DrZeus

I am curious what people find are the most expensive non-purple enhancements. I've been surprised at trying to sell some enhancements only to have them sell for a surprisingly low amount (assuming I want an immediate sale). Something like positron's blast might only sell for half a million while basilisk's gaze sold for two million. Defense sets are said to sell well, but some more than others obviously. Is there a pattern to look for, or do people often just go with what they know to be mean prices and not do the immediate sale?

To turn and move the camera I use the right click. And that's fine when soloing. But when in a group - especially as a melee character this doesn't work well because right click does two things: it changes your orientation and camera, and it also clicks on a character, enemy or even a dead body or NPC. So in a large group I try to turn and I often find I can't. I right click and instead of turning I just get a window because there is - anything there. A dead body, enemy, another character, and I may not even know they are there. Often I right click, see the dialogue box, have to click out of it to make it go away, try to turn again, and do this three or four times before there doesn't happen to be a hit box where I'm right clicking. I don't remember having this issue on live, but I admit I didn't play the last year or so when they started to make a lot of changes. My memory could be fuzzy. Is there a way to turn off the ability to select a MOB when right clicking? Or is there a different button I could adapt to using to turn? What am I not remembering?

I have noticed a good deal of people using discord. To some this is a good thing, to others, not so much. Whatever method you use is going to limit your interactions. In my case, I saw a supergroup that would have been perfect for a character. I inquired only to find out they use discord, which eliminates me as a member. While you may have the drawback of not being able to type quickly... I have the drawback of rarely playing a character with a voice even remotely like my own. People like me... we're not looking for a discord server, we just want to have more immersion while we play the game, so roleplay is natural, but that only works if we type instead of use our own voices, which don't match the characters in any way. I'm curious what percentage of people use discord compared to not. Since each one seems to limit your interactions, which one is more limiting I wonder?

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I'm not sure where the cognitive dissonance is... perhaps you could be using the word incorrectly. (typically happens when words and actions are not aligned, and in this case... there are no actions to align, so the term cognitive dissonance isn't really applicable) I'm going to go out on a limb here and say your personality involves... some extremely lawful tendencies. (to mix both psych and D&D). The metric they're using is measurable. Just not being measured in this instance, how it would be measured was already spoken of. And it is clear that most people in the discussion seem to understand the definition - and have tried several times to explain it to you. I thought their analogies were quite good. The issue isn't with them.. it's with your lack of understanding on what they're saying. They seem to be understanding just fine. The entire point of communication is to get across a certain message... and to receive it. People have tried to re-explain what they're talking about (their job as a sender). You as a receiver might just not be able to understand what they're saying. It happens sometimes.

This sounds very similar to my mainish character on live. I just wanted a puncher. Martial arts didn't work... because there you mostly kick. Super strength doesn't work because there's no punching involved... just odd animations from someone really strong and really uncoordinated. He was a hell of a scrapper actually... flurry from superspeed helped round out his punching, and with that and shadow maul (they didn't have sands of mu at the time) he had a pretty well done rotation. Add sands of mu and there's a lot of AOE for a scrapper. These days I might also do energy... minimize the glowie hands, as the animations are pretty punchy. (now that we can alter the look and color of the powers)

For your first point... yeah, you really have to be careful with how much you ask. It would be great if we could just ask everyone 500 questions... we'd cover everything. But it would be so long we wouldn't get honest answers (people just click through). There's a happy medium there, and a lot of science behind how to make the perfect survey. And... while your second point is obviously correct... I didn't want to bother get into it. I don't care to argue semantics, and blackbird is specifically saying "argue semantics with me". Bird has an understandable reason for it... but again... I don't think this is a thing you can apply logic or argumentation to. There's simply no need, and to do so is to miss the important stuff... facts. Blackbird.... The fact is... it doesn't matter if we're not doing a survey HERE. Because when humans are given surveys... they respond in a particular way that proves they do consider the two things different. So to say that they don't... and to try to apply logic to WHY they might not... it just really missing the fact in front of our faces. And honestly... scientists don't argue why you should beleive science. If someone doesn't want to... it's either because they don't understand it... or they just don't want to (often out of fear). I don't talk people out of that. To a point I try to make them understand it... but only to a point. Also.. keep in mind that humans have variability. If asked two questions, one with enjoyment and one with fun... perhaps you would answer the same with each one. On every subject. You'd be the exception to the general rule, but hey, humans are all different. Just know that if you do work this way, most other people do not. That's the first rule of statistics: they don't apply to individuals (and you're an individual)

And... they will debate it. Mostly because people enjoy doing that. You are trying to apply logic to the idea... but I'm not talking about logic, I'm talking about what we find in emotional research. Logic is a great way to guess without having facts on hand, don't get me wrong, but it's no substitute. Prediction never implies post hoc knowledge. And... during research you don't have to establish the operational definitions of every term beforehand. Because ultimately... you can't. If I use Embarrassment and Humiliation ... I could try to distinguish between the two all I want. But that distinction won't actually alter any of the results. When I ask someone "In X situation, on a scale of 1 to 10, how embarrassed do you feel"... and then "how humiliated do you feel"... the fact is... they give different answers. It is the person... the subject who decides they're not synonymous, not the experimenter. Which is fine... we're studying the participants, not the experimenters. So my guess... based upon years of reading emotional research literature... is that "on a scale of 1 to 10, how fun is it" and "on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do I enjoy it"... would get two completely different responses. They'd be correlated to be sure. But they'd get different responses. I'm sure a confirmatory factor analysis would put them in the same category, and show them as distinctly different too. It is interesting someone above said that in order to really figure this stuff out, NCSoft would have to hire some full time psychologists. They almost did. I only had my master's at the time, but I did interview and made the short list for being hired on at one point... due to my pitching that psychological analysis would be utilitarian in this regard. I'm not sure I would have been a good fit at the time, but at this point (doctoral education behind me and a lot more knowledge under my belt) I'd think a game company with an MMO would be a fool not to hire people like me to study what people want in their game and why... and then design how to deliver it.

I've been enjoying this thread so far. Thanks for making it. I might have a slightly different perspective... so far people have shared personal perspectives, but also game theory, game design, economics and philosophy... sometimes even debating if fun is definable. It's been great to read. But let me give you a different perspective... scientific. My doctoral education is in psychology and communication sciences, the latter part focused on emotions (of which fun is one) and video game effects. This is all... very measurable. Sure, fun is subjective, but that's where the science comes in. Humans have variability and you can define what is fun... statistically. As far as are you splitting hairs by differentiating between fun and enjoyment? I doubt it. Emotions vary widely - it is well known for instance that things like humiliation and embarrassment are two separate emotions, and when people rate them... yes they're in the same category and have a high correlation, but not TOO high (we always check to see if the correlation is too high - if enjoyment and fun are correlated 60% then they're related... but if they're correlated 95% they're just measuring the exact same thing and are not distinct concepts - we call this a collinearity problem). We have all these different words for emotion because they have different connotations for people and represent distinct ideas. By the way... an emotion is "any feeling that gives you insight into your internal motivations". You don't actually know your own motivations or why you're doing things... you only have emotions to give you kind of a gauge on that... so while fun is an emotion (gives you insight into dopamine and serotonin levels in your brain - among other things)... so is hunger (gives you insight into sugar levels and specific chemical needs your body has). Often measured are things like immersion... expression, escapism, competition, accomplishment and feelings of success. Various personality traits will determine what is fun for YOU. Sometimes, the best way to think about how you're having fun... is to figure out what you don't like. Having fun is the opposite of that. So in my case... I don't like it when I'm in a group and it levels up super fast and I don't feel I'm pulling my weight. I'd hate being a farm sitter. Why? That shows that I have a need for accomplishment and less of a need for success. The levels are a sign of success, but not accomplishment. I also don't care for one change that has been that there is now an unchanged established meta as far as how to build and slot your powers for maximum effect. On live they tried to get rid of this by adding Enhancement Diversification... but now that's gone. Now you have people building designs in Mid's and maxing out after farming for influence so they can even feel they're competing. I don't care for that because it removes the ability of expression... it removes the ability to really make something unique that might matter. So clearly... that must be very fun for me. Obviously to other people they don't care as much about that. I can tell you that I also much really like Immersion... because I like CoH more than CoV. CoV - has always had a bit more people trying to game the system. Farming, talking about builds, trying to min/max themselves... all that stuff removes immersion. I also like roleplaying, which also is an indicator that immersion is fun for me. (and honestly, it's just more FUN to be a hero - I can be a villian in real life any day of the week. There's nothing unique about that) By the way, we are horrible at figuring out what actually motivates us, which is why we use psychological measurement tools. For instance, I did one experiment where I asked people if they played PvP or PvE. Of the people who played PvP... they all claimed they enjoyed it because PvE was too easy and predictable and they liked a challenge. However, there are two types of competitiveness... goal competitiveness and interpersonal competitiveness. They describing being GOAL competitive... they want to be the best person they can be. This is like a jogger racing against his own best time. However, personality variables showed that those who liked PvP were actually way LESS goal competitive than PvE players. They didn't know it, but they had a significantly low need for this. What they DID have however, was high interpersonal competitiveness. This is the desire to be better than other people. This of course, would explain why PvP players are known to not... play fair. They will generally care less than others if the fight is fair. They just want to feel superior. If the other player is AFK... or a child... or a new player they're about to drive away from the game... these are all just different flavors of victory. but the PvP player doesn't know that's what motivates them. (and they generally don't like being told because in our human hubris we like to pretend we know ourselves pretty well)

Well... there are no rules. Just an idea. What I'm doing is "only damaging powers are temporary" I don't even use brawl or boxing for damage... although I do use fear and intimidate from the presence pool for control due to the fact that they do no damage. I suppose smoke grenade would have fit the concept but it seemed too... aggressive for an actual blaster power for my tastes. (although I do use injection from medicine pool) And I never bothered take travel powers... why bother when you can buy them. Honestly, in my mid-30's I have five blaster powers... I have the first assault rifle power... and web grenade and caltrops... never used, immediately removed from tray and one slotted... and then field operative and targeting drone. But hey... if you want to change it up... I'd love to hear how it goes. I've been wholly surprised by this and I'm really wondering about making a group version of it. Or one using only temp powers you can't buy (there are 12 hero side temp powers you can earn that have at least 50 charges... and four attack powers to cycle through that last days of playtime). Just because I'm not using land mines or smoke grenade... maybe that's how to turn this into a group thing. (although again with the long animation times). I'm curious though... I see that in your proposed build you've six slotted a few unused attack powers - but I don't recognize what the enhancements are or why you used them. What is the advantage of doing so? You've sacrificed putting a couple of slots into stamina in order to so - I assume there is great benefit that I just dont' know about.

It DOES have a casey jones vibe to it. I played for a few levels with a classic silver age style look... and after a while switched to always using a golf bag on my back. Both the hammer and the bat are taken out of the golf bag which looks awesome... (I wish the nemesis staves were done that way). Once you get targetting drone the build makes a huge jump upward... and Field operative will give you another huge jump forward.

So ... doublechecked. level 36, 1016 hp... (3 slotted health) regen rate of 18hp/sec and 4.16 end/sec 2.29 end consumption/sec to hit bonus of 116%, damage bonus of 90%, (and first hit hits like a truck due to targeting drone 80% bonus) 30% recharge time, 14% smashing and lethal damage resist... (can boost resists by about 20% with a temp power) 11% defense against everything (can boost resists by about 20% with a temp power) resistance against immobilize, stun, sleep, confuse, fear and confuse. They buffed the hell out of "cloaking device" when they turned it into 'field operative"

38... I think. Somewhere around there. So far the free powers seem to be holding up just fine. They age well with levels due to the blaster benefit also effecting temporary powers. So all the damage scales up. Normally the hammer and bat for instance recharge fast and have "high" damage. That's not common for any level. And once you start getting other temp powers, like the REAL sands of mu or the REAL nemesis staff... well, they recharge fast as well (even though the P2W versions have moderate recharge times) and do... very high damage. When those powers run out, I'm going to redo the story arcs to try to get them again. They're totally worth the time investment as fantastic powers. Again, the only drawback is that you can't enhance them directly... but when your entire build is built upon enhancing them indirectly... (blaster bonus... tactics, assault and targetting drone)... I'm really curious what other temp powers are out there to collect as well. I mean... you COULD do this entire concept without any P2W powers at all. You'd need to have someone walk you through one of those missions where you get a 24 hour temp power, then do the other one, and honestly... then run off on your own and spend a career collecting these things. That would be a budget version of this build... you'd just need help from a friend/alt account to start out. And yes... I do know you can turn off Xp... but then you stop progressing. I like to constantly feel forward progress, and this is very individual of coruse, but there's a good medium of how fast you want to level. Some games have you level so slowly it is daunting and you don't feel rewarded for your efforts. I find grouping in this game the opposite... you level so fast I don't feel I've earned it. There's a happy medium in there. I rarely turn on double Xp for instance... I happen to for this character, simply because it's P2W and that seems appropriate... and it's fun to just buy your way to victory. But the groups make me feel like I'm in a farm and I'm a door sitter. There is... no way at all I'm doing 1/8th of the work. I'll sometimes make a character JUST for groups. Someone who can really contribute to a group. not just in damage but maybe a tank or controller who can control well... although with the speed that game has changed as well. I have fond memories of a telekinesis based controller... it's a tricky power to use - but if you do it right you can get a huge group of mobs all trapped in a corner and held while your group whittles them away in complete safety. Back in the day that character was a life saver... now? The mobs would all be dead before I could even collect two in the web. Maybe a different version of this character would be good in groups. Maybe at high levels I'll collect more AOE powers and group that way if those powers exist. I've been surprised at how defensive the character is.

So... I've put in the luck of the gamblers (4 of them at this point, I think that's my max). Fear and even intimidate are great holds for when things get dicey. Through story arcs I've gotten sands of mu and the tesla staff... which aren't as redundant as I had thought... they do significantly more damage than their P2W counterparts. They're still temp powers so I figure they're safe in the concept. Maybe 1/3 more damage and they recharge about twice as fast. With my fast recharge times I can do sands... hit them with a high damage sledgehammer... and have sands almost back up. The only drawback I've seen is the long animation times on everything. You have to take your tesla staff out. (This is minimized by having two of them, your second shot is much faster) You have to take your grenade... your pistol... your baseball bat... your sledgehammer out. Only fast attack is the energy blast cone. A neat thing... and a drawback, is the playstyle never changes. You start at level 1 with all your powers. The only thing you'll add is reliability of hit (once you get targetting drone) and then Procs when you can slot/afford them for your pool powers... which are mostly defensive since attacks are only P2W. I can group. I'm fine with it actually, I can hit reds and even purples very reliably (reds are normally 95%, and with extra teammate's tactics purples are now doable too) and the high damage strikes really knock them on their asses. Bosses are very reliably knocked down (or back) with either a baseball bat or a sledgehammer. Keeping a hard hitting boss prone is a solid defense. But there are two drawbacks with grouping. 1) I level WAY too fast. When this happens I feel like someone's just artificially aged me. Years have been taken off me. Playtime I could have enjoyed is now gone. I could have played for 4 hours... instead I grouped for 1/2 hour. 2) the animation time length is more of a drawback in a group than when solo. People use nukes and AOE all the time now. Mobs die so much faster than they did back on live. So in a group I can't attack minions... they're dead before I get my hammer out. I can target a boss - get a couple of whacks on him before the entire group is dead. But at that point... I barely feel like I'm contributing to the group. Sure, I can stand toe to toe with any boss there and mitigate him while killing him. But play is just so fast in groups. Don't get me wrong... this guy is fast to solo. Walk up to an orange and two shot him. Sands of Mu and Nemesis staff and he's down. If I take the time to debuff (with injection) or self buff (aid self) or control (fear) then Sands is back way before that action is done. He plays like a scrapper. But these days... I assume scrappers don't group much either due to not being able to contribute very much.

I appreciate the word on Procs... I tend to do a lot of story arcs, so merits come easy. I had wondered about how they worked because they all seem to say "this proc fires off X times per minute"... which makes sense when I put (thanks to advice above) Gaussian's in my targetting drone... that's always on, so it seems to be constantly triggering the proc I'm guessing (about once a minute it says)... but for powers that trigger from an attack, I would assume you'd actually have to USE the attack for it to work. I've got a bunch of attacks... first level blaster power... brawl... boxing... all with one slot and never used. I'm going to use some psychology terms here (dig out your old textbooks)... but I'm assuming they're run on a variable interval reinforcement schedule... or it is a fixed interval reinforcement schedule? (at least for toggles) And for click powers... would it also be variable interval... or would it then be variable ratio?

I'm just not interested in arguing. Interpret that how you will.

Again, that's assuming they've done that task force before and have memorized where all the call boxes are. Or that they've done the task force so many times that they remember that this is the part where they don't go to the mission objectives. Don't get me wrong, I know what you're talking about, but it does assume a lot of prior usage of that player. It's like... Death From Below. Every time I do it people say they want the badges, and yet I'm the only one telling anyone how to actually get the badges. They're good players... they just haven't done this before... and if they have, they haven't been told how to do this exact thing before. new player doesn't mean bad player.

This one... is more of a grey area I've found. One person isn't bad. Especially if they're being considerate and not just trying to show off how uber leet they are. Once you get two or three... well, everyone else is just a passenger then. I can certainly see why they used to have only one sidekick per person (instead of a whole team) to try to mitigate this problem. (but with lower player numbers, it's also understandable that they changed that just so we have more people to group with). It's a skill in any game... online or a game like badminton... to play with people who aren't your equal and still have it be fun for them. You have to purposefully NOT give it your all, and still enjoy the play. Not everyone has the skill, but it's always enjoyable when someone does.

I've got to say... it's not instructive. Out of everyone on the forums, you're so far the hardest one to figure out. A lot of people are uber leet powergamers in denial... I get that. Do it their way or you're a gimp noob (although they claim to be welcoming to all and every playstyle is fine). You on the other hand... you're extremely abrasive to the point where it seems like you're actively trying to provoke people into an argument... (like the last two comments on this thread)... other times you speak and have nothing to really say, you just seem bored... and other times... you legitimately have some great input. My suggestion... the abrasive part is not the best of you. It's not instructive. And it's only cathartic because you don't see the reactions of other people just rolling their eyes at you. You can do better, and I say that because you often do. The abrasiveness is your demon to beat.

I wouldn't say competency... I would say... ability to memorize something they've done before. Your experience may differ, but I try not to conflate the two things. And honestly.. i'm usually a little daunted when that happens. I ran a posi2 the other day and noticed that people were making a beeline to the next mission before the map marker happened. That was to me at least... NOT a good sign. They're not playing the game, they're running the numbers. They're... on autopilot so to speak. Personally, I prefer it when the games are randomized enough so you can't do that any more, but that's obviously a game design, not a player strategy issue.