Ultimo

Turns out the game wasn't crashing, just taking a long time to save. I tried it again, and it finished saving after a couple of minutes.

Just as it says in the title. I adjusted the colours of my powers, then tried to save them. I typed in the new name for the customization, pressed enter to save, and the game freezes, then crashes to the desktop.

Thanks to all for the advice. The character is L28 now, all SO (except the PShifters). I don't use Snow Storm at all... I find it causes foes to run around aggroing whole maps, and it costs a lot of endurance for little benefit. My usual slotting (and this is the case on all my characters) is one endurance reduction, one accuracy and 3 damage (or relevant effect, if the power doesn't DO damage). However, that's been ENTIRELY insufficient on this character. I'll look into the Numina's and other such things you've suggested. Thanks again!

Back in the day, the reason I stopped playing CoH was because I found the endurance "game" far too frustrating. My characters couldn't walk and chew gum. I felt like I was fighting my POWERS more than the ENEMIES... and I'm back here again, feeling the same frustration, especially on my Defender, Ch'ih Sung Tsu. A storm god, his powers are Storm/Electric. I was going to give him some pools to boost his defenses, but he simply can't DO anything. I run through my attacks once, maybe twice... and he's OUT of endurance. I three slotted Stamina. I put THREE endurance reducers in every attack and toggle (except Hover)... and STILL was out of endurance in moments. Someone told me about Performance Shifter with the +Endurance proc... so I put one of those in Stamina. It helped... but not much. Then I noticed my Electric attacks can all take End Mod enhancers, and I wondered what would happen if I put one of those Performance Shifter +Endurance enhancers in EACH attack. If they proc every time I attack... I would be getting endurance BACK when I attacked. So, I'm trying it out. So far... I think it's working better. Each attack currently has the PShifter, an accuracy and a damage SO... and it SEEMS to be better. My question is how the procs would work. It says in the description that the proc should happen once every 90 seconds (in Stamina). The question is whether EACH one would proc each 90 seconds, independently of the OTHER procs, or if they would ALL go on "cooldown" if one procs? If it's the latter case, it seems to me that having multiples would be kind of pointless, the one in Stamina would be doing all the procs, putting all the ones in the attacks on cooldown. Anyway, it's an experiment. I'll let you know how it goes once I've had some time to play with it.

It was really more about this kind of thing. Group 1 meets a spawn of enemies. The controller controls them all. They are now all immobilized, but are still attacking. This doesn't really help the team at all. The enemies have taken no damage, and are still able to do damage. OR the controller puts them all to sleep. Now, the very first attack will wake them up. Those that aren't awakened are still asleep for about 2 seconds... Group 2 meets a spawn of enemies. The blaster hits them with an AOE attack, and they're all defeated... or the Tanker taunts them, and they can't attack the rest of the group. The Defender heals or bubbles or does whatever his powers do, protecting the group. In either case, the group is being helped, either by having damage done to the enemy or protection provided to the group. It made me wonder why one would bother with the controllers. I mean, even if you lock down the enemy, you still have to defeat them, so a blaster is preferable. The lockdown will wear off and with the lengthy cooldown on anything that's not an immobilize, it can't be used again the way a Tanker will be able to taunt, or a Defender will be able to heal or bubble or what have you... so those would be preferable to the controller too. Moreover, Bosses and higher are immune to the controls, meaning the controller is providing NOTHING against them, except a pittance of damage. Now, some good points have been made in defense of the controllers, but I'm still kind of unconvinced. I do still enjoy playing my controller... but on his OWN. I still don't feel like I'm contributing anything of value to groups.

Well... I don't know that it would BREAK anything... those tier 1 powers are generally not all that powerful... but I don't think that's the way to go. I'd just rather they make that first power useful to the AT... for each AT.

Think of it this way, then. A character who has a power at tier 1 of their secondary that is more or less worthless... has ONE LESS power at his disposal than other characters who have a useful power at that tier. This puts him at a disadvantage relative to those others. Now, it's not likely to be a huge problem, but it IS a disadvantage that many would say shouldn't exist. My Tanker is required to take Jab. I find it to be a more or less worthless power. It uses endurance to make an attack that does almost nothing, endurance better used by other attacks. This means my Tanker has one fewer attacks to use than other characters. More, if he wants to substitute some other attack in its place, it means using a second slot to do it.

You see, I have the opposite point of view. Because that first power is the only one you have no choice of, it's necessary they all be more or less equal so no set is at a disadvantage you have no control over. Where there's no choice, there's no meaningful choices to make beyond "Don't take that power set," and that should never be a choice.

Again, if they can do that for other players, why is it OP for them to do it for themselves?

Tonight, for the third time, a mission ended suddenly in failure. The first time it happened was one of the radio Bank missions (Safeguard?). I zoned in, located the bank on my map, highlighted it and flew there. Landed with the message that the bank was being robbed, and clicked the door to go inside. I took one step, and the mission ended in failure. The second time was another Safeguard mission. I went in, beat up the first group of guards, then went to the vault and defeated the villain. I went back up and left the bank, and it ended in failure. Tonight, it was a mission for some guy in Talos, to defuse 5 bombs and not let Officer somebodyorother escape. I went in (Stalker), scouted the first level without engaging, noted where the bombs were, and saw no sign of Officer whoever. I went to the elevator, and the mission ended in failure. I hadn't even clicked on the elevator yet. As with the other two missions, there was no time to do anything. The first one lasted about 10-20 seconds. The second was a bit longer, but failed for no discenrable reason. This third time was about 2 minutes. How was I to do anything? I didn't even take the time to fight anything, disable bombs or do anything of that sort. I suspect some kind of bug, but I don't know how to define it.

This is what I thought, but that makes Stealth useless once you have Invisibility...

Hm, fair points.

So... I wondered if the Concealment power pool was scheduled for a revamp... because it sure could use one. I have a mentalist character that uses Stealth. I would upgrade that to Invisibility... but then Stealth is a wasted power. Why would I use Stealth when I have Invisibility? So, I wondered if there was going to be some adjustment to the pool. My thinking was to replace Stealth with an PBAOE Placate and leave the other powers as they are. Any other ideas?

I would agree with that. Also the pools, things like Spirit Ward would work on the caster, too.

Debuffs will too... things like Snow Storm.

You CAN'T think the icon for Combat Teleport is appropriate...

If it's not broken when the Defender applies it to someone else, why would it be broken when it's the Defender who gets the benefit?

So, Domination does a couple of useful things (increases control magnitude, restores endurance, etc.). What I don't know is whether it does anything to boost the Dominator's secondary? It doesn't seem to... is that how it's supposed to be? If it's NOT affecting the secondary powers, perhaps something can be done to have it do so? A boost to critical hit chance, or reduction in endurance cost, or some such...?

I think it would be more useful if it did a bit of damage. Total Domination, too. As it is, the duration of each is so short and the recharge so long, that they're of only occasional use.

Actually, your comment gave me an idea! What if, instead of the Rampage missions (where you do newspaper missions until sent to "Paragon City" to rob a bank) taking you to an instanced mission area, it instead sent you to actual PARAGON CITY, where hero players are playing! You would be given a temporary buff power that would only be active while in Paragon, that reduces the effect of player powers on you by a substantial amount (perhaps enough to make you as tough as an AV?). The NPC enemies would still affect you normally, but PCs would have to gather to fight you, or you would overwhelm them. If not as part of the Robbery missions, then perhaps as part of some other story arc or something? Not sure if it would even be possible...

Before I begin, let me say I really don't expect this to happen. It would be a ton of work. However, I made the suggestion back in the old days, so I thought it might be worth making again, if only for the sake of discussion and amusement. Agendas One of the issues I've always had with playing villains in City of Heroes is that we're always stuck being little more to lackeys, doing jobs for the lackeys of the minions of the lieutenants of Lord Recluse. Hardly in character for my character based on Dr. Doom. We should be able to develop schemes and plans of our own. To this end, I developed a system that might allow us to do so. I call it the Agenda System. This system would become available to villains at L22, by which time they are more or less coming into their own, and can get Single Origin enhancements. They would begin by selecting an Agenda from a list. There would be MANY possible Agendas, but some would be restricted to higher levels. For example, a L22 villain isn't going to be trying to conquer the world. His goal would be much more modest. Once you have selected an Agenda, you would select a METHOD from a second list. This would allow you to choose the precise means by which you hope to achieve your overall goal. For example, if you want to take over the world, you might try to do it by building an army of robots, or summoning an army of demons, or by building an orbital laser cannon to ransom the world... and so on. Once you have selected the Method, you would be given a list of goals by which you would make that method happen. You would now do missions to achieve these goals. Again, there would be some variety in this. For example, if you wanted to conquer the world with an army of robots, you're going to need a base of operations, computer components, software, metals to construct them from, weapons, manufacturing equipment, and so on. The list would be LENGTHY, potentially HUNDREDS of units of each item. The intent is that this should take you some considerable time, as you achieve your goals. Ideally, you would be able to recruit other players to help with these goals, assigning them as missions yourself, as if you were a contact. As you get closer to completing your goals, the opposition will get tougher and tougher. You would start encountering actual superheroes, not just ranking Longbow or what have you. You might even start encountering the members of the Freedom Phalanx. Once you have achieved all your goals, you are ready to proceed with your planned method of achieving your agenda. You will enter your lair for one final mission. In this mission, you will face overwhelming opposition; it is not intended that you will win. After all, you can't actually conquer the world, it would kind of upend the whole game. Even in defeat, you will recieve some excellent rewards (to be determined). However, if you somehow manage to beat the no-win scenario, you will trigger several effects. First, you will set off a worldwide event that is in keeping with your method of achieving your agenda. For example, if you're conquering the world with robots, an army of hostile robots will swarm all over all zones, EVERYWHERE, attacking players and NPCs alike. Eventually, the army of robots would be destroyed, and your plan would fail. Indeed, whatever method you chose would eventually backfire and/or fail, so status quo would be maintained. At the same time, you would recieve a personal buff, increasing your abilities to Arch Villain status, and you would be flagged for zone PvP. This means anyone would be free to attack you, anywhere. Of course, because you're essentially now an AV, you'll be more than a match for any single player, possibly for MANY players. This buff would last for a specific duration, or until you're defeated. Once it's all over, you can select a new Agenda, and start again. This would give our villains some agency, some ability to have schemes of their own. The Agendas might be quite modest, or they might be cosmically grand... but this would all require a lot of work to make happen. Even so, I would love to see something like it. Lord Dire wearies of being a lackey to a minion of a lieutenant of some other villain. Here is an example: Lord Dire calls up the list of Agendas, and chooses conquer the world. He next selects the Army of Robots Method. He is now given a list of objectives and necessary materials. First on that list is to establish a base. He starts with this mission, raiding and taking over a base from the Council. His objectives now change to a list of materials needed to build his robots, including 10,000 units of steel, a high capacity generator, 100 fabrication machines, 1000 computer chips, 1000 preprogrammed AI units, 2000 sensor units, 10,000 battery units, 10,000 feet of assorted wiring, 5000 units of titanium armour. These can be acquired in regular missions, where they will appear randomly as glowies in small amounts, or as part of Agenda missions he can do specifically to get these items, but in slightly larger amounts. He could also assign Agenda missions to other players, letting them gather materials for him. He goes through missions, both regular, grouped and Agenda, gathering materials here and there. As he does so, his opponents become more and more powerful and numerous, even appearing in missions having nothing to do with his Agenda (eg. while on a Task Force, radio or other mission, a hero, up to and including a member of the Freedom Phalanx, might appear somewhere in the mission as a random encounter.) He might also have to endure occasional ambushes in the open world. He will also get random missions where his base is under attack (usually by the group he took it from, in this case the Council). He would be unable to gather materials while his base is under siege. Any defeats he suffers will cost him some of his resources. This also happens if he sends other players on missions for him. If they're defeated, he loses some of his gathered materials. Eventually, he finishes gathering all the components on his list. It might have taken months of actual gameplay, and many levels on the character. At this point, he goes back to his base and waits for the army of robots to be constructed. All he needs to do now is survive endless waves of powerful foes for a set amount of time (say, 20 minutes). These foes will start strong, but get even stronger as the mission goes on. In the last 2 minutes, the enemies will pull out all the stops, and the absolute strongest foes will attack, a whole team of AV level Freedom Phalanx heroes... Statesman, Manticore, Synapse and all the rest. They all attack together, and Dire has to survive for those last 2 minutes. IF HE DOES NOT, he is defeated. His base is destroyed around him (cutscene?), and he is thought destroyed (this does not count as a defeat). He is awarded some really good stuff (xp, recipes, salvage, etc.) for completing his Agenda. IF HE DOES miraculously survive or defeat the final 2 minutes... He is elevated to AV status, and flagged for PvP wherever he goes. At the same time, sirens sound all over the game, both Paragon and the Rogue Isles, in all zones. Armies of robots will continuously spawn in all zones, attacking everything they see, both PCs and NPCs. This assault will continue until a set number of robots are defeated (say... 10,000?). At that point, the raids end. Dire will retain his AV buff for 1 hour of game time. Once it's gone and the robot raids are defeated, his Agenda is finished, and he will recieve the rewards as above for completing it. At this point, he can now choose another Agenda (or the same one, if he wishes). What do you think?

But that's the point of why I posted. I wasn't seeing any point, so I asked what the point is, and people have replied. Granted, I'm not at the endgame level, but there's a LOT of game that happens prior to that. Most of the groups I'm in are a pretty mixed bag. The class I seem to see most often is Brutes (though I can't quite fathom that either... my Brutes are always rather squishy, but others don't seem to have that problem... a topic for another thread, I think). What I didn't consider is the secondary effects, like the -Tohit on Darkness. My Controllers are Mind Control, Electric Control and Gravity Control, Mind Control, I haven't played all that much, so I can't say much there. Electric Control I played to L22, but found it incredibly tedious and of limited value. Of course, there's not any significant secondary effect. Draining Endurance is really of minimal value against NPCs in my experience. Gravity Control... I"m not sure if there's a secondary effect. I'll have to look.

What I meant was that as a Controller or Dominator, you're not really providing damage, protection or support for the team. Your damage is going to be largely slow to inflict. Solo, this is how you defeat your foes, slowly but safely. In groups, though, your damage is trivial, and most enemies are defeated before you do anything significant. Your protection of the team is marginal too. Sleeps are usually broken right away, and immobilizes don't prevent enemy attacks. Holds are better, but are either single target on foes that get killed immediately, before the presence of the hold means anything, or have such short duration and long recharge, that they're more or less irrelevant. Of course, bosses and higher ignore all of that anyway. Your support powers are the most useful, but even then it's only marginally, because they're your secondary, and as such are relatively weak. Dominators don't even have THAT much, as their secondary is more dps, such as it is. Yes, I find Controllers and Dominators reasonably capable on their own, but I find their ability to contribute meaningfully to teams kind of dubious.

This is a suggestion for a very minor cosmetic change to this power. Specifically, it ought to leave a short trail of sparkles behind you as you move, kind of like the misty stuff Flight and Hover has. Nothing as dense as an actual Path Aura, just a little trail of sparkles similar to the ones the power generates around the character.

So... it's never seemed quite fair to me that Defenders (and Corruptors, Masterminds, etc.) can't actually use their defensive powers THEMSELVES. For example, my latest project involves making a Green Lantern homage, and I really like the idea of Force Fields. It's totally in character. However, I can't use any of my powers to defend ME (except PFF, but you can't fight with that active, and Dispersion Bubble just lacks the personality of the smaller bubbles... and very often makes it hard to SEE - and yes, I know there's a minimal FX setting). I never quite understood WHY we can't use our own bubbles on ourselves. Now, you might suggest that would make Defenders (etc.) OP, but I don't agree. I find them to be... honestly rather weak. Their damage is pretty minimal, and they have next to no personal defenses. Sure, they can take things like Combat Jumping, Tough and Weave and the like.... but I don't know why they're FORCED to... I mean, they HAVE defensive powers, they're just not allowed to USE them. Moreover, if they take the team buffs, that's three power slots that are doing nothing for them when they're solo (which is most of the time, in my experience). I find that distressing, because it puts them at an even GREATER disadvantage. So, my suggestion is to allow characters with these kinds of power to use them on THEMSELVES. Perhaps they could have a lesser effect, or shorter duration or something... but they really should be able to use them for their own sake. First Responders are always taught... Help yourself FIRST, you're no use to anyone if you're dead.