Crazy Issue 20 Theories

I could also see marketing being a big reason behind it. The concept of using a "closed" beta to drum up hype for a new issue is something this game's marketing department is hardly new to. By releasing the fact that i20 will require a signed NDA, they give rise to "OOOOOHHH, what's in this?!" topics, such as this one, to generate interest.

We know, you've mentioned that fairly often.

And thus is explained the motivation behind these rumours. And it's about what you'd expect - pure, unadulterated malice.

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.

DR in PvE would mean a cancelled sub from me. And it would be a looooong time before I came back, if at all. This game is too old for those kinds of sweeping changes. I like CoH just the way it is, and don't feel the need to respec/rebuild/adjust to massive gamewide nerfs. I'd rather just move on and learn a new game if that happened.

Edited to be less angry and inflammatory. I really shouldn't post when I'm having a bad day at work.

This is what I think, and what I hope. Having just gotten a new shiny video card and being able to truly enjoy Ultra mode and the beauty of Praetoria at more than 10fps, the legacy zones look pretty scrubby in comparison. I would love to see them re-launch CoX with the older zones buffed up, the contact trees trimmed and made to flow better, and perhaps some engine changes to tone down the lag and the rubberbanding that run rampant through this game no matter what your settings are at.

Power Pool/EAT/MM power customization and the abillity to have the game set and remember your preferred idle/fly/costume change animations would be delicious frosting on that cake.

This would be a bonus and a good "reason" to launch 2.0 as a big deal. Not JUST polished-up old assets (which would be the complaining cry of many, "you didn't give us anything NEW!") but also the invasion from Praetoria and hopefully a tie-in from Cimmoria/Oro to wrap all those loose ends up.

Heck, if it's even a fraction of those things, I can sure see the need for a signed NDA! Just the news that it was happening would blow people's minds!

Re: DR in PvE - everyone who thinks this would be a good addition to the game is pretty much playing damage-dealing characters and not controller/defender/corruptors, imo. It would be a fairly fatal blow to certain ATs being able to solo on anything above +0/x0. I would have to seriously reconsider my sub I guess - I just watched my other MMO (LOTRO) self-destruct to a bunch of game-wrecking changes, I don't think I can handle CoX doing it too

interesting seeing as how i just did it this morning

There is an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary to what you are saying about PVPers. Have you read any of the PVP suggestions, or dream list threads?

PC Guy had it right when he said the i13 changes were certainly NOT asked for by the PVP crowd which is also evidenced by the mass exodus of PVP players who ragequit over the i13 changes. Not only that, but Lighthouse (who was subsequently fired[?]) posted exactly who the changes were for, people who don't PVP but may want to try it.

AND...

As a PVPer I can certainly tell you I don't want to see DR hitting PVE. It sucks bad enough in PVP.

I agree with Chase on this, actually. It was also intended to lessen the gap between someone who min/maxed their character versus somebody playing with just SOs in zone PVP, and to provide less of an edge when multiple players gang up on a single player.

Don't forget, Castle specifically said on numerous occassions that the only way that Diminishing Returns will make it into PVE content (if ever) will be the application of DR to debuffs on new high-level encounters. Nothing in the current PVE game is supposed to have DR applied to it.

And even if DR does come to PVE, what makes people think it would be Enhancement Diversification all over again? Sure, you probably won't be able to Clear Mind-stack your way out of Ghost Widow's hold. Is it reasonable to expect that you should be able to do so against a Mag100 hold to begin with? Should a Blaster with the right IOs have better defense than a Tanker with SOs?

The application of DR to PVE (which will almost certainly not happen outside of the cases Castle already announced 2 years ago) would be to rectify border case issues that the original designs didn't take into account. You may want your Blaster to be better than a Tanker, but that's not how the game is designed, and the effect cannot be reciprocated (a fully IOed Tanker still can't compete with an SOed Blaster for damage), so you know this is unfair.

... now, cue the "lrn2ply" posts in response to those last couple paragraphs.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

good news bears repeating

kidding kidding..as far as you know.

you do realize that this effects everyone not just soft capped blasters right? as is, a soft capped blaster will DR to around the high 20s and a scrapper and tank Dr to somewhere in the 35% range. also note that it would effect everything and is completely inconsistent in how much it hits some stuff. for instance, HP or recover, while DR'd some, isn't DR'd to the same extent as say, damage or defense buffs. this would also make perma PA/hasten/dull pain builds, not perma and alot less effective.

my point being that DR would need alot of work to be implemented as a good thing. if it was a direct port, it would be extremely inconsistent and effect everything the player gets, not just defense.

Incarnate system full-blown--- I could see adding 2-3 "levels" at once, but since posi said their ultimate goal is to add something incarnate to all future issues, I wouldn't expect more.

The coming storm won't be an invasion from Praetoria. That wouldn't fit with the broad allusions we've heard since. The "Coming Storm" that is alluded to seems to be affecting the whole multiverse... seems to be akin to things like the "infinite earths" DC crisis. My guess is we're already seeing some of the initial effects of the storm ever since dark mirror introduced our dopplegangers.


Since this is a thread for baseless conjecture, here's mine for the "coming storm":

Whoever sets things in motion (a nemesis plot?) he may be inspired by Recluse's Victory and/or Project Destiny. In those, Recluse isn't satisfied with knowing that he wins on some other dimension, he want to bind that dimension to this one, bringing his victory here... colliding those dimensions and all their occupants together.

The difference here, though, is this is a "storm" of dimensions colliding into themselves... coalescing with primal earth. It will set off wars and struggles of epic proportion as reality itself twists and cracks to make room for conflicting histories and the myriad possibilities whittling down to one true reality. Some of our doppleganger encounters are from the earliest incidences... the worlds closet to our own starting to merge over... we're not "merged" with them due to our experineces in sidestepping outside the timestream / dimension hopping. Things will only grow more dangerous as the storm proceeds. Incarnates... spread across all these issues... will deal with these cosmic metaspace collisions. We're talking Issues 20, 21, 22+

After the multiverse crashes, one world will emerge. Mender Silos is trying to set things in motion to guarantee his desired outcome. Our mystery letter-writer (Tyrant?) has his own objectives. Their goal is to influence what this world will be- perhaps to be the gods that make the next world, whether benevolent or in malice. We fight for or against these parties to save what we hold dear or grasp at the power we want for ourselves... battling to the very last moment of existence... when all goes white.

At that point, a new city will emerge. Its past and present will be crafted from the remnants of the once-divided universes, and people will remember it as if it had always been that way... because it has. Parts will resemble Praetoria, Paragon, and even the Rogue Isles (all ultramoded) and its inhabitants will be us... and not. This begins CoH's equivalent of DC's "One Year Later" and Marvel's "Heroes Reborn"-- a reimagining of our world and the heroes within it. A universe that's not quite like the one we see as afterimages as we dream of battles that we don't really remember participating in.

It'll be a new city... and world... that's in desperate need of heroes, again. The City of Heroes will be over. Welcome to City of Heroes 2.0.

Sorry, I did intend to comment on the severity of DR, but I'm at work and wrote that post around some tech calls.

But you're completely right--if DR were brought to PVE with the exact same values it has in PVP, it would destroy the game and there would be ragequits abound. As others have mentioned in this thread already, I think that any form of Diminishing Returns that makes its way into PVE will affect the way buffs/debuffs stack beyond what would be considered a reasonable* point and would mostly affect those that are applied by powers as opposed to IO sets.

* "reasonable" to be defined by the developers, of course

Perhaps a perma-Hasten build goes beyond that "reasonable point," though? The IO set bonuses would likely remain unchanged, but the recharge bonus acquired from Hasten would take a hit from DR.

And we already know that Castle rather dislikes the fact that players have the ability to floor the stats of AVs that were specifically designed to be challenging, so we can assume that some form of debuffing DR will crop up at some point as new content is released.

Just my 2 cents on the subject.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

That seems to be a problem better solved by Castle buffing or changing AVs, instead of some global change to powers that'll have dozens or hundreds of other game effects he'll need to chase down and rebalance.

I like this. Nice ideas Chase.

Only as unreasonable as a 100 mag hold.

This is something I'd like clarified as well.

I mean, I get the idea, that stacking buffs or debuffs are made less effective with each "stack". But why, if that were implemented, are people saying it'd be beyond horrible? Yeesh, how many teams I've been on where people could barely be bothered to de/buff at all, much less stack it up hugely, maybe you get a couple of buffs on you or a couple of debuffs on the enemies. It just seems like a large majority of the players wouldn't even notice much less raise hell.

Somebody scare me! I hate to use the phrase "min max" as it usually comes off as derogatory, but frankly that's what it's sounding like. I doubt I'm the only one who plays in PuGs that are, at best, mid-tier.

I will agree with the Shaman et al though, a sudden (or increasing) emphasis on end-game would make me say my farewells. I prefer the journey. I just mention this if it's related, I honestly don't know.

So.... a CoX version of a Time War of the Doctor's persuasion?

diminishing returns is essentially that. literally everything that happnes to your character hits a "wall" so to speak after a certain point. so for instance, a 25% tohit buff (note: of any kind, tactics, BU, aim, the source doesn't matter) might not be affected by DR but in the current system if you had 50% it might hit the wall around 35 and the final number might only be 39 (also note these are completely fabricated numbers only to show an example). But, assuming its a direct port, DR effects everything that happens to your character and effects each attribute differently, (the numbers used on defense, rech, and damage buffs aren't all using the same modifier, and they're AT specific, as well, the only chart we have to show the current way Dr curves things, is one arcana made when i13 came out that is ridiculously complicated).

the best worst case i've seen is SR. right now an SR scrap can pretty easily softcap with normal defenses, a few io set bonuses, weave ect. and hit somewhere around 45 to positional. with DR that would go down to around the low 30's and would require roughly 70ish percent in unDR'd defense to hit 45ish in DR'd defense. any buff after the wall, note again, source doesn't matter, will get DR'd.