Ultimo

Ok, here's what he has so far. There is Stealth off the bottom of the list, but it's not something I use much, just for situations when I want to slip past enemies unnoticed. This character doesn't have the Panacea/Numina/Perfomance Shifter stuff, I had moved them (I think it was just the Peformance Shifter) off him to a different character after a respec... but I keep coming back to this guy because I really WANT him to work... but it's just not going that way.

Well, I didn't present a build because I was referring to the AT in general, across several builds. The character that kind of instigated the thread is Radiation Emission/Energy Blast, and usually has the two Rad toggles on the enemy, plus Maneuvers and Assault, and then Hover (which uses minimal endurance). He has just three attacks, Power Bolt, Power Burst and Sniper Blast (he does have Energy Torrent, but rarely uses it). Since he has no defenses to speak of, even a single attack from a foe does a huge amount of damage. A Boss level enemy can take out 80% of his health in one shot. Lieutenants can take out 50%. Minions more like 20%... so it's better if he doesn't get hit. That means using the toggles. Besides, what's the point of having the powers if you can't use them? However, as I said, he's not the only one with issues. Pretty well every Defender I've ever played has issues with endurance. Not that I've played every power combination. I've never played Trick Arrow to any appreciable level, for example (I do have a character with it, but he's a Corruptor, and only around L10). Maybe it's just the powers I tend to pick that are problematic.

Most of the time, I slot just SOs (I never really had the resources to invest in IOs, and it seemed a waste in any case, as I mentioned in a different thread). My usual way of doing things is to put 1 endurance reduction, one accuracy and 3 damage (if possible) in any attacks, and 1 endurance reduction and 3 other in anything like armours or hurricane or what have you. That's fine on most of my characters. My Tankers have some issues at times, but usually get by ok... but the Defenders really suffer. The character has Accelerate Metabolism, and that's really the only way he's able to do much of anything, and it's not up all the time. Even when it IS up, he's usually at around 1/3 to 1/2 endurance by the time he's defeated two or three bad guys. That's on that one particular character. Other Defenders don't have the luxury of AM. And that's the point I'm making. THIS Defender does have a power that helps, even if only slightly. I have one with Recovery Aura (Empathy), and he does ok... so long as the effect is still up. I'm really not sure where the endurance is GOING. That is, his attacks use the same endurance as a Blaster's attacks, but do a fraction of the damage... which means he has to attack more often for the same effect, which means using more endurance. Is that the source of the issue, or is it the toggles, things like Hurricane, Steamy Mist, Enervating Field or what have you? I just find it so difficult to enjoy the class. They don't seem to be much good at anything. Sure, they help their team decently well... but even there, their contribution is minimal. Unless the Defender never attacks, he's basically always out of endurance. Not all of them have Numina's, Performance Shifter, et al. but a couple of them do. I've never really noticed that it helps much. One thing I tried on my Storm Control/Electric Blast Defender was to put a Performance Shifter into each of the Electric Blasts, in addition to Stamina; the idea being that each time he used a blast, there was a chance to proc, in addition to the effects in Stamina. That also didn't seem to help much. Now, I could put more endurance reduction slots into the powers, but that reduces their effects. If I swap one of the Damage enhancements for an Endurance Reduction, it means his damage is even LOWER than it is now (or rather, than it would be once it was fully slotted). I'm kind of posting to vent, but also genuinely to ask how people are able to enjoy the Defender as an AT, considering how hampered it is.

So, today I was playing one of my Defenders. I have several, and they're all incredibly tedious to play, almost entirely because they run out of endurance in the course of defeating even one minion enemy. With one exception, they're all L20-25. The exception is L36 now, I believe. Today's excursion was with my Radiation Emission/Energy Blast Defender. I did several radio missions. As it happened, in each the foes were Banished Pantheon. Many of the Lieutenants (Shamans) were yellow or orange. The Zombies were usually yellow or white. Defeating even ONE of these foes used basically all the Defender's endurance, and in several cases I was left trying to defeat them with BRAWL, because I didn't have any endurance for any of my attacks. This is typical of all my Defender characters. Now, they're usually fairly SAFE to play. With the Radiation toggles on the enemies, they have a hard time hitting me. Likewise when it's something like Hurricane. The Force Fields guys are less well defended (ironically), but have the PFF to fall back on in a pinch. Endurance costs on Defenders are just absurdly high. Now, I should say that in many cases, they already have the Performace Shifter/Numina/etc. stuff on them. They're all slotted with endurance reduction in every power. Short of putting NOTHING but endurance reduction in all the powers, I've done pretty well everything I should be doing to reduce endurance costs. If I did put more endurance reductions into the powers, the powers themselves would become ineffective at what they're supposed to actually DO... which isn't really a good solution either. My question is, what are Defender players doing to make these characters fun to play? As it is, they just aren't. They're tedious and frustrating to play, and I really WANT to like them... In many cases, the AT suits the character concepts in ways no other AT would... but they're just so horrible to play.

Again, strangeness. After reinstalling, I ran the game and adjusted my settings, then closed it. A few minutes later, I went to restart it, but the launcher again said the game was not installed. I clicked there, and it acted like it was installing (green bar went across) for about 1 second, then ran normally. However, then MIDS wouldn't run, and was apparently corrupted. Peculiar. I reinstalled Mids, and now both seem to be functioning correctly.

That's possible... but it's been on the system for some time, and as I mentioned, the folder was still there with everything in it. Very perplexing. I just reinstalled everything, didn't take long.

So, earlier today I was playing the game. No problems, just as usual. I went to update Mids, and it mysteriously uninstalled itself instead. I thought it might have done it to prepare for an update, but nope, it never reinstalled. I had to download it again and reinstall it (I didn't try updating it again). The evening wore on, and I thought I'd log back in to do some stuff with my AE arcs, but when I started the launcher, it says, "Not Installed" where the button to enter Homecoming is supposed to be. I looked into the game folder (I usually put my games in Games/Homecoming, for example), and the Homecoming file folder is there, around 5GB in size. So... it doesn't seem to have been uninstalled, but it doesn't seem to recognize that the game is THERE. Any ideas what is going on and how I correct it?

Oh, I agree. I don't expect or hope for them to implement anything like perks and flaws, I was just saying I'd made the suggestion at one time.

Yes, that particular example is. But day jobs happen while you're NOT playing. I'd like to see some depth added to the game when I AM playing.

Well, it's a case of deciding what great wealth DOES for you. It's not just a matter of having more influence, it could be a bonus to gained influence (it takes money to make money). Perhaps it gives you a discount when buying enhancements or temporary powers. This is just off the top of my head, of course. Anything they did include would need to be worked out carefully so it didn't create any balance issues.

I hate that argument. Why have different powers? You can roleplay them all. Just say it's fire or ice or whatever. Heck, why play at all? Just roleplay everything. Sorry if that seems impolite, but it's kind of a trigger to me.

And I see no problem with that. Superman often uses different tactics when facing a foe that has access to Magic, or kryptonite. I'm reminded of JLA #200, where the original League members were trying to recover kryptonite meteorites while the newer members were trying to stop them. Hawkman had to try to stop Superman, who had deployed ANDROIDS to recover the meteorite. He took steps to minimize his disadvantage. I see that as just smart gameplay, no different than using Hover to limit melee vulnerability.

Of course, in a game like this the players wouldn't define the effects, they would choose from a selection. For example, your character might suffer a debuff when in the presence of fire. Maybe it's psychological, and he suffers a Fear effect. Another character might be especially susceptible to Confuse effects, or take extra damage from a particular type of damage, Fire, Cold, Toxic or what have you. The particulars would be defined by the GAME, not the player. Same with the perks. The idea is that whatever bonuses you choose would match the flaws you take. So, suppose I'm making Superman. He's susceptible to Kryptonite. In the presence of it, he suffers a constant DOT against his Endurance, and once that's gone, his Health. -3pt flaw His defenses have no effect on Magic. This reduces all his defensive powers to 0 effect against any Magic damage. -5pt flaw These flaws would be paid for with extra perks. He has increased travel speed on all his movement powers. +3pt perk He gets access to Epic powers at L28 instead of 35. +5pt perk This is just an example, of course. The player would choose these effects from a list of possibilities. I've seen this in tons of games over the years, and I really like it when I see it. It was one of my favourite bits of Master of Orion II, devising some cool combination of perks and flaws. It would need to be carefully balanced, too, but that shouldn't be TOO difficult.

How about the minimal fx settings? I posted a thread earlier that described how even with minimal effects Brutes are still having the pulsing effect. A few others posted indicating considerable variation in this effect, based on class (eg. Scrappers don't have to put up with it, but Brutes do). Are these being looked at?

I agree. I've already tried to accomodate this by using powers with the darkest effects possible, but it's still not quite right.

Not long ago I posted a comment about perks and flaws, which was intended to flesh out characters, giving them weaknesses (such as Aquaman's need for periodic hydration, or Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite, or Martian Manhunter's reaction to fire), in exchange for perks (such as great wealth, or political influence, or what have you). It was met with the usual resistance.

You were serious about that? I assumed it was a joke.

I usually get the double xp boost when I create the character, but after they've got a few levels, I don't bother with it.

Let's not go there, hm?

I wasn't aware of that. Good to know.

Yes, I understand that. What I mean is, if I put in IOs at L25, I'd be getting that 32% at L25 and on up. By the time I'm L35, SOs produce more than 32%. The big difference is I could leave the L25 IOs in the slots for as long as I like, and still get that 32% bonus at no cost until I'm ready to upgrade them.

Hm. Well. I replaced all the endurance reduction enhancements on one of my characters with IOs (L35). Seems they provide a 34% boost to the power. That's fine, but the SOs provide a 33% boost. I'm not seeing much benefit to the IO there... especially when I see that higher level SOs are MORE EFFECTIVE. The SOs on my L41 character provide about 36%. Now, that's only 2%, but it means higher level SOs are still superior to the IOs, meaning the IOs will have to be replaced anyway. So why am I spending all the time and influence on IOs I'm going to have to replace?

Well, I don't HAVE any L50s. My highest level character is 41, but most are around L22. That said, pretty well all the stuff I have on my characters is worth almost nothing on the AH. I had one recipe worth around 300k, but I decided to actually USE that (Performance Shifter). I've got merits on all my characters, but I'm not sure how many. I was also under the impression that those, and the aethers, are extremely important, so I was trying to save them for when they're needed. Are you saying I should just sell all that stuff off? What are they used for?

So... I was looking at one of my characters today, he's outleveled all his SOs once again, and hasn't enough Influence to be able to replace them. So, I thought, he's L30 now, perhaps I can upgrade them to IOs, and not have to worry about all this nonsense. I started looking at the IO recipes, just the generic ones, and they're on the order of 45k, just for the recipe. THEN there's the cost to MAKE them, AND the cost of the salvage... they're ridiculously expensive, there's no way I'd be able to get them made. When I asked how people are getting the billions of Influence I keep hearing about, I was told to play the market, selling this or that or what have you... which left me feeling rather depressed. First of all, I have nothing of particular value to sell. Secondly, and more importantly, I'm playing a game to be a super hero, not a day trader. I really don't have any inclination to fiddle around with the market every day. I HAVE a job, I don't need another one. I just want to zap the bad guys. Is all this really necessary?

I've seen videos of guys doing that kind of work... it's really cool to watch, actually. Unfortunately, that kind of service costs THOUSANDS of dollars, and I can't afford that, especially since I've been off work with a back injury for three weeks now. No income, you know. My best shot seems to be what my brother suggested. He works for Stantec, and their tech guys are some of the best anywhere, and might have tools available to them that neither I nor the shop guy I took the PC to has access to. But, that means paying for a new drive. I have warranty, but that means sending the old drive to the manufacturer, which means NO chance of recovering anything. There's stuff on there I hate to lose, but I know I can get back, either because it's not terribly important (eg. the AE stuff... I can recreate most of it without TOO much trouble). It's the artwork I've done, the writing I've done. Website addresses I won't be able to remember, and will likely never find again. Screenshots over a decade old. Music files. Photographs (including my now-deceased aunt and uncle's last trip to Canada), and video files. My THESIS work will have to be redone, AGAIN (this is the THIRD time... the first time happened when my old PC AND the backup drive AND the USB backup all crashed at the same time). I did have a copy on my laptop, but I hadn't updated that in over a year... and the laptop often refuses to start, too. I can't even remember what all is on there that will need to be replaced. I'm also worried about private stuff, like passwords and banking info. It's beyond frustrating. Oh, and it's injury added to injury. Late last year, my parents had a fire in their house, and a cleaning company had to be called to clean up everything from the smoke damage. They cleaned EVERYTHING, including all my old toys and games and models that I made as a kid. Irreplaceable stuff, most of it, brought in from Britain... old 1st edition Star Trek models and toys, Space 1999, Star Wars... all kinds of stuff. Hundreds of pewter Warhammer miniatures. They smashed EVERYTHING. Even stuff that was stored in boxes packed in foam was taken out and broken. I can repair most of it, but the ONE custom piece I made myself was broken off and lost. I'll never be able to replace it, it was unique... and it's the principle of the thing. My mother even told them to be extra careful. A lot of good that did. All my childhood memories smashed and destroyed. My phone died. Laptop died. Now the PC has died and taken YEARS of stuff with it. All while I'm out of work with a bad back. SHIT HAPPENS IN PILES. (Sorry, needed to vent a bit there.)