peterpeter

Paragon Reward Points? You know, I'd be a little worried about working for Paragon Studios. From month to month, you never know what currency your paycheck will be in.

.....?!?

I think today would be a good day for me to read the dev digest.

Yay for babies! Congratulations! Hmmmm, the daughter of an EM Pulse is going to need a shirt like this, as fair warning:

I like the idea of AE arcs. I don't actually play them in practice. Why not? Hmmm.

1. The group I normally team with doesn't. If they did, I would.
2. When I did run them, I got tired of the bad ones.
3. Maybe just my imagination, but it feels harder to get a good AE team than a good team for regular content.
4. When I solo lately, I tend to be after purples/shards or trying to complete specific Dev content just for the sake of having done it (getting all those little stars in Ourorboros, badge missions, etc).

The number one reason is because I'm just tagging along with other folks most of the time, and that's not what they're doing. So why aren't they? I think some are gun shy, from having hit bad arcs. Some perceive AE content as harder, or less rewarding. Some particularly enjoy certain arcs in the regular content and want to do them. I could probably push for an AE night now and then, but I'd need to find decent missions first, level appropriate. I used to keep a list of arcs which had won awards and so on, but they didn't always work out. Often they were too hard for our level. Also, story telling is just hard to do with a team, and hardly seems worthwhile.

Maybe I'll start trying to solo some AE missions with my newest alt, if I can find good low level arcs.

I'm not seeing it. ED had a dramatic impact on the effectiveness enhancements. It meant that every single character was less powerful across the board. That was a big change. I20... made the minimum width of the chat window slightly wider. That's the only change I've seen so far. I understand that I could have the word "Helper" or "Helpless" floating over my head, but I haven't bothered. I could see a new team UI, but I declined. I know there are some new missions available, but I haven't tried them yet. I haven't seen any difference in the game at all since I20. I guess there's been some downtime, but I missed that as well.

And I don't think "We didn't realize the heroic players would want the villainous costume parts" can be construed as the most evil and despicable lie ever spoken on these forums. It actually sounds kind of true, if a bit disappointing. And, as you said, the costume parts did show up heroside in the next issue. Was I7 on the late side? I don't remember. Sometimes issues come close together, sometimes they get spread apart more. /shrug.

What market suppression? Seriously, is it just me or did this go away a couple of weeks ago? The last time I was in a market in Praetoria, I could fly. I turned on a pbaoe aura power too and that worked just fine. I was confused.

My speedster is katana/regen, with the speed power pool. He runs quickly, swings a sword quickly (well, faster than a broadsword anyhow) and he heals quickly.

/shrug. Works for me.

It's too bad about frostworks. I had hoped it worked like Dull Pain, which is a fine power for regen scrappers. I admit I didn't bother looking at the numbers. I guess I'll respec out of it later. I appreciate all the advice. I just hit 18 and picked up the big sleep power. Probably not much use since I team almost all the time, but I've never had a mass sleep power before so I wanted to try it out.

I just did the Tin Mage for the first time last night. Three scrappers, a brute, a tank, a blaster, a dominator, and some other debuff/support character. I died several times, which is a bit unusual, but we got it done, and a bit faster than I expected.

I was actually worried when I saw all the scrappers, but it didn't seem to be a problem.

I have an Ice/Cold controller at level 16 now. So far so good. I was wondering if the immobilize conflicted with the knockdown in ice slick but I keep forgetting to pay attention. That makes the AoE immobilize a lot less useful.

I'm finding it a somewhat passive set. Once I've piled on the shields, set up an ice slick, and started the snow storm, there isn't a lot for me to do but stand there and radiate cold at people while waiting for the single target hold to recharge. Just as well, I guess. I run out of endurance pretty quickly if I try to use my vet attacks.

I use frostworks regularly now that I have it. I don't see a big impact, but the tank certainly doesn't mind the extra HP and I think it made a difference in a couple of close fights.

I just wanted to toss in my 2 inf on the official discussion thread: As a North American player, I think it stinks that the Europeans are getting shafted.

I realize there is no perfect solution, and that the Europeans probably have more to gain by the merger than the North Americans, but I would consider it more fair to have the decision based on vet reward levels.

I know it's been said before, but the devs might be counting responses so I wanted to chip in.

Also, if you slot 3 enhancements from one IO set into one power, and then slot either those same three or three different enhancements from that same IO set into a different power, then you will not get the bonus from 6 slotting that set. You will however get the bonus for slotting it 3 times, and you'll get that bonus twice. You can stack the bonus 5 times.

When it counts the bonuses you have, towards that limit of 5, it doesn't look at the name of the IO set. It doesn't even, technically, look at the amount of the bonus. What it looks at is the name of the bonus. The bonuses have names like "small endurance increase". For all intents and purposes the name of the bonus is the amount of the bonus... except for the Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge bonus, in which the name is a little bit different, so you can stack the LotG 7.5% five times, and then stack other 7.5% recharge bonuses 5 times. So that could be 37.5% from the LotGs and another 37.5% from five other sets each giving a 7.5% bonus. Plus maybe a few sets giving a 5% bonus, and a few giving a 10% bonus, etc.

So you can stack a 1.5% regeneration bonus five times, for 7.5%, no matter how many or how few different IO sets it takes to get there: the same set 5 times, or 5 different sets once each.

I hope I didn't just make things even more confusing.

We're talking a very long time ago here...

The first time I logged in, I made one character of each archetype. I don't remember the order.

Mr. Normal: AR/Dev blaster. CIA agent tasked with leading teams of supers, using technology to keep up with them. The first character I took into Perez Park, I think, but didn't play much after that.

The Librarian: Dark/Dark defender, a Lovecraft inspired academic who stumbled across a book of forbidden lore in the back of the library. Later recreated as Professor Gloom (my go-to 50 for teams), and also as Baron Gloom the warshade (who just hit 45).

Iggy: As in igneous. SS/Stone tank. Never played him much, level 10 tops. Probably less. I really can't stand to play tanks.

And there was a scrapper... hmmm, I've played a lot of scrappers. They're my favorite AT. The first might have been Vain, dark/dark, inspired by a character from Thomas Covenant's White Gold Wielder. But I think the first was Metroninja: a kid who ordered a "Become a Ninja in Ten Easy Lessons" book from the back of a comic book. Actually, the very first might have been Katana Guy, who was reborn as Joey Katana when they changed the katana animations a couple of issues later. Joey Katana was my first level 50 and is my only Incarnate. Kat/Regen, survivor of many nerfs and still kicking butt.

Oh, and a controller: Mentat. Mind/FF, I think. Name taken from Dune, costume from... I don't know what. All swirly blue and black. Victim of a Crey labs accident, if I remember correctly. Never made it past level 10.

I also had a set of characters I created in my head before I got into Beta, none of which turned out to be possible once I had my hands on the character creator. A dark blaster, an axe scrapper, a skeleton, etc.

I'm grateful to Mousedroid for reminding me about "jagoff". That's a term I haven't heard in decades.

"Deke" I've only ever heard in hockey, for some reason. As in "he broke wide open with that sweet little deke to the left".

Having a pet power is ok, though I don't think it will ever be my favorite Incarnate power. Having the pet tied to the game's lore is fine. I'm just sorry that it's limited specifically to Praetoria, and that there are so few options. If the Well has its fingers in Cimmerora, then why not make the minotaur an option, at least? I'd like to see many of the toughest foes available, to give us more choices.

Custom critters, on the other hand, would not have anything to do with the game's Lore, so although that would be fun as well, I don't mind it not being an option and I don't think it's reasonable to hope for.

For what it's worth, the "double demand" thing looks to me like a simple disagreement about the definition of the word demand. I think there are three separate definitions running here, maybe more:

1. A measure of how badly people want stuff
2. A measure of how many enhancements are purchased
3. The amount of inf which is available to purchase stuff

In common English, definition #1 seems the most common. On these forums, #2 seems more common. In economics, #3 is more appropriate. Well, maybe I didn't phrase it perfectly, but something along those lines. When economists say that demand for cars has doubled, they don't mean that people suddenly desire cars more fervently than in the past, or even that the number of cars sold will double, but rather that the amount of money chasing the existing stockpile of cars has gone up.

Anyone who plays less than me is casual, anyone who plays more is hardcore.

As far as I can tell, that's the definition most people use by default.

Door/Portal/Orifice ?

As I recall, part of the real-life business of defining and measuring inflation is defining a basket of goods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_basket

Of course, different people buy different stuff, in real life as well as the game. I found this FAQ interesting. Actually, this one might be more fun to read. It has pictures.

I wonder if we could develop some kind of CoH market basket?

Every time I pay attention to this event, I'm disappointed all over again. I have a few suggestions to improve it.

1: Beginning

Kick the event off with a bang. Whenever the event launches, have a few fire engines with their sirens wailing come screaming into the zone from the Atlas Park tunnel and race to the fire. Yes, this would require new artwork and that always seems to be a bottleneck, but it's the only piece of artwork I would request for the event, and really what kind of a city has a fire chief but no fire trucks? Bonus points if heroes can sit on the truck and ride to the fire.

Once the trucks get to the location, firefighters would spawn beside them. It looks like the classic firefighter hat is already in game, on Fire Chief Williams' head. The rest of the costume can be done with existing costume options, I think.

There should also be police cars and trucks racing in along with the fire trucks, and the police would set up a defensive perimeter, like they do in places like The Hollows.

During the event, it would be nice if pedestrians all over Steel Canyon would randomly say things about the fire. Civilians near the event could clump up into crowds and stare. That's what people do at fires. It would be nice if the smoke and light from the fire were visible from a greater distance, but that might be asking for too much.

2. Middle

Once heroes are there, drawn in by the sirens and the crowds of civilians, what do they do? It would be great if the Fire Chief could say useful things, guiding the heroes to take the extinguishers and fight fires. Bonus points if he could read the data on character's badge progress screen and make custom comments: "HeroName, if you put out another 37 fires I'll make you an honorary Fire Chief!"

There could also be a police chief making similar comments and directing heroes to fight the Hellions.

A natural instinct for heroes is to run into the burning buildings, but currently you can't. I think the front door of the building should open into that one Hellion burned out building map that already exists. Heroes could run around fighting Hellions and putting out fires on that map if they wanted to, and rescue hostages.

3. Ending

The ending of the event now is anticlimactic. Everyone just falls down dead with very little warning or drama, and that's the end. It's hard to make a huge explosion feel like a let down, but this event does it. Or, even worse, there is no explosion and the event just sort of peters out.

I think there should be two specific endings: either you put out the fire and save the building, or you don't and it explodes. I suggest that the fire chief and police chief give updates about the progress heroes are making during the event. "If we can't get these fires under control in the next fifteen minutes, this building is going to collapse!"

I'm not sure exactly how the event is coded now, but I imagine something like this: after a certain amount of time has passed, if the Hellions are largely beaten and the fires are under control, then the police sweep in, the Hellions are routed and no more spawn, the firefighters move in to clean up the last of the fires, and the fire chief and police chief declare victory, loudly. Even better if the crowd cheers.

If time has passed and the number of Hellions and fires is over a certain threshold, then the fire chief starts shouting dire warnings, the crowd panics and flees, we get the noises and small explosions like now, more and more fires start sprouting like crazy all over the building until it's engulfed in flames, then a huge noise, a giant flash of light and fire, all the nearby heroes drop dead, and presto changeo the building is replaced by one of the ruins like you see in Boomtown. It stays in that sorry shape as a testament to the failure of the local heroes until the next server maintenance.