ForeverLaxx

Many people here seem to be talking about powers like Brawl, Sprint, or the auto-included stuff like Fitness but I think the focus is supposed to be the AT Inherent Powers that are meant to compliment or define the AT in question. To that end, I'm going to focus on those. I'll probably just stick to the ones I have a particular issue with to keep this post short. Containment: Some control effects still need to be added to Containment so that all Controllers can benefit more frequently. Sets that have strong, reliable Fear effects as primary sources of group control suffer because of this. Domination: Dominators are too reliant on this being permanent in the later parts of the game, or so I'm told. While I've never actually made a permaDom character, they definitely feel somewhat anemic when it's down and overwhelming strong while it's up. Perhaps some kind of middle-ground could be achieved so Doms aren't essentially "forced" into budgeting very heavily into Recharge for every late-game build. Cosmic Balance: The resistance to mez effects isn't high enough to see much, if any, use unless you're on a team stuffed full of Controllers or Dominators. If you're in that situation, you don't need the resistance as nothing's fighting back anyway. Dark Sustenance: Same as Cosmic Balance regarding mez resistance, but gaining more of what your team already brings to the table seems backwards. I get the idea behind it, but it just seems off. Scourge: Painfully weak outside of very high HP targets. Defenders will still often out-DPS Corruptors despite the Corruptor being the "offensive-focused Defender" because their damage isn't any better until Scourge kicks in (and their debuffs are weaker). I'm not sure how best to approach this without just turning a Corruptor into a Blaster With Crits but something should be done to at least have them deal more damage than Defenders do when said Defender is running damage resist debuffs. Opportunity: Already listed as something that's getting worked on, and what can be done about it I haven't much of an idea personally. I just know that using it is very clunky and requiring both T1 Blasts to have flexibility in the application of the effect can be build-restrictive. Currently, outside of some edge cases, I don't think Offensive Opportunity is worth much since the bonus damage isn't high enough to care about and many Sentinels appreciate the added sustain Defensive Opportunity provides. It doesn't help that the Damage Resist Debuff effect is resisted hard enough to not provide much of a bonus anyway. Beyond that, I think that's all I can really think of at the moment. Many of the inherent powers are either non-offensive if boring, like Vigilance, but these above are the ones I could see needing looked at. Some more than others, of course.

Yeah, the dev/GM team have to go in and reset it manually once it's completed for the first time. They'll do this sometimes and announce to a channel that's been/being reset if people want their badge.

Many modern games are still falling into the "tied to FPS" code trap, where certain events, character speeds, and other things are tied to the FPS the game runs at. Games that were set to 30 FPS for consoles would get ported to the PC and bumped up to 60 FPS just for the game to break in one way or another.

I don't even RP. I'll do a mission or two for 8 different characters in a play session or stand around waiting for a TF to form. In just about every other game with character builds and concept builds, I'll min/max my characters to fit the concept I have for them but, for some reason, City never evokes that part of my brain. I was here in 2004 so I've had plenty of time to "get bored" and I just never did. So when people get upset that they can't farm another alt up as fast as they used to, when they're already sitting on a stable of 20-50 characters that are "done", I'm just dumbfounded. As a PvPer it makes a bit more sense to want to "skip" all the nonsense because you're trying to make a character to fight other players, but many of these people aren't those types either. Maybe it's just because I don't consider a character "unfinished" just because it isn't at the level cap or is fully slotted? I see characters as "done" once they leave the costume creator because at that point, it's about power refinement and expansion for me. Wolverine is just a dude that heals fast and cuts things with claws, which you're already doing from level 1. Getting Wolverine to 50 so he can cut things *differently* or heal *faster* than he was before isn't really changing the character's concept so maybe that's why I take so long to level. I didn't do Incarnate stuff on Live either, though that had as much to do with the expense of it all as anything else back then.

All this talk about multiple "tricked-out" 50s, to people upset they can't instantly equip a new 50 that got PL'd, to others going on about how cheap a build really can be with the right approach and I'm still sitting here with well over a year on these servers and my highest character is only 35-38. I don't even have 30 alts. I just change characters and stand around too much.

Scrappers/Sentinels: I don't think anything is inherently wrong here though I always skip Blinding Powder. Cone -perception powers aren't reliable enough for me due to how spawns can wander and I can just toss in a Celerity Stealth to Sprint if I want to be fully invisible to skip foes. Stalkers: The same issues with Blinding Powder as above, with the added skipped power of Smoke Flash. It's a cool theme power, so it probably won't be changed/removed, but with how Stalkers function in the modern game this sort of power has very limited use beyond RP. Caltrops is sort of in this same boat, but I have a soft spot for this power even before you could slot it with a ton of procs. It's just a good "get away from me/my ally" power. When comparing the two sets, it's strange to me that Scrappers/Sentinels were given Knockback/Knockup protection on an auto power, replacing Smoke Flash. I mean, I know why they don't have Smoke Flash, but why were they given a power to fix the intentional mez hole that Stalkers have had since the set existed on CoV Beta? Ninjitsu was supposed to be SR but with utility, so they paid for that utility by having a mez hole and less DDR than SR. Scrappers/Sentinels don't suffer in this same regard and I find it odd, personally. If anything, Caltrops feels more at home on the Scrapper/Sentinel than it does on the Stalker, and they don't have it. Beyond that, I think the set could probably have its DDR raised a bit. I don't feel like the heal provided in the set really offsets the lower DDR completely, especially since Nin doesn't get scaling resists like SR does (though admittedly, only Tanks really seem able to leverage that aspect of SR, which probably needs to be looked at too).

Any power which does fire or energy damage will ignite the Slick, so that also includes the Apprentice Charm on top of the Taser.

Trick Arrow gets a bad reputation because what it brings to the team isn't particularly flashy so it's harder to know what's going on. On the live servers, my TA/A Defender kept entire teams alive by himself by cranking up clear speeds and keeping things attacking so rarely that the other ATs could just rely on their own natural regeneration to shrug off whatever damage they were taking. Put a TA on a team with any other support class, though, and all that assistance is going to be attributed to them and not you. My only problem with TA is the constant redraw if you don't also take Archery, and Archery is a bit of sad set overall, though I do like playing it.

As a Blaster main on live, I still remember the days of my Blaster brethren dropping from the sky in order to blast mobs off the face of the planet (right before they themselves face-planted onto it). Twas a sad time indeed.

This shouldn't even happen. There's a big warning in red letters saying that you're at risk of being attacked by players. If they accept that risk, then they should have no recourse for being attacked by players. Griefing/harassment is something different and getting attacked after demanding people leave you alone shouldn't come close to tripping that flag.

Some of my pet peeves I share with other people, though I'll post them anyway just so I don't forget something. People asking for, or declaring themselves as, healers. People that say they're asking for help, but are actually just asking someone to make all their build decisions for them. People who want to know what "the best" is. (related to the above) Those who get mad at a channel having banter when it isn't the General channel. Related to the above, those same people never saying a word outside of when they're mad you used the channel "wrong". People who say you're doing things wrong when you're having fun anyway. Those who put words in your mouth to get others to dogpile you because you dared to question their worldview. Getting shouted down by others who are objectively incorrect about a subject when you can prove that you're factually correct. Trying to say the ATs are unbalanced when they use systems designed to unbalance and blur AT divides. (talkin' IO sets and Incarnates here) Spamming LFG to beg for an AE farm "doorsitting position". People who have to announce they're putting someone on ignore. All the apparent celebrities and ex-models in Pocket D, at least according to their bios. Hmm. I'm sure I'm missing a few. Most of these are just categorized under the broad "ignorance and intolerance" umbrella, and some are probably a tad contradictory. Being annoyed at people who tell others how to play while simultaneously getting annoyed at people who think being a healer is great kinda falls under that, but dang it, pet peeves don't have to make a whole lotta sense.

Part of the problem is the complete dismissal of how the game's numbers are balanced under the hood to only account for SO-level slotting. Once you start bringing in set bonuses and Incarnates, systems designed to blur and blend the lines in (theoretically) any direction you want, the differences between the ATs becomes unclear. With basic slotting though, things work out pretty much how you expect them to, and since that's the balance point, I don't think there's any issues that need fixing.

Electrical Blast has always suffered from the endurance drain effect being overvalued and cutting into the blast's damage numbers as "compensation". I ran an Elec/Dev Blaster on live and currently have an Elec/Trap Corruptor and the endurance drain is nothing but meaningless if you're not focusing on that aspect. It's the only secondary effect that you really have to build around in order to leverage due to how mobs work with regards to their attacks. In addition to this, all the -end in the world doesn't mean anything without accompanying -recovery to keep them at the reduced endurance. When you spend a bunch of time and attacks trying to drain the blue bar instead of the green one, and the blue bar tics back up once immediately after you zero them out and the foe gets to hit you with their hardest-hitting attack anyway, it really points out how useless -end is when the real thing you want is -recovery to make it stick. The fact of the matter is, it's faster to just delete the green bar than it is to delete the blue bar (and keep it deleted). You spend more time, attacks, slots, and nearly the foe's entire HP pool to drain their End pool just for that endurance to recover to 1 or 2 immediately and undo all that time. If slotted for damage, you just defeat them outright. The real kick in the pants of Elec Blast is many sets that contain a single drain power, like Transference or Power Sink, delete large swaths of endurance in a single use without slotting whereas the only thing in the Blast set that does this, if you slot for it, is Short Circuit. The blast set, with an entire secondary effect built around endurance drain, is worse at it than singular powers in sets that offer more than just endurance drain and for some reason the Blast set suffers a damage penalty for it. I understand that endurance drain is theoretically the most powerful secondary effect insofar as player safety is concerned. Indeed, foes with no endurance can't fight back and it's why Malta Sappers are so feared. However, the problem is that, as far as mobs are concerned, endurance drain means nothing until the bar is at 0 and Elec Blast has no good way to get there and no -recovery to keep them there. It's a secondary effect that does nothing unless built around, and that requires picking up powers outside the Blast set to actually leverage. Imagine if Dark Blast required both slotting and the usage of Darkest Night before its -ToHit mattered. That's the state Electrical Blast is in.

Sentinels are essentially billed as "ranged Scrappers". They don't do as much ranged damage as Blasters, but they do it much more safely. Their armor sets also make it easier to build towards defense caps if you want to go for that than a Blaster would. Sentinels can also serve in an "off-tank" role, though their lack of any sort of taunt makes it nearly impossible to do more beyond soaking an alpha for the team. The question might be decided if you team or solo more. Blasters can sometimes suffer solo due to getting mez'd and having no armors until their epic pools, but if you plan on teaming a lot this drawback starts to matter less.

Everyone knows that the Blaze Mastery patron would just be the guy behind the counter in the AE. That's where the vast majority of fire-related things take place.

My problem with the Patron Pools as a whole is that they're themed to sell the idea that you're a lackey to one of Recluse's LTs. You're not even good enough in your own right to "be a LT" yourself in this scenario. To put it another way, Recluse is a Boss, Mako is a LT, and you're just a minion. Sure, the power is scaled up considerably but from a game perspective you're basically just a powerful cog in Recluse's machine instead of your own thing. This also means many of the powers don't fit your particular character's theme, so you either have to forgo thematic choice in favor of stronger synergy, or be "weaker" for sake of theme. I'm not sure that can be fixed considering the sets are meant to show your loyalty to Arachnos rather than be an extension of your own power, but that in itself is the problem. From the angle of game mechanics, being forced to run a mission and fight an AV/EB to get a badge in order to have access, when Epics just exist once you're the right level, adds insult to injury. I get the story perspective, but it adds more disparity and unfairness for the redside vs blueside argument. The pools themselves are pretty balanced on a per-set basis for each AT, even if they're boring. The pets aren't very good and players are going to overvalue the +defense toggle armors for obvious reasons, but this does cause one Patron to be over-represented. As a personal aside, I think the Mace is just silly, especially when you shoot energy blasts out of it.

Considering I play the game for myself, to no audience, and don't run around bragging about how I "beat the game with no items", your desire to claim that it's for jerking off is suspect. Sounds like you might have a negative opinion of people who intentionally makes things harder on themselves. Wonder why that is.

No to what? Different games are going to have different systems, and in most RPGs being severely underleveled will necessitate the use of consumables just so you're not dead in one hit or can actually fight back. That's not a case of "consumables are for the real strategists" at all because they're being used not to make the encounter easy, but to make the encounter doable in the first place. And besides all that, I'll often be underleveled in those encounters myself if they have too many sidequests for me to want to bother with them and I'll still find a way to win without throwing healing potions around like they're going out of style. You seem to have a total lack of understanding what the actual point is that I was making. Different games are going to handle items and their usage differently, but my point is that if you can beat a game or encounter without using any of the crutch items you're being given to make the challenge easier, then you probably understand the game mechanics better on a fundamental level than someone who has to chug a healing potion every other turn because they're too stubborn to look at the encounter differently. Not using items forces you to look at your options and understand the risks that come with those options. Sure, I could just build a team of Mages that cascade waves of elemental death across the battlefield for 4 turns to nuke all opposition, provided I had enough mana potions to support it, but how does that make that player "the better strategist" than the guy juggling 16 different scenarios in his head while moving his pieces around the board to limit and corner his opponent into a situation they aren't likely to win? You're never going to convince me that the guy stuffing an inventory of items down his throat to turn a fight into a cakewalk is "the better player" than the one that never took damage and took down the enemy with a pointy stick purely on his own ability.

I almost exclusively solo, so that leaves me out I guess. The few times I do team, hardly anyone addresses my characters directly so I'm left out there too. Everyone seems so focused on trying to look cool that they don't notice me being cool. It's kinda lame, I guess.

The vast majority of my PC gaming before MMOs were isometric RTS games and FPS games, which meant a lot of mouse work. WASD is just the "classic" setting for right-handed people that played FPSs and it carried over to just about every other game that allowed for direct character movement, first person or otherwise. WASD to move, Space to jump, Shift to run, Ctrl to crouch. It actually bugs me when people make changes to that system (like C to crouch or Shift to crouch) and don't offer a way to fix them with keymapping though I'll usually adjust if I like the game otherwise. With MMOs, I do (or did) so much PvP that you could never get me to be a "keyboard turner" like how you seem to prefer. It's much less important in CoH due to how the game doesn't check facing, but in WoW or other MMOs, you often never took any damage from players that relied on the keyboard to turn their character and never touched the mouse. You'd run circles around them all day.

No, I don't. If the only way you can beat an encounter is to "overpower" it then maybe, but I don't do that. I just optimize my characters and use a strategy that doesn't require the use of sacrificial lambs to shove consumables on to. The fight takes longer, is harder, and I still come out on top? That means I got better at the game on a fundamental level and using items to make things super easy doesn't improve my skill as a player.

It's the "99 Elixir" problem. You think you'll only need the consumable for the really tough stuff, so you hold on to all the ones you find while you wait for the tough fight. Before you know it, you've beaten the game and didn't use a single one (and probably even left a few dozen laying on the ground due to running out of space). I'm very guilty of this, but I like to think it made me a much better player of those games. Being able to beat tough encounters without using items makes you think harder or optimize better. Usually.

Some people like dynamic/active combat, some people like combat based on dice rolls. For me it depends on the game and I find active combat where you're expected to manually dodge or block everything being thrown at you to be a huge hindrance when it's an MMO. Latency can be a major issue when performing the proper defense or mobility response due to the number of people and enemies you face, but what often ends up being worse is that you'll get people on your team that expect you to do the work that they don't want (ie; they force you to heal them through the fire instead of them just moving out of it). I played a fair amount of CO when CoH was shut down (and a bit while CoH was still up because my brother preferred it at the time). While there are aspects about the character creator I wish we could replicate, like moving chest decals to other parts of the body or having more asymmetry with leg and arm accessories, the overall graphics of the game I couldn't get behind. Everyone is an oddly shaped bug-eyed something and I felt like a parody character because of it. But swinging back to the topic of combat, I just cannot stand CO's combat system. I hate having to charge up attacks, I hate having an auto-attack in a setting that shouldn't be about sustaining DPS, I hated having to mash buttons to break out of effects, and I did not like having to manually block or dodge things. Why have super powers to reduce incoming damage or heal it off if you're expected to just avoid it manually? CoH's combat is more simple on the surface as everything is based on dice rolls, so things are going to hit or miss as soon as you hit the button. But because of that, you can actually rely on your defensive powers to do their job, showing that your super abilities are why you're avoiding damage instead of your twitch reactions. There are no latency concerns in this system either so you can more reliably know if you're in danger or not. This also lets you leverage certain quirks about how the system "tics" when affects are applied/dropped from you. Queuing up an attack against a Spectral Daemon Lord with his Chill of the Night aura on, you can get the game to land the hit roll before the aura affects you if you "joust" properly, which comes in real handy if you're melee and need that CC power to land to turn off said annoying aura. In the same manner, you can begin a jump around a corner and fire off a ranged attack to nullify most of the "root" that normally occurs when you fire an attack and pull mobs around a corner. Believing that CoH's combat is just standing around and having a slugfest until the other guy falls over is an overly simplistic view of it.

If you think you may fall in defeat, go to an area that the mob isn't set to be "neutral" at and go down fighting there. They'll wander back to their original positions, hopefully outside of re-aggro range, letting you stand back up. The only time I find Awakens useless is when it's an ambush spawn that takes you down since they'll immediately come back for you if you hit that button.

Nice assumption. It's wrong, though. The person I was talking about shows up in many threads about challenge or powerset changes and demands everything else be brought up to that level rather than taking a single powerset down. They don't seem to care what any baseline may or may not be. Power creep is already bad enough and we don't need more of it. Don't try to pretend you know what I like to play, what I find fun, what I find challenging, or implying that I'm a "nerf herder". That's such an idiotic boogeyman and frankly you're embarrassing for even taking it there. Being able to recognize an issue with the base game and the players' over-reliance on defense set bonuses doesn't mean I'm clamoring for those juicy nerfs. It's not something that can be easily changed and, frankly, I don't think the HC devs want to change it. It seems pretty clear to me that high-level builds being nearly untouchable gods of destruction is what they want, but that doesn't mean it doesn't trivialize what was already a fairly simplistic game. Most of what these builds save is time in a run, anyway, and the only real consequence is that half the team feels completely useless. So why don't you take your own advice and: because that's all you've done here. Whine about something that didn't exist because you wanted to get on a soapbox.