I suppose the biggest question in my mind that has been brought to the fore of my mind by I5 is the the seeming abondonment of the primary/secondary/pool categorization, especially with regards to Defenders.
Why are Defender secondary powers so much less effective relative to the secondary powers of other archtypes (much lower primary effectiveness, i.e. damage) as well as additional endurance cost?
Why are some Defender primary powers at secondary strength (or lower) relative to equivalent powers in other archtypes (Dark, Trick Arrow, and Storm)?
Defenders aren't the only ones with this issue, just the most obvious. Cloak of Darkness and Cloaking Device should be pretty similar (both are secondary powers), but Cloak of Darkness is much better because it's in a "defensive" power set.
Still scouring the boards for other issues?
Well. On my Defender there's this bug. My Secondary seems to be reduced to about 60% effectiveness of the Blaster equivalent -65% damage at 110% to 125% with cosmetic bonuses to Secondary Effects that don't really show outside of certain powers- where all other Secondaries function at 75%.
I understand that there's an irrational fear of Defenders outdamaging Blasters. But could we at least get the bloody End costs adjusted appropriately? Either that, or alternatively can you change the Defender description to 'dont blast just heal n00b' so that any future Defender players finally understand that they're not supposed to use their Secondary? Cause my skull's too thick for it to sink in.
On a slightly less serious note: The bug of certain Secondary powers working as efficiently as the Primary versions has been around forever. Powers I'm aware of that this applies to:
Defender/Electrical Blast/Voltaic Sentinel: Defender version does as much damage as Blaster version.
Controller/Storm Summoning/Snow Storm: Controller version actually has a stronger -Recharge than Defender version (but less -Speed).
Controller/Storm Summoning/Freezing Rain: Controller version actually has a stronger -Resistance than Defender version (but less -Speed).
Controller/Storm Summoning/Tornado: Controller version does as much damage as Defender version.
Controller/Storm Summoning/Lightning Storm: Controller version does as much damage as Defender version.
And those are only the ones that can be numerically proven. Note that all of the powers that have damage number issues I understand to be untargetable summoned entities, likewise Freezing Rain. Freezing Rain and Snow Storm seem to be bugged implementations as the Defender version is 80% of the Controller version.
This is by no means a complete listing. I understand the issue also exists with several powers in the Force Field line and has been mentioned time and time again. But it's still there as recent tests show. And it really adds a bitter aftertaste to hits Defender powers have taken in I5 for being 'too Controllery'.
If you want to absolutely balance the game, then by all means balance it. However, I honestly think this might require more than just playing with numbers but rather an overhaul of Blaster, Defender and Controller Secondaries. Which is very likely to be impossible at this stage. Or abandon all pretense of balance.
"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Put me down for Strongly Dis-satisified. The gloabal defense changes are enought to make me cry. Low level tanks are now much less than skankers. The best we can hope for is average if we get just the right powers and slot just right?
Take your rose colored glasses off for a moment and look over at the tanker forum. 
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For instance, there are issues with Defense builds; were going to look at that problem more carefully (the Damage Resistance Inspirations are a step, but there's a little more to come).
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Still with the resistance inspirations help defense builds.
Could you explain how these are going to benefit defense builds more than they will people who already have resistances? Preferably with math.
I5 is great! I've lost 2 entire Super Groups! Only 1 of the 20+ people in my friends list have logged in since it live! My tank is now a cripple and Defiance has done zilch to help my blaster in the mid 40s. When I play my regen scrapper I have to spend more time looking at his HPs and Powers bar than the mobs I'm fighting and my SR scrapper gets his beatdown every mission he tries to solo. New power sets play almost identical to exsisting ones and the new zone is as booring as all the other already under-used zones in the game.
Woot for I5!!!
I abhor I5. It's destroyed my SG and my server is a ghost town. Woe is me.
Very dissatisfied with I5.
Please re-evaluate what the purpose of the game is. Also please cease trying to tell us when we're having fun. I know myself well enough to know what I find fun. I found the game fun enough before I5. I5 only served to reduce my fun, contrary to the claims that it would, in fact, increase it.
Please re-evaluate the changes that Tankers suffered. They no longer fit that job description. Also please re-evaluate Controllers' role and whether or not they're supposed to be the current Defender/Blaster hybrid rather than someone who does what their job description says they do; namely, control.
And I know it's supposed to be a dead issue, but please re-evaluate (and remove) Suppression from the game. It still causes frustration and feels like a bug instead of a feature of the game.
The free Memorial Day week brought me back for a month, but it certainly won't keep me. The fun doesn't last any more.
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
- Thomas Jefferson
Great that I5 went out nicely...too bad that only the release itself was stable and smooth...the game itself has become infinitely more unstable (sound loop crash, buggy new mission types, and extreme lag/frequent LCtMS). I honestly thought I4 was a lot smoother and less bug-ridden.
How I5 affected me?
One of my friends left. (one less person is a big thing in our community)
One of my friends deleted a toon that now had a pretty much entirely worthless secondary (FF)
My blaster is just as sickeningly deadly as before...and just as easily killable. PhaseShift went bye-bye since its fun factor was gone. Defiance? What's that? I'm either green or dead.
My earth controller solos a lot more slowly than before (EF nerf and limited number of very slow and stupid pets) but just as safely and easily. She still has complete lockdown in some form or another. She did require a lot of reslotting though.
My empath...well, she still can't do anything solo and this supposed upcoming inherent only helps her on teams.
My lowbie invul went bye bye....never really liked her anyways, I5 just cemented it.
My MA/regenner never tasted the sweet nectar that was IH...so she's still around for the time being.
Archery is a cool concept...the end usage is stupidly high though. Haven't really tried/seen higher level Trick Arrow yet...and only a few of the regular Archery attacks.
Sonic attacks are quite cool, big thumbs up.
Sonic buffs...please keep them away from me until they get fixed...evil headache causing annoyances.
Croatoa...haven't really seen too much (my only toon in range is my un-soloable empath).
TF is great, but anti-climactic. The mission with Mary Macomber is great...my heart was pounding and it was tons of fun. The rest of the TF was almost too quick. If Mary wasn't so buggy right now, I'd say that should be moved to the end, just because it is such a great battle. Can't wait to get one of my lowbie toons up to range.
The 'monster battle' spawn is quite excellent and I have heard about Eochi popping up and scaring people in other parts of the map...very cool.
Sally...extreme thumbs down. Stupidly rare. Another monster to be jealously guarded (ala Kraken) because of how fast she goes down. There's a lot wrong with her right now.
Having just rolled a PB...I will agree with whoever posted that human form end costs need to be looked at. That and recharge times forced me into Nova when I had hoped to just build a human-dwarf rather than tri-form (to be at least a little different). Hell, the end costs on a lot of powers across the board need to be looked at....
I5 is very much a wash...some improvements, some negatives. I still feel it was too rushed....considering how buggy it was at release and that many of the bugs are carry-overs from Test.
Dev response threads...could have really benefitted from Dev responses, if only for Cuppa's sanity. Treating us like adults and being up-front and honest about things would have been even better.
"A good Defender is the battle hardened Corpsman who will kill a Nazi with a tongue depressor while putting a splint on your leg, then hand you a fresh clip of ammo." ~Jock_Thompson
Repeat Offenders, TNT Profile, My little hero
Sweet
Now can we get the old costumes back?
I5:
Going further away from everything the critics raved about when the game was introduced and turning it further into just nother MMO. Gone is the feel that you are a super hero. You're the Justice League Irregulars.
Croatoa doesn't have the feel of a zone FOR a Superhero game..it feels like it belongs in WoW or EQ. Archery set moved it further towards EQ in tights with the newly sprouted numbers of Elven Archers.
A few changes in operation had made my main survivable, but he is no longer what I feel like an endgame character should be.
Stability: There was a little more rubberbanding when the original patch came out, on my machine, but it was manageable. The new stability patch has totally screwed up my game now..if I play more than 1 hr at a time, I can enter PI or PP and immediately start rubberbanding to the point where I cannot even move, messages take about 30 seconds to go on and eventually I die or get a permanent Map DC, at which the only way I can restart and connect to the DB server is a total system reboot and which, after an hour, it starts all over again. I repeat...this all started with your stability patch, not the I5 patch.
Basically, the game play is no longer the reason I play the game any more because you have sapped almost all the fun out of it, but the people that are in it with me, of which, between the losses to COV Beta (don't let me go there..) and the losses due to the attrition caused by the last few issues overnerfage, I have lost over 1/2 the people I played my main's way to 50 with.
This is your idea of fun. Not mine, seemingly not the majority of those that post on the forums that I have seen, and not quite a few of the players I interact with on a day to day basis. They rush through the Croatoa stuff to get the badges and get it over with and then never bother with it again. They stop using their tankers, for the most part. Most don't bother with the arenas and were extremely unhappy when the PVP nerfs started leaking over to PVE in their impression. Basically, from what I've seen, you've sacrificed a large portion of your current base's satisfaction for a possible future audience. That may not appear too constructive, but basically I pointed out the problems I see and the ongoing problems, which is the best I can do. It's up to the developer team to find the solutions.
What about all of us Regens you've finally driven the nail through our hearts for uh.. What is it.. The 4-5th time? Please say you're going to make IH back into a toggle and not the bad clickie... Otherwise, please rename Regen to Degen to make it more appropriate.
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What about all of us Regens you've finally driven the nail through our hearts for uh.. What is it.. The 4-5th time? Please say you're going to make IH back into a toggle and not the bad clickie...
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Silly. Regeneration is the set that's going to get a tweak every issue.
Why? Because you'll just regenerate again and be good as new!
This is the balance vision!
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We didn't see any response to the Phase Shift change (which is now considered a worthless power).
Any responses to all the suggestions on the dev thread?
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I doubt it. Sorta like the ignored the thousands of Regen posts cause once again.. The players who play the game and use the powers have NO idea what fun is. We wouldn't know fun if we thought we were having fun. Only Statesman knows what fun is, and if he says something is not fun even when we think it is, it must not be fun so he'll tell us how to start having fun even if to us it seems like less fun. Makes sense, right? 
You did some good things in I5.
Unfortunately the very bad things overshadow them.
1) Invuln tanks were gutted, what possible reason is there to play one when both Fire and Stone are more Invulnerable than Invulnerable Tanks?
2) Burn was the defining power of the Tank Fire Primary and it was nerfed into uselessness. Damage nerf was fair, Endurance use nerf was fair, # of targets it can hit nerf was fair, recharge nerf was too much and the AI change to force enemies to flee was one of the singular worst decisions you've ever made regarding a power.
3) Defiance for Blasters waits far, far too long to kick in and have any effect. Other than low level Blasters, it's meaningless. You've had this feedback from the first day players saw Defiance, I'm baffled that it went in unchanged.
Statesman,
While I am happy with the performance of Tanker Invulnerability after level 18 (Invincibility), I am not happy with the feel of it. Fire Armor and Kheldian Dwarves have the Invulnerable feel, despite the fact that they both underperform Invulnerability, survival wise, in most situations.
This is due to the fact that Invulnerability has such low non-Smashing/Lethal resistance, and such high +def from Invincibility. When I play my Invuln Tanker in Croatoa against the Fir-Bolg, 90% of her survival comes from Invincibility and Dull Pain, which makes her feel like some kind of weird cross between Super Reflexes and Regeneration in style. It just doesn't feel right.
Invulnerability is one of the most famous of comic book powers. Invulnerable heroes gain the ability to take hits and shrug them off, not dodge or heal them. I really wish you would consider trading Invincibility effectiveness for more effective non-Smashing/Lethal resistance. If you feel we are at the right level of survivability, I don't see anything wrong with trading where that survivability comes from. It would also be nice to have slots in our passives provide something meaningful.
Also, Defiance is also really, really worthless. I've never had the bar above 20% on my blaster. Containment, on the other hand, is fantastic. I'm really enjoying my new Gravity Controller (thanks for the animation reductions).
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Legacy of a Rogue (ID 459586, Entry for Dr. Aeon's Third Challenge)
Death for Dollars! (ID 1050)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare (ID 1218)
Win the Past, Own the Future (ID 1429)
Excellent post Darth. My Regen, the toon I started out with in prerelease and played and played and played cause I loved him so much is basically retired now too. He hit 50 two summers ago and I was playing him up until I4 all the time. When I4 came about, I left CoH for about a month and half after the previous times I was on daily. I4 put a bad taste in my mouth.
Then came I5.... Let's just say I've never spent so much time yelling at people in messages as I have on here about so many of the nerfs. Being constantly lied to, over and over and being given lines of BS was just done in very bad taste. I think anyone can see the community pretty much has lost a lot of faith in the devs after I5.
I don't like being lied to. I don't like being treated like I have no idea what I'm talking about, and I definately don't like having someone tell me what is fun, and what isn't fun contrary to what I've said is fun for me and what is not fun for me. My SG pretty much has disappeared. We're talking about a bunch of 50s who said "enough is enough". Doesn't seem important to the devs that the long paying customers leave because they think they'll just attract more with freebie offers all the time. Maybe the devs just can't think of any good end game content for 50s, so they figure they might as well make us miserable so we leave so they don't have to create any.
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What about all of us Regens you've finally driven the nail through our hearts for uh.. What is it.. The 4-5th time? Please say you're going to make IH back into a toggle and not the bad clickie...
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Silly. Regeneration is the set that's going to get a tweak every issue.
Why? Because you'll just regenerate again and be good as new!
This is the balance vision!
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All these nerfs have made me evil... See CoV.
I have very little to say here that hasn't already been said.
I5 is not fun, and I haven't felt like logging in since the first time I did after it was released. I did the Croatoa TF, got a witch hat, said "Oh, that's cool," got a screenshot, and logged out.
I am not enjoying the game. I haven't even experienced the instability I've been hearing about because I HAVE NOT FELT THE DESIRE TO LOG IN.
Dame Silverwing (50 Kat/SR Scrapper) Virtue
Professor Bikini (50 Bots/Dark MM) Virtue
Dame Silver Fury (41 Peacebringer) Virtue
Operative Velvet (50 Fortunata) Virtue
Petal Dancer (35 Plant/Kin Contoller) Virtue
Tanegashima (Rapidly levelling DP/Ice Blaster) Virtue
(and more)
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Second, were still scouring the boards for bugs and other issues,
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Stealth EF nerf. No apology. You have zero credibility as far as I am concerned.
You say your happy, well I don't know if I should trust that. You haven't exactly shown yourselves to actually know what you are talking about or for that matter to be forthright in your comments.
Think I am being harsh? What would you think of someone who says "Thanks for all the help" out of one side of their mouths and then says "This claim has come in since Issue 2. Rechecked. Still not true." out of the other. Then that same person ignores the issue for a month. Then posts that the change was intentional. Why should the players trust anything you say when you don't have the moral integrity to at least apologize to Erratic.
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What about all of us Regens you've finally driven the nail through our hearts for uh.. What is it.. The 4-5th time? Please say you're going to make IH back into a toggle and not the bad clickie...
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Silly. Regeneration is the set that's going to get a tweak every issue.
Why? Because you'll just regenerate again and be good as new!
This is the balance vision!
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All these nerfs have made me evil... See CoV.
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Yes! Take the CoV version of /Regen! They removed QR! That's just what they want everyone to do! Then they'll take out QR from /Regen stating it's unneeded, as yet another tweak!
You're playing right into the balance vision, my friend! Don't go quietly into that night of equilibrium!
Okay, the good with the bad...
1. My primary, the ill/emp controller, runs his pets better than ever. I don't fire off phantasms without thinking, and I treat them as another party member (albeit a sometimes hard-to-find and awfully foolish one). My phantom army isn't just a pocket tanker arsenal, it's a vicious opener to a combat. I miss throwing down my spectral terrors all over, but I can deal. My pets aren't fire-and-forget - they're strategic, and especially with the phantasms, the exchange of numbers for longetivity was well-balanced.
2. Flash was a PBAoE, so I could only ever use it when I was in the thick of combat. It was never terribly accurate, and aside from covering an overspawn or an escape, it was really only ever useful in tandem with blind to keep bigger guys down. I5 reduced the number of people it affects, slowed its recharge, and dropped its hold time. With it so heavily marginalized, I don't see it as worth buying, much less slotting to effectiveness. Down flash, my control is limited to the single-target blinds and deceives, and the uncontrolled effects of my pets. There are blasters with more mez powers than an illusion controller, and containment sometimes pushes me into blaster damage range. I'm not saying that illusionists need to be stronger - we're plenty good already - but I'd rather be able to deal hard control than dish out more damage to foes that aren't a threat for the moment.
3. The bulk of the new events are fun. The rave may need a little work (my team and I milked it for both badges on the second encounter), but Eochai vs. Jack and especially the Hellion arson attacks were rock-solid. Putting out the fires felt like a desperate scrambling of heroes, like the giant monsters but protecting something instead of attacking someone. It felt heroic. Props.
4. The exception to this is... exceptionally bad. It's not that Sally's badge requires more kills and is necessary for an accolade. It's not that Sally's apparently rarer than any other spawn I'm aware of. It's not that Sally's one-shotted and attacked by mob spawns. It's that all of this happens on the most boring rare spawn in the game. Sally swims, and that's it! She's not worth the griefing, the days of fruitless searching, the pro/anti-Sally debates, none of it. I like the idea of a lake monster, it fits the zone and the game, but the implementation is just outright dreadful. I understand that we have to "see" her on a few times before we really turn into "Believers", but as cool as that might be in real life, in a game it takes a dull event and makes it excruciating. I won't pretend that finding an alternative is easy, but I don't understand why this event got through as it is. The modicum of flavoring given to her isn't enough to hide that she represents the implementation of spawn-camping.
5. I like the mission changes. One of my khelds got offed twice by a hidden void in one mission - by mission's end, I was out of debt. My level 50 went on an AV mission as part of a six-man team, and earned over a million influence by the end (I was disconnected before mission completion). I don't really dread "bad" missions anymore, and the ones I'm good at, I'm enjoying even more.
6. Okay, the big one... I agree with an above poster that fun isn't something that can be dictated. The players on this forum, though a minority, are not remotely quiet about how we feel. If something's not fun, you'll hear no end of it. This is especially true if some major problems are getting passed over for something that, however necessary, isn't being complained about. It's also worth remembering that sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease - yes, it may suck that someone who dealt 1 damage to a giant monster could get the badge and experience off it, but it's worse when someone's team does 24% of the monster's life and doesn't get anything to show for it.
I'm not crying doom, nor am I falling to my knees in supplication. I5's got some great stuff, don't get me wrong, but the misses are pretty harsh. Still, I can't argue that I care about I5, whereas I4 was barely a blip on the radar.
Well, I can't say I'm 100% happy with I5, in particular I still cannot for the life of me understand why burn was neutered, yes not just nerfed, neutered. And don't get me even started on supression (not exactly I5 issue but I'm still pissed about it). Nevertheless, majority of the changes are great - Croatoa and all the new mobs that come with it, as well as the pet changes, and some other things. I do hope that you guys are done with the nerfing, I don't think any ATs can take any more of it.
Two issues have poped up in I5 that im not happy with.
The first problem is the change to Invulneribility is way out of proportion. if its not smashing/lethal damage coming at you, then you are going to drop...FAST. Fire, and Stone(post granit) do not have this problem, becuause thier Energy, Neg. Energy, Fire and cold(save fire) resists are more than double what INV.
unless the element/energy resist are brought up to 50-60%, Inv will not be as good as tanking as the Fire and stone.
Second problem, the stealth nerf (there is no other word for it) to Enervating field. Frankly, your team owes an apology to the players who spent countless time checking and rechecking their numbers to make sure they were right, and for months, your team told them they were wrong.
Those are my issues with I5.
Despite my trepidations going in to I5, I'd say I'm very happy with the AT changes and the new powersets. This is I3 level of goodness (I like to pretend I4 didn't happen).
Overall, I look at I5 as a mostly painful process that needed doing. Sucks when it happens, but:
1) letting things go would probably be worse in the long term, and
2) most folks wouldn't have minded if things were like this right from the start.
I do hope that those who are unhappy with the changes give the game a month or so before deciding to bail. I was pretty leery of a lot of the changes, but thus far I haven't noticed anything horribly dramatic.
Of course I don't play one of the specific builds that got a lot of, erm, "negative attention," so take that for what it's worth...
I am mildly disappointed that some of the now-locked Developer Response threads didn't get a developer response. I realize there were a horde of such threads and having an ongoing dialogue on all the issues would be unrealistic... but certain changes seemed large enough to warrant some additional attention. In particular I thought that the Phase Shift change came in rather late in the I5 cycle and was a fairly dramatic change to the power. I'd hoped to hear more about the rationale for the current solution and why it was a better approach than some of the player-proposed solutions.
I hope Croatoa is fun and I look forward to experiencing it with my up-and-coming characters.
Back to the game for me... as soon as I get home from work, dangit.