f13.net

Cryptic have put out some info on the new Veteran Rewards program - an faq that doesn't answer the obvious question of exactly what veteran rewards you can get (http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/veteranrewards_faq.html) and some screenshots and a video of CoH/V's wings costume option (http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/veteranrewards_wings.html).

For those who didn't know, the Veteran Rewards program gives players special things for every three months they've been subscribed to CoH/V.

[ Fixed URLs ]

No doubt someone will be along shortly to ask if the veteran rewards include getting rid of the grind.

You saved me from making exactly that wiseass crack. Thank you.

Well, do they?

Veteran rewards every 3 months? They must have a serious retention problem if they have to bribe you just to hang on another 90 days.

I may be just a gibbering fanboy, but I think you seriously underestimate a) the intelligence of the consumer and b) the amount of amusement one reward is worth if you think that people will keep paying for a game they hate for 90 days in exchange for, say, a trenchcoat, or a pair of wings.

--GF

Or a respec.  Or a free costume token.

Amusingly, winamp decided to play Learning to Fly when I went to look at the video.

I see veteran rewards as a nifty bonus for those still playing the game, but not really a draw to keep people around.

New Vet reward info up:


It all looks pretty good except for the goofy Greek letters reward at 6 months.  Interesting to see that Wings aren't available in the first year.

Whoa at the temp powers. I hope they'll be scaled-back versions of the real things, because the existing axe and sands are kinda freight-train-y in melee.

--GF

Castle said they're very similar only with a somewhat longer recharge time.

Yeah that axe owns, undead or not.

I was disappointed with Sands of Mu, though I've heard it's much stronger since the last time I had it.

Awesome at the sprint powers.  That one I wasn't expecting.

Some things they didn't point out, but any players will note something different about these pictures:

(http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/images/vreward_trenchcoats6.jpg)
(http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/images/vreward_trenchcoats3.jpg)
(http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/images/vreward_trenchcoats7.jpg)


For the dense: These are new in-flight poses.  Perhaps they're about to let you choose from a few animations for specific things?  We'll see.

That's cool. Little things like that go a long way to personalizing characters, imo. I used to always go into /surly in SWG, it was nice having a (albeit limited) animation set different from the default.

Some of the base shots look interesting, too. It looks like you'll be able to raise and lower individual quadrants of a tile, with 2-4 times as many levels of granularity as previously available.

Also, whole load of new "ordinary" costume pieces showing up in those shots, including Forehead Goggles on that woman. Jay is sexy.

--GF

Nicely observed with the different flight animations.  Here, I was blinded by the awesomeness that was trenchcoat.

Dammit, i am THIS close to resubscribing ...  :x

I usually pick it up after the patches for the latest issue gets released.  It gives me a month to play around with the new stuff while I re-learn my character and keeps me from getting disillusioned quite as quickly.

This is exactly how I play, too.  I last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month and then I cancel.  I'm beginning to wonder if it's not how most people play the game.

I'm considering trying it out again. Never did mess with CoV much -- I suppose that's the best place to start so I don't get bored too quickly.

[edit]

Apparently Gravity Dominators suck in PvP, don't contribute to groups much, and can't solo.

Boo.

I've wrestled with the issues of being a Controller, and had these sentiments myself from time to time, but have found them to be only partly true.  Having a soft spot for the 'troller, I've an obligation to explain.
PvP is somewhat rock/paper/scissory in CoH no matter what you play, and so will seem to suck against certain targets.  Dominators/Controllers are good against anything that lacks hold resistance.  (At least once they run out of "break free" inspirations.)  Gravity in particular have intangebility attacks (Dimension Shift) which annoys people in PvE but there is no proper resistance for in PvP.
You might have a hard time finding a group that properly appreciates what gravity can do, but it's there.  The most dangerous mobs typically encountered are bosses, but you can tie them down by stacking two holds on the mob.  Stack enough holds, and you may even be able to hold supervillains/heroes!  Sure, you can't heal like most Controllers, but who needs healing if the group isn't even getting hit?  Dominators are actually a bit better at controlling than Controllers because with Domination active, your holds are extra-effective, requiring much less stacking to bring down big mobs.  If somebody in a group doesn't think that's an important contribution, they're clueless.  This is especially the case on the villain side since the villains lack a proper tank.  Just watch it with the phase attack (dimension shift) because it tends to annoy people when they're attacking something and nothing's happening.

Dominators/Controllers are easy to solo if goal is survival, since they can hold targets.  What you might be saying here is that their damage rate sucks, which is true of Controllers as well (even with the "containment" perk).  Dominators have a little better damage than Controllers, since they've slightly better damage tables and have swapped out their Defender-based secondary pool for attacks.  However, I think both classes' soloing ability takes a dive by 20 when the archetype damage tables apply themselves.  This is when most players give up.  However, the damage rate really picks up at 32, when they get a pet.  Pets do pretty respectible damage, making soloing not only possible, but quite possibily easier and faster than other archetypes!  (You might not get much soloing done at that point because, suddenly, everybody wants you around.  Hypocrites.)

I think the big problem with Dominators is that secondary pool.  It's very inefficient - it doesn't do nearly as good of damage as that endurance consumption rate suggests it should.  When your Domination perk is active it's fun to go to down with those, but otherwise I avoid shying away from then as much as possible until you pick up Stamina or Single Origin potency endurance reducers.

It's not that Dominators suck.  They're rough to play, though.  Gravity, especially, I have a hard time with.  The slow animations and less-than-great low level powers make things pretty irritating.  However, once you get Wormhole at higher levels anyone who says you can't contribute to a group isn't paying attention.  I've only seen one Dominator use this power frequently (probably because I haven't seen any other high level Gravity Dominators) and it ruled- it was practically the reason our team worked.

The power is an AE Teleport Foe, you choose where they land, and they all show up falling down and disoriented.

As for PvP, the reason it's so hard to be a Dominator in PvP is because, as noted, everyone has either Hold Resistance or Break Fees whereas you are squishy and don't hvae a ton of damage.  This is mitigated somewhat with the recent changes to Domination building in PvP, so you can expect to have it up far more often and actually be a threat.  It's generally best, however, to rely on secondary, largely unresisted effects for PvP.  Repels and Slows are good examples.  A good Ice Dominator might not be able to Hold someone, but with Chilblain shutting down Flight, Ice Slick preventing Jumping, and Shiver, Ice Slick, Arctic Air, and every attack offering a slow effect, preventing someone from running away, they really might as well be Held or, at least, Immobilized.

For Gravity, it's going to be the Intangibility that comes in handy.  That's going to be a great boon to groups in PvP.  Suddenly the competition's tanker or defender or controller doesn't exist.

The Singularity is a good pet to have, though it doesn't deal much damage.  It throws out a bunch of Control powers, and it's really going to help you lock things down in a team.  What this means, though, is that your damage will never be great.  It can be decent, especially once you get Stamina and SOs, but you won't drop any jaws.

If you do go with a Dominator, know that it's tough for a while but it's really my favorite AT to play.  There's a lot of variety offered, always something to do, and it's an extremely aggressive AT.

(Also you might consider Flight as a travel power, as Gravity has a lot of -fly abilities.  Being able to fly when your enemies can't is very good.)

Just to be clear: I have a Grav Controller already (in the early 30's I think). Secondary was Kinetics. I thought the idea was cool for awhile, save for the horrendous soloing ability. Definitely was useful in groups though.

I want to try the same thing in CoV, since the Dominator has Damage based secondaries. Dropping healing and buffing entirely sounds like it alleviates some of the pain I had with my Controller. From what I see on the CoH boards though, that doesn't seem to be the case. Why?

Instead of explaining to me the entire Gravity set (which I do appreciate....But I'm already familiar with most of that), can you make some comparisons between Controllers and Dominators? What's holding them back from contributing like Controllers do?

....

/rant

Anyways, why must every single skill or powerset I gravitate towards (pun intended) in MMO's be complete ass? I swear, it seems like I always (unintentionally) choose the long, hard road for myself in these games. I'd like to be FotM just once. :x

/rantoff

The Controller and Dominators start off vary similar, as far as the Primary power set is concerned.  There is some behind-the-scenes damage tables that slowly start applying themselves up until level 20 that determine the rough effectiveness of each archetype at doing damage.  I hear the Dominators have a higher damage table, but if so, it's very minor difference.  The big differences are the secondary power sets and the special ability.

The secondary power set of controllers aer borrowed from Defenders, but at lesser potency, which provides a lot of flexibility to Controllers.  The secondary power sets of Dominators, on the other hand, are a mishmash of melee and ranged attacks mostly borrowed from Blasters - also at lesser potency.  They're not very efficient, my advice is to lean heavier on your primary powers.

Special abilities are a relatively new innovation, introduced at about hte time City of Villains was released.  (So, you probably know about them.)  The Controller's special abilitiy is called "containment", and that causes controller attacks to do double damage against targets that are held or immobilized.  Of course, 2x sucky damage is just slightly less sucky damage, so it's mostly useful prior to the level 20 damage table adjustment and in later levels when you might have a nifty anciliary pool attack.  The Dominator's special ability is called "domination", and basically involves a little bar that slowly builds up as you do or take damage.  Once that bar is full, slam your "domination" button and you've got about 60 seconds or so of being a severe badass.  Your damage doubles against everything you attack (regardless of its status), and your holds and whatnot require less stakcing to hold big stuff and last longer. 

The complaint is that, with Containment taken into account, Controllers do roughly equal damage to Dominators plus they have the secondary support sets.

Dominators really don't deal a lot of damage, unless you're built specifically for that and even then it's outshone by any decent... well, any villain who's trying.  However, that's because villains have much more damage than heroes.  I'd say a Dominator outdamages a Defender and most Controllers.  Probably roughly equal to Tanker damage, which can be significant.  Maybe just a bit less.

Of course, once you have Domination up there's no contest- the Dominator deals quite respectable damage at this point.

Here's the thread I ran into: Link (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=6575145&an=0&page=0#Post6575145)

Some quotes:







Either way, whatever experience these particular players may or may not have, it seems like there are complaints all across the board. Usually when people whine about powers or nurfs, they focus on specific things. Telling from this thread, it sounds like Dominators are fucked in many ways. Fucked in soloing ability. Fucked in group contribution. Fucked in timers. Fucked in AV/EB encounters. Fucked at all levels with PvP. Especially fucked if you pick Gravity. Relatively OK if you pick Fire, but still fucked nonetheless.

I can understand a class being screwed and underpowered in some aspects of a game.....But not all of them (unless there's something else to do beside group play, solo, or pvp that Dominators are good at???).


[edit] Apologies for the derail, but this pisses me off. Fuel for the already existing fire and whatnot..

The most accurate post is the second one you quoted.

I would say that an Ice/Fire Dominator is going to do pretty damn well in all departments- control and damage.  Yeah, Imps are more damaging as pets, but Jack is a pretty formidable pet as well.  The amount of Control you have available in Ice far outstrips what's available in Fire control.  I really don't like Fire control.  I've tried it several times, and each time I've felt pretty useless.  People are willing to go through anything for those Imps I guess.

The reason the Fire secondary does more damage is because it has access to Fiery Embrace, which is sort of like a longer lasting Build Up.  At later levels, however, Psionic Assault will overtake it with Psychic Shockwave (fast recharging major damage PBAE- but you don't get it until 38).

The PvP comments are not totally off, but not exactly correct.  I've done quite well as an ice/ice dominator in PvP, you just have to learn to utilize tools other than hard control until you can stack your hard control enough to break through shields.  With my Ice/Ice, I Slow people, stop 'em from flying away, and stop 'em from jumping, and keep dropping Holds on them.  Eventually, I break through even a tanker's resistance and all the toggles drop, then I move in for the kill.  If Domination is up, I can finish most off before the hold drops.  If not, I can do some appreciable damage still.  I've taken out all the ATs with him, even Regen Scrappers, the real trick is getting that one on one fight to stay one on one for as long as I need to finish it.

This is all before the recent buffs to Domination, when I deleted the previous Dominator and rerolled him as something else.  Now I'm leveling another Ice/Ice Dominator, and I expect him to be quite a bit better off in PvP now that I can expect Domination to be up in every fight.

The "contribution" (more like, appreciation) difference between Doms and Controllers is their secondaries. Controllers have heals, which any clueless diku refugee can appreciate. For the more-clued-in, Controller secondaries also have buffs and debuffs, which are more subtle but (in skilled hands) just as useful to a team.

Dominators have the Assault sets. Not only are these gimpy in terms of damage output, they're also redundant in CoV, where every other AT has damage as their primary (I'm counting a MM's pets as "damage").

Thus the difference in perception, at least as it's voiced by the forum drama queens. I personally haven't ever noticed that I've been passed over for teams (I have a level 48 dom). On the other hand, even if I am being passed up, my solo xp rate is often better than I'd get in a team anyway. YMMV of course.

Aside from the general lack of support abilities in Dominators, I'd say the big difference between Doms and Controllers is this:

Controllers feel relatively godlike until around level 15-20 when the damage tables apply themselves, then they're fairly gimped until 32 when the pet kicks in. Dominators feel realtively godlike when their Domination perk is active, gimped at all other times, also until 32 when the pet kicks in.  Controller gimpiness is on a curve, while Dominator gimpness is a straight line, but both of them take a sharp upturn when 32 rolls around.  (Actually, probably more like 33 because pets aren't too effective without a few slots on em'.)  Unless they're Mind Controller, in which case they've taken a vow to have bad damage forever in exchange for a mass confuse that Plant control gets without losing their pet.

In either case, you've got all this lovely grinding Cryptic expects you to sit down and do.  Your experience will vary depending on where you are on this happy fun torture ladder. Controllers/Dominators are very nearly D&D Wizards in this regard - they start off really weak, but later on they've got da powah.  It's as Cryptic wrote in the official description (http://www.cityofheroes.com/gameinfo/archetypes.html) for Controllers, "The Controller is at the same time the weakest and yet the most powerful of the archetypes."  That Dominator you're running around with has the same dealio, except no happy fun Defender powers and instead they get to exercise a power fixation by using Total Focus as a squishy.

If you want the power to smack down your foes right off the bat, yeah, just about any other archetype will do.  Except a Defender or a Tank.  Personally my faves for instant gratification are Scrappers for heroes.  Blasters would work too, but they're trickier to play as they die instantly if they attract too much attention.  For villains, Masterminds, who not only do reasonable damage but are also the closest things Villains have to a tank (Brutes are more like Scrappers with anger management problems) especially if you take a secondary pool with a nice AOE heal.  I mean, offense, defense, and verstility in one package? 

It's really no wonder most players are Masterminds on the evil side, and Scrappers or Blasters on the hero side for that matter.  To some extent, our whining about City of Heroes being a grind is justified only on the extent that the game allows us to make choices that render it more grindy.  Get yourself a phat pimped out hero/villain that has no sitting time and high damaging attacks and you'll be in for a shorter trip to 50 than a Controller or Dominator... but then, I've always found such characters to be a bit one-dimensional.  That's why I decided to start a new Controller the last time I resubbed - if I'm going to slog my way to 50, I might as well make it interesting.

My second highest level character is a Scrapper. He's OK.

I wanted a Grav Dom (and previously, Controller) specifically because of character concept. If the class is trash, and sucks in pretty much all aspects of the game (or at the very least, sucks until level 32) I'm not going to resub and just play something else.

One little mistake we might be making here is we're looking at Controllers and Dominators in terms of damage.  This is because all classes in CoX can solo, but they've also got the same experience tables and so the amount of damage you can dish out is a good rough determiner of how quickly you can level.  Consequently, if your criteria for "trash" is "slower experience gain rate", then I'm afraid your Controller or Dominator has won the ugly race in terms of 1-20 trashitude.

However, in the grand perspective, this might not by fair.  Controllers and Dominators do things other than damage.  Take that fourth quote you found that thread while back, "I think that many doms believe they are contributing a lot to teams because they see mobs held, confused, or whatever when they cast their aoe's. It looks impressive and it *feels* powerful. What those people aren't thinking about is what would have happened without the control -- or if a corr, MM, or Brute was on the team instead of them." That guy wasn't impressed, he's looking at raw input/output damage and not seeing how Controllers can figure in.  However, if you're the developer, what you're seeing is a character that can render the toughest mobs in the game into pushovers, and wondering WTF the players problems are not to find value in that.  Controllers and Dominators aren't about damage, even though it's the main hurdle they encounter early, even though it's he main incentive to stick with one until you get the pet, even though it's the Dominator's entire secondary power pool.

I really don't envy Cryptic in their choice of trying to balance a pretty open-ended character development where players are free to gimp or pimp themselves as much as they want.  Here is where their PvP mostly failed, as all characters (even of the same Archetype) are not created equal.  Players either decide that's okay or, indeed, play something else.

One more thing I thought I'd throw in here.  Dominators don't get Illusion, and that's bummer because that's the only way you're getting a pet until 32.  No need to throw in the towel, however, because there is a way you can drastically up your damage prior to that: Hasten and Stamina.  (Actually, you might not get too much use out of hasten on account of propel's long animation.)  You can have both by 20, and I could see this being fairly powerful and fun.  My only gripe with slotting Hasten and Stamina is that's 4 less power slots.  In the grand scheme of things, you're looking at 2 Primary/Secondary/Tiertiery[sic] powers that you're not going to be taking to make room for that.  In the short term, you're looking at level 20 with four less powers to play with.  That's actually a sticking point my current level 20 Scrapper is on, rendering him with just three melee attacks because I've taken stamina and three defensive toggle powers and a slow AOE damage toggle.  I've managed to create a level 20 Scrapper with a poor damage output, even if his long term potential is good.  It's enough for me to think that maybe I should have been creating characters geared towards fun instead of power, and that's actually where my current (Staminaless) Controller is going.

I don't think Controllers are trash. They were good at what they did. I got a lot of use out of both secondaries and primaries when I played a Grav Controller. I could even function as a main healer just with the Kinetics heal alone.

I was simply under the impression that Doms would be just as powerful, except with damage secondaries. From what I can tell, they aren't.

That I have to wait to 32 to improve is even more discouraging. I've only taken one character to that level, and that was way back in the first month of launch (when the game was less grindy). Getting to 32 is a lot of work nowadays.....And for what? The fucking class should show it's worth, in some way or another, at level 1.

Besides, it seems like hitting 32 wouldn't matter as much with a Grav Dominator anyways.

Also, I'm not demanding huge damage or anything. I don't want to be a blaster. I just think that if they're going to offer the ability to use Damage Secondaries, then they should at least make those abilities feel as useful as Controller secondaries. Yet, here you are telling me I shouldn't even depend on Dom secondaries that much. That isn't how a Controller plays out.

Lastly, if good damage from the secondaries isn't an option, then at least make my mez abilities much stronger. Or if lack of solo abilty and lackluster PvE performance is the way they want these classes to play out, then don't make me struggle more than others in PvP. Fuck me in one way or two. Just don't fuck me on all accounts.


Anyways, I'm repeating myself here. Guess I'm not resubbing to CoX after all. ;)

geldonyetich, I'd have to say I disagree.  It's a super hero game.  At some point, it supposed to be about kicking ass.  When classes don't kick enough ass, that's a problem.  (yes, I realize it's just my opinion, and is therefore no more valid then yours... I just like to read myself type)

Case in point: First char I created was a storm/elec defender.  I play more then the guys I play with, so I had to solo a fair amount.  Character concept was pretty much what you would think - someone who could control the forces of storm to kick ass.  For those of you who know about the storm defender set, you know that at no time did any ass kicking actually take place.  In short, storm defender soloing is not fun.

I was really, really, really hoping for a elec/storm corrupter.  I was really disappointed.

To game developers: there is a certain portion of you player base, such as myself, for whom the character concept is more important then game mechanic, a gimped class is not something you can easily get past.  I'll admit that I did better at getting past it in this game, but only because I had 2 years of DAOC Thanes to prepare me.

I agree.  I'd say the real determining point is 20 or 21, once you get stamina.  The dominator's main problem is just that they don't have enough endurance to slam out all those attacks.  Stamina solves that problem.  Single origin enhancements (endurance reducers) would make a big impact too.  Getting the pet would be the same as a Controller except for this.

Grav Dominator has only one big issue that I can see, and that is that Propel is a cosmetic move.  If you're trying to slam around a rapid chain of nasty attacks, having propel's giant animation time thrown into the mix screws everything up.  Skip Propel, get Stamina, and you're golden.  Otherwise, I can't see grav dominator's working.

Honestly though, if it were me and I was thinking of resubbing to CoV again, I wouldn't hold myself to Dominators.  They may not be worthless, but there's more fun archetypes for me.  Any other villainous archetype is more fun from the getgo.  Masterminds especially, since they're nothing like any hero.

I'm in agreement, really.  Kicking ass is important in a super hero game, and in many ways City of X delivers.  What I'm talking about is there being types of ass that are being kicked that may be hard to recognize.

Damagewise, Storm Defender is a pretty bad experience, I don't blame you for that, but just about every other archetype (even Controllers or Dark Defenders) kick volumes more ass.  However, if you look at Storm Defender in terms of debuffing, rendering foes down to being basically unable to land most of their attacks and attacking much slower than usual, then the Storm Defender is a severe ass kicker.  If you're in a situation where you've ample Blasters and Scrappers and people are dying, throw more blasters and Scrappers at it and the mob count goes up and people die even more.  Throw a Storm Defender in there and people stop dying - that's incredible ass kickery in action.

The trouble with Defenders in City of Heroes, though, is they're generally geared towards supporting a party and so don't make very good progess solo.  I'd say dark defenders are the main exception to this because they get that fuzzy pet of theirs.  Even then, I got a DD Defender to 20 once, and his damage rate (pre-pet) was so abysmal that I found him to solo as slowly as a Controller pre-pet.  Defenders are slow damage doers to the point of being group crippled for all but the most patient of players.  Bad design?  Possibly. 

It's pretty teling how many people like the Corruptor instead of the Defender.  Aside from a slightly different selection of power pools (damn, no Storm) and special ability (which is pretty weak for both archetypes) there's only one difference between the two: Corruptors got their nukes on their primary power set, at 100% effectiveness.

I feel the need to reiterate- Dominators may not be the most powerful AT in the world, but I would hardly say they're "fucked" on all counts.  I can do quite well solo, in a team, or in PvP.  But it's a tricky class to play, and a lot of people suck at it.  A lot of people also skip their single target holds and pick up the AE immobilize cause they figure AE>Single Target.

Personally, I've found my Dominator to be more rewarding than any other AT I have.  I also have a Mastermind, Stalker, and Brute at levels where I can say I've seriously played them.  Even though my Mastermind is my highest level, if someone asked which class defines my ideal my answer would be Dominator.

Really?

Drop a snowstorm on some guys, Gale them against a wall, dump Freezing Rain, Ball Lightning, run in and Short Circuit, then clean up with single-target stuff. All by like level 12. Well, if you were building yourself to team with your buddies, I could see dropping some of that in favor of O2, Mist, and Hurricane, true.

But especially with ragdoll knockback, Gale is good stuff.

--GF

100% effectiveness?  Nope, Corrupter ranged damage is set at 75% of Blaster damage while Defenders are set at 65% iirc.  The bigger difference is Scourge kicks up Corruptor damage a bit, especially against targets with higher health, while Vigilance is utterly pointless.  Honestly though, Defender damage is lackluster only in comparison to Blasters.  Put a high damage ranged attack AT on the Villain side and suddenly Corruptors become "weak" as well.

As far as Dominators go, out of the 10 standard ATs Doms are the most fucked up.  Now that doesn't mean Dominators aren't serviceable; they can do ok in many circumstances.  But compared to the other ATs Doms simply underperform, largely for two reasons:  the Assault secondaries are horribly cobbled together piles of crap, and the Devs decided to have Doms revolve completely around Domination.  I don't have time to write a whole dissertation on how to fix Doms, but improving Assault and not using Domination as such a huge crutch would go a long way to improving the AT.

While I played an energy/energy blaster as my main, my alt was a rad/rad defender who was a lot of fun to play and great in a group. I do recall his big debuff getting nerfed because it used to debuff the shit out of things at a pretty low level. If I could keep up my buffs and apply debuffs I could solo a lot of stuff. Of course, I didn't hit a lot of the AV-level villians because I'm wicked casual and whatnot. Don't think I've done a trial or whatever.

Hurricane was great in a group. A storm defender without it isn't a storm defender. I hated it when the Tsoo used that against me.

From my experience/memory.

Snowstorm - AE slow, unfortunately the effect doesn't stack with the freezing rain slow... so actually kind of useless in this scenario, imo
Gale - knockback (possibly minor damage, but I dont' think so). unfortunately the power has an acc penalty, so the case where all three mobs are knocked back is rare, especially at lvl 12.
Freezing Rain - minimal DoT, good damage resist debuff, high fear.  decent to good damage at level 12. minimal/useless damage by lvl 20.
Ball Lighting - high end, low damage AE.  respectable at level 12, pitiful beyond lvl 20
Short Circuit - Energy Drain, -Energy Regen.  Great lockdown power.  Useless for actually doing damage.

So I've fired all of my powers and what have I achieved?  At level 12 I possibly killed acouple with this onslaught.  And at level 12, you feel fairly powerful.  By level 20 you've killed none of the mobs.  At either level (12 or 20) gale likely effected only one or two (the power just isn't compelling enough to waste enh slots on, and at most we're talking DO enhs, which means we aren't hitting alot with it).  You can now finish off one, maybe two npcs with the freezing rain debuff still applied, but you'll be finishing the last one without the debuff.  After which, you are out of end.  But with the new Rest time, maybe you can rest.

Now wait two more battles for freezing rain to reset.  And at level 12, with no SO timer redux enhs, that's at least 2 more battles.

Yeah, that's pretty much my definition of not kicking ass (However, I do understand it may be other peoples "kicking ass" - those mobs were most likely not doing a large amount of damage, possibly not doing any damage at all).  My experience was that soloing with the defender just wasn't fun, especially beyond lvl 20.

Everything stacks in City of Heroes except under two circumstances:
1. It's the same power cast by the same hero on another hero.  (If it were cast on a hostile target, it would stack.)  Thus, no layering force-fields on the same hero.  (At least, not without explotiing.)
2. A cap (hardcoded maximum allowable modifier) applies, removing some or all of the effect so it will not exceed the cap.

In Snowstorm & Freezing Rain's case, a cap applies itself against the movement speed of the mob.  This is because, back near release days, effects that would stack a movement speed debuff would halt the mob outright.  This would be been okay, but people were exploiting it.  So they stuck a cap in there that makes it so mobs will always move at least a little bit when it's slow effects alone.

However!  Snow Storm has a -Recharge component, and that doesn't have a cap last I checked.  So does Freezing Rain.  So, even though the mobs will be moving at the same amount of slowness with both applied, their attacks will cycle much slower than if only one effect were on them.   Massive damage mitigation potential?  Yes.

You go on to say that your killing foes is slow.  Yes, Defenders don't do very good damage.  Your ass kicking potential is mostly in defending.  If that wasn't your cup of tea, I say switch to an archetype that's built for offense.  (Granted, Cryptic giving you a whole secondary pool dedicated to attacks was a bit of a tease.)

And that's the whole point.

If you throw down Freezing Rain first, Gale really shouldn't miss much at all.  Freezing Rain offers a sizable defense debuff that you neglected to mention/remember.

Ball Lightning does do good damage if you slot it, at all levels.

Short Circuit is not meant to do damage, it is meant to drain endurance.  Use this in conjuction with other electric or endurance draining powers and you can completely prevent enemies from being able to attack.  Of course, with Storm that's almost redundant.

You should be using Hurricane.  That's the power that makes it so you can live when solo.  Using Hurricane, even an unslotted Mental Blast will eventually wear anything down.  With two very nice single target damage attacks available right at the beginning of Electricity, there's not much reason you shouldn't be able to solo quite effectively, though of course it won't be as fast as a Blaster.  I do feel beholden to point out that if Blasting was the goal, perhaps that would have been a better option.  Defenders tend to Defend well, like Tankers are mostly centered around Tanking, etc etc.  Sure you CAN do other stuff, but yeah you are going to be focused primarily on what your archetype was designed to do.   That's not a problem with CoH, that's every class-based game ever.

You all should know that I'm no WoW fanboy, but at least they did this shit right. Want to know what the most destructive "class" in WoW is?

The Priest.

Class with the best Burst Damage after Mage:

The Shaman

The Most Hassle Free Soloer and Most Versatile Class:

The Druid


All are "healers" (i.e. Defenders, so to speak).

Some info about the flight poses:


It randomly chooses an animation when you start moving.  So you're in one animation,  you stop, you start moving again and it'll randomly choose another.  Yeah, not ideal, but worst you gotta deal with is seeing an animation you don't like and just pausing for a second to get rid of it, or just ignore it.

<shrug>

And how is that "right"?  It's misleading.  Someone coming into the game should be able to make a pretty educated guess as to what the "most destructive" class would be, and it ought to be either Mage, Warlock, or Rogue.

And if Defenders really want to feel amazing, get together with 7 other Defenders and try that out.  Blasters will look like a waste of space.

I'm not sure how to answer that question.

I will say however that that game has millions of more subscribers than this other piece of shit we're talking about. Perhaps that justifies what's "right" or not. I don't know.

I should be clear though: Group dynamics in WoW play out differently. DPS is what matters, not necessarily burst or 1v1 domination. People still require Mages, Rogues, and Hunters to do the bulk of the damage in a group. If you can heal, then most of the time, you will heal.

If you don't want to group though, then you have all the tools to play the game at a reasonable pace. That's not a bad thing.

I will agree that WoW offers more flexibility in character building than CoH and I wish that could be addressed.

But it won't be.

A Defender who wants to build to solo can do well.  Solo.  But in a team they will find themselves, most likely, woefully lacking.  WoW at least lets you do a little of both.  But, like I said, that's how this game plays and it ain't likely to change.

As for more=right, doubtful or else we should all be playing The Sims.

I was just throwing that out there. I honestly don't know how to answer a question like that. The only other answer is that there is no "right" way to design classes and roles.

That WoW has more subscriptions does answer one part of the question though: These design decisions aren't stopping many people from playing the game. I never heard anyone claiming that they were misled. If anything, the game is more attractive to them because of it.

[EDIT]

OK, Llava, I've come up with a simple answer for you :

Freedom. That's what makes it right.

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions. -- Ambrose Pierce

Good quote, even if it's out of context ;)


Why do we play MMO's anyways? What was the original draw? What was the first thing that made you say "Hmm!" when you first heard about or read an article on UO?

As far as I'm concerned at least, the two things that come to mind are "Lots of people" and "Higher Degrees of Freedom".

It's easy for MMO developers to deliver on the first thing, but they have, for the most part, failed on the second. Woefully failed. Most MMO's are even more restrictive than single player games. Whether that be in the character building, combat, world exploration (and when and how you can do it), etc.. And it's all very ironic, since this is a genre fit for nothing but high degrees of freedom.

This isn't to say Blizzard is offering a game with high levels of freedom though -- They're just offering one with higher levels than Cryptic. They have their fair share of unimaginative boobs working for them, but at the same time, they are at least one step closer to the ultimate goal of MMOG gaming in this respect. They've might have designed something as restrictive as "Classes" into their game (just like Cryptic did), but at least those classes deliver a wide variety of functions, activities, and gameplay options. That, in the end, is what makes them more "right" than Cryptic.

Touche, but at this point we're getting into the faults of MMGs as a genre rather than CoH specifically.  It's just a matter of degrees.

In terms of gameplay options for individual classes, perhaps WoW has CoH beaten.  Of course, the vastly different playstyles offered by each set and combinations thereof could present an argument for that.  But the fact remains, a Storm Defender is probably going to play a certain way, and an Empathy Defender is probably going to play a certain way.

Though I don't know that a Shadow Priest differs significantly from most any other Shadow Priest.

But aside from that, CoH offers entirely different types of freedoms not offered by WoW.  I don't think I need to mention costume design or supergroup bases.

(It's Bierce, by the way.  I always remember because his nickname was "Bitter Bierce".)

Some will melt faces.

Faces, some will melt.

Melt faces, some will.

Soooooooo... not that much, then?

I'm not sure that we could argue that WoW offers that many different ways to play over CoH then.  I think if you worked out the number of ways to play each class in WoW versus the number of ways to play an archetype in CoH, then compared the total number of "ways to play", WoW would come ahead by just a little bit.

The REAL trouble is that if you pick Storm/Electric on your Defender, that Defender is Storm/Electric forever, no matter how much you respec, whereas in WoW your Priest can go from Shadow to... Holy and Protection, right?  It's been a while.

Anyways, you can change the playstyle of an individual character much more easily in WoW, and that gives the illusion of added variety.  That, WoW definitely has over CoH.  Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to change, much as I'd love to change powersets on some of my characters.

I don't see Shadow Priests in World of Warcraft as evidence that WoW offers a system of greater flexitbility and freedom.  All the spec tree in WoW does (or did when I last played it) was two things: 1. Gives you maybe 1-4 more powers when you've already dozens you share with everybody else that plays that class.  2. Modifies the potency of your existing powers in very specific ways.  Compare this to City of Heroes, where you can choose in two pools about a half dozen different power sets in each archetype, take whatever of those powers you want (with a choice starting at level 6 to instead take powers from the shared power pool) and slot them with enhancement slots however you like.  There is a much more pronounced difference between Defenders in CoH than there are Priests in WoW.  There exist Defenders who cannot heal, cannot buff, and cannot debuff.  It's no contest: freedom of character development-wise, City of Heroes gots WoW beaten.  It's why it's so much easier to gimp yourself in CoH, really.

I think we're overfocusing our experiences of CoH on an expectation that one is unable to play a CoH Defender offensively as easily as a WoW Priest.  I can see how that observation would cause you to draw some conclusions. 

However, if you actually looked at the decision of the developers behind WoW, I'm thinking that Priests in World of Warcraft weren't made so they could be offensively effective because the developers believed in freedom of choice.  No, I think that the developers made them that way because it was realized in beta that the defensive powers WoW offered were not diverse enough to be enjoyable if that's all you could do.  So they jacked up the damage their Priests can do and offered that as an additional fascet.  Blizzard, employing pretty good game designers, were able to think outside of the "Priest = Defense" box.  That's pretty much it.  Cryptic didn't do this with City of Heroes and their Defenders, but then, they didn't have to.  There's enough  variety of funky defensive powers in CoH that a Defender can be pretty content with just playing defense

The only failure on Cryptic's behalf I see here is that they mislead their players a bit in the character generation.  Defenders are made to offer defense, whether it's through heals, buffs, debuffs, or all of the above.  So it did nothing but point some players in the wrong direction when they provided this secondary power pool about doing damage.  I'd like to say that that was a mistake made by being rushed from beta to retail, that they learned their lesson and didn't do that again... but then we've got Dominators where they went and repeated the mistake!  Dominators dominate, holding their foes hostage, which do they do rather well.  So what's the deal with making their secondary power pool about damaging, which they do poorly?  Do they call the secondary pool the "powers you shouldn't be taking but they're there for fun" pool?  No, they call it the secondary pool and force you to take the first power in the pool.

Freedom is not how many specific powers something offers. What matters is how many viable gameplay and advancement options are offered. There's a difference.

A Shadow Priest can melt faces in pvp, can solo well, and can still be an effective healer and buffer without respecing. A Shaman can Shock and Lightning Bolt people to death or be a Totem dropping, quick healing support character. All without respecing. A Druid can main tank all the way up to the raid level, go in cat form and do the rogue thing, or be the best burst healer in the game -- With, possibly, the best buff in the game (Getting good heals off will require a gear change, but you won't need to respec). That's variety and freedom.

Having a wide array of single target aoe immobility and hold skills, coupled with ENTIRE secondary powersets that barely define your character's role in the game is not variety.

Well, early on you're right, but you're not mentioning that a Druid in healing gear is about a good a tank as a bowl of china, and a Shadow Priest in full +Shadow/Spell Dmg gear isn't that great of a healer.

True, gear synergy does exist to some extent (especially due to WoW's itemization formula) and it is a lot easier to acquire/swap from Tanking gear, to Healing gear, to PvP DPS gear, etc. then it is to have both a 50 Empathy Defender and a 50 D3. Even trying to split the difference with an Empathy/Dark Miasma Defender like I did still didn't allow much semblance of mechanical freedom.

Finally though, to be fair, I'm comparing the class with the most mechanical freedom in any game I've played to the most specialized heal-bot set-up in CoH. Still, in all my brief time in CoH and later CoV, I could never really find anything even near the dual roles of a Shadow Priest (D3 was close I hear, although it always seemed double gimped and not double awesome), much less the four-roles-in-one Druid, which ultimately exacerbated the alt addiction and made me leave.

Looking at it though, WoW does have that uniqueness where one class can be very good at more then one role because you rely so heavily on the one dimension that CoH/V thankfully lacks, gear. Not only can gear specialize in DPS or Healing, but all-rounder gear is significantly better overall if you wanted to do both then trying to mix-and-match specialized gear. Honestly... it kind of reminds me of economics a bit. Like a PPF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_possibilities_frontier) but with magical pants. With CoH's design, you need to to have X + Y + Z = 1, no matter the power set combinations. This balancing method leads toward specialization because no one really likes being double or triple gimped.

apologies for the SirBrucing.  Please keep in mind that I'm trying to explain how I think CoH fell down on the job, and maybe why some folks say they don't feel "super".  I'm using my Storm defender as an example.  I will continue to debate the effectiveness of the Storm defender because I have a fair amount of experience with that AT/combination (lvl 35) and your "just do x, y, and z, duh" text-book analyisis is different then my experience.

All that aside, my main point is: a super hero game requires an obvious amount of ass-kicking or it doesn't delivery on it's promise of being a super hero game.


The movement cap is very close to where either snowstorm or freezing rain brings you with a single application of either power.  Freezing Rain causes a terror component in mobs, which now scatter to the four winds because they all take a shortest distance path out of the freezing rain.  Within 5-8 seconds all mobs will be out of the AE of freezing rain.


Again, it was all from my experience.  I've played that char to lvl 35.  I've done the combinations of powers you and Llava talk about.  For someone to read the discription (rain has a def debuff!) they might reasonably assume that it has a significant impact on gameplay (i.e. make the enemy significantly easier to hit).  The reality is that slotting freezing rain for -Def had little to no noticable effect and the -Res had a sizable effect - to the point that under the effect of the -Res the lowly defender could even do "good" damage.  Thus my comment that you needed the Freezing Rain to pop again to feel decently powerful.

I agree with Llava that hurricane is "the shit".  Unfortunately, after you use it awhile, you begin to feel like a border collie, rounding up stray sheep, pushing them into a corner so someone else can kill them (or much worse, you begin the slow process of killing them yourself).

I completely disagree with Llava that ball lighting does decent damage at any level other then in the low teens.  It also sucks a large amount of end.  It also has a slow recharge.  I have had 3xDam SOs, 2xEnd Redux SOs, and 1xAcc So.  I no longer do because it's not worth it.  It's good for pulling a whole group.


A bit of a tease?  hmph.  It's like I said above, it's all about opinion.  Being a border collie or a three-minute wonder wasn't my definition of what a super hero storm lord should be.

Just for the record, I have a 33 storm/rad defender.

I've always noticed the defense debuff in freezing rain.  It's pretty obvious, even unslotted.

If you're 35, I hope you're using Lightning Storm and you should probably be using Tornado too.  While Tornado can cause a little more chaos than I like, it is good for keeping a few guys off  their feet and unable to do anything while I deal with the rest.

Lightning Storm is just good  damage coupled with some nice knockback and disorient.

I agree with the sentiment that Typhon wants to be a blaster. Defenders rock imo, though my main was a blaster. If I wanted to layeth the smacketh, I'd play the blaster. The defender was a great alternative to that very shallow (but effective) gameplay. My blaster is only 24 and my defender is maybe 18 or so, I forget. Grind and whatnot.

My bad on Ball Lightning.  I went to check it, and you're right, its damage does suck.

Its brawl index is 0.8333 at first, then four ticks of 0.5.

That's a total of 2.8333, which is just a tad more than hitting each enemy with a Charged Bolt.  While Charged Bolt is good for a quick, single target power, it wouldn't be an effective AE.

I was thinking it was four ticks of 0.8333 and four ticks of 0.5, which would be a brawl index of over 5 and therefore better than hitting each enemy in the area with Lightning Bolt, which would be very good damage.

So yes, it does have mediocre damage.  Not AWFUL, but pretty mediocre.  Electrical Blast is one of those sets that's better at single target damage and utility than going crazy with AEs.  The consolation prize is the pet and Thunderous Blast, which is, to my knowledge, the only ubernuke that isn't Point Blank or DoT.  But that doesn't do anything until you get it at 38, so that's not terribly awesome.

The rewards for months 15-24 are posted now.

Wings at 15.

Samurai Armor costume pieces at 18.

Shoulder Cape (cape that just hangs over one shoulder instead of the whole back) and respec at 21.

New titles, personal base teleporter and posters of the comic book covers for SG bases at 24.  (Base teleporter has long casting time and recharge, apparently, but it's nice to have a hearthstone-esque power available.  By titles I mean the ones you can select at level 15.  Awesome or Mighty or Awful or Conniving, what have you.)

So... Cryptic isn't letting people play Blasters now?

Point being, I don't think it's real fair to suggest that all game's classes should be able to play in ways distinctively uncharacteristic of that class.

That said, there are ways certain CoH archetypes can be configured to do just that.  It's given raise to weird terms like "Scraptroller" and "Blapper".
True, it makes things pretty challenging, doesn't it? ;)  There are ways to keep them in there with other powers and creative use of terrain, but that's not really how the power usually works.  Some people actually regard the 5-8 seconds they spend running to be effective mitigation, although I noticed evading mobs will often still do melee attacks.  However, I've been playing Illusion/Storm Controller lately and I can tell you of a recent observation that makes stacking Snow Storm and Freezing Rain effects a bit easier:

I noticed that, after mobs had crawled out of the Freezing Rain, the -Slow effect lasts several seconds after (at least 10-15 or so) they're out of the rain.  I don't yet have Snow Storm, so that wasn't what was doing it.  Because the -Slow effect is there, it seems likely that other effects are there as well.  I know -RES wasn't, but I think I observed a slower -Recharge and I haven't disproven that the -DEF is there.  There was a little FX on them that made it look like the effected mobs were shedding little ice particles, so this is probably deliberate.

They might have lowered the recharge on Freezing Rain since the last time you used it too, since I can throw at least one and often two during each fight.  (Granted, I'm often under the effect of Hasten.)

True.  Granted, there's not a single MMORPG in existance where I can't find a class that plays differently from what my mental definition of that class is.  Is the error in the MMORPG, or my definition?

Hi Geldon.


When did I ever say that? From the beginning, all I've suggested is for the secondary powers on a Dominator to be just as defining as their primaries. If you give a class an entire tree devoted to something, then it really needs to come into play more often. Else don't give it to them at all.

It should never, however, play out like this (as you suggested in an earlier post):


No other class has to do that. Not even Controllers.

In using the WoW Shadow Priest example against CoH, you were.
All archetpes in City of Heroes can gimp themselves if they lean too heavily on their secondary power sets.  This has been my experience, anyway. 

No, really, this is true.  Boot up Joe Chott's hero planner (http://cohplanner.coldfront.net/) and pick as many secondary powers as you can (using power pools if you're forced to pick primary powers) and you're going to end up with heroes/villains that do not do their primary role well or at all.  Scrappers that don't do damage.  Tanks that are defenseless.  Controllers who can't control.  Defenders who can't defend themselves, let alone others.  Masterminds without pets.  Those archetypes will function, but at a vastly decreased efficiency that can be described as mascochistic.

Cryptic probably should have made it clearer that all archetypes are intended to lean on their primary powers, and use their secondary powers only to support their primary function.  However, they didn't.  They gave players the freedom to gimp themselves.  Which is oddly liberating, if weird.

Absolutely on the Lightning Storm.  I stuck it out to 32 to get that ability, and stuck it out further because of that ability.  Toranado I didn't go with at first, because of the chaos... and then realized that chaos was what I wanted the powerset to bring.  As such, tornado is a tremendous power.  I just wish it was bigger/more menacing.

Typhon doesn't specifically want to be a blaster.  Typhon wants to be the raging force of a storm.  The most entertaining times for me with the character was when I was busting things up and scattering mobs to the four winds.  Controlled pandemonium.  THAT is when the storm defender feels powerful.

Unfortunately the game doesn't really reward that type of play.  The game rewards getting the mobs in a tight little group and AEng them into oblivion.  Knockback should have been a desirable staple of the game, instead it's the sideeffect that people hate the most.

I'm not asking to have big numbers (I also have a Fire/Fire blaster and find build-up, aim, AE-insta death hugely boring).  I'm asking to smack the mobs around and to feel powerful.

Mobs should want to form into formations/tight groups (which should buff their individual powers).  Players should want to smash those groups and send the mobs flying.  Regardless of how much damage a particular attack did.  Herding should be the fastest way to get yourself killed.  Scattering/disrupting should be the path the victory.

Course, this is just what sounds fun to me.

Heh. I got a kick out of the mmogtards (alright, normal mmo players, many of them post here) who would bitch when my blaster would knock the shit out of things (energy/energy...blam!). I was all about knockback, I love when things fly all over, preferably leaving a sizable chunk of their hitpoints on the floor. I get the thing about knockback messing with the melee guys, but fuck...it's so much fun! But I'm also in the fun > effectiveness camp.

Fuckers weakened me. I picked up CoV for $20 last night. Still playing Gothic 2, but I'll probably resub to CoX in the next week or so. Hopefully I still have my two main character's names.

Yeah, it'd be better than fireball.

As it is, it's on par with fireball assuming that the fireball does extra "burning" 1.5 times per enemy. I am not sure how likely it is for each burn to occur, but 1.5 _is_ halfway between 0 and 3.

--GF

There are fantastic ways to use knockback.

For one,  knock enemies right back into the freezing rain when they get out.  (Oh btw, the whole list of debuffs from Freezing Rain does last for a while after they leave the rain.  That includes the slow, the -res, the -def, and the recharge debuffs.  Just saw that was mentioned earlier.  And with 3 recharge SOs my freezing rain is almost permanent- it takes maybe 5 seconds between when it ends and when it's ready to go again.)  This works with such abilities as Earthquake, Quicksand, Ice Slick, Rain of Fire, Rain of Ice, Tar Patch, need I go on?  Frequently, there'll even be guys who weren't in range of the AE in the first place and you can fix that by throwing 'em in.

Conversely, aim for walls and corners.  Yes, you want guys to be tightly bunched together for AE.  So get in a good position and shove them all into a little corner, then let the AEs fly.  This is something I do frequently on groups, but it does require indoor missions.  Outdoors, this doesn't really work.  Hurricane is also great at keeping guys in that corner once they're there.  And I'd say that's about right for a superhero storm lord- how many movie and comic scenes involve someone being thrown up against a wall and held there by a powerful supernatural wind?

I sometimes have nightmares about knockback, but that is from remembering when Unyielding was Unyielding Stance and my friend always targetted the mobs I was holding with his energy blaster instead of juggling the guys outside of my reach or knocking them into me.  (Of course this is also the one that refused to use anything besides Offensive Stance and Thunderblast [or whatever] in WoW, then got all pissy because I always pulled mobs off him with auto-attack.)  Now it is not such a big deal, and if it is done by a smart player who understand positioning then more power to them.

Yeah, I did try to aim them intelligently. It's also part of why I integrated Fly so deeply into my play strategy. One of my techniques was when I was waiting for my knockback main pool powers to recycle, I would fly in, then hover, smack them with my big knockback punch and then fly back to the perimeter again. Or fly into position to knock someone somewhere.

Occasional funny moments when I'd hit the wrong button and fall out of the sky. Usually instant death by my 20s.
Quite frequently if you were a mutant. ;)

I notice Blaster population has fallen off a bit lately (the population used to go Blaster>Scrapper>Tanker>Defender>Controller and now it's Blaster=Scrapper>Controller>Tanker>Defender, at least when I checked).   It wasn't due to a nerf, oddly enough, but rather the bequeathal of this "defiance" power (http://www.cityofheroes.com/feature_update6.html): The more you hurt, the more damage you do.  It seems to be function less as defiance and more as encouragement for a squishy hero to place themselves in percarious situations.  Nothing like perpetual debt to hurt an archetype's popularity.  I'd only try to use it when soloing or things are hitting the fan -- less bitching at the healers for doing their job that way.

A trick I found works when I'm playing a melee character and foes are getting knocked around is to just tap the F key to go into auto-follow.  Along with the swift power and maybe a manual hop or two, I usually follow the foe to where they land quickly enough to miss nary a beat in my beatdown.  Unfortunately, my recommending this method to those who have issues with Knockback has primarily resulted in anal retentiveness.  I shouldn't be surprised, as this was the same trait that caused them to generate complaints initially.

That has nothing to do with why I mentioned the Shadow Priest.

Llava stated that all classes, in "every class based game ever", play out in such strictly defined, one dimensional ways. I mentioned WoW Priests (and other WoW healer classes) to demonstrate how untrue that is. Same goes for Shadowbane -- Confessors, Druids, Prelates, Channellers, and yes, even Priests (the Bladeweaver ones) -- All healers, and all notorious for their asskicking abilities.

If you want to join in that particular conversation, then be my guest. I only ask one thing though: Read what I have to say first.

True story.

What I should have said was all specializations make you do that.  The problem with CoH isn't that the characters aren't flexible enough, it's that you have to commit to a specialization at character creation and there's no way to change it later without rerolling- your chosen powersets very much determine what your character is capable of doing.  So while that is a problem, we have to keep in mind that Defenders don't offer one single playstyle any more than Druids and Priests are basically the same class in WoW because they can both heal.  A kinetic/electric can become an endurance draining powerhouse, an empath is the ultimate support character, and a force fielder is a group buffer with an impressive amount of defense for himself.

My apologies if I misread what you were saying, but in my defense it was an easy misunderstanding to make.  There's a fine line between trying to disprove that all MMORPGs limit their classes to specific roles versus trying to prove that all MMORPGs should be able to allow their classes to perform outside of their specific roles.

WoW vrs CoH is apples and oranges, different development teams with different priorities.  Does the Blizzard team's decision to allow Priests to be specialized in such a way as to do comparitively the best damage really have anything to do with Cryptic's decision to have their Defenders perform inferior damage?  The way I see it, bringing up the existance of the Shadow Priest (or any World of Warcraft class) in a City of Heroes discussion only establishes that Blizzard made a different decision - not better, not worse, not connected to CoH in any way.

So, in critiquing the poor damage rate Defender and Dominator in City of Heroes, I prefer to stick to what exists within the game itself.  The existance of secondary pools whose only purpose is to do damage suggests that the archetypes should be capable of doing at least moderate damage.  When level 20 rolls around and it is discovered that their damage is worst of all (or nearly all) other archetypes, the secondary power pools strike me as being unneccessarily misleading.  Upping the damage may be one solution, but better documentaiton may have worked as well.  To an extent, I can at least see the secondary powers applying in situaitons where a little extra damage is all that you can contribute at that moment.

On topic, the second set of veteran rewards have been announced (http://"http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/veteranrewards.html").

In short, they are:

15 month - Wings
18 month - Samurai Armour (which you can use piecemeal or as a whole suit)
21 month - Shoulder Cape
24 month - Emergency Teleport Back to SG / VG base power

Also, there's a video on the page that shows off the Veteran Rewards costume pieces (NB: walking actually not possible in CoH/V for PCs) that we know about to date.

Bah, I forgot about the debt thing. No wonder I thought the game was such a grind, I was always in debt. More grind!

[Vanguard]You're just not hardcore enough to appreciate the value of experience debt.[/Vanguard]

Fine, don't listen to me.  :cry:   (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8250.msg227418#msg227418)

I will say one thing for death penalties in MMORPGs: they do create an actual reason to play well.  City of Heroes penalty I don't find too severe - better debt than removing existing experience and rolling back levels.

A few patches ago, they reduced the death penalty further by making you lose much less xp if you die in an instanced mission area, and also giving some death penalty immunity to the recently ressurected.

Do people need a carrot to play well beyond the fact that playing well = more fun?  If playing well isn't more fun than playing "not well", then perhaps the developers should look into the mechanics of their game.

Normally it's more fun, but CoH has a unique factor in this- prisons inside missions.  Basically, anyone could solo anything that takes place inside a prison because you die, release to two feet away, and try again.  Eventually you'll wear them down.

Also, there are some powers that are balanced around it coming at the cost of someone's death. Vengeance is a huge team buff that has to be targetted on a friendly corpse, while Fallout is an extreme damage AOE with the same target.  The strength of these powers is justified in their requiring an ally to die to be able to use them.  If dying doesn't matter, then it's not really a trade.

I'd say it's less about proviing a carrot to play well so much as raining on the parade of those who won't take the game seriously.  But maybe I'm channeling McQuaid-brand fascism there.

Debt is good for those who actually like to follow mission storylines, thanks to the brain-damaged mission system. I know people who play with perma-debt just so they don't outlevel their contacts which, like you said, makes the grind even worse. It's similar to how rest experience is *bad* in WoW if you are trying to maximize your quest faction/reputation points.

So it's a good workaround for a game flaw.

It rains on the parade of people who don't take the game seriously.

It allows people to solo things by wearing them down.

Ok, you've all bolstered my point :)

Ack - sorry, missed that when I skimmed.

I am one of those players who liked to follow all the missions, at least until the high teens where debt is no longer needed if solo, or into the 30's if duoing.  Debt certainly doesn't bother me after being in perma-debt for 30 levels, but I fail to see how people die so often as to make it a real annoyance.  Across all my characters, including a very ugly learning period after the ED/tanker changes, I have not died more than a few dozen times.  Half of those I knew it was likely going into the fight.

My problem is that in the 40's (earlier in CoV for me, maybe because of disillusionment) it becomes pointless, boring mission after mission within the stories.  Once the story starts getting dragged out for the sake of adding more missions, it becomes uninteresting to me.  Until then I never noticed a "grind".  Were the steps more interesting than, "Okay, now go to this building and fight the same people again", I probably still wouldn't.

I remember a lot of mobs that could rip apart my blaster when I was soloing. Anything with a strong ranged attack was tough and anything that knocked me out of the air meant instant death, pretty much. I often thought of rolling up a melee character because I'd get torn up so easily soloing with my blaster.

Same thing happened in EQ2, my SK hit 30 in about half the time my Wizard took because he could just rip through mobs so much easier.

I did notice a tendancy for blasters to charge ahead regardless of the opposition.  Perhaps it is the difference in mindsets between people who likes to play defensively and offensively.

I'm talking about timidly trying to solo in outdoor zones. Indoors, it's much worse. For a while outdoors, I would use my superlong sniper shot to aggro a group, then go out of range until they all split up, then zoom in and plink away at the main mob I hit. It was pretty lame but the only way I could hunt effectively at the time. Any mistakes and I'd die.

Months 27 through 36 have been announced (http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/veteranrewards.html)

Click link, then scroll down to find all the details.

Summary:
27 = Dedicated. "Anime-style tech armor" costume set.
30 = Committed. Signature costume chest emblems. Signature base items.
33 = Unswerving. Choice of permanent Nemesis Staff or Blackwand.
36 = Addicted. Base Item: Longbow or Arachnos flying vehicle. Non-combat pet (choice of 5 pets).

33 is also yet another respec btw.

I just mention this for those who are concerned at how hard respecs are to get.

Someone has confused "Power Rangers sentai group suit" with "anime tech armor."

Nice on the pets.  That'll be a fun little thing.

Also like the signature group chest emblems, great for concept characters who are in The Council or what have you.

While people hate them both, XP debt and corpse runs do add to the intensity of play in an intangible way.  Perhaps that type of intensity isn't for you.  We all have different tastes.  I can remember being in dark recesses of dungeons playing EQ and being very focused on my surroundings.  It's a kind of intensity that can really make a game exciting... and yes, it's the kind of thing that can also make a game suck.  When there are consequences for actions, it adds an element to gameplay.  Most people really don't like that element.  Some do. 

Making games to fit all playstyles is like making one size of pants.   You'll never make everyone happy.

Why not make it voluntary? Turn on the option to lose your corpse if you need that to make the game more fun. Or, as I've suggested in the past, hook a car battery up to your balls and light 'em up every time you die. That'll sharpen your focus.

I think it has something to do with the whole "level playing field" concept that people are yammering about in the RMT thread. 

Don't like XP debt?  Easy solution: Don't play games with it. 

The implementation is everything.  DAoC has such a poorly implemented debt system that a large portion of the playerbase uses death as a means to travel.  If used in a method of risk/reward, I think it can be a valuable tool.  Example: instances with valuable loot could be very challenging with a high cost for failure.  Helps artificially increase the value of the loot while also giving an incentive for people to play well.  I'm all for rewarding good play and giving a carrot to others to improve their play.  They could also opt out of these instances should they not like the risk/reward. I'd also much rather that the best items require more skill than more people/more time to obtain.

I'm never too frustrated with the XP debt in this game, but I think it has something to do with the archetype we all play. I heard stuff about youir blasters that I find true with my experience trying to get him to level 10 the first time. I had 30 MM and boy he levelled so much easier than my blaster and died less often once I learn how to handle groups and gain access to my paralyzing poison things are easier to beat.

I'm guessing Blasters actually need to team up to get a better PVE experience at lower level...I can hardly find a singular (ungrouped) mobs at lowbie zones in CoH compared to CoV. The hollows mission especially is harsh for my Lv 6 Blaster I end up just giving up and going back to my MM since my timezone prevents me from getting much party.  :heartbreak:

PROTIP: Leave the Hollows. Go back to regular missions. Every 6-10 contact has at least one mission with at least one nifty wrinkle.

Less pro tip: I think my brain started running out my ears when Sky talked about being timid with his blaster. Timid! My fire/elec is up to 43 or so and I think I was only timid while fighting Vahz abominations. Everything else is just aim-buildup-AOE-AOE-cleanupcleanupcleanup done. Aid Self is a huge help there, though. Lately I've been fighting Malta and Carnies and the strategy there is basically the same except I open with Shocking Grasp - or in extreme cases detonate a Bonfire and then hammer mobs while they're being repeatedly exploded into the geometry.

--GF

I'm an energy/energy blaster. Huge single-target nukes and no crowd control. If I didn't rely hugely on fly/hover, I don't know how I'd even have made it to 26.

Energy/Energy Blasters aren't totally berift of crowd control, but what they've got isn't what's traditionally considered as such.  Instead of Immobilization or Hold, they've got Knockback and Disorient.  Although to keep em' out of melee range hover is a lot more reliable, most Blasters don't get to disorient bosses.

Yep, Hover is essential, as is Fly to move between the various ranges of our powers. And the knockback punch is essential for combating other flyers, I wonder if Air Superiority is any good (doesn't it ground flyers?). The problem is CC on the minions.

My outdoor hunting was: buildup/aim/snipe a boss mob. Minions and Lts scatter to find a path to me. Fly in to long range powers, hover and cut loose. Fly in to medium range powers, hover and cut loose. Fly back out to long range again. Repeat, retreating to snipe range when minions/lts come back and attack. It was tedious as hell. And doesn't work at all indoors.

Main problem is single target attacks without any solid defenses. I was playing the blaster last weekend for a bit and it was funny looking how I had slotted everything. Hover was slotted up for defense big time. Basically, while I'm taking down the big guy, I'm getting pounded hard by everyone else.

A tactic I normally use in that situation is to pop a couple defensive inspirations (and I realize it isn't fair to assume you'll always have a couple defensive inspirations around), hit buildup, and Energy Torrent/Explosive Blast the entire group.  Chances are most of the minions will be dead at this point, and if not perhaps another Energy Torrent will do te job.  Then hit the boss (hopefully there's only one) with Energy Punch, Bone Smasher, Stun - basically, attempting to layer two Disorient effects on it so it's unable to attack, since bosses do way more damage than a minion.  Focus fire on the boss while trying to catch the minions in as much AOE as possible.  Chances are everything'll be dead before those defensive inspirations wear off.

Without a couple of defensive inspirations?  Hmm, good question.  I certainly wouldn't try to tackle more than a small sized group (3 minions or 1 minion/lt) unless I had somebody to distract them.

Open up with Explosive Blast (or whatever the minor damage AE knockback is).

Knock them into a corner if you can, against a wall if it's available.  If neither are available, this strategy is a pain.

Single target nuke what you can before they get up.  Hit Energy Torrent, knock 'em on their asses again. Keep single target nuking what you can.  By the time they're up again, you should be in decent shape to take out the rest without a problem.

I've done that kind of stuff (not sure I have explosive blast). It makes for some downtime and I'm just not that good at playing a blaster, I guess. I die alot. I'm much happier playing the MM, though I haven't hit the 20s, where I started having trouble with the blaster.

My Mastermind never got hard to play.  Sometimes a little dull, but never difficult.  I just played him again last night for the first time in a while (been focusing on my Brute) and I forgot how many tools he has.

I like fun more than difficult. I even play Gothic 2 in god mode, just to check out the story and not worry about dying. I'm getting old, I guess. I'm more interested in Ghost Widow's origin mission than making sure I set up my acid mortar for every fight.

I predict, then, that Nerva will kill the game for you.  Every contact sends you against Longbow, and none of the first tier are interesting. If you can get past that, the next tier is alright.

Hardcase in St. Martial is the worst contact in the game.  Skip him if you can, but you probably won't be able to because he provides a huge amount of St. Martial's missions.

But make sure you do Operative Wellman in Cap Au Diable.  He follows Marshall Brass.

I can see why you'd have issue with Longbow, with those grenade-launcher using foes.  The biggest trouble I've had with Masterminds are when facing against foes with AOE attacks.  The mastermind himself is a weak little bugger, and his bodyguards are his external tank of hitpoints he can call upon to compensate for this.  An AOE attack that hits him and all his bodyguards (assuming he has all six) does essentially seven times as much damage as if the Mastermind was attacked directly (plus an additional 1/8th for each bodyguard in a six bodyguard configuration).

As you get higher up, get used to throwing away your henchmen like the cannon fodder they are.  Your summoning powers don't have that long of a recycle, and with recharge reduction enhancements - maybe even Hasten - and some careful endurance management you can keep those minions respawning from the inevitable casualties you'll face.

Oh I don't mean because they're hard to fight.  My Mastermind is 43, I'm plenty used to throwing the minions away and resummoning.

I just mean that at a certain point you get fucking tired of the same enemy group over and over.

Ah yes.  Not a problem unique to Masterminds, alas ;)

It's why I really dislike the Nerva levels.  You get Lt. Demitrovich (Longbow), Darla Mavis (Longbow), or the Shadowy Figure (guess what- Longbow).  Darla Mavis has the most interesting story of all of them, and it's only slightly interesting.  Shadowy Figure really has no story at all.  "Go do this.  No questions.  Now do this.  Okay you're done. Bye."

Fortunately, Timothy Raymond and Psymon Omega are reasonably interesting contacts, and if you've beaten Scrapyard you can do Crimson Revenant who is pretty fun.

You can also intersperse the Longbow Longbow Longbow with some contacts back in Sharkhead. Archmage Tarixus is an easy unlock (just grab some plaques in the newbie zones), Doc Buzzsaw is a leetle bit harder (get 1 million infamy before level 30), and there's Diviner Maros and Operative Kirkland who you should get introduced to or can newspaper for.

--GF

I found a nifty little site that lists contacts by zone, level range, and some hints on how to order them to get the most out of them. It's pretty handy, I was able to do everyone in Cap, I think. The only contact I know I missed was a special contact, at the big fort with ghosts, because the requirement was grinding out ghost traps for a badge. I just met one in Shark that wants me to grind out killing scrapyarders. So I'll be missing most of those special contacts, eh?

Longbow's not too bad. The worst so far was the guys in the Strikebreaker mission. Tons of AoE firebombs with big initial damage, my boys were falling like mad but I made it through. Second worse is probably Wyvern because of the high damage arrows and bolts.

Had an insane fight against scrapyarders just before I logged last night. Took on a mob of maybe 10 of them and just as I was halfway through another mob came rushing up on me from somewhere, it was insane. Traps is definitely a great secondary, and I love my little medic guy. Hit 22 last night and gave him 3 heal SOs.

The Scrapyarder contact isn't bad, just get the first badge for beating up Scrapyarders. It's like 100 of them or so.  Easy to do just with regular missions.

But almost no one gets to do Veluta Lunata, because defeating those ghosts is hard and requires a lot of coordination.

You only need to trap 10 of those ghosts now for the badge to unlock Veluta, by the way.

Since when? I did that maybe two weeks ago. I think I trapped about a dozen before the traps spawned about 8 purple EBs and I gave up on it.

Scrapyarders, I dunno. I think it's 200, and the badge progress bar after I've killed maybe 40 seems to reflect that (I had a kill 30 mission and more jumped me).

I will say this: 22 and no grind yet. Maybe I'm just following contacts better, I dunno. I barely have enough time to flesh out all my contacts before I outlevel them. So, cool beans. For now.

Hey Sky, what's the link to the site that lists the contacts, etc.?

I'm finally downloading CoV whenever I finally get unpacked (moving in the late fall FTW!), etc.

Just to chime in, I am playing again and really enjoying my corrupter. And mastermind is the uber for soling. There very rough in groups. But the corrupter, a blaster with  heal? And I buff and debuff. Whats not to like?

Can't remember off the top of my head what level Scrapyard's followers are, but that's a /fantastic/ way to get this badge up really fast.  Just jump on to a group taking him down, get sidekicked up to a level where the minions are all gray, and take out about 500 of them in 10 minutes.

Exaggeration, but not by a lot.

He might be talking about NoFuture, which I think has a url of

http://www.nofuture.org.uk/cov

I use this one:
http://www.trueevil.org/trekain/contacts.html

Since Issue 6.  I did it 2 months ago and only needed 10 for the first badge.  There's a second ghost badge that still needs 100, but you only need the first to unlock the contact.  Check this badge site (http://www.badge-hunter.com/index.php), the one we're talking about is the achievement badge called Pirate.

That's the one.

Could've swore I did an even dozen ghosts before the EBs all popped and I had to quit. Ah, well.

So you guys know, the EB pops when a certain trapped absorbs a certain amount of ghosts.  You can avoid it by moving to other traps.

Official Forums Announcement: Veteran Rewards now on the Test Servers (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=6921287&an=0&page=0&gonew=1#UNREAD)

Veteran rewards still haven't been launched?!  How many developers are actually still working on this product?  Or is there some other reason for their glacial pace?

The veteran rewards are awarded based on how long you've been playing. So, instead of taking players' word for it, they've been waiting for some kind of update or uplink from the NCSoft accounting software. Or something along those lines. If you're really curious for details, follow the link. I'm sure there's a thread about it in there somewhere.

I'm in the 9 months bracket. Been a while since I'd played, since way before CoV came out. Still, I get a respec which I've really been wanting for my Merc/Traps MM.

Thanks Hutch, but I'm aware of what/how the veteran rewards work.  Also, I read the news that they are waiting for account details from NCSoft acouple days ago...

Basically my comment was, "how freakin long does it take to get a frickin nightly feed from an accounting system with userid/time paid? Jesus Christ, pick up the fucking pace!"

I'm in the "subscirbed since CoH launch bracket", because I'm a moron.  Being subscribed for so long is probably why have no tolerance left for this game to get better, I'm to that "I can stand the way you breath" stage.  Why do I keep coming back here?  Because I love CoH flying, it's awesome.  I'd just like for them to patch in more fun... apparently that is too much to ask (c.f. "moron", above).

[edited for grammar and clarity]

I've been subbed since launch.  I still like the game.

I think you're just ornery.

I'd stay subbed if I wasn't saving for a mortgage. It's a great game to jump into every now and again, but I don't know how people can play it all the time. Maybe that makes them ornery.

I think the thing with accounting is that they built the rewards level right into the account system. When I looked at my account details before that last post, it showed the first bracket of reward levels (up to 12 months) with the veteran level name (Loyal or whatever) and 12 months was greyed out (because I'm a 9-monther). So it sounds like it was a bit more of an integration than a simple database check.

That's kinda cool, can see exactly how much I get.


Veteran Rewards

The Veteran's Rewards listed here will only be available in the Training Room until Issue 8 is published.
Reward Level    Date Awarded
3 months - Trustworthy    Nov 06 2006
6 months - Faithful    Nov 06 2006
9 months - Dependable    Nov 06 2006
12 months - Loyal    Nov 06 2006
15 months - Zealous    Nov 06 2006
18 months - Staunch    Nov 06 2006
21 months - Steadfast    Nov 06 2006
24 months - Devoted    Nov 06 2006
27 months - Dedicated    Nov 06 2006
30 months - Committed    Nov 06 2006

For complete details visit our Veteran Rewards Program page.


Good eye, Sky.

Good lord. I had no idea my account had been active for 1.5 years. I figured I'd be lucky to have a year in.

I just reupped in COX and while I only started a year ago, I was shocked to find out that overall, it was the game I played the most in the last year. It doesn't have that "make a career out of it" feeling that most of the "end game" games do and I think that really makes you lose track of how much you play.

I agree, I saw this last night as well.  Then I poured myself a big ole cup of STFU.  It tastes awful.

My rewards are up to the 24 month mark. I first subbed a few months after retail, and then I shut down the subscription during the time I was hyper-active in WoW.

I copied a toon over to the test server last night, to play with the new costume items.
I took pictures of angel wings, samurai armor, demon wings, and the trench coat. (http://stivv.blog-city.com/veteran_rewards_on_test_server.htm)

That's my exact same story, Hutch.  I must be the evil twin as I have a goatee in real life.

I created a fire blaster during Halloween in anticipation of wings.  I initially thought my fire tanker would use them but a fire tanker needs Acrobatics to tank effectively and an eight-foot tall character's wings would clutter up the screen too much.  Not that anyone would seriously notice during the psychedelic freak-out effects going off during combat with a full team including controllers and defenders.