Andreah

Monday at 06:30 PM

23 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

tankers, brutes, and scrappers are relatively interchangeable

This is the real problem, imo.

Saturday at 06:06 PM

4 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

But the Orbweavers and Black Hand Society are free to roam around every Paragon City Zone on Everlasting without ever being stopped by a superhero. Whatever reason you might give your character to not punch them in the face in Steel Canyon is the same explanation for why you won't punch them in Kallisti Wharf.

Absolutely none of them are Villains in Paragon City. They're Rogues or Vigilantes, both of which have in-lore explanations for why they are allowed to roam the blue side.

Saturday at 03:46 PM

A friend of mine ran an open court session with his Judge character recently. I don't have permission to post his screenshots.

There are also almost daily club events, for dancing, hanging out, and so forth.

Once, I attended a concert in-character, that was really cool.

Thursday at 02:36 PM

Imagine this:

Directive from Lord Recluse to All Destined Ones

Subject: Strategic Re-Prioritization in Kallisti Wharf

To All Destined Ones:

A concerning development in Kallisti Wharf demands immediate strategic re-evaluation. Blackwing Industries' uncontrolled expansion and disruptive ambitions could undermine the order Arachnos seeks to establish.

Therefore, by my command, effective immediately: Cease hostilities against heroes in Kallisti Wharf. Redirect all efforts against Blackwing Industries and other destabilizing elements. This is a temporary, tactical alliance. The enemies of our enemies are, for now, tools. Your loyalty to Arachnos demands this foresight. Do not fail me.

Lord Recluse Master of Arachnos

And this:

Urgent Dispatch from Ms. Liberty to All Heroes

Subject: Critical Threat & Provisional Cooperation in Kallisti Wharf

To All Valiant Heroes:

A new and urgent threat has emerged in Kallisti Wharf. Blackwing Industries' operations are causing dangerous chaos, and worse, threatening the safety and stability of the entire world.

Therefore, effective immediately: You are authorized to engage in provisional cooperation with villains in Kallisti Wharf. Focus all efforts solely on Blackwing Industries and their threats. This is a temporary, pragmatic operational adjustment to secure the peace. Our fundamental mission remains, but for now, unity against this menace is critical.

Be vigilant.

Ms. Liberty

On behalf of the Freedom Phalanx

Now, ask yourself if anything BWI is doing really would warrant those sorts of directive?

May 29

The first command executes and then the rest don't. It successfully executed and found no targets to select. It didn't fail to execute; and only if it fails to execute does the next one in the command string get tried.

This is different that, say, trying to turn on a toggle that's already on. powexectoggleon fails to execute if the toggle is already on. targetcustomnear doesn't fail to execute if there are no matching entities for it to find, it only determines there aren't any after it successfully executes and does the search through all the mobs in view.

Does this help?

May 29

11 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Villains are in every single zone. Just not always as players for outside reasons. Do we really need to clarify why a player villain in specific would do crime or things for money in a city? 🤔

Kallisti is a co-op zone. You cannot fight the player villains you meet there. Why? because it's a co-op zone. I think we need a lot more than that to explain why. The reasons being 'outside' is the problem.

May 29

51 minutes ago, Ruin Mage said:

So, genuine question, but do most people ignore the game's content then? City of Heroes is a product of its time. A number of arcs and enemy groups...are going to draw from political and social issues. The game's lore, such as the Might for Right Act or the 5th Column or Malta or The Council or Nemesis, makes this game quite hard to "escape" from social and political issues. It's the wrong game choice to do escapism in, unfortunate to say.

How about, those are mainly much older issues that have less biting relevance today.

I won't lose sleep over the PPD Corruption issue, but I think it's a mistake. There's already some unpleasant stinky stuff in the sandwich, why add more? It's easily avoided.

I am concerned that there's not a very solid lore foundation for why Kallisti is the way it is as a co-op zone. So far, it looks very hand wavy "it's co-op because it's a co-op zone."

May 28

40 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

I don't like the idea of there being a bad precinct as an excuse. That needs to be shit canned right away and replaced with one of a dozen different more game lore compatible excuses.

I agree.

May 28

5 hours ago, Velvet Violet said:

Heroes in the Wharf don't attack villains for the same reason they don't attack rogues in other parts of the city, even if the rogues are still perfectly capable of (or even actively are) committing lots of crime.

This doesn't really make sense to me. There's a difference between a villain and a rogue, and why I, when playing a hero, don't attack a rogue is because when in the city, I can't tell them apart from villains because they aren't committing villainy.

Heroes and villains need a better explanation for why they're choosing not to fight each other. In the RWZ, I'm not attack player-villains because we're all there by an agreement with Vanguard, who sets the rules of engagement there. Is there an equivalent to Vanguard forcing the heroes and villains to behave in Kallisti?

If not, tell us we don't fight because we choose not to isn't a good answer. That's arbitrarily forcing their roleplay.

May 24

May 24

20 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

WOULD IT BE WRONG OF ME TO POINT OUT IT COULD GET MUCH, MUCH WORSE?

Not even going to go hunting for the options to make the letter blink. 😁

I looked at his posting history and now suspect his keyboard is broken. That's my best offer.

May 24

1 hour ago, Forager said:

The wording of your post implies that a lower defense to one type or position affects your likelihood of being hit by other types or positions.

You didn't mean that, though... right?

I don't read what I wrote as implying that at all. If you have 45% defense to S/L and only 20% vs Fire, for example, you are more likely to be hit by a typed fire attack than a typed S/L attack.

May 23

This whole thing reminds me of CDF with the romans in the ITF.

There you are, happy and snug in your 45% S/L defense, surrounded by hot men in leather outfits trying to put their swords in you. Wiff! Wiff! Wiff! They miss you over and over. Suddenly, one gets lucky and hits you. Bam! Your defense is debuffed and now they don't all have a 5-9% chance of hitting you, but much higher. Most keep missing, but another one hits! And BAM! Down goes your defense even further. They now have a 20% or more chance to hit you. And looking over the angry faces in that crowd, you know they've all been counting their many previous misses and get their very next hit on you for free -- curtesy of Streakbreaker, Inc. They all hit you with their next swings and down you go.

This is why I like to be a little above the 45% marker :D

May 22

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

If with 45% Defense; the nasty +3 AV has an 9.75% chance to hit you then with 44.55% Defense they'll have a 10.8225% chance to hit you.
So in relative terms; on average you'll be hit 11% more compared to if you had 45% Defense (10.8225/9.75=1.11)
That's why people argue that the last smidgen of Defense or Resistance before the "cap" is the most important.

But either way you'll still be getting hit on average by roughly 1 in every 10 enemy attacks. So I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

You're also more likely to be hit by things that are opposed by a different kind of defense than you have at the soft-cap. Some can get all three of their positionals soft-capped, and this handles almost everything; but often, people will only soft-cap a few types (such as S/L), and then when something shows up that isn't that type, they get hit.

May 22

48 minutes ago, aethereal said:

It's clearly the case that the devs are reacting to the overly homogenous environment of high defense by adding more things that lower the utility of defense. It kinda blows my mind that their most-high-profile attempt to do so resulted in an even more homogeneous environment of rolling Barrier usage and that people don't call that out as a problem with the basic concept.

Yup.

I suspect it's because the vast majority of people don't run that content, and the ones that do are happy with their system to deal with the gimmics.

May 22

35 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

Which chart?

The resolution of the last one you posted was so small I can't tell if it's correct or not because I can't tell what it's saying.

That said, again, absolutely none of this is rocket science.
I just spent a few minutes knocking together a quick Google Sheet showing the effect of a given set of Defence/ToHit/Accuracy buffs; including the streakbreaker:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wIsH6SWzb5uH1QZgwK0gneBodGj0LdBaM1MqGeoWe3g/edit?usp=sharing

(anyone/everyone can feel free to make a copy and check the figures, then bin it once they realise how simple this stuff is!)

IMO the answer is that the 45% softcap (58.75% in Incarnate content) is absolutely a thing.
The real question however is whether achieving it is worth the build tradeoffs; given the prevalence of Teammate buffs/Inspirations/etc and Defense Debuffs.
(spoiler alert: the answer here is "almost never, unless you are on a toon that already has lots of Defense and DDR such as like Super Reflexes")

TL;DR:
Is it true? Yes.
Should you try and achieve it? Probably not.

Also, if you are in the 9.75% chance to hit zone from an AV, if the AV is still alive long enough to have missed you 100 times, the chance a streak of misses that long even happens is less than 1 in 37,000.

May 22

15 minutes ago, shortguy on indom said:

IF IT ENDS UP BEING 20%, CHART IS STILL CORRECT.

The point is, it virtually never is 20% or more. If your defense is high enough, Streakbreaker lets them miss you 100 times before it forces a hit.

Look, just use some high-school scientific method. Instead of obsessing over your parsing of the wording in the (old, out of date, I might add) wiki; put your interpretation to the test. Go in game, find a +4 AV to fight solo and examine your combat log. You don't need a five page thread full of caps locks to see it doesn't work the way you think it does.

May 22

Also, please, for gods' sake, turn off your caps lock.

May 22

18 minutes ago, shortguy on indom said:

IF THE ENEMY HAS A 95% CHANCETOHIT (I.E. +3/AV), JUST BECAUSE OF STREAKBREAKER, YOU THE TOON, ARE GOING TO GET HIT EVERY OTHER STRIKE..... NO MATTER HOW MUCH DEFENSE YOU HAVE OR HAVE NOT...

No, that's not how the streakbreaker works. The allowed misses in a row depends on the final chance to hit, after your defense is applied, not before. If you have high defense, the final chance to hit you will be low, and streakbreaker will allow many misses, easily up to 100, before it forces a hit.

May 20

On 5/15/2025 at 7:47 AM, shortguy on indom said:

LEGENDARY 45% SOFTCAP:

THIS IS WHERE IT ALL BEGINS...

Defense Effectiveness - Paragon Wiki Archive

the whys and why nots...

I like to hit the softcap, when I can, or go a little above it, since it's more a guideline than a rule. If the cost isn't too high in other ways, I'l significantly overachieve it, since enemies have tricks to play too, and you'll get hit a lot more often than you expect if you believe "The Legend".

If possible, getting complementary resistances or ability to heal/regen can be more valuable that getting a few more defense points to match the technical softcap.

I find in regular content that being reasonably solid protection-wise is a big help to feeling like a "Superhero" -- which is key part of what I like about the game. Sure, defeat's not really painful, but "Superheroes" should be hard to defeat! And good soft-cap-ish defenses are an achievable way to be tough like that for most builds.

May 20

Upper-Left, with character flaws and errors.

May 20

Mechanically, I likely would not. I don't find that particularly interesting.

However, in Roleplay, I have thought out several serious weaknesses & deep flaws in my main characters. Basic mechanics can't represent these well, but they add storytelling potential that I would not pass up.

May 15

20 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Before, on the hero side, your character would be sent to their origin contact. Your new character and the new characters made up by four friends could end up with characters with 5 different contacts if they all have a different origin.

This is the main reason (apart from the character designs, which are a matter of taste) I don't like these stories. It's too much funneling.

May 15