retroduck

Just returned to the game after more than a year and a half and I went to make a new toon. I found the handy new costume themes in character creation and started to work on my ninja. But then when I went to add a tail, there were no tails to be found. How can I access a costume part (tails) that I know exists but is not part of the ninja theme? Or are certain costume pieces mutually exclusive now?

When the game first launched, it seemed many of the decisions a player had to make were qualitative. Do I want to go with Tough or Invoke Panic on my Ice Tanker? And adding more slots simply meant the power could do more of whatever the power did. For the most part, people were fine with not having numbers. But then we began discovering some numbers, like the pitiful defense bonus on powers like Hover. At that point, many people had 6-slotted (pre-ED) Hover for defense because, well... it took defense enhancements and people wanted more defense. When people found the truth of the matter, they started caring about numbers.

Now, especially with the introduction of Set IOs, much of the decision making goes from being qualitative to quantitative. It's all about how doing this or that with your character affects the numbers. In fact, in Scrapulous' Fire/Fire Tanker guide, he states "But I think there is another, potentially much more effective way to approach a build: by examining the set bonuses available to it and maximizing the most attractive ones." I'm quite good with numbers and I agree with his assessment. And later, "From this we can see that if we want to stack set bonuses, we'd be best off focusing on PBAoE Damage, Resist Damage, and Melee Damage sets." The system has grown so complex that actually crunching the numbers indicates it's advantageous to build your character around enhancements rather than powers. We've come a long way since launch.

But, I9 aside, I've always been in favor of disclosing the numbers. In CoH Beta, I /bugged and posted my experiences with my /dev blaster soloing large groups of +1 Council wolves and even +2 Freak Tanks in Bricks using nothing but Smoke Grenade and Boxing (a melee attack from the fighting pool). Yet the bug with Smoke Grenade persisted well after launch. Had I been able to title my report something eye-catching like, "Smoke Grenade base 105% to-hit debuff should probably be 10.5%", I bet it would have been quickly fixed.

Today, it's a common thing to have documents that pull information directly from a database. In short order, a contractor could create such a document to include all powers available to players along with enhancements as well as teach someone at Cryptic how to add something new to the document when, for example, a new invention temp power is created. Then, every time the Live servers are updated, the document can be regenerated and a copy published on the website. The same can be done to create an Excel spreadsheet. Writers of guides can incorporate the information, while players who just want to see the authoritative information have it at their fingertips on the CoX website.

Having access to this information is especially important in cases where the results of enhancing are not easily observable (e.g., Thug Enforcer Tactics and Maneuvers).

I've got problems with the Pool B (story arc) mechanics from the standpoints of level 50, "I've already done my arcs", support characters, "I can't find people to help me with my arcs", and people feeling the "need" to complete all their arcs affecting how they play the game. I do believe the proposed mechanics will encourage some players to solo when they might have otherwise teamed, and yet others to lower their difficulty rating when on a team so they don't outlevel arcs. Their desire for a challenge is in direct competition with their desire to acquire recipes.

Instead, I think Pool B should be handled in a way that encourages behavior that's already, at least I believe by the devs, to be considered fun. Instead of tying the pool to story arcs, tie it to exemplaring/malefactoring. Use the same mechanics as Pool A with the drop frequency adjusted to give the desired effort:reward. So a player working at their own level will get Pool A drops. A player that is exemplared/malefactored will get both Pool A and Pool B drops based on what they're fighting at their effective combat level.

Obviously, the various Pool B "sets" will have to be down-shifted by seven levels. So, the set the devs currently intend players to acquire upon completing their level 25-29 story arcs would drop when exemplared/mal'd down and defeating opponents in the 18-22 range.

I think this solution addresses almost all the concerns I've read in this thread by encouraging what is considered, at least I believe by the devs, desired behavior. But, it does raise one new one. People who only solo will not want to exemplar/mal. So, perhaps an alternative is to reduce the drop rate while exemplared but also include a chance to receive a drop upon completion of a story arc as currently proposed. This only leaves high-level soloers to go out and earn that influence to buy what they need.

My first problem was, the longer I played, the worse my framerate got. After about 45 minutes, I'd have to restart the game. Nobody else claimed to have the problem, but I have it every time. The same actually happens on the live servers, but it takes 3-4 hours in Siren's before I get to the point I must restart.

Second, occasionally when taking the teleporter from the lower level of the base to the upper, I would appear on my screen visually stealthed or invis (a couple of times, I was totally absent from my own view). I wasn't actually stealthed or invis; it was just a visual error (Radeon 9k w/Catalyst 6.5).

Third, after playing for a while, my MM started getting a pop-up when I tried to take control of a heavy telling me you can only control one at a time. But I had none. I had successfully used heavies a number of times before. /release_pets didn't clear the problem. Nor did logging out and back in, or changing instances of RV, or even switching characters then switching back.

Next, I was really disappointed at the so-called "pillboxes" themselves. Technically, pillboxes are small fortifications designed to provide cover for defending forces. I had this wonderful dream that zone PvP was being opened up for the many hero/villain builds that aren't well-suited for City of Grasshoppers. Now, invaders would have to enter small enclosed structures to root out defenders, where getting away if you made things rough for 'em would require more than simply hitting the space bar.

Instead, the "pillboxes" turn out to simply be small frames with a few perceptionless turrets and an itsy bitsy forcefield. Structures, I might add, my henchmen had trouble navigating around. I even found Mako running back and forth a 4' path, over and over and over. The -teleport of the forcefield is nice, but it offers no protection from disorient or hold as people have come to expect from aoe fields. I'm actually fine with that, but if I am required to stay in the itsy bitsy bubble for defense, it needs to also provide protection from knockback and repel. I shouldn't need a pocket kinetic to keep from being ejected from a fully-functional fortification.

Also, while I agree you shouldn't be able to heal turrets, there needs to be some mechanism for them to be repaired. More than once I saw a pillbox taken from a superior group of defenders because the attackers simply ignored the players and attacked the turrets. Yes, they were killed many times while doing it. But they didn't care about debt, and neither will the level 50s on the live servers. As is, the game mechanics allow the attackers to win, but not the defenders.

Perhaps the turrets could regenerate slowly while in passive stance. Or the heavies could have a power to repair the turrets. This would force people to choose between using their heavies for offense or defense. Though the heavies would probably need to be resistant to +speed buffs.

And neighborhoods are named "Zone 1", "Zone 2", etc. Why not Sector Alpha, Sector Echo, and such to correspond with the pillbox located in them?

And now, with Atlas Park being relatively flat, it's become apparent on day 2 of the Rv event that people have recognized the wonders of taking Superspeed along with the Leaping pool. So now, when hit with an Entangling Arrow or Web Grenade, they don't just Sprint away, they can run like The Flash.

Also, I noticed you can't view the builds of opposing players. I don't like that change at all. But if it is going to stay, it should not happen until after the lackluster combat log is upgraded. Too often I look at the log to see how I was killed, but all I see is something along the lines of, "You were smashed for 500 points of damage." By whom? And with what power? And I don't believe powers that do no damage will show up in the log at all. And many powers with a secondary effect show no indication of it in the log. E.g., the sonic attack's disorient power records the damage, but nowhere does it tell you it disorented you.

PvP in CoX has always had the feel of being added as an afterthought. Unlike the PvE experience where you can assemble a team of whomever's available and find a way to make it work. In PvP, success is predicated upon having the "right build"; and moreover, having the "right team" of the right builds.

I don't think RV "breaks" anything new with PvP in CoX. I just think it exposes even more of what I feel are the core problems in the system (such as the overwhelming utility of the Leaping Pool) that prevent so many builds from feeling like they bring anything to the table in a zone PvP fight.

And unless changes are made to close the gap between the few good "PvP builds" and everything else, I think the PvP experience will continue to be like a cheap whiskey... You drink it because you have it in your cabinet, but you know it's not very good.

I noticed during the RV event that, when I gave both upgrades to a henchman in quick succession, in the pet window I would end up with two buff icons that both indicated they were for the first of the two buffs I used. I.e., if did Equip followed by Upgrade, I'd end up with two Equip icons and no Upgrade icon. Then, if I Upgraded again, I'd get a third icon, giving me a total of two Equip and one Upgrade. If I started with Upgrade followed by Equip, the result would be the reverse.

Since I'm not familiar with thug powers, I don't know if there was a problem with the actual powers granted, or if it was just a display problem on the pet window.

Also I'd like to request that the upgrade icons not be tagged "auto" powers and not be hidden when you select that option. Henchmen die frequently enough that you want to be able to see who needs upgrades in the middle of a fight without having to change your display options.

Also, and I suspect it applies to all MM henchmen varieties, but having them in Defensive often means they are very slow to respond to attacks. For example, I could be shot three times from a single pillbox turret before my henchmen would react.

And even when they do react, they don't behave the way I'd want them to. There were a couple of occasions where they just stopped fighting, or where they ran away from me (out of supremacy/bodyguard range) while on Defensive.

The way I'd like to see Defensive work is, they'll respond to any attackers and prosecute the fight until the target(s) are dead, or they cannot continue to attack without leaving supremacy range, at which point they just resume following. Also, Ninja/Zombie AI should prioritize targets they can melee within supremacy range over targets they can still reach with ranged attacks outside of supremacy range.

Something else I'd like to see the power descriptions be very clear on... Which of the patron powers will force me to put away and re-draw my bow/assault rifle/etc.

Though I like Defiance conceptually, I'd rather not see a mechanic that buffs based on low health. I think a mechanic that will lead some Blasters to believe they are better off not being healed is a bad thing. And a mechanic that will lead some support ATs to believe a Blaster is better off without a heal sounds like an insidious scheme by Lord Recluse to divide and conquer Paragon City's heroes. :P

If it sticks around, I think the bonuses should be significantly lowered so that Blasters are not tempted to seek low health. Being buffed by Defiance should be something viewed as happening in the natural course of play and not something you build into your strategy.

Please add Blasting Smart - "A Matter of Life or Debt" to the Blaster section.

City of Heroes is a great game top-to-bottom. But one of the things that's impressed me most about the game is the worst bugs are often little more than annoyance. I'm not one of those who only notices when the dishes are dirty, so I want to give you props for your part in keeping Paragon City's plate clean. Take care.

I'm glad you're having fun. I'm also sorry you find yourself in so much debt. But I honestly disagree that debt is inherent to blasters and I think it's unfortunate that you put up a guide saying it is.

With good tactics, blasters don't have to find themselves in constant debt. And if new players read your guide and are convinced the game is stacked against them, they'll be less likely to try new things and develop the tactics that will work for them.

There was a time when non-Empathy Defenders were viewed as useless. Now they're viewed as real assets to a team and there are plenty of groups who successfully run Invincible missions with no healing at all. And it didn't take an overhaul of their powers for this change to happen. It just took a while for players to develop the level of sophistication required for a non-Empathy Defender to effectively impact a battle.

It's just taking even longer for many players to develop the sophistication required to keep their blasters alive.

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Answer - Ranged damage.
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I think it's important for people to realize that no blaster is gimped in their ability to deal ranged damage because of secondary power set selection. All blaster primaries have a plethora of powers to blast anyone from range.

I suspect if you ask Statesman for a similar definition of the role of a Controller, he'll say "crowd control" and make no mention of their buff/debuff secondaries. Doesn't mean they're not there. Doesn't mean you shouldn't use them.

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Now, the issue is more specifically - what does a Blaster do that a Scrapper can't already do?
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In the few pages I've read, I think most were covered except for one. Blasters have the option to vary their damage. Many scrapper builds do only one damage type (e.g., lethal) or combination type (e.g., ne/smash from dark melee). And many player builds simply cycle three or four attacks (often with hasten).

My elec/fire blaster has eight enhanced attacks with the ability to do straight electric, straight fire and combination fire/lethal damages. I have a terrible time trying to take out Rikti Improved Drones with my electric blasts. My accuracy is horrible (presumably they have either ranged defense or energy defense). But my /fire secondary attacks easily hit them despite having only one accuracy enh (same as the electric blasts which whiff) and easily burn them down.

Conversely, Ring of Fire on a Behemoth and I don't care if he has Invincibilty up. Yes he can shoot me, but he doesn't get to melee range to get his bonus +def. Range does have its advantages.

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Secondly, I have no intention of removing melee attacks - it's just a "perception" by some Blasters that some of the Secondary Sets aren't as useful as Devices or Energy Manipulation. This is a rather frequent refrain in PM's (and the occasional forum post). This is something that we should also explore...we want all the Secondary sets to be fun.


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Personally, I think it's only a perceived difference. A couple of the sets have benefits and applications that are very straight-forward and apparent to all, so they're viewed as superior to the others. It can be likened to peoples' views of the different defender primaries. How an empath contributes to the group is apparent to all. So you still hear "we need a healer" when really any other defender powerset is capable of contributing to a team victory as well as a healer.

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Don't get me wrong, I don't have a single blaster build that I feel is gimped or anything, but I do often have to hold back when I am in a group, simply because I can't handle all of the aggro. Something I rarely have to worry about with my scrappers.

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Well I think part of what would help describe balance between blasters and scrappers would be if blasters were as survivable at range as scrappers are in melee. The problem is, in my opinion, scrappers are currently far too durable in melee range. It's far too easy to build a scrapper who can run into the fray without any care or consideration and still easily come out the winner. I personally would like to see the game be such that even the toughest tankers would have to be thoughtful before rushing into a large-team invincible mission spawn.

I think blaster survivability is right where it needs to be. Being a good blaster is a lot like being a good boxer:

[*]Amateurs throw one punch at a time. Champions throw combinations[*]Amateurs carry the same tactics into every fight. Champions develop a strategy to fight each specific opponent.[/list]I think the best move the Devs could make to improve the survivability of blasters (and all squishies) would be to improve the villain descriptions to provide better indications of their specific abilities. I suspect most players don't know how the powers of the various Crey minions stack up. Or the Nemesis? I'd be stunned if half the player population of the requisite level knew what the flashing around their heads signified or how it go there. And how many know what each of the DE eminators do and which lieutenants plant them? Malta? Everyone knows what the sapper can do. But what about the rest?

People lose because they go in without knowing how to win. These are challenges that are meant to be overcome. All blaster secondaries can do it, even at melee range. Some builds simply require a bit of creativity in their application.

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... many players tend to go and do whatever the easiest source of XP is and ignore most everything else.
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I've spent next to no time in either Faultline or Boomtown since beta. But it's because I usually try to put together a team of four or more people to do missions. When teamed with large groups, you level faster than you run out of missions (at least to level 30, my highest character).

And for me at least, roaming the streets doing random ganks will never be as challenging, and therefore appealing, as doing a mission scaled to a larger group (even if I am resucing Frankie for the umpteenth time). Hazard zones could be challenging, but as you say, pick-up teams tend to want to avoid the challenge and go for the easy xp.

The only thing I feel I'm currently missing by not going there is the opportunity to fight monsters like Babbage. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything off the top of my head to make these zones more appealing other than more day-to-day GM involvement. I.e., taking control of random spawns and surprising a group of heroes with a "per-encounter" event (as opposed to the current zone-wide, GM-in-control-of-an-uber-boss events).

Perhaps, missions could have a "gather intel" segment where the existing spawns would have special dialogue to say when the mission team approaches (or defeats them?) that would clue you in on the location of the next spawn in the chain. I.e., kind of running waypoints, but instead of actual waypoints, you are led around by dialogue giving landmarks as references etc.

And they could sometimes give multiple objectives with a timer... So you have to recover some stolen explosives and rescue a hostage from two different locations in a very short timeframe, forcing teams to make a choice about splitting up etc. Yeah, that's the ticket!

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..Right! Now all I've gotta do is drive on down to Cryptic studios, get Statesman drunk, and soon all the secrets of what is on the development table for issue 3 shall be mine! Mwahahaha!

..wait, doesn't Statesman have some sort of super-tolerance to mind altering substances..? Must be one of those new non-combat powers...

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Use a woman; there's no known defense. Once you think you have one figured out... WHAM!!!

Some zones have higher-level villains hanging out with their lower-level allies (e.g., Family and Outcasts in Steel Canyon). There are also plenty of examples of rival groups in conflict, albeit mock combat since they aren't actually hurting one another.

Perhaps there could occasionally be a few occurences of real fighting between the rivals... For example, some low-level Outcasts wander into Tsoo territory in IP. Then players get to see the Tsoo minions demolish the Outcast minions and, in the process, providing a great example of "a minion is not a minion is not a minion."

In this example, the Outcasts could be configured similar to portal spawns, where low-level players couldn't "KS" the Tsoo and take that last bit of life from the Outcasts for xp.