New efforts!

[Goddangit]

I like doing that too!

I've also done characters who, over the course of their costume slots, have slowly evolved too.  One character of mine turned from man into humanoid dragon!  Another eventually earned an "Incarnate Costume" that was essentially his power personified, he became (red) lightning.

Yes, that's exactly what I like to do - evolve the costume.  I hadn't considered evolving them physically.  Definitely something I want to explore!

[Relitner]

Oh. Well, then, you definitely weren't on a team with me (I was on Protector mostly, and some Pinnacle). With no team experience in other MMOs, and not having the "team trinity" mindset, I buffed anyone who could help end the fight faster, so that I didn't have to do as much work, and did whatever I could to keep the whole team upright and moving forward. There were even times when I'd make sure that the rest of the team was okay, and go chasing down the foolishly-errant scrapper. I took the job seriously. (Man, I am SO wanting to log in now, load up Doc Pruitt, and look for a team!)

Are they at it AGAIN? Oh, good grief.
They need a good dose of the "The [stockings] where hung by the [chimney] with care" thread...

[Mistress Urd]

I especially loved the "pure healers" who were emp Controllers. I mean WTF. All the emp powers (even better when they also took the entire medical pool), and all you took for actually PREVENTING disaster was your single target hold and maybe the pet - MAYBE? Oh, my god, you are definitely doing it wrong!

As a die-hard emp (more emps in my stable than any other support set - though kin was coming up there by the end!), yeah, I definitely looked down on "pure healers". Especially later in the game. Pure healers. LOL. You're not contributing jack or squat when the entire group's health rarely budges.

I never liked playing */emp controllers, if I was doing a good job controlling, I didn't need emp, if I am doing lots of healing, I clearly was not doing enough controlling. I think my two attempts were deleted in the 20s or 30s.

Well, there are plenty of "doing it wrong" other than "pure emps", if we are just talking about defenders and bad builds/playstyles, I have certainly seen more than my fair share of wacko stuff.

[Thunder Glove]

I was never very good with buff sets to begin with.  I tended to prefer debuff sets, or at least buff sets with a lot of PBAoEs rather than targeted buffs.  (I didn't play the Necro/Pain MM I mentioned much, due to the timing, but I'm not sure how much I would have enjoyed playing her once the novelty of "HEY LOOK GUIZ IMMA HEALZOR" wore off)

I'm sorry I never got to try Nature Affinity, now that I think about it. (I still read the Paragon Wiki and Tomax's City of Data, and make characters in my head) :(

... are we there yet?

[DarkCurrent]

which Facebook group are you talking about.. I am on three different groups and pretty much all of them have calmed down and moved along..

It sounded like they are contacting him directly not through Facebook.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

"Medical Journal - Entry #146: The data is undeniable; I am convinced brain trauma is the key to behavior modification and returning criminals to contributing members of society.  Concussive force applied to the skull with sufficient vehemence should achieve my aims.  I plan to put the theory into practice on the streets of Paragon tonight." - Dr. SkullPunch

Or Professor HeadSlap.  I haven't decided.

Brilliant. i fully support this.

[ukaserex]

Oh, all this talk about Empathy! I'm rather enjoying it, even if it is way off topic. (what else are we gonna do while we wait, lol )

In all seriousness, I considered myself above-average as an emp/elec defender in my later years of playing the game. I was good at marketing and had the free time, so I could easily afford all the bells and whistles as far as enhancements went. I'm quite sure there were some players who were much better at it, but given some of the anecdotal evidence I've read on this forum, and the old forums, I've no doubt I was better than average at playing an empath defender, and probably much better at playing my ice/emp controller - even though I only barely played him over 100 hours because the game closed on us.

What I did learn was that there are different mindsets that go along with various powersets. RP aside, thanks to Arcana and several other math-minded folks, we pretty much have narrowed down what was fair, what was good and what was best - or close to it with scrappers and brutes and other DPS focused ATs.

There was a lot of passion on the Defender forums. Passion is good. It's energetic emotion, and it can really show through with some of the better writers/communicators.

In one camp, there was the "Play how you want to. It's your $15 bucks."
I really wanted to belong to this camp. After all, I'd like to think I played how I wanted to. But, when it comes right down to it, I was so used to soloing on my first character to reach 50, I never even bothered to get Heal Other until some teammates were wondering why I wasn't using it to heal them and they gently (not) explained to me why it was good to have it. I explained to them that, "Yes, it's good for you, but what's it going to do for me?". It then occurred to me that I should probably look up the definition of the term empath, lol.

It only made sense to me because they certainly didn't know that the first character I rolled and deleted at level 26 was an elec/elec blaster that kept dying because I knew next to nothing about how to play the game "well". In my mind, I wasn't a defender, but a weak blaster that could self heal. I had no idea that the secondary blasts of a defender were next to nothing compared to the primary of a blaster. (way back in early 2005, lol. I did finally figure it out, thankfully.)

With this learning in mind, I learned of the second school of thought regarding defenders.
2. If you're going to play, you may as well realize, what's good for the team is good for you. The faster the team can blast through missions, the more xp you get over time. More time, means more fun. So, the better "job" I did as a defender - keeping folks alive, a tesla cage here and there to save over-eager blasters, a little well timed zap here and there, a little endurance sapping now and again - the easier it is for me to do my primary job of keeping folks alive and kicking. I'd never thought about this until I finally discovered the CoH forums in 2006. I didn't even know they existed. Those that did post, for the most part, were so clear and concise with their advice and opinions, that I found it a great disservice to the playerbase (a disservice to the players that didn't visit AND to those of us that teamed with them) that so many players never even visited the forums, whether they knew it existed or not.

I think one problem with any MMO (not that I've played any aside from CoH, aside from a free trial here and there), is that we don't really know who we're playing with. I could be teaming with an 11 year old girl who just thinks the heal aura is pretty and simply hasn't figured out what the powers actually do. More than likely, it's a much older person who hasn't figured it out yet. We don't get to see these real life statistics, and some can be overly critical, some will just think, but not say what they really think, and others just shrug their shoulders figuratively and not dwell on it.

Tanks without taunt, masterminds without pets, Controllers without pets, (after level 32), characters without travel powers, characters with all 4 travel powers,  stone tanks that don't take granite and take flight, stone tanks that do take granite and flight, dominators without perma-dom, etc.

There are all kinds of odd, seemingly foolish builds that people can create and play with. Some will figure things out. Others will listen but still do what they want. Some will quit in a rage. We never can know how someone will handle the correction/advice, especially when they don't ask for it.

In the end, I think it's all great. We play, we learn or adapt or we do something else.
In the meantime,
My current thoughts are that initially, an empath defender should focus on buffs and healing, and when the upper levels are reached, then focus on the secondary. Just my 2 cents. My view might change when presented with different experiences - whether they're mine or yours.

[Waffles]

Seriously, which facebook group is doing this? I'm sure we could pull a mass-report on them and just silence them, at least temporarily, or do something.

I've checked a few of them, they seem relatively positive/not going batshit with theories/are silent in general.

If they are really that big of a thorn to the negotiations, it's better to attempt to quell them sooner, rather than later.

[Felderburg]

I considered myself above-average as an emp

It's funny, but all the people in this thread who've talked about being an emp have said the same thing (including me). Either someone's lying, or we're not as good as we think.... (or the bad emps are not on this thread, I guess).  :P

Are they at it AGAIN? Oh, good grief.
They need a good dose of the "The [stockings] where hung by the [chimney] with care" thread...

The what now?

Seriously, which facebook group is doing this? I'm sure we could pull a mass-report on them and just silence them, at least temporarily, or do something.

I've checked a few of them, they seem relatively positive/not going batshit with theories/are silent in general.

I don't think that's how Facebook works. You can't "silence" people on it, as far as I know. Just delete posts, and the Facebook admin aren't going to deign to do that in this case.

I was under the impression the Ironwolf's post was hoping for an apology, is all. Not saying they're jeopardizing the deal again.

[Eskreema]

Ok, im a little confused by the level of power Posi just desplayed in the exerpt a few pages back.  He can function as a self-sustaining source unto the Well of Furies?  Interesting position since at that point he's not the Well's chosen one.  Maybe lore wasnt fleshed out to the degree it is now...

[DarkCurrent]

I had an emp/nrg defender back in the early days, but I deleted him at lvl 36 or so (about when CoV launched and I needed character room).

Anyway, I got tired of the playstyle expected.  I played a ton of defenders back then and the only build where I felt like a babysitter was on my emp.  People just seemed to get stupid as soon as they had a 'healer' on the team.  They'd charge at everything.  Not rest.  Snipe bosses from across the room.  All kinds of risky stuff.  I had to constantly spam heals and buffs just to keep them moving.  And of course the more I kept them alive, the stupider they got because they weren't dying.

It was a terrible experience.  I'd built the guy as a battlefield medic.  He was fully equipped with blasts as well as buffs.  But all I could ever do on teams was 'heal meh!'

Meanwhile my other defenders like dark, FF, etc. could buff and blast to their hearts content.  A much funner playstyle for me.

[Super Firebug]

I had an emp/nrg defender back in the early days, but I deleted him at lvl 36 or so (about when CoV launched and I needed character room).

Anyway, I got tired of the playstyle expected.  I played a ton of defenders back then and the only build where I felt like a babysitter was on my emp.  People just seemed to get stupid as soon as they had a 'healer' on the team.  They'd charge at everything.  Not rest.  Snipe bosses from across the room.  All kinds of risky stuff.  I had to constantly spam heals and buffs just to keep them moving.  And of course the more I kept them alive, the stupider they got because they weren't dying.

It was a terrible experience.  I'd built the guy as a battlefield medic.  He was fully equipped with blasts as well as buffs.  But all I could ever do on teams was 'heal meh!'

Meanwhile my other defenders like dark, FF, etc. could buff and blast to their hearts content.  A much funner playstyle for me.

Some few of such players won't "waste" their own greens or break-frees to help themselves, because YOU'RE supposed to heal/buff them. And then, when they do get croaked after wading into four groups at once, they chew you out for not doing your job - no matter how much spamming you've been doing. :( There is always a chance of jerks being in any group of people. But overall, I definitely concur with the opinion that CoX's player base was/is the best I've ever encountered.

[Waffles]

Ok, im a little confused by the level of power Posi just desplayed in the exerpt a few pages back.  He can function as a self-sustaining source unto the Well of Furies?  Interesting position since at that point he's not the Well's chosen one.  Maybe lore wasnt fleshed out to the degree it is now...

I'm sure the full comic is around somewhere, that's not the case, rest assured, I vaguely remember it, but some complications occured and Prometheus got involved.

[Samuraiko]

Ok, im a little confused by the level of power Posi just desplayed in the exerpt a few pages back.  He can function as a self-sustaining source unto the Well of Furies?  Interesting position since at that point he's not the Well's chosen one.  Maybe lore wasnt fleshed out to the degree it is now...

After Manticore kills Statesman (it makes sense in context), Prometheus gives Positron the power of his Flame to bring back superpowers to the world. Posi gets back to Atlas Park and WHOOSH! The powers return to the metas.

MANY YEARS LATER, in one of the villain arcs, you go toe-to-toe with Positron, who has had years to master Prometheus' Flame, and try to steal it from him via a good old-fashioned beatdown.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[Phaerius]

Yes, that's exactly what I like to do - evolve the costume.  I hadn't considered evolving them physically.  Definitely something I want to explore!

I did a few evolving characters. My main character definitely got a large costume upgrade when he became an incarnate. My electric/electric brute was a patchwork robot that was basically a sentient power source that assembled a body around itself when it made its escape from a military science base. I picked out all the most damaged looking robotic components for his first costume and as he levelled I basically upgraded his body piece by piece. In the end I had a finished high tech looking bot and his original damaged looking costume. Was really cool.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

All I can say tonight is once this is over either way - I would like a nice big apology from the Facebook crowd - not that it will happen but still.

For those who may pass this to that group - I would not name drop former Paragon Devs who have contacted the team and I would not say IM Tony V to verify it.

I know it is slow right now - but the new Devs don't control this dance, NCSoft does. I can't pass on anything except - they are working on something to prove competence. Since I have named everyone involved except the Dev team - you could bother to verify with them what I have said.

The folks here on the board have been great. The Facebook group is going hog wild. You don't hoax people giving them your real street address and phone number. I understand the frenzy that having hope is causing - stay the course.

I totally understand you.  I really really wish the facebook group would calm down still, though I wonder which group at this point, as I look at save city of heroes, they talk about other things.  I did rant there to tell them to calm down in a way, go figure.  I do believe I owe you an apology, I worry I may have when I initially found this months ago shared on face book.  But I did say to keep quiet, but some people are just morons and will still be to noisy.  I feel my loud mouth may have hastened the problem some :S.

i also posted about the new efforts in one of the Facebook groups a couple months ago, but i hadn't seen much noise about them in the group. Which doesn't mean that it didn't lead to people elsewhere being idiots. Anyway, i apologize as well if my posting there had caused further furor. At least it's been pretty quiet as of late on all the groups i follow.

[Super Firebug]

I was under the impression the Ironwolf's post was hoping for an apology, is all. Not saying they're jeopardizing the deal again.

Ironwolf's wording was, "The folks here on the board have been great. The Facebook group is going hog wild" (emphasis mine), so it sounds like they're at it again.

[Waffles]

Ironwolf's wording was, "The folks here on the board have been great. The Facebook group is going hog wild" (emphasis mine), so it sounds like they're at it again.

Say the word and I shall eat their souls, mighty wolf.

[Risha]

Movement:  COH was my first MMOG and I went hunting around after it closed and tried just about everything, but if it didn't move like COH, i.e. have a behind the head view and worked with my arrow keys, that was it.  I liked the DCOnline, but I have trouble if it isn't behind the person.  I'm not computer savvy enough (or don't care to spend enough time) doing keybinds.  I like TSW, however, as someone earlier in the thread said, I reached a point early in the game where you had to jump or do several actions quickly and I just couldn't master it on the keyboard, rather like all the Winter speed events which I tried multiple times (and enjoyed), but never won.

Emps.  My main character who I learned the game on was Risha (not the icon above), who was a mind/emp troller.  Soloing she had serious problems vs. EBs and AVs, I was working on respec'ing her at the end of the game.  However, when I teamed, I did well, and I kept my buffs recharge, and my eye on the bars of the team.

Costume development:  Yes, my first few were hideous.  Yes, I've had characters that have developed costumes, one was a rp street kid who was a dumpster diver and came up with all sorts of mismatching stuff that I loved (with a kitty on her shoulder), FindersKeepers . . . I never got into a role playing SG with her, but did play out her arc in my mind so that she had better and more sophisticated costumes as she went on.

Back to the top.  Movement is important to me, if movement changes perspective and I can't use my arrow keys for movement and the numeric keys for attacks, I'm gone (in re the successor games and COH2)

[MWRuger]

This is exactly what I was talking about a few pages ago when I explained why I don't play tanks or defenders. Everyone KNOWS the "right way" to play them and aren't bashful about telling you how wrong you are. Every time I think about playing one I run across discussions like this on the forums and come to my senses.

Offering unsolicited build advice is rude. It's like telling someone they are disciplining their children wrong. Even if you are right they certainly won't appreciate it and hooray! You just ruined their day! Well done you!

If you can't stand the way someone is playing a defender, just one star them and move on. Or just play one "the right way" and show all the schlubs how it's done. I actually learned a lot by watching expert players do their thing and then asking a few questions between missions.