Spent Saturday running Mister Ravenous and Charity at Home (or, as Margie puts it, “I understood there was to be Punch and Fry”) together through the wilds of Port Oakes. Lots of fun, and we got up to 11 by the time the day was done.
A few deaths along the way, mostly due to a rather, um, goofy PUG that we ended up volunteering to join Atom Smasher on. There were a couple of good players, a couple of okay players, and two extremely goofy and counterproductive Masterminds. And when a third one got recruited, A.S. opined that every one he meets lowers his opinion of the AT.
Which makes me think I need to do some running with Mister Thorne so I can be considered the best-played MM on the Rogue Isles … (certainly I’m already in the upper quartile).
I think, by the bye, that MM’s, as the “new, exciting” AT, acculuate lots of bad players. Especially ones who get the giggles watching their zombies dance to boom boxes.
The mission was interrupted just before the end by all the East Coast servers crashing. Yikes. Though it let us duck out of the team in a graceful fashion.
Charity does the typical “Defender” thing of casting buffs on random characters she meets. Though she does it by casting fire shields on them.
“You just like setting folks on fire, don’t you,” Mister Ravenous opined.
“Well, duh,” Charity retorted.
So it goes.
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***Dave Does the Game
“Punch and Fry”?
My MM’s SVG has regular get-togethers, with a relatively small turnout most nights. Last Friday, of the four villains in the team, three were MMs. It was… interesting.
I find that the MMs in our group seem to know what they’re doing. It’s a simple matter to keep henchmen in defensive mode, or even passive if they’re following you. I’m a big fan of Khaiba’s Mastermind Numeric Keypad Pet Controls, which Doyce linked to. (I include the link below, as I don’t know how to embed them on this page. Why isn’t it easy, as it is in the comments on your main page, Dave?) I’m picking it up a bit more slowly than the others, perhaps because I largely eschewed Beta.
My MM has Recall Friend. I decided not to go for Teleport Foe, figuring I could just send my zombies into the fray. Black Pharoh uses it to good effect, though, and I am reconsidering it.
Khaiba’s Mastermind Numeric Keypad Pet Controls
http://boards.cityofvillains.com/showflat.php?Number=3949032&Main=3949032#Post3949032
Sorry about pulling you into that PUG. It wasn’t a bad team when the MMs were all afk and we were actually ‘pulling’ instead of ‘pushing’ foes.
We had a few good villain teams over the weekend though, the CoI one last night was a blast, though we did end up with a bit of an ouchie a few times during that.
I had fun lsat night too. My question is, what made it a good team and a good time? (A little background: I avoid PUG’s like the plague, so I only have SG and friend groups as comparison and I worry that my idea of fun might be different from others.)
Avo, the Pet controls look fun, but since I work from my notebook and don’t have a dedicated keypad (nor do I want one), it’s not my cuppa.
Frankly, thus far, I find the simple trio of controls to be quite workable — kill, defend, heel. The defensive mode is best, though it delays their entry sometimes since it doesn’t pick up my Tar Patch as an attack on my part.
To my mind, the most important parts of being an MM are:
1. Controlling your pets so they don’t draw undesired aggro.
2. What you do after you sic your pets on the bad guys.
I never have added in the URL addressing buttons here — I probably should, now that we have a decent little community.
What makes for a good team/a good time:
1. Folks are having fun.
2. Folks are supporting each other — not abandoning their SKs, or leeching, or making repeated stupid blunders that kill off everyone else.
3. Folks are not trying to dominate the gameplay (“Everyone stand here for the next 5 minutes while I herd”) without consent of the team.
4. Folks are not trying to dominate the RP (“Everyone react to my story, and only my story, now, dammit”) without the consent of the team.
5. Folks are not intentionally (or even unintentionally) being annoying in gameplay or RP, but try to be (OOC) respectful of each other.
That last clause is probably the root of the above. Good teams/times come about from folks not only trying to have fun for themselves, but trying to help the whole group have fun.
Note that “success” and “debt aversion” do not necessarily play a role here. It’s great to be successful and avoid debt, but you can have some great times even while getting your ass kicked.
By the way, Margie, I thought you did great with the star. You offered folks alternatives, but didn’t suffer option paralysis. You kept things moving along without folks feeling rushed or pushed too hard.
The only thing I would have done a little differently last night would have been to band together a bit better during the journeys between mishes. Too many in-transit deaths that friends might have helped.
Ah, well — SL 14 is coming …
Well, I learned fairly quickly not to unleash the zombies on aggressive. When soloing, I love the goto function to “peek” around corners.
As for what I do after sending in the pets… Well, aside from trying to keep everybody bubbled, I just pick a target and use Force Bolt to repeatedly slam him into a wall, effectively keeping him out of the action until my zombs or teammates can take him out. Whether the target is one that’s currently under attack or not depends on the situation, but I learned (again, fairly quickly) to use a wall or tree or something as a backstop to bounce him off.
“Option paralysis”? That’s what you call what keeps me from being an effective leader? (Well, one of the things, anyway.) Ah. Nice to have a label for it.
Oh, and you never explained Margie’s “Punch and Fry” comment.
Avo….
From like the first or second Season of South Park (which amuses me that Dave is even referencing it) There is a scene where Cartman walks up and say “I was told that there would be Punch and Pie.”
It has made it into the general lexican of quotes.
As to MM’s:
The Stay command Button.
The attack what I am attacking Button.
The Heel Button.
Those seem to be all I need.
Today….had a raging head ache…so I stayed home. Several PuG’s. One rocked in way that i have not seen in a while.
8 members, 5 of whom were MM’s (including 19), one Stalker, one Dom, and One Corruptor. 3 missions 34 pips (most of those coming from leveling twice during the “Hunt-a-ton-of-longbows mission in the sub. 5 MM’s All of whom controlled their pets…the never drew unwanted Aggro…never went ofer other mobs…and it was just scary to watch as the herd of pets rolled over everything. One death during the team…going in between missions.
Now…as opposed to one later where the MM was leading the charge…infront of the two stalkers trying to scout the mobs…and he died a lot…and his Pets attacked other mobs…So I learned to run a lot during that PuG.
Yes. It’s a (forgive me) South Park quote, notable because, in our case, we punch and fry the opposition.
When MM pets concentrate their fire, they can be a terrifying force. But it all depends on whether you handle them like storm troopers or like human wave attacks. (Though, being villains, it’s certainly acceptable to occasionally sacrifice one or two of them to the cause.)
My two biggest problems so far with PUGs seem to be based around Stalkers and MMs.
1) Stalkers who run ahead while invis, assassinate something without telling the party what they are doing, and then run back to the rest of the team and die at our feet while we still don’t know what is going on and pulling a ton of aggro on us.
2) MMs that do just about the same thing, but with their pets being the ones with the aggro, as they are Super Speed’ing about and forget that while they are stealthed, their pets arent.
Albiet, I can’t really speak two much on either of those. My one Stalker that I play, I have played exclusively solo so far and my MM has had all of about 30 minutes of play time and all solo.
See..
With Zot (mostly because of the wonderful guidance provided by Mafdet) I will say what I am going to do.
“I am going to stand next to “X” when “person with star” says go, I will attack “X”. ”
Or, if is is not an organized PuG I wait in back and when the attack starts I pick off people from the edges.
There was a reason why Zot and Mafdet were the only surviors last night during the Silly PuG.
Silly because they drug us to Mercy because of a “great Mish”…that was 13’s. Then the next one…which was 21’s (Zot and Mafdet lived through that slaughter), before they decided to move on to two of mine (18’s woot), and we all had a challenging good time…and only the silly MM died…a lot.
Also….Arachnos Black Widows are scary….as are the Seer’s