The new ranged attacks
By
AgentMountaineer,
Posted on: 2009-05-06 16:28 in The Global Training Room Test Server
Well try a mission solo on something squishy.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
She's /dark. That's pretty squishy. 
I'll give it a go on one of my doms though, and see if it's any different.
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The balance problem, of course, is this:
Scrapper, tank, or brute: Hey, quit it! That tickles!
Everyone else: OH GOD MY FACE, MY FACE!
MA content is certainly startlingly challenging on my melee toons, especially when there are enough minions to stack enough magnitude to overcome mez protections. But it's a little owie compared to what squishies face, especially now.
I'd rather the devs impose XP caps and other explicit anti-abuse protections, than to prevent fine-grained controls over critter power level and indeed, reasonably standard-mob-equivalent critter design.
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I must concur. The heartier toons are colorfast while the more delicate squishables are getting torn up in the rinse cycle. The City of Gaymers have been doing quite a bit of testing. Some has been min/maxed mishes, some not. Regardless of how the players made their mish, the squishies seems to be in even greater peril. We will have to see what additional tweaks to the system bring.
Indig 
, leader of the City of Gaymers
City of Gaymers on Guildportal.com
http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.asp...3&TabID=295104
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Lightning Bolt is nearly equivalent to a a Sapper blast it seems. This is pretty painful on a non-controlling character.
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I noticed that. I had people bumming over it in my "The Fabulous Four" story. I want to know when they will bring PLAYER electric attacks to this level. I WANTZ MUH SAPPER!
I am just happy for now that they removed TAR PATCH from minions. It made using the dark set unmanagable with their spamming it over and over.
Ps I WANTZ MUH SAPPER!
Indig , leader of the City of Gaymers
Indig
City of Gaymers on Guildportal.com
http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.asp...3&TabID=295104
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She's /dark. That's pretty squishy.
I'll give it a go on one of my doms though, and see if it's any different.
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Oh yeah well thats if they can hit you. 
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Although, I6 was City of Villains as well.
[/ QUOTE ]Technically, nitpickily, not entirely correct.
Issue 6 (which technically included the CoV content) dropped on Thursday, October 27, 2005.
City of Villains was dropped on Monday, October 31, 2005.
Only those who had CoV preorder were allowed to utilize villainside content before the 31st. But the dates are so close together that many people forget that. (Same with Release and Issue 1 being confused.)
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I suppose you can make the argument that I6 was just Bloody Bay, Siren's Call, and Warburg, but that's kinda "blah" . Would be amusing to claim an issue dedicated to pvp though!
Let's Dance!
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Although, I6 was City of Villains as well.
[/ QUOTE ]Technically, nitpickily, not entirely correct.
Issue 6 (which technically included the CoV content) dropped on Thursday, October 27, 2005.
City of Villains was dropped on Monday, October 31, 2005.
Only those who had CoV preorder were allowed to utilize villainside content before the 31st. But the dates are so close together that many people forget that. (Same with Release and Issue 1 being confused.)
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I suppose you can make the argument that I6 was just Bloody Bay, Siren's Call, and Warburg, but that's kinda "blah" . Would be amusing to claim an issue dedicated to pvp though!
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Wasn't one of the issues (very early issues) before that JUST the arena?
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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Although, I6 was City of Villains as well.
[/ QUOTE ]Technically, nitpickily, not entirely correct.
Issue 6 (which technically included the CoV content) dropped on Thursday, October 27, 2005.
City of Villains was dropped on Monday, October 31, 2005.
Only those who had CoV preorder were allowed to utilize villainside content before the 31st. But the dates are so close together that many people forget that. (Same with Release and Issue 1 being confused.)
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I suppose you can make the argument that I6 was just Bloody Bay, Siren's Call, and Warburg, but that's kinda "blah" . Would be amusing to claim an issue dedicated to pvp though!
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Wasn't one of the issues (very early issues) before that JUST the arena?
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Ya'know, I blocked out I4 because it was pretty boring issue, but you are right there .
For me, it was an issue of new costume pieces. So that's two issues now!
Let's Dance!
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No one here is arguing that there shouldn't be ranged attacks of sufficient power to stop exploitation. (Such attacks don't really need to be all that powerful, given that anything that is going to be doing a ranged blast is also going to be squishy.) We're just saying that the ranged attacks should be in line with similar critter ranged attacks, as opposed to actually doing vastly more damage than their melee attacks, including, as has already been pointed out, their tier 9s.
I'd expect that, in a melee power set, the ranged attacks would be in line with melee mobs of the same level.
In the pre-15 game, I'd expect a ranged attack would be equivalent to the Revolver power that melee Hellions get.
In the 15-40 game, I'd expect a ranged attack would be equivalent to the ranged attacks of the melee mobs within the Family (a Button Man Muscle's Automatic Pistol), CoT (a Guide's Hand Crossbow), etc.
In the 40+ range, I'd expect a ranged attack would be equivalent to the Carnies (a Harlequin Fencer's Throwing Knife), Crey (Riot Guard's Automatic Pistol) ,and so on.
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that is a good idea and makes more sense, from what i have noticed, at lower levels, the custom enemies wit melee powers ca do almost twice as much dmg with their ranged power than the normal enemies like hellions. the ranged powers on the melee enemies were a good idea on the dev's part, but they need to reduce dmg on them to about 50% of what they currently are.
I died on a solo mission I designed for squishes. Knives flew out everywhere and did far more than melee damage. I died in 10 seconds.
I think it is less than forthright for the devs to add this "fix" then hide and make no comment when the feedback thread indicates a serious problem with the "fix".
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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yet for a tanker; brute or scrapper it is a non issue
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Honestly?
Did you not read "Soloable by a Defender"?
MA= Fixed like the family pet.
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
They ruined any chance of blasters doing any kind of serious damage without having a tank on their team. WIthout a tank taunting, a blaster really doesn't have much chance since ALL custom mob range-attacks out-distance most of the blaster's range attacks. So, once a blaster engages a custom mob, then they're under tons of fire at long-range and with squishy hit-points, they're only defense used to have been keeping range. Now that defense is gone, and blasters are about as useful a tank without resistence/defense, they're sitting ducks.
Is this even controversial? Looks like everyone's in agreement.
Maybe a red name will come and address this issue this week.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
the track record of our current "fixes" makes me afraid of what the outcome will be... if it is even addressed at all...
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
This is only a problem with all-boss farms featuring dual-blades custom mobs, imo.
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This is only a problem with all-boss farms featuring dual-blades custom mobs, imo.
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Um, no it isn't. In addition to all bosses now having tier 9s on standard difficulty and being capable of doing 950 damage with a single attack, they now also have ranged attacks that in some cases do MORE damage than the insanely powerful tier 9s they're forced to have. If the completely outrageous damage MA bosses do isn't enough, some of the ranged power choices are limiting and out of character for the units people have made and cause frustrations of that nature.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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One workaround I've been using is substituting dominator secondaries for melee sets where appropriate. To be honest, I don't know at this point why someone would want to use Energy, Fiery, etc. Melee sets over the better-balanced Energy, Fiery, etc. Assault sets. Maybe if the mob really, really needs a fire sword.
If blaster secondaries could be used as primaries, that'd be a nice substitution too (unfortunately they're not... yet).
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This is only a problem with all-boss farms featuring dual-blades custom mobs, imo.
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Um, no it isn't. In addition to all bosses now having tier 9s on standard difficulty and being capable of doing 950 damage with a single attack, they now also have ranged attacks that in some cases do MORE damage than the insanely powerful tier 9s they're forced to have. If the completely outrageous damage MA bosses do isn't enough, some of the ranged power choices are limiting and out of character for the units people have made and cause frustrations of that nature.
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What's funny is that they nerfed the difficulty of my extreme mode maps while they were buffing the difficulty of the low-powered ones.
What was previously a map that had (go ahead, cringe) invisible minion masters with minions that had stealth and could one-shot you ... now they just throw a dagger and negate the threat they were.
Meanwhile, the daggers of the minions still 4-shot you or so, and make breeze missions difficult.
I mean it was bad enough that my first Blossoms mission was jacked up to triple the difficulty when architect hit live (I confess though, I did NOT know that my minion master could see through stealth - I thought that was how stealth worked for custom mobs!) [Stealthed plant dominators are MEAN.]
But now it's crazy super difficult mode on the easiest setting, on missions that are lieutenantless.
What's the deal, yo?
you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you <3
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Maybe the ranged attacks are stronger because if you kite a foe, he will only be able to use the ranged attack over and over (waiting for it to recharge) rather than walloping you with a full attack chain at melee?
So, if you are toe to toe with a martial arts foe, will he do more damage with Thunder Kick>Crane Kick>Daragon's Tail> Eagle Claw (or whatever) than with Shuriken ... shuriken ... shuriken?
I ask because I am not sure.
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However, if you are a blaster, controller, defender, or dominator, then much of your defense is active. You have to move, hide behind a wall, kite, hover out of range, etc etc, to survive. The devs seem to be blurring the lines between what should be called an exploit versus what should be called an acceptable tactic. Did they hire Devs from WoW or EQ recently? Traditionally those Dev's mindsets were if you didn't slug it out with a mob toe to toe, even though you might be a ranged class made out of tissue paper with a paltry handful of hps, then you were exploiting the craptastic AI and therefore cheating. This smells alot like that, and I use the word SMELLS deliberately.
I left those games for CoH precisely because this game innovated, not replicated the MMO. I have to say though, the heavy handed and sloppy way corrections are being handled by the Devs since MA hit has me worried. My 2 cents.
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You can keep repeating it, but it doesn't make it true.
MA has been a fantastic success, and one that's provided a shot in the arm to a game that's going to face some stiff competition.
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I have to kinda agree with this, although only because the argument is so drastically polarized it needs some middle ground. MA is cool, and for the most part a success. What isn't a success is how things are being handled to correct issues not foreseen, like farming. I mean really, its to the point that the cure is worse than the disease it is for.
Farming was honestly favorable to what has been done to stop it, which is ironically mostly crippling the players interested in creating CC's and story driven arcs in MA more than doing anything to farmers. Really, it was a whole better scene when people were forming groups to farm in AE; rewards were good, the game was fun, and groups were abundant. Overall enthusiasm for the game and entertainment were high. The Devs really should consider that imo, instead of the "this is our game to be played only how we intend" philosophy. At the very least, even failing that, they should seriously reconsider the knee jerk, heavy handed, breaking-the-game-worse-than-what-needed-fixed, reactive nerfing, which is making people wish the MA never had happened at all. My 2 cents.
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Out of over a hundred thousand players, it's pretty much a given that several thousand like the MA, and several thousand don't.
However you slice it, it's more content than any other game has, period. Having trouble finding well written arcs? Check out the various review threads on this here forum.
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More content than any other game? Perhaps, but with no real good quality control, and wading through the rough to find the diamond is tedious, not fun. I would rather have quality over quantity.
I could fill a museum with the crayola drawings of 10,000 first graders and say I had more art than any other museum in the world, but it doesn't make any of it good.
Are the ranged attacks really all that powerful? I was on a team against a custom group last night of all War Mace meleers, and it wasn't until halfway through the mission I even noticed they had throwing knives. And as the brute, going in early, I'd have been more likely to have been hit by them.
Granted, this was on Live though. Were things changed before the patch went live?