Ultimo

It's neither an exaggeration, nor misleading. I came out of a mission one time just as a Rikti ship passed over me. It fired its DOT beam, and I was oneshotted. Another time, I was in the Manticore TF on my Defender. The bodyguard guy punched me ONCE, and I was dead. Yes, he left me with one health, but did enough damage to kill me a DOZEN times over. You're going to say that's not overkill? That I had one health is little more than a semantic "not defeated," since any minions or a strong breeze finishes you off. Big bold messages are fine, because they WARN you to move or take action to avoid defeat. I'm absolutely FINE with that. However, most high end villains do enough damage to kill a lot of characters many times over, just with basic attacks, with no warning and no way to avoid or survive them. It isn't submitting to your point to say that characters with 1 hit point are effectively defeated. That mechanic actually accomplishes NOTHING, since so many attacks are DOTs and you're usually under attack by SEVERAL foes. It's a meaningless gesture so they can say "Oh no, you can't be oneshotted," when the reality is quite different. So... you're saying I'm wrong to say many or most characters can't survive attacks that do several times their maximum health? That I should adapt to the game mechanics? How, exactly? The enemy attacks with, for example, KO Blow. It "rolls" a 2, or gets a streakbreaker, meaning it's guaranteed to hit. It does 3000 damage to my character with 255 health. How do I adapt to that? Stay away from him, you say? Good plan. But he throws a boulder and does 1000 damage, stuns and suppresses flight. Now what? Pop some inspirations? He's guaranteed to hit, so defense is useless. He's doing 10 times my maximum health, so resistance is useless. He's stunning and knocking me down, so I can't actually USE them until I stand up, by which time he's done that last 1 point of damage... Tankers can sometimes survive, but even at that, not for long. Other characters are just screwed. Controllers have less health than anyone, and rely on their controls for defense... meaning they have NO defense against Bosses, Elite Bosses, Arch Villains and Giant Monsters. How is that Controller supposed to withstand even ONE attack from Wretch or Ghost Widow? Since characters are GOING to get hit, it MUST be possible to survive and react to getting hit. Minion damage is fine. Lieutenant damage is fine. Boss damage is fine. Elite Bosses often do way too much damage. Arch Villains and Giant Monsters also do WAY too much damage, almost all of the time. You may say this makes it too easy for Tankers to survive... and I say they're SUPPOSED to survive. That's what makes them TANKERS. I'm also aware of HOW to make IOs. That isn't the problem. The problem is that I have NEVER had any of the recipes I need for ANY of my characters drop, and I've NEVER had any of the ultrarare salvage needed to make them, even if I did get them... and there's NO way I can afford 500 billion inf PER CHARACTER to buy the stuff needed. Making them isn't the issue. Getting what's needed is the issue. The stuff needed is too rare, and too expensive. I will say, I don't feel attacked, I thank you for your concern, and I reply in kind. This has been the source of frustration for me dating back to the earliest live days, so if I come across with inappropriate enthusiasm, I do apologize.

Actually, I had another thought after reading some comics (and I'm always looking for ways to let the game more closely resemble the comics). If you look at heroes in the comics fighting big bad guys, even ultrapowerful AV/GM level enemies, they don't get taken out immediately, but they DO get knocked around a lot. What if, instead of having vastly overpowering damage, they instead had a tremendous boost to secondary effects? So, an enemy using Haymaker would not instantly oneshot a Defender or Controller, but would do more reasonable damage but also knock them FLYING. Boost the secondary effects instead of the damage?

What I mean is, big enemies (GMs, AVs and even EBs) shouldn't be hitting us quite so hard. Many of them will instantly defeat a hero in one attack. For example, if an AV hits my Defender with a Fireball that does 3500 damage, and my Defender has 255 health... that's ridiculous overkill. Yes, he's going to survive with 1 hit point, until the DOT or one of the adds, or the AV's next attack finishes him off. There's no point even trying to fight a foe that can do that kind of thing. My thinking is always that a player fighting carefully and intelligently should be able to defeat any foe, given enough time, regardless of AT or power sets. I do understand the risk of being a bag of hit points, but the idea is to find that balance point, where the enemy is strong enough to be a threat, but not SO strong as to be instantly overpowering. I also understand the influence of IOs. The thing is, not everyone has them, especially at lower level. Same with Incarnates. Since they can't be available to everyone, the game can't be balanced around them. Doing so makes the content unplayable by anyone who doesn't have them. Witness the 'balance' at Star Trek Online. There are now many enemies that my characters simply cannot do anything to. DPS has become SO absurdly high on high end builds, that enemies became trivial. In response, they started making enemies balanced around that level of DPS, which most players can't achieve. The result is what I said. Most players simply can't do anything to the enemies. Here, the problem is that some enemies simply do so much damage that many or most characters simply can't fight them. I suppose my basic argument is, the upper level of enemy damage needs to be brought down substantially, and their resilience needs to be buffed somewhat. This latter can be done via more health, but could also be done by giving them self heals, or some other special mechanic to restore themselves (I'm thinking of Malak in Knights of the Old Republic, absorbing the life energy of trapped Jedi). Truthfully, I don't expect anything will actually change. It's been this way for too long now. Perhaps another way around it is to make IOs more accessible? If everyone can have them, then it's fine to balance the game around them. And yes, I know everyone CAN have them, but the cost is such that it's not really possible for most people. Between the rarity of getting the ones you want, and the rarity of the materials needed to craft them, and the cost in influence to buy them... it's not usually possible. Anyway... still kind of rambling.

It's something I've said for YEARS, informed by decades of running Champions pen and paper RPG. Villains NEED to be weak enough to fight, but strong enough to challenge. It's a bit of a balancing act. If the bad guy kills you instantly with one attack, there's no game, because there's nothing you can DO. It doesn't matter if you're a squishy, you NEED to be able to fight back, and that means you need to survive, especially when the character's defense is based on defeating a foe before he can hurt you too much (eg. a Blaster). In Champions, I used to use the Enemies books, and I found almost all the enemies were capable of obliterating my players' characters almost immediately, so I went through and tweaked them all, reducing their damage and defenses, and adding to their Stun (health) pools. This meant the heroes COULD withstand the enemy while being able to whittle them down. In a game like this, it means reducing the damage for top end enemies, reducing their defenses and regeneration, but ADDING health. Attacks that do large amounts of damage need to be avoidable. This way, players can WIN if they fight carefully. If they make mistakes, they should lose, but they need to be ABLE to win. I'll use an example from another game. Elder Scrolls Online has a number of "World Bosses" in the various zones. The older ones are strong, but CAN be fought, even by solo players. This is because they don't do SO much damage that it's impossible to fight through it. They do have attacks that can do HUGE damage, even oneshot damage, but they're telegraphed, or can be interrupted. That means players can fight in relative safety if they're careful and smart. It's FUN. The newer ones are what CoH seems to have, giant bosses that don't NEED telegraphed oneshot attacks because EVERY attack is a oneshot attack. It's just not any fun trying to fight them. There's a LOT of this in City of Heroes, enemies that just do SO much damage, there's not really any way to fight them. A rule I made for my Champions gaming was, enemies should never have the ability to do more damage than the players (unless they're a particularly strong enemy, but even then it shouldn't be much more). For example, my heroes had a 60 active point limit on their powers. Most enemies had the same limit. Elite enemies (like Doctor Destroyer, Champions' version of Doctor Doom) were allowed up to 75 points. The exception was Stun (health), which was made larger depending on the 'rank' of the villain. Anyway, I'm weary and I feel like I'm rambling. I think I've made my point, if not hopefully I can clarify another time.

Well... my main is technically Ultimo, a Radiation Blast/Invulnerability Sentinel, with Flight and Fighting. However, I actually play him relatively little. My highest level hero is Thor Odinsson, a War Mace/Electric Armour Brute with Superleap and Mu Mastery. My main and highest level villain is Lord Dire, a Robotics/Force Field Mastermind with Flight and Mu Mastery. I feel like Dire would win. Thor struggles quite often, with endurance issues and general squishiness. Dire, on the other hand, is a juggernaut, with his bots being nearly invulnerable most of the time, and Dire himself safe inside his Personal Force Field. Thor does hit pretty hard though, so he might be able to take out the bots if he can land a hit here or there. I've tried making these characters in the AE, but the balance there is so screwed up that it's nearly impossible to get a fight that might resemble the real thing. Melee characters in the AE obliterate almost anything they touch, especially if they're given any of their medium or high level powers.

I was making a character whose name should have an umlaut to be spelled correctly, but I couldn't get the game to recognize it. I tried copy/paste, but that didn't work either. Is there a way to put a letter with an umlaut (or other special characters) into a character's name or bio?

I'd actually been considering dropping Hell on Earth, I wasn't convinced of its usefulness. It takes SO long to recharge, has such a limited range and seems to do so little... I went with Spirit Ward instead.

Ya, he's about L20 now, so I figure I'll stick it out for a bit. I feel like there's more effective combos, but it works conceptually, at least.

I thought about using Dark as a secondary, but I already have two characters using it, and wanted something different. Plus, the Electric powers LOOK like stuff Baron Mordo might use.

Usually, I plan a character in Mids to L50, using only SOs. I don't want to waste what little influence I have on IOs or sets that I'm going to outlevel, so I just use SOs until I get to 50 (though, none of my characters are there yet).

You'll forgive me while I vent a little. Tonight, my Mercs/Radiation Mastermind was doing the Mr. G arc. At the end of it, you have to decide whether to betray him or not. I asked about it in chat, but people were too busy making jokes to actually answer my questions, so I chose the betrayal option. I went through to the vault and stole the money, but he was waiting to attack me when I came out. The vault area is a tiny space, so when he did his massive damage AOE attack, it oneshotted all my mercs and left me with 1 health, and left me held (as if he needed even MORE of an advantage). Of course, his next attack did that 1 damage. So I respawned back at base and returned to the mission. I went down the elevator into the vault, where he was standing RIGHT in front of the door. He knocked me to 1 health as I was entering the room, and finished me off before I'd even finished animating the entrance into the room. My mercs never even had a chance to appear. He did this over and over and over and over and over. There was literally NO way to even enter the room. I sucked down purples. I chowed down on oranges. I tried putting on choking cloud (which he ignores, being an EB). There was literally no way to get in the room, let alone FIGHT him when he's oneshotting my pets all at once. I'm sorry, but this strikes me as BAD DESIGN. It was literally impossible for me to fight back against this. The damage was WAY over the top, doing hundreds of damage in a single attack (I have 588 health on this character). In the end, someone else had to come in and do my mission for me. What fun. I mean seriously, WHAT FUN? I've commented before about the excessive damage some enemies do. I was told that it was group content, and my character wasn't supposed to be in melee, and all the usual rationalizations. This was a solo mission, and he was standing at the only entrance into the room. Bad design.

Still more of the same. I've tried everything I can think of, short of uninstalling and reinstalling it. Any chance that would work?

Ok, so it's not bugged. I thought because I was L15, the enemies would scale to my level and also be L15. I didn't think they would all be max level. Seems strange then, that people broadcast for teams and say "Suchandsuch TF, +3, yadda yadda" if you can't actually change the level.

So, I've never hosted a Strike or Task Force, so I thought I'd start the Tarikoss one tonight. Never having tried it before, I started it out on my own. My character is L15, which is the minimum for this SF. However, it was not possible to even try, not because I was outnumbered badly (which was what I expected), but because ALL the enemies were L20, +5 to my character despite my difficulty being set to -1. It seemed strange, so I thought I'd come here and see if this was normal. If it is... why would they open up the SF to L15 characters if the missions are a minimum of L20?

I have a Controller character, Gravity Control/Time Manipulation, with Sorcery. I wanted to make his "nemesis" (who I want to play as a villain, but who will also appear in AE missions). Think of Baron Mordo. My initial choice was Demon Summoning. I've got lots of Masterminds, but never used Demons, so I wanted to give them a try. I've also got lots of Dark Miasma Masterminds, and my main Mastermind uses Force Fields, so I wanted to try something else I hadn't used before, settling on Electric Affinity. So, my new Warlock is a Demon Summoning/Electric Affinity with Sorcery. Now, I love the LOOK of this. The electric effects look great in the colour scheme, and the Demons are in character... so my instinct is to like this character... but I'm struggling to enjoy him. I'm finding the demons REALLY squishy, and the Electric Affinity abilities to be REALLY weak. Has anyone any thoughts on this combo? The character IS only L15, but I don't want to waste more time on him if he's not going to get any better.

I have no idea what MTU is, or where I go to set/change it.

So I ran netgraph, but there's nothing in red, just a line of green with tiny spikes, like grass. Now and again, corresponding with the numerous freezes, there will be a tall green line, wider when the freeze is longer. Nothing in red or yellow, all green. Alas, I've no idea what any of it means.

I'll try that.

Well, the last few days, it's back to the nonsense. The game has become just unplayable. I've tried the fix mentioned above, I've tried verifying everything, I've updated all the drivers, shut down all the background stuff including antivirus... I'm getting close to uninstalling and reinstalling fresh, but I'm reluctant to do that lest I lose all my settings and stuff. I'm quite at a loss.

So, I'm creating a new character, based on Deathstroke (and a bit of Taskmaster). I've created him in two ways, but I'm having trouble deciding which to stick with. The first version is an Arsenal Control/Assault Rifle Dominator. I'm kind of liking him so far, but he IS only L8. He promises to be kind of gadgety, with the grenades and gasses and stuff. The other is an Assault Rifle/Ninja Blaster. I'm rather liking him too. He does plenty of damage, and has that katana when people get in close. He honestly "feels" more like Deathstroke than the Dominator does. So, I'm looking for opinions. As far a concept goes, which would you choose, and why? As far as performance goes? Just kind of polling the audience.

I've gone back to the Stalker, I'm finding the Scrapper just too squishy, and honestly not versatile enough.

As I say, there are a couple of changes they could make right off I'd get behind. First, add damage to knockback. More knock means more damage. Second, the first three powers should be: Punch (replaces Jab, which is nearly useless anyway), same as we have now. Haymaker, much like Cross Punch, a small cone AOE. Hurl, much as it is now, but has a small AOE for normal damage (it's a big slab, and can hit multiple targets if they're close together), and a diminishing AOE around that (flying debris). Maybe another power whose purpose is entirely to do knockback, to simulate grabbing and throwing an enemy, or swatting him away. I'd rename Rage, and call it "Gloves Off," or something like that. While it's active, knockback becomes unresistable, even by AVs and the like. Strong characters should be able to move even the heaviest, strongest characters. Beyond that... Well, I'm just kind of spitballing.

Oh, I agree. Depending on how they handle adding damage to knockback, that alone might be enough to make the anemic damage better, and reduce reliance on Rage. My main thrust is that the main thing we see strong characters doing is MOVING things (or stopping things from moving). Anyone can punch, but lifting heavy things is kind of the point of strength. It doesn't have to be a lot. One thing about fights with super strong characters is the collateral damage. Just adding some of this to the set might do wonders as well (presentation is half the battle). Add a little screen shake, some cracks in the ground and dust and debris flying around. Move Hurl down so it's available earlier, and make it a small AOE. You're right, knockback is reviled today, but that's because the cost of it (ie. spreading enemies out) is greater than the benefit of it (a brief soft control). If it did some decent damage too, that might be enough to make it useful. Notice, this would also add a bit of extra damage to powers that are designed specifically for knocks (eg. Force Bolt), which I don't think would be unwelcome. I'll also point out that there are enhancers that allow you to change knockback to knockDOWN. Maybe that would make the change palatable. I'd replace Jab, and give the set a power specifically designed to knock foes flying. Not much damage, but massive knockback, like Force Bolt. I'd make two basic punches, one single target, one AOE, like Cross Punch. Then Hurl. I'd have Rage near the end of the set, and call it something else, since not every super strong character is a rage-monster. Maybe instead of adding a ton of damage, it could boost secondary effects and reduce endurance costs. I mean, we see tanky characters in the comics getting knocked around all the time, but never in this game. If Rage made knock effects irresistable, you could find a super strong character could be knocking down otherwise unknockable characters... which would be appropriate because the character is STRONG. Anyway, it's not that it's in ineffective set for me, it's the presentation more than anything.

I've LONG suggested Super Strength could use a bit of love. I mean, it's the single most iconic power of ANY comic character. You can even go back to ancient mythology, where vast strength was a power of many great heroes (eg. Herakles). One thing I'd like to see them do is add some damage to knockback. They could then pair this up with Super Strength doing lots OF knockback. I know, people don't like it, but it's kind of the thing great strength is about... lifting and moving heavy objects. To represent this, I'd also move Hurl so it's acquired MUCH sooner. Another thing is that the set currently relies far too much on one or two powers. Without Rage running, the set is very underwhelming, and apart from KO Blow, the damage is pretty mediocre. Another thought I had is that perhaps Super Strength could be altered to be ALL AOE. That is, every attack is spread across all targets in range. If you're fighting a big group of minions, your damage would be spread to each one equally. If you're fighting ONE enemy, he'd take ALL the damage. It would also be useful for Tankers that way, as it would spread threat to all the enemies it's hitting. Whatever the case may be, I'd like to see it tweaked to be more in line with the source material.

Utility Belt pool? Ya, I'd been planning for Weapon Mastery, I was just unsure whether to go Scrapper or Stalker. The original design was the Stalker, but I noticed he has to take out every foe one at a time, and that's kind of tedious, especially on teams. So, I thought about making him a Scrapper. I thought the Scrapper would be sturdier, but I'm not experiencing that, and Mids seems to bear that out. So, I'm still torn.