Category: Gameplay

I had Honeygun sitting in a transit station for about 15 minutes while I did some various and sundry other stuff. I suddenly noticed, in the background I could hear the announcement “Mind the Gap,” the standard intoned message on the London Tube (referring to the gap between the platform and the train).
Fun.

Die once on a mission because the group is up against heavy odds and is not attacking coherently … well, those sorts of things happen.
Die twice in a mission for the same reasons … time to seriously look at the team, the mission, and participation in both.
Die a third time, even after additional team strength has been added, and largely because some folks don’t understand the concept of “wait until we’re ready” or “everybody ready?” or “how can we draw just a couple of these jokers?” … it’s your own damn fault, and doubly so if you don’t simply head back to hospital and greener pastures.
So Velvet died thrice on a mish. A full 25% debt. Bleah. And, later, Psi-clone died once (though he did eventually ding up to 12). Annoying.
I’m kinda beginning to think that I like squishy characters. A lot harder to solo, but a lot easier to keep in the relatively safe background on mishes.
Ran a bit with Torchielle this afternoon, alongside Avocet. Fun, and she dinged up, too.

I have not achieved a high enough level to get tells requesting assistance in PowerLeveling, though I certainly see the [Broadcast]s and (for those who are at least following a couple of rules of etiquette) the [Request]s coming across the Chat window all the time.

Sprinting through Steel Canyon, I spot a corpse lying in the road, about 100 yards from Blyde Square. Curious, I stop to look. It’s a Level 2 blaster. I do a double-take. Yes, Level 2… alone, in the middle of Steel Canyon.
Then I get a tell from him: “plvl me plz?” – followed immediately by a team invite.

I decline team invite for the moment, and reply with a tell. “I’m on my way to a mish and I don’t do power-leveling. Want a teleport to the train?” I figured I’d be nice, since my mish was in King’s Row and I was heading for the Yellow Line anyway. I would have even given him an Awaken, patted him on the head, and sent him on his way back to Atlas Park.

His reply: “no rez me and help me level”

I glance at the group of level 18 Tsoo standing nearby, presumably the ones who placed him in his present concrete-kissing predicament. “I can’t rez.” I reply. “You can go to the hospital, and I’ll tp you to the train.”

Another reply: “no staying here”
I don’t know that I’d go so far with some of the “taking revenge on annoying PLers” stuff as the folks commenting in the post above (though I strongly suspect most of them wouldn’t actually, either), but I understand the desire. Trolling strangers for unearned achievement is annoying; the ‘tude that some of the PLers seem to adopt (“I am entitled to this. You are a high level. Your duty is to PL me, even though I have a silly handle, an ugly costume, and am in the game just to to prove I am cool and 1337, and am clearly not interested in investing the time and effort that you did. And if you don’t, you suck.”) is just plain old rude.
But I agree that the best way is simply to ignore them, even if there is that temptation to SK them out to Talos Island and then leave them there.
Now, I have been fortunate enough to have some higher-level players offer to help me get some XP or take me on some higher level outings (as I’ve recently written), and I’ve tried, when they’ve done so, to be both duly (and sincerely) grateful and to pull my own weight in the team. But I would never presume that that they must, or even that they should, regardless of the bonds of friendship, any more than I’d presume that any of them would just give me money on demand or come over and help me mow my lawn.
Rudeness is no basis for a society. Folks who don’t learn that don’t last very long. At least, it’s nice to think so.

While it is not nearly as nice as being home, it was very fun running around with Margie (Honeygun and Kazima) last night. Even if the resolution of the modem failure has not resolved the mapserver discos (and at least one service outage last night) …
Also, thanks to both Doyce (Hang Time) and Lee (Cap’n Carnage) for squiring Velvet around through Very Bad Places (Talos Island and Peregrine Island). I picked up about half a level and about 60k of enhancements.
The hairiest part of the adventure was on PI when Lee stopped, ran back to me, said, “That doesn’t look good,” I asked “What?”, and he messaged back, “I’ll stay here till you get back,” at which point the Mapserver Disco message came up for me. Eep!
And it wasn’t a simple back-and-login. The hotel broadband account had “expired” (despite my having chosen three free days), so I had to re-register and get back on, several minutes later. I had images, Lee’s reassurance notwithstanding, of reappearing in the midst of PI with my little 13th level character no longer SKed to a 50th, and facing innumerable Things that were not only Purple, but Ultraviolet to me. Eep!
Cap’n Carnage may not be very cute, but he was beautiful to see when I reappeared … 🙂
Anyhow, I hope I acquitted myself well against the various nasties and that Lee wasn’t too bored by it all.

Last night, Velvet Jones had the chance for some late-night missions run through various zones of Paragon City, including the first-time-visited “Boomtown,” alongside an enigmatic new visitor to the city who goes by the nom de guerre of the Strategist. He seemed to be gathering information about the city and its inhabitants, including various metas.
Whatever. Velvet was just tickled that she dinged to 14, taking Super-Jump at the Strategist’s suggestion. The photo of the two of them was taken atop “the Giant Penny” at the Kings Row police station.

Maybe I should set up a new Gallery page for these …

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Dear Mom,
I think I’m finally beginning to hit it big here in Paragon City. Somebody asked to take my picture, and then sent me a copy of the print. Neat. Did that ever happen with you and Dad?
Hope all’s well there, and that you weren’t involved in that Alien Eggs thing I heard about there the other day. Anyway, things have settled down a bit at the office, so I expect to get out for more “action” in the coming weeks. With luck, I may get invited onto one of the Super Groups they have here.
Love,
Torchielle

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A good chunk of Saturday was taken up with the “P Squad” — top-to-bottom in the picture Margie’s P-Siren (Bubble Defender), Stan’s Puck Bunny (Grav Controller), and my Psi-clone (Illusion Controller).
Missions were slow (no tanks to wade in, no blasters to nuke the bad guys) but, frankly, nothing could effectively stop us, especially when we managed to dry-gulch a hapless thug like the one in the pic.

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After a while we got tired of (a) the Hollows, and (b) teaming with all squishies, so we headed back for the “real” part of town (Steel Canyons), and Stan swapped out his character for Robenmatsu 3 (tanker, on the right), so we had someone to draw good aggro for us.
Psi-clone is here in his going-to-church clothes …

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One of the really keen bits about CoH is teaming with the wife. That’s tended to involve lots of new characters, as Margie plays around with different archetypes. Here’s the Buckle Brigade: my AR blaster, Honeygun (left), with Margie’s longswords scrapper, Kazima (right).
(Kazima was a celestial type that Margie put together for the Necropolis game a while back. Since she couldn’t have wings, Margie went for the horns instead. Fun character, especially running around with that oversized broadsword …)

Because you really wanted to know. I can tell.
Current roster:

• 13 – Velvet Jones – Sci Tank (Inv/SS)
• 11 – Psi-clone – Mut Ctrl (Mind/Emp)
• 10 – Torchielle – Mut Blast (Fire/Energy)
• 10 – Snipehunter – Mut Blast (Energy/Energy)
• 9 – Selene – Mgc Scrap (Claws/Regen)
• 7 – Sister Chinook – Mgc Ctrl (Ice/Emp)
• 7 – Truly Unstable – Mut Def (Rad/Rad)
• 7 – Honeygun – Nat Blast (AR/Dev)

I could put the above info in the sidebar and update it there, as someone noted. But that would suggest an obsession with the game, like every other post was going to be about CoH or something, so I think I’ll give that a pass at the moment.
I set up Global Chat (“/chatbeta 1”), but I can’t figure out what I want to use as my “handle” — using a character name (the default, and, for me, currently “@Velvet Jones”) is a bit too … obsessive for my taste. But I don’t have a normal semi-anonymous nom de plume I use. And you only get one chance to redefine your handle. Hmmmm. It would, though, resolve the annoying problem of people building and changing around long lists of heroes for me to track. Ahem.
Our connectivity this weekend was really wonky. Mapserver disconnects way, way, way too frequent — except when in door missions (more limited maps) and while moving. Really irritating. I’m tempted to blame it on our network connection altogether, but that the server we were on (Champion) had an emergency we’re-kicking-you-off-now reboot last evening makes me think it wasn’t just us (though the problem didn’t seem to get better afterward). I did some preliminary research into a cable gateway; nothing resolved yet (and not likely to do so until next weekend at the earliest, anyway).
Margie’s all “What character do you want me to work on while you’re away on business this week?” To which I’m “What makes you think you won’t see me online? They have broadband at the hotel I’m at …”

FRIDAY
After Margie Gras, Margie and I did a bit of CoH, and went to bed (too late)
SATURDAY
Mostly CoH, mostly Margie and Stan and me, mostly in the Hollows in an oddball Illusion Controller/Grav Controller/Bubble Defender combo. Slow, but steady progress through way too many tunnels.
Eventually went elsewhere with Stan taking on his tank, which changed the dynamics a lot, obviously. Still, much enjoyment, and got Psi-Clone up to my second-highest character (at 11).
SUNDAY
Okay, so how many people have gone to church “as” their City of Heroes character? Not many, I suspect, for obvious reasons. Since Psi-Clone actually, ahem, resembles me and ensembles I wear (tan slacks, rust-red shirt, tweed sports coat), it wasn’t exactly a bizarro moment, except for the association that nobody around me except Margie would appreciate.
Back home after the birthday party Katherine went to, a bit more late afternoon CoH, interrupted by an emergency reboot on Champion, which gave us an opportunity to Feed and Bed Down the Child.
So, nothing too exciting, but some nice fun with the family.

Last night, I had problems in my CoH play:

1. I let myself get pulled into a mission just as I was heading off to bed — resulting in serious lateness of beddy-bye (and failure of alarm this morning to get me up on time).
2. The mission (Kill Dr. Vazhilok) was too high of a level for Velvet Jones (at 13), but since Lee, some other Phalanxers, and, eventually, Doyce were getting hooked in, and there were offers of Sidekicking and Exemplaring, I figured, what the heck.
3. I got almost no XP for stuff, except, to be sure, a 300XP/300INFL mission success bonus at the end. That seems to have been because, even SKed, there was an 8-level difference between my character (the lightest weight, SKed to 16) and the highest (24). Leastways, that’s how it was explained to me.
   We tried a couple of different configs of SKing. In some cases, the Mortificators and Abominations and Murk Eidolons were all green and grey (and went down with one blow for no XP), and in the final config they were all red and purple (but still were surprisingly hittable and fragile, though still with no XP).
   It was, however, fun. And I got a keen Enhancement I can’t use yet, but it has all the crinkly stuff around the edge that means its a DO or SO. Xenon something or another that can enhance my damage (always a good thing).

4. Group Invisibility is a wonderful thing, but, esp. combined with bubbles and a bunch of other combatants, it is almost frelling impossible to tell WTF is going on, or what you’re hitting, etc.
5. We killed the Good Doctor, but decided to clear his chamber in order to take a group pic for the FP. That’s when things went horribly, horribly wrong, starting with my suddenly getting whaled upon by three red Mortificators, who quickly took me down, down, down. I spent the rest of that battle exchanging quips with the equally dead Lee (which is never, to be sure, a dull passtime).
6. I had just Awakened myself, was stagging to my feet — and the cable modem service died. Or, at least, the cable modem started doing this cannot-find-data blinkenlights routine. And it wasn’t just a few seconds, but at least 15 minutes before we gave up and went to bed (Margie was being “kind” enough to stay up with me while she played with her new scrapper, Amorpha).
   So, after all that, no group pic. At least for me. Adventure Interruptus. Rrg.

Damnably enough, with all that, I still had fun (and got to wear my nice new FP duds for the mish). Go fig.

When I was a wee hero of 5th level or so (with Velvet Jones), I got an invitation to a Supergroup. “Woo-hoo!” I thought, and leapt at the chance (even though I didn’t have any Leap pool powers).
And … that was about it. The extent to which the SG played any role in my gaming was that the daily announcement, and other idle chatter, cluttered up my chat window. There was occasional news about task forces, all of which was geared toward a higher level than I.
But that was about it. Nobody contacted me. Nobody said hi. Nobody let little ol’ n00b me know what was shaking.
Then Doyce posted about SGs, and answered some questions thereto:

I think the lion’s share of the SG’s are really meant to be little more than a permanent Team-up, or a Friends List with a channel of its own and an excuse to have a slightly different costume. And that’s about it. Fine by me.

The bigger groups… the one’s that are more organized… the ‘real’ groups, if you’ll pardon my arrogance, are more than that.

a) Online friends and allies.
People that you like.

b) Support network.
“Guys, I need a hand with these Vahzilok.”
“What’s a ‘Crey Medic’? Are they dangerous?”
“Oh hell, I just dropped 54,000 influence on six of the wrong kind of enhancement!”
“Ugh… what power should I get?”

c) Pool of cool teammates.
Now, the bigger the group, the more likely this will work out for you. The Phalanx has about 55 people, and that works out to about 6 to 12 people on most nights, varying levels, with thicker clumps in the 20 to 30 range. That’s about a 20% online presence, so adjust accordingly for an SG of 10 people.

d) Folks who ‘get’ what you’re doing.

d-1) You’re in the Elements? Well, you know that it’s okay that you and the rest of the folks in your SG have more than a passing, polite interest in leveling. Conversation will be businesslike and efficient. Chatting in mid-mission is not done, and generally confines itself to ‘Boss’, ‘add!’, ‘snipe’, ‘pulling’, ‘found it’, and ‘need a Bounce Back’.

d-2) You’re in the Phalanx? You know that the folks in your SG will be chatting during the missions, in character: swearing about fascist mystic vampires, asking about where each other grew up… do your folks know you’re a ‘hero’… what a ‘hero’ *is*, and why those Crey Medics keep taking skin samples from you during fights.
Which sounded pretty cool. He made some recommendations, based on the groups he was involved in, and since I tend to trust the D-Man when it comes to RP, I made an application, and …
… well, after an interesting in-character interview at the feet of Prometheus in Atlas Park Lake, I am now a probationary member of the Freedom Phalanx. W00T!
And, in the course of the remaining evening, I chitchatted (in character) with various folks as they came on and off. I got invited onto an appropriate-level mission in the Hollows (where we eventually got our butts handed to us, sliced and arranged nicely on a bed of troll-green lettuce … but it was fun), and generally had a ball. Since Velvet is something of the bad girl/party girl, and has a nice Southern accent, there’s plenty of RP stuff I can do for flavor.
Again, fun stuff. It’s not necessarily what I’m going to be doing every outing, but it’s a nice added flavor bit for one of the characters. And the group seems pretty nice, which is an added bonus.
Oh, and I get a nice alternative Supergroup uniform! Which, as I look at it, looks sort of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleadery. Not that there’s anything wrong with that …

All on the Champion server:

• Velvet Jones – Tanker 13 (Inv/SS/Leap)
• Snipehunter – Blaster 10 (Energy/Energy/Flight)
• Selene – Scrapper 9 (Claws/Regen/Leap)
• Torchielle – Blaster 9 (Fire/Energy/Leap)
• Psi-clone – Controller 9 (Ill/Empathy/Flight)
• Sister Chinook – Controller 9 (Ice/Empathy/Leap)
• Blue.Shield – Tanker 6 (Inv/Axe)
• Truly Unstable – Defender 6 (Rad/Rad)

Because I know you were all just waiting on tenterhooks for one.
We played a bunch of CoH this weekend.
Margie actually developed some additional characters, trying out different archetypes. Unlike I, who simply creates things that sound cool, Margie actually does research on this stuff. Yeesh.
I ended up creating an additional character, too, so that I’d have someone immediately-post-tutorial to team with her. That would be Totally Unstable, my Rad/Rad Defender. Fun guy, and remarkably effective. He’s in the pic to the right with TT, Margie’s Flame Tanker.
We did a fair amount of teaming up with others — the Testerfolk (who were kind enough to SK us or Exemplar down, since they play around at rarified levels above us), Stan, Scott — or, at least, chatting with them. Two noteworthy adventures that ended rather frustratingly, though:

1. Hunting the Jewel of Hera in caves in Perez Park. Ended up with Stan and Margie and me having cleared the caves, found the jewel — but still lacking one dimwitted Circle of Thorns dude hiding somewhere. We ran around for a good 45 minutes in there, at least, searching high and low, before giving up and exiting. Frustrating.
2. Outcast base against Electric Eel in the Hollows. Yikes. Don’t know how the adventure geared up so high (perhaps Doyce’s scrapper), but after many painful adventures on the second floor, including deaths, we finally battled through to the bad guy’s lair, only to find multiple purple and red folks who were two-shotting Doyce and then finishing Stan and Margie and me up for dessert. Yikes, redux.
   After the last assault — where I could eventually see from my perspective on the floor that we were down to just Eel, and had him down to about 20% HP, the others on Doyce’s “I got more debt than George W. Bush” recommendation to simply quit the mission for another time.
   Rrg.

I did manage to get Velvet (after too many deaths) up to lucky 13th level (helped by some direction to stores in Steel Canyons by Doyce). I need to do some teaming with her, though — most of the activities were solo, and I want to get back into the fray with her.
Some of the best times were Margie and me running duos. Lots of fun pulling the bad guys and defeating them in detail. Good stuff. Left a lot of crap undone for the weekend, but it was a fun time nevertheless.

Well, City of Married Players, at least. Wouldn’t want anyone to be confused between a post title like that and a picture like this:

On the left we have my character, Sister Chinook, Magic Controller (ice control, empathy). On the right we have Margie’s K-Two, Natural Scrapper (martial arts, agility). These two bad good girls hit town in Paragon City last night, and the town (and the players) are still exhausted. We dinged up past 4th level by the time we called it a night, and I suspect we’ll be getting some more play in this weekend.
Fun stuff. Margie’s interesting to play with. As those who’ve RPGed with her won’t be surprised to hear, she’s a strong strategist and planner, and took advantage of the delay in installation yesterday to hit the CoH boards. She has strategies for who to hit first, how to maximize her powers, etc., and once she gets the interface down pat, she’s going to be a nightmare to the villains of CoH.
Especially with me to back her play. 🙂

Tuesday night, after Margie watched me got pounded into the concrete in City of Heroes: “You know, I might like to do that.” Followed by, “So tell me about the different archetypes and power sets.”
Wednesday morning, over the phone: “You know, you could set me up on one of the slots on your account, and then while you’re at your Search Committee meeting tonight …”

Continue reading “My Master Plan is Working, Bwah-ha-ha!“

Margie switched off the TV. “Honey, I’m heading up.”
“Okay, I’ll be coming up in just a minute.” I’d gotten back from the Vestry meeting, tidied up the kitchen for the cleaning people, and was finally getting down to some admittedly-brief City of Heroes play, running Velvet Jones around Steel Canyons, beating up on Outcast gangs.
“No problem,” she replied. She came over behind me, watching me play. She asked a couple of questions. I explained what I was doing, how I was balancing toggles, dealing with Endurance, what the various colors of villains meant, the difference between hunting and running missions, how the bad guys behaved, how the civilians behaved, etc. She pulled over a chair and sat down.
I got over near the south transit station, beat up on a couple of guys, then spotted a largish group. Four white, one yellow. Hmmm. I expressed a bit of concern over the numbers, but Margie said, “Go for it.”
Ah, well. So I powered up a bit, then threw myself into the fray. A minute or two later, five Outcasts down with no really serious threat that couldn’t be handled in-battle by healing and endurance Inspirations.
Catch breath. Look around. Hey, there’s another group, same setup. One yellow, four whites.
“Go ahead,” Margie said. “Impress your wife.”
So I made sure I was all healed up, powered myself up, and set once more into the fray.
Wham, bam, punch, munch. “You’re going critical,” Margie noted as my health flashed down to yellow, then orange. No healing Inspiration left, but Dull Pain should do it. Click.
Few moments later, I noticed it hadn’t gone off. And that — hey, that stun a moment ago must have knocked down my defensive toggles — son of a — gotta click aga–
Thud.
Just goes to show you, guys. Trying to show off for the women-folk in your life will only get you in trouble.

Okay, after this I promise at least three non-CoH posts. Really, truly.
City of Heroes trading cards, as mentioned yesterday.

Continue reading “Collect the whole set!”

While CoH has pretty strong solo play, even at higher levels, half the fun is teaming up (and more than half is teaming up with folks you know).
That said, teaming is a crap shoot. It’s difficult to tell, unless you’re doing the team picking, whether an invitation from someone to join a team is a good idea or a bad idea.
Rule #1: If the person couldn’t go to the trouble of coming up with an interesting comic book hero name, decline the invitation. “Fredasdfasdfasdf” is probably not who you want to run around with. It’s up to you whether proper capitalization counts.
That said, I dearly wish that there was a way to tell something about the person inviting you in, short of /telling them back to say, “Hey, what level are you, and what are you doing?” Which, I suppose, would be the proper and intelligent thing to do, but it’s annoying that there’s not some sort of facility to do that. (If there is, somebody clue me in.)
Rule #2: You do not want to be the highest level person in the group. Either your presence will skew the mission difficulty upwards (if you’re the leader), or else you’ll simply get the lowest experience rewards. In either case, it’s not a good thing. From a personal levelling standpoint you probably want to be mid-low in the group, though, obviously, not everyone can do that.
Now, there are things you can do with Exemplaring that I don’t yet fully grok. But, in general, if the rest of the team could either be your Sidekicks, or close to it, you probably don’t want to run with them unless they’re people you know you’re going to have fun with (because you know them).
Rule #3 (aka “Doyce’s Law”): Don’t be afraid to say “This is just nuts, let’s leave” about a mission — or, for that matter, about the team you’re on, if it’s clear that they’re not a disciplined group. Undisciplined teams are inevitably dead teams. Missions that start out all red and purple are not going to get easier further in. Teams that don’t recognize that aren’t smart, and dumb teams are inevitably dead teams, too. Suck up the time investment and quit, before you throw good online hours (and experience debt) after bad.
Okay, enough nattering for the moment.

Create your own CoH trading card. Coolness.
(via Doyce)

Well, since Champion just went down, current update …
I’ve narrowed my playtime to just four characters (which is still too many for quick advancement, but there you go).
Velvet is still my highest, at 11. She’s beginning to get a high enough level that she needs to start adventuring in scarier places, like Steel Canyon, or (again) Perez Park. She’s still a high-power punch-em gal, though she’s now had a couple of very bad team experiences in the Hollows that have given her a bit of debt.
Snipehunter, my previous hard luck case, is up to 9. Been on some good teams with him. The “snipe” power has come in quite handy. Torchielle, his fire-based sister, is up to 7, and I still like her best.
Psi-Clone has been the most fun, though, between his “hey, you, you now hate your fellow bad guy, so go whale on him” powers and his blind and his not-insubstantial spectral damage … plus, in case folks might think he’s a mean SOB, he’s doing heal stuff for parties, too, so that’s all good. Endurance-draining, to be sure, but a good excuse to stay far, far away from the action …
Mission-wise, it’s been a mixed bag past few. Had fun with Avocet on a larger mission, and with a number of Stan’s characters (with a number of mine). Stan and I SKed to Doyce and Jackie last night, which taught us both a lot about the fine art of weakling blaster/controllers and how to support the big guns effectively without being a target yourself.
I’ve had good teams and bad teams, the latter defined as either (a) not well managed, with nobody directing or nobody listening to direction, and/or (b) going up into missions that were way, way, way too overpowered for us, leading to grizzly deaths. And, of course, there’s the definition of insanity, which is trying the same thing twice, thinking the results will be different …
… but when it works — when you battle through, when the plan is followed, when it succeeds even after it all goes to hell, when the bad guys fall like chaff or fall only after repeated, desperate pummeling — then, damn, it works. And it’s a hell of a rush.
No regrets so far.

I’ve shied away from MMORPGs for years, realizing that, with aliases like “EverCrack,” it was likely to be too addictive and too much of a time sink in a life like mine that’s already 120% books. Add to that a distinct lack of interest in most of them (except to occasionally look over th shoulder) and that was pretty easy.
When Doyce, then Jackie, then others I knew started getting hooked on City of Heroes, and when I had a chance to see it, I knew that I was doomty-doom-doom-doomed.

Continue reading “City of Heroes – Random Thoughts”