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My SG is only 25 people strong, and we dont want to get too much bigger
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TA routinely does it with around 21 toons. without nemesis staves, utilizing all ATs. I would suggest that you guys just aren't exploring your options.
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Just because inquiring mind want to know.
How many controllers do you use to lock him down?
How many holds stacked on the hammy does it take to paralyze him.
I am not trying to be jerk or anything here I honestly want to know.
If your not comfortable openly relaying the info in the forum could you please PM me?
Thanks
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Exactly, why don't you give us this perfect 90 minute strategy. To justify the argument that it is OK for everyone to use the HO's, go ahead and let everyone have them. I'll spend 90 minutes getting those enhancements. Post the startegy on the forums so everyone can have those HO's. That way there will be no argument from everyone when you beat them in PvP. You can say it had nothing to do with enhancements, because we had the same ones, it was my superior skill that won the day. That is my one big argument here. Devil's Advocate: I'm a hardcore gamer, play every dam day, I always solo, I got my character to 50 with 52 enhancements all over the place, pay 15 dollars a month just like everyone else, but I cannot get HO's cuz I always solo, and cannot do that with Hami. So simply for the reason that he cannot do one or two aspects of the game, or doesn't want to... his 50 is not going to be a match for a Hami farmer in PvP. Whatever logic you would like to use here is fine, HO's are simply going to keep people from playing PvP because it is not an even playing field.
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If done right, PvP will solve many Lack of Content complaints, which is why some, (myself included) are complaining about the current lack of equity.
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I agree. Personally I think HO's should be effectively converted into SO's in PvP fights. With the first bost in the line being the only one that counts.
Does that serriously screw over those with HO's? Yes, but seeing how CoH was supposed to be a loot free game, I don't have a problem with that.
But I also do not think that HO's will be the death of PvP arena matches.
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Good call, that should be an option though. Don't force someone to give up their hard work if they don't want to.
It may not be the death, but could gum it up.
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You can't see the obvious advantages of having heavily slotted damage plus heavily slotted accuracy and heavily slotted END reducers? In *ONE* power?
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I can see what the advantage looks like on paper. But until it's live in it's final format, it's theory at best. Which means I expect the dev's to look at it when it's on test and make adjustments as needed prior to it going out to live.
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I'm not following you here. We can easily extrapolate exactly what effect this is going to have. We know that w/ 6 acc/dam HOs any offensive power can hit, or nearly hit, the damage cap, except for scrappers. We know that the accuracy bonus will be +300%. Do we really need to playtest that out to see it's effect?
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Which means I expect the dev's to look at it when it's on test and make adjustments as needed prior to it going out to live.
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Bwahahahahahahahahaha. LMAO!!!!
*cough* Uhm, *cough* I'm okay now. 
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You can't see the obvious advantages of having heavily slotted damage plus heavily slotted accuracy and heavily slotted END reducers? In *ONE* power?
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I can see what the advantage looks like on paper. But until it's live in it's final format, it's theory at best. Which means I expect the dev's to look at it when it's on test and make adjustments as needed prior to it going out to live.
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I'm not following you here. We can easily extrapolate exactly what effect this is going to have. We know that w/ 6 acc/dam HOs any offensive power can hit, or nearly hit, the damage cap, except for scrappers. We know that the accuracy bonus will be +300%. Do we really need to playtest that out to see it's effect?
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I'll clarify it for you... what he is saying is that until we can actually GET OUR HANDS ON PVP, we cannot tell how it will work and if the numbers are the same for PvP as they are for PvE. More specifically, the exemplar feature. How EXACTLY are HO's going to be effected by being lowered to SO's... are the numbers going to add up to one SO, or are there going to be multiple aspects of the powers that are enhanced as though by an SO? Who knows? Statesman 
It's been interesting following this, and I have a pretty good idea it won't be much of an issue for me. It's hard to see me every getting a hero up to the levels where this matters. Kids, etc. mean I usually play in chunks of 30 minutes or less, have only done a TF once, etc. I've played for about 8 months and my two heroes are level 35 and 30. I think I meet the requirements for the casual player...
That said, it seems like there are two problems being discussed. This is a consensual arena, where heroes show up to train and help one another. Superman decides to run a race with Flash, and agrees up front not to use supervision to melt the ground ahead of him!
So, issue one is what is a fun, workable way for heroes to agree to limit themselves for a battle. It seems like there is a general feeling that there MAY not be enough options on how heroes can agree to limit HOs. I emphasize may, because I don't think Statesman's comments can be taken as complete (though hopefully accurate for what it said!).
The second issue is one of visibility. This is just a specific detail of the first issue, but worth considering separately. When Flash and Superman race, both have a good sense of what the other is capable of, so it is easy for them to understand what makes it a fair and fun race. Same thing here. You can see the powers someone has, but can't see the slotting. Without HOs, this was not considered a big deal. Naturally, all level X's would have roughly the same level enhancements (all SOs, for example), and specific slotting differences seem like a skill issue. It feels right that smart slotting should give someone an advantage. With HOs, maybe it IS a big deal, since it doesn't feel like a skill issue, but a time-dedicated issue. I'm not sure, but it seems that way to me. If so, visibility is needed.
All this matters because it is only fun to have a contest when you understand what the contest is measuring. This is especially true when statistics are kept and available to all. We all agree we want to measure "skill", where skill is thought the be cleverness in choosing powers, in slotting those powers, and (most important) in clever use of those powers (good tactics!). However, we may not all agree to this. Some people may think the arena should also be measuring dedication and effort, not just skill. I'm not prepared to disagree, though I can say it wouldn't be as interesting to me personally to measure that.
The solution needed in the game, it seems to me, is the equivalent of a handicapping system (using betting parlance). When I'm considering an opponent for the arena, I'd love to see instant "odds" on whether I can take 'em. It should take into account level differences, perhaps some specific power differences, perhaps the presence of HOs. If I decide to take on someone with 5:1 odds against me, I should get extra points if I win! My opponent should get fewer points for beating me! Of course, then you start configuring the match: let's turn off travel powers, you exemplar down, we'll turn off HOs, etc. This should affect the handicapping and eventually we decide it would be fun to battle. To an extent, this is what the developers seem to be trying to do.
Now, it seems to me that the amount of specific customization will need to be kept limited, just to manage the dev costs. But I certainly would like to see come kind of proportional scoring that would show up in the overall arena results.
Of course, at some point this could get ridiculous. Back to Flash and Superman, I have this amusing image of them running around a laser tag arena with little laser vests shooting at each other... It was the only way to get to a fair contest, you know!
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CoreLabs
all this talking about ho's in the arena.....they complain about this now, but u want to know what they will be [censored] about when it all goes live? It won't be ho's, it will be LC's and loosing matches from them.....
That is what i think the worried people on the boards should really be focusing their questions on.
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This, however, does not occur when fighting within your "weight" class. If you're in your weight class, Hamidon Enhancements are killer.
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I have to say that this quote is very disturbing. 
Now I've managed to get 7 HO's so far, but if I'm (with my 7 HO's) participating in PVP against an equally skilled opponent (with no HO's), I wouldn't want to win like that. 
I love this game and have a lot of faith in you guys, but I really hope you have some other ideas up your sleeve to deal with this issue.
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You can't see the obvious advantages of having heavily slotted damage plus heavily slotted accuracy and heavily slotted END reducers? In *ONE* power?
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I can see what the advantage looks like on paper. But until it's live in it's final format, it's theory at best. Which means I expect the dev's to look at it when it's on test and make adjustments as needed prior to it going out to live.
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If it's even the slightest boost over non-Hamidon enhancements, I think it's entirely against everything the DEVs have conveyed to us about CoH being a game not based on loot. Balanced or not, it's loot and it shouldn't have an advantage over anything.
And if they do, then the DEVs have gone against one of their core principles of the game, which certainly would unsettle me.
If ho's are loot. Then so are the shard enhances u get from trials and taskforces.. So are the Hydra enhances.....In fact so are SO's, and DO's, and trainers......
HO's are no different than any of these except for the values it carries w/ it. IT's not an item u keep in storage and it quetly gives u a bonus like say a hex did in diablo 2. It isn't an uber sword that only you can have. It isn't an item w/ which no other in its class shows up after a battle. You aren't the only one to get one when the battle is over. Much like most loot based games u all could go into an event and not all of u will walk out of a mission or an area w/ anythying uber unlike that one guy in your party who gets those secret boots everyone on the server is pyning over. It isn't a sheild that when combined w/ 3 other armaments it becomes even greater. All these things are loot. If u want a lootless game...then all powers should increase in attributes based on the players battle history and not w/ enhances of any kind. Hence, in the say lvl 19-21 range, people who do taskforces get so's at the end of the taskforce...so only people who participate in taskforces get this loot and all other casual players are left disadvantaged by the loot when competing against the other player who has so's cus he did somehting special in the game and the other didn't.
Same scenario as HO's.
So unless we gain in attribute numbers based on our performance and who we just fought - or by our choice w/ a given value we can apply, this game can't ever be totally "fair" in pvp.
GET OVER IT ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Heck even lvl 51+ enhances are loot. You can't buy them......You have to fight for them or get somone to give u one .... so then everyone w/ one of those could have a slight advantage against other players......THat is the same in principle if not in magnatude. Since we wanna [censored] about "loot" it shouldn't matter the magnatude, u should argue the issue across the board and not be so selective in your arguements against ho's.
I love them ho's.
{Last person reply}
I really think that the option of "better" enhancements as purchasable is not that broken of an idea.
We get DOs at 12, SOs at 22 and then the Enhancements don't *really* change until the level 35ish Sewer Trial (where you can get 1 Duo/Tri) and then level 50 where you can get Duo/Tri enhancements from Hamidon.
28 levels of basically just *more* SOs, and then really cool uber loot (which I'm a bit against.)
So how about "enhanced" Level 25-30 Single origins. They would be regular SOs except for the fact that they can boost the 50%/33% of Hamis.
Then for the "final" purchasable enhancements you have level 50 Dual Enhanced Single Origins. 50% and 33% and two things they enhance. These would replace/suplement the regular level 50 (and maybe 45) SOs.
The Sewer Trial and Hami Raid would give out Triples only.
I think the difference between Duals and Triples won't be quite as wide. And Maybe you can earn Triples for finishing your story arcs in the 40s.
Still here, even after all this time!
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and trust me, there is nothing common or unheroic about taking down the hamidon.
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Yeah, beating on a held foe that cannot retaliate and then squabbling over his remains is the heart of every good hero story.
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Funny, ain't that what Controllers do?...
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Since we wanna [censored] about "loot" it shouldn't matter the magnatude, u should argue the issue across the board and not be so selective in your arguements against ho's.
I love them ho's.
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Magnitude IS the issue.
And tahts where i have an issue w/ the complainers. U say one thing but are really complaining about another thing. THey say that it's unfair becuase not everyone can get em. They wanna say that it's not fair because there will be a ceiling in pvp where the non hami'fied players basically are [censored] out.
But the only real way of making it all fair and balanced is to remove the whole enhancement system altogether. The person talked about loot. My point stuck straight to the point. If u get an enhancement at your lvl that other players can't get unless they participate it's loot.
Plus then if it's magnatude that's the issue, then say that it's not fair that it does 50% to 2 attributes. Not that noone should have access to them. And then the hardcore players can keep laughing at this thread. But complaining that having to fight hamidon to get them leads to all taskforces that give enhancements that other players who can't get on a tf dont have access to. A player at lvl 21 w/ only dual origins vs say a player who is in a supergroup that helped him out and gave all their lvl 23-24 so's they maybe respec'ed out or just didn[t use them is in a the same situation as the non-hami'fied player vs one who is. The player w/ the so's has a distinct advantage over the player who say plays at night and can never find a suitable team to have access to say hamidon or certain taskforces. The arguement against uber enhancments is sorely ignoring other situations in the game that produce the inequalities. If u negate the advantage of this situation, we will only find new complaints about these other situations i have pointed out 2x now. Magnatude isn't a problem. For one these items dont get duped, noone has gotten them unfairly. noone has exclusive control over the supply or have the only one of it's kind. There will be no battles against someone w/ 30 enhancments that boost all their attributes and powers to lvls of rediculous purportions mainly because it's only rediculous if it's not possible for both parties to have the same number of enhancements.
Either all enhancements of all lvl's are purchasable or the game gets rid of enhancements altogether in favor of an applied AP either manual or automatic is the only way to make it as even a playing field as possible w/out making it straight brawl battles between players of the exact same AT.
Next we can move on to how it[s unfair that one AT can't be touched. Or one AT does too much damage, or one AT just has too much resistance to damage.....
I swear , i'm not a rightwinger in any sense but complaining about the inequity produced by ho's makes me think the players complaining should form their own sorta ACLU. They could call it PCLU. I swear its as annoying to read these pointless complaints as it is seeing the ACLU fighting to change the word manhole cover to sewer hole cover, and mailman to mailperson.
No one's forcing you to read these posts, if they're annoying you so much.
HI, I'm a casual player. Don't let the post count fool you, I'm chatty.
Despite my busy schedule of work and life, I manage to play an hour or two a night and double that on the weekends.
I have participated in 3 Hami Raids, all open on my server, all successful, all resulting in me coming away with the exact Hami O that I wanted through a liberal use of trading.
I've done all my missions, I have every badge except for about 6 or so, and was more than a little sad when my main finished nearly all the content. I started going to the open Hami raids because it was fun to work in such a huge group of heroes. I like the interplay of skills and people in an 8 man team. I found this interplay inside the Hami bubble in spades and I smiled.
Inside the jello, I found wonderful instances of teamplay and assistance going on. Randomly, I was buffed with group fly, a great boon as the constant super jumping to the upper reaching of the bubble can by a little annoying. Heals targetted at me, random buffs from strangers when I needed them, giving an extra enhancer I got to the tank I was teamed with who didn't get one; all among the fun experiences accompished inside of 3 separate 2 hour windows of time. It made me proud of my server to see it take down Hami for the first time in that way with so many there.
Now my enjoyment of this somewhat tainted by threads like this one. I didn't work hard and slave away for this. I had some fun with 126 of my closest friends. I don't understand all this anger and outrage at all. I didn't engage in countless hours of mindless boring gameplay, I'm not trying to be uber or any of that. I'm having fun. And now I find that this particular type of fun has labelled me as some part of a "group" of so and so's and you know whats.
We've got only a small idea of how the arena will work. Can we at least wait until we've all tested for real, seen it for real, before tearing each other to shreds?
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
5 stars for you. I read these threads searching for these random moments of clairity.
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If ho's are loot. Then so are the shard enhances u get from trials and taskforces.. So are the Hydra enhances.....In fact so are SO's, and DO's, and trainers......
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They are all loot, yes, but an HO is a rare, unique form of loot.
Currently, you cannot outlevel them, they are far superior to SOs and can only be obtained one way. Participating in a Hamidon raid.
Hydra enhancers and SOs before level 22 also fit into this category but the difference is they are not permanent and can be outleveled.
I'm not against raiding, it is wonderful to see a whole server band together against a common enemy. However, when you are forced to into a certain playstyle in order to progress, that's crossing a dangerous line.
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Either all enhancements of all lvl's are purchasable or the game gets rid of enhancements altogether in favor of an applied AP either manual or automatic is the only way to make it as even a playing field as possible w/out making it straight brawl battles between players of the exact same AT.
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Yes, I agree an MMO will never have an even playing field, but shouldn't it strive to be as even as possible?
As suggested before:
Encourage raiding as the most efficient way to get HOs.
BUT, make it possible to do other activities to get HOs.
The non-raid activities should be balanced so that it takes a greater amount of effort to get the HO, than by simply raiding.
This will encourage raiding while providing non-raiders an oppurtunity to compete. This introduces choice. People who are time-constrained or play at odd hours will still be able to outfit themselves with HOs.
Point of contest. From lvl 22 - 50 what is the progression....we get so's...get a few nice enhances that do 2 things....out lvl them....back to so's. Really neato.....nothing after so's......Hami origins are as rare as lvl 51+ enhances. Actually, so far as it has been last week. hami origins are easier to come by than a proper lvl 51+ origin so. Since hami origins are easier to come by now for anyone on justice server than a lvl 51+ enhancement of the needed origin, the so is more rare and should be removed from the game for beng loot.
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Point of contest. From lvl 22 - 50 what is the progression....we get so's...get a few nice enhances that do 2 things....out lvl them....back to so's. Really neato.....nothing after so's......Hami origins are as rare as lvl 51+ enhances. Actually, so far as it has been last week. hami origins are easier to come by than a proper lvl 51+ origin so. Since hami origins are easier to come by now for anyone on justice server than a lvl 51+ enhancement of the needed origin, the so is more rare and should be removed from the game for beng loot.
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Actually Level 51+ enhancements aren't that rare. They can be obtained through respec trials, hunting and increasing the mission difficulty.
The main thing that sets the HO apart from the SO, is the playstyle required to obtain them.
Currently:
To get an HO: You must participate in a Hamidon Raid.
To get a 51+ SO: You can hunt.
You can do the respec trial.
You can do higher difficulty missions.
IMO, The only thing that needs to be changed is to add more methods to obtain HOs and make them require an overall greater amount of time/effort.
Edit: This will:
1) Encourage raiding as the most efficient method to obtain HOs.
2) Both raiders and non-raiders, can work towards getting HOs through other means, albeit at a slower pace than raiding.
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I have participated in 3 Hami Raids, all open on my server, all successful, all resulting in me coming away with the exact Hami O that I wanted through a liberal use of trading.
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Lucky you. So far, I've taken part in 2 raids, once successful, one not, and gotten 400k debt, and exactly 0 Hami-Os, despite using Jack at the last minute to generate an extra HO.
Considering, as far as I know, Protector has managed 2 successful raids, total, so far, I'm doing well on participating, and about average on the HO front. The team I was on managed a total of 0 HOs, and that included 3 controllers. Not a great record for Protector.
And no, I can't actually use them, but it would be nice to have them for once I can. Alas, that doesn't seem likely any time soon. Thankfully, PvP is not on my list of priorities anyway.
I know what you are saying and I will stand by the lvl 51+ SO enhancements for my magic lvl 50 character so not drop very often. I constantly have my missions set to invincible, i do missions to help lower lvl friends out. I worked my Tyrant story arc up to the last 2 missions this last week. I got only 1 lvl 51 enahnce that i could use that whole arc. I did countless Rularuu missions this last 2 weeks and got nothing as far as getting lvl 51+ enhances. U can say i suck all u want. I do however find more enhances from hunting. BUt it's pretty difficult to get a lvl 51 so off of lvl 50 bad guys.
So again, i repeat. It is easier to get hamidon enhancements on the JUSTICE server than it is to get a useful lvl 51+ SO enhancement. If you feel it's easier on your server to get a lvl 51+ SO, then by all means collect as many as u want. I'll stick w/ the hami origins.
I think you're missing the point.
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Currently:
To get an HO: You must participate in a Hamidon Raid.
To get a 51+ SO: You can hunt.
You can do the respec trial.
You can do higher difficulty missions.
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When there are more casual-friendly methods available to get HOs, then it will be as well-balanced as the current SO situation.
Respec trial is the same thing as doing a raid. Whether it takes 60 or 6, it still requires other people to do it. PLus i do those missions all the time. I'm telling you set at invincible, w/ a 6 to 8 man team yeilds so little as far as lvl 51 enhances. After about 8 hours of play I get sometimes none, sometimes 1. BUt in the last week, i've gotten almost 1 hami origin per 1.5 hours of raiding. On the other hand, For the exact same amount of time spent doing my missions and hunting i got 1 per every 3.5 hours of playing.
I think it's clear what's more elusive right now. At least on my server....maybe others don't have the numbers to make it happen. Or they just can't work together well enough to get it to happen. Defeating evil isn't all about doing what you want. It's about fighting evil however it sprouts up. If hamidon rules your server cus you don't want to fight him.....U are the problem, not the enhancements.
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You can't see the obvious advantages of having heavily slotted damage plus heavily slotted accuracy and heavily slotted END reducers? In *ONE* power?
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I can see what the advantage looks like on paper. But until it's live in it's final format, it's theory at best. Which means I expect the dev's to look at it when it's on test and make adjustments as needed prior to it going out to live.