101,888 EXP in a single kill -- Can you top it?
By
Alannon,
Posted on: 2007-01-27 16:36 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I would do it too Ultimus, but 2-3 mins is too long 
If I can't complete something in less than 2 min then the game crashes and I have to start over again 
Na I'm just kidding it's more like 5-7 mins between crashes usually, but you still have to get to the end of the mish so I don't think I have enough time to do anything other than blitz paper mish's.
Frosticus
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The rest of this is expansion upon a flawed premise: that 3:1 is a cap, and this evidence shows it to be broken. These items you point out simply mean that the difficulty slider is there to allow players who can and wish to do so to attempt more difficult missions.
The point, however, that AVs have been stated by the Devs to be team-based content still stands. They simply dont have an issue with people being able to solo them occasionally.
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I respectfully disagree. I see it this way, and it should be noted that some of the below is my guesses.
1) The devs like AVs pretty close to the way they are.
2) The devs *cannot* make a statement that AVs are soloable with enough planning and prep time, because no matter how hard she tries, my wife will not be able to solo one. She's very new to gaming and the skill level just isn't there. If the devs said they were soloable with enough planning, it would frustrate her, and other customers as well.
3) The devs can't make statements like, "If you're good enough, prepared enough, and patient enough, you can do it," because of the problems listed in 2. But they're all thinking it.
4) (this is the most relevant point) The devs put in a feature that downgrades AVs based on difficulty and team size. It didn't used to be there and it is now. When they put it in, they made a deliberate choice to make AVs spawn when you're solo on invincible. If they really didn't want you soloing them, they wouldn't have done that. The only other possibilities are that they are stupid or that they want to inconvenience you by making you downgrade or get a team at the end of each arc.
So, have the devs stated that AVs are team content? Sure. Do they really mean it? I don't think they completely do. I think that statement panders to my wife and those like her who don't want to feel like they should be able to do it.
- J
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We're actually agreeing here, as that's what I'm saying.
The line on AVs is that they're team content. That's the intent. They don't want the average player soloing them.
They aren't, however, overly concerned that some players under specific circumstances can solo them.
I would hazard to guess that they keep an eye on what builds and powersets are doing it, and how often, though. 
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The rest of this is expansion upon a flawed premise: that 3:1 is a cap, and this evidence shows it to be broken. These items you point out simply mean that the difficulty slider is there to allow players who can and wish to do so to attempt more difficult missions.
The point, however, that AVs have been stated by the Devs to be team-based content still stands. They simply dont have an issue with people being able to solo them occasionally.
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I respectfully disagree. I see it this way, and it should be noted that some of the below is my guesses.
1) The devs like AVs pretty close to the way they are.
2) The devs *cannot* make a statement that AVs are soloable with enough planning and prep time, because no matter how hard she tries, my wife will not be able to solo one. She's very new to gaming and the skill level just isn't there. If the devs said they were soloable with enough planning, it would frustrate her, and other customers as well.
3) The devs can't make statements like, "If you're good enough, prepared enough, and patient enough, you can do it," because of the problems listed in 2. But they're all thinking it.
4) (this is the most relevant point) The devs put in a feature that downgrades AVs based on difficulty and team size. It didn't used to be there and it is now. When they put it in, they made a deliberate choice to make AVs spawn when you're solo on invincible. If they really didn't want you soloing them, they wouldn't have done that. The only other possibilities are that they are stupid or that they want to inconvenience you by making you downgrade or get a team at the end of each arc.
So, have the devs stated that AVs are team content? Sure. Do they really mean it? I don't think they completely do. I think that statement panders to my wife and those like her who don't want to feel like they should be able to do it.
- J
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We're actually agreeing here, as that's what I'm saying.
The line on AVs is that they're team content. That's the intent. They don't want the average player soloing them.
They aren't, however, overly concerned that some players under specific circumstances can solo them.
I would hazard to guess that they keep an eye on what builds and powersets are doing it, and how often, though.
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Sweet. We agree.
.... can I have some Foo IOs? I hear they'll help me solo AVs.
- J
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What temporary powers did you use? When I took down Ghost Widow it was under 2 minutes.
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Who needs temporary powers ... I soloed her with Brawl and Mutagen, in 30 seconds.
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You know what your bragging about soloing AVs and such is going to get dontcha? A big fat ol' nerfing.
Seriously.
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Agreed! You're just askin' for a nerfin', here.
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You obviously haven't learned the first rule of AV soloing club. Don't talk about AV soloing club.
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*Snicker*
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4) (this is the most relevant point) The devs put in a feature that downgrades AVs based on difficulty and team size. It didn't used to be there and it is now. When they put it in, they made a deliberate choice to make AVs spawn when you're solo on invincible. If they really didn't want you soloing them, they wouldn't have done that. The only other possibilities are that they are stupid or that they want to inconvenience you by making you downgrade or get a team at the end of each arc.
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What some might see as the inconvenience might be seen as the whole purpose of the existence of Archvillains to others. You're dismissing that possibility because you only see it as an inconvenience, but creating the requirement to gather a team to defeat them might be the whole reason for the existence of Archvillains. Not everyone finds gathering a team to take on something a burden.
They don't spawn at all difficulty levels so that teaming isn't forced. They spawn at the highest level as a compromise solution to give players the ability to decide if they want to solo them as an EB, or gather a team for them as an AV. The fact that it allows some people to set for invincible and then attempt to solo them might be an inintended side effect.
Keep in mind, the devs designed giant monsters the same way and said so explicitly: they are designed to require players to assemble teams to take them down. And furthermore, because of health and regeneration, giant monsters are not soloable in the same way AVs are, so there is no appeal to the sense that the devs intend us to solo them, but just don't want to say so. They are telling the truth for GMs, so there's no reason to disbelieve their expressed intent for AVs. Archvillains are just the instanced mission version of the same content, on a smaller scale.
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I hear lots of people going on about how the devs do not want people soloing AVs. This is true to the extent that they don't want *everyone* to be able to solo AVs without trying, but really, *look* at the damn game mechanics. Look at how difficulty levels work. Let's examine the following facts:
1) The devs know that some players solo AVs. They do. Clearly. They also know some folks like it.
2) Up until a little while ago, the devs clung to their "1 hero = 3 white minions" mantra. This was blatantly untrue before ED and still is today. Why did they cling to it? Did they just not know that someone with decent skills could handle four white minions? Or are they catering to the lowest common denominator with that statement?
3) If you set your difficulty to relentless/invincible and solo, you will get AVs. Not EBs.
Now then: Which is more likely?
1) The devs forgot that setting the "required heroes to spawn AV" counter to 1 for invincible would force people to solo them.
2) The devs want soloers to never use invincible.
3) The devs want soloers to have to change their difficulty one notch down at the end of virtually every story arc from 35 on.
4) The devs know damn well that some folks can and like to solo AVs, and know that if you factor in all the time it takes to get the temp powers and take the guy down the xp/time ratio is such that it's not a PLable thing. Therefore, they left in the option, while saying that they aren't technically supposed to be soloable to make sure they don't set people in the mindset that everyone should be able to handle it.
AVs are soloable and the devs know it. And if they change the temp powers, the AVs will still be soloable by certain builds using certain tactics and other, different temp powers.
Leave the Shivans and nukes as they are. They're a great example of "fun" farming (as opposed to riding around picking flowers for and hour to make fire resist potions) that provides a kind release from the static mission formula. Making them worthless would effectively kill this activity.
- J
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I'm going to have to agree with all of this. Back when Ultimus' thread first popped up in the Tanker forums, it was met with a lot of mixed feelings. Some said he was nerf-herding, but he insisted he just wanted to share his accomplishments with everyone (to "prove how strong I am" I believe was his motive).
Before I passed judgement on his actions/motives, I decided to try to take down an AV on two of my tankers. Both of my tankers were able to take down AV's (though they were just Battle Maiden and Bobcat, smashing/lethal specialists) with the aid of temp powers. I received 1000 prestige for my efforts both times. When you look at the time it took to acquire the temp powers, and the time it took to fight the AV, the reward didn't nearly come close to the time invested. You can easily stealth two Newspaper/Safeguard missions on Relentless/Invincible and receive the same (or greater) amount of prestige. My AV fights lasted between 10-15 minutes, so the reward Vs. time equation definitely wasn't violated.
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What temporary powers did you use? When I took down Ghost Widow it was under 2 minutes.
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Just curious, can it be done hero side with anything but a Scrapper? Everything else would seem to be either too squishy or too low damage output.
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Just curious, can it be done hero side with anything but a Scrapper? Everything else would seem to be either too squishy or too low damage output.
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Ultimus has defeated AVs on his tank. Fire/Fire I believe, though that could be his brute I am thinking about.
I'm pretty sure that was his Brute, based on the screenshot at the beginning of this thread, if that's what you mean. A Brute has a far higher damage output than a Tank does.
Yup, the Fire/Fire was his brute. He used a Stone/SS Tank it looks like. I just quickly looked up his old tank thread.
=. .=
Wow, how could a Tank get the damage to overcome an AV solo? Does this mean Defenders, Blasters and Controllers could solo AVs as well? Blasters I can't imagine though... no status protection, no defenses (unless you took Force Mastery, but even still...), I can't picture them staying up long enough to do it. I suppose it may depend on the AV, but GW would probably chew up and spit Blasters out.
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Wow, how could a Tank get the damage to overcome an AV solo? Does this mean Defenders, Blasters and Controllers could solo AVs as well? Blasters I can't imagine though... no status protection, no defenses (unless you took Force Mastery, but even still...), I can't picture them staying up long enough to do it. I suppose it may depend on the AV, but GW would probably chew up and spit Blasters out.
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Blaster + full tray of purples + Shivan + nukes = Dead AV?
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
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Ever since the last time I got into one of these discussions, I've been trying to stay out of it, but I just don't learn.
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I know how you feel. Really.
Just so you know, that post wasn't there to promote the idea of making the temp powers PvP only. It was there to explain to Arcanaville why most people suggest that, because I don't believe her assumptions to be correct at all.
I agree with your observation that Shivans aren't used in PvP very often, though I'm not sure that it is because they are worthless in it-- I think they may not be used because they are *more* useful in PvE, so people save them for that. However, my opinion isn't particularly strong on that topic, so I'd say that if they were made PvP only, they should be examined to see if they need to be given mastermind-like controls or something else to make them more useful in it.
Regardless of their effectiveness in PvP, my point wasn't that *they* make PvP more interesting, but that the act of getting them does. It's the "game" of Bloody Bay, like Hotspots and bounties are in Siren's. It just happens to be that Siren's Call's game is *far* more fun, despite SOs not really being all that great of a reward.
I'm almost getting into another topic here (what makes PvP more desirable, rewards or fun gameplay?), and I don't really want to start *another* subthread, so I'll stop there.
I don't like suggestions that make content useless either. I'm not actually making that suggestion, though, just explaining the more likely thought process behind it.
I'm not interested in debating which group counts more than which other group. I said what I did because Arcanaville objected to the idea that one group counts less than another, and I was trying to show that this is actually one of the same problems that her opponent group has. Obviously some groups count more than others: those who comprise the larger portion of the playerbase (or perspective playerbase), and therefore deliver a larger return on investment are going to be more important.
I wasn't objecting to the idea that some people are more important than others when considering changes to the game, I just wanted to show her how her theories look from the other side of the fence: exactly as she thinks things look on their side from her side.
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Here it comes.....
Ready for it? Say it with me now!
Bull.
I hear lots of people going on about how the devs do not want people soloing AVs.
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The devs specifically said they don't want anyone soloing AVs, multiple times. AVs on Invincible, if I remember correctly, were added because people complained about not being able to even try. That the *attempt* was important to them.
Anyway, it looks like the devs may have decided that using PvP temp powers is an exception they will allow. They haven't specifically said that though, so Ultimus' threads got people pretty worried. I think Castle's second post has calmed them down, for now at least.
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In PvP, the unit of combat is the engagement: PvP has to be balanced within that shorter time frame.
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I agree, but it's also important to note that PvP requires any "rewards" to be beneficial in a shorter time frame as well, or they are not very useful.
I think the Warburg Nukes are good for PvP-- you can only carry 3 total (one of each type), and they have an immediate and significant benefit. They take time to get, but can really turn the tide of a single team vs team PvP fight. It may be that the time requirement would need to be lowered if they were PvP only (again, I'm not advocating this right now, just analyzing it) by making them require two codes instead of 3, but I think the powers themselves are spot on for PvP play.
Shivans... not so much.
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Wow, how could a Tank get the damage to overcome an AV solo? Does this mean Defenders, Blasters and Controllers could solo AVs as well? Blasters I can't imagine though... no status protection, no defenses (unless you took Force Mastery, but even still...), I can't picture them staying up long enough to do it. I suppose it may depend on the AV, but GW would probably chew up and spit Blasters out.
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Blaster + full tray of purples + Shivan + nukes = Dead AV?
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Just purples? How will that keep him alive? Blaster = no defenses.
...and what about the other ATs? How's a Troller or a Defender going to take one down with such a low damage cap?
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Just curious, can it be done hero side with anything but a Scrapper? Everything else would seem to be either too squishy or too low damage output.
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Ultimus has defeated AVs on his tank. Fire/Fire I believe, though that could be his brute I am thinking about.
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My Tank is Stone/Super Strength
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Wow, how could a Tank get the damage to overcome an AV solo? Does this mean Defenders, Blasters and Controllers could solo AVs as well? Blasters I can't imagine though... no status protection, no defenses (unless you took Force Mastery, but even still...), I can't picture them staying up long enough to do it. I suppose it may depend on the AV, but GW would probably chew up and spit Blasters out.
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Blaster + full tray of purples + Shivan + nukes = Dead AV?
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Just purples? How will that keep him alive? Blaster = no defenses.
...and what about the other ATs? How's a Troller or a Defender going to take one down with such a low damage cap?
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-Regen, My Ill/Rad Controller can solo Arch Villains fairly easily cause of Lingering Radiation.
Debuffs are one thing, but where did the sheer damage required come from on a Troller?
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They take time to get, but can really turn the tide of a single team vs team PvP fight.
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I agree they are useful, but I don't know if its all that good of an idea to have "tide-turners" that work against actual players. In the presence of tide-turners, the winner is the player/team that either has the most, or elects to use them first, and they minimize the effects of the actual characters involved in the combat. I believe the focus should be on the characters in general, as much as possible. In PvE, the length of missions and the number of fights guarantees that no matter how many of these things you have, you will ultimately have to fight without them eventually. That's not true in PvP, where there is no real penalty for fighting intermittently (in PvE, the penalty is slower levelling).
Moreover the way the PvP ratings system works, there is strong incentive to be the one that wins first, even if after that you lose second.
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Moreover the way the PvP ratings system works, there is strong incentive to be the one that wins first, even if after that you lose second.
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Oh, you're talking about the arena, right? I was thinking Siren's Call, where one fight is really just one of many. Yeah, I can see how they'd be an issue in the arena, but that's what the "no temp powers" option is for, right? If only one side has them, you can use that.
P.S.
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In PvE, the length of missions and the number of fights guarantees that no matter how many of these things you have, you will ultimately have to fight without them eventually.
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I don't know anyone that uses those outside of AV/GM/EB fights though, so unless my friends are outliers, that doesn't apply.
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Debuffs are one thing, but where did the sheer damage required come from on a Troller?
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You halt an Arch Villain's Regeneration and you can take as long as you like to kill them.
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Debuffs are one thing, but where did the sheer damage required come from on a Troller?
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You halt an Arch Villain's Regeneration and you can take as long as you like to kill them.
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How would a controller other than /rad halt an AV's regen?
And not that I've actually tried with an AV, but if 4 purples makes it almost impossible for an EB to hit me, I think they'd work well for an AV. Of course, you'd need lots of purples which means lots of inspiration space which means higher levels...
...this is why I stick to soloing EBs. A tray full of 20 purples and that's all I need.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Bah. Whenever anyone says purples I think of Break Frees... there's got to be a better name for the defense inspirations than purples. 
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What some might see as the inconvenience might be seen as the whole purpose of the existence of Archvillains to others. You're dismissing that possibility because you only see it as an inconvenience, but creating the requirement to gather a team to defeat them might be the whole reason for the existence of Archvillains. Not everyone finds gathering a team to take on something a burden.
They don't spawn at all difficulty levels so that teaming isn't forced. They spawn at the highest level as a compromise solution to give players the ability to decide if they want to solo them as an EB, or gather a team for them as an AV. The fact that it allows some people to set for invincible and then attempt to solo them might be an inintended side effect.
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Well, getting a team isn't an inconvenience for me really, I'm pretty much always at least duoing, which is enough to take down pretty much anything short of a Stirke Force with no problem.
The point I was making about inconvenience was that if the devs really really really really didn't want people soloing AVs, they wouldn't have them spawn when you were solo. Period. If they changed it so that an AV spawned if you were duoing on invincible, that would still meet the aforementioned requirement of having the option to take an EB or gather a team for an AV, but they didn't do it that way. To repeat: They have built the game so that someone playing on "Hard" mode will encounter AV's solo.
What this tells me is that the devs are admitting that the hardcore soloists who are both skilled and, beyond that, patient enough will be able to solo AVs, and they'll let them. The devs are real people. They know that someone with a high skill level will do better than someone completely new to gaming. But they can't say, "AV's are soloable if you're good enough," because all of a sudden you've got a drove of players responding, "I know I'm good enough but I can't do it! Make AVs easier!"
So they say, "Yeah. They aren't soloable." But then leave in the option to solo them for those with the patience to spend over an hour faming temp powers to deal with every AV encounter.
- J
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The rest of this is expansion upon a flawed premise: that 3:1 is a cap, and this evidence shows it to be broken. These items you point out simply mean that the difficulty slider is there to allow players who can and wish to do so to attempt more difficult missions.
The point, however, that AVs have been stated by the Devs to be team-based content still stands. They simply dont have an issue with people being able to solo them occasionally.
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I respectfully disagree. I see it this way, and it should be noted that some of the below is my guesses.
1) The devs like AVs pretty close to the way they are.
2) The devs *cannot* make a statement that AVs are soloable with enough planning and prep time, because no matter how hard she tries, my wife will not be able to solo one. She's very new to gaming and the skill level just isn't there. If the devs said they were soloable with enough planning, it would frustrate her, and other customers as well.
3) The devs can't make statements like, "If you're good enough, prepared enough, and patient enough, you can do it," because of the problems listed in 2. But they're all thinking it.
4) (this is the most relevant point) The devs put in a feature that downgrades AVs based on difficulty and team size. It didn't used to be there and it is now. When they put it in, they made a deliberate choice to make AVs spawn when you're solo on invincible. If they really didn't want you soloing them, they wouldn't have done that. The only other possibilities are that they are stupid or that they want to inconvenience you by making you downgrade or get a team at the end of each arc.
So, have the devs stated that AVs are team content? Sure. Do they really mean it? I don't think they completely do. I think that statement panders to my wife and those like her who don't want to feel like they should be able to do it.
- J
P.S. As to the nukes and Shivans thing, I've never actually seen a good argument for reducing them. "They're unbalanced" does not work as an argument when you're not balancing them against anything.