Bill Z Bubba

CoD is still showing -SPD on the attacks and I appear to be slowing folks with shadow bolt and blast but, yea, I'm not seeing any kind of vfx for slows either.

I hadn't actually played DM at all since it got buffed and was very surprised by the rehashed Touch of Fear. Between it and Shadow Maul's buff, the AoE output of DM is considerably better than it once was.

Cuz we enjoy doin that. Even my statements that Shield is numerically superior to SR, I end up arguing with. In some areas, it absolutely is, in others, it's not.

Yes. Edit: Although, it ain't hard to run out of a mission.... SG port, load up, bamf back in. Edit2: OK OK maybe I'm saying purge inps and levels shifts from the game!

Yea, me, too. And then argue with it.

So now you see an issue and want to harm others by changing how the game works? YOU BASTARD!!! 🙂

It's a valid point. The question is whether all the available cheats are causing harm. Is it a harm to me if the game becomes un-fun to the point that I quit? Nope, not in any real sense. Don't get me wrong, I missed CoH when I didn't have access to it and I'm still a bit bitter that it was up and running for years and I didn't know about it. What I like about accomplishing a Werner rules ITF was that it came down to my build, my tactics and my reflexes. But even THAT was tainted knowing that I wasn't actually fighting +4s due to alpha's levels shift. And I can't turn off the level shift without unslotting my alpha. I absolutely think @Elmyder feels exactly the same way about their MLTF run. They put in the work to make it happen and did it. I can't solo the MLTF. I can't do it because I go into it with those self-imposed and arbitrary rules I mentioned earlier. If I followed Elmyder's rules, I have absolutely zero doubt that I'd waltz through it. Does that in any way harm me? Nope, not in any real sense. So where's the harm in adding a temp power that defeats all enemies on a map? Doesn't harm me. Doesn't harm you. Why not do it? Neither of us have to use it and the ONLY difference between that and utilizing every other cheat is the time it takes to clear that map, so why shouldn't it be added to the game? Or is it possible that some harm IS being done when something is made so easy that it becomes boring and when that occurs we stop doing it. I'm not wiccan. My rule isn't quite the same as theirs. Mine is "Harm no one else, and do as ye will." But often times in reality, we don't get to choose to do NO harm. We end up choosing the outcome that causes the LEAST amount of harm. I would argue that this game has become less fun, so some manner of game-related-not-real-not-that-damned-important-harm occurred, and continues to occur every time it becomes even easier, if the end outcome is people quitting because it's gone past QoL into I-Now-Have-A-Clear-Map-Button levels of stupidly easy. Again though, if I'm in the minority, and I'm 99% sure that I am, and removing the ability to store 100 top tier insps in email and grab them in the middle of combat causes more "harm" to the community that the initial ability to do so being added to the game caused, then it should be left alone. If it does more good for the community as a whole, then perhaps it should be dealt with.

The difference boils down to game design and balance. We all expect buffs on a full team unless it's a team of 8 scrappers. A teammate isn't using what was originally supposed to be a finite resource. Back in the day, you used what dropped or what a teammate gave you and that was that. An emp defender can set healing aura on auto and as long as they have the end to back it up, we get healed. I see no difference between multi-boxing and insps in email as multi-boxing isn't soloing and it isn't part of the game design. But if you don't call it soloing, then it's just teaming and it goes back to the last point. I could absolutely crank up a third account and build a blaster on one, with cold and sonic defs on the other two and alt-tab between them to keep the blaster juiced to the nines, but I would not actually consider that any different than loading up on 120 max level insps. Yes, we can do these things. And we can just as easily set arbitrary rules upon ourselves to NOT do these things because they reek of cheating. I don't expect that email storage will ever be changed. But I also see a huge overlap in the venn diagram of those that do utilize amps, insps in email, temps, etc and those stating the game is too easy. I see it because I'm just as guilty of utilizing the tools that MAKE it too damn easy as everyone else. You can make the argument that it doesn't actually matter and you're absolutely correct. It doesn't. This game doesn't matter. Our opinions don't matter. Hell, I can easily make the argument that existence doesn't matter. Right up until we decide that these things should or do matter.

And you know I don't think you're an idiot. It's not about what we can all do, it's about what we can do vs the game. I don't see much difference in having 120 huge insps keeping me at all the caps for every tough fight in a TF and a button that wipes out everything on the map. It's only a matter of degree of brokenness.

Stating that it's not an issue and there's no good reason to do it is only true for you. It is an issue with regards to game balance and that is, in itself, a good reason to fix it regardless of whether you agree. However, game balance doesn't mean much to many people, like you, and even less when it involves a game like this one where there's absolutely no monetary gain involved and those working on it are doing it in their spare time and, like you, don't appear to think game balance means much at all. Or at least in regards to the definition of balance that I carry around in my head.

I have been grateful and appreciative of both being able to be back in The City and all the work that has gone into it since its return but about the only change I haven't had a problem with is making it where buffing movement powers actually buffs movement powers. And scrapper stone armor turned out pretty well balanced.

More often used in this world than I care for. <shrug>

Ya know, something can be broken and still not be broken enough to bother fixing. Reality ain't a Chess board.

Yes. I'd honestly love it if the devs made their current bug list public so that we could peruse it prior to starting new bug threads.

You know me, man. I'm the guy that will spend three hours soloing an ITF. I don't need three lvl 53 micros in sprint, swift and quickness because of speed runs. I need them cuz max is max, yo, and they look cool on the manage screen. An NO ONE has emailed me any micros yet! Wait... @BillyMailman emailed me one!!! Thanks, man!

Honestly, I don't worry much about the incarnate softcap. If I'm soloing in DA, +4 ain't +4 anymore due to level shifts and on trials there's so many buffs being thrown around that it becomes damn near meaningless.

I'm in the camp that SL is an attack that just happens to heal. There are plenty of melee sets that provide +recharge and if I recall correctly, the optimal ST chain for Dark is MG, SL, Gloom (or Moonbeam,) Smite, repeat. Granted, that gets boring as hell after a while but it is what it is. This is the way.

Adventure on a Heathkit H89. Woot.

Original card with that rig was a sapphire radeon 290x. don't remember if there was a card between that and the current 1080. Might have been an nivida 980.

This one is gettin long in the tooth. Built it back in 2013, i-5 proc at 3.4, 24GB ram, 1080 vid, game on SSD.

It... appears to have something to do with the clockwork see-through torso and the teleporter beam in the middle of AE. Frelling bizarre.

Got all kinda wonkiness so sad fark it. Set default values at Ultra in game. Set default values for driver but turned on vsync. Cranked up two instances. First one was my claws/fire brute. That instance sits at 110 FPS. Second was my new inv/nrg tank. That instance sits at 144 FPS. I can alt-tab between the two and FPS always settles back to the above. How does one character cause a 35 FPS drop when all toggles are turned off?

I remember jg0001. Thanks for that.

Ok, this helped. Cranked to 32x in game, but in NCP, set for application controlled but cranked up AA-transparency to 8x, DSR to 1.5 on factors and 50% on smoothness, enabled MFAA. Hopefully it'll stick. Edit: Would still like to know what everyone else is using to optimize eye candy. Edit2: Bah, something is now causing a framerate dip when the particles start flying in heavy combat. Already disabled DSR, so that ain't it. But AA still looks good so I'm leaving that off.

One thing I do miss about running ATI cards was that antialiasing actually FUNCTIONED!!! I'm currently on an Nvidia stock 1080 and it doesn't seem to matter whether I use in-game AA or NCP AA, it always looks like crap. Sometimes, less than others, almost as if it fades in an out or drops to lower settings on its own whim. Does anyone else noticed this on the regular or have any tips on maximizing AA for CoH with Nvidia cards? I know, I know, I used to be the ATI guru, I should be able to figure this out on my own, but I'd rather not recreate work if someone else already has a good line on it. Thanks much.