Neiska

Here's the thing that I rarely see brought up in discussions such as these - there are other factors other than how much money/currency someone can earn, and how much things cost. To my mind the other factors are - 1. How many alts/ungeared characters a player has - basically, the more ungeared alts you have, the more money you need to bankroll those alts. If you only have 10 characters, and only play those 10 characters, you may not need very much. And let's not forget that once a character is fully kitted out, anything/everything you make is a net positive gain. Basically, the longer you play your 50s, the more money you will make/have saved up, to the point if you play 50s long enough you may not to farm "at all" in order to fully purple out your next character. Aside from buying new things, or crafting new things, there is actually very little "upkeep" costs in this game. No "rent" to pay. No repair costs. No INF penalty for death, etc etc. No money sinks at all besides the AH/NPC stores. Thats literally it. So lets not forget that either. 2. How long a person plays - different players have different amounts of free time to enjoy a hobby. Someone may have all week to play. Someone else may only have a couple hours after work each day. And yet another person may only have a couple hours an evening on the weekend. But I think everyone would agree that essentially the more time you have to play, the more money you "can" make. Not a guarantee though, that can also mean the more you spend. But time played is also a factor to be considered when balancing an economy. 3. If you have lots of old characters you dont play anymore, it might only cost you the amount of the unslotters to move things over. I actually use 3 characters as "stuff holders" because there isnt enough space in storage. I use mail, auction house, etc all as storage. When I make a MIDs build, I have an "empty crate" that I use for "character prep." I search through all the stuff im sitting on or have spare, before I spend anything. I won;t buy things unless I need to. And ill put everything in the "prep box." Then Ill use unslotters on old characters, or converters to get the part of the set I want, etc. Only after i search through all my stuff, all my characters/unplayed alts, and if i find im still missing something, then do i go buy it. Honestly if you are diligent and organized, you may not need much money at all once you have a selection of alts. Not ever new character needs a "fresh" set of stuff, if you have stuff you aren't actively playing on other characters. If you juggle these methods - play your 50s for awhile, and use old 50s you don't want anymore to gear up new 50s, well, all you really need are the unslotters. Which are essentially free if you use merits. So, technically, once you have a page or 2 of 50s, you may not to actually buy anything if you are willing to spend the time moving stuff around. To me, simply not spending the INF you get is the REAL money-maker that people don't seem to talk about. Now if you are contantly making new 50s every few days, then ya, you are going to need to fund them. At least if you want them all purpled up. But I think many of us have 50s that are years old now, I know I still play a few of my oldest ones. And since I dont actually need anything for them, anything I make goes right into the pile. So its really kind of win-win. Personally, if people are concerned about market balancing, I think the biggest fix wouldn't be to adjust prices/inf earned, but to turn on stuff like Base Costs. That alone would be a regular bill that many would have to bankroll. And it makes sense - big bases should/would cost a lot to maintain. (Even super heroes get an electric bill etc.) I would support something like that before reducing the INF people get, which has been adjusted several times already. But there quite literally is no moneysinks/reoccuring costs in this game at all.

Thank you. Thats a bummer to hear! Dont think its worth taking just to keep pets alive if it only ever affects minions. X.X

Reading this thread I've actually learned a good bit about how CC/Mag works. I have yet to actually make an AT dedicated to it, (mostly because I am a solo player and wasn't sure how fast/effective soloing as a controller or dominator would be.) But I do have a question for the CC big brains - Lately I have been experimenting with CC on Masterminds, and my latest has been taking Oppressive Gloom from Soul Mastery - it's an Aura toggle with a Mag 2 Stun effect, and how I have it slotted will last 19.12 seconds. My question(s) is - 1. How often is it "applied" - meaning how fast does the Mag stack up? 2. Does Notoriety/difficulty (+0, +1, +2, +3, +4 etc) affect enemy protection, or is it always the same? I'm just wondering how the math works out, going by this - Lets say I am soloing as a MM on +4/8 difficulty, and an Elite Boss has a 6 Protection. My gloom is Mag 2, so does it take effect after 3 "tics" (Mag 2 + Mag 2 + Mag 2 = 6) and if so for how long, does it count from the first application (the first Mag 2) or the one that "beats" its protection? Napkin math here, but lets say it "tics" every second, so after 3 tics it applies, which if from the first "tic" is counted, it reduces the 19 second stun down to 16? Not sure if my numbers are right or if I am understanding it all correctly here, hence my question. My reason for taking Oppressive Gloom is it's another additional layer of quasi protection for pets. I'm not expecting to lock everything down like a dedicated controller might but reducing the number of attacks against pets are always a good thing in my book. Especially if its entirely passive and requires no power activation/spamming a power to do so, since it's a toggle. Thanks bunches in advance

Personally, if it was up to me, I would separate tanks and brutes like this - Make tanks the solid, consistent, steadfast and reliable option. Pretty much how they perform now. And make Brutes the high risk/high reward tank/threat. Increase their damage more than what it is now, but with that, also make them take more damage once it gets beyond a certain point. They would need some kind of tool to mediate/control that. Sort of like rage up to 60% is fine, but beyond that and they start getting -res penalties or something of that nature. With a "rage dump" power that would reset it to zero and let them build it back up again. That way, some builds could stay at max rage if they wanted to but would also take more damage in the process. And those that wanted to avoid that in certain situations could "dump" early before that point. It might not even need to be just DAMAGE either, maybe a modifier to melee effects would work too. Like a stronger -tohit debuff from dark melee, maybe a bigger dot from savage and spines, a more powerful slow from ice, so on. Maybe if all of the brutes additional effects were stronger when raged at a certain point could also work. That way people could build more around these special effects, instead of just damage set of choice and survivability of choice. There could possibly be some real synergetic builds if brutes were turned into a quasi-debuff tanker kind of class. Ergo - make brutes the riskier, but damaging and aggressive tanker. Want to hold threat and do more damage? Sure. But you are going to risk yourself by "pushing the envelope." I'm not sure if something like this is even feasible with all the different combat mechanics in play. I also imagine such a thing would be a pain to create, especially with the current dev team. The damage boost would have to be worth the penalty though, and that's where it gets tricky to balance out. Honestly this suggestion is more just me musing. But if we had a magic wand that could make anything possible, I think something like this for brutes could be worthwhile. You could even make the penalty be different things for different sets - some might have a -res penalty, or a -def penalty, so on. Maybe even an increasing -max hp debuff or something like that. Even a penalty to debuffs or CC might work too. Something to further differentiate the sets on brutes, more than "x sets good on tankers, x sets good on brutes." And this would give an entirely new form of gameplay that many might find engaging. Being the tank can sometimes be a chore or boring. At least this way people who prefer more interactive play but want to tank have it. But if people wanted something that set "brutes apart" then I think something like this might do it. Sort of like the old Barbarian tabletop where they could rage and do more damage but got armor class penalties when they did so. I make no claims that this would be fair or even balanced. And I expect such a system for brutes would require a lot if big brains to compare notes and math on. But at least it would be "something" that would definately set brutes apart from the rest - Tankers would still be the most durable, scrappers would have crits, stalkers still have all their tricks, and brutes would have the increasing damage (or effect)/penalty feature.

I did! 🙂

I actually like to use it on Masterminds, due to the stun which can be boosted to be as long as 28 seconds in some builds. A 28-second-long stun is absurdly strong to keep pets alive in hard content. And yet I don't see many others take it!

Some memorable ones for me - The first time using power boost then FarSight and watch my DEF skyrocket. The first time I turned on group fly with robots, instantly loved how they even added little rocket boots to them for the occasion. The time I did what I thought was a meme build, stacking as many puddle/ranged aoe effects (bonfire, corrosive vial, etc etc) all atop of one another. I thought it would just be a goofball move, but it surprised me how fast stuff in the area just melted. The first time I tried flying with a crabby. Survivability instantly went through the roof, like I was a flying tanker. The first time using Burnout + Gangwar. Then figuring out how to perma-gangwar. Fold Space. A game changer if you know how to use it. Lastly, I think many underestimate Oppressive Gloom, and it is entirely exploitable and I am surprised I don't see more builds with it.

Fair!

While I don't disagree that its often better to just block someone and move on, isn't that sort of going "la la la I can't hear you?" or "I'm taking MY ball and going home?" Healthy discussion and debate can be good. Arguing like toddlers on the forums less so. Some people can disagree respectfully. But just ignoring someone doesn't make the problem or issue go away either. Side thought - I cannot be the only one who doesn't get this whole "jranger" thing?

Not sure why people treat farming and selling things as if they were mutually exclusive of each other. I farm a lot and often, and often I'll just throw the mats into the AH for storage and press on. Then after a couple hours I'll sit and make whatever I happened to find and sell the rest. I never got the "us vs them" mentality when it comes to ways of getting resources. Some people like to farm merits, convert, and sell them. Others like to farm. Some buy recipes and craft. So on. If it's in the game, there's no "wrong" way to play. Arguments could be made that some things are more efficient than others, but honestly, who cares? I would rather be a bit less efficient and have a fun time playing, then have my arm twisted and have the game feel like a chore in order to be a bit more efficient. People can have fun and make money at the same time ya know. This comparative fictional economic peenie-measuring is honestly really unnecessary. Personally, I go by "live and let live", you do your thing, I'll do mine. And I don't particularly care what you do since it won't affect me in any way. You have piles of money? Great. So do I. Are your pixels somehow more important than mine? I think not. And I have a pretty low opinion of people who want to try and control the actions of other people or get on their soapbox and lecture them. Personally, I find it kind of funny that not only is there AT/Group meta now, but even an "economic meta" now. Seems to be by the same names I see pop up time to time, and I don't think that's confidence either. I suspect it's not about efficiency, or even what's better. I suspect its more about some people seeing others enjoy the CoH sandbox their own way, and for whatever reason, it upsets them. "How dare other people do stuff I don't like or play in a way I don't" and so on. Nobody is asking you to, and nobody asked if you liked it or approved in the first place. Let people enjoy the sandbox how they like. Unless your name has a "CoH Staff" by it, then your opinion is just that - an opinion. Not a rule. And certainly not something others have to abide by or adhere to and thank God for that.

Honestly the Global Toxic proc is probably my favorite one. Not the best and so on, but it's quite nice to have a chance for "every" attack. See it go off pretty constantly!

Managing a toggle is too much work? You should try numberpad masterminds!

3 Accounts here, Lord knows how many characters on them. I know it's at least 3 pages, mostly 40-50s. Almost all of them are Tankers or Masterminds, with 2 or 3 Crabbers, plus the odd other powers or builds I wanted to try at one point or another. Lately though, I have really focused not on making alts but taking my current favorite and making it "perfect" or at least make it so it can solo +4/8 without being painful/cumbersome to do so. She does fine on +3/8 currently. (Shes a Crabby) On a side note, I do tend to loose track of what alt has what. Sometimes I will blow the dust off one and log into a character I haven't played in 500 or so days, only to see that shes got an auction house full of storage, several things sold, sitting on 1-1.5 billion, with a whole pile of merits that I completely forgot that I had. And this has happened more than once! 😄 But yea, alts can be great, if nothing else to change up the feel and gameplay a bit. But my obsession with crabbys is keeping me busy for the moment.

Two thoughts - 1. The forums is the real CoH endgame, and it's kind of a turn based PVP. And 2. Staff of Aesculapius

Plenty of people do the hardmode things. At least on Everlasting. I see calls for them everyday I'm on. As far as difficulty itself? I think the claims of "anyone/everyone can solo +4/8 hardmode" are a bit strawman. No, not everyone can. And some if they can, take so long to do it that there's no point. Which makes me wonder if the disagreement is more about how long different people think a mission should take. Unless I am farming, I have little interest in a single mission taking longer than 10-20 minutes. Also, context matters here. If we are saying the game is too easy with a team vs solo. And the other side of the coin is that people might have also simply gotten better. The game has been out for a bit now, and what took people a bit to figure out is now pretty common knowledge. I mean, one of the best teams you can have is 1 tanker and 7 corruptors now. And with the right secondaries, that pretty much gives you everything you need - buffs, debuffs, healing, debuff protection, etc etc etc. Personally, I think the "glass cannons" aren't "glass" at all. The difference between DPS among the ATs can vary pretty widely, but not so much their survivability. Everyone has the same DEF softcap, a bit of difference between resistance caps, but the biggest difference is in max hitpoints. Which if you are running with buffs and healers, the max hitpoints aren't as important. I also think that the high dps people perhaps do too much dps, compared to everyone else. A tanker gives up a good bit of DPS to be as tough as they are (when compared to Scrappers/Stalkers, melee dps.) But dps don't have to give up much to do their damage. 15% resistance softcap and a bit of hitpoints. If Glass Cannons were suddenly actually "glass" I think most people would suddenly find the game challenging again. But the problem with making them too squishy is suddenly DPS might have a harder time soloing. So the DEVS have to take that into account as well. Not that I actually expect them to make dps more squishy. I don't think we have seen much in the way of survivability tweaks and changes, most of them have all been DPS orientated. Some have been CC things as well, but I can't immediately recall any hard survivability tweaks to ATs speak of. Maybe powersets here and there? But not like, balancing adjustments which I would argue is needed. But I also doubt it would be popular.

Personally I am okay with silly or funny. I mean, what if the shield has like a tree painted on it or something and the rogue is pulling the whole "YOU CANT SEE ME" bit?

I wish there were more robot/cybernetic parts. Like - -missile pod backpacks -gun turret shoulder pad - chest mounted rocket launcher - tri-mounted rotating nuclear fusion powered admantine chainsaw -gun arms -sword arms - T shirt gun -rubber duck gun A lot of the costume options seem to favor mutant/cape kind of style of heroes. Which isn't bad! But the tech stuff seems pretty slim pickings. PS - one costume/transmog I've always wanted to see in a game, was a gnome tied to a giant stick and used like a club.

Personally I am fine with Super Strength on stalkers, STR based Rogues are actually a meta setup in some games. But the idea of a rogue sneaking around with a 10 foot long greatsword is kind of funny, but not enough to stop it from adding IMO. I mean, we have people with granite form who do kung fu flips, spin kicks and so on too. Lots of silly looking things in the game. And to me, honestly? That's part of the charm.

A few reasons - 1. Ultimate freedom of character creation, from looks to powers to costume etc. To date no other game I know of comes this close to pretty much every aspect of your character. 2. I love pet classes in games, and CoH has some of the best pet mechanics I have seen. They are more than just a summon/pet, and there are even many ways to build them. So this game doesn't just have pet builds, but has different ways to build them which most other games don't compare to. 3. Most of the people ingame are pretty chill and enjoyable to be around. 4. Strong solo presence. You can play the whole game entirely solo and still eventually end up with the best things. Unlike other mmos where you might raid for years and still not get what you want. 5. The game "doesn't begin" at level cap like some MMOs seem to these days.

Ack sorry, double post

@Scarlet Shocker - I have a suggestion that nobody has mentioned yet - SoA, specifically, a crabber. I see them as sort of the hidden "Battle Mage" of the game. Its fairly easy to hit your DEF softcaps, and their resists can get as high as 85%. You can have an all-ranged build, even with flying. The only CC to speak of is web grenade or patron pool stuff, but often Hover proves to be enough. You can just hover, throw web grenade, follow up with venom grenade, frag, suppression, etc. Your full attack chain can be ranged. And your AoE is actually very good. Your ST isn't so good though. You can boost it with things like Arcane Bolt, Gloom, Spirit Shark etc, but even then it's pretty "blah." Only with the pets all dogpiling things can you do good ST dps, but the problem is (when solo) you have limited tools to keep them alive. Even if you built to make them as durable as possible, on anything harder than +3/8 they are going to die often. Most of the time they shoot a few times, and then run in, and get clobbered. On teams its quite good since the pressure isn't ALL on them, but alone your choices really are play on lower difficulties than +4/8, or accept they are entirely disposable and will die often. The other Crabby issue is they are fairly harsh on the blue bar. Not as bad as Dark Armor is, but its rougher than most. The way I see it, you can build them two general ways - 1. Focus on Recharge to keep pets perma, and up as much as possible. You sacrifice a lot of slots and a few power picks doing this though, but this is kind of the "go-to" setup for Crabbers. 2. If I want to solo harder content, I have had much better results omitting pets entirely. That frees up many power picks and slots to put elsewhere. When I go petless I always plan to fly and push DEF, Resists, with the best attack setups I'm able to cobble together. And while I am not soloing AVs/GMs with this setup, it's still one of my favorite builds in the game to play and is quite capable of soloing +4/8. Just Elite Bosses can take awhile, so I usually just ignore them or pass them. Not many people build Crabs this way, but its certainly an option to omit pets entirely. But if you like being a very durable build that can fight at range, with good AoE and "meh" Single Target, you can try a Crabber. I attached a pic of one of my setups, (the first kind of build with pets since that's what most people like.) As you can see it sports VERY good Defenses and Resists. Even plugged the Psionic hole. And this is without any buffs, no rune of protection, no destiny, etc. It also has an immobilize with Soul Tentacles, and Dark Obiliteration to help pets a bit more outside of Destiny big-buffs. This is just you flying around with toggles on, and you are as tough as some Tankers. Without the pets, you could push these resists even Higher, and beyond even that if you are willing to accept a Psionic Resistance hole. This setup has been the best results for me for crabber "with pets" solo-play. My "all resists, no pets" setup is similar defenses with 80% to pretty much everything. Again, no buffs or incarnates on. Thats just you flying around with your toggles. There were times which I outlived everyone else on the team, which honestly is kind of funny. Anyway, Hope this helps! Or at least inspires someone. PS - added a pic with rune of protection on to show what top resists values look like with a crabby.

Me? I don't really dislike anything specific in the game right now, aside from them wildly changing some powersets. Tweaks are one thing, complete overhauls are another. That and the mentality that we often see that is "I enjoy playing the game MY way, anyone who does not play MY way is wrong." My entire wish for CoH is effectively - more options for everyone. That way people can play in the way they like. You can't please everyone, sure. But the more things change the more they seem to push certain activities, namely teaming. I consider teaming a side activity, not my main one. And for all the things they add, they don't really add much specifically for people who mainly solo (if anything they seem to almost discourage it), and while not a pvper myself, I do feel bad for the avid PVP folks who have not gotten so much as a ray of sunshine as far as I am aware. I could be wrong though! I am not really involved with pvp things, but do think them and solo-play could use some polish.

While I agree with most of your points, there are some who argue that pylons are the end-all-be-all measurement. Which I hope we all can agree is not the case. As I said, I consider it a "ballpark" estimate. But not a kiss-your-elbow evidence for changes as some like to present them. It's not so much the data itself I object to, it's the how it was obtained, and how that data is being presented to change something not related. And I go back to my original argument - that DPS is given way, way too much weight vs everything else. And it seems to be essentially the only thing they present as a basis to make changes on. And I think the irony is that at the endgame, DPS isn't even king. I would argue that debuffs are king in the high end of this game. I also think the irony and even perhaps part of the balancing is that the kinds of builds that are most needed for the hardest content aren't necessarily the best solo, or even the fastest. And those that solo the best, or are fastest, are not necessarily the best for the highest difficulty. And comparisons such as that rarely even make it into balance conversations.

Certainly not balance that only exists in a single context but not in the rest of the 99.5% of the game, sure. Because balancing things only around one part of the game against standing still targets that don't fight back is such a clear, balanced, and fair metric after all. Look arcane, I suspect you and I agree on more than we disagree on. But I think we both agree that we will never see eye to eye on this. And until a Dev steps in, anything you or I say are merely our respective opinions and just that. Not facts, not kiss-your-elbow infallible logic, or even perfect math. You may personally think pylons are a good enough metric to balance everything on. I do not. So lets agree to disagree here?

Not everyone believes it's a problem, but okay.