newchemicals

Originally Posted by TwilightsRequiem

The machine is overclocked out of the box. This is my first overclocked machine, so I'm going to have read up on overclocking before I start tinkering with the Bios. I know basics, but I'm not comfortable tinkering with more advanced Bios settings.

I was able to play with no crashes in safemode. I switched off safe mode and turned the graphics slider to the Performance setting, with 1920x1080 resolution and slowly moved up to 16x FSAA (haven't tried going up to max FSAA). I've been able to play at Performance for about two hours total with no crashes, so it appears to be stable. Moving up to the next step on the graphics slider (Recommended) results in crashes within a few minutes.

This was all without adjusting the Steam service. Overlooked that part before.

Originally Posted by Profit

So, what do you guys think about maybe running coh in linux on this thing?

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

I'm all for the sledgehammer approach, providing it squashes the roach in question.



oh, don't I know it- the issues with stalker stealth have inspired me to delete more characters than anything else in the game besides mastermind pet AI. =P

Originally Posted by Deacon_NA

Bruiser's Hand Clap has been knock down for years now.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat

playing my ar/dev last night & thinking about the impending changes, I have a point to raise before anything even hits beta:

tying the 'sustain' mechanism of /dev to Cloaking Device will be problematic unless something is done about the various issues the game AI has with Stealth.

Was running some tips and trying to escort someone out of the mish and they kept losing me because I keep CD running 24/7. I'd cleared out most of the map but a few spawns still needed dealing with, and toggling CD off and on to keep the escort attached was a PITA as well as slightly to moderately dangerous (was running at X6).

I like the proposed new power conceptually, but in practice I should't *ever* have to turn it off involuntarily, barring running out of end or something.

Originally Posted by Revanchist

Trying to decide if it would be worth the money to upgrade the memory on my 6 year old computer.

I currently have 2 gigs of Mushkin PC2-6400U DDR2-800 ram and an ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series video card.

I'm trying to decide if I should get 4 more gigs from the same manufacture and have 6 gigs or if I should get 8 gigs and currently replace the whole shebang.

I'm using an Asus M2N32-SLI Motherboard with an AIMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core running at 2.6GHz and can currently run full ultra mode without major lag in normal play but need to set everything to minimum when I dual box. any suggestions on the memory?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

That's not what happened. Sniper attacks are being buffed because the devs felt sniper attacks needed improvement. Sniper attacks period. Although this was announced as a blaster improvement, its not a singularly blaster improvement. Its an improvement to snipes.

That's not a guess: Arbiter Hawk confirmed the changes were meant to improve sniper attacks across the board, and not intended to focus exclusively on Blasters.

There's some other stuff related to blasters they aren't ready to announce yet. Some directly related to improvements to blasters, and some ... not directly related to improvements to blasters.

Originally Posted by Shubbie

It seems somewhat unexciting other than what can be done with the KB-KD, the possibilities are just amazing...

Someone just mentioned that Bonfire can accept universal damage..... um.... oh.... well...... Thats going to be interesting

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

So do I. And it sucked. Hard.



Let me give you my perspective on this. I tried to make Blasters work for something like 6 years. I muscled through all the assorted problems they had until I finally just decided to cut my losses and reroll all of them. I WANT to play Blasters, but I just don't enjoy them. Yet at the back of my mind, there's always been this possibility that maybe some days the developers will salvage the AT and make it into something I want to play. I was actually considering maybe rolling some new Blasters, or maybe rerolling some characters back into Blasters.

Until I saw the changes. They're not bad in any way, of course, but they're far from enough for me to try and make them work. Instead of rolling new Blasters, I'll just keep on doing what I've been doing and reroll what's left into something else. My 42 Archery/Devices is probably going Katana/Something, my 30-ish Rad/Energy is probably going Spines/Bio and that might be the last of them. It has become clear to me that Blasters will never be what I want them to be, that neither snipes nor protection powers for Blasters will be what I want them to be. So I'm really just washing my hands of the whole thing and don't intend to get involved in Blaster discussions again. I no longer have a stake in them.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Somehow I doubt there are going to be very many coach seats on the first shuttle to the moon.

Originally Posted by Snow Globe

On today's TwitchTV stream, it was revealed that there are NO PLANS to release the Costume/Vanity stuff from the Super Pack because:

"We have not decided we want to do that. Again, we are open to the idea, but we haven't decided if we even want to do that yet. And the reason is that you can get Super Packs via Paragon Rewards Tokens, which a lot of people have taken advantage of that."

Worse, they are discontinuing the Paragon Rewards option for Super Pack 1 when Super Pack 2 comes out. This means that players objecting to spending real money to gamble for the chance to get a costume set will have no other means to get the costume parts, and that is if they don't "retire" the original Super Packs from the store as well when the next set comes online.

From Zwillinger's body language, they seem to be extremely adverse to offering the Costume/Vanity stuff outside of the packs. This decision should be changed. They have been aware of the objections for over six months now and should have already made plans for an "exit strategy" for these items.

For the record, I did use 3 reward tokens (15 packs) to attempt to get the costume set... I didn't get the entire costume set. I feel that this choice for not providing other means after a pack is discontinued is completely irresponsible given that the costume editor is the cornerstone of this game. They know players have objected to the nature of the distribution, yet are plowing ahead with not offering an alternate means of getting the items. I know one player that say they have spent over $400 to try to get the Black Wolf pet. It is inexcusable that item has less than 1% chance of dropping, yet they don't want to provide other means to get it.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Here's my take on this: When I hear about changes to an AT coming down the line, I immediately put all characters of that AT on hold and pause any changes to their builds that I may be making until I see what the changes bring. The idea behind this practice is I want to see what's coming to see if I can't make a change I suspect I might be able to in order to take advantage of them. Once the changes come and I realise that the advantage I was trying to build for isn't workable for my character, I proceed with these changes in a whole other direction, or may indeed abandon or reroll the character entirely.

To me, this is a situation where a person hears "something"s happening with Snipes and prepares to build for whatever change is coming that makes them worth keeping. Seeing that the change is unreachable for this character's build, this person decides to finally give up on Snipes altogether and stop trying to make them work.

I would be tempted to do the same if I heard Mastermind personal attacks were getting improved in I24, only to realise that they improve, say, only when you're on a team of four or more. Not only will this make the change completely worthless for me, but it might make me go out of my way to take Mastermind personal attacks out of all my Masterminds because... Well, anyone who's played a Mastermind knows this - Mastermind personal attacks are garbage and not worth the power picks and slots they require to own. The only reason I keep them is because it's very BORING to do nothing as a Mastermind but hit binds, and because I secretly hope that they may one day be worth using again. If the only change I'm ever likely to see to them in my lifetime is worthless, that just tells me to stop trying and drop the powers entirely.

In short: Don't underestimate how people's hopes of a terrible power being improved can turn into disappointment powerful enough to go to great lengths to get rid of the power and stop trying to make it work.

Originally Posted by _Toxa_

So I've heard this rumor in fleeting whispers: "Soon", there will be some sort magical enhancement that, when slotted, will convert Knockback to Knockdown. I've heard this from several un-related people in-game on several un-related occasions, but I can't find a single reference to it anywhere on the interwebs.

Is there any truth to it?

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe

1. Listen to the league leader.

2. It's not your trial. Do as the league leader says.

3. It's not your trial. Don't try to change the stated goal of the league just because you see an opportunity to get what you really wanted to begin with (ie - a more experienced leader logging in that can get you that last MO badge.)

4. It's not your trial. You don't have the right to demand who gets invited or not invited based on how many stars you, personally, have above their head. Feel free to ask, but no is no. You can give your spot to someone else if that's a problem.

5. It's not your trial. Somebody screws up and gets called out by the leader, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT while the trial is in progress! The offender has been corrected, no need to join in. In fact, it's probably best for the entire league if chatter over the league channel is kept to a minimum anyway so instructions can be seen and heeded with more reliability.

Sorry. Had to get that out of the way. Now, reading that you might think I'd led a few trials and been burnt. You'd be wrong. I've led a total of two trials since they came out, both times when no one else would step up to lead them. The first one I led succeeded, and everyone was very grateful. The second one failed, and everyone was very gracious. Since then, I've found the behavior I've seen from a surprising number of members more than a little sickening. To the point that lately I've preferred the small team incarnate path of DA to the trials, regardless of how long it takes.

I have nothing but respect for anyone willing to pass out the cudgels to up to 47 other people and risk being verbally beaten with them if everyone isn't A-1 spiffy happy when it's all said and done. Hat's off to ya, folks.

BUT to the OP, some screen layout tips that have helped me on the occasions that I HAVE run in trials:

I tend to like a few windows being open (like the map) more than most, so I go into the preferences and knock the window size down to about 85%.

The big thing I like to do for trials, raids and anything involving a league is to designate the fourth custom chanel (the "4) on the menu options above the chat window) as the League/Request channel on all my characters. THEN I click on the upper left button on the window frame to unattach it from the chat window and return the league view to its proper place. The new "League/Request" window I drag down to the left of the chat window and size accordingly. My inspiration window is always popped out and kept down front in the center of the bottom, and since my eyes tend to be in that area anyway (to see what inspirations to click) it's easy for me to see instructions as they come out.

IMHO every member of the league ought to know how to create a chat tab and keep it out during the trial.

Now I think it helps to have read the guides for the trials (although I will again repeat my desire to see those official guides placed in some sort of contact dialogue in-game similar to the RWZ raid coordinator) but it isn't absolutely necessary. And I sure don't think it's necessary to communicate your knowledge to the league leader. But just as a league leader has a spare tray full of macros for giving instructions, every trial participant needs to have a spare tray for macros that they can use over the course of the trial. Like the acid/grenade selection macro, for example. You've got a handy-dandy little "plus" sign over on the far right of your power tray menu options along the top of the tray. It opens up a floating power tray that you can customize to fit. Use it. Love it. My extra tray is 2 across and three deep and sits down to the left of my normal power trays.

(so if you're keeping track, the bottom of my screen has ::Global andTeam Chat/Team Members::League/Request Chat::Inspirations::Extra Power Tray::Power Tray:: )

I can't recall them all right now, but a list of Trial Macros might be a handy thing to publish here and/or keep in an in-game email to send to people.

That's it off the top of my head - hope it helps.

Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I appreciate you taking time to hold a dialog with us.

I like what you've done with the Blaster PBAoE toggles. Those powers have always been rather suspect to me.

I apologize if the following is too critical and I hae failed to see something: I have to confess I'm not a fan of having a magic number that unlocks instant-sniping. I just don't think it works. It's going to send too many Defender and Corruptor builds scurrying for Tactics. I may hae missed something in the thread that changed things, but with this change Tactics will now be a required power for any Corruptor or Defender build with a Snipe who doesn't happen to be a Time Manipulator.

I would personally even vote to just give Blasters a straight blast that completely replaces the snipe, everyone else keeps the snipe and it's made useful in some other way. The +22% hit requirement makes builds significantly less interesting to me. Worse yet, Kismet is an IO that goes in a defense power. If there is any trend I think that does not need reinforcing, it's squishy builds pushed into taking defense powers because of how they synergize with Recharge (thanks to the Luck of the Gambler). Now we're throwing ToHit onto that. Kismet was already a pretty useful IO but this makes it essentially mandatory for any build that is een semi-serious.

Regarding +Range to powers, I think thats ok but I would personally vote that that change should apply to the Blaster version ONLY. I say this as someone who only really plays Dominators and Corruptors with any level of seriousness. Give me a reason to want to play Blasters. My Corruptors and especially my Dominators do not need that buff. Note that by boosting sets like Fire Blast on a Corruptor you are defacto eliminating the small advantage Psychic Blast has, because one of the very few advantages of that set is its range.

Overall, most of these changes seem to reinforce for me, rather than eliminate, reasons I tend to avoid Blasters in the first place. Perhaps I am missing someting in this thread, but I just am not seeing how they come out ahead. It seems to put Corruptors significantly ahead and increase the range of my Dominators, who in some cases were rolled in place of Blasters. I don't think either Corruptors or Dominators need these buffs at all. (Defenders might, but IMO what they really need is something toset them apart from Corruptors.)

Originally Posted by Zombie Man

Problem: City of Devices

While it was a brilliant idea to do two buffs at once, namely, buff Snipe Attacks that has a prerequisite which Blaster Devices can easily meat, and thus, Devices is buffed; it instead has created a problem: Devices have become the go-to secondary for any Blaster that's going to use a Snipe attack.

I'm already seeing the mentality and the builds -- since Devices can perma insta-snipe, then you only take Devices and build around that. The new Blaster min-maxer has emerged: Any-Set-with-Snipe / Devices.

Favored legacy toons may be respecked by some Blasters to access Snipes and use the tools available at level 50 to make it (nearly) perma. But all new Blasters will be some from the Devices.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

Just as a general thought on the issue of Defenders/Corruptors and the meta-game. While Defenders and Corruptors have it easier to perma with Tactics they are also much less likely to have room in their build for Aim. Defenders and Corruptors tend to need to dedicate more powers and slots to their non-blast set than Blasters do and Aim is often one of the casualties of that.

Originally Posted by Zombie Man

Problem: City of Devices

While it was a brilliant idea to do two buffs at once, namely, buff Snipe Attacks that has a prerequisite which Blaster Devices can easily meat, and thus, Devices is buffed; it instead has created a problem: Devices have become the go-to secondary for any Blaster that's going to use a Snipe attack.

I'm already seeing the mentality and the builds -- since Devices can perma insta-snipe, then you only take Devices and build around that. The new Blaster min-maxer has emerged: Any-Set-with-Snipe / Devices.

Favored legacy toons may be respecked by some Blasters to access Snipes and use the tools available at level 50 to make it (nearly) perma. But all new Blasters will be some from the Devices.