DougGraves
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Posts posted by DougGraves
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5 minutes ago, Patti said:
Why doesn't Doug have a picture yet? Doug needs a picture.
I now have an icon. Doug Graves, secret identity of the Tomb Fisted Kid.
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Joined a Positron 1 TF with my 24ish level controller. I was the 7th to join. We waited a bit to find an 8th. Then decided to go with 7. We start. The leader is level 8, so it is a level 8 TF. One player says sorry, he doesn't want to play at level 8 so he quits as we start the first mission. Someone else silently quit. So we had a team of 5 at level 8 doing Positron 1.
It was really fun. We had a decent mix of AT's. No tanker, so our defender charged in and took the alpha - not a plan, they were just aggressive). Some quick healing would keep him alive most of the time. With only 5 of us, each person really mattered. And at level 8, each power really mattered.
The whole TF was less chaos. Spawns were small enough that they did not occupy the whole map. And at level 8 there were no Ruin Mages - so that was nice.
I normally just assume we will try to fill a team, but unfilled teams might be more fun.
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13 hours ago, Six Six said:
Here's another way of looking at things.
The team doesn't need a tank. (all archer team, all spider team, etc.)
The team doesn't need dps. (tanker tuesdays, thursdays, whateverdays)
The team doesn't NEED anything, but is happy to have you whatever AT or role you play. the team is greater than the sum of its parts.Yes, but that is looking at something else entirely.
"Does not need a specific AT" is about the need for a specific AT.
"My character may as well not even be there" is about whether or not your character is actually useful.
We do not want a specific AT to be needed. We do want our characters to actually matter. If your character being played or being afk has no impact on how the team does, that is a problem.
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The idea is that holding a solo mob is too powerful. If they cannot do anything, they will just lose. Which is why controls generally do not work against AVs and GMs.
But the devs can decide on a specific effect that is okay to do to the boss and have the stacked controls cause that effect.
So it lets controls have an effect, but not the overpowering effect that they normally have.
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10 hours ago, Blackfeather said:
Having a read through the description, it sounds a little bit like a global magnitude system - instead of each status effect contributing to break down a separate magnitude protection score, each one works to wear off a single point of protection, with the added caveat that magnitude can continuously build and not wear off over time. Would that be a correct summation?
It is not a wearing off of protection, because the effect when you get rid of the bar is not that the control works - although you could do that. Instead the effect differs depending upon the boss.
A boss might have damage resistance 50% unreducable, but when the bar is broken it goes away temporarily. Or they might regenerate while the bar is up but stop regenerating while the bar is down. Or they might have a damage aura while the bar is up, but it goes away while the bar is down.
So controllers do not hold bosses, the can debuff them with controls in a way that is specific to the boss. It has to be part of the design for each boss.
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You say that controls are binary, but they aren't quite. Enemies can have resistance so that a control has no effect, but they can also reduce the duration of the effect. So like debuffs work but at a reduced percent, you could also have controls work but for a shorter duration.
A problem I see with controls now is that they are not universally resisted. Sleep works on many AV's. So you can use static field in electricity to put them to sleep on and off - not full control, but it still works. Whereas hold does nothing.
The best use of controls for bosses that I have seen is Guild Wars 2. They have a defiance bar. Bosses with a defiance bar get some effect while the defiance bar is up or some penalty while it is down. The defiance bar is reduced by controls - different amounts depending on the control and its duration, so immobilize would lower it slightly and hold would lower it more. And after the defiance bar is down, it comes back after a short time. You can win without taking down a bosses defiance bar but it helps a lot. And since every AT has controls of some sort they can all participate in it not just controllers and dominators. Those ATs would just be better at it.
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I just don't bother playing most of the day. There is a window in the evening where finding a group is convenient. I play during that time.
You can pretty much always find a dfb. And ITF's and other end game farming are done a lot.
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Also - my big complaint about Red side teams is Council and Arachnos farming. If I go to red side, I don't want to fight the same enemies I fight blue side.
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Mission teams are much more casual than TF teams. If you want a team for fun and maybe some chat, join mission teams. TFs are usually just about getting done as fast as possible.
The lower level the team the more casual it is. Hollows, KR, Steel, and Faultline teams are people who want to have fun.
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I rarely have that on my laptop, but kindle seems to like randomly going back pages. I just no longer trying posting on forums with my kindle.
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On 9/18/2020 at 5:09 AM, Hew said:
Don't do radios! I really don't understand the prevalence of people running radios in PI.
I won't do radios in PI, too boring. But radios are good at lower levels because the arcs send you all around the city and that can be a pain on teams. And they don't throw in street sweeping or other mission types.
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I tried resistance warden but got tired of running through the tunnels.
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I've tried gold side a few times but given up fairly quickly. While I like that the maps and enemies are different than blue, gold side has some basic problems for me.
- Many of the arcs are evil. I don't like red side arcs for that reason
- Getting around in the tunnels is a pain. You can get somewhat used to it, but just finding your way through a 3d maze to get to a mission is not fun to me.
But I have been playing the Loyalist responsibility path and it is fun for me. You are trying to be good. You run around a city instead of the tunnels. It is similar to playing blue side but with better stories and gradually learning about the evils of the regime.
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8 hours ago, Xanatos said:
Yesterday's
Flame warPVP Thread got me thinking about how this applies here. PVE in City of Heroes isn't competitive. It's co-op. Not only that, but it's incredibly easy. The thing about PVE in City of Heroes I love the most is that I can take any powerset, any pool powers, roll my face across the keyboard, and still play just fine.The thing is CoH is not incredibly easy. But many people choose deliberately to play on easy mode. They choose the best powersets. They powerlevel past the challenging levels. They get the incarnate powers and IO sets that make the game incredibly easy. And they avoid fighting foes that are not easy.
Playing at level 50 with IO sets the game is trivially easy. Playing PI radio mission teams only fighting Council is trivially easy.
But soloing Night Ward with SOs is not trivially easy. Starting gold side is not trivially easy. Heck, starting red side is not trivially easy.
But the fact that you can play the game and make it trivially easy shows that there is massive room to dramatically nerf the best powersets and still leave the game trivially easy to play. The argument that the game is easy is an argument in favor of nerfs.
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I thought everyone loved Faultline because the Arbiter was so charming
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There really needs to be an unofficial redside server so that those who want to play on redside at least all play on the same server. That might be enough to get one server of redside with enough players to get teams going.
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I predict the devs will make changes and that players will complain that they cannot make more powerful characters with the changes than they could already, meaning that the changes are pointless.
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After a few weeks of therapy I may start another one.
Thanks to those of you who are brave enough to start mission teams. So many want to team but so few are willing to step up and organize them.
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D&D is a rule system, the type of game you play is up to you. It can be just combat. It can be exploring with lots of traps, hidden doors, etc. It can be a social adventure talking to people, getting information, tricking them, etc. It can be a practical game of stone dungeons, iron swords, etc. Or it can be a fantastic game of magical realms, castles on clouds, shapeshifting dragons, etc. So decide what you and the players want out of an adventure.
The most important thing is that people have fun and cool things happen. I am bad at this personally - I try to follow the rules and what is written for the module. But think of it as fan theory - if the module says the bartender is unimportant but a player suggests that maybe the bartender is secretly a spy for the king - and that seems cool - then go with it.
Provide short but detailed descriptions of people and places. You are in a dark forest with giant trees 100 feet tall, and little undergrowth - the only sound is of distant birds. Let the players imagine the rest. You need some details - You are in a forest - does not really set a scene. But describing all of the details bogs things down - the players can ask for more details (what type of tree are they) if they want.
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I know I ran some Night Ward missions pre-snap, but I have done little in Night Ward recently. Someone put a team together and ran what they said was the main arc - all about Percy. The final battle defending the mansion was epic.
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9 hours ago, Judasace said:
City of Heroes. Also, Asheron's call.
Shout out for Asheron's Call. My favorite MMO until CoH.
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Trick Arrow has 3 main issues: it is terrible at the start, it has no heal (self or otherwise), and it is very active making it hard to use with your other powerset. Trick Arrow has 3 basic advantages: it is more accurate than other sets, it has a single target hold, it has good high level powers.I am assuming that making changes to a set go in order of ease: tweaking the exiting power, porting over a power from another set, creating a new power. And re-ordering powers or changing powers impacts current characters so it should be avoided if possible. So while I would propose replacing Entangling Arrow with a heal, either Triage Beacon or Alkaloid, these proposals just tweak the existing powers.The changes are to 3 lower level powers to make them more useful and make the set better for soloing especially at lower levels.Entangling ArrowThis immobilizes and does negligible -recharge. It is essentially useless and is required for controllers and corruptors.- Give this power a mag 1 hold (enough to hold a minion and stacked with Ice Arrow to hold a boss) and damage over time equal to Stone Prison. This gives the power actual control/damage mitigation and the damage makes this great for soloing.Flash ArrowThis gives reduced perception and a -5% to hit debuff for 60 seconds. The to hit debuff is negligible out of the box. Stealth is nice but not important at low levels when you get this.- Change the to hit debuff to -10%.Ice ArrowThis is a single target hold.- Give this power the same damage as Block of Ice. The damage makes this great for soloing.
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I really like 3 of the 4. The 2nd one with the lightning chest symbol is just okay to me. But the others are great. I would happily play a character with any of them.
Voltgeist looks more damagey. Battle Beetle looks for tanky. The last guy is definitely steampunk.
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The basic rule is that if everything is the same it is not special and seems to just be there - not to be a choice. Adding a contrasting element makes the main element feel chosen.
1) Combine two themes. Zombie is boring. Cheerleader zombie, spaceman zombie, cowboy zombie, etc becomes something more unique and interesting. You can do it with any two costume sets or come up with your own themes.
2) Two colors make up most of your costume. A third, accent color, then stands out. Maybe your wrestling belt buckle is the special color, or the symbol on your chest, or your gloves, etc.
3) Mixing textures makes a character more interesting. An armor suited character with a cloth belt, or cloth cape, or other soft texture. Or a character in a cloth outfit with bulky metal helmet and gauntlets. Or chainmail under a trench coat.
4) Almost known of the costume design matters in game. We design costumes to look good when we peer at them close up. But most of the detail you fuss over is lost when viewed at normal in game viewing distances by other players. Other players notice "strong" costume design with large elements that are easily seen. So decide if you are designing for yourself or to be seen in game.
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Def vs Def I'm confused
in General Discussion
Posted
They do the same thing and do not stack. The game figures out which defense is better against a given attack - an aoe fire attack looks at your aoe defense and fire defense. You use the better defense. So in theory if you have all positions covered you are done, no need for def by type - and vice versa.