agentx5

I had not, that's good news! 😄

Team PBAoE is the way to go, like how Speed Boost for Kinetics was changed. This is a must-have to be honest. Please fix? I agree with almost all of this I especially like the idea of Necro being a swarm set. Especially if it's one that gets a large swarm as enemies start dying. That would also I don't agree with giving the undead minions resistance to fire. If anything they should have a small inherent vulnerability to fire, and a inherent bonus resistance to cold and negative. It fits the theme, and yes that matters, IMHO. And to balance it, one of the buffs you apply to your horde can buff ALL resistances across the board. Also please make it Resistance and HP buffing, not Defense and Healing buffing. The undead are scariest when they are hard to kill. They don't need to be the highest DPS, leave that to things like Gang War and Robots. But they should definitely be one of the toughest, especially because melee is their main mode of attack. They need to survive to close the gap. This should be significant enough that a Necro MM can at least be helpful on a 2-star ITF or Aeon, rather than a liability for the team. Also I very much don't like the idea of tediously individually having to cast (or re-cast in case of a pet's death) buffs spells one-by-one. Make it a PBAoE, one & done, please! Once they're buffed, it lasts either indefinitely until they die or for a certain amount of time. But it reminds me of the wonderful change that was made with speed boost changing into a team PBAoE versus something like Clear Mind which you have to cast repeatedly one-by-one and doesn't last very long. I feel it's more important to focus to be on the actually gameplay and your pets positioning in combat, not micro-mangling buffs. It's the tedious micro-managing that has mastermind as my least favorite archetype, if I'm being blunt honest. To use a comparison, imagine you had a game like Starcraft II or Warcraft III (the RTS, not the MMO) and you had to apply "global upgrade" buffs to each one of your little troops one by one, rather than it simply applying to all of them or being an auto-cast toggle. Yes please! The END costs for MM's has always felt a bit too much, IMHO...

Player suggestions from Force Field users FTW! 😄 And yes as @Golden Azrael said, force bomb isn't much of a bomb. It could use some work. Idea: What if force bomb did reverse knock-back, or knock-to if you will. Like you toss it out, and it knocks all the affected targets into a cluster/pile, ripe for a teammate with an AoE to take tactical advantage of that situation? Like a little temporary blackhole singularity or something?

Ditto, I'm sometimes bad about remembering to refresh. Also most click powers come with an unnecessary character animation, just because. (Do we really need to flex by stiffening up and vibrating everytime we buff up, seriously... which sounds dirty but that's kind of what the on-click buff animations do for lack of better words lol) Respectfully disagree? IMHO, which I had I said before, the target and ranged cap limitations need to be changed across the board. I don't agree with Sentinels having reduce range distanced or reduced target caps for AoEs. Heck target caps and radius distances for most AoEs feel like they are made for a game worried about netcode traffic, which isn't the case anymore as the computers and the internet as a whole has moved so far beyond what it was in 2004 that we could literally have NO AoE target caps and we'd still be ok. (it'd petty fun to, let's be honest, even more love for the taunters (i.e. Tankers) on the team from me that's for sure) I think we're on the same page for the most part, but you're framing this without that taken into account. PS: I'm one of the people who was very happy with the aggro change in Page4, which I know not everyone was a fan of. In the long run though, it did make the game more fun not having nearby enemies who can clearly see you attacking their allies just standing there like they were bored & waiting in queue at the airport to board their flight. (still wish aggro caps were increase too, it still needs it. Just a little bit, like 24 instead of 17 would be, I feel, spot on) HAMIDON WE ARE COMING FOR YOU!!! Rick and Morty? Right?

Is there a thing as too many cats? PS: because it's Halloween soon:

Will it still be if Sentinels are buffed on their scalar though? Not that I disagree with any of that, but it needs to be considered in comparison. Corruptors for example, such as those Cold Domination as a secondary (Heat Loss + Sleet + Blast primary set = woohoo!!!) I've kind of viewed blasters as sort of "death or glory", in the sense that either you quickly kill what you've chose to attack, or prepare to die horribly. Damage mitigation through superior DPS, alpha-strike in particular. It's probably why I like stalkers too, which in a way are kind of like the melee version of a blaster. It's quite nice to go "SUPRISE ****S!" and then obliterate the enemy before they realize WTF just happened. To be honest, I would even willing give up things like my incarnate barrier and other defenses just to have things tilting a bit more in that direction of all-the-damage, well IMHO anyways. 😃 Sentinels to me are a bit more aggressive in combat, and their melee version is arguably a scrapper. Yes, good sentinel players can get scrapper-lock. In a way I wish Sentinels had something akin to the Brute Fury mechanic, as it would kind of fit their "in your face" natural approach to combat. That's my perspective, for what it's worth. I know I'm not the only one like that either, it's a fairly common perspective. 😜 I guess I just want to cautioning that balancing should never be considering in a vacuum, but rather always taking into account the big picture. Not just fully equipped level 50's with incarnates, but also those mid-levels that are just slotting some I.O.'s in their powers. Such changes should NOT be rush through testing.

That's my limiting factor too. I just don't have the time to play as much as I would like, and I'm far from the only one. Like literally most of the "CoH Regulars" in the communities I frequent (i.e.: The DawL House, Everlasting TFs, etc.) can only get on to play for limited time periods, and we try to make the most of it when we can. Excessive grinding and gambling "lockboxes" are two major things that turns me off from a game these days. Fortunately HomeComing is donor funded, so we don't have to delve into that dark realm of abusing peoples' gambling addiction tendencies for profit; but lets please try to stay away from excessive grind as well. One of my least favorite things is the process of procuring and equipping all of the enhancements for a build I have planned out. I understand why some grind is necessary, but personally I'd prefer to get right down to combat, with a team in particular. I don't care if it's "active farming", task forces, trials, or even some roleplay-like stuff. But as soon as it begins to feel like a chore, I find my interest waning; as I have enough chores and job duties in real-life. For me the most important things to do with my time spent in CoH HomeComing are: Combat (Especially fast-paced combat with lots of explosions and huge numbers of squishy enemies to explode or something! I want to kill fast, or be killed fast if I mess up. None of this +33 million HP grind of boredom, please.) Talking & Teaming with other players. (Even better if I get to be an MVP on a team helping others out, so we can all win together! The wonderful community is one of the reason to keep coming back, to HomeComing in particular, and it's always nice to meet new people as well!) Sharing my characters with people, and learning about theirs. (My characters are one of those things that keeps me coming back. I swear I don't have alt-isis, just a large cast of characters! But for real, I love my characters and I adore some of the characters other players have made and invested time and effort into) Learning and experiencing new things in the game (and that includes things like base building artwork, costume contest creativity, custom AE story arcs, or even just doing silly things like "Bargain Basement Heroes" or running something like running a TF/SF with an All Defender or All Electric or All Melee team, just to mix things up and learn the pro's and con's better of different powersets and archetypes)

Then it's like I said, Blasters need a buff. Otherwise why go Blaster if Sentinel can do the same thing but with the added benefit of a defensive secondary set that can make them extremely hard to kill? I will point to the development diary of TF2 where they at one point realized they had too many classes from TFC that more-than-less did the same role and behaviors as other classes. They had to rework some of them to get them different enough from each other on release. Overwatch is another example of this same development challenge where there are similar enough one's that when they change balancing on one thing it can have unintended consequences for a different character. I think the proposed changes for Sentinel are good and have the right direction (although the max ranges need to be standardized across all blast sets), but it may require some re-thinking of how it might fit into the overall balance too. I say this as someone who has both Blasters and Sentinels Alyssa Q'Uzixola and HDJ are my main Blasters, Fire/Nrg/Fire and B.R./Nrg/Mace respectively, both on Everlasting. Kali Q'Uzixola is an Electric/Electric/Ice Sentinel main of mine on Everlasting. She was fixed with Page3's "Shocked!" Mechanic Also my friend @Teirusu has Jane Zim, a pretty well-known vet level >1000 sentinel on Everlasting. So believe me when I say I want to see BALANCE. @The Curator This will require more feedback and testing, it's a fundamental change and will likely require tweaking the numbers. Ideally testing should require surveys and such, not just a relatively small group people sharing opinions on a thread (it's useful but hard to gather data from). PS:. I still do not like the overly flashy persistent graphical sprite effect for the debuff. Please, tone it down, or give us an option to do a "Min FX" in the character creator.

Honestly I dislike target limits on AoEs, period. This is not 2004, the network can take it (and if you want proof, check Ionic Core Final Judgement as an example). If it has to have caps as a safety net, then those caps should be raised, for everyone (including enemies, but they usually have higher max target caps than players because the devs love villains... Maybe... 😜

I respectfully disagree; I feel it's correct for an AT with Blast Primary / Resist&Defense Secondary. That said, Blasters could also use a small bump of some kind, just to keep that King-of-the-Hill burst/alpha-strike damage edge over it's competition (Sentinels & Corruptors). Remember that Corruptors have support sets, meaning they can actually do more through buffs and debuffs. As for this proposed change the vulnerability debuff is very nice and the base damage bump is welcome. My only suggestion for this feedback thread is that there needs to be a way to turn off that visual effect. Try it on a huge floating/hovering enemy you'll see what I mean about it being an eyesore, especially in a bright color. Honestly, I don't like flashy persistent auras, indicator icons, and bubbles in general. Explosions and a flash of light, yes that's good, but not a fan the persistent effects and more than I'm a fan of cell shading. Also it does reduce frames a bit, little by little for each overlapping effect. Sometimes effects even overwrite one another and you get a nasty flickering effect from your GPU render being confused which is on top (like when you have to surfaces at exactly the same planar face position, in base building) when you pivot your camera viewing angle. I want to see the character(s), not a ball of flickering overlapping auras and sprites and BAMF FREEEM YEET! Persistent aura effects are not Pokemon, it's kind of hideous looking to catch them all. So basically, a visual thing and the rest honestly seems ok (at least at first). We gotta test it more to know for sure 😆

Is this possible to use on this game? Here's an example with Morrowind (which was released 2 years prior to CoH if I'm not mistaken) I've seen it also used for the original DooM game, Descent II, and Minecraft. Seems like the biggest challenge is fixing any lighting shortcuts Just an idea and I love that they're making the software fairly user friendly, this opens up a lot of modding options (which would include HomeComing, which is essentially modded i24 right?)

Are they different for the different archetypes? If so, how much. Should the temp buff given just be increased somehow? Like if not in number of damage bonus, maybe in duration of the buff and lower recharge time, and allow for stacking? I don't find this power useless, but maybe that's because I'm use to adding a Build-Up of some kind into my attack chain when it seems like an opportune moment. As for Savage Melee as a whole, it might be fitting to sing this part of a song, because savage likes to Rip & Tear right? The life was quiet all around A cute little island Nice and non-violent But everything turned upside down When a new guy came to town We got along, he showed me ways To craft and test things That cut intestines Said we could party at his place All the holidays It's just what I need To watch demons bleed Their blood on my paws Unholy hordes slaughtered Now I feel complete Our worlds collide on eternal horizons A wild ride, every turn is surprising We rip and tear until it's done Then head back home and have some fun Together we are One! [4x] Together we are One! [4x] Yeah somehow, that just fits what I envision Savage Melee could be... Well... Within the "Teen" rating. *Shrug* Maybe some small bumps & improvements used here & there might be helpful for making Savage Melee feel a bit more... Savage? It would be interesting to test it on the Beta server (assuming we can get enough people to test it on a weekend)

Um... why would you even say that? Transparency is a good thing, especially for a non-profit donor-funded organization. Just a bit of pseudo-code insight into how the CoH engine stores power choices on your character file in the database on server side; it's constructed as a vector-array, kind of like this: Power(): levelbought(0), buildnum(0), disabled(false) {} Power(string i, int l, int b, bool d): id(i), levelbought(l), buildnum(b), disabled(d) {} Here's filter construct that Ruby (https://gitlab.com/rubidium-dev/powers) came up with (at least as far as I know), which is used to help with the City of Data (https://cod.uberguy.net/html/index.html) website tool that's so darned useful: (It should be theoretically possible to pull graphs like in the OP of this topic with all these categories!) power_categories = [ "Arachnos_Soldiers", "Blaster_Ranged", "Blaster_Support", "Brute_Defense", "Brute_Melee", "Controller_Buff", "Controller_Control", "Corruptor_Buff", "Corruptor_Ranged", "Defender_Buff", "Defender_Ranged", "Dominator_Assault", "Dominator_Control", "Epic", "Incarnate", "Inherent", "Mastermind_Buff", "Mastermind_Summon", "Peacebringer_Defensive", "Peacebringer_Offensive", "Pool", "Prestige", "Scrapper_Defense", "Scrapper_Melee", "Sentinel_Defense", "Sentinel_Ranged", "Stalker_Defense", "Stalker_Melee", "Tanker_Defense", "Tanker_Melee", "Teamwork", "Training_Gadgets", "Warshade_Defensive", "Warshade_Offensive", "Widow_Training", ] There's a frankly lot of good insight that could potentially result from updated data. I see it more than just what's popular, but trying to understand why something is more or less popular than another is interesting. For the least popular, it begs the question why do people rarely try that? If it were feasible, this could broken down into specific powers too (but depends on how the data can be searched and indexed from a server database) It helps us as a community come up with with fun ideas to improve the game, or even decide things are good as-is and should be left alone. But data that's about 2.5 years old now... We're kind of in the dark. Who know, maybe Fire Aura Brutes went out of fashion and there's bunch of people with dual pistols now because of the Ambassador's client-side audio mod (via CoH Modder). Maybe Warshades are no longer as rare as they were? Honestly, the way this topic is titled, it honestly makes it sound like it was going to be periodically updated, just the like the monthly financial data. (and that's also something I'm thankful for the transparency on, a huge kudos for HomeComing for doing that regularly!) Maybe priorities changed, but I for one would still love to have an update on this data! And I know I'm not the only one 😜 ❤️💛💚💙💜 We are nerds too! We hunger for data! ❤️💛💚💙💜 But not brains though, we're not zombies. Well, most of us are not undead. I hope... Maybe we should ask @The Curator instead to feed our collective thirst for knowledge? 😄

So... There are several spouses I know (myself included) that will show from the same IP address even though it's unique individuals, if you insist on using that layer of the OSI Model exclusively. And yes I'm aware several people have multiple accounts (and not just for farming, it's often used for roleplay purposes, such as as having your hero and villain squaring off, or being surrounded by vampires, or whatever), but in reality most players only frequent one account (and very few people have more than 3 accounts, as it's too much of a hassle to bother (i.e: Now where did I put that enhancement set again? What account was that character on again?)). With 1000 character slots per account, it doesn't really matter tbh. People can Alt-itis to their hearts content, what matters more is that they're actively play) In short, such data is too messy, and thus probably too unreliable to use and have it mean anything useful. What would be more useful is to know what IXPs traffic flows though, so we know where bottlenecks in internet traffic happen. Some of them I've figured out, but just the major ones. But more importantly: I still want to see updated per AT & powerset data for this topic, truly. Please?

As for this OP of this topic: I will begrudgingly point out that for many of us (myself included), perhaps from the inflation of prices, has meant we have to work more. Also it's gotten into peak season for many places of business anyways. The short of it is for several people in the community circles I frequent on Everlasting, I just don't have as much time to play as I would like. It's not because people are abandoning the game per se. Now what I thought this topic do would be to finally give us an updated numbers by archetype and powerset, but nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooo that wasn't what this topic was. #disappoint *sigh* I want to know what the popular powersets by archetype are, darnit @Cipher it's been two years!!! Please? Inquiring minds want to know! (also which powersets are under represented %-wise so we can get more of them created, or see what needs improvement)

When was it nerfed? Do you recall? (Cryptic has a history of over-nerfing things into uselessness. Like in every single one of their game titles. It's there thing. Release new with it being OP as hell, then multi-stack nerfs on it to make it nearly useless)

IMHO, damage #'s aren't the only things that matters when it comes to combat powers, it also depends on the endurance cost, activation time, and recharge time (to name 3 important factors) [Savage Leap] and [Shield Charge] and [Lightning Rod] are three examples of amazingly fun powers (basically teleport power with a little bit of PBAoE damage on impact) that could be more amazing with a bit less recharge time. If you went purely off their damage, you might think they were good for overall DPS, but that's false they're better for tactical positioning with the damage as just icing on the cake of awesomesauce. That said, considering they are all level 32 or 38 minimum level requirement top-tier powers in their respective sets, frankly they ALL could use to have their recharge time reduced and standardized between them. That way all three can be used more frequently (but you'd have to have the powerset of course), and it's more a choice of what theme would you like. And don't forget about secondary effects that not only help you but can help the entire team, such as -toHit, -DEF, and -RES. Or even soft mezzes like the knock-up and knock-back found in a melee powerset like Super Strength or Warmace, because sometimes pausing enemy damage output just for a moment is what you or your team most needs (i.e.: saving teammate who's about run out of HP and take a dirt nap) Basically there's a lot more than just posting some damage numbers. It kind of reminds me of when people ask on Help Chat in game what is the best damage. Best how? Single target? Ranged? AoE DoT (i.e. [Blizzard])? Is this with teammates doing debuffing? What power sets? What level range? Incarnates included? There's a lots and LOTS of factors to consider and there most important of all is this: Just because you have the build with all the enhancements equipped, doesn't meant that its optimal combat playstyle and attack cycles are things you know how to do (let alone doing intuitively); or even that it matches your preferred/natural combat playstyle. How the PLAYER themselves prefers to play, that's arguably the most important consideration when choosing archetypes and powersets. One of the things I love is when I see somebody discover a powerset or archetype they absolutely fall in love with because it so naturally fits how they prefer to play in combat. Even more so if if they were reluctant to give that archetype or powerset a try because they didn't think they'd like it. It's also while I appreciate a tool like Mid's Reborn and I frequently referrence the incredibly useful City of Data, it's not the only consideration. Some players can shift modes of play, like from passive support to scrapper-lock-like hyper-aggressive-leading-the-charge sentinel and all sort of other combat playstyle preferences around and in-between. In the case of Savage Melee, it just needs a bit of love & QoL improvements to make it on par with its peers -- to make it a choice more people will consider. Hemorrhage is just the most outstanding sore-thumb in the set power choices, so perhaps that's a single power to work on. 😄

In it's current form [Hemorrhage] is such a garbage power that I skipped it on my dragon tanker. I think it could honestly use all of those: + Base damage increased (permanent) + DMG bonus% (self) per bleed stack consumed + Regen% (self) per bleed stack consumed - RES% (enemy target) per bleed stack consumed Up to debate on how long those effects last, how much numerically they grant, or even if bleed stack limits should be changed. Heck even the name of the power could be changed, just so that people know it's not the same thing that it was, maybe make the name better fitting. But at the end of the day it's currently about as useless as [Enflame] from sorcery used to be. It's one of many underperforming powers that needs improvement to make it competitive with other sets, and seeing as I have a tanker who thematically would benefit far more from Savage Melee than Dark Melee, I'd love to see some improvements to the set as a whole. This particular power @Ravenwulfe has made this topic about is just the worst one in the set. And before anyone bemoans this response, I'll point out that the HC Devs have been quite active with improving powersets that are underperforming compared to other near-peer sets. It's not outlandish to ask for all four, it just depends on how much and how long for the variables. And that can be tweaked via playtesting.

That is also a great idea!

Hmm... What you describe @Tax E sounds like a scalar array bug from a data type conversion(s), one that probably isn't necessary, not an actual limitation. But I would have to know more about. Considering how Cryptic Studios has been notorious for spaghetti code that does sloppy things like converting floating point numbers into strings and then into integers -- which results having things like object dift or numbers that don't quite seem correct on a combat log. And not just in CoH, they do things like that in ALL their games. And Cryptic isn't the only game studio with messy data structures, as many game dev studios suffer from high turnover. Heck even Microsoft seems to go through cycles on such things (good OS, buggy OS, repeat). In contrast, well designed code will be modular and the modules will follow a clear standard for interfacing with function calls, regardless of who the developer of the month is for that project. I don't envy anyone the bug hunt to fix that, but such things are always fixable. If Joker could fix all of Day-Z's memory leaks (often times from easily missed things like a Croatian 'A' not being the same as an US English 'A' in Unicode. Same thing to our eyes as humans, but a computer they are entirety different letters/symbols). TL;DR Honestly 300 isn't enough, but it'd buy some time and allow for more additions. Bug fixing would be the main thing, so it could be a big number like characters (which HC has set to 1000 without any issues). I'd think the global friends list database entries have got to be much smaller than any characters, or even bases for that matter (and we have probably close to 100k of those) IMHO, it comes down to this: An MMORPG is about community more so than a single-player RPG (i.e. Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, etc), and CoH has one of the best communities. Low limits on the global friends list actually puts a cap on that social networking. Not everyone is going to reach the cap, but we've gotten large enough on HC that many of us have to go through removing people to add other people. *Shrug* It would be a smart QoL thing for this community, worth the time to take a good look at the code and database designs at least.

Oh HEEEEECK no! My main character is really good with doing acrobatic backflips while throwing her fire and lightning evocation spells at her enemies. Sometimes even a mid-air flyby [Inferno] and then landing down under cover of some ledge while the surprised enemies get hit with the nuke a faction of a second later. It's all about good timing and mid-air maneuvering, it's a lot of fun. Also having attacks getting cancelled because I got repelled or something would make things like enemies with hurricane even worse, especially if you're a melee character like a Stalker. Perhaps a better way to have made this suggestion would be to ask to have the self-root removed or reduced, or even better simply have the activation times of many powers reduced (with the animation sped up). Those might be good suggestions TBH, especially if they're slight enough to not break things but allow for a faster action-packed combat experience (especially for melee).

Not just on pets. I'm not a fan of orbiting icon symbols on players either. Making it optional client side would be a great QoL, especially if it can reduce the visual effects count too!

Third'ed! I too would like all ranged ST's & AoE's (regardless of AT) to have the same base 80ft ranges. PS: If we're that worried that makes them too much like blasters, I'll point out two thing... First, the corruptors already often overtake/outshine that in a number of circumstances due to their support secondary powersets. Second, raising the blaster damage cap closer to brutes would allow for them to distinguish that role's primary function (When you think about it, it's kind of bizarre that the highest damage cap is on a tanker-role. There's other ways Cryptic/ParagonStudios could have handled the brute's fury mechanic, but they went with a rather lazy-coding solution to allow brutes to overtake what should be Scrapper's melee-DPS forte, IMHO.)

@Dacy FTW!!! As far as HomeComing goes, I hope the HC Devs and GMs realize just how much "base building" is one of HomeComing's premiere claims-to-fame, a specialty that I'm not sure ANY other servers out there have going for them (at least not in the sheer magnitude of number of bases and quality of artwork sculpting them). And yes, the bases on HomeComing are totally a form of digital artwork! Many of them are absolutely jaw-droppingly creative. Truly, many of you builders out there are truly talented, I mean it! For some of the ideas here on this thread, Having NPC's that you can chose animations as a variable you can chose, or even yet customizable costumes for those NPCs? That would be amazing! Fixing base shift from the round-off errors when changing data types? Fixing up that database file structuring? That would be amazing! Shareable templates, such as a series of objects that are "copied" together, and "pasted" elsewhere, even saved as a file to be shared with other base builders? That would be amazing! For me, my personal dream for my specific "SG" base would be to have an outdoor/surface part of the Xzianthia base that is a warzone. One where visitors could actually see undead and demons attempting to (foolishly) continuously assault against the Xzianthia base while fully functional automated turrets and magical defenses (which are already objects in the base editor for use) shred them as they approach -- much like the Vanguard base in RWZ does, but all customized and such. Kind of something to highlight just how much the world of Xzianthia is actually acting as a dam to hold back forces of destruction and evil from spreading, really set the atmosphere.

Different sound processors handle it differently. I run sound effects at 10 or 12 typically and it's pretty balanced. Music oddly works up to 20, but no more. But if I run it off the RealTek audio processor built-into-the-motherboard, it's ear splittingly loud (and the Oroboros music "pulses" in volume/amplitude level, bizarre). I don't know WHY there's a difference, but their definitely is one. Maybe it's codecs? I kind of doubt it's hardware, but maybe the overall driver structure is different for different brands. Most people out there are using RealTek Audio processing (because it's a cheap and commonly produced chipset). What I do wish though was that certain powers has a bit more explosive bass-leaning oompf! (i.e.: Fireball, for example: D.A. fireball spell ) Fortunately some of this (like the beam rifle sound replacements, or assault rifle sound replacements) are available on CoH Modder