base Construction forum, as well as one's mentioned here, would improve Bases to some degree or another. Posi and I go through them at length; really, it's just a question of time & resources. Some things would take astronomically long to do - or perhaps there's something else even more requested or popular.

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Well I am glad you came out, but there has to be more communication. I gave you guys two ideas that "should" be easy enough to implement. No, it doesn't solve all the problems, but it is a good first step. More communicating with us players on how to GROW the game would also be a good 2nd step.

When you get an offer to join a PUG, just say no!

I of the electric blaster school have a complaint. Electric defenders drain more end than blasters. So no, there are cases where blasters get hosed. If defender blasts are supposed to have more effect, then why don't Energy defenders do more Knockback?

Player fuzzy logic. If you think oddies only hose you.

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This may have been stated by others (and possibly better), but am I the only one that think it's screwy that controller secondaries can in some way function better than defender primaries? Isn't this unfair to the Defender AT? Is it untrue to say that, across the board , blasters primaries are stronger than defender secondaries, tanker primaries are stronger than scrapper secondaries, scrapper primaries are stronger than tanker secondaries, and controller primaries are just plain unique and incomparable.

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Heh, yep, no doubt about it. This is a sugar coat for the next round of nerfs to powers.

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Is this going to completely overpower things? Before you jump on me for saying that let me explain...

If suddenly debuffs + Defence make the game 'too easy' again, this will just end up resulting in more nerfs towards those classes who utilize these powers?

I mean really, a %7.5 chance to hit for an AV?????? Thats a joke.

Am I completely missing something here?

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Sounds good on paper.

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Some more good news...

Ice Tankers and SR Scrappers have long lamented that Defense doesn't scale with level. Because mobs higher level than a player possess an inherent to hit bonus, Defense isn't as effective over levels as Resistance.

A while ago, peoople have requested something be done. Well, we've done a bunch of work and done this. Defense powers will now work equally well against critters, regardless of their rank or level. For instance, your defense powers will work equally well against a Boss or any critter up to 5 levels higher than you, as it does for an equal level minion. This change has no effect on a player who does not have any Defense.

This change is coming in I7

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I "think" this is a good change.

I think it means less forced teaming which is a good thing. It also means less forced teaming which might be a good way to get people to learn to team. Whatever, I think its a bonus to people who want to solo or play at odd hours when getting a team together is a big hassle. More choice is why I think its a good thing.

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AND now...we're changing the way Archvillains spawn. A ton of forum goers disliked adding so many AV's into missions a while back...so we've come up with a solution. If the team size and mission difficulty are ABOVE a certain level, an Archvillain spawns. Below that, players will face only an Elite Boss. If the mission is set on the first two levels of difficulty, it takes 4 heroes or more to spawn an Arch Villain. On the third level, 3 heroes or more. On the fourth level, 2 heroes. On the highest (Invincible), a solo hero will spawn an AV. Note this works in BOTH City of Heroes and Villains.

In order to incentivize larger teams, Positron is going to add a bonus to AV rewards!

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Well certainly base building is for the very large SGs. My guess is the devs assume 75 members earning 2000 prestige an hour and playing 4 hours a day. That nets 600K prestige per day. Of course, that would be a good case scenario. What about a more reasonable case?

Say 25 members. On a given night you have 12 members on earning 1500 prestige an hour for 3 hours. That would be 54K per day. This level of group can buy a bigger base plot (assuming no rent) in about a month.

How about a casual group of 10. On a given night you have 5 members earn 1000 per hour and play for 2 hours a night?
That makes 10000. It would take this group (assuming no rent) just less than 1/2 a year to pay for a bigger base plot.

Why lower numbers on some? Well more casual players are just well more casual. I'm sure the really hardcore players who plays 12+ hours a day would make more than 5000 prestige an hour. Other more social groups might make less than 500 per hour. I'm just trying to get ballpark figures.

If the devs made base costs lower by 50%. It would certainly be nice to the more casual players. The real hardcore teams would probably like the fact they have more goodies they can afford too.

The fix is easy. Make the most basic items cost 1/2 as much. Better yet, just 1/2 the cost of everything.


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Right now a lot of posts have talked about the high Prestige cost of Base items - and that they're bringing in a ton of Salvage but can't really do anything about it.

Bases, as they currently stand, really focus on mid and large sized groups earning Prestige - so the complaints have a good point. We're trying to work something out so that a smaller group can get something useful quickly - and also put Salvage to use! Can't promise a timeline, but we are working on it.

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Well now you did it Now Statesman will have to fix that. I know, he will make GA a 180 second click with a 17 minute recharge but for those 3 minutes you probably won't die.

First rule about the GA club, don't talk about the GA club.

Funny, Geko posted, then went into hiding.

Sorry Mr Geko but I think you really missed the point of posters about Archery and their concerns.

#1 End costs on Snap Shot and Aimed shot on Archery are the same as Power Bolt and Power Blast on my energy blaster. However, it does far LESS damage for the same END. That means I have to spend MORE END to take out the same mob because i do LESS damage. Tell me, how is this NOT a problem?????

#2. Animation times are too slow. This negates much of the advantage Archery has in re-charge times.

#3. Accuracy Bonus is small potatoes to damage. There are a lot of ways to increase accuracy but the tradeoff of a "small" acc bonus does not negate the slow animation times, high end costs and low damage.

#4. Archery does not stack up well to other sets in a team buff enviroment. Powers that improve recharge times give less benefit to archery with fast recharge times. Archery with low damage gets less benefit from damage buffs. Other sets benefit far more from buffs.

Sorry, you can read the numbers in an Excel spreadsheet all you want but it is absolutely meaningless. Real gameplay TESTING and EXPERIENCE say your wrong! If you want to stick your head in the sand about this, fine. However, it doesn't really foster a good dev/player relationship. All your doing in a sense is saying your right and not even care that something DOES in fact have serious issues.

Frankly I haven't been too pleased lately about how the dev/player relationship is going. Sorry if I sound bitter or mean, but hey, I play this game, I post what I see in these forums and when I see a problem I inform you about it. I think a lot of players are getting very annoyed about the direction too. I know you guys are hard at work on CoV, but that isn't an excuse to ignore issues. I'm willing to cut you guys some slack if your honest, but lately, I haven't seen much honesty.

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Archery has the highest Accuracy in the game. All powers have an accuracy of 1.16. Ranged shot, the sniper attack, has an accuracy of 1.39.

So that like getting 1 free ACC DO in all Archery powers. Against a target with no defense, thats a 87% chance ToHit.

In comparison, most powers in the game have an accuracy of 1. Most sniper attacks have an accuracy of 1.2. Assault Rifle has an ACC of 1.05 (1.25 for thier sniper attack).

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I don't have a problem with the reduced damage part. Frankly burn did way too much damage.

I do dislike the increase in recharge times. It is just another reason to take hasten. Now were being forced to because the devs are rebalancing a power based on people taking hasten.

So now one of the few characters I have that DOESN'T have hasten may very well take it. Thank you statesman! My fire tank always wanted to join the hasten club.

Rather than rebalance powers around hasten, fix hasten! Fix the problem not the symptom!

Defiance sounded good but like most blasters correctly speculated doesn't help in the 30+ game. While it is a boost in the low levels, blasters didn't need help there.

Oh Doc's point about messing up the "AT" balance.

Took two samples on live and test a week apart.
Live
Warshade 2%, 2%
Peacebringer 3%, 3%
Tanker 20%, 21%
Scrapper 22%, 21%
Defender 17%, 16%
Controller 15%, 14%
Blaster 21%, 23%

Test
Warshade 1%, 1%
Peacebringer 1%, 3%
Tanker 10%, 10%
Scrapper 8%, 10%
Defender 35%, 23%
Controller 10%, 13%
Blaster 35%, 40%

The goal of I5 is kill as fast as you can because no one can take the damage anymore. This looks like the old days when blasters were 50%+ of the playerbase.


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Personally, I expect massive issue 6 nerfs for defenders and blasters when it becomes clear that tankers and scrappers have no real role in the game.

Teams of blasters and defenders (with some controllers for spice!) are going to dominate issue 5.

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Yes, any fixes to this wonderful looking but otherwise ignored zone are truly welcome.

The power is fairly workable at low levels when incoming damage is low and manageable. With a bit of effort I was able to keep myself in the orange and breezed through a mission at record speed with my new archer. My higher level blaster it was pure lunacy to try to make use of the defiance because incoming damage can take me from 40% to 0% too fast. With 10 level of debt free its worth the effort, but not worth it if your higher level.

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I would like to see issue 5 fully make Controller secondaries 80% in all aspects.
As is, powers like Enervating Field, etc. work exactly the same.

I almost wonder if Controller secondaries should be 50% effectiveness across
the board, but that's a topic for another thread.

3 cheers to the devs for new content!

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Talk about nerf herding. How about if blasters said defenders do too much damage and the devs should reduce defender secondaries from 66% to 33% with a damage cap if 300% rather than the 400% now? Rooting for nerfs benefit no one.

The game does break down sometime in the 25+ range where tankers and scrappers get too tough. Its up to the devs to decide how to handle these imbalances. If they go too far and people leave in droves, then its on them to fix it.

Okay I am game. Here is yukitori. My ice/fire blaster on infinity.

yukitori