Quote from: Alaric on March 28, 2008, 11:45:38 AM
Very disapointed in the new Scrapper sets. Just don't inspire me at all- and scrappers are generally my favoate AT, so I was looking forward to some added variety...

Really? I'm thinking about doing Spines/Fire, redoing my demon toon.

Oh well.  I was hoping that scrappers would get electrics.  Fiery Aura should boost their damage output but I'm concerned about Fiery Melee for a number of reasons (animation times, focus on DoT).

Don't see why Tanks needed Dark/Dark, either.  I'm scratching my head on that one.  I'm sure there's a good reason other than negative energy damage, but the ramifications aren't clear to me.  Never played a dark/dark scrapper past level 8 or so, and don't have enough experience with it to guess how it'll impact tanking.

We'll have to see how many Iceman clones pop up in Defender-land.  (Iceman's a Defender! hah!)

I think the villains made out better on this one.  I do like that they approached it from a thematic viewpoint.

However, the fun part will be looking at unique combinations of abilities and seeing what's possible that wasn't before, beyond the obvious ones.

This isn't an exhaustive list, just a few things I think might be interesting to look at:

Tanks: Dark/Fire, Dark/SuperStrength, Fire/Dark, Stone/Dark, Invuln/Dark

Scrappers: MA/Fire, Spines/Fire, Fire/SuperSenses, Fire/Regen

Defenders: Kinetics/IceBlast

Controllers: Plant/Storm, Plant/Rad

What combinations interest the rest of you?

Dark armor tanks could be ridiculously powerful. Dark has great resists, and the fear and disorient toggles lean towards tanking. Electric would have probably been very broken since it's resists on brutes are damn near on par with fire tanks.

Fire/Fire is a weird choice for scrappers. I kind of expected Ninjitsu and either the horribly broken EM, or SS. But I guess street fighting will fill SS' role, and they knew not to be dumb and give them EM. With all that AOE goodness, and proper criticals, a fire/fire scrapper could be evil. Imagine BA, Fire Sword Circle and Fire Breath all critting. The term "melt" would never be more fitting.

The one set selection I'm disappointed about is the stalkers getting elec/elec. I really was hoping for them to get ice/ice. Would have been the best PVE stalker combo. Slows on a stalker FTW.

I'm ashamed to say, I'll probably roll a fire/fire scrapper  :thumbup:

Yes! Yes! *cackles madly* NeoDarke here I come! *bounces up and down waiting for I12, more reliable internet, his computer up and running so he doesn't have to use the laptop anymore, and time on his account*

Quote from: BlueBard on March 28, 2008, 01:48:18 PMI think the villains made out better on this one.  I do like that they approached it from a thematic viewpoint.

Heh, you should post that on the CoH forums. There's 3 pages of bloody murder coming from the villain camp.

Quote from: Midnight on March 28, 2008, 02:23:19 PM

Quote from: BlueBard on March 28, 2008, 01:48:18 PMI think the villains made out better on this one.  I do like that they approached it from a thematic viewpoint.

Heh, you should post that on the CoH forums. There's 3 pages of bloody murder coming from the villain camp.

Yeah, I'm reading that now.  Of course I don't normally run villainside and I dislike PvP, so those angles hadn't occurred to me before.  I'll take it back before I get smacked with a rusty meathook.

I know that many are unsure about this, but I am totally intrigued by dark/dark for tanks.

EC

Looks like I'll have to re-do "Undead Bob Ross" - a psychic blaster better fits the concept as he forces people to see "HAPPY TREES!"

Quote from: Valandar on March 28, 2008, 03:01:01 PM
Looks like I'll have to re-do "Undead Bob Ross" - a psychic blaster better fits the concept as he forces people to see "HAPPY TREES!"

ROFL that's just Win right there. :thumbup:

The more I think about it, the more I think Electric Manipulation is a really bad idea for a Dominator secondary. I mean, what will they do if they ever come out with an Electric Control primary set for Dominators and Controllers? It would likely share several powers with Electric Manipulation... Seems kind of short sighted to me...

Why didn't they just combine some powers from teh Electric Blast set with some powers from the Electric Melee set to create an Electric Assault set? They would have only had to do half the re-tinting...

Quote from: Alaric on March 28, 2008, 04:58:07 PM
The more I think about it, the more I think Electric Manipulation is a really bad idea for a Dominator secondary. I mean, what will they do if they ever come out with an Electric Control primary set for Dominators and Controllers? It would likely share several powers with Electric Manipulation... Seems kind of short sighted to me...

Why didn't they just combine some powers from teh Electric Blast set with some powers from the Electric Melee set to create an Electric Assault set? They would have only had to do half the re-tinting...

That's not only a good question, that's a good idea. Make their job easier I would think.

Oddly enough, thinking about the list. My first thought when I saw SR for Brutes was "Venom? What are you doing here?" Could be awesome. Might have to roll a SS/SR Brute. Wonder how many names I can come up with that have "Super" in it, and that don't suck. :huh:

Hmm - having teamed with Meejub's Kindle- (the hyphen is not silent, it kind of has a whooshing sound) at level 50 with Maddy, my Fire/Therm corruptor, I am thinking Fire/Therm troller could be really nasty at high levels.  Especially with Imps+buffs and holds+debuffs could be really interesting.  3 rech's in Forge and you can keep at least 2 pets buffed at any given time.

Quote from: Alaric on March 28, 2008, 04:58:07 PM
The more I think about it, the more I think Electric Manipulation is a really bad idea for a Dominator secondary. I mean, what will they do if they ever come out with an Electric Control primary set for Dominators and Controllers? It would likely share several powers with Electric Manipulation... Seems kind of short sighted to me...

Why didn't they just combine some powers from teh Electric Blast set with some powers from the Electric Melee set to create an Electric Assault set? They would have only had to do half the re-tinting...

Looks like I was worrying needlessly. Caught the following post from Castle:

Quote from: Castle

QuoteUm, shouldn't Dominators get an ASSAULT secondary set? Why the Electrical Manipulation?

Yep. Bug in the display name. Fixed it today.

I think Issue 12 is going to pull me back in...  I haven't played in a long time because the game was just boring.  I think the faster leveling (IIRC), new powers, updated zones, etc... are great.  I think I'll have to retire my old guys though.  Maybe I'll switch to Justice, too.  Thats where FR folks play, correct?

Quote from: Xenolith on March 29, 2008, 07:10:14 AM
I think Issue 12 is going to pull me back in...  I haven't played in a long time because the game was just boring.  I think the faster leveling (IIRC), new powers, updated zones, etc... are great.  I think I'll have to retire my old guys though.  Maybe I'll switch to Justice, too.  Thats where FR folks play, correct?

No, Freedom's where we usually play.

Note that apparently a way for players to get additional character slots is on its way, too.

gotcha!

Once my new video card arrives I'll be on line looking fer youse guys.

Bless BAB for pulling the forums back out of hell.

Honestly, I think people way, way, way, way overreacted on this.  Interesting point by BAB too, how over on the EU forums --- at their con, where the statement that sent everything to hell in a handbasket was made, quite frankly --- was a non issue. 

Any matters, BAB was active this weekend and did what he could do to put people at ease and as usual gave out some really, really cool info.

Quote
   

Quotei dont know babs...
    we got crapped on with power set proliferation... unless the epic ats are uber powerful, the burden to prove that article wrong is on you guys, not us.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I assure you we didn't sit down and say 'Hey, what can we do to screw over villain players?" this issue.

Positron really wanted us to port over every powerset and we went into Issue 12 development with that on the schedule. But in conjunction with VEATs, shields, and the various new powers/FX/animations required for Issue 12, it ended up being just not feasible.

Port over every set?  Would that mean... pistols hero side one day?  Maybe even some more MM stuff to heroes?  But every set possible ported in issue 12?  Wow... Positron is a slave driver man.  :P  So it looks like they got slammed with a lot of stuff going on.  VEATS, shields and new powers/fx/animations for issue 12.  That is a lot to deal with.  I'm very curious to see the new stuff for just issue 12.  Seeing the new baddies and all was always a peek at what would eventually be available for players.  Will be very interested in seeing whats new animations wise in general.

QuoteWe looked at the powersets available, figured out which ones wouldn't require new animations or new FX to be ported over, and generated a list of those. We ended up with some ATs getting a lot of simple copy/paste powersets and some getting only one, or none at all. Then we determined which ones would require just FX work (which is relatively quick) and which would require new powers, new animations, and new FX (which is relatively not so quick). In a case like this, where we're trying to do a lot of things at once...it's not about what's easy to do, it's about what's quick to do.

I think it was a good idea too.  Rather than do the "quality" stuff to speak, dazzle 'em with the quantity... a new set of powers for each AT wasn't something to sneeze at and was pretty cool, even if they were the easiest of the cut and pastes so to speak.  Its a great start to the idea.  I don't think they can keep up the pace, but the ball is rolling and thats all that matters.

QuoteThere was also some consideration for certain powersets. The thought of EM scrappers or Kinetics Masterminds made us very giggly and uneasy. So the plan was to hold off on the ones that immediately fired off warning bells until we were sure we'd have plenty of time to address those. Yes, Psionic/Psionic blasters sound scary as well, but we're planning on a more proactive plan for closed beta and open beta so we can be sure we get the testing, data, and feedback from you guys for them, the VEATs, and the rest of the new powersets. Between the small small sampling of proliferated powersets and the VEATs...which are practically 12 new powersets within themselves...there's more than enough balance work for the powers guys to handle.

So it looks like they're going to take the powers with the most issues slowly.  As to be expected.  It'll be interesting to see them learn from psi/psi blasters and apply it to the other sets rather then take on way too much and have it all be a mess from the start.

QuoteThe plan is still to eventually get everything ported over. The only current exception to that is Empathy for villains and Poison for heroes. Those two sets are just conceptually all wrong for a direct cross-over. That's not to say we might not change our mind later down the road, that's just the current thinking. We've already been discussing ways to modify them so that they would make sense to port over...but at that point, it's no longer powerset proliferation. They become new powersets.

So everything has a fair chance to port over, except Empathy for villains and Poison for heroes.  Thats pretty fair enough.  I'm sure with some thinking it over though they could be ported... but like BAB said, it would pretty much be a new powerset.  Still - would be plenty interesting.

QuoteI really don't think it's as black and white as being presented by a very outraged and vocal group of people here on the forums. I am seeing a lot of the same names saying the same thing in multiple threads. But I've also read plenty of posts from people are very excited to have the new powersets. (Yes, even villain players). Too much signal to noise right now.

I'm sure its going to be a long Beta.

I think sadly, there is a certain very vocal group of villians who demand content.  Its like any addition to COV doesn't count unless it is exclusively for COV.  Mind you, I think COV does need some love.  I think however, what they're saying and how they're saying it is sadly keeping people from the real issue and taking anyone with a villian complaint or suggestion serious.  Shame too. 

QuoteOne thing it isn't is some kind of calculated and intentional ploy against villains. The idea is ridiculous.
Interestingly enough, I can't find any threads over on the EU forums that are similar to the ones here...and those guys would be the ones that heard it first-hand at the Omega Sector Mini-con. I also don't know the context the quote was taken from and I suspect that's a big part of the misunderstanding here. One thing I do know, is that there hasn't been any official policy shift internally at NCNC. Positron hasn't declared CoV dead. Word hasn't come down from corporate or from Brian saying 'Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.' We are looking at ways to get the most mileage out of the more expensive things to add to the game, such as zones, new enemy factions, etc. but that's just good business sense. We certainly are aware that a lot of villain players don't want to play sidekick to heroes on a bunch of heroic missions. However, there are some who do. Our SG plays on both sides of the game, and I've spent quite a bit of time teaming up with friends in the RWZ...so I'm personally glad to have that opportunity and hopefully we will continue do more co-op stuff in the future. I think the idea of some darker, more black-ops type of co-op storys is an awesome idea. Something where the heroes have to do something that benefits the villains because it's the lesser of two evils. I also love the idea of the directly competing story-arcs or parallel story-arcs, where both sides are working against each other or trying to accomplish something first. That's likely to be the bulk of our developmental focus moving forward. That is not saying there will never be any exlusive, villain side only content...just that it makes more sense to develop content for both sides.

So it's pretty much a give it seems that the exclusive content for COV is going to be minimal and the push will be for content that both can share, directly or indirectly.  Nothing wrong with that.  I'd just like to see content that really makes being a villain more interesting.  Of course, you have that pesky game rating thing to keep in mind.  Thats their challenge.  I understand the difficulty.   I hope they're able to work out something.

QuoteOn a more positive note, we've already hired a 2nd powers designer and have a third starting on Monday, so I fully expect to see a lot of long overdue overhauls to some of the major, global issues related to powers. Hopefully, pulling some of the burden off of Castle's shoulders will make him a bit less grumpy on the forums. You guys can be pretty brutal though.

Note one... but TWO new power designers.  Nice!  And to what do we owe this?

QuoteOverall, our staffing up has been going extremely well. We've managed to get people in much sooner than we'd originally planned for. Partly because we're just getting very lucky with finding awesome people, partly because the success of the wedding packs brought in additional revenue that allowed us to accelerate our hiring process, partly because we're just really eager to be moving forward at full steam on our plans for the game.

Of course, the marriage pack!  I'm telling you, the marriage pack will one day be the funding behind the cure for cancer.  ;P  I'm surprised people aren't demanding more minipacks because of this really.  I'm sure they'd be worried about the balance of free content as opposed to minipack paid content but it looks like they may be able to negotiate those dangerous waters just fine.

QuoteSome of that additional support is already filtering into the game. As mentioned before, VEATs had been pushed back to Issue 13 because of code issues involved in getting those to work. But because of the new programming hire we were able to get them done in time for I12's launch. The new power designer has already begun the process of fixing power descriptions, which is a great way for him to learn how the powers are built and clear up some old minor bugs at the same time. We've got a new animator starting Monday and it's very likely that some of his work will be included in Issue 12 as well.

You know... I'd love to see BAB blog weekly about the game.  The stuff we learn inside and out from is just way too cool.

RTT

A few random I12 thoughts:
-I'm hoping VEATs have exclusive content a la Kheldians.

-Content-wise, Villain side suffers quite a bit.  Mike and I were able to level two hero toons from lvl 10-40 accessing only the 'special missions' (TFs, Trials, police band/safeguard, etc) with the exception of a few contact missions.  There's absolutely no way that be pulled off on the villain side.  I'd love to see a 'new contact per issue' villain side with 1 or 2 new arc each.  I'm not asking for new maps, enemies, etc., just a new contact with arcs that offer me an alternative.

-I'm happy to see that after nearly 5 years, they're finally focusing on the most obvious way to keep people in the game -- powersets.  They've dropped a few here and there, but judging from who they're hiring and what BAB was saying, it sounds like it'll be a focus over the next while.

-I really want to use Poison powerset, but I hate MMs.  :(

I had a feeling that the 'storyline' for power proliferation hinted at more powerset porting in the future.  Nice to see that confirmed.

Really, it makes very little sense to have the current limitations.  Expanding the powersets across the board is a great idea that will let players craft more thematic heroes and villains.  It would also make lots of sense to do the easy stuff first, and that's exactly what they did.  And it will also make sense to be very, very careful about porting over stuff that could easily unbalance the game.  And lo, they are.

So... think the "Visual Sounds" are an April Fools joke? Because I think it might actually be kinda cool if it was real, and something you could toggle...

Quote from: Valandar on April 01, 2008, 05:51:05 PM
So... think the "Visual Sounds" are an April Fools joke? Because I think it might actually be kinda cool if it was real, and something you could toggle...

Yes, obviously an April Fools Day joke. And I agree, so long as it didn't replace the actual sounds, but was in addition to them, it would be fun. Might get kind of annoying durring big multi-character battles, though... but then I guess that's when you'd toggle them off.

I thought the sounds thing looked kinda cool, even if it was a joke.  Oh well...

FREEM!!!!

:thumbup:

Powerset Proliferation FAQ!

Quote from: Alaric on April 04, 2008, 07:22:51 AM
Powerset Proliferation FAQ!

That's good info; thanks Alaric!

BTW... there are comments from Castle amongst the general noise in the remainder of the thread.  Including the revelation that Blaster */Mental's numbers will be adjusted for balance.  They won't be as powerful as the corresponding powers in the Defender & Dominator sets.

Some of the general noise surrounds Villains not getting an Empathy set.  One comment made suggests that while Villains will -never- get Empathy in the form used hero-side, maybe a more villainously-oriented set might be introduced in the future.

I could see that.  Change 'Absorb Pain' to 'Life Drain' ... leeching off an enemy target's health (or -regen) to replenish your own, for example.  Maybe change 'Healing Aura' to 'Life Transfer' that does AoE Heal in proportion to the AoE damage that it does (or maybe an AoE -regen).  The Rez power might function a little more like Dark's Howling Twilight.  The healing factor would be a bit weaker to offset the debuffing.  I could see a set like that being useful for Necromancer MM's, for example.

Quote from: BlueBard on April 04, 2008, 09:31:29 AM
I could see that.  Change 'Absorb Pain' to 'Life Drain' ... leeching off an enemy target's health (or -regen) to replenish your own, for example.  Maybe change 'Healing Aura' to 'Life Transfer' that does AoE Heal in proportion to the AoE damage that it does (or maybe an AoE -regen).  The Rez power might function a little more like Dark's Howling Twilight.  The healing factor would be a bit weaker to offset the debuffing.  I could see a set like that being useful for Necromancer MM's, for example.

But at that point it's not Empathy anymore. Villains already have powerful healing solutions, but they want THE most powerful one. Making any mechanical changes to Emp's main three heals completely misses the point of transferring it over.

Honestly I don't think that the majority of those on the boards want empathy specifically. They want fortitude, RA, clear mind and adrenaline boost. Those are some of the biggest buffs in the game.

Quote from: captainspud on April 04, 2008, 09:42:28 AM

Quote from: BlueBard on April 04, 2008, 09:31:29 AM
I could see that.  Change 'Absorb Pain' to 'Life Drain' ... leeching off an enemy target's health (or -regen) to replenish your own, for example.  Maybe change 'Healing Aura' to 'Life Transfer' that does AoE Heal in proportion to the AoE damage that it does (or maybe an AoE -regen).  The Rez power might function a little more like Dark's Howling Twilight.  The healing factor would be a bit weaker to offset the debuffing.  I could see a set like that being useful for Necromancer MM's, for example.

But at that point it's not Empathy anymore. Villains already have powerful healing solutions, but they want THE most powerful one. Making any mechanical changes to Emp's main three heals completely misses the point of transferring it over.

Guess they're out of luck then.  I don't think the devs are going to give on that one.

I could see a Metabolic Manipulation set that does some of the same things that Middy suggested.  It would definitely be a new set, though.  In fact, in keeping with villainy, I think some of the powers in a Metabolic set should be dual-effect.  Performs one way targeting allies, has an opposing effect targeting enemies.

(These are just ideas... no idea about game balance or anything.  Feel free to have your own opinions. Spud.)

Biofeedback Aura -> PBAoE Ally/Self +regen
Regulate Endorphins -> Single target Ally +HP
                                                  Enemy -regen
Immune Reaction -> Single target Ally +HP +Res(toxic)
                                              Enemy -Res(toxic) Minor toxic Dmg
Regulate Metabolism -> PBAoE Ally/Self +recovery +spd +Res(toxic, Sleep, EndDrain)
Neural Manipulation -> Single target Ally +Res(Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Fear, Confuse) +Perception
                                                 Enemy -Res(Disorient, Hold, Immobilize, Fear, Confuse) -Perception
Cellular Reconstruction -> Ally Rez
Cellular Manipulation -> Single target Ally +Def(all) +HP
                                                  Enemy -Def(all) -Res(smashing, lethal, toxic, energy)
Adrenalin Flow -> PBAoE Ally/Self +recovery +Acc +Dmg
Metabolic Control -> Single target Ally +end +regen +recharge +recovery
                                          Enemy -end -regen -recharge +recovery

And so on, and so forth...  The heals and buffs shouldn't be as powerful as Empathy, but it would be a more versatile set in some ways.  Not to mention a real end hog, as the villain would be using his powers to buff and debuff alternately.

Hmmm, does anyone remember the Steven King movie about a mist surrounding a town.

Mastermind
New Secondary - Storm Summoning

with zombies?

If you could have Storm Summoning with Plant Control that would work out nice also.
You can have your plants and water them also.

Quote from: DMenacer on April 06, 2008, 06:59:11 PM
Hmmm, does anyone remember the Steven King movie about a mist surrounding a town.

Mastermind
New Secondary - Storm Summoning

with zombies?

If you could have Storm Summoning with Plant Control that would work out nice also.
You can have your plants and water them also.

I LOL'd at this post. :P  :thumbup: