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The player running out of endurance because they're throwing out attacks, healing, debuffs (especially high-cost ones) constantly without any regard for their ability to sustain them, plus running toggles that negate portions of their end regen is.. precisely what the Endurance system is supposed to do, from what I see. There are (supposed to be) consequences to insisting on throwing out everything you have at every moment. Lessening those consequences or their frequency is, in fact, making the game easier.

Whether that's a good or a bad thing, I leave to the opinions of others. I'm cautious toward it, personally.

A person's options for controlling endurance before 20-22 are extremely limited. The "endurance system" is far too severe at this point. Just taking a toggle can totally ruin your endurance as early as level 4. You can't really slot to reduce endurance, or have the ability to get Stamina and ease the pain. It's a harsh, harsh lesson in endurance that's not really fair to players.

Besides, giving Stamina "for free" doesn't allow anyone to have any more endurance management than they had access to in the first place. It's not like everyone will run around without care anymore (unless you believe they can already do that, in which case nothing is changing anyway). The only difference is players below level 20 won't be as harshly punished for power picks.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Call me crazy, but...

What did we pay for the Blaster Defiance changes?

What did we pay for the ability to mail stuff to ourselves?

What did we pay for the Stalker changes?

What did we pay the ability to have our villains take Epic powers?

What did we take for the damage increases Kheldians got, as well as the ability to activate Dwarf Form while held?

Look, I can fully understand that "there's always something to ruin it" feeling. I used to feel the same way until the NC Switchover and Positron's promise to "give the players what they want." But since then? Haven't felt that way at all. At no point since then has it felt like someone was deliberately sitting down and designing annoying crap into good changes just to mess with us.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

For any particular reason, or just because it doesn't fit into your "Devs never do anything right" mindset?

I'm all for voicing onnes disagreement when you think something is wrong, but at least give them credit when they do something right, or at least offer a reason you think its wrong other than a petulant "they'll screw us over this" kneejerk reaction with no foundation in reality.

Well, if that is indeed true, then it does two more things:

1. It frees up three more power picks for virtually the entire playerbase, which means players now have more powers and greater potential strength. This, of course, is balanced by the fact that you generally needed two to four slots between those power picks, and taking something else might actually cost you in slots... But then you can always grab slot-light things like Taunt.

2. It helps ME at all levels from 1 to 50, because I only have one single character with Stamina so far - my 50 Stone/Stone Brute. If I get the ability to have Stamina "for free," then this means I will finally be able to give him the Earth Epic powers he always should have had AND it means all of my other characters keep going as they have... Only better. Rather a lot better, in fact.

Come to think of it, the titular Samuel Tow is right now running without Stamina and running Focused Fighting, Focused Senses, Evasion, Combat Jumping and Focused Accuracy and almost never runs out of endurance because I flipped out and put in probably 30 slots of endurance reduction. It'd be interesting to see what he turns into then.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

You left out "Beginner's Luck", which is arguably the closest "unpaid" buff to Fitness becoming inherent.

Of course, there actually IS a tradeoff for making Fitness an inherent -- it's still enhanceable, so those additional 3 powers you get in your build? You still have to enhance those with the same amount of slots if you want to retain your original performance values out of Health and Stamina (and, uh, Swift and Hurdle I guess, if for some reason you've added slots to them).

I've looked at the builds for my major characters and don't see too many of them changing in any significant way. Hell, I probably won't even bother respeccing my Bots/Dark MM, just because there's literally no other power I would want to take on him. But my Crab Spider? I abandoned him at 32 because he performed poorly due to a tight and badly put-together build. But getting 3 extra powers will help immensely, even if slotting them will be tough.

This, so very much this! In the time the game has been under the current management I have seen nothing but win.

Yeah, that's something I've been trying not to say, but it WILL come into play. Just like Kheldians are so very tight for slots, what with having so many "extra" powers from their forms, so will everyone kind of have those problems from now on. You have four more powers on every build, and those are four more powers you may want to slot.

However, and this is the clincher for me - I may not always want to. Swift and Hurdle I will never add slots to, Health I am unlikely to and Stamina... Well, I did well enough without it, I'm not sure if I'll want all three slots in it after the fact. But even if I do, that's just two slots extra, and I SHOULD be able to pull those out of the many multiple endurance reduction slots I was using before, so it's all good.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

So wait... does this mean we all now get inherent Swift and Hurdle, instead of having to choose one or the other?

I know what you mean, but for almost all of my toons, this will be simple, and my newest Emp defender build was going to have her spec out of stamina anyway since she would be focusing on +rech to get her Recovery aura up fast enough.
for others, they'll be delving into the Leadership pools, maybe medicine pools, (Bet'cha never heard of a scrapper who was KREDIT TO TEAM!), etc. etc.
Mostly the LEadership to get assault, all I'd need to do is dump one slot into, drop two End redux Generic IOs, and BAM!

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Well, it is Ryu.

I plan to use my extra powers to nab the medicine pool on my Scraps and Brutes who don't have a self heal, and some leadership powers for for the Scrappers/Brutes who do have a self-heal. My Blasters will be looking hard at Stealth.

And ZOUNDS!!!!! This will make it tons easier to fit in my beloved Transport Foe!!!!!!

Lisa-Wanders out of thread wondering how well Transport Foe would work with a solo and somewhat squishy Scrapper.

So, when my level eight [EIGHT!] character rounds a sewer-tunnel corner and runs up on three Abominations, an Embalmed Cadaver and a Mortificator, he or she is supposed to use powers while keeping in mind "his/her ability to sustain them." Always keeping in mind that sometimes pulling works, but a lot of time the whole crew comes along and you are right back at square one. *throws hands into the air in frustration*

I am sure those Vazhilok will wait patiently for my blue bar to recharge! How about no. And so I might well end up bolting for the door. VERY metahuman, let me tell you.

As a result I do not ever choose toggle power-picks until after Stamina [especially things like DAMAGE AURAS which have EXTREMELY high end-costs, omg] with the exception of anti-mez/sleep and -KB shields, which run all day every day until my blue bar is literally empty.

There is a reason people powerlevel, it is often in order to get past these simply atrocious levels where you had to pick Swift instead of something you really, really need. At least that is what I do.... If this change goes down without us paying some really bad cost in the name of "balance," it will be one of the top five ways that the fun-vs-drudgery balance in this game was shifted toward the side of FUN.

"FREE AT LAST!" my level 8 characters will shout. Freed from the chains that bound them: the chains of overly-heavy End costs.

I plan to use this opportunity to take all of my primary and secondary powerset powers, as well as four epic powers and two powers from a travel pool. I honestly don't see any empty picks posing a danger.

It works decidedly "meh." It tends to miss and even if it hits, it tends to fail sometimes, especially on lieutenants. And even when it works, it pulls the whole spawn in anyway. It's not a BAD pick - it has its uses, but it's not as impressive as it sounds.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

As I expected, everything originally "conjectured" for Issue 19 has been pushed back, and I don't expect we'll see Issue 20 until April 2011 (endgame content that comes just in time for the anniversary). I guess it makes sense though - fall/winter will be spent checking out other games, so by the time April rolls around, folks will be ready to try something new again. I'm suprisingly okay with that. Take all the time you need but make sure to keep Jay busy as heck! Folks really want more costume options - and soon (nice to hear Jay is still there by the way; at some point it'd be nice to get a Dev staff update as to whose still there and whose not - BaB's has been so quiet that I'm starting to worry for him. I truly miss his wry sense of humor).


Oh, that third Twitter pic is Praetoria - probably a fourth zone, but its definitely Praetoria nonetheless. Makes sense if you're going to add Primal Toon access in issue 19 - and a fourth zone would probably make the base foundation for any game content coming up over the next few issues.

I was thinking the same thing last night, that this is probably a level 40-50 zone, and we might even see some instanced maps using the same zone, for some missions, or the Task Force.

OH... MY... GOODNESS! I LOVE YOU GUYS! (caps intentional)

/em swoons

Eight months of beta, isn't that a little excessive?

Its endgame content - that doesn't make or test easily.

Anyone remember how long it took to test/release Grandville?

And the closed beta for it starts next week. What the heck could need a 5 month+ beta period with a proper signed nda thingy?

Awesome. I admit that while I was well chuffed about the change, I was thinking "OMG OMG gah Numinina, Perf Shift etc bonuses, lose, nooooooooooo".*

Delighted to hear that won't be the case.* Excuse me while I go plan a load of chars with early level toggles.

Are you really sure about that timeline. It seems a little rushed.

Great Scott!!