Ask Anything: Ranged Blast and Blaster Manipulation Changes

If one is going to be disappointed every time the devs add something to the game that isn't an always up, always on, always available, always maximal, always free of counterbalance, always highly popular effects, I hope being disappointed is something they enjoy experiencing. Because that's not going to change. That would be staring into the east every morning and hating sunrises.

New to the forums are you? Welcome aboard! This is City of Heroes.

I didn't have that problem with my Praetorian blasters.

I seldom have that problem with my Hero blasters unless I'm on a ship raid and someone kills those keeping the Mez protection going.

Even then, I can still fire back, unlike the old days when I just had to stand there being mezzed if I didn't have a Break Free.

In fact getting older all the time. Certainly no player expectation surprises me anymore. If a player stated they were disappointed the devs haven't created a moon base yet, as in a real live moon base on the actual moon, that would score a 4.5 on my 1-10 City of Heroes entitlement scale.

Shuttle service to the moonbase for 80 paragon points would be a 5.2.

Admittedly, it depends on what route you go through, certain mobs you meet in the various storylines are worse than others.

...but yah, the worst mez that's present throughout all of praetoria is just knockback.

The devs lied! They clearly implied that Moonbase shuttles would be a Freebie Friday offering!
*pout*

7.1

...In a first class cabin with Black Pebble as your personal steward serving you champaine and caviar?

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project Then it's time for them to get off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it.

Somehow I doubt there are going to be very many coach seats on the first shuttle to the moon.

So do I. And it sucked. Hard.

Let me give you my perspective on this. I tried to make Blasters work for something like 6 years. I muscled through all the assorted problems they had until I finally just decided to cut my losses and reroll all of them. I WANT to play Blasters, but I just don't enjoy them. Yet at the back of my mind, there's always been this possibility that maybe some days the developers will salvage the AT and make it into something I want to play. I was actually considering maybe rolling some new Blasters, or maybe rerolling some characters back into Blasters.

Until I saw the changes. They're not bad in any way, of course, but they're far from enough for me to try and make them work. Instead of rolling new Blasters, I'll just keep on doing what I've been doing and reroll what's left into something else. My 42 Archery/Devices is probably going Katana/Something, my 30-ish Rad/Energy is probably going Spines/Bio and that might be the last of them. It has become clear to me that Blasters will never be what I want them to be, that neither snipes nor protection powers for Blasters will be what I want them to be. So I'm really just washing my hands of the whole thing and don't intend to get involved in Blaster discussions again. I no longer have a stake in them.

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.

Listen, I PAID for this game when I bought a copy on Amazon for £2.50 in 2008. Expecting me to PAY EXTRA for shuttle rides to the moon is just a dirty bait and switch trick!

It only costs an E ticket.

I feel the same, the i24 changes won't get me to make new blasters. I have all of the defenders I care to make and they are already 50. Everything new is going to be a corruptor.

At some point, I'll probably do the same as you did Sam and just scrap all my blasters. I have changed a few over from blaster to scrapper, controller, corruptor and even tank.

I understand the devs don't want to go too far then have to reduce what they did, but the changes are much like the early stalker changes, not enough. Rather than trying to hit a home run, they tried to drop a bunt.

We all must manage our expectations in whatever way we're capable.

I suggested to Arbiter Hawk that one way to simultaneously address this problem for /Devices, and everyone else at the same time, was to create an inherent toggle that everyone got that simply suppressed stealth. If you really need to be visible, but you don't want to turn off whatever is making you invisible, you'd turn this toggle on. The toggle would cost zero, recharge zero, and never itself suppress.

Its a simple, if sledgehammer solution to the problem but it kills lots of birds with one stone.

Stalkers have the same issue having to turn off hide and that's been going on since oh 2005.

I'm all for the sledgehammer approach, providing it squashes the roach in question.

oh, don't I know it- the issues with stalker stealth have inspired me to delete more characters than anything else in the game besides mastermind pet AI. =P

Buggy Pet AI? lol, Jack Frost on a coffee break was the original. The best use for him was to dump him in the middle of a group to absorb the alpha.

MM AI is far worse but you made me remember the good times

Jack never actually bothered me much- on my cold/ice dom I'd just arrange him on a corner then pull the spawn.

Kludgy, but it worked.

These days I'd just get her a stealth IO and run past them- that's mostly what I do with Gun Drone.

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.

all of them charging into melee all the time bugs me.
their profound inability to navigate stairs or sloped surfaces (hills outside for instance) is amazingly annoying.
their occasional brainfreeze at mission doors is a minor irritation- annoying, but I remember when you had to re-summon them every time, so I can live with it.

And while it isn't a pet AI issue per se, the way ambushes COMPLETELY IGNORE your pets to focus 100% of their attention on you, the mastermind, drives me crazy.

Individually minor but collectively aggravating stuff.

As long as they fix my mercs :P...the Devs admitted that mercs are so bad that they almost needed to be fixed from the ground up lol.

Wouldn't you?

No? I see 7 things in a hallway or room (maybe I see them all, maybe not).

How do I prioritize the targets? That guy is the PC, if we kill him the other 6 go away too? I am not a huge roleplayer in CoH, but I do like to pretend a bit more than that.