Downsides to Issue 3

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As expected, there was some nerfage to my "invulnerable" tanker. At level
24, I found that versus Pantheon, my invincibility had dropped by around
one and a half level: Where I could safely solo whites with only one
toggle, I was now restricted to greens; blues required occasional use of
more toggles. Since this guy is one of the few left without the Fitness
pool, that means I can't use defense and attacks at the same time, so I'll
have to bring a blaster sidekick and stay in zones where she is allowed.
Was doing that much of the time anyway, but I kinda liked Dark Astoria. Oh
well. I'll respec to get the fitness pool now that I don't need the
presence pool anymore.

More problematic in the long run is the lowered framerate. The machine
with ATI 9800 SE card is now almost useless ... framerates of 1-5 in the
more popular zones. I'll have to get another card or specialize in
buffbot characters. It seems Cryptic Studios have assumed from the start
that people stick with nvidia, and have utterly neglected to optimize any
new code for the more common ATI graphics processors.

--
"When someone starts bragging about how much debt they have, it's not a
good sign." -G

 

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"Magnus Itland" <itlandm@online.no> wrote in message
newspskacl7k6b52ai9@news.online.no...

> More problematic in the long run is the lowered framerate. The machine
> with ATI 9800 SE card is now almost useless ... framerates of 1-5 in the
> more popular zones. I'll have to get another card or specialize in
> buffbot characters. It seems Cryptic Studios have assumed from the start
> that people stick with nvidia, and have utterly neglected to optimize any
> new code for the more common ATI graphics processors.

Not sure where your graphics programs are coming from, but I'm running a ATI
9700 and having no issues whatsoever, would seem odd that the next level of
card up would be having problems.

 

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Magnus Itland <itlandm@online.no> wrote:
> As expected, there was some nerfage to my "invulnerable" tanker. At
> level 24, I found that versus Pantheon, my invincibility had dropped
> by around one and a half level: Where I could safely solo whites with
> only one toggle, I was now restricted to greens; blues required
> occasional use of more toggles. Since this guy is one of the few left
> without the Fitness pool, that means I can't use defense and attacks
> at the same time, so I'll have to bring a blaster sidekick and stay in
> zones where she is allowed.

Uh... I routinely soloed yellows and yellow-white combos without
powering up armor, before I took Fitness. I now solo yellows and oranges
easily with Fitness, and don't worry about any mob smaller than about
five with two yellows or one orange... still without powering up any
armor.

Methinks that the Invuln tankers developed a really lazy style because
of their excessive protection. If you really can't solo a white BP sans
armor, I'd take it as confirmation of that notion...

> It seems Cryptic Studios have assumed from the start that people stick
> with nvidia, and have utterly neglected to optimize any new code for
> the more common ATI graphics processors.

Graphics optimization has to happen at a pretty low level in development
and is difficult to change. CS committed to Nvidia early on, let
everyone know it, and hasn't said anything different that I know of.
Which isn't a bad idea, as Nvidia has produced stable, dependable cards
pretty much since their inception while ATI, in the quest to please
gamers and tweakers and win every benchmark contest, produces at least
as many buggy and crash-prone card/driver combos as stable ones. They
always have, back to the their earliest days. I've never had a good
experience with an ATI, which I why I stayed with Matrox (unbeatable in
2D and for business and graphics use) until I exceeded their 3D
capabilities, and after a careful evaluation of what was available, went
with Nvidia. On my second card and haven't looked back yet.

--
-= Victory Server =-
-= Shenanigunner: Level 29 Natural Tanker, Fire/SS, M =-
-= Sgt Glory B: Level 16 Tech Blaster, Electric/Energy, F =-
-= Duke Miasma: Level 8 Science Controller, Grav/Force, H =-
-= the Nonpareil: Level 7 Magic Defender, Emp/Rad, F =-
-= Mean Mr Mustard: Level 7 Natural Tanker, Inv/Stone, H =-

 

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On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:56:25 -0000, Shenanigunner <nsp@nitrosyncretic.kom>
wrote:
> Magnus Itland <itlandm@online.no> wrote:
>> As expected, there was some nerfage to my "invulnerable" tanker. At
>> level 24, I found that versus Pantheon, my invincibility had dropped
>> by around one and a half level: Where I could safely solo whites with
>> only one toggle, I was now restricted to greens; blues required
>> occasional use of more toggles. Since this guy is one of the few left
>> without the Fitness pool, that means I can't use defense and attacks
>> at the same time, so I'll have to bring a blaster sidekick and stay in
>> zones where she is allowed.
>
> Uh... I routinely soloed yellows and yellow-white combos without
> powering up armor, before I took Fitness. I now solo yellows and oranges
> easily with Fitness, and don't worry about any mob smaller than about
> five with two yellows or one orange... still without powering up any
> armor.
>
> Methinks that the Invuln tankers developed a really lazy style because
> of their excessive protection. If you really can't solo a white BP sans
> armor, I'd take it as confirmation of that notion...

I am not sure if we understand each other. During issue 2, the number of
enemies in a pack had little bearing on my ability to solo minions. If I
could solo one, I could solo 20. Using invincibility as my only toggle, I
would use my limited stamina for the attacks (which only have 1 SO end
reduction). In issue 3, the number of enemies is essential. If there are
too many of them, I suffer death by a thousand cuts just like all other
archetypes. Most notably, a good number of them will stand around just
shooting at me. As far as invincibility is concerned, I might as well
have been naked for all the good it does me against them. So I need to
activate the other defenses, and that doesn't leave enough stamina to beat
up a pack of whites, even at the most leisurely pace imaginable.

I don't see laziness having anything to do with it. Stamina is a limited
resource, so a more active playstyle just means you run out of it faster.

--
"When someone starts bragging about how much debt they have, it's not a
good sign." -G

 

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Magnus Itland <itlandm@online.no> wrote:
> I am not sure if we understand each other. During issue 2, the number
> of enemies in a pack had little bearing on my ability to solo minions.
> If I could solo one, I could solo 20. Using invincibility as my only
> toggle, I would use my limited stamina for the attacks (which only
> have 1 SO end reduction). In issue 3, the number of enemies is
> essential. If there are too many of them, I suffer death by a
> thousand cuts just like all other archetypes.

Aw, my heart bleeds for you. If Invuln truly made the number of
enemies irrelevant, then it needed to be gimped. I can't think of a
single good gameplay reason why a player should be able to wade into any
size mob and take no proportionally larger damage.

> Most notably, a good number of them will stand around just shooting at
me. As far as
> invincibility is concerned, I might as well have been naked for all
> the good it does me against them.

Yeeesssss... let's think 'real world' here for a moment. If you wade into
a pack of 10 foes, many of them are going to start popping you. WHY on
earth (even the alt-earth we play in) should you be invulnerable to any
number of foes? That was poor power design and should have been fixed
long ago, IMVHO.

> I don't see laziness having anything to do with it. Stamina is a
> limited resource, so a more active playstyle just means you run out of
> it faster.

Right. Exerting yourself costs something. Running my toggle shields costs
something - not much, now that I have Stamina and am slotted up, but it
does cost enough that I have to watch it. As it should be. A power that
is infinitely resisting with no endurance cost is just silly - you may as
well be typing in the godmode cheat word.

I do begin to understand some of the Invuln whining and arguments, both
ways, though.

--
-= Victory Server =-
-= Shenanigunner: Level 29 Natural Tanker, Fire/SS, M =-
-= Sgt Glory B: Level 16 Tech Blaster, Electric/Energy, F =-
-= Duke Miasma: Level 8 Science Controller, Grav/Force, H =-
-= the Nonpareil: Level 7 Magic Defender, Emp/Rad, F =-
-= Mean Mr Mustard: Level 7 Natural Tanker, Inv/Stone, H =-

 

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"Brian Truitt" <btruitt@rcn.com> wrote:
> Not sure where your graphics programs are coming from, but I'm running
> a ATI 9700 and having no issues whatsoever, would seem odd that the
> next level of card up would be having problems.

I am basing this on a vague understanding, but I believe that the problems
with CoH and video cards is spotty - some cards work, the next model and
next driver don't, for no single easy reason.

But the solution to nearly all the problems is the fastest Nvidia card you
can afford.

--
-= Victory Server =-
-= Shenanigunner: Level 29 Natural Tanker, Fire/SS, M =-
-= Sgt Glory B: Level 16 Tech Blaster, Electric/Energy, F =-
-= Duke Miasma: Level 8 Science Controller, Grav/Force, H =-
-= the Nonpareil: Level 7 Magic Defender, Emp/Rad, F =-
-= Mean Mr Mustard: Level 7 Natural Tanker, Inv/Stone, H =-

 

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Magnus Itland <itlandm@online.no> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>As expected, there was some nerfage to my "invulnerable" tanker. At level
>24, I found that versus Pantheon, my invincibility had dropped by around
>one and a half level: Where I could safely solo whites with only one
>toggle, I was now restricted to greens; blues required occasional use of
>more toggles. Since this guy is one of the few left without the Fitness
>pool, that means I can't use defense and attacks at the same time, so I'll
>have to bring a blaster sidekick and stay in zones where she is allowed.
>Was doing that much of the time anyway, but I kinda liked Dark Astoria. Oh
>well. I'll respec to get the fitness pool now that I don't need the
>presence pool anymore.
>
>More problematic in the long run is the lowered framerate. The machine
>with ATI 9800 SE card is now almost useless ... framerates of 1-5 in the
>more popular zones. I'll have to get another card or specialize in
>buffbot characters. It seems Cryptic Studios have assumed from the start
>that people stick with nvidia, and have utterly neglected to optimize any
>new code for the more common ATI graphics processors.

While I do have an nVidia card, it's an older one (GeForce3Ti200).

You may benefit from the same things I do, no shadows, no geometry
buffer, textures at medium, world detail down to 70-80% (I leave
characters at 100%) and dropping the max particles down a bit.

The texture drop does drop detail level on characters a bit (very
noticeable on hair) but it has a big effect on framerate.

I play at 1280x1024 - nothing less can hold my GUI layout.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

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On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 20:36:02 -0000, Shenanigunner <nsp@nitrosyncretic.kom>
wrote:

> Magnus Itland <itlandm@online.no> wrote:
>> I am not sure if we understand each other. During issue 2, the number
>> of enemies in a pack had little bearing on my ability to solo minions.
>> If I could solo one, I could solo 20. Using invincibility as my only
>> toggle, I would use my limited stamina for the attacks (which only
>> have 1 SO end reduction). In issue 3, the number of enemies is
>> essential. If there are too many of them, I suffer death by a
>> thousand cuts just like all other archetypes.
>
> Aw, my heart bleeds for you. If Invuln truly made the number of
> enemies irrelevant, then it needed to be gimped. I can't think of a
> single good gameplay reason why a player should be able to wade into any
> size mob and take no proportionally larger damage.

Because he is armed with a knitting needle ... he can't do damage to more
than one at a time, and only a little. Unless there is some kind of
compensation, the build is dead.

The idea of tankers in general is that they can take a lot of attacks but
dish out only little. But the different types of tankers all have their
strengths and weaknesses. A fire tanker, for instance, can do continuous
damage to the crowd around him, but needs any self-heals he can get to
stay there long enough. A stone tanker can adapt his armor to the needs,
included the rare and precious defense against psionics, which extremely
few builds of any AT have at all. And the invulnerable tanker can
withstand physical attacks that would bring anyone else out of commission
- that's what "invulnerable" implies - but that's his only strength. If
you reduce this to the level of stone and ice tankers (who already have
other bonuses) you are putting this build at a disadvantage.

I believe invulnerability was nerfed mainly because it made certain types
of scrappers too powerful. For tankers, it has always worked as intended,
making them very slow soloers but very useful in teams up until psionic
damage starts to make stone tankers more useful in the 40es.

I expect some minor rebound for invulnerability when it has been live a
little while. I'm pretty sure they overshot their target with this nerf,
especially as relates to ranged attacks.

Still, I accept the fact that all archetypes should have to take fitness
if four out of five have to. (The only exception being
defenders/controllers with stamina-generating powers, which they also have
"paid for" in having to postpone other powers.) Once this process is
completed, perhaps they will make the fitness line inherent and remove the
stamina power from the game.

--
"When someone starts bragging about how much debt they have, it's not a
good sign." -G

 

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Magnus Itland <itlandm@online.no> wrote:
>> I can't think of a single good gameplay reason why a player should be
>> able to wade into any size mob and take no proportionally larger
>> damage.

> Because he is armed with a knitting needle ... he can't do damage to
> more than one at a time, and only a little.

Why? What's your secondary power pool? The only damage power I have in
Fire is Burn, which is proving very nice as a secondary attack for mobs
- I can often take out a couple of whites with it in the time it takes
me to pound down a boss - but otherwise the primary Fire set is maybe
two knitting needles. One and a half: Burn and Blazing Aura.

All of my offensive damage comes from the SS set,and it's considerable.
And superstrength is 1:1 damage except for Foot Stomp, which comes late
and doesn't seem to be as much of a damage-dealer as a
disorient/knockdown power.

So I'm still not understanding why nerfing Invuln down to something
equivalent to the other primary sets is such a problem, unless you've
built a playing style that depends on taking no damage at no End cost.

--
-= Victory Server =-
-= Shenanigunner: Level 29.8 Natural Tanker, Fire/SS, M =-
-= Sgt Glory B: Level 16 Tech Blaster, Electric/Energy, F =-
-= Duke Miasma: Level 8 Science Controller, Grav/Force, H =-
-= the Nonpareil: Level 7 Magic Defender, Emp/Rad, F =-
-= Mean Mr Mustard: Level 7 Natural Tanker, Inv/Stone, H =-

 

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"Magnus Itland" <itlandm@online.no> wrote in message
newspskavpu1mb52ai9@news.online.no...
> On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:56:25 -0000, Shenanigunner <nsp@nitrosyncretic.kom>
> wrote:
>
> I am not sure if we understand each other. During issue 2, the number of
> enemies in a pack had little bearing on my ability to solo minions. If I
> could solo one, I could solo 20. Using invincibility as my only toggle, I
> would use my limited stamina for the attacks (which only have 1 SO end
> reduction). In issue 3, the number of enemies is essential. If there are
> too many of them, I suffer death by a thousand cuts just like all other
> archetypes. Most notably, a good number of them will stand around just
> shooting at me. As far as invincibility is concerned, I might as well
> have been naked for all the good it does me against them. So I need to
> activate the other defenses, and that doesn't leave enough stamina to beat
> up a pack of whites, even at the most leisurely pace imaginable.
>

I had a similar experience with my Inv. scrapper when I toggled the mission
difficulty between Unyielding and Invincible. In Unyielding, the opponents
are one level lower than Invincible, but there are more of them. I did a
Rikti mission at Invincible and had a couple of fairly close calls, but
nothing to write home about. When I reran the same mission on Unyielding, it
was a lot tougher because there are several Rikti who only used ranged
attacks and many others who will prefer to use ranged attacks until you get
into melee range with them. A group of 5 drones and a gunman were brutal.
The monkeys would pummel me with their psychic darts as they closed to melee
range. Finally I came up with the strategy of aggroing them using phase
shift and running behind a tree to make them close to melee range. At least
that way the ones that have both melee and ranged attacks would switch to
melee instead of shooting me to death. Statesman has said that some level
of ranged defense may be coming back to Invincibility. I'm crossing my
fingers that it happens.