Golden Judgment (the Tank) and Velorio (the Dual Pistols Blaster)
This isn’t going to be any detailed guide to the Dual Pistols power — more scribbling down my own notes for next time with Dual Pistols. I ran Velorio through Going Rogue up to 20 with the set.
As a set, DP is lovely. The animations (some of which vary from use to use of a given power) are lovely. Sometimes a bit much (throwing around ammo in all directions seems wasteful, vs. a flame blaster’s AoE attack), but overall quite nice, from the fancy-twirling Dual Wield, to the deliberately lethal Executioner’s Shot.
The biggest nuance with the power set is Swap Ammo. You can, in theory (and, perhaps, for RP) go without the power. Velorio didn’t, which meant I had to decide in any given combat (or even during it, since it’s a quick swap) between:
Basic bullets: baseline Lethal damage, chance of knockback/down. The knockback chance made it less attractive to me, duoing with a Tank. For a soloist — or someone who wants basic bullets for their own character’s artistic integrity — it’s fine.
Cryo bullets: partial Cold damage, +slow. I believe the damage is a little less than basic bullets. I tended to use these when we were being mobbed by more powerful opponents — slowing their attacks relative to us was a force multiplier.
Incendiary bullets: partial Fire damage, DoT. Net-net, a higher damage set, albeit with DoT. I tended to use this when we were plowing through lower-level types.
Chemical bullets: partial Toxic damage, damage debuff. I tended to use these when going up against a boss — anything to lessen the damage the Tank was having to stand up to would keep my delicate little Blaster in better health.
There’s a lot I haven’t played with in the set — I skipped the first quickie power, as well as Suppressive Fire, and, at level 20, hadn’t hit my snipe yet, etc. But it’s nicely done. I enjoyed it.
Played Going Rogue most of the day yesterday. We got our first duo through the Level 20 Content — Margie’s Golden Judgement (Elec/Shield Tank) and my Velorio (Dual Pistols/Mental Blaster), running as Wardens (“good” Resistance).
I have to say the justification for the transition from Praetoria to “Primal Earth” was a bit silly (“We’re going to insert you into Earth society to demonstrate that not all Praetorians are bad guys out to conquer the world, so that the folks there will help us against Emperor Cole”), but the actual execution of it was nice, including the choice of going to Paragon City or the Rogue Isles. (I would have liked to have been a “hero” in RI, but that’s not an option provided.)
It will be interesting to see what bits of the Praetorian storyline carry over into Paragon; there’s at least one contact provided that sounds like it’s involved in that.
Anyway the execution was nice, even sentimental. I look forward to seeing how it’s framed for Loyalists when we get there with our next pair. I also look forward to returning to Praetoria for future stories.
A few other items:
It took me a while to get the hang of multiple ammos with Dual Pistols. I have a post coming on that.
Going Rogue is very, very arc-driven (and meta-arc driven). It’s a much tighter story than CoV, let alone CoH. It’s the right direction for them to be going. Question is, can they retrofit some of that into the existing game content?
Had a few problems on some missions with only the person who’s mish it was getting the exposition dump (or dramatic farewell) at the end from the last person you talk to. Which was okay, since Margie and I play in the same room, but would have been a bit more problematic otherwise.
The final mission we were on was focused on Enriche, the rather creepy, probably mind-controlling soft drink / fortified water that everyone in Praetoria drinks. Which was fine, except we hadn’t really done any stories related to Enriche. Not sure if we missed something, or if that’s in other Loyalist/Resistance arcs, but it sort of came out of nowhere.
Going Rogue has clearly perked up my attention in City of Heroes. How long that will last, going through the different types of characters possible, remains to be seen, but it’s been quite enjoyable so far.
Now to go through the semi-wrenching transition from tank/blaster to scrapper/controller …
I’ve been playing a fair amount of the “Going Rogue” world in City of Heroes. Various random thoughts.
While not “CoH 2,” Going Rogue sets a whole new standard for arc quality and world-building. I’m almost afraid to run through some of the older CoH bits. There are few silly, random, Hunt X, Get Y, Do Z cookie-cutter missions.
A huge (but obvious) improvement: increased and randomized mob spawn points. You know that room (you know, that one) where the opponents are always right there so you come around the corner here and do this and … nope. No more. Discovering that the bad guys aren’t in the places you remember is remarkably refreshing.
The morality system is fascinating, but is annoyingly nuanced in its presentation, but binary in its results. It’s got all the irksomeness of those tests “A is like B as [blank] is like C … and you don’t get to ever argue as to which of the various arguments for the options that could fill in the blank you chose. So, for example, I am running a Resistance character (Velorio) who faced a decision point where, after much soul-searching, she had to choose to oppose another Resistance person’s effort. Okay, so a great RP kind of thing. But the result was not just some concerns amongst my peers, or an evaluation in the cold light of day of what I should have done but … I was immediately labeled Loyalist. I was able to continue in the Resistance storyline (good thing, since Margie chose differently), but I couldn’t use the Resistance entrance to the Underground, etc.
There are still a few bugs here. Margie and I went into the final battle of the Penelope Yin arc, and because we were labeled as different allegiances, our ally was always attacking one or the other of us (and we could PvP each other, too). Made our mission a lot more … interesting.
I love that there are a lot of folks on the street who are potential enemies — but only if you attack them. That makes a lot more sense than the opponent-filled streets of Paragon (and a bit more over the similar situation in the Rogue Isles.
Enriche! It’s wonderful! And creepy!
I love that this parallel world not only has Marcus Cole in a parallel role (Spock! With a beard!), but a number of other characters from CoH / CoV — including minor ones suddenly having more prominence.
The various GR arcs are much more interesting than the hand-off between various contacts pointing to various mob types to now fight. “Now it’s time to go see Fred Smith and fight a bunch of Circle of Thorns opponents.” There’s real difference in sophistication of the whole thing. Well done.
Would folks in Dimension X really refer to another Earth as “Primal Earth”? Yeah, didn’t think so.
Overall, triffic stuff. Folks who liked CoH/CoV, but fell away because of the repetitiveness, should really consider some CoGR.
I cannot, at this point, imagine rolling up a new character for a while who isn’t starting in the Praetorian “Going Rogue” character.
Part of this is because, frankly, the CoH starting arc is so threadbare and worn that running a new toon through it would be painful. CoV is only slightly less so. Co … hmmmm … is there a convenient TLA (Three-Letter Acronym) for Going Rogue? CoR (City of Rogues)? CoP (that’s Cathedral of Pain)? CoY (City of Yellow)? Anyway, the new material is fresh, which counts for a lot.
Further, it’s so well crafted. There’s a story behind what’s going on. CoH’s early zones are are disparate micro-adventures, roughly introducing various factions and powers but without much intelligence behind them. CoV sets up the whole “Chosen One” theme, but that’s pretty monolithic.
But Going Rogue does a great job of branching adventures, and the whole “choose your morality” thing. In fact, not only is there the whole quest of whether you are a hero / vigilante / villain / rogue thing, but within Praetoria there’s the question of whether you are a Loyalist and Resistance — and even within that, you can have Loyalists who are guardians of the public welfare or just out to be publicity and power hounds, or you can have Resistance who are believers in freedom or are just in it for the anarchy.
It’s a system that puts the RP back into MMORPG. And it’s very nicely done, supported by a nice cast of characters and a world that is such a melange of cliches (bright utopia that’s actually a tyrannical dystopia except that the rebellion isn’t as wholesome and idealistic as it seems) that it plain old works for purposes of the simulation.
It’s not quite CoH 2, but it’ll do for a while.
A few other notes:
I would spend money for some swag with the Praetorian / Emperor Cole propaganda posters. They are superb.
I don’t know how I ever raised a Scrapper before the days of having (via vet rewards) two ranged powers and an additional melee power from the get-go. I know the vet rewards are supposed to be more QoL than game-changing, but, damn, that (and getting an early travel power) rocks.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love how the auction house interface has evolved? Now if they just put vendors and crafting tables in the auction houses, my crafting joy would be complete.
Praetoria is shiny. All sorts of lovely mirrored surfaces, reflective windows, etc. Almost like it was designed that way.
The ambiguous moral underpinnings of Emperor Cole’s realm are interesting. I look forward to running through both side to see if the “freedom fighters” of the Resistance are as great a mix of admirable and dubious as the “law & order” types of the Loyalists. As it is, the greater interest of making initial decisions would lead me to point any newcomer to play in Going Rogue vs. a standard Atlas/Mercy Hero/Villain startup.
Eleventy million kudos for Paragon Studios realizing that people have differently-sized monitors, therefore the splash screens need to not get all expanded out of proportion.
Good news: the markets are now merged, so that the odd disparities of what goes for how much between Redside and Blueside will no longer exist. Bad news: all selling history is wiped out, so nobody knows how much to sell anything for. Yet.
All the servers conned yellow — except Freedom (red) and Virtue (red, then gray). Wow.
We went ahead and genned a couple of new toon for Praetoria: Ms. Crackle (the Praetorian version of Miss Crackle, and in this case an Electric/Storm Controller), and Positive Force (Kin/Electric Brute). We had a good time, albeit with a few faceplants … but I’m seriously thinking an Empathy+Brute duo would be unstoppable.
A few dozen more kudos for allowing different levels of sophistication going into the initial missions, allowing you to be walked through stuff or thrust more directly into it as a Vet.
Since rumor has it that I18 and “Going Rogue” go live Real Soon Now (like … today?), we did a bit of Multiple Mastermind action, bringing our robots and gang members into play on Cimerora and elsewhere.
We actually got our hats handed to us multiple times (and rather dented they were, in fact), due to it being a while since we’d played these toons (Oh, hey, I can put up an impenetrable force bubble when things go pear-shaped, can’t I) and the fact that we were running around at +2 levels, x2 members. Which easily led to multiple purple bosses when our pets exercised their usual lack of discipline.
Still, ’twas fun, and we’re up to 38 with them, so that’s all good.
We’ve been pondering what to start running under the Rogue model, and we’ll probably create new toons to run around Praetoria with. Not sure with what, though we’ll probably experiment with some of the new power sets. Margie did some beta of the new setting, and it sounds (and looks) pretty nice.
Yes, it’s actually news around here when I do some gaming. Last night it was CoH, doing our Lvl 42 scrapper team, Rita & Runt.
Lots of fun, but being at that level means you have a ton of powers and attacks and, aside form it being a button-munching fest, it takes a while to get the attack chains back. Especially when it’s been 300-odd days since you last played that toon …
That all said (and we had fun, and pretty much wiped up anything we went against), I want to comment on the best QoL improvement EVAH:
The changes the Auction Houses.
Yeah, the changes have been around a few issues, but I just want to comment on them: this was the interface we needed when Wentworths came out. Drag something (enhancement, recipe, salvage) into the auction panel. If it’s salvage you need for a recipe you have, it warns you. Then you can instantly get, on the same screen, the most recent prices for that piece. Choose a price, and have at it. Ditto for making bids on items, with the search line being quick and auto-completing.
None of this is capability that wasn’t available in the original interface, but here it’s actually convenient, quick, and useful. It’s as close to a joy to use as such an interface could be, and it makes buying and selling stuff (auctionable stuff, at least) as close to painless as possible.
Yeah, having the actual crafting be a separate location is still irksome. Salvage management is annoying. The actual crafting stuff is a distraction (though, ultimately, less so than having to constantly refresh DOs and SOs). But at least they’ve gotten the auction house interface right, and that’s no small thing.
One of the mission types in Star Trek Online is exploring unexplored sectors — unmapped areas where you find anomolies and either scan them or visit the previously unvisited planets they represent.
Margie and I, duoed, always seem to have problems getting into these planets. If we both show up there, then we end up with each of us having two mission choices — “Explore system,” or “Explore system ([team-mate name]).”
It seemed that no matter which set of options we chose, either only one of us got in, or we ended up at different worlds.
Episode 2 has not improved this any. So we blew it off and did something else (i.e., beat up on a lot of Gorns). But it was irksome. And we couldn’t find any teaming options that might explain what was going on or what we should do differently.
Yes, it’s been a long dry patch. Well, for me at least. Margie’s been busy as a bee playing CoX, as well as [REDACTED DUE TO SOMETHING WE CAN’T TALK ABOUT OR WRITE ABOUT OR EVEN HINT AT, REALLY].
Still, on Wednesday night, we ended up going in and playing some CoX, and I’ll admit I was totally embarrassed at some of the oohing and aahing I made at the New, Improve, Old-to-the-Rest-of-You Auction House interface. Eleventy-zillion percent better.
We ran around with Araware and Fazenda, had a fun time, leveled to 31, looked at the Storm Knights roster and were a bit sad, then whomped on bad guys.
Cue the trials and travails with my laptop. Timing is everything. Rrg.
Sunday afternoon, we spent a goodly chunk of time playing our first STO in a long time. (I think we didn’t play during any of Season 1.1, and now it’s 1.2, crikey!) Finished the City on the Edge of Never arc (which was much easier in a duo than soloing), got up to LC4, good times had by all, etc.
Nothing wild or exciting or mind-bending (though getting eleventy-zillion accolades when we signed onto STO was kind of trippy). Just some gaming fun. About time.
Hmmm. Is the CO interface to Twitter not working? Margie’s been doing a bunch of Champions Online the past week (mostly to ding Stilt-Walker up to 40), and not only did she do that yesterday, but she’s also been doing all the Shiny Vibora Bay Revelations stuff and, I have no doubt, been racking up Accolades left, right, and center.
But … no Twitter love to BoH about it. Sad …
Anyhoo, congrats to Margie for hitting level-cap 40! Woot! We need to get a (better) picture of Stilt-Walker posted up here while we still have active accounts …
UPDATED: To add picture of Stilt-Walker from her profile. Which really doesn’t do her justice.
I dinged from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander in STO yesterday with Bierzein, my Trill Science Officer. That’s my first LC — huzzah!
Since I haven’t talked about the leveling process in STO (and the rank promotion isn’t clearly laid out either) … let’s discuss it. If nothing else, it will give me some notes for when I do it with the next toon.
Leveling within a Rank
STO is kind of weird with the leveling bits. Each rank has 10 grades within it (tracked very efficiently across the top). But the grades (at least on the Lt level) don’t make that much difference — there are a couple of skills that come available mid-rank, but there’s no huge power ding.
(Actually, there is a “ding” — a visual effect, and a hearty “Well done, Lieutenant” from Leonard Nimoy. But it’s not a sudden massive and obvious empowering.)
Advancement in STO during a rank is through skills and skill points. The grades, in many ways, serve more to give a short-hand as to where you are. As it stands, every mission you get additional skill points for yourself and for your bridge officers (the latter share a pool). They can be applied at any time, but when they hit some sort of threshold a “Skill up!” small flasher appears in the upper left corner. Click on it and apply the skill points for yourself and for your bridge officers (one or more of them) and you’re done. (Be sure and click Apply!)
It’s very subtle in effect, but it’s a constant advancement, which is kind of nice. While the gaps between levels in CoX can drive one to despair sometimes, the constant application of skill points in STO gives you something regularly to do, even if you’re seeing more obvious changes from kits and drops and other externals.
Leveling between Ranks
It took me a bit of time to figure out what to do with leveling Bierzein between Lt and LC. It’s possible there are difference at other ranks, and, of course, Klingon (native) players will deal with something in parallel but with all the details different.
Actually Getting the Promotion: First off, I was on a mission chain when I got the big glowy-congrats. I decided to finish it up, just becauise of transit time. So I finished those missions as “Lt 11.” Right, until I actually get the promotion, I’m still a Lieutenant.
I knew I had to go back to Earth Spacedock for promotion (and picking up my New Ship!), so I transwarped back there.
No announcement.
I docked and went aboard.
Nada.
I trotted over to Admiral Quinn (putting away my phaser rifle into katana-space first, to be polite).
His tone of voice made it clear that he had no new missions for me and, in fact, was a bit peeved I hadn’t finished the ones still in progress.
I ran around a bit on Spacedock trying to figure out who I had to talk to. Despite the signs on the wall, the place is not as well organized as it might be (it would be handy if the map showed the various areas).
Finally I realized, “Hey, I never applied those last skill points I acquired. I wonder …”
Applied them to Bierzein, and, “Hey!” Admiral Quinn was suddenly hailing me, congratulating me, and summoning me “back to Stardock” (bugged) where I should meet with him personally and give me stuff.
Admiral Quinn has a short memory.
So I ran back to Quinn. Saluted. He congratulated me, and then handed me a plaque to turn in for One (1) Free Starship.
My New Ship: The gal I needed to do that with, Lt Laurel, was upstairs (up the ramp, up the turbolift) from the Shipyard section of Spacedock. I went up to her, got the lecture the different types of ships I could choose from …
… to makea long story short, Escorts are scrapper/blasters, high on lethality and speed and maneuverability, but glass cannons (to hear some) in prolonged combat. Cruisers are tanks/defenders, very tough, able to assist other ships, and pretty unmaneuverable. Science Vessels (Support Ships, some call them) have high shields, specialize in debuffing the bad guys, and are the controllers of the STO universe.
Any type of captain (tactical, science, engineering) can operate any type of vessel (indeed, if you strike it rich, you can actually buy additional ships to swap between, or so they say). The differentiator is less with the captain (who lends some skills to whatever ship they are on) than on intrinsic powers of the vessel class plus the bridge crew (different ships allow added bridge officers off the appropriate type).
Since Bierzein was going to be soloing, I decided to play it safe with a cruiser. (Margie and I have a couple of duos we’re running, and will likely be doing more mixed mini-fleets.)
All that Laurel gave me was a requisition slip for the ship of my choice. The rest of the room is full of educational displays about the ship types, plus guys who could sell me all sorts of ship goodies, but only if you had Yet Another Specialty Currency (one of my minor peeves with STO), or maybe vastly more of a currency I actually had.
From there I had to run downstairs and find the guy who does ship requisitions, Ensign Obin. There I actually received the new ship of my dreams …
… which I immediately renamed (both ship name and registration number) — once, for free. I’d now be commanding the USS Ad Astra, successor to the USS Per Aspera. (The renaming button comes up in the normal window that shows you and your bridge crew.)
I then turned around and talk to the guys (Golos Vell and Dirz Raxx) who let me design what my ship looks like. I love this particular STO feature.
Finally, I went over to Ensign Shalah to buy stuff for my ship. Her selection wasn’t very good, so I took the opportunity to run over to the Auction HouseExchange to buy (or sell) some swag. I decided, though, before screwing around with changing the default weapons config on my cruiser (phaser array and photon torpedoes fore and aft), I’d see how she flew.
My New Bridge Officers: My new ship came with some new bridge officer slots. You can requisition officers with Elsa Morel over in Personnel, or check to see if you have some still pending to fill in. With my cruiser, I got an additional engineering station for a lieutenant, so I promoted my existing Engineering officer to LT, and brought in a new ensign who’d been made available to me in the past.
My New Dress Whites: I also get a free costume token when I got promoted. That’s nice, too. I could get the new costume from Ghemik Telur (a simple tailor) in Requisitions, but decided to stick with what I had. Bierzein is not much of a clothes horse.
The Ceremony: After all the above (though you can do it at any time after the promotion, if you want), I ran over the Stateroom (auditorium) and talked to Commander Menn Hilo, the guy at the podium who’s usually droning on and on about astrophysics. He offered me formal congratulations and give a nice salute, as did other folks in the room. Pictureworthy (hence the picture at the top of the post).
And that’s it! I was now a Lieutenant Commander, and when I next beamed up to my ship — it was my new ship, but with all the familiar faces (and one more) around me. Ready for the next adventure! Huzzah!
I just came the the realization that I have next to zero interest in ever playing Champions Online again. Which ticks me off to no end since (as I’ve said a dozen times) there are so many things about the game I like. I just find the overall experience an awful, not-terribly-fun grind.
On the other hand, we put in our pre-orders for City of Heroes‘ “Going Rogue” expansion, which in theory means we immediately get Dual Pistols to play with. Woot!
(Interestingly enough, as I was watching the DP trailer, it occurred to me that the power just looks a bit goofy, given that in CoX animation, the bad guys aren’t being immediately knocked back / down / dead in in all directions due to the shooting. I’m not sure why that feels more wrong for pistols than for, say, fireballs, but it does.
So I still need to get onto CoX and do my server transfers before they (finally) stop extending the free server transfer service.
On the gripping hand, I’m still busy playing Star Trek Online whenever time permits, so no time for supers.
Why is every battle in Star Trek Online to the death?
That’s not quite true — there are (in my up-to-LT9 experience) a couple of canned cases where folks surrender (rescue the scientists from the Gorn ship, for example). But 99% of the guys you encounter fight a Bitter Battle to the Death. Klingons, Gorn, Undine, Orions … they’re all totally into fighting until you blast them into a flaming hulk whose warp core shortly goes boom.
Why?
I think it would be interesting if at least some of the “Bad Guys” were willing to try and flee. Yeah, the Klingons are all about honor and that, but even there, “Only a fool fights in a burning house.” Some of these guys should be willing to wild-weasel their way out of combat, to live and fight another day. Even moreso Orion pirates, and Undine with added info about the Federation.
And, in some cases, people should be willing to surrender. And then the Feds have to decide whether they can afford to just leave the shattered hulk behind (to perhaps escape), send over a prize crew (reducing overall ship efficiency), or blow the bad guys to anti-matter flinders.
But every fight to the death (except when the Fed ship manages to break away)? Not quite believable.
In a recent interview, Star Trek Online’s exec producer Craig Zinkievich indicated that STO might need a more significant “death penalty” than just going back to the nearest respawn point. Or at least, that’s what some players are clamoring for.
Zinkievich explained Cryptic’s feelings on death penalties, saying that they are usually just a time penalty, preventing players from getting straight back into the game and having fun.
“I get that people want to feel a sense of risk when they’re fighting in battles, but if the only emotion you feel when you’re playing a game is fear that you’re going to lose some time due to an arbitrary gameplay mechanic, we’re probably not doing something right, ” he said.
However, the game’s developers aren’t against the principle entirely; “we are looking into finding a meaningful way to give players a deeper sense of loss when something bad happens. But we want it to feel right, rather than just like an arbitrary penalty.”
I’m of two minds here, of course. I don’t know about anyone else, but seeing my beloved ship blow up and suffering for 30 seconds of cooldown before getting back into action does feel meaningful.
And what are the alternatives? Thinking of CoX and CO and (I believe) WoW …
Loss of experience or slowdown of experience gain (CoX): You could justify this as saying that Star Fleet looks askance on ships being driven to (“near”) destruction, and so your meteoric rise to the admiralty is slowed for a bit. I find this irksome, but not horrifically bad. (By the way, when is STO getting a “Level Pact” feature?)
Loss of capability (CO): As you succeed in CO missions, you get stars, up to five, which provide a buff. As you get killed, you lose the stars. This has the paradoxical effect of making you less effective against the things you have to go up against again. I don’t like it.
Loss of swag (WoW): I’m thinking here of the mechanic of having your body looted, etc. This is perhaps the most realistic — a finite chance of some system or feature on your ship getting wiped out, or inventory lost — even (perhaps with successive failures) the death of a Bridge Officer. Eek. Most realistic, but I’d be seriously hating it. It suffers from the disadvantage of #2 (making you less effective against a foe you’ve already established is dangerous), unless you delay it until after the battle/mission is over (you survived, but those great twin disruptor cannons that your engineer kept together with spit and baling wire have finally given up the ghost — time to return to Star Fleet for a refit). Losing a BO, though — yeah, I can see it game-wise, but I’d hate it play-wise.
So the variation on #3 perhaps makes most sense if you have to do something about deaths. And, yes, it adds some “realism.” I’m still not convinced it’s necessary, or that folks who take untoward risks now will be all that much less likely to do so even with penalties.
Both our duo and my solo are LT7. I’m enjoying each new zone as I go into it (I’ve just started to scratch the Neutral (PvP?) Zone stuff with my solo).
It’s fun enough that I keep waiting for the next time I can hop on and play. That hasn’t happened for a long while with CoX, and never really did happen with CO.
I do wish some of the social stuff that currently works in CO — auto-Tweets and a “portal” page for my toon — were working in STO. And I wish the zoning with team mates worked a bit more solidly. And I wish the documentation were better.
But aside from that, I don’t have much to complain about. Except not enough hours in the day to play as much as I want to.
I don’t have a lot imaginative to say about STO. I’m quite pleased with the game thus far, though — it feels more polished in many areas than CO did on launch.
Some items for improvement (of course):
It feels like there’s a vast array of both options / powers / skills and places and ways to display them. That’s gotten me confused so far more than once. “Wait, hey — where was that power lurking? And why can’t i drag it within the tray?” An example of that is the “hidden” Transwarp power.
Some of the peripheral mission content is still a bit wonky. Contacts that don’t glow when you approach them. Unreachable anomalies (ground and space). Bits like that. Still early days and all, but it’s a rough spot that needn’t be there. Plus, no explanation, to date, about what to do with all those samples being swept up.
While far, far better than CO, there are still plenty of places where it isn’t clear the distinction between different gadgets one picks up. Is X better than Y? If it’s just different, how is it different? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of room to figure that out other than picking up X and seeing how it works.
It’s great that they’ve added sensors (V) to find anomalies. It would be even greater if they could spot the nearest one and the one after that, so that our duo could clean things up better.
“Pick up items” is not always clear, persistent enough on screen, etc. Indeed, a lot of those screen prompts tend to flit past too quickly.
Contacts sometimes come back, over and over again, to get you to listen to something.
They seriously need to do something about the spamming on the chat channnels.
On the other hand:
It is so nice that you don’t have to trot back to Starbase Earth all the time to do stuff. You can contact contacts (Hail Starfleet) immediately, you can level when you get the points while still in space, you can sell through the Replicator if your trays get full. There are things that have to be done back at Earth, but it’s a lot less inconvenient.
The game remains very pretty and fun, with an array of ground and space combat scenarios. I don’t know if it’s balance or if we’ve gotten a lot better, but the space combat seems a lot less lethal than it was in Beta.
We’re up to Lt. 4 with our duo. I’ve also started a solo character just for those occasions when it makes more sense. I’m pleased by the amount of individual detailing and configuration you can do with your lead toon and his/her crew; I’m wondering how much of that will translate into personal RPGing (in my head, if nothing else). I’m also wondering whether the 2 slot limit (more slots available, doubtless, at the C-Store) will feel like a limitation at some point, or when/if we’ll want to see a respec sort of mechanic.
Well, the STO discs arrived today, so after Kitten was to bed we fired things up and had at it.
I’m Lt. Rho Nyn, Bajoran, commanding the USS Audacious. Margie is Lt. Terry Chestnut, human, commanding the USS Rembrandt. Together, we fight crime! Um … if Star Fleet asks us to.
We’ve gone through the intro tutorial adventures, wandered around the Earth Starbase, and now are ready for adventure. And, ah, Starfleet Credits.
I have my account set up to shoot Accolade notices out to Twitter (for here). I need to set up Margie’s for same.
The only problem we’re having at the moment is that Margie’s sound isn’t working. Which is weird because it works for everything else, including Champions Online. But for Star Trek Online purposes, her computer is deaf. Or mute. Irksome, in any case.
At any rate — expect some Star Trek adventures over the weekend. Make it so!
UPDATE: To fix the problem, go into (on the login screen), go to Options, Advanced, and then indicate “Ignore X64 Check” … and it works. Of course! It’s obvious! “A child could do it!”
(Margie originally wrote this as a comment down in this thread, but it was a big enough effort to warrant its own post.)
As the recent tweet dump confirms, my main solo Stilt Walker hit 35 over the weekend. I would like to get her to 40 before I say goodbye. I am a completionist that way. I hope it’s not a grind.
One of the funny differences between CO and CoX that I recently noticed. With CoX, a ding means more, especially if it is a power level. With CO, after about 20, I might have 2-3 level-up sitting there waiting for me to hit the powerhouse. I think there are 3 reasons for that.
First, it takes a long time to decide what power or attribute to take. The matrix powers are a blessing and a curse. There are too many choices and it’s too hard to figure out what X really does, much less if X is better than Y. At the end of a session, I can easily spend hours leveling, selling, and crafting. And I don’t take any of those too seriously.
Second slots, after you have slotted your block and slotted passives, you are left with mostly attacks or junk. I want a well rounded character. Slotting a character for Aggressive, Defensive and Balanced builds doesn’t work for me. I don’t want to spend the extra power pick and I know that I am unlikely to switch between builds effectively. Don’t even get me started on having different enhancements in each build.
Finally it’s hard to feel good about your selection. You are always worried that you made a bad choice. With respecs being as rare as hen’s teeth or a paid commodity, it is easy to second-guess yourself and also feel that each level choice is a major commitment.
All of the above make CO less friendly to the casual gamer.
I’ve also grown to appreciate CoX enhancement slots. When I slot an enhancement I know exactly what it’s doing and how it is improving that power and my overall character. I hate trying to decide what widget is best for each of my 6 slots. If I take X it will improve Y but drop Z. Is cool thing A really worth dropping stats B and C. I think that CoX has struck an interesting balance with the crafting system. You can slot just your drops or just SOs and have a useful character. Or you can dig into the details and find the sets that tweak your toon just the way you want it.
And finally, I always have and always will hate having one bag for all my crap. Mission stuff should not take up space. I dislike having to wade through crafting, mission and devices to find my new enhancements.
It is the housekeeping that frustrates me. Having to break off your cluster of missions deep in the zone to find someone to sell your crap to. (I know you can just drop it, but that’s wasteful.) Having a crafting system that doesn’t give you anything much of value other than consumables. You can find better stuff cheaper in the auction house. That is, if you are willing to spend the time and brain drain to use the auction house – YUCK. That is after you go across 3 zones to get to the auction house (I’m talking to you, Lemuria).
Why can’t you sell stuff to more NPCs?
Why do you have to physically touch a contact to end a mission or get a new one?
Why do some areas have more missions than you can have at one time?
Why does it take so long for the last mcguffin to drop from the mob you have been farming for an hour?
I will be curious to see how STO handles some of this. How much of these issues are a management decision to make it take longer to get to level 40 and how much was a team or system decision?
I’ve been thinking — really thinking — about Champions Online. And whether I’m going to play it any more.
Having been back with gameplay the past few days, I’ve done some CO solo … some CO in a duo with Margie … and some CoX in a duo with Margie.
Duoing with Margie is fun whatever the game. But I really had a lot more fun playing CoX.
There are things I like, really like, about CO.
The graphics. The look. I know this is hardly a unanimous opinion, but I really like them. They fit the genre. The characters also, for the most part, move well. And I think the stance stuff is a great further differentiator (Beast stance ftw!).
I like that many powers have multiple actions associated with them, esp. in the martial arts / swords categories.
Acrobatics is a great-looking “travel” power. Especially in Beast Stance. And Teleport is handled well. And I like all the flight/TK variants.
I like the idea behind a classless system. It promises flexibility to play the way you want, and create the character you want. You can make your concept character with minimum interference from the game.
The physical scope of the game is also neat. No War-Walled neighborhoods. Tundra, jungle, desert, urbanscape, etc.
I like the power-building mechanism, and, yeah, I think blocking is a cool thing. The concept behind the way powers in combat are handled is a serious step above the attack-chain-ridden CoX.
The shardless setup is also cool — no name contention, easy to join up with friends, no “deserted” servers.
So, lots to like. But it’s mostly lots to like in the concept, the idea, the presentation. The actual execution continues to cause me fits.
The execution of the classless system sucks. Powers and power sets are grossly unbalanced. If you decide to go for a simple class … well, you’re crippling your character from the get-go. Melee and ranged characters have differ severe disadvantages. Figuring out what a power actually does is like pulling teeth — copious notes online with poor explanations. And the complete flexibility of the system means it’s impossible to find a decent guide (assuming you can find anything on the boards). As a result, I always feel like whatever choice I make at each step is probably a horrible mistake that’s going to cripple my character.
Which I feel like. Honestly, I feel weak in any of my toons, solo or duo. Objectively, that may not be true, but I feel like too many battles (esp. solo) are life-or-death, and that the balance point can be tipped way too easily. I don’t want the game to be trivially easy by any means, but when I play a super-hero I would kind of like to feel … heroic. Is it build? Is it balance? Is it improper expectations? I have no way of knowing.
Acrobatics is the coolest-looking thing on 2-4 feet, unless you have to actually climb up anything. Sniper on the rooftops? Sorry, Kitsune — try the fire escape. Add the instant slow-down as soon as you get aggroed by someone (inevitable as you lope at ground level through the city), and travel is a real drag.
Trainers and stores (assuming one must have them) are annoyingly centralized, meaning you have to travel to them. (See above, though it’s an annoyance regardless of the travel power.)
I’d have explored a lot more of the system if I weren’t limited to 8 toons, total. Sure, I can buy more, but … no.
It’s not the limited content I mind so much, as that the content doesn’t do a great job (after the intros in both zones) of guiding you to it. What should I do next? Everything? Or a few things? Hit every contact you find, and it all starts to blur, story-wise. Just take a few at a time, and you discover that you have to re-clear zones because of mission overlaps.
The landscape maps may be War Wall-less, but the layout is as silly sometimes as a D&D dungeon module. Take the desert. You have a big research fortress next to a wasteland of radioactive mutants next to a haunted ghost town next to a camp of bad guys next to a bunch of lakes full of radioactive mutants next to an amusement park next to a missile silo next to a prison next to … There are no War Walls, but it’s still pretty goofy when the entire setting changes just because you went through a pass over over a ridge.
And goofiness is not restricted to geographical proximity. There’s a lot of damned silly writing. A bit of silly writing — well, that’s just witty. Too much, and it makes sure that it’s difficult to take the game itself seriously. Which I’d kind of like to.
So … lots of cool stuff that I desperately want to love. But some massive key frustrations that keep me from doing so.
Frustrating.
The question is, am I going to keep playing? Especially if I’m still playing CoX and start playing STO?
Star Trek Online goes live in production … tomorrow?! Yeesh, how the months have sped.
I haven’t been on STO since the closed beta, for a variety of reasons. Even there, we didn’t devote endless hours — I really didn’t want to invest a lot of hours creating characters I wouldn’t be able carry on later.
Here are some thoughts on the game, and where we (Margie and I) are headed on it.
The game is nicely immersive. It feels like you are in the world of Star Trek (despite the efforts of some players). The writing is pretty solid.
A nice mixture of “Away Team,” admin/base busy-work, and ship-to-ship combat activity, each of which provides a different flavor.
Ship combat is … fun. Felt very war-gamy.
Away Team activities are more complex, but managing an actual away team is a nice feature.
The idea of growing yourself, your crew, and your ship adds complexity to the gameplay — but is also pretty cool.
It’s less “role-playing” in some ways — yes, you have a race, and a history, and so forth — but, essentially, it remains a tactical game that is not focused just on your toon but on your team.
It’s nice that not everything is about combat — but that will be an ongoing challenge (war in the Alpha Quadrant or not). Star Trek is not, basically, Star Wars, DS9 notwithstanding.
Overall, it feels well-balanced, well written, and potentially a lot of fun. I think (formal discussion pending) we’re going to subscribe, and stick with it for some period of time.
That would make three MMOs we’re subscribed to, which may be too many. More on that to come …
In no particular order.
One of the mission types in Star Trek Online is exploring unexplored sectors — unmapped areas where you find anomolies and either scan them or visit the previously unvisited planets they represent.
As the recent tweet dump confirms, my main solo Stilt Walker hit 35 over the weekend. I would like to get her to 40 before I say goodbye. I am a completionist that way. I hope it’s not a grind.