Ask a Developer Series Information
By
Aeon_Thraen,
Posted on: 2005-08-04 09:22 in Developers' Corner
Everyone knows its "All about the Temp. Protection!"
by the time i take all my pool powers just so i can semi- equal a regular tanker (i.e. tough, weave, acrobatics, combat jump), i kinda run outta room for attacks. But then again, my secondary is ice melee so. there, i guess I can slow them? so they dont kill my team as fast 
.:Brmstone's BLOG:.
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And dish out the damage with what skills? Secondary. Tertiary. That's not the question. The question pertains to Fire Tanking and only Fire Tanking. Not Fire/Ice/Fighting/Whatever else.
Exactly.
Again...
What is the purpose of Fire Tankers? What can a fire tanker do that no other can? List.
- Boost up the power of Fiery Aura.
- Ressurect themselves.
- Scare guys away without the ability to taunt them back.
That's an amazing set for the purpose of "tanking". I don't care that the developers wanted to kill an offensive skill. I'm more distrubed by the fact they wanted to kill an offensive set by trashing the stronger 1 of 2 offensive skills they had.
Maybe they can just trash Personal Force Field.
[/ QUOTE ] Ah, I think I get you now. The Devs decided to alter Taunt so it no longer could taunt back foes that are affected by fear. There is a fear element built into Burn. So it is untankly to have a power that sends foes away from the tank.
I have a level 50 fire tank, and ever since that change, I have come to regard him as more of a Fire Scrapper then a tank.
I have a level 50 Invul tank too. Like a real tanker, he tends to keep foes wailing on him rather then running from him.
There are players out there with fire tanks that apparently still seem capable of Aggro Management with their Fire tanks. although I can only see this as possible if they don't use Burn.
Burn still is useful, I use all the time and it works but the foes tend to yo-yo in and out of the burn patch. So, they are not achieving that extra crispiness I like so much as quickly as they use to.
"The one thing that can stop a full team of MasterMinds dead in its tracks... a doorway!" --Frogfather
when are you guys gonna fix the crappy lag since its rumored that you are running both games on one server...jesus having to wait 5-6 seconds for a power to activate or waiting sometimes 15-20 seconds to combine enhancements is a touch much.
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Yeah, I gotta question.
What is the purpose of Fire Tankers? What do they do that no other set can do?
[/ QUOTE ]? You might need to be a little more specific. Fire tanks can tank, but so can all other tanks. Fire tanks can deal damage, but so can all other tanks, scrappers, blasters, etc. Fire tanks do what other tanks and damage dealers do.
Fire tanks deal a little more damage then other tanks, but the trade off is, they are squishier then other tanks. To compensate as best as possible for this it is in a fire tank's best interest to pick up tough and weave from the fighting pool and to counter against knockback Acrobatics from the Leaping pool.
When they have all that with their damage resist from their primary, fire tanks can tank well, and dish out the damage.
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Prior to the burn nerf(s), I would agree that fire tankers traded defense for damage. Now, I'm not so sure. Remember that all fire tankers are not fire/fire tankers. My fire/axe tanker now uses Axe to do damage instead of burn. As such, he does no more damage than an invuln or stone tanker with an axe, but his is far more squishy. Please explain that.
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Prior to the burn nerf(s), I would agree that fire tankers traded defense for damage. Now, I'm not so sure. Remember that all fire tankers are not fire/fire tankers. My fire/axe tanker now uses Axe to do damage instead of burn. As such, he does no more damage than an invuln or stone tanker with an axe, but his is far more squishy. Please explain that.
[/ QUOTE ]Fire tanks are squishy because they did trade damage for defense. If you look at a fire tank's Primary it has fewer defense/resistance options then any other tank. However Fire tanks primary has 3 powers that deal damage. Fiery Aura, Burn, and Rise of the Pheonix. That is the trade off right there.
Ice and stone tanks have only one damage dealing power in their primary. Ice tanks have Icicles and Stone tanks have Mudpots. Invuls have none.
You may not have select BA, Burn or RoP from your primary but they are still a part of your Primary none the less.
As for the nerfing on burn, technically burn was not nerfed. It was taunt. See Burn has always had a fear element built into it. But, we used taunt to keep the foes inside our burn patch. It was great. Then the devs nerfed Taunt. They removed taunt's ability to affect foes under the influence of fear. Thus, we could no longer taunt foes back into our burn patch, and it appeard as though Burn itself was nerfed.
It was at that point they turned fire tanks into fire scrappers.
"The one thing that can stop a full team of MasterMinds dead in its tracks... a doorway!" --Frogfather
Sorry friend you are mistaken burn was nerfed. Burn now only affects 10 baddies and deals out more fear.
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Sorry friend you are mistaken burn was nerfed. Burn now only affects 10 baddies and deals out more fear.
[/ QUOTE ]My mistake yes burn was nerfed down to hit only 10 foes at a time. I forgot about that one.
I can't find anything posted by a Dev that states they increased the fear in burn though. Do you have the link so I can read it?
"The one thing that can stop a full team of MasterMinds dead in its tracks... a doorway!" --Frogfather
CuppaJo on Burn
I don't think fear was changed on Burn, per se, but the AI response to burn was. Instead of going feared in the Burn, once set afire, the run outside of the patch and will not run back into the patch, or something like that.
Although, I find it funny that I've played a fire controller and fire blaster, both of whom can set enemies on fire, and they don't seen to run around and stop attacking while they burn. Or at least they didn't last time I checked, which I'll admit has been a while.
Devs I have 3 BIG issues that you need to address and as a beta tester I think you need to look real hard at this.
Issue #1>
Base costs are way out of controll and are very unfair to new players and new Super Groups. These must be cut by as much as 50%. So which of you group of DEVS are going to do this?
Issue #2>
This PvP in my opinion is killing the game. The server population on the hero side has been at an all time low. In the pass few weeks since COV release I have seen the daily pop numbers go from a few 1000 to just a few 100. Plus a lot of heroes are getting their butts kicked and are started to hate their heroes and leave the game. What in the world were you thinking when you do this?
Issue #3
Why do masterminds in COV get their pets early in the game like around lvl 6 and in COH they have to wait until level 28 or later to get theirs?
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Issue #3
Why do masterminds in COV get their pets early in the game like around lvl 6 and in COH they have to wait until level 28 or later to get theirs?
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Uh, there are masterminds in CoH?
All joking aside, being a mastermind is about controling pets. THAT is why they get them early.
My guess is you're comparing a mastermind to a controller, who's primary power is about controling the enemy, not about controlling a pet. (Although controling the enemy is debateable by some, with controller changes recently)
And to point out his comment about the Hero Side being at a all time low, id like to point out that is only becuase CoV went live, anc most people are grinding out Villans.
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Why do masterminds in COV get their pets early in the game like around lvl 6 and in COH they have to wait until level 28 or later to get theirs?
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That's doubly incorrect. Masterminds get their pets starting at level 1 and at least one controller set gets their first pets at level 18.
The two classes are not equivalent. Controllers do not have the fine control over their pets that MM's do. Instead they have extensive control abilities that allow them to lock down and take several enemies out of the fight for periods of time. They also do better damage now even without pets. Masterminds have the lowest hitpoints in the whole game, their primary attack powers do pitiful damage and they are dependent on their pets for soaking up enemy damage that would normally kill them. Casting and equipping MM pets is an investment in time and endurance, and keeping them controlled and supported is often a full-time job.
50 Fire/Dev | 50 AR/Dev | 50 Ninjas/FF MM | 50 Bots/Dark | 50 Kin/Rad |
44 EM/Regen | 39 BS/Regen | 38 Kin/Elec | 27 Thugs/Pain
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i have a question why do other power sets that are 3 slotted with so's add up to 95% but deffence powers that are 3 slotted with so's only add up to 54% ? and are yall gonna fix this?
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Schedule B Enhancements (20%, 10%, 5%) are:
Range, Defense Buff, Resist Damage, To Hit Buff
These bonus types start to see reduction when the bonus is 40% or more, and a severe reduction at 60% bonus or greater. So your bonuses when slotting in multiples of the same Single-Origin Enhancement work out to:
1 SO: +20%
2 SO: +40%
3 SO: +56%
4 SO: +59%
5 SO: +62%
6 SO: +65%
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this is copied from the patch notes.
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Schedule B Enhancements (20%, 10%, 5%) are:
Range, Defense Buff, Resist Damage, To Hit Buff
These bonus types start to see reduction when the bonus is 40% or more, and a severe reduction at 60% bonus or greater. So your bonuses when slotting in multiples of the same Single-Origin Enhancement work out to:
1 SO: +20%
2 SO: +40%
3 SO: +56%
4 SO: +59%
5 SO: +62%
6 SO: +65%
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this is copied from the patch notes.
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sorry but if they are balancing every thing then why arent the enhancments balanced as well? Unfare nerfing.
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Devs I have 3 BIG issues that you need to address and as a beta tester I think you need to look real hard at this.
Issue #1>
Base costs are way out of controll and are very unfair to new players and new Super Groups. These must be cut by as much as 50%. So which of you group of DEVS are going to do this?
[/ QUOTE ]Agreed, Bases are very expensive, and while there are plenty of large SGs and VGs out there that have all the cool toys in them, many Groups are much smaller and are looking at months to get even the basically useful toys.
However, I believe it was the Devs intent to make things so expensive so I figure, in their eyes, it is something that is not broken. So, before one can ask "When will it be fixed?" We need to first establish "Is this being reviewed as something that may be fixed?"
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Issue #2>
This PvP in my opinion is killing the game. The server population on the hero side has been at an all time low. In the pass few weeks since COV release I have seen the daily pop numbers go from a few 1000 to just a few 100. Plus a lot of heroes are getting their butts kicked and are started to hate their heroes and leave the game. What in the world were you thinking when you do this?
[/ QUOTE ]Not sure I agree here. Hero numbers have dropped considerably, yes, but I really don't think it was PVP that did it. All the players in my SG that picked up CoV dont do PVP and almost never login any of their heroes. Myself included. I bet most of those who stopped CoH to play CoV were those who played CoH for over a year and want to experience the new content in CoV.
As for Heroes getting their butts kicked... I'm not sure about that either. Siren's call seems to have been under Hero control for a great deal longer then the Villains have had it. I have yet to see how the other zones are fairing. But I have to say if the Heroes own the zone more often then Villains, then it would have to be Villain butt that is recieving the most kicks.
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Issue #3
Why do masterminds in COV get their pets early in the game like around lvl 6 and in COH they have to wait until level 28 or later to get theirs?
[/ QUOTE ]Masterminds get their first pet at level 1, not 6.
There are no Masterminds in CoH. However I believe you are comparing them to Controllers.
Masterminds get their pets early because being a Mastermind is about pets and controlling those pets. Most of the power selections in a Mastermind's primary are pets, or some sort of enhancement or support for the pets.
Being a Controller is not about the pets. Getting the pets may be the reason a player chooses a Controller, but most of the Controller's primary is about directly affecting foes not pets.
"The one thing that can stop a full team of MasterMinds dead in its tracks... a doorway!" --Frogfather
I was recently told by a member of the support team that when a stalker is detected via perception powers that the stalker looses their innate ability to assasinate.
1. This is totally unfair to stalkers, to take away their innate ability of assasination and completely nullify all chances of landing a critical strike. Simply because the target has a perception power activated? Where is the justice in that? The ability to detect the stalker should not remove the ability to land a critical strike or even an assasin strike. Just because the victim knows that the stalker is there does not automatically mean that they are paying attention to avoid it.
2. If having perception automatically cancels out the stalkers innate ability to assasinate, to be fair, it should also cancel out ALL characters innate abilities. It should nullify a blasters defiance, a brutes fury, a scrappers ability to land critical strikes, etc....
3. Essentially this has handed everyone a very powerful 'I win' against stalkers in PvP.
The arbitor drones/police bots grand perception when you get close enough to them, but do they receive the perception themselves? Playing a villan, I have seen heroes standing in the base and I am able to see them, target them, and attack them, but the arbitor drones don't do anything. Playing as a stalker, I am able to walk past the police bots and not be attacked even once...
The 'protection bots' should be the only thing in the game that has an automatic 'I win' card. They should be able to detect anything/anyone no matter what powers are activated and also be able to hit anything on the first shot, no matter who it is, what powers are activated, or how many defense boosts are active. The 'protection bots' should always be a safe zone that can not be tricked by anyone.
I guess my question is ( if any devs see this), what do you think of this idea for the FUTURE of coh/cov. i do apologize this post is a bit long.
My ideas in this post here are to make better, the PvP in this game. I know PvP in this game is pretty new and there will probably be future adjustments to fine tune it more. Don't get me wrong, the PvP now is not broken or anything. I enjoy it much. These are a few ideas for the FUTURE of PvP. I suggest them to simply see what the devs think about them and nothing more.
These ideas have probably already been in mind and thought of before, but.....
In the Arena, simply have more options of what type of battle you want to do. Add options such as....
Capture the Flag
A match where you must claim command points and keep them under your control. The winner being decided by time or points etc.
Being attacked by swarms of npc's
A King of the Hill ( or base or something) type match,
among a few arena ideas
However, my main purpose of posting here was not about arena ideas. There is a different place to post those.
My purpose was to share an idea about the PvP in CoH/CoV in the future of the game.
Again, these ideas have probably already been thought of, but what the heck.
Now these ideas would only be able to occur when CoV has lvl 50. Hence, the FUTURE of the game
1. Simply add a 39-50 PvP zone. I never came up with an idea about what would be unique about this zone 
. One small idea i had was, also make this zone all on all, with one main command point in the middle which only 1 supergroup/villaingroup can control at a time. This allows 1 supergroup to have bragging rights and some bonus for controlling the heart of that zone. A supergroup king of the hill if you will
2. Add a lvl 50 ONLY PvP zone. And here is its thing......
First of all the zone would have to be huge. Like the size of Independence Port. In each corner (or 4 different spots) there is certain structures, command points if you will.
example: Area with abbadon warehouses, Area with a skyscrapper, Area with a bank, area with and underground complex.
In the beggining, all 4 of the areas are controlled by a neutral mob (skulls, troll, carnies, anything). There are main cores or points of these areas that can be claimed (somehow 
) so that one side (hero, villain, or npc's) can be in possesion of this area. While in possesion of these areas, heroes or villains will gain certain buffs.
example 2: while traveling through this large zone, you get to the area where the skyscrapper is. The one you can claim. On the outside of it is guarded by many spawns of mobs. Depending on who controls it at the time. If heroes control this area then there will always be spawns of friendly npc's to protect it from villains and other mobs. vice versa for villains, and if a random mob controls it, then it is guarded by that mob, but a lot more npc's since no players are actully defending it. Once you actully get into the building there are many floors, halls, rooms, tunnels, secret paths, stairways, elevators and enemys (npc's and players depending on who controls it ) to go through before reaching the core. Basically the piece to claim in order to control the area.
Similar if it were the bank or the underground complex instead. The safe of the bank could be the core etc.
Now at any point in time, any lvl 50 player can enter this zone and try to take over and claim for their side, one of these area's. Of course, if it is owned by npc's (not hero or villian) it is going to take a pretty big group to actully complete the task. 40 players kinda thing to actully beat all the creatures and claim the core. That is if a group of other players arent thinking the same thing. If a group of villains/heroes tries to raid an area under hero/villain control, they must get into the buidling or structure, find the core, claim it, and finish off any remaning opposing players or creatures to have ownership.
There will even be the odd time where heroes and villains are fighting it out when they all get swarmed by large groups of a random mob. Creating moments where both heroes and villains can all be wiped out, leaving the area to be claimed by a random mob. Now there's an epic battle.
If one of these areas is owned by hero or villian, buffs, temp. powers, or a bonus of some kind would be rewarded to that side while in that zone. Also, each player owned area would automatically be populated by a limited spawn of npc's so there is always some kind of protection there. But not so many that 1 maybe 2 full 8 man groups could claim the area if there were NO player opposition at all. This also gives the defending side a bit of time and a small chance to hurry over to that zone and area and help defend it. NO POLICE DRONES THOUGH.
Another added feature. If one area has not seen a lot of action of awhile or just on random occasions, large swarms of a random mob type will raid the area. This way, bases or area's or what ever you want to call them, will always be changing hands between heroes, villians and npc mobs.
If, at any point, an area under your sides control is under attack by anyone, all lvl 50 players will automatically have a message on the chat screen saying "bank or warehouse or sewers, are being attacked by The Heroes or The Villians, or The Skulls, or The Malta Group etc.
In the end, this creates and long lasting PvP 50 game with a constent non stop battle for ownership of 4 different areas within a HUGE zone while still keeping a long lasting PvE 50 game due random raids by random npc mobs.
So if any devs do read this. I would simply like to know your honest opinion on a idea such as this and nothing more.
Thanks 
I have been a CoH player for over a year, and recently updated to CoV as well. Received my bill, yesterday, and was billed for CoH and CoV separately. Apparently according to the guy at ncsoft I had set up two seperate accounts instead of updating the CoH account. It also appears that I am not the only one, that this has happened to many others. The only two solutions available are either pay for and maintain two seperate accounts (Why when I only have 7 characters at present between the two games), or close out the CoV account, and start a new one with another key as an upgrade to my CoH account (Loosing a month of game play to get my brute up to level 24, where she is now, which would be totally unacceptable). For the people who have run into this update problem, resulting from upgrading to CoV from the pre-order to the DVD box set version, there needs to be a method of performing a one time only transfer of the villains from the CoV account to their CoH account, updating that account in the process, then cancelling the CoV account. failure to do this means that people who have spent a month of playing CoV in good faith, have had all of their efforts totally wasted, or are being penalized by double billing. Both options are unacceptable, and a method of rectifying this problem with no loss of blood to the player (Customer) needs to be developed, and implimented in the very near future (within the next month). Until this gets answered, I cannot adventure with any CoV characters at all, for fear they will have to be deleted, and I will loose any more investment in time placed in them, and if I do loose what I have already spent (a month of game time wasted is a major investment), then committment to customer satisfaction, and retention could be called into question (You have always done well in that capacity in the past, I hope you maintain that reputation.) Please make sure this problem gets addressed, and resolved in a fashion which will satisfy us loyal heroes and villains.
Did u do something to accuracy with I6, i have notice ever since I6 went live that more and more i miss. i have missed a -2 minion with my lvl 24 blaster using aim/buildup/snipe. on a -2 minion i should never miss. especialy since my snipe has a SO(25) accuarcy enhancement and both aim/build up have DO(25) ToHitt buff enhancements. there just seems to be something seriously wrong with accuracy in the both CoH and CoV. i have missed more in the month since I6 went live than i have for the whole rest of the time i have been playing CoH (started playing at realse)
well you should STILL miss 1 in 20 times, regardless of your ACC bonus.
It's all a change game, even a lvl 50 can miss a lvl 1 10 times in a row, but is extremely unlikely.
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Yeah, I gotta question.
What is the purpose of Fire Tankers? What do they do that no other set can do?
[/ QUOTE ]? You might need to be a little more specific. Fire tanks can tank, but so can all other tanks. Fire tanks can deal damage, but so can all other tanks, scrappers, blasters, etc. Fire tanks do what other tanks and damage dealers do.
Fire tanks deal a little more damage then other tanks, but the trade off is, they are squishier then other tanks. To compensate as best as possible for this it is in a fire tank's best interest to pick up tough and weave from the fighting pool and to counter against knockback Acrobatics from the Leaping pool.
When they have all that with their damage resist from their primary, fire tanks can tank well, and dish out the damage.
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And dish out the damage with what skills? Secondary. Tertiary. That's not the question. The question pertains to Fire Tanking and only Fire Tanking. Not Fire/Ice/Fighting/Whatever else.
Exactly.
Again...
What is the purpose of Fire Tankers? What can a fire tanker do that no other can? List.
- Boost up the power of Fiery Aura.
- Ressurect themselves.
- Scare guys away without the ability to taunt them back.
That's an amazing set for the purpose of "tanking". I don't care that the developers wanted to kill an offensive skill. I'm more distrubed by the fact they wanted to kill an offensive set by trashing the stronger 1 of 2 offensive skills they had.
Maybe they can just trash Personal Force Field.