Ukase

So, after getting distracted by countless posts about Page 5, I'm finally settling in here, where things feel more like home! It's no secret that one, some or maybe all of you are working your magic with the rare salvage. I honestly couldn't do what you do, too damned tedious for me. I've had hundreds of bids for rare salvage at 500K, and not one of them has gone through since. Color me impressed. To get my salvage, I've done a number of things. Run AE for tickets. I spend more time setting and resetting because the ticket cap per map is so very low, but I do get my salvage for free. At the cost of recipe drops and..other salvage. But, I can select precisely what I want. So, I've thought about Brain Storm Ideas. 20 of them, and I can make a random rare salvage. If I don't get the ones I want, I can sell them and get more than 500k. Seems like a no-brainer. But..earning brain storm ideas...I'm telling you - it's easier to buy the winter packs and get them from the packs, even with the delay "please wait a moment" message. You have to spend two full weeks, one week to get the badge, then log in - to actually get the badge, then log out for a week to get a full 2 hours of a brain storm dropping after each mission. It's quite annoying having to stop playing a given character to re-fill the timer on the bonus. I've got three of them doing it, and I need more still, lol. But, it all begs the question - why is this such a tiny reward? 1 brain storm idea after each mission. So, 20 missions and you essentially get a free rare. A random rare, which you may not need. And if you think you can buy the rare for the same price as you sell it, think again. I sell them for 500K, get 545k and when I try to buy them, it's closer to 650K. (well, who has patience when you're trying to craft?) So, I'll do AE for them, lest I fund the very same market shenanigans I'm trying to avoid. May I ask - what is the marketer's work around for this hostage taking of the rare salvage? It's lowering my profit margins to the point where I'm just not going to do it.

Thanks, @Yomo Kimyata But I don't think his comment really needs one. We're all human, and man, even though I think some of the abuse is self-inflicted - Six isn't the problem. The problem is...well, it's us. Or Zuul, whatever the f**k that is. I was unaware, blissfully so, that we had a closed beta system that developed somewhat organically through Discord. And the folks that seem to be guiding our CoH "ship", to continue with that analogy, is .."us". Not me. But other players. I know that I've teamed with GMs. I have a reasonable assumption that folks like @Bopper and maybe even @macskull might know enough code to be in that volunteer group of "power devs". I might have teamed with Mac a couple years ago, or done some hami raiding with him. But that was a long time ago. And we all know Bopper is mathematically gifted, with a penchant for number crunching, and has shared builds, insights on procs, and a host of other guides for helping the average player learn more about what's really going on behind the combat attributes and attack mechanics. I don't know why these players aren't coming out and sharing why they wanted to go the path they went. Maybe they're busy. And there is a small chance they know better. They certainly know more about coding. I'm just a null pointer exception looking for garbage collection. I probably goofed up that joke, too. I can't pretend to know what in the world is going on behind the scenes. For me - some days, I want to get on my high horse and trumpet that they're screwing things up by not consulting the player base. Some folks, who I respect, tell me that it's customary and counterproductive to be so transparent. I vehemently disagree, but I respect their view. I will continue to trumpet that all things should be disclosed prior to coding. Just because folks are great at coding doesn't mean they should be the only ones to pilot this figurative ship. It should be kind of like Oprah. "You get a say, and you get a say, and you , and you and you get a say! Everybody gets a say". The sane part of my brain is fully aware that there would be problems with that - because what happens if @Bionic_Flea insists on a band of wandering minstrels playing behind him as he travels through zones and @Snarky insists they be in front, heralding his arrival? How would such conflict be resolved? And it's that conflict - that's why we can't have nice things. Too many of us want what we want, and may or may not be thinking about the long term for HC:CoH and what that looks like. But, there's nothing rational about playing this game. Spending hours with nothing tangible to take into the real world. Except frustration from changes that we cannot control. Only a tiny voice, after the changes have been "Proposed". So, the crazy part of me says, "Screw it. I want to know. I want us all to know. Now."

So, while you were in WoW, a lot of things occurred that had a genuine impact on afk farmers, for sure. And active farmers were also impact, but to a lesser degree. At least, with an active farmer you can gobble a purple insp or some reds or maybe a green if you need them. With these changes - and tons of heated debate that went with them - we learned that incoming damage is now going by a different set of rules, and it's not terribly clear to me what those rules are - I just know my afk farmers could no longer afk farm without a respec. And after the next patch, given the proposed changes to the procs in irradiated ground, they may (or may not be) tenable any longer for afk purposes. For me, not a real big deal. I've already made my loot. For others, yeah, it's going to bug them. Consider your afk farmers as the baby, and the concept of afk-farming as the bath water. Well...that may be too harsh. Some folks will adjust and still be able to afk-farm, most likely. So, there is this whole 3x to 2x fix...and candidly, I didn't think it was broken. But I never paid attention. It's still faster xp than we had on live, so I'm all for that. Rather than rehash all the stuff that I've been in words with so many people about on these forums, ask me about it over discord and I'll do my level best to explain what they've done, why they've done it and my best guess as to why they're going the direction they're going.

And that would be more information. Sure - some of us might go off track. But the points to be made would be in there to absorb and discuss. Nobody said it would be easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. (so they say. I can think of a couple of dates that were exceptions to that rule) And what's wrong with angry posts? They're more fun than an MSR or a Hami Raid, for sure. As long as we can avoid labeling people, it should be fine. So what if someone attacks me or you? If their opinions had any validity, we wouldn't be arguing, right? (that's a joke) Sometimes, people need to vent. I can't tell you how many pages of ranting I've written out and deleted. And still a lot of that trash makes its way here. So what? Sometimes, feedback is that annoying pitching tone that comes out of the speakers. But you have to suffer through that sometimes to hear the music.

Please forgive our undead friend. He has been out of the loop. He probably had no idea that there were, at one time, 4 instances of PI this Saturday, while there was an Trick or Treating going on in those zones, as well as in Kallisti Wharf and in RWZ. I can see from the lfg there are plenty of people doing different things on Excelsior. Blapperella is leading stuff through ouro, Oklahoman is still doing his thing on a newer alt called Okie. Bright Phoenix is still doing his Hami raids in the Abyss. And there are still several people on brainstorm tinkering around with the new sentinel stone proliferation and other things. I took my sentinel out yesterday on brainstorm to try out the increased damage. My problem was - that very Sentinel was my first 50. I looked at the build and realized that I've come a long way in making sturdy characters. That build was trash, lol. On Everlasting, there were at least 20 people in Atlas with another 30 or so in PD. They were just standing around. There were a few folks in Kings Row, and they were doing ToT in PI as well. I think there may be some drop, but I don't think it's the drastic drop in population. But perception is reality.

If I have, I haven't noticed. I'm kind of feeling badly for Number Six. Poor fellow probably feels more Number two when I finished my post prior to my apology. And he is right - we need to try to get into more of an "us" as opposed to the "us vs them" mentality. In their favor, it is true that it's our own fellow players that are taking us for this ride. We just need our own players to recognize some things, while those of us not in the closed beta also recognize other things. If we can bridge that information gap from both sides, we'll all be singing Kumbaya in time for American Thanksgiving.

But it IS broken. Didn't the 40 pages of the weeping and gnashing of teeth tell you anything? Now please understand - I'm not very good at being clear, so I'm going try harder than my usual effort. Some of you have experience not only playing other games, but working for the publishers in some capacity or another. I do not. So certainly some of you have this idea of "how things are done", and you genuinely are coming from a good place, and believe these things are done that way for good reasons, whatever they may be. Whatever you may think about "how things are done", there is no rule of law that says they should be done that way in this situation. While it is true there are a key handful of people who released the code, and some have added to the code, and some are continuing to add to it. And some of these key people created the Torchbearer server and in dealing with the burdens of that server from the playerbase, they set up an additional server, and eventually set up three more. I do not know this, but I suspect that these key people are not the same people that are making these changes in the closed beta. At a minimum, some of the people in there are not the same folks that opened things up for anyone and everyone to play. I suspect they got some kind of invite due to having certain coding skills and a willingness to contribute. And that's great! But that does not mean that they should be able to steer the figurative CoH ship in whatever direction they wish. This is just the way I feel - and I am reluctant to share it, lest I be labeled as entitled, which is kind of creepy for an old curmudgeon of 55 years. I do not really feel like this is "their game and I'm just a guest". While that is a realistic statement, and the world could care less how I feel - like many of the rest of you who may not share my view - I have invested hundreds of hours in this game since HC came out. Those hours were mostly in 5-6 characters, the ones that either have all the badges, or have all the badges but one. Because of that time investment in various characters, some of which have back stories - and even a costume that wasn't created by the RNG, I feel like this game IS mine. Or at least partly mine. I did pay for it, after all. I bought the CoH game from Circuit City in 2002. I bought CoV, and the Praetorian set - both the same month they came out. And I was a VIP subscriber until the shut down. Now -that has nothing to do with this alpha/closed beta stuff - but I still feel invested. This idea that we're all supposed to just blindly accept the direction these key people who've somehow, someway found themselves steering this ship is unacceptable to me, and to many others. We don't know who they are. We don't know what qualifies them to make these calls. You may be quite alright with these people making these decisions, but for all I know - you're one of them. So of course you'd be okay with it. Rules without relationship reap rebellion. We cannot blindly accept direction from people who are hiding behind a wall. Let them show themselves, and explain themselves. And let them allow us to help steer the ship. Some of us have a lot of knowledge about the game, the in-game economy, various mechanics. It's foolish of any of these folks to think they can't benefit from our knowledge, or dare I say it my knowledge. But this idea of keeping things hush-hush in closed beta is unacceptable. We deserve to know, and none of this "entitlement" label some like to throw around takes that away. As people who have been holding the torch for over a dozen years, we have earned the right to know where the game is headed and who's steering the ship.

For me, I found it a bit harder than I wanted to when I did it solo on my blaster and corruptors. My tank had an easier time of it, though damage being a bit low, the bosses and ebs took longer than I would have liked. I did appreciate the new maps, or at least, maps that were new to me. I ran this a couple of times with my SG, and we never really pay attention to difficulty until someone faceplants. I can't remember if that happened or not. We're too busy correcting each other's pronunciation, and telling stale jokes.

I blame @Troo. I didn't know he deleted it. And given all the heated debates, it was a fair assumption. I apologize if it bugged you.

I don't always agree with @Zhym but he just put things in such a polite way without insulting anyone, and did so in a lot fewer words than I would have. And I agree with what he said completely. I added emphasis to the part that should be repeated in every post by every player until the HC team catches on.

I don't want to misunderstand you - or presume anything - but I think you're missing the pain point. It's not earning or acquiring the ability to do the respec, it's the respec process itself. For me - the primary reason I don't PL my characters to 50, is I can't stand the leveling screen. And I hate doing respecs because sometimes, I have to do 2 of them because we only get 70 slots to drop the trays in and at level 50, most of us have at least 94 enhancements in the previous build. I can understand changing things a little here and there. But when the HC team really screwed up the sorcery pool - I still have a dozen characters that I don't feel comfortable playing because they were built to have Rune of Protection recharge as close to perma as I could get it. It was this change that made me aware that I have no idea what our HC team is doing when they're not turning me into a trash can in the hive, or completely removing an entire thread I was quoted in. When your chosen power no longer accepts an IO that's still in the power, yeah, it requires at best an enhancement unslotter, but for most players, most of the time, it requires a respec. An annoying respec that didn't need to be necessary. But some closed beta tester got tired of masturbating and decided to screw with the rest of us. Nobody asked, they just did it. It stunk then, it stinks now. All the pablum where they said "But squishies aren't supposed to be immune from mez..." can just fall on deaf ears, because their ears might as well have been deaf when they implemented a change most did not want. And they would have known this, but they didn't have the courage to ask. After all, better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?

Huh? You've got to be kidding me. I've taken this on several blasters, brutes...I can't tell the difference with or without it. If there is a difference, I can't discern it.

I can only presume our moderation team is censoring us again and a thread was removed simply because it was popular. Folks, this is an error you're making. There's no harm in lively debate. Secrets are bad. Let it out. You'll feel better. @Glacier Peak took the time to reply to my post - and now I can't see it. If you're going to hide an entire thread, take away the notifications, too. Then I can be blissfully ignorant and have no idea what you did. Now this fine person will think at best he got the last word in and I agreed, or at worst, I was rude to not reply or answer a question. Closing threads is one thing. Removing posts altogether is just rude. What are you afraid of? Rebellion? We're gonna egg your sg base or cover it with rolls of toilet paper?

I tried to make one of these just a week ago and I couldn't. I know it's got something to do with holding both blades and the shield being a no-go...but ...what if someone was able to make it? And play it? Or was that just on Brainstorm? Someone PLs their new tank to 50, goes through some incarnate trials...logs in to find half the characters powers are wiped out and replaced with...what?

You won't see it from me. I was pretty vocal verbal about the proposed change in page 4 where vet levels wouldn't be earned in AE. Then they changed it to remove the emp->reward merit conversion. I specifically made a point to laud the fact that I felt like I was listened to and my opinion felt like it mattered. Some of these forum folks - they reply to my comments as if I'm completely in error in my thinking because their thinking is accurate. They really bring out the worst in me sometimes.

And there was much rejoicing!

See...I read this...and I just don't see it. I am obtuse, mind you. Sometimes painfully slow. I've an ex-wife that can attest to that. If it is truly "US" and not "US vs. Them", then why do they not share the direction and rationale behind changes before they get to Brainstorm to test? I can read all day about "Well, consulting the people that actually play the game is a slippery slope, and it's just not done in industry. Those players have no idea how to run a game." They are the ones that have made this dividing line by not being transparent. They are their own worst enemy by labeling something a "Feedback" thread - but they don't want feedback. They don't care what we think. They just want to know if it works. I can't get to the part "Does it work" until I get to the part "why the changes?" and "Why this specific change?" First things first. I'll try to illustrate. Girlfriend makes a dish with chicken in it. I ask, "what's the occasion?" I also ask, "what's in it?" If she tells me to just eat it and doesn't share the ingredients, I'm not going to eat it. She doesn't know me well enough to know what I like and what I don't. Now you may say, "She's not cooking for just you." And I'll say, "But she's still asking me to eat it!" Now, of course, I can simply choose not to eat. I have that right. But I like chicken. I just want to know why the recipe changed! I want to know what's in it. Why did she decide to take it out early? Raw chicken is dangerous! So anyway, yeah, I guess I'm hungry again. To sum up, I have an understanding why now, but I don't have to like it.

This may be a fair point. My testing was brief. I hopped in the map amid the usual +4/8, Unai Kemen freak map. I went about my attack chain and stood there after FE, Burn, Frost, Frozen Aura and had to wait for Burn to recharge. Normally I do not. So, for me, it's too slow. I worked hard on that build, making it just so. So, now, my time invested thus far is gone, can't get it back. Additionally more time will need to be spent trying to recoup the recharge at risk of other attributes, and hoping I can find a balance between them all. All because of some nefarious evil doers and some vocal minority that despises farming. I guess they want to pay more for IOs. Fine with me. In fairness, I did not test a leveling character; the character was already 50 when I copied it over there. My character is already 50, so I didn't see a need to test it leveling up. And let's be very clear - there won't be nearly enough time to level a character up normally on Brainstorm to determine how good or bad it would be. I tried that with Stone blast. Made it to level 13 when the patch hit. I don't know what they expected of us in that kind of testing. I wanted to run a mission at level 5, 8, 12, 15, 18, 20, 25 to determine how end recovery from the sustain held up. How damage seemed to scale at the various levels. But, they didn't leave things on Brainstorm long enough. The pushed it out as if some publisher was looking over their shoulder. There's only so much time I can devote to it in a given week. If this change in burn proceeds as offered, what will likely happen is the cost of all the goods sold will increase. Most of the fun had by the fiery aura characters will be diminished - at least for most people. Perhaps my complaints will land on an ear that hears and possibly understands. Or maybe the other cries that 45 seconds is too long, and 32 might be better will get to the powers that be. I've no idea. I just know it's the wrong way to the wrong direction for me. As I've digested the reasons for the last page changes, I can better accept this undesired change. But I will not like it. If it goes through in any form, it will be a headache at best, mainly because respecs are a headache. If it goes through with the 45 second, I'm going to play less and market more. And I don't think anyone wants that.

So, after having some much needed food, I've thought about this. It irks me a bit that I had to do that, when they could have just stated it from the outset. But, I suppose my acting like a small child, lashing out at what I do not understand does not inspire them with confidence. So, I apologize to anyone I insulted or outright offended, either by accident or on purpose. And given my obtuse nature, that could be just about any and everyone. It would seem that the reason behind this "proposed" change is simply the next step in an aim to prevent afk farming. It's not entirely that they detest afk-farmers - it's there are a bad apple or two that are using the option for sinister purposes, or they might. I'm not really sure. They didn't do it last patch because if they did, there would have been even more screams and cries - as if 40 some-odd pages of pissed off people weren't enough. I am still irritated. I still feel the powers developers should chime in once a month on what they're thinking and which way they're going. It IS owed to us. That is not entitlement, that is getting what we paid for. What would be the harm? A lot of verbiage, sure. But also a lot of ideas that they may have never considered. Many counsels assure victory.

You're certainly right - my post does scream entitlement. But their lack of a post screams it louder. They accept the donation and do whatever they want. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this is poor form. You seem to think not a single soul is entitled to a thing. I vehemently disagree. I believe we are OWED transparency. Remember, we aren't getting paid either! How much time have all of us invested in various characters and then suddenly, we may find our characters changed to the point where they're not as they were. The more time a player puts into a character, the more you can expect that player to be irritated, if not outraged. To think any other way is to be shortsighted of human nature. I remember when Jimmy use to write paragraphs explaining where things were at and where they were going. Now...we get no explanations, no musings, no details about a direction of any kind. Why are you okay with that? I completely get I'm a guest here. But my money has helped pay for that. I certainly do feel entitled to know why they're trying to change the way I play and suddenly, what I play. Pardon me. Why they're proposing to change the way I play, and if the change goes through, what I play, if I even continue to play. Perhaps many of you are okay with sailing blindly to some unknown destination. I want to know where things are headed.

You've missed the point. Why is this proposed change on the test server? Because "they" decided, without any consultation from any of the player that are paying for the servers that it should be changed. That is my bone of contention. They didn't ask for insights. They didn't share why they felt the need to propose the change. What is the end goal? They just code it and expect us to determine if something bad happens. The change itself is bad. I tested it. My recharge when from 8 seconds to 13. That is a bad result of a proposed change. I am pissed because they wasted time on this, choosing some arbitrary value for a greater recharge time when the time could have been spent doing things that needed changing. This did not. You do what you like. But I'm not giving anything until they explain their rationale behind these proposed changes that they've invested time into coding. And you can bet there was some testing before it hit Brainstorm. They've known about this since before page 4 hit. They could have asked then, but they chose not to because you seem to think the opinions of the players aren't worth considering. We will have to disagree on that. My opinion is every bit as valid as yours.

You cannot see the forest with the trees in the way. My FA/Ice tank is durable NOW. It didn't need to be improved in that regard. Fiery Aura is not the most durable of tanks, sure. and the debuffs may be helpful in a small, unnoticeable way. But to reduce burn from a base of 25 to 45 is entirely too long. I now have 5 seconds where I'm literally sitting in this mob of npcs able to do nothing because of the slower recharge. This was an unnecessary change. Not desired, nor required. They want us to test - but they don't tell us what it's supposed to be like, what we're testing for. It's not like I can see the combat log stats after the session is over in a text file for easy reading. I went on test - and I was disappointed. I saw nothing that said I got anything in return for the slower recharge. I didn't notice any more damage. I didn't notice any more survivability. All I noticed was slower recharge. If they're going to do that, they need to do something for that tradeoff. Make burn do more damage. Something noticeable. But there's nothing. The patch change for Fiery Aura is a complete slap in the face to anyone who routinely plays Fiery Aura. It will require a respec for anyone who cares about their characters. That's a lot of damned time they would have us WASTE on top of their time that they already wasted with this needless nerf. If they want us to go along with this, they NEED to explain what they're trying to do, and why they're trying to do it. Then we can read that and let them know if it's something we can get behind. Maybe they just want to go back to playing all by themselves again. I've no idea. But changing things that aren't broken isn't the way. Nobody ever said "I want to do less damage!" Instead, what we hear/read are comments from people who do not play those powersets that chime in "They do too much damage!". They are jealous because we play them, and are happy enough on our own, and they are mad because they play something that isn't doing much damage. They don't say, "Hey, we should be doing more damage". Instead, they cry out, "Fire is too OP!". We tell them the reason it does all the damage it does is because it doesn't have kb protection, and 1 pt that it will now have is not enough. Try 12 pts, just for a start. Then add in some defense debuff resistance, then we can handle the 45 second recharge. But this pissant defense debuff is unnoticeable. 1 pt of kb protection is all but useless. Nemesis, yellow mitos and certain other NPCs are still going to toss us around like popcorn unless we specifically devote slots to it that other tanks don't have to spend on it. This is poorly thought out. We are not presented with any rationale behind this change. These Power Devs must not be playing this game. If they are, they aren't playing a fire tank or a fire brute. And if they are, what is it that they are trying to do? They need to explain where this 45 second number comes from. What is making that the perfect number over 25? Over 30? Who decided on this value and why? And why didn't they bring this up before they waste time coding it? Because they KNEW most of us wouldn't like it. And they don't give a shit. They have literally told us all to leave if we don't like it. Me, I'd rather try to hold them accountable. I want answers. I keep hearing "They're not getting paid". The hell they're not. They get donations every month. It may not go in their pockets, but some of us ARE paying to keep the game going. So it is completely fair for us to ask for this kind of information. They do OWE us the answers. If not, they can pay that money out of their own pocket and do whatever they like. Until then, time to stop with these damned changes until you present the proposed changes before you code them. With the rationale behind the changes. I can accept nerfs to my characters that will cause me to waste hours, even if I'd rather not, if there's a reason. And just because some fans of the HC Devs or the HC devs think burn is "broken" or "overpowered" isn't a good enough reason. Burn is the way it is because the armor is so weak compared to the other armors. You muck with that, then the Fire Shield needs to protect against Toxic, and against Negative Energy as well. There also needs to be some DDR thrown in for good measure. Hell, there's millions of different ways to improve FA without mucking with burn. But they don't ask us. They just do what they want to do. Until they stop taking money, they need to explain what they're doing and why.

Yeah, our HC devs love to cram this stuff down our throats whether it's good for the game or not. Very disappointed with the direction they're taking this game. Nerfing burn from my current 8 second recharge to 13 seconds, with nothing to compensate for it. Doesn't make any sense to me at all.

My mother used to say, "It's protein. It's good for you." Should have seen the look on her face when I got her a cricket protein bar.

Yeah, per the wiki, once you have the badge, you have to spend 1.4 hours logged off for a one minute duration, with a 2 hour cap. So, that's 168 hours, or a week after you get the badge. And, suppose you hit the 100 hour mark at noon on Wednesday, but log in at 1PM. I don't think we get credit for that hour towards the 2 hour cap. I think the counter for the buff starts when the badge is awarded, not when it's earned, but I could be wrong.