ForeverLaxx

The cutscene that plays when you find Jenkins in the Breakout tutorial mission. It's so broken I can't help but laugh at it.

It sounds worse than it was because it's colored by his own personal issues with the system that he never bothered to learn despite adamantly hating it. For context, Diablo 2 is an old BNet-style game where any game launched as "public" would be put on a list that anyone could join, sort of like a "server list." You could title these whatever you wanted (like, 'finishing Act 3 boss' or 'trading -insert item-'), but you could only see games your character could join so Hardcore characters could only join Hardcore games (Hardcore being the mode with permaDeath). If you didn't include a password for your game, then anyone at your difficulty setting could join it. Most players aren't interested in PvP so this is usually not a problem. However, D2's PvP system was pretty unique. In the menu that showed the players in the game, there's a button to flag yourself as "Hostile" next to the names of each player. You could theoretically only choose to be hostile to specific players rather than everyone in the game, but if the player you decide to be hostile towards is in a party, you become hostile to everyone in that party (and if you were in that party yourself, you're kicked out of the party immediately). There are important safeguards to this system that he failed to mention or outright misunderstood because he doesn't like any form of PvP, such as: You must go to Town (the "safe zone") to set yourself as Hostile. You cannot flag yourself while standing next to the people you intend to fight while out in the world. You cannot use any Portal that belongs to the player or party you're Hostile to. A Portal is an object spawned by a player that lets them immediately return to town (and back again) when interacted with. When you "go Hostile," any Portal that you've spawned is immediately despawned, so you can't teleport back to town, turn Hostile, then instantly come back to kill a player. You must get back to their location "the slow way." "The Slow Way" is most often accomplished by using the game's Waypoint system. These are permanent teleport locations, generally 1 per major area, that let you travel between other waypoints you've discovered and there is one located in town so a Hostile player could use this to quickly get back to the person they intend to PK. However... There is an 8 second lockout that prevents the use of these waypoints for a player who "goes Hostile," preventing them from quickly returning even if they know exactly where you are or are even standing on a waypoint at the time yourself. There is ample time to teleport yourself back to town, or simply quit the game, when a player goes Hostile towards you and you're not interested in fighting them. It's annoying to have to "start the level over," but it's way better than dying considering death in Hardcore is permanent. You could also simply set a trap for them if you want to fight since you know they're coming and where from (though often PKers are built to fight players, and if you aren't, this can be ill-advised unless you're in a group). As you can see, it's not nearly the problem he claims it to be, and while he's well within his preferences to not have to deal with it at all, it doesn't help that "anti-PvP" people tend to have a warped view/memory of how things worked and will often mischaracterize these systems in a way that paints them as poorly as possible. The fact you can password-protect your games, even in Hardcore, to only play with people you trust and he still chose to play in public games anyway means he accepted those risks and didn't like how it panned out, blamed the game for it, then started hating PvP wholesale as a result. EDIT: To the topic at hand, I think the current PvP systems are too entrenched to be modified much, especially by a volunteer dev team. While I personally prefer PvP and PvE systems to be as close to each other as possible, there's always going to be modifications required when facing players as player damage and health values are balanced around PvE primarily. Having enhancements that do completely different things in PvP vs PvE should probably never have happened and they should have just stuck with direct modifications to player-specific targets. This way, a player going for a Warburg Nuke or Shivan Shard would be able to fight the PvE enemies as expected, but if they're attacking/attacked by a player, things are adjusted so that the fight is more "even." I concede that that's hard to do, though, and the effort involved may not be worth it considering the small PvP playerbase, especially as that playerbase is used to how things currently function. PvPvE areas are notoriously hard to pin down correctly.

I just wish the procs that aren't damage-focused (damage procs, recharge procs, -resist procs, etc) were more useful. Trying to use an Immob Proc in Oppressive Gloom to keep enemies from stumbling out of its area of influence is basically a waste of time because of how procs work and how weak the mag is on said proc (I still slot it anyway, but I know it's practically pointless). Like, why bother trying to use procs to get more use out of the primary function of the power when you can just slot damage procs instead and kill the target instead of immobilize them? This is my main problem with procs as they're implemented currently. Damage will always be helpful, but a random Mag 2 Immobilize against one target when you've got 12 targets surrounding you isn't. There has to be some way to make procs that aren't damage-oriented more attractive/useful.

I might be a bad example because I play every new character until 22 without any slotting beyond those free P2W enhancements that slowly scale down as you level up and don't generally have an issue, so if you're having problems it might be a few things: Make sure you're not keeping Sprint on while fighting. It's a huge endurance drain, even if you have an Endurance Mod in it. Try and make use of Sands of Mu's cone effect. The more targets you can hit with it at once, the more efficient it becomes. When pulling, avoid using the Nemesis Staff. Knockback will trigger the entire group to come running, whereas the Blackwand can potentially lure only the guy you hit. Do not be afraid to use Inspirations, especially if you're facing Orange-tier enemies. You will hit less often, deal less damage, and get hit more (and for harder) against higher ranked foes. Inspirations are you equalizer (Defense is generally better than Resist Inspirations, if you can only keep one type). If you're facing Oranges frequently, consider checking your difficulty settings and lowering them. You may also want to work on a different contact as your current contact could be approaching the end of their level range and you're getting missions meant to be tackled after you gain a level or two. Pick up basic "jousting" techniques if you need additional breathing room: jump away from your intended target and fire the attack at the peak of your jump -- momentum will carry you out of their return fire range (or around a corner) and force them to run towards you, giving you time to recharge powers or set up area effects easier. Some other things to consider: If these are Snakes... that's just how they are. They're brutal for lowbies and Redside making you fight them early should be a crime. Arachnos are in the same boat, generally. They hit hard, have -Defense in some attacks, and the higher ranked foes can throw Web Grenades on you. They're a pain at all levels, even at this point when they're at their "weakest." There's not much you can do about those last two other than liberally use inspirations or play very cautiously, unfortunatley.

You see this a lot with certain indie "games." The creator is bitter about being a failed writer so they use the player as a "forced" participant in their fanfic.

From my personal experience, it doesn't matter if we tested anything if our opinion is negative regarding the direction of the changes, no matter the form that opinion takes. You and people like you will swoop in, declare we "must not have tested anything" because the assumption is that if testing had been done, we'd see the error in our thinking and come to the obvious conclusion that we're delusional and join the side of the Good And Just and go full steam ahead on all changes while you all pat yourselves on the back for another job well done. It's why I stopped testing things forever ago and just (mostly) passively observe what's getting broken and where so I can adjust my concept characters accordingly. Just throwing this out there; I'm going back to being a passive observer, but I felt it prudent to point out that far more often than not, "negative feedback" just gets shouted down regardless of context and information provided -- this goes doubly so if said individual refuses to engage with Discord groups.

What bothers me the most about this isn't even the disingenuous claims, the gaslighting surrounding them, or the outright fabrication of datapoints that Ultimo employs in order to avoid the truth that he just builds and plays poorly. No, what bothers me the most is that he wants the game to change in a way that doesn't even change the outcome of his stubbornness. That is to say, he still wants to lose. I just can't wrap my head around wanting the game to deal less damage across the board, but still desire losing anyway. When people tell you to embrace your concept builds, this isn't what they meant.

I hate that this happens and is one of the primary reasons I stopped throwing my 2 cents in these Feedback threads.

I, for one, am excited to see a slew of Deathstroke knockoffs called Buttstroke.

It's a tad bit facetious to point to a manufactured-for-entertainment video as an example of how "unfriendly" the game is to new players. That said, automatically skipping the tutorial when you choose an Epic AT where there's no indication there's even a distinction on character creation probably needs to be handled somehow. This did remind me of a time I tried to get a friend of mine into this game before it shut down. He picked War Mace and I watched in confusion as he ran around using Brawl on everything, never touching his War Mace attacks. When I asked him why, he said that he hadn't gotten a Mace to drop yet and was convinced he couldn't use his Mace attacks until he found one. He almost refused to believe me when I said to just use the Power and you'll manifest a mace out of nowhere as "gear" in CoH really doesn't exist. He didn't play the game for long after that.

In addition to Spine Melee with the Crystal Spine customization, you could run a Dominator with Thorny Assault using that same Spine customization. I'm not sure if Thorny Assault is considered "good" or if that matters to you, but it's an option. Pair it with Mind Control or Illusion for a misdirection/light refraction theme maybe.

From my understanding, it's to show a narrative reason why you're still fighting "prototype" enemies at higher levels without changing the powerlevel of the enemy directly. That is to say, different names correspond to different level ranges in an attempt to show that while your character has improved, so has the enemy. It wouldn't make much sense to be fighting the Clockwork King in his lair, defended by "prototypes" would it? So you get "perfected" or something similar to denote these versions of your old foes are... better, somehow. Honestly, the fact they don't gain even one different power is a tad disappointing. It makes their name and color tweaks entirely cosmetic, but at least it's there for a reason at all. I'd probably prefer that old boss-level enemies in a faction become lieutenants and lieutenants become minions to denote this shift up in power, but CoH is an old game and when enemy factions are locked to certain level ranges, it's just easier to rename them. Less potential for oddities like Tesla Knights of higher rank appearing with Tesla Knights of lower rank.

Make a Peacebringer and ignore the squid/lobster forms. You get shields, a heal, and even a form that's pure light. Just color the powers appropriately and you're set.

It's easy to be right when you change the definition of a phrase to suit what you want it to mean instead of what it's commonly accepted to mean. What was the point of this thread, then, when you're just going to do this?

I've been playing this game since 2004 and at no point did I ever see anything resembling the "holy trinity" manifest in-game. Yes, there were players I referred to as "confused" who tried to force Tanks and Empaths on every team they made, but this was more often just a waste of effort when any kind of Defender/Controller support and Tank/Scrapper would get the job done for standard missions if they were particularly insistent that these roles be represented directly. TFs at that time were a different story and you probably wanted someone who take a lot of punishment without as much support assistance, but that didn't stop all-Blaster teams from rolling in and taking out the AV despite said team dying nearly as often as the foes they were blowing up. All of that is to say... I don't know what you thought you experienced back in Ye Olden Days, but it doesn't jive with my experience and my experience is the reason I'm still here at all.