And the mask comes off.

[LaughingAlex]

They (Firearms in general) were nearly as accurate then as they are today, it is the shooting technique that has changed and improved the shooters accuracy more than anything else. Although the "Blaze Away" mentality still exists today, the higher capacity handguns improve the odds somewhat, throw enough lead downrange and eventually you are bound to hit something.

"Speed is fine, but accuracy is final". . . (Old gunfighters quote.)

Admittedly though the person who survives firefights the most is the one that has the best cover though.  That was the reason trenches were made during the civil war, with the sheer accuracy of guns in the 1800s it wasn't a matter of luck anymore but whether you had some form of protection.  It was often considered "cowardly" but then any technology that gave someone an "unfair advantage" was when first introduced considered "cowardly".  But most people back then were smart enough to not get into a direct firefight in the open.  It's just misconceptions Hollywood often take advantage of; the gunslingers shooting each other in an honorable contest.  It happened in the 1700s sure, between upper class men, but they often missed back then.

Reality in the old west; people walked up to you and shot you in the back rather than ever challenge you.

I'd say it's not just the techniques that changed, but tactics to.  Cover--->accuracy--->speed.

[Minotaur]

The probability of that happening is the exact same as the probability of any other random sequence of hits and misses that average 80% and is well within the norm.

Long streaks that fall far outside the standard deviation are an aberration (and the odds of such an aberration occurring can be calculated), but that doesn't apply to your example.

What you're saying is the equivalent of saying that picking 1-2-3-4-5-6 as your lottery numbers is foolish because it has less of a chance of coming up due to being 'special'. In truth, that sequence has the same (infinitesimal) odds as any other combination of numbers, and is no less likely simply because the human brain sees a pattern in it.

As Arcana was saying earlier, the odds of a random number generator producing something that humans recognize as a pattern are surprisingly high due to how good we are at pattern recognition. Compare the example you gave to instead getting 6 failures in a row followed by 24 successes, or 12-6-12, or a failure every 6th time exactly (and there are at least 5 distinct sequences that do that with different phasing), and so on.

Actually this is not really what I was saying (I have a statistics degree btw), what I was suggesting is that IMO p(success after a success) is not the same as p(success after a failure) and this is only one of many examples of this, this was only the most dramatic example, I've seen much longer runs of failures than that for example. I was suggesting that incorrect regeneration of the seed might be one of the possible mechanisms. When you get 12+ failures in a row at 80% and this happens twice in a day for example, you do feel something's up.

[hurple]

Gail Simone also played CoH.

Mark Waid, too

[Excidia]

I had heard that he was a CoH player, but I could never get someone to confirm his class and powersets (I'm curious how he built Harry).

Fire/Energy Blaster IIRC

I remember it being mentioned but can't remember where.

[MWRuger]

Actually, Wyatt Earp talked about this issue in his autobiography. He attributed his success in gun fighting to always talking the time to aim. He fought people who out drew him but fired from the hip, or just drew and shot or people who would pull and fan. He shot slower, but hit what he aimed at and generally scoffed at people who used the pray and spray method of gunplay.

He also practiced with the guns he was most comfortable with. In addition, he was pretty smart. When he faced multiple opponents, he brought friends and tried to pick his ground carefully. I'm not saying luck didn't play a part, but he did his best to reduce the part it played as much as he could.

[JanessaVR]

Fire/Energy Blaster IIRC

I remember it being mentioned but can't remember where.

Huh.  I would have thought Fire Controller.

[Sinistar]

Actually, Wyatt Earp talked about this issue in his autobiography. He attributed his success in gun fighting to always talking the time to aim. he fought people who out drew him but fired from the hip and just draw and shoot or people who would pull and fan. He shot slower, but hit what he aimed at and generally scoffed at people who used the pray and spray method of gunplay.

He also practiced with the guns he was most comfortable with. In addition, he was pretty smart. When he faced multiple opponents, he brought friends and tried to pick his ground carefully. I'm not saying luck didn't play a part, but he did his best to reduce the part it played as much as he could.

I'm suddenly reminded of Methos from Highlander.

[CrimsonCapacitor]

Fire/Energy Blaster IIRC

I remember it being mentioned but can't remember where.

I thought he was a fire/FF troller.  At least I seem to recall reading that somewhere.

[BadWolf]

Mark Waid, too

And John Rogers (Blue Beetle, showrunner on Leverage and The Librarians). He had a great blog post about how he'd see comics writers on there that he knew had a deadline in two days, because it was so addictive. He called it "crack pizza".

[JanessaVR]

I thought he was a fire/FF troller.  At least I seem to recall reading that somewhere.

Yes, that was my best guess as well, if I were trying to spec him in CoH format.

[hurple]

And John Rogers (Blue Beetle, showrunner on Leverage and The Librarians). He had a great blog post about how he'd see comics writers on there that he knew had a deadline in two days, because it was so addictive. He called it "crack pizza".

They were doing research.  Exploring story ideas. 

I guarantee that prior to DCUO and Marvel Heroes EVERY comic professional was on CoX.  Probably after both of those started too, actually.  Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

I mean, where else could they go to live out those fantasies.  All those guys write superhero books for a reason.  And it sure ain't the money or fame. 

[Sinistar]

They were doing research.  Exploring story ideas. 

I guarantee that prior to DCUO and Marvel Heroes EVERY comic professional was on CoX.  Probably after both of those started too, actually.  Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

I mean, where else could they go to live out those fantasies.  All those guys write superhero books for a reason.  And it sure ain't the money or fame.

Here's hoping that once CoH returns that we can get some of the comic writers to return as well as somehow advertise or endorse the game.  Hm, conflict of interests though may prevent the latter.

[Arcana]

Actually this is not really what I was saying (I have a statistics degree btw), what I was suggesting is that IMO p(success after a success) is not the same as p(success after a failure) and this is only one of many examples of this, this was only the most dramatic example, I've seen much longer runs of failures than that for example. I was suggesting that incorrect regeneration of the seed might be one of the possible mechanisms. When you get 12+ failures in a row at 80% and this happens twice in a day for example, you do feel something's up.

Its too bad you didn't keep combat logs.  I used to recommend that people who had any interest at all in this sort of thing (or anything related to game functionality really) turn on logging and keep it on forever.  They didn't take much space and were highly compressible (meaning if you were concerned about the space you could just designate that windows directory as being compressed).  Even without the game available to test the combat logs, if properly preserved, could be analyzed to determine the extent and frequency of these types of events and whether they occurred at a statistically significant different rate from the norm.

Over the course of the game, I probably analyzed over a hundred different players' logs for various reasons (some bug hunting, some statistical analysis).  They were very useful in particular for determining the precise sequence of events contextualizing different observations.

[Excidia]

Yes, that was my best guess as well, if I were trying to spec him in CoH format.

Why Controller?  I can't remember him displaying any fire control powers in the books.  Force Fields/Fire Defender makes more sense than Controller IMO.  Blaster also makes sense since he shot fire blasts, force blasts, and even had his kinetic ring for knockback punch.

Later in the series (and after whatever Issue opened up all Archtypes to everyone) you could possibly say Ice/Fiery Dominator since the Mantle of Winter did give him some cold control powers.
e-

[CrimsonCapacitor]

Why Controller?  I can't remember him displaying any fire control powers in the books.  Force Fields/Fire Defender makes more sense than Controller IMO.  Blaster also makes sense since he shot fire blasts, force blasts, and even had his kinetic ring for knockback punch.

Later in the series (and after whatever Issue opened up all Archtypes to everyone) you could possibly say Ice/Fiery Dominator since the Mantle of Winter did give him some cold control powers.
e-

I've asked Jim Butcher on Twitter what COH Harry was.  No response yet, and I doubt I'll get one.  But it didn't hurt to ask...

As far as the "Why?" part... If Jim Butcher decided that in COH terms, Harry was a Fire/FF troller, then that's what COH Harry was.  Jim knows Harry better than anyone...  That's what he felt best fit Harry Dresden, so he rolled the toon.

[JanessaVR]

Why Controller?  I can't remember him displaying any fire control powers in the books.  Force Fields/Fire Defender makes more sense than Controller IMO.  Blaster also makes sense since he shot fire blasts, force blasts, and even had his kinetic ring for knockback punch.

Later in the series (and after whatever Issue opened up all Archtypes to everyone) you could possibly say Ice/Fiery Dominator since the Mantle of Winter did give him some cold control powers.
e-

It's admittedly difficult to translate most fantasy spellcasters into CoH terms, given that most of them have a wide variety of powers.  However, Blasters shoot things - and that's pretty much all they can do.  Harry was capable of more than just shooting things until they stopped moving, hence I would hesitate to make him a Blaster.  You could split the difference and go with Dominator.

Molly, at least, is solidly an Illusion Controller, and I doubt that anyone would disagree.

[Excidia]

As far as the "Why?" part... If Jim Butcher decided that in COH terms, Harry was a Fire/FF troller, then that's what COH Harry was.  Jim knows Harry better than anyone...  That's what he felt best fit Harry Dresden, so he rolled the toon.

I'm not asking why Butcher did anything, I'm asking why people think Controller since I just don't see it.  Harry has zero Controller primary abilities but he does have quite a few Blaster primary and secondary abilities.  He also has quite a few abilities that match Defender powers.

My opinion is that Defender is a lot more likely for a character based on Harry.

If Butcher says troller, that's fine, his character both in and out of the game, and that's what he wanted to play.  I just don't see the character, as written, matching Controller and wonder why people would immediately think it.

e-

[Codewalker]

Some of his wind and kinetics based abilities are more 'controllery', especially early on in the series. He uses them for soft control like knockback/knockdown rather than direct damage. But he doesn't really fit very well into any archetype since he has such a wide range. If there were an Assault/Buff combination maybe.

[Arcana]

I'm not asking why Butcher did anything, I'm asking why people think Controller since I just don't see it.  Harry has zero Controller primary abilities but he does have quite a few Blaster primary and secondary abilities.  He also has quite a few abilities that match Defender powers.

My opinion is that Defender is a lot more likely for a character based on Harry.

If Butcher says troller, that's fine, his character both in and out of the game, and that's what he wanted to play.  I just don't see the character, as written, matching Controller and wonder why people would immediately think it.

e-

Process of elimination, mostly.  Often when people have discussed CoH analogs to magic users of all kinds controller tended to come up just due to the diversity of effects at your disposal with controllers verses other archetypes.  The other archetypes tend, on average, to be more focused on specific effects.  Eliminating the melee archetypes and Blasters you're generally left with defenders and controllers.  Controllers have defender primaries as their secondary and control sets instead of ranged blasts: that tends to offer far more options for conceptual fidelity.

[Solitaire]

Interesting article, I thought about CoH while reading.

http://massivelyop.net/2015/02/13/eff-wants-to-exempt-some-emulated-game-servers-from-copyright-laws/