Hamidon Enhancements in the Arena

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To suggest that any success I should have is somehow lessened or tainted because I chose to work hard at being successful seems very strange to me.


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All there is to be respected is skill. You've illustrated your view, let me illustrate mine. What I'm about to relate happens in many areas in the US on any given day.

You and I both agree to fight over the grapes comment. (Folks will fight over nasty comments.) We're both known as decent brawlers so this should be good. You have shorts, a t-shirt and some boots. I have a nice padded jacket and from my pockets I pull out nickel rolls and brass knuckles. ( I worked hard to get them. You just didn't know I had them. Kind of like HOs.) Tell me, how much respect from my win should I garner?

I'm sure the next time you see me you'll be prepared. So this time you have a knife and heavy coat. Tough guy! That's fine. I've got 2 Desert Eagles. You still have a chance to beat me, but not much. What ensues is an arms race. The bigger gun is most likely to win. How can I respect the outcome of combat when skill has been marginalized? A lopsided win isn't respectable, if so then I should shoot some unarmed people.

In the context of this game, if both players have an equal number of HOs or full HOs, then it's a game of skill and thus respectable. But the chances of that are slim as most will have a varying number of HOs. HOs are also not guaranteed at this point due to griefers. Do you think those griefers will stop because the devs said so? That's another issue I won't get into.

The good thing is we don't have to get involved in the arms race. That was my other point.

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Oh, if they werent in the game, they wouldnt be in the game, and we wouldnt be here. I wouldnt have worked for them, and all might be better.

The Arms Race comment is argueably well taken, and as above... maybe would have been better if we hadnt ended up here. But here we are.

Still, to my mind, HOs are not, and will not be, illegal doping in a boxing ring... they are the larger muscles that come of time spent in the gym.

As I've said before, I imagine the differences between 'haves' and 'have nots' will remain irreconcilable. I just wish the 'have nots' werent so damn vituperative about it.

I'm sure we'll have time once a week in between Hami farming to go to the arena

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How are you going to tell if someone has Hamis? They don't show up in your power list, after all.

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You can't. I believe that's where the steroids comparison comes in. We can't tell who uses what so we just assume the worse - and stuff like homerun records don't seem to mean so much.

But I don't understand why you quoted by stupid grapes joke...

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I think it was the bottom when I was reading.

Still here, even after all this time!

I mean no offense to you sir, but consider this statement.

*But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree. *

Substitute Hamis for levels. Now admittedly some people might find Hami raids fun. The question is how many will find it fun when they have to do it repeatedly? I think you will find that the majority of players that are 45+ do not wish to do so. Respectfully, I disagree with you sir.

I suppose some will answer there is no higher level content...but some of us at least were hoping that PvP would be part of that content. I suppose its all subjective though.

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Still, to my mind, HOs are not, and will not be, illegal doping in a boxing ring... they are the larger muscles that come of time spent in the gym.

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To adjust your boxing analogy a little... Boxing is generally considered a sport combining training, strategy, stamina, strength, speed, etc., at all the lower weight classes. The Super Heavyweight class is where it becomes this circus sideshow with the likes of Mike Tyson and 15 second knockouts.
People seem to be expecting the same out of the arena - it's a fair match at any weight class up until the last one.
The question is: will this topmost weight class be a stain on the whole sport the way it has been for boxing?

Exactly Booster - Farming Portals for XP, Farming Wolves for XP, Farming Winterlords for XP, Farming Hami for Enhancements - all fit States' definition of "unfun". There has to/should be a change forthcoming.

Its smaller in scale, but its still a raid and it still produces loot and its definitely farmable. One only has to look at the impact this has had on games like EverQuest to see the eventual outcome of this. While I don't begrudge the nifty toy suprise to those who have defeated Hamidon, and someday I'll be part of defeating him myself, my game designer instincts tell me that this is a recipe for "Mony Haulism" in CoH.

Put simply, Hamidon should be a trial, not a "raid" and the enhancements drop once per character. That way they are a nifty bonus, and one rightfully earned, but don't subject the game to the sort of power-inflation (that is, power improves outside of a level-based measurement) that made max-level content in EQ so hard to balance can be avoided.

Alternatively, equivilent or near-equivilent enhancements should be found from other content. Ideally, both would be in place so there wouldn't be "farming" of anything. Just challenging top-level events that provide rewards.

I know in MMORPGs that players are often unwilling to entertain the notion of "I've reached the end, lets roll up something new and try it again only differantly." Perhaps those folks should accept that and do that. Its not all that hard really.

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If you are a [censored] and attempt to nova the main group or spam trip mines around hammy expect 400 petitions with your name on it.

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No argument here, but saying that CuppaJo has said trip mines are griefing paints the wrong picture and only adds fuel to the fire. Trip mining your own bud, or trip mining around your team, these are not griefing, but people are seeing a trip mine now and calling 'greifer' and broadcasting to the entire zone to petition the person, regardless of how they are being used. This just makes the true griefing get lost in a sea of petty arguments.

Or worse, people are taking vigilante action and training monsters on groups that cast imps or lay mines well away from other players. And these people are justifying their own actions by quoting CuppaJo (well misquoting).

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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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Sweet, now those who swoop in and steal these from those who rightfully earn them will be rewarded!

Awesome!

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Statesman wrote:

Hamidon Enhancements boost either TWO aspects of a power by 50% or THREE aspects of a power by 30%.


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Not according to real-life testing.

The Recharge on Membrane (which is a THREE, and gives ToHit + DEF + RCH) has been shown to be noticably better than a +2 SO (so BETTER than 36%), and has been tested by another hero as being 50%. Unless the numbers were changed recently (which has not been reported), that Hamidon THREE was boosting Recharge by 50%.

Not sure what to believe? Test it yourself. Get a Recharge SO, and a Hamidon Membrane. Slot the first, time the Recharge. Slot the second, time the recharge. If the Membrane gives a noticably better recharge rate, we know that it's markedly better than 33%. If you want to find out the exact percentage, the formula for Recharge is: Original / ( 1 + Enhancement) = New

Don't have a Membrane? Contact me, and I'll give you one on the Test Server.

- Jeremy White

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You do realize that many of us are here because we actually wanted a game without the madness of Elite Loot? That we don't want to feel forced into farming?

Does your casual player base mean so little to you?

Given the choice between farm-for-the-win and skip Arena/CoV I'll skip PvP -- ToA taught me that much.

Loot Farming wins again... Very disappointed.

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I can agree with this. I personally have no interest in farming Hamidon, taking the concept of the creature out of context, just to be a viable competitor in PvP. I will not be looking forward to PvP in the 45-50 range, especially on Champion with its powerlevellers and farmers.

Ah well.. This is a game a geared towards casual players, right?

Keep up the good work, Devs.

EDIT:

I'll also add that I'm not much of a fan of the auto-exemplar feature. It's like negating all the work you've done on your character if you can't even enjoy the powers you've earned all of the time. The manual had stated the sidekick system was -1 within 10 levels, -2 within 20 and so on. Why wouldn't this work in PvP if all enhancements gave similar percentages?

Let me make sure I understand the auto-exemp feature correctly in this example:

There are 50 heroes in the arena, 25 on each side. Each team has 5 heroes from each "weight class"...meaning 5 heroes each for levels 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, and 41-50.

I, as a level 45, enters combat and targets a level 25. When I attempt to use a power on that lvl 25 player, it auto-exemps me down to lvl 25 (24?). If, right after I use that power, I hit tab and now am targeting a lvl 35, it again auto-exemps me down to lvl 35. This repeats no matter who I attack...the auto-exemp feature always reduces the effectiveness of my power down to the affected players' level.

Is this correct? If so, that's a nifty bit of programming...

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Maybe I'm oblivious.. or just plain missed something... but Hamidon has only been beaten 3 times on the Infinity server. Somehow, I just don't think our server is going to experience this problem.

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ProcessdMeatMan - 50 Grav/Rad Cont
The Sequel - 47 Invul/Fire Tank
The Q? - 40 Spines/DA Scrap
Shibuya Kai - lvl 32 Elec/Elec Blapptroller
Acrylic Slush - lvl 27 Ice/EM Tank


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ehehehee.....We should ask Hami to be nicer to us.
Say, we could ask him to have less mitos around him.

States: Infinity wants a nerfed Hamidon on our server. We're too weak!



Frankly, I do not agree with States move on this one. The main-super-uber advantage is still there - Hami's enhs= more slots basically.


Theoretical scenario:

One fire/dev blaster has his sniper attack 6 sloted with Damage.

Another fire/dev has his sniper attack sloted with 6 damage/range.

Basically, he has 12 slots on his sniper attack.

Repeath to all powers, ad nauseum.


The question here is not really the 50% bonuses but the "dual" buff that Hami enhs give.


Basically, the guy without Hami enhs is pretty much f[self-censored]-up.


So, contrary to what Statesman said on previous posts, they are really motivating people to "un-fun behaviours".
Alas, such is life.

I am not a Dev, so I have no power to change this matters.
We might just as well get used to it,folks.

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Exactly Booster - Farming Portals for XP, Farming Wolves for XP, Farming Winterlords for XP, Farming Hami for Enhancements - all fit States' definition of "unfun". There has to/should be a change forthcoming.

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Except fighting Hami is VERY fun. Much more fun than the 638th "kill all in warehouse" mission. Feels like something epic is going on. I need to hurry up and get these two levels so I can join the raiding without the max debt scare.

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Another fire/dev has his sniper attack sloted with 6 damage/range.

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6 Hamidon raids. Time spent = reward. Big deal.

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Just to clarify, this means that the official stance is that from levels 45-50, COH changes from being a loot-free game, to being a loot-based game. I'm not sure why the devs want this, but it's their game. Shame, some of us liked COH because it wasn't like other mmos.

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Amen, brother.

I had held some faint hope that hso's were not going to be used in pvp because of the design problems associated with hso distribution and, in fact, with loot in general.

But nope. No original ideas here.

Been there. Done that. Not fun. Too bad.

Excellent Post Statesman! Now can we get this Stickied for a few weeks?

Agreed.

I never had any intention of participating in Hami raids. I hated raids in E&B; they were just lag-induced slideshows where I died repeatedly and where I got outbid by everyone else, because I was a casual player in a small guild and couldn't afford the loot.

Now in CoH, we have a lag-induced slideshow where I stand to get HOs that won't do my main a bit of good, due to +def caps.

Yay. One more reason not to waste my time with PvP.

For all those who say they don't have the time / don't want to farm / etc.

Going to Hami Raids are not the only way to gain the special enhancements.
<ul type="square"> [*] Titan Shards [*] Abandoned Sewers / Kraken TaskForce [*] Trading[*] Purchasing [*] SG Help[*] Straight out Nepotism [/list]
Each of these and probably more are ways to acquire these enhancements. So what's the problem?

Also the Kraken Enh are acquired Pre-40, so PvP will be affected long before the 46-50 level band, but no one seems worried about those. Why is that?

~Tri

Bad decision, States.

Seeing as it is at the moment with all the Hami raids, players who can not attend more than one (if ever) will be in complete disadvantage to others, making it impossible to win those badges, titles and whatever the arena promises.

I would have thought you came up with a better solution to this. For me the arena has hereby died, don't need some griefers to show me how cool and 1337 they are because of their Hami-Os.

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For me the arena has hereby died, don't need some griefers to show me how cool and 1337 they are because of their Hami-Os.

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That's a very sad way to observe things. I have 1, (1!!!) hamidon enhancement. By me having a single Hami-O, you would not fight me?

You also cannot be GRIEFED unless you allow yourself to be. The Arena battles are completely consensual. You won't fight anyone you don't want to and can easily find an honorable opponent.

I also find it sad that because of a freaken ENHANCEMENT, you will forgo a very large and potentially fun addition to the game.

WoW was a really fun game that I played for a while. However, one of the things I really disliked about it was the loot. It caused greed to show up all of the time.

Look at the number of posts generated about these enhancements. PvP, KSing buds, Unfair to scrappers, etc.

Loot causes players to fight against each other rather than with each other. I was so happy to return to CoH after WoW to avoid all of that crap associated with loot. Looks like this game goes drastically downhill after 45 or so. Too bad, so close.

As far as the arena is concerned, I was excited about it at first. The more I hear about it the less interested I become. When does Issue 5 come out again?

Im not gonna say the hamidon raiders didn't earn the enhancements, they did. But now instead of the arena being a test of a person's or a team's skills, it will come down to who spent the most time farming hamidon? Or the most time nuking buds after a raid? I WAS excited about the arena...

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Exactly Booster - Farming Portals for XP, Farming Wolves for XP, Farming Winterlords for XP, Farming Hami for Enhancements - all fit States' definition of "unfun". There has to/should be a change forthcoming.

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Except fighting Hami is VERY fun. Much more fun than the 638th "kill all in warehouse" mission. Feels like something epic is going on. I need to hurry up and get these two levels so I can join the raiding without the max debt scare.

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Heck - knocking off Hami for the first time should be great fun. And there are many that would say that farming wolves is a blast too, and that the winterlords ended too soo. Fun is subjective. However, when the reason for arresting Hami changes from "for the thrill of it" to "Hami-O's 4 teh winZorZ" it falls into States' definition of an "unfun" activity.

DOOM.