Realistically, all enhancements are not loot. If you can buy it at the store, and you can afford it reasonably, it's not loot. I can't believe I have to explain this. The fact that you get them from villain drops is inconsequential once you hit the early to mid-30s. Prior to that, they aren't so much loot in and of themselves as they are another source of income. TOs/DOs/SOs are not special, or difficult to come by. Yes, you can get them in early TFs, but if you actually repeated those TFs enough to stock up on SOs you'd outlevel them, which is the other thing that makes HOs loot compared to other enhancements. You don't outlevel them, ever. They are permanent, unless you choose to slot something else in their place.
Maybe I should have specified "uber loot" so I didn't have someone nitpick for no bloody reason. My point stands. Loot doesn't really exist, certainly not in large amounts, for the vast majority of coh.
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all enhancements are loot. the whole game already is loot based. this player paradigm that its not has been flawed from the start. The point is the only loot thats relatively difficult to get (i.e. you cant just purchase it) is HOs and 51+ SOs.
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There's a difference between loot and phat lewt, and you know that. HOs are phat lewt. THAT is what they've always touted, but they've sometimes been lazy and said "loot" instead. SOs over 51 can be gotten through normal play, either soloing or teamed. Task Force special enhancements can be done with small teams at any time. Hamidon requires massive raids that have to be preplanned and by their nature mean that fairly large segments of the playerbase will not have time/resources to do. In addition, there are less favored ATs on Hamidon raids that regularly don't get invited. Stop trying to derail the discussion by splitting hairs.
well now all those players have to do is leech. i guess now everyones happy.
2 Ideas:
1. Lets us buy HOs, I for one have 31000000 inf, I know other who have more. Lets say the cost would be 1000000 inf or more each. Granted this is not an ideal solution and probably would be unbalancing to some extent.
2. Let us buy Temporary HOs that Only work in the arena only so to be on an even footing with the Heros that have worked to get HOs by what ever mean.
I for one would not be to worried fighting another Hero with lets say 4-6 HOs when I have none. That does not seem very unbalanced to me. But I would be more careful if he had many more then that.
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well now all those players have to do is leech. i guess now everyones happy.
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The raids happen for two hours at a time on days when a large enough group can get together to raid. If you're at work, or school, or taking care of a kid, you can't get there, even to leech. Making the raids drop fewer enhancements fixes nothing but post-raid griefing. Try again.
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you know i could almost get behind a NO-ENHANCEMENTS fight option.
knock everyone down to 0 enhancements and see how they go, it could be quite fun.
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It would be interesting but I think some powers and in fact some sets are balanced around the need for specific slots to be "wasted" on them.
EF for example, everyone slots it nearly the extact same way which really amount to just sinking slots into the power to make it managable.
There are other powers like this as well Ice I would rate as another candiate swaping out accuracy for damage and slow.
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PvP aside, the game's not balanced for Hami-O's -- and, since they're supposed to be rare, it can't be. Except that they're not rare for some people anymore.
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Besides your opinion what are you basing this off of?
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"Hami-Os are supposed to be rare" is common sense. Which I realize is something of a matter of opinion. I'd love to see what arguments someone who thought that "Hami-Os are supposed to be common" would bring forward though.
(It does seem that some people think that "Hami-Os should be common for some people and rare for everyone else", but I personally think this position is both unfair and impossible to balance against.)
The rest, that the game can't be balanced for large number of Hami-Os, follows from their rarity. If Hami-Os are meant to be rare, is a direct consequence and seems to make sense on its own. You need to balance the game for the most common player situation, not the extreme cases.
So it's a matter of figuring out whether "Hami-Os are meant to be rare".
Do you believe defeating the Hamidon is meant to be a common event?
Do you believe that for the Hamidon to be defeated once a day or more is the intended design?
Do you believe players are expected to have 30+ Hami-Os to be effective in the "endgame" -- and by that I mean PvE?
I believe the answer to all these questions is "no". Granted, it's based on what I believe the designer's intent to be, but it seems consistent with their track record and the game's general design.
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The flip side of course is that it widens the gap between the haves and the have nots. Guys who raked in 50 of these on 10 raids now have to be matched by someone in PvP who is going to have to run 50 raids.
Just more insanity brought to PvP by Hamidon.
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I have to say this change honestly stuns me. In my opinion this is a NERF. AS I said before I beielve a nerf is when devs attempt to fix an issue but miss the mark and have other negative impacts.
This Hamidon nerf is huge. I literally LITERALLY now have to farm the Hamidon 40+ times. Thats for ONE character to be viable in high end PvP. Its not that can not farm the hamidon that many times I farmed rebel base 100s of times however then as now I still hate farming.
This "brilliant" new change jsut made the climb to full PvP capability that much longer. 40 hamidons a character is one monster of a hoop I got to jump through.
The funnest part about this change is that everyone who has a jillion HOs for their earlier farming now gets and even larger leg up on everyone else. So this makes the HO problem x10 times worse but hey at least people can not whine about griefing anymore.
Now its HAVES and HAVE NOTS and one helluva gap between the two.
Brilliant design choice, just like giving hurricane to level 5 shockers.
While i agree that most players will not have every enhancement slot filled with HO, their will be the hardcore supergroups that will. They will always be farming for them and trading among themselves for the right ones. They will also be able to power level other characters to what is the best for the arena and be able to slot them the best way possible with HO.
What about COV people?
Thats were supergroups are going to battle other supergroups for Cosmic (artifacted) items. These items will give advantages to that supergroup for having them. So if you are not part of these umber (Full slottted HO) supergroup you will not have a chance, you will even fall farther behind.
I fail to see that tatics in that. The tatics should be about AT selection along with the right powers slotted with the right enhancements and how well they all work together. Not about who has the most HO.
What about if they ever raise the level cap?
How do you balance out PvE when heros and supergroups have allot of these slotted. Either way the game becomes to easy or to hard for the haves and have nots.
These are suppose to be rare items, like a few per hero. Not a few rare heros or supergroups have thier entire character outfitted with them. For the long term success of the game balance needs to be considered.
I believe the best way to balance is to limit them. You can place 1 in each primary, secondary, power pool and epic pool power of your choice. Each hero would have between 2-7 HO. So if your opponet does not have any, you will have a advantage but not overwhelming one. I also think that all HO (special) enhancements should always be at max level so you dont have to farm them to get them at 50++. I know i hated the fact that I had to replace my Titan enhacement with a SO. The cool side effect of having them at max level could open the doorway for lower level special enhancements that you dont out level after a few levels.
After I lose a match I (team) want to say, wow they had the right AT selection and played well together and they deserved to win, not because I (team) were alpha striked in a short amount of time.
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So, what I can glean from the forums is that the high end PvP is going to be mostly Power Leveling Hamidon Farmers... I'll pass thx.
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Two things about this...
One, if they're PL'ed and have not played their character outside the arena... they will get trashed by anyone who has any kind of clue how to play their toon. Two, what you are hearing comes from a very vocal minority. You look in one thread about PL'ing and expect to get an unbiased, complete look at the makeup of the lvl 50 crowd? At least look around a little more before you come to this conclusion.
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I suspect this is not entirely true. I suspect some builds will be close to broken powerful as it is, slotting these out with HOs will make them supremely dominate. So much so that even the most skilled player may not be able to beat a player so elevated on crutchs.
Think of it like being a truely awesome player in a FPS then crank all the hamdicaps up on yourself and all teh bonuses on your foe. At certain point it will be too much for you to overcome.
The most hardcore players are going to powerlevel up the most uber ATs and then HO them out. This is a double advantage that will be especially punishing and will have PvP lurching from rebalance to rebalance. I doubt that it will be very rare that skill will triumph in these situations the advantage will be far too steep. While a regen scrapper could be brutally effective a fulled HOed regen scrapper will obliterate all who stand against them.
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Why, oh why, has Cryptic forced us to participate in lag-ridden slideshows of a huge jello mold in order to compete in the new feature of their game?
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/sign
<emphasis on 'lag-ridden slideshow'>
I've only attempted two Hamidon raids.. they were, for me, essentially unplayable (footnote: I have a very ballsy workstation-class dual-CPU PC, Tons-O-RAM and broadband, tyvm - I just regard single-digit frames-per-second display and tens-of-seconds keyboard response as unplayable - call me old and crotchety 
) - the whole thing, bottom line, for me was Just Not Fun (tm) - so...
If Hami-Os turn out to be a) a stealth gank-factor of significant impact either in Arena and/or PvP (even when auto-exemplar'ing is taken into account), and b) only attainable from the (again, for me) lag-fest encounter that is Hamidon, then I fear that my personal frustration with the prospect of repeatedly participating (just for the sake of achieving parity) will outweigh the potential of fun in PvP... and that shall make me sad, as I was really looking forward to Arena/CoV to refresh my interest in CoH.
Personally, I'm holding off any final judgement until after PvP (Arena) hits Live, and I've had the chance to dabble a bit... but that's where I stand at the moment. Also - even if I _could_ finish a Hamidon raid, I'm not sure I'd be able to maintain my enthusiasm past two or three of them... but that's just me.
Just a datapoint - take it for what it's worth.
(Note: I have great respect for the many folks who have devoted so much time, and (albeit virtual) blood/sweat/tears to contributing to the collective knowledge/techniques that now allow Hamidon to be taken down with some assurance of success... but I personally feel that the big-H should be decoupled from meaningful participation in PvP/CoH - just my point of view).
Have fun!
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all enhancements are loot. the whole game already is loot based. this player paradigm that its not has been flawed from the start. The point is the only loot thats relatively difficult to get (i.e. you cant just purchase it) is HOs and 51+ SOs.
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Seriously don't be rediclous.
Your either splitting hairs or have never played in ANY other MMORPG ever. There is loot and there is LOOT. It should be obvious to even the most dunderheaded cantalope that HOs are LOOT.
Dude seriously all enhancements are loot? Thats just grasping at straws.
you are so dense, it hurts to read almost everything u have typed. I start reading, feel the pain of the hollow thoughts, then notice you wrote it.
You would think that I wouldn't have to check to see who posted in order to know it was your insane lack of wisdom.
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1. Lets us buy HOs, I for one have 31000000 inf, I know other who have more. Lets say the cost would be 1000000 inf or more each. Granted this is not an ideal solution and probably would be unbalancing to some extent.
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Chances are, ppl arent going to be selling HOs any time soon. Since influence is so ridiculously easy to get in this game, and since there is already an over abundance of it, I think its safe to say that HOs can be labeled as priceless.
NOW - when there comes a time that influence is needed for more than just enhancements and costumes, you'll see it start getting absorbed back into the game; and maybe we'll actually see an economy start to awaken on CoH (which would own hardcore).... until then, priceless.
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You can place 1 in each primary, secondary, power pool and epic pool power of your choice.
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This would be my pick, but I also think its too late.
Will a battle between 2 HO'ed out Heroes suffer that *other* common MMO PvP issue - blink and you miss it?
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This Hamidon nerf is huge. I literally LITERALLY now have to farm the Hamidon 40+ times. Thats for ONE character to be viable in high end PvP.
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Well that's sort of what this thread is about right? The ability for you to "viable in high end PvP" without having to farm Hamidon for uber loot at all. I don't see this as a nerf, I see it as an indication that:
- Characters were never meant to have a lot of Hamidon ENH
- They don't want the Hamidon encounter to be a factor, or just a small factor, in PvP.
I think this is just the first step, but I'm expecting more down the line, possibly limiting Hamidon ENH, having an option to remove them, or having an indicator that a person has them.
with the new drop system, it will be MUCH MUCH harder for someone to spec out their toon, since less HOs drop and Hami spawns less often, and is a little harder. The real problem will be that most characters will get useless HOs, and may have trouble trading them. so, the problem has been stalled... now it really will take endless farming to spec out your toon.
I'm not sure very many people will be interested in doing that, and thus it won't be a noticable or glaring problem.
Which still leaves the issue of those who already have quite a few. Not to mention the fact that while this may slow down those who want to slot HOs heavily, it certainly won't stop them.
HOs were a carrot to get people to want to go after Hami since it takes so much effort. Who would do it more than once if there was no uber reward? Not likely many, meaning after a couple of Hami raids, he would be undoable since you would not be able to muster the numbers to do it.
Although it has not really been discussed in here, let me put this out there to generate some.... "discussion".
1) Eliminate HOs. Hami is no longer the end game, PvP will be. To those who disagree, give them more PvE content for their endgame. Sure, those who have HOs will whine, but will it stop them from PvP'ing? Anyone worth playing with or fighting against would still be around. Whiners will leave; good ridance.
2) Eliminate obtaining multiple HOs; limit it to 1, perhaps 5? No more than some arbitrary low number N however.
Now, there is still a reward for doing Hami, Nobody becomes too over powered, yet those who want to be tweaked a bit more still can be by attending several Hami raids to get their N HOs.
Obviously those who have > N already would have them removed and be given influence in return. They would also get to choose the ones kept blah blah blah....
How do you like those apples?
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Do you believe defeating the Hamidon is meant to be a common event?
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As common as doing any TF? Yes. The Eden trial takes ±2 hours. Why aren't you crying nerf over those special SO's?
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Do you believe that for the Hamidon to be defeated once a day or more is the intended design?
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If its not then why havent the Dev's changed the spawn time to once a week? You can run the Eden trial over and over. If you have the mission you can run the Hydra trial over and over too for those special SO's. again, why no nerf cry over those?
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Do you believe players are expected to have 30+ Hami-Os to be effective in the "endgame" -- and by that I mean PvE?
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No, I have no RES HO's and can tank very effectively. why? because of my current build and experience, not because of some additional minor slot enhancement.
Are you going to go after accolades next? you know that as a tank 15% more HP is a huge advantage.
Well, I ask one thing. Stop trying to nerf me to your play style. HO's and accolades are optional as is the Arena.
*rubs his eyes*
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Well, I ask one thing. Stop trying to nerf me to your play style. HO's and accolades are optional as is the Arena.
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I think most people just want more options, which is a good thing. They want to be able to see if someone has Hamidon ENH before they battle them in the Arena, or have an option to level Hamidon ENH in the options for the battle (much like the ability to disable travel powers).
For the most part, no one is trying to nerf your style, they're just asking for more options.
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I'm not sure very many people will be interested in doing that, and thus it won't be a noticable or glaring problem.
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Its been my experience that a (probably small) fraction of an MMOs player base will go to silly extremes for an advantage - especially a PvP advantage. And, while small, that fraction lead to a whole bunch of hassle (just look at the recent HO-related hassles, and we haven't even started pvp yet - i'd expect HO-skewed powerset-balance complaints once the arena opens).
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Why aren't you crying nerf over those special SO's
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For one, You level past these. Earning experience as you gather these puts a limit on just how many you can own.
But, if an HO solution is found for the Arena, I'd expect it to apply to all non-standard enhancements.
Same for Accolades (not as big a problem to my eyes since you only have to do it once and you have more choices about how you earn them - farm the wolves, do wolf missions, pop wolves when you see them on the street).
Personally, I got no issue keeping all this stuff as PvE.
Got tired of reading so forgive me if this was said.........
Instead of pushing for no HO's and what not why not push for more ways to get muti-O's. I mean hey yer Lv 45 to 50 why not have the ability to better your toon. I bought this game for the future GvE (good vs evil) so if I have to farm some mob for muti-O's then so be it, lets just have more that one place to get them.
all enhancements are loot. the whole game already is loot based. this player paradigm that its not has been flawed from the start. The point is the only loot thats relatively difficult to get (i.e. you cant just purchase it) is HOs and 51+ SOs.