Well, not actually much to update. The Blogathon kind of sucked it all up — early to bed Friday, all day blogging Saturday, big nap on Sunday, and early to bed Sunday, too.
Did have some fun helping Mal ding to 50. Also played the Azures, which is always a joy. Mr. Azure got Jump Kick at the last level, which does much better than Brawl in terms of damage (and knockdown), but which has the world’s goofiest animation.
Margie, whilst I was busy, spent a lot of time on Test, as well as doing badge collecting. It was nice having her stay up late with me on Saturday, and nice that she had “something to do” while I was busy typing.
On the Dev front …
… the NPCs in Escort missions will be faster (if not necessarily smarter). Other NPC/Ally types of stuff are slated, if not for I5, then for the future. (Interesting comment in that thread about the new value for Team Teleport and Team Fly with these sorts of mishes.)
… Blaster Defiance is being buffed. That fits in with the comments I’ve read previously on it. Looking forward to seeing how it works with Torchielle.
… Some graphical bits and pieces from Test, including NPC highlights (Margie commented on this the other day) and stores on maps (missing labels, but that’s a known issue).
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***Dave Does the Game
Hostages are much faster. Not too difficult getting them back to the entrance.
Got another mission with a helper. Found him at the end next to the big bad. He stood there and cheered me on while I face planted. 🙁 On the plus side he gave me a temp power when I rescued him.
The 30 Fir Blogs still un-doable at least while soloing as Amorpha. Finally got past onto the next contact, don’t know if it was because I leveled or because I had failed like 5 times. Contact will still give me the mission if I want to try again.
Cool…thanks for the update Margie!:)
Also…I do really enjoy the Azure’s when they are on…so much fun.
Well, I’m glad (I guess) that *something* is undoable for Amorpha. I joke about Hangtime being a Force of Nature, but watching you plow through the opposition is just plain scary. No special effects, just fists.
On that note, from the Devs list:
… the philosophy behind making Instant Heal a click, not a toggle.
As a side note, while I think I disagree with the instantiation of the philosophy, I find myself almost inadvertently defending it given the level of vitriol from the folks who are convinced that the Devs are Twisted Evil Bastards Who Are Out To, Personally, Ruin Their Fun.
Margie posts on the forums! You go, girl!
I would call myself a casual player. You can see this is only the second time I’ve posted to the boards. That said, I feel strongly enough about this issue to put in a few hours on test. I’ve taken my main a level 30 DM/Reg scrapper through the first three contacts in Croatoa. And I’ve died – a lot. Some death are from pushing my toon, deaths on test don’t count the same as deaths on live. Some are because I am running solo, where I usually duo. Most are because of changes to defense and Instant Healing. The defense nerf causes me to rely on IH. IH kills me because by the time you need it you are already dead.
As a click with a long cycle, I tend to save it until I’m in trouble. The problem is that with regen you don’t send much time in the red/orange sections of your health bar. You are either doing great and in the green or very quickly heading south. If I wait until I hit the red or even orange before firing off IH, 4 out of 5 times I will end up face planting before it kicks in.
On live, I already run IH as a click. It isn’t well slotted yet and would be too endurance heavy out-of-the-box to leave on all the time. But I fire it off much sooner because I know it will last the fight and be available the next time I need it. I would much rather have it on and pop a few blues or think about what attacks I’m using when my endurance bar dips than to have it cut out and see my health bar crash. Or worse never get it off in the first place because I waited too long.
Didn’t spend much time on Test, but I did notice that Serafina’s location was marked on the map.
Just to let you know the difference between a controller and a Scrapper.
Puck: Had to wait until SC32 to get the Aura, Agent Six, and new costume. There were several trips to the hospital involved during attempts between SC30 and SC32.
Zazi: New Costume, and Agent Six Missions…about an hour and no deaths after hitting 30.
So going to hate Stealth going away and the defenses getting reduced. It is just wonderful to say “Oh look, A group of 10 red minions, and a Purple boss…piece of cake!” *sigh*
Okay, consider this blasphemous, but, frankly, I don’t think a solo hero *should* be able to say, “Oh look, A group of 10 red minions, and a Purple boss…piece of cake!”
I don’t go for the 1 hero = 3 +0 minions equation that Statesman talks about. But the other seems to be too little of a challenge.
When I start despairing about a mob of 1 orange LT and 4 yellow minions, on the other hand, it’s probably too much of a challenge.
YMMV, obviously.
Sorry…
I sould have pointed out that I built Zazi as a tank.
The other secret is that if you take 6 shields and 7 CaB’s she is good to go. Concentrate on the Boss and finsh up the minions later.
Also, I should not have said “piece of cake”….just giddy because I was able to do that last night.
On most normal nights I can take on orange minions with a red LT or Boss (say seven in mob) and only be winded at the end of the fight.
Divine Avalanche is a must have power if you are a Katana/SR scrapper…each hit is like a Shield (+22 def). The only times I die are becuase I get stunned or I forget to rave my ranged defense on.