Dev Response - Burn Changes
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I just feel empty, like I am looking at the empty parking space of where my Shiny new sports car was parked. I feel like someone has stolen my beloved car. and left me a broken tricycle with a bent front tire and no pedals. Sure, I could use this broken, bent tricycle to take me to where I weanted to go, but all the fun and pride I felt for my car is gone. Tained and spoiled.
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Thank you. Have been trying to find an analogy that hit the nail on the head. This perfectly describes the hollow feeling I get, I havent touched my tank in weeks...too depressing.
Consequently, Im creating an SG for my tanker and friends, its a rest-home themed SG complete with orderlies and pureed food....its on virtue, stop by sometime and play shuffleboard.
Been around since beta... watched the changes on the forums... I sit and read alot, rarely post... I only have one question in regards to the situation of the direction the development of paragon city has gone...
What happened to the development team that listened to the players, allowed the insight, ideas and involvement of the fan-base that hung around for months and months before a beta was ever even released, listened when the players and fans said something needed work and when something did not need change? Where have these developers gone? It is almost as if the first few issues of the new comic book were true... Statesman has disappeared and left us to flounder and wallow in our newfound loss of powers... except it looks like this time, Statesman is not in cahoots with the darkside for the betterment of us all... he has just started doing his own thing and ignoring all of the screams, wails and cries of outrage that echo around him due to his actions, or in this case, inaction by overaction...
I am not bashing you Statesman... I am asking why you have gone from a man for the people to a man for himself ignoring the people... I5 is doing more harm than good and you continue forward as if you know what is best for us... If the changes have a future effect on things for the better, then tell us what is going on, if they are simply changes because you feel they need to be made, let us know that as well... whatever you decide, the time to speak up is now... your people, your supporters, your fans are listening...
Ok had a chance to test burn with my lvl 20 Fire/Axe tanker. While I was able to knock down an occasional minion into the fire, at most I was doing about 16pts of damage in 8 ticks of 2 to the enemies of equal level (3 slots of DO damage). Then the enemies would flee I could taunt them but if I was lucky I would get one or maybe 2 of those taunted back into burn for about 5 more tics of 2.
Since this is the new vision for fire tankers I was forced to think a while about it, and redesign this character as a Fire/Fire tanker. At least then I can get some synergy from the fire damage enhancing power. So the level 20 Fire/Axe tanker is no more replaced by a lvl 7 fire/fire.
In the future if something so fundamental is changed, I wonder if secondaries would be allowed to be respec'd as the character was made unplayable.
Ok, I guess I am in the minority because I don't think burn is overpowered. I don't think it needs to be nerfed. I mean, how many times has it been nerfed already? I have lost count. I thought burn (and the damage that we can do) was compensation for our lack of defenses. Wasn't that the way it has been explained off up till now? Why has it taken a years worth of nerfs to lead up to this? Burn is not new and I don't think that in any way are fire tanks 'abusing an exploit' by using it the way it is on live now.
I never went along with the herd in thinking burn was too powerful. It is a decent power - don't get me wrong but I don't think it is overpowered. I think it suffers more from being a uniquely offensive power in what is generally a defensive primary.
Heck, I wish I had taken the fire secondary for my fire tank. The AOE powers in the fire secondary make burn look weak. Throw perma-hasten on and who gives a darn about burn?
I know a lot of players who never use burn on their fire/fire tanks and don't have it slotted very high.
The only thing to affect fire/fire tanks is the AoE and taunt limits... other than that there will be no change.
Once again, the devs will only hurt the diversity. Soon you'll see fire as the ONLY secondary played by fire tanks.
I have a fire/en tank in the 40s and a fire/ice in the 20s. It is interesting to note that even in I4 (mobs already flee), in a team of 4 or more (I'm not talking herding, but playing as a team), BURN is awesome when talking on groups of enemies but no better than many other powers when taking on one or two enemies. I have not been on test but I wonder, with all the changes to control powers, if BURN would be that great anymore even with no other changes. Also, we should get a respec out of our secondary power set - I would choose very differently if BURN was no longer the defining power of the primary set.
Have a nice day.
Hello everyone,
I know this is more than one post between dev responses...but...
This is a post I made in the Consolidated thread....and I just want to share it with others...
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I agree burn does too much damage [for a tank] in a short amount of time. Actually I think most posters on the forum [I could be wrong here] agree that burn needs to be toned down. IMO all the changes to it are way over the top.
What I've said before and of course will repeat now is that a great change to do is this:
1. Decrease the damage per tick [or have less ticks per sec.]
2. increase the END cost [even doubling it would be fine]
3. Decrease the total burn time to 8 sec. instead of 10
4. Have the recharge set to about 15s instead of 11s.
Toss the fear a spect out the window. I know that baddies running out of the patch is logical but so are baddies running from a 6'2" man that is on fire saying "come get some!".
Thanks and as always...
Let the flaming begin...
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Thanks
Mike
I've gone on the test server several times, and I am sad to say that I will respec burn out of my build if it goes live as-is. Burn used to be the cornerstone of the Fiery Aura set, and it has been turned into one of the worst powers in the primary. I tested a resepc of my level 41 fire tank, and if I want to actually hold the aggro I can get, I cannot use burn at all. In my tested respec, I ended up only taking 5 powers from my primary, and seven from my secondary.
Do you see a problem there? My secondary set has become more useful than almost half of my primary. Temperature Protection? Fiery Embrace? [I don't have fire secondary, but my secondary has build up already] Rise of the Phoenix? [I try NOT to die, thanks]
And now Burn. Was it overpowered before? Definately. But our lack of built in defense and weakness to certain attacks was supposedly offset by some good offense. But now my good offense has become a fear-inducing headache that is not good for teams or solo work, IMHO.
The first change that should have been made to burn is would have been to lower the damage, then increase the recharge if that wasn't enough. But the first thing you did was add fear? To a tank? Aren't we supposed to KEEP aggro? Not send the bad guys running? I honestly can't comprehend these changes at all. If you are going to lower the damage and increase the recharge to what it is currently, the fear aspect has to go, or it will be totally useless. The bad guys run out of burn instantly.
Oh, by the way, disoriented/stunned mobs can STILL fly/jump/run/etc, so I cannot disorent/burn which would make some sense, but that bug is still not fixed. I can only stagger slowly when stunned, but bad guys can flee at top speeds? Come on!
I have a question? What use do you see for Burn?
With the changes, you have made it fairly useless for soloing... the mobs don't stay in the patch and don't die
and its fairly useless for teaming--unless you specifically team to root and overcome the penalties of the last two rounds of nerfs
You have made the power useless to prevent herding, but rather than cutting back the power to prevent something, shouldn't you be changing it to something that would be worth taking at 18? Make a positive change rather than just a negative one
You made it a bad version (smaller AoE) HOT FEET, how many people take Hot Feet?
almost all the I5 builds I see get rid of the power completely. I think if you are going to take away an abused power you should put something in its place, not just another never-taken power like TEMPERATURE PROTECTION
If you are going to nerf to prevent herding, at least be fair about it, give the Fire Tanker something that is worth taking, not another emptly slot to put HEALTH in so they can take STAMINA at 20 and Hasten at 24
at least find a power worth taking at 18, not another Hot Feet!
PS--How many people actually DO take Hot Feet?
People sometimes tell me I'm both pessimistic and paranoid but I think that's just because all you optimists are out to get me.
I've seen 5 controllers on champion with it. So not many...
Burn and the fire set.
Burn needs to lose the fear. The changes make it much less used by Plers I'm sure, but what if I want to use it for IMM resistence? Please take away the fear and make teh IMM resistence last 45 sec (if it doesn't already). I would also add KB resistence to BA, FS, or PS. Which ever one, doesn't matter.
GF
I don't think Burn is overpowered as it is a small area of effect, you have to stand in the middle of a mob and it already cause some fear as is. But I know I'm in the minority.
Since I do use it to free myself from Immobilize, I do NOT agree with the increased recharge time. Also, every AoE has already received the "balance" bat in the limitation of affected mobs.
There are too many negatives added onto this power. With the new AoE limit, I believe only one more addition is necessary. I think the recharge time should be left alone and the fear affect taken away(which I thought I was reading its an AI bug).
I do not think anyone deserves to go thru 18 lvls to get this power as it exists now on test. For myself, I don't get another AoE until mid 30s. I would be fine with a damage reduction ONLY. Cut in half if u have too, just get rid of the ridiculous recharge rate and fear effect.
DEVS NEED TO GIVE AN UPDATE HERE!!
Is the new fear intended or not?
Will this piece of junk go live with i5 or is it still "getting looked at"??
"Enemy AI will now be more aware of dangerous areas, such as a Burn patch, and will do their best to avoid them."
-> Respec out of Burn with your free respec. I will do so. And Weave too. More cool powers for me - yay! Although having two mostly useless powers in your primary really sucks...
BURN as a useful power IS DEAD. I have no use for it now at all, and my Fire Tank is now able to Tank Better than my Invulnerable Tank. sigh.
[color=gold][b][size=5]♪ Sometimes you feel like a Tank, Sometimes you don't! ♪[/size][/color][/b]
[url=http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=114726][color=black][b][size=5]Moon [color=red]Hazard [color=black]Zone![/size][/color][/color][/color][/b][/url]
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Wanted to explain the reasons for changing Burn...
It became apparent that Burn was the trump power...with it, a Tanker needed to do nothing else. He could lay down a Burn patch and Taunt foes in and out of it. The damage was so great that the Burn patch itself would do the defeating; the Tanker only needed to hit Taunt.
The question has come up - "what's the point of Burn now?" Well, it still offers Immobilization defense (we're actually going to increase that duration). And Burn does do a lot of damage. Taunt alone might not bring mobs into Burn continually, but stunning, holding, immobilizing mobs in Burn is just plain devastating.
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It's most likely been said many times before, but we shouldn't need teammates to be able to use our powers effectively. For a second I thought you guys had fixed disorient, then I went and played the game, and NOPE! It still doesn't work properly. Disoriented villains can still fly, superjump, and moonwalk out of burn patches. Not that pre-40s non-ice tanks could really immobilize or hold villains anyway. So, yes, burn sucks now. At least that's 5 slots I can put back into powers that won't scare the bad guys away.
Let me ask Statesman a question here and I would like a responce.
First off I have a lvl 50 fire/fire. I also have a lvl 50 invon /ss and a lvl 50 scrapper BS/DA.
Why did you affect burn so much?
I dont know where to begin. My fire/fire wasn't even my favorite toon to play, but after the changes made to burn, I might as well delete him. Why was burn the only power to be nerfed far worse than other powers?
I especially feel pain to all those fire/ice tanks. Wow did they take a hit. Now everyone is going to make a defender archery set and you'll have 300 defenders all healing each other. Is this what the game is becoming?
And what are lvl 50s supposed to do now? Kill AVs? Killing AV's gets a little boring after you have done it 10-15 times. I think you have lost me as a costermer. Seams to me the game is going down the wrong road.
And why is Hollows and other zones resricted and not PI? If you wanted to fix the PLing, all you had to do was throw a lock on PI til lvl 40 instead of nerfing away what I worked to achieve for the past 4 months.
The answer is rather simple actually, he is too busy working on COV to bother with his paying costumers here on COH.
Quote from Statesman
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"Wanted to explain the reasons for changing Burn...
It became apparent that Burn was the trump power...with it, a Tanker needed to do nothing else. He could lay down a Burn patch and Taunt foes in and out of it. The damage was so great that the Burn patch itself would do the defeating; the Tanker only needed to hit Taunt.
The question has come up - "what's the point of Burn now?" Well, it still offers Immobilization defense (we're actually going to increase that duration). And Burn does do a lot of damage. Taunt alone might not bring mobs into Burn continually, but stunning, holding, immobilizing mobs in Burn is just plain devastating. "
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Alright States...we've got a problem here. You guys have totally messed up the game now. You have NEVER made changes that are this widespread, this drastic, this demeaning, and this widely hated. The changes with this new issue 5 release are totally absurd. You are all on such a quest, a crusade, to force the end of powerleveling, and to force us all into playing as a 'team', that you aren't listening to what the people are saying.
Firstly I'll talk about the power leveling issue, then move on to the 'team play' issue.
Alright, Firstly I have to say that this whole 'powerleveling is bad, powerleveling is evil' thing is getting excruciatingly out of hand. You are truely going on this whole big crusade to destroy the ability to power level. Quite honestly, it is none of your business whether people powerlevel or not. It affects nobody aside from the people who are getting powerleveled.
We are all intelligent enough to make our own decisions on whether or not we want to be powerleveled or not. Let US be the judge of that. Then to top off the fact that we, the consumer, are being treated like imbacilic children. We are the people paying for the game, and unless you are told or already know about powerleveing, the average player will never hear of it until they reach the upper levels. A consumer playing the game long enough to hit the high levels should be wise enough to make thier own decision on whether or not to powerlevel.
Now, your primary fixes to prevent powerleveling. The first fix you did that I hate, and this is simply coming as a person who loves teaming up with his RL friends...I HATE that you absurdly shortened the distance that teamates are allowed to be when fighting mobs (street fighting) and still recieve experience and credit towards badges and the like. We have no ability to divide and conquer! The second thing I hate is much larger than that. I hate nearly every single putrid change that has come about as of the Issue 5 release. You've turned every super hero into super wimps! I mean...sure, you claim that you are making up for the sucky drops in our powers, defense, and the many other indivudual power changes, by slightly increasing the amount of experience gained after defeating a villian. That is total bull. We are now all super weaklings...here's an example. My good friend has a level 41 fire/mace tank that he has loved soloing and playing with... myself, a lvl 41 empathy/psychic defender. We were playing the morning the issue came out, testing the changes. First thing we noticed was that our travel powers have been slowed, and defense has been removed from (at least) hasten. The second thing we noticed was my friend's burn power. It doesn't do anywhere near the amount of damage it used too...even if you say it does the same...it doesn't. It's impossible. He used to be able to take on his missions with the invincible setting on, with enemies that were a few levels above him. I still needed to buff and heal him, but it was easier than when playing as his blaster. Nowadays, his burn has fear...which sucks and counters the taunt. With the enemy now running in and out of the flames they don't even get 1/4th of the damage they did before...not to mention the fact that the range of burn has been reduced, it doesn't stay on anywhere near as long as it used to, it takes a good 2 minutes for it to recharge...it's just a mess! I mean, the fact of the matter is that you have destroyed tanks now. They are nothing more than glorified punching bags...considering that they cannot solo WHAT-SO-EVER anymore.
Ok, stemming away from that topic I'll mention the whole teaming issue before I go.
First off...this game is supposed to be meant for both Solo play, and for team play. You have absolutely no business going and trying to FORCE us into playing teams because you are forcing the powers to require other Arch Types to be playing on your team to compliment your new-found weaknesses. I swear, this Issue 5 is making me, my friend, and I'm sure every hero to feel as though thier toons are getting bashed in the heads with a large rock, because in reality they are all being dumbed down like they all have mental problems. The point of being a hero is to be a HERO, not just some guy or gal with mildly entertaining powersets...the point of being a hero is to utterly DESTROY the bad guys!!!
Before I go, I also wanted to mention that the forcing of nova and other AoE powers and cone powers into having a limited number of attackable targets? How stupid is that?
Sigh, alright...I'm done with my complaining. Aside from this. It's like Wal-mart selling me a dvd player and then telling me that I can only watch so many movies on it, at only such-and-such times, and then telling me that you are only allowed to watch comedies when you really want to watch action.
You developers have way to much power over what and how we play...if you keep detroying the things in the game that make it fun for US, we are going to leave you, and will not support you any more. You are going to lose many valuable, long term customers if you keep on this never ending quest to nerf our powers to "destroy" powerleveling.
Alright...excuse me while I break out the whip and the chair...maybe I can tame the enemies into submission and make them realize the error of thier evil ways. YAY, Weaklings are FUN! *Dripping with sarcasm*
Wow, from what I have read so far this has to be one of the most universally hated changes I have ever seen. I would like to add though that I do not blame the developers for this change, I mean, think of the logic here:
1) Pick a feature that a lot of people enjoy.
2) Modify the feature so that it is no longer enjoyable.
3) This will encourage people to enjoy the game more!!!
This does not sound like developer logic to me, but instead sounds like some management got their hands into the mix.
That aside, I would like to Ask some questions regarding this change:
1) Why was not a more measured approach taken to reducing the power of burn? If it was thought to be too powerful why not begin by increasing the recharge time? This would force re-slotting to pick up the slack, forcing the user to choose between a quicker recharge or more damage (i.e. damage enhancements vs. recharge rate enhancements). If this failed then you could decrease the damage, and only if the power was still too powerful should the AI have been modified so that mobs will always run out of the patch. By adding all 3 at once you have effectively destroyed many fire tankers in their current form, and garnered a lot of animosity because of it.
2) The Fiery Aura power set was setup in such a way that it does not provide as much protection as other tanker power sets and in exchange you can deal some damage, which offsets the lack of protection by ensuring the mobs are killed quicker. You have removed a major portion of the damage dealing potential of this power, but I do not see a proportional increase in the amount of protection offered with the Fiery Aura power set. Was this an oversight? will increased protection now be given to the Fiery Aura power set?
3) I have a fire/fire tanker which I enjoyed playing immensely. I could solo it or fight in teams and I enjoyed doing both. After I5 though, I found my favorite toon severely crippled. Trying to solo, I was killed by mobs of even number cons, since they would simply run out of the burn patch, wait for it to go out and run back in. Eventually I would run out of endurance, my shields would drop and they would kill me. In team play, I was equally ineffective, since the team I was on had mainly scrappers and blasters ( i.e. no one with holds ) , again I would run into a mob, try to grab aggro to protect the group, and would then go down quickly since Fiery Aura has less protection, and I no longer have the ability to generate the damage to mitigate this by helping take down the mob faster. Was the goal of this fix to remove the tankers ability to solo, and team with certain ATs? do I know need to make sure a troller is along on each mish?
4) You are giving a free respec to help out with modifying the power sets because of I5. Problem is, when you change the cornerstone power of a power set, you are changing the rules by which one plays with that power set, as such I would much prefer to change the power set itself, instead of just the power within it. Are their plans to allow respecs to do this in the future?
5) Finally, is there any chance you would consider undoing this change? I have not seen any customer who uses burn request this change, and I have not seen any customer since who is happy with the change. As such, if you truly listen to your customers, you will reconsider this change and roll it back.
Please understand my frustration level here, I have spent a lot of time playing my tank and enjoyed it immensely, but I have now watched as that toon was effectively destroyed with the latest release, with little in the way of compensation other than a free respec on a useless power set.
I could not have said it any better myself NiteFall. This Primary fire set now has two many useless powers. It was bad enough that fire tanks had to pick from so many different power pools before to at least get some defence, knockback protection and holds. But now burn is yet another useless power in the power set. A power set that has Rise of the Phoenix as its last power. No thanks ...I try not to die either.
Please I beg you Devs to listen to these people and rollback burn to the way it was b4 I5 and if you must, take a little dmg and recharge time away. Baby step it, not such a drastic change that eliminates any fun of playing as a fire tank.
Also change the AoE limit back up to its I4 days. You guys really took the fun away from the game and its too drastic of a change.
I would really like a repley from a Dev soon about what is being considered here. I would like to know since it is apparent so many of your paying costomers are irate about the changes. I bet you lose enought accounts, someone's going to get the axe. I would if I was a CEO of a company and my stocks fell 50 percent in a month.
This change sucks. Why reduce the recharge time AND damage? Just does not make any sense. My main is a controller but have been working on various Tanks, including Fire, now I will probably scrap my Tank alts (and my controllers).
I guess Devs only want Blasters to play this game.
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I could not have said it any better myself NiteFall. This Primary fire set now has two many useless powers. It was bad enough that fire tanks had to pick from so many different power pools before to at least get some defence, knockback protection and holds. But now burn is yet another useless power in the power set. A power set that has Rise of the Phoenix as its last power. No thanks ...I try not to die either.
Please I beg you Devs to listen to these people and rollback burn to the way it was b4 I5 and if you must, take a little dmg and recharge time away. Baby step it, not such a drastic change that eliminates any fun of playing as a fire tank.
Also change the AoE limit back up to its I4 days. You guys really took the fun away from the game and its too drastic of a change.
I would really like a repley from a Dev soon about what is being considered here. I would like to know since it is apparent so many of your paying costomers are irate about the changes. I bet you lose enought accounts, someone's going to get the axe. I would if I was a CEO of a company and my stocks fell 50 percent in a month.
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I agree with you two and after carefully considering what I really wish to say, I have one more thing to add:
"THANK GOD THAT YOU WAITED UNTIL FOOTBALL SEASON TO RUIN THIS GAME!"
At least I'll have something to do and I guess I'll even save money that way.
I read the last few pages of this thread, because I recently started a fire/ice tank.
A recurring theme is that
A: NO ONE likes the changes to tankers in general
B: NO ONE likes the changes to burn.
Well, sorry folks, but I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. I've been hanging out on the test server. I've been running around on live since I-5 hit.
A lot of people ARE happy. And I'm one of them. The time of letting the tank herd the map while everyone else sits at the door with their thumb up their posteriors is over...
And for that, thanks, Devs.
As for burn, I took ice for ice patch. Burn is a PBAoE, so it will burn 10 baddies. Good enough for me, and with ice patch bouncing them, they can't run. Done deal.
For all those that say "MY SECONDARY CAN'T DO THAT!!!" I respond the only way I can...
My secondary on my main can't do ANYTHING that the other scrapper secondaries can pull off.
My primary on my main can't buff the defense of my inferior secondary like 3 of the other scrapper primaries.
Claws/SR is arguably the most gimped scrapper set.
Yet I can STILL solo on invincible. Takes a bit longer and it's a little riskier, but it's do-able. Looks like States and company did exactly what they were trying to do, so be it.
Edited for content.
Be well, people of CoH.
ive made a rant under the tank section of the board, so im going to go simple and lite here....
it seems wether purposefully or not, theyve changed the feel of the game from a super heroes (marvel dc) type of game, to a survival game.
too much has changed at once instead of little tweaks here and there.
was anyone complaining against the nature of tanks? or burn?
if not, then why change it, its a game, its supposed to be fun and light hearted, not dark and grim, im sure alot of it has to do with pvp in cov, but the face of the game has changed... im guessing all the gruesome and evilness planned for cov has marred any ideas as to what coh is supposed to be...
Make it fun again!!!!!
Why do developers do this? Where else is it GOOD BUSINESS to TAKE AWAY from the people who PAY YOUR BILLS? When the player base figures out a way to use a power that the people who created the game did not... insted of applauding their creativity, you take the power away, brake it beyond repair, then give it back and say "I've fixed this, NOW its working peoperly."
My main character was an Ice/Ice blaster and I had lots of fun playing her up to level 34... then I ran into a mission that I couldnt get through at all... and the nearly endless amount of debt I racked up trying until I saw red didn't help one bit. In fact it made me want to reach into my computer's hard drive, find the "City Of Heroes" folder and rip it out, throw it on the ground, stomp on it, pick it up and tear it to shreads, douse the pieces with gasoline and set the F**king thing on fire while dancing around the flaming embers singing "Ding-Dong The Witch Is Dead".... then I decided to build another character, one that I knew would be fun... a Fire/Ice Tanker... I had seen them around and they were Amazing... Truly worthy of the title "Super Hero"...
Thus "Jumblies" was born... it was a little rough at first getting the hang of the new powers... But I knew what she would be capable of once I got her a few levels. Fast forward to now... I just feel empty, like I am looking at the empty parking space of where my Shiny new sports car was parked. I feel like someone has stolen my beloved car. and left me a broken tricycle with a bent front tire and no pedals. Sure, I could use this broken, bent tricycle to take me to where I weanted to go, but all the fun and pride I felt for my car is gone. Tained and spoiled.
Some people Dont play this game for the challange, not for the thrill of knowing you suffered many many defeats and in the end you more debt than you care to even look at - but you finally overcame and beat that evil arch villan.... but for the simple fact that they found a combination that was pure FUN.
Fun.
That is why we 'play' games isnt it? to have 'fun' Well with the relaese of I5, I can safely say, you have taken the 'fun' out of CoH and made it more like a job.
I dont know about you but I really don't like going to work in the morning. I hate my job. the absolute last thing I want to do is come home and do another 'job'.
thanks for stealing my car guys.
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Jumblies - 24 Fire/Ice Tanker
Lady Frostbite - 34 Ice/Ice Blaster